Resolution to Kill

by E. V. Seymour

  Wasting another bullet on the locked back door, she stepped inside the building and instinctively took a mental tally: fourteen shots left. Crossing the kitchen floor, the soles of her shoes sticking to the grime, she heard the sound of voices beneath like the muzzy noise of a radio turned down low. Silently she slipped into the hallway, glancing up the stairs, scanning the area ahead: front door; two doors off the main corridor, both closed. To her immediate right, the stairs and entrance to the cellar, the door ajar. Tipping it further open with the muzzle of the Glock, she peered into the darkness, heard Tallis’s voice, calm and in control. Good, she thought, taking up a defensive position. That’s when she sensed she had company. Whipping round, she had no time to register confusion, no time to look into the eyes of the man who fired a hollow-point bullet into the centre of her forehead.

  Tallis heard the shot. So did Senka Martinovic.

  They had been standing in what seemed like suspended animation for seconds, each facing the other down. Martinovic, her eyes like slits, held a knife to the throat of a bloodied and terrified Mrs Everett, Tallis with the gun trained on Martinovic’s accomplice. The general sat mute, red-rimmed eyes staring ahead, only the shallow rise and fall of his chest signifying brain function. At the report from above, Martinovic sliced through Martha Everett’s throat. Bright red oxygenated blood sheeted down like torrential rain. Instantly Tallis fired and shot Martinovic in the face. Releasing his grasp on the girl, he darted forward and fired another shot into Martinovic’s twitching frame. Next he spoke into his collar, confirming the fatalities, expecting Charlie to verify interception of the Bosnian hostage-taker and alert Charlie to the fact that another kidnapper remained unaccounted for.

  There was no verification, no response.

  The general, jettisoned out of his torpor, struggled across the cellar floor on his hands and knees. Tallis went to help the old man but, slicked in blood, he pushed Tallis away. As he reached his wife he let out a great howl of despair. Acutely worried by the lack of contact from Charlie, Tallis muttered he’d be back.

  ‘Find Anna,’ the general said, his voice cracked and dry as chaff. ‘She’s the goddamn bitch you want.’

  Tallis nodded, sped towards the cellar steps, taking them two at a time. Barrelling out of the entrance, his eyes shot wide with horror. Luxuriant hair fanned out on the dirty floor, one green eye open, unseeing, a leg bent at an awkward angle beneath her. A man in a leather jacket and jeans stood over Charlie’s body. He held a gun in his hand. Cold careered through Tallis, surging into his back, into his chest, flooding his soul. And rage. He raised the Glock.

  ‘Christ’s sake, I’m with you, with Secret Intelligence,’ the man insisted, one hand palm up. ‘My orders were to eliminate the kidnappers.’ His eyes shifted to Charlie.

  ‘You screwed up,’ Tallis screamed at him. ‘She was with me.’ Images of another time, when he had done the same, hammered through his mind. That, too, had been the result of faulty intelligence. Superficially, it had cost him his job and yet it had cost him so much more.

  ‘No, I was…’

  ‘Fucking shut up,’ Tallis burst out. Fogged with confusion, he was trying to think. Who gave the orders? Was Charlie deliberately targeted? What the hell was happening? And, Jesus, the remaining kidnappers...

  The man gestured with his gun towards the rear of the building. ‘Your colleague went that way, to mop up.’

  ‘My…’ Oh my God, Tallis cursed, taking to his heels, wrenching at the back door and running down a path strewn with the bodies of a woman, the third kidnapper, he realised, and a man. The gate ahead open, he belted through it, eyes scouring the street for the missing Bosnian girl, running to the end, checking every entrance, peering over garden hedges, ignoring the mystified looks of passers-by. He felt gripped by insanity. If the madness passed, all he’d have left was grief and guilt. It was his idea for Charlie to come on board, his selfish need that guided his decision. And now she was dead.

  He heard the sound of a siren wailing, a helicopter wheeling above. As an ambulance turned down the street and drove at speed, Tallis threw his head back and hurled his fury and pain at the pale blue sky.

  All Sabina and I ever talked about was the past. It drove Thomas mad. With so much stability in our lives, he could not understand what he described as ‘our obsession’. My arguments with him grew vicious. Our marriage was only in name. I did not love him. I don’t think I ever did. Had it not been for the murder, that Thomas also had blood on his hands, he would have kicked me out. Many times, he tried to get rid of Sabina. He often spoke of reporting her to the authorities about her illegal status. I knew he never would. It was all talk, but it did not prevent him from making her a scapegoat for all that was wrong with our relationship. He did not appreciate that he, not Sabina, was the problem.

  One day he came home from work with a big smile on his face. Trust me, this was unusual given our current dismal situation. He announced that there was to be a visit to the university by a high-ranking official from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. I received the news with stony disapproval. Thomas knew only too well my views on the United Nations and its other puppet organisations.

  ‘What does this have to do with us?’

  ‘Not us,’ Thomas beamed, ‘but Sabina.’

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all, but I was curious to know what had put the spring back into Thomas’s stride.

  ‘The UNHCR is talking about its role in repatriating refugees,’ he explained.

  I blinked. My mouth went dry, then slack. Thomas, mistaking me for a fool, said, ‘They are helping refugees to return to their homeland. Sabina can go back to Bosnia.’

  ‘I heard the first time,’ I snapped.

  ‘It was an idea, that’s all,’ he huffed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘No, you thought I’d fall for your stupid trick.’

  ‘Anna,’ he said, grasping me by the shoulders, ‘I have never underestimated your intelligence. I am only trying to help. I suggested it for you. For me, too,’ he said. ‘For us.’

  Perhaps it was the sad light in his eyes, the defeat in his expression, the plain fact that he was struggling, but I let him think that my anger towards him had diminished. ‘All right,’ I said stiffly. ‘I accept your explanation. I understand your feelings, but Sabina is going nowhere and you’d better get used to it.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Zenica, central Bosnia: 1500 hours local time

  Clay was doing what he did best: building up matrices, which to the layman meant running down the facts and kicking out anything of a speculative nature. In Clay’s line of business, facts got raped and plundered, but you still needed to establish them in the first place.

  As soon as he’d got off the plane, he’d checked out as many contacts as he could find. They ranged from former bang men to guys with dubious war records; useful connections often had blood on their hands. It was hard work. It took time. You couldn’t simply launch in. You needed the small talk to get to the big talk. Had to be careful. Had to be very fucking careful when working two agendas: giving the Brits the information they thought they needed and delivering to the folks back home. Fitz had been important for more reasons than Tallis imagined. In fact, Clay was never too sure how much in the loop Tallis actually was. From where he was standing, there seemed to be an awful lot of egos on show and agendas at play. Fact: Fitz had operated under cover in Iran. He was attempting to forge links between certain faces there and those operating in the shadows in Bosnia.

  As far as Clay could tell, among the general populace anybody and everybody had an axe to grind. The place had got kind of jumpy. The atmosphere felt tense. As a seasoned spook, he had a nose for such things. If there was some Mr Big funding the kidnapping project, nobody he’d talked to was aware of it. Away from the action, it sounded like bullshit to his ears.

  But he had tried. Time to revert to running down an official and way more important lead.

 
; Having gained a foothold during the chaos of the Balkan conflict, the IJO, the Islamic Jihad Organisation, the cover name used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had set up camp and never gone home. Dug in, its sole mission to cause mayhem throughout the world, it had spawned an entire network of safe houses, front companies and financial institutions. But here’s the thing: the men and women running them remained faceless. Iranians, as most people knew, were pretty damn hot when it came to hostage-taking. If there were an Olympic sport for the activity, the Iranians would walk off with gold every time. Their expertise in such matters didn’t go unnoticed. In the mid 1990s, one of Bin Laden’s guys hooked up with Iranian intelligence. In spite of the bagging of the man at the top, there was no reason to suggest that the union had ever been broken and, consequently, Clay couldn’t help but suspect that the recent spate of kidnappings had some tenuous Muslim/A Q connection running through it. Explained why he’d headed to Zenica, the largest industrial town in the region, the café where Clay was to meet his contact situated in the old quarter.

  Surveillance teams were masters of the mundane. As he travelled from street to street under a sky heavy with blue, Clay was mindful of the extraordinary masquerading as ordinary, the guy with dark clothing, the woman without jewellery or make-up, those who studiously avoided eye contact. Not that they would recognise his interest. With his sunglasses firmly in place, he took his time. Every move natural and easy does it. Sometimes, if you played it right, even the most determined watchers got bored or tired, although it never paid to underestimate the enemy.

  Entering a main square bordered by small shops and restaurants, Clay scanned the area. The most vulnerable time would be when he left the public arena and ventured inside. From an adjacent street, a church bell tolled.

  A fog of cigarette smoke immediately enveloped Clay. Squinting through the haze, he spotted Samir sitting at the rear chugging away on a Marlboro and sipping a Coke, a drink that had really taken hold in the Balkans. God bless America, Clay thought as he weaved his way through the mostly empty tables.

  Samir was a twenty-something - Clay was never quite sure - Bosnian Muslim. He was tall, over six feet, with a muscular physique. A keen soccer player, he usually had a football in tow, which, annoyingly for Clay, he’d bounce in the middle of a conversation. His information to date about what the Iranians were up to in Bosnia was good. It helped that Samir visited the same mosque frequented by his Iranian Muslim brothers. Through Samir, Clay had discovered that Al Qaeda was in dire straits. Apart from a major funding problem, the central organisation lacked leadership due to the removal of Bin Laden and the successful use of American drones to remove his possible successors. In an effort to redress the situation, certain brokers from Iran, based in Bosnia, were offering to step up to the plate in a gesture of Muslim solidarity. Clay needed names. He needed connections. He wanted to know who was doing what with whom. He needed corroborative evidence.

  Clay drew up a chair, enquired about Samir’s brothers and sisters. Samir, he noticed, seemed ill at ease.

  ‘You OK?’

  Samir nodded, dark eyes flicking from Clay to the wall, back to Clay again. Clay couldn’t blame him. Samir was taking an enormous risk. If the Iranians found out what he was up to, they’d kill him and take their time about it.

  ‘You heard anything on the wire about a number of Iran-inspired kidnappings?’ Clay waded in. ‘We’re talking cross borders, three European capitals, victims high-grade.’

  ‘No.’ Samir shook his head. ‘I know nothing of such things.’

  Clay nodded, popped fresh gum into his mouth. He had more pressing interests and, from the tense look on Samir’s face, the young man had something to tell him. ‘So what you got?’ he prompted.

  Samir leant forward. A lock of black hair flopped down over a face etched with worry. ‘There are reports that a small but extreme and vocal number of Serbs are on the move again. Some people, Muslims, have disappeared.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Interesting, but not the type of material Clay was looking for. ‘You get those names for me, you know the guys doing the fund-raising?’

  Samir’s face clouded. ‘This is dangerous.’

  ‘I know, Sammy, which is why I pay you so well.’

  Samir sighed and looked at the floor. Clay let out a laugh. ‘You need more? Why didn’t you say? Ask and you shall receive, my friend.’

  Samir’s face momentarily brightened. Clay leant towards him, squeezed his shoulder. ‘That’s my boy.’

  ‘I have a contact,’ Sammy said, lowering his voice. ‘His name is Mebruk. He is close to a man called Hossein.’

  ‘Not Hossein Saba?’ Saba, suspected of being a rogue operator, worked with the support of the Iranian government. Clay’s information was based on rumour. Until now he’d never had it corroborated.

  ‘That is correct. Mebruk says he will talk to you.’

  Clay blew out between his teeth. ‘Samir, is this guy on the level?’

  ‘He is very nice, very reliable. He can help you.’

  Clay wasn’t at all certain. Samir was definitely nervy. The information felt sudden and contrived.

  ‘He wishes to speak to you about a man called Kamil.’

  Clay frowned. ‘Go on.’

  Samir glanced around the room, lowered his voice. ‘Kamil belongs to the IJO. He operates here in Zenica.’

  Clay canted his head. This was getting interesting. He felt as if he was about to hit pay dirt.

  ‘Where is this Mebruk character?’

  Samir flashed a smile. ‘He is waiting outside in his car.’

  ‘At the rear?’ Clay said, gesturing with his chin towards the toilets and fire exit.

  ‘Yes.’

  Clay looked away, thought about his position. He’d run Samir for the past two years. No reason to doubt him now. Sometimes you had to take a risk. ‘OK. You go first. I’ll join you in five minutes.’ They’d done this routine several times before. It was often safer for Samir to talk in a vehicle than out in the open.

  Samir stood, scraped back his chair and headed off with an easy stride. After a couple of minutes Clay got up and visited the bathroom. Out of habit, he checked the single stall for company. Empty. Relaxed, he took a leak, toying with what Mebruk would deliver when it suddenly struck him that, in all the times he’d hooked up with Samir, he’d never seen the boy without his football. It kind of bothered him. As if it were some crazy portent. What the hell was he thinking? Samir had probably lost it, or lent it to a friend. There were all manner of possibilities.

  Shaking himself dry, Clay made towards the door. As he stretched out his hand to open it, four armed men burst in. One threw a hood over Clay’s head. The rest, with kicks and punches, knocked him senseless.

  The intelligence officer responsible for killing Charlie Lavender was a man called Saul. He had brown hair, brown eyes, medium colouring, of medium height. In looks, he was nondescript: the perfect spook. Mostly.

  Back in the hotel room, the atmosphere tense and grim, he’d already given his account of the bungled hostage rescue. Angry and full of injured pride, his nostrils flared and his mouth was a sneer. Tallis watched and committed every detail of the man’s appearance to memory. He hated him on sight, not because of what he’d done but because he refused to show, let alone countenance, regret. In his book, that made Saul a weak individual.

  ‘Shit happens,’ Saul argued.

  ‘The shit happens argument works only when it’s not your shit,’ Tallis railed. His ire, however, was reserved for Beckett and Asim. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’

  ‘Covering your back,’ Beckett snapped.

  ‘Without informing us? Are you crazy?’

  ‘You are not the only person to lose one of their best operatives,’ Beckett said in stiff response.

  ‘Then you have two intelligence officer’s blood on your hands.’ Let alone the other’s, Tallis thought.

  Beckett let out a weary sigh. ‘Your behaviour bears a s
triking resemblance to a hysterical female.’

  Tallis ground his jaw and turned on Asim with a snarl. ‘Did you sanction this?’

  Asim refused to meet his eye. ‘In the latter stages.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ Tallis looked from Asim to Beckett and back again. They were closing ranks, he realised. Screw them, he thought, screw them and their stupid, irresponsible games.

  Beckett slow-blinked. In the reduced light, his eyes were the colour of pewter. ‘Being verbally offensive won’t get you anywhere.’

  Tallis squared up to him. ‘Then how would you like a fist in your smug face instead?’ He’d like nothing better than to rearrange Beckett’s patrician features. Guilt was snapping at his heels. He was starting to feel that he wasn’t all there. He wanted to hold it all together, get a grip, maintain a stoic front, but the sheer utter bloody waste made it impossible. Charlie’s sudden death made him feel betrayed.

  ‘I thought you said he was good,’ Beckett said to Asim, his expression dripping disdain. Then, turning to Tallis: ‘Let’s not forget your intelligence was less than accurate. Had we known there were three kidnappers instead of two, events might have played out in quite a different fashion.’

  Tallis paled. Technically, Beckett was correct. In practice, it made little difference. The operation had been time critical. They’d had no choice but to act.