Davic whistled. “Already?” he asked.
Time for what? Collins wondered.
Davic clearly saw the conjecture in her face. “The US has been cowed,” he said. “Now it’s time for the rest of the world.”
“Sir?” The operator looked like he was working to a schedule.
“Yes, yes.” Davic jumped up eagerly. “I know. It’s show time.”
33
Doug the Trout was dying, and soon, but not today. The big C was not an enemy to take lightly at any time, but today it had as much chance of taking him down as a two-dollar crack whore. Doug had set himself up in front of his own desk; a bank of monitors, a laptop, and several cellphones placed around him, all labelled. Some were burner phones, others dedicated to just one contact. At least three he had never used before. They were all fully functional, primed and poised—ready to go. The favors had been called in, the cards and every joker played, the deck revealed.
He could do no more.
Natasha worked with him, calling contacts of her own. She brought coffee and muffins. She fenced with the local authorities. She blackballed the British who, it appeared these days, were no fucking good to anyone.
Then a call came in. One of the phones vibrated and flashed, leaving a cackling trail across the desk. Doug was shocked to see it was the official line he had open to Washington.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me.”
Natasha sounded equally nonplussed. “They’re the last people I expected to call.”
Doug thumbed the speaker button. “Yeah?”
“Sir, this is Alex Black. We’re calling all our top guys to keep them in the loop. Stand by.”
Doug glanced sideways at Natasha. “This is serious. Shit.”
“I thought you were out of the CIA.” His mistress’s eyes were stormy.
“I am. But I was one of their highest priority operatives. They still use us for consults when the really bad shit hits the fan.”
“So this is—”
“Yeah. Deadly fucking serious.”
He listened, not mentioning to Natasha that Alex Black was his “go to” man in the CIA, a covert ally, and for him to address Doug so formally meant some serious government muscle was also on the line. Alex was known as the ‘magic man’ in quieter circles, the dude who would get it done, no matter what “it” might be: physical, mental or digital. One of the closest cells on Doug’s desk was in fact dedicated to Alex’s personal phone—he’d already been working on the Moose problem for Doug.
“What could it be?” Natasha flicked on the TV, seeing the local reports of hit-and-run bombings across LA and Washington. “You think . . .?”
“Best not to speculate.”
Doug kept his eyes glued to the ranks of cellphones and flickering monitors.
Alex Black’s voice interrupted his concentration. “We’re all here. I’m about to play you a recording of a call the FBI received an hour ago. Needless to say, we’re on the highest security level here. Stand by.”
Doug didn’t move a muscle as Natasha leaned in.
The recording blasted through the phone’s tiny speaker, “I am Blanka Davic and I am about to be the new man in charge. At 6:00 p.m. I will call your Washington FBI. I expect to talk to the best team or there will be severe consequences. Even more so than what has already happened. What you have seen so far is nothing compared to what will come next!”
Doug flicked a glance at the time.
“Shit,” he said aloud. “It’s six now.”
Alex Black butted in. “I’m transferring you all to the live line. Stand by.”
Doug felt his hands bunch into fists over the arm of the chair. Tension worked its way between his shoulders like an unwelcome but persistent parasite. A few clicks echoed down the line, a buzz of empty air and static, and then came the strident tones of a ringing phone.
“Are we ready?” Doug heard a disembodied voice and assumed it came from inside the FBI’s main crisis room over in DC.
Several affirmatives answered the man.
“Then let’s do this.” The man cleared his throat and the phone stopped ringing.
“Yes? This is James King, Director of the FBI. Who am I speaking to?”
“Good evening. This is Blanka Davic. I am the man responsible for the devastations wrought across your country today. Acts of reprisal, I might add. For what was done to me and my home.”
Doug sat back, feeling Natasha’s hand on his shoulder. This man was speaking as if ordering his morning bagel. The carnage meant nothing to him.
“And may I add it’s so good to be able to talk to so many puffed-up, arrogant gentlemen at the same time. And murderers all. I do feel like I belong, I must say.”
“Is there a point to your call?” Director King asked.
“Is that you again, King? Who else is there with you? C’mon, boys, let’s lay our manhoods on the table. It’s measuring time.”
“I have Director Carter of the CIA and Colin Thompson of Homeland Security with me.”
“Whoa! Impressive. So we have some girth as well as length. Now don’t be shy, King. Keep going. What other pricks do you have waving around in there?”
King reeled off a short list. Doug knew it wouldn’t be the entire team. As he listened he felt a sharp pang shoot through the bottom of his stomach, another killer reminding him of its presence. He ignored it, taking a sip of coffee.
“That’s good. All good,” Davic said when King had finished. “Well, you will be glad to know I’m almost done here. I’ll be out of your hair soon. But first it gets crazy. You know about my Mobile Terror Vehicle by now I guess, though you can’t possibly know where it is. Well, I have mobile vans in other US cities and in Europe too! Actually, six cities in total. Paris. London. Rome. Los Angeles. Washington DC. Miami. I don’t have to hit government or military targets, now do I? You know that so well, my friends. All I have to do is get close. I can hurt MI6 by striking nearby. It’s not even hard to set it up. And the terror of the people—your citizens—will be the worst it can be, escalating constantly, by the simple principle of ongoing threat. ‘Where will that madman strike next?’ they will ask. They will tweet. They will post on their Facebook. Oh, I might even go viral. Imagine the fame. The media will escalate the fear far better than I ever could.” He finally paused for breath, then continued at pace. “One attack every hour, every city. You cost me! My house, my country, certain businesses. Now I want payback. Recompense. And the price is high, Mr. Director. I want one billion dollars. The attacks will stop when I have confirmation that the money is raised. Oh, and I want Maisie Miller returned and Emilia too!”
Doug swallowed hard as the shock set in. The enormity of Davic’s revenge, his malevolent vision, was mind-boggling. Natasha fell to her knees at his side. He hugged her close.
Alex Black’s voice filled the lines. “That’s it. He hung up.”
Director King said, “Can that madman do all that? Is he for real?”
Doug jumped hard as another cell rang—the one he used to keep in contact with the Edge. Bad timing maybe, but they were family. Instinctively, he reached out and answered before it rang a second time.
“Yes?”
“Doug? It’s Dan. What do you have on Mikey? On the Moose? Do you have any leads? C’mon, man, Trent’s headed for the fourth target already. He’s hanging in by the tips of his goddamn fingernails. We think Mikey’s got less than an hour left! Hello? Doug?”
For the first time in his life, Doug was at a loss.
34
“Doug!” Radford shouted. “Doug?”
Natasha snatched the phone away. “Give him a minute,” she breathed in a throaty Russian accent. “We just heard Davic plans big attack on London, Paris and Rome also.”
“What?”
“He wants one billion dollars ransom.”
Radford clearly couldn’t speak. After a moment Natasha heard him relaying her words to someone at the other end. She hoped it wasn’t one of his many floozies.
Doug then took the phone back, nodding his thanks.
“All right, guys,” he said. “I have calls in to literally everyone. I’ll make the rounds again. One last time. Stay by the phone.”
He replaced the phone with a clunk, then stared at each piece of black plastic in priority order. “If there was ever a time to come through,” he whispered as if in prayer, “this is it. C’mon boys.”
The clock ticked. The minutes drained away like dripping hourglass sand. Doug spoke to operatives in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Interpol, MI5, MI6 and one of the shadiest of all covert agencies—the British Ninth Division. An extremely helpful man called Michael Crouch had told him that although the Division were no more, he had a little personal knowledge of the Moose. The man was and always had been a contract killer, ex-Serbian Special Forces, and would have been known not only to Blanka Davic but to old man Davic. Davor, the man Matt Drake had put an end to in a Hawaiian mansion. The Moose went back that far at least. His rep was excellent, and nobody knew his ID. Probably not even Blanka.
Doug thanked the man and called Alex Black back, his old faithful “go to” man. After relaying the latest on the Moose and describing the timeline, Doug asked him to pull off a miracle.
It was all they had left.
Twenty minutes had passed since Radford’s call.
A black phone with a strip of red plastic across the top blasted out the Hawaii Five-0 tune. At one time it had seemed humorous since the caller was a well-placed cop. Today, it seemed a little pathetic.
“Yes? Sorry, Bob, I’m kinda swamp—”
“Thought you’d want to know, Doug,” the aging tones cut in. “Victoria Trent. You know her? She’s Aaron Trent’s ex-wife.”
“Yes.” Doug frowned. “I know her.”
“She was abducted from her hospital bed a short while ago. Guy who took her was a fuckin’ Houdini kinda professional. Real confident, y’know? Kinda guy who could talk his way into the President’s bunker with a grenade launcher, y’know?”
Doug was reeling, numb from too much shock. “Victoria was abducted?”
“Umm, yeah. That’s what I said.”
Natasha squeezed the nape of his neck. “Footage.”
Doug latched on. “Did you get the tapes?”
“’Course we did.” The cop sounded a little affronted. “You want a copy?”
Doug nodded distractedly, then realized the cop couldn’t see him. “Sure thing, brother.” He recited an email address. “Soon as.”
“Done.”
“If this is the Moose,” Natasha said. “We will finally have his face.”
Doug swallowed hard. What the hell was he going to tell Trent? “When the real hard hits begin,” he said softly, “they just keep on coming, don’t they?”
“But good part,” Natasha croaked, “is you are still here to help them. You are here. They need you.”
“Oh, I know.” Doug logged into his email and tapped on the link the cop had just sent over. A still picture with a little “play” triangle presented itself. Doug clicked on the symbol.
“The Moose,” Natasha said triumphantly as the man’s face appeared on camera for the first time. “He was in hurry. Under orders. Perhaps this is his final job, no?”
“Maybe.”
Doug copied the footage to every one of his contacts, marked it urgent, and hit the “send” button. “Now we wait.”
Mikey had about forty minutes left to live.
35
Trent motored hard toward Inglewood. The clock told him that already eight minutes had passed. This fourth leg of the journey felt different; harder. So far the traffic gods had been with him. Now, it seemed every obstruction led only to the next and motorists suddenly weren’t as forgiving. Twice in the last few minutes cars had swerved purposely into his path or slowed to a crawl. One lunatic had even opened his door in the Porsche’s path despite the flashing lights and honking.
Why are people so belligerent? So stroppy? Is it the morning coffee, the commute, the stresses and pressures of jobs and lives? Trent didn’t care. He smashed into the car door and ripped it off its hinges, shattering the sheet metal and flinging scraps in all directions.
Last time the guy would ever try that.
Trent’s mission was his son’s life, his very existence. Never would there be a more important goal. But the traffic only got worse: the gaps decreased, the lanes became choked. He tried the parallel roads with the same result, cursing out loud and slamming a palm against the dashboard.
Nine minutes left.
Trent flung open the door, jumped out and ran, leaving the car idling where it sat. The sidewalks were busy too, crammed with pedestrians. Trent ran along the gutter, weaving between parked cars and garbage cans, fire hydrants and unwary walkers. At the first intersection he despaired. No way would he ever make it in time. A dense group of men and women were waiting to cross the roads, impenetrable. He glanced ahead.
The roads were clearer up there!
His watch chimed as every minute slipped by. Six minutes to go. Inglewood was killing him. His feet slammed the sidewalk. To his left he saw a guy in a new Cadillac power through a herd of people, swearing as the lights turned before him, having to haul back all the horses to keep from mowing an unfortunate looking shop worker down.
Target found.
Trent jumped over the hood of a car, slithered down to the other side and wrenched open the Cadillac’s driver’s door. The guy behind the wheel didn’t look surprised, just confrontational. Trent stepped up to the challenge and dragged him out by his oversized t-shirt, depositing him into the road and managing a small apology.
The lights changed again. Fortune was back on his side. He gunned the engine, took off with a squeal of rubber and shot through the gaps.
Four minutes.
Another blockage ahead. Trent assessed it in seconds. The only way through the gap was to sideswipe a parked car and let the new angle work for him. Without a second thought he executed the maneuver, clipped a fender, toppled a guy’s falafel stand and shouted out an apology. Another chime went off—three minutes. He had no time to program the satnav, and had to rely on memory. Luckily, he and Radford had canvassed Inglewood whilst looking for Silk and he retained a fair knowledge of the local landscape. Streetwalkers stared as he shot by. Youths with hoods over their features tried to take pictures of the speeding car. Shop owners shook their heads. In another world, Trent would have been with them—there was no excuse to break the limit.
Except today . . . there was.
Mikey. And the devastating weight of Victoria’s words: He told me he was going to strap Mikey to some C4, Aaron. He told me that.
The fourth man stood out just like the rest. Waiting at the curb, he sported the rubberized head of a T-Rex. As Trent drew close it appeared to be bobbing in time to music. Trent screeched to a halt and jumped out, still breathing heavily from his run and the accumulated tension.
“What have you got?”
T-Rex swiveled between the ticking car and the emotionally charged man that approached. Then it did the most unbelievable thing Trent could imagine. It roared. Not like in the movies, not even like a man imitating a dinosaur. More like a child playing.
“Rarr!”
Trent batted the ridiculous rubberized head. “Clue. Destination. Now.”
“Rarr! Okay, okay, man. Calm down. Jeez! Number five is in Compton. You have twenty minutes.”
“And the clue?”
“Rarr! Spedicija. There’s your damn clue. You got it? Spedicija! Rarr!”
Trent didn’t try to decipher it, nor even to think. He took the address scribbled on a scrap of paper and raced back to the car. As he blipped the gas pedal and prepared to slam the vehicle into drive, the T-Rex came at him with its arms open wide, its head bobbing, and that reedy roar slipping from between its rubber fangs.
Trent made the Cadillac bellow. The T-Rex smashed into the passenger’s door, its head bouncing off and flying backwards. The man l
ay sprawled in the rearview, half over the curb. Trent didn’t even have time to process the absurdity.
Twenty minutes to reach Compton and the last target.
36
Doug studied the CCTV footage with Natasha.
“This Moose appears to be old. My kind of old. What the hell’s he doing still running around bumping kids off for a gang of hoodlums?”
Natasha coughed. “I think Serbian Mafia is more than a gang of hoodlums, my dear.”
“Still. The guy’s gotta be fifty five at least.”
“Could all lead back to father,” Natasha speculated. “Perhaps Moose felt great loyalty and after father’s death committed to son.”
Doug pursed his lips. “Makes sense, I guess. Look—” He zeroed in on the best image as far as the pixel quality allowed. “This watch—an old Omega. The shoes—black leather patent, almost certainly Saville Row. The rings—old, worn gold. The hair—”
“Shorn. Short. Army?”
“Well, sure, but there could be any number of reasons,” Doug said. “Maybe he just washes it a lot. But look,” he tapped the monitor, “look at those forearms. The thick veins. The bunched neck muscles. This guy works out. A lot.”
Natasha sighed heavily. “But there are thousands of gyms in Los Angeles, no?”
“No. I mean—yes. Of course. The link here is through Davor, the father of Blanka. We just have to hope these goddamn phones start ringing.”
As if by magic, by ancient prophecy come to pass, two of Doug’s cellphones rang simultaneously. Doug made a grab for the one marked with blue plastic. “Interpol,” he said.
“What’s the other?”
“Amy’s Pizza confirming my order.” He shrugged. “I’m hungry.”
A voice he recognized immediately spoke in his ear. The Interpol agent—a fiery Italian called Armand Argento—spoke rapidly, clipping off words like heavy machine-gun fire between Europe and the States.
“. . . totally off the book. I cannot do this again, amico mio. Perhaps now you owe me one, eh? It would be good, eh? Are you there? Why are you not speaking?”
The Disavowed Book 3 - Threat Level: Red Page 11
