“Okay. You’ve bought yourself another minute. Why were you thrown out of the force?”
“I got a little carried away when I was questioning a suspect. He ended up with concussion and a broken arm and I got charged with grievous and actual bodily harm. And then they threw me out for good measure. That’s why I gave a false name when I was arrested at Stratford nick. If they’d known who I really was, they’d never have let me out-there’s an outstanding warrant for my arrest because I skipped bail after they charged me.”
The man with the straggly beard nodded.
“That’s a good story,” he said, “but we’ve got no way of verifying it. What we do know is that you were-or are-a police officer, and we have no wish to get involved with the forces of law and order here in Britain. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
“Georg.” One of the other men in the office was looking at the television set, pointing at the screen, at the live program being broadcast.
Along the bottom edge a ticker was running, saying “Breaking News,” and Bronson’s picture was again displayed on the screen.
“Turn up the volume.”
Somebody grabbed the remote control and pressed the “mute” button, and immediately the announcer’s voice filled the room.
“…now understand Sergeant Bronson was dismissed from the force some months ago following an incident, and that there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest on charges of assault. Members of the public are advised not to approach this man under any circumstances, but to contact the nearest police station immediately if they believe they’ve seen him. Also in London, a council official in Lambeth has-”
As the man again muted the set’s volume, Bronson looked across at the seated figure. “Now do you believe me?” he asked.
Georg shrugged. “That depends on how much credence you give to what they tell you on television.”
“You were ready enough to believe the first report about me,” Bronson pointed out.
“That’s another fair point, but I’m still not convinced.”
Bronson tried one last gamble. “Right. Untie me, and I can show you something that might help you make up your mind.”
“What?”
“Untie me, and I’ll show you,” Bronson repeated.
The seated man glanced round at the other men in the room, presumably assessing the chances of Bronson being able to overpower them, then nodded. The two men standing behind Bronson bent down and removed his bonds.
“Thanks,” he said, as his arms were freed.
For a moment he rubbed his wrists, getting the circulation going again. Then he stood up, turned to his right and smashed his right fist into the face of the man standing beside him. Before anyone else could react, he twisted around to his left and did exactly the same to the man there.
“Touch me again, you bastards,” he snapped, “and I’ll blow your bloody heads off.”
Then, as three of the other men started to move toward him, he whipped his right hand behind him, pulled out the Llama and aimed it straight at them, clicking off the safety catch as he did so.
“Just give me a reason,” he snarled.
All three men stopped in their tracks, mesmerized by the sight of the pistol.
“Still think I’m a cop, Georg?” Bronson asked, glancing momentarily toward the seated figure.
“Right now, I’m not sure,” the man replied, apparently unfazed by the sight of Bronson’s Llama. “But that doesn’t look much like a police-issue pistol, so that’s one point in your favor. Now, unless you think you are going to start shooting, I suggest you put the weapon away. Then perhaps we can talk.”
11
21 July 2012
Bronson hadn’t put the pistol away, but he had sat down again, clicked the safety catch back on and lowered the weapon to his lap, keeping it within easy reach of his right hand.
“So who are you, exactly?” he asked.
“You don’t need to know that.”
“I do if I’m going to work with you.”
Georg shook his head. “We’re a long way from deciding that,” he said.
“Fine,” Bronson replied, and stood up. “Then I’ll go.”
Georg lifted a restraining hand. “No, not yet. I think you could be useful to us, but we have to be sure where your loyalties lie.”
“And how are you going to find that out?”
“There are ways,” Georg replied calmly. “But having a former policeman in the group makes sense. You know police tactics; you might even have friends on the force, people who could be persuaded to supply information that would be useful to us.”
Bronson laughed shortly. “You obviously know nothing about the way the police force works. For what I did, I became an instant pariah. None of the people I worked with would cross the street to piss on my head if my hair was on fire.”
“A colorful metaphor, but I understand what you mean. Still, your knowledge of police tactics and procedures could help us, especially when we put the last pieces in place. And we already know you’re handy with your fists.”
Georg glanced at the two men who’d grabbed Bronson when he walked into the office. One was still rubbing his jaw while the second sat on a chair in the corner, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding-and possibly broken- nose.
“I can take care of myself, yes.”
Georg looked at him for a few seconds, apparently considering. Then he nodded, as if he’d just come to a decision.
“Right, Bronson,” he said. “It’s not my decision, and obviously we’ll have to run a few checks on you, but my feeling is that you’re probably telling the truth.”
Bronson inclined his head, but didn’t respond.
“That pistol, for one thing, is a giveaway,” Georg continued. “If you were undercover and your masters had decided you should be armed, I’d expect you to be carrying a full-bore pistol, probably a Glock or perhaps a Walther, not some piece of Spanish crap that you picked up in a dodgy deal somewhere.”
“So if you don’t decide, who does?” Bronson asked. “You mean you take a vote on it, something like that?”
Georg shook his head. “No. Something much simpler, a kind of test that you’ll either pass or fail. You’ll find out later. For now you can go.”
Three minutes later, Bronson was sitting in the driving seat of his car and heading away from the industrial estate, back toward London.
Once he was sure nobody was following him, he turned off down a side road, looking for a quiet spot where he could park up for a few minutes. He found it in the form of a roadside pub that had just opened for business, and which had a large car park, already half full of parked vehicles. He slid the Ford into a space at the far end, where he had a good view of the road, then opened the glovebox and took out his mobile phone.
Curtis answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Yes, but it bloody nearly wasn’t,” Bronson snapped. “What the hell happened with that news broadcast on Sky? That could have killed me.”
“I’m really sorry about that. The first we knew was when somebody here saw it-in the canteen, actually. We checked with Sky immediately. It turned out that the owner of the equipment yard where you had your bit of fun last night made two recordings. He gave one to the local police station and sent the other to them. They ran it first
