Eagle Strike Read Free

in Saint-Pierre apart from beaches, campsites, too many restaurants and an oversized church that looked more like a fortress. It had taken Alex a week to get used to the quiet charm of the place. And now this!
    “Alex? What are you looking at?” Sabina murmured, and Alex had to force himself to turn round, to remember that she was there.
    “I‟m…” The words wouldn‟t come. He didn‟t know what to say.
    “Do you think you could rub a little more suncream into my back? I‟m overheating…”
    That was Sabina. Slim, dark-haired, and sometimes much older than her fifteen years. But then she was the sort of girl who had probably swapped toys for boys before she hit eleven. Although she was using factor 25, she seemed to need more suncream rubbed in every fifteen minutes, and somehow it was always Alex who had to do it for her. He glanced quickly at her back, which was in fact perfectly bronzed. She was wearing a bikini made out of so little material that it hadn‟t bothered with a pattern. Her eyes were covered by a pair of fake Dior sunglasses (which she had bought for a tenth of the price of the real thing) and she had her head buried in The Lord of the Rings, at the same time waving the suncream.
    Alex looked back at the yacht. Yassen was shaking hands with the bald man. The deckhand was standing near by, waiting. Even at this distance Alex could see that Yassen was very much in charge; that when he spoke, the two men listened. Alex had once seen Yassen shoot a man dead just for dropping a package. There was still an extraordinary coldness about him that seemed to neutralize even the Mediterranean sun. The strange thing was that there were very few people in the world who would have been able to recognize the Russian. Alex was one of them. Could Yassen‟s being here have something to do with him?
    “Alex…?” Sabina said.
    The three men moved away from the boat, heading into the town. Suddenly Alex was on his feet.
    “I‟ll be right back,” he said.
    “Where are you going?”
    “I need a drink.”
    “I‟ve got water.”
    “No, I want a Coke.”
    Even as he swept up his T-shirt and pulled it over his head, Alex knew that this was not a good idea. Yassen Gregorovich might have come to the Camargue because he wanted a holiday. He might have come to murder the local mayor. Either way, it had nothing to do with Alex and it would be crazy to get involved with Yassen again. Alex remembered the promise he had made the last time they had met, on a rooftop in central London.
    You killed Ian Rider. One day I‟ll kill you.
    At the time he had meant it—but that had been then. Right now he didn‟t want anything to do with Yassen or the world he represented.

    And yet…
    Yassen was here. He had to know why.
    The three men were walking along the main road, following the line of the sea. Alex doubled back across the sand, passing the white concrete bullring that had struck him as bizarre when he‟d first come here—until he had remembered that he was only about a hundred miles from Spain. There was to be a bullfight tonight. People were already queuing at the tiny windows to buy tickets, but he and Sabina had decided they would keep well clear. “I hope the bull wins,”
    had been Sabina‟s only comment.
    Yassen and the two men turned left, disappearing into the town centre. Alex quickened his pace, knowing how easy it would be to lose them in the tangle of lanes and alleyways that surrounded the church. He didn‟t have to be too careful about being seen. Yassen thought he was safe. It was unlikely that, in a crowded holiday resort, he would notice anyone following him. But with Yassen you never knew. Alex felt his heart thumping with every step he took. His mouth was dry, and for once it wasn‟t the sun that was to blame.
    Yassen had gone. Alex looked left and right. There were people crowding in on him from all sides, pouring out of the shops and into the open-air restaurants that were already serving