The Accident Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

basin there were a couple of bags, one filled with makeup, the other, bigger one stuffed with shampoo, body lotions, and other bath-time paraphernalia.
    The discovery jolted Carver out of his smooth, complacent routine. Max hadn’t told him that Narwaz had a girlfriend in town. She’d obviously arrived, changed, and then gone out again. If she was with Narwaz now, she was going to die with him tonight. Carver pulled out his phone and dialed a UK-based mobile line.
    “You didn’t tell me about the woman.”
    “Why would I? Makes no difference to the mission.”
    “It makes a difference to me. I came here to eliminate a serious terrorist. The girlfriend’s a civilian. You know I don’t hit civilians, Max.”
    Carver heard a laugh come down the line.
    “Course you do. You just don’t like to admit it. That Albanian — you think his helicopter flew itself? He had a pilot, Carver.”
    “The pilot knew what he was doing. He was getting paid.”
    “Oh what, and the bird isn’t? Look, it doesn’t matter if the target has a girlfriend, a driver, a bodyguard, or his entire family with him. I don’t care if he invites the Dagenham Diamonds drum majorettes around to his place for a party and we blow them all to smithereens. This mad bastard wants to start a holy war. There could be millions of lives at risk. So he has to go. The collateral damage is not our problem.”
    Carver said nothing. He’d spent his military service fighting blood-soaked dictators who lost wars but stayed in power. He’d gone after psychopathic terrorists who somehow morphed into peace-loving politicians, greeted with handshakes at Number 10, and smiles on the White House lawn. He and his men had seized countless old freighters and fishing boats filled with drugs or guns. But it never made a damn bit of difference. No one ever paid for what they’d done. No government ever stopped them from doing it in the first place.
    Now he was able to trade with the bad guys in their own currency. He believed he made the world a better, safer place. Sometimes people got caught in the crossfire. That was the price of doing business. He forced his doubts out of his conscious mind, locking them up in the same mental dungeon where so many of his scruples, fears, and emotions had been shut away.
    Max broke the silence. “You still with me there, mate? ’Cause if you’re not up for this job, just tell me now. I can’t have anyone screwing this up.”
    “Tell you what, Max. Why don’t you come down here? Walk through the front door and wait sixty seconds. Find out if I’m up for it yourself.”
    “That’s more like it. For a moment there, I thought you might have lost it. You’re not losing it, are you, Carver? I’m starting to worry about you.”
    “Piss off, Max.”
    Carver’s tone was aggressively self-confident. Inside, though, he asked himself whether Max might be right. Was he losing it? In terms of straightforward competence, he was certain the answer was no. He kept himself in good shape; he didn’t throw away his money on drugs or divorces; he wasn’t one of those military relics who hung around the pubs of Hereford and Poole telling pathetically exaggerated war stories to other old soldiers as lost and purposeless as themselves. So no, he hadn’t lost his ability to do the job. But maybe he was losing the taste for it.
    He’d long ago concluded that his strength had nothing to do with muscles, guns, or explosives. It lay in his mind and his eyes, in the force of his will and the certainty of his purpose. Somewhere inside him, there was a well of barely acknowledged anger and loss that had always driven him on. But if that fuel ran dry, if that strength of will should ever be diminished, well, what then?
    This really might be his last contract, after all. So he’d better make it a good one. And come out of it alive.
    The third bomb went in the bedroom, taped to the wall at the head of the bed and covered up with pillows. The woman’s bag