Truly Deadly: The Complete Series: (YA Spy Thriller Books 1-5)

by Rob Aspinall

  “I won’t if you’re late,” she said.

  We broke out of the back of the van, closing the doors gently behind us. It was a short, fast shuffle along the side of the road. We waited for a second. Sheet lightning flashed over the horizon. We moved into the long grass at the foot of the hill. The grass was thick and coarse. Taller than either of us. I slipped my night-vision goggles over my eyes. It was green and weird, but amazing. Suddenly, I could see everything crystal clear. I moved in short, sharp bursts up the hill, through the bushes, making light work of the climb. The house was getting closer. So were those watchtowers, searchlights sweeping the hill. No one was slacking off tonight. Not after the execution in the courtyard. I stopped and caught my breath. I saw Clarence do the same, twenty metres to my right.

  Inge spoke to us over the comms. “Okay, satellite’s up. I’ve got eyes on the prize. Whenever you’re ready, gentlemen.”

  I kneeled down and raised my rifle to the sky, training the laser on the guard in the left-hand watchtower.

  “Alpha in position,” I said.

  “Bravo in position,” Clarence said over the radio.

  “And execute,” Inge said.

  I squeezed the trigger. A clean head shot. The guard, down. I looked up to the right. Clarence’s man down too, the silencers deadening the sound of each shot.

  “Bogeys neutralised,” Inge said.

  “Not bad shooting, huh?” Clarence said.

  Inge seemed unimpressed. “It was adequate.”

  “You’re a hard woman to please,” Clarence said.

  “Impossible,” I said.

  “Depends on who’s doing the pleasing,” Inge said. “Now, when you ladies are done gassing, we have an errand to run.”

  She didn’t need to say a thing. We were already off and running, legs powering up the steepest part of the hill, the jungle getting dense and gnarly. I picked my way through roots and plants tangling over one another, a microverse of insects buzzing and clicking around me. Ugh.

  “Let’s make this quick,” Inge said. “The storm’s getting closer.”

  I made it to the base of one of the watchtowers. A good sixty feet high, right in front of the main perimeter fence, patrolled by a pair of armed guards who lapped the property every sixty seconds. While one was roaming around the back, the other would be around the front.

  “Alpha, you take the high ground,” Inge said.

  “Copy that,” I whispered, crouched in the bushes, waiting for the perimeter guard to pass by to the right.

  “Why does he get the easy job?” Clarence asked.

  “Because Alpha’s the best shot,” Inge said. “And he’s getting old. He needs his rest.”

  “Ooh, feel the burn,” Clarence said, emerging out of the bushes.

  He grabbed the perimeter guard from behind and cut his throat with a knife, dragging him back into the jungle. All in silence. Less than a few seconds. I strapped my rifle over my shoulder and made a vertical cut in the bottom of the perimeter fence using a pair of wire cutters. I squeezed through and jumped onto the rusty ladder barely bolted on to the huge, shorn tree trunk the watchtower was perched on. I scurried up there in a hurry, making it to the top faster than you could say don’t look down. I did look down and the drop was immense. Made worse by the fact that the watchtower was essentially a round steel tub with a hole cut in the bottom where the ladder ended. The floor was made of chicken wire. Not exactly confidence inspiring. Here, teetering on the side of the hill, you could see the entire village and the vast jungle beyond. The storm closing in. Rolling thunder and a flashbulb sky.

  I checked on the guard. Dead as a dodo, flat on his back. I took up position so that my rifle was pointing just over the rim of the watchtower, little more than an eyebrow in sight.

  “Good to go, Bravo. I’ve got your six.”

  “Moving now,” Clarence said, bursting out of the jungle for the second time and ghosting over to where I’d cut a hole in the fence. He slipped through and skirted the front house of the compound, back against the wall.

  I scanned the courtyard. From up here, I could see the remaining perimeter guard and two soldiers standing smoking beyond the fountain. A light was on in the whorehouse. I wondered if some poor girl was being used by one of the soldiers. Gold Teeth, maybe. Or Mobutu himself, though something told me Mobutu didn’t slum it on one of those rancid mattresses. He probably entertained a few at a time in a four-poster bed while ogling a giant painting of himself on the ceiling.

  I lined my laser sighting on the two men in the courtyard. As Clarence moved out into plain sight, I took both of them out with one bullet – another sickening head shot that put them both down next to the fountain.

  “You’re clear,” I said.

  Clarence trod lightly, carefully. “Copy that. Approaching main house.”

  I watched him slide open the door to Mobutu’s house, oh so gently; the same door we’d identified as an entry point earlier in the day. I guessed the plan was for Clarence to do whatever dirty deed we were here to do, while I took out anyone who tried to interfere. Seemed like a straightforward plan. And it was nice to be on the sidelines for a change. Clarence slipped inside. He was on his own now. Meantime, I seemed to be waiting for … Yup, waiting for the remaining perimeter guard to pass by. Oh, him too, Philippe, really? Yes, really. As he rounded the front of the corner, I hit him with a bullet to the chest, which knocked him back against the walkway skirting the front of the house. Another bullet finished him off and knocked him underneath the walkway, out of sight.

  “Clearing the house,” Clarence whispered. “Ground floor clear. Heading up main staircase.”

  Suddenly, the door to the whorehouse swung open. Gold Teeth swaggered out, doing up his combats, laughing, a half-drained bottle of vodka in hand. He hopped off the walkway and wandered over to the fountain. Another soldier followed him out. Younger and much smaller. Gold Teeth stood over the fountain and began to take a piss, the soldiers I’d taken out earlier hidden from view around the other side.

  “Boss, don’t piss in there,” the soldier whispered. “The general will go crazy.”

  “Ah,” Gold Teeth said, waving away his concern, “it’s still full of blood. He’ll never know.”

  I fixed my sights on the big man. He turned his head to the left as he tinkled away. His smile faded. The vodka bottle slipped from his hand. He shook off and walked towards the sliding door, zipping up his fly.

  “Who left the door open?” he asked.

  My finger tensed around the trigger.

  “Don’t let them make it through that door,” Inge said.

  “Copy that, Ringleader. Taking the shot.”

  As I pulled the trigger, the sky flashed bright, half-blinding me thanks to the night vision. I took the shot and missed. By the time my sight cleared, the soldiers were still standing. Both of them disappearing through the door.

  7

  Spring Clean

  Remote Swedish village. Check.

  Bumpy, winding dirt track. Check.

  Spooky, scream-swallowing woods. Check.

  Yep, this seemed like the perfect place to get clobbered and buried alive. The thought hit me like a rock to the skull. Had Philippe saved me so he could rape and murder me in his own sick way? Maybe JPAC executions didn’t do it for him anymore.

  The Volvo struggled for grip and power as the track rose at a steep angle. We climbed above the dense, evergreen tree line onto a small dirt hill overlooking a house facing a small lake. A short wooden jetty poked out into the lake to the front of the property, a small outboard-engined boat tied to one of the end posts.

  Philippe stopped the car and killed the engine. There was nothing else around except for birds, swooping back and forth or floating on the water. There was, however, a black SUV sitting on the driveway in front of the house, a modern, boxy place over two floors, with big windows and a slate-grey facade. Slick, cool, but modest in size.

  “Where are we?” I asked.


  “The house down there is mine,” Philippe said.

  “Then why are we parked up here?”

  “See the SUV in the driveway?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Not mine.”

  “Then whose—” I didn’t need to ask. It was JPAC. “But why would they—”

  “Spring clean. Standard procedure,” Philippe said. “When an asset expires, a cleaning team comes in and searches for anything compromising. They’ll remove any trace I was here. Data. Documents. DNA.”

  “What happens after that?”

  “They’ll either sell the place and bank the funds, or they’ll move another asset in.”

  “So either way, you’re screwed out of a home. Oh well, JPAC are in town. Let’s get out of here.”

  Philippe took the key out of the ignition. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  “Um, hello? This is the all-powerful secret organisation you used to work for. Don’t you remember getting missiles fired up your arse by that drone?”

  “One of us needs to go inside the house,” he said, climbing out of the car.

  “What for?” I asked, following him out of the car and slamming the door.

  “Quiet,” he said, creeping around the back of the Volvo and yanking me down low. “I left something inside. I need it, or I can’t travel.”

  “Need what?”

  “A key.”

  “You need a key to travel?”

  “I need the key to get into the storage facility where I keep my spare passports.”

  We ran low across the hill and stopped next to a large fir tree.

  “Won’t JPAC just turn up there too?” I asked.

  “They don’t know everything.”

  “Ha. Naughty.”

  “It’s what we’re trained to do.”

  Philippe started digging in the dirt with his hands. It was soft and damp. More like wet sand than mud.

  “Here, give me a hand,” he said.

  I joined in the dig. It didn’t take long to uncover the top of a wooden box. Philippe swept the mud aside. He reached down and pulled the lid away. Inside was a rifle, broken into parts, along with a cardboard box of bullets. He quickly fixed the rifle together and slotted a long, pointy bullet into the chamber. I knew less than nothing about guns, but the rifle was old. Something you’d use for hunting rather than sniping.

  “You could have hidden something better than that,” I said.

  “This is a very effective weapon,” Philippe said, holding up the rifle to test the sight.

  “Not if you’re going inside the house, shooting up-close.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, adjusting the dial on the sight. “I’m not going inside the house.”

  “I thought you said one—”

  “One of us. Yes.”

  “Oh, you can’t be … Me? Go in there? Yeah, nice one. Ha ha.”

  “I mean it. You’re going in.”

  “It’s your house. Go and get your own bloody key.”

  “Have you ever worked a rifle?” Philippe asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well there are four highly trained cleaners in there, all heavily armed. If either of us went in unarmed, we’d be dead. One of us needs to provide covering fire for the other to stand a chance.”

  “I thought you were good at this shit. A craftsman, Nathan said.”

  Philippe adjusted a small dial on the side of the rifle. “Why take the risk when I’ve got you?”

  “And what if I say no?”

  “Then it’s goodbye passport and money.”

  “You shitbag. Using an innocent girl to do your dirty work.”

  “That’s life,” he said. “Now look …” Philippe pointed to the house. “You can’t go in from the front. Too exposed. And the door will be locked.” He pointed to the rear of the house. There was a glass patio door that looked out over a raised wooden deck with steps down to a small strip of manicured lawn running into the hillside.

  “See the glass door?” he asked. “They always go in through the back. You can slip in there. It will be unlocked. That will take you in through the living area. Here …”

  Philippe detached the telescopic rifle sight and handed it over. I looked through the sight. It magnified everything. The one good thing about Philippe’s pad was the presence of big glass windows. You could see in easily. After all, there was little call for drapes or blinds in nowheresville. There were two cleaners moving through the ground floor. Two up top searching in different rooms. All dressed in baggy black zip-up suits with latex gloves and disposable blue covers over their shoes. One was sitting on what I assumed was Philippe’s bed with a laptop open. Another was rifling through books on a shelf downstairs in the living room, tossing them aside when he didn’t find anything. There was a female cleaner in the kitchen, going through drawers. And, finally, another guy on the first-floor landing.

  “Why are they dressed like that?” I asked.

  “No DNA or prints left behind. Precautions if something goes wrong with the clean.”

  “Man, you people are paranoid.”

  “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of us,” Philippe said.

  “Hey,” I said, thinking of a great excuse not to go in. “What if I get caught?”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  “And if I don’t? If I die?” I asked, handing back the sighting.

  “Then I’ll think of something else,” Philippe said, reattaching it to the rifle.

  “You’ll be screwed if they question me. I guarantee you I won’t respond well to torture.”

  “Don’t worry. If they catch you, I’ll shoot you.”

  “Oh, that’s reassuring. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure. Now get going before they find the key. It’s in the study in a safe. Behind a painting of the lake.”

  “A safe behind a picture. How original.”

  “I didn’t have a Hello Kitty jar to hand,” he said, referring to my, I thought, rather ingenious way of hiding the contact lenses in my bedroom.

  “The code is seven–five–four–two,” he said. “Take the hill down here. I’ll cover you.”

  God, was I really going in there? What choice did I have? If I went into the house, there was a big-ass chance of death. If I didn’t go in, there was zero chance of a life without my passport and bank card.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said.

  Philippe nodded at me to go. I gave him the daggers as I lowered myself down the steep embankment. I approached the house from the side in a controlled slide on the soles of my pumps, using the surrounding bushes and trees for cover, steadying my descent with roots and branches. When I hit the bottom, I slapped the dirt off my hands against my jeans and ran low around the back of the house. I crept up the three steps to the beech decking and edged along the wall towards the sliding door to the living room. It was open a crack.

  I felt warm, my heart drumming over the stillness of the lake. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Reached out a hand and pushed the glass door open. It was heavy but moved with only the faintest shush on its runners. I peeped inside. The living room was clear. I slipped off my pumps and left them out of sight by the side of the door. I stepped inside, slow and unsure.

  Chez Philippe was luxury-basic. An open-plan pad with high white walls and glossy grey floor tiles. The living area featured a large wall fire and big TV, with a vintage black leather sofa. I peeked into the hallway. The place was largely open plan – no doors separating the rooms, but with plenty of unsighted twists and turns.

  I crept out of the living room into the hallway, only to take a wrong turn and end up in a large, square kitchen with a breakfast bar in the middle. The female cleaner was still rattling around in there. She turned my way. I ducked behind the swirly grey and white marble-top breakfast bar before she saw me.

  I heard her walk away from me and open the fridge, her plastic shoe covers scuffing across the same hard floor that seemed to run th
roughout the house. I scurried out in my stockinged feet back into the hallway and rounded another corner. Here was one of those floating staircases. Wide, solid wood steps with no banister or any visible support. Just a gap in between each step. Before I got to the stairs, there was an opening to another room. I angled my head around. It was a small home gym with a punch bag, a weights bench and a couple of machines. Cleaner number two, a rangy black guy, was casing the joint, looking under a couple of workout mats. Did they suspect there was a safe? Standard protocol, I guess. Leave no gym mat unturned.

  I moved across the room and trod softly up the stairs, past a smattering of tribal masks and long, thin picture frames housing traditional Chinese writing. Okay, Philippe, you get around, we get it.

  Halfway up the stairs, I heard the chatter of the two remaining cleaners. I lay flat against the staircase as they came walking and talking out of the room directly above me. One carried a bin bag. The other, a mobile phone held in a gloveless hand. They stopped on the landing. Bin-bag man was young, with a trendy haircut and carefully clipped beard. He said he’d be in the bathroom, but that the house was clean. Nothing to trace Philippe’s former life back to them.

  “The guy’s a Type A,” he said, in what sounded like a Scandinavian accent. “No way he’s leaving a trace.”

  The other man was a sandy-haired Brit. Yorkshire. Gruff. White, in-ear headphones hanging over the top of his suit. He reminded me of that movie actor, Sean Bean.

  “I heard the guy’s good,” the Yorkshireman said. “Really fucking good.”

  “He’s a legend,” the young one said. “He took a sniper bullet in London. They brought him back and he went postal. Killed an entire security team outside Oslo.”

  “No fucking surprise. They wind them lot up tighter than a ferret’s arsehole,” the Yorkshireman said, heading off to the left with his phone. “I’ll call it in. Tell them we’re nearly done.”

  “I’ll be downstairs,” said the younger one. “Hurry up, Devlin. I’m starving.”

  “You and your fucking stomach,” said the Yorkshireman. “You’re going to need new vest fitting at this rate. You know they dock you for that stuff.”