Retribution

by Adrian Magson

  ‘See this?’ McKenzie asked, pointing at the rust stain. ‘It’ll be analysed, but I don’t need no lab to tell me what it is. It’s dried blood.’

  Harry nodded in agreement and thanked him, then signalled for Rik to follow him outside. He needed to think. Everything had happened so quickly it was beginning to feel like a film on fast-forward, and he was in danger of missing something.

  They were halfway down the beach when he had a thought. Every man in the CP team had been issued with a UN beret. It was something Kleeman had requested, to show a united front. Most chose not to wear it, preferring their own regimental headgear. Some occasions, however, demanded it, especially when the UN had to be seen and identified quickly. He dialled Carl Pendry’s number. The Ranger answered immediately.

  ‘What did you do with your UN beret after your tour?’

  Pendry was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Handed it in, I guess, along with everything else that wasn’t my own kit.’ He paused. ‘Why you asking?’

  ‘Just checking something.’ He gave Pendry a brief run-down of what had happened in LA and Moscow, and with a cautionary note to keep his eyes open, cut the connection. Then he rang Deane and told him about the fragment of UN beret.

  Deane recognized it as the final piece of the jigsaw – the proof the rumours had been hinting at. ‘Jesus, that’s all we need. OK, I’ll check to see if we still have the inventories for that time. But people lose equipment. It doesn’t prove this fragment came from a beret in Kosovo. It could have been picked up anywhere.’

  ‘I know. But what are the odds?’ The only way to prove it would be by forensic examination of the cloth . . . and the stains.

  Deane agreed to call back as soon as he had something, then disconnected. When Harry looked up, Rik was frowning.

  ‘What?’ Harry had learned to recognize the look.

  ‘Back at that hotel: Bikovsky was watching a news report from Kosovo.’

  ‘I know. What about it?’

  ‘It was old footage from when you were over there. He saw himself and Kleeman . . . and the rest of the team. Wasn’t that across the border?’

  ‘Yes. We’d crossed into Macedonia after leaving the compound. The cameras were waiting for Kleeman to do his piece.’

  ‘What headgear were you wearing?’

  Harry thought back. Rik was right: they should all have been wearing blue UN berets. Karen Walters had been there to manage the press briefing, to reinforce the UN’s image. He called Bob Dosario at the FBI office on Wilshire Boulevard and explained what he wanted. The special agent was immediately helpful.

  ‘Come on round and I’ll have it sent in. I think I know which station it was.’

  They drove over to Wilshire and were shown into a conference room with a large flatscreen display. A young female technician in a crisp white shirt was running through a section of film on a DVD player. Dosario welcomed the two men and gestured them to seats.

  ‘Should be there any second. I heard about the killing down at Venice Beach. How’s this going to help with your investigation?’

  Harry started to explain, then was interrupted by a scene of Anton Kleeman walking away from a Sea King helicopter, his shoulders hunched under the down-draught. He was wearing a DPM smock and flanked by the security team, with Karen Walters fussing in close attendance like a mother hen.

  Pendry was big and hard to miss. Behind him was Broms, scoping the crowd of press representatives with a brooding stare. Both wore blue berets. He saw himself stride into picture, signalling to someone to move position, also wearing his beret. Then Orti, the Frenchman moving in a sideways stance just behind him, and further back was Koslov’s slim figure turning like a dancer, checking his back. Blue beret.

  ‘Bikovsky,’ Rik murmured. ‘I don’t see him.’

  The picture changed, showing a smiling Anton Kleeman in front of the press corps. He was playing them like the experienced politician, lifting the collar of the camouflage smock and pulling a wry face, evidently in response to a comment by one of the reporters. The security team had moved out of the frame, forming a cordon around him but leaving him room to manoeuvre.

  When the report ended, Harry turned to the young technician. ‘Can you wind it right back to where we exit the helicopter?’

  She did and Harry waited while the film ran again. After a few seconds he told her to stop and freeze-frame. On the very edge of the screen a familiar figure was staring off to one side, eyes in shadow.

  Bikovsky.

  He was wearing his Marine-issue green beret.

  Harry turned to Dosario, and moments later the special agent was through to the agent-in-charge at the Comfort Inn. Bikovsky came on, his speech even more slurred.

  ‘C’mon, Tate,’ he protested. ‘Leave me alone or get me outta here, will you? This place is driving me nuts. They won’t even let me use my phone.’

  ‘You’ll get out when we’re ready,’ Harry told him. ‘What did you do with your UN beret after your tour in Kosovo?’

  ‘What?’ Silence filled the line as Bikovsky tried to work out if it was a trick question. ‘Shit, man . . . my beret? What you gonna do – bill me for some cruddy piece of military equipment? Is that what they pay you guys to do? I thought you was chasin’ some freakin’ killer.’

  ‘Answer the question,’ Harry said harshly, ‘or I’ll turn you out on the street and let Marty and his friends know where you are.’

  ‘Hey, man . . . c’mon,’ Bikovsky said quickly. ‘Lemme think . . . it was a long time ago.’ The line hummed for a moment. ‘Hey – I remember: the beret, yeah. I handed it over, but I never got it back. They gave me a hard time about that. But you tell me who hands in everything? It was a war zone, for Chrissake!’

  ‘What do you mean you handed it over?’

  ‘Like I was told to. When the convoy left, Pendry said to find spare jackets and stuff for the two civilians, ’cos they stood out like tits on a bull. I found two DPM jackets but only one helmet, so I handed over my blue beret. No way was I going to wear that pussy’s colour. I was a Marine.’ He laughed and gave the US Marine battle cry: ‘Hoo-agh!’

  ‘Who did you give it to?’ Harry was holding his breath, although he already knew the answer.

  ‘Who’d ya think?’ Bikovsky’s voice contained outrage. ‘To UN-Special-fuckin’-Rapporteur Kleeman.’

  FORTY-THREE

  Kassim stood in front of the Marriott Hotel on West Century Boulevard and checked the area for signs of police activity. It was nearly nine thirty and the eighteen-floor building was a blaze of lights. So far he had seen nothing to alarm him, save for a couple of hotel security guards checking cars in the main car park.

  In spite of the late hour, the traffic entering and leaving was considerable: cars, shuttle buses and cabs streaming in and out in a constant flow, passengers mixing with aircrew. The sheer bustle of activity made Kassim feel momentarily secure, but he didn’t relax his guard. If there were any police about, they were showing unusual patience; but if they were good, that was what police did the world over.

  He finally stepped through the glass entrance, latching on to a group of European travellers from an airport shuttle. He felt nervous at the sheer size of the place and the surroundings, but he’d been trained for this; all he had to do was look bored – or tired. Either would do. And not catch anyone’s eye. He felt uneasy about approaching the desk to check in. He didn’t want to stay here, so what was the point? Then he spotted an internal phone and veered towards it.

  ‘Concierge.’

  Kassim asked if a package had arrived for him. A knot built in his gut while the man went to check. He came back and confirmed that it had.

  A few minutes later, among another influx of arrivals, he approached the desk and asked for the package in the name of Roberto Lucchini. The concierge, too busy to care, barely looked at him before handing it over. Two minutes later Kassim was out of the hotel and climbing into a cab. He needed to be on the move again.

  ‘Take
me to another hotel,’ he told the cabbie. ‘Somewhere smaller.’

  Further along West Century Boulevard, in the Comfort Inn where Bikovsky had been under guard, Harry and Rik were staring at an empty room. After briefing Bob Dosario at FBI headquarters and tossing around ideas, they had gone over the tape again frame by frame. It had been a tiring process, confirming only that Kleeman did not appear to have a UN beret, either on his head or tucked under his epaulette.

  ‘I remember thinking we had to get them some kit,’ Pendry had confirmed on the phone. ‘They were both wearing DPM jackets, but I don’t remember what they had on their heads.’

  ‘Bikovsky could be lying,’ Dosario had suggested reasonably.

  Harry didn’t think so. The Marine’s response had sounded too genuine. ‘He’d be taking a risk. Who would you believe – him or Kleeman?’

  Dosario grinned. ‘Good point. An all-state college sports champ turned international diplomat versus a sleaze with prior for rape who’s now working in porno movies. Mmm . . . wonder how a jury would vote on that one?’

  Harry stood up. ‘Only one way to find out. Let’s go see him.’

  They had driven over to the Comfort Inn to talk with Bikovsky, but the ex-Marine was no longer there. An embarrassed officer who had been on guard outside the door was trying to explain how his charge had disappeared while his colleague had taken a comfort break.

  ‘Bikovsky said he needed some ice and to stretch his legs,’ muttered the officer, a fifteen-year veteran. He pointed to a machine down the corridor. ‘I watch him try it, and he calls back that it’s broken. He says he’ll go down to the next floor, and I start to follow. Just as I do, the room phone rings and I go get it, thinking maybe it’s important.’ He pulled a sour face. ‘When I get downstairs, he’s gone. My lieutenant’s gonna have my ass for this.’

  Harry didn’t bother trying to make him feel better; the officer had been unbelievably negligent. They left him to his fate, while his colleagues began organizing a search and Bob Dosario put out a city-wide alert to his FBI agents in the area.

  On the way back to their hotel, Rik checked his email. There was a brief note from Ripper.

  Zip file on way. See cloud. Should I be worried about Homeland Security dogging my ass? Ripper.

  There was a hypertext link to a secure cloud box where the full file could be seen, with no connections back to Ripper or the source material.

  Rik waited until they were back in their hotel before responding. He wanted to see what quality of information Ripper had come up with.

  He opened his laptop and clicked on the link to the secure site. There were several pages collated by Ripper taken from airline databases of passenger manifests, each with a separate link for Rik to follow if he wished. There was also a link to a travel agency in New York. He clicked on it. It belonged to a small company called Life Style Travel in Allen Street on the Lower East Side. Run by a man named Agim Remzi and offering cheap deals to resorts worldwide, it was a bucket shop offering cheap, no-frills airline travel for passengers who didn’t mind going the long way round and maybe finding their own way back.

  ‘Neat way to avoid obvious checkpoints,’ Harry commented, when he saw the website. ‘I wonder how many operators he’s moved around the world?’ He waited for Rik to pull up the pages of airline data that Ripper had uploaded. They ran to several sheets of plain text and figures showing flight numbers, airport acronyms, passenger names, seat numbers and departure and arrival times.

  The name Zef Haxhi had been highlighted on each one, and the pages arranged in line with dates and times, showing Haxhi’s movements beginning with Peshawar and rolling through Paris, Brussels and New York, then to Columbus and on to Moscow and London.

  ‘He gets around, this boy,’ said Rik, clicking on the link to Life Style Travel. ‘Bingo.’

  The details were a summary from Remzi’s PC matching those of the bookings made in the name of Haxhi. The in-bound trip from Peshawar to New York via Paris had been arranged some weeks beforehand, no doubt to prepare the necessary immigration paperwork. But it was clear that Remzi had organized a series of open tickets more recently. Wherever Haxhi had wanted to go, Remzi had smoothed the way like a magic carpet.

  ‘This was no impulse job,’ Harry commented. ‘There’s been too much advance planning.’

  ‘How do we get this to Deane?’ Rik queried. ‘I don’t want to compromise Ripper.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Send Deane the link to Life Style with a copy of one of the flight schedule pages, and he can do his own hacking. He doesn’t need to know how we got it.’

  Rik did so, and hit the button to send the message on its way. ‘What do we do now?’

  Harry shook his head. ‘Nothing we can do. Bikovsky’s gone, and this is his turf; he could be anywhere by now. Best leave it to the FBI and LAPD to deal with him. We’ve got more important things to do.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Kassim or Haxhi, whatever his name is, won’t be waiting around. He’ll know by now that he’s come out too far and we’ve got a line on him. He’ll give up on Bikovsky and go on to bigger things.’

  ‘But isn’t that breaking with his plan to go after every member of the team?’

  ‘Perhaps. But I think he’s a realist. He knows by now who he isn’t after, so he’s not wasting time or running unnecessary risks by chasing them all down. He left Pendry alive and he didn’t wait to take another shot at Koslov. That must mean something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Once he’d seen them up close, he knew they weren’t his targets.’

  Rik looked up from the laptop screen. ‘How could he know that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Harry had been thinking about what made Pendry and Koslov different from the other men; something that allowed them to live. The most obvious point with Pendry was that he was black. Koslov, on the other hand, was white, like the other men. The only thing that set him apart was his size. Yet the girl’s murder at the compound had supposedly happened in the dead of night, save for security lights. And the murderer would have avoided them. So any sighting would have been vague at best.

  Then he had it. Witness details always differ slightly from one telling to the next – a change of hair colour or body size here, a few inches in height there. Every pair of eyes sees things differently. It made a second-hand description of the killer too vague, too unreliable, especially after all this time.

  But if Kassim could tell the difference between one man and another with any degree of certainty, it could only mean one thing.

  He had been right there at the time.

  FORTY-FOUR

  In the UN headquarters in New York, Ken Deane rubbed his eyes and stared down at the busy streets below. On his desk lay a scattering of information. It was both good and bad.

  The good was a collection of stills from an ATM machine not far from the scene of the Carvalho killing. They were grainy, with some interference from dust particles on the lens cover of the camera, but good enough to show a white male, thin-faced, possibly of Latino or Mediterranean stock. He was using Carvalho’s cash card.

  The man hadn’t been too concerned with hiding his features, intent on using the keypad and taking the money. Deane had compared it with the photo of the man named Kassim sent over by Koslov, but he couldn’t see much of a resemblance. The Chechnya photo was of a kid in his teens, skinny as a stick and looking scared. The still showed an older man, taller, harder and with not a trace of fear about him.

  Alongside this were the not-so-good and the plain bad. The first was a rash of printouts from various international intelligence organizations warning of chatter claiming to be from a group promising ‘a strike’ against the UN. The exact nature of the group wasn’t clear, but it seemed to consist of a loose conglomeration of extremist names sworn to overthrow western influence and domination in Afghanistan and the wider region by striking at what they called the ‘soft underbelly’ of US aggression – the United Nations. Intelligence
and security analysts from the US, France and the UK, aware of the rumours surrounding the Mitrovica compound, had added notes about the dominant group behind the chatter. Most were pointing the finger at Hezb-e-Islami as the most likely instigators, having the money, contacts and network capable of mounting such an exercise. The fact that it was a strike not planned to take place in Afghanistan, said the analysts, was a clever distraction: any blow was worthwhile if successful, and the effects would ripple out across the region.

  Top of the pile was the bad news; a report from Archie Lubeszki, Deane’s field security officer in Pristina. It confirmed that the rumours about a young girl murdered in 1999 were gathering pace, and with enough detail to make them worrying. She was found, it was being claimed, lying in long grass immediately adjacent to a UN container compound near Mitrovica. She had gone missing one night, according to her young brother, while looking for food inside the compound. He had been found wandering, traumatized and sick, along a nearby mountain track the following day. Some hours later, a local woman helping with the search had stumbled across the girl’s body right outside the perimeter fence. According to locals, a doctor from Médecins Sans Frontières had made an examination, and claimed she had been raped then suffocated, her breathing cut off by the pressure of a thumb or forefinger pinching her windpipe.

  She was just fourteen.

  The news had been slow in emerging at the time due to a spate of ethnic killings, and the absence of any clear infrastructure to investigate the reports. Nobody had been able to trace the doctor who had made the initial examination, and Médecins Sans Frontières had no records of a medic operating in that immediate area, although they couldn’t discount the possibility.

  The story had gradually faded and died, due possibly to the lack of anyone able to keep it alive. Rape, in any case, for them was the final insult in a land which had seen too many horrors inflicted in the name of religious cleansing. Why defile her further by broadcasting to the world the details of her ignominious end?