wasn’t ready to surrender. In the last minute, he had gone from absolute certainty that his family had been murdered, to finding out they were unharmed and now, quite possibly, were about to fall victim to these men.
‘Who the fuck are you, Mike?’ his voice rasped.
‘We’re the good guys Andy, the good guys, trust me,’ the American replied, sounding short of breath, recovering from the pursuit.
‘He said there were men outside after our daughter,’ said Jenny.
‘He?’ replied Mike. ‘Who?’
Andy looked at her.
‘He was here moments ago, on the stairs. He said he’d come to protect Leona. I told him to stay where he was . . .’ Her voice faltered. ‘. . . But he didn’t listen . . . I fired . . . and then he ran away.’
‘Andy,’ said Mike. ‘They are here, they know where she is. You’ve got to trust me now.’
Andy kept the gun levelled.
‘Look, if we wanted your daughter dead, I wouldn’t be talking with you right now - we’d already be stepping over your bodies and on our way inside. Think about it.’
From the top of the stairs, Andy heard Jacob calling out.
‘Is Daddy home?’
CHAPTER 86
10.25 p.m. GMT Shepherd’s Bush, London
They sat together in the ransacked lounge, illuminated only by a couple of scented candles Jenny had found in a kitchen drawer. Andy and his family were gathered together on Jill’s leather sofa, slashed and stained, and Mike sat opposite them on the one wooden kitchen chair that hadn’t been smashed to pieces.
‘There’s some fresh blood at the bottom of the stairs. I think you hit something,’ he said.
‘He just kept coming closer,’ whispered Jenny.
‘You did the right thing,’ Mike replied. ‘If you had let him come another step closer you and your children would be . . .’ He looked at Jacob’s wide-eyed expression. ‘Well, he would have acquired his target.’
‘Me?’ muttered Leona.
Mike nodded.
Andy shook his head. ‘Look Mike, if that’s really your name—’
The American smiled, ‘Mike’s my first name, yeah.’
‘I really don’t know who the hell you are now; I thought I did, back in Iraq . . . but I haven’t got a clue now. All I know is that some very powerful bastards want my girl. Who are they Mike? And for that matter where do you,’ he shot a glance at one of Mike’s men standing guard in the hallway, ‘and your sidekicks, fit into all of this?’
‘I can tell you a lot more about us than I can about them,’ he replied. ‘Which is why your daughter is so important to us.’
‘Let’s start with you then.’
Mike shrugged. ‘I work for an . . . let’s call it an agency. A small operation, once upon a time part of the FBI, that was a long time ago. Now we’re privately funded, which allows us to stay off the radar. We do one thing in this agency Andy, just one thing . . . we try to find them.’ He stroked his beard as he considered how to continue.
‘They . . . they . . . don’t even have a name; they’re that smart. They don’t have a logo, or a motto, they don’t have a headquarters, they don’t reside in any particular country, they don’t have any political allegiance, or ideology; they are just wealth and influence. They’re a club. We . . . my little agency was set up forty years ago Andy, in 1963 to be precise, after this club decided they’d put the wrong man in the White House.’
‘My God . . . Kennedy?’
Mike nodded. ‘It was his brother, Robert, that put us together in the aftermath. And that’s why the bastards nailed him too. And we’ve had to operate off the grid since then.’
‘Shit,’ Andy whispered.
‘Yeah. Eight years ago you did some work for a bunch of very dangerous and powerful people. Breaking through the secrecy around them has been virtually impossible. In forty years we’ve learned little more than they number 160 members, and twelve who make the big decisions.’
‘You must have an idea who these people are, right?’
‘We can guess. That’s pretty much all we’ve been able to do. We’ve only ever had one informant; if you’re up on European politics you’d probably recognise the name . . . he talked to us twice, briefly, before they got to him.’ He looked briefly from Andy to Leona.
‘And then we come to you two,’ he sighed. ‘Andy, you did business with Them - you actually dealt directly with the Twelve. Did you have