by A P Bateman
King was amused. The text had told him the premise. The Russian competitors to Sergeyev’s brotherhood, a splinter group from the hostile takeover Sergeyev had made, was linking with one of three mafia’s who held almost half of Italy. An uneasy balance, soon to be struck a deadly blow with the help of Russian resources. King could not see the end being a sweet and rosy one. With one brotherhood controlling the territory, surely the partnership would be in the sole hands of whoever did not blink first? When he studied the text message, along with internet links and a data download from iCloud, it was only obvious that Luca Fortez would find himself involved in another powerplay. Perhaps the Italian mafia boss would have that covered. But he would bet his life that the Russians would too.
The Russian was a forty-three-year-old named Nikolai. King had no more details, but he could see that the man was cast from the same mould as other men in his game. He couldn’t see the man’s eyes under his sunglasses, and the photo he had been supplied with had not been in high quality detail, but he could see the outline of the man, the shape of his face. All King knew of the man was that Helena had vengeance in mind. The man was his primary target.
King had hit the ground running in Sweden, flown straight in from Scotland, where he had received news of his fiancé. Until then, he had suffered the purgatory of her being a missing person. The half-life, if only for three weeks, of not knowing the fate of the woman he loved. That letter had been delivered by his immediate boss, Simon Mereweather, now director of operations for MI5. King did not dislike the man, but he was sure that in going to Sweden alone, without being part of the Security Service’s operation to get their agent back, he would find few friends within MI5. But the letter had been clear, and King knew it had been intended all along for him to work off Caroline’s freedom, and not negotiate her release. He had tried to search Helena Milankovitch’s past, but had come up with a blank. There had been some online articles about Helena Snell, the Russian wife of Sir Ian Snell, the British billionaire assassinated by the terrorist group, Anarchy to Recreate Society. Her background as a model – glossing over her time lap dancing and pole dancing in the Black Sea resorts – with the focus on her charitable work and her failing fashion label. There had been hastily-written articles of her disappearance after her husband’s death, but she was clearly old news. What King found difficult was finding details of her past prior to her marriage. She had clearly crossed paths with Pyotr Sergeyev and his wife Anna. And now, ordering King to kill the head of the Bratva - or Brotherhood’s - competition meant that her Russian mafia connection went further than with Sergeyev.
King risked a glance, smiled to himself when he saw the attention the two high-profile entourages had made on the people of Monteverde Marittimo. He decided to make a move before they did. He dropped a ten-Euro note on the table and used the empty saucer to secure it in place. He gathered up his bag of groceries, tore a piece off the end of the bread and ate it casually as he checked his phone and ambled past the group of Italian heavies. He looked at the two men, engrossed in conversation and nursing two glasses of grappa, tripped and fell towards Nikolai. He didn’t get very far. One of the men flanking him caught hold of King, ripping his shirt and stopping him in his tracks. Another had his hand on the grip of a hefty pistol, not quite drawing it from its holster.
“Sorry,” King said meekly. “Thanks. I almost went there.” He patted the largest of the two men on the shoulder. “Too many beers,” he said.
“You took your time over that one,” the man replied.
“I’m taking in the sights, stopping at each bar,” King countered quickly. He was back upright now, easing himself away. “Are these guys famous?” he asked.
He was being moved past the two men. They had barely noticed, Nikolai barely pausing for breath. King noticed the man helping him on his way had been replaced by another equally large guard.
“Just businessmen,” the man said, his voice almost devoid of any accent. He backed away without another word, re-joined the ranks.
King walked down the steep cobbles, negotiated the steps and crossed over the road to where his basic Skoda hatchback was parked. He had hired the car at Pisa airport. A generic hire car, devoid of character, and therefore invisible. Which was far from what he could see further down the road and on the other side of the road behind him. He guessed the Italians had the black Maserati Quattroporte and the two red Alfa Romeo Giulia saloons. The Russians, by contrast looked to drive three black Mercedes S Class saloons with blacked-out windows. A driver sat behind the wheel of all three vehicles. The Italian vehicles, by contrast, were watched by a single male, smoking a cigarette. He bought his clothes in the same emporium as his colleagues, and looked to be armed, judging by the poor-fitting shoulder holster. The man stood with one foot on the rear bumper of one of the Alfas and rested his elbow on his knee. King watched him stare at a Carabinieri patrol car as it drove slowly past. He neither changed his demeanour, and nor did the police car stop. Which told King there were few friendlies out here. He doubted the local police would be any different.
He took out the camera, attached an ear piece and scrolled back through the footage. His ruse of faking a fall had taught him a great deal. The Russian’s were on it. Not only had the lead bodyguard noticed King, seen how much he had drank, but King had been stopped well before he would have been a threat to their VIP. They were routinely armed, and as King had patted the man in thanks, he had noticed how physical he had been. Nothing but muscle under that suit. And a lot of it. The drivers were pros too. They had remained with the vehicles, wheels turned out from the kerb. Their drills put the Italians to shame. King had got as close to Luca as he had to Nicolai, yet the Italian muscle hadn’t moved. Barely twitched. Which told King that the Russian would not be an easy target.
Which gave King an idea.
12
Somewhere in Eastern Europe
She had been travelling for three days. Hot and uncomfortable, tediously monotonous as the vehicle ate up the miles over motorway, potted back roads and tracks. She had no idea where she was, no clue to the direction she had travelled. Her confines were that of a wooden crate that she estimated to be one metre by two and just over one and a half metres high. Enough for her to stand if she ducked her head, to lay straight and to sit. She was no longer bound or gagged, but there was no way she could escape. She had pounded and kicked the wooden slats, and although they gave, emitting tiny shafts of light, she could not get them to break or lift out the screws that held them firmly in place.
One side of the crate opened to allow her access and was bolted with what sounded like an array of sliding bolts padlocked into place. The inside of the truck was not much larger than the crate and was lit by a single bulb above the rear doors. It was humid and airless, but they stopped every few hours, where she was taken at gunpoint by her two captors into forest or scrubland for a convenience break, given water twice a day, something to eat. No opportunity presented itself for escape – she was weak now, unable to get far if she managed to run. Her shoes had been taken after her last attempt, and one of the men carried a pump-action shotgun with a sawn barrel. She knew she would get no more than a few steps. She had the measure of the two men. They were well-muscled but had worked mainly on their comically over-sized arms, which were tattooed and on constant display. Both men looked tough, smoked incessantly and washed infrequently. Not that she could take the moral high-ground there. She yearned for a bath, a toothbrush and some clean clothes. She felt dehumanised, an animal. She was just thankful the beast with the wandering hands was not here to add to her humiliation.
She knew she had reached a border crossing from Europe, or at least the European Union, to the east when the truck had pulled over and she had been roughly bound, trussed like a chicken and gagged. The ordeal had lasted over an hour at her best guess, and she heard voices, traffic slowing and moving off again, vehicle doors slamming shut. The truck had travelled a good twenty-minutes before she was untrussed, releas
ed to the relative freedom of her box once more. That had been what felt like hours ago, and the quality of the road surface had deteriorated considerably, but there had been a change recently, a stretch of road that had sounded both smooth and fast. It had come as a blessed relief. She had taken the opportunity to lay out flat and attempt to sleep. She knew that if she could rest her mind, allow her body to relax, then she would be in better shape to face whatever awaited her at the other end of her journey.
13
Tuscany, Italy
King had already familiarised himself with Luca Fortez’s property. A vineyard and vast stone-built mansion on the south-side of a mountain near the town of Canneto, approximately seven miles north-east of Monteverdi Marittimo, but because of the switchback mountain roads and lack of overtaking opportunities, approximately thirty-minutes’ drive. Or an hour, if there were groups of cyclists testing themselves on the gradients. King had studied the property using Google Earth for an overview and had parked further down the road and walked in to get a feel for the layout and scale.
Security was tight, but nothing compared to military compounds he had broken into in the past. There were motion sensors along the fence, but there were also birds resting on top of the fence in places, so the sensors would be set reasonably high to avoid false alarms. As well as the fence and motion sensors, the entrance was gated with CCTV cameras and an intercom. He could also see alarm boxes on the gable end. He had skirted the property and appraised the rear. A swimming pool and patio with open glass doors to the house. The pool was a feature for both relaxing and entertaining. The doors would remain open, adding to the spacious lounge and the capacious feel. An extension to the luxury within, and the breeze from the shaded forest side of the property would cool the house inside. So, here was his entrance point. A doorway to the house that would remain open right up until the inhabitants went to bed.
The villa that Nikolai had rented was entirely different. But not altogether less secure. A temporary rental, that King had checked with the agents, booked for a duration of six-weeks. A ten-bedroomed, split-level villa with two swimming pools, set amongst twelve acres of private forest and meadows on top of a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean some ten-miles distant. It was hemmed in by a ring of wire fencing that took in a full four acres of grounds. The fencing was to keep out wild boars, which were numerous in the mountains and a local delicacy when cured into hams by specialist butchers in the region. The fence was merely head-high, constructed from concreted metal posts and high-tensile wire, capable of withstanding persistent, three-hundred-pound wild boar intent on getting through to the well-tended gardens beyond.
There was basic security, a CCTV camera on the entrance and a further two mounted on each end of the property. King had taken details of the property from the letting agents - under the premise he was searching for a client interested in making property purchases in the area and all the way up to Siena, and who needed a base for these activities - and had familiarised himself with the layout. He was most interested in ideal surveillance locations and points of entrance and exit.
King was vastly outnumbered. He would be using the strengths and weaknesses of these people to help him with his plan. He had got the idea from the surveillance at Monteverdi Marittimo. The show of force and dominance had entertained King. For two organised crime bosses to meet in a low-key location could have been so easy. The security could have remained discreet. Instead, the meeting had created so much attention and been nothing more than a powerplay. King had finally formulated his plan when he had played back the audio in the car. He knew what the two men were planning, yet neither trusted the other enough to meet on anything other than mutually neutral ground. The Russian had compromised the most, meeting on the Italian mafia boss’s home turf, so King guessed that was why he had turned up with such overt security. Luca had at first been more discreet, but his men had eventually outnumbered the Russians, even if they were not so professional in their approach to their vehicles.
Luca Fortez was going big. He was planning to take out the two competing mafia families and take over half of Italy for himself. To do this, he would need resources. These came in the form of Russian ex-soldiers, now working for Nikolai. The Russian could muster two-hundred and fifty men, and he could bring in the arms and equipment for their coup. They would mount synchronised operations using paramilitary and special forces techniques, and a whole host of heavy armaments from AK47 rifles and Makarov pistols, to explosives and rocket launchers. There would be no link to Luca Fortez, who would be free to cry crocodile tears, but assume the control of the entire region. He would strike while the opposition was down, rounding up the stragglers and either killing them or force them to swear new allegiance. It was a positively medieval plan, but it looked set to work. The coup would be organised and planned for next month, whereby Luca would pay three-million euros down-payment and a significant thirty-percent royalty per year of all money accounted by his new organisation. It was an outsourced operation, with no direct evidence pointing at Luca Fortez and his seemingly untouchable enterprise.
King locked the camera in the glovebox and stepped out of the car. He had parked in a shopper’s carpark in the town of Castagneto Carduci, just five miles from the mountains and the town of Monteverdi Marittimo. The town was made up of many blocks of apartments, supermarkets, business centres and restaurants. It reminded King of towns in America with strip malls and clusters of businesses, each linked by roads running parallel to the main road which ran from Rome in the south to Pisa in the north.
King found a clothes and fashion accessories outlet in a small shopping centre. He made his purchases in cash. It was a twenty-minute walk to a shop he had seen on his way in by road, but before he reached it, he stopped at a tobacconist and stepped inside. The air-conditioning was a relief, it was thirty-degrees centigrade and the sun was strong and high, the sky cloudless and an azure blue from the sea all the way to the mountains, where it appeared washed out with white. The sky above the mountains always seemed to look that way, only to be as blue as the coast once you reached them.
The man behind the counter looked up, nodded, then returned to his magazine. The shop smelled heady with tobacco and leather goods, which ran along the walls. King looked around for a moment, then spotted what he wanted in a glass revolving cabinet towards the other end of the shop.
King always wondered how Britain had such terrible knife crime figures, when there were literally no places like this in the UK, yet throughout Europe, there was a place on every street that sold all manner of knives, and even swords, with as much ease and acceptance as shoes or wallets. King rotated the cabinet and coughed politely. The man looked up, put down his magazine and walked over. King did not want to engage in conversation, anything that would make him memorable. He pointed to a large military bowie-style knife, or what was increasingly called a tactical knife, and the man unlocked the glass door, picked up the knife and sheath and passed them to him.
King tested the blade for sharpness with his thumb, just enough for the blade to feel sticky. He turned the knife over, saw that the blade went all the way through the handle, what is called a full tang, and was happy with the three brass rivets securing it in place. It looked to be a sturdy design and well balanced with a fifty-fifty weight distribution between blade and hilt. The back of the blade was serrated, with an additional feature near the hilt, a W shape cut into the metal. He slipped it into the leather sheath and nodded. King noticed an array of flick knives, each sticking into a solid piece of cork. He reached in, pulled one out and checked it over. He closed the blade, then pressed the button and the blade flicked out and locked tight. He folded it, nodded to the man and handed it to him.
There hadn’t been much change from one-hundred-euros, but the man had wrapped them in tissue and placed them in a thick paper bag without seeming to take any notice. King walked on and after ten minutes he found the sporting goods store. There was an outdoor pursuit section with climbing e
quipment, canoeing and paddle-boarding gear and mountain bikes. King bypassed all of this and looked at the guns behind the counter. Tuscany was hunting country, with walked-up game birds and wild boar, as well as deer and small ground game. This all required a variety of firearms including various gauges of shotguns, and .22 rifles through to heavy calibre hunting rifles in 7mm and .30-06. There were also a few handguns under the glass counter. King suspected Italian gun laws would be like most of Europe and would require licences, home security and hunting permits. He didn’t even waste his time asking, but he did see the selection of crossbows hanging from the ceiling and he pointed to a rifle-style one that had 150lb written on one of the bow-limbs. The pedantic part of him wondered why it wasn’t in kilos, but he knew the poundage was a universal measurement of power. He had used a fifty-pound recurve bow for a while, thought it would be a good hobby when he found the time, and figured the crossbow would be three-times more powerful. The young man unhooked it and passed it to him. King shouldered it, sighted through the open vee and pin sights and eased on the trigger. He took it away from his shoulder and studied it more closely. There was a safety catch and he could see the locking system, along with a foot loop for loading. He’d find a tree and have a practice when he got back to his villa. He asked for some bolts, knowing they were not called arrows, and the young man nodded and came back with a pack of twelve. Just to be sure, King asked for another pack and paid in cash. Another crossbow had been supplied, packed in a sealed box, which came with a multi-tool for assembly and some paper targets. King paid in cash again, little change from two-hundred euros and carried it in the bag the store supplied, along with his other purchases, back to the car.