the crowd.
The hunting knife passed within inches of Reed’s face, a wild swing, clumsy. Reed dodged back, waited for the next attack, used his forearm as a shield to turn the blade aside and the crowbar to sweep his attacker’s feet out from under him. He drove it down into the kid’s face, exploding his nose across his cheeks.
The small youth with the switchblade recovered and yelled as he attacked again, a frenzied stab. Reed dodged, invited another thrust, and brought the crowbar down hard onto the youth’s exposed arm, shattering bones. He screamed and dropped the knife, wrist and hand hanging limply from mid-forearm. Reed reversed his grip on the crowbar, swung it upward, cracking the youth under the jaw, the force lifting him off his feet and dropping him back to the ground in a silent heap.
It was all over in less than seven seconds. Six lay on the wet ground, some completely still, others moaning and writhing. They would all live, but not as they used to. The others stood paralysed in a mix of awe and terror. Reed looked at them for a moment. He knew he could pick up the Beretta and execute every one of them within a matter of seconds, but they were just idiot kids, and twelve gunshots would bring police officers. Half a beaten-up gang was attention enough without creating corpses. Besides, as things stood, even the ones he had not crippled would take the time to rethink their lives, and Reed felt almost proud of that public service.
He twirled the crowbar around his hand before handing it to a reluctant recipient. The youth took it, grimacing, feeling the wet blood and skin of his gang mates matted to the metal. Reed straightened down his jacket and eyed those who were lucky enough to still be vertical.
‘Move.’
They parted reverently to let him pass.
CHAPTER 34
Central Intelligence Agency, Virginia, USA
Saturday
10:49 EST
Chambers was acting like a big shot on the Hill, and so Procter chaired the briefing. Both Sykes and his old bastard mentor Ferguson were looking like they’d had long weeks — Sykes especially, though he’d found the time to visit a tanning booth since the last meeting, judging by the renewed shade of his face.
Alvarez was on the speakerphone going through what he’d found out about Stevenson and his mystery employer. ‘Stevenson made some blunders when it came to covering his tracks,’ Alvarez was saying. ‘He didn’t do a very good job of deleting sensitive information from his computer, and we managed to extract certain e-mails from his hard disk. These emails are communications between him and his client, who was never referred to by name. This is the person who gave Stevenson the suitcase full of cash he deposited at his bank.
‘In the e-mails they were arranging a meeting to hand over the money. The location of this meeting and the time and date were in code, but we’ve discovered Stevenson met his client in Brussels just under three weeks ago.’
The lines in Ferguson’s forehead deepened. ‘You cracked the code?’
‘No, we didn’t need to,’ Alvarez replied. ‘Stevenson did the hard work for us. Elsewhere on his hard drive we found photographs of the meeting that showed Stevenson and another man, his client, outside a cafe in central Brussels.’
Procter leaned forward. ‘What kind of photographs?’
‘Surveillance photos. Seems Stevenson was an untrusting kind of guy and had someone else along with him without his client’s knowledge. Probably one of the other seven dead guys, but we don’t know for sure. The photographs show the name of the cafe and are dated and timed. I would guess Stevenson had the photos taken as some kind of insurance policy in case anything went wrong.’
‘Do we know anything about the man he was there to meet?’ Procter asked.
‘We had several clear shots of him arriving and leaving so we put him through facial recognition but didn’t get lucky. We did get some luck after enhancing other photos. We established the name of the rental-car company Stevenson’s employer used. I contacted the company and only one car of that particular make, model, and colour was out when the meeting took place.’
‘So who is he?’ Procter asked.
‘Sebastian Hoyt,’ Alvarez said through the table’s speaker-phone, ‘is a Dutch businessman and CEO of a small financial-consultancy firm located in Milan. I checked flights in and out of Brussels that day, and Hoyt arrived and returned the same day.’
‘Great work,’ Procter said. ‘What do we know about this Hoyt?’
‘Not that much,’ Alvarez answered. ‘But it’s early days. He’s a private businessman, that much is obvious. I’ve already spoken briefly to our people in Italy and asked them to start digging.’
‘I’ll liaise with the Italians too,’ Procter added. ‘I want to know everything there is to know about this individual, and I want to know fast.’
‘He used to be one our assets, back in the eighties,’ Ferguson said matter-of-factly.
Procter and Sykes looked at him.
‘You’re sure?’ Procter asked.
‘I should hope so,’ Ferguson replied. ‘He used to be one of my assets.’
‘Tell me more.’
Ferguson nodded. ‘He’s a trained lawyer from a wealthy family, but he deals with some very unpleasant people. He was doing business with a corrupt Soviet army officer when I knew him. He supplied me information on the Red Army from this general — training techniques, armaments, that kind of thing. In return I let him get away with the arms brokering he was doing for the officer. Mainly shipping AKs and RPGs to Africa.’
‘So what’s he been up to since?’ Procter asked.
Ferguson shrugged. ‘I don’t know. After the Wall came down we didn’t have much use for him, not that I could’ve continued paying him with what was left of my budgets. I expect he’ll still be doing what he’s best at, trading in illicit commodities, arms, people, information. If he has his own firm, he’s come a long way; and if he’s still operating, then he’s either gone legitimate or has been clever enough not to get caught or tread on anyone’s toes.’
‘Until now,’ Procter added coldly. ‘Do we have a file on this clown?’
Ferguson nodded.
‘What about your own personal files?’
‘I’ll get them out for you.’
‘And Alvarez,’ Procter said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I heard about John Kennard. I’m sorry.’
‘Me too.’
‘I didn’t meet him, but I’m told he was a good man. What happened to him?’
‘Wrong place at the wrong time. He was just unlucky.’
Ferguson and Sykes sat perfectly still.
In the corridor outside the briefing room, Sykes waited for Ferguson to come out. Sykes’s pulse was racing, and he was finding it difficult not to look like he was crapping himself. Ferguson had stayed behind to have a word with Procter, and Sykes needed to consult with him immediately. Alvarez was only a step away from Hoyt. Things were going from bad to shit at warp ten.
It was about five minutes before Ferguson finally appeared a moment after the big guy, but to Sykes it could’ve been five hours. He’d wiped perspiration from his face at least three times.
When Procter was out of earshot Sykes moved closer to Ferguson.
‘Before you say anything,’ Ferguson began, ‘take a breath and compose yourself.’
Sykes took a breath, but even if he took a hundred more he didn’t think he would miraculously calm down. ‘We’re fucked,’ he said.
‘Is that your professional opinion?’
