Prologue
Stonefish
Tropic of Cancer - March 2005
Lying on my belly in baking desert sand, I watch motionless while a scorpion skitters past searching for a quieter place to sleep.
When it's gone I push up my shades to make way for binoculars, then check the compound again. Our subject, a fat hairy bloke, late fifties, is still sprawled naked in a hot tub on the porch of the main house and amazingly the girl is still astride him. This entire situation is starting to shred my patience.
"Jeez," says Josh, echoing my thoughts. "How hot does he want to get?"
"Not as hot as he's going to be," I answer. "Unless he croaks before we blow him to hell, which looks increasingly likely."
Kees gives an appreciative snort.
At this distance, we need to be sure of a successful single strike, but instead of precision, we're aiming to make a splash, leaving a clear message with the emphasis on 'mess'. Thus Kees, a couple of yards away from Josh and me, has an RPG-7 in tow. Using the maxim 'the closer the better,' we're in range of the M16s toted by the guards. Not that they often glance in this direction. Nobody's going to attack from the middle of a minefield ... are they?
Thanks to the boffins who recently combined ground-penetrating radar with electromagnetic induction, we marked out a safe path last night. We're also lucky that our subject's a creature of habit, indulging in behaviour that keeps his men well away from the back porch.
Josh wipes sweat and sand from his face and takes another look. "Finally."
I lift the binoculars to see the girl disentangle herself and wrap a towel round her glistening body. She sets off north towards a small cabin where she probably intends to wash the drug baron out of her hair.
"Now?" asks Kees. He's stoked.
"Soon," I say, and he shoulders the launcher, a mine-free expanse of sand surrounding him.
The figure of the girl distorts with increasing distance until she's little more than a mirage hovering just above the ground.
Kees is locked onto the subject. I tell him, "Go for it."
A split-second's pause, then the RPG vomits thunder and shockwaves as the grenade rockets towards the house. BOOM! The porch explodes in a cloud of splinters, steam and Viagra.
"Yes!" Kees' eyes flash with triumph.
In moments, all the king's men come running. But he's Humpty Dumpty and we're legging it down the blind side of the dune towards our jeep. No idiot's going to risk stepping on a mine to come after us, not for a dead man.
A whoop escapes from Josh as he skids to a halt in the sand, and grins. "We must be due some R&R now, Stone?"
Straight-faced, I say, "There's another job lined up."
Kees and Josh both look like kicked puppies.
When we climb into the jeep, I relent. "It's a couple of days before we fly out. Geet and Arnaud should have some entertainment waiting for us at the rendezvous."
The grins are back. Doesn't take much to make them happy.
Chapter 1 - The Third Gate
Hell has three gates: lust, anger, and greed ~ The Bhagavad Gita
Stonefish
France - April 2005
If someone intends to kill you, they'll probably succeed. No matter how many security measures you take - bodyguards, bulletproof vests, armoured cars - there's always a way. And when it comes to professional killers, those ways are countless. The best assassins are creative, artists of death, which is why we command lucrative rewards.
I've never failed. If I take a contract, I make the kill - one hundred percent reliability. A botched attempt can turn your client into a target - bad publicity. Reputation is everything. It's how a man earns his name, and keeps it. Stonefish: the most poisonous fish in the world, cunningly camouflaged. That's the handle they gave me a decade ago when I still lived in Australia.
Creative, reliable, and cold-blooded. Emotion is the last thing an assassin needs when he's working, including both anger and pleasure. But he is entitled to take pride in a job well done. That can never include shooting sheep in a pen. My men and I are skilled, ex-military officers. We only take on the predators.
Final point, when men risk death on a regular basis, quality R&R restores their equilibrium. That's why we're staying in this classy hotel, just outside Dijon, while we plan our latest project. Low-profile luxury before the job, then afterwards, play hard, really hard, somewhere far away from the aftermath.
The Subject
Switzerland
In a lakeside town in Switzerland, two hundred miles east of where Stonefish and his squad are billeted, Mike McLaughlin saunters into his alleged workplace, a plush waterfront office block. He sees his features fractured in the chrome and glass décor, and then reflected in the receptionist's kohl-rimmed eyes. Heather, the boss's youngest daughter, is seldom occupied by anything other than answering the phone or inspecting her French manicure. She smiles broadly at Mike, her laser-whitened teeth a stark contrast to cherry lipstick and spiky hair the same colour as her mahogany desk.
One thing Mike likes about this girl is that she always looks him in the eye, never staring at the scarred side of his face. That's one thing he likes about her; there are plenty of others. He notices the deep cleavage, visible thanks to her otherwise-demure blouse having one too many buttons undone. As ever, an image of her slithers into his imagination - half-naked and spread-eagled on the desk - but he pushes that aside for the time being.
"Any news?" he asks. To Mike, this is her main value. Contrary to the tight-lipped Swiss convention, Heather loves to gossip, and she knows everything about everyone at the office. He regularly feeds her with scandalous stories he wants scattered around, and listens for information that might help him get one over on his rivals. Though she may not realise it, Heather's been instrumental in the ruin of many a career, and worse. Mike once thought it ridiculous that office politics operate the same even when the business - in this case security brokerage - is a front for illegal activities. He'd supposed that hardened criminals were above, or below, such pettiness. Now he knows that wherever there's a hierarchy, there's slander, butt licking and backstabbing. He makes excellent use of all these strategies, the last of them sometimes literally.
One of Heather's dirty little smiles appears. "Benni's wife wants to go with him on the Bangkok trip."
Deadpan, Mike replies, "Now that would cramp his style."
Her smile creeps a little higher up the sides of her face, and her eyes narrow. "I wouldn't exactly call it style."
"Is he still in your father's bad books?"
"More than ever. Out of spite, Daddy's refused to allow the wife to go with him, but that just means Benni gets his own way after all."
Good for your Uncle Benni, Mike thinks. He deserves an enjoyable trip. After all, it'll be his last.
Stonefish
France
"Perfect," says Arnaud, my second-in-command, 'happy as Larry' to be in his homeland, stuffing his face with 'Le pigeon rôti aux cinq épices.'
This hotel began life as a Cistercian abbey, and the impressive galleried cloister above the restaurant is now exercising the eyeballs of Joshua, a square-jawed blond former-Marine from Texas.
"I swear to God I can just about see the monks walking around up there."
These two are our main brawn but - despite Joshua's overactive imagination - they also have excellent brains. Arnaud is six foot four of gaunt steel, dark-haired, and the oldest of us. Joshua, a couple of inches shorter, but with plenty of muscle, is thirty-three, a year younger than me.
In a clipped South African dialect, Kees quips, "Not good to be seeing ghosts in our trade, doos."
He's auburn-haired, about the height of Joshua but not as solidly muscled. He's also the youngest and newest member of the team; not quite bedded in yet, so only insults us with Afrikaans profanities.
Josh sneers and mouths an Anglo-Saxon version of the vulgarity back at him.
Our short-arse, Geet, an ex-Gurkha and a brilliant medic, grins at this exchange of hostilities. Invaluably deft at both taking and saving life, he's also the most cheerful person I've ever met. Sometimes that's good - sometimes it makes the rest of us want to wring his neck.
Me? I'm unremarkable in appearance - your typical Aussie surfer: wiry, not particularly tall, sun-bleached hair and a tan (I do surf a few times a year). If you were looking for an assassin, you wouldn't look at me. But that's the whole idea.
Back to the business in hand: I check that the waiters are nowhere near, then start to describe the contract. "Our client's Benni Dopfer, brother of Kurt Dopfer."
Four sharp stares are suddenly aimed at me. "Yes, that Kurt Dopfer, the 'self-made' billionaire. For all his apparent respectability, most of his lucre comes from peddling powder and flesh."
Kees tsks with feigned disapproval, causing Joshua to roll his eyes.
I soldier on. "The subject's a Brit, Mike McLaughlin, who works for Kurt Dopfer, and is engaged to his eldest daughter."
Lifting his long, connoisseur's nose from a glass of Pinot Noir, Arnaud asks, "Why would the client want his niece's fiancé eliminated?"
"Because he's convinced McLaughlin's already killed at least two people who were blocking his ascent of the Dopfer Empire, and now Benni suspects he's next on the list. McLaughlin's a greedy man. When he's Kurt's son-in-law, he intends to be the sole heir to both the money and the power."
"Bad plan," Geet says in his lyrical Nepali accent, his pronunciation as straight as a plumb line. "If he kills all his rivals, there will not be anyone worth bossing around - only idiots and sycophants, and they will squander his wealth."
Kees scowls. "Then he's a fucking idiot. Shove the power. I'd be content with the cash."
Tapping one of his gold cufflinks, Arnaud's still trying to detect the logic in the contract. "Why doesn't Benni just tell his brother?"
"Let me guess," Geet chimes in. "Benni is not his brother's favourite person at the moment. In fact, he is under a lot of suspicion himself."
I nod confirmation. "Yes, McLaughlin's playing a classic game - divide and conquer ... if it is him. Benni, to his credit, wants confirmation before we take the subject out."
They're staring again. I lift my shoulders. "Don't tell me none of you ever wanted to play Sherlock Holmes. And Josh, you get to work your magic on Kurt Dopfer's youngest daughter."
Those blue eyes suddenly brighten. "Hey, I get a pop at marrying into millions? She hot?"
"A looker, but with the verbal trots. Useful for information, but not the type I'd want to mix DNA with. I've got photos of them all in my room."
The arrival of another bottle of wine - in anticipation of dessert - interrupts our discussion, and I tell yet another waiter that I don't touch the stuff, I only drink water or coffee, and could do with a top up of both. I like to stay in complete control of my faculties. My men prefer to maintain a capacity to drink everyone else under the table. Thus they're more than happy to swig my share of whatever poison's on offer.
The Subject
Switzerland
Late Saturday, the nightclub swarms with punters: a mixture of the wealthy and their bodyguards. It isn't always easy to tell them apart. The spotlight-strafed dance floor and bar are both packed with bodies. At a distance from the pounding rhythms, intimate booths house young couples, some chatting, some with their mouths in much closer proximity.
Mike McLaughlin arrives with Kimberly Dopfer, a slender blonde wearing an engagement ring that cost a truly painful amount of money. But ... speculate to accumulate. Fate is more than kind to Mike. After all, the girl is gorgeous as well as worth millions.
He's not here for the music, which he detests, nor is he even capable of dancing. Mike's here because this is where the affluent go. Standing in the most visible location, he strokes Kimberly's silk-draped buttocks, sips lager and looks around to see who he knows.
"Is that Heather?" He points to a booth.
Kimberly squints into the darkness. "She said she'd be here. Yes, it is. Cow! She's wearing my new blue dress. Who's that she's with?"
"I've no idea," Mike says, but intends to find out. He's possessive about both sisters. Heather's his backup in case anything happens to Kimberly before they're married.
Investment in tow, he threads through the milling drinkers and approaches the booth. "Hello Heather. Enjoying yourself?"
Judging from the assortment of empty cocktail glasses on the table, the answer would be a yes.
Mike stares at the man sitting beside Heather and takes an instant dislike to him. Too tall and broad-shouldered. Dressed not much better than a cowboy - he wouldn't have even been allowed in if he weren't accompanied by a Dopfer - obviously he's a parasitic gold-digging gigolo. The man stares back, inspecting Mike's scars with insolent curiosity. Dislike quickly deepens into hatred.
"Absolutely," Heather heartily confirms she's having a good time.
"Who's your friend?"
"Oh, yes. This is Josh. Josh Barnett. He's from Texas." She glances at her date, then at Kimberly, then Mike. "This is my sister and her fiancé."
Mike's heard that name before, he's sure. Somebody famous? Has to be a coincidence. It's a common enough combination.
"Nice to meet you," the American drawls, but he doesn't stand up or offer his hand in greeting. "Heather's told me all about you both. Planning a wedding in the fall?"
"Yes," Kimberly volunteers. "We are."
The look she gives the Texan suggests she might be persuaded to change her mind. Mike's grip tightens on her fingers and she casts him a questioning frown ... which the fucking cowboy notices.
Men like Josh make Mike sick. He'd like to mess up that pretty-boy face. "Known each other long?"
Couldn't be more than a couple of days since Mike last spoke to Heather. She hadn't mentioned him then.
Josh replies, "Long enough to get to like this little lady one hell of a lot." He winks at Heather.
The way she simpers, she actually seems to have swallowed the line, plus the hook, the sinker, and the entire fucking Icelandic fishing fleet.
Mike asks, "What brings you to Switzerland?"
"A plane." The American grins, then as the girls giggle and Mike's eye begins to twitch, he adds, "Just joking. I travel a lot. It was Switzerland's turn."
So, he can't or won't explain what he does for a living. The arsehole's obviously on the hunt for a rich wife, and Heather appears more than willing to oblige.
"Stroke of luck, coming here," Josh goes on, and nods agreement to his own words. "Heather says her father might find me a place in his company. You've apparently lost one of your best couriers lately."
Yes, and it took some doing, you fucking Neanderthal. Mike's hands itch with the need to punch Josh's lights out. I've made better men than you disappear off the face of the planet.
But he smiles. "If we're likely to be working on the same team, we should meet up for a drink. I can give you some tips." Some very sharp tips.
"Sure. Just say when and where. I'll be there."
Mike suggests the most remote bar in the vicinity, partway up a mountain and almost surrounded by forest. "Good lager, and quiet on a Sunday night."
"Sounds great," Josh replies. "See you there tomorrow. Eight-thirty okay?"
"Perfect." Of course, Mike will tell the sisters that the Yank never showed up.
Stonefish
Switzerland
A man like McLaughlin has no understanding of psychology. He thinks everyone's the same as him - lying, cheating, and prepared to destroy other people's lives for his own gain. Now while that's true in our case, Joshua might have been just a regular bloke who really was called Barnett, looking for a steady job and a girl, and no threat at all to McLaughlin's ambitions. We'd anticipated Josh having to dig much deeper or do a lot more winding up to provoke retaliatory action. But apparently our subject's successes to date have made him rather blasé about murder.
The venue for their meeting is a single-storey chalet half-hidden in woodland above the lakeside town. Delicate alpine flowers shiver outside in the cold breeze as the sun begins to set. Inside, a small elderly bloke serving at the cluttered bar is probably its owner, given that the curios decorating the room look as bizarre and antique as he does. His interest in his customers doesn't extend beyond taking their money. After closing the till, his eyes clamp back on the tiny TV set muttering amidst dusty plastic daisies, music boxes and cuckoo clocks.
If it weren't for Arnaud and me, and two old men playing cards, the place would be deserted. Apparently the beer's better than the coffee, which wouldn't be difficult. Both are preferable to hiding outside with Geet and Kees, but considering the whole team's here on this one (slow time of year) we can keep all eventualities covered. We're padded up against the chilly night, so a certain amount of body armour lurks beneath our jackets.
In accordance with our plan, the subject arrives before Josh. Leaving his BMW at the far end of the car park, McLaughlin strolls inside, buys a super-strength lager and stands at the bar, sipping from the bottle. He looks fit enough, slim, sandy-haired and about six foot tall. He's wearing jeans, an open-necked shirt, a sports jacket, and chunks of gold on his fingers. As expected, there's no sign of a knife or gun, but we've decided he's the stiletto type - a sneaky blade in the back.
It would be interesting to find out what happened to his face. Something like that can make a bloke overly sensitive. I suspect that Joshua, so good-looking that he scarcely has to raise an eyebrow to get laid, rubbed McLaughlin up the wrong way by simply existing. That he then made a point of staring at those scars was just the cherry on top.
Speaking of the devil, Joshua's hire car pulls into the car park and he manoeuvres it nice and close to the Beemer. McLaughlin watches through the window and doesn't bother to suppress the smile. He's thinking this is going to be easy.
He calls a greeting when Josh enters the bar, and holds up the bottle. "Can I get you one?"
"Yeah thanks. The same."
When both have drinks, they settle at a table not too far from ours, McLaughlin facing away from me. Arnaud and I fake a game of cards while I eavesdrop on the conversation via Josh's special cell phone and my earpiece.
They talk about the usual opening stuff, the brand of lager and the lousy weather, then cars. McLaughlin attempts the topic of football ... soccer ... but realises he's onto a loser with the American. The drink vanishes quickly and Joshua goes to buy more.
When he returns, they discuss the Dopfers. Though Kurt's Austrian, his wife's English; that goes some way to explaining the daughters' names. The family chose to live in Switzerland, apparently because the people here are less nosey about the rich and famous. McLaughlin's in his element, explaining how he met and wooed the fair Kimberly, and making insinuations about how hot she is in the sack. Then he buys the next round.
"Don't mind me asking, Mike," Josh ventures as McLaughlin puts the bottles on the table and sits down. "What happened to your face?"
The man's back stiffens, but he forces out an answer.
"Acid."
"Fuck, no! How?"
"I pissed someone off."
I bet he did. People rarely learn.
"Dude, hope you got even," Josh says.
McLaughlin shrugs, swallows some lager and detours further into murky waters. "If you're going to work for us, you should know that the Dopfer business employs a few unsavoury characters."
"Figured so." Josh looks right at him, tips his bottle in a salute then takes a deep pull. His breath hitches and he pats his stomach - the alcohol starting to take effect. "In fact, I'm relying on it, Mike."
That earns a hard stare.
During all this, Arnaud and I shuffle, deal, lay down cards, slide coins across the artificially distressed table top, and murmur a French word or two. Occasionally, one of the wooden clocks on the wall whirrs, regurgitates an asthmatic cuckoo then sucks it back.
Joshua takes another swig and dives into the deep end. "Now if I could get the confidence of Kurt the way you have, I'd be a real asset to the business, and the family. We could help each other out, Mike, cover each other's asses. After all, there's enough money and sisters to go round." He then notices his bottle's empty, so he fetches more.
It seems McLaughlin's decided to string him along, to be Master Craftsman to Josh the admiring apprentice; they discuss tactics over another couple of rounds. The suggested strategy includes sly hints about character assassination and disappearances. His confidence inflated by alcohol, no matter how in control he imagines himself, Mike uses euphemisms and gestures to brag about his exploits, secure in the knowledge that all will remain unrepeated.
By now, Josh is blinking a lot and has a slight slur. We four and the ancient landlord are the only folks left in the bar. Time for Arnaud and me to make ourselves scarce. We drink up and leave, then take cover in the night.
The lights are going out as the last two customers emerge from the door, Josh stumbling on the porch.
"Watch your step there," McLaughlin says, cheerfully. "The cars are over this way, remember. You going to be alright driving?"
"Sure." Josh punctuates that with another hitched breath.
Progress across the badly lit car park is slow, but when they near the vehicles, McLaughlin walks even slower, falling slightly behind. His hand reaches inside his jacket then metal gleams in the gloom.
I whistle. Josh hits the ground rolling while Kees springs up from between the cars and fires a Taser. The subject goes down, convulsing. His stiletto skids across the tarmac as Geet dashes in to clamp an anaesthetic-soaked cloth over the gaping mouth. In seconds, stillness ensues. Relieved, I slide the redundant Sig P220 back into its holster and we handcuff McLaughlin's wrists and ankles before bundling him into the back seat of the hire car.
Kees drives the winding mountain roads towards the agreed rendezvous and I ride up front with him, keeping an eye on our heavily sedated guest. The BMW follows with Arnaud at the wheel and Joshua probably still grinning. Our convoy's completed by Geet who's retrieved my Lexus SUV from its woodland hideaway.
By the time we reach our destination, McLaughlin's awake but confused by too much chemistry and electricity. I ring Benni Dopfer.
"Hello, sir. We have your problem contained, and can confirm your suspicions are correct."
I watch the subject as I speak. He frowns in a vague sort of way, his scars puckering at odd angles.
Benni simply says, "Finish it."
"Will do, sir. An unfortunate accident."
When I close the phone, McLaughlin's suddenly alert. He's shaking his head and searching for something to say. The coin finally makes its way down the sorting mechanism and gives him the green light.
"I'll pay more than whoever that is. I'll double it. I'll give you a million to kill him."
I get out of the car to join the others. Arnaud's smoking a much-needed Gitane, the acrid smell of which I almost enjoy. Once we're ready, Kees opens the back door.
Glancing inside, I allow the subject this much: "Even if you could pay a million, I don't double-cross clients. It's bad for business."
Given my lack of belief in an afterlife or reincarnation, I'm not sure why I bother explaining. It's not like he'll benefit from the lesson.
Not even in the very short term, it turns out. The idiot still imagines he has a chance. Struggling violently to escape the cuffs, he screams, "This isn't fucking fair!"
Kees glares at him. "Neither is stabbing someone in the back, dickhead." Without waiting for a response, he fires the Taser at the man so that Geet can administer another dose of anaesthetic. Then he glances round and adds, "Even if it is just that drunken doos over there."
Joshua fights off a smirk while Kees and Arnaud haul the subject over to the Beemer, and manhandle him into the driving seat.
Joining them, Geet turns to look at me.
I nod.
From a pocket in his parka, the Nepalese medic takes a contraption, a device he and Josh concocted between them, naming it 'The Impactor'. He uses this now to deliver a swift deathblow to the subject's skull. The resulting injury is consistent with, amongst many other scenarios, a traffic accident. Also, all the consequent mess is inside the car where it belongs. Geet checks the vital signs and smiles as he announces, "Finished." Finally, he removes the handcuffs from the body.
We rig the car to guarantee it will burn, and thus complete the tragedy of a young man who goes out drinking with a new friend, has one too many and then, when driving home alone, loses control on a bend, skids off the road, and perishes in a fireball.
As the BMW vanishes over the side into a rocky ravine, Kees sighs. "Waste of a good car."
"Yeah," Joshua agrees, then belches.
"Okay about tidying up loose ends with Heather?" I ask.
"Sure. When she gives me the news of Mike's fate, I'll be so ashamed about letting him drive, that I'll never be able to face her again."
"Pity," says Kees. "She looked to be worth one."
Joshua chuckles and winks. "Worth a few more than one, dude."
Inspector Darren Patterson
Interpol, United States National Central Bureau, Washington, D.C.
Darren picks up the phone on the third ring. "Patterson."
A familiar thick accent replies, the words full of moisture, "Hello Inspector."
"Good to hear from you, Vik. Any news?"
Vikram nearly always has news - an informer without equal - though Darren can't begin to guess how the man unearths so many secrets. He'd met him once; a stooped elderly Hindu, frail alongside Darren's thickset five-eleven frame; swarthy and dishevelled compared with Darren's Caucasian geometry: square shoulders, military flat-top and trimmed blond beard. It would be easy to underestimate Vikram, but Darren doesn't make such mistakes. He hasn't hauled himself up the Interpol hierarchy by accepting stereotypes, or by following the countless Goddamn rules.
"Yes," Vik answers. "Confirmation that we just missed him in Africa."
That sounds like an accusation, but Darren lets it pass.
"I suspected as much. If we'd had a few more hours..."
"The trail's gone cold."
Damn. This informer has handed Darren some of his greatest triumphs: a terrorist cell, an international drugs cartel and a team of East Europeans trafficking children. The credit always goes to the arresting police force, naturally, but Darren knows it is his own efforts that bring the beasts to bay. And of all the world's villains, Stonefish is the trophy he most wants. Vikram, as the key to that success, must be kept optimistic and onside.
"Don't worry. He'll not lie low for long. Keep digging. So will we."
"Of course, Inspector. Stonefish cannot keep his reputation inflated without the oxygen of publicity."
Lobo
Washington, D.C.
After saying goodbye, Lobo closes the cell phone and drops the Indian accent. "Thank you, Inspector." Then he chuckles. With Interpol and every police force on the planet working for him, he can't fail.