The Camelot Code (34 page)

Mitzi ignores the big blonde with the gun and gets in the face of the wiry brunette by the row of basins. ‘You ain’t getting anything. Not until Amber’s at a hospital being treated. Only when I know that, when I can call her and talk to her, do you get what you want.’

The brunette scowls. ‘We’re not here to negotiate.’ She nods to the blonde guarding the door.

Mitzi feels the persuasive jab of a gun in her side. She smashes her left heel into the big woman’s right knee, hooks a hand around the back of her neck and slams her head into the edge of a sink. There’s a sickening thunk of skull bone on ceramic and Mitzi knows she’s unconscious by the time she hits the floor.

The brunette thinks of grabbing the spilled gun.

‘Go ahead,’ says Mitzi. ‘If I needed a weapon I’d have brought one.’

The bathroom door opens and two men appear. They’re unmistakably ‘muscle’.

‘She’s got a fractured skull.’ Mitzi nods to the comatose woman. ‘I heard it pop. Best get her to a hospital before the brain bleed’s too bad.’

The brunette turns cardiac-red. She grabs the gun and points it with shaking hands. ‘Now give me the stick, you fucking bitch.’

‘Calm down, honey.’ Mitzi raises her hands. ‘Things are already screwed here. You’ve gotta get some focus.’

‘Give me the fucking stick!’ She pushes the gun towards her.

‘You want it, lady – you’re going to have to pick it outta my poop.’

The brunette looks lost.

‘I swallowed it.’

One of the guys smiles, steps forward and grabs her hands. He loops a plastic tie around her wrists and pulls it skin-nipping tight.

Mitzi goes with the flow.

The other muscle drapes his sweatshirt over her hands to conceal the cuffs, then bends over the injured blonde. ‘She’s totally out of it. I’ll do what I can and follow in a minute. Take the mouthy bitch to the water and don’t wait for me.’

Owain and Dalton are sat in the cab monitoring developments via the pendant microphone around Mitzi’s neck.

‘We’ve got boats on the Thames,’ says Dalton. ‘Both east and west of London Bridge pier.’ He taps on the glass screen dividing them and the driver. ‘Colin, get off the High Street and head down to the Thames; they’re moving her. I can hear street noise – they must be coming outside.’

Owain stares through the front windshield as the cab pulls into the traffic. ‘It’s about a third of a mile from the pub to the pier – they could walk that in less than five minutes. If you see a silver Mercedes on last year’s plates, it could be a follow car.’

‘Got it.’

‘My money is on them going east.’ Dalton follows a signal from Mitzi’s tracker on a laptop map of London. ‘Over here,’ he points to the right of the screen, ‘near the Millennium Dome.’

Owain isn’t convinced. ‘Maybe.’

The consul presses his case. ‘There’s a lot of open land and unused buildings down there. Remember, Mardrid’s company bought into the post-Olympic regeneration boom.’

‘I know, but he also owns properties around Chelsea Harbour, Battersea Park and Kew Gardens.’ As he talks, Owain dials the operations room at Caergwyn Castle. ‘Lance – Fallon is on the move. Do you have a visual on her?’

Beaucoup is sat in front of a bank of monitors showing feeds from cameras in cars, people on foot and a helicopter hovering high over the river. ‘Eye in the sky has got her. She’s with one man and a woman almost at London Bridge pier. They’re side by side and she has something over her hands, probably to cover some cuffs. I can see a small boat moored there.’

‘What kind of boat?’ asks Dalton.

He squints at the screen. ‘Six or eight berth, built more for speed than cruising.’ He recognizes it now. ‘It’s the same type the marine police use, a twin-engine Targa capable of thirty to forty knots.’

‘What have we got on the water?’ asks Owain.

‘We have a big water slug of a canal boat, fully spec’d with operational equipment and rescue team. And a Hustler Rockit with twin Mercuries that will clear a hundred knots in the blink of an eye.’

‘Only use the Hustler as a last resort. Once that thing cuts a wave, we’ll have river police all over us. Let’s take this one nice and slow. How are we doing on the American side?’

‘The FBI are all over Fallon’s sister’s ranch in San Mateo. They sent agents out there disguised as maintenance men and I’m told they’ve done a full forensic search but have no fingerprint or DNA matches with known criminals.’

‘Hardly a surprise,’ says Owain. ‘This is the work of top-end pros, the kind with no previous —’

‘Marchetti!’ shouts Beaucoup. ‘I just saw Angelo Marchetti on the pier. He’s with a party that got off the boat.’

Mount Diablo fills the rear-view mirror as Eleonora Fracci parks her Chrysler Crossfire in the lot of a small mall. She’s working her way through a list of people who paid cash on short, last-minute holiday lets and car rentals.

In front of her is a spread of fast-food joints, nail parlours, a grocery store, upmarket Chinese restaurant and a bar.

It’s the bar she’s interested in. That and the two guys twenty yards ahead of her who just disappeared inside.

An hour ago, Eleonora had driven past one of the target properties and seen a hulk of a man arguing with a woman in her thirties. He got to the point where he was done shouting and decided a punch would win the argument for him.

Eleonora had wanted to stamp on the brakes, get out and teach him a painful lesson. Only she would have blown her cover. While she was waiting and cursing, two more men came out of the rundown old shack and pulled the big guy and the battered woman inside.

The Italian was left looking at what was on the driveway and is now on the lot. A People Carrier with blacked-out windows. Perfect for four adults and a couple of teenage girls.

Eleonora waits until Mitch Conway, her assigned backup pulls up in his Chevy. She tosses her jacket in the back of the Crossfire and heads inside.

The bar is dark and moody. There’s a long slab of hardwood with saloon-style mirrors and shelves behind it. Neon signs on the wall advertise Bud. A jukebox plays country.

‘Mineral water,’ she says to a middle-aged bartend.

‘Yes,
ma’am
.’ His eyes register his interest in her shapely figure. ‘You want anything to eat? We got the best chicken in the valley.’

Her smile says she’s going to pass on that.

Eleonora takes her BlackBerry out and busies herself with mail. At least that’s what she hopes it looks like to the two guys on stools a few feet away. Without looking up, she knows their eyes are all over her.

The door opens, light spills in and she hears Mitch order a beer and ask where the washroom is.

The bartend puts down her drink. ‘You don’t want the chicken, I’m sure we could do something special for you.’

The comment is enough to prompt the woman-punching hulk into joining in. ‘Pretty sure
I
could do something very special for you, honeycakes.’

His friend laughs.

Eleonora puts her phone down. ‘No food thanks, I’m just waiting for a girlfriend.’

Hulk hitches his stool towards her. ‘I’m Jake and this here is Randy.’

His buddy chimes in. ‘You know what they say, Randy by name…⁠’

‘You guys local?’ she asks.

‘Hell no,’ says Jake. ‘We’re from Fresno. Just come over for some fun.’

She sips her water and leaves her lips glisteningly wet. ‘What kind of fun?’

Jake’s eyes turn greedy. ‘’Bout any kind we can get.’

Eleonora leans back and blatantly checks him out. ‘And what do you big, muscled men do for a living?’

‘Meat packers.’ He nods to his colleague. ‘Randy here is about to open his own business.’

‘Love to show you
my
meat sometime.’ He breaks out laughing again.

She’s heard and seen enough. Professional criminals don’t pick up women in the middle of a job. Nor do they
not
wear watches. Jake has the sleeves of his checked shirt rolled up and his arms are tanned, with no sign of a timepiece ever being around any wrist. But both him and his jerkoff buddy have marks on their fingers where their wedding bands were. Most likely, they’re away on a boys’ holiday. Hunting, shooting, fishing and whatever else they can get. The woman she saw was probably a hooker, stupid enough to grab their cash and get passed around.

Eleonora takes a final sip of her mineral water and puts a five-dollar bill down to settle the tab. ‘Sorry, guys. I have to go.’

‘Hey, not so quick, babe.’ Jake grabs her arm as she gets up.

‘Get your hand off me.’

He doesn’t take the hint. ‘C’mon, sit down baby.’

She pulls her arm but he holds tight.

Eleonora smashes an elbow into his face.

He grabs his broken cheekbone and lets go of her.

She snags the barstool and pulls it from under him.

Hulk hits the floor spine first.

She slips out her gun and trains it on him. ‘Follow me outside and I’ll kill you. And if I ever see or hear of you hurting another woman, then I’ll find you and break more than just your face.’

Armed men hustle Mitzi off the quay and along the back of the bobbing boat. They squeeze her into a covered cabin and force her to sit on a narrow padded bench.

Through a window, she sees a young blonde man in a red T-shirt pull a thick rope back down onto the decking. The craft’s noisy engine coughs into life. The floor vibrates and the Targa pulls out into the choppy grey river.

A good-looking man with trimmed beard and long black hair comes into the cabin and sits on the bench opposite. He unfastens the jacket of his shiny blue suit and smiles at her. ‘Welcome on board, Mrs Fallon.’ He stretches his hand out and rips the silver necklace from around her neck. ‘A woman like you shouldn’t wear such cheap jewellery. Earrings too. Glad I didn’t miss those.’ He grabs both studs and forces them out.

Mitzi yelps as her flesh tears.

Marchetti grabs her wrist and unfastens her watch. He opens the back door of the boat and throws everything into the inky water. ‘That’s better.’

He returns to the bench and looks towards his men. ‘Someone give me a blade.’

Mitzi watches one of the thugs produce a knife for gutting fish.

Marchetti takes it and nods towards the brunette. ‘My friend here tells me you’ve swallowed the digital files. So why don’t I just use this lovely piece of steel, cut you up like a tuna and take it out your guts?’

Mitzi doesn’t flinch. ‘Because of the mights.’

He screws up his eyes. ‘The what?’

‘I
might
be telling the truth and
might
have swallowed it. Or, I
might
have stored it or mailed it somewhere. Kill me and you’ve only got a fifty per cent chance of being right. Release Amber, let her get treatment at a hospital, and I
promise
I’ll tell you the truth.’

‘You
promise
.’ He laughs, then lunges forward and stabs the tip of the blade under her right collarbone.

This time she can’t hold the scream back.

Marchetti keeps the steel wedged there. Far enough in to cause excruciating pain but not so deep as to start a fatal bleed. ‘Give me the stick!’

Shock hammers her chest.

‘Give it me!’

She stares through him.

Marchetti pulls back the blade and punches her face.

Mitzi feels her already damaged nose break again. Blood rushes through her nostrils. Lightning flashes in her head. The boat lurches to the right and she doesn’t have the strength to stop herself falling to the floor.

The boards smell of teak oil and soap. That’s the last thing she remembers before she blacks out.

As the waves of unconsciousness ebb away Mitzi feels a burn in her right shoulder where she’d been stabbed. Any deeper and she’d have bled out. There’s a dull pulse in the centre of her face where her nose has been re-broken. But it doesn’t feel as agonizing as it should. She guesses they’ve given her a shot of something.

Even without opening her eyes, she knows her hands are tied behind her back and she’s sat upright on a hard metal chair, the kind that folds up and can be easily moved. Her ankles have been bound and the lack of sway means she’s no longer on the boat. She guesses the shot was a sedative that kept her quiet while they moved her from the river.

In the blackness beyond her closed eyes, she hears a woman cough. It’s probably the brunette and there’s no doubt at least one man with her as well.

She smells fresh cigarette smoke and sawdust. The air on her face is cool but not cold. From the way sounds come and go, she believes she’s in a medium-sized room rather than a big open space like a warehouse.

‘You want tea?’ asks the woman.

A man answers. ‘Yeah, if you’re making.’

Heels clack across bare boards. Tap water spurts then pounds the metal of a kettle. An electric switch clicks. Mitzi guesses they’re in a private house, office or apartment that is still being built, decorated or renovated.

‘No milk, that okay?’

‘You got sugar?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then three sugars to make up for it being black.’

Mitzi keeps her eyes closed and counts her blessings. They haven’t killed her. Her daughters must still be alive. She’s still figuring out the significance of them moving her, when she hears a door click open and a man speak. ‘She should be awake by now.’

The voice is that of the man with the knife. Mitzi hears him walk towards her. She braces herself.

He puts a hand across her mouth and pinches her nose to block off the airway.

She splutters for breath and finally opens her eyes.

Marchetti squats so he is on her level. ‘Hello again.’

Mitzi looks beyond him. The room is an apartment; she was right about that. The lights are on, meaning it’s night-time. The place has been freshly plastered. There are dust covers everywhere. Sawn floorboards. Tins of emulsion and gloss paint are stacked in a corner.

‘Any idea what this is?’ Marchetti holds a black baton-like object in his hand.

She focuses on it. ‘A metal detector.’

‘Clever girl.’ He steps back. ‘Get her up.’ He hands the security wand to the brunette. ‘Check her out.’

The muscular guy pulls Mitzi off the chair. ‘Spread your legs.’ He laughs. ‘I bet it’s a while since someone said that to you.’

‘Get on with it,’ shouts Marchetti.

The brunette turns on the scanner and runs it up the inside of Mitzi’s legs.

‘Her stomach,’ booms Marchetti. ‘For God’s sake, it’s going to be in her stomach or bowels, not her thighs.’

The woman reddens and switches the paddle to the torso. She moves it slowly and gets a beep off Mitzi’s belt. The muscle unfastens it and pulls it from the loops around her slacks. He unclips the top stud, pulls down the zip and rips open her shirt. The brunette moves the paddle over bare flesh and down to one side, where she gets another beep.

‘Well, well, well.’ Marchetti sounds pleased. ‘Seems you might be telling the truth after all.’ He turns to the muscle. ‘Sit her back down.’

Mitzi watches him walk out of her line of sight. ‘Like I said, release Amber and I won’t leave you in any doubt about whether what’s in my guts is what you want, or just a blank stick.’

‘Clever,’ he shouts. ‘It buys you a little more time because you know I have to check it and therefore I won’t just slice you open.’ She hears him running water, then he appears with a mug and passes it to the brunette. ‘Hold this until I’m ready.’ He pulls open a box of tablets, tosses the cardboard and pops out all the pills from the two metal foils. His eyes light up as he looks at Mitzi. ‘This is going to be messy.’ He grabs her hair and pulls her head back. ‘Open your mouth.’

She keeps it closed.

He chops his fist on her broken nose.

Mitzi screams in pain.

Marchetti forces the laxatives through her teeth and keeps her head tilted back. ‘Water!’

The brunette pours the contents of the mug into her mouth. Mitzi gags. Tries to spit the tablets out.

Marchetti holds his hand over her mouth until she swallows. Mitzi hangs her head forward and wheezes for breath. Marchetti yanks her head back again and forces another handful of tablets over her tongue. This time she doesn’t have the air or willpower to fight. As soon as the water hits her lips, she starts to swallow.

He wipes his wet hand on her and walks away. As he reaches the door, he calls back to his minions. ‘Put her in the closet so she doesn’t make too much mess.’