Читать книгу The Geneva Deception - James Twining - Страница 16

Amalfi Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

17th March - 9.27 p.m.

Ever since going freelance, Kyle Foster had never met or even spoken to his handler. It was safer that way. For both of them. Besides, what would have been the fucking point? All he needed was a name, a photograph and fifty per cent of his fee in his Cayman Islands account. Why complicate things with a face or a voice when he could just email the details through and save them both the trouble? Assuming the handler was a guy, of course. There was no real way of knowing. A broad in this line of business? Not unheard of, but rare. Maybe he should suggest a meet after all?

His PDA vibrated on the glass table in front of him, breaking into his thoughts. Swinging his feet to the floor he sat forward, muting the TV so he could concentrate on the message rather than the squeals of the girl being screwed by her twin sister wearing a strap-on.

It was the photo he noticed first, his boulderlike face breaking into something resembling a smile at life’s occasional burst of comic irony; he knew this person, or rather he’d come across them before on a previous job. Beneath it was a simple message:

Target confirmed arriving LAS tonight. Terminate with extreme prejudice.

Good, he thought, climbing on to the bed. He hated being kept waiting, especially now the minibar was running dry and he’d cycled through both the porn channels.

Unscrewing the ceiling grille, he lifted down a black US Navy Mark 12 Special Purpose Rifle from where he’d hidden it inside the AC duct and began to disassemble it. This weapon was a recent issue to US Special Forces in the Middle East and he liked what they had done with it, producing a rifle with a greater effective range than an M4 Carbine, while still being shorter than a standard-issue M16. He especially appreciated that although it had been chambered for standard NATO rounds, it performed much better with a US-made Sierra Bullets MatchKing 77-grain hollow-point boat-tail bullet, although for jobs like this he preferred using his own bespoke ammunition.

Stripped down, the dismembered weapon parts lay on the crisp linen sheets like instruments on a surgeon’s tray. Laying a white hand-towel down next to them, he carefully arranged the pieces on it and then rolled it into a tight bundle that he secured shut by wrapping duct tape around it several times. Shaking the trussed-up towel hard to make sure nothing rattled, he placed it in his backpack.

Draining the last of the whisky, he turned his attention to his uniform, pulling on his red jacket and ensuring that his buttons were straight and done up right under his chin. Not quite as smart as the Army Green hanging in his wardrobe back in Charlotte, carefully positioned so you could see the gold flash of his Rangers badge through the plastic, but it would serve its purpose. He doubted the dry-cleaning company had even noticed that it had been taken from its storeroom, and as for the waiter whose security pass he’d stolen and doctored…well, he wouldn’t be missing anything anytime soon.

Finally, he smoothed down his light brown hair, almost not recognising himself without his straggly beard. That was one thing that had thrown him about Vegas. You could walk around in an Elvis suit or with a twelve-foot albino python around your neck and nobody would give you a second look. But wander more than twenty feet down the strip with a beard and people would stare at you like you were a freak in a circus side-show.

In the end, he’d had no choice but to shave it off. How else to blend in with the casino staff? How else to get where he needed to be, to take the shot?