by J K Ellem
Nadia placed her phone on the bar and continued to watch Kern in the mirrored wall behind the rows of liquor bottles that were lined up against the back of the bar.
Kern was drinking scotch, neat, no ice, knocking them back fast. Either he was very worried or very relaxed. Either way, the alcohol would make him more malleable to handle she thought. He had no idea he was being watched while he was quickly getting drunk.
Finally Kern pushed the empty glass away, peeled off some bills and paid. He slid off the stool with a slight wobble in his feet then made his way to the exit doors.
Nadia watched him leave, counted to ten then rose off her stool, paid and followed Kern out.
After passing through three carriages Kern finally stopped outside his private compartment. As Nadia approached, she saw him fumble with his key card before pressing it against the lock sensor. Nadia brushed against him and stopped just as he was pushing open the door. She was going to give him her sweet and innocent smile but at the very last moment decided on the “you can fuck me if you want” smile.
It had the desired effect.
Kern looked at her, slightly giddy, his mouth wide open, a glassy, confused look on his face, wondering why this tall, statuesque woman who looked like an Eastern European supermodel was coming onto him.
Nadia glanced past him and into his cabin as he held the door wide open. It was empty, no other occupants as far as she could tell. She noted the door number then kept on walking.
5
A Brutal Death
Nadia’s compartment was only three doors away from Kern’s.
It was nearly 1:00am. They would be stopping at Innsbruck in thirty minutes and that was where Nadia wanted to get off with the cryptokey. She had thought about taking Kern there and then in the corridor but she preferred to walk smoothly off the train immediately after taking the key. Disappearing into the periphery as fast as you can after the objective was completed was her mantra. Less chance of being caught-up in the aftermath.
Her roller case was mainly for show. She would have raised suspicion if she had stepped onto the train carrying no luggage at all. However it contained a change of clothes as a precaution. The outside temperature was below zero and snowing so Nadia decided to change into something more robust just in case.
She quickly changed into a thermal sweatshirt, over this she swapped out her coat and put on a dark light-weight snow jacket and pants. Lastly she replaced her heels with hiking boots and pulled on a pair of ski gloves. She regarded herself in the mirror for a second. The tall elegant woman dressed in cashmere and wool who boarded the train in Zurich was gone, replaced by someone who looked more like a backpacker or winter tourist.
She zipped up the spare magazines for her handgun into the pockets of her jacket and bundled up her spare clothes back into her roller case. She would discard the roller case at the first chance she got once she exited the train station at Innsbruck.
She stood at the door listening for the sound of anyone outside. Satisfied she checked her handgun one more time. Killing Kern was not part of her plan unless she absolutely had to. The man seemed harmless enough. She would incapacitate him for a few hours.
Nadia opened the door slightly and looked both ways down the corridor. It was empty.
She made her way towards Kern’s cabin, the floor undulating gently as she walked. She would return to her compartment for her roller case afterwards.
She reached his door and checked the length of the corridor again to make sure no one was looking.
Surprise would be the better choice. She slid out her phone, opened a special app and pressed the back of the thin case against the sensor lock. Three seconds later the light flashed green and she heard the automatic door latch open. She stored her phone, slid out her gun, opened the door just enough to slide her body through then quickly shut the door behind her pressing her back up against it.
It was the smell that hit her first making the hairs on the back of her neck erect. The compartment was in semi darkness, the curtains of the main window were drawn shut.
A slumped shape formed out of the darkness and Nadia pointed her gun directly at it. As her eyes quickly adjusted, the shape slowly came into focus. Kern sat in the corner near the window on the couch. He was leaning against the bulkhead, his head tilted towards her as though he was watching her.
Muted yellow light suddenly rippled through the window throwing lines and shapes across the interior of cabin as the train sped through a lit station.
In the briefest of moments Nadia saw Kern clearly. His face was hideously twisted, teeth gritted in a snarl, blood streaked down the front of his night shirt.
The train cleared the station and the cabin melted back into darkness. Nadia took out her phone and activated the light. While still pointing the gun at Kern’s head she shone the light over his body. His neck was ringed with several vicious lines of red, deep ligature marks in his flesh from where the thin piano wire had tightened around his throat, twisted and pulled at the same time, cutting off his airway until he died of strangulation. Part of his tongue lay in his lap from where he had bitten it off in a violent struggle to draw breath.
He had been garroted. It was an ugly, brutal method of killing. Invented by the Spanish, perfected by the French and still used as an execution device by animalistic assassins and terrorists.
Nadia put away her gun and searched the body.
Nothing.
It took her just a few minutes then to expertly turn over the entire compartment but found nothing of importance.
Something was missing or should be here.
Then it dawned upon her.
Laptop computer. There wasn’t one.
Nothing. No devices at all. No cell phone. No tablet PC or laptop computer. For someone like Kern, she expected he would travel with several devices. But the room was bare of any.
Nadia went to the door and opened it an inch. She glanced left then right. Two men were cajoling and toasting each other as they stumbled down the corridor towards her from the direction of the dining car. She quietly shut the door, opening it again when their muffled laughter had past.
She needed to get out of Kern’s cabin. No one had seen her enter but if she was caught in there with a dead body the whole assignment would be compromised. In her head she ran through the possibilities of where the person was hiding on the train. Nadia checked the corridor again making sure that it was empty then she let herself out, leaving the stench of death behind her.
A moment later Nadia was in the dining car again. It was empty with the late dinner service over the tables had been cleared and a roller shutter was pulled down over the bar. Nadia made her way to the opposite end, where the door to the freight car was. She squatted down at the door, out of the line of sight of the peep-hole and took out a lock picking set from her jacket. Reaching up she worked on the lock. Moments later she felt the mechanism softly click open.
She put away the lock pick, drew her gun, pointed it at the door, reached up and slowly twisted the knob.
6
Denis Philip Ratchford
Denis Philip Ratchford started his career as a typical British civil servant, working on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government in the Secret Intelligence Service or MI6 as it is commonly known. As a young ambitious case officer he showed much promise in his early days, too much promise in fact. Within three years of sitting behind a desk in an office overlooking the Thames he was promoted to the field, managing several “assets” in Turkey. But unbeknown to his superiors, Ratchford had greater ambitions. He had developed a taste for high-end London restaurants, Savile Row suits and expensive female company, a lifestyle that, on a civil servant’s pay scale was far beyond his station in life. Coupled with the huge amounts of US dollars that were being thrown around to informants for secret information in Turkey by the British and the Americans, Ratchford grew slowly resentful of his job, lack of money and his one-room bedsit in Shepherd’s Bush in west London.
&nbs
p; There was a well established pipeline of information flowing out of Syria through Istanbul. Egyptian dissidents, government officials, political activists or anyone who held a grudge against the current regime, were all willing to exchange quality intelligence for US dollars.
Ratchford ran a number of field operatives in Istanbul who were passing intelligence through him back up the food chain to Vauxhall Cross in London, the home of MI6.
But it all fell apart one November evening. An operative had arranged for a meeting with an official high-up in the Turkish military. The official, in exchange for two million dollars in cash was to provide extensive detailed intelligence on all the terrorist networks that the government was secretly funding. Names, safe houses, bank account details would all be provided. The intelligence would be shared with the CIA in return for them putting up half the money.
The exchange was to take place at the Grand Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest covered markets within the walled city. Langley and MI6 had already verified a sample of the intelligence provided by the Turkish official and had rated it as highly valued.
Ratchford was just to handle the logistics of the exchange and to deliver the intelligence package back to London. But he took it upon himself to shadow his own operative in the field, going to the Grand Bazaar himself to watch from a hidden position, the exchange unfold. It happened within one of the many shops just outside the Grand Bazaar that sold suitcases. Two identical roller suitcases, one containing the cash, the other packed with bolts of Turkish fabric with a terabyte hard drive buried within, were casually swapped amongst the throng of tourists and locals.
The next day the Turkish official was found dead in a hotel room on the outskirts of Istanbul with his throat garroted. The suitcase with the two million dollars in cash was gone and Denis Philip Ratchford, the rising star of MI6 had vanished off the face of the Earth.
When British police broke into Ratchford’s flat in Shepherd’s Bush they found it completely empty. His rent was paid and his Lloyds bank account had been closed, with all funds being transferred into an untraceable offshore account two weeks before he had travelled to Istanbul.
Too embarrassed to admit that one of their best case officers had murdered the Turkish official, stolen British and American taxpayers money and had gone rouge, MI6 closed the file on Denis Ratchford, burying it deep within the dusty archives at Vauxhall Cross.
As far as the British authorities were concerned, Denis Philip Ratchford never existed.
* * *
“Close the door behind you.” The man sat casually on one of the crates in the freight car, the barrel of a suppressed handgun aimed at Nadia’s head.
Nadia did as she was told without looking behind, her gun trained on the man. They took a few moments to size each other up, both pointing their guns at each other. Ratchford was tall, lean, with dark hair swept back off his narrow face, shrewd eyes and rugged handsome face. Nadia guessed he looked in his mid-forties, considerably older than her. He had an aloof manner that some would misinterpret as arrogance but it came from supreme confidence and experience garnered from many years working for MI6.
“I guess it would be pointless to ask you to drop your gun,” Ratchford said with a wry smile.
“The train inspector will be coming in here soon, making his rounds,” Nadia replied, ignoring his question.
Ratchford smiled and slowly shook his head like a disappointed school teacher whose best student had failed a simple test. “Please don’t take me for a fool Nadia.”
Nadia? If Nadia was surprised she didn’t show it.
“It is Nadia isn’t it?” he said casually. “Nadia Levon, half Russian, half Chechen.”
Nadia said nothing.
Ratchford continued, “World-class violinist, fled the Soviet Union after your handlers decided you were too much to handle and decided to kill you.”
Nadia looked around the interior of the freight cart. It was piled high with timber crates, cardboard boxes stacked on pallets covered with netting, and large canvas sacks of mail tied with coarse rope. The rail inspector was dead no doubt. Killed by Ratchford.
“He’s in one of those crates,” Ratchford said, with a flick of his gun, “tucked up nice and cozy.”
Nadia’s eyes returned to Ratchford, holding his gaze. “You killed Kern.”
Ratchford shrugged. “Had to my dear, I don’t like loose ends. You should know that.”
On a crate next to Ratchford sat Kern’s laptop computer, his cell phone and a swipe card. Following Nadia’s gaze Ratchford said, “I was watching you before, when you were in the dining car outside. I had a basic idea of what Kern looked like but it was you who confirmed it.”
Nadia played back the events in her head, berating herself. Giles had warned her about Ratchford but she didn’t expect him to intercept Kern so soon into the trip.
Ratchford was in the freight car all the time, waiting and watching through the peep-hole. He watched Nadia enter the dining car and sit down with her back to the door. He thought nothing of her until he saw her scope out the rest of the occupants in the room using the reflection of the window, a tactic he often adopted. This certainly piqued his interest. Then the ticket inspector came, unlocked the door and Kern killed him quickly.
“You killed the ticket inspector then took his own swipe card,” Nadia said.
Ratchford seemed quite smug with himself. “Correct. Then when Kern came in and sat at the bar I was seventy percent sure it was him. But when you joined him at the bar, keeping the required distance, I was one hundred percent sure.” Ratchford gave a little smile, his tongue darting across his sharp little teeth.
“You then followed me and Kern to his cabin.”
Ratchford nodded. “It was a nice little performance you gave. Full marks, I couldn’t have done it better myself.”
“Then when I returned to my compartment, you used the swipe card, entered Kern’s compartment and killed him,” Nadia said.
“I had to move fast my dear. You were obviously not wasting any time.”
“What now?” Nadia asked. “We seem to be at an impasse. I have a gun, you have a gun and the crypto key no doubt.”
Ratchford stood up, his gun still pointed at Nadia.
She tightened her grip and adjusted her aim as he moved towards her. “What now?” he said theatrically. Then the smiled disappeared from his face, replaced with an evil, sociopathic grin. “Why Nadia, I’m going to kill you, that’s what’s going to happen next.”
7
Wire
“I know nothing about you,” Nadia said. It was true, Giles had only provided Nadia with photos of Ratchford and some scant details about his past.
“No?” Ratchford said incredulously. “Well, I know everything about you Nadia. I’ve seen your file.” Ratchford was enjoying this. The size of his ego would not allow him to kill Nadia quickly. “You see Nadia, I kept all my contacts, all my networks. From time to time they feed me information. There is no loyalty anymore, just levels of greed.”
“Why are you interested in me?”
Ratchford shrugged. “Call it professional curiosity if you like. I used to be in military intelligence, running operatives just like you. So I know where and how to find out information about people like you. It’s my trade.”
“Why did you leave? Why did you go freelance?” Nadia asked. She knew narcissists loved nothing better than to talk about themselves. It gave her time to find a way out of the situation she found herself in.
“I was once you Nadia, years ago. I was their best man, a rising star, but they didn’t appreciate me.”
“They?”
Ratchford shook his head slowly, “They, we, us, them? It’s all the same Nadia, our employers. It makes no difference, the killing and the hypocrisy is still the same.”
“I don’t work for anyone.”
“Sure you do Nadia. The truth is that we all work for the devil doing the devil’s bidding.” Ratchford checked his watch. He was getting
off at Innsbruck, that was now obvious to Nadia. “I worked freelance for them you see, I was their best until I discovered it was more lucrative to work for myself.”
“You’re an assassin, plain and simple. A gun for hire, touting your skills to the highest bidder,” Nadia said in disgust.
“There’s nothing wrong in getting paid well Nadia for doing what you love.”
“You kill innocent people,” Nadia countered. “I only kill when required and then only people who deserve to be killed.”
“Is that what they tell you Nadia?” Ratchford said. “Who you should and shouldn’t kill?”
“Why did you kill Kern?” Nadia said. “He didn’t deserve to die. He was no threat to you. It was cruel and unnecessary.”
“Because he had something I wanted Nadia. Kern was a loose end in the chain. He was going to sell it.”
Nadia knew he was talking about the crypto key.
“You see Nadia I know how valuable it is, but I don’t think Kern did. He was going to sell it to a group of what he thought were Chinese investors. But in fact they were North Korean agents posing as such.”
“Where is the key?” Nadia asked.
Ratchford slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a USB flash drive. “You see Nadia I knew you would be on the train, I make it my business to be one step ahead of the competition. I find I tend to live longer that way.”
Nadia’s eyes fixed on the USB drive Ratchford held in his hand. She hated his arrogance, the way he kept emphasizing her first name like he knew her personally, belittling her like a child.