To Kill Or Be Killed Read Online Free PDF Page B

couple of them at least should be in Inverness by now. When
we get to the office send Bentall to you know who to have the
conversation. Tell him the game’s afoot, oh and he’s to leave the
contact package with him.”
    They left the
house, Joe in front, opening the door of the black Jaguar for
Sternway. Once in the driver’s seat, Joe took his revolver out from
under it and slipped it into his holster. Della’s rule on guns in
the house made him uncomfortable. Joe wondered why she hadn’t
become used to such ideas after ten years of marriage to a member
of the British Secret Service.
    Sternway ran
the ‘dirty work’ section at the secret service and the
contradiction of Sternway’s warm family life and cold blooded
working day reminded Joe of the poem Vultures, by Chinua Achebe. He
glanced in the mirror at Sternway’s ‘cold telescopic eyes’.
     
     

Chapter
15
    Inverness Airport
    9- 20 a.m.
    April 17th
     
    At Inverness
Airport with his coffee and breakfast finished Spencer went to book
a flight to Gatwick. He had decided that DIC or not the quicker he
moved the better.
    Chance was
against him though. At the small Flybe desk he found himself
embarrassed by the failure of the fake Visa card. There was a seat
on the flight, but it wasn’t his for the taking.
    He walked out
of the airport in a foul mood. The April drizzle might have cooled
his hot head, but its niggling needle like drops only increased his
annoyance. He checked the thin black wallet for cash and cursed the
expensive breakfast, newspaper and coffee for taking nearly ten
pounds of the thirty cash they had been given.
    The flight was
twelve pounds, but the surcharge and taxes took the price up to
twenty four. He didn’t have the money for the flight. He wondered
why they had been given so little cash and then became angry when
he realised that the organisers had assumed that the credit card
would work. His didn’t and he had no way to contact then to get it
sorted.
    He stood
briefly in the rain, exasperated, wondering what to do when a taxi
stopped in front of him.
    “Going into the
city my friend?”
    The pale,
podgy, pudding faced taxi driver called from his open window.
    Marco Spencer
smiled, but his eyes were predatory and his mind made up. Well he
wanted the million. The man looked close to a coronary anyway.
    “Sure. I need
to go to…” He let it trail off.
    “Yeah?” The
taxi driver was tired.
    It was the end
of his night shift and he’d done extra hours; too many really. His
last fare had taken him to the airport, so in greed he was looking
for a fare to take back, so as not to waste the drive; it would be
the last of his shift.
    “It’s an
address on the east side of the city.”
    Marco got
in.
    “I’ll need
better than that.”
    “Have you got a
map?”
    The driver
‘tutted’.
    “Sorry friend.
There’s a twenty in it if you help me.”
    Enthused at
least a little by the promise of extra cash the driver got out a
map. Spencer made a play of forgetting the exact address and by the
time he’d looked at the map he had picked his spot.
    “The business
man I’m meeting lives on the front, just off the 96 on the way to
Milton of Culloden.”
    “Sure enough,
but it’s gonna cost ya.”
    “That’s fine.”
The taxi driver took in the long black cashmere coat and smart look
of his fare. He thought that the money was there alright.
    The taxi driver
swung the car around and pulled onto the road thinking he’d soon be
at the end of his shift.
    In the back,
under cover of his smart black coat, Marco pulled the famously
silent Russian PSS pistol out of his inside pocket and released the
safety catch.
    The taxi driver
tried to make conversation, but Spencer’s short replies soon put
him off. Spencer and his pale, unhealthy taxi driver drove pretty
much right around the outskirts of the city and then drove along
the ninety six A road in silence. Finally the car turned onto the
road by the Moray Firth coastline. Spencer’s pulse