by Rob Jones
The problem was she had no idea how Hawke and the others were going to react when she got back in touch with them, and whether they’d believe her story about Sorokin and the blackmail. She decided on a story about her parents being held hostage by the Russian, and she could show them the images of her ‘parents’ at gunpoint – such things could be faked easily enough. She knew it and they knew it, too. They would just have to take her word for it.
Another problem was just who the hell had tried to kill her at Tegel Airport, and taken Sorokin out of the game at the same time. Was she the primary target, or Sorokin? She had no idea, but she knew that no one got away with trying to kill the Dragonfly, not even for possession of the oldest treasure map on earth. Whoever it was had better start thinking about updating their last will and testament.
She picked up the hotel telephone and made a quick call to the front desk. As she waited, she looked once again at the map, and noticed for the first time that one of the edges was slightly frayed. She raised an eyebrow as she took a closer took, but then someone answered the phone.
“Reception.”
“This is Room 76 calling,” she said quietly. “I wonder if you could please give me the address of a reliable bank. I need to put something in a safety deposit box.”
“You are quite welcome to use the safe in your room. They are perfectly substantial for most valuables.”
“This isn’t most valuables,” she said sharply. She had read about a steep rise in the number of professional and opportunist burglaries in Berlin apartments and hotel rooms. This wasn’t the time to test the accuracy of that particular journalism.
“I see, please wait.”
She looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. Why was she doing this? Maybe it was time to leave it all behind. Just walk away and settle down, maybe with a guy like Joe Hawke – or then again…
“Madam?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Forgive the delay, but not all banks in Berlin allow access to a safety deposit box unless you are an account holder. The nearest bank is a Deutsche Bank which is on the same street as this hotel, or you could try the Berliner Bank a little further along. I believe they might be able to assist you.”
“Thank you.” She hung up, and looked at her cell phone, sitting innocuously on the hotel desk beside the window. She could just call him, she thought.
Hi Joe, it’s Lexi – back from the dead.
No, not right now. She had business to attend to.
She pursed her lips and pulled another cigarette out of the packet. She hated German cigarettes but they were all the local store had left. She stared at the little warning on the packet as she struck the match and held the tiny flame under the tip of the cigarette, igniting the tobacco shreds – Rauchen kann tödlich sein – smoking can be deadly. So can a lot of things, she thought, as she blew out the match and stepped back out to the balcony.
So can a lot of things.
Including me.
When she’d finished smoking, she put the map in her bag and slid her gun inside her jacket. Cigarettes in the pocket, and the door clicked shut behind her as she moved along the silent corridor toward the elevators.
CHAPTER THREE
Moscow
Nightingale opened her eyes, but saw only darkness. Where am I? She breathed faster as she struggled to make sense of her new world. The man who had dragged her from the wardrobe had put a black sack over her head, and gagged her with what felt like a long piece of rough cloth.
The mere thought of him made her feel sick with fear.
She remembered him now. The feel of his heavy hands as he grabbed her head and shoulder and wrenched her from her hiding place. The smell of him as he hauled her into the light – cheap vodka and coffee. The sound of his foreign curses as he stumbled over her wheelchair and kicked it across the room in a fit of incandescent, animal rage.
The CIA was a long time ago, but she’d focused and recalled her training. Stay calm, assess the situation, don’t aggravate the hostage taker. More than that, she tried to stay positive and thought about her rescue… but no one knew where she was apart from the one person she trusted more than anyone else, and his name was Joe Hawke. Had he got her message?
Her terrified mind went over that night yet again. The second her CCTV cameras were shut off she had known something was wrong, and immediately grabbed her cell phone. A second later she heard her door being kicked down. Without thinking about what to do, she tipped herself up in her wheel chair and crashed to the ground.
Then, she had heard the man in the hall, searching for her.
She dragged herself across the floor, dragging the weight of her dead legs behind her with all her might, knowing she could have only seconds to live. She crawled into the wardrobe in her bedroom and texted Hawke. “Someone’s in my apartment. I’m hiding in my wardrobe. They’re trying to kill me. Help.”
And then she saw the man boot his way into her bedroom, kicking the door away like it was balsa wood. She watched him through the slits in the Venetian door of her wardrobe as he stalked into the small room. His tight, lean chest heaved up and down as he breathed in fast. He was alert and pumped with adrenalin.
Then he saw the hiding place.
She knew what she had to do. She flicked her phone to camera mode and began taking pictures through the slits. The man drew a long kitchen knife – one of hers – and she thought it was all over. She attached the image to the text and sent it to Hawke.
The man wrenched the door open and slapped the camera from her hand before dragging her out into the room by her hair. She screamed and tried to fight back but it was useless. Then she saw him pull back his right arm and make a fist. It reminded her of a coiled spring.
He punched her, and her world ended.
Now she winced at the pain from the punch, but at least she was alive. How long she had been unconscious for was a mystery, but it was possible she had been drugged. She thought she could hear someone moving around in the room and then she heard a second man enter. They spoke in rapid Russian for a few seconds and then someone spoke to her in heavily accented English.
“Tell me about Joe Hawke,” the voice said.
She recognized the accent as southern Russian. “I…where am I?”
A hard slap across her face came from out of nowhere and nearly knocked her out of the chair. She gasped for air and tried to stop the dizziness which was now making her head spin. There followed a few seconds of ominous silence and her mind buzzed with thoughts of why this was happening to her, and what she could do to protect herself.
The man sighed. “I ask the questions. I want to know about Joe Hawke, the British Special Forces man. Tell me about him, or you get another slap.”
In her new world of darkness, the panic began to rise like waves on an icy black sea. She tried to calm herself, but she had been out of the field for so long that dealing with situations like this wasn’t easy – and she knew she could never run from this nightmare. In the background, she heard more men speaking in rapid Russian, but her lack of training in the language reduced it to incomprehensible noise. How many were now in the room with her – watching her, listening to her panicked breathing?
“I don’t really know Joe Hawke, he was…”
Another slap, this time from the other direction, and much harder. This one knocked her from the chair and she crashed onto the ground. It felt like cold concrete. For a few short moments she thought she was going to throw up in the sack, but she fought hard to control the nausea and bring her hyperventilation once again under some kind of control.
“We’re not going to start with lies,” the voice said. It was harder this time, but lower – almost a hoarse whisper. “We know you have a long history with the Englishman. Tell us about that history.”
Without any warning, she felt two huge hands grab her by the shoulders and haul her back onto the chair. There was a lot of power in that grip, she considered. It was easy to imagine them squeezing he
r tighter and shattering her shoulder bones. Then she heard some kind of duct tape being pulled from a roll. Seconds later someone was taping her wrists and ankles to the chair. “This way, I don’t have to pick you up when I hit you next time. Now, tell me about Joe Hawke.”
Nightingale’s mind raced with so many emotions – fear, panic, rage – concern for Hawke – terror for herself. She had no idea where she was in the world, no idea who the men in the room were, or what they wanted with Hawke. She knew she had to play for time at the very least, so she had to tell them what they wanted to hear. She also knew she had to tell them the truth because she had no idea what they already knew. All of this, she considered, could be a test to gauge her reliability.
And she didn’t want any more of those slaps.
“Joe Hawke,” she began, “is a former sergeant in the Special Boat Service, or the SBS. It’s the Royal Navy equivalent of the British Army’s SAS, and a seriously tough outfit of Special Forces operatives. They’re dangerous men and they usually work without a formal commander.”
“We know this. We have men like this. Tell me things I don’t know.”
She flinched when she heard some rustling, but then came the unmistakable sound of a Zippo lighter. A second later the smell of strong cigarette smoke drifted over to her, followed by a deep, satisfied sigh.
She continued. “He was a commissioned officer in the Royal Marines Commandos, rising to the rank of major, but demoted to sergeant a few years after being recruited by the SBS.”
“Why?”
“He was reduced in rank after going absent without leave.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know…” she heard the man’s clothes rustle as he raised his hand to strike her. “I swear I don’t know! It’s the truth. He went AWOL a few years ago when he was about to be deployed abroad during an important mission. He never told me why, just that he had something more important to do. I always presumed that meant family, but all he told me was that he was lucky not to have been thrown out of the armed forces altogether. I guess that didn’t happen because he’s so highly skilled and experienced.”
The rustling stopped. “Interesting. When did you first cross paths with Mr Hawke?”
“During a joint US-UK mission in the Balkans. He was on a covert mission to infiltrate a terror group and I helped him escape from them. He always said I’d saved his life and he owed me forever.” Despite the terror she was feeling, she almost smiled at the memory.
“And why are you so interested in Ancient Egypt?”
“I’m sorry?” The question had come out of nowhere – she recognized it as a classic technique to disorient people during interrogations. She thought for the first time that maybe these people did this for a living – or had done once in the past, at least.
“We have been watching you for a long time – in fact since the first time you started working for Hawke and Eden. After that we started, how shall we say – listening into your life.”
“You hacked me?”
“Don’t be so surprised. Your reputation as a computer genius is well-founded, but a former KGB man like me is not without certain contacts. It was not hard for me to find someone to hack you, and what we found was very interesting, as you know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The man sighed again, and with no warning tore the sack off her head. She blinked in the bright light and saw opposite her a broad-faced man with dark hair and thin lips. Three thick scars ran down the side of his face.
“Don’t play stupid games with me. You know what we’re talking about. You have been researching the Map of Immortality in great detail, and your research is excellent, but of more interest to me is the person you speak with on email – codename Mercurio.”
She flicked a glance at the man and immediately gave herself away. Now she knew why they had taken her – they wanted her to get to someone else. Someone who was critical to the search for the map.
He laughed. “Thank you for confirming you know Mercurio. This makes me happy, but the only problem I have now is that I do not know what Mercurio’s real name is, or where he sleeps through the night. You will furnish me with this information.”
“And what if I don’t know it?” It was a gamble, but worth a try.
“I know you do. It is obvious from your email exchanges that you know each other’s real names and addresses.”
She was cornered, and she felt an indignant rage rise in her at being treated this way. “I just can’t tell you what you want to know, whoever the hell you are!”
The man stroked her face with his cigarette hand, his expression almost approaching something like admiration. “I think you could be persuaded,” was all he said as he left the room.
*
“It’s time he knew – is he in or out?”
Sir Richard Eden MP spun slowly in his chair and watched the mist roll over the River Thames. London was cold tonight. He considered her words carefully. She was right, of course, but there was more to the problem than she knew.
“Richard?”
He turned back to face her. To say she was good-looking was an understatement, although there was a sad coldness to her face that made most men wary. Her hair was black, and she wore it up, no-nonsense. Black fingernail polish, lean, slim arms. She drummed the arm of her chair.
“What?” he asked, finally.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Hawke. Is he in or out?”
A long silence. “As you know, Scarlet, I’ll need to talk to Lea about that, and she’s in New York, as we both know.” He paused a beat as he watched her reaction, then he spoke again. “But what do you think?”
“He’s an arrogant bastard but the best there is. I say he’s in.”
Eden nodded vehemently. “He would bring valuable skills and experience to us, but…” his voice drifted. “It’s a long way to Elysium.”
Even though he had uttered it, the word caught Eden off-guard. Could a man like Joe Hawke be brought to a place like Elysium? Perhaps, he considered, but then again, perhaps not. It wasn’t the kind of place to which you invited just anyone, that was for sure.
He glanced once again at Scarlet Sloane, and it seemed like she was in agreement. “It is a long way, yes, but much quicker since you bought your new jet.”
“Talking of which,” Eden said, changing the subject. “You might need to use it soon. We have information about the Chinese double agent Zhang Xiaoli, otherwise known as Dragonfly.”
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Is she dead, or it is bad news?”
Eden gave her a sarcastic glance. “As we both know, she was last seen flying to Berlin with a Russian whom Sheng had paid to take the Tesla device to Tokyo. The Russian’s name was Yevgeny Sorokin, a medium-level player in the Moscow underworld who double-crossed Sheng because he decided he wanted to live forever.”
“A modest goal.”
“Quite, but he was a very dangerous individual.”
“Was?”
“He was shot and killed in an ambush when he was with Zhang outside Tegel Airport in Berlin moments after leaving customs. He’d barely been on German soil fifteen minutes. We believe the assassin was Kamchatka.”
Scarlet leaned forward, her interest finally roused. “You mean Kodiak?”
Eden nodded. The Russians called the hired killer Kamchatka, named after the brown bear. For their own reasons the CIA and MI6 had renamed him Kodiak. Either way, he was one of the most ruthless professional killers on the market, and renowned for his total lack of ethics and extremely ruthless methods. “The very same – Ekel Kvashnin.”
Scarlet considered the new information for a few moments. “But I thought he’d retired.”
“Apparently not. He’s in the field and active and I hardly need to tell you how bloody dangerous he is. We think he was trying to kill Zhang as well as Sorokin and get his hands on the map.”
“Lexi’s being hunted by the Kodiak?”
Eden nodded g
rimly.
“Good,” Scarlet said sharply. “She bloody well deserves it.”
“That’s as may be, but either way we have to get to her before he does or she’s dead and the map’s gone forever.”
Scarlet played with her lighter. “And where did we get this information from?”
Eden waited a moment before answering, the hint of a twinkle in his eye. “That’s the interesting part – from Lexi Zhang herself.”
Scarlet’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Now this has to be a joke.”
“I’m afraid not, no. She called me recently to explain that Sorokin had blackmailed her into taking the map and she had no choice. Now that Sorokin is dead she wants to return it to us.”
“Now I really have heard everything, Richard! Please tell me you don’t believe this bullshit.”
“We’ll have to see.”
Scarlet shook her head and frowned. “Blackmailing her – how?”
“She claims he’d taken her parents hostage and was threatening to kill them if she didn’t get the map for him.”
She laughed. “No. Total bullshit – sorry.”
“That’s for you to find out, so sorry about that.”
Scarlet offered a bitter laugh. “I thought it might be… but I don’t trust her – I think she’s up to something.”
“Perhaps, but it’s your mission like it or not. I want the map back and we can worry about whether Lexi Zhang is lying to us or not later. Just be cautious, that’s all.”
“Of course I will be. I’m not in the least bit concerned about Blowfly, or whatever she’s called. If she crosses me I’ll finish her.” She crossed her legs and sighed, silent for a while. Then she spoke again. “What you said about Kodiak…”
