JACK HIGGINS

WITH JUSTIN RICHARDS

DEATH RUN

Contents

Title Page Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Three Chapter Twenty Four Chapter Twenty Five About the Author Copyright About the Publisher

Prologue

They arrived in Mont Passat just four hours before the alarms went off. Rich, Jade and their father had a suite of rooms above the main casino. They were spacious and plush, the whole place furnished like the nineteenth-century European palace it once was. Room service provided food that looked like it had been placed on the plate by an artist. Rich’s Coke seemed out of place in a cut-glass tumbler, but Jade’s mineral water and Dad’s champagne were entirely in keeping.

It was only a few months since Rich and Jade had first met John Chance. Until then they hadn’t even known they had a father. But after Mum was killed in a road accident, Dad had turned up at the funeral to look after them. The fifteen-year-old twins had resented it at first, but gradually, as they learned more about the man, they had come to respect and like – maybe even love – their dad. And beneath the bluff, hardened exterior Jade knew for sure he had come to respect and like – maybe even love – them.

“Can we play roulette and blackjack in the casino?” Rich asked as soon as he’d finished eating. “Will you teach us how to play poker?”

“No,” said Dad.

“Gambling’s addictive and you never win in the long run,” Jade told her twin brother.

“Then what are we doing here?” Rich asked. He was slim and tall, like his sister. Like their father they both had blond hair and blue eyes. “I mean,” Rich went on, “there’s nothing in this place except the casino, is there? So, if we’re going to Venice – why don’t we just go to Venice?”

“Simple,” Dad told them. Jade could tell from his tone he was making an effort to be patient. “I didn’t book the tickets, right? Ardman did.”

“Might have known,” Jade muttered. Ardman was Dad’s boss. He ran some secret group that worked for the British Prime Minister’s office and did ‘covert operations’.

“So Ardman is sending us to Venice the long way,” Rich said. “Why’s that then? Some secret job he wants you to do here in Mont Passat?”

“No,” said Dad quickly. “I think Ardman’s got some deal with the airline, to get the cheapest tickets or take up spare capacity or something. His budget’s under review by Sir Lionel Ffinch. We were lucky to get a holiday at all.”

Dad suggested they get an early night so they’d be refreshed for their early morning flight. Jade nodded in agreement and Rich struggled to suppress his disappointment.

“Can’t we at least check out the casino? Just look round? It’s famous.”

Dad shook his head. “You’re too young. Have to be over twenty-one to get in.” He grinned. “Tell you what, we can all come back in six years.”

Jade and Rich headed for their bedrooms. Rich looked back at Dad. “I suppose you’re going to be checking it out though. Propping up the bar?”

“Absolutely not,” Dad insisted. “I need my beauty sleep too, you know.”

Jade laughed. “You’re telling me.” Rich’s bedroom was bigger than Dad’s entire flat back in London. He didn’t realise until he flopped down on the enormous bed how tired he was. It was an effort to get undressed, and before long, he was under the covers and drifting off to sleep.

The hand on his shoulder woke him immediately.

“Are you awake?” Jade was asking.

“I am now.” Rich sat up. “What’s up?”

His sister sat down on the bed beside him. She was in her pyjamas and her hair was all over the place. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said.

Rich pulled his pillow over his head. “Your problem,” he mumbled. “Deal with it.”

“It’s the noise.”

“The casino?” Rich was obviously not going to be allowed to get to sleep either, so he emerged from the pillow. “I didn’t notice it.”

“Not the casino. Dad. His room’s next to mine. You’ve got the living room or whatever it is between you.”

“Dad? What’s he doing?”

“Snoring.” Jade got up from the bed. “Come and listen.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Rich protested. “We can swap rooms if you want.”

They paused before they got halfway across the living room. The rhythmic sound of snoring echoed off the walls.

“Maybe not,” Rich decided. “Still, at least we know he hasn’t sneaked off to the bar.”

“I suppose.” Jade slumped on to a small sofa. “It’s good to know he’s not just brought us here for the booze and the gambling.”

In their father’s room, the sound of loud snoring continued to emerge from the small digital recorder on the cabinet beside the empty bed. The windows out on to the balcony were open and the curtains fluttered in the breeze.

The building was old, and the stonework weathered enough to afford an easy grip. Chance had little difficulty climbing down from his room. He stood in the shadow of a large ornamental shrub to adjust his bow tie, straightened his dinner jacket and headed for the main entrance to the casino.

“Never again,” he muttered under his breath as he smiled at the broad-shouldered doorman. “I’m on holiday.” He silently cursed Ardman, made his way to the main bar and ordered a large whisky.

This late in the evening, the casino was busy with the rich and the beautiful from all round the world. Old men with young women; mature women with young men. Chance was interested in none of them. He was intent on the men in suits who stood just too stiffly, whose jackets bulged just too much, who watched but never played or drank. It took him ten minutes before he was sure he had registered all the security staff.

What he did not see was the woman studying him from the shadows on the other side of the bar. Tall and slim, she wore a pale blue evening gown with an expensive-looking diamond necklace and matching earrings. Her hair was a startling auburn and her eyes were bright blue.

Chance himself blended in well – an unremarkable man of about forty, with a rugged, experienced face. A businessman enjoying an expensive night out perhaps. No one special. No one memorable. It was an image that Chance cultivated. He liked not to be noticed. He finished his drink, left a tip that was just big enough to ensure the barman would not remember him and then went to the cloakroom.

“You’re holding a briefcase for me,” John Chance told the smartly dressed man at the desk. “The name is Enfield. Harrison Enfield.”

“Of course, Mr Enfield.” The man’s accent was French. He returned a moment later with a metal briefcase.

Chance opened the case and glanced inside – seeing exactly what he had expected. A wig, false beard and an expensive suit in a small size. There was one other thing, a small metal box with a switch on the side. Chance took it out and slipped it into his pocket. He snapped the case closed and smiled his thanks to the young man.

From the raised area round the main roulette table, Chance had a good view of most of the casino floor. He placed a small bet on number seven and hoped he didn’t win. Then, keeping his hand in his jacket pocket, he pressed the small button on the side of the metal box and started to count the seconds.

Chance knew that the moment he activated the device in his pocket, every one of the hidden surveillance cameras throughout the casino went blind. The great thing about a wireless intranet system was you could put cameras wherever you wanted and they just radioed their pictures into the network. But if someone jammed the frequency then you saw nothing.

Twenty-one seconds after the cameras went blind, Chance saw the door to the main security control room open abruptly and a man come out. With fiery red hair and a beard to match, the man was fully two metres tall. He walked quickly and with an air of authority that did nothing to disguise his fury.

Pausing only to be sure the roulette wheel hadn’t stopped at seven, Chance followed the red-haired man. He got as far as the first turn of the staircase leading up into the main hotel. Here there was a door marked “Staff Only”. The man keyed a code into a pad beside the door and pushed through. Chance counted to four before he heard the sound of another door banging shut.

Chance pressed the button on the device again, turning it off. He had what he needed – for now. Ignoring the security-locked door, he continued up the steps to the next landing, and waited. A few minutes later, the red-haired giant emerged again, this time with another man.

“The systems are back online now,” the other man was saying. “I’m sure it’s just a glitch. It can’t be deliberate, Mr Bannock.”

Chance started down the stairs again, following just close enough to overhear.

“Let’s not take the risk,” the big man said. He had a thick Scottish accent, rolling the ‘r’ of “risk” angrily. “If we lose the property now, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“He’s quite safe where you put him,” the smaller man said. “No pun intended.”

Bannock grinned, his beard parting to reveal yellowed teeth.

Chance headed back to the roulette table and lost some more money. After twenty minutes, he pressed the button on the jamming device again and started to count. This time it was eight seconds. That was what Chance expected – they’d be quicker now, thinking it wasn’t a one-off technical hitch. But if it continued…

The third time Chance only jammed the cameras for a few seconds before putting them back online. The control-room door remained closed. The fourth time it was over a minute before Bannock emerged, and Chance immediately turned off the jammer again. He watched with satisfaction as a man in a dark suit chased after Bannock and was growled at for his trouble. Yes, Chance thought, that should be enough. Next time the security systems packed up they’d be sure it was a glitch, not deliberate sabotage. He made his way casually back to the main staircase.

Chance turned on the landing, heading past the Staff Only door. As he turned, he again activated the jammer and immediately returned to the number pad by the door. He’d seen Bannock – angry and therefore careless – key in a code. 5619. The door clicked open and Chance was through.

He checked quickly for cameras and saw one covering the door. He moved out of its range and turned off the jammer. Give them a minute to shout at each other, then he would kill the cameras again. In the mean time, he looked along the dimly-lit corridor, working out which door Bannock had slammed earlier.

There was only one real contender – just four seconds walk along the corridor. Chance turned the jammer back on, marched up to the door and knocked on it loudly.

“Come on, come on,” he growled in his best approximation of an angry Scottish accent.

The door started to open. Chance kicked it as hard as he could. The door flew back, catching the man holding it a nasty crack on the chin. He fell backwards with a cry and lay still on the floor.

A second man was getting to his feet from an armchair in front of a large dark wood desk. His hand was inside his jacket pocket. But before he could draw his gun, Chance was across the room and swatted the man with his briefcase. There was an unpleasant crunch of bone and the man fell to the floor.

Chance looked round the room. But there was no one else there. He swore. This had to be the room – the presence of the guards confirmed it. Had they moved the ‘property’?

He had another minute, perhaps two at most. He couldn’t turn off the jammer again as there were sure to be cameras in this room – it looked like the manager’s office. Plush carpet, big desk, panelled walls, and a large abstract painting that reached almost from floor to ceiling and which you could bet concealed a big safe.

Safe.

Chance pulled the frame of the painting. It swung back and revealed a solid metal door. Probably the most secure safe in this part of the world, Chance thought. And he had at most a minute.

It took him forty-five seconds, with his ear pressed to an upturned glass from the desk as he listened for the click of the tumblers. Then the last one clicked into place and Chance swung open the heavy reinforced steel door.

A small frightened man with thinning grey hair stared out of the dark safe, blinking through small, round, pebble-lensed glasses.

Chance opened the briefcase and the man cowered away, back into the safe.

“It’s OK,” Chance told him. “Ardman sent me. I’m here to help you, not kill you. Now…” He pulled out the suit, the wig and the false beard. “You’ve got about twenty seconds to get these on.”

An unremarkable man of about forty walked nonchalantly out of the casino and down the steps towards a waiting car. With him was an older, smaller man who seemed nervous. Whereas the younger man was clean-shaven, the older man had a mass of dark curly hair and a bushy beard that almost completely concealed his features.

The first man paused to hand a couple of casino chips to the doorman and share a quick joke about easy money. The doorman wasn’t to know the chips had been in the casino safe just a minute earlier. The bearded man seemed impatient to be on his way.

The car was a silver Mercedes – big, fast, expensive. John Chance opened the back door to allow the man with the wig and false beard to climb inside with an audible sigh of relief.

The driver wound down the window. “Where to, Guvnor?” he asked in a mock Cockney accent.

“Don’t overdo it, Dex,” Chance said. Dex Halford was an old friend from his SAS days – the two of them had worked together more times than either cared to remember. “They let you drive with just one leg, do they?”

Halford gave a short laugh and slapped his leg. It was false from below the knee. “Car’s automatic,” he told Chance. “Though sadly I still have to be here.”

“Yes, well, I think it’s time you weren’t.”

“Problems?”

Chance shook his head. “Piece of cake. But tell Ardman that from now on I really am on holiday. If he wants anything else doing he can—” His words were drowned out by the strident sound of alarm bells from inside the casino.

“Enjoy the death run,” he shouted over the noise. Chance saw sudden fear and anxiety in the eyes of the small man in the back seat. “Don’t worry – that’s what we call this. When you get whisked away to a new life, a new identity. When you disappear for ever. The death run.”

“I’ll take good care of you, no fear,” Halford told to the man. “Say hi to the family,” he told Chance.

Chance slapped his hand on the roof of the car as Halford closed the window. The car screeched away and headed off into the night.

Chance watched the tail lights disappear into the darkness. Then he turned to the casino. The big Scotsman, Bannock, was on the steps looking round in fury and confusion. Behind him, Chance could see men in suits running back and forth. A woman with long auburn hair wearing a pale blue evening dress sipped her champagne and watched it all with amusement. For a moment her startling blue eyes locked with Chance’s. But he wasn’t interested.

He looked up at a window at the side of the casino. The window next to his own bedroom. Curtains billowed out over the balcony and two young faces looked down at him – both blond, a boy and a girl. They didn’t look pleased.

Chance headed quickly back into the casino, walking confidently through the noise and confusion towards the stairs up into the hotel. He clicked off the jammer in his pocket and smiled at a man shouting urgently into a radio.

“Now for the tricky bit,” Chance murmured.

1

It was hot and humid in Venice in the last week of August. One canal looked pretty much like another to Jade; one church looked pretty much like another; and the whole place smelled old and damp. It was probably better than hanging around in London with nothing to do till school started again, but if she had to eat any more pasta or ice cream, Jade reckoned there would be serious trouble.

As usual, it was difficult to know what Dad thought of it all. But since he’d brought them here he was presumably enjoying himself. They stayed in a small family-run hotel close to the Grand Canal. It amused Jade that the bar closed at nine in the evening and if Dad wanted a drink after that, he had to find the night porter.

Rich seemed to be enjoying himself. He greeted every new street or stretch of water, every café and old building with excitement. “Have you seen this?” he exclaimed with interest as they turned into a small square close to the canal.

“Oh yeah, look,” Jade muttered back. “Another church. Well, who’d have thought.” But she had to smile at his enthusiasm.

“Yeah, but they’re all different,” Rich told her. “I mean, talk about paintings.”

“You do that a lot,” she pointed out.

“Only takes a few minutes to look round,” Dad said. “We should do it while we’re here.”

“I suppose.”

There was a small café opposite. Dad suggested they take a look in the church, then stop for a drink.

She didn’t like to admit it, but Jade found it refreshingly cool inside the church. There were indeed paintings – several small icons and an ornamental screen. The paintings were dark with age, but Rich was fascinated.

“Are we having fun yet?” Dad said quietly to Jade.

“I suppose,” she admitted.

“I’ll take that as a yes then.” He smiled at her and she couldn’t help but smile back.

“It’s fine, Dad. Great. Church, paintings, everything.” Jade’s smile widened into a grin. “Can we go now?”

They were getting towards the end of their stay in Venice and Jade had found herself relaxing into the slow pace of the holiday. Perhaps she was adapting to the ways of the city. Or perhaps it was the heat. But by their last couple of days, Jade was as happy as her brother and father to sit outside the small café and let the day go by.

“I think that woman is following us,” Rich said quietly as he drank his Coke. Jade was on mineral water, while Dad had an espresso that was like syrup.

“Describe her,” Dad said at once, not looking round. Jade glanced where Rich was looking, then away again, pretending to be admiring the small square they were in. It was just like a hundred other small squares they’d been to.

“Tall, slim. Smartly dressed. Long hair that’s a sort of auburn colour. I’m sure the same woman was a couple of tables away from us at dinner last night.”

Dad frowned. “Sounds like a woman I noticed the other day in the casino.”

“So you were in the casino?” Jade said.

“I mean the hotel. At the casino. I told you – I heard the alarms and nipped down to see what was happening.”

“Climbing out the window and down the wall?” Jade pointed out.

Dad shrugged. “Force of habit. Anyway, it was a lot of fuss about nothing. False alarm or something. And it’s probably a completely different woman. Just a coincidence.”

“What if it isn’t?” Rich asked. “What if she’s… I don’t know, an agent or something?”

Jade laughed at that. “More likely she’s a tourist. If we go to the obvious boring touristy places, we’re going to see some of the same obvious boring tourists, aren’t we?”

Dad drained his coffee and pushed a couple of bank notes under the saucer to pay the bill. “Easy enough to find out.”

“So what’s the plan?” Jade asked.

“You’re complaining you’re bored, Jade – what do you want to do for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Not churches,” Jade said at once. “There was that little street of decent shops you wouldn’t let us stop at yesterday.”

“Because we’re here on holiday not to buy new trainers and T-shirts,” Rich reminded them.

“OK,” Dad said. “And you, Rich?”

“I’m happy to wander. Browse the shops a bit. We splitting up?”

Dad nodded. “We’ll see if she follows any of us. I’ll go first and double back round so I can follow her.”

“Sneaky,” Rich said. “But what if she follows you?”

“She won’t. She won’t realise I’m leaving.” As he spoke, Dad stood up. “Meet back here in an hour, OK?”

“OK,” they both agreed.

Dad walked slowly, almost lazily into the café. Jade risked another quick look at the woman. She was reading a book, maybe a guide book – a small paperback. She didn’t seem to have reacted to Dad leaving the table. But then she was probably expecting him to come back and for all three of them to leave together.

“You really think she’s following us?” Jade asked.

Rich shrugged. “We’ll soon know.”

Jade grinned. “If she is, I reckon it’s just because she fancies Dad.”

“That’s so gross.”

They stood up together, then headed off in opposite directions out of the little square. If the woman with the auburn hair noticed, she gave no sign.

After ten minutes, Rich was bored of wandering round on his own. He considered returning to the café, but that might spoil whatever Dad was up to. So instead he went looking for Jade. He remembered the street where she’d wanted to look at the designer clothes and sports stuff.

It was only a few minutes walk. Rich paused on a steep-backed, narrow bridge over a canal and admired the view. He liked the way the water and the streets seemed to exist in harmony. The tall, square buildings emerging from the water made everything seem even more narrow and closed in.

He found her in the second shop he tried. She was trying on running shoes, but hadn’t found any she liked. Jade was picky when it came to running shoes. Actually, Rich thought, she was picky about most things.

“Find any good churches then?” Jade asked as they walked slowly back along the street.

Rich shook his head. “Nothing worth mentioning.”

“There’s some weird stuff here,” Jade said. She paused outside what seemed to be an antiques shop. “I mean, look at all that.”

There were several chess sets in the window, laid out on marble boards. One of them was made of gold, and the tag hanging from the side of the board looked more like a telephone number than a price. On each side of the window display stood a figure, as if they were keeping guard. One was a woman in a brightly-coloured, flowing dress. The mannequin’s face was a smooth, white mask with a peacock painted on it in brilliant blue. Dark holes for the eyes formed part of the feathers of the peacock.

“That’s beautiful,” Jade said in surprise.

“That isn’t,” said Rich, pointing at the other figure. “It’s grotesque.”

The second figure was a man. He wore long, dark robes and held a stick as if it was a magic wand. His face too was a mask – but a plain, grey mask that jutted out like an enormous cruel beak. The only colour in the mask was the black outline of a pair of spectacles over and around the eyes.

“Who are they supposed to be?” Jade wondered.

“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t fancy meeting them outside of a shop display.”

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