Retribution

by Adrian Magson

  McKenna nodded. ‘That’s correct. Her supervisor believes she was accessing and updating recent additions to the files.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you. She knew you were coming.’ He pursed his lips. ‘And now, so does the killer.’

  FIFTEEN

  Standing in a rubbish-strewn doorway on the Lower East Side, beneath a latticework of scaffolding up the front of the building, Kassim was watching a first-floor apartment across the street. At ground level was a general store, with the owner, an old Vietnamese man, cleaning the front window. A steady stream of customers had been coming and going, with enough movement to cover Kassim’s presence. So far he had seen no sign of occupation, although the page in the binder had given this as his next target’s temporary address.

  He checked his watch and wished he had brought something to drink. He was thirsty and tired and beginning to feel the cold. The drop in temperature had been acute after the clammy heat he’d been used to in the mountains, but it was damp here, too, which he was finding debilitating. Maybe he needed to get a coat; one of those padded jackets he had seen people wearing. It might also serve as another layer of camouflage, to help him blend in.

  Earlier, Kassim had dug out the address of a contact he had been given on New York’s East Side, and found it belonged to a man running a small travel agency. The name he was using was Agim Remzi, allegedly a Kosovar who had been in America for over twenty years.

  Kassim was reluctant to put his trust in people he had never met, no matter what their stated origins. But the situation demanded it. Remzi, as part of the extended network he was relying on, had agreed to provide Kassim with money and assistance; he could have little interest in betraying him, since it would lead to his own downfall.

  He had walked past the front of the agency twice, noting the layout. It was in a busy district with other businesses nearby. After a truck dropping off banded stacks of catalogues had departed in a cloud of exhaust fumes, Kassim had walked through the front door. A woman was tapping at a computer keyboard beneath garish posters of sun, sand and snow, and the place smelled of cheap perfume and stale cigarette smoke.

  The woman had looked at him with dark eyes, her chin raised in mute query.

  ‘Agim Remzi,’ Kassim had said simply.

  The woman disappeared through a door at the back and returned moments later followed by a thin, ascetic individual with startlingly blue eyes and grey hair. Remzi beckoned him through, telling the woman to lock the door. Inside his office he offered tea, clearing his desk by pushing papers into his top drawer.

  ‘It is an awkward time,’ breathed Remzi, gesturing at his desk. ‘Busy as hell . . .’ The Americanism sounded false and Kassim wondered to what extent this man had become part of the culture around him. Enough to betray him if he felt threatened?

  ‘It is the will of God,’ he muttered darkly, a terse reminder.

  Remzi leaned forward and lifted his chin. ‘Of course. What do you need of me?’

  Kassim had checked his money reserve, which was dwindling fast. He would need more if he had to travel far over the next few days. But with Remzi running a travel agency, that should be the least of his problems.

  ‘First, money,’ he replied. ‘Also tickets. You know the places I have to go.’

  ‘Yes. Where to next?’ Remzi picked up a pencil and pad.

  Kassim reached across and took the pencil from his hand. ‘You do not need to know that yet. Only that I will call you when I need them – but they must be ready with any paperwork.’

  ‘As you wish. It has all been arranged.’ Remzi opened his desk drawer and took out a bulky envelope. It was creased and banded many times with elastic.

  ‘Used notes, all small, all checked. You should have no problems.’ When Kassim looked blank, Remzi explained, ‘All notes have numbers. There are many fakes in circulation. Give someone one of those, and you will have Treasury agents sitting behind you closer than a child to its mother.’ He grinned humourlessly. ‘The best thing about this godless country is that nobody likes being cheated. What else do you need?’

  Kassim stuffed the envelope in his jacket and took out the binder. He had already removed the pages bearing the details of Orti and Broms. ‘You know about this?’

  Remzi nodded cautiously. ‘Of course. I know the person who provided the details inside.’

  ‘Good. This information . . . what if it is not correct?’

  The man frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What if I do not find all these people?’ Kassim had considered at the start that many of the names in the binder might have moved on; as members of the military, their destiny was not their own.

  Remzi scratched a note on a notepad, and passed the slip of paper across the desk. Kassim looked at it. Irina@hotmail.com. It meant nothing to him. He shrugged.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s the internet,’ Remzi explained, as if to a child. ‘Like a telephone . . . but you don’t speak, and you can contact someone even when they are not there.’ He waved a hand and turned to a computer on the table behind him. ‘Watch – I will show you.’

  Kassim leaned over the desk and gripped Remzi’s shoulder, his strong fingers digging into his flesh. Remzi yelped and sank back, scrabbling to get the hand off him. But it was like being held in a steel vice.

  ‘I know the internet, you fool!’ Kassim hissed. ‘You think I’m a cave dweller? Huh?’ He let the travel agent go. He had used internet cafés in Pakistan many times. It had been part of his training, to communicate with others through anonymous Hotmails that were rarely used more than three or four times before being changed. The Americans, through their National Security Agency and CIA, were constantly monitoring cyberspace for key words or coded numbers, and repetition of certain phrases or names in their hunt for insurgents and members of al-Qaeda.

  Remzi apologized and rubbed his shoulder, his face pale. ‘Of course. I’m sorry . . . I did not think. Forgive me.’ He gestured at the screen. ‘There is always someone out there to help you. You just need to reach out.’

  Kassim sat down, slightly mollified. ‘Who are they?’ he asked, ‘these people who help me?’

  Remzi stared at him, his blue eyes suddenly cool. ‘That is something you do not need to know. They do not know you, only that you have come. It is better if it stays that way. Then they cannot compromise you.’

  A car pulling to a stop along the street brought Kassim back to the present. It was juggled into position and the engine died. The door opened, followed by a faint double-whoop of the electronic immobilizer.

  Kassim shrank back into the shadows as footsteps came down the street and a man approached the door alongside the general store. He had a crew cut and a strong, tanned face, and walked with a firm tread. He was holding one of those large, brown paper bags Kassim had seen people carrying out of supermarkets. He mentally compared the face with the photo in his binder. Carvalho, one of the UN guards, according to the file, and a US Marine.

  The door opened and closed, leaving the street empty once more. Kassim began counting and adjusted his breathing, feeling his body settle as he tried not to think of all the things that could go wrong. He’d checked the rear of the building for a fire escape ladder, but there were too many overlooking windows to use that way in.

  Five minutes passed before he stepped from the doorway and walked across the street, checking both ways. A woman climbed into a car a hundred yards to his right and pulled away down the street, and a man walked a dog across the intersection to his left. The windows above him were blank. No customers from the general store on the street.

  The door the man had gone through was old and warped out of true, and Kassim leaned his shoulder against it, testing its strength. The only point of resistance was level with the lock. He felt in his rucksack and took out a large screwdriver he had bought earlier from a hardware store. He had wanted one of the hunting knives on display in a glass cabinet, but the man looked suspicious,
so he’d opted for the screwdriver and a grindstone instead.

  He gripped the rubber-sheathed handle and inserted the point between the jamb and the door. It slid with little resistance through the wood until he felt it stop up against the metal latch. With another push the lock gave with a faint creak and the door opened.

  The hallway was dark and smelled of mould. A corridor ran away from him towards a flickering flare of light and the sound of a television. He ducked until he could see the length of the floor, looking for obstructions. It would not help if he tripped over something in his path.

  Slipping off his shoes, he crept forward until he breasted two open doors, one on each side. One was a bathroom, the other little more than a cupboard filled with junk. He listened, only moving on when he was sure the rooms were empty. A man was humming tunelessly barely six feet away at the end of the hall. Kassim breathed deeply and gripped the screwdriver. In his other hand he clutched the fragment of blue cloth.

  SIXTEEN

  There was silence at the table overlooking the East River as everyone digested the information that had gone round the room. Deane stood up and walked over to the window, chewing his lip.

  ‘It seems pretty cut and dried to me,’ he murmured. ‘Information on former and current personnel is lifted from our files, and within days, two of them are dead.’ He turned and faced them. ‘In line with what we’ve heard, someone – an Afghan – is going after the CP team and Orti and Broms were the first. Any guesses as to who’s next?’

  ‘If the same person killed both men,’ said Harry, ‘and he’s following a plan, then whoever is nearest. At some point he’s going to end up here.’

  Deane nodded. ‘Makes sense. Let’s hope it gives us some time to prepare everyone.’

  ‘What about Special Envoy Kleeman?’ Karen Walters asked quietly. ‘Is he under threat?’

  ‘Unlikely,’ Deane said. ‘The stories doing the rounds say it was a soldier, and there’s evidence to prove it: part of a uniform.’

  ‘That lets me out, then,’ Walters said, with a pointed glance at Deane. ‘I hate to be sexist, but last I heard, women aren’t equipped for it. Rape, I mean.’

  Deane’s look was several shades less than friendly for pointing out the obvious. He said curtly, ‘And Kleeman’s a civilian – we get that. Not that it matters; thanks to his status in the UN, there’s a tighter cordon around him than the President’s cat.’

  ‘It would help,’ Harry put in, ‘if we could speak to someone who knew the Demescu woman. Does she have family here? Was she part of this plan or was she pressured to steal the information? Where might she have gone?’

  Deane said, ‘Her supervisor’s outside. His name’s Benton Ehrlich. I’ll get him in here.’ He went to the door and leaned out, spoke to someone. Moments later, a man entered the room. He was slim, bespectacled and nervous, and clearly uncomfortable outside the familiar confines of his department. He blinked rapidly when he saw the printouts on the table.

  Harry caught the look. ‘You know what these are?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ehrlich nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

  ‘Did you know Ms Demescu well?’

  ‘Sure, sir. Well, we worked together.’ He glanced around at the others, his face flushing under their scrutiny.

  ‘You had no idea she was accessing unauthorized files?’

  Ehrlich shook his head. ‘No way, sir. Irina – Miss Demescu – always seemed real keen, sir, but she kind of kept to herself.’

  ‘You ever socialize with her, Benton?’ Karen Walters put in. ‘Did she ever talk about her family?’

  Ehrlich shrugged. ‘Well, we had drinks a couple of times – I mean with other people, you know. But that was all. She didn’t drink alcohol and was kind of private. She didn’t say much, although I did hear her mention she had family in the Balkans one time. I figured it was best not to talk about that.’

  After a few more questions Deane thanked Ehrlich and told him he could go back to work. The supervisor nodded and left the room as quickly as he could.

  Deane thanked McKenna and waited until the door was closed before turning to Karen Walters. ‘What’s been the fallout from Kleeman’s press grilling?’

  Walters leaned down and took a copy of the New York Times from her briefcase. She dropped it on the table. The front page was framed in red marker ink.

  ‘It’s hit the front pages,’ she said grimly. ‘I didn’t bring the Washington Post or the foreign nationals – I didn’t want to depress you. But it’s headline news everywhere. Al Jazeera has been running special broadcasts all over the Middle East, and a number of Islamic countries have come out condemning the news and demanding a response by the UN, saying it points towards an anti-Islamic bias by UN troops and supporting member states.’

  Deane pulled the Times towards him and stared at the headline.

  REFUGEE GIRL RAPED AND MURDERED BY PEACEKEEPER – UN SPECIAL ENVOY PROMISES JUSTICE

  UN Special Envoy Anton Kleeman yesterday gave substance to the rumors coming out of the country of Kosovo that a teenage girl was brutally raped and murdered by a UN ‘Trooper’ attached to the multinational KFOR peacekeeping force during 1999. So far the victim, possibly a homeless refugee, has not been identified, nor has the soldier. Special Envoy Kleeman, hotly tipped for the highest reaches of the peacekeeping and humanitarian organization, yesterday vowed before a press briefing that justice for the brutalized young girl would be swift. Speaking to a select press gathering before leaving on a brief visit to Beijing, Paris, and London for talks with other UN members, he would not be drawn on what this justice might entail, nor how it would be enforced.

  Deane shook his head in disgust. ‘Brutally raped and murdered? Is there any other way? Jesus.’

  ‘You can’t blame the press,’ Walters said with cool indifference. ‘They react to what they’re told.’

  ‘Right. And he sure told them, didn’t he? Who the hell allowed Kleeman to do this?’

  Walters bristled defensively. ‘I’m his aide, not his nanny. If he wants to set out on a crusade without telling me, there’s not much I can do to stop him. You want me to hit him over the head and haul him out of the room any time, give me the paperwork.’

  Deane grinned nastily. ‘Don’t tempt me.’ He tapped the newspaper article. ‘This trip to Beijing and Europe . . . how come you’re not along to hold his hand?’

  ‘He has other people for that: trained diplomat types who know how to behave in front of foreign devils. Don’t show the soles of the feet or talk about Chinese human rights abuses, don’t insult the euro, ignore the French or mention the war; work the cutlery from the outside in and if someone spits on their plate don’t stab ’em in the eye with your fish fork.’ She brushed a hair from across her face. ‘Frankly, I’m glad to be out of his way for a while.’

  Harry caught her eye. ‘You don’t like him much?’

  Her look was cool, as if unsure what lay behind the question. She shivered. ‘To be honest, he gives me the creeps. He’s like one of those Hollywood actor-types, all macho bullshit and Armani, but too good to be true.’

  ‘He’s gay?’ Deane looked stunned.

  ‘No, not that.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a woman thing: good-looking, rich, sophisticated guys affect us that way if they don’t have their hand up our skirts every five minutes.’

  Deane said with a wry grin, ‘Now who’s being outrageous?’

  ‘Are you going to notify everyone in those files?’ Walters countered.

  ‘All the CP team, yes. That’s what Harry’s here for. We’ve tracked down everyone to a last known address, but we haven’t spoken to them directly yet. We figured it would be better done face to face.’ He tapped the table top. ‘We don’t want everyone to hear that there’s a killer on the loose looking to waste a whole bunch of UN military personnel.’

  Walters looked at Harry as if for the first time, and he knew what she was thinking. ‘You were the team leader, I remember.’ She gave a faint smile
. ‘You didn’t exactly hit it off with Kleeman, did you?’

  Harry said nothing for a moment. He didn’t see the point in going over old news. But when Deane and McKenna looked at him, he realized that anything appearing to have been hidden now might look questionable later on.

  ‘He wanted us to mount a hot pursuit following an ambush by Serb snipers,’ he explained. ‘We were hit as we drove down a narrow defile in heavy rain at night. Kleeman suggested we hit them back, but that wasn’t our mission; we were there to protect him, not engage in a firefight. Going after Serb forces in those conditions was a no-hoper. I told him that. Then, when we reached the compound where we were to rest up for the night before being airlifted out, the convoy commander was ordered to Pristina to help protect refugees under attack. Kleeman wanted to go with them.’ He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t my job to provide him or anyone else with a photo opportunity, so we stayed put. He wasn’t impressed.’

  Deane pulled a face. ‘That might explain why he was so quick to jump on the military. I hope the press doesn’t get hold of these names yet.’ He flicked idly through the papers. ‘When they do, every man on it will be labelled a potential rapist and murderer.’

  Walters said, ‘Can you keep them secure?’

  ‘I wish I could. But they’re already out there. Whoever was using Demescu might not allow it to remain secret.’

  ‘That might work to our advantage,’ Harry suggested.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Having the media looking for the men as well might crowd him and scare him off. And if the guilty trooper is out there, he’s bound to be on his guard, too.’

  There was a knock at the door.

  Deane stood and spoke to a man outside. When he came back, he looked shocked.

  ‘There’s been another killing.’ He reached out and pulled one of the record sheets towards him, spun it round so they could all see it. ‘This time right here in New York.’