Every Storm Breaks (Reachers Book 3) Page 5

  “Obviously not.“ John kicked the door.

  “Well, that's not going to work.”

  He gave her a look, and she backed off.

  “We haven't got time for this.”

  A car door opened behind her. Roxy walked past them. He blew Rachel a kiss as he climbed into the truck. The doors beeped and then hissed. Roxy hopped out of the truck, beaming with smugness, and bowed.

  “Jonathan, darling, anyone would think you've never hijacked a police transport vehicle before. Well, quick-step, open it up before we've got all of Scotland Yard breathing down our necks.” He took out his gun and covered the road.

  John scowled but reached for the handle anyway. The door hissed again and then opened automatically. Charlie was hanging like a piece of meat in the back. He was sporting a black eye and a split lip, but he was alive. Rachel was the first inside. She grabbed him, stirring him back to consciousness.

  “What took you so long?” he slurred as he fell forward.

  “We stopped for coffee,” John said, cutting him down.

  “And you didn't get me one?” Charlie's head dropped to Rachel's shoulder.

  She checked his pulse. That, at least, was strong and steady. “Looks like he's been sedated, but I think he's okay.” Her fingers moved over the bruising on his face, tingling at the contact. She couldn't help touching him. They'd been apart too long, and she had been so worried she'd never see him again.

  “Check him over later. We've got to move before they catch up with us.” John carried his brother out of the van.

  “Bastards took my crutch,” Charlie grumbled as he struggled to their car. “What kind of assholes take a man's crutch?”

  Rachel had barely closed the car door when John pulled away. He eased onto the road, doubling back the way they came. It was a dangerous route, but it was better than driving around the industrial estate waiting for the cops to arrive. In the front passenger seat, Roxy checked his handgun and flexed his weak shoulder.

  Charlie rested against Rachel, his eyes rolling around, unable to focus. “Gimmeagun,” he mumbled.

  “Pet, you can't even sit up straight, I wouldn't trust you to shoot me a dirty look,” Roxy said.

  John hit a corner, and Charlie slammed into Rachel with a groan.

  “Easy there.” She grabbed his seatbelt and strapped him in as John hit another bend. “You okay?”

  Charlie grinned. “I'm amazing. No pain.”

  “Yeah, well, you enjoy it while it lasts.” By the look of him, once the drugs wore off Charlie was going to really hurt. She held his hand, trying to find him in the haze of sedation. Whatever he'd been given was powerful stuff.

  “Red and blue ahead. Take a left,” Roxy said.

  “I can see them,” John snapped.

  He hit another sharp corner, and Rachel started to feel sick. She turned to see the cops miss the turning. The road ahead narrowed, then broke in two. They took the left, heading south. Rachel watched behind them, waiting for the tail to appear. When she looked ahead, the urban landscape started to fall away.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Out of S'aven,” John said.

  The road started to get bumpy. Wide, hidden potholes forced John to slow down. He cursed as he wove around the beaten-up track.

  “You're making a mistake. Head back to Lulu's, we can lie low there,” Roxy said.

  “Hell no.”

  “So what's your plan? Head out of the city and spend the next couple of days squatting in some abandoned shack while Charlie gets gangrene? I know you boys like slumming it, but there's a time and a place, darling.” Roxy turned to the back seat. “I can get you lovelies a warm bed, hot food, and, no offense Charlie, a well-needed shower. Or we can go with John's suggestion of hardship and backache in some abandoned shack somewhere.”

  “We need to lie low,” John hissed.

  “I told you, we can lie low at the club. It's off limits to the cops. You know that. And do you really think the Institute are going to be expecting you to take refuge in a whorehouse?”

  “John, I'm sure Roxy has had his fill of near-death experiences this week,” Rachel said. “Besides, if we leave S'aven now we won't be coming back in a hurry. We need to get supplies and things for the road.”

  John grumbled under his breath but doubled around and followed the road back to the border's edge.

  8

  Mark covered his head. Boots crushed his legs and his arms. His face crunched against the tarmac. The vest he wore protected his ribs, but the kicks got harder and harder, battering his exposed limbs. He tried to reach out, to launch himself back into the van. He rolled onto his knees, the vest absorbing the kicks to his back. With his eyes closed, he forced himself at the crowd, pushing who he could aside, and made a clearing to the transporter. He finally saw a chance to reach the vehicle when the engine started to rev. The crowd trampled over him again, moving like a tide towards the border shore. He scrambled through them on his hands and knees again. As he got to his feet a second time, he saw the van pull away. His fingertips brushed the back door, and then it was out of his reach.

  He stared at it. Rachel was inside—his Rachel. She had looked straight at him, and for the briefest moment he'd thought she was going to say something. But what could she say? Nothing. She hijacked his vehicle and then watched as he was thrown to the pavement. He could have been killed. Did she even care? Bile rose in the back of his throat as he replayed her indifferent stare over and over. The urge to run after the van was overwhelming. He was about to go, and then he saw Adams lying on the road.

  “Sir!” Mark shouted, grabbing the older man.

  On the second try, he managed to roll his senior over. Adams' face was spotted brown and red. Blood poured from a large shiv wound in his arm; his vest was torn from the assault. Adams opened his eyes, squinting in the vicious smog. He reached out, and Mark tried to help him up, but he was a big man and difficult to move. He grumbled and brushed Mark off. He lifted himself slowly to his feet and groaned.

  The noise from the riot boomed behind them. Their attackers, the men and women that until moments ago had been intent on tearing the two agents apart, were now making their way towards the police vehicles flanking the rioters. More grenades were launched from the border wall into the crowd. Another spattering of gunfire ricocheted into the street. Still, people were hurling themselves at the wall and police, as if they had no sense to take cover. Mark couldn't understand it, but at least they weren't attacking him.

  “Which way did they go?” Adams gasped, clutching his arm, more irritated than in pain.

  “Towards the industrial estate. We might be able to catch them, I know a short cut.”

  “No.” Adams started walking, heading away from the crowd. He took out his radio, called for backup, and then turned to Mark. “Take off your badge and your vest,” he said, pulling his own vest off and dropping it to the floor. “The less we look like part of the police force, the better it will be for us.”

  Mark did the same, disturbed that he actually felt safer without his protection. “They'll pick them up, right? The backup, I mean.”

  “I wouldn't trust them to pick their own noses. There's no way they're going to be able to take down a gang of Reachers. I'm sorry, Bellamy, Charlie Smith is gone.”

  “But then why call for backup?”

  “Because when I explain this shitstorm to the Institute, I want it on record we did everything by the book.” Adams' pace became more insistent, moving them deeper into S'aven. “The bastard played us this whole time.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere safe.”

  Despite it being his old stomping ground, S'aven had now become enemy territory, and Mark saw it in new, hostile colours. He was a soldier on the wrong side of the lines, and one suspicious act could see both of them beaten to death in the streets. Backup was on its way to locate the transport vehicle. But no one was coming to save their asses. Their inconspicuous journey through
the erupting town had to be slow and cautious. Although the main assault was at the border, smaller, more self-interested groups would start to move into other areas of S'aven. The police were elsewhere, preoccupied and unlikely to take an interest. This was the perfect time for opportunists.

  Mark and Adams moved away from the border, taking quieter, insignificant streets towards one of the many abandoned Tube stations. They diverted their route several times, manoeuvring around gangs and conflict until only echoes of the fighting could be heard.

  Although the Tube was still functioning in central London, only a few platforms remained active in S'aven itself. When Mark realised where they were heading, he hoped some trains would still be running, that in the chaos someone had the foresight to keep a secure passage into London open for those caught on the wrong side of the violence. When they arrived at the Underground structure, he was disappointed.

  The station was unmarked, likely one of the stations closed in the early days of segregation when the border was still just a feebly managed fence. In those years, the government strategically cut resources to what they deemed outer London under the guise of cost efficiency. A station here, a power unit there. Nothing to raise suspicion about the grand division of facilities when the border finally took shape. This station was one of the many casualties. Lost in the midst of injustice and abandoned by those who had created it.

  But, Mark discovered, inside this station was a secret. Behind a key-coded entrance was a further room, this time secured by a fingerprint and retinal scanner. The heavy-duty door hissed open, and the contents within took Mark's breath away.

  “Welcome to the Safe Haven Institute HQ,” Adams said.

  The unit was a tidier replica of the facilities they had access to back in London. Albeit somewhat smaller, this unused Institute office boasted a bunk room and two Reacher cells. There were computers, a nuclear generator, and a supply of protein meals and water purifiers. If it weren't so sterile, it would have been cosy.

  “What is this place?”

  “Our second top-secret base. Once upon a time there used to be more of us Reacher hunters, and S'aven was a popular haunt for our prey. This was our hangout. Supposedly the Reacher population's decline forced the Institute to close this office, preferring to protect London over S'aven.”

  “'Supposedly'?”

  Adams smiled. He opened a cabinet on the wall and removed a first aid kit. “Boot up the system, would you? We've still got work to do.”

  The computer station was archaic compared to what they had in London. It was slow, draining the solar-powered generator as it booted up. The lights flickered, and the system ignited. Adams directed Mark through the screens, a back-seat driver when it came to searching the police database. Mark followed his instructions, interpreting the vague, sometimes contradictory directions as needed.

  “What are we looking for?” he asked. If he had an idea of their overall goal, he was sure he could find it quicker than Adams' Try that box thingy approach.

  “There,” Adams said, pointing at the number on the screen. “The reports from London. The casualties, the incidents. Look at it, Bellamy. It's utter crap.”

  He was right. They'd driven through London and had come across nothing to suggest a full-scale war was being waged there. The violence was in S'aven, not the capital, yet every statistic they found suggested the opposite. Adams sat back in his creaking office chair, shaking his head.

  “It's a setup?” Mark asked, his frustration growing.

  “All that drama, and nobody even bothered to look out of the goddamned window. The truth is right there, and nobody can bloody see it.” Adams let out an exasperated laugh. “You live your whole life believing what you're told, you never think that, just maybe, someone, somewhere got their fucking facts wrong.”

  Then Mark watched as Adams' face changed. Despondence was replaced with a spark, as though something incredible had just struck him. He got up, leaning over Mark, and pointed at the screen again.

  “Bring up everything we have on Charlie Smith. I want to check something.”

  Mark had been through Smith's file almost as many times as he'd been through Rachel's. He'd seen the pictures of the Reacher's kitchen after he'd butchered his wife. He'd seen the list of crimes he was linked with. The surveillance shots of him and his psychopath brother. Of him and Rachel. Once again he opened the file on the screen, flashing through windows of old and recent history.

  “There,” Adams said. “Bring up the crime-scene photos from his wife's murder.”

  The burnt-out kitchen took centre screen. Scorch marks stained the tiled floor, hiding some of the blood spilled there. The kitchen units were fragmented and black, telling half the story of what had happened in that room. Blood still pooled under the kitchen table, and the black body upon it told the rest. There was nothing there but the actions of a madman, yet Adams pressed his finger on a section of the screen. Mark zoomed in, narrowing the focus onto a child's doll melted to the floor. Adams clicked his fingers excitedly.

  “The house was rented,” he told Mark, his voice barely a whisper. “Find me the insurance claim the landlord put in.”

  “Sir?”

  “It wouldn't be part of the original investigation. These photos are of the crime, but the fire would have damaged the rest of the house. The landlord would have had to provide his own report to get a payout.”

  It took several searches. The claim was resolved so quickly the paper trail barely existed. Even Mark knew that was strange. Normally insurance companies held up payments with months or even years of bureaucracy. A quick turnaround in a potentially contestable case made no sense.

  Adams wiped the accumulating sweat from his forehead as soon as the landlord's pictures were up. “Son of a bitch, would you look at that.”

  And there it was: photos of a child's room, partially destroyed by smoke and fire. The yellow room was relatively tidy, aside from several toys placed on the little bed as if they were being played with only moments earlier. Mark swallowed. It looked as though Charlie Smith did have a daughter.

  “Maybe he killed her too,” he said, trying to reason with himself.

  “Then where's the body? If he killed his daughter, she'd be there too. The wife was the only one found. There was no reason to hide this. Unless the little girl was a Reacher.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “The Reacher gene is dominant. If he had a kid, the chances are she'd be like him.” Adams sat down, his eyes fixed on the screen. “The fuckers took her and covered it up.”

  “Who did?”

  “The Institute. They butchered the wife. It was them.”

  “But….” Mark couldn't believe it. He'd seen the photos of Sarah Smith's mutilated body. The person who did that had to be a monster. “What if the Smith brothers set this up, like the attack on the city? We don't know it's a real claim. They could have doctored it.”

  Adams pursed his lips. “It's a possibility. Shit, I hope they have.”

  “Sir?”

  “If this claim is legitimate, then everything else we know isn't.”

  9

  Charlie's vision swirled with colours and sweeping shapes. He felt a warm hand resting on his forehead, grounding him. Rachel. The feeling of her touch settled any worries he'd awoken with. He closed his eyes, drifting with the movement of his surroundings and taking comfort in knowing his friend was close by.

  “Charlie, do you know what they gave you?” Rachel's voice sounded distant, like it was being broadcast from a different room. His head sorted the words, trying to comprehend what she was asking him. Drugs. She wanted to know about the drugs.

  He opened his eyes, and he was sitting on the floor of Jess O'Connor's lounge. She pulled away from him, her eyes unnaturally blue. She'd given him something, and it was already loosening his inhibitions and making all the darkness less imposing. He kissed her, his lips pressing against hers until she went cold beneath him. When he pulled away she was gone, her life
less, bloodshot eyes staring up at the ceiling. Charlie dropped her body, shuffling away as the room began to spin.

  He grappled for something to hold, to pull himself upright and finally launch himself from the room. But there was no salvation. His feet had betrayed him, leading him from one murder scene to another. The kitchen of his old home was blood-spattered and scorched. His wife stood in the centre, her deformed, mutilated body poised expectantly.

  “And you will know him by the trail of dead women in his wake,” she said, grinning, exposing bones and grey globules of decaying fat. He had been unconscious when they burnt her. Sometimes he wondered which image of her would be worse.

  Charlie turned away, his stomach lurching at the sight.

  “Can't even look at me now, darling? Whatever happened to 'in sickness and in health'?”

  He lifted his head, the fuzzy confusion from earlier starting to fade. This wasn't real. This wasn't his wonderful wife. This was just him tormenting himself, as usual. “Sarah,” he said, desperate to convey some of the guilt he felt, to remind himself that he still loved her, he still grieved her.

  “Save it. Remember, I'm not real. I just exist to fuel your self-destruction. Your ego won't even allow you to mourn me properly.” Her smile widened, and her tongue rattled her loose teeth. “So once again, instead of finding our daughter, you decided to fuck another whore. And you got her killed too. What do you think the others think about you? Do you think John is going to put up with this again? He'll leave you. And what about Rachel? Do you think she'll stay with you if she finds out you were high again? They'll both be happier without you. Then you'll be alone. And who will save our girl?”

  “I will save her,” he vowed, and as the words came, a certainty came with them.

  A weight touched his shoulder. He turned, and Rachel was behind him, her image flickering. She was real. She was with him, and she'd stay with him. Their powers bound them together, and he needed her more than ever.

  “You can't save them all,” his wife said, a touch of sadness in her voice. She sounded more like herself, more like the woman he loved. “You put me at risk, Lilly at risk, Jess at risk. How safe is Rachel with you?”