Carver

by Tom Cain

  More than one reporter present at the hearings picked up on the phrase, ‘Terror is a product that works,’ and contacted their newspaper or TV network, alerting editors to its headline potential. Sadly for them, however, one of Hollywood’s leading action heroes, a tough yet sensitive Australian much loved for his clean-living, family-loving lifestyle, crashed his Ferrari 458 Italia that afternoon in the parking lot of the Hideaway Inn, Malibu while severely intoxicated. With him in the car were a young Asian woman and a small, zip-up leather holdall in which were a number of plastic bags containing cocaine, marijuana and various illegal and prescription pills. On arrival at the Malibu/Lost Hills police station, his ‘female’ companion was discovered to be a nineteen-year-old Thai ladyboy. A recording of the star’s heated but barely coherent insistence that he had no idea of his companion’s true gender was online within the hour. The line, ‘I thought she was a Sheila!’ was a talkshow punchline around the world that night.

  No one, anywhere, wanted to hear about terrorists in the subsequent news cycle.

  Zorn repeated his warnings about the vulnerability of energy and oil installations in remarks made to a specialist blog aimed at hedge-fund managers and investors, and also in private conversations with a number of extremely wealthy individuals. None of his warnings, however, penetrated the public consciousness or had any immediate political or economic effect. So it seemed that for once in his life, Malachi Zorn had failed to make the impact he desired.

  Friday, 24 June

  1

  * * *

  The Greek island of Mykonos

  PELICANS HONKED. THAT was something Samuel Carver had never known before. But there was the pelican, its feathers a pale baby-pink, like an anaemic flamingo, and it was clearly honking.

  ‘I’m going to take its photograph. Want to come?’

  Her name was Magda, but everyone called her Ginger, for reasons made obvious by one glance at her freckled skin and fiery hair. She had wide-spaced grey-blue eyes, soft, slightly pouty lips, and a little groove at the very tip of her nose. She admitted to being ‘about forty’, but looked no more than twenty-eight, and worked, she said, in corporate finance. Carver was driving a small, hired Japanese Jeep. He’d pitched up next to Ginger’s Porsche Boxster in the line of cars at the port of Piraeus, outside Athens, waiting for the ferry to Mykonos. Both cars had their tops down. Carver and Ginger had exchanged looks, started talking, and discovered they were two unattached adults who’d both chosen to spend a couple of weeks exploring the islands of the Aegean. It made sense to join forces and see how that worked out. So far it seemed to be going pretty well.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘but I think I’ll stay here and enjoy the view.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ said Ginger with a knowing smile, ‘the famous windmills.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Carver, and kept his cool, green eyes fixed on Ginger as she picked her way between the open-air restaurant tables in tiny Daisy Duke shorts that a woman her age had no business wearing so well. He smiled to himself as he realized he wasn’t the only man looking. A waiter was standing by the open door that led to the kitchen, leaning against a glass aquarium filled with live fish and lobsters, and nodding in appreciation as Ginger went by.

  They were lunching at a waterfront joint called Little Venice, their table pressed right up against the waist-high sea wall, so close that they could feel occasional sprinkles of sea-spray against their faces. Ginger was about fifteen metres away now. She had reached the pelican and was crouching down on her haunches in front of it, with her camera to her face. The pelican seemed entirely untroubled by her presence, posing like a seasoned professional for a few seconds before opening its beak wide, its leathery throat pouch sagging beneath it like a fat man’s chins in expectation of a reward.

  The first bullet blasted through the pelican’s neck, blowing the head right off its body. The second, third and fourth hit Ginger, the vivid scarlet eruptions on her chest lifting her off her feet and throwing her to the ground, where she lay quite still, sprawled on her back. The last echoes of the gunfire mingled with panic-stricken shouts and screams, and the clattering of chairs and tables as people made desperate attempts to get away. Carver remained still, committing the two shooters to memory. The first male was tall and blond, in a loose blue shirt and jeans; the second one shorter, darker colouring, all in black. Both were using handguns. Carver’s instinct was to go to Ginger’s side, but the two men were within a couple of metres of her now, and it would be a suicide run. They’d shoot him long before he ever got to her.

  The men were scanning the restaurant, looking for someone, and Carver didn’t wait around to find out whether it was him. Keeping his movements as slow and unobtrusive as possible, he slipped below the surface of his table and scuttled away beneath the one directly behind him. All around him other crawling, scrambling people were fighting their way to the exit, men pushing women and even children aside without a second thought as the instinct for self-preservation overruled any patina of civilized manners.

  There was a khaki baseball cap lying discarded on the floor, and Carver jammed it on his head to cover his short, dark hair and break up his silhouette. It was hardly much of a disguise, but anything that made identification even marginally tougher amidst the bustle of the town’s crowded streets might help.

  He didn’t know for sure, of course, that they were looking for him. Ginger might have been the primary target, or simply the one person unlucky enough to be in plain sight and close range when they hit the restaurant. But life had taught Carver always to act on the basis of the worst-case scenario. That way any surprises would be pleasant ones.

  Two more shots were fired. The stampede became even more desperate. From the sounds of the gunfire, Carver judged that the men had advanced further into the restaurant – under the awning that stretched over the tables between the building where the kitchen was housed and the sea wall. They were, he realized, driving the crowd of people ahead of them, shepherding them in one direction. That suggested they had a destination in mind, a point where the flock would be divided and the object of their attack singled out. Carver had other plans. He got to his feet, swivelled to his right and, keeping his head down, started forcing his way across the line of escaping customers towards the kitchen door.

  Then the crowd suddenly cleared, leaving Carver exposed for a second or two. That was long enough. He heard a voice shout, ‘Over there!’ Then he was up and running full-tilt for the door, followed by the sound of rushing footsteps.

  That answered one question. The men were after him. Now he just needed to know why.

  Carver reached the fish tank, crouched down behind it, then shoved with the full force of his body against the weight of glass and water. It lifted a few centimetres, then a little more, until finally it toppled over and shattered against the floor. A slippery, slithering mass of fish and crustaceans poured out, blocking the pursuers’ path with flapping, claw-waving bodies.

  In the second that diversion bought him, Carver darted through the door and down a short corridor towards the kitchen. There were more shots behind him. He felt the fizz of the rounds going by and saw the glass front of a wine cooler disintegrate up ahead.

  Leaping over the shards of shattered glass, he careered into the kitchen itself. Two women were standing by the stove: one elderly and clad in black, the other barely out of her teens. They shouted unintelligibly at Carver as he looked around, searching for an escape route.

  The men were only seconds behind him. The women were shrieking. The stress seemed to dull and confuse his vision, making it impossible to see clearly. Carver tried to stay calm, to concentrate on the immediate task in hand and ignore the voice in his head telling him he was soft and out of practice, reminding him of the days when he had never gone anywhere unarmed or unprepared.

  Surely the kitchen would have a rear exit? If it didn’t, he was a dead man.

  2

  * * *

  YES, THERE IT was: a door half-hi
dden behind a pile of empty boxes. Carver sprinted across the room, kicked the boxes out of the way, barged through the door, and found himself at one end of an alley that ran between two other buildings. It opened up on to one of the narrow, twisting streets, lined with shops, that wind through the town of Mykonos like tangled strands of spaghetti.

  Island custom mandated that you could paint your house any colour you liked so long as it was white. But no one said what colour the doors, the windows, the verandas and the staircases that ran up the front of almost every building had to be. Vivid splashes of deep-blue, turquoise and scarlet paint clashed with the shocking magenta of the bougainvillea that grew from every tiny open scrap of bare earth.

  The street was packed with tourists, oblivious to the chaos down by the waterfront: couples; groups of women out shopping together; men walking arm in arm in testament to Mykonos’s reputation as a place where anything went so long as no one got hurt. Carver plunged into the crowd, making his way as quickly but unobtrusively as he could, a lean, fit figure in olive-green cargo shorts and a pale-blue cotton shirt, slipping purposefully between the ambling sightseers; a natural predator among a crowd of herbivores.

  As he moved Carver was constantly scanning the faces around him, his senses alert for any sign of danger, his subconscious constantly analysing what he saw. Two young women shrieking with laughter at something one of them had said: safe. A young couple nestling together as they walked, his arm across her back, oblivious to everything except their own love: safe. Two men together, both shaven-headed, looking around … one of them glancing at Carver … catching his eye … reaching beneath his jacket … not safe! Not safe!

  Carver ran, barging the lovers out of the way; crashing between the two young women, who reacted with shrieks of indignation; charging up a pale-blue staircase. He looked round as he ran, and saw the two shaven-headed men, now joined by the shooters from the restaurant, pointing in his direction. Carver reached the outdoor landing at the top of the stairs. Immediately to his right a pair of shuttered French windows led into the house. He looked left, across the street. Another staircase ran up the building opposite. Its landing was barely a couple of metres away. Beyond it the doors into the interior of the building were open. Carver scrambled up on to the wooden balustrade that surrounded the staircase and landing, perched there for a second on the balls of his feet, and then, as the first shots rang out from down below, sprang across the gap to the far building. He cleared the far balustrade, landed on the planking, then curled straight into a roll that took him through the open doorway into a room beyond.

  A grey-haired man was lying there, on a large brass bed, taking his midday rest. He grunted an indignant but sleepy protest, then slumped back on to the pillow as Carver dashed out of the room into a corridor. A staircase at the far end led down to the ground floor, or up to the roof. Carver went up and out on to a flat expanse of dazzling white. A clothes line was tied between two chimneys at either end of the roof. Carver undid one end and ran to the other, still holding the line.

  He was about to abseil over the side when he looked down and saw a black-clad figure turning into the far end of the narrow alley to the rear of the house, holding a gun in his hand. Carver gave the clothes line a sharp, hard tug to make sure it would take the strain, then tied a honda knot to creat a lasso loop on the end of the line.

  He peered over the edge of the roof.

  The gunman was not far away now, walking slightly hunched forward, his pace tentative, his head extended as he peered from side to side, eyes set at ground level, looking out for his prey but nervous in case he himself was ambushed.

  The angle of the man’s neck was ideal, but Carver would only have one chance to get this right. He played out the line, trying to calculate the amount he would need for what he had to do. Then, as the gunman walked by, Carver began lowering the looped clothes line, gently swinging it back and forth above the man’s head, not so fast that it would generate any wind noise, praying that he would not look up. The gunman was two paces past Carver now … three …

  Carver swung the line to its fullest extent, past his target, then brought it back the other way, dropping it lower until the centre of the loop slipped over the man’s head and snagged against his neck.

  That was the first the gunman knew of it.

  He raised his free hand to tear at the line around his neck, then looked up, bringing his gun to bear on Carver, who was now standing, clearly visible, at the edge of the roof.

  Before the man could fire, Carver pulled the line hard, tightening it like a hangman’s noose around the gunman’s neck. Now the gun was forgotten, dropped to the ground as both the man’s hands fought for purchase on the line. Carver pulled again and then a third time, increasing the pressure on the exposed neck, crushing the larynx and forcing his victim to stagger backwards towards him in the hope of creating some slack. But Carver kept pulling the line tighter and tighter, his jaw set in unrelenting determination as the man’s efforts to resist became more feeble and then ceased entirely. The body on the end of the line slumped into immobility. For now, Carver knew, the man was only unconscious. It would take a few minutes yet for death to follow, but follow it certainly would.

  Now he used the line for the purpose he had originally intended, letting it out again and abseiling down the wall to the alley below. He looked at the man’s purple face and the grossly distended tongue that flopped out of his open mouth.

  ‘That was for Ginger,’ Carver said. He picked up the discarded gun and frisked the body for the spare clip. Then he looked around. About ten metres further down the alley, at the back of a restaurant, stood a large, wheeled dump-bin. Carver dragged the body across to it, heaved it in and covered it with a foul-smelling mix of half-eaten food, kitchen waste, empty bottles and containers. He wiped his hands on an old, discarded dishcloth, then closed up the bin and walked away down the alley.

  At four to one, without a weapon, he’d not liked his chances. But now the enemy were a man down and he was armed. The odds were swinging in Sam Carver’s favour.

  3

  * * *

  MI6 headquarters, Vauxhall, London

  ‘ALL RIGHT, THEN, tell me the worst,’ said Jack Grantham as he strode into the meeting room. ‘What’s that grinning money-grubber been up to now?’

  He slapped a file down on the table top, pulled out his chair with an energy that suggested limitless depths of pent-up irritability, and sat down.

  Half a dozen staff were already in place. They looked at one another with raised eyebrows and quizzical expressions. After a decade of MI6 heads who were essentially political placemen – their every word calculated to avoid accountability; their only desire to tell Number 10 exactly what it wanted to hear regardless of the actual facts – Grantham’s cantankerous frankness took some getting used to.

  ‘Are you referring to our former Prime Minister?’ asked the amused, languid voice of the second most senior officer in the room, Piers Nainby-Martin, a thirty-year veteran of the Service, educated at Eton and New College, Oxford.

  ‘No, Piers, I’m referring to Simon bloody Cowell … Yes, of course I mean the Right Honourable Nicholas Orwell, one-time member for the constituency of Blabey and Trimingham, now fully occupied feathering his nest. What’s this I hear about his new business venture? Some kind of investment fund for the stinking rich … Come on, let’s be having it.’

  Another officer, Elaine McAndrew, a bespectacled, mousy, bluestocking type in her thirties, stood up and pointed a remote control at a large plasma screen: ‘This is footage from last night …’

  The screen came to life with grainy shots of a lavish outdoor party. A large circular dinner table, decorated with a splendid floral centrepiece, had been set beside a spotlit swimming pool. At the far end of the pool stood two silk-draped pavilions. Within one of them, two uniformed chefs stood behind a spread of whole lobsters, spectacular king prawns, a perfectly pink joint of roast beef, golden glazed chickens, silver bowls of p
asta, rice and salads of every description, and a pair of chafing dishes whose fragrant, spicy contents would have graced a three-star restaurant. In the adjacent pavilion, a barman was ready with premier cru wines and vintage champagnes, European, Asian and American beers, and a selection of single malt whiskies for those who preferred spirits.

  ‘This is the Castello di Santo Spirito. It’s an estate in Tuscany, about ten kilometres from Siena, owned by an American called Malachi Zorn,’ the woman continued.

  ‘The American speculator?’ Grantham asked.

  ‘That’s right, sir, yes.’

  Grantham harrumphed. ‘His speculations appear to have been successful, then.’

  ‘Yes sir, he’s believed to be worth in excess of fifteen billion dollars.’

  There was a shuffling of papers from down the table and a voice piped up: ‘Fifteen point three, to be precise, according to the latest Forbes magazine list of the world’s richest individuals.’

  A grimace of indifference tinged with disgust crossed Grantham’s face. ‘So what was the occasion?’

  ‘A dinner party, sir,’ said the female officer. ‘For guests of similar wealth.’

  The camera turned to look back up a flight of stone steps towards a country house. From the champagne glasses whose rims were occasionally visible at the bottom of the picture it appeared to be attached to one of the wine-waiters. The camera came to rest on a man. His black suit was perfectly cut, but artfully crumpled, and his white dress shirt was tieless, its top three buttons undone to reveal a tanned, hairless chest. A group of guests – Grantham counted nine men and women – were following him down the stairs, like children trailing the Pied Piper.