Matthew Dunn - Slingshot

Disappointment hit Will. Telling Mikhail the truth had been the wrong decision. “To what end?”

Mikhail moved closer to him, his eyes cold. “Against my better judgment, I’ll get the authority from my premier to work with you and the Dutch. But Yevtushenko is a Russian matter. We will severely punish him and nothing you can say or do will stop that from happening.”

Alfie Mayne unloaded the last of the cases from the car’s trunk and carried it toward the vacation home. Located on the Isle of Wight’s stunning and rugged southwest coast, and overlooked by a down named after the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose magnificent mansion turned hotel was toward the top of the hills, Alfie had chosen the place because it was not only remote but had been the place his cash-strapped mum and dad had brought him on vacation from their south London council apartment when he was a kid. He remembered building sand castles on the beach, tossing crab lines into rock pools, eating cheese sandwiches that had been contaminated with sand, breathing the farmland smell around the trailer site they’d always stayed at, and drinking tea out of a flask with his mother while his father had tried to repair their worn-out old Morris Minor car on the side of a country road.

The ex-SAS sergeant wished his parents had been able to afford to stay in the large house he was headed toward; not for his benefit-he loved the excitement of sharing a trailer with his parents and waking up to the smell of wild mushrooms and bacon being cooked in the kitchenette-but for his parents, who’d never stayed anywhere more plush than places that called themselves bed and breakfasts but were really cheap rooming houses.

He placed the case down in the hallway and turned to face the cliffs and the beach beyond them. At age seven he’d run along the same beach, laughing so much his stomach hurt, as his father chased him wearing rolled-up trousers and a knotted handkerchief on his head while pretending to be the ghost of an ancient pirate.

It was a lifetime ago.

He walked into the four-bedroom home, past one room containing Betty, who was singing to herself while she unpacked clothes, and another where James was on the phone to his law firm, coaching someone on the wording of a legal report. In the living room, Sarah was sitting on the sofa, her knees bunched under her chin as she stared out of the window. She’d barely spoken during the drive down from Scotland, aside from telling Alfie that she wished he wouldn’t smoke in the car and could he please wind up his window.

He sat next to her. “Going to drive into Ventnor this afternoon. There’s a lovely fishmongers on the harbor there. Everything they sell is fresh off the boat, same-day catch. Fancy joining me for a spin?”

“No thanks.”

“Got something better to do?”

Sarah did not answer.

Alfie followed her gaze toward the window. Outside, waves were crashing over a beach that looked considerably less appealing during winter than it did during his summer vacations here. “My old man died out there when I was fourteen. Heart attack. Think all that rationing stodge he grew up on finally took its toll on the poor bugger. My mother never got over it, but she hung on in there until the day I joined up with the army. Then she let go. Funny, isn’t it? When they’re around, we think everything will be like that forever. Then they’re gone and you’re left with silly regrets.”

“Regrets?”

Alfie shrugged. “Few hours before he collapsed, me dad asked me to go fishing with him, just like we used to do when I was younger. I said no ’cos I was more interested in watching the pretty girls on the beach.”

Sarah looked at him. “Is this another of your little pep talks?”

Alfie kept his attention on the beach. “Dunno, petal. I guess being here just reminds me of stuff.” He glanced at her. “Given what he does for a living, it’s only a matter of time before your brother’s killed.” He returned his attention to the beach and quietly said to himself, “Yeah, should’ve gone fishing with you, Dad.”

Tibor entered the windowless room in CIA headquarters, sat down, and spoke to his Flintlock colleagues. “It’s over. Cochrane’s given up trying to find Yevtushenko.”

Damien slapped a hand onto the table. “Excellent!”

“Did the source say anything else?” Lawrence made no effort to hide his feelings of relief and joy.

“Only that Cochrane’s been deployed on another mission; that his attempts to locate Yevtushenko were deemed a failure.” Tibor smiled. “But reading between the lines, I think Cochrane’s superiors have given him an almighty kicking.”

Marcus chuckled. “Oh well. We didn’t get him killed, but hopefully we’ve screwed his career.”

The operatives were silent for a while. All of them felt as if a weight had been lifted off them.

Lawrence was the first to break the silence. “Gentlemen, we must be more careful in the future.”

“No shit.” Tibor straightened his silk tie. “Yesterday I bumped into the Director of Intelligence. He said that Patrick had been sniffing around the Rubner case. He’d sent him packing, but he asked me if there was anything about the Rubner case that he should know about. I told the DI that Rubner had probably lost his nerve and had done a runner, that there was nothing more to it than that. I added that Patrick was an interfering busybody who was probably trying to dig up old cases because he had fuck-all else to do right now. The DI seemed happy with that. Plus, when I got him talking about our North Korean destabilization operation, it was clear that Rubner was completely off his mind.”

The mention of Patrick unsettled Tibor’s colleagues. Though Flintlock was privy to most of the CIA’s secrets, they’d never been told what Patrick’s place was within the organization. Tibor was right to describe him in the way he’d done, because that was exactly how Patrick would be perceived by others in the Agency. But it was only recently that they’d learned from Peter Rhodes that Patrick was the cohead of the task force that Cochrane and Rhodes belonged to.

Lawrence asked, “You’re sure the director got him to back off?”

“Yep. Thank God the DI’s a rulebook guy. Patrick doesn’t have clearance to the Rubner case and his intelligence, so the DI tells him to mind his own business.”

Lawrence was reassured by this. Because they were the DI’s chosen ones, they all knew that he would crucify them if he ever found out the truth about Yevtushenko and Rubner.

Tibor stated, “Our priorities now are our other operations: North Korea, getting the bomb into the delegation’s building in Dar es Salaam, turning the Asian cells against each other, feeding more disinformation to the Saudis, and further positioning France against Germany.”

Damien frowned. “It would’ve been good to know who got Yevtushenko out of Russia and why.”

Tibor disagreed. “It will be for some low-level, chickenshit reason. Fuck Yevtushenko, fuck Rubner, fuck Cochrane. We’ve got big boys’ stuff to get on with.”

Kronos cupped his hand under the center of the rifle, lifted the weapon a few inches, and nodded approvingly. “Perfect balance.”

Leaning against a bench, a bespectacled gunsmith used a cloth to rub oil from his hands. Around him, the basement workshop contained more benches on all sides containing anvils, tools, manuals, electronic scales, spot lamps, magnifying glasses, a blowtorch, and gun parts. The middle-aged Dutchman pointed at the gun. “I modified parts from a German DSR-50 sniper rifle. It was a devil of a job. The customized magazine added an extra three pounds to the rear end.”