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

King didn’t answer. Deep down, he knew the man was right. But it had only just started. He knew he was going to be put through the ringer. He just hoped he stood a chance of freeing Caroline. He thought back to what Pyotr Sergeyev had said before he died. King had merely thought it a taunt. The man knew he was dying; his injuries were too severe to hope to recover. But King hadn’t been ready for Anna’s comment. And no amount of asking would make the woman elaborate. She had history with Helena Milankovitch, knew her from old. He had seen from Anna’s file that she was Ukrainian. He knew too that she had met Sergeyev in the club scene. It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume she was from a similar background to Helena – a dancer, an escort or more.

Rashid carefully overtook a series of slow-moving trucks, keeping the Audi at a speed of around seventy-miles-per-hour. He was making timely progress but didn’t want to push it. Not with a firearm on board. Especially when that firearm was a Ministry of Defence registered 5.56mm Colt M4, part of a requisition from 22 Special Air Service Regiment.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Rashid. “I’ve done some stuff I’d rather not talk about, but I can’t see this going well. Not unless you get some help.”

“You helped,” King answered tersely.

“Always glad to. Especially now I’m shining a chair with my arse.”

“Really?”

Rashid smiled. “Wound up the wrong Rupert.”

“You’re a bloody Rupert,” King corrected him. In the SAS, and now in many other units as well, Rupert was slang for an officer.

“Well, someone a lot higher up the chain than myself.”

“What did you do?”

Rashid shrugged. “Well, he’s in his fifties, a lieutenant-colonel. He has a daughter…”

“A sullied one now, I take it?”

“Oh, I imagine she was sullied a long time before she met me…”

King smiled. Rashid was a captain, and only recently promoted. He didn’t say anything, but he had a feeling it wasn’t just rank that irked the toy colonel. Rashid didn’t seem remotely bothered, so he didn’t mention it. The army was inherently racist, despite the recruitment films, and there would be those who would think Rashid had simply been promoted to fill a minority quota. King knew it was more likely because he was one of the best soldiers he had ever met.

“Well, getting caught AWOL with a weapon would do more than find you a desk,” he said. “I appreciate it.”

“Well, you still owe me a beer from the last time,” he smiled. “Seriously though, you need someone helping you. What about ‘Box?”

King shook his head. “Not yet. They wanted to, but I didn’t want it. Not yet.”

“Why? Just think of the resources, the manpower. Even a discreet investigation would give you a few pairs of hands.”

“But they won’t play it like it needs to be played,” King paused.

“This woman, Helen Snell…”

“Milankovitch.”

“Right,” Rashid nodded. “So, let me get this straight. You investigate Anarchy to Recreate Society, a terrorist group founded to kill the richest five people on the planet and continue to do so until the rich offload enough money to get off the rich list. But it’s not all it seems. Helena Snell, AKA Milankovitch, is the wife to one of the richest men on the list and she is sleeping with some guy and has been all along throughout her marriage.”

“Correct,” said King. “Viktor Bukov.”

“The sniper killing all those lovely billionaires.”

“Yes.”

“And the same sniper I killed on the roof before he made his final hit.”

“Yes.”

“Now, this Helena, she has organised this whole terrorism angle to cover the real target, her husband?”

“That’s right.”

“And she’s pissed at you for cracking it wide open. She blames you for not getting the money she thinks she deserved, and for the death of her lover.”

“Who you killed,” King said dryly. “Perhaps I should send her your number.”

Rashid ignored the quip. He’d helped his friend, was glad to have gone up against a notable sniper. “And during your heroics, shutting down the rest of the group, she kidnapped Caroline.”

“And now she wants her fun. But there’s a completely different agenda. She has a past, and so far, two people knew what she was capable of. Sergeyev, before he died, said Caroline would be as good as dead. Not two hours ago, his widow told me the same thing. She has plans, and she’s going to use me to see them through.”

“And Caroline is the carrot dangling in front of your nose.”

“That’s about the size of it, yes.”

“So how are you contacted?”

“A prepaid mobile phone. One number punched in. It diverts to other numbers like an old-school dial-up internet. Must be a dozen numbers diverting before I speak. Even then, I can only leave a message. I get a text in return.”

“And you text back?”

“Yes. I’ve given up trying to call.”

“So, what now?”

King hesitated, the phone in question vibrating in his pocket. He took it out, unlocked it and looked at the screen. “That’s her.”

“Shit, what are the chances? What has she got to say?”

He ignored him, studied the picture of Caroline now enlarged on the screen from the message. She looked to have had a wash and a change of clothes since the photographs he had collected at the post office in Sweden. She was expressionless. However, King recognised it as simmering anger. There was a fire in her eyes that he seldom saw, had only witnessed in a rare argument. He could see the headline of a newspaper, L’Express, a French language Swiss paper. He spread the screen with his thumb and forefinger to enlarge it further and saw that it was today’s date. “I think she’s being held in Switzerland,” King said quietly.

“Are you sure?”