Identity Mistaken

By Stevenson Mukoro

An assassin at the top of his vocation. A killer unknown to any of the specialized intelligence services in the world. A mastermind behind a clandestine spy network known as the Conclave.

A training session ends up being a real game of death. A military prototype gadget goes missing and being offered up in a silent auction by the Conclave.

An old colleague summons Susan Dax to Paris with the intention of shedding light on Conclaves deadly game. A trans-European train voyage occupied with intelligence operatives from various known and anonymous intelligence agencies play a fatal game of cat and mouse.

A slew of bullets, explosions, and karate chops almost puts an end to Susan Daxs investigation. A deathly subterfuge ensues and turns into a nightmare as our valiant female protagonist tries to discover the identity behind Conclaves mastermind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514461327

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 by Stevenson Mukoro.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 07/01/2015

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

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Contents

Prelude

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

Other Susan Dax Adventures

Also by Stevenson Mukoro

The Doomsday Organism

Cold Heat

My Name Is Susan

The Lighthouse Guards

Dying Hard

Guns, Death and Mr. Krakauer

Silencing The Thunder

Readers and fans of Susan Dax,

This is for you.

Read, Simply Read.

PRELUDE

Man is the most cunning of all hunters and ambushers. I considered this fact carefully as I walked along the dark wittering forest, unwittingly thinking I might change roles with my stalkers. Every angle I looked was the perfect hideout for an ambush and though I was ready for it, I still couldn’t help thinking of reversing roles.

The nipples on my breasts tingled under the soft silk blouse as I walked unhurriedly, purposefully forward. Walking cautiously, watching, and listening for any sound or movement from every tree, shrub, and rise in the earth. My Makarov with palm recognition scanner lay ready in its holster. Ready but unloaded. Peko my stiletto rested secured in his chamois sheath along my right forearm under the coffee-coloured blouse and black leather jacket I was wearing.

As I moved through the dark forest, I sensed rather than felt those in the dark with hostile intentions towards me. I had just gone past a sagging drooping branch when I heard the sound behind me. Even before I twirled, I knew what it must be. A person had dropped from a tree to the earth behind me.

I whirled just in time to see a hand with a knife gripped tightly in it descend down on me. The thin, sharp blade was aimed at my chest.

Hurling my left forearm up to block its decent, I grabbed the wrist of the male behind the attack while simultaneously jabbed my two index fingers of my right hand towards the man’s eyes. He countered my jab with his free hand up against the bridge of his nose, just in time to save his eyes.

Snatching his other wrist with both hands, rotating and meandering away from him I pulled hard as I bent forward. My attacker went soaring over my shoulder and hit the ground with his back. The knife flew out of his hand. Tensing a muscle in my right forearm, Peko came sliding down into my palm. I struck down, sticking Peko’s razor sharp tip against the man’s throat and held it there.

‘Nice move’ he declared in a low voice.

Under different circumstances, I would have driven Peko into the flesh under his chin. I let him feel the edge of Peko’s tip as he stared up at me with narrowed eyes.

‘Is that all you have to say?’ I asked the creole painted face below me.

Suddenly he grinned ‘Well done Miss Dax’

‘Thank you. Any pointers?’ I inquired, moving the stiletto from his throat and rising.

He sat up and dusted himself off. ‘I doubt it, you are damn fast. Though you could get a little more hip into your throw. And that knife of yours … yeuch!’

Showing him the stiletto ‘Peko?’

‘What? You named it?’

‘Yes’

‘Well … Peco … seems inferior to most regulated issues however in your hands it does seem to get the job done, doesn’t it?’

‘Haven’t had any complaints before’ I said sliding Peko back up his sheath.

‘Regardless, this concludes your review’

‘It does?

‘Yes, with high marks I might add’

‘Thanks sir. I really appreciate it’

‘Don’t thank me. You’re a perfect specimen for a warrior’

‘How kind’

I had just passed my refresher course as perfected by the SAS agent-training academy. My instructor was Herbert, a Judo instructor at the academy and I had to admit, a very good one. He had made sure I remembered the fundamentals of self-defence and upgraded my perceptive instincts.

‘Good I’ll leave you to get back to camp. Take the first intersection and …’ he paused

‘Yes?’

‘Expect anything’ he finished

‘Always’ I answered smiling

Leaving Herbert there, I started down the path.

The moon slid slowly up from behind the trees and branches leaving a streak of ghostly silvery light in its wake. Still moving down the long winding path, I remained vigil to every movement or sound. Reaching the intersection, I paused. Aware of the chirping insects sounds, the rustling of the leaves and swaying of the branches. Knowing there was a good possibility that someone was in the immediate vicinity. I had taken a couple of steps along the path that led to the camp when a man jumped out of the darkness directly in front of me. I drew my Makarov and beat the man to his weapon. I aimed the Chinese Makarov at his head and pulled the trigger. A click sounded on the empty chamber.

‘You have a nice bullet hole in the middle of your head’ I said ‘Know what that means?’

The dark figure with a stocking over his face laughed. A peculiar kind of laugh.

As I moved closer towards him, I heard a slight noise behind me. Damn! The man in front of me was just a decoy. Before I could whirl round to face the second man I felt a sudden sharp pain explode at the base of my skull. Bright lights lit up the darkness. I felt my knees buckle and the ground came rushing towards me and smash against my face. A low groaning with a rasping sound echoed in the darkness and realised that it was coming from me.

‘… sure this her?’ I heard a voice ask

I opened my eyes painfully and saw two dark figures swimming before my eyes. They both wore stocking masks.

‘What …. is happen … ing?’ I managed to ask

‘Training day is over Miss Monroe’ one of them answered with an accent of some kind.

Somehow, they had gotten me confused with someone else. How was that possible? I asked myself as I squinted through pain-blurred eyes to try to make an ID from the shapes of faces behind the stockings.

I should have known when I saw the stockinged face and heard that laugh. These men were not instructors from the training camp.

I was guessing on my next favoured plan when of them kicked me hard in the side. I grunted at the excruciating pain. My eyes picked out a Colt Cobra .38 special pointed at my face.

‘Do I have your attension, woman?’ the one with the accent asked.

His companion, the kicker was breathing frivolously and looked like he wanted to repeat my lesson.

‘What … do … you … want?’ I asked

The one with the accent still holding the gun pulled an envelope out from his inside pocket. Making a contemptible sound, he threw the envelope at me. It settled somewhere on the ground beside my head.

He spoke again, ‘That is for your boss Mr Steele. Tell him to read it carevully and to take seriously’

My mind still whirling in the pain-filled darkness wanted to ask questions and get them speaking more but they were done talking. The kicker was about to give me a parting gift with another kick to my side. The trouble was he seemed to enjoy his work too much. This time as he aimed his heavy booted shoe at my head, I grabbed his foot and gave it a vicious twist. I heard bones crack as he bellowed with pain and lose his balance. A punch to his gonads made him fall heavily against his pal, who stumbled backward, making them both fall down.

‘Idiot!’ the man with the accent shouted as he made a move to scramble to his feet. Trying at the same time to take aim.

By then I was already on my feet. The kicker and the gunman had somehow got in each-others way. So the gunman’s aim was way off target. This was all that I needed for a chance to turn the tables.

The kicker threw a punch my way but I ducked but not before his big fist glanced off the edge of my jaw. The man with the gun had scrambled to his feet and was dashing towards the forest, running into the shadows. I smashed my fist into the face of the kicker who went down on his back. I then stiffened my knuckles and conked him between the eyes as he raised his head.

He gave a very satisfactory whelp as he fell backwards.

It gave me time to let Peko slide out of his sheath and throw him at the retreating back of the gunman. Peko flung true and ended up high in the back of the gunman. The gunman cried out, grabbed at his back, stood motionless for a few seconds, then turned and fell forward into the dirt.

I turned slowly and walked over to the fallen man.

‘I’m not Miss Monroe’ I said to the back of the dead man.

Just then, an instructor came running out of the shadows. ‘Hey’ he yelled ‘Whatda fuck is going on here?’

He came over to where I stood. Saw the stiletto sticking out of the thugs back and the other wailing at my feet. ‘Geez!’ he said ‘What the hell happened?’

‘Oh nothing, just … a little real life … training’ I remarked, pulling off the stocking from the thug at my feet.

His face was unfamiliar to me and yet I recognised it. Not his particular face but his type. He belonged to the burly heavy breathers I’ve met dozens of times, men in their thirties with pronounced but light footsteps. Men with cold, curious faces of professional killers who know the right doors to knock on, the right things to say to get what, or whom they need to find or extinguish. I had seen their type countless times all over the world.

The instructor pulled off the stocking of the man with the stiletto sticking out his back, saw that he was dead and looked up at me.

‘This one’s dead’ he said looking a little sick. Most instructors are experts in self-defence and whatever discipline they perfect, but they have never been in the field or seen a dead body. Hence his sickly expression

‘Fancy that. Tie this one up’ I said moving past the slack-jawed instructor towards the white coloured envelope.

I did not open it or figure out what needed to be done. The ashen coloured instructor came over to me from the surviving thug.

He spoke coolly ‘What’s that?’

‘They left it behind’ I said handing it to him ‘See that Sir Steele gets it’

‘Alright’

Everyone in this camp answered to Sir Conrad Steele second-in-command of MI6, everyone except me.

I was here because Seymour Krakauer had suggested it. I didn’t disagree with him. With two bullets in me on my last escapade, it was prudent to take a refresher course on my basic skills. Two months later, in this undisclosed Cotswold academy, I felt as if my body had now forgotten the two bullet wounds and was equipped for anything thrown its way.

‘They wanted a woman named Monroe not me. See that she knows I took a beating for her’

The instructor moved aside as I turned and retrieved Peko. I started to walk away.

‘Hey you can’t walk away? This is a crime scene Dax’

‘I know. Good luck with it all’ I stated, walking away.

He hesitated for a minute then turned.

‘But … but you have to explain yourself. This regrettable skirmish transpired on campgrounds. You can’t leave’

‘I am and that’s the end of it, sir. Give Sir Steele my best’

The instructor stared hard at me, gauntness written all over his face as I turned and walked away.

CHAPTER ONE

A few days later, I was sitting on a rotunda beside Meme otherwise known as Mrs Gillespie, my housekeeper, and my adopted daughter’s nanny watching Royal High, Bath Girls hockey semi-final game with Avon Girls School. Its rival.

Mrs Gillespie was holding up a camcorder recording the action on the field.

Both Meme and I, including a number of parents and guests were hollering, urging on Bilquees my ward’s team and her teammates on. Bilquees’s boyfriend Tony was there three seats below us also cheering her on.

The game was being played at a good pace but Bilquees’s team could not exactly match the speedy of the brawny girls of the Avon team. However, it didn’t deter the Royal High team to get into action and attack with coordinated style and strikes. On the 32nd minute of play, one of the Royal High team girls penetrated the defence of the Avon girls and through a penalty corner deflection scored the first goal. Three minutes later, a girl called Kensi Rani after a beautiful pass from Bilquees scored a field goal.

It was in the course of the 52nd minute of play after a good exchange of passes that a whooshing sound from above stopped play and transfixed everyone’s attention.

A black unmarked helicopter in the sky was descending from above until it hovered over the cold pitch, making its intention to land known to everyone. All the girls on the playing field took off and made their way off the pitch. Most of the onlookers, kids, parents, and faculty members looked confused as some of them took out their phones and started either calling the police or video record the spectacle unfolding before them.

Meme looked sideways at me with a questioning countenance ‘Is this you, ma’am?’

‘I prefer not to speculate. I don’t think so’ I replied as the helicopter came in for a landing. I recognised it as a MD 520 NOTAR type helicopter.

Bilquees came running towards us with her hockey stick and team uniform all soaked and grubby.

She climbed the steps ‘Umayma, tell me this isn’t you?’ she cried in a soft voice

She usually calls me "‘U’mayma. In her Bedouin origin, Umayma" to some degree meant something akin to aunty or mother.

‘How would I know that, dear one?’ I finished in Urdu

‘No no. You promised Susan’ cried Bilquees with a pained expression

‘I did Sheba’ I asserted. Sheba was my nickname for her. ‘I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding. I don’t understand this’

‘Of course you don’t’ she said sarcastically

Both she and Meme stared intently at me, not believing that I was being truthful.

‘I don’t’ I insisted.

My statement was true. I wasn’t lying. However, a helicopter coming to land in a school pitch during a crucial game was definitely my style.

We all watched as two men in pressed suits and soft hands alighted from the helicopter and looked around with their heads inclined and clothes whipping in the air under the rotation of the blades. One of them was holding a device, which he glanced at. He looked up in our direction, then turned to his companion and nodded.

Everyone around watched as both men came running towards us.

‘Lady Yelventon?’ the man with the device in his hand asked when he came to a stop in front of us on the pavilion.

I rolled my eyes. Bilquees scrawled up her face and shook her head. Meme also shook her head frowning.

‘Yes’ I answered

‘Ma’am. We’ve been sent’

‘And who might you two be?’

One of the spectators came forward. It was the head mistress of Bilquees’s school, Mrs Ellison.

I stepped down from the pavilion.

‘How did you know I was here?’ I quizzed the agent.

The man with the device held up his hand showing me the mobile app tracker device in his hand.

‘Ahem! Erm … excuse me’ Mrs Ellison began when she was close enough ‘Miss Bilquees what … is all this?’

‘My apologies Mrs Ellison’ I replied for Bilquees ‘These men are from the Trade Commission. I had no idea this would happen’

The man with the device turned towards Mrs Ellison ‘Ma’am please step back. We’ll be gone soon’

‘Who are you and why have you disturbed our game?’ Mrs Ellison asked him

The other suited man took out a leather wallet and flashed it in her face then addressed me.

‘We have orders Lady Yelventon to convey you to London’

‘Whose orders?’ I enquired, noting the surprised look on Mrs Ellison’s face. I could understand her stunned expression. Apart from my close friends and others I trusted, not many people knew I was a Viscountess.

‘Sir Steele ma’am’

‘Shit!’ I exclaimed softly

‘See …? This is all you Umayma’ Bilquees protested

‘This isn’t my fault’ I complained, cuddling her with one of my arms ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen Sheba’

‘I know, I know’

Bilquees was very much aware of what sometimes happen around me and as a teenager she has learned to live with the fact that I might be gone unexpectedly at a moment’s notice. Her rescue and subsequent adoption by me was a fair example. Once, a long time ago, I explained to her that she might consider me a police officer. A police officer who is called out of the blue, any hour of the day and who may not come back on one of those calls.

‘Ma’am please we have to go’ said one of the suited men.

‘Give me a moment’ I snapped at him, then directing my attention at Bilquees I said ‘I have to go but … I