Free The Payback by Simon Kernick Page B

cigarette and took a long, hard drag, she felt a weird but intense feeling of euphoria – the kind she sometimes used to get from a few good hits of vodka. She’d almost died only minutes ago, yet the shock that she knew would have to come eventually was nowhere to be seen, and she almost wanted to laugh out loud because, by God, she’d survived. They’d tried to kill her and she’d survived.
    She thought of that evil little runt Paul Wise, wondered how he’d be feeling when he found out that she was still standing, then pointed her cigarette at the bruised but unbowed reflection in the rear-view mirror.
    ‘I’m coming for you,’ she said out loud. ‘This time I’m coming for you.’

Ten
     
    The man known by those who hired his services simply as Nargen picked up the payphone and waited while the man on the other end spoke.
    ‘Is this line secure?’ demanded the caller.
    ‘Yes. It’s a public phone, and I’ve swept the booth for bugs. There are none.’
    ‘Good. What is the status of our situation?’
    ‘Target One is dealt with,’ answered Nargen, choosing his words carefully. ‘The police officer in charge of the case has accepted that he took his own life. However, there might be a complication.’
    The voice at the other end was impatient. ‘What kind of complication?’
    ‘Target Two.’
    ‘What about her?’
    ‘We were unable to carry out the termination. And our cover has been compromised.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘We waited for her at her house. We almost had her but she managed to get away.’
    ‘You mean you failed.’
    ‘The instructions we were given meant that it was a very difficult task,’ Nargen countered defensively.
    ‘That’s why I chose you to perform it,’ said the caller. ‘You often boast of your reputation, and you charge very highly for your services because of it. Therefore, I do not expect failure. Nor will I tolerate it. Where is she now?’
    ‘We don’t know. We were forced to abort the operation.’
    The caller cursed loudly. ‘This is not good. She knows too much.’
    ‘Not necessarily,’ said Nargen. ‘We left a listening device in the target’s office. It picked up a conversation she had with the investigating officer. All she has are suspicions.’
    ‘So she has no way of finding out what Target One knew?’
    ‘We made him give us all the information he had. He deleted all the files on his laptop while I watched. He also gave me his backup tapes and the phone he’d been using to make his calls to her. They are destroyed now, but Target Two knows about the phone, and has asked the investigating officer for the records of the calls made and received on it – a request he has agreed to.’
    ‘Then you need to find her. And fast. Those are the orders. Do you understand?’
    ‘I do. My associate is working on it.’
    ‘Good. Keep me informed of progress.’
    The caller cut the connection, and Nargen replaced the receiver, before crossing the road to the hired Lexus.
    In the passenger seat, his associate sat hunched over a laptop, a look of painful concentration on his face. Nargen had got him to run a location trace on the mobile number they had for TinaBoyd, using a specialist UK-based website that promised to give the current location of any mobile phone in the UK – a process known as reverse look-up, which only required the number itself.
    Tumanov had the powerful build and the arrogant good looks of a young Dolph Lundgren; it was he who’d been standing with the knife outside Nick Penny’s family home the previous night. Everything Nargen had told the journalist, Penny, about Tumanov was true. He wouldn’t have hesitated to kill Penny’s wife and children one by one. After all, he’d done such things, and worse, in Chechnya while serving as a paratrooper there, and it was known in the tight-knit circles they moved in that he enjoyed killing in a way that was sometimes considered unhealthy. Usually Nargen would have avoided such a man, but