Authors: Kevin Wignall
Chapter Two
He went back to the hotel just after lunch to wait for Charlie and Benoit, but couldn’t settle in his room. The news from Hugo had already started to work on him, putting him on edge, plying him with unanswerable questions—how would they come for him, would it be someone he knew, who could he trust?
So he moved down to the lobby and found a good spot to watch over the people coming and going. He couldn’t imagine anyone knowing he was here, not yet, but it didn’t hurt to be vigilant.
Just after three, a cab pulled up and Charlie got out, alone. He walked in, carrying an overnight bag, looking as if he’d been built on a larger scale than the people around him—he was too big to be inconspicuous and yet it was amazing how often his size was the only thing people remembered about him.
Charlie scanned the lobby as he walked, and when he spotted Dan he smiled and changed course.
They shook hands when he got there and sat down again as Dan said, “Where’s Benoit?”
“Didn’t show. And before you ask, I tried to call him—he’s not picking up.”
Dan didn’t want to believe Benoit had been caught up in the same business, not least because it would mean it was already getting a little too close to home but, instinctively, he knew this wasn’t good.
“You speak to Isabelle?”
Charlie seemed relaxed and said, “Yeah, she said he had to go away the day before yesterday, didn’t say where. But he should’ve told me if he had another job. Will it be a problem?”
Dan shook his head as he said, “No, as it turns out, I wouldn’t have needed him anyway, but . . .”
As if making the link at a subconscious level, Charlie interrupted, the tone of someone passing on news that didn’t directly concern them, saying, “Did you know Paul Gardener’s dead? Someone broke into his house.”
“Yeah, I know.” Something about Dan’s tone snagged and Charlie looked at him askance. “I had a call from Hugo this morning. Rich Woodward’s dead too, killed in a street robbery in Athens. And so is Karl . . .”
“Karl Wittman! I only spoke to him . . .” He ground to a halt, trying to remember when they’d last spoken.
“He’s dead. They’re all dead. Worse, Hugo thinks it’s concerted, and he thinks it’s intensifying. Karl was shot execution-style, left on a building site.”
“Fuck.” Charlie brought his hands up and cupped them over his mouth, the sound muffled as he repeated quietly, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” When he lowered his hands again he said, “Does he know who’s behind it?”
“He said he’ll make some inquiries. I’ll call him tomorrow. But he does have a theory, and if these killings are as organized as they appear, I’m inclined to agree with him.”
“Bastards.” Dan didn’t need to spell out who they thought it might be. He also knew what Charlie’s next move would be, and he watched patiently as Charlie took his phone and tried to call Benoit again. He shook his head as he lowered it a few moments later and said, “Voicemail.”
“He didn’t speak to you before he disappeared? Nothing to suggest he was nervous?” All the while, as Dan spoke, Charlie was shaking his head, the concern growing greater. “Okay.”
Charlie and Benoit had always been closer, even after Benoit had settled a year or so back, and he said now, “What will they do, Isabelle and the baby?”
Dan smiled and said, “Don’t write him off yet. For all we know he could be lying drunk somewhere with his old Legion buddies.” Charlie nodded, not really buying it. “Look, we’ll find out more tomorrow. For now, we concentrate on getting this job finished.”
Charlie nodded again, making an effort to focus on the task at hand, and said, “Envisage any problems?”
“I don’t think so—finding him was the tough part. Why don’t you check in and we’ll take a walk over there.”
Charlie smiled without much conviction and stood up, saying, “Give me ten minutes.”
He was a little more than that, but it didn’t matter, and only gave Dan more time to think about Benoit not showing. He didn’t want to think the worst because he was a decent guy and had finally done what so many of them had failed to do and built himself a life, but Dan had a bad feeling they wouldn’t be seeing him again.
The best-case scenario was that Benoit had been tipped off or that he’d read the runes better than the rest of them, that he’d gone into hiding on his own, protecting Isabelle and the kid by being away from them. More likely was that they’d picked him up and it was only a matter of time until the body surfaced.
Charlie had clearly been thinking about it too, because as they walked from the hotel together, he said, “I don’t think Benoit’s been caught up in this. He’s too good to be taken down that easily, too smart.”
Dan didn’t want to point out the obvious. Karl Wittmann had been one of the best people he’d ever worked with—tough, resourceful, scarily efficient—so if they’d taken him down they could take any of them. In Dan’s view it didn’t matter how good a person was, no one could cover all the angles, so it was just a matter of taking them when they weren’t looking, or when they were crossing the street with their mind on something else.
He didn’t want Charlie to dwell on it, so he said, “If it’s all about being smart you’re in serious trouble.”
Charlie laughed and threw a playful punch at his arm, still powerful enough to register and knock Dan slightly off his stride.
When they got to the apartment, Charlie looked through the scope and said, “Now that is one hell of a view. What a piece of luck finding this place.”
“A small piece of luck. I pulled strings.”
“I bet you did,” Charlie said without taking his eyes away. He seemed to have temporarily forgotten the other business, and Benoit’s disappearance, and he smiled as he said, “Wow. His wife is
very
attractive.”
“Dark hair?”
“That’s her.”
“Actually, that’s the nanny. His wife’s blonde.”
“Okay, so the nanny is very attractive. Even better.”
Dan checked the time and glanced down to the street now. Sure enough, there they were just coming around the corner.
“Here’s Martinez walking back with the boy.”
Charlie reluctantly pulled away from watching the nanny and looked down to see Martinez strolling amiably along the street, chatting with the boy who seemed to be explaining something about his day, some description that involved lots of arm movements.
It was such an inconspicuous sight, one probably seen in neighborhoods the world over, but Charlie watched their progress as if looking at something extraordinary, and finally said, “It’s amazing.” He turned to Dan. “No bodyguards at all?”
“Not that I’ve seen. Makes sense in a way—bodyguards would only make people suspicious, maybe question who he really is. His real security was that no one knew he was here.”
“You did.”
“Yeah, well, no one can disappear completely.”
Charlie nodded and said, “How do you wanna take him?”
“We’ll do it in the morning.” He pointed along the street. “He turns right up there, into a long street, very quiet. We’ll be able to park up, take him on the school run.”
“On the way back?”
“No, on the way there. I don’t think he’s armed but, whether he is or not, he’ll be more compliant if his kid’s with him.”
He looked back to the street, though Martinez and the boy had already disappeared into their building. They both looked across then, Dan picking up the binoculars, and waited until the two of them emerged into their apartment, a flurry of domestic activity engulfing them.
Almost to himself, Charlie said, “He’s had a good setup here.” Implicit in that was the acknowledgement that it was about to come to an end, that regrettably, they were about to end it. “I could live like that. Couldn’t you? You know, don’t you ever wish you’d settled, had kids?”
He realized immediately what he’d said and stood back from the scope, turning to Dan with a look of horror.
Dan lowered the binoculars and smiled as he said, “Don’t.”
“Dan, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
“I know what you meant, don’t worry about it. It was a long time ago.”
Charlie shook his head, clearly still angry at himself for that careless comment. The irony was, it was referred to so rarely, Dan was so reluctant to discuss or even acknowledge the wound he’d carried around these last seven years, that Charlie’s momentary lapse was hardly surprising.
“I’m still sorry. I know you don’t like to talk about it, but I . . . I don’t know.”
“You got that right.” He laughed a little, trying to show Charlie it really didn’t matter, then said, “So let’s concentrate on getting this guy back to Venezuela, then we’ll see what we can do about our own futures.”
Charlie nodded and they both turned and looked across the street, at the Martinez household as it eased into the evening ahead of them. Ramon Martinez would have absolutely no idea that this was his last night of freedom, that everything would change tomorrow.
Maybe Charlie was thinking along the same lines as he watched, because he said, “You think we’re in trouble?”
Dan smiled. It was a question he’d asked Dan many times over the years, and he always seemed reassured by Dan’s stock response, “Nothing we can’t handle.” Dan hadn’t always been as certain as he’d sounded, but it had always ended up being true.
“Nothing we can’t handle,” he said again now, and even without looking he knew Charlie was smiling too.
Chapter Three
It was another fine morning, the promise of heat later, and Dan and Charlie were parked part of the way along the side street, just around the block from the Martinez family’s apartment building.
Charlie was in the driver’s seat, and Dan had a city map opened out on the dash. They were facing away, but with the mirrors arranged to give them both a good view of the street behind them.
Dan spotted them first as they came around the corner, Martinez and his boy. They had that same relaxed attitude about them, as if nothing could possibly go wrong on this sunny autumnal morning, in this particular neighborhood.
“I see them,” said Charlie, responding to the subliminal change in Dan’s body language. He studied them in the mirror and added, “I’m glad it’s just a pickup.”
Dan nodded in agreement, although this was more typical of their work anyway—they picked them up, usually so that other people could kill them at leisure.
He slipped the gun under the map and waited. Martinez had become so comfortable living here that he didn’t seem to notice the car, and didn’t look uneasy even as Dan opened the door and stepped out.
Martinez saw the map and started to preempt him in Spanish, but fell silent in response to something he saw in Dan’s expression.
Dan glanced at the boy, then said, “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it needs to be, Mr. Martinez. Just get in the car.”
Martinez nodded. He was calm, but he’d probably inferred that any difficulty would involve his son in this, and he was clearly desperate to stop that from happening. He turned to the boy now and spoke rapid reassurance, and Dan picked up enough to know that he was explaining that he had to go with these men, that the boy was to go home.
Martinez climbed into the back seat of the car, but the boy stared at him, bewildered, and said, “Papa?”
The word sent a chill down Dan’s spine, memory spilling in on the back of it, but Martinez called back with cheery reassurance to the boy. Dan climbed in beside him and closed the door, and Charlie started the engine. He didn’t pull away though, and glanced at Dan in the rearview.
Dan looked out of the window. The boy was still standing there, confused rather than upset, but looking completely lost.
“Charlie, he’s right around the corner from his building—he’ll head back once we pull away.”
Charlie turned and said, “You can’t just leave him there.” Dan looked askance at him, an answer in itself, but Charlie persisted, saying, “Dan, he’s a little kid. Anything could happen to him.”
He wasn’t sure what his life had come to that Charlie Hamsun was now his conscience, but he shook his head and said, “Okay, watch Martinez and I’ll be back in a minute.” He turned to Martinez and said, “If you try anything while I’m gone I’ll kill you and your family.”
He handed his gun to Charlie, opened the door and climbed out. The boy immediately stepped back in fear but, once again, his father’s voice came cheerily, telling him to go with the man.
Dan started along the street and the boy fell in with him and put his hand in Dan’s. The touch of his warm little hand sent a jolt through him. Maybe it was because of what Charlie had said the day before, or because of the boy using that word,
papa
. Maybe it had just been playing on his mind since following them the previous morning.
He was younger than Dan’s boy would have been, maybe only five or six but, whether or not, the memory was as raw as ever. And just as raw, his anger with himself for feeling like this, certain in some way that he had not earned it. He pushed the thoughts away, smothered them, and thought only of the job, the here and now.
The boy let go of his hand as they reached the building, perhaps feeling he was on familiar ground again. And he pressed the buttons in the elevator and knocked on his own apartment door when they got there.
Dan rang the bell too, out of the kid’s reach, and was about to walk away, but the door opened instantly and the nanny was standing there looking at them. She said something to the boy, confused and surprised, then looked up at Dan and said something else—again, he knew enough to know that she was asking what was going on.
Their eyes met, and he wasn’t sure whether she knew the truth of her employer’s identity, or if it was something about Dan that told her all she needed to know. Either way, she said no more, but kept her big dark eyes fixed on him as she shepherded the boy back inside, edged backwards herself, and closed the door.
Dan headed down the stairs and back around the corner. As he climbed into the car, Charlie handed his gun back, but Dan was aware of Martinez looking at him expectantly.
Dan turned and said, “He’s fine. I left him with the nanny.”
“Thank you. He’s not streetwise.” He looked mournful and resigned as the car pulled away, and a few minutes elapsed before he said, “Are you CIA? Or working for the CIA?”
Dan looked at him and said, “No, Mr. Martinez, you’re going home.”
“I see. The government or . . .”
“The government.”
He looked surprised, and perhaps relieved. It seemed that, out of the three possible scenarios for what had just happened to him, the CIA was the worst, private concerns second, and the Venezuelan government the most preferable. Dan wasn’t sure why that might be and didn’t really care—he was just being paid for tracking the man down and handing him over.
The airfield was quite a way out of town and Martinez seemed happy to sit in silence, staring out of the window at a city that had been home but that he would probably never see again. Dan thought of the way he’d looked walking with his son and imagined he was thinking of that too, of the years that he would lose with his family. It was too bad.
When they arrived, Dan left Charlie with the car and walked Martinez into the small office. The three Venezuelan intelligence officers had been sitting drinking coffee, but all stood when they came in and seemed to treat Martinez with a degree of respect. Dan guessed the man had been right to see this as the most favorable option, no matter what happened from here on in.
Martinez turned and offered his hand to Dan, saying, “Thank you, Mr . . .?”
Dan shook his hand, but said, “Dan. You don’t need to know my other name.”
“I thank you anyway, for making sure my son got home, and for not making it . . . difficult.” He looked curious then, and said, “How did you find me?”
“You left a trail, everyone does, very faint in your case, but still there. I just followed it.”
Martinez nodded understanding, and said, “So that makes me wonder if your other name is Hendricks.”
“Like I said, you don’t need to know who I am. I didn’t do this. Have a safe journey.”
As he came back through the office door, he could see Charlie was out of the car and on the phone. He strolled over, enjoying the warmth on his skin now that the job was done, but then he saw Charlie’s face fall, saw him lean back against the car, almost as if he needed it for support. This could only be about Benoit, and Dan knew it had to be the worst possible news.
Charlie hung up as Dan reached him and looked ashen as he shook his head and said, “They found Benoit in the trunk of his car at the airport, bullet in the head.”
The news created a strange disconnect, between what Dan thought he ought to be feeling and what he actually felt. Benoit had been a good friend, perhaps as good a friend as Karl, more so than Mike Naismith, but he hadn’t seen him much in the last year and couldn’t quite find the right emotional response.
Charlie looked as if he’d been physically weakened by the news, his huge shoulders slumped, his face leeched of color. They’d been closer, of course, spending a lot of time with each other even after Benoit had become a family man.
“Was that Isabelle on the phone?”
It took a moment for the question to register, and he said, “Her mother. Isabelle’s sedated.” Charlie looked at his phone, as if it might provide some answers or guidance, then said, “This wasn’t meant to happen.”
Dan said, “Turn your phone off.” Charlie did as he said, automatically, but he looked cut up, his mind elsewhere. “I know you’re upset, Charlie, but we’re as dead as he is unless we move fast.”
Charlie nodded, zoning in again as he said, “Okay, what do we do?”
Dan smiled, acknowledging that Charlie was back with him, focused. And they would need to remain focused now, vigilant, ready for the assault that would certainly come.
“You drive. We make straight for the airport. I’ll call Hugo on the way and just hope he’s turned something up.”
Behind them, the engines of the private jet fired up and they both looked beyond the building to where it sat on the apron. Dan thought of Martinez, how hollowed out the guy had to be feeling at being taken away from his family, the future uncertain. Perhaps, but as Charlie had said, he’d had it pretty good there for a while.
As soon as they were driving, Dan put in the call and when Hugo answered, he said, “Tell me you’ve found something, because I just heard Benoit Claudel took one in the head.”
“I heard about that too, and it doesn’t surprise me. Things are moving fast.” There was a pause, and then he went on, “It’s the worst-case scenario. Seems they’re purging people who worked the dark side for them, and they’re serious, which I guess you knew already.”
“Okay.” As Dan replied, he was making a series of calculations, how long could they survive in this kind of environment, what would it take, where would be the best place to disappear?
Then Hugo shut off those thoughts when he said, “There is something else. I had a call from Patrick White. He wants to set up a meet with you.”
Dan felt a spike of adrenalin, sensing the promise but also the dangers implicit in that information. Patrick White was the man who’d brought them so much of the work for which Dan and his associates now seemed to be paying such a heavy price. So maybe the meet was a setup, a way of adding Dan to the list, but that didn’t seem like Patrick’s style, somehow, and that in turn held out the possibility he was being offered a way out.
“Did he leave a number?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Okay, patch it through to me and I’ll see what he wants.”
“I’ll do that.” There was the briefest of pauses before Hugo said, “Is Charlie with you?”
“Of course.”
“Am I on speaker?”
“No.”
A few seconds elapsed this time, long enough that Dan began to wonder if he’d lost the connection, but then Hugo said, “I’m hearing chatter. They checked your place in Paris two days ago but, of course, they have no idea where you are. So they did Benoit while they were in the city. They’re heading out to Charlie’s place next, maybe as early as tonight.”
That would make sense in a way. Charlie had a place about halfway between Annecy and Bonneville, a reasonable next stop for them after Paris.
“How sure are you?”
“Pretty sure. And look, Dan, you know I like Charlie, but you have to concentrate on you. Let Charlie take the heat, and use that head start to get your ass out of Europe.”
Dan smiled, admiring something about Hugo’s ruthless streak. Dan made him a lot of money and it was that income stream that really concerned him.
“I hear you, Hugo, and thanks. I’ll be going offline for a few days, but patch that number, and anything else you can find out.”
He ended the call and switched off his phone. They drove in silence for a little while.
It was Charlie who broke it, finally saying, “Langley?”
“Yeah.”
“Hugo suggests sacrificing me?”
“Yeah.”
Dan laughed, and then so did Charlie and said, “That bastard! I’ll teach him a lesson one day.”
Dan nodded, not even bothering to defend Hugo’s character, then said, “He thinks the team that killed Benoit are on the way to your place, probably tonight.”
Charlie looked across at him, saying, “But I’m not there.”
“No. But we will be by tonight. Let’s find out what these guys are up to.” Charlie smiled at the prospect of some payback, but Dan pointed ahead, reminding him to keep his eyes on the road, then added, “And Patrick White wants to meet me.”
Charlie risked another sideways glance, and said, “A setup?”
“Could be. I guess I’ll know when I see him. But we’ll see what we can find out tonight first.”
“Yeah!” Charlie hit the horn triumphantly, immediately getting a reply from some other random car. “Fuck, yeah!”
He laughed, and Dan laughed too, though he suspected they both knew that it was little more than bravado, that there was a limit to what they could achieve on their own. And Dan couldn’t help but wonder if they’d already made a wrong move, because, right now, he suspected, they both should have been on that plane to Venezuela.