The Mallorcan Bookseller (The 3R International Series Book 1)

by PETE DAVIES

  “I don’t know Boss. I saw him the day before yesterday, but he hasn’t been back into the office since then. Do you want me to go and call on him? I expect he’s at the villa,” said Arman.

  “You won’t find him there. He’s apparently left the country on a different passport. Check the villa and then check your sources at the airport to see if they can help.”

  “Yes Boss, I’ll get straight on it.”

  Arman cursed out aloud as soon as he came off the phone. Sergei wouldn’t have been impressed with him not knowing where Sonny was.

  It only took him twenty minutes to get to the villa. Sonny wasn’t there and the housekeeping staff hadn’t been told when he might be back. He made some calls into his contacts in the Airport Security team and took a call fifteen minutes later. They had his photo coming up on a passport in the name of Yuri Pavlovich who was shown as boarding a flight to Madrid and then bound for Goa via Doha. He rang Sergei.

  “You should have known about this before I rang you Arman. Don’t make a habit of this,” said Sergei.

  “No Boss, sorry Boss,” said Arman, but Sergei had already cut the call and was dialling a new number.

  *****

  The Russian saw the name on the incoming call. She knew he wasn’t a man to be kept waiting.

  “I’ve got a job for you, in Goa. When can you leave?”

  ‘Hello to you too Sergei,’ she thought, but he clearly wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

  “I can leave today, so depending on flights, I should be there tomorrow.”

  “Good,” said Sergei.

  “Who is the target?”

  “Sonny,” said Sergei.

  She paused. She knew Sonny was pretty much Sergei’s right hand man.

  “Sonny?” she said.

  “Yes, is that a problem?” said Sergei.

  “No, I just wanted to confirm. So he’s in Goa. Do we know where?”

  “I’m sending you an image. Jasvinder Kaur. She runs call centres in India and we’ve been doing some business with her in the Balearics. She has a villa somewhere just outside Goa. She’s not a target unless she gets in the way. Is that understood?” he said.

  “Yes, loud and clear. Anything else?” she said.

  “There may be another team tracking the woman. They’re British and a private outfit, but they’re good, very good in fact, maybe ex-Special Forces. Again, they’re not part of the deal, but if they get in your way, you know what to do,” said Sergei.

  “Intriguing,” said the woman.

  “It’s not bloody intriguing. It’s just a mess that needs tidying up.”

  “Okay, no problem,” she said.

  Sergei put the phone down. It might be the right thing to do for the business, but he still didn’t like making the decision. He had used her before on a number of jobs where he wanted to put distance between himself and the person he wanted removed. The Russian was good, very good at what she did, so it shouldn’t take long before he could get the Balearics back on track.

  *****

  They were actually in the air for less than an hour when Daniel announced they would be landing soon. They had Wi-Fi on the plane and so Terri had been organising cars and somewhere for them to stay. She had booked two nights as she usually did, with the proviso they could leave after one. She’d also messaged Laura to check on an exchange time. Ideally she wanted the gear by the evening at the latest, to allow them to make an early start in the morning as Sam’s intel guy had come up with a location for Kaur’s villa and it was about twenty kilometres away.

  They landed without issue and were soon out at the front of the airport where the meet and greet team from the car hire company were waiting with two Ford SUVs. Terri checked the documentation and signed the papers before they loaded up into the two vehicles and headed for the hotel.

  They had booked three rooms again. Firstly for ease, but secondly because three couples looked more natural in a holiday setting. After they checked in, they all headed for the hotel bar and sat down to talk through their next moves.

  “So what’s the objective in seeing this woman?” said Anna.

  “I think we should be persuading her to give back some of the money she has made from people like Bill,” said Sam.

  “Do you mean some or all?” said Greg.

  Sam thought for a moment and said, “Well thinking about it, I think it should be what we think she has made, so let’s start with two million.”

  Simon let out a low whistle.

  “Well that’s what Rob reckoned she was making when he looked at her files, so let’s go with that,” said Anna.

  There were nods of agreement from the rest of the group.

  “Okay, so that’s the ‘what’ we’re planning on doing, but what about the ‘how’? Looking at some Google Earth maps, her place looks like it is some way from anywhere. No neighbours close-by and there’s a whole load of open ground surrounding the villa, so it’s not like we can just sneak up on her unannounced,” said Terri.

  “We could do something like we did in Yerevan?” said Tommy. “You know, turn up at the front door, but have some back-up, with you and Simon hidden away.”

  “That could work,” said Sam, “but we’ll need to do a recce of the place to find out how many people she has there and what the surrounding environment is actually like.”

  “Agreed. Terri, it needs to be your call on whether you can give us the support we may need, so I’ll leave it to you and Simon to sort out the recce after dinner, okay?” said Greg.

  “Yes, no problem, we’ll report back later.”

  *****

  After dinner, Terri and Simon set off in one of the SUV’s and found Laura waiting to do the handover near to Colva Beach.

  “How did you get down here then?” asked Terri.

  “Helicopter. Scared the hell out of me, but it was quick and easy to get your gear down here. I’ll wait around here for you to pick up your stuff,” said Laura. “If you need to disappear in a hurry, just leave the stuff in the cars and text me where they are. I’ll get those picked up and we’ll get everything back to you in due course.”

  “I’m tempted to ask how you might do that, but I suspect you aren’t going to tell me are you Laura?” said Terri.

  “You’re right on that. Anyway, I hope whatever you are planning goes well,” and with that she turned and walked towards a waiting car.

  They put the packages Laura had brought into the back of the Ford. It looked like a collection of fishing gear and unlocking one of the boxes, Simon took out two of the Glocks and handed one to Terri.

  “Probably best we go prepared. No point wandering into the lion’s den without having something to offer them,” said Simon.

  *****

  They were already half way there at Colva Beach, so it didn’t take long to get to the coordinates they had been given. There were no signposts, but from the coordinates it looked like it was going to be somewhere on their left. They wanted to look at the back of the property first. Simon was watching for a turning on the left and pointed when he saw an unmade road, that when they turned into it, led them into some dense woodland. The GPS map indicated what appeared to be some open ground about a kilometre ahead. The space was about a kilometre in diameter and in the middle sat a building, presumably Kaur’s villa.

  Terri continued driving until they saw a single track road to their right. She branched off and came to a stop when she could see lights in the distance through the branches of the trees. They got out of the vehicle and made their way to the edge of the trees. It was dark now, but Terri got a good view of what was before her with her night scope. The land sloped up from the woodland towards the centre of the open space, so that anyone in the villa could look out west across the top of the woodland and see the coastline. She handed the scope to Simon who took his time surveying the layout of the land.

  “Okay, so this will make things just a little bit harder than having a straight forward downward view, but at least
there are no obstacles in my way,” said Terri.

  Simon nodded as he looked through the telescopic night sight at what was the back of the villa. He could see a swimming pool, sun loungers and a patio table and chairs. The villa had what looked like a full width of glass across the back of the property which, from this angle, framed the pool and patio furniture like a picture.

  “I can see a man and a woman inside the property, but I can’t get a clear image of them because they’ve got low lighting on in the room. Wait, there’s another man who has just entered the room and is talking to the woman. Maybe the bodyguard? But if so, who is the other guy? Another member of her staff?” said Simon and passed the sight back to Terri.

  “Damn, you’re right, the light is just blurring it. I can’t see the faces. Come on, let’s see what is around the other side of the property and then get back to the hotel,” said Terri.

  They made their way back to the SUV and then drove around the outer perimeter road, watching out for any protective measures. They stopped every now and then and checked through the branches for any sign of trip wires or surveillance cameras, but saw nothing.

  “She must feel pretty safe out here, but then again they’ve got that free space in front of the villa as a defence, so who knows what they’ve got out there to greet any unwelcome visitors,” said Simon.

  The front entrance was sited on the main highway and there was still some traffic around. Terri waited until a car passed where she was parked and then followed it back onto the highway and as they drove past the villa entrance Simon had his phone on video record.

  “Lots of lighting and by the look of it, there are cameras positioned to the front and then again back down the drive to the villa. Two men on guard. Neither seem to be hiding the fact that they are armed,” said Terri.

  “Okay, I’ve got it,” said Simon, after checking the video he had taken showing the front entrance. “Thoughts on getting into the villa Terri? I don’t think we know enough about what’s in the open space to chance a silent approach across that, so how about we just rock up and knock on the front door?”

  “Well what we haven’t seen is lots of protection guys, so maybe we leave Greg and the guys to take out the two at the front and then get to the villa and we’ll get in position around the back,” said Terri.

  “There’s some risk, but it’s four against two at the front, so pretty good odds,” said Simon. “Let’s take it back as Option One and see what they say when they’ve seen the video.”

  *****

  It was close to eleven o’clock when they made it back to the hotel and met up with the others in a quiet corner of the hotel bar. They quickly went through what they had found out and passed Simon’s phone around so that everyone had the chance to look at the front entrance. Greg waited until everyone had seen the video before speaking.

  “So do we have an Option Two?”

  “Not a safe one,” said Simon.

  “So Option One is safe?” said Tommy.

  “Safer than Option Two, which would be to chance your arm and walk across unknown ground that if I was setting up security, I would have covered with all manner of movement activated alarms. We just don’t know what these guys might use and I don’t fancy finding out they’ve opted for land mines,” said Simon.

  “Aren’t land mines now illegal in warfare?” said Sam.

  “They are in over a hundred and sixty countries Sam, but some countries are still using them,” said Greg.

  “Can I say something?” said Anna.

  “Fill your boots Anna,” said Terri.

  “Terri and Simon have given us what they determine is the best option, so I think we need to work around that and spend time focusing on how we get in the main entrance and up to the villa.”

  “As always Anna, the voice of reason. So, what are people’s thoughts? Distraction? Puncture? Car broken down? Sickness? They are the usual favourites,” said Greg.

  “So there will be four of us at the front right? With you two going to the back of the villa to provide support?” said, looking at Terri and Simon, who nodded. “So, let’s use Greg and Anna as bait because they are….,” he paused.

  “It’s okay,” said Anna gently, “you can say it.”

  Tommy squirmed a bit, but then finally said, “Well you’re older than we are and look less likely to be about to start an attack on their stronghold.”

  “Nicely put Tommy,” said Terri. “So you guys can bring down their guard and Sam and Tommy can take them out.”

  “Or,” said Anna, “Plan B and we get them to bring down their guard and then we’ll take them out.”

  It was Terri’s time to squirm a little now and then she saw her dad laughing at her.

  “Yes, okay, then you guys get to be the action heroes,” said Terri.

  “Ideally, we want you to try to get the cameras turned off, or at least directed elsewhere, before you start your way up the main drive,” said Simon.

  “We’ll have to play that by ear as we won’t know what we’re faced with until we get there,” said Greg, “but that’s what we’ll work on, so here’s an idea and all thoughts welcome.”

  Greg then worked through the outline of a plan and after some tinkering they all agreed that, in principle, it stood a good chance of succeeding in getting them in through the front entrance. With that they broke up with some going to their rooms, whilst Sam and Terri stayed down at the bar.

  “You okay with tomorrow Sam?” said Terri.

  “Yes, I admit I’m feeling a bit on edge and I think it’s because this is all a bit different to how I’d see operations rolling out in the police.”

  “How do you mean?” said Terri.

  “We always had a primary goal of arresting someone or stopping someone doing something, you know, stop them committing the robbery or something like that. But here, well, we’re going in and we’re going to ask Kaur to transfer two million quid and she’s going to say what? ‘Of course, no problem’. It’s the, ‘what we do to persuade her,’ bit which is what I’m struggling with, as it’s so up in the air.”

  “I do get where you’re coming from Sam. We’ve both been used to working within the operational parameters of organisations that are subject to extensive legal scrutiny, whereas here we’re dealing with people who don’t play fair. They’ll shoot first and not even bother asking questions, so yes, adapting to that might take you a while, but don’t worry, you’ll have Greg right by your side and when I say he’s good at this stuff, I mean he’s really good and I’m not just saying that because he’s my, or should I say, our dad.”

  Sam smiled. He hadn’t been just what you might call an ordinary cop, dealing with the everyday issues that came up in general policing. It had been a good few years since he’d entered the world of major crime and specialised firearms, however this was still feeling like a very different arena for him, where the law was not going to be at the forefront of his mind. He could see that Terri had moved from being a trained soldier, operating within the accepted rules of combat engagement, to being able to deal with the world she now found herself operating in with Greg and 3R.

  “What do you see as the possible outcomes tomorrow?” said Terri.

  “Honestly?” said Sam. “We kill the two men at the front entrance, then possibly the body guard if he gets in the way and then if she doesn’t play ball, we kill Kaur too.”

  Terri didn’t show anything as Sam went through his possible outcomes. She needed him to consider the worst case scenario and see how he dealt with it.

  “So are you okay with taking these people out Sam?”

  “Wow, that’s a question?” said Sam.

  “Better I ask it now than you start thinking about it tomorrow mate.”

  “Good point,” he said, then paused. “Yes, I can deal with stopping someone if they’re a threat to me, or any of our team and if stopping them means they lose their life then, yes, I can handle that. The bit I’m maybe still working through is when they aren’t
offering a specific threat at the time I engage them.”

  “Look Sam, we’re not executioners. During my time with 3R, I’ve never taken a shot or done anything that has been terminal to someone that hasn’t been as a direct result of them engaging with me first. Now if Simon was here, he’d call us a couple of wallies for even thinking this stuff. He’s been trained to deal with threat and potential threat and by that, he’d see those two on the front entrance as a threat that couldn’t be left to potentially raise the alarm or come back to attack us if they got loose. My dad is to an extent, of the same ilk and let’s not forget your mum, that’s how she would have been trained too. You and me? Well, maybe we were just trained to fight, well let’s call it, ‘politely’ and you’re now in a game where the gloves are off and we’re not bound by the Queensberry Rules.”