Hunter (9 page)

VALLETTA, MALTA

Morgan was growing perplexed but knew his naturally suspicious disposition was not letting him down.

The police reports and witness statements clearly indicated that the second firing position was midway along the portside, almost exactly where he stood, yet there were no signs of a contact nor of any blood. He grasped the railing and leant over the side, looking to see if any rounds fired at the
Florence
by the pirates had dropped low against the hull. Nothing. He reversed the logic and looked up behind him into the structure of the mega-yacht, but still nothing. On an impulse, he dropped to the deck, flat on his gut, and peered into the crevices and cracks of the deck's joinery.

The captain was looking for Morgan. He went aft first and paused for a moment at the scene where the bullet holes had been covered up. The captain couldn't tell if anything had been disturbed but he knew Morgan had been there. Why? Was he curious or was there something else? The skin of his gut became taut and he felt an old, remembered sensation of uneasiness from the days when he'd smuggled just about everything in and out of southern Europe coming over him. He turned and headed amidships.

Flat on the deck, Morgan knew there was something staring at him but a blaze of sunlight res
ulted in a blinding glare off the yacht's pristine white salon. Then he spotted it. The most minute flicker of gold wedged within the fissure where the highly polished decking met the bodywork. Morgan reached out and grabbed it.

"Mr Hamilton! Mr Hamilton!" the captain called.

Instantly Morgan was up and on his knees. The object he'd collected was in his trouser pocket and his tortoiseshell Ray-Ban Wayfarers were in his hand.

"Dropped my sunglasses:' he said casually. "Thought they were about to go over the side."

"Oh, I see," said the captain, but he wasn't convinced. His dark, scheming eyes shot from Morgan to the decks, trying to see whatever it was that had so captured Morgan's attention. "Well, if you're satisfied, perhaps we could wrap things up. I really do have a lot to be getting on with."

Ten minutes later Morgan walked casually along the road beside the southern shoreline of Manoel Island and reached The Strand. There, he took up a position in the Cafe Jubilee from where he could observe the vehicle and pedestrian traffic coming and going from the marina. While he waited for coffee, he reached into his pocket and discreetly removed the object he had taken from the
Florence.
The slender brass lines and expanded crimped end of a fired 5.56mm blank cartridge in his fingers taunted him.
Work it out. Work it out.
Morgan's mind raced through the reports he had read on the flight to Malta and again in his hotel room, recalling every detail he could that would place him back at the port side amidships during the pirate attack. Who the hell was firing blanks from that boat.

On an instinct he looked up and across the intersection of The Strand and the Manoel Island access road. He saw the captain emerge, walking briskly up from the marina, looking agitated. The captain's head swung from side to side, suspicious of being followed. Morgan returned the expended blank cartridge to his pocket and made a play of reviewing something on his sat phone; when deployed on ops, all agents carried them. Having selected a table toward the rear of the cafe, he was confident that, unless the captain came in, he would not be seen. Looking past the other patrons, Morgan realized that the captain was waiting for someone. It took only a few more moments for Morgan to see who he'd been waiting for.

A Fiat Sedici 4x4 pulled up sharply and a man wearing the uniform of the Malta Police Force Maritime Patrol leant out of the driver's window and called impatiently to the captain.

The captain got in and they sped off.

UN DETENTION UNIT, SCHEVENINGEN, THE HAGUE

Detainee 69-54-55, Milivoj Serifovic, was escorted to the interview room by an officer of the UN Detention Unit. Serifovic had been expecting a visit from his defense counsel, in fact he'd requested it, but there'd been some problem and his appointed counsel couldn't attend personally. An alternate had been arranged.

Serifovic sat waiting in the interview room with the detention unit guard standing behind him. When the alternate counsel eventually arrived, he could not help but feel physically uneasy: the man moved through the doorway with the set and purpose of an invading tank regiment. Despite the bespoke tailoring, he looked like he was built from scaffolding, with huge slabs of muscle riveted to his superstructure. At the end of girder-sized arms, his hands swung like heavy luggage. His legs gave the impression of pile-driving pistons deep within the engine room of a mammoth battleship. His hair was thick and jet black, cut short. His brow was grave and his dark eyes heavy caliber.

Not that Serifovic could see it, but there was a flicker of recognition upon the face of the prison guard; he'd been told to expect this particular arrival and to 
make himself scarce when granted leave to do so. The guard was glad to see Serifovic squirm.

"I appreciate you waiting for me, officer?' announced the counsel in a heavy Germanic accent. "Would you mind leaving us?"

The prison guard nodded dutifully. "No problem, sir?' he replied. "I'll be right outside."

"Danke schön,"
the man replied.

"Who the hell are you?" demanded Serifovic as soon as they were alone. "You're not my appointed counsel. I've not seen you before among any of her team."

"There's been a slight change to your schedule, colonel," the man began, unruffled. "I'm not here to talk about your defense, but our conversation will have a bearing on your future."

"What the fuck are you talking about? What is this?" Serifovic spat defiantly. "You're no fucking lawyer."

"You're quite wrong, colonel?' came the unemotional reply. "In fact, I have a Bachelor of Law and a Masters in International Legal Studies from the University of Vienna. I am licensed to practice in both Germany and Austria. Now, let us begin."

Hermann Braunschweiger, formerly of the elite German Federal Police special operations and counter terrorism unit GSG 9, latterly recruited to the ranks of Intrepid, removed a file from his attache case and slid a large photograph across the table to Serifovic.

"You know this man." It was a statement of fact.

Serifovic's eyes dropped for a split second, barely acknowledging the image. "I've never seen him before," he lied.

"Let me refresh your memory" Braunschweiger produced another image. This one showed the same man, albeit much younger, leaning against a military vehicle and smoking a cigarette, wearing the uniform of a soldier in the Bosnian Serb Army. "He was, at one time, your personal driver. Will you make me produce the expanded version of this photograph, which includes you?"

"What is it you want?" Serifovic exploded. "And what is your name?"

"My name is of no importance to you," Braunschweiger replied dryly. "The only name that is important to you today is his."

"Why should I give a shit?"

"Because while you trusted this man, confided in him, and even promoted him all those years ago, he is the one who led us straight to you. And he had quite a story to tell about your escapades during the war, I can assure you. For example ..."

Braunschweiger allowed the significance of his words to sink in as he expanded, in excruciating detail, on the information the man in the photographs had allegedly provided to Intrepid. He studied the face of the old man carefully as the revelation clearly made its mark. Despite his reputation as a cold-blooded killer and his years as the senior intelligence officer in the Bosnian Serb Army, Serifovic had been out of the game a long time. His ability to mask his feelings had been eroded by age and ill health.

erifovic remained deathly silent. His jaw was clenched so tight that Braunschweiger could hear the 
teeth grinding beneath the gray flesh of his wrinkled jowls. The bitterness of betrayal etched across Serifovic's face told Braunschweiger everything he needed to know. The Intrepid agent remained impassively silent, allowing the prisoner to consider and process the amount of damage his accuser could possibly do, or already had done, to his defense options.

"What's this got to do with me and why would you believe a piece of shit like Petrovic?" he said finally. "He was just a fucking driver"

"Yes,' Braunschweiger replied. "But he was your fucking driver."

MALTA

Morgan took a cab and, from a discreet distance, tracked the Fiat all the way to a side street on the outskirts of Lija. He watched the captain and the policeman park behind a Nissan Armada and walk into a semidetached terrace house, one of a row of five that stretched along half the short street.

Paying the driver, Morgan slipped deftly through an unlocked wrought-iron gate and headed down a narrow alleyway that paralleled the side wall of the terrace. Reaching the rear of the house, he searched for a way in. He found a small verandah strewn with unused furniture and discarded household paraphernalia. The back door to the house was hard to get to, protected by the mad jumble of junk and rubbish. Anyway, it was too obvious. Instead, he found a small window, unlatched and a quarter open. It belonged to what must have been a washing room directly beneath the window was a wide bench designed for sorting laundry.

Waiting for a moment, Morgan listened to the conversation going on inside. There were definitely more than two voices. It sounded like three. He waited a few moments longer. Yes, three. They were talking in a room somewhere in the middle of the long, narrow terrace. They were speaking Maltese but he could tell 
by the raised tone and aggression in their conversation that they were aggrieved. He recognized the captain's highly charged voice, and registered the words
celebrita, famuz pjanista,
the name Hamilton and then the word
pulizija
in the midst of the excited jabbering. So, when the captain had been brought into this game, he hadn't realized that the target was, in fact, a celebrity - a famous pianist - until he was up to his neck in it. His paranoia had, correctly, driven him to the conclusion that the businessman, Hamilton, was in some way connected to the police.

Using the volume of their argument, Alex Morgan slipped into the laundry via the window.

WEST OF SAN LAWRENZ, GOZO, MALTA

When Charly opened her eyes again it was early afternoon.

She longed for water. Her throat was dry and her lips brittle and raw. Her entire body ached with the pain of being smacked around and lying on the rock floor of the cave with little or no protection from the elements. One of her eyes felt swollen with bruising and her cheeks throbbed. But she knew she must not give up hope. Inner strength was her only chance for survival and the will to live was a potent ally.

She looked down at her hands, the tools of her trade. They were scabbed and swollen. The rough stone surface of the cave was unforgiving and the bindings they'd kept her in for so long had played havoc with her circulation. She stretched her fingers wide and wiggled them, again and again, in her usual pre-performance ritual, but their responsiveness was slow and uncoordinated. Could there be permanent damage - physical or psychosomatic? Would she ever be able to play again? God, how could she even think about playing, when she didn't know if she would survive the night?

Although they'd left Charly alone most of the day, she had a distinct impression of hurried activity going on outside the entrance to the cave. There was talking 
and yelling among the guards and plenty of engine noises - comings and goings. It all sounded like preparation, but preparation for what? Something was going on out there. Charly felt drained and could feel herself slowly losing the drive to go on, but she couldn't let that happen.

Beyond the cave she could see the beautiful azure ocean and as she gazed longingly toward freedom, she felt a calm come upon her. She was suddenly returned to Sunset Hill and the view across Puget Sound to the distant Olympic Mountains. But only for a moment.

As she fell once again into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing, Charly knew she could not take another day of uncertainty. She could almost hear her father's voice telling her to get back in control.

If she was to have any chance of survival, she knew she had to be strong.

MALTA

Morgan edged his way closer to the three men in the midst of their altercation. His Maltese was sketchy at best but there were just enough similarities with English to get him over the line. The argument was over the issue of his, Morgan's, appearance on the boat. The captain and the policeman had been assured that the kidnapping was to be a simple issue: the daughter of a wealthy American businessman was holidaying in the Mediterranean and her abduction would fetch a sizeable ransom. The money would be paid and she would be released unharmed. For their part in it, they would receive a healthy cut. The revelation that she was famous, coupled with the death of at least one of the onboard security men, had changed everything. Now, both the captain and the policeman were agitating for more money. There was no question in their minds that the risks were greater than they had been told. The third man, clearly the point man for the operation, was not happy.

Morgan could hear plenty of tough talk, but no action. He couldn't afford to waste more time by letting them carry on indefinitely. He needed to find Charlotte-Rose and to do that he needed some answers.

Morgan stepped from the kitchen into the dark hallway. It was long and narrow, with tiles on the floor, a high ceiling and open arches leading to other rooms. He inched forward with his back against the wall. From directly behind, a door creaked open and a man emerged from a bathroom, lazily tucking his shirt back into his trousers. The two locked eyes.

Great,
thought Morgan,
I bet the bastard hasn't even washed his hands.

Morgan was catapulted into a frenzy of violence.