Free The Kill Zone by Chris Ryan Page B

thinking somewhere in the Horse and Three Feathers. I’d do it myself, but I don’t think someone like me would be all that welcome there. Do you think you could manage that now, Kieran?’
    The tout took the box and weighed it in his hand. ‘How does it work?’ he asked.
    ‘There’s a magnetic backing which means it’ll stick to anything made of metal. Down the back of a radiator is good. Just avoid anything electrical that could interfere with the signal. And I suppose I don’t need to tell you to keep it well out of sight.’
    Kieran examined the box, turning it round in his fingers and holding it up to the light like it was a glass of wine. Then, with another aggrieved look at his handler, he shook his head. ‘Too dangerous,’ he said. ‘I’d be busted in minutes.’
    Siobhan bent down so that their eyes were only a few inches away from each other. ‘Listen to me, you little piece of shit. I want to see Cormac O’Callaghan in prison for the rest of his life, but believe me, putting you away will come a very close second, so you’d better start playing ball. We’re going to meet every two days, here, at midday.’ She pulled a bit of paper from a pocket in her leather jacket. It had an email address scribbled on it. ‘You can’t make it, you leave a message at this email address and turn up at midday the following day. Stand me up more than twice, I pull you in. And let me tell you, Kieran: you’ll be working a damn sight harder for me than you ever did for your uncle – unless you want to spend the next fifteen years sharing a room with the sort of fella little Jackie’s not supposed to accept sweeties from. Have I made myself absolutely clear?’
    The two of them stared at each other – a look of mutual contempt.
    ‘Yeah,’ Kieran O’Callaghan said finally.
    ‘Good. Then get out of my sight. I don’t want to spend any more time with you than I have to.’
    Kieran stood up and walked to the door, then turned. He looked as though he was about to say something, but then thought better of it and slipped out of the house, closing the door quietly behind him.

26 JUNE

4
    Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it was a dream. But that didn’t make it any less real. He saw a child. His child. She was small – six years old – with mousy, curly hair that tumbled over her forehead. She was looking at him.
    ‘Daddy?’ she asked.
    He tried to answer, but couldn’t.
    She looked at him sadly. Accusingly, almost. And then she started to fade away. He tried to reach out for her, to stop her from disappearing. But he couldn’t. She melted away, leaving nothing but an agonising emptiness . . .
    Jack woke up.
    He didn’t know where he was. Ropes still bound his wrists and legs, and he felt like he was spinning – a mixture of pain, hunger, acute dehydration and the uncomfortable remnants of his dream. It was a relief that he was lying on the floor; if he had been standing up, he’d have just fallen over anyway.
    He wanted to vomit, but there was nothing to retch up, so he lay there, shivering for a while despite the heat. He didn’t want to fall asleep again but he couldn’t fight it. It was only a matter of minutes before he passed out again.
    This time, he dreamed of fire – Red’s burning body staggering from the blaze of the Black Hawk – and of water. Cool and thirst-quenching.
    It was water that woke him. Not icy cold, but cold enough for it to be a shock as someone threw a bucketful over his body. And it wasn’t just the water that hit him, but the bucket too. Jack breathed in sharply and looked up. There was light in the room, streaming in from the open door. Two figures advanced.
    A dull thump as one of them threw something on the floor.
    Jack’s vision was blurred, but he could see they wore grey dishdashas and full beards and had dark, ugly looks on their thickset faces. They were not muscular, but naturally big. One of them carried a gun, which he pointed at Jack’s head while