Viper Nine Read online

  The guard on the right held the radio on his lapel to his mouth. The radio next to Wells buzzed with static and relayed his message.

  ‘Status check, Position Three,’ the guard said in Russian.

  Wells grabbed the radio by his side and held it to his lips. ‘All clear up here,’ he replied in the same language.

  ‘Fuck it’s hot,’ the guard continued.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Wells replied, viewing the roof of the jail building in the binoculars. ‘You’re looking sparse down there.’

  ‘Yevgeny’s on a break and Helmut needed a piss,’ the guard answered. ‘Not like anything’s happening.’

  ‘Don’t let Kovac hear you say that,’ Wells continued.

  ‘Relax. They’ll be back in ten minutes,’ the guard replied.

  ‘Copy that.’ Wells said, placing the radio on the sand. He scanned the rooftop one last time and wriggled backwards on his stomach away from the ridge. He got to his feet and slid down a shallow rise of sand to where he’d left the body of the lookout Kovac’s men were calling Position Three.

  The British agent didn’t have long before the rooftop snipers returned. And while there may not have been an obvious route into the main compound, there was the option of the adjoining depot.

  Wells tossed the radio in the sand by the dead man’s corpse, a dark bruise and a bulge of bone under his skin where he’d broken the lookout’s neck.

  He jogged around the ridge and used a giant shadow cast by the rock as cover, sidestepping down a steep slope of compact sand. Reaching the foot of the angular rock, he waited for the right moment, when the patrolling guards would have their backs turned.

  As the two men crossed paths and walked back towards the jail, Wells sprinted out of the cool shade, across the open furnace to the left of the compound.

  The adjoining depot began inside the perimeter and ended outside of it. The depot itself housed a long, white box truck under a camouflage canopy. Wells made it across unseen and took refuge on the blindside of the vehicle. He snooped around the deserted depot and found a ramshackle stone building with a steel door, patchy with rust. He noticed an antenna on the roof and a satellite dish. Attached to the wall was a large metal junction box that appeared new.

  Kovac had pimped the abandoned prison to his own immediate needs. Those needs appeared to include signal jamming and a satellite link.

  Wells found the door to the auxiliary building padlocked. But the latch itself rusty and fragile. He slipped his pistol out of its holster and checked over both shoulders.

  With a single hard strike, he knocked the flimsy latch from its screws and let the padlock drop to the floor. Wells gripped the door along the edges and pulled the stiff panel of metal open.

  Inside the building, it was almost pitch-dark, the thick, stone, windowless walls acting as a natural buffer to the rays of the sun. Wells felt for a penlight inside a pocket on the leg of his combats and flicked it on. He ran the light over the walls and found little but a large open space with a grey circuit breaker box at the far end.

  Hurrying to the circuit box, he opened the flap and ran the light over each breaker switch.

  Shutting off the power wouldn’t be enough, so he shone the light on the rest of the room, following the beam across the floor to boxes of supplies in the corner. There were rolls of wire, containers filled with diesel and two large wooden boxes of ammunition.

  More helpfully, Wells spied a red metal toolbox with a small yellow scorpion climbing over the lid.

  He kicked the side of the box and the scorpion skittered away into a dark corner behind the fuel containers. Picking up the toolbox, Wells rested it on the boxes of ammunition and opened the lid. Inside were a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters with rubber handles, along with a screwdriver. Wells snatched them from the toolbox and returned to the circuit breakers. He paused as he thought he heard movement outside the door. Was it a scuff of boots or his imagination?

  After a moment of silence, Wells turned back to the circuit box. He threw the master breaker to off, held the steel cutters between his teeth and unscrewed the box from the wall, exposing the wiring behind.

  Wells switched tools and cut through a series of wires in quick succession, an eye on the door and an ear listening for further movement.

  He had to be fast. The first thing Kovac’s people would do when the power went down would be to suspect a trip caused by an overload to the system.

  Satisfied he’d done enough damage, Wells placed the box back on the wall and fixed it back in place as fast as the screws would turn.

  He threw the screwdriver and cutters back in the toolbox and moved to the door, flicking off the penlight.

  There he heard the quick shuffle of footsteps outside. The British operative backed up against the wall beside the door and waited in the dark, the only light coming through a gap in the bottom of the door.

  The door swung open. The two men who entered didn’t appear to notice the broken latch, with one testing the light switch. He cursed his luck in English, but with a German accent. His colleague was Russian, in possession of a torch. As he flicked it on, Wells noticed they were armed with pistols tucked in fast-draw waist holsters.

  ‘Breaker switch must have tripped,’ said one, as Wells slipped out of the shadows and through the open door into the light. He crept around the far corner of the building facing out to the desert plains. Grabbing his phone, he tried again to get a signal. This time it was good, the power cut having extended to the signal jammer on the roof of the depot building. It was strong enough to type out his co-ordinates and hit send to Anna.

  He was sure she would forward the coordinates on to Gilmore.

  Tucking his phone away, Wells dropped his sunglasses over his eyes, took hold of his rifle and moved from his position.

  Chapter 29

  Kowloon, Hong Kong

  Mo stuttered as he approached the dark-oak reception desk. A madam stood behind in a traditional red and gold Chinese dress matching the colour scheme of the hotel. She greeted him in Chinese and asked him if there was anything in particular he required during his stay. As the young techie stuttered some more, Lim stepped out from behind him and drew her weapon, startling the madam. ‘Yes, you can tell us where Attack Dog is,’ the Chinese agent said.

  She moved fast across the cherry-red carpet and around the back of the desk. The madam didn’t put up a fight, but reached for a button under the counter. Lim put her pistol to the ageing woman’s head before she could push it. Dragging her away by the arm, the madam yelped as Lim held her in a headlock with the barrel to her temple. ‘I won’t ask again,’ she said.

  The woman shook in Lim’s grip, pointing across the foyer, lit by a fancy, but fake chandelier.

  ‘Come on,’ Lim barked at Mo, dallying like a rabbit in the headlights.

  He hurried to her side as Lim forced the woman along a corridor branching off from the foyer.

  ‘If I were you, I’d leave,’ the madam said, her perfume as cheap as the gaudy makeup applied to her wrinkled skin. ‘Don’t you realise where you are?’

  ‘I know where we are,’ Lim replied. ‘Just stay quiet and keep walking.’

  ‘Over here,’ the madam squeaked, her short, stubby legs threatening to buckle. She nodded to a pair of elevators at the end of the corridor.

  Lim picked up the pace, but noticed a CCTV camera in the hall. It swivelled as they passed underneath, tracking their movements.

  ‘I told you,’ the madam said, as Lim noticed it.

  ‘What?’ Mo asked, none the wiser. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Keep going,’ Lim replied, hurrying the madam towards the elevators.

  She motioned for Mo to push the button.

  ‘You sure we wanna go up there?’ he asked.

  ‘Push it,’ she insisted.

  Mo did as instructed and gripped his laptop bag tighter to his chest like a comfort blanket.

  Across the hall from the elevators was a door to the stairwell. Through
the door, Lim heard the faint rumble of feet. She guessed at four pairs, descending fast.

  The Kowloon Dragons were coming. The elevator was stuck on five. There wouldn’t be time.

  ‘Back against the wall,’ she told Mo. He complied immediately, shrinking against the patterned cream wallpaper as if it was camouflage.

  Lim whirled around and held the madam held close. The floor shook harder as the drum of feet grew louder, and louder, until the door flew open.

  Lim fired without hesitation. One, two and three all down before they had time to blink.

  They were young men in casual clothing. Jeans, T-shirts, tracksuits and fake bling. Armed to the teeth but slow on the draw.

  Lim pushed the madam aside. She was neither a threat, nor of any use as a human shield. ‘Get out of here,’ she snapped.

  The woman ran free as fast as her knee-hugging dress and heels would allow, disappearing around a corner at the far end of the hall. At first Lim assumed she’d miscounted the number of feet on the stairs, but the door to the stairwell edged open, the barrel of a gun peeping out.

  She sidestepped out of the remaining man’s line of sight. As he stepped over the bodies in the doorway, he saw Mo and raised his pistol to fire. Lim raised her own and pulled the trigger. A bullet at point-blank range through the temple. His brains painting a whole new pattern on the vinyl walls of the hotel.

  Mo retched at the spectacle, struggling to hold down his airplane sandwich. ‘Was that necessary?’

  ‘You know who they are… What they do,’ Lim said, retrieving a second weapon from the fourth man down.

  ‘I’m aware of the intellectual rationale, but up close and personal, it’s a little too real.’

  ‘It’s going to get a lot more real, real soon,’ Lim replied, an eye on the elevator as it rolled down to ground level.

  She held the dead man’s weapon for Mo to take as the elevator rolled down to ground level. ‘Here, take this.’

  Approaching the gun like it was an infectious disease, Mo reached out and took it in an unsteady hand, turning it on himself as he peered down the barrel.

  Lim tucked a third gun in the holster inside her jacket and snatched the weapon back off him. ‘On second thoughts… Get back around the corner.’

  ‘I thought we were getting in the elevator.’

  Lim raised both semi-automatic pistols in her hand and stood square on to the elevator doors. As they pinged open revealing a half-dozen triads, she aimed and fired, emptying both clips for luck.

  In a flash, all six were down in a heap. One was still alive, slumped against the back wall of the elevator. He raised a Type 92 handgun. Lim dropped the pistols, drew her backup weapon and shot the lone survivor through the right eye.

  She beckoned Mo into the elevator, standing between legs and arms and pushing the button for the top floor. Mo tiptoed in, a hand over his mouth, breathing as if ready to throw up.

  ‘If you’re going to be sick, don’t be sick on me,’ Lim said, as the doors closed.

  To her frustration, they bounced right back open. She tried the doors another time, but again, the same result.

  ‘We’re too heavy,’ Mo said, pointing at a sticker on the elevator wall. ‘We’re exceeding the maximum weight.’

  Lim surveyed the damage – the bodies tangled in a pile. They would take too long to move and leave the pair of them prone to attack.

  Instead, she stepped back out, hit the button and waited for the adjacent one to descend. She armed herself anew from the dead, with a gun in the holster, the waistband and the hand.

  ‘Here, make yourself useful.’ She tossed Mo a spare pair of clips retrieved from the downed triads. He caught them as Lim jabbed the button a second time, the second elevator stuck on the tenth.

  As they waited, Lim wondered why she was there at all. She didn’t have to be part of this so-called team. Life as a lone-gun assassin was far more straightforward, far less risky and paid far, far more handsomely. Neither did each mission come with the same ridiculous level of save-the-world responsibility. Or the added burden of babysitting a bumbling bag of untrained nerves.

  Her actions didn’t make sense to her. Lim could do what she wanted, when she wanted, whether she’d signed a contract or not. After all, who was there to stop her? With the likes of the CIA, MI6, SVR and MSS out of action, she could put the word out to old contacts and operate without any restriction.

  And after a few million-dollar private-sector jobs, disappear forever. A new name, a new identity, a new life. An ordinary life. Husband, children, two cats and a spaniel. There was still time. Perhaps she could enrol at university and re-train in a more respectable profession. Dad always wanted her to become a lawyer or doctor. Lim always thought she’d make a good zoologist or vet.

  All she had to do was turn around and walk out of the hotel. It’s wasn’t as if Mo would have objections.

  ‘I don’t think it’s coming down,’ he said, looking up at the display panel.

  ‘They must have blocked it,’ Lim replied, closing her eyes in resignation. ‘There goes the easy way.’

  ‘So we’re just going to have to give up, right?’ Mo asked, ever hopeful.

  ‘No,’ Lim sighed, opening her eyes. She dragged him towards the door to the stairs. ‘We’re just going to have to do it the impossible way.’

  Chapter 30

  Juárez, Mexico

  Rios gripped the side of the pickup as it rolled left and right up the steep slope. The jungle road snaked through a vast, black sea of countryside.

  She felt fern leaves brush up against her back on the rear of the trailing pickup. Red Bandana kept a watchful eye on her and Pope. He stood with his back to the cabin of the truck as if he’d done it a thousand times.

  The sky was endless and the stars out in their thousands, the smell of magnolias sweet, in stark contrast to the apprehension lurking within.

  ‘So is this part of some authentic tourist experience?’ Pope asked, sitting across from her.

  ‘It’s authentic, for sure,’ Rios replied.

  ‘Come on, spill,’ Pope said. ‘What are we doing here?’

  ‘We’re going to see Carlos Montero,’ Rios replied.

  ‘The name rings a bell,’ Pope muttered. ‘Doesn’t he play for Real Madrid?’

  ‘He heads up one of Mexico’s biggest cartels,’ Rios explained.

  ‘Oh right,’ Pope said with a casual air. ‘So long as it’s nothing dangerous.’

  Rios smiled at the remark – her kind of sarcasm.

  ‘So you know the bloke, then?’

  Rios half-laughed to herself. ‘Not really.’

  ‘But you get on,’ Pope continued. ‘He thinks you’re cool and everything.’

  Rios looked ahead as the lead pickup pulled around the bend. ‘Just keep your mouth shut and don’t make eye contact.’

  As they rounded the bend, the hill road levelled off and the dense jungle fell away, revealing a grand hacienda with white stone walls and red roof tiles.

  It sat proud on the hill-top overlooking a sweeping vista of land, with the lights of Juárez in the distance.

  The pickups rolled to a stop in front of a large set of black iron gates manned by Montero’s personal security. The gates opened and they waved the pickups through, onto a long driveway lined by palm trees and lit by solar-powered posts.

  The driveway wrapped itself around a circular fountain in front of the mansion. Almost tasteful, it spat water in the air to the chatter of a lone cricket.

  The pickups rolled by the front of the house, past a yellow Ferrari and a gold-plated Range Rover. Rios curled her lip at the sight of it, while Pope gawped in wide-eyed wonder.

  ‘Bloody hell, this guy’s got some cheddar,’ Pope said.

  ‘The tenth richest motherfucker in Mexico,’ Rios replied as the pickups followed the driveway around the rear of the property.

  They came to rest under the shadow of a giant palm, Montero’s men climbing out of the pickup.

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p; Red Bandana motioned with his rifle. Rios got to her feet and hopped down off the pickup. Flanked by the cartel leader’s posse, she and Pope crossed the courtyard towards the rear of the mansion. A stretch of grass ran close behind a wire fence rising twenty feet high. Out of the bushes on the other side came a deep growl and a pair of feline eyes tracking their every move.

  A Bengal tiger slunk out of the bushes and prowled along the wire, sniffing the air. It stunk of cat-piss. Why would anyone want a pet that pissed and shat on an epic scale? It’s wasn’t just cruel, it was dumb.

  ‘What do you think they feed that thing?’ Pope asked, a gulp in his throat.

  ‘Whoever’s on the menu,’ Rios said, as Montero’s men led them up a flight of marble stairs into the main building of the estate.

  Inside, it was limestone wall-to-wall and mercifully cool thanks to overhead fans, yet all in the name of bad taste.

  ‘This place is awesome,’ whispered Pope.

  ‘Yeah, if you like lame-ass shit,’ muttered Rios. She motioned to a centrepiece display of fake fruit and flowers, arranged in a four-foot stone vase that mimicked Ancient Greece.

  Pope drank in the assholery. ‘What have you got against money?’

  ‘Nothing against money. Everything against plastic fruit.’

  The Australian grabbed a banana from the display and used it as a pointer. ‘You need to relax and enjoy life.’

  ‘You need to shut the fuck up,’ said one of Moreno’s men in Spanish, the nudge of a rifle barrel in Pope’s back.

  Making a right turn and passing a living space furnished for a king, they stepped into a huge office with pale-blue walls and white cornices. The brightest yellow sofas known to fuck took up the middle of the room, then an oak desk the size of Montero’s ego.

  A giant portrait of the man hung behind his desk. A very flattering painting of the cartel leader suited in white, in a throne-like chair with his Bengal tiger, Pedro, at his Italian leather feet.

  The portrait must have been new, Pedro sedated and the artist smart enough to make Montero a dozen years younger and slimmer.