“By your trust, I assume you mean the MP5 rained on me from your van, by your very pretty friend Lola?”
Alix shrugged, grinning. “You can’t blame us for taking precautions - you know how it is.”
“Indeed I do,” said the Priest calmly. “What is it you seek, my son?”
“As you know, things have gone from bad to worse; we’ve just driven up from London.”
“Scorpion HQ?”
“Yes,” said Alix sombrely.
“We must pray for their souls,” said the Priest, great sadness in his voice. “And yet, before prayer, I cannot help but feel that this crime must not go unpunished.”
“We need your help,” said Alix softly. “You have the highest clearance level at Ferran & Cardini, and to be honest, you probably know more about what’s going on at Scorpion than we do...”
The Priest’s eyes glittered. “There is no Scorpion, well not in an operational sense, anyway. There have, shall we say, been... complications. What is it you have in mind?”
“Find out who is responsible - gather together all remaining Scorpion units and go after them. Terminate every single one of them.”
“First you will need to find the source; then you will need to find the target.”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Alix. “There’s nobody else we can trust - and believe me, it was hard deciding even to contact you.”
The Priest stood, both his hands deep in the pockets of the black overcoat he was wearing, rain dripping from the brim of the black fedora hat. He thought, long and hard, brow furrowed; finally, looking skywards, he smiled at Alix, then reached out and patted him gently on the shoulder. “I have been given guidance, my son.”
“Really, so quickly?” Alix looked up, nervously, at the heavens.
The Priest nodded. He placed his hands together, as if he were going to prey. A frown appearing across his forehead as he concentrated. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, Alix. But he will lead us and protect us, and the Lord will guide us.”
“You sure about that, Priest?”
“My faith in my Lord is unwavering, Alix. I am merely his physical medium on earth, and the one chosen to carry out his will. Yes I am sure. But I am going to need help on this journey. Under normal circumstances I would call my old friend, Jake Dillon. But, he had a visit from a unit of these Assassins, got them all except one. He used one of his pay-as-you-go mobile phones to contact me. Told me that he was shipping out with Tatiana.”
“Bloody hell.” said Alix, and immediately added. “Sorry, didn’t mean to say that.”
“No need to apologise, Alix. But... as you are now here, my friend. Sent, I think, by the Almighty. You can be of assistance to me.”
“What kind of journey?” Alix’s voice was suspicious.
“As TPO’s at Ferran & Cardini, we have always worked closely with our equivalent rank at Scorpion. Between us we keep tabs on a variety of people and locations around the world; keep an eye on them, shall we say. There has been an increase in hostile activity at various locations and we sent Scorpion units to investigate and in some cases, baby-sit some of Scorpions key personnel - just before Scorpion HQ was destroyed in London. The partners had instructed me to look into a matter of grave importance concerning a Scorpion unit. I was on my way to the assignment when I received your transmission.”
“So now we can all go together?”
“Your assistance would be greatly appreciated, my son. This increased activity would appear to be linked with various hot spots of trouble around the globe and at Scorpion HQ in London. The partners of Ferran & Cardini have a strong hunch of there being a connection.”
Alix nodded.
The Priest smiled. “We will have to meet at the old Sarum private airfield in Wiltshire - I have a few jobs to take care of first along the way.”
“No problem. Just name the time.”
The Priest glanced at his wristwatch. “Twelve hours from now.”
We’ll be there,” said Alix softly.
The twin engines droned like bees gathering honey. Tatiana woke up, rubbed her eyes, and watched the sun dancing across the tops of cotton-wool clouds. She yawned, enjoying the view for a few moments; far below, the brilliant blue landscape of the Mediterranean, marked with the Islands of the Balearics, reminded her of long past holidays, and much better days - happier days before the imminent crisis that now loomed and would grip the world’s economies and governments and cripple them beyond recognition...
She shifted on the uncomfortable seat. Winced as the stitches that Dillon had so expertly sown her together with, pulled tight.
She glanced across at Dillon. “You okay?”
“Never felt better.” Although, Dillon’s wane smile, told a different story.
“Where are we?”
“We’ve just flown over Mallorca.”
“Mallorca. I had a few good holidays there in the past. My father owned a villa in Puerto Pollensa, up in the north of the island.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Honestly? Battered, bruised, and sore, but I’ll live. You hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Which bag is the food in?”
The blue one has food and drink in, and I apologise in advance for the amount of junk food content. I swear, somebody should sue the manufacturers of that shit.”
Tatiana rummaged. Found food - or a close approximation thereof. She ate, and so did Dillon, even though his hands were firmly gripping the Cessna’s control column.
“You look tired, where are you refuelling?”
“We’re heading for Sicily to refuel.”
“I thought you were never going back to Sicily? Something to do with the Mafia wanting you real bad after you destroyed their very large shipment of cocaine. Wanted by men with machine pistols who want you very, very dead?”
“Well, yes. But when I say Sicily, it’s a biggish island and what I mean is that I’ve arranged to rendezvous with an old friend, just outside of Ragusa. That’s on the other side of the island and a long way from Palermo.”
“So there’ll be no time for sunbathing or sampling the exquisite local food?”
“Not this time, luv. I’m sorry. Anyway, the less time I spend on that island, the better.”
They were still over the sea, and the sun glittered across waves and tiny crests of foam. Tatiana watched Dillon carefully; she could see his concern about landing on Sicily but he hid it well. The Mafia chased him all over Europe; he had killed every one of his pursuers one by one before returning to the UK. The Mafia have long memories... She had read it in his personnel file, and as he always said, it wasn’t the Mafia that bothered him; it was the one million Euro contract that they had put out on him...
Hours had passed.
The ‘rendezvous’, much to Tatiana’s horror, was a narrow dirt strip cut between lines of olive groves. Dillon brought the twin engine Cessna down in a swirl of dust, taxied to the far end, turned, and came to a halt, much to the bewilderment of a small group of olive pickers who were sitting in the shade eating their lunch. Tatiana watched Dillon go across to them from the Cessna’s cockpit, decidedly on edge and alert for any signs of trouble.
She needn’t have worried. Dillon, all smiles, nodded in her direction and she watched as one of the older women, dressed traditionally in black garb, lead him away to throw back tarpaulins concealing drums of what Tatiana assumed was aviation fuel. She did not understand how Dillon made contacts, nor how he had arranged this little meeting; so she decided that it was probably best not to ask.
An hour later, when Dillon climbed sweating and covered in dust into the cockpit, Tatiana had been sleeping again. She smiled wearily at him. “We fuelled up and ready to go?”
“We should have just about enough to get us to Santorini. That’s assuming we don’t meet with any problems along the way, we’re going to be flying low altitude and under radar...”
They flew low with the sun high in a sky of brilliant b
lue...
Tatiana decided it was quite romantic or it would have been if she hadn’t taken a bullet in the shoulder and they hadn’t been running for their lives. What happened? She thought, what had happened to her near perfect world? It had been going so well, so smoothly.
Ezra walked slowly through the spectacular landscaped gardens of his hillside home, gazing around in appreciation of the vividly colourful scene; looking down he observed honey bees hovering and settling on the abundance of large blooms throughout the garden. He lifted his head slowly, hair whipping gently in the light breeze, and gazed out across the breathtaking view before him - a medley of browns and burnt orange merging into the dazzling blue of the ocean. The amber light of early evening flowed effortlessly across the island landscape like molten honey, breaking across white painted villas, moulding itself around the trees. Although, Ezra could not see them from where he was sitting, sheer cliffs rose up hundreds of feet from the ocean floor and he could feel the past violence of this ancient land within his soul.
The high voltage electric security fence, made the large man feel comforted, solid and real without any fear. Ezra sat in his private grounds knowing that he owned outright everything, and everyone around him was a part of him, belonged to him - and he belonged to them; a symbiotic relationship that made Ezra smile. His hand reached out and, lightly touched the shocking purple petals of the flower. He sighed.
The sun was sinking, glinting a deep burned red in his dark eyes.
He rose slowly to his feet, pulling himself to his full height and massaging the constant ache in his right hip and lower back. Moving away from his view-point, he was soon walking back through landscaped gardens, along wide sandy paths, winding back and forth, and leading uphill towards his luxury villa complex and the last glimpses of the sparkling dance of the sun’s sinking rays. Ezra walked on, the limp in his left leg becoming more pronounced with each step he took, sweat rolling down over his temples, his long grey hair flowing behind him in the light breeze, his automatic Browning cumbersome, yet comforting, in its leather shoulder holster concealed under his robes.
As he walked, the Scorpion G8 link comm. pressed against his right thigh through the pocket sewn into the Bedouin style robes he was wearing. He hated the heavy device. It had been hacked of course, by his own programmers - just because they could. The small device had been dismantled and reassembled minus certain circuitry and software. Ezra kept the G8 close to him at all times; it was a constant reminder of distant, better days.
Ezra halted for a moment, turning, hands on hips, regaining his breath.
The landscape of Santorini spread out before him, the most awesome of panoramic views he had witnessed in his many years of travelling the miserable ball of rock called Earth.
Ezra loved the Greek Islands and in particular, Santorini; that is why he had chosen this place in which to set up and run a stateof-the-art listening and monitoring station for the Israeli Intelligence Agency - Mossad.
He pushed on up the last steps leading to one of the villa’s many verandas overlooking the orange tree orchards filling the slopes all the way to the edge of the cliff tops. This vision of contrasting colour splashes against the brilliant blue of the ocean beyond, filled his complex mind with calm, soothed the raging bull that burned within his soul, found the soft spot in his heart and allowed him to coast through each day with ease.
The interior of the villa felt luxuriously cool after heat outside. Ezra touched the age-worn spine of the hard-back edition of the Bible, tilted it backwards and; immediately, a secret panel in his purpose built library opened to reveal a stairway leading down to the bunker and his centre of operations.
He moved to one of the many computer screens, logged in, and checked for anything new.
This cannot be correct, he thought.
The GCHQ intercepted communication between Ramus and Kirill, must be wrong.
A cold shiver ran up and down his spine.
Dillon would never dare come to Santorini... Ezra laughed out loud then, his laughter echoing out through the bunker. And if he was coming to the Greek Island - and by the level of encryption, it seemed that it was a top priority to find and intercept him - if the miserable excuse for a human being wascoming to Santorini, then the chances were that he was coming to find Ezra.
“I swore that I would kill you the next time we met.”
Ezra’s voice was deep, incredibly deep and melodic - almost theatrical in its delivery, a rich voice, the voice of an actor, not the voice of a...
“What are you?”He thought.
“What have you become?”
He had been re-assigned by army intelligence. They had sent him to London to work on a very special new anti-terrorist project. Scorpion.
He sneered in contempt. Ezra shut down the screen, got up, and started to pace the room, thinking, planning, fuming...
He went outside and continued to walk, leather sandals now kicking sand as he moved along the path, winding through the garden to the perimeter fence and a string of proximity sensors and antipersonnel mines.
Scorpion...
They had a lot to answer for. A hell of a lot to answer for...
He reached the perimeter fence, and immediately turned and started back the way he had come. The walk had relaxed him, as it always did. Ezra mounted the steps up to the southerly most veranda of his home and sitting on one of the wicker chairs, smiled to himself knowing that hiding below the simple white-washed walls was a hundred million pounds worth of technology under the ground in the form of extremely high-tech suites, weapons systems, and a large underground garage and workshop facilities and...
Ezra’s eyes glinted.
And something else.
A breeze licked the dust on the timber floor, sending it in some sort of exotic dance across the veranda.
How the world had changed, he thought. How it has descended into a quagmire of terrorism, violence and world-wide fear.
He shivered.
How I have changed...
He caught sight of movement to his left, partially hidden by trees, but he was sure someone was there. Ezra moved cautiously to the far end of the veranda and down the steps out of sight, so as to outwit, Demitri, his personal bodyguard. A former Russian special forces Sergeant, who had fought in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, fighting the Taliban - and who liked nothing better than to play chess. He had been with Ezra for the past five years - and was never far away from him...
The big Russian had spotted him moving along the veranda, and had quickly moved around the villa, and was now standing behind Ezra, the Uzi across his chest, the safety catch switched off. Ezra grinned, stood up and turned around.
“You okay, Boss?” Growled Demitri, his broad face split into a smile.
“Damn you, Demitri. You’ve done it again. How do you move so fast and so quietly,” said Ezra.
“Many years of dodging bullets, Boss.”
Ezra shook his head, “Yeah, and I guess that’s why I employ you, just to keep you safe.”
Demitri smiled. They shook hands, and Ezra went back up the steps onto the veranda and into the cool interior of the villa.
Such a nondescript façade, he thought.
A simple disguise, concealing technology the world could not even begin to comprehend.
His sandals brushed silently against the polished marble floor as he made his way along the corridor to his library. He went to one of the shelves, and to his prized hard-back edition of the Holy Bible; tipping the spine back, the secret panel opened, and Ezra descended
- down the steps and through the rough-hewn narrow corridors - to the operations bunker.
Welcome to Heaven, Ezra thought.
* * * It was early evening when Dillon flew the twin engine Cessna across the shimmering Ionian Sea west of Greece. Sunlight glittered, accelerating over the horizon. Tatiana was sitting with her head resting on Dillon’s shoulder when the whole aircraft shuddered.
Tatiana stirred. She turned, her
gaze fixed on Dillon’s. “What was that?” The aircraft shuddered again, and then moments later, a trail of thick black smoke came from behind the starboard engine. Dillon leaned forward, eyes scanning the digital read-outs, and cut the fuel supply to the engine. The prop hummed as it slowed and then it stopped altogether.
“Tell me we don’t have a problem.” “We have a problem,” said Dillon through gritted teeth. “Looks like we’ve sprung an oil leak. Damn-it.”
The aircraft had to land, and soon. Tatiana’s grip tightened on Dillon as fear flashed bright in her eyes. Breathing deeply, he turned the Cessna south. “We’ll have to land as soon as possible.”
Dillon knew the area well, and hugged the coast through the Gulf of Patra and chose a spot on the west coast of Peloponnesus, where he knew a certain landowner of disreputable character.
Dillon brought the Cessna in low over the sea. Sparkling waves of the brightest blue crashed to their end in a crescendo of white foam. They cleared a long stretch of beach-hugging trees and a wide sweep of unspoilt white sand. The Cessna approached a wide treelined grass strip with a grandiose country farmhouse located at the end of the cutting and touched down smoothly, then bumped along the short grass towards the dazzling white-walled house. Tatiana gazed up at the building as they rolled to a halt, bushes and trees whipping to either side, the drone of the one good engine invading this otherwise peaceful paradise. The house was large, built from stone, the lofty roof supported by huge oak beams rough cut and lashed together with thick ropes skilfully tied by local craftsmen.
Several men, dressed in black suites, ran forward towards the plane. They were all carrying guns.
“A welcoming party?” asked Tatiana.
Dillon smiled. “They know me here. Don’t worry.” He killed the engine, which died quickly, the propeller humming and clattering to a halt. Dillon helped Tatiana down from the cockpit, down the steps, and onto the grass where they were immediately aware of the heat.
“Warm, isn’t it? Just what the doctor ordered.” Tatiana said huskily. “How long will I have to endure this heat while you fix the motor?”
Chimera Code (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) Page 19