Franklin was alone in the boardroom, having just finished a series of management meetings, when his personal assistant buzzed through.
“Sir, the pilot’s confirmed everything is in order for your trip to Phoenix this afternoon. The flight time is just over two hours, so if you want to make the Convention Center in good time for John’s speech, you need to be airborne by three.”
“That works for me. I’ll probably stay over, so book me into the same hotel as John.”
“Sir, there’s one other thing. Lieutenant Hembury from the LAPD has just been on. He says he needs to speak with you urgently.”
Franklin had been personally assured by the mayor that Hembury had been well and truly reprimanded following their last meeting and was therefore concerned by this development. His initial instinct was to ignore the message or to call the chief of police but his curiosity got the better of him. Now that Vargas was dead, he needed to know how much Hembury knew.
“Get him on the line, Mary.”
Hembury had dropped Amanda off at the airport and was making his way to the station when the call came. Franklin’s voice boomed through on the Bluetooth car speaker, exuding an air of arrogance and contempt.
“Lieutenant, I really didn’t expect to hear from you again. I can only give you a minute.”
“Mr Franklin, thank you for returning my call. I’d like to meet with you and your son to discuss a very delicate matter and it needs to happen in person.”
Franklin laughed down the line. “Do you realise that you are talking about the future president? I think you are wasting my time, lieutenant.”
Hembury decided to play his ace. “Mr Franklin, it’s come to my attention that a major news agency is trying to gain access to some highly sensitive material that I believe was recently stolen from your family. I think it’s very much in your interest, and that of your son’s, that we meet as soon as possible, or the consequences could be grave.”
Franklin was clearly caught off balance and his contemptuous tone morphed into one of guarded concern. “Today is out of the question. My son is making a campaign speech in Phoenix this evening, so the earliest we could possibly meet with you is tomorrow morning. I suggest you come to my Pacific Heights residence at, say, ten.”
Before Hembury could confirm, the line went dead.
Franklin glanced at his watch. It was ten thirty, and, following Hembury’s call, he now had a great deal to sort out before he could even contemplate boarding his Cessna to Phoenix. With Vargas dead, he believed Hembury was the only person left alive who posed a real and current threat. He thought the news agency line was bullshit and a bluff – a ruse to secure a speculative meeting with him and his son. As far as he was concerned, it was a meeting Hembury would never live to make.
Franklin left the boardroom and returned to his office, where he retrieved a black MacBook from a locked drawer in his desk. He opened up the settings and clicked on the Tor browser, which allowed him to access the Dark Web while protecting his online identity.
He’d only been on it once before, two years earlier, when he’d used it to hire a local small-time anonymous hitman to take out a troublesome girlfriend who had outstayed her welcome.
There was no time to bring in a top-class assassin like The Ghost. He needed to go down and dirty – sometimes that worked just as well. Providers on the Dark Web offered an array of illegal services, including drugs, guns, counterfeit money and even fraudulent lifetime subscriptions to Netflix. Financial transactions were carried out using Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that enabled two parties to transact without knowing each other’s identities. He was pleased to discover the website he had previously used appeared to still be live. It had a memorable domain: removeanyproblemwithaclick.onion.
He moved off the browser for a brief moment to open a file on his desktop, containing Hembury’s home address. He’d used his high-level contacts in the LA Police Department to obtain it after his first meeting with the lieutenant, as he’d thought it might prove useful down the line. He highlighted it, flicked back to the website and began his post.
I used your service two years ago for a job in Russian Hill and it was highly successful.
The flashing cursor burst into life almost instantly. I remember it.
Franklin continued typing. I have an emergency job that requires your special skills. It has to happen tonight in Los Angeles. The subject is a male police lieutenant named Troy Hembury. His address is 1554 North Vine Street in West Hollywood. Apartment 16. It’s essential the body is removed so it appears to be a disappearance rather than a killing.
Franklin wondered if the status of the subject would prevent the transaction from happening. The reply gave him the answer.
500.
Franklin understood that to mean the fee was the equivalent of five hundred thousand dollars in Bitcoin, five times the rate he’d paid two years ago, but it was an eighth of the fee he’d paid to The Ghost just two weeks earlier. Under the circumstances, it was a bargain.
Agreed. Let me know when it’s done.
Franklin closed his laptop and reached for the intercom on his desk. “Mary, let the pilot know I’ll be on time for the flight.”
Aaron Wicks was an unusual hitman – a former pharmacist who’d decided, some years before, he could make a lot more money using drugs to kill people than he ever could selling them over the counter. He lived in a small rented townhouse close to Santa Monica Airport, just twenty-five minutes from Hembury’s apartment. This latest job would be his biggest payday yet, but with higher rewards came higher risks.
However, this was a returning client, so he knew he would get paid.
The first thing he did was google his target. It only took a few seconds to find a number of postings that referenced the lieutenant. He clicked on images and printed off a couple of colour headshots. Next, he opened the glass door of his Labcold vaccine fridge, which contained a selection of colour-coded ampoules. He knew exactly which two he needed for the job. He selected midazolam and propofol, which he planned to combine to create his own customised lethal cocktail. Both drugs were powerful sedatives used by anaesthetists prior to surgery. Wicks’s unique concoction was capable of knocking out a giant gorilla in less than three seconds. Once his subject was unconscious, he would administer two more doses. The recipient would never wake up.
He returned to his computer and sent a brief email to his cousin, a part-time waiter and shelf stacker, who doubled as a driver for him when circumstances dictated.
Be at mine with the Cherokee by 2.30. It’s a last-minute job, so I’m paying double rates.
Finally, he opened his small wall safe and took out a large bundle of fifty-dollar bills. He counted out two thousand dollars and placed the notes in a white envelope. He was ready to go to work.
Franklin’s private jet touched down at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix just after five in the evening, where a chauffeur-driven Mercedes S-Class was waiting to meet him on the airstrip. The Convention Center was just a three-mile drive away and, as the blacked-out limo passed the front of the building, Franklin saw a large crowd queuing down the street, waiting to be admitted.
He was dropped at the rear entrance where he was met by one of his son’s staffers, who gave him an all-access lanyard and escorted him through to the backstage lounge area. He immediately spotted John, deep in conversation with his campaign chief, Cathy Douglas. He made his way across the busy room and greeted the pair, double kissing Cathy and embracing his son.
“Looks like a huge crowd tonight. How’s the speech going, John?”
“All good, Dad. Where do you want to watch it from? There’s a VIP box on the first level or the live feed will be shown in here.”
As ever with his father, John knew you could never second-guess him. “Neither. I’ll pace nervously around in the wings.”
Cathy laughed on cue. “Richard, I’ll sort you out a table with some snacks and a bottle of Jim Beam.”
“Sounds perfect, Cathy, thank you. John, I’ll see you afterwards. We need to catch up on some stuff. Now get out there and kill ’em.”
The Convention hall was rammed to the rafters. Three thousand fervent Republican supporters screamed and applauded and waved their giant placards as John Franklin ran through his carefully rehearsed set piece. As ever, his charismatic personality and clichéd sound bites wound the audience up into a near frenzy.
“For years, under the current regime, our country has been in steady decline as politicians take you, the people, for granted. I intend to unify this great country of ours and bring prosperity to all. I will put the American people first and once again make us the greatest nation in the world.”
This line prompted the normal response. An orchestrated chant rang out around the giant hall. “Unify the USA … Unify the USA.”
Richard Franklin downed his bourbon and stood in the wings, lapping up the feverish atmosphere. The Nuremberg rallies may have had over a million live attendees but the power and reach of television meant his son’s speech was playing into the households of tens of millions of people across the country.
Franklin spoke for just under an hour and ended his speech with a call to action. “Go out across our great country and campaign with every bone in your body to help me kick out this lame and corrupt administration. Washington is currently run by a political elite who govern for their own self-interest. I will clean them out from top to bottom and head a government that will truly work for you, the people, and not for itself.”
The entire crowd rose to their feet and Franklin milked the rapturous applause for the next ten minutes. His father made his way backstage to the lounge where the mood among the young staffers was exuberant. He saw Cathy standing by one of the large TV monitors, watching her candidate’s standing ovation, and headed straight for her.
“Another great event. Good job. Cathy, I need a few minutes with John on our own. Is there a room we can have?”
“Of course, Richard. There’s a make-up room just off the corridor behind here. I’ll ask one of the team to take you there now and I’ll bring John through as soon as he comes offstage.”
John didn’t join his father for almost half an hour, remaining in the hall for a series of meet-and-greets with key donors and posing for dozens of selfies. When he finally made it to the dressing room, he was greeted with a warm hug from his father.
“Best one yet, John. The atmosphere was electric. It felt like a rock concert out there.”
“I know, I’m still pumped full of adrenalin.”
“John, I need to bring you up to date on events in Argentina.” Richard Franklin took a seat and indicated to his son to grab a nearby chair.
“Dad, I caught the news footage of the missile attack that killed the chief inspector. I assume that was Paz’s work?”
“Yes, and I now think the materials were either burnt in a police station fire or incinerated in the explosion, along with the man who found them. The nightmare is almost over.”
John picked up on his father’s apparent caution. “What else is there?”
Richard Franklin told his son about the phone call with Hembury and the request for a meet with both of them.
John flew into a sudden rage. “Jesus, Dad, why the hell did you agree to meet him?”
“I felt I needed to stall him. I promise you in a few hours’ time he will no longer be a problem and the potential threat to our family will be eliminated. Both he and Vargas are lone wolves, and I’m convinced no one else knows about the box. John, I still want you to be at the house with me tomorrow, just in case Hembury made a diary note about the meeting and his department sends someone else in his place once they realise he is missing. If no one shows, we can celebrate the passing of the final hurdle.”
John seemed irritated by his father’s request. “That sounds highly unlikely to me. If Hembury is out of the loop, no one is going to show.”
“John, I agree, but let’s just be prepared for all eventualities. I’ve got the Cessna here, so I suggest we leave at seven in the morning.”
“Dad, I’m not sure you’ve factored everything in. The shit is going to hit the fan in LA when a police lieutenant gets taken out.”
Richard leaned across and put his arm around his son’s shoulder. “John, don’t worry, no one will ever know he was murdered. Thanks to my friend on the Dark Web, he will just magically disappear.”
The black Jeep Cherokee passed Santa Monica Pier, turned north onto Sunset Boulevard and headed towards West Hollywood. Wicks sat in the passenger seat next to his cousin, balancing a small insulated thermal cool box on his lap. Resting on the dashboard in front of him was an unopened pack of 3mm Luer lock syringes, his weapon of choice. It was by far his favourite as it offered a secure connection with the needle which needed to be twisted and locked into position to prevent it accidentally slipping off. Next to the syringes lay the deadliest part of his kit, a small pack of stainless-steel gauge needles.
His cousin, Wes, glanced at the sat nav read-out on his iPhone, which was mounted to a sucker on the windscreen.
“We’re about twenty minutes away from the location, so should be there by three forty-five.”
“That’s good, Wes. When we get there, we’ll do a little recce and find a place to park up where we have clear eyes on the apartment block.”
“Cool, Aaron. Who is the mark this time?”
“Trust me, cuz, you really don’t want to know.”
An hour later, the Jeep was parked up about thirty yards from the front entrance of Hembury’s apartment block, on the opposite side of the road. Three syringes were now prepped and loaded with the deadly concoction. Inside the apartment, Vargas was working on his laptop when a text came in from Hembury.
Dropped Amanda off at the airport. I’m at the station and will get back about seven. Flights are booked for the morning. See you later.
Vargas read the message and checked the time. Hembury wouldn’t be back for another three hours, so he decided to head down to the corner shop to pick up a few beers and snacks. On his way to the shop, he spotted Wicks and his cousin sitting in the front of the Cherokee and a sixth sense kicked in to tell him something was wrong. He picked up a couple of Peroni six-packs and, on his way back, deliberately headed along the opposite side of the street in order to walk right by the Jeep.
As he passed the Cherokee, he maintained his rhythm but glanced across at the two men, spotting the cool box that was resting on one of the rear seats. He crossed the road and made his way promptly back to the apartment. Something wasn’t quite right about the guys in the Cherokee but he couldn’t be sure. He decided to get back to his laptop and see in an hour if they were still there. He checked at five and again at six and the Jeep hadn’t moved. He felt a growing sense of unease and decided to call Hembury, who picked up straight away.
“Nic, I’m just about to leave, so should be back about six forty-five. Shall I pick up a few beers?”
“We’re sorted on the beer front but I think we have a potential situation. There are two guys sitting in a black Cherokee parked across the road who haven’t moved in the last two hours. I’m pretty sure they are staking out the apartment. I managed to get a closer look at them when I went to the store and I noticed a small cool box on the back seat, which seems a bit odd bearing in mind it’s pretty cold out there.”
Hembury thought for a moment. “Maybe Franklin’s had a change of heart about meeting me tomorrow. I’ll call you when I’m a street away and we’ll pay a surprise visit to our friends.”
Forty-five minutes later, when Hembury turned the corner of Vine on to Sunset, Wicks spotted him in the rear-view mirror and, ten seconds later, had armed himself with a loaded syringe and was out of the Jeep. He nonchalantly crossed the road and fell into place about ten steps behind his prey. His clenched fist managed to keep the syringe totally hidden from sight. Hembury was about twenty yards from the front entrance of the apartment block and could sense Wicks rapidly closing the distance behind him.
As he prepared to strike, Wicks subtly adjusted his grip on the syringe and the needle was suddenly visible in his left hand.
At the last moment, Hembury and Vargas performed a perfectly timed pincer move on the unsuspecting hitman. Vargas had been holding position behind a clump of bushes by the side of the block for the last ten minutes and had kept his eyes firmly trained on Wicks from the moment he left the Jeep. The hitman was less than five feet away when Hembury spun around with his right arm raised, his Smith & Wesson aimed directly at his attacker’s head. Wicks had been just a hair’s breadth away from striking and was momentarily stunned by Hembury’s last-second manoeuvre. Instinctively, he turned on the spot and started to race towards the Jeep. He only managed four steps before he was taken down by a perfectly timed rugby tackle, courtesy of Vargas, who seemed to appear from nowhere. He slammed into Wicks and the sheer impact of the collision sent the syringe flying from his grasp.
Having wrestled him to the ground, it only took a few seconds to position him face down on his front, with his arms firmly pinned behind his back. Hembury knelt down and held the gun inches from Wicks’s head. He used his other hand to retrieve a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs and passed them to Vargas. At that exact moment, the sound of an engine fired up and both detectives glanced across the street to see the Cherokee pull away and disappear around the corner.
Vargas pulled Wicks up off the pavement and frogmarched him towards the entrance of the apartment block with Hembury walking alongside, his gun still drawn. Once they were inside, Hembury sat him down on one of the kitchen chairs and reset the handcuffs so his wrists were tied behind the back of it. Vargas was standing by the sink, emptying the contents of the syringe into a drinking glass. He had no doubt the liquid it contained was lethal. He walked across the kitchen and held the glass in front of Wicks’s face.
“Fancy a drink? What is this stuff?”
Wicks was clearly shaken and horrified by the dramatic turn of events. He was a former pharmacist who had become a small-time assassin and realised that, with this particular job, he was way out of his depth. Hembury could almost taste the fear coming from his attacker and knew it wouldn’t take long to break him.
“As things stand, you are facing forty years for the attempted murder of a police lieutenant and, I can guarantee, you won’t enjoy the company of the inmates at Pelican Bay.”
Pelican Bay State Prison was a maximum-security institution that housed over two thousand of California’s most violent criminals. Wicks knew of its horrendous reputation and had no plans to experience its delights first-hand. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he spoke for the first time.
“I want to cut a deal. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Hembury pulled up a chair and sat just a few feet away. “Go on, we’re listening.”
Wicks was sweating profusely and shaking like a leaf. He made every effort to compose himself, took a deep breath and began to tell his story. “My name is Aaron Wicks and I used to be a pharmacist. A few years ago, I set up a site on the Dark Web and I take money to kill people.”
Wicks divulged the entire background to his attack on Hembury, including the highly unusual request from his anonymous employer to act at incredibly short notice. He explained he only agreed to take the job because of the enormous half-a-million-dollar fee.
Hembury signalled to Vargas to join him at the other side of the room. “Nic, the timing makes total sense. Wicks was booked less than an hour after I spoke with Franklin. But, yet again, we can’t prove a direct link.”
Hembury walked back across the room and sat down opposite the hitman. “You are going to send a message to your employer confirming the job was successful.”
Wicks nodded. “I’ll need my laptop and it’s in Santa Monica.”
Hembury leaned across and stared into the frightened eyes of the broken hitman.
“Let’s go.”
Richard Franklin relaxed on the king-size bed in his Marriott suite and poured himself a large bourbon from the bottle Cathy had especially requested be left in his room. He reached across for his laptop. As soon as he logged on to the Tor browser, a ping sounded to indicate he had a new message: Operation was a success. Please conclude the transaction.
He smiled to himself as, once again, he felt he was back in control of events. A few seconds later, he clicked on to his online Bitcoin wallet and completed the payment. He shut the laptop, left the room and headed for the bank of lifts at the far end of the corridor. His suite was on the fifth floor and he took the lift straight down to the basement. He arrived at the underground car park and, as he walked across it, kept a careful eye on where the CCTV cameras were positioned. It took him a while to locate the giant steel rubbish bins, which he’d anticipated he’d find on that level.
There were four grey units positioned together near the exit barrier in an unlit section of the car park. He checked no one was around before opening the black laptop. He raised it high above his head and began maniacally smashing it down against the top of one of the bins, breaking it into dozens of pieces. Parts of the screen and keyboard scattered onto the concrete floor around his feet. He spent the next ten minutes carefully picking up the wreckage and depositing the pieces into the four bins. He emerged from the shadows and made his way back to his suite. Once inside, he downed another glass of bourbon, picked up his mobile and punched in a text to his son.
All has gone as planned. Sleep well.