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

among the ruined streets of Syria. And some of these wars had been fought and won on the streets of Britain. In the back alleys, the shadows. Always ruthless, yet mindful to avoid the slippery slope of becoming nastier, more ruthless than his enemy. King had always been guided by his conscience, his ability to care enough about himself and the people around him over simply getting the task done.

He had never been afraid to question the chain of command. A trait that had made enemies for him within his own organisation, created a rocky road for him to travel, but allowed his horizon some clarity within the shadowy world he occupied.

But, until now, there had never been the personal involvement for him. King had witnessed vendetta and revenge. He had stood back and witnessed what revenge could do. He had seen mothers avenge their sons, husbands avenge their wives. When ISIS had reigned and ruled terror in Syria and Iraq, King had witnessed the tables turn. He had seen the bloodlust of normal people who had lost everything, the horrors of bloodthirsty vengeance satiated only by the hacking and burning of the bodies of the once powerful, suddenly defeated and beaten. For those people, the fight had been personal. And now, for the first time in a life spent plotting and killing in the shadows, King knew how difficult it could be to control that bloodlust. For the first time in his life, he wanted to kill. He wanted it more than he could ever have imagined.

King pulled the car over to the side of the road. The Black Sea shimmered beyond the pine trees on the rocky slopes. It was hot, late June. The sky clear and blue. The morning had been enveloped in a thick fog along the shoreline until well after dawn. The sun had now baked it off and the day didn’t look like it would be anything but perfect. But not for some people. For some people, their day would only be getting worse.

King switched off the engine and got out, his desert boots crunching on the gravel. There was an air of calm, of unnatural silence. He hadn’t seen a single vehicle on the drive across the plateau, traversing from one mountain to another. He stood stock-still, listened. A bird called a shrill tune, fluttered through the pines and disappeared. The slope of the mountain was still once more.

He walked around to the rear of the vehicle. Opened the boot and stepped back. The woman looked younger than her twenty-five years. But her features were familiar, there was no mistaking her. She blinked against the sunlight, strained against the thin rope fastening her wrists. She looked terrified.

King felt the adrenalin subsiding. He was aware of a stinging sensation, followed the woman’s stare to his left arm. Blood ran down his forearm, trickling steadily from a graze above his left elbow. The blood had reached his watch, covered the face and permeated the stainless-steel links of the bracelet in a crimson glaze. He turned his elbow over, looked at the wound, was relieved there was no more damage. He had been lucky. Many men had not.

The girl looked at the pistol tucked into his waistband. She had been around weapons her entire life, but she seemed scared at the sight of it. King took out a handkerchief from his pocket and folded it before pressing it against the wound. He took it away, noted there was more blood soaked into it than he thought there would have been. He pressed it against the open wound again. The woman was watching him intently. King followed her stare, saw the patch of crimson spreading across his stomach. He placed the folded handkerchief against it, then took it away to see how much blood there would be. It wasn’t good. He felt a wave of nausea wash over him, but it was soon replaced by anger.

He couldn’t go down yet.

There was too much left to do.

He couldn’t afford to be taken out of the fight.

The woman tried to talk but her lips were stuck together. Her nose was bloodied and there was swelling to one of her eye sockets. She swallowed like it was an effort to talk and licked her lips with her dry tongue. It must have helped her a little, because she asked, “Are you going to kill me?”

The words hung in the air, seemed to resonate around King, like an extra-sensory experience. King didn’t simply hear her question, more felt a third party to it. It wasn’t until the young woman asked him, that he realised the ramifications of taking her. What scared him most of all, was now she had asked the inevitable question, he simply didn’t know. What he did know, was that she was now his bargaining chip in a game that had long become out of hand.

2

One month earlier

Sodertalje, Sweden

 

May was a spring month in southern Sweden, yet today was cold. The sky was grey, and darkness threatened to dominate the morning. King stepped out of the hire car, closed the door, yet left it unlocked, and crossed over the street. He adjusted the collar of his coat, smoothed down the front, casually checking the 9mm Browning pistol was securely in place.

They would have the jump on him. They had known when he would have been coming. They had known before he had even read the letter, so attempting to get there before them would have been a fruitless exercise. He would have to accept that he was on the back foot. Even so, he had managed to skirt the town and monitor movement. He had done this in the darkness on foot, then later at dawn circling the area in a wide loop. Finally, he had driven around, eased the car to a halt and watched. There had