Spiral (49 page)

‘Very functional,’ said Natasha.

‘We won’t be winning any fashion parades,’ yawned Jessica.

‘But then, we’re not here to party,’ said Carter. He grabbed a cheeseburger, and taking a bite, emptied another bag onto the bed. Ammunition magazines and bullets clattered free in a large pile.

‘Fuck me,’ said Natasha.

‘Get busy, ladies, if you please.’

‘Where’d you get all this?’

‘You forget,’ said Carter softly. ‘I used to be a Spiral operative; I worked the DemolSquads for seven years; I know where many of the worldwide stashes are and I’ve got a few contacts in LA.’

‘I don’t think I can go through with this,’ said Jessica, her face having paled at the sight of the bullets and the weapon mags. Her eyes lifted, met Carter’s dark stare. ‘I am not a soldier, I am a programmer. I’m not a fighter, I’m not a warrior. I’m in this shit way too deep ...’

Carter smiled at the young woman, nodding and yawning himself. ‘You are right - you have played your part,’ he said. ‘The best thing to do now is hand over the QIII schematics to me ... I will make sure somebody gets a good slapping for what happened in Saudi Arabia.’

‘Do you think Gol can really help you?’

‘If the meet is genuine, then yes. If it is a set-up ...’ Carter shrugged. ‘How about we rendezvous - I’ll go in alone and meet Gol, then bring him out to meet you two if this thing isn’t a trap? That way you’re not in the firing line - you just play the waiting game.’

Natasha shook her head. ‘I can’t let you go in alone.’

‘You have to,’ said Carter. ‘This thing screams of bad news; you can’t expect me to put Jessica in such a dangerous situation - and as for yourself? Well, Nats, you know - and I fucking
mean
know - that I work better alone. If it really is your father, if he is alive, then so be it, we are on our way to recovering the QIII and stopping Feuchter and Durell’s plans; if he has been captured, then I will do everything in my power to rescue him and I’ll fucking get him out of there alive... and then we can move on to locating Durell...’

Natasha sighed. ‘OK. You’re right. When is the meet?’

‘Two hours. I have just a few more things to take care of.’

‘Where is it?’

Carter met Natasha’s look and their gazes locked; he fell headlong into those beautiful, oval brown depths. He licked his lips slowly and could still taste salt. And the question at the front of his mind was ...

Can I trust her?

Feuchter’s words returned to him.

She’s one of us .

But she had helped him get this far still alive. Without her he would be dead... And since Rub al’Khali Carter had been playing his cards much more closely to his chest - revealing nothing ... the perfect poker player... the perfect gamesman.

Natasha smiled slowly.

‘Don’t tell me,’ she said, sniffing, her eyes unreadable. ‘I don’t need to know the information and I understand that it could compromise you, yeah? Just tell me where you want to meet us afterwards.’

Carter nodded at Natasha and turned, gathering his equipment together. He glanced at Jessica. ‘I’ll leave the schematics disk here. I think it will be safer. If this whole gig is a trap, I wouldn’t like to blunder into their lair with the very fucking item they obviously want from me. If Gol really is here in LA then the schematics could make a difference between his life and death ... and I wouldn’t like to piss that away.’

Jessica nodded.

Carter took the disk, a tiny silver platter, for a moment. He brought it up to his face and stared hard. ‘Hope you’re worth it, hope those fuckers need you more than they need me dead,’ he muttered. Then he dropped the disk into Jessica’s hand and headed for the door.

The Corvette rumbled to a halt in a deserted back alley. A recent fire had scarred most of the narrow passageway and blackened, cracked windows stared out at Carter. Papers blew across his path as the car door opened and Carter’s boots touched the hot pavement under a bleached sun. He stood, stretched his back, and looked warily about: a predator, scanning his new territory, assimilating the piss-stink of markers, alert and ready for action. Carter reached back into the car, slipping various things into his trouser pockets and the pockets of his plain black waist-length jacket.

Carter buttoned up the jacket, checked his now cleanshaven features in the Corvette’s cracked wing mirror, then smiled into the eyes of his own reflection. It was a strong smile. A convincing smile. It would have to be, to get him past the reception of the hotel where the meet was to take place: the Beverly Hills Hilton, recent survivor of atomic terrorism.

Carter walked, hands in his pockets, clearing his mind for the meeting to come. He would have to be sharp; but then, if Gol wasn’t there and it was nothing more than a set-up, Gol would be conspicuous by his absence and the bad gig would be pretty easy to spot - and pretty quick to go down.

Moving out onto the sidewalk, Carter walked swiftly. His gaze was alert, watching, gauging the few people he passed on foot, searching for weapons and bad intent. His eager scrutiny checked every car that purred down the scorched tree-lined sidewalk of South El Camino Drive, searching interiors, looking for anything suspicious, no matter how small. Reaching the corner of El Camino and Wilshire Boulevard, Carter halted again, looking around. He turned left and began to walk once more, again scanning the surroundings - the scarred fronts of buildings, the people, the battered cars, the burned trees. As he closed on the entrance to the Beverly Hills Hilton he slowed to an amble, searching for anything suspicious.

If they’re here, he thought, if they’re watching, then I won’t see them. They will see me; but they will be ghosts.

Invisible.

He halted, leaning against a low wall and pulling free a packet of Camel cigarettes. He lit one and inhaled, enjoying the sensation and buzz of the nicotine. Shit, he thought, it’s been too long, my little buddies. Far too long.

Ahh, the joys of civilisation.

The quiet cigarette allowed him time to examine his surroundings with a careful and practised eye. There were several spots on and in nearby buildings that would be fine for snipers; he could see no activity, but then, that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Carter thought back to Africa.

Gol, running, the long jump out over the abyss ...

The unheard scream, legs treading nothing but air ...

The long dive towards the river far far far below ...

Despite his own pain and exhaustion at the time, he still remembered the one word that had leaped unbidden to his mind ... that came tumbling out of the bright red vaults of agony that had consumed him...

Dead.

There was no way that Gol could have survived that fall.

But then, Carter had also left him to die back in Prague; left him bleeding heavily on the road with the armed police only minutes away. Shot him to keep him
alive ...
and Gol had survived that bad shit, escaped and survived like the tough cockroach bastard he was.

Carter breathed out a plume of smoke. Laughter echoed from further down the sidewalk and Carter’s head snapped in that direction. He relaxed. Took another drag. Breathed deeply, calming his suddenly racing heart.

Analysis, he thought.

He closed his eyes for a moment; the frequent headaches he had been experiencing were thankfully absent; the stitches in his side were holding well and the pain there was nothing more than a dull throb thanks to an injection of pethidine. His nose which he had reset in the hotel room was throbbing with an annoying wave of soreness and the discomfort of his broken finger -freshly strapped - and cracked ribs were nothing more than dull aches that he had come to call his own. The pain was now integral to his existence, a part of him, unchallenged.

He finished the cigarette and flicked the butt into the bushes behind him.

Let’s do it, he thought, checking his watch.

He walked up the long, winding drive, trying hard not to focus exclusively on the impressive but battered building, all the time scanning for anything suspicious as he neared the large turning circle in front of the glass-walled and steel-barred reception area. He glanced right, up at the six-storey building and the balconies that went round the exterior of each floor.

Carter’s plan was simple. Ask for information at the Hilton reception desk, nicely at first... or with Mr 9mm as a bit of heavy reinforcement. He was sure events would unfold from there.

He nodded to the bellboy, climbed the low marble steps that ascended between lofty thick white pillars and entered the plush plant-littered foyer with catlike wariness. His gaze swivelled from left to right. Men reading newspapers, a few women apparently waiting for people, one talking animatedly on a mobile. Carter pressed the reassuring bulk of the Browning beneath his jacket and trod the plush carpets towards the reception desk and the beautiful beaming brunette with her shining eyes.

‘Good evening, sir. How may I help?’

Carter smiled his winning smile as his eyes used the reflecting surfaces of glass, brass and polished marble to check events behind him. Then he said, ‘Hi. I have a friend staying here by the name of Mr Gol. Said he would leave a message for me at reception about a meeting we have? My name is Carter.’

‘Let me check, sir.’

The brunette turned to the pigeon-holes behind the desk. Carter leaned his elbows on the elegantly carved cherrywood surface, gaze scanning the people in the lobby. He watched a man with a full beard enter, carrying a Nike holdall. Carter felt himself tense, and unbuttoned his jacket as the man with the holdall greeted a tall heavy-set man reading a newspaper. They left the lobby together.

‘Yes, there is an envelope for a Mr Carter.’

Carter took the white A5 envelope. He tore open the flap with his thumb; there was a single slip of paper inside. It read:

ROOM 215. I’LL BE WAITING.

It was signed ‘Gol’. The handwriting was Gol’s and so was the signature. Carter glanced around once more, then put the slip into his pocket.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Can you direct me to room 215?’

‘Take the elevator to the second floor. Straight ahead and to the right.’

‘Thank you again.’ He beamed at her and walked towards the elevator, his hand in his pocket curling around an HPG. The elevator door closed and Carter found himself staring at his own reflection in polished chrome. He blinked lazily, a predator, and ignored the urge to light another cigarette.

Alone, he thought.

The way I like it.

He pulled free the HPG and stared at the small reflective ball. He pulled the pin and held down the trigger, then cupped the globe in his hand thoughtfully, testing the weight. The HPG was hidden against his palm.

He carefully put the pin in his pocket and removed his battered Browning Hi-Power as the elevator doors slid open, revealing a bright corridor with plush carpeting and tasteful wood panelling and decor. Carter stepped out onto the thick carpet, his boots sinking into the pile.

‘Very cosy,’ he muttered. He checked left and right. Moved forward.

The hotel seemed quiet. Carter walked to room 215 and halted to one side of the door. He eyed the brass numbers suspiciously as something inside him screamed:

This is wrong, this is all wrong, Gol is dead, this is a trap ...

Who wanted him dead?

Durell? The Nex?

There were easier ways to kill him than this. But then, now he had the QIII schematics with which to do a little bargaining ...

He raised his fist. Glanced left and right.

Rapped on the door and took a step back.

‘Come in,’ came a clear, melodious, powerful voice.

Carter blinked. He licked his lips and realised that there was salt there. He realised too that his hand was slippery around the stocky bulk of the Browning. He holstered the Browning and wiped his hand on his trousers. He smiled nastily. Depressing the handle, Carter nudged the door open and drew the gun once more.

Gentle laughter came from inside the room. ‘Come on in, Carter. There’s no gun here waiting to blow your head off. No terrible plan of entrapment to ensnare you.’

Carter peered around the door frame. Gol was sitting in a chair by the window, a glass of brandy by one hand, a cigarette in his other. Carter checked the corridor, then stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

‘Nice to see you again, Gol, but I thought you might be kinda dead.’

Gol turned then, and stood. He beamed warmly at Carter, and raised his glass, sipping at the brandy, his eyes on the Browning. ‘Always a cautious man, eh, my friend? Although I
do
quite understand your concern ... if our situations had been reversed, then I too would think it a trap.’

He moved, walking across the room to stare out of the window.

Carter moved forward suspiciously, all senses alert, Browning muzzle searching uneasily. When he was satisfied that they were alone in the room, he fixed his stare back on Gol, who had turned, his dark-eyed gaze settling on Carter.

Gol smiled warmly. He ran a hand through his greying hair.

‘I know you will find it hard to believe, but I was rescued. By Spiral; they desperately wanted the schematics I was carrying but the irony was that in rescuing me, they forced me to drop that disk - and it became lost, leaving Feuchter with the only working processor in existence. Spiral were very precise - they had tracked me, were waiting when I took that leap of fucking faith. They plucked me from the sky like a fly being zapped.’