by Tom Wood
‘I don’t need babying, Antonio. And I don’t want to have to empty my bladder any more than necessary.’
Alvarez relaxed again. He wasn’t offended or insulted and he didn’t pester Procter with questions about his condition. Procter liked that about him.
They were sitting on the long porch of Procter’s house, facing west. Procter had taken a wicker armchair, padded with two cushions. Alvarez was perched on the bench swing. He planted his feet so it didn’t move. Procter never used it for that reason. Too much effort just to stay still.
The sky was pink with a low sun that flared orange through the trees. The light was perfect.
Procter said, ‘When it’s like this I don’t need a book. I can just sit out here and that’s enough. It’s the magic hour. That’s what they call it in the movie business, when the light is like this, just before sunset. They’ll spend all day preparing and rehearsing to shoot a scene during the magic hour. If you see a film and the light is like this, then the director is a perfectionist and the producer hates him for spending so much money. But, you can’t beat it. You can’t fake it. Everything and everyone looks better in this light. You and me sitting here look the best we’re ever going to look. This, my friend, is as good as it gets.’
‘Maybe we should take a selfie.’
Procter chuckled.
The silence settled over them. Procter was in his chair on his porch on a warm evening. He could wait as long as it took. He had nowhere to go and nowhere he’d rather be. Alvarez knew it too, which was why he spoke before long.
Alvarez said, ‘You’ve lost a chunk of weight since I last saw you, Roland. You look good for it. I always used to worry about your health.’
Procter laughed and cupped his jaw. ‘I have a chin now, see? But it’s hard to take any comment on my weight loss seriously when you turn up at my door looking like someone carved you out of clay.’
‘I try to keep in shape.’
‘I’ll say. What’s your secret?’
Alvarez said, ‘You really want to know?’
Procter nodded. ‘Hit me.’
‘Two-fold,’ Alvarez began. ‘One, eat clean – no sugar, no processed food, no added sodium, no alcohol – and watching macros – 40 per cent protein, 30 per cent carbs and 30 fat. Two, exercise. That means five hours of weight training – alternate push/pull split resistance – and three of cardio – interval training on the rower or bike, plus Bikram yoga and some Krav Maga – each and every week without fail for twenty years now.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I find it hard to break a habit once it becomes one.’
‘Any time for fun between working and working out?’
‘I enjoy working out.’
‘You’d get on well with my wife,’ Procter said. ‘She’s similarly obsessed.’
‘She’s looking great these days. I see her around now and again.’
‘I’ll tell her you said that. She’ll appreciate it. But you didn’t have to come all this way to have a chat, did you?’ Procter paused. ‘A phone call would have done.’
‘I was in the area. It was a good excuse to check in on you.’
‘Check in on me or check up on me?’
Alvarez shrugged, as if he didn’t know the difference.
Procter said, ‘How’s Christopher?’ so he could delay the inevitable.
Alvarez let him. ‘He’s good. Growing fast. He calls me Antonio.’
‘It’s a phase.’
Alvarez shrugged again. It seemed an awkward movement. He was lean but broad, and the big shoulders looked heavy. ‘What about Patricia?’
‘She keeps me honest.’
Procter showed a wry smile. Alvarez matched it. Neither man blinked.
It was all a game, of course. The same test of wills Procter had participated in a thousand times throughout his career. Alvarez had spent more time in the trenches than he had in a war room, and he hadn’t learned the same tricks, the same subtlety. He thought it was about patience, about who cracked first. It would be another ten years, when he was Procter’s age, by the time he realised that he had failed this first contest.
Procter said, ‘You’re a month into your new job working for the Director of National Intelligence. You have no need to visit your old CIA boss, especially a retired cripple like me.’
‘Semi-retired,’ Alvarez couldn’t help but correct. ‘You don’t work from Langley, but you’re still in the game.’
Procter didn’t react.
‘You know my remit?’
Procter nodded. ‘To liaise with foreign and domestic agencies in the pursuit of terrorists, criminals and those who offer a direct threat to the United States.’
‘Foreign and domestic.’
Procter nodded for a second time. ‘And CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI, and everyone else has to bow beneath you. Am I close?’
A lesser man would have smiled, or even nodded, given the incredible power in his hands, but Alvarez, although no spymaster like Procter, showed no reaction. He saw his role as a duty, an honour, and so his ego took nothing from it. He was a better man than Procter had ever been.
‘How can I be of assistance?’
‘Do you remember the particulars of what happened in Paris? The Ozols Operation?’
‘It rings a bell.’
Alvarez smirked at the understatement. ‘Then you remember how you ordered me to back off when I was getting close to the assassin who killed my source and the man who hired him?’
‘I remember how you disobeyed me, yes.’
Alvarez looked away. He peered out over Procter’s immaculate lawn, and the fields beyond that. ‘Someone once told me that to be satisfied all we must do is try our best.’
‘That makes a certain sense.’
‘I wasn’t allowed to try my best back then.’
‘If you want me to justify my actions, you’re wasting your time. I have to talk to you because you’re the Jesus of the intelligence community, but don’t expect me to apologise for doing my job.’
‘You know what I think about?’
Procter waited.
Alvarez continued: ‘I think about all those dead people that were a direct result of that op. Most of whom deserved to die. But not everyone did. Two American citizens died and no one paid. There was no justice.’
‘The man responsible paid for what he did by putting a gun into his own mouth.’
Alvarez said, ‘At Nuremberg, it wasn’t only the generals who were charged for their crimes.’
‘I think I see where you’re going with this.’
‘Let’s not pretend. You saw where I was going with this the moment my car pulled up outside.’
Procter didn’t react. ‘You’re going after the killer.’
‘I’ve always been after the killer. The guy who killed Ozols and started it all. The assassin who disappeared into the night. Vanished.’
‘That trail is years old now. We never came close to him. We never got a name. How do you even begin going after someone like that?’
Alvarez said, ‘Have you heard of something called the Minsk Tape?’
‘Excuse me, but did you ask if I’ve heard your mix tape?’
‘Funny,’ Alvarez said without humour, ‘but that’s not what I said. I’m talking about a tape – a video recording – from Minsk, dating back a couple of years now. It’s a water-cooler talking point. Almost an urban myth. Some junior analyst will brag to his colleagues that he’s seen the Minsk Tape, but he won’t tell them what’s on it. He’ll tell them that they have to see it for themselves. Of course, that junior analyst hasn’t seen it and probably never will, but he’s sure as shit heard of it. I’d heard of it too. Like I said: water cooler. But, eventually, I got to actually watch the video itself.’
‘What is it?’ Procter asked, as if he didn’t know, as if he didn’t care.
‘I’m glad you asked, because it’s relevant to the larger conversation. The Minsk Tape is a short CCTV recording, shot in a hotel suite with
covert cameras. It’s only a couple of minutes long, at most, but during those short hundred or so seconds a whole crew of Belarusian mobsters along with some Lebanese gun runners are massacred by a single man.’
‘I see,’ Procter said.
‘Yeah, I saw too. But the human eye ain’t great, really. No offence to us humans, but we’ve peaked. Technology, though, is still evolving. Gets better all the time. So good in fact that between facial recognition software and body composition algorithms the lone shooter in the Minsk Tape is an eighty-seven per cent match for Ozols’ killer.’
Procter said, ‘What are the odds?’
Alvarez said, ‘Eighty-seven per cent is a good ten per cent from a home run, but it’s good. It’s close. It was enough for me to analyse that footage, to find out who the other people – the victims – were. And more importantly: who made the tape and why did they.’
‘The Israelis. Mossad.’
‘Then you have seen the Minsk Tape?’
‘Of course.’
‘Turns out our boy is wanted by Tel Aviv as well. They passed the tape to CIA. They asked for our help. But they never found him. My source in Mossad tells me a Kidon unit was dispatched to Eastern Europe a few weeks later and not all of them came back, but I’m sure that’s just an amazing coincidence.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Procter said.
‘Because I believe the killer has protection. He’s avoided CIA and Mossad, all on his lonesome? I doubt that. Someone tipped him off. Someone’s helped him.’
‘Someone,’ Procter said.
‘Maybe it was fate that I was running the Ozols Operation back then. Maybe it was bad luck that I never got the guy who killed him. Maybe it’s serendipity that I now have the opportunity to correct that luck.’
Procter was careful of his tone. ‘You have a lead?’
Alvarez, to his credit, nodded. ‘The killer was in Ireland a year ago. I think he was on a job. A priest died around the same time. Accidental death, but this priest was an informer during the Troubles who worked both sides.’
‘You’ll need more than just a coincidence like that to get this guy.’
Alvarez was unfazed. ‘I have a lot more than that.’
‘Forget about him, Antonio. This is someone you don’t want to find.’
THIRTEEN
Victor saw the glow of a cigarette in the darkness before he saw the man smoking it. Tall and wide, the bodyguard wore a cheap suit and an overcoat of marginally better quality. His head was shaved down to the skin but he had a week’s worth of beard growth. He heard, then saw Victor approach, but only because Victor allowed himself to be noticed. The bodyguard looked tired. It was almost three a.m.
The meeting place was an old hunting lodge at the end of a valley, accessible by a single-lane road that led to a gravel drive. The lodge was a grand Bavarian building of thick timbers and a low peaked roof. A single vehicle was parked out front. Victor had parked his rented Audi half a mile away and had traversed a stretch of trees to come at the lodge without using the road. Doing so would only have foretold his imminent arrival, and he never liked to announce his presence until the moment of his choosing.
The bodyguard tossed the cigarette away and it glowed from the gravel. He was startled by Victor’s presence, which was good. The man had been expecting a car. He had expected to have warning. He didn’t like that he had been caught out and he held forth a hand before Victor could get too close, even though Victor’s hands were empty and obviously so, down at his sides.
‘Passwort?’ the bodyguard demanded.
Victor said, ‘Nicht mit einer Schere laufen.’
The bodyguard gestured and Victor raised his arms so they were perpendicular.
Victor wore a navy suit, white herringbone shirt and brown brogue boots. The latter were dirtied from the wet ground, which was regrettable. He had no coat and nothing in his pockets. It didn’t take long for the bodyguard to pat him down and know he had no gun or knife on his person. Victor heard the crepitus cracking in the man’s knees as he squatted down to check around Victor’s legs and ankles. The bodyguard was slow to stand again, putting a hand to one thigh for balance.
He seemed satisfied, but when Victor lowered his arms he changed his mind and did another check. As amateurish as the first, but it gave the bodyguard peace of mind. Victor imagined the man had been told to be thorough, but he wasn’t used to performing such checks. Which was interesting.
Another gesture, this time for Victor to enter, and the front door was opened for him. Victor didn’t like people holding open doors for him – it meant giving them his back as he passed through – but the bodyguard gave him no reason to be concerned. The man was still red-faced from performing two whole bodyweight squats.
Victor wiped his boots on a doormat that said Willkommen geehrte Gäste and stepped inside.
There was no entrance foyer or hallway. Instead, the front door led straight to a large open-plan living area and kitchen. Victor put it at about a thousand square feet of floor space covered in polished wooden flooring. A huge stone fireplace dominated one wall, with sofas and armchairs arranged before it to create a living space. In the other half of the room was the kitchen and a long dining table that could seat sixteen people. The far wall had patio doors and windows that looked out to the grounds, but were now covered in drawn curtains. A lattice of timbers supported the roof above.
‘It’s a beautiful building,’ Victor said to the man waiting for him.
He stood near to the fireplace, which was lit, and seemed to have been staring into the flames before Victor entered the room. A leather briefcase rested flat on a coffee table.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ the man said with a faint accent. He sounded a little more German than either his nationality or heritage suggested. ‘Although it is wasted somewhat for our needs, don’t you think?’
He stepped towards Victor, manoeuvring between armchairs.
Victor moved to meet him halfway. Neither man offered their hand.
The broker was a man named Wilders, a Belgian national of Dutch descent, but of no address known to Victor. Wilders was a short man, out of shape and well dressed. His hair was equal parts white and gold and cut into a neat, timeless side-parting. It was thin at the crown. His face was tanned and his cheeks reddened by high blood pressure and heavy drinking. From the lines around his eyes and a sag to his jowls, Victor put Wilders’ age in his late fifties. He had a gold chain around one wrist. He had removed his wedding band, and although it was too dim to see any change in skin tone, Victor noted the indentation in the skin. A careful man, but no one in this business should be married. No professional should have dependants. It was as unfair as it was dangerous.
‘It’s a private hunting lodge once owned by a Bavarian aristocrat. Some duke or archduke or such,’ Wilders explained, holding out his arms. ‘Now rented out for vacations and excursions. The occasional odious team-building retreat. Can you imagine a worse horror? No? Me neither. Tonight, it is purely for our purposes.’
Victor nodded. No doubt hired through a shell corporation registered in Switzerland, Luxembourg, or the Bahamas. In turn that company would be owned by yet another offshore organisation, registered in another part of the world. The web of ownership could be stretched out even further, and at the end of it there’d be no sign of Wilders or his associations. Nothing that happened here could ever be traced back to those involved.
As Wilders had said, the lodge was excessive for a discussion between two men, but it was remote. It was isolated.
He gestured to a staircase that led to a mezzanine floor. ‘Feel free to stay the night if you have no other arrangements. Or the whole week if you need to. Make yourself at home. There’s plenty of room. Schnapps in the fridge. Steaks in the freezer. There are pretty Bavarian girls in the town in yonder valley who are likely to be mightily impressed with such an abode. Do they all have those cute little outfits in their wardrobes?’
Victor remained silent.
Wilders seemed pleased with Victor’s lack of reaction, or maybe he had amused himself. ‘Oh, I should add that I don’t expect you to take me up on the offer, but I thought I’d ask nonetheless.’
‘Why?’
‘To see how you responded, of course.’
‘And did I do as expected?’
Wilders nodded. ‘Not that it matters to me what you do.’
‘But it matters to someone.’
The broker inched closer. ‘Doesn’t it always?’ His breath smelled a little of brandy.
Trophies hung from some of the horizontal beams overhead: deer, wolves, bears, boars. Wilders saw Victor looking.
‘Are you a sportsman?’ Wilders asked.
‘There’s no sport in shooting at something that can’t shoot back.’
‘Is it really a surprise that we prefer to play games stacked in our favour?’
Victor didn’t respond. The small talk was boring him. Talking on the whole tended to bore him. Remember, it is what we do, not what we say, that defines us someone had told him.
Victor adjusted his footing.
Wilders sensed his lack of interest. He offered him a seat near the fire. Logs burned, sap crackling and spitting, embers rising. A guard caught the sparks. Victor watched one that almost made it over the top, then faded from searing yellow to matte black in an instant.
He perched on the sofa closest to the hearth. In part because he could see the front door from there, as well as hallways that led off to the rest of the lodge and the large staircase without too much head movement, but also so he was within reach of the poker that hung from the fireplace. It was a solid piece of metal, cast iron, and a blow to the temple or brainstem would mean death to the recipient. A hard strike to pretty much anywhere else on the body would result in incapacitation – broken femur; shattered ulna; crushed jaw.
He needed no weapon against a man like Wilders, but it was always better to have a weapon within reach than not.
The broker sat opposite him, falling into the seat in the way some people did. He lounged back and crossed his legs. Victor sat on the edge of the sofa, knees above his ankles and head above his hips.