The Alex King Series by A BATEMAN (free ebook reader for ipad TXT) 📕

three or four weeks at a time, at every stage over a dozen years. If he was honest with his reasoning, Rashid probably couldn’t think of any other reason than that. It said more about King than anything else ever would. He supposed he respected him more than anyone he had met.

And now the man was going up against impossible odds.

Rashid punched the steering wheel and screamed, cursing a half-a-dozen times. He gripped the wheel and went to put the car in gear but stopped himself and picked up the phone. He read the curt messages. Neil Ramsay asking him where he was and to call him back immediately. Rashid looked at the time the message had been sent. Immediately had long-gone. He tossed the phone back down and drove the car out around the enormous digger and pulled back out into the road. He didn’t see the car, rather than misjudged and was almost rear-ended amid a blast of horn. He stuck up a finger and cursed again, accelerating hard down the mountain road. The driver behind pulled out around him, his modified twenty-year-old Audi blasting past with gunfire erupting from his exhausts. The driver held up his fingers like a child mimed a pistol and was gone with the exhaust popping and banging. Rashid cursed again. Cursing his own stupidity, his own carelessness. He heard his phone ringing, saw the false name he’d used for Ramsay, and cursed again. He ignored it. He was heading for civilisation and a decent road. Then he would call and speak to the MI5 man. He’d use the time to concoct a story as he drove. He had a feeling he’d be back on a desk assignment in Hereford before long, his brief career with MI5 nothing more than a fleeting memory.

64

 

“Damn it! No answer!”

“I’ve got a cell triangulation.” Marnie played her fingertips across the keypad and brought up the software map. It was a detailed survey map complete with topographical height increments. “Near the border with Abkhazia.”

“Bugger. That border is hot, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Abkhazia broke away from Georgia and became an independent state.”

“I remember. A horrible little war not many heard about in the west. Plenty of ethnic cleansing on both sides, but the Abkhazians had support from Armenia and Russia, who had scores to settle with Georgia for breaking away from the USSR. How close is he to the border?”

Marnie worked the keys and adjusted the map. “Close. Practically straddling the two countries.” She pushed the tiny glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose as she read. “You can’t get in without a letter of authority, which converts to a visa. It’s a relatively straightforward process but takes around five days. And you can’t fly in because the Georgians have vowed to shoot down anything flying in or out across its airspace.”

“Nice.”

“Needless to say; Georgia doesn’t recognise their independence.”

“Nor does anyone apart from Russia and about four pacific islands they paid off.”

“And the Armenians, but they stand with Russia because of the war crimes. They need their protection from the UN.”

“I love these fleapit countries,” Ramsay said sardonically.

Marnie leaned back in her chair and sipped some tepid coffee. She looked at Caroline, who was standing in the window looking out at the Black Sea. She had been uncharacteristically silent until now.

“If Rashid is that close to an ambiguous area, do you think Helena is holing up in Abkhazia?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the view.

“It might make sense,” Ramsay replied. “It’s a tricky place to police. Bribes are commonplace, the law more easily corrupted than even this place.”

“Call him again,” Caroline said. The sun was golden above the sea, working its way west, leaving everything in its wake vulnerable to darkness. Caroline shivered. She did not like the thought of darkness and night. “Tell him you’ve found me. Tell him we need to find Alex for his own safety. There’s no pressure on him anymore. He can pull back, regroup with us and we can start anew. The hunt for Helena can now be methodical and well-planned.”

Ramsay hesitated. He looked at his phone. He had no missed calls.

Marnie looked up at him from the desk. “It makes sense, Sir,” she said. “I know I’m not a field agent, but the pressure is off. If King is doing what he is solely to find Caroline, then he no longer needs to. If Rashid is close to him, then he can be the messenger.”

Ramsay looked agitated. MI5 protocols dictated that communications were concise. Text messages were no more than a recall system. Nothing was ever discussed. It made for clear deniability. But Rashid was not answering his phone.

“We don’t know where Helena is, and we have no idea as to the locations of Alex or Rashid. But Alex has clearly been in contact with her, and Rashid has been in contact with Alex. If Rashid disappeared so suddenly like he did, it was because he knew Alex was close. This is it, Neil,” Caroline said looking at him earnestly. “It’s all going down soon. And right here in Georgia. And that is too bloody close to that border.”

“She’s right, Sir,” Marnie said. “And Caroline is safe, after all. We need to pull back. Abkhazia is a militarised zone. If anything happens on that border, then the world will soon know. And Russia will be playing the propaganda card, just like those bio-weapon attacks on the former KGB agents back home, and just like in Syria.”

“Shit!” Ramsay looked at his phone hopefully, willing it to ring.

He unlocked it, selected his messages and started to type.

65

 

King was used to operating alone. He’d spent a lifetime that way. From fending for himself as a child, to working menial tasks or even stealing to feed his