by Alex Shaw
‘I’m surprised Newman let you come?’
‘She tried to stop me,’ Hunter replied.
‘Who’s the driver?’
‘Local talent.’
‘I see.’ Local talent was a phrase used to describe the loose network of contractors the SIS used as and when needed. They were all British expats and all former servicemen.
‘Don’t worry, the back is soundproofed.’
‘You hope.’
‘I know.’
Tate pointed to his moustache. ‘Have I got you to thank for this?’
‘No, I think it was random, brotha!’
‘Ha-ha.’ Tate stretched out across the leather seats. ‘OK. What do we know?’
Hunter was immediately serious. ‘Akulov has been pinged in Houston. Most recently two hours ago.’
Tate sat up straighter, the fatigue from over twenty hours of air travel within thirty-six hours instantly vanishing. ‘He’s still here?’
‘But that’s not the odd part.’ Hunter paused wearily. ‘He was standing directly under a camera. It’s as though he wanted to get pinged.’
Tate flattened down his moustache, a tic he’d developed since Nice. ‘Then he wants us to find him. Akulov wouldn’t make such a basic mistake.’
‘No, he wouldn’t.’
Tate looked at his brother. In the last year he seemed to have aged as the obsession with finding Ruslan Akulov had driven him, haunted him and ultimately controlled him. When they’d encountered the Russian assassin a year before, they had not known what he had been part of. The Werewolves had been well known by E Squadron. Tate had read the file many times and knew all about Akulov’s particular skill set. Tate glanced up at the full-length panoramic sunroom and the skyscrapers of Houston that now encroached upon the sky.
‘He wants us to come. He wants us to know he’s here. It’s a trap. High ground everywhere, we’ll be easy targets.’
‘You think he’s after us?’
‘Sure.’
‘Why?’
‘We haven’t forgotten about him. The dead can’t speak, and they can’t pull triggers.’
‘But we can.’ Hunter folded his arms and Tate saw the slightest shiver. ‘What a happy thought.’
‘You still having the dreams?’
Hunter nodded, said nothing.
Tate thought back to a year before when his brother had been abducted and held captive by Akulov’s boss – Oleniuk. And then in front of him, Oleniuk had executed the woman Simon loved.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Tate asked his brother.
‘Kill him,’ Simon Hunter replied, ‘without hesitation.’
Tate gave the slightest of nods. ‘Tell me again how you felt when I killed Oleniuk?’
‘Empty.’
‘And did it bring them back?’
Anger flared in Hunter’s eyes. ‘You know it bloody didn’t! Nothing will. Oleniuk ordered our parents’ deaths and that bastard Akulov ensured they happened.’
The brothers fell silent; the only sound now was the whirring of the air conditioning.
Tate knocked his knee against his brother’s. ‘So, give me the intel, soppy.’
‘Two hours ago Akulov was seen standing outside this diner.’ He handed Tate an A4 printout. It showed a figure, gazing upwards, his focus just past the camera but his face clearly displayed. The time and location was marked in the corner of the recording. ‘Neill Plato’s got alerts set up. And here he is again last night arriving at George Bush Intercontinental.’
Tate took the second photo.
‘Looking up again.’
‘It’s as though he knows that the Americans aren’t looking for him but that we are.’
‘Exactly,’ Hunter said. ‘I think so too, and I said the same to Newman.’
‘So what, we wait for him to pop up again?’
‘Neill is trying to see if he can be tracked, but Akulov knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t shown up anywhere else since.’
Tate tapped the first image with his index finger. ‘Where is this place?’
‘South-west Houston.’
‘Then that’s where we need to be.’
‘Because?’
‘Because we’ve got to start somewhere, and I’m hungry.’
‘OK. I’ve got a full tactical kit in the boot. I just hope we don’t need it.’
Chapter 10
Downtown Houston, USA
The apartment was shabby and empty except for a king-sized bed in one room and a pair of large, leather La-Z-Boys in the other. Angel Mendez sat in one of the chairs, cigar in one hand and a tumbler of tequila in the other. His chair was flanked on either side by two of the men handpicked by Vetrov. In the other chair, which had been repositioned to face the first but with a respectable distance between them, sat Detective Ken Vinyl of the Houston Police Department.
Vetrov leant against the window frame, his focus both on the street below and the room around him.
‘What I like about you, Vinyl, is that you don’t show off. You don’t flaunt what you’ve got,’ Angel said.
‘Thank you.’
‘Look at that suit, man. What was it, four hundred bucks?’
‘Three oh-eight.’
‘There you go, three hundred bucks – a JC Penney special. But those shoes are something else. What did they run to, two thousand eight hundred?’
‘Two thousand nine.’
‘Two thousand nine hundred bucks, made-to-measure gator skin loafers – am I right?’
‘You are.’
‘Yes I am always right. Always right. So this is when I know I can trust a guy on my payroll. The money doesn’t change him. He’s not out going all Miami Vice on my ass and getting the flashy suits and jewellery and chick-cars. No, he invests his cash, like I’m investing in him, and he only buys quality items – and those shoes are subtle, güey!’
‘Thank you.’
‘Real nice, I may need to get myself a pair of those. Now tell me, Vinyl, off the record …’ Angel smiled at his own word play, as he always did each and every time he used the same joke, before his face abruptly became serious. ‘Who is this pinche puta who killed Caesar?’
‘Russel Cross.’
‘Russel Cross? Sounds like a puto name to me.’ Angel raised his glass to his lips. Vetrov noticed there was a slight tremor in his hand. Angel drained the glass and threw it to the man on his right who deftly caught it and took it out through the door and into the kitchen.
‘He was in a cab just before it happened, and then he jumped out, and then the cabby filmed it all. Here.’ Vinyl got up from his seat and offered the phone to Angel.
Angel snatched the smartphone and pressed play.
The only sounds to fill the room for the next four minutes were the screams, gunfire and then sirens. Vetrov would study the footage later; he had to let his patron go first.
When Angel spoke next his voice sounded different. It was a fraction lower, quieter. He had just viewed the last minutes of his twin brother’s life. ‘Is this the only copy?’
‘Yes. That’s the cabby’s phone.’
‘What about the in-car camera?’
‘It didn’t show his face. His head was down, like he knew to hide from it.’
‘Pinche puta! Has the cabby been taken care of?’
‘He has been taken care of financially.’
‘No. I want him taken care of permanently. Understand?’
‘I do,’ Vinyl replied, without hesitation. ‘I’ll do it myself.’
‘What about the CCTV in the club?’
‘I made a copy then wiped it. It just had him entering and leaving the establishment and going for a piss. He was standing at the only part of the bar not covered by the cameras. Cross knew what he was doing but I did get a print of his face from the camera in the hall, good enough to match his driving licence.’
‘And the cameras in the street?’
‘They’re broken, didn’t record anything that night.’
; ‘Bueno.’ Angel clamped his cigar between his teeth as he zoomed in on part of the film. It was the face of Russel Cross. Angel took a screen shot. ‘Hey, Vetrov, put your “airdrop” on.’
Vetrov retrieved his phone and did as requested.
‘Tell me about Russel Cross?’ Angel continued.
‘He’s thirty-six, a Boston native. He’s an insurance broker. No priors, no convictions, no military service.’
‘What?’ Angel sounded incredulous. ‘It’s a fake ID, got to be. Did you see how he handled himself? I know a trained professional when I see one and this guy ain’t no insurance broker!’
Vinyl shrugged. ‘That’s all I got.’
‘Home address?’
‘Boston is on his licence but I made inquiries. They don’t know him at that address; it’s an apartment block and people move in and out all the time.’
Vetrov stared at his phone and for the first time in years he felt something bordering on fear. The footage was now over a year old and he had hoped the British would have captured the man on it by now, an eloquent way in which to rid the world of his old friend. ‘This man is not named Russel Cross. This man does not have military training, he has advanced military training. This man is not a man, he is a Werewolf.’
‘Wait … what you saying, Vetrov?’
Vetrov moved away from the window and into Angel’s field of vision. ‘I know the man on the film. His name is Ruslan Akulov. He was Wolf 6.’
Angel shot to his feet, stabbing the air in front of him with his Cuban cigar. ‘See, I knew it! This güey is a pro! So you’re telling me, Vetrov, that he’s one of yours?’
Vetrov sighed wearily and wondered how much longer he would have to put up with Caesar for. If he needed to, he would liquidate everyone within the room. He would kick Caesar in the head, then roll to the table, take out first one then the other bodyguard, before shooting Vinyl, and then the men from the other room would enter, all speed and confusion, and he would gun them down. If he had to. Which he told himself he wouldn’t do, just yet. ‘The man is a traitor. He resigned from my team after our operations in Syria.’
‘He’s what, a sicario now?’
‘Exactly.’ The next words were hard for Vetrov to say because they held a truth he had never vocalised. ‘He’s probably the best Russia has ever produced. I believe he’s been sent to collect on the contract that I did not.’
‘Hey, you said that wouldn’t happen! We whacked old man Arellano; he ordered it with his puto son Daniel. So who’s ordered this?’
‘Akulov has the same broker I had. I was wrong about him; it looks like the broker wants to keep face.’
‘And lose his life? Call him, warn him off! Now!’
‘That’s not how it works.’
‘No?’ Angel’s brow contorted. He was not used to his orders being questioned or refused. ‘Then, my Russian friend, tell me how it does work?’
‘I leave a message in a draft folder of an email account.’
Angel Mendez nodded. ‘So write the message.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why?’
‘I no longer know what the correct account is. The broker will have cut me off.’
‘Use the old one. Try. Do it. Do it now!’
‘Very well.’ Akulov opened a VPN then tapped in the link for the last email account he used. It still worked. He managed to open it and get into the draft folder. ‘Tell me exactly what you want to say, patron.’
‘Tell him this: “Stop the contract. Do not target Angel Mendez or the cartel will come for you, your wife, your children and your parents!” OK, you got that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Show me.’
Vetrov held the iPhone in front of Angel’s face. The cartel boss made a fuss of reading it. ‘Bueno.’
‘But he will not stop, even if ordered to do so.’
‘What?’
‘Ruslan Akulov will not stop. Once he accepts a contract there is no turning back.’
‘This pinche estúpido thinks he can come to Houston, murder Caesar then take me out too?’ Angel was breathing hard and his face was red. ‘You better be telling me the truth, cabrón, that this is nothing to do with you.’
‘It is the truth.’
Vinyl got to his feet and cleared his throat. ‘We’ve got his face, and we’ve got his name. If you let me release that, you’ll have the entire Houston PD hunting for his ass.’
Angel cocked his head. ‘You can guarantee that he’s brought to me for justice?’
‘I can’t guarantee it.’
Angel pointed his cigar at him. ‘No mames, Vinyl!’
Vetrov noted that Vinyl didn’t understand the Spanish statement. ‘I know how he works; he’s hunting you, Angel.’
‘I ain’t no goddam puta prey! Nobody ever hunted me, you got that? No no. We have options. We hunt him. We take him out when he’s least expecting it.’
Vetrov relaxed slightly. The imminent danger to him had passed. ‘We make him think he’s hunting you, but really we are waiting for him.’
‘Exactly what I was thinking. Like a trap!’
‘Yes.’
Angel vigorously nodded. ‘OK, OK. Tell me where you wanna do this?’
‘I imagine he has the same intelligence pack on you that I did. I’d have attacked you where you least expect it, your place in River Oaks.’
Angel retook his seat and held out his hand. A fresh tumbler of tequila was placed in it. ‘River Oaks, now I’m liking the sound of that.’
‘I can have my men, men I trust, step up patrols on the place,’ Vinyl offered, hurriedly.
‘No. He’s gotta think we aren’t expecting him. Here’s the plan. We wait, then once he’s there we call in your men. Pinche estúpido cabrón breaks into my place – a big-ass home invasion – and attempts to off me? Sure we need the cops to take him away, and of course he resists arrest.’
‘Don’t circulate his photo,’ Vetrov said. ‘You don’t want anyone thinking they can curry favour with you by trying to take him out.’
‘You’re right. That’s very wise.’ Mendez had a thin smile on his face.
Vetrov glanced at Vinyl. Although he too was nodding and smiling, the Russian could read his trepidation even if Angel could not.
‘There is one more thing,’ Vinyl said, his voice sounding strained. ‘You need to formally identify your brother’s body.’
Angel, glass in hand, made the sign of the cross then necked the tequila. He got back up to his feet tossing the tumbler over his shoulder, where it was caught once again. ‘Please take me to my brother, Detective Vinyl.’
Buffalo Bayou Park, Houston, USA
Akulov guessed the British had seen him on camera, but he didn’t know for sure. All he had to go on that they were targeting him, was the word of his broker. Any intel was only as good as its source, however, and he didn’t know who hers was. He’d found a phone shop, bought two more burners then had a taxi take him to Buffalo Bayou Park.
The park, according to his driver who would not stop talking, had cost the city a staggering fifty-eight million dollars to create, was one hundred and sixty acres in size and built alongside ten miles of waterways.
Akulov paid the driver, with a generous tip, and headed into the park. He liked parks but unlike those he’d hung around in as a youth in Moscow, this one was clean and not dotted with trash and drug addicts. Akulov realised that since he’d stopped being a patriot the mist of propaganda had been removed from his eyes and he had started to remember things as they had been rather than how the Kremlin had insisted they were. He paused to take in the vista of the towering glass skyscrapers of downtown Houston beyond the park as they stood proud beneath the vivid blue sky. Houston was where many came to make their millions and that was why the Mendez Cartel were here to ensure they made theirs.
Akulov knew if he were being tracked by a sniper, an open space like the park made him as easy to hit as a paper target on a range, but he very much doubted anyone would
have found him yet and if so that they would use that particular method to take him out. Angel Mendez seemed like a caring, up close and personal kind of psychopath; meanwhile he knew Jack Tate would also want to do it face to face.
Akulov pulled one of the two burner phones from his bag and used the internet to find the telephone number for a certain office in Washington DC. He clicked the link to dial the number.
‘Good afternoon, British Embassy, Washington. How may I help you?’ The voice was American, not British, which made Akulov’s deception easier.
‘Good afternoon,’ Akulov said, using a British accent, ‘could I possibly speak to Simon Hunter please?’
There was a pause before the receptionist said, ‘I’m sorry, Attaché Hunter is out of the office.’
Akulov carried on, keeping up his deception as a blasé British expat. ‘Listen, love, I’m a friend of his and I’m in Houston where I was meant to meet him but he’s not turned up.’
‘Sir, I’m sorry about that, but Simon is not here at the moment. If it’s an urgent matter I can take a message?’
There was no surprise in the woman’s voice that Hunter was expected in Houston, just concern that he had not made an appointment. And this told Akulov something. ‘OK. Please pass this message on to Simon. ‘My name is Ruslan Akulov. I’m in Houston waiting for him. He can get me on the number I’m calling from. Is it displayed on your phone?’
‘Yes, sir, it is.’
‘OK that’s it. Please pass it on as quickly as you can. It’s very important, as I’m only going to be on this number for the next hour.’
‘I will do so, sir.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Akulov ended the call.
If that didn’t get their attention, then nothing would. He continued to walk along the path and enjoyed the gentle breeze that made the tops of the trees in the lower park sway. He didn’t have much of a plan, but what plan he did have involved him being able to confront Tate and persuade him that he had nothing to do with the Camden bombing. Once this was achieved the questions of who, how and why they’d framed him had to be answered, and he didn’t know if he’d be doing that with or without Tate’s help.