by Matt Hilton
But Alisha couldn't run away. She was his wife.
Ordinarily a man like him would forego marriage. But he'd desired something more than any whore or mistress could ever give him. He wanted someone who would be solely his. He'd found Alisha, charmed her, promised her a lifestyle she couldn't resist. He had married her in order to exercise the very power of ownership over her. That way he could do to her whatever he pleased.
Alisha was right to fear him. He was responsible for the deaths of three women. Not a large number when compared to some more notorious murderers, but enough to be getting on with. It was nothing to the number of men he'd killed, so really it was the wrong sex who seemed as though they could sense his essence. He'd often wondered if he exuded some kind of putrid auric light that only women could see. Many hours he'd spent in front of mirrors, studying his reflection, looking for what they saw. He'd never seen it yet. But he didn't doubt it was there.
'Look at me, Alisha.'
Alisha fought to blink the tears off her lashes.
'Do you see it yet?'
'No, Luke.' Alisha cringed under him, knowing what was coming. 'I don't see it.'
Rickard knew there was something in him that set him apart from other men. A need, a compulsion, a thirst for blood: whatever this driving force was he could feel it coiling inside his gut like a serpent, and it had been with him since he was a small child. He could feel it worming its way through his body, seeking outlet at every turn.
'I don't believe you. You must see it.' He slapped her across the face. 'See me, Alisha!'
Alisha cried out. So did Rickard.
Then he rolled away from her.
'Get cleaned up. And put on some nice clothes. We're going out and we're going to celebrate a job well done.'
'Yes, Luke.' She got up painfully, then shuffled towards the en-suite bathroom where she closed the door behind her. Rickard lay down on his back and listened to the sobs she tried to conceal with the sound of running water.
Rickard smiled at his reflection in the mirror on the ceiling. He was happy with himself.
People argued about the psychology of men who felt the need to hurt others. How had their urge to destroy come about? Nature or nurture? What if it was neither? Rickard had often asked himself. What if it was both? His nature was to kill, but he'd nurtured his skills to a point where he could do so with impunity.
But he was no raging serial killer.
Any fool could kill.
His mobile phone vibrated on the cabinet next to the bed.
He smiled. Not many fools could make a living from killing and as a measure of his success, Rickard was a very wealthy man.
'Rickard,' he said into the phone.
'That was good work today,' said the voice at the other end.
'Thanks. I enjoyed it.'
'The figure we agreed is in your account.'
'Yes.' Rickard had already checked.
'OK, so Hunter can't go to the police now. We've got him on the run and I want to keep the impetus going. Are you ready for the next part of the plan?'
'When?'
'How soon can you be ready?'
Rickard cupped his hand over the phone. He called out to the closed bathroom door, 'Alisha, honey, take your time in there. Change of plans, I'm afraid. I have to go out alone tonight.'
Chapter 6
After yesterday, having a gun pressed to my head wasn't the best way to start my day, but it did a lot more to wake me up than the two Vente Americanos I'd already downed from the corner Starbucks. By the feel of the snub-nosed revolver touching a point just above my left ear, the man wasn't joking. I took my hands from the steering wheel of my Taurus to show I wasn't armed.
'You don't need the gun,' I told him. 'Don't forget… you called for this meeting.'
'I haven't stayed alive this long by taking unnecessary risks. Just do as I ask and everything will be fine.'
Slipping out of the car, I appraised the gunman. He was unremarkable: brown hair, brown eyes, medium height and medium build. He was the type of person who could blend into any crowd, your typical CIA agent. It was seven years since I'd laid eyes on Bryce Lang, but the years had been kind to him. Apart from a couple of extra lines round his eyes, he looked much the way he had when last we'd worked together.
'Am I missing something here, Bryce? I thought we were on the same side.' I looked at him steadily and saw his eyelids droop ever so slightly.
'That's the problem, Hunter. I'm not sure whose side you're on any more.' He waved me towards a nondescript brown sedan car. 'You drive.'
'Where to?'
'I'll tell you when we're moving.'
Bryce kept the gun on me until I was seated in his car. Periodically he glanced round searching for hidden observers, but this neck of Tampa was practically deserted at this time of morning. Only the occasional harried employee ducking into the nearby Starbucks for a caffeine injection on their walk to work was in evidence. Their eyes were too sleep-muddled to make sense of the man with a gun in their midst. Happy that we'd gone unnoticed, Bryce clambered into the passenger seat. He held the gun across his thighs, the muzzle aimed at my side.
From his jacket pocket he pulled out a small contraption that he held concealed in his palm. He waved the electronic device in my direction and I heard a faint buzz in response.
'You have a mobile phone?'
'You know I do. You called me on it.' It was prepaid and unregistered, no way of linking it to me.
'Turn it off. Do it slowly. No sudden movements.'
Reaching into my shirt pocket I used two fingers to slip my Nokia out and flip it open. I depressed the red button and put the phone back in my pocket.
Bryce again swept me with the device and he seemed happy that I wasn't wired or carrying any kind of bugs or location devices on me. As he did, he relaxed his grip on the gun. If I wanted to I could have taken him out then. A quick slash of my stiffened hand into his windpipe and that would have been that. But I didn't. Like I'd told him earlier, I thought we were on the same side. Plus, the trouble I'd found myself in and the timeliness of Bryce's sudden appearance was no coincidence.
'What's going on, Bryce?'
He grimaced, but then nodded us forward. 'Drive.'
So I drove.
We headed out on Kennedy Boulevard, sitting silently. Bryce angled the wing mirror so that he could keep an eye on the road behind us. He ordered me to take a left on to a surface street, cutting through a housing scheme that appeared to be more trees than houses. Nice neighbourhood. He watched for anyone following, but the road behind us was clear. He indicated me through a couple of turns and we came out on to another boulevard, this time Henderson. I took a sharp right and we headed back towards Kennedy on the Dale Mabry Highway. At Kennedy once more, he indicated that I continue driving west out of town. I glanced across at him. His eyes were on the mirror.
'There's no one following.' I was pretty sure of that considering I'd been checking for cops all morning. 'I came alone, like I said I would.'
'It's not anyone with you that's troubling me, Hunter.' But that was all he'd say. He again fell silent, watching behind us for a tail that I was certain wasn't there. We reached a turnpike and he gestured me through it and north on to Veterans Expressway. We were almost at Greater Northdale before Bryce finally put the gun away.
'Where am I going, Bryce?'
'Knowing Joe Hunter, you'll have a safe house somewhere. Take us there.'
'Tell me what's going on.'
'Only when I'm sure that it's safe.'
He didn't speak again until we were on US 98, heading north-west for the Gulf Coast. When he did so, it seemed like there was a touch of regret behind his words.
'I always trusted you, Hunter. You were always a good man.'
'So why the gun, Bryce? Why all the precautions?'
'It's the nature of the job, Hunter. You know that.'
'I'm not in the job any more.' I looked across at him again. 'Last I heard, neither are
you. You retired, I was told.'
'People like us never retire.'
I couldn't argue with that.
I was no special agent like Bryce Lang, I was just one of the grunts sent in when the agents had done their work. Assassin isn't a term I favour, but I suppose that all depends on which end of the gun you're looking down. When you've killed for a living, it's something that you can't leave behind – however hard you try. I've tried to hide from my past, but it was a pointless exercise because the violence always seemed to find me. I'm not seen as an assassin now; these days people call me a vigilante.
I don't care for that term either.
However my ethos is simple: there's no room in this world for people prepared to make the lives of others miserable. As a soldier my enemies were sadistic, brutal and immoral people and I had no qualms about putting them down. Stripped bare, all they were was bullies and the only way I know to stop a bully is to stand up to them. If that makes me a vigilante then so be it.
'Someone from your past has come back to haunt you,' I offered.
'Someone from our past, Hunter.'
I looked across at him and we locked gazes. 'Colombia?'
Had to be Colombia. It was the only time we'd worked together.
Now I was the one checking my mirrors for a tail.
Chapter 7
Bogota, Colombia, had two faces. One was made up of modern high-rise towers, as affluent a district as boasted by any other major city in the civilised world. The second was that area that sprawled on the western edge of the city, where people lived in squalor to rival the worst ghettos anywhere. There people existed. No other term was applicable to their lives. There was no money, little food, poor sanitation and homes made from wood and sheet metal and anything else that could be scavenged. It was a city that summed up for me the very reason for battling against the corrupt people of the earth. I couldn't stand by and watch children starve to death, knowing that little more than a few miles away evil people were growing fat on their misery. The thought sullied my conscience.
I was there along with another three members of my team, plus Bryce Lang, our CIA link, and an agent from Colombia's Narcotics Task Force called Victor Montoya who was our local Departmento Administrativo de Seguridad contact. We were in the Barrio La Candelaria district of the city, surrounded by old world buildings painted in vibrant colours. This was the area that the city was originally founded upon and it retained much of its historic charm. Over the rooftops, I could make out the ornate twin spires of the cathedral in the nearby Plaza de Boliva. Beyond the spires the Andes were swathed in menacing clouds the same gunmetal blue as the SIG Sauer P226 I held in my hand.
I was in an anonymous-looking government car along with Bryce and Jack Schilling, one of the guys from my team. Montoya and my other two colleagues, Pete Hillman and Robert Muir, were set up a little distance away down the road, keeping obs on the side entrance to the house we were all watching. We had a view of the front facade of the historic house. I believed that our target would exit by the front, and it was my and Jack's responsibility to take him out. In the other car was our support team who would only engage the enemy if we were cornered, or if we failed. Six of us to take out one man. It might sound like overkill, but I hoped it would be enough.
Jesus Henao Abadia was a key player in the Colombian drug cartels. The US Treasury, Justice and State Departments had applied economic sanctions against the drug cartels under Executive Order 12978 in an effort at curtailing what they termed Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers. Abadia was an SDNT, but he was more than that. He was a butcher. He was suspected of having personally executed rivals and government officials by way of hacking them to steaming chunks with a machete.
Not that I feared we weren't up to killing one man with a big knife. It was the protection team which travelled with Abadia that gave me cause for concern. Abadia went nowhere alone. Not even here, to the home of his long-time mistress, Jimena Antonia Grajales.
Victor's intel said that Abadia was there with the woman and only two of his protectors who would be on the ground floor of the two-storey house. Abadia was due to return to his fortress-like home near to Prado in the Colombian department – like a county or state – of Tolima this morning. This would be our best opportunity for taking out the butcher without facing down a veritable private army of retainers.
I felt uncomfortable about taking out Abadia where there was the potential for innocents to be caught in the cross-fire. It was bad enough that Jimena was here, let alone the occasional civilian who wandered along the street past the house. But I had my orders and that was that. Collateral damage was apparently acceptable if it meant stemming the flood of cocaine to the western world.
We were wearing covert earpieces, and over the scrambled channel I heard Victor announce that Abadia's white Lincoln town car had been spotted heading our way. Victor had other DAS agents – the Colombian equivalent of secret police – in the field, watching all points of ingress.
'Two in the vehicle: driver and escort,' Victor announced in an accent redolent of his heritage. 'They should be with you in thirty seconds.'
Six to five, the odds were growing in Abadia's favour. If Jimena was a player, that meant the odds were one-on-one, but I didn't consider that too long. I didn't make war on women.
'OK, we're rolling,' Bryce said into the mike taped to his throat.
From behind our left shoulders came the white town car. We hunched down in our seats, Jack Schilling reaching for the Heckler and Koch MP5A3 sub-machine gun located under his seat. It was a variant of the usual MP5, with collapsible stock and chambered for nine mm rounds. It was favoured for close quarter battle and hostage rescue scenarios because the nine mm ammo was less likely to go through walls and hit the hostages. It also fitted nicely beneath the seat of a car and could be brought quickly into play where the longer MP5 would require more manoeuvrability. Armed with my sidearm, I'd be the man designated to hit Abadia, while it was Jack's responsibility to lay down enough rounds to keep his protectors' heads down. Bryce brought out his service pistol, a Beretta, and jacked a round into the chamber. His gun was to be used for defence only, as in effect he was our getaway driver and was no good to us if he was engaged in the fire fight.
The Lincoln rolled up outside Jimena's house on fat tyres. The house door cracked open and two men stepped outside. Neither of them was Abadia. They were tall, slim men, dark-haired, dark-skinned. They had predatory eyes as they swept the street for any sign of danger. I saw that they weren't taking any chances; they were already armed with 7.62 mm Israeli-made Galil automatic rifles.
The passenger eased out of the Lincoln and reached to open the back door. As he did so, I got out of our car and began walking slowly towards them. If I'd come in the black jumpsuit and Kevlar vest associated with my line of work, they'd have mown me down instantly. But I was dressed like anyone else in this teeming city, my skin and hair darkened with dye and my give-away blue-green eyes turned chocolate under contact lenses. I walked hunched over, feigning a slight limp. Abadia's protectors were aware of me, but they weren't concerned. One of them nodded and there in front of me stood Abadia. His two rifle-wielding guards took up position either side of him as he strode down the steps from Jimena's house towards the waiting car.
I was no more than ten yards from his position. One of the guards, the one holding open the car door, lifted the flat of his palm to me. Wait there, he commanded me in Spanish. I stopped, nodding like one used to taking orders. My finger was on the trigger of my SIG and I was a second from lifting the gun from out of my jacket pocket and placing a round in Abadia's head.
But then it happened: the uncontrollable force that has destroyed many well-laid plans throughout the ages. Normal life butted in to place a wall between me and my ability to carry out my duty.
Jimena followed Abadia to the car, demanding a final kiss. But that wasn't all. The tousle-haired boy hanging on to her waist stopped me faster than any amount of bulle
ts that Abadia's men could have fired at me. He was maybe twelve years old, but he was much smaller and slighter of build than English boys of the same age. Something that struck me immediately: he was definitely his mother's child. But more than that, he had the same hawkish nose and deep-set eyes of his father. This boy was without a doubt the offspring of the man I'd come to kill.
My reaction to the boy must have been noticeable, much as I tried not to let it show. I saw Abadia's gaze snap my way, and his dark eyes bored directly into mine.
'Take the shot, goddamnit!' I heard Bryce whisper in my earpiece.
I couldn't. Not when the boy was there. I don't make war on women. I certainly don't against children. I could still have got Abadia clean, but that wasn't the problem. His men would lift their guns to avenge him and then the bullets would be indiscriminate.
'Abort, abort,' I whispered back, averting my gaze and hoping that the man hadn't recognised the murder in my eyes.
'Take the shot, Hunter,' Bryce snapped. 'We won't get this opportunity again.'
'Can't do it. Not with the woman and child here!'
Abadia was watching me like he'd been struck by a gorgon's stare. His face was like stone, and the only life I could detect was in the trembling of his eyelids.
In my time as a soldier, I'd often been in a position where something nebulous, some sort of super intuition or a sixth sense, was all that it took to warn me of danger. Whatever it was, it had saved my life on more than one occasion. But it seemed that I wasn't the only one who had this ability.
Abadia let out a wordless cry, and he turned to Jimena and the child, shooing them back towards the house even as his anxiety transferred to his men and they began to bring up their rifles.
