The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

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, released 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