Retribution

by Adrian Magson

  Deane gave him a quizzical look. ‘If you say so. Is it true what I heard – that you nearly got iced in Georgia, courtesy of your own MI5?’

  Harry was trying to put that episode out of his mind, but clearly the talk was still rumbling around on the security and intelligence grapevine. After a failed drugs intercept in which two civilians and a police officer had been shot dead, Harry had been sent to a combined MI5/MI6 office in Georgia, code-named Red Station. Ostensibly to get him away from the press furore and the sniping of politicians looking for a scalp, the posting had been a sham; when he’d made noises about coming back, he and his new colleagues, including Rik Ferris, had been made the subjects of a kill order by a man known as The Hit.

  ‘Not all of MI5,’ he said. ‘Just one.’

  ‘Right. Paulton. He’s still out there, isn’t he?’

  ‘For now.’ Harry didn’t doubt that Deane knew all there was to know about his MI5 background and George Henry Paulton, his former boss. He’d clearly made his way up the UN security ladder since Kosovo, which put him in a position where digging around in Intelligence files was relatively simple, and finding people who knew all about men like Harry Tate was no more than a phone call away. It made him impatient to find out what Deane was doing here in London. ‘You didn’t fly all the way over here just to talk about me, though.’

  Deane waited until they had skirted a group of men in white djellabas clustered on the pavement by a limousine before answering. It gave Harry a chance to study him. He had the white teeth and smart, brush-cut hair of many Americans, which was little different to how Harry remembered him, but he was beginning to run up some extra weight. Too much time spent driving a desk.

  ‘Yeah, look – I’m sorry about the subterfuge, Harry. It’s true I was over here anyway, some business at the embassy. But what I have to talk about has taken precedence over everything. I have orders to keep it away from the embassy and off the wires, and I couldn’t think of any building in London where we could meet that wasn’t awash with spooks. I’ve been in this game too long, I guess . . . suspicious of everyone.’

  Harry knew how he felt; he’d become far less trusting of people himself of late. Being marked down for elimination does that to a person.

  ‘So why the message?’

  ‘Let’s get in the open first,’ Deane muttered finally. ‘I’ve been cooped up in planes and cars and offices, and I need some fresh air and the feel of green grass under my feet.’ He nodded towards Hyde Park. ‘That looks good to me. We could get an ice cream and walk.’

  They bought ice creams from a late vendor and walked out across the park, steering clear of being overheard. Deane took the top off his ice cream and said, ‘You ever thought of going back in uniform, Harry?’

  ‘Why?’ Harry studied his cone and dumped it at the foot of a tree where the birds could feed on it. He’d lost his appetite. ‘Are you recruiting?’ Deane had tried to get him on the UN payroll after Kosovo, but Harry had preferred the army, before transferring to MI5, the Security Services.

  Deane shrugged and dumped his ice cream, too. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

  He seemed tense, and Harry wondered what was coming. He didn’t have long to wait. ‘You remember your team in Kosovo, when you were dragooned into babysitting Anton Kleeman?’

  ‘Was that his name? It was a long time ago.’ Long enough to have shut out some of the memories, anyway.

  ‘You had some close calls out there.’

  Harry nodded. ‘A couple. Your note mentioned Mitrovica.’

  ‘That’s right. You got targeted by a Serb ambush squad and had to duck into a UN container depot for the night, remember?’

  Harry remembered, and thought that it was a very specific situation to bring up. His team and their protectee had been travelling in armoured four-by-fours and had joined up with a resupply convoy coming down through the hills. The convoy had run into some mines on the road, losing two men and a couple of trucks. ‘We rested up at the depot then got on a flight across the border next morning. Job done.’

  ‘Do you remember any names?’ The question was casual. Too casual.

  ‘A couple. Broms, Orti . . . Bikov-something – a US Marine, anyway.’ They had only been together a couple of days, not enough to make a lasting impression. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because stories are coming out of the region about stuff that happened back in Kosovo in ’ninety-nine. Stories backed up by some accurate details. It’s beginning to make serious waves.’

  ‘It was Kosovo. Lots of stuff happened back then. Remember ethnic cleansing?’

  ‘Yeah, of course. But this is closer to home – specifically the UN and KFOR. Actually, it’s KFOR, but the UN is the whipping post for all that’s bad in international peacekeeping, and it was our mandate that put KFOR in there, so . . .’ He paused.

  Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this, but he was here now. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The stories all amount to the same thing.’ Deane took a deep breath. ‘Sometime in autumn ’ninety-nine, a fourteen-year-old girl was raped and murdered inside one of our compounds, and her body dumped outside the wire.’

  Harry had seen too much in Kosovo to be surprised by anything that had happened in that broken region. Even so, this was, as Deane said, closer to home.

  ‘How does that involve me?’

  ‘Because what we’re hearing, she was raped and murdered by a UN soldier.’ He paused, then added, ‘A UN soldier in the container depot on the Mitrovica road. The night you and your team were there.’

  SIX

  Out on the street after leaving the old man, Kassim experienced a faint sense of bewilderment. He’d somehow expected more, as would be the tradition in the mountains. But beyond providing the weapon and the money, this man would help him no further. For now, he truly was on his own.

  He strode off along the street, uncomfortably aware of the weight of the Makarov in the rucksack against his hip. His bewilderment was a passing phase, he knew that. After all the lessons and training, where he was watched and coached every day, a sense of isolation was to be expected, his trainers had warned him. Those same men, older and wiser, had seen everything, witnessed many things. But he still wasn’t sure if they had done what he was now expected to do. Asking such a question would have met with instant reproof. It was enough that they had heard of his story, blurted out in a moment of anger, and selected him – him – to be the agent of destruction.

  Barely twenty minutes later he was entering a more prosperous neighbourhood, with a profusion of shops, cafés and businesses. The houses were fresher and well-tended, and both sides of the street were lined nose to tail with shiny cars. He referred briefly to the binder in his pocket, checking one photo in particular.

  He turned into a side street. Finding the address he wanted, he passed by without stopping, running a quick eye over the door. He could not tell for certain from such a brief inspection, but it did not look as if there were any special security measures in place. The wood looked normal, without the heavy, studded appearance of reinforcements or extra locks, and a narrow window to one side looked like a single pane of standard glass.

  He decided to wait and watch before taking any action.

  Nearby was a café with a few chairs and tables outside. He stepped inside, into a wall of choking cigarette smoke and loud talk, and the chink of glasses. He chose a table near the window from where he could watch the street, and ordered a fizzy drink from an aproned waiter.

  His timetable was flexible and allowed for problems. If all went well, he would catch a train from the Gare du Nord at 22.01. If not, he would leave tomorrow instead.

  All he could do now was wait.

  In the building across from the café where Kassim waited, Jean-Michel Orti was going through a series of intensive exercises. His head was pounding with the after-effects of too much pastis, and he felt like shit. Much better if he just went to bed and got some sleep. But the routine of his years in the French Foreign Legion was too
ingrained to break, so he gritted his teeth and continued, his body breaking out in a sweat in the stuffy room. He reached fifty with a final push and moved into squat-thrusts, his powerful leg muscles – which could normally carry him for miles with a full bergen – cracking from the lack of proper exercise over the past week.

  Nearing the end of seven days’ special leave before reporting back to the Legion office in Marseilles, Orti was tiring of the city and the faded delights it had to offer. His dutiful visits to his mother and sister, whose apartment this was, had soon become dull for them all, and there were fewer familiar faces around to greet him any more. Those who had not moved away seemed more concerned with family and responsibilities than sinking a few beers with an old friend. He’d been too long in the Legion. He might as well have joined a monastery.

  He sighed and stood up. A strong coffee would clear his head and get him in tune for the following morning. If he made the mistake of reporting back to base unfit even for the daily run, the capitaine would spot it immediately and have him doing several rounds of the assault course with a bunch of new recruits, to teach him a lesson.

  He splashed water on his face and dried off, then ran lightly downstairs and crossed the street.

  The Café Sport was bustling with noise from the usual clientele whiling away the evening with pointless chatter about politics and football, the air heavy with cigarette smoke. He ordered coffee and a reheated croissant to soak it up, and sat down at the back of the room, checking the other patrons out of habit. Mostly locals, there were a couple of strangers, clearly business types deep in conversation over a laptop. Near the window a man in a cheap suit was sipping a soft drink and staring out at the street. Strong face, weathered, good shoulders, like an athlete, but lean. Could almost be a Legionnaire. Italian, Orti guessed, or one of the paler North Africans . . . Spanish with a touch of Moor, perhaps. A rucksack sat on the floor between his feet. An immigrant, looking for work.

  The coffee was good and strong, and he drank a single cup, washing down the croissant. He made no attempt at conversation with the other customers. Those who knew him were aware of his background and paid him the courtesy of privacy; those who did not saw a fit-looking man in his late thirties paying the price for too many drinks.

  Orti paid at the bar and left a tip for the waiter, then walked back across the street, breathing in the night air and looking forward to sleep followed by a morning run. As he put the key in the door and pushed it open he heard a whisper of sound behind him. Instantly he began to turn. But he was too slow, dulled by tiredness and the effects of drink. He felt a savage blow in the lower back and was thrown forward inside and against the wall of the hallway. An arm like a steel bar wrapped itself around his throat and another hand grasped his wrist like a vice and twisted it painfully up behind his back with no more effort than if he had been a child. Before he could make a sound he was dragged along the lower hallway into the kitchen, his feet scrabbling to gain purchase on the floor tiles.

  Training as a Legionnaire includes some brutally effective unarmed combat, with moves borrowed from various disciplines such as karate, judo and aikido. Even if unarmed, Legionnaires are expected to meet all attacks with ferocious countermeasures. Yet Orti found himself unable to do anything against this attack. He was slammed face down on the kitchen floor and trussed with a length of clothes line before the full gravity of his circumstances could penetrate his confused mind.

  The attacker rolled him over on to his back and placed a foot on his chest, thrusting a tea towel into his mouth with strong fingers. Orti found himself looking into a familiar face: it was the man from the café . . . the immigrant. Dark eyes stared back with little expression, and Orti felt a chill of fear. It was not, he knew, the loud, noisily aggressive men you had to worry about; it was the quiet ones who said little. Like this one.

  ‘You are Orti?’ the man said softly.

  The Frenchman thought the accent strange; from Spain or Italy, maybe. He shook his head instinctively, his brain fogged but now functioning, and fought to draw in air through his nose. He made a grunting noise to show he wanted to talk, but the man ignored him and rolled him over to find the wallet in his back pocket. The details inside clearly confirmed what he wanted to know. He took out all the folded euros inside and tossed the wallet to one side.

  But next he did a strange thing. He raised one hand. He was holding a piece of ragged cloth. Light blue with one edge of thin leather, it was worn smooth, as if by constant rubbing.

  Then Orti recognized the colour and texture. It was part of a UN beret. He frowned. What the fu—?

  Whatever the man thought Orti’s expression of surprise portrayed, it seemed to disappoint him. His eyes hardened and he took a deep breath. He released the Frenchman for a second, then moved across the room. Seconds later he was back, holding a towel that he wrapped around something in his hand.

  Orti caught a glimpse of polished metal and a bone handle, and recognized the object with a feeling of profound sadness. It was his own hunting knife.

  SEVEN

  Harry focussed on the basic details, trying to push aside any emotion. ‘It could have been anyone. There were guards on duty when we arrived, and the road nearby had passing traffic.’

  ‘Yeah, but the guards all left with the convoy, didn’t they – for Pristina?’

  Harry was puzzled. If Deane knew that much, he’d evidently done some groundwork. But then he shouldn’t have expected anything less. Deane was experienced and had a large security organization at his disposal; checking the facts would have been his first objective. But, as he was admitting, even the UN couldn’t know everything.

  Harry cast his mind back to that night. After running into the ambush in driving rain, and having a truck with two men blown up and another vehicle crippled, the convoy had barged their way through at speed, following the lead vehicle, an armoured personnel carrier. With the agreement of the convoy commander, a Dutch officer, they had made for a container depot near Mitrovica. It had been the only place Harry had been able to find quickly on the map that offered any kind of safety perimeter. With no evacuation possible before dawn, his first responsibility was the isolation and protection of his UN charge, Anton Kleeman, and his assistant, a woman named Karen Walters.

  Within minutes of their arrival, the convoy commander had received orders to leave for Pristina to assist with the protection of a refugee camp under attack from Serb militia. That had left Harry and his team alone in the depot with their two charges. He had given orders to get them out of sight in case the compound was being watched and the team had got them bedded down.

  ‘There was one other man,’ he recalled. ‘One of the guards. He’d just started his shift and knew the place, and he was a combat veteran, so they left him where he was. I don’t recall his name, though.’

  ‘Fine. I can check that out.’

  ‘It still doesn’t mean it was anyone in the compound.’

  ‘Actually, that might not be true.’ Deane seemed almost embarrassed, and rubbed his face hard.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s evidence, apparently.’

  ‘What kind of evidence?’

  ‘A piece of a uniform. We’re still trying to sort out what might be genuine information from hype.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Harry, there’s a lot of people out there would like to put us on the rack. It would serve several national interests if we got so tied up with scandal we couldn’t operate freely. And there are a few states out there that don’t like being landed with peacekeeping forces under a UN mandate, preventing them from sorting out their differences any old way they feel. Add to that the world economy right now, and I can think of a couple of regular members who’d be delighted to have an excuse to drop out of the UN and save some money.’ His face twisted. ‘United in name only, I’m afraid.’

  ‘So who’s generating the propaganda?’

  ‘I wish we knew. A couple of right-wing investigative hacks are jumping all over it
, egged on by human rights groups and the usual anti-government, anti-UN, anti-everything nuts. But they’re being fed by someone who claims to know enough of the details to make it stick. In fact, right now there’s a small bunch of reporters out in Kosovo raking through the ashes and trying to find anyone who was there at the time. A lot of the population haven’t returned even now, and that’s the only thing slowing down the press investigation. But I don’t expect that to last. If there’s someone out there they haven’t found yet, it’s just a matter of time before they do.’

  ‘Do you know who the girl was?’

  ‘Not yet. Local, that’s all they’re saying. She probably went inside the compound looking for food. One of the reports hinted at a possible name, but they haven’t shared it yet.’ He shrugged. ‘Could be a bluff to stoke the fire and sell a few more copies, but gut feel tells me it’s not. There’s too much anger being generated. It’s as if the detail is there, but they’re holding it back for some reason.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Anything you can tell me about that time. Frankly, we’re up against it and I don’t know what else we can do. It could all blow over tomorrow, but sooner or later the names of the team are going to come out – including yours. You worked with these guys; you might have a gut feel about them. Anything we can do to get ahead of the game is worth a try.’

  Harry felt a bristle of anger. ‘It sounds as if you’ve already made up your minds.’

  ‘I haven’t. But look at the facts, Harry. A small group of men from various backgrounds cooped up for the night in a remote compound . . . and a girl – a kid. The girl ends up raped and dead. If the evidence these rumours are hinting at is real, one of those men was responsible.’

  ‘Are you sure this isn’t an exercise to protect your man’s reputation?’

  ‘Kleeman?’ Deane shook his head. ‘Fuck him. The guy’s a politician with his eye on the top job; I could care less about his reputation. He’ll move on one day, but in the meantime my responsibility is to the organization.’