The Winged Dagger (Matt Drake 32), page 10
The trouble was, nobody acted on anything.
Days passed. The team went out on made-up missions, pretended they were returning on a high. The days and nights in Johannesburg were sultry, oppressive. They sweated twenty-four-seven. Tempers got frayed. The team wanted some real action, not the façade they were making up for the locals.
Hours and days passed. They remained where they were. Orders were passed down by secure communication every morning. Still, the local suspects in Johannesburg kept a low profile.
Was someone feeding them information?
One day, Matt Drake took it upon himself to try something different. Mawle never knew why. Maybe it was a hunch. By that time, Mawle was missing his home and missing his family. Back in the UK he had a wife and two little girls. They meant the world to him. Every time he left home he became torn, worried that he’d miss the best years of their lives, worried that he’d miss another day, another week, another month of seeing them grow.
But the job was the job. That’s what he told himself. He was a soldier. Soldiering was a privilege. You did it all for your country and to keep the civilians safe. You...
But Mawle hadn’t been doing that at all.
Drake’s hunch – or whatever it was – paid off. He changed the parameters of the plan, still fed the locals false information, but gave all eight members of the Ninth Division slightly different information. When one of those pieces of information reached enemy hands, it could be traced back to a particular mouthpiece as soon as they acted on it.
Brandon Mawle was a most unexpected mole. He’d been approached back in the good old UK by a very tall man who offered to pay him several thousand a month for just a few bits of information. New ops, new targets, new areas of interest, that kind of thing. Mawle had seen an opportunity and had taken it, meeting with the tall man occasionally but normally just texting a few words by secure phone. It was easy money facilitating an easy way of life and harmed nobody that he knew of. It was just an early warning system for their enemies.
Mawle did it for a year.
But Matt fucking Drake messed everything up. That SAS bastard undid him, shone a light on all his dealings. Of course, Mawle wasn’t stupid. He knew giving away secrets was an act of treason. Sure, until now, he’d been repressing that knowledge, confident that he’d never get found out. Of course, that pretence had been more than a little naïve.
They truly fucked Mawle, all ends up. If he surrendered, they’d thrown him in some rotbox of a prison. He’d never see his beautiful family again. It was all Drake’s fault, the snivelling runt. Mawle had decided to cut and run. He’d exploded into violence, made a break for it, and got out of the office. He’s lost himself in Joburg. He was alone, without resources, and without the backing of any government.
But there was one man he could turn to. Would that man help him?
The tall man had seen something in Brandon Mawle. He hadn’t cut him loose. Instead, he let Mawle run, perhaps seeing a desperate, broken cog he could rebuild and manipulate. At least he’d tried. Mawle had killed the man who came to his rescue less than a year later. The whole thing parted Mawle forever from the family that he knew and loved, and it was all Matt Drake’s fault.
The intervening years hadn’t been easy. Somewhere along the way, Mawle had had to forget that he had a wife and two young children who, no doubt, were wondering where their loyal father had gone. What had the corrupt government told them? Even Drake... had Drake been in touch with them? That would be the worst of it. That Yorkshire bastard visiting Mawle’s own family when he couldn’t.
When Mawle was able, he sent a man to report on his family. It wasn’t good news. Turned out his wife hadn’t been able to accept the loss of her husband and had taken to alcohol to while away the lonely nights. The gorgeous kids had become neglected, the family ties torn apart. The wife kept custody of the kids, but it wasn’t a pleasant existence. Mawle spent many hours and many days pining for what could have been, for what he’d cost his family. He couldn’t bear the thought of being the man who’d screwed up the future that his little daughters deserved.
And the hatred for Matt Drake festered.
It grew and grew until it became a part of him, always there, always the cold foundation that he prospered on. He didn’t always think of Drake implicitly, but the hatred was a living, squirming thing that drove him relentlessly.
Mawle worked for ruthless men; he set up a business where he kept tags on law enforcement for various gang leaders; another business that involved the smuggling of precious data. He kept a low profile; he had to. The British government would never rescind his capture or kill order. That was a given. Drake had marked him for life. Drake had destroyed everything he might ever have been.
And the future of his family.
For that, one day, he would get some form of payback.
Mawle worked hard. He never flinched from a tough mission. He worked for the worst of the worst and thrived, learning from them whilst never getting deep enough into their organisation to make them want to keep him around. That wouldn’t do. He always knew he wanted to be his own man.
Mawle enjoyed the hunt. He always had, ever since the days of the Ninth Division. There was nothing like following the trail of a terrorist, hunting that bastard down until he was cornered and crying like a dying rat. And then shooting him. Not always in the head at first, but in other parts of his body that made him scream in preparation to death. That way, the terrorist knew he was doing wrong. He knew that the path he’d chosen for his life was laced in darkness and danger, not in light.
Somewhere along the way, Mawle’s message got twisted. He knew where, and he didn’t care. That was when he realised he could make a prosperous business of the Great Hunt. When he understood, he could do it for real, enjoy it, and get rich doing it. Through the years, he’d made the contacts who helped him get it off the ground. They were now his silent partners.
Finally content, happy, Mawle had let go of the past and immersed himself in the last mission of his life. Something he’d always wanted to do. The Hunt occurred first in Croatia, then in Slovenia and Hungary. He had switched to Romania when it got a little too hot, but the European police never really put it all together. They never guessed the scope of the evil that they had on their hands.
Mawle facilitated the hunting and murder of dozens of men and women from Germany to Moldova.
America had offered a fine challenge for them. It proffered untapped wildernesses; was a place where thousands a day went missing. The homeless barely noticed on the streets, let alone helped. It was a new challenge that Mawle had relished.
And then... the unthinkable.
The man who had finally receded into Mawle’s past, into the decaying memory banks that he deliberately left untapped, appeared on the goddamn TV screen – right in front of his stunned eyes. And that bastard appeared to be prospering. Not only that, but he also had people around him, people who backed him up.
Mawle felt all the old hatred flood back as if some rusty, putrid old gate had given way, as if a long suppressed storm had finally broken free. It consumed him, brought all the bad times rushing back, even made him remember he hadn’t kept tabs on his wife and daughters for years, made him feel guilty that he didn’t know what they were doing now. Drake had regressed him almost twenty years.
He would have his revenge. Drake would pay.
The past never stayed hidden. He knew that. No matter how hard you tried, it always came back to test you. There was no shrugging it off forever, only avoidance. Would killing Matt Drake and all his friends absolve Mawle’s guilt?
He’d soon find out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The attack on Bryant’s HQ had been a major mistake.
Drake could see that now. The Paymaster had really fucked up. The attack put Bryant in the game, big time.
And Bryant had a wealth of contacts.
As soon as the next day dawned, Bryant was on the phone to everyone he knew, important, semi-influential or indifferent. He did it all from his shattered office too, determined to be surrounded by the destruction, not interested in the police tape that marked off his offices. He was a man with a particular mission – to find out who the hell the Paymaster was, and where he was living right now.
Bryant worked the phones, wearing a thick coat. There were no other staff in today, they were all working from home. Only Mai was with him, and she stayed well away from the broken and boarded-up window.
‘You got people working on this?’ she asked in between phone calls.
‘Can’t get fixers in until tomorrow,’ he told her.
‘You getting anywhere?’
‘All preliminary phone calls of enquiry,’ he said. ‘It’s when they ring back that’ll count.’
Mai sat in a chair on the far side of the room. She didn’t blame Bryant for wanting to work in here. It was his way of defying the Paymaster.
‘He thinks he threw everything into chaos everything yesterday,’ Bryant muttered. ‘But he will realise that his actions only put him firmly on the map. He’s mine now.’
Mai let him work. Bryant made three hours’ worth of calls. By the time he was done, people were calling him back with answers.
‘Here we go,’ he said as they rang and left messages when they couldn’t get hold of him. ‘Now, let’s shine a light on this guy.’
Hours later, Bryant had scoured a globe’s worth of contacts, dredged every hole. He knew hundreds of mercenaries who would impart information to him they would never give to the cops; he knew dozens of intermediaries who he’d helped with jobs in the past and would talk to him; even knew a few criminals who had inside information. If the Paymaster had popped up anywhere in the world in the last ten years, Bryant and his contacts could find him.
And he had.
‘Call a meeting,’ Bryant said finally. ‘We all need to talk.’
*
This time, it wasn’t a coffee shop, and it wasn’t Bryant’s damaged office. It was the lobby of a plush hotel, and it was early evening. Matt Drake walked inside the building and into the airy lobby with its hundred foot high ceilings, its galleried balconies, its golden plant pots and bright lighting, and made his way across the polished marble flooring to the wealth of plush seating in one of the far corners. They ordered drinks and food through barcodes and apps and sat back to wait for their meals to appear. Bryant was in no rush. They had all night to talk.
‘You called us here for a reason?’ Alicia finally said. ‘Spill.’
Bryant sat back and nodded. ‘Seems fair. I spent the day calling everyone I know. People who kind of shade the line a little between black and white, if you know what I mean. Also, people who would not speak to the cops if their lives depended on it. But they will talk to me. Now, fair enough, not everyone got back to me, but many did.’
Drake sat forward. ‘Many did? That sounds promising, mate.’
Drake wondered if, finally, they had a lead on the mysterious paymaster.
Bryant waited as their drinks arrived and then started talking between sips. The surrounding seats were currently empty – it was early evening after all – and the quiet hum that blanketed the lobby didn’t disturb them at all. People came in and out of the revolving doors, some carrying suitcases, but others just popping in for drinks and to meet friends after a long day at the office.
‘The Paymaster hasn’t just surfaced. He’s been around for a while. The people I spoke to, those who purposely fall through the cracks in our society, have heard the name before. He’s done jobs in other places, signed them off too.’
‘Then why is he saying we’re “old enemies”?’ Drake asked.
‘To my knowledge, he hasn’t said that before, so maybe you are. But I have to say, this paymaster has operated in Croatia, in Belarus, in Germany and Poland. He seems to want to be famous.’
‘By leaving his signature at the scene,’ Hayden nodded.
‘Yes, so it appears. He’s been operating for at least six years, popping up all over the world.’
‘What kind of work?’ Dahl asked.
‘What kind? Well, the kind where people die. Mercenary work. Dead bodies with the Paymaster’s moniker stuck to them keep appearing in all these countries. There’s even an Interpol notice out on him, but they have no information.’
‘Have they passed the United States case on to the FBI?’ Drake asked.
‘I don’t know, but it’s becoming more likely,’ Bryant said. ‘The notes alone make it a jurisdictional nightmare. Once the FBI gets involved... who knows what will happen?’
Drake was looking confused. ‘These places where he leaves notes,’ he said. ‘What exactly did he do? I mean, what brought him to the attention of the authorities?’
Bryant tried to remember. ‘In Poland,’ he said. ‘They found a gang member in some remote mountain wilderness, pumped full of bullets. The gang member was one of those kids who grow up in gangs because they have no other family. He was eighteen. In Belarus, it’s hard to say because they’re not exactly a cooperative country – but we know they found a woman in a forest, riddled with bullets. She was a refugee, travelling alone. In Germany, they found the note attached to a homeless man. The poor guy had been dead for more than a week, hidden somewhere remote and found only by chance. Even then, the Paymaster had left a note, I guess, just in case. This guy was shot just once, straight through the heart, the perfect kill to some.’
‘Were the victims targeted?’ Mai asked. ‘Paid for? It all seems so random.’
‘There’s no telling how many he’s killed,’ Bryant said. ‘Could be hundreds. The ones they know about were found by chance.’
‘But why?’ Kinimaka said. ‘I think Mai’s right. Someone has hired the Paymaster to take these victims out.’
‘It makes sense,’ Bryant said. ‘In fact, it’s one of the few things about this case that makes sense.’
‘But the notes,’ Drake said. ‘What do they all say?’
‘I knew you’d ask me that. It doesn’t help, I’m afraid. There are no messages, just the Paymaster’s signature.’
‘And why call himself the Paymaster?’ Alicia asked.
Bryant shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s repaying old debts? That’s another angle.’
‘But because of the cross-country dominions, no one’s really looking into it?’ Kenzie said.
‘It’s on Interpol’s radar, like I said. But they need evidence to go on. With these killings, there’s none. Around the globe, the Paymaster is a wanted man.’
‘I gotta ask,’ Kinimaka put in. ‘How does this help us?’
‘Right, well, I thought someone would ask me that, too. On the surface, none of it is helpful. But, through my contacts, we know the Paymaster is a mercenary, using mercenaries.’
‘How the hell..?’ Drake asked.
‘Remember, I’m the owner of a private security firm. I supply mercenaries all over the world. I try to stick with reputable men and women, but sometimes the dregs slip through the cracks. Anyway, I have satellite offices around the globe and know other people such as myself. One reason we all stay on top is because we share information. Now, don’t forget, the Paymaster’s operation spans at least six years, maybe a decade. Taking all that into consideration, I have the names of seven men who have all worked for the Paymaster in the past.’
Drake sat forward. ‘Really? Now that’s a break.’
‘It really is. But there’s good news, bad news, as always. Four of the men we can’t get hold of. One’s very dead, the other three are currently operating in war zones. That’s the bad news.’
‘But the good news... ?’ Dahl prompted.
‘Is that three of the men work together and are due to attend a souk this weekend.’
Drake blinked. ‘A souk?’
‘Well, not necessarily a souk, per se. It’s a two-day arms market being held in Morocco.’
‘And these three men will be there?’ Mai asked.
Bryant let out a long sigh. ‘According to all my sources, yes. These three men have all worked for the Paymaster in the past, and all three will be at the souk, shopping.’
‘Shopping?’ Alicia said a little sarcastically.
Bryant shrugged. ‘That’s what I’m told.’
Drake looked up then because their dinners were arriving. When the waiter had left, he looked around the table and said, ‘Bryant mate, it looks like you’re sending us to Morocco this weekend.’
Bryant made a face. ‘So it seems.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Morocco was hot and humid and particularly dry. Drake had been hoping they’d visit a coastal town where the Mediterranean climate is balmy, but they ended up in a mountainous area with damp and steamy weather where oaks and junipers and Atlantic fir carpeted the hillsides. It wasn’t easy going, and it sure as hell wasn’t dry. Drake got soaked before they even came in sight of the souk.
The team, without Bryant, made their way among the slopes, cutting through trees and then climbing piles of rocks, following a ledge around a hillside and then wandering through a mile long valley, all the while closing in on a cluster of towns where they knew the souk was already underway.
Oddly, to Drake, it felt safe out here. Back in the US, in DC, he was a target. His enemy appeared to know his every move, his personal details. Out here... nobody even knew where he was.
He didn’t dwell on it too much. It was a strange feeling. He followed Dahl and Hayden and Kinimaka through the lush countryside, noting the forested areas that were being used for agriculture, the swathes of sand to the west, the twinkle of the sea far to the east. It wasn’t easy going, but it was better than being shot at.
They came first to a town that seemed to cling to the side of the mountain. It was hilly and sprawling and complex. Alicia didn’t fancy that one, said she didn’t want to sleep on an angle, so they hiked to the next town, which was only a mile away from the souk. This one sat on the edge of a forest and was far more amenable.
