It was on the third floor where things were slightly different.
I peered through the panel and saw an armed guard on the other side, standing about five doors down. Another guard was at the far end of the corridor, blocking entry from the other stairs and the elevator. Both men looked bored but wide awake.
I ducked back and went up another flight. No guard and an empty feeling in the air. Now I knew where Travis was being held.
I got on with finding the broken pipe while mulling over tactics in my head. I was in luck; it was located in a washroom at the end of the building, and I tracked it back to a stopcock in an inspection panel and turned it off. In spite of what I’d told Yuriy, I had a barely rudimentary knowledge of water systems, and had no idea if the stopcock would interfere with the rest of the building’s water supply or not. If it did, I had only a short time to locate Travis and get him moving before Yuriy and a bunch of angry VIPs came looking for my scalp.
I went down to the third floor and pushed through the door to the corridor. It got an instantaneous reaction from the nearest guard, who swivelled like he was on ball bearings and pointed his rifle at me.
‘No entry!’ he shouted. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m the maintenance engineer,’ I told him, and made a show of putting down the toolbox and raising my hands. Over his shoulder I saw the other guard unslinging his rifle and walking towards us. ‘There’s a bad leak on the floor above. I need to turn off all the taps on this floor so I can isolate it.’
‘There’s nobody on this floor,’ he said, the gun dipping away slightly. ‘Try the other levels.’
‘I’ve already done that. Someone must have left a tap or shower running up here,’ I insisted. ‘I can tell by the flow of water. I’ll have to check the rooms – it won’t take a minute.’
The other guard had opened his mouth to add his two cents’ worth when he stopped and turned his head. He made a gesture for us to stop talking. The hum of an elevator was coming from the far end of the corridor.
‘You must leave,’ the first guard ordered, while his companion legged it back to his station. ‘Come back later.’ He prodded my toolbox with his boot. ‘And take that with you.’
As I turned to leave, the elevator pinged and the other guard hurried to pull the door open.
Four men walked past him without even looking at him. Three were dressed in combat uniforms and armed with assault rifles, while the man in the lead was in a grey suit, white shirt and tie.
‘Who is that man?’ Grey Suit called out, looking at me. ‘Get him off this floor.’
‘He’s building maintenance, sir,’ the guard replied. ‘There’s a water leak.’
‘I don’t care if he’s Mother Theresa. Get rid of him.’
As I was hustled through the door at the end, I turned to look back. The four men had stopped at the door where the nearest guard had been standing. Grey Suit nodded at one of his companions, who stepped forward and opened the door with a passkey and disappeared inside. Grey Suit followed, leaving the other two outside.
This wasn’t looking good. If Travis was in the room, I had a feeling he wasn’t going to stay here much longer.
FIFTEEN
Ed Travis swung round from the window as the door to his room opened. He was aware of several people in the corridor, and wondered what was going to happen now. He’d become accustomed to the heavy tread of the guard pacing up and down outside, with occasional pauses to talk with a colleague. But other than that the silence within the building was clear evidence that the rest of this floor, maybe even the entire block, was unoccupied. The thought didn’t fill him with confidence. Hotels with vacant floors were not a comforting sign, and those with a predominantly military presence were even more disturbing.
Since being stopped by a group of armed men in the street and told to get back to his hotel in the city centre, he’d had a feeling that his situation was coming unglued. The region around Donetsk was clearly on the edge of chaos, with troops and militia constantly on the move as if dancing around each other in a slow, deadly waltz. He had overheard reports of gunfire and exchanges further east, and had seen palls of smoke and heard the occasional rattle of small arms, and the thumps of heavier weaponry further off. The growing knowledge that there were different groups in the area, nominally with the same pro-Moscow sympathies yet all armed and with their own differing agendas, merely added to the confusion and his own sense of vulnerability.
When another group of men had taken him from his hotel and brought him to the airport, he’d assumed that he was being ordered to leave the country. But that hope had been dashed by the confiscation of his money, passport and cell phone, and the open hostility of his guards, who he guessed by their haphazard dress and the variety of weapons, were not regular forces but militia.
Travis had served in the military, but none of what he had experi-enced or seen had prepared him adequately for this. His had been a peace-time role, somehow avoiding the various conflicts going on around the world in which the USA had seen fit to get involved. Seeing the sounds and fury of conflict up close was somehow more unnerving than he had ever imagined.
The door swung back and an armed man in combat uniform stepped into the room and stood smartly to one side. This one had the appearance of a professional soldier, something Travis recognized immediately. He was followed by a man in a grey suit. He might have been a bureaucrat, but he had about him the aura of something darker. Travis had met security police of various nations in his time, and this newcomer had the same aura. He was over six feet tall, with a thin face and cold eyes, and his expression, the suit and the air of authority confirmed the impression of somebody accustomed to instilling fear and obedience in everyone he met.
‘Why are you holding me here?’ Travis demanded, determined to show anger at being treated like this. ‘This is outrageous and unacceptable.’ His throat was dry and he tried to put some steel in his voice, but the motors wouldn’t work. He’d been warned during his briefing sessions at Langley about the possibility of being questioned at any time. The country was in turmoil and strangers were naturally treated with suspicion. There were various types of security in operation, some official, others less so. And not all were organs of the state – or, at least, the Ukrainian state. On the other hand, this might be some kind of elaborate robbery or con trick. He’d been warned about that, too. But this notion was cast aside when he heard more movement in the corridor and noticed two more men in uniform outside the door.
‘You will come with us.’ The man in the grey suit spoke calmly, ignoring Travis’s protest. There was no threat in the voice, no look of menace, but the implication was clear: you will do what I say.
‘Why?’ Travis worked his tongue around his mouth to loosen the word. His gums tasted stale and acid, not helped by the sparse breakfast of rolls and coarse cheese that he had been served. ‘This is not right. I’m here on official business and you have no right to hold me like this.’ He shut his mouth, aware that he was gabbling and that this man looked as though he didn’t give a damn.
He was right. But what the man said next was even more worrying. ‘You are not here on official business, Mr Travis. You came here under the guise of a foreign non-governmental body with the intention of seeking representations with people opposed to the rule of law. Under Ukraine law that makes you a criminal by association.’ His accent was heavy but he spoke without hesitation, as if his English was regularly used. ‘Or would you prefer it if I accused you of being a spy? Is that what you are – an American spy?’
Travis tried to think, but his brain was sludgy with stress and lack of sleep. Criminal? A spy? What the hell? ‘No! That’s rubbish. I must protest. I want to speak to the American Embassy.’
The man didn’t look impressed. ‘Not possible. You either come downstairs with us,’ he said coolly, ‘or we throw you out of the window.’ He shrugged as if it really didn’t matter to him, and added, ‘Faster but more painful. Your choice.’
The shock of the words was enough to get Travis’s survival instincts kicking in. His fatigue drained away, leaving him at once clear-headed but somehow resigned. There was no point fighting; if these were security police, they would have backup nearby and be quite capable of carrying out their threat if he tried to resist. And who was going to stop them? He’d repeatedly tried the room phone, but that didn’t work, and for all he knew the rest of the building was occupied by men similar to these. Better to go with them and live, than put up a pointless resistance and die with a broken neck.
Yet he was puzzled. He’d seen plenty of regular soldiers and police while he was moving around before being picked up; but he’d seen even more militiamen of one faction or another, and thought he could have identified them on sight. But these men were different; they dressed and moved like well-trained regulars, but the threat had been pure aggression with no obvious point other than to show superiority.
‘What is it you want from me?’
‘No questions. You will find out soon enough.’
‘Where am I going?’
The man walked to the door and made a signal to the soldier to bring Travis. ‘Well, it’s not home, I can assure you of that.’ He gave a ghost of a smile and left the room, leaving the others to follow.
As the soldier took his arm, Travis felt panic setting in. He even eyed the window as if it might offer a solution. An escape. Somehow he had to get a message back home. But how? Without his phone he was beyond reach. In any case, who would he ring? It would be pointless calling the State Department; they’d simply go into a flap and talk a whole bunch before opting to go through official channels. He’d be better getting through to the CIA spook named Callahan, in Langley. This was the State Department’s plan, but Callahan was effectively running the nuts and bolts of the mission and would know what to do without calling a meeting about it first. But what could he do?
For the first time in his life, Ed Travis knew what it felt like to be utterly alone. And helpless.
SIXTEEN
I watched through the door panel as Grey Suit left the room and walked away down the corridor. He was followed by Travis, who was being hustled along by one of the soldiers, with the others falling in behind. Travis looked pale and uncomfortable, and it was clear he was apprehensive about what was going to happen to him.
The last two to leave were the corridor guards. They exchanged a look of confusion and shrugged, before trailing along in the wake of the others, their presence no longer required.
I gave it a few seconds and went into one of the rooms overlooking the front of the hotel. I flicked back a corner of the curtain and waited.
The road outside was busy with traffic, most of it military of one sort or another. A group of militiamen dressed in ill-fitting combat tops and boots, heavily armed and openly confrontational, was standing out in front of the building, watching what was going on and looking as if they wanted to defend their right to be there. I could feel the tension in the air from up here, and wondered how long this could continue before somebody squeezed a trigger and it all blew to hell.
It wasn’t long before the four men and Travis walked out of the entrance and across to a military UAZ jeep. The militiamen turned and watched, but made no move to stop them. As they did so, the blanked-out truck I’d seen earlier started up, belching grey smoke from its exhaust, and the troops standing at the rear jumped aboard.
I hurried downstairs. I had to get to the car and follow them.
I walked out of the front entrance just as Grey Suit was giving instructions to a junior officer in the passenger seat of the truck.
Obluskva Street, 24d. Kyiv’ski District. Five minutes drive. Wait at the end of the street and don’t go in until given the order.
I’d heard that kind of instruction before. They were planning a raid.
Obluskva. The name was familiar but I couldn’t immediately figure out why. Was that where I’d picked up the Toyota? No. It had been too dark to see street signs. I let it go. Wherever these guys were going, I had to be there too. I had no clear plan in mind, but somehow I had to get Travis out of their hands.
I walked away with a silent apology to Yuriy and his staff problems, and hurried back to the car, where I fed the name of Obluskva into my cell phone and started the engine.
There was a bleep and I looked at the screen. The word Obluskva had come up showing a hyperlink to a document contained in the cell phone’s system. I tapped the screen.
It brought up a cross-reference to one of the addresses from Langley.
It was the local CIA cut-out.
SEVENTEEN
I had one advantage over Grey Suit and his men, and that was where I’d left the Toyota. It was just outside the growing snarl-up of traffic that was already bringing the airport to a standstill. I reached the exit road without a problem, and spotted the jeep and the blanked-out truck caught up in a mess of military vehicles, with soldiers and militiamen arguing over who had the right of way. If I was correct about the identity of the soldiers in the truck, the militiamen were in for a rough time if they pushed too hard.
I silently wished them a long and enjoyable stay and called up Langley.
‘Go ahead, Watchman.’ The woman’s voice answered.
I said, ‘Tell Callahan there are troops on the way to the Obluskva Street address in Donetsk. They look like special forces. They’ve got Travis with them.’
‘Wait one.’ There was a click and Callahan came on.
‘I hear you. Go again?’ He sounded calm but I could sense his tension all the way down the wire.
I told him what I’d seen and asked, ‘Does Travis have the cut-out list?’
‘What? No. He was told to wait until he was contacted. Why do you ask?’
‘Because they’re heading for the first address on the list.’
‘It’s a coincidence. It has to be.’ But he didn’t sound convinced. ‘That’s crazy … there’s no way—’ He stopped dead, then said, ‘Stay on the line.’
He was gone two minutes, while I continued to head as fast as I dared for the Kyiv’ski District. If I could get there ahead of the troops, I might be able to give whoever was at 24d a warning to get out. Cut-outs, although part of a carefully built network, usually worked in isolation, known only by their handler. It was a matter of basic security: the less they each knew about others in the network, the less likely they were to give them away if they got picked up and questioned. But sometimes it was inevitable that one would come to learn the identity or location of another, by accident or instinct. If the person at 24d Obluskva was in that category, it would be a potential disaster for others along the line if he or she got picked up and grilled.
Callahan came back on. He sounded royally pissed. ‘The State Department gave Travis the first address. Worse, they sent it by SMS in plain text. They had no right but they did it anyway. Seems they didn’t have complete faith in us to keep him safe and wanted some control over what happened.’
I let it go by. The question of inter-agency jealousies and mistrust wasn’t my problem. But the fact that they’d given out the address unencrypted showed a serious lack of judgement and lousy security. Handing over such a delicate piece of information to an untrained civilian in the first place was about the most dangerous thing they could have done. They might as well have broadcast it over 24 TV, the Ukraine news channel.
Unless the address had been leaked by Travis himself somehow, then it must have been picked up and read by the authorities, who would have been sifting the airwaves for all communications from separatists and outside parties interested in the unfolding calamity. It wouldn’t have taken long for somebody to have asked why a Donetsk address should suddenly pop up in a text message from outside the country.
‘If they have one could they have the others?’
‘No. We made sure of that. Each one will be given a rendezvous point where Travis is to be delivered along with a contact code and time, but that’s it. The next
in line will receive a message with that same RV and contact code, and will take over from there.’
It sounded a little vague to me, but I knew it had worked in the past. But when it came to protecting a network, any way of isolating individual members while having them come in contact with each other for an exchange was fraught with danger. ‘So who does the messaging?’
‘We do. As soon as we know the handover is imminent, we set the message in motion. Where are you right now?’
I gave him my location and where I was headed, but not what I was planning to do. The simple truth was I hadn’t yet decided on that myself. I clicked off and concentrated on driving. I had a germ of an idea but putting it in action would all depend on circumstances and opportunity.
Starting a shooting war in a city street is not to be recommended. The potential for collateral damage – that anodyne term used by the military, politicians and media to mean innocent bystanders – is huge and real. Add to that the opposition – in this case a truckload of special forces with itchy fingers – and anything could happen.
But you can’t always control these things.
I checked what I had in the way of armaments. It wasn’t great. I had a small submachine gun, courtesy of the big guy with the pool cue. Set against a truckload of armed soldiers, it was little more than a peashooter. But peashooters don’t come with an extended magazine of thirty-two 9mm shells. Somehow that fact didn’t surprise me. The bigger magazine is popular among gang-bangers because it looks both cool and scary; even a lousy shot with his head high on booze, mescaline or whatever, merely has to point and pull the trigger and the full load will discharge in a few-second ‘squirt’. The shots will go all over the scenery but that’s half the joy for anyone using it; you’re guaranteed to hit something, even if it’s only a cow in the next county.
Close Quarters Page 8