And was she trying to get Dino out of harm’s way before something terrible happened to him simply because she couldn’t face another loved one dying?
No matter, she thought. A new job offered new fortunes. She would embrace the newness and take a different path.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Devil was a murderer.
Self-proclaimed and proud of it. A specialist. Beyond doubt, the best in the world. He knew it. Everyone that mattered knew it. The extent of his lifetime executions spanned the globe, touched millions of households, and made him the target of every intelligence agency worth knowing. And still, he was a mystery to them. They’d sent every crack Special Forces team they had after him but the Devil still walked the earth, killing at will, taking on only the jobs he considered would enhance his reputation.
The Devil was a genius.
Moving from an island in the middle of nowhere after it was nuked to the middle of the United States was a masterstroke. The US had more land than they knew what to do with and people mostly drove around, figuratively, with their eyes closed. If a new operation rose beneath the dusty remnants of a long-defunct town nobody noticed. If the outside stayed the same but, under layers of obscurity, a well-oiled, experienced business resumed, nobody was the wiser.
The Devil was a survivor.
Since the island he’d appropriated and, for all intents and purposes ruled, was nuked by the new Blood King he’d fought to climb back to where he’d been. Kovalenko’s betrayal had been a blow he hadn’t seen coming, at least not so soon. But plans to relocate had already been in place, which helped. The Devil had always intended to leave the island, to allow the warring clans to destroy themselves, but the Blood King’s attempt to kill him had accelerated those plans. Even now, the Devil had to pinch himself to believe the terrible audacity that Luka Kovalenko exhibited. The young Russian had been a guest, hiding from the authorities after that debacle in London and Paris. Also, he’d been allowed to put the finishing touches to what was to be the Blood King’s new attack on the world.
The Devil knew everything.
Deep underneath the island, the Blood King had forced six of Eastern Europe’s foremost nuclear scientists to turn one large bomb into several smaller ones. One had been used on the island but that still left Kovalenko with nineteen small-yield devices, each one less than a quarter of a megaton. He had turned the plutonium he’d stolen from Chechnya into a new world threat. Plutonium cores had been inserted into small warheads with enough explosive charge to detonate them. That had been many months ago. The Devil had tuned all his surveillance capabilities toward Kovalenko ever since but had heard nothing.
Until recently.
And in the oddest way.
The Devil was pissed.
Now, he walked through dust and dirt, letting it swirl up around his boots and form a cloud at his passing. The sun was blistering, searing down. Sweat sheened his brow. The path was hard, compacted sand, turning and dipping between dunes. His new settlement was at his back, reimagined and reconstructed from the island to this new ghost town.
Acres of dry desert lay all around, miles of wasteland between him and any kind of road which, initially, provided him a vast area of protection. The only thing they had to worry about was flyovers, and they’d taken great care to maintain the aerial view as it had always been.
The Devil stopped on top of the highest dune, shielding his eyes, gazing about him. Vigilance was essential. It didn’t matter how remote you were, there was always some busybody trying to poke their nose into your business. Even here, he’d had two inquisitive fools trying to snoop already. Both fools met with untimely accidents, but it would only take one whistleblower to spoil the entire pot of vengeful stew he was cooking up.
Which brought him around to the reason he was pissed.
The old man on the ocean liner. Volkov. Against his will, the Devil admired him, which pissed him off even more. Consistently, the Devil admired no one but himself. This Volkov, who some called the Viper, had been the world’s first highly effective turncoat. His information had brought down the Soviet Union.
The Devil knew all about him: How he had unmasked traitors for the CIA, affording the Americans more spies and more leverage. How he’d engineered major party members into certain situations to either embarrass or destroy them. How he’d helped special kill-teams find influential Soviets who were never heard from again. How, gradually, the government had crumbled from within at the actions of just one man.
A man who possessed all the information.
It certainly proved one belief the Devil had always held dear. Compartmentalization was king. Don’t tell anybody the whole plan. Keep the big stuff to yourself. Of course, he had never needed help. He was shrewder, deadlier and more capable alone.
Since the big move, the Devil had kept his hand in, engineering a large bridge collapse and then a nasty accident on the I4. The ‘accidents’ left forty dead. They also killed two targets. Murders made to look like accidents. The more bystanders that died the better. It helped bury the real reason under layers of heartache, sentiment and anger.
The Devil was well connected. There wasn’t a lot going on in the world that, if he wanted to, he couldn’t learn about or get to the bottom of. He’d spent far longer than he wanted to trying to learn more about the Blood King’s new plot. He’d hit wall after wall. Then, as if by good fortune, a man who’d dropped out of the game years ago reappeared. All the Devil had to do was find a crew to abduct him.
Volkov.
The great whistleblower, it seemed, had escaped the CIA’s attempts to kill him. For thirty years he had been in hiding, living a good life somewhere off the grid. Volkov was good. Innovative. He’d even managed to stay in the loop, being fed many of Russia’s deepest, darkest secrets to the present day.
The Devil understood why. It was how you stayed alive. It was all about leverage and bargaining chips. Volkov was a master.
And then something changed. The master made a mistake. Everyone did, except the Devil of course. Volkov somehow fell in love with some woman. The Devil had been shocked to the core on learning this bit of information. To a spy, any spy, the opposite sex were poison. Volkov appeared to have decided that thirty years of exile was enough. Well, all the better for the Devil.
The reason was simple. Volkov was still privy to all the sensitive and speculative information that came out of Russia daily, sometimes hourly. He’d maintained all the old contacts and used those people to cultivate new ones. Clearly, he’d stashed a fortune during his spying days. All spies did. The Devil didn’t blame them. Sooner or later, the people they worked for always tried to get rid of their countrymen. The very nature of what they did made them prime targets.
The Devil knew some of those Russian spies, the ones feeding Volkov. He knew they couldn’t be turned. They had no families, no loves in this world. He maintained vigilance over them only because spying on the spies made him feel powerful. But then, weeks ago, something had paid off.
A man who worked for the Blood King—the Devil remembered his name well from their stay on the island—contacted a Russian spy who, days later, passed the intelligence on to Volkov. It was initially black-flagged, which meant highest priority. This meant presidential ears only and a huge payday for the Russian spy who leaked whatever it was to Volkov.
Consequently then, Volkov knew something about the Blood King only the Russian president was supposed to know, and it had been fed to him by an informer.
The timing was perfect as, a week later, Volkov set off on his romantic voyage.
The Devil knew it was all mostly lifelong habit, this information gathering. Volkov hadn’t been able to let go. He’d have no plans to use any of the information. He wished to remain in hiding, but without cutting the umbilical cord that tied him to the world of secrets, and which somehow made him feel he was still a part of it.
The Devil wanted Volkov’s information on the Blood King. Volkov now had a weakness—th
e perfect weakness—that could be exploited. The Devil wanted to destroy the Blood King, and this was the first and potentially only chance he would ever get. Once Volkov’s information stockpile had been bled dry, he would be exterminated with enormous prejudice.
The Devil had been contacted by Volkov’s old bosses about the same time. They had similar information regarding Volkov. Once a tap opened in this business it flowed until it ran dry, which usually meant someone was dead. The Devil had contracted with them to kill Volkov. He had then employed the Somalian pirates to do the dirty work.
Information from the Indian Ocean was fitful. Salene was reporting that efforts to find Volkov were continuing.
Continuing?
The Devil didn’t like that phrase at all. It implied failure. They had been on the boat for more than two days. On the other hand, Volkov was good. One of the best there had ever been. This was the only reason the Devil was showing some leniency for Salene and his pirate rabble.
We will have Volkov today.
Salene’s most recent communication. The Devil had asked about their plans for the final act.
They are in place.
Good. At least a pirate could be trusted to handle a simple operation. What an inauspicious end for such a significant career. The Devil wondered what Volkov had been up to for thirty years.
But that didn’t matter. Not really. He turned on the spot now, an unusually tall man with well-built arms corded with muscle. He was an intimidating man even to those that didn’t know what he was. He was bald now. He carried himself with the confidence and disdain of a man that expected to be obeyed. Women looked twice at him. Men tried not to see him.
He retraced his steps back to the new compound.
Everything was under cover. The vehicles, from trucks to SUVs to desert jeeps and dirt bikes. The ops center with its bank of computer screens and information centers. The dwellings for the three people he allowed to work alongside him.
The Devil himself enjoyed the largest home—a comfortable fusing together of three large, abandoned houses. They’d changed nothing on the outside for obvious reasons. Inside, it was a different matter entirely. The Devil didn’t live in filth or shabbiness; he was accustomed to certain luxuries.
Air conditioning being one of them. He headed home now, crossing the dusty, overgrown, abandoned street to a broken-down, unassuming gateway. Beyond that, a passage ran between two houses. There was a door to the right. The Devil entered through that, enjoying the strong gust of air that instantly cooled his face.
This was another operations room, the third on the complex. The Devil was accustoming himself to this new life. It was different; he wasn’t in charge of much compared to when he’d been the king of the island, but even the imagined demotion allowed him to devote his attentions to more important matters.
Work.
The trouble with seizing an ocean liner was that he couldn’t get eyes inside. Proper eyes. His eyes. He had a number of satellites he could hack, but an aerial view of an anchored ship didn’t help an awful lot. Salene was his only point of information. Normally the Devil would introduce a spy, either among the people helping him or among the passengers. This time, he’d been forced to move far more quickly than he was comfortable with.
But the payoff was worth the risk.
Or it would be if Salene came through. They needed to identify Volkov and his girlfriend. Once that task was done, the rest would be easy.
He didn’t trust Salene. The so-called African kingpin was nothing but a jumped-up warlord, barely a step removed from the machete-wielding thugs he controlled. His home was known as Tin-Shack Hill on the quiet, a guarded area to be sure but hardly private, hardly safe.
The Devil sat back, wondering if all his plans were coming together. Revenge on the Blood King was high on his list. Finding Volkov facilitated that. It also enhanced the Devil’s rep with the old Soviet diehards. The new HQ was all but complete. The Devil remained at the top of the game.
Devil’s Junction, he thought.
It had a ring to it. A good name for his new home. It wasn’t as good as the Devil’s Arse—which apparently was a real place in England—but it was good enough. Here, the Devil could flourish in America. There was an excess of jobs being offered on this continent. Already, due to the spreading of the Amazon forest fires, some people were offering good money to infiltrate the Brazilian government. There were the cartels in Mexico, the politicians in DC, the three-letter agencies from east to west. They all covertly sought his business. Nothing was sacred anymore. These people waged secret wars just to maintain their country’s international standing. They fostered unrest. The Devil sat back and considered his position—wondering which direction he should take concerning protection. Did he stay low-profile or should he build an army?
Where would the Blood King strike next? How hard would he hit, and would it involve the SPEAR team again?
Coincidentally, the same team that had been called to deal with the Somali pirates. This was the second time they had crossed his path.
It was a good question, but with nineteen mini-nukes at Kovalenko’s disposal, the answer was undetermined. It could be anywhere on the planet.
Volkov had to be found at all costs.
The Devil waited for Salene to call.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Volkov—now known as Kirby—knew his and Mary’s life depended on him remaining undetected aboard the ocean liner, Le Rabot. For days now he had stayed aloof, a man alone, because the pirates were clearly searching for older couples. He was protecting Mary. He would do anything to protect her. Anything at all.
There had been an initial whispered conversation, a rushed, difficult series of whispers where he told her to stay clear of him. He made an excuse up on the spot—surprised to see how good at it he still was—and told her he’d overheard one of the pirates saying they were going to rinse the couples for everything they’d got. The fearful and beseeching look in her eyes told him she was confused but would go along with it. Volkov hated himself for making it harder on her.
She knew nothing of his past. At least, nothing before six months ago. What little she thought she knew was made up. But there was no getting away from the fact that they now had a delicate problem.
Volkov stayed clear of her in the restaurant. Constantly, she caught his eye, imploring with her expression, asking him what the hell was going on. Volkov offered a reassuring smile, leaning on years of experience to remain calm and get through this.
The pirates cajoled, threatened and struck the older folks. They had their sport with the younger ones too, putting a debilitating fear into them. They ruled the restaurant with their blood-stained knives and battered old AKs, stalking between tables, kicking and swearing until they felt better about themselves and their own plights. To start, there were three of them. Volkov then saw two more—two vicious, murderous men who, surprisingly, disappeared never to be seen again.
Volkov was still a world-class spy. He saw everything.
Four new faces appeared early on. Volkov might never have noticed them, save for their unmistakable military bearing and the way the women stared at the pirates—with violence and hatred in their eyes.
He saw two or more of these newcomers vanish on an evening. Were they here to save the passengers or were they here for him?
The big question. Volkov was fully aware that any government in the world still considered him a significant target. It was all about the connections. It was entirely possible the four newcomers were SEALs or something similar, placed on board to locate and kill all of the pirates.
Not possible. Unquestionable.
Volkov stayed clear of them. Every time a man or woman was questioned, he was forced to hide his head and close his ears. It was horrendous. They were suffering because he refused to reveal his identity.
For Mary.
Volkov had been alone and happy for almost thirty years when Mary came along. She was a waitress, a smiling, happy face in
a place where Volkov had become accustomed to tedium. She was a bright light in the darkness of his existence. Hiding out wasn’t glamorous. It was mind-numbing.
Volkov checked her past and credentials, found nothing untoward, and relaxed in her presence. The café she worked at became his regular haunt. When the place was quiet, she came over and seated herself at his table to talk to him, conversing intelligently and with laughter, reminding him that there was a cheerful world out there. Not all of it was besmirched by war.
One day, Volkov came close to leaving the town entirely. He knew he was falling for her. From afar, he saw her moving conservatively through the outdoor tables, her smile a breath of fresh air, her presence a balm and a draw that cast an aura over the entire café. She carried sunshine and happiness wherever she went. Then, abruptly, Volkov saw a small thin man grab her wrist, complaining that his drink was cold, shouting into her face. Even Volkov was shocked at the sudden violence.
Volkov saw her smile vanish to be replaced by utter misery, something she concealed well every day, and his teeth gritted. His fists clenched. He wanted to kill that nasty, uncaring customer, wanted to grind the man’s bones to dust. It was then he realized the depth of his feelings for Mary.
A day later, the complaining customer was dead, giving an unheard and low-key warning to those that treated service staff unfairly around the world.
It’s okay to complain, Volkov had told him before he slit his throat. Just do it with kindness.
A day after that, Volkov had asked Mary to dinner. Even as he spoke the words, he knew he was making a mistake, but couldn’t help himself. The next few weeks were glorious. Volkov found a new lease of life. He treated Mary with the utmost respect, the way he wanted to be treated. He wanted her to quit her job, but never made any mention of it. She enquired about his past, but never pushed. They were compatible, gracious and open-hearted.
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