by Tomson Cobb
‘Her trade name is La Polpo. That’s supposed to be from the Sardinian version of how it’s spelled. Freelance, we think, so not a permanent employee of any government or criminal organisation.’
‘Does that include Chetwynd?’ said Jago.
Toye ignored the question.
‘We believe she’s responsible for at least thirty major hits over the last ten years, possibly more if you add some that don’t fit her usual style.’
‘Which is?’
Toye paused as if he wanted to consider how much to tell Jago.
‘Come on, Simon. The reason you’re here is to get me working for you again so you’ll have to give me more to go on than a bland mention of a femme fatale.’
‘We don’t have a lot to give, but okay. She is in her early to mid-thirties, very professional, well trained, by whom we don’t know. She is also bisexual, intelligent, with very expensive tastes. Also very attractive, from what various bystanders have stated. Those few that lived, that is, as she doesn’t often leave any witnesses.’
‘Like the old couple, you mean. So you think they stumbled into it by mistake?’
Toye laughed. ‘Christ, Jago. I see why you’re an investigative journalist. Never answers, just questions.’
‘It’s my job.’ His face was serious. Jago didn’t feel like deadpanning at that moment. ‘So they must have seen the girl at the hotel. That’s what you think, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. There’s no other explanation.’
‘Name? Nationality? Photograph?’
‘No to all of the above,’ said Toye. ‘She’s brilliant at disguise. This girl is like a ghost. We do know, however, that she prepares for each job in precise detail. She also likes creativity.’
‘No poisoned walking sticks for her then?’
‘Precisely. She also never uses the same technique twice.’
A pattern in itself, thought Jago, without comment.
‘So you want me to try to find her?’
‘We do.’
‘Why? She’s a contract killer. Why is MI6 so interested in her? Why use me to find her? Apart from my suspicion already that you expect me to put myself out there as bait once again.’
‘That’s a bit harsh, Jago. We look after our own. You know that. You also enjoy the risk, so don’t give me that hard-done-by voice. We do need to call on your… shall we say, contrarian sleuth skills once again. One of our team has followed her trail for years but they haven’t got as much as a sniff as to who she is so far. That’s quite an admission I know, just between you and me for now.’
‘Of course, Simon. I’m sure nobody else suspects you guys haven’t got a clue about the identity of a professional serial killer.’
‘Enough, Jago. Don’t push it. I know you’re a cynical bastard that likes an argument, so if you are about to work for us again, you have to know the limits.’
‘With.’
‘What?’
‘Work with you, not for you. Though I haven’t decided yet,’ said Jago.
‘For, with. Whatever way you want to describe it. Look, do you want the gig or not?’
‘You haven’t answered why SIS is involved. And why Frank? Who would want to kill both the CEO and chairman of a traditional publisher?’ Although he knew the answer already, Jago wasn’t about to acknowledge it. He could sense that Toye was fishing as well.
‘Okay. What I didn’t say is that all the jobs we know she was responsible for were on politically sensitive targets in multiple countries around the world. Politicians, corporate barons, military people or intelligence personnel.’ Toye stared at him. Jago wasn’t about to play that game.
‘Frank wasn’t any of those, apart from a soldier. That was years ago.’
‘Bryan was a diplomat before he went to work for CUP, as I suspect you probably know. Although he was an army man way back, Thompson doesn’t fit any of those descriptions, I give you that, so we wonder why he was on her list. Plus the murder of Sammy Hayes and your wife before that, so the questions begin to stack up with the pile of bodies. As you’re related in some way to all of them and work – sorry, worked – with some of them, you can see why the top floor at Vauxhall Cross is interested, can’t you?’
Jago watched Toye with more care than he had ever done, yet saw the same inscrutability. If the man opposite knew more than he’d let on, he didn’t show it. Jago decided it might be better to play along rather than refuse.
‘Okay. You’ve sold the deal to me. Send me over all you have on her via Nik. I need him as my liaison again in Cheltenham. Better still if he could operate from their new office here in the West End now that the old one in Palmer Street’s been closed. Now, can I see Frank?’
Chapter 10
The tired muscles that controlled Natsuko’s eyelids had finally given up the fight to stay open, now she was relaxed in the back seat of the Mercedes without the drone of heavy airline engines to keep her awake. She’d had to take the Thai Airways flight back from Australia with a stopover in Bangkok, which had meant over fifteen hours’ travel. That, added to the fact that she’d spent twenty-four hours at the group offices on St Georges Terrace in Perth since she’d arrived there from Tokyo, meant her body clock was very confused. She was by now exhausted on any scale that might be used to measure tiredness. The thought of a slow hot bath and a long sleep had started to crowd out any other thought, neither of which she’d been able to take since the flight back from London. The news from Jago three days before, about the murder of Bryan and the attempt on Sir Frank’s life, hadn’t helped matters. It just added to her worries.
In some ways the hectic schedule was good though, as she didn’t have time to dwell on the loss of her beloved twin sister. She was determined to take time to grieve at some point, but for the moment work was without doubt a better alternative. Sleeplessness less so, though she was used to long periods of pressured activity. It came with the responsibilities she’d always shared with Akiko since they joined their father in his campaign against the dark world of crime and corruption. It was just another discipline to master.
The board of directors had assured her that the accounts were correct. She’d gone through them herself in detail the previous night to find herself in agreement, that the blackmail threat hadn’t proved credible. She’d called her father to reassure him before she left the hotel to catch the flight back to Tokyo. He’d asked her to go to Perth to check it out in person as soon as she’d arrived from Heathrow. He felt it was too much of a coincidence that the email had arrived at the same time as the legal action on the patents which had been announced by their previously supportive joint venture partners, Zenfo.
Her mind was still on the events in Australia when she happened to glance up at the interior mirror to see the driver catch her eye with his own for a second. He seemed nervous. She noticed his shoulder twitch as if a nerve had been activated. At Narita she hadn’t recognised him, so she’d presumed he was a new addition to the small pool of men and women that her father employed for the purpose. He rotated them for all their journeys, so when she didn’t see her usual driver Natsuko hadn’t thought to question it, her lack of attention no doubt exacerbated by the weariness that had started to overwhelm her. She hadn’t checked with Fumito, her bodyguard, who’d led her from the terminal to the VIP car park area, and was so tired after the two flights that it hadn’t occurred to her to call her father to ask him either. She sensed an anomaly though. She could smell it. Then she realised what it was: the faint hint of cigarette smoke. Nobody in head office was allowed to work there if they were smokers.
‘I need some water. Pull over at that 7-Eleven ahead,’ she ordered in Japanese.
‘Hai.’ The driver bowed his head over the wheel without a second look in his mirror.
She watched both men with renewed interest now as the car drew into a space outside the convenience store. Fumito was as enigmatic as he always was, while the driver showed an unusual level of agitation. As she got out of the car his shoulder
twitched once again.
The shopkeeper took the coins from her as she watched the car through a gap between the garish multicoloured posters on the shop window. They had been positioned between a large ice cream cone and a row of perfectly aligned recycling bins outside that obliterated most of the view into the shop. Fumito stood at the car passenger door, arms folded, attentive for any danger as always, while the driver sat with his gaze straight ahead through the windscreen. She called her father’s cell phone a third time with no response, so returned her attention to the car, her attention now fixed on the driver, a small rounded individual in his fifties with close-cropped grey hair and a goatee beard. From her vantage point in the shop, she saw him check his watch twice.
Natsuko called her father’s phone again. Still no reply. She couldn’t wait any longer. She decided to take precautionary action herself. Leaving the shop with a bow to the owner, she approached the car. Fumito opened the rear door for her. Instead of stepping in, she brushed past him to pull open the driver’s door wide. The man behind the wheel looked up at her, now more nervous than ever.
‘What’s your name?’ she commanded in Japanese.
Fumito looked confused for a second, then as he sensed the mood of his employer, barked the same order again to the bearded man. This produced a response she had half expected. He pulled a knife from inside his shirt and lunged at Natsuko as he leaped out of the car. She blocked his thrust then hit him hard in the chest below the breastbone with the heel of her other hand, which took the wind out of his lungs and made him drop to his knees. She took hold of his wrist, then with one hand twisted his arm behind his back and raised it, forcing him into a move that put pressure on his shoulder joint. The scream of pain from the man attracted the attention of two other shoppers who hurriedly got into their own cars.
‘I said, what is your name?’
‘Oda Nobunaga.’
‘Your real name, scum,’ said her bodyguard as he went to slap the man. Natsuko raised her other hand to stop him. In Fumito’s view, the attacker was not even worthy to mention the name of Japan’s greatest samurai.
‘I’m sorry, Madam Yamada. This man was sent to me by your father’s office but I did not check with him myself. I will resign my position of course.’
‘That will not be necessary, Fumito. Hold him in the back seat, I’ll drive. I’m worried about my father so we’ll deal with this baka later.’
Ten minutes later, after a wild ride, the car screeched to a halt near the elevator on the lower floor of the basement car park underneath the Yamada group head office.
‘Hiroki,’ she shouted to one of the two guards at the door to the elevator. ‘This man tried to kill me. Take him to an empty office with Fumito. I’ll question him later. Go now,’ she screamed as the guard hesitated. She entered the lift and jabbed the control panel with impatience, heart pounding. Was she too late?
The elevator door to the penthouse opened to show a scene of carnage that might have been copied from a Tarantino movie. The two guards that were ever present outside the door of Hiro Yamada’s suite of offices lay dead on the thick blue carpet. One looked as if his neck was broken, the other’s throat had been sliced open. The wave of blood that had flowed over the body had created a pattern on the floor that looked like a map of China.
Natsuko ignored the sight and pushed through the half open doors. The body of Yuko, her father’s PA, lay sprawled across her desk, barely recognisable from the blood that covered her face and arms. She had also been knifed, this time in the stomach with the blood that had been released transferred to her face as she had attempted to stop the intruder. She ran through another open door to the inner office, now desperate, oblivious to any danger to her own life. The office was empty apart from her father who lay face down on the wooden floor, a treasured kendo shinai still grasped in his right hand. Apart from a dark weal across the side of his head, she couldn’t see any wound, so she turned him over gently onto his back to take his pulse. She was overjoyed to feel a faint, regular rhythm.
She was now joined in the room by other personnel who had taken the stairs from the floors below. One of them was Nagatoki, the building security officer who had appeared at Natsuko’s shoulder. He had a gun in his hand.
‘Call an ambulance,’ she shouted at him.
‘I already have, Natsuko san,’ he replied.
‘Good.’ There would be questions for him later, for now she knew she had to take control. ‘We need to find out if the killer is still here. If not, how did they get into the building then out of it? Go now. Search everywhere.’
In the basement, the woman previously called Anastasia peered through the slats of the ventilation shaft. The floor was devoid of any activity, apart from a rat about to relieve itself a few yards away from her. She hummed to herself as she climbed out of the air-conditioning vent onto the mezzanine floor of the basement car park and replaced the cover.
She’d already taken off the top layer of blood-spattered overalls and goggles before she’d climbed into the shaft on the top floor. The stained articles had been stuffed into the backpack before she’d dropped the climber’s rope down the air-conditioning duct. It had been a tight squeeze although the descent had been a great deal easier than the initial climb up.
She now took off the second bodysuit, then placed that one with equal care into the backpack, slipped on her jeans and walked over to the blue Honda with the disgusting aroma of stale cigarette smoke that she’d had to endure as she’d driven from the girl’s apartment. Alongside the unmanned machine at the exit, she swiped her pass through the reader. The barrier swung upwards like an old railway signal as she drove slowly out into the busy traffic.
A mood of satisfaction replaced the tension as she started to make her way to the airport, her thoughts already on her next client. The forthcoming operation would be a little more complex to plan, but she knew her creativity would provide her with much more sensual enjoyment than the one she’d just completed. She only hoped that the journalist would also appreciate the scene she had planned especially for him. That would only be possible, though, if she was allowed to complete the assignment this time.
Chapter 11
The water was warm, Jago realised. It surprised him as he’d expected the flooded basement beneath the bomb damaged church would be icy cold, yet he couldn’t complain. It helped his task. He had to make one more long distance effort underwater to reach his wife and baby son. They had only a small amount of oxygen left in the air pocket within the tangled mass of metal left after the blast, so he couldn’t just abandon them at this point. He must hold his breath longer this time. Even if he couldn’t deliver a miracle, at least he could offer them comfort as the water rose above them all. He would be there with them to the end this time, not stood watching as they died—
The shrill tone of the phone woke him with a start. He was never able to finish any dream these days. Every time he could remember the details, that was. None had a satisfactory conclusion. All included pain, with disasters of one sort or another the theme.
‘Hello,’ he said quietly. He was still half asleep.
‘Jago. It’s me, Natsuko. I’m sorry if I woke you. You need to know what’s just happened here.’
Jago sat up in the bed. He was now wide awake, alert as an owl.
‘Natsu. What’s happened?’
‘Someone tried to kill me and my father. At least, it looks that way.’
‘What do you mean? Are you both okay?
‘I’m fine but he’s in a coma. He was injected with a substance. The pathology lab has tried to analyse what it is, so far without success. They say they have seen nothing like it before.’
She explained what had happened, which included the violent deaths of the three employees in her father’s office.
‘They were all skilled in martial arts, Jago, yet they were still killed with ease. It looks like they may have been taken by surprise, but it’s still hard to understand how it happened as they were
all trained to be vigilant, particularly with anyone they didn’t recognise.’
‘My God. I was about to call you again later tonight anyway. Hiro… sorry, your dad told me when I called him you’d be back today from your trip. Frank’s coma is also serious. The doctors don’t know whether he’ll survive.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry Jago. You have big worries as well.’
‘No matter Natsuko. How did the assassin get to him? He must have had lots of extra security after I called him. I warned him Chetwynd might target you both, though I didn’t expect the same person to travel from here to Tokyo.’
‘He did as you suggested but she still got past our security somehow. She killed one of our employees at her home as well. A girl in the accounts department. Then she took her car and used her pass to drive into one of the floors in the underground car park.’
‘How can you be sure it was a woman?’
‘There’s a concealed police traffic camera opposite the entrance to the car park. She may not have been aware of it. We’ve got a picture of a woman in the stolen car as it approached the barrier. It’s not a very good image but the driver looks female. Our tech people are trying to improve the quality,’ said Natsuko.
‘Can you email it to me? As high definition as you can? I’ll get the people at GCHQ to see if they can enhance it as well. Do you know how she got from there to your father’s office?’
‘We think she got into the air-conditioning duct in the basement, climbed up to the first floor somehow and got out via a storeroom. Then she must have climbed on top of the elevator to get to the penthouse. She left the same way and used a climber’s rope to get back down through the system to the basement. The police found the car a few kilometres away on fire. It was completely destroyed,’ said Natsuko.
‘This sounds like the same woman who attacked Frank all right. She must have flown there right after she finished her work on him – if we can be sure it’s the same woman, that is. Was there anything on your own internal CCTV?’
