Retribution ht-4

by Adrian Magson

  At heart, though, he could already picture the reaction of his colleagues — and worse — his superiors, who had expressed great faith in a man who was going places. A man with a knife? Chasing you through the woods? Are you sure? What have you been up to, you young dog — playing with another man’s property? He could imagine their coarse laughter and raised eyebrows. Greater careers than his had been ruined on such trivial evidence.

  ‘Captain?’ It was one of the support staff from the office, a thin-faced young gofer/driver named Dobrev who spent his days chasing around with messages or ferrying officers about the capital. ‘A telephone call came in for you, sir. Urgent priority.’

  Koslov threw a final look towards the woods and ducked into the apartment building. ‘At the office? Why didn’t they put it through to my apartment?’ He ran lightly up the stairs to his quarters on the second floor, stripping off his tracksuit top as he went. Calls were routinely fed through to officers’ living quarters if they were not in the office, in case of priority requests. Such a call usually meant he was about to travel somewhere on an investigation. He would change quickly and should be in the office within twenty minutes.

  ‘I couldn’t, sir.’ Dobrev panted up the stairs behind him and followed him into the small apartment. ‘Your line is not working. Also, it’s against regulations to give staff numbers to foreigners, sir.’

  Koslov stopped in the middle of pulling on a clean shirt. A shower would have to wait. ‘Foreigners?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The call came from — ’ Dobrev sneaked a look at a slip of paper in the palm of his hand — ‘from a man named Harry Tate, sir.’ He pronounced it phonetically, then looked up with a frown. ‘At least, that’s how it sounded. He was an American, I think — calling from somewhere I cannot spell. It sounded like Veniss Bitch, sir.’ He shrugged. ‘The line was not good.’

  ‘Venice Beach,’ Koslov corrected him. His memory ticked over, matching the name to a face. Several years ago now, the British officer in charge of the protection squad in Kosovo.

  ‘You know him?’ Dobrev sounded impressed.

  ‘Yes. His name’s Harry Tate, he’s British and he was calling from Venice Beach near Los Angeles in the United States. It’s like a Black Sea resort only a lot more fun — or so I’ve heard.’ He finished pulling on his shirt and wondered what Tate could possibly want. Odd that the man’s name should pop up the same day he had been thinking of him. ‘What was the message?’

  ‘None left, sir. He said that he would call again in two hours. He was travelling, I think. I heard a Tannoy in the background. . like an airport or a train station.’

  ‘Good work, Dobrev. Very perceptive of you.’ He picked up an orange from a bowl on the table and tossed it across the room. Dobrev caught it adeptly. ‘You should eat more fruit. Is the car outside?’

  Dobrev backed towards the door, stuffing the orange in his pocket. He was smiling. He was accustomed to officers in the FSB leaving on the run, but not to any kind of praise.

  Koslov followed, pausing only to pick up the landline phone. It was dead. He replaced it, making a mental note to get it checked. After what he’d just experienced, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy.

  Phone lines to this building were never faulty.

  Out of sight among the trees, and beginning to feel the cold, Kassim quickly retraced his steps towards the ring road where he had left his car parked in a service entrance to the woods. He felt oddly elated rather than annoyed at not hitting his prey. The contact would have worried the Russian, so accustomed to being safe here in Moscow, and seriously upset his equilibrium. If it had not been for the two other men, he would have had him.

  But that did not matter now. He had seen Koslov up close, had looked into his eyes and sensed his feeling of vulnerability. Yet that had also brought its own revelation: seeing the Russian in the flesh had surprised him. He was smaller than the description in the binder had suggested, with a slim body and the fine, pale features of a girl, almost. Strange how history and rumour somehow made Russians seem so much bigger and more threatening than they really were.

  He climbed into the battered Saab he had hired from a black-market rental near the airport and threw the knife he’d bought from a street dealer into the glovebox. He would wait until the afternoon, when Koslov’s guard would be down, his attention on other matters.

  He sat for a few moments, aware that he should move away from here, but remembering what had been drummed into him. For reasons completely unconnected with his main task, killing a Russian was always something to look forward to.

  THIRTY-ONE

  By the time Koslov had seen to some urgent paperwork and attended a briefing, the two hours since Tate’s message had flown by. In that time he had asked the maintenance manager in the apartment block to check his landline. The man had come back to say that overhead wires into the building had been severed by a falling branch. It was one of those things that happened occasionally, a freak of the weather and nature combined. The manager had assured him that communications would be returned to normal within the hour.

  When the second call came in from Tate via the central switchboard, he was ready for it.

  ‘Alexandr,’ the Englishman greeted him. His voice sounded subdued, or maybe tired. Not a pleasure call, then.

  ‘What can I do for you, Harry?’ Koslov asked politely, responding readily to the use of his first name. Although he had got on well with the English officer in Kosovo, there was still enough caution in his nature to know he shouldn’t offer anything unless something came the other way first. Especially since a quick check had revealed that Tate had joined the British Security Service, MI5. Besides, he couldn’t be absolutely certain that this call wasn’t being recorded by one of his own more zealous colleagues somewhere in the depths of this very building.

  He listened with growing unease as Tate described the three killings and the attempt on Pendry’s life. He also mentioned the possibility of a connection with a murder in Kosovo, although this was still unproven.

  As he heard how Pendry’s man had met his death, Koslov felt a spider-crawl of movement up his back. He instantly saw vivid flashbacks of the silent runner among the trees that morning, the sunlight glinting on what must surely have been a knife blade. He knew without a shadow of doubt that he, like Pendry, had come dangerously close to the mysterious killer.

  ‘I believe he is already here,’ he said quietly. He described what had happened. Even in the telling it seemed unlikely, yet he knew it must have been the same man.

  ‘Did you get a look at him?’ asked Tate.

  ‘Regretfully, no,’ Koslov admitted. ‘I was not expecting to have to remember a face so early in the morning. He was tall, thin — very fit, of course — and. .’ He paused. There was something else about the man that disturbed him, but remained stubbornly vague. A memory, perhaps — an impression of someone he knew?

  ‘And what?’

  Koslov shook his head. The impression was gone. Maybe it would come back when he wasn’t thinking about it. ‘Sorry. For a moment I thought there was something.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Tate told him. ‘In the meantime, you’d better get some cover. This man’s good. If he can penetrate a Ranger training base and get within a few feet of you in Moscow, he’s capable of popping up anywhere. I don’t suppose you have an office inside the Kremlin, do you?’

  Koslov grinned at the remark but couldn’t help a quick glance at the doorway. He slid open his desk drawer. Inside was a holster and harness containing his service pistol. The SR-1 Vector was an ugly brute of a weapon in his opinion, but it had stopping power. He slid it out and checked the load. He’d better start carrying it from now on.

  ‘Thank you for the warning. I don’t understand how he could have found me here, though.’

  ‘He has information on all of us. Someone has hacked into systems in the UN and other databases to track us all down. Yours is no more secure than any others.’

  Koslov grunted in agreement
. For all their secrecy, the FSB and SVR — the intelligence directorate responsible for espionage outside the country — had both found their computer systems under repeated attack over recent years from foreign intelligence agencies, most latterly the Chinese Ministry of State Security or Guoanbu. But others were just as skilled, and the information was there if hackers knew where to look. ‘You have no clues about the killer from the murder scenes?’

  ‘Only the knife he used on the sniper trainee. It had some prints, but no matches have come up so far. If he’s from outside the US, he’ll be clean. He’s obviously well trained and resourceful.’

  Koslov thought for a second. Helping the Americans was not something he would normally have been anxious to do, but after this morning, the situation was too dangerous — and too personal. He took a deep breath; he would soon find out if his calls were being monitored or not. If they were, he’d hear the footsteps of the internal security men charging along the corridor before he even put the phone down.

  ‘Can you send me the prints?’ This was dangerous to him personally, opening communications with a member of a foreign security agency.

  ‘I think I can arrange it,’ Tate answered cautiously. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, whatever you may have been told about our electronic systems,’ Koslov replied drily, ‘we have a very good database here in Moscow. It holds many thousands of prints.’

  For a moment, Tate said nothing. Then he said, ‘Where do I send them — your old apartment on the third floor, or your office?’

  ‘My apartment?’ Koslov felt a momentary surprise that Harry knew where he lived when he wasn’t in his official quarters.

  A laugh echoed down the line. ‘Our computer’s not bad either. Actually, I’m joking. It’ll be quicker to email them. Can you give me an address?’

  ‘Sure. Of course.’ Koslov read off the centre’s email address. ‘Mark it for my attention and I will get them examined immediately. What are you going to do next?’

  ‘I’ve got a man to find,’ replied Harry. ‘Take care, Alexandr.’

  In the UN building in New York, Karen Walters sat across the desk from Ken Deane. The security man was studying an email he’d just received from their legal team. He looked annoyed and apprehensive.

  ‘I didn’t tell you about this before,’ he said cautiously, ‘but we’ve learned that one of the CP team in Kosovo, a Marine named Bikovsky, was accused of the rape of a minor in San Diego back in ’ninety-eight. It looks like it wasn’t his first and only.’

  Walters’ mouth dropped open. ‘What?’ Her sense of shock was understandable; the implications for the UN were obvious, in light of the rumours coming out of Kosovo.

  ‘Yeah, me too.’ He gave her a brief summary of what his contact in the San Diego police had told him. ‘Unfortunately, we’re being denied access to Bikovsky’s records on the grounds that it threatens the privacy of the victim, then a minor. Although she’s grown up now, her father’s digging his heels in.’

  ‘Bikovsky got away with it? That’s appalling!’

  He nodded, his expression sympathetically grim. ‘I hear you. Bikovsky skipped town before anything could be done and disappeared. Two months later he was in the Marines.’

  ‘Didn’t it get on to his military file?’

  ‘No reason why it should. No conviction, no record. And he’s not the first man to join the military to escape trouble.’ He flipped open the file showing Bikovsky’s photo, and stared at it as if it would provide some insight into the man’s character. It didn’t.

  Karen Walters reached across so she could see it, and made a small noise of distaste. ‘Oh, him.’

  ‘You remember him?’ Deane was surprised; protectees and their CP teams spent periods in close proximity and got to know each other quite well. But he hadn’t expected Walters to remember any individuals, since she appeared so aloof much of the time.

  ‘He was difficult to miss,’ she replied. ‘He was a huge brute. He also had a bad attitude about the locals. As he was escorting us out to the helicopter the morning after the ambush, he made disparaging remarks about them; he said the moment we left they’d steal anything that wasn’t nailed down.’ She shrugged. ‘He was the only one who said anything like that. I was surprised, that’s all.’

  Deane said nothing. She was naive if she thought that all attached personnel — even those within the UN proper, given the events surrounding the theft of the data records — were as pure as driven snow. No matter what checks were made, some bad examples always slipped through. He knew of two middle-ranking staffers attached to the Secretary-General’s office who had been discovered engaged in illicit financial activities, and were shortly going to find their contracts swiftly terminated. Karen Walters, versed in the ways and intentions of the people in the building immediately associated with her, clearly had a lot to learn about those outside that close-knit circle.

  ‘Let’s keep this quiet for now,’ he told her. ‘If the press hears there was an accused rapist in KFOR colours serving in Kosovo, they’ll have Bikovsky and the entire UN wrapped up, judged and convicted before the day’s out.’

  ‘What about Kleeman? Shouldn’t we tell him?’

  Deane grunted. ‘Are you kidding? If he hears about it, he’ll want Bikovsky castrated in public. No, Bikovsky may have a dirty history, but we’re not throwing him to the wolves just so Kleeman can get some brownie points.’

  Deane’s phone rang and he excused himself.

  It was Harry Tate. He quickly brought Deane up to date on his conversation with Koslov and the Russian’s narrow escape among the trees around the apartment block. ‘He says if we send him the prints off the knife from Fort Benning, he’ll run them through their database.’

  ‘Really?’ Deane reacted cautiously. He had his doubts about whether the suits at the FBI or the State Department would be happy to go along with that. They still weren’t keen on sharing anything with the Russians without a full sitting of a subcommittee and approval from the Intelligence community. ‘I hope he keeps it under his samovar. What’s to stop them going public about the killings simply to embarrass us?’

  ‘The Russians won’t want to admit that a foreign killer got into the grounds of a residential military complex in Moscow and nearly popped one of their officers. I think this is worth a try.’

  ‘I guess. But I thought their databases were creaking at the seams.’

  ‘Koslov’s FSB. . they’ve probably got the latest Pentiums or Macs in every office.’

  ‘Courtesy of someone in Silicon Valley, I bet.’ Deane sighed in frustration. ‘Jesus, this guy gets around, doesn’t he? Paris, Brussels, New York, Georgia and now Moscow. We should have him working for the UN!’

  ‘He’s mobile and has resources,’ Harry agreed. ‘He’s getting help from somewhere.’

  ‘Did Koslov get a look at him?’

  ‘Not really. He was busy trying to stay alive.’

  ‘Pity. We could use a break.’

  Harry rang off and was about to switch off the television in his room when a familiar face and name appeared on the screen. It was UN Special Envoy Anton Kleeman standing alongside a group of smiling Chinese politicians. Then the picture cut to show some older footage of a grinning Kleeman in a camouflage jacket, looking younger and slimmer. Karen Walters stood unsmiling to one side. The backdrop looked familiar, Harry thought, a notion quickly confirmed when the camera swung round and caught a brief glimpse of a Sea King helicopter taking off in the background, a crew member visible in the open doorway. It was the same machine that had airlifted everyone out of the KFOR compound near Mitrovica.

  As he packed his things away, Harry listened with half an ear to the reporter giving a bland account of talks between the UN Special Envoy and members of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing. The studio was evidently using a collage of the Macedonia footage and other short extracts to show Kleeman’s versatile role in the organization over a number of years and his increasing prominence in its affairs, incl
uding snaps of his college days when he showed great promise as a collegiate wrestler and rower.

  He shook his head at the envoy’s posturing and turned off the set, sceptical of the ease with which Kleeman had donned the DPM jacket for the cameras and wondering if it was on his own initiative or that of Walters, his assistant.

  At a dismal, rain-soaked truck stop outside Moscow, where the city’s vast ring road joined the intersection of the M7 at Reutov, Kassim was eating a cheap meal of stew and potatoes, his eye on a television bolted to the wall in one corner. Around him was a melee of drivers and travellers, the air of the cafeteria thick with pungent tobacco smoke and a misting of steam rising from damp clothes.

  The sound on the television was drowned out by the volume of talk around him, but the picture was clear enough. What had drawn his attention was the sight of a British military helicopter, and a man talking to a clutch of news reporters. The face looked familiar, and Kassim quickly dug out the small binder from his pocket and rifled through the pages until he found the one he wanted.

  Anton Kleeman. UN Special Envoy.

  Kassim took his plate and edged nearer the television, peering over the shoulders of lorry drivers at the counter. He still couldn’t hear anything, and the language would have made it unlikely he’d have understood in any case, but the same reporter’s voice continued talking when the picture changed to a shot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, followed immediately by Big Ben in London.

  At the end of the bulletin Kassim returned to his seat with a thoughtful expression and finished his meal. Even when an enormous trucker, clearly overcome by an excess of cheap vodka, lurched against his table and mumbled an apology, he continued staring into the distance.

  He needed to get to a computer.