Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021), A BATEMAN [urban books to read TXT] 📗

in from the east. The fog could help him, but it could also hinder him. He took the Iridium satellite phone out from his jacket pocket and dialled 8816 followed by the eight-digit number from memory. The signal was achievable, but when the phone line opened, the sound was both tinny and echoey.

He spoke the Takbeer nonetheless. “Allahu Akbar, my brother.” He awaited the reply and nodded in respect of His name. “My brother, our time frame is short. The salvage crews are massing, there will be a consultation period while they analyse the data, then work will commence in three days. You will need to complete your task before then. I will be at the prearranged coordinates at the agreed time…” He stopped talking, hearing a movement behind him. Shirazi broke the connection and locked the phone using the six-digit pin code. He backed away into the shadows and watched as the Englishman appeared at the top step. There was something about him. Something predatory, animalistic. He had been lucky before. Lucky at the storage depot on Spitsbergen and lucky on the other rig when he had shot at him but been thwarted by the kafir. When the time came, or when opportunity presented itself, he would enjoy killing the Englishman, but he would enjoy killing the kafir even more. He loathed his kind – a Muslim doing the bidding of a capitalist nation of non-believers. Fooled into believing the myth of multiculturalism in the West. A man who Shirazi imagined prayed little, no longer practised a halal diet, and dated non-Muslim women while listening to lurid lyrics in music and drinking alcohol before engaging in casual sex. No, he would enjoy killing him, and he would do it the Islamic way, by cutting the man’s throat.

Chapter Thirty-Five

 

Tremezzo

Lake Como, Italy

 

They had always planned on staying in the small Italian town of Tremezzo for its location, but not as soon as they had been forced to. With Milo Noventa dead and with contact made to Giuseppe Fortez it was time to get out of Geneva. The villa they had rented before leaving England was a six-bedroomed stone-built farmhouse, although any farmland once surrounding it had long been built on. Shrouded in gardens with off-road parking and even a small swimming pool, the quiet property acted as a welcome sanctuary to them after recent events. The chance to reset and reflect on what had gone wrong, and how they could put things right now that they had put Switzerland behind them.

Captain Durand had set up the laptop with its added external processor and routed it back through Noventa’s IP address in Switzerland. No further contact had been made, but the ball was in their court. Fortez wanted a meeting to discuss his stipulations in the contract, and driven by vengeance he had allowed them in. Noventa had been the middleman, the expert needed to negotiate the dark web, but Fortez was still just an old-fashioned crook, blinded by revenge. He could have allowed Noventa to act as go-between, never dirtied his hands or put himself at risk, but King’s death meant something to him. Which was what worried Caroline the most. The man would stop at nothing to carry out his revenge, near Shakespearian in its magnitude and audacity – a true bloodlust that would never see him rest until it had been achieved.

They had eaten a basic meal of takeaway pizzas and calzone in near silence and each member of the team had found their own space afterwards. Durand was now checking the laptop and surveillance equipment, while Neil Ramsay worked at his own laptop and was busy filing reports and firing off emails to London. Big Dave had gone outside to check the vehicles. Tyre pressures, oil, water, and fuel meant everything when your life depended on them. Once they arrested Fortez they had decided it would be beneficial for all concerned to whisk him away to Switzerland. The Swiss police had cooperated with Interpol and had taken the investigation out of the Italian’s hands. Durand had arranged for the arrest warrant to be made in the name of the Swiss Judicial Directorate and sans frontières, or without borders. Police corruption in domestic Italian organised crime was still rife, and they did not want to risk falling foul to a senior police officer with criminal underworld connections. Fortez had also employed a security company. Research into the company in question showed that in addition to providing alarms, CCTV, and panic buttons, they had a uniformed security team, covert bodyguards and a rapid response unit. The company boasted that their personnel were all ex-soldiers and had served in Afghanistan. They were also licenced to carry firearms. Getting Fortez away from Lake Como and into Switzerland would be better all round for everyone. They had not recorded Milo Noventa’s involvement, recording instead that they had used the man’s digital identity because of his former working arrangements with Fortez. They had sanitised their presence in Switzerland and as far as the Swiss police would be concerned, the joint Interpol-MI5 operation required a Swiss judicial connexion for the arrest of Fortez.

Caroline had cleared the empty food boxes away and taken her coffee out onto the veranda. She could see a sliver of moonlight gleaming on the still waters of the lake. There was a chill in the spring air, and she buttoned up her coat and eased herself down into the cane chair. She let out a gentle groan, the pins in her leg aggravated by the past few days.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sally-Anne Thorpe said from behind her.

“Give it a rest…” Caroline replied tiresomely without looking up. “Don’t you ever stop? Tell me, have you been single for long?”

Thorpe ignored her quip and instead said, “You’re clearly not fit for duty.” She paused, stepped around the low coffee table, and stood at the rail, watching the same view of