Ryker didn’t recognize the room he woke up in, but at least it wasn’t a prison cell, nor an off-the-grid torture chamber. Not a hospital either, he didn’t think, although the small room did have the same kind of plainness and sterile cleanliness to it. Ryker was spread out on a single bed with a hard mattress, still clothed, although his coat and shoes had been removed. Other than the bed the room only had a single, basic plastic chair, a shoddy-looking bedside table, a door and a window that was covered by a venetian blind.
He went to straighten up but a wave of dizziness spread and he had to clutch at his forehead and squeeze his eyes shut as he waited for it to pass. Once clear he stepped off the bed and took a couple of seconds to steady himself on his feet. He checked himself over. No injuries. Nothing major, anyway. His grogginess was purely down to the aftereffects of the tranquilizer dart.
Damn lucky for him it’d been a tranquilizer dart and not a bullet.
He walked, pretty clumsily, to the window and used two fingers to part the slats of the dusty blind.
Not what he’d hoped to see. Iron bars lay other side of the window. He recognized the grass verge across the road. The trees beyond. The old red brick building off to his left.
Someone had gone to town with police tape, lines of it pulled all over, wrapped around trees, traffic bollards, streetlights. Uniformed police in bright yellow jackets roamed.
He was still at Belmarsh prison.
In the prison.
He spun around when he heard someone at the door. Someone unlocking the door.
‘Winter?’ Ryker said, looking from his old boss and to the two uniformed police officers beyond him. They stayed outside as Winter stepped in and closed the door. He didn’t lock it.
‘I saw you were awake,’ Winter said and without indication, Ryker’s eyes soon found the small camera up in the corner of the room.
‘Why am I here?’ Ryker asked.
Winter looked a little confused then his face mellowed as though understanding the aggravation in Ryker’s question. ‘You’re not in the prison. This isn’t the prison infirmary. It’s the… I don’t know what it is really. We’re in the staff quarters.’
Good news at least.
‘Though there was a point, early on, before anyone had made sense of the chaos, when I didn’t know if…’
‘What?’
‘If you were part of it.’
Ryker shook his head in disgust. For everything they’d been through together, sometimes Winter revealed exactly how little faith he had in Ryker.
Possibly due to previous form – as he saw it – but still.
‘Karaman?’ Ryker asked.
‘Gone.’
‘How long was I out?’
‘Nearly three hours.’
‘You didn’t think to try and rouse me? Adrenaline would have worked.’
‘Honestly? No. I didn’t consider it at all. I needed the time to figure things out for myself.’
‘Figure things out? You mean figure out what happened to Karaman? Or figure out what to do with me?’
‘Both, Ryker. And I won’t apologize for that. Remember the conversation we had this morning?’
‘Yeah. I was hit by a tranquilizer, not some memory eraser.’
‘Good. Then you’ll appreciate that I needed to consider whether what happened with Karaman changes any of that.’
‘And does it?’
‘First I have a few questions for you.’
‘I have a lot more for you, but shoot.’
‘Do you—’
‘Wait,’ Ryker said, holding a hand up to stop Winter. ‘You don’t want to invite your police buddies in? Get a tape recorder going? Should I call a lawyer?’
Winter sighed. ‘Ryker, no lawyer would ever take you on. You’d be the end of their career, all of the shit you’ve done. Sorry.’
Winter said that entirely deadpan, but Ryker sensed just a little bit of humor still.
‘OK. Fire away,’ he said.
‘Do you know who took Karaman?’ Winter asked.
‘Do you?’
Winter sighed again, showing his growing irritation. ‘Please, let’s do this properly, get our facts, opinions, everything aligned.’
‘That’s a great idea. Except the way you set it up was more for you to question me. Not to get our thinking straight.’
‘I’m not in the mood for your petulance. Do you know who took Karaman?’
‘So I’m guessing you didn’t catch any of them.’
‘I didn’t say that. I’ll ask a third time. Do you know who took Karaman?’
‘No. But I saw the face of the woman.’
Winter said nothing.
‘You know one of them was a woman, don’t you?’
‘Actually, yes, we do. After you ripped off her balaclava there’s CCTV of her face, although she did her best to hide it still, and there’s nothing clear enough that has enabled an immediate ID.’
‘What about the others?’
‘No IDs yet. But… We’re hoping we will soon. We found two of the assailants dead less than three miles from here. Their getaway van crashed, although it wasn’t the crash that killed them.’
‘Explain.’
A third sigh from Winter. Not irritation this time, more building up to something. A sigh for every occasion. ‘Why don’t you take a seat.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Well, I’m not. I’m exhausted.’ He slumped onto the bed and took a moment as though he needed to compose himself. ‘There were four assailants—’
‘Sorry, but that’s twice you’ve said assailants. Perhaps it’s just semantics, but it’s not clear to me what you think happened here. Are you saying you think those people were working for or against Karaman?’
‘The working theory is that they helped break Karaman out of prison.’
‘Unless you have some clear evidence of that, it’s a big assumption.’
‘As opposed to what?’
‘Maybe they were kidnappers.’
‘You think he was kidnapped? For ransom? By who?’
‘I didn’t say I think he was kidnapped, but it is a possibility. Unless you’re telling me otherwise. The one thing I do know for sure is the woman was white. English. I think they all were. I heard them shouting, talking to each other. No foreign words or anything like that.’
‘You said yourself that you think Karaman is connected to this worldwide group of super-rich people in power. So why wouldn’t his rescuers be white, British?’
‘Again, I didn’t say they wouldn’t be. I’m just explaining what we do know. You said two were found dead. Caucasian like the woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘But they weren’t killed by the crash?’
‘The driver of the van was stabbed through the throat. Another guy was found in the back of the van with multiple wounds but one of two gunshot wounds he had likely killed him. The police are still piecing things together, but it looks like the woman caught up with her accomplices. After… after she shot you.’
Ryker balled his fists as he took himself back to the moment. He’d so very nearly got her.
‘She chased after them in another getaway car. She arrived at the crash seconds after it happened. She threatened bystanders with an assault rifle as she bundled her friend and Karaman into a car.’
‘So who killed the van driver?’
‘It’s a good question. But… it might have been her.’
‘It could only have been her or one of the other two.’
‘Probably not the dead guy.’
‘Probably not. Either way, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.’
‘Not yet.’
‘But nothing’s been heard from the… attackers?’
‘You mean like a ransom? No. Nothing. Which does tend to suggest that Karaman was broken out of prison rather than a kidnapping, like you suggested.’
Ryker did agree, but he was reluctant to tell Winter that even if he didn’t know why.
‘Did anyone get hurt?’ Ryker asked. ‘Police, civilians, I mean.’
Winter scrunched up his face in such a way as to suggest he was about to break some bad news.
‘Eight police officers are in hospital. Several of them were shot, and we think it was mainly with their own weapons as we believe the attackers were initially only using blanks.’ Which Ryker had figured too during the melee. ‘But… For once, Ryker, I’m glad to say no one – no one innocent, at least – was killed. And… This I hate to say, but word going around is that a lot of people are thanking you for that. You won’t be named publicly, but you are getting a lot of mentions across social media already. And I mean a lot. Off-duty special ops. MI5 agent. Rumors are flying as to who you are. What you are. I even saw a meme of you running across the grass, shooting away, with Tom Cruise’s head superimposed.’
Ryker smiled and Winter tried really hard to keep a straight face but eventually failed.
‘Go on, say it,’ Ryker said.
‘Say what?’
‘Begins with an s, ends in y, has some gold in the middle.’
‘I’m not sure what I’ve got to apologize for.’
‘No? Four hours ago you basically told me I was done here. To get lost. Just as well I didn’t do that, don’t you think.’
‘Maybe. Except they still got Karaman, didn’t they? So your intervention wasn’t exactly a major success either.’
‘Way to bring me down again.’
‘Someone has to.’
They both went silent and Ryker spent the time in his thoughts. He really didn’t care for any plaudits from the press, on social media, whatever. Not even from Winter. The fact was, he didn’t like how things had ended because Karaman had still gotten away.
‘They used blanks,’ Ryker said. ‘Why do you think that was?’
‘We’ll know when we catch up with them. For now, let’s just be thankful about it.’
Ryker humphed. Winter apparently didn’t think it was a big question. To Ryker, it was potentially huge in terms of figuring out who had attacked that motorcade and why.
‘No sign of the getaway car since?’ Ryker asked.
‘The Met is working on tracking it through ANPR. I haven’t checked over the last couple of hours where they’ve got to with that.’
‘So, are you part of this or not?’
Winter looked a little put out by the question. ‘Officially?’
‘However you look at it.’
‘The Met is in charge and are the ones making public statements, although MI5 is already looking to step in and I think it won’t be long before they take over fully in the background.’
‘That didn’t answer my question.’
‘But was your question really about me, or about you?’
‘It’s about both.’
‘You know I don’t have any official role on UK soil.’
‘And yet here you are.’
‘Here I am because I was helping you.’
‘Was, or are?’
Winter sighed for about the tenth time in the conversation. ‘Why don’t you just ask the question you really want to ask me?’
‘Fine. Do I still have my marching orders?’
‘If I say no… that you’re good to stay, to help, will you play by my rules?’
‘You mean I have to ask you every time I want to do something? How about every time I take a leak?’
‘I mean, when I say stop, you stop. When I say no, you don’t do whatever it is I’m asking you not to do.’
‘Like a well-trained dog.’
‘Well-trained dogs are huge assets in many situations.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Just promise me one thing, Ryker. If you’re staying, if you’re helping, the goal here is to get Karaman back. That’s it. You find who did this, and you get him back. And then, and only then, will we consider what happens next.’
‘Deal.’
Both men went silent a moment.
‘So where do you want to start?’ Winter asked as Ryker’s mind rummaged with that exact question.
‘With everything the Met already knows. If we can find the identities of the dead attackers, and the two who got away, that’ll help hugely. In the meantime, we track that getaway car. We need to find Karaman before it’s too late.’
‘Too late for what?’
‘Let’s not wait and find out.’
Winter got up from the bed. ‘Better get your shoes and coat on, then.’