Phoenix by Mark Dawson

Author:Mark Dawson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Unputdownable

* * *

Beatrix joined him at the door.

“Over there,” he said. “You see that building. Right-hand side.”

She squinted into the brightness. Milton indicated a building on the other side of the yard, near the entrance.

“You see?” Milton asked.

“No.”

“There’s a man behind the building. I just saw him.”

“A customer?”

Milton raised his hand with his finger pointing up and circled it. “He signalled a rally point,” he said. “There’s more than one of him. And he had a weapon.”

She gritted her teeth. “They must have followed us.”

“Impossible,” he said. “We were thorough.”

Beatrix allowed herself a very brief moment to lay out the alternatives. Might Milton have been involved? He was right: they had been thorough. But could he have taken this moment of privacy to signal their location? He had been out of her sight for fifteen minutes. It would have been a simple enough thing to power up a tracker, to make a quick call or send a text. She dismissed the thought. They were several miles from the centre of Caracas. It would have taken longer than that to scramble assets to their location. But the thought persisted. Might he have signalled earlier? He had hired the Vivaro. It would have been easy enough to slap a tracker somewhere where she wouldn’t see it. She certainly hadn’t checked.

She couldn’t disregard it, but her gut told her that he was on the level.

“Who do you think it is?” he asked her.

“The Americans?”

“I thought this was a joint op? Why would they come without telling us?”

“Maybe he’s too important for them to trust us to deliver him.”

“Could be the people he’s been working for,” he suggested.

“He says he’s not working for anyone,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not waiting to find out.”

“What is it?” Koralev called from inside.

Beatrix and Milton slipped inside the garage again.

“We’re leaving,” Beatrix said to Koralev.

“Why?”

She went over to him and helped him up from the chair. His age made his bones stiff. He clutched her arm for support.

“Load up,” she called over to Milton. “Firearms, grenades, ammunition, anything else that you can quickly get into the back.”

She opened the door of the Vivaro and helped Koralev climb inside.

“Who is it?” the old man said.

“I’m not sure,” Beatrix said. “But we’re not going to wait to find out.”

He didn’t complain. He sat quietly in the minivan, rubbing his wrists where they had been chafed by the cuffs. Beatrix looked at him and wished that they had a little more time.

“Fasten your seat belt,” she told him.”

Milton started to toss equipment from the racks inside: a big rifle, an MP5 SMG, a carrying case for a pistol, a bandolier of grenades, night-vision goggles, ammunition. Satisfied, he yanked the door shut. “Here,” he said, tossing the MP5 over to her.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll drive. You ride shotgun. Open the door.”

Milton jogged around and rolled the door all the way up to the top. Sunlight streamed inside the garage; Beatrix squinted out into it, still unable to see any sign of the men Milton believed were outside.

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