by Andy Lucas
‘Amicable?’
‘Amicable?’ She tasted the word experimentally on her tongue before twisting her face up in mock disgust. ‘Not really, no.’
‘Sorry,’ said Pace, instantly regretting asking the question. ‘That’s your business.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, sucking in a breath and seeming to collect her thoughts. Her next words were carefully measured. ‘I realised pretty early on that it wasn’t right. The loving side of him was there when he wanted sex, sure, but the pleasant manners dried up within six months. Then came the arguments and eventually the physical stuff.’
‘He was violent?’ Pace didn’t know how to react to the revelation and left his question unaccompanied by platitudes. To his surprise, the seriousness of the subject wasn’t mirrored in her expression. She looked almost amused.
‘Don’t think for a minute that he beat me black and blue every day, or locked me in cupboards, or anything like that,’ she explained. ‘He isn’t that way, or he wasn’t with me. He just got very paranoid about where I was going and who I spent time with, even though he knew if I wasn’t at home, I was working. One night he cooked me this fabulous dinner and told me it was time to stop working. Said he wanted us to start a family straight away and I didn’t need to work; we had plenty of money.’
‘Children? Well, that’s normal in a marriage.’ The idea of kids had never appealed to Pace but maybe it was all about meeting the right person first. It just seemed an awful lot of avoidable work, stress and antagonism to him.
‘But we’d already agreed not to start a family straight away,’ she added. ‘He knew it but suddenly he expected the rules to change. I wanted us to spend a few years together, as a couple, before thinking about children. He thought he could simply move the goalposts.’
‘If you weren’t ready for kids, he should have respected that.’
‘Well he didn’t. It was too soon for me but he wasn’t having any of it. He doesn’t like to be told he can’t get his own way and he ended up losing his temper. Plates and glasses were smashed against the walls and he ranted on and on about me not caring about him.’ She paused and the humour slipped away to reveal a more grim expression.
‘He sounds a little insecure where you’re concerned.’
‘I tried to calm him down and have a rational conversation; he wouldn’t listen. The shouting between us just got louder and louder. Then, all of a sudden, he flew at me and punched me in the face, knocking me flat and splitting my bottom lip open. I don’t remember much else until the ambulance arrived.’
There was an uncomfortable silence as they recharged their glasses. Pace broke it. ‘And that was it, over?’
‘All bar the legalities,’ she agreed. ‘I moved out of the house and went back home. My father was brilliant, I’m the first to admit. He wanted to fire Tom on the spot and press charges but I managed to talk him out of it. I just wanted to forget it ever happened. I felt stupid and hurt.’ Pace listened quietly. ‘Dad turned it all over to the lawyers and my marriage was finished.’
‘What happened to Tom?’ The question masked a now burning curiosity in him; to know why he’d called her.
‘My father called him into his office, bawled him out and transferred him to project management. Whatever his faults, Tom is a fantastic organiser and negotiator. My father didn’t want him anywhere near the accounting or security divisions any longer; the trust had gone you see, but he wanted to keep his experience.’
The waiter took the opportunity of a break in their conversation to slip up to the table and remove the empty champagne bottle. When he left, Sarah raised Pace’s hand up to her lips and kissed its back.
‘And that’s why he phoned this evening. As Projects Manager, he is over here as well. He’s actually been down here for over a month, managing the organisation until my father flies in and takes over right at the end. He wants to see me before I leave for home again. He didn’t say why.’
In truth she knew exactly what he wanted; another shot at the marriage. He’d pleaded with her to come back to him, saying they could have a few weeks cruising the nearby coastline in a luxury yacht if only she would stay in Brazil until after the race was run.
Pace dismissed the rising bitterness in his throat as trapped champagne bubbles, thankfully unable to read her thoughts. He couldn’t be jealous of a woman he barely knew anyway, he reasoned.
‘As I see it,’ she breezed away from the issue without telling him anymore, ‘you still have over a week here to adjust to the heat and the humidity before flying inland. My father is due to arrive about the same time. He’ll need to check everything over with Tom before he gives a green light.’
‘I will look upon it as a taste of heaven before I die,’ Pace said. He was also about to make some remark about the quality of her company but it felt corny even as he formed the thoughts, so he dismissed it. Besides, she hadn’t told him whether she was meeting her husband or not. It really wasn’t any of his business. Perhaps they would get back together in the end. Who was he to even attempt to get in the way? Not for the first time that night, his romantic fire fizzled out in a shower of self-doubt.
‘Common sense tells me to stop drinking before I end up totally plastered,’ groaned Sarah, stretching in a very slow, deliberate way.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Pace said, thinking that he could probably manage another brandy nightcap, ‘but I could do with some sleep.’
‘Let’s go then,’ she decided, fluidly standing and slipping an arm through his. ‘Max will be wondering what we’ve been talking about all this time.’
Back upstairs, there was no sign of Hammond. All the lights still burned brightly but his bedroom door was firmly closed and Pace guessed he’d turned in for the night. With his earlier thoughts of passion gone cold, he stifled a yawn and turned around to say something to Sarah, only to find his arms filled with her. She pulled him close as their lips met; softly at first and then crushing as their tongues met tentatively inside her warm mouth, her fingers drawing small circles on his back.
His body reacted normally; rising to the occasion, as they pressed together but something didn’t feel right. Tom was between them; he could almost feel his presence watching them. The thought went a long way to cooling him back down again. Did she really want to do this with him, for him, or was she just feeling vulnerable? Or was it about needing some human affection and him happening to be close at hand?
‘Is something wrong?’ Sarah’s voice in his ear snapped him back to the present. She stepped away from him and cast a questioning look down, then a more searching one back up at him. ‘I thought you wanted me.’
‘I do...very much,’ Pace mumbled, feeling foolish and frustrated all at once. ‘I don’t know. I know you’re not living with your husband but now I know he’s here, and part of this project, I’m going to have to meet him at some point.’ It wasn’t strictly the reason but it sounded more credible than his own barrage of insecure thoughts. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t complicate anything, for now.’ He could hardly believe what he was saying himself.
‘I don’t just sleep with anybody!’ Her face coloured and the snap in her tone cracked across the short distance now between them. ‘I just thought…’
She was embarrassed and angry, her own feelings more confused than ever. She needed him to take charge of the situation; to make the decision for her, but he just stood there looking aghast. That made her even angrier. It was all going wrong but what could he say to retrieve the situation? What would put it right?
‘I didn’t mean it like that, Sarah. I just meant that we need to be sure,’ he said, but his words trailed away as she turned her back on him and stormed into her bedroom.
She slammed the door hard against its frame to close the moment with finality. Twenty minutes passed, then thirty. She wasn’t coming out so he retired to his own room and went to bed.
Hopefully he could fix things in the morning.
8
The aircraft descend
ed gently towards the runway at Malaga airport, passing over undulating parched scrubland, seeming to skim the magnificent peaks of the Sierras on its way down. It was a commercial Boeing 737 jet, sporting the rather dull grey and blue livery of one of the dozen or so cheap charter airlines that flew there.
The sun burned fiercely in a cloudless sky above, oblivious to the perfect landing the pilot executed, as the plane’s wheels kissing the runway with barely a judder. The summer temperature in southern Spain was so high that a heat haze covered the runway and a stiff, hot breeze filled the air with wafts of dust and sand. And this year was turning out to be hotter than most.
The aircraft reversed thrust on its two massive engines and its speed bled away. Five minutes later it was safely tucked up on the correct apron and the passengers were being politely filed off down the tunnel that had been pressed against the forward port exit.
Marcus Browner was a small businessman, dealing in commercial plumbing supplies according to his papers. He was a little shy of six feet tall and stocky but the rather cheap suit hung too loosely to see what kind of shape he was in underneath. His features were sharp and his dark eyes roamed from side to side from behind cheap plastic sunglasses as he allowed himself to be swept down towards passport control by the surge of disembarking passengers. His short hair was fair, cut spiky and receding at the temples. He appeared to be pushing forty.
He was so plain that he was waved through customs without so much as a second glance. He collected a rather ancient suitcase that had seen its share of baggage halls over the years before ambling out of the exit and into the first taxi he saw; a white Mercedes saloon.
The Spanish driver quickly cottoned on to Marcus’s nationality and assumed, wrongly, that he didn’t speak Spanish. After all, hardly any of the English tourists could be bothered to learn another language – they just expected English to be understood wherever they went. Mainly, it was, which was a little annoying to the Spaniard.
Marcus read off the name of a nearby hotel from a crumpled piece of paper pulled from the inside pocket of his polyester two-piece. He played the perfect, stumbling Brit, then sat in the back and watched the world go by as the driver headed out onto the main road, slipping past the huge San Miguel brewery complex that appeared on the right. The heat was tremendous but the air was dry and free from humidity. As the driver muttered how much he hated British tourists and wished they would all learn a proper language for a change, his passenger stared blankly at him, smiling and nodding in obvious ignorance. In reality, he understood every single word.
Hotel Pez Estada backed right onto the beachfront at Montemar, a little over fifteen minutes driving time from Malaga airport. It was a large multi-storey hotel of gleaming white, with an impressive glass entrance at the front, just a quick left turn off the main road and down a small incline. Surrounded by shops, bars and cafes, the area was a throng of seething humanity.
It was early summer and the tourists were out in force, drawn by the cheap living, gorgeous weather and hotels with decades of family-friendly experience. Children were everywhere, bounding to and fro, while parents laden with armfuls of towels, rubber rings, buckets and spades, hurried after them. The atmosphere was charged with excitement.
Unlike the taxi driver, the hotel’s reception staff were polite and genuinely pleased to see him. He rode the lift up to the eighth floor and let himself into a smart, single room with a small balcony overlooking the ocean at the back of the hotel. The balcony was only large enough for a couple of small chairs but the view out over the wide, horseshoe-shaped bay was perfect.
He spent a moment or two staring out to sea before rousing himself to the job in hand and making a call on his satellite phone. The conversation was brusque and ended in seconds. He had the directions he needed. The meeting was set for the following day.
Rising at six, Browner ate a light breakfast of coffee and toast in his room. At a little after ten o’clock, he took the lift back down to the lobby and exited through the front, where he hailed a cab.
He wore cream cotton trousers and a white shirt, left hanging down fashionably outside his trousers. On his head he wore a blue baseball cap and the cheap sunglasses once again protected his eyes from the brilliant sunshine. The sandals on his feet were of cheap plastic, with Velcro tabs across the middle and around the heel.
The taxi cruised easily through light traffic the seven or so miles west that took it past Benalmadena marina and a little way on down the coast. He paid the driver, tipping him well to wait for his return, before following the signs leading to a flight of wooden steps that led down into a small cove.
The sand was clean and soon crunching beneath his sandals; the water sparkling blue and clear. The beach was already filling with bodies; naked ones. Without hesitation, Browner stripped naked and bundled his clothes into a red canvas bag he’d brought along with him. The towel it had contained was laid out on the sands before he made his way down to the water. The air was warm and the sun caressed his skin with gentle fingers.
Most men would have been strutting to the water’s edge with a huge smile on their face if they’d been as physically blessed as Browner. Women stared appreciatively, to differing degrees, and most of the men pretended they weren’t bothered, while quickly checking to see if their lover was one of those looking. Browner’s expression, however, remained one of fixed determination.
Entering the water, which was far emptier than the sand, he waded out until the gentle waves lapped around his waist. A man swimming nearby turned and headed his way. Reaching Browner, the man stood up and nodded at him. He stood a few inches taller than Browner and, viewed from shore, it looked like nothing more than a couple of tourists having an innocent chat. The text was very different, if anyone could have heard them.
‘An interesting choice of location, Wolf.’
‘Here, nothing is hidden. It is the perfect choice.’
‘Fair enough. To business.’
‘Is everything in order?’
‘The money you asked for has been wired to the necessary accounts this morning,’ answered the man. He had a soft accent, East European sounding, and very pale, freckled skin that was already reddening in the sunshine. His hair was dark and very long, held in a ponytail, and a gold cross dangled from one earlobe. Unlike Browner, the man’s sunglasses were branded and exorbitantly expensive.
‘Good. The job detail would be helpful.’
‘The mark lives in the United States. Female. Must be executed with extreme prejudice yet made to look like a random criminal act. Full details have been placed inside your bag of clothes, as requested. You are to complete the task with our compliments.’
‘I never fail. You have my personal guarantee but that is why your organisation came to me in the first place. I expect no further contact from anybody in your organisation, is that clear? If I feel I’m being set up, or cheated, I will be coming for you.’
‘Threats are not necessary. Your reputation precedes you, as does your ruthlessness. There will be no tricks. Just do the job right.’
‘Remember what I said.’ Wolf’s tone was icy.
He gave the man no opportunity to speak again, instead turning and wading out of the sea and back up the beach to where he’d left his bag of clothes. Sure enough there was now a piece of paper stashed away inside it. He left the paper inside and towelled himself dry.
He dressed quickly and headed back to the road. The taxi was still where he’d left it and it whisked him back to the hotel in time for a light lunch on the garden terrace.
The information on the paper was absorbed and the paper itself flushed down the toilet before he checked out and headed back to the airport. Three hours later, he sat on a flight back to Heathrow, from where he joined a connecting flight to New York. He travelled economy class and managed to sleep most of the flight away.
As he boarded the internal flight that would bring him down into the fabled Windy City, he pondered idly on the name of his target once more
, tasting it silently on the tip of his tongue. Amanda Pace.
Sarah wasn’t there when Pace got up the next morning and he saw very little of her over the next three days, spending the majority of time in Hammond’s company, only returning to the hotel in the evenings to eat and sleep.
When he did see her, she was cordial and polite but refused to meet his gaze for any longer than she had to, preferring to stay in her room when he was around. What she did during those days he had no idea, although he couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother him, because it did. The closeness was gone, as were the range of smiles she usually wore. Though not frowning, her expression over that period rarely altered from a countenance of indifference. Fortunately, he didn’t have time to dwell on it.
Hammond spent the first day showing him around the event headquarters. It occupied the entire top floor of a small office building, nestled on the very edge of the city centre. Across from the market square of Praca XV de Novembro, it sat virtually opposite the recently restored eighteenth-century colonial splendour of the Paco Imperial building. Their office building was also a converted building, dating back to the turn of the century. Whilst lacking the architectural class of its geographical opposite number, its plain white exterior, carved stonework and impressive arched entrance still lent it decidedly more soul than a modern skyscraper.
The top floor offered a lot of space for relatively few people; Pace counted four in all. Most of the individual side offices were totally bare and a huddle of six desks sat pushed together in the middle of the main floor, looking ridiculous amid a wide sea of plush red carpet. Two computers sat on the little ship, with the rest of the surfaces swamped by an array of charts, papers, maps and detailed satellite photographs.
Only one side office was occupied. An ancient mahogany desk, sitting heavily on bowing legs, two chairs, a lamp and a telephone were all that accompanied their human master. The man rose to greet Hammond like an old friend, then nodded towards Pace over their handshake.