Becca XXX: Dangerous Cargo Ch. 12

I slipped my right hand into my bag and gripped the pistol grip, flicking off the safety with my thumb. It was loaded with nine rounds and already had one in the chamber. There was no point in carrying a weapon around unless it could be drawn and fired immediately. All of the theatrics of racking the top-slide or screwing on the silencer were for the movies. It looked intimidating, but it would also make you very dead in a situation like this one.

I wasn't planning on dying in a disused garage with spunk all over my face. I gripped the edge of the bag with my left hand, just like I'd practiced countless times in my shitty flat. I was going to pull up with my right hand while pushing down with my left to make sure the pistol didn't snag on the bag. I'd drilled it time and time again until it became a reactionary movement rather than a thought process.

Taylor continued to move further back until he was level with Ryan and had the correct angle to see into the boot. He was still focused on me.

I waited.

His gun was pointing directly at me. If he squeezed the trigger, I'd be dead in an instant and he'd be fucking my lifeless corpse as a bonus. That wasn't going to happen.

I waited.

Finally, he glanced into the boot, taking his eyes off of me for a split second.

That was all I needed.

As his eyes left mine, I pulled the pistol out, complete with its six-inch silencer. The weapon moved into my line of sight as I knelt stock-still. I saw the rear-sight in focus, then the foresight and finally his centre mass, all perfectly aligned in slow motion.

Phut-phut.

I squeezed off two silent rounds and he rocked backwards. I shifted my aim as his friend realised what had just happened. I swung the weapon past Ryan and onto Right.

Rear sight.

Front sight.

Centre mass.

Phut-phut.

I watched a shower of pink mist spray out of him in the back lighting from the headlights. Both bodies hit the floor simultaneously as Ryan looked on, wondering what the hell had just happened.

I got to my feet, rushed over to Taylor, and put a round through his face.

Phut.

Splat.

I moved over to Right and did the same, punching a hole straight through his top lip and out of the back of his head, severing all neurofunctions instantly.

Phut.

Splat.

Tinkle-tinkle.

The sound of the empty bullet casings hitting the floor soon diminished into nothing but silence. It was almost deafening. Wisps of gun smoke hung in the air and it was as if the world had stopped spinning for a second.

I lowered my weapon and turned back to Ryan.

"Are you ok?" I asked.

"Jesus Christ. Who the fuck are you?" he gasped.

"I already told you who I am. I'm standing in for Brian."

"Yes.... but... fuck... You've just killed two men. What the fuck are we going to do?" he blurted, sounding panicked.

"It's fine. Calm down. I'll get some of my gang to clean this up," I replied as though it was nothing.

Ryan would think I meant The Lees, but I was going to call Lexa and get a clean-up crew in to dispose of the bodies.

"But they're dead," he said, going into shock.

"Of course they are. A nine-millimetre round to the face usually does that when it blows the back of your brain all over the pavement," I said. "I thought you were a solider?"

"I am, but I've never killed anyone before. I work in the stores."

"Well, now you can see what your arms-dealing results in. You can also see why I need more weapons. We started this drug-war and we're going to finish it."

"Jesus Christ," he murmured.

"Snap out of it. These fuckers would have killed us both once they got what they wanted. No one's going to miss them. At least no one important anyway," I was trying to pull him out his trance-like state. "I need to make a call. Don't go anywhere, just sit down and breathe."

He sat down where he was with a body either side of him. Maybe he was having a conflict of interests all of sudden. Selling weapons on the black-market was one thing, but seeing what they do to people close up was another thing entirely. The reality of his actions was now coming crashing down around him.

I dialled Lexa's number from memory and moved away from Ryan. I kept an eye on him while I waited for her to pick up. The last thing I needed was him to panic and do a runner, I wasn't done with him yet.

"Lexa," she said, after her usual three rings.

"It's me. I need a clean-up crew," I said.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes."

"How many bodies?" she asked, understanding the seriousness of the situation.

"Two plus their vehicle."

"Where?"

I suddenly realised that I had no idea where we were so I shouted over to Ryan.

"Ryan, where are we? What's this place called?"

I got no response.

"RYAN?"

"It's the old Esso service station on Carrington Lane," he replied, finally snapping out of his trance.

"Did you get that?" I asked Lexa.

"Yes, and I'm pinging your phone too to get your location. Wait one...."

I waited and checked the road for vehicles. It was quiet and there was no way anyone could have heard my silent shots. We were safe for now.

"... got it. It looks a nice remote spot. Can you put the bodies in the boot of their car? I can get a crew there in the next thirty minutes."

"Yes, I'll get Ryan to help me," I replied.

"He's there with you?"

"Yes, and the cargo."

"Excellent work, Becca. Leave the cargo in the boot with the bodies. The clean-up crew will pick them up at the same time. That will get more weapons off of the street."

"Are you sure you want to leave them here?"

"It's fine. No one's going to go to that place in the next half an hour. The crew will bring them back with them. Leave as soon as you can."

"Ok. Thanks. I'll talk to you later."

I hung up.

She'd know I wasn't in a position to talk, based on my tone. She also knew that I was with Ryan and that I had a chance to get more information out of him. I certainly didn't want to blow my cover now that I was so close.

"Right, help is on the way, but we need to get these two cunts into the boot of their car," I said. "My people will take care of it after that."

"What? You want me to pick them up? But they're covered in blood," he gasped, sounding horrified.

"We can't leave them here; someone might see them if they drive past. I'll take their legs and you take their arms. We should stay clean enough."

He reluctantly got up, realising that he had no choice. He didn't want to be implicated for murder any more than I did. I pressed the button to open the boot of their car and I was glad to see that it was spacious and empty.

We picked up Right first and shuffled over to the car before swinging him inside. There was a rasp of breath leaving his body as he landed in the small space.

"Great. Now we'll do the with the same with the other one," I instructed.

We repeated the process with Taylor before picking up their pistols and hurling them in too.

"Let's get out of here," said Ryan. "We need to get as far away from here as we can before somebody sees us."

"Not yet, I need my guns out of your car. My crew will pick them up at the same time as they pick up the bodies."

"For fucks sake... whatever, let's just hurry up."

Once again, I saw an opportunity not to be missed. My bag contained my field agent's kit which included trackers like the one I'd fitted to Brian's vehicle the week before. If I could get one of them onto the weapons, we could track their movements without needing to follow Ryan around.

"Let me clean up a bit first," I said. "I need to get your cum off my face before it dries. Find my weapons in the boot and open the bag, I need to make sure it's all there."

"Of course it's all there," he snapped, moving back to the rear of his car.

While he was distracted, I quickly unzipped the secret compartment in my bag and took out two trackers. I held them in the palm of my hand as I wiped my face with the other. Once my distraction was over, I moved up next to him and checked inside the boot.

He had one of the duffel bags unzipped and he was holding it open as I leaned in to take a look. At the same time, I slipped one of the trackers under the carpet-lining of the boot.

"There you go," he said impatiently. "Two MP7'S and two hundred rounds of four-point-six."

"Perfect. Zip it up and put it in the boot with the bodies."

"Yes, your majesty," he mocked me.

As soon as he walked away, I slowly pulled the zip back on one of the other bags and fixed the second tracker to one of the weapons. Fixing it to the inside edge of the rear stock meant it had less chance of being detected. I then zipped the bag back up and followed Ryan over to the other car.

"What's going to happen now?" he asked.

"With what?"

"The bodies."

"Do you really want to know?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at him. "You've no idea what you're involved in."

"I think I need to know," he replied. "I don't want to be seeing this all over the news in the morning."

"Ok. Our gang will come here to pick the car up and take the weapons out. They'll probably park it outside their pub and then set fire to it. That should send them a message they won't forget."

"I see," Ryan gulped at the thought of it. "I wish I hadn't asked."

We closed the boot lid and walked back to Ryan's vehicle. He closed the hatchback and got into the driver's seat as I put my coat back on to get some warmth back into my body. I reloaded the Makarov with a fresh magazine and placed it back into my bag. I then slipped into the passenger's seat next to Ryan and closed the door. It felt instantly warmer and safer being back in the car and out of the wind and rain.

"Now you can see what we're up against," I pointed out, nodding back towards their car. "Those two are just the tip of the iceberg. More will be coming for me and The Lees. That's why Brian sent me to sweeten the deal. We need more weapons and you seem to have a lot more than we thought. How many extra guns can you let us have?"

He started the engine and drove out onto the main road. He began to calm down the further away we got from the crime scene.

"You can't have any of them and I can't get any more for at least a month," he explained. "The guy who's ordered this lot has cleaned me out."

"A month? We can't wait that long. The Mancs are already trying to source military grade weapons to fight back against us. That much is apparent from tonight. We need to end this before they can source them elsewhere."

"I realise that, but there's no way I can get them any sooner."

We both went quiet. I was letting him mull it over for a while before I pushed him for further information as to who his buyer was. The fact that we'd been attacked by The Mancs had actually helped me to convince him how important it was that I had more guns.

"What if I pay double what you client is paying you?" I said.

"I can't. The deal's already been made."

"It's worth asking them how urgently they require them, surely. You could make a lot of money here."

"They need them as much as you do. I never go back on a deal once it's been made," he said.

"Maybe I can buy them directly from your client instead," I suggested, as I started to lead him down a line of questioning that would seem feasible. "Who are they?"

I had to make it look like it was the guns I was interested in and not his buyer. I was a desperate criminal fighting a drug war in Manchester and I just needed more firepower as far as he was concerned.

"I don't think they'd go for that," he replied.

"They might if I pay them double. Maybe they can wait a bit longer for their weapons, but we need them right now."

"So do they. He ordered them two months ago and he's not the type of guy I want to piss off," he replied.

"You don't want to piss me off either," I said sternly. "Maybe you can give him a call and see if he's willing to sell them to me?"

"No chance. I don't go back on a deal once it's made. I have a reputation to uphold."

I was hoping he'd call his client on his burner phone so we could listen in to the conversation. I had just tracked his phone after all. However, Ryan seemed to have some sort of weird morals when it came to selling illegal firearms. It was like some sort of business loyalty and it was obvious he wasn't going to give me the guy's name. If I pushed him any harder it would seem suspicious.

"There must be some other way that I can get more weapons quicker than waiting a month," I said. "What about your supplier? Maybe I can deal with him direct."

"Are you insane? Why would I do myself out of a deal and allow you to go direct? I'm in this for the money, not to help out drug dealers and criminals," he protested.

"A rebel without a cause. How fucking noble of you," I said sarcastically. "Why does it take a month to get more weapons? Just call him and tell him I need them now. Surely he wants the money as much as you do?"

"Becca, do you have any fucking idea how difficult it is to get hold of these things?" he said sounding exasperated. "This isn't the fucking supermarket."

"I know that, I'm not stupid, but a month is taking the piss. Why don't you explain to me how it works? Maybe there's a way to get them sooner. We have contacts too."

"It can't be done any quicker. It's not getting them that's the problem; it's making sure that no one knows they've gone missing. Security is tight on weapons as I'm sure you can imagine."

"It can't be that tight, you've got a boot full of them."

"It takes weeks of planning and coordination from the manufacturer and the shipping companies. The easiest way to make things disappear is to make sure they never existed in the first place."

"What do you mean?" I asked, playing dumb.

I wanted him to think he was explaining it to a simpleton rather than an undercover agent. I was just a dumb slut as far as he was concerned.

"None of these guns ever existed on paper anywhere. There's no record of them ever being produced. I don't know how it works exactly, but the guy I deal with told me that he has a man at the factory. They make extra guns and never register them. Then they get shipped to me with the regular shipment of arms to the military stores," he explained.

"And you take delivery at the barracks?"

"Yes, but they're never booked in. I obviously do the stock transactions for the genuine MP7's, but the extra ones don't show up anywhere."

"That's fucking genius," I swooned, playing to his ego. "So, does that mean you have a guy on the inside at Heckler and Koch?"

"No. I deal with a middle man, but he explained how it all works."

He was on a roll now, feeling proud about how clever it all was, so I asked the most obvious question.

"Who does your middle man work for?"

"He works for the shipping company: Hamilton logistics."

Holy fucking shit. There it was right in front of me like a prize pig grunting for its dinner. He may not have told me who he was selling to, but he'd told me all I needed to know about the source. It was just as we'd suspected. Charles Hamilton's company was involved in the weapons if nothing else. My guess was that it didn't end there -- it was all too much of a coincidence. If Charles Hamilton was involved in the illegal smuggling of military grade sub machine guns, he was probably involved in the terror plot too. He had to be.

"Never heard of them," I lied. "But you're right, it does sound more complicated than I thought."

"Of course it is. Smuggling drugs and selling them on street corners is one thing, but weapons are far more difficult to get a hold of."

"Automatic weapons, yes," I agreed. "But Brian and The Lees aren't going to be happy when I tell them they have to wait a fucking month."

"I might be able to reduce it by a week, but I can't promise anything," he replied.

"Anything's better than nothing, but it would be easier to just sell me what you have."

"For the last time, no."

I hoped I'd given him a convincing performance. I couldn't give a shit about additional weapons for The Lees, I just wanted two snippets of information which I now had.

One, Charles Hamilton's shipping company was something to do with the illegal import of unregistered weapons which were being sold on the black market for criminal activity. That proved that The Generals were involved. I doubted that Charlie would be doing it on his own.

And two, Ryan had a lot of firepower which he was selling to someone so important, that he had to complete the transaction even if it meant losing out on me paying double for them.

In my eyes this all fitted in with our theory.

"When are you meeting your other client?" I asked.

"Monday night. I'm on leave for a couple of days. I'm going to stay the night at a friend's secure compound," he replied. "I pay him a few quid not to ask any questions."

"I hope it's like Fort Knox," I giggled. "You don't want anyone getting hold of that little lot."

We continued down the main road and were now back in the sleepy suburbs not far from Simon's estate. The rain was still pouring down and all I could hear was the slap of the wipers on the windscreen. My mind was racing with new information, but there was still something bugging me. I knew I'd heard something significant from The Mancs when they'd first arrived so I replayed it in my head.

They'd said that they'd been looking for me. Then they said that they were going to kill me for what I'd done to their boss. Nothing was jumping out at me; I already knew all of that. Somewhere in my subconscious I knew I'd heard something vital. It was just a matter of clearing my head and letting it come to me. Searching for it would only bury it deeper in the confusion of the night's events.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

In for a count of five. Out for a count of five.

In the gap between the in and the out breaths I felt peaceful and my mind emptied of conscious thought.

In for a count of five. Out for a count of five.

An image of Right and Taylor appeared in my mind. I heard them speaking to me in the stillness.

"It's been a week since the bus depot incident, but we've finally found you, you little bitch."

No, that wasn't it. I breathed the thought away and looked at the next one.

"The bus depot on the M6-M56 junction. The one where you killed all those people."

"M6-M56 junction..." it echoed through my brain.

6-56.

It was the numbers.

Oh my fucking god, it was the last set of numbers from the list.

6-56.

The numbers which Tony and Natalie had found corresponded to motorway intersections. No wonder they seemed so familiar to me; I'd driven through them countless times. My brain went into overdrive as I snapped my eyes open as though I'd been re-born.

"Do you have a road map in the car?" I asked.

"A road map? What do you want one of them for?" he quizzed.

It was a bit of an odd request on my part. Everyone used their phones for maps these days, but I needed to see a bigger version of the UK motorway network and a phone screen wouldn't be big enough.

"I just want to check something," I replied. "Have you got one or not?"

"There's one in the rear passenger footwell," he nodded backwards. "I'm in the army and I never leave home without a map. It was drilled into me during training. Technology can fail you, but a good old-fashioned map won't."

"I agree," I replied, reaching back and grabbing the road atlas from the footwell. "I find it easier to read a paper map than a phone screen."

Old style road maps have an overview of the main road network for route planning. Before the days of sat-nav, people would sit down and plan their route using the overview before moving to the more detailed pages for a bigger scale. I found what I was looking for on page six of the book. It showed a mass of blue lines covering most of the UK. The blue lines were motorways and were the main transport network for everything in the country.