Adrian Magson - No Kiss For The Devil

‘Fine by me,’ he said easily. He had already taken care of the man he believed was responsible for Helen’s murder. The white heat that had allowed him to deal with Pechov was now beginning to seep away. He could leave the fate of the man who had given Pechov his orders to others. ‘There’s just one thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You know he had this building’s supervisor and his entire family killed?’

Koenig blinked. ‘I didn’t.’ He glanced at Fedorov as if seeking confirmation, but the Russian ignored him. He shrugged. ‘So?’

‘If you let him go, he’ll come back.’ Palmer’s message was implicit; men like Fedorov were ruthless and would do anything to protect their reputation. The murder of two journalists and the killing of the supervisor’s family was proof enough of that. If he was allowed to get away, he would only go so far before re-grouping his forces. Then he would turn and come after them all. He had the means, the memory and the callousness to do it. Nobody would be safe.

‘No worries. We’ve got it covered.’ Koenig did not elaborate further. ‘That it?’

‘He also had my friend’s cat shot. I’d like to blame him for the war in Iraq, but that might be pushing it.’

Koenig looked at Fedorov with contempt. ‘I can’t stand cruelty to animals.’ He jerked his head at his two men. ‘Take him down the stairs. Maybe we’ll let him trip a few times on the way.’

He backed towards the door in the wake of his men and their prisoner. ‘You did well, Palmer,’ he said. ‘With barely any resources, you did really well.’

‘I had enough.’ Palmer wondered if the man knew about Szulu. He certainly knew about Riley.

‘The Rasta?’ Koenig was reading his mind again. ‘Yeah, we know about him. That was risky with the van, though; a touch too much bang, I thought.’

‘I’ll be sure to talk to him about it. It worked, didn’t it?’

Koenig chuckled appreciatively. ‘Yeah. It worked fine.’

Something was puzzling Palmer. ‘How did you know about Fedorov and this place?’

‘The day Riley came to see the boss? She had a tail. When a man like Pechov shows up on our radar, we like to know why.’ Koenig shrugged. ‘We had him followed. We’ve got one of the best trackers in the business on the payroll. In the end, he led us here.’

‘How long were you watching this place?’

‘Long enough. We came in when we had to.’

‘The man in the lobby?’

‘He got in our way. He went down.’ He gestured at his headset. ‘I’m told there are two more down — one of them an own goal.’ He smiled as if it was all in a day’s work. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll clear up before we leave.’

Palmer remembered the sound of footsteps charging down the back stairs, and wondered if Varley was the own goal. ‘It might have helped if you’d done that first, don’t you think?’ He couldn’t help it; with the other two men on the loose, getting back down the stairs with Fedorov in tow might have proved more of a problem than Koenig had imagined. Earlier intervention might also have helped Riley get clear and away.

‘Sorry — we had our orders.’ Koenig gestured with his weapon. ‘Anyway, we had a man stationed outside to take care of any strays.’ He paused at the door and added, ‘Tell Miss Gavin she’s welcome back in any of the company’s stores, anytime. That’s from the boss.’

‘Gee, she’ll be so made up.’

‘There’s one condition.’

‘She stops using Tesco bags?’

‘She destroys the notes. All of them. She’ll know the ones I mean.’

Palmer pursed his lips. If they were asking this, it seemed clear that the rumours nust have some substance. Not that he thought Riley was going to do anything about it. ‘She might not agree.’

Koenig looked sceptical. ‘She’s not going to use them — if she was, she’d have done it already. It’s hardly her thing, is it?’ He smiled knowingly. ‘Anyway, we’ve already got the rest from the hotel at Lancaster Gate.’

Then he was gone.

‘Shush.’Szulu touched a warning finger to Riley’s lips. They were crouched in the dark of the doorway where he’d dragged her after her escape from the building. There was a smell of rotten fruit and urine, and something scuttled away through a tangle of discarded paper. ‘Stay still.’

Riley batted his hand away. ‘Don’t shush me, you moron,’ she snapped, and felt instantly ashamed of herself. He hadn’t exactly been forced at gunpoint to wait for her to come out. Well, not this time, anyway. He could have done his bit and simply disappeared back to his safer life of driving a mini-cab.

She touched his shoulder. ‘Sorry. That was crappy of me. I always feel cranky after I’ve been tied to a chair and tortured. You did brilliantly. Thanks.’

‘No sweat. Did you say torture? Like what?’

‘Boiling water. Bleach. That kind of thing.’ She said it quickly, preferring not to dwell on what might have been if Var-Vassiliyev hadn’t come along at the right moment. And Palmer.

‘No way!’ Szulu sounded impressed. ‘Shit. They wasn’t messin’, then.’

‘No, they wasn’t.’ Riley gritted her teeth, trying to shut her mind against just how serious they had been. To add to it, now that she wasn’t running for her life, the pain was kicking in again.

Suddenly an engine roared and a van took off from the kerb and swerved into the car park.

‘It’s those blokes I told you about,’ said Szulu excitedly. ‘They left a guy outside.’

The driver stopped sideways on and close to the main doors of the building, just as all the lights on the ground floor went out. Apart from the faint wash of light from other buildings and passing traffic, it left the area around the entrance in near-darkness.

Szulu inched forward for a better view. ‘They went in after me and Palmer did our bit,’ he explained. ‘I don’t know who they are, but they’re on the same side as us.’ He looked around, ‘Must be something nasty about to happen.’

‘What makes you say that?’ said Riley.

He pointed to a nearby street light, which was out. ‘They’ve disabled the lights. They were working earlier. How would they do that?’

‘Maybe they shot them out.’

Szulu scowled at her. ‘You obsessed with guns, lady,’ he warned her. ‘You need to talk to somebody about that.’

Riley hissed a warning as a tall, slim figure stepped out of the main door towards the van and opened the nearest side door, moving briefly through the wash of the van’s brake lights. She couldn’t see his face, but she recognised something about the way he carried himself. It was Koenig, Al-Bashir’s security man.

‘Stay here,’ Szulu said. ‘I’m just going for a closer look.’

‘No way — I’m coming, too.’ Riley hustled after him, and they made their way across the road and skipped over the low wall into one corner of the car park. As they settled down to watch, two men moved quickly out of the entrance carrying something between them. They dumped the object in the van and went back inside. They came back with another load, then another.

On the fourth trip, as they moved through the lobby area, the driver, who had stepped out of the van, jumped back in and touched the brake lights. The glow was enough for Riley and Szulu to see that the load they were carrying was a man’s body, with one arm hanging down.

Riley felt the hairs move on the back of her neck. ‘What are they going to do with them?’ she whispered.

‘They clearin’ up the mess,’ Szulu replied knowingly. ‘No bodies, no proof.’ He sounded worried, though, and Riley caught the tension in his voice.

‘What’s up?’

Szulu shook his head slowly, the dreadlocks skimming against Riley’s face. ‘That’s four down.’