The Rhythm Section--A Stephanie Patrick Thriller

by Mark Burnell

  He shook his head. ‘Just as we have no employees and no records. This is not a department of some greater organization. We do not exist. So we are travel agents, mining consultants, landlords, collectors of coins.’

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  Alexander leaned against the wall, resting his arms on the cold stone, his hands clasped together. He gazed at a flat-bottomed barge struggling against the tide. Screeching seagulls hovered over the rubbish it was transporting.

  ‘We live in an era of increased global terrorism. And of increasingly sophisticated and dangerous terrorism. But we also live in an era of accountability. The end of the Cold War created an illusion of safety. Politicians argued successfully for cuts in expenditure and more openness. Consequently, secret services became more answerable to politicians than they ever had been, just at a time when they needed to be more furtive. I suppose I could say that we are an ironic by-product of this new culture. The era of wholesome accountability and transparency gave birth to us. Every nation needs intelligence services and those services need to be secret, not something for politicians to play with. Much of what we do is distasteful but somebody has to work in the sewers, somebody has to defend the pedophiles in court.’

  Alexander turned to look at Stephanie. ‘This is not a question of nationhood, of flags and monarchs. It’s a question of order, a question of protecting those conditions that allow the majority to live peacefully. It’s a numbers game. We know it, our enemies know it. The problem is, how do we confront and defeat these people? What if the solutions aren’t politically acceptable?’

  ‘What solutions?’

  Alexander considered this for a moment. ‘Let me put it this way: you catch the terrorist, you put him on trial, you find him guilty and sentence him to life. Suddenly, he’s not only a hero, he’s a martyr. His imprisonment inspires the easily misguided into action. His punishment invites reprisals. All of a sudden that initial moment of triumph—the capture and incarceration—is gone, blown away by the bullets and bombs of those who follow.’

  Stephanie concluded the argument for Alexander. ‘So you kill them, instead?’

  He nodded. ‘Efficiently and anonymously.’ His dispassion was predictable. What other way could there be for a man in such a business? ‘Where possible, we try to make it appear accidental. Or, if we can, we lay the blame at someone else’s door. Anything to avoid being credited. It may not be morally defensible—not to mention being completely illegal—but it is increasingly the only realistic solution to some terrorist problems.’

  ‘And this is what you people do?’

  She knew the answer before she asked the question. In her bones, she had known—or at least suspected—it from the start. She didn’t find it shocking, or even particularly surprising. Her opinion of all forms of authority and establishment had always been low.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is it all you do?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No wonder you like to keep a low profile.’

  Alexander smiled genuinely for the first time. ‘A low profile is best for people in low places.’

  ‘And this is what you expect me to do?’

  ‘Not quite. You’ll be different. A one-off, something customized, you might say.’

  * * *

  The following morning. A blue Mercedes cruised down the damp Cromwell Road. In the back, Stephanie sat beside Alexander. He was on the phone, she was staring out of the window, through the drizzle, at the billboards, the hotels and the turning for Knaresborough Place. She thought of how she had tailed Mohammed to the al-Sharif Students Hostel from Imperial College.

  Alexander finished his call and seemed to read her mind. ‘Reza Mohammed placed the device on board flight NE027 but we’re still not sure how he did it. What we do know is that it wasn’t his idea. He was simply a delivery-boy working for someone else.’

  ‘Why did he do it? I mean, why that flight?’

  ‘We don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it makes a difference now,’ Stephanie muttered. ‘He’s still going to be the one that pays.’

  ‘Eventually, yes. But not until you find Khalil.’

  ‘Khalil?’

  ‘The man behind Mohammed. The brains.’

  ‘Khalil who?’

  Alexander raised his eyebrows. ‘What a question. Throughout the Arab world, it sometimes seems that every other man is a Khalil. What his real name is, God only knows. He’s used so many aliases, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s forgotten who he is. And if he has, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were deliberate. No one knows his true nationality, or what he looks like; there are no verified photographs of him. He’s probably in his late thirties, possibly in his early forties. I can tell you that apart from master-minding the destruction of the North Eastern flight, he has been responsible for three bombings in Beirut, the assassination of a French diplomat in Chad, the murder of an Israeli businessman in Antwerp, and the transport of Sarin nerve gas from Japan’s Aum Shinri Kyo sect to Kurd separatists in northern Iraq. He organized the kidnap, torture and murder of two Mossad agents in Athens in 1995. He is also suspected of being the force behind a foiled attempt to plant a bomb at the 1994 World Cup Final in Pasadena. Those are just some of the edited highlights.

  ‘As far as we can tell, Khalil is not part of any group, which makes it harder to track him. He forms temporary alliances through intermediaries who, themselves, tend to be temporary. We don’t know whether he is ideologically motivated or whether he’s in it for the money; there are strong arguments for both. What we do know is that Reza Mohammed is one of the very few who has direct, lasting links to Khalil, although how well established those links are is a mystery. That’s what makes him valuable.’

  The A4 became the M4, three lanes of slow-moving traffic shrouded in a spray stained scarlet by brake lights. The driver took the Heathrow spur, the Mercedes ducking into the tunnel beneath the runway.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Stephanie asked.

  ‘We are not going anywhere. But you are.’ Alexander reached inside his jacket pocket and produced an air-ticket. ‘You’ll be met at the other end.’

  ‘What about my things?’

  ‘I imagine you’re referring to the stuff we collected from your hotel.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ve disposed of what there was.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re leaving everything behind.’ Alexander let the vague statement float for a second before cruelly adding: ‘Besides, there didn’t appear to be much worth keeping.’

  Stephanie checked her anger, determined not to let him have the satisfaction of seeing it. The car pulled up outside Terminal One.

  Alexander said, ‘This is the last time I’m going to say this: it’s not too late to quit.’

  Still annoyed, she replied, tartly, ‘Don’t bother.’

  ‘I know what this is about. It’s a question of revenge, pure and simple–’

  ‘You worked that out all by yourself, did you?’

  ‘–but I also know this: when you get your retribution—if you get it—there will be no relief and no answers. The pain will still be there. The dead will still be dead. And the search will have taken years off your life. Years you could more profitably spend pursuing a productive and happy future. I am asking you not to make this choice.’

  ‘And I’ve already told you, it’s not a choice.’

  ‘Revenge is empty. It’s as hollow as a prostitute’s promise.’

  Stephanie took the ticket from his hand. ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Mr Alexander. As a prostitute, I broke more promises than you’ll ever keep.’

  12

  Stephanie stepped into the terminal building at Inverness Airport, glad to be out of the wind that had made the landing so uncomfortable. She scanned unfamiliar faces, hoping that one of them would come forward. None did. Then, from behind her, she heard, ‘Miss Patrick?’

  Startled, she turned around. He was tall—about si
x two, she supposed—and she could see that he was thin, despite the bulky fleece that he wore. His coarse, blonde hair was cut short, almost to stubble down the back of his neck. He had a broad, flat-featured face and huge hands with fingers almost as thick as her wrists.

  She was momentarily confused. ‘You were on the plane?’

  He nodded. ‘I was at Heathrow, watching you. To make sure you caught the flight and didn’t try to vanish into thin air.’

  His accent was more pronounced than Alexander’s.

  ‘And if I had?’

  ‘Let’s just say it’s a good thing you didn’t. I’m Iain Boyd. The vehicle’s outside.’

  The vehicle was a thirty-year-old Land-Rover. Stephanie sat in the cab with Boyd who mashed the gears and wrestled with the wheel as they headed north on the A9 over the Moray Firth and across the Black Isle. It took more than an hour and a half to reach Lairg, where Boyd filled the Land-Rover with petrol. He wasn’t the talkative type. Stephanie sat on the passenger seat, hugging her legs to her body, watching the landscape grow bleaker and, to her mind, more beautiful. Her parents would have loved it. She wanted a cigarette.

  From Lairg, they took the A838, a narrow road with regular passing places, which meandered along the shores of Loch Shin, Loch Merkland and Loch More. The further north they travelled, the steeper the snow-capped hills seemed to be, a collection of jagged slopes and sheer rock faces. The weather was capricious; one moment a sun dazzled, the next, low, swollen clouds rolled through the ravines, smothering the peaks. The wind stirred the water into choppy ripples on one loch while on another, the surface was a perfect, dark mirror. As the brightness and gloom took their turns, so the colours changed. From gold, sapphire, amber and rust, suddenly everything was the colour of bruises and lead. Stephanie watched a patch of sunlight rolling across a hill and a loch, brilliantly illuminating all beneath it, surrounded by an area of light so flat that it reduced three dimensions to two.

  At the Laxford Bridge, they turned right on to the road to Durness, a small settlement on the north coast. A few miles after the turning, they left the road, veering right on to a rough track. Twisting and turning through boggy grass, craggy outcrops of rock and pools of icy black water, it took quarter of an hour to reach the last bend, which revealed a small loch. On the far side, a steep slope rose from the water for several hundred yards before rising vertically for three hundred feet. On the near side, there was a cluster of buildings close to the water’s edge and, fifty yards further back, a stone house.

  Boyd parked the Land-Rover in a large garage next to two vehicles of similar vintage. Attached to one of them was a small trailer carrying an Argo-Cat. At the back of the garage there were a dozen kayaks racked against the wall.

  The buildings by the shore were fairly modern; long, single-storey cabins made from wood with roofs of tarpaper or corrugated iron. Boyd led Stephanie into the nearest one. It reeked of damp. Two-thirds of the building was a dormitory, iron-frame beds set against each wall at regular intervals. There were no mattresses. The other third was partitioned and divided into six small, single rooms. Boyd showed her into one of them.

  ‘This is where you sleep.’

  The bed was the same as the others she’d seen, except there was a thin, lumpy mattress on top of it and a pillow that was turning brown with age. On the end of the bed were some sheets, a pillowcase that was so worn it was almost see-through and two heavy blankets made from a material that scratched like sandpaper. There was a cupboard, a set of drawers, a tiny circular mirror and a sink. A small window overlooked the loch.

  He led her outside again and told her to wait for him by the garage. She watched him stride towards the stone house. Once he was inside it, she peeped through the windows of the other buildings. There was a canteen that was clearly closed, a small block with two baths, four lavatories and a set of showers, a hut containing a diesel generator, a large workshop, and another building that was empty.

  Five minutes later, Boyd reappeared, wearing track-suit bottoms, running shoes and a rugby shirt over two T-shirts. He was carrying a bag from which he took two sweatshirts, a pair of track-suit bottoms sawn off at the knee and a pair of walking boots. He tossed them on the ground at Stephanie’s feet.

  Her fingers were already starting to go numb.

  ‘Put that lot on. Then put the clothes you’re wearing in the bag and stick it in the garage.’

  She picked up the garments and started to head for the garage.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To change.’

  ‘You change out here, for Christ’s sake!’

  It started to rain.

  * * *

  Stephanie slipped and tumbled into a peat hag. The black mud cushioned her fall and doubled the weight of her clothes. It was like quicksand. Boyd looked down on her from the slick grassy ledge above. Despite the cold, Stephanie was on fire. Her lungs felt as though they were bleeding, her cheeks were pink and hot, and across her brow sweat mingled with the rain that slithered into her eyes. She felt humiliated by her lack of fitness and tried to close her mind to what was to come.

  Boyd shook his head in disgust. ‘What the hell are you doing out here? You should be back in the city. Filing your nails, gossiping with your little friends on your mobile. I’ll tell you one thing for nothing: you’ll quit. If you get to the end of the week it’ll be a bloody miracle. I give you seventy-two hours.’

  Stephanie found some air from somewhere. ‘I won’t quit.’

  ‘Look at you. We’ve not even been gone half an hour and you’re thrashing around in the mud, not a clue what’s going on. Right now, you’d be out of your depth in a car park puddle.’

  Stephanie clawed at the black banks of the hag, her feet squelching beneath her. She scrambled on to a nearby rock and then hauled herself up to where Boyd was standing. He was not out of breath.

  They continued with Boyd trotting behind her, as sure-footed as the deer that lived among the peaks and saddles, while Stephanie lurched from one stumble to the next. Boyd drove her on, muttering obscenities and threats every time she slowed. And when she ceased to care, he nudged her forwards with his hands. She collapsed, threw up, and was hauled to her feet while still retching.

  ‘Fucking drama queen!’ Boyd hissed in her ear.

  By the time they returned to the loch, Stephanie could barely stand. She had executed most of their descent on all fours, much to Boyd’s mounting displeasure.

  Now, they were outside the garage. He handed her the plastic bag containing her clothes and pointed at one of the huts. ‘There’s a shower in there. Get yourself cleaned up and then come up to the house.’

  The shower was painfully powerful and hot but Stephanie welcomed that as she staggered beneath the jet. She tripped and fell against the tiles, jarring her shoulder, before sliding to the floor. She made no attempt to stand and, instead, curled herself into a ball, letting the water and steam do their best for her.

  * * *

  The door swung open, crashing against the partition wall, which shuddered. On came the light, a feeble, solitary bulb hanging from the ceiling but the brightness of which was now as penetrating as an anti-aircraft searchlight.

  ‘Get up!’

  Boyd’s voice was yet another element in her bad dream.

  ‘Now!’

  The bed was moving. Stephanie opened her eyes. Boyd had yanked the bed away from the wall and was now tipping it on to its side. She tumbled to the floor, still swathed in blankets and sheets, still, by any practical definition, asleep.

  ‘Outside and ready to run in two minutes. If you’re late, it’ll be worse.’

  With that, he was gone.

  Every muscle hurt. Some seemed to have locked solid and were hard to the touch, there was no flexibility left in them. She thought her joints had become prematurely arthritic overnight. Stephanie had known countless grim mornings but she wasn’t sure she had ever felt quite so miserable.

  It was freezing in her room so she s
truggled into her clothes as quickly as her body would allow. Despite being hung to dry, they were still damp from the day before and stank heavily of peat. Outside, it was dark. Frost crackled beneath her feet.

  ‘Jesus!’ she exclaimed, clouds of frozen breath erupting from her mouth and nostrils. ‘What time is it?’

  Evidently, this pleased Boyd. She made a mental note not to do it again.

  They ran in the dark, along the rough track that led, eventually, to the main road. To Stephanie, it seemed like a tease. A reminder that this was the way out—that there was a way out—and all she had to do was take it.

  The run was a revelation. She had never experienced such pain before, not even at the hands of a violent client.

  Later, Boyd made breakfast for her in his kitchen at the stone house. This was a sanctuary; it was dry and warm, the heat coming from a coke-fuelled Rayburn. She sat at the wooden table while he moved around her in silence. Prepared previously, the porridge had been left to cook slowly in a warm oven. He placed the bowl in front of her.

  ‘How very Scottish,’ she muttered.

  Boyd made her sweet tea and replied, ‘It’s good for you. Eat it.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t. But you’re going to need it.’

  A routine was quickly established: a wake-up call at an ungodly hour; exercise before breakfast; breakfast at the house; an hour afterwards, more exercise; lunch at the house; an hour being lectured on some element of outdoor survival; more exercise as the brief afternoons faded into night; a shower or bath depending on which Boyd prescribed; supper at the house; more pearls of wisdom dispensed by Boyd, usually in the warmth of the kitchen; finally, bed, at an hour that was absurdly early but which still did not allow her enough time to recuperate before the morning.

  * * *

  I don’t have the energy to remove my clothes. It’s all I can do to crawl beneath the blankets on my bed rather than collapse on top of them. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I know that I’d be terrified. I have made an awful mistake. Alexander was right. So was Boyd. I can’t do this. Physically and emotionally, I am shattered. I thought I was immune to pain but Boyd has shown me that I was wrong.