Never Forget Read online

  Never Forget

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Never Forget

  Richard Davis

  Prologue

  Thursday, December 10, 2015, 10:34 p.m. – 210 Chinaberry Lane, San Marcos, California.

  Crouching among the dumpsters, her body pressed against the cold brickwork, Juliette Dein contacted the men who’d come to kidnap her sister:

  Meet me by the back door, I don’t want us to be seen.

  Juliette clutched hard at the kitchen knife, and inhaled sharply.

  Her face was numb with adrenaline.

  Five minutes ago, Juliette couldn’t have been more relaxed: she’d been lounging and chatting with her sister, Liana, in Liana’s apartment. She’d noticed, of course, that Liana had seemed tense and jumpy, but that hadn’t worried her: her sister was often tense and jumpy. But then Liana had gone to the bathroom, and suddenly a voice – male – had emanated from the purse Liana had left on the coffee table:

  Liana. We’re in a white van outside. If you don’t come with us now, we’ll report you and your website to the FBI. Then we’ll kill your sister. You have five minutes.

  Juliette had immediately opened the bag, and pulled out a sophisticated walkie-talkie. She’d known that her sister led a secret double life – she ran a Dark Net website selling life-saving prescription drugs at slashed prices. Running this website, Juliette reckoned, had been responsible for the lion’s share of Liana’s anxiety over the past few years – after all, it was activity that could earn her a lifetime behind bars. But though Liana had reassured her it was impossible to decipher the identity of people running Dark Net websites, Juliette had always known it’d eventually catch up with her.

  And now it had. Someone had made contact with Liana, and – using brutal blackmail tactics – seemed intent on kidnapping her, and God knows what else.

  And Juliette knew Liana would dance to their tune, because their threats were severe.

  Juliette had no idea how long this had been going on for. But she knew one thing: that she had to do something – anything – to stop them.

  And so she’d picked up a kitchen knife, slipped out the backdoor of the apartment block, and contacted them back via the walkie-talkie – she reckoned her voice sounded enough like her sister’s that they’d reasonably believe it was her.

  And now she was praying they’d take the bait and head to the backdoor. She didn’t know how many men she was dealing with, nor if they were armed. In fact, the details barely crossed her mind. All she knew was that the best chance a slight twenty-two-year-old had of gaining the upper-hand was to harness the element of surprise.

  She started counting down from ten to steady her nerves. At three, two softly-moving silhouettes appeared within striking distance.

  Juliette launched herself from the shadows, slashed wildly at the face of the nearest figure, and stumbled off-balance as the man ducked and the knife missed its target. The next thing, a vicious fist smashed into her gut, while another struck her jaw. A moment later, she was pinned against the brickwork, a flashlight shining in her eyes, a semi-automatic weapon pinned against her temple, a surge of fear pounding through her neck.

  Juliette blinked twice, momentarily dazzled by the light. Then she saw what she was up against: two men, both dressed in simple black, both of East Asian descent.

  The gun-wielding man pinning her to the wall was tall, slim, wiry. The second, holding the flashlight, was shorter and broader, with a wide, greasy face.

  ‘Please,’ Juliette choked, ‘please don’t punish my sister. She didn’t even hear your message – I did.’

  The gun-wielding man glanced at the second, as though seeking guidance.

  The second man nodded. ‘It’s her sister, Juliette,’ he said simply. His accent was educated, American.

  ‘I’m begging you, please leave her alone. Don’t expose her. Take me instead.’

  Juliette was speaking out of desperation. She had no idea what they wanted, nor if taking her instead was remotely a possibility. But with so much on the line, she had to try.

  The second man stared at her hard. Then:

  ‘Where’s your sister?’

  ‘She was in the bathroom when you contacted.’

  He paused. ‘Here’s the deal. I’m willing to use you instead. I have a task that needs doing – it’ll take twenty minutes. If you do it, all this goes away. If you don’t, we’ll kill your sister. I’ll be leaving my friend here to kill Liana if you fail. Okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Juliette breathlessly. ‘Anything you say.’

  The broad man nodded slowly. ‘Follow me to the van.’

  The slim man released Juliette; then she and the broad man walked to the front of the building, approached the van, which had a small, bug-eyed driver, and got in the back. The vehicle growled to life, nosed from the curb, and shuddered to a stop a few minutes later.

  Juliette and the man exited. Even in the thick evening darkness, Juliette could tell they were on East Mission Road –the town’s busiest thoroughfare, though deserted at this hour.

  Without a word, Juliette followed the man two hundred yards down the sidewalk. Using a key-card, the man opened the door to an office building, and, lighting the way with his flashlight, led Juliette up four flights of stairs, until they reached a small office. The room was bare, except for one item: a sniper rifle, mounted on a tripod, leveled out of the window.

  Juliette turned to the man. He said:

  ‘Pull the trigger, and we’ll destroy all evidence incriminating your sister. But if you don’t, we will kill her.’

  Juliette took a deep breath, strode across the room, and, though she’d never seen a gun in real life before, instinctively positioned herself in relation to the weapon. Then she placed her eye to the illuminated optics. In the crosshairs were two individuals – a young man and woman – gagged, bound, and sat one in front of the other so that it looked like a single bullet would hit them both. The one to the back was resting against the stand that supported the town’s most beloved artifact: an eleven-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty.

  With a sudden sunburst of panic, Juliette remembered something she’d heard while half watching the news that morning. The story of those two youngsters who’d mysteriously been found dead in a small town on the California-Mexico border yesterday eveni
ng, and who’d seemingly been dispatched by a single bullet.

  Juliette turned again towards the man.

  ‘Is this for real?’

  The guy nodded. ‘We’ll destroy the rifle. Then everything goes away.’

  Panic continued to scream through Juliette’s head. Surely she couldn’t just kill two people. But the alternative was unthinkable.

  And so – swallowing the sickening hysteria – she turned back, and did the only thing she could to save her sister: she placed a trembling finger on the trigger and pulled…

  Chapter 1

  Friday, December 11, 5:07 p.m. – San Vincente Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.

  I was parked up in my rental Saab 9-3, knocking back a cup of coffee and smoking a Dunhill, when my radio scanner crackled to life:

  Speeding black Ford Crown Victoria. Wilshire Boulevard near Federal Avenue. Two occupants, witness didn’t catch the license plate. Car 16, you nearby?

  It was the sort of dull broadcast you hear routinely on the LAPD’s public police frequency. The sort of broadcast likely to disappoint any member of the public tuning in on their store bought scanner (as I’d been doing all day) hoping for a cheap thrill.

  That’s what Hollywood doesn’t tell you – that most police work is boring as sin.

  I yawned as squad car 16 responded five seconds later:

  Gonna give it a miss – we’re two miles away.

  No surprises there: a speeding car in LA was about as urgent as a cat stuck in a tree. Besides, by the time the squad car arrived, the speed demon would likely be long gone.

  I tapped my finger on my steering wheel, then thought, Fuck it, I’m a block over, and have time to kill – might as well check it out.

  Stubbing out my smoke, I fired my engine, and crawled round the block.

  A couple of minutes later, I spotted it: parked on the north side of the busy stretch of high-street near UCLA. But when I saw the two innocuous-looking East Asian men to whom it belonged – one behind the wheel; the other on the sidewalk, standing against the passenger door, holding an umbrella like a walking stick – I knew I’d wasted my time. And this was no surprise – after all, these guys had been speeding, not conducting a drive-by.

  Strumming my steering wheel again, I parked up on the south side of the road. But then, as I absent-mindedly scanned the opposite sidewalk, another individual registered on my radar – a woman fast approaching the Crown Vic’s vicinity.

  Sure, she was pretty. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was the way she was walking: purposeful, tense, strained.

  But though I registered that she was probably in her late twenties, also of East Asian extraction, maybe 5’6”, I was still only really half-watching her as she competed with the dozens of other distractions on the bustling sidewalk.

  But then I started really paying attention. Because as she drew even with the man leaning against the Vic, he momentarily pointed the umbrella at her thigh and almost immediately, the woman stopped in her tracks and clutched her leg, suddenly dazed-looking. The next instant, the guy placed his arm around the woman, neatly bundled her into the back of the car, and got in himself. Then the vehicle started moving.

  As far as I could see, nobody but me had noticed.

  Blinking with incredulity, I hit the gas, and started following.

  My first thought was: this is a professional job. Back in 2007, when I was working at the FBI’s Office of Intelligence, I’d investigated the case of Oleg Markov, an ex-KGB dissident who was assassinated at a bus-stop in DC by a Russian spy using an air-rifle concealed in an umbrella. So the apparatus indicated sophistication. But whereas with Markov the air-rifle had administered a ricin pellet, and the spy had fled to let the drug do its work, this woman – though clearly also drugged – had been abducted, too.

  This was more than a simple assassination attempt.

  But no sooner had I tailed the Crown Vic onto the east-bound lane of the I-10 than I started questioning my knee-jerk decision to follow. After all, I was a wanted man – a man who should be doing everything in his power to keep his nose clean. A man who should be tipping off the LAPD and returning to his goddamned life. And what was I intending to do once these guys got to their destination? I may have had plenty of historical experience in dealing with this sort of shit, but I hadn’t seen action for almost two years. And these guys looked capable – very capable.

  Then there was the small fact that I was completely unarmed.

  Already my heart was pounding and the metallic tang of fear was on my tongue.

  And yet I continued following. Because I knew not only that nobody else had tipped off the LAPD – my scanner was silent – but also that by the time the LAPD reacted to a call, it’d probably be too late. And I wasn’t going to have this woman’s life on my conscience.

  Besides, I knew I was lucky to be on their trail at all. The chances of someone calling them in for speeding had been slim. And the chances that they’d in fact been racing to kidnap someone, practically anorexic.

  Eventually, after twenty-five minutes of pursuit, and one tense spell during which I lost sight of them for maybe ninety seconds, the men came off the Interstate. Shortly after, they turned down South Pembroke Lane – a narrow road nestled between Washington Boulevard and West 18th, no more than 180 yards in length – and nosed into a small garage.

  I overshot the road, and parked in the next one along – South Hope Street. I was in a small nexus of streets which, though a stone’s throw from the Interstate, seemed practically deserted. And, like much of LA, it was rundown as hell: filthy clothes strewn on railings; rotting furniture populating the sidewalk; a faded billboard – ‘Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life’ – towering over the scene.

  The perfect urban environment to conduct covert activity.

  I walked quickly back to South Pembroke, and approached the garage I’d seen them enter – a dilapidated red building, scarred by graffiti. Then I poked my head round the vehicle-sized entranceway.

  The men were carrying the woman – who was now entirely unconscious, gagged, and handcuffed – from the car parked to the left-hand side of the space to a Volkswagen Transporter van, parked to the right. Now I was closer, I could see the men were both around six foot, lean, and well-built – though I couldn’t see whether they were packing heat.

  I had to work on the basis that they were.

  I moved back out of their potential line of sight, and took a deep breath. I knew I had to retrieve this woman. And I knew, also, that I had to act fast. For one thing, the van indicated that they were planning on transporting her a decent distance, and attempting an extended tail-job was incredibly risky. For another, the woman had god-knows-what in her system, and could be in urgent need of medical attention.

  But the woman’s state also narrowed my options for dealing with these men, because it meant I couldn’t simply kill them. After all, murder scenes are examined with a fine-tooth comb, and it’s nearly impossible to take a life without leaving some shred of DNA – a big problem when you don’t have the luxury of time to clean up your mess.

  An even bigger problem when you’re also on the run.

  I peered into the space again. The woman was now nowhere in sight – she was presumably already inside the van – and the two men were leaning into the car, and giving it a once over with handheld vacuum cleaners.

  The van was facing away from me, perhaps twenty-five yards away. My best bet was to get myself over to its passenger side, then catch the one who happened to come round my side by surprise. And I wasn’t gonna get a better chance to move across the room than right now.

  I darted over the threshold, and counting on the sound of vacuuming to tell me whether I’d been seen, started bolting across the black-top…

  The instant I ducked behind the van the hoovering stopped. For a sickening moment, I was convinced they’d seen me; that they’d shut off their vacuums to draw guns. But then they started speaking, and though they appeared to be doing
so in Chinese, I could tell by their tone they were calm. After a few seconds, I managed to pick out what sounded like a place name – Springfield or Springville – and then they transitioned to English.

  ‘Is that all we need to do to the Ford?’ The speaker had a generic East-Coast American accent.

  ‘Eventually all the cars will be incinerated,’ said the second man, in a similar accent but deeper tone. ‘But since we may use this one again, that’s thorough enough for now.’

  I could hear them moving towards the van.

  ‘So who’s driving?’ said the first man.

  ‘I will – you need to sleep. But here, take the bag.’

  The first man grunted. Then the footsteps came to a stop and the driver’s door opened and closed. I held my breath as I desperately listened for the next move – for whether the other man would walk around the front or back of the vehicle to get to the passenger side. And I was praying it’d be the back, because the windows towards the front would make it near-impossible to disable the guy without his accomplice seeing.

  After a second or two of silence, the guy – to my enormous relief – started moving towards the back of the vehicle.

  I also moved towards the back; then I crouched low and waited.

  All at once, the man – with a rucksack over his shoulder – appeared before me, and his jaw dropped. But, before he could react, I shot up, and drove my head into the underside of his chin, while pounding the left side of his ribcage with an open palm.

  Instantly, the guy crumpled into an unconscious heap. But while my blow stopped him falling into the side of the van, he still went to ground with an audible crunch. However, I got lucky: almost in the same instant, the other guy started the engine.

  Yet though the other guy wasn’t yet alert to my presence, I knew that if someone didn’t get into the passenger seat pretty damn soon, he’d realize something was up. And scarcely had I thought this when I stepped towards the passenger door, opened it, and got in.

  The driver, who was busy examining the fuel gauge, didn’t even notice I was the wrong guy. And I capitalized immediately: I reached over with my left hand, grabbed the seat-belt that extended over his left shoulder, and pulled it tight round his neck – while hugging him close to put his right arm out of action.