The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller) Page 26

  “If we knew where they were going it would make it easier,” Jimmy said. “But without that there’s no way to get the jump on ‘em.”

  Eddie climbed into the back of a big 4x4 with the Karagounis brothers in front. Barry, Pete and the other two bruisers got into an estate. The cars started up and pulled off the drive. Jimmy turned the ignition and waited. The cars drove to the end of the street and did a right. As soon as they started turning, Jimmy flicked on the lights, put his foot on the accelerator and pulled away from the kerb.

  He got to the end of the street, let a blue saloon pass and turned right. He used the blue saloon as cover and kept Eddie’s cars in view, never letting them get too far ahead. As the cars got further into the countryside Jimmy dropped further back, letting more cars get between them.

  Bob noticed that the fields and houses that they were passing seemed remarkably familiar. “They’re going back to where we were last night.”

  Jimmy nodded and said uh-huh.

  “Can you get ahead of them?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Not now, but maybe we can catch ‘em in the woods.”

  72. – Stanton

  THE TWO figures stopped moving forward and turned slowly in the direction of my voice, their weapons rising. They obviously weren’t au fait with the English language, so I decided to help them understand: “Should I translate that request into mongoloid, or should I just unload my gun into your fuckin’ genitals?”

  The two figures angled their weapons slowly towards the ground but didn’t drop them. One of the figures said: “That you, Stanners?”

  “Mick?”

  “Yeah.”

  I shined a torch at them. “What the fuck?”

  Both men held hands in front of their faces to protect them from the glare. Mickey shouldered his rifle and stepped forward.

  “Are you drunk, or summat?” I hissed.

  Mickey looked unhappy at that. “No, you cheeky bastard, I’m not.”

  “Then what the fuck are you up to?” I asked, stepping out from behind the tree.

  “Checking ways into the clearing,” he answered and pointed in the general direction we were heading. “If Eddie’s smart he’ll try sending men around so that they come in behind you.”

  My brother came out from behind some bushes. “Is this what eight fuckin’ grand buys these days?”

  “And nice to see you, too,” replied Mickey. “Look, if our efforts aren’t wanted, we’ll take our toys and head home.”

  “To the pub?” my brother asked, smirking.

  Mickey grimaced and shook his head. “That was uncalled for. Good luck on your own, lads,” he said and grabbed his friend’s arm. Both men turned and moved back into the trees.

  “Whoa, whoa,” I said, sprinting past them to cut off their escape route. “Just a misunderstanding.” I shined my torch at them.

  “Misunderstanding? I didn’t notice any misunderstanding,” he said and looked at his friend. “Did you, mate?”

  His friend had a round face with a texture like the surface of the moon, a low brow that obscured his eyes in shadow, and lips so thin they resembled a bloodless scalpel slash. His face was expressionless as he turned towards Mickey. “Wouldn’t stand for that, mate. Right pair of cheeky cunts, they are. Fuck ‘em right off.”

  Mickey looked at me with eyebrows raised. “You heard the man.”

  “We were out of order.”

  “You think?”

  “But not without reason,” I said.

  Mickey squinted, ready to take off at a moment’s notice.

  “You’ve royally fucked us over in the past, Mick,” I said. “Am I wrong?”

  Mickey sucked his top lip between his teeth and let it pop. “You’re not wrong.”

  “But, we were out of order,” I repeated.

  The tension went out of Mickey and he exhaled. His friend caught the vibe and relaxed too. Mickey hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “We’ve been chopping down branches for the last hour and blocking off routes, so we can funnel ‘em in under our trees.”

  “So you’ve got them picked out?”

  Mickey smiled. “Yeah. They’re set back from the clearing, so they can’t see us.”

  “But we can certainly see them,” added the friend.

  Mickey rummaged around in a bag and brought out some goggles. “Even got night vision in here,” he said. “So we don’t pick you off by mistake.”

  The friend looked at Mickey the way a puppy looks at its master. “Now that’s what eight fuckin’ grand buys you.”

  Mickey took the compliment with a satisfied nod. “Stanners, me lad, let me formally introduce you to Ted.”

  The moon-faced man extended a hand so I could shake it.

  “Ted Hamlin: putting bullets in skulls since nineteen eighty-four.”

  73. – Stanton

  MICKEY HANDED over an earpiece so that he could communicate with me and gave me a system of hand-gestures so I could communicate back, while Ted continued to confirm that this was indeed the kind of service that eight fucking grand bought these days. Then they sent us on our way while they continued hacking branches that they could use to block off as many routes into the clearing as possible.

  The clearing was a patch of grassy land about 50 metres across, surrounded on three sides by trees, and it gently sloped downhill for about half a kilometre, widening enough to offer a decent view of anybody coming up from Hutton Village Road. Light pollution from nearby towns illuminated the area, giving us the advantage; we would stick to the trees until the last moment, giving Eddie and his people nothing to see or aim at. My brother turned his face towards the trees on the left. “There’s a path behind those trees,” he said, waving his hand at them. “Came up here with Toby sometimes to drop shrooms. It takes you right up to the top of the clearing. Get Rose to come up from that side when she arrives. ”

  “What are you gonna do?” I said.

  He pointed at a tall tree that stood on its own about halfway down the slope. “Climb that thing and wait. If Eddie’s bringing men with him I wanna be able to creep up on the cunts from behind, like. You and Mac better stay up here.” My brother checked his watch and added, “Shouldn’t you be phoning Rose about now?”

  I shrugged. “Fuck her. Let her stew,” I replied and smiled. “Gives her less time to plan mischief.”

  “You really think she’s gonna try and fuck us over?”

  “Dunno. Not like she doesn’t have form.”

  My brother nodded. “Telling you now, if she tries summat, I’m gonna put her down.”

  “If it comes to that, I’ll do it myself.”

  My brother patted me on the shoulder, then he turned and moved down the hill towards the tree. He had incredible grace and agility for a man of his size. From my vantage point it almost looked as if he was drifting across the ground. When he reached the tree he clambered it with lithe, cat-like moves and disappeared behind the leaves.

  I checked the time on my phone, leaned against a tree trunk and closed my eyes momentarily. I heard the crunch of feet on twigs close by. I opened my eyes and watched McMaster pointing his gun at an imaginary target. One of his eyes was closed and the other squinted down the barrel. He held the weapon the way a man holding a shitty stick would keep the unpleasant end away from him. His finger brushed the trigger lightly.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  He lowered the gun.

  “I guess.”

  “Been a while since you held one of those?”

  “The last time I held a gun was on a Stag in Bratislava about two years ago.”

  “Sounds like a hell of a do.”

  He grinned. “Don’t get too excited. I was firing at paper targets on a range.”

  “They let pissed up lads on a range with guns?”

  “Nah. You get breathalysed before they let you anywhere near a loaded gun.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” he said. “And those guys don’t fuck about, either. They’r
e all Balkans vets and ex-mercs – you know, the kinda blokes you don’t wanna piss off. Saw them drag one party of drunks off the range by their fuckin’ hair when they refused to take the test.”

  “How’d you do?”

  “I was about the only one of my mates who hit the target regularly. Most of them don’t know what I do. Better that way. They think I’m a day-trader. So who am I to convince them otherwise?” he said with a knowing smile.

  “You ready for real targets?”

  “Not really,” he said. “But I want a second run at Eddie’s gaff.”

  “You ever shot anybody before?”

  McMaster paused and seemed to mull over his answer. “Once,” he said before letting out a sigh. “Years back. Was why I left town. Can’t say I liked it much, but if you’re worried about me then don’t be. I won’t flinch if the moment comes.”

  74. – Stanton

  I PHONED Rose and told her where to meet us and how to get to the clearing. I told her to ditch the bodyguards, but didn’t tell her about Mickey or Ted. I didn’t want her to know about the snipers, in case she was planning something unpleasant. There was still something off about Rose’s voice, like she had other ideas about the way tonight was supposed to go. With this many angry people in such a small space I knew the odds that tonight would turn into a disaster were very high.

  Kandinsky rang almost the second I hung up on Rose. The reception was awful; he sounded like he was calling from the bottom of a well. The fact that he was whispering didn’t aid comprehension. “Eddie’s here.”

  “How many?”

  “Two cars. Seven men. Serious weaponry – semi autos, silencers, small arms – enough to start a revolution, plus, I can see our old mates, the Karagounis brothers. They’re well hidden behind Richard Reid beards, but it’s them.”

  “You wanna come back?”

  “No. Gonna stay here awhile, see if any of them come in my direction, so I can snag some of their weapons.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Always.”

  I hung up and put the phone back in my pocket. McMaster tapped my shoulder. “Problems?”

  “Possibly. Eddie’s here with six others tagging along.”

  McMaster exhaled like he’d been winded. “Christ. How’re we going to deal with them?”

  “Best way is to let Eddie get his men set up and then drop what we know on him. Leave him scrambling. We might be able to take a few of them outta the equation that way.”

  I waited for a few minutes in silence, listening to the breeze in the trees and the sound of my own breathing, and thought about everything that had been set in motion. All these deaths, all this brutality, the maiming of a child, stemmed from one robbery that should have been clean; it would have been clean, too, if G-Max hadn’t made the choice he did.

  Then I wondered what would have happened if the robbery had run as planned. My brother and I would be dead at the hands of Rose and Jimmy Raffin – chopped up and buried where we would never be found. A shiver went through me. I finally stopped thinking and looked at my phone display and brought up Eddie’s number. I pressed dial.

  “Now then, matey,” Eddie said. The connection was terrible and the sound wavered.

  “Where you calling from, Eddie? The arse-end of a wind tunnel?” Before Eddie had a chance to answer, I added: “Or maybe you’re calling from where you’re supposed to be. You and six others.”

  I cut him off before he had a chance to reply. “Don’t even bother to lie. There’s seven of you in two cars, carrying enough weaponry to kill me two hundred times over.”

  Eddie was silent for a few seconds. “Sounds like youse’ve got your own bodies on the ground.”

  “Got here early. Got my eyes peeled. I’m watching you.”

  “I doubt that,” he said, very sure of himself. “You’re somewhere else.”

  “You prepared to gamble five hundred grand on that?”

  “You’re making me angry.”

  “And that just breaks me up inside,” I said. “But until you send some of your boys on a nice long ride, you’re not gonna find out where the fuck I am.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I pack up my shit, go home and divide the the money. Then I’ll go on a nice long holiday, somewhere sunny, and start spending it.”

  “You want us to send all of ‘em away?”

  “No, Eddie. Just the four who aren’t the Karagounis brothers.”

  A chuckle crackled through the receiver. “Fine. They wouldn’t go, even if I tried to send ‘em.”

  “Glad to hear it. Now send ‘em on their way. And if you try to pull a crafty one, I’ll fuckin’ know it. When I’m happy they’re gone, I’ll phone back with the location.”

  I hung up.

  McMaster looked at me. “He’s not gonna play ball, is he?”

  I shrugged. “Fuck knows. Now we play the waiting game.”

  75. – Owden

  JUST BEFORE they entered the last mile, Jimmy cut the headlights and did the rest of the drive in darkness. Even though he trusted Jimmy’s experience in night driving, Bob couldn’t help but clench his hands around the seatbelt. The hitman dropped his speed to a safe level and took the corners carefully, but even then turns just seemed to loom out of the shadows, catching them both by surprise. Whenever it happened, Bob gritted his teeth harder and reminded himself that Jimmy knew what he was doing.

  They pulled into a layby and stopped when they saw faint light glinting off two vehicles parked close to a large clearing about three hundred metres away. Jimmy unclicked the seatbelt, reached around and rummaged for a few moments. The hitman finally found an extravagant set of binoculars and peered through them. Following the direction that Jimmy was looking in, Bob squinted into the darkness. There was enough light pollution in the sky to make out the vehicles and the small silhouettes of figures flitting about close to them. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “You wanna look?” Jimmy said, offering him the glasses.

  “Just give me the edited highlights, lad.”

  “Eddie’s trying to direct his lads into the clearing. Similar approach to last night, I think. Okay, what’s this?”

  “What?”

  “Eddie’s taking a phone call.”

  Bob waited, then Jimmy craned forward in his seat. “He’s calling his men back.”

  Bob sighed loudly. “Not again. Don’t tell me the Stantons are playing silly buggers again?”

  Turning his head, Jimmy looked towards the clearing, despite the fact that trees obscured the view. “No, this is summat else. I think Eddie’s being watched. He keeps looking up into the clearing.”

  “Give me a look.”

  Jimmy handed him the binoculars. The night vision effect made everything clear but with an unpleasant green tinge that took some getting used to. Eddie leaned towards Barry Brownlow and whispered something in his ear. The Baztard nodded and whispered at Gay Paul. Both men looked up into the clearing and got into the rear of the estate; Barry taking the left door and Paul the right. Barry closed his, but the right door remained open. When the other two men got in the front, Barry and Paul ducked low and slithered out through the open door, closed it, and pushed through a narrow gap in a hedge. The car pulled away and disappeared behind a bank of trees.

  The two men stayed low and emerged through another gap in the hedge a few hundred metres farther away, on the other side of clearing, where they figured they couldn’t be seen. They crossed the road quickly and disappeared into the trees.

  Bob returned his focus back to Eddie, who kept glancing at his mobile phone. He walked back and forth between the Karagounis brothers, occasionally talking to them, then he jerked the handset to his ear and mouthed words. He gave his companions a thumbs-up. They grinned and got in the front of the 4x4, whilst Eddie appeared to type a message on his phone before getting in the back seat. The vehicle moved off in the same direction as the estate car.

  Bob lowered the binoculars. The world was sudd
enly much darker, Jimmy appeared to be nothing more than a silhouette. “Now what?”

  “There’s another clearing not too far up the road,” Jimmy replied. “Assuming Eric’s as smart as you think he is, then that’s where he’ll send Eddie. It’s uphill, so he’ll see him coming, it’s at least half a mile in any direction to the nearest house, and it goes narrow with a lot of trees around it – so if there is any gunfire, no fucker’ll see or hear it.”

  “Then lead the way, lad.”

  Jimmy opened the car door and climbed out. Bob wasn’t sure what the hitman had planned, so he remained in the vehicle. Jimmy leaned forward and looked inside with knitted eyebrows, his expression puzzled. “Whaddaya waiting for?”

  “We’re not driving?”

  The hitman shook his head. “No, we’re running.”

  76. – Stanton

  AN ESTATE car passed by at a fair clip and disappeared behind trees on the other side of the clearing. Hiding in the shadows, I waited and listened. The engine sound faded to a mosquito drone that soon disappeared completely. But I knew they would come back, because Kandinsky informed me that two of the men had already snuck out the back, heading in his direction.

  I made Eddie wait as long as possible, so that it would take longer for his associates to turn around and come back. Finally, I called and told him where to find us.

  A few minutes later, a 4x4 parked opposite the clearing and three men got out of the vehicle, walking towards us. It was over five hundred metres to the road, and dark, so I couldn’t make out who they were and what they were carrying. Micky Dunn came through on the earpiece: “Stanners, it’s Eddie and the Karagounis boys. They’re packing small arms – automatics, I think. They’re also carrying holdalls. I’ve got clean shots on all three. I can take ‘em now. Gimme a decision.”

  I replied by text: No. We’ll take them. Then it’s in Rose’s hands. Fire only on my signal. Putting the phone away. Hand signals from now on.