The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.
…
It took longer, as everything does when you’re in a hurry.
The plane was loaded, the fuel truck had just disconnected the final hose, and was leaving the field, and Davies was firing up the engines.
Everyone was on board and strapped in. I gave my thanks to the Colonel and shut the door before joining Davies in the cockpit.
Looking at her cool, calm demeanor gave me confidence. If anyone could get us out of here in one piece, she could.
He didn’t have any good news though.
I was hoping it would just be a commercial helicopter with a couple of thugs with handguns shooting at us.
At the top of the runway, she didn’t waste time going to full throttle, and we started rumbling down the runway. Unfortunately, the wind had changed and to take off we had to initially fly towards Congo airspace before turning towards our destination.
Then we lifted off and started gaining altitude.
Then I heard Davies mutter, “Fuck.”
Trouble. I saw what elicited the curse. The helicopter, heading towards us.
“Military,” she added.
Not that I had any idea what I was looking for, but it didn’t seem to have rockets, but it did have a cannon barrel under the fuselage.
“Brace yourself,” she said. “We’re about to get on the roller coaster.”
Still climbing we were getting closer, and I could just see the cannon move. If it was shooting rounds, they didn’t hit us, not from such a distance, but they were getting closer because we were still flying towards them.
Then, suddenly, she turned the planes to the right and down, a plunge so quick that my stomach was in my mouth. I hate to think what it would be like for those in the back.
Aside from the fact my hearing was blocked by the headphones, I could still hear several mini-explosions coming from behind me.
Another curse, rather longer this time, from Davies and she twisted the plane back in the opposite direction, and heading around towards the airfield again, much lower down this time, with the helicopter in hot pursuit.
Now we couldn’t see it, but it would have a good view of our engines and tail.
If any of the bullets hit, we’d be in big trouble.
I was bracing myself for disaster.
Davies was coaxing the plane upwards, but it seemed sluggish.
Nothing happened.
“Gun’s jammed.” She said. “If you don’t maintain your equipment…”
That statement was cut off by a huge explosion and turning as far as I could in my seat I just saw the remnants of a firewall, what was once a helicopter.
“Ground to air rocket. The Colonel must have some interesting toys at his disposal.” Davies sounded very relieved.
I started breathing again.
“Are we damaged?” It was a valid question. The plane seemed like it was flying awkwardly.
“I’d say so., Those explosions. Cannon fire hitting the fuselage. Probably took out some controls, or failing that, since there’s still maneuverability, probably just a few holes creating drag.”
She was a matter of fact like, but that was more because she was fighting the controls to keep us moving in the right direction.
Away from trouble.
“Go check it out,” she said.
At the head of the cabin, I saw the problem, a row of neat holes carved from one window through to halfway along the fuselage, going down. We’d be lucky if one of the bullets hadn’t struck one of the wires that drove the flaps/
There was a hell of a noise from the air coming in through the holes.
By the second window, slumped forward, was Shurl. There was blood and blood spatter on the floor. Monroe came up to me and yelled in my ear.
“Damned good flying, and only one casualty. We were incredibly lucky. Shurl wasn’t quick enough to get on the floor. Other than that, we’re still in the air, and I’m guessing someone shot the helo down?”
“Ground to air missile. Any sooner, that would have been us. Try and sit back, rest, and enjoy the in-flight service. Oh, and a prayer or two might help.”
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And the story:
…
It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.
The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.
He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.
The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discreet distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road we were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.
Where was he going?
“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.
“What?”
“I think he’s made us.”
“How?”
“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”
“How far away?”
“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”
It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”
“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”
Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places, just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three-thousand-foot fall down the mountainside.
Good thing then, I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.
Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.
Or so we thought.
Coming quickly around another corner, we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.
“What the hell…” Aland muttered.
I was out of the car and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication of where he had gone.
Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.
I looked up. Nothing.
Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”
Then where did he go?
Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.
“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”
I’d lost him.
It was as simple as that.
I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.
I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.
It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.
I preferred the version of Martha Rodby that I met the night of the opera. Now I could also understand why Rodby spent so much time at the office.
Yes, I had met her before when I was with Violetta and she was a much more amiable person then, but that was probably because of Violetta. She had that effect on people.
Maybe she was simply angry that Rodby’s work life had impinged on her private life, but that was one of the downsides of being involved with an intelligence agent.
It was a lesson I learned and why I gave it all up for Violetta. I wanted her more than I wanted that other life, that one I once thought was exciting. Perhaps this would be the excuse he needed to retire and have a peaceful rest of his life with her.
Or not.
Rodby was staying at the same hotel I was in, and by the time I arrived back there from Rome, Cecelia and the others were about a half hour away, and Rodby was there to greet his rather dishevelled wife in the lobby.
It was not a tearful reunion.
She had barely spoken on the entire four-hour drive, and any chance of Giulietta striking up a conversation was stopped dead by an icy glare in her direction.
As for myself, I was unimpressed by her attitude, and Rodby for that matter, though the circumstances were quite odd.
I waited an hour before I could no longer hold it in.
“Quite frankly,” I said, “I find it quite astonishing that you were able to hide the fact you had a stepsister from one of the top intelligence officers and research departments in the country. He had me investigated to the point he could tell me I was related to one of the seamen on James Cook’s Endeavour. But you, nothing. How is that possible?”
I gave her one of my icy stares just for good measure.
“He chose not to. I told him if he couldn’t trust me, then it would never work.”
Love trumps common sense. Yes, I could see how that would never be in his playbook.
“I live in a world of lies and deceit. Now your dirty little secret is out, welcome to my world. It’ll never be the same, you know that.”
She didn’t answer. Perhaps she was not used to the rabble talking to her in such a manner.
“Answer one question, did Heidi have a twin?”
She looked at me very strangely. “What?”
“I thought it was a pretty straightforward question.”
“No, she did not.”
“Was she incarcerated with you?”
“No. We were both snatched off the street and separated. I’ve been held by a bunch of thugs since.”
“Were they going to ransom you?”
“No one said anything until yesterday when I was handed a paper and shoved in front of a camera.”
“Did you see any of your captors?”
“No.”
“Would you recognise them later by other means?”
“Maybe.”
“Just one more question. Do you get together with Heidi often?”
“No. I hadn’t seen her for quite a few years, she called me saying she was in London for a few days, we went out, and that’s all I remember till I woke up in a dark room. That’s it.”
The look from Juliet in the back of the car was fascinating.
I had no doubt she was putting two and two together and coming up with anything other than four.
If there was no twin, then the woman who was pretending to be the countess was the countess pretending to be a twin. Convoluted and confusing? Yes. Make any sense, no.
Has she been masquerading as a pretend twin to Dicostini so that she could have an affair, or were they always having an affair, and she was going to … No, don’t go down the rabbit hole. None of it made any sense, and as Martha Rodby said. That’s it. Enough.
An hour after he had taken his wife up to the room and got her settled, Rodby came to see me.
“What the hell happened?”
It was not the polities of tones.
“Take the win.”
“I want to know what happened? One minute I’m getting information that tells me one thing, then next something else entirely.”
“Lies and deceit. It’s the world we live in.”
“Is that what you’re going to run with?”
“It’s all I know. You ask Mrs Rodby for the details. I’m sure she knows a lot more than all of us. Just the fact the Countess was her step-sister should be ample proof that no one is ever going to get to the bottom of this affair. So, like I said, take the win.”
Of course, I could see it in his face, the man who would make the world’s best poker player. Maybe once. He’s known all along about her secret. Had he been hoping it wouldn’t come out?
I shook my head. “Go away, Rodby. I’m done for good this time. I’m going back to Venice, and spending the rest of my days waiting for the canals to clear up.”
“With Juliet?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You ask her, her story before you do anything else.”
Revenge is a dish best served cold – or preferably so when everything goes right
Of course, it rarely does, as Alistair, Zoe’s handler, discovers to his peril. Enter a wildcard, John, and whatever Alistair’s plan for dealing with Zoe was dies with him.
It leaves Zoe in completely unfamiliar territory.
…
John’s idyllic romance with a woman who is utterly out of his comfort zone is on borrowed time. She is still trying to reconcile her ambivalence after being so indifferent for so long.
They agree to take a break, during which she disappears. John, thinking she has left without saying goodbye, refuses to accept the inevitable and calls on an old friend for help in finding her.
After the mayhem and being briefly reunited, she recognises an inevitable truth: there is a price to pay for taking out Alistair; she must leave and find them first, and he would be wise to keep a low profile.
But keeping a low profile just isn’t possible, and enlisting another friend, a private detective and his sister, a deft computer hacker, they track her to the border between Austria and Hungary.
What John doesn’t realise is that another enemy is tracking him to find her too. It could have been a grand tour of Europe. Instead, it becomes a race against time before enemies old and new converge for what will be an inevitable showdown.
It was in darkness. I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door, so I could see to unlock it.
I looked up and saw that the globe was broken.
Instant alert.
I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there. I went to the backup, and it wasn’t there either. Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.
Who?
There were four hiding spots, and all were empty. Someone had removed the weapons. That could only mean one possibility.
I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.
But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbour and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.
Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.
There were three entrances to the villa: the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch. One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage. It was built in the late 1700s by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief. It had a hidden underground room, which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.
It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were in the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely. It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.
The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa, behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground. I moved aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side. After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks. It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that. I’d left torches at either end so I could see.
I closed the door after me and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch. I traversed the short passage, which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end. I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door. It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.
I stepped into the darkness and closed the door.
I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.
Silence, an eerie silence.
I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting. There wasn’t. It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.
I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was. Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.
That raised the question of who told them where I was.
If I were the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan. The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental. But I was not that man.
Or was I?
I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness. My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void. Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly. A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.
Still nothing.
I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job. I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked, and where there would be no escape.
Coming in the front door. If I were not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk in. One shot would be all that was required.
Contract complete.
I sidled quietly up the passage, staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door. There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting. It was an ideal spot to wait.
Crunch.
I stepped on some nutshells.
Not my nutshells.
I felt it before I heard it. The bullet with my name on it.
And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea. I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.
I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me, and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.
Two assassins.
I’d not expected that.
The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part. The second was still breathing.
I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives. Armed to the teeth!
I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian. I was expecting a Russian.
I slapped his face, waking him up. Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down. The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally. He was not long for this earth.
“Who employed you?”
He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile. “Not today, my friend. You have made a very bad enemy.” He coughed, and blood poured out of his mouth. “There will be more …”
Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.
I would have to leave. Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess. I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.
Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally. I was trying not to connect the dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.
A half-hour passed, and I hadn’t moved. Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.
Until I heard a knock on my front door.
Two thoughts: it was either the police, alerted by the neighbours, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?
I stood and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm. I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.
If it were the police, this was going to be a difficult situation. Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.
No police, just Maria. I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.
“You left your phone behind on the table. I thought you might be looking for it.” She held it out in front of her.
When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”
I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”
I looked at my arm and realised it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.
“You need to go away now.”
Should I tell her the truth? It was probably too late, and if she were any sort of law-abiding citizen, she would go straight to the police.
She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity. “What happened?”
I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible. I went with the truth. “My past caught up with me.”
“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss. It doesn’t look good.”
“I can fix it. You need to leave. It is not safe to be here with me.”
The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened. She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.
I opened the door and let her in. It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences. Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge. She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.
I expected her to scream. She didn’t.
She gave me a good, hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous. Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about. She would have to go to the police.
“What happened here?”
“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me. I used to work for the Government, but no longer. I suspect these men were here to repay a debt. I was lucky.”
“Not so much, looking at your arm.”
She came closer and inspected it.
“Sit down.”
She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
“Do you have medical supplies?”
I nodded. “Upstairs.” I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs. Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.
She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back. I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed, though I was not sure why it might interest her.
She helped me remove my shirt and then cleaned the wound. Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet. It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.
When she’d finished, she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”
No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.
“Alisha?”
“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you. She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”
“That was wrong of her to do that.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Will you call her?”
“Yes. I can’t stay here now. You should go now. Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”
My next destination in the quest was the hotel we believed Anne Merriweather had stayed at.
I was, in a sense, flying blind because we had no concrete evidence she had been there, and the message she had left behind didn’t quite name the hotel or where Vladimir was going to take her.
Mindful of the fact that someone might have been following me, I checked to see if the person I’d assumed had followed me to Elizabeth’s apartment was still in place, but I couldn’t see him. Next, I made a mental note of seven different candidates and committed them to memory.
Then I set off to the hotel, hailing a taxi. There was the possibility that the cab driver was one of them, but perhaps I was slightly more paranoid than I should be. I’d been watching the queue, and there were two others before me.
The journey took about an hour, during which time I kept an eye out the back to see if anyone had been following us. If anyone was, I couldn’t see them.
I had the cab drop me off a block from the hotel and then spent the next hour doing a complete circuit of the block the hotel was on, checking the front and rear entrances, the cameras in place, and the siting of the driveway into the underground carpark. There was a camera over the entrance, and one we hadn’t checked for footage. I sent a text message to Fritz to look into it.
The hotel lobby was large and busy, which was exactly what you’d want if you wanted to come and go without standing out. It would be different later at night, but I could see her arriving about mid-afternoon, and anonymous among the clientele the hotel attracted.
I spent an hour sitting in various positions in the lobby simply observing. I had already ascertained where the elevator lobby for the rooms was, and the elevator down to the car park. Fortunately, it was not ‘guarded’, but there was a steady stream of concierge staff coming and going to the lower levels, and, just from time to time, guests.
Then, when there was a commotion at the front door, what seemed to be a collision of guests and free-wheeling bags, I saw one of the seven potential taggers sitting by the front door. Waiting for me to leave? Or were they wondering why I was spending so much time there?
Taking advantage of that confusion, I picked my moment to head for the elevators that went down to the car park, pressed the down button, and waited.
There was no car on the ground level, so I had to wait, watching, like several others, the guests untangling themselves at the entrance, and keeping an eye on my potential surveillance, still absorbed in the confusion.
The doors to the left car opened, and a concierge stepped out, gave me a quick look, then headed back to his desk. I stepped into the car, pressed the first level down, the level I expected cars to arrive on, and waited what seemed like a long time for the doors to close.
As they did, I was expecting to see a hand poke through the gap, a latecomer. Nothing happened, and I put it down to a television moment.
There were three basement levels, and for a moment, I let my imagination run wild and considered the possibility that there were more levels. Of course, there was no indication on the control panel that there were any other floors, and I’d yet to see anything like it in reality.
With a shake of my head to return to reality, the car arrived, the doors opened, and I stepped out.
A car pulled up, and the driver stepped out, went around to the rear of his car, and pulled out a case. I half expected him to throw me the keys, but the instant glance he gave me told him he was not the concierge, and instead he brushed past me like I wasn’t there.
He bashed the up button several times impatiently and cursed when the doors didn’t open immediately. Not a happy man.
Another car drove past on its way down to a lower level.
I looked up and saw the CCTV camera, pointing towards the entrance, visible in the distance. A gate that lifted up was just about back in position, then clunked when it finally closed. The footage from the camera would not prove much, even if it had been working, because it didn’t cover the lift lobby, only what was in the direction of the car entrance.
The doors to the other elevator car opened, and a man in a suit stepped out.
“Can I help you, sir? You seem lost.”
Security, or something else. “It seems that way. I went to the elevator lobby, got in, and it went down rather than up. I must have been in the wrong place.”
“Lost it is, then, sir.” I could hear the contempt for Americans in his tone. “If you will accompany me, please.”
He put out a hand ready to guide me back into the elevator. I was only too happy to oblige him. There had been a sign near the button panel that said the basement levels were only to be accessed by the guests.
Once inside, he turned a key and pressed the lobby button. The doors closed, and we went up. He stood, facing the door, not speaking. A few seconds later, he was ushering me out to the lobby.
“Now, sir, if you are a guest…”
“Actually, I’m looking for one. She called me and said she would be staying in this hotel and to come down and visit her. I was trying to get to the sixth floor.”
“Good. Let’s go over to the desk and see what we can do for you.”
I followed him over to the reception desk, where he signalled one of the clerks, a young woman who looked and acted very efficiently, and told her of my request, but then remained to oversee the proceeding.
“Name of guest, sir?”
“Merriweather, Anne. I’m her brother, Alexander.” I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my passport to prove that I was who I said I was. She glanced cursorily at it.
She typed the name into the computer, and then we waited a few seconds while it considered what to output. Then, she said, “That lady is not in the hotel, sir.”
Time to put on my best-confused look. “But she said she would be staying here for the week. I made a special trip to come here to see her.”
Another puzzled look from the clerk, then, “When did she call you?”
An interesting question to ask, and it set off a warning bell in my head. I couldn’t say today, it would have to be the day she was supposedly taken.
“Last Saturday, about four in the afternoon.”
Another look at the screen, then, “It appears she checked out Sunday morning. I’m afraid you have made a trip in vain.”
Indeed, I had. “Was she staying with anyone?”
I just managed to see the warning pass from the suited man to the clerk. I thought he had shown an interest when I mentioned the name, and now I had confirmation. He knew something about her disappearance. The trouble was, he wasn’t going to volunteer any information because he was more than just hotel security.
“No.”
“Odd,” I muttered. “I thought she told me she was staying with a man named Vladimir something or other. I’m not too good at pronouncing those Russian names. Are you sure?”
She didn’t look back at the screen. “Yes.”
“OK, now one thing I do know about staying in hotels is that you are required to ask guests with foreign passports their next destination, just in case they need to be found. Did she say where she was going next?” It was a long shot, but I thought I’d ask.
“Moscow. As I understand it, she lives in Moscow. That was the only address she gave us.”
I smiled. “Thank you. I know where that is. I probably should have gone there first.”
She didn’t answer; she didn’t have to, her expression did that perfectly.
The suited man spoke again, looking at the clerk. “Thank you.” He swivelled back to me. “I’m sorry we can’t help you.”
“No. You have more than you can know.”
“What was your name again, sir, just in case you still cannot find her?”
“Alexander Merriweather. Her brother. And if she is still missing, I will be posting a very large reward. At the moment, you can best contact me via the American Embassy.”
Money is always a great motivator, and that thoughtful expression on his face suggested he gave a moment’s thought to it.
I left him with that offer and left. If anything, the people who were holding her would know she had a brother, that her brother was looking for her, and equally that brother had money.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.
We flew north at low altitude, crossing the border into the Sudan, then ran along the border, heading back to the landing field we’d arrived on in Uganda.
It was basically a two-hour flight that in the end was eventless. After everything that had happened over the past 24 hours, it wasn’t hard to doze off, leaving Davies to get us back.
I was woken suddenly by a thump on my arm.
“Need your help landing this crate,” a squeaky voice in my ear said.
I could feel the plane losing altitude, and the engines not making the same noise as they had just before I’d dropped off to sleep. It seemed like it was only a few minutes ago we were taking off.
She leveled the plane at 1000 feet, and flew over the airfield, the landing lights on, and I could see the strip from start to end. It looked a lot longer than the one we’d taken off from.
Turning sharply, I could hear the landing gear being activated and saw green lights come on one the dashboard. Down and locked I assumed.
She then went through a series of landing checks and told me what she wanted me to do to assists, and then everything seemingly OK, we came in to land.
This landing was a lot bumpier than that in the C130 earlier, but she got us there, throttled back, and slowed the speed before heading for the terminal buildings.
Once there, she let the engines run for about a minute or so before switching them off.
Once the propellers stopped turning, the silence in the cockpit was strange. At the rear, the door was opened, and everyone was getting off, the Colonel first to make sure none of his men shot anyone by mistake, and then the rest of the team.
Davies and I were the last to leave. I got the impression she would have stayed, just a little longer, and it was telling that she patted the dashboard in what I would call a loving manner, thanking the aircraft for its service.
“I can see you like flying these old planes,” I said, still seated and taking in the moment.
“There’s something about them. You have to fly them, they don’t fly you, not like the F15’s or any of those other jets that have autopilots. No, this comes from the days of real flying.”
“You said your Dad has one?”
“Yep.”
“Then the art of flying is not lost on you. Perhaps one day when I get lost, somewhere where this plane lives, you can take me up.”
“Any time.”
She dragged herself out of the left seat and headed towards the rear of the plane. I took a moment longer, then followed her.
Maybe she could teach me how to fly.
Or maybe not.
I keep forgetting I hate flying in planes.
As I stepped off the plane onto terra firma again, I could see just inside the range of my peripheral vision, some activity by the terminal building.
Suddenly, a man was running towards us. He was also yelling out, words to the effect, ‘they’re coming’.
Who?
The Colonel looked up just as the man, almost hunched over out of breath, reached him.
“They’re coming. A helicopter, heading towards us.” Several more huge breaths, then, “An hour at best.” He looked at me. “You have to go.”
Then he handed the Colonel a sheet of paper, and he quickly scanned it.
Then he said, “Your friendly militia decided the ransom wasn’t enough and they’re coming to take them back.”
“How is that possible? Can they just cross borders like that?”
“This is Africa. Anything can happen. By the time their mission is done, it’ll be too late for us to scramble anything to attack them. You need to go.”
Davies had come back, assuming it had something to do with the plane, and after taking in what the Colonel had to say, said, “We need more fuel. Not much, but it’ll take time.”
The fuel truck had already come out and begun the refueling.
“Go tell the driver how much you need. You’ve probably got a half-hour, a little more before you take off and go before, they get here.”
She headed towards the fuel truck, muttering under her breath.
I yelled out to Monroe, “Round up everyone and get them back on the plane. Wheels up in half an hour.”
I could see her mouth the word why.
“Seems we’re about to get a visit from some very unfriendly people.”
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact that his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just several small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, point to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints at impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovers piece by piece, damning evidence that she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence are about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
I always had a sneaking suspicion that Benito the solicitor was playing both sides of the fence. He knew the countess was never going to see a Lira, or was it a Euro of the inheritance so he devised another plan.
He of all people would know the countess had a twin so what could be harder, knowing the countess’s movements to have her kidnapped and substitute her with her twin.
He would know of Dicostini’s desire to purchase the estate, so get it in the hands of the fake countess, sell it to Dicostini and make commissions on an exponential number of transactions. When the counties had no further ruse, kill the real one, leave the fake one in place, somewhere preferably a long way away, and relax in the expensive apartment with the expensive wife.
The trouble is foolproof plans are never foolproof when fools are involved. Dicostini was a bad-tempered impatient fool, the fake countess was an impatient and understudied fool who would fool no one who mattered, and fools of kidnappers managed to pick up an extra body.
At least there was a financial payoff waiting there to correct a wrong that shouldn’t have happened, but an opportunity to make a profit. Especially when the rest of the scam went west. This was going to be the only profit he would make, or so she thought.
Roma Termini, track 15, at the peak hour when there would be a lot of foot traffic in the corridor. I got there early with Giulietta, when he called with the details, I told him her attendance was non-negotiable because I had to make sure no one stole the money. I knew it wouldn’t be a deal breaker because just as I arrived, Anthony sent me a balance sheet of Benito’s financial affairs and he was awash with debt.
A young beautiful wife was very, very expensive. Giulietta said she would never be that expensive, but I was not sure why. I said she was not young and beautiful, and she hit me, quite hard. I probably deserved that.
But it was the cue for Benito to make himself known, saying that he was acting as an agent for the real kidnappers because they knew he was the countess’s solicitor and there would be consequences if he didn’t.
There were going to be consequences one way or another.
My first question. “Where is Mrs Rodby so I can verify she is alive and well.”
He was smart. He had a cell phone and a link to a camera where she was sitting on a chair in a cell holding a piece of paper that had today’s date on it. It was like a scene from a bad movie.
“And where is this cell?”
“Nearby. I get the money and get away, and you get the address.”
“No. It doesn’t work like that. I said I needed to see her in person. You take me there, open the door, I give you the money, and then you can leave.”
There were a dozen scenarios I’m sure he worked out that I would try, all of which demanded two-way trust. He was a liar, and having dealt with lowlifes, I’m sure he knew all the dirty tricks in the book. I didn’t bother countering the next scenario he was offering, the same as the last, just with fancier window dressing. I went for the jugular. Giulietta dialled the number for his apartment, and Cecelia answered.
I asked him to look at my feed. It was better than his. It was his wife’s meltdown over the fact that she had a silenced gun to her head, and also one of his children. Both were terrified.
“Pick one.”
“What do you mean?” He was starting to get the idea. This exchange was not going to work.
“Pick the first one to die when I count to ten, and you haven’t accepted my counteroffer.”
“You haven’t told me your counteroffer.”
“True. We had to get the threats out of the way first. How about you take me to the cell, open the door, take a reasonable payout, I’ll release your family, and you can go away and talk about your failings as a husband and a father.”
He looked at the screen, at me, and then I started counting down to one. He caved at four.
Benito got a hundred thousand Euros for his trouble.
Cecelia told me she didn’t like the idea of threatening his wife and children unless they were thoroughly bad, which Mrs Benito and the children were not.
Giulietta said that if this was the depths I sank to, she didn’t think I was worth knowing, an assessment of hers I could agree with, mainly because of the distress it caused Benito.
It didn’t matter to her that he was party to a kidnapping and, by proxy, to a murder. I hadn’t read about a suspicious death at the Dicostini house, so I wondered if Benito had it sent under the carpet.
Mrs Rodby was argumentative and belligerent when we rescued her. In her mind, it was one lot of thugs replacing the other thugs until I got Rodby on the phone, and he spoke to her. I was not surprised to discover he was almost in Sorrento.
It didn’t help her demeanour or attitude, so I told her she could find her own way home and left her with a burner phone with Rodby’s number outside the building where she had been locked up for weeks. It was five minutes before my phone rang, and she apologised.
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment, Will’s life slowly starts to unravel, and it’s obvious to him that it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule: don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved, there are going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 