Red Station , livre ebook

Canongate Books - Adrian Magson

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

174 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Four washed-up spooks. Two dead civilians. One remote and deadly outpost. Harry Tate is a loyal MI5 officer and a servant of the State. But when two civilians are shot dead during a drugs intercept gone wrong, he is forced to take an immediate posting to the Red Station. What he doesn't know is that this remote Balkan outpost is a punishment and he won't be going home. With an assassination team coming for him and invading Russian forces heading straight for the Red Station, Harry does whatever he can to save himself. But with few allies and enemies everywhere, Harry's chances of survival shrink with each passing day . . .

Informations

Publié par	Canongate Books
Date de parution	05 septembre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781786898661
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0240€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Adrian Magson is the author of three previous Marc Portman thrillers, as well as the Harry Tate, Lucas Rocco and Riley Gavin/Frank Palmer series. He has also written a writers’ help book based on his ‘Beginners’ column in Writing Magazine. Adrian was previously shortlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association’s Debut Dagger Award. @AdrianMagson1 adrianmagson.com
Also by Adrian Magson
TThe Riley Gavin and Frank Palmer Series
No Peace for The Wicked No Help for The Dying No Sleep for The Dead No Tears for The Lost No Kiss for The Devil

First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2019 by Black Thorn, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2019 by Canongate Books
First published in 2010 by Severn House Publishers Ltd, Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY
blackthornbooks.com
Copyright © Adrian Magson, 2019
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidentsare either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 860 9 eISBN 978 1 78689 866 1
For Ann,
who always believed Harry would make it home.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Chapter Seventy-One
Chapter Seventy-Two
Chapter Seventy-Three
Chapter Seventy-Four
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Self-belief is one thing. But the support of the following friends has been enormous: Matt Hilton and Sheila Quigley, who know just what it s like; Mike Stotter and Ali Karim of Shots Magazine , who were so quick to welcome me into the crime/mystery community; Adrian Muller for spreading the buzz; Lizzie Hayes and Sue Lord for their absolute belief; James Nightingale, eagle-eyed editor; and last but certainly not least, super-agent David Headley, for his energy, friendship and absolute commitment to Red Station and beyond.
Thank you, all.
ONE
Autumn 2008
D eath came in at three minutes to four on a sluggish morning tide, and changed Harry Tate s life forever.
It edged up a shrouded Essex inlet, a scrubby white fifty-foot motor launch with a fly bridge, its engine puttering softly against the slow current. The exhaust sounds were muffled by a heavy, early mist rolling along the banks, blanketing the dark marshland like cold candyfloss.
Three figures stood outlined by a flush of refracted light from the open cockpit. One was on the forward deck, a swirl of dreadlocks framing his head like a war helmet. He was holding a thick pole balanced on one shoulder. Number two, the helmsman, was a bulky shape up on the fly bridge, head turning constantly between the instrument panel and the banks on either side.
The third man stood on a swimming platform at the stern, inches above the murky wake. Skeletal, with long, straggly hair under a baseball cap, he had one hand down by his side, the other bracing himself on the rear rail.
It s Pirates of the frigging Caribbean! The whisper drilled softly into Harry s earpiece, gently mocking, forcing a smile in spite of the tension in his chest. The voice belonged to Bill Maloney, his MI5 colleague, in cover fifty yards along the bank to his right.
A light breeze lifted off the water, brushing past Harry s position behind a hummock of coarse grass, fanning his face with the sour smell of mud and decay. The sickly tang of diesel oil seemed to ooze out of the ground everywhere, and something was seeping through his trousers. He tried not to think about the kinds of toxic waste festering beneath him from decades of commerce, skulduggery and neglect.
He toggled his radio. Where the hell are you, Blue Team? The query was strained with urgency. As Ground Controller, he d been chasing the back-up police unit for fifteen minutes with no response.
Still nothing. Accident or a comms malfunction? Either way, they weren t here. He swore softly. Having been slashed at the last minute - economic demands, was the vague explanation - and now with the support van lost somewhere in the darkness, they were down to three men. With what was rumoured to be concealed in the boat s bilges, from bales of hash to bricks of heroin, each containing up to fifty individual pay-and-go bags, and enough methamphetamine crystals to send half the kids in London off their heads for a month, the prize was too valuable. They needed all the help they could get.
But it wasn t there.
He leaned to his right and peeled aside some strands of grass, eyeing the misty darkness where Blue Team should have been in position. Nothing. Instead, he heard a click in his ear, then a hiss of static.
That s a negative, Red One . . . repeat negative. We re up to our axles in mud, five hundred yards from your O.P. The fucking ground s like molasses. Blue Team out.
Harry s gut turned to water, the urgency now the bitter pre-taste of panic.
With a narrow window the previous day to reconnoitre the area where the shipment was coming in, he and Maloney had ambled in on foot, posing as sometime fishermen on an idle day out. The inlet, bordered by a muddy track, was mostly used by working boats, weekend sailors and jet-skiers. The going, while reasonably solid underfoot, showed some evidence of a spongy sub-layer.
They d spent an hour in the area, fishing, sipping beer and competitively skimming stones on the water, all the while scouting for cover in hollows, bushes and overturned or rotting boats. Other than a woman walking her dog and a couple of dinghies making laboured trips to boats further along, they had seen no-one who shouldn t be there.
As they were leaving, it had started to rain; hard, slashing drops like liquid gobstoppers, pounding the softer patches into mud holes and blanketing the harder ground with a layer of filthy water. They had highlighted these areas on a laminated map for special attention.
Blue Team clearly hadn t read the signs.
Harry closed his eyes against a rising nausea. Of all the luck. He could be at Jean s place right now, replete and warmed by her infectious humour, enjoying her company. Instead, he was stuffed with a growing disaster of Titanic proportions.
Except that he knew deep down that this was as much a drug for him as the narcotics on the boat were for others.
Stand by. He toggled the switch to warn the other two men and watched the boat slide by thirty yards away. It was too late to abort, too risky to do nothing; within hours the stuff on board would be hitting the streets, flooding veins with its false promise and sending the weak and vulnerable to an early, hazy oblivion.
It was now or never.
He was clutching a handful of grass with his right hand. He forced himself to let go and slid his fingers into his jacket, to the reassuring touch of a semi-automatic.
Is it a go or not? Parrish, the third man. A firearms officer on loan from the local force, he was to Harry s right, close by the water s edge, positioned to cut off the boat s retreat. A last-minute replacement for an MI5 officer off sick, he was nervy, impatient and looking to prove himself.
Wait! Tate breathed, and hoped the idiot wasn t about to leap from cover and do a Rambo along the bank. As he spoke, the helmsman on the boat called a soft warning to his companions and cut the engine, steering the nose towards a short wooden jetty jutting out from the near bank.
Blue Team . . . you out yet? It was a wasted call, but gave him a few more seconds before having to make a final, no-going-back decision.
Negative, Red One. We re not going anywhere. Sorry.
You forgotten how to fucking run ? he blasted back, and instantly regretted it. Five hundred yards in full gear, stumbling through the dark; even with night-vision kit they d be like a pack of elephants.
He decided to give it another two minutes, to allow the boat s crew to split up and come ashore. Divide and conquer. Maybe, he thought wryly, when they saw they were surrounded by just three men stranded on a muddy bank in the dark, they d give up without a fight.
Then bad luck and timing chose that moment to join the party.
From Harry s left, the opposite end of the approach track from Blue Team s last position, the familiar