Lynch: Rider, #2

By Peter J Merrigan

THE SURVIVORS
Eighteen months after their ordeal in London, Kane Rider and Margaret Bernhard are secured in witness protection and moving on with their lives.
But Alberto Ramirez isn't about to let them off so easily.
THE ASSASSIN
Ex-Spanish soldier turned hired-hitman Miguel Fernandez has a taste for blood. Employed by kingpin Ramirez, he's now on the trail of a man and woman who disappeared a year and a half ago.
THE LAW
Interpol detective Ann Clark, responsible for getting Kane and Margaret into witness protection, is at a loose end. Suspended from the force for a careless mistake, but determined to protect her charges, the decisions she makes now will have consequences for them all.
This fast-paced sequel to the Number 1 bestselling RIDER will have you page-turning long into the night.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nightsgale Books
• Release date: Dec 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781393842873

Book preview

Lynch

A Kane Rider Novel: Book 2

Peter J Merrigan

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Nightsgale Books

Copyright © Peter J Merrigan, 2022

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The right of Peter J Merrigan to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

First published 2014

This edition 2022

All rights reserved.

Paperback ISBN: 978 154816586 4

This publication may not be used, reproduced, stored or transmitted in any way, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of the author. Nor may it be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it has been published and without a similar condition imposed on subsequent users or purchasers.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

In accordance with the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003, a copy of this publication has been lodged with the British Library, 96 Euston Road, London, England, NW1 2DB.

Contents

Dedication

1. One

2. Two

3. Three

4. Four

5. Five

6. Six

7. Seven

8. Eight

9. Nine

10. Ten

11. Eleven

12. Twelve

13. Thirteen

14. Fourteen

15. Fifteen

16. Sixteen

17. Seventeen

18. Eighteen

19. Nineteen

20. Twenty

21. Twenty-one

22. Twenty-two

23. Twenty-three

24. Twenty-four

25. Twenty-five

Thank You

About the Author

Also By Peter J Merrigan

For the dead

who are remembered by the living

One

María Castillo Herrera had tied her hair up in a loose knot at the back of her head and wore tortoiseshell-framed glasses that perfectly complimented her olive skin and brown eyes. As she waited by the security gate to be let into HM Prison Wandsworth, she scored off a mental checklist in her head. She had arrived in London this morning as the sun was only broaching the sterile horizon and already she had had two meetings. She had one more to attend to after Wandsworth, and then she would return to her hotel room, report her findings to her boss, and board a flight back to Madrid before being picked up and taken by car to Salas de los Infantes, a three-hour drive she’d much rather do without.

A colossal security guard asked for her credentials when she told him who she was here to see, and he inspected her fake ID with fat, sweaty fingers and saucer-shaped eyes. ‘What does IPCC want with him, Mrs…?’

‘Perez,’ she said. She had created the counterfeit Independent Police Complaints Commission ID three days ago. ‘And it’s a private matter.’ Her English was impeccable, her accent perfected through years of practice.

The security guard nodded and handed her ID back. ‘This way,’ he said.

After she was patted down for security purposes, she was shown into the PACT Centre where she was to wait until the prisoner was brought into the Visitation Room. Among the multitude of information leaflets and smiling staff, there were six other people in the visitors’ centre. A skinny woman with lank hair and a pink velour tracksuit tried with difficulty to keep two young children under control as she clung urgently to a packet of cigarettes in her hand. An elderly man in a grey suit—legal aid, María decided, because his briefcase was new and cheap and plastic—shuffled through some papers on his lap. A silver-haired lady sat at the far side of the room with a much younger woman, perhaps in her early thirties, and both looked as nervous as each other.

María adjusted the collar of her shirt over her suit jacket lapels and placed her leather-bound folder on her knees, her hands on top of it, thumbs touching, fingers straight. One of the unruly children twirled and ran around the room, followed by the other, and when María caught the younger girl by the arm and scowled at her, the girl wilted and fell silent.

‘Sophie! Ashley!’ their mother shouted. She stormed across the room and took both girls by the arms. ‘Sorry, love,’ she said to María. ‘They’re a fucking nightmare. Don’t have any of your own, trust me.’

María flashed a winning smile and said, ‘If your darlings are the fruits of love, I will certainly give it some thought.’

Unsure if she had just been insulted or not, the lank-haired woman dragged her children back to the far end of the room and sat them down.

A prison officer came through and opened a door to the side of a notice board, nodding and stepping back inside the adjoining room. María stood and filed through with the others.

James Stuart Dixon was sitting at the far corner table, looking gaunt and weasel-like. She recognised him immediately from the photographs she had seen, although he had definitely lost some weight. She walked up to him, held out her hand, and said, ‘Mr Dixon. Nice to meet you.’

Shaking her hand somewhat warily, he said, ‘I don’t know what IPCC want with me, but you need to get me moved.’

‘One step at a time, Mr Dixon.’ She sat down opposite him and opened her folder.

‘They’ve put me in with the nonces,’ Dixon said.

She pulled out her pen and clicked the top. ‘IPCC aren’t responsible for the section you’ve been placed in, I’m afraid.’

‘You can have a word with the governor. A pretty thing like you,’ he said, licking his lips in appreciation, ‘must be able to get what you ask for.’

She parted her full lips and smiled. ‘I always get what I ask for.’

He grinned.

‘However,’ she continued, ‘if they’ve put you in with the high risk category, it’s evidently for your own protection. Forgive me, but no one likes a cop in the slammer.’

‘I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for—’

‘Margaret Bernhard,’ María said. ‘Yes, I’m well aware of why you’re here.’

At the mention of her name, Dixon crinkled his face in disgust.

‘Listen, Mr Dixon,’ María began.

‘It’s Jim,’ he said.

‘Mr Dixon, I don’t have time for familiarities. I represent an acquaintance of yours who has a few questions for you. Following the outcome of your answers, we may be able to make your stay here more comfortable.’

Dixon cocked his head and squinted his already small eyes. He was birdlike and reptilian all at once, reminding María of a duende, a goblin or dwarf who steals infants in childhood tales from her hometown.

‘Which acquaintance?’ he asked.

‘Currently, that is of no consequence,’ she said. ‘But he sends his warmest regards and hopes your secondment within Her Majesty’s finest establishment is doing you no considerable harm.’

‘Look, lady,’ Dixon said.

‘Miss Perez,’ she said.

‘I don’t know anyone in the Complaints Commission, so you’re going to have to elaborate a little for me, okay?’

‘The business that brought you to this place,’ María said. ‘What was the extent of your involvement?’

Dixon shook his balding head. ‘I ain’t saying nothing without my brief.’

His Cockney accent was already grating on her. ‘You were Mr Bernhard’s—what is the word?—lackey? Is that correct?’

Dixon folded his arms, pressed his lips together, and refused to speak.

‘Listen, you fuck,’ she said, the swear word sounding out of place in her mouth. ‘I’ll only ask you once.’

He glared at her and said nothing, but it was clear he was beginning to see the picture.

María closed her eyes momentarily and sighed. ‘As you have no doubt gathered by now, Mr Dixon, I am not from IPCC.’ Dixon’s eyes twitched as she continued. ‘But don’t you think that if I can fake something like that to come here and see you, I can also do worse—much worse?’ She raised a hand to stop him from speaking. ‘Have you heard of the rosary pea? It’s a plant native to India which contains an extremely potent toxin called abrin. The seeds of the plant are red with a near perfect black circle. Very pretty. Also very dangerous. A small dose, crushed up and undetectable in your porridge is enough to kill you. It would take seventy-five times less abrin to kill you than ricin, in fact. It begins with aggressive vomiting and diarrhoea, progressing to dehydration, and leads to the shutting down of your vital organs and your eventual death. It’s slow and painful.’ She smiled. ‘I have seen its effects, believe me. You do not want to suffer this.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ Dixon said, his voice raised.

‘Lower your voice,’ María said. ‘Maintain your composure or I could kill you and be out of here before anyone had time to pretend to care.’ Dixon slumped in his chair and María said, ‘I represent Alberto Ramirez in Spain.’

She saw the recognition in his eyes at last. ‘Is he incarcerated?’ he asked.

‘On the contrary, he is free and ready to re-establish operations. Unfortunately, last year’s events in London have made for some initial setbacks.’

‘Get me out of here and I can help.’

‘That won’t be necessary,’ María said. ‘All I need from you are your contacts beyond Mr Bernhard, and any accompanying information you can provide.’

‘You can’t come to me with a bunch of questions and expect me to hand over valuable information for nothing.’

‘Sparing your life is not nothing, believe me. Many men have breathed their last in my arms. Irrespective of any offer Señor Ramirez does make, you will provide the information requested of you and you will do so willingly.’

‘Some of my contacts are private.’

She laughed, said nothing, allowed the non-verbal threat to linger.

‘Fine,’ Dixon said. ‘I will give you the information on one condition. Either have me released, or track down Margaret Bernhard and that faggot of hers and bury them alive in cement.’

‘Margaret Bernhard is no threat to operations,’ María said.

‘She had me locked away!’ Dixon said with indignation.

‘I have reviewed the tape of her video-link evidence in your trial. She knew nothing more than you mistakenly told her the night you were arrested. The way I see it, it is not her fault you are here, but your own.’

Dixon shook his head in quiet rage. ‘Call it a favour, then. There’s only one thing worse than a cop behind bars, and that’s a whistle-blower.’

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She was almost late for her next appointment. As much as she would have liked, she couldn’t get her hands dirty inside Her Majesty’s property, and so when she left, Jim Dixon was still alive. For all her threats, her orders had been firm. Her visit to England was for information extraction and no more. Dixon had provided some valuable contacts which, given his current internment, would prove useless to him but utilitarian in nature to Alberto Ramirez.

Her final appointment on British soil was scheduled for noon at an office in the City. She took a cab and considered walking the rest of the way when they hit some heavy traffic, but she made it to the specified address just in time.

Entering the grand lobby of Weiss Walter Butterford LLP, a respected and top-ranking firm of patent attorneys with eight UK offices as well as a base in Munich and The Hague, María glanced at the large clock above the reception desk, and wore her warmest smile.

‘María Castillo Herrera. I have a meeting with Mr Walter.’

As she waited for Walter to call her through, she looked over her notes from this morning’s other meetings. The first had been with a shipping firm who had dealt primarily with David Bernhard, both importing and exporting crates and containers while keeping questions—and paperwork—to a minimum. María had been pleased with the meeting and assured the owner that business would resume imminently.

The second, a rather brief affair over takeaway coffee, had been with a semi-generous investor, a man who had little interest in how he made money so long as he did—it could be selling anticoagulants to haemophiliacs, providing he made a buck. Her report to Ramirez would be that, while his money had been advantageous in previous operations, she felt his wallet was expendable. A clean-up operative would be brought in and the greedy fat-cat would meet an unfortunate demise; loose ends were unacceptable.

Thomas Walter met her in reception and shook her slender hand with a vigorous pummelling. ‘You’re not at all what I expected, Miss Herrera.’

She smiled politely. ‘And you are quite precisely what I was expecting, Mr Walter.’ From the silvering beard to the portly stomach, his pinstripe suit jacket buttoned and straining to remain closed, he was the archetype bigwig lawyer she had anticipated, regardless of the research she had previously done on him and his firm.

‘This way, please,’ he said.

She followed him into a large meeting room, conference table laid with tea, coffee and water, and he motioned for her to sit opposite him.

‘I shall get straight down to business,’ María said. ‘I have a flight to catch this afternoon and the sooner things are moving, the sooner we can all start to see a profit.’ She continued as he fumbled with a teapot. ‘You have long had relations with some friends we have in common,’ she said.

‘Unfortunate business with Mr Bernhard,’ he said, adding three sugar cubes to his cup. ‘I expect you didn’t know that I was a member at the Belgrave. Truth be told, I had plans to be there that very evening. Believe me, I have never been so grateful in my life for digestive problems.’

‘You have had correspondence from Alberto Ramirez?’ she asked, hurrying the conversation along.

‘I don’t much care for the cloak and dagger effect but, yes, I have received some words from him.’

‘You understand this cloak and dagger effect is quite necessary?’

‘Primitively,’ Walter said. ‘Mr Ramirez is a most trusted colleague.’

‘He will be grateful to hear that,’ María said. ‘Then I won’t bore you with the detail.’ She opened her leather folder and withdrew a business card. ‘I will be your new contact. I will oversee operations ad hoc and can be called upon at any time.’

‘Oversee operations?’ Walter said. ‘It’s my understanding that some of these…operations, as you call them, can be somewhat muddy in nature.’

‘You will see,’ María said, ‘in our ongoing relationship, that I am not averse to getting muddy.’

‘Clean palm, dirty neck,’ Walter said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘An old shot-putting term I learned, many years ago. Quite before your time, no less.’

‘With all due respect, Mr Walter, I do have a flight to catch.’

Walter smiled, clasped his fingers together on the desk in front of him, and assumed a formal, business-like manner. ‘Then let’s get down to it.’

‘The first shipment will be a large one,’ María said. ‘We have a lot of ground to make up. It will be arriving in UK seas one week from tomorrow. The shipment won’t dock; it will be transported to a new carrier in open waters and taken from there to the Krambatangi port in the Faroe Islands—we have a contact there who will process the shipment for a small fee and place it in a clean container before it makes its way by sea to Scotland and from there to its eventual destination in England.’

‘And the cargo?’ Walter asked.

‘A Merkava Mark IV, imported from Latrun in Israel.’

‘A bloody tank?’ Walter laughed. ‘Who’s the buyer?’

‘The buyer prefers anonymity,’ María said.

Walter nodded slowly. ‘No doubt,’ he said. ‘What do you need from me?’

‘Cash flow for this initial shipment is not an issue,’ María said. ‘Our buyer has been forthright in his contributions to carriage. Our problem is more of a land-transportation nature. I’m given to understand you are friends with the Secretary of State for Transport? A battle tank won’t go unnoticed on Britain’s motorways.’

‘Tennis buddies,’ Walter said. ‘She plays, I watch. I have bent her ear once or twice before. Have the planned route sent to me in the same manner Mr Ramirez prefers his other correspondence sent and I shall see our cargo is unhampered.’

‘There is one other thing,’ María said, her voice flat.

Thomas Walter bowed theatrically. ‘I am always at your service.’

‘You are no doubt aware of Interpol Officer James Dixon.’

‘He was in the papers after that unfortunate business last year. He couldn’t possibly pose a problem, could he?’

‘It seems he has an issue with Mr Bernhard’s wife,’ María said.

‘She’s serving a