by Alex Shaw
‘They were trying to kidnap your niece. I stopped them.’
‘An interesting answer. You had no ulterior motive in rescuing a girl associated with the Arellano Cartel?’
‘I didn’t know who she was.’
‘That was noble, if a little convenient for your operation.’ Miguel beckoned him further away from the door, towards the end of the walkway where it was less likely they could be overheard. He leant against the railings. ‘Francisco Arellano is dead. His son is missing. My sister forbid my niece from calling him, hence the argument, hence her running away to Houston. It makes no sense, but then young love rarely does. Yes I work … worked for Francisco Arellano … but I warned him against taking such action against the Mendez Cartel.’
‘What action?’
‘It was his contract the Russian accepted, and the Mendez brothers discovered this. What is the Russian to you?’
‘We once worked together.’
‘Mr Russel, your spoken Spanish is too Spanish for you to be an American. So you are European, Spanish or perhaps even another Russian?’
Akulov shrugged. ‘What does it matter?’
‘Tell me again, what is it you want from the Russian?’
‘Information.’
‘Regarding?’
‘A personal matter.’
‘Will you complete his contract for me? Will you eliminate Angel Mendez? The cartel will pay you the same.’
‘If your offer of help is real, I will.’
‘You call my number on that card, and tell me what you need.’
‘That’s reasonable. Send the payment to the same account you used for Vetrov.’
‘Mr Russel, I think you are crazy, but I like you.’
‘Gracias,’ Akulov said before he turned, took the steps down, and got into the Cadillac.
In the almost light of day he knew it was a stupid move to make, but it was the fastest move. There would be no reasoning with the cartel unless he took out its leadership, and if he did that, he expected that whoever was second in command would be more worried about establishing it as their own than coming after him, even if they wanted to. He was unretired, at least for the moment.
He thought about Sofia and her family and wondered if her parents were involved too. They were wealthy and the easiest assumption to make was that this too came from the cocaine business. He started the SUV, pulled out of the parking lot and continued to make the worst possible tactical move by starting the drive back to Houston.
He threaded his way towards the highway and then Caesar’s phone rang. Akulov fumbled for it under the seat, causing him to swerve on the near-empty road, but he managed to retrieve it. He answered the call and waited in silence. The words came in Spanish, fast and angry. He used the same language to reply. ‘This is not Caesar. This is the man who killed Caesar.’
There was a pause and all he could hear was breathing, so he ended the call. If they didn’t know Don Caesar was dead, he wanted to give them time to check it out.
Akulov carried on towards Houston, retracing his route in reverse. The phone rang. He ignored it. It rang out to voicemail. A minute later it rang again. He ignored it again. On the third ring he answered. It was a different number, which he memorised and then answered, ‘Hola.’
‘Who is this?’ A different voice this time, harder, older perhaps, more senior, but definitely Mexican.
‘I am the one who killed Don Caesar.’
‘Do you know who this is, cabrón?’
‘Are you his mother?’
There was a moment of silence, just heavy breathing and static. ‘Oh you’re a dead man! This is Angel Mendez, pinche estúpido! Do you have any idea who I am, puto?’
The phone went quiet once more as Akulov imagined the man at the other end had become apoplectic. When the voice spoke again it was no more than a whisper. ‘I’m going to find you, and when I do I’m gonna make sure that you die in the slowest, most painful way I know how.’
‘I am easy to find,’ Akulov replied calmly. ‘I’m driving your brother’s Cadillac back to Houston.’
‘Oh, you’re one dead man!’
Akulov had never enjoyed using profanity but decided now was a good time to do so. ‘Chinga tu madre.’
He’d started a war, and in war the generals used their best men. And the Mendez Cartel’s best man was Vetrov. All Akulov had to do now was to work out where he wanted to be when Vetrov eventually found him. But by the time that happened he hoped he’d have backup, and he hoped that backup would be someone just as deadly, just as lethal as he was. If his looking at the airport cameras trick had worked, that backup would be Jack Tate.
Chapter 9
International airspace
During his SAS career Tate had grown used to sleeping on aeroplanes. They were usually uncomfortable military transports filled to the brim with cargo, kit, weapons and farting soldiers, which made sleeping in the Qatar Airways business class cabin easy, or it should have done. As soon as they levelled out Tate turned his Q Suite seat into a bed, closed his door and shut his eyes. He was tired but his body was also ready to face the Russian again, if he could find him. Eyes closed but mind wide awake Tate lay and willed himself to sleep.
He gave up after half an hour and his bed became a seat once more. He ordered a large whisky from the “dine on demand” drinks menu, then ate breakfast and watched a film. An hour into possibly the most unrealistic action thriller he had ever seen, and a second whisky later, Tate made the bed up and drifted off to sleep.
And then the dream started. His unconscious mind told him it wasn’t real, that what he was experiencing had indeed once been real but the way it was happening now, the replay was just an illusion created by his brain’s need to work out solutions to problems.
He was in Eastern Ukraine to support The Shadows, a pro-Ukraine partisan unit who were trying to prevent the Russians’ imminent attack on Mariupol. It was a hot August evening and he was on the upper floor of a bomb-shattered farmhouse overlooking a municipal building being used as a headquarters by members of a Baltic Fleet Spetsnaz unit. A pair of BMP-2 – light-armoured vehicles, faster than a tank and suited to urban warfare – sat outside the base alongside an APC – armoured personnel carrier.
As he continued to observe through his field glasses, a distinctive whoosh came from behind and to the south of him, and then an all but inaudible keening as the first grenade of The Shadows’ attack whistled on its arc through the darkening Ukrainian evening. There was a thunderous explosion and the APC was hurled upwards and crashed against the wall of the base. A moment of unnatural silence followed before flames engulfed the heavy troop transporter and leached up the walls.
A second RPG landed next to the side wall, ripping a gaping hole in the concrete. Figures ran out of the building into the dying daylight in time to see more grenades turn the remaining two armoured vehicles into expensive pieces of scrap metal. The Russians furiously tried to resist the surprise attack by returning fire or escaping into the fields out of the kill zone, but it was futile as RPGs tore into everything around them.
Grabbing the AK he’d been given for personal protection, Tate carefully crabbed from the broken window at the front of the house to the collapsed rear wall and the open field. He froze. Movement. In the field, but in the wrong direction. He dropped to the floor. Russians. A group who had not been hit by the attack, had not been in the target building, and had been unsighted by either him or The Shadows were now flanking his side’s firing positions.
He was in danger of being cut off from the three two-man fire teams in the field behind. And then he saw the Russians were being led by the man he was there to personally target, the intelligence officer from Moscow – Maksim Oleniuk. Tate estimated there were twelve men, spaced out, weapons up, advancing on The Shadows. More than enough to launch their own assault.
Tate flattened himself on the bare wooden boards of the first floor. He had an elevated view of the field and the Russians moving within it
. Unseen like tigers in a forest they stealthily traversed the chest-high crops of old sunflowers that had grown, never to be picked. And past the Russians he could see the men he was there to help – The Shadows. Tate tried to switch the fire selector on the Kalashnikov to single shot, but it was as though the selector had been welded in the wrong position against the stock of the rifle. But he knew this wasn’t so. He had tested it himself, toggled its position several times. It had been fluid and easily switched between modes. He finally managed to move it and cursed. He looked down the iron sights.
Maksim Oleniuk was easy to pick out; he was broader and slower than his men. He was an easy target even with the AK, which was generally used for short bursts or spray-and-pray attacks. He breathed out slowly and squeezed the trigger. It didn’t move. He squeezed again; nothing happened. Tate cursed and squeezed with all his strength and finally a single 7.62mm round left the end of the assault rifle. It traversed the distance to the Russian officer in what seemed to Tate to be slow motion. It missed him and blew away the head of a sunflower to his right. Tate swore.
Oleniuk turned, eyes searching for an attacker, but at his own eye level. Tate sighted again, acquired Oleniuk’s head and squeezed the trigger hard, harder than ever, and he kept on squeezing as nothing happened and the target moved away. And then a second round left the Kalashnikov, flying in a slow line … and at the very same moment, Oleniuk stopped dead, his face upwards. His eyes met Tate’s and then the 7.62mm round struck the Russian intelligence officer square in the face, ripping it away in an implosion of skin, blood, bone and brain. Oleniuk spun around, but did not fall and when the body had finished spinning it was facing Tate again, but now it was no longer Oleniuk glaring back at him. It was Ruslan Akulov and he was raising his own Kalashnikov. An entire magazine emptied on full auto tore up the distance between the two men.
Tate scrambled backwards on his haunches, but could not move out of the way as each and every round the Russian assassin fired struck him. His body convulsed as daggers of pain tore through him. His vision turned red as blood poured into his eyes. Tate tried to open his mouth to scream, but no words came out, and then he tasted the familiar metallic tang of blood. He couldn’t breathe and then he couldn’t see as his vision darkened and became black.
Tate reached for his face and pulled the blanket away from his head. He opened his eyes and found himself back in his business class cabin. Tate raised his seat, opened his personal door and headed in the direction of the toilet. After locking himself in, he splashed water on his face to wake up and wash away the vestiges of his nightmare. During the course of his career he’d occasionally have flashbacks, night terrors, but they were unusual. And he had never relived the scene he just had. The SIS shrink brought up dreams at their bi-yearly assessments, always asked him to talk about those he had had recently. But Tate could rarely remember them, and those he could generally involved groups of naked women in hot tubs. He doubted Dr Grzegorzek would appreciate hearing about those.
He combed his hair with his hands and adjusted his moustache. He moved back to his seat, sighed when he saw that he still had five hours of flying time left and ordered a tomato juice. Akulov had gotten into his head, and Tate knew exactly how he was going to remove him, permanently.
Mexican airspace
In a smaller and more exclusive aeroplane, Kirill Vetrov observed his boss, Angel Mendez. The Mexican drugs baron was seething. The rest of the men on the cartel’s private jet were overly busy inspecting their feet or looking out of the windows; Vetrov was the only man to meet his gaze.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘This is a foolhardy move.’
‘Are you calling me a fool?’ His eyes were wide with anger.
‘Only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’
‘You making fun of me?’ Angel jumped from his seat, Glock G33 in his hand. ‘You saying I’m a fool, or a coward?’
‘I’m making you angry, off balance, is what I am doing. Look, you cannot control your actions. You’re seconds away from firing your handgun and making the jet depressurise.’
Angel frowned, and sat. He leant forward, his face like thunder. ‘What is your point?’
Vetrov wet his lips, his tongue momentarily flicking out serpent-like. ‘This is a trap. Caesar’s killer wants you to go to Houston so he can take you out too.’
Angel thumped his chest with his hand, still clutching the small Glock. ‘Let him try. He is one man; we are the Mendez Cartel!’
‘Is he?’
‘What?’
‘Is he one man?’
‘Of course.’
‘What if he has a team, an army?’
Angel looked down. Put his Glock on the table next to him. ‘What are you telling me? You think this is, what, another crew? The DEA?’
‘I have no idea, and neither do you. That is the issue. We do not know who did this, yet we react like this, like he or they want us to.’
‘What if this is your broker?’ Angel sighed and leant back in his seat. ‘What if he has sent another sicario to complete the contract you did not?’
‘My broker is a wise man.’ Vetrov saw no reason to correct the gender. ‘He now knows that I work for you. It is better for him to lose one contract and one client rather than his life if he sanctions further action against you. It is business after all. As a businessman I am sure you understand this?’
‘Sure.’ Angel held up his hand and clicked his fingers. Within seconds a flight attendant appeared carrying a crystal decanter filled with tequila and a matching tumbler. She poured a double measure. Angel made no move to avert his eyes from her cleavage as he took the glass, downed the entire contents and gestured for her to repeat the process.
Vetrov had remained silent as he’d watched the pair of them; it was what he was good at. He imagined how easy it would be to kill them both before anyone else on the plane could stop him. It was what had marked him out even from the rest of the Werewolves: his ability to watch, assess and to analyse before making the correct decision with decisive, deadly action. That a man as capricious as Angel Mendez headed a billion-dollar cartel was dangerously absurd but the man had his uses and that was why Vetrov had orchestrated his enlistment as a cartel soldier.
‘My brother did not deserve this,’ Angel said, his eyes now moist, as the woman retreated. ‘To be gunned down in an alley like a dog.’
Vetrov nodded, but he believed that was exactly what a genetic half-scoop like Caesar had deserved. ‘It is bad indeed.’
‘These men of mine, who you have trained and selected, they are the best?’ Angel gestured expansively around the cabin at the five other men.
‘They are,’ Vetrov lied.
‘In your opinion how would they fare against real Spetsnaz?’
Vetrov lied again: ‘They would be a good match for them. Your team may not be real Spetsnaz but they are true Wolves.’
‘Wolves? I see, not Werewolves?’
Vetrov’s eyes narrowed slightly. Hearing Angel Mendez utter the name of his unit was akin to blasphemy. ‘Werewolves do not exist. Wolves are real and so are their teeth.’
Angel knocked back the rest of his drink. ‘That I like.’
Vetrov made no comment. Werewolves were real and there had once been twelve of them. He knew that at least half of those still existed on this earth.
Beasley, Texas, USA
Akulov ditched the Cadillac in Beasley, a small place that was home to both a large red-brick church built in honour of St Wenceslaus, and the 786 truck stop. However, he thought ironically, there was no snow. It was still early and the only people out and about were the truckers and the staff at the diner and gas station. He had no doubt the police would now be trying to trace the SUV and that unless Mendez had someone very senior on his payroll at the Houston PD, the Giant – if he was neither dead nor in a coma – would be held for questioning.
Akulov parked the garish SUV around the side of a sleepy-looking house whose plot back
ed onto seemingly never-ending fields. He killed the engine, stepped out and listened, waiting for any noise or movement. When none came he clambered back into the Cadillac and set about wiping every surface he had touched with a half-depleted packet of wet wipes he’d found in a storage cubby on the driver’s side, which had also contained a well-thumbed copy of Juggs magazine. As he cleaned, he searched the SUV and found a small leather holdall in the trunk, like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. In it was a roll of duct tape, a packet of condoms and two autoinjectors: stab and press pens designed to deliver a single, preloaded dose of a specific drug.
Akulov felt himself getting angry. He’d seen such kits before, and had no doubt the cartel men had planned to use it on Sofia and Juana. He took the bag back to the driver’s seat and placed the two handguns and Caesar Mendez’s wallet inside before he locked the Cadillac, tossed the key and Angel’s phone into the field and walked away.
It took him ten minutes to get to the truck stop, eight more to find a trucker driving in the direction of Houston and $100 to persuade the guy to let him ride along.
An hour later the trucker dropped Akulov off near to the address he had given. Akulov started to walk through the outskirts of Houston. It was warmer now the sun was up, and the city was awake and busy with people. He found a coffee shop, sat and ordered a large breakfast of pancakes, bacon and sausage. He hadn’t eaten properly since a mall sandwich in Miami and realised that he was ravenous. The bag he had brought from Miami was in a left-luggage locker at the airport, but he mentally went back over the details of the report it contained.
He finished and paid for his breakfast and left the coffee shop. Looking up he spotted a CCTV camera and made sure that it had a full shot of his face as he pretended to look past it and into the sky as though marvelling at the towering Houston architecture.
Houston, Texas, USA
Tate sat in the back of the large, black executive minivan facing his brother, Simon Hunter, as the van sped away from the airport.