A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1) (28 page)

The noise in the confines of the brick alcove startled her, so much so that she dropped the weapon after the second shot and tucked herself into the corner, her knees drawn up, face covered. Nicole closed her eyes, blotting out the violence. She heard the two men grunt and breathe and fight in the intimate noises of combat. Then she heard a barrage of shots ring out, heard a body slump to the floor with a groan and then silence.

* * *

With his imminent death approaching, Gorilla was pleasantly surprised to hear the distant report of a firearm being discharged, and even in his semi-unconscious state, he recognized that it was the bark of a small caliber weapon. The girl, it had to be the girl.

He smelt the charge from the weapon that was released into the air, smelt the metallic tang of blood, was even more aware of a cry of pain, and was relieved to feel the pressure on his throat loosen. He gulped in a breath through his swollen throat. His mind began to clear and he knew in that instant that he needed to act quickly if he wanted to survive the encounter. He felt the big man's single arm still attached to the collar of his jacket, so Gorilla spun his body around until they were face-to-face, or more accurately, chest-to-face, and grabbed hold of his opponent around the waist with his left arm, hugging him.

Gorilla's right hand snaked down to the concealed holster on his right hip, a quick grasp, a pull, and the weapon was up and out and jammed onto his hip in what was known in the trade as the retention position. The muzzle of the weapon had barely cleared the holster when he fired upwards in rapid succession, hitting the bigger man four times along the sternum. Gorilla felt the man tense, cry out and then drop to the ground.

Nicole slowly raised her eyes and there, to her relief, stood Gorilla; battered and bruised for sure, but alive and holding the pistol that was his calling card – and at the little man's feet lay the dead body of the monster who had very recently tried to kill them both.

Their escape from the alley and back to the apartment base was both tense and seemingly endless, with Grant insisting on running a series of discreet counter-surveillance drills to ensure they hadn't been seen or followed. They arrived back at the apartment almost an hour and a half later, just as dusk was starting to cover the city.

Following the shooting of the German, Grant had searched the body and found a number of items which might be useful. He stored them safely in his jacket pocket. He would look at them later, when matters were less pressing. He'd dragged the big man to the far end of the alleyway before concealing the body underneath the recess of some stone steps leading up to the next level of
Le Panier
. He covered the front of the recess with a series of boxes, crates and assorted rubbish. Judging by the amount of trash which had accumulated in the alleyway, it wasn't cleaned on a regular basis and would hopefully keep the body hidden long enough to aid their escape.

He collected the spent bullet casings and pocketed them, before finally dragging Nicole to her feet, brushing her down, returning her lost shoes and making it very clear to her that they had to 'bloody well get out of here'. She had moved slowly at first, with Grant almost having to drag her, but soon she was keeping pace with him as they endeavored to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the killing ground. A walk, a taxi, a walk again, followed by a bus, until finally, they reached the corner of their apartment building.

Nicole had immediately showered and remained in her room, keeping the door shut. Grant, sensing the trauma she was going through, thought it best to leave her to rest and hopefully sleep it off. He changed his clothes, washed out his cuts and bruises, made them both some food and set about dismantling the '39 at the dining table. Halfway through the dismantling procedure, he noticed that his hand was shaking.

“Shouldn't we get out of Marseilles, just in case someone has seen us? Isn't that standard procedure?” Nicole was standing in the doorway. Her voice was barely a whisper and lacked her usual vitality.

Grant looked up from the table, where he was cleaning and oiling his gun. She had been in her room for the past hour, he assumed to rest, but now she was wrapped in a thick jumper and looked pale and fragile in his eyes. He shook his head and spoke gently. “That might apply to the mainstream of SIS operations, but Redaction officers are built of sterner stuff. Until we hear differently, we stay put.”

Later that night, Grant removed the items he'd taken from the dead German from his pocket. They were interesting, to say the least. He laid them out on the floor and sat looking down at them from above. In the grand scheme of things, they were trivial; a book of matches and a passport, which was more than likely a fake. The passport was registered in the name of Anton Melton. It did, however, give enough physical details about the man that the Burrowers back home might be able to track down who he really was.

But it was the book of matches which really caught his eye; the sort of thing that could quite often be found on the bar or tables of a nightclub for free. The cover had the silhouette of a bright blue hotel emblazoned across the front and gave the name and address of the Hotel Azure in Marseilles.

Grant smiled. Some might say that it was nothing, only a book of matches. But no, he thought this was one big bloody clue and so far, the most tangible lead in tracking down the scar-faced killer Nicole had seen.

* * *

They had brought an MK. 123 radio set with them to Marseilles, which was to be their emergency communications source for passing information to London. It was old and heavy and just about fitted inside the suitcases they had brought with them, but it worked when it needed to.

Grant unpacked the MK. 123, connected the power pack and assembled the ancillaries. He checked his watch – 10.35pm – at that time of night only the duty communications clerk would be working, but the 'eyes only' would ensure Masterman was contacted sooner rather than later.

He then spent the next hour laboriously writing out his message in number code, a code which only the SIS communications desk and Masterman had the key to. Satisfied that he hadn't made an error, he sat before the radio pack, stretched out his fingers and began, slowly at first, and then with more competence to tap on the Morse code key. He sent it to Masterman's work name; SENTINEL – URGENT/EYES ONLY.

In truth, he hated the task of encoding and decoding, he hated the job of sending it through via Morse also. It made his head swim with boredom. But with Nicole, in her role as communications officer, temporarily out of action he had been forced to take over. So he tapped away; tap, tap, taaappp, tap, tap…
Anything but this,
he thought after another hour;
give me a brush past or a dead drop any day of the week, at least it's quick.

When he'd finally finished, he sat back and rubbed the tiredness from his eyes. Now all he had to do was wait and see if headquarters would act quickly. Knowing Masterman's temperament for decisive action, he didn't doubt that SIS's considerable assets would be brought into play over the next twenty-four hours. He just hoped things moved quickly enough to trap his targets here in Marseilles, rather than them being alerted and escaping. That was the worst case scenario; having to up sticks and start all over again tracking them across Europe, hoping to stop them before the next killing happened.

The scream from Nicole's bedroom startled him. He turned, undecided as to whether or not to go to her. Then the noise abated, turning into a whimper, then silence. He sat for a while, listening, not daring to move, but there was no further repetition. It seemed that somewhere in the deep of her mind, Nicole was facing down her demons.

* * *

The message was received minutes later by the radio listeners at the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham. It was passed as A Grade and then 'bounced' over to the resident communications clerk at Broadway. The SIS clerk took in the 'Eyes Only' and looked up the name of SENTINEL in the officers' cryptonym book. He noted the name of the Head of the Redaction section and then printed out the sheet.

The communications clerk checked for any errors and finding none, sealed the printout in a secure envelope which would then be hand delivered to the desk of the Head of Redaction.

* * *

The next morning, Nicole emerged from her bedroom to find Grant stacking up her luggage in the lounge. The mark on her face had cooled and she had disguised the bruising on her throat with make-up. “What's going on?” she asked.

Grant took in her haunted hollow eyes. He guessed she'd had a troubled night's sleep. “I thought it for the best,” he said simply.

Her eyes moved from him to the suitcase, a moment of confusion passed over her face and then came the dawning realization of what he was planning to do. “Oh, so that's it, is it? I've outlived my usefulness have I! You've got your confirmed ID's and I'm off the operation!”

Grant stared at the floor, hoping his meek manner would make her see sense. But he hadn't bargained with the steel inside the young woman who was his partner.

“Typical bloody selfish men, well don't you dare, don't you bloody dare! It's my problem, my body and my life and I'm going to finish this job!” she yelled at him.

“Look, the rules state that when an agent gets attacked in the field, it's an immediate return to home ground and—”

“Oh, what absolute rubbish! Since when did you care about rules and regulations? Don't start getting all sanctimonious on me, you, you… you… bloody
gorilla
!”

She had searched for an epithet to make her point; not finding one suitable she'd resorted to blurting out the first abusive remark that sprang to mind. She saw that it hurt him. Not so much the using of his cryptonym in a derogatory manner, but with the amount of venom it was delivered with. He stood, chastised, ashamed, like an adulterer who had been caught out. She knew she needed to maintain the momentum, had to stand her ground if she had any chance of remaining on this operation. “Have you cabled Masterman?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “About me? About what happened to me?”

“No, I haven't, not yet anyway. I just gave him the bare bones, the German, the hotel. Nothing about what happened. I just said we were both fine.”

Well, that was something. She was still in with a fighting chance. If Masterman had been informed, her feet wouldn't have touched the ground and she would have been on the first flight home. In truth, she had thought about packing her things and heading back to London herself, more than a dozen times last night. Her frailty and vulnerability had almost been too much to bear.

But somewhere near when dawn had broken through the windows, she'd found some inner strength, perhaps some abject stubbornness that made her want to stay. She imagined the voices raised back in London, could almost hear them now. “Oh yes, young slip of a girl – Quayle gave her a shot at field operations. Sadly, she crumbled when the pressure was on; we sent her back to the typing pool. It's safer for everyone in the long run.”

In time, she knew her name would be forgotten and the old and the bold would simply refer to her as a generic woman. Nicole… Sarah… Madeline… something, something. All women would be tarred with the same brush, and
that
she could not allow. Nicole decided there and then that she would leave this operation when and how
she
decided to, and she wouldn't be dictated to by the British Secret Service. She turned her full gaze on Grant. “Then listen to me, you don't tell them anything. This is as much my operation now as it is yours. I'm not in the habit of quitting anything halfway through.”

“Nicole, look you've been through hell—”

“
Yes!”
she shouted at him, probably far more severely than she'd meant to. “I have, but I'm here and I'm still fighting.”

They settled into a truce for the next day and kept to their own space, only coming together to eat at meal times or for Grant to report that nothing had come in from London. He knew she needed time to heal and he was determined to give her as much as he could. His only concern was that they might have to throw themselves back into the field at a moment's notice, and he wasn't sure she was up to it… yet.

But with time comes healing and both Grant and Nicole soon relaxed, albeit temporarily, into the idyll of each other's company. “You up for doing some work?” he asked.

She was reading a magazine on the couch, her feet tucked under her legs. “Of course, what do you need?”

“Can you man the radio set; Masterman should be checking in soon. I want to have a look at this Hotel Azure, get a feel for the place.”

She put down the magazine and stood up, ready to get started. “Okay. But isn't that a bit risky? Why don't we just let the Hawkeye team take over when they arrive?”

“Oh, I will, don't worry, it's just that Hawkeye teams look for patterns, evidence, clues. I need to look it over with my own eyes. I'm looking for something different. I'm looking for things they might not notice or even be aware of.” He noticed a cloud pass across her face. Was it the thought of getting back into action that worried her? The possibility of new violence, perhaps, or the gravity of the mission they had to cope with? “How are you? You look better,” he said, breaking the silence.

She ran a hand across her face self-consciously. She was still shaken by the whole experience, she knew, but the bad dreams weren't as intense and had grown more diluted. “I feel better. Thanks. I'm alright, I just want to get on with the job and see it through.”

“Good. I'm glad you're staying.” The silence returned again before he said quietly, “Thank you.”

She was taken aback. “What for?”

“Well, if you hadn't used your gun, I'd be dead by now.”

“It wasn't much of a shot, I'm afraid. It scared the life out of me.”

“It was enough. You learned a valuable lesson, something that no training course could teach you – that when you face off against a bigger opponent and you draw a gun, you damn well better be ready to use it, otherwise you'll put everyone at risk. You meant to kill him to save me; the rest is just down to practice.”

The tears began to well in her eyes and she brushed them away. “I just feel like a bloody fool. If I hadn't gone off on my own and got trapped… I hate the thought of having to kill another human being, no matter how repulsive they are, but when I saw what he was going to do to you… I just got angry.”

Nicole stared down at her hands, and Grant couldn't tell if there was still rage inside of her or if she was ashamed. “Let's forget it. It's done. We'll call it even,” he said and wondered, if for the second time in their relationship, he hadn't completely misjudged her.

* * *

Later that day, the radio chattered into life. Nicole sat down in front of it at the dining room table, picked up a pencil, placed the headphones on her head and began to note down the strange rhythm of the code.