by A P Bateman
“Correct,” said King. “Viktor Bukov.”
“The sniper killing all those lovely billionaires.”
“Yes.”
“And the same sniper I killed on the roof before he made his final hit.”
“Yes.”
“Now, this Helena, she has organised this whole terrorism angle to cover the real target, her husband?”
“That’s right.”
“And she’s pissed at you for cracking it wide open. She blames you for not getting the money she thinks she deserved, and for the death of her lover.”
“Who you killed,” King said dryly. “Perhaps I should send her your number.”
Rashid ignored the quip. He’d helped his friend, was glad to have gone up against a notable sniper. “And during your heroics, shutting down the rest of the group, she kidnapped Caroline.”
“And now she wants her fun. But there’s a completely different agenda. She has a past, and so far, two people knew what she was capable of. Sergeyev, before he died, said Caroline would be as good as dead. Not two hours ago, his widow told me the same thing. She has plans, and she’s going to use me to see them through.”
“And Caroline is the carrot dangling in front of your nose.”
“That’s about the size of it, yes.”
“So how are you contacted?”
“A prepaid mobile phone. One number punched in. It diverts to other numbers like an old-school dial-up internet. Must be a dozen numbers diverting before I speak. Even then, I can only leave a message. I get a text in return.”
“And you text back?”
“Yes. I’ve given up trying to call.”
“So, what now?”
King hesitated, the phone in question vibrating in his pocket. He took it out, unlocked it and looked at the screen. “That’s her.”
“Shit, what are the chances? What has she got to say?”
He ignored him, studied the picture of Caroline now enlarged on the screen from the message. She looked to have had a wash and a change of clothes since the photographs he had collected at the post office in Sweden. She was expressionless. However, King recognised it as simmering anger. There was a fire in her eyes that he seldom saw, had only witnessed in a rare argument. He could see the headline of a newspaper, L’Express, a French language Swiss paper. He spread the screen with his thumb and forefinger to enlarge it further and saw that it was today’s date. “I think she’s being held in Switzerland,” King said quietly.
“Are you sure?”
“Could be a ruse. There’s a picture of her with today’s newspaper. She could be anywhere in Europe.”
“You need MI5. They can work with the European intelligence services, Interpol even.”
“Not yet,” said King emphatically. He read the text, frowned, then read through again. “I have to go to Italy first.”
“Italy?”
“Tuscany.”
11
Four days later
Tuscany, Italy
The town of Monteverdi Marittimo was sat on top of a mountain, approximately seven miles inland from the Mediterranean. It afforded excellent views of the sea, mountainsides thick with pine trees and well-tended meadows. On the west side of the mountain, grapes grew in organised rows in vineyards that remained unchanged since the height of the Roman Empire. Olive trees lined the quiet streets, with thick trunks and large canopies, the roots pushing up the paving and causing the road to peak and crack. At harvest time, even these decorative trees were harvested with the use of nets held by the women, and the trees given a shaking by the men, tourists invited to partake amid music and much grappa – the heady and intoxicating fortified liquor made from the waste in winemaking.
King hadn’t bothered trying to order a cup of tea. This was espresso country. He settled for a beer, which came well-chilled and in a frosted glass. The waiter had placed a saucer of nuts beside his glass. King picked at the nuts, sipped the cold beer and watched Luca Fortez order another espresso. King wore dark aviator glasses and scrolled on his mobile phone. Not the phone he had been left in the safety deposit box, along with his orders, in Sweden. He kept that one switched off, the sim card removed, until he needed it. He had removed what he could of the device and inspected it but found nothing unusual. The phone could not be traced unless it was switched on and the sim card was active. King used his own iPhone. Always two models old, but with upgraded software, keeping it as non-descript looking as he could. Between drinking his beer, picking at the nuts and checking his non-existent emails, he studied the folded tourist map, but watched the Italian Mafia boss discreetly in his periphery.
Luca Fortez had been born with a different name. He had then worked his way through another, as hitman and enforcer to the Mafia running everything north of Rome and south of Modena. He had settled on Fortez when he had reached the higher echelons and become a made-man. The killing and violence was not behind him, he ordered such things now, but he had made his way to the top of the pile with the blood of his own friends and family on his hands. His reputation was well-earned, and he commanded respect not so much through fear and intimidation, but by history. People who knew of him, who found themselves in the realms of the mafia’s touch, feared the legend. And that was precisely what the man had become. A legend. Like the Bogey Man.
King had studied the man enough to know he was dangerous. Six-two, well-muscled. His biceps were large enough to indicate he was still extremely physical, despite being in his mid-forties – an age where many Italian men have learned to embrace pasta, wine and middle-age. But it was the man’s eyes that told King he was dangerous. They were the eyes of a killer. The eyes King saw in the mirror every day. Unlike King’s glacier-blue eyes, the Italian killer’s eyes were dark, but they stared hard at everything he looked at. They did not blink either. Like a cobra’s. He wore his sunglasses pushed fashionably high on his forehead, the lenses as dark as his lifeless eyes beneath.
There were two bodyguards. Both big and burly and clearly armed with sizable handguns and spare magazines under their linen suit jackets. They wore dark wraparound sunglasses, open shirts under their white suits and seemed bored. This was a quiet town, a village really, with a few tourists and locals milling through the street. A bakery, a convenience store and several bars and tobacconists. A church and tower were the key points of interest, along with a small piazza and regular open market. King had perused the market, bought some bread, deli meats and cheese, and placed them into a paper bag he had earlier prepared. He had placed the bag on the table, adjusted the lens of the camera to fit the hole he had made in the bag, and was now filming the Italian mafia boss and his two bodyguards, as he sipped his iced beer and picked at the saucer of nuts. King knew enough about surveillance to understand the importance of appearing natural. He looked at the mafia boss like he simply didn’t care, mindful not to allow his stare to linger. He simply took in his surroundings, enjoyed the sunshine and the coolness of the narrow street, which funnelled the air through. A lone traveller, taking his time to soak up the architecture, the simplicity of Italian life in the Tuscan hills.
When the Russian arrived, it was with two security personnel ahead of him, three behind and one bodyguard a pace behind and to his right. All wore the same wraparound sunglasses, black T-shirts and black suits. All five men also wore heavy gold chains around their necks. The lead bodyguard wore more gold than a jeweller’s window. It was by no means subtle. The exact opposite, in fact, a declaration of wealth. At odds with blending into the surroundings and lowering the threat. It was a show of force – the muscle, the wealth, the poor-fitting suits unable to conceal the bulging holstered pistols underneath. And it was as much a show to the Italian security as the rest of the world around them. Many of the people walking through the thoroughfare must have thought a rap video was being filmed. Some even stopped and watched. A few knowing locals walked on. Some would know Luca Fortez, and that would be enough to keep walking.
King watched, waiting to see
what would happen next. He had noticed two men loitering at the piazza, and they sauntered over and joined the Italian ranks. Two more walked up the street from behind the Russian and his entourage. The Italians outnumbered the Russians now. The street was full and people walking in and out of a nearby bakery had to side-step the display of muscle. King sipped his beer, ate more nuts and adjusted his seat to put his face in the sun and his back to the show. He could not take in much from his occasional glances, but he would see everything he needed to when he played it back at his convenience. Hear everything too, as the camera was equipped with an amplified directional microphone, what the surveillance world called parabolic.
King was amused. The text had told him the premise. The Russian competitors to Sergeyev’s brotherhood, a splinter group from the hostile takeover Sergeyev had made, was linking with one of three mafia’s who held almost half of Italy. An uneasy balance, soon to be struck a deadly blow with the help of Russian resources. King could not see the end being a sweet and rosy one. With one brotherhood controlling the territory, surely the partnership would be in the sole hands of whoever did not blink first? When he studied the text message, along with internet links and a data download from iCloud, it was only obvious that Luca Fortez would find himself involved in another powerplay. Perhaps the Italian mafia boss would have that covered. But he would bet his life that the Russians would too.
The Russian was a forty-three-year-old named Nikolai. King had no more details, but he could see that the man was cast from the same mould as other men in his game. He couldn’t see the man’s eyes under his sunglasses, and the photo he had been supplied with had not been in high quality detail, but he could see the outline of the man, the shape of his face. All King knew of the man was that Helena had vengeance in mind. The man was his primary target.
King had hit the ground running in Sweden, flown straight in from Scotland, where he had received news of his fiancé. Until then, he had suffered the purgatory of her being a missing person. The half-life, if only for three weeks, of not knowing the fate of the woman he loved. That letter had been delivered by his immediate boss, Simon Mereweather, now director of operations for MI5. King did not dislike the man, but he was sure that in going to Sweden alone, without being part of the Security Service’s operation to get their agent back, he would find few friends within MI5. But the letter had been clear, and King knew it had been intended all along for him to work off Caroline’s freedom, and not negotiate her release. He had tried to search Helena Milankovitch’s past, but had come up with a blank. There had been some online articles about Helena Snell, the Russian wife of Sir Ian Snell, the British billionaire assassinated by the terrorist group, Anarchy to Recreate Society. Her background as a model – glossing over her time lap dancing and pole dancing in the Black Sea resorts – with the focus on her charitable work and her failing fashion label. There had been hastily-written articles of her disappearance after her husband’s death, but she was clearly old news. What King found difficult was finding details of her past prior to her marriage. She had clearly crossed paths with Pyotr Sergeyev and his wife Anna. And now, ordering King to kill the head of the Bratva - or Brotherhood’s - competition meant that her Russian mafia connection went further than with Sergeyev.
King risked a glance, smiled to himself when he saw the attention the two high-profile entourages had made on the people of Monteverde Marittimo. He decided to make a move before they did. He dropped a ten-Euro note on the table and used the empty saucer to secure it in place. He gathered up his bag of groceries, tore a piece off the end of the bread and ate it casually as he checked his phone and ambled past the group of Italian heavies. He looked at the two men, engrossed in conversation and nursing two glasses of grappa, tripped and fell towards Nikolai. He didn’t get very far. One of the men flanking him caught hold of King, ripping his shirt and stopping him in his tracks. Another had his hand on the grip of a hefty pistol, not quite drawing it from its holster.
“Sorry,” King said meekly. “Thanks. I almost went there.” He patted the largest of the two men on the shoulder. “Too many beers,” he said.
“You took your time over that one,” the man replied.
“I’m taking in the sights, stopping at each bar,” King countered quickly. He was back upright now, easing himself away. “Are these guys famous?” he asked.
He was being moved past the two men. They had barely noticed, Nikolai barely pausing for breath. King noticed the man helping him on his way had been replaced by another equally large guard.
“Just businessmen,” the man said, his voice almost devoid of any accent. He backed away without another word, re-joined the ranks.
King walked down the steep cobbles, negotiated the steps and crossed over the road to where his basic Skoda hatchback was parked. He had hired the car at Pisa airport. A generic hire car, devoid of character, and therefore invisible. Which was far from what he could see further down the road and on the other side of the road behind him. He guessed the Italians had the black Maserati Quattroporte and the two red Alfa Romeo Giulia saloons. The Russians, by contrast looked to drive three black Mercedes S Class saloons with blacked-out windows. A driver sat behind the wheel of all three vehicles. The Italian vehicles, by contrast, were watched by a single male, smoking a cigarette. He bought his clothes in the same emporium as his colleagues, and looked to be armed, judging by the poor-fitting shoulder holster. The man stood with one foot on the rear bumper of one of the Alfas and rested his elbow on his knee. King watched him stare at a Carabinieri patrol car as it drove slowly past. He neither changed his demeanour, and nor did the police car stop. Which told King there were few friendlies out here. He doubted the local police would be any different.
He took out the camera, attached an ear piece and scrolled back through the footage. His ruse of faking a fall had taught him a great deal. The Russian’s were on it. Not only had the lead bodyguard noticed King, seen how much he had drank, but King had been stopped well before he would have been a threat to their VIP. They were routinely armed, and as King had patted the man in thanks, he had noticed how physical he had been. Nothing but muscle under that suit. And a lot of it. The drivers were pros too. They had remained with the vehicles, wheels turned out from the kerb. Their drills put the Italians to shame. King had got as close to Luca as he had to Nicolai, yet the Italian muscle hadn’t moved. Barely twitched. Which told King that the Russian would not be an easy target.
Which gave King an idea.
12
Somewhere in Eastern Europe
She had been travelling for three days. Hot and uncomfortable, tediously monotonous as the vehicle ate up the miles over motorway, potted back roads and tracks. She had no idea where she was, no clue to the direction she had travelled. Her confines were that of a wooden crate that she estimated to be one metre by two and just over one and a half metres high. Enough for her to stand if she ducked her head, to lay straight and to sit. She was no longer bound or gagged, but there was no way she could escape. She had pounded and kicked the wooden slats, and although they gave, emitting tiny shafts of light, she could not get them to break or lift out the screws that held them firmly in place.
One side of the crate opened to allow her access and was bolted with what sounded like an array of sliding bolts padlocked into place. The inside of the truck was not much larger than the crate and was lit by a single bulb above the rear doors. It was humid and airless, but they stopped every few hours, where she was taken at gunpoint by her two captors into forest or scrubland for a convenience break, given water twice a day, something to eat. No opportunity presented itself for escape – she was weak now, unable to get far if she managed to run. Her shoes had been taken after her last attempt, and one of the men carried a pump-action shotgun with a sawn barrel. She knew she would get no more than a few steps. She had the measure of the two men. They were well-muscled but had worked mainly on their comically over-sized arms, which were tattooed and on constant display. Both men look
ed tough, smoked incessantly and washed infrequently. Not that she could take the moral high-ground there. She yearned for a bath, a toothbrush and some clean clothes. She felt dehumanised, an animal. She was just thankful the beast with the wandering hands was not here to add to her humiliation.
She knew she had reached a border crossing from Europe, or at least the European Union, to the east when the truck had pulled over and she had been roughly bound, trussed like a chicken and gagged. The ordeal had lasted over an hour at her best guess, and she heard voices, traffic slowing and moving off again, vehicle doors slamming shut. The truck had travelled a good twenty-minutes before she was untrussed, released to the relative freedom of her box once more. That had been what felt like hours ago, and the quality of the road surface had deteriorated considerably, but there had been a change recently, a stretch of road that had sounded both smooth and fast. It had come as a blessed relief. She had taken the opportunity to lay out flat and attempt to sleep. She knew that if she could rest her mind, allow her body to relax, then she would be in better shape to face whatever awaited her at the other end of her journey.
13
Tuscany, Italy
King had already familiarised himself with Luca Fortez’s property. A vineyard and vast stone-built mansion on the south-side of a mountain near the town of Canneto, approximately seven miles north-east of Monteverdi Marittimo, but because of the switchback mountain roads and lack of overtaking opportunities, approximately thirty-minutes’ drive. Or an hour, if there were groups of cyclists testing themselves on the gradients. King had studied the property using Google Earth for an overview and had parked further down the road and walked in to get a feel for the layout and scale.
Security was tight, but nothing compared to military compounds he had broken into in the past. There were motion sensors along the fence, but there were also birds resting on top of the fence in places, so the sensors would be set reasonably high to avoid false alarms. As well as the fence and motion sensors, the entrance was gated with CCTV cameras and an intercom. He could also see alarm boxes on the gable end. He had skirted the property and appraised the rear. A swimming pool and patio with open glass doors to the house. The pool was a feature for both relaxing and entertaining. The doors would remain open, adding to the spacious lounge and the capacious feel. An extension to the luxury within, and the breeze from the shaded forest side of the property would cool the house inside. So, here was his entrance point. A doorway to the house that would remain open right up until the inhabitants went to bed.
