[James Ryker 01.0] The Red Cobra

by Rob Sinclair

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘The Georgians.’

  It was the same conclusion Ryker had already come to. Some of the answers Ryker was searching for were certainly falling into place. The hack attack by Miguel Ramos. The profile of Anna Abayev. The Georgians were blackmailing Patrick Walker, extorting money from him. In the midst of that, they’d found out that Kim wasn’t who she said she was. When Ramos linked her to the Red Cobra’s profile, the mob killed her to settle an old score.

  But that still didn’t answer who was behind the operation. Or who Kim Walker really was. Or why the Red Cobra was now here.

  ‘I’m not part of that,’ Eva said. ‘You have to believe me.’

  ‘Yeah. The problem, Eva, is that I have a hard time believing anything you say.’

  The noise of a car engine caught their attention. They turned to see Green’s Ford pulling into the car park. He brought the Ford to a stop right by where Eva and Ryker were standing.

  ‘Him?’ Eva said.

  ‘He’s with Walker. You’ll be safe,’ Ryker said, seeing the look of concern in Eva’s eyes. Her being handed over to the police was probably the last thing her father wanted.

  ‘Patrick hates me.’ Eva let out a big sigh.

  ‘Yeah but this is better than the alternative, I’d say.’

  Green walked up to them. ‘What the hell is going on, Ryker?’ He sounded less than impressed.

  ‘Trust me. Keep her safe. The Red Cobra is still out there.’

  Ryker made to walk away. Green held out his hand to stop him.

  ‘Where are you going? I’m not a nanny, you know. I’m supposed to be out here investigating a murder, not cooking dinner for rich people.’

  Ryker huffed. He was in two minds. He didn’t fully trust Green, and he’d never been good at working with others. But he also knew that Green could be of assistance. The problem was Ryker didn’t want to draw Green into his murky world. Ryker had never had a problem with the morality of tracking down and killing the bad guys. For many years that’s exactly what had been asked of him by the JIA. But Green was a policeman, a detective, someone who lived by rules and laws. Bringing him on board for what was to come would put Green in a position from which there was simply no return.

  And men like Sergei? Ryker didn’t want him arrested and put into a courtroom. Men like that didn’t deserve anything more than they dished out.

  ‘You don’t want to be part of this,’ Ryker said to Green. ‘Trust me on that.’

  Green seemed to understand. He stepped back.

  ‘Thank you,’ Eva said. She moved up to Ryker and wrapped her arms around him.

  Ryker glanced over at Green with an awkward look on his face. When Eva was done hugging him, she reached up and kissed Ryker on his cheek. Green had to hold back his smirk at Ryker’s stiff response.

  ‘Such a charmer, Ryker,’ Green called out as he turned to head back to his car.

  Ryker watched as Eva followed Green to the Ford. Ryker wondered whether he would ever see Eva Kozlov again.

  Minutes later, Ryker was back on the road, heading west to Algeciras.

  It was time to fight the mob head on.

  53

  The journey to the port city of Algeciras was smooth and untroubled. Ryker made one stop on the way, to collect supplies for the mission ahead. He made a call to Lisa but, as was becoming the norm, it rang out unanswered.

  On arriving in Algeciras, Ryker found the address he’d been given by Miguel Ramos using the map on his phone. The building was on the outskirts of the town centre, a small and rundown office block, two stories tall. Similar buildings lay either side; none of them appeared to be occupied.

  After waiting for an opportunity where he wouldn’t be spotted by the few passersby, Ryker used a torsion wrench and a pick to quickly release the single lock on the ageing door.

  He stepped inside and looked around. As he expected from the outside, the building didn’t appear to be in use. There was no furniture or fittings. The lights weren’t working, suggesting the electric was disconnected. Ryker could only assume the address was used to add authenticity to legal documents drawn up for the mob’s operations. The fact there was only two days’ worth of mail lying by the front door – judging by the postmarks – suggested routine pick-ups were made.

  Ryker didn’t hang around. He saw no point. The only person he was likely to come across there would be a simple lackey out on errands.

  Back in the car, Ryker plugged the second address into his phone. It turned out it wasn’t in Cadiz the city, but a rural location a half hour drive from Algeciras. Ryker soon found himself on twisting country roads heading over the hills and mountains that surrounded the Andalusian coastline.

  When he was a mile from the destination, the road turned from tarmac to a simple dirt track covered in thick yellow dust. Ryker took a look at the map on his phone as he drove. He could see no indication of a town or even a village out here on the map; nor were there any signposts indicating what lay ahead. Ryker could only assume the address was a farm of some sort. His mind took him back to the conversation he’d had with Eva at the bullring, about her father’s friend owning a ranch where he trained fighting bulls.

  If Ryker was heading to a secluded ranch owned by someone who was either connected to, or a member of, the Georgian mafia, he didn’t want to announce himself.

  He was a little over half a mile away when he spotted another dirt track snaking off to the left of his destination. Ryker took it. He passed over rolling hills and soon came to a small cluster of trees and parked his car. He was in the middle of a valley, hills surrounding him on all sides – a mixture of scrubland, olive farms and grassy fields, yellowed by the lack of water and never-ending sunshine.

  Ryker stepped from the car into the intense heat. He grabbed the compact binoculars he’d earlier purchased, and walked away from the car, in the direction of the address he was looking for. He crossed over a wooden fence into a field. The scorched grass underfoot crunched as he walked, almost as if it were frozen.

  Ryker kept on alert as he traipsed across the barren field, not just for people, but for animals. He didn’t fancy coming head to head with a young toro bravo – a Spanish fighting bull.

  When he reached the top of the hill, Ryker crouched down and slunk towards an isolated carob tree. From there, he now had an unobstructed view down to his destination, a few hundred yards in the distance.

  As he’d expected, it looked like a farm. As well as a large white house there were several outbuildings, including a big corrugated-iron barn. Ryker could see two vehicles parked by the house, a car and a pick-up truck.

  Ryker pulled the binoculars up and scoured the area. Both the car and the pick-up truck appeared old and battered, certainly not the type of vehicles he’d seen the Kozlovs driving around in Marbella. Ryker could now see one of the outbuildings was used as stables for horses. He also noticed a young woman – a teenager perhaps – tending to the animals. Other than that, there was no sign of life by the buildings. Ryker swung the binoculars around, searching the rest of the land.

  In the distance, beyond the house, he spotted two men on horseback in a field, circling around a horned bull. Ryker watched intently for a few moments. The men taunted the beast, moving around, in, and out, striking the bull with long sticks. Ryker’s mind again went back to the conversation with Eva in Ronda. She’d said the bulls chosen for fighting were never put in front of a man until the day they went into the ring. But men on horses wielding sticks? Perhaps that was okay.

  A loud and deep grunt caught Ryker’s attention. He felt his heart rate increase. He moved the binoculars away from his face and turned his head slowly. Sure enough, fifty yards away was a roaming bull. It was massive, its black coat silken and shining in the bright sunlight. The bull was walking past Ryker, heading toward where he’d come from. Ryker remained still, knowing that any sudden movement would be enough not just to alert the beast but possibly to cause it to charge.
r />   Ryker stared at the bull: at its towering horns weaving in the air, the huge hulk of muscle around its neck and its hind legs shuddering with each step it took. Ryker could feel his heart thudding, so he took long and slow breaths. He had a gun on him; he was sure he could shoot and kill the bull before he came to any harm. Even so, being out in the open and so close to such a fearsome animal was nerve-racking.

  When the animal headed over the lip of the hill, Ryker breathed a sigh of relief. He was caught in two minds for a moment. So far he’d seen nothing on the ranch that suggested this was a hangout for the mob. He could go back to his car and get out of there. But what would he do next? Miguel Ramos had found this address through his digging into Empire Holdings. There had to be a connection somewhere, something of interest for Ryker to find.

  He’d already made up his mind to move closer to the buildings when the sound of a car engine caught his ear.

  Seconds later, a large black luxury saloon car came into view, dust swirling out from behind it. As it parked by the farmhouse, an SUV and a panel van followed it in and parked alongside. The van wasn’t the one in which Sergei had escaped from Malaga, this one was blue rather than grey, but it was a similar type.

  Ryker pulled the binoculars back up to get a better look. Several men stepped from the vehicles. None appeared to be armed. All wore dark clothes and most of them were big and bulky and menacing. Muscle.

  But not all of them. One man was much slighter in height and frame, yet Ryker sensed the danger of the man nonetheless. Sergei.

  54

  Ryker clenched his fist around the binoculars. He was tempted to blast his way down to the farmhouse there and then, take out Sergei and be done with it. But he couldn’t. He had to know what was happening. Who the men were and why they were there.

  One of the men came over to the black car, opened the back passenger door, and helped out another man. Ryker knew as soon as he laid eyes on the man what he was looking at. The Pakhan. The mob boss.

  The boss was in his sixties, possibly seventies. He had wispy white hair, a protruding nose, and a pockmarked face. His grey eyes, set deep in his face, were glasslike. He wore a clean black suit with a white shirt underneath, though the edges of his Vor tattoos – which, Ryker guessed, covered his whole back and torso – were visible above his shirt collar and his cuffs.

  The old man hobbled along, supported by a silvery cane in his hand. Ryker debated for a few seconds. He had a gun and enough bullets to take out each of the men who’d just arrived, but that was surely a step too far. He had a beef with Sergei, but Ryker didn’t know enough about the rest of the men – what their crimes may be – to go in there all guns blazing. In any case, it was an unnecessarily risky approach.

  But he had to do something.

  Ryker waited until the men had moved away. All but one of them headed inside the white house. The man who remained outside, the biggest and meanest looking of the lot, stood guard by the front door. But from his lazy and bored manner, Ryker quickly determined the guy wasn’t much of a guard. He was a physical deterrent rather than a trained watchman.

  Over the next ten minutes, Ryker stealthily moved across the field to within yards of the house, using the natural undulations of the land as well as sporadic trees and the odd cluster of foliage to stay hidden from view. He pulled up alongside a picket fence; then, when the opportunity arose, he jumped the fence and rushed toward the black car.

  Ryker came to a stop by the back end of the vehicle. He crouched low and held his breath for a few seconds, listening to the sounds around him. There was no indication anyone had been alerted by his movement.

  After a few more seconds, Ryker risked a glance around the back of the car, over to the house. The big guy was still standing there, lazily watching the area in front of him. Ryker pulled his head back in, then reached into his pocket for the new pay-as-you-go mobile phone he’d purchased when he’d stopped en route to Algeciras. He’d charged the phone’s battery in the car and had downloaded a free GPS tracking app that would allow him to trace not just the location of the phone but whether it was still or moving, and also its speed and direction of travel. The new phone was now Ryker’s own remote tracker, which he could easily follow on the internet browser of his first phone.

  Ryker took out the roll of packing tape he’d bought and ripped off two six-inch lengths. Then, moving down closer to the ground, he carefully secured the phone to the underside of the car. It wasn’t ideal. The tape would hold the phone in place, but only for so long. And even if the tape held, Ryker would only be able to track the phone as long as the battery had juice.

  If he hadn’t been hindered by the guy at the door and the possible threat inside the house, Ryker would have found a way into the car and hardwired the phone into the car’s electronics so that it remained charged on the car’s battery. That simply wasn’t possible in the circumstances.

  He hoped what he’d done would be good enough.

  Ryker was finished here. He peeked under the car and noted that the big guy’s shoes remained stationary by the front door. Ryker was about to move off, back the way he’d sneaked in, when he heard banging and voices. Ryker froze and he could do nothing to stop his heart suddenly drumming. He quickly looked under the car again. Several sets of feet were coming from the house. If they headed over to the cars, Ryker only had one option left. He reached down and gripped the Colt, then slowly and carefully pulled it free.

  The men were talking, shouting, and laughing. Most of the chat that Ryker could decipher was Russian, but there was a second language too – the distinctive guttural sounds of Georgian. Ryker could barely speak a word of it, but he’d heard the unusual tongue enough times to recognise it.

  He stole another glance under the car. He counted seven men in total. They weren’t moving, just milling about outside the entrance to the house. Then an eighth pair of feet walked up. The chatter died down as the new arrival spoke, then all the men moved off, away from the cars, towards the stables at the side of the house.

  Ryker breathed a long, slow sigh, then he quickly moved away from the car. As soon as he was out of sight, he began his covert walk back through the fields.

  Soon after, Ryker looked over the lip of the final hill, feeling relief as he peered down to where he’d earlier parked his car. But his relief was short-lived when he spotted the bull that had previously passed him by obliviously. It didn’t look like Ryker would be so lucky a second time.

  The bull was loitering casually alongside the fence, at the other side of which was Ryker’s car. And there was simply no other way for Ryker to get there – at least not without putting himself in view of the men at the ranch.

  Ryker crept forward, his hand at his hip, determined not to use the Colt unless he had to, but wanting to be ready to grab it. The bull spotted Ryker, and both he and the animal stopped moving, twenty yards apart. For nearly a minute, it was stalemate. The bull snorted, grunted, and banged one of its front feet into the dusty ground. Clearly, it was not about to turn and walk away from the confrontation – and Ryker didn’t want to stand there all day hoping the animal changed its mind.

  Ryker took a step sideways toward the fence. The bull huffed. Ryker took another cautious step. Then another.

  And then the bull charged.

  All of a sudden, a thousand pounds of snarling flesh and muscle and bone raced toward Ryker. Thoughts crashed through his mind, but other than shooting, there was only one thing to do. Ryker ran. Even though he knew the bull could run far faster than he could, it was the only viable option. He hoped he’d judged the distances correctly.

  Ryker sprinted as fast as he could toward the fence. His arms and legs beat frantically as he strained every muscle in his body. He didn’t look behind him; he didn’t need to – he could hear the heavy and angry panting of the bull, closing in with every step.

  The fence was within touching distance. Ryker threw himself at it. His foot caught the lowest rung of wood. He bent at the knee and
propelled himself upwards and over. Before he’d even hit the ground in a clumsy, crumpled heap, the bull smashed into the wooden construction. The whole structure shuddered and gave a couple of inches. The bull hit it again, grunting angrily. Ryker had no doubt the animal could tear the whole thing down if it wanted to.

  He didn’t want to hang around and find out if he was right.

  With the bull sniffing and snarling, its beady eyes fixed squarely on its foe, Ryker clambered to his feet and rushed for the car.

  55

  Ryker took the opportunity over the next few hours to rest up and eat, having found a roadside restaurant and bar not far from Algeciras. He kept one eye on his phone’s screen the whole time, watching the red dot that represented the location of the mob boss’s car. It didn’t move during the first three hours following Ryker’s hasty departure from the ranch, and he wondered whether the device had been found.

  Then, with darkness approaching, there was finally some action. Ryker remained in the bar as he watched the dot moving along the map. It wormed towards the coast, at one point coming to within a mile of where Ryker was sitting, before carrying on towards the city. And there it stopped, in the heart of the city’s commercial dockyards.

  Which was exactly where Ryker headed.

  It was nine p.m. by the time Ryker reached the docks. He scoped out the place where the boss’s car had stopped – an industrial warehouse – on a drive-by, before parking his car in a nearby street. He made his way on foot toward the warehouse, taking a twisting route through the dockyards, to avoid being seen, as much as he could.

  The docks themselves were a hive of action despite the hour. Giant cranes loomed into the sky lining the front of the port where three massive ships were docked. The cranes, looking like gigantic robots, beavered away with a roaring mechanical whir, removing and stacking large sea containers that clanked and crashed into position. Huge spotlights lit up much of the area with thick white light but there was enough cover from the containers and sporadic low-profile buildings for Ryker to creep about in the darkness unseen.