Bad Turn Read online

  One bad turn…deserves another.

  Charlie has quit her job in close protection, been turned out of her apartment, and is apparently out of luck.

  House-sitting in rural New Jersey has to be the pits—TV and TV dinners. A far cry from Iraq... Bulgaria... Afghanistan.

  Unlucky or not, she happens to be around at the right time to foil a violent kidnap attempt on Helena, wife of billionaire arms dealer, Eric Kincaid.

  Kincaid offers her a job looking after Helena. The rumours about Kincaid’s business empire say he’s gone over to the dark side, but Charlie is in no position to be fussy. And protecting people against those who want to do them harm is what she’s good at. But when the threats against the Kincaids escalate, and then follow the couple over to Europe, Charlie’s really going to have to up her game. It’s time to take the fight to the enemy.

  Charlie’s at her best putting an end to trouble. Now she must learn to strike first. And hope that the Kincaids don’t discover the secret she’s been keeping from them, right from the start.

  BAD TURN

  Charlie Fox #13

  Zoë Sharp

  Also by Zoë Sharp

  the Charlie Fox series

  KILLER INSTINCT: book one

  RIOT ACT: book two

  HARD KNOCKS: book three

  A TRIPLE SHOT OF CHARLIE FOX: e-box set

  FIRST DROP: book four

  ROAD KILL: book five

  SECOND SHOT: book six

  ANOTHER ROUND OF CHARLIE FOX: e-box set

  THIRD STRIKE: book seven

  FOURTH DAY: book eight

  FIFTH VICTIM: book nine

  DIE EASY: book ten

  ABSENCE OF LIGHT: book eleven

  FOX HUNTER: book twelve

  BAD TURN: book thirteen

  TRIAL UNDER FIRE: prequel (Coming soon)

  FOX FIVE RELOADED: short story collection (Coming soon)

  standalones

  THE BLOOD WHISPERER

  AN ITALIAN JOB (with John Lawton)

  DANCING ON THE GRAVE

  For more information on Zoë Sharp’s writing,

  see her website: www.ZoeSharp.com

  Praise for Zoë Sharp

  ‘Scarily good.’ Lee Child

  ‘Sharp is part of a very small group of writers who actually talks the talk and walks the walk. She really knows this stuff and so when she writes it, it feels more real than most non-fiction books. Sharp deserves a genre all her own.’ Jon Jordan, CrimeSpree Magazine

  ‘Zoë Sharp is one of the sharpest, coolest, and most intriguing writers I know. She delivers dramatic, action-packed novels with characters we really care about.’ Harlan Coben, bestselling author of TELL NO ONE

  ‘Male and female crime fiction readers alike will find Sharp’s writing style addictively readable.’ Paul Goat Allen, Chicago Tribune

  ‘Zoë Sharp is a master at writing thoughtful action thrillers,’ Meg Gardiner, bestselling author of UNSUB

  ‘This is hard-edged fiction at its best.’ Michele Leber, Booklist starred review for FIFTH VICTIM

  ‘I loved every word of this brilliant, mind-twisting thriller and even yelped out loud at one of the genius twists.’ bestselling author Elizabeth Haynes on THE BLOOD WHISPERER

  ‘Sharp is a writer of extraordinary skill.’ Maggie Mason, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, Rating A

  ‘Superb.’ Ken Bruen, bestselling author of the Jack Taylor series, THE GUARDS, BLITZ

  ‘Zoë Sharp has an apt last name. She delivers yet another sleek, sharp thriller.’ David Morrell, bestselling author of FIRST BLOOD

  ‘If you don't like Zoë Sharp there's something wrong with you. Go and live in a cave and get the hell out of my gene pool! There are few writers who go right to the top of my TBR pile—Zoë Sharp is one of them.’ Stuart MacBride, bestselling author of the Logan McRae series

  ‘Well, holy sh*tballs! What a book!...an intense, compelling and totally engrossing read.’ Noelle Holten, CrimeBookJunkie, 5/5 on FOX HUNTER

  1

  I don’t like surprises. More often than not, they’re the nasty kind and experience has primed me to react accordingly. Jump out of a cupboard with a birthday cake or a bottle of champagne when I’m not expecting a party, and you’re liable to get smacked in the mouth.

  Up until a couple of months ago—back when I still had a job that came with both the requirement and the authorisation to go armed most of the time—I might even have shot you. These days I have to improvise with whatever is at hand.

  On a backwoods route in rural New Jersey, all I had at hand was the old GMC pick-up I was driving, when I rounded the next bend and stumbled into a full-blown ambush.

  I had only a split second to take in the scene. A Lincoln Town Car, incongruous outside of the city, sat halfway onto the dirt shoulder, nose-down at an angle, its chauffeur-black paintwork speckled with bullet hits. Two dark SUVs had been slewed across the narrow road in either direction, effectively boxing-in their target.

  Three men were using the SUV closest to me for cover. I marked them as aggressors from the body armour and assault weapons. The two men I could see near the Lincoln both wore ordinary suits. They were doing their best to repel the attack with semi-automatic pistols. A losing bet, whichever way you squared it.

  My right hand had snaked toward the small of my back before I remembered I didn’t have a weapon of my own.

  The moment I appeared, two of the men crouched behind the SUV stopped pouring fire into the stricken Lincoln and switched their aim to me. Nothing personal, I figured, just standard operating procedure—leave no witness behind. The third man didn’t flicker. He stayed on target, trusting his pals to deal with the new threat.

  Which meant I was dealing with pros.

  I braked hard and just had time to duck down behind the pick-up’s dash before the first rounds punched through the windscreen. They thudded into the back of my seat where my head had been, moments earlier.

  Yeah, definitely bloody pros.

  Well, if they were playing for keeps, so was I.

  I jammed my foot onto the accelerator again, heard the heavy V8 growl in response, the steering wheel vibrating under my hands as the transmission kicked down a gear. For once, I was glad I wasn’t on a motorcycle as all four tyres bit and the front end of the vehicle lifted.

  Sprawled across the front seats, I braced as much as I could. A second later, we smashed into the driver’s side of the SUV. The pick-up’s airbags deployed with an explosive whumph. It almost drowned out the shriek of graunching steel and breaking glass, ending with a scream chopped short by a soggy thump.

  I pivoted onto my back and kicked the airbag out of the way. It was already beginning to deflate but the driver’s door was bent and buckled. I scrambled for the passenger door, which had suffered less in the crash. It opened at once. I spilled out onto the road and rolled to my feet, keeping low.

  More by luck than design, I’d struck the SUV directly amidships, ripping the driver’s door off its hinges and tenting the roof as the pick-up buried its front bull bars deep into the B pillar. The driver had been using his part-open door as a firing position and I realised he was the reason for that wet thump. I forced myself to remember he’d been aiming for my head…

  One down.

  The gunman towards the rear of the SUV had come off better, but not by much. The nearside front corner of the pick-up was embedded in his door. The man—muscles, buzz-cut, olive skin, clean-shaven—was now pinned between door and frame at the chest. He flailed weakly, eyes screwed shut in pain and shock.

  I leapt for the weapon already dropping from his grasp—a Colt M4 carbine. I’d seen plenty of those over the years. I jerked it out of his weakened grip and slammed the stock into the side of his skull just below his left ear. The blo
w cannoned his head into the roof of the SUV and he slumped.

  Two down.

  I spun with the M4 pulled up into my shoulder, looking to acquire the front-seat passenger, but he had dropped from sight.

  Rounds zinged past me. I didn’t wait to confirm if they were fired by the occupants of the other SUV in retaliation. For all I knew, the two guys from the Lincoln were taking no chances, either.

  I flung myself behind the SUV’s rear tyre, which at least offered a little protection from stray rounds passing underneath the vehicle, took a breath and checked the M4’s thirty-round magazine. It was about two-thirds full. Could be worse.

  Behind me, the pick-up’s engine had dropped to tickover now, patient as a dozing cab horse waiting for the return fare. So, it ran, but I had no idea if it would still drive. A puddle was forming around the front end, and at first I thought I’d busted the radiator until I realised the fluid was not the piss-yellow of coolant but instead a dark, sticky red. I looked away.

  On the far side of the vehicle, the firefight continued. I didn’t stick my head up to see who was winning. Instead, I dropped to my belly and squinted through the darkened slot between the SUV and the road.

  The first thing I saw was the body of the driver. He’d fallen partly on the ground and partly back into the vehicle, the M4 close to his open hand. His leg was badly broken, the knee joint operating in reverse. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead, but he was certainly unconscious or he would have been screaming.

  Beyond him, the twin yellow stripes of the road’s centre-line led directly to the other SUV. I could see part of the passenger side, the lower edge of an open door and the legs of one of the attackers from about mid-calf downwards, booted feet braced.

  I dropped my eye to the M4’s optical sight, right thumb feeling for the safety lever and flicking it to three-round burst as I did so. Another breath, trying to slow my heart rate, steady my aim.

  I squeezed the trigger, stitching across the man’s ankles. Half a dozen rounds spat from the barrel in the time it took me to release my finger. What the—?

  I swore under my breath and flicked the safety back to single shot, knowing I didn’t have that kind of ammo to waste. My target was already falling back inside the vehicle.

  One of the men shouted but I didn’t catch what he said. I couldn’t even swear to the language he used.

  I squirmed sideways, tried to get a bead on the other men from the second SUV. They were staying out of sight. A moment later, the vehicle took off backwards, performed a pretty creditable J-turn, and disappeared around the next bend in the road, engine screaming.

  A deafening silence greeted its departure.

  2

  “Hey, you in the Lincoln—I’m coming out,” I shouted, loud above the ringing in my ears. “I’m here to help. So, don’t shoot me, OK?”

  Nothing.

  I rose cautiously, ready to duck down again at the first sign of movement, never mind trouble. Still nothing.

  So far, so good…

  I edged out around the back end of the SUV, flicking my eyes across the fallen driver as I did so. Yup, he was definitely dead. Nevertheless, I toed his M4 a little further away from his hand. Old habits.

  The front passenger door of the Lincoln stood open, but there was no sign of the guy in the suit who’d been standing next to it when I first appeared.

  I stepped round the rear of the car, eyes everywhere. I was still keeping the M4 up into my shoulder but let the muzzle drop a fraction in an attempt to convey, if not friendliness, then at least a little less outright hostility.

  The driver of the Lincoln was down and appeared dead, something I confirmed with two fingers against the side of his neck. I swore under my breath—I hated getting shot at without affecting the outcome. As I started to rise, I caught a glimpse of something inside the back of the car. When I yanked open the rear door, I found a woman on the back seat, huddled into the corner as far away from me as she could get. A man was crumpled up on the floor, wedged between the front and rear seats. The legroom was generous in a Town Car, but he was a big guy and it was a tight fit.

  “No closer!” the woman snapped, grabbing my attention as much by the iced fury in her tone as by the 9mm suddenly in her hands. Something cold pooled at the base of my skull.

  Shit...rookie mistake. I should have been paying her more attention from the start. I rectified that now—better late than never. She was small, with a Mediterranean complexion that tanned easily. Her hair was ashy blonde, about shoulder length, a tribute to her hairdresser’s art. The gun looked too big for her hands but I could tell by her grip that it wasn’t her first time. Her clothes were obviously expensive—they went with the car. She wore gold rings on both hands and a watch studded in diamonds.

  Slowly, I lifted my left hand away from the stock of the M4, palm open and fingers spread placatingly.

  “I’m here to help,” I repeated. “Are you injured?”

  For a moment the woman stared at me almost without comprehension. She made the slightest motion with her head, which I took to mean no. The man on the floor of the car shifted a little then, groaning. It seemed to twitch her back to right here, right now, and took the last of the fight out of her.

  “My God,” she said shakily, lowering the gun. “Illya!”

  “He needs treatment.” I put the M4 down outside the car, but still within reach, and knelt half inside. The man she’d called Illya had a pulse but it was weak and erratic. “Do you have a phone? If so, you should call for help.”

  She nodded, eyes still on the big man as I began to loosen his clothing enough to find out where he was hit. There was nothing visible on his head or back and I struggled to turn him in the confined space.

  When I finally managed to roll him onto his side, I saw the front of his shirt was soaked with blood. Good job the interior of the Lincoln was all black, or it would have looked like a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie in there.

  I pulled a knife out of my jeans pocket, flipped it open and sliced the shirt up the centre, ignoring the buttons. I used the remnants to wipe a path and found entry wounds in his shoulder, chest and stomach. All were bleeding faster than I could clear them.

  “Do you carry a first-aid kit?”

  The woman shrugged helplessly. “I–I don’t know.”

  “OK. In that case, do you have sanitary towels on you?”

  The woman, fumbling in a large Louis Vuitton handbag, looked up at me as if I’d grown another head.

  “Wha—?”

  I bit back a curse. “Sanitary napkins—pads? Whatever the hell you want to call them. Or tampons? Anything.”

  She reached into the bag again, pulled out a discreet drawstring bag and handed it over without a word. I looked inside and found half a dozen slim tampons.

  I smiled my thanks, ripped the wrapping off one, teased out the strings, and inserted it into the first of Illya’s bullet wounds with great care. He seemed too far out of it to notice or care. Gradually, they expanded to plug the wound and the flow slowed to an ooze. He might not make it, even so, but at least he wouldn’t die of blood loss before they could get him to a hospital.

  When I finished and sat back on my heels, I found the woman staring at me again but with less suspicion this time.

  She had a smartphone with a huge screen pressed against the side of her face, making her appear all the smaller by comparison. “I never would have thought of…” she began, voice sombre. “How did you know what to use?”

  “It doesn’t matter what you use, as long as it’s absorbent and sterile.”

  She looked about to say more, but ducked her head as the other end of the line was finally picked up. “It’s me,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “Trouble. You will know where. No, I’m OK! But…hurry.” And she ended the call, stabbing at the screen with a thumb that had started to tremble.

  “Well, either you have a really close relationship with the local cops around here,” I said, “or I’m guessing th
at wasn’t them you’ve just called.”

  She didn’t answer.

  I sighed and nodded to Illya. “I hope you have just as close a relationship with a local trauma surgeon as well, otherwise your guy here isn’t going to make it.”

  “He will take care of him,” she said, without going into specifics.

  I shrugged, doing another scan of the surrounding area. We were lucky nobody else had arrived on-scene in the meantime, but this area to the far west of New Jersey was farming country and sparsely populated. As long as it remained beyond an easy train ride into Manhattan, it was likely to remain that way.

  I nodded to the open front passenger door. “Where’s the other guy?”

  She frowned for a moment, following my gaze. “Ah, I had only two men with me. Illya got in back with me when he was wounded…to give me his weapon.”

  I glanced at the wounded man with renewed respect. He’d lived up to the slang term for bodyguard—bullet catcher. Now all he had to do was survive the experience.

  Minutes later, I heard a thudding engine note over the top of the faithful GMC, which was still ticking over on the other side of the wrecked SUV. I climbed out of the Lincoln and checked the road in both directions. For the moment, I left the M4 propped against the rear tyre, close by but not actually in my hands. No point in asking for more trouble than I probably had already.

  A shadow flitted across the sun overhead, and the branches of the trees began to shiver. I looked up, shielding my eyes against the light above the canopy, just as the dark shape of a helicopter swung low and came in for a fast landing in the field next to the road.

  The woman got out of the Lincoln and stood at my shoulder, her eyes skimming briefly over her dead driver. She kept any feelings she might have had about that out of her face by pure effort of will.

  I jerked my head towards the car. “GPS tracker?”