They got to the car and Harvey drove. They didn’t share another word until they reached the hotel in Guildford an hour later.
When they got to the room and knocked on the door, Sonny opened it. Three of them were sitting around Farooq’s laptop, while the others were working at a circular table.
Eva stood. “How do you know the island exists?” she asked Harvey.
He showed her the message he’d received and told her what Gerald Small had found in the metadata.
“It was taken three hundred yards from the coordinates Sanders gave you.”
“There’s no way we’ll get there in twenty-four hours,” Len said. “You’ll have to stall them.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Upload a video and tell him that Eva split when the girls went missing. You’ll need time to track her down.”
“That could work.”
“It has to. Tell him you need . . . seventy-two hours. That should give us plenty of time.”
Harvey ran through what he wanted to say, then sat in front of the laptop, Sarah standing behind him.
“Remember, you’re desperate to get your girl back,” Eva said. “Make it realistic.”
Harvey took a couple of deep breaths, then nodded to Farooq, who hit the Record button on the built-in camera.
“Message received but twenty-four hours isn’t enough. The moment Alana and Melissa disappeared, so did Driscoll. I’ve got everyone in the team looking for her, but you know how big a task that is. You’ve been looking for her for months. I’ll need at least seventy-two hours to track her down.”
Farooq hit the Stop button. “Give me a couple of minutes to create an account and upload it.”
“Okay,” Eva said. “Back to work.”
They returned to what they’d been doing, and Harvey made cups of the hotel room’s instant coffee.
“The cheapest we can buy will cost five million,” Farooq said. “It would be better to charter one, considering we’re in such a hurry.”
“What would we be chartering?” Harvey asked.
“A Cessna Citation Sovereign,” Rees Colback said. “It’s the only plane we can use to get close enough. The closest airport is on Hiva Oa—Atuona Airport. The runway’s only 1,200 meters long, so we need a plane that can get us there and land. The Citation’s the best fit.”
“So we’re going,” Harvey said.
“We are,” Eva said. “You’re staying here.”
“What? I’m not about—”
“Pull your neck in,” Gray said. “You’re staying here. For a start, we need false passports for the six of us.”
“That’s my daughter out there!”
Sarah put a hand on his shoulder in what felt like a gesture of solidarity.
“Noted,” Gray said. “When was the last time you did a ten-mile swim underwater, at night, in shark territory, carrying a one-hundred-pound kit bag?”
“You know I’ve never done anything like that,”
“Exactly. We have. We can’t just land a plane on Langton’s island and expect him to welcome us with open arms. We have to approach by sea, unseen. That takes skills you just don’t have.”
“Listen to Tom,” Sonny added. “You’d be a liability, mate. No offense.”
Sarah squeezed his shoulder. “They’re right. Leave it to them. They know what they’re doing.”
Much as he hated to admit it, they had a point. He would gladly have swum through shark-infested waters to save his daughter, but he probably wouldn’t have made it.
No, he’d have to put the life of his baby daughter in Tom Gray’s hands. In truth, he couldn’t have hoped for anyone better.
“At least let me help with the planning,” Harvey said.
“No problem,” Gray said. “As I mentioned, we need new passports for me, Len, Sonny, Carl, Rees, and Eva. Once you’ve got them, book plane tickets to Mexico City, leaving tonight. It would be best if we fly from different airports. Use the money Len gave you for the nanny.”
“It’ll take a couple of days to work up the new papers,” Sarah said.
“You’ve got six hours to get them to us,” Eva told her. “The clock is ticking. If we’re not in the air tonight, it’s game over.”
“You go and sort the passports out,” Harvey said to Sarah. “I’ll call ahead and let Veronica know what we need.”
He saw the look she gave him: Don’t you dare disappear on me.
“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Harvey promised.
“Okay. I’ll need passport photos, though.”
“Give me an email address and I’ll send them to you,” Farooq said.
Sarah gave him her contact details, then left.
“We’ve got a reply!” Farooq announced. “He’s agreed to seventy-two hours from now, not a second longer.”
“That should be all we need,” Gray said.
“So, what’s the plan after you get to Mexico?” Harvey asked.
“We’ll hire a Citation in advance and use that to fly to Hiva Oa. It’s in French Polynesia in the South Pacific, about six hundred miles southwest of Langton’s island. Once there, we’ll hire a boat to take us to within a hundred miles of the island, then switch to a Zodiac boat. When we get to within ten miles, we go underwater all the way in.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all covered.”
“Not quite. We still need to find a Zodiac, a plane, and enough weapons and ammo to get us through whatever defenses they’ve got.”
“They’ll be considerable,” Eva said.
The thought of staying behind suddenly didn’t seem so terrible. Harvey excused himself and called Ellis to give her a heads-up on the passport request.
“Sarah’s on her way back,” he said. “She should be there in just over an hour. I need a big favor from you, or this is dead in the water.”
“If it’s access to the databases—”
“Nothing like that. Driscoll’s people need passports to get them to Mexico and beyond. And they need them in the next few hours.”
He had to endure silence as Ellis contemplated the request. “How many?”
“Six.”
“Six? One, I could get away with.”
“I know it’s a big ask,” Harvey said, sounding as contrite as possible, “but without them, the plan falls at the first hurdle.”
“I thought you said they already had false passports.”
They had indeed.
“Hang on.”
Harvey went back into the room and asked Eva why they couldn’t use the ones they’d traveled to England on.
“We could,” she admitted, “but I hate leaving a trail. Once this is over, I’d prefer to slip away without anyone knowing where I’m going, MI5 included. It wouldn’t take much for someone in your organization to look through the Mexico flight manifests and work out what name I’m using.”
“Good point, though slightly insulting.”
Harvey was rewarded with a smile. “I’ve trusted few people in the last ten years, and my only regret is not trusting fewer.”
He told Ellis what Eva had said and waited once more for her answer.
“Okay, but this is as far as our hand extends. No more favors.”
Before Harvey could thank her, the phone went dead.
“Okay,” he told the others, “passports are being prepared. I’ll have them back here in six hours max. What else do you need that doesn’t involve me sacrificing my career?”
“Get on your phone and look for a place in Mexico that sells Zodiacs,” Gray said. “They’re inflatable craft used by Special Forces for sea excursions. We want the F470 with the aluminum roll-up floor, plus a storage bag. Oh, and a fifty-five-horsepower engine to sling on the back of it.”
Harvey got on it, and ten minutes later he had three outlets that could provide what they needed. While he was doing that, Farooq had booked a charter on a Citation.
“The only thing left is the weapons.”
“I can get thos
e in Mexico,” Eva said. “I’ll place an order before we fly.”
“Should we ask who from?” Harvey wondered out loud.
“No.”
“What are we talking about?” Sonny asked. “A half-dozen AKs of dubious origin?”
“If that’s what you want, sure. I was thinking more along the lines of the HK416 or M4A1 with underslung M203 grenade launcher.”
Sonny nodded and smiled. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
“That’s because you’re all talk,” Len told Sonny.
“Get serious,” Gray said. “To recap, as soon as the passports are here, I want to be moving. Once we get to Mexico, we pick up the weapons and drive to the coast to meet the Citation, load it with the gear, and fly to Hiva Oa. Twelve hours to fly to Mexico, another twelve to get to the plane, then eight to ten hours to Hiva Oa. Once we get there we’ll hire a local boat, something that can do at least thirty knots, and take that to within a hundred miles of Langton’s island. Figure seventeen hours. From there we use the Zodiac the rest of the way. That should take no more than four hours if we can average twenty-five knots, so that’s . . .”
“Thirty-four hours to get to Hiva Oa,” Huff said, “plus twenty-one hours on the water. Tight but doable.”
Gray nodded. “For the final ten miles we could get some DPVs.”
“What are they?” Harvey asked.
“Diver propulsion vehicles. Little torpedoes that you hang on to and they pull you through the water. They can do about three knots, so figure three-plus hours until we reach shore. I reckon that’s around sixty-eight hours by the time we get the passports and board the planes. Throw in all the other normal delays we’re sure to encounter and we should still be on the island before the deadline.”
“That time zone’s eleven hours behind ours, so we should have the cover of darkness,” Sonny said.
“All the better.”
Gray got Farooq to work looking for some DPVs that they could pick up in Mexico. He found a few on the coast, one of them just a few miles from Puerto Escondido International Airport, where they would pick up the Citation.
“There’s one thing you haven’t covered,” Harvey said.
“What’s that?” Gray asked.
“Your exit strategy. How do you get back out?”
“Langton will have a way to get people and supplies on and off the island,” Eva said. “That’s our way home, unless we’re all dead, in which case your point is moot.”
With little else to do, Harvey asked to borrow Sonny’s rental to drive back to Thames House. On his way down to the parking lot, he caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and stopped to study his reflection. It was like looking at another person. Hair unkempt, face etched with fatigue and stress, but underneath, a resolve as strong as steel.
While hope remained, he would never give up.
With the planning complete, there was little to do except prepare mentally for the mission. For Sonny, that meant sleeping. Len buried himself in his Kindle, while Gray went for a walk.
Eva had an entirely different strategy.
She walked back to her hotel room with Carl, and the moment the door was closed she gripped the sides of his head and kissed him longingly. He responded in kind, his hands exploring her body and coming to rest on her hips. His fingers crept up inside her T-shirt and she moaned as they found her breasts. Eva fumbled with his button and fly, and soon had his manhood in her hands.
Thirty minutes later, they lay naked on the bed, spent. She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heart as it settled down after the frenetic workout.
“Do you think we’ll be able to—”
Eva put her finger on his lips. She didn’t want to talk, not right now, and especially if it was about the upcoming mission. She’d had a sense of foreboding ever since discovering that Henry Langton’s island was no ESO fabrication. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something dark on the horizon. A little shiver, almost imperceptible, had gone through her when Sanders had mentioned Langton’s name.
She didn’t want to think about it. Now was the time to luxuriate in Carl’s arms, to wallow in his love. She wanted nothing more than to disappear and be alone with him forever, but that was naiveté talking.
While the ESO still existed, there would be no respite. Convincing them to leave her and Carl alone would be a challenge in itself, but she had to try.
Killing Henry Langton was a good place to start.
CHAPTER 27
Harvey returned a little after seven that evening in Sonny’s rental. He’d called ahead to warn them of his impending arrival, and all seven were waiting outside the main entrance. They all had their bags at their feet, apart from Farooq.
He handed out their new passports and the electronic boarding passes he’d printed out for their journeys.
“I’ve arranged for the facial recognition software at the airports to be down while you’re there, just in case anyone is tapping into it. It’ll go back on twenty minutes before your planes depart, so don’t be late boarding. Eva, I’ve paired you with Len, traveling on a nonstop flight from Heathrow because you have to arrange the weapons. I guessed you’d want to get there first. I know you’d have preferred to go with Carl, but you guys always travel together, as do Len and Sonny. Splitting you up might muddy the water if anyone’s still trying to track you.”
She nodded. “Good thinking.”
“Tom, you and Sonny will be going from Gatwick with a short stopover at JFK. Carl and Rees are flying from Birmingham via Amsterdam Schiphol. That itinerary will have you arriving a few hours later than the rest, but it was the best I could find.”
“That should be okay,” said Gray, looking to Carl and Rees. “We can always make up a couple of hours somewhere.”
They compared their ETAs and made arrangements to rendezvous once they arrived in Mexico City. Eva had been there before and knew the places to avoid.
Eva took something from her purse and handed it to Harvey.
He looked down at the faded brown porcelain bear with the cracked clock in its midriff. “You want me to get it fixed?”
“No, just hold on to it for me. I’ll be back for it.”
Harvey was puzzled but slipped it into his coat pocket. “Sure.”
They said their goodbyes, and Sonny asked Harvey to turn the rental car back in for him. He’d hired a new one from a different firm, knowing Harvey would need the old one to get home.
Harvey assured him he would, then grabbed Gray for one last word.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Gray told him. “Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back.”
“Thanks. But actually, I was going to say sorry for getting you and Melissa into this. I never imagined anything like this would happen when I agreed to help Eva last year.”
Gray gave him a friendly slap on the arm. “I know you didn’t. You’re a good man, Andrew. Shit just seems to happen to us.”
Harvey pulled a photograph from his pocket and gave it to Gray. “That’s Myers, the nanny. Give her a bullet for me.”
Gray studied the face, then put the picture in his pocket. “You got it.”
He got into the car next to Sonny and gave one last wave as the rental pulled away.
“Don’t worry,” Farooq told Harvey, “Eva’s the best.”
Except when it comes to being truthful, Harvey thought. Her “Maria” story still played in his mind, though he’d been relieved to learn that it was all a lie.
It didn’t stop it from hurting, though.
“I’ll be in the hotel if you need anything,” Farooq said. “The others have checked out, but I’ll be staying until they confirm that they’ve got the girls.”
“Thanks. You know how to get hold of me if you need me.”
Harvey drove back to the office, knowing that the next sixty-five hours were going to be the longest of his life.
“Tell me about Eva,” Gray said to Sonny.
Sonny shrugged. “She’s
hot.”
Gray gave him a wry smile. He should have expected nothing less from the young Lothario. “I’m serious. How good is she?”
They’d discussed her before, shortly after Len and Sonny had briefly returned to the UK following their release from prison, but they’d talked about the mission and what they’d been through without going into any details about the woman herself.
“She’s one you’d want on your side,” Sonny told him. “If I had to pick five people for this mission, she’d be in the top three. She’s smart, focused, and has a mean killer streak. I told you what she did to Alexander Mumford.”
He had indeed, and it was an image that would stay with Gray for the rest of his life.
“I’m just worried that her priorities are different from mine,” Gray said. “She wants Langton, and I’d hate to think it was at all costs. We can’t just go in there guns blazing. We’ve got to think about the girls.”
“Nah, she’s not going to do anything to risk their lives. If it’d make you feel better, why not have a word with her? We’ll be on that boat for the best part of a day. Plenty of time to put her straight on the mission parameters.”
“I’ll do that,” Gray said.
Eva chose to drive so that she could keep an eye on the traffic behind her. Langton must have suspected that she was in the UK, so there was a chance he’d have people looking for her. So far, though, nothing flagged up as suspicious, and her mask would defeat any traffic cameras.
They got to Heathrow fifteen minutes before the check-in desk opened, and Len turned in the rental car before they handed over their printed boarding passes and passports.
Harvey’s people had done a good job: the documents passed muster without any drama. They eased through security, then found a bar to relax in before the flight. They would be in the air for twelve hours, and it would probably be the last real sleep they got before they reached Langton’s island.
Len had a pint of ale, while Eva sipped a vodka and tonic. It wouldn’t be enough to dull the senses, but it would help her nod off once the wheels were up.
They both kept an eye out for possible threats while they drank. Single men and women without any carry-on luggage set the alarm bells ringing, but none of them fit the profile of hunter-killer.
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