Matt Browning 1 - Greed by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

This is where it started, Matt thought, looking up at the drab brick façade of the Holiday Inn Express on Wandsworth roundabout. He walked briskly into the hotel, telling the receptionist that three rooms were booked in the name of Jim Arnold. Matt had pulled the name straight out of his head when he made the booking on the phone. 'This way, lads, second floor,' he said.

Cooksley, Reid, Damien and Ivan followed him up the stairs. They had flown back from Cyprus that morning on the first flight available. From Heathrow, they had made their way directly to the hotel. Matt had called Alison from the airport, saying they were back in Britain, and they needed a meeting. Urgently.

'When will she be here?' Reid asked.

Matt checked his watch. It was three-twenty now, and she had promised to be there by three-thirty. 'Another ten minutes,' he said flatly.

The decision had not been hard to make, and it had been taken jointly between all five of them. Regiment rules. They took decisions together.

Who had attacked Cooksley or why, they had no way of knowing for sure. But it was obvious that someone was after them. They had talked about escaping, discussed lots of different places. They could have headed for Greece, maybe, or gone into Romania or the Balkans somewhere. There were lots of places a man could hide in that part of the world, and three of them knew Kosovo well. They could have crossed to Turkey or headed into north Africa. But it was Damien who had come up with the most practical solution. When you want to hide, go somewhere you know well. That meant going home.

Matt answered the door on the second knock. Alison was wearing a black trouser suit with a red cardigan underneath, a string of pearls slung across her neck. She glanced at him briefly, smiled, then looked across the room. There was something different about her today, Matt judged. She was colder, and a couple of lines seemed to have creased into her brow.

I'm not sure she's pleased to see us.

'The mission was a great success,' she said. 'You are all to be congratulated. You've achieved a significant blow against al-Qaeda. Without money, they are nothing.'

'Save us the speeches,' said Matt, turning to face her. 'What's going to happen to us?'

Alison stood with her back to the window, her face framed by the sunlight breaking through the clouds. 'You get to keep the money, pure and simple,' said Alison stiffly. 'So far as I know, there is no change of plan.'

'Somebody tried to kill me,' said Cooksley. 'In Cyprus.'

'Something's going on,' said Matt. 'And we want to know what it is.'

'Cyprus is a small place,' Alison answered, turning to face them, her tone harsh. 'Nasty little island full of cheap package tourists, Russian gangsters and a few half-drunk squaddies getting burnt in the sun. It's full of people who drink too much beer, and talk too much. So who knows what has happened? Maybe one of you shot your mouth off in a bar, started trying to impress one of the girls.

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