Lethal Business Read online

  Lethal Business

  By W. Soliman

  Book three of The Hunter Files.

  Why kill the survivors of a sinking ship?

  A speeding boat rams a life raft, leaving no survivors. A man embroiled in an investigation of potential suicide bombers disappears…

  Retired inspector Charlie Hunter’s belief that the two events are related leads him to accept a job working a charter between England and France. The only way to find out the truth is to be the man on the inside.

  But Charlie’s life is at risk on the rough Channel. All is not as it seems on the shifting seas, and some players are holding secrets that will change the game…and the sunken life raft is the key.

  Go back to the beginning with Unfinished Business, available now!

  87,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  It’s a known truth among the people who have to nag me to meet the deadline on these letters that I get writer’s block when I sit down to write them. I’m always excited to tell you about what’s in store for the month, but I often get stuck figuring out how to start it off. So these letters are always late (sorry, people in production!). I had particularly bad writer’s block this month, so I was especially impressed when I realized that this March, all of the authors with books releasing at Carina Press have written multiple books, and many of them have long careers in writing. How do these authors do it, writing multiple books a year, for years, creating new worlds, new characters and unique stories? It’s amazing to me, even after ten years in this industry, that there are people with this gift. And I’ll admit it, I’m a little jealous they have that gift. But I’m thrilled to introduce you to the books releasing this month from these incredible authors.

  I know it’s a little past Valentine’s Day, but it’s always time for chocolate and romance, and Christi Barth brings us both in A Fine Romance, the second contemporary romance in her Aisle Bound series. And if you missed the first book, Planning for Love, make sure to grab that as well!

  We have six! other authors joining Christi with sequels. Lynda Aicher heats up the pages with an emotionally gripping, smokin’ hot BDSM romance, Bonds of Need. Dee Carney also offers up lust and love in one package in her erotic paranormal romance sequel, Hunger Awakened.

  Veteran author Vivi Anna brings us The League of Illusion: Prophecy, a steampunk romance with an illusionist, a hunt for a missing brother, an incomplete map and a psychic! Relative newcomer Nicole Luiken follows up her debut fantasy romance, Gate to Kandrith, with the second in this duology and the conclusion to the story, Soul of Kandrith.

  R.L. Naquin offers the sequel to Monster in My Closet, her debut novel. In Pooka in My Pantry, empath Zoey Donovan is marked for pickup by Death. But when she refuses to die on schedule, she has a to-die-for reaper to deal with. And watch the battle of wills between a female gunship pilot and a combat controller hero in romantic suspense Tactical Strike by Kaylea Cross. Kaylea’s first book in this series, Deadly Descent, remains one of Carina Press readers’ favorite romantic suspenses!

  Alyssa Everett follows up her debut offering, Ruined by Rumor, with a new historical romance, though it’s not a sequel. In Lord of Secrets, he’s her new husband…and he’s strangely reluctant to consummate the marriage. What secrets are keeping them apart, and keeping him from her bed? If you like your historical romance with a paranormal twist, returning author Laura Navarre brings us Magick by Moonrise, which combines Tudor England with the Faerie kingdom of Camelot. When the two worlds collide, can a fallen angel’s passion for an innocent Faerie princess save both realms from destruction?

  Carina Press authors W. Soliman and Cindy Spencer Pape both return with installments in their ongoing series. In Lethal Business, W. Soliman brings us back to The Hunter Files with another Charlie Hunter mystery, where Charlie must answer the question: “Why kill the survivors of a sinking ship?” And Cindy Spencer Pape continues her popular steampunk romance series, The Gaslight Chronicles, with Cards & Caravans. Knight of the Round Table Connor MacKay has met his match in fortune-teller Belinda Danvers.

  Last, this month we welcome to Carina Press contemporary romance author Kate Davies with the first in her Girls Most Likely to… trilogy, Most Likely to Succeed. Though Kate is new to Carina, she and I have worked together as author/editor for years, and I’m happy to have her writing for Carina Press. I hope you enjoy Kate’s charming contemporary voice as much as I do.

  We love to hear from readers, and you can email us your thoughts, comments and questions to [email protected]. You can also interact with Carina Press staff and authors on our blog, Twitter stream and Facebook fan page.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  www.carinapress.com

  www.twitter.com/carinapress

  www.facebook.com/carinapress

  Acknowledgements

  As always I am deeply indebted to my talented editor, Deborah Nemeth, without whom mixed metaphors and misplaced commas would abound in this novel. Thanks also to the entire team at Carina Press for their help in bringing this latest Charlie Hunter book to life.

  Author’s Note

  In the United Kingdom there are two main political parties, Labour and Conservative (Tories). The third party, Liberal Democrats, only ever taste power in the event that one of the two main parties doesn’t win an overall majority, when they’re called upon to form a coalition.

  The British National Party (BNP) referred to in this novel are an extreme right-wing party that actually did gain support on the back of the immigration issue. During a recent election campaign their leader was invited to guest on Question Time, a respected political television show, causing great controversy.

  The English Patriotic Party (EPP) is fictional.

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  The sea lapped against the boat’s hull as though it were almost too much effort. I leaned on the guardrail and breathed deeply, filling my lungs with moist, tangy air. The surreal post-dawn tranquillity seeped into my bones, heightening my appreciation for the simple things in life. I gazed at the sea, a dozen different shades of turquoise reflected in its torpid surface, thinking ab
out all the stuff I’d learned—or rather hadn’t—during my trip to France.

  The shrill urgency of a Mayday call crackled loud and intrusive across the airwaves, abruptly shattering my mellow mood. I scurried back to the wheelhouse to establish the precise nature of the emergency, not unduly worried because I doubted there actually was one.

  “Some idiot’s probably run out of fuel,” I muttered, glancing at the flat, calm sea.

  As it transpired, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is the motor vessel Mistral, a 62-foot Azimut, current position...”

  The caller reeled off his compass location. I checked the coordinates against my GPS and identified the boat in question as the closer of the two vessels I had visual contact with about five miles off my starboard bow. Their location explained why I’d been able to pick up their transmission so clearly. An adrenalin rush flooded my veins.

  “We’re bound for Dover, but have an uncontainable fire in our engine room.”

  Fire! My core temperature dropped several degrees. Boats might be surrounded by water, but fire was still one of the most feared shipboard catastrophes. A lot of craft had automatic fire extinguishers in their engine rooms for precisely that reason. If the vessel in trouble was fitted out with the appropriate fire-fighting gear, they obviously weren’t using it. I pondered on that and missed some of the vital details that were supposed to be included in an emergency broadcast—such as how many people were on board, and whether anyone had incurred life-threatening injuries.

  But then again, perhaps I hadn’t. As an ex-copper, I’m used to listening to panicked accounts from victims of accidents or violent crimes. I’d developed a sort of sixth sense over the years for separating vital information from all the garbled excess. I was pretty sure Mistral hadn’t broadcast that information, which didn’t altogether surprise me. It’s all very well practising these things, but when it’s for real it’s a different story. Thankfully I’d never been in that situation so I wouldn’t know. Still, faced with the prospect of abandoning ship and bobbing about in a flimsy life raft, at the mercy of whatever the elements decided to throw at you until help arrived, following correct procedures probably didn’t seem all that vital.

  I reached for the microphone attached to my shipboard radio, and depressed the transmit button.

  “Mistral, this is the motor trawler No Comment,” I said calmly. “I’m five miles off your port bow. How serious is your situation? Over.”

  “Critical, we can’t contain the fire.”

  I didn’t waste time asking about fire extinguishers. If they had them, presumably they’d be using them. Trailing the long microphone cord behind me, I grabbed my binoculars and went out to the Portuguese bridge to better assess the situation. The enclosed walkway around my wheelhouse enabled me to step outside and still be protected from the elements.

  When I trained the glasses upon Mistral, I realised that what I’d mistaken for early-morning sea mist a few minutes before was, in fact, smoke. Light grey when I first saw it, it was now a thick, heavy black cloud of pollution billowing above the Azimut. The boat had clearly lost all power and was dead in the water. I did a quick mental calculation, wondering how best I could help them. Even at my top speed of eight knots—nine if the currents were being kind—it would still take me half an hour to cover the five miles separating us.

  Then I remembered that there was another boat out there, just a few miles away from Mistral. I looked at it through the glasses and immediately felt reassured. It was a cigarette boat, so it could reach them in a matter of minutes. Such boats were first used to smuggle cigarettes into Canada, hence the name, and are now a familiar part of the offshore powerboat racing scene. With engines capable of producing speeds of up to eighty knots on calm seas—such as today’s—this boat was the answer to Mistral’s prayers. No tankers or container ships were close enough to pick up Mistral’s distress call, but even if they had been, they’d have taken at least as long as me to reach her.

  Back in the wheelhouse, I pushed the throttle controlling my single engine fully forward, setting a course directly for Mistral’s position. I didn’t immediately speak to them again, keeping the airwaves clear for the cigarette to offer her services.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps they were asleep with the radio turned off. That would be foolish, given that they were in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, but it’d been known to happen. In England, anyone could buy a boat and put to sea without knowing the first thing about the rules of the sea, to say nothing of boat handling or safety procedures. Unbelievably, some people actually did that—mostly young males with money to burn and inadequacies to make up for.

  The type who bought fast boats like cigarettes.

  I checked that my throttle was set at maximum, trying not to mind that the rev counter was reading dangerously high, placing my precious engine in danger of overheating. I’d never get to Mistral in time if their situation was as serious as they’d implied, but couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least give it a go.

  “Mistral, this is No Comment. There’s a vessel just off your starboard beam. Do you have visual contact? Over.”

  “We see them but they’re not responding.”

  “Try letting off a flare,” I suggested. “They obviously have their radio off, but they might hear or see the flare.”

  “No time,” said the panic-filled voice. “We’re abandoning ship.”

  “Do you have an EPIRB?” Some boats carried an emergency positioning beacon that transmitted a signal to the nearest satellite, alerting the Coastguard when a vessel was in trouble, giving them its precise coordinates. Presumably, if they did, they would have activated it, but people have been known to forget the most basic things when in panic situations.

  “Yes, but we can’t get it to work.”

  “How many of you are on board?” There was no response, so I assumed they hadn’t heard me and repeated the question. “Mistral, I say again, how many of you are on board? Over.”

  “Oh, er...ten.”

  “I’m heading your way, Mistral, but it’ll take me thirty minutes to get there.”

  Before Mistral could respond, the reassuring tones of the Dover Coastguard cut into the broadcast. I’d been wondering why they hadn’t done so earlier. At ten miles or so off the English coast, they must have picked up the Mayday. They’d obviously been waiting to see if I could get to the scene of the disaster before them but, presumably, had launched the lifeboat in the interim.

  “Mistral, this is Dover Coastguard. We’re launching the lifeboat.” I nodded my approval, glad of their calmly competent approach. “ETA ten minutes. Can you isolate the fire and remain on board that long? Over.”

  “Negative. Our situation is critical. We’re abandoning ship now.”

  “Understood. No Comment, request you maintain your course in case you’re needed. Over.”

  “Dover, No Comment. Will do.”

  “Mistral, Dover Coastguard. Launch your life raft and we’ll pick you up in nine-and-a-half minutes.”

  “We copy that, Dover.”

  I decided to let off a flare myself, even though the rescue services would soon be on the scene. Technically only a vessel in trouble should use a flare, but I was obviously dealing with a bunch of idiots on the cigarette, so unorthodox action was called for. There was a slim possibility they might see it and finally wake up to the fact that they could actually do
something to help.

  I went out onto the Portuguese bridge again, to the locker where I kept the emergency equipment, and took another look through the binoculars. I could see the life raft, webbing strap attached to the guardrail, being thrown over the side. As it hit the water, the pressure being exerted on the strap was supposed to make the craft automatically inflate. Given the state of Mistral’s fire-fighting equipment and EPIRB, I wasn’t holding my breath.

  This time something went right for the poor devils, and as soon as the flimsy life raft hit the sea’s surface, it unfurled as gracefully as a blossoming flower. A number of people, all wearing fluorescent life jackets, scrambled into it. There didn’t appear to be any order about the evacuation. Blind panic had taken over. Hardly surprising since flames were now visible leaping from the boat’s mid-section. I counted ten people, barely discernible through the thickening smoke, relieved they’d all made it into a raft that looked as though it was only intended for six.

  I blinked in confusion as another figure hurled himself into it, and another two after him. None of these late arrivals wore life jackets. I scratch my head, concluding that the mayhem had caused me to miscount. It was difficult to see exactly what was going on. With my boat moving at maximum speed I couldn’t hold the binoculars steady. The life raft was dangerously overloaded, as its low position in the water attested, but if they could just hang on they’d soon be rescued.

  They had to be terrified, and I felt like a spare part just watching them, immobilised by my lack of speed. I fired up my wing engine—the small auxiliary I use when parking the boat—which afforded me another precious knot of speed. There was absolutely nothing more I could do to help. I tried calling them on the radio again, just to make sure they were hanging in there.

  Boats are supposed to keep what’s known as a grab bag for emergency situations. Such bags contain bottled water, high-energy snacks, blankets, basic first aid equipment, flares and, crucially, a hand-held radio and spare batteries. Either Mistral didn’t have such a bag or, more likely, they’d forgotten about it in their anxiety to get clear of the stricken craft. Whatever the reason, my call went unanswered.