Two days earlier, he had flown to the island retreat from his estate in Johannesburg to relax and get away from the heat they were putting him under, concerned by the many delays that had badly effected his initial construction schedule for the uranium enrichment facility in Niger, as was Faraday himself.
Indeed, the building of it had been beset by all manner of setbacks which had made the original completion date simply impossible to achieve.
Two earthquakes - one causing a huge underground collapse - had made it necessary to reinforce the ground beneath the structure. This had not only proved to be a massively expensive feat of engineering but also a very lengthy procedure which had added over a year onto the original deadline.
In addition, the project had also been plagued by a series of terrible sand storms that had severely hindered building work. Landslides caused by these storms had also effected the supply route, making access to the site extremely hazardous for large trucks to negotiate, thus delaying progress even further.
Of course none of these things were considered reasonable by Faraday’s impatient investors who were all anxious to get their evil hands on the end product which the finished facility would supply them.
The pressure on Faraday was further compounded by the recent resignation of his Head of Security whom he had entrusted to get construction back on schedule.
James Locke had originally been employed to be Faraday’s body man on the advice of Miles DeVilliers; to offer close protection in the event of someone - most probably Sam Beresford - making an attempt on his life. But after ten years and almost five since Beresford had last been heard of, Quentin thought it a precaution no longer worth taking.
So, sick of seeing Locke loitering around the Johannesburg estate with little or nothing to do, he decided to send him to Niger to oversee construction of the facility where it was hoped he would prove more useful.
But Locke’s temperament was not suited to such a task. Indeed, he considered it to be beneath him. What is more, he treated the workers appallingly; many had been badly beaten for no reason whilst others had just gone missing, never to be seen again.
Yet aside from these troubling issues, production had not improved. Progress was still painfully slow and when questioned about the reason, Locke had no explanation and clearly did not give a damn.
As a result, during their last radio communication, Faraday had lost his temper with Locke, balling him out quite mercilessly, which was not a particularly wise move but the frustration of it all was eating him alive.
In return, Locke had told him to shove his production schedule and his job and promptly left the site, taking a brand new Q-Core Range Rover with him in the process.
The vehicle had been found abandoned on the outskirts of Niamey several days later although Locke himself was nowhere to be seen.
As a temporary solution to Locke’s departure, Faraday promoted the foreman of the construction team in a bid to get things back on track. He hoped this might buy him a little time until he could find a new development manager with the ability to guide the project through to a speedy conclusion.
With the temporary manager in place and the pressure steadily building, Faraday flew to Martinique to unwind and consider his next move.
His biggest dilemma being what to tell his investors to ease their very pressing concerns, knowing they would not be easily appeased. Indeed, Faraday had to handle them extremely carefully otherwise they were liable to take matters into their own hands.
With the benefit of hindsight, Faraday wished he had been a little more patient with Locke, now regretting putting his Head of Security in charge of a project he was quite clearly not suited for. If he had not, then Locke might still be by his side and, at present, Faraday felt in dire need of the protection he would have offered. Yet it was no longer Sam Beresford he was afraid of.
However, nothing good could come from regret and although Locke was an eminently capable bodyguard, Faraday had a whole army of security people who were employed for the sole purpose of keeping him safe.
Yet the knowledge of this did not help him sleep any easier.
Indeed, Quentin Faraday was a man accustomed to being in control, however with the Niger project he felt anything but. With its numerous delays, spiralling costs and a group of investors all baying for his blood, his stress levels were going through the roof.
The trip to Martinique was supposed to be a brief escape from his troubles, but less than forty-eight hours after arriving there he had received a phone call to say that the foreman he placed in temporary charge of the development had just dropped down dead from a heart attack.
As he replaced the receiver, Faraday felt his knees trembling and panic filling his belly. The feeling was almost alien to him as he normally had all his bases covered and every angle tightly sewn up.
But not this time and the stakes could not be higher.
With the luxury of time to find a new manager suddenly removed, Faraday knew he had no choice now but to take command of the project himself, which would mean he would have to be on site twenty-four seven until it reached completion.
In order to do this he would have to temporarily shift his base of operations lock, stock and barrel to the Ténéré Desert in Niger so that he could personally oversee the project’s development.
It was a drastic step but the only way he could ensure it stayed on track and control the escalating costs.
Indeed, only by placing himself front and centre could he hope to prove his commitment to the project and with luck placate his investors.
The task would be difficult but with the vast portion of his own fortune tied up in the venture, Faraday had no choice but to succeed.
***
Marseille, France
The fish market in the Old Port was a bustle of early morning activity as Locke strode purposely through the crowds; the pervasive smell of the fresh catch clinging to his clothes, adding to the musky aroma of the previous night’s debauchery.
After eight wasted years in the service of Quentin Faraday as Q-Core’s Head of Security, he was busy making up for lost time.
He had only been back in Marseille for a week but had already gorged himself on many of its pleasures. Indeed, after a cocaine fuelled night he had awoken in the early hours to find himself naked in a strange bed, in a run-down apartment, between two equally naked young men; both of whom showed track marks on their arms of serious heroin addiction.
The night before that he had picked up a dockside whore, as he had done on his previous trip to Marseille. He screwed this one over the hull of an upturned boat at the far end of the harbour where it was dark and no one could see.
She was aged, fat and toothless; her pathetic existence epitomising to Locke the seedy underbelly of the city to which he had become irresistibly drawn.
He had strangled the woman to death as he approached his climax; relishing the feel of life draining from her body as his hands steadily crushed her windpipe, fascinated by the light being slowly extinguished from her eyes as death finally took her.
The delicious excitement of it made him harder than ever as he thrust himself repeatedly into her; his hands gripped on her throat and her eyes bulging with horror as the fight left her and she slumped lifelessly across the boat.
She had been dead for several minutes by the time Locke finally achieved orgasm, but it was a moment that had proved well worth waiting for.
The two young men in the squalid little apartment had been more fortunate as Locke had just left them to sleep, anxious to get home to his own hotel room and shower off their stench from his body.
At forty-three he was still extremely vain, but was not the prime physical specimen he had once been. Although still in good shape, he was presently a little thicker around the girth than he would have liked, which was a result of too much good living.
For the
first few years in Faraday’s employ, Locke had kept up a punishing fitness regime; determined to be ready for when Sam Beresford might come calling. But over time it became increasingly less likely that would happen, which was something of a disappointment.
Furthermore, Locke had not heard from Darius Purcell since receiving the letter warning him about Beresford four years earlier but he had great faith in his old mercenary friend’s abilities.
Indeed, if Beresford had ever caught up with him then he was convinced Purcell would have emerged from their meeting victorious.
As for why Locke had not heard more, well he knew Africa, too, and it had a habit of swallowing men within its depths - particularly in places such as Angola and The Congo where lives could be snuffed out in the blink of an eye.
Consequently, if Purcell had not done for Beresford, then Africa no doubt would have, so after such a lengthy period of time, Locke had to assume any threat from the boy no longer existed.
Nonetheless, he had stayed on with Faraday, just to be completely certain, although the mundanity of the work drove him crazy. What is more, after so long, with so little to do, Locke’s strict adherence to fitness slowly began to wane. A luxurious existence surrounded by good food and fine wine gradually became too hard to resist and he indulged himself more often than he should have.
After being sent to Niger by Faraday, his bad habits became even worse and he would spend the long, boring days just eating and drinking in a bid to fill his time there.
With nothing to do, his blood lust also got the better of him. Whilst at Faraday’s Johannesburg estate he had somehow managed to quell his murderous urges but once free from there he could deny them no more.
It began with beating workers for no excuse. He would call them to his site office on a whim, then set about them for no apparent reason. The workers were poor men from poor family’s who could not afford to lose their jobs, so they put up with Locke’s treatment of them, even though several were scarred for life.
Others, however, were not so lucky. Indeed, sometimes Locke was a little over zealous and could not control the killer that raged within him. After such lethal outbursts, he would drive out into the desert under the cover of darkness to bury the bodies of those he had murdered, justifying their disappearance to Faraday by saying they had simply ‘run off’.
But Faraday knew the truth.
In fact, it was partly for that reason, coupled with the immense pressure he was under to get the construction work finalised that led to the blazing row with Locke, which ended with Q-Core’s Head of Security quitting his position.
In truth, Locke was mightily relieved to be going, knowing that he should have made the break the moment the issue of him being sent to Niger was raised.
But the money had proved too much of a temptation.
Nonetheless, it had been a huge mistake on both his and Faraday’s parts.
As for Locke, he took the first plane out of Niamey and headed back to Marseille, vowing to eschew the luxuries he had become accustomed to and resume his strict fitness regime once more.
However, Marseille also had its temptations and Locke had not been able to ignore them.
Yet, as he marched through the Old Port, en-route to his apartment, he resolved to give himself another few months in which to enjoy the city’s delights.
After that, he would give Miles DeVilliers a call, even though he had not spoken to him in the years he had been in Faraday’s employ.
Because after he had satiated himself on all that Marseille had to offer, it would be time to get back to work.
Chapter Forty-Four
London, England.
Vasily should have been surprised when he learned from Sam that Claudette’s murder had been pre-planned - as revealed by Darius Purcell moments before his death - but he was not.
In fact, like Sam, he had believed for some years that the attack was premeditated. However, neither could offer any plausible motive which might help explain their suspicions.
Even if they went along with the theory that the attack was racially inspired, it had always seemed too much of a coincidence that six heavily armed men with such a prejudiced agenda should just happen upon a white boy making love to a black girl - particularly as the spot they had chosen was so well hidden.
What is more, the violence of the attack seemed far too brutal to be some random hate crime, no matter how opportunistic the circumstances may have been.
Indeed, ever since Vas had stayed in New Hampshire years ago, recuperating from his run-in with Roger Finch, he had suspected there was far more to those horrific events on the banks of The Cam than the evidence revealed at the time.
The very fact that he and Sam had to flee New Hampshire in such a rush was surely proof enough that other forces were in play - Vas’ own father instigating their swift departure after learning of a plot to kill them by persons unknown to them at that time.
Yet Vladimir’s informant had not offered a valid explanation as to why such a plot existed or to whom might be behind it.
Without that information, they had concluded the hit was in retaliation to Finch’s death - possibly orchestrated by his aggrieved mercenary comrades; a theory which Vladimir also believed to be the most likely.
Nevertheless, since Purcell’s recent confession, Vas and Sam now thought it far more likely that whoever sanctioned Claudette’s murder was also behind the attempted hit on them in New Hampshire. What is more, after learning of ‘The Fixer’, Miles DeVilliers, they were significantly closer to identifying who that person was.
Which made finding DeVilliers all the more imperative.
So, whilst Sam and Miri were enjoying their month’s holiday on the Côte d’Azur, Vasily set to work trying to locate The Fixer.
To do this, he once again enlisted the help of his father, Vladimir, who was well acquainted with the reputation of the man whom his son and Sam were seeking.
Whilst they had never physically crossed paths, Vladimir and DeVilliers were in a similar line of business so were therefore aware of each other.
As a result, and with a little digging, Vladimir was soon able to discover that Leon Bakkal, the very person who had supplied him with the information about the hit in New Hampshire, had apparently been in the employ of Miles DeVilliers for several years.
This intelligence would have meant nothing to Vladimir before as Bakkal was little more than a hired heavy who had sold his services to practically every shadowy organisation since leaving Moscow; his loyalties aligned to whichever paymaster he happened to be serving at any given time.
However, when coupled with the information Sam had gleaned from Purcell about DeVilliers being The Fixer, everything suddenly made sense.
Although the question of who was ultimately pulling the strings still remained.
Nonetheless, by the time Miri and Sam returned from their trip, Vladimir had compiled a complete dossier on Miles DeVilliers, which Vasily duly handed over.
It made for very interesting reading as they all sat around Vas and Alina’s dining room table in Kensington Gardens and pored over the information.
DeVilliers’ success was quite staggering, even to Vasily, who understood the inner workings of the underworld and how such huge sums of money could be made. After all, his own father had amassed a fortune from such an existence.
However, whilst Vladimir certainly enjoyed the trappings of wealth, his marvellous home and fleet of luxury vehicles pretty much represented the extent of his extravagance. Indeed, he purposely sought to keep himself grounded so as to be more in touch with the people around him.
Furthermore, as a direct consequence, he found this attitude served to garner him even greater respect amongst those within his organisation.
Miles DeVilliers, however, adopted a very different approach and rather than keeping things understated, he thoroughly embraced h
is wealth and revelled in the opulence it afforded him - which the estate in Surrey, mansion in Chelsea and various other properties around the world amply demonstrated.
Then, of course, there was the fabulous yacht moored permanently off the coast of Monaco which was an indulgence reserved only for the very rich.
Nevertheless, along with these and other assets, the dossier also revealed two items of particular interest which both Sam and Miri thought worthy of further investigation, hoping that they might possibly represent weak points which could be exploited.
The first item was DeVilliers’ new acquisition in Canary Wharf which, when completed, was set to be one of the most prestigious locations in the whole of London.
In fact, The Tea Clipper was a brand new development located in London’s Docklands which had been specifically designed to attract the super wealthy.
When finished, it would be a tall, sleek tower; an architectural masterpiece in the shape of a gleaming glass telescope, with each of its four diminishing sections extending upwards into the city’s famous skyline.
At sixty storeys, the top five floors were all given over to luxury penthouses, each boasting wide balconies, unobstructed views of the capital and their own private elevator.
Even though it was still under construction and not yet fit for habitation, DeVilliers had recently bought the penthouse on the fifty-seventh floor after studying the detailed floor plan the agent had shown him.
Such was the high interest in the property, the apartment below had likewise been sold to the Russian owner of a Premier League football club, the fifty-ninth floor penthouse to a Hollywood power couple and the one on the very top floor to a mega rich oil sheikh from Saudi Arabia.
Which meant the fifty-eighth floor apartment remained the only one of the five as yet unsold.
Indeed, it was only the penthouse floors that had so far been released for sale as they were due to be finished by the April of 2004. The rest of the development would then be released later on in the year.
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