MERCENARY a gripping, action-packed thriller (Johnny Silver Thriller Book 1)

by PAUL BENNETT

  ‘Someone has to take Dad’s place,’ Roberto said, straightening himself up to his full height of five feet eight inches. ‘I would have thought that was obvious, little brother.’

  And, I thought, we all know who Roberto has in mind for the vacancy. But, I was forced to admit, it was the logical move: Roberto had worked in the New York office for nearly fifteen years now, Carlo had served only a couple of years with the bank, mostly in New York but the last few months in Amsterdam on the opening of the office. And myself, although the most academically qualified, had been tucked away for three years in the back rooms of London, working my way up a very long ladder. So Roberto would be the new captain of the ship and admiral of the fleet, and I would have snakes to worry about as well as from where and when the next ladder would appear.

  ‘I have decided on a plan of action,’ my mother said calmly. ‘Roberto, as the eldest son,’ – his top lip curved in a smile – ‘you will run New York.’

  The smile faded.

  ‘Carlo, dear little Carlo,’ she continued, ‘you will be the family’s presence in Amsterdam.’

  ‘Does that mean I run the show here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Carlo,’ my mother said. ‘You run Amsterdam. With some conditions, but I will come to those in a moment.’

  Carlo shrugged his shoulders as if to say that any conditions were unimportant in the overall scheme of things.

  ‘Gianni,’ my mother said, ‘it is time for you take your rightful place. You, Gianni, will be head of the bank in London.’

  ‘No,’ said Roberto, ‘that’s not’ – he pulled back just in time from saying fair and sounding like a petulant child – ‘that’s not a good idea. Gianni has always taken orders from others, he’s never given any. London is the biggest of the three operations, it’s the original Silvers and the most important. It needs someone with experience.’

  ‘No one can deny, Roberto,’ she said, ‘that you have the most experience. But that experience is best utilized in New York where you gained it. Gianni has spent the last three years learning the London operation from the inside. He knows the system, he knows the people. My decision is made.’

  Roberto scowled and looked across at me accusingly.

  ‘Now for the conditions,’ my mother continued. ‘Although in charge of your own operations, you will work as a team: we will hold regular meetings to decide on any matters that relate to the bank as a whole.’

  ‘Who will chair the meetings?’ Roberto asked.

  ‘As the major shareholder of the bank,’ she said, locking eyes with Roberto, ‘I will. I shall, of course, rely on your individual expertise, listen to your opinions and then help us come to a unanimous family decision.’

  ‘Sounds fair,’ said Carlo, shrugging again.

  ‘The second condition is that you make best use of the resources at your disposal. There are good people in the bank. Listen to them and be guided by them. Lastly, each of you will work within strict limits on lending and investment. You will not exceed those limits unless we all agree at one of our meetings. Is that clear?’

  The three of us nodded, Roberto grudgingly.

  ‘I shall remain here for a while, the three of you will go to the Amsterdam branch and prepare a press release and a memorandum to all staff. You will bring them back for me to check and sign and take a last look at your father before you take up your new positions.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ Roberto said, anxious to be the one to draft the documents and put his spin on the contents. He headed for the door, pausing only to turn and say, ‘Come on, you two.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom,’ Carlo said, as he followed his eldest brother.

  ‘And thanks from me, too,’ I said.

  My mother smiled at me.

  ‘Watch over Carlo as best you can,’ she said. ‘He’s young and impetuous. Be his steadying influence.’

  ‘Haven’t I always?’ I said, walking towards the door. ‘When I’ve been allowed to, that is. Don’t worry, Mother. This could be the making of Carlo.’

  ‘One last thing,’ she said. ‘I’m taking a big risk here. I am trying to put things right. But you know that this would not have been Alfredo’s decision.’

  I came back and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ I said.

  ‘This is your big chance, Gianni. Grasp it with both hands while Alfredo can do nothing to take it away from you. I hope this makes up a little for the past. Don’t let me down, my son.’

  ‘I wouldn’t give Roberto the satisfaction,’ I said.

  ‘Roberto is like his father,’ she said. ‘He will never be fully satisfied.’

  Not while I’m around, I thought. And that applies to both of them. Roberto was his father’s son.

  3

  St Jude, Caribbean. The present.

  One man jumped down from the helicopter, stooped low to pass under the slowly rotating blades and then walked across the beach directly towards me. He was wearing a cream-coloured lightweight suit, dark-brown shirt and tan loafers that were filling with sand with each step. If he was a professional assassin, it was a bloody good disguise. I tucked the gun into the waistband at the back of my shorts, took a spare T-shirt from the bag under the counter and slipped it on to hide both the scars and the gun. Only when he smiled did I recognize him. It was a smile that I had never trusted.

  ‘Of all the bars in all the world….’ I said.

  ‘Gianni,’ he said, ‘come give your big brother a hug.’

  ‘Thanks, Roberto, but I’ll pass. I’m too old for new experiences. And anyway, I’m not Gianni Gordini anymore. If I ever was, that is.’

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ he said.

  Not long enough, I thought.

  In the nine years since I had seen him, Roberto had put on maybe forty pounds of weight. It didn’t flatter him. He had lost a lot of hair at the temples and acquired grey in what was left – not a good trade. He was forty-five and, standing there mopping his lined and sweaty brow with a silk handkerchief, looked ten years older.

  ‘How about a drink for old time’s sake?’ he said in a nasal New York accent that I would have had too, if I had ever been allowed to spend some time at home.

  I placed two unopened bottles of beer on the counter.

  ‘That should see you for the flight back,’ I said. ‘Goodbye, Roberto.’

  ‘Use your head, Gianni,’ he said, frowning. ‘Would I come all this way if it wasn’t serious?’

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘No, Mom’s OK. She…. Look, let’s sit down in the shade and talk. Surely you can spare me a few minutes of your time. It don’t look like you got much else to do.’

  I opened the two bottles of beer and led the way to a table under the large sun-bleached canvas shade. Roberto sat himself down heavily and took a long pull from the bottle. He looked around him, registered the faded bar sign and the broken table and chair lying on the sand.

  ‘Business good?’ he asked.

  ‘Thinking of investing?’

  He laughed. Always was shrewd.

  ‘How did you find me?’ I asked.

  ‘Mom,’ he said.

  All through the years of exile I had written regular letters to my mother. She was usually good at keeping secrets – too damned good, in my opinion. Well, at least this wasn’t a major breach of security.

  ‘Mom knows she’s breaking a confidence,’ he said, ‘but in the circumstances she didn’t think there was any other alternative. Carlo’s gone missing. We’re worried.’

  I bet you are, I thought.

  ‘Does my little brother still run the European operations of the bank?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders to dismiss the uncharitable implications of my question or his interpretation of it, ‘but—’

  ‘Is it profitable?’ I interrupted.

  It was a fair question. Roberto was the cool and calculating one of the family, the objective surgeon who would impassively cut out one organ if he fel
t there was any chance it might jeopardize the health of the body as a whole. Carlo, on the other hand, was the gambler, always searching for the big win, not satisfied with grinding out a profit on each deal – wasn’t the best psychological profile for a banker.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Carlo makes big profits.’

  ‘As far as you are aware.’

  Roberto avoided the implied question by taking another long swig of beer.

  ‘Do you have anyone checking the books?’ I followed up.

  ‘I shipped our best compliance officer over from New York,’ he said. ‘Purely a precautionary measure, you understand.’

  ‘Oh, I understand,’ I said. ‘What I don’t get is what any of this has to do with me.’

  ‘We – the family, Mom in particular – want you to find Carlo.’

  It was my turn to laugh.

  ‘What? Leave this thriving business and go to Amsterdam?’ I said. ‘Doesn’t make economic sense, Brother. Go to the police, or get a private investigator on the case, if you’re that worried.’

  ‘We’d like to keep the police out of it,’ he said. ‘And we tried a private investigator. No luck.’

  ‘How long has Carlo been missing?’

  ‘Five days.’

  ‘You really gave your private investigator a run at it, didn’t you? Do I detect a whiff of panic in the air?’

  ‘Carlo could be in trouble,’ he said.

  ‘That sounds very likely,’ I replied.

  ‘Find him for us. Tell him that whatever he’s done, it’s not a problem. As long as we know about it.’

  ‘A cover up, huh?’

  ‘The bank has to protect its interests and its image.’

  ‘Don’t I know it?’ I said. ‘So, just as long as you can keep everything quiet, whatever Carlo may have done you’ll forgive and forget?’

  ‘I wouldn’t rule out having to make a few changes in procedures.’

  ‘And personnel, too. Especially Carlo.’

  ‘Just find him for us, Gianni.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because Carlo always looked up to you. He trusts you. If he hears you’re looking for him, he won’t hide from you like he would the police or a PI.’

  ‘Finish your beer, Roberto,’ I said. ‘It’s time you left.’

  ‘And you’ll come with me?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It’s your mess, Roberto. You clean it up.’

  ‘But think of Mom. Think of the family.’

  ‘It’s your family, not mine. The ties were broken long ago, if they ever really existed. And if it’s so important for the family, why did the big chief send you? Why didn’t he come himself?’

  ‘Father doesn’t get around much anymore.’

  ‘Not for me he doesn’t, you mean.’

  ‘What if we pay you for your time and trouble?’ he said. ‘Name your price.’

  ‘You couldn’t meet it, Roberto. Now, you’ve tried moral blackmail and money. Both have failed. It’s time you took the hint. Get out of here, Roberto, and don’t come back.’

  He stood up, glared down at me.

  ‘You’ll regret this, Gianni,’ he said.

  ‘Threats won’t work either. Goodbye. And give my love to Mother.’

  He turned on the sandy heels of his loafers and stormed back to the helicopter. It took off immediately, heading in my direction and swooping low over the bar as it passed. The rotor blades whipped up a sandstorm and blew it over me, the bar and all its contents.

  He’d always been petty minded.

  Still, if that was the worst he could do, who cares?

  ‘It’s time you went home,’ I said to Bull.

  He avoided my gaze and refilled his tumbler with rum. His hand was unsteady as he picked up the glass and pressed it to his lips.

  We were sitting opposite each other, slumped in two cushioned cane armchairs, in my cabin in the little shanty town that housed the few original inhabitants of the island and the many shipped in to work at the hotel. It was one o’clock in the morning and through the window behind Bull I could see a crescent moon hanging in a pitch-black sky. We’d both made a few bucks during the day – Bull from taking a couple from the hotel island-hopping, myself from stocking them up with booze and flying fish sandwiches for the trip and then servicing the regular trickle of tourists who were looking for something a little more native and a lot less sanitized than the bar and restaurant at the hotel. Bull should have gone home an hour ago, but he was putting it off. As usual.

  Bull was married to a cappuccino-skinned Jamaican beauty: she was what Ian Fleming once indelicately termed a ‘Chigro’ – of mixed Chinese and black African descent – and she would have had most men rushing home the moment they had finished their day’s work, and nipping back at lunchtime too. They had a son. But not for long, it seemed.

  The boy, Michael, was three years old and would be lucky to make it to his fourth birthday. He had a congenital heart condition that had first manifested itself six months ago and that only a transplant could cure. That meant taking him to the States, finding a suitable donor – which was easier said than done, given the mixed bloodline – and paying a whole lot more money for the operation than Bull and I had stashed away. The boy was getting weaker by the day, and Bull could not bear to face him or the inevitable.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about going back into the business,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a young man’s game,’ I said. ‘You’re out of training, out of practice and couldn’t run to save your life. Forget it.’

  ‘I need money, Johnny,’ he said. ‘And I need it fast.’

  I did the same mental calculations as the week before and the week before that. Cash the few investments, try to find a buyer for the bar, sell the boat. It didn’t add up – it had never added up. Short of robbing a bank, there was no hope.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ I said. ‘Go home, Bull. Mai Ling needs you. Little Michael needs you. I’ll think of something. I promise. OK?’

  He looked at me with big, brown, puppy-dog eyes, downed his rum and limped silently from the cabin.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. Too much had happened in the day. Letting my pride, and the stupid desire to test the uncertain capabilities of my left arm, had got the better of me and propelled me into a fight that could only be bad for business if the hotel happened to hear about it. Finally, there had been Bull, so little hope left inside him that he was contemplating doing the hopeless. And, sandwiched in between, the ghost from a past I thought I had successfully exorcized.

  I climbed wearily out of bed, grabbed hold of the rum bottle, searched around until I found the pack of cigarettes that I had hidden away three years earlier and went to sit on the concrete steps outside the cabin. I drank a little rum, and then a little more, lit a cigarette which made my head swim as the unaccustomed nicotine hit my nervous system, and gazed up at the moon and stars.

  I never knew my father. No, let’s put that another way. I don’t know who my biological father is or was, and never really knew the man who was supposed to be my father. Although it took a long while to work all that out.

  I was born in New York. The birth certificate named my parents as Rebecca Silver and Alfredo Gordini. Funny, I started life as a lie and after thirty-five years was still living one.

  My mother was heiress to the Silver fortunes, amassed over a couple of hundred years of, initially, money-lending, progressing to merchant banking and, in current terminology, investment banking. Alfredo Gordini was a third-generation Italian immigrant who, through a combination of ruthless ambition and simply being in the right place at the right time, had built up an insurance business, risen up the social ladder and ensnared my mother while she was on a shopping trip to New York. Despite initial opposition from the Jewish Silvers and the Catholic Gordinis, they married: not inconsequentially, I imagine, Roberto was born five months later.

  Ten years after that, I came along. I spent my first four years in America, during which tim
e I have only the vaguest memories of Alfredo and unhappy ones of a spiteful and teasing Roberto. Then began the years of exile. I was packed off to England to the first of a long succession of boarding-schools, most of the changes being of my own making: I was a serial rebel, committing some expulsion offence or other at each school as it failed to live up to what I sought most in life – to embrace me as part of a family.

  When I came back to New York in the holidays, Alfredo was invariably and conveniently away on business – as well as the New York branch there was the main bank in London to look after – and I spent time with my mother, little Carlo and my Uncle Gus, short for Giuseppi. Those were the happy times, all too infrequent and all too short. As I got older I was ‘encouraged’ to spend the holidays with friends from school, which I duly did – no matter the long list of my shortcomings, never let it be said that I cannot take a hint.

  Even after finishing my education (Cambridge, England, and Harvard Business School), I wasn’t allowed to settle in the States. I was sent packing to London, installed on the bottom rung of the Silver’s corporate ladder and told to cut my teeth when what was really meant was kick my heels. I might have been there now, if it hadn’t been for two events that brought about a rapid rise and an even quicker descent. The former was the failed assassination attempt on Alfredo: the latter – my fall to earth with a thump – was as a result of an error of judgement on an investment that went seriously belly up. There were no excuses I could offer. For the good of the bank, I was told in no uncertain terms, I had to go. In the land of clichés and mixed metaphors, the sacrificial lamb was to fall on his sword and never darken their doors again.

  There seemed only one logical course of action. The Italian side of the family didn’t want me, so it was time to explore my Jewish roots. I went to Israel, where at last, I was welcomed with open arms. By the army. Who taught me how to kill. And gave me plenty of opportunities to practise the newly acquired skill. The army fed me and clothed me and stretched out an arm to wrap round my shoulder. Just as long as I did my job – killing.