Lessons In Blood Read online

  Still, there wasn’t a hint of fear in the northerner’s voice.

  “What if you win?” Waseem asked.

  “Then I’ll have had the pleasure of correcting his abrasive manner,” he replied. “Just one condition, the fight is over when the winner says it is.”

  There were a few moments of silence before Waseem nodded his head. “Seems reasonable,” he replied before looking towards Rashid.

  He found his enforcer’s eyes wide and burrowing into the smaller man’s, before saying, “Your fookin’ dead gora.”

  Bruce had turned his phone off and sat looking into the illuminated night. He had just finished a late-night call with a contact in the NCA (National Crime Agency). The answers received were limited due to the hour and left him with more questions. He often took himself out onto the balcony of his Knightsbridge penthouse when meditating on a problem.

  Ordinarily, despite Costner’s influence in Westminster and thus his usefulness as an ally, Bruce would have passed on the O’Reilly case. It first came across to him as a father looking for a target to displace his anger, grief, and perhaps guilt.

  Two things didn’t compute in Bruce’s mind—the kidney removal and the diary. In his role as leader of a black operations unit whose purpose was to lessen the impact of organised crime, Bruce had taken it upon himself to study the criminal psyche to a master’s degree.

  Serial killers were known to keep diaries due to their social awkwardness of communicating in person, as well as their desire to re-live certain experiences. Nonetheless, even the most unhinged knew better than to keep them under the mattress. If you want to hide it—presumably from a police raid—you hide it with more care; in an air vent, in a secret compartment, in a rabbit hutch—not under a mattress. If you wanted it found after your suicide, you don’t bother hiding it at all.

  Trophy-taking was also a known practice. However, it was more often than not, things like a lock of hair, a piece of underwear or jewellery—not a kidney unless it was torn out in some twisted ritual. The performance of a nephrectomy ran in stark contrast to Ubaid Almasi’s usual apparent MO of mutilation and him being a poor, ill-educated immigrant.

  Bruce knew this was something he’d have to run with himself, at least initially. He had people working for him on various levels, with some not even realising it. And some that were more trusted than others.

  There were two ‘assets’ with whom his reliance may have perfectly reflected Pareto’s ‘eighty-twenty’ rule. One was Jamie, pronounced ‘Hai-me’, his information systems guy. There were not many databases that the computer genius couldn’t hack into. He was perhaps the only person that Bruce would really struggle to replace. The South American’s lifestyle had changed drastically in the past year and he currently worked from a super yacht in the Mediterranean.

  The other was a former marine named Connor Reed. He had a myriad of attributes contrasted with some stark flaws. He seemed to have both an instinct for making correct decisions in dangerous situations combined with an ability for ‘bigger picture’ thinking. He was superb combatant; after being a high-level amateur boxer and competitive Judoka before Bruce had brought him into the fold. Since then, his fighting prowess had soared under the tutelage of George Follet and training in various MMA gyms. However, his real value lay in being born into a criminal dynasty, meaning that he could move within that sphere in a way that no other operative in The Project could.

  For this reason, Bruce had encouraged the Yorkshireman to immerse himself further into the criminal underworld. McQuillan knew that Reed had involved himself in crime for years before becoming an operative, even while serving in the Royal Marines. That said, it had been armed robberies, debt collecting, and the taxation of drug dealers. Indeed, it turned out that he had an aversion to the dealing of drugs. The black-operations chief had to explain to him that the more enmeshed he was in that world, the greater an asset he would be, and so Connor began forging contacts both in the UK and Europe.

  Despite all this, some of Reed’s characteristics concerned Bruce.

  Firstly, it was the pleasure his agent derived from carrying out sadistic acts against people he deemed, “bad or evil, and too much of a risk to others to be allowed a second chance.” The more experienced man knew enough about karmic law to know that this could be his protégé’s downfall. Not only that, a bullet to an enemy’s head resolved the issue of their danger in a much quicker and cleaner way than torturing them for days, which he knew would be Reed’s preference.

  The Glaswegian knew enough about psychology to know that a draconian approach would not work. He reminded himself of a study done by Madeline Heilman. People had been gently asked to sign a petition. In the midst of having the issue explained to them, another person would accost the person, pressuring them not to sign. The study showed that a person would be more likely to sign in that instance—humans liked protect their sense of freedom.

  Another trait that bothered him was Reed’s recklessness. In their profession, he could be called upon at any given moment to take part in whatever Bruce required of him.

  Despite that, Bruce knew that—although not often—Connor could be partial to going out, drinking, taking recreational drugs and casual sex. It did fit into his cover, but if he was drunk, high or susceptible to a strange woman’s bed, he could be vulnerable.

  Still, he remained the operative Bruce trusted most of all to survive dangerous situations and get a result.

  3

  Waseem stood with Varun and Louis a few feet away as the combatants squared off. The northerner had removed his jacket while Rashid still wore his.

  Connor’s voice pierced the air. “What’s the local hospital called? So I can WhatsApp your mum where to come visit you.”

  At this, Rashid bolted like an enraged bull towards him. His left hook resembled a discus throw.

  Connor simultaneously squatted and pivoted avoiding the wild swing, positioning himself at an angle his adversary.

  He unleashed a crescendo of fast and powerful punches. They struck the hulking Rashid in the head, ear, solar plexus and ribs. He crashed to the ground before rolling onto his front.

  “Too much weights, not enough speedwork,” Connor shouted over to Allen, who merely shook his head.

  At this, Rashid from a kneeling position made a dive for the Yorkshireman’s thighs.

  The legs kicked back denying Rashid a grip onto them.

  The gangster fell forward onto his hands and knees as a result, and his opponent span onto his back. To Waseem’s mind, it was like watching a Siberian tiger savaging a grizzly bear in the snow.

  Connor punched his right forearm around the Asian’s tree trunk-like neck and clamped his right hand onto his left bicep. The back of his left hand pushed on the back of the bodybuilder’s head. The blade of his forearm garrotted the throat.

  The gora said something to his victim, but Waseem couldn’t make out what it was.

  Rashid exploded with bulging eyes to a standing position. The hands scrabbled for purchase on the arms that were throttling him, then searched for an ear or a handful of hair that was too short for a grip.

  Connor’s legs locked Rashid’s torso in a brutal corset before hooking his feet inside larger man’s thighs.

  Within seconds, Rashid’s bull-like bucking ceased, and he slumped in his unconsciousness facing Waseem, Varun and Louis.

  Connor, stood up behind his victim, holding him up in a kneeling position before releasing the choke. He caught the slumping Rashid’s jaw from underneath and tilted the head up.

  Waseem watched in horror as the victor’s teeth clamped into his chief enforcer’s face. The scene of the pitbull-like ragging, the bloodied and exposed cheekbone, and then the blood smeared, chewing mouth seared into the drug-lord’s psyche.

  The Peruvian enjoyed the sounds of the calm ocean and its gentle rocking aboard his superyacht. The white of the moon and stars glinted off the waves. Despite the hour the air still held a little warm to it. Jamie had li
ved in London for many years now but would never be a fan of that city’s weather; the cold, wet and he missed the South American ‘cielo de brujas’ — when the sky turned shades of orange, pink, and red in the afternoons.

  His life had changed in the past eighteen months. Back then, the security measures he had undertaken to protect himself were so stringent they had made him ill over time.

  Jamie, one of the world’s premier computer hackers, had a single employer in Bruce McQuillan, and thus the people and organisations he worked against were often powerful and almost always ruthless.

  Still, one of Bruce’s agents had shown Jamie that restrictive paranoia would kill him anyway—over a more extended period.

  Jamie had decided to travel. As long as he had access to his customised laptop, he could work.

  He had designed and built the laptop himself, after ordering the components from various sources—mainly from the ‘dark web’—as not to arouse attention. The painstaking planning and assembling had produced a one-off masterpiece. The clock and BUS speed could rival any CPU and motherboard he knew of. The cache and hard drive being more than efficient enough to keep up. He did not know of any mainframe, even within silicone valley, that could match it.

  It stood to reason, he thought, that the movement from location to location would aid his security.

  His newfound attitude towards socialising, expensive clothes and fast cars had attracted a drove of women over the previous months. After years of being a near recluse, he could be socially awkward and had not taken to this with great enthusiasm. However, his logic decided that to fully ascertain whether this would be a positive change in his life, he should throw himself full bore into it and the result would be plain. This hedonistic experiment had led to his attempting a polyamorous relationship with three beautiful girls. That lasted a month before ending in disaster a few weeks ago. He remembered a saying told to him by an African tribesman at the beginnings of his world travels, “One woman, one trouble. Two woman, two troubles.”

  However, Jamie had done his research before embarking on the alternative lifestyle. He learnt that a polyamorous with three women was six relationships in total, not merely his three. He had understood that he should not be the centre point—the ‘fulcrum’—and that communication between the three was paramount. Despite impressing this upon the girls, it had still ended in a whirlwind of backbiting, screams and tears.

  That’s why he was here—for some peace and quiet, for which he was grateful; unlike one of Bruce’s employees he thought, who seemed to love being in the epicentre of this constantly shifting and deadly game.

  “What the fuck. Was that necessary?” said Louis with a hint of exasperation as he sped the Audi away from the industrial site.

  Connor replied, “Hey, did you like that ‘Once were Warriors’ quote back there?”

  “Shut up man, you still have blood around your mouth. You look like you’ve been motting out your Aunt Mavis on her period.”

  “I would never eat out my Aunt Mavis…while she was on her period,” the Yorkshireman smirked.

  Connor and Louis had known one another for seven years. They’d met at the Commando Training Centre in Lympstone, at the start of their Royal Marines basic training.

  They seemingly had little in common on the surface; Louis being a black South Londoner and Connor a Caucasian from West Yorkshire.

  They did share two things. One was a love and talent for boxing. After they had ‘passed out’ of basic training, they had both boxed for the Corps and then the Navy team.

  The other common denominator had been a criminal background. Louis being a part of the Peckham gang culture from an early age, and Connor’s father the patriarch of—at the time—one of the North of England’s most powerful crime families.

  Now they found themselves here.

  An act of vengeance had led Connor to be recruited by McQuillan’s Chameleon Project. The former marine had saved Bruce’s life with the aid of Louis, not long after.

  “This isn’t a joke fam; it was meant to be a business transaction, you get me. Now Waseem is gonna think —no—he’s gonna know that you are a fuckin’ hair-trigger wasteman lunatic,” said Louis, his voice raising an octave. “And for fucksake, wipe ya mouth.”

  Connor removed a pair of baby wipes from the glove compartment and wiped. A few moments of silence passed before he spoke,

  “You know what he’ll never think I am, Murtaghe?”

  “What’s that?” replied the Londoner, calmer now. “And stop calling me Murtaghe.”

  “Him, and no one who gets to hear this story will ever think of me as anything other than a criminal,” he said throwing the wipes out of the window before spitting out blood-laced saliva. “They’ll never think I work for an agency which, in its own way, enforces the law. Besides, lessons not learnt in blood are easily forgotten.”

  “Who said that? Julius Cesar?”

  “Clyde from ‘Law Abiding Citizen’.”

  At this Louis let out a sigh, before looking at Connor and smiling.

  4

  Darren O’Reilly, dressed in a tweed jacket and low ankle boots, walked through the patches of sun fighting through the tree canopy of Horsell Common.

  He threw a tennis ball distractedly for his Czechoslovakian Vlcak named Maslow. Vlcaks were a cross between the German Shepherd and the Carpathian wolf.

  O’Reilly had bought Maslow in Naples at an extortionate price. The dog had been sequestered by the Environmental Protection Unit of the Carabinieri following a nationwide investigation. Italian breeders were crossing the Czechoslovakian Vlcaks with wild wolves from the Carpathian Mountains, Scandinavia and North America. Due to his striking resemblance to the wolf that formed the majority of his DNA, Maslow always attracted stares.

  O’Reilly had noticed that his pet’s mood reflected his own—maybe he could sense the grief.

  Jessie had been the youngest of two girls he had fathered with his ex-wife Joanne. Brought up with her sister Lisa, who had been three years the elder, Jessie had always a rebellious streak in her. During her formative years through to her early adolescence, O’Reilly had gotten a kick out of his daughter’s vivacity—it had reminded him of his own. Lisa had her mother’s temperament, and though he loved her dearly, he felt more of an affinity with Jessie.

  He knew the point where Jessie’s teenage rebellion had morphed into something darker. The catalyst had been the disintegration of his marriage to Joanne. He shook his head at the cliché he had been; a middle-aged man with new money, indulgencing himself in several affairs that had taken its toll on his loyal wife.

  Jo had forgiven him the first; a mid-life crisis after a near fifteen years of faithfulness had been excused. Of course, O’Reilly could see now that her clemency had only encouraged him. His spouse’s resentment had grown, and the bad atmosphere in the family home had spiralled into a vicious circle. Lisa had been away from it all at University whereas Jessie had been right there in the thick of it. She had taken to going out until late and verbally lashing out whenever challenged about it.

  O’Reilly, left the family home when it became evident that marital reconciliation was out of reach. He had hoped it would calm the situation and improve Jessie’s behaviour.

  It didn’t.

  She would go missing for days. After one nearly week-long absence, O’Reilly had her followed and discovered her drug use.

  That had been over two years ago. Two years of rehabilitation admissions and phases of sobriety before relapsing again.

  Her body had been found in a squalid flat in Croydon.

  He knew that the Egyptian had not killed his daughter. The knowing that her real killers were out there burned like an ember in his mind. He had been offered an olive branch by one Henry Costner, an aristocrat with significant influence in Westminster and beyond. O’Reilly knew it to be a forlorn hope; what would be the likelihood that Costner knew of a person or organisation that could and would do what O’Reilly required? Did a pers
on or organisation like that even exist? It was more than likely that the politician was in the least placating him, and at worse attempting to exhort future financial backing.

  Again, his walk had been ruined.

  Tears of frustration, anger and loss threatened to spill down his face. He needed help, someone who could reach this evil and make it pay. Who could cut through the bureaucracy, unrestrained by the law of the land, decrees that could be manipulated by those with power and fiscal clout.

  And he needed that person to be willing to kill.

  He had reached a high point and stopped to look over the vast fields—sixty-five million people in this country; is there no one?

  A voice snapped him out of his melancholy. “Mr O’Reilly.”

  He turned to look at a tall man in a thin brown quilted jacket with a black wool jumper underneath, black hiking trousers and brown walking boots. The sharp cheekbones were chiselled away from the strong jawline. The hawkish like nose and eyes completing the memorable face.

  “Yes,” said O’Reilly guardedly.

  “We have a mutual friend in Mr Costner,” the man said in a light Scottish accent. “Let’s walk and talk.”

  After a few moments, O’Reilly nodded numbly and fell in step beside the man.

  Waseem was in one of his offices, in the back of one of his chicken shops when he took the call.

  “Why has one of your minions got a hole in his face?” said the voice over the phone.

  Waseem couldn’t fail to be shocked how quickly news reached his superior’s ears.

  “One of them took offence ter what Rashid had said about them.”

  “What did he say.”

  “Ter was a bit of aggro at them not wanting to be searched, and Rashid said that ‘the white ‘un wouldn’t be so cocky if he didn’t have the black one there’. Something like that.”