Not today, though. Not without some major cleaning up first.
Ten metres away from the entrance, two men in dark suits were lying sprawled on their backs on the gleaming floor. Tassoni’s bodyguards. They hadn’t been there very long, because the blood pools around them hadn’t fully glazed yet. Ben put it at about twenty minutes. Both men had been shot.
Ben walked up to them. He wasn’t interested in the smaller, blonder of the two guys. It was the big one who caught his attention, and held it. Standing up, he would have towered over Ben by maybe four inches. The cut of his suit couldn’t hide the weight-room bulk of his chest, shoulders and arms. But no amount of muscle could stop a bullet. One had punched through his left pec, straight through to the heart. That one probably hadn’t killed him outright, though. The fatal shot had split his dark glasses in half before blowing out the back of his head. Everything above the eyebrows was pretty much mulch. Below the eyebrows, the face was mostly intact. The dark glasses had fallen away to reveal the guy’s eyes, which were open and staring.
One brown. One hazel.
The big man had been going for his weapon when he’d died. The chunky .45 Ruger automatic was cupped loosely in his outflung hand. Ben scooped it up. It was loaded. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. First lesson Boonzie McCulloch had ever taught him, a long time back, and it had stuck.
He glanced around him, and that was when he noticed the foot poking through the banister rails. The shoe was shiny. Expensive Italian leather. He trod up the stairs to see more, but he already knew whose foot he was seeing.
Which was just as well, because Tassoni’s whole face was missing. The generous blood spatter and the bullet hole in the staircase wall told Ben that the politician had taken one shot to the head while still on his feet, then a second after he’d gone down.
Not the messiest headshot Ben had ever seen, but not too far from it.
It ain’t a lump of coal, he thought.
That first shot had gone right through Tassoni’s head and into the wall. Ben stepped carefully over the body and examined the hole in the plaster. It was neat and clean, about the right size to have been drilled by a .38 or .357 handgun bullet. He could see through it into the next room. There were no shell casings lying about, which meant either the shooter had picked them up, or he’d used a revolver. Three targets, two shots each, added up to six. A revolver made sense. It also tallied ballistic-wise. The most penetrative handgun calibre Ben had used in an automatic pistol had been the .357 SIG cartridge, back in his army days. It had been conceived by a military mind with the purpose of providing a little more power than the standard 9mm auto rounds. But not even the .357 SIG could punch through a man’s skull and out the other side, removing most of his head before going straight through the wall behind him.
Whereas a revolver round like the .357 Magnum was a whole different concept. That hadn’t been developed by a soldier, but by a big-game hunter called Elmer Keith, back in 1934. Keith had been more concerned with taking down elk at three hundred metres than a man at room distance. Forty-four thousand pounds per square inch of pressure, enough to drive the bullet through an engine block. Which was precisely why no soldier would use one for close-quarter work. Too penetrative. Not even the SAS could see through walls and tell who might be standing in the next room, waiting to catch a stray round. A comrade. An innocent civilian. A hostage. A kid. And the calibre’s sheer power was also the reason why no professional assassin would choose it, especially not for close-up indoor kills in a residential area. A .357 Magnum revolver was impossible to silence. Not just difficult. Impossible. And ear-splittingly loud, a brutal high-pitched bark combined with a supersonic crack, that added up to just a few decibels short of standing next to a jumbo jet on take-off. A sound that could carry for miles.
So in the three seconds Ben spent assessing the situation, he knew he was seeing more inconsistencies. A professional kill, executed in a decidedly unprofessional manner. More odd notes struck in his mind.
But now wasn’t the time to try to figure it out. He trotted back down the stairs to the hallway and began checking rooms. The first was a dining room with a long table and a grand piano. The next was some kind of scullery. The third door he tried led to a small room with a row of security monitors on the wall and a table covered in electronic equipment. The stack of four DVD recorders on a professional rack-mounting system looked state of the art. The spaghetti of wires running from the backs of the machines trailed across to a splitter box that it wasn’t hard to guess was wired up to the CCTV system. All four disc ports on the machines were open. The discs had been removed, and with them the cameras’ testimony to the events of the day. The security system was a blind witness to everything that had happened since.
Ben would have liked more time to spend going through Tassoni’s home. He was short on clues as to what the hell this was all about. But the sound of police sirens outside, still some way off and getting steadily closer, told him that his time was running short. He ran back out into the hall and through a door to the right of the stairs that led into a plush living room. Beyond that was a sprawling conservatory and sliding glass doors that led out to back garden. Skirting the L-shaped pool, he made his way across the patio to the long stretch of lawn that led all the way to the far garden wall. Quickly climbing over it, he dropped down into the neighbouring garden. Kiddies’ swings, a tennis court, a patch of woods. He slipped into the trees and was gone before the first in the wailing convoy of police cars made it to Tassoni’s front gates.
Chapter Thirty-Two
London
Inside a sealed operations room, on the top floor of a tall, modern, closely guarded building whose real identity and purpose was kept strictly secret from the public, nine people were gathered around a table. If the room had had any windows, the view would have been a spectacular panorama that took in the Thames, Westminster Bridge, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. The things that were seen and discussed inside were kept carefully away from prying eyes and ears, but through the giant LCD screen that dominated the far end of the room, those granted access had a window on the world whose reach was virtually limitless. From the comfort of their chairs they could monitor events in any location of the world as they unfolded. Zoom in on individual players close enough to count the hairs on their heads and track them anywhere they wished. All beamed to them from space in crisp hi-definition colour, controlled by the small team of technicians in uniforms and headsets who were seated on the other side of a wall of soundproof plate glass.
The most senior member of the group, presiding from the head of the table, was a slender, grey-haired man called Mason Ferris. Even to his closest aides, seasoned veterans like Brewster Blackmore seated to his right and the steely-eyed Patricia Yemm on his left, Ferris was a legend. His present occupation was even less a matter of public record than the details of his past military career. His mere presence in the room commanded absolute deference.
Of all the people around the table, nobody was more in awe of Ferris than Jamie Lister, at twenty-nine by far the youngest and rawest recruit to the team, freshly promoted from the GCHQ spy centre at Cheltenham. He just hoped that he wouldn’t look like these guys when he got to their age. Ferris was a gnarled skeleton of man. By contrast, Blackmore looked like he lived on an exclusive lard diet, with skin that hadn’t seen sunlight for decades. None of the rest looked much better. Lister tried not to stare too much.
This was Lister’s first time in the operations room, and he felt as rigid and awkward as the stiff, prickly new suit he was wearing. From the moment he’d been admitted through security and taken his place in the room, he’d been aware of Brewster Blackmore’s watchful eyes darting his way every so often. From the little office gossip Lister had managed to pick up during his short time with the department, he’d learned that Blackmore lived to serve his lord and master Ferris. The man missed nothing, and reported everything.
The giant screen showed a c
risp aerial view of a large villa set in well-manicured gardens in a quiet suburb of Rome. The image was crisscrossed with gridlines, technical readouts and co-ordinates that constantly changed as the satellite panned slowly to follow the lone figure emerging from the rear of the house. They watched as he moved stealthily across the grounds, vaulted the wall at the bottom of the garden and slipped into the trees in the neighbouring property. The satellite’s gaze followed him as he made his way through the quiet streets. The watchers had no interest in the fleet of police cars swarming at the entrance of the villa he’d just left.
All nine at the table had an identical copy of the same classified file open in front of them. Everyone was by now thoroughly familiar with the details of the man whose movements they’d been following for the past twenty-four hours. They’d observed him being taken from the scene of the gallery robbery to hospital. Tracked his route to and from the Carabinieri HQ in Rome, and had been watching him via the CCTV airport security system when he’d strangely missed his flight and apparently decided to remain in Italy.
‘What are you up to, Mr Hope?’ Patricia Yemm said with a half-smile, watching intently as the figure onscreen walked the quiet suburban streets. The satellite image was magnified large. They could see the thoughtful bow of his head as he walked, the glow of his cigarette.
‘You mean, apart from destroying this entire operation?’ Blackmore said.
Ferris made an impatient gesture. ‘The question is, what do we do with him?’
Across the table from Jamie Lister, a large, square-shouldered man called Mack spoke for the first time. ‘I think we’d all agree that Hope’s involvement in this delicate situation represents a potentially disastrous liability for us. I mean, it’s sheer luck that he got out of there before the bloody police arrived. This was a carefully laid plan and he’s blundered into the middle of it – not just once, but twice now. He’s a loose cannon. I can see only one solution.’
‘I concur with that,’ said a woman to Lister’s left. She had dark brown hair cut short like a man’s, and bright red lipstick that glistened under the lights. The name tag on her jacket read Lesley Pollock.
There were nods and murmurs of assent from around the table. Lister looked down at the file in front of him and said nothing. His mouth was dry. There was a carafe of mineral water and nine glasses in the middle of the table, but he was aware of the unwritten rule that nobody would drink until Ferris did, out of deference.
‘Therefore I propose that we act to take him out of the picture,’ Mack said, looking solemnly up and down the table at his colleagues. ‘And try to see a clear way out of this God-awful mess we’re in.’
Patricia Yemm turned away from the screen and swivelled her chair close into the table. She tapped long red fingernails against the open file in front of her. ‘Are we sure we want to initiate terminal action against this man? He’s not the easiest of targets. It could get very ugly.’
‘Naturally, it needs to be quick and quiet,’ Mack said. ‘Difficult, not impossible. Nothing is impossible. That’s been proven time and again, by this department and others.’
Lesley Pollock pursed her lips and nodded. ‘It’s simply a question of selecting the most appropriate asset to allocate the task to. We have people on standby. Just takes a text message. Problem deleted.’
Lister’s mouth felt more parched with every passing minute. He’d known what to expect when he applied to join the department. Even so, the conversation seemed quite surreal to him. Problem deleted. They were discussing a man’s life here.
He thought about his father. He swallowed.
‘Have you read Hope’s file?’ Yemm said doubtfully, turning to look down the table at Mack and Pollock.
Mack flushed with irritation. ‘I’m perfectly aware of his capabilities. But he’s not the only one we’ve trained to that level. He can be taken out. And that’s the course of action I would advocate at this point. I frankly don’t think we’re left with a choice in the matter.’
Ferris had been listening carefully with his chin lowered to his chest. He clicked his tongue, and all eight heads turned, instantly attentive. ‘It’s my feeling,’ Ferris began, then interrupted himself to reach a long, bony hand across the table and pick up the carafe of water. He took his time pouring himself a glass, and sipped slowly. Lister seized the opportunity to fill a glass for himself, too. He drained it in a gulp. Blackmore watched him.
Ferris resumed, measuring his words carefully. ‘It’s my feeling that, while our friend here has most certainly been a liability for us up until now – and in principle I might agree with my esteemed colleague’s assessment – there’s an alternative course of action none of you appears to have considered.’
All eyes were fixed on Ferris, except for Mack, who seemed to have taken a sudden profound interest in the strap of his watch.
‘As I see it, Major Hope’s sudden and unexpected intrusion into the Urbano Tassoni situation works rather neatly in our favour,’ Ferris continued. ‘Under the circumstances, deletion is not the appropriate course of action. And I don’t want this dealt with privately. I want this man brought in alive, as noisily and publicly as possible.’
‘Sir, I’m not sure I follow,’ Lesley Pollock said, frowning.
Ferris smiled a dry smile. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands together. ‘Let me tell you about my grandfather,’ he said. ‘He was a colonel in the British army. During the twenties he spent some time in India, where, as a professional tracker and rifleman, he was commissioned by the rulers of several provinces to hunt down and destroy rogue tigers that were attacking and eating rural workers. Which he did, very successfully, thanks to certain methods.’
‘Sir?’
‘It’s really quite simple,’ Ferris said. ‘Bear with me. If I explain a little about how my grandfather worked, you’ll understand my thinking on this.’
Ferris went on, and his line of reasoning soon became clear.
Jamie Lister’s mouth went dry again as he listened. It was warm in the operations room, but fingers of ice seemed to be working their way around him. He stared at the table, knowing Blackmore was watching every twitch of his face for a response, and stayed resolutely blank.
‘And that’s how you catch a tiger,’ Ferris finished. He scanned the faces of his team. ‘Now do you understand? It’s a logical conclusion.’
Nobody argued.
‘So it’s agreed,’ Ferris said. ‘I want Hope in custody within the next twelve hours. Alert the Italian police.’
‘You expect them to bring him in, just like that?’ Mack said.
‘I do not. That’s why I want to send in one of our own to head up the task force.’
‘Department?’
Ferris shook his head. ‘Let’s keep back from this.’
‘We’re going to need someone very good,’ Yemm said, ‘if we’re to have a chance of catching him. Someone every bit as capable and smart as he is.’
Blackmore looked at her. ‘Did you have anyone in mind?’
Chapter Thirty-Three
Manchester
Visibility was minimal as the black unmarked Vauxhall V6 Vectra tore northwards through pouring rain along the M60 Manchester ring road at a shade under a hundred miles an hour. Each of the three occupants of the speeding car was occupied with their own thoughts, and nobody spoke. They were in that quiet space where tension and alertness combine with disciplined training to create a sense of purposeful calm.
They’d been waiting months for this moment. Now, at 11.26 p.m. on this dismal night, it looked like they were finally about to score.
Vince McLaughlin was sitting in the back, wearing the same faded jeans and field jacket he always wore. Across his knee was the police-issue Heckler & Koch MP-5K that he’d just finished checking for the fifth time. In the front passenger seat, Mick Walker was nursing the secure frequency radio they were using to communicate with station HQ and the pilot of the unmarked SOCA helicopter whose blinking lights could be
seen high above them through the drifting rain.
The third occupant of the Vectra was a woman named Darcey Kane. Her slim, strong hands were relaxed on the wheel as she skilfully wove the car through the light traffic. Her black hair was tied back under a black baseball cap. Walker and McLaughlin were both very well acquainted with the fierce glint in their team commander’s slate-grey eyes and that set to her jaw she always had when going into action. She was as focused as a hawk on its quarry. She pressed her foot down a little harder and the speedometer crept up past the hundred and ten mark. The roar of the engine filled the car.
The target Darcey was bearing down was two hundred metres ahead, and closing. The occupants of the TDV8 Range Rover had spotted them five miles back, and its driver was steaming ahead at full throttle to get away. As it came speeding up behind a cluster of slower-moving cars it blasted its horn and sent them swerving aside. Darcey could tell from the Range Rover’s erratic course that its driver was within a fraction of losing his nerve. That was fine. She had plenty.
She wondered which of the drug gang was at the wheel: Wolonski? McNiff? Or could it be Gremaj himself? Whichever of them it was, his foot hard on the gas, glancing nervously in his mirror at the car behind and the chopper overhead, he had every reason to be scared shitless. He had the Serious Organised Crime Agency, British law enforcement’s best-kept secret weapon against his kind, right up his arse and he wasn’t getting out of this one.
After three months of working her team round the clock and to the verge of madness and collapse, Darcey knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that stashed under the false back seat of the Range Rover were over two hundred kilos of pure uncut heroin. She knew where it had come from, where it was headed, how much the gang had paid for it, how much each man stood to receive as his cut of tonight’s deal. She even knew what they’d been planning to spend it on – except they wouldn’t be spending a penny of it. Their number was up. Right here, right now.
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