by Mark Dawson
“Much more.”
Chapter Forty-Two
THEY MET at the Café du Monde again. Ziggy hobbled across the open space, picking a route between the tables, still busy despite the late hour. He sat down opposite Milton and took the coffee that was waiting for him. Milton banished his distractions and scanned left and right, his eyes adjusting to the glare of the floodlights and the pools of darkness between them. Decatur Street buzzed with life, traffic and pedestrians passing by, but he saw nothing that gave him a reason for concern.
“You sure this is important?” Ziggy started. “I’ve got some great stuff on our friend.”
“That doesn’t matter right now.”
“So?”
“It’s Alexander Bartholomew.”
“Izzy’s brother?”
He nodded. “The man who saved your life.”
“You don’t need to remind me. What?”
“He’s in a lot of trouble.”
A waiter hustled alongside and asked if they wanted anything to eat. Milton dismissed him brusquely and waited until he was out of earshot.
“What trouble?” Ziggy asked.
“Babineaux and Dubois are deeper into this than I thought. I should’ve anticipated it, the money at stake here, what they might do. I’ve underestimated them.”
“Tell me what the problem is, Milton.”
“They’ve hired someone I used to know, a long time ago.”
“What kind of someone? Someone like you?”
“Yes,” Milton said. “Just like me.”
“How do you know?”
“He tried to kill me this morning.”
Ziggy gaped. “Fuck, Milton.”
“Just dumb luck that he didn’t.”
“And Bartholomew?”
“Not so lucky. He was in rehab. I should’ve gone and gotten him, taken him somewhere else, him and his family, all of them, somewhere away from the city. This man checked him out. He’s using him to make Izzy drop the case. It won’t matter what happens. He’ll kill him. He’s not in the business of leaving people around who can identify him. If we don’t help him, he’s dead. That’s as near to a sure thing as there is.”
Ziggy stared at him. He looked fearful.
“He’s dangerous, Ziggy, but so am I. And I know he’s here now.”
Ziggy gave a quick nod. “Okay. I get it. What do I need to know?”
Milton explained about Bachman, about the Mossad, about the operation where he had worked with him, about what had happened at the clinic that day. He gave him everything he knew which, he realised as he relayed it, was not very much at all. Ziggy listened intently, tapping details into his phone.
“What do you need?”
“Two things,” Milton said. “First, I need as much as you can find about Bachman. He was supposed to be dead. Obviously, he isn’t. Anything on what might have happened to him. I don’t like going into something blind, and that’s what I feel like. You need to give me some coverage on him.”
“I can try. The second thing?”
“We’re on the back foot. I don’t like that, either, not at all. We need to do something to put that right.”
“You want to retaliate?”
“I want some leverage.”
#
MILTON DROVE down to the river, got out of the car, and rested against the hood. He looked down at the wide, sluggish Mississippi. A fisherman cast his line into the brown water as a gargantuan light-spangled oil tanker drifted by. The air was heavy with the effluent and pollutants sprayed out of bilge tanks, and it was quiet save for the susurration of traffic passing over a nearby bridge and the call of gulls disgusted by the fetid carrion that was all the river had to offer them.
Ziggy had stayed at the table for another five minutes. He explained that he had taken delivery of a piece of equipment that allowed him to eavesdrop on both sides of Dubois’s cellphone conversations, and that he was building up a collection of evidence that would expose the scale and scope of the conspiracy.
Milton had hardly heard a word of it.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Avi Bachman.
He closed his eyes.
Bachman.
Jesus. What had he gotten himself into?
An email buzzed on his cellphone. Milton opened it. It was from Ziggy. It was a précis of Bachman’s MI5 file. He had no idea how Ziggy could possibly have obtained it so quickly and, seemingly, so easily. But he had learnt long ago that some things were best not enquired into too deeply.
He opened the email and read.
Bachman had been well known to MI5. Information on his early life had always been sketchy, but it was believed that he was born in the early 1970s in Paris to a French mother and an Israeli father. After spending his early years in Paris, he had moved to the United States. His father, a diplomat, had died after driving his car into a culvert. His mother had taken that as badly as might be expected and had developed a reliance on prescription tranquillisers. One day she took too many and the young Avi found her on her bed, dead. Milton wasn’t one for over-analysis, but, even to his jaded mind, it was pretty straightforward to see that an early experience of death had become a preoccupation that would stay with Bachman through the whole of his life.
Bachman was shipped to his grandparents in Jerusalem and, after finishing school, he was enlisted into the IDF and assigned to the Combat Engineering Corps. There was a period of service in the West Bank. Combat experience included an ambush on two Hezbollah vehicles during which eight militants were killed. His file recorded a commendation from his CO and the suggestion that he showed great promise.
Information was thin after that. He had been recruited by the Mossad after the end of his military service and had submerged into deep cover. It was known that he was sent to the London School of Economics as part of his preparation for service, operating under non-official cover, meaning that he would have had no diplomatic immunity had anything gone amiss. Nothing had, the testament to his efficiency being that the spooks only found out about the work that he had been doing once he had been reassigned and, even then, they didn’t know precisely what it was.
He had been assigned to the Mossad’s Kidon unit some time after his return to Israel. Kidon was a Mossad within the Mossad, an elite subset of forty-eight men and women whose main function was to eliminate the plentiful threats to the state. The unit was based in the Negev desert, scrupulously trained with all manner of weapons and in espionage techniques, self-defence and vehicle handling, and was deployed only when a target’s elimination had been signed off by the prime minister himself.
It was rumoured that Bachman had been a Kidon combatant in sub-Saharan Africa, and hacks on the CIA and FBI had revealed that he had served in an official liaison capacity with those organisations. He was reputed to have played a leading role in the assassination of Fawzi Mustapha Assi, a Hezbollah operative who was procuring weapons technology in the United States. There were unconfirmed reports that he had been active in Syria, Azerbaijan, North Africa, and Iran. He was credited with the execution of al-Qaeda confederates responsible for the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. He was also suspected of being behind the sniping of two Iranian agents in South Africa. MI5 was certain that he had led the two-man team who had shot Gerald Bull, the ballistics expert who had offered to build a super-gun for Saddam. And there were rumours that he had led the expedition to kill Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai.
Milton knew the report was just the tip of the iceberg. These things could only ever be educated guesses. There would be a file on him, too, somewhere in the Mossad’s files, and he knew it would contain the same suppositions, estimations, and hunches. The truth, as with Bachman, was much bloodier.
He and Bachman were cut from the same cloth.
And that was a worrying thought.
Their paths had crossed just the one time.
Milton didn’t need the file to remember that.
It was in 2010. The Iranians had been close to devel
oping a workable nuclear bomb. In exchange for Israel postponing a military attack on Iran, the CIA and MI6 worked with the Mossad to sabotage Tehran’s program. GCHQ had introduced the Stuxnet virus into thirty thousand Iranian computers in Iran’s nuclear reactors. That, alone, was not enough to deter the Israelis and, in addition, a joint MI6, CIA and Mossad operation was responsible for the explosions at a factory in the Zagros Mountains. The factory manufactured Iran’s Shihab missiles, and the deaths of eighteen technicians retarded its abilities by a year. The subsequent assassination of five scientists delayed the fundamentalist bomb by another year.
Milton and another Group Fifteen agent had been the British contingent.
Avi Bachman had represented the Mossad.
Milton remembered him very well. He had a brash personality that Milton found a little grating, confident to the point of arrogance, but he could certainly walk the walk. He was lethal in Krav Maga, the mongrel martial art that fused jiu-jitsu, boxing, savate, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, and wrestling. The Mossad taught it to all its recruits, and, as Bachman had rather vaingloriously boasted as they shared a drink in Cairo before the operation was green-lit, he was the best proponent in Kidon, which meant, if it were true, that he was one of the most dangerous men that Milton had ever met.
The Iranian job had been in 2010, and Milton never heard from Bachman again. The file reported that he reached the rank of sgan aluf, or lieutenant colonel, before the operation that led to the reports of his death. Premature reports, as Milton now knew. The file suggested that he had been killed when a car bomb that he was preparing had detonated. Milton could only speculate what had happened, but he was confident of one thing: Bachman had wanted out of the Mossad, just as he had wanted out of Group Fifteen, but his duplicity had been more successful in achieving that than Milton’s honesty.
There was nothing in the file that suggested the identity of his accomplice.
He deleted the email and called Isadora.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes. We’re fine.”
“Stay in the hotel, please.”
“You said. I will.”
“Don’t answer the door to anyone.”
“You told me that already. I won’t.” There was a pause, and Milton saw a flash of flame from the horizon, a distant refinery venting gas.
“Are you okay?”
“Worried.”
“You’re going to have to trust me.”
“I…I do, Milton. I do trust you.”
“Goodnight, Izzy.”
“Goodnight.”
The flames belched again as Milton ended the call, scrolled through his contacts, and called Ziggy.
“You get it?”
“I did. Thanks.”
“He sounds serious.”
“He is.”
“And you still want to go through with this?”
“We haven’t got another card to play. It’s this or give up, and I’m not giving up.”
“All right. I’m game if you are. You’re the one taking the bigger risk.”
That was the truth. “Where’s our friend?”
“At home. I’m a block away.”
“You ready?”
“Five minutes to set up my gear and I’m good. Won’t be difficult.”
Milton pushed himself off of the body of the car as the spurt of flame lit up the darkened horizon for a third time. “I’ll call you when I’m there.”
Chapter Forty-Three
ZIGGY HAD tailed Joel Babineaux from the offices of Babineaux Properties all the way to his mansion in the Garden District. He had carried on after Babineaux had turned off the street. The Bentley had nosed up against the wrought-iron gates, waiting for them to open. But Ziggy had continued on, only turning when it was safe to do so and driving back for a second, more careful, look. The car had driven down the drive and pulled up next to the front door. Ziggy drove on for another half block and parked. The neighbourhood was upscale, and the other houses around and about were all grand and obviously extremely, excessively expensive. Jackson Dubois’s place had been nice, but Babineaux’s place was a cut above.
Ziggy reached across to the passenger seat and collected his MacBook. He had stopped at Radio Shack for the things that he thought he might need, and one of his purchases had been a 29dBi 5GHz parabolic dish antenna. He connected it to the laptop. The dish wasn’t as big or powerful as the one he used in Tokyo, but he didn’t need it to be. He logged on, scanning the available Wi-Fi frequencies until he found the signal that was emanating from the house, and piggybacked onto it. It took thirty seconds to crack the password. He had guessed, correctly, that a house like Babineaux’s would have plenty of systems that were controlled by computer. Lighting, entertainment, communications, security. Now they would all be accessible to him. His fingers flashed across the keyboard, stripping away protections until he had isolated the systems that he needed.
He took out his phone, propped it on the dash, activated the speaker, and called Milton.
“I’m ready,” he said.
#
MILTON HAD plugged in the phone’s headphones. There was a small microphone on the cable, next to his throat, and he was able to talk to Ziggy while he kept his hands free. He had the P226 holstered beneath his left arm and the LUCIE night vision goggles rested against his forehead.
The street was quiet in both directions.
Time to move.
“Watcher, Milton. Do you copy?”
“Milton, Watcher. Affirmative. Where are you?”
“Next to the wall.” It was ten feet tall and topped with metal spikes. There was a beautiful old oak alongside, with a thick bough that reached out at the same level as the wall. “What do I need to know?”
There was a pause, and the sound of keys being tapped. “Motion sensors in the grounds. Switching them off…now.”
“Copy that.” Milton climbed the tree, his hands fixing around the bough of the oak, and then hauled himself up and onto it, staying close to the trunk where the bough was strongest. He balanced carefully and, reaching up to his head, he brought the night vision goggles down and settled them over his eyes. The surroundings were washed with ghostly green. A row of security lights burned bright, their glow a harsh white against the subdued emerald. Fifty feet away, he saw a security camera atop a metal pole.
“Watcher, Milton. I’ve got security lights to the east and a camera.”
“Hold on, Milton, I’m on it.”
Milton patted the comforting shape of the Sig, then watched the lights wink out all at the same time.
“Lights off?”
“Yes,” Milton said.
“Camera’s dead, too. You’re clear to move.”
“Eyes open, Watcher.”
“You got it. Good luck.”
Milton shuffled ahead on the bough, making sure it was sturdy enough to bear his weight. He scanned ahead again. This part of the grounds had been dedicated to a garden of ornamental grasses. There were Mexican feather grass, purple fountain grass, lavender, Oriental fountain grass, and miscanthus. Milton hopped across the short space between the bough and the top of the wall. It had been fitted with spikes farther along its length and, here, broken glass had been set in the mortar to ward against those who might try to scale it. Milton’s boots dealt with that without bother. He lowered himself to a crouch and, looking down to make sure that the spot he had chosen to jump into was clear, he hopped off the wall. He landed behind a wide planting of hibiscus, the dinner-plate-sized flowers dangling from plants that reached over his head. He stepped through the plants, parted a border of Indian pinks and crested iris, and, after checking that the thirty feet of lawn was clear in both directions, sprinted to a screen of tropical bamboo.
The house was on the other side of the screen, separated by a series of raised beds and a geometrical, oblong mirror pool. Milton parted the bamboo, surveilled the gardens ahead again, and waited to move.
#
JOEL BABINEAU
X wasn’t sure what it was that had awoken him. His alarm was usually set for five, but he always woke ten minutes before. He had disciplined himself to do that, and it was his usual habit to have showered and changed into his gym gear before the alarm sounded. This was earlier, and that was unusual for him. He stretched out across the king-sized bed, feeling the rich cotton against the arch of his left foot, the toes, and the stump of his right leg.
He checked the clock on the table next to him, closed his eyes again, and tried to work out what it was that had awakened him. He could feel the weight of his wife next to him, the warmth from her body radiating across the inches between them, but he reached out an arm and ran his fingertips along the contour of her hip. She was still deep in sleep. Whatever it was, it wasn’t her. He strained his ears, but he could hear nothing out of place. He heard the gentle bubbling from the large aquarium on the landing outside the bedroom, the tick of a pipe, but nothing else.
He wondered whether he should try to get back to sleep, but he knew that would be a waste of time. Once his mind was awake, that was it. He was a lark, not an owl, and he had always done his best thinking in the mornings. Might as well get up and get started. He levered himself up with his elbow and slid his leg out from underneath the covers and onto the floor. He felt the sisal rug between his toes, reached his foot out for his prosthesis, dragged it closer and grabbed it with his hand. He pulled a stocking over his stump and strapped on the prosthesis, pressing the Velcro tabs together, and then stood. His balance took a moment to adjust, like it always did, even though it had been years since he had started to use the prosthesis. He hobbled naked to the bathroom to take a leak.
He started to think about what needed to be done today. The first thing, the main thing, the thing that was holding up everything else, was the problem with access to the development. He had to get that sorted out, once and for all. He thought of Isadora Bartholomew. She was something else, that much was for sure. He had watched her do her thing in the court—brimming with fire and passion, dismissive of the points made by his million-dollar lawyers, and almost insolent to the judge when she had the temerity to question the precedent upon which she was relying—and he had concluded that she was an extremely attractive woman. He meant intellectually, in terms of her character, although there was no question that she was physically attractive, too. Smart, confident, sassy, her eyes full of life, an edge to her that said that she would be a demon in bed. He wondered whether he might make a call on her when this was all settled. She might take some persuasion, for sure. She wouldn’t initially be disposed to him after what he was going to do to her precious houses. But Babineaux was a persuasive man, especially when there was something that he wanted.