Rogue

by David Leadbeater

  She kept an eye out for a tail, but saw nothing. That didn’t mean nobody was following them. If their shadow were as good as her, she’d need the right terrain and a proper plan in place to catch them. They rode the tube all the way to central London, alighting at Tottenham Court Road and heading past the London Cocktail Club and the Riding House Café. It was already early-afternoon. They ate sandwiches and drank bottled water as they walked. A fresh drizzle saturated the air, making them pull their collars up higher and hide beneath their caps. Rogue felt it on her face and saw it misting the tips of hair sticking out from underneath her hat. They reached the address and saw it was a four-storey luxury apartment complex with a gate to keep the peasants out. Rogue took one look at the gate and its security lock and knew she’d need help to gain entry.

  “We have to do this fast,” she said as she continued down the street. “I want to be inside his apartment when he gets home.”

  “I think you just walked past it.” Spencer said, looking back.

  “Keep your eyes to the front, nerd. I saw all I needed to see.”

  She bought a new burner cell and called a number. London was her stomping ground, and she’d procured several priceless contacts over the years, but there were only two who wouldn’t mention her return to MI6.

  Eighty minutes later she had a small electronic lock-reading device. She’d had to visit a local bank to withdraw sufficient funds to pay for it at such short notice but that wasn’t an issue. She plucked a clean, anonymous ID from the go-bag. Money came relatively easy to a spy or an assassin. There was always a man with a bag of cash or a crime lord who’s just received a big digital payment. If the spies’ handlers or government didn’t ask for the money or didn’t care, she’d always understood it would be wise to spirit it away for a rainy day.

  A water droplet touched her nose. Like this one. They walked back through the rain, approaching the apartment block for the second time. It was late afternoon.

  Rogue turned to the men. “Go find a restaurant. I’ll text you when I’m done.”

  Spencer looked surprised and maybe a little hurt but said nothing. Juliani walked away without a word. Rogue understood. Even after speaking to his family, Juli had to be aching inside. He’d been ripped from the only life he knew; his family was in hiding, and his ruthless bosses couldn’t be happy. He needed the Old Men neutralised as soon as possible.

  A small pang of guilt for both their plights made her want to reassure them everything would work out. But she managed to refrain, to ward off the weak impulse. She stayed strong. She bought a large bottle of whiskey from an off-licence nearby, had them box it and then wrap it and left the store. She approached the locked gate. Her new device wouldn’t work with this, but an old ploy would surely get her inside.

  With her cap switched to jaunty angle, a coquettish smile on her face and a frisky lilt to her voice, she started pressing buttons. The third one answered but was a woman.

  “Sorry, wrong apartment,” she said.

  The fifth answerer was a man. “Hey,” she said, holding up the clearly recognisable present. “Delivery.”

  “Not for me.” The line was severed.

  On her eighth attempt a man let her through the gate. She walked a few short steps to the front vestibule, placed the whiskey on the floor and waited for the door to open. Then she was inside and walking up the stairs to the second floor. Penn lived at 202. She paused outside his door, checked the coast was clear and took out her new device. Essentially, it was a small computer with a blank key card programmed to digitally mate with key readers and reproduce the code that unlocked them. Rogue spent an admittedly risky thirty seconds gaining admittance. Her main hope now was that the outer security helped Penn feel safe and that he wouldn’t have activated his interior alarm.

  Her luck held. It had been a gamble, but a gamble loaded in her favour. All she had to do now was wait.

  She prowled the apartment first, finding it a typical old bachelor’s haunt. Large, respectable newspapers littered the table at the centre of which sat a box of cigars. There was a closet full of suits and shirts, and drawers where bland ties nestled. She found nothing out of the ordinary, no hidden vices, no folders which might yield evidence, no smoking guns. On the surface, Penn looked clean.

  And she only had a file in a mafia computer to say he wasn’t.

  It occurred to her that a mask might be in order. Outside the unshaded windows the shadows were growing longer. She had no idea how long she’d have to wait so took inventory of what was inside the fridge. She chose milk and some chicken with salad and made herself a cold dinner. An hour passed. Rogue sat in a leather chair with the window at her back. She could see the front door and had become accustomed to the noise of the building.

  Darkness fell completely. It was seven-thirty-eight when she heard a noise at the door.

  Rogue was instantly on her feet, padding lightly to the sofa which was set at an angle to the door. She drew her Glock and stood behind the sofa where a tiny alcove that contained a coat rack gave her cover.

  A light clicked on. She saw a man who appeared to be in his sixties walk into the room and throw his scarf and briefcase onto the sofa. He shrugged out of his coat, exhaling and pressing the tips of his fingers to his temples as if to ward off a headache.

  The bastard’s stressed. Good.

  She’d see what she could do to worsen the condition.

  Rogue stepped out of her hiding place, gun pointed at Penn’s chest. “Stay right there, old man.”

  Penn froze. She’d hoped her choice of words would have an impact him but saw no flicker in his eyes. No emotion whatsoever in his face. All in all, he offered her nothing.

  “Up.” She motioned at his hands and checked his body for weapons. Satisfied, she withdrew a pair of plastic zip ties from her pocket and pulled them shut around his wrists. Next, she spun him around by his shoulder.

  “Do you have any security protocols?”

  Being MI6, he might have to check in on reaching home or at a designated time.

  Penn remained tight-lipped. She studied him. His face was fleshy and deeply lined. Two tiny eyes sat in the folds, blank like the eyes of something long dead. He was clean shaven and had a flat haircut, the type of nondescript London businessman you might pass every day in the street without believing he had the power to rip a life apart.

  Rogue pushed the Glock into the waistband of her jeans, taking a moment to decide which approach to take. If she pushed him hard for the protocol, he’d be more pliable when she chose to ask more significant questions.

  “I won’t ask again.” She said.

  Penn remained silent, facial expression giving her nothing. She knew he’d undoubtedly been trained to stay as neutral as possible.

  “All right.”

  She crossed over to the whiskey, unwrapped it and placed it on a table before upending the gift box. A roll of duct tape fell out. She ripped a length free and stuck it over Penn’s mouth, then forced him to walk to the centre of the room.

  “You know who I am, don’t you?” she smiled a little. “And you know what I can do.”

  A punch to the solar plexus dropped him to his knees.

  “We’ll start simple.”

  She dragged him up by his shirt collar and repeated the action. Then again. Penn was gasping almost uncontrollably.

  “Don’t die on me now.”

  Rogue threw him backwards into the sofa. He coughed and heaved as he slammed into the plush leather. She watched carefully, knowing some operatives were good enough to fake distress, to escape zip ties, to have hidden weapons. But Penn showed none of that acumen. She walked over, grabbed his legs and straightened him.

  “Protocol.”

  Penn glared, despite his pain. Rogue knew time was potentially running out. She didn’t want him unable to speak so jabbed at other sensitive areas. Ears. Temples. Ribs. When Penn’s eyes filled with tears she stopped.

  “Protocol.”

  He started t
rying to speak, voice muffled by the duct tape. Rogue tore it off, taking skin in the process.

  “On the house phone,” Penn gasped. “Dial seven-one-three. It… it sends the okay signal.”

  Rogue hesitated. “It better. I’ll still have time to ruin you if I hear them coming.”

  “I know who . . . who you are,” Penn gasped out. “I’m not . . . not stupid.”

  Rogue didn’t answer but followed his protocol and then returned. She took a moment to listen, to look out the window. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to see or hear. Finally, she turned back to Penn.

  “Tell me about the Hellfire Club.”

  Penn was good. The name didn’t even make him twitch. He stared at her unblinkingly, establishing a pattern that he hoped she would get used to. That way, she’d never know if he was lying or not.

  “One more time,” she said.

  Penn stared.

  Rogue grabbed the whiskey bottle. “One last chance,” she said. “Or I’ll kill you with the contents of this bottle.”

  Penn laughed. “I seriously doubt that. You know who I am.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Rogue placed a towel over Penn’s face and upended the whiskey bottle, drowning him with the expensive liquid. Penn struggled and coughed. Rogue stopped when his efforts began to tail off.

  She pulled the towel away. Penn doubled over, labouring heavily. Rogue didn’t give him a second to recover, just threw his head back and raised the towel again.

  “Tell me about the Hellfire Club.”

  Penn fought his bonds. Blood was flowing down his wrists and across the sofa. Rogue spent a few more moments softening him up with blows. Then she raised the whiskey bottle.

  “Apologies,” she said. “We can only go two more rounds with the good stuff. It’ll have to be water after that.”

  She disassociated herself from the acts she was doing. The man before her, and the other two leaders of the Hellfire Club, were stone-cold murderers, traitors, cowards who used trained soldiers to commit heinous crimes, child killers . . . the list of crimes was endless.

  She placed the towel over Penn’s face, but the man shook his head to dislodge it. She slapped him hard.

  “No, no,” he gasped. “No more. Please . . . no more.”

  She checked her watch. “Eight minutes. Not bad, Penn. Not bad for a pencil pusher. Now… the Hellfire Club.”

  All this time, through the torture, she’d been listening to their environs in case the number he’d given her had been a warning. Now that he’d been softened up, she turned her full attention to him.

  “Talk.”

  Penn lowered his head. Whiskey dripped down his shirt and onto his thighs. “They are a powerful organisation who have their fingers in every pie. They’re bankers, lawyers, politicians, royalty, doctors and more . . .”

  “Let me stop you there,” Rogue said. “If you lie to me or spout any more vagaries, I will continue for another eight minutes without rest. Is that clear?”

  Penn let out a heavy sigh. “Yes. All of that is true, but not here in London. Here, it’s just the three of us.”

  “And you use MI6 assets to further your own agenda within the Hellfire Club?”

  Penn grimaced. “Yes, they don’t know half the things we do.”

  “Keep talking.”

  “We move diamonds in Africa. We move people in Syria. We move weapons in Lebanon. We also broker deals throughout Europe.”

  “What kind of deals?”

  “At the moment . . . stolen artefacts. Assassination. Blackmail.”

  Rogue held herself back from ending the callous, vile piece of shit seated before her. “Tell me about the treasurer plot.” She said.

  “Ah . . . I guessed that was where you came in. We sanctioned seven hits, taking out seven of the criminal world’s best accountants – or treasurers, as we coined them. We’ve inserted three of our own deep cover agents and now control billions of dollars. In short, it worked.”

  “You killed Tom.”

  “He went off the reservation. We didn’t know his agenda. The operation couldn’t be compromised.”

  “And the collateral damage?”

  “We accept all that. It’s the life. Look, Rogue, what do you want from me?”

  She raised her eyebrows at the mention of her MI6 codename. She shouldn’t be surprised but coming from the mouth of this man it felt unsettling, as if a spider had just run the length of her spine.

  “I want everything.”

  “I get the feeling that you already know the answers to what you’re asking. So, what do you really want?”

  “I want the other two.”

  Penn’s face contorted as if he’d already know what she would ask. “I can’t give you them.”

  Rogue considered her next move. It would be good to get more background on the Hellfire Club, to learn more about its European tributaries and its background, its rituals and rites, but all she needed was the other two men.

  That would close them down and put an end to their evil warmongering at everyone else’s expense.

  She was one woman. She could do this. Avenge Tom. Save Spencer and Juliani. That was the sum of all she wanted.

  And then she could disappear again.

  “I need the other two men,” she said evenly. “I won’t push you for anything else.”

  For a moment, Penn appeared to be considering it. Any pretence at a stony façade had disappeared. He had nothing more to hide.

  “In truth,” she said. “You have no choice. You’ve seen what your best assassins can do. I was the very best. I can use anything in this apartment. I can keep you alive for days.”

  “If I give my colleagues up, the Hellfire Club itself will find out. They will come after me like nothing you’ve ever seen. Rituals. Sacrifice upon sacrifice. Fire and blood.”

  “I can bring on the fire and blood right here and now.” Rogue looked around the room, conscious that Penn didn’t have a single photograph on display. If he had a family, he wasn’t broadcasting it.

  “I’m guessing you have a family, so I’ll make you a deal. Just one,” she said. “Number two in the hierarchy. The man above you. Let him take the brunt of it. Who is he?”

  “You think you’ll find our leader through him? Not a chance.”

  “Then you might as well give me his name.”

  “On one condition,” Penn struggled to hide his emotions now – a mix of outright fear and worry.

  “Go on,”

  “You kill me. Right now. It’s the only way to keep my family safe. If they find out you came, that I ever talked to you, they’d kill me and everyone in my life that I ever touched. It’s what they do. They’ll also do it to you.”

  Rogue thought about all the families this man had torn apart, the murders he’d ordered. The innocents who’d been caught in the crossfire.

  But still, his family didn’t deserve the same fate he did.

  She took out the Glock and aimed it at his head.

  “Deal,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Marcus Miller replaced the phone in its cradle and put his head in his hands. The skinhead gang had failed to kill Rogue. They’d sent their best killers, but she had defeated them.

  “This is on you, Miller,” their leader had hissed at him before cutting the line.

  Miller felt like his brain had been torn in half. Before this he’d come to terms with never finding Nick’s killer. He’d accepted that the redhead was doing her job, that Nick’s actions in the warehouse had looked aggressive. In his heart, he knew that. But the bitch had still murdered his child. And he was so far in with the skinheads that he was no longer drowning, pawing at the surface, he was dead at the bottom of the lake.

  Dead. That’s the only way out of all this.

  Miller owned a Browning semi-automatic pistol. Nobody knew about it, not even Pyke. His bodyguard would have talked him into getting rid of it. Now, Miller locked his outer door and walked over to a
wall safe. He removed a painting, placing it carefully on the floor. He opened the safe and removed the gun.

  Held it in the palm of his hand. It was already loaded.

  Miller crossed to his desk and poured a large brandy. Twenty years ago, he’d never imagined he might go out this way. But Nick was dead. His wife was a colossal manacle, chaining everything he tried to do. His businesses were failing and if the gang passed on all their evidence to the authorities he’d go to prison for the rest of his life.

  Maybe if Nick was still alive, he could handle a stretch inside.

  Miller downed the brandy in two gulps and poured more. Down the hallway he heard his wife shouting for him but ignored her. He was done with it all. He walked over to the window and stared out, the gun hanging loosely in his right hand.

  It was a grand sight. The grounds, here in London. The greenery, the trees, the stables. If he ended it now, they would always be his. A dead man could no longer be steadily drained of everything he owned.

  The gun came up. He held it to the side of his head. He closed his eyes, clenching his teeth together. The tumbler of brandy fell from his hand. His knuckles were as white as parchment.

  After this, I’m free.

  Free of guilt. Of memory. Of the last time I saw my son, dying. Of how I ran. Of debt and debt collectors. Of freeloaders. Of pain and evil, uncaring men.

  But, surprisingly, there was one more thing he had to do first.

  Miller lowered the gun. He hadn’t realised he felt this strongly before Rogue came back in the picture.

  I want to kill her. An eye for an eye. I want to pull the trigger and don’t care if I die in the process.

  He’d avenge Nick. It was a long time since Miller had experienced strong emotion beyond Nick, but he was feeling it now. Feeling it for Rogue. It was a sign that he had one thing left to do before he died.

  Without even thinking it through, he contacted the gang. He asked for the boss, a man called Liam, and blurted out the words before he could stop himself.