The shadow network, p.1
The Shadow Network, page 1
Praise for No Way to Die
‘A pulsating action thriller’
– Sunday Times
‘Like sitting down in front of the best action movie you’ve seen this year. A brilliant, gripping thrill ride.’
– Cass Green, author of The Killer Inside
‘A thrilling journey across America that channels Baldacci and Crais, all leading up to the classic ticking clock climax. Terrific.’
– Mason Cross, author of What She Saw Last Night
‘What an absolute belter of a book. Dempsey reminds me of an amalgam of 007 and Orphan X. A blistering, two-fisted thriller you won’t want to put down until you’re done.’
– Neil Lancaster, author of Dead Man’s Grave
Praise for Power Play
‘Twist after twist . . . It builds to a brilliant finale.’
– Daily Mirror
‘A high-octane conspiracy yarn.’
– The Times
‘An intricate, twisty minefield of geopolitics and absolute power gone rogue. Kent has outdone himself with this one.’
– David Baldacci
‘A gripping conspiracy thriller.’
– Ian Rankin
‘Reads like Baldacci at his best. Really intelligent, bang-up-to-date thriller.’
– Steve Cavanagh, author of Thirteen
‘Scarily credible, and so pacy and well-written that I forgot where I was, who I was, and indeed that I was reading a book at all. Gripping, absorbing, a page-turner with characters you commit to 100%.’
– Judith O’Reilly, author of Killing State
‘The kind of fast-paced action thriller that keeps you hooked until the very end. I loved it.’
– Simon Kernick, author of The Bone Field series
To Lorne, to Pippa and to everyone at Elliott & Thompson
for making a dream a reality.
And to Scott, to Nicola and to everyone at
Ewing Law for making that reality possible.
‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here.’
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
ONE
Kon Frankowski did not register the single bead of hot sweat as it trickled down his cheek. He did not notice as it disappeared into the thickness of his fashionably unkempt beard, nor was he aware of the three further snaking lines of perspiration that followed it.
It was only the fifth droplet – falling from his brow onto the space key of his open laptop – that made him aware of the effect of the midday sun.
He wiped away the wetness as he glanced up from his screen, his concentration replaced by anxiety. Looking beyond his small, otherwise empty table, he tried to gauge if he was being watched by any of the hundreds of people who surrounded him. To his relief, none showed the slightest interest in a heat-swept tech geek and his homework.
Not a care in the goddamn world, Kon thought to himself, resentment stirring in his gut. Nothing but sun and liquor.
The Grote Markt had once been a centre for trade, the commercial hub at the heart of The Hague, itself the third largest city in the Netherlands. But like so many historic European centres, that past was long gone and those origins mostly forgotten. Today the old square was the city’s prime social destination, encircled by trendy bars and overpriced eateries, all designed to syphon off its patrons’ spare cash under the guise of providing fun-filled ‘downtime’.
From sunrise until way past sunset, the Grote Markt was guaranteed to be teeming with over-excited, over-stimulated bodies, all high on caffeine or alcohol or, later in the day, something a lot stronger and a lot less legal. Throw in the unusually tall average height across the Dutch population and a man of normal size – a man like Kon – could easily get lost in a crowd like this.
Precisely why he had chosen this location for the meet.
Kon pulled down the brim of his black baseball cap and returned his attention to his laptop, his nervous energy still firing as he refocused on his work. Kon wanted this over. All of it. He wanted his life back the way it used to be, before he got caught up in this nightmare.
He pushed that negativity aside as he studied the open page on his browser again. The information was dense but now familiar, displayed on a secure site of his own creation; a page he had thrown together for this very purpose. The on-screen data was the fruit of seven hours of research, done overnight on the flight from New York to Amsterdam to ensure that every detail Kon could need would be at his fingertips.
Two faces stared back at him, dominating the screen in all their high-definition glory. They belonged to two men, their names, features and personal details now firmly committed to Kon’s memory after his in-flight study.
The first picture was of Mendel Prochnik. An Israeli citizen, Prochnik had started life in Hungary sixty-four years ago and every one of those years was etched across the man’s deeply lined features. Evidence of hard living or hard drinking, Kon had figured. Maybe of both.
The second image was of Will Duffy. A Scotsman by birth, Duffy hailed from the poorest part of Glasgow and, like Prochnik, he too had moved on from his beginnings; in his case it was London he now called home. He was the younger of the two men by eleven years but the difference between them looked closer to twenty. Duffy’s face carried signs of an eventful life – subtle scars and a broken nose – but he seemed to have kept the energy of his youth.
As physically different as the two men were, they had at least a career choice in common. Both were lawyers, even if Duffy didn’t look it; he could have been something else entirely, something a lot more physical. Prochnik, though? He looked a litigator to his very bones; his profession would be no more evident if he’d had ‘advocate’ tattooed across his forehead. Somewhere in the space between his biblically thick eyebrows and the most obvious wig Kon had ever seen on a man.
On any normal day he would have laughed at his own observation. But today was not a normal day. How could it be, in a situation like this? There were too many unknowns for the distraction of humour. Too many unseen dangers . . .
Kon’s gaze had drifted back upwards and away from the screen, his paranoia once again taking hold as he questioned why he had agreed to any of this. But before his thoughts could spiral into anxiety again, his focus was dragged back to the moment. What he had been waiting for had finally arrived.
Prochnik was smaller in the flesh than Kon had anticipated. Five feet five at best. But that was not what stood out the most. Even in the searing heat, he was wearing a blue three-piece suit so well tailored that it screamed both wealth and undernourishment; there was no way the frame beneath the bespoke cotton and wool blend was more than eight stone dripping wet. The build of a man who was busy working when he should have been eating.
Duffy, in contrast, was a little over six feet tall and built like a fighter. Dressed in khaki cargo shorts and an aged white T-shirt that carried a faded picture of a famous boxer, he was in better shape than a man in his fifties had any right to be. And he looked even less like a lawyer than he did in his photo.
More like the other guy’s minder than his partner, Kon thought.
Their sudden arrival provided a moment of welcome respite. A break from the constant dread Kon had been experiencing for days. In that instant of recognition he had thought about something other than the danger he was in. Something more than the risk he was taking. For that moment alone, Kon was unburdened.
An instant later and the fear was back.
Kon hesitated as he considered what to do next, unsure of the right approach to take. Now he was here, the situation was even more alien than he had expected it to be. One question, though, now stood out above all else:
How do I bullshit my way through this?
The uncertainty dominated Kon’s panicked mind as the two men drew closer, neither their faces nor their body language giving any guide to his best course. All he could read was their air of confidence. For all the incongruousness of their dress – one of them too formal for the hot weather, the other too causal for the seriousness of the occasion – Prochnik and Duffy were all business.
‘Konrad Frankowski.’
Prochnik’s words were a statement rather than a question, the heavily accented voice much deeper than Kon would have expected from so small a man. They left him in no doubt that Prochnik knew exactly who he was. And that made no sense at all.
It left Kon confused enough to keep him rooted to his seat.
‘How did you—’
Prochnik held up his hand as he came to a halt feet away. A clear indication for Kon to stop speaking.
‘We’re here to meet an American,’ he explained, moving around the chair ahead of him as he spoke. He pointed towards Kon’s head. ‘The Yankees cap. Might as well be a neon sign.’
Kon’s eyes swept across the Grote Markt in response. A quick scan that confirmed what Prochnik had noted: as busy as the square was, there was a complete absence of US sportswear. On any other day Kon would have found that fact noteworthy. Grist for those debates about the meaninglessness of a ‘world series’ when no one else in the world takes part.
Today it served only as an explanation for how he had been spotted so easily. An explanation that did not come close to answering all of Kon’s other concerns. His eyes were back on Prochnik and his next question was ready to fire as the lawyer sat down.
‘Well, that’s not—’
‘Do you have it, Mr Frankowski?’
Prochnik’s attention seemed focused on the snow-white handkerchief he was placing into his jacket’s
‘I . . . I’m not sure—’
‘You’re not sure of what?’ Prochnik’s unblinking eyes shifted to meet those of his witness. ‘You know why we’re here, Mr Frankowski. So you know why we need to keep this interaction as brief as possible; this is dangerous business for us all. And so I’ll ask you again: do you have it?’
Kon took a deep, calming breath. He had practised this. He knew what he was supposed to say. He knew what he had to say.
But he would never get the chance.
The sound was louder – more violent – than any Kon had ever heard. A crack that seemed to split the very air around him and then reverberate from every side of the Grote Markt. Kon had no time to wonder what in the hell had caused it; the answer came before the echo, in the warm jet of blood that soaked his face as Prochnik was thrown violently backwards.
A single bullet had torn through the side of the old lawyer’s skull, its immediately fatal impact slamming his body onto the cobblestone floor of the square. Kon was left with no more questions. With no more anxious anticipation. With no more doubts.
He was left with nothing but horror.
TWO
Kon stared with puzzlement at the sight of Mendel Prochnik’s body as it lay lifeless on the floor ahead of him. The sight was more than he could comprehend in the heartbeat of time that was available to him. As small as Prochnik had been, a few moments ago he had seemed the very definition of intimidation; a force of nature who had needed only words to destroy Kon’s composure and leave him brutally aware of his limitations.
An instant more and the same man was a disfigured corpse, his life’s purpose ended by a single bullet.
Kon remained frozen in his seat as he failed to process what he had just witnessed. In all likelihood, he would have remained there longer had he not been pulled to his feet with a force he wasn’t strong enough to resist. A single word was screamed into his ear as he was lifted from the chair, before he even knew who had moved him.
‘RUUUUNNNN!’
The combination of physical force and the shouted instruction broke through Kon’s stunned paralysis, but the numbing shock remained. It took the crack of a second bullet – barely a moment after the first – for his survival instinct to be triggered.
Will Duffy had needed no such additional motivation. He had launched into a near-sprint even before the second bullet had rung out, his large, scarred fist gripping Kon’s collar tight and hauling the younger man along in his wake. Duffy’s sheer strength had given Kon no chance to resist, but with the incentive of further gunfire, the American no longer needed that encouragement.
If anything, he was now moving quicker than the Scotsman.
At first Kon was so focused on his own escape, he did not notice the movement of the crowd around him. He did not hear the increasing sound of screams as more and more shots rang out, or the wild, uncontrolled pin-balling of bodies as literally hundreds of people began to run for their lives, most fleeing a threat they could not see.
And he did not stop to wonder why people were running in different directions.
But Duffy seemed to be well aware of the chaos around them. He kept his grip tight on Kon’s collar, pulling him close just as a man far larger than them both almost crashed between them. That movement sent the giant careering to Kon’s right instead, into a small huddle of terrified locals who went down like bowling pins.
‘THERE’S TOO MANY OF THEM,’ Duffy screamed, his words the first sounds Kon had truly registered other than gunfire. ‘WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE.’
Duffy’s grip on Kon did not loosen as he shouted, nor did his pace lessen. The two men kept moving forwards into a crowd that was now hurtling in every direction. Kon was finally beginning to see the terror-fuelled madness that surrounded him, but any focus he achieved was broken with the sound of every new gunshot.
Sounds that were now coming thick and fast.
‘THEY’RE ALL AROUND US.’
Duffy changed direction abruptly as he shouted and Kon now felt himself pulled to the left, turning a full ninety degrees off his path with only the smallest break in stride. A glance over his right shoulder at where they had been heading gave the reason for the change: even with the crowd between them six deep, he could not miss the sight of two more falling bodies.
Kon flinched at the bloody sight, but he had neither the time nor the stomach to watch further. Duffy was accelerating, passing even those few now heading the same way. Kon could not fathom how the Scotsman seemed to know where to go. How he knew where the danger was and where it was not. Instead he was just grateful for the certainty; for someone with purpose and with know-how, enough to make up for Kon’s own helpless terror.
The sound of another shot. The sight of another falling body, close enough this time that Kon felt the heat of the poor bastard’s blood as it splattered his own cheek. And then another sudden change in direction.
Had Kon been thinking clearly, he would have realised by now that Duffy was as lost as the rest of them. That he, too, was blinded by panic. By fear and by uncertainty. And that he no longer had any idea of the route to safety. Duffy – Kon would have realised – was running for his life with nothing but the sound of gunfire to direct him.
Gunfire that had so far sent him wrong at every turn.
But Kon saw none of this. His instinct – his need – to survive demanded that he believed in something. In someone. And so he had invested his faith in Will Duffy, utterly and completely. It was Duffy, Kon knew, who would keep him alive. It was Duffy who would get him through this.
Until the moment it was not.
With the blood and adrenaline pumping like a torrent through his veins, it seemed there was no way Kon’s heart could have beaten any faster. And yet that was exactly what he felt as he heard Duffy call out in pain and stumble to the floor.
The cause of Duffy’s fall was immediately apparent; the fast-flowing blood already pumping out of the puncture wound to his calf impossible to miss. A single round, in and out, it would make movement under his own steam impossible.
Kon leaned down towards him, intending to pull Duffy back to his feet. As he moved he was violently buffeted from either side and nearly knocked down himself, the panicking crowd taking zero care as they ran for their lives. It took Kon a second or two to regain his balance before he once again held out a hand to Duffy.
A hand that the Scotsman swiped away.
‘DON’T BE A FOOL, MAN,’ Duffy screamed. ‘THEY’RE HERE FOR YOU, KONRAD. YOU’VE GOT TO RUN.’
Kon felt his head spin as he processed the words. He did not understand what Duffy could mean, nor did he have time to think it through; it was all he could do to stay on his feet as the crowd surged past. An effort not helped as Duffy punctuated his next screamed instruction with a powerful shove to Kon’s chest.
‘GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.’
There was no mistaking the desperation – the fear – in Duffy’s voice. He had fought his way back to his feet and had put everything into his physical effort to get Kon moving. It had left him struggling to stay upright on his one good leg, causing him to stumble forwards into the American’s arms.
‘Trust no one.’ Duffy was no longer shouting. His words were now more like a plea, delivered from a distance of just inches. ‘You don’t know who’s behind all this. If you want to survive, you trust—’
Kon felt the crack of the next bullet before he even heard it. It caused him to flinch in fear, sure that the shooter must be just feet away, and so he missed the instant the round impacted with Duffy. But he did not miss the Scotsman’s fall. The weight Kon had borne for just a moment was suddenly gone, as Duffy had hit the floor for a second time.
And this time he was not getting back up.
Kon was on his own.
A fraction of a second later and Kon was moving again. With no one to follow, his base survival instinct shifted gears and fired him into action of his own. He had no idea which direction was safe – no clue even of how many gunmen there were out there – but still his lower brain took hold. It picked a direction and it gave him a single, simple instruction:
