Tracers

by Adrian Magson

  They checked the house from top to bottom, but other than the PC, there was nothing to help them in their search. The PC would have to go to Ballatyne for his experts to go over and analyse in depth.

  ‘You want me to take a look?’ Rik offered.

  It was tempting, if only to get a jump ahead of Ballatyne. But Harry shook his head. ‘Jennings will have used codes or password protection. We don’t have time.’

  They gave the house another once-over, each taking the rooms previously done by the other. This second search revealed a small paper carrier bag by the side of the pine desk in the spare bedroom. It was empty, but when Harry peered inside, he saw a tiny triangle of paper under the edge of the cardboard stiffener at the bottom. He pulled it out. It was a single, new fifty-Euro note.

  He studied the bag. It had crease lines down the sides, as if it had once contained something heavy and roughly oblong . . . like packs of banknotes. Was this what Jennings had been killed for – a pay-off that had turned nasty?

  Harry dialled Ballatyne’s number and reported their findings. The duty officer coolly noted the details, including the number off the fifty-Euro note, and said he would pass it on. ‘We’ll notify the police, but we’ll have our people check the place first.’ He added that it might be unwise for them to be found in the vicinity.

  ‘This bloke doesn’t waste time thinking on moral dilemmas, does he?’ said Rik. ‘It was just like the others: in, do the job and out again.’

  ‘Similar. But there are two differences. He got here before us and he took something away with him.’ The same signature was here just as surely as if he’d spray-painted his name across the walls.

  Dog.

  The hostel near Victoria was in darkness by the time Dog returned. A digital clock in a shop window read 02.30. He’d been unable to sleep, his mind full of what he had to do tomorrow. He hadn’t intended being out this late, but time had slipped by unnoticed, his thoughts piling in on each other as he considered his future after he’d taken care of Rafa’i.

  He pushed at the front door, half expecting to have to hammer on the glass to rouse someone, but it swung open without resistance. The cubicle where the night-porter-cum-security-guard watched a tiny television was deserted. Grateful for small mercies, he moved past the desk and walked quietly up the stairs, feeling the pull of stiffness settling in his leg muscles. He was tempted to do some warm-down stretches but it would have to wait. He needed sleep more.

  He entered his room and stripped off, then took a shower. He made it part of his routine whenever he was able to, cleaning himself with almost ritual care, ready for whatever lay ahead. He enjoyed the soothing effect standing under the warm jet, letting it cascade over him until the water began to cool. He turned off the shower and shook himself free of excess droplets.

  Drying himself quickly, he took out his gun and knife. He cleaned the blade with a pad of tissue, paying particular attention to some dried flecks of red around the handle which he’d missed after the job in Harrow. He felt a bristle of annoyance; that one had been a mistake, for which he blamed Jennings. If the lawyer had kept him fully informed, he’d have been ready for Tate and Ferris to alter their plans.

  Still, he’d taken care of it and nobody was the wiser. He’d actually taken an unusual pleasure in seeing the man – Param, Jennings had said he was called – staggering back from the door, the life ebbing from his body, an expression of dismay on his dumb face.

  He put the knife in his jacket and stripped the gun, laying out the parts on the bed with something close to reverence. It was a routine and one he could have followed in the pitch dark. When they were cleaned and reassembled, he placed the gun on the floor by the bed, within easy reach. He didn’t entirely trust some of the other residents not to come calling if they thought they could snaffle something in the wee small hours.

  Next he cleaned his shoes and laid out his clothes, consigning his dirty skivvies to a plastic bag for disposal in the morning. He could easily buy new ones. Then he lay on the bed, relishing the cool air on his naked skin and staring at the ceiling. He started going over what he’d accomplished so far – and what lay ahead.

  He was slipping into mission mode, as he had done so often before, checking and rechecking his options, going back over earlier preparations and discounting one by one the various errors that might have been made. For a while, he was back in a meadow outside Armagh or in a hovel of a B&B in the back streets of Belfast, listening to the traffic, wondering if the vehicle slowing nearby had come for him.

  It was oddly calming being here in London, listening to the sounds of the street, of late cabs cruising for fares, of night cleaners going about their work. He felt himself beginning to drift and smiled, enjoying the sensation of gradually letting go.

  After Rafa’i, Dog knew there was nothing to keep him here. This was the end of the road for him, and probably the end of his work. He’d had a bad feeling about Jennings right from the start, though; he should have listened to his instincts. The man was a cheapskate, interested solely in his own future. After tomorrow morning, though, when he’d complete his final job, he’d be done for good.

  The truth was, he was relieved it was over. There was only so long a man could go on doing this kind of work, and he’d been at it longer than most, lasted far longer than his contemporaries. The odds of continuing unscathed were not in his favour. It was time to move on. To disappear. Dog was good at disappearing for long periods.

  This time it would have to be for good.

  As his eyes began to close under the pull of sleep and his breathing began to settle to a steady rhythm, he wondered vaguely about the absence of the night porter. The man had always been as quick as a rat down a drainpipe before to intercept arrivals. He should have been there, street crime being what it was in the area. You couldn’t trust anyone these days—

  He heard a faint rasp of noise close by.

  Somebody else was in the room.

  Dog kept his eyes closed and his breathing unchanged. He lowered his hand slowly to the floor, reaching for the gun. Whoever was in here was going to regret it: they had invaded his space. Probably some bloody crack head looking for an easy score. He’d have a sharp word with the night porter in the morning.

  He located movement over by the door; recognized the shift of fabric, the brush of a shoe on the scrappy carpet. He smiled. Careless. The intruder had betrayed his location as surely as if he’d struck a match.

  Dog swung his feet to the floor and stood up in one fluid motion, bringing the gun to bear on the door. In the glow of a neon display from the hostel sign just outside his window, he saw the room as clearly as day. In the same moment, he saw a patch of darkness – but it wasn’t where he’d expected.

  The intruder was standing against the wall by the wardrobe, tucked into the corner.

  A truck rattled by outside, its engine roaring. In the same instant, a light flared, the white flash painful to the eyes. Dog heard a sharp crack, almost drowned by the noise of the truck, and something punched him with unbelievable force in the chest. He staggered back, shocked and breathless.

  He fought to regain his balance, dragging his weapon round to bear on the other person and trying to pull the trigger. Why was it so difficult? It was never this hard. All you had to do was pull— But his finger wouldn’t work. He tried again, focussing all his strength on that simple task, something he’d done so often it was as natural as breathing.

  Then, in the sweeping lights of traffic flushing across the front of the hostel, he saw the face of his opponent. He experienced a bitter sense of fury. And pain.

  It started in his chest, blossoming out and invading his whole body. It was like nothing he’d experienced before – and Dog was no stranger to pain. His body told him he needed to lie down, but his mind rebelled, unwilling to let go. Then he could no longer control the physical functions as the motor system governing his body began to shut down. He moved backwards, and the edge of the bed hit the back of his legs
and tipped him off-balance.

  His gun dropped and bounced away in the gloom, no longer of any use to him.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Rafa’i was early again. This time he approached the park from the Mall, skittering along the pavement as if his feet were on fire. It was just gone nine thirty. He looked uneasy, huddled in the same long, dark coat Harry and Rik had seen him with on the airport cameras.

  After a fitful few hours’ sleep in a backstreet hotel near Marylebone following their discovery of Jennings’ body, they had breakfasted in a coffee shop and discussed tactics. If Rafa’i failed to show, they were back to square one, in which case they might as well contact Ballatyne and wait to see what happened next. On the positive side, if the cleric did show, everything that followed would depend on his reaction to their presence. Without Joanne, they might have a problem talking him round. It would depend on how highly he rated his chances of surviving alone without help.

  Before driving here, Harry had gone to the boot of his car and forced open the hot box. He’d taken out two semi-automatics and handed one to Rik.

  ‘This is strictly last-resort use,’ he said sombrely. ‘If you take this out, it’s because you intend to use it. You intend to kill. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ Rik had nodded, any argument about the box and its contents forgotten. He’d checked the gun and put it away under his jacket, apparently calm. But Harry could tell he was nervous. Nerves were OK, though; nerves would get him through this and make sure he reacted with caution rather than haste.

  Then they had set off for the park.

  They were in luck. Joanne was standing by the railings around the lake.

  Rik was unimpressed. ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘Take it easy,’ said Harry calmly, and walked across to her. He was careful not to spook her, and made a show of being relaxed, unthreatening. She watched them approach, her face tight, but no longer with the haunted look they’d seen before. She had one strap of her rucksack slung over her shoulder, but was clutching the bulk of it to her front. One hand was visible, Harry noted, resting on the railing. The other was tucked inside the rucksack.

  He stopped alongside her and turned to watch the area by the Mall. Rik moved away without acknowledging her, heading towards the path to watch their flanks.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Harry asked quietly.

  ‘I needed space,’ she replied. ‘It all got too much, especially seeing Marshall and talking about what happened.’

  ‘No problem. You OK now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She turned away, chin dropping. ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’

  Harry saw Rafa’i emerge from under the trees. He stood looking shakily around him, his nervousness obvious and out of place, like a crack head in a tea room. Rik was thirty feet away, being tapped for money by an old woman in a scruffy coat, but still alert. He looked up and nodded, signalling that he’d seen the Iraqi, too. His gaze dwelt for a long while on Joanne, and he shook his head.

  Harry ignored him. He was waiting to see what Rafa’i would do. If they approached him, he might run for good. Better to let him come to them once he felt safe. He rechecked the area. If Dog was going to make his move, he would do it any time now. Then he’d make his getaway. This was the window of maximum danger.

  ‘It seems,’ Harry said casually, ‘that there are some question marks against your Mr Rafa’i.’

  ‘You’ve just discovered that?’ Her reply was acid, resentful, the words as sharp as carpet tacks.

  He glanced at her, surprised by the venom in her voice. She was shaking her head as if Rafa’i being questionable was a given. It was in odd contrast to the way she had talked about him before, when she had expressed almost a closeness in their working relationship.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I used to think he was the whole shilling,’ she explained flatly. ‘But there were things he said . . . people he met that made me wonder. He said a couple of times that he wanted Iraq free of the outside world. I took that to be the Coalition, especially the Americans.’

  ‘Well, nobody could argue with that. We’re hardly welcome guests, are we?’

  ‘He meant everyone: advisors, aid workers, army, engineers, contractors, the lot. All out. Even people like me. Especially people like me.’

  ‘Well, there’s no pleasing some people.’

  The attempt at humour didn’t carry. Joanne said angrily, ‘It was like he wanted to build a wall around the country and turn it in on itself. And after everything we’d done to help. Oh, I know the arguments . . . that we shouldn’t have been there, anyway. But still.’ She stopped, breathing heavily.

  Harry said, ‘Why are you so angry?’

  It was as if she hadn’t heard him. ‘Then he spun the whole thing and said he was just describing an old Iraqi dream. But it wasn’t his dream, he said. It was the people’s dream. And the people had a right to have what was theirs. He only wanted a peaceful country again.’

  Harry wondered where this was going. Where the change in tune was coming from. She seemed to be rambling, as if seeing Rafa’i once more had revived an old discussion, ripped open old sores. But which ones?

  ‘Everybody wants peace out there,’ he said coolly, trying to figure her out. ‘But if Dog gets his way, Rafa’i won’t live to see it.’

  She made a noise but said nothing.

  ‘Still, at least,’ Harry continued, ‘we know what he looks like . . . unlike his two mates.’

  Her eyes flickered. ‘What?’

  ‘He’s got help. Two men. Word is, they’re on their way here. Unfortunately, we don’t know what they look like.’ He was about to add that she, on the other hand, might do, having been on the same training course, but decided against it. It wasn’t the time or the place.

  ‘You don’t know much of anything, do you?’

  ‘Sorry?’ It was a coldly dismissive comment, uttered in a dull, flat tone. But she shook her head and chose not to elaborate, so he let it go.

  All the same, he felt a stir of unease.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Joanne was staring hard at Rik, her expression hostile. She had been watching him intently for a few minutes now, as if suddenly troubled by his lack of warmth towards her.

  ‘Rik? He trusts people . . . takes them at face value. It’s something I’m trying to cure him of.’ When Harry looked across at him, Rik turned away. Rafa’i was beyond him, waiting in the background.

  ‘He’s too close to Rafa’i,’ she said. ‘He should move away.’

  ‘He’s fine where he is.’ Harry couldn’t see the problem, and put her attitude down to last-minute nerves. For some reason, she and Rik were rubbing each other up the wrong way.

  But she wouldn’t let it go. ‘Rafa’i won’t come if he sees him standing there. He needs to move to one side.’

  Harry sighed and signalled to Rik to move aside a few feet, which he did with reluctance, the old woman tagging along. ‘That do you?’

  ‘Yes. You have to wait here.’ She walked away without waiting for a reply, clutching her rucksack to her chest.

  Harry wanted to go after her and demand to know what was on her mind, but he didn’t. Rafa’i still hadn’t moved from his position by the trees. In fact, he’d retreated a few feet and was now in dappled shadow, casting around him like a startled deer ready to bolt. Something about the situation must have spooked him.

  Rik prised himself away from the old woman and joined Harry, watching as Joanne moved into an empty space where Rafa’i would be able to see her.

  ‘What did she have to say?’ he muttered darkly.

  ‘Not much.’ Harry’s phone rang. ‘Keep an eye on her.’ He took it out and thumbed the button.

  ‘Harry?’ It was Ballatyne. ‘Is Archer with you?’

  ‘She’s close by. Why?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  He hadn’t told Ballatyne where they would be this morning. The intelligence man’s instinct would have been to swamp the
area with men in boots and jumpsuits. Rafa’i would have spotted them immediately and disappeared.

  ‘We’re waiting for Rafa’i,’ he replied enigmatically. ‘Problems?’ He checked there was nobody nearby and switched his phone to loudspeaker so Rik could hear.

  ‘You could say that.’ Ballatyne’s voice sounded tinny in the morning air. ‘We’ve had a call from the Met. We asked them to alert us if anything out of the ordinary happened. A former Special Forces man, Gary Pellew, has been found shot dead in a hostel near Victoria.’

  Dog.

  ‘They say he’s been dead several hours – sometime between eleven last night and five this morning. Difficult to tell without forensic results, but we won’t get those for a while. It was a single shot to the chest, that’s all we know. His room was clean apart from a change of clothes, a knife and a semi-automatic with a full load and a spare mag.’

  Fighting kit. Harry glanced across at Rafa’i, still hovering beneath the trees, then at Joanne, who was checking the immediate area, her head swivelling constantly like a lioness on the prowl. Most of the time, he noted, she was watching him and Rik.

  The threat had been three-fold. With Dog down, that left two to be accounted for. So who the hell had shot him?

  ‘Do they know what calibre weapon?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No. Small, I’m told. Why?’

  ‘Jennings was shot with a small calibre.’

  Rik muttered and flicked open his jacket. Harry could just see the butt of his semi-automatic.

  ‘Noted,’ said Ballatyne. Then in a bleaker tone, ‘We’ve also had more info from the Ops room in Baghdad. The comms corporal who was on the log the day Humphries was killed has come back.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘When we asked for the original check, we were only concerned with outgoing calls, to check on any arrangement Humphries had made. They were all normal business, all checked and cleared. But the corporal confirmed that the call Humphries received that day was on a secured line. That means it was an agency or military source. Humphries left the office immediately. Forty minutes later, he was dead.’