Tallis stared in dumb bewilderment. Josif was still speaking. ‘In spite of our present government, there are still a few good men who remain loyal to the Serb nationalist cause,’ he said with a zealous smile. ‘Don’t look so worried, Stjepan. If, for any reason, you are stopped by Serb militia, say that Josif sent you and use the password Arkan.’
Arkan, Tallis remembered, a criminal who had taken up the Serb cause with relish during the last conflict. He’d perpetrated some of the most notorious acts of cruelty. Now dead, his reputation and memory had survived.
Suppressing a shudder, Tallis thanked Josif for the tip with a smile, drained his drink, wished them goodnight and returned to his room.
Everything was as he had left it. To be certain, he began with an examination of the door lock for listening devices, then checked the floor below the threadbare carpet, followed by the ceiling and window frames. The place was clean. Next, he wedged a chair underneath the handle of the door. It wasn’t much of a defence, but the noise created by anyone trying to get in would be enough to disturb him. He would have preferred to be armed; he’d had to discard his gun in Berlin. Not that it posed too much of a problem. The beating heart of the Balkans was awash with armaments. It should be easy enough to get his hands on a nice Zastava pocket pistol when the need arose.
He stretched out on the bed, fully clothed, hands linked behind his head, thinking about what the Serbs had said. It seemed the atmosphere of sinister oppression he’d sensed at the airport was not a result of his mentally fragmented state. It was for real. And if there were an action replay, God forbid, he wondered what the hell would happen this time. Would the world look on as it had before? Would the EU step in? Would the British government feel the need to intervene, as it had in Libya, or was somewhere like Bosnia considered a stretch too far? He considered the possible knock-on effects with regard to the hostage-takers. Only two had been removed. The rest were either on the run or awaiting orders. And what of Anna and Sabina? Would it make them more militant? Would they seize others? And how would the United Nations respond? More hand wringing, more sanctions, more bloodshed? Surely Chatelle…
Tallis sat up straight. Why on earth had nobody considered it before? Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He swung his legs off the bed and paced the room. For too long he’d focused on a small part of the picture instead of the bigger picture.
To date, the abductions were random, the victims chosen more for their vulnerability than importance. Added to this, the kidnappers had made no demands. Unlike Clay, he didn’t believe this due to an absence of will, simply that they hadn’t yet articulated them. In effect, they were messing about playing their jacks and queens while hanging on to their trump card. Tallis paused, placed both hands against his temples. What if the earlier kidnaps had been warm-up jobs, a smokescreen and distraction from the main spectacular?
He began pacing the floor once more. If he had an ace up his sleeve, how would he play it? Abduct the secretary general of the United Nations then do the demanding in earnest.
In better times he would have contacted Asim. He didn’t doubt that Chatelle’s security was tight, but she wasn’t a politician and she didn’t command the type of protection afforded heads of state. And that made her a soft target. Taking out his wallet, he pulled out the card she’d given him. To use the hotel phone would be both costly and traceable. First thing in the morning he’d find a post office and call from there. He hoped he wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tallis shivered in the morning light. He swore he heard hostile voices outside his room. On full alert, he crossed the floor and listened, couldn’t make out what was taking place around him. A lot of shouting, a couple of dull thuds, then silence. Finally, he heard the sound of receding footsteps. Relief seeped out of him like air from a deflating tyre. He vowed to get hold of a gun as soon as he’d contacted Chatelle.
Breakfast consisted of coffee, rolls and, curiously, two hard-boiled eggs. He wolfed it all down, ignoring a cloud of cigarette smoke care of a neighbouring diner. Afterwards, he picked up his bags, enquired at reception about the location of the nearest post office and then asked to keep the room for a few days.
‘Do you have a safe I can use?’
The young male receptionist nodded knowingly. ‘You are afraid of pickpockets.’ It was well known that thieves were particularly talented in Bosnia, although it had to be said that the general crime rate, excluding domestic, was virtually zero. But that was before things started to slide.
‘That’s right.’ Tallis snapped a smile. He handed over an envelope that contained one real, two fake passports and cash. For the purposes of his trip he wanted to remain unidentifiable.
He stepped out on to the street. The day was cool for a summer month, the sky unusually overcast, patches of blue hiding behind the cloud. Ilidza, a small spa suburb, lay low in a valley. Leafy and attractive, it nevertheless assumed a threatening disposition to Tallis’s eyes. Perhaps it was no more than the area in which he found himself. Every town and city had its dark hinterland. It also had its gun shops. He made a mental note to retrace his steps back there once he’d made the call, which couldn’t have proved simpler. Chatelle answered immediately, almost as if she were waiting for him to ring. To his further surprise, she expressed no shock at hearing from him. Indeed, she sounded as though it were a great pleasure. With no time for social pleasantries, he cut to the chase.
‘You are in the gravest danger.’
There was a moment’s pause before she spoke. ‘You have specific intelligence?’
‘No,’ he replied honestly.
‘Then I’m not sure I understand.’
Tallis rubbed his eyes. ‘Please, just take it from me.’ It sounded lame. He knew it. She knew it.
‘Are you referring to the kidnapper who got away, the woman who abducted the American general and his wife?’
‘Yes.’ Tallis wondered how much Asim and Beckett had revealed. It was just conceivable that they were keeping the secretary general in the dark. For reasons he didn’t yet understand, they seemed uncommonly reluctant to keep Chatelle in the loop. ‘We haven’t yet located her.’
‘Surely she is still in the UK?’
‘I can’t be certain.’
‘I see.’ Displeasure marked her tone. She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then she said, ‘Where are you? Perhaps we could meet?’
‘For operational reasons, I’m not permitted to reveal my location.’
‘Of course, foolish of me.’
‘Secretary general, I can’t stress enough your need to take care.’
She laughed graciously, perhaps to conceal the concern in her voice. ‘I am protected at all times, Mr Tallis. I have security assigned to me wherever I go.’
‘Nevertheless, it needs stepping up.’
‘Is this a direct order from your superiors?’
‘No, Isolde,’ he said. ‘It’s from me.’
There was no mistaking the impact of his call. Silences might be without sound, but they could still convey meaning. ‘I hear what you say, Paul,’ she said finally, her voice soft, almost a whisper. ‘Thank you for your call.’
He made his way back to the gun shop he’d spied earlier. The metal shutters were up, revealing grubby windows and an array of hunting rifles. He assumed that inside would be poky and dark and smelling of gun oil. Instead it resembled a modern jewellery shop: spacious and perfectly illuminated to better display the glass-fronted cabinets and the ‘jewels’ inside.
A small-boned man with puppy-brown eyes and a neatly trimmed moustache and beard looked up. On the counter rested a tray of Turkish delight and candied almonds, which he offered to Tallis, who accepted. Nothing like a small piece of cultural etiquette to fuel the wheels of commerce, Tallis thought.
‘How’s business?’
‘Thanks to the sudden desire of ordinary citizens to buy weapons to protect themselves, business is good,’ the man said with an easy smile.
‘Righ
t.’ He hadn’t expected that level of candour.
‘So how can I help you?’
‘I want to buy a pistol.’
The man reached for a set of keys behind him. ‘How much do you wish to pay?’
‘Up to four hundred euros.’ Bartering was a normal part of the deal, but he saw no point in messing about. He didn’t have the time.
‘Very good,’ the man said, unlocking a compartment and reaching inside. ‘For this price, I can let you have a nice Czech-made Makarov based on a Russian design. Good ambidextrous manual safety feature, see,’ he said, pointing to the rear of the frame, ‘and a trigger guard large enough to take a gloved hand.’
Tallis didn’t care for the inference. ‘I won’t be wearing gloves.’
‘As you wish,’ the man said with a smile. ‘Or,’ he said, handing a gun to Tallis, ‘how about one of our very own Balkan dreams, Croatian-made, based on the SIG 220, popular with army personnel.’
Tallis held it, took the weight in his hand. After the Glock it felt dull and heavy. He asked if there were any German designs. The man nodded, took out another set of keys and moved across to another compartment. ‘Heckler and Koch P8, standard issue to German armed forces, or I have a Compact.’
‘I’ll look at both,’ Tallis said. The USP (Universal Self-loading Pistol) Compact was smaller and lighter and easier to conceal, which made it tempting. The HKP8, however, had a larger magazine capacity and included a mechanical recoil reduction system so that the handgun absorbed some of the recoil rather than the user. Made of glass-fibre reinforced polymer, the gun was nice and light, something he appreciated. Without a moment’s hesitation, he settled on the HKP8. It cost him another two hundred euros, including ammunition and a basic holster.
Back out on the street again, the loner in him told him he had company. He saw nobody, yet the sensation of being under surveillance was strong enough for him to know he was not mistaken. He had two options. Either run them ragged or make a sudden, dramatic move to flush them out. Time critical, he plumped for the second option. Besides, it didn’t pay to presume too much; he couldn’t be certain that his only enemies were British intelligence.
He changed his walk to a wander, slowing down, posing as someone lost. Fifty metres along the street he made a sudden about-turn, as if remembering to go back and check the name of the shop he’d just exited. At once he made eye contact. With an awkward expression, his pursuer ducked into an empty shop doorway. Tallis broke into a run, drawing his weapon when, with the supreme calm of a diplomat, Saul stepped out armed with nothing more offensive than a crooked smile. Tallis barrelled into him, knocking him backwards, hurting him, he hoped. Recovering with speed, Saul lashed out with the heel of his foot, striking Tallis in the lower abdomen. Bile flooded Tallis’s mouth, the impulse to double over almost as irresistible as his desire for payback. Rallying, using his considerable height to overwhelm the shorter man, he went on the attack with a fast volley of blows, finally pinning Saul in a stranglehold. Pressing the pistol to the other man’s head, Tallis had one breathless demand.
‘Who sent you?’
‘Who do you think?’ Tone surly. ‘You can’t take a crap without Beckett knowing about it.’
Tallis slammed the intelligence officer with the end of the gun. ‘Mind your language. Were you sent to kill me?’
‘If I were you wouldn’t be standing here with a gun at my head,’ Saul flared. ‘I came to deliver a message.’
‘What message?’
‘Clay has gone missing.’
‘So what?’
‘You’re on the ground.’
‘So are you.’
‘It’s you they want to trace him.’
‘Are you idiots deaf? I don’t work for you, on or off the books.’
‘They’re giving you a chance, Tallis,’ Saul glowered. More than you deserve, his tone inferred. For they, Tallis translated Asim. ‘You might not be so lucky next time. If I were you,’ Saul continued, sly warning in his voice. ‘I’d take it.’
‘You’re not me.’
‘No,’ Saul snorted. ‘Sentimentality isn’t my style.’
‘But violence is.’ Swinging the gun a second time, he knocked Saul out cold, stepped over him and left.
Tallis left Ilidza by bus. Had he been a tourist, he would have taken the opportunity to appreciate the view. The temperature had risen, hot one moment, dropping to zero the next. As volatile as the country, it seemed.
In spite of assurances to the contrary, he’d been genuinely interested in what Saul had to say, but not for the most obvious reason. There was a huge difference between someone going missing and going off air. Knowing Clay, he was probably playing to his own beat and glad to get out of the clutches of British intelligence. No, Tallis was more intrigued by the man who’d sent the message. Either Asim was throwing him a lifeline or Beckett had another scheme up his sleeve. Just for a moment, Tallis entertained the idea that they were working in tandem, that they were trying to manipulate him. Absurd, he thought, crossing his arms, gazing out of the window, seeing but not seeing until he finally dozed off.
Thirty kilometres later, he awoke, stretched his limbs and looked out of the window again. Roads were narrow, mostly double lanes but some single, and without pavements. The driving style reckless at best, aggressive at worst. Judging by the amount of rubbish chucked from every passing car and lorry, environmentalism didn’t appear high on the agenda in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Superficially, this was Tallis’s take on the region. Underneath, he spied something more fundamental and unsettling. People were on the move, old and young, women with haunted expressions in their eyes, children on their backs. Army-style jeeps were in evidence, though to whom they belonged was anyone’s guess. Next he spotted a group of youngsters, all male. They were being herded into the back of a truck. Sudden and unexpected, the incident inclined him to believe that he was hallucinating. He took another long look back, the bus chugging along at such a slow pace that he had ample time to take in the scene. The occupants could be farm workers, fruit pickers or even young offenders the rational side of him suggested, the alternative scenario something altogether more worrying. Had Josif and his thugs swung into action? Were they shaking up the populace? Was this the start of something big? He glanced round the bus. From the anxious and troubled expressions, his fellow travellers had seen it too. With a queasy sensation, Tallis recalled Dario Garich, his swagger and arrogance, the same pride and conceit he’d spotted in Josif and in Saul, creed or nationality no protection from the shortcomings of men. Was Bosnia back on the brink?
On they travelled through largely unspoilt scenery covered by mountainous limestone, forests, crystal-clear waterfalls and tributaries of the River Bosna. A profusion of wild flowers studded the hillside. It seemed so peaceful and tranquil that Tallis settled back, thought he’d been mistaken, thought he’d misread an innocent set of events.
Forty kilometres later the bus drove up the mountainside to Zenica, its grim architecture reflecting its industrial heritage as a steel town. With its vast, dilapidated tower blocks and steel girders, Tallis was reminded of the manufacturing heartland of the Black Country, what was left of it, he thought with a pang of homesickness, except Zenica, as the fourth-largest city in the country, was on a much larger scale.
The bus finally juddered to a halt at the main bus and railway station. He climbed out, caught the distinct metallic odour in the air. Looking round, he wondered where to start. Without contact, without any form of backup, however tenuous, he was entirely alone. Suited him.
Two conversations with passing locals yielded directions to the old quarter and heart of the city. A majority Muslim town, the old quarter remained the main gathering place and had been so since the Ottoman Empire, when Bosnia became a Muslim country. There, he hoped he might suss out the Iranian connection mentioned by the Serbs and, hopefully, locate Clay.
As in Sarajevo, the old part was a model of religious tolerance, mosques, churches and synagogues w
ithin spitting distance of each other. Women dressed without an overt Muslim influence, many adopting a more Western style. And yet…
Young men milled about, restless, their eyes wary and nervous, their hands constantly reaching for the next cigarette, then the next. There was the same sense of tension as when crowds got out of hand after a football match. One wrong word, a thrown punch and a riot would ensue.
He entered a nearby pizzeria, ordered food and coffee and fell into conversation. After that he went from one place to another, shooting a line, oiling the linguistic wheels, listening and hanging out, his ear tuned for keywords of dissent. A job like this could take weeks or days. In theory, he had all the time in the world. He was not working to a brief. He no longer worked for anyone. He was his own boss now. In truth, he needed answers to questions quickly. Beckett was a vengeful bastard. Tallis didn’t know for how long the experienced intelligence officer would let him run.
Dusk fell. He’d completed a trawl and moved out towards the fringes and grubbier side of town, a maze of alleys and bars and women selling knocked-off CDs and handicrafts from market stalls. Clay, it seemed, had vanished into thin air. Hovering outside another eating and drinking establishment, undecided whether he could stomach yet another cup of Turkish coffee, sixth sense alerted him to danger. Smartly stepping inside the café-bar, he took a seat near the window, the better to spot Saul’s nondescript features, and ordered a drink. The sense of someone coming to get him began to gather and build inside. Perhaps it wasn’t Saul. Perhaps it was some off-the-book assassin, the bloodstained memories of his last job sending a sharp shiver down his spine.
Scanning the dirty little street, he noticed a shadow fall across a doorway. Alert, a stranger in a strange land, he felt at the mercy of the enemy, known or unknown. Reaching for the gun, he mentally got into the zone, closed down inside, prepared for certain confrontation and danger. Then a face appeared, familiar but no less shocking.
In six paces, Tallis was out of the pizzeria and running full tilt, his quarry, alarmed, it seemed, by the turn of events, also running down the alley. Startled passers-by wheeled round and stared in blank amazement as the two men fled, barrelling through the remains of a market as traders packed up for the day. Soon goods were flying, tables overturning, angry shouts gilding the air. Undeterred, the man in front kept moving. With youth on his side, he should have had the advantage. In reality, he lacked stamina and skill. And, like a lion on the scent of a gazelle, Tallis recognised it. He kicked hard off the back foot, put on a spurt of speed, cornering and gaining ground until, with one leap, he launched himself into the air and wrestled the young Iranian to the ground. Alia Faghiri, Schwartz’s asset in Berlin, hit the dirt with a sickening thud, limbs flailing, Tallis on top of him, pinning him down. The Iranian let out a torrent of expletives. Tallis responded by grinding Faghiri’s face into the gravel.
Resolution to Kill Page 23
