by Mark Dawson
Hailey would have quite the story to tell. She’d seen a man in her kitchen. Now he was gone – replaced by a pair of corpses. Shock would hit her first. Then panic. Then fear. He thought about the note he’d left on the fridge.
These men came to kill you. You are under my protection. It will be over soon.
A friend.
Control’s plan had its advantages, but it had the downside of drawing out the job. Scorpion would wait. For days. Weeks. Months if need be. There would come a time when Hailey would be exposed. Then it would all be over. Scorpion never missed a target.
There were three names on the list that MI5 had intercepted. Control had an agent from Group 15 monitoring each name on the list. He had not shared with Milton the identity of the other targets. Even so, it looked like the Russian foreign intelligence service, the SVR, were targeting civilians for reasons that were presently unknown. Whilst there were any number of theories for the SVR killing on British soil, neither MI5 nor Group 15 had any idea why they wanted Hailey dead. It hardly mattered. She was on the list and needed Milton’s protection.
Milton hefted the keys to the Renault that he’d taken from one of the Russians. They would’ve parked in an adjacent street. Not too far away. Milton could do nothing now to protect Hailey. He couldn’t get near her.
There was another way to protect her. It wasn’t strictly off-mission. Not technically within his mission parameters, either. He was to wait until there was an assassination attempt and neutralize Scorpion.
What if I didn’t wait? thought Milton. He quickly decided this was a better course of action. Certainly within the spirit of the mission, if nothing else.
Find the Scorpion before he finds Hailey.
And kill him.
4
The Scorpion waited.
He was used to being patient. At first, this proved a difficult skill to master. He had learned many skills over the years. Those in the SVR liked their operatives to have a range of abilities: counter-intelligence, surveillance, propaganda, sabotage, infiltration. And of course the more hands-on type of training came along with it. Firearms, hand-to-hand combat, and silent kills.
By the time the Scorpion left the SVR, his particular training and experience was of significant value to those in the private sector. Of course, no one simply resigns from the SVR. The usual method of departure was a 9mm-calibre round in the back of the head. Scorpion was attuned to the harshness of his profession and went rogue some years ago.
Such was his mastery of the finer arts of the SVR that they eventually came to an agreement. Besides, everyone the SVR sent after him ended up dead. A deal looked less expensive. Scorpion would work for them on occasion. Freelance, if you like. One or two jobs a year. No more. In exchange, they let him live on the condition that his private contract work did not directly or indirectly contravene the aims or operations of the SVR.
He’d been on this job for three weeks. The second job for the SVR that year. And he was fed up waiting.
Scorpion pulled his coat around him, breathing into his gloved hands so his breath would not fog the air. He didn’t want to give away his position. Even with the heavy blanket, his knees still bit into the hard, bitumen roof flooring. He leaned forward, put his eye to the telescopic sight, and for the fifth time that night, he swept the windows of the building diagonally across from him.
Nothing.
He checked his watch. One in the morning.
The Saudi prince would be dead in two, maybe three minutes.
He rolled over onto his back, easing the pressure on his knees. Scorpion looked to his left. He’d packed his climbing kit away hours ago. The only thing he would be leaving behind was the bucket, clothes and window wipers.
This kill had taken the longest to set up.
Seven days in total.
* * *
A week ago, Scorpion had watched the Saudi prince leave the hotel with his royal guard. No possible point of attack while the prince was in transit. Any such attack would be suicidal. The Saudi prince was well protected. He had a ten-man royal guard with him at all times. His Mercedes had been heavily modified with a three-inch-thick blast plate in the floor and bulletproof windows.
Once the prince was gone, Scorpion had gained access to the roof of the building opposite the prince’s hotel – an office block with low security. He’d posed as a courier and had been allowed to hand deliver a parcel to the firm of accountants on the top floor. The door to the roof was alarmed, but someone had bypassed the alarm panel before him. When Scorpion had opened the control box on the wall, he had noticed the alarm wire had been pulled from its housing. Or perhaps it had been a poor wiring job in the first place.
He had stood on the roof with a pair of binoculars, gazing directly into the prince’s bedroom. It would be an easy shot from that position. His thoughts had then turned to the alarm wire. Someone was here already, he’d thought. It was at that moment, Scorpion realised his list of targets had been compromised. He would need to be careful. There were several taller buildings around him. Easy vantage points for a British Intelligence sniper to pick him off if he chose this rooftop as a shooting position. He had decided to change his plan.
One week to the day following his first scouting mission, around noon, while the prince was out, Scorpion had entered the lobby of the hotel. He had made his way into the bowels of the hotel with a security pass that he’d swiped from a porter. Dressed in blue overalls and a hard hat, and carrying his bucket and cleaning materials, no one had given Scorpion a second look. This was a five-star, luxury hotel with all the pomp, chintz, and glitz that came with five-star luxury hotels in this part of London. That meant there were plenty of maintenance staff to go undetected and unchallenged – provided they had a security pass.
From the basement, Scorpion had travelled to the roof. There, he hooked up a climbing rope to the security barriers that ran the length of the roof, and abseiled down a few meters to the penthouse. His bucket hung off the safety rig around his waist. He had looked through the window. There had been no one in the penthouse. The guard detail had accompanied the prince and it was too early for the maids. In the corridor outside the penthouse, two members of the Saudi royal guard waited to accompany any housekeepers into the room. The guards were still in the corridor. He could see into the prince’s bedroom. The bed still unmade, a book sat on the bedside table next to a reading lamp. Just as he’d seen a week before.
Scorpion had dipped his T-bar sponge in his bucket and soaked the window in suds. He’d dropped the sponge in the bucket, opened his coveralls and produced a small handheld drill.
He’d known that this was where it could all fall apart.
He’d fitted the drill with a three-millimetre diamond-headed bit. Carefully, he’d held the bit to the glass, low down on the bottom right-hand corner of the pane. He let go the rope; the rig held him fast. With his left hand, he’d held the sponge to the glass and let the water drench the window. Slowly, carefully, he’d pulled the trigger on the drill and the bit began to rotate with the water from the sponge trickling over it steadily.
He’d practiced drilling glass. Two panes from picture frames laid on top of each other to simulate double glazing. After many unsuccessful attempts, he’d learned that the key to drilling a tiny hole in a pane of glass without breaking it was to go slowly and make sure the glass was wet.
It had been a typical English summer’s day. Light rain, with the promise of sun later. Even with the rain cooling his face, sweat had soaked through his overalls.
The drill head turned slowly, chewing its way through the wet glass. Thirty seconds later he was through. He put away the drill and produced a long, thin, plastic tube, which uncoiled like it was sprung. The rigid tube threaded through the hole, into the bedroom, and by the time it was almost fully extended, the end hovered over the bedside table. Only six inches of tubing remained on his side of the window.
He fitted an aluminium bottle to the tube and hit the pressurized
trigger. Even from behind the glass, Scorpion could see the atomized spray ejecting from the other end of the tube, and the mist fell on the green shade of the banker’s desk lamp that sat on the bedside table.
Satisfied, he detached the bottle, withdrew the tube, folded it into his bucket and climbed back to the roof.
* * *
Now, twelve hours after his window-cleaning duties earlier that day, Scorpion returned his gaze to the telescopic sight and swept the surrounding buildings. The pain in his knees had eased.
There, in the bell tower of the cathedral. A man with a rifle.
The man was watching the adjacent rooftops that held a vantage point for the Saudi’s bedroom. Only way to take out the prince was a rifle shot. And the man in the bell tower was there to kill the prince’s would-be assassin before he even touched a trigger. Scorpion knew the man was from the British Secret Service. Probably ex-SAS or former Special Boat Service. They recruited that kind for Group 15. He knew the British would not be able to resist the opportunity to take him out. Which proved to be an irresistible challenge for Scorpion. If he could neutralize even one of them, it was a bonus and one less adversary to worry about.
Scorpion let out his breath, pulled the stock of the rifle to his shoulder, absorbed the kick from the shot and watched as the man in the bell tower disappeared.
He packed away his rifle, grabbed his kit and made for the elevator.
Once in the lobby, he saw hotel security running toward the elevators. Their radios were pressed to their mouths, voices raised in alarm.
The prince must have returned to his room just after midnight. He would answer emails, as was his routine, shower and change for bed. As was his habit, the prince would grab the book on his bedside table and turn on the lamp. After two, maybe three minutes, the green glass lampshade would’ve been hot enough to boil the thin layer of chemical that Scorpion had sprayed on the shade.
Whilst in liquid form, the chemical was relatively harmless. When heated, it formed a deadly vapour. The toxin could eat through a pair of healthy lungs in seconds. It was, Scorpion confessed, a horrible death.
The secret SVR labs were well known for their ingenious poisons.
Scorpion pulled his cap down over his face as he passed the last security camera at the hotel entrance. He made it to the street and then his car.
He pulled into traffic, and his eyes fell on the dash clock.
It was going to be a busy night.
5
Milton found the Renault in Deveraux Road, a street just off Bromwood Road. He’d walked around two streets already, pressing the button on the key at every Renault he passed. This van chirped and flashed its lights when Milton depressed the key fob.
Milton got into the driver’s seat. Nothing but chocolate wrappers in the door pockets, and old cigarette packets on the floor. Same brand – imported Russian Javas. In the glove compartment Milton found a collection of old cassette tapes. Joy Division, New Order, Jimi Hendrix. The van was old enough to still have a tape deck. Behind the cassettes he found a revolver. Not quite as old as the tapes, but not far behind. The revolver was an unusual piece. An OTs-38 Stechkin. Favoured side-arm of the Russian army. The gun held five specially manufactured SP-4 cartridges; it boasted a captive piston and had a laser sight fitted below the barrel. The cumulative effect amounted to zero muzzle flash and near silent firing.
Milton stared into the rear of the van. He could pull the trigger on this gun five times in quick succession and anyone walking past this van wouldn’t hear a thing.
He climbed over the seats, found a torch hanging on the wall of the van and lit it up.
Milton bled the harshness from the torch by holding his palm over the head of the light. He tilted his fingers, moving the torch around, careful to spill as little light as possible. He didn’t want to attract attention. On the walls of the van, he noticed timber saws, a chainsaw, pliers, two hatchets and a roll of black bin liners on a dispenser.
The smell was tangy. Salty and yet somehow sweet on the tongue. The smell of old blood. Milton angled the torch to the floor, and there he saw a series of holes in the bottom of the van. No ordinary holes – these were uniform in spacing, size and dimension. They’d been cut into the floor.
Blood channels.
The smell, the holes, the cutting equipment – it all painted a picture. The Russians could pick someone off the street, put them in the back of the van, put a silent bullet in their head, and with the saws and cutting equipment, they could reduce a human being to three garbage bags in less than half an hour.
Efficient. Fast. Ruthless. All the hallmarks of the Russian mob.
Milton looked into every corner of the van. He was looking for something, and so far he hadn’t found it. Returning to the cab, he checked under the seats, and this time he found what he was looking for.
A Nokia. There was only one number saved on the phone. Milton hit dial.
A ringing tone. Two rings. Three rings.
On the fifth ring the call was answered.
“Zakonchenny?” said the man on the line, in a thick Russian accent. Milton knew a little Russian. Enough to know the word roughly translated as finished?
“Niet,” said Milton. He tapped out a text message on his own mobile.
The man on the other end of the call said nothing. Milton could hear the man breathing: the white noise of air hitting the mic. Milton waited, wondering if his accent had been that poor.
“Who is this?” said the voice, calmly.
“I don’t believe we’ve met. That’s something I hope to remedy very soon,” said Milton.
“You know my name?”
“Just your handle. Why did they call you Scorpion?” said Milton.
“Who knows how these things happen?”
“You should be careful. I might step on you.”
“You are MI5? Or Group 15? Yes, maybe Group 15. It’s one member short. Your friend in the bell tower didn’t stand a chance. If you come after me, they’ll have to rename it Group Thirteen,” said Scorpion.
“Don’t bet on it. I ran into two of your friends tonight. It didn’t end well. Walk away from this contract. It’s your only chance.”
“I always fulfil my contract.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” said Milton.
The line disconnected.
Milton dialled a number on his own mobile.
“Did you get him?” he said.
“No,” said Control. “We’ll be able to ping the telecom mast, but he wasn’t on the line long enough to get a fix.”
“He said he’d shot one of ours.”
“Number Eight. We’ve lost contact with him, and the Saudi prince is dead.”
“How?”
“A nerve toxin of some kind. We still don’t know how he triggered it, but the Met are looking into it.”
“They’re hopeless. We have to intervene. Let me take Banks somewhere safe. If Scorpion can get through one of the best trained personal guards in the world, then the local PC Plod isn’t going to pose much of a difficulty.”
Control sighed and said, “Alright, I’ll have someone pick her up. Can’t risk her identifying you. MI5 can babysit her. It’s all they’re good for.”
“And the other target?”
“Still breathing, for now,” said Control.
6
Hailey Banks wanted to be sick.
The tea had been far too sweet, and her hands shook so violently she couldn’t hold the mug without spilling it on the living room carpet. She felt a rush of saliva filling her mouth, the nausea spreading through her stomach. Somehow she fought it down, dry swallowing amidst sharp breaths.
“Have some more tea,” said Julia.
Hailey turned to look at the woman next to her on the sofa. Detective Constable Julia Wyndham had introduced herself as a victim liaison officer. She had a kind face and a soft voice. She wore a red sweater and jeans. Her blonde hair cut short in a bob. Even with the corpse in the hallway and th
e one in the kitchen, Julia seemed completely fine. Hailey imagined that Julia had sat on a hundred sofas, with a hundred victims, and was now immune to the effects of that suffocating cloud that came in the wake of sudden, terrible violence. Hailey knew the type. She’d been that person at one point in her life.
“Thank you,” said Hailey, sipping more of the tea.
Julia nodded and said nothing. There was little more to say. Hailey had already given a statement to Detective Sergeant McLean. A tall man with wiry hair who wore an ill-fitting suit. Her statement had not seemed to satisfy the DS. Hailey told him she had awoken to find two policemen standing over her. Pain shot through her forehead, its arrival a strong signal of abrupt consciousness. Half a minute later she remembered the man in her kitchen, pointing a gun at her. Those eyes.
At first, she thought she’d been shot in the head. Then she felt the lump, and the policeman told her to lie down, not to look in the kitchen. Was there anyone else in the house, he’d asked. She didn’t know.
“There was a man with a gun. He pointed it at me. He knew my name…” Hailey had sat up and then saw the dead man on her kitchen floor.
She couldn’t remember much of what happened after that. The policeman took her to the living room, and she’d let out a piercing, fearful cry when she saw the other corpse in the hall.
Then she was on the sofa. Rocking back and forth. Talking to the paramedic. Someone had put a foil sheet around her shoulders, but she couldn’t remember who or when it had happened. Then Julia arrived, talked softly to her and had given her tea. Then DS McLean had begun directing questions.
No, she’d never seen the man with the blue eyes before.
No, she’d never seen the dead men before. Maybe it was all a dream?