Greed

by Chris Ryan

  He paused, trying to recapture his breath. There was a silence. Perky had stopped shooting. Alison was steadying herself behind the tree that was covering her: even from this distance Matt could see she was reloading her weapon. Matt peered around the side of the tree. Perky was reloading the magazine on the Walther. From experience with that gun, Matt knew it would take between five and six seconds depending on how good he was.

  Enough time for a man to die.

  Matt jumped away from the tree, exposing himself on open ground. He held his gun straight out in front of him, lining the sight up with his eye. Perky looked up at him, a grin suddenly lighting up his face as he clicked the Walther's magazine into place.

  Matt squeezed the trigger once, then twice, and cast the empty gun to the ground.

  The first bullet hit Perky on the right shoulder, just above the heart. It sent him staggering backwards, twisting his shoulder and knocking the gun out of his hand. The second hit him straight in the chest, just below the heart, knocking him to the ground.

  Matt ran forward, diving for the gun that had fallen from his grip. He jammed it into Perky's ear and pulled the trigger. The bullet lodged into his skull, killing him instantly.

  'He's dead!' Matt shouted. 'Gill, turn your fire on Alison.'

  He looked up into the woods. He could see that Alison was emerging from a tree forty yards away. Behind, Damien was descending on her position. Gill was crawling across the muddy ground to Matt's left, the rain lashing against her face. The gun was sitting between her forearm and her shoulder, her finger still poised on the trigger. A triangle was slowly being formed around Alison from which escape would be impossible.

  Matt took Perky's Walther and ran across the woodland. He looked up ahead. Alison was clutching her shoulder, blood dripping down the side of her arm. Damien was standing next to her, the barrel of the VZ-52 pointing directly at her heart. Matt could see her gun lying on the ground at her side. Damien had shot it out of her hand by firing straight at her shoulder.

  'Aren't you full of surprises?' said Matt, looking towards Gill and smiling. 'I didn't realise how much danger I was in when I cancelled the wedding.'

  'You grow up in my family, you learn something about handling firearms,' she replied.

  Matt stopped five yards short of where Alison was standing. 'March her back towards the pit,' he said, pointing to where Alison had been digging, and where the Semtex was still buried.

  Damien tapped her on the shoulder with the VZ-52. She winced in pain. More blood was flowing now, staining her jacket. Matt could see the colour start to drain away from her face as the loss of blood took its toll. Over the past few weeks he had learnt to respect her strength, if not her honesty. He knew she would hang on to life like a crab to a stone.

  Now Alison stood silently in the ditch. Matt could see her glancing down, wondering which of the bags contained the Semtex. He took the explosive's trigger and held it up in the air. Bending down, he gripped Ivan's shoulder, dragged him twenty yards through the mud, and left the body behind a tree.

  Walking swiftly back to where Alison was standing, he held up the trigger in front of her. 'Now, where were we before we got interrupted?' he said. 'I remember. I was about to blow you away.'

  Matt detected a trace of fear in Alison's face, but mostly her expression was one of regret.

  She minds because she is about to die – but she minds getting beaten more.

  'You idiot,' she said, casting her eyes towards Gill. 'You don't know what you're doing.'

  Gill shrugged. 'I'm the one holding the gun,' she answered. 'And I'm the only woman walking out of this wood alive. That doesn't make me so stupid.'

  Alison laughed. 'You risk your life to save this pathetic washed-up squaddie,' she said, 'when for the past few weeks he's been screwing me every chance he gets. He doesn't care about you. All he wants is the money.'

  The rain lashed harder against Matt's face. His hand gripped tighter on his pistol. He looked up into Gill's face. Maybe that was a tear running down her cheek, maybe it was the rain. He couldn't tell. But he could be certain of one thing – if she listened to Alison, the next few minutes could turn very nasty. Gill could control most things, but her temper was not among them.

  The tip of Gill's rifle turned slowly away from Alison and towards Matt. Her finger was on the trigger; he could see the nail vibrating with rage. 'Is that true?' she said softly.

  'This was about you all along, Gill, you know that,' said Matt. 'I only got involved with this mission so that I could make enough money to clear my debts. Then we could be together again.'

  'You sad little fool,' Alison sneered. 'You're sitting at home grieving over him, and he's screwing everything that moves.'

  It's working, thought Matt.

  She'll push Gill over the edge if I don't stop her soon.

  'You know that photograph of you, the one in the bedroom in Spain?' said Alison. 'Right next to the picture of his first day in the Regiment? He even put that away.'

  Matt could see Gill's finger hovering on her trigger. 'That's not true, is it, Matt?'

  Blood was seeping from the wound on his face, trickling down his cheek and smearing on the edge of his lips. He spat on the ground. 'She's just trying to save her miserable skin,' he replied. 'I'd rather sleep with a rattlesnake.'

  'I'm a dead woman, I know that,' Alison snapped. 'Either she kills me out of jealousy or you kill me for revenge.' She looked towards Gill, her eyes suddenly full of sympathy. 'I just think you should know the truth.'

  'The truth is, everything she's saying is lies,' Damien said, stepping forward. 'Complete lies.'

  Gill looked towards her brother.

  'I've been with this man all through the mission – the training, everything,' Damien said. 'I tell you, nothing happened between them.'

  Matt watched as Gill took in what Damien had said. He had known these two people since they were all children. She would always believe her brother. He glanced up towards Alison. She knew the end was approaching, and suddenly she appeared afraid.

  In the end, courage abandons even the bravest of us.

  Matt trained his gun on her. 'Everybody walk back ten paces,' he commanded.

  He walked backwards through the mud, waiting until Gill and Damien were also a safe distance from the ditch. Then he looked up into Alison's eyes. 'I hope they need intelligence officers in heaven,' he said. 'Otherwise, they aren't going to let you in.'

  'Don't do it, Matt!' she yelled. 'Please!'

  Her voice turned into a scream, carried by the wind high up into the trees. Matt slammed his finger down on the trigger, moving quickly back another couple of paces. The explosion lit up the wood, sending shafts of bright light hurtling in every direction. Mud and smoke churned into the air, and somewhere in the middle of the carnage he thought he heard a cry that lasted no more than a fraction of a second.

  The shockwave from the explosion rolled over him and he could hear the branches of the trees creaking and shaking. Then, within three seconds, the noise subsided and the wind started to blow away the smoke.

  Matt took a few steps forward. The Semtex had blown a hole several feet in the ground. Alison had been torn in a hundred different pieces; strips of flesh were draped on the branches like ribbons, and her blood was already being washed into the roots of the trees by the rain.

  Matt looked back towards Gill and Damien. 'Let's get our money and get out of here.'

  There was a feeling of emptiness inside as he walked away. It was a familiar emotion, one he knew from every battlefield he had ever been on: a sense of loneliness that overcame him after each mission. You fought with your squadron alongside you, but every kill was your own responsibility. Nobody could share that with you.

  Three weeks ago, I had been grateful to her for giving me another chance. Now I'm just as grateful that it's her who got blown to pieces, not me.

  'What happened?' he said. 'We were all convinced you were dead.'

  'That was the point,' s
aid Damien. 'It was obvious that someone was following us. I reckoned I had a chance of surviving if he thought I was dead. So when I got sight of Sallum on my tail I pulled a switch – in a sauna in Manchester. I noticed a guy in there, a gangster called David. A small-time hit man. The world would be better off without him, I reckoned. I went upstairs with Sallum, then slipped out, told David there was a guy waiting for him, a real babe. Off he went. It's pitch black in those rooms, so he wouldn't notice it wasn't me.'

  'He had your credit cards, the works,' said Matt. 'One came with a hand, flying through the window.'

  'That was the clever bit,' said Damien. 'As Dave went off, I checked the locker number on his key ring. Number twelve. I went downstairs to the bloke on the desk, told him I'd lost my key, slipped him a twenty-quid tip, and got the spare key from him. Downstairs, I switched my stuff into Dave's locker, dressed in his gear – which looked bloody terrible, by the way.'

  'And you just took off?' said Matt.

  'Right,' answered Damien. 'I've just been lying low for the last week. I contacted Gill a couple of days ago to let her know I was OK. And I came along today because I didn't know where you were and this was when we scheduled the collection. If I'd have known I was running into this kind of trouble I'd have come along mob handed.'

  Matt looked towards Gill. 'Thanks for coming to get me. I was a dead man until you two showed up.'

  Gill slipped her hand into his. 'A girl doesn't want to be left on the shelf, you know,' she replied, a smile spreading across her lips.

  Matt collected two bags from where they were stashed, tucking them under his arm. Damien took another two, and Gill one. Ten yards away they heard a low moan, and Gill ran back to where they had dragged Ivan. 'He's alive,' she called out. 'He's coming around.' She tore a strip of her shirt to start bandaging up the wound on his head. 'We must get him to a hospital.'

  'We were wrong about Ivan,' Matt said, looking across at Damien. 'We were wrong about a lot of things.'

  Damien started to shovel some earth over Alison's scattered remains, each clump of mud starting to obscure a different part of her body. Matt took up his own spade, shovelling furiously: the sight of Alison's splintered body disturbed him, and he didn't want to have to look at it for a moment more than necessary. The cut on his face was stinging viciously, but the work felt good. Like taking a run: hard physical activity always soothed him.

  'Reid and Cooksley died on this mission,' Matt said, looking up at Damien. 'Their families are all dead, so there's no one to give the money to. I think we should bury their money.'

  'You're having a laugh, right?' Damien exclaimed. 'Toss four million quid into the ground? That bump on the head must be worse than it looks.'

  'No,' said Matt. 'I'm serious.'

  Damien paused. 'You really mean to toss the money away?'

  'If there is one thing I've learnt in the past couple of weeks it's that greed does funny things to a man's head,' said Matt slowly. 'Within a few days it made monsters out of all of us. I don't want any more than my fair share.'

  Damien picked up one bag and tossed it into the ditch, then another. 'We'll keep one for Ivan,' he said. 'If he pulls through, it's his. If not, we'll look for his family, and give it to them. If not. . . well, let's see.' He laughed, watching the second of the two bags hit the ground, then tossed another shovelful of dirt on top of it. 'Christ, one day I'm going to be broke, I know it. And I'm really going to regret doing this.'

  Matt grinned. 'You've got two million, how quickly can you spend that?'

  Damien wiped sweat from his brow and collected some leaves to pile on top of the freshly dug earth. 'Do you think that will be discovered?' said Damien.

  'I reckon Five will think she ran off with the money herself,' said Matt. He hauled his bag on to his back and started walking into the wind and the rain. 'Some stray dog might come across it one day. But we'll be long gone by then. Leading a new life, and who knows, maybe even a better one.'

  EPILOGUE

  A mellow sunset was resting on the horizon, sending a pale orange light across the Mediterranean. Matt sat back on his chair, a bottle of San Miguel on the table. But it was the atmosphere and the view he was enjoying, not the beer. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the sound of the early-evening crowd piling into the Last Trumpet. The usual mixture of villains, retired car dealers and stray tourists, the noise of their conversation swept across the verandah like the waves sweeping across the rocks in the bay below.

  They were an odd bunch of people, with hardly a single redeeming feature between the whole pack of them. Still, they were Matt's customers.

  I better get used to them.

  He took a swig of beer, letting the alcohol relax him. It was six months since he'd bought Kazanov out of his share of the restaurant and become its sole owner. Gill was living with him here now, and the marriage was set for the new year. They were going to go back to London to do it at St Giles in Camberwell Church Street – bridesmaids, morning suits, Damien as the best man, the full works. Those were the only terms on which Gill had agreed to forgive him. That woman is a sad loss to the banking industry, he reflected. She knows how to make a man pay out on his debts. With interest.

  'Look at this,' cried Gill.

  She walked out of the back of the restaurant towards the private patio where they often had a drink together. Fifty yards towards the bay he could see the villa that was being built for them. It was taking a fair chunk out of the money he had made from the mission, but his debts were all paid, it had been a good summer for the restaurant, and property overlooking the sea was always a good investment.

  We need somewhere to start our married life together, and it might as well be somewhere nice. It isn't as if I haven't got the scars to prove that I earned it.

  'In the paper,' Gill said, leaning across the table and pointing.

  Matt could smell the mixture of perfume and soap on her skin: a familiar scent that always reminded him of how much he loved her. He glanced down at the copy of the Daily Telegraph, two days old, and judging from the smell of beer and tobacco clinging to its pages, picked up from the bar. The story was on page four, below the fold. 'Mystery over buried millions,' ran the two-deck headline.

  'The body of a woman together with several million pounds in used bank notes was discovered yesterday morning in woodlands near Ashford in Kent.

  'The remains were found by a man walking his dog. The woman, who has not yet been identified by local police, had been killed by an explosion believed to have taken place some months ago.

  'The bodies of two other men, also unidentified, were found buried within a few yards of the original discovery.

  'Two bags were discovered buried with the woman. Each one contained in excess of one million pounds in used bank notes. Local police have not yet disclosed exactly how much money was found at the scene.

  'Jack Turner, the local resident who discovered the body, said, "It was an amazing amount of cash. Dollars, pounds, and euros, and some others. I've never seen anything like it."

  'The bodies are believed to have been buried for six to eight months.

  'Police said they suspected the killings were the result of a gangland operation or money-laundering scheme that had gone wrong. A spokesman for the Kent police admitted it was highly unusual for money to be buried alongside the body of a murder victim. "We're a bit puzzled by that aspect of it," he said. "We are actively trying to trace the source of the money to see if it will give us any clues as to who these people were, and how the money got there."'

  Matt laughed, looking up towards Gill. 'I tell you what, I don't think they'll be trying very hard to solve that case,' he said. 'Someone from Thames House has probably given them a call to tell them they have more important things to do with their time.'