The Charlie Cobb Series

Chapter 7

7

I wait, crouched in a ball in the darkness. The smell of a summer meadow. The rumble of road under wheels. Air brakes hissing. Traffic beeping. Muffled voices. The chugging engine of a fixed trailer wagon. I rock back on my heels as we lurch forward again, the air around me close and warm.

I light up my digital watch in the dark. The journey seems to have taken an age but we’re right on schedule.

I feel the wagon stop, the brakes whining. The engine cuts. One at a time, the doors open at the back. I hear the driver activate the loading lift. Before I know it, he’s wheeled the cage out and lowered it off the truck.

Not that I can see s**t with these white cotton bedsheets piled on top of me. All I’ve got is my ears and the feel of a rough ride over tarmac as the driver pushes the laundry cage inside. I hear him talking to the two cops in the grey van we know they have parked in the loading area. I can tell from their voices, the fuzz don’t sound concerned. They sound bored.

Bored of checking every single delivery that comes into a big, busy hotel like this. That’s why I insisted we leave it until later in the night.

Cops are like the rest of us. They get tired and sloppy. And after the umpteenth delivery, they'll cast a quick eye over the paperwork and won’t even bother checking the loads.

I hear the wagon engine firing up. The brakes spit out some more air as it rumbles off. I hear the side doors to the hotel close. Then silence.

My phone lights up in my hand. A text from the driver. Clear. I unzip a trouser pocket on my overalls and tuck the phone away. I push the heavy, folded sheets upwards and stand up out of the cage. The sheets flop onto the floor of a storage area where they park the cages. They wheel the fresh laundry in and the dirty stuff out.

Frogger emerges from his cage. Without a word, we exit the room, slipping out while no one’s looking. Into a nearby stairwell and up four floors. I check the coast is clear and then wave Frogger on into the fourth floor corridor.

Frogger takes out a keycard as I play lookout. The lock flashes green and we’re in. The room is dark. The curtains drawn. I turn on the bedside lamps but otherwise keep the room dim. I reach inside the open wardrobe on the way into the room. I pull a black travel case off a chest-high shelf and drop it flat on the bed. Frogger spins out the code on the lock and opens out the case. We reach inside and each grab a mask. Both identical. The faces of old men. Made of rubber. White hair and ugly, wrinkled faces with more folds than a Japanese hand fan.

We fix the masks over our faces in the mirror. We both pick out a weapon. Glock 17 handguns with silencers. We load and prep, tucking them in holsters inside our blue overalls. We zip up and grab the rest of the stuff we’ll need.

Frogger closes and locks the case. Sticks it back in the wardrobe. I walk over to the window, pull a drape aside and place the guest chair under the ledge.

I step out onto a window-cleaning platform: steel painted blue, with two railings up to waist-height. Suspended from a rail on the building roof, it’s operated by an electronic winch. I power it up as Frogger climbs on. I push the lever forward and the platform judders into life. It rises slow but steady. The higher we go, the breezier it gets. The platform sways a little. I peer over the edge. A long way down to the police surveillance van below.

After what seems like too long, we make it to the top floor, where the suite is. I hope we’ve got the window we need.

I stop the platform. We step as soft as we can to the right. Frogger hands me a small black suction cup. I attach it to the window close to the frame and pull back to the left. The window opens with a quiet shush. I take out my phone and tap on the camera icon. I reverse the shot and angle it so the lens can see the room and I can see the screen.

The second, smaller bedroom is clear. Bedside lamps left on. Just a pair of twin beds and nothing else. I withdraw my phone and nod at Frogger, my face already sticky with sweat behind the mask. Nostrils filled with the pong of new rubber. The world framed by eyeholes.

I draw the window back another foot and a half. Slow and quiet, we climb through and drop onto the hushed carpet of the bedroom. We creep over to the half-open door. I hear a TV blaring. Cops talking and yawning. I draw the door open and count down with my fingers. Three . . . two . . . Frogger bursts into the room before I’m ready. The giddy s**t can’t help himself. I follow him in. A tall, grey-haired cop freezes with a slice of pizza in his mouth. Another has his weapon out on the table.

I hold a gloved finger to the lips of my mask. Eyes stray towards weapons. The slice of pizza drops to the floor, but before they know what’s hit ‘em, we’ve got ‘em eating carpet.

While Frogger watches the two men, I move towards the front door of the suite. I pull it open.

There’s only one guy on duty. He’s playing a fishing game on his phone. I put my silencer barrel to the back of his skull. He tenses up. I drag him inside. Don’t want anyone bursting in during the job.

Sixty seconds in and he’s down next to the other two. Phones, weapons and radios confiscated. Arms behind their backs. Wrists in white plastic ties.

That leaves the master bedroom. I hear the sound of a video game. Footie. A man swearing. A lad laughing. The final cop of four and the witness.

I put two fingers to my eyes and point at the men on the living room floor. Frogger nods.

I move across the carpet fast. I put a hand on the door, take a breath and fling it open. I have my gun trained on the cop before he can blink. He puts down the controller. I beckon him off the bed. He’s fat and slow.

“f*****g move!” I shout. “Move or I’ll shoot you in the face!”

He hurries off the bed. I tell him to pull his gun apart.

“Faster, faster!” I shout.

He fumbles the clip from his weapon. Throws it to the left, the gun to the right. I grab him by his pube-like hair as he walks over. I march him into the room fast.

I kick his legs out from under him and he hits the deck face-first. Frogger ties his wrists as I check my watch.

Two minutes in. We’ve gotta hurry. I double-back into the master bedroom.

The kid hasn’t moved. The game plays on.

“Pause that thing,” I say.

The kid pauses the game. He's a wiry black teenager with a trendy haircut and a face younger than his eighteen years. He wears those skinny-legged, baggy-arsed jeans they wear now. And a pair of black trainers with white soles.

I tell him to get off the bed. The kid sits there shaking.

“Off the f*****g bed!” I shout, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him onto his feet. I drag him over to the nearest wall and push him down against it. I pull out my phone and bring up some photos. Shots of his mum out shopping. His younger sister coming home from school. The door of the flat they live in. Same kind of place as mine.

“Tomorrow, you're gonna change your story. It was dark. You didn’t get a good look at the shooter,” I say to him. I shove the gun hard in his face for good measure. “Change your story or you know what'll happen."

He nods. Frantic. Breathless.

I look in his eyes. After all these years, I know when someone’s gonna do what I tell ‘em. And this kid is gonna do exactly what I say. He knows he’s not safe now. That Rudenko can get to him, no matter what the cops try. The mum and sister are the icing on the cake. The added incentive.

I’m about to tell him exactly what to say in court, word for word. But I hear silencer shots fired in the living area of the suite.

One. Two.

I dash out of the bedroom to find two of the cops with their brains blown out, point blank. Blood all over the carpet. Two guys still alive. Shaking.

I look at Frogger. “What the hell did you do?”

“They made a move."

“No they didn’t,” says the grey-haired cop.

“Shut your f*****g face,” Frogger says, pushing the gun in the back of his skull.

I drag Frogger away by the arm. He shakes himself loose of me. “You bloody i***t,” I say, seizing him by the neck and pushing him hard against the wall. “Now you’re a cop-killer too. You’ve dropped us all in the shit.”

“Big deal,” he says, pushing me off. “We’ll finish the other two off, then the kid. No witnesses.”

“I knew you couldn't be trusted,” I say, heading back into the room.

The kid sits hunched against the wall where I left him. Too scared to move. I yank him to his feet and into the living area.

Frogger snatches him off me. He pushes him down. “On your knees, maggot.”

I step between them. “I’ll do the kid. You do the pigs."

Frogger seems to approve, turning his back on me. He takes aim at the nearest cop on the floor.

I hold my gun to the kid’s head. He squirts out a few tears, but all credit to him, he doesn’t piss or s**t himself. “Sorry about this kid,” I say.