Lethal Profit

by Alex Blackmore

  ‘And the lungs?’

  ‘Despite the fibrosis he said he got a completely clear picture of what was in them and there was only one thing that would not normally be there.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Algae spores.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  MANSFIELD WAS SURPRISED, AND slightly annoyed, when Joseph Smith re-entered his study. The man had no manners and simply opened the door, rather than knocking first. He shut the door carefully behind him and locked it so quietly that Mansfield didn’t hear the bolt slide home.

  ‘Are they dispatched?’

  ‘I’ve sent them with some of my best men. We had a girl to deliver, along with a small consignment and so they have gone on one of our private scheduled flights.’

  ‘Girl?’ Mansfield was confused.

  ‘Yes. She will work there for the CEO – if you know what I mean.’ Joseph Smith’s eyes flashed, challenging Mansfield to be outraged.

  Suddenly Mansfield felt nervous. There was no reason for Smith to be telling him this. In fact, passing over such incriminating information about the CEO’s business affairs would give Mansfield even more of a hold over him. Mansfield had always suspected that the CEO’s organisation sat more on the dirty side of business but he had chosen to ignore it to pursue his own goal of a well-lined purse. But now Smith seemed to be feeding him a story of a ‘consignment’ – drugs? – and a ‘girl’ – trafficking? Was he trying to undermine the CEO, looking for another paymaster like a rat off a sinking ship?

  ‘Has the CEO made the payment?’ Mansfield just wanted to extricate himself from this mess.

  ‘He said to call him.’

  Irritated, Mansfield reached for the phone. He had done his part now – twice – and he expected to be paid. He was a government minister and he still held considerable power – no matter what the CEO thought, there was action he could take if the payment wasn’t forthcoming this time.

  He entered the pass code into the slim metal device and watched the screen light up. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Smith moving around the room, handling Mansfield’s precious objets d’art. The other man stopped at the small wooden flip-top desk that had been Mansfield’s school desk at Eton, which still had his initials carved into the side above the leg. On a sentimental whim Mansfield had offered the school an obscene amount of money for the desk and then later regretted it, but looking at it now he realised having it in his office was a constant reminder of what had been the happiest days of his life.

  He was about to tell Smith to stop playing with it when the CEO answered the phone and all Mansfield’s attention was focused on the sound of his voice.

  ‘Well done, John. We are most grateful.’

  ‘It was a pleasure.’ Mansfield said, his voice hard and flat to disguise the nerves that were flaring at every ending.

  ‘And they are on the plane.’

  ‘Yes, they left with your… consignment.’

  After momentary consideration, Mansfield had concluded that he had been taken somewhat into the CEO’s confidence when Smith had imparted that information. He wanted somehow to convey to the CEO that, as long as he upheld his end of the bargain, knowledge he held about the CEO’s business dealings would remain confidential.

  The CEO ignored him.

  ‘Where are the memory sticks?’

  ‘Joseph Smith has them all.’

  ‘Very good work.’

  ‘And the girl's phone?’

  ‘That too.’

  ‘What about my payment?’

  ‘It is being arranged.’

  ‘I don’t have long before I need to be on a plane out of here.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Mansfield, you won’t be around to take the flak.’

  Mansfield smiled. Finally, he thought. ‘I’m glad we could bring this to a satisfactory conclusion.’

  ‘So am I.’

  At that moment Mansfield realised Joseph Smith was standing right behind him, but it was too late to move before Smith plunged the needle into the back of his shoulder. The shock of the impact forced Mansfield to drop the phone and his arm was completely immobilised as Smith drove the plunger home.

  Stunned, he tried to stagger to his feet, but Smith – the stronger man by far – pushed him back down into the chair.

  He silently pulled the syringe from Mansfield’s shoulder and began methodically putting it back in the medical case he had left on top of the flip-top desk.

  Mansfield leant forward on the desk. He realised he was struggling for breath.

  ‘You can’t do this to me. I am a member of Her Majesty’s Government. I know things!’

  Smith turned and smiled. ‘Do you know what was in this?’ he said, holding up the case.

  Mansfield shook his head. ‘Whatever it is, they will trace it. They will know this is murder.’

  ‘Trust me, they won’t,’ smiled Smith. ‘You will be just one of many.’

  Groggily, Eva opened her eyes. Pain immediately seared through her frontal lobe so she shut her eyes again to stop the strip-lighting burning into her retinas. The air around her was cool, air conditioned and odourless and she could hear a low hum like the noise of a loud refrigerator. She struggled to place where she was or how she had got there but she couldn’t. She remained for several minutes with her eyes shut, taking deep breaths and keeping herself calm so that her brain could attempt to form pictures of the journey that had led here. As she started to feel her body come to life again, she instinctively went to move her hands up to her face to rub the points on her head that hurt so much; her hands wouldn’t reach. She tried to move her legs but they too seemed stuck fast. She opened her eyes and looked down at her body. She was tied fast to the arms and legs of an aeroplane seat.

  Eva tried not to panic. She pulled at the tape fixing her hands to the armrests of the chair but she was bound tightly. Looking around, she appeared to be on a small plane with wide padded leather seats in rows of two on either side of a narrow aisle, stretching ten or twelve rows forward. She could see that the front four rows were occupied, four dark heads resting against the soft leather headrests of the plush seating. This had to be a private plane, she realised, it was too small to be a commercial flight and there was no way they’d have been able to tie her up like this if it was. She looked for Leon and spotted another dark head, this one tilted to one side as if asleep, two rows in front of her on the left-hand side. Then she remembered the needles at Mansfield’s house and her heartbeat began to soar again. Had she been injected with the same thing that had killed the man in the park? Or had it just been the sedative they must have used to knock her out? She took a quick inventory of her limbs and tried to work out whether she felt any different to normal. There was no way of telling at this point.

  Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she saw Leon’s head move; he was awake. Eva watched carefully as Leon’s head movements showed signs of him beginning to come round, taking in his surroundings and then registering the ties at his hands and feet. He struggled briefly and then stopped. How short-sighted to try and secure him with this flimsy tape, she thought, remembering Leon’s powerful arms. She glanced at the heads of the men at the front but they didn’t seem to have noticed the stirring eight rows back and were busy drinking a round of whatever a girl with a bright platinum dye job had just deposited in front of them. The woman turned away from Eva back towards the hospitality area of the plane. She was wearing a tiny, tight shiny dress and her hair looked messy; Eva saw a flash of bright red lipstick, as the woman struggled back into the cockpit on a pair of ludicrously high, spiked heels.

  Eva turned her attention back to Leon who was now perfectly still. She noticed he was staring intently at a huge widescreen TV positioned slightly above the seat in front of him. The screen was some distance away from him because of the extensive leg room of his seat and he was leaning forward and peering into its darkness. Eva realised that because he couldn’t turn in his seat and risk attracting attention, he was using the
screen to try and see who or what was behind him. Smart.

  Now, she had to get his attention.

  As Leon continued to stare at the screen, Eva slowly shook her head from side to side. As she did so the hair that had hung down either side of her face fell back revealing the flat gold studs she wore in her ears. She moved her head again and noticed a tiny pinprick of light on Leon’s screen as it reflected off the flat surface of her earring. Leon tensed. She moved again. Leon continued to stare intently at the screen. Once more Eva moved, turning her head one way and then the other. This time Leon was completely still. He had seen her.

  But what now?, she thought. Where were they even going? She glanced at the men at the front of the plane, wondering if they would be able to give her any indication, but she could only see the sides of two of their faces and the others were just heads on headrests. She looked down at her bonds and once again tried to pull her hands free but to no avail. Then she glanced back in Leon’s direction; he wasn’t there. Quickly, she scanned the cabin, wondering where he could have disappeared to in such a tiny space and hoping that he was not going to leave her fastened to the chair whilst he took on four armed men. Her eyes roamed the area where he had been sitting. The only place she didn’t have a clear view of was the floor.

  Frustrated at not being able to communicate with Leon, Eva began to focus on getting herself free. She watched as the blonde woman reappeared in the cabin at the other end of the plane, glancing in Eva’s direction as she did so. Eva quickly shut her eyes. She waited for the woman to report that one of the prisoners was awake; nothing happened. The men at the front of the plane continued to talk and the volume of their voices rose as suddenly Eva heard the slap of a hand against skin. She puzzled over the sound but remained still with her eyes shut as the men’s voices rose further, this time in jeering tones. From the reckless noises they were making, the men were clearly drunk. Eva listened carefully but they weren’t speaking English and she had no idea what they were saying. Suddenly she heard a thud and then a female gasp. Gradually, cold fingers of awareness plucked at her consciousness.

  Eva opened her eyes, stared down at the tape around her wrists and realised that if she could bend herself down as far as the armrests she might be able to rip the tape with her teeth. These men had obviously been told their two prisoners would remain sedated until their destination or why else would they have been so poorly secured?

  She started to bend forward slowly, not wanting to make any sudden movements lest she draw attention to herself. Because she had been positioned in the last row of seats, there was a wall behind her which meant her seat had less give and less room for her body to move backwards as she bent her head forward. She shifted her body slightly to the left and then continued inching her face down towards her right wrist until her lips made contact with the tape. She bared her teeth and then felt around with her tongue for a rough surface she could grab hold of with her teeth to pull the tape apart. Then all she would need to do would be to quietly rip the tape and she could use her free hand to unbind her other wrist and feet. There was now much more noise from the front of the cabin. Eva glanced up through her hair but all she could see was that three of the men were all looking in one direction, whilst the other seemed to have disappeared. Suddenly Eva heard the tearing of material and the woman cried out. She felt her stomach flip with unease.

  Then suddenly Leon was crouched in the aisle opposite looking over at her. He put one finger to his lips, signalling she was to remain quiet, and then glanced briefly down the aisle. The men were busy and presumably, from what they were doing, it had clearly not even crossed their minds that their prisoners might be awake. Staying low, Leon crawled quickly across the aisle and then he was beside her. She sat up and he squeezed past her so that he was inside the row of seats and then slowly and excruciatingly painfully, peeled the tape from her wrists, taking the hairs around the top of her hands with it. Then he did the same with the tape around her ankles, which was an easier job as it was wrapped around the fabric of her jeans.

  When Eva was free, she spread her hands in an open gesture and in response Leon produced a gun.

  Eva drew back in surprise. How on earth had he managed to get that? But he shook his head denying her any explanation. Eva frowned at him. He mouthed the words ‘trust me’. Her heart began to hammer in her chest. What was he going to do? She nodded in the direction of the woman and the men at the front of the plane. Help her.

  Leon rose up on his haunches and leaned in so close to her ear that his lips brushed the soft skin of one of her lobes.

  ‘Stay here,’ Leon whispered, ‘and stay down.’

  Eva stared at him. Was he really going to take on four no doubt armed men on his own? On a plane?

  He stared back at her, dark eyes boring into her face. ‘STAY. HERE,’ he repeated, mouthing it this time. Before she had any time to respond he was crossing the aisle to the seats on the left hand side, fast and agile. Eva ducked down from the seat and positioned herself up against the wall in the cavity created by the seat to her right and the seat in front of that. Then, realising she couldn’t see what was going on, she shuffled forwards on her hands and knees almost to the end of the row and laid her head on the floor. She now had a view of the aisle and the seats on the left-hand side all the way to the front but she couldn’t see the seats on the right. At the front of the cabin there were noises of a scuffle and Eva could hear small gasps escaping from the woman. The male laughter continued. As she was forced to listen, Eva felt a stab of anger inside her rising to the surface. It wasn’t difficult to work out what was happening.

  Leon was now crossing the aisle once again so that he was in the seats behind the two occupied rows. In front of him were the four men he would have to dispose of, three still seated and one on the floor with the woman. The wisdom of firing bullets in a pressurised cabin fleetingly crossed Eva’s mind but she had no time to vocalise her concerns because Leon had sprung into action.

  From her position on the floor, Eva watched as Leon quietly drew his weapon then quickly stood and fired into the top of the head of the man two seats to the right in the row in front of him, and then shot a second man sitting further away through the ear. A splattering of blood and bone flew into the air from the two dead men and the other seated man who was directly in front of him leapt to his feet. Eva briefly wondered why Leon hadn’t chosen to shoot that man first, and then as that man felt for his gun, she realised it was in Leon’s hand. Leon shot the weapon-less man in the chest as the other on the floor, who had quickly buckled his trousers, suddenly sprang forward and chopped his hand down viciously on Leon’s wrist sending the gun flying to the floor. Leon launched himself at the man, making contact with his shoulder and sending both of them flying to the floor. Eva’s heart was in her throat as she saw Leon land a bone-shattering punch on his opponent who was now underneath him but by no means beaten – with the strength of an ox he flicked his pelvis up and launched Leon over his head. The half-clothed woman ran for the cabin and disappeared through the curtain and, as she did so, suddenly Eva realised that there could be other people on the other side of that divide. She assumed Leon had considered that and concluded there was no way he could know how many, so he would have had to take the chance that there was no-one else who could come to the other man’s aid. If he was wrong, they were in imminent danger of being overwhelmed.

  Then Eva spotted the gun that Leon had dropped only four rows in front of her.

  She remembered his instructions to stay where she was…

  Glancing quickly up at Leon who was now facing the cockpit, held from behind in a headlock by the man he was fighting, Eva pushed through a paralysing moment of panic and then began to crawl out from behind the shelter of the seats and along the aisle floor towards the gun. She was now completely exposed. If anyone armed came out from behind the curtain they would simply shoot her. She crawled faster towards the gun and then looked up as another crash sounded from a metre in front o
f her, where Leon had thrown his attacker against the curved wall of the aircraft and was pulling him up to head height, preparing to head-butt him. She heard the blow delivered and then her hand was around the handle of the gun. Stand up! Suddenly she was on her feet. At exactly the same moment another man in a white shirt emerged from inside the cockpit and threw himself on Leon’s back, trying to pull him away. Eva ducked down behind the nearest row of seats with the gun, watching as the newcomer locked his elbow around Leon’s neck and then Eva heard a gurgling sound as Leon started to choke. Leon clawed his hands around the first man’s neck and suddenly Eva saw a flash of steel. Leon’s original opponent had a fruit knife that must have fallen from the drinks table the two had felled when they started fighting and was turning it in his hand preparing to use it on Leon. Eva had only a split second to decide what to do. She didn’t have a clear shot at the man with the knife and risked hitting Leon instead, but if she aimed at the man on his back, she realised she might distract Leon, giving his armed attacker the opportunity to stab him.

  She stood, raised her arm and aimed the gun at the man in the white shirt. Time had run out.

  She fired.

  Leon, surprised by the shot, turned his head towards Eva as the man who had been choking him from behind fell back lifelessly to the floor. Then a look of confusion crossed his face because the other man had also fallen away and was screaming, blood pouring from his left hand. The knife he had been holding tumbled noiselessly to the floor and, as it fell, Leon noticed the flash of the blade. He looked from the blade to the gun in Eva’s hand. Had she shot them both? Eva stared at the situation in front of her, completely confused. Suddenly the platinum-haired woman stepped fully into the cabin, an industrial-sized knife in her left hand, wet with blood.

  Without any warning she flew at the man who had held her down on the floor only ten minutes earlier, once again stabbing at him with the enormous knife. He screamed like a child as the blade sliced into the tender flesh of his thighs and he tried to throw her off, but she dug long nails into his left arm and held on, stabbing out with the knife in her right hand.