CHAPTER SIX

Bex had located a decent-looking trattoria during her exploration of the city. It had a small frontage on a corner overlooking one of the canals, but it went back for a long distance and had various arched areas off to the left and right. Although it was lunchtime, most of the tables were unoccupied and the waiters stood around looking bored. The four of them sat down at a table beneath one of the arches, away from any prying ears.

‘Right,’ she said, once the waiter had taken their order, ‘Bradley’s going to update us on what he’s found. Go, Bradley.’

‘Go, Bradley!’ Kieron and Sam chorused, pumping their fists. As they giggled, Bex stared them down. ‘Quiet, you two – this is actually serious.’

Bradley had brought along a tablet. He positioned it so that the others could see the screen but it couldn’t be seen from the main body of the restaurant. Bex knew that he would be seeing the same view in the ARCC glasses.

The first image was a mosaic of tiny photographs.

‘You all provided me with a lot of data to work with,’ he said. ‘Between you, there were about six hundred photographs, containing five thousand individual faces. Plus several close-ups of Sam’s thumb.’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ Sam muttered. ‘It took me a while to get used to where the lens was.’

‘Funny,’ Bradley said, ‘but luckily nobody else had that problem. Anyway – moving on. I used a search app to pull out each face and consider it separately, then I used a recognition app to characterise each face mathematically – taking things like the distance between the eyes, the slope on the cheekbones, the width of the mouth and the shape of the face, and then converting that into a unique mathematical equation.’ As he spoke, the thumbnail images vanished – replaced by a grid of very small faces. A tiny net of green lines appeared on each face. ‘What I then did was to compare each of those unique mathematical equations with the equations held in the databases of known criminals and terrorists held by the major police and intelligence organisations around the world. That identified several hundred faces of people known to those organisations.’

Most of the small faces in the grid disappeared. The remaining faces moved around and expanded to form another grid. The faces this time were large enough that Bex could tell them apart. Probably three-quarters of them were men, with ages ranging from teens to pensioners.

‘That’s still a lot of people,’ Kieron pointed out. ‘Surely they can’t all be here for Asrael’s demonstration?’

‘Probably not,’ Bradley agreed. ‘Let’s be honest, even criminals and terrorists go on holiday. What I did next was remove all of the pickpockets, jewel thieves, thugs, insurance scammers, bad drivers and other irrelevant characters from the list, on the assumption that anyone wanting to hire an assassin would probably be: a) fairly well-off, and b) wouldn’t be involved in petty larceny or any crimes that were accidental or spur-of-the-moment.’ More faces disappeared, and again the ones that were left swelled in size and rearranged themselves into yet another grid. ‘This leaves us with twenty-eight people. Twelve of them are known to be members of criminal organisations like the Russian mob, the Japanese Yakuza, the Chinese Tongs and the various Italian crime families that are still clinging to power in New York. Ten of the others are linked to terrorist groups such as ISIS and the Taliban. The remaining six either work for big international companies suspected of using highly illegal tactics against their competitors or for firms that supply mercenaries or bodyguards for dodgy missions in dangerous countries, or are otherwise suspected of involvement in serious crimes.’

‘They won’t be the only people here for the demonstration though,’ Kieron said thoughtfully. ‘There’ll be some attendees who aren’t on any watch list – maybe because they’ve never been caught or suspected of anything.’

‘And we didn’t get photographs of everyone in Venice,’ Sam added.

‘Point taken.’ Bradley nodded. ‘Points taken. In fact, I think we were fortunate to get twenty-eight people who might – just might – have been invited along to this very select gathering.’ He made small typing gestures with his fingers, and most of the faces on the screen faded away. Six remained. ‘These people are staying in our hotel.’

‘I think I saw two of them at breakfast,’ Kieron exclaimed. ‘Those old people on the right-hand side. They actually said something to me!’

‘That’s Eric and Joan Lysander,’ Bradley said. ‘They’re suspected of embezzling millions of pounds from a shipping company Eric worked for. They went on the run before they could be arrested. They’ve been pretty much living on cruise ships since then.’

‘Why would they want to hire an assassin?’ Bex asked, intrigued.

Bradley hesitated, retrieving the information from the ARCC system, before responding. ‘Ah – yes, they had a co-conspirator, but he ran off to Barbados with half the money. They probably want revenge. Or maybe they want to threaten him so he gives the money to them.’

‘And then they have him killed anyway.’ Sam nodded wisely. ‘It’s what I’d do.’

‘Good to know,’ Bex said, staring at him and raising an eyebrow. Once he’d seen her and looked away, blushing, she looked at the six remaining faces on the screen. ‘Then again – a rich elderly couple, in Venice – chances are they are actually here on holiday. What about the other four?’

Bradley swiped away the Lysanders’ faces. That left a young woman with dyed blonde hair and exaggerated fake lashes, an older man with a shaven scalp and two men with dark skin and beards. ‘I think,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘that our best bet is the woman: Bethany Wilderbourg. According to the information I’ve been able to glean about her, she’s married to a billionaire businessman who’s been having a string of affairs. She wants him dead so she can inherit his fortune. She’s apparently done that several times before, although nobody’s been able to prove anything to the satisfaction of the courts.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘She’s here with her yoga instructor, name of David Harringdon. He’s married to an older former client named Linda. I think we can presume that he wants her dead as well, so the two lovebirds can get married. It’s like a reality-TV show.’

‘There’s nothing like true love,’ Bex said. ‘And of all of them, she’s probably the lowest risk to us if we’re caught.’

‘Caught doing what?’ Kieron asked.

‘Caught sneaking into her room.’

Bex nodded at Bradley, and he continued: ‘I went back to the twenty-eight people we suspect are here to attend the demonstration, and I used the ARCC equipment to remotely access their emails and their text messages – not just the obvious ones, but also any covert accounts or burner phones they might have, plus anything they deleted but which could still be retrieved from their systems. Obviously they had to have communicated with this Asrael somehow – I doubt they just bumped into each other at the supermarket. I also doubt they would be careless enough to leave any messages unencrypted, so, I looked at any common messages, things they all had that seemed innocuous but which might contain a secret message.’ His fingers twitched, and the grid of faces on the screen was replaced by a painting Bex recognised. Or rather, she didn’t recognise the painting itself, but she recognised the style of the artist.

‘That’s a Jackson Pollock,’ she said.

‘Correct,’ Bradley replied. ‘It’s called Alchemy, and it’s on display at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art here in Venice.’

‘It looks like someone’s flicked paint onto a canvas,’ Sam said critically, ‘and then drawn shapes in the wet paint with a stick. I could do that.’

‘Jackson Pollock’s paintings sell for millions of pounds,’ Bradley said severely, ‘while I doubt you could swap anything you did for a hamburger.’ As Sam bristled, he continued: ‘Anyway, each of the twenty-eight people we’ve identified received an email containing this image.’ He looked around the table. ‘Now, does anyone know what “steganography” is?’

‘It’s a type of dinosaur,’ Sam said, still scowling.

‘That’s a “stegosaurus”.’ Kieron frowned. ‘Isn’t it something to do with codes?’

‘Kind of.’ Bradley nodded approvingly. ‘Well done. Steganography is a way of hiding information in a digital picture so it can’t be seen.’

Sam made a huff noise. ‘You could hide an elephant in that picture,’ he muttered. ‘In fact, it looks like it was made by an elephant.’

Bradley went on as if he hadn’t heard. ‘I checked the image, and I found a hidden message in the digital data. It confirmed that each of the recipients was invited to what was described as: ‘A demonstration of skill by the international assassin Asrael’, and it gave them a date, a time and a location. It also said that each recipient would be sent, through the post, an identification card with a radio-frequency identification chip, like you get in passports or those security tags they use in shops. The RFID chip on the card would be their entry pass. Actually, it’s –’

‘You said “date, place and time”,’ Bex interrupted. ‘When, and where?’

‘The date is today, the time is nineteen hundred hours local time and the place is here in Venice, although the exact location hasn’t yet been revealed. Apparently the attendees will be collected at eighteen thirty at a particular pier on the Grand Canal, and if their IDs check out they’ll be taken across the lagoon somewhere.’ He paused. ‘All attendees are required to wear Venetian masks to protect their identities. You probably saw masks like that as you were wandering around taking photographs.’

Kieron nodded eagerly. ‘Some of them looked really weird – like birds with really exaggerated beaks.’

‘There’s a tradition in Venice of wearing masks at what they call Carnivale,’ Bradley explained. ‘Carnivale happens once a year, around Easter time. Some of the masks are just simple things, meant to hide the face, while others represent characters from medieval theatre. The ones I think you mean are actually based on masks that doctors in the Middle Ages used to wear in an attempt to stop themselves from catching whatever horrible diseases their patients had. The beak part would be filled with a mixture of herbs that were supposed to ward off the disease. Whether or not it actually worked was anybody’s guess. Probably frightened half the patients to death, which kind of defeated the object. Anyway, those masks have become part of the whole “Venice experience” now.’

‘So,’ Bex summarised, leaning back in her chair and thinking as she spoke, ‘we know that this woman – Bethany Wilderbourg – received an invitation and an RFID chip. She’ll have it with her, obviously. What I need to do is sneak into her room this afternoon and steal it. What you need to do –’ she looked at Bradley – ‘is make sure she doesn’t suddenly come back to her room and catch me. Can you do that?’

‘I certainly can,’ he said.

‘Won’t she have the RFID chip with her?’ Kieron asked. ‘I mean, if I were her, I’d want to keep it close to me so it didn’t get lost or stolen.’

‘Good point,’ Bex replied, ‘but like any other Italian city, Venice is a hotbed of pickpockets and handbag thieves who prey on tourists. The handbag thieves in particular can slice through the strap of your bag with a razor blade and take it off you as they pass without you even realising. No, Bethany will have left the chip in her room, probably in the hotel safe.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll probably need half an hour, Bradley. Can you get me that?’

‘Sure. I might need the boys though – I can cover the front entrance of the hotel, but there’s at least one other way in. Is that OK?’

‘What room is she in?’ Bex asked.

‘Third floor – room 319.’ Bradley sniffed. ‘It’s one of the cheaper ones in the hotel. She’s obviously being careful with the money she’s “inherited” from her dead husbands.’

‘Right,’ Bex said firmly – more firmly than she felt, ‘let’s go.’

The four of them headed back to the hotel. While Bex went straight up to the third floor, Bradley sat down in the lobby to watch the main entrance while the boys went to cover the other ways in.

The corridor was deserted, and her shoes made no sound on the thick carpet. Bex passed an open door with a trolley of towels and toiletries outside. She caught a quick glimpse of a maid making the bed. The room she wanted was ten doors down – even if the maid was working her way towards the target room rather than away from it, Bex should have finished by the time she got there.

She stopped outside room 319. Taking a breath, she knocked. No answer. She knocked again. ‘Room service!’ she announced, but there was no sound from inside. The door remained closed.

Right – it looked as if Bethany Wilderbourg was indeed out, which meant that the operation could go ahead. If she’d answered then Bex would have had to apologise and say she’d got the wrong room, then wait until Bethany did actually leave, and that might have taken a while.

She checked left and right down the corridor. Still nobody.

The lock on the door was a simple key card type. Bethany would have a card with a magnetic strip which would be read by a sensor inside the lock when she pushed it into the slot above the door handle. If she’d had more time then Bex would have tried to get a new card created by whoever was on the front desk, telling them that she was Bethany Wilderbourg and she’d dropped her card into a canal by accident. Hotel reception staff very rarely remembered what guests actually looked like – they saw so many of them. But time was tight, and Bex had another way in.

She took a device out of her pocket, about the size of a magic marker. It had a short cable attached with a thin jack at the end. She felt with her fingers beneath the metal lock for the small DC power socket. Those types of locks weren’t connected to the mains, so they had to have a means of being recharged – and also a means for changing the security code on the chip inside, if necessary.

Once she found the socket, she plugged the jack of her device into it and clicked the small button on the other end. The device beeped once, then again a few seconds later. The first beep meant that it had successfully copied the security code from the chip, the second that it had transmitted that code back to the lock again.

She offered up a quick prayer to a deity she didn’t believe in, on the basis that it couldn’t hurt.

A green light flashed on the lock, and the door clicked open.

Quickly she pushed it open, slipped inside and softly closed it again. She glanced at the bed, just in case Bethany was in there asleep, but it was empty. It was also made up, which mean she wasn’t at risk of the maid deciding to skip a few rooms and interrupting her.

Bex knew what kinds of tricks people like her used to see whether anybody had searched their room – a hair stuck with saliva across closed drawers and shut suitcases; items slightly misaligned and their positions memorised or photographed so that the room’s occupant would know if they’d been moved. Bex deliberately didn’t touch anything. She didn’t have to: if Bethany was sensible then she would have put the invitation to Asrael’s demonstration, and the identifying RFID tag, inside the room’s safe. Either that, or she would have taken it out with her, in which case they would need another plan, and quickly.

The safe was where Bex expected it to be: on a shelf in the wardrobe. The shelves ran up the left half of the wardrobe space, with a hanging rail taking up the right-hand side. A selection of dresses hung from the rail. It looked as if Bethany had expensive taste: the clothes were designer items well out of Bex’s price range. Ignoring them, she concentrated on the safe and was relieved to see it was also the kind she expected: thick steel walls, a thick steel door (shut) and an electronic lock with a keypad and an LED display. Instructions for setting the code were on a card Blu-tacked on the inside of the door. When a new guest arrived in the room, the door of the safe would be open and the security code set to 0000. If they wanted to store anything, they would do so and close the door, then type their own security code into the keypad. That code would work any time the guest used the safe, until they left. Assuming they left the door open, the code would reset to 0000 after a set amount of time. Obviously the hotel had ways of getting into a safe if a guest forgot their code, but again Bex didn’t have time for that. Fortunately she had a better way.

Below the keypad, near the edge of the closed door, she noticed a small, oval plate with the manufacturer’s logo engraved on it. Two small hex screws secured the plate to the door. Using a small tool on her key ring, Bex undid one screw and rotated the plate by ninety degrees. That revealed a hidden hole. This, she knew, was a failsafe lock – a way of getting the safe open. The management of the hotel would have the key for the lock, but part of Bex’s extensive agent training had been in the theory and practice of lock-picking. She was good at it, and more importantly perhaps, she enjoyed it.

She bent down to get a better view of the lock, and pulled a hairpin from her hair. It wasn’t really a hairpin – it was a malleable piece of metal wire – but it looked like a hairpin to anyone searching her.

She unbent it into a straight line and poked it into the hole, and then beneath it, in the space left, she pushed the thin screwdriver tool from her key ring. The two together took up all the space. After that it was a case of breathing lightly, putting tension on the lock by turning the screwdriver shaft slightly and fiddling about with the wire. As soon as she felt the spring-loaded pins that held the lock shut she pushed them as delicately as she could until they moved up, out of the way. Once she’d done that for all four pins, it was simplicity itself to turn the screwdriver as if it was a key and unlock the safe.

The LED display flashed UNLOCKED, and the door swung open.

Inside was Bethany Wilderbourg’s passport, a stack of euros, two pieces of card with scalloped edges the size of a party invitation, two sealed white envelopes and two black plastic discs that looked like casino chips.

Why two? Bex wondered. No time to worry about that now. The passports and money she would leave behind: they obviously had nothing to do with the demonstration and she didn’t want to steal Bethany’s own stuff. The cards and the discs looked like they could be relevant, so she slipped them into a pocket. The envelopes she wondered about. Maybe they were part of the puzzle, or maybe they were just invitations to dinner from someone Bethany knew in Venice. Eventually she put them in her pocket with the tokens and the invitations, just in case they were important, closed the door to the safe and pressed the lock button. The safe buzzed, and the word LOCKED blinked on the display.

Job done. Time to go.

She heard a beep from the room door, and a click.

Damn, she thought. This keeps happening to me. I should stay out of other people’s hotel rooms.

Before it could open, she stepped into the wardrobe, pushing the dresses out of the way, and pulled the doors closed.

Through the crack left between the two doors she saw the door to the room swing open. A woman entered. This wasn’t the maid; it was Bethany Wilderbourg: Bex recognised her from the image on Bradley’s tablet. Her hair was wet and she carried a rolled towel. She hadn’t been out doing tourist stuff in Venice at all; she’d been in the hotel pool!

Bethany went into the bathroom. A few seconds later – not long enough for Bex to get out of the wardrobe and out of the room – she came back in without the towel. She’d probably hung it up to dry.

Please let her go straight out and do some sightseeing! Bex thought. Please!

Bethany approached the wardrobe.

Damn – she’s going to get changed, or she needs a jacket or something! I am so screwed!

With horror, Bex realised that she’d left the metal plate that had hidden the security keyhole hanging loose. Bethany would spot it any moment!

She reached sideways with her right hand, feeling for the safe. Her fingers touched the edge. Quickly she slid her hand sideways until she reached the rotated metal plate. She turned it back to the right position – just in time!

Bethany opened the left-hand wardrobe door – the one that revealed the shelves, the safe and about three inches of the hanging space, but thankfully she didn’t pull the second door open. Bex held her breath and pressed herself back against the back wall of the wardrobe, trying not to rustle the dresses. She must have disturbed them though, because suddenly she smelled a waft of perfume that must have been left behind from the last time the woman had worn them. The odour tickled her nostrils, and she tried not to sneeze.

Bethany tapped in her security code, and the safe door beeped and opened.

Don’t let her notice that the invitation and the RFID fob have been taken!

The strong, floral scent of the perfume was tingling at the back of Bex’s nose now. She reached up and pinched her nostrils shut, but that just seemed to make the tingling worse, like some small insect was trapped in there and was desperate to get out. Bex screwed her face up, trying to suppress the urge to explosively sneeze.

Bethany reached in, pulled out her wad of banknotes and peeled three from the top. She threw the rest back inside and closed the door again, locking it with a push of the button. Then she closed the wardrobe door, retrieved her jacket from where she’d put it on the back of a chair and left the room.

The itching in Bex’s nose was almost intolerable now, but she forced herself to count to ten before she sneezed the loudest sneeze she’d ever managed in her life.

Fortunately the sound didn’t bring Bethany back to investigate, but it sounded to Bex as if it might.

Patting her pocket to make sure she still had the card and the fob, she opened the room door a crack and listened. Somewhere down the corridor she heard the ding of the lift. That was probably Bethany, heading downstairs and out. That, Bex thought as she slid out into the corridor, was going to shock Bradley, or the boys. They’d been looking out for Bethany coming into the hotel; seeing her suddenly going out would throw them completely. She just hoped they didn’t react; not Bradley – he was too much of a professional for that – but the boys might show their surprise and tip Bethany off.

Bex caught herself and shook her head. Those boys had proved themselves over and over again. They weren’t going to go all amateur on her now and give the game away.

She took the stairs down to the lobby. Bradley was where she’d left him, in a comfortable chair. He looked like he was reading something on his tablet.

She sat down beside him.

‘That was interesting,’ she said quietly.

‘Yes, I saw our target leave. What happened?’

‘She’d been for a swim.’

‘As the poet Robert Burns said, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”. That means –’

‘I know what it means. The military equivalent is: “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” My dad used to say that all the time.’

‘Did you get what we came for?’

‘I did. At least, I got something that fits the description, and it was in the right place, although there were two sets, not one. Let’s not look at them now, just in case she comes back and sees us. We can go to your room. Oh, and let’s get the boys on the way.’

Five minutes later they were all in Bradley’s room.

Bex bought out the cards and the RFID fobs. ‘Apart from cash and a passport, these were the only things in the room’s safe. If these aren’t what we’re looking for, then we’re in trouble.’ She tossed the fobs to Bradley. ‘Have you got the equipment to check this out?’

He laughed. ‘Have I got the equipment? What do you think?’

‘Have you?’ Kieron asked, frowning.

Bradley sighed. ‘Yes, I have. Just give me a few minutes.’

While he set up his tablet, Bex looked at the first card. It was thick, ivory in colour, and its edges were scalloped. Just like any high-class party invite. Even the lettering on it was just what she would have expected – a font that looked like exquisite handwriting. She ran her fingers over it: the ink stood out from the card, embossed. All very impressive.

The words printed on the card were simple and direct:

You are invited to a demonstration of the skills of Asrael.

Be at jetty 13 at St Mark’s Square at precisely 18:30 on the fifth day after you receive this invitation.

Bring this card, and the token that arrived with it. These are the only identification you will need and that will be accepted.

Tell nobody. Bring nobody. No weapons or recording devices permitted.

You will see something you will not believe.

She glanced at the second card. It said exactly the same as the first.

The two white envelopes seemed to stare up at her challengingly. They were blank, made of card. Feeling a slight twinge of guilt, Bex opened the first one.

The only thing inside was a slip of card with a name handwritten on it: Charles Wilderbourg. Bethany’s husband? It seemed likely.

The second slip of card bore a different name: Linda Harringdon.

Each card had an address beneath the name. Both addresses were in the more exclusive parts of Los Angeles.

‘I’ve checked out the fobs,’ Bradley said, distracting her. ‘Each one has a different code – no extra information. I can’t tell where the demonstration is taking place. The only way to know is to go.’

‘Yes, but we have a problem,’ Bex said. ‘She’s got a friend, and they’ve been invited too. If I turn up alone, it might make Asrael suspicious. At the very least it’ll draw attention to me. I need a plus-one.’ She held the second card up and waved it at Bradley. ‘Play nice. You’re it.’

‘As long as there’s a glass of wine and a few vol-au-vents,’ he said. ‘Good thing I packed a decent suit and shirt.’

Bex met his gaze, and she could see that he’d come to the same conclusion she had. He nodded slightly, and she nodded back. She turned to Kieron and Sam.

‘We’re going to need your help, boys,’ she said.

They both smiled, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

‘As you heard, I have to take one other person with me to the demonstration,’ she went on, ‘but it can’t be either of you. I doubt Asrael would believe that my partner was a teenager. Ideally I’d go alone, with Bradley supporting me from here with the ARCC kit, but that’s not an option this time.’ She paused, and looked from Kieron to Sam and back again. ‘We’re going to need the two of you here, giving us any support that we need. Are you up for it?’

Kieron glanced at Sam. ‘Are we? What do you think?’

‘Aren’t we getting a little old for all this mucking around?’

Kieron nodded. ‘Actually I met a girl earlier. She’s from Norway. We said we might meet up later, down in the lobby. She’s got a friend. In fact, she’s got two friends.’

‘Sounds good to me.’

Kieron and Sam kept straight faces for another few seconds as they turned to look at Bex and Bradley, but they couldn’t sustain it and they burst out laughing.

‘Of course we’ll help!’ Kieron said through the laughs.

Three hours later, after Bex and Bradley had both grabbed a catnap in their rooms so they were fresh for the mission ahead, and after they’d both got changed into smarter clothes – a black suit in Bradley’s case and a smart trouser suit for Bex – they met up in the lobby and headed out to the jetties.

‘Did you see that?’ Bradley asked as they left the hotel.

‘What?’

‘Bethany Wilderbourg. She was in the bar, arguing with a man. I’m guessing she’s saying he’s got the invitations and the ID chips and he’s saying she has them. Just keep moving.’

It was cold outside. Far across the lagoon, lights glittered on the other islands.

‘Which one of us is going to wear the ARCC glasses?’ Bradley asked.

‘I’m more used to them and, frankly, I look better in them. Hand them over.’

Without saying anything, Bradley passed her the glasses and an earpiece. ‘So, my job is just to stand beside you and look decorative?’

‘Your job is to stand beside me and look like a bodyguard.’ She slipped the glasses on, nestled the earpiece in her right ear and pressed the tiny button on the right-hand arm of the glasses. As she did so, she noticed Bradley slipping an earpiece into his own ear – one of their spares. ‘Kieron – are you there?’

‘I’m here,’ his voice murmured in her ear. ‘Just turn your head so I can check out the focus and the infrared functions? Yeah – that’s OK. All working perfectly.’

‘Right. Let’s go.’

They walked along the side of the lagoon together. Bex slipped her arm through Bradley’s. ‘Just so we blend in,’ she said. ‘Don’t get any ideas.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, I’ve still got a girlfriend back in Newcastle.’

‘You haven’t said anything to Courtney yet?’

‘When have I had a chance?’

‘Oi!’ a voice shouted over the ARCC glasses.

‘Sorry,’ Bradley murmured. ‘Oh, that’s jetty thirteen up ahead.’

Bex looked in the direction he was pointing. Instead of a vaporetto or even a gondola, a black yacht was tied up by the quay. It must have been thirty feet long, with a bridge area rising up above the back half. The bow came to a sharp point. Nobody stood near it, but a gangplank led from the jetty up to its deck.

‘Sunseeker, according to the boat-recognition website I’ve found on the glasses,’ Kieron said in her ear. ‘Sunseeker 75, to be precise. Very nice. Very, very expensive. Being an international assassin must pay well.’

‘OK,’ Bex said. ‘Here we go.’