Hunter Killer Read Free Page A

the tech unit would swarm in and take detailed photos of everything inside. Then they’d go away and make a replica of something – a lamp, an old oil can, whatever they could find – doctored with surveillance equipment. Which meant it was odds on they’d all be doing this again in a couple of nights’ time, when the police could replace the chosen object with their specially altered one.
    ‘I don’t care if they’ve got Stephen fucking Hawking hiding back there,’ Spud said. ‘I’m missing a piss-up at Karen Macshane’s place thanks to a bunch of plods scared of their own shadows.’
    ‘Shame,’ Danny said distractedly.
    Spud turned to look at him. ‘Shame?’ he asked. ‘ Shame? She sent me a selfie the other day. With her tits out! She’s gagging for it . . .’
    Danny looked meaningfully at the implement in Spud’s right hand – a snap gun, about the size of an old-fashioned kids’ potato gun, with a narrow, pointed blade protruding. Fit a tension wrench in the lock, then insert the snap gun and squeeze the handle – one of those should get a lock like this open in about thirty seconds, if you knew how to use it, which Spud did. ‘You going to get started, mate? Get this done quickly, you’ll be back in time to give Karen Macshane a night to remember.’
    Spud gave him a dark look, but turned his attention back to the lock.
    There was a voice in Danny’s covert earpiece – one of the armed police guys keeping a 200-metre cordon. ‘We’ve got a blue Passat heading towards the north end of Horseferry Mews. Two drivers, one male, one female.’
    Ripley’s voice: ‘Roger that.’
    And five seconds later, the glare of headlamps shining through rain as the vehicle passed the end of the street, then disappeared.
    Danny looked back at Spud. The lock should have been open by now, but the snap gun was still inside it, and Spud was swearing under his breath. Danny raised an eyebrow. Spud scowled back. ‘It’s fucking wet , okay?’
    Danny smiled. ‘You’d have got it open by now if it had hair on it,’ he said.
    Spud grinned. ‘True that,’ he said. No false modesty there. Spud Glover was short, squat and broad-shouldered, with a face like a young Phil Collins. But he still pulled more regularly than anyone Danny had ever met. He started pumping the snap gun again. Ten seconds later, the lock clicked. Spud removed the snap gun, handed it to Danny, and pulled down his NV goggles.
    Danny pressed a button on the radio fixed to his belt and spoke into the mike fitted to his collar. ‘We’re in,’ he said.
    ‘Roger that.’ The same voice that had announced the arrival of the Passat. ‘Red Mini Cooper heading south.’
    Danny looked at Spud and nodded. Spud drew his Sig, opened the door just enough to step inside, and entered the lock-up.
    For thirty seconds there was no sound except the hammering of rain on to the cobblestones and the drip-dripping inside the empty arches. Danny kept alert, looking up and down the street, acutely aware of Barker and Ripley’s positions and of the old Bedford holding the tech team. Those lads were nervous. Fired up, too. There had been reports of suspicious activity in this lock-up over the past few days, and in the wake of the Paddington bomb, Danny could tell the techies were getting a hard-on at the thought of uncovering something – anything – that might give the security services a lead. And more power to them, Danny couldn’t help feeling. Whoever had orchestrated that strike was a sick bastard and deserved everything that was coming to him.
    ‘Okay, lads.’ Spud’s voice over the comms. ‘I’ll give you the good news first. No infrared sensors, no pressure pads – as far as surveillance devices go, the joint looks clean. Now the bad news – there’s fuck-all for you to photograph. There’s a pallet of some kind against the far wall but you’ll never make a replica. I’m going to check it out, but if this is a bomb-making stash, you can