The International Assassin A Sexy Times Crime Thriller (31 page)

“Of course Madame,” he replied.

I returned to my room still perplexed as to the identity of the caller. Perhaps it was the broker checking the arrangements but I didn’t recall giving him the hotel number. 

I took out the two large duffel bags I had hidden in the bottom of the wardrobe. In one I had the remains of the cash we had recovered from Roy. It wasn’t the full four million that I had agreed with Anatoly due to the spending spree in Munich and G-Wagen purchase but I didn’t have time to make a large withdrawal to round it up and since I was ninety percent certain Anatoly would make his move and kill me and Nick before he bothered counting it the shortfall seemed academic. It would simply buy me enough time and get me in the same room as Nick. From then on we would have to improvise an escape plan.

I unzipped the second duffel bag that contained the cachet of arms including M4 carbine, assorted pistols and what was left of the C4.

I took out two small blocks, after my previous explosive experiments I had become more proficient at judging the quantity/effect ratio and used a small enough block to take out what I estimated to be a several foot radius without enough to sink the entire boat and all those who sailed on her. I took a contact breaker trigger and remote detonator and wired the explosives together then hid the C4 in the middle of the bundles of cash wiring the contact breaker to the underside of the zip runner. Closing it I connected the terminals carefully, the intention being that when one of Anatoly’s men opened the bag it would blow up their face and provide the vital seconds of distractive mayhem Nick and I would need to find cover, jump overboard or do whatever needed to escape the situation.

As a precaution in case they didn’t open the bag at a suitable moment I would take a dead man’s trigger on a wireless detonator switch to set off the explosion - or threaten to, if Anatoly wasn’t co-operative.

Satisfied I had rigged the bag the best I could I found a Walther PPK from the collection of small arms and a brutal Sig Sauer, not my favourite pistol by any measure since firing it was almost as detrimental to ones health as being in the aim of the barrel such was the aggressive nature of its operation. It had a kick like a buffalo and was utterly deadly in stopping power in close quarters. It also made a horrific amount of noise for a 9mm - an added bonus in a confined space such as aboard a yacht. I decided on black leggings with my killer Loubi’s, a long t-shirt dress and three quarter length black leather coat.

I secured the PPK at the base of my spine under the back of my thong with a small length of surgical tape from the G-Wagen’s first aid kit to hold it in place. It was small enough to potentially go un-noticed if I was body searched. I put the Sig in my inside jacket pocket, took out a backup Glock and put it in my outer pocket. 

A girl can simply never have too many guns.

There was no point in taking the M4 on board however keeping it on the boat in case we needed to fend off hostile boarders seemed a good plan. I studied the brochure I had been given for
La Perla
. It had no less than four fast tenders, which if we had to make a sudden getaway would probably be full of AK47 wielding angry Russians.

With everything prepared for the evenings festivities I grabbed the bags and went to pick up Charlotte. She wasn’t the most useful partner to have in such a situations but she was better than nothing.

Chapter 25

I KNOCKED
on Charlotte’s door but there was no answer but I heard movement so knew she was in there - probably still engaged in some sordid act with her Italian businessman.

“Charlotte?” I said as I knocked again. “Charlotte, we have to go.”

The door opened on the chain.

“What do you want?” she asked in a surprisingly terse mood given she had been fully recharged with Italian cock.

“We have to go. Tell your Italian friend to go and eat some pasta. You can shag him later.”

“Go without me,” she whispered. 

“You’ve been at it all night. I would have thought you would have been glad for the break.”

“Go!” she told me again.

Something wasn’t right. 

“Are you alright?” I asked her. She shook her head. “Open the door,” I whispered.

“I can’t,” she said. I put down the bags and grabbed the Sig from my pocket and cocked it. “Okay then. I will wait downstairs for you,”  I said loudly so whoever was in her room could overhear me.

Charlotte nodded and closed the door. I heard her unlatch the chain. I stood back to the side and using the wall as cover and pointed the Sig at the door.

The door flung open and Roy burst out gun in hand. I fired three shots at him each landing in the wooden doorframe. The Sig was deafening and nearly broke my wrist from its kickback. I tried to make a mental note to aim lower to compensate. Roy screamed as the splintered wood fragmented and struck him in the side of the face and neck. He fired shots wildly in my direction. I ducked quickly and fired again, one of the bullets struck him in his right shoulder sending him flying backwards onto the floor in the room still firing his pistol. I ducked back into cover and tried to recollect how many of the fifteen shots he had fired from his magazine. 

“Put your gun down or I’ll kill her!” Roy shouted at me.

“Go ahead. I don’t give a fuck about her. She’s your girlfriend,” I shouted back.

I was bluffing of course, there was no way I could leave Charlotte in his hands as she knew too much about my forthcoming plan to rescue Nick and the last thing I needed was Roy wading into the middle of it to cock it all up again. Instead I would try and catch him off guard.

I swung around to the doorway and aimed at the floor and fired two shots into the now empty blood stained carpet. I raised my gun up but Roy was nowhere to be seen. 

I gingerly walked into the entrance to the room and scanned it in the dimmed light. The curtains were closed but blowing in the breeze since the French doors leading to the balcony were open. I rushed over to the balcony presuming Roy had made his escape through it before I heard the unmistakable crinkle of footsteps on broken glass behind me and realised my tactical mistake. I stopped on my heels, spun around and fired the gun but it clicked empty. My second mistake was being so used to the fifteen round extended magazine of the Beretta I had forgotten the Sig only had a smaller ten round clip and was I fresh out of bullets. 

Roy stood with Charlotte hostage. His white shirt was stained red from the brutal Sig’s entry wound to his shoulder.

“Oops. No bullets,” Roy said.

His brow was covered in sweat as the shock of his bullet wound took hold. I lowered the Sig but decided not to toss it away. At the very least I could throw it at him.

“I’m starting to get pissed off at you constantly showing up,” I told him.

Roy smiled leering at me.

“If you wanted to stay hidden you shouldn’t have let this dippy blonde tart run about all over the place. It wasn’t hard to find you.”

“What do you want Roy?”

“Take one guess,” he smiled.

“I tell you what I’ll do I’ll write you a cheque,” I suggested.

“I don’t think so. Little Charlotte here has been very talkative in your absence. I know all about your little plan so I’ll settle for the cash.”

“No,” I said affirmatively.

“Shame babe,” said Roy as he cocked the trigger. 

I quickly pulled back the curtain to let in the sunlight blinding him. Roy put an arm over his eyes to shield them from the bright rays of light and fired wildly in my direction as I rolled backwards out onto the balcony. His shots smashed the glass of the doors showering glass everywhere. 

With no other escape option I vaulted the balustrade from the first floor balcony and landed flat on the roof of a BMW parked below. Trying to ignore the sudden pain of the impact I grabbed the Glock from inside my pocket and as Roy loomed over the balcony emptied the entire clip in his direction forcing his retreat. I pulled myself off the BMW and dived for the cover of the building before he returned fire peppering the BMW roof with bullets.

I briefly considered my options. Going back into the hotel was potentially suicide. If Roy opened the bag he would blow the C4 and in such a confined space as the tiny hotel it would likely collapse the whole building. Instead I changed magazines on my Glock and Sig and ran for the garage behind the hotel and got in my G-Wagen fired it up and headed round to the street. As I arrived I watched as Roy threw the bags into the boot of a rented Fiat and bundled Charlotte into the passenger side before getting in and driving away. 

With the direct route blocked by a taxi dropping off passengers at the hotel I cut right down a one-way street then left to run the parallel block to Roy. We reached the main road and I shot out and clipped his rear three quarter panel sending him skidding into a parked car. I immediately dropped my window and took aim at him with the Sig and let loose three or four rounds peppering his windscreen with bullets. Roy ducked, slammed the Fiat into reverse pulled out and accelerated away. He clearly was determined to not give up without a fight.

I thought about triggering the C4 which would be enough to blow him and his Fiat to hell and back but I didn’t have time to get the replacement cash to do the deal with Anatoly so the only choice I had was take it intact. 

I gave chase through the busy late afternoon rush-hour traffic as Roy made his escape west along the Corniche towards Nice. Realising his underpowered Italian biscuit-tin was no match for the German AMG’s brute power he avoided turning onto the motorway and instead took the chase to the narrow twisty coast road through Villefranche, Cap-Ferrat and St Martin. With the road loaded with tourist traffic and locals on the congested single carriageway that mostly had a sheer drop or mountain cliff on one side or the other, keeping pace with the small Fiat was difficult in the bulkier SUV and required several uses of brute force to ram the mostly unwilling male French drivers out of the way. 

Finally catching up with Roy I gave the back of his Fiat a damn good shove with the G’s brutal nose smashing it’s flimsy plastic bumper to pieces but doing little to reduce its speed. Undeterred I pulled alongside him and gave his back rear three-quarter panel a hefty side swipe in an attempt to force a spin out of him. Being front wheel drive it had little effect on the Fiat. Adding a little more throttle I delivered him a full-length side swipe smashing him against the crash barriers but an oncoming bus forced my retreat back behind him again.

Roy became increasingly desperate. Realising his washing machine family runabout was no match for the
blitzkrieg
attack of a two-ton SUV he pulled onto the wrong side of the road and decided to play chicken with a large truck. The truck driver refused to give way until the last possible minute before swerving out of the way and colliding head on with a Smart Car sending it careering off the cliff side into the sea below. Roy just managed to avoid the truck however the gap was far too narrow and there was too much at stake to try and hustle the much larger G63 through so reluctantly I slammed on the anchors and came to a grinding halt as Roy escaped. 

With cars exploding into the back of the truck the road was utterly blocked. I slammed the big G into reverse, ramming the car behind me out of the way I spun into the opposite direction before taking the first left up a dirt road leading into the villas alongside the main road. Despite a steep incline and loose surface the G-Wagen’s impressive off-road capability quickly made its potential felt and I found myself bouncing along the dirt track some thirty feet above the main road quickly catching up again with Roy who mistakenly thought he had evaded me and had slowed down to a more normal pace.

Soon enough I was ahead of him, spotting a wide pathway to the side of the road between the elevated track and main carriageway I swerved the G down back in the direction of the roadway. It tumbled downwards before bouncing back onto the road slap-bang into the side of Roy who struggled to keep control of the Fiat as the G smashed into the side of it. The sudden transfer to tarmac however caused the G’s traction system to have a moment of confusion as it power over-steered around into a spin. By the time I had regained control Roy had managed to get underway and open up a lead again.

Despite the toll of destruction I had inflicted on his car Roy was seemingly hell-bent on continuing regardless. Aware I would need my G in one piece to make it back to Monte Carlo I decided to back off the destructive chase. With a non-stop stream of oncoming traffic as we approached the outskirts of Nice neither of us could gain much road advantage on the ten or so car lengths Roy had on me. With the G-Wagen’s height I had a good over the rooflines view of the cars ahead of me to Roy’s car now smoking profusely from the battering I’d inflicted on it.  I decided it was prudent to bind my time until he was forced to stop.

Roy continued into Nice before pulling off into the city centre. I followed him as he attempted to lose me in the labyrinth of narrow cobbled back streets of the old town. I kept the pressure up on him trying to force a mistake which inevitably came when shooting across a red light on a busy junction as the Fiat was collected with a full side impact from a large delivery van sending it pirouetting to a smoking halt.

I pulled up short of the junction. Roy desperately tried to start the car to no avail. I got out and using my door as a shield opened fire on Roy. He quickly dropped into cover and exited from Charlotte’s side taking refuge behind the car. As we exchanged fire a police car pulled up on the far side of the junction. The occupants spilled out and shouted at me in French before opening fire. With my attention drawn to covering from the new threat Roy seized his opportunity and grabbed the bags from the boot of the stricken Fiat, pulled Charlotte out of the wrecked car and ran into the street behind him using the traffic as cover. I ducked behind the door to avoid the police fire then jumped back in the G and threaded my way through the wreckage of the junction to give chase after him.