Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 43

‘Fuck’s sake, Koenig,’ Draper said, sucking her thumb. ‘Sleeping Beauty’s castle had less thorns than this asshole bush.’

Koenig ignored her. ‘She still hasn’t moved,’ he said, one eye fixed to his monocular. ‘Now we’re at ground level, it looks like she’s sitting down.’

‘How do you want to do this?’

That was the problem, Koenig thought. How did he want to do this? Draper had delivered a long and tedious lecture on the risks of knocking on the door. She said Jane Doe was armed. They knew she was prepared to kill. She would be nervous. Draper had said knocking on the door was dangerous. Kept on saying it until she was sure Koenig understood.

There was no obvious play. Not without specialist breaching equipment. The homes in this part of Scotland were designed to have their backs to the wind. The only way in was through the front door. He’d been eyeing it up. From his previous observation point he thought he might use Newton’s third law of motion – two interacting objects exert equal and opposite forces on each other. In layman’s terms, he’d planned to run as fast as he could, then smash into the door with his shoulder. Shock it off its hinges. Draper could jump over him and disable Jane Doe before she had time to reach for her guns. Up close, he realised it wouldn’t work. The door was bank-vault thick. The hinges were as big as anchors. He’d bounce off it like a rubber ball. The only thing he’d smash would be his collarbone.

‘We could smoke her out,’ Draper said. ‘Smash a window and throw in some burning wood.’

Koenig glanced at her. ‘Why not call in a drone strike while you’re at it?’ he said. ‘Plus, everything around here is wetter than an otter’s pocket.’ He turned back to his monocular. ‘Anyway, this is her home, I’m not setting fire to it.’

‘OK, smart ass, what’s your idea?’

Koenig didn’t immediately answer. For the last two minutes he’d been staring at the door. To be more accurate, he was staring at the keyhole. It was a big one. Wouldn’t have looked out of place on a church door. He could see light shining through it, which meant the key wasn’t in the other side. If he could get up to the door without being seen, he’d be able to see inside. Find out why Jane Doe hadn’t moved in six hours.

‘I’m going to look through the keyhole,’ he said.

‘I’ll do it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re a clumsy asshole and I’m not. She’ll hear you. Anyway, I’m always point.’

Koenig nodded. Draper was right. Back in their SOG days, she had always been the first person in when they’d breached a room. She’d insisted on it. Back then it had seemed like she had a death wish. It was only later that Koenig discovered she’d been seeking redemption.

‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘You go first, and I’ll watch the heat signature. Make sure it doesn’t move. If it does, I’ll tell you to abort.’

‘Make sure you do,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want a knitting needle in the eye because you were staring at my butt instead of the target.’

She crawled out of the gorse bush, giving him a filthy look as she got scratched on the face. As carefully as she could, she made her way to the front of the cottage. Koenig tried not to look at her butt. She reached the door and put her eye to the keyhole. She turned to face Koenig. She was frowning. She gestured for him to join her. When he did, she stepped back so he could see for himself what was on the other side of the door. Koenig bent down and put his eye to it. The room was well lit. The door was so thick it was as if he were looking through the wrong end of a telescope.

He saw what had alarmed Draper so much. He turned to stare at her. She shrugged.

‘I have no fucking idea what’s going on,’ she whispered.

Koenig looked through the keyhole again. He didn’t know either. Because the heat signature they’d been watching all afternoon wasn’t the person they’d seen walk through the door of the cottage.

It was Margaret Wexmore, the academic abducted from Speakers’ Corner.

And Margaret wasn’t dead; she was very much alive. She was also tied up.

Jane Doe had vanished into thin air.