Yes, Cole thought as he stood, it’s him.
Quraishi had no idea how they had found him; only that he had been found, and he needed to escape.
Now.
He couldn’t believe how badly things had gone during the past few months; previously friendly countries had closed their doors to him, other organizations wanted nothing to do with him.
On the one hand, they seemed to think that his plan had perhaps been too extreme, just too much; and on the other, they realized that anyone associating with him would bring down the full might of the American military on their heads, and they could certainly do without that.
Quraishi pushed through into the small service corridor, heading for the rear fire exit; knowing that the place would be surrounded, yet knowing he had to risk it nevertheless. What other options did he have?
He reached into his robes, turning from his old-man shuffle to a steady run as he passed through the door, and pulled out a Beretta 9mm pistol.
In one smooth motion, he also activated the explosive vest he wore underneath his robes.
Whatever might happen, he was sure that they would never take him alive.
Jake Navarone was waiting outside when the old man kicked open the fire door and raced into the dirty back alley.
After reaching the emergency RV back in North Korea, Navarone and his SEALs had been subjected to one hell of a ride back to China, the choppers keeping so low that they often seemed to actually be below the tree line; but they had made it home safely, and within three days Navarone had been back eating shrimp gumbo with his family in Tampa.
He had been awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at Camp 14, but he knew it wasn’t decorations he wanted; it was the opportunity to take the fight to the enemy.
The agent called Mark Cole, the infamous ‘Asset’, had apparently learned about Navarone through his old friend Ike Treyborne; and when he had been approached by the man for a place on the Force One team, Navarone had jumped at the chance.
And now here he was, face to face with the man responsible for it all – Abd al-Aziz Quraishi.
Navarone saw the pistol, but also something else; the man’s other hand was lost deep in the sleeve of his robe, but he was holding something there, like a button . . .
Cole’s bullet found its mark, hitting Quraishi in the spine, immediately shutting down his nervous system and making him unable to activate the vest he had been wearing under his robes.
Cole had noticed it when he had got up to walk, the hard bulk barely concealed under the billowing robes.
He nodded across the alley to Navarone, who nodded back, moving in towards the writhing, pain-wracked body of Quraishi.
‘Damn you!’ Quraishi said as he squirmed on the floor. ‘Damn you!’ He screamed in pain, unable to squeeze either the trigger or the button. He kept on trying, but it was useless; no signals were being sent. ‘You won’t take me in!’ he cried. ‘You won’t! You won’t!’
Cole and Navarone watched the man as he writhed on the floor, blood spilling from the wound in his back onto the dirty concrete of the alley, and raised their handguns.
‘Who said we wanted to take you in?’ Cole asked. ‘I shot you in the back so you couldn’t kill yourself.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t want you to have the satisfaction.’
‘But . . .’ Quraishi gasped.
‘But nothing,’ Cole said, cutting him off. ‘This is how Force One deals with terrorists’
He nodded at Navarone, and both men emptied their magazines into the collapsed form of Quraishi, the once-feared Lion of Arabian Islamic Jihad.
Yes, Cole thought with satisfaction; because with terrorists, there could be no other way.
Seeing the man on Rue Monge had shaken Aoki Yamaguchi to the core.
He was supposed to be dead.
And yet she knew that his body had never been found – or at least never confirmed. The house in the Austrian hamlet of Kreith had been incinerated, and there had been such a glut of dead bodies and charred remains that it had been impossible to identify any one particular individual.
Yamaguchi had travelled there herself, had stood over the supposed grave of Mark Cole – or Mark Kowalski, as he had also been known according to her own extensive research into the man – and had shed a tear.
It had been her aim in life to meet the man.
Confront the man.
But the carnage that had greeted her in Kreith had robbed her of that purpose, and the tears had been ones of regret.
But now she knew he was still alive; and Yamaguchi vowed to herself that she wouldn’t let Mark Cole slip through her fingers so easily again.
Table of Contents
Copyright
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
PART TWO
1
2
3
4
5
6
PART THREE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
PART FOUR
1
2
3
4
5
6
PART FIVE
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
PART SIX
1
2
3
4
5
PART SEVEN
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
EPILOGUE
WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller Page 34
