Soft Target Read Free

clasped his hands to his groin. 'I'm hit!' he shrieked. Jackson was lying on his side, his .22 still pointing at Alien. He was grinning in triumph,
    blood seeping between his teeth. Frankenstein fired the Magnum again and Jackson lay still.
    Blood seeped through Alien's fingers. He looked at Frankenstein. 'I'm hit,' he said again, quieter this time. 'I'm fucking hit.' Then his legs buckled and he fell to the ground.
    Frankenstein ran over to him and crouched to examine the wound. The bullet had gone in under the vest, missing the Kevlar by less than an inch.
    The intercom buzzed. Frankenstein hurried across the room and answered it. 'What the hell's going on up there?'
    said a voice.
    'Get up here,' said Frankenstein, and pressed the button to open the door down below. Footsteps pounded up the stairs and a man in a werewolf mask came in, holding a gun.
    'What the fuck's going on?' he said.
    'Andy's been hit.'
    'Shit.' Werewolf pointed his gun at Dexter. 'How do we play it?'
    Dexter held his hands high in the air. 'Don't shoot, man!'
    Frankenstein looked around the room. Two men, bound and gagged. Two dead. Another on his knees, pleading not to be killed.
    'How do we play it?' repeated Werewolf. 'It's your call.'
    Frankenstein's mind raced. 'Let me think,' he said.
    The driver pulled the van to the side of the road, switched off the engine and killed the lights. The werewolf mask was in the glove compartment, along with the short length of lead pipe bound with masking tape that he'd used to club Eaton unconscious. Eaton was bound and gagged, lying face down in the lock-up. The van had been stolen: it was fitted with false plates and had the name of an emergency plumbing firm on the sides. Werewolf had wanted to drive to the nearest Accident and Emergency Unit but Frankenstein had told 10 him to drive out of London. Now they sat in the darkened lane, the nearest house half a mile away, the engine clicking as it cooled.
    'This has turned to shit,' said Werewolf.
    'Yeah,' said Frankenstein, in the passenger seat. He had taken off his mask and pulled back his anorak hood. His hair was cropped close to his skull and he was balding on top.
    He had a curving Mexican-style moustache. 'What the hell are we going to do?' He twisted in his seat to look at Alien,
    who was curled up on the floor in a foetal ball.
    'You know what we have to do,' said Werewolf, drumming his palms on the steering-wheel. 'We've got to get Andy to a hospital.'
    'And what do we tell them?' said Frankenstein.
    'We leave him outside. We don't have to say anything.'
    'Get real,' said Frankenstein. 'As soon as they identify him,
    they'll come looking for us.'
    Werewolf slammed his hands down hard on the wheel. 'So we deny everything,' he said. 'What can they do?'
    Frankenstein glared at Werewolf. 'Don't be so naive,' he said. 'They'll dig out the bullet, and if they can match it to any in Moran's flat that puts Andy at a murder scene - in a gunfight with a Yardie posse.' He slapped the dashboard with his gloved hand. 'God damn it, we should have slotted them all.'
    'Rosie, listen to yourself,' said Werewolf.
    Frankenstein stared through the windscreen. 'They're witnesses,' he said. 'They started the bloody fireworks, we should have ended it. They know how many of us there were.
    If they identify Andy, they go looking for two others. How long do you think it'll be before they come knocking on our doors?'
    'We can alibi each other,' said Werewolf. 'What are they gonna do? Call us liars?'
    ii 'I'm not doing a twenty stretch,' said Frankenstein. 'Before we went into this we knew what the downside was, and we agreed to take the risk.'
    'We said that if one of us got killed, the rest of us would cover it up,' said Werewolf. 'Andy isn't dead.'
    'He's got a slug in the guts,' said Frankenstein.
    'But he's not dead.'
    Alien groaned. Frankenstein had given him an anorak to clutch against the wound but blood was pooling around him.
    'Let's take this outside,' said Frankenstein.