Harper grinned. ‘Charlie, honey, this one’s on me. It’ll be a pleasure.’
CHAPTER 68
Malik Sharif lived in a mansion in St John’s Wood, not far from the one owned by the former Beatle, Paul McCartney. Sharif’s mansion was twice the size of McCartney’s, standing alone in a large garden with a double garage at the side. Harper was parked outside the house when Sharif arrived home at just after six in the back of a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. He let himself into the house and there didn’t appear to be anyone around to greet him. Harper was able to get to the rear garden and watched the house as darkness fell. A woman was in the kitchen, too portly and plain to be Mrs Sharif. He watched her cook a meal, then disappear into the house. Security was non-existent, pretty much, with no CCTV, no bodyguards and an alarm system that seemed unused.
Harper was wearing dark clothing – black jeans, and a bomber jacket over a black pullover – and had a small backpack with him. He had brought a sandwich and a bottle of water, and consumed them as he watched the rear of the house. A light went on in a room on the top floor, then ten minutes later it went off. A flickering through the curtains suggested that a television had been switched on, but at just before one o’clock it stopped.
An upstairs sash window had been left partly open, a bathroom by the look of it, and there was a drainpipe that could be climbed, but the sunroom, with sliding windows, was a better bet. Harper couldn’t see any motion-sensitive floodlights on the house, but he kept close to the hedge as he made his way towards the sunroom. It was locked but he had a screwdriver in his backpack, which was all he needed to pop the lock. He slid open the door and stepped inside, then moved through into the kitchen. The absence of feed bowls meant he was unlikely to bump into a dog. It looked as if Sharif felt so safe in his adopted country that he didn’t need security. Harper smiled to himself. Big mistake. He took his gun out of the backpack, tiptoed into the hallway and up a large, winding staircase.
Sharif was fast asleep in the master bedroom, spread-eagled on his king-size bed like a stranded starfish. He was in his sixties, overweight, with a neatly trimmed beard and receding hair. His spectacles were on the bedside table, with a glass of water and a gold watch. He was snoring loudly, his belly rising and falling in time with his breathing.
Harper doffed his backpack and took out padded cuffs attached to lengths of rope. He put the gun on the bed and carefully lashed Sharif’s wrists to the ornate brass headboard and his ankles to the legs at the bottom of the bed. Sharif grunted in his sleep but didn’t wake up. It was only when Harper took a strip of cloth from his backpack and tied it around the man’s mouth that his eyes fluttered open. He groaned and tried to rub his face but realised his hands were tied and began to struggle. Then he saw Harper standing over him. He tried to speak but the gag muffled everything except a frightened grunt. ‘Don’t struggle, mate, it’ll soon be over,’ said Harper. He reached into his pocket and took out a syringe containing some of the liquid he had purchased from Dr Li in London’s Chinatown. He had more than he needed, certainly more than enough to take care of Sharif. It was a chemical isolated from Gelsemium elegans, a highly toxic yellow-flowered shrub found only in a remote region of China. It was the perfect assassin’s weapon – just a few drops would trigger a heart attack. For years the pretty flowers had been harvested and the chemical used by the Chinese Ministry of State Security to kill those it wanted out of the way without the necessity of a trial. In recent years the Russians had discovered the compound and had also used it with great success. Death always came quickly and a cursory examination would show that it had been a heart attack.
Sharif’s eyes widened in terror and he began to struggle but the bonds held firm. Harper held the syringe in front of the man’s face and grinned at him. ‘You tried to hurt a friend of mine, mate, and there’s a price to be paid for that. Charlotte Button. You put the fear of God into her, do you know that? Getting those places robbed, getting those Poles killed, and for what? To protect a secret that was never in any danger of getting out? You should have let sleeping dogs lie, because this is one dog that’s come back to bite you in the arse.’
Harper walked to the bottom of the bed. He held Sharif’s left foot tightly, and pushed the needle into a vein between the big toe and the one next to it. Sharif tried to kick free but Harper had a grip like a vice and he slowly pushed down the plunger. When the syringe was empty, he stood back. The gelsemium began to work in seconds. At first Sharif went still, a look of pure panic in his eyes. Then his body went into spasm: his back arched and his eyes bulged. He held that position for a good ten seconds, as taut as a bow, then collapsed back onto the bed. His chest heaved and his breath came in short gasps, making the gag pop back and forth. Suddenly he went still. Harper waited a full minute before checking for a pulse in the man’s neck. Finding none, he removed the cuffs and placed them, with the empty syringe, in his backpack.
He rearranged the duvet over the body, took a minute to check that he hadn’t left anything incriminating behind, then slipped out of the room, went downstairs and out through the sunroom. Five minutes later he was in a black cab, heading back to Bayswater.
CHAPTER 69
Harper was fairly sure that the Russians would be watching the Thai airports, or at the very least keeping track of arrival cards. It was easy enough to do. Every foreigner who arrived at any of the country’s airports had to fill in a landing card and have his photograph taken. A bribe of a few hundred dollars would get you a copy of the card and the photograph. If he was going to get back into Thailand without the Russians knowing, he’d have to enter by land. That was easy, too, as the country was bordered by Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.
He decided on Malaysia because he could take the train from Kuala Lumpur. He flew from London to Belfast, showing a driving licence as ID, then caught a taxi south to Dublin Airport. From there he flew to Amsterdam on an Irish passport and caught the midday KLM flight that arrived in Kuala Lumpur at just after six in the morning. He booked into a hotel at the airport, ate steak and chips, then slept for most of the day. He checked out at five o’clock in the evening and caught a cab to the main railway station where he bought a ticket to Bangkok. The train left at nine fifteen p.m. and, even though he had a sleeping cabin, he stayed awake for most of the night. Eleven hours later he arrived at Padang Besar, a Malaysian town that bordered Songkhai province in Thailand. The town on the other side of the border was also called Padang Besar though the locals referred to it as Pekan Siam. It was a popular destination for Thai and Malaysian tourists who could take advantage of the duty-free shopping complex between the border checkpoints.
Harper’s Irish passport was scrutinised but he wasn’t photographed. He checked into a cheap hotel to eat and rest, then caught the early-evening train to Bangkok. Again he had a sleeping cabin and managed to grab a few hours’ sleep before arriving in Bangkok shortly after midnight. He caught a taxi to Pattaya and phoned Mickey Moore on the way.
CHAPTER 70
The Russian stretched out his legs and grunted. The chair he was sitting on was comfortable enough but he had been there for six hours and his buttocks were starting to complain. More than two dozen people had entered or left the condominium building but none had matched the photograph he had concealed in the magazine on his lap. He was looking for an Englishman in his thirties, tall but not too tall, fit but not too fit, average-looking. In fact there was nothing memorable about Alex Harper, which was why the Russian was constantly having to look at the photograph. His colleague sitting on the other side of the reception area seemed to be equally uncomfortable. Both men were former Russian special forces. They had served in Ukraine and the north Caucasus and were happier with guns in their hands and bullets whizzing overhead than sitting in chairs.
The Russian bent down and picked up his cup of Starbucks coffee. It was the third since he had arrived at the building, and he would be needing the bathroom soon. That was why there were two of them. Mirov had bee
n clear on that: someone had to be there all the time. He sipped his coffee and nodded at his colleague, who nodded back.
A motorcycle taxi driver walked in, with a tattoo of a cobweb across his neck and a steel chain around his neck from which hung five Buddha symbols. Two women in matching lime green suits were standing behind the counter and the guy spoke to them in Thai, then looked around the reception area. He took out an iPhone, made a call, then walked around talking loudly, the phone pressed to his ear. The Russian was impressed that a motorcycle taxi driver owned an expensive iPhone, unless it was a Chinese knock-off. He had realized soon after he’d arrived in the country that nothing in Thailand was as it seemed at first glance. Watches were often fake, as were designer labels, and more often than not the famous Thai smile was a mask for something more sinister. The Russian wasn’t a big fan of Thailand but Mirov was paying big bucks and the boss, Yuri Lukin, had a huge operation in Moscow that promised even richer pickings in future, providing the Russian made a good impression.
The motorcycle guy was talking animatedly, waving his hand up and down as he stalked around the reception area, passing within a few feet of the Russian, then heading off to the far side, clearly annoyed at something. Then he took the phone away from his ear, shouted something at the two girls, and left. The Russian smiled at his colleague. At least something had happened to break the monotony.
He looked at the glass doors to his left. They were the only way to get to the lift lobby, and beyond the lifts were the stairs. Anyone going in or out of the apartments had to pass through the doors, which were operated from inside and outside by a keycard system. If Alex Harper returned to his apartment they would spot him, no question.
The motorcycle taxi driver went outside. His bike was standing by the main entrance but he ignored it and walked to a black Humvee that was parked on the road. The tinted window rolled down as he approached the vehicle and Mickey Moore grinned at him. ‘How did it go, Adisorn?’
‘There are two in there, Khun Mickey,’ said the man. ‘They look like Russians.’ He passed the phone through the window and grinned as Mickey handed him a thousand-baht note in return. ‘Anytime, Khun Mickey,’ he said, putting his palms together and bowing, the traditional Thai wai.
‘You take care, Adisorn,’ said Mickey. As Adisorn headed back to his bike, Mickey went through the photographs on the phone. The Thai had been right: they looked like Russians. Big, hard men who clearly weren’t waiting in Harper’s condominium building to give him a welcome-back vodka. He grimaced, tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and drove off.
CHAPTER 71
Harper had the taxi drop him on Second Road and went down Soi 15 to Walking Street. It was two o’clock in the morning so most of the Chinese and Korean tour groups had gone home, leaving the strip to the drunks, bar girls and sex tourists. A young contortionist was doing her thing for a group of onlookers under the watchful eye of a man whom Harper hoped was her father. She was standing on her hands with her legs over her head, using her feet to put on a pair of sunglasses. She couldn’t have been much more than twelve years old. A group of uniformed cops were sitting at a table nearby in front of a police van, handing out tourist information and clearly unconcerned about any possible breach of the child labour laws.
Groups of young Thai men in black uniforms and scantily dressed dancers were in the street, trying to entice customers into their bars, without much luck. Most of the men, and women, who walked past Harper had the blank-eyed faces and slack jaws caused by too much alcohol, too much ear-shattering music and, in all likelihood, a fair amount of illegal drug-taking. Harper had a Singha beer baseball cap pulled down over his face as he threaded his way through the drunks to the Ice Bar. There were two sections: a trendy cocktail bar and the Ice Bar itself, a refrigerated unit with an industrial door and plate-glass windows overlooking the street. The cocktail bar was comfortably air-conditioned while the Ice Bar was maintained at twenty degrees below zero.
Mickey and his brother Mark were in the cocktail bar, chatting with the owner. Mickey saw Harper first and grinned broadly. ‘You look like shit, mate.’ He was a big-chested man in his early fifties, with hair that had receded almost halfway back and a dark tan that emphasised the blue of his eyes. He had a thick gold chain around his neck from which hung a gold Buddha image in a gold case. There was another thick gold chain on his right wrist and a chunky gold Patek Philippe watch on the other. He was wearing a white silk shirt with the sleeves rolled up and Versace jeans.
Harper grinned. In comparison to Mickey, he looked like a tramp. ‘I came overland, from Malaysia.’
Mickey walked over and gave him a hug and a slap on the back. ‘Drove?’
‘Train.’
‘How was it?’
‘Like you said, I look like shit. But at least I came in under the radar.’
Mickey released his grip on Harper and stepped to the side to let his brother grab him in an equally painful hug. Mark was younger than Mickey by about eight years but was a couple of inches taller, with an even bigger chest. Like Mickey, he wore a gold chain around his neck but on his wrists he had a large Cartier watch with multiple dials and a metal Khmer bracelet that he claimed made him invulnerable to bullets. That was what the Khmer magic man who had sold it to him had said, but Mark had never put it to the test. He was also wearing designer labels – a pair of Armani jeans and a Ralph Lauren shirt, the real thing, not the knock-off copies that were sold all over Pattaya. The Moore brothers spent a lot of money on their appearance. That wasn’t how Harper liked to operate. His watch was a cheap Casio and he never wore fashion brands. Labels were easy to identify and remember, and expensive watches stuck in people’s memories. He preferred to be as forgettable as possible.
Mark punched Harper on the shoulder. ‘Yeah, and then you walk straight into the lion’s den. You must have balls of bloody steel, mate. Red Oktober is less than a hundred yards away.’
‘This is the last place they’ll be looking for me,’ said Harper.
‘Hide in plain sight?’ said Mark. ‘It’s still a risk, mate. You’re coming home with us tonight.’
‘Nah, I’ll be fine.’
‘Fuck that, do as Mark says,’ said Mickey. ‘We checked out your condo. There’s a couple of Russian goons camped out in Reception.’ He pulled an iPhone from his back pocket and showed him the photographs the motorcycle taxi driver had taken earlier that day.
Harper scowled at the picture. They were big men and certainly looked Russian. ‘Fuck.’
‘So we’re booking you into Casa del Moore,’ said Mark. ‘No arguments.’
Harper nodded. ‘Okay.’ He indicated the large refrigerator door. ‘But we need to talk now.’
Mickey waved a hand at the owner. ‘Okay if we have a conference?’
The owner flashed him a thumbs-up and Mark pulled open the door. Most of the patrons borrowed one of the bar’s fur-lined parka jackets as they knocked back a selection of freezing-cold flavoured vodkas and tequilas, but Mickey, Mark and Harper went in as they were.
There was a small bar made of clear plastic that looked like ice in the corner where a waitress in a padded coat with the hood up was looking glumly through a plate-glass window at the passers-by in Walking Street. Her smile flashed on as soon as they came in and she gestured at the bottles in front of her. ‘What can I get you?’ she asked. Her only company was a Thai man in a polar bear suit.
‘Three chocolate vodkas,’ said Mickey. ‘And one for you. And one for the fucking bear.’ He patted the polar bear’s shoulder. ‘I don’t know how you put up with it, mate, standing with your balls freezing for ten hours a day.’
The bear shrugged.
‘He’s got a job, hasn’t he?’ said Mark. ‘Plus he gets all his booze free.’ Mark shivered and rubbed his forearms. ‘Plus he’s got a nice comfy suit to keep him warm.’
The girl poured five chocolate vodkas. Mickey raised his. ‘To our mate Lex. Life’s never fucking boring with you around.’
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The three men raised their shot glasses. So did the girl. The bear pulled back his head to reveal a Thai man in his forties with a gap-toothed grin. He picked up a glass with his paw and raised it in a salute. All five downed their drinks in one and slammed their glasses onto the bar. Mickey took out his wallet and gave the girl and the bear a thousand baht each. ‘Give us five minutes alone,’ he said. They hurried out and slammed the door behind them. The Moore brothers often used the Ice Bar to discuss business. It was totally soundproofed and there was a huge rattling air-conditioning unit on full to keep the temperature down so there was zero chance of anyone inside being overheard.
‘Right. I need a silenced gun,’ said Harper. The three men were leaning over the bar, their heads close together and their backs to the window. ‘Mine is in my apartment and I can’t get to it. Ideally I’d like something Russian. A 9mm PB silenced pistol would be favourite.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Mickey.
‘And I’ll need explosives.’
‘What sort?’ asked Mark.
‘The sort that go bang.’
Mickey laughed. ‘Yeah, but there are big bangs and small bangs. And bloody huge bangs. Spectaculars, the IRA used to call them.’
‘Nothing fancy,’ said Harper. ‘Just enough to blow up a car. In fact, not a whole car just the back bit.’
‘Are you going to war, Lex?’ asked Mickey.
‘Just taking care of business,’ said Harper. ‘They started it.’
‘Well, to be fair, you did stick bottles up the arses of two leading lights of the Russian Mafia,’ said Mark.
‘After they’d beaten up a friend of mine. And they sent someone to kill me in Paris. So if I don’t make a bold statement now, this is going to drag on and on.’
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