Reaper

by A P Bateman

  “It doesn’t get any better than this. A Paki smuggling an assault rifle? Now, let’s start again. Where did you get it?”

  Nothing.

  “For the tape, the suspect refuses to answer.”

  “For the tape, the officer just called a British citizen a Paki.”

  “Smart-arse, are we?”

  “One of us is smart. I think the other is just an arse.”

  “What were you planning to do with it?” the second anti-terrorism officer asked. “An ISIS attack on UK soil? What, another random act of slaughter? “

  Nothing.

  “Again, for the tape, no answer. Look, we’ve got you for nine more days, sunshine. You’ve had four, you’ll break sooner or later,” the lead officer paused. “And it will be sooner, mark my words.”

  “Cakewalk.”

  “What?” the lead officer asked.

  Rashid smiled. “Fairground game. Like musical chairs. It means this is a piece of piss.”

  The junior officer slammed his hand down on the table. “This is an interrogation!”

  “Interview, shit head. And an easy one at that.”

  The lead officer turned over Border Force arrest notes in front of him. He looked at Rashid, shook his head. “What is it? ISIS? Al Qaeda?”

  Nothing. Rashid stared impassively ahead.

  “You were caught smuggling an assault rifle through the port of Dover.”

  “Nah, not me, mate. Someone must have planted it. Strapped it to my car’s exhaust and were going to follow me, pick it up when they had the opportunity.”

  “So, you say,” the junior officer commented.

  “Are my prints on it? I don’t think so.” Rashid smiled. He had stripped the weapon, smeared it with a sheen of bleach and left it for an hour before oiling it and wiping it clean. The bleach would destroy any of his DNA. He had used gloves, wrapped it in bin sacks, strapped it underneath using duct-tape. He had dumped the twenty spare rounds for the weapon – no point carrying anything further incriminating. The ammo had come from Hereford but could not be traced to his absence. One or two rounds at a time over the years, pocketed after operations or drills and kept in his personal stash, along with a pistol and some ammo he had relieved a dead Taliban fighter of in Afghanistan – a man in Rashid’s line of work could never be too careful and he knew he may need the weapon one day.

  “You’re a smug one.”

  “What? For a Paki?”

  “I didn’t mean that,” said the lead officer.

  “Charge me or let me go. You have nothing more than my unwitting possession of a firearm.”

  “You’re AWOL. You’re a serving soldier in the Parachute Regiment.”

  Rashid knew where their information would lead and where it would end. His military service history would terminate at the unit he served in before his time in the SAS. He was never under any obligation to correct them. “I was on holiday,” he replied.

  “That explains the gun,” said the junior officer sarcastically.

  “Does it?” Rashid shrugged. “I was travelling to Britain, not away from it.”

  “Maybe you’re a traitor then? Maybe you’re in the army and all the time, you’re an extremist planning an attack?”

  “So, I’d be bringing in a gun, why?”

  “To harm British citizens!” The officer interjected. “Unless it has something to do with Russia’s state visit in a couple of months. Is that it? You’re not happy with their support of the Assad regime in Syria, want to help fellow Muslims?”

  Rashid laughed. “Fellow Muslims would also be Assad and his soldiers. You have a great imagination there, you’re obviously wasted as a policeman.”

  The officer slammed his fist down on the table, making his colleague flinch, but merely making Rashid smile. “Tell us about the gun!”

  “What sort of gun was it?” Rashid asked.

  “An assault rifle.”

  “Doesn’t narrow the field much.”

  The lead officer looked at the notes, took out a photograph. “An M4.”

  “Nice,” Rashid said. “Never used one. The Paras use the SA80. And if I were a terrorist, with access to an entire warehouse full of SA80 rifles, then I wouldn’t have to travel to France to buy one. I’d smuggle one out of barracks.”

  “So, you’re a hard para, are you?” the junior officer asked. “You think you’ll breeze through this?”

  “What, exactly?”

  “This process of questioning.”

  Rashid looked at his watch. He had not been charged yet, but under the prevention of terrorism act, they had fourteen days before they had to charge or release him. But they also had to allow him six hours uninterrupted sleep and provide him with three meals, four drinks and as many toilet breaks as he required. A cakewalk to an SAS officer who had successfully infiltrated ISIS in Syria and lived amongst them as a spy for months.

  There was a knock at the door and a detective walked in.

  The lead officer looked around, then turned to the recorder and said, “Interview suspended at sixteen-forty-two, DI Blakemore has just entered the room…”

  The detective whispered into the lead officer’s ear. The lead officer was a DCI and he looked to be ten-years older than the DI. The DCI stood up, glanced at Rashid and ushered the DI to the corner of the room, where they talked animatedly in low voices. Both men left the room and a uniformed officer stepped inside to keep the two to one ratio.

  The junior officer smirked. “Sounds like they’ve got something significant. Say a little prayer to Allah, you’re fucked, mate.”

  Rashid tapped the top of the recorder. “You aren’t allowed to talk to me without the tape running,” he said. “That’s a shame, because it won’t pick me up saying how much I enjoyed giving it to your old lady.”

  The detective laughed. “I’m not married, dickhead.”

  Rashid leaned forward and smiled. “I know. I was talking about your mother.”

  18

  Tuscany, Italy

  King looked at himself in the rear-view mirror and smiled. He had learned the importance in maintaining a sense of humour in life. It had got him through tough and desperate times. The fact that Caroline was being held captive was always on his mind, but as he looked at the fifty-euro set of fake gold chain around his neck, worthy of Mr T, he couldn’t help wondering what Caroline would say. It was off-set wonderfully by the black T-shirt and black suit. King had used butter to grease his hair and smear it backwards. His head now stank of rancid dairy product, but he didn’t care. He looked every inch the Russian bodyguard. Every inch one of Nikolai’s men.

  King had parked his vehicle on a narrow mountain road approximately half a mile downhill from Luca Fortez’s property. It was a tactical and practical decision. Exfiltration, and this one would be hot, was better made downhill. Less exertion, more speed – which in turn meant he would present himself as a more difficult target – and an uphill escape would mean that he would have to drive back past the entrance to the property.

  King would have to skirt the property, hiking the steep hill for at least a mile and a half, before observing the property from above. He would then make his way down to the vineyard and enter the grounds to the property through the fence.

  King found the walk uncomfortable. The late afternoon sun was hot on his back, the temperature a dry and draining thirty-degrees. The ground was arid, with the earth baked hard, and much of the terrain was sharp rock and loose shale, which made every footstep difficult, as he dropped backwards a few inches with every tread. The pine trees were scented and seemed to give off their own heat. He was using dead-reckoning, cursing leaving his button compass back in Scotland, simply using the sun and the mountainside as his directional prompts, although he was aware he could be veering drastically off course and away, or worse - head-on towards the vineyard. He had no friendlies out here, so as usual, he had left his mobile phone behind. There was no point in carrying it, and with the use of scanners, the phone’s signal
could be traced simply by a pulse receiver. The phone emitted a signal wherever it went, and this could be exploited. The people using the equipment may not know whose phone it was, but they would know that one was in the area and could easily home in on it.

  He had slung the crossbow over his shoulder using a belt and tucked the bolts into his pockets. It wasn’t an ideal way to carry them, but he had the sheath knife fastened tightly to his trouser belt and the flick knife in his jacket’s inside pocket and was not dressed in tactical clothing. The suit had started to tear, and he was both hot and uncomfortable, the excess butter he’d greased his hair with had started to run into his eyes. The macabre sense of humour in him just hoped he didn’t die out here and was left looking like this for someone to discover. A greasy-haired extra from a rap video with four-pounds in weight of gold-painted brass around his neck and a crossbow strapped to his back. The police would be scratching their heads for months.

  When King had estimated the distance, he tracked across the mountainside and crouched low, listening to his surroundings. He took a 500ml bottle of water out of his pocket and downed the contents in a few mouthfuls. He wedged the empty bottle between some tree roots, and wiped his face with his sleeve, before taking out a crossbow bolt and standing up to cock the weapon. He tucked the bolt under the spring clip and kept the cumbersome weapon held in front of him. The going was much easier downhill, and he moved at twice the speed as his climb, taking care to watch the ground for loose rocks, tree roots and snakes. He had seen some big spiders, which looked like tarantulas to him, waiting patiently in the centre of giant webs, spanning five or six feet between the trees. He was sure they weren’t too harmful, certainly not lethal, but he didn’t want to put his face in one while he was watching the ground. He had to remind himself that he needed to keep aware not only of his footsteps and his immediate vicinity for natural threats, but to be ready for the human factor too. As he closed in on Luca Fortez’s property, he realised that he was approaching one of the most dangerous and untouchable men in Italy. His men would be armed.

  And that was what King was counting on.

  19

  Dover, England

  “Have they treated you well?”

  Rashid shrugged. He looked at the man in front of him. The recorder had been switched off and all police officers had left the room. There were two cups of steaming coffee on the table in between them, and a plain manila file.

  “There will be no charges brought against you. I’ve seen to that.”

  “Cheers,” Rashid said, his Birmingham accent making it sound somewhat noncommittal, as he reached for the cardboard cup.

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you want? A dance?”

  “Some gratitude would be nice.”

  “I’ve got some bitchin’ blisters, you wouldn’t want a hand job…”

  The man stared at him, then shook his head. “I can see why you and King are friends. You love authority too…”

  “I don’t know anybody called King,” Rashid paused. “Is that what you are? Authority? Sorry, I thought you were just some prick in a suit.”

  “I think we’d better start again.”

  “You can start by telling me your name and business,” Rashid said coldly. “You’re a spook, that much is clear.”

  “My name is Simon Mereweather, and I’m director of operations in MI5.”

  “Head shed.”

  Mereweather smiled and nodded. “I suppose,” he said, picking up his coffee. “I’m joint deputy director. MI5, or the Security Service to use its proper title, has a director and two deputies. One deputy oversees administration, while the other oversees operations. That is what I do. And that is why I want to talk to you about Alex King.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know anybody called King.”

  Mereweather shrugged. “When I said, no charges will be brought against you, I meant that is if I had your cooperation. Without that, then Special Branch can have you, and the rifle you were bringing in, and Christ knows what else they can get to stick to you.”

  “You going to charge me for the coffee too?”

  “Please, take this seriously, Rashid,” Mereweather said plaintively. “I need to find King. I need to help him get our agent back. You are aware that Caroline Darby, an agent with MI5 and also King’s fiancé, was abducted by a suspect in an operation the two of them were investigating?” He looked at him, studied his eyes carefully as he let the silence envelope them. “Of course, you are. I can see you’re in a quandary. Well, Captain. I can smooth over the heavy mob at Hereford, give you a cover story, black-ops stuff. They’ll welcome you back, get you off that desk you’re riding, put you back in the field. If you don’t go shagging the nineteen-year-old daughters of commanding officers, that is.”

  Rashid smiled. “I still don’t know this King bloke.”

  “Yes, yes. All very admirable.” He opened the file in front of him. “Good shot, are we? Must be to be in the SAS.” He took out a series of photographs. They were of a body and a crime scene. “Your handiwork?” He pushed the photographs towards Rashid.

  Rashid looked at the photographs. He recognised the body, had seen it through the scope of his sniper rifle about a month ago. He looked up and shrugged. “No.”

  “I don’t want a confession, Rashid. Just hear me out. Okay?”

  “Not going anywhere, by the looks of it.”

  “You’re friends with King. You met on separate operations that merged. You kept in contact, or whatever. Perhaps you bonded in the brief time your paths crossed. I don’t know. But I do know that your bond was strong enough for you to take out a sniper for King during his last operation. There’s enough CCTV in London. Don’t play me for a fool. As it is, nobody is looking for the killer of a killer. The case is never going to be solved, because nobody is looking into it. It’s been black-bagged. End of. The only thing that will open up that particular can of worms is if pictures of a serving SAS officer linking him to the killing of a man on a London rooftop find their way into the public domain.”

  Rashid looked at Mereweather. “And you think threatening me will get you my cooperation?”

  “I don’t have time for appealing to your better nature,” Mereweather said, his tone clipped and harsh. “Or rather, my agent, my friend even, doesn’t have time. Caroline Darby has been abducted. To get her back requires more than playing into her captor’s hands. King has gone on a self-destructive mission to get her back. He is singing to their tune. He is doing what they require of him, and hoping he finds an in. A way to get close to them. It only takes one mistake, one run of bad luck, and King is dead and Caroline is gone forever. I’m not prepared to take that risk. Not for her.”

  “You’re sweet on her?” Rashid smiled. “Well, I wouldn’t let our mutual friend know about that.”

  “I like her. She’s a long-time colleague, and now comes under my command…”

  “Whatever,” Rashid shrugged. “Not my business.”

  “I can get you out of here, Rashid. I can get you out of here, paint a picture of your shenanigans in France as a black-ops mission for MI5 to the regiment, even keep a lid on what you did in London. But I need your help in return.”

  “I’m not selling out King,” he paused. “Firstly, because he’s my friend. Secondly… well, he isn’t the sort of man you sell out. You may want to remember that.”

  “It’s nothing to do with selling him out. It’s a contingency. And it’s a second prong attack. King is haring around trying to buy some time while he gets a handle on this, and it’s quite possible the man will slip up. I want to search for Caroline, use what we’ve found so far to get to Helena.”

  “Helena?”

  “Christ, you don’t know a thing, do you,” Mereweather paused and sipped some coffee. “Look, agree to help me. Agree to help find Caroline, and in turn, help King. Let’s agree that King is not infallible. Let’s agree that he needs help with this.”

  Rashid nodded. “I can see wher
e you’re coming from,” he said. “But right now, I’m still under arrest and AWOL from base. You can really make all of that go away?”

  “Like it never happened.”

  “Well, let’s talk some more,” Rashid said. “But I want to see you pull a few strings first. When I’ve seen that, I’ll listen to what you’ve got to say.”

  20

  Tuscany, Italy

  The vineyard was expansive. It surrounded three sides of the mansion’s gardens and took up an area of what King estimated to be four football pitches. The rear of the mansion was laid to lawns and gardens, dominated by an elaborately constructed swimming pool that was all swirls and nooks and fountains, with barely an area for proper swimming. A place where drinks could be taken, and conversations whispered, and groups of people could disperse into couples.

  There were two children playing in the pool. Even from this distance, King could tell it was a boy and a girl from their swimming attire. The boy was dive-bombing the girl and she was splashing him in the face as he returned to the surface. A woman and a man walked out from the patio doors, the woman looking in King’s direction. King froze, worried that his costume jewellery would give him away, but he was aware of his surroundings, knew the sun was on his back. The woman pointed at a sun-lounger to the man and he obliged, dragging it to where she was now pointing. She had wanted the chair aligned with the sun, her feet acting as a pointer. She sat down, then reclined, her hands by her side, her face taking the full glare. The man walked away and sat at a chair and table in the shade. King could see that the man was one of Luca’s men. The clothes, the body language. He was what every bodyguard eventually became to the rich and indifferent – an assistant. The man was an armed butler. He would not be switched on and alert. He had melded into his role. And a target.

  King backed into the treeline twenty-feet or so. Enough to keep the property in view below him, but also enough to keep his profile interrupted by the trees. The ground was steep, steeper than he had found on the hike up. His pace was rapid, occasionally he would slip and needed to correct himself or he would be on his backside. After he had dropped down five-hundred feet in elevation, and around two-thousand feet in distance, he stopped and tentatively made his way back out to the treeline. He was beside the fence. At eight-feet high and topped with razor wire, he wasn’t looking to get over it anytime soon. He looked around, found what he wanted at the base of a large pine. A clump of dried grass. He picked a blade of the grass, wet his fingers with spit, and rubbed the grass between his fingers. He then walked to the fence, rested the blade of grass against the wire. There was no noise, no tingle. He tried again, further up, then rested the grass on the stanchions fixing the wire to the posts. Nothing. A practical defence against rampaging wild boar, and a deterrent for someone to climb, but not an impenetrable barrier. Not in keeping with one of the wealthiest men in Italy, soon to be one of the most powerful crime bosses in Europe.