The Rebel: The new crime thriller that will have you gripped in 2018. Jaime Raven

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СКАЧАТЬ all around her she watched as the bullets tore into her victims, spraying blood over the window and the white tablecloth between them.

      Both men hit the floor like bags of cement and she shot them several more times for good measure.

      Then she turned around and fired a few more rounds into the ceiling so that none of the customers or staff would be tempted to approach her.

      But she needn’t have worried because those who hadn’t already dashed out of the restaurant were cowering under the tables.

      Outside, she dropped the gun, mounted the bike, and with a screech of rubber she made her escape.

      It was another job well done and she was pleased with herself.

      Five minutes later she was back in the car, having removed the helmet and leather suit.

      She told Miguel that it had gone without a hitch and that the two Los Zetas enforcers were dead.

      ‘Carlos will be pleased,’ he said. ‘You did well. Now I will take you back to your hotel.’

      ‘I’m not going back yet,’ she said. ‘I want you to drop me off at a nightclub that you know will be lively tonight. I need to wind down.’

      His response to this was to laugh.

      ‘You are a strange one, Miss Lopez. I’ve never known anyone to want to party straight after committing murder.’

      Rosa ignored him and looked out the window. She didn’t need someone to tell her that she was strange. After all, anyone who made a living killing people could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be right in the head.

      But it was OK because she was happy with herself and life was good. She was never troubled by the constraints of a conscience or the burden of a moral compass. It made everything so much easier.

      When she was detained in a juvenile detention centre after her first murder she saw three counsellors and they all agreed that her traumatic childhood was to blame for her damaged soul – as if that hadn’t always been strikingly obvious.

      ‘There’s a nightclub I can recommend,’ Miguel said. ‘It’s always busy, especially in the run-up to Christmas.’

      ‘Then take me there,’ she said.

      On the way she phoned Carlos as arranged.

      ‘It’s done,’ she said. ‘You’ll have no more trouble from those two.’

      ‘You are a star, Rosa,’ he said. ‘I knew I could trust you not to let me down.’

      ‘I’ll stay over tonight and head back in the morning.’

      ‘Well, actually there’s been a change of plan,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a new assignment. It’s in London of all places and there’s a big bonus in it for you.’

      ‘How big?’

      ‘Half a million dollars.’

      ‘That’s a lot of money, Carlos.’

      ‘This job is special, Rosa. And you could be there for a while.’

      After he’d filled her in, she said, ‘I’ve always wanted to go to London. When do they want me there?’

      ‘Tomorrow. So you’ll need to get moving. We have a private jet on standby at Acapulco airport. Flight time to Mexico City is just over an hour. There’s a British Airways flight to London at eleven ten. A first class ticket’s been reserved. Think you can make it?’

      ‘Of course.’

      ‘Good. Then buy whatever you need at the airport or when you get there.’

      Rosa’s job for the cartel involved a lot of travel, usually within Mexico and the States. But in recent years she’d also had assignments in Canada, Columbia and Brazil. This would be her first trip to Europe and there was no way she was going to turn it down.

      ‘Call me when you’re in Mexico City and I’ll give you more details,’ Cruz said.

      After hanging up she told Miguel that she’d be going back to the hotel after all, but only to pack. She then wanted him to take her to the airport. A late night was now out of the question. She was disappointed, for sure, but that was the nature of the game she was in. Business always had to come before pleasure.

       8

      Laura

      I felt pretty good the next morning, so I was glad I hadn’t drunk too much the night before.

      It was another cold day and the sky over London was a nauseous grey.

      Aidan and I left the house together before heading in different directions. On the way to the tube station I popped into Sainsbury’s to get a card to mark the birth of Dave Prentiss’s baby. While there I noticed that Harry Fuller’s jail sentence featured on the front pages of most of the newspapers. The headlines made for pleasant reading:

       London gangster gets 30 years

       End of the road for Mr Big

       Crime boss set to die in prison

      I bought a copy of the Mail, which devoted two inside pages to the story. There was a detailed account of what was said in court, plus quotes from various people, including DCS Drummond, the Met Commissioner and the Mayor of London.

      There were also a couple of sidebar articles. One, written by the paper’s chief crime reporter, summarised Fuller’s criminal career and outlined the extent of his nefarious activities.

      The other focused on the task force and our previous successes investigating Paul Mason and the Severin brothers. It also made a carefully worded reference to our next target and threw caution to the wind by naming him.

       We understand the task force will now investigate several other high-profile individuals who’ve been linked to organised crime. Among them is businessman Roy Slack who runs a number of clubs, restaurants and import companies across London. He has always denied any involvement in criminal activities but has been interviewed by police on a number of occasions. Most recently he was questioned about the disappearance of firearms officer Hugh Wallis, who shot and killed a man during a raid several months ago. The man, Terry Malone, was a known criminal and was employed by Mr Slack …

      It was all positive publicity for us, I thought, and it was sure to make Slack and his people nervous.

      I wondered what extra precautions he’d be taking to protect himself and his businesses. Or would he believe that he was powerful enough and savvy enough to ride it out?

      After all, he’d managed to get away with it for so long. Year after year the Met had tried and failed to breach his defences. So maybe he’d actually come to believe that he was invincible.

      The thought of it made СКАЧАТЬ