Cooper smiled. “Let’s hope so. As they say in all the good movies: so now we wait.”
“However shall we pass the time?”
Cooper looked surprised and Kate cursed inwardly. Too obvious. Inappropriate. Stupid. Damn.
He registered her embarrassment and smiled. “I have an idea or two,” he said.
KATE LIFTED HER face out off the blue crash mat and groaned.
“This,” she said pointedly, “was not what I had in mind, Detective Inspector Cooper.”
Cooper laughed as he bent down and held out a hand. She grabbed it and allowed herself to be helped to her feet.
“Again, Sanders. And stop going easy on her,” he said.
“Sir,” said the massive, muscled soldier who had just thrown Kate to the floor like she weighed less than a feather pillow. “Now remember what I said, Miss Booker, duck under the attack, grab, pivot and throw.”
“Soldier, you’re three times the size of me. I don’t have to duck under your attack, I just have to stand here and let it pass over my head.”
The soldier smiled and held out his great meaty hands, ready to attack once more. Kate sighed and prepared to meet his attack. She placed her feet wide apart and raised her own hands, practically doll like in comparison. “Come on then, let’s…”
But he was already moving, and once again Kate didn’t manage even the most rudimentary defensive manoeuvre. She was face down on the mat again before the second was out.
“Perhaps we should…”
“No,” said Kate firmly as she peeled her face away from the sticky plastic. “Let’s go again.” She got to her feet. “You really know how to show a girl a good time, Cooper,” she said. The policeman just smiled and waved from the bench at the side of the dojo.
Five more attacks, five more humiliations until finally, on the sixth go around, she managed to get a hand to his wrist and a shoulder to his stomach. She tried the lift, but it was like trying to topple a solid granite statue. After straining for a few moments, she gave up and allowed herself to be flattened once more.
“Better,” said Sanders. “Anyone not trained would have been thrown by that.”
Kate scowled at him. “The men I’m dealing with are ex-Serbian military, Sanders, and one of them is even bigger than you.”
Sanders cast a curious glance across at Cooper, who nodded once.
“Right,” said the soldier. “In which case, I think we’re taking the wrong tack. Tell me, Miss Booker, have you ever fired a gun?”
“She won’t be armed, Sanders,” said Cooper. “Too dangerous.”
“Still, they’ll be carrying guns, yeah?” Sanders countered.
Again Cooper nodded.
“Then it can’t hurt, can it? Come on, Miss Booker, let’s get you kitted up.”
Sanders led Kate out of the gym and across a sparse concrete courtyard ringed with old single storey buildings. It was about midday but although Cooper had driven her here some hours before, she still had little clue where exactly here was. It was only when she saw a group of men in the distance, running into woods dressed entirely in black, carrying guns, that the penny dropped.
“Not exactly an engineer,” she muttered as she entered the long building that housed one of the SAS firing ranges.
“WHY DID YOU do that?” Kate asked as they pulled out of the driveway, several hours later.
She had been thrown and chased, beaten and bruised, and taught how to shoot a variety of weapons. She had, she reluctantly admitted to herself, rather enjoyed firing guns. The power of it was exciting.
“If anything goes wrong, you could find yourself in the middle of a firefight. It’s important you be ready.”
“Of course I’m not ready. You think a day like that is all it takes to get me ready for a warzone?”
“No,” replied Cooper quietly. “But it’s all I could think to do.”
Kate blushed, ashamed. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So were you one of them, them, in the army?”
“If I had been, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. And if I were to cash in some favours by asking old friends to give you a workover, then it would have to be a very well kept secret indeed if I wanted to avoid having my bollocks cut off and fed to me by big men in balaclavas.”
Kate couldn’t tell whether he was joking or not. “My lips are sealed,” she said.
“Good. But remember what you learned here today. It could save your life.”
“You promised me…”
“That nothing could go wrong. I know. And it shouldn’t. But there are always factors that can’t be foreseen.”
“Cooper, can I ask you something?”
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Why is my brother really working for Spider?”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a student. He’s nothing special. He has no special skills or contacts. There’s nothing he can do that one of Spider’s normal henchmen can’t. I’m a doctor, I understand why I’m useful to him. But James?”
There was a long silence as Cooper kept his eyes on the road. Eventually he said: “Spider is gay. And he likes them pretty.”
Kate hadn’t thought anything about this business could make her feel any more wretched. She had been wrong.
They drove the rest of the way home in silence. Cooper pulled up outside Kate’s building as the clock on the nearby church struck eight.
“Home sweet home,” he said.
“Want to come in for a nightcap?”
He turned and looked at her, lips pursed, appraising. “No, Kate. Best if I don’t. Maybe once this is all over…”
“Right, yes, of course. I only meant a coffee anyway. I’ll see you soon, I guess.”
“Definitely.”
“Okay, off I go. And thanks for today.”
“You’re welcome.”
FOUR DAYS LATER, Kate was sitting in the back of a Ford Focus on the M1 north. The giant was crammed into the front passenger seat and the yellow toothed man who kept smiling at her was driving. The stereo was playing some awful Euro-pop.
The rain was coming down in sheets and the windscreen wipers were barely able to cope as they weaved in and out of the traffic. She didn’t envy anyone who was trying to follow them through this deluge. She resisted the urge to check the mobile phone in her pocket. The transmitter inside was working, Cooper had checked it himself yesterday. All she could achieve by fingering it was to draw attention to it, which was the last thing she wanted.
Somewhere out there in the downpour, Cooper and his team were gathering, ready for the kill. After her visit to Hereford, Kate had a suspicion that she knew what Cooper had meant by ‘bending the rules’. She had seen footage of the Iranian Embassy siege. She knew what to expect and she knew what to do. She was pretty sure that she’d be seeing Sanders again by the end of the day and that thought reassured her; he inspired confidence somehow, even more so than Cooper.
Everything was going to be fine, she told herself. This has all been planned by professionals. Nothing can go wrong.
The giant turned in his seat and looked back at her. He held out his hand.
“Give me phone,” he said.
“Sorry?” she asked, taken by surprise.
“Phone.”
“Why?”
He didn’t say anything, just kept his hand held out, impassive.
Kate gulped and reached into her pocket, removing the phone and handing it to him.
“Careful with it, eh. That’s top of the range,” she joked, trying not to reveal her sudden terror.
The giant wound down the window and tossed the phone out onto the motorway. The window closed with a soft buzz of internal motors.