Chapter 4

The first real strike came three days after that 'meeting'. Enrico Costas, one of Viola's newer lieutenants, was driving a purple plated Nordberg down in Salander, his crew in the passenger seats. Viola had decided that as the so-called 'True Saints' knew where Kinzie had her operations, it would be safer to move her entire operation closer to headquarters. They were carrying some of her boxes in the car's sizeable trunk, smoking joints and shooting the shit.

Jean Augustine, the huge Haitian, was looking around edgily, scanning the road. They crossed a Brown Baggers on the corner by the bridge, and he suddenly snapped his fingers.

"Hey, pull over here, man," he said, pointing. "I gotta go pick up some wine."

"Wine?" said Rico, wrinkling his nose. "You some kinda high society culo?"

"It's for my woman, motherfucker," said Jean, scowling at him. "Pull over!"

"Alright, alright, don't take too long." The car stopped, and he got out. He had decided he didn't like Costas. He was a relatively new member, and he'd gotten promoted way over him. Jean had been part of the Saints back in Stillwater, and had been one of the first soldiers that Pierce called over. Now, he was facing a low-rent future while the bandwagon-jumpers got ahead. Viola said she didn't have any bias against Stillwater Saints, but Jean saw that as pure political bullshit designed to keep guys like him in line.

He entered the liquor store casually, nodding a greeting at the shopkeeper. As soon as he was out of the car's eye line, he observed the window like a hawk. He knew exactly what to look for. After around a minute, a Thorogood pulled into view from the crossroads. The huge figure in the back told him this was the car he was waiting for. He walked briskly out of the store, towards the car, a curious sense of calm washing over him. Without a moment's hesitation, he took the 45 Shepherd he'd had since he joined the gang, said a silent prayer and shot Enrico twice in the face. His head burst open and a macabre pinkish fog spread around the car.

What happened after that, Jean had seen hundreds of times before when ambushing enemies. This was probably the most impressive, though. The brain has two extreme states in terms of threat management; there is the ultra-calm and the ultra-threatened, which engages the fight or flight reflex in with the highest urgency. The ultra-calm state comes from the feeling that nothing can threaten you. It's the type of calm that someone will feel just before going to sleep, or in the bath. You expect nothing to harm you, and in 99.999999% of times, nothing will. However, you still have an evolutionary awareness, so if someone breaks down your door, then you are prepared enough to defend yourself. But when your terror is absolute and immediate, you go into system shock. Time moves slower for you than it ever has. Jean and the three remaining Saints were frozen in time for what seemed like a minute, the sheer shock of impact meaning that the others didn't immediately grab their guns and turn him into Swiss cheese.

By the time they had actually reached for their guns, the car containing Pierce, Shaundi, Oleg and two True Saints pulled up and sprayed the car with gunfire. When the brief moment had passed and time was flowing normally for Jean, the four remaining Saints in the car were dead.

"You done good, Jean," said Pierce, jumping out of the car and shaking his hand. "You done real good. C'mon. There'll be more coming."

He jumped into the back of the pickup with Oleg and two of the guys that had already shown their true colours. Jean knew them well. Ibrahim Khan and Donnie Strauss had been Stillwater originals like him, and they were one of only a select few that could boast being in the gang before and after the boat explosion that changed everything. Jean himself had fought Vice Kings, Ronin and Morningstar in one lifetime. Now he was fighting his own people.

"You're a good guy, Aug," said Donnie. He passed him a beer. "We're gonna win this thing."

In the front seat, Shaundi was visually flustered. She kept fingering her gun by her hip. Pierce looked at her concernedly.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, breathlessly. "It just kinda struck me now that we're gonna spill some blood here. Blood of our own people."

"Yep," he said simply, and decided to clam up until they got back to base.

You're one of the lifers now.

That was the message the screws had wanted to stamp in. He'd be an old man before any chance of freedom came up naturally. The British justice system was pretty damn lenient nowadays, at least if you were a nonce or a tax evader, but cop killers still got the harshest sentences.

They were a curious type, the lifers. They comprised some of the worst human beings out there. The psycho slashers, the East End gangsters, the rapists. His reputation in America made him something of a celebrity among the professional criminals, who were fascinated by the concept of a world they could control bigger than the squats and council houses that compromised their turfs. Plus, his mysterious lack of a name got them thinking.

There was a loose fraternity among the pros. Drug lords from Peckham, Yardies and rudeboys from Bethnal Green, armed robbers from Dagenham and even Russian human traffickers had formed an unusual alliance. The only lifers not permitted to join were the head cases, the sexual predators and the loonies just sane enough to avoid the loony bin.

The boss lived comfortably as one of the group's leaders. He got to exchange his usual procedure of gun violence in favour of punishment beatings against troublesome inmates. People feared the lifers as they had far less to lose. Prisoners on short sentences avoided them like the plague, terrified of either getting involved in something that would extend their sentences or coming to serious harm. All in all, life in prison was an eerie calm he'd been awaiting for years.

It took all of his mental energy to try to find a way to communicate with the Saints. He didn't know, of course, that a civil war had begun. He wanted to send a letter to HQ, but even though there wasn't a trial to think of, snail mail left a paper trail that could help the Steelport PD assemble any case they wanted against the Saints. And electronic communication from a secure place like Belmarsh was just as stupid.

The answer came around two weeks after he first entered the lifers' wing. A very small number of his fellow inmates got visitors; people tended to stop coming after three years or so. They forgot, or it got too painful. As someone cut off completely from his friends, he never expected a visitor, so it shocked him when he got one. He was playing poker in the common room when the message came through, and it baffled him; surely it was a mistake?

He was visibly taken aback when he stepped out into the visitors' room and saw Dorian Sinclair sitting at a table. The old crook was a bizarre, almost hilarious throwback to a time before. His hair was fully grey but intact, with not even a hint of a receding hairline. His wrinkled face bore several large scars from his violent roots, but his eyes, brilliant and blue, were as sharp as they had ever been. He wore a crisp sheepskin coat and a pinstripe suit.

"Alright?" he said, affably.

The boss sat down. "My God. Dorian Sinclair as I live and breathe. How the hell are ya?"

"Not bad," said the old man in a harsh, rasping voice. When the boss knew him, he smoked four cigars a day, so that explained a great deal of it. He was amazed the old man was still here. "Can we, uh, can we talk?"

The boss looked around, making sure the screws were out of earshot. "Yeah."

"You done me a real good turn, son," said Sinclair. "When I read about you going on trial, I was worried. Ten years, you didn't know what I was doing, or whether I was dead or alive, and you still never grassed me up. Didn't mention my name one fucking time. You're a good bloke. They don't make 'em like you often."

"I wouldn't grass," he replied. "It's against my code."

"You're part of a dying breed," said Sinclair, slightly maudlin. "You did me a really good turn with Francis and you did me a really good turn in the Crown Court. I think you're owed one." He clapped his hands together. "So name it. Now, I can't break you out. I haven't got that kind of clout anymore. But anything else, name it. You want pills sending in here? Maybe a bit of charlie to make the nights go easier? Maybe some money going to someone on civvy street while you're banged up? Wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend? I ain't been in the nick that long, you cheeky cunt!" He laughed. Sinclair joined in, an oily, raspy laugh. "You know what, though?" he asked, suddenly serious. "Fuck. You're a Godsend! You couldn't have come at a better time!"

"You name it, it's done."

"Fucking Godsend," the boss repeated. "Listen, it's nothing smuggling or money. What I really need, really need, is for you to get in contact with someone for me. It needs to be absolutely hush hush. Nothing over the phone. Know what I mean?"

"Say no more," said Sinclair. "Well, tell me the number, and then say no more."

Shaundi looked at Pierce worriedly as he packed his bags. They had decided to hold their official headquarters in an abandoned church a couple of blocks from Loren Square for this week. It had the familiarity of the first Saints headquarters, so gave the old timers a nostalgic rush and symbolised rebirth. The rest of them; Oleg and around five deserters now, were saddling up for an ambush. Pierce was saddling up to go to the airport.

"Are you sure it's a good idea?" she asked, not for the first time.

Pierce nodded. "The guy said he had information I needed. I wish he could have told me more over the phone, but I can see why he didn't."

"It could be a trap," she countered, also not for the first time.

"Look," he began, forcefully. Shaundi usually got to be the one to speak forcefully, but she was acting out of worry, and not sense here. "If Viola wanted to set a trap for me, she wouldn't send me on a flight to London. Besides, the guy was clearly British. You can't fake a good British accent. Just ask Don Cheadle! That motherfucker spent three Ocean movies trying to get it right, and he sounded like a tool. Who do we know that's British? Naw, fuck that, who do we know from London?"

"You're right," she said, relenting in a way she hadn't done before.

"And when I'm right, I'm right. Right?"

"Just get to the freaking airport. And call in when you land. Use a code word. 'The sparrow has landed' or some shit."

"Wasn't that a Michael Caine movie?"

"You're thinking Eagle. Moron." But she grinned. Pierce took a taxi to Wesley Cutter, not wanting to leave a car there for the Saints to rig a car bomb to. It was paranoid thinking, but it paid to be paranoid in this climate.

Pierce had never been to London. The boss had talked about his upbringing sometimes when the two of them had been drinking, and he made the city sound quite a miserable place. Lembath…Lambeth… which was where he grew up, was particularly depicted as a piece of shit ghetto. Perhaps that was why the boss never told anyone his name; because he didn't want any association with his life there? Pierce made a mental note to ask him when he saw him.

He touched down at Gatwick in the early afternoon. The skies were overcast, and he was slightly disappointed that the airport was too far out in the country for him to see the famous London skyline. He was going to see the famous Gherkin after he visited the boss.

There was a large man at the arrivals gate with a sign bearing the name P. Washington. He hadn't expected his mystery caller to send a car. His alarm rose slightly, but he decided that this was probably just a courtesy.

"Hey," he said to the man as he left the gate. "I'm P. Washington. I mean, I'm Pierce."

"Alright, mate?" said the man, in a similar voice to the boss's. He was a terrifying sight to behold; completely bald, with a frame that made him look like King Kong under his dark overcoat. His knuckles had LOVE-HATE tattooed on them. Several of his teeth were missing, replaced by gold. "The car's just out here."

They crossed into the car park, and Pierce was slightly taken aback to see a black Status Quo waiting for him. The man lifted his suitcase into the car's trunk and opened the door for him.

Pierce knew by intuition that the man waiting inside was the one who had phoned him. He was old but fierce-looking, and was dressed to the nines. He was drinking scotch from a tumbler that Pierce recognised as pure crystal and had a pinstripe suit on. He could have been straight out of one of those movies the boss got him to watch once by Madonna's ex-husband. Something about a poker game and a guy that drowned people; he had been too drunk to pay attention to it properly.

"Nice to meet you, Pierce," said the man, and then Pierce was sure it was him. "I'm Dorian Sinclair." He raised his glass. "Scotch?"

"Sure," said Pierce, and Sinclair poured him a glass from a minibar on the floor of the limo.

"Thanks for, uh, picking me up," said Pierce, taking a drink.

"Better than fart-arsing around at East Croydon. Worst fucking station in London. Anyway. I've got some information for you, like I said on the phone. It's about your boss."

"Holy shit," said Pierce. "He's alive? Tell me he's fuckin' alive!"

"He's alive," said Sinclair. "Only problem is, he's banged up."

"So, he's…." Pierce paused. "Okay, I'll level with you, dawg, I have no idea what that means."

Dorian took a large gulp, finishing his drink. "He's in prison."