Red Station

by Adrian Magson

  Ten minutes out of town, they passed a convoy of military trucks filled with men in drab uniform and helmets. They looked heavily-armed and wary. Harry saw no obvious regimental or unit insignia save for a small lightning bolt on one sleeve.

  ‘Local militia,’ Jardine explained. She sounded cool but professional.

  ‘Whose side are they on?’

  ‘Their own. They follow orders from their regional commander – a sort of warlord.’

  ‘Won’t that conflict with the regular army?’

  She gave a ghost of a smile. ‘If it does, they’ll probably kick the army’s arse. They’re better equipped, better motivated and get paid more. Until then, they flex their muscles and train a lot just to remind everyone who really runs the place.’

  ‘Let’s hope they don’t get tested by someone with bigger muscles.’ He was thinking of what Mace had said about the Russians.

  She looked at him, probably wondering how much he knew of the local situation. ‘It depends who they decide to back. If they fall back on old loyalties, they could jump either way.’ She pointed to a fork in the road, and he followed her directions to take the left one. ‘Let’s hope it never comes to that.’

  The road they were now on became wider, but not much better. There was almost no southbound traffic, and Harry was able to pull out and overtake whenever conditions allowed. They passed several huge haulage or military trucks, belching fumes and hogging the centre line, and more than once Harry found himself holding his breath as the Land Cruiser was nearly brushed off the road by one of the lumbering vehicles. To have squeezed over too far would have invited disaster, but the alternative – to be wiped out by a clash against one of the huge wheels – would have been terminal.

  A flash in his mirror and a blast of air horns alerted Harry to someone else heading north. He pulled over as a big four-by-four shot by, nearly taking off their wing mirror. Clare Jardine grabbed for a handle, but seemed unfazed by the manoeuvre. The vehicle disappeared, leaving Harry with a vague impression of two men inside and a smiley face sticker on the rear window.

  Forty minutes after leaving town they came to a large, low building ahead, plastered with signs and posters and surrounded by trucks. Jardine signalled for Harry to pull in. He did so, parking close to the building. There were no other cars that he could see, and he guessed this was the area’s one and only truck stop.

  They climbed out and stretched, studying the building. The windows were heavily steamed up, and although it was morning, the neon lights advertising vodka and beer were ablaze.

  ‘Follow my lead,’ said Jardine. ‘Try and pretend you belong.’

  Harry glanced at her. In spite of the tough act, he guessed she was nervous. He nodded, and she walked ahead of him and pushed through a pair of heavy swing doors. They were hit by a hot, smoke-filled rush of air from inside and the blast of loud conversation. There was no music, Harry noted.

  There must have been over a hundred men in the room, seated at rough tables or standing against a bar running from front to back. They looked like truckers everywhere, most of them big and flushed. The clink of glasses and the clatter of crockery vied with the background sounds of steam machines and shouts from the kitchen.

  Conversation dropped appreciably as Harry and Clare moved into the room. Harry wondered whether it was because they were strangers or because Clare was one of the few women in the place. He now saw why she had come without make-up; a trace of lipstick and there would have been a riot.

  They took a table near the front window and were approached by a waitress dressed in jeans and a shapeless jacket streaked with food stains. Clare ordered two beers and looked out of the window, ignoring the stares. Eventually, the conversation returned to its original level as the truckers resumed the business they were here for, which was food, refreshment and gossip.

  Harry was halfway down his beer when the doors opened and three men in military uniform stepped inside. The first was an officer, the other two without rank. They stood and surveyed the room, unaffected by the unfriendly faces turned their way.

  This time, all conversation ceased.

  The officer walked slowly along the bar, hands behind his back. He was followed by one of his men. The other remained by the door.

  They began checking papers. A rumble of protest went through the room but nobody argued. Gradually, the officer and his colleague worked their way through the crowd. Many of the drivers began to leave, their drinks unfinished. They went unchallenged by the man at the door.

  ‘Is this normal?’ asked Harry. He watched as the officer approached a large man at the bar dressed in jeans and a heavy jacket, a woollen cap pulled down over his ears. There was a burst of muttered conversation but the man eventually slid something along the bar and shook his head.

  Clare shook her head. ‘It’s a random check; vehicles and papers – mostly vehicles. The ones leaving are drivers without papers or those with dodgy loads.’

  ‘Why aren’t they being stopped?’

  ‘They are. Take a look outside.’

  He checked through the window, brushing aside the heavy condensation. The parking area was dotted with soldiers, pouncing on the truckers as they left and accompanying them to their vehicles. Nobody was exempt.

  Harry watched as the officer worked his way towards their table, gradually clearing the room. Then he realised: the truckers weren’t the ones he was after.

  ‘Don’t.’ Clare gave him a warning look. ‘If he speaks to you, shake your head and play dumb. Hand over your passport only if he asks.’

  Then the officer was at their table and looking down at them. Up close, Harry could see he was freshly-shaven, and smelled of soap and leather. He was in his forties, with clear, dark eyes and a blunt nose, and held an unmistakable air of authority. He held out his hand and Clare handed him her passport. Without returning it, he held out his hand for Harry’s.

  He took a long time studying the documents, flicking pages back and forth while the soldier waited nearby. The few remaining patrons in the place took no notice, turning their backs and pretending the soldiers weren’t there. What happened to two foreigners was of no concern; they had problems enough of their own. Behind the bar, the owner, a short, squat figure with a balding head, glared sourly at the loss of business.

  ‘Thank you,’ the officer said in English, then dropped the two passports on the table. With a brief nod, he turned and marched outside, followed by his men.

  Harry picked up his passport and began to stand up, but Clare reached out and touched his hand.

  ‘Wait. Give it a while.’

  Five minutes later, they heard a shout and the soldiers began clambering aboard their trucks. Moments later, they were gone, leaving the air over the lorry park thick with exhaust fumes.

  ‘Time to go.’ Clare stood up and paid the waitress, then led the way back outside. Over half the trucks had disappeared, but several drivers were making their way back to the building, laughing or muttering, depending on their luck with the vehicle check.

  ‘What now?’ said Harry, as they got back in the Land Cruiser. ‘Looks like your contact was scared off.’

  ‘No, he wasn’t.’ She took out her passport and opened it below the level of the window. A slip of paper fluttered out and fell on her knee. Harry caught a glimpse of some numbers and scribbled words before she folded it and put it away. ‘See?’

  ‘Neat,’ said Harry. It was, too. To have a contact here at all took some doing. To have a contact who was an army officer was nearly miraculous. He wondered if London knew . . . or cared. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Not sure yet. Map co-ordinates, I think.’ If she knew more, she clearly wasn’t going to share anything with him.

  He shrugged. Silly games. Let her get on with it. Then his attention was drawn to another vehicle starting up nearby. It was thirty yards away, and had been hidden by other vehicles when he and Clare had arrived. It was a large four-by-four, with two men inside and a smiley face on the rear
window.

  The road hog who’d nearly taken them off the road on their way here.

  It charged away with a roar of the exhausts, and Harry watched it go, eyes on the man behind the wheel. It was the big man in the woollen cap.

  It was only when they were back on the road that he suddenly realized that he knew who the man was.

  Carl Higgins.

  FOURTEEN

  That evening, Harry unscrewed the ancient shower-head and idled time away digging limescale out of the holes with a needle. He found it oddly therapeutic and rewarded himself with a hot shower and a glass of whisky, courtesy of another two miniatures from the flight in.

  It did little to deaden his underlying feelings of dismay, but helped him relax to a point where he could begin to worry about it less.

  He was sinking slowly into a welcoming sleep when he heard a noise outside his door. He wasn’t yet accustomed to the building and all its various clicks and creaks, and whatever had alerted him might be one of those. He lay for a while, analysing the sounds: the wind, a shutter flapping, a passing vehicle, someone shouting in the distance, the creak of a shutter. Normal stuff. He relaxed, eyes growing heavy.

  Then it came again. The scuff of a footstep on the stairs.

  Somebody had moved along the landing.

  He slid out of bed and padded through to the door. At first he couldn’t hear anything. Then he detected a slight murmur, lifting out from somewhere below and carrying up the stairway.

  Voices.

  Mario the Roman photographer back from his assignment? Or visitors?

  He went to the window and peered down. A dark car stood at the kerb. No sign of exhaust smoke, but a man was standing by the driver’s door, hip against the bodywork. He wore a uniform jacket and had a holster strapped to his side. A curl of cigarette smoke rose in the air, ghostly under the street lights.

  Not Mario, then.

  A crash of something breaking echoed in the night. It was enough to make the man by the car turn his head, but lazily, unconcerned.

  Harry scrubbed at his eyes. He was tired and his mouth tasted gummy with too much coffee, but going back to sleep was out of the question. He put on his trousers and shoes, went to the front door. Easing it open, he looked through the crack towards the stairs. If anyone was waiting out there, they were on a lower flight, out of sight. He opened the door wider and stepped on to the landing. The murmuring was louder out here, punctuated by a low huff of laughter.

  He leaned over the stairway and looked down. A man was standing in the middle of the small foyer. He looked up and Harry jerked his head back. Waited for the sound of footsteps moving up. But there was silence.

  More voices and footsteps moved across the foyer and out the door. Silence.

  Kicking off his shoes, Harry went downstairs, keeping to the inside wall. He reached the last step and checked the front entrance. The door was closed.

  But the door to the ground-floor flat wasn’t.

  A car engine clattered, fading quickly into the night. He counted to twenty before moving to the door of Mario’s flat. He pushed it back and stepped inside.

  His first impression was of stale cooking and something faintly chemical. Developing fluids? He wasn’t certain. Surely they’d all gone digital now.

  He prowled through the flat, feeling like an invader. It had been neat once. Basic, like his own place, but with personal touches here and there. A photo frame on a sideboard, showing two older people and a younger man – a family shot; some books, magazines, even a small television. Items of clothing lay on the back of an armchair, crumpled as if ready for ironing. Home from home. He knew the process well; a minute reflection of the place the man had come from, a memory of somewhere familiar.

  The place had been tossed with little care. Moving furniture and not bothering to replace it; opening books and leaving them up-ended like dead birds, the pages bent and creased; cushions opened by a sharp blade, the stuffing emptied on to the floor; and a wastebasket up-ended with scraps of paper and cardboard wrapping from a camera store lying nearby. A vase lay broken on the thin rug in the centre of the room.

  The sound of breaking he’d heard earlier.

  He went back upstairs, leaving the door the way he’d found it. If the visitors came back and thought someone else had been inside, they’d be calling on him next.

  Harry closed his front door and dropped his shoes on the floor. He took a small rubber wedge out of his bag and jammed it under the door. It wouldn’t stop a tank or even someone mildly determined to get in, but it would give him a few moments’ warning. Enough to start throwing furniture.

  He climbed back into bed and waited for sleep, wondering what the Roman photographer, Mario, had been up to. And where he was now.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘Who were they?’ Rik’s face next morning went pale on hearing the news. ‘Security police?’

  Harry wasn’t sure what the local security cops looked like, but the men he’d seen last night had conformed to a type.

  ‘Them or army intelligence.’ He described the driver’s uniform.

  ‘Shit,’ Rik breathed. ‘That’s not good.’ He blinked quickly and looked around as if unsure what to do.

  ‘How well did you know him?’ Harry asked.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Rik looked defensive.

  ‘I mean, how well did you know him? Like, were you drinking buddies, nodding acquaintances, were you about to be engaged, what?’ He waited but Rik looked blank, so he said heavily, ‘They searched his flat – they even sliced open the cushions. Are they likely to find anything that might bring them here, to you?’

  ‘No. No.’ Rik looked shaken but defiant. ‘Of course not. I met him a few times around town, that’s all. It’s standing orders, to chum up with other foreigners, so I did.’ He explained, ‘I’ve always been interested in photography. He was happy to talk.’ He gave Harry a wary look, as if he might have made a grave error, then said, ‘These blokes . . . what did they look like?’

  ‘It was dark. I didn’t see much, apart from the one in uniform.’ He thought back to when he’d looked out of his window. He hadn’t got a clear view of the man, and the street lights weren’t good. ‘Short hair, thin face . . .’ he shrugged. ‘The others, I only saw the tops of their heads. Why?’

  But Rik wasn’t listening. ‘Jesus, I was right!’ His face had gone even paler, and his eyes were gleaming as he stared round the room. ‘I knew it . . .’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mace had entered the office with Clare Jardine in tow. ‘You two not falling out, I hope.’ He hadn’t heard Rik’s last words, but had picked up on the tension in the air.

  ‘No.’ Rik jumped in before Harry could say anything. ‘Harry was saying some blokes went through Mario’s flat last night. One of them was in uniform. Security cops.’

  Mace looked at Harry. ‘That so? Well, well. Wonder what our Latin snapper’s been doing. You take a look?’

  ‘Yes. Nothing I could see, but they’d tossed it fairly comprehensively.’ He paused, wondering what was bothering Rik Ferris. But there was also something from last night coming back to him. Something about the contents of Mario’s flat. Or, more accurately, the lack of.

  ‘What?’ Clare Jardine was watching him, had spotted something.

  ‘He’s a press photographer, you said.’ Harry looked at Rik.

  ‘That’s right. A freelance. Why?’

  ‘There was some wrapping from a camera shop near the wastebasket. They’d kicked it over. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I think it was for a camera.’

  ‘So? Maybe he needed a new one.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Harry agreed. ‘But how many press photographers leave it until they get somewhere remote before buying a camera? Most photographers have a ton of photographic equipment lying around.’

  ‘The cops could have taken it,’ Mace suggested. ‘If he’s been a naughty boy, they’d collect it as evidence. Or to sell.’

  Harry shook his head. Mace was
being obtuse. ‘They were empty-handed. And there was nothing inside the flat; no cases, no lights, no lenses – nothing.’

  Mace shrugged, anxious to move on. ‘I don’t see there’s anything we can do. Best keep out of it.’ He looked at Rik. ‘Any chance he was Italian intelligence?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Rik looked shell-shocked. ‘Maybe. Probably.’

  ‘Bloody right, probably. You’d best hope he doesn’t give ’em your name just to wriggle out of whatever mess he’s in, otherwise you’ll be next.’ He turned to Harry. ‘You’d better come in – you, too, Rik. Something to show you.’ They followed him into his office, where a PC monitor was humming on the desk.

  ‘The details Clare picked up yesterday from her contact,’ he said, moving behind his desk, ‘were map co-ordinates.’ He flipped a hand towards a large map of the country on the wall behind him. A red marker was positioned up near the top edge, north of a dark, jagged mass representing the Caucasus Mountains flowing from left to right. ‘We sent them to London yesterday afternoon, and they’ve come back with this.’ He spun the monitor on its base so they could all see the screen.

  It was a high-altitude photo, grainy and sombre in a mix of dark greens and greys, with a darker shape like a thin tadpole, the narrow end of the tail pointing north.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Harry. He recalled what Mace had said about the Russians coming, and his mouth went dry. Surely, bloody not . . .

  ‘We think it’s a military convoy: trucks, APCs, troop carriers . . . maybe even tanks. London’s waiting for another sweep to get more detail.’ Mace pointed further south, where a line me-andered through the hills. ‘This is a road through the mountains called the Kazek Pass. It’s narrow but negotiable, and spills out on to a plain about thirty miles wide. South of there,’ his finger moved down, ‘is open country all the way.’ He sat back and looked at them. ‘And by all the way, I mean all the way here.’

  ‘Why would they do that?’ Rik asked.

  ‘They want to keep what’s theirs.’ It was Clare Jardine, speaking from near the door. She had evidently seen the photo already. ‘There’s been trouble brewing for months over the gradual erosion – as Moscow sees it – of land with emerging states calling for independence. Each one opting out chips away at the Russian map, especially with the new states looking towards the European Union. Moscow doesn’t like that. They’ve begun to fight back.’