The Five

by A P Bateman

  But there is such a man. And now I own him also. Because I know that you will do what is asked, because for you, Alex King, your payment is here, and I can control you in a way you have never known. I have your life in my hand. I can give it to you, I can take it from you, or I can destroy it in front of you.

  There is a post office in the town of Sodertalje, near Stockholm, Sweden. It is on a crossroads with a coffee shop to its right and a sweet shop to its left. There is a safety deposit box number 427. The code to open it is 4478. You will go there on May 22nd and open the box at 0930.

  Do not fail her.

  Helena

  King looked at Mereweather. “When did you get this?”

  “Last night,” he said. “We had tests done, the DNA belongs to Helena Snell.”

  King screwed the letter, stuffed it into his pocket. He looked at his watch, studied it like he hadn’t seen the time or date in a while. “I need to go,” he said. “That’s the day after tomorrow.”

  “I can give you a lift. You’ll need to check into Thames House, we’ll arrange air tickets…”

  “I’m doing this myself, Simon,” King interrupted.

  Mereweather shook his head. “It needs to be official. We need agents on the ground, electronic tracking, a plan set in place. If we stand a chance of getting Caroline back and arresting Helena, we need to mount an operation.”

  King shook his head. “No. Just go! I’m doing this alone.”

  “You’ll come back to Thames House, that’s an order…” Mereweather stopped mid-sentence, his eyes on the gun in King’s hand.

  “You don’t get it, do you,” King stated flatly. The pistol was steady, his eyes cold and emotionless. “Are you alone, Simon?”

  “Yes,” Mereweather said, but seemed to regret it. He quickly added, “People know where I am, what I’m doing. You can’t seriously be threatening me, Alex? You’ll never get Caroline back without help.”

  King stared at Mereweather, smiled thinly. “When the time comes, I’ll call you,” he said. “But I’m not finding Caroline anytime soon. I’m keeping her safe. You’ve read the letter. You know what Helena wants from me. She’s too clever to get caught. She has set the trap, and it’s not baited for her to fall into.” He walked past Mereweather, the pistol held down by his leg. He didn’t look back as he stepped inside the cottage and closed the door.

  His bug-out bag was packed and stowed by the door. He dropped the pistol on top of it as he walked past and took the stairs. He went into the bathroom and started to run a sink of hot water. Out of the narrow window, he could see the tail lights of Mereweather’s hire car bouncing back down the lane. For a moment, he was reminded of Amanda Cunningham tearing away from his cottage in Cornwall.

  King splashed the water on his face and picked up his shaving bowl and brush. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. A hollowed-out version of his former self. Dark, gaunt and haunted. He closed his eyes and thought of Caroline. He tried to think of her on a happier day, in a special memory. But he had only been able to picture her on that bathroom floor. For a month, his vision of her had been tarnished by those events.

  He could see Helena looking at him as he found the bullets on the patio. Those predatory, almond shaped eyes. She had stared impassively at him, while Victor Bukov had glowered. She had been calm and calculating, a hunter waiting to strike at her prey. How many moves ahead had she been planning that day?

  King dropped the bowl in the sink and punched the glass, smashing the mirror and breaking the cabinet door. He ripped the door off its hinges. Then he looked down at the water in the sink, blood swirling on the surface, before sinking and clouding the water. He turned his hand over, studied the bloodied knuckles, the gashes to his forearm. He plunged the fist into the water and it stung so badly that he grimaced. He caught the sight of his expression in the shards of mirror left holding onto the cabinet frame.

  That was what it was like to feel.

  That was what it felt like to be alive.

  For a month he had been numb. A shadow moving away from the light. He had no emotion, no feelings other than self-pity and despair. He plunged his hand into the water again, then ran the tap and let the scalding water wash over the slashes.

  It was agonising, but it felt so good.

  He stared back at the shard of reflection. There was light behind those eyes once more. A glimmer. The man looking back at him was more intense, more to be reckoned with than the eyes of the half-slaughtered beast he had seen these past weeks. He snatched a deep breath and it felt invigorating. Like he had been barely breathing these past weeks as well. Never filling his lungs fully. And that was it. He had been half dead

  King had played down the stories, played down his reputation. But he knew what a monster he had been, what he had done in his past. He would never have let Caroline know. The traitor in Geneva was right to have found an easier, cleaner way out. He would have begged King to do it if he had been given the chance.

  Now Helena Snell had released him, because no matter what he had done for his country in the past, it had never been personal. Now, a fire burned within him, and he knew that to quench the flames, he would do anything to get back the woman he loved. Or avenge her.

  He was going to find Helena. He was going to hunt her to the ends of the earth. He was going to turn her world into an unimaginable Hell. Her very own version of Dante’s Inferno. A wasteland where her soul would even beg for mercy long after he had taken her life. Because she had unwittingly unleashed a demon. A man who had spent his entire life denying what he truly was.

  The Reaper.

  Author’s Note

  Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed the story.

  As an indie author, I need those reviews to keep up with the pack and you can really help me out by heading over to my website (www.apbateman.com) and clicking on the book, or any others you have read, and you will be redirected to the book on Amazon. You can also find me on Facebook (@authorapbateman) and discover more about my writing or future projects.

  I run a draw and give away a few signed copies of my books each month, so to be in with a chance of winning, just email me (authorapbateman@gmail.com) and say which book you would like the most.

  Thank you, and I hope to entertain you again soon.

  A P Bateman

  Also by A P Bateman

  The Ares Virus

  At a US research facility funded by the military and clandestine agencies a super-virus has been created as a first strike military weapon. During its conception the anti-virus has furthered the possibilities of medical research by decades. Such is its potential, treachery has struck from within. If the virus is released, then the anti-virus will be worth billions to the pharmaceutical industry. Isobel Bartlett worked on the project and knows its potential.

  After the suspicious death of her mentor, and upon hearing part of an audacious plan to make money from the project she flees the facility with the information needed to culture the viruses to seek help from a contact with the FBI. Up against rogue government forces, she is helped by Agent Rob Stone of the Secret Service who has been tasked by the president to investigate a disbanded assassination program after his investigation led him to the bio research facility. The two are hunted mercilessly by an assassin from Washington to the streets of New York. Only when the hunt reaches the wild forests of Vermont can ex-special forces soldier Stone take the fight to the enemy.

  The Contract Man

  When an MI6 agent is found to be keeping records of his missions to protect himself from betrayal he unwittingly makes himself a priority target. But how do you silence the most dangerous man imaginable? Send him into hell on earth…

  While Alex King is sent into Northern Iraq to tidy the loose ends of a botched mission, the archipelago of Indonesia is under communist threat from within its own military. A consortium of worried businessmen call for desperate measures and seek the services of an assassin. But what if MI6 could be duped into taking care
of their problems for them? With secret links to China the communist contingent threatens Britain’s trade initiatives with the largest mineral producing country on the planet.

  In the dark world of intelligence, it seems that everybody has their price.

  Lies and Retribution

  MI5 agents have been executed and more agents have been abducted with no terms received from the kidnappers. An MI5 analyst is missing having accessed and downloaded prohibited security data.

  The trial of notorious radical cleric Mullah Al-Shaqqaf collapses, his extradition falls apart. A man known to have funded ISIS, recruit fighters for Syria and coerce teenagers to martyr themselves. Again he walks free.

  The hunt for a nuclear warhead stolen ten years ago has led Russian intelligence to London.

  One man connects them all…

  When retired MI6 operative Alex King is contacted by the deputy director of MI5 with a proposition, he feels compelled to act. His brief is illegal, his actions unprecedented. The law and the courts have failed. Time and events are against the nation’s intelligence services and the battle can no longer be fought by the rules. Britain’s enemies will soon find the game has changed.

  As MI5 agent Caroline Darby investigates with the help of a seasoned Scotland Yard detective she soon starts to look through the elaborate misdirection and discovers the horrifying truth…

  The Town

  Rob Stone is taking time out to climb in the mountains of Oregon. Taking a break, drinking coffee in a diner in a small mountain town he watches a helpless man humiliated. Stepping in to help, he sparks a confrontation. Within an hour somebody tries to kill him.

  A message has been sent, but Stone will not be pushed. As he starts to investigate what some people in the town do not want uncovered, the truth becomes unthinkable. Cruelty on a scale unimaginable, Stone is determined to shut it down and reclaim the town for its people.

  Outnumbered, hunted through the dense forest and mountain terrain, his enemy are unaware that they haven’t gained the advantage. They have merely released him into his element.

  Murder… Abduction… Betrayal… Sometimes you can’t see the woods for the trees…

  The Island

  Waking naked and alone on a deserted island, Rob Stone has no recollection of how he got there, or who he is. His memory is one of snapshots, each one building a picture of what he does and who he truly is.

  He discovers he has both the skills and will to survive. But survival is one thing, being hunted is another.

  A beautiful journalist in desperate need of help. The dark web, the dumping ground for the evil of the internet. An enemy from his past. Murder, abduction and betrayal. Stone must try to remember the time before the island changed everything. The island will help him remember. The island will make him wish he could forget.

  When the unthinkable becomes reality…

  Shadows of Good Friday

  (An Alex King Prequel, set seventeen years before The Contract Man)

  In the last days before signing the peace agreement, an IRA splinter cell mounts an operation on the British mainland using English criminals. This unprecedented move intrigues MI6 and they assume command of MI5’s surveillance operation.

  A career criminal is released from prison and aims to win back the wife and child his sentence has cost him, but before he can, he is forced back into his old world. The stakes have changed and his family have become leverage for the most ruthless people imaginable.

  A woman imprisoned in an abusive relationship, desperate to escape with her son and rekindle her past becomes the pawn in a deadly world of deception, violence and retribution.

  A clandestine wing of the secret intelligence service tests its newest recruit. Alex King has trained and operated in the shadowy world of intelligence and now he must kill for his country, but before he can, he needs to discover more about the men he has been sent to kill.

  Hell’s Mouth

  Recuperating in Cornwall after being injured in a terrorist attack, anti-terrorism officer DCI Ross O’Bryan discovers a dark secret. An unthinkable crime that somebody has attempted to cover up. Tasked with investigating, he soon finds himself immersed in a world of deception, police corruption and organised crime.

  O’Bryan has his own dark secrets too. In a place where he has no alliances and is viewed with suspicion, it is only a matter of time before he is found out.

  For so many years the dramatic and rugged coastline of Cornwall had been the scene to smuggling, deception and murder. Now, O’Bryan will find out how little has changed.

  www.apbateman.com