The battle flags of the Romanian people, tattered, torn and faded still hung in the open plan lounge and kitchen. Not much had changed – but the place was immaculate. Its owner, having spent so many years living in a concrete room without a view, insisted upon it.
Obsessive. Compulsive. Methodical.
That was Alex Stefanescu.
Sociopathic. Disempathetic, dyssocial – deadly. That was him too.
The club, the people that frequented it, and the reputation of its owner were legendary in the city. The police never raided it, once a year a senior commander would visit – ideally to speak to Alex – or in his absence, as was more often the case, his senior security advisor who was only known as Gheorghiu. They would agree to disagree and a contract – of sorts – was formed over a shot of the commander’s chosen spirit.
The second he left the building, lifting his collar to shield from the cold, any adherence to the agreed plans was aborted. It was how it was, and both sides knew.
There was a familiarity about the two men sat holding shot glasses; fraternal, close-bond. One was the epitome of his nickname – dark haired, which shone with hints of blues and greys; dark, black eyes – olive pock-marked skin. Slim but a sense of power. Confident, arrogant, supremely condescending. His was a persona that welcomed conflict. And crushed it.
The other, younger, with green eyes and fairer skin was solidly built, the result of endless hours in a gym. Not one drop of steroid had entered his body.
He had inherited his mother’s looks and compassion. More naturally, one of his irises was brown, the other hazel. His heterochromic state had become a problem – too many potential witnesses describing it first, above all else.
He fished around with his index finger. “I have to get these damned lenses out brother. They irritate me so.”
“Yes. Such an irritant. But now you are home again you can walk freely among our people. No one will betray you. You know how I feel about that subject – do you not my brother?”
“Of course.” Stefan Stefanescu had recently been held at ‘her Majesty’s pleasure’ – in England. For the sake of credibility, to the outside world, and the inmates at Belmarsh Prison, he was locked down in a cell, alone.
“Why do you ask Alex?” He looked at his older, smaller yet more intimidating brother. Holding his gaze as long as he could without appearing confrontational.
Alex – the Jackdaw – ushered his three staff away. “Go, we need to talk in private.” The heavy door closed, none of the three would be listening on the other side, they had seen what happened to people that did that.
“I ask because we have been adrift you and I. Where have you been since last year? I gave you money, gave you things. Sent you to a land of plenty, in a very nice car. Did I not do this, brother?”
“Yes, Alex you did. You also sent me to that land to kill your daughter. And to recover the document. I did this.”
“Did you?” He locked onto the bi-coloured irises, his own coal-black ones staring back. Someone, a victim most probably, had once remarked that they resembled a shark’s eyes. Emotionless. Predatory.
“Well?”
“Alex, unlike me, I feel that prison has made you slightly paranoid. You know I did. Why do you challenge me?”
“You killed her? Left her to die?”
“Yes. Again, you know this. It was your instruction. I didn’t agree but you asked me to and our relationship meant I had no choice.”
“Because I killed our parents – back then – you feel afraid of me?” He was becoming aroused by the very thought of it.
“No, because you are my brother. It is as simple as that. In our community honour comes first. Are you afraid of that?”
Alex laughed, filled up the glasses and threw the cork into the open fire. It was never too early to be drinking Tuica.
He was relentless with his questions, brother or not.
“And you recovered all of the documents in the car?”
Stefan paused, took a sip of the Tuica, let it burn his throat then replied. “I believe, in the time we had, that yes, I recovered them.”
“OK. Then I believe you.” Change of subject. “And you have been in prison in Britain since last year. What for?”
It felt more like a job interview than a reunion of blood brothers.
“Good. I am so glad you believe me.” Chance to think. “Prison? You know why. They arrested me Alex – with guns – for evading Cade and his team – all those years ago. I had a warrant with my name on it. Who would have known? I always felt that someone close by had told the authorities about me. The moment I crossed back into Britain I knew they were watching me. They could have grabbed me at the border – but no, they wanted to do it with guns, in the streets, to show how brave they are! To make a statement!”
His brother did indeed know why. He just enjoyed asking the question. The British authorities had caught Stefan Stefanescu, at gunpoint on a bitterly cold Friday morning. People had posted the imagery on social media, almost before he had arrived into a secure custodial facility.
It suited them both. Alex felt that his younger brother would learn from a stay in prison and his younger brother had lived a life of relative luxury – ‘locked down in solitary confinement’ but essentially elsewhere – genuinely at her majesty’s pleasure and working with the British authorities.
Stefan’s time in custody was a false flag. He had maintained a low profile for many years, being well paid and occasionally revelling in the chance to work illegally, under the very noses of the people that now technically employed him.
He had laid very low, until he had cropped up on the radar in New Zealand. The local authorities had no idea he was there, or even remotely connected to the crash that had supposedly claimed the life of Elena Petrova. They had no reason to consider the crash anything other than a moment of recklessness.
Young girl. Fast car. Newspaper headline.
For ten years he had supported the British efforts to thwart Eastern European criminal syndicates. In doing so he risked becoming the most hated man in the region. It was a long, drawn out game of chess. Each move carefully thought out. Britain knew it had a cut-off, knew when it needed to act or react. That time was now. But for Stefan, the long game, the divinely timed checkmate had to wait.
That time was soon.
He had made a promise to his father as he lay dying, back in the hard-fought for family home.
‘Support your brother. Please.’ His lungs hissed through an opening in his chest, blood pulsing from his gaping head, revealing a light yellow mass, dark red blood and brain matter. That he had survived this long was a miracle.
‘He is not a monster like you think. He just needs help Stefan. See to it that one day he is sent to prison, where they can help him. Do that for me? Do not hate him. Pity him. It is not Alex that has done this to us, but the devil that inhabits his soul.’
Stefan had held his father close to his chest until he heard him sigh, exhaling his last. He was soon as cold as his mother, who was sat upright, in a favourite chair, four feet away, her back to a wall, eyes open, shocked, the stiletto knife through her throat, pinning her to the cream-coloured plasterboard – the ultimate death notice.
At her feet were two pools of darkening blood where Alex had ripped what he considered to be repugnant varicose veins from her legs. That alone would have killed her.
She was beyond help. He had been unable to speak to her, to hear her last wishes, her dying declaration. But he felt that if she had lived, she would have asked him to seek revenge, for unlike her husband she had grown to hate her son. Rather, she hated what he had become – beyond the age of about ten.
As the years had untwined so had Stefan’s memory of what had happened. Time and a supremely calculating older sibling did that to a younger boy. Alex had manipulated him, again and again until he had convinced him that his parents had been to blame.
‘But why did you do that to them Alex?’
‘I di
dn’t Stefan. You have to understand and one day you will. Now help me clean up.’
Convinced him that his parents were to blame.
It happened – especially to a young and frangible mind.
What they said about blood and water was true. It took him hours to remove the glutinous mush from his fingertips.
Blood. Thicker than water? Of course it was, but in the familial, literal meaning perhaps it made sense. Would his commitment and love of his brother outrank everything else?
Stefan had made a mistake many years later. Two actually.
He had failed to see his brother for what he was and had failed to find the full set of documents in the wreckage of the once-pristine sports car.
The more he considered the event he realised it was three errors of judgement. He had carried out what was technically an assassination upon his own niece. A devastatingly pretty girl, the apple of her mother’s eye. He was thinking now; how could he have been so callous?
He wished she had had died instantly, not slowly fading on a roadside far from home.
However, for Alex a debt was a debt, and in their community it needed to be paid. Prison had expunged the debt. And he could send him back there any time. He had friends in low places.
His sibling had made a mistake by not searching the crashed car on that secluded New Zealand road, had not pushed the dying girl to one side to extract the second set of documents. It wasn’t the end of the world, for as providence would decree, the missing piece of the puzzle was potentially about to turn up – in his own nightclub, his home, and delivered by the hand of a fool.
It simply did not get any better.
What was that saying the Western people had? A fool and his money…
“There is one thing that troubles me Stefan.” His voice was beginning to slur gently.
“And that is?”
“Why didn’t you just kill Elena?”
“You mean slit her throat whilst she slept?”
“Well yes. That is one way. I can think of many more.”
“You asked me to make it look like an accident. It was well planned, you could not have done better.”
“Oh but I could.” He looked into the nearby hearth. “I would have set fire to the car. Watched her burn, lingered a while to inhale the smell of her burning body, then, and only then would I have walked away.” He laughed his signature laugh, a guttural cackle.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It said so on his prison notes.
And he was so very proud of that title. It was about time he started living up to his reputation: Pure Malicious Intent. Anyone who wanted to work with him had to adopt the same ethos. Either that or walk away, with a knife in their back. Twisted. Turned, cleaned and lovingly put away.
“We should put on our best clothes Stefan. The night is ahead of us. Pretty girls, drink and our own people, flocking to meet us. Come on cheer up. You look like your world is ending. Who knows, we may even meet someone who might change our lives.”
The male who called himself the Bushman arrived into the city of Bucharest.
He had never been there before, nor Romania. In fact, for a man with so many contacts, such worldly-wise demeanour, he wasn’t that well-travelled: Solomon Islands, East Timor, Afghanistan, twice. And a month-long training course in Germany.
He liked what he saw. In his mind Bucharest was a run-down place, surrounded by poverty and the ruins of a communist state. In fact, it was beautiful. The Carpathian Mountains to the north and the Danube to the south. A trading centre that had refused to be destroyed by an earthquake, or war or at the hand of Nicolae Ceausescu the tyrant leader, the dictator or conversely, its hero; it depended upon which side of the divide you sat, with whom you dined or served.
Ceausescu got his own just deserts. Executed at the hands of a firing squad and succeeded by a man who led Romania out of the relative dark ages into comparative wealth and freedom.
McCall marvelled at the eleven hundred room Palace of the Parliament – Ceausescu’s monument to himself. It was, he decided, impossible not to see it. Whilst its immense size and impressive architecture fascinated him he soon found it also made him nauseous, the thought of the power of one man and how he could make the lives of so many, so miserable.
He started to draw similarities with his target – the Jackdaw. If you sat on his side of the fence you were guaranteed a charmed life. If not, then you weren’t. Black and white. Never grey.
He continued his tourist drive, observed the obvious growth, the modern-day phoenix, spiralling from the ashes; saw the evidence of new companies, of investment and improved infrastructure. He admired the country and its people for their resilience. He liked that in a race. He was partly glad he had made the journey, but unhappy that he had to leave it in such a negative way – for he felt that whatever the outcome, somehow his life would never be the same again.
One day. One decision. The girl, in the car, dying. If he hadn’t been such a knight in shining bloody armour.
‘No turning back now Scottie.’
He shook his head, bringing him back on track, returning to the mission. The capital, his research had told him was named after Bucur, a prince and some said, an outlaw. Bucharest had a relatively low crime rate, lower than most European cities. Equally, it also had pockets of highly organised crime – and he knew he was heading into just such a place later that day.
The Bulevardul Ion Mihalache. It was part of the older town and where Alex and his brother had first decided to put down roots, to make money and live a comparatively debauched lifestyle.
Towards the city lay the club that was the centre of it all – his mission, his target, Byzantin.
It was more upmarket than he expected. A gleaming jewel set amongst a crown that needed polishing and yet had an old-world charm. People appeared to flock to the area, making it easier to blend but harder to surveil.
The first drive-by allowed him to conduct a scan. Old building, in keeping with the surrounding properties, large hardwood doors, ten feet high at a guess. They opened inwards. Shuttered windows. Lighting. Cameras. He knew he had two chances, three at best, to drive along the road, posing as a tourist, hopelessly lost. There was no way he could just park up outside, or even opposite. The building and the sterile area around it was somehow revered. Parked outside were two cars; a white Mercedes E63 AMG and a grey Bentley Continental GT.
‘Clearly money in nightclubs eh boys?’ McCall chatted to himself, working out the tactics. He was used to doing this with a team, with their knowledge, individual skills and of course, their backing.
He knew that he needed to get inside the shark’s mouth. In principle it was a great idea, but one which actually could be his last if he didn’t formulate a plan to deal with those teeth. Two of the largest, who McCall christened The Incisors, stood outside the club; pacing, bored, but aware of their surroundings. Alpha male predators. Powerfully-built, dark-suited, cheap aftershave, wearing overly-gilt and gaudy wristwatches and earpieces. Standard stuff for any club – especially one not designed for dancing.
‘Could do with my sisters to get into that place. Pretty girls my kid sisters.’
He expected to find The Molars – the next line of defence, beyond those doors and the sharpest teeth right outside Stefanescu’s living quarters. They were the ones that were honed, angled backwards to cause the most damage to his precious flesh.
For the first time – ever – he shuddered. It wasn’t the cold, although the temperature had noticeably dropped and there was a threat of snow. It was fear. And fear was good.
He knew that adrenaline and fear would keep him alive. What he really needed to do now was imagine that this was a regimental operation.
He had the Grounds clear in his mind – or rather the layout of the building and its surroundings. The Situation was clear, but fluid. The Mission was what he deemed a multi-phase component.
Phase One. He entered the shark’s mouth, exchanged the documents, for a return that far
outweighed his investment – and left alive.
Phase Two he stormed in there, shot everyone and escaped with a lot more than he bargained for. Death was a distinct possibility.
He chose the first option. And the more he looked, the more he saw that there was only one way to carry out the last part of the operation – which he called Hammerhead.
The final aspect of the operation, the Execution component – the how – was last but importantly so, and it needed to be at the forefront of his mind.
He drove further, left, then again, tried to find a rear door but failed. A side street just returned to him to where he had started with no view into the building through the many trees that lined the streets. There was only one thing for it. One more drive along the main road, then park up and go in on foot.
As his feet stepped onto Romanian soil he sensed a feeling of excitement. This was what he did – how he operated. His cossetted R. M. Williams boots carried him along the boulevard, on the opposite side of the road to his target. He pulled the collar of his coat up slightly and ruched the body of his jacket, aware of emphasising any tell-tale signs that he was armed.
He shuddered again. Another layer for tonight. Or was it the general feeling that he was being watched?
He was. But the person who watched him was there for an entirely different reason.
“We have a new player.”
A description was passed over the covert radio. The accent was strong enough to cut through stone.
“Any of you recognise him?” An authority voice.
“Negative sir.”
“Get some images.”
“Already done.”
“How long have you been there?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“Move out.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I guess all we can do is sleep, watch a few films and eat. Then do it all again. Twice. Then once we have crossed Australia, we can do it all again.”
It summed up long haul travel. Whoever it was that said the world was getting smaller had clearly not embarked on a flight of such magnitude for a while.
Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3) Page 21