Nine Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

guy had tried everything. Pulling his feet free. Scrabbling at the window, his eyes as wide as dinner plates, his screaming muffled through the water. Henry had watched from the other side of the glass, an inch from the doomed guy’s face, grinning at him. I should have brought popcorn , he thought.
    He’d killed his first man when he was sixteen. The guy had been one of his chief tormentors as a boy, endlessly mocking the overweight thirteen year old’s new Mafia persona. Seven more of them had followed, one by one, their feet dried into concrete and thrown in the sea, screaming like scared little girls.
    Funnily enough, since then no one had made any jokes anymore.
    And the name had stuck.
    Twenty two years later, Henry had achieved his position as head of the cartel by being cautious. He had a rule never to attend deals personally, letting those beneath him do it instead. He didn’t fancy opening a car packed with millions of dollars worth of cocaine and suddenly find an entire police precinct descending on him out of nowhere. If his men got caught, they either went down without a word or shot their way out. They knew better than to talk to the police.
    If they did, everyone they had ever loved would be killed.
    His was a business built on two things; respect and fear. But in recent weeks, he’d been getting restless and wary. He could feel eyes on him. He knew the American Drug Enforcement Agency were sniffing about, like stray dogs looking for scraps of food. He’d received a tip off last night about a man who’d recently moved into a house near his compound, in the centre of Riyadh. He’d sent his two enforcers to investigate and they’d struck gold. Inside the house, the two knuckleheads had found a shitload of surveillance equipment, cameras, listening devices, bugs and a DEA agent himself. The guy had somehow wire-tapped all the phones inside the main house, recording and photographing Henry’s every move. Once the two giants had restrained the man, the drug lord had ordered him anaesthetised then carried to his yacht.
    He smiled. Drowning the DEA agent earlier that morning had been welcome refreshment. For a brief moment, he felt his mood lift as he thought of the American right now at the bottom of the sea. But his presence confirmed Henry’s concern that the DEA were getting close. Way too close.
    Needing to get out of Riyadh and clear his head, several hours ago Henry had set up a quick meeting in Juarez, the first time in a very long time that he’d be face-to-face for a deal. It was an opportunity to make some good money, over four million US dollars, in exchange for 500 keyed bricks. The powder was second rate at best but they wouldn’t know that until Henry was back in the air. It had been sitting in his aircraft hangar for months; now seemed as good a time as any to get rid of it.
    Right now, he was standing on the tarmac of his own private airfield. In front of him, the two meatheads unloaded the bricks of cocaine from a 4x4 Escalade, carrying it up a set of unfolded stairs and loading it onto Henry’s private jet. It was broad daylight, just past midday in Riyadh, and they were standing in the sunshine in the middle of the runway but Henry didn’t give a damn if anyone was watching. The local police knew the consequences if they tried to make a move on him. Their own families would pay the price.
    He’d been standing watching when one of his men approached, informing him of the latest situation in London. The man’s name was Faris, Henry’s right-hand man, his lugarteniente as the Mexicans called it. He was efficient and reliable with a different level of intelligence from the two muscle-bound assholes loading the coke into the plane. He proved it by what he said next. He’d proposed an idea which Henry had considered then agreed to it on the spot without hesitation. It was a good plan, full of initiative and it turned out that Faris had been proactive; he’d already set everything