[James Ryker 01.0] The Red Cobra

by Rob Sinclair

  ‘They were the reason Anna was killed!’

  ‘No!’ Ryker said. ‘It was Kozlov. Sergei. Giorgi. They’re the ones.’

  Ryker was about to add and they’re dead. But were they all?

  ‘Kozlov. Where is he?’ he said instead.

  Catalina smiled. Or grimaced. Ryker wasn’t sure. He knew what the gesture meant. Kozlov was dead all right. It was no loss to the world. But Walker and Eva? Ryker believed they were worth saving. As much as he disliked them, they didn’t deserve to die.

  ‘You’ve had your revenge,’ Ryker said. ‘It’s over. No more.’

  He saw the look of doubt creep into her eyes. Deep down, she must know it too.

  In a sudden burst of strength, Ryker strained every last sinew in his body. Fighting through the pain, he let out a cry of determination as he lifted up his body, taking the Red Cobra with him. He was on his feet, her body wrapped around him. He slammed her down onto her back, crushing her with his body weight. The blow knocked the wind out of her. He quickly prised the knife from her fingers and pulled the blade up against her throat.

  ‘It’s over, Catalina.’ He stared at her coldly.

  She huffed– anger, sadness, shock? Plenty of fight left in her head, he figured, but none in her body.

  She was at Ryker’s mercy.

  ‘Remember Berlin?’ she said, squirming to get Ryker to release the pressure on her chest to allow her to breathe. He gave her an inch.

  ‘You could have joined me,’ Ryker said. ‘Instead you killed Gazinsky.’

  ‘Potanin had me,’ she said. ‘He’d found Anna. He was going to kill her. That’s why I had to leave you. That’s why I had to kill Gazinsky; it was the only way. Potanin wanted me to kill you too. I thought I could, but –’

  ‘Maybe you should have.’

  ‘Instead I ran. Anna too. She came here for a new life.’

  ‘And you killed Potanin.’

  ‘Yes. Because of you. But that man, Carl Logan, the one I couldn’t kill–’

  ‘I told you already. That man is dead.’

  Ryker rolled off her and got to his feet. He held out his hand. Catalina looked at it. She took a second before reaching out and grabbing it. Ryker hauled her to her feet. ‘I said I’ll kill you if I have to. But I don’t have to. Walker, Eva, though. They get to live. That’s the deal.’

  Ryker turned the knife around and held the blade as he pushed the handle out toward Catalina.

  She looked down at it.

  ‘No. I don’t need that anymore,’ she said. ‘The Red Cobra is dead too.’

  61

  The sun was coming up over the mountains, casting a warm yellow glow over the ranch, as Ryker drove away in Giorgi’s luxury saloon car. He left Catalina Abayev at the scene. He wasn’t sure what she’d do next, where she’d go. He hadn’t asked because in truth he didn’t want to know.

  The Red Cobra had long before retired from life as an assassin. A family tradition, something she’d been born into. She’d been off the radar for years for good reason; she’d been in hiding, ever since disobeying Potanin – by not taking out Logan and Mackie – and then killing him. It was only following the murder of her sister, Anna, aka Kim Walker, that the Red Cobra had come back to life.

  Now that her vengeance was complete, it was time to retire the moniker for good.

  Ryker’s first port of call was Walker’s villa in Mijas. Green was there, Eva too, along with quite the mini-infantry of armed policemen. Ryker said what he needed to say to Green: he explained what he’d seen happening in the warehouse in Algeciras, and that Kozlov and Giorgi were now gone.

  Although shocked, Green looked visibly relieved. As though a weight had been lifted. Perhaps Ryker’s previous hunch had been right: Green had been silenced, or at least Kozlov or the Georgians had put pressure on him not to dig into their business. That was fine. Green was a good man. He was simply out of his depth thrust so close to the seedy and dangerous world that had been ruled by Giorgi.

  Ryker didn’t stay long. He said a cursory goodbye to Walker, who didn’t thank Ryker for saving his life. Whatever. Ryker had never cared for the rich man.

  He had a more heartfelt goodbye for Eva, who Ryker now felt greater sympathy for. She wasn’t all bad – misguided perhaps – and she’d been born into a family entrenched in the criminal underworld. What could she do about that? And that world had just been shattered. Her father was dead – his body had been found at a remote property near Alhaurin where he’d been hiding. Good riddance, Ryker thought.

  Eva was angry. Upset. Lost. She needed to find her way in life. It would take time, but perhaps she’d come out the other side of her grief okay. There was hope for her yet, Ryker believed.

  Either way, Eva Kozlov wasn’t his problem.

  After leaving Walker’s home, Ryker made a call to Lisa as he headed east back towards Malaga. It wasn’t a surprise when the call went straight to voicemail, though at that moment, Ryker could have done with the comfort of hearing her voice. He left her a message to say he would be home soon, then called Winter. The JIA commander had already learned of both the gun battle in Algeciras and the bloody scene up at the ranch in the mountains.

  Ridding the world of a scourge like Giorgi was a good thing, both men knew. But they also knew that if you cut an arm off the mafia, another simply grows back. The mob weren’t gone for good. Someone would move in to fill Giorgi’s shoes. At least Ryker's exploits in Andalusia, the Red Cobra’s too for that matter, had blown the Georgian mafia’s operations wide open. Maybe Spanish law enforcement could do their jobs now and keep the fight going.

  Winter was less pleased about the fate of Catalina Abayev. He’d wanted the Red Cobra dead. Ryker didn’t know the details of why Winter felt so strongly about that. He could only assume the Red Cobra had history with the JIA that he didn’t know about. Maybe she’d worked against the JIA. Maybe she’d even worked for them. Ryker had tried to recruit the Red Cobra many years earlier but had failed. Perhaps others had been more successful. If so, that meant she knew things that the JIA wanted kept quiet.

  To Winter and the JIA, any ex-asset was simply a liability.

  Ryker put himself in that boat too. So he certainly wouldn’t feel justified in killing Catalina simply because she was no longer on the payroll of the JIA. She was only a threat if she felt threatened herself. Ryker trusted his instinct on that.

  ‘What will you do now?’ Winter asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ryker said, though his natural instinct was that he and Lisa would go on the run once more. A new location. Two new identities. It was the safest thing to do. ‘I did what you asked. It’s over, Winter.’

  ‘Do you really believe that? No matter how far you run or what you do to hide, deep down you’ll always be that man. Carl Logan. You know I can always use a man like that.’

  ‘No,’ Ryker said defiantly. ‘I’m not him.’

  His time in Andalusia had made Ryker question his life. What he’d come to realise was that he’d never escape his past. Some part of that man – the JIA’s machine – would always be inside him. But he really wasn’t the same person anymore.

  For a second or two, his mind took him back to Eva. Then to the Red Cobra. The ranch. Being strung up and tortured. How he’d felt so vulnerable and feeble and... human. He thought of the moment when he’d held a knife against the Red Cobra’s neck. The old him would have killed her on the spot. But he hadn’t.

  Because he was no longer that man.

  ‘What am I? I don’t know,’ Ryker said. ‘But I’m not the same. In fact I’m different in many ways. The last few days have taught me that.’

  ‘Then who are you?’

  ‘I’m James,’ Ryker said, smiling. ‘James Ryker.’

  The same day, Ryker was on a plane back home. He’d not yet seen a doctor about his mangled hand, and his body was covered in bruises, cuts and scratches. He needed drugs. He needed rest.

  But he wanted to be with Lisa.

  By
the time Ryker made it back to his home, it was night-time the next day. The connecting flights hadn’t been kind to Ryker and he’d spent hours in airports trying his best to catch some much-needed rest on rows of hard metallic chairs. Even if he hadn’t been beaten and bruised, he’d have been a groggy mess from the travelling alone.

  But as he stepped through the front doorway, into his space, for a moment he suddenly felt alive again.

  The feeling didn’t last long, though. He’d expected to hear the patter of feet. To have Lisa bound up to him, wrap her arms around him, and sink her head into his chest. It was a moment he’d been longing for for days.

  Instead, he was greeted by a dark, cold, silent house. He flipped on the lights.

  The open plan room – kitchen, lounge, diner – was spotless, no clothes or mess anywhere. Ryker frowned as he walked through the space and into the bedroom. The bed was made. Everything looked tidy and neat... unused.

  Ryker took out his phone. No messages, no missed calls. He dialled Lisa. He heard a buzzing. He moved out of the bedroom, following the noise. There on the coffee table in the lounge was Lisa’s vibrating phone.

  Ryker killed the call, and felt a sickly, unfamiliar feeling. Was it worry or sorrow or guilt or all three? He painstakingly searched the rest of the house. There was no fresh food or milk in the fridge, nothing to suggest she’d been there recently. All of her clothes and her few belongings appeared to be in place. There was no sign of a struggle, a break-in either.

  In a moment of doubt – or was it hope? – Ryker wondered whether maybe she’d walked out on him, run away to start a fresh life on her own. He couldn’t fathom why she would do that, but it was surely a better outcome than the other possibility. Could his going to Spain have caused her to leave him?

  He moved to the bedroom again, looked in the bedside drawer. Found her passport in the name of Lisa Ryker.

  No, she hadn’t run, he didn’t believe. One way or another, Lisa was in trouble. Winter had already tracked them down, despite their best efforts at hiding. Ryker’s only conclusion was that someone else had found them.

  And Ryker hadn't even been there to protect her. He felt a flood of guilt. While he’d been busy chasing an old flame through Spain, the love of his life had come to harm.

  He didn’t know who was responsible or why, but he would do everything he could to find out. To save her.

  Ryker quickly moved through the house, collecting the few possessions he needed – weapons, IDs, money. He headed to the front door and opened it, then turned to look back at his home, a place he had truly believed would become his sanctum. Their sanctum.

  Whatever had happened to Lisa, he knew that dream was gone.

  Ryker flicked off the lights and stepped out into the night. He shut the door behind him, and walked away.

  THE END

  James Ryker book 2 The Black Hornet

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  James Ryker Book 3 The Silver Wolf

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