Perth
10 – 55 p.m.
April 17th
Informed by the pilot that the Lear jet needed eight hundred and seventy-five metres to land and the runway was closer to eight sixty the two men held their straps tighter as the plane screamed in and juddered to a halt. Being a small airport the steps went down and grabbing their bags the two man DIC roving team ran towards a waiting police car.
“Evening gents I’ll brief you on the way.” A senior police officer greeted them at the waiting car.
They sidled into the back seat and the police car light flashing and siren blaring rushed them to Perth, down the 94 from Pitroddie, the Perth Road, into the city centre across South Street Bridge, round Marshall Place and finally through a police cordon into Leonard Street.
In the car they had been told that there were armed police surrounding the station, staff at the station had been evacuated and the signals were red from Perth on so that the train’s automatic systems wouldn’t let it move. The police were going to take over the engines, staff would be asked to leave first and the speaker system would explain that there was a fault with the engine and people had to get off. There were police in Scot rail uniforms, some in boiler suits with luminous vests, on the platform ready for each door to open, but they were going to empty the train a carriage at time in single file. There were snipers on roofs and a dog handler ready to sweep the train when the passengers were off if they didn’t find their man and in case of booby traps.
It was all in hand.
David nervously checked his weapon, but he needn’t have worried, he wasn’t allowed to the front and in the open. He and Beaumont were standing at the gate ready to spring and call if Spencer got past the police.
The station was lit up clearly and everyone tensed, radios crackled and went quiet as the train slowly cruised gleaming into the station’s stark lights, it was eleven fifteen. In well timed movements the disguised police manned the doors, the men allotted to the engines swung into action and the drivers were the first to leave. At the barrier they passed McKie and Beaumont.
On the train there was a stunned silence, followed by a babble of complaints and annoyed groans when the instructions to detrain were given including instructions to have a ticket ready to be examined at the gate. The staff came out of every door of the train and passed the DIC men, the first in what was to be a long line.
In the toilet Stanton finished his disguise with a frown. He felt sure that the engines were fine. He walked into the corridor and looked out of a window. On the platform there were a lot of staff, too many. He looked at the boots and knew they were police. Hasty disguises didn’t always include the foot wear and men of action liked their sturdy comfortable boots. He didn’t know that they weren’t looking for him, but now with a disguise and identity that didn’t match the name on his ticket he didn’t fancy his chances. He went back to his sleeper and sat down.
Spencer had been asleep. He was muzzy headed. He too looked out the window. He was sure it was a trap. He decided to get out the train on the track side, using the emergency opening. He’d alert them, but it was a chance he’d take. He knew he’d get caught for the taxi driver once they took his prints and there were other kills besides. He didn’t fancy thirty years in prison.
The passengers passed through the barriers a coach at a time with Police checking tickets and ID and McKie and Beaumont watching, searching each face. They were down to the last coach when they heard a shout and two shots.
Spencer, rucksack on his back and loaded weapon in hand, had opened the door and spotted by a sniper, who called out to stop, had fired a round at the voice, then dropped off the train, his dropping so quickly meant the sniper missed. Police marksmen with Enforcer rifles and those with Heckler-Koch MP5 sub-machine guns opened up as he ran down the track, zig zagging.
By the ticket barrier the people panicked, but were shouted at to calmly continue through the barriers. David looked past the crowds and saw the muzzle flashes. There were clangs, zipping noises and then a call to cease fire.
Spencer stood in the middle of the track, no less than nine rifles trained on him, hand with his weapon, still held tightly, at his side. He had to decide; capture or death. He ran through his mind the possibilities; the shouts to drop the weapon came thick, fast and with urgency.
The detective nearest McKie had a crackling voice from his receiver, someone breaking radio silence.
“We’ve got your man.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” David’s voice came out stronger and more directed than he himself had intended and his customs confidence surfaced. He had a badge and an office. The police here had been called by his boss, the man who sent him. Authority surged through his mind and pushed his shoulders back. David called Beaumont and they pushed through the crowd and onto the train. The two of them walked down the train, but were stopped by two armed police just opening a door via the emergency handle. David looked out the window nearest to him at the figure of Spencer, near enough dead parallel standing below on the track, his hand instinctively reached inside his coat to pull the SIG P220 Rail from its holster, but Beaumont’s hand gripped his wrist. David looked around sharply and saw the warning in his partner’s wise eyes. He nodded and pulled his hand out empty.
“Is that him?” The policeman asked.
On the track Spencer steeled himself. Perhaps he could drop and roll under the train he thought. A dive under the train seemed futile, but it might give him time to think. He looked to his left at the train and saw a door open two metres forward. He looked direct left straight into David’s eyes. He read David’s lips.
“That’s him.”
As McKie spoke Spencer swung his right arm round and up aiming straight for the door, two shots sped through the space where the ducking armed officer’s head had been and into the woodwork, David and Beaumont watched stunned as all nine rifles hit their target and jolted Spencer like a puppet; in the bright white light fine mists of blood and ripped skin surrounded him for a second as the Enfield Enforcer sniper rifle rounds tore through him.
After the gunfire there was a brief silence and the two armed police in the doorway dropped out and approached Spencer’s awkwardly felled body machine gun barrels to the fore, fingers twitching.
David watched from the window as they kicked the weapon away and one officer felt the pulse on Spencer’s bloodied neck. He was still. McKie turned and exited the train on the platform side; passengers were being let through without checks and taken through the cordon to waiting coaches. As he walked back to the barrier McKie’s peripheral vision registered one handler and one dog entering the train.
“You shouldn’t have got on the train!” The detective was annoyed.
“What?”
“Not until we’d checked for booby traps.”
David pulled his badge. “Read that. I’m government.” He pulled back his jacket showing the SIG 220 in its shoulder holster. “See that I walk around this country armed. I go where I want. You’re supporting me.” McKie turned to Beaumont. “We’d better call in.”
“I’ll do it David.” Beaumont turned to the detective. "Sorry my friend’s wound up, but there are three more of these men out there and one of ours is missing presumed dead.”
“Then it looks like it’s one all I’d say.” The detective said flippantly.
McKie heard and turned around. “You think you’re funny?”
The detective blanched and swallowed.
“There are three more like this one and as far as you know that corpse on the track may have notched up other bodies. Now you times that by four because they’re all like this one. I watched him die, but he died trying to kill and escape, against all odds. That’s not natural.”
“Alright.”
“Somewhere out there three more men, who arrived this morning, are armed and ready to murder one person in this country and they’re prepared to kill innocent people and risk death to get to that person. That’s the job we’re on now friend. Pray it’s not anyone you know they come across and need to get out of the way or at least pray our people find them first.”
McKie turned and stared at the train, a movement up the platform had caught his eye. The dog handler emerged from a door on the next carriage up. The dog was excited, barking wildly and it seemed to be leading him down the slope of the platform and away down the track, south.
For a second the handler looked up and his and David’s eyes met. David registered dark blue, almost black eyes, black hair under the cap and a wiry goatee beard and moustache, then the man was gone at a run up the track the dog barking wildly, seemingly distraught. David thought he the saw a gun small chunky, almost invisible in the large hand.
David stared, his senses suddenly alert. Custom gave you pure focus when it came to body language. The shoulder’s were stooped, the cap down, too much shadow. Something from the Inverness ticket footage of Spencer was struggling to make itself known; he frowned and squinted as the figure seemed to disappear up the darkened track. What else bothered him? Yes! There had been a handgun, but it wasn’t a regulation police model. David began striding as quickly as he could along the train up the platform, he heard the dog barking, then there was a pained canine shriek and then there was silence. He stood at the end of the platform staring. Back down the platform there was a shout for help from inside the train.
A voice called “Someone’s killed Mickey and his dog’s gone.”
McKie pulled his hand gun from the holster and faced out into the dark. He called out.
“Up here!”
Seeing him at the end of the platform the detective and two armed men ran to his side.
“A man dressed as a dog handler went up the track… there was a howl and the dog stopped barking.”
They all stared into the darkness.
“I thought we got your man. Who was that?”
“I don’t know, but he’s killed you dog handler right?”
“How did he get the dog to go after he killed his handler” was all the detective could say “they live together. They’re practically psychically linked.”
The detective looked back to the train. A body in white underwear was being lifted off the train.” An officer joined him running to his side.
“Mickey’s dead, shot through the heart and we found this.” He held up a needle.
“He gave the dog a shot of something, LSD or some such. It’s a historically documented way of dealing with watch dogs, not just drugging to sleep, but sending crazy, making them a nuisance not a help, buggering up their senses.” McKie spoke quietly not taking his eyes of the darkness in front of him.
“What kind of psycho would do that?”
“A well trained one and one who came equipped for just such an eventuality.”
“My god and there are three more out there.”
“We’d better get some lights and search that track. You better get a helicopter or two searching this area.”
Beaumont was suddenly by his side.
“What’s going on?”
“It could just be a coincidence, but I don’t believe in them. There was a second one on the train.”
Beaumont looked down the track and back at the train.
“Let’s leave the police to sort this out. The press will be here soon, TV included and we don’t want to be seen. There’s a guy called John McFarlane, he’s DIC Perth for the area round here. Jack gave me his number. I called. He’s just four streets from here. Let’s get our bags and go.”
David stared down the track.
“David!”
“Sorry. There’s a dead dog on that track down there.”
“Okay. Put the gun away.”
“Artillery and ships have guns, this is a pistol.”
“What?”
“It’s what you’re told by an army dad when you were playing soldiers.”
“I see. I need a drink.”
Overhead two helicopters chattered onto the scene, hovering, one with a spotlight, the other using thermal imaging. Armed police moved forward, more dogs arrived and torches slashed at the darkness.
Back up the platform McKie and Beaumont passed the two covered corpses.
Half a mile away, having crossed South Inch Park at a sprint, Stanton squatted by the river, his pistol wrapped in a plastic bag, he waded in and swam down river towards the motorway, a map of the town in his head. His target was the M90 motorway to hitch lift.
TV crews and journalists flooded the town centre as Beaumont knocked on a black door on Wilson Street. It had been a short walk for the two DIC men, but David, couldn’t keep his hand from dipping into his jacket; every shadow and recess held the unnerving spectre of the second assassin.
When John McFarlane finally shuffled to the door, his Scottie dog barking shrilly, McKie couldn’t help but imagine the door being answered by the escaped hired killer. Beaumont showed his badge. John let them in. He bolted the door and put the chain on.
He looked into their tired faces and David’s ‘jungle ready’ eyes.
“You two look like you need a whisky. Have a seat.” He waved them into the lounge. BBC 24 was on the screen and straight away they saw the scene they had just left.