Helldiver: The Alex Morgan Interpol Spy Thriller Series (Intrepid 4)

by Chris Allen

  “So, this is the last day he was here, correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” replied the security operator. They were in front of the hotel’s security monitors. “This footage was captured in the late afternoon of last Saturday, just as Mr. Chaudry checked in.”

  The capture was good, from a camera facing across the reception area. It had been well placed to cover the lobby and entrance, with the added benefit of filming people signing in and out. Reigns’ eyes were glued to the screen. She studied the occasional glimpses of the face on the screen, comparing it with the airline ID photo provided to the police by Katak Airlines. It easily could be the same man, but she couldn’t swear on it. She had to rely on the cross-correlation of the date-time stamp on the CCTV footage, along with the entry in the hotel’s register recording the time the man checked in and had his credit card swiped by hotel staff as his account was established and his room booking confirmed.

  “I heard mention earlier of a young woman who came to the lobby a little while later, asking for Mr. Chaudry. Do we have any footage of her?” Reigns asked.

  “Yes, we do. She came in about an hour after he did. I’ll bring it up for you.” He tapped some commands and a screen to the left showed new footage. There was a young woman with a small overnight bag, blond, attractive, dressed provocatively in a tight dress and high heels, getting out of a cab at the main entrance and then from another camera was seen speaking with hotel concierge staff. Reigns could almost hear the exchange between the young woman and the staff: “Of course, madam. Just one moment please.” The phone was lifted. There was some nodding of the head. The all clear was given. “He is in room …” And up she went.

  Reigns was impressed by the manner in which the security operator followed her train of thought so seamlessly as she suggested some possible alternatives to track the young woman’s movements through the hotel, which led her eventually to Chaudry’s room. Reigns was collecting data that gave her a clear image of the young woman, as clear as if she was standing there beside her. She knew the way she walked, her height – give or take, the confident upward tilt of her chin, a brazenness in her demeanor. It was all there and it was all Reigns needed to recognize the woman should she encounter her again.

  Reigns and the police discussed general timings surrounding Chaudry’s movements, phone calls from the room, any other visitors – there were none. Only the young woman. The next sighting of Chaudry and the young woman was almost two hours later when they appeared in the lobby with another man and then left the hotel. Chaudry and the girl had changed their clothes.

  Reigns asked to see any more captured footage of Chaudry’s movements and when she had, she was certain that the other man was the pilot recruiter, Carlo Salazar. While Reigns and the police were conferring, the security operator who’d been pulling out the footage for them looked like he wanted to say something.

  “Go ahead,” said Reigns.

  The security operator cleared his throat. “When I was downloading all the footage of these people I found something I hadn’t noticed before.”

  “OK,” Reigns said. “Let’s have it.”

  The man tapped the keyboard and soon a number of the screens showed different locations within the hotel.

  “When we were looking for the others I remembered that I’d seen something unusual on the same floor as Mr. Chaudry’s room around the time, actually just before they all left the hotel.” He drew their attention to the first screen. “Here’s the other man getting out of the elevator on Chaudry’s floor, but it appears that Chaudry is already with him.”

  The operator was right – Salazar could be seen leaving the elevator with a man who appeared to be Chaudry, then they walked out of shot in the direction of Chaudry’s room.

  “Then this happens,” the operator said, tapping keys. “If you look at that same screen you’ll see a man leave the service elevator pushing a laundry trolley; the ones our cleaning staff use to collect dirty linen from the rooms. Two things struck me about this. Firstly, it’s very unusual for linen to be collected at that time in the evening, unless a guest has actually requested it. So, I checked with the night staff who were on that evening and the laundry staff, but there had been no requests from guests to change linen that night.

  “The second thing that struck me was the man himself.” He tapped a few keys and two other screens showed the same man again pushing the trolley. Nothing necessarily out of the ordinary. There were a couple of moments when his face became visible. He was young, solidly built with dark hair. Reigns and the police looked at the operator expectantly.

  “He’s not Asian,” he said. “This guy is a Caucasian, possibly even Slavic. But he is definitely not Asian and I’ve worked here a few years now, so I know that we only have locals working laundry. And, yes, I double checked.” He smiled.

  “OK. I see where you’re going,” said Reigns, impressed by the man’s thoroughness. “You have more?”

  “Of course,” he replied. “There’s more footage of him moving not only toward Mr. Chaudry’s room but about twenty minutes later he appears again, leaving that floor. He gets back into the service elevator and ends up in the basement but then I lose him. Look, whatever happened in the room we can’t say for sure but either way, I reckon this guy’s job was to get Mr. Chaudry out of the hotel after they’d drugged him. He could even be the trigger puller. I’ve grabbed some footage of routine vehicles leaving the loading dock area throughout that night – deliveries, some staff, garbage, laundry – I can’t guarantee anything. I’ve put all this onto a couple of flash drives for you guys, including as many clear snapshots of faces as I could get on each of them; should help with IDing them, at least.” He smiled and handed over the drives.

  Reigns patted the operator on the back. “You should speak to these SPF guys about a job,” she said.

  “Been there, done that, ma’am,” he replied jovially. “Ten years on the job. I came off a motorcycle during a pursuit. We got the guys but I ended up medically retired. These days, I’m happy right here.”

  “Well, you’ve been of immeasurable assistance to us. Thank you so much.”

  Reigns and the SPF officers left the security control room and headed for the lobby. A sullen Detective Leong followed. It seemed that he’d finally got the message. On the drive back to SPF headquarters, Reigns continued to discuss the issues, as much as she could, surrounding the murder of Captain Farooq and, as the evidence was suggesting, his subsequent replacement by a lookalike. She received an undertaking by the investigators that they would continue to work on identifying the young woman, the young Slavic guy with the trolley and, if possible, Chaudry’s lookalike via their own records and those of Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. Reigns committed to working on confirming the identities as well, via the Interpol network.

  When they all arrived back at SPF HQ, Reigns made her way straight for Interpol’s National Central Bureau office, which was co-located with the International Cooperation Department. Thankfully, despite the ICD being the department Detective Leong was assigned to, he had apparently given up on his quest to wear her down and had left for the day. A middle-aged woman from the National Central Bureau’s administrative staff greeted Reigns at the bureau’s reception desk and showed her to the office that had been prepared for her. She gave Reigns the rundown on where everything and everyone was, and if she needed anything at all, she just had to ask. Reigns thanked her and then, for the first time since she’d arrived, was finally alone – blissfully unescorted. She got straight to work, logging into Intrepid’s secure network. She took the flash drive containing the surveillance footage she’d been given at the Holiday Inn and began uploading the files to Intrepid’s intelligence team back in London. She wrote some emails, including a status report for Sheridan, cleared a few others and decided it was time to return to her hotel and get some rest. It would be up to the intelligence team to make sense of the images she’d sent, along with the information and statements sh
e’d gathered from the SPF investigators. She’d had the foresight to drop her bags off at the hotel when Leong and his driver had picked her up, so all she had with her now was her satchel. Alex Morgan called it her manbag. She laughed to herself as she gathered up her things and tossed them into it. Morgan. If only he were around for dinner. She wondered where he was right now and if he was OK. She hoped he was.

  Reigns walked out of the headquarters building and onto Irrawaddy Road. It was 8pm, dark, and the surrounding streets were busy. She needed a cab but it didn’t take long for her to realize that they were in short supply. Great! She wanted a bath and she needed bed. She looked back to the foyer of the headquarters and was contemplating asking for a lift back to her hotel when she saw Detective Leong emerging from one of the elevators and, it appeared, heading straight for her. Oh, God. No. Where are the taxis? She was sure that if she turned around and walked back inside then she’d get stuck with Leong and it would be one of those moments when a dozen cabs would instantly stream past. She decided the best way to avoid any more awkwardness with him and quell her general annoyance at the situation was to bite the bullet and walk back to the hotel. It was close enough, a little over two miles. Besides, the walk would do her good.

  She thought she heard Leong call out to her but she walked off anyway, making her way south-west along Irrawaddy Road leaving the SPF Headquarters at New Phoenix Park behind her, eventually turning left down Thomson Road heading in the general direction of the InterContinental Hotel. She hazarded a quick glance back and thought she could still see Leong standing out front of the headquarters. It looked like he was holding a cellphone to his ear. She picked up her pace.

  For the first fifteen minutes the streets were busy and well lit, which was always a bonus when walking alone at night, and before long she’d worked her way further along Thomson Road, passing under the Kampong Java Flyover, continuing southeasterly along Keng Lee Road. As she reached the intersection of Keng Lee and Dorset Road she registered that a dark sedan was slowly edging up to the corner close to the curb but then it stopped short, staying back just far enough from the intersection to not be easily seen by traffic traveling around the sweeping bend in the road. She could see the Farrer Park Swimming Complex coming up on her left. Farther along, she noted that the road and the path she was walking along passed over the Rochor River aqueduct. The path veered around the bend along the edge of a small triangular park. The park was black as pitch in places where light from the surrounding area was blocked by a small enclave of trees.

  In the moment that the penny dropped about the car she realized that a man was getting out of it, and in the same instant, another man emerged just ahead of her from the darkness of the trees in the park. Both of them began closing on her, unhurriedly, confidently, as though this was just routine for them. Was it intimidation, or was it going to be more than that?

  Reigns slowed her pace, not overtly, just enough to buy some time to evaluate and prepare. She was scanning for escape routes and, if necessary, places she could stand and fight. Where is everyone? And why the hell am I suddenly the only one out here? While her subconscious was flagging the danger areas, the dark corners and obstacles that could force her toward a potentially indefensible position, her radar was already telling her that the location had been well chosen: it was the perfect place to ambush a defenseless female while remaining essentially in full view of passing traffic. She heard another car door open and registered a third man now on the pavement and closing in from behind her. Two behind and one in front. She began tightening and releasing her fists and filling her lungs with deep breaths to get the blood flowing and her body ready. She was still only about halfway to her hotel and too far from the next major intersection to draw anyone’s attention. It was pitch dark up ahead where the cut-off man was standing among the trees. The two coming up behind her had closed the gap now and were almost within reach. She’d been deliberately corraled and she knew it. She needed a plan.

  She could now see the area to her left where they obviously planned to drag her in order to have her in complete darkness. Option one was to allow them to do that. Option two was to her right, the only obvious escape route, straight into the oncoming traffic in order to be seen and hail for help. Option three, her preferred option, was the one thing they wouldn’t expect her to do – a frontal assault on the man ahead, if possible, drawing them back to the safety railings designed to prevent anyone falling twenty feet onto the uncompromising concrete of the aqueduct below. She would have the element of surprise. Her fists were clenched, her breathing was now deep and steady, and Elizabeth Reigns prepared for action.

  With a silent count of three she burst out of the blocks, running directly at the man in front of her and closing the space between them in four paces. The move caught him off-guard. His body lurched toward the road, the direction he’d expected Reigns to take. He was wrong. She went straight at him then dropped into a roll. There was a blaze of headlights from a passing car and she took advantage of the man’s disorientation to launch up from the ground directly in front of him. She drove an unrestrained right fist into his crotch and as he bent forward in waves of agony she followed through with a flat-edged left-hand strike across his throat. He went down, in pain, struggling to breathe.

  The other two men dived on her, grappling to restrain her legs. It was all too sudden and clumsy – they weren’t expecting this to be arduous. Reigns got a leg free and kicked with everything she had at the first face she saw. The heel of her boot made contact with a crunch. The man let go and fell onto his side, clutching his jaw, wailing. By now the third man was on top of her legs and his rough-skinned hands were around her throat, squeezing. She began to gag. She needed oxygen. He crawled on top of her, trying to get his knees onto her chest to force the remaining air out of her while cutting off the chance of her breathing in any more.

  Reigns’ lungs were bursting. She knew she was in trouble. Even though she was clawing at his hands, she knew there was no point in trying to pull them away – he was too strong. Her only choice was to damage him. She had to make damn sure that he was the one in serious trouble, not her. Damage. Damage. Damage. Training came flooding back. She could see Tom Rodgers, Intrepid’s chief instructor and unarmed combat guru, as clearly as if he was flat on his belly beside her yelling directions: “He may be stronger but this guy’s shorter than you, Reigns. You’ve got the reach on him. Go for his eyes! The eyes, Reigns!”

  The eyes were just a foot above hers. There was a flash of light from another passing car then darkness. Someone familiar? Impossible. “You’ve got the reach on him, Reigns!” She let go of his wrists and drove her thumbs straight into both eye sockets and clamped her long fingers tightly around his head. She squeezed. The man tried to clamp down but he was too late. Her thumbs were buried in his sockets and the pressure was building by the microsecond. It was only a matter of time before the eyes were destroyed. Reigns clamped down even harder and her manicured fingernails began to burrow into his scalp. He tried to shake her off but she wasn’t letting go. His hands around her throat loosened, but she didn’t let go. Then he did. He had no choice. He let her go and withdrew with a howl, his hands coming up to his bleeding eyes. Then he toppled to the ground in the fetal position, whimpering. Reigns was back on her feet, coughing and gasping for air. It had all happened so quickly that the first guy, groaning, was just recovering, still holding his balls. The second guy was on his back, cradling a broken or at least dislocated jaw. The last guy was in a bad way.

  Reigns took her phone from her pocket and standing over each of them in turn, snapped a series of shots. Then she retrieved her satchel and walked back out to the road to hail a cab. This time one came along. She stepped over the safety rail that divided the path from the road, and got in.

  “Intercontinental,” she said.

  CHAPTER 17

  Cap d’Antibes, Côte d’Azur, République française

  The Rolls Royce Phantom entered the property v
ia an ornate gateway of stone and iron and Helldiver’s castle appeared in the distance. Morgan’s immediate impression of the Château de la Lavande – via some vague recollections from his history studies at university – was that it was most probably Baroque. The château was situated on high ground and so appeared to ascend, supported by cupped hands as you got closer to it; the cleverly crafted illusion was designed to draw the eye to two enormous semicircular hedges – the hands – that held a lush garden of lavender at the end of the long avenue of holly oaks. Dozens upon dozens of classical colonnades framed the château’s windows and doors to create a formal symmetry providing the only indication of the three-story arrangement. The structure was surmounted by a mansard roof of immense complexity, sitting as a crown that disappeared behind the façade as you approached. Baroque architecture was rare in this part of France which explained the turret just visible over the north-eastern corner, designed to protect by providing observation far out to sea in the days when that was necessary. The house was most likely built upon the remnants of a twelfth-century home that would have originally stood there. As the Phantom drew closer and broke free of the columns of holly oak, on either side of the central garden directly in front of the house oases of lavender dominated among broad-leafed evergreen shrubs, arbutus and stone pines within flawlessly landscaped grounds.

  The car drove to the right around the hands of the lavender garden and pulled up at the bottom of a dramatic staircase, which led up to a podium that ran across the front of the building. The openness of the podium suggested a middle ground, a no man’s land, mediating between the formality of the house and the beauty of the gardens. It was breathtaking. The car rolled gently to a stop, the tires crunching on the pebbled driveway. The driver got out and opened Morgan’s door for him.

  “Pour vous, monsieur, je vais veiller à ce que les bagages est transféré à votre chambre immédiatement,” he said, reassuring Morgan that his bags would be taken care of.