Freefall Read online

  The other laptop showed his tormentor getting to his feet and staggering around the cell, trying to come to his senses. The man reached behind his back to produce a pistol that had been concealed in the waistband of his trousers, and Bailey cursed himself for not searching him more thoroughly. As the man staggered toward the unlocked door, Bailey felt the desperate need to be somewhere else. He grabbed the code-cracking laptop and hurried toward the roll shutters, moving quickly, not looking behind him, fearful of what he might see.

  When he reached the far wall, he stepped through a door cut into the shutters and found himself in a car park that contained three vehicles: a silver BMW 3 Series, a black Golf, and a dark blue Ford Transit. He fished a set of keys out of his pocket and spotted a BMW fob hanging from the ring. He unlocked the car and threw the laptop inside, before easing himself into the driver’s seat. To his relief, it was an automatic. He started the engine, then sped through the open gates, his dazed, disorientated mind trying to figure out where he was.

  35

  It took Bailey a few minutes to adjust to the real world and figure out that he was in South East London, near Goldsmiths University. He considered calling Superintendent Cross, to give him the location of the warehouse and try to convince him that they were both victims of a larger conspiracy, but even if Cross believed him, what could he do to help? Bailey couldn’t risk protective custody: those men had taken him from Belmarsh, Britain’s most secure prison. They clearly had powerful reach, and Bailey knew that his safest option was to stay hidden from anyone or anything official. He suspected the men who’d kidnapped him worked for one of the security services, which meant there’d be an alert on the stolen vehicle. He checked his face in the rearview mirror. Most of the damage had been done to his body, and other than some superficial bruising, palpable distress was the only thing that visibly betrayed his recent ordeal. So he ditched the BMW near the University, grabbed the stolen laptop, and hailed a taxi on New Cross Road.

  As soon as the vehicle was underway, Bailey pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed a number that wasn’t stored in its memory.

  “Haybale,” Salamander answered. “What the fuck? I thought ya were locked up.”

  “I need help, Sal,” Bailey responded quietly. “I’ve hit real trouble.”

  “Meet me at the tower,” Salamander instructed. “I’ll be waiting.”

  “I’m going to need a doctor,” Bailey said.

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bad.”

  “Just get here,” Salamander said seriously, before hanging up.

  He and Salamander had taken opposing paths, but their bond went beyond the labels life had given them, and right now, Bailey could not think of anyone he’d rather be with. He willed the taxi through the afternoon traffic.

  The driver tried to engage him in conversation, but Bailey felt incapable of normal responses and switched off the intercom. Desperate for something to take his mind off his painful injuries, he concentrated on the laptop. As the taxi rolled northwest, heading toward the heart of London, he opened the machine and saw that the screen still displayed the code-cracking program and the email he’d had from Christine Ash. His captors had obviously been through his phone, so they must have seen Sylvia Greene’s suicide note in his photo library and known that it had nothing to do with John Wallace. Yet his torturer had asked about the code. The masks left little doubt that these men were somehow connected to Pendulum, and as such, Bailey could understand why they wanted Wallace, but what possible interest could they have in Sylvia Greene?

  He minimized the windows containing his email and the code-cracker, and was about to open the file manager to see what else was on the machine, when the screen suddenly pixelated and turned blue. A pop-up window appeared momentarily flashing the words “Remote Wipe,” and then the machine went dead. Bailey tried to get it restarted but the laptop was unresponsive, so he put it on the seat beside him. Certain government computers were fitted with satellite uplinks to enable them to be remotely deactivated if they ever fell into the wrong hands, adding weight to Bailey’s working theory that the men who’d snatched him worked for the security services. He checked his torturer’s wallet and discovered a thick wad of cash, but no cards or identification of any kind. Then he felt around the stolen clothes for any sign of bugs or tracking devices but found nothing, not even labels, which had all been cut out. He counted the money he’d taken from the two men: £840 in crisp twenties. He pocketed the cash and stuffed the wallet down the side of the bench seat, where it would remain hidden from all but the most determined searches. Bailey winced as he settled back. He tried to take his mind off the pain by studying passing pedestrians, filling out the details of their lives from their faces, creating stories that occupied him as the taxi drove toward the river.

  Bailey took the first taxi as far as Farringdon Road, then walked the back streets to Chancery Lane, where he hailed a second cab to take him the rest of the journey. It was a basic tactic, but would make it slightly more difficult for his captors to pick up his trail if they managed to get hold of the first driver. The second taxi took him to Edgware Road, where he got out and headed west. His left arm hung limp and jolted agony with every jarring step. He forced his way along Kendal Street, stopping a couple of times to ensure he wasn’t being followed. Finally, in the face of increasing pain, he turned the corner and saw his destination: a twenty-two-story high-rise on Porchester Place.

  Bailey staggered toward the tower, past manicured beds bursting with spring blooms, before leaning against a cold steel handrail and hauling himself up a flight of concrete steps. Beyond the sliding glass doors, a porter sitting behind the reception desk eyed him sympathetically. Bailey forced a smile which he locked in place as he stepped into the lobby.

  “I’m here for Mr. Sohota.” Bailey grimaced.

  “He’s expecting you, sir,” the porter replied. He was young, maybe twenty-five, and full of earnest concern. “He said you’d just been robbed. Do you need me to call the police?”

  Bailey’s smile broadened. “It’s OK. I am police.”

  The porter was momentarily flummoxed by Bailey’s response. “Mr. Sohota’s on the twenty-first floor, sir. Please go right up,” he said finally, indicating the elevators.

  Bailey walked as naturally as possible, but his movements were becoming jerkier.

  “Would you like a wheelchair?”

  A wave of angry humiliation washed over Bailey, and he forced himself upright and paced the last few steps to the nearest elevator. He was glad to see it was waiting with its doors open.

  “I’m OK,” he replied proudly.

  He pressed the button marked “21” and slumped against the full-length mirror the moment the doors closed. The swelling had come up on his face, and his left hand looked like someone had run it through a mangle, but Bailey knew that the worst of his injuries were concealed beneath the clothes he’d stolen.

  The elevator rose quickly and ejected him into a windowed lobby on the twenty-first floor. The view alone was worth millions, the city spread out before him in glorious miniature, any ugliness beautified by distance. Bailey and Salamander took great care never to ask about each other’s work for fear that professional obligation might one day wreck personal loyalty. Bailey knew his oldest friend had made a lot of money, and that this was one of many properties he owned around London. Salamander had bought the penthouse flat years ago, during the last economic downturn, registering it in the name of Reena, a gorgeous but flighty cousin Bailey had once been involved with.

  Bailey turned south, leaning against the wall as he headed for one of four apartments located on the floor. His feet knocked each other as he struggled with each agonizing step, and he was infinitely relieved to see Salamander’s front door swing open. Familiar faces ran forward, calling his name, and he felt strong hands catch him as he fell.

  There were no dreams. No bright lights. No flashed moments of his life. There was nothing but darkness. A blank that
could have lasted a moment, or forever. Then Bailey was needled from unconsciousness. He opened his heavy eyes to see a middle-aged man with wild gray hair, rough stubble, and jowls that were covered by a roadmap of tiny burst blood vessels. The man was holding a syringe.

  “My name’s Timson,” the man slurred, quite clearly drunk. “Or Alistair. Either will do.”

  “Doctor Death, more like,” a voiced sneered, and Bailey’s eyes were drawn toward it.

  He focused on Danny, leaning against a large table near a floor-to-ceiling window. The lights of the city sparkled and dark clouds drifted across a bright moon.

  “Is he awake?”

  Bailey recognized Salamander’s voice immediately, and saw his friend step into view.

  “Haybale. What the fuck? Ya scared us shitless.”

  “Sorry,” Bailey croaked.

  His eyes were suddenly drawn toward a large needle held by the drunkard looming over him, and he tried to scramble backward. But his limbs were weak and unresponsive, and he hardly moved.

  “Relax,” Doctor Death gave him an inebriated grin. “It’s an antibiotic. You took a pounding.”

  The doctor drove the needle into the muscle of Bailey’s left arm, and he realized that he was naked save for his underwear. His left hand was in a splint, and there were bandages around his midriff and his right thigh.

  “And this is a painkiller,” Doctor Death said as he picked up another syringe and hurriedly drove the sharp into Bailey’s arm.

  “What is it?” Bailey asked.

  “My own recipe. A little of this, a little of that,” the doctor laughed. He caught Salamander’s eye and suddenly feigned serious professionalism. “It’s perfectly safe. I think your hand is broken,” he advised, withdrawing the needle. “But it needs an X-ray. You’ve got some internal bleeding, but nothing too serious. And three broken ribs. Normally I’d advise a trip to hospital, but given how popular you are, I don’t think that’s an option.”

  Bailey was puzzled until Danny showed him his phone: the lead story was the nationwide manhunt for hero cop turned terror supporter, Patrick Bailey, who’d escaped from Belmarsh Prison the previous night.

  “Fuck,” Bailey sighed.

  “Fuck is right,” Salamander agreed. “It’s a stitch-up.”

  “False flag,” Danny interjected. Salamander looked at him. “What? I watch a lot of movies.”

  “Are we done here?” Doctor Death asked. “Because I—”

  “Ya not going anywhere,” Salamander interrupted. “There’s beer in the fridge.”

  “Beer?” Doctor Death didn’t try to conceal his disappointment.

  “Frank, fix this degenerate a drink,” Salamander said peevishly.

  Bailey looked across the room and saw Frank Nash, one of Salamander’s closest associates, sitting behind Danny. Frank’s age was a mystery. Salamander joked that the guy had come up with the Krays. His hair was dyed jet black, and his pasty white skin was covered with scars from terrible childhood acne. Frank had served five years for armed robbery and attempted murder and was well known to the police. Seated along from Nash was Jimmy Cullen, a monster of a man who was famous for two things: only wearing tracksuits, and having beat a murder charge when the key witness for the prosecution changed his testimony mid-trial and acted as a character witness for the defense.

  “Come on, pisshead,” Nash sighed, rising from the table.

  Doctor Death followed him across the open-plan living room, through an archway that led to a vast, modern kitchen.

  Salamander pulled up a leather footstool and sat next to Bailey, who finally worked out where he was—lying on a huge L-shaped couch in the corner of the living room.

  “Ya boy, Wallace, said ya been taken,” Salamander began.

  “Where is he?” Bailey asked, aware that the pain that assaulted his body was being smothered by warm relief. He hoped Doctor Death hadn’t got his math wrong when figuring out the dosage.

  “The States,” Salamander replied.

  “Ask him,” Danny urged his boss excitedly.

  “He wants to know how ya broke Belmarsh,” Salamander informed Bailey. “Ya his new hero.”

  “I didn’t escape,” Bailey revealed. “I was abducted by two guys in the middle of the night. They took me to a warehouse. Did this.” He indicated his battered body.

  “Where?” Salamander asked.

  “New Cross.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “On Blackhorse Road, three buildings up from the railway bridge,” Bailey replied. “But they were pros. They’ll be long gone.”

  Salamander ignored his friend and turned to Cullen. “Give Lek a call. Ask him to send some of his boys down there. See what they can find.”

  Cullen nodded, the huge red skull tattooed on the side of his head seeming to smile at Bailey as the giant man rose from his seat and stepped on to the balcony. Moments later, he had a phone to his ear.

  “Lek?” Bailey asked, the detective in him burning with curiosity.

  “Ukrainian friend of ours. Works that part of town,” Salamander replied, and Bailey instantly found himself wondering just how rich and powerful his friend really was. “They want Wallace?”

  Bailey shook his head uncertainly, his mind trying to cut through the heavy effects of whatever Doctor Death had pumped into his arm. He caught sight of the smiling doctor following Frank out of the kitchen, a tumbler full of golden liquid in his hand.

  It’s perfectly safe.

  “That’s what I thought,” Bailey replied, aware that he was starting to slur. “At first. But then I think they went through my phone. Found the code, the email. Worked out I was on the Greene case.”

  He looked at Salamander and registered his friend’s puzzled expression, but couldn’t formulate the words to explain. Clarity. For the first time in months, Bailey felt calm, the world around him clear, but the price of such peace was isolation. His soul had withdrawn from reality. He felt as though he was wrapped in layers of heavy protection which bore down on him, making every movement difficult, every breath an effort.

  “It’s here,” Danny said, stepping over to Salamander, showing him his phone.

  Except it wasn’t Danny’s phone, Bailey realized, it was his own. How did they access it?

  “Fingerprint ID,” Danny explained to the bewildered detective, nodding at Bailey’s hand. He turned his attention to Salamander. “They wanted to know about the death of that lady reporter. She left a note and a code, which some Yank friend of the detective’s cracked. Well, part of, at least.”

  “No connection to Wallace,” Bailey slurred.

  “He’ll be out soon.” Doctor Death sounded like he was making a toast, and when Bailey looked at his warped, shimmering form, he couldn’t be sure the man didn’t have his glass raised.

  “Got to get the code,” Bailey found himself saying.

  “No worries.” Danny looked down at him with a distorted, Cheshire Cat grin. “It’s obvious, really. Where’s a reporter gonna hide things?” He paused for dramatic effect, but to Bailey it felt like an infinite silence. “In stories. Dates give you the newspaper. The other numbers give you the page, column, word an’ that.”

  Even in his soporific stupor, Bailey registered Salamander’s surprise. He’d have expressed some himself, if he’d been able to operate his body, which now seemed utterly detached and at rest.

  “Boy done well.” Salamander slapped Danny on the back.

  “I got to get up,” Bailey tried, but the words came out as an incoherent drawl.

  “No ya don’t,” Salamander assured him.

  “Some of these dates are well old,” Danny revealed. “The papers ain’t online. Probably in a library or something.”

  “Archive,” Bailey murmured. “Must get . . .” His words drifted into the air like lazy curls of smoke from a dying fire.

  “Ya will,” Salamander’s face became unnaturally broad, his smile shifting from comforting to disconcerting as it continued to widen beyond Ba
iley’s field of vision. “Just not tonight.”

  Bailey tried to resist his heavy eyelids, but they were unstoppable. As he drifted away, he recalled the flushed face of the sloshed doctor and his last thought was, I hope I’m not dying.

  36

  Wallace asked the cab driver to stop on the corner of Second Avenue and Houston. He paid the fare and stepped on to the sidewalk near the subway station. As the April sunshine warmed his shoulders, soaking through the parka he’d found in the bag Salamander had given him, he headed along Houston, scanning his surroundings for anything out of the ordinary: people who didn’t seem to fit, strangers whose gazes lingered a little too long. But all he saw was the bustle of a busy Thursday afternoon, a city alive and indifferent to his troubles. Traffic pulsed along the wide artery beside him, and Wallace tried to recall the last time he’d walked this street. He’d been with Ash, and it had been after their rooftop confrontation with Pendulum. He’d been battered, dazed, and barely able to move, but they’d made it across the city somehow. He remembered snow piled high on the sidewalks, the brutal cold chilling his bones.