Sitting in the darkness of the house, he assessed the situation.
Three on one.
They were all packing guns with night scopes and wearing vests, whilst he had a knife.
Ash smiled; they didn’t stand a chance.
He knew they were nervous, they’d be jumping at shadows. Ash’s reputation had a habit of preceding him, and he knew these men were well aware of his work. That always worked in his favour; their nerves would get the better of them. He knew what they would do - they would stay there until daylight, rather than risk moving out into the dark. There’d be a man posted at the rear of the house in that sun lounge, watching the back garden, and another guarding the front door.
They know I’m wounded. There’d be fresh blood on the floor. That might make them a little more confident . . . a little foolhardy perhaps?
He smiled. Even with the use of only one arm, they were going to be putty in his hands. He suspected that they - knowing he was wounded - might even be foolish enough to attempt to trap him, to capture him alive, if an opportunity presented itself.
That’s how they’d come unstuck, he realised. These boys were jumpy and keen to bag him as quickly as possible, of that he had no doubt.
He knew what to do.
‘It’s got to be the same guy that they’re using,’ Mike murmured quietly to the man standing beside him in the doorway. ‘I wish we had more on this sonofabitch.’
He scanned the street silently; the only noise the gentle murmur of a light breeze through the branches that arched over the avenue.
‘You think this guy’s coming back?’ asked Blaine in a hushed voice, sweeping the road outside through the scope on his pistol.
‘Of course he will. Come on, you know who we’re dealing with.’
‘Yeah, I guess I was hoping maybe they’d used someone else this time.’
‘Too much at stake, Blaine. They were only ever going to send this guy to clean up.’
Blaine nodded, and licked his lips nervously.
‘Just relax. The bottom line is, no matter how good he is, he’s only human.’
‘Sometimes I wonder.’
‘What?’
‘If he is just human,’ Blaine grinned sheepishly. ‘I mean in our dossier, somebody nicknamed this guy “the ghost”.’
‘Whoever decided to come up with that was a moron. He’s just a good freelancer who’s managed to stay lucky so far. Well, up to now that is. Andy’s wife got him at least once. My biggest worry is the bastard has scampered off and died somewhere out there. It would have been good to get a hold of him. God knows how much he knows about them.’
‘Kind of embarrassing that, eh? In the end it’s an untrained civilian, a woman at that, who finally nailed the ghost.’
‘Blaine, you call him that again, and I’ll shoot you dead,’ whispered Mike, not entirely joking. ‘Now shut up and concentrate.’
‘Right.’
They stood in silence for a full minute before Blaine opened his mouth to ask another question.
‘Shhh . . . less talk, more watching,’ whispered Mike.
‘Okay boss.’
It was then that Mike thought he saw a flicker of movement in the upstairs window of the house opposite. He tapped Blaine on the shoulder.
‘Straight ahead, first floor window on the left.’
The man raised the line of his night scope. ‘Shit, yeah . . . I saw something move.’
Mike had to evaluate quickly.
He’s upstairs in that house. He’s trapped, stairs the only way down - that or out the window with the chance of breaking a leg. He’s already been wounded, perhaps two or three hits. We’ve got a good chance of nailing this cocksucker tonight. Catch him alive, we might even get him to talk. Bonus.
‘We can trap him if we move right now.’
Blaine nodded, ‘Fuck it, you’re right.’
‘Cover!’ hissed Mike. He headed across the avenue, scooting through the rubbish, whilst Blaine kept his weapon trained on the window. Mike signalled for Blaine to join him against the wall beside the open front door. The man scrambled over quickly and quietly, and presently squatted down beside him.
‘There’s still movement up in that room. He’s up to something in there.’
‘Right, standard room-by-room procedure . . . only we know downstairs is clear. I’ll take point.’
Blaine nodded.
Mike entered first, his pistol and scope aimed up the narrow stairs to the first floor.
These houses are all built the same; small bathroom at the top, landing doubles round, three bedroom doors in a row on the left, boiler cupboard at the far end.
He took the first few steps and then paused, listening for any sound of movement from up above. It was silent, except for the occasional gust of wind coursing through the broken windows of the house, moaning gently. He waved to Blaine, who climbed the stairs quietly, squeezed past Mike and went another half a dozen beyond him - nearly to the top.
They waited to see if they’d been detected, for some sort of reaction. However, it remained silent, except for the rustling of paper and plastic bags being teased gently across the avenue.
Mike overtook his man. Reaching the top of the stairs he whipped his gun one way then the other, staring intently through the scope.
If this was the ghost . . . then he was a very slippery sonofabitch. They knew painfully little about him, except he favoured a long thin knife, and had been described by the few people who had encountered him - and lived - as looking Middle Eastern. He had no name, and a million names; using a new alias on every job. And he was used exclusively by them. Mike knew of three jobs that had his unique signature on them. There was the fireman from Ladder 57 who claimed to have discovered un-detonated demolition charges amidst the rubble at Ground Zero and had died as the result of a supposed street stabbing. The minister in Saddam Hussein’s government who had a world shattering revelation to make, and then was supposed to have slit his own throat. And there was that Russian banker championing the sale of Tengiz oil in euros instead of dollars - all of them victims of a never-recovered, narrow-bladed knife. All of them victims, Mike was certain, of this guy.
He waved Blaine up and pointed to the bathroom at the top of the stairs. The man squeezed past him. And after silently counting to three, he lent deftly in to check the bathroom was clear.
‘It’s clear,’ he whispered.
Mike decided playing quiet was pointless. This man undoubtedly knew they were inside the house with him.
‘We know who you are,’ said Mike. ‘We know your work.’
There was no reply.
‘You’re their man, you only work for them. We’ve been watching you.’
Silence.
‘We will take you, and that will probably mean killing you in the process. If you come out unarmed, then we can at least talk.’
The only sound was the flapping of a curtain coming from a front room.
Damn.
Mike had hoped they could bag this guy alive. He was too dangerous to fuck around with. If they were going to take him, then they’d have to go in hard, and go for a quick kill.
He signalled to Blaine that he would take the next room. Again they counted down, he kicked the door, and stepped in, sweeping his gun frantically one way then the other. It was clear.
Blaine took the next, again nothing.
So by a process of elimination . . . the last room.
‘I’ll take this one,’ whispered Mike. ‘Watch my back, I want you right behind me as we go in.’
The man nodded. ‘Got it, Mike.’
He took a deep breath, counted down from five silently, sticking his hand up so that Blaine, crouched behind him, could see the fingers folding down one after the other.
Three . . . two . . . one . . .
Mike kicked the door, and barged into the front bedroom, rolling to a stop against the opposite wall. He whipped his gun around, left then right - scoping the room with rapid jerking movem
ents. His aim was drawn almost instantly towards something moving near the bedroom’s window. It was a bed sheet, draped over what looked like a floor-standing lamp, the breeze was toying with it, fluttering the corners of cotton. That’s what they’d seen through the window from the front door of the Sutherlands’ house.
‘Shit!’ muttered Mike. ‘It’s clear,’ he called out.
It was obvious they’d been played with. The bastard had lured them out.
‘Blaine! Back to the fucking house! RUN!’
Mike turned on his heels to head out of the room. Out on the landing, at the top of the stairs he saw Blaine’s body, stretched out like he was taking a nap.
And that’s when he felt a vicious punch to his kidneys. There was an explosion of pain and his first thought was that the well-aimed punch had hit a vulnerable nerve-cluster. But reaching to grab his side, he felt a protruding shaft, and a wetness on his fingers.
‘Oh fuck,’ he grunted. Something had found the three-inch gap between the front and rear plates of his vest.
‘Yes,’ whispered a voice in his ear, ‘it’s fatal. You have no more than five minutes to live. If you lie still, maybe a minute or two longer.
Mike felt his legs buckle, and as he slumped down, he felt the knife come out, and a hand grabbed him under each armpit. He felt himself being gently lowered to the ground.
CHAPTER 88
11.54 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London
Ash kneeled over him. He snapped on a torch and checked the man’s wound. The blood was jetting out in rhythmic spurts.
‘Understand,’ said Ash gently, ‘this will be a relatively easy death. The painful bit is over. Bleeding out will be relatively quick. I apologise for not making it instant,’ he said with a hint of regret.
The dying man stared up at him, expressions of bewilderment and anger flickering across his face. Ash could empathise with the anger; to be caught off guard like that . . . lured out and skewered.
‘You must be Mike, I’m guessing by deduction,’ he said. ‘Yes, just a silly trick. The sheet, over the lamp, and the help of a light breeze.’
‘Fucking shit trick,’ groaned Mike.
‘Let me ask you. Do you believe in God?’
Mike laughed defiantly and winced. ‘No I fucking don’t.’
‘Maybe now’s a good a time as any to find some faith, eh? Hedge your bets.’
‘You know . . . a friend of mine assured me . . . God accepts non-believers too . . . it’s just assholes he doesn’t let in.’
That was quite funny, he liked this American’s defiance in the face of death. It was admirable.
Mike grunted something, his voice warbling and weakening.
‘You’re asking about your other colleague in the house? Yes, I’m afraid he’s dead too. I did him first. You probably didn’t hear him drop did you? Too busy chatting away at the front.’
Mike grasped one of his hands. ‘Let the . . . family . . . go,’ he struggled between gasps to get the words out.
‘Sorry, they’re on my “to do” list,’ he replied and then smiled down at him, with a shred of sympathy it seemed, as the American struggled to draw air in. ‘We know you’ve been out there watching us for a long time - your humble agency. The funny thing is, we’ve been trying to track you down as well.’
They . . . they had known of it, and hunted for this persistent nuisance, whilst this microdot of an agency, in turn, had been doing the same; two predators blindly stalking each other over four decades, their subtle tracks imprinted on recent history.
To be fair, the agency was no real match for the people Ash kept things tidy for. The resources of a couple of dozen field and desk agents and the black budget that kept them ticking over, versus the sort of wealth, power and influence that decided world leaders, initiated and concluded wars, timed and controlled global economic cycles. No real match there, a proverbial David and Goliath.
This man’s agency though, had done well, identifying and homing in on the only weak link in their chain, the traitor . . . the son-in-law and heir-apparent to one of the highest echelon - one of the Twelve; the young man, a banker, a member of the lower order, who had suddenly got cold feet - he had given this agency just enough to zero in on Dr A. Sutherland.
Of course all of this unpleasantness now, chasing around this shitty little country, could have been avoided if they’d let him finish that girl in the hotel room, back in New York.
Hypocrites.
They were preparing to orchestrate events that were ultimately going to lead to the deaths of hundreds of millions, and yet they didn’t have the stomach to witness the death firsthand of one solitary child. He realised, in some ways, he had more in common with this man before him, than the privileged and pampered elite that he worked for.
‘You nearly exposed them. You nearly won, my friend. The girl could have identified three of the Twelve for you.’
Ash knew then that he alone had a unique status . . . knowing more than any of the members of the lower order; he had been entrusted with an almost sacred confidentiality because he was their personal watchdog. He knew these twelve men, and they were not brave men; they were weak.
Knowing the identity of just one of them would be enough for this determined, tenacious little agency. They’d find a way to get to an identified member, they’d find a way to get him to talk, that wouldn’t be so hard.
‘You came so close,’ Ash said.
‘Fuck you,’ grunted Mike. ‘We know all about you shit-heads. ’
Mike tried to move, to reach out towards his gun, dropped on the landing just a few feet away. Ash kicked it casually across the floor and out of reach.
‘Stay still,’ he cautioned Mike, ‘or you’ll bleed out faster. I want you to know my friend, because, well . . . because you’ve earned it.’
The American could do little but nod weakly.
‘Know all about us?’ Ash laughed. ‘You don’t know anything. What you know is just the little bit you’ve managed to scratch off the surface. You think a group of fat industrialists in expensive suits are behind this, don’t you? It goes much higher. You can trace the reins of power up through banks that own banks that own banks to just a dozen names.’
Mike frowned, struggling through the growing fogginess to comprehend what he was hearing.
‘The world is owned by a dozen families headed by a dozen men, some of whom have surnames that even the mindless sheep on the streets would recognise, and other names that have always remained hidden.
‘And believe me when I say their influence, even before recent years, was pretty damn impressive.’ He leant over Mike, moving closer to his face. It looked like the American’s pupils were beginning to dilate, as he started his inevitable slide into unconsciousness.
‘These people I work for . . . you can see their fingerprints everywhere in history, Mike, fingerprints smeared everywhere, like a crime scene. Take the Second World War for instance . . .’
Mike’s breathing caught.
‘Oh yeah,’ Ash grinned, ‘that was their ill-conceived attempt to stifle the further spread of communism. They’ve never liked popular uprisings. They made Hitler, they paved the way for him . . . so long as he did what he was told, he was unassailable. But then, of course, he went off script, and the rest, as they say, is history.’
‘The war . . .?’
‘Yes, of course, it was orchestrated by them.’
Mike tried to gurgle something.
‘Did you know the American Civil War was a power struggle amongst members of the lower order? That war was just a squabble between two groups of business men. What about your War of Independence? That was them struggling to keep a hold of the colonies, via England. Of course, they lost that war. But then, instead, down the road they bought the country, through investment.’
Ash laughed gently. ‘Your history Mike, American history . . . don’t you see? It was written by a cartel of European families. The wars, the hundreds of thousands of dead young Americ
an boys, the poverty and hardship, the great depression, two world wars . . . ultimately nothing more than a boardroom struggle amongst the ruling elite; the growing pains, my friend, of their influence.’
Mike struggled to talk. A small trickle of black-as-oil blood trickled from the side of his mouth and ran down into his beard.
‘Why . . . this?’
‘What’s happening now?’ Ash cut in. The dying man nodded, but it was nothing but the weakest twitch of his head. Ash looked down at the blade in his hand, it needed cleaning. He wiped it along the length of Mike’s shirt-sleeve.
‘They decided it, Mike, it was something that needed to be done; a correction, an adjustment, a little bit of house cleaning. ’
Ash paused.
‘It’s running out, you know?’ he said. ‘There’s a lot less of it than people think . . . oil. Yes, a lot less than the publicly stated reserves. They decided there were simply too many of us all expecting our oil-rich luxuries, all expecting our big cars, big homes, and an endless supply of power and oil to feed them. It wasn’t going to last for much longer. They knew that fact long before anyone else. And they knew that there were going to be wars, horrific wars, most probably with a few nukes being thrown around . . . for the last of that oil. And you don’t want that - nukes being thrown around. They knew economic necessity, oil-hunger, would drive us to destroy ourselves. And I suppose you can see it from their point of view, after struggling so hard for . . . well, one could say, since the Middle Ages, they didn’t want to see it all thrown away. You can see how annoying that might be, can’t you?’
He slid his blade back into his ankle sheath.
‘So they made the decision at a gathering back in 1999. A decision to lance the boil, if you’ll excuse such a crude euphemism. They chose to cull mankind, before we went too far down that road. You see Mike, these people I work for, they’re like . . . I don’t know . . . they’re like caretakers, quietly steering things, balancing things, keeping those big old cogs turning. They did this for the sake of us all . . . because it needed to be done.’