The Asset (Alex King Book 10)

by A P Bateman

  King ignored her and walked into the barn. The helicopter had been cleaned and polished. Flymo had been busy in his absence, and King could see the man had piled the things he had wanted next to the tarp hiding the safe from view.

  “It’s all there,” said Flymo, standing at King’s shoulder.

  “What’s the clearance?” King asked, looking at the doorway.

  “A foot. A foot and a half at best.”

  “Great. Let’s see if you can live up to your nickname, then.” King walked to the double doors and opened the second one, pinning it back with a rock that had been purposed for the task. “Park it over there.” He pointed to the middle of the yard, then looked at Alaina. “Best stand out of the way,” he said, walking down the edge of the barn and perching on the bonnet of the Suzuki.

  Alaina followed him and said, “Can he really fly that thing out of there?”

  “No idea.”

  “There’s barely any room.”

  “Call it his interview. Or audition. I haven’t flown with this guy, don’t know how he operates.” The sound of the engines whining and the rotors slowly starting to turn was clearly audible, and gained gradually until the noise was familiar, unmistakable. “If he messes up, at least he won’t have far to fall…”

  King walked out into the yard, catching sight of the nose of the helicopter and the blur of the rotors. Dust and debris swirled out of the open doors like a dust devil in the desert, then dispersed in a blizzard once it was out of the rotor wash. The nose of the craft lifted by mere inches, then flipped up a few feet, but was corrected in time. The height of the barn was just sufficient to allow for the anomaly, but the doorway would not be so forgiving. The craft dipped lower, the skids catching the ground, then lifting slightly and in one smooth and swift motion, the helicopter glided out through the doors, inches separating the skids from the hard, sun-baked ground, and the spinning rotors afforded the same distance from the steel girder across the doorway.

  King was impressed. He was about to say something to Alaina, but watched as the helicopter spun one-hundred and eighty degrees and took off backwards, banked hard towards the ground then spun around and climbed hard, the rotors close enough to the two of them for them to both duck their heads as the craft pivoted and climbed towards the sky, now righted and flying conventionally, but vertically with the turbine whining under both boost and strain. It climbed to around a thousand feet, then pivoted, looked as though the rotors were still and the craft was turning instead. King knew this was an illusion – although it was doing a bit of both – and then the helicopter was into a vertical dive towards them. Alaina screamed and fled towards the fringe of the woods, and King tensed, every fibre of his being wanting to run, but locked into a duel of nerve with Flymo as he rode the wave of inertia and powered flight downwards. King took a breath, stood resolute and hoped for the best. The helicopter corrected and levelled out, the skids just a foot above King as Flymo banked the craft hard and entered a controlled hover just a few feet above the ground and facing the barn entrance.

  King was thrown to the floor by the rotor wash and was getting back up, dusting himself off as Flymo touched down the skids and shut the engine down. But he had not ducked, and he knew that Flymo had seen that, too. The rotors slowed, but King knew that Flymo would still be controlling the helicopter’s overriding desire to flip over, until the rotors had powered down further.

  Alaina made her way back out of the woods, looking sheepish and flushed with adrenalin and exertion. King noted her fight or flight instincts were strong. But he also wondered what in hell’s name a psychologist would make of his own. Standing firm in a duel against man and machine and physics was not the sanest thing for a man to do. Especially a man with a woman at home and ideas about starting a family.

  “Impressive,” she said.

  “Reckless,” King replied.

  “You don’t like?”

  King shook his head. “No, I like a great deal,” he replied. “I’ve been left on mountainsides with ISIS hunting me because an extraction would mean an RAF pilot going over his limit for hours in the air, or that there is a bank of fog too near to take the risk. I’ve also been flown over because the landing zone is too hot with insurgents.” He paused. “I can tell that none of these things will bother Flymo.”

  “Rather you than me…”

  King made his way to the barn as Flymo got out of the cockpit. He lifted one of the skidpans out of the way and half wheeled, half dropped it into the corner. Flymo did the same with the other one.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You had an audience.”

  “I have been known to show off a bit.”

  “Well, you’ve earned your handle,” King said, looking at the pile of items Flymo had procured in his absence. “I may have something else for you to do, but I’ll work on that later. In the meantime, we need to get that safe open. What I have planned will depend on what pocket money we have left.”

  King kicked off the rocks holding the tarp in place and pulled it out of the way. somehow, the safe looked bigger and thicker and more daunting now that he had to try and break in. Early in his career with MI6 he had been trained to get into a variety of safes, and had put the practice into effect many times, but by his own admission, it had been a while now to say the least. He thought back to his first mission, stealing already stolen IRA funds, and planting the money in a criminal’s property in France. Turning the rats against each other. Somehow, it seemed a world away, a lifetime ago, and yet simpler days. Then he realised those days had been no simpler, but he had been younger.

  “You are breaking in?”

  King looked at Alaina and replied, “Yes.”

  “Can I help?”

  “Can you crack safes?”

  “No, but I can learn.”

  “Okay, you can mix.”

  The inside of the barn was hot and airless. King took off his T-shirt and tossed it onto a clear area of floorspace. Alaina looked at him, then glanced away when he caught her. By his own admission, he was in good shape. Lean at the waist with a broad chest and shoulders. Working shirtless on the property in Cornwall had given him a tan and had shown up the road map of scars. Each one telling a story, and a reminder that he had won the battles, even if they had left their mark. He tipped the scales at fourteen stone and had the build of a light-heavyweight boxer. Indeed, he had boxed and fought in prize fights as a young man, and still trained on a bag most days to keep supple and hard and fast. He did not work too hard with weights, preferring to do press-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and squats. He had found that overly built or sculptured muscles tired quickly, and the strength he built through his routines allowed him to fight and get out of trouble through stamina.

  Alaina took off her blouse, revealing just a bra. She tossed the blouse to where King’s T-shirt lay.

  “Christ, I’ll leave you both to it if you want.” Flymo quipped.

  “It is hot, is all,” Alaina snapped. “Now, show me what to do.”

  Flymo could barely take his eyes off the young woman. King tapped him on the back of the head and jolted him out of his lecherousness. “Give Alaina a bucket, and open that bag of chemical fertiliser.”

  King opened the packets of sugar and bicarbonate of soda and started measuring the quantities into a clean bucket. Next, he opened the bags of iron filings.

  “We are making a bomb?” Alaina asked tentatively.

  “Sort of,” King replied. He looked through the boxes and found the saltpetre. “Okay, Alaina, tip half the fertiliser into the bucket,” he said, handing her his bucket. “Then mix mine into it using the wooden batten.” He pointed at two lengths of two-by-one pine batten. “Mix it well.”

  King picked up the bag of barbecue charcoal and tossed it at Flymo. He spread out the tarp and found a half concrete block beside the pile of rocks. He placed it on the tarp, brushed aside any debris and hunted for another piece of block. He found what he wanted and squatted down beside the tarp. “
Empty a small amount of charcoal onto the block, and gently pound it into a powder with this…” He handed him the other piece of block. “Just like the women do in Africa with grain.”

  “Is that because I’m black?”

  “No, it was an example.”

  “Couldn’t find a better example?”

  King shrugged. “No. Still can’t.”

  Flymo pulled a face and started pounding at the charcoal. King noted his anger was getting the job done. He still couldn’t think of another example, so he opened a bottle of concentrated bleach – sodium hypochlorite – checked the viscosity and poured it into another clean bucket. He stood up quickly and put some distance between himself and the bucket. “Shit, this needs a mask,” he said pointedly. “It’s strong stuff.”

  “The masks are other there.” Flymo pointed to a bag with a home depot store logo on it. “Christ, I’ll open the back door!” He crossed the barn and unbolted a single door and the barn filled with a blessed breeze. “I should have done that earlier. You two can get dressed now.”

  King was bathed in sweat. He wiped what he could from his eyes with the back of his wrist, then put on the mask and a pair of goggles and tossed one of each to Alaina and Flymo. He then returned to his bucket, where he spooned in quantities of petroleum jelly and started to mix in the iron filings. The mixture turned into a reddish soup, the bleach attacking the iron immediately. King turned to Alaina. “Here, bring your mix over. And pour it carefully into mine. And make sure your mask is on tightly.”

  Alaina struggled with the weight of the bucket, but she got her left-hand underneath and steadied it as she poured. King mixed it together with one of the battens until it became thick like porridge.

  “How’s the charcoal coming along?”

  “Nearly there. Just like my mother used to do with my breakfast millet outside my mud hut as a child.”

  “Dickhead,” King replied tersely. “At least she made you breakfast. I wouldn’t see mine for days and sometimes ate out of the kitchen dustbin.”

  Flymo raised an eyebrow as he scraped the powdered charcoal into a bucket and brought it over. “Here.” He placed it down beside them.

  “Great. Now, unless you have any objections working for the white man, I need you to mix the two together while I work on the fuses.” He stood up and left Flymo mixing and Alaina watching with great interest. King took the lengths of hessian string and a handful each of saltpetre and petroleum jelly and rubbed them between his hands. He then twisted the lengths of string into one strand and coiled it into a loose length around three feet in length. King returned to where Flymo was mixing and patted him on the back. “That’s enough. Good job.” He dropped the length of rope next to the safe and said, “Right, let’s get this thing opened.”

  Flymo stopped mixing and tapped the loose mix off the batten. The mix looked like a brown sludge, and it emitted a vapour which could be seen and felt on the skin.

  King put on a pair of blue plastic gloves – hospital PPE issue – and plunged his hands into the mix. He moulded it into shapes the girth and length of salami and pressed it into a line around the safe door. “The rear of the safe is the weakest part,” he said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Rashid would have known this, which was why he set it in the concrete.” He manipulated another handful, and after several applications, joining the lengths together, he had almost gone all the way around. He doubled the amount of mix at where he estimated the hinges and multiple locks to be, then scraped the rest of the mix out and finished the rectangle, pressing the joins together and making sure that there were no weak links.

  “If this doesn’t work, is there enough mix to try again?” Alaina asked.

  “Not really,” replied King. “Perhaps half as much again.”

  “Let’s hope it works, then,” Flymo commented quietly.

  King worked the improvised fuse deeply into the moulded concoction on the thickest corner, to allow for an even burn in two directions. He fed the fuse out, then used his Swiss Army knife with its locking blade to trim a foot off the length. “Anyone got any matches?” Alaina did not smoke. Flymo looked impressively fit, so King doubted he did, either.

  Flymo shrugged and said, “I’ll get some from the kitchen.”

  King picked up his T-shirt and while he was bending down, he picked up Alaina’s blouse and tossed it to her, trying not to look at the shape of her breasts straining against the sheer bra for a moment longer than he needed to. He supposed it wasn’t necessary to look at all, but he was a red-blooded man and there had to be some sort of default setting. The over-ride switch to that setting was the last image he carried of Caroline sullenly watching him leave from the front doorway of their cottage. She had not smiled nor waved goodbye.

  King used his T-shirt to wipe himself dry, then shook it out and put it back on. Alaina slipped her blouse over her and buttoned just three buttons in the middle of the garment. The top of her bra was visible, as was her pierced navel. She looked up as Flymo approached carrying a disposable lighter and three frosted cans of beer. She smiled and let out a gasp. King rarely drank alcohol in the daytime, but right now the ice-cold beer was looking good. He accepted the can with a smile and ran it over his neck and face in a bid to cool down.

  Flymo handed King the lighter and he bent down and lit the end of the fuse length he had cut earlier, standing back up to set the bezel of his watch at the minute hand. He pulled the tab and drank through the froth of the icy beer. He did not recognise the brand, but it was weak and smooth and went down well on such a hot late summer’s day. King stood back and watched the fuse burning on the ground. He had learned the hard way once and failed to outrun a fuse in time. He had been lucky, but now he always tested burning fuses. He checked his watch. The foot-long length had burned its length in just over twenty seconds. So, the four feet or so sticking out from the incendiary compound would give him plenty of time to get clear.

  King drained his beer and dropped the can on the ground beside the barn. “Stay here while I go and light it,” he said and walked into the barn. The smell of the compound reacting was enough to make him feel nauseous, and he adjusted the face mask and put on the goggles before his eyes started to water. In his back pocket he carried the 9mm Makarov he had left in the glovebox of the BMW. King had stopped by and collected it. The car had been intended as an emergency escape plan, and King saw no point in not keeping it for himself, parking it in a residential street near the airport. He took out the pistol and checked it before slipping it into his right jeans pocket. Neither Flymo nor Alaina had gained his trust yet and there was no telling what either of them would do if they liked the look of the contents of the safe more than their current options.

  King studied the compound, giving it a final once over before lighting the fuse. The mix was volatile, but packed as loosely as it was, it would initiate rather than detonate. He had used the same mix packed tightly in plastic bags and sealed in a vacuum packer to create a highly destructive explosive for demolition purposes. He stepped back, making sure the flame was burning fiercely, the petroleum jelly fuelling the string, which burned like a wick. He picked up both fire extinguishers and carried them outside, handing one to Flymo when he reached him.

  “When I say, we’ll head in, but only use your extinguisher if I tell you to. Too soon and you’ll cool the cuts in the metal, and it will fuse tightly together, welding itself back up.”

  “Okay…”

  “The extinguishers are for the contents of the safe. Whatever is in there may well catch fire.” He paused, then said, “Bugger!”

  “What is it?” Flymo asked.

  “I forgot to get something ready to prise the door off.” He paused. “It’s going to be heavy, and bloody hot as well.” He glanced at his watch. “Thirty seconds, I reckon.”

  Flymo darted towards the house. He shouted something, but King could neither hear what he said, nor wanted to delay him further. He turned to Alaina and shrugged.

  “Will it be l
oud?” she asked tentatively.

  “I hope not. If it is, then I’ve done it wrong. It should sound like a massive fizz,” he said. “And there’ll be a flash of light, which is why we’re waiting out here. It would be enough to blind you, otherwise.”

  Alaina nodded, but did not reply. She glanced over at Flymo, who was racing back with a bulky pair of oven gloves. It was the campest thing King had seen in a while.

  “Better than tea towels, I suppose,” said King. He checked his watch again, but it wasn’t a science and he knew there was no real reason to check, other than he felt he had wasted enough time in Albania, when there was much to do in Russia. But he needed the funds for what he had planned next.

  The fizz was an understatement. It was more like the roar of a forest fire after a dry summer. The flash was intense, brightening the yard which was already bathed in the late afternoon sun.

  “That should be it,” King said. “Follow me with the extinguisher.” He snatched the oven gloves from Flymo and led the way into the barn, pulling the mask over his face and adjusting the goggles.

  The smoke emitted from the flare of flame was white and acrid but was clearing quickly with the doors open front and rear. The flames were dying, the superheated iron filings had cut through the steel of the safe like a thermal lance. As King approached, he could see that the safe door had fallen inwards and he bent down, tucked his gloved fingers into the gap and pulled the door out. He struggled with the weight and heat, but after several tugs, he got a corner out and pulled it clear. He dropped it beside the safe, and the edges caught debris on fire, sparking like embers from a barbecue. Inside the safe, there were flames and Flymo stepped in and got his extinguisher ready. King nodded and stood back as the man doused the flames. King pulled off the oven gloves, the residual heat now burning his fingers. He looked at the gloves and could see they were scorched. At almost fifteen-hundred degrees centigrade, the compound had cut through cleanly, but had ignited the contents. Flymo was bringing it under control, and the inside of the safe was now steaming.