The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (38 page)

Milton’s bullet had ruined the knee, smashing through the anterior and posterior ligaments and shattering the patella. They had examined the damage with an arthroscope first and determined that repairs were not possible; a full arthroplasty was necessary. The surgeon had removed what was left of the patella and had shaved the ends of the femur and tibia so that he could fix the replacement joint. One of his colleagues was preparing the bone cement while the other was checking that the prosthesis was ready to be implanted.

Control watched the screen, his eyes a little glazed. He was not bothered by the blood and the gore; Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it over the years, and much worse than this. He was not really concentrating on Twelve at all. His mind was on Milton.

His liquidation should have been straightforward. Twelve had had the benefit of surprise, and Milton was not as young as he had once been. And, yet, here they were, with a badly injured agent and Milton a ghost.

He had been working on damage control ever since Twelve had limped out of the church hall and called for emergency pickup. He had taken the response team himself to ensure that there was no trace of Twelve ever having been there. The blood from his leg had been scrubbed away and footage from local CCTV cameras had been deleted. The dead man—Rutherford—was left where he was. Twelve had explained what had happened. The surprise of Rutherford’s appearance had saved Milton’s life, so now, in death, he would have to pay back the damage that he had caused. His body would prove to be useful. It was easy to fabricate the story. CCTV footage placed Milton at the scene and showed Rutherford arriving moments before he was shot.

A camera at the entrance to the park had footage of Milton heading north. He was wounded, too, a bullet to the shoulder. They had immediately checked local hospitals for admissions, but it was perfunctory; Milton was much too savvy to do something as foolish as that. An hour later they had intercepted a call to local police of a break-in. A couple had returned to their house on the edge of the nearby park to find that someone had forced the door to the garden. Their car and a few clothes had been stolen. That, in itself, would have been enough for Control to have investigated, but they had also reported that their first aid cabinet had been ransacked, that a lamp had been moved onto the kitchen table, and that kitchen utensils had been found covered in blood.

Control took command of the investigation himself and visited the house. He went through into the kitchen and sat at the table, glancing at his reflection. He knew that Milton had been sitting in the same chair a couple of hours earlier. He had operated on himself, cleaned the wound, and made it safe until he found someone that he could trust to do the job properly. He had showered, changed clothes, taken their car and fled. The police were looking for the vehicle, but they had not located it yet. It wouldn’t matter. They would find it eventually, abandoned at the side of the road when Milton switched vehicles. It would be too late then. He would stay ahead of them unless he made a mistake or he chose to be found.

Control focussed on the screen again as the prosthesis was carefully placed into Twelve’s wrecked joint.

John Milton was a chameleon. He had twenty years’ experience of blending into the background, surfacing only to do the bloody work of his trade before sinking out of sight again. Control felt an icy knot in the pit of his stomach. Milton was the most dangerous man he had ever met, and now he knew that the State wanted him dead. He had no idea what he would do next, and that was the kind of thought that would keep a man up at night.

THE MOTORWAY stretched away into the distance, the slow-moving row of tail lights painting a lazy swipe across the valley. There had been a crash outside Wolverhampton, and the traffic had backed up, filtering slowly through two lanes while the grim wreckage was craned away. Milton cursed the accident. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before the details of the stolen BMW were added to the national registry. The motorway was equipped with the CCTV masts that serviced the police’s number-plate recognition system, and the longer he stayed on the road, the greater the chance that the car would be noticed. He felt vulnerable, and even though he knew it would make no difference, he tugged down the brim of the baseball cap he had found in the glove compartment so that his face was partially obscured.

He was tired, and his shoulder throbbed. He had been driving for three hours. His instinct was not to stop until he reached Manchester, but as he passed the sign advertising the services at Stafford South, he decided it was worth the risk for a strong cup of coffee.

Milton moved carefully into the crawler lane and pulled off the motorway.

The car park was quiet, a wide-open space lit by a series of tall overhead lights. Milton parked in a shadowed area and walked across to the complex of buildings. There were very few drivers around, a handful of red-eyed travellers drinking coffee in the small Starbucks concession. Milton bought a packet of Nurofen from WH Smith and then ordered a double espresso and a bottle of water from the bored-looking barista.

Milton looked up at the screen fixed to the wall. The BBC’s rolling news channel was showing. He sipped from the Styrofoam cup as the anchor recapped the day’s news. The riots were the main focus. The worst of the disturbances had abated, but the police were short-handed, and there was talk of calling in the army. Milton was stunned by their severity. Large parts of Croydon had been set alight, and a furniture store that he recognised had been razed to the ground by a ferocious blaze. There was footage from Hackney and Tottenham, crowds of rioters with scarves obscuring their faces, packs of looters that descended on retail parks and local businesses alike, taking whatever they could lay their hands upon. A police superintendent was interviewed, and promised that the culprits would be caught and punished. Milton thought of Elijah. Had they got to him in time?

“And in other news, police have launched a murder hunt after a man was found dead in the boxing club he ran in London’s East End. Dennis Rutherford was found this evening by one of his students. He had been shot.”

A picture of Rutherford was displayed. He was with a group of youngsters, holding a trophy and smiling into the camera. The picture switched to an outside broadcast. A reporter was standing in front of the boxing club, a policeman standing guard at the entrance.

The reporter spoke into the camera. “The Metropolitan police and London ambulance service were called here at 10.20pm, where the victim, from Hackney, was subsequently pronounced dead. A post-mortem is due to take place tomorrow, but it is understood that he died from a single gunshot wound. Police sources say that they want to speak to John Milton, last seen in the London area. He is described as a middle-aged white male, six foot tall, well built and with short dark hair. They recommend that he is not approached and that members of the public with information on his whereabouts should contact officers as soon as possible.”

A head-and-shoulders picture of Milton flashed onto the screen. He recognised it: the picture had been taken from his Group file. Control was behaving exactly as he knew that he would. He would organise a manhunt, co-opting all the other agencies: the intelligence service, the police, everyone. His picture remained on the screen as the report continued. Milton looked around at the other customers anxiously. No one was paying the television much attention, but he replaced the cap on his head regardless.

He took his coffee with him and went back out into the hot night. The steady hum of the motorway was loud, the stand of trees that had been planted at the edge of the car park doing little to dampen the noise. Milton ignored the BMW. It had served him well, but he knew that it would have been reported by now. He found a spot that was poorly served by CCTV and approached a Ford Mondeo. He forced the door, slid inside, and hot-wired the engine.

The digital clock on the dashboard showed a little after three in the morning as he rejoined the motorway heading north. He passed through the gears, making sure to stay below the speed limit. In an hour and a half, the lights of Liverpool sparkled in the distance. Milton turned off the motorway and drove into town.

ADOLFO GONZÁLEZ lowered his AK, and the others did the same. They were stood in a semicircle, all around the three stalled trucks. There was no noise beyond the soporific buzz of the earth baking and cracking under the heat of the sun. Dust and heat shimmered everywhere. He looked out at their handiwork. The vehicles were smoking, bullet holes studded all the way across the sheetmetal. They were all shot up to high heaven. The windscreens had been staved in by the .416 calibre rounds that the snipers had fired. Some of the holes that ran across the cars were spaced and regular from the AKs, others were scattered with uneven clumps from number four buckshot. The Italians had come to the meet in their big, expensive four-wheel-drive Range Rovers. Tinted windows, leather interiors and xenon headlamps. Trying to make a big impression. Showing off. Hadn’t done them much good. One of them had tried to drive away, but he hadn’t got far. The tyres of the car were flat, still wheezing air. The glass was all shot out. Steam poured from the perforated bonnets.

Adolfo looked up at the hills. He knew Samalayuca like the back of his hand. His family had been using this spot for years. Perfect for dumping bodies. Perfect for ambushes. He’d put three of his best snipers up on the lava ridge. Half a mile away. They had prepared covered trenches and hid in them overnight. He could see them coming down the ridge now. The sun shone against the dark metal of their long-barrelled Barretts and reflected in glaring flickers from the glass in the sights.

He approached the nearest Range Rover, his automatic cradled at his waist. Things happened. Miracles. It paid to be careful. He opened the door. One of the Italians, slumped dead over the wheel, swung over to the side. Adolfo hauled his body out and dumped it in the dust. Bad luck,
pendejo
. There were two more bodies in the back.

Adolfo walked around the end of the truck. There was another body behind it, face up, mouth open. Vivid red blood soaked into the dirt. A cloud of hungry flies hovered over it.

He went to the second truck and looked through the window at the driver. This one had tried to get away. He was shot through the head. Blood everywhere: the dash, the seats, across what was left of the window.

He walked on to the third vehicle. Two men inside, both dead.

He walked back to the first truck to where the body lay.

He nudged the man’s ribs with his toe.

The man moved his lips.

“What?”

The man wheezed something at him.

Adolfo knelt down. “I can’t hear you.”

“
Basta
,” the man wheezed. “
Ferma
.”

“Too late to stop,
cabrón
,” Adolfo said. “You shoulda thought of that before.”

He put the automatic down and gestured to Pablo. He had the video camera and was taking the footage that they would upload to YouTube later. Leave a message. Something to focus the mind. Pablo brought the camera over, still filming. Another man brought over a short-bladed machete. He gave it to him.

The dying man followed Adolfo with his eyes.

Adolfo signalled, and his men hauled the dying man to his knees. They dragged him across to a tree. There was blood on his face, and it slicked out from the bottom of his jacket. They looped a rope over a branch and tied one end around the man’s ankles. They yanked on the other end so that he fell to his knees, and then they yanked again, and then again, until he was suspended upside down.

Adolfo took the machete with his right hand and, with his left, took a handful of the man’s thick black hair and yanked back to expose his throat.

Adolfo stared into the camera.

He went to work.

From:

To:

Date: Monday, September 16, 5.21 P.M.

Subject: CARTWHEEL

Dear Foreign Secretary,

At our meeting last week you requested sight of a report detailing the circumstances in which the agent responsible for the botched assassination in the French Alps has disappeared.

I attach a copy of that report to this email.

While writing, please allow me to reiterate that all efforts are being made to locate and recover this agent. He will not be easy to find, for the reasons that we discussed, but please do be assured that he will not be able to stay undetected forever.

If there is any follow-up once you have considered this report, please do, as ever, let me know.

Sincerely,

M.

>>> BEGINS

CODE: G15

PUBLICATION: analysis/background

DESCRIPTION: n/a

ATTRIBUTION: internal

DISTRIBUTION: Alpha

SPECIAL HANDLING: Orange

CODENAME: “Cartwheel”

Summary

Following the unsatisfactory elimination of the Iranian nuclear scientists Yehya Moussa and Sameera Najeeb, John Milton (aka G15/No. 1/ aka “John Smith”/ aka “Cartwheel”), the agent responsible, has gone AWOL. Location presently undetermined. Milton is extremely dangerous and must be recovered without delay.