Nine Lives

by Tom Barber

  But there was one thing no one knew about him. Not a soul.

  Henry had a secret. Only one.

  But it was powerful enough that he would sacrifice his entire business for it in a heart-beat.

  His daughter.

  Mia.

  Her mother was a maid who’d lived inside his compound. Henry had drunkenly mounted her one night when he was eighteen, still a lieutenant in the business, and the next time he’d laid eyes on her, the woman was three months pregnant. He considered drowning her, but decided to wait, curious to see what effect a child would have on him. If it was a boy, he was even considering raising him as an heir, seeing as when the woman was seven months pregnant, he’d ascended to his position at the top of the cartel.

  But it had been a girl. The first moment he saw her, Henry felt a feeling that he didn’t like. Attachment. He realised he actually cared about the child, much to his surprise. But he hated it. It felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar. It also meant one thing, and he knew without a doubt it would mean the same word to his enemies.

  Leverage.

  After the girl was born, he’d kept the maid and baby in the compound, hidden away from the outside world and prying eyes. Only two other people, a pair of other maids, knew of the baby and who the father was, so they were quickly disposed of. And one night, twenty five years ago, he’d put the maid and baby on his private jet and flown them to New York, far away from any potential danger. It was a fact of life that if word got out that there was someone he cared about, the child would one day either be held hostage or killed. It was inevitable, like the sun rose and set every day.

  He had snuck meetings across the Atlantic to see the child. He couldn’t afford to risk using JFK or Newark, so he used a private airfield in New Jersey and had then taken a limo into the city. He’d set the two of them up in a place in the Upper West Side, on 79 and 8, a safe neighbourhood. It had been dangerous going there alone. He couldn’t take any security with him due to the secrecy, and he had a lot of enemies stateside, both Federal and criminal. When the child had been old enough to attend private school, he’d enrolled her and strangled her mother. And with each passing year, Mia was proving to be an increasingly pleasant surprise. She was definitely her father’s daughter.

  He saw that she was not intimidated by pain or death. She didn’t mourn her mother’s passing. She had the strength of a boy but was also highly intelligent. Despite his secrecy, Henry had shared more and more with her until eventually, she knew of his entire business. His passion for drowning his enemies. His associates. The obscene profits. Rather than be scared, she had often provided surprisingly sound advice for him on ventures and people who needed to be eliminated. And all this whilst living in New York, anonymous in the city. To her friends, she was Mia, the college grad. To Henry, she was his pride and joy, the only other person in the world he cared for.

  She was also the only person in the world that he trusted implicitly. He had called her from Riyadh a year ago on a private and secure line. She had never heard him so angry. He informed her of what Dominick had done at the Four Seasons and the new enemies he now had as a consequence. The other organisation had contacted Henry in a rage, demanding answers and blood. Henry had promised them retribution. But he needed Mia’s help. Unlike her father, there was no black mark against her name on any government databases. She had a fake passport and no one had any idea who she really was.

  Henry asked her to fly to England, to track down her idiot cousin. And to take him out.

  The prospect of murder didn’t intimidate her. Henry had helped her kill her first man when she was fifteen. The guy was an informant, so he deserved what he got. Henry had injected the man with an autojet sedative, knocking him out cold, and he showed Mia how to cinderblock and cement a victim. He’d let her push the guy into the Hudson from a boat in the early morning, the man’s mouth duct-taped, his eyes wide as saucers. It had been Henry’s proudest moment as a father.

  For Mia, finding Dominick had been easy. The guy was an idiot. He’d rented a flat in a part of London called Knightsbridge using his real name on the lease, showing just how stupid he really was. As a result, she tracked him down quickly, but before she made a move something told her to stay back and observe, just for a few days, to see what he was up to. Slowly but surely, as she tailed him wherever he went, she realised what he was doing. It looked as if he was recruiting some kind of cell. She’d even followed them on a train to a deserted plain in south Wales two months ago, and watched from far away with binoculars as the cell practiced demolitions out there on the moor.

  But her interest was fading. She had a job to do. When she got back to London from the Welsh moor, she’d called her father, telling him how she’d found Dominick and where. She offered to waste him the moment he got back. But Henry had been intrigued. The boy had always been a disappointment, just like his father. Could he finally be about to do something useful?

  Mia had reluctantly held back. She was worried for her father. If the police got wise and took Dominick into custody, he knew far too much about Henry’s business to be safe. She’d reminded him of this fact on the telephone three days ago. He’d come to his senses, and finally gave the order for her to move in and take him out. She’d broken into his apartment that night, with a silenced pistol, ready to shoot him in the face as he slept.

  But he wasn’t there. She saw he’d packed his bags and was gone.

  Pulling back from the apartment, Mia had wracked her brains, trying to figure out where he could be. She didn’t have a clue, and was angry with herself for letting him slip away. But yesterday morning, as she prowled the street trying to think, she’d caught a glimpse of a television in a shop window. It was giving breaking news of a raid on a house in North London. She’d raced over there as fast as she could, easily getting past the police cordon and breaking into a house opposite the street. From her vantage point, she’d seen police officers arresting two members of the cell that she recognised from the Welsh moor.

  She’d contacted Henry, telling him of the situation. If the cops got hold of Farha before they did, he knew enough to bring down the entire cartel. Henry’s response had surprised her. He told her to forget about him. He’d take care of it. But he wanted her to do something else. For all Dominick’s stupidity and clumsiness, he’d given Henry an idea.

  She knew her father hated the UK. He’d been sent to school with his sister during the Gulf war only to return and find a crater where their house should have been. Their parents and his brother had been killed. That had planted a seed of hate inside the boy that had grown over time. Aside from Mia, his mother was the only other person he’d ever truly cared about, and the British had killed her in an instant, without a care. Whilst inept, Dominick’s intentions had been on the money. Henry had never dabbled in terrorism.

  But the boy had wet his beak.

  He’d arranged for a package to be delivered. It was on its way over from Riyadh. He’d contacted a man in the UK who would deliver it where it needed to go. The guy wouldn’t fail. He was part of Henry’s team. Mia had listened to the plan. It was genius. If it worked, it would go down in history, and no one would ever realise their involvement.

  But then a major problem had arisen.

  One of Dominick’s morons had blown himself up at the Emirates.

  Security would have been tough to infiltrate before. Now it would be like breaching Fort Knox. That was even if the game ever took place. Mia and Henry had been about to give up, thinking the whole plan was finished. But then they got a stroke of luck. The Prime Minister hadn’t cancelled the other matches that weekend. Better still, he was going to be attending the Chelsea-Manchester game with his wife. It was as if fate had intervened for Henry and Mia. Serendipity.

  Through her surveillance photographs from the raided house, she’d learned that the squad of policemen who made the bust were known as the Armed Response Unit, some new police detail set up by the English government. Judging by the way they took
charge at the crime scene, Mia figured they had access everywhere. She’d followed one of their cars back to what she assumed was their headquarters. When the bomb had gone off at the stadium, she’d tailed them there too. Across the car park, she’d seen four of them separate and run back to one of their vehicles, jumping in and speeding off. She’d followed and had followed them all the way to a shopping centre.

  But there was a logistical problem when she got there. The police had parked on Parkfield Street, but there was nowhere for her to go. There was a gathering crowd outside, so she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, and thus she’d been forced to drive around the block, ending up on the other side of the shopping mall, on Upper Street. And just as she was preparing to get out and move in to see what was happening, she couldn’t believe her luck.

  One of Farha’s men was right there in front of her on the street.

  He was standing beside an ambulance. She watched him attempt to detonate something he'd left inside the mall. She saw that it failed. He’d jumped into the ambulance, and she followed him to the stadium. She figured out his plan the moment she saw him approach the Emirates, so she held back and took him out just before he could detonate the device. She had considered detonating it herself, but then the police officer had appeared. It was perfect. She pulled the fake badge Henry’s guys had made a few months previously. Agent Shapira. Mossad, she’d said. She’d watched the cop look at her badge, then at the unconscious terrorist. It was perfect.

  She’d saved the day.

  Infiltrating the police unit had been surprisingly easy. She knew enough about Dominick’s cell to back up her Mossad story, and she’d already earned their trust by busting up the ambulance bomber. Her plan was to lay low until Sunday, when she’d need their help to get past security at the football stadium. But when she’d taken out the guy with the rocket launcher, they were practically throwing her a party.

  But one thing had taken her by surprise. She was keeping to herself inside the Unit’s headquarters, but she couldn’t help notice the presence of the two American agents. Crawford and Rivers. From the DEA. Through overheard conversations and snippets of trusted detail from Rivers, she pieced together that they’d been building a giant case against Henry. But not only him. The evidence they’d gathered incriminated other cartels. She knew of such a method of trial. They called it a RICO case. Trial by association, in other words.

  After she’d whacked the kid with the rocket launcher on the roof, Rivers was totally on her side. She’d used her increased standing to ask him for details about the DEA operation’s situation, and he’d told her that they had two men tailing a drug buy at an airfield outside Paris. It was the culmination of their entire operation, he told her. Henry was never seen present at a deal. If they captured him tonight, it would be the closure they needed to bring down the cartel and those around it. Panic had kicked in then. She’d managed to sneak a phone call to Henry, warning him off, and he’d sent some of his men to fix the problem. Soon after, she’d received a phone call from a private number. A man she didn’t know. He’d confirmed that Henry’s package from Riyadh was in place.

  The rest was up to her.

  Where Dominick had screwed up was his rationale. He had figured the more bombers he had, the bigger the destruction. That wasn’t true. What he should have done was pick his targets carefully. Like Mia.

  Stamford Bridge football ground was the home of Chelsea football club. It had a maximum capacity of 41,837. Over 41,000 souls in one place, every single one of them distracted, focused on events on the pitch.

  And today the Prime Minister would be there. So would his wife.

  Apparently, there was going to be some kind of service before the game to commemorate those lost at the Emirates.

  How ironic, she thought. They all gather to mourn the dead, yet every single one of them will die before the end of the first half.

  She smiled to herself at the thought. She was sitting alongside one of the ARU officers in his car, making their way to the stadium. She’d given him some bullshit story about how Mossad needed her help at the ground. Some kind of situation, she’d said vaguely, but much to her pleasure, the idiot had driven her down willingly. She was planning to kill him, but wouldn’t get rid of him yet. She still needed him to get her inside.

  Beside her, the cop pulled to the kerb on Fulham Broadway. Around the car, fans in blue and red shirts were rushing forward, heading to the entrance turnstiles of the large football stadium. This was as close as they could get to the stadium without walking. ‘Here we are,’ he said, applying the handbrake. He turned, noticing a grin on Shapira’s face. ‘What are you smiling about?’

  ‘Just looking forward to the game,’ she replied. ‘Let’s go.’

  The first thing Nikki did was rush straight to Director Cobb’s office. She barged in without knocking, and started telling him as fast as she could what she had found. He’d listened closely, then jumping up from behind his desk, he ran through to the ops room to Nikki's computer to see for himself. Nikki was frantically trying to pull any files on Shapira, but there was nothing.

  No one anywhere seemed to have any idea who she was.

  At that moment, Cobb’s mobile phone rang. He answered it, it was Mac. He started a report on how they had secured the building. Cobb cut him off. ‘Mac, are you on speaker-phone?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I need you to apprehend Agent Shapira right now.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘She’s not here, sir. She’s gone.’

  ‘What? Gone where?’

  ‘She said her people had needed her at Stamford Bridge. The football stadium. Fox is driving her down there.’

  Cobb swore. ‘Get on the phone to Fox right now. Order him to make the arrest. Get over there as fast as you can, Mac,’ he said, hurriedly.

  ‘What’s this all about, sir?’

  Nikki turned to Cobb. She’d realised the connection. ‘Oh my God.’

  He looked at her, the phone to his ear.

  ‘She’s Dominick Farha’s cousin.’

  At the stadium, it was ten minutes until kick off. Scores of wreaths and tributes had been laid outside the ground, including many Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur shirts with messages and tributes written on the front. They were gathered by the gates like a sort of shrine. Shapira ignored them as she moved with Fox towards the entrance.

  Armed security and police were everywhere. At the entrance, one of them stepped forward, seeing that the ARU officer was armed. ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Fox. I’m with the ARU,’ he said, pulling a badge from a sleeve on his uniform. ‘This is Agent Shapira. She’s with Mossad.’

  The man turned his attention to her. She’d already pulled her badge and ID, and passed them over, cool and calm. The forgery was perfect. He examined them both for a moment, then passed them back, satisfied.

  ‘OK, so what can I do for you?’ he asked.

  Fox turned to Shapira, letting her take over.

  ‘Some of my team are already inside,’ she said. ‘We think there might be a security issue.’

  ‘Not likely,’ the guy said stubbornly. ‘And whatever it may be, our team will handle it.’

  ‘We can stand here wasting time, or you can listen to me and we can go fix the problem,’ she said. Her phone rang in her pocket. She grabbed it and saw it was Henry’s private line. Thinking on the spot, she showed them the ringing phone. ‘See? They’re calling me right now. You can come with me and see for yourself.’

  The guard thought for a moment. He didn’t like it.

  ‘OK. Fine,’ he said. ‘But both of you, weapons stay here. You can collect them on the way out.’

  Fox nodded. He checked the safety on his MP5, and un-looped the strap from his shoulder. He passed it over, along with the Glock 17 pistol from its holster by his hip. The guard took the guns and put them in a security hut behind him. Shapira pulled her Sig Sauer pistol and passed it over. She didn’t mind.
/>   She had another weapon.

  The guard nodded. ‘OK. So let’s go.’

  Together, the three of them moved into the ground. There was still a large crowd outside the stadium itself, as fans bought match-day programmes and drinks before taking their seats in the stands. As they moved forward, Fox felt the phone on his tac vest vibrate as it rang. He pulled it out. It was probably Mac, calling him back to the Wharf.

  He answered it. ‘Mac?’

  He heard murmuring at the other end. He could barely hear him over the crowd. He turned, putting his finger in his other ear. The guard from the entrance saw him turn, and moved over to see what the problem was.

  ‘Speak up, Sarge. I can’t hear you,’ Fox shouted.

  ‘Fox, take Shapira into custody!’ Mac ordered at the other end.

  Fox frowned.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘She’s Dominick Farha’s cousin!’ Mac shouted.

  Fox froze, he felt the hackles on his neck rise.

  ‘Don’t let her out of your sight. We’re on our way!’

  Mac’s voice disappeared. The next moment, Fox spun around.

  But Shapira was gone.

  He scanned the area around him, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  She’d vanished into the crowd.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The Sunday afternoon lack of traffic meant the ARU police car moved at break-neck speed through the streets. Stamford Bridge to Canary Wharf was fifteen kilometres. Behind the wheel, Deakins had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the city streets, and he was putting all that information to good use. The streets flashed past, they were almost there, making fast time. Fox had called back moments ago, telling Mac that Shapira had suddenly disappeared into the crowd and that he was searching for her with the stadium security team. She was unarmed, apparently, which was a small blessing. At least someone on the gate had possessed the foresight to take her weapon. Mac checked his watch. 1:25pm. Kick off was in five minutes.