The Final Hour (Victor The Assassin 7) by Wood Tom

Author:Wood, Tom [Wood, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Suspense, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780751565683
Google: mT0_DQAAQBAJ
Amazon: B01MXKYMUV
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 2017-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

The evening air was warm and dry. They waited until there were no passers-by before they continued their conversation.

Raven said, ‘You’re joking, of course.’

‘I’m not suicidal, Constance,’ Victor said, ‘if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

‘So you’re saying that you want me to appear to kill you?’

He nodded. ‘That’s right.’

‘Well, I can’t pretend that I’m not surprised. I never expected you’d want out. I never thought you would be the one to retire first. I never thought you would retire, at all. Ever.’

‘I’m not retiring,’ Victor explained. ‘I’m resetting. My life is becoming more complicated than I can manage, so a simple way for it to become less complicated is if certain people out there were led to believe I’d met with an unfortunate, but deserved, end.’

She pursed her lips. ‘I see. Reset. Unburden. Start again.’

‘It’s a temporary solution, perhaps. I don’t imagine it will fool people for long, but for a good head start, at least. Long enough for priorities to have changed, promotions and demotions to have taken place, maybe the odd heart attack. It might be a different world before anyone realises what really happened.’

‘Why now? What’s happened in the last year?’

‘New York is part of it, of course. That’s kicked up plenty of fallout, as is to be expected. There’s also an open contract out on me, brokered by someone named Phoenix, presumably at the behest of your pals in the Consensus. I’ve been trying to track him down, but it’s a long process. I’m not sure how close I am.’

‘I know of Phoenix. The Consensus have used him before, so I can’t say I’m surprised by this. They know me personally, so they’ve never needed to go via third parties. You, however, are a different case. Why not lie low for a while? It’s good policy every now and again. I wish I had that luxury. But that still doesn’t explain what’s happened recently to make you want to disappear, especially if you’re still trying to find Phoenix.’

‘That’s not all,’ Victor said. ‘One of my previous employers has been in touch. There’s a guy looking for me. He’s trouble. Some big shot working for the director of national intelligence.’

‘A double whammy then. Poor baby.’

‘Which is further complicated because this ex-employer delivered this message to me via my current employer.’

‘You don’t like that they know about one another?’

‘No, I don’t. But it’s more than that.’

‘And if they’re chatting with your other employer then it’s another intelligence agency closely allied to US interests. So are we talking Mossad or MI6?’

‘The Brits.’

‘Then I can’t say I’m following your problem.’

‘Why does my CIA handler need to pass a message to me through my SIS handler? Because they’re in trouble too. They can’t contact me directly because the guy after me is watching their communications. Therefore I’m on my own. No assistance. No intel.’

‘So you’ve been doing black-bag jobs for a faction of CIA under the rest of the intelligence community’s nose, but now that nose has caught a big old whiff of your scent.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.