Assassin

26

Damon Tyzack was met at Heathrow by a uniformed chauffeur and told that Arjan Visar wanted to meet him. Immediately.

He was driven straight to Farnborough airport, less than twenty miles away, where a private jet was waiting to take him to Malaga on the Spanish Costa del Sol. From there a helicopter ferried him on a fifteen-minute journey to the private landing pad tucked away behind Visar's villa.

Tyzack was not a man given to being impressed, but even he was astounded by the opulence in which Visar lived. The main house was built around a colonnaded courtyard with an ornate stone fountain at its centre. Marble mosaics, crafted in a gaudy profusion of patterns and colours, covered the floor of every room. Massive sofas were strewn with shiny satin cushions decorated with swirls and curlicues of golden thread. The vulgarity of it all was overpowering. This was a retreat fit for a Roman emperor, and a Nero or a Caligula at that.

Arjan Visar, when he appeared, was oddly out of keeping with his home. Small and scrawny with the pallid skin of a sickly child, he was dressed in plain black shirt and trousers. Strands of hair were plastered unconvincingly over his balding scalp. Tyzack could have broken him like a twig. But then, any of the thugs who took Visar's orders could have done the same. And yet they did not. They accepted Visar's control over an operation that he had grown from its beginnings amongst the petty brigands of rural Albania to its current position of dominance over a trade that stretched from the furthest backwaters of China, Africa and the former Communist states to the greatest cities in Europe and North America.

Visar caught Tyzack gazing at his surroundings and smiled apologetically. 'This was my brother's property. It is not to my taste. But my wife likes it very much, so…' He shrugged as helplessly as any other henpecked husband.

Tyzack knew that Visar would have his wife killed without a second thought, if he ever thought it necessary or deserved. Rumour had it that he had been behind the death of his own brother, which had led to his taking total control of the clan. That, too, was worthy of an emperor.

A servant appeared at Visar's side. 'You have had a long journey,' said Visar. 'Would you like a drink, some food maybe? Whatever you want, the kitchens can supply.'

'Just a glass of water, please,' said Tyzack, determined to keep a clear head. He had carried out jobs for the Visars many times. But his orders had come from Visar's henchmen, communicating by phone and email. This was his first personal contact with Visar himself. That meant he was either in for very good news, or very, very bad. Tyzack told himself that Visar would hardly have carted him all this way just for a bollocking, or even a bullet in the back of the head. There had to be more to it than that.

'I congratulate you on your recent work, Mr Tyzack,' said Visar. 'Now I have more for you.'

Visar clicked his fingers and another servant stepped silently out of the shadows. He carried a laptop, which he placed on a table in front of Visar and then opened.

'Thank you,' the Albanian said as his servant disappeared again. He looked up from the screen and caught Tyzack's eye. 'Let me explain…'

Tyzack had switched from water to an ice-cold San Miguel beer. He had wolfed down a freshly made club sandwich. And all the time he had been going over the information Visar had given him. Tyzack had never been regarded as academically gifted but, contrary to some of his teachers' scathing reports, he lacked neither intelligence nor application. He simply needed to be interested before he made an effort. The mechanics of killing interested him very much indeed. It was his special subject.

'Yes,' he said, 'I think I can do it. Won't be easy, of course. He's the President of the United States. He has a lot of very clever, well-trained people working very hard to stop him getting hurt. So let's cut out the things we can't do. No point trying to attack Air Force One. There's no aircraft on the planet with better, newer countermeasures against any missile known to man.

'The landing's a no-no, too. He's coming into RAF Fairford. That's actually a US Air Force base and they keep B2 stealth bombers there, so it's already sealed up tighter than a gnat's arse – if you'll excuse the expression. No way anyone's breaking in unless they're on a suicide mission. And I'm not.'

'You did not strike me as that type,' said Visar.

'From Fairford, he'll take Marine One to Bristol, call it twenty minutes' flight time, give or take,' Tyzack continued. 'The exact route won't be determined till the day, which makes it virtually impossible to guarantee a hand-held missile strike. He's landing at College Green, opposite Bristol Cathedral, and you can bet they'll have Cadillac One pulled up right under the chopper's disc. He'll be out one door and in the next in three seconds, and if there's an angle for a shot from anywhere at any point, then some Secret Service agent's made a cock-up. Forget that.

'The President's car itself is totally impregnable. They may call it Cadillac One but the only thing about it that's a Caddy is the badge. That thing is a tank. Even the windows are transparent armour. You can't shoot it, gas it, blow the tyres, nothing. And there'll be twenty-odd motors back and front of it, stuffed with armed men. It's only a few hundred yards from the landing site to the stage at Broad Quay so the motorcade'll be almost as long as the journey.'

'I get the point, Mr Tyzack. You do not think the President can be attacked on the road.'

'Exactly. The only point he's going to be vulnerable is when he's actually onstage. So… may I?'

He gestured at the laptop. Visar nodded and swivelled it round so that the screen was facing Tyzack, who spent a few seconds typing instructions before turning the computer again so that both men had a view of the screen.

'Google Earth,' he said, 'best innovation in the history of crime. Gives any man his own private spy satellite. For example, let's find the precise grid references of the point on which Roberts's stage will be constructed. Here we go: fifty-one degrees, twenty-seven minutes and eight-point-five-seven seconds North, and two degrees, thirty-five minutes, fifty-one-point-four-seven seconds West.'

'I can read a reference, Mr Tyzack, is that really necessary?'

Tyzack grinned broadly. 'Oh yes, Mr Visar, it is absolutely necessary. That reference is what will kill the President. And I know just how I'll do it.'