Black List

by Will Jordan

  ‘How’s it looking?’ Alex couldn’t help asking, as Anya powered down her computer and packed it away. ‘Are we in with a chance?’

  She glanced up at him, her eyes a little unfocussed from staring at the screen for so long. For the first time, he sensed that her physical and mental reserves weren’t quite as inexhaustible as he’d once thought.

  ‘We’ll talk soon,’ she replied, unwilling to say anything further on that matter.

  With that less-than-glowing assessment fresh in his mind, Alex unbuckled himself and rose from his seat. He was about to leave behind the expensive, air-conditioned cocoon of relative safety that had been his home for the past several hours. Whatever else awaited him today, he had a feeling it would be far less enjoyable.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Halvorsen said, gesturing to the forward hatch as the co-pilot unlatched it and swung it open. ‘We have a rental car standing by once we clear immigration.’

  Following him as he squeezed his sizeable frame down the narrow aisle, Alex paused for a moment at the door as the first gust of warm air sighed through the cabin, carrying with it the scent of traffic fumes and the faint tang of sea salt. It was a stark and, he had to admit, welcome change from the cool, sterile air inside the plane.

  Occupying the same line of latitude as Madrid, and bordered by the Black Sea to the north and the Sea of Marmara to the south, Istanbul was well known for its hot, humid summers, and today was no exception. The sun beat down from a flawless blue sky, a faint breeze carrying warm, moist air from the south. Even though it was early May and well short of the hottest months of the year, the afternoon heat was still intense enough to raise a faint sheen of perspiration as Alex descended the aircraft’s built-in stairs.

  Halvorsen, leading the way, slipped on a pair of sunglasses. ‘The arrivals area is this way,’ he said, indicating the main terminal building about a hundred yards distant. ‘Follow me.’

  A covered walkway led from the aircraft ramp to the terminal, just in case any passengers should feel like taking a stroll into restricted areas.

  ‘Make sure you have your passport and identity cards to hand,’ the Norwegian advised as they entered the walkway. ‘Tell me, what is your name, nationality and date of birth?’

  This was one aspect of their little clandestine mission that Alex excelled in. After all, committing information to memory had never been a problem for him.

  ‘My name’s James Williams. I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on April 16th 1979,’ Alex replied, easily reeling off the fake background he’d been given.

  ‘And why are you in Istanbul?’

  ‘I work for FLS Construction. We’re an architectural firm specializing in structural engineering, and we’re here to consult on repair work to a mosque.’

  ‘Which mosque?’

  Alex almost smiled. Halvorsen was trying to put him under pressure, but it wouldn’t work. He’d memorized every word of the dossier given to him. ‘The Molla Çelebi Mosque in the Findikli district.’

  ‘What are your parents’ names?’ Anya asked suddenly.

  So taken aback was Alex by this question that he said nothing for a good couple of seconds. In his mind, this was a break from the information that had been given to him, a disconnect between fantasy and reality that he couldn’t immediately resolve.

  Sensing his difficulty, Anya halted and turned to face him. ‘Your memory will only take you so far, Alex. Sometimes you have to improvise. Be prepared for the questions you don’t expect.’

  Leaving him with that terse advice, she turned and resumed her march towards the arrivals lounge, and Turkish immigration control.

  ‘Thanks, Obi Wan,’ Alex said under his breath.

  Arriving as they had on a private jet, there was no sudden rush of disembarking travellers to become caught up in. However, both Halvorsen and Anya, as if by unspoken consent, managed to stall and waste enough time to allow the next planeload of foreign tourists to disembark ahead of them, creating a large crowd that they were able to slip into virtually unnoticed.

  The intention was obvious. The dull routine of processing dozens of foreign travellers would hopefully erode the immigration officials’ focus, and the prospect of many more to come might make them less inclined to thoroughly check each passenger.

  Alex wasn’t exactly a seasoned international traveller, but even he recognised that some countries were more stringent than others when it came to border security. The United States might have interrogated anyone foolish enough to enter their country, but for most places a simple passport scan and visual confirmation was often enough.

  Alex could only hope such a mood was prevailing today as he filtered into one of the lanes. The passport-control booths were lined up two at a time, with the officers manning them calling the next passenger forward as soon as they’d finished with the last one. Which officer one encountered was determined by simple timing.

  In Alex’s case, the booth on the left was operated by a grim, overweight man in his fifties, with thick-framed reading glasses balanced on a long, disapproving nose. He seemed to be taking longer and asking more questions than the others. A jobsworth; the kind of guy who diligently followed every rule and procedure to the letter, regardless of circumstance. The kind of guy who would take those extra few moments to thoroughly check a forged passport.

  His comrade in the other booth was, by contrast, a woman in her late thirties or early forties. Relaxed and genial judging by her body language, she seemed more focussed on getting people through as quickly as possible.

  Come on, give me the woman, give me the woman, Alex silently pleaded as he edged forward. The odds were in his favour. The woman was processing three passengers for every one by the opposite booth.

  Soon Alex found himself at the head of the line waiting to be served. It was just a question of which officer would finish first.

  The man was busy frowning over some detail he’d spotted in the travel documents of the couple in front of Alex. They looked torn between boredom and concern, as well they should have. He seemed like the kind of guy who would happily keep them tied up in red tape for hours if everything didn’t add up perfectly.

  Opposite, the female officer was just finishing up with her latest passenger. Alex almost let out a sigh of relief as she handed the man’s passport back.

  He took a step towards her, eager to cement his place in her line, only to stop suddenly. Her passenger, some old bed-wetter in his eighties who looked like a strong breeze would blow him over, apparently wasn’t ready to move on. He was leaning forward, asking her for directions, clearly not understanding something that was blindingly simple to everyone else.

  Come on, piss off, you old bastard, Alex silently cursed. Just go now and let me get through this.

  But his octogenarian friend had no intention of moving on. By the looks of things, he didn’t give a shit if there were fifty people in line behind him waiting to be served. Alex imagined it was a particular brand of casual indifference to the world that only sheer age could bestow.

  As the female immigration officer pasted on her most patient expression while she tried to explain where he needed to go next, Alex spotted movement in the other booth. The male officer had finished with his pair of passengers, and was beckoning Alex forward.

  He hesitated a moment, hoping against hope that the woman’s patience would prevail, only to find the old man looking even more confused and befuddled.

  Shit.

  The male customs officer was beckoning him forward again, more emphatically this time. The look on his face betrayed mounting impatience that someone wasn’t doing what was expected of them.

  Now Alex had pissed him off, he’d be even less inclined to show leniency.

  With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Alex shuffled forward on unsteady legs and presented his passport for inspection. The immigration officer snatched it with a large, hairy-knuckled hand and quickly ran it beneath the terminal’s barcode scanner.

  Nothing h
appened. The officer frowned, and for a second or two Alex could have sworn his own heart stopped beating.

  He ran the passport through again, and somewhere in the terminal Alex saw a green light flash. That had to be a good thing, he told himself. Green was always good, right? At least no alarms had started blaring.

  Studying the passport a moment longer, the officer glanced up at Alex, regarding him over the rim of his reading glasses as a disapproving librarian might look at someone who had just returned a book six months late.

  ‘Canadian?’ he asked.

  Alex’s own reaction had been much the same when he’d first laid eyes on it.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, trying to inject some kind of accent that sounded vaguely Canadian into his voice.

  ‘How long in Turkey?’

  ‘A week. I’m here on business.’

  The officer was typing something on his computer. Alex had no idea whether that was a good or a bad thing, but there wasn’t much he could do either way. So he just stood there with a bland smile on his face, his heart pounding as the seconds crawled by. Was he sweating? He felt uncomfortably warm. Could the man tell? Was he typing out a report flagging him as suspicious?

  With a final few keystrokes that seemed to be hammered down a lot harder than necessary, he thrust the passport back to Alex.

  ‘You can go,’ he said, his tone one of gruff indifference. And just like that it was done. He was free to leave.

  Saying nothing, Alex simply nodded and walked away, somehow managing to keep from crying out in relief and exhilaration.

  He almost expected it to be a ruse of some kind; that the minute he turned away, armed police units would swarm in and arrest him. But no such thing happened. He walked through the arrivals corridor to baggage reclaim, and nobody showed the slightest interest in him.

  Halvorsen and Anya were waiting for him there. Spotting his flushed complexion, the Norwegian fished a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out.

  ‘Wipe your brow,’ he said, his voice hushed. ‘You’re sweating.’

  ‘Really? Hadn’t noticed,’ Alex lied, his heart rate finally settling down to something approaching normality.

  Halvorsen wasn’t convinced. Still, there was little point in belittling him. Instead he glanced at his watch. ‘We need to get to that car,’ he decided. ‘Follow me.’

  Chapter 37

  Occupying the narrow strip of land that marked the geographical and cultural boundary between Europe and Asia, the city now known as Istanbul had a rich and eventful history stretching back more than two and a half thousand years. Founded in the sixth century bc as Byzantium before being re-established as Constantinople seven hundred years later, it had finally attained its present name of Istanbul when the Ottoman Empire captured it in 1453.

  Standing at the crossroads of Europe and the Middle East, and occupying the only sea link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, this vital trading hub had been fought over, conquered and rebuilt countless times by countless different empires, each new period of occupation leaving its own cultural and architectural mark.

  These days it was a thriving metropolis, and one of the largest urban conglomerations on the face of the earth. This ancient city now covered more than 2,000 square miles and was home to some 14 million people; almost three times the entire population of Norway.

  None of these facts were lost on Alex as he sat in the back seat of the rental car, watching the curious mix of ancient Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman architecture slide past outside. The fingerprints of lost civilisations set amongst fast-food restaurants and souvenir shops.

  Halvorsen was at the wheel, manoeuvring them with confident precision through the heavy afternoon traffic that crowded the city’s narrow roads. Alex was quite content to leave him to it, his thoughts instead turned inward as he pondered what lay ahead for him.

  Their route was taking them into the Fatih district, located deep within the ancient centre of the city. Once a prosperous and affluent part of the old town located near the thriving harbour, it was now a densely populated working-class area. Classical domes and archways of the Ottoman period stood in stark contrast to 1960s high-rise residential buildings festooned with satellite dishes, all crowded in close to the narrow streets.

  It was into a small courtyard at the back of one of these dreary apartment blocks that Halvorsen turned and brought the car to a halt.

  ‘We have an apartment prepared on the top floor,’ he said, pointing upward. ‘I hope you are feeling energetic, because the elevators are out.’

  Alex stifled a groan. The last thing he felt like doing at that moment was ascending the Mount Everest of apartment blocks. Still, there wasn’t much choice if he wanted to reach their makeshift base of operations.

  Six flights of stairs later, a sweating and out-of-breath Alex found himself in what clearly passed for a safe house in Istanbul. It couldn’t have been further from the plush, spacious, modern apartment they’d left behind in Oslo that morning.

  Cramped, hot and with faded 1970s decor that made his own place back in London look like the height of good taste, it certainly wasn’t the kind of place he’d want to set up shop. Shafts of bright afternoon sunlight filtered in through cracks in the shuttered windows, highlighting tiny insects flitting around in the dusty air.

  With his injured ribs throbbing each time he took a deep breath, Alex loosened his tie and gratefully flopped down on the threadbare floral-patterned couch set against one wall. The overtaxed springs sagged beneath his weight but somehow held on.

  ‘I suppose you spent most of our budget on the plane, eh?’ he remarked, eyeing a peeling patch of wallpaper opposite.

  Halvorsen shrugged. ‘We needed somewhere anonymous. If you think you could do better, be my guest.’

  ‘This will be fine,’ Anya said, the look in her eyes warning Alex against further criticism. Turning away, she unlocked the shutters barring the main windows and pushed them open, allowing bright sunlight to flood the room. With his eyes now accustomed to the gloomy interior of the room, Alex was forced to avert his gaze from the harsh glare.

  ‘Better,’ Anya decided, then turned her attention to Halvorsen. ‘Did you arrange the package I requested?’

  The Norwegian smiled and nodded. Opening a cupboard beneath the sink, he retrieved a leather sports bag and laid it on the cheap wood-veneer kitchen table.

  Anya was on it right away, unzipping the bag and lifting out what looked like a set of drab brown shirts and trousers, complete with boots and the kind of equipment belt that a police officer or security guard might wear.

  ‘These are a match?’ she asked, glancing at Halvorsen.

  He nodded. ‘As far as our people could tell, yes.’

  That seemed to satisfy her, for now at least.

  Next out were a pair of Kevlar vests that Alex had come to recognize quite well after their improvised escape from the lakeside house in Norway. He understood the rationale behind them, but hoped fervently they wouldn’t have to put the body armour to the test.

  The last item to emerge from the bag was something more offensively minded. Carefully Anya lifted out the dark, sleek form of an automatic handgun. Alex wasn’t much of a firearms aficionado, but even he recognised the distinctive shape of the Colt M1911 from countless movies and TV shows he’d watched throughout his life.

  Better known as the Colt .45 for the ammunition it used, the M1911 was a rugged, reliable 8-shot automatic that had been in service for the best part of a century, and was still favoured by police and special-forces units even today. Like the great white shark, it had reached the apex of design long ago and had no need to evolve further.

  ‘Still favouring the .45?’ Halvorsen remarked as Anya carefully fitted a suppressor to the weapon’s barrel. ‘Some things never change.’

  The woman glanced at him, flashing something that might have been a smile. ‘It has never let me down. And that is a rare thing.’

  Halvorsen said nothing to this as she la
id the weapon down on the table.

  ‘So what’s the plan, Rambo?’ Alex asked, eager to know how she intended to get them inside.

  Glancing at him, Anya replaced the contents of the bag and laid it on the floor, then gestured for him to sit. Both men took a seat while she powered up her laptop and called up the file she’d been working on.

  ‘If what Alex has told me is correct, the Black List is being held on a server in this building,’ she began, showing them an overhead shot of a large office block set in amongst other buildings of similar construction. ‘It is one of the main facilities for ISS Communications, a Turkish internet provider.’

  Next she brought up a detailed building blueprint which Halvorsen’s colleagues in Oslo had managed to obtain from the Istanbul central planning office.

  ‘Given the location of the building, and the time and resources available, a tactical assault is out of the question,’ Anya went on. ‘Our only feasible option is to infiltrate the building at night, when most of the office staff have left for the day. To do this we will need to gain access to the main entrance, neutralize any physical security measures on site and disable the building’s surveillance system. According to the blueprints, all of this is controlled from a central security station located just off the entrance lobby, so locking down this room must be our highest priority. Once the system is down and outside communications have been cut, Alex and I will make our way to the server room in the basement where he will find and download the Black List. As soon as he has it in his possession, I will escort him back upstairs and outside, where Kristian will be waiting to pick us up.’

  It sounded simple enough, but then Alex supposed most plans did when one was seated around the kitchen table talking it over.

  ‘You really think you can do all this?’ he couldn’t help asking. ‘Get us inside, take out armed guards, disable security systems?’

  Anya glowered at him across the table, her blue eyes smouldering. ‘I used to infiltrate fortified Soviet outposts for a living, Alex,’ she reminded him. ‘You only need to concern yourself with downloading the Black List. I’ll take care of the rest.’