Hunted by James Patterson Read Free Book Online

cockfight going on about it.’
    Barron reddened and went into damage limitation. ‘Wait a minute. Wait a fuckin’ minute – there’s no competition for the position here. All we have is a Marine with ideas above his station.’
    The boss man called Colin over, they conferred and a moment later the rat-faced man jogged back. ‘Get in the car, both of you.’
    Barron shot a searing look at Shelley, but the people carrier doors were opening and two identikit gym bunnies in black leather jackets were stepping out and making their presence felt. Shelley had history with men like that: shaved heads knew their way around a fight.
    He and Barron were directed inside the car, sandwiched between the two heavies, who pointedly opened the windows to direct their noses outside. The snappy dresser turned to address Shelley. ‘Name?’
    ‘Hodges. Captain Steve Hodges.’
    ‘You know Krav Maga, I see.’
    ‘A little,’ replied Shelley. ‘I learned in the commandos.’
    Barron sneered, but the boss man silenced him with a look and addressed Shelley again. ‘Where are you from?’
    ‘Hampshire,’ replied Shelley. It was Steve Hodges’ birthplace.
    ‘Regiment?’
    Again he supplied the dead man’s details.
    ‘Commanding officer?’
    Shelley gave the name, but the leader shrugged with a grin. ‘Well, I’ll have to take your word for that.’ He turned his attention to Barron. ‘What about you? Any martial arts up your sleeve?’
    ‘I kick arse, is what I do,’ snarled Barron in reply.
    The leader grinned, then faced forward and indicated for the driver to move. ‘We’ll see about that in a moment or so, my friend,’ he said. ‘We’ll see about that.’

CHAPTER 13
    DURING THE JOURNEY , the leader attended to his phone and Shelley guessed his details were being checked. Meanwhile, he decided that the two leather-jacketed bouncer types were twins. When they pulled up at an abandoned brewery warehouse, one had jumped out to haul open huge double doors. The people carrier drove inside and the doors were closed behind them.
    Inside, what feeble light there was fell through broken windows onto a concrete floor strewn with litter and debris. Looking up, Shelley saw crumbling gantries, a mezzanine floor and walls daubed with graffiti. Water dripped through a huge gash in the roof high above them, and the slamming doors of the people carrier disturbed birds that panicked in the rafters.
    Their voices echoed in the cavernous space as the four men led Shelley and Barron towards the pool of light more or less in the centre of the floor.
    ‘Bag,’ said the snappy dresser, holding out his hand for Shelley’s knapsack.
    Before Shelley had embarked on the mission, Claridge had expressed surprise that he planned to go undercover without asingle means of communication. Claridge had even suggested that they sew a mobile phone into the fabric of his knapsack. But as he watched his bag being expertly rifled by one of the twins, the search turning up nothing more incriminating than his sweater, a copy of the Daily Mirror and a bread bag containing a few crusts, Shelley was doubly glad he’d stuck to his guns.
    ‘Clean,’ said the twin, dropping Shelley’s bag to the ground.
    The snappy dresser nodded and turned his attention to Shelley. ‘Right,’ he said in his neutral, civil-service tones, ‘I know all about Sergeant Barron here, but you’re a new contender, is that right?’
    Barron bristled. One of the twins silenced him with an upraised finger and a practised bouncer’s stare.
    Shelley nodded and the leader continued, ‘My name is Tremain. Colin here works for me, and I in turn work for an organisation that arranges what you might call “games”. Diversions, so that our client base can get away from their wives and let off a little steam at the weekends. We’re called The Quarry Company, and for our customers we represent an alternative – an alternative to golf, or motor-racing, or stuffing themselves into Lycra