Tracers

by Adrian Magson

  He continued his stroll, pausing to catch the car’s reflection in another window, but without drawing any firm conclusion. A local cop, then. A drugs squad officer on a dealer’s tail, perhaps. Or more mundane than that: a market inspector.

  He crossed the street and returned to the flat by a roundabout route, wondering if paranoia got worse as you got older.

  ‘Everyone’s life overlaps in some way, right?’ Rik was still teasing at the lack of paperwork in Silverman’s file, as if Harry hadn’t left. ‘There’s always home stuff in their desks and work stuff at home. Until now.’ He blinked, just noticing a change in the atmosphere. ‘You’ve been out.’

  ‘Just checking something.’ Harry picked up his coffee. It had gone cold. He exchanged it for the briefing sheet Jennings had given them. He stared again at the description of Silverman, although it produced nothing he hadn’t read several times already.

  Subject: Samuel Silverman (Prof. – Haifa Univ.) Age 52 – 5′8″ – slim build – 140lbs – hair black/flecked grey – receding – usually cut short – neat beard and moustache. Skin swarthy/Mediterranean – disfigurement (pockmarking) on cheeks – dark area approx. 4″ square (believed b’mark) below right eye. Eyes black – described as piercing – even teeth, all white – firm jaw – strong nose. Likes Med/Middle East cooking – mostly veg – non-drinker/non-smoker. No known reading/film/music preferences – no known hobbies but keen walker.

  The description fitted thousands of men; like many of those walking past in the street outside. He put it down and picked up the fragment of charred paper. It appeared to have been torn from a spiral notebook, with a line of jagged holes along one edge. The writing was at an angle across the paper, as if it had been scribbled in a hurry. The letters were faded, probably by the heat, but he could clearly make out ‘J.A. London’, followed by a number.

  He handed it to Rik, saying, ‘“J. A. London”. A place or a person?’

  Rik shrugged. ‘Take your choice. And what’s the six-digit number?’ He fed it into a search engine in a variety of permutations, but came up blank.

  ‘Mobile phone?’

  ‘Maybe. Without the first half, though, we’ll never track it down.’ Rik could access some useful databases, but there were limits to the information he could get from them without adequate pointers to help focus his search.

  ‘It might explain the flight to Heathrow. He decided to come over to somewhere or someone he felt close to.’ Harry fingered the number LH4736 T2 written on the briefing paper. ‘A Lufthansa flight number arriving at Terminal Two. It’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Great.’ Rik fed that into his laptop, but shook his head. ‘Can’t access their passenger lists. They’re blocked. Do you know anyone in Immigration?’

  Harry nodded. As it happened, he did. As vague as the lead was, it was their best bet. It must have seemed significant to the Israelis, otherwise why provide it? He took out his phone, checked the directory and dialled a number. When it was answered he spoke quickly, giving Silverman’s details and the flight number. He ended the call and nodded. ‘She’ll check it out. Might take a while.’

  Rik gave a sly smile. ‘She? Did you say “she”? Christ, things are looking up. I thought your only contacts were hairy-arsed coppers with a drink problem.’ He picked up an A–Z of London and flicked through the index. After a few minutes, he sighed and tossed it to one side. ‘There are several places in London that fit the “J. A.”: James Avenue and Jersey Avenue to name two. We need a house number, otherwise we’re chasing smoke.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Long shot. Leave it.’

  Rik opened the folder and tapped the briefing paper where it mentioned Haifa University. There were no other details, such as contact numbers, faculty, or departmental names. ‘Didn’t you say Silverman was a doctor of theology?’

  ‘According to Jennings. Before he went AWOL.’

  Harry chewed on that for a while. Jennings might have picked up the information at an original client briefing, but for some reason hadn’t bothered including it in his notes, such as they were. Still, even if they didn’t have the department, how big could the place be? The Professor must have had friends there at one time; someone might remember him and give them some background information.

  ‘I need a phone number,’ said Harry.

  ‘I’m on it.’ Rik turned to his laptop and began punching keys.

  TWELVE

  Harry dialled the number and waited. It rang twelve times before being answered by a gruff male voice. He asked if they had a Professor Samuel Silverman on the staff. There was a sharp reply in what he took to be Hebrew, before the phone clicked and a woman’s voice came on with an American accent. He repeated the question.

  ‘Who are you?’ She sounded instantly suspicious. ‘It’s a holiday today. Why do you want to know?’

  ‘I need to speak to him,’ he said finally, winging it. He had no idea if the university staff were aware that Silverman had gone walkabout, and didn’t want to set alarm bells ringing unnecessarily. ‘He was helping my nephew with some study advice.’

  The woman made a grudging noise, and he heard the sound of paper rustling. In the background someone laughed and a computer beeped. ‘You say Samuel?’ said the woman after a lengthy wait. ‘Samuel Silverman?’

  ‘That’s right. Professor Samuel Silverman.’ He waited. If she wanted the department and the subject, he was sunk.

  ‘What’s he teaching? You don’t know?’ The woman must have extrasensory perception. He wondered what to say. What subject or speciality would an Israeli professor, apparently much valued by his government, teach? It wouldn’t be theology, in spite of what Jennings had said. Defence studies was more likely. Statistics, maybe. But they wouldn’t work – not now he’d mentioned a nephew. He had to risk a bluff. ‘You think my nephew tells me what he’s studying?’ he countered dramatically. ‘He tells me nothing, like he tells his parents. I have to force things out of him. It could be theology, though – he’s into all that stuff.’

  Across the room, Rik shook his head in mock despair.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the woman. ‘Silvermans we have plenty of, but not a Samuel. And believe me, sir, we’ve had the same theology staff here since Golda Meir was in small pants.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Sorry – nobody of that name on the staff here.’ In spite of her abruptness, she sounded sympathetic. ‘And no visiting lecturers, either – I checked the register, in case. We have people coming and going all the time, you see. You should maybe try another campus.’

  He thanked her and rang off. ‘No Professor Samuel Silverman, nor ever was.’

  Rik pulled a face. ‘Maybe he was caught playing naughties with a student and they’ve blanked him from the records.’

  ‘That would take some doing.’

  ‘Not if he was in tight with the government. Scandals they don’t need.’

  ‘OK, so given that he’s cut loose from his life in the Promised Land, what made him decide to come to Britain?’ He stood up and stretched, then stared at the ceiling as if it might contain the answer. He didn’t mind puzzles – relished them, in fact – but this wasn’t even a small one; it was a nothing made up of vague facts.

  ‘If he was grief-stricken,’ Rik ventured, ‘it might have been on impulse.’

  ‘Or he’s been here before without anyone knowing. It’s always easy going back to a place the second time round.’

  ‘Where would you go if it happened to you? If you had to disappear at a moment’s notice?’

  Harry pursed his lips. Good point. Not being a family man himself, the question was academic. If he were forced, really forced, he could cut and run anywhere he chose at a moment’s notice. But trying to imagine himself into the lives of the people they were searching for was a habit that had often proved useful in whittling down the options.

  ‘I’d go anywhere I could find a hole, pull the lid over me and hide,’ he said eventually. ‘I suppose if I was coming from somewhere like Israel,
I’d want a similar climate without the people. But nowhere I wouldn’t fit in and nowhere I’d be recognized.’

  Rik yawned. ‘Fair enough. But wouldn’t you want somewhere familiar – somewhere where you knew you could hide?’

  Harry saw what he was driving at. People on the run rarely chose a place they’d never been to in their lives before. A few did; those who could step off the edge with no backward glance and a sincere faith in their own abilities to survive in an alien location. But they were a rarity. Mostly, runners looked for a place with a similar culture or language, where the requirement to adapt was less of a struggle, or where they had local contacts to fall back on. There was no guarantee otherwise that they would find a suitable hole. It also followed that only the truly desperate, with none of the mental or financial resources required to successfully disappear, would put themselves unwittingly in the position where they stood out to the degree that people began asking questions.

  Harry’s phone buzzed. He listened for a few moments, then asked the caller to hold. He turned to Rik. ‘There’s no record of a Samuel Silverman coming through any terminals on the twenty-seventh.’

  ‘You told her the right date?’ Even as he said it, he looked apologetic. Harry wouldn’t have made such a basic mistake. ‘Scratch that.’

  They stared at each other until they heard a whistling noise emanating from the phone. Harry put it to his ear.

  ‘Sorry, Sandra,’ he said softly. ‘Surprised, that’s all.’ He listened, then said, ‘It was a reliable source, yes.’ Then he added, ‘OK, will do.’ He switched off the phone. ‘No Silverman. If Jennings’ information was correct and he came in on the twenty-seventh, he must have been using another name. And LH4736 originated in Frankfurt, not Israel.’

  ‘He took a roundabout route.’

  ‘Looks like it. But why?’

  There was only one answer: Silverman had been laying a false trail, making it harder for anyone to follow. It made their task even worse. How to find a man they didn’t know, using a name they didn’t have? If the name was chosen at random, he could be holding a passport in the name of Mr Magoo for all they knew.

  Harry checked the folder, but there were no other family names the professor might have used. He wouldn’t be the first person in the world to have acquired a second set of papers. The reasons why a professor might do such a thing would be interesting, as would be the source of supply. But that wasn’t relevant right now. It was also a pity they didn’t have access to the acquaintance who had spotted him at the airport.

  ‘We’re stuffed,’ Rik concluded.

  ‘Not yet.’ Harry waved his phone, not ready to give up. ‘Since Nine-eleven, all CCTV recordings and digital media are sent from the cameras around the terminals to an editing service near the airport for checking, enhancing and archiving. Sandra can get us inside but we’d have to sit and check the screens ourselves. We know what Silverman looks like. If we can spot him on the screens, we’ve a chance of seeing where he went.’

  Rik looked sceptical. ‘She can do that? What about security?’

  ‘I didn’t like to ask.’

  Rik groaned, his feelings clear. The prospect of spending several hours poring over flickering images was mind-numbing – even for an IT man. But it was clear that if they could spot Silverman and track him through the terminal, they might discover what direction he had taken next. It was all they had.

  Harry was already redialling Sandra’s number. He put the suggestion to her, then thanked her again and switched off. ‘She says this evening, after hours. Tomorrow we’ll bounce Param.’

  ‘They haven’t moved from Ferris’s flat.’ Dog was in an estate car down the street, nursing a cup of cold coffee and trying to keep Jennings happy with regular reports. Mostly the reports were identical: nothing doing.

  He was accustomed to sitting for long periods waiting for things to happen. His line of work had called for him to sleep in the back of the car on many occasions. It was merely another facet of his job and took patience, stamina and a subconscious alarm system for a change in circumstances. He had learned the craft the hard way, when blending in had been a life skill not to be taken lightly. Anything less got you killed.

  ‘They must make a move at some stage,’ replied Jennings, with a touch of impatience. ‘Sooner or later they’ll find something. There’s no back way out they could use, is there? If they find a lead to our man, you need to be right on top of them.’

  ‘I’ve got it covered, don’t worry. I just saw movement at the window. They’re still inside.’ He didn’t bother telling Jennings that the older of the two men, Tate, had come out twice earlier. He’d gone straight by without even looking, once with two coffees and the second time munching a bunch of grapes. He was probably becoming stir-crazy and needed the exercise. Dog knew the feeling well.

  He cut the connection without saying goodbye.

  A hundred yards behind Dog’s position, in the shadow of a market trader’s van on the other side of the street, another figure sat immobile in a small, dark saloon car.

  The driver, named Carlisle, watched impassively as Dog’s outline shifted. So far he had seen him drink and use a mobile. Other than that, the target seemed to be made of stone, barely moving a muscle.

  He stifled a yawn, dispelling any thoughts of refreshments. He’d been briefed on Dog’s reputation and knew it would be too dangerous to move. After a chance sighting of the man by another operative, which had resulted in Carlisle being assigned to this watch, he knew it would be the end of a promising career if he lost the target through carelessness.

  Out of habit, he ran a check of his surroundings. The street was busy with shoppers and a regular flow of vehicles, and nobody was taking any notice of a single figure sitting in a car. He thought he’d been made at one point, though, when a man chomping grapes had hovered nearby. For a second he was sure the man was watching him. But after a while he’d moved on and disappeared.

  He settled back with a sigh. It might have helped if they’d seen fit to tell him what the hell they thought Dog was doing here.

  THIRTEEN

  The centre of operations for the enigmatically named Transit Support Services was a plain, single-storey building on the fringes of Cranford. The A4 leading out of London was a steady rumble of late evening traffic a couple of hundred yards away, and a faint tang of aviation fuel mixed with car fumes sat in the air like a thin soup, a reminder of the proximity of the capital’s busy airport.

  An untidy car park at the front of the building added to its air of near invisibility, as did the plain front door and the heavily silvered windows throwing back a reflection of the road and surrounding scenery. Only the powerful security lights that gave the area a day-like clarity betrayed the fact that this building was not simply a backwater business selling office stationery.

  Rik parked his Audi next to a battered Nissan and switched off the engine. ‘We’re not going to run into a bunch of armed jumpsuits, are we? I thought this would be all razor wire and cameras since Nine-eleven.’

  Harry dropped the latest copy of the Telegraph to the floor. ‘Sandra says not. To the locals, it’s an archive library and processing unit. They don’t advertise what they do, so they don’t need heavy security.’ He levered himself out of his seat with a sarcastic grin. ‘Just stick with me, laddie – I’ll look out for big hairy men with Hecklers and flak jackets.’

  He approached the door and thumbed a button on an intercom unit. A woman’s voice invited them to enter and the door clicked open. Under the lens of a camera they entered a small, musty lobby furnished with two stiff chairs against one wall, a dying pot plant and a battered steel-framed desk holding a single telephone. There was no receptionist, but a small sign asked visitors to wait to be dealt with.

  A door opened to one side and a woman in a white coat appeared. She was in her thirties, slim, with her hair scraped back and held by a clip. It gave her the austere look of a headmistress.

  ‘You must be Tate a
nd Ferris,’ she said in a soft Scottish burr. ‘Sandra Platt in Immigration said you needed help with some images.’ She produced two visitor passes from her coat pocket. ‘My name’s Karen. Keep these clipped to your jackets at all times while you’re here and surrender them before you leave. Otherwise I’ll have to send the security guard to shoot you dead.’ She gave a dry smile that softened her features. ‘Not kidding.’

  ‘You don’t need to see any ID?’ Rik smiled winningly at her but she appeared not to notice.

  ‘No need. Sandra emailed me a very accurate description of Harry. As far as I can tell you aren’t making him bring you here at gunpoint.’ She gestured up at the camera. ‘Anyway, we have you on tape for all eternity. You want to come this way?’ She turned and stopped at the door she had come through, briefly flapping the lapel of her white coat at a small black box on the wall. ‘RFID scanner,’ she explained, and turned the lapel over to show them a small plastic stud on the inside. ‘Anyone wearing one of these gets through the door, and is tracked and logged.’

  ‘Tracked?’ asked Harry.

  ‘Yes. We can’t even go to the loo without being monitored. Welcome to the free world.’

  They were in a narrow corridor running right through to the rear of the building, with doors every few feet. It was standard government issue, with a dry, overheated smell and drab paintwork, the atmosphere silent and devoid of all signs of industry. Rik and Harry exchanged raised eyebrows and followed their guide.

  ‘There’s no one else on duty at the moment,’ Karen explained, ‘apart from me and Andy, the security guard. He’s on a fag break out back, but don’t tell anyone. The work here is strictly process-led, and nobody volunteers to spend longer here than they can manage. Besides, we’re pretty much on top of things – at least until we get demands for some visual evidence from Immigration, the Met or one of the security departments. Then it’s all hands to the pump. I gather you’re none of the above, though.’ It wasn’t a question.