Manhunter

by Chris Ryan

  Bowman stared unblinking at the plughole, feeling the cold hand of dread clench around his throat. His stash of pills – gone. All of them.

  For a moment he didn’t know what to do. He contemplated unscrewing the pipe but figured the pills would have dissolved by now. Then he began to think more clearly. The situation wasn’t good. He had no spare tablets in his luggage. No emergency stash of meds. Somehow, he was going to have to wing it for the next few hours without any pills. And pray that the shakes didn’t get too bad.

  He walked back down the aisle, sat down opposite Casey. She half smiled, a questioning look on her face.

  ‘Everything all right? You look like you’ve had a fright.’

  ‘Just a lack of sleep. I’ll get over it.’

  He looked away, panic rising in his chest. He tried telling himself to stay calm. But it was no use.

  We’re about to go in and arrest a violent mobster, and I’m staring down the barrel of an opioid withdrawal.

  And there’s nothing I can do about it.

  A few minutes later, the Gulfstream began its descent.

  Thirteen

  They landed at eight o’clock in the morning, on a grey windswept day on the French Riviera. The Gulfstream taxied off the runway to the tarmac stand, the engines dialled down to a whine, the airstairs unfolded. Loader gave the attendant a parting smile, and then the team deboarded. It took them only a few minutes to clear through security and transfer to the heliport. Mallet had explained that they were on the fast-track programme. Something called the Elite Service package. Which brought with it certain privileges, such as a streamlined check-in procedure. A short, squat official gave their passports a cursory glance, and then a pair of waiting airport buggies whizzed them round to the heliport.

  The chopper was an AgustaWestland AW109. The civilian variant. Helicopter of choice for the executive community. The team ascended the retractable steps and made themselves comfortable in the six-seater cabin while another official loaded their holdalls and rucksacks into the luggage compartment. The twin engines screamed, the rotor blades swathed through the air. The pilot performed a series of final checks, testing bits of equipment, gauging dials and meters.

  The Agusta soared into the air above Nice. The pilot rounded the beaches of Cap-Ferrat, roughly following the coastline running north-east towards Monaco. Cruise ships and yachts were strung out like stepping stones on the deep blue water. As they neared the principality, Bowman’s hands began to tremble. His palms were clammy with sweat; veins of it slicked down his back, gluing his shirt to his skin. With the tremors came the deep throbbing pain. The involuntary twitching of his muscles, the drip-drip of anxiety into his guts. Bowman balled his hands into tight fists and hoped the others hadn’t noticed.

  They might realise I’m getting withdrawals, he thought.

  Or worse . . . they’ll think I’m afraid.

  He tried to stay calm. Which wasn’t easy. The cravings were getting intense. He clung to the hope that he might find a stash of drugs at Lang’s apartment. Lang himself didn’t smoke or drink, but he was known to host parties for his friends. Celebrities, financiers, models. The kind of people who dabbled in narcotics. Bowman didn’t know for sure, but there was a slim chance he might find something there. Maybe pills. Maybe something else. Right now, he’d take anything.

  The Agusta approached Monaco from seaward. Below them, Bowman spied a harbour crammed with small fast boats and flashy yachts. Apartment blocks hugged the edge of the marina. From this height they seemed as small and white as sugar cubes. Further inland he glimpsed the football stadium, partially obscured behind a cluster of offices and hotels.

  Seven minutes after they had taken off, the chopper descended towards the marina. They landed at the heliport at the water’s edge, the engine whined and then the team piled out and made for the terminal. Casey consulted her phone, verifying Lang’s last known location, pinching and swiping. Bowman avoided the border official’s gaze as he gave his passport a quick scan. The tremors were much worse now. His left hand began shaking as he strolled out of the terminal building. An hour from now, he would be a shivering wreck.

  You need to get something in your body, the voice in his head warned. Any opioid will do. It doesn’t matter. Just get to Lang’s apartment and find something.

  An enormously overweight man in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts waited for them outside. His face was glossed with sweat. A great hammock of flesh sagged beneath his chin. He had no neck; it had been submerged beneath the fleshy folds of his jowls and shoulders. His arms and legs protruded from his torso like sticks out of a snowman. The man wiped perspiration from his brow with a pocket handkerchief, a seemingly futile exercise, and offered a moist hand to Mallet.

  ‘You must be Peter,’ he said, using the name of Mallet’s ghost ID. UKNs were never told the real names of the people they worked with.

  Mallet shook the man’s hand with great reluctance.

  ‘I’m Barry Vokes,’ the man went on. He spoke with a strong Mancunian accent. ‘I was told to expect you guys.’

  Bowman had been given a few details about Vokes, the UKN, during the briefing. Vokes was ex-Special Branch, a retired detective who had worked with Five and Six on several occasions in the past, carrying out basic surveillance duties, setting up weapons caches and scouting escape routes. He had sold up his place in leafy Hertfordshire and now lived in the south of France, although Bowman couldn’t understand why. The climate clearly didn’t agree with him.

  Mallet surveyed the car park and said, ‘Where’s your ride?’

  ‘This way, guys.’

  Vokes started towards a Peugeot Traveller parked thirty metres away. His thighs chafed as he waddled along. Vokes periodically daubed his sweat-glazed brow.

  ‘Hot today,’ he said as they reached the Traveller. ‘I’ll crank the air con up, don’t worry.’

  ‘It’s sixteen degrees, if that,’ Loader remarked, squinting at the overcast sky.

  ‘Is it? Feels a lot warmer, if you ask me.’ Vokes turned and nodded at Bowman. ‘I’m not the only one struggling in this heat, by the looks of it.’

  Loader gave his colleague a long searching look. ‘What’s wrong with you, pal? You’ve been sweating like an activist in Hong Kong since we landed.’

  ‘Got a cold,’ Bowman snapped. ‘That’s all. It’s no big deal, mate.’

  They piled inside the Traveller. The door thudded shut, and then Vokes backed out of the parking bay.

  ‘First time in Monaco, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Something like that,’ Loader muttered.

  ‘It’s all right here, I suppose,’ Vokes said, answering a question no one had asked. ‘But me, I prefer somewhere a bit quieter. Too much noise here, too many people. The bars are too busy. Takes forever to get served, and the drinks cost a fortune.’

  Vokes was a talker.

  ‘Is that right,’ Mallet said, feigning interest.

  ‘That’s why I moved to the Languedoc, see. Cheaper than here. And you can always get a drink. Tell you what, though. I don’t miss England. Not one bit. All that rain.’ He shuddered in horror at the memory. ‘Not for me.’

  ‘How long to the car park?’ Mallet said.

  ‘Four minutes,’ Vokes replied.

  Mallet met Bowman’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. ‘Get changed. Both of you. Hurry.’

  As soon as they had pulled clear of the heliport, Bowman and Webb ripped open their bags and started changing into their courier uniforms, their movements obscured from view through the tinted windows. Casey retrieved a male wig from her rucksack and handed it to Bowman. He pulled the wig down tight over his head, covering his dark hair with a mop of wavy blond locks. He planted the baseball cap on top, slipped his phone and company ID badge into his trouser pockets and shoved his civvies into his bag, along with his passport and wallet.

  ‘Any word from Six?’ Mallet asked.

  Casey swiped and scrolled on her phone. ‘They just pinged Lang’s p
hone again. Target is still in place.’

  ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t move in the next twenty minutes,’ Loader said.

  They skirted around the football stadium, sheered off the road and rolled down the entry ramp to the underground car park built directly under the pitch. Vokes descended the levels until he found the vehicle he was looking for: a silver Mercedes-Benz E-Class estate parked in the far corner. A big roomy vehicle, with space enough to accommodate five adults and a whole stack of luggage.

  Vokes nosed the Traveller into the space next to the E-Class. A scruffy-looking guy in a polo shirt and chinos climbed out of the Merc. One of the other UKNs, Bowman presumed. Another member of the ex-pat community in the south of France. He looked a decade older than Vokes. Early sixties. His face had more lines in it than a Shakespeare play. His hair had been styled into a comb-over in a poor attempt to conceal his balding pate.

  The Cell team disgorged themselves from the Traveller, grabbed their luggage and met the guy with the comb-over at the back of the E-Class. He chucked a set of keys at Loader and jerked a thumb at the E-Class’s boot compartment.

  ‘Hardware’s inside,’ he said.

  ‘It’s all there?’

  ‘Everything you asked for. She’s got a full tank.’

  ‘Paperwork?’

  ‘In the glovebox.’

  Comb-over swung round to the passenger side of the Traveller and hopped into the cabin alongside Vokes. A few moments later, the Traveller skulked off in the direction of the exit. Mallet popped the boot on the E-Class. Grabbed the black sports bag from the otherwise empty compartment, beat a path round to the front passenger side.

  ‘Get in,’ he ordered. ‘Let’s move.’

  The rest of the team dumped their holdalls in the boot and bundled inside the E-Class: Loader behind the wheel, Mallet in the shotgun seat, Casey, Bowman and Webb in the back. Thirty seconds later, daylight flooded the vehicle as they glided out of the car park. As they motored away from the stadium, Mallet passed the sports bag to the guys in the back. Bowman ripped it open with sweat-slicked hands. A pair of Ruger American Compacts lay in the bottom of the bag. Lightweight pistols, easy to carry and conceal, chambered for the 9 mm Luger round. Each one had a two-inch snub silencer attached to the barrel. Bowman handed one of the weapons to Webb and checked the other himself. His hands were shaking as he released the magazine from the underside of the grip. The clip was full. Seventeen rounds of nine-milli brass.

  He eased the clip back into the mag well, tucked the Ruger into the pancake holster threaded through his waist belt. The holster sat flush against his skin, close to his side. Beneath his thick outer layer, the pistol wouldn’t be visible to anyone. He fished out four pairs of plasticuffs from the bag, handed two pairs to Webb, shoved the others into his trouser pocket.

  ‘Here,’ Mallet said. ‘You’ll need this.’

  He gave Bowman a document wallet with Lang’s address printed on the front.

  ‘Four minutes out,’ said Loader, as they emerged from a tunnel. ‘Get ready.’

  Bowman gazed out of the window, hiding his dilated pupils from his colleagues as they rounded Port Hercules. They carried on east down Avenue J. F. Kennedy, past rows of super yachts, ugly high-rise blocks and tacky restaurants. Casey checked her phone again. Loader stuck to a moderate speed, staying well under the limit.

  We’re almost there, Bowman told himself. Just keep your shit together for a few more minutes. Then you can get into Lang’s apartment, find his drugs stash. Sort yourself out.

  And if he doesn’t have anything? What then?

  I don’t know.

  They cleared a wide roundabout, passed an underground parking garage and shuttled north along Avenue Princesse Grace. One of the world’s most expensive streets, twenty years ago. But it didn’t look like it. Not anymore. Bowman saw dated 1970s apartment blocks the colour of orange peel, roof awnings hanging over the tiny balconies, a handful of drab cafés and garish nightclubs. They tooled on for another hundred metres, past a glass and steel conference centre and a monument to Grace Kelly.

  Getting close now.

  They rolled on for another hundred metres, and then Mallet pointed to a parking area at the side of the road next to the promenade.

  ‘Pull over here,’ he said.

  Loader nudged the E-Class into a free space, parallel with an ice-cream parlour and opposite a luxury car dealership. The engine died. Then they waited. Casey tapped open an encrypted messaging app on her phone and quickly read the text.

  ‘Got another ping on Lang’s phone,’ she said. ‘He’s still in his apartment.’

  ‘This is it,’ Loader said. ‘We’re in business.’

  Mallet and Loader checked their side mirrors, watching for pedestrians. They had talked through this part of the plan in detail on the jet. Bowman and Webb wouldn’t step out of the vehicle until they had confirmed that the coast was clear. If someone happened to see two guys in courier gear getting out of a civilian car, they might get suspicious. Safer to wait until they had a clear run to the apartment.

  Seconds ticked by. Bowman waited impatiently for the signal. He started seeing things. Vivid waking hallucinations. Memories of the night his family had been butchered, seeping into the real world. He saw blood puddled on the pavement. A girl was lying dead on the street, her throat slashed open. Bowman was about to alert his colleagues when he realised she was wearing the same princess outfit as his dead daughter. His Sophie. His wife was there too, a neat bullet hole in the middle of her forehead. Both of them stared at him with accusing eyes.

  He blinked. The images vanished.

  Christ, I need a pill.

  A handful of people passed the E-Class: an elderly man out for a stroll, a young female jogger in leggings, a grey-haired woman in a fur-trimmed coat, walking her toy poodle. None of them gave the estate a second glance. They weren’t driving a supercar, they didn’t have a VIP escort. Therefore, they were unimportant.

  As soon as the dog-walker had moved on, Mallet half turned in his seat and nodded at the guys in the back seats.

  ‘We’re clear. Go.’

  A mild breeze thrust in from the sea, mussing Bowman’s blond wig as he got out and set off north with Webb. Ahead of them, a hundred metres away, the Du Veil apartment building towered over its neighbours. A glassy structure shaped like a tower fan, twenty-three storeys high. To the left of the building was a chic restaurant with a rooftop garden. To the right, an older pastel-coloured block. Monegasque flags fluttered above the entrance.

  They hit the zebra crossing and approached the entrance in short, brisk strides. Just another pair of couriers in a powerful hurry. They swept through the sliding glass doors and entered a wide lobby decorated with abstract sculptures, chandeliers and designer furniture. The floor looked as polished as a green army recruit’s boots on parade day. A slim, tanned concierge stood behind a dark wooden desk, dressed in a suit so sharp you could hack through bamboo with it. There was a framed picture behind him. Prince Albert II and his wife, beaming for the camera.

  The concierge stared at the two men as they drew near, as if deciding how to deal with them. His eyes dropped to their logo-branded jackets and caps, and when he looked up again, he flashed a polite but firm smile at them. As if signifying that he was prepared to tolerate their presence, as basic human courtesy, but no more than that. The tag above his breast pocket gave his name as Raymond.

  ‘Oui, messieurs?’ he asked sharply. ‘Yes, may I help you?’

  ‘We’re from HLO Global,’ Bowman said. ‘Got some legal documents for Mr David Lang to sign.’

  ‘HLO?’ The concierge’s eyebrows came together. ‘But your caps, monsieur, they say you are from HLX, non?’

  Bowman opened his mouth, but no words came out. He couldn’t focus. Started to panic. ‘Yeah. No, I mean—’

  Webb hastily stepped forward and said a few quick words in French to the concierge. He made an exaggerated gesture, waving a hand at Bowman and shrugging as if t
o say, What can you do? I’ve got to work with this idiot for a living. The concierge smiled. His expression visibly relaxed. Webb gestured to the document and tapped his watch. A clear signal. Emphasising that the job was urgent. His body language said: We’ve got to get these papers signed. Can you help us out? Bowman watched his colleague with surprise. The quiet, shy soldier had completely transformed himself into a chatty, cheerful French delivery driver.

  The concierge picked up the phone and dialled a number.

  Lang answered on the fourth ring. The concierge addressed him in a grovelling tone of voice, telling him about the couriers, the important papers. There was a pause before Lang barked something inaudible. Then the line clicked dead. Raymond replaced the receiver. Looked up.

  ‘You may go up,’ he said in English, for the benefit of Webb’s colleague. ‘Monsieur Lang, he will see you.’

  ‘We will have to wait upstairs,’ Webb pointed out. ‘For the other parties to arrive. We must have all the signatures before returning the papers to the office.’

  ‘Bien. Not a problem. This way, please, messieurs.’

  They followed him across the foyer, towards a bank of private lifts reserved for the building’s wealthiest residents. The concierge touched a master key card against a magnetic reader below the control panel and selected the eighteenth floor from the touchscreen display. The leftmost lift doors pinged open, and then Bowman and Webb stepped inside the gold-decorated car. The concierge trotted back to his station. The doors slid gently shut.

  The soldiers kept their heads low as they rode upwards, shielding their faces from the security cameras.

  ‘What the fuck was that about?’ Webb said icily.

  ‘I forgot the name of the company,’ Bowman muttered. ‘It’s no big deal, mate.’

  ‘You almost blew the op.’

  ‘It was a mistake,’ Bowman said in a low voice. ‘Won’t happen again.’

  ‘You’d better hope not.’

  ‘What did you say to that guy?’ asked Bowman.

  Webb glanced at him, a flinty look in his eyes. ‘I told him it was your first day on the job,’ he said. ‘And probably your last, too.’