Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

big arc and smashed hard into the side of the Audi, lifting it onto two wheels and rolling it twice over to the side of the road, where it came to rest on its roof against a tree.

Dehan came out of her brace position and stared at me. “Jesus, Stone!”

I put it into first, then second and gently rolled over to where the Audi was lying, belly up, with its wheels still spinning. I grinned at her. “You like that?”

I climbed out. His automatic was lying on the road, thirty feet back. I went around the mangled trunk of my hire car and hunkered down where he was hanging upside down in the driver’s window. He looked dazed and confused, and very unhappy.

A moment later, Dehan hunkered down next to me, holding the automatic with a handkerchief. She looked at the upside-down face that had started to whimper and said, “Son of a gun, would you look at who it is…”

I sighed. “I’d say he has experienced a reversal in his fortunes, wouldn’t you, Dehan?”

She nodded at me, blinking, “Both accurate and witty, Stone. Droll, even.” She turned back to the upside-down face that had now started to sob. There was no sympathy that I could detect, either in her face or in my own feelings. She said, “You know the big difference between U.S. cops and U.K. cops, Sadiq? Shall I tell you what it is? British cops are highly trained in dealing with violence so that it does not escalate. They are trained not to respond to violence with violence, but to defuse it. I think that is an admirable trait, don’t you, Stone?”

“I do, Dehan. It’s a shame we are not more like that.”

“Us?” she went on. “Especially in places like the Bronx, we just shoot shit, don’t we, Stone?”

“Mm-hm… some guy comes at you with a gun or a knife, or a bad attitude. You shoot him.”

“Or a car.”

“Or a car.”

“So, Sadiq, you come at us, sneaking like a thief in the night, out of the shadows, with a gun, aiming to kill my husband, and his wife, on our honeymoon, what do you think we are most likely to do…?”

She put the muzzle of the automatic against his temple and pulled back the hammer with a loud click. He started to cry in earnest.

I said, “Hold on a moment there, Dehan. I’m just thinking, this hard-ass warrior here might actually be useful to us.”

“Nah! C’mon! We’re going home tomorrow. Just blow his brains out and let the Brits sort it out.”

Sadiq made a small whimpering noise, “No, no, he’s right, let me help, please, please don’t shoot me…”

I stood. Dehan sighed. “Come on, Stone! Let’s just get the hell out of here! It’s not our problem!” Suddenly she grabbed the automatic in both hands and aimed. “I’m going to shoot the anti-Semitic son of a bitch!”

I barked, “No! Wait! Just hang on. Jesus, Dehan! Don’t you ever get tired of shooting people?”

I managed to pull the door open, drag the whimpering Sadiq out of the car and dump him on the ground while Dehan gave me a mouthful about saving the city a fortune in legal costs, all the while keeping Sadiq covered.

I checked to see if he had anything broken. He didn’t, but he had some handsome bruises.

“So.” I smiled at him. “Explain to my Jewish partner here, Sadiq, why she shouldn’t do the British taxpayer a big favor and save them the expense of a trial. How exactly are you more useful alive than dead?”

Dehan shook her head. Her face twisted suddenly with savage rage and she snarled, “This son of a bitch is never going to be useful to anybody!” She aimed and pulled the trigger. The two rapid explosions echoed through the trees, and overhead a million terrified wings scattered through the leaves and the branches.

I stared at Dehan in horror. “What the hell have you done…?”

FIFTEEN

We got back to London at eight that evening. While Dehan went up to our room, I explained to the concierge that we had been rear-ended by a large SUV with a French sticker, but the driver had taken off and we hadn’t been able to get his license plate. We sorted out the insurance, I signed the necessary papers, and went into the cocktail bar. I ordered a large Bushmills and went to sit in a quiet corner. There, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number. It rang half a dozen times and finally a pleasant, educated voice said, “Hello?”

“May I speak to Nigel Hastings, please?”

There was a pause, then he said, “May I ask who’s calling?”

“John Stone.”

There was another long pause. “Mr. Stone, I don’t believe… How can I help you?”

“You were going to say you don’t believe you know me?”

His voice hardened. “What is it you want, Mr. Stone?”

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you think wrong. It will not be impossible to trace Sadiq back to you, Hastings. I have his cell, and I am guessing that even if the car is not directly traceable to you, if DI Green keeps following the money, it will not be long before your name pops up.”

“I don’t know what fantasy you are living, Mr. Stone, but a meeting between you and me is simply not going to happen.”

“What fantasy? I’ll tell you. It’s the fantasy where you haven’t hung up on me yet, it’s the fantasy where you panic because you hear through the grapevine that I have found Simon Clarence, it’s the fantasy where I discover that Dr. Peters is in fact Nigel Hastings, the man who, in 2003, was defense counsel advising Brad Johnson when he was wrongly accused of being the Butcher of Whitechapel, the fantasy where the Butcher