Hunter Killer Read Free Page B

butter my arse and call me a biscuit.’
    A second voice over the radio. ‘Black cab heading north.’
    Danny frowned. It was typical – you get dragged all the way from Hereford to London and the whole op’s a dud. He wiped some rain off his forehead with his sleeve, and started walking towards the tech unit’s van. They’d still want to see the inside of the lock-up for themselves, and they’d need Danny accompanying them. But the job was a washout in more ways than one.
    He had only walked ten metres when he stopped. Spud’s voice had burst over the radio. ‘Well, fuck me sideways . . .’
    ‘What is it?’ Danny demanded, suddenly tense.
    ‘That crate I mentioned? As high as my knee in packets of powder. I’m guessing it’s not Persil.’
    Almost immediately, Danny heard the second voice again. ‘Another black cab, heading south.’
    He froze, then looked up and down the street.
    Black cabs?
    What the hell were two black cabs doing headed for a line of deserted lock-ups and empty railway arches where there were no fares to drop off or pick up?
    The penny dropped. It wasn’t just the security services who used black cabs to get around London unobserved.
    He ran back to the lock-up Spud was investigating and called in through the crack in the door. ‘Mate, you sure you haven’t triggered any surveillance devices?’
    ‘Clean as a whistle,’ Spud’s voice called back, echoing slightly from inside the lock-up. ‘We’re going to be out of here quicker than you can . . .’
    ‘ Spud ,’ Danny interrupted. ‘Tell me you checked the door seals when you entered.’
    Silence.
    And then Spud muttered, almost under his breath: ‘ Shit. ’
    Danny didn’t hesitate. He pulled a pencil-thin Maglite from inside his jacket pocket and strode into the lock-up. He directed the fierce white beam at the crack where the door was hinged. He saw it instantly: a silver strip – tin foil, maybe – reflecting the light of the torch, with a fine wire leading from the foil up towards the dark ceiling of the lock-up.
    ‘You can forget about Karen Macshane,’ Danny said, his voice unnaturally calm. ‘Whoever owns that stash is on their way.’ He loosened his Sig from its holster and cocked it, then activated his radio. ‘Barker, Ripley, we’re about to have company. Two black cabs. Expect them to be armed. Everyone else, stay out of it. Repeat, stay . . .’
    Before he had even finished, he heard the screeching of tyres.
    ‘ Spud! ’ he shouted. But Spud was just a couple of metres away, running towards him from the back of the lock-up, NV goggles raised, Sig cocked. They pressed their backs against the wall, nodded at each other, then swung round into the cobbled street.
    The rain was as bad as ever. It badly hindered Danny’s visibility. From his position by the door he looked north, while Spud covered the southerly direction. He could only just make out the shaky outline of a black cab, its headlamps dazzlingly bright through the rain. Distance: 50 metres. He searched for Ripley. No sign of him, but that was probably because the mixture of headlamps and rain was blinding him. Danny swung his head to one side, forcing himself to use his peripheral vision, more effective in the dark. Now he could just make out Ripley’s silhouette. He had moved in front of the Bedford van – Danny’s end of it – which put him 35 metres from Danny’s position, out of sight of the black cab. Now he was opening his Barbour jacket. Raising his HK416.
    From the corner of his vision, Danny saw a second cab pull up at the south end of Horseferry Mews, 50 metres in the opposite direction. The Regiment guys and the police tech unit were blocked off at either end. Danny saw figures emerging from the first cab to the north.
    Four guys. Drug dealers, he figured, aware that someone had just uncovered their stash. From Spud’s description, that stash would be worth millions. These fuckers would be armed. No question.
    The cabs