Sentinel Five (The Redaction Chronicles Book 2) (8 page)

Frank Trench lay back on the rumpled sheets of the king-sized bed in his tenth floor luxury suite at the Mandarin Oriental, and exhaled a sigh of pleasure and relaxation. The Mandarin was his favourite hotel whenever he stayed in Hong Kong, a luxury he could now afford.

The young Chinese whore he'd paid for earlier had only recently scampered from the room, off to another client, maybe…
or maybe,
Trench thought,
he'd worn her out for the night.
Trench rated himself an excellent lover; well, maybe not a lover, but he considered himself great at sex. He turned his head to the right and looked out at the sparkling lights illuminating a dark Kowloon Bay. He was amazed by its beauty, it was almost hypnotic and he could feel the last of the stress and tension of the last few days easing. Sleep would inevitably take a hold of him soon.

He'd checked with his people within the
Karasu-Tengu
clan about bringing Gorilla Grant on board. Had sold him up well; ex-intelligence officer, expert Redactor, noted gunman, left SIS under a cloud.

The word had come down from Hokku, the Raven's second in command, to keep Gorilla under surveillance while the 'source' checked out his recent activities. Trench knew better than to question Hokku any further. This was sacred ground, things Trench rarely got to hear about: the clan's source, a person who was somewhere high up in British Intelligence. It was the holiest of holies. Whoever the source was, he'd been instrumental in setting up Trench for recruitment and delivering the rest of the old Redaction mob to be brutally murdered. Trench had only heard his codename in passing and even then, only by accident.
Salamander:
a poisonous, hidden creature who skates along silently beneath the surface. Who the source might actually be, Trench had brooded about many a time, but he was no closer to discovering the man or woman's identity. Less than five hours later he'd received a call from Hokku, to say that Jack Grant had been given an initial 'clean bill of health' from Salamander and the Raven had given permission to go ahead and recruit Gorilla. But Salamander would keep checking… just in case.

Trench's mind turned to more recent events. It was a shame about Gorilla. When he hadn't made it to their rendezvous at the restaurant downstairs earlier, Trench had naturally assumed that the two leg breakers he'd sent had gotten a bit too 'handy' with their Gung-Fu, and paralysed Gorilla at the very least. Still, it was better that he found out now that Gorilla had lost his touch, rather than when he'd come under the clan's protection. It was fair enough to lose your touch, if you were a sportsman or an actor, but in their lethal profession, it was a death sentence.
Never mind
, Trench thought,
he would send some flowers to the hospital tomorrow
…

Trench didn't know how long he'd been asleep when it happened. He would guess no more than thirty minutes. But sleep has a strange way of disorientating the unwary and Trench couldn't be sure of anything. When it did happen, it happened not gradually, but with rapid fire intensity. He was vaguely aware of the darkness of the hotel room, and caught some kind of physical movement from the corner of one barely-opened eye… and then he felt the weight of a body on top of him, kneeling on his chest. A strong hand covered half his face and he was aware of the sharp tang of steel at his throat, a gentle but lethal pressure resting near his artery. He risked opening the one eye further and aided by the ambient light from the city, he looked up into the bearded and furious face of Gorilla Grant.

“We need to have a bit of a talk, Trench, and if I don't get the answers I want— Well, let's just say you'll be making a bit of a mess on this fancy bedcover,” Gorilla growled, a hiss of menace under his breath.

Trench's heart pounded away double time as he snapped into full awareness. Christ, he could feel the pounding of his heart against Gorilla's knee and he panted, struggling to think straight through the panic which was swiftly overtaking his senses. “Jack, look…
arghhh!
”

Gorilla had drawn the cut-throat razor an inch, only an inch, along the skin at Trench's neck, not deeply, but it was enough to let the prone man know Gorilla meant business. “Shut the fuck up Trench. Speak when you're spoken to.”

Trench nodded as best he could and made a determined effort to slow his breathing and calm himself. He'd badly underestimated the smaller man, something he was kicking himself over now. But he was canny enough to know that if he wanted to survive this encounter with the little assassin, he would have to play it completely straight from here on in. Gorilla had a way of sniffing out bullshit.

“One question. Why?” asked Gorilla.

“You daft or something, Jack? I had to know that you were on the level, not with SIS anymore,” replied Trench, some semblance of control returning to his voice.

The anger in Gorilla's voice was evident. “I already told you that… they can go and fuck themselves after what happened in Rome! I don't work for those pricks. It's me, on my own.”

“Plus…”

“Plus what?”

“Plus, I needed to see that you were still capable, that you hadn't lost either your nerve or your touch, for Christ's sake. My people take their killing very seriously and they don't like gunmen getting the jitters at the last minute when a trigger needs to be pulled,” said Trench reasonably.

Gorilla leaned in towards Trench's ear. “And you thought by sending those two cretins after me, that was the best way to test me? For the record, Trench, one took a dive off the side of a tall building and is probably being eaten by some back alley rats as we speak, and the other has lost the sight in both eyes and won't be playing the piano anytime soon. The whole thing took about five minutes for me to sort out. So a test? No fucking way. It was an insult.”

They seemed to have reached an impasse and Trench, knowing how to work a situation, decided to try his hand and go for broke. “So where do we go from here, Jack? As I see it, you can open up my veins and scoot back to your shitty little hotel and shitty little life scrabbling around looking for a job… or we can both sit down over a decent scotch and you can listen to my proposal.”

“I don't feel much like drinking to be honest, Frank,” Gorilla snarled. “So you better tell me fast what your proposal involves or—”

“A job!” barked Trench, fearful that Grant was about to rip the blade across his throat from ear-to-ear. “I bigged you up to the powers-that-be and they want you to come on board. There's a vacancy. Starting salary of five thousand dollars a month, plus a bonus for special jobs and all expenses paid. They want you – us – to attend a meeting in Vientiane in a day or two.”

“To meet who?”

“Their number two guy, name of Hokku. He's a bit of a crusher, but he holds the purse strings.”

“Who's number one? I don't want to be dealing with a second in command.”

Trench shook his head. “Don't go there, Jack, it's a road you might not come back from… arghhh!” Gorilla had moved the razor closer to Trench's throat again and another spot of blood appeared. Trench spoke faster. “The top guy is known only as the
Karasu
– the Raven. I've only met him once, briefly, he wanted to give me a look over to see what he'd bought when he'd hired me. He likes to meet the new talent. He's a shadow, very rarely seen.”

Gorilla moved the razor away from Trench's neck and sat up, pushing Trench's head back onto the bed. “So, Vientiane? Okay, sounds good. What happens next?”

Trench sat up and looked his new colleague up and down. “How's about we get you some bloody decent clothes, and spruce you up a bit. I'll book you a room here and we can at least try to drag you back into civilisation.”

* * *

Jack Grant studied himself in the mirror. After a decent shower and with his face cleaned up after his recent fights, he looked more like his old self. Trench had been good to his word and arranged a room on one of the lower floors. Not quite as grand as Trench's suite, but anything was better than the fleapit he'd been forced to stay in as part of his cover story since landing in Hong Kong. That evening, there had been two visitors to his room. The first was an elderly Chinese man who came to measure him for a new suit. The man had expertly taken his measurements, stood back, inspected Grant's body shape and then left without saying a word. Grant had no doubt that within a matter of hours, there would be a new, made-to-measure suit being delivered to his hotel room.

The second visitor had arrived not long after the tailor departed and Jack had been on the verge of crawling into bed. In truth, he was exhausted after the previous day's events and all he wanted was to get some sleep. So when a light knock sounded on his hotel room door, Grant assumed it was his new suit being delivered. What he didn't expect was the woman who stood on the other side of the doorway when he flung the door open. She was tall for a Chinese woman, elegant certainly, and dressed in a coral, above the knee
Cheongsam
. Her hair had been professionally styled, twisted up off her neck, and her smile fluttered between coy and seductive. Grant recognized her by type, if not by reputation – high class hooker.

“Good evening. My name is Willow,” she said. Her voice was soft, cultured and playful.

Grant thought the name suited her perfectly. She was both graceful and charming. He shook his head, knowing where the conversation would lead and not wanting to get there too easily. “Sorry, I think you have the wrong room, I—”

She ignored him, pushed open the door, took two genteel steps forward and then closed it behind her. “I am a friend of Mr. Janner. He said that I should make you comfortable this evening. Everything is taken care of.”

Jack knew what Trench was up to: bringing his new employee into line, wooing him, showing him the good life, making him loyal with luxurious hotels, clothes and women. Trench was nothing, if not predictable. It had been a little over a year since Grant had been with a woman. A late night dance at the local church hall had turned into a one night stand with a young widow from one of the nearby villages. It had been a release and nothing more, and he'd never seen the woman again. A night with this girl would have the same level of meaning, sexual certainly; fun definitely, but with no more emotion than he would experience when he killed a man he'd never met before. If it meant he could get close to Trench's employers, however…

The girl took a step forward, so that they were touching, her lips gently brushing his. “I am at your disposal,” she whispered softly.

Grant returned the kiss passionately, bringing her closer to him by wrapping his arms around her back. Her body stiffened momentarily, and then she relaxed in his arms as the kiss became mutual. In that moment Jack Grant wasn't sure who had sold themselves for a greater price – her for the money, or him for his soul.

* * *

Later that night, once the girl had left, Grant rose in the darkness and quickly dressed. For what he was about to do, he had to hope luck was on his side. The rules were that once he'd made contact and been taken under their wing, he was to report in quickly. To simply phone his contact from his own personal hotel telephone was too risky, just in case Trench was monitoring his calls. So Grant decided to do the next best thing and use the phone in another, empty, hotel room on the next floor down.

Finding the right room was the hardest thing, it was really down to pure blind luck that the first hotel room he investigated happened to be vacant. The door and the locks were laughable, he could have tripped them in his sleep and he was inside within seconds. The room had a similar layout to his own and he quickly made his way over to the bedside phone, picked up the handset and dialled '9' to get an outside line. He heard the click as the line was accepted and then calmly dialled the contact number which would connect him to his case officer, Jordie Penn. He listened intently into the earpiece, heard the electronic burr and was rewarded with a sleepy voice.

“Yes,” said Penn.

Gorilla went through the procedures. “It's 2308. I've made contact. So far so good. I'm not inside yet, but I'm getting there. I'm staying at the Mandarin, courtesy of my new employers. I'm off to Vientiane tomorrow morning. I'll contact you as soon as I can. Stay by the phone.” He put the receiver down carefully. The whole conversation had taken less than fifteen seconds. Contact with the team had been made.

* * *

The next morning, Jordie Penn was on the surveillance watch. Seated in the foyer of the Mandarin, reading that day's edition of The Times, he looked like a respectable businessman waiting to meet with an important client. His appearance had been altered by the addition of a glued on moustache and a pair of horn rimmed spectacles. Penn thought the disguise made him look like an older version of Clark Gable. Outwardly he was calm, relaxed and in control, but under the surface, his heart was racing like a train. Penn hated this part of any operation, that desolate feeling you have knowing your agent will be going out into the 'wilds', far beyond the reach of his case officer. Penn had been an agent-runner for most of his adult life, and still the feeling of dread didn't abate when your agent was off the leash and running free. It didn't matter if it was Berlin, shoving agents off to get them over the wall, or running sources inside terrorist cells as he'd done in Cyprus during the campaign there; for the agent runner, it was akin to a mother giving up one of her children. It was bloody hard. But it was why Masterman had specifically recruited him to this private operation; not only was Jordie Penn a decent case officer, he was also a loyal Englishman and decent human being.

He sat forward and picked up his tea cup, took a quick sip, made a brief scan of the foyer but there was nothing to be seen yet. In his time Penn had sat and waited at checkpoints, inside freezing cold vans in the dead of night, and in steamy cafes waiting for his agents to come back from a mission. They'd been terrified and desperate men, ready to sell out their country for either financial or ideological reasons… but they were still his agents and despite his manipulation of them, he cared for and fretted over them.