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

younger siblings, he had always done what was necessary to survive. His mother had been a crack whore, his father unknown. When his mother had arranged for a client to be alone with his ten-year-old sister, a neighbour had thankfully intervened in time. The family had been put into care. King, being older and unruly, had gone through a succession of foster families, and when they eventually proved unable to tame him, children’s homes had been his shelter. Open to bullying, abuse and neglect, King had fled and grown up on the streets. His mother had died of an overdose and his brothers and sister had been successfully adopted. But King was too old, too ruined by fate and circumstance. Nobody wanted a fifteen-year-old who had already reached a shade under six-foot and looked like a twenty-five-year-old man. Prison followed, as did release and more trouble, and prison again. Nobody had ever been there for him, and he had grown to accept it. Eventually, thrive from it. Although he never saw his siblings again.

When his wife had died from ovarian cancer, King had vowed to return to his lone wolf existence. To count on and care for nobody. He did not need baggage or responsibilities. He had spent five years alone, but Caroline had changed that, had shown him there was more to life than merely surviving, and in turn, working with a team in MI5, he had grown used to the support. But he knew he had softened because of it. He had found himself giving the enemy options, relying on back-up, as he had done in the forest in France, waiting for Rashid to make his move. But no more. King was in control now. Win or lose, live or die. He was alone, and he knew the consequence. He could accept it.

No quarter given; none asked.

It was time to do what he did best.

He had parked the car, much like in Tuscany, lower down the mountain slope. Hidden from the road in a narrow track, he had cut branches and layered them over the roof and bonnet to hide it from view from oncoming headlights. He had then broken a branch on the edge of the road and folded it over so that it hung at a right-angle. It would act as a marker for him in the darkness but would hopefully be ignored by anyone else. With the car secured and more easily accessible in the event of a hasty retreat, King swung the rucksack he had bought over his shoulder, leaving the car unlocked and the keys under the driver’s wheel arch.

The hike up the mountainside was difficult; the rocky terrain was loose and jagged. He found smoother progress made following the deeper culverts which had been carved out by torrents of running rainwater. The light had faded and there was no moon at present. King estimated it would poke above the horizon ahead of him in another two hours, but he knew it would be no more than a slither, added to which, there was noctilucent cloud cover, which acted like a lace blanket, shutting out most of the stars and only letting the merest of opaque light through.

The temperature had dropped, but his exertion up the steep gradient stopped him from becoming chilled, and by the time he had worked his way over a mile, and at least two-thousand feet in elevation, he was perspiring and wishing he’d packed more water.

At approximately four-thousand-feet above sea level and at least two miles from where he had parked the car, King removed the rucksack and dropped it onto the dry earth. He finished his litre bottle of water and wedged it between two rocks rather than risk it making a noise in his rucksack. He then removed another plastic bottle, but this one had been wrapped in tape. He had earlier drilled two-dozen equally-spaced holes into some plastic tubing he had bought from the builder’s merchants. He had then marked a hole of the same diameter into the bottom of a one-litre plastic water bottle, cut it out carefully and wedged the tube in place so that it ran all the way through the bottle and out of the neck. He wedged cotton wool inside the neck and poked it towards the bottom until it was heavily packed, and the tube was even. He had then cut the length of tube and tested it against the muzzle of the Makarov pistol. Now that King had reached his insertion point, he carefully taped the bottle in place. He tested it for straightness, then applied more plumbing tape as he made fine corrections by eye. The moving action of the pistol would make this silencer a one-shot deal, but in King’s experience it would be utterly soundless. The bullet would travel out of the muzzle of the pistol and through the tube without touching the sides and the gasses that carried the sound would vent through the holes and become absorbed by the cotton wool. He had used one before to significant effect on a Ruger .22 rifle, and although the 9x18mm Makarov round was louder, it carried less velocity than a .22 round from a longer barrel. King estimated the result would be about the same. A short-range, silent first kill.

King put the rucksack back on and stood up slowly, mindful to keep his movements slow and his profile low. There were five things to remember when moving in on an enemy’s position. They were known as the Five S’s. Shine, shape, sound, silhouette and shadow. King had one thing that could shine in the moonlight, and that was his vintage Rolex Submariner watch and he made sure his sleeve was pulled down covering the stainless-steel bracelet. He kept his shape profile low and fluid, using cover when available. He would stand next to a tree, rather than away from it, or squat down and use a rock