42
Oxana, alone on the sundeck, watches as the launch pulls away from the stern of theMedusa, carrying Tahir Yilmaz and Atlas. A stiff breeze has got up in the last hour, and the launch bounces on white-tipped waves as it heads for Skila. The island is clearly visible; Oxana estimates that it’s three quarters of a kilometre away. From both extremities, to left and right, a jagged cliff line descends through grey-green pines to a small bay and a pale crescent of beach. Above this is the island’s only building. Low and white, with stark rectangular lines, it overlooks the bay like a sentinel.
Oxana descends through the decks to her cabin, collects the boning knife from beneath her mattress, and places it, along with a bottle of water and a pair of trainers, in her backpack. Then she makes her way to the scuba locker, and takes out her chosen wetsuit, a mask, a snorkel and a pair of dive fins. A couple of Turkish crew members pass her, and she smiles and raises a hand to them.
Carrying her backpack and the rest of the gear, she walks the short distance to the stern. She can feel the motion of the sea now in the queasy movement of the deck beneath her feet. Afterclosing the door to the interior of the yacht, she pulls on the wetsuit and the rest of the gear. Then she slips her arms through the shoulder straps of the backpack, and swings quietly over the side into the sea.
She covers the first couple of hundred metres fast, propelling herself just beneath the surface of the water with the fins and breathing through the snorkel. The swell and the crosswind slow her progress, but she’s grateful for them. In a flat calm she’d be visible a long way from land, and from theMedusa. As it is, she’s confident that the black wetsuit camouflages her against the dark, broken water.
She settles into a rhythm, kicking steadily from her hips and trailing her arms as she stares blankly into the dark water beneath her. At intervals she raises her head and, if necessary, corrects her course. For a long while the island doesn’t appear to get any closer. Her throat’s dry and salty, her legs ache, and she can feel the drag of the backpack in her neck and shoulder muscles.
I have an uneasy feeling about this. There’s too much of the story that I don’t know. My job used to be straightforward. A target, detailed research, meticulous execution. But this is different. I’m flying, or swimming, blind. I’m about to invade an island armed only with a kitchen knife. I have literally no idea what’s waiting for me.
She halts to get her bearings, and when she lifts her mask she sees that the sky has darkened, that rain is dimpling the choppy water, and that she’s fewer than 200metres from the shore.
A single figure with a long gun is patrolling the beach. Oxana swivels, treading water, and looks out to sea. There are now three vessels visible includingMedusa, their profiles blurred by sweeping rain. Ducking her head below the surface again, biting on the snorkel mouthpiece, she fins hard towards the right-hand side of the bay. Before long she’s in shallower water. She can see pale stretches of tide-washed sand and gravel, and the outlines of rocks. Paddling quietly, she lodges herself against the low stone outcrop which forms one end of the bay and waits there. The guard on the beach is perhaps a hundred metres away. Behind him is a stepped path ascending to the villa, a modernistic building with whitewashed walls, a square front door, and dark, opaque windows.
Slipping below the surface, Oxana swims around the point until she’s out of sight of the guard. There’s no beach or sand here, just tangled scrub, and beneath it, slippery black rocks. Clinging to a low bush, she pulls off the dive fins and jams them into the scrub, followed by the mask and snorkel. She’s about to haul herself out of the sea when she spots a second guard, crouching beneath a stunted pine just a few metres away, staring intently at the horizon. He’s a big guy with a sun-reddened face and a ginger beard, and it takes Oxana a moment or two to realise that he’s taking a shit.
Still hanging on to the bush with one hand, Oxana wriggles the pack from her shoulders and takes out the boning knife. She’d like to put the trainers on, but he might hear them squelch. She can’t see a weapon, and then she spots the short MP7 submachine gun holstered on his thigh. His time of maximum instability, she calculates, is when he wipes his arse.
As Oxana watches, she readies herself. Finally, he looks down and selects a flat, wet stone for the task. As he reaches back between his thighs, she bursts through the scrub with the boning knife held tight in her fist. Seeing her coming he falls to one side, scrabbling desperately at the MP7 on his thigh, but by then Oxana has rammed the knife through the underside of his jaw. He thrashes like a fish as she forces the blade upwards, shoving the hilt with the heel of one hand, and with the other pinching his nose as hard as she can. His hands reach for her, thick fingers plucking at the air, and his eyes bulge wildly. Bright scarlet bubbles tremble and burst at his lips. Oxana, her teeth bared, keeps pushing, keeps shoving, until finally he shudders and is still, drowned in his own blood.
She sinks back, gasping. Her heart’s pounding as if she’s just had sex. Slowly, she releases her victim. She becomes aware – dimly at first, and then acutely – of two things. That the place stinks of shit, and that both her feet are badly cut, and bleeding freely, from her sprint through the thorny scrub.
Lowering herself back into the sea, she swims round the point for the backpack. A hundred metres away, the other guard is staring out to sea, his attitude relaxed. Taking the sodden trainers from her pack Oxana puts them on, ignoring the vicious stinging, and laces them tightly. Then she pulls out the bottle of water, drinks, and takes stock of her situation.
The dead man’s gun is a Heckler and Koch MP7. Short, lightweight, and at this moment in time, a lovely thing to see. There are thirty 4.6mm rounds in the magazine, and another thirty in a spare magazine in a pouch on the dead man’s belt. Also on his belt is a suppressor, a silencer, which Oxana attaches to the MP7. She straps on the dead man’s thigh-holster and is about to head inland when she hears the vibrating mew of a phone in the pocket of his combat pants. Pulling it out, she thumbs the green icon.
‘All good?’
Oxana freezes, surprised to hear an American accent. She waits for a couple of seconds, then cuts off the call, silences the ringtone, and jams the phone into her wrist cuff. A hundred metres away, the guard on the beach stares at his own phone. It can only be a question of time before he walks over to investigate his colleague’s silence.
Oxana prepares herself. Crouching amongst the vegetation, half in and half out of the sea, she thumbs the selector lever on the MP7 to single shot, flips up the iron sights, and waits.
A minute passes, then the guard starts to move towards her through the wavering sheets of rain. She can see the suspicion and the uncertainty in his blurred form, in his tentative steps and his warily scanning gaze. She knows what he’s thinking. He wants, very badly, to take charge of the situation. He wants to do something violently assertive, like firing his weapon, which looks very much like a combat shotgun. But he knows there’s a danger that he’ll hit his colleague, who may or may not be still alive. So he keeps coming, step after careful step.
Cramp grips Oxana’s left leg. Her hamstring seizes up. She gasps and flexes her foot, desperate to stretch her hamstring and calf muscles, but the pain worsens. She bites down on her lip, desperately trying not to move, but must have betrayed her presence in some way because the approaching guard fires. She feels the ripple in the air as the buckshot pellets fly past her face, and a searing flash of pain, as if a white-hot wire has been laid across her neck. Her teeth bite through her lip, and there’s a warm burst of blood on her tongue, but she manages to hold her weapon steady and squeezes off an aimed round. The cough of the discharge is barely audible over the sound of the lashing rain, and a red-black hole appears on the man’s cheek. He slumps forward into the sea and lies there face-down, his body washing backwards and forwards, trailing a thin cloud of blood.
Gasping, Oxana stands and stretches out the back of her leg until the cramp subsides. She sees blood running from the cuff of her wetsuit onto her hands, touches her neck, and discovers a sticky furrow running from the underside of her chin to the point of her jaw. Kneeling, she splashes the wound with seawater, then retrieves the Benelli shotgun, which is loaded with four shells.
She waits where she is for a further ten minutes, but no one else appears, and there’s no sign of anyone patrolling the villa. That a high-level meeting of international crime bosses should be so lightly guarded comes as no surprise. Had one of the three insisted on bringing a security detail, the others would have followed suit. The tiny island would, right now, be overrun with jumpy foot soldiers, all armed to the teeth, a dangerously volatile situation.
Oxana doesn’t walk onto the beach and straight up the main path to the residence entry. That would be tempting fate. Instead, her drenched hair flat to her head, she forces herself up a narrow, rocky side path. The torrential rain makes the path slippery, but it also lessens visibility. The throbbing of her still-bleeding jaw and her lacerated feet act as a dizzying backbeat. She’s sweating now and dehydrating fast. Bracing herself against a tree, she takes the water from her pack, drinks most of what’s left, and urinates in the neoprene wetsuit.
Finally, she reaches the top of the path. Ten minutes’ surveillance of the front of the building reveals nothing. The place appears deserted. With the MP7 holstered and the Benelli held in the ready position, she runs to the entrance. The door into the house is made of thick, studded wood, with an antique lock. Angling the shotgun barrel downwards against the lock, she pulls the trigger. The gun kicks in her hands, the report echoes in the damp air, and the door falls open.
She’s in a wide white hall. At its centre is a round Lalique crystal table, at which three men are sitting in differing attitudesof shock. The youngest one, whom Oxana shoots first – the Albanian, she guesses – is slim, in his late thirties perhaps, with close-cropped hair and a sparse beard. Pale eyes regard hers for a heartbeat, the Benelli punches into her shoulder, and the side of his head disappears in a red mist.
Seconds pass, the crashing echo fades, and neither of the other two men moves. The Italian is a thick-set, one-eyed man in the dusty utilitarian clothing of a farmer. He regards Oxana coldly, his single eye unblinking, ignoring the Albanian’s blood which has spattered his face and neck. She fires the shotgun from the hip, and he pitches backwards as buckshot tears through his chest. The Lalique table takes part of the blast, and cracks like a frozen lake before subsiding to the ground in a glittering heap.
Tahir Yilmaz dusts crystal chips from his lap. He smiles. ‘You’re a surprising young woman, Oxana.’ He looks around him at the dead men, the shattered table, and the blood-soaked chairs and floor. ‘Who sent you?’ he asks her.
‘I did,’ says a voice from the doorway. Emir Yilmaz is silhouetted against the light, with Defne standing at his side.
Tahir stares at them. ‘Why are you here?’ he murmurs. ‘What do you want?’
‘Everything,’ Emir says. ‘Everything, now.’