Hunter

by Chris Allen

  "Giuseppe!" A man called for the captain from the bridge. "Can you come up?"

  "OK, OK," the captain cried. "I'm sorry, Mr Hamilton. Would you excuse me for a minute?"

  "Of course," said Morgan, relieved to be unsupervised. "Do you mind if I continue to wander around?" "Be my guest. I won't be long."

  Alex Morgan walked casually toward the locations from which the security guards had engaged the pirates. He went aft to where the first guard had been shot and killed and, according to the crew statements, his body thrown overboard. There was an area that had borne the brunt of large-caliber automatic rifle fire, defined by the faintest amount of blood splatter residue - not so clearly visible to the uninitiated, despite obvious attempts to clean it all away - and a narrow vertical tract across the upper area of the bow and upon the superstructure where the ammunition had impacted. The man had been somewhere in between, close to where Morgan was currently standing, he surmised. He was disturbed that there were no other signs of a firefight; considering the amount of shooting that had allegedly occurred in both directions, he expected there to have been much more. As discreetly as possible, he lifted a flimsy piece of tape that had been smoothed over a bullet hole and pressed the end of his forefinger firmly against it. The pressure formed a circular indentation upon the fleshy end of his finger. Examining it, he noted the caliber quietly to himself - "Seven six two" - and then, replacing the tape, walked back toward the area on the port side where the second man had been.

  Up on the bridge, the captain turned from speaking with his number two and noticed Morgan in the area where the guard had been shot. Nervously, he brought his conversation to an end, heading quickly for the decks.

  Chapter 18

  WEST OF SAN LAWRENZ, GOZO, MALTA

  Charlotte-Rose Fleming, terrified and wretched, shrank back against the rocks like a child cowering from invisible demons at the foot of her bed.

  She cradled her knees, pulling them protectively to her breast. Full of fear and anxiety, her teeth bit down hard into the coarse fabric of the filthy clothes they had finally given her, her only protection from the chilling early evening air. Too weary to attempt movement to stay warm, she endured the cold in grim silence. She was physically and mentally exhausted, hungry and dehydrated. But still her terrified eyes remained wide open, staring blankly out into the sky beyond the entrance to the cave. All she could hear was the ocean.

  Her mind played over and over the events of the day - was it two days ago? Three? - when she and Raoul had been taken from the Florence. Everything had been so perfect. The yacht. The sea. The sun. It was idyllic. And then hell had descended upon them.

  She still had no idea what had happened to Raoul. She knew he'd been with her when they'd been bundled off the yacht and even remembered seeing him firing a gun at the pirates. But wasn't that the job of the security men who'd been traveling with them? How did Raoul know about guns? She had no idea about such things. Those were skills she definitely had not inherited from her action-man father. With great longing and sadness, she thought about him for a while. You'd know what to do, Daddy, she thought. You wouldn't have let this happen to me. But I'm your daughter and, by God, I won't let them beat me.

  One thing she did know was that she and Raoul had been the only ones taken. The crew had been left behind. Whoever these people were, they'd known she was aboard. But what had become of the crew? She felt a pain in her chest at the idea that the crew had been killed aboard the yacht. She thought again of Raoul: his piercing gray eyes and thick, dark hair. A man she realized she hardly knew, but who she was now inexplicably connected to for what - life? "Oh God!" she whispered.

  Charly lay dead still, contemplating her chances of survival, looking out to the only scrap of sky that she could see beyond the cave. She had no idea what the time was and her delirium had convinced her that it was already late afternoon: the sun would retreat again soon, and the stars would appear for another night. But it was only late morning. A gentle wind whispered along the cliffs as the waves of the Mediterranean crashed below. Charly was exhausted but strangely serene. She allowed herself to drift away in that moment, far from Malta, to another time, another place, another world.

  Charly's thoughts were filled with memories of family and happier times. Images of her beloved parents, Peter and Madeline, floated wistfully upon her subconscious. Among them, her favorite picture - the silver-framed portrait so familiar upon her piano at home. There was her father, resplendent in dress uniform, SAS beret and medals, with her mother standing proudly beside him, clutching his arm close to her. So young and in love. Then Charly saw hands, a child's hands, her long slender fingers waltzing upon the keys through "Cavatina", with the warmth and smell of her father sitting beside her. With the memory of his smile beaming down at her as she played it for him, Charly was soon asleep.

  "You filthy white whore!" the leader screamed, tearing her from sleep. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her to her knees. "You tempt my men by showing your body!"

  "No! No, I didn't!" she cried desperately, then realized that the flimsy rag of a shirt they had given her had fallen open as she slept. "No, this is not my fault. The shirt is falling apart. It has no buttons!"

  Behind the leader, the one the others called only "Boss", the two men who had been guarding Charly were sniggering.

  "Slut! You are lucky I don't let them have you." The boss slapped her hard across the face. Charly cried out in pain and despair as his blow landed heavily upon her already swollen cheek.

  "Coward! You fucking coward!" Charly accused,-full of sudden venom and fury.

  Enraged, he wrenched at her hair, lifted her to her feet and placed the edge of a razor-sharp knife across the soft skin of her neck.

  "Next time, bitch," he growled, close to her face, "deal or no deal, I fucking kill you." He threw her back to the ground and stormed out of the cave, calling for the other men.

  "What have you done with Raoul?" she screamed. "Where is he? You animals!"

  The boss turned back and stormed toward her. Under the intensity of the sunlight behind him, his features were a death mask just inches from her. "You should not hold any hope for your Raoul," he sneered and left the cave.

  Charly began to tremble, overwhelmed by a sense that her life would end in this horrible, forgotten place. Hopelessness found her. Her heart screamed for freedom. Somewhere close by there was a shuffle of activity and then the unmistakable sound of a guard laughing and relieving himself in the entrance to the cave.

  With nowhere else to turn and no hope of rescue in sight, she clasped her hands tightly and sobbed.

  Chapter 19

  VALLETTA, MALTA

  Morgan was growing perplexed but knew his naturally suspicious disposition was not letting him down.

  The police reports and witness statements clearly indicated that the second firing position was midway along the portside, almost exactly where he stood, yet there were no signs of a contact nor of any blood. He grasped the railing and leant over the side, looking to see if any rounds fired at the Florence by the pirates had dropped low against the hull. Nothing. He reversed the logic and looked up behind him into the structure of the mega-yacht, but still nothing. On an impulse, he dropped to the deck, flat on his gut, and peered into the crevices and cracks of the deck's joinery.

  The captain was looking for Morgan. He went aft first and paused for a moment at the scene where the bullet holes had been covered up. The captain couldn't tell if anything had been disturbed but he knew Morgan had been there. Why? Was he curious or was there something else? The skin of his gut became taut and he felt an old, remembered sensation of uneasiness from the days when he'd smuggled just about everything in and out of southern Europe coming over him. He turned and headed amidships.

  Flat on the deck, Morgan knew there was something staring at him but a blaze of sunlight resulted in a blinding glare off the yacht's pristine white salon. Then he spotted it. The most minute flicker of gold wedged withi
n the fissure where the highly polished decking met the bodywork. Morgan reached out and grabbed it.

  "Mr Hamilton! Mr Hamilton!" the captain called.

  Instantly Morgan was up and on his knees. The object he'd collected was in his trouser pocket and his tortoiseshell Ray-Ban Wayfarers were in his hand.

  "Dropped my sunglasses:' he said casually. "Thought they were about to go over the side."

  "Oh, I see," said the captain, but he wasn't convinced. His dark, scheming eyes shot from Morgan to the decks, trying to see whatever it was that had so captured Morgan's attention. "Well, if you're satisfied, perhaps we could wrap things up. I really do have a lot to be getting on with."

  Ten minutes later Morgan walked casually along the road beside the southern shoreline of Manoel Island and reached The Strand. There, he took up a position in the Cafe Jubilee from where he could observe the vehicle and pedestrian traffic coming and going from the marina. While he waited for coffee, he reached into his pocket and discreetly removed the object he had taken from the Florence. The slender brass lines and expanded crimped end of a fired 5.56mm blank cartridge in his fingers taunted him. Work it out. Work it out. Morgan's mind raced through the reports he had read on the flight to Malta and again in his hotel room, recalling every detail he could that would place him back at the port side amidships during the pirate attack. Who the hell was firing blanks from that boat.

  On an instinct he looked up and across the intersection of The Strand and the Manoel Island access road. He saw the captain emerge, walking briskly up from the marina, looking agitated. The captain's head swung from side to side, suspicious of being followed. Morgan returned the expended blank cartridge to his pocket and made a play of reviewing something on his sat phone; when deployed on ops, all agents carried them. Having selected a table toward the rear of the cafe, he was confident that, unless the captain came in, he would not be seen. Looking past the other patrons, Morgan realized that the captain was waiting for someone. It took only a few more moments for Morgan to see who he'd been waiting for.

  A Fiat Sedici 4x4 pulled up sharply and a man wearing the uniform of the Malta Police Force Maritime Patrol leant out of the driver's window and called impatiently to the captain.

  The captain got in and they sped off.

  Chapter 20

  UN DETENTION UNIT, SCHEVENINGEN, THE HAGUE

  Detainee 69-54-55, Milivoj Serifovic, was escorted to the interview room by an officer of the UN Detention Unit. Serifovic had been expecting a visit from his defense counsel, in fact he'd requested it, but there'd been some problem and his appointed counsel couldn't attend personally. An alternate had been arranged.

  Serifovic sat waiting in the interview room with the detention unit guard standing behind him. When the alternate counsel eventually arrived, he could not help but feel physically uneasy: the man moved through the doorway with the set and purpose of an invading tank regiment. Despite the bespoke tailoring, he looked like he was built from scaffolding, with huge slabs of muscle riveted to his superstructure. At the end of girder-sized arms, his hands swung like heavy luggage. His legs gave the impression of pile-driving pistons deep within the engine room of a mammoth battleship. His hair was thick and jet black, cut short. His brow was grave and his dark eyes heavy caliber.

  Not that Serifovic could see it, but there was a flicker of recognition upon the face of the prison guard; he'd been told to expect this particular arrival and to make himself scarce when granted leave to do so. The guard was glad to see Serifovic squirm.

  "I appreciate you waiting for me, officer?' announced the counsel in a heavy Germanic accent. "Would you mind leaving us?"

  The prison guard nodded dutifully. "No problem, sir?' he replied. "I'll be right outside."

  "Danke schön," the man replied.

  "Who the hell are you?" demanded Serifovic as soon as they were alone. "You're not my appointed counsel. I've not seen you before among any of her team."

  "There's been a slight change to your schedule, colonel," the man began, unruffled. "I'm not here to talk about your defense, but our conversation will have a bearing on your future."

  "What the fuck are you talking about? What is this?" Serifovic spat defiantly. "You're no fucking lawyer."

  "You're quite wrong, colonel?' came the unemotional reply. "In fact, I have a Bachelor of Law and a Masters in International Legal Studies from the University of Vienna. I am licensed to practice in both Germany and Austria. Now, let us begin."

  Hermann Braunschweiger, formerly of the elite German Federal Police special operations and counter terrorism unit GSG 9, latterly recruited to the ranks of Intrepid, removed a file from his attache case and slid a large photograph across the table to Serifovic.

  "You know this man." It was a statement of fact.

  Serifovic's eyes dropped for a split second, barely acknowledging the image. "I've never seen him before," he lied.

  "Let me refresh your memory" Braunschweiger produced another image. This one showed the same man, albeit much younger, leaning against a military vehicle and smoking a cigarette, wearing the uniform of a soldier in the Bosnian Serb Army. "He was, at one time, your personal driver. Will you make me produce the expanded version of this photograph, which includes you?"

  "What is it you want?" Serifovic exploded. "And what is your name?"

  "My name is of no importance to you," Braunschweiger replied dryly. "The only name that is important to you today is his."

  "Why should I give a shit?"

  "Because while you trusted this man, confided in him, and even promoted him all those years ago, he is the one who led us straight to you. And he had quite a story to tell about your escapades during the war, I can assure you. For example ..."

  Braunschweiger allowed the significance of his words to sink in as he expanded, in excruciating detail, on the information the man in the photographs had allegedly provided to Intrepid. He studied the face of the old man carefully as the revelation clearly made its mark. Despite his reputation as a cold-blooded killer and his years as the senior intelligence officer in the Bosnian Serb Army, Serifovic had been out of the game a long time. His ability to mask his feelings had been eroded by age and ill health.

  erifovic remained deathly silent. His jaw was clenched so tight that Braunschweiger could hear the teeth grinding beneath the gray flesh of his wrinkled jowls. The bitterness of betrayal etched across Serifovic's face told Braunschweiger everything he needed to know. The Intrepid agent remained impassively silent, allowing the prisoner to consider and process the amount of damage his accuser could possibly do, or already had done, to his defense options.

  "What's this got to do with me and why would you believe a piece of shit like Petrovic?" he said finally. "He was just a fucking driver"

  "Yes,' Braunschweiger replied. "But he was your fucking driver."

  Chapter 21

  MALTA

  Morgan took a cab and, from a discreet distance, tracked the Fiat all the way to a side street on the outskirts of Lija. He watched the captain and the policeman park behind a Nissan Armada and walk into a semidetached terrace house, one of a row of five that stretched along half the short street.

  Paying the driver, Morgan slipped deftly through an unlocked wrought-iron gate and headed down a narrow alleyway that paralleled the side wall of the terrace. Reaching the rear of the house, he searched for a way in. He found a small verandah strewn with unused furniture and discarded household paraphernalia. The back door to the house was hard to get to, protected by the mad jumble of junk and rubbish. Anyway, it was too obvious. Instead, he found a small window, unlatched and a quarter open. It belonged to what must have been a washing room directly beneath the window was a wide bench designed for sorting laundry.

  Waiting for a moment, Morgan listened to the conversation going on inside. There were definitely more than two voices. It sounded like three. He waited a few moments longer. Yes, three. They were talking in a room somewhere in the middle of the long, narrow terrace
. They were speaking Maltese but he could tell by the raised tone and aggression in their conversation that they were aggrieved. He recognized the captain's highly charged voice, and registered the words celebrita, famuz pjanista, the name Hamilton and then the word pulizija in the midst of the excited jabbering. So, when the captain had been brought into this game, he hadn't realized that the target was, in fact, a celebrity - a famous pianist - until he was up to his neck in it. His paranoia had, correctly, driven him to the conclusion that the businessman, Hamilton, was in some way connected to the police.

  Using the volume of their argument, Alex Morgan slipped into the laundry via the window.

  Chapter 22

  WEST OF SAN LAWRENZ, GOZO, MALTA

  When Charly opened her eyes again it was early afternoon.

  She longed for water. Her throat was dry and her lips brittle and raw. Her entire body ached with the pain of being smacked around and lying on the rock floor of the cave with little or no protection from the elements. One of her eyes felt swollen with bruising and her cheeks throbbed. But she knew she must not give up hope. Inner strength was her only chance for survival and the will to live was a potent ally.

  She looked down at her hands, the tools of her trade. They were scabbed and swollen. The rough stone surface of the cave was unforgiving and the bindings they'd kept her in for so long had played havoc with her circulation. She stretched her fingers wide and wiggled them, again and again, in her usual pre-performance ritual, but their responsiveness was slow and uncoordinated. Could there be permanent damage - physical or psychosomatic? Would she ever be able to play again? God, how could she even think about playing, when she didn't know if she would survive the night?