Assassin Down Page 3

  Expensive Suit withdrew his gun and pointed.

  Sullivan momentarily let go of Talia, charged forward, and took Expensive Suit into the busy street of cafes and tourists with a rugby tackle, shoving him into a few tables occupied by disgruntled older ladies having their morning tea.

  Expensive Suit got a punch in. And a second. Something that Sullivan cursed himself for.

  He was too good to get punched.

  He glanced over his shoulder.

  Talia.

  Primark Man appeared behind her.

  “Run!” Sullivan shouted at her.

  It was too late. Primark Man swung his arm around her waist, lifted her up, took his leverage and sprinted in the opposite direction.

  Sullivan went to get up and follow, but the man brought him back down with a thick fist over the back of his head.

  Sullivan knew how to take a punch, but this felt more like a boulder.

  He rolled onto his back and raised his feet, kicking off Expensive Suit as the assailant returned for another punch. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the shrieks of scattering civilians, and punched this man’s throat, not once, but again, then again.

  The man rolled out of his reach and Sullivan decided he wasn’t important.

  Whatever happened, Sullivan wasn’t letting Talia go.

  He went to run after her once more, watching Primark Man turn the corner of a far street with Sullivan’s daughter in his arms.

  He was heading toward the docks.

  Before Sullivan could go after him, Expensive Suit grabbed him back and threw him against the wall.

  Sullivan ducked a punch and landed his foot at the top of Expensive Suit’s right kneecap, then swiped the guy’s foot, sending him to the ground.

  An unsuspecting waitress walked out with a large pot of tea. Sullivan grabbed it, removed the lid and poured it over Expensive Suit’s head. Before the hiss of burning had ceased, Sullivan had already landed the pot five times upon the man’s face, severely incapacitating him.

  There were witnesses, and that was stupid.

  But he had no choice.

  Out of desperation, he took Expensive Suit’s gun from the back of his trousers and tucked it into his.

  “Talia,” he whispered, as if he was expecting her to answer, as if to prove to himself that she wasn’t there and the worst hadn’t happened.

  But he knew which direction Primark Man had gone.

  He took to his feet and raced toward the docks.

  Chapter Six

  Sullivan came to a stop as soon as he saw her, halting at the end of the dock, watching the boat trail out into the lake.

  The boat was too far to jump to. Too far to reach.

  Primark Man stood, a gun to Talia’s head.

  Sullivan withdrew the gun and pointed it.

  He hated guns.

  But it was the only leverage he had.

  Neither of them said anything. A few moments passed in silence. No utterances of words, not daring to break the tension—just two experts in their field, waiting for the other.

  “It was the outfit, wasn’t it?” Primark Man said.

  “It doesn’t look right on you,” Sullivan answered.

  “Damn, I knew it. It’s so hard to dress like a tourist, you know?”

  “With an expensive shave like that, wearing those clothes makes you stick out like a rookie.”

  Sullivan recognised Primark Man. Not just as a member of Falcons, but as someone he’d met before. It was the voice that was familiar. Somewhat nasal.

  “You’re trying to figure out where you remember me from, aren’t you?”

  “I know you’re a Falcon.”

  “We met many years ago.”

  “I’m sure I’d have remembered.”

  “You were too busy hitting on the waitress.”

  “Must have been a good waitress.”

  “And sauntering around with that same old arrogance. I hated you as soon as I met you. Soon as they sent me your contract, I couldn’t wait.”

  This guy had a grudge on Sullivan, but that was nothing new. He’d taken out so many targets that there would be a line around the street waiting to hurt him.

  But this guy… Sullivan definitely knew him…

  A name grew into clarity. Shane, or Dwayne or something like that. Carrow could be the surname.

  That was it.

  “Shane Carrow,” Sullivan acknowledged.

  “Jay Sullivan,” Carrow said in return.

  “I take it they’ve put a mark on me?”

  “Why else would I be here?”

  “So you’re going to kill me then?”

  “Not until you drop that gun.”

  “Let my daughter go and you can have me.”

  “Ah, but it’s not that simple is it?”

  “It never is. Except now.”

  They were at an impasse.

  Sullivan was doing everything he could to stay cool.

  He’d never seen a gun against his daughter’s head before, and it both terrified and infuriated him. He wanted to rip out the man’s oesophagus, crush his larynx, and stab his heart. His blood was racing, his head a mess, his thoughts a constant bombardment attacking every one of his senses.

  But he had to keep calm.

  Frustration and wrath were a Falcon’s enemy. You get nowhere with quick thinking and impulsivity.

  If he was still a Falcon, that was.

  They seemed to have turned on him without warning or cause.

  He considered asking Carrow why his employers had turned on him, but he wouldn’t know. Their targets rarely came with an explanation. They just came with a name and a photo and how they were to be dispatched.

  He wondered which photo they used of him.

  He wondered whether they’d included his daughter in the hit.

  Probably not. Or she’d be dead already.

  That was one thing he had going for them.

  Carrow held the gun more firmly. Pushed it against Talia’s temple with more force, and it took everything for Sullivan to not fall to his knees and beg.

  “Fine,” said Sullivan, dropping the gun to his side. “Now let her go.”

  “Uh, uh, uh, Sullivan. I know how quick that arm is. You could lift it in the time I take to squeeze this trigger.”

  That killed him.

  Just the mention of squeezing that trigger.

  The potential of losing her…

  He’d been trying to avoid looking at Talia’s face, but it was so prominent in his vision. She was crying, and he’d never seen her cry before. Her eyes reached out to him, beseeched him, with a vulnerability he wasn’t used to.

  Twelve years old and she was already a strong woman. An advocate for feminists. A future prime minister if that was the way she wished to go.

  And to see her in such weakness was like a knife to his gut, twisting and twisting and never killing him, just causing inscrutable amounts of pain.

  “So what do you suggest?” Sullivan said. He could hear panic in his own voice and hated himself for displaying any kind of weakness.

  “It seems we’re at a stalemate.”

  “I’ll let you kill me.”

  “And I’m, what, meant to just rely on your word?”

  “When it involves my daughter, yes.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “If you take her with you, you will fail the mission.”

  “No, I will simply leave the mission incomplete.”

  Sullivan wanted to scream, wanted to lash out, wanted to shriek, just let my fucking daughter go! Let her go, kill me, I don’t care, just let her go you fucking cretin!

  But Sullivan would pounce upon any weakness in his opponent.

  Why would Carrow not do the same?

  The last thing he wanted was for Carrow to accept a temporarily failed mission and take her as his leverage to escape.

  But he could do nothing to prevent that.

  The boat was moving.

  Drifting away.

  Around a corner with no path beside it.

  Nowhere he could go to chase them.

  “Stop!” Sullivan screamed out. “Stop, I’ll do anything!”

  Carrow said nothing. He grinned. Ooh, to see such a legend appear so weak must be a satisfying sight.

  Carrow retreated, backing away with Talia still in his grip, until he disappeared into the boat.

  Sullivan raised the gun and chased after the boat, shooting until the bullets ran out.

  He dove into the river and swam, pushing forward, thrashing his arms and kicking his feet, kicking, kicking, thrashing and kicking.

  Until the boat was a distant blur fading into the background.

  His daughter on it.

  He thrashed his arms more, and more still.

  But it got him nowhere.

  In the end, he was just a lost man, floating in the middle of the lake.

  Alone.

  Everything in Sullivan’s world came shattering down. Everything he had feared happening, everything he had wanted to run from.

  He was too good for this.

  How had he let this happen?

  The look on his daughter’s face.

  Oh, God.

  The tears.

  Talia’s tears.

  He quelled any thoughts of what they may do to her.

  He knew not all staff were as professional as him. Not all staff held ethics—they were killers, after all.

  He punched the water.

  For the first time in his career, he had failed.

  And his rage had been uncaged.

  London, England

  Chapter Seven

  Well, that had been an ordeal.

  Never had Mulligan felt as equally burnt out and relieved by a meeting.
/>
  The fury of the prime minister was unmistakable. Given, the prime minister was an elitist, privately educated toff whose angry voice just sounded posh and not in the least bit intimidating, but he was as furious as he could sound—and the real threat wasn’t in his demeanour, but in the power he yielded over the precious status of Mulligan’s job.

  But the relief came when he bought it.

  He knew who Jay Sullivan was, of course.

  He didn’t know all the staff, but he damn well knew Sullivan.

  Who didn’t?

  His reputation preceded him. He was known as the assassin without a gun because he was the only man in the world who was deadliest without one.

  The prime minster could not have expected such a huge cockup by such a brilliant agent.

  Therefore, the expectation that Mulligan should have foreseen the error was not there.

  He was off the proverbial hook.

  For now.

  And, as he charged through the corridors and down the cubicles of the Falcon’s inconspicuous building, people fell quiet. Just as he had expected them to this morning. But now the error had spread throughout the office, and they were all silent at his rage.

  That was power you can’t buy with your rich education, dear prime minister—to have a whole floor of people halt their conversations in fear of your anger.

  “Well?” he demanded as he approached Juliette.

  The look on her face told him it was not good news.

  Fine. He hadn’t expected good news. This was Jay Sullivan. If the element of surprise hadn’t been successful, then even the second and third and fourth best they had would struggle to retire him.

  “Two staff are already down,” she said. “Carrow is still alive but fleeing from the confrontation.”

  “Fleeing?” he echoed.

  However damn good Sullivan was, he was not paying these people their millions to flee; he was paying them to fight.

  “That’s not all,” Juliette said. “Carrow is not alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He took his daughter.”

  “Brilliant!” This could work. The one piece of leverage they had over Sullivan. “Is he bringing her here?”

  The look on Juliette’s face was the same one as when she’d realised she’d given Sullivan the wrong target.

  “For Christ’s sake, Juliette, is he bringing her or not?”

  She shook her head.

  “He’s gone black.”

  “What the devil do you mean he’s gone black?”

  “No contact.”

  “Yes, I know what gone black means!”

  “Sir, this isn’t good.”

  He threw his arms into the air. He didn’t pay her to consistently tell him the bleeding obvious.

  Sebastian stepped forward. Mulligan hadn’t even noticed he was there.

  “Carrow is not one of our staff, sir. He’s a free agent we use when we need the best.”

  “I know who is and who is not on our staff.”

  “I just mean, this doesn’t mean he has to report to–”

  “If the next words out of your mouth are not of use to me, then you will lose your job.”

  Sebastian hesitated and shared a glance with Juliette.

  “For Christ’s sake, what is it?” Mulligan growled.

  “We’ve looked into Carrow,” Juliette said. “It appears, as a freelancer, there is a side of him he does not feel he needed to share.”

  “What do you mean? What side?”

  Sebastian opened a file and dumped it on the desk, a few pictures spreading out. They were covert pictures of Carrow with some people Mulligan faintly recognised.

  “What is this?”

  “Those are child traffickers being tracked by MI5, sir,” Sebastian said. “It appears they have a strong link with Carrow.”

  Mulligan’s jaw dropped. He leant forward, hunching over, his voice becoming quiet and low-pitched in that intense way it always did when he was getting beyond the level of fury he could healthily contain.

  “You’re telling me, that not only have we failed to retire Sullivan, but that his daughter is with a child trafficker?”

  That same glance exchanged between them again and Mulligan was already producing their severance package in his mind.

  “So instead of a body in a bag, we have just pissed off the deadliest man in the world!”

  “Sir, I–”

  “Get security on the building doubled,” Mulligan said, after only a brief moment of contemplation.

  “But sir, this is the most secure–”

  “Do it. And then send every other staff the bounty. I want his face on their phones within the next ten minutes. I want him gone before he comes for us.”

  “How could he come for us in here?”

  “Oh, if you need ask that question, then you do not know Jay Sullivan. Do it.” He marched out of the room. “And do not disturb me in my office unless you have some damn good news!”

  He barked at a subordinate to get out of his way and charged down the corridor, entering his office, locking the door and shutting the blinds on every window.

  He stood, out of breath, hands on hips, scrunching his nose, tightening his eyelids.

  He lifted the wastepaper basket and threw it across the room. It was the most pathetic thing to have thrown, considering its straw components meant it flew at the speed of a bag of feathers and made no commotion by hitting the wall.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  He had some brandy in his desk drawer.

  And boy, how he needed it.

  Yet, as he turned to his desk, he saw the brandy already beside his metal letter opener. He did not remember leaving it on the desk.

  There was also a half-empty glass beside it.

  And a pair of leather shoes resting on the desk.

  “Bad day?” asked Sullivan.

  Chapter Eight

  “How the devil did you get in here?”

  Sullivan shrugged. “Meh, I know my way around a wall.”

  “You climbed up?”

  “You really need to tighten security.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Looks like we both have trust issues.”

  Mulligan looked over his shoulder at the door. Sullivan was behind the desk, but he was still a few paces away.

  “You think you could make it to the door before I leap this desk and get to you first?”

  Mulligan looked back at Sullivan without answering.

  “Why don’t you try it? Find out?”

  “You won’t leave here alive.” Mulligan’s voice seemed to lack the conviction he intended the words to carry.

  “Why did you try to kill me, Ian?”

  “It’s sir.”

  “It’s barely even Ian.”

  Mulligan sighed. He knew he would not make it out of this by running. He may as well embrace the fact that they were in here together.

  “Mind if I sit?” he said, indicating the chair opposite his, and felt a little humiliated that he was denied his own chair in his own office.

  “By all means.”

  Mulligan sat.

  He took a glass. Took the brandy. Poured himself some. Went to drink, then sniffed it.

  “You haven’t poisoned it, have you?”

  “If I wanted you dead already, you’d be dead.”

  “And once you have the information you need out of me?”

  “Let’s just say it better be good information.”

  He hovered the brandy beside his mouth for another moment, hesitated, then drank it. It hit the back of his throat like a good brandy does, and it relieved him to find that he was still alive.

  He looked to Sullivan, who looked a lot more put together than he expected. Mulligan knew what Talia meant to him. Beneath this cool facade there would be a raging beast bursting to get out.

  “We didn’t instruct Carrow to take your daughter.”

  Sullivan said nothing.

  “In fact, we did not include your daughter in the hit whatsoever.”

  Sullivan said nothing.

  “It was just meant to be you.”

  Sullivan said nothing.

  “It appears Carrow has gone rogue.”

  “Why did you try to kill me, Mulligan?”

  “Please, you know what this business is–”

  Sullivan’s fist pounded the table, and the brandy splashed onto its polished surface.

  “Why did you try to kill me?”

  “You killed the wrong person.”

  “Excuse me?”