by James Easton
“What did you say to me? Play rugby you’re going to get muddy? Well, you’re muddy now, Robin. Muddy, muddy, muddy, muddy.”
Then he was lying on his back in the frozen mud of the field. The shape of the car, black on black against the trees and the sky, was a metre from his feet. He was winded. Couldn’t cry out. Someone sat on his chest and put some duct tape over his mouth. He fought for air through his nose. His ankles were taped, then his hands. He couldn’t move. No air. Just desperate to breathe. Something was being put over his feet. It sounded like a bin bag. And more tape. He was lifted into a sitting position. Snow from the field was soaking his trousers. A blow struck his solar plexus, depriving him of air again. Making him feel sick. He knew who it was then. But he was nearly paralysed, and the terror just ripped silently through him.
A bin bag, no, heavier than that, like the ones people used in their gardens, went over his head. He thrashed, panicking about suffocating, then the man pulled at it so it tore open before he worked it down so Julian’s head popped through the tear. He frantically sucked air through his nostrils. There was a wave of overwhelming sorrow as the tape went around his upper arms.
“Please, for God’s sake…I’m sorry. I’m…I was worried about her…please. I’ve got money. A lot…anything.”
He realised it was just mumbles into the tape over his mouth.
Haim, for that was who was doing this, moved to the side, not talking, laying Julian down, and rolling him over like a rug. He smelt the wet snow, that clean freshwater nothing smell. He felt Haim’s weight, a knee pressing into his back, a hand twisting his head to one side so his neck loaded up. There was nothing he could do. Then there wasn’t any pressure on his back. The knee had lifted away.
When it landed on the back of his head, it was harder than anything Julian Farquar could have imagined. There was a snap, and it flickered as a memory in his ruptured, dying brain.
Robin looked around.
“Where’s Jean?”
Pierre was eating a toastie. “He is checking something. It’s not important.”
She put two more toasties on the plate.
“Next round, guys.”
Robin felt wary of them, but then some of them seemed nervous around her. If this crazy idea of running away with Jean did come to anything they wouldn’t be doing this. It was a story, though. Cooking toasties for whatever brand of criminal these guys were. And it was weirdly exciting, how deferential they were. Was that because she was with Jean, or because she was from the legitimate world? Maybe both.
She knew she was assessing them according to her own categories. Noticing they were quite professional really and somehow drawing comfort from it. It was consistent with what Jean had said about taking care, not hurting anyone. Good and bad, at the end of the day, were complex issues.
Jean walked back in, looking a little pink from the cold, and she has a flash of what he could have been like as a little boy as he smiled at his friends. He passed something like a telescope, a small one, to Pierre and took him outside. Robin could see Pierre training it up the slope behind the house, Jean talking to him. Carlo and Emile, munching toasties, went outside next. Jean came back to her.
“Put your coat on and come and see the stars with me.”
They went outside at the back and Jean took her to the end of the meadow, around some trees there so they were screened off from the house.
He kissed her passionately and told her that he’d never felt this way.
It was too much. She let him wrap his arms around her, standing behind her and holding her quietly, looking at the stars beginning to twinkle.
She heard the men by the house, and looked back through the trees. They were carrying something, quite big, maybe equipment of some kind, wrapped up like a carpet. She shouldn’t be too curious.
Something about this part of what she was doing, being unable to tell anyone about it, made it all hers. Nobody could take this experience away from her. She didn’t have to worry about anyone’s judgement because nobody would ever know.
“We’ll see this later. And it will be really dark and the stars, they will be perfect.” He laughed. “God, this is not me. I am… I’m…”
“Jean Haim, the famous French Armed Robber.” She said it in a comedy French accent, all rolled rrr’s and dry gargles. He bumped his crotch against her.
“Careful. I am always horny after a job.” He bit her neck.
She bumped back at him. “Go and get it done then.”
His phone buzzed. “It’s time.”
They changed their clothing in the lounge. Robin pretended to be busy in the bedroom, thinking she shouldn’t look too closely at what they were doing. Jean came in, and said Emile was going to stay with her, and something about relaying with the other guys. He was in a dark fleece, with a simple padded jacket over it. She saw a ski mask in his pocket.
“Not time to be famous yet.” He kissed her and was gone.
The house felt empty. She heard Emile walking around in the lounge, singing like he was nervous. She thought of Jean saying it was simple, a safe job. She went to the kitchen to make coffee and stopped when she looked in the spare room.
He’d had them put the floorboards and the carpet back. He’d thought about how that gap in the floor had alarmed her and had his guys fix it before they all left together. A sweet, considerate thing to do. He was changing for her.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Henri put the local anaesthetic into the repaired rim of Max’s ear and gave him a strip of pills.
“If the pain comes on, it will distract you. So take two with some snow if that happens.”
Max patted his shoulder. “Nice job. You know, I have a lot of friends. Can you change faces?”
Henri nearly crapped his pants. Something opened up beneath him, a kind of void: what such an arrangement with Max Rokos would mean for his life.
“We can talk.” He didn’t want to say no right now.
“Good. Really good. OK, Chedan is going to stay with you while the rest of us do this work.”
Henri looked at Chedan. He had a huge, black moustache and about a week of stubble, an extremely tight roll neck underlayer, and a revolver wedged in his belt. His eyes were too close together, but not by very much.
Max stepped forward. Henri could smell tomato and salami on his breath. “Tomorrow we go to the place where this shit happened this morning. You and Eric find this kit, dig it up. We keep watch. We do the deal. Then we talk about this face change stuff. It’s interesting.”
Eric limped in.
“You boys stay in the kitchen,” said Max
The other men came down the stairs, boots clattering on the boards. Henri jumped when he saw the ski masks and buffs and baseball caps, hoods drawn tight. You couldn’t see anything of who they were. Like anyone in Morzine out at night. But in their case, it was all physicality and threat. That was before you thought about the weapons Henri had seen. Mainly handguns, automatics, but there was a kind of small machine gun inside one of those jackets, and another had a compact rifle. He’d put it in his backpack.
Eric sat at the table. Chedan followed the men to the door, and locked it after they had left. Chedan came back into the kitchen, sat in the armchair, and looked at his phone. He complained about something in his own language.
“The reception is poor sometimes,” Eric said in French, watching Chedan the whole time.
Ignacio inserted himself in the cooking process when the aroma of roasting goat meat had penetrated as far as the lounge. Eva looked at him affectionately as he put his glasses on the end of his nose and prodded the meat before basting it and moving it around. He tasted some red wine, and smelt the greens his wife was braising, adding chilli flakes and a splash of the wine in his glass. He folded some in a piece of bread and went back to the match.
After two minutes, Ignacio came back. Without saying anything he opened a second bottle of wine to breathe, then took the bottle he’d tasted with three glasses back
to the game, along with some sliced hard cheese and charcuterie Eva had laid out.
She looked at Carolina.
“How about a sauna?”
Carolina got a towel from her own room so that Eva had a moment to undress in the shower area, then did the same, and they went into the sauna together. They sat side by side on the bench.
“Ouch,” Eva was looking at Carolina’s knees.
“Just a tumble.”
“More than that,” said Eva, her eyes moving over Carolina and her voice pensive. “Our French friends are delighted.”
Carolina looked at the wall and gave a dry little laugh. “So you are one of those people, after all.”
Eva threw some water on the sauna stones. There was a hiss.
“Yes. I am one of those people.” A different tone now.
“Ignacio knows?”
“Yes. This really is a family holiday, and I am, as Miguel’s mother, profoundly grateful for you getting him snowboarding in two days.”
Carolina was still looking at the wall.
“But, I know it was you with the SIG 232 in Madrid , the day the Minister was attacked.”
That was very high-level information.
“I want to tell you something about Miguel. And I’d like you to promise he will not be in trouble,” said Carolina.
“Alright.”
“He listens to you and Ignacio talking with his laser mic.”
A pause and a deep breath. “Go on.”
“He asked me about the ministry. Miguel had done some research about the incident himself, so I am sure you were not that explicit. But you had said something.”
Eva closed her eyes and ran a finger hard between her brows. “I am embarrassed. It will not happen again.”
Carolina gave a single nod. Eva bowed her head slightly. “Deserved. I wish to talk about London.”
“OK.”
“As a security specialist in a high-end agency, much of the work you will undertake will be far below your skill level. Most of it, actually.” She smiled. “And as a young woman, you will sometimes be mistaken for a nanny, rather than a bodyguard.”
“Great,” said Carolina.
“If you are operating at three percent of your capacity, Carolina, you will have space for other work.”
“What other work?”
“There is a layer of people in the top of European business and finance whose stupidity and greed does not serve the interests of European states. They seek advantage through bonds with business people from countries whose governments are the adversaries of Spain and her allies.”
“This is Europe level or Spain?” asked Carolina.
“Both. The role pays. Not a lot. But something. On top of your agency earnings, it will help.”
“I’m still trying to understand what ‘it’ is.”
Eva smiled. “I’m National Intelligence, not just military intel. You will tell me before each new agency project, and I will tell you what might be interesting. The agency you will work for does not only do protection. They also offer counter-surveillance and offensive commercial intel gathering. You will be busy. Sometimes, I will hire you myself, via a business entity, of course. On those occasions, you will be working for your country. That will only happen after you have been off Spain’s books for a while.”
The steam rushed again.
Carolina slowly shook her head. “And I thought I’d entered the private sector off my own initiative.”
“You did. I didn’t know about you until we looked for a chaperone for Miguel.”
“Is this why you stayed on here? To recruit me?”
“One reason. You and I will talk. I’m having a Foreign Service language trainer sent out. You need four hours a day. You will get six, and you will be fine. You do that, I put you through your paces on business and politics. You have a good time with the gorgeous Mr. Berg.”
Carolina looked at Eva.
Eva said, “I will look after you.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Jean Haim and Max Rokos talked each other in to meet directly behind and above Anders Berg’s house. They were six hundred metres out, gathered in a hollow shielded by trees and rocks. They made introductions, first names only, made sure everyone was on a party line.
“OK. Inside, Dino, you are comms, collect phones, make sure lines are cut. I jam transmitters. Rafa, you do the talking?” Jean went round everyone else and they nodded, not saying anything, familiar with the roles he gave them.
Max’s team will watch the back and be ready to support us if anything happens. Max?”
“Rifles at five hundred metres, north and south. East and west boundaries are much shorter and screwed up by trees. We move down from the south-east. All of us will be able to get into the house in fifteen, twenty seconds if Jean orders it. Otherwise, we can take out anyone who tries to run.”
Pierre asked if he could speak. “What about the front? The driveway and the garage?”
Jean said, “We’ll have two vehicles, and five of Rafa’s guys will cover the front.”
“That’s... what, fifteen people in the whole crew?” said Pierre. “Jean, you don’t like big crews.”
“This has to be a big team. Most of you are waiting out here. We have to surround it, secure this place. We look out for cops, keep them in there, and the whole place quiet. Your biggest problem is the cold. Everyone in their thermals? I’m not joking.”
They nodded.
Jean said, “Now listen. I just told you a lie. The cold is our second biggest problem. There is a woman in there who is protecting the kid, Miguel. I tangled with her last night. She could feed a lot of you your own balls, and I would not like to see her with a gun, because it will mean some of us won’t get to spend the money. Young woman, dark hair, not very tall. Dino, you guard her on the inside. She moves wrong, you put a bullet in her skull. Do you understand?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Any questions?”
There were none. Jean Haim made a call. “Are all of you ready?”
The seconds ticked by. Adrenaline moving to flood release.
“Let’s go.”
Carolina left the sauna, showered, and dressed then returned a call from Pablo.
He said, “French National Police in Montpellier just found a sports bag in an apartment whose owners they can’t trace. Inside, once they’d verified it wasn’t a bomb, they found Robin King’s phone.”
She wasn’t surprised. “He’s still at large in Morzine.”
“Maybe. Enjoy your evening.”
She had looked at internet pictures of Haim after Pablo told her about him. They were not recent. Something tugged at her now. Abruptly, she found herself seeing the guy with Rafa Nieto on that hillside when she had run into them with Miguel. His face had been covered. But she put it together now. That had probably been Haim. She’d focused on the one she recognised, Nieto. But if Haim had been there, and at the restaurant – where Robin had been - he’d had a good look at Miguel. Like she had seen Nieto, Bullneck, Sylvestre. And like they’d seen her on the mountain yesterday.
Why did this matter so much with Haim? Because he was on another level to the rest of them. She’d hunted them. Would he hunt her, or Miguel?
Carolina went to her room, and took Jean Haim’s switchblade from the drawer she had left it in, put it in her pocket. She put her cross-training shoes on, too. Then, checking Berg was absorbed in the football, she made sure the Pardini was loaded. She left it inside the backpack, which she hung near the door from the corridor between the study and the kitchen.
Eva checked the brochetas and patatas revolconas and refreshed the greens. Berg came through. Miguel set the table and ferried dishes from the stove as Eva dished up the food.
“Anders, for our rental payment, I am going to buy you some proper serving dishes,” Eva said, moving between the cupboards. Carolina felt Berg could probably make better use of cash. She ate one of the brochetas. Her phone bleeped with a signal from a secu
rity camera. She picked it up. Driveway movement.
Two more alerts from two other cameras sounded. East and west sides of the house. Cars pulled in at the front, their lights flashing over the kitchen windows. The engines cut out. She heard footfalls. A lot of men running to the house.
It was them. There was no time. Move. She locked the kitchen door to the yard, slipped the brocheta up her sleeve as she ran across the kitchen into the corridor, and grabbed the backpack from the hook. She drew the Pardini as they kicked in the door from the garage, and levelled on the men coming in behind raised handguns.
“Police!” She dropped to a knee. They stopped. A flicker of doubt. One of them fired. Carolina fired at him. He staggered back. Miguel screamed in the kitchen over the sound of heavy blows and a chair splintering. They’d hit both doors.
Carolina dropped the Pardini and raised her hands.
“Everyone calm. Calm,” she said loudly. “Don’t resist.”
She was looking at Jean Haim in a navy ski mask, over a Glock. She could tell it was him from his smile, his eyes, his gait, his balance. The guy she’d hit took a knee, but he was OK, and she saw their body armour as they came close, Haim moving behind his weapon like he’d been trained.
“Nice try. With this ‘Police’,“ he said. “If you want to keep everyone alive, you behave.”
She nodded once. Haim backed her up with a flick of the Glock and followed her into the kitchen.
Berg was on the floor, bleeding from a gash on his cheekbone. Eva held her mouth and nose, bleeding too, stooped over with an arm around Miguel. He was hyperventilating. Two masked men had weapons trained on Ignacio who stood with his hands up, angry but thinking, not about to risk his family’s life.
Carolina turned fully toward the family, feeling her heart pound against her vocal chords, but letting them see her calm. Rafa Nieto came in, wearing a ski mask. She knew it was him from the hair bunched under the stretch fabric. Cold air from the door caught the sweat on her brow.