Outlaw, page 9
Lucy stood up and walked towards the projection on the wall, studying the Italian’s face.
‘We’re targeting him. He doesn’t know any of us by sight, and he’s always moving around, following the party circuit. We can get near to this one.’
Malte nodded. ‘How?’
Kara put up a new display, this one a video file showing streamlined shapes like manta rays flashing across the surface of an emerald lake, leaving bright white wakes behind them. On the shoreline, crowds were lined up to watch.
‘Da Silvio Ingegneria co-sponsors an international powerboat championship, taking place at a dozen venues around the Med and elsewhere. The race’s investors are a who’s who of Bratva and Mafia types, and they use it to launder cash. Motorsport is one of the most expensive pastimes in the world, after all . . .’
The video switched to shots of the exclusive owners’ boxes, the camera panning past Da Silvio and a group of hard-eyed men who were cheering on the racers.
‘The fourth meet in the race series happens this week,’ said Marc. ‘In Sochi, on the Russian Black Sea coast. And that’s where we’re going to work this bloke, use him to pry open the Combine and reach inside.’
‘It sounds simple when you say it like that,’ said Benjamin.
Marc didn’t reply, but he caught Lucy’s eye and his expression was firm and unreadable.
‘Start packing up the kit,’ he ordered. ‘We need to be on the way by sunset.’
*
The fear that prickled along the back of Delancort’s neck became a claw, digging its talons deeper into his skin the further he walked between the buildings.
In the Beausoleil backstreets, across the open border with France where many of Monaco’s working population resided, the fading haze of the sun grazed the tops of the skinny residential blocks. In the narrow canyons between them, the air was still and heavy, steeped in gloom.
Delancort made his way towards the security door that would give him entrance to the apartments where he lived, too anxious to throw a look over his shoulder in case he saw what he feared. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed movement in the shade, reflected in the window of a parked car. Perhaps a figure watching from a doorway . . . perhaps nothing.
He believed that ALEPH’s thugs were following his movements outside the office, to intimidate him. To let him know that he lived only as long as he had value to the men who’d broken Rubicon. Delancort was afraid that time had come to an end, however.
How much longer could this go on, until he vanished like the others who had outlived their usefulness? Would it be quick? Would they make it look like an accident?
Delancort had taken to being extremely careful when crossing the street, for fear that some unseen hand might suddenly shove him into the path of an oncoming vehicle.
He was ten metres from the door.
The muscles in his thighs bunched, and he had to fight down the urge to break into a sprint. He pulled the electronic key fob from his pocket and made ready with it, holding the thing in a white-knuckle grip. His heart hammered in his chest.
Why was this even necessary? Why follow him home when they knew exactly where he lived?
Why not wait inside for me, unseen and unexpected . . .?
Delancort’s blood ran cold as the terrifying thought suddenly occurred to him. It would be simple for one of ALEPH’s operatives to gain access to his home. He pictured it now – seeing himself open the door to his apartment, only to find a killer within.
He blinked sweat from his eyes. His mind raced. What if he kept walking? He could find somewhere safe, somewhere public. Surely they would not try to hurt him in front of witnesses?
Was he willing to take that risk?
He was five metres from the door.
A metal barrier with a glass insert, the door was an unlovely retrofit that sat awkwardly over the shabby-chic 1950s build beneath. The apartments had once been three residences, a row of tall town houses in the Victorian style, before a developer had knocked them together into a single building. Juliet balconies of white-painted iron looked out over the street, and Delancort picked out his own, momentarily afraid he might see someone up there staring down at him.
‘Merde.’
He swore under his breath and made a desperate attempt to take back control of his racing pulse.
This is what they want, Henri. He tried to talk himself down. They need you to live in fear. It is how they keep control of you!
At the door, he reached out with the fob to press it against the locking pad, and it slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor. Cursing again, he grabbed at it, scrambling to seize the key before it skittered away over the ground and out of his reach.
He felt the talons in his neck, digging deep. With shaking hands, Delancort snatched back the fob and lurched into the door, hearing the buzz of the electronic lock as it finally opened.
Only then did he look back. The street was empty.
He slammed the door shut, hearing the bolts click back into place, and then Delancort sprinted the five flights of stairs up to the floor where his apartment lay. He didn’t dare take the elevator. The notion of being trapped inside the steel box made him physically sick.
At his apartment door, he spent a full minute examining the surround and the fibrous bienvenu mat that lay before it, making sure nothing seemed out of place. He tried to remember if anything was different from when he had left that morning.
At length, he took a deep breath, opened the door and cautiously stepped inside.
Nothing.
Locking the door behind him, Delancort swept quickly from room to room in the low-ceilinged, airy apartment, making certain that he was alone.
The interior of his residence reflected his personality. For the most part, it was minimalist, with a fastidious precision to the sparse décor. The few touches of character were confined to a couple of vintage theatre posters and a bookcase of hardcover art albums. Delancort sat heavily on his sofa, dropping his briefcase on the floor, and he poured himself a stiff drink.
‘I can’t keep living like this,’ he said aloud, but the words choked off before he could build on the thought.
Are they listening to me? If they’re following me, then they’ve bugged my home!
Delancort looked around, wondering where any listening device could be placed. The answer, of course, was anywhere. He had seen enough of the SCD’s operations in the past to know what kind of technology was available, and how easy it was to secrete it.
I’m not safe here. I’m not safe anywhere.
He walked to the window, and looked down as he drew the blinds.
Down on the street stood a woman with short dark hair and mirrored sunglasses, and she looked directly at him. She wore khaki cargo trousers and a military-style jacket unsuitable for the warm weather. Without breaking eye contact, she reached up and touched the black comma of a headset coiled around her right ear.
The woman nodded in response to a voice only she could hear, and started towards the security door.
Delancort dropped the half-full glass and ran to the laundry cupboard, tearing out the bed sheets and towels inside. Hidden beneath was a black nylon daypack stuffed with in-case-of-emergency items – including a bundle of euros, false identity papers, a change of clothes and a stun gun he had never learned how to use.
Lucy Keyes had shown Henri how to put together this ‘go-bag’ in the event of a critical need. He remembered mocking her gently about her concern for him, insisting that he would never make use of it.
He pulled the pack on over his jacket and dashed back towards the door. On the threshold he hesitated, listening to the thudding of his heartbeat in his ears.
Am I really going to do this?
With the door half-open, Delancort turned around, staring into his apartment. How could anyone conceive of doing such a thing – of dropping everything in their life in a heartbeat and fleeing into the unknown? It was impossible!
It is insane!
The low buzzing as the security door opened echoed up the stairwell and the sound hit Delancort like an electric shock. He ran the opposite way from the stairwell, to the fire exit at the end of the landing, shouldering open the push bar.
Sunlight flooded in, briefly blinding him as he staggered out onto a metal balcony up over the service alley behind the apartments. Down past the grey boxes of air conditioning units, a zigzag of steel steps led to ground level. Delancort took the steps three at a time, the metal clanking against the outside wall of the building with each shaky footfall.
On the lowest level, he kicked open a wire-mesh gate and spilled out into the alley. Lines of parked scooters and a pair of Smart Four-Twos blocked his path back to the front of the building, but he had no intention of going that way. A side passage led to steps downhill, and he could follow it all the way to Avenue de Villaine, and into the city beyond.
‘Stop,’ said a voice behind him.
Delancort’s panic spiked and he hauled the pack off his shoulder, desperately digging inside as he half-turned, half-staggered towards the passageway. The woman in the sunglasses leaned on one of the Smart cars, watching him patiently.
How had she got around him or anticipated his escape route?
His hand closed on the pistol grip of the stun gun and he tore it out of the bag, brandishing it at the ALEPH agent.
‘Back away!’
She reacted by raising her hands.
‘Do not do anything foolish.’ Her words were brisk and Russian-accented.
A flash of recognition came to him. Did he know her? One of the many skills Delancort possessed that had made him an excellent aide-de-camp to Ekko Solomon was his memory for faces. The more he studied her, the more he was convinced this woman was not a stranger.
Then it came to him. She had been there when Glovkonin had set off his clever little coup against Rubicon’s board of directors, working with his cat’s paw, the man called Lau.
She advanced towards him.
‘I just want to talk.’
‘No!’ he snapped, and squeezed the stun gun’s trigger.
Nothing happened. The plastic pistol was supposed to spit out a pair of wired metal darts that would conduct a paralysing charge into whomever they hit. But the device remained resolutely inert, and belatedly Delancort remembered that he had not read the instruction leaflet that came with it. He mashed the trigger again, fumbling at it.
‘The safety’s on,’ said the woman, before she rushed him.
She punched him in the chest with one hand, winding him as she wrenched the stun gun out of his grip with the other.
Delancort coughed and backed into a moped, almost falling over it.
‘See?’ The woman held up the hornet-striped gun, making a show of flicking off the safety slide on the side. ‘Like this.’
The next thing Delancort knew was the snap-click of the darts firing, and then his muscles on fire as the voltage surged through him. He hit the asphalt, quaking violently. He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t cry out, unable to do anything but hold on until the agony ceased.
‘Warned you,’ she said.
At length, the woman dragged him back to his feet and shoved him in the direction of the apartments. Delancort moved, one leaden footstep after another, dimly aware of her guiding him back into the building, then into the elevator, to the top floor. The stun gun vanished into one of her pockets, but he was so shaken he could barely conceive of the idea of resisting. It was all he could do to prevent himself from throwing up.
Delancort remembered that the apartments above his were vacant. There had been a water leak up there and the landlord had closed them off for refurbishment. The woman propelled him towards one of the doors, pushing him hard in the small of the back.
He staggered in through a hall stripped down to bare plaster, and then into a denuded space that mirrored his own living room. Floorboards creaked under his hesitant steps as he moved towards the only item of furniture, a metal chair. Without being ordered to, Delancort collapsed into it, working hard to normalise his breathing. Around him, the room was still and the corners were thick with shadows.
‘Who . . .?’ He tried to frame a question. ‘Why . . .?’
‘Did you injure him?’ A voice came out of the gloom and Delancort looked up to see an East Asian man with a serious expression and searching eyes. He addressed the woman. ‘That was not necessary.’
‘I don’t tell you how to do your job.’ Her voice lost its Russian edge, becoming harder to place. ‘He pulled a weapon on me. I had to show him that was a mistake.’
The man approached and offered Delancort a bottle of water.
‘My apologies. She has an unfortunate tendency towards violence.’
‘Yes.’ Delancort tried to recover some of his dignity. ‘Quite.’ He took the bottle and managed a mouthful. The shakes retreated, and so did the fog in his memory. He mustered the closest thing to a defiant glare he could manage, staring up at the woman. ‘I remember you now. You were there on the day Interpol came to the office.’ Delancort sneered, because they all knew that the ‘Interpol’ team had been a cover story for the Combine’s machinations. ‘You’re with ALEPH. Your name is Milost.’
She shrugged. ‘Call me Grace.’
Delancort looked away, back to the room’s other occupant. He searched his recall and found what he was looking for.
‘And you. Well, we have never met, but the Special Conditions Division had a file on you, Mr Saito. You tried to kill my colleagues.’
‘From time to time, we are called upon to do distasteful things, Mr Delancort,’ said Saito. ‘It is an unfortunate truth.’ He looked away, towards a half-open door across the room. ‘I know you of all people understand that.’
Delancort blinked. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ He straightened up. ‘Whatever you want from me, ask it. Stop playing games!’
‘Why did you betray Ekko Solomon?’
Saito’s question hit him like a gut-punch.
‘No . . . No, I did not. I tried to make him understand . . . Those terrible acts we were accused of – we had to stand up and decry them. If we fled, we looked like criminals! But he would not hear me.’
Saito gave Grace a cold look as Delancort spoke of the accusations against the Rubicon team, but she didn’t seem to notice.
At length, Saito’s attention returned to him.
‘So you stayed behind and you surrendered. To save your own neck from the executioner’s block.’
‘Yes.’ Delancort looked at the floor, his reply weighing him down. ‘I thought, if I stayed inside the circle, I could do something. Resist. But I could only stand by and watch. Everything we had built, taken apart. Demolished.’ A hot, bright ember of resentment kindled in his chest, and he crushed the plastic bottle in his grip. ‘Is that what you want to hear? Does that give you the excuse Glovkonin needs? I made the worst choice of my life and people are dead because of it!’ His voice rose to a shout as the regret and anger came boiling out of him. ‘I did what I thought was right, and I have paid for it!’ He pushed off, out of the chair, certain that every word he spoke now was one step closer to his death. ‘I pay for it every single day!’
‘Henri.’
He felt a firm hand on his shoulder. The voice was roughened and damaged but impossible to mistake.
Delancort turned towards it and his hand flew to his mouth in astonishment. Shock hit him at the sight of the man who had entered the room through the shadowy doorway. It was unmistakably Ekko Solomon, but in a state Delancort had never seen before.
He had always known Solomon to cut an elegant and suave figure, to be ready for anything. The change wrought on the man was unprecedented. His face was scarred around one ruined eye. He supported himself on a wooden cane. Like Saito and Grace, he wore unremarkable clothes of a military cut and there was a new stiffness in his gait that spoke to a bone-deep pain and injuries that were still healing.
‘Tabarnak . . .!’ The first cogent thought that formed in Delancort’s mind became a curse, a denial. ‘No! This is a trick. Solomon is dead. Dane told me so, and he would not have lied about that—’
‘Marc and Lucy, and the others, they do not know. Only a handful of people are aware I survived.’ He nodded towards Saito. ‘I am here because this one chose to keep this secret from his Combine masters.’
‘I do not believe it!’ Delancort took a step back, shaking his head. ‘I refuse!’
‘He makes a good point,’ Grace said, in an idle tone. ‘I mean, you could be a double for all Henri here knows.’
‘I am Ekko Solomon.’ His dark eye glittered. ‘I am guilty of every crime they said I committed. I am guilty of putting my people at such risk. I will show you.’
He pulled open his jacket and the shirt beneath it, then grabbed Delancort’s wrist, pressing his hand to the burn-scarred flesh of his chest.
Delancort felt something distinctive there. It took him a moment to realise it was an odd, crescent-shaped scar seared into the skin. Like the mark of a branding iron.
Delancort’s fingers touched the imprint where the keepsake Ekko Solomon had always worn around his neck had been burned into him. Lost in the explosion that the world believed had killed him, but now permanently etched into his chest, was the outline of the trigger from a Kalashnikov assault rifle. The gun Solomon had carried in another life as a child soldier.
Delancort found his voice.
‘It is you.’ Then he shook his head, a tide of sorrow and remorse filling him. ‘I let you down. I am so sorry, sir.’
‘Never.’ Solomon drew him into an embrace. ‘You have always been my most trusted friend, Henri. You have always done what you believed to be right.’
For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Delancort felt a flash of hope. He withdrew and sat back in the metal chair, his mind reeling.
