The Asset (Alex King Book 10)

by A P Bateman

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  King shrugged. Social media was lost on him. He checked the summit through the sight of the G36. They would have a better idea of their position once they cleared the next ridge. “I guess I generally have more to worry about,” he said.

  She nodded. “Like what?”

  King thought how his life had changed since he had left MI5 behind. Maybe he didn’t have much to worry about these days. And the thought made him wish that he had. In truth, he had enjoyed being back in the field and the thrill of the close quarter battle at the warehouse in St. Petersburg had cemented that. Not at the time. He never enjoyed the killing. But afterwards, as the adrenalin subsided – there was no feeling like it.

  Unperturbed by King’s silence, she continued, “That is what I want,” she said. “Something more to worry about than the day to day monotony of a home in a small town. I wanted to find out about my sister. Hoped I could save her, but I was too late. Now, I just want to kill Romanovitch.”

  “It’s a hell of a thing to kill a man,” said King. “You take away all he has, all he ever had and all he ever will have.”

  “Good.”

  “He has a wife and children,” said King. “You make your mark on them, too.”

  “I can live with that.”

  “Because of your sister? It won’t bring her back. Killing someone for vengeance doesn’t heal the wound. In fact, the wound only festers.”

  She hesitated before answering, then said, “I suspect it will not make me feel better. But the apple does not fall far from the tree. Any child of Romanovitch will end up causing misery to someone, sometime. My actions won’t change that fact. So perhaps I pay it forward.”

  King knew she was right. It was a family business, and Romanovitch’s wife would have known what her husband had done to butter the bread. Perhaps she was a prisoner to it all, but King doubted that. The woman had enough freedom to shop in London, Paris and Milan without too much trouble, and the endless properties, furnishings, cars, boats and parties came at a price where you either questioned it, or turned a blind eye.

  They reached the summit and King could see the property atop the next but one peak. They would have to be careful now. Whether or not they had security measures in place surrounding the grounds, they were at visual range now. A guard with a pair of binoculars could spot movement from a window. It was as simple as that. King looked for the best route and found it after thirty seconds. It looked to be a tough and undulating route, requiring some free climbing. He was confident he could do it. He just hoped Alaina would be able to follow.

  28

  “I can’t climb that.”

  “It’s just a case of putting one hand in front of the other and having a good, strong foothold before you release your grip. Short steps and reaches.”

  “But I’ve never climbed before!”

  King shrugged. “Well, you’d best wait here, then.” He checked the G36 was secure to his pack and stepped up onto the first boulder. He reached for the first handhold and straightened. “Take cover and wait for me. If I’m not back in three hours, set back the way we came, but remember not to step out from the forest until you’re over the first peak.” King took another step and was soon eight feet above the ground and on a path through the gully.

  “But what if Romanovitch is there?”

  “I’m hoping he will be.”

  “No! I want to kill him!”

  “Too bad…”

  Alaina watched King climb. The face of fallen rocks wasn’t quite vertical, but it was only marginally off the plumb. He was making good progress, when she cursed and scrambled up the first boulder and followed the path he had taken. The climb was around two-hundred feet, but it brought them up within the pine forest, and closer to the property than they could have hoped to get without detouring more than a mile, and still they would have had to cover open ground to get to an advantageous position.

  King paused two thirds of the way, his hands sore and sweating. He dried them on his chest, both feet pressed into a gap between two rocks. He waited for Alaina to near him, then held out a hand for her to hold, before hoisting her up to his tiny ledge.

  “Not so bad, is it?”

  “I’ve had more fun.”

  King took out his water bottle and drank down half. He offered it to her, and she accepted, drinking the remainder thirstily. She handed him back the bottle and he tucked it back into his rucksack. “Not much further,” he said.

  “Good.”

  King started to climb again but had to traverse around a large gap created by two giant boulders. The gap was too high to reach over, so he needed to get around it. His powerful legs and arms meant he soon left Alaina behind and was close to the top. He turned around to guide Alaina to him but ducked when chips of rock scattered into his face and a gunshot resonated around him. He flattened himself to the rock and struggled to get the G36 off his shoulder. It was tied on tightly to the rucksack and he could not get his arm back far enough to unhitch it without raising his head above the rock. He gave up and drew the P99 from his belt holster. Another gunshot rang out and more fragments of rock peppered him.

  “Get into that cave!” he snapped at Alaina behind him. He watched as she took out the pistol and shuffled into the gap between the two boulders. Her face was ashen, and her eyes were wide.

  King lifted his head a touch to try and spot the gunman. Another shot frighteningly close this time, and he felt more than rock debris, the bullet clipping his shoulder, tearing his shirt, and grazing his skin. He winced, cursed under his breath. He checked the movement in his hand and wrist. It was unaffected. He touched the wound with his fingers. Bloody, but not overly so. Probably the luckiest gunshot wound he’d either experienced or witnessed. A true graze, less than half a millimetre.

  “What do we do?” Alaina shouted in a hushed tone.

  “Sit tight. I’m going to try and draw him out.”

  King sprang up and climbed the remaining five feet, then rolled onto the ledge which was thick with fallen pine needles. A plume of needles and earth leapt into the air, and then another – closer to his feet this time. King fired three shots as he ran to a fallen tree. He ducked low and fired another three shots in the direction of the gunman. He holstered the pistol and finally got the G36 off his shoulder and checked the area through the scope. The gunman returned fire before he could spot him, but King was sure he’d seen a muzzle flash as he ducked down again. This time, when he raised the rifle, he fired a short burst, then got up and charged forwards to the thicket of trees, dropping onto his stomach, and using the largest tree for cover.

  “We have you surrounded!” came a shout.

  “Bullshit…” King said quietly, but with that, he ducked his head as a bullet clipped the tree near his right ear. “Shit!” he raged and spun around, rolling to his left.

  The bullet had come from the other direction and he knew he was up against more than one opponent. He kept rolling until he reached the next tree, but as soon as he did, he scurried around it to place himself at the tip of the triangle between the other gunmen. He raised the rifle and scanned the ground between the two points. He had barely taken in the ground when a bullet slammed into the rifle and he was thrown to the forest floor. King’s jaw had taken the full force of the bullet, cushioned only by the metal action of the rifle. He felt as if a brick had been thrown into his face. He picked up the rifle, but it was twisted, and the action had been forced open by the impact. He dropped it and drew the Walther, but he had nowhere to retreat to for cover. Instead of being at the tip of a triangle, he was now in the centre of it with a gunman on each point. He had never been in such a position before, and the realisation that he was beaten was not only something new, but thoroughly abhorrent. What goes around, comes around. After all these years, he’d finally been outdone. He rolled over again, hearing the gunshots, and feeling the debris on his back and then his face as the bullets drew nearer their mark. King got out his mobile an
d opened it. The text was already in the folder and assigned to various numbers. He pressed send. It was done. He did not wait to see if it had been sent, but dropped it onto the ground, then aimed and fired a bullet through the screen before tossing the pistol onto the forest floor and standing up slowly and walking out into the open.

  29

  Neil Ramsay tended to ignore his texts. He would catch up with them in batches. Otherwise he would get nothing else done. However, he had assigned a dedicated alert to King’s messages for the duration of the operation. He looked up from his computer monitor and searched for the phone amid the opened files on his desk. When he found it, he read the text, his heart thumping against his chest. He leaned back in his chair and swivelled towards the window, where he had a much-coveted view of the Thames. The water was green, and overhead, the sky was grey and heavy with rainclouds which were growing darker by the second. Only Ramsay’s mood was even heavier and more foreboding.

  30

  She had worked hard that morning. Dead-heading the hanging flower baskets and even getting to grips with the strimmer on the edges of the lawn before wiping down the window sills and giving them a coat of gloss so that the afternoon sun would have enough time to dry them.

  Caroline looked out across the fields at the glistening ocean. The colour reminded her of King’s eyes. Blue-grey, cold looking. But they could sparkle, and she swore they had sparkled more since he had left the world of intelligence behind. She’d never told him. Partly because she would have felt silly casting such a revelation, and partly because King would never have believed her, anyway. She cursed him again. She’d lost count how many times she had, several times yesterday and this morning alone. The man had made a clean break. Turned his back on that world while still in one piece. Physically, at least. The mental toll was yet to truly be seen.

  Caroline sighed. He’d bloody well jinxed it now. Off on a fool’s errand through some misguided sense of duty and friendship. And she knew, deep down, that it was because he had not had friends as a child, and had never been able to cultivate friendships while he had worked in the shadows for MI6 and handing out permanent sentences for people who had avoided Her Majesty’s justice or posed a threat to the nation and its interests. So, after a lifetime barely able to count his friends and loved ones on the digits of one hand, he had developed friendships within his new work with MI5, in particular Rashid, who Caroline knew King not only felt a close sense of kinship, but had seen something of himself in him. Something before the tarnish of his dirtier assignments had seeped through his skin and worked its way into the marrow.

  Caroline walked over to the outside furniture on the patio and sat down heavily in one of the wooden chairs. She leaned back in the chair and sipped her tea. She wasn’t a fan. Not least because it had turned cold, but because she had forsaken her beloved espressos for the sake of her blood pressure. King didn’t know, but she had started on a fertility fitness drive. No alcohol, no caffeine, only whole foods, and plenty of exercise. Five months of letting nature take its course and she had grabbed the reins and taken control.

  She welcomed the warmth of the sun on her face. It was late summer and so far, the bite of an early autumn was holding off. In the distance, clouds scudded over the sea and the calm surface switched from grey to blue and back to grey, glistening in the sunlight. She found herself wondering what the winter would be like here. The wood burning stove glowing and the rain lashing against the windows. She thought of snuggling up to King on the sofa, not a care in the world. And then she was angry again. At the pig-headedness of the man and his misplaced sense of loyalty. He should have realised what he would be leaving behind. What they both risked losing if things went wrong.

  The car was visible way off. A speck of black heading her way. The road only went out to two neighbouring farms and the old coastguard cottages, and she could see that it had bypassed the first farm turning, and then the second. She felt a flutter in her stomach. The car slowed and took the first lane on its right. Caroline took another sip of tea, briefly wishing it was something stronger, then replaced the cup, stood up calmly and headed inside. King’s snub-nosed revolver was in the bureau. She checked it over. Simplicity redesigned. King had sawn off and filed down the thumb piece of the hammer making it double action only and reducing the chances of it snagging as it cleared his pocket, and he had removed the ramp foresight and notch rear sights and welded a simple guttersnipe sight along the top of the frame. This was just a channel to line up on the target, but in essence it was a point-shoot weapon for distances of twenty metres and under, although with the 125gr .38 Special soft-nosed hollow-points, packed an almighty punch at close range. She felt the heft of it, then held it down by her side as she returned to the porch using the edge of the cottage as cover and studying the approaching vehicle through the foliage.

  The car was a Jaguar saloon with tinted windows, and it swept over the gravelled driveway with authority and abandon, throwing loose chippings in the air. It lurched to a halt, rocking on the front springs and the passenger door opened immediately. Ramsay stepped out, buttoning his suit jacket as he walked up the pathway. The driver’s door opened, and Dave Lomu got out, filling the opening of the cabin completely as he manipulated his limbs out of the vehicle and followed.

  Caroline’s knees buckled and she had to save herself from falling, scrabbling her hands and the revolver against the granite wall. Ramsay stopped when he saw her, then lunged forwards to her aid.

  “Tell me he’s okay…” she managed to say, before taking his arm. She tucked the revolver into her pocket, the feeling gradually coming back to her legs. She pulled away from him, walking unsteadily to the garden table.

  Ramsay picked up her half-full cup and handed it to her. She took a sip, this time not seeming to notice how cold and foul it tasted. “We just don’t know,” Ramsay eventually replied. “He’s gone off the radar. An asset he was working with reported over her two-way radio to the one remaining member of Rashid’s team that he had been captured.”

  “Who was the asset?”

  “Alaina Kopolova. She was working with Interpol against people trafficking in the sex trade.”

  “The sex trade?” Caroline exclaimed. She had taken two sabbaticals from MI5 with Interpol. She had been on a crusade after being kidnapped by someone running a trafficking ring. She had escaped from a holding centre, but the girls she had been held with had not been so lucky. “What the hell has that got to do with Rashid and his team going missing?”

  “It’s gang interests, not a specific factor, but part of the bigger picture. The mission started off with a clear remit. Putting a halt to an ever expanding Albanian and Russian drugs trade, and the copious quantities getting onto British streets. Along with that, weapons, counterfeit goods, and people trafficking closely follow. The gangs want a quick profit on their trade in human flesh, so slavery and in particular, sex revenue is the most lucrative method, ” replied Ramsay. “I knew of an Interpol operation looking into Romanovitch’s involvement in the sex trade and did a deal. We would get intel and the woman would get a new identity and a start over here.” He paused. “It’s classic mission creep. Alex was working with her to get to Romanovitch.”

  “Who the hell is she?”

  “An asset…”

  “Who?”

  Ramsay hesitated, then said, “A maid. She was searching for her missing sister. She turned informant.”

  “So, no training.”

  “No.”

  “But with a personal interest in this,” she commented flatly.

  “Yes.”

  “Which clouds judgement.” Caroline shook her head. “You’ve placed him in danger. Searching for Rashid is one thing, but working with a civilian is quite another…”

  “We’re all civilians…”

  “An amateur then!” she snapped. “Christ, Neil, stop being so bloody pedantic! Where is this Kopolova woman now?”

  “She went missing as well. Our man hasn’t seen her sinc
e.”

  “Jesus…”

  Big Dave ambled past them casually and said, “I’ll get us some tea.”

  “Coffee,” she replied adamantly. “This is a job for coffee.” She turned to Ramsay and asked, “What do we know?”

  “It was his call,” said Ramsay. “He met with Big Dave, who had been reconnoitring the region for him. Unofficially, that is. A favour to King and for Rashid. Big Dave said that King came back out with the woman, and a man was shot while getting her out. A low-ranking bodyguard of Romanovitch’s named Draco. King told Big Dave that the woman had had enough, feared her time was up. Romanovitch was making his feelings for her obvious, and she feared that if she rejected his advances, then she would end up swept away by the sex trafficking trade and spend the next ten years in one of his many brothels.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly, shuddering at the thought, those same fears resurfacing and conjuring up memories she hoped she’d one day forget. “Well, of course he would help…”

  “As for where he was last seen, that was near the Albanian border with Greece. The Albanian brotherhood has a rear echelon headquarters there. It’s called Shqiponja Stofull, meaning Eagle’s Nest. That’s the national bird, and features on the Albanian flag. Or a double-headed one, at least.”

  “Thanks for the primary school geography lesson.” She paused. “Anyway, Eagle Nest was the Third Reich’s building paid for by the Nazi Party, and where Hitler did vital planning during his campaign. Do the Albanians share their views?”

  “Kehlsteinhaus, on the summit of the Kehlstein,” Ramsay nodded and said, “There are plenty of neo Nazi beliefs and ideals shared with the Albanian brotherhood, but I’m not sure that they took the name for their headquarters because of that link. They are proud of their eagle and it epitomises their flag and national heritage.”

  “And Big Dave ended his aid after Alex came out with the girl?”