The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [163]
“What do you think?” asks Ruiz.
“I think maybe Norman Bates had a British cousin,” replies Luca, peering through the gloom.
Ruiz zips up his waterproof jacket and flips the hood.
“Where are you going?”
“To get a closer look.”
“That’s not a very good plan.”
“You got a better one?”
“I haven’t thought of it yet.”
Instantly wet, Ruiz stays in the shadows, moving across the road and into the forecourt, which is empty except for a van parked near the rear fence. The rooms have numbers. He counts them down and slips his right hand into his jacket. Checks the Glock.
Room 12 has light leaking from behind the curtains. Voices. Accents. For a full minute he listens, trying to pick up the words. He’s twenty yards away without any cover. If anyone walks out of the room they’ll see him immediately. Backing away, he crosses the forecourt in a crouching run and squats beside the stairs.
The door opens. Three men emerge, silhouetted by the light inside. Young. Fit. They walk towards the van and open the rear doors. Ruiz can’t see the interior, but one of the men has something in his hands: a machine pistol. He pulls back the slide mechanism and gazes down the barrel, aiming it at Ruiz, who is invisible in the darkness. More weapons are checked.
Having seen enough, Ruiz turns into a walkway that takes him behind the hotel, where he follows a chain-link fence back to the road. Luca sees him coming and opens the door.
“So what is it? What did you see?”
“Trouble.”
He turns on Luca’s mobile and calls Campbell, who’s in the middle of a briefing.
“I’ve been trying to reach you. Where are you?”
“Luton.”
“Shit!”
“What’s wrong?”
“We traced that 999 call to a Homebase store in Bury Park, Luton. One of the female employees, Aisha Iqbal, is married to a man on a watchlist. Her husband is booked on a flight to Cairo first thing tomorrow.”
Ruiz rubs a hole in the fogged glass. “I’m looking at a white van. Three up. Pakistani extraction. Heavily armed.”
The van is pulling out of the forecourt. No headlights. Luca cranes forward and reads the number plate. Ruiz relays the information.
“If the van is heading for London it’s going to reach the M1 in about fifteen minutes. You’ll need to do a mobile intercept. In the meantime I need backup.”
“Don’t fuck around, Ruiz. Get out of there.”
“Holly Knight could be inside.”
“No, no, no. You listening? Stand down.”
“You’re breaking up.”
Ruiz hears Campbell bang something hard. “All right, I’m sending a fucking army. You sit tight. They’ll be there in fifteen.”
“What about the van?”
“My problem. Don’t you move.”
The windscreen has fogged again. Ruiz wipes a circle on his side and sees a dark figure emerge from Room 12, a fourth man. He’s carrying something in his right hand—a plastic jerrycan. He crosses the forecourt and disappears from view. Several minutes later he returns.
Ruiz opens the car door.
“Where are you going?”
“Want a closer look.”
“He told us to wait.”
“You wait.”
Retracing his steps along the fence, Ruiz reaches the rear of the motel, keeping an eye on Room 12. The walkway is ahead of him, the rooms in darkness… all but one of them. Room 17 has a padlock hanging on a latch, uncoupled. He slides the bolt and nudges the door.
Disarray inside. Broken furniture. Cardboard boxes. Larger bins of old curtains… sodden. Petrol fumes catch in his throat and he fights the urge to cough.
The door to an adjoining room is partially open. He moves along the wall, holding the Glock at an upward angle. Peering through the opening he can see a table, a sofa spilling foam, chairs, a bed…
He hears a sound like a trapped animal and sees a shadow across the table. Someone sitting in a chair.
The situation is all wrong. He has to move through the door without cover, with his right arm extended at an awkward angle around the doorjamb. If there is someone on the other side, he won’t have time to sight the target before firing. He should wait for backup. All he can do from here is hold someone, he can’t take