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

yet King had attempted to take the moral high ground. To spare a woman the loss of her husband, a child the loss of her father. And when it had come to it, the man had been willing to risk their life for nothing more than his own ego.

King stared down at Sergeyev, ashamed at deviating from his instructions, from chancing Caroline’s safety, to try and do the right thing. The right thing for a woman and a child he did not know. The right thing was whatever it took to get back the woman he loved. He shot Sergeyev through the forehead, dropped the gold-plated pistol onto the dead man’s chest and walked through the clearing to where Rashid had the Range Rover idling.

Rashid was searching the radio station for something that wasn’t French folk music. He found a rock channel playing Steppenwolf and Born to be Wild. King got into the passenger side as Rashid put the vehicle into drive and floored the accelerator. The wheels tore up the sandy earth, the pine needles scattering behind them.

Rashid turned the volume button up on the steering wheel and started to sing, “Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway! Lookin’ for adventure, and whatever comes our way…”

8

 

It was completely dark when they reached Rashid’s car. The SAS soldier was not pleased at leaving the leather throne of the Range Rover, but King had insisted any link to Sergeyev needed to be severed as soon as possible. The Russian mafia boss had many interests in southwest France, and one of his vehicles could easily be identified, especially by the police, which King would assume were privy to what the Russian did, or were in fact on the payroll themselves.

Rashid had pulled alongside King’s BMW and King had swiftly got in, moved off and taken the lead for him to follow. He led the way out of Biarritz and through Bayonne to the gentle hills a dozen miles from the coast - the foothills of the Pyrenees. There were villages - some as old as the first settlers to the region - others purpose built, full of faux chalets and cottages for the summer tourist season, complete with micro-markets and pharmacies, medical centres and gift shops. Farmhouses dotted the rolling grass hills, visible only by lights shining within.

King used his phone’s GPS to find the farmhouse. The darkness made it impossible to use the various landmarks he had noted during the day, but as he reached a crossroads with recycling bins packed tightly on the other side of the road, he recognised the farmhouse’s entrance. He turned sharply to the left, crossing over the road and slowed over the potholed track. The farmhouse was the only property on the track. King had earlier scouted out the track, but it merely led to pastures and a large storage shed stacked with the last of the previous year’s haybales.

King turned into the driveway, the lights of his car illuminating the chalet and its front garden. He switched off the engine, for a moment enjoying the darkness and silence it afforded him. Taking lives was not something that went without reflection. Or at least, not the older one became. It had been so long now, King couldn’t remember if it had always been this way, or merely in recent years. He liked to hope, that on some level, it had always rested heavily with him. In truth, he suspected it had not. He looked up as Rashid’s headlights swept over the chalet, dazzling him in the mirror. He doubted the young SAS officer was feeling the same way. He imagined him blasting out karaoke renditions to the rock station all the way up here. Hyped up on the adrenalin, trying to maintain its levels with whoops and calls, screams and shouts, playing back the shots in his mind and seeing the men drop as he moved the rifle’s sights to the next unfortunate soul.

Rashid was a gifted marksman. He was also the first solider of Pakistani extraction to lead an SAS unit in Afghanistan, and had successfully infiltrated ISIS, which he had done by taking up arms against US-led Iraqi troops. A dark time in Hereford’s history, and one that would forever be denied. Rashid had also helped King in both the fight against Muslim extremists and a Russian-sanctioned terrorist plot against Britain. In a world where he had few friends and had left little personal or emotional impression behind, King would call Rashid his closest and most dependable friend. Only now, for the third time in just over a year, he was further in the man’s debt.

King got out of the car. The air-conditioning had cooled him, and the night air was warm and pleasant. He watched Rashid get out of his car – a ten-year-old Audi A4, that had seen better days – the M4 assault rifle held loosely in his right hand. He was chewing gum and still bobbing to the music, long after the stereo had been switched off. The man was wired and pumped and ready for a war. King wanted him to mellow. In fact, he wanted him out of the way entirely. There was no point in the soldier being a part of what was to happen next.

“Do a sweep of the area,” King said. “Take up position fifty-metres over there,” he said flicking his head down the road. “Enough to keep eyes on the house, and the road down here.”

“What will you be doing?” he asked.

“What needs to be done,” King said.

9

 

Anna Sergeyev looked up at King as he entered. She was scared and as all mothers would have done, she turned to look at her nine-year-old daughter. King felt a pang of anguish, of regret. He saw that the girl had fallen asleep, her hands still bound to the chair he had put