by Matthew Dunn
“You have hesitation in your eyes, Nicholas.” Lana lit her cigarette and smiled slightly. Her cheeks had color in them, and she exuded confidence and energy. “Are you wary of my intentions toward you now?”
Will thought about her question and shook his head. “No, because I can control any such intentions.”
Lana inhaled smoke, placed her elbows on her thighs, and rested her chin on her hands. She watched him for a while before saying, “I’m sure you can. But something is making you uneasy.”
Will frowned.
Lana retained her smile. “Maybe you are wary of yourself.”
“You could be right.” Will knew she was right. He wanted more than anything to sit next to her and hold her.
Lana studied him for a while longer before reaching back into her handbag. “The concierge just gave this to me.” She withdrew an envelope and held it out at arm’s length.
Will moved closer, took the envelope, and unsealed it to remove a letter. He turned it over a few times and decided that it was not written on Iranian embassy stationery. The words were handwritten in a blue ink.
Dear Lana,
Of course you would not deliver to me the British man without being under my protection. I am reassured that you have taken such a stance. I am also grateful that you have sufficient confidence in my intentions to give me the man’s name. But hiding from him no longer serves any purpose. You must bring him near to you so that after you and I are reacquainted, I can make swift plans.
Contact him and tell him that you are scared. Tell him that you are sorry you left Paris without telling him you had done so. Tell him where you are staying in case he needs you.
I am closer to you than you may think. We will meet very soon.
Your dear friend,
Megiddo
Will read the letter three times before handing it to Lana. He watched her read and then look up. Her expression had changed, and she now seemed agitated.
“It’s him. It’s really him.” Lana extinguished her cigarette and immediately lit another one.
“You’re sure?”
She rocked back and forth a little. “I’m sure.” When she rubbed a hand over her mouth, the action smudged lipstick onto her chin. “What happens next?”
Will walked over and took the letter from her hand. “We’ll give him what he wants as well as something unexpected.”
He then gave her a new sheet of stationery and dictated her response to Megiddo. When she had placed the completed letter in the envelope, Will pointed a finger so that it was touching the document. “You need to take that to the Iranian embassy now.”
Lana nodded and placed her hand over his. She squeezed tight and said, “It’s funny. I’ve lived with years and years of hatred and a desire for revenge against Megiddo. That’s all that mattered to me. But now”-her smile faded, and she looked longingly at Will-“I wonder if that’s all that matters.”
To my dear Megiddo,
I did what you asked, but when I spoke to him, he sounded angry. He told me that he was in Berlin and had prevented you from doing something dreadful. He told me that you were playing games and that you were trying to mislead his people.
He wants to see me again, and he will be traveling to Croatia within the next day or so. He told me that I had now become important to him. He told me that he needs to know what you look like.
Please tell me what I should do. Please hurry and take me away from here.
Yours,
Lana
“Okay, so what’s this idea of yours, Harry?” Will had traveled to Oslo Airport merely so that he could spend a few moments with Lace in the transit lounge where he was now seated. He had come straight here after receiving an SMS from Harry as he was leaving Lana’s hotel. Harry was flying on to Helsinki, and Will intended to leave the Norwegian airport on the next available flight to Zurich.
Harry took a large gulp of his complimentary whiskey. “Human Benevolence Foundation. Have you heard of it?”
The name sounded familiar to Will. “A nongovernmental organization?”
“Yes. It’s Iranian and quite small. Not like some of the other Iranian NGOs and less obvious than the likes of Red Crescent, which we all know is a front for their intelligence services. HBF’s been in Bosnia for about three years and has been mostly building and rebuilding religious places. They seem”-Harry angled his head a little-“quite legitimate.”
“You think this is where Megiddo is working from?”
“I think it could be where he’s working from. I would not like to put it stronger than that.”
“Why do you believe he could be there?”
Harry smiled and swirled ice within his glass. “One of my other business interests is construction. We use a lot of subcontractor companies, and there’s a Bosnian guy who works for one of them who I’ve known for a long time. We go way back-before, during, and after the war. His own company has recently been awarded the contract to build a mosque in Sarajevo, with HBF money and according to their designs.” Harry waved one of his manicured hands in the air. “So my guy is working with HBF people. And there’s a man there. He’s midfifties in age, quiet, does nothing. My guy recognizes him.”
“Qods Force?”
“Yes.” Harry set his glass down. “At least he was when he was last in Bosnia during the war.”
“A name?”
“Nothing. My guy’s asked around to try to find out more.” He held up a finger. “Carefully, mind. He made it look as though he was just checking up on HBF to make sure they’re good for their money.” Harry dipped his little finger into his whiskey and then sucked the spirit off it. “Nobody knows anything about this Iranian man. It seems he keeps an extremely low profile, which is quite a difficult thing to do in a goldfish bowl like Sarajevo. And he seems to have no involvement or interest in HBF projects.”
Will thought through a few issues. “Why would your guy do this? Why would he try to check up on this man?”
Harry shrugged. “Because I asked him to.” He laughed. “Don’t worry, none of my people know about our arrangement.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Trust?” Harry sniggered. “You know my views on that word. But I can say that he and I have been through too much together for us to distrust each other.”
Will nodded his approval. “That’s excellent, Harry. I think your guy may have stumbled onto the Qods Force Western Directorate’s location. Maybe even Megiddo himself.”
Harry finished his whiskey, and for once the man looked quite fatigued. He checked his watch and then said, “Business beckons. My flight will now be boarding.” He managed a tired smile. “On price I’ve just lost a deal with the Russians, but I’m hoping to offload the same deal to the Finns.”
“Weapons?”
“Warships.”
Will leaned forward so that he was closer to Harry. “I have a request, but given the level you operate at, you may think it somewhat beneath you.”
Harry waited.
“If, and I only say if, I were to need guns for an operation in Bosnia,” Will asked, “would you be able to get them for me?”
“How many users?”
“Five men.”
“Special operations gear?”
“Yes.”
Harry smiled in earnest this time. “I can arrange such a thing in seconds, but surely a man of your standing would not have need for under-the-counter equipment?”
Will mimicked Harry’s shrug. “What you and I are doing has to be completely off the radar. Nothing can be official. You understand?”
Harry flashed his white teeth. “Absolutely.” He forced himself upright and grabbed his leather overnight bag. “When you need the stuff, just call me and I’ll arrange everything.”
Will stood and shook hands with his agent. As he did so, Harry pulled him closer to his body. All traces of his smile had vanished.
“My associate’s name is Dzevat Kljujic.” Harry’s words were clipped and quiet. “He
lives on Bulevar Branioca Dobrinje in the west of Sarajevo.”
Will frowned. “You don’t need to tell me this. Your guy’s information is enough for me.”
“No, it’s not because there’s more.” Harry gripped Will’s hand tighter. “Yesterday morning Kljujic called me with an update. He said that he was still drawing a blank on getting information about this Qods Force man. But he also said that he managed to discreetly take a photograph of him.”
Will felt a rush of adrenaline course through his body. “When can you get hold of the shot?”
Harry looked around quickly and then returned his gaze to Will’s eyes. “That’s the problem. I was supposed to meet Kljujic this morning before I traveled here. But he never showed up, and since then his cell phone’s been switched off. He’s disappeared.”
It was 4:00 A.M. and very cold and dark as Will trudged over fresh Bosnian snow toward the urban house on Bulevar Branioca Dobrinje in Sarajevo. As he neared the property, he stopped and took shelter within the doorway of another house on the same street but across the road. He stood hidden in the unlit entrance and carefully examined his surroundings. Widely spaced lamps lined one side of the street, casting a dim yellow light over patches of the route. Some cars were parked near the properties, and judging by the snow cover on them, none had been driven for several hours. Will scanned the area of snow around the front door of Kljujic’s house but could see no sign of footprints or indeed any disturbances over the snow. He listened carefully but could hear nothing out of the ordinary. He looked directly at Kljujic’s property. It was part of a terraced complex and appeared quite modest from the outside. There were six windows on the facade, and all were dark, with wooden shutters closed behind glass. Will placed his hands inside his overcoat and waited for thirty minutes while analyzing every house that could overlook the target property. It seemed to him that the street was asleep.
Finally he walked quickly across the street to Kljujic’s front door. He pressed the buzzer a total of five times, waiting fifteen seconds between attempts. He glanced up to look for lights being switched on, but there were none. He repeated the ritual, waited another twenty seconds, and strode back up the street, counting the number of houses on his left as he went. When he reached a small alleyway, he cut through the place so that he was facing the rear gardens of the properties on Bulevar Branioca Dobrinje. He counted again as he walked alongside the backs of the houses until he knew he was standing directly behind Kljujic’s house.
The garden before him had wooden fencing that Will estimated was ten feet high. He leaped up and swung his body over the top of the fence before dropping down into a crouch within the garden. He’d been hoping that the place around him would contain at least one feature or item that could help him with his task, but instead the garden was bare. He looked at the six windows on the rear of the house and saw that those on the ground and first floors had external bars to protect the property from forced intrusion. But the windows on the top floor had no such bars, although the wooden shutters behind the glass were clearly shut. Will made some quick mental calculations, breathed in deeply, and sprinted forward. As he neared the house, he jumped to place one foot on the sill of the ground-floor window, thrust upward so that he could grab the bars of the second window, and then pulled up so that his other foot was on that window’s sill. When both his feet were on the first-floor sill, he released his grip from the bars and allowed himself to fall backward a few inches before again thrusting both legs to jump up and grab a metal overhang above the top-floor window. The overhang moved a little with his weight, but he quickly fixed his feet into position on the top-floor sill so that his weight was now accommodated. He stayed in this position for a moment while listening. He heard nothing and quickly punched his fist into the glass. The sound from the strike carried down the windless street, and Will held his breath as he again listened, glancing left and right. He placed his gloved hand into the hole and started gradually and quietly breaking away pieces of glass. Within a minute he had stripped the window of all its glass. He placed both hands back onto the overhang and kicked hard into the center of the closed shutters. It took two attempts before they gave way and swung inward. He climbed into the house and total darkness.
Will turned and pushed the broken shutters back so that they were as closed as they could be. Then he pulled out his flashlight, cupped a hand over the top of it to minimize its glare, and switched it on. He was in a bedroom, and the place was a mess. Sheets were half pulled off an empty mattress, and a table lamp lay smashed on the floor by its side. Two chests had all their drawers pulled out, and clothes were strewn everywhere. He spent a minute looking around the room before moving into the floor’s adjacent bathroom. A frameless mirror had been wrenched off its wall, and shards from it had fallen into a sink and toilet. He moved slowly back into the intervening corridor and took careful steps down to the first floor. To his right was a room that appeared to be a guest bedroom. A mattress had been lifted off the bed, upended, and sliced vigorously with a sharp object so that stuffing and springs were exposed. He moved to the other room. It was clearly a study of sorts. It contained a desk and office chair, metal filing cabinets, and bookshelves filled with books and file boxes. This room was much neater, although upon inspection Will noted that all of the file boxes were empty and that there were a corresponding number of piles of loose papers stacked on the floor. He moved his light over the desk and spotted nothing except a small cradle and a connecting cable. He lifted the cradle and saw that it was an electronic battery charger for a digital camera. Next he swung his light up to look at the books. Most of them were architectural or construction manuals, and upon opening some of them Will saw that they had been well thumbed. Below the bookshelves the beam of his flashlight flickered over an array of framed photographs that had obviously once been positioned upright on the side table they occupied but were now lying scattered there with the backs of the frames torn away. Will looked at the photographs; they seemed to be mostly business-related, and it was clear that Dzevat Kljujic had no family-or if he did, their images were apparently not deemed worthy of being framed in this study. Will’s flashlight stopped over one photograph that looked older than the others. It showed two young men dressed in jeans and quasi-military jackets. They were standing in wooded hills and smiling. Will picked up the photograph and brought it closer to his eyes. He did not recognize the man on the left, but the one on the right was certainly the Harry he knew, although the picture showed him to be around two decades younger. He pulled the photograph out from its frame and stuffed it into one of his pockets. He then set to work and spent the next ten minutes rapidly going through the stacks of paper to find and remove any reference to his agent Lace.
With more papers secreted on his person and his task complete, Will moved downstairs. Once there, he could smell what seemed like sour milk, and the odor was strong everywhere. He walked into the room on his left and saw that it was a kitchen. Cupboards were flung open, and some broken crockery lay fragmented across surfaces and on the stone floor. A fridge door hung ajar, and the light from the fridge was cast over a dining table and a half-full bottle of vodka. He left the kitchen so that he could see the last room in the house.
It was a lounge area, and as Will moved his flashlight around, it produced snapshot images of the place. He saw three dining chairs that were positioned to face the middle of the room; he saw a side table containing three plates with remnants of bread and meat on them; he saw three tumblers; he saw pictures that had been pulled off the walls and now lay broken over the floor; he saw a small television that looked as though it had been kicked onto its back; he saw a man hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room.
The smell of sour milk grew stronger as Will moved closer to the suspended body. He ignored the dead-flesh odor and looked at the rope around the man’s throat. It had been tied professionally and was threaded through a metal loop in the ceiling that was out of place in this room and next to a lampshade;
the fixture had obviously been screwed into one of the room’s beams. The rope then traveled diagonally downward to a corner of the room where a similar metal loop had been inserted by the baseboards. Will looked around the three positioned chairs and saw cigarette and cigar butts on the floor by their sides, as well as ash. He picked up one of the tumblers from the side table and placed its lip against his nose. He went back to the body and looked at the face. Judging by its expression, the man had been hanged in such a way as not to snap the neck but instead exhaust his body of air while his three executioners had sat in the chairs and eaten meat, drunk vodka, smoked, and watched him slowly die.
Will checked the man’s pockets but found nothing in them. He pulled from his own pocket the picture of Harry and the other man. He shone his flashlight between the image of the unknown man in the picture and the face of the dead man before him. Despite the age difference and the strangulated contortions of the hanged body, it was clear that the men were one and the same. The man had to be Dzevat Kljujic.
Will decided he had to leave and shone his flashlight one last time from the top of the body to its feet. As he did so, he noticed a dark streak on one of the man’s trouser legs. He followed the streak upward, taking a step closer. The streak moved into the man’s shirt, and Will touched the garment to find that it was cold and wet. He knew that the shirt was not, as he had previously thought, dark in color but instead was saturated with blood. He held the back end of his flashlight in his mouth and tore the shirt open.
One word had been carved with large letters into the dead man’s chest. The word was in Farsi, but Will knew what it meant.
The word meant “spy.”
Twenty-Three
Dear Lana,
Stay where you are and meet the British man when he arrives. Give him a false description of me, but do not be vague with details or he will view you as uncooperative. Ask him about Berlin and what bad thing he prevented me from doing there. If he is willing to give you details-and I believe he will in order to gain your full allegiance-then be horrified with his response. Tell him that you will help him in any way that you can.
