Deadly Game is the latest fast-paced thriller from the legendary actor and British icon, Michael Caine. Read on for an extract.
ABOUT THE BOOK
DCI Harry Taylor has no respect for red tape or political reputations – but he’s great at catching criminals.
And all his unorthodox skills will be needed as an extraordinary situation unfolds on his doorstep: a metal box of radioactive material is found at a dump in Stepney, East London, but before the police can arrive it is stolen in a violent raid.
With security agencies across the world on red alert, it’s Harry and his unconventional team from the Met who must hit the streets in search of a lead. They soon have two wildly different suspects, aristocratic art dealer Julian Smythe in London and oligarch Vladimir Voldrev in Barbados. But the pressure is on. How much time does Harry have, and how many more players will join the action, before the missing uranium is lighting up the sky?
Deadly Game is a compelling, fast-paced novel of international intrigue and twisting suspense from a legendary actor and British icon, who now proves himself to be a first-rate thriller writer.
READ AN EXTRACT
‘Morning, chief,’ said Harry.
‘Barely,’ Robinson replied.
‘Still only eleven thirty. What’s wrong with that?’
‘You’ve got a busy day ahead, my son.’
‘I had a busy night. And a crappy one, too. We need to talk about it. This isn’t how SO22 should work.’
Robinson paused. ‘Listen. I know you wanted a full house last night. But you got Sayles. You stopped a big drug deal. You put Watkins in the ground, where he belongs. And you put the Cricks on notice that they’re dead meat if they put a foot wrong.’
‘That’s bollocks. They’ll feel they can get away with more than ever now. We fucked up. I fucked up.’
‘I disagree, Harry. Not every op goes even half to plan. It’s the nature of what we do.’
‘And Constable Jai Bahri? What about his family?’
‘I spoke to his wife and parents this morning. It’s tragic. Two kids left without a father. But Harry . . . that’s the nature of what we do, too. We’ve both lost plenty of people over the years. I’ve got a funeral of another young constable to attend later.’
That explained the full dress uniform.
Robinson sighed. ‘It never gets easier. But it wasn’t your fault.’
Harry frowned. ‘What about the two dealers? Who were they?’
‘I know the gossip is Albanian. That seems to be their nationality, yes. But I’d place a side bet that they were working for Xavier Ramirez.’
Harry prided himself on keeping his ear to the ground about the general rumblings in the criminal underworld, but this name hadn’t crossed his radar. ‘Who the hell is that?’
‘The new king of Juarez, that’s who. Mexican cartel nobility. Son of Diego Ramirez who shot a judge at point-blank range. No proof yet, but there’s a lot of static in the air about his new ambitions to expand operations to Europe. Fancies himself as the new king of the world.’
‘Bit of a stretch, isn’t it? A cartel king hooking up with old East End villains?’
Robinson looked out of the window. ‘It’s just a hunch. We’ll leave it for now.’
‘Leave it?’ said Harry. ‘Are you kidding? We need to clear this mess up. This is not even close to being finished. We’ve got to chase the smack, maybe take another run at the Cricks, and –’
‘And we will. Believe me. But not today, Harry.’
‘Two blokes who manage the local tip, apparently, they call in anything weird that turns up.
‘Why the fuck not? Are we giving them a head start, you know, just to be fair?’
Robinson’s cheeks were turning a dangerous crimson. ‘Will you just shut it for a second, DCI Taylor?’
Harry relented. For now; he wasn’t anywhere near finished. He folded his arms and waited to be enlightened.
Robinson acknowledged the gesture. ‘Thank you. Now, I need you to shift your focus entirely. File the Cricks away. I know it’s hard. But believe me, this is more important. Did you catch the news on your way here?’
This did surprise Harry. It was natural enough that Robinson should want to chew the fat over what was clearly a significant London incident. But there was nothing he had yet heard that made him think that the Stepney situation was really SO22 territory.
Harry nodded. ‘All right, then,’ said Robinson, gesturing for him to sit in one of the chairs by his desk while checking his screen. ‘What have you picked up about Stepney?’
Harry recited the sketchy story he had heard so far, freely admitting that it was all from public sources. ‘I assume it’s serious? Counter Terrorism? Or SCD4 Forensics?’
‘Both. Neither. I mean, every agency in the British criminal justice system is down there right now, checking every possible angle – or acting like they are. Five, the NCA, military intelligence, even some stiff from the National Security Council making a nuisance of himself, apparently. Nobody knows exactly what the nature of the problem is – which is the problem.’
‘Well, all right. Go on. What do we know?’
‘Two blokes who manage the local tip, apparently, they call in anything weird that turns up. Normal procedure. Course, it mostly turns out to be a false alarm, very occasionally something drug-related. This morning, though, they find a black metal box that wasn’t there the night before. Covered in markings they can’t make head nor tail of, and very tightly shut. They don’t have a clue what it is, or, more to the point, where it came from.’
‘But the local nick goes down, right?’ Harry said.
‘Yeah, two uniforms from Bethnal Green. Expecting to find – well, who knows what they were expecting. When they got there, round nine thirty, the two workmen were spark out in their hut, on the floor, bound and gagged, and the box had gone. Straightforward heist. And only minutes after one of the blokes had called it in.’
‘How many were involved?’
‘They think two men, three at most. Masked. Thumped them both good and proper and then – we can only assume – made a bolt for it.’
‘Assume?’
‘No CCTV. All cameras fake. I can’t help but wonder if that was why the location was selected for whatever kind of drop this originally was. Hard to say. Was it just somebody dumping something they didn’t want on their hands? Or was it due to be picked up later? First two of a million questions, Harry.’
‘Hang on, though – whoever did the heist must have known what they were looking for. Picking it up, as per an existing plan. Or they’d been listening in to the lines at Bethnal Green nick, or tipped off, which is –’
‘Much more common than we’d like. But I agree. It was a very fast turnaround.’
Harry absorbed this. ‘So what was in the box, do you think?’
‘I’m not positive, but I’ve got a pretty good hunch and so do all the other agencies hovering over this.’
‘Based on? I mean, there’s no evidence, is there?’
‘Not directly. But one of the guys, once he was more or less compos, remembered some of the alphanumerics on the box.’ Robinson paused, as if weighed down by something he would really rather not know. ‘Are you aware what “U-2 35” stands for?’
It rang a bell, but before Harry could answer, his boss jumped in.
‘Uranium-235, that’s what. Which, as you know, is the main ingredient in atomic fission.’
© Michael Caine 2023.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat. Upon his return to England, he gravitated toward the theatre and got a job as an assistant stage manager.
He adopted the name of Caine on the advice of his agent, taking it from a marquee that advertised The Caine Mutiny (1954). In the years that followed, he worked in more than 100 television dramas, with repertory companies throughout England and eventually in the stage hit ‘The Long and the Short and the Tall’.
As of 2015, films in which Caine has starred have grossed over $7.4 billion worldwide. He is ranked the ninth highest grossing box office star. Caine is one of several actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting every decade from five consecutive decades (the other being Laurence Olivier and Meryl Streep). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1992 Birthday Honours, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2000 Birthday Honours in recognition for his contributions to the cinema.
