Dark Asset

by Adrian Magson

  ‘So what are you planning now?’

  ‘It’s simple. If the information Masse was sold is genuine, it’s still out there and we need to retrieve it. Nothing else counts. For whatever reason, Masse – or more likely, Portman, now Masse is dead – made a switch and dumped you with a dummy. We have to get hold of Portman and the original hard drive. With me so far?’

  ‘I understand.’ It reminded Petrus that they were both treading a very fine line here. It would be bad enough if al-Shabaab found out that their leaders had cooked up a private deal with members of the French and American oil industries; but the fallout would be as nothing compared with the international reaction if the wider world learned the same information. While there had been a few high-profile advocates of talking to terrorists in the past, it was rarely discussed openly and never with the media.

  Just then a phone on the bed began buzzing. Lunnberg picked it up and checked the screen. ‘I have to take this call. Let’s meet again in the morning.’ He walked over to the door, the cell phone in his hand, and opened it. The signal for Petrus couldn’t have been clearer; he was dismissed.

  As soon as the door closed behind the Frenchman, Lunnberg opened the connection and pressed the hands-free button, before tossing the phone on the bed and beginning to pace around the room. It was his favoured method of taking calls and allowed him to think freely.

  ‘Go ahead. We’re clear to talk.’

  ‘What’s the situation down there, colonel? We’re getting vibrations from the French and they’re not sounding very happy.’ The speaker was a man named James Warren, one of the many glossy and wealthy inhabitants of Washington’s inner circle of power brokers and key influencers. For years he had occupied a conveniently vague position somewhere between the government community in the capitol and the corridors of Wall Street – most especially building connections with the big hitters of the energy industry.

  ‘It’s all good, sir,’ Lunnberg replied smoothly. ‘There was a little trouble with a freelance operative the French hired for the pickup, but I’m on top of that. I’m talking to their people right now, in fact. Give me a couple of hours and he’ll be out of the picture.’

  ‘Well, that’s your responsibility, colonel. Who is this operative?’

  ‘His name’s Portman, but that’s all I have so far. Seems the French asked around and the CIA gave him a solid reference.’

  ‘I see. That makes this matter even more urgent. We don’t want Langley getting wind of it. I’ll leave it to you to do whatever is necessary. Do you have eyes on the hard drive?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve just got here and still getting the situation clarified. Petrus is working on his contacts to find the man and the hard drive and we’ll progress the situation from there. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get this wrapped up quickly.’

  ‘I would like to share in your optimism, colonel, like a few others around here. We need to control this situation or the French will be jumping all over our collective asses and starting to call the shots. We can’t have that; there’s too much riding on it.’

  ‘I understand, sir. But I thought we were equal partners on this venture.’

  ‘Working with them, colonel. But you won’t find anywhere in the agreement between us that says we’re equal partners – and that’s strictly between you and me. It’s all about using their knowledge and history of the region to get the best out of this situation. Once we’re in and operational, who knows? Partnerships change all the time. Folks fall out, right?’

  In other words, Lunnberg thought, the French are going to get stiffed. He wondered if that was going to be as simple as Warren seemed to think. He had no close knowledge of, or love for, the French, but he didn’t think they’d roll over quite that easily. Their history in this region had been brutal and hard-fought, and they wouldn’t give up any part of it without a fight – and that included getting access to any of the oil deposits if the situation offered. It was an attitude he could respect more than words from some back-seat driver in Washington, who had probably never seen this part of the world in his life.

  ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else I should know about, colonel? Nothing that could lead to embarrassing headlines?’ Warren’s voice was gentle, almost liquid, hinting at a degree of knowledge that instantly had Lunnberg on his guard. What the hell did the man know?

  He hesitated before answering. Had Warren acquired a back-channel to the DCS in Washington and somehow discovered that one of his men had gone missing while on a covert visit to Mogadishu? Working separately from any of his other team members, Joshua McBride, an ex-special forces vet, had travelled to the capital on the papers of an aid expert. Since checking in once on arrival several days ago, nothing had been heard from him and there had been no replies to repeated calls. While it was possible McBride had gone silent due to poor communication channels or a decision to go into deep cover, he should have been able to get a message out by now. Lunnberg hadn’t mentioned it to Petrus for the simple reason that he didn’t entirely trust the man. But there was another reason for secrecy: there had been an express agreement with the French not to take any unilateral action, which included sending in operatives without a nod from both sides. And McBride’s mission had blown that agreement wide open.

  ‘Sorry about that, sir – just checking an incoming email. To answer your question, no, there’s nothing else you need to know.’ And that, he thought, was how it was going to stay.

  There was a click at the other end and Lunnberg was left staring at the phone. Typical Washington, he reflected. High-minded pricks didn’t know the first thing about fieldwork and assumed it was no more complicated than hitting buttons on a game console. As for their manoeuvring of foreign individuals for national gain … well, that was what he was here to oversee. And nothing could be allowed to get in the way of that goal.

  He dialled another number, this one to a member of his support team back in Virginia. Paula Cruz was a tough-minded former lieutenant in Army Intelligence who knew how he operated and could work information systems like nobody else he’d ever met.

  He relayed what Petrus had told him about Portman. ‘The guy sounds like a pro to me. It’s probably not his real name but ask around, will you? And keep it low-level. I don’t want the wrong people getting to hear we have an interest.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I want to know who we’re dealing with here. Somebody in Langley gave him a nod of approval. I can’t ask Petrus who that was in case we have to take the hard option.’

  ‘I understand, sir. What’s your plan on that?’

  ‘We have to find Portman and get him out of the picture. If he sees any part of what I hear is on that hard drive – I mean, really sees it and decides to go public with it – we’re in a shitload of trouble. Same if he gives it to the French; they’ll keep it in their back pocket and it would be years before we could rest easy with them again.’ He paused, thinking about his missing man. ‘Have you heard from McBride yet?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing. I think his cell must be dead by now.’

  ‘Right. Stay on it in case he surfaces. In the meantime I want you to check all flights and passenger manifests into and out of Djibouti and Somalia over the last ten days. Portman had to get into Mogadishu and back out somehow. He doesn’t have special powers and he would have left a trail. Everybody does.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  ‘Good. Look for non-attached Europeans first, anyone who isn’t press, government or military. Then drill down to aid agencies and commercial representatives.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  He cut the connection and paced the room, planning his next moves. He had a few logistical problems to deal with, mostly off-the-book kind that Warren didn’t need to know about. But they were solvable given the right application of pressure and persuasion. He had a name he could call at a secure and secretive inner compound within the huge base that was Camp Lemmonnier, but he didn’t want to make contact there unless it was abs
olutely necessary. The trouble with running unauthorised operations was that certain details too often managed to find a way of getting out; and when they did, they inevitably came back to bite you. Most were containable even then, with a little of what he liked to call management control. But as far as the vast majority of people at Lemmonnier were concerned, he was never here and it would help if it stayed that way. In the meantime, the sooner he could locate Portman and the hard drive without anyone else being the wiser, the sooner he could bury them both so deep nobody would ever remember their existence.

  EIGHT

  The following morning I met up with Masse to discuss plans. He’d arranged our flight into an airstrip near Mogadishu and transport into the city for later in the day. Until then we had to stay below the radar. Neither of us could be sure that the man who had died in his place in the office building hadn’t been found by now by his colleagues. If so, they might have slipped into Djibouti to make certain of the job. He didn’t mention the soldiers who had nearly been the end of me, or who might have set them on me, but I let that slide. There would be time for that later.

  ‘Are you going to tell me where this hard drive is stashed?’ I asked him. If I was going into Mogadishu, I needed to know where he’d left it in case anything went wrong and we got separated. We’d likely only get one chance at this and I didn’t want to waste time going into a situation where the odds of moving unnoticed were slim to nil.

  He played cute for a while before acknowledging that it made sense to share what we knew. I guess he was wary because he saw it as his responsibility to retain some control over what happened to the drive. Eventually, he named a small hotel on the west of the city. ‘It’s in the room I had there, behind an air vent by the bed. Room five, on the first floor. I have used the place for many years. The device is identical to the one you found on the body.’

  ‘And you’ll be handing it to Petrus?’

  ‘Yes. Those are my orders.’ His face looked tight while he spoke, and I wondered what was going on behind his expression. The cold, hard fact was that Masse was a field operative for an intelligence organisation and had been abandoned, presumed dead by Petrus, his controller. It had been me who’d erroneously reported him killed, but the fact was his body should have been recovered and identified. It’s what organisations do for their people. In Masse’s case they hadn’t even tried. I guess he must have mulled it over at length by now; otherwise he’d have called Petrus already and told him he was still alive. Occasionally things do go wrong on missions, with agents or operatives in the field getting isolated and sometimes caught. But nobody expects to be ignored and not given a second thought.

  I wondered if he had some career power play in mind, getting the hard drive back to France and using it to swing a better position at home. If so he was playing with fire; organisations like the DGSE don’t like their staff using blackmail tactics on them. But that was his decision. Had it been me, I’d have been more intent on having a quiet talk with Petrus for leaving me hanging. Perhaps Masse was more forgiving.

  We split up and I returned to my hotel and got some rest ready for the trip. The biggest danger in the field is a build-up of mental fatigue brought on by stress and assuming you can stay on the case no matter what. Every operator feels it, no matter how experienced, and that’s where mistakes can happen. Even deciding to get some fresh air and go out for a stroll can lead to a chance encounter and disaster, when staying inside would be the better option.

  I slept for a while, and woke up feeling drugged. It was mid-afternoon and the air in the room was heavy. I splashed water on my face and thought about having something to eat before going to meet Masse. I didn’t know when we might get the chance later, and it made sense to stoke the boiler now.

  As I bent to pick up my jacket, I heard the door open at the end of the corridor. It had a high-pitched squeak each time it opened and again on the return. I knew the door led onto the emergency stairs at the rear of the hotel. I’d got used to it very quickly, and learned to look for a pattern. It was a habit ingrained from a long time ago, a habit that had given me an edge on a couple of occasions since. I’d heard the door a number of times and on each occasion it had been a single guest or a member of staff going about their duties, the footfall light and short-lived.

  This time it was different. The squeak came once, but with no return. There was more than one footfall and a whispered exchange of voices, and I figured at least two people trying to be quiet with the door held open for more.

  I stepped past the bed and across to the window just as somebody knocked on my door and mumbled something about room service. It was a good try bit didn’t quite work. In this hotel there wasn’t any room service unless you went looking for it yourself.

  I’d already scouted ways out of here in case I needed to make a quick exit. Like having a plan B, you had to ensure you had a back door out of any given situation. The obvious route for me would have been the rear stairs, but that was now out. A glance down at the courtyard below showed me that was also a no-go; three men were standing by a white Toyota Land Cruiser with tinted windows. They were looking up at me without expression and it was clear they knew exactly where to look. I couldn’t see any weapons but I wasn’t betting on the men being here for a friendship call.

  I was in a tight spot. The two automatics I’d brought over from Mogadishu were wrapped in a plastic bag in a tin flowerpot on the ledge outside the window. I’d put them there because the room had no other places to hide anything larger than a postage stamp. But getting at them without the three men seeing me was not an option.

  As I turned away from the window, wondering who they were and how they’d found me, there was the sound of a key sliding into the lock and the door was kicked open. Two men stepped inside. They were armed with semi-automatics and looking casual enough to suggest they knew how to use them.

  ‘You Portman?’ said the man in the lead. He had an American accent, was about six feet tall and heavy across the chest. Just to make sure I didn’t try anything, his pal stepped off to one side and stood smiling and ready. I stayed very still. They had clearly worked together before and knew all the moves.

  ‘No,’ I said. I’d registered under the name of Challenor, but something told me they must have already trawled the city and narrowed me down to a shortlist of possible individuals to check out. The name being used really didn’t matter; they already knew who they were after.

  ‘Wrong answer.’ The second guy oozed scepticism. He was thin and pasty, with the dark-eyed look of a snake and spoke with a trace of a Latino accent. Puerto Rican, maybe, but out of the same stable as his colleague. ‘You need to come clean with us, Mr Portman.’ He grinned at the sarcastic use of title and lifted his pistol. ‘If you don’t like it we could always shoot you instead. Right, Ratch? We’ll still get paid no matter what.’

  He looked cold enough to do it, so I nodded. The reference to being paid was interesting; it confirmed to me that while they might once have been military, they were now something else altogether.

  His pal Ratch appeared not to care either way. ‘Makes no matter to me,’ he confirmed, and prowled round the room, looking in the wardrobe and bedside table and up-ending the mattress and pillow. Whatever he was expecting to see didn’t materialise, and he turned back to me. ‘Is this it? You got anything stashed away with the manager for safe keeping?’

  ‘Like what?’

  He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘Smart ass, huh? I mean like a hard drive – you got one of them?’

  ‘No. Why would I? I don’t have a computer with me. Who the hell are you?’

  He stepped up close, bringing a whiff of body odour and stale coffee. ‘The name’s Ratchman, since you ask. Not that it’ll do you any good. Now, I didn’t ask about a computer. Do. You. Have. A. Hard. Drive?’ He accompanied each of the six words with a prod in the chest from his pistol.

  ‘I told you, no. What the hell is this all about?’

  He didn’t resp
ond, but stepped back. ‘OK. We’ll see how long you can hold out, shall we? Let’s go.’

  ‘Wait. Is this a military thing? Are you army cops? Only I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m here on business, so if you can tell me who sent you we can get this cleared up and I can go back to bed.’ The idea when being picked up like this is to try and forge some dialogue with your captors. Ask questions, drop your shoulders, assume a non-threatening manner, and smile a lot – basically, anything to make them relax their guard. If they give you any information, all to the good; if they don’t, well it’s worth a try.

  He didn’t even flinch; it was like talking to the wall. So I pointed at my jacket. ‘Can I take that? It’s gets cold out at night. You might like to check it out for dangerous items. I think the pen in the inside right pocket contains a grenade launcher.’

  Neither of them saw the joke. Ratchman picked up my jacket and checked it over before tossing it to me followed by another poke in the chest from the barrel of his weapon. This time he wasn’t sparing the horses, and it hurt. He was close enough and if his pal hadn’t been watching me and waiting for a wrong move, I’d have taken his gun and made him eat it.

  ‘I’m gonna let you have that one wisecrack, Portman,’ he said coolly. ‘One more and I’ll shoot you in the leg.’ He nodded at his pal and said, ‘Dom, get his stuff.’

  We waited while Snake-Eyes, or Dom, threw my few possessions into my bag, then Ratchman stepped aside with a gesture towards the door. ‘Now, move. Hang a left along the corridor to the back stairway and down to the rear door. Don’t attempt to run or you will get shot. Try to fight back or call for help and the same applies. There are more of us outside so don’t play clever. Make it an orderly transition and you won’t get hurt.’

  Orderly transition. Only the military could adopt such a banal term and make it sound so final.

  I led the way out into the corridor and wondered if they’d picked up Masse, too. I guess I’d soon find out.