His fears about the risk presented by the Kurjak clan were now fact, but he took little comfort in being right. All that mattered was that the weapon Oleg Fedorin had brought into Europe was found and defanged.
The door banged open and Gesa Schrader paused at the threshold. As impeccably pressed and poised as usual, her hard eyes met his and she gave the slightest shake of the head. Schrader came in, and he saw a glimpse of Maarten de Wit outside, arms folded in front of him with a frosty expression on his face.
She pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down. Schrader produced a cigarette and put a slimline lighter to it. It was the first time Marc had seen her smoking.
‘Talk,’ she ordered. ‘I want you to explain this to me. What you have done.’
He slid the pad across the table toward her. ‘We need to get the locals to put up roadblocks outside the city with radiation detectors, stick people at train stations and the sea port. I’ve written out a description of a man who was with Neven Kurjak – he’s the one pulling the strings.’ Marc flipped over the page to where he had sketched a rough image of what he had seen inside the steel case. ‘They’re in possession of a weapon of mass destruction, live or not, I don’t know . . .’ He ran out of breath.
Schrader blew smoke. ‘This is the choice you are going to make?’
Marc blinked. For a moment, he genuinely didn’t understand what she was saying to him. ‘Are you not getting this? There’s a rogue nuke out there!’
She studied the sketch. ‘A suitcase nuclear weapon? That is an idea from the realm of trashy action movies and hyperbolic television, Dane. The International Atomic Energy Agency works in the real world.’ Schrader’s tone veered toward patronising. ‘You are describing a fairy story for conspiracy theorists.’
‘No.’ Marc punctuated the word by dropping his fist on the metal table. ‘That technology exists. The Yanks said they couldn’t make it work, but if the Russians did . . .’ He broke off suddenly, shaking his head. ‘Bloody hell, why are we even debating this? Even if it’s a dud, it’s still a nuclear fucking bomb! Get Goss to look at my laptop – he can show you the CellRAD readings I got from inside the Kurjaks’ casino!’
‘Jurgen Goss has been suspended from duty,’ Schrader said coldly. ‘Pending an investigation into his access of a secure NATO database without proper authorisation.’
Marc’s gut twisted. ‘I made him do that,’ he insisted. ‘It’s not his fault –’
‘Ja. You took advantage of a good man and ruined his career to further your own unsanctioned investigation. Now he’s going to take the fall with you.’ She pressed on before he could reply. ‘As for the Queen’s High, we have people sweeping the building. We did locate a hot-spot in the office where Bojan Kurjak’s body was found . . .’ Schrader eyed him briefly, as if she was considering adding that particular crime to his misdeeds, then dismissed the idea. ‘But considering what was found in the basement, that is not a surprise.’
‘What?’ Marc hadn’t considered what might be lurking in the casino’s underground level.
Schrader pulled out her phone and showed him photos of a dingy, dimly lit space filled with piles of boxes. Some of them had been opened, and he could see blister packs inside filled with bowl-shaped plastic objects. ‘Those are commercially manufactured household smoke detectors,’ she told him, ‘which each contain a tiny amount of strontium-90 isotope inside their sensing components. The Kurjaks secretly bought them in bulk from suppliers in the Far East and the Indian subcontinent. Most of the ones in this picture have already been opened and that material removed.’ She put the phone away again and took another drag. ‘Even if they harvested all of it, it wouldn’t be enough to do serious damage, but the radiation signature would be sufficient to convince someone credulous.’
Marc shook his head. ‘No,’ he said again, seeing the path Schrader was already taking them down. ‘This is not the Kurjaks up to their usual tricks!’ He jabbed at the pad with a finger. ‘General Oleg Fedorin of the Russian Strategic Rocket Corps was in this city last night, and he was here to sell off this weapon!’
‘How do you know this?’
He faltered. Marc understood now that he was on very thin ice, and the last thing he wanted was to drag Luka Pavic out there with him. ‘A confidential informant,’ he went on. ‘From my time at MI6. They reached out to me.’
Schrader’s cold expression grew into a distant sneer. ‘Was it the same man who helped you into the ambulance outside the casino? The police officers who were on the scene say he disappeared while you were being attended to.’
Marc said nothing. Vanja was another person he didn’t want to see caught up in his problems. Marc had leaned on him more than he wanted to, and even after he had been cut loose, the man had come back to make sure he was all right. Pavic’s cousin might have been a small-time hood, but he had at least some good intentions.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Schrader continued. ‘I will have that looked into. But you know as well as I do that the Serbs have dealt with the Russians before, largely to help them bolster the veracity of their lies. Fedorin’s presence, if it was him, proves nothing.’
Marc could not believe what he was hearing. ‘But if there is the smallest chance that I am right, can we afford to take the risk? Do you want to be the one who tells the agency director that you had a line on this and did nothing, after some city gets a smoking radioactive hole put in it?’
‘Watch your fucking tone,’ Schrader snapped.
Another first, he thought. The woman had never cursed in front of him before.
‘Have you forgotten who you are talking about?’ she went on. ‘The Kurjaks founded their entire criminal enterprise on the sale of counterfeit nuclear materials! They have cheated terrorist groups and smarter men than you all over the world, Dane. What makes you think that suddenly, inexplicably, they have put their hands on the real thing?’
If he told her the truth, if he said gut instinct and reasoned guesswork, Schrader would laugh him out of there. As investigator-in-charge of the field office, she had made her reputation as a stickler for absolute factual certainty. And what Marc had were phantoms, nothing but suppositions that were impossible to prove.
She looked away. ‘I follow the rules and I act in a professional fashion, Dane . . . The evidence you provided will be investigated, because we have an obligation to check every lead, no matter how slight my personal confidence in it may be. But you won’t be part of it. You’ve spent whatever amount of trust you have with this office. You are done here.’
There was one other approach Marc could try. ‘Franko Horvat,’ he began. ‘He’s dirty. He’s been taking bribes from the Kurjaks for who knows how long. He tried to kill me, twice – he will have at least some idea of what the Serbs are up to . . . Bring him in, sweat him, offer him immunity, whatever works –’
‘Horvat hasn’t been seen since this morning,’ interrupted Schrader. ‘He’s not answering calls and no one knows where he is.’
‘He was at the Queen’s High!’ Marc insisted, his knuckles tensing with the memory. ‘Pull the CCTV footage from their system, you’ll see . . .’ He trailed off and his gut twisted as he realised what Schrader would say next. If Horvat was gone by the time the police got to the casino, then . . .
‘The officers on the scene reported that the security camera hard drives were missing,’ she explained.
Bravo, said a voice in Marc’s thoughts. And you were the one that told the little shit how to do it.
Schrader stubbed out her cigarette on the metal table and pushed back on the chair, putting distance between them. ‘De Wit warned you that you were already in trouble and you carried on without pause. What is that phrase you British have? You took the rope you were given and you hanged yourself with it. You exposed Pavic and Goss to the same.’ She shook her head. ‘And this is partly my fault. I should not have given you the Kurjak dossier. You were the wrong person for the job. You allow
ed the fiction in it to overtake any facts there were.’
‘That’s not how it is,’ Marc insisted, but Schrader spoke over him.
‘I gave you that case to work on because I did not want you here!’ Her voice rose as she slowly lost her temper. ‘Your friends in high places at British Intelligence, they made sure you were pushed on to me and because of that, an agent I actually did want in my division was tasked elsewhere. I had plans for operations that your presence disrupted. You don’t have the temperament this office needs!’ She aimed a finger at his face. ‘You are not a field agent, Dane. You are not a team player! And this chaos you’ve created proves it!’
‘That’s what this is all about?’ he retorted. ‘I knew I wasn’t your choice for this gig, but you and de Wit did – what? Throw the Kurjak case at me because it was a bloody makeweight assignment? And now you refuse to accept that I may have actually got something!’
She was shaking her head. ‘You were given that case to keep you as far from this office’s main focus as possible. Understand, you are not the only one with MI6 contacts and confidential informants. Do you believe I would take you on and not look into your background? I know what happened last year.’ Schrader held his gaze, her eyes unsympathetic. ‘You alone survived the killing of your entire operations team during a covert mission. Your own country’s security services had a global warrant put out for your arrest.’
A shadow passed over Marc’s face. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he snarled. ‘I was cleared of all that. I did . . . I did my duty.’
‘But now you think the rules don’t apply to you anymore. Whatever the truth is about your departure from MI6, you are not fit for purpose, Dane. You never should have been sent into the field.’ She sighed. ‘At least now I have a reason to be rid of you.’
A rush of ice ran through Marc’s veins as he felt the moment turning against him. It was horribly familiar, the same sense of powerlessness that had threatened to engulf him after fire and death had reached out all those months ago. ‘You’re making a serious mistake,’ he told her. ‘I’ll take this up the chain of command –’
‘No.’ Schrader’s manner became stiff and formal once again. ‘Marc Dane, as of now I am legally terminating your position as an operations consultant with the Division of Nuclear Security, and revoking all access to Europol agencies and authority.’ She stood up and crossed the room. ‘You’re not under arrest . . . yet. But I advise you to talk to a lawyer, as you may face criminal charges when this mess is sorted through.’
Marc rose as she opened the door, and when he spoke he was almost pleading with her. ‘Schrader, listen to me! I saw the bomb!’
She didn’t look back as she walked away. ‘I think you saw what you wanted to see.’
EIGHT
Zayd was made to wait for at least half an hour beyond the time the meeting was supposed to take place, and he imagined that it was a rich man’s way of showing him who was in control.
The calculated slight rolled off him without real impact. Perhaps the gaal assumed that Zayd would be impressed by everything he saw around him, cowed by the opulence and majesty of the expensive hotel suite. If that was the intent, then it was a wasted effort.
The gunman saw little difference in this place from the overblown mansion where Welldone Amadayo had been killed, the man whose clothes he now wore. The taxi driver who drove Zayd across Naples – a well-fed Kenyan immigrant who called himself Dahable – had spoken at length and in great detail about the Grand Hotel Vesuvio, named after the volcano that loomed in the distance and renowned as the most luxurious place in the city. Dahable had not concealed his admiration for Zayd, insisting that he had to be an important man in order to be meeting someone in such a place, and the Somalian had let him prattle. He wasn’t interested in correcting the driver’s misapprehension. He was here to communicate a message, nothing more, and for all the pretence the gaal was putting on, the pale man he was here to see was as much an errand boy as he was.
The room had a high ceiling, made to look even higher by striped walls in silky black and gold. Windows open to the sea breeze across the bay let in the sound of traffic along the waterfront. The chair Zayd sat in faced another, and aside from some cabinets and a low table the room was sparsely furnished. Two men stood by the only door, each of them tanned, muscular and expressionless. Dressed in immaculate black suits over white shirts, they each wore the silver rectangle of a high-tech Bluetooth earpiece and kept their arms at their sides.
Zayd had seen the glimpse of a handgun in a shoulder holster when one of the men had patted him down. The results of that search lay on the low coffee table out of his reach; a pair of Japanese-style kunai throwing knives and a small Colt 1908 palm pistol. Comfortable that they had effectively disarmed him, the two guards had done nothing to interact with the Somalian from that point on.
For a while, Zayd amused himself by staring blankly at one of the men, trying to goad him into a reaction, but the guard did not respond and eventually he grew bored. He was about to speak when the suite’s door opened suddenly and a woman dressed in a servant’s uniform entered. She rolled in a trolley upon which was a teapot, cups, spoons and sugar bowl. If she noticed the weapons, she didn’t react to them, and in a moment she had poured two cups, one of which she offered to Zayd with a careful bow.
The smell of the brew sparked memories of home and Zayd took the proffered cup. ‘Apple tea,’ said a voice. ‘I thought you might like something familiar.’ The woman exited silently as the white man called Brett finally arrived. He flashed a fake smile and took the other seat. ‘Do you approve?’
Zayd didn’t drink it at first. ‘You have been to Somalia?’
Brett shook his head, ‘Heavens, no. But I make an effort to learn about other cultures. This is a common courtesy in your country, is it not?’ He waved at the trolley. ‘Tea and polite conversation before one gets down to business. Or am I wrong?’ He sipped from his cup and made a face at the flavour. ‘Hmm. Quite . . . Perhaps it’s an acquired taste.’
Zayd took a drink from his own. ‘This is weak. It needs to steep.’ He put down the cup. ‘You do business in Italy?’ He nodded in the direction of the windows. ‘You are not from here.’
‘That was brief,’ said Brett, with a smirk. ‘Well, yes. My employers send me where I am needed.’
‘The Com-bine.’ Zayd sounded out the name. ‘You are their messenger.’
Brett’s nonchalant manner faded. ‘There’s rather more to it than that.’ He leaned back in the chair, his gaze flicking toward the weapons. ‘Your leader, Mr Ramaas. He’s making a lot of people very worried. He’s unpredictable. That is bad for business.’
‘What people?’ Zayd eyed Brett. ‘The ones who came in giant ships and took all our fish? The ones who dumped poison in our sea?’ He was old enough to remember when the foreign factory vessels first came to the waters off the Somalian coast and trawled them clean, practically destroying the local subsistence economy overnight. And later, the decrepit hulks carrying toxic waste, scuttled in the shallows.
‘Your pirates chased them all off,’ said the other man, and then he corrected himself. ‘I’m sorry, you don’t call them pirates, do you? They are your coastguard.’
‘We did what we needed to,’ countered Zayd. ‘Just as Ramaas does what he must.’
Now the gaal frowned and he began to talk to Zayd in the way that he had often heard Westerners speak, as if they believed he was a primitive unable to grasp the higher meaning of things. ‘Your country has great potential, if only it can be tapped. I’m sure Ramaas sees that. There are riches buried in the earth and out at sea. Iron ore. Gas and oil. My organisation can supply the means to exploit that potential. The men who open up Somalia will reap the rewards. You can be one of them. You could live in places like this one, drink all the apple tea you want . . .’ He eyed the jacket on Zayd’s back. ‘Get yourself a much better wardrobe . . .’
‘Ramaas does not w
ant wealth for himself,’ said Zayd. ‘He understands shahaad. Do you know what that is?’
‘Do tell.’
Zayd paused, fishing for the right word. ‘Obligation. To family, to clan. To the nation. It is tradition to share good fortune with the people.’
‘Is it? Welldone Amadayo was one of your people, wasn’t he? And he didn’t share much.’ Brett’s smile returned, as if he had scored a point in some game. ‘But that’s by the by. Ramaas can do whatever he likes with his percentage. The important thing is that we find . . . stability. Do you see?’
‘I see.’ He reached for the teacups. ‘We drink to it, yes?’
‘If you wish.’ Brett’s lips compressed to a fine line.
Zayd poured for both of them, but stopped Brett before he could take his. ‘No, this is not sweet enough. It must be right.’ He spooned in several more measures of sugar before finally filling the cup and handing it over.
The syrupy liquid still tasted insipid to Zayd, a poor imitation of what he was used to, but he drank it down, watching the gaal do the same. Ten seconds elapsed before the pale man started to cough.
‘It is an acquired taste,’ Zayd echoed. Brett’s face finally took on some colour as he flushed crimson and began to splutter. His cup and saucer fell to the carpet and he clutched at his chest, fighting for breath.
Zayd palmed the packet of powered oleander he had emptied into Brett’s cup. The poison extracted from the flower was the last weapon he carried, and the one the guards had missed. The white man began to die as his heart seized in his chest.
The men in suits reacted. One drew his gun and remained by the door, tapping his earpiece. The other rushed to Brett’s side as the gaal pitched off the chair and onto the floor. ‘What did you do?’ demanded the guard, shoving Zayd aside as he pretended to give support.
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