The Accident Man Read Free

GCHQ. She had just spotted an item she knew her masters would covet. But when she picked up the phone, the number she dialed had nothing to do with Her Majesty’s government.
    The line was encrypted at a level even Echelon could not decode. This call would never be overheard. “Consortium,” a man’s voice answered.
    “I have a message from the corporate communications department,” said Towthorp. “There’s something the chairman needs to know.”
    Towthorp was put straight through.
     
2
     
    They came for Carver in the morning. He’d got the call the night before, just as he was turning out the gas lantern that provided the only illumination in his mountain hut.
    “Carver,” he’d said, not bothering to disguise his irritation as the GSM phone shrieked for his attention.
    There were no formalities or introductions from the voice on the other end of the line with its flat Thames Estuary accent. “Where are ya?”
    “On holiday, Max. Not working. I think you know that.”
    “I know what you’re doing, Carver. I just dunno where you’re doing it.”
    “Guess what, there was a reason I didn’t tell you.”
    “Well, I may have a job for you.”
    “No.”
    Max ignored him. “Listen, I’ll know for sure within the next twelve hours. If it happens, trust me, we’ll make it worth your while interrupting your holidays. Three million dollars, U.S., paid into the usual account. You can have a nice long break after that.”
    “I see,” said Carver, flatly. “And if I refuse?”
    “Then my advice would be, stay on your holiday. And don’t come back. It’s your choice.”
    Carver wasn’t bothered by the implied physical threat. But he didn’t want to lose his major client. This was his job. It was what he did best. And no matter how often he thought about packing it in, he still didn’t want a competitor taking his work. One day, maybe soon, he would be ready to quit, but it would be on his terms, at a time of his own choosing.
    “New Zealand,” he said.
    He cursed to himself as he turned off the phone and put it back on the bare wooden table that stood next to the steel-and-canvas bed frame where he’d laid his sleeping bag.
     
     
    Samuel Carver had the lean, spare look of a professional fighter. His dark brown hair was cut short. A dozen years in the Royal Marines and the Special Boat Service had left his face etched and weather-beaten. A fierce determination was evident in his strong, dark brow, bisected by a single, deep concentration line. Yet his clear green eyes suggested that his physical intensity was always guided by a calm, almost chilly intelligence.
    He tried to rationalize what he did as a form of pest control, unpleasant but necessary. After the Visar job he’d looked, as he always did, for a place where he could wind down and try to clear his mind of what he knew but did not want to admit: that every additional killing, no matter how many lives it saved, no matter how logically it could be justified, added a little more to the corrosion of his soul.
    He’d ended up on the far side of the world, in the Two Thumb Mountains of New Zealand’s South Island. Aeons ago, when all the continents of the earth were one, the Two Thumbs had been part of the same chain as the Peruvian Andes and the California Sierras. The mountains had moved several thousand miles since then, but not much else had changed. There were no nightclubs, restaurants, or chalet girls; no newspapers or TV, no lifts, instructors, or nursery slopes. For Carver that was the whole point.
    He had come in search of absolute solitude, an existence pared away to its simplest elements. He wanted to purge the shadow of death from his mind with raw speed, physical sweat, empty sky, blinding sun, air and snow as cold and pure as vodka straight from the freezer. He hadn’t shaved in a week. He hadn’t washed much, either. He probably stank like a rhino. Why worry? It had been a long time since there’d been anyone to smell good