Greed mb-1

by Chris Ryan

  Greed

  ( Matt Browning - 1 )

  Chris Ryan

  Five Men. One Robbery. A deadly game of greed, revenge and betrayal is about to begin.

  Fresh out of the SAS, Matt Browning is down on his luck. He owes $500,000. If he doesn't get the money soon, he dies. From nowhere, he is offered a lifeline. A hit on al-Queda, sanctioned and helped by MI5. Matt gathers a small team of former SAS men to steal $10 million in gold and diamonds from the world's most deadly terrorist organisation. MI5 will give them all the equipment and information they need. No charges will ever be pressed.

  Matt thinks it's the perfect crime. Safe, quick, and patriotic. But after the money is stolen, the killing starts. Someone is taking down the members of the team one by one. A silent, expert assassin is stalking the team, gruesomely murdering both them and their families. And Matt knows that he's next.

  *Greed* is an explosive story of what happens when terrorism, money, love and jealously combust — an explosively violent tale from the established master of the military thriller.

  Chris Ryan

  Greed

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chris Ryan was born near Newcastle in 1961. He joined the SAS in 1984. During his ten years there he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, of which three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For his last two years he has been selecting and training potential recruits for the SAS.

  He wrote about his experiences in the bestseller The One That Got Away which was also adapted for screen. He is also the author of the bestsellers Stand By, Stand By, Zero Option, The Kremlin Device, Tenth Man Down, The Hit List, The Watchman, Land of Fire, Greed, The Increment, Blackout, Ultimate Weapon and Strike Back. Chris Ryan's SAS Fitness Book and Chris Ryan's Ultimate Survival Guide are also published by Century.

  He lectures in business motivation and security and is currently working as a bodyguard in America.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  To my agent Barbara Levy, editor Mark Booth, Hannah Black, Charlotte Bush and all the rest of the team at Century.

  PROLOGUE

  A smear of blood was still visible around the edge of the hand, where it had been severed cleanly from the rest of the arm. The flesh around the fingers had started to tighten and decay. On the second finger there was a twisted gold ring, but the metal had been streaked and discoloured, as if exposed to a sudden, searing heat.

  The Labrador dropped the hand on to the ground, shaking it free from its mouth.

  Jack Turner looked up. It was early morning, the dew still fresh on the fields. The dog had bounded back from a small patch of woodland, on a hill that looked across the Kent countryside and out to Ashford beyond. Turner took this walk with the dog every morning. Never before had he come across anything more interesting than an empty beer can.

  He bent down, examining the hand more closely. The skin retained a soft, creamy colour. Whoever it once belonged to, it was certainly a woman. 'Dodger,' Turner shouted to the Labrador. 'Follow, boy.'

  He marched quickly in the direction of the woods. The wind was whistling through the trees and there was a distinct chill in the air. In the background, Turner could hear a pair of blackbirds fluttering away. The dog bounded ahead of him, panting as it ran across the wet ground.

  The earth lay open and fresh, like a wound cut into the surface of the ground. Turner could feel his pulse quickening as he approached. At the centre of a clearing between the trees there was an open pit, stretching ten feet across and five or six feet deep, the size of a mass grave.

  Turner slowed his pace as he approached. Whatever sights might await him there, he sensed his stomach was going to heave.

  Only a few parts of the body could be seen as he peered gently across the lip of the trench. He could see a foot, a part of what might once have been an elbow, the fragments of a spinal chord, a tuft of what could have been blonde hair. The blood had all long since seeped into the ground and disappeared. Next to the body lay two yellow canvas travel bags, singed but still intact.

  Holding his breath, Turner leapt into the trench, took the first bag between his hands and unzipped its chord. He looked briefly inside, closed his eyes, then looked again. Bank notes. Thousands of bank notes, packed into neat, tidy wedges.

  Reaching inside, he took out a sheaf of euros, dollars and pounds and held it in his hands. The notes were high denominations — fifties mostly, with a few hundreds thrown in as well. Turner had never seen so much money in his life, nowhere near. Without counting it he had no way of knowing, but he guessed there must have been a million, maybe much more, in the one bag he had opened. He reckoned he had at least two grand in his fist alone.

  Turner reached for the second bag. Already he could sense what he might find there. He pulled back its zipper, reaching inside. Another pile of notes, packed tightly together.

  The wad of notes in his hand he stuffed into the pocket of his jacket. Then he re-zipped the bags, making sure he left them exactly as he found them.

  Scrambling against the mud, Turner pulled himself up from the ditch and shook the dirt free from his hands. The Labrador nuzzled up close to his leg. 'I'll tell you what, Dodger old boy,' Turner said gruffly, 'a dead woman and several million pounds in a ditch — there must be quite a story behind that.' He reached into a pocket, took out his mobile phone and dialled 999.

  ONE

  The woman sat perfectly still, examining her face in the mirror, and her expression revealed disappointment with the person looking back. Her hand moved slowly across the dressing table. She took a brush and applied a thin dusting of make-up to her face, carefully painting away the traces of a tear on her cheek. Behind her, a black robe and veil lay draped across the bed.

  Nasir bin Sallum closed his mouth and clenched his stomach muscles tight so that not even the sound of his breath would escape. He let his eyes rest upon her for a moment, admiring the delicate upwards slope of her neck and the polished smoothness of her skin.

  It is important for an assassin to appreciate his victim before he kills her.

  With her right hand she started running a brush through her long black hair. Sallum remained silent, gripping the length of thin, taut climbing cord between his hands. Outside the apartment block — situated in the A1 Mansorah district of Riyadh — he had already removed his shoes, replacing them with a pair of socks thick enough to make almost no sound as he moved swiftly across the carpet.

  Suddenly, he sprang forwards and ran towards her chair. He could see her ears twitch as she heard the first stride. He could see her eyes move up as she caught sight of movement in the mirror. And he could see her fist tighten the grip on her hairbrush as she felt the floor vibrate under the weight of her assailant. But her reactions were slow. She knew something was happening but in the few seconds available to her she was unable to react.

  It's like strangling chickens on the farm. Sallum slipped the rope around her neck in one swift movement. He pulled sharply, tugging her neck backwards, and could hear the breath escaping from her lips, the stretching of the muscles running through her neck. He leant forward, bending towards the mirror, and their eyes met in the glass. He could read the thoughts written in her expression. Who is this man? Why is he killing me?

  Sallum pulled harder, twisting the rope into her skin. It's not her fault I am here this afternoon. There is no need to hurt her unnecessarily.

  Her eyes were bulging from her head now, the pupils enlarged. The pressure from the rope prevented any air travelling through her throat and her breathing had stopped, diminishing the flow of oxygen into her heart. Her grip on
the hairbrush tightened and her arm tried to lift itself to strike her assailant, but the strength was already fading from her. Then her grip suddenly collapsed and the brush tumbled on to the dressing table before bouncing on to the floor.

  Sallum worked the muscles in his forearms, steadily increasing the pressure of the rope on her neck. In the mirror he could see her eyelids blink and then slowly close. She was dead.

  Sallum released the rope and let her body curl gently forwards until her head was resting amid the make-up on the dressing table, next to a picture of herself with her family, all of them having a picnic somewhere among green fields and tall trees. He reached down to check her pulse. It was as he expected.

  Sallum relaxed, stretching his muscles. It was important to exercise after an execution. You had to stop the tension building up in your back. He glanced through the tiny flat. It consisted of just this small bedroom, a shower room, a kitchen you could hardly stand up in, and a sitting room furnished with a single sofa, a television and a DVD player. The place was shabby, poor and impersonal: the furniture all looked as if it had been picked up second-hand.

  Well, what could an English woman who divorced her Saudi husband expect?

  Her handbag was lying at the foot of the bed. Sallum took it in his hands and examined the contents. The usual junk women carry around with them — lipsticks, mirror, address book and some old photographs — but it also held her passport, her driving licence, her Saudi identity card and a letter detailing her appointment with the minister.

  She had changed since the passport photograph had been taken four years previously. She was older, but also sadder — at a glance Sallum could tell that those four years had not been kind to her. Asiya al-Kazim, according to her passport, was 26, born in Wolverhampton of Muslim parents, but married to a Saudi man for three years, and subsequently divorced. Nobody would miss her for days.

  Sallum moved to the dressing table, picked up a jar of nail varnish, and began to coat his fingernails with the pink liquid. Five manicures over the past two weeks had worked — his nails looked just like a woman's. Taking the mascara next, he dabbed make-up carefully on to his eyelashes. Then he picked up a stick of red lipstick, and peering close to the mirror, applied a thin layer to his lips. Get it right, he reminded himself: enough to make him look like a woman, but not so much that it made him look tarty.

  Lips, eyes, and nails. That should be enough to fool anyone.

  Sallum picked up the black robe from the bed and fitted it over his shoulders. Then he lifted the black veil over his face, adjusting the cloth so it draped over his shoulders, completely obscuring his face. He looked across at the mirror: only his dark eyes and red lips were discernible through the veil. The rest of his face was completely masked.

  From his bag he slipped out a pair of plain black women's shoes with a half-inch raised heel. He pulled on a pair of nylon pop socks then slipped on the shoes and took a few unsteady paces across the floor. He had practised several times, but walking precisely like a woman seemed like one of the hardest skills for a man to acquire.

  So long as I don't speak or lift my veil I will pass for her.

  He walked back through the door and shut it carefully behind him. The corridor was empty as he made his way back down to street level.

  Sallum stepped out into the baking heat of the Riyadh afternoon, the veil and the robes already causing him to sweat.

  I must not dawdle. The day's killing is not yet complete.

  * * *

  Matt Browning let his finger rest on the second button of Gill's blouse. He slipped his right hand inside the soft white cotton, gripping the taut, lively breast hidden behind her bra. He could feel it stiffen beneath his palm. His left hand gripped her side then worked its way along her back, rubbing the skin and stimulating the nerve endings beneath. They had been together nearly two years now, and Matt knew the spots, and how to work them.

  He could hear her breath quickening. Outside, a hundred feet below her twelfth-storey apartment, waves were crashing against the rocks of the Marbella shoreline. An early evening wind was starting to whip in from the Mediterranean, rustling through the curtains. Matt could feel Gill's sharp, red fingernails clawing through the hairs on his chest.

  His hands moved faster across her skin, unclasping her bra, plunging inside her jeans, and their lips collided. Matt could feel her hands unbuckling the belt of his trousers. He tore the jeans from her, flung them on to the cold, limestone floor, and suddenly he was on top of her, his face nuzzling into the soft skin of her neck, his body thrusting into her. 'Do it to me,' she muttered. 'Do it to me now.'

  Half an hour later, Matt lay back on the sofa, spent. A ripple of quiet sensory satisfaction ran through every muscle of his body. He was tired yet invigorated. Christ, he thought. Gill has the shortest fuse of any woman I have met. She could kill a man who turns up ten minutes late for a date.

  How do I possibly tell her?

  He looked into mellow, green eyes and flicked a lock of long auburn hair away from her face. Gill looked good just about anyway you could imagine: in jeans and a T-shirt, dressed up for a formal party, in her swimsuit down on the beach, or covered with kids' paint after working down at the nursery. But she looked best of all naked. She was completely comfortable in her own skin, treating it the way some women treated an expensive new outfit: as something she was proud of, and wanted to show off to the man she was with. The demure, quietly spoken girl was unpeeled whenever he undressed her, revealing the powerful, passionate woman hidden underneath.

  Christ, thought Matt, the thought running through his brain like a tape stuck in a loop. How do I possibly tell her?

  'I think we'll have a live band rather than a disco,' said Gill. 'That would be nicer, don't you think?'

  Matt nuzzled his face into her back, aware of the thin layer of post-coital sweat coating her body. He flicked his tongue against her earlobe distractedly.

  Gill pushed him away. 'And we need to decide what the readings are going to be. I don't suppose you have some special poem.' She looked at him and smiled indulgently. 'No, I didn't think so.'

  Standing up, Matt reached for his boxer shorts and pulled them up around his waist.

  'There are just so many choices to make.'

  Matt took a deep breath. That temper — that was what worried him. 'There isn't going to be any wedding,' he said at last.

  'What do you mean there isn't going to be a wedding?'

  'There isn't going to be a wedding because I'm a loser and a fuck-up,' said Matt. 'I don't deserve a princess like you.'

  * * *

  Geoff Burton looked down at the passport, then up into the eyes of the woman standing in front of him. Light brown, with a trace of make-up around them.

  Sallum could read what he was thinking: they all look the same under those bloody veils.

  I might as well be a camel for all he cares.

  Burton was a rugged man, six feet tall. He looked hot in his uniform, even though the Riyadh Hilton was air-conditioned. Asiya al-Kazim was due to see the minister at three. She had half an hour. 'You're Asiya al-Kazim?' Burton said.

  Behind his veil, Sallum nodded. He handed across the letter of appointment. It was written on Ministry of Defence headed notepaper, an invitation sent three weeks ago. This soldier will have heard of her, Sallum decided. Her name had been splashed across the British papers a few months ago. A Wolverhampton girl, a Muslim, Asiya had married a Saudi who charmed her off her feet, then moved out to Riyadh. She'd soon realised she wasn't allowed to drive, couldn't shop, couldn't work, and her husband beat her senseless every night. So she'd decided she'd rather be back in Wolverhampton. She divorced the Saudi, then discovered the catch. Under Saudi law, she couldn't leave the country without her ex-husband's permission, so she was trapped here. A couple of backbench MPs had been making a fuss about why British soldiers were helping defend a country in which a British woman was effectively held prisoner. Sallum had researched her story, and chosen her b
ecause she had an appointment with the minister. And because he knew a British soldier would not try to search a Saudi woman. She was the perfect cover.

  'Got your ID card?'

  Sallum fished in the handbag, pulling out the card and handed it across. Behind the veil he lowered his eyes demurely. He could see the solider glancing at his nails, noticing how neatly trimmed and varnished they were. Just like a woman.

  'And a driving licence?' said Burton.

  Sallum handed it across. Burton scanned the documents then looked back up into Sallum's eyes. Sallum could tell the man wanted to frisk him, but the latest briefings from the embassy said the Saudis objected to their women being searched by non-Muslim soldiers. Anyway, he would have been told she had already been searched by the Saudi officials outside the hotel. The British had insisted on that condition when they'd agreed to stop searching Saudi women. It was so rare for a woman to have any official business in a country where they weren't allowed to work, the restriction hardly seemed worth arguing about.

  'The minister is in that room down there,' said Burton, pointing.

  Beneath his veil, Sallum permitted himself a dun smile.

  * * *

  The salty smell of the sea kicked through the evening air. Matt took a deep breath, filling his lungs, and looked out across the wide expanse of the Mediterranean. The insults and abuse Gill had flung at him in the last few hours were still stinging his ears.

  He started to run, his feet hitting a steady rhythm against the sand. Running had always been his way of relaxing. The pounding of his muscles, the straining of his calves and the thump of his feet against the ground combined to send the blood rushing through his veins, sharpening his reactions and clearing his mind. It was running that had first taken him into the Army, and then the SAS. And it was quickness and agility that had qualified him for the special forces: he wasn't the toughest soldier they had ever seen, but he was one of the fastest.