by Andy Maslen
Sasha had monitored the dog handler for the previous three nights. She knew which areas of the base he patrolled, and when and where he approached the wire. Tonight, she’d positioned herself where he would come within forty yards of her position.
Item Three
CROUCHING in the shelter of the shrubs and low trees, she slid the long gun from its black nylon case. It was a DanInject IM dart rifle. First things first: she screwed a new 45-gramme CO2 cartridge into the end of the forestock. Next, she extracted a 1.5 millilitre dart. At the hotel, she’d loaded it with a mixture of one part medetomidine and two parts ketamine. The cocktail of anaesthetic chemicals was tuned to put a big animal out of action in thirty to forty seconds, and keep it unconscious for at least an hour. Unlike surgical anaesthetics, which need to be injected into a vein, Sasha’s ‘signature mix,’ as she thought of it, was more flexible, and would act equally quickly if injected into a muscle. She removed the silicon plug from the tip of the needle, pocketed it, then loaded the dart into the rear of the breech.
She dragged some dead bracken over to the fence, crawled underneath it and waited. The light was fading, but it was still bright enough to see by, and certainly to shoot by.
After fifteen minutes, she heard the dog handler’s footsteps crunching over the roadway beyond the wire. She raised the rifle and settled her cheek against its American walnut stock. The manufacturer had thoughtfully positioned the manometer so that it faced the shooter, to the left of the Swift 1.5 – 4.5 x 32mm telescopic sight. She adjusted the pressure to 12 bars, which was perfect for a 40-yard shot according to the manufacturer’s pressure tables.
The dog, perhaps sensing the intruder, began barking. A deep, raw-edged sound that erected the hairs on the back of Sasha’s neck. It was a primal response that no amount of training could neutralise. And she liked it. Animal responses were often what kept you alive where training might cause you to be overconfident.
“What is it, Kika? Some idiot fancies a trip to A&E, d’you think? Come on, let’s check it out.”
Sasha sighted on the handler’s chest. And waited.
Sixty yards.
Breathe in.
Fifty-five.
Breathe out.
Fifty.
In.
Forty-five.
Out.
Hold.
Fire.
The rifle was, as its makers claimed, virtually silent. The dart left the barrel with a whispery snap and travelled the short distance to the handler’s chest in less than half a second.
On impact, the dart delivered its payload so swiftly the dog handler had no chance to pull it out before the chemicals were in his pectoral muscle, right over the heart.
“Fuck, what the fucking hell?” he said.
He looked down, and stood completely still, as if the shock of seeing the slim plastic cylinder with its crimson tuft dangling from his jacket was too much to process. The dog was barking furiously and straining at the lead in its efforts to get to the fence.
Sasha calmly reloaded, aimed, and put a second dart into the animal’s left flank.
She could tell the handler was trying to call for help. His jaw was working and incoherent groans were issuing from his lips. But it was too late. The knees buckled, sending him sideways and down. The dog was in the way, and he fell over its back, thumping to the ground with the lead tangled around his ankles.
Whining now, the dog staggered a couple of times, pulled off balance by her master’s collapse. She licked his face a couple of times and then flopped to the ground, chest heaving.
“No time to waste, darling,” Sasha whispered. She pulled a pair of wire cutters from her rucksack and in under a minute had cut an inverted V in the wire. She pushed the triangle of infill flat with her boot and was through seconds after that.
She knew from her research that although a great many support staff worked on the base, few were SAS members, most of whom were on operations or training around the world. She consulted her hand-drawn map and ten minutes later was at the rear of the living quarters where the target had his room. She stood up and unzipped the boiler suit. She left it with her rucksack under a bush, and straightened her jacket. Then she marched around to the front of the building and went in. Nobody saw her. But then, why would they? She’d planned her infiltration for mess hall and had observed that this corner of the base was deserted every evening between 18.00 and 18.45. All except for those soldiers who’d rather practise the harmonica than go to the gym or get some food down them.
She knocked on Sergeant Ben “Dusty” Rhodes’s room and entered.
The man was lying on his cot, a silver harmonica to his lips. She’d listened to him earlier, and observed him through high-powered, night-vision-equipped binoculars, ever since Erin had passed on the intel gathered by her trusty lapdog Guy. Rhodes started up, eyes wide. “What the fuck?”
“Ben Rhodes, I am arresting you on suspicion of being the worst fucking harmonica player in the Western Hemisphere, and certainly in the Regiment,” she barked, drawing an inflatable truncheon from a plastic holster at her waist.
He was on his feet now. But the sight of a uniformed police sergeant with a weapons-grade scowl on her face and stocking tops visible under the hem of her mini skirt had temporarily disabled the situational awareness for which members of this particular Special Forces outfit were famed.
“Who the fuck, I mean, why? I’m not, you can’t—”
“Oh, but I can. We received a tipoff from Sparrow and Tigger that your playing was criminal, and now you have to take your punishment. Now, hold your hands out, and then I’ll show you how we treat repeat offenders.”
She pulled a pair of pink, fluffy handcuffs from her belt and held them out in front of her, allowing her deep, black-cherry lips to curve upwards into something halfway between a smile and a pout.
He was shaking his head now, and smiling, even as he held out his hands towards her. “I don’t fucking believe this. Did those bastards smuggle you in or something?”
“Amazing what you can fit in a laundry basket, sir,” she replied closing the fluff-covered, Metropolitan Police standard-issue handcuffs around his wrists. “Now lie back, please, while I read you your rights.”
She pushed him then, lightly, in the centre of his chest, and he willingly subsided back onto his bed.
Switching her phone to speaker, and playing a slinky blues number she’d thought was appropriate, Sasha began unbuttoning her navy uniform jacket. Beneath it she wore a white cotton blouse, which she also removed, revealing a black lace push-up bra. The soldier gasped his admiration. “Very nice. I must play more bad harmonica.”
Sasha feels the usual calm descending on her. It’s been like this ever since those two sleazebags in the LA apartment tried to turn her into the star of a snuff movie. Her heart is just idling, really. No adrenaline, despite the presence beyond the four walls of the barracks room of a few dozen support staff.
“Quiet, sir. You’ll have your chance to say your piece later. Now,” she says, grasping the tab of the silver zip closing her skirt at the side. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do not mention,” down goes the zip, “which you later rely on in court,” she shimmies out of it and kicks it to one side, “may be given in evidence.”
She stands before him wearing black lace panties, stockings, suspenders and, incongruously, high, black combat boots. She sees he has an erection swelling the front of his trousers.
Oh, well. At least you’ll die happy, she thinks.
She turns away and bends over.
She reaches into the inside breast pocket of her jacket.
She turns back to face him, flicking out the short, lethally sharp blade of her Benchmade Infidel automatic knife. She takes two paces over to him, and plunges the blade up to the hilt in the side of his neck.
His eyes widen in horror. Is it horror at being caught out? she wonders. Or just the knowledge that the claret hosing out of his carotid artery means death
is just seconds away?
He opens his mouth to scream, and although she knows the most he’ll be able to manage is a gurgle, she clamps her palm over his lips and shushes him until the thrashing ceases and the corneas lose their shine.
Dressed again, she peers round the door. The corridor is empty, still. A stroke of luck, although with the knife she’s pulled from the dead man’s neck and the Mini Uzi 9mm machine pistol she’s concealed in the back of the jacket, she’s not overly concerned about meeting resistance.
She’s round the back of the barracks twenty seconds later, pulling the boiler suit into place, sprinting on silent feet back to the fence, stepping around the unconscious forms of the dog handler and his faithful mutt, easing through the chain-link and away.
The klaxons and the alarm bells will be sounding soon, but Sasha doesn’t care. She is a non-person in this country. She exists on no databases. She has no fingerprints. She has no documentation any branch of officialdom would recognise or be able to search for. She picks her way back through the woods to her car, pulls the camo netting free, blips the fob to unlock it, stashes her kit, and pulls away onto the long, straight road towards England.
From another hotel, in another part of the country, she sends a text.
Item three, part one, completed. SB xx
Bank Job
SALISBURY
GABRIEL received the news about Dusty the next day. It was Don who broke it to him. Gabriel was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the paper. Eli was out running.
“Hello, Old Sport, got a minute?”
“Hi boss, yes, what’s up?”
“Things have escalated. She took out Ben Rhodes yesterday evening.”
Gabriel put the mug down, slopping half the remaining coffee onto the table.
“What? How? He was on base.”
“I know. Troubling doesn’t even start to cover it.”
“How? I mean, Dusty, was he—”
Knife wound to the neck. He’d have bled out in under a minute. He was in handcuffs, too. Pink fluffy ones.”
“Oh, Jesus! This is all on me. And I still have no fucking idea what’s going on.”
Don’s tone hardened. “Right. Thing the first, this is not on you. This is on Sasha Beck and her client. Thing the second, she’s now upped the ante to stratospheric levels. I’ve just got off the phone with Harry Torrance, he’s Director, Special Forces. He’s, hmm, how can I put this? Incandescent might, just, cover it. Wants this woman terminated with extreme prejudice. He was all for sending the lads undercover. I had to remind him of a few salient points of domestic law before he’d even think of calming down.”
“So is The Department going to take it on?”
“Yes. It is. We are. I’ve spoken to the PM and the Privy Council. They green-lighted the operation at 0745 this morning. I’m putting an intel team on it, see what they can come up with. You’re in play, obviously, along with Eli, but I’m putting a second team on it, too. If you, or the Int team, find out Beck’s location, or her client’s, then we’re going in mob-handed. No single-handed heroics, understood? This is nine-to-one or nothing. Harry practically offered to put up a bounty himself.”
Gabriel swigged the last of the coffee.
“OK, that’s good. That’s good. But Dusty. Shit, boss, he didn’t need to die. Not for me.”
“No, he didn’t. Nobody needs to die, Gabriel. But sometimes we do. The police are there now, interviewing, looking for evidence. It was an outside job, so the MPs aren’t involved. Media are being kept well away, and the lads aren’t talking, so we can keep a lid on it for a while yet, I hope. Listen, I think it might be a good idea for you to go away for a few days, or maybe a little longer. No sense making yourself an easy target for Beck. I don’t know what her filthy little game is, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that someone’s out to fuck your life up, pardon my French.”
“OK, I can think of an errand I need to run. It’ll keep me busy for a few days, and out of the way, too.”
Eli arrived back ten minutes later. After showering and changing into jeans and a white T-shirt, she joined him at the kitchen table.
“I have to go away for a few days,” he said. “Switzerland.”
“What’s there?”
“I need to find a bank. One of those discreet ones.”
Eli sucked her lower lip in.
“Do you know how many banks like that there are in Switzerland?”
Gabriel shrugged. “More than five?”
She laughed. “Yes. More than five … hundred. Look, I’ve seen the expression on your face whenever you have to research anything online. Why don’t you at least let me identify a good one for you?”
Over the next twenty minutes, Gabriel outlined what he wanted, and Eli took notes, pausing occasionally to check something on the web.
“Give me an hour or so. You can cook me one of your lovely dinners as payment.”
Discretion is the Better Part
ZURICH
The city was sweltering in an early spring heat wave. As Gabriel checked into his hotel, the desk clerk informed him, in perfect, unaccented English, that the temperature outside was thirty degrees Celsius. Her name was Gaby, according to the gold badge pinned on her jacket. Tiny enamelled badges pinned below it indicated she spoke Serbian, English, Italian and German.
“You are staying with us for three days, Mr Wolfe?”
She knew this from the monitor in front of her, but this was just part of the standard hotel dialogue. He nodded.
“Yes. I have some business to do, then I plan on some sightseeing.”
She handed him his keycard enclosed in a cardboard folder that had the Wi-Fi password written on in biro, smiled a professional smile, then turned to the next guest waiting to check in.
Once inside his room, he unpacked. After arranging his spare clothes, running kit and wash bag, he turned to his briefcase, a battered Hartmann constructed from brass, plywood and the same leather used to make industrial belting. It wasn’t particularly pretty to look at, bearing the scuffs and scrapes of many journeys, but it was virtually bombproof and carried a lifetime guarantee.
The catch slid silently to the right, and he pushed the lid back on its brass hinges so that it rested upright. The case contained thirty sheets of paper. These were US bearer bonds, each one to the value of one hundred thousand dollars. In all, three million. They were to have been payment from a corrupt American businessman to Sasha Beck for a contract on Gabriel’s life. Things hadn’t worked out so well for Beck on that occasion, and even less well for her client. Gabriel had held onto the paper, figuring that it might come in useful to have some untraceable, ultra-portable wealth. He was glad of it now. The bonds were 30 centimetres by 18 centimetres, printed on thick, creamy paper, engraved with a variety of stamps, signatures, presidential portraits and official insignia along with copperplate text promising the bearer that the paper in their hands was all it said it was.
While still in England, he’d made an appointment to see the managing director of a small private bank deep in the heart of Zurich’s financial district, which, as far as Gabriel could see, meant Zurich itself. Eli had given him the details, and it seemed completely on brief. Although he hadn’t been specific as to the exact nature of the items he wished to deposit, he had alluded to the need for secrecy, and given the total sum involved. The quiet, precise voice at the other end of the line had assured him that he would be delighted to welcome Herr Wolfe personally and discuss what arrangements would be suitable.
Outside the hotel, sweating in his lightweight Prince of Wales check, wool suit, Gabriel flagged down one of the city’s cream Mercedes E-class taxis and gave the driver the address.
It took fifteen minutes to reach the street where Händler und Ziegelhaus SA had its offices. The architecture along the route was a strange mixture of classical buildings with ornate decoration, and modern blocks painted in sky-blue and a deep, brick red. Gabriel paid the driver, in
cluding a generous tip, and walked up to the front door, which was closed and bore no obvious corporate insignia or branding. It was a solid rectangle of forbidding timber, painted a deep, glossy burgundy. To the left was a polished brass plaque that told the reader it was the bank’s headquarters. Standing to the right as he looked at it was a tall, blond-haired man with prominent cheekbones and a gaze that seemed more threatening than welcoming. His cold, grey eyes were shadowed by a top hat in black silk, and his massive frame was clad in a bottle-green frock coat decorated with gold epaulettes and matching triple rings at both wrists. His feet were big, shod in mirror-polished, black shoes, what Gabriel would call Oxfords, though he didn’t know the German equivalent.
He looked up at the giant and spoke in English.
“I’m here to see Herr Krieger.”
“Name, please?”
“Wolfe.”
“Wait, please.” The doorman pulled out a phone, turned away from Gabriel and muttered a few words in German. Gabriel caught his own name but that was all. Wordlessly, the giant opened the front door for Gabriel and waved him inside with a white-gloved hand the size of a dinner plate.
Beyond the front door, the building was silent, apart from the ticking of a grandfather clock standing between two doors polished until they resembled toffee. The floor was decorated with black and white tiles set in a chequerboard pattern. The lighting was provided by three gold chandeliers set centrally in the high ceilings of the hallway, which stretched back from the door for at least forty feet.
Gabriel walked down the corridor and had not gone more than a few steps when a slim, blonde woman, appraising eyes in a pale shade of blue, stepped out from a side door and spoke to him in English.
