The Operative

by Falconer, Duncan

  Hobart took his cellphone from his pocket, punched in a number and put it to his ear.

  The phone rang in an office on the same floor as Hobart’s, two doors along the corridor, and was picked up by his young assistant. ‘Agent Hendrickson,’ he said as he held the phone with his chin and continued tapping the keys of his computer keyboard.

  ‘It’s Hobart.’

  ‘Sir,’ Hendrickson said, stopping almost immediately and taking hold of the handset.

  ‘What are you doing right now?’

  ‘The Chaves case, sir.’

  ‘Give it to Mendez or Stefanowitz. I want you on the Bufi-Cano murders.’

  ‘The Bufi—’ Hendrickson started to say with some surprise. This month’s cases were already outnumbering last month’s with a week to go and only yesterday morning Hobart had told the office to put the Englishwoman murder case on the bottom of the pile and keep putting it there until its hair started falling out.

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Hobart reiterated. ‘I want you to crawl all over it. You’re looking for anything that doesn’t fit.’

  ‘Like what, sir?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing about something that doesn’t fit, Hendrickson. You’ll know it when you see it.’

  ‘I’m on it, sir,’ Hendrickson said, but Hobart didn’t hear him. His phone was already closed and dangling in his hand by his side. He looked at Phil, only because the man was staring at him. Hobart’s mind was still racing through the consequences of a government agency being responsible for the killings. At that moment it didn’t matter which one.

  ‘This is bad, isn’t it?’ Phil said.

  Hobart didn’t answer.

  ‘I mean, this is real bad. This kind of stuff went on all the time in the seventies and eighties, but not now.’

  ‘I don’t need to tell you not to say anything about this to anyone, do I?’

  ‘You kidding? I may be an old conspiracy theorist but I’ve watched all the movies and I know what happens to the first guy with the hot info. Tell you the truth, I didn’t sleep a wink last night.’

  ‘This isn’t a movie, Phil. No one’s coming after you.’

  ‘What about when the report goes out? I’m supposed to send a copy to New York and another to the pool.’

  ‘Give me a hard copy. Don’t email it to anyone yet. Label the pool copy confidential then post it onto the site empty.’

  ‘But that’s going to throw up a flag. These people will be waiting for the report.’

  ‘Refer all enquiries to my office. And take it easy. It’s past you now. It’s in the system. Okay? Like I said, no one’s coming after you.’

  Phil nodded and visibly calmed down. ‘You’re right,’ he said. Hobart was making perfect sense as usual. ‘I guess I got a little wound up when for a while there I was the only person who knew. I’m okay now. What are you going to do?’

  ‘You’re going to have to forget it and leave it with me, okay?’ Hobart said in a fatherly manner.

  ‘I’m already there,’ Phil said, allowing a smile of relief to grow on his face. ‘I’ll wait and read about it in the papers.’

  ‘You do that,’ Hobart said, knowing that it might never get that far. Like any bad news, if it could be kept in-house that was as far as it would go. His only concern about Phil was that the man was in the winter of his career in a business he believed to be corrupt and there was that distant possibility that he might decide to do something that he’d consider heroic while he still had the chance. As Hobart stared at Phil he decided that was probably unfair of him and he patted his old friend on the shoulder.

  ‘Come on,’ Hobart said. ‘Let’s go back and see this report.’ They headed across the parking lot towards the building while Phil began to explain the various chemical make-ups of different types of plastic explosive and how it affected their performance and dictated their different uses. Hobart tried to listen with some interest but his mind kept flicking to the new problem at hand. This case was now possibly one of the most important he’d handled in recent years.

  18

  A shiny black stretch limousine slowly pulled off the road and onto an uneven patch of sun-baked mud on the edge of a large bustling construction site. It came to a stop outside a chain-link security fence and a grey Cadillac sedan pulled alongside it. Three dark-skinned Caucasian Neanderthals in expensive suits climbed out of the sedan with muscle-bound slowness and spread out around the limo, checking in all directions, hands hovering close to pistols and sub-machine guns hidden inside their jackets. One of them nodded to the passenger in the front of the limo and he climbed out and opened one of the rear doors.

  Skender eased out of the spacious interior, buttoning up the jacket of an immaculate cream suit, the collar of his shirt turned down outside it in a style that would provoke feelings of nostalgia in any who enjoyed the fashions of the 1970s. He walked over the hard ground in his patent-leather shoes and in through the security gate, followed by two of his men. The security guard, a redneck type who had never seen proper military service, saluted Skender and bid him good afternoon as he passed his sentry box. Skender ignored him and walked several yards onto the site before stopping to look up, a smile growing on his craggy face.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said to his thugs without looking at them, not that he was addressing them in particular but he wanted to say it to someone. ‘I love watching it grow day by day.’

  Skender was gaping at a huge new office building near completion, a startling design emulating ancient Egyptian pyramids. Shimmering plates of dark green glass locked into copper-sheathed steel frames covered all four steeply sloping sides from the second floor to the sixteenth. The seventeenth or top floor was also glass but was gold in colour. Two smaller pyramids were located at opposite corners of the site, creating an overall impression like a typical picture postcard of Giza. The ground around the building was paved in Italian marble that continued out several metres from the base of the building, with towering newly planted palms springing from it in places.

  To some critics the edifice verged on the kitsch but it was eye-catching nevertheless. Hundreds of workers were busy operating cranes, earth-movers and dumper trucks as the exterior cosmetics – landscaping, lighting and pathways – were well under way. Lorries ferried their loads in and out through the main entrance where kerbstones were being laid in preparation for the tarmac fill that would connect the lavish drive to Washington Boulevard that ran along one side. The site took up an entire block in Culver City, a modern development of Los Angeles a couple of miles from Beverly Hills and occupied by the likes of Sony and MGM studios, fine restaurants and expensive art shops. The business premises were interspersed with middle-class residential buildings.

  Skender traced the steep, imposing façade with his eyes from the pinnacle down to a magnificent main entrance of bronze-coloured glass and copper and steel supports. As his gaze rested on a pair of massive eleventh-century wooden doors twenty feet high and with heavily inlaid carvings, an import from India to maintain the impression of the ancient shrouded in the modern, Dren Cano stepped through them and into the pillared portico.

  Skender headed off through the site towards Cano, followed by his men. ‘Is it gonna be ready in time?’ he shouted to an engin -eer who was perusing a stack of plans laid out on a table.

  The engineer looked around and immediately grinned with forced enthusiasm on seeing who had posed the question. ‘Hey there, Mister Skender. You betcha it’s gonna be on time.’

  Skender smiled thinly as he continued on without a pause, confident of the answer before he had heard it. Before the first bulldozer had moved in to demolish the old houses and apartment blocks that had previously occupied the site every contractor, supplier and union involved had been subtly warned that it would be most unwise if there were to be any sudden price hikes, cancellations or delays of any nature for any reason, including Acts of God such as weather or accidents. Similarly gilded threats as well as lavish gifts were bestowed up
on certain members of the city authority to persuade against any unforeseen problems with the various planning permissions that would be required.

  Only one company failed to heed the warnings, one of the two cement suppliers contracted to deliver the thousands of tons of concrete required. It was an oversight on their part: apparently they had not researched the client thoroughly enough to take the threats seriously. When one morning the cement trucks did not arrive due to a reprioritisation by the company concerned in favour of another client across town Skender’s retribution was swift and decisive. The company’s owner happened to be on holi -day in Hawaii at the time with his wife and two sons. The morning following the non-delivery they were all found in their rooms with their legs broken and the arms of the owner himself painfully fractured above the elbows as a bonus. Rumours spread swiftly among the workforce with some help from Skender’s people and there were no further obstructions to the site’s progress. In fact the general cordiality of the contractors and workers increased to a sycophantic level. When, after three weeks, construction was a day and a half ahead of schedule Skender rewarded every worker with a thousand-dollar bonus that sealed their devotion to the task.

  Skender stepped onto the marble-floored concourse in front of the cathedral-like entrance and stopped to scrutinise the intricate inside roofing of the portico.

  Cano looked like hell: his left eye was covered by a silk patch and there were stitches all over his face. He had lost the use of the eye, which had been removed, and he was waiting for the plastic surgery on the tattered eyelid to heal before having a false eye put in. Words could not describe the hatred he felt in his heart for the person who had killed his brother and done this to him. It was greater than any he had experienced in his life and was so strong that when he thought of Stratton – Klodi had told Cano of his sighting of Stratton at the restaurant – when the memory of the man’s image loomed in front of him, Cano’s facial expression physically changed and he looked as if he were growling or about to snarl.

  Skender had told his senior security manager to take a few weeks off to rest and to heal his body as well as soothe his heart, aching for the loss of his brother. Cano refused. There was only one thing that could come even close to dulling his pain and that was to see – literally – Stratton’s head on a plate.

  ‘They’re waiting for you in the penthouse,’ Cano said sombrely.

  ‘Good,’ Skender said without looking at him. He wore an expression of approval at everything he saw until his gaze fell on several workers huddled around a square hole in the centre of the white marble concourse. Skender glanced at the main doors to the building, then back at the hole in the ground, gauging the distance and positioning of it. With the look of approval gone from his face, he headed towards the group.

  ‘Hey! What are you guys doing?’ he growled as he approached the workers.

  They looked around and straightened immediately on seeing who it was.

  ‘This is where the statue’s gonna go, Mr Skender,’ the foreman said, somewhat nervously, wondering why Skender was looking so pissed off.

  ‘The hell it is,’ Skender growled.

  ‘We’re going exactly by the plans, sir,’ an engineer said, suddenly checking the papers in his hands, fearing he had got it wrong.

  ‘I don’t give a damn what the plans say. I want it here,’ Skender said as he turned around and paced closer towards the entrance until he stood squarely fifty feet in front of the doors. ‘Here,’ he repeated as he faced them, feet wide apart and hands outstretched as if doing an impersonation of Moses parting the Dead Sea. ‘Like this. You got that?!’

  The foreman hurried over to Skender, pulled a spray can from a pouch, and scurried around him, spraying a thin red line on the marble.

  Skender lowered his hands, looked at the square drawn around him and nodded. ‘It arrives today?’ he asked, although it sounded more like a statement of fact.

  The foreman looked instantly worried again. ‘No, sir. It’ll be in place by the opening ceremony. I assure you.’

  Skender looked at him coldly, decidedly unsatisfied with the answer.

  ‘They’re pouring the mould by the end of the week,’ the foreman hurriedly added. ‘I’m told it looks pretty damn good, Mr Skender.’

  ‘I want it in place no later than the day before the opening ceremony. You understand me?’

  ‘It’ll be in, sir.’

  Skender studied the man for a few seconds before a thin smile grew on his lips. It had far more sinister qualities than the unsmiling look.

  Skender disconnected from the foreman who was only too relieved and headed towards the main entrance, Cano alongside him. As they reached the doors Skender paused to look at his head of security. ‘Don’t be so down, Dren,’ he said, using Cano’s real name which he sometimes did but only when they were outside and there was no one within earshot. ‘We will find who killed your brother.’

  Whenever Skender addressed Cano by his real name Cano never took it as a sign of affection since he knew that the man did not possess a scrap of any such. He saw the usage as a subtle reminder of who he really was and that Skender had control of his life. On the day when Cano had joined the ranks and given Skender the Besa – a solemn pledge to keep one’s word on pain of death – Skender had warned him that he would pay the ultim -ate price for any form of disobedience.

  Skender had a special punishment for those in his employ who crossed him. The technique varied but the purpose was always the same: to keep the victim alive for as long as possible but in a condition of utter agony. This might mean amputating as much of the person as possible, cauterising each removal or applying a tourniquet and adding salt to the wounds. Another method was to direct a blowtorch onto various body parts at intervals, while another involved injecting into the bloodstream various chem -icals that caused unimaginable headaches and burning pains throughout the body, reviving the victim if their heart ceased to beat due to the pain or the chemical poisoning. The methods were limited only by the imagination of the torturer.

  And just in case anyone hoped to escape such an end by killing the master himself it was well known that Skender had deposited a large sum of money with a family of infamous assassins, ironic -ally Croatians rather than Albanians, who would carry out such executions of any persons found responsible for Skender’s death, even if it was an accident. The sum was considerable and apparently allowed for the execution of up to twenty persons so that if, say, only one person was involved in the incident, the other nineteen slots would be filled by that person’s most immedi ate family members. The assassins were entirely reliable since they had many such contracts with powerful underworld figures and it would not be good for their business to leave an obligation unfulfilled. The bottom line was that Skender was a deadly man to cross – in any direction.

  Cano had not been promoted to the position of Skender’s head of security just because he was as ruthless as he was intelligent. Cano also displayed qualities of initiative whereas other subordin -ates were afraid to make any decision without first clearing it with the master. Allowing a level of free thinking from an indiv -idual within the ranks had its dangers but Skender appreciated its advantages and in any case Cano had proved his loyalty as well as an intuitive understanding of Skender’s methods over the years. It was the greatest single display of trust that Skender had bestowed on any individual but he was aware that such traumatic events as losing an eye and a brother in one afternoon and then to have the killer walk free might put a strain on Cano’s single-minded dedication to Skender. He would wait and see how things developed.

  ‘I think we have already found him,’ Cano said.

  ‘You have him?’ Skender asked curiously. A small warning bell went off in his head.

  ‘No,’ Cano said. ‘Not yet.’

  Skender could not have cared less about the death of Cano’s brother or the loss of his eye. He was more concerned with the possible wider consequences of the recent deaths. He was confident of
the position he had carved out for himself with the Federal government by turning in some old enemies, providing carefully selected snippets of information on some weapons-supply networks used by terrorists and dangling a big carrot in front of them with the promise of delivering up an al-Qaeda leader. But the stupid killing of the Englishwoman and then the deaths of Bufi and Ardian were problems he could do without.

  If Ardian had not been Dren’s brother Skender would have had him and his moronic sidekick Bufi executed after they had killed the Englishwoman. It would have been a lesson to others. But if he had killed Ardian he would have had to kill Cano too since he would then have become an enemy. Skender had made that one concession to Cano but he would not allow another. Cano was possibly signing his own death warrant by pursuing his brother’s killer. Skender wondered if Cano understood that. Or was his anger and depression so great that he could think of nothing else but retribution?

  ‘You say you only think you know who was responsible?’ Skender asked.

  ‘Yes, but I will make sure.’

  ‘And do you think you know who he works for?’

  ‘I think he is working alone.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘You have seen him. At the district attorney’s office in Santa Monica. He was the man at the bottom of the stairs who attacked Vlen.’

  Skender shook his head as if he did not remember although he had a vague image of the man in his head.

  ‘He was in the restaurant when Ardian was killed,’ Cano went on. ‘He ran off seconds before the explosion. He’s an Englishman. A secretary in the DA’s office remembered an Englishman asking about an English woman’s death in Venice a week ago. And one of our cops, Draper, down at the Santa Monica Police Depart -ment, described the same guy asking about the case.’