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  Albert Rossi even considered patting the policeman on the shoulder, though in the end he thought that might be a step too far. He felt PC Thompson’s stare between his shoulder blades as he reached his car and dumped the rucksack into the boot. Perhaps he can be excused the cheery wave he gave the policeman before settling himself in and tuning the radio to his favourite station.

  Bonnie Tyler began to build towards a powerful chorus and Albert grinned to himself, put the car in gear and went home.

  A week later, Albert took some of the money he had been paid and walked it through the polished doors of the Ingot in Quebec Street, London. He stood in the entrance and breathed in the atmosphere: the dark tables, the quiet hum of talk, the click of chips and the tinkle of ice in glasses. He was wearing a rather nice dinner jacket and he’d worried it would be too much in London, but he was able to relax when he saw how smartly dressed the other patrons were. As he changed a thick wad of cash for chips, he wondered how many of them were assassins enjoying the fruits of their labours. Probably not more than half a dozen at most, he thought.

  By the time he came out, some six hours later, darkness had fallen in London. Albert took out a large linen handkerchief and wiped his forehead as he stood in the discreet light from the club. It had been an extraordinary evening. He felt wrung out, as if he had lived a year in just a few frantic hours. He could feel damp patches under his armpits, despite the double-strength antiperspirant he had put on earlier. He had won! For one golden evening, the gods had looked down on Albert Rossi and actually smiled. He had never had an evening like it.

  In the beginning, he had put a hundred pounds on black and doubled his money. It was meant to be his farewell to the life, the insane bet that would be his final two-fingered gesture to NatWest and their letters, to all bad men and assassins everywhere. Flushed with that success, he had picked a number at random and put two blood-red chips on it. To his amazement, the croupier had pushed a big pile of chips over to him just moments later.

  It is perhaps not too surprising that Albert Rossi went a little wild at that point. He’d bet on the low eighteen numbers, he’d bet on the high. He’d bet on odd numbers, then the double zero. To his delight, a crowd had gathered around him and at the peak of it all he’d even had the experience of seeing the croupier check with the floor boss.

  The floor boss had looked at Albert Rossi. A slight smile had crooked the side of his mouth. Perhaps he saw only the owner of a gentleman’s clothing shop in the Ingot that evening. Yet for those few, glorious hours, Albert was a little more than that. He was an assassin – retired. And he won again, after the floor boss nodded to let the stakes ride.

  They brought him drinks and a plate of canapés that he wolfed down, as he hadn’t eaten since lunch. He nodded to the croupier to put a thousand on number seven while he was still chewing on an avocado and prawn delight – and it came in, the perfect silver ball answering every one of his prayers. He had felt drunk on the magic of it all. Finally, the universe had given up treading on Albert Rossi. He only wished the manager of his local NatWest branch could be there to witness his triumph. The man would bite through his own hat in frustration, Albert was sure of it.

  In the end, Albert pushed a tower of chips onto the square for black and watched as the silver ball bounced around, clicking and spinning. Somehow, he knew his luck had run out long before it came to rest in a red slot. A sigh went around the group who had gathered to watch. They looked at Albert hungrily, their eyes gleaming as they stared at the remaining stacks of chips by his right hand. Every one of them was well dressed, but for the first time in his adult life, Albert was immune to such things. There was a moment of silence as they waited for him to ride the loss and risk it all.

  If he had been nothing more than a man who sold coats and socks, he might have been taken in by the false friends on all sides. Yet Albert Rossi had stared death in the face, mostly as it was plummeting past him. With a quiet sigh, he had stood up, stepped back and asked to have his remaining chips cashed in.

  Outside, a light drizzle began that couldn’t even begin to dampen his mood. Despite that final loss, he had a thick bundle of notes in every pocket of his jacket and coat. He shook his head in quiet disbelief, staring at his hands in the rain as if the magic they had contained might still be seen. Somehow, he knew it had gone and gone for ever. It was a last gift and he would retire with it.

  The road outside the casino was still busy at that time of night. Umbrellas hid the faces of passers-by and Albert jumped when one of them stepped in close to him without warning. He looked down at a Colt Government pistol complete with sinister black silencer. Albert gaped at the weapon, then looked slowly up into the face of the man carrying it. It was the first time he had actually seen the flinty features of John Halliday and there was nothing to reassure him there.

  ‘We meet again, Albert,’ Halliday growled at him. ‘Though this time you have no car handy to run me over.’

  Albert was already wearing a ‘surprised spaniel’ sort of expression. As the new information sank in, it became, by degrees, ‘spaniel found next to a chewed slipper’. The dazed happiness drained slowly away, leaving him feeling dizzy and slightly ill. Memories flashed at him and he made a soft, moaning sound. Was it good manners to congratulate a man on being alive when you were the one who had run him over? Albert had no idea.

  ‘That was an accident,’ he said, spluttering.

  ‘Oh, I could have believed that,’ Halliday said, leaning still closer and sticking the gun into Albert’s midriff. ‘One look at you and the words “clumsy, careless bastard” spring to mind. But there’s more, isn’t there? I made contact with my employers and do you know what they said? Do you know what they told me?’

  His voice had risen and a few passers-by glanced over at the pair of men standing against a wall. One of them raised his eyebrows for a moment before hurrying on, but that’s all you get in London, even if you run down a road naked.

  Albert sighed. ‘They told you I’d been carrying on with your jobs.’ A faint hint of rebellion came into his tone, surprising them both. ‘Pretty well, too, as it happens.’

  Halliday responded by jamming the gun further into Albert’s stomach, making him wince.

  ‘They did say that, yes. But they do not appreciate sporting amateurs in this game, Albert. I hardly had to mention it before they employed me to sort this little problem right out!’

  ‘I have money on me,’ Albert said, looking into Halliday’s insane eyes. ‘Enough to pay you back for the jobs I did. You could just take it and go; no one would ever know. I’m finished anyway.’

  ‘That’s a very decent offer, Mr Rossi. A month ago, I might have accepted a nice offer like that.’ Halliday smiled, which revealed a white glare of teeth and bleached gums that made Albert blink. ‘However, there is the little matter of evening up the scales, Albert. I believe in scales, you see, in balance. When a man runs me over, causing me a ruptured spleen and a heart attack, there has to be justice. Do you understand? I’m not here for the money. I’m not even here to make a point about bleeding amateurs. I’m here for justice.’

  Now that Albert was looking for it, he saw that Halliday was not in fact in the best of health. The assassin looked very pale and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Halliday swayed as he stood there and he kept blinking as if he was having trouble keeping Albert Rossi in focus. For the first time, Albert thought about shoving the man away and trying to make a run for it.

  What happened next happened very quickly indeed. Out of the crowd, a burly figure stepped up suddenly and dropped a heavy hand onto John Halliday’s shoulder.

  ‘Right! Whatever’s going on, I’m getting to the bottom of it right now. You’re both nicked!’

  It was perhaps the wrong thing to do to a man who had released himself too early from a heart ward. There was a dull thump and Halliday collapsed in a sprawl. PC George Thompson saw the gun for the first time as it clattered onto the pavement. His jaw dropped op
en and as he looked up he saw a wisp of smoke from a hole in Albert Rossi’s jacket. Their eyes met and, without a word, Albert folded on top of Halliday.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ PC Thompson said to himself, in awed wonder.

  He had chosen to wear plain clothes to follow Albert Rossi, but he reached into his textured polyester coat and removed a police radio, snapping out the details of the incident over the crackle of static. In the middle of London, paramedics and police would be only a minute or two away, but PC Thompson knelt and took Halliday’s pulse anyway. The man was dead, his false teeth halfway out of his mouth. PC Thompson stared at them in confusion. Sharks weren’t in it.

  When he reached Albert Rossi, he patted the man’s cheek and took his wrist, but with a sudden gasp Albert pulled it away and sat up, shaking his head groggily. His gaze took in the crouching policeman looking as if he’d seen a ghost, as well as the dead body lying next to him.

  Slowly, with shaking hands, Albert Rossi opened his coat and pulled out a bundle of banknotes, tied with a gold band. His eyes widened as he saw a hole all the way through them, then he reached further to another bundle in his jacket breast pocket. There was a hole in that bundle as well, but there was also a slightly misshapen bullet.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ PC Thompson said again. ‘Better than body armour.’

  ‘I think you did me a bit of a favour there, George,’ Albert said weakly.

  About the Author

  Conn Iggulden is one of the most successful authors of historical fiction writing today. His two No. 1 best-selling series, on Julius Caesar and on the Mongol Khans of Central Asia, tell the stories of how the greatest empires of their day began.

  Conn Iggulden is co-author of The Dangerous Book for Boys. He lives in Hertfordshire with his wife and their children.

  www.conniggulden.com

  Love this book? www.bookarmy.com

  Also by Conn Iggulden

  THE EMPEROR SERIES

  The Gates of Rome

  The Death of Kings

  The Field of Swords

  The Gods of War

  THE CONQUEROR SERIES

  Wolf of the Plains

  Lords of the Bow

  Bones of the Hills

  Empire of Silver

  Conqueror

  Blackwater

  BY CONN IGGULDEN AND HAL IGGULDEN

  The Dangerous Book for Boys

  The Dangerous Book for Boys Yearbook

  BY CONN IGGULDEN AND DAVID IGGULDEN

  The Dangerous Book of Heroes

  BY CONN IGGULDEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY

  LIZZY DUNCAN

  Tollins: Explosive Tales for Children

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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  A paperback original 2012

  1

  Copyright © Conn Iggulden 2012

  Conn Iggulden asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  EPub Edition © February 2012 ISBN: 978 0 00 745608 6

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