She really is scared, Gabriel thought.
In that moment, so was he.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Good morning. Checking in?’
The receptionist smiled brightly at the male nurse and his charge, a slight woman in a wheelchair with a heavily bandaged face.
‘Yes.’ The nurse, a stocky Filipino man in his late twenties, was wearing green scrubs and a gold necklace with the word ‘Jesus’ spelled out in elaborate cursive script. ‘This is Mrs Hambrecht. She’s scheduled for a procedure with Dr Hansen-Gerard at nine.’
‘Lovely,’ said the receptionist. ‘One of our admissions team will show you both up to your room shortly. If you’d like to take a seat.’
Makis Alexiadis paced anxiously in his bedroom at Villa Mirage, his cell phone in his hand. Since returning from his yacht, Makis been sleeping poorly, wracked by dreams about ‘Persephone’ and Athena Petridis, the two women that some vengeful God had seen fit to send up from Hades to torment him. In some of the dreams, the two of them had teamed up, laughing at him together as he tried in vain to pursue them. Usually in these ‘chase’ dreams, Makis found his legs became mired in treacle so he would run and run and get nowhere, driven on by rage and frustration. He would wake from these nightmares dripping in sweat, and with his heart pounding impotently to a wild beat that made further sleep impossible.
It was still only seven in the morning, but he’d already been awake for hours, waiting restlessly for Cameron’s call. When at last it came, he was so amped up he was practically vibrating.
‘Is your man in there yet?’ he demanded.
‘He is.’ The fixer’s voice was as relaxed and even as ever, his soft, Scots brogue in sharp contrast to Makis’s agitated Greek growl. ‘He had no problems as the substitute agency nurse. He’s been in the building since the shift started at five a.m.’
‘And you’re in contact?’
‘Yes. His earpiece is working beautifully. Mrs H has checked in and is on her way up to her room. Once the operation’s over, he’ll wheel her out of the recovery room while she’s still sedated, and take the service elevator down to the goods entrance. I’ll be waiting there with the van. Try to relax, Mak. There’s nothing to worry about.’
Nothing to worry about! If he weren’t as tense as a taut rubber band, Makis might have laughed. With Athena Petridis there was always something to worry about. Always.
Would he finally be rid of her today? He hardly dared believe it.
He mustn’t believe it. Not until it was done.
The receptionist stole a glance at Samantha Yorke, who was flipping nervously through an old copy of Vogue magazine.
Poor thing. It was obvious Samantha didn’t really want to be here. Apprehension was written all over her beautiful face. Patients like Samantha made the receptionist feel guilty that she worked here. That she was part of an industry where rich successful male surgeons who should know better, like Dr H-G, preyed on the insecurities of beautiful young women who no more needed surgery than they needed to fly to the moon.
Get out of here! she longed to tell Samantha. Run, while you still can.
She wasn’t here for a procedure today, only for a longer consultation with another of the clinic’s surgeons, the nose job specialist Dr Henry Butler. But she still had that look about her, as if she were about to face the firing squad. Why on earth couldn’t these women trust their own instincts?
Samantha approached the desk. For one, hopeful moment the receptionist thought she was going to cancel and leave. But instead she asked where the ladies’ room was.
The receptionist pointed to a door across the hall. ‘But I believe somebody’s in there at the moment.’
‘Is there another one? I’m sorry but I … I need to go urgently. I think I might be sick.’
‘Here.’ Reaching into a drawer, the receptionist handed over a key. ‘Patients aren’t really supposed to use it, but if it’s an emergency.’
‘Thank you,’ Samantha grabbed the key gratefully.
‘It’s on the first floor, next to the pre-op suite,’ the receptionist told her. ‘Turn right at the top of the stairs.’
Halfway up the stairs, Ella leaned back against the wall and took a moment to compose herself. So far, everything had gone remarkably smoothly. She’d had a Plan B in place, in case the receptionist had refused to direct her upstairs. Together with Gabriel, she’d identified three different windows of opportunity for encountering Athena when she would be both alone and incapacitated. But her nerves were already starting to get the better of her, and she was relieved to be able to act now.
In her right hand, she clutched the bathroom key. In her left, thrust deep into her jacket pocket, she felt the contours of the syringe.
‘It’s incredibly simple,’ Gabriel had assured her over dinner last night at Hakkasan in Mayfair. Relieved to have abandoned his wild-goose chase in Istanbul, at least for the moment, he was sipping warm sake as if the next day’s assassination attempt was just a regular day at the office. ‘You use it like an epi pen. Stab her anywhere at all on her body. Through clothes is fine. You just stab, push and go.’
Ella climbed the stairs and turned right. The ladies’ room was in front of her to the left. Pre-op was straight ahead. If the schedule was going according to plan, Athena should be in there right now, heavily sedated, and alone.
You just stab, push and go.
Kill and go, you mean, thought Ella, moving towards the door. Gabriel had probably done this sort of thing scores of times. But for Ella it was all new, and a step she couldn’t take back. Once she had ‘stabbed’ and ‘pushed’, Athena Petridis would be dead and she, Ella Praeger, would be a killer. A murderer. Yes, she was avenging her parents’ deaths, and ridding the world of an evil, dangerous woman. It wasn’t that she was having second thoughts about the morality of what she was about to do. It was more that she knew that from this moment on, her life would forever be divided into ‘before’ and ‘after’.
The hallway was deserted. A whiteboard on the wall outside the room had the word ‘Hambrecht’ scrawled on it in marker pen.
This is it, thought Ella. Stab, push and go. Stab, push and go.
Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to stop her hands from shaking.
Parked outside the back entrance to the clinic in a nondescript white Ford transit van, Cameron McKinley felt his mouth go dry and his heart begin to beat uncomfortably fast.
‘Are you certain?’
‘Yes, sir. Quite certain. It’s her. What should I do?’
Shit, thought Cameron. Shit, shit, shit.
Ella Praeger was there. In the clinic. Right now. How was that possible?
It had been a long time since Cameron had stooped to become personally involved in hit jobs for Makis Alexiadis, or any of his clients for that matter. But after the debacle with the Praeger girl in Italy, when those cretins managed to ‘lose’ her from a moving speedboat, he couldn’t afford another screw-up. One more mistake would cost him not just this most lucrative and loyal client but, in all likelihood, his life. He had to get this right.
Last week he’d gone into Wimpole Street himself, posing as an electrician, to get the lie of the land and to make sure everything went smoothly on the day of the kidnap. Once Athena Petridis was safely unconscious and in the back of his van, he would drive her out to a secluded, private woodland in Essex, shoot her himself, and bury her with his own two hands. Only then would he feel confident that Makis could truly forgive him. Only then would he be safe.
‘Sir?’ Roger Carlton, Cameron’s partner for today’s job, was one of his most senior and trusted operatives. ‘Sorry, but I have to go back inside soon or I’ll be missed. I need an answer.’
‘OK,’ said Cameron, beads of sweat forming on his brow. ‘Hold on. I’ll get back to you.’
If Ella Praeger was here, it must be for the same reason they were: to kill Athena. Cameron McKinley could not let that happen.
Stomach churning, he ca
lled Mak.
‘Kill her. Do it! Kill them both.’
The excitement in Alexiadis’s voice was terrifying. He sounded manic. Deranged.
‘Mak, we can’t kill her. We’re not equipped. Roger isn’t even armed.’
‘He can strangle her,’ said Mak, so matter-of-factly that it made even Cameron’s blood run cold.
‘No. He needs to focus on Athena,’ Cameron pushed back. ‘She’s our target. Once I’ve got her in the vehicle, I can have Roger follow Ella—’
‘NO!’ Mak shrieked, like a maddened chimpanzee. ‘Don’t follow her. Kill her. I want her dead. Today. We’ll never have a better opportunity.’
‘But, Mak—’
‘Tell your man I’ll pay him a million-dollar bonus, cash, when he sends me a picture of Ella Praeger’s corpse.’
Cameron hung up. It was like trying to reason with a rabid dog.
There was nothing for it. Between them, he and Roger would have to try and kill Ella and Athena. His cunning mind raced. Within thirty seconds, he called Roger back.
‘OK,’ he said with a calm he didn’t feel. ‘Change of plan.’
With one last glance behind her at the empty corridor, Ella opened the door to the pre-op suite.
Inside, all was quiet. Athena lay on her side, apparently sleeping with her back to Ella. Her facial bandages had been removed and her hair covered with a surgical mesh cap. A machine attached to her finger measured her blood pressure and heart rate, and the only movement was the soft, slow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, obviously heavily sedated.
Stab, push and go.
One of the medical staff might come back in at any moment. It was now or never. Pulling the syringe out of her pocket, Ella walked towards the sleeping form. She would do it in the back or shoulder, through her surgical gown, just like Gabriel had shown her. Easy. Instant. Painless. ‘It’s better than Athena deserves, Ella. Remember that.’
Ella lifted the syringe.
As she did so, Athena stirred, turning over suddenly as if aware of her presence. When her eyes blinked open, it was like the wakening of the dead. ‘Nurse?’ she queried groggily, eyeing the fatal syringe.
Ella found herself looking at her victim, face to face.
She was young, dark haired and rather plain looking.
And she was not Athena Petridis.
Outside in the corridor, Ella slumped against the wall, her legs like Jell-O.
I could have killed her! I was this close. I could have murdered an innocent woman.
Bile rose up in her throat. With shaking hands, she texted Gabriel.
‘It’s not her. We’ve been set up. Lovato duped us.’
The reply was instant. ‘OK. Abort. Get out of there.’
With pleasure, thought Ella. Just as soon as I can stand.
‘Miss Yorke? Samantha?’
A tall, effete blond man with a cut-glass accent emerged from a door down the hall. Ella stared at him as if he’d just landed from Mars. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m Dr Butler. No need to look so terrified, my dear. Come on in.’
Roger Carlton waited for Henry Butler’s door to open before hitting the call button for the elevator. Number 77 Wimpole Street had one of those beautiful 1930s London lifts with metal concertina gates at each floor that had to be opened and closed fully before the elevator itself would move.
Roger’s palms were sweating as he gripped the laundry cart in front of him. He was nervous. It was more than five years since he’d killed with his bare hands. The technique for breaking a woman’s neck was simple, but he was out of practice and would have very little time. Less than forty seconds to kill her, deposit her body in the hamper and cover it with loose sheets, before he opened the grille on the ground floor and wheeled her out to Cameron’s van.
Nothing could go wrong. She mustn’t struggle. She mustn’t scream. No one else must enter the elevator. He mustn’t botch the move. This was a one-shot thing.
‘A million dollars cash, Rog. He’s good for it, believe me.’
Dr Butler’s Eton-educated drawl reverberated down the corridor behind him.
‘Lovely to meet you, Miss Yorke. I’ll be in touch.’
Ella waited for the elevator in a trance. She remembered nothing of her twenty-minute interview with Dr Henry Butler. He, no doubt, had talked about rhinoplasty. She had sat and stared and nodded and tried to swallow the fact that she had come within seconds, seconds, of ending another human being’s life. By mistake.
Was this really what her ‘gifts’ were for? For killing? For vengeance?
Had her parents truly wanted that for her? And even if they had, did that really matter? This was her life after all, her choices. If ‘Mrs Hambrecht’ – whoever she really was – had wound up dead today, then she, Ella, would be responsible. Not Rachel or William Praeger.
Me.
Were these awful choices what her grandmother Mimi had been trying to save her from for all those long, lonely years? Had Mimi tried to protect her, in her own way, by isolating her from the world up at Paradise Ranch? Perhaps Mimi had been the only one who truly loved her, after all.
Today was a wake-up call, Ella decided, letting the laundry man into the elevator before turning around to pull the metal gates closed. I’ll tell Gabriel I’ve changed my mind. I’m out. It’s not my ‘destiny’ to kill anyone. I’ll go back to San Francisco and my old life. To Bob and Joanie and …
It happened so suddenly she had no time to react. Strong, male hands grabbing her from behind, one across her chest pinning both her arms to her sides, the other clamped hard over her nose and mouth. The doors were closed and the elevator was moving, grindingly slowly. The man with the laundry hamper had her completely incapacitated. Ella felt his knee dig into the small of her back and his left arm, the one forming a straitjacket across her torso, begin to move upwards, towards her neck. She knew then that he was going to try to kill her. She’d done it herself, to injured livestock on the farm. She’d used her knee as a brace, gripped the head and pulled sharply around and up, snapping the neck.
Not me. Not today.
Unable to breathe, she thrust her jaw forward and bit hard on the fingers covering her mouth. Blood spurted everywhere and her assailant let out a muted scream of agony.
‘Bitch!’ he muttered under his breath, using his other arm to take a firmer grim on Ella’s entire skull. Ella’s heart pounded. One well-timed twist and she’d be dead. She had to break free from that grip right now.
With a strength and agility she didn’t know she had, she drew one leg up behind her in a painful reverse twist and shot her foot as fast as she could, jack-rabbit style, into what she hoped were his genitals. A second scream, louder this time, signaled she’d found her target. His arm involuntarily loosened just a fraction, but it was enough for Ella to drop down to her knees, slipping her head free from his grip. Reaching down, maddened with pain, he changed tactics and wrapped both, bear-like hands around her neck, squeezing her windpipe until Ella could feel her eyeballs bulge and the blood throb in her temples. She flailed her arms and legs as the elevator cranked slowly down, down, but it was no use. She’d be unconscious, if not dead, by the time they reached the ground.
Looking up into his eyes, she could see her attacker’s anger turn to satisfaction and finally to a sort of sadistic triumph. He’s enjoying it. He’s enjoying killing me.
Without making any conscious movement, her jerking arms found their way to her pocket. She felt the syringe against her fingers, just as everything around her was starting to turn black. Flailing out wildly, she plunged it into his forearm and pushed.
Outside on Wimpole Street, Ella calmly crossed the road at the zebra crossing and walked round the corner onto Mansfield Street, where she took the first in a long line of waiting black cabs.
‘Hampstead Heath, please,’ she told the driver, simply because it was the first destination to pop into her head. Only once they’d passed the Langham Hotel did she allow herself to exhale,
reaching up and touching the ring of livid bruises around her neck from where the man’s fingers had tried to choke her.
They would have found his body by now, slumped behind the laundry cart.
So Ella had killed today after all.
Later, up on the heath, she would text Gabriel. For now she was content to lean back in the cab and enjoy the luxury of her own breath coming in and out, in and out.
I’m alive. I survived.
Perhaps this stuff really was her destiny …
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mahmood Salim jumped off the side of the fishing sloop into warm, waist-deep water and waded slowly towards the shore, his backpack slung over his broad shoulders.
It felt strange being back in the Greek islands. Strange and unnerving, as if some dark force, some unnamed fates kept demanding his return, pulling him in like a magnet to the place where his darling girls had left this earth. Of course, this was Mykonos, not Lesbos. And this time Salim was not a helpless North African migrant, but a legitimate French citizen enjoying his vacation, complete with all the requisite forged paperwork and fifteen thousand euros in cash and traveler’s checks, should he need them.
Another man – a man who still had something to lose – would doubtless have been frightened at the task that lay ahead. But Mood Salim was past fear, just as he was past pain, or joy or despair. All emotions were dead in him, as dead as his beloved Hoda and their children. What was left was his giant’s body, battle-scarred but mighty. And that body was a machine, programmed for one thing and one thing only: revenge.
His work had begun as soon as he’d broken out of the detention center, a surprisingly simple matter of physically incapacitating two semi-drunk night watchmen and convincing a naïve American charity worker to give him a ride to the mainland.
Killing the Kouvlaki brothers had been surprisingly easy. Perhaps too easy. Armed with Andreas’s memory stick and his frozen index finger in a zip-lock baggie, Mahmoud had arrived in Athens soon afterwards, ready to dispose of Makis Alexiadis at his townhouse and finish the job.
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