Honour Bound by Keith Walker

the wing of the car, feet resting on top of the tyre, when he
saw the main door open. He stood up as the butler emerged from the inner gloom
and walked towards him.
    "Mr.
Eastman would like you to carry one of the cases," the butler said,
"there are two of them and I'm afraid they are rather heavy." Manton
smiled and indicated towards the door. "If you'd care to follow me I'll
show you the way."
    "Just a minute." Stride opened
the car door and took the Ingram from the briefcase. He took the magazine out,
checked the load and replaced it. After cocking the action to load the weapon,
he said, "After you mate."
    "I
don't think you'll need that sir," Manton said.
    "I'll
be the judge of that pal. After you."
    Stride
followed the butler into the house, following the same route Eastman had taken
minutes earlier. As they neared the double doors of the library, Langdon's head
and shoulders appeared as he leaned into the corridor. "Ah! Here they are
now," he called to the dead Eastman. "Manton," he said,
"can you get Mr. Eastman that bottle from the cellar."
    He
saw Stride visibly relax.
    "Certainly sir." Manton spun on his
heel and quickly walked the other way.
    Langdon
spoke to the approaching Stride. "There are two heavy- "        
    He
interrupted himself as he swung his right hand up and fired two shots into
strides chest and a third into his head, taking no chances on a second bulletproof vest, especially with the weaponry this one was
carrying. Stride was dead before he hit the floor, the
Ingram still gripped in a massive fist. Langdon watched as two blooms of red on
the dead mans shirt joined into one as the material greedily soaked up the
blood. The third bullet had entered his cheek just to the left of his nose. A
thick pool of blood was forming quickly on the shiny wooden floor, fed from a
stream pouring from the dead man's left ear. 
    Manton
appeared from around the corner where he had taken cover. Langdon smiled.
"Our profits get bigger and bigger. Let's get these two moved, they're
messing the place up.”

 
    -12-
     
    The
Ford Transit van paused at the junction, its bright paintwork glistening under
the wash of streetlights, the wipers constantly clearing the windscreen of a
persistent drizzle blown by the wind from a leaden sky. The headlights, caked
in grime from the lengthy drive made little impression against the dreary
gloom, casting pitiful ovals of light on the wet road
surface.     
    The
driver edged the van out of the junction into a large gap in the early morning
flow of traffic. He looked in his mirror, checking yet again on the tarpaulin
covered trailer that bobbed along behind like a tender in a ship's wake. The
traffic was light, as he knew it would be in this part of the city, the rush
hour another two hours in the making. The only pedestrians he had seen had been
the down and outs making their way from the derelict areas where they slept, to
the tourist areas where they begged.
    Kieran
O'Connell had collected the van from a side street in the East End just over an
hour and a half earlier. At first, he had driven east, keeping a close watch in
the rear view mirror for any vehicle staying with him for too long. Even though
the traffic was light, he still made several route reversals and a U-turn in a
dead end street before he decided that no one was following. He drove as far as
the M25 motorway, crossed the bridge over the Thames and headed west, back
towards the rain washed city.
    The
van passed beneath a railway bridge carrying the main southeast line into
London Bridge station before stopping at a set of traffic lights. Directly
ahead, the rising piers of Tower Bridge loomed like a massif out of the
clinging river mist. The pulsing anti-collision lights, endlessly blinking at
the summit, were barely visible due to the gathering murk. He waited patiently,
gently tugging at his bottom lip with thumb and forefinger, staring at the red
light as if willing it to change. The lights finally