Cold Kill Read online

  Praise for Stephen Leather

  ‘A grand finale that will have readers on edge.’

  Literary Review on Cold Kill

  ‘A cracking good read . . . Stephen Leather is a master of the thriller genre and Soft Target does not disappoint. The background to the drugs trade immediately grabs one’s attention and the pace never lets up from then on. Leather gives the impression that he has done his research immaculately, and his attention to detail is immaculate. The result is a gripping read, the equal of anything of its nature being published on either side of the Atlantic.’

  Irish Times

  ‘This is a breathless, exciting narrative about a male-dominated world and its peculiar loyalties.’

  Sunday Times on Soft Target

  ‘Leather can dispense high-adrenaline plotting but never at the expense of remembering that his characters are humans rather than Action Man dolls.’

  Barry Forshaw, Sunday Express on Soft Target

  ‘Reading Stephen Leather at leisure is always a pleasure. The pacing of Soft Target is superb’

  **** Ireland on Sunday

  ‘As tough as British thrillers get . . . gripping’

  Irish Independent on Hard Landing

  ‘Leather’s experience as a journalist brings a sturdy, gritty element to a tale of horror . . . which makes The Eyewitness a compelling read’

  Evening Herald, Dublin

  ‘Exciting stuff with plenty of heart-palpitating action gingered up by mystery and intrigue . . . Leather is an intelligent thriller writer’

  Daily Mail on The Tunnel Rats

  Also by Stephen Leather

  Pay Off

  The Fireman

  Hungry Ghost

  The Chinaman

  The Vets

  The Long Shot

  The Birthday Girl

  The Double Tap

  The Solitary Man

  The Tunnel Rats

  The Bombmaker

  The Stretch

  Tango One

  The Eyewitness

  Spider Shepherd Thrillers

  Hard Landing

  Soft Target

  Hot Blood

  Dead Men

  Live Fire

  Rough Justice

  Fair Game (July 2011)

  Jack Nightingale Supernatural Thrillers

  Nightfall

  Midnight

  To find out about these and future titles, visit www.stephenleather.com.

  About the author

  Stephen Leather was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Before that, he was employed as a biochemist for ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the Inland Revenue. He began writing full-time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning, The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series. You can find out more from his website, www.stephenleather.com.

  COLD KILL

  Stephen Leather

  HODDER & STOUGHTON

  Copyright © 2006 by Stephen Leather

  The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  1

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Though the author has intentionally made this novel as realistic as possible it is emphasised that this is a work of fiction.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 978 1 84456 855 0

  Book ISBN 0 340 83412 9

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  A division of Hodder Headline

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Amelia

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am once again indebted to Alistair Cumming of the British Transport Police for keeping me on the straight and narrow regarding police procedure and to Lloyd Currie for his help and advice on matters nautical. Any errors of fact are mine and not theirs.

  Denis O’Donoghue, Barbara Schmeling, Andrew Yates, Alex Bonham and Hazel Orme helped me get the manuscript into shape and Carolyn Mays was once again the perfect editor, always there for me when I needed support and encouragement.

  The American folded his arms and watched without emotion as the electrodes were applied to the man’s genitals. ‘Tell us who gave you the satellite photographs,’ he said. ‘Tell us, and this will all be over.’ He was wearing a lightweight headset, a silver-grey earpiece with a small curved mouthpiece.

  The torturers on the other side of the two-way mirror were wearing similar headsets. They were in their early thirties with hard eyes and close-cropped hair. They wore dark sweatshirts with the sleeves pulled up to the elbows, jeans and heavy workboots. The one attaching the electrodes had a broken nose; the other, standing by a table at the far end of the room, had a thick scar above his lip.

  Broken Nose repeated the American’s words.

  The man in the plastic chair was also in his thirties. He hadn’t shaved in three days and he had been fed infrequently with low-protein meals. His eyes were sunken, with dark patches beneath, and his black hair was matted and unkempt. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

  Scarred Lip picked up a photograph from the table and waved it in front of the man’s face. It was one of several satellite pictures that had been found in his apartment. Photographs of RAF Mildenhall, a base for bombers and tanker aircraft of the United States Air Force and headquarters of the 352nd Special Operations Group. It was a prime target. There could be no justifiable reason for a civilian to have the high-definition satellite images in his possession. Especially a civilian who had circled with black ink all the CCTV cameras that covered the base perimeter.

  ‘Who gave you the pictures?’ said the American, quietly.

  Broken Nose repeated the question, word for word, but in a staccato scream, his mouth just inches from the bound man’s ear.

  ‘You can’t do this!’ shouted the man. He had a Manchester accent. He had been wearing a Manch ester United shirt when he’d been dragged into the basement but he was naked now. He struggled, but the men who had tied him to the chair were professionals and the webbing straps held him tight.

  ‘Yes, we can,’ said Scarred Lip.

  ‘I’m a British citizen. I’ve got rights.’

  ‘Not here you haven’t,’ said Broken Nose. ‘This is American soil. You’ve got no rights here.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything!’ screamed the man, spittle spraying from his lips.

  ‘That’s a lie,’ said Broken Nose. ‘And you know what happens when you lie. Now, who gave you the photographs?’

  ‘We know what you were planning,’ said Scarred Lip. He threw the photograph back on to the table. ‘All we need you to tell us is who was helping you.’

  The man closed his eyes and shuddered in anticipation of the pain to come.

  The American sighed. ‘Do it,’ he said softly.

  Behind the chair a foot pedal connected the electrodes to the high-voltage batteries that would provide the charge. Direct current was much more painful than the mains alternating
current. The American knew that from experience. Broken Nose put his foot on the pedal and the man went into spasm. Broken Nose kept his foot down for a full two seconds, then released it. The man sagged in the chair, gasping for breath. His body was bathed in sweat.

  ‘Again,’ said the American.

  Broken Nose stamped on the pedal. The man went rigid, back arched like a bow, mouth wide in a silent scream. Urine pooled round the chair.

  This time the current stayed on for a full five seconds. When Broken Nose took his foot off the pedal, the man shuddered and was still.

  Scarred Lip walked over and checked for a pulse in the neck. He nodded. The man was still alive. Unconscious, but alive.

  ‘Let’s take a break,’ said the American.

  The torturers grinned. Scarred Lip flashed the American a thumbs-up.

  The American removed the headset and placed it on the table. He left the room, passing two marines with loaded carbines, and took the stairs to the ground floor. He swiped his security card through the reader and tapped his entry code into the keyboard. The door led to a long corridor that took him past storerooms and shredding rooms to a second security door. He swiped his card again and tapped in another four-digit code. The door opened into the main staff entrance where two more armed marines stood guard. They looked straight ahead as the American walked by.

  The American went out into the sunshine. It was eleven o’clock, a fresh winter’s day. He stood looking out over the square, enjoying the cool breeze that played across his face, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It felt good to be out of the basement, which stank of sweat, urine and fear. He had been born on a farm and had always hated confined spaces. He walked along the metal fence to the gatehouse and showed his ID to the armed policeman, who flashed him a bored smile, then opened the gate. Across the square, two more policemen, in flak jackets, cradling carbines, watched him go past the statue of General Eisenhower.

  He walked away from the fortress-like building behind him, surrounded by the blocks of concrete and metal barriers that prevented terrorists getting car bombs close to their target. Americans had enemies around the world, enemies who would love to wreak havoc on a high-profile embassy. Embassies didn’t come more high profile than the one in London’s Grosvenor Square.

  The American liked London. It was a civilised city with good restaurants, a vibrant theatre district and well-tended parks. He headed down Upper Brook Street, past two more armed policemen standing beside a white Land Rover. The British made a big deal about their police force not being armed, but it seemed to the American that every policeman he came across had a gun these days. He smiled and nodded as he walked by, but they stared at him stonily. Everyone was a potential threat now, even a middle-aged white male. It was his regular walk whenever he wanted to clear his head and lungs. Down Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner, then a stroll through the park to the Serpentine. He’d stop off for a coffee at the café there and watch the swans glide by, then read the features pages of the International Herald Tribune. But eventually it would be back to the basement. And back to work.

  It was difficult to believe she was a man. Tall, leggy, with a model’s face, and breasts that were barely contained by the little black dress, she was dancing round a silver pole on a small podium in front of a beer bar packed with tourists, male and female. Alen sipped his mineral water and tried to avoid eye-contact. The Thai ladyboys were predatory and a simple sidelong glance would result in one sitting at his side, massaging his upper thigh and asking him for a drink or offering a quick trip to a short-time hotel. There were more than a dozen working the tourists, all of them tall and lovely. Several were wearing Father Christmas hats and had trimmed their dresses with tinsel. The tourists were mainly British and German, middle-aged and overweight, the single guys flirting with the ladyboys, the married ones sneaking furtive glances whenever they thought their wives’ attention was elsewhere. Every few minutes a ladyboy would leave with a customer, high heels clicking, her hips swinging, hair flicking in triumph. Alen wondered if the men knew they were going off for sex with a transsexual. Or if they cared.

  The road throbbed with the beat of a dozen sound systems, all competing with each other. Tourists sat at roadside beer bars, knocking back bottles of Singha or Chang beer and fondling girls of half their age. Young Thai men in tight-fitting jeans lounged on gleaming motorcycles and smoked cigarettes as they watched their wives and girlfriends ply their trade.

  Alen felt a tug at his shoulder. A small dark-skinned girl with impossibly large eyes thrust a handful of roses at him. Each flower had been carefully wrapped in polythene. ‘Twenty baht,’ she said. She couldn’t have been more than eight.

  ‘Where is your mother, child?’ asked Alen.

  The girl pointed to the right. A woman with skin the colour and texture of leather was standing at the side of the road with an armful of plastic-wrapped roses. She wore a brightly coloured headscarf and large gold hooped earrings. She grinned at Alen, showing a mouthful of blackened teeth.

  ‘Twenty baht,’ repeated the child, pushing the flowers closer to Alen’s face.

  ‘Don’t encourage them,’ said the girl sitting next to him. She was in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length blonde hair that blew round her face in the draught from the wall-mounted fan. She spoke in Bosnian, her second language, and Alen’s too. Anna had been born in Italy, to an Italian mother and a Bosnian father. ‘If no one bought from the kids, they wouldn’t use them,’ she said.

  ‘And if they didn’t work, maybe they wouldn’t eat,’ said Alen. ‘Did you think of that?’ He was also of mixed parentage: his mother was Polish and his father Russian, but his father had left before Alen had been born. Alen and Anna had met in Sarajevo. They had a lot in common. They had lived together for the last three years and, if everything went as planned, they would die together.

  Anna ruffled the child’s hair. ‘She should be at home and asleep, not hanging around with prostitutes and whoremongers.’

  ‘It’s Christmas Day,’ said Alen, his voice loaded with sarcasm. ‘Where is your Christmas spirit?’

  Anna snorted.

  Alen pulled a rose from the little girl’s hand and gave it to Anna, who took it and laughed at his sentimentality. He gave the child two ten-baht coins and winked at her. She ran over to her mother.

  ‘You’re too soft, Alen,’ said Anna.

  ‘You know that’s not true,’ said Alen. ‘You, of all people, know that.’

  There were around two dozen beer bars in the complex off Bangla Road, a hundred yards or so from Patong, Phuket’s busiest beach. More than five hundred prostitutes worked in the bars, a fair number of whom were transsexuals, but even at ten o’clock at night a large number of families were around. Alen took another sip of mineral water. He would take no pleasure in killing children, but it was the will of Allah that the bombs were placed where they would do most damage and if the infidels chose to bring their children to a place of prostitution, then so be it.

  He nodded at Anna, who smiled at him. She, too, was drinking mineral water. ‘Happy?’ he said.

  ‘Perfect,’ she replied. ‘Merry Christmas. And thank you for my rose.’

  Alen clinked his glass against hers. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said loudly. He leaned across the table and planted a kiss on her cheek. She smelt of lemons and camomile. Her shampoo. ‘Allahu akbar,’ whispered Alen.

  ‘Allahu akbar,’ echoed Anna. God is great.

  Alen and Anna stayed in Bangla Road until the bars closed. They visited half a dozen but drank nothing stronger than mineral water. They saw other Muslims drinking alcohol and walking off with prostitutes, but their faces didn’t betray the contempt they felt. Breaking the rules of Islam would bring its own reward. Alen and Anna walked arm in arm, laughing and smiling like any other holiday couple, but their eyes were watchful. It was the small details that would make or break their operation. Where were the police? How heavy was the traffic? What time did the shops and bars close? Were th
e streets busy? Did pedestrians walk down the middle of the road or stick to the pavements? Alen and Anna committed everything to memory.

  They went down to the beach road to where they had parked their blue Suzuki Jeep, then Alen drove the short distance to the resort where they had been staying for the past three weeks. He drove up to their beach bungalow and parked on the cracked concrete strip by the door. The waves lapped the shore in the distance and the palm trees that surrounded the resort whispered in the night breeze.

  They climbed out of the Jeep. Alen knocked on the door. Three quick knocks. Two slow knocks. Two taps with the flat of his hand. It opened, the security chain in place. Pale grey eyes squinted at him, then the door was closed, the chain removed and the door opened again. His name was Norbert, and at thirty-five he was the oldest of the group. He was wearing a red polo shirt and blue jeans, which he’d bought at a roadside stall that morning. His nose and forehead were sunburned and glistened with after-sun lotion. ‘Okay?’ he asked.

  ‘Busy,’ said Alen. ‘The bars are packed.’ He spoke in Bosnian. Norbert had been born in Luxembourg but, like Anna and Alen, he was fluent in Bosnian.

  Another man, Emir, came out of the bedroom, his hair still wet from the shower. ‘Tomorrow? Definitely tomorrow?’ He was the only one of the four to have been born in Bosnia.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Alen. He went through to the second bedroom and pulled a grey Samsonite suitcase from under one of the two beds. He opened it, took out a rolled sheet of thick paper, then went with it into the sitting room. Emir and Anna had dropped down on to a bamboo sofa. Norbert helped Alen unroll the paper and weigh down the corners with saucers from the kitchen.

  They all peered at the hand-drawn map. Alen ran his finger along Bangla Road. ‘It is busy all day, but more so after eight p.m.,’ he said. ‘The bars shut at one. The best time will be at midnight.’ Alen tapped a square some two-thirds of the way down the road. ‘The first device will be here,’ he said, ‘outside the Ocean Plaza department store. It’s always busy. Nearby there are dozens of parked motorcycles, which will add to the explosion. Immediately afterwards there will be panic. Most people will rush down the street towards the beach road.’ He tapped the bar area where he had earlier been drinking with Anna. ‘The second device will be detonated here precisely two minutes later. The street should be full and we will achieve maximum impact.’ He smiled at Anna. They would be responsible for the second device.