Hostile

By Ted Denton

An action-packed tale of shady business, international crime, and an antiviral wonder drug in the series Lee Child called “hard, fast, and really good.”
 
A young financial executive has uncovered his new boss’s plan to steal the patents to a new breakthrough drug—but before he can undermine the scheme, he is kidnapped.
 
The notoriously dangerous Chinese businessman will stop at nothing, including abduction and government corruption, to achieve his goal—and enlists a violent Triad gang to wreak mayhem on those who stand in his way. Now kidnap-rescue operative Tom Hunter is thrown into a deadly race against time to save lives and halt the deadly deal . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781504073318

Book preview

1

The spatter of blood hit the canvas. Hunter watched it fall, sitting, as he was, up close to the action. A guttural roar surged across the hall; breaking waves on gravel. The kid was in tight against the ropes, taking punishment. A searing left hook to the ribcage nearly doubled him up, forcing an involuntary grunt. His opponent was tall, rangy. Ginger and pale to the point of a near luminescence, with a smear of acne scarring across the shoulder blades, he’d accumulated a set of uninspiring tattoos across his arms; each determining to bare not even the slightest relation to the next. Still, the boy could bang.

Another ramrod jab shot out into the face of the kid, whose left eye was starting to mark-up, despite the high peekaboo guard which Hunter had drilled into him over hours in the pokey sweat-stenched gym below the railway arches.

‘Bring him onto it,’ Hunter bellowed, as the kid ate a mouthful of leather. But he threw back gallantly, as if to let the opponent know he was still breathing and not just serving time as a human punchbag. His punches caught arms and gloves. Not scoring shots. Certainly not doing enough to cause any damage nor to send the type of message that might start to stem the onslaught he was facing.

The opponent showed some neat footwork in return. A long step forward, a short quick sidestep to the left, round the corner and turned the kid. He threw a combination. Arm punches, no real weight or leverage behind them but they’d opened up the kid’s technical defence and embarrassed him. And he knew he’d been had. Smarting, his instant reaction was to throw back, letting go a wild cuffing left hook of his own. His balance was off though and as he pivoted, the opponent beat him to the punch, delivering a driving short right to the temple. The kid went down on one knee and then reaching to grab for the bottom rope he slumped forward onto all fours. He scrabbled to get up, fighting to catch his breath. A study in balletic grace, this was not.

‘Take the full count, Vinny,’ Hunter called out. ‘And next time, kid, walk him the hell onto it, will you!’

The next round was more of the same. Three minutes of pain. Hunter knew the kid’s lungs would be screaming. As the sweat poured off him, he came in close for some respite. He clung to the arms of the opponent, swarming, leaning on him, trying to crowd him and wrap his gloves up to slow the work rate. The opponent, frustrated, slammed short, quick left hooks round the back to the liver. Over and over.

The kid shoved him away in exasperation but, closing the space again, as if fighting inside a phone box, the opponent came back with a sharp uppercut. Crisp and true. Well levered, fast, yet almost casual looking. It was a peach of a punch. Hunter drew in his breath. The kid, stunned, spat out his gumshield, followed by a long string of bloodied saliva full of the grit of chipped teeth. A straight right pounded, without mercy, into the bridge of his nose as a follow-up for good measure.

Then the towel came in. The referee moved in front of the kid, standing between him and the opponent and placing his hands with paternal care round the back of his head, as if cradling his skull from further damage. The fight was done.

Hunter got to his feet. He called out, angling his head between the ropes, talking to the vanquished fighter.

‘Take your licks and move on from this one, Vinny. And that’ll teach you to sodding well not bring him onto the shot! We’ll make a counterpuncher out of you yet.’

The kid picked his head up, peered down at Hunter and flashed a goofy grin before bumping his glove twice against his heart. Hunter did likewise and flopped back into his seat, smiling and shaking his head.

‘You can’t win ’em all,’ came a gruff Scottish voice from the chair behind.

Hunter turned to face an old man with long tatty grey hair and glasses.

‘Trouble is, I’m not sure he’ll win any of them at this rate,’ he flashed back. ‘The kid’s got a big heart though. He loves the fight game and if it stops him nicking mopeds with his mates and smoking weed on the estate all day then that’s enough for me.’

‘Amen to that, sir! I don’t get to as many of these amateur scraps as I would like anymore. I miss it, if the truth be told.’

‘Did you used to fight yourself then?’

‘I had something of a mean left hook back in the day. Let’s say I was what they call an avoided fighter.’

Hunter grinned at the old man. ‘Where was that then, pal. Glasgow, by the sound of it?’

The old timer leant forward, his hot breath close to Hunter’s ear.

‘No, Tom. That was back in The Regiment.’ The voice had changed in an instant. Rough Glaswegian replaced with cut glass Queen’s English. Hunter turned. He studied the old man.

‘The Hand of God! As I live and breathe! You have to be kidding me.’

‘Yes, Thomas. I wondered quite how long it would take you to work it out. I’m officially supposed to be out of the country right now so can’t risk being identified. I’m here to tell you that you’re now back in play. No more training tearaways in the Marquis of Queensbury’s noble art, for a while, I’m afraid. You’re needed back with The Unit on an urgent kidnap-rescue mission. Effective immediately.’

Hunter glanced around the hall. No one was paying them any attention. The latest couple of young fighters padded into the ring together. Thumping intrusive hip-hop music blared around the hall on tinny speakers which rattled with the effort.

‘I’m listening, Charles. What’s the brief? Tell me about the Target.’

‘City of London. A young banking executive by the name of Kyle McGann has gone missing in unexplained circumstances in the middle of a sensitive corporate takeover deal. It’s highly disruptive with the potential of a significant financial impact. The chief executive of the bank is an old chum of mine from our Oxford days. Well-connected family. Some troubles it seems with their new investors and they can’t involve the police in this boy’s disappearance or they risk it getting out into the press.’

‘How long’s he been missing then, this Kyle?’

‘Over a week now without any contact and he’s key to the activities on this deal it seems.’

‘Money talks. They’re all heart these bankers. I’m sure if he was working in the post room and went missing for a week they wouldn’t even look up from their champagne.’

‘Leave your personal antipathy for the British banking system and those who work within it to one side, please, Thomas. We have to find that boy and make sure he’s safe. Henry is relying on us. And not just that, the reputation of The Unit is won and lost on these missions. Given the mess I had to mop up after you in Spain, we need a clean win. Is that clear?’

‘That was out of my control, Charles. You know the Russian mafia have rewritten the rules on retribution.’

‘Hunter, there were more dead bodies at those haciendas at one point than in the city morgue. It was a bloodbath out there.’

‘What are they paying?’ Hunter clipped from the corner of his mouth. ‘The bankers. How much?’

‘Heavy upfront engagement fees for our full attention and best operatives pulled into play. That means you. Your success bonus for bringing the Target back alive will dwarf what you made on the last three missions combined.’

‘You have to give it to those guys. When they want something, they just throw money at the problem.’

‘Indeed. I’m glad you’re coming around to my way of thinking, Thomas.’

‘I take it that Ella will send the usual briefing documents and set me up in theatre?’ He scraped a thumbnail down the deep scar that etched its way across his jawline and neck.

‘Yes, she will. But there’s something you need to know.’

Hunter raised an eyebrow.

‘That dinner you took her to when you returned from Spain following the Russian mafia job?’

‘What about it? I seem to recall you being all in favour of it at the time. For the sake of office harmony, wasn’t it? To keep her from pining after me?’

The Hand of God locked eyes with Hunter, holding his attention with a hard uncompromising stare.

‘Thomas, I think Ella is pregnant.’

2

Alec Bisset scribbled the letters to the final clue of the newspaper crossword in his trademark spidery scrawl. He leant back in the cracked leather chair, satisfied with his endeavours, albeit less so with life in general. In his next act of the morning, he proceeded to tear out the completed page with a deliberate slowness, before crumpling it tight inside a bony fist.

Squeezing hard, he compressed the pulverised scrap until his knuckles bulged with an enraged shade of white. Having weighed and measured the hard paper ball in the palm of his hand, he next projected it across the breadth of the office floor, rattling into the side of a metallic wastepaper bin set under the desk of one of his startled co-workers. The whole process had been a distracted exercise in managed violence; both biomechanic and office-politic. It was a morning ritual.

Bisset drained his coffee while considering the onslaught of the coming day. His department within the Financial Conduct Authority was tasked with tackling suspicious inbound commercial activity from foreign entities. What had once been considered a graveyard for ageing veterans of the regulator who were being put out to pasture, was now a hub of activity and had been growing in import for several decades.

Thinning hair, with liver spots across his face and deep creases scored into his brow. He’d aged badly and knew it. A pervasive sense of bitterness followed him around like an unexplained odour. Yes, Alec’s flower had bloomed late in life. But by the time he’d arrived ready to spring from the shadows and stake his claim on life’s stage with womankind, his looks, such as they had been, were already in steady decline without the personality to offer counterbalance. Always tall and angular, awkward of poise, without the bulk, neither real muscle nor fat, to permit description of him as a big man, he was found needing of other ways to impose himself, to command attention and respect. Perhaps he was a man who should be more defined by the things that he was not, than those that he was.

Alec Bisset had melded a sense of personal injustice with a ferocious need for restitution. He wielded an undeniable sense of intellectual menace; redolent of the raptor scanning for its next meal. Practised in its art, hovering in silence, marking time with unlimited patience until the perfect moment to strike; the tiny mistake from an unsuspecting target. Unforgiven every time. The rushing, swooping, irrepressible, inevitable entrapment. The smothering and crushing of prey within fearsome talons. And the brief satiation until the next.

Focused in his thinking and puritanical in his tastes, Bisset, it had been suggested, had substituted the pleasures of the flesh, unavailable to him as they were, by nourishing himself instead on the carcasses of those international fraudsters, corporate raiders and money launderers who dared to flutter into the reaches of his web. His toxic fascination with the female side of the human species, however, and their inevitable repulsion towards him, could, at its kindest, be described as dysfunctional.

Of course, from an intellectual perspective, Bisset understood the need for overseas investment into the UK on a legitimate basis and as a driver of growth for the economy. When used as a front for hiding the illegal proceeds of crime or as a method for undermining security, he considered it a scourge on the very sovereignty of Queen and country. Once he’d found the scent, it was said that Bisset latched on and never let go, as if he’d somehow been personally offended by any attempt to undermine his office, the remit of the regulator and the national interest.

‘What’s the order of the day then?’ he grumbled aloud to no one in particular, without looking up at the rows of faces, jutting above computer screens and stretching back through the open-plan office that threaded away from his desk.

‘Asia, and China in particular, sir,’ was the response from his second in command, Steffanie; an intelligent woman in her late thirties with short, pixie cut, peroxide blonde hair and glasses. Her poker face belied the fact that she had become well accustomed to Alec Bisset’s lack of social skills and etiquette.

‘Makes a change from the Ruskies, I suppose. What do we have?’

‘Notification early this morning of more capital flowing into the City of London from Beijing. Analysis shows us that there appears to be a relentless land grab for the control of some key strategic assets through the gradual building up of shareholdings in some notable organisations. This seems to be a concerted effort though.’

Bisset straightened in his chair. ‘They bought the Royal Exchange at Bank in the heart of the fine City of London. That’s fairly notable if you ask me, Steff, and back then was a sign of intent. They thought the golden grasshopper weathervane on top was pertinent, was good luck. As it turns out, the forefather of the guy who founded the place centuries ago was abandoned on the Norfolk marshes as a toddler only to be saved by a lady drawn to him by the sounds of a grasshopper chirping! How’s that for a misread?’ He chuckled a joyless rasp to himself.

‘I know how you feel about these things, sir, but those real estate deals were all above board. Selling to the highest bidder and all that. Overseas investment into British real estate and our start-up tech companies is a very good thing for the economy and needs to be welcomed as long as due process is followed and all taxes paid up. What we’re noticing now through chatter via channels identified by our colleagues in MI6 is that inbound investment from China is being primed to buy positions of control in more nationally strategic businesses.’

‘Damn it, Steffanie. If they start to influence supply and demand, limit or amend access to core products, change policy and have the ability to alter the substance of what we consume in the supply chain then that gets very serious. More so if our respective countries change diplomatic positions with each other or even venture towards military hostility at any future point. Then, my girl, they become the enemy within, embedded inside the very fabric of our society. No. Not on my watch! Not if I can help it. You’d better get me a list of targets and set up a chat with MI6. We need to know if this really is some concerted approach to try to influence business at the top level and what’s being planned.’

‘Will do, boss. Word is that this is an edict straight from the Party itself. The People’s Republic of China has decided that they’re going to have more of a say in the West and how we do things.’

Bisset placed a fingertip on each temple and looked away before he continued speaking, as if verbalising a thought to himself. ‘Ironic given their communist beliefs that they’re going to buy their way into this position of power and influence, using our very own free-market capitalist economy against us.’

3

The banker tightened his silk woven tie a final time, then smoothed the trousers of his suit. He checked his hair in the reflection of his phone screen as he stood at the bottom of the grand steps and took a deep breath. This was it. First day at Falcon Brothers private bank in the City of London. Kyle McGann was going to grab this opportunity with both hands, whatever it took.

It had been a single blurred month since his uncle had manufactured the brief meeting for him with Humphrey Falcon, a revered acquaintance from the golf club bar. It had gone well. The timing was perfect. Humphrey had suggested that Kyle should meet the Human Resources people to see what might be possible, given some significant internal repositioning of the business. Three swift rounds of interviews later and here he was.

Somehow, Kyle had always felt the hand of favour upon his shoulder as he breezed through the process. Sure, he had the right qualifications for private banking and a nascent background in wealth management, but it seemed that no one involved in assessment for the position really knew if the introduction from Humphrey Falcon, respected owner of the bank and custodian of the family name, was merely a tacit endorsement or a declaration of intent. Humphrey, of course, had long since forgotten all about it. Either way, it had gone well for Kyle and here he was.

He entered the grand marble reception area and was at once hit by the size of the cavernous space, rendering him insignificant. Seven long minutes early for the induction meeting. He peered around. Crimson chesterfield armchairs were scattered to the edges of the huge space. The walls were adorned with oversized portraits of severe-looking men glowering down on those below from inside their heavy frames. The founding fathers of the bank. Humphrey Falcon’s relatives. The reception desk was bookended with crystal vases crammed with drooping white lilies. An attractive young woman sat behind, occupied by a tilted screen.

‘May I help you, sir?’ she cooed.

Kyle snapped to attention. ‘Oh. Hullo,’ he spluttered back, running his fingers through his fringe. ‘I’m here for my induction meeting. A little early actually. Sorry. Kyle McGann?’

‘Yes. Good morning, Kyle, and welcome to Falcon Bothers. Everything is set up for you this morning. Mr Falcon was planning on meeting you himself briefly this morning to welcome you but I’m afraid he has had to cancel due to an unscheduled meeting.’

‘I see. Er, no problem at all.’

‘Someone will be down to see you shortly… In fact, here she is now.’

Kyle turned to look. A Chinese woman wearing an expensive-looking black business suit stood next to the bank of elevators. She exuded poise and confidence. Flashing a row of brilliant white teeth, she strode towards him with her hand outstretched. ‘Kyle, I’m Mae. Come with me please.’

The morning flew past as Kyle shadowed this beguiling woman around the various floors and offices of the bank like an obedient pup. He breathed her musky perfume when she stood close. He studied the dark red lipstick that traced the contours of her full lips when she talked. He shook hands with so many people that he lost count. Names were given and forgotten as soon as they came. Except, that was, for Jerry’s. Nobody, it was claimed, ever forgot Jerry, the IT guy.

And Kyle listened. There’d been major changes at the bank since that first meeting with Humphrey Falcon a few short weeks back. A well-capitalised, little-known, Chinese fund had agreed with the shareholders to acquire the bank. It was a discreet strategic investment to help provide the fund with an established presence in the United Kingdom and deliver easier access to European and the American commercial deal-flow. The client base, tradition and heritage of the bank, would be retained and respected. Mr Falcon was to remain as chief executive of the bank and his team would remain in place.

However, Mae explained, the bank would also focus on identifying new areas of growth beyond managing the money of a few wealthy families and stuffy high net worth individuals. They would be exploring the exciting and profitable world of corporate mergers and acquisitions.

Mae, as it turned out, was one of the fund’s first direct placements within the bank, and had been tasked with supporting the restructuring and new commercial direction, alongside her senior colleague, one Mr Eric Fu.

With legs stretching out from under his desk, Kyle leant back and smiled as his key research analyst, Hishram, a bright Indian guy with prematurely greying hair, placed a china cup and saucer brimming with tea in front of him.

‘I hope you’re ready to get stuck into some sexy spreadsheets this afternoon,’ he quipped. ‘There’s a lot of data for us to plough through before we can start to identify the most attractive deals out there!’

‘I’m glad I’ve got you to show me the way, to be honest, Hishram. I’m more from a client relationship background in private banking. I know it’s a fresh direction around here, but it still feels funny that they want me, the new boy, to head up this role in deal identification. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, from what I hear this is where the real money’s made and so obviously I’m all in.’

His role within the bank, he’d been informed by Mae as she perched on the corner of his desk, would be an important one. Working directly beneath her, Kyle would help with the recalibration of the bank to identify British companies for acquisition and investment to drive returns for the new, seemingly unlimited, private capital that had been brought in from overseas. Their initial and primary focus was to be within the UK pharmaceutical sector and Kyle, to be ably assisted by Hishram, was tasked with assessing the sector and making recommendations to Mae, and her boss, Mr Fu, as to which companies would prove suitable investments for the bank.

Ultimately Kyle’s name would be on the term sheet. A grandiose notion flirted with him that perhaps, even under his fledgling stewardship, he might steer the old bank back to the swashbuckling heights of its heady commercial fame. A time when the original Falcon Brothers had helped to build the very infrastructure of the country, establishing trading routes which had made Britain the financial envy of the free world. With an empire to match.

Kyle loosened his tie and squinted as shards of late afternoon sunlight cut through the slatted wooden blinds. The antiquated bay window looked out over the greenery of Berkeley Square in the bustling heart of London’s upmarket Mayfair. He rubbed his eyes and scrolled through another spreadsheet displayed on the computer screen.

The phone on his desk buzzed and he snatched up the handset, pleased for the distraction.

‘So, it’s five o’clock on your first day. I think you’d better come out for a drink to celebrate your position on the hot new deal desk, don’t you?’

It was Mae. Kyle swallowed. Except his mouth had gone dry and he broke into a splutter instead of speaking. Was it him or did everything she say sound sexual? Perhaps it was the way she pronounced her vowels.

He found his voice. ‘Absolutely. That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day actually!’

‘Right, meet me outside in five minutes. Let’s make the most of this weather.’

Kyle beamed. Hishram looked up from his desk in hope, eyebrows raised. He was met with a shrug and an unrestrained grin.

‘Next time, buddy, next time. It seems I have some bonding to do with the boss.’

4

Kyle skipped down the steps of the bank into the early evening sunshine. Mae was leaning against an alabaster pillar, her eyes alive and intense with energy. She’d changed out of the business suit into a striking green figure-hugging dress which was constructed with strips of material and interspersed with tantalising glimpses of flesh. The blood-red lipstick and nail varnish remained, setting off the dress in a powerful combination. Kyle caught himself drawing in his breath.

‘A good first day today, Kyle,’ she commented in a measured voice, as if deciding his fate.

‘Thanks very much. I enjoyed it.’

‘So, to celebrate you joining us at the bank at this important moment of change, and initiate you into the fold, I have planned something special for tonight.’

‘Sounds exciting! Where are we going?’ he gushed.

‘You’ll have to wait and see, new boy!’ Mae flashed back a knowing smile as she gestured to a blacked-out Mercedes waiting kerbside on the edge of the square. The sleek machine purred into life, drawing alongside them. Mae stepped forward opening the door for herself, denying Kyle the opportunity to do the courteous thing. He gave a silent curse and clambered in behind, watching as the shapely pair of legs slid in and settled beside him in the passenger seat.

The car eased away. Mae pushed a button in the central console between them. With the whir of a tiny motor a leather hatch descended, then in automated sequence, a tray rolled forward with regal assurance revealing two gleaming crystal flute glasses and silver ice bucket presenting a chilled bottle of champagne.

‘Very impressive,’ said Kyle, meaning it.

Mae wrapped her fingers around the bottle and twisted the cork free. It was almost pornographic in its suggestibility. The blood-red talons, the creamy white foam frothing from the top. Kyle swallowed, watching fixated as she filled the glasses.

‘This is how we do things here at Falcon Brothers now. So, a toast. To the new boy!’

They chinked glasses and drank in silence. Mae swiped her phone, the bright screen illuminating the inside of the dark vehicle. Kyle caught sight as she busied herself typing with a flurry of Chinese characters into an unusual messaging app. He felt the small distance in the back of the car growing between them. He craved to make some clever remark to recapture her attention, but her innate confidence and natural sense of authority placed an invisible divide between them. He drained the last of his champagne and waited for her to finish.

The car soon pulled up on an elegant Mayfair side road peppered with expensive-looking art galleries, minimalist fashion boutiques and tall Edwardian town houses. Mae sauntered up to a nondescript metal door adjacent to a busy restaurant. It looked like the entrance for deliveries or rubbish disposals. To the side, within the brickwork, was a black metal ashtray, teaming with crushed cigarette butt ends. Mae pushed down upon this from above to reveal a clean digital keypad and intercom below. She pressed the two central buttons, leaned forward, and spoke with intensity. In under a minute the metal door slid open. A bearded man dressed entirely in black stepped onto the pavement and issued Kyle with a long hard look before ushering them inside. Kyle followed them into the dark interior, gazing all around as he prickled with excitement. It turned out to be a vestibule leading to another door. A much smarter