Saint Death - John Milton #3 (28 page)

“Shcherbakov wants to talk to you about him.”

“The colonel?”

“Your trip to Moscow is postponed. He is coming to speak to you instead.”

“In London?”

“Next Monday. Be at the usual place at eight. You will be collected.”

Now she really was nervous. The colonel was coming to London? “Fine,” she said.

“The man––you saw him?”

“Very briefly.”

“What did you make of him?”

“He had been beaten. But there is something about him. He is not the sort of man you would want to have as your enemy. Why is he suddenly so important?”

“The colonel will explain. But an opportunity has arisen that requires a special kind of operative. Someone just like him.”

“You know he won’t work for us?”

“We think he will. We have something––someone––that he wants.”

EPILOGUE

The Coyote

63.

MILTON LOOKED up into the sky. It was midnight and the stars, spread out across the obsidian canvas like discarded fistfuls of diamonds, burned with a fierceness that was more vivid than usual. The Milky Way was so clear it looked like a soft footpath that had been placed with great thought between the constellations. He thought of those stars, dead for millions of years, their light only just now reaching the Earth. He paused for a moment to straighten out a kink in his boot and, realising that he was tiring, dropped his pack and allowed himself to sink back down into the sand. He sat and gazed up, lost in the glorious celestial display. The black blended away into infinity and unbeing and he felt utterly, and completely, alone, as if he was the only man in the universe. It was a sensation that he recognised, one that had been with him for most of his adult life, and certainly for the last ten years.

He was comfortable with that.

Part of his solitary journey through South America had been to give himself time to come to terms with what, he knew, was the only possible way that he could live out the rest of his life. He had done too many bad things to deserve happiness and, even if he could have accepted that he did deserve it, he was too dangerous to allow anyone else to drift into his orbit. That had been demonstrated to him in spades in London, with what had happened to Sharon and Rutherford. Burned half to death and shot in the head, all because they had allowed him to cross their paths. Death followed him, always close at heel, always avid, always hungry. And now Control had found him again and flung his agents at him from half a world away. What if he had allowed himself to draw closer to someone, perhaps one of the women whose bed he had shared over the last six months? What if he had allowed himself a wife? Children? The thought was preposterous. The Group would offer him no quarter and anyone who was found with him would be executed. It would have to be that way. What might he have told them? What secrets divulged? The shoe had been on the other foot before, and he knew what the orders would be. No loose ends.

No.

There had already been too much innocent blood spilt.

He could only ever be alone.

He took off his boot and massaged his heel. He had been travelling for thirty-eight hours straight. He had taken a couple of naps in the car, parked on the side of the road, but that was it. He was as tired as a dog. It was absolutely still, the quiet so deep that it was all-consuming, enough to make you wonder that you had gone deaf. As he listened to his own heartbeat keeping him company, he wondered whether death could possibly be more serene.

He had returned Plato’s car, left it in the car park of a
maquiladora
at one in the morning. The rifle was in the back, hidden beneath a travelling blanket. He exchanged it for a stolen Volkswagen and crossed the city. He drove carefully for fear of attracting attention, only accelerating properly once he was among the scrubland and the start of the desert. He had followed the highway for two hundred miles and then he had pulled over to the side of the road, soaking siphoned diesel into the upholstery and tossing in a match. With the heat of the burning car braising his cheeks, he turned to the north and set his face to America.

He walked.

Big Bend National Park was ahead, the Chisos Mountain range welcoming him to the border. Milton picked the distinctive shape of Emory Peak at the end of a deep valley as his waypoint. He walked. It hardly seemed to draw closer at all, but distance was almost impossible to judge, that was the way of it in the desert, and especially so at night. Milton was not concerned. He had navigated through bleaker landscapes than this.

He was close.

He walked.

The path led towards red-headed buttes at the foot of which red-headed vultures pecked at the carcass of a desert fox. He came across an abandoned railway track, an idle row of orphaned boxcars daubed with graffiti across the rust. The dawn was coming up now. The darkness was weakening, lilac blooming at the edges of the horizon, the light fading the constellations, the herald of the glorious golden desert sunrise that would be on him all too quickly. Somewhere on the mesa, a coyote howled. The long, mournful wail was followed by a yipping chuckle until it almost sounded as if the dog was laughing.

He kept walking.

John Milton trudged across the border as the light turned from black to mauve, the sun coming around again.

An extract from the first full-length John Milton novel

THE CLEANER

THE ROAD THROUGH THE FOREST was tranquil, the gentle quiet embroidered by the gurgling of a mountain rill and the chirruping of the birds in the canopy of trees overhead. The route forestière de la Combe d’Ire was pot-holed and narrow, often passable by just one car at a time. Evergreen pine forests clustered tightly on either side, pressing a damp gloom onto the road that was dispelled by warm sunlight wherever the trees had been chopped back. The misty slopes of the massif of the Montagne de Charbon stretched above the treeline, ribs of rock and stone running down through the vegetation. The road followed a careful route up the flank of the mountain, turning sharply to the left and right and sometimes switching back on itself as it traced the safest path upwards. The road crossed and recrossed the stream and the humpback bridge here was constructed from ancient red bricks, held together as much by the damp lichen that clung to it as by its disintegrating putty. The bridge was next to a small enclosure signed as a car park, although that was putting it at its highest; it was little more than a lay-by hewn from the hillside, a clearing barely large enough to fit four cars side-by-side. Forestry reserve notices warned of “wild animals” and “hunters.”

It was a quiet and isolated spot, the outside world excluded almost as if by the closing of a door.

Milton had parked his Renault there, nudged against the shoulder of the mountain. It was an nondescript hire car; he had chosen it because it was unremarkable. He had reversed into the space, leaving the engine running as he stepped out and made his way around to the boot. He unlocked and opened it and looked down at the bundle nestled in the car’s small storage space. He unfolded the edges of the blanket to uncover the assault rifle that had been left at the dead drop the previous night. It was an HK53 carbine with integrated suppressor, the rifle that the SAS often used when stealth was as important as stopping power. Milton lifted the rifle from the boot and pressed a fresh twenty-five round magazine into the breach. He opened the collapsible stock and took aim, pointing down the middle of the road. Satisfied that the weapon was functioning correctly, he made his way towards the bridge and rested it in the undergrowth, out of site.

Milton had scouted the area and knew it well. To the north, the road eventually led to Saint Jorioz, a medium-sized tourist resort that gathered along the shore of Lake Annecy. The descent to the south led to the small village of Chevaline. The village made its living from farming, but that was supplemented by renting the picturesque chalet farmhouses to the tourists who came for cycling and hiking. Milton had stayed in just such a chalet for the past three days. He had spent his time scouting the area, departing on his bike early in the morning and returning late at night. He had kept a low-profile, staying in the chalet apart from those trips out.

Milton heard the engine of the BMW long before he saw it. He collected the rifle and slipped behind the trunk of an oak, hiding himself from the road but still able to observe it. The wine-coloured estate car was in second gear, struggling a little with the steep camber of the road. It emerged from the sharp right hand turn, its lights lit to illuminate a path through the gloom.

The car slowed and turned in towards the Renault. Milton held his breath, his pulse ticking up, and slipped his index finger through the trigger-guard of the rifle. The driver parked alongside and switched off the engine. Milton could hear music from the interior of the car. The passenger side door opened and the muffled music became clearer: French pop, disposable and inoffensive. The passenger bent down and spoke sharply into the car and the music was silenced. For a moment all Milton could hear was the crunch of the man’s shoes on the gravel, the rushing of the water and the wind in the leaves. He tightened his grip on the rifle and concentrated on keeping his breathing even and regular.

The driver’s side door opened and a tall, dark skinned woman stepped outside.

Milton recognised both of them. The passenger was Yehya al Moussa. The driver was Sameera Najeeb.

He stepped out from behind the trunk and brought the HK53 to bear. He flicked the selector to automatic and fired off a volley of shots. The bullets struck Najeeb in the gut, perforating her liver and lungs. She put her hand to her breast, confusion spread across her face, and then pivoted and fell back against the side of the car. Najeeb shrieked, moving quickly, ducking down beneath the line contour of the car. Milton took two smooth sidesteps to his right to open up the angle again and squeezed off another burst. The scientist was trying to get back into the car; the bullets tattooed his body in a line from throat to crotch.

The fusillade sounded around the trees for a moment. Frightened birds exploded into the air on wingbeats that sounded like claps. The echo of the reports died and faded away and then, short moments after the brutal outburst of violence, all was quiet again; the wind rustled through the trees, the water chimed beneath the bridge, a nightingale called from high above.

Milton paused. There was another sound.

A second car approaching.

Hiding would have been pointless; the bloody tableaux would have given him away. The car emerged from the mouth of the forest. It was a Renault Megane, painted blue with white and red chevrons screen-printed across the bonnet. The policeman in the front of the car must have seen him immediately. The Megane came to a sudden stop, fifty feet away.

Milton ejected the magazine and slapped in a replacement.

The officer opened the door and stepped out of the car, his hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. “Arrét!” he called out.

Milton did not pause to think. His reaction was hard-wired, a response that had been drilled into him across ten years so that now it was automatic, an expression of muscle memory without conscience, sudden and terribly deadly. He swung the rifle around and squeezed the trigger for a longer burst. The car was peppered with bullets, half a dozen slamming into the radiator and bonnet, another handful into the windscreen. The officer was struck in the face and chest, stumbling backwards and then dropping onto his back where he lay for a moment, twitching horribly. Milton walked towards him, the gun cradled low, and put a final bullet into his head. Finally, the man lay still.

Peacefulness returned, ornamented now by the sound of the shards of glass that fell to shatter on the road from the breached windscreen.

Milton crossed the road to the Renault. He opened the boot and wrapped the rifle in its blanket, then stowed it away carefully beneath the spare wheel in the false floor. He pulled on a pair of latex gloves and collected the ejected shell casings from the rifle. There were forty of them, and they were still hot to the touch. He dropped them into a small evidence bag. He crouched by Najeeb’s body and frisked her quickly and efficiently. He found her smartphone and a USB stick and bagged them both.

He went around to the other side of the car and lowered himself to examine al Moussa. The door was open and, as he raised his gaze from the body to peer inside, he saw a small, pale face staring back out at him. Milton did not rush. There was no need. The face belonged to a young boy, perhaps five or six years old. His skin and his hair was dark and his features recalled those of his parents. He was cowering in the footspace, a streak of blood across his forehead as if it was paint that had been thrown over him. It was not his blood: it was blowback from his father.

Milton reached for the Sig Sauer he carried in his shoulder holster, his fingers brushing against the butt. The boy held his eyes. His face was white and quivering with fright but he did not look away. He was brave. Milton felt a swell of vomit in his throat as his memory cast him back twenty years and a thousand miles away. He remembered another young boy, a similar age, the face peaceful despite the obscenity of his death.

He lowered his hand from the Sig and stepped back. He gently pulled the man’s body onto the muddy surface of the lay-by and went back to the car.

“Stay there,” he told the boy. “Help is coming.”

He closed the door. He checked that he had removed the evidence of his presence and, satisfied, got into the Renault, put it into gear and drove away.

He turned to the north, upwards, and drove towards the Lake.

THE CLEANER

is out now at
Amazon.com
and
Amazon.co.uk

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK…