The Double Tap (Stephen Leather Thrillers) by Stephen Leather

open. It was the bathroom, a cheap yellow bathroom suite and a green knitted cover on the toilet seat, with a matching cover on a spare toilet roll. He closed the door.
            Davie was breathing like a train, his nostrils flaring. He had the tea towel in his left hand, the Browning in the other, and Lynch was pleased to see he had the safety off and the barrel pointing straight up. His finger was outside the trigger guard, just as he’d been told. Davie swallowed nervously as Lynch brushed by him and stood by the second door. Lynch seized the handle, nodded at O’Riordan, and thrust open the door.
            The boy was standing in the middle of the bedroom, his back to them. He was listening to a Sony Walkman through headphones and playing air guitar, whipping his long red hair backwards and forwards in time to the music. The three men filed into the room and Davie closed the door behind them. It was a typical teenager’s room: rock ’n’ roll posters on the wall, a pile of dirty laundry in one corner, a cheap veneered bookcase filled with paperbacks, and a single bed with the bedclothes in disarray. It smelt of old socks and sweat and was almost as unsavoury as the stable where O’Riordan kept his arms cache.
            The boy whirled around then froze as he saw his visitors. His mouth fell open, then he was suddenly galvanised into action, throwing himself across the bed and clutching for the window. O’Riordan dropped the carrier bag on the floor, stepped forward and grabbed one of the boy’s legs, pulling him hard and throwing him onto his stomach. The boy began to scream as O’Riordan sat across the base of his spine, pinning him to the bed. The boy lashed out with his arms but O’Riordan wriggled up his back and used his knees to hold him down. ‘Fuck off, yez bastards!’ the boy screamed, bucking and twisting even under O’Riordan’s weight.
            ‘Davie, come on lad,’ urged O’Riordan. ‘Get on with it.’
            Davie rushed forward and used the tea towel to gag the struggling boy, then moved around to the foot of the bed and grabbed the boy’s ankles. O’Riordan put his head down close to the boy’s face. The towel muffled his screams. His cheeks were pockmarked with old acne scars and his red hair was unkempt and dirty, flecked with dandruff. O’Riordan grabbed a handful of hair and yanked his head back. ‘Listen to me, Ger. This is going to happen whether you struggle or not, do you hear me?’ The boy said nothing but continued to try to get up. O’Riordan thrust the barrel of the shotgun against the boy’s temple and tapped it, hard enough to hurt. ‘If you cooperate, they’ll be able to patch you up and you’ll be on your feet in a few months. Carry on fucking with us and you’ll never walk again. It’s up to you. Am I getting through to you, Ger?’ The boy suddenly went still. ‘That’s better,’ said O’Riordan. ‘Now take your punishment like a man and we can all get on our way.’ He sat up, keeping his weight pressed down on the boy’s shoulderblades.
            Lynch reached around to the front of the boy’s waist, unclipped his leather belt and pulled his jeans down to his ankles. ‘Sit on his calves, it’ll stop him kicking out,’ Lynch told Davie and the young man obeyed. The boy began to cry, his tears staining the pillow.
            Lynch was a veteran of more than a dozen kneecappings and he knew how important it was to seize control from the outset and to give the victim no opportunity to resist. Kneecapping was a particularly brutal form of punishment, but it worked, serving as a permanent reminder both to the victim and to others. No matter how good the surgeons – and the surgeons in Belfast were the best in the world at repairing and replacing shattered joints – the knee would never be as good as new. Even after the ceasefire, the IRA used kneecapping to punish drug dealers, rapists and joyriders, and men like Lynch had