Free The Killing Game by Toni Anderson Page A

could feign. He didn’t kid himself it was for his benefit. Axelle Dehn looked like she’d rather be staked out naked in sub-zero temperatures than touch a flesh-and-blood soldier like him. He stuffed down his impatience and trudged after her. Thank God she wasn’t his type. She was arrogant, quick-tempered and rash.
    A pain in the arse.
    He caught himself watching those long legs in those baggy gray pants and remembering how she’d looked in the shower. He settled his breathing and pulse rate and put his wandering thoughts down to the affects of altitude. He needed this woman’s cooperation because he didn’t have time to chase his target all over the Hindu Kush, but it wasn’t going to be easy.
    The SAS believed that winning hearts and minds was the key to winning any conflict. Axelle Dehn’s heart, mind, and entire existence appeared ruled by her obsession with these cats. They were her Achilles’ heel and his biggest asset in hoping to track down a killer. He’d already figured a way to set a trap for the world’s most elusive Russian terrorist, but no matter the justification, he had a feeling Dr. Axelle Dehn wasn’t going to like it.
     
    ***
     
    St. James’s Park, London.
     
    Jonathon Boyle sat on a bench near the bandstand enjoying a copy of The Times in the sunshine. The theft of a laptop belonging to a high-ranking RAF officer had been reported—along with that of an encryption key needed to unlock its secrets. A real coup for him and lesson to those complacent pricks in the MOD, not to be lax with Top Secret information. He was doing them a favor although they were such total asses they never learned.
    He folded the newspaper and placed it neatly to one side. In this world of electronic communication he often went the old-fashioned route to transfer information. He did, however, have a burst transmitter he could flash a signal from if he was ever in any real danger, but he generally mailed packages of relevant information to PO boxes, then emailed coded PO information to his handler. His codes and ciphers were almost unbreakable, and he never reused the exact same method. He applied the same diligence as a serial killer to not leave forensic evidence, and only a handful of people very high up in The Centre even knew his real identity. Over the years, his spy name had changed numerous times from Vera to Valentina, Nero to Milo. He’d never revealed his communist sympathies or Russian affiliation to anyone and kept his nose clean during the spy scandals of the sixties when he was just getting started. Working for the Foreign Office rather than MI6 had been a bonus. Now, after all these years, he was the highest-placed, longest-serving agent left. That he knew of, anyway. Secrecy was the name of this game and that was the way he liked it.
    There were always new spies being sown and cultivated but he’d been at this his entire life and it wasn’t over yet. A swell of pride filled his chest that he’d gone undetected for so long, and yet his greatest victory might still be ahead of him.
    The preliminary meeting with the people from Aldermaston had confirmed something Jonathon had long suspected. Britain’s scientists were developing many new weapon technologies. Everything from military stun guns to grenades that also delivered precision bursts of electromagnetic energy that disabled enemy communication systems but left their own intact, bullets made from recycled material—was that really considered green ?—and a radar-cloaking device they’d whispered about for years. There was a new division that had made him sit up and salivate. A division so secret that they’d refused to reveal anything about it, not even the name. But they had hinted it was part of the new Anglo-French venture—or timeshare as the GRU officials had laughingly put it.
    The mystery had his spidey senses tingling.
    The committee, comprising himself, two MPs, a peer of the realm, an army general and rear admirals from both