Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (42 page)

at all times.”
Jack stepped back and he let
Alexa do her thing. It was not a good
cop bad cop game that he was playing; he genuinely loathed the creep
now talking to his woman.
“You know what we want,” Alexa
said. “Are you willing to provide
us with the information or should we take our business elsewhere?”
Bahir took a few moments to consider his position.
“I do not like being made to feel like dog shit,” Bahir said. “I have
worked hard to get to where I am. I
have studied three foreign languages. My bosses find me a useful man to have around. That’s why
they trust me. That’s why they share information with me.”
“Good,” Alexa said.
She sensed that she was starting to make some progress.
“Now the only question that you need to ask is will you share some
of that information with us?” she asked.
Again Bahir paused for a few moments. An earnest look on his face
melted into a cheerful grin.
“For a pretty lady such as yourself, Bahir would do anything,” Bahir said.
Jack rolled his eyes.
“The shipment has already left this area. The part my organisation
plays is now at an end. It is now someone else’s problem. That’s why I
don’t mind sharing what I know with you. If the price is right.”
Bahir leaned forward and Alexa moved in to listen to what he had
to say. Jack was too far away to hear the hushed tone of the conversation.
“The men who I work for will not
be terribly upset if I
pass this
information to you but if you are captured I would be very grateful
if you could keep
my
name
out
of any interrogation. Not
everyone
involved in the trade route is as understanding towards Bahir as my
employers. Do you understand?”
“I understand. We will never give you up. Now, how
cost for the information?”
Bahir thought for moment. He looked around at Jack.
spread across the young man’s face.
much will it

An evil grin
“The cost will be a simple kiss. Here and now, in front
of your
angry man. That is all Bahir asks in exchange for the information that
you seek. Do we have a deal?”

Without thinking about it and with Jack looking
on in horror,
Alexa leaned in to kiss Bahir. Her face was sprayed with blood before
their lips touched. Bahir fell to the ground, stone cold dead, with a
gaping hole in his head.
Alexa immediately turned to face Jack. Jack
was as confused as Alexa. In unison and without speaking they ran for
the shelter
of some nearby shops.
As no further shots rang
out Jack
assumed that they were in the clear. As they knelt at the back of a shop
Jack wiped the blood away from Alexa’s face. She really was the one for
him—with death looming over them and the blood of a dead man still
fresh on her face all he could think about was making love to her there
and then. She was like him; she understood him and his world.
In
every
possible regard that
he could think
of, and he thought
of more human traits and affectations than most men, she was absolutely perfect.
judgement
of
He could not read her completely but for some reason he believed that

she felt the same way about him. There was no reason for her to seduce
him for
operational reasons as he was already
doing everything that
she asked of him. The search for the weapons in Turkey went cold.
As they left the country they were focused on their mission, but they
were also committed to their love for one another. But their world was
not made for lovers and within two weeks their relationship would be
dealt the cruellest of blows.
And so, against all of his training, and against the better
his rational
mind,
he fell completely in love with
her.

As Jack entered the chemical plant through the door that was next
to the laboratory it soon became clear that those already inside the
building were not meeting in the lab, as Jack had assumed. The complete lack
of security indicated they were
elsewhere in the
massive
complex. Even so, that there were no armed guards next to a main entrance was odd. He quickly scanned his surroundings for any signs of
security cameras; there were none that he could see. They were either
very careless, which was highly unlikely, or they were very confident.
What Jack knew
of
men in
power, and what
he knew
of
men with
power of a more sinister kind, was that they were both very arrogant.
For whatever reason, his path had been left clear and he couldn’t help
but feel that was a deliberate choice on their part. He arrived at that
conclusion owing to the fact that there wasn’t a single guard to be seen
anywhere along the long corridor that ran along the side of the lab and
on into the main part of the plant. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit
of
his stomach. It may not have been a trap set up especially for Jack,
but
he felt sure that it was a trap all the same.

Before he moved
meeting
place, Jack
and he peered inside.
empty he still proceeded with great care. If men with power made

reckless suppositions without worrying about the consequences, then
spies who made the same kind of suppositions didn’t live long enough to
regret the consequences. He had been through too many near misses to
have it all
end at the hands
of some trigger
happy
mercenary. The
room was dark and quiet. For some reason on that second visit to the
laboratory
he
noticed the
smell to a
much
greater
extent. It was
stale, and distinctly automotive in nature; clear signs that the room
had
once been used to work with chemicals, and that the room was
probably still being used to work with chemicals—there were organic
compounds in the air and those volatile compounds normally
dissipated
quite
quickly, and so he concluded that they were recent. The
workbench at the back
of the room was still displaying the acid that
Robert had used to intimidate Jack. Jack would not
extend the same
level
of theatrics to Robert if he got the chance—he was bound up in
this and that was all that Jack needed by way
of evidence in his roles
of Judge, jury and executioner.

The door to the lab clicked shut as Jack stepped back out into the
corridor, pulling the door with him as he moved. Jack paused for a few
moments and he listened. He could hear nothing but the sound
of a
gentle wind as it penetrated the building and blew through the empty
spaces within. Metal creaked and wood cracked. The sound
of water
dripping loudly gently rippled through the building, like the irregular
heartbeat
of a dying giant. Jack slowly
began to walk along the corridor towards the inner parts
of the building. He moved unhurriedly
at first; taking a few steps, stopping to listen for signs
of life,
before
moving forwards
once again. Time and again he heard nothing, and
so impatience, along with a growing sense of confidence, spurred him
on at an increasingly faster pace. He passed many doors with panels of
frosted glass in them—Jack assumed that the doors led to offices and
that
none
of those
offices would
be large
enough for a
comfortable
meeting to be held—not with the number of people he was expecting to
find.
One
door was
slightly
different to the
others. There was
no
glass and the dark wood of the door was hard and expensive in appearance. Jack walked up to the door and he pushed down on the handle.

There had to be a good reason why there was no glass in the door.
Jack had been trained to look
out for those things that were
out
of
place. The door and the room behind it fitted that standard
effortlessly. Jack stepped backwards with alarm when he saw two men sitting in front
of a large dark wood desk. He moved too far
back into
the corridor and he was unable to catch the door in time as it closed.
Jack readied himself to run
off in the direction
of the entrance to the
plant. If he had been spotted and they raised the alarm then the safest
option would be to get the hell
out
of there and come back to the
plant at a later date. If he did that he would not be as fortunate on that
occasion as they would have a small army of guards waiting for him on
his second attempt. He paused for a
moment. If he got inside the office quickly enough then there was a possibility that he could take the
two men
out.
As dangerous as it seemed Jack simply
couldn’t give up
at that stage—there was something big, something important, something deadly going
on at that plant and Jack had one good chance to
find out what that was—it was a chance that was unlikely to present
itself again. Without thinking about it too much in case he reasoned
himself
out
of
it, Jack
confidently
stepped
up to the
door,
pushed
down
on the handle, and then he threw
his
body against the wood.
The door flew open into the room and Jack rushed in.

Adrenaline burned through his veins as he moved towards the men
as they
sat
motionless.
Confusion brought Jack to a halt. Neither
of
the two men looked round as Jack burst into the room. His confusion
was almost instantly replaced by grim certainty. Jack edged towards
the men, still alert to the possibility, no matter how remote, that the
seated men could still turn on him. They did not move a muscle. From
the side Jack saw the bullet holes. The first man was missing part of
his forehead, and the man sitting next to him had suffered a gunshot
wound to his left eye. Both had their hands bound to the arms
of the
chairs. A quick inspection indicated that they had not
only been interrogated and murdered,
but they
had been brutally
quizzed. Bruising
around their
eyes and blood trickling from their
mouths told
of the
violence of their demise.

The man closest to Jack had his mouth slightly agape—his lips and
tongue suggested that he had been trying to speak as his life was terminated—possibly pleading for his life. His front teeth were missing,