The Island (Rob Stone Book 3)

by A P Bateman

  Looking at his watch, Stone said, “We’d better get going.”

  “Again?” She smiled. “I thought you’d need a rest.”

  “I meant, back to the office,” he said. “Max will have been working on it most of the night; we need to see what he’s found.”

  “And the armour is back on, the façade back in place.”

  “What?”

  Kathy rolled over, taking the bedsheet with her. Stone felt vulnerable, ironic in light of what they’d just done. He rolled his legs off the bed and sat with his back to her. She had stood, the sheet covering her. “You’re guarded. You don’t let anyone in for long. And then it’s all business again. Rob Stone, the President’s bodyguard. His number one agent. Is that how it was with you and Isobel? She said you were a difficult man to get close to. Now I can see why.”

  “I’m not discussing that with you,” he said coldly. He got up and padded over most of his clothes to the bathroom. He looked back at her, naked and unashamed. “Get yourself dressed. It’s your business we’re dealing with here, not mine.”

  Stone closed the door and ran the shower. He turned the dial down all the way to cold water and stepped in. The spray was icy, but it suited his mood. He soaped up and rinsed. In a little less than a minute and he’d washed away not only Kathy’s scent, but his irritation at her. He towelled off and wrapped the towel around himself.

  She had struck a chord. He knew he lived for his job, but he hadn’t expected Isobel to have discussed such matters with Kathy. He was surprised that Isobel had broken a confidence. But his anger hadn’t been at the emotional or intimate details of their relationship; it had been at his relationship with the President. He was the operative of choice for the most powerful man in the world. He had once told Isobel this, and she had gossiped it to a friend. He knew, in that instant that there would never be another chance with her, that part of his life was over. And now he had fallen for her friend. And already, a day after first meeting her, she was commenting on facets of his character that had first driven the wedge between himself and Isobel. Either he had to change, or he had to hope he could enjoy his own company more. The latter would undoubtedly be simpler.

  Maybe he could change a little. He was already considering stepping down after the President’s term. He wasn’t going to serve the men waiting in the wings. They had no moral fibre or integrity. Maybe he would see if he could start something with Kathy, use her words as a catalyst to improve himself. He smiled. Or maybe he could just enjoy the ride for a short while until it crashed and burned again. Such was his life; such were his relationships.

  He opened the door and saw that her clothes were no longer strewn across the bedroom floor. Maybe she was cooking eggs, getting some coffee on. He pulled on his trousers and shirt, found his socks and smoothed out the black silk tie as he walked into the living room. The room was open-plan and Kathy was not in the kitchen cooking eggs. She hadn’t got the coffee on either. She had gone.

  Stone picked up his cell phone and dialled her number. He had called her once before, to arrange the meeting at the bar in response to her messages. Her phone went straight to voicemail. He didn’t leave a message; she would know he had called by checking her cell phone’s call history.

  He was annoyed with her. Last night had shown that there were hostile forces with deadly intent who would not hesitate to kill, and whose resources were formidable. She was at risk, and putting herself in harm’s way by leaving his company, the protection he could offer. He put on his tie and tucked the tails inside his shirt. He favoured a clip-on leather holster and tucked it inside his pants and fastened the clip to his belt. He holstered the FN Five-Seven pistol and clipped on the spare magazine pouch with its twenty-round magazine. Lastly, he placed his new Spyderco folding knife, with its wicked-looking serrated edged blade, in his pocket. He had carried a folding knife for most of his adult life, but had grown used to his brother’s knife. Given to him by his sister-in-law at his brother’s wake, he had recently lost it in Oregon. It pained him to be attached to trinkets and possessions, but like the Rolex on his wrist, a gift to his father upon his retirement, he had few, but they meant a great deal to him.

  Stone lived on the third floor. He had chosen it, because of the number. Not that three was lucky, but because it was a six floor building. Safe from ground floor crime and attack opportunities, the third floor had escape routes both up and down and to the sides. Stone took the stairs and opened the door to the below ground parking. Another two flights and he was in the bowels of the building. The lighting was good – something he had addressed with the building management – and the whole level lit up as he stepped out from the permanently lit stairwell. His Ducati XDiavel S motorcycle rested on its stand next to the empty space usually occupied by his classic Mustang. The bike was a new purchase, part of his mid-life crisis. In Stone’s mind, the only crisis would be in not being able to afford to have a decent mid-life crisis. He had nobody to consider, so spent what he earned and never lost sleep about it. His father had died two weeks after retirement with a heart and head full of unrealised dreams. His brother, an FBI agent, had been murdered in the line of duty leaving a young wife grieving and unable to move on. Stone had no dependents and lived his life accordingly.

  He swung his leg over the frame, righted the bike and waited a few seconds for the oil to level out again. After he put on the open-faced helmet he started the bike, keeping his hand on the clutch, kicked up the stand and tapped the shift down into first with the ball of his left foot. The bike lurched forwards as he eased out the clutch lever and he was up from first, through neutral and into second before the end of the garage and the steep ramp into the street. Bikes had changed since he had first learned to ride, and as he bounced off the top of the ramp, he grinned as he accelerated harshly and the traction control eased his rear wheel back into line, allowing him to corner and put the power on all at once.

  Stone usually made the ride in eleven minutes. Today he felt reckless. He was still angry at Kathy for putting herself at risk. He managed the ride in a little under ten. It took longer to get through security and ride the elevator up. He stopped and got two coffees and Danish pastries on the way at the second floor cafeteria. When he entered the suite he saw Max concentrating on the screen.

  “Breakfast,” he said. “Did you get anything?” Max swivelled round in his chair. His eyes were bloodshot. “You went home, right?”

  “Nope,” Max reached for the coffee and sipped some immediately. He eyed the Danish and Stone handed him the bag. “It’s addictive. Digging, that is.” Max took a mouthful and was halfway through the Danish with the second bite. He drank down some coffee and looked a little more relaxed, a little less wired than he had when Stone first walked in.

  “Where’s the rest of your team?” Stone asked. “They went home, right?”

  “Compartmentalised,” Max said through a mouthful of pastry flakes. He pointed to a window on the screen. “We are all on separate tasks, on individual machines. We have an open-chat window running. Most like the quiet so two guys are logged on in records and the girl just left for a few hours to shower and do what girls do.”

  “Which is?”

  “No idea,” he shrugged.

  “So, the salient facts,” Stone said. “Edwards?”

  “I’ve got a list of his addresses over the past five years, his social security number, his tax returns and three cell numbers for him. I even have his licence plate number.”

  “That’s good,” Stone sipped his coffee and perched on the desk. “If we lodge it with the police, do an APB.”

  Max smirked. “Yeah, ok Kojak. Jesus, how old are you?”

  Stone stared at him. “About ten years older and five promotions and pay-scales higher.” His eyes softened. “Go on then.”

  “I got into his vehicle’s tracker system. He showed finance payments on a Mercedes E-class coupe. It’s a pretty sweet ride, I figured he’d need a tracker on something like that to satisfy th
e finance company and insurance. I have the GPS coordinates of where it’s parked up right now.”

  “Nice.” Stone caught Max looking at the second Danish pastry. He nodded for the man to go ahead. “And these payments?”

  Max nodded, but a little less enthusiastically. “They trace back to a Panamanian bank, Anderson-Lucas, part of Anderson-Lucas Holdings.”

  “Doesn’t sound very, what? Spanish?” Stone shrugged. “I think it’s all Spanish down there.”

  “It is. República de Panamá. Bordered by Costa Rica, and Columbia. Columbia is officially South America. So Panama is Central America.”

  “Wikipedia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ok, so what about Anderson-Lucas?”

  “British. Well-established as a bank, but has a dubious reputation in recent years. They bought out businesses in the last recession and sold them up. Financed the re-sell with large interest loans, sometimes funding three or four ownerships down the line. They broker so-called payday loans in Britain.”

  “Why so-called?”

  Max shrugged. “It’s a big thing there, the financial ombudsman is catching up, but rather late to the party. Two to four-thousand percent on a few hundred pounds and the people are paying thousands of pounds off a year for life,” he paused to take a bite of the Danish and talked as he chewed. “The idea is to have a small loan until payday, but it seldom seems to work out for people that way.”

  Stone nodded. “So the payments trace back how far to this bank?”

  “They’ve done a good job, or at least tried to. The money has gone through the British Virgin Islands, Switzerland, Andorra – the usual suspects – and culminated in Panama.”

  “To whom?”

  “That’s where it stops,” Max said. “It’s a number, not a name. I can’t get any more.”

  “A numbered account? I thought those were practically non-existent since nine-eleven?”

  “As part of the fight on terrorism, accounts have to be transparent. It’s less common, but this account is practically firewalled in itself. I can’t dig any further.”

  “We have an extradition treaty with Panama, don’t we?”

  “True.”

  “So I’ll get the wheels in motion.”

  “But we have no crime,” Max replied. “Extradition is for the extradition of known criminals to face trial. So far, no crime has been committed.”

  “We have missing people who were all paid from an account held at Anderson-Lucas, Panama. How many other banks do they own?”

  “None. All their financial activity is via call centres in Mumbai and various internet sites. The money is released from the bank in Panama City.”

  “Then I’ll go down there and have a chat with the director.”

  “It might not be as simple as that.”

  “Because?”

  Max opened a window on the computer screen in front of him and pulled up a newsfeed. It was from the British newspaper, The Guardian. “Because Richard Anderson, CO of Anderson-Lucas Holdings disappeared on his yacht five days ago in the Caribbean. He was due to return to England next week for a Commons Select Committee Inquiry.”

  “What the hell’s that?” Stone looked bemused.

  “It’s the way the Brits get things done when they don’t have enough evidence for an arrest. Their former Prime Minister attended more than one over the invasion of Iraq. What happens is representatives from all political parties are selected to question somebody like Anderson, very publically and with the press and media recording, when they have been less than straightforward with the truth. It was almost a foregone conclusion that he would be hauled over the coals and possibly prosecuted for financial offences.” Max finished the Danish pastry. “There’s a lot of show-boating and the politicians relish the camera time, interrogating the person in the chair, but Anderson-Lucas Holdings have other concerns in the construction industry and electronics, and there has been pension fund discrepancies. As in, there isn’t anything left in the funds.”

  “So he was finished.”

  “It would have been no surprise if he didn’t show, and the press speculated that he would go somewhere the British have no extradition, relations or authority over. At least until things cooled and he started to put things in order. But for his whole family and yacht to disappear?”

  “And who’s left in charge of Anderson-Lucas Holdings? And who is Lucas?”

  “Lucas is a misnomer. Early on, Richard Anderson wanted to look established, so he crafted a business persona. There is currently a struggle to see who is in charge.”

  “A power struggle.” Stone mused.

  “No. I think people are tossing the hot potato as soon as they catch it. It’s a mess.”

  “And let me guess; there’s no money left in the bank?”

  “Exactly.”

  20

  It wasn’t the death of the hunter that troubled Stone. It wasn’t the shocking display in the pond of the caiman ripping the man to pieces and his agonising screams prematurely silenced as he drowned, choking on the bloody water, his limbs ripped from their sockets as he was spun relentlessly. It wasn’t even the death of the warrior, the look on his face, the severed head amid the flies and steaming jungle heat. It was the fact that the hunter had gone. His head and his body.

  Gone.

  Perhaps another crocodile or caiman had taken both. He knew alligators wandered for miles in Florida. Onto golf courses or into housing developments. But he would have seen one feeding back at the pond, or there would have been tracks and scrape marks from the beast’s belly as it climbed the hill to the hunter’s body. Maybe there were wild dogs or big cats here. The crocodile had been coloured black along its wide back, and Stone thought black caiman were indigenous to South America. So perhaps there were jaguar also. But a big cat like a jaguar would take either the head or the body. It would not come back on a shopping trip. And survival instinct as it was, given a jaguar’s substantial size and power, it would have taken the body. A black panther? Stone was not sure whether the two were one and the same throughout South America. Merely coloured differently. But it was as he thought of the caiman and the insight of something remembered from the Discovery Channel, that he was confident that he was in fact somewhere in the tropics of the Central or South American continent. For all the good that would do him. But at least he had a ball-park location.

  He stared down at where the dismembered body should have been. There were no animal tracks. No sign that an animal had started to feed. No sign that the body had been dragged. Stone got down and knelt on the grass and stroked his hands in the soil. The ground was wet, but when he looked at his fingers they were merely muddy, not red. He smelled his fingers. Three days without washing and he wished he hadn’t. But he could detect a faint smell of putrefying blood and was certain that the site had been sluiced down with water.

  He checked over the dead man’s M4 rifle. There were five rounds left in the magazine, a sixth in the chamber. The SEAL had gone into the water with everything else, including the machete still in his hand, and Stone was going to pass on entering the water to look for that. He looked around the bank of the pond, but could not find the knife. He had not noticed at the time, but he assumed the SEAL had left it back at the tree Stone had hid behind in the jungle. He had a sinking feeling that if he indeed back-tracked to the spot, then the knife would be gone as well.

  For the first time since he woke up on the beach he realised there was so much more to this, so much hidden from him. Outside forces conspiring against him. And for the first time he also realised that he could take control of it. He was remembering more; Kathy, Max and the bank in Panama City. That Richard Anderson of Anderson-Lucas Holdings had gone missing in the Caribbean, along with his family and motor yacht. That was what he had been working on and this island, or stretch of coast could be in Central or South America – the black caiman would point to that – and it wouldn’t be a million miles away from where a missing banker had been las
t seen, who was a wanted man and with missing money at his disposal.

  Stone headed in the direction of where both the hunter and the SEAL had come from. The grass was knee-height and the air was both cooler and lighter than down in the jungle. He had only taken fifty paces or so when he saw the clothes folded and arranged on a fallen tree. A bottle of water and a bag of fruit rested beside them. Stone looked around, approached cautiously, then checked the pile of clothes. He looked all around him, but saw nobody. The clothes were familiar. A pair of black, lightweight suit trousers and a white shirt. Black leather shoes, thin black cotton socks and a black lightweight suit jacket. He looked around again, then drank all of the water and ate the fruit. There were two bananas, a prepared wedge of pineapple and an orange. They tasted delicious, like nothing Stone had experienced. Or at least, experienced for a long time. He remembered eating tinned peaches after days spent in the field on rations of oatcakes and water and it had been heaven in a tin. And he remembered the joy of a Burger King at Camp Bastion after a four weeks’ reconnaissance in Afghanistan. The joys of taste and texture after a dry and tasteless palate. A Michelin stared chef could not have made a better meal than that Double Whopper.

  Stone decided right there that he could fight the situation, or he could play along and learn more from it. If he could understand it, then that would take him towards controlling it. He put on the clothes. They fitted him well. He fixed the belt, noticed the worn indentations in the leather from the buckle. He was a whole hole smaller, and he realised that the belt was his. The clothes also. He picked up the jacket and saw the pistol in its holster. His own FN Five-Seven. The spare magazine was in its pouch. He checked over the weapon and the magazines, then fitted them to his belt. He then had second thoughts and took the pistol back out. He dropped the magazine and stripped the weapon down. He reassembled it, chambered a round and fired at the ground. A large clod of earth flew up and sprayed his legs with debris. He was a round down now, but he was satisfied nobody had tampered with the firing pin and the weapon was working properly. Stone picked up the black jacket. He noticed that the lining was ripped. Two large pieces had been cut out and the silk had started to fray. He frowned and dropped it on the ground. As well as the jacket he ignored the tie – it was far too hot – and he left the shirt open at his neck and rolled the sleeves to his elbows. He looked around him again. He knew he was not alone – couldn’t possibly be. But he had made a plan yesterday and he would stick to it. He would climb the hill and see what was beyond it. As he took a step forward something dug into his thigh. He put his hand in his pants pocket and felt a square of folded paper. He unfolded it, aware he was undoubtedly being watched. There were just a few handwritten lines, but as he read them, he felt intrigued, anxious and scared all at once. It couldn’t be so. But he knew it to be true, had suspected something when he had seen the SEAL kill the hunter earlier. He scrunched the paper and threw it to the ground. Then, as survival mode took over his emotions and he knew he could have a use for a dry piece of paper. He bent down and reached for it. The paper was thick and already unfurling. The words bared themselves to him again…