by Andy Maslen
“Oh, sure, macho SAS man. Aren’t you forgetting she just took down a serving member of the Regiment? Inside their base? You’re fit, as I think you know, but you’re not serving anymore.”
“It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t have the element of surprise with me.”
Item Three, Part Two
OXFORDSHIRE COUNTRYSIDE
AFTER leaving the SAS with a full military pension, a chest full of medals, and a prosthetic arm, Damon Cheaney found himself a job as an estate manager for a landowner in Oxfordshire. He had his own cottage in the magnificent grounds of Chesterley House and a job as varied as the seasons. One day, he might be feeding the pheasants reared in the field to the north of the main house for the shoots organised by the owners, filling the blue plastic drums with a special mix of his own devising. Another, planting hornbeam saplings to create a new woodland avenue from the formal gardens to a nineteenth-century folly beside a small trout lake.
On this particular day, he’d worked solidly from seven until six, setting posts for a new fence line to enclose a field intended for sheep. He heated some soup in the microwave, ate it with wholemeal bread he’d baked the previous weekend, and then slumped in front of the TV with a can of beer. Waking at nine to discover he had no idea what had been happening in the game show he’d been watching, he stumbled up the stairs, unfastened his arm and laid it on a chair beside the bed, and was asleep within minutes of his head settling onto the pillow.
So deep was his sleep that he didn’t even stir when, five hours later, the intruder squeezed through the narrow gap she’d opened between the door and the jamb. She looked over at the bed, face impassive, then scanned the room looking for the prosthesis.
Breathing slowly and shallowly, she slid her feet across the carpet until she reached the chair. There, she crouched and withdrew a small cling-wrapped package from her jacket pocket. She freed the small piece of grey, puttyish material from the wrapper and squeezed it between her thumbs and fingers until she’d moulded it into a thin, roughly circular sheet perhaps four inches in diameter. Then she pushed it into the socket at the elbow of the prosthetic arm. Holding a pen torch in her mouth she hooked out one of the wires running between the battery and the actuator of the forearm, connected it to a length of detonator wire and pushed the naked copper end of the wire into the layer of plastic explosive she’d just moulded inside the arm.
As silently as she’d arrived, she left, closing the door behind her.
At seven that same morning, the intruder was sitting in her car, which was parked in a layby on a narrow country road running just seventy-five yards from the edge of the cottage’s neat front garden. She was sipping coffee from a brushed aluminium cup.
The explosion was loud, but not deafeningly so, the amount of plastique needed to kill a man being insignificant in terms of demolition work. A handful of pigeons burst from a nearby tree and clattered away across the fields, but apart from the birds, there was no reaction to the blast, which was only marginally louder than a car backfiring.
Emptying the cup and screwing it back onto the flask, she crossed the road at a trot, re-entered the cottage and mounted the stairs two at a time. The bedroom was a mess. Blackened and charred walls, spattered with blood, and the remains of the man’s torso splashed across the bed. The prosthetic arm was mangled and blackened, but the forearm and hand were recognisable. She pulled a folded sheet of notepaper from her hip pocket and inserted it between the thumb and index finger, left the arm on the dresser and, for the second and final time, pulled the door to behind her.
When Damon’s employers raised the alarm at noon that same day, after he had failed to show up for a meeting, the police found the note. It read, in its entirety:
Who’s next in the Daisy-chain, Wolfe?
Owing to the fragmented nature of policing in Britain, the force in whose jurisdiction this part of Oxfordshire fell was a completely different organisation to the one in Wiltshire where Detective Superintendent Anita Woods was investigating Julia Angell’s death. The same went for Hereford, and the murder of Ben “Dusty” Rhodes. It meant three separate murder investigations, each one of which missed the vital links between the deaths.
At a sprawling ranch-style property set in fifteen acres of land in upstate New York near Ithaca, Erin Ayers glanced down at her buzzing phone.
Item three, part two, completed. SB xx
Halfway round his run, Gabriel stopped by a fence to answer his phone. He leaned on the top rail and looked across the valley towards the spire of Salisbury Cathedral. A light mist hung over the low-lying land, so that the spire appeared to hang in mid-air. The incoming call was from Don Webster.
“Hello, boss. Everything all right?” he said.
“Far from it, Old Sport. Very far from it. I’m afraid it’s more bad news. Damon Cheaney was murdered this morning.”
Gabriel stared towards the hanging spire. “Oh, God. Beck?”
“Looks like it. From what you’ve told me about her, there’s no question.”
“How?”
“Early indications from the police pathologist are blast trauma. I sent one of our chaps over to have a look. Seems she put C-4 into his prosthesis. Blew him to pieces. She left another message, too. ‘Who’s next in the Daisy-chain, Wolfe?’”
“Shit! I’m sorry, boss, I—”
“Right! That’s the last apology I’m going to hear from you, Old Sport. I told you this isn’t on you. Here’s what I want instead. I want to know how she, this Sasha Beck, knew Damon’s nickname from the Regiment. Any thoughts?”
Shivering despite the spring warmth on his back and the sweat he’d built up running, Gabriel tried to focus on Don’s question. “I can’t think of anything now. Give me thirty minutes. I’ll call you back.”
At the house, Eli was reading something on her phone. She looked up as Gabriel came through the back door into the kitchen.
“Hey. Everything OK? You look pale.”
“No, not all right. She just killed another one of my friends.”
“I’m really sorry, Gabriel,” she said, getting to her feet and coming towards him. “Who?”
“A guy I served with. Damon Cheaney. Him, me, Dusty and Smudge: we were a patrol. There’s just me left from it now.”
Eli embraced him for a second, but Gabriel pulled away and went to the sink. He filled a glass from the tap and swigged it down then sat at the table.
“What do we do now?”
Gabriel swiped his hand across his eyes and down over his nose and mouth.
“The first thing I have to do is figure out who knew Damon’s nickname was Daisy. She left a reference to it in a note for me.”
“So who would have done?”
“Nobody outside the Regiment. And none of us would share something like that. Or only with people who could be totally trusted, like wives or parents. No, she got it some other way. There must be a leak somewhere.”
“Could you have told someone? Outside the SAS, I mean?”
“That’s what I’ve been racking my brains trying to think of. I’m going for a shower. Maybe something will shake loose in my brain.”
Ten minutes later, Gabriel was back downstairs again, running gear replaced by jeans and a white shirt. He found Eli in the sitting room listening to an early Nils Lofgren album. She looked up from the leather armchair in which she was curled like a cat.
“Any joy?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“OK. I have an idea. Didn’t you tell me you could do hypnosis?”
“Yes. But I’m not sure I’m steady enough to do it on myself right now.”
“Maybe not, but I could try. I did some training in hypnosis on an interrogation course.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Sure. I need to do something. I’m starting to feel powerless.”
“You didn’t look powerless when you were taking out a roomful of neo-Nazis in Zurich,” she said with an encouraging smile.
“That’s not what I mean. We need a breakthrou
gh. A single piece of intel that will give us a starting point for a counter operation.”
“Right. Come and sit down.” Eli led Gabriel by the hand to the sofa and pushed him, gently, down into its saggy embrace. “Put your hands by your sides and close your eyes.”
Gabriel did as he was told. As he closed his eyes, he wondered whether she’d try and repeat her earlier advances. Then dismissed the thought as unworthy. She was trying to help and by God, he needed some help right now.
“Now what?”
Eli looked at Gabriel and began speaking in a soft, low voice. “I want you to picture a photograph album. A big white photograph album with lots of pages stuffed with pictures.”
“OK, I’m doing that.”
“Just focus on your breathing for a little while and look at the cover. Give the album a name.” As she talked in a soothing tone of voice, Eli mixed her instructions with random phrases designed to disorientate the subject. “Open the cover. Start turning the pages. Each photo is you with someone you’ve spent time with over the last month. Can you see them?”
“Mm-hmm. Yes, I can see them.”
“Good. Is there a picture of you with a stranger?”
She watched his eyelids, noticing the way they rippled and bulged as the eyes beneath scanned left to right.
“Yes, there is.”
“Who’s is the stranger, Gabriel?”
“It’s Carl Mortensen.”
“Who is Carl Mortensen?”
“A client.”
“Where are you? In the photo, Gabriel. What’s the location?”
“Kazakhstan. We’re in an SUV. Middle of nowhere.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just stuff. Small talk. He’s asking me questions.”
Matching her breathing to Gabriel’s, Eli felt ready to press a little harder.
“I want you to picture his words as captions under the photos. OK?”
Gabriel mumbled assent. “OK.”
“Good. Now, read the captions. What’s he asking you about?”
“My friends. From home. From the Regiment.”
“Who, Gabriel. Who is he asking about?”
“Dusty. And Daisy. And Julia. And Zhao Xi. And Britta. I told him. I told him everything.”
Gabriel’s breathing had become ragged and his eyes were flicking beneath the lids, left and right, up and down. Eli could tell it was time to end the session.
“Gabriel, I want you to listen to me very carefully. I am going to bring you back now. I will count to ten and once I say ten you will be awake. You won’t be in any distress, but you will remember everything you’ve seen and read in the photo album.”
She began counting and as she uttered the word ‘ten,’ Gabriel’s eyes opened. He stared straight at her.
“I’ve been played,” he said. “Mortensen didn’t need protection at all. It looks like we found the leak. It was me.”
“Yes, but now we have something concrete to go on. We find Mortensen, we find the client. Maybe he even works for him.”
Gabriel nodded. He was thinking about the two other people he’d given up to Mortensen. And he had to ring Don and explain it was he, Gabriel, who’d supplied Sasha Beck’s client with the details of his friends and comrades in arms.
After speaking to Don, who had batted away Gabriel’s apology with a brusque, “Enough!”, Gabriel rang Zhao Xi.
“Hello. You have reached Zhao Xi. Please leave your message.” The message, first in Mandarin, then in English, was anything but reassuring. Gabriel hurriedly tried to compose a suitable warning.
“Master Zhao, it’s Gabriel. I think you’re in danger. It’s a woman, long, dark hair, dark-red lips, very fit, athletic physique. She might be coming to kill you. She was the one I left tied up at the Golden Dragon. Please be careful. Call me when you get this message.”
Eli watched him as he ended the call and put his phone down.
“You know, we could really do with a break. Because this woman, I get the feeling she’s zeroing in on you. If you’re calling Zhao Xi, then who’s left? Just Britta? Then you?”
“I know. I just, it’s impossible to know how to stop her. And I’m worried about Master Zhao. He’s an old man now.”
“You said he was a martial arts expert.”
“Yes, I did. But she’s a trained killer and in peak condition. She can’t be more than mid-forties.”
Gabriel was pacing around in the kitchen like a tiger behind glass at a zoo. He made a decision.
“I’m going.”
“What? Where?”
“To Hong Kong. I need to get to Zhao Xi before she does. At least then we’ll be two against one.”
“Three,” Eli said, getting to her feet.
Gabriel shook his head. “No. I’m going alone. You should stay here in case the police come up with something, or Don does. Plus if I’m wrong then she’s still here and after Britta. This way we can cover more of the bases.”
Eli frowned. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. It’s not what Don told me to—”
“I don’t care what Don told you!” Gabriel shouted. “It’s not your life that’s being dismantled by a fucking assassin.”
She put her hands up, palms towards Gabriel, placating. “OK, OK, look, you’re a grown-up, I get that, but you could be making yourself an easier target.”
Gabriel turned to face her. He was finding it hard to think straight. He had a tight band of tension around his chest that was squeezing tighter by the hour. He wanted to do something, anything, but there was nothing to do. Not in England, anyway.
“No. I’m going. You stay here and guard the fort. I’ll have my phone, so let me know if anything happens.”
Item Four
HONG KONG
THIRTY-six hours later, Gabriel’s plane touched down at Hong Kong International Airport.
At the same time as the huge rubber tyres shrieked against the runway, Sasha Beck was standing at the front door of Zhao Xi’s house in the mountains. She had booked her kendo lesson in the name Tamsin Cho, and had spent the morning with a movie makeup artist perfecting her new look. Gone was the long, straight, dark-brown hair; she’d tucked it away under a pageboy wig in a harsh shade of red. The trademark bruised-cherry lipstick was also absent, in favour of a pale, frosted pink. But the key to her disguise was the work she had asked the makeup girl to perform on and around her eyes. Using slivers of latex, specialised adhesive, and foundation, she’d added subtle epicanthal folds to the inner corners of Sasha’s eyes to create the illusion of Chinese ancestry. The addition of full eye makeup had pushed Sasha’s true identity far into the background.
She was wearing a pale-grey-and-pink tracksuit and all-white trainers, and carrying a pink-and-white gym bag with a Hello Kitty motif on the side. The bag contained a towel, a bottle of water and a black kendo outfit, including armour and helmet. The kendo sword itself, the shinai – narrow slats of bamboo, bound with narrow strips of white leather, with a white leather hand grip – was slung over her back, holstered in a wide tube made of black plastic on a strap of woven cotton.
She pressed the doorbell and stood back, shy smile applied to her mouth with as much skill as the makeup artist had applied the lipstick.
The old man who answered a few moments later was much as she had expected. Late seventies, trim, clear-eyed expression. And, best of all, not a trace of suspicion on his face.
“You are Tamsin?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, I am,” she said in a transatlantic accent she’d chosen to suggest someone who’d sent half her life in Hong Kong and half in Manhattan.
“Then, please come in. And you do not need to call me sir. Though, if you wish, you may address me as Master Zhao.”
The queue for Immigration snaked around red nylon barriers clipped into chromed, waist-high poles so that the passengers on Gabriel’s flight were facing each other as they inched their way towards the glass cubicles housing the immigration officers. Gabriel saw the
tired faces of mid-ranking executives, the excited faces of families soon to be reunited with loved ones and the unreadable faces of travellers whose purposes weren’t clear. He doubted any of them were in Hong Kong to try to prevent the murder of their childhood mentor.
At the mountainside house, Zhao Xi and Sasha Beck AKA Tamsin Cho were preparing for their training bout. She unlaced her trainers and removed them, along with short, white socks prevented from disappearing under her heels by fluffy, pink pom-poms.
Zhao Xi was waiting for her in the centre of the quartet of unbleached cotton crash pads laid out in his dojo. To his right was the floor-to-ceiling window that gave onto the thickly forested hillside and the harbour far below.
“You are a six-dan, yes, Tamsin?” he asked now.
“Yes, Master Zhao. My work at the bank is so stressful, but I have been training for seven years. It’s my one release. I am so grateful to you for offering to teach me while I am here.”
He inclined his head. “A master must have pupils, no?”
She joined him on the mats, wearing her metal-grilled helmet and protective armour. Both fighters wore the same black outfits. Both were roughly the same height, though Zhao Xi was a little heavier and broader across the shoulders. And both held the traditional kendo shinai.
They squatted and touched the tips of their shinai together, then stood and began circling each other.
Finally though Immigration, Gabriel headed out to the front of the arrivals lounge and on towards the ferry.
He checked his watch and realised he’d left it on UK time. He thought of changing it, but then just shrugged and left it alone. His phone had automatically updated to Hong Kong time so he decided to use that. As the ferry chugged across the green water of the harbour, he called Zhao Xi again. It went straight to voicemail.
