by David Caris
‘You stupid bitch.’ Yvette cut left to the farm fence. She struggled to get over it with her hands tied, mumbling something about dumb whores and sharp wire. Then she stormed out into the paddock, beginning a futile search.
Anna, staring at her, began to feel something beyond irritation.
Hatred? Yes. It was that strong, that primal. This idiot was going to get her killed. She should’ve known better than to listen to her in the first place, should’ve known better than to trust her when she forced the window. She had been big-noting herself since the moment she was thrown into the room. She was sitting on the story of the century, she said. She had powerful friends, she said.
So where the hell were they?
Anna tried one last time. ‘If I can get in touch with Kovac, I can tell him everything. They want me dead because I can tell him everything. If I tell him, I’m no longer the threat. Do you get that? He’ll be the threat.’
‘Will you shut up and help me find this phone?’
Anna stared into the darkness for a beat, then realized she had no choice. She turned and started walking along the road again, leaving Yvette behind.
‘Where are you going?’ she shouted from the paddock.
‘Town.’
‘You’re leaving me here?’
‘Unless you follow, yeah.’
Anna didn’t need a girl like Yvette slowing her down. Either Yvette got with her plan, or they worked this problem separately.
They were probably an easier target as a pair anyway.
She tried jogging, desperate to get clear of Yvette and the phone now, but it was too hard with the zip ties. Her wrists hurt and might even have been bleeding. It was hard to tell in the dark, but Anna had tried to cut through the plastic at one stretch of fence and she suspected the only thing she had cut was her own skin.
‘Wait!’ She heard Yvette trying to get back over the fence, heard the wire strain in the dark. ‘I don’t want to be alone out here. Wait.’
Yvette sounded like she was running, the sound carrying even over the distant bellowing of a cow.
Anna turned away and started walking again. ‘Then keep up,’ she said under her breath.
‘Lights.’
Anna spun at the single word from Yvette and saw the distant car. It was moving fast, too fast. In an instant, she knew she didn’t want anything to do with it. But Yvette was running back towards it, waving, screaming.
This fucking girl.
Anna ran across the road, away from Yvette, the car and the phone, and rolled clumsily over another fence. She started sprinting into another dark paddock, because that’s all there was out here. Paddocks and darkness.
She heard the car arrive.
She turned back and saw Yvette step out in front of its headlights, showing off her zip-tied wrists. Someone got out.
A man.
Tall.
‘Oh shit.’
Anna saw him raise a pistol and heard the shots. One two. Yvette dropped on the spot.
Chapter 62
Once again, Luther Curzon felt the lines between business and family blurring.
Ben Lewis was on the other end of the call, waiting on Luther’s decision. If Luther understood Lewis’ coded talk correctly, Lewis had just killed the journalist and was now hunting down the Austrian escort, Anna.
Luther had not authorized the killing of the journalist. On the contrary, he had wanted her alive. She was a freelance journalist, which meant she needed help. A feature article with the sort of damning revelations hers contained would need extensive proofing and an army of lawyers before publication. And it would need a publisher. He had wanted all those names, but with Yvette dead Luther had no way to know who had the article and whether it would soon make headlines around the world.
Worse still, if Megan learned of Yvette’s execution, Luther would never be able to convince her that it wasn’t him. She would never believe that Lewis had taken matters into his own hands.
He scrunched his eyes and rubbed at his face, reluctant to face the obvious choice.
There had to be another way…
He looped back to the beginning, thinking through the problem.
According to Lewis, Anna had likely seen the journalist die, but no one else had. Lewis hadn’t yet been able to locate Anna in the paddocks, but he was confident he could. What the two girls were doing in paddocks in the first place, Luther didn’t know. Nor did it matter. The escape had happened. And with one girl dead, there was no getting around the fact the other might talk.
No real choice, he thought, bitterly now. Anna had been a liability for a long time, and Luther had given Bishop a green light to deal with her once already.
Now, it would need to be Lewis who got the job done.
Luther watched Bishop enter the plane. Megan stood and greeted him with a hug. Bishop started dumping bags, choosing a seat at random. Luther knew how this would go. Bishop would rest until they were approaching their cruising altitude, then spend this flight checking gear and getting organized.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Lewis asked, drawing Luther back into his mess.
Luther stepped out of sight to quickly use his nebulizer, then returned to his original position. ‘What did Bishop suggest?’ he asked.
‘He told me to ring you.’
Bishop shot Luther a look, no doubt guessing at the nature of this call.
Luther gave him a subtle nod in reply.
The path froward was clear. Unpleasant, but clear. Lewis had proven himself a rank amateur. Without Bishop, he had made a hash of everything. The girl would need to go, and down the line Lewis would need to go, too. For now, though, Lewis would get the battlefield promotion he had wanted for so long – a promotion he had essentially bestowed upon himself by shooting the journalist.
Lewis could clean up his own mess, and he could clean up Van Heythuysen, too.
Luther said: ‘Capture her, get her back to the house, and phone me for a final okay.’
He ended the call. The thought of executing Anna in cold blood made him sick to the stomach, it really did. But he couldn’t risk her contacting Megan, Kovac, the police or the press. He needed everything to hold just as it was for a few more hours, until he had dealt with Dauguet. Then, and only then, would he have room to maneuver.
He forced his face into a good approximation of a smile, and stood. ‘Bishop,’ he called out by way of greeting, suppressing his guilt and putting on a show for Megan’s benefit. ‘Welcome aboard.’
Chapter 63
Just lie down in the grass and stay perfectly still.
The grass was long. It came halfway up her shins and she was at least thirty yards in from the fence. That was a large area for Tall Man to search, but it seemed like he was going to give it a shot.
A light clicked on down at the car. Not a flashlight. It looked more like the light on a phone, the flash repurposed.
God she wanted to run. She could get deeper into the darkness, but then he would know she was here. He would follow.
Slowly, her heart racing, Anna lowered herself into the grass. She went down onto her stomach, lying on her zip-tied hands. She could smell the dirt, could hear her breath rearranging it ever so slightly beneath her nose. Grass itched her cheek, but she remained motionless. Even when she heard the wires of the fence strain under the weight of him, she didn’t move.
Thirty yards in.
It wasn’t enough.
She closed her eyes and held her breath, listening in the dark, triangulating. Why hadn’t she run further, damn it. She had stood there staring, like the idiot she was.
She heard him start through the grass, coming straight for her. She opened her eyes again as the light swept over her, but only the outer reaches of it. Diffuse, hardly light at all. She waited for the next sweep, the one that would reveal her. A dark mass, unnatural against the ground and grass
But it never came.
Chapter 64
Kovac’s late-night journey on the scooter from Tours t
o Nantes was torturous, but Nantes was the closest help Bishop had been able to arrange at short notice.
From Nantes, Kovac was flown in a turboprop Cessna across the border into Spain, landing at Zaragoza Airport a little under four hours later.
Here, struggling to get cell phone reception, and struggling to check in with Bishop, he collected a Curzon-supplied rental car and drove it to a secluded farm on the edge of Romanos, Aragon. Kovac remembered the road from nine years ago. He had driven out here last time, too, albeit during the day. Now, the road was narrow and pale in his headlights, and he saw only hints of the vast, flat fields that lay to either side.
He was nervous pulling into the little farm at this hour, his headlights running over a stone outhouse on the edge of the property. Inside this outhouse, he knew, were military-grade weapons. Or at least, that’s what had been there nine years ago. He had used this dealer ahead of the Cuenca job, and the man had been gruff even with plenty of notice.
The dealer didn’t take kindly to Kovac knocking on his door in the middle of the night now. At first, he feigned confusion and threatened to call the police. Then, when Kovac reminded him of his last visit, he claimed to have exited the gun business. Kovac persevered. He reminded the heavyset, bearded man of his past discretion and generous payment, and he promised an even larger payment without complication in the days ahead.
Minimal work, minimal risk, maximum reward.
Reluctantly, the man dressed and collected a flashlight, leading Kovac out to the shed. There wasn’t much inventory, and there were no accessories, suggesting the man was in fact exiting the game. None of it was ideal and, crucially, the man had no sniper rifles. But Kovac was able to negotiate for two handguns and ammunition. Twenty minutes after arriving, he was driving out again.
He parked in Cuenca roughly an hour and a half before dawn. He had only had intermittent cell phone service since entering Spain, and he lost another twenty minutes getting the address for the hotel Luther had booked at short notice. In contrast to Kovac, everything had apparently gone smoothly for Luther, Megan and Bishop. All three explained they had landed at Madrid around the same time Kovac was at Zaragoza. They had organized food, before making the drive across to Cuenca.
The hotel Bishop had chosen for them wasn’t one of the touristy places. It didn’t look like it belonged in the 1600s. Instead, it was a modern, utilitarian building that sat on the edge of the city. Kovac noted that it gave quick access to the hiking trail they would need to shadow if they were to have any hope of establishing sniper perches ahead of Bibi’s arrival.
Kovac had thought long and hard about Luther and Bishop’s plan – or lack thereof – while completing the drive down to Cuenca, and he was convinced the mission was no longer viable. It wasn’t just the lack of weaponry, so he didn’t change his mind when Bishop revealed he had a rifle with a scope and simple rangefinder.
Kovac gave it to them straight as soon as they were all in the hotel room, sipping coffee. ‘We can’t pose as hikers. For one thing, we don’t have hiking gear. And more to the point, after last time with Rose, Bibi will expect it.’
‘She doesn’t know we’re here,’ Luther said.
Kovac didn’t agree, but he nodded. This was his long-time boss, and old habits died hard. ‘If we’re setting out as a two-man sniper team, we can’t afford detection by Bibi or anyone working for her. We won’t last in a sustained engagement without some kind of security element, which we don’t have. So we have to assume we’re under observation. Problem is, we don’t have camouflage and we need to move fast. If we had ghillie suits, maybe… but we don’t.’
Bishop said: ‘If we could delay the meet, assume a concealed position, wait a few hours, then move into a perch… But then we tip our hand.’
‘Exactly,’ Kovac said. ‘And by then it’s light out, and we’re two guys running around with our dicks in our hands.’
Bishop nodded to the sniper rifle in the corner of the room. ‘A little more than our dicks.’
The rifle was a basic bolt-action Remington. Kovac didn’t recognize it. It didn’t come from one of the weapons bags Luther, Bishop and Kovac normally traveled with. Kovac knew every item in those bags. ‘That’s not one of ours, right?’
Bishop bobbed his head sideways, as if shaking water out of his ear after a swim. ‘Acquired from a contact in Madrid,’ he said, conceding the point.
‘Balcazar?’ Kovac asked.
‘Flores,’ Bishop said. ‘Balcazar didn’t answer his phone.’
‘If it was Balcazar, maybe we could assume it was halfway accurate without us spending an hour at a range, but Flores… We might as well hike out there and throw the gun at Bibi for all the good that thing will do us.’
‘He said it was good to go.’
‘It’ll be light out soon,’ Luther said. ‘All I’m hearing from the two of you is why this won’t work. Tell me what will work.’
‘Nothing else,’ Kovac said, draining the last of his coffee. The annoying thing was, Luther was right. The entire conversation was a waste of time, because with dawn rapidly approaching they didn’t have any choice. If Bibi showed, they had to take their shot. And, assuming Bibi wasn’t watching them already, they would have the element of surprise working in their favor.
‘There’s only one place we’re relatively sure she’ll go,’ Megan said. ‘And that’s the site of her sister’s execution. If we’re sticking with an attempted ambush, it has to be there. Anywhere else and it’s a crapshoot.’
‘It sounds like it’s a crapshoot as it is,’ Luther said. He crossed to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, and Kovac noticed he seemed to be weak and struggling for air. ‘So we’re agreed then?’ he asked. ‘There isn’t a better option?’ When no one offered up a better idea he nodded to himself. ‘Then this is our play,’ he said. ‘Kovac, Megan has filled me in on what you prevented in Paris. For all we know, Dauguet has other attacks planned. We know she has the BoNT to do it, and she has a supply of depressed, deranged individuals willing to help her thanks to DELPHI.’ He put the water aside without taking a sip, crossed back to the rifle, picked it up and handed it to Kovac. ‘For all of us this morning, there’s plenty at stake. But let’s imagine for a moment that Bibi doesn’t know we’re coming… Let’s imagine you can find a perch from which this rifle is accurate enough to end her life. Don’t we owe that to those children in Paris, and to thousands like them around the world?’
Kovac had not argued this point, so Luther went ahead and declared the meeting over, insisting they were out of time. There was something in his voice though, a resignation, a defeated edge even, that unnerved Kovac. Luther was expecting to lose this battle, and like all losers entering the end game of anything, he was clinging to his longshot in the hope everything would magically swing his way.
Kovac realized that, out of necessity, he was doing the same. If he had even a slim chance of killing Bibi Dauguet, he was going to take it. Because nothing had changed since Rose. He had killed her for far less and never regretted it for a second.
‘Okay then,’ he said, figuring his odds of dying before lunch were pretty good. ‘Let’s get this over and done with.’
Chapter 65
Ten minutes later, Kovac set out on foot with Bishop, the two of them tracking the dark green Júcar River. This time Kovac avoided the hiking trails and made use of any and all natural cover; but there wasn’t a lot of it to go around. Just rocks and scrub. That was why he had posed as a hiker last time, and he felt exposed this morning. He kept the Remington close to his body, disguising it and the length of its barrel. He kept his pistol disguised too, irritated he hadn’t been able to acquire a holster. But no matter how he tried, the fact was he was upright and walking. He was a familiar shape, and possibly even a nice silhouette against the night sky.
Dick in his hand, he thought again, although it did feel good to be out under a few stars. That was one sight that never got old, especially when mortality was on his mind.
/>
Arriving at the site of Rose’s execution just ahead of dawn, they began their search for natural perches. Kovac didn’t use his small U-shaped perch from last time. It was possibly known to Bibi, and it was too far out anyway. He went with a new perch Bishop located, one which – like the old perch – could only be entered from the front.
Kovac eased himself in and quietly set up the rifle, bemoaning the fact there was no mat this time, no bipod, no beanbag. He didn’t even have a rangefinder. The only rangefinder was Bishop’s, and Kovac didn’t trust that any more than he trusted this Remington rifle.
He set up the rifle as best he could. He had no DOPE book, no detailed notes. He would be shooting from memory, from instinct almost. He didn’t like it. Even if Bibi showed, and even if this turned out not to be a trap, he doubted he could make this shot with a bolt action he hadn’t prepared himself. And how was he meant to fine-tune for elevation and windage?
Adding insult to injury, there was the issue of comms. Kovac had no radio, no headset, nothing quick or effective that he could use to coordinate with Bishop if they ended up separated. All he had was Megan’s cell phone, which he’d grabbed from her before leaving the hotel – both because her phone was secure, and because it had far better reception here in Spain than Kovac’s Paris burner.
Kovac put it out of mind.
It was one of a million things he didn’t control.
What he did control was this coming shot.
One shot, one kill.
He was on one side of a ravine, overlooking the hiking path where he had ambushed Rose nine years ago. He used the scope to start searching the opposite side of the ravine, ostensibly for an enemy sniper, though he didn’t expect to find one. If there was a sniper opposite them, Kovac would’ve taken a high-powered round to the face by now.
He went on searching.
He almost regretted coming out here.
Almost.
He reminded himself what Bibi had tried to do in Paris – what she still wanted to do – and put the pad of his finger to the trigger.
