Trigger Point

by Pure Grass Films

Genres: Action & Adventure; Thrillers; Spy Thrillers

Synopsis

A full-length novel about a secret group of assassins, perfect for fans of fast-paced, high-octane action thrillers such as the Bourne Trilogy, 24 and the recent James Bond blockbusters. While on an undercover mission to rescue a hostage in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, CIA agent Tom Wisher is betrayed by Bill Blake, his corrupt handler. This one act exposes a web of corruption reaching further than Wisher could have ever imagined. Above the law but under the radar, Wisher has decided it's time to fight back... If you've been gripped by Stephen Leather, Chris Ryan and Andy McNab, then the relentless action in TRIGGER POINT will hook you in and get your blood pumping.

Release date: September 27, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 314

Sample

Eighteen

 

 

The call from Kincaid came in around two-thirty a.m.: get the hell to Transnistria, now. And all because of John Morgan, whose ‘initiative’ in the wake of the Peshawar bomb had triggered a military build-up against Florescu’s fortified headquarters. Blake shook his head in amused disbelief – in admiration, almost. He had imagined that Morgan’s capacity to eat shit and grin was without limit.

 Officially, Blake was taking well-deserved leave following the closure of the file on Tom Wisher. Unofficially, he was the sole passenger on a nine-seat Cessna, a private charter out of Budapest, currently flying above the Romanian end of the Carpathian range. He glanced out of the window. The terrain below alternated between wooded valleys and bare peaks, snow capped in places. Blake knew he should be concentrating on getting the news of the impending attack to Florescu and helping to move his key stock of nuclear materials to safety before the Moldovans descended. He understood the priority – highly enriched uranium was a rare commodity on the black market – and yet it pissed him off that he’d had to put his own plans on the backburner, a fact that he’d made abundantly clear with some choice expletives during the small-hours call.

 Blake’s personal priority was Rachel Wisher. Since their encounter in England he’d found it hard to get her out of his mind. She was naturally fair, like her brother; lean, a tomboy who hardly had time to eat but still retained full lips and feminine curves. And that damn Mid-Atlantic accent, so affected! She seemed to think it made her seem cosmopolitan; to him it was a sign of insecurity and it only made him desire her more.

 He’d felt nothing personal towards Tom Wisher, except perhaps mild contempt for his boy scout enthusiasm, until he’d stuck a shard of wood into his face and spilt his blood, three weeks ago now. The boy should have been eliminated at the fortress in Safed Koh; instead he’d got the better of Blake, left his mark upon him. It didn’t matter that Blake had successfully painted Wisher as the ultimate all-American traitor; there was still a score to be settled, a beating to be delivered in some off-the-grid location ...

 Except of course that it was not to be. Wisher had been killed, car crash, engine fire, no face left – just the sort of method Blake would have used himself if he’d wanted to stage the disappearance of a valuable asset, say. Tom Wisher had no resources, no friends, Blake had made sure of that. And yet Rachel had been there.

 As he’d worked his way into her confidence, he’d grown more and more certain that she knew something significant, something she was holding back. Her only motive would be to protect her brother, but her brother was dead, laid out on a slab in front of her ... with no face.

 A beautiful woman with a secret.

 Blake licked his lips absent-mindedly. He could feel his hand on the back of Rachel Wisher’s neck, holding her face down onto a bare wooden table. His other hand was under her belly, fingers finding the cold metal button of her tomboy jeans, jerking down the rough fabric to reveal the pale curves beneath ... It was going to happen. He could feel it in his nuts.

 In truth, Blake needed a break from the game. He was exhausted after Peshawar. The dressing was off his face wound, but it was not quite healed, raw red at the seam, stitches poking out. Blake knew that Kincaid was not the end of the line when it came to the hidden structure that penetrated the Agency, but he didn’t want to look further. He’d reached his level. He was a man of action, he wasn’t interested in boardrooms and business suits. More than once over the last few days, he’d contemplated stepping off the treadmill, but always he ran up against the same problem: he had money, but it would take a small fortune to buy the anonymity he would need to evade not just Kincaid but the shadowy people he reported to.

 Twenty minutes until touch down. Blake fished a wrap of cocaine from his pocket, sniffed up the last of its contents. He’d been clean through necessity during the Pakistan detail, gratifying to know he could cope without the drug when needed, though he’d put on a few pounds in the process. Since his return to the States he’d been making up for lost time and he had to admit the world was in sharper focus as a result, plus the weight had been falling off. All in all, it was good to have Charlie back.

 There were cars waiting on the cracked concrete of the private landing strip. Taking point on the reception committee was Stefan Florescu, Arkady’s twenty-year-old son, with a retinue of armed goons to back him up. Luggage in hand, Blake strode over to the young man, offered a relaxed handshake:

 ‘How goes it, Stefan?’

 Stefan declined the welcome. Instead, he nodded curtly to one of his heavies, a huge bruiser by the name of Olek, who stepped up to Blake, took his bag, and turned him to face one of the black sedans.

 ‘You spread please.’

 Blake obliged, allowing the thug to pat him down. The coke was still warm in his veins, he had no trouble in finding an easy smile as he was turned to face Florescu junior.

 ‘You’re growing up, kid.’

 Blake projected respect for the aspiring young mobster. In truth, he found it all rather pathetic. Stefan was short like his father but had none of the presence. With his army jacket, bum-fluff sideburns and acne, he appeared more like the cast member of some high-school musical about dictatorship in eastern Europe. Unsurprisingly, he took Blake’s compliment at face value, puffing out his chest:

 ‘My father is waiting for you, Mister Blake.’

 It was a short drive to the gates of Florescu’s base, across a bleak, semi-militarised stretch of terrain. All the men Blake saw from the car window were armed; the occasional women he passed seemed weary, and always escorted.

 The base itself was situated in a former factory complex that butted against the Dneister along its western edge. The vehicles passed through the check point; the route continued past a succession of warehouse buildings to the river’s edge.

 The group disembarked. Blake accompanied Stefan to the fore, with Olek and his crew following to the rear. They were heading toward the rear of a large wooden shed that seemed to pre-date the soviet-era concrete and corrugated iron warehouses.

 There was the thud of an impact, nearby but out of sight. The wooden wall beside Blake juddered in response. He started to tense, his senses cocaine keen: what the fuck was this about?

 They rounded the corner of the building to find Arkady Florescu, his face red with exertion, pulling a throwing axe from the back wall. The wooden surface was riddled with divots: clearly this was a regular pastime for the arms dealer. A quivering young woman stood against the wall, her face streaked with tears. Florescu walked up to her, pressed the axe blade against her cheek, snarled a few phrases of Russian in low, angry tones. A maid caught stealing, perhaps. Blake’s eye corner twitched – such a display of power was a little too medieval even for him.

 Florescu wiped the axe handle with his shirt tail and glanced over at the new arrival, his eyes dark. Behind him, the target girl sagged, weak-kneed with relief at the stay of execution.

 ‘What brings you to my home, Mister Blake?’

 ‘I have news, Arkady.’ Blake tried to strike an appropriately grave tone. He wasn’t looking forward to breaking this particular story, particularly not to an angry man holding a not-so-blunt instrument.

 ‘Good news, I hope.’

 It was a joke, the kind you were not supposed to laugh at unless you wanted to experience immediate physical pain. Blake kept his expression neutral; Florescu snorted at his guest’s lack of reaction, then continued:

 ‘Of course it is not good news. You would not be here if it was.’

 Florescu raised the axe, threw it. He was a good shot: the girl barely had time to gasp before it slammed into her chest. The arms dealer held out his hand for a towel, which was promptly handed to him by a nervous assistant. He mopped the sweat from his face and neck, threw down the towel and gestured for Blake to accompany him back into the main encampment.

 Come. Tell me your news.’

 

***

 ‘NATO liberals don’t appreciate the vital role that businessmen such as yourself play in the global security market. That’s why they’re targeting you as the supply line.’

 Blake was addressing Florescu over a dinner table stocked with rustic fare, bread, meat, cheeses, local wines. They sat outside, under an awning stretched in front of a former office block. Butane space heaters drove the chill from the air, as did the shot of ferocious plum brandy they’d just downed.

 Stefan was there also, a sullen girl draped on his shoulder. Olek stood guard. Blake had been careful to make clear his allegiance to Florescu, but he didn’t want to downplay the urgency of the situation, either. Soldiers were coming, and soon.

 ‘I’m not interested in politics. I am a businessman. I buy cheap, I sell at a profit. It is simple.’

 ‘I’m afraid the Moldovan government don’t see it like that.’

 Blake recalled his first contact with the Romanian, back in 1992. They’d both been rookies at the time; both had lined their pockets working as go-betweens for Operation MIAS, and taking a cut for their troubles. Blake used to joke that Florescu could be a poster boy for the American Dream; for his part, Florescu had continued to see himself as a valued ally of the West. Unfortunately that was a world view that would have to change.

 The arms dealer drew on a cigar and exhaled smoke, thoughtful.

 ‘What do you propose?’

 ‘The army is coming. Leave them something to find. Say ten percent of your stock, guarded by a skeleton crew— ’

 Florescu slammed his hands down on the table, knocking his chair back as he lurched to his feet:

 ‘For ten percent we will stand and fight! Let them try to take my weapons!’

 Blake had expected this reaction. Arrogance and alcohol were not a great combination when it came to diplomacy. This was why he was here, to manage this pivot point, to turn it in his favour.

 ‘You are a brave man, Arkady, but now is the time for strategy. Give NATO a victory to trumpet and a haul of weapons to add to their collection, and their attention will move elsewhere. By seeming to lose, you will end up the winner. And the special relationship between our organisations can continue, to the benefit of all.’

  Blake knew his suggestion made sense, he could only hope Florescu was smart enough to see beyond his own hubris. For sure, the black marketeer’s status would dip in the wake of a perceived ‘clean-up’ of his operation. But it would be short-lived, and with the majority of his stock removed to safe locations, he would have no problem in resuming his trade once the dust had settled.

 Blake’s logic seemed to have struck a chord. The Romanian was quiet for long seconds, eyes narrowed as he considered his options.

 ‘We will leave the uranium behind.’

 Shit.

 The commodity that Blake had been instructed to keep in circulation was the one that Florescu had decided to dispose of. Worst of all, the reasoning made perfect sense. Trying to maintain his composure, Blake scrabbled round in his mind for a riposte.

 ‘It’s your most valuable stock ...’

 ‘I can make money from guns and women. Uranium has brought me only trouble.’

 ‘But it’s such a unique resource—’

 ‘It is decided.’ Florescu glowered; Blake bit his tongue. If he pushed further, he risked triggering suspicion.

 The arms dealer turned to his son:

 ‘Stefan, stop fondling your whore. I need vehicles.’

 Stefan’s expression was sour as he got to his feet. He didn’t like the way his father talked to him. Blake picked up on the sentiment and his rising panic started to subside. In his mind, a contingency plan was forming.

Eight

 

 

‘Who’s Rendlesham91?’

Stuart called out from the main room of the studio flat. Rachel Wisher didn’t hear him; she was in the shower. She’d hardly slept last night: she and Stuart had only met a few weeks ago, only got it together in the last few days, so there was a lot of sex to be explored. She smiled as she remembered, the tingle of water over her skin triggering sense memories of their shared intimacy. She was serious by nature, reluctant to get bogged down by romance. She’d had one proper boyfriend, her partner from the age of seventeen to twenty-one. She was twenty-four now, and with only a handful of one-night stands to show for the past three years, until Stuart.

 Not that she hadn’t had offers. She was a good-looking young woman, slender and fair. Her strong features were rarely augmented with make-up, unless it was for work. Presently, she was pursuing a doctorate in political science at Cambridge while she developed her career as a journalist and correspondent, which increasingly involved appearing on camera, either for the blogosphere or – on two occasions so far – for the mainstream media. Her contemporaries in academia looked down their noses at her ambitions, but she didn’t care. She had opinions and she wanted them to be heard.

 That’s why she was showering now, instead of lounging in Saturday morning post-coital bliss. She had to interview the MP for Huntingdon at noon and she needed to get her head together. It was for the radio, which was fortunate given her current eye-bag situation. Stuart had long-term potential but she was going to have to rein in the pre-match sex. It was what boxers did, after all.

 Stuart pulled back the shower curtain. He was rangy, bearded, kind-eyed and pretty damn horny for a physicist. Well read, too, good company out of bed as well as in it.

 ‘Hey!’ She grinned with mock outrage, but she turned away from him, too. Ridiculous really, given the amount of time they’d spent exploring each other’s bodies in the last twenty-four hours. But she liked having her own space. Privacy was the issue, not prudishness. Stuart didn’t seem to pick up on her concerns, however – he was too interested in admiring her shapely backside.

 ‘Your laptop’s beeping. Incoming Skype. Very persistent.’

 ‘Did you see who it was?’ She was always online; it came with the journalist’s territory. But it meant you had to get used to ignoring people.

 ‘Rendlesham91.’

 Rachel turned off the shower, suddenly in a hurry. Naked and dripping wet, she ran through into the living room, where her laptop was chirping on her bedside table. Stuart followed, amused by her nudity, baffled by her urgency.

 ‘Do you want a towel or something?’

 ‘Ta.’ Rachel fished in her bedside drawer for earphones. She didn’t want to broadcast this particular call. The laptop continued to chime as she fiddled the minijack into its socket. Stuart sat down beside her, draping her dressing gown over her shoulders.

 ‘Who’s Rendlesham91?’

 ‘My brother.’

 Now Stuart was really confused. She hadn’t told him about Tom. Not because she didn’t think about him often – she did – but because they were on such different paths, herself an outspoken liberal, him the very antithesis: a CIA man. When it had become clear he was committed to his career path, she had considered wheeling out the standard ‘works in the oil business slash stock market slash international sales’ line to cover for him, but if felt wrong, an invitation to slip-ups and a lie besides, something she was fiercely against.

 In her view, the bulk of the world’s problems stemmed from the absolute and entrenched dishonesty of politicians. Not only did everyone in politics lie all the time, it was reaching a point where it was virtually expected of them, by the press and the public at large. As a political commentator, pointing out these persistent falsehoods was frustratingly inadequate; she was playing a role like the rest of them, preaching to a small and diminishing congregation. Nothing changed, and Rachel believed in change. She craved it. Was it too much to dream of a society based on truth?

 Always there had been honesty between her and Tom. They’d been through so much, the death of their father and their mother’s gradual decline. They both needed that clarity at least in one small corner of their lives. And yet his trade was diametrically opposed to hers. He dealt in violence and deception; even as a means to an end, she considered both profoundly unethical.

 She knew everything he did; she knew too much, but the honesty they shared demanded it. They’d always been so different: he was the boy who couldn’t sit still, she was the girl who hid in books. So close, yet so far apart. Geographically, once she’d moved to England to study; philosophically, the distance seemed to be increasing. And yet here he was, the prodigal sibling, knocking on her laptop screen ...

 She took the call.

 A video link, not Tom’s usual mode. Something up? She thought in passing. She straightened her dressing gown, the link connected, she saw her brother – and she knew something was.

 ‘It’s good to see you, Rach.’

 He looked terrible. Dirty, dressed in rags, pale and drawn: he must have lost ten pounds since she’d last seen him, and he’d been a whippet to start with. He appeared to be in some sort of tatty internet café – she could make out other booths behind him, tariff notices in Arabic script on the walls of his cubicle.

 ‘Where are you? And what are you wearing? You look like an old woman!’

 ‘It’s a long story ...’

 Image quality was poor: low-resolution and scratched by static, refreshing just a couple of times each second. It was enough for Rachel to see clearly that Tom was in trouble. And yet she knew he would know that – and he was still making the call.

 ‘It’s been too long, bro. It’s been months.’ Don’t nag him. ‘We need a system, code words or something. Proper spy style.’ She offered a smile: Tom didn’t return it.

 ‘Rachel, listen. There’s something I have to do, but I needed to talk to you first.’

 Deadly serious.

 ‘One second, Tom.’ Rachel turned to Stuart, who had pulled on trousers and a T-shirt, and was now loitering in the background, flicking through New Scientist and trying not to look in her direction.

 ‘I need privacy, Stu. Sorry.’

 ‘I’ll take a shower.’ No drama, no wounded look: just an understanding nod as he ambled from the room. He had just gone up considerably in Rachel’s estimation.

 She turned back to her laptop.

 ‘Okay, I’m all yours.’

 Tom took a moment before he continued. And when he did speak, his voice was halting and heavy, like he was forcing the words out.

 ‘People are going to come looking for me. They’re going to seek you out. They’re going to say things about me.’

 Rachel felt a vaguely nauseous feeling start to build. She’d tried to talk to Tom out of joining the agency, back when they were still arguing the point. She’d seen the prospect of moral compromise lying in wait for him, had known even then that he would have to cross the line at some point, the job demanded it. He’d have to do wrong, to do right ...

 ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

 ‘Don’t believe them. Don’t trust anyone.’

 ‘Jesus, you’re scaring me.’ She wasn’t exaggerating. He had confided in her, last time they’d met, that he was going undercover. At first she’d worried about the personal danger he would be facing. But in the weeks that followed, she’d started to reflect on the danger he posed. The West was desperate for results in the region, as desperate as the revolutionaries they were trying to undermine.

 ‘The ones it seems safe to trust are the worst of all. Seriously. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll contact you when I can.’

 ‘Oh Tom...’ He was always the bright star, the fastest, the smartest. The bravest. To see him twisted with paranoia like this sickened her to her core. His voice stumbled:

 ‘I shouldn’t have made this call, but we haven’t spoken for so long. I needed you to know ...’

 He was choking up, his emotions right at the surface.

 ‘I tried to do the right thing, Rach. I really did.’

  He seemed ready to break down. On instinct Rachel reached out to the screen, touched the small square of pixels that were conjuring up her stricken brother’s image.

 ‘Go to the police, Tom. Trust the law. There are good people in the system, they’ll fight your corner—’

 His face was closing down. He couldn’t allow himself to hear her advice: it wasn’t compatible with his situation. They both knew it. His sign-off was swift, matter-of-fact:

 ‘Take care. Switch on the old phone. Love you.’

 End call. His face was gone, leaving a small, glitching rectangle on screen.

 Rachel leaned back from the laptop. The old phone was her first mobile, a pay-as-you-go Nokia dating back to 2000, with changeable covers and the Snake game preinstalled. She’d gone on contract within months and it had been consigned to her dressing-table drawer. With no paper or digital trail to either of them, the SIM was untraceable. It was their last line of communication.

 Stuart emerged from the shower room, towel wrapped round his waist, hair slicked back. She glanced round, her face stern, emotion held in check, as was her habit. He frowned.

 ‘Everything okay?’

Eleven

 

 

On bad days, he feels like a disembodied brain. Over the last few years, and more specifically since his diagnosis, he has become a creature of information rather than flesh. He has no home, very little property. He moves constantly, accompanied by his small team. Waking hours are spent almost entirely online, between screens, observing, eavesdropping, collating, deducing. He hardly sleeps, and when he does it is fitfully, his mind still adrift in the sea of intelligence. He isn’t convinced that Tevis, his data analyst, sleeps at all.

 He does have a body, of course, albeit a secretly stricken one. He is a man, he does eat, and excrete, he does talk, and laugh (although he can’t remember the last time). Mostly, he observes, and reflects on what he learns.

 When Tom Wisher wears a wire, he knows. When Wisher locates Guy MacMillan, he is watching. When Blake and Wisher fight, he is listening via the hotel’s courtesy phone, and he can see via the camera on Blake’s laptop. CCTV cover in Peshawar is patchy, but he is ready when Wisher contacts his sister via the internet. Police radios and in-car video-cameras mean he can follow officers as they chase Wisher to the insurgents’ hideout, and the nuclear device is discovered. While the world’s law enforcement agencies hunt in vain for America’s most wanted man, he knows the young agent is currently stowed away on a container vessel bound for England.

 This is not down to random chance. International security is his trade, the intelligence community his obsession. He exists on its margins, invisible and untraceable. He heads a network of agents who are off the grid, like himself, who are free to act without reference to international law or hidden corporate agendas. He foresees a role for Tom Wisher in his organisation – which has no title, no headquarters, no infrastructure apart from himself, the disembodied brain, within which the dream of a life is unfolding. At least that’s how it seems, sometimes.

 If you met him, you would find him more than a little intimidating, with a deep rasp of a voice and a scarred, strangely shapeless face, its features broken and remade more than once. In truth, he is afraid. The world is in the grip of a conspiracy that seeks to perpetuate global conflict while extending its control over the world’s diminishing resources. International law drifts over this conspiracy like fog over a battlefield, obscuring grim reality with the illusion of justice and accountability. Its tentacles reach into eve. . .