Phoenix

by Mark Dawson

  Next, Beatrix read the details of the man she had been sent to retrieve. There was nothing on the work that Koralev and his colleague had been doing at Daedalus. It didn’t concern Beatrix. She didn’t need to know the background, and, in some ways, it was better that she didn’t know. There was always the chance that she might be detained during her mission and, in the event that she was questioned, what she did not know could not be revealed. Her training had included hours of simulated torture that brushed up close to the real thing, and she was as prepared for that eventuality as she could possibly be. But that would not insulate her from all eventualities. An interrogator armed with sodium thiopental, for example, could remove her inhibitions and loosen the firm knots that her training allowed her to tie; it would be useless, though, in extracting information that she did not know.

  She moved on to the asset who was waiting to assist her. John Milton was an orphan whose parents had been killed in a car crash on the German Autobahn when he was twelve. Upon their deaths, the inheritance Milton received paid for a first-class education that had taken him to Cambridge. He had turned down the offer of a pupillage at the Bar to enlist with the Royal Green Jackets. He had been posted to Winchester and then sent to Gibraltar. He had served in Northern Ireland and was, according to his superior officers, an excellent soldier. He had been persuaded to apply for Selection to the SAS and passed with ease. His career with Air Troop, B Squadron, 22 SAS had been spectacular: he had served in the Middle East, the Far East, South and Central America and had then gone back to Armagh. Milton had notched up multiple kills and had been pegged as a particularly dogged operator; indeed, his name had been added to a list of potential recruits to Group Fifteen. As Number One, Beatrix could remove him from that list as quickly as clicking her fingers. But there were no blemishes on his record. Beatrix could see why he had been chosen.

  She deleted the files, wiping her hard drive of them completely, and then opened her email client. She hovered the cursor over one unread email, wanting to open it yet reluctant to do so. The email had been sent from Action for Children, an adoption agency in South London. Beatrix had filled out a form on their website and sent it off while she waited at the airport, requesting information on the services that they provided. They had responded at once, within an hour of the form being completed, but, although she had looked at it several times, sitting in her inbox, Beatrix had been unable to open it. She knew why: it was an admission of failure, acceptance of the fact that she and Lucas would not be able to conceive a child themselves. It was second best. She wasn’t ready to consider that.

  She closed the laptop, slid it into her bag and stowed it in her overhead locker. The flight from Paris to Caracas was ten hours. She reclined her seat, put a sleeping mask over her face and closed her eyes.

  Control had been right: she was distracted. Sleep would help.

  4

  One of the benefits of a legend that painted her as a high-end travel agent was that Beatrix was accommodated in some of the best hotels in the world. Ops had booked Rebecca Smith a suite at the Cayena Hotel, a five-star establishment that was reputed to be the best in Caracas. A limousine had been sent to meet her at the airport and the polite and discreet driver had delivered her to the Avenida Principal La Castellana. The hotel was housed within a sleek building that was at odds with the poorer areas that they had passed through on the hour-long drive through Maiquetía and then the fringes of the city.

  A bellhop opened the door of the car and welcomed her to the hotel. She stepped out, exchanging the pleasant cool of the cabin for the heat of the sun, broiling even at this relatively early hour. The bellhop raised a parasol to offer shade as he guided her inside the building; his colleague busied himself with removing her luggage from the trunk of the limo and wheeling it after them.

  She checked in, signing her fake name with a fluent flourish of the pen. The ease befitted something that had become so familiar to her over the years that she sometimes stumbled when signing her real name. The bellhop showed her to the elevator, pressed the button for the fourth floor and made pleasant small talk as they ascended. The floor onto which she emerged was cool and dark, the clamour of the city replaced by the quiet hush of a water feature that had been installed in the elevator lobby. The man opened the door to her suite, wheeled her suitcase inside and delivered a perfunctory explanation of the features of the connecting lounge, bedroom and bathroom. Beatrix thanked him, tipped him with a five thousand-Bolivar note, and waited until the door had closed behind him before taking off her sweaty clothes and stepping into the shower to sluice away the grime of her journey.

  She wrapped herself in a towel and unpacked her case. Ops had provided her with it, together with the outfits that Rebecca Smith would wear for her time in the city and those for the trip to the Isla de Margarita that would not happen. Luggage could be opened and checked; the things that were packed inside needed to match her story. She chose a pair of loose-fitting slacks, an airy white blouse, a wide-brimmed sun hat and a pair of Ray-Bans and checked her appearance in the mirror. She looked just as she wanted to look: a businesswoman with pockets deep enough to afford a stylish wardrobe.

  She ran her fingers around the inside of the case. There was a tiny incision in the lining, no more than half a centimetre across and almost impossible to see unless you were specifically looking for it. She took a pair of tweezers from her make-up bag and, working with extravagant care, she slid the tips inside the opening and carefully withdrew the SIM card that had been secreted there. She picked up her phone, removed the case, took out the SIM and replaced it with the one that she had removed from her case. She powered up, waited for a signal, and then sent a simple message to acknowledge that she had arrived in Caracas and was commencing the operation. She switched the SIMs again and replaced the secret one back in its hiding place, closed the case and put it away in the wardrobe.

  She put the hat on her head, hooked her glasses to the scoop of her blouse, and left the room.

  She had an appointment to keep.

  Mr. Smith was waiting for her.

  5

  An intelligence officer could not go to a clandestine meeting without first ensuring that he or she was not being followed. They called it ‘dry-cleaning’, and it usually involved an innocuous cover activity that included a planned route through areas that made it especially difficult to maintain covert surveillance. Beatrix had been given a route and she followed it to the letter: a taxi to the Centro de Arte Los Galpones, an oasis in the heart of the chaotic city, where she wandered through an art gallery and had an iced tea, all the while checking for any signs that she might be followed; and then a second taxi to the Teleférico, the famous cable car system that offered breathtaking views of the capital. Beatrix bought a roundtrip ticket and boarded a car with half a dozen other people, all of whom were tourists unless her instincts were very much awry.

  The car took them to the top of the Ávila Mountain. The national park separated the sea from the city, and, as Beatrix stepped out, she was able to breathe the fresh air and relax in the peacefulness of the natural landscape as a counterpoint to the mad bustle of the city. The top of the mountain included a wide promenade along the ridgeline. Sellers had established food and handicraft kiosks, and there was an official restaurant next to an ice skating rink that was promised to open later in the year. An enormous Venezuelan flag snapped in the breeze over the ruins of the old Humboldt Hotel. Low-flying clouds scudded just above the jagged summit of the mountain, and the breeze lent the area a more pleasant temperature, several degrees cooler than the city below.

  Beatrix went into the bar and restaurant.

  She recognised the man from the photographs in her file. He was of average height and build, his hair cut neat with a lazy comma that hung down over his temple. Not handsome, but not unattractive, either. He was the sort of man who would be able to melt into a crowd without drawing attention to himself. That was a helpful characteristic in this line of work.
/>   “Hello,” she said.

  He looked up at her.

  “John?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Rebecca?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Can I get you a drink, Rebecca?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  The opening exchange was designed to confirm identities. Beatrix was satisfied and sat down.

  “You been here long?” she asked him.

  He looked down at the empty bottles on the table. “Half an hour,” he said. She could smell the alcohol on him and suspected it might have been a little longer than that. He wasn’t drunk, but it was evident that he had had enough to drink to smooth the edge off the day a little. That was unprofessional, and she noted it for future reference.

  “Were you followed?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “And you don’t need to worry: this isn’t my first rodeo.”

  “No,” she said. “I know it isn’t.”

  First impressions—particularly the bottles of beer on the table—were not good. Beatrix knew that Control would ask her for her thoughts on a potential recruit and, at least right now, she didn’t anticipate being able to recommend him.

  “What’s next?” he asked her.

  “Have you memorised your legend?”

  He nodded. “My name is John Smith,” he said. “My wife and I are the principals of Boutique Getaways. We’re here to meet with hoteliers on the Isla de Margarita. We are looking for destinations that we can add to our brochure. I’ve been in Costa Rica and Ecuador, and we scheduled to meet here. Legitimate meetings with hotels on the island were established six weeks ago. I’m quite looking forward to that.”

  “They won’t be going ahead,” Beatrix said. “Our son’s boarding school will contact us in three days’ time. Jasper is going to contract glandular fever and we’re going to have to cancel our vacation and return home.”

  “Jasper?” Milton said. “Jesus, who came up with that?”

  Beatrix fixed him with a steely eye; perhaps he was more drunk than she had initially believed. “This isn’t a joke,” she said. “Have you done anything like this before?”

  “Not quite like this,” he admitted. “I’m a soldier, not a spy.”

  That was true; there was a world of difference between what they both did. “Do you know why you were selected for this?”

  “I can think of two reasons. Because I’ve worked down here before.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “And the second?”

  “My father.”

  James Milton had enjoyed a successful career in the petrochemical industry, and his success had meant that his family had been forced to endure a peripatetic existence until his retirement. Milton’s SIS file recorded stays in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Dubai and Oman. He had been to Venezuela, too. His history meant that he was conversant in key languages and credible when he spoke about the country.

  “Yes,” she said. “And there’s a third reason, too. Because your commanding officer speaks very highly of you. This is an important assignment. It’s also an opportunity for you. If you do a good job, there could be openings for you. The agency that I work for is always looking for operators we can trust.”

  Milton smiled. “I’m quite happy doing what I’m doing,” he said. “Like I said, I’m a soldier, not a spy. This suits me. You’ll get one hundred per cent commitment from me, but I can’t imagine I’d be interested in a change of career. No offence meant.”

  His eyes were a crisp, alpine blue, and Beatrix felt uneasy as she looked into them. They were unsettling.

  “None taken,” she said, quite sure now that she would remove him from Control’s list as soon as she returned to London.

  “What’s next?”

  “We’re staying at the Cayena. Room 403. Go and check in. I’ll meet you there. We’ll debrief properly tonight.”

  6

  Beatrix spent the rest of the afternoon acclimatising herself to the city. She liked to get a feel for the rhythms and routines of a place, so she wandered the streets like a tourist and soaked everything up. She visited the Jardín de las Piedras Marinas Soñadoras and enjoyed the peace and quiet away from the bustle of the city; she took in the Museo de Bellas Artes, using the quiet galleries to confirm once again that she was not being followed; and she finished her afternoon at El Museo de los Niños, a series of galleries that were designed for children. She wandered the rooms, looking at the exhibits of toys and the interactive displays that delighted the children that were engaging with them, parents and teachers watching behind them as they played. She caught herself daydreaming, the conversation with Wells and then Lucas’s consoling words returning to her, and she forced herself to move on.

  As the afternoon drew to a close, she stopped to eat an arepa—corn flour bread that was served with beef—and then took a taxi back to the hotel.

  Milton was waiting for her. He had set himself up on the sofa.

  She went into the bathroom and changed out of her hot clothes, choosing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts to replace them. Milton was standing at the minibar when she returned to the main room.

  “Want a beer?”

  “No, thanks,” she said, shooting him a disapproving look as he popped the top off a bottle of Solera, a local brew.

  Beatrix sat down. “I need your report,” she said. “We need to work out the best way to go about this. What do you know?”

  Milton took a slug of the beer and then sat down in the armchair.

  “Okay,” he said. “So—I’ve been here three days. The intel was excellent. I found Koralev right away. He comes into the city every morning and has breakfast at Danubio on Mata de Coco. Sunday, yesterday and today, the same time all three days. Eight thirty on the dot. I’ve been able to follow him afterwards, too. He’s not experienced. I’m confident he hasn’t made me.”

  “Confident?”

  “I’m sure he hasn’t,” he said.

  “His routine?”

  “Breakfast for an hour. Then he goes and buys a newspaper and reads it on the terrace of a coffee shop on Avenida Mohedano. Stays there for an hour, then goes for a walk in the Jardín Hidrofítico. He got into his car and went home after that on Sunday. But yesterday he had a meeting. He went to the observatory in the park and met a man there.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “No. And he struck me as much more careful than Koralev. He was very itchy—he kept his eyes open all the way through the meeting, checking around him. I decided to follow him rather than Koralev when they were finished, but he shook me off quickly. Standard counter-surveillance tactics—it was just me on his tail. No way I could stay on him.”

  “Pictures?”

  “Like I said—not my first rodeo,” Milton said.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of photographs. He handed them to Beatrix. She looked through the pictures and saw a series that had been taken with the Planetario Humboldt as the backdrop. A man whom Beatrix recognised as Igor Koralev was talking to another younger man. This second man was unshaven and wearing thick black-framed glasses and a cap that Beatrix immediately suspected was part of a disguise. The cap bore a logo on the front that Beatrix vaguely remembered: curved prongs that joined at the top to form the outline of the letter A.

  “How long did they talk for?”

  “Thirty minutes,” Milton said. “I couldn’t get close enough to get an idea what they were talking about. It looked intense.”

  She put the photographs down. “The file says he lives out of town?”

  “He does. There’s a small village thirty minutes south of Caracas. Cortada de Maturín. You go through it until you get to a private track. It goes up into the hills. You wouldn’t be able to follow him without being seen. I was going to hike up there—we could still do that if you wanted to. I staked it out for three hours last night after he went back and then I picked him up as he left this morning. One other car came out last night. It was driven by an old woman. I followed
her back to the village. I’m thinking she might be his housekeeper. Nothing else in, nothing else out. It’s a good place to hide out.”

  “Any sign of other meetings?”

  Milton shook his head.

  “What about protection?”

  “No,” Milton said, shaking his head. “I don’t think he has any. I looked, but I couldn’t see anyone.”

  “He’s out here on his own? Just wandering around?”

  “As far as I could tell,” Milton said.

  Beatrix frowned.

  “I know what the intel said,” Milton said. “But I would have spotted it.”

  That was entirely consistent with what the briefing had suggested. Beatrix didn’t like surprises, but, on the other hand, the job of taking him might have become a lot more straightforward.

  “What do you want to do?” Milton said.

  “We find him tomorrow. Where would be the best place to take him?”

  “The road out of Cortada de Maturín. It’s very, very quiet. Not much more than a track until it gets to the Autopista, but that’s the main route into the city. It’s busy as soon as you hit it.”

  “We’ll pick him up outside the village, then. We’ll need a vehicle.”

  “I’ve already got one,” he said. “I picked one up in town yesterday.”

  “And weapons?”

  “That’s sorted, too. I visited the cache yesterday.”