The fact was that they had a point to make: we, the Russian Federal Security Service, precocious, overfed child of the KGB, young, brash and with limitless resources, we’ll come into your life and shatter your privacy whenever we want.
So two messages had been delivered for the price of one.
Arkady could feel the anger rising in his throat, but he stopped it. Anger was what they wanted. Provocation: the tried and tested tactic. Poke a target and see what he does. Poke him again until he’s afraid. Poke him again and again till he makes a mistake.
You play your games, he thought. But in two days’ time I’ll leave this asylum, and you and the rest of the lunatics can plot your stupidities without me.
Just two days.
The words seemed like a lantern that could light his path all the way to New York.
JORDAN/SYRIA BORDER
On the brow of a hill, ten kilometres from Ramtha, Ahmed stopped the car and got out to survey the damage.
The village had been obliterated just before daylight. Government jets had raged overhead, four of them from a clear, unsullied sky, shattering the peace of dawn. The innocent would have been sleeping; the faithful, praying; everyone else, good or evil, stopped dead before the day had begun.
As far as he could see, dust and smoke enveloped the ruins. And yet even after the killer blow, he knew that villages didn’t die quickly or quietly. They sputter and burn and collapse, slowly and in terrible pain. Sometimes it can take days.
If you’re close by you’ll hear the cries and shouts of the injured, not many, trapped under the fallen buildings. And as the hours go by, they grow fainter and then disappear on the wind. Papers and filth and clothing gust through the ruins and the embers of the fire eat away at whatever is left of the dead and their possessions.
And then there’s the smell of it. You can always taste death, right at the back of your throat – the bitter, nauseating stench of those who depart the world in violence.
Ahmed wondered how many had escaped – but the human cost didn’t interest him. Simply the realization from years gone by that, however great the carnage, there is always someone who gets away; maybe an old man outside the village who had been smoking or chatting with a friend, an insomniac muttering nonsense to himself under a bush, even a dog, drinking from the stream.
Someone, something, would have survived.
Eight hours had passed since Ahmed had received the coded message from Moscow. Seven since he had set up the meeting at the village. He had thought the place would be peaceful and silent, that the contact would wait till the Jordanian border patrols changed shift and then crawl across the cold, hard fields till he found the barn where they had met before.
It lay among a sprawl of outbuildings, a little community of farmers that straddled a frontier that wasn’t marked and didn’t much matter in days gone by. A dot on a few local maps where business came from the land, where they dabbled in random smuggling, where no one minded as long as the men in uniforms with big, shiny buttons got paid off.
The sky was clouding over and Ahmed thought snow would come by the evening. From his coat, he took a small pair of field glasses and focussed them on the village.
The barn had been incinerated where it stood. Around it, not a single structure remained upright. And yet he was sure the contact would come.
The contact would know that Ahmed had pull. Wasta, they called it in the Middle East. He would know that Ahmed was a man of exceptional influence and considerable resources. But above all he would fear Ahmed and all that he was capable of doing.
If the contact still had a beating heart and blood in his body, he would be there before the day was out.
LONDON
She walked to Victoria and took the bus to the Finchley Road. It was the only journey that ever felt like going home.
Margo remembered the first time she had moved away from her parents, couldn’t wait to leave, carted her three suitcases to a studio flat in Bayswater, with a full-width mirror along one wall and a shagpile carpet and all the signs that it had been rented by the hour. What did it matter? It was the day she pronounced herself lucky and happy and free.
But it was never home.
There had followed a succession of other flats. Longest stay: just over two years. Explanation to self: they felt temporary – places to transit rather than live.
For someone who could plan other people’s lives in such meticulous detail, she was curiously disinterested in charting her own. She abhorred ‘navel gazing’ and ‘wallowing’ and ‘bum chat’ – pointless mental meanderings that led nowhere. Real life, she had felt sure, would collide with her when the time was right – and the two of them would sort it out as best they could. There was no need to talk it to death before it happened.
Two decades spent thinking that way and now she knew different.
‘My fault,’ she had once told Dad. ‘If I’d really wanted the kids and the four-wheel drive, I’d have done it. But there’s still something in me that prefers a park bench with the foxes.’
‘They’ll be lucky to have you,’ he had replied.
He opened the door to her in the little house in Platts Lane and ushered her into the hall.
‘You look well,’ she said, shocked for a moment, because he didn’t.
As he led the way, he seemed oddly fragile in his movements, each footstep deliberate and measured, as if he were frightened of falling. And yet the boyish, trademark smile was still the same, just as it had been in all the family pictures from the sixties and seventies – the smile that had been so useful to a young foreign correspondent, intent on opening and rattling all the doors he could find.
‘Your mother’s not here. If you’d said you were coming …’
‘It’s OK. Really Dad. I just came for a quick chat.’
He made tea and they sat on two unmatched armchairs and stared at the sad little garden with the half-dead grass.
‘Jimmy’s gone,’ she said suddenly, knowing that Dad wasn’t going to ask.
He knew her better than anyone, knew that you had to wait until she was ready to speak and that questions were pointless.
‘You told him.’ Statement not question.
‘Yes.’
‘And he couldn’t handle it?’
‘Went all selfish on me – suddenly it was all about him … when would he see me, where would I be …? What if I didn’t come home?’
He put out a hand and touched her shoulder. ‘Will he get over it?’
‘I don’t know … not sure I even want him to.’ She shrugged. ‘I could have handled it differently, put it in a shiny package, tied it up with a red ribbon – but what the hell? It is what it is.’
Dad stared straight ahead at the garden. She knew what he was thinking – that there wasn’t any point going over things, fannying around, wondering if there’d been another way. He had told her so many times over the years that there was only one thing that mattered: the way forward. Not the best way, not the ideal way. Not even the right way. Just the one you could live with.
He had also told her that whatever happened in her life, there was a place she could come to, where she wouldn’t be judged or blamed. A haven in a mean and chaotic world. A narrow terraced house, with floorboards that creaked absurdly and a neurotic, old boiler that had struggled far too long to survive.
Dad got up to fetch more tea.
‘There’s something else …’
He caught the change in her expression and sat down again.
‘I’m trying to get someone out of Russia … he’s pretty experienced but I need to hold his hand till he’s out of the country. And then we have to get him through New York – the Americans aren’t exactly cooperating …’
‘They want a piece of him as well?’
‘That’s the problem … you know what happened the last time I had one of our assets on their soil.’
‘Yes.’
‘So I’m worried …’ She finished her tea and poured an
other cup. ‘Issues of trust …’
‘What does Manson say?’
‘What he always says. Get on with it. It’s not about trust – we’re stuck with the Americans and we have to make the best of it. They’re the ones with all the sweets and we have to go and play nice, hoping they’ll open the jar and give us some. Problem is they’re just as likely to try and snatch the ones we already have.’
There was silence for a moment. Far away upstairs she could hear the telephone ringing, some traffic outside.
Dad shifted in his chair. ‘You’ll do the best you can for this fellow. I know you will. If anyone can get him out …’
‘Yes Dad, thank you’ – she couldn’t help the sudden flash of anger – ‘but my track record isn’t exactly great, is it? Not after New York …’
‘Wasn’t your fault.’
‘Doesn’t matter whether it was or not. Fault, blame, responsibility – just words, Dad. A man died on my watch. I can dress it up anyway I like, but that bit doesn’t go away.’
‘I’m sorry I snapped.’
He hugged her tightly. ‘Your mum’ll be sad to have missed you.’
‘Me too.’
She turned and walked away along the lane and back to the bus stop.
She remembered the days when she had hurried through her homework just to go and meet Dad at the bus stop.
She remembered how his face had shone with happiness when he caught sight of her; how she had wanted to carry his papers up the street; how hungry he had been when he’d sat down for his supper.
She could still remember what a normal life looked and felt like.
She could remember everything.
‘You think too much,’ Mikhail had told her.
That too, she remembered.
Dad watched her from the dining-room window till she was out of sight. Margo – daughter or not – was the most capable, most resourceful person he had ever known.
But she worked in a snakepit, dominated by conflicting loyalties and priorities and ever-changing expedients. And she couldn’t win all the battles.
He knew that three years ago she had lost heavily. Mikhail’s death remained fresh in her mind and unresolved. And the half-smile was painted on fresh each day and worn to keep the world and its questions at bay. Was she up – or down? No one would ever know.
Jimmy, he thought, was finished business. Margo never spoke about her feelings but, known only to a few, the ones she had were deep-rooted. She was loyal in a basic and uncomplicated way – but she didn’t do forgiveness. Cross her and you would find yourself removed overnight from her phone book. You wouldn’t see it coming. She gave no warnings or ultimatums.
You just knew that her door had closed.
JORDAN/SYRIA BORDER
Before the war, the contact had been a police officer in a suburb of Aleppo. Proud of it too. Had the gun in a shiny, black holster at his hip – a Russian-made Vostok – trousers a size too tight and a raft of little ventures on the side that made it all worthwhile.
One of them had been to play the local drug gangs, selling each one information about the other and betraying them selectively when it became clear who was going down.
He had good instincts, didn’t back losers, clung to the winning side and made them love him. Until someone stronger came along.
And the winning side was always glad to have a guy in uniform. Made them feel protected.
But the war had changed the game – the gangs did fewer drugs and more guns and politics – and all the players changed sides or went away and died with remarkable frequency.
All the same, the most prized commodity was still information and the people still needed a postman. Taking messages, telling stories, delivering the news that everyone wanted. Who was still alive and who wasn’t, where the guilty or the innocent were hiding … Where the bodies were buried?
No one paid more for such things than Ahmed, but Ahmed was the most frightening person he had ever met. It wasn’t the voice – sometimes so quiet that you had to strain to hear it – nor the confidence that stood out from all the panic and terror and shouting around him.
But the knowledge of what he had done and what he could do – things that the contact could no longer bring himself to contemplate.
‘Why are you so afraid of this man?’ his wife had once asked him.
‘Who says I’m afraid?’
‘When you talk about him you piss in your pants like it was your first day at school.’
‘Watch your mouth,’ he had snapped. But he knew it was true. Ahmed was way outside his league, came from a different world that he would never see and could never imagine. Played a different game, wrote different rules. Which meant no rules at all.
Sure, as a policeman, the contact hadn’t been averse to some gratuitous violence. A beating or two in the cells could lead to all sorts of happy outcomes: confessions, offers of bribes, even a car, if you picked the right person.
But Ahmed came from a different planet.
With Ahmed you said a prayer and took the money, and muttered your grateful thanks and a dozen exaggerated salutations. But you didn’t look back. You didn’t ask questions and you would swear on the life of your mother and sixteen of her blood relatives that your meeting had never taken place.
Because Ahmed was a ghost. And death was all around him.
For half an hour, he had watched the contact as he lay low in a dip between the fields. The temperature had dropped and the man would be freezing, but he wouldn’t come across until dark.
Although lines kept shifting, the Free Syrian Army currently controlled the eastern side along this stretch of border. There would be no problem with them. But sometimes the Jordanian patrols were more active. Jordan was creaking under the weight of refugees and not averse to throwing some of them back into Syria.
He could see the grey shape begin to move, head down, dark jacket, hoodie underneath.
In the darkness, the man almost missed him. Ahmed snatched his arm and pulled him down into a ditch beside him.
‘You’re late.’
The contact began to whine. ‘Sincere apologies sir, but it’s not—’
‘Shut up.’ Ahmed put his hand over the man’s mouth. ‘I don’t have long and I need information. Someone in or around this area is holding an American woman – she’s of Syrian origin – speaks Syrian Arabic. I need you to find her.’
‘If Daesh has her I will not come out alive. Everyone is watched. They cut off your head and skewer it onto railings …’
‘I know all about their methods. I also know that they pay for information – just as I do. I want this woman found and I want to get her out – alive. Do you understand me?’
‘I understand but it’s impossible …’
‘Use your old police contacts. Some of them must still be alive. A few have gone over to the Islamists … Bribe them, blackmail them. Do what you have to …’
‘Everyone I know is dead.’
‘Then you will find the last useful creature left alive in the city and you will bring me what I need.’ The voice had gone quiet. Ahmed removed an envelope from his pocket. ‘This is what you will use to purchase the information. But be careful. If it’s known you have cash, everyone will try to steal it. Be selective. Be clever. You know how this works …’
The contact took the envelope and shoved it into his jacket.
‘You have twenty-four hours. That’s it …’
The contact raised himself on his knees, a cloud lifted and the moonlight hit his contorted face.
Ahmed read his expression: the tight, dry lips, the darting eyes – the contact would not have expected the money. Now he was torn between fear and opportunity. Between fear and greed. Which would he choose?
Ahmed’s left hand fastened on the tight curly hair of the contact’s skull, pulling it towards him, his mouth right up against the man’s ear.
‘You would be unwise to come back here without the information I need. You would be unwise to
tell me stories about how the package has been lost or stolen. You would be unwise to deviate in any way from my instructions. Do I make myself plain?’
The man nodded, pulled himself to his feet and, crouching low, slithered back into the darkness that marked the border.
Ahmed waited a few seconds until the clouds had pulled across the moon and ran back to his car. The cold had eaten into him, his hands were frozen, nose a block of ice. It took a few minutes for the inside to warm up as he pulled through the dark, half-built streets of Ramtha, heading south to Amman.
He thought the contact would find a way to keep some of the money for himself and use the rest to buy safe passage in and out.
Perhaps, after all, there was nothing to be found or the information would be out of date. Or maybe the contact would be stupid enough to betray him to the Islamists and hope that he would simply fall into their trap.
He drove on and focussed on what lay ahead. Moscow was adamant. The American woman had to be found and extricated. He didn’t know why and had no interest either.
As for the contact, he was of no importance. Whatever happened, Ahmed would kill him.
LONDON
‘Let’s make this official, Dean.’
‘All the same to me.’
Margo had called the meeting. A café on Duke Street, three minutes from the US embassy. No chit-chat, she had told herself. Get it over with and get out.
‘Our man’s coming out day after tomorrow. Aeroflot direct from Moscow to New York JFK, due in around 2200. I’ll be with him.’
‘OK.’ Anderson produced a lukewarm smile. ‘Listen, there’s no reason why any of this has to get unpleasant. We’ll take him off to a nice hotel, feed him a good meal and then spend a couple of days chatting about old times.’
‘I need him on a plane back to London Thursday night. If there’d been any other way of doing this …’
‘I’ll let them know.’
‘It’s a fixed deadline, Dean. We agreed on—’
Fatal Ally Page 8
