Chapter 2

Another perfect sunset on the island of Cyprus painted thin strokes of violet across the horizon, barely defining the darkened edge of the Mediterranean Sea to the west.

Declan Russell sat at the edge of a massive sectional couch, shoes off, toes digging hard into the thick carpet as he worked the five-hour flight from London out of his joints. He began with his feet, then moved to his knees and thighs before working all the way up to his shoulders. Which, at the moment, felt as if the weight of the entire world was resting on them. He crooked his neck right—crack—then left—another crack—eventually letting his eyes settle on the Breitling Heritage strapped to his wrist. Time was, he owned both a Patek Phillipe and a Vacheron Constantin and wore them on alternate days of the week, but that was before the start of his troubles, the end game of which was why he was here.

Here being a suite he could hardly afford, waiting to meet with a man he had never wanted to see. Specifically, he was in one of the top-level suites that crowned the Phoenician Horizon Hotel and Casino, an integrated resort located just steps from a secluded beach at the edge of the city of Limassol. It was eight hundred square feet of the type of pampered luxury to which he at one time had been accustomed, but which now seemed no more than a fleeting memory. Sixteen floors down were a couple dozen world-class gaming rooms and private salons designed to accommodate the pleasures of high-rollers from Vegas to Macau, and just about everywhere in between.

A decade ago, he easily would have dropped a hundred grand here in one evening, content with the prospect of losing because he enjoyed the social interaction, the energized repartee with the other players seated around the baccarat table. He reveled in the camaraderie of the dealers, the cocktail waitresses, the spectators and hangers-on watching the high-stakes derring-do. His win-loss ratio was abysmal, but long ago he’d come to grips with the fact that he possessed the tenacity and focus to become proficient at anything that had to do with business, but not gambling.

Russell stood up from the sofa and retreated to the well-stocked bar, where he poured yet another measure of Hendrick’s into his glass, no ice. He let a taste of it wash over his tongue, savored the familiar hints of rose and cucumber as he again considered why he was here, on this night, in this place. He’d been summoned by a voice on the phone that belonged to a man he had never before met, inviting him to a private dinner downstairs at Samarra, a Michelin-starred restaurant that served incredibly pricey haute cuisine in unbelievably minuscule portions that did absolutely nothing to satisfy one’s appetite.

He knew this because he’d checked the menu, once again thinking about the cost of all things. A sure sign of a man on the brink of financial devastation.

The proposal had been initiated a week ago via a late-night call to his home in Kensington that had yanked him out of a dream, one that evaporated as soon as he’d checked the screen on his phone. Unknown number. He’d almost ignored it, then remembered his daughter was traveling again and she might be trying to reach him from a borrowed cell or otherwise unfamiliar device. Thus, he’d picked it up and answered with his customary “Yes,” a greeting most family and colleagues found offensive and cold, rude to the point of being comical.

“Mr. Russell?” the voice on the other end had said.

“Who is this?”

“Who were you expecting?”

Russell had shifted the phone to his other ear and glanced at the clock: one-twelve in the morning. “No one, not at this hour,” he said. “What do you want?”

“To offer you an opportunity for personal redemption.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who the fuck are you?”

“It is said that true redemption is realized only when you accept the future consequences for your past mistakes,” the voice had replied.

“What? Who says that?”

“Google it later.” The voice waited a beat for dramatic effect, then continued: “The point is, Mr. Russell, your life has fallen into grave disrepair. Your very being has been tossed on the trash heap of financial ruin, and there’s no one left in your orbit who gives much of a damn what happens to you. Such is the fleeting nature of a superficial life.”

“I’m asking you again, who the fuck are you?”

“Consider me your own version of Jacob Marley,” the man on the other end explained—smug and self-satisfied, and damned full of himself.

“Dickens is highly overrated,” Declan Russell shot back. The throbbing pain in the back of his head had returned, as it did whenever he’d overdone it with the gin—as he did on most nights. “But I’ll bite. Are you here to warn me of the visits of three ghosts, some attempt to get me to atone for past lapses in judgment?”

“Your lapses are none of my concern, and only serve as a reminder of why you have no one of any importance in your life,” the voice had said. “No one who cares, no one who gives a rat’s ass about you. Except maybe your daughter, but she really only contacts you when she’s in need of money.”

“You leave my daughter out of this,” Russell warned him.

“She’s been out of this—out of your life—for years,” was the response. “And I’m afraid we’re veering off on a tangent, so let me bring you back on point.”

“Or I can just hang up.”

There was a sigh on the other end, almost as if this response had been predicted. “Go ahead, but if you do, I won’t call you back,” the voice said. “And then you’ll never know what this was, and what I can offer you.”

A long silence followed, after which Russell found himself saying—almost as if he had no control over his thoughts— “Go on.”

There was another dramatic pause that lasted a second or two, then: “You asked me a moment ago what I wanted, why I’m calling. Fact is, I want nothing from you, other than to inform you that an opportunity has come up for you to redeem yourself. Not completely; that would require much more than I am prepared to offer, and considerably more than you deserve. But definitely enough to pluck your life out of the gutter and set it on a steady course again.”

“You’re insane—”

“You might want to withhold judgment until you hear the details,” the voice had replied with an icy chuckle.

Russell had no idea what the fuck the guy was talking about, but his curiosity had been piqued. Redemption? An opportunity to redress his life? Atonement for past sins, of which he knew there were many more than he cared to admit? Lord knew there were enough buried secrets with which he could be blackmailed, if he gave enough of a shit to keep his prior misdeeds out of the news—and if he had enough cheddar to make them all go away.

He liked to think he wasn’t rattled easily, but what bothered him was that this guy knew about his daughter; knew the two of them had fallen out over the years, knew they now maintained only the barest of contact, and usually initiated only when she was in need of funds. All of this told him the guy probably knew a lot more about his life than he was letting on—and now that he thought about it, that’s what troubled him most of all.

In the end he had acquiesced and accepted the man’s offer, which was what brought him here to this luxury suite at the Phoenician Horizon Hotel and Casino tonight. All of it had been gratis, including his first-class airfare from Heathrow.

Sixteen floors down, Rōnin Phythian set his fork on his plate, savoring the last taste of his eggplant risotto. It had come with pickled samphire, coconut wasabi dressing, griddled baby gems, and a drizzle of black olive oil. None of it was food he would have put anywhere near his mouth when he was younger, but he’d spent close to the last eight years of his life watching a daily parade of mammals meander through his African compound, nibbling leaves from the tops of his acacia trees or stalking small game at night. Living that close to God’s creatures can induce a person not to want to eat them.

He smiled at the young Cypriot server who approached his table to remove his plate. She was tall and thin, mahogany eyes, just a dusting of rouge on her cheeks. Black hair curled up in a loose bun per order of management—beautiful in any country in the world, but troubled by personal issues nonetheless. Over the past forty minutes he had gleaned just enough from her mind to know she was worried she most likely was pregnant, terrified what her father might do if he learned of her plight. Even more worrisome was whether the father of the baby that could be growing inside her might not return to her after his tour of duty.

“Would you care to see our dessert menu?” she asked him. From the outset they’d worked out that English was the best language for both of them, and she showed a passable adequacy for it.

Under normal circumstances he would have asked for a snifter of Armagnac to be brought to him, but this was not one of those times. “I’m afraid I’m a bit pressed for time,” he told her. “Just the bill, please.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, then glided off to the kitchen.

He checked his watch: eight more minutes to go. The man he was meeting in the Presidential Suite upstairs had checked in earlier that afternoon, still baffled by what he was even doing on this remote Mediterranean island, why he had even agreed to attend this tête-à-tête with this cryptic and arcane man he had never met. He hadn’t really bought the pitch about finding personal redemption and salvation but, in the end, he’d had no real choice in the matter.

In the two years since Phythian had destroyed the power core of the Greenwich Global Group, he’d arranged nineteen of these meetings. All had been with former G3 clients who, at one time or another, had found the murder-for-hire outfit via word of mouth or on the dark web, and had invested a sizable sum in exchange for the elimination of an adversary. Whether it be a business competitor, political enemy, ideological opponent, or romantic rival, the reasons why a patron placed a contract were never asked, the rationale never questioned. A price was arranged, a time frame set, and a freelancer would be brought in to complete the task.

On one hundred-two such occasions, that freelancer had been Phythian.

Possessing a natural knack for what colloquially was known as “wet work,” he’d shown exceptional skill and efficiency in its execution. Over time, new and repeat customers alike had asked for him not by name—that was known only to a select few—but by his reputation and success rate. Never once did he fail in a mission, and his hands never got dirty. Word of his handiwork spread within those circles where such things were discussed, and he’d come to be known as “the most dangerous man alive,” until the day he’d taken it upon himself to orchestrate the death of a Cardinal whom he’d found had been involved in a nasty bit of sexual perversion within the Vatican. The prince of the church had inexplicably stepped in front of a truck, and had died instantly.

To redress this unsanctioned assassination—a strict violation of Phythian’s terms of employment—the G3 concocted an elaborate plot to kill him. The connivance they devised was doomed to failure from the start, and Phythian had used the resulting debacle to disappear as far off the global grid as humanly possible. From that moment forward he had peacefully existed in self-exile, living in harmony on the continent of Africa with the marvelous menagerie of life that coursed through the restored camp he had named Utuliva, Swahili for serenity. Serenity was what his life had transformed into, until a discovery in a remote corner of the world the year before last raised the distinct possibility to the G3 executive committee that he had not been terminated as previously thought and, in fact, was very much alive.

Over the days that followed, Phythian had methodically orchestrated the deadly downfall of the covert group that had been around since the final days of World War Two. It was not something he had strategized or intended, nor had he been possessed of any particularly altruistic motive—other than to save a young woman whose life was in peril because of his own actions. It was simply a convenient end to a persistent problem and, once he’d assumed the reins of the firm, he’d used the G3s sophisticated resources to shift its business model to one focused more on atonement and reparations.

All of this led to his meeting with the man upstairs—no religious euphemism intended—scheduled for just six minutes from now.

The restaurant was equipped with only one security camera, unlike the visual surveillance that covered the hotel’s enormous gambling hall. Phythian had made sure to keep his eyes to the floor as the maître d’ guided him into the dining room, and he’d asked to be seated at a table he determined would be out of range of its lens. The Phoenician Horizon Hotel and Casino was brimming with gaming tables, and most of the digital vigilance was trained on the grifters, cheats, and scammers who gravitated to them. One could never be too sure, however, who was watching what.

The waitress returned with a smile and his check, which he paid with paper Euros that he handled only at the edges, leaving no prints, and a minimal trace of touch DNA. The same sense of caution had led him to wrap his cutlery in a napkin and slip it into a pocket in his jacket, having secretly replaced it with a clean fork and knife before his plate had been whisked off to the kitchen.

No one must ever know that he’d been here, and that nothing of a questionable nature that might occur tonight could ever lead back to him.

“Whatever is left is yours,” he told her. “No change.”

“Thank you, sir, and have a great evening,” the waitress wished him. She flashed him that smile again, appreciative of the generous gratuity, since tipping was not generally expected nor common.

“Same to you, and may all your concerns work out for the best,” he replied. Then he pushed his chair back and rose to his feet, brushing any crumbs from the particularly delicious olive bread from his lap.

It was time to get upstairs.

Declan Russell stood at the slider that led to the massive terrace and stared at the expanse of black, dotted with lights from mega-yachts and fishing boats twinkling out on the dark sea. Racking his focus slightly to take in his own reflection in the glass, he studied the man he had become: a thin frame of wrinkled skin and tired bones, slightly stooped from the six-foot-two rugby frame that at one point caused all heads in any room to turn his way. He was the one and only Declan Russell, financial tycoon and hedge fund manager whose personal net worth had once topped ten figures, the mogul and magnate whose business tactics at times were considered cutthroat, and at other times ruthless—as if there was much difference between the two.

Now here he was, older than he wished and younger than he felt: a withered and ruined man nearing his seventieth birthday, wondering if that landmark might induce Beatrice to get in touch, wherever in the world she might be. In less than two years his life had turned upside down. Investments died on the vine, clients dried up, and bank accounts ceased to exist. Lawsuits were filed, an ongoing scandal mill destroyed his reputation, and friends became ghosts.

Another taste of gin trickled down his throat. He again glanced at his Breitling, which told him he had about twenty minutes before heading downstairs for his appointment in Samarra. The irony of those words was not lost on a man who had been quite fond of the American writer John O’Hara during his years at university.

Russell turned away from the glass at the same instant a bell chimed. It took him a moment to realize someone was at the front door, an oddity since he wasn’t expecting any visitors. He’d expressly told the desk clerk that he wanted no room service, and by no means was anyone to come in and turn down his bed and leave mints on his pillow, or whatever the Cypriot equivalent of hospitality might be. Only one person even knew he was at the Phoenician Horizon, and that person had already arranged to meet him downstairs in less than half an hour.

The bell chimed again, and Russell realized his feet seemed to be frozen to the carpet. A peculiar feeling of dread caused his throat to swell, and he felt a clammy chill to his skin. There was a time, before his troubles began, that men and women would line up in the corridor outside his office, their constant entry and egress seeming like a revolving door. Deals, contracts, bond offerings, equities, handshakes: they were all in a day’s work, and all with lucre at their root. The reference to Jacob Marley on the late-night phone call seven evenings ago caused a shudder to rattle through him now.

This was how far he’d fallen, to cause his body to tremble at the presence of an unknown specter out in the hallway, one whose only breach thus far was to press a button.

Russell knocked back the last of his Hendricks, then got his feet moving and padded across the lush carpet. He checked his wiry gray hair in a mirror as he passed, brushed a strand away from his face. Tried not to notice the liver spots that seemed to be spreading like some form of pox on his skin. Then he grabbed the brass door handle and gave it a turn, feeling as if the devil incarnate was standing on the other side.