Soft Target (Major Crimes Unit Book 2) Read online

  She’d visited Knutsford once. It was a sleepy village outside Manchester, with a cosy Italian restaurant that served the best ravioli she’d ever tasted. She and her husband, Thomas, had eaten there one night before they caught a flight out from Manchester Airport. Thomas had ordered spaghetti, and made her leak wine out of her nose by letting the strands hang out of his mouth like a monster. Knutsford was a nice village. Sarah had been shocked to see it littered with bodies on last night’s evening news.

  The BBC had claimed some disgruntled pensioner was behind the attack, but that just raised more questions than it answered, like: how did a retired postal worker learn how to make a nail bomb? And why attack a sleepy hamlet like Knutsford?

  The queue shuffled up another half-step. Four of the six serving windows were still unoccupied. The dickhead in the office was still sipping coffee and laughing while his equally lazy colleagues joined him in ignoring the bank’s waiting customers.

  Sarah had suffered enough. She exited the queue and marched on up to the serving window. “Hey, d’you think you might come out and do your jobs for a while?” she shouted through the security glass. “There are people waiting out here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  A few chuckles from the people standing in the queue, but mostly awkward silence.

  The young guy with the coffee ambled towards the other side of the window like a swaggering cowboy. He was wearing a cheap suit with garish cufflinks that he clearly thought were stylish. His badge read: ‘Assisant Branch Manager’. Sarah wondered if he was aware of the spelling mistake. She guessed not. When he noticed the scars on Sarah’s face, he stumbled mid-step, but recovered well enough to make it to the window and pretend he hadn’t noticed. “Ma’am, you need to join the queue.”

  “I did join the queue, but I’m worried that by the time you people get to me I will have joined the afterlife.”

  “Ma’am, if you won’t join the queue and wait to be served, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “And I’m going to have to ask you to kiss my arse. All these people are waiting while you’re standing around like a couple of spare pricks.”

  The Assisant Branch Manager adjusted his tie and looked down his nose at her. “I’m now asking you to leave, ma’am.”

  Sarah folded her arms. “So you’re not going to let me cash the cheque I get from the US Army for my dead husband? He was blown up in Afghanistan, in case you’re wondering. And what about the money I get from the British government for losing half my face fighting for this country? Will you not help me with that? Look, I understand you like to drink your cappuccino in the back and pretend you’re a real businessman, but I need my money to live. I’m strange like that.”

  The Assisant Branch Manager shifted uncomfortably. “I’m…very sorry to hear about that, ma’am, but I’m afraid you’ll need to have to leave if you’re going to be difficult. Please call our customer service number if you’d like to make a complaint.”

  Sarah moved her face right up to the glass so that the obstinate arsehole could get a good look at her. “I’m not the one being difficult. Don’t you people get paid enough not to treat your customers like a nuisance? Your job is to serve us, but you make it seem like you’re doing us a favour. We give you our money and you act like it’s yours. We ask for it back and you make us jump through hoops. You fine and charge us every chance you get, then refuse to explain why, as if we should just accept that you make the rules. Well, let me tell you something, Mr Assisant Manager, I got my face blown off fighting in a foreign country so that oil companies and fat cat bankers like your bosses could keep their big houses and shiny sports cars. So, when I say get your bone-idle arses out here right now and do your goddamn jobs, I think I earned the right to say so.”

  There was an outright cheer from the queue of customers. The other customers were solidly behind her now, but the Assisant Manager was not. He nodded over Sarah’s shoulder, as if he were Augustus Caesar having a dissenting peasant dragged away and executed.

  Sarah spun around to see a wide-shouldered security guard stomping towards her. With his bald head and tattoos, he looked absurd in the smart uniform they’d given him. “You’ve been asked to leave, luv.”

  “And yet I’m still here. Whatever should we do?”

  More chuckles. The crowd was egging her on, eager to see what happened. Sarah rolled her eyes. They were happy to let a disfigured freak entertain them for a while, but she doubted any of them would step in and help her if she needed it.

  “You need to leave,” the guard commanded, giving her his best impression of a snarling bear.

  Sarah waved a hand in front of her face. “And you need to take a breath mint.”

  The guard reached out his hand to grab her shoulder.

  Without thinking about it, Sarah grabbed the big man’s hand and twisted it. She yanked him one way and then the other, flipping him over his own wrist. It was a basic Aikido throw and one that was second-nature to her. Like riding a rusty old bike.

  The guard hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. He wasn’t hurt, but was more than a little surprised. Sarah stood over him and snarled. “I’d advise against standing up, mate, or I’m going to have to make a deposit up your arse with my foot.”

  The other customers bellowed with laughter. Their blood lust was up and the violence had excited them. Sarah knew enough about mob mentality to know how people’s morals soon changed when their neighbours acted up. It was time to leave; she’d made her point.

  Sarah looked back at the stunned Assisant Manager, still safe behind his glass barrier, and pointed her finger at him. “Get your name badge replaced, dickhead. It gives away how much of an idiot you are.” She then strolled out of the bank and into the crisp air of early May, wondering how the hell she was going to get by without her cheques being cashed. Maybe if she came back tomorrow they wouldn’t remember her face.

  Yeah right!

  Sarah picked up her pace and hurried away from the bank. If they called the police she wouldn’t be hard to identify. Heavily-scarred women wearing jeans and work boots were pretty easy to spot, and sure enough, it didn’t take long before Sarah was certain she was being followed.

  Her pursuer was staying back, slipping behind other pedestrians. Every time Sarah looked back, the man would pretended to be busy with his phone or the produce of a nearby market stall. He was wearing a long grey coat which made him look like a middle-class car salesman.

  Sarah slid into an alleyway between two estate agents and headed around the back of the high street, where there was only a car park and a dingy hairdresser’s. She picked up speed and glanced over her shoulder. The man could make no secret of pursuing her now. His footsteps echoed on the concrete behind her, keeping pace rather than catching up. He was apparently in no rush to catch her.

  Sarah rounded a brick wall that sectioned off a small parking yard belonging to the bank, of all places, and slid herself behind a large, steel wheelie bin. Her pursuer would’ve seen her sneak around the wall and into the parking yard, but he wouldn’t have seen her slip behind the bin.

  The stranger approached, his footsteps growing louder. Sarah crouched and waited.

  Clip clop clip clop.

  Clip clop.

  Clip.

  Sarah leapt up from behind the wheelie bin and swung her leg in a flying roundhouse. It was a knockout blow, designed to end the confrontation before it had chance to begin. If the stranger was some kind of off-duty police officer, taking his head off was probably a bad idea, but he asked for it when he’d started with the cloak-and-dagger bullshit.

  The stranger ducked Sarah’s leg and swept her feet out from under her as soon as she landed. She was so surprised, that her head struck the concrete on the way down and left her lying there in a daze.

  “Captain Stone,” said the stranger. “I prefer to shake hands upon meeting, but I’m open to other customs too. Would you like to get up and try something easier?”

  Sarah gazed up
at the man and saw that he was clean-cut and handsome. His chin jutted out like a superhero’s and his dark sideburns looked like they’d been shaped with a laser. Not a single crease found its way onto the finely-tailored shirt beneath his grey coat. This guy isn’t a plod, Sarah thought.

  Sarah shoved herself backwards and sprang to her feet, then leapt at the man again, this time opting for fists. Her first blow missed, glancing sideways off a blocking forearm, and her follow-up blows struck thin air. Her humiliation was compounded by her legs being swept out from under her again.

  As soon as she hit the ground, Sarah sprung up and launched into yet another attack, but this time the man pulled a gun from inside his coat and pointed it at her forehead. “You’re testing my patience, Captain Stone,” he said. “Please, calm down.”

  Sarah let her fists drop to her sides, but kept them clenched. “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  The man let his own fists drop and took a step closer. “You can call me Howard.”

  Sarah frowned. The man didn’t look like a ‘Howard.’ “What do you want with me?”

  “An afternoon of your time.”

  Sarah went to turn away. “Sorry, I’m busy.”

  “Busy with what? Cashing the pittance the US Government begrudgingly pays you in widow’s benefits, or the marginally more generous giro the British Government gives you for taking half your face?”

  Sarah snarled. The mention of her scars made them tingle, and her left eye blinked sorely where the pink creases met her eyelid. “You know nothing.”

  “I know that you made a fine Captain until you hit that IED, the same day that a British missile mistakenly took your husband, US Army Ranger, Lieutenant Thomas Geller. I know that you’ve been slinking around for the last five years like a feral fox, snapping at anybody who comes too close. I know that you’re angry, Sarah, and I don’t blame you.”

  Sarah snorted. “So what,” she said. “Half the world is angry. The other half are pushovers. What do you care?”

  Howard looked at her. It had been a long time since any man had kept his eyes on her for more than a few seconds. “I can give you the chance to do some good again, Sarah,” he said. “I want to give you the opportunity to pull yourself out of the quagmire of despair you’re in.”

  “Who are you?” Sarah was getting tired of the vague talk and wanted some straight answers. “Who do you work for?”

  “An agency you’ve never heard of. An agency whose job it is to keep this country safe. I work for the government.”

  Sarah smiled. “You work for the government? Well, why didn’t you say so? In that case, you can go to Hell.”

  She tried to walk away again.

  “The bomb that went off yesterday….”

  Sarah stopped walking and turned back. “Yeah, good job protecting the country there. How many died?”

  “Forty-two. The people responsible have owned up to it.”

  “People? I heard it was a geriatric with a grudge.”

  “It was,” said Howard. “The bomber was Jeffrey Blanchfield. Sixty-eight years of age and a retired postman, just like the news reported; but there’s more. The grudge may have been his, but the bomb came from Shab Bekheir.”

  Sarah froze. For a moment, she couldn’t move at all or speak. She spluttered before she could finally get her words out. “Y-you’re telling me that a terrorist cell in Afghanistan is responsible for a pensioner blowing up a village in Lancashire?” She couldn’t help but laugh; it was ridiculous.

  Howard was completely serious. “We received a videotape this morning taking credit for the attack. Al Al-Sharir made the claim himself.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. Her scars stretched and itched, the wasp sting on her palm throbbed, and her blood was pulsing. “Al-Sharir?”

  “That’s right,” Howard continued, “Al-Sharir, the man responsible for the IED that hit your squad. You’re the only one who survived, right?”

  Sarah shook her head. “No one made it out alive that day, not really.”

  “Fancy a chance at getting even?”

  “What? By going with you? I don’t even know you.”

  “No, you don’t, but what do you really have to lose by trusting me? I didn’t go to the trouble of tracking you down, just to pull your leg. You have experience that we can use Sarah. Help us.”

  Sarah didn’t have to think about it much longer. The guy was right, what did she have to lose? “Where are we going?” She asked.

  “A place that doesn’t exist.”

  Sarah was about to ask what he meant when a door suddenly opened at the back of the parking yard. A man stepped out of the bank’s rear exit. To Sarah’s surprise, it was the Assisant Manager, out for a cigarette, no doubt while the bank’s queue still trailed out the front entrance.

  Sarah rolled her neck and it clicked loudly. She looked at Howard and said, “Just let me deal with something and I’ll be right with you, okay?”

  Howard looked confused, but shrugged and nodded.

  When the Assisant Manager saw Sarah stomping toward him, he seemed at first surprised, then worried. As she got closer, however, he chose to stand his ground, puffing up his chest like a peacock.

  Sarah grinned. Men never ran from a woman; they always thought they were the ones with the power.

  Sarah kicked the smug git right in the bollocks before walking back to Howard. “Okay,” she said. “Now we can go.”

  THE GAME

  “Where are you parked?” Sarah asked Howard.

  “Nearby. My colleague is waiting for us.”

  “It’s not Will Smith, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Pity. I thought you might have been the men in black.”

  “I’m not wearing black.”

  “Good point.”

  Howard kept them to the back streets, heading away from the city centre. It was a part of town Sarah hadn’t visited before and it was none too pretty. The well-kept Victorian buildings of Birmingham’s nucleus gradually gave way to rundown terraces, oily tyre-fitting garages, and ethnic food stores. They walked for almost twenty minutes before Sarah become impatient enough to say something. “Where the hell are you taking me? Maybe you should show me your badge or something before we go any further.”

  “We’re almost there,” was all Howard said. Despite the lack of assurances, Sarah’s curiosity spurred her on.

  When they crossed over a one-way street, to the chagrin of a beeping van driver, Howard said a little more. “We couldn’t arrive directly in the city centre. We had to touch down on the outskirts.”

  “Touch down?”

  Howard smirked. It seemed to be his default expression and his overly-manly chin jutted out every time he did it. “Come on,” he said, “just inside here.”

  Sarah studied n old scrap yard in front of her. The gates were hanging open, but the surrounding fence was topped with wicked spikes. “Oh, hell no,” she said. “You’re not getting me in there. This is starting to feel like a mob hit.”

  “Are you always so dramatic?”

  “Look at this face,” Sarah pointed to her scars. “I’m the Phantom of the bloody Opera. I can’t help but be dramatic.”

  Howard kept his smirk and forged ahead without comment. He passed through the open gates and headed inside the scrap yard. Despite her better judgment, Sarah followed. She hated to admit it, but this was the most mentally stimulated she’d been in years. After avoiding people for so long, Sarah was suddenly involved in some kind of intrigue with a man she’d just met; a man who could take her in a fight. That was intriguing all by itself. Sarah might have been rusty, but she was a past practitioner of Aikido, Muy Thai, and Krav Maga. There wasn’t many people who could put her on her back so easily.

  They headed deeper into the scrap yard, passing engine-less car frames and machinery carcasses. Nobody else was around, which was weird. With the gates hanging wide open, Sarah would have expected to see a couple of employees, at least.

  “Just aro
und here,” said Howard. He cut behind a rusty shipping container and disappeared from sight. Sarah slowed down, her body tensing. She knew nothing about Howard, and being led into an abandoned scrap yard wasn’t exactly comforting, but she had come this far.

  Sarah took a deep breath, then sprang around the side of the rusty container, ready to fight at the first sign of danger.

  “Hop aboard,” said Howard calmly, pointing to an idling helicopter as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

  The Griffin HAR2 was painted a solid black instead of its typical earthen hues, and the RAF insignia were missing from its tail boom. Sarah hadn’t seen one of the plump, twin-engine helicopters since a training mission in Cyprus ten years ago. Seeing one made her think of the Mediterranean Sea and the feeling of sun and salt on her skin. Of all her memories of the Army, it was one of the few nice ones.

  “I’m not getting in that helicopter unless you tell me where we’re going.”

  Howard gave a hand signal to the helicopter pilot and turned to face her. “Sarah, your father is a major in the SAS, is he not?”

  Sarah’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know what you’re on about. My father is a major in the Royal Logistics Corp. He’s in charge of ordering the regimental bog roll.”

  Howard chuckled. “I know everything about you, Sarah, so there’s no point lying. I know that your father is Major Curtis Stone. I also know that you are the only female in the history of the British Armed Forces who has taken and passed the SAS selection tests, despite still not being accepted afterwards.”

  Sarah couldn’t help but snarl. She’d outperformed and outlasted nearly all of the men in the selection tests, but had been denied entry anyway, presumably because of her sex. The only reason they’d even let her try out was because her father had pulled strings. To top it all off, her father had only pulled those strings because he’d been so sure she would fail, giving him yet another reason to belittle her. She showed him, though — proved that she was as good as any man — but they turned around and reminded her that it didn’t matter so long as the world was still controlled by cocks and balls. She’d gone through two weeks of the grimmest hell she could imagine, for nothing. The strength and unwillingness to quit she’d possessed during those gruelling trials had never truly returned to her. Her father had extinguished it the day he told her she had no place in the SAS, and that doubt had followed her for the rest of her career.