Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) Page 15

  She relaxed in the seat and let her eyes defocus on the city outside, blurring the sharp lines and glare into softness and light.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Through the cabin windows, the city was a seemingly infinite blanket of orange dots glowing in the darkness. The plane touched down at London City Airport shortly before seven p.m. local time. It wasn’t a commercial airliner but a private charter jet. It was a Gulfstream G550, capable of seating up to nineteen people. Tonight it carried eight passengers. All men. The cabin crew, more accustomed to serving oil tycoons, bureaucrats of the European Union and Arab sheikhs, were not sure what to make of these eight unkempt passengers onboard the luxury jet.

  Instead of suits, they wore jeans and khaki trousers, T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, sports coats and leather jackets. They were all tanned with varying degrees of facial hair. Most were well built, ages ranging from early thirties to late forties. They had boarded the Gulfstream with few words at Tripoli International Airport, declining offers of help with their luggage. Their bags were a far cry from Louis Vuitton and Prada. They were sports bags and rucksacks, as dirty and weatherworn as the men who carried them; instead of being stored away in the luggage hold or even in the overhead compartments, they were placed on the fine leather seats next to their owners.

  The Gulfstream was equipped with a bar stocked with a range of wines, spirits and liqueurs. The crewman stationed behind it spent the flight bored and restless with nothing to do. Each of the passengers ignored the complimentary alcohol, instead drinking only bottled water, tea or coffee. They accepted the food, however, emptying the stock of gourmet meals and making a horrendous mess in the process. They had no taste and no class, eating smoked salmon pâté from the same plate as tartare steak; asking for crème anglais to be poured over strawberry semifreddo. The crew were appalled.

  It was a three-hour-forty-minute flight from Tripoli. The televisions and other gadgets were ignored. The men seemed to have neither interest in their surroundings nor the need to pass the time. They did little more than eat. And after they had eaten they slept. One even lay sprawled on the long couch, booted feet up and leaving smears of dirt on the suede. Only one stayed awake, reading and making notes in a small notebook, unbothered by the snores around him.

  The comfort and facilities of the luxury charter jet were wasted on the group. Their very presence was an insult to the expertise of the cabin crew. They whispered among themselves, sampling the bar’s drinks to pass the time and speculating on who the eight men could be, the conclusions becoming more and more outrageous as blood alcohol levels rose. They had the look of men who performed tough manual work. One of the crew suggested they were soldiers, but it was agreed with their lack of uniforms, manners and un-military haircuts, they had to be otherwise employed. But how could these men afford to travel in such an expensive aircraft? If they were not rich themselves, who was footing the bill for the charter? And, more importantly, why?

  The men exited the aircraft with barely any acknowledgement to the crew. Only one bothered to express his appreciation. If he noticed the inebriation of the cabin crew, he did not comment upon it. A woman waited for them on the tarmac. She shook their hands in turn and led them to where a couple of black Range Rovers were standing by. The men boarded the vehicles and the crew watched the brake lights disappear into the night.

  THIRTY

  Gisele shifted in the passenger seat. Her jeans were digging into her stomach. They were high-waisted to keep her tummy in. The sweater helped too and its geometric pattern added some breadth to her otherwise modest bust. She liked to look nice but drew the line at such patriarchal shackles as high heels and underwear that encouraged yeast infections. Women shouldn’t have to torture themselves in order to look their best. Men wouldn’t stand for it – literally – so neither would she.

  She thought of herself as an attractive woman – not as hot as she would have liked, but she received enough compliments and pick-up attempts to have a positive self-image. Her companion, stone-faced and unblinking, didn’t seem to notice. This irritated her. She noticed him. He was tall and in-shape and had an aura of unshakeable confidence bordering on arrogance. She found that a particularly attractive quality in a man. A shame then that he had no personality.

  She wanted to be taken seriously as a lawyer and dressed appropriately conservative and tried to act older than her years. She wasn’t prepared to flirt and flatter to get ahead, even if the opportunities seemed to be there. Men at her firm clearly liked her, especially the older men. She already had the weight of her stepfather’s criminality hanging around her neck. The only way she would ever be respected was by showing people she knew what she was doing. Problem was, she didn’t yet know how to do her job. Studying law and practising it couldn’t be more different. For now, she was happy to assist and watch and learn. Her time would come, eventually. She knew that.

  Gisele wanted to make it as a lawyer, to earn respect and pay the bills and do some good to distance herself from Alex and the life he led – the life that had paid for the nice house they had lived in and bought her everything she ever wanted and nothing that she had needed.

  Feeling herself getting stressed thinking about her stepfather, she rubbed her arm and said to the man next to her, ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘Your stepfather’s men have a warehouse where they’re holing up. We’ll stay there until we know our next move.’

  ‘What do you mean, next move?’

  ‘You let me worry about that for the time being.’

  She nodded, then examined him. Fit, but slim. Decent clothes. Well groomed but not stylish. ‘You don’t look like a bodyguard.’

  ‘I’ve told you. I’m not a bodyguard.’

  ‘Then what do you do for a living?’ she asked.

  He didn’t answer. He acted as though he hadn’t heard her.

  ‘Well?’ she said after a moment’s silence.

  ‘I’m a security consultant.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because if you were then you wouldn’t have pretended not to have heard my question.’

  He remained silent.

  ‘We’ve already established you’re a gangster,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to know what kind.’

  ‘How many kinds of gangster are there?’

  She shrugged. ‘I only know two kinds. There are guys like Alex who wear a suit and act respectable, like they’re a CEO or something; and there are those who do the heavy lifting so people like Alex can get rich. So, which kind are you?’

  ‘I’m a different kind.’

  ‘The security consultant kind?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Which of Alex’s guys are there?’ she asked.

  ‘Dmitri and Yigor.’

  She smiled. ‘Cool, I haven’t seen them for ages. It’ll be great to catch up.’

  ‘You like them?’

  ‘Sure I do. Why wouldn’t I?’

  He said, ‘Because they’re gangsters working for the stepfather you hate.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s not their fault I hate him, is it? Growing up, they paid me more attention than he did. Yigor used to drive me to school and let me play the same stupid music every day. Dmitri, he’s a sweetie. Once you’ve spent some time to get to know him, anyway.’

  ‘Then I guess I haven’t had the time.’

  ‘You don’t you like him?’

  ‘It’s more the other way around.’

  ‘He doesn’t like you? I can only assume he has good reason. What did you do?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that we had an altercation a couple of years ago. One that he still holds a grudge over.’

  ‘Like a fight?’

  ‘Of a kind.’

  She looked shocked. ‘And you won?’

  ‘It wasn’t a fight per se, so there wasn’t what you’d call a winner and a loser. But he came off worse, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘So are you one
of those guys who knows that cage-fighting MMA stuff?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I know a little about self-defence.’

  Gisele smiled, impressed and intrigued. ‘Me too. I told you about my class, right? Can you show me some cool moves?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know any cool moves.’

  She eyed him, suspicious. ‘Why don’t I believe you?’

  THIRTY-ONE

  It was cold in the aircraft hangar. Outside it was less than ten degrees according to her car’s thermometer. Inside it had to be even colder, Anderton thought. She wore her long winter coat and scarf. There was no heating, obviously, and the domed ceiling was at least thirty metres overhead. Forty thousand cubic feet of space for aircraft was almost empty. The only vehicles inside were Anderton’s car and two black Range Rovers. Men climbed out of the 4x4s. Eight of them in total. Anderton knew their faces only because she had seen the files Marcus had supplied. She knew each man’s name and particulars because she had studied those files and memorised every detail. She had never worked with them before.

  They dropped out of the vehicles, boots loud on the hard floor and echoing around the hangar. It took them a few minutes to assemble before her because they unloaded bags and rucksacks. Most eyeballed her a little, sizing her up and coming to all sorts of judgements and conclusions. They would have worked with intelligence officers before. They had probably all been screwed over or put in danger because of bad intel. She would be the whipping girl for their collective distrust and dislike of what they referred to as green slime.

  But that was before, back when they had been serving their respective countries and risking their lives for far less money than anyone who gets shot at for a living should make. Now, they earned a lot more and didn’t have to answer for their actions. They were mercenaries. According to Marcus, his best. And if not his best, his most reliable. In Marcus’s world, on The Circuit, as private security contractors called it, reliability was code for willingness to do jobs that other mercenaries would not. Don’t worry about this guy. He’ll do what needs doing. He’s reliable.

  That’s what Anderton required above all else. ‘What do you think?’ she whispered to the man next to her.

  Sinclair shrugged by way of an answer and folded his arms in front of his chest. Ropey muscle tightened beneath the tanned forearms. Normally, the stance would have indicated defensiveness to Anderton, but coming from Sinclair it could not be read as such. Marcus had referred to him as a dog that should have been put to sleep, and he was at least half right. Sinclair was an animal, and therefore his behaviour could not be interpreted by human standards.

  He was a white South African. Dangerous and unpredictable, but he was loyal and excelled at doing the kinds of things that turned even Anderton’s stomach.

  Overhead fluorescent tubes bathed the mercenaries in harsh, unforgiving light. When they had formed a loose line, she closed the distance between them. The heels of her snakeskin boots clattered on the floor.

  The hangar air was crisp and stank of diesel and engine grease and jet fuel. When she was three metres from the men it also stank of body odour. She reminded herself that a few hours before they had been in Libya and then on a flight. There was no lack of discipline in their hygiene. They simply didn’t have the time or opportunity to pay attention to activities like regular showers, shaving and using deodorant. Plus, she had been in some of the same parts of the world these men had recently operated in and most natives there didn’t either. They were all tanned from time in Tripoli, North Africa and the Middle East. Most had been in that region for months. She had winced when reading reports of some of the things they had done. But that was good. She didn’t want heroes.

  They had been stationed in Libya for the last three weeks, working for Marcus as they had all done numerous times before. They were running a number of simultaneous operations for several different clients who had hired them through Marcus’s company. They had provided close protection for VIPs. They had conducted surveillance. They had trained and advised. And they had killed.

  Anderton took a breath. She was well read. She was well prepared. Now it was time to get to work.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ she began. ‘Thank you for such a speedy arrival. I know Marcus hasn’t told you much about why you’re here.’

  ‘A job,’ one said.

  His name was Wade, the team’s unofficial leader. The eldest and most experienced of them. He meant the kind of job that men like him and the others were qualified to complete; the kind of job that was discussed at night in aircraft hangars. Anderton didn’t know why Wade had given up a life of service to his country to work as a private security contractor, but she guessed it was in no small part influenced by the extra zero on his yearly income.

  ‘That’s correct,’ she said. ‘It’s a single objective operation to take into custody a civilian female. I’ve prepared a detailed dossier on the target, but the salient facts are: she is twenty-two years old; she’s —’

  ‘You’re hiring the eight of us to snatch one girl?’ said another – Rogan. ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding.’

  ‘I’m about as far removed from kidding as it’s possible to be. Taking this girl into custody is the least you have to be concerned about, I assure you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I am not the only party interested in her. Her father is the boss of a Russian organised crime network and he’s dispatched some men to protect his daughter. To get to her, you’ll have to go through them.’

  The mercenary snorted. ‘We eat Russian mafia for breakfast.’

  Others smiled or smirked.

  ‘That’s great to know,’ Anderton said without inflection. ‘But I suggest you take them seriously. These are not street thugs we’re talking about.’

  ‘No offence, missy,’ Wade said, ‘but you’re not giving us a lot to go on besides your opinion. And you’ll forgive me if I don’t settle for the opinion of a desk jockey whose closest run-in with danger is using a pencil sharpener. We’ve been working round the clock down in raghead land and we’re a week into prepping our next action. We’re shipped off to London and all that work has gone down the drain like a turd. No single girl, even one with some gangsters guarding her, requires the eight of us.’

  Another of the mercenaries said, ‘True story.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve all been in the sun too long,’ Anderton countered, calm and reasoned. ‘Forget what you’ve been doing. This is the only job you should care about. Clear?’

  ‘Waste of talent, is what it is,’ one of the men said.

  Anderton smiled at him. ‘Then no doubt you’ll finish it in double-quick time.’

  The hangar was quiet for a moment.

  Wade straightened. ‘London is not like Libya. We fuck up in the slightest way and we find ourselves in the epicentre of an almighty shitstorm.’

  ‘Which is why you get paid so much, sport,’ Sinclair said.

  Wade looked at him. ‘And who the fuck are you?’

  Sinclair didn’t bother to answer with words. His gaze locked with Wade’s and his mouth stretched into a sardonic grin.

  Anderton answered for him: ‘He’s an associate of mine. He’s part of the operation.’

  Wade, clearly not liking Sinclair staring at him, said, ‘Can’t he answer for himself?’

  Anderton said, ‘He’ll talk as and when he’s ready. But I’m in charge here and we have things to discuss.’

  But Wade was in no mood to forget. He was still looking at Sinclair. ‘What’s the matter, boy? Too chicken to talk to me.’

  Anderton saw the barb had only been half-serious, but Sinclair immediately tensed up and his fists clenched. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and menacing.

  ‘If I’m a chicken then I’m the meanest fighting cock you ever saw. And I’ll peck those eyes right out of your skull.’

  He began walking towards Wade, who, not wanting to appear weak before his men, stood his ground.

&nbs
p; When Sinclair’s face was inches from Wade’s, he said, ‘Wanna see how hungry I am?’

  Wade said, ‘Back off.’

  Anderton kept her cool. These guys were wound up tighter than she’d figured. She was all too aware she was standing in a room with eight trained killers who were a spark away from exploding.

  ‘What my esteemed associate was trying to say,’ Anderton continued, as if the stand-off wasn’t happening, ‘is that this job may not have a hard target but it is in a hard environment – one of the most heavily surveyed cities in the world, wherein there are many difficulties that can multiply into innumerable unknown factors that can potentially impede our ability to complete our objective and emerge on the other side with our skins intact. Hence the need for a large, experienced team.’

  Sinclair, still in Wade’s face, nodded. ‘What she said.’

  Anderton put a hand between them. ‘Gentlemen, if you’re done, we have a lot to go through before we move out…’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Gisele was quiet for the rest of the journey. She was quiet when Victor parked Dmitri’s car two hundred metres down the access road from the plumbing supplies warehouse. Victor climbed out first and scouted out the area. He saw and heard no threats and returned to the car. She looked at him, expectantly.

  ‘It’s clear.’

  ‘What’s clear?’ she asked.

  He realised he had been thinking out loud. No, he corrected himself. He had been acting as part of a unit – on point – informing the rest of the team about the path ahead. It had been a long time since he’d thought and acted in such ways. He didn’t particularly like that Gisele had brought that behaviour out of him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Victor said.

  He drove the remainder of the way and parked outside the warehouse.

  ‘It’s not exactly the Ritz,’ Gisele said as she closed the passenger door.