THREAT LEVEL: RED
(THE DISAVOWED #3)
BY
DAVID LEADBEATER
Copyright © 2014 by David Leadbeater
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher/author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
DEDICATION
I thought I’d like to dedicate this book to old friends who still care. So here’s to Leila Bishop. To Katie and Dave Blake. To Michael and Lisa and Bethany Crouch. To Colleen Horne. To Leanne and Alex and Freddie Cleaver. To Mauricio and Kata Pauly.
Other Books by David Leadbeater
The Bones of Odin (Matt Drake #1)
The Blood King Conspiracy (Matt Drake #2)
The Gates of Hell (Matt Drake 3)
The Tomb of the Gods (Matt Drake #4)
Brothers in Arms (Matt Drake #5)
Swords of Babylon (Matt Drake #6)
Blood Vengeance (Matt Drake #7)
Chosen (The Chosen Few trilogy #1)
The Razor's Edge (Disavowed #1)
In Harm’s Way (Disavowed #2)
Walking with Ghosts (A short story)
A Whispering of Ghosts (A short story)
Connect with David on Twitter - dleadbeater2011
Visit David’s NEW website—davidleadbeater.com
Follow David’s Blog - http://davidleadbeaternovels.blogspot.co.uk/
All helpful, genuine comments are welcome. I would love to hear from you.
[email protected]
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
Other Books by David Leadbeater
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1
The long days of fear and dread began when Blanka Davic uttered two simple words.
“Move it.”
The Serbian Mafia leader ran among his men, keeping his head low. Henry Curran’s garden sprawled all around, grand, green and verdant as befitted the head of SolDyn, one of the biggest organizations in the world. The three-story house loomed up ahead. Light glared from at least a dozen windows. Curran’s security was minimal, and not exactly the best trained or prepared. But how could they be ready for this? Nothing on this scale had been done before.
Not against Los Angeles, Davic thought, smiling wolfishly in the dark. And probably never again.
Gunshots popped in the dark, silenced to a degree. Exposed men fell to the floor, their weapons undrawn; skulls cracking as they hit concrete. One fell into the pool, causing a loud splash; a mistake but one that went unnoticed by the remainder of Curran’s expensive protective detail. Davic crouched as his men swept up. The artistry with which they murdered was rather exquisite. It fired his blood, preparing him for the brutal fun that was to come next.
The house was breached, the castle overrun. The fat-cat leader of SolDyn, once Davic’s partner in a number of shady deals, was about to wish he’d never been born.
And so were his family.
****
Davic loved all this. In death and torture he was in his element. When the disavowed CIA team had taken back Maisie Miller a week ago and destroyed his Monaco mansion he had set in motion a plan of almost instant reprisal. This was the beginning. The attack on Curran.
Then the so-called Razor’s Edge. Trent. Silk. Radford. Special Agent Collins.
Then the CIA. The FBI.
Los Angeles.
The list went on. It was without limit. The plan was adaptive. He couldn’t lose. Someone, somewhere, had once said that if a terrorist wanted to hit a place badly enough and was willing to risk all consequences, then nothing on earth could stop him.
Well, Davic passed that point about a week ago.
Waiting patiently for the all clear, he checked his watch. They had all night. The other pieces of his plan were only just starting to mobilize. The Californian air was balmy and sweet-smelling, carrying with it just the right amount of promise. The light footfalls of his running men, the professional communications echoing through his earpiece, the whisperings of I have the daughter, I have the son, all served to calm his anxious heart. When his team leader said, “Sir, we have them all,” he allowed his bloodlust to rise a full level.
This was going to be fun.
****
Inside, Davic saw several items he might like to take away. He was a rich man, but nowhere near Curran’s league. Feeling his feet begin to dawdle and his eye captured, he quickly cast the impulses aside. This wasn’t the time to get side-tracked.
“What do you want?” He heard the rat, Curran, squeaking from beyond the next door. “Please. Just take anything. Take it and go.”
Davic strode into view. “What do we want, Henry? Well, that’s not so hard to figure out, is it? This is a tale of plain, old-fashioned revenge. Take a goddamn guess at what I want.”
Curran shrunk back as if electrocuted when he saw Davic. The action only made the mafia boss’s inner sadistic glow intensify. “Tell me, Henry, how much did you earn today? Was it enough to compensate for a finger? A hand? A son?”
“I . . . I did everything you asked. Everything.”
Davic took in the scene whilst basking in the glow of his captives’ terror. They were tied to kitchen chairs, hands behind their backs. All except Curran were gagged. But it was their eyes that told the real story. The beautiful, terrified, panic-stricken story. So wide, so glassy and full of feeling. Davic drank it all in. He had created this. Him. This was all he was and all he ever wanted to be and he loved it.
“Everything I asked?” he finally repeated. “I don’t recall ordering you to get caught.”
Curran’s head went down, already defeated. A look not befitting the head of a formidable conglomerate; not at all.
“But hey, look on the bright side, Henry. You have a beautiful wife right there. And daughter too, I see.”
Curran’s head snapped up. “You don’t touch them! You don’t!”
Davic nodded to one of the guards. The man produced a military blade with one serrated edge and handed it over. “You want to know what I recently lost? Do you care?”
Davic paused.
Curran nodded profusely, suddenly interested.
“My home.” Davic held the knife in front of him, closing the gap
between himself and Curran. “My home. You hear? My staff. My country. And more importantly, three cars. That Ferrari . . .” he paused wistfully, “she was beautiful, no? More beautiful than your wife, Henry, but not . . . what’s your name, pretty one?”
Curran struggled as Davic stepped sideways to confront his daughter and pulled down her gag.
“Yvette.”
“Ah, a good, strong, fearless voice. At last. Not shaking with the prissy tremors of your father’s, no? But then maybe he has good reason to fear. He knows what I’m going to do next.”
Davic gave Curran a snake’s grin.
“Please,” the CEO of SolDyn whispered. “Anything. Please don’t hurt her. Us.”
Davic stepped back. The room was silent except for the heavy breathing of his captives. The walls were dotted by expensive canvases and a humongous TV, the floors covered by thick Persian rugs. All the trappings of luxury lay about him, useless now to the multi-millionaire.
Davic checked his watch. “Let’s begin.”
****
Immediately one of his men reached over and pinched Yvette’s nose. With the gag replaced in her mouth, she could no longer breathe. The chair bucked under her, its legs rapping a desperate tattoo on the floor. Her head whipped but she couldn’t break free of the guard’s grip. Her mother gave muffled shouts, trying to throw herself, chair and all, at the guard. Henry Curran pleaded at Blanka Davic with hopeless eyes.
Davic grinned widely. “All right. That’s more like it. So what I want from you, Henry, is this—”
He paused to watch Yvette struggle. Curran exploded. “Tell me! Please!”
Davic waved him off. “Soon.”
The mother’s chair finally got to within reach of the daughter’s. As the woman leaned over, trying to push Yvette’s attacker away, one of Davic’s guards strode in and push-kicked her in the center of the stomach. Her eyes bulged, the breath exploding from her nose, and the chair toppled over with a crash. Yvette’s face was turning purple, her struggles weakening. Now the brother looked like he wanted to get in on the action, perhaps finally realizing this wasn’t going to end well.
Davic ended it all with a raised hand. “Enough. For now.”
Curran exhaled. His daughter gulped air. His wife struggled feebly. Davic directed a guard to walk over and place a foot against her bound hands.
“See that, Henry? One stomp from that big bastard’s boot and those fingers won’t be used for anything ever again.”
He turned and gave Yvette a look of mock apology, placing a hand over his mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, my dear. You are over seventeen, yes? Wouldn’t want to go all red-band certificate in front of a minor.”
“Eighteen,” Yvette gasped through the gag before Curran stopped her.
“Don’t talk to this filth, darling. He knows our ages. He knows everything about us. The man is a criminal and wanted by the FBI. Why the hell are you here? What do you want from me, Davic?”
“Tonight? A little fun. A little revenge. Maybe a spicy pizza. But do you know what I want most of all, Henry?”
“What?”
“I want to hear you scream, you son of a bitch!”
With that, suddenly, shockingly, Blank Davic whirled, whipped out a handgun and shot Curran’s son between the eyes. Blood and bone exploded across the wall and the masterpieces behind him. The force of the bullet smashed his head back and made the chair topple. It took a moment for the Currans to process what had happened but when they did the screaming began in earnest.
Davic laughed.
2
Vince Hadleigh had been called many things in his time: Cheryl Cole of Girls Aloud; Prime Thruster. If he was being honest, those were probably the nicer nicknames. He could be a gung-ho, irrational son-of-a-bitch. His CIA strike team, the Thrusters—even he had come to think of them by that sardonic title—had at times been sidelined, jailed, sent home in disgrace, tortured, beaten and once almost gang-raped, but there was one thing they had never been.
Defeated.
Not counting a few Edge moments, he thought. But why would we? How could he include Trent’s boys in his deliberations? A team who’d fucked up badly enough to be kicked out of the agency didn’t even deserve a mention. Not in his book. And Christ Almighty, he thought, didn’t we save their goddamn asses yet again less than a week ago? Dumb fucks always need some kind o’ extraction.
That Claire Collins, though. She was one tough baby-faced bitch. He remembered her still on her feet and shouting orders with blood streaming down her back and her flesh in tatters. Still feisty. Still hard as nails. Most of the guys found it hot, but Hadleigh preferred his women a little calmer. Bitch like that might chew your johnson off and spit it down your throat in a heartbeat.
Thinking of his men, he cast a searching gaze around. The Thrusters were making themselves right at home on this latest piece of hostile foreign soil. This time the party was in Europe, a little wild hole of a place where the intelligence boys believed Blanka Davic might be planning something new. Something big. It was Hadleigh’s mission to bag that jumped-up little fuck and get him back to the States by any and all means.
Job already done, Hadleigh thought smugly. Aloud, he said, “You boys ready?”
Four hard faces turned toward him. Repp, Stills, Grady and Duggan. Good men. Always up for the explosive breach and the ensuing kill. No fucking finesse here and none needed. The Thrusters hit big and they hit hard, leaving nothing and no one behind to tell the tale. They didn’t question orders. They didn’t think too hard.
They just did it.
Hadleigh nodded, gratified. They were ready. He ran through the plan one last time.
“A’right, boys listen up. Y’know the CAF boys back at Langley pulled some suspect chatter from this here Waldorf Street. Y’know it used to be one o’ Davic’s places. Still might be after he got ran outta that ponce’s paradise in Monaco. By us.” He paused, waiting for the appropriate cheer.
“Anyways. Falls to us again. Y’know why that is?”
“We’re the best, boss.”
“Ain’t it so? Anyhoo, the man in charge wants that place lit up. We’re the boys for the job, so let’s do it.”
A final cheer and they were ready, falling in line and crouching at the back doors of the black van. When the first man in line pushed the door handle the op was a go. Grady jumped out, followed in fast succession by the others. Hadleigh rode at the back, the anchor, always evaluating his team. Like a determined black snake they wound across the deserted road and approached the rear of the high-walled warehouse on Waldorf Street. As one, they flattened against it.
Grady glanced down the line. “All good?”
Hadleigh tapped the comms. “Go.”
“Excuse me!”
The shout froze the whole team. It had come from across the opposite side of the car park where a large, rusting, old dumpster sat. Hadleigh switched his gaze and instantly gaped.
What the fu—?
The dumpster was huge and high, covered in blotches of blue-and-green paint, flaked by age. It sat forlornly across two parking spaces; a lost relic, forgotten by its owner and probably long since given up for lost. That’s what Hadleigh had thought.
But that wasn’t the case.
The front of the dumpster clanged down loudly against the hard ground, the racket making even Hadleigh wince. If the leader of the premier CIA strike team had been given a hundred guesses he would never have deduced what was inside.
Grady spoke first. “Is that a—”
Duggan interrupted, “Shit! It’s a 50cal!”
Hadleigh screamed, “Move! Fuckin’ move!”
Deep, resounding booms split the air. Shells big enough to cut a man almost in half erupted from the gun’s encrusted muzzle. Bullets stitched a line along the wall and through the Thrusters. Grady folded first, doubling over like a piece of red card. Stills went next, dead before he knew it, still trying to run as his legs parted from the rest of his body. Repp followed a split-s
econd later, blasted to pieces as he screamed.
That left Duggan and Hadleigh, still in the line of fire. Duggan got off a quick burst, ducking, but didn’t go down far enough and lost the top of his head to another shell. Hadleigh had time to wonder how long the bastards had been hidden inside that dumpster—they hadn’t shown movement for thirty hours on satellite or any localized sweeps—before the creeping line of lethal lead grazed his thigh. Like Duggan, he got off a quick burst. Unlike his colleague, Hadleigh had time to properly hit the deck and heard the devastating hail pound by above him.
Lying prone, he measured his target and opened fire. His own bullets fizzed off the 50cal and hammered into the dumpster walls. The big weapon spat again, its muzzle drifting ominously lower. Hadleigh felt a shell destroy his left shoulder and screamed in agony. Never had he experienced such pain. His nerves felt shredded. The gun fell from flexing fingers, squeezing off a last shot. Judging by the scream it actually took someone out. A great last Hail Mary.
The gun stopped firing. Merciful silence followed. Hadleigh clutched his bleeding, ruined shoulder, knowing he didn’t have the motor functions to call in for help, or even to move. The ongoing loss of blood would kill him soon anyway. The world would have to get along without him. No sense bothering the brass. No sense enlightening them to his failure.
They would find out soon enough.
3
Blanka Davic watched as his guard tightened the towel around the woman’s face. Waterboarding was one of his favorite pastimes, second only to driving his extensive fleet of supercars. When Curran’s wife couldn’t breathe, Davic slowly upended the jug of water in his hands, smiling as it splashed over the rough cloth wrapped around her features. She struggled feverishly as the chair tipped back, but such obvious desperation only increased his happiness.
He caught Yvette’s eye. “Watch carefully, sweetie. You’re next.”
The Disavowed Book 3 - Threat Level: Red Page 1