The Athena Protocol

by Shamim Sarif

  The June sun is shining over Belgrade, but it only highlights the peeling shabbiness of the gray apartment blocks here in the new part of the city. There is some kind of abandoned state hospital that Gregory seems to have adopted as his trafficking base, and I know from my study of a city map that it’s in this area somewhere. I’m in the back of an old taxi, and my eyes meet the stares of young men who sit on walls—smoking, texting, scratching arms, laughing.

  In the rearview mirror, the driver’s hooded eyes flick up to me, and he speaks in a heavy accent.

  “No work here. Only gangs.”

  I look back outside. The high, ugly towers are giving way to older buildings now; still run-down, but with an old-fashioned elegance. We cross a bridge into the old part of the city, and the small side streets give way to bigger ones. Graffiti is still everywhere though. We make our way down an impressive boulevard, and the driver points out city hall, and then the parliament building, which is where I guess Peggy’s friend Aleks, the justice minister, must spend his days.

  Several minutes later we pull onto a quiet backstreet that feels chilly, where the sun can’t find a way down past the old brick buildings. I pay the fare with the Serbian dinars I exchanged in Budapest and knock on the door that matches the address of the place I booked online. The man who opens up looks surprised, and doesn’t seem to speak any English—not a great combination. But when I show him the booking on my phone, he nods and grins, revealing a gold crown in the back of his mouth. My grandmother used to have one of those, before they started making them white to match your actual teeth. All I remember of her is a couple of visits to a dingy house in Streatham. Even after Kit was famous and offered to buy her a picture-postcard house near us, my grandmother didn’t want to move from her old neighborhood and her friends. We’d sit at her kitchen table, covered in a wipe-clean cloth, and eat homemade cake spread with jam and cream (which Kit only pretended to eat, not being keen on carbs or sugar), and nobody talked very much. All the nice, expensive things Kit bought for her were piled up in the back room, which irritated my mother no end.

  My temporary landlord indicates that I should wait out here for a moment, so I kill time strolling up and down, glancing casually into windows while I wait. When I come back to the front door where he left me, I sneak a peek into his grimy side window. Inside the house another man, thin, with slicked hair, is handing my landlord a stack of money. On the table between them is a bag of pistols. The thin guy zips up the bag and, hurriedly, I step back into the street so they won’t know that I’ve seen anything. Nothing like multiple streams of income. Why rely on room rentals when you can trade guns for extra cash?

  The landlord reappears a few seconds later with a large bunch of keys. He opens up the door next to his, and I throw my duffel bag over my shoulder and wait for him to lead the way inside.

  The stairwell is dingy—even now, in the middle of the afternoon—and it smells of rotting timber. I trudge up the wooden steps in his wake. He sports sagging jogging pants and a tight T-shirt. A small, round head balanced on a large, round body, like a badly dressed snowman. We reach the fourth-floor landing, and he pauses tiredly and barks out a catarrh-laden cough while pointing upward. One more flight to go.

  Discreetly, I turn my head away from the stale breath and wait for him to continue up. The last door we pass gives off a smell of lunch, something fishy with a background note of fried onions. I wrinkle my nose as we reach the top landing and wait while the man tackles the lock. The door is heavy and leads into an apartment that has scuffed wooden floors and just enough light from the dirty windows so I can’t miss the cockroach scuttling away under the dresser. I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prickle at the sight of it, but I make myself look away. I walk over to the window.

  The view brings a smile to my face. Down there, diagonally across the street, is the art gallery belonging to Gregory’s daughter, Paulina. Cleanly painted, huge glass windows, and a view directly inside. I can see the photography exhibits from here. Though I don’t have plans to sit and watch the place, I like the idea that I can if I want to. In the back of the gallery there’s a long, sleek bar and several tables and chairs—a little upmarket café where well-to-do locals can sip cappuccinos amid the artwork, I suppose.

  “Good?”

  Behind me the landlord sweeps a pudgy hand across the room, as if to make sure that I’ve not missed any of the attractive features of the apartment. I go over to the bed and sit down. The mattress is firm at least.

  “I make spray,” says the man, in response to my silence. “For the . . .”

  With a wiggle of his fat fingers, he mimics the motion of the cockroach. I nod, get up to take the key, and escort the man back to the door and close it behind him. Then I throw myself down on the bed to stretch. It’s quiet up here. No sounds from the neighbors, so far; only some light traffic passing several stories down below. I close my eyes. I’m a bit of a loner, according to my mother, but I rarely feel lonely. Right now though, here in this strange city with only a cockroach for company, it suddenly feels desolate. I miss my team. For eighteen months I’ve trained and worked alongside Caitlin and Hala; and before that with the other kids in the Program.

  Opening my eyes again, I take in the bumpy beige walls, and they remind me of Hala’s apartment; not the one she has now, but the tiny London council flat where she was placed after she finally gained asylum. It took months for Hala to get out of detention and nearly two weeks of interrogation to assure the government that she was not a potential terrorist but a survivor of terrorism by the Islamic state in Syria.

  Frustrated by Hala’s monosyllabic answers, the counterterrorism team had finally called me in. Not that I was trained for any of that, but my commanding officer at the Program was still part of the British Counter Terrorism Security Office, and he thought it was a good idea. I had no clue how to interrogate anyone. At that time, I was spending my days learning about circuits and wiring and explosives and wasn’t happy to be pulled off it, but he had thought that another girl—more or less Hala’s own age—might encourage her to open up.

  So I tried being friendly, doing all that rapport-building stuff they teach you in teamwork classes. That had zero impact. Then I turned to officious questioning, and finally I lost my temper. None of it had the slightest effect on her. Not even her expression changed.

  She just sat there in the metal chair, behind the metal desk in the painted-green room, answering in a flat voice, with no detail. Like she couldn’t care less what happened to her. And maybe she couldn’t. After a couple of days, it had dawned on me that if Hala was telling the truth, then she would have watched her parents lose everything in Palestine and become refugees; then build a new life in Syria, only to have a civil war start. She would have watched her town and the villages around her be razed to the ground and the people in them die. And if her story was real—if her parents had been killed by caliphate soldiers in front of her, and she had stabbed one of the men who did it with a kitchen knife—then she wasn’t going to be scared by an arrogant young girl barking at her.

  So I dropped the techniques. I just sat with her. Made her tea and talked. About myself, a bit about school, what I had liked about it, what bugged me. Filling up the spaces, asking nothing back of Hala at all. And the funny thing was, with the pressure off, she started to speak. A little bit at a time. Her English wasn’t great, but it was okay—her parents were doctors and taught her and her brother the language. Eventually, she gave up enough detail of what had happened and when; details that matched the intelligence they had on her. But she was most animated when she talked about her climbing skills. How her nickname was il bisseh, the cat. She had used that ability to scale walls to save her own life and escape, even though she had to separate from her brother. It was a heartbreaking story, to be honest, and I listened without saying a word; I was wary of making any sound that might cause her soft voice to stop, but also, I didn’t know what to say to someone who’d been through that muc
h pain.

  The day after she was released, I went to see her in the council block where she was housed. The apartment with the beige walls. The place smelled of bleach and was immaculately clean—and so lonely. Hala’s a tall, strong girl, but she looked so small and alone inside that room. I don’t know why I went. I couldn’t stop thinking about her story—especially at night when I was trying to get to sleep. I tried to make friends with her, and she was polite and offered me tea and food. I remember because it was hummus and cucumber sticks. Which made me feel even worse, like she was having to buy grocery-store hummus just to find something that felt familiar. I tried to chat a bit, but Hala kept me at arm’s length, and I left feeling I had disturbed her. After that, I didn’t go back. Not until after I’d joined Athena and they were looking to build up the team.

  That time, visiting Hala was different. I found her up on the roof of the building, where the old man who was her neighbor told me she liked to hang out. When I came through the stairwell door, she jumped up and ran to the edge of the roof and just stood there watching me. Her shoes were halfway over. Inches from a drop into oblivion.

  “Get away from me! I have asylum,” Hala yelled at me.

  I edged closer.

  “I’m not a terrorist!”

  I stopped where I was and told her I wasn’t there to harm her, or take her back to detention. That I was changing jobs and wanted her to work with me.

  “I have a job,” she said, which made me smile, because I knew she did, and it was washing dishes in a run-down Italian restaurant on the next street.

  “Get down from there,” I said. “It freaks me out.”

  She did, landing like a panther, silently, without taking her eyes off me.

  And she softened a bit. When she offered me tea, I said yes, so I could hang around. And, finally, she asked me what the work was. I told her, and the idea of it seemed to light something up in her. And so her time with Athena had begun. Since then, though Hala often kept to herself, I’d always felt like that was just her character. That deep down, she cared about me because, as far as I could see, I was the closest friend she had. And other than Caitlin, probably the only friend. But now, it feels like that’s all done with. Maybe it was only Athena that pulled us together, two introverts, two people bound by the secrets we had to keep and the need to put our lives in each other’s hands every time we ran a mission.

  I’m brought back to the present, to my lonely room in Belgrade, by a police siren passing down below. I wait till it passes, keeping my mind blank, just listening. When it’s gone, it feels deathly quiet in the room. I take an audible breath, just to break the silence; but it turns into a yawn. I’ve been traveling for more than twenty-four hours, and the fatigue hits me all at once. I turn on my side and fall hard into sleep—so deeply that I have no idea how long I’ve been out when I wake up to the sound of someone banging like crazy on the door.

  6

  ADRENALINE HITS. I GET UP fast, heart pumping, and look for something to grasp hold of, ready to attack. I pick up a metal lamp base from a side table as I fasten the door chain and edge it open.

  It’s my landlord, holding up a can of insecticide. Hastily, I put down my makeshift weapon and let him in. He keeps chatting away in Serbian, and lies down to spray under the bed, making satisfied grunts as he works. I don’t know what he’s found down there, but he uses enough chemicals to knock out an entire colony. I throw open the window and signal him that there’s been enough fumigating for one day. Then I shower and change and head outside.

  In Belgrade it feels like the buildings carry years of smog and soot, and so many walls are marked with graffiti, even here, in the center of town. But the art gallery belonging to Paulina Pavlic is faced in clean, pale granite. The double-height windows are sparkling clean. And inside, the walls are pure white, showcasing some impressive photography pieces. The glossy surface of the floor looks like marble. At the far end of the gallery are the tables, the long wooden bar, and a coffee machine that resembles a piece of art itself. Gregory Pavlic must have spent a fortune on this for his daughter.

  I stand on the curb as the traffic passes, watching the gallery for a couple of minutes. Then I weave my way through the constant stream of passing cars and mopeds to cross the street.

  Feeling just a bit nervous, I push open the gallery door, walk past the exhibits, choose a small table, and sit down. I’m really not sure whether Paulina Pavlic will even be here. If your dad buys you an art gallery for Christmas, or your birthday, or whatever, I imagine it comes with all the perks, like staff, so that you don’t actually need to get out of bed before noon.

  I order a drink. This is one of those places that has a little poster of happy Colombian coffee pickers and tells you what kind of fair trade beans they are grinding that day. It’s truly great to know that, even while he traffics women around Eastern Europe, Gregory and his family are concerned about the welfare of coffee farmers. When my espresso arrives, the hype does seem worth it though. The steam is fragrant, and the coffee is smooth but bitter at the same time. As I enjoy the warmth of it spreading down into my stomach, I look out of the massive windows and am happily surprised to catch sight of Paulina emerging from a smoke-colored Mercedes. Not a bad set of wheels for someone her age. She’s parked on a double yellow line right outside the gallery. Even in jeans and a shirt, she manages to look like a movie star arriving at a premiere. With a sideways glance, I see that a traffic cop is strolling over, probably to protest about her presumptuous parking arrangements—but she greets him like an old friend, with a light, practiced handshake that lasts just a moment too long. The policeman’s hand goes directly to his pocket, casually, as he tucks away the money that Paulina has discreetly handed over. He moves on, pausing only to write out a ticket for the car behind hers.

  Meanwhile, Paulina enters, gliding through the gallery, casting brief smiles to people leaving and to a man who is looking at one of the photos on display. She makes her way toward the coffee bar, toward the table where I sit. As she gets closer, into my line of vision, I look up from my iPad, as anyone would. She throws me a passing, radiant smile, and, for a moment, I forget to breathe. Paulina is far more beautiful than even her best photos. Flawless skin, almond-shaped green-blue eyes, and caramel-colored hair that glistens with perfect, expensive highlights of honey and gold. I remind myself to smile back, instead of just staring like a goldfish, after which she passes behind me and I force myself to focus back on reading a riveting website about the major historical sites of Belgrade. But, of course, I’m watching her. She seems at ease and in charge. She pauses to throw a comment to a passing waiter, stops to chat with a couple who are clearly regular customers, then takes out her phone and taps on it for a few minutes.

  Using my iPad to log into the gallery’s free Wi-Fi, I open an app that helps me find the router that powers it. Once I have that, I’m all set. I signal to a bearded waiter in a half apron for the bill, and I pay it in cash. As I stand to leave, I make sure to scrape my chair, and feel Paulina turn to look in the direction of the noise. I glance up and meet her look and nod goodbye before I leave.

  I have a bit of a spring in my step as I head into town. Maybe it’s the sunshine, maybe the fact that I’ve locked on to Paulina already. While I’m out, I stop at a car rental office and collect a motorcycle; nothing flashy but with decent power and acceleration.

  Once I’m back in my room, I return to the information that I gleaned about the gallery’s router. It’s nothing fancy. Probably one that the phone company installed as standard when they put in Paulina’s phone line. It takes me all of five minutes to find the detailed specs for it and then to access a website that is helpful enough to list out the factory-set passwords for most household routers. I go back to my phone app and tap in the information, and then I’m into the router itself. Basically, I can see what websites and apps Paulina uses all day. Of course, it also deluges me with a ton of nonsense about what her staff and customers do online—but trying
to embed a program on her phone directly feels too risky at this point.

  I clear a bowl of dusty, dried flowers off the small dining table and set up my computer; then I unfold a map of Belgrade and tack it to the wall. My own little situation room.

  The first thing I do is create a strong VPN, which changes my IP address every few minutes. This way, if Amber somehow gets a lead on my laptop in an effort to find me, it will look like I’m in Madrid one minute and Beijing the next.

  Second, I’ve managed to tune in to the Athena communications system. I swiped my thin foil earpiece from Amber’s lockbox—but she closed down my frequency, and I’ve had to find another one to lock into, for which I have the software. Now I can hear about half of what’s happening when my team is talking to each other. The other 50 percent gets lost in silence or in static, but it’ll be enough to keep me more or less on track with their progress.

  Last—I’ve got that map of the city all neatly marked up. In red, I’ve noted the position of Gregory Pavlic’s abandoned hospital, which seems to be the center of his trafficking activities. It’s on the outskirts of the new part of the city, surrounded by boarded-up factories on one side and woodland on the other, with one main road in and out. And then there’s a pin in the map for Gregory’s home—which is also Paulina’s—on this side of the river, in the swanky suburbs near the embassies. From a few exchanges in my earpiece between Caitlin and Amber, I know that Kit is scheduled to be in that house right now, checking the setup for the concert and probably meeting the evil Gregory for the first time. I hope she switches on the charm.

  The rented house that Kit, Peggy, and Caitlin are staying in is not far from Gregory’s. Only Hala is out on her own, in an apartment somewhere, scoping out the hospital and, I assume, figuring out how to get photographic evidence of what goes on in there.