by S. C. Abbey
“Do we look stupid to you?” said Michel. “Why should I allow the United Kingdom to have the weapon?”
“As a matter of fact, we haven’t decided if I would,” said Spector. “You see, Miss Interpol here wants it taken back to America. Professor here says we should send it to the WHO. Miss Tanner there just lost her brother and doesn’t give a shit. You know what? One, two, three—” Spector started counting the number of people around him. “Excluding Miss Tanner, Mr. Martin, since he’s still unconscious, and Maksim, who’s probably dead by now, there are six of us here—I say we each take one vial and go about our own businesses—”
“What?” cried Harvey and Katie.
Michel and Linard just stared at the British man. “That is about the stupidest idea I have ever heard in my entire—are you sure you’re an MI6 agent?” Michel said.
Contos kept quiet.
“C’mon, does anyone have a brighter solution?” said Spector as he shook the vials in his hands.
“Yeah.” All eyes fell on Contos. “How about we kill all of you and take the vials for ourselves? Solves my problems—”
“Well, if you put it that way.” Spector sighed as he closed his eyes. “You leave me with no choice.” He opened his eyes and tossed the handful of vials high into the air in front of him.
“No—” cried Michel, diving toward the ground.
Spector’s hand zoomed into his jacket and came out with his gun.
Bang! Bang!
It only took him two shots to bring Linard and Contos down on their faces. The vials landed on the ground, smashing into pieces, spilling their contents all over—with the exception of the one that landed on Michel’s palm but rolled out of it toward Spector. Spector pressed his boot against the vial, stopping its motion. Michel looked up into the barrel of Spector’s gun. Spector applied pressure on his boot, and the final vial cracked and broke into pieces.
“I saw that—” Michel croaked.
Bang!
Spector holstered his firearm. Katie and Harvey took a step toward him, looking down at the dead men.
“Well, that might be better after all,” said Katie, eyeing all the broken glass. “Are we all poisoned now?”
“It isn’t airborne, remember? As long as we don’t ingest it, we should be fine,” said Spector.
Harvey frowned instead. He was bothered by the number of people who had dropped dead in the span of a day. “Dad, was it really necessary to kill them all?”
Spector’s mouth started gaping like a fish. “Harvey! They were trying to kill us!” He emphasized each word. “Besides, they would have never let us leave the country alive—”
Spector then turned to Katie. “Agent Moulin, I believe you’ll be ignoring all the dead bodies you saw today—”
“Just this once,” replied Katie.
“Best not to mention me at all.”
Katie nodded.
“Though, I do suggest you report this to Colonel Cobbett—he will know what to do,” added Spector.
“You know Cobbett?” said Katie in a surprised tone.
“We go way back.” Spector chuckled.
A sound of someone gasping for air interrupted them. Spector turned in the direction of it. “Goodness, you’re still alive?” he shouted at Maksim.
Maksim could be seen opening and closing his mouth weakly, as Spector approached the man and knelt down. He leaned forward and placed his ear nearer to the man’s mouth.
“I’m sorry, you’ll have to speak up,” Spector said and paused. A serious expression crept up his face. “Really?” He continued to listen and then sighed. “All right, I’ll save her, I promise. And I’ll make sure she never forgets you—” Spector stood up and drew his gun. “Rest now.”
The sound of the final gunshot echoed in the empty shipyard.
Chapter 56
KATIE KNOCKED ON the hotel room door with her knuckle, before she realized there was a doorbell on the right staring at her. She heaved a heavy sigh. Looked like the lack of sleep still prevented her from functioning at a usual vitalized level. Will he be dressed this time? That was the first thought that came to her mind when the sound of knocking echoed in the corridor. It really wasn’t that bad a sight to behold. She pressed the doorbell unconsciously, still deep in her thoughts about the towel-covered—
“Katie!” Harvey said in a rather cheerful voice as he opened the door. It was as if last night had all been forgotten. And yes, he was fully clothed this time.
“Huh?” Katie was momentarily stunned by the trap her own mind had set her up in.
Harvey waved a hand in front of Katie’s face. “Are you all right? You in there?”
Katie shook the unclean thoughts from her mind and stared straight at the man. Church. I need to go to church. She pushed the strands of hair that had fallen from the side back behind her ear.
“Yes, Professor Nolan, I’m here,” she joked.
“Thought I lost you for a minute there. Come in.” Harvey held the door till Katie stepped toward it, and returned to the bed where he was packing his belongings. The news was on the TV.
“I should be done packing in about,” he looked at his cell phone, “seven minutes, based on my calculations.”
“Take your time, our taxi won’t be here for another hour. Unless you want to grab lunch from that ghastly restaurant downstairs?” Katie sat on the edge of the bed.
Harvey’s features scrunched up. “Maybe not—I’ll settle for plane food.”
Katie broke out a laugh. “C’mon, it’s not that bad.”
Harvey smiled but didn’t reply. The silence soon became a little awkward.
“So,” Harvey said, “you managed to make a few calls to get them to release Louis’s body?”
Katie nodded. “Yep, done and settled. I doubt we’ll be getting trouble from the NIS or the Greek government anytime soon. I’ve arranged for the American Embassy to deal with the repatriation of the body. He should be back home in the next few days. They said they’ll be in touch with his lawyer.”
Harvey gave a sigh of relief. “We could have stayed till then, but I guess neither of us wants to stick around any longer than necessary. I think Louis is at peace now.”
“I’m sure he is.”
Katie’s reply was followed by a breaking news announcement on the television by the newscaster, “The terrorist attack yesterday at downtown Athens had caused—”
She immediately turned her attention to the news. “Turn that up, will you?” she asked.
Harvey turned to look at the screen before reaching for the remote on the bedside table and increased the volume.
“—the Athens Stock Exchange has seen its largest single-day point decline since the start of the year. The dive in opening prices of most shares across the board wiped billions—”
“That’s awful,” Katie said. “All that money, gone, just like that—”
Harvey gazed intently at the screen. He seemed to be thinking about something serious but shook his head slightly before picking up the remote and switching the television off. “Enough of deaths and bad news. I’m done packing, let’s go.”
Katie stood from the bed. “Finally, I can’t wait to get home.”
Chapter 57
HOOONK—
THE SHRIVELED-LOOKING old cab driver started to curse in rapid Greek with much enthusiasm. The energy he exuded was a far cry from his listless slouch over the wheel moments go. The traffic was piling up in the rush hour, and everybody’s moods were crummy. Including Spector’s, though not for the same reason.
Spector reached into his left trouser pocket and rolled the tubular container his hand found. Fishing his cell phone out of his jacket’s pocket, he dialed a number he really didn’t feel like dialing, and placed it to his right ear.
“I’m only going to say this once, so you’d better listen, Hall,” he said when the call connected. “I don’t want to ever smell your pudgy hands meddling with a
ny of my missions again.”
The man on the other side of the call snorted and laughed in response.
“This is my last warning to you, keep your stupid games to yourself. Or I’ll make sure we’ll be looking for your replacement real soon.”
“I would like to see you try, Spector.”
Spector ended the call. It was no use talking to the man. Perhaps one day, given the opportunity, he would make good on his threats. Screw camaraderie.
Spector fondled the glass vial between his fingers, still safely in his pocket. He proceeded to make a call to his superior.
“Zee speaking.”
“Tell me you didn’t know what Hall did.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The deal he had with Maksim Trzebuchowska.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“I’m serious,” said Spector with the lowest voice he could muster, “stop acting.”
“Alastair Spector, what in the world are you talking about? I don’t have time to listen to your bullshit.”
Spector paused in silence, considering Zee’s reaction. He then replied, “Never mind.”
“Did you manage to secure the biological weapon?”
Spector stopped the caress of the vial in his pocket. A recent memory flashed before his eyes…
Spector swung the handful of vials into the air. All the vials flung from his hand, except the one that his right pinky had wrapped around. He promptly slipped the vial into his jacket’s inner pocket, before he drew his gun—
“Spector? Are you still there?” said Zee.
“I heard you the first time. Only one vial was recovered, the rest were destroyed,” said Spector as he found himself staring at the back of the front seat in the cab again.
“Excellent, I’m afraid this wasn’t the only deal that was planned, though. Both the Republic of North Korea’s and the Russian Federation’s exchanges went through. Our agents failed. At least we’ve got one vial—”
Spector grunted in response. He was tired, and couldn’t care much for all the world’s perils and self-inflicted problems.
“How soon can you get back to London? Are you on the way back now?” continued Zee.
“I’m on the way to the airport,” Spector said and paused for a bit. “But I’m not heading for London yet.”
“What? Why—”
“I have some urgent matters that require my immediate attention, I will be back in London right after—”
“That is a no go, Spector, I’m ordering you to get your ass back to London right now. Everything else can wait,” said Zee. “You bring that vial back to me before you head elsewhere, it’s too risky—”
“I won’t be long—it’ll just take an additional day.”
“Listen here, Spector, no way I’m allowing this bullshit—where are you planning to go to anyway?”
“Lublin, Poland—”
Epilogue
THE TALL, RESERVED man sat completely at ease in the full, red-velvet armchair. His powder-blue eyes glanced unblinkingly at the flickering flames in the wood-burning fireplace. His gaze was firm but fluid, as if he was coaxing the warmth that emitted from the embers to him, by the look of his eyes. In his mouth, he nipped on the bit of a briar smoking pipe. It was burning out, which he didn’t seem to notice. A second man entered the study, peering around the large room with his steel-gray eyes before they settled on the man on the couch. He approached the man and stopped a few feet away from him, tilting his head slightly down.
“Sir, I’ve just gotten word that the Greek deal has fallen through. Maksim Trzebuchowska is dead,” said Luther Blake.
The man in the couch kept eye contact with the embers in the fireplace. “That’s all right, everything is within…expectations.” His voice sounded gritty, yet calmingly collected.
Blake frowned in his mind, but his usual fearsome scowl remained. After all these years, he still didn’t understand his boss at times. “Sir?”
“The Russians and North Koreans got theirs, didn’t they?” added the man. “The Greeks were never meant to benefit from this.”
“Pardon me, but I don’t understand—”
“The vials we sent to the Greeks—all they contained was colored water. I chose the shade of purple myself. Gorgeous, no?”
“And the others—?”
“The others got the real deal. Though the effects of the concoction don't work quite as well as we pitched them to, yet. It wears off after a while.”
“But why?”
The man in the couch broke his long-kept gaze and turned to Blake. “Why indeed?”
Blake didn’t reply immediately. He knew the boss didn’t like too many questions to be asked. He preferred when people deciphered them for themselves. Blake decided to try his luck. “You chose Damalitis Panayiotis specifically for this negotiation. As the transporter.”
This seemed to have caught his boss’s interest. “Good, go on.”
“You knew he would fail,” speculated Blake.
“Not quite. You got that half right.”
“You planned for him to fail.”
The man made a suppressed chuckling noise. “Exactly. Then what?”
“The diamonds were a small price to pay, to distract everybody from your main motives.”
“I’m not so generous to give real diamonds away—have you ever heard of cubic zirconia? And what were my main motives?”
Blake froze. He didn’t expect his outlandish claims to be true so far. And fake diamonds. After struggling to come up with something sensible, he gave up. “I’m afraid I can’t think of why you would do that, sir.”
The man wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, he seemed deflated that the guessing game had ended so quickly. He turned back to face the embers. After a moment of silence, he spoke.
“It was I who leaked the deal to Louis Tanner.”
Blake’s eyes grew wider. “Why—how?”
“Do you remember our Ukrainian comrade, Yakiv Shevchenko?”
Blake certainly did. Shevchenko had been part of OUBO since its inception—a loyal and reliable member of the organization who oversaw operations in the Baltic region.
“Yes, sir, the one who bought that Black Sea ship?”
“Guess who procured it for him?”
“Louis—it can’t be.”
“Don’t doubt yourself.”
“Tanner?”
The man sitting on the couch nodded once. “And so, I got a little help from him to whisper into Tanner’s ears about the deal. You know, just to spice things up.”
“But you had planned for Maksim to zip in to smoothen things out eventually, anyway.”
“That’s right.”
“But what for?”
“Did you watch the news today about the Greek stock market?”
Blake knew exactly what his boss was talking about. He felt his heart rate increase.
“You know what it means if you had shorted the market before all this happened?”
Blake nodded, and then realized the man wasn’t looking at him. “Yes, sir.”
“Then I don’t have to spell out to you why I did what I did, right?”
“You made millions from—” Blake fell short from stating the obvious. “The deal was never important to you. You just wanted Panayiotis and a bunch of people killed in a grandiose—”
“The deal was important, initially. But I figured the Greek government would have never been able to afford it—they just wanted to play dirty. And so, I thought I’d have some fun while making some money off it.”
“What happened to Tanner, was that just unfortunate for him?”
“No, I handpicked him because of his connection with a certain professor. I wanted to attract someone I had long suspected still alive—”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just orchestrate the killings—” Blake slowed down toward the end as he realized how insolent he sounded
. “—sir.”
“That would have been so…pointless.” The man sounded bored.
“About Maksim—”
“That’s…collateral damage. Unavoidable.” He brushed him off. “See to it that his little girl gets the best medical treatment available.”
Blake shifted nervously where he stood. “Sir, I tried. She’s gone.”
The man turned again to face Blake, quirking an eyebrow. “Gone?”
“I sent some men to get her as soon as I’d gotten news about Maksim. Her mother said a British man in an impeccable suit with Prussian blue eyes came for her in the middle of the night. He didn’t say where he was talking her.”
The man’s nostrils flared, and then he burst into a raucous laughter. Blake was shocked. It was usually difficult to evoke much of a reaction from the man. “Mr. Lange?” he whispered.
Siegfried Lange’s face was still flushed as his outburst slowly died down. “Alastair, my old friend. Is it time for our paths to cross again?”
The End
Harvey Nolan and Katie Moulin will return.
Have you checked out the other books in the Harvey Nolan series of thrillers?
Prequel — Resurrection
Book 1 — Maximus
Book 2 — Pandora
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