Avenger (22 page)

“Crawl into the roots!” he bellowed into the darkness. “As hard as you can! Now!”

For a split second, a total, terrifying silence fell upon the mangroves. Then, from behind him, back near the cabin, voices, men’s voices, began to shout.

“Fuck, there’s someone else out there!”

“Get a light on him!”

“Who the fuck is that?”

There was no mistaking the last voice. Godek Kajkowski, Voloshyn’s enforcer. Beams of brilliant white light suddenly exploded from the vicinity of the cabin like air-raid searchlights and streamed through the latticework of trees and vines, seeking Morgan. With the illumination saturating him, he found himself exposed, caught in a rare patch of wide-open space.

“Help me!” the girl cried from somewhere nearby, followed by a scream. “Help! Help!”

“There!” Kajkowski yelled. “Straight ahead.”

A hail of gunfire instantly followed. The short automatic bursts were from at least two 9mm sub-machine guns, most likely HK MP5s. The crack and ping of ammunition slicing and ricocheting through the heavy foliage of the vegetation sent Morgan flat on his face into the water. A lot of yelling ensued as the crew, safely ensconced behind the wire-mesh fence, barked directions at each other, laughing and goading, as they brought more firepower to bear upon the place where they’d spotted Morgan. To them it was a turkey shoot, nothing more.

But Morgan was already gone, scrambling clear of the deadly fire lane marked by the lights. He burst through vine after vine and branch after branch, the vegetation tearing at his face, eyes and hands, stumbling and falling all the way. Then he tripped badly and collapsed hard upon a fallen buttonwood tree, cracking his head against the stump. The impact dazed him for a second but then he was moving again, as quickly as he could manage in the darkness. Parallel to the beams of high-powered torchlight and endless bursts of wasted ammunition, he backtracked around to the cabin. He had no choice. He had to deal with the guns first – he was no use to the girl dead.

Throughout it all, her screams were unrelenting. She was hysterical. How had the life of a young woman come to this? Morgan knew. He was looking at them right now. Three silhouettes. The source of her misery. To them this was sport. Just fun. They’d released the girl, probably on the promise of escape, knowing her chances of survival in the crocodile-infested mangroves, in pitch darkness, unprepared and unarmed, were less than zero.

“Did you get him?” Kajkowski yelled.

“I think so,” came the excited reply. One of the young steroid abusers, no doubt, eager to impress his mentor. “I saw him go down over there.”

“Poor
Ş
tefania,” Kajkowski called out, taunting the girl. “You’re on your own again.”

“Domingo will take care of you!” yelled one of the others, laughing.

Morgan was close now, close enough to hear them clearly. Close enough to hear everything.
Ş
tefania.
Ş
tefania Yovenko. The girl from that night at Domingo’s Bar. The girl who’d been the Night Witch’s understudy in Hong Kong and who had been one of the positive IDs that had led Intrepid to the illegally obtained Belizean passports.
Ş
tefania Yovenko. “
She won’t come to any harm. You have my word on that.
” Voloshyn’s words stung his ears. So this was the Night Witch’s idea of the girl not coming to any harm.

As well as being close enough to hear everything, Morgan was also close enough to make his shots count. The M9 was up, extended in a classic double-handed grip. There was just enough light for him to line up the gun, his gaze sighting along the top of the slide and through the suppressor to the very center of the torches and all the brave talk. Ready, he closed his eyes to avoid night blindness from muzzle and chamber flash, took a breath, stabilized the weapon and began firing.

The festival at the cabin instantly lost its spark.

The silent cough of the suppressed M9 dropped both of the apprentices soundlessly. Only Kajkowski was spared, shielded by the other two. He was still taunting the girl, not even aware that his associates were dead. But he soon quietened down when he realized his boys weren’t joining in.

Kajkowski was no idiot though. He quickly doused the lights from the torches. Morgan fired again, blindly, where he’d last caught sight of the enforcer. Then Kajkowski recovered. He’d found an MP5 and began firing manically into the swamp straight at Morgan, hurling abuse with every burst.

Morgan didn’t have time for any more of this. He knew Kajkowski would drop the defiance soon enough and run while he still could. He was a sitting duck wedged between the back of the cabin and the fence and he didn’t have an audience any more. He didn’t have to maintain the bravado in the eyes of the stupid young assholes – dead young assholes – who had, up until just a few minutes ago, probably worshipped the bastard.

Morgan was back on the move, avoiding the erratic gunfire, trying to retrace the general direction he’d been traveling before the gunfight, to find the girl. But her cries had fallen silent and he was struggling to lock in on her last known direction.

“
Ş
tefania?” he called. “
Ş
tefania?”

He was too late.

She was gone.

Morgan tore through the mangroves like a man possessed. At first fear had taken hold of him, fear that he would not hold it together long enough to survive. Almost dropping the Beretta, he’d fought back the shakes that had followed him from England and come for him in the darkness. But then he’d wrestled his fatigue into a corner and thought of Beth’s face on the pillow of his king-sized bed back at the Rembrandt.
Come back to me.
It was all he needed. The fear evaporated and was replaced instantly by anger; this, and an all-consuming sense of frustration and failure, drove him west to the road. He, Alex Morgan, had failed
Ş
tefania. Christ knows what had become of her. He had lost her in the blackness of the swamp and now she was gone, taken in the most terrifying of ways, by an animal. It was primal, Darwinian natural selection; the strongest had prevailed and the weakest had perished. His thoughts were an unforgivingly relentless stream of what crocodiles did with their prey.

She would have struggled and fought as only a human being fighting for their life could, until the crocodiles pulled her under and drowned her in the most horrific of final moments. Right now
Ş
tefania’s body was being stored beneath the reeds and mangroves, beneath the sludge and the muck, stashed in some prehistoric meat locker to be tenderized by the warm water and parasites until the crocs were ready –
No! Fuck, no!
The branches and squadrons of insects struck at his face as he pushed his way from the stench, trauma and death of the mangroves, trying desperately not to think about
Ş
tefania’s fate.

Finally, he tripped and fell on to the edge of the road. He was clear.

Morgan stood up and gratefully filled his starving lungs with air again and again, until light-headedness threatened to topple him. He removed the suppressor from the M9 mechanically and carefully returned both to the holster beneath his shirt. Free from the swamp, his interest turned to the commotion happening back at Voloshyn’s villa. There was yelling and engines revving, and perimeter lights filled the night sky. The engines told Morgan he had only minutes before Kajkowski and the rest of his dogs would be scouring every inch of road along the edge of the swamp, hunting for him. There’d be none among them who would risk actually entering the mangroves, not even Kajkowski, knowing what was in there and what they used it for. No, they wouldn’t risk their own necks. They’d stand at the edge of the road, point their guns into the mangroves and clear by fire. Morgan had to get away from the area and back to the hotel before they put two and two together and worked out it’d been him out here.
Fuck
. They probably suspected it was him anyway.

He spat a mouthful of insect carcasses and dirt on to the road, took a long drink of water from the Camelbak, stamped as much mud from his shoes as he could and, using the Ka-Bar, slashed his saturated track pants into shorts to get rid of the shit and muck clinging to them, weighing him down. He threw the rags into the swamp on the far side of the road and started running, as fast as his tired legs would carry him, relishing the feel of the cool air against his skin.

“
Help me! Help me! Help me!
”
Ş
tefania’s pitiful cries played over and over in his head.

He was way beyond feeling any kind of impartiality toward this mission now. It was more than just a mission; more than just a personal need to avenge the death of his friend. He had seen at first hand what these people were capable of, their disregard for the value of another human life, and now that he had seen it, there was no objective distance any more. Morgan knew what had to be done. Fuck international justice. These fuckers didn’t deserve a cell. What happens in the field stays in the field.

Now it was war.

The following morning, Morgan slept until eight and then showered, dressed and took breakfast in the hotel restaurant. He began with scrambled eggs and bacon with toast, the obligatory long black coffee with two sugars, and finished off with some yoghurt and a concoction of local fruit.

Despite his general exhaustion, his return to the hotel after the hell of the mangroves went smoothly, considering, and without interference. Running steadily, pure adrenalin had powered him all the way back to the Paradise Palms within an hour. There had been no traffic along the road but he’d heard a lot of shooting back in the direction of the swamp about ten minutes after he’d set off. Just as he’d suspected – even armed to the teeth, the gutless bastards still wouldn’t venture into the mangrove themselves. But then his subconscious, practiced and objective, reminded him of the one pulling the strings and the reason why he was there in the first place. Darja Voloshyn: the cold, heartless, money-grubbing, androgynous bitch who made her fortune by trafficking in lives, and paid her attack dogs to kill anyone who didn’t toe the line. Her line. At one point, she was nothing more than a theory and a silhouette on Interpol wanted posters. Now, there was a face and a name. The Night Witch was no longer just a theory.

When he’d eventually reached the outskirts of the resort, he’d made his way to a discreet side gate normally used by the staff. Here he’d paused for a few moments, catching his breath in the shadows, then peeled the mud-encrusted trainers from his feet and tossed them, along with the socks, deep into the bushes nearby. Next, he removed the Camelbak and then the holster containing the Beretta and placed them both on the ground. He drank the last of the water and stashed the holster alongside the Ka-Bar inside the Camelbak. Finally he removed his shirt, wrapped it tightly around the water pack and, standing in nothing but the track pants he’d slashed into shorts, had quietly pushed the gate open and entered the hotel grounds.

He was in a quiet corner of the complex that, to the right, led into the hotel basement but, to the left, directly to the hotel pool. The place was almost in darkness but for a few perimeter lights. Keeping as much as possible to the shadows, Morgan had strolled casually up to the pool, grabbing a couple of guests’ towels already laid out on sunloungers for the morning along the way. Moments later he was submerged in the euphoric tranquility of the beautifully warm, crystal-clear water.

Forgetting the time and everything else, he’d swum around lazily, without a care. This was better than any therapy. He allowed his head to clear itself of what he’d just experienced. He needed his mind to be sharp if he was to proceed with his objective. There was no room for feelings getting in the way of a mission, and he’d given General Davenport his word, his personal guarantee, that he was up to this task.

Finally he submerged and swam the length of the pool twice, the water streaming across every inch of his body, every stroke cleansing him of the baggage he was carrying. Finishing back in the shallow end, he pulled himself up onto the edge of the pool, got comfortable, closed his eyes, and breathed slowly in and out, in and out, until his shuddering body calmed. Then he turned his face to the sky and opened his eyes to look at the moon and stars. Wherever he’d been in the world, no matter what he’d been facing, this simple private custom had been like a mental tethering point for him. It grounded him when he felt troubled or conflicted. It was, after all, the same moon from which he had sought counsel throughout his life, even as a boy. And, to date at least, it hadn’t let him down.

One of the hotel’s nightwatchmen had appeared in Morgan’s peripheral vision. “You OK, sir?” he’d asked. “It’s very late to be swimming.” And he’d pointed to a sign on the wall that read
NO SWIMMING AFTER
11
PM.

“Bloody hell, I didn’t see that,” Morgan had replied, in friendly fashion. “Sorry. I couldn’t sleep. Just needed to relax a bit and thought a swim might help.”

“OK. OK, sir. Try not to be too much longer though, otherwise they’ll kick me in my ass!”

The two of them had laughed in a shared sense of defiance; the foreigner breaking the hotel rules and the local man letting him.

“I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble on my account, mate,” Morgan had told him. “I’ll come out now and get my head down. The swim was all I needed.”

Back in his room – after strategically and very carefully rearranging some furniture to give him early warning of any potential intruders – he’d fallen into bed and had slept undisturbed until his phone alarm woke him at eight. The late-night swim had been what he’d needed. Now he was rested and fed and ready.

Signing the breakfast docket for his room, Morgan was approached at his table by the young doorman who’d greeted him yesterday. The guy seemed a little agitated, like he was under pressure.

“Hello, mate,” Morgan said. “You looking for me?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied, clearly relieved that he was about to be rid of this particular task. “There is a car, that Mercedes, waiting for you in front of the hotel. The man told me to tell you to …” There was a pause. The young man was clearly uncomfortable about the message he was required to pass on.

“It’s OK. Spit it out. Whatever it is.”

“The man told me to tell you to bring your bags and … and …”

“Yes?”

“To hurry the fuck up!”

Morgan laughed out loud and clapped the young man on the back. “Well, doesn’t he sound like a nice bastard?” said Morgan jovially, tipping the guy. “Could you arrange to have my bags brought down from my room, please? And have them put in the back of that miserable prick’s car.”

“OK, boss,” the doorman replied, smiling broadly. “I’ll take care of it myself.”

“Thanks. I’ll pull up a pew in the foyer and have a read of the paper while you get it sorted.”

“My guests arrive tomorrow.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” Morgan asked.

“That’s up to you,” Voloshyn replied. “Do you want the security job or not?”

“Possibly, but if I accept, we do it my way. These idiots need to know that. I don’t have any interest in Neanderthal pissing competitions.”

Kajkowski was standing within earshot, and Morgan heard the sharp intake of air whistling through his smashed septum as the jibe hit its mark.

“Agreed,” she answered, a little reticently.

“That’s my only stipulation. Let me take over and everything will go smoothly.”

“You can guarantee that?”

“If you let me do my job, yes.”

After a moment or two too long, she said: “I don’t trust you, you should know that. There’s something a little too arrogant and cocksure about you.”

“If this is a problem for you I can fly out today, it makes no difference to me. I’m already booked on the afternoon flight. You’re the one who sent the car to collect me. I’m here because I’m interested enough to get involved. If you’re having second thoughts, I’ll leave and you can have your gorillas look after the meeting for you.”

They were sitting at a dining table set up beside the pool. The morning breeze was coming in over the perimeter wall, the smell of the ocean and the cry of the seagulls reminding Morgan that he was with one of the most deplorable creatures he’d ever known, in one of the most isolated and idyllic locations in the Caribbean. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Voloshyn stood up and walked in silence to the edge of the pool. She was wearing a black string bikini under a short, sheer, leopard-print cover-up. She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept all night, which didn’t surprise him. He was expecting her to drop straight into the pool; she looked like she wanted to, but she didn’t. Instead she stared off vacantly into the trees, caught up in her own thoughts. He waited patiently, casually following her gaze across the rear area of the house, beyond the pool. It was the first time he’d been out here. Of course, last night he’d been on the other side of the wall.

He noticed a break in the trees on the far side of the pool, suggesting a path, most likely leading down to the big gate he’d seen that led out into the fenced tunnel and the cabin. He was wondering what had become of the two men he’d shot when Voloshyn began speaking again.

“I think the authorities are here, in Placencia. We had some trouble last night. Did you hear about it?” She turned and cast a suspicious, accusatory gaze at him. “Any chatter at the Palms?”

“I haven’t heard a thing,” he answered honestly. “What sort of trouble?”

“Somebody was watching my house. We don’t know how many of them there were, but they were out in the swamp. At night, in that swamp! Why the fuck would anybody want to be out there – day or night – unless they were after me, right?”

“It’s a big swamp,” he said. “How close were they?”

“Close enough.”

“Some cops will go to extraordinary lengths if they’re after someone. But how do you know they were there – what happened?”

“Godek and some of the boys were out.” She paused for a moment. “Checking the perimeter. They do that sometimes.”

“OK,” he replied.
They weren’t checking the perimeter, you bitch, and you know it.
“And?”

“They heard something out there. When they flashed their torches around toward the noise, they were shot at.”

“Could it have been locals, stumbling around in there? It’s pretty easy to discharge a weapon if you get spooked, especially at night.”

“Two of my boys were killed!” she snapped. “These people weren’t fucking locals. They were trained.”

She swiped away tears with her sleeve.

My God
, he realized,
she’s not sad that two of her bodyguards were killed. No, she’s panicked, scared for her own miserable skin. And the murder of the girl hasn’t even rated a mention.

“Jesus,” Morgan said out loud. “So, did you get raided? It’s highly unlikely that police would be undertaking a surveillance operation and then shoot people without following up.”

“What are you saying?” she asked, anxiously. She was facing him again now.

“Did you get
raided
? Have the cops been here since the shooting?”

“No!”

“Then I seriously doubt they were cops.”

Her stunned silence prompted him to continue.

“Cops would have followed up. They would either have launched a raid the moment the shooting started or they would have been ’round here in numbers at first light.”

“So who the fuck
was
out there then?”

“Well, consider the possibilities: A curious local who has a crush on you? A wayward fisherman camping out?”

“Now you’re just being an asshole, which you’re very good at, by the way.”

“Or,” he continued, undeterred, “it’s someone looking out for your visitors. Like a forward recon team, making sure that their boss is going to be safe here.”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course. The first time we met, you as good as told me you had the local cops in your pocket. The only ones who seem to worry you are the big guns: FBI, Interpol, whoever. Now I can tell you for sure that those guys wouldn’t be sitting on their hands if they’d been involved in a firefight last night. This place would be crawling with them by now. No, my money is on your potential business partners.”

“But why? I mean, putting me under surveillance … What the fuck?”

“Maybe this isn’t all as straightforward as you originally thought.” Morgan was relishing the unease he was causing her – it was written all over her face. “Maybe they’re not happy about that trouble in Hong Kong you mentioned. Have you confirmed that their main guy is actually coming or are you not really sure?”

“What do you mean? Of course he’s fucking coming.” Her face was contorted with annoyance and uncertainty. “You’re really freaking me out.”

“I’m paid to examine every possibility, the unexpected, the anomalies in a plan. If you’re trying to finalize this multimillion dollar deal—”

“Multibillion,” she blurted, biting a nail. “This deal is worth billions!”

“Right, billions,” he replied, unmoved. “Well, you need to be prepared for your partners to be as paranoid as you are. Who knows? Maybe this Triad guy has a twin, too. Just like you.”

Voloshyn dropped back into the seat across the table from him. He needed her to be on edge. She operated effectively, almost mechanically, when she was in total control of her environment. Morgan’s strategy was to take control away, including, most importantly, of the environment. Right now she was completely unsure what she was getting herself into. She wasn’t in control and this was uncharted territory for her.

“What time are you expecting these guys tomorrow?” Morgan asked.

“About midday. They’re coming in on a private charter.”

“OK, so we have exactly one day to prepare and, while we’re at it, to check and see if any new arrivals have been noticed in town.”

“OK,” she said. “Tell me what you need.”