Back in the UK, Mark pored over the maps he had laid out on his table whilst sipping gently at his twelve-year-old malt. As he drew in the satisfying nicotine, his eyes levelled on something he had not spotted before. If Roman Vose made it to Bremerhaven before he got there, surely he would have needed transport and a route to and from Bremerhaven container port. Perhaps the CCTV may hold clues. He sat down and spun his leather wheeled office recliner over to where his many computer terminal monitors were, and typed furiously to get up the CCTV for that area. Before he was killed, Frans Luca had provided Mark with vital information concerning the terrorist’s movements and, now they were all dead, he had virtually no way of tracking them. He paused as he thought about his friend Frans Luca and how he needlessly died trying to help him. He had been cruel to him initially but, from his position, it looked like he had been betrayed before he found out the truth.
Mark deeply regretted Frans’ death and everything that had led up to it but now was not the time to mourn for those who had fallen. Mark shouldered this grief privately and had spent the last week berating and chastising himself for letting Frans die. At least his family were safe. He had buried this grief deep inside because that was the only way to survive and it had kept him alive this far.
His thoughts inevitably turned to Marie and what she would have made of running around killing people. She would have been mad at him for taking revenge but, as time went on, he remembered less and less about what life felt like before all this started. And he wasn’t finished yet. He had more to do, a lot more. Someone had ordered Azidi to carry out this attack and used Roman Vose, authorised Frans Luca’s death and Marie’s death, although it occurred to Mark that everyone he seemed to get close to in this, ended up dead. His thoughts drew back to tracing Roman Vose and the screens in front of him which were now loaded with information. He knew he had hacked the FBI and CIA files, assuming that Roman Vose’s accent was transatlantic. Thinking he may find something from the FBI, he decided that was a good starting point. He wasn’t a hacker and had only used what Frans had told him about on the way from Holtenau to Bremerhaven.
Mark knew he only had a matter of minutes before the FBI and CIA hackers shut down his connection and was relieved it couldn’t be traced to his location even with their superior devices as it belonged to the military and, even though the UK and the US were allies, they were still abiding by an agreement NOT to hack each other’s systems. Screenshotting everything he found, his large printer clicked into life behind him, automatically printing out everything he had screenshot. He slid over to the printer in his chair and grabbed the freshly printed files. Mark couldn’t believe his luck when Roman Vose’s face was on the top page.
Roman Vose was an ex-CIA assassin, which explained his skills and technical talent with a sniper rifle. Mark closed his eyes in horror as he remembered that fatal shot which killed Frans Luca. Vose’s profile read like a hitman 101 instruction manual, showing he had taken part in operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Ireland, Istanbul, and, more recently, Syria, although Mark wondered, knowing the current situation in Syria with ISIS or Daesh or whatever they wanted to call themselves, which side Roman Vose was on, or even if he HAD a side. Vose had also been on many bodyguard details but then Mark noticed there was a blank in the dates with sketchy information about Vose being headed to Russia, then back to the US where he seemed to resume his duties under the CIA. Secondment perhaps, Mark couldn’t tell, but he had a feeling Vose had defected to Russia and was working with the Russians AND the US, playing one off against the other. This was a long time ago, and he soon found correspondence which showed that Vose had either left the CIA or had been ‘burned’.
Mark thought for a few minutes before concluding that he was ‘burned’ but, with his skills, had evaded burning and had killed those sent to kill him. He sat back in his chair and stared at his ‘most wanted’ wall. He got up and removed Azidi from the wall, moving him to the bottom of the list and, using a red permanent marker, drew a red cross all the way through Azidi’s face. In his place, he moved Roman Vose’s image, which had been third on the list until today. He stood there for a while, finishing his cigarette, just staring at the faces of those who remained and those who he had taken out. What bothered him the most, he thought as he turned to his giant white board and drew a brainstorming spider diagram, was if these were all the ‘little guys’, who was the guy at the top and why did he feel it necessary to authorise Marie’s murder. Frans Luca he could almost understand, as it was Frans who turned against them to help Mark locate the shipment of weapons, so in their eyes, that was a betrayal, but Marie was never involved in anything like this and was merely an innocent victim. He HAD to find out who was responsible and figured that Roman Vose was the ticket to this. To get to the guy at the top, he needed to locate Vose and make him talk, if he could. Mark grabbed the TV remote and nonchalantly pressed ‘standby’ to turn it back on. Sky News came up with Jeremy Thompson reading the headlines. Mark’s eyes widened. News was breaking of a terrorist plot in Germany where the arms deal had gone wrong and there was a shootout between the ‘seller’ and the ‘buyer’. Mark turned up the volume and leant forward, reaching for another cigarette. He relaxed in his chair and smiled.
Thomas Lundon threw the remote across the room after watching the Sky News report about the alleged terrorist arms deal gone wrong. He shouted and gestured at a sorry-looking Roman Vose sat in a leather chair opposite him in the study. Vose had a black eye and several bandages and scars. He was also limping again and seemed to have bruised ribs.
‘Please boss, let me kill this guy! It wasn’t my fault; he turned up out of nowhere, like a ghost!’ he pleaded, realising it was now about self-preservation.
Much as Vose respected Mark King, he knew deep down, when it came down to it, it was kill or be killed. Thomas Lundon was red in the face and making his way angrily over to where Vose was sitting.
‘He must have had an army with him to cause that much damage,’ pleaded Vose, trying to make excuses as to his obvious failure.
‘You came with recommendations, Vose. Idiot! You had to KILL Luca!’ Vose looked at the ground shamefully. ‘He was a very important source of information! And you let King get away!’
Lundon’s blood pressure was rising and Vose was scared. Now King had gone to ground again, it was, again, impossible to locate him.
‘It’s NOT good enough!’
Vose was terrified. He held his head, nursing his relenting headache which had not gone away since he arrived at the villa later on in the day in which Mark King blew up their arms shipment.
Thomas Lundon strode around his study and out into the highly decorated hallway which led to his private spa. Roman Vose nervously followed as Lundon touched each of the huge oil paintings which lined the hallway which led to the marble reception area of his private villa. A maid approached Lundon with warm towels and a dressing gown which he took and dismissed her instantly, showing his irritation at everything around him.
‘My “brothers” in my youth formed this organisation, along with those who had been members and are members still, with one sole purpose: the organisation of control. Since before you were born.’ Lundon stopped when he reached a gap in the paintings. ‘This is where MY painting will hang one day.’
Vose gulped, feeling sure he would be shot or killed in some psychopathic and torturous way for having failed his boss so miserably. There was no end to Lundon’s anger and frustration as he screamed again at Vose and anyone else who would listen.
‘We will NOT be INTIMIDATED BY MARK KING!’ Vose limped behind Lundon again as Lundon spun on him. ‘What are we supposed to do now, Vose? WHAT?!’
Vose just stared helplessly at Lundon, who was getting more and redder in the face. He calmed for a second, getting his breath before he pressed a buzzer on the wall and his private doctor came running, taking him by the arm and warning him about his blood pressure and heart rate. Lundon pushed the doctor away from trying to steady him and cursed him too. He turned on Roman Vose again.
‘You have ONE last chance to locate and eliminate Mark King or this time, YOU will be the one eliminated!’
Vose’s face went white as he knew his boss would carry out his threat. Lundon was escorted away by his doctor as Roman Vose was left in the hallway with his thoughts. He was ashamed. He was deeply ashamed because he had never failed on a hit until he met Mark King.
Roman Vose wandered up and down the halls of the gigantic villa, wondering what the hell he was going to do. He would have to get himself a new team to go after Mark King again, but he was wrestling with his morals. COULD he kill him? Each time they had met, King had almost fatally injured him and, one day soon, would eventually get the best of him and send a bullet with his name on it, buzzing through his skull. But Vose respected Mark King for being so tough and resilient and difficult to kill and he appreciated WHY King was coming after him, but what Mark King didn’t know was that it was NOT Vose who had killed his wife, and it wasn’t Hix either. In a fit of rage, Roman Vose punched anything he could see, doorways, doors, walls, tables and chairs and grabbed random people, mostly maids and servants and asked them hopelessly, what he should do. Vose’s mental capacity was starting to wane.
They stared terrified at him and ran off, after which he then looked round in a rage for the next poor unfortunate soul to vent his anger on. Vose was more angry at himself than at Mark King, and he knew sooner or later the two would meet again and, considering Vose thought Mark King was a soft target to begin with, his realisation had dramatically changed in the past week and he was now scared. Roman Vose, the big assassin and henchman was scared, and he didn’t like that. He didn’t like it one bit.
Detlev ‘The Wolf’ Kastner sat poring over the CCTV images of Mark King’s interview. He knew the offender’s REAL name, and it bugged him that this man dare contravene and blatantly defy HIS orders and go off on this mad killing spree, tearing up Bremerhaven’s largest container port like that. He compared the grainy CCTV images of the shoot-out at the container port to that of the interview a few days before that and he knew it was the same person. He had inspected the scene in the most extreme detail, looking for ANY kind of clue as to the whereabouts of this man, this… killing machine on a mission to ruin his country. Suddenly, something clicked for Kastner. In all his years of interrogation, in all his dealings with some of the worst scum he could imagine, with his level of experience, something resonated with him.
That word he had just said out loud; that word somehow held the clue to what this insurgent’s next move would be and where he had vanished to. Was he still in Germany? His hotel had said he checked out, but no one under the name of Russel Green or Mark King had boarded any flights or trains or rented any cars, anywhere in Germany. He was totally bemused.
Kastner sat and thought for a while. He was getting too old for all this but he had ultimate power here. He knew he couldn’t go on in this job forever, two wives divorced and one buried had taught him that, and his children who didn’t even call or write anymore. Was he really the monster everyone thought he was? He felt like it sometimes, but the world is an evil place and he was good at his job; he faced, fought and caught the evil which ravaged this world and it was up to HIM to clean up the mess. His pay-cheque was handsome, as were all the benefits which went with such a position, plus he had a nice little nest egg he could fall back on if things went south. His mobile rang, and he looked at the number. He answered in his usual serious tone, concerned about the caller and the nature of the call. It was a short call but one he had been dreading. It wasn’t his superior, it was much worse than that.
‘I am doing all I can to locate this intruder to my country and I am calling in every available resource and asset to capture and eliminate this loner, this sniper, this Russel Green.’
However, the person on the other end of the phone seemed to have more intelligence at their disposal than Kastner did and he hung up the phone, gripping it tightly.
Kastner checked all the records of flights and trains again before reaching for his phone and calling the airports, one at a time, requesting all their CCTV in the last 7 days. He realised this would be a mammoth task so called in some of his most experienced agents. He got up from his desk and went downstairs into the central operations room where agents were busy tracking all kinds of threats to Germany’s security. As always, because it was rare he came to the ops room, everyone turned to stare in fear at Kastner when he entered the room. He held his hands up to get everyone’s attention. He needed no words to do this, and surveyed the room, carefully, as if he was looking for a rat in a pipe network.
‘No one is going home until we have a fix on Mark King. I want him, alive if possible, but I want him and I want him TODAY!’ growled Kastner, his face flushed.
Everyone stared, motionless, at his request. His eyes grew narrow, and he straightened his back, angry at this apparent insubordination, and clapped his hands before breathing in and out a few times to calm himself down.
‘NOW,’ he said in a much calmer voice, ‘you want to go home? Find him!!!’
He screamed, and the room erupted into a tirade of phone calls, CCTV images, panicked, frantic and chaotic before eventually a rhythm formed as they pulled up countless images they had gathered from all across Germany of Mark King as Russell Green. Now the ‘Wolf’ was a little closer to his ‘prey’ and was going on the hunt!
Something had occurred to Mark as he was walking the corridors of his secure bunker. It was well stocked, all of it with modern equipment. He wondered how Nial Atkinson had acquired such a site, even considering he was ex-military. He decided he would dig deeper into the history of the place and look through the boxes of old papers stored in a secure storage cupboard on the second level of the bunker. Atkinson had told Mark they were his old financial records he stored there as it was about as secure as he could get, and he didn’t want them falling into the wrong hands.
‘The wrong hands?’ Mark said aloud to himself as he made his way up to the storage area.
There he found boxes upon boxes of paperwork, looking like old military files. He decided he needed a break from chasing Roman Vose for a while and picked a few of the files to look into.
Within a few hours, he was sat on the floor, surrounded by hundreds of partially open files. There was information here about missions Atkinson had been on and old photographs of him as a young soldier. One in particular stood out: Nial Atkinson with what looked like a company of other soldiers, posing with their arms around each other and guns over their shoulders. Mark took it, attempted to clean it up and put it in a frame. He thought back to his time at Sandhurst and wondered what life would have been like if he had pursued that career instead of the legal career he had chosen. He knew he couldn’t bear to leave Marie, which is why he allowed her to persuade him to go into the legal profession rather than the military. He was grateful really as he had enjoyed his career, but perhaps he wouldn’t be in this position if she hadn’t persuaded him to leave the dream of the military behind. Perhaps she would still be alive, although she would not have stayed with him if he had stayed in the army. He needed answers and decided to re-visit the nursing home where Nial Atkinson now lived, almost at the end of his life. Mark wondered where Nial Atkinson had the money he had, considering he was in the military although he was a senior ranking SAS officer. Something here just didn’t add up.
A nurse came with a tea trolley as Mark and Nial Atkinson faced each other across a chess board. Mark, as usual, was losing. Atkinson looked up and smiled at the nurse who placed two cups of coffee on the table next to the two men. Atkinson wasn’t supposed to have coffee but considering how popular he was amongst the nursing staff, they gave him virtually anything he wanted. The truth of the matter was that he wasn’t half as gaga as he allowed the nurses to think he was. He had spent years infiltrating the enemy and lying low for weeks before a strike was ordered and he was good at it. He learned how to acquire things in the home he shouldn’t have. One such acquisition was a small cache of small arms hidden in his room. Mark looked at Atkinson as if trying to read his thoughts. Atkinson smiled without even looking at Mark and told Mark exactly what he was thinking.
‘You want to know what I know,’ said Atkinson, smiling.
Mark shouldn’t have been surprised at this. However, Atkinson always had a way of surprising people. He cared deeply for this man but there was something he always seemed to hide from the world. Perhaps it was the horrors of war and conflict, or the suppression of the stress of killing in the name of queen and country; no one really knew, but Mark knew something wasn’t right.
Atkinson looked up, his face turned serious.
‘I know what you want to ask me.’
Mark looked embarrassed at being found out, and rightly so, for Atkinson gave Mark a dressing down for snooping into affairs which were not his.
‘You shouldn’t go snooping around in affairs that don’t concern you. You may find out things you didn’t want to know.’
Mark apologised and Atkinson took it well.
‘The contents of that bunker are MY life. I haven’t been there in thirty years and with very good reason,’ Atkinson explained cagily, looking at Mark before turning away.
‘I’m sorry Nial, but if it concerns Marie and these goons trying to kill me, it concerns me too.’
Atkinson smiled and nodded.
‘How are things going?’ Mark shrugged and made a move on the chess board. ‘Do you like gardening? I like gardening. I think you ought to go on a holiday Mark, get away from it for a while.’
Mark shook his head in despair and was thinking Atkinson really was as gaga as he made out to be. Atkinson’s tone turned deadly serious, and he scolded Mark.
‘Mark, please don’t think me stupid enough not to know what you’ve been doing. I do still follow the news.’
He had easily put two and two together to figure out it was Mark who was doing all this killing.
‘Besides, your injuries give you away. Would you pass a gunshot residue test?’
Mark looked back at Atkinson. For some reason he feared this old man even though he was brittle and elderly. But there was something about Atkinson which still told Mark he still had it in him to break him in half and snap his neck if the situation called for it. Atkinson frowned as Mark showed him the picture he found of him and his battalion as youngsters. He realised it was time to tell Mark the truth, and he would not like it.
‘After my comrades and I left the military, we worked as guns for hire, working for the highest bidder. Some of the members formed a secret organisation which amassed them great wealth, hence my income.’
Mark listened intently, watching, as the old man’s eyes wandered back to a time when he was younger and happier.
‘They eventually grew so powerful and had so much influence; they began to get control of large companies, corporations and eventually turned to politics.’ Atkinson looked sorrowful and distant, his eyes slightly glazed over. ‘Many of the group turned against their respective governments and grew too power hungry, even for me. I argued with the group and eventually had to escape underground and never spoke to any of them again. I purchased the bunker off record with some of the money I had and spent the best part of five years living in hiding so I could not be traced. Eventually, when I got too old for the bunker, I made my will, sorted all my financial affairs and retired to this place where I could live the rest of my life in peace and safety.’
Mark was amazed. He sat there staring at the old war dog in total disbelief. Atkinson smiled and gave Mark a wink.
‘Hence the secrets I hide in his room. One day, Mark, they WILL come for me. They always do. They leave no one alive.’ Atkinson’s smile turned to intensity and fear. ‘There are forces in this world, Mark. They will kill without hesitation and they will not mourn loss.’
Mark felt sick, especially when, before he left, he turned to Atkinson with one more question.
‘What is the name of this organisation?’
Atkinson looked up grimly and replied distantly as if remembering a long forgotten fear or sadness. He could barely even say their name and his voice trembled, ‘Invictus Advoca,’ he said absently.