The Export by J.K. Kelly (read along books txt) 📕

five o’clock flight to Heathrow, through Frankfurt. He carried his third bag, the special one, under the seal of a diplomatic courier package. His weapons would follow him across Europe without ever being scrutinized. The bag could not even be x-rayed. He’d also called Charlie and made him promise to pick him up at the airport.

“From what I am told,” Matt said, “the hitmen were in London looking for you. But when they learned you were in Dubai, again, they opted to come after me first and get you when they returned home. You’re not safe there, Charlie. Leave Lois with the dog sitter and come stay with me tonight at the airport. Claire will have more info for us in the morning. We can go hunting together if you’re up for it.”

“Screw that, mate,” Charlie insisted. “Take the terminal train over to the Hilton. I’ll be waiting for you at the bar. Then we can go sort the bastards, just like old times.”

They talked for a few more minutes, enjoying the sharing of news about what they’d each been up to since the Sinclair incident. With a flight delay in the Frankfurt departure, Matt was certain he’d find Charlie fast asleep at one of the bar’s booth tables. When he finally landed, he checked into the Hilton, as he had so many times before, left his three bags with the front desk, and headed for the bar.

But Charlie was nowhere in sight.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Matt’s heart sank. He immediately went back to the front desk, retrieved his bags, and took the elevator to his room on the third floor. He intended to arm himself and then head out into the night. His phone vibrated, and Matt drew it faster than ever, hoping it was Charlie explaining why he was late. Instead, it was Dale, and she was bursting with news.

“They’ve offered me the number two at NSA, Matt,” she almost shouted into the phone. “They’ve approved my request for transfer!”

Matt knew that he should be thrilled for her, but he couldn’t under the circumstances. What he had to tell her next would rain on her parade, hard.

“Claire, Charlie’s missing!” Neither uttered a word during the painful silence that followed.

Finally, she spoke, asking for the details. Matt filled her in on his plan, and he could tell her heart was probably sinking even further. She knew him so well, he was sure she could tell from Matt’s silence that he wasn’t just thinking, he was also smoldering.

He’d been in a silent rage in the days since the two hitmen had tried to kill him. Dale suggested they end the call, and she would start making inquiries, formal and informal, through the FBI’s connections to MI5 and Interpol. She’d also reach out to Freddie Morrison, the now acting DNI, to ask for immediate assistance with the CIA and MI6. If anyone could track down one of their own, it was the British intelligence services. With that, she asked Matt what he intended to do next.

“Send me what you have on the two that jumped me in Washington. I’ll find them. If they’ve had anything to do with Charlie’s disappearance, I’ll get it out of them with extreme prejudice. Regardless, they’re dead men walking.”

Dale knew there was no stopping Matt. Her last words to him before they ended the call were simple ones. “Be careful and be discreet.”

Within minutes, Matt had downloaded a secure email from Dale on his laptop. He admired how swiftly the pair who had attacked him had made their move, spent the night at a hotel near Dulles Airport, and flew back to Heathrow the very next morning. One CCTV from a retail store near Matt’s waterfront had picked up the men’s faces as they ran away from the police. Unfortunately, the police hadn’t been able to locate the store’s owner until he arrived just before ten to open. Had they been able to access the video during the night, there was a good chance the facial recognition technology at Dulles would have flagged them before they departed.

It was 8:55 in the evening, London time, when the United Airlines jet landed in the UK and the two disembarked. The many CCTV cameras within Heathrow picked them up through facial recognition technology but then lost them as they split up in the car park, past baggage claim. But what Matt read next left him stunned: Both men worked for British intelligence. And both worked in the same building as Charlie.

It was now early morning in London, and Matt hadn’t slept a wink. He hadn’t even tried to. He studied everything he possibly could about the two characters that had dunked him. One, a Bruce Allan, was a high-level intelligence officer at MI5 who acted as liaison with the secretive MI6. The other, Billy Melville, was in the uniformed security division of MI5. He worked second shift guarding the perimeter of the building, the Thames River to the rear, and a busy road and rail line across from the front pedestrian and vehicle entrance. Despite being from different elements of the service, their CVs showed they worked together in similar capacities at the British Embassy in Moscow, Caracas, and South Korea.

Allan was more of a suit while Melville had played rugby in school. His pumped-up physique was stuffed into his blue security forces uniform. Allan and Melville both had been known to get into scraps with other drunks in the bars and pubs everywhere they had been stationed together. Matt saw that detail as the one that would help him get close without them knowing it. Close enough until it was too late for them.

By the time the sun’s glow began to crack the horizon, Matt was showered, dressed, and had consumed a large pot of room service coffee just waiting for the day to begin. He’d kept the television off. Armed with a Glock 17 hidden in his shoulder holster, with an extra clip, under