The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

“My back,” he said weakly. “My back hurts…”

Caroline tried to roll him and examine the wound, but he was a dead weight and he wheezed, a trickle of blood reaching the corner of his mouth. She looked at the two holes, both were ragged and large enough for a golf ball to pass through. She could picture it happening, The Beast shooting him as he climbed the fence. He would have dropped over heavily, crawled desperately to this place.

“Michael,” she said, prompting him to answer. He didn’t, but he was still breathing. “Michael, tell me about the car. Where is it?”

“The Village,” he grunted. “Skhimili.”

“Where is the village?”

“I need a doctor,” he said.

“I need the car,” she paused. “We can’t go anywhere without the car. Where are the keys?” He tapped his hip pocket, but his hand was almost moving in slow motion. Caroline snatched them out and stuffed the bunch into her pocket.

“Green Opel Corsa,” he said. “It is parked beside a general store,” he paused. “Where I got you the foods in sealed bags… the cola…” He was trailing off, his eyes opening and closing in time with his shallow breathing.

“The village, Michael,” she urged. “Where is the village?”

“Keep going,” he said. “Keep heading the way you were. It is two-kilometres. You will come back for me?”

“Of course,” she lied.

She wasn’t being malicious. The man had helped her, but he would be dead within ten to twenty-minutes. There was no point in telling him so. She was about to leave when the thought of him being discovered occurred to her. If they found him, pressed him for information, he could tell them where she was heading. She bent down and spoke slowly and clearly into his ear.

“Michael. I must end this. Helena will not stop looking for us. I am going to double back around the farmhouse and kill her. I have Jurgen’s gun, she won’t expect me to go back.” She tucked the pistol into her back pocket and took the keys out. She looked at the keys, quickly worked out which one was for the car and which looked like house keys and she slipped the car key off the bunch. “Take these Michael. Keep them safe. I will be back for you soon. You are going to be okay.” She pressed the bunch of keys into his hand and stood up. She took a pace, then stopped and turned around. “Thank you, Michael,” she said with genuine emotion in her voice. “Thank you for getting me out…”

52

Neil Ramsay gratefully accepted the coffee and paced over to the window. His own window afforded glimpses of Table Mountain, while Marnie’s looked over the choppy blue-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean. He couldn’t decide which view was better, but as he sipped the milky coffee and mulled it over, he decided he could watch the Atlantic from his usual holiday retreat in Cornwall but would probably never see the beauty of a sunrise over the prodigious landmark again.

Rashid perched on the edge of Marnie’s hastily made king-sized bed and sipped his breakfast tea. “Nice view, isn’t it?” he said to Ramsay’s back.

“Not bad,” he said. “I’m surprised you noticed it.”

Marnie had powered up her laptop, purchased their tickets and had already been briefed by the technician at GCHQ. She glanced up at Ramsay, then shared a glance at Rashid.

“Anything I should know?” Ramsay asked, his back still turned on them, the rising sun casting a golden hue across the surface of the water in front of him.

“The account used to pay Botha was set up in the Channel Islands, but the money made its way to it via Luxemburg and Switzerland,” said Marnie.

“Not that,” Ramsay said curtly. He sipped some more coffee and turned around. “I’m referring to the poorly-made bed, Rashid still wearing the same clothes he wore last night.”

“I was sleeping, then threw the bed together when Rashid knocked!”

“Yeah, and I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d come around and see what was happening.”

“And the clothes?”

“I’m a grubby sod.” Rashid shrugged. “Hey, I’m travelling light.”

“And I’m engaged!” Marnie protested indignantly.

Ramsay held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay,” he conceded. “I was mistaken. Just doesn’t help things, people getting together in the service. There’s too much at stake. Pillow talk for one thing, conflicts of interest for another,” he paused. “Just look at King. He’s storming around Europe taking out mafia brotherhoods. He wouldn’t be doing that if he was not emotionally involved with Caroline.”

“Brotherhoods?” Rashid asked.

Ramsay took out his phone and thumbed to a text. “This was sent in the night, from Mereweather,” he paused, before reading out the name in his best Italian accent. “Monteverdi Marittimo,” he said. “Some mountain town in Tuscany, Italy. An Italian mafioso called Luca Fortez was hit at his home, his family threatened. He was a real piece of work. Took down other mafia families, moved in on their assets. A cold, vicious bastard, by all accounts.”

Rashid shrugged. “Good. The world is a safer place. Or at least Italy will be.”

Ramsay nodded. “No doubt. But it doesn’t end there. A deal was being struck between Luca Fortez and a group of Russian gangsters, or Bratva. The Russian boss was a man called Nikolai. Not sure it it’s a Christian name or his surname, but he was an even bigger piece of work. He wound up dead as well. The police suspected the deal went wrong, but I have it on good authority that it was merely made to look that way.”

“Whose authority?” Rashid asked.

“We have an open line of communication with Interpol. They are working with Italian intelligence, their internal intelligence and security agency.”

“And?” Rashid prompted.

“This Nikolai character was in deep