Alexa was much more at home in Turkey than Jack, and for the most part he let her get on with making contact with those shady individuals who were in a position to help them locate the weapons. She had been an agent in Southern Turkey for many years and her local knowledge was simply indispensable. She was completely at ease with the locals as she conversed with them in their own language as effortlessly as she conversed with Jack in English. As the days passed and they investigated one dead end after another she never lost her com
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posure. As Jack settled into the role as her sidekick he began to see her in an entirely different light. Setting aside the not so insignificant matter of her trying to blow him to kingdom come following their first meeting, he was fondness quickly last night in theTurkish town Jack was to learn that she was also developing feelings for him too. In true Alexa style she was far from subtle when the moment to declare how she felt about Jack finally arrived. She came into his room in the middle of the night. As a sleepy Jack tried to sit up in the bed she pushed him onto his back. He was wide awake when she straddled him; thoughts of how his actions would be viewed back home, worries over just how much trouble he would be in when he got back, if he got back; all put to one side as her athletic thighs spurred him on. He was even more awake when they finished making love in the early hours of the morning.
The following morning they had arranged to meet up with a market trader who was reported to have links with the underground weapons network. Alexa approached the man with her usual affable grace; Jack was not so sure. The guy was all wrong. He was in his mid-twenties for a start. It wasn’t uncommon for men in that part of the world to get involved with all manner of illegal activities at a very young age, but there was no way that someone so young could have held as much influence and knowledge of such an important criminal enterprise. The Russians would never have trusted him. With age came wisdom and when a Red Army officer was facing execution at the hands of a firing squad for treason if he was exposed, he was going to make damn certain that he was putting his life into the hands of someone credible. The man spoke decent English, if somewhat fragmented, which did indicate a level of education that was much higher than that attained by most of his countrymen. Though the fact that he spoke English did nothing to make the stream of nonsense coming out of his mouth any easier to swallow.
“I am the man,” said the young man. “I am Bahir. I am the man.” “So you keep saying,” Jack said, with annoyance.
“What can I do for you?” Bahir asked, with his cheerful tone momentarily obliterated by Jack’s negative attitude.
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quickly developing a genuine fondness for developed into something much deeper. her. That On their “You know what we are looking for,” Jack said. “If you can give us
the information that we are looking for then you will be paid well. If you try to sell us a pup I will put a bullet in your head. Does that make things clear enough for you?”
“Yes angry man, it makes things very clear,” said Bahir. Jack knew that Alexa did not approve of his approach to finding out information and that is why Jack had been happy to let her take the lead up until that point; but there was something about Bahir that rubbed Jack up the wrong way. Alexa would never let anyone get to her, least of all some street punk from the back end of beyond, but Jack couldn’t help but feel protective of her. She was his woman and if he had to slap a thousand Bahirs senseless until they treated her with respect and told her what she wanted to know then that is exactly what he would do.
“Now angry man, let me make a few things clear for you and your good lady,” said Bahir. “This is not your country. This is my country. Your silly little threats do not hold fear for anyone in this country. That you haven’t already had a bullet to the head and your woman sold as a slave to a rich Arab has been my gift to you. That is a gift that I can have taken from you at any moment. So, angry man, keep your mouth on a leash and mind your manners. The men who I work for are much scarier than you could ever be. I could wake up one morning with my balls in my mouth and my still beating heart on my pillow and all because one of the men who I work for had a row with one of his wives. So you see, your threats mean nothing to me. Now, angry man, let us start again only this time you can play my game my way. Do we have an understanding?”
“I understand that you are an insignificant little shit who knows as much about four nuclear missiles travelling through his country as that goat tethered over there. You are a fucked up little chancer and I have no intention of wasting another breath on you.”
Alexa cut in. “Perhaps you would let me talk to the nice man, darling?” she said, with a smile.
“Knock yourself out. Just don’t get too close to the bastard; I can almost hear the lice crawling around on him. Keep your eyes on him
at all times.”
Jack stepped back and he let Alexa do her thing. It was not a good cop bad cop game that he was playing; he genuinely loathed the creep now talking to his woman.
“You know what we want,” Alexa said. “Are you willing to provide us with the information or should we take our business elsewhere?”
Bahir took a few moments to consider his position.
“I do not like being made to feel like dog shit,” Bahir said. “I have worked hard to get to where I am. I have studied three foreign languages. My bosses find me a useful man to have around. That’s why they trust me. That’s why they share information with me.”
“Good,” Alexa said.
She sensed that she was starting to make some progress.
“Now the only question that you need to ask is will you share some of that information with us?” she asked.
Again Bahir paused for a few moments. An earnest look on his face melted into a cheerful grin.
“For a pretty lady such as yourself, Bahir would do anything,” Bahir said.
Jack rolled his eyes.
“The shipment has already left this area. The part my organisation plays is now at an end. It is now someone else’s problem. That’s why I don’t mind sharing what I know with you. If the price is right.”
Bahir leaned forward and Alexa moved in to listen to what he had to say. Jack was too far away to hear the hushed tone of the conversation.
“The men who I work for will not be terribly upset if I pass this information to you but if you are captured I would be very grateful if you could keep my name out of any interrogation. Not everyone involved in the trade route is as understanding towards Bahir as my employers. Do you understand?”
“I understand. We will never give you up. Now, how cost for the information?”
Bahir thought for moment. He looked around at Jack. spread across the young man’s face.
much will it
An evil grin “The cost will be a simple kiss. Here and now, in front of your angry man. That is all Bahir asks in exchange for the information that you seek. Do we have a deal?”
Without thinking about it and with Jack looking on in horror, Alexa leaned in to kiss Bahir. Her face was sprayed with blood before their lips touched. Bahir fell to the ground, stone cold dead, with a gaping hole in his head. Alexa immediately turned to face Jack. Jack was as confused as Alexa. In unison and without speaking they ran for the shelter of some nearby shops. As no further shots rang out Jack assumed that they were in the clear. As they knelt at the back of a shop Jack wiped the blood away from Alexa’s face. She really was the one for him—with death looming over them and the blood of a dead man still fresh on her face all he could think about was making love to her there and then. She was like him; she understood him and his world. In every possible regard that he could think of, and he thought of more human traits and affectations than most men, she was absolutely perfect. judgement of He could not read her completely but for some reason he believed that
she felt the same way about him. There was no reason for her to seduce him for operational reasons as he was already doing everything that she asked of him. The search
for the weapons in Turkey went cold. As they left the country they were focused on their mission, but they were also committed to their love for one another. But their world was not made for lovers and within two weeks their relationship would be dealt the cruellest of blows.
And so, against all of his training, and against the better his rational mind, he fell completely in love with her.
15
The Nest
of Evil
As Jack entered the chemical plant through the door that was next to the laboratory it soon became clear that those already inside the building were not meeting in the lab, as Jack had assumed. The complete lack of security indicated they were elsewhere in the massive complex. Even so, that there were no armed guards next to a main entrance was odd. He quickly scanned his surroundings for any signs of security cameras; there were none that he could see. They were either very careless, which was highly unlikely, or they were very confident. What Jack knew of men in power, and what he knew of men with power of a more sinister kind, was that they were both very arrogant. For whatever reason, his path had been left clear and he couldn’t help but feel that was a deliberate choice on their part. He arrived at that conclusion owing to the fact that there wasn’t a single guard to be seen anywhere along the long corridor that ran along the side of the lab and on into the main part of the plant. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. It may not have been a trap set up especially for Jack, but he felt sure that it was a trap all the same.
Before he moved meeting place, Jack and he peered inside. empty he still proceeded with great care. If men with power made
on, and to eliminate the lab conclusively as the cautiously opened a door leading to the room Although logic told him that the room would be
reckless suppositions without worrying about the consequences, then spies who made the same kind of suppositions didn’t live long enough to regret the consequences. He had been through too many near misses to have it all end at the hands of some trigger happy mercenary. The room was dark and quiet. For some reason on that second visit to the laboratory he noticed the smell to a much greater extent. It was stale, and distinctly automotive in nature; clear signs that the room had once been used to work with chemicals, and that the room was probably still being used to work with chemicals—there were organic compounds in the air and those volatile compounds normally dissipated quite quickly, and so he concluded that they were recent. The workbench at the back of the room was still displaying the acid that Robert had used to intimidate Jack. Jack would not extend the same level of theatrics to Robert if he got the chance—he was bound up in this and that was all that Jack needed by way of evidence in his roles of Judge, jury and executioner.
The door to the lab clicked shut as Jack stepped back out into the corridor, pulling the door with him as he moved. Jack paused for a few moments and he listened. He could hear nothing but the sound of a gentle wind as it penetrated the building and blew through the empty spaces within. Metal creaked and wood cracked. The sound of water dripping loudly gently rippled through the building, like the irregular heartbeat of a dying giant. Jack slowly began to walk along the corridor towards the inner parts of the building. He moved unhurriedly at first; taking a few steps, stopping to listen for signs of life, before moving forwards once again. Time and again he heard nothing, and so impatience, along with a growing sense of confidence, spurred him on at an increasingly faster pace. He passed many doors with panels of frosted glass in them—Jack assumed that the doors led to offices and that none of those offices would be large enough for a comfortable meeting to be held—not with the number of people he was expecting to find. One door was slightly different to the others. There was no glass and the dark wood of the door was hard and expensive in appearance. Jack walked up to the door and he pushed down on the handle.
He pressed a shoulder gently against the door as his hand continued to push down on the handle. The door put up no resistance as it opened into the room.
There had to be a good reason why there was no glass in the door. Jack had been trained to look out for those things that were out of place. The door and the room behind it fitted that standard effortlessly. Jack stepped backwards with alarm when he saw two men sitting in front of a large dark wood desk. He moved too far back into the corridor and he was unable to catch the door in time as it closed. Jack readied himself to run off in the direction of the entrance to the plant. If he had been spotted and they raised the alarm then the safest option would be to get the hell out of there and come back to the plant at a later date. If he did that he would not be as fortunate on that occasion as they would have a small army of guards waiting for him on his second attempt. He paused for a moment. If he got inside the office quickly enough then there was a possibility that he could take the two men out. As dangerous as it seemed Jack simply couldn’t give up at that stage—there was something big, something important, something deadly going on at that plant and Jack had one good chance to find out what that was—it was a chance that was unlikely to present itself again. Without thinking about it too much in case he reasoned himself out of it, Jack confidently stepped up to the door, pushed down on the handle, and then he threw his body against the wood. The door flew open into the room and Jack rushed in.
Adrenaline burned through his veins as he moved towards the men as they sat motionless. Confusion brought Jack to a halt. Neither of the two men looked round as Jack burst into the room. His confusion was almost instantly replaced by grim certainty. Jack edged towards the men, still alert to the possibility, no matter how remote, that the seated men could still turn on him. They did not move a muscle. From the side Jack saw the bullet holes. The first man was missing part of his forehead, and the man sitting next to him had suffered a gunshot wound to his left eye. Both had their hands bound to the arms of the chairs. A quick inspection indicated that they had not only been interrogated and murdered, but they had been brutally quizzed. Bruising around their eyes and blood trickling from their mouths told of the violence of their demise.
The man closest to Jack had his mouth slightly agape—his lips and tongue suggested that he had been trying to speak as his life was terminated—possibly pleading for his life. His front teeth were missing,
184 indicating that whoever had been asking the questions had taken their job very seriously indeed. Jack placed a hand on the neck of the man next to him. The skin felt warm. It hadn’t been long since the man had been executed. Jack jumped as the door to the office closed. With the unexpected and settling sound past him he continued to examine the bodies. Both men were well dressed. They wore tailor made suits and the ties around their necks remained impeccably in place—from the right angle they could have been waiting silently for a highpowered business meeting to begin.
Jack searched through the men’s jackets. He found nothing. As he scanned the desk in front of them he was more successful. He found several receipts from one of the better hotels in town, and more revealingly, he found two passports. Both documents were suspiciously new looking. Both were issued by the Canadian government, or so they purported. Canadian passports were a favourite amongst forgers for a number of reasons. Canada was a nation of emigrants so the ethnicity of the bearer was no grounds for suspicion at passport control. The same was true of America, but America was so unpopular around the world, even with her allies, that passport officials sometimes gave US passport holders special attention just for the hell of it.
Satisfied that he had learned all that there was to learn from the scene, Jack left the office. As he stood outside the door of the office he quickly reflected on what he had gleamed from his short investigation—whoever the dead men were was not as important as the fact they had been tortured and murdered—whoever was running this gathering, and in spite of the obvious lack of security, they were clearly serious and clearly not to be underestimated.
As Jack had no idea where he was going he adopted a standard search pattern—he maintained a course along the outer corr
idors before moving into the inner corridors, with the ever-decreasing circle taking him towards the centre of the building. That search pattern gave him the greatest possible chance for success as it started by eliminating the most obvious locations where a meeting would take place— namely in one of the offices or conference rooms that were found in the outer portion of the building. The problem with the search was that it took time, and with time there were more opportunities for him being discovered. As he got closer to the middle of the building the
warren of rooms and labs in that inner space got larger and larger. At the very heart of the building Jack came across the largest of all the rooms. Deduction through elimination told him that the people who he sought would be found inside that room. The double doors that opened into the large room had glass panels in them, and through the frosted glass Jack could see the dark outlines of two large men—they were obviously standing guard; though Jack was slightly puzzled as to why the guards were standing on the inside of the room and not out in the corridor to make certain that those meeting inside were not disturbed. The only reason that he could think of, other than the guards being highly ineffective, as to why they would be on the wrong side of the doors was that they were not there to keep people out; rather, they were there to make sure that no one on the inside tried to leave. The whole set-up inside the building left Jack feeling uneasy, and perhaps, he thought, that was the point. If the circumstances had been normal, had it been any other mission, Jack, and any other would-be infiltrator would have sensed that something was very wrong and they would have left.
Jack moved towards the door slowly. From the other side of the door he could hear voices. Many voices. The sound was babbling and unstructured and had he not known any better he could have sworn that there was a party or some other kind of social gathering taking place on the other side of those curiously guarded doors. The sound of glass clinking against glass and intermittent laughter only served to heighten that impression. There was a corridor to the left of the doors. Cautiously Jack moved towards the corridor, hugging the wall as he went. The corridor was short. It terminated at a toilet block. Jack moved into the men’s toilets. The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood on end as he entered the toilet block as he ran into a man—literally.
Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) Page 21