Down Among the Dead Men (52 page)

'This is a fucking job offer? Wouldn't it have been easier to put an ad up?'

Sheehan smiles bleakly. 'Possibly. I'll bear that in mind next time. I don't normally get involved at this level, you understand.'

'And Menno Koopman? Where's he? What's happened to him?'

'He's alive,' says Sheehan. 'He's lost an arm. His recovery will take longer than yours. When he's fit enough we'll assess his attitude and deal with it accordingly. Hopefully he will see things our way.'

'And if he doesn't?'

At the door Sheehan pauses.

'Everyone does. In the end.'

Fifty-Three

He never finds out the name of the base where he'd been kept.

From the medical unit he is taken in a windowless helicopter and flown to Atlanta's Hartsfield Jackson Airport. Ashland goes with him. After Sheehan leaves, Frank's given new clothes: Nikes, jeans, a blue cotton shirt and a windcheater; the choice of a conservative. They were waiting for him in the room when Sheehan had gone, along with his passport and wallet and some basic toiletries in a green washbag.

At Atlanta the helicopter lands in a corner of the airfield. An airport authority bus takes Frank and Ashland to a Delta 777 waiting at the terminal. Ashland leads Frank through a door and up to the plane. He hands a document to a member of the cabin crew who looks at Frank as if he may explode. Frank wonders if Ashland will say anything but he doesn't. Leaving Frank standing in the doorway of the 777, Ashland turns and walks back down the connecting air bridge.

'This way, sir,' says the flight attendant. She turns left and heads to the nose of the aircraft and directs Frank to the front seat. At least Sheehan isn't cheap, reflects Frank. It's his first time at the pointy end.

He notices the flight attendant glancing at the bruising on his face. In the mirror back at the military base it hadn't seemed so bad but out in the real world he guessed it was different, especially on board a plane. He traces the line of the scar across the right side of his scalp. His hair had been shaved to treat the wound and, although it is starting to grow back, it's still short enough for the ridge to show. Frank's nose is crooked and there's more bruising around his eyes. He's bone tired but doesn't want to sleep. He's
afraid the line of dead will return. They've been coming into his dreams with increasing frequency: Paul, Maddy, Nicky, Alicia, Dean, Warren, even Terry.

In his seat, Frank is only dimly aware of take-off, his old fear of flying gone forever. There are more things to be afraid of out there. He watches Atlanta drift past underneath the aircraft and then it's gone. He doesn't feel like he's going home. He feels like he's being exiled. Maybe it's the medication.

An hour and a half into the flight another attendant approaches with a glass of water on a tray.

'I'm OK,' says Frank but the man ignores him and places the tray on the table.

Next to the glass is a white A4 envelope. The steward nods politely and moves back down the plane towards the galley. Frank twists in his seat and watches the man return to his duties.

Frank looks at the envelope for a few minutes before touching it. Eventually he picks it up and slides his thumb under the sealed flap.

Inside is a single sheet of paper.

In the centre of the sheet there are a few lines of black type.

CCBDB Central Credit Banque de Belgique

www.creditbanquedebelgique.com

Account number: 434-99843-221-000

Access code: gREEk24

PO Box 2334, Liverpool City Post Office

Pick up the phone
.

Frank looks at the media console to his right. Above the TV screen is a phone recessed into a plastic casing. He looks around the cabin but nobody seems remotely interested in him.

After a few seconds Frank reaches forward and unclips the handset from its housing. He lifts it to his ear. There's an electronic hiss and then a voice starts to talk. The voice is digital.

Frank. The sheet of paper has details of a bank account. This is in your name. You can access it online via the website. It is linked to a separate and completely legitimate UK account in the name of a security consulting company called Northern Security.
This company is owned by you and is also completely legitimate. In the post office box in Liverpool there is paperwork detailing a highly successful two years you traded in stocks to explain the funds in the accounts. If you do not access the account nothing will happen. If you do access it, the contents are yours to do with as you wish. If you report the account to your superiors nothing will happen: the account is absolutely legal. You have, according to the UK tax records, reported the earnings and paid the correct tax. The account contains twenty-five million US dollars. There are no strings
.

The voice stops. Frank waits but there's nothing else. Unsure of what to do he replaces the handset before picking it up again and listening. There's nothing. Frank taps the mechanism. Nothing. He replaces the handset.

With the sheet of paper in his hand, his face illuminated by the soft glow of the overhead reading light, Frank looks out of the window at the darkening sky. The 777 is heading east into the night. Frank switches off the light and watches the plane get swallowed by a towering stack of black cloud.

Acknowledgements

As with the first book in this series, there are a number of people who have, again, been instrumental in getting me to this point.

I'm grateful to clinical psychologist and one-time Maghull High stud poker champion, Dr Andrew Peden for the psychological detail and suggestions, as well as for some pithy early readings of the text. For valuable detail on Merseyside Police procedures, and for guiding me through the workings of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, I have Stewart Newton Parkinson to thank. Graham Herring also provided some worthwhile police information that prevented me looking more foolish than normal.

In Los Angeles, I have Mark Cigolle and Kim Coleman to thank for their local knowledge, gracious hospitality and extremely good margaritas.

There are also people who didn't object to being murdered (Jonny and Catherine Lea who, although not named, were the inspiration for the unfortunate dentists), and a host of people who loaned me their names (Peter Moreleigh, Sebastian Ross-Hagenbaum and Angela Salt among them). Needless to say, none of them are remotely like their characters in this book.

Other people who deserve thanks are Tara Wynne, my agent at Curtis Brown; Bev Cousins and Georgina Hawtrey-Woore, my publishers at Random House (Australia and UK respectively); Margrete Lamond for early readings and encouragement; my editors, Elena Gomez and Elizabeth Cowell; my son, Danny, for keeping me focused with some of my wilder ideas; my daughter, Sophie, for ensuring the medical side of things was kept within believable limits and, most deservingly, my wife Annie, for everything.