“No, Ryan, hear me out. I’ve been putting this off for days and can’t bear it any longer. I know you’re only staying here out of a sense of obligation. I know you don’t like me the way I like you.”
“What?”
“Don’t make this harder, please. You’re only staying here because you dragged me into danger and you want to keep me safe. You want to protect me, but you’ve also dedicated your life to protecting the families.”
The words tumbled out in a breathless torrent.
“Don’t get me wrong, I-I’m really proud of your decision to help The 83, but, my being here … is holding you back, dragging you down. I know I should go away somewhere safe … but I don’t want that. Ryan, I’m … I think I might be falling for you.”
Moonlight picked out her glistening tears. The weight on Kaine’s chest increased.
“Lara, I—”
“Ryan, could your feelings for me ever change?”
He should have lied, should have told her theirs could only ever be a working relationship. He was her protector, her bodyguard. A friend only. That’s what he should have said, but he could never tell her a direct lie.
“No. Lara. Not a chance.”
She covered her mouth with a hand before he realised what he’d actually said.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. My feelings for you can’t ever change because …”
“Yes?”
Go on man, bloody say it!
“I—”
A mobile phone vibrated on the table.
Lara jumped, the blood drained from her face.
“Which one?” she asked.
“The burner.”
“Oh, God!”
Kaine ripped the Sig from its position taped under the side table, racked it, and pointed Lara to the back door. Without hesitation, she ran.
Chapter 6
Thursday 22nd October — Evening
The Villa, Aquitaine, France
Lara reacted as they’d practised. No hesitation. No question.
She raced into the living area, pulled open the panic room door, and slammed it closed behind her. Inside, she’d have full access to the surveillance equipment. Her job, monitor the tripwire net. His job, sweep the grounds.
The mobile buzzed again. He picked it up, checked the screen.
One text. Caller unknown.
Shit.
Not part of the agreed protocol.
His smart watch showed ‘all clear’. None of the field sensors had tripped either or the internal alarms would be howling.
Thank God.
So far, they were safe, but it couldn’t stop there. He couldn’t rely on the technology. A wrong number? A misdial? What were the odds? No time to delay.
He slipped the burner into his pocket. Heart racing, breathing rate up, villa lights off, night vision at its optimal for the conditions, he completed a fast sweep of the immediate perimeter, bent low at knees and waist to minimise his target profile.
No intruders.
No obvious disturbance to the close grounds. No unusual smells or sounds.
He ran a second boundary check with the same results before spiralling outwards slowly, edging towards the beach, but keeping in close contact with the villa.
The smart watch vibrated and he took a knee behind a thick tussock of marram grass. He hit ‘receive’.
Villa clear. Grounds clear, only you.
Two people on beach, heading south.
The Dubois? L.
Kaine jumped up, sprinted for the edge of the dunes, and knelt again, waiting for his breathing to recover.
In the distance to the south, two dark figures stood out clear in the moonlight, sharp against the white sand. One was tall and slim, stooped over, the other short and squat. The Dubois for certain. She loved the beach at night, and he, ever the gentleman, refused to allow her out alone.
Kaine scanned the beach to the north—nothing. The sea—empty. He held his breath for one more listen—silence, except for nature at night.
He stood, dusted the sand off his knees, and returned for a final search of the house.
None of the circuit breakers had been tripped. None of their high-tech traps had been sprung. The bungalow was secure.
Lara was safe.
He exhaled deeply.
Lara was safe. The only thing that mattered.
Kaine leaned against a wall and covered his face with his hands, taking a moment to recover before returning to the living area. He looked up into the lens of the camera hidden above the panic room door and tapped two fingers against his most recent injury—his tooth—a signal only he and Lara knew. The door clicked open, and he breathed more easily. Without Kaine’s signal, had anything larger than a rabbit activated more than three of the infra-red sensors, Lara would have stayed inside, called for Rollo, and waited for his arrival.
He made the Sig safe and tucked it in the holster sewn into the back of his shorts. Lara popped her head around the blast-resistant door.
“That was fun,” she said, smiling, although her pale face and trembling hands gave lie to her bluster. “Who was it?”
“No idea. Text message.”
“We did all that for a text message?” She stepped further into the main room. “Why didn’t you just read the flaming thing?”
Close to tears, her lower lip trembled. He rushed forward, wrapped her in his arms, and guided her towards the couch.
“You know the protocols, Lara. An unexpected contact without a caller ID and the security code is unacceptable. Any break from the norm and we protect ourselves. If we’d been compromised, stopping to read the text might have been all the distraction an attacker needed. I couldn’t take that risk. Safety first, remember?”
She nodded. He tried to release her, but she held onto his arm and pulled him down to the chair with her. Even with his internal defences still on high alert, her touch and proximity were distracting.
“Okay,” he said quietly, “let’s see who’s sending us text messages.”
He retrieved the mobile and opened the message. A name, a London street address, and the cryptic message, ‘Help them.’
“What does it say?”
He handed her the phone and tried to work out the implications. Apart from him, Lara, Sabrina, and Rollo, only two other people knew the burner’s number, and he trusted them both with not only his life, but Lara’s as well. And her life was worth considerably more than his.
Lara returned the phone. “Rollo?”
He shook his head. “He’d have used the code, which is?”
As was his way, he tested her. Driving in the safety protocols the only way he knew how—through repetition. Being a civilian, everything in the field was new to Lara, and she needed the safety protocols ingrained, a second skin. Reaction, action, and only then, thought. If the processes came naturally to her, she might stand a chance if he wasn’t around to protect her.
She nodded. “The caller starts the text with a day of the week. Yesterday—that’s Thursday as it’s way past midnight—if things are okay, but tomorrow—Saturday—if there’s a threat.”
“Rollo would never break the code. Neither would Sabrina or Danny.”
“DCI Jones, then. Does he know it?”
Kaine read the message again. “Yes, but the one time I actually met him, he didn’t strike me as a man who’d ignore an agreed protocol.”
“Who then? Have we been discovered? For this to happen the day Sabrina rolled out the new program is suspicious, isn’t it?”
Kaine had been thinking along similar lines. Despite Sabrina’s confidence, he doubted there’d ever be such a thing as a totally secure computer program. Lara’s guess was as valid as his, but he didn’t want to show weakness to her. She looked too close to losing control.
“Do you recognise the name, Constantine?” he asked, giving her something practical to focus on.
Lara closed her eyes, frowning. “It seems familiar somehow. “Shall I check Sabrina’s do
ssiers.”
“Good idea.”
She peeled herself away from him and stood. He watched her all the way back to the office staircase. With the door open and the situation normalised, it no longer held the designation ‘panic room’.
“I’ll call Jones.” He checked the time: 01:37 local time—00:37 in the UK. “He’ll probably still be up.”
Lara said something he didn’t catch, and the veteran police officer answered with his usual terse, “Jones here.”
“Sorry, wrong number. I was looking for Mr Mariner.”
Jones grunted and disconnected the call. Kaine started counting. He usually didn’t reach ten elephants, but the phone vibrated in his hand on the fifteenth pachyderm.
“What took you so long, Mr Jones?”
“Never you mind.”
A voice in the background Kaine didn’t recognise called Jones by name and rank.
“Are you still working?”
“Always.”
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
“Do you have a problem, Mr Gabriel?”
Kaine winced at the name Jones’ had assigned him. Gabriel, the Guardian Angel. It made him sound like something out of an Old Testament movie.
“Possibly. A short while ago, I received a text. Wasn’t from you by any chance?”
“A text? From me?” Jones scoffed. “I doubt that’ll ever happen.”
Shit.
If not Jones or his friends, who?
“I thought not, but had to check, you understand?”
“Have you been compromised?” The policeman’s voice took on a note of urgency.
“That’s what … my companion and I were wondering. I’ll let you get back to work. Sorry for calling so late.”
“Not a problem. I’m at work anyway.” Jones hesitated a beat before adding, “Be safe Mr Gabriel, and please give your companion my fond regards.”
Kaine cut the call and followed Lara down the stairs into the office. He took his usual spot at the desk, sitting as a guard between her and the exit. Four of the six monitors showed wide-angle monochrome images of the perimeter, each set to the cardinal compass points. The remaining two showed the front and rear entrances. The barbecue still glowed hot, its temperature indicated by a white glare on the black and white picture.
“Any luck?” he asked, leaning closer to look at the laptop screen.
She leaned back unexpectedly and her hair brushed his cheek. It smelled of the sun, the sea, and something subtle he didn’t recognise.
“I was right. Mr Orestes and Mrs Justina Constantine are members of The 83,” she said quietly. “They own the Bistro Mykonos, a Greek restaurant in Tower Hamlets, London. Two girls, Kora, aged seven, and Rena, aged nine.”
Kaine didn’t want to open the wounds, but he had to know.
“Who did they lose?”
If he weren’t such a miserable coward he’d have asked, “Which of their family members did I murder?” but Lara knew what he meant and wouldn’t torture him with it.
“Onassis Constantine,” she said. “Orestes’ father and Justina’s father-in-law. He opened the restaurant in the late ’70s. Orestes’ mother, Renata, died in 2009. Natural causes.”
Kaine kept monitoring the other screens. After the apparently false alarm, his defence mechanisms wouldn’t settle down for hours.
“The message told us to help them. Anything on the system to suggest why they’d need my type of help?”
“The Constantine dossier is huge. It’ll take ages to read it all, but I haven’t found anything obvious so far. So, what do we do?”
Although he loved her use of ‘we’ as though they were a proper team, the decisions had to be his. His world—his responsibility.
“I need to think.”
“The message might be a trap. Someone could be trying to lure you to London.”
He combed his fingers through his beard. Would he ever get used to the bloody thing?
“That’s a distinct possibility.”
She dipped her head and her shoulders slumped in resignation. “You’re going to London, aren’t you?”
When he didn’t answer right away, she repeated the question more forcefully.
“Not sure I have any alternative. If the Constantines are in trouble, I need to be there for them.”
“In that case, I’m coming, too.”
Kaine expected her to say exactly that and was ready. “Oh no. No way. Safety first. You’re staying right here in the villa.”
“But I’ll be safer with you, and I can help. You know I can.”
He tried to ignore the eyes that could slice through his defences in seconds and hardened himself to her pleas.
“I’ll call Rollo and ask him if he can babysit.” Kaine winced as a spark of anger coloured her cheeks, and added, “Sorry, I meant, I’ll ask him to come and protect you.”
Nice one, Ryan. You dolt.
“Hopefully, Rollo can be here before I have to leave. If not, Bordeaux’s on the way and I can drop you off at his place. He can drive you back here and stay until I’m done. Okay?”
She looked away. He put a hand to her chin and turned her head gently.
“Please, Lara. Don’t fight me on this. You can help from here. Use the system to provide the intel I can’t find on the ground.”
He let go of her chin and allowed her to work through the arguments in her head. She was intelligent, one of the brightest people he’d ever met, and a fast learner. It wouldn’t take her long to see the sense in it.
Eventually, she nodded. Tears shone in her eyes.
“You go pack.” She spoke quietly, her voice resigned, shoulders held stiff and back. “I’ll call Rollo and work out the quickest way to get you to London. What identity will you be using?”
H took a moment to think. “I thought Vincent Abernathy would make a good cover in London,” he said, relieved by her agreement if not her reaction. “What do you reckon? Think I’ll be able to sell accident insurance to small businesses?”
He broke out a cheesy grin and opened his eyes wide.
Lara turned away and picked up the secure desk phone. Clearly, she didn’t appreciate his levity. Where was the damned joke book when he needed it?
Chapter 7
Friday 23rd October—Early Morning
The Villa, Aquitaine, France
Packing only took a few minutes. Kaine rolled all the clothes he needed for a short stay into his old military backpack, his faithful Bergen. His grab bag containing cash, keys, and a few other essentials, was always prepped and close to hand. To it, he added his identification of choice. Years of living a life on the move, never knowing when he’d need to leave at a moment’s notice, had instilled a familiarity in the process. And this time, it wasn’t as though he was heading into the Afghan Kush, or the Scottish Highlands. If he forgot anything other than his fake passport and driving licence, he could pop into the shops and buy it.
Having London as a destination held another advantage. He kept a few things he couldn’t buy over the counter—illicit military hardware, for example—stored in complete security in his London place. Protected by surveillance equipment similar to the French villa, the safe house had remained undisturbed since his most recent visit some six weeks earlier.
By the time he returned to the office, Lara had the printer fired up and spitting out a sheet of paper.
“Ready to leave, or is Rollo on his way?” he asked, from the bottom step.
“There’s no rush,” she answered, swivelling her chair to face him and pointing him into his usual one. “Your flight doesn’t board until nine-fifteen tomorrow morning.” She handed him the paper from the printer. “Here’s your boarding pass.”
“A flight? That’s a seven hour delay. I expected to leave now and drop you off at Rollo’s place. Then drive north to the coast.”
She shook her head. “No point. It’ll be quicker to fly than to use the ferry. Driving through the night would be a killer, and you’d be exhausted wh
en you arrive. Unless I shared the driving.”
“I told you. That’s not happening. You’re staying here.”
He gave himself time to think it through. From the villa to Calais was at least a ten hour drive, even without refuelling and rest stops. Then he’d have to wait for a Eurotunnel train and after that, a two-hour drive from Dover to London. Even if he missed any traffic snarl-ups and had minimal delays getting through the Chunnel, the trip would take fifteen hours minimum. A cross channel ferry would take even longer, eighteen hours or more.
Lara was right. Few surprises there.
“Okay, agreed,’ he said, taking the travel pass. “The plane it is.”
Lara seemed relieved, but she didn’t manage even a grudging smile. He folded the document and stuffed it inside his passport in the grab bag.
“You can take a train from Gatwick station and reach Central London well before midday. All things being equal, that’ll be less than fourteen hours from now. What’s more, you’ll be fresher and more ready for action—if there is any.”
He couldn’t see a flaw and didn’t really fancy driving through the night especially when he had no idea what he’d face at the other end.
“And there’s one more thing,” she added. “While we wait for Rollo, I can finish reading the Constantines’ dossier. Better than going off into the night on some sort of fool’s errand, isn’t it? There’s no telling what you’ll be walking into.”
Her eyes were still clouded with anger and worry. He dropped the Bergen and the grab bag on the sofa-bed and took his seat beside her. She edged away, but not too far—just enough to make her point.
“You’ve made your case, Dr Orchard,” he said pointing to his laptop. “Mind if I use that?”
“Help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
He wanted to say more, to apologise again for his monumental ‘babysit’ gaff, but they’d both shifted into operational mode, and it was not the time.
“I’ll pull up Google Earth and zoom in on the Constantines’ address. I need to check out the lay of the land. Let me know if you find anything in their files.”
Ryan Kaine: On the Defensive: Book Three in the Ryan Kaine Action Thriller Series Page 6
