Total anonymity enabled him to do this. Vincent wasn’t called The Ghost for nothing. His art was concealment; often the first you knew that The Ghost had been hired to kill you was when you heard the whisper of steel across your throat.
Next up was Gretchen, the Russian. An old picture of her showed a woman that might well be mistaken for a member of an Olympic weightlifting team; something that put Drake in mind of watching old Olympic Games, when Eastern Bloc teams used to proffer male and female line-ups that were almost interchangeable.
“That woman,” Alicia said. “Will not be hard to recognize.”
“Photo’s ten years old,” Drake said. “And if she’s stopped using steroids she could look as handsome as… well… as Dahl by now.”
“Shut it, Yorkshire twat.”
Gretchen was ex-special forces, as most of these paid killers tended to be. Her specialty was close-up strangulation, asphyxiation, using her muscles to end a man’s life. Like a boa constrictor, once Gretchen enclosed you in her grip, the game was lost.
Blackbird was Mossad, one of the most feared special-forces agencies in the world. Little was known of the Israeli agent; hence the description that they remained ‘of Mossad’. The Israelis kept schtum on the subject, typically proffering no information. Male or female? Nobody knew.
“That person might be a little harder to spot,” Alicia commented.
“Sharp as a razor,” Mai said. “That’s been used to trim a tree.”
“I’ll trim you if you don’t be quiet.”
“Uhh, promises, promises.”
Dahl carried on his emotionless monotone. “Blackbird has been called a freelancer by some in the Israeli government. It says: ‘Blackbird never fights alone’. Others — still reputable sources — say he only carries out hits sanctioned by his bosses. Which begs the question — why is Blackbird here?”
“We’ll ask him later,” Drake said. “Next.”
Duster was a Cockney and a weapons expert. Everything from knives to high-explosives and advanced armaments filled his résumé like a comprehensive menu.
“Where the hell did she find these people?” Drake asked. “I never heard of any of them before.”
“Coyote has run among them most of her life,” Mai said. “In one form or another.”
Gozu’s name came up next, the second Grand Master assassin from Mai’s village and quite possibly the only free member of Clan Tsugarai. Gozu would want to exact full vengeance for his clan’s shame, money for himself, and walk away with Mai’s head.
“This is his theater,” Mai said. “It is what the masters trained for. Covert assassination among civilians. Slip in and slip away, a shadow in the twilight, an art learned over decades and through hard experience.”
Gozu had been identified and placed on a watch list by Dai Hibiki, Mai’s old police friend from Tokyo. The picture they had of him gave very little away, except that he looked almost identical to Gyuki, the Grand Master Mai had slain and her old teacher.
They skipped Santino.
Second to last on the list was Beauregard Alain, the French assassin, also known around the world as Lucifer. Deadly, pitiless, without restraint or remorse, Beauregard was revered in the same vaunted circles as Coyote.
“All I can say is, to get all these celebrities together the bloody reward must be fantastic,” Alicia pointed out. “Why would they, and especially Beauregard and Coyote, want to fight each other just for this?”
Dahl sighed. “Kovalenko’s fortune,” he said. “Was vast. He funded this, remember? The vendetta fund goes to the last man standing… and it is one hundred million. More to the person that takes down Drake and Crouch.”
Alicia coughed hard and eyed Drake. The Yorkshireman frowned. “Don’t be silly.”
Alicia narrowed her eyes. “I could put my kids through college with that kinda dosh.”
“You don’t have any kids.”
“Sure I do. Just because they call themselves the Slayers and are aged twenty five to forty doesn’t mean they’re not family.”
“Last on the list,” Dahl said. “Is Michael Crouch. Wonder where he is?”
“He’ll make contact,” Drake said. “I’m not worried about that.”
“So what’s first?” Alicia stared across the dark town. “What’s the plan?”
“Track them. Draw them out. End this.” Drake said and then turned to the companions he was closest to. “And get on with our bloody lives.”
Mai’s emotionless stare did nothing to ease his fears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After Kinimaka fired his Glock he ducked reflexively as the window exploded outward. The evasive action was for when the wind, strong at this height, whipped some of the flying shards back in. Hayden covered her top half with a pillow. Smyth just stood and watched.
“What the — ow!”
Kinimaka crossed over to the shattered window. “We’re not running, we’re standing,” he said, pressing a panic button. “Backup’s on the way. We just have to hold for a few minutes. Smyth—” he pointed to the window. “Out.”
“What?”
“You know what to do.”
“Shit, yeah. Doesn’t make me happy though.”
Kinimaka held his tongue. The ex-Delta man wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine most days and had been spectacularly irritable since Romero died. Something they were all trying to help him through. The Hawaiian heard noises and rushed to the door.
Smyth headed for the window and a two-hundred-foot freefall.
Kinimaka saw four men running in single-file formation along a corridor that led to Hayden’s room. Only one of the men startled him, a mountain of a man with a mongoose’s face — all furry and twitching — several inches taller and wider than even Kinimaka himself. The Hawaiian suddenly knew what it was for someone to come up against him in battle.
Hope the bastard’s as light on his feet as I am…
Kinimaka hit the door just before the team leader got there. A bullet flew through the gap, slamming past his nose. The door crashed into place, and he turned the lock. A figure collided against it from the other side. Now his attackers couldn’t get to them through the bulletproof door.
A terrible memory swept through his mind just as Hayden said, “Mano. They might have the code.”
He remembered with horror the first time he’d come up against Dmitry Kovalenko. An overwhelming force had crashed a safe house in Miami, and they had known the entry code.
“Override it!” Hayden cried. “Override it and shut it down!”
Kinimaka punched in the code just as the door clicked open. Without a moment’s pause, the frame burst inward, men with severe crew cuts following close after. Kinimaka wrenched at the first one’s shoulders, spinning him in place — much to his surprise — and forcing him back against the shattered frame. Splinters tore into the man’s face, making him scream. The second stumbled over him. Kinimaka stomped on the man’s spine as he landed on all fours, and fired into the first man’s ribs, putting him down for good. The Hawaiian leapt aside as the second man, prone, twisted and fired at him. Bullets whickered through the thin air he had previously occupied. Kinimaka collided full-on with the third man, not on purpose but with characteristic clumsiness. The man flew away as if he’d been shot from a bungee rope, disappearing back down the corridor. Now it was mongoose-man’s turn, and the enormous warrior was still trying to fit through the broken doorway.
Kinimaka stared, almost transfixed.
And heard the whisper as a trigger was pulled behind him…
No! The second man! He…
A gunshot erupted. Kinimaka had no chance to get out of the way. The bullet ripped into flesh, bursting the heart, but it was not his own. He dropped to his knees, landing hard and turned to see the second man holding a gun on him, unfired, and Hayden holding a gun on the second man.