Portrait Of An Assassin - Richard Godwin Read online

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, knowing he would be dead by then.

  “Very well then, shall we say eight o’clock?”

  “We’ll see you then.”

  ***

  I had almost everything I needed. I knew Mervyn went to the gym late on Tuesday and decided that was the day. Pike was in the habit of sampling the goods first. Every time a corpse came in that he wanted to offer for sale prior to dismemberment and further asset stripping, he would stay late at the parlour and try it out. He would then return home and luxuriate in a long bath. He had an account with a company that sold bath products, oils, aromatherapy.

  That Tuesday he took in two new corpses and stayed late at the parlour. A couple of candles flickered at the embalming room window.

  He finally left at eight o’clock. I followed him home, where, from the back garden, I watched as the bathroom light went on almost immediately. Mervyn was at the gym. I’d seen him enter there at seven, just about the time when his father had been limbering up for his sexual kicks. He was in the habit of working out for an hour, then going out to dinner with friends. He wouldn’t be back before ten.

  After a couple of minutes I walked round to the side window and easily forced it with a crow bar.

  It was small, but I managed to squeeze in.

  Standing on a plastic bag, I slipped into the rubber soled deck shoes I’d bought for the occasion. Then I crept upstairs.

  Pike was in the bath singing My Way, and I could smell the oils from the landing. Sneaking into the bedroom, I grabbed the electric heater he kept in there and plugged it into the extension cable in the hall. I then waited for it to heat up.

  Pike was thrashing about like a sperm whale. I could make out a huge gut floating in a sea of bubbles and scum. Occasionally, he let out a rumble of bubbles.

  I waited until the heater was good and hot and then walked in just as he warbled Regrets, I’ve had a few.

  He was always going to see me.

  But then again, too few too mention.

  He let out a small high–pitched scream and emptied his bowels into the bath.

  His mouth opened in mute horror, his eyes, two little balls of intense fear, as I dropped the heater in the water.

  He sizzled and screamed, writhing around clutching at the sides of the bath and slipping in his own shit which was frying in the oils and sweat. The electric shock lasted long enough to put his heart out of action, and finally he slumped under the water without moving.

  The room smelt of a burning turd in a perfume factory.

  I watched him sink beneath the water and then left.

  ***

  Smythe couldn’t contain his joy when I told him it was done.

  He arranged to meet me in his car the next day with the rest of the money.

  He turned up on time and drove to a quiet road where I checked the money. It was all there, thirty thousand in cash.

  I handed him back the files.

  “There is just one thing,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “You said you would let me know how he died.”

  “Electrocuted in the bath.”

  “Oh good, very fitting,” he said, then shook my hand warmly.

  The last I saw of him he was beaming from ear to ear. He waved at me as he pulled the car away, disappearing into the London night, a strange interlude before a black chapter.

  XI

  I changed address more often than my gun.

  Mobility gave me security.

  I became more used to hotel rooms than any trappings of home life. Now I can see it’s too late for me. All that’s gone away, in a fog of hits and contracts. And the big players put out a line for me. It splashed unheard in the silent waters in which I moved, circled by sharks.

  Then, one day, I received the call that would change my life forever.

  “Hello Jack?” said a muffled voice.

  I knew instantly the caller was using a voice changer.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Stuart Morris.”

  “How did you get my number?”

  “You have a reputation.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Can we meet?”

  I thought for a moment.

  “Six o’clock opposite Gloucester Road tube station.”

  “How will you recognise me?”

  “I’ll find you.”

  I hung up.

  There was something I instinctively mistrusted about the caller.

  I spotted him on the corner, a nervous guy in grey who had bureaucrat written all over him.

  “You got here early,” I said.

  “Jack?”

  “Let’s go for a drive.”

  He was hiding something, but that wasn’t unusual, most of the people who hired me were either using me in some way or paranoid about revealing their true identities.

  I parked in a quiet street and started to quiz him.

  “So, what’s the job?”

  “My client,” he said, hesitating, “is a wealthy man, and has asked me to act as his go–between.”

  That could go some way toward explaining his edginess. Embittered bureaucrat doing a favour for a wealthy friend, wants some cash, scared of what he’s getting into.

  “I’ve heard you have a reputation for carrying out clean and efficient jobs, and we need the very best on this. Have you heard of Global Nexus?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Not at all. It’s a company, or the arm of a larger one.”

  “Business?”

  “Arms dealing.”

  “Okay.”

  “One of the directors, Kurt Spengler, has pulled off some of the biggest, most audacious arms deals of the last decade.”

  “So?”

  “Bear with me. He has a genuine business pedigree, Harvard graduate, economist, and is a first–class businessman.”

  “He just got greedy.”

  “Oh, more than that. My client has been involved in certain business transactions with Spengler and recently came off very much the worst.”

  “Sorry, I don’t do business grudges.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Well, cut to the chase.”

  “Spengler hasn’t just ripped my client off, but has taken on something that could jeopardise all of us.”

  He paused. He was sizing me up.

  “I’m still not getting this. I need you to give me more information.”

  “He’s planning to sell enriched plutonium to a rogue State.”

  “Which one?”

  “Syria.”

  He had my attention now.

  “You want Spengler taken out?”

  “We need his right hand man taken out, before the deal goes through. This is in its critical stages and Syria can still be stopped. And we need some information.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Sam Clarkson.”

  The name meant nothing to me.

  “Background?”

  “Ex–SAS. Mercenary. Skilled with weapons, martial arts expert, very dangerous.”

  “That it?”

  “He enjoys killing and has a penchant for beating up prostitutes.” “And the information?”

  “We need you to find out the trade routes they have been using and are planning to use.”

  “Every time you open your mouth, this gets more complicated.”

  “Once you’ve done that and terminated Clarkson, we need you to download a virus onto Global Nexus’ software.”

  “How much are you offering?”

  “A million.”

  That eclipsed all previous sums.

  “Two,” I said.

  He looked startled.

  “I assure you Jack, a million is a very generous offer. I have researched my figures and –.”

  “Two or you get someone else,” I said, making to turn on the ignition.

  “Shall we say one and a half?”

  I weighed him up. The money was the
re, but I didn’t want to push it.

  “On two conditions.”

  “Yes?”

  “One. You give me access to every piece of information I ask for, no hedging, no guessing games. You want this job to go smoothly, you want Clarkson taken out and no one investigating you, you give me transparency. Understood?” He nodded. “Two, I want you to supply me with whatever I need.”

  “It’s a deal,” he said, extending his hand.

  “It’s obvious your client is well connected.”

  “My client can pull a lot of strings, and I can help you navigate the sticky parts of this job. You don’t need to know anything else about him.”

  I did.

  “I’ll give you a list of what I need. Also, all expenses to be charged to a credit card you give me at the outset, that covers hotels and any extras.”

  “Would a budget of, say, £100,000 be enough?”

  “It depends on how long this takes.” He was jotting this down. “I will call you tomorrow and arrange a meeting, and I want half up front and the expense account.”

  He wrote a mobile number down on a piece of paper and I dropped him outside Gloucester Road tube station. I drove away, thinking this is the job I could retire on.

  The line was coiling up like a noose.

  XII

  He met me the next day with a case full of cash. The money was all there, and I knew we were talking serious business.

  He’d booked a room at the Savoy.

  I spent less than an hour with him before leaving with the information I needed and a platinum credit card in the name of Lewis Carmichael.

  I spent the next two days familiarising myself with the backgrounds of Spengler and Clarkson.

  What Morris had told me panned out. Global Nexus was certainly dealing in arms in a big way, selling masses of weapons and laundering the money through sister companies and asset–striping. It owned a small property empire and its turnover was several billion a year.

  Clarkson was a real charmer with a string of scalps on his belt. A trained marksman, he’d made a name for himself in the Gulf and was expert in the use of biological weapons.

  He would be my hardest hit to date.

  ***

  The premises of Global Nexus were a glass fronted block of offices near Blackfriars.

  There was a secretive air to the building which was evident when you walked in.

  Spengler was a large man with a booming voice who communicated through orders and questions.

  He would harangue his staff over what he viewed as failings, but rarely fired anyone, since he was content with what they were doing and liked to keep people on their toes by injecting them with doses of insecurity at regular intervals.

  Clarkson didn’t work at Global Nexus. He was employed by Spengler to travel where the business was, set up and oversee deals, and occasionally kill people.

  The files Morris had given me detailed transactions as far back as several years ago, and it was clear that the arms dealing had accelerated in intensity.

  To all intents and purposes, the main business was weapons. Anything else was a cover–up.

  There were over a hundred staff on board and excluding secretaries and finance, the key players were hard–nosed business negotiators who had to know exactly what Spengler was involved in. You can only keep so many employees in the dark.

  He had a couple of right–hand men with military backgrounds and operated from a closed circle, favouring secrecy.

  The building blended in perfectly with the financial landscape and drew little attention. Exactly what Spengler wanted.

  I had to get to see Clarkson, which was not going to be easy.

  He rarely visited the offices, so I needed to pursue another route.

  That is how I became an arms dealer.

  ***

  I travelled to Dubai with business contacts set up by Morris and his associates.

  The ease with which I found myself taken into confidential circles immediately made me suspicious that I was dealing with a client who was highly connected in government circles.

  I mixed on the circuit for weeks, moving from the intense heat to the iced air–conditioning and the cold and seedy company of international arms dealers. Guys with greed etched into their DNA with battery acid.

  And one afternoon, I made the contact I needed.

  “Haven’t seen you before on the circuit,” a smug English businessman said, extending a limp hand, “Charles Sinclair.”

  “Lewis Carmichael.”

  “Selling or buying?”

  “Both. Except I’m finding what’s on offer here is pretty tried and tested, if you take my meaning.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “I’m looking for something a little different.”

  “Something not officially on the agenda?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Look. Here’s my card. Why don’t we meet later?”

  I watched him disappear and went through the motions for the rest of the day.

  Later at the hotel I rang him.

  “Carmichael. You’re interested in something else aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Meet me at Le Meridien, say, seven tonight?”

  I phoned Morris for a background check and he got back to me an hour later.

  Sinclair was an ex–property dealer who’d done some shady deals and pissed a lot of people off to all accounts. He’d been into arms dealing for a few years now, hiding it as part of an otherwise above board business.

  He was wanted by the Inland Revenue.

  Morris sounded pleased. “He’s a good find. He’s dealt with Clarkson before and the two of them are apparently about to engage in something big.”

  I met Sinclair at his hotel and endured half an hour of his self–congratulatory drivel.

  “There are a lot of small–time operators in this business, if you’re not one of them, then we’re talking business,” he said.

  “I’m not.”

  “How much can you put up?”

  “Two hundred mill.”

  He blinked, disguising his surprise by gulping his drink.

  “Excellent. Then, I have someone I want you to meet. Sam Clarkson. He’s in this with me and we need a couple more people on board.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “No reason you should have.”

  “What exactly are we talking about?”

  “I can tell you’re a player. Nuclear weapons.”

  “Good.”

  “Who is your client?”

  “A government.”

  “Sounds a bit cagey to me.”

  “I’ll tell you more when I meet your contact.”

  “He’s a player, don’t worry.”

  “I never worry,” I said.

  We arranged a meeting for two days’ time, and I planned my part carefully.

  ***

  I first met Sam Clarkson at Sinclair’s hotel.

  He was late, and after an hour of enduring Sinclair’s self–praise, I was relieved when I heard a tap at the door.

  He walked in with the slow, measured pace and stiff bearing of a man who had spent too long in the army. Combat was etched into his gait, and he gripped me with a strong handshake which I met. Two animals who knew each other’s scent.

  “You Army?” he said.

  “Nah, Royal Marines.”

  “Regiment?”

  “Nope. Like I said. Royal Marines.”

  He nodded. “I knew a couple of ex Royal Marines. Good operators.”

  “And you?”

  “Paras for a bit, then went on to something else.”

  “Sounds like you’ve seen a fair bit of action.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “More than most.”

  “Drink, Sam?” Sinclair said.

  “Whisky.”

  “Lewis?”

  “Same for me.”

  “I know I’m always in good company with Army men,” he said, pouring them. “I
t’s the training. Second to none.”

  “Some units are better than others,” Clarkson said.

  I watched as he removed his jacket and sat on the sofa opposite me.

  He had that wiry, deeply muscled frame that comes with years of army training. Not the bulk of someone who pushes weights, but someone who is trained for combat.

  He sat back and sipped his whisky, taking me in.

  Finally, Sinclair broke the silence.

  “Lewis is interested in buying into our latest venture.”

  Clarkson continued to watch me.

  “How did you hear about us?”

  “We met at last week’s conference.”

  He gave me a look that said he didn’t buy it.

  I was going to have to convince him I was seriously on board and that would take time.

  “I’ve been dealing for a client for a while now.”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  “Look, we can all sit here and play the game of mistrust, at the end of the day I don’t know either of you from Adam. I suggest we talk business, you show me what you’ve got, and I’ll let the money do the talking.”

  Sinclair looked relieved.

  “Now that’s my kind of language.”

  “Okay. Say we do business with you,” Clarkson said, “What’s in it for us?”

  “My client’s money, and this is only the first of many deals he’s interested in. We can give you a sizeable amount up front, financing for future ventures, and you get another guy on board with military training.”

  “How much up front?”

  “I’ll have to check, but this is what I propose. We meet next week with your plan in place, so I can look it over and get approval, and I give you some initial backing. If you decide you don’t want to deal, then that’s fine, I can take my business elsewhere.”

  “Why us then?”

  “You seem like serious players to me, and that’s what I’m looking for.”

  Sinclair raised his glass.

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  “How much have you been told?” Clarkson said.

  “Just that you’re about to sell some nuclear weapons to an interested third party.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s it.”