‘ Just to reiterate: by behaving yourself and leading these fine gents to your wheels, you’ll save innocent lives.’
Bussola nodded at his men. ‘Okay, away you go.’
Kruger’s face and hand hurt bad where the burning cigar had been screwed into his skin, but these injuries were right at the back of his mind as he tried desperately to figure a way out of this predicament.
Whatever he did, it seemed, he was destined to die.
There was no time for niceties any more. There would be no building up of rapport. No sweeties. No laughter.
No love.
That was all in the past, before the betrayals had sent him to prison. Now the little ones he had loved so much had to suffer and feel the pain he was feeling. It did not matter that they would not actually be the ones who had gone to court and damned him. It was the principle that mattered now.
He had to make a point.
No one betrayed or hurt him and got away with it.
No one.
Trent was sitting on a green park bench in the recreation area adjacent to Claremont Road in the North Shore of Blackpool. Watching, waiting, listening, his senses buzzing, anticipating. Soon, he knew, his opportunity would come.
His eyes took in all the activity. Several youngsters were playing on the swings and slide. Most were accompanied by adults.
Trent’s lips snarled at the inconvenience.
He lifted up his newspaper, reckoning to be engrossed in it.
He could wait, despite the urges inside him.
They began the journey from the lounge to airport parking. Kruger felt as though he was walking on the moon. His legs became light and bloodless. The same pretty much applied to his brain.
Everything was completely unreal. Being walked through Miami International Airport to be executed — how real was that?
Everything blurred at the edges. His ears pounded like his head was inside a bass drum. People drifted by in a mist. Sound distorted, like a tape being eaten by a Walkman.
Kruger shook his head, opened his eyes wide. Then his mind picked up the pain again from the burns on his skin, a sensation it had been suppressing. This brought him back to sharp focus.
Back to the real world.
Suddenly the unreality of before seemed much more preferable.
Without doubt, Kruger was about to experience another of those Big Life Moments.
Chapter Ten
The shop was on Dickson Road, Blackpool, the road which runs behind the Imperial Hotel which is used each year as a base for political parties during conference week. The shop was one of those grocery-cum-everything shops which opened from 7 a.m. until extremely late. It was owned by an Asian family who had turned it into a thriving business by their sheer hard work.
Claire Lilton had the straps of her sports bag over her left shoulder, holding the bag underneath her armpit. She had a metal shopping basket in her left hand, leaving her right hand free. The zip of the sports bag was open about six inches and if she squeezed the bag in a certain way, a hole appeared when the zip parted.
In the basket were a couple of items from the shelves. In the sports bag were even more items from the shelves, none of which she intended to pay for. She paused near the sweet display, picked up a Kit Kat, looked closely at it, replaced it on the shelf. Her eyes moved to the corners of their sockets and she checked the aisle. Apart from a doddering old woman, Claire was alone.
She picked up half a dozen Kit Kats, squeezed the bag and dropped them expertly into the hole. Casually she dawdled along the sweet display and dropped a 10p chocolate bear into the basket. She moved on.
By the time she reached the till, her basket contained six cheap items. Her sports bag, which began to weigh heavy, contained a great deal of contraband.
At the till she paid for the stuff in the wire basket and even asked for a carrier bag.
Then she stepped out of the shop, only to be dragged back in by an irate Asian man, no taller than herself.
‘ Get your dirty hands off me,’ she screamed.
The man did not let go. ‘You steal,’ he said. ‘You steal from shop. I call the cops.’ He had hold of her biceps. ‘In there — stolen property.’ He pointed at her sports bag. ‘I watch you steal.’
‘ I’ve done fuck-all, you bastard,’ she yelled into his face. ‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll sue you for assault.’
She wriggled and squirmed and kicked out at him. Her Doc Marten boots connected with his shins and he emitted a yell of pain. Still, he hung onto her.
‘ Call cops!’ he shouted to the woman behind the till, who had been watching the encounter with open mouth and no gumption. His shouts galvanised her into action, and she reached for the phone behind her.
Meanwhile, the little Asian shopkeeper discovered he had a tiger by the tail.
Claire spat horribly into his face. ‘I’ve got AIDS, you bastard. Now you have!’
She wrenched herself free from his grasp. He lunged gamefully after her again. But, as Danny Furness had discovered, catching Claire Lilton was no easy matter.
She side-stepped him and picked up the charity box from the counter — which was shaped like a rocket — and swung round, holding it with both hands, rather like the movement an athlete makes when throwing the hammer. She did not let go of it, though. Building up force with momentum, she crashed it into the side of his head.
The box burst open spectacularly, sending a shower of copper coins into the air. More importantly, however, it felled the shopkeeper and gouged a deep gash into his head which spurted blood.
Claire hoisted the sports bag back onto her shoulder and dived out of the shop.
By the time the bloody-faced Asian looked out of the door, she had disappeared.
His Urdu was unrepeatable.
‘ Do you enjoy your work?’ Steve Kruger asked the bodyguard to his immediate right.
There was no response. The guy continued to look dead ahead.
All five men were now on the first-floor level, walking down the middle of the concourse past the shops. No one took any notice of them. They were real professionals, the type of people who, somehow, never seemed to draw attention to themselves. A skill in itself. They simply made it look as though they were out for a stroll. All five of them, Kruger included.
Kruger looked at the members of the public close by. He acknowledged that what Bussola had said was true. If he did anything foolish at this stage, he would die, possibly others too, and these guys would simply dematerialise.
And as much as Kruger didn’t want to die, he didn’t want others to be killed because of him.
Even the security cameras, which he knew were all around, wouldn’t be much use to him. They would never finger these bastards.
‘ How about you?’ Kruger enquired of the man to his left.
‘ Speak once more and you get it here and now,’ he said through the side of his mouth.
‘ Gotcha.’
They walked past the Disney Store.
‘ He’s gotta be here somewhere,’ Myrna Rosza gabbled agitatedly. She scanned the bank of TV monitors in front of her whilst the operator casually, but swiftly, clicked from shot to shot. ‘He’s gotta be here,’ she repeated desperately. She glared at Mark Tapperman. ‘This is your fault.’
The big Lieutenant shrank away from her eyes. He gave a pathetic shrug. ‘He might not be here,’ he said weakly.
‘ Don’t kid yourself.’ Myrna was caustic. ‘Once he gets an idea into his stubborn head…’
‘ You sound like you care about him.’
‘ I do — he pays my wages.’ She returned her attention to the screens. ‘Now, where the hell is he?’
They were in the security control area of the airport, in the CCTV room, peering over the shoulder of the operator who flicked through the images received from all over MIA.