Blood and Roses (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 3)

by Dawson, Mark

  “Rose . . .” he started.

  “Shut up.”

  “Please . . .”

  “Shut up or I’ll do it right here.”

  He was quiet. All he could hear was the sound of their feet crunching through the sand, and somewhere overhead a solitary eagle-owl called out.

  They walked for five minutes, until all they could see of the headlights was a muted corona that glowed over the top of the dunes.

  “Far enough.”

  He stopped.

  “On your knees.”

  “Rose . . .”

  She kicked him in the back of the knees, and he fell onto his face.

  “You have anything you want to say to me?”

  “You knew we were coming.”

  “Of course.”

  “We had to. What did you expect? After what you’ve already done, you didn’t give us any choice.”

  “Probably not.”

  “When did you know?”

  “I saw you in Basra. At the airport. You should’ve taken your shot then. Shouldn’t have let me get back to my own territory. That was a bad mistake.”

  He shook his head. “You saw me there? Fuck.”

  “Don’t take it personally. I’ve been looking over my shoulder for the better part of a decade. I don’t miss much.”

  “And then in the city?”

  “We saw you in the medina. We had cameras in the streets around the riad. My daughter’s been following you, actually.”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  “No, because she’s very good, too, and you wouldn’t have been looking for a child.” Beatrix shifted her weight, the gun never wavering. “But that’s all over now, isn’t it? And after you, there’s only one more left.”

  “He’ll be very different.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “You’ve got no idea, Rose. You’ll never get to him.”

  “I got to all the rest of you, didn’t I? He won’t be any different.”

  “No,” he said. “He will. He knows you want him more than the rest of us. He’s paranoid. You’ve put the fear of God into him. He won’t put himself in a position where you can get to him.”

  “That might be relevant if I had anything to lose, but I don’t.”

  “Of course you do. What about your girl?”

  It was as if the mention of the girl triggered the prolonged and vicious cough that wracked her body for a long ten seconds. She bent double and retched, and when she was finished, she spat a mouthful of crimson blood onto the sand. She paused for a moment, as if gathering her strength.

  English watched and waited. “Jesus. What’s wrong with you?”

  “I have cancer,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Advanced. I don’t have much time.” She coughed again, although the red puddle congealing in the sand made added emphasis unnecessary. The cough changed into something else, and he realised, after a moment, that she was laughing. “It’s funny,” she said. “You only had to wait two more months, and I wouldn’t have been a problem any more.”

  She coughed again. It was a wet, hacking sound.

  “You want this on your conscience, then?”

  She laughed. “Please.”

  He flexed his arms against the cuffs.

  “It’s the end of the line for you, Number Nine.”

  The cuffs were strong, and even if he could have broken free, she had a gun and he didn’t. She might have been ill and weak, but she was still Number One, and he had seen, up close and in living colour, that she had lost very little of her terrible edge.

  “Come on,” he said. “I could help you.”

  She shook her head. “What could you offer me?”

  “I could tell you where to find him.”

  “I could find that out anyway.” She paused. “I’m not going to offer to spare you, because that is something I cannot do. But if you make your last few minutes on this Earth cooperative ones, I promise you I’ll make it quick.”

  He sighed out a long breath. There was nothing he could do. Grim fatalism settled over him. He knew that there could be no negotiation, and knowing that, what was served by prolonging things? And besides, he didn’t owe Control anything. You could even say that this whole mess was of the man’s own making. They had all been in it together, and his genius had made them all rich, but if it wasn’t for his genius and his avarice then they would not have been in that East London house on that afternoon a decade ago. Her husband would not have been killed, her daughter would not have been taken from her, and perhaps she would not have scythed through them all with the bright fire of her vengeance.

  “Alright,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

  “Why?”

  “Five of us are dead—or about to be dead. Why should he be any different? And maybe you’ve got a point. I don’t dodge guilt, and I don’t welsh out of paying my comeuppance. You have a legitimate reason for doing what you’re doing. You deserve your revenge and we deserve to die.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Manage Risk has a facility in North Carolina. We call it The Lodge. It’s huge, enormous, out in the middle of the swamp. It’s very heavily guarded. Lots of men, lots of equipment. Mines, motion sensors, cameras. I know you’re good, but this would be a big deal even if you were at a hundred per cent, and obviously you’re not. You’d never make it.”

  “So? What would you do?”

  “Get him to come to you.”

  “And how would you do that?”

  “He has children.”

  Beatrix shoved the pistol back into its holster and fixed the retention strap as she stalked back to the Jeep. She had been true to her word.

  One shot to the back of the head.

  She had left the body in the dirt. The desert foxes and the vultures would see that it disappeared.

  He had been useful. She would have to confirm his information, of course, but there was no reasonable motive for him to lie.

  If he was right, they had a trip to make.

  North Carolina, eventually, but a layover first.

  She had always intended to visit New York with Isabella before she died.

  Now she would have her chance.

  Chapter Three

  There had been additional Manage Risk operatives aboard Falcon Two, the second modified Black Hawk that had participated in the botched operation. The chopper had landed in the desert, and four of the men it had carried had disembarked as soon as the signal had been received that the mission was a scratch. Falcon Two had waited just as long as it took Falcon One to return and refuel from the bowser that had rumbled in earlier, and then both birds had taken off again and headed back to Algeria.

  The four men had not waited to see that. They had orders to follow and were already working their way back inside the city limits, arriving at the medina just as dawn was breaking.

  They were damage limitation.

  Rapid response.

  Reinforcements.

  Whatever was required.

  The men had driven into the medina and then picked their way to the riad. They kept a close watch on the property all day. They had found a vantage point on the roof of an adjoining property, forcing their way into the building and shooting the owner when he suggested that they should leave. They had broiled in the sun all morning and afternoon, watching discreetly as the police had arrived to pore over the still-smoking remains of the roof, noting the blast damage in the corners that must have marked the location of the claymore mines that had taken out half of the assaulters.

  The man arrived later. They recognised him from the mission briefing: grey-haired, wiry and obviously fit. An ex-soldier, they had read; years of service with the Moroccan army. He had evidently been wounded; he moved gingerly, favouring his left arm. The p
olice spoke to him at length and the men were concerned that they might take him into custody for further questioning.

  They did not.

  That was good.

  He was with a woman. She was questioned, too.

  They waited until the police had left and then they had gone down into the alleyways that wound their way around the properties in this part of the city. They took up discreet positions at the ends of the alley that led to the riad, good viewing spots where they would have plenty of notice if they were approached.

  One of them collected the large people carrier that they had used to drive into town and parked it close by.

  They waited.

  The man and the woman emerged from the riad just after dusk had cowled the flaming sun. They paused at the door, conferring, and then headed in the direction of the first two-man team.

  The second team slipped out of hiding and followed, their palms resting around the butts of the semi-automatic pistols that were holstered beneath their jackets.

  The men were special forces: one SAS, two Delta, one Mossad. They were all trained in snatching targets from the street. They were good, and they were careful.

  Whatever had happened to the men in Falcon One that had caused the failure of the mission, it was not going to happen to them.

  An unspoken signal was exchanged.

  The woman was slightly behind the man. The operative to her right jammed his pistol into her ribs and pressed his hand around her mouth.

  The man was ahead and did not notice what had happened to his wife. The first team waited until he was alongside and took him, grabbing his arms and impelling him into the street.

  The car sped in reverse onto the road, the rear door already pushed all the way open.

  The man was thrown across the back seat.

  The woman was bundled inside.

  The three men came next, the last man slamming the door shut behind him.

  “Go,” he barked out.

  The driver took his foot off the brake and buried the gas pedal. The car leapt into the road.

  There had been a handful of bystanders who had seen what had happened. They stood around, exchanging glances with confused expressions on their faces. It had all taken less then fifteen seconds.

  That was as long as it took to make a man and a woman disappear.

  Chapter Four

  The man they called Control stood at the railings of the big superyacht and looked out at the northern coast of Morocco. The yacht was named the Mary Jane for the mother of the chairman of Manage Risk. She had cost north of a hundred million dollars when she had been acquired from a Russian oligarch who had fallen on difficult times. It was something of a vanity purchase for the company, but also a useful way to defray the tax owed after a particularly profitable year. She was employed for hospitality for the most part, but occasionally, like now, she served time as a luxury mobile command and control centre.

  The yacht was a monster, three hundred feet long and equipped with a helipad, two swimming pools, a disco and a cinema. The bridge was encased behind armour-plated panels, bulletproof glass protected the windows and it had its own missile defence system. Everything was pristine. The deck was mopped clean twice a day, and the metalwork was polished to a high sheen. She was managed by forty crew, most with experience in the various navies of the world, some of them ex-special forces. Even the galley staff were military. The captain had skippered an aircraft carrier for the US Navy before Manage Risk had offered to double his salary.

  The day had been blazing hot, and Control was dressed in white linen slacks and a loose shirt in order to try and keep cool.

  A steward came up from the bar and approached. He was impeccably dressed in the ship’s navy blue uniform, a pin with the crossed gladii emblem of Manage Risk fixed to his lapel, and he bore a tumbler on a silver salver.

  “Your drink, sir,” said the steward.

  Control took the gin and tonic from the man and sipped it. It was Hendricks, his favourite. He looked out over the stretch of water to the lights of the city of Safi. They pinpricked the dusk along the edge of a wide crescent bay, the pilot lights of smaller ships darting back and forth closer to shore. The port had a refinery and a terminal for coal and phosphate, and there was evidence of building works as they expanded the facility.

  “Is there anything else, sir?” the steward said.

  “No,” Control replied. “Thank you.”

  Control saw the lights of the helicopter first, separating out of the glow of the city and arrowing over the sea approaching them. It was a Eurocopter EC155, a long-range passenger transport that operated off the back of the yacht. It had collected him from the airport earlier, and then, an hour ago, he had watched it fly out again, bound for a quiet patch of land off route R206 to the west of Ben Guerir, just northwest of Marrakech. It had touched down for just long enough to take aboard the six new passengers, before taking to the air again and returning to the yacht.

  It had previously been quiet; the only sound had been the lapping of the waves against the hull and the clink of the ice cubes in his glass. The clatter of the helicopter’s blades disturbed the peace and heralded the beginning of a task that he did not particularly relish.

  Control watched as the helicopter drew nearer and the pilot, an ex-RAF man, expertly brought it down onto the helipad. The engines cycled down, and the rotors gradually came to a stop.

  No, he thought, he did not relish it, but some things were necessary. He could have had someone else do his dirty work, but they wouldn’t do it as well as him. Expedience demanded that he do it himself.

  He was playing in a high-stakes game and he was not a man for cutting corners.

  The door of the helicopter slid back, and the snatch team stepped out. The last pair brought the man and woman with them. Their hands were cuffed, and both wore black fabric bags over their heads. They were hustled off the helipad and down a flight of stairs that led below deck.

  He finished his drink, left the glass on the balustrade and went down below.

  They had taken the man and woman down to a large, empty storeroom two floors below deck. This floor did not enjoy the luxury of the floors above it. It housed the galley, the staff mess and the engine room, among other things. This particular room was used as a brig when occasions like this demanded it. The walls were bare, the floor made of varnished wood, and the only furniture was the pair of simple metal chairs in which the man and woman were seated and another, empty, that had been left for Control.

  There were two men standing behind the man and the woman. Control nodded and they removed the bags.

  He studied the two of them. They were Beatrix’s associates in Marrakech. The man’s name was Mohammed Elbaz. He was in his sixties, with a full head of grey hair, shot through with white, that he wore swept back. His beard was silver, there were deep lines in his cracked skin and his eyes were a soft, deep, chocolate brown. The woman was his wife, Fatima Elbaz, and was of a similar age, a little plump, and she held a pair of broken spectacles between her fingers. She raised her cuffed hands and slipped the frame around her head, pushing the arms behind her ears. The man’s eyes were cool and assessing, flicking back and forth. Her eyes were full of fire and hate.

  Control stepped up to them. He stood before the man.

  “Do you know who I am, Mr Elbaz?”

  “I do not.”

  “You can call me Control, and as far as you are concerned, I am the worst piece of news that you ever had. I am the man that the murdering bitch you’ve been sheltering wants to kill. I’m sure she must have mentioned me?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. Who did I shelter?”

  He pulled up the spare chair and sat down next to him. “We’re going to have a little question-and-answer session. I’m going to ask the questions, and you are going to answer them. I’m sure you�
�ve worked this out for yourself, but it is in your own best interest to make the answers authentic.”

  “I do not know how I can help you.”

  “I understand you were a military man, Mohammed.”

  He raised his chin. “I was.”

  “As was I. So you’ll understand what it means to be obedient. To have the good sense to answer the questions of your superiors, and to be aware of the need for discipline when there is disobedience. Feigning ignorance is the same as disobedience as far as I am concerned. I would not recommend it.”

  He took out the packet of Marlboro Reds that he had bought at the airport. He opened the top, tore off the foil, thumbed one out and offered it to Mohammed.

  “No.”

  Control shrugged, put the cigarette between his lips and lit it. “Your friend has gone to war with me, Mohammed, but that’s not something that you need to do, too. I implore you not to do that. It would be very unwise.”

  “I do not know who you are talking about.”

  “There are ways of making people talk. I’m sure you know plenty. I am a student of military history. You must know, for example, that Moroccan auxiliaries committed thousands of rapes in the south of Italy during the Second World War. They used it as a means of ensuring the compliance of the locals. What I’m trying to say is that we all do things we would rather not do when it is in the service of a higher goal. And what I am trying to do with your friend most certainly qualifies as a higher goal.” He very slowly, very deliberately rolled up the right sleeve of his shirt. “Now then,” he said, as he rolled up the left sleeve, too. “Tell me. Where has she gone?”

  “Who?”

  Control nodded to the big man to his left. He came over to Mohammed and threw a stiff jab into his face, snapping his head so that the back of his crown crashed against the chair’s headrest. He blinked at the sudden pain, water gathering in his eyes.

  “I know, it hurts. But you need to keep in mind the fact that this is as friendly as this is going to be. My men have spoken with your neighbours, Mohammed. After the firework display your friend put on, the explosions and the noise, they were frightened. They were happy to tell us everything we needed to know. I know she lived there. Her, her daughter, you, your wife.”