Pandemic pr-2

by James Barrington

  ‘Roger.’ Richter glanced around the lobby. ‘Clear at this end.’

  The hotel doors had key-locks, rather than the more modern, and more difficult to crack, electronic card-locks. Ross knocked firmly on the door of 301, calling out ‘Room Service’ in Greek, but received no response. He checked up and down the corridor, then knelt beside the door and studied the lock. ‘Standard three-lever, by the looks of it,’ he murmured into the headset microphone. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’

  He took a small leather pouch out of his jacket pocket, unzipped it and extracted two thin stainless-steel tools. He slipped one into the lock and exerted slight turning pressure on the barrel with his left hand, then slid the other, L-shaped tool inside and began probing for the tumblers. After a few moments there were three faint but distinct clicks, and suddenly the lock began to turn.

  Ross opened the door a crack, again checked the corridor in both directions, then slipped into the room. ‘I’m in,’ he announced. In the lobby below, Richter heaved a sigh of relief. ‘It looks like the occupant is still booked into the hotel,’ Ross continued. ‘The room’s tidy and the bed’s been made up, but there are clothes folded over the back of the chair and’ – Richter faintly heard the sound of a door opening – ‘in the wardrobe as well. Also, there’s an empty overnight case on the suitcase stand.’

  ‘Any idea whose room it is?’ Richter asked.

  ‘There’s nothing on the overnight case,’ Ross replied. ‘No labels apart from the airline baggage reclaim chits. Oh, hang on. There’s a book here on the bedside table. Yes. This room appears to be occupied by David Elias. He’s obviously paranoid about people nicking his paperbacks, so he’s stuck a label on the inside front cover: David H. Elias, with an address in Virginia. Likely a Company man, eh?’

  ‘Almost certainly,’ Richter said, ‘but my guess is Mr Elias is no longer with us. He’s probably the diver they brought over to plant the explosives, and what’s left of him is now helping the Cretan police force with its inquiries.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Ross said. ‘The two professionals would logically be the ones to take the adjoining rooms.’

  ‘This third man,’ Richter observed, ‘was probably never considered a full member of the team. He was just some poor sod who got sucked into this mission because he happened to be a qualified diver.’

  ‘Bit of a cliché, the third man, especially bearing in mind who we both work for,’ Ross replied. ‘Right, that means I’m probably wasting my time hunting for your case in here. I’ll now try number 306.’

  ‘Just be careful.’ Richter resumed his scrutiny of the lobby.

  Decision now made, Stein had spent ten minutes stuffing his clothes and other personal gear into his carry-on overnight bag, and the computer, its accessories and the file into his briefcase. Then he shrugged on his lightweight jacket, picked up the SIG P226 and tucked it, the silencer still attached, into the rear waistband of his trousers.

  He picked up his carry-on bag with his left hand – he wanted his right hand free in case he needed to use the SIG, which meant he was going to have to make two journeys to carry down both his overnight bag and the briefcase. He walked across to the door and listened carefully. Then he opened it, looked swiftly up and down the corridor, pulled it closed and set off towards the rear stairs leading to the car park.

  Almost immediately after Stein had vanished down the back stairs, Ross shut the door of room 301 behind him. He stopped outside number 306, knocked firmly and again announced himself as Room Service. When he got no reply he pulled his lock-picking kit out of his pocket and got busy. Two minutes later he was inside.

  ‘More or less the same story in here,’ he reported. ‘The room’s obviously been recently occupied, though there don’t seem to be any clothes or personal effects. But there’s a briefcase still sitting on the end of the bed.’

  ‘That might be it,’ Richter said. ‘Better check it out.’

  For a few seconds Richter heard nothing, then two faint clicks. ‘Right,’ Ross said, ‘the briefcase wasn’t locked. I’ve just opened it and lifted the lid. Inside there’s a laptop computer, a red file marked – oh, that’s interesting.’

  ‘What?’ Richter demanded.

  ‘The file is classified “Ultra”. I’ve never seen an Ultra before.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ Richter murmured. ‘What’s the filename?’

  ‘No name, just the initials “CAIP” – that’s Charlie Alpha India Papa. There’s also a mobile phone, various leads and cables, and a small vacuum flask.’

  ‘What, for his coffee?’

  ‘No.’ Ross sounded preoccupied. ‘This one’s small and light, and it’s been very heavily sealed.’

  ‘Shit,’ Richter said. ‘Charles, is the seal broken? Please check very carefully.’

  There was a silence that seemed to stretch into minutes. ‘No,’ Ross finally replied, ‘the seal’s intact. The top’s covered first with red wax and that’s got a tight-fitting wire mesh securing it.’

  ‘OK, whatever you do, don’t break that seal. The chances are that flask contains the same stuff as the one the Greek diver cut open in Kandíra. It killed both him and his nephew.’

  ‘No problem there,’ Ross muttered. ‘I’m putting it back in the case right now.’

  ‘Before you do, are there any letters or numbers or symbols on the flask itself?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ross replied, holding up the flask and peering at it carefully. ‘It’s got a plain white label with “CAIP” written on it, and below that a figure ten.’

  ‘CAIP again? What the hell does it mean?’

  ‘No idea,’ Ross replied, his full attention now concentrated on the contents of the briefcase. He didn’t hear Stein slide his key into the lock, or the faint noise as the American turned the door handle.

  Richard Stein stepped into his hotel room, intent on simply picking up the remainder of his stuff and getting the hell out of Réthymno. The first thing he saw as he entered was a stranger bent over his briefcase and pawing through its contents.

  When Ross heard the sound of the door behind him, he stood up and spun round to face the interruption. Stein took in the scene before him in an instant. The sight of an intruder, already ransacking his briefcase, wearing a headset obviously linking him to an accomplice somewhere outside, added up to only one thing: this man had to be a member of the clean-up squad McCready had sent to Crete to eliminate him.

  Before Ross could say a word, Stein pulled out the silenced SIG automatic pistol, sighted down the barrel and pulled the trigger. The single bullet hit Ross square in the chest, slicing straight through his heart. He dropped to the floor, killed instantly.

  Stein stepped forward warily, with gun-hand extended, conscious that there might be another assassin in the bathroom. He checked both rooms thoroughly before bending over Ross’s body, looking for the weapon he was sure he would find there.

  He discovered instead a mobile telephone, and pulled it out of the dead man’s inside jacket pocket. Ripping out the hands-free lead, he studied the display. The line was still open, so he pressed the ‘end’ button to cancel the connection, then used redial to display the last number called. He didn’t recognize it, but he didn’t expect to, but he did note that it was a Cretan mobile number. That confused him for a moment, because he’d been expecting to see an American number, but then, he rationalized, the clean-up team would probably be equipped with local mobiles.

  He tossed the phone aside and ran his hands over Ross’s body. He repeated his search, then sat back, puzzled. An unarmed member of a clean-up team – that didn’t make any sense. So who was this guy? He pulled open the dead man’s jacket and examined the label sewn inside it. That only puzzled him even more.

  Stein shrugged and stood up. He was probably never going to find out anyway, but it was time he was somewhere else. He slammed down the briefcase lid, snapped the catches shut, picked it up and walked out of the room. He pulled closed the door behind him and jogged lightly away d
own the corridor.

  Chapter 22

  Friday

  Réthymno, Crete

  Richter heard what he thought was a cough in his earpiece and ignored it, but then the crash as Ross’s body hit the floor told him that something had gone badly wrong. He said nothing and listened acutely, but the sounds he now heard made no immediate sense – a rustling noise, a door opening, a couple of footsteps. Next heavy breathing and then Ross’s phone was abruptly switched off, which told him pretty much all he needed to know. Obviously contestant number three had returned to his room. The more he re-ran the sequence of sounds in his mind, the more that cough had sounded like the report of a silenced pistol.

  Richter started to move: out of the coffee shop and across the lobby to the main stairs and lifts. Not running, because that could attract unwanted attention, but moving quickly and smoothly. He ignored the lifts – they would just be too slow – and took the stairs. As he reached the first floor, he stopped dead.

  Apart from two tiny chambermaids, arms full of linen, he had seen nobody else using either the stairs or the lifts since his colleague had ascended to the third floor. That meant there had to be a back staircase, something neither he nor Ross had investigated earlier. Hindsight was always a wonderful comfort.

  On the first-floor landing, Richter looked in both directions. About ten feet away, he spotted a notice in red lettering screwed to the wall, and ran over to study it. It was an emergency evacuation plan, in four languages, complete with a diagram of the hotel’s entire floor layout. A fire escape and rear staircase were indicated at the end of the right-hand corridor.

  Richter turned and ran, crashed through the fire doors at the far end and began scrambling as quickly as he could down the stairs. As he reached the bottom and pushed open the outside door, he was just in time to see a light blue Seat saloon – maybe a Cordoba or a Toledo – swing left out of the opposite side of the car park and accelerate hard along the adjoining street and out of sight.

  Richter pulled a small notebook and ballpoint pen out of his pocket and made a brief note, then headed back inside the hotel and climbed the stairs to the third floor. The door to room 306 was closed and had automatically locked. Unlike Charles Ross, Richter had no lock-picking skills, but he was in no mood to wait around for somebody with a pass-key. He stepped back from the door and kicked it hard, with the flat of his foot, right above the lock. The door creaked but held firm.

  The third time his foot hit it, the door crashed open and Richter stepped inside, his Browning 9mm pistol cocked and safety catch off, held out in front of him in the classic two-handed combat grip. He saw Ross lying motionless on the floor at the foot of the bed and stepped across to him. One glance at the surprisingly small dark red stain in the centre of his chest told the whole tale, but Richter checked for a pulse anyway. Two minutes later he left the room, went down the stairs and out through the lobby.

  He crossed the street to a café, sat down at a table and ordered a coffee from the waiter. He then pulled out his mobile phone and notebook, checked the emergency contact number Ross had given him earlier for the duty SIS officer and dialled. A voice answered on the second ring.

  ‘This is Summer Lightning,’ Richter said. ‘I need a clean-up team at the hotel in Réthymno. Mickey Mouse didn’t make it.’

  Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  John Westwood was pleased at the speed with which the Personnel Department managed to generate the information he wanted, but unpleasantly surprised by the number of names on the list. Over two and a half thousand people fitted his initial criteria, and he knew he’d have to whittle that number down considerably before he could start any kind of a detailed investigation.

  He picked up the internal phone and dialled Personnel. ‘Thanks for the listing,’ he said, ‘but I need to apply some filters to reduce it to a manageable size. Using the information you’ve supplied as a base, eliminate all agents known to be currently on vacation outside the continental United States, also those who are hospitalized, and any known to be incapacitated. By that I mean people recovering at home from a broken leg or in long-term care, that kind of thing. Some guy who rang in last Tuesday claiming he had a migraine doesn’t count.’

  Thirty minutes later a new print-out lay on his desk, but there were still just over eighteen hundred names left, far too many to make a search feasible.

  Westwood pondered for some time before he applied the next obvious filter, simply because he wasn’t sure he was wise to do so. He had no idea exactly where the killer was based, but wherever it was it had to be within fairly easy reach of the state of Virginia. Instinctively, Westwood thought Mr X was probably sitting in an office in the same building at Langley as himself right then, but that was an assumption he certainly couldn’t rely on.

  So he made his decision and called Personnel again. ‘Now eliminate all those based outside Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia,’ he ordered.

  After four hours of successive filters, he had whittled the listing down to fifty-seven people, and couldn’t think of anything else to reduce the number any further. So now it was just down to footwork, checking the personnel file of each agent in turn.

  Réthymno, Crete

  Three minutes after he’d terminated his call to the duty SIS officer, Richter’s mobile rang.

  ‘This is Tyler Hardin, Mr Richter, and I’ve got some news for you.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Richter said. ‘The man calling himself Curtis is dead?’

  ‘Correct, but that isn’t the news I think you’ll want to hear. Curtis was going to die anyway: maybe this afternoon, maybe tonight, but he certainly wouldn’t have seen tomorrow. No, the news is that somebody wasn’t prepared to wait for this pathogen to take its course. The virus didn’t kill Curtis – someone with a pistol did that.’

  Richter wasn’t often lost for words, but that stumped him for a moment. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘Curtis was unconscious, even comatose, and due to die within a few hours, no matter what, and somebody still felt they had to eliminate him? That makes no sense.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Hardin replied, ‘but there’s no doubt about what happened. I’ve just pulled two nine-millimetre slugs out of the victim’s chest, and the local police have taken them away for testing. I’ll let you know what they come back with, if anything.’

  ‘Thanks, Tyler. I wish I could say I knew what the hell is going on here.’

  Hardin laughed briefly. ‘Join the club.’

  Western Crete

  Stein knew he was running for his life. He was still uncertain exactly how he stood with McCready, but he guessed that he was now a disposable asset and that McCready would have him killed as soon as he’d handed over the crucial file and the flasks. That was one problem.

  Another problem was the dead man he’d left behind him in the hotel at Réthymno. He had no idea who he was, but the label inside his jacket had been sewn there by a tailor in London’s Jermyn Street and, although far from conclusive, it did at least suggest that the man was a Brit.

  Whoever he was, Stein guessed that by now the Cretan police would have been called in and furnished with a description of Stein himself, and maybe even a photofit, by the hotel desk clerk. So he was going to have to rigorously avoid making eye contact with the local cops until he could get off this island.

  The mystery dead man also meant that he dare not risk trying to catch a passenger ferry or regular airline flight out of Crete, because the police would be watching out for him at all the ports and airports. It was looking more and more likely, therefore, that he was going to have to accept McCready’s highly suspect offer of a helicopter flight to the US Navy frigate. That didn’t please Stein at all.

  In fact, about the only good news in his life right then was that at least he still felt fine, so he presumed that his rudimentary precautions earlier had prevented the lethal virus from infecting him. In the circumstances that was a very, very small consolation.
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  Stein had no clear idea where he was heading, except away from Réthymno. He’d swung the rented Seat out of the hotel car park as quickly as he dared, just in case the dead man’s colleagues might guess where he was heading. He hadn’t seen anyone as he’d accelerated away, but that didn’t mean that somebody hadn’t spotted him leave.

  Within minutes of driving away from the hotel he’d joined the main north-coast road and headed west towards Chaniá. If he was going to take a chance on the pick-up McCready claimed to have arranged, at least Chaniá, or even somewhere further west, meant a shorter distance to drive the following afternoon. The email had specified a pick-up point north of the road heading to the coastal area, beyond Plátanos, on the extreme west side of the island.

  Réthymno, Crete

  Martin Fitzpatrick, the SIS officer Richter had been told to expect, turned up within twenty minutes and sat himself down heavily next to Richter at the café. He’d been out on the road when he’d been briefed by the duty officer over a secure radio circuit, and had broken every speed limit ever imposed to get to Réthymno.

  Richter explained briefly what had happened, and that Ross was dead. Just as he finished, they heard the whine of police sirens getting closer. Richter guessed that somebody passing had peered into room 306 and seen Ross’s body lying on the floor.

  ‘I think the shit’s about to hit the fan,’ Fitzpatrick murmured. ‘I’d better get over there and try to calm things down. I think I can assure the local fuzz that this is an entirely external matter, not involving anyone local, apart from poor old Charles Ross, and he’s in no position to make a fuss.’

  ‘One thing before you go.’ Richter pulled out his notebook. ‘I’m fairly sure the guy we’re looking for is driving a blue Seat saloon, and I’ve got a partial plate number. It’s almost certainly a hire car, rented within the last three or four days. Can you ask your police friends to get me the whole plate number and then issue a watch order for both the vehicle and occupant. I don’t want this man approached, however. He’s running and he’s likely to shoot first, and second, and not bother asking any questions. What I want to know is where he’s located now. He’s almost certainly left Réthymno, but he’s likely to have checked in to a hotel somewhere else. If they can find out where he is, even where his car’s parked, I’ll handle it from there.’