Fire Hawk

by Geoffrey Archer

  Why had Rybkin come up here this evening? Not for the view, that was for sure. To hide. Seeing Sam in the Paradiso had put the fear of God into him. And now? He’d be on his way out of Cyprus if he had any sense.

  Sam stepped backwards to re-enter the house. Something crunched under his foot. He bent down and found that whatever it was had become pinned to the sole of his shoe. He felt underneath the rubber and pulled it away.

  ‘My God,’ he croaked when he saw what it was.

  He strode back inside to check it in the light of the candle. In the palm of his hand lay a gold ear stud with a pearl centre.

  ‘Shit.’

  He remembered all those hours he’d spent choosing them.

  One of a pair he’d given to Chrissie two years ago.

  20

  Friday, 4 October, 02.30 hrs

  BY THE TIME the taxi deposited Sam at the entrance to the silently sleeping Mondiale Hotel nearly two hours later, he’d concluded that Chrissie’s last terrified moments must have been spent in the concrete ghost town he’d just come from. A perfect location for a murder – no one around to hear her screams as they forced down her throat something that was a snack to most people, but which she knew would kill her.

  And Rybkin had been there, he felt sure of it. The man had lied to him from start to finish. He hadn’t been in Cyprus to monitor the progress of transnational crime, but to play a part in it.

  Sam had walked for twenty minutes along the road to Limassol before a car had stopped to give him a lift. A couple of elderly British ex-pats heading for an early check-in at the cruise terminal and a five-day jolly to Egypt had dropped him outside a cab office on their way through the almost deserted town centre.

  ‘Here, sir.’ The cab driver gave Sam the receipt he would need to keep the SIS expenses department off his back. ‘My number’s on the card. Any time.’ The man drove off.

  When the sound of the engine had gone, Sam still hadn’t moved. From behind the hotel he could hear the hiss of surf on shingle. He felt a light breeze blowing off the water, a mild wind from Africa. He filled his nostrils with smells of the sea and of the damp greenery of the beds lining the driveway to the hotel.

  He’d phoned Mowbray from a call box in town, telling him what he’d learned about Chrissie’s death. They’d agreed Rybkin was probably on his way out of the country by now, the ‘other appointment’ he’d talked of being with a check-in counter at Larnaca airport. Mowbray was alerting the Cyprus police to try to get him stopped.

  Sam’s limbs felt leaden, his heart encased in stone. Drawn so much closer now to Chrissie’s death, the reality of it was biting hard. Since leaving that villa on the hillside he’d gone over in his mind the conversation with Rybkin. The fact that it had ended the moment he’d mentioned Iraq could not have been coincidental. He believed now that his original speculation had been right, that Chrissie had died because she’d uncovered a link between the Ukrainians and the Iraqis. A link they couldn’t afford to let her report. He had no proof of this, as Mowbray had yet again reminded him, and no evidence of what the deal might have been.

  For the umpteenth time he took from his pocket the photo snapped in the hotel bar. Some deep gut instinct told him there was another clue in it that he hadn’t yet found. Holding it towards the light coming from the hotel entrance he looked at it again, searching for this thing that he might have missed. He shook his head. Only faces. Those that could be seen and those that couldn’t.

  He moved inside the entrance lobby where the light was brighter to study it more closely. Three figures only at the table in the picture: Chrissie, Rybkin and the other Ukrainian. A little way behind the table, beyond the range of the flash, figures stood at the bar, none of them more than a shadow. A couple of faces were turned towards the camera, one a man who appeared to be staring at Chrissie. Nothing unusual in that. Men had often stared at her. But if no stone was to be left unturned in trying to prove his suspicions, then these shadowy, indistinct faces should also be scrutinised more closely. A job for the forensic specialists, not for him, the photo analysts back in London, who with their computers could extract detail from the direst of murk. He would call Waddell and alert them to be ready for the picture when he got back to England later in the day.

  He knew he should try to get some sleep now, but knew too he wouldn’t be able to. The hotel felt claustrophobic. If he went to his room he would only brood. He needed air. He pushed back outside through the swing doors and turned left onto a winding path that ran through gardens to the back of the hotel and to a set of stone steps leading to the beach. The whispering of the surf grew stronger as he walked and he knew it was at the water’s edge that he wanted to be. It was always at the bad times in his life that the soothing power of the sea drew him most strongly.

  At the bottom of the steps the beach was soft sand, but as he approached the water it became stonier. The surf had pushed the shingle into a long, low ridge. He stood on it watching the sea’s phosphorescent sparkle. With the sky now overcast the only light on the beach was what spilled from security lights in the hotel’s garden. He took a few deep breaths to oxygenate his blood, then slid towards the gentle breakers, stones skittering beneath his feet.

  He stared at the ripples as they sparkled forward, stopping just short of his feet. But instead of the sea comforting him, this time it seemed to heighten his sense of loss. He fished in his jacket pocket for the ear stud he’d found at the villa, and as he turned it over in his fingers Chrissie’s face filled his mind. He began to feel what she must have felt: excitement at uncovering, as he believed she had, the Iraqis’ connection with the Ukrainians; the thin-ice thrill of danger as she used her old friendship with Viktor Rybkin to try to unmask the deal; then the cold, panicky fear as the ice gave way beneath her. And Sam knew what happened with Chrissie when a situation slipped from her control. He remembered her terror in Baghdad when they’d first met in 1990, remembered watching her disintegrate when she believed they were all about to die.

  Then he thought of how she’d been in Amman, her hunger for pleasure and her need to have him wanting her still. He shook his head like a dog. Being out here in the dark with his memories was not such a good idea. He turned back towards the hotel.

  Suddenly he saw that he was not alone. A solitary figure sat on the top of the shingle bank a little further along, silhouetted against the light from the hotel. Sam dropped to a crouch, fearing irrationally that it was Rybkin. But the figure sat motionless and benign; a woman, he thought, hugging her knees like a child. He began to move up the bank, his feet scrabbling against the slipping shingle.

  At the top he stopped and looked again. She had fair hair hanging to her shoulders and was staring out to sea. So far as he could tell she hadn’t noticed him.

  Suddenly he realised who it was and moved closer.

  ‘Sophie?’

  The woman jerked with fright and stared round at him, straining to see.

  ‘Wha . . . whozat?’

  ‘It’s Terry.’

  ‘Oh. You.’ A pause, then she turned her face to the sea again. ‘’Lo.’

  He crunched over to where she sat, a picture of despondency.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘No.’

  His fault? he wondered. The result of his abrupt disappearance from the Paradiso?

  ‘Look, sorry about the drinks. Suddenly saw someone I had to talk to.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. You’re a heap o’ shit. You all are.’ She choked on the words. ‘Whyn’t you just piss off?’

  He couldn’t tell whether she’d been crying or was just drunk.

  ‘Look, I said I’m sorry,’ he repeated, trying to convince himself it was all right to leave her to her misery. Then he decided he’d better make sure she hadn’t been harmed in some way.

  He flopped down beside her.

  ‘Did something nasty happen to you?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Na-asty? No way,’ she spluttered almost laughing. ‘Nuffing ever does. Tha�
��s the trouble.’

  Pissed as a fart, he decided.

  ‘So, the bloke you were with . . .’

  ‘Into a pumpkin. At midnight. Went home to his wife and sprog.’

  ‘Which wasn’t what you’d had in mind.’

  She gave a gust of a sigh, her breath reeking of brandy.

  ‘Look. Din’t wan’ a relashunship with him or anything like that,’ she slurred. ‘Din’t pertickely like him. Jus’ wan’ed a shag. Thas all. Not much to ask izit? You blokes are s’posed to wan’ it all the bloody time.’ She punched him feebly on the shoulder. ‘So wha’s wrong with me, eh? Why don’t I get my share?’

  He saw tears glinting on her cheekbones and put his arm round her shoulder. He decided to give her a couple of minutes and then be on his way. ‘You will, sweetheart. There’s a bloke out there who’s for you, you’ll see.’

  ‘Huh. Anyway, I don’t feel like it anymore, so gerroff.’ She twisted away from him. ‘Lost my libeediboo. So don’ bloody try anything. Awright?’

  ‘I won’t. Have no fear.’ He stood up. ‘Look, I’m going inside. I’ll give you a hand if you want. But I’m going in now. So if you’re not coming, it’s goodnight. Okay?’

  ‘Hang on, hang on. Don’ be like that.’ She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him back down. Then she groaned as if in great pain.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Perhaps she had been assaulted.

  ‘Wha’s the time?’ she queried miserably. ‘Jus’ remembered something . . .’

  ‘About ten to three.’

  ‘Oh gawd!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Got to do a pres’tation in the morning. Morning? Christ! It’s bloody morning already. I’ll get the sack, I will.’

  ‘You’ll be all right. Drink loads of water, get some sleep, and down some paracetamol when you wake up. Be as right as rain.’

  ‘No, no!’ she howled. ‘You don’ understand. I’ve got to do the pres’tation. Like tonight.’

  ‘You mean prepare it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered forlornly.

  ‘That’s a presentation I’d quite like to watch!’

  ‘You mean bastard!’ she howled.

  Suddenly he thought of something. The presentation would surely be done on a computer.

  ‘You’ve got the kit for this somewhere?’ he asked tentatively. ‘A PC?’

  ‘Course. In my room. It’s got more hardware in it than s-lilicon valley. PC, scanner, printer, the lot.’

  ‘And software for playing around with photos?’

  ‘Oh yeah. The lot. Done a course on it.’

  ‘Brilliant. Come on then. I’ll give you a hand if you like. It won’t take you long. The sooner you start . . .’

  She didn’t move.

  ‘I think I’m goin’ to be sick . . .’ She pitched forward and retched.

  ‘Christ,’ Sam breathed, suppressing his revulsion. Somehow he was going to have to sober her up a bit.

  Ten minutes later he’d got Sophie to her room on the floor below his own, a room with the same striped wallpaper and faded Monet print. Clothes which she’d worn earlier in the day were strewn untidily across the double bed. He sat in front of her table-full of computer equipment while she threw up again, in the bathroom this time.

  She emerged eventually, her face pinched and blotchy, her lank hair clinging to her small head like a beggar’s. She perched on the edge of the bed, trembling.

  ‘G-got to sleep,’ she stuttered. Suddenly her eyes closed and she tipped sideways onto the mattress with the grace of a ballerina, tucking her legs into a foetal position.

  ‘No, luvvy, you can’t,’ Sam cajoled, springing to his feet. ‘You can’t sleep yet, Soph. Sorry. You’ve got work to do.’ He crossed to the bed and shook her gently. ‘Look, I’ll help you. Switch all this kit on and show me what it does.’

  ‘No. I jus’ wanna sleep.’

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her upright. She stared gormlessly up at him like a beached fish. ‘Come on.’ He put his hands under the sticky armpits of her little black dress and lifted her to her feet.

  ‘Gawd, I’m goin’ to be sick again,’ she wheezed.

  ‘No you’re not.’

  He sat her down at the chair in front of the laptop and found the power switch to boot up the machine. Sophie began to retch, but dryly, covering her mouth with her hands. Sam found a waste bin and dropped it at her feet.

  ‘Just in case, right? Now take in some deep breaths.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispered between gulps. ‘Disgusting, aren’t I?’

  ‘No. Not disgusting. You just drank too much. Happens to us all.’

  As she continued the deep breathing he went to the bathroom and returned with a glass of tap water.

  ‘No.’ She pushed it away. ‘Tastes foul. There’s some fizzy stuff in the minibar. It’s what I usually have when I get like this.’

  The screen in front of her was displaying the Windows desktop. Her hand swallowed the mouse as naturally as if it were an extension of her arm. She clicked on the icon for the presentations software.

  Sam filled a glass from a bottle of mineral water and held out a packet of cheese biscuits. ‘If you can nibble a few of these it’ll help.’

  She forced herself to smile. ‘Thanks. You’re being kind. Can’t imagine why.’

  ‘Pure self-interest,’ Sam breathed, pulling across the chair from the dressing table and sitting beside her. ‘Always wanted to know what you can do with pictures on a PC.’

  She was beginning to nod off again, but he nudged her and she loaded a photo from file. A picture of the Mondiale Hotel.

  ‘Well, well . . . recognise that?’

  ‘Not half. Can you go close in on part of it? The doorway, for instance.’

  She drew a box round the entrance porch then clicked on ‘expand’. It filled the frame.

  ‘Can you make it lighter, so we can see detail on the faces behind the window?’

  ‘Course. Do anything. Even age someone fifty years if I want.’

  She clicked and tinkered until a face that had been obscured by shadow was now much clearer.

  ‘Amazing. With my PC at home I don’t know much more than how to switch it on,’ he told her disingenuously. ‘Hey, tell you what. There’s a photo I took from the board in the hall – can you scan it in for me?’

  ‘Look, if I’m ever goin’ to get this pres’tation sorted . . .’

  ‘Won’t take a minute.’

  He placed the photo face down on the scanner glass. Her hand twitched across the mouse pad. Soon the picture was filling the screen.

  ‘Who are these people?’ she asked, mildly curious. Then she pursed her lips and pressed at her stomach as if suffering from cramps.

  ‘No idea,’ Sam lied. The faces by the bar were the ones he was interested in – still dark and unidentifiable.

  ‘Oh hell!’ Sophie rose unsteadily, both hands clasped to her stomach. She scuttled to the bathroom and banged shut the door.

  Sam transferred to her chair and gripped the mouse, ignoring the explosions from the loo. He’d watched carefully what she’d done before. He boxed round the face of the man by the bar who was looking at Chrissie and expanded it to fill the screen. Still just a dark smudge, except he could now make out a pale moustache. The face had a mournful look. Something about it that was familiar, but he couldn’t be sure it hadn’t just become familiar by working on it.

  He clicked on the drop-down image enhancement menu and played with the sliders for contrast and brightness. From the bathroom behind him there came a muffled sob. Slowly, using software tools to sharpen and highlight, the definable features of a man’s face began to emerge from the blob on the screen.

  ‘I don’t believe . . .’

  It was a face he now recognised. The oddly dog-like looks, the mournful droop of the moustache, the unflinching Labrador eyes – it was in the store room in Baghdad that he’d seen them before. The man he’d called Saladin who’d watched his interr
ogation in silence. The man to whom the others deferred. A creature for whom only one thing had seemed to matter – that the message whispered to Sam in the foyer of the Rashid Hotel had been harmless. That even if it had warned of the anthrax attack it had not revealed its date and location.

  Sam let out a low whistle.

  And Saladin had been here, in this very hotel on Tuesday night, watching with apparent disquiet as two Ukrainians downed booze and shot their mouths off with an English woman. Why should he be so concerned? Because the Ukrainians were men he’d done business with?

  ‘Yes!’ he hissed. There was no other explanation that made sense. Here was the link they’d been looking for. A tenuous, unverifiable one, but a link nonetheless.

  The bathroom door banged open and Sophie emerged, wrapped just in a towel. She pitched forward onto the bed and closed her eyes as if she never expected to open them again.

  Sam clicked the mouse and a colour close-up of Saladin rolled out of the printer.

  21

  06.15 hrs

  Limassol

  THE BONDED CONTAINER yard on the western side of Limassol had come to life at six a.m. when a lone forklift driver arrived for work. Within minutes of him greeting the night security man, hanging up his leather jacket in the site office and climbing behind the wheel of his machine, the main gates had slid open to admit the trailer truck that had come to take away the container bound for Israel.

  The forklift drove into the warehouse and lifted the Haifa-bound box from its position of isolation on one side of the shed. To the driver it was just a box, forty feet long and eight feet wide, with a weight of several thousand kilos. There was no need to know where it had come from, nor to enquire what it contained. His employer paid him well, with an unspoken understanding never to let his curiosity get the better of him.

  The container that had arrived here from Ilychevsk near Odessa three days ago emerged now through the wide opening of the warehouse doors, raised high by the forklift like a mantis at prayer. With a precision born of years of practice the driver lowered it gently and accurately onto the locating lugs of the transporter’s flatbed.