Sidney Sheldon’s Reckless

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jim Havers said gruffly.

“Wonderful.” Julia Cabot hung up.

EXACTLY ONE WEEK LATER, FOUR MEN sat around a table in Whitehall, eyeing one another warily.

“Good of you to come, gentlemen.” Jamie MacIntosh rolled up his shirtsleeves and leaned forward, smiling amiably at his American counterparts. “I know you must both have had a difficult week.”

“That’s an understatement.” Greg Walton of the CIA looked desperately tired. He resented being summoned to London, especially at a time when his beloved agency was being ripped to shreds by Congress back home. But he made an effort at politeness. Unlike his FBI colleague, Milton Buck.

“I hope you have something important to add to this operation,” Buck snarled at Jamie MacIntosh. “Because frankly we don’t have time to waste on handholding you Brits.”

Sitting beside Jamie MacIntosh, Frank Dorrien stiffened. “Well, quite,” he said sardonically. “After the mess you made of what should have been a perfectly simple rescue mission, based on our entirely accurate intelligence, I imagine you want to devote as many man-hours as possible to training your own men. Heaven knows they need it.”

Milton Buck looked like he was ready to throw a punch.

“All right, that’s enough.” Jamie MacIntosh glared at Frank Dorrien. “None of us have time for chest beating. Let’s leave that to the politicians. We’re here to combine our resources and share information on Group 99 and that’s what we’re going to do. Why don’t I start?”

Greg Walton leaned back in his chair. “Great. What have you got?”

“For starters, we’ve got a name for Captain Daley’s killer.”

Walton and Buck looked at one another in shock. “Seriously?”

Frank Dorrien pushed a file across the table.

In the top left-hand corner was a photograph of a handsome, dark-skinned man with a strong jaw, long aquiline nose, and hooded, distrustful eyes. There was a detached air about him and a certain watchful hauteur, like a bird of prey.

“Alexis Argyros,” Jamie MacIntosh announced. “Codenamed Apollo. One of Group 99’s founder members and a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work. Grew up in foster care in Athens. Possibly abused. A high school dropout but brilliant with computers and obsessed with violent video games from his early teens. Hates women. Sadist. Narcissist. All this is from his social worker’s reports.”

“Criminal record?” Greg Walton asked.

“Oh yes. Petty theft, vandalism, arson. Two years in youth custody for rape. And he was suspected in a hideous case of animal cruelty where a cat and kittens were burned alive.”

“You only get two years for rape?” Greg Walton asked.

“The Greeks can’t afford to run their prisons,” Jamie MacIntosh said matter-of-factly. “Not since austerity. Anyway, we believe Argyros was the man who pulled the trigger in Daley’s execution video. He was running the camp you raided, and his star is on the rise within Group 99. For months now he’s been trying to steer the group towards more violent methods, battling against the moderate elements within 99. Argyros appeals to disaffected young males in the same way that the jihadist groups groomed boys in the west after the Syrian war. He offers them a purpose and a sense of belonging, wraps it all up in a pretty parcel of social justice—”

“And then murders people,” Greg Walton interrupted.

“Precisely. We are fearful that Captain Daley’s death may mark the beginning of a new era of global terror. It’s an enormous pity you didn’t kill Argyros when you had the chance.”

“How do you know we didn’t?” Greg Walton asked.

This time Frank Dorrien answered.

“Because we’ve picked up internet traffic between Apollo and an unknown contact in the US Alexis Argyros is alive and well and he’s out there looking for Drexel, just like we are. Make no mistake. Group 99 want Hunter Drexel dead.”

“And you know all this how?” Milton Buck demanded sourly. A stocky, handsome, middle-aged man with dark hair and what ought to have been a pleasing face, Buck successfully concealed whatever charms he may have had beneath a thick veneer of arrogance.

“Our methods are none of your concern,” Frank Dorrien snapped back. “We’re here to share intelligence, not tell you how we came by it. Now, what do you have for us?”

Milton Buck looked at Greg Walton, who nodded his approval. Buck pulled out an old-fashioned Dictaphone voice recorder and put it on the table.

“While you’ve been unmasking the monkey,” the FBI man sneered, “we’ve been focused on the organ grinder.”

Jamie MacIntosh sighed. He was starting to find Milton Buck’s posturing deeply irritating.

“Your man Apollo may have pulled the trigger,” Buck went on, “but he was following orders from above.”

He pressed PLAY. A woman’s voice filled the room. It was American, educated, soft and low and the sound quality was excellent, as if she were sitting right there with them.

“Is everything ready?”

A man’s voice answered. “Yes. Everything has been done as you instructed.”

“And I will see it on live feed, correct?”

“Correct. You’ll be right there with us. Don’t worry.”

“Good.” The woman’s smile was audible. “Have him deliver the speech first.”

“Of course. As we agreed.”

“And at nine p.m. New York time precisely, you will shoot him in the head.”

“Yes, Althea.”

Milton Buck hit STOP and smiled smugly.

“That, gentleman, was the authorization for Captain Daley’s execution. The woman on that tape, who goes by the codename Althea, is the real brains behind Group 99. We’ve been tracking her for the last eighteen months.”

“We already knew about Althea,” Jamie MacIntosh said dismissively, to the FBI man’s visible annoyance.

“But you didn’t know she’d directly ordered Daley’s assassination. Did you?” Greg Walton countered.

“No,” Jamie admitted. “What else have you got on her? An ID?”

“Not yet,” Greg Walton admitted, a little uncomfortably.

“You’ve been tracking this person for eighteen months and you still don’t know who she is?” Frank Dorrien asked, disbelievingly. “What do you know?”

“We know she channels funds to Group 99 through a complicated network of offshore accounts that we’ve mapped extensively,” Milton Buck snapped.

“We have some unconfirmed physical data,” Greg Walton added more calmly. “Witnesses at various banks and hotels we believe she’s used have suggested she’s tall, physically attractive and dark haired.”

“Well that narrows it down,” Frank Dorrien muttered sarcastically.

Milton Buck looked as if he were about to spontaneously combust.