Chris Ryan
Greed
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Ryan was born near Newcastle in 1961. He joined the SAS in 1984. During his ten years there he was involved in overt and covert operations and was also Sniper team commander of the anti-terrorist team. During the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of an eight-man team to escape from Iraq, of which three colleagues were killed and four captured. It was the longest escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. For his last two years he has been selecting and training potential recruits for the SAS.
He wrote about his experiences in the bestseller The One That Got Away which was also adapted for screen. He is also the author of the bestsellers Stand By, Stand By, Zero Option, The Kremlin Device, Tenth Man Down, The Hit List, The Watchman, Land of Fire, Greed, The Increment, Blackout, Ultimate Weapon and Strike Back. Chris Ryan's SAS Fitness Book and Chris Ryan's Ultimate Survival Guide are also published by Century.
He lectures in business motivation and security and is currently working as a bodyguard in America.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my agent Barbara Levy, editor Mark Booth, Hannah Black, Charlotte Bush and all the rest of the team at Century.
PROLOGUE
A smear of blood was still visible around the edge of the hand, where it had been severed cleanly from the rest of the arm. The flesh around the fingers had started to tighten and decay. On the second finger there was a twisted gold ring, but the metal had been streaked and discoloured, as if exposed to a sudden, searing heat.
The Labrador dropped the hand on to the ground, shaking it free from its mouth.
Jack Turner looked up. It was early morning, the dew still fresh on the fields. The dog had bounded back from a small patch of woodland, on a hill that looked across the Kent countryside and out to Ashford beyond. Turner took this walk with the dog every morning. Never before had he come across anything more interesting than an empty beer can.
He bent down, examining the hand more closely. The skin retained a soft, creamy colour. Whoever it once belonged to, it was certainly a woman. 'Dodger,' Turner shouted to the Labrador. 'Follow, boy.'
He marched quickly in the direction of the woods. The wind was whistling through the trees and there was a distinct chill in the air. In the background, Turner could hear a pair of blackbirds fluttering away. The dog bounded ahead of him, panting as it ran across the wet ground.
The earth lay open and fresh, like a wound cut into the surface of the ground. Turner could feel his pulse quickening as he approached. At the centre of a clearing between the trees there was an open pit, stretching ten feet across and five or six feet deep, the size of a mass grave.
Turner slowed his pace as he approached. Whatever sights might await him there, he sensed his stomach was going to heave.
Only a few parts of the body could be seen as he peered gently across the lip of the trench. He could see a foot, a part of what might once have been an elbow, the fragments of a spinal chord, a tuft of what could have been blonde hair. The blood had all long since seeped into the ground and disappeared. Next to the body lay two yellow canvas travel bags, singed but still intact.
Holding his breath, Turner leapt into the trench, took the first bag between his hands and unzipped its chord. He looked briefly inside, closed his eyes, then looked again. Bank notes. Thousands of bank notes, packed into neat, tidy wedges.
Reaching inside, he took out a sheaf of euros, dollars and pounds and held it in his hands. The notes were high denominations — fifties mostly, with a few hundreds thrown in as well. Turner had never seen so much money in his life, nowhere near. Without counting it he had no way of knowing, but he guessed there must have been a million, maybe much more, in the one bag he had opened. He reckoned he had at least two grand in his fist alone.
Turner reached for the second bag. Already he could sense what he might find there. He pulled back its zipper, reaching inside. Another pile of notes, packed tightly together.
The wad of notes in his hand he stuffed into the pocket of his jacket. Then he re-zipped the bags, making sure he left them exactly as he found them.
Scrambling against the mud, Turner pulled himself up from the ditch and shook the dirt free from his hands. The Labrador nuzzled up close to his leg. 'I'll tell you what, Dodger old boy,' Turner said gruffly, 'a dead woman and several million pounds in a ditch — there must be quite a story behind that.' He reached into a pocket, took out his mobile phone and dialled 999.
ONE
The woman sat perfectly still, examining her face in the mirror, and her expression revealed disappointment with the person looking back. Her hand moved slowly across the dressing table. She took a brush and applied a thin dusting of make-up to her face, carefully painting away the traces of a tear on her cheek. Behind her, a black robe and veil lay draped across the bed.
Nasir bin Sallum closed his mouth and clenched his stomach muscles tight so that not even the sound of his breath would escape. He let his eyes rest upon her for a moment, admiring the delicate upwards slope of her neck and the polished smoothness of her skin.
It is important for an assassin to appreciate his victim before he kills her.
With her right hand she started running a brush through her long black hair. Sallum remained silent, gripping the length of thin, taut climbing cord between his hands. Outside the apartment block — situated in the A1 Mansorah district of Riyadh — he had already removed his shoes, replacing them with a pair of socks thick enough to make almost no sound as he moved swiftly across the carpet.
Suddenly, he sprang forwards and ran towards her chair. He could see her ears twitch as she heard the first stride. He could see her eyes move up as she caught sight of movement in the mirror. And he could see her fist tighten the grip on her hairbrush as she felt the floor vibrate under the weight of her assailant. But her reactions were slow. She knew something was happening but in the few seconds available to her she was unable to react.
It's like strangling chickens on the farm. Sallum slipped the rope around her neck in one swift movement. He pulled sharply, tugging her neck backwards, and could hear the breath escaping from her lips, the stretching of the muscles running through her neck. He leant forward, bending towards the mirror, and their eyes met in the glass. He could read the thoughts written in her expression. Who is this man? Why is he killing me?
Sallum pulled harder, twisting the rope into her skin. It's not her fault I am here this afternoon. There is no need to hurt her unnecessarily.
Her eyes were bulging from her head now, the pupils enlarged. The pressure from the rope prevented any air travelling through her throat and her breathing had stopped, diminishing the flow of oxygen into her heart. Her grip on the hairbrush tightened and her arm tried to lift itself to strike her assailant, but the strength was already fading from her. Then her grip suddenly collapsed and the brush tumbled on to the dressing table before bouncing on to the floor.
Sallum worked the muscles in his forearms, steadily increasing the pressure of the rope on her neck. In the mirror he could see her eyelids blink and then slowly close. She was dead.
Sallum released the rope and let her body curl gently forwards until her head was resting amid the make-up on the dressing table, next to a picture of herself with her family, all of them having a picnic somewhere among green fields and tall trees. He reached down to check her pulse. It was as he expected.