Read Online Maxie’s Demon by Michael Scott Rohan - Free Book Online
Authors: Michael Scott Rohan
Tags: Science-Fiction
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nice line in cars already; he needed his head examined going for more, especially this way.
Something occurred to me; from the look of things his goons thought so too. There were tensions flying about in here, none of the usual oafish backchat, and Ahwaz was visibly fretting and peering at his watch and map all thetime. Well, anyone dealing with bastards like Fallon is likely to do that; nobody wants to get deeper into their clutches than they have to. Then a cold light dawned. That would be why they’d brought me along. I was expendable. Fallon could saw my head off and they’d just stand there giggling. Nice thought.
And thatwas how it turned out. We weren’t really going to the seaside proper, just alongthe Thames Estuary, the kind of little bay smugglers had probably been passing through for hundreds of years, though Ahwaz only grunted when I said that. Moonlight filtered patchily through thin bits of cloud, and the river was a sullen black mirror. You could only see things as highlights against it, and thorn bushes and nettle patches don’t have any.
Somewhere out there was a boat, though Inever saw it, and coming ashore, barely visible in the gloom, was a very big inflatable, lifeboat style, with a very quiet outboard. It seemed to be riding extremely slowly, and as it drew in to the bleak and miserable patch of marshy shore I was currently sinking into, I realised why. It was towing something, something big and below water that dragged, and could be conveniently cut loose. And sureenough, as it reached the shallows the top of a heavy black plastic sack broke surface like the Loch Ness Monster, bulking high. Not quite high enough, though; you wouldn’t go to this much trouble for mere pot. This had to be higher-profit stuff, and that meant nasty. More crystal than a chandelier, probably.
‘Right,’ muttered Ahwaz, ‘you get down there and greet him. Be nice to the man, givehim what he eats, but keep your eyes open. Help him get his stuff in. We’ll be right back here.’
I swallowed. I knew what Ahwaz had in mind. Go down to the shore all open and above board, and a couple of squirts from a machine-pistol would let Stevie keep his crack and beat it, as you might say. And if you think that’s paranoid, it’s because you do not deal with the likes of Stevie.
Certainlynobody seemed in any hurry to hop ashore. ‘Isn’t trust a wonderful bloody thing?’ I said to the darkness, and mooched down to the muddy edge, and waved my arms. There was a moment’s silence, and then the boat nudged the bank and Fallon himself jumped ashore. I knew him by sight, a lanky thug with a face like a mangy wolf and a grin without a bare ounce of Irish humour. He was looking a bit bulkier,ten to one because there was a flak jacket under his windcheater. Maybe he had some ideas about Ahwaz, too.
‘I’ve seen you about,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘Where’s the wog?’
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. ‘Back there. With company. I’m supposed to help you unload.’
‘OK,’ he muttered, gesturing to the other figures in the boat. ‘Faster the better. The filth have got the area lousy withradar. You come help drag this lot in.’
A line was passed to him out of the boat, and I glimpsed something that was almost certainly an Armalite barrel. Shuddering, I hauled in the sack. Fallon left me to it, adding a laconic hand only to heave the formidable weight on to the bank, a rustling, multilayered bulk swathed in duct tape. I could feel tight lumps shifting.
‘Open it!’ came Ahwaz’svoice. ‘Carefully! And check what’s inside!’
Fallon flickeda knife open. It slashed through the tape in a scalpel stroke, though I had the feeling that wasn’t what he kept it for. Inside was exactly what I expected, plastic-wrapped parcels of white crystal, twenty-five of them, each about as heavy as a sugar bag. ‘Check it!’ said Ahwaz.
‘You bloody check it!’
‘D’you want your money or not?’
‘I wouldn’t
Something occurred to me; from the look of things his goons thought so too. There were tensions flying about in here, none of the usual oafish backchat, and Ahwaz was visibly fretting and peering at his watch and map all thetime. Well, anyone dealing with bastards like Fallon is likely to do that; nobody wants to get deeper into their clutches than they have to. Then a cold light dawned. That would be why they’d brought me along. I was expendable. Fallon could saw my head off and they’d just stand there giggling. Nice thought.
And thatwas how it turned out. We weren’t really going to the seaside proper, just alongthe Thames Estuary, the kind of little bay smugglers had probably been passing through for hundreds of years, though Ahwaz only grunted when I said that. Moonlight filtered patchily through thin bits of cloud, and the river was a sullen black mirror. You could only see things as highlights against it, and thorn bushes and nettle patches don’t have any.
Somewhere out there was a boat, though Inever saw it, and coming ashore, barely visible in the gloom, was a very big inflatable, lifeboat style, with a very quiet outboard. It seemed to be riding extremely slowly, and as it drew in to the bleak and miserable patch of marshy shore I was currently sinking into, I realised why. It was towing something, something big and below water that dragged, and could be conveniently cut loose. And sureenough, as it reached the shallows the top of a heavy black plastic sack broke surface like the Loch Ness Monster, bulking high. Not quite high enough, though; you wouldn’t go to this much trouble for mere pot. This had to be higher-profit stuff, and that meant nasty. More crystal than a chandelier, probably.
‘Right,’ muttered Ahwaz, ‘you get down there and greet him. Be nice to the man, givehim what he eats, but keep your eyes open. Help him get his stuff in. We’ll be right back here.’
I swallowed. I knew what Ahwaz had in mind. Go down to the shore all open and above board, and a couple of squirts from a machine-pistol would let Stevie keep his crack and beat it, as you might say. And if you think that’s paranoid, it’s because you do not deal with the likes of Stevie.
Certainlynobody seemed in any hurry to hop ashore. ‘Isn’t trust a wonderful bloody thing?’ I said to the darkness, and mooched down to the muddy edge, and waved my arms. There was a moment’s silence, and then the boat nudged the bank and Fallon himself jumped ashore. I knew him by sight, a lanky thug with a face like a mangy wolf and a grin without a bare ounce of Irish humour. He was looking a bit bulkier,ten to one because there was a flak jacket under his windcheater. Maybe he had some ideas about Ahwaz, too.
‘I’ve seen you about,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘Where’s the wog?’
I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. ‘Back there. With company. I’m supposed to help you unload.’
‘OK,’ he muttered, gesturing to the other figures in the boat. ‘Faster the better. The filth have got the area lousy withradar. You come help drag this lot in.’
A line was passed to him out of the boat, and I glimpsed something that was almost certainly an Armalite barrel. Shuddering, I hauled in the sack. Fallon left me to it, adding a laconic hand only to heave the formidable weight on to the bank, a rustling, multilayered bulk swathed in duct tape. I could feel tight lumps shifting.
‘Open it!’ came Ahwaz’svoice. ‘Carefully! And check what’s inside!’
Fallon flickeda knife open. It slashed through the tape in a scalpel stroke, though I had the feeling that wasn’t what he kept it for. Inside was exactly what I expected, plastic-wrapped parcels of white crystal, twenty-five of them, each about as heavy as a sugar bag. ‘Check it!’ said Ahwaz.
‘You bloody check it!’
‘D’you want your money or not?’
‘I wouldn’t
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