Assassins Hunted

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Why that particular order of location?’

  Miles shrugged. ‘No reason that I can see. It just is what it is. She was due to move again in two weeks’ time.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Copenhagen.’

  ‘What about the job she had in Cyprus – at the British Embassy? Was that a ruse to keep her close?’

  ‘Or a ruse for her to keep an eye on us.’ Miles rubbed his chin and flipped the folder shut. ‘Where’s the boy?’

  ‘Next door, in D-43, watching cartoons.’ Nathan pointed to one of the other monitors.

  ‘Any indication from the psych report how he’s holding up?’

  ‘He seems fine, all things considering. Asks for his mother every now and again, but seems to be okay when they’ve told him she’s just next door and helping us with some stuff.’

  Miles sighed. ‘Poor mite.’ His thoughts turned to his own nephew, only three years younger than the boy, and wondered how he would cope in the same circumstances. He shook his head to clear the thought. He didn’t want to contemplate such a scenario.

  ‘All right,’ he said, and stood, stretching his arms over his head. He stifled a yawn and snatched up the folder before turning to the inner door. ‘Let’s see what she’s got to say for herself.’

  ‘How did they find her?’ asked Nathan. ‘She must’ve made a mistake.’

  Miles shook his head and thought of the documents he’d been reading all night. ‘Eva Delacourt doesn’t make mistakes,’ he said. He pointed towards the two-way mirror between the office and the interview room.

  The woman sat forward and put her head in her hands, momentarily letting her true emotions show, and obviously not caring who saw the gesture.

  ‘Someone knew where she was. Someone sent the strike team there.’

  ‘Well, that was a monumental fuck-up.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Chapter Three

  Eva raised her head from her hands as a man entered the room, and immediately noticed how dishevelled he looked.

  Maybe she wasn’t the only one having a rough time of it, then.

  He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties, his light brown hair just starting to recede from his forehead. His green eyes were bloodshot, but she couldn’t tell whether that was from lack of sleep, too much coffee, or both.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, and held out his hand as he approached. ‘I’m Miles Newcombe.’

  ‘Hello, Miles,’ she said, returning the handshake. ‘What’s your role in all this?’ She cast her eyes around the room and then pointed at the mirror. ‘Are you in charge, or are there several layers above?’

  His mouth twitched. ‘There are a few layers, yes.’

  She leaned back in her chair and watched as he dropped a notepad and a manila folder on the desk between them and settled himself into the chair opposite. She noticed the wedding ring on his left hand, and pitied the woman who had married him. He was obviously a career-spook, no doubt of that.

  She sighed, and pointed at the folder. ‘That’s what my life comes down to, is it? A flimsy file?’

  Miles loosened his tie, rolled it up, and placed it on the desk. ‘I’m wondering how much of your life is in here, actually.’ He glanced at it, but didn’t open the file. ‘It does seem a bit thin, given some of the stories I’ve been hearing tonight.’

  ‘Where’s Alex?’

  ‘Next door, watching cartoons.’ He smiled. ‘He’s a nice kid.’

  ‘You’ve got children of your own?’

  ‘No.’

  His demeanour changed slightly, and Eva picked up a sense of loss in his tone. She decided not to press him, however, and instead edged forward on her chair and folded her arms on the desk. ‘Have you done a psych evaluation already?’

  ‘He’s fine. I’m sure with your care he’ll be able to put it behind him over the coming months.’ He finally flipped the folder open, and clasped his hands together so they covered the front page.

  She managed to read some of it though, then relaxed as she realised the typed words were simply a timeline of her documented past. No surprises. Good to know he’d done his homework.

  She allowed herself to relax a little, and settled in to answer his questions.

  ‘Your flight from RAF Akrotiri was okay?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘How long was it before you were able to leave the property?’

  ‘What’s left of it, you mean?’ Eva leaned back in her seat. ‘Two hours, by the time the fire service had put the flames out and then the local police called the embassy.’

  ‘Any issues?’

  ‘None. I showed the policeman in charge my diplomatic credentials, and he provided a car and driver to get us to the RAF base straight away.’ She broke off, a small smile crossing her lips. ‘I think he was glad to be rid of us. The neighbours were certainly giving him a hard time.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose.’ Miles rubbed his chin and turned a page. ‘Were you able to salvage anything at all?’

  ‘No. I’m even wearing borrowed shoes.’

  He glanced down and she shuffled in her seat so she could move her foot out from under the table.

  ‘They’re rather, er, fetching.’

  She shrugged, and straightened. ‘They’ll have to do.’

  ‘I’ll have someone take a note of your measurements; we’ll send someone out to get a change of clothes for you and Alex.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Can you tell me exactly what happened?’

  ‘I’m presuming you’d like to hear it all “from the top”,’ she said, accentuating the words with her fingers.

  He nodded. ‘If you wouldn’t mind. You know how it is,’ he added with an apologetic shrug. ‘Better to hear what happened with my own ears.’

  Eva began to walk him through the events of the past twenty-four hours, starting with a précis of how her day had been prior to Alex calling to her, and the gatehouse guard’s murder.

  As she began to talk, Miles took a pen from his shirt pocket and began to take notes. She was slightly surprised that he favoured a fountain pen, thinking it a little old-fashioned, but she kept churning out the words, watching as his large looped handwriting began to fill page after page of the large notepad he’d brought in with him.

  She stopped after fifteen minutes and reached out for one of two glasses that had been left on the table, and nodded her thanks as Miles filled it and the other for himself from a plastic jug.

  She took a few sips, then pointed to the notepad. ‘Isn’t this being recorded?’

  A faint smile crossed his lips. ‘I prefer to take notes,’ he said. ‘It helps me absorb what I’m hearing.’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Of course, if I miss anything, then we’ve got a back-up.’

  His gaze fell to her, his eyes sparkling.

  He’s loving this, she realised. Probably the most excitement he’s had here in years.

  ‘Right, where were we?’ He flicked over the page, checked his last note, then looked up at her. ‘The remote for the air conditioning unit. Why?’

  She shrugged. ‘They were professionals. Unless they had a complete rookie with them, none of them were going to hit a light switch after smelling all that gas. I had to force their hand.’

  Miles frowned. ‘The explosion that levelled the house?’

  Eva nodded. ‘Whoever was leading the intruders from the front door had to open the door into the kitchen if they were going to try to breach the panic room. I popped the back off the remote to expose the batteries to be sure, then lined it up so the door would hit it when they pushed it open, causing an explosion.’

  She watched, fascinated, as he wrote the word “boom” and then drew a little cloud around it. She tore her eyes away as he raised his head.

  ‘What about accents?’ he said. ‘Recognise anyone’s voice?’

  She took a moment, closed her eyes, and tried to remember. ‘There was one man. When the first intruder came through the front
door and the bleach landed on him, he yelled, and I heard another man speak.’ She opened her eyes. ‘Eastern European, I think.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely not Russian, but perhaps one of the old Eastern Bloc countries.’

  ‘Do you know how many there were?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said, and frowned. ‘Although I’m assuming a minimum of six. Three through the front, three at the rear.’

  He nodded. ‘Spot on.’

  ‘How many were left?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miles. ‘Therein lies the problem. No-one to question to find out who they worked for.’

  ‘Damn,’ replied Eva. ‘I’ll try to remember that next time.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘It was merely an observation.’

  ‘So,’ she said, as she crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned back in her chair. ‘How the hell did they find me?’

  ‘You’ve got no ideas? Anything at all?’

  She shook her head, exhaustion threatening now that the adrenalin had well and truly worn off. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘And that’s what worries me.’ She uncrossed her arms and eased forward. ‘I haven’t seen anything these past few weeks. I would’ve told the Section otherwise.’

  He sighed, and threw his pen down. ‘That’s what we thought.’

  Chapter Four

  Miles pushed the door closed, stalked over to the spare chair in front of the computer screens, and slung the folder next to his empty coffee cup.

  He sank into the chair and ran a hand over his eyes.

  Nathan broke the short silence that followed. ‘Do you think she’s telling the truth?’

  ‘Yes,’ Miles mumbled from behind his hand.

  ‘Shit.’

  After a pause, Miles heard the other man’s chair squeak and waited for the next question.

  It didn’t take long.

  ‘Miles – all I know is what my job description entails. Why was she in hiding?’

  Miles sighed, pushed the chair away from the desk so he could stretch out his legs, and folded his arms across his chest, wondering how the hell he was going to come up with a strategy to fix the problem that would meet with the Section chief’s approval.

  ‘It’s because of her fiancé. His name was Douglas Bolton,’ he began, keeping his eyes on Eva through the glass. ‘Doug worked at the British Embassy in Prague as a cultural attaché.’

  ‘He was a spy?’ Nathan leaned forward, resting his arm on the desk as if to stop himself from falling out of his chair.

  Miles glanced at him, then back to Eva. ‘Yeah. He was a spy.’ He paused. ‘More like a messenger, really, without wanting to make it sound insignificant. He passed on messages between us, the CIA, and various informers. He used the diplomatic communications channels to get information in and out of the country.’

  ‘What sort of information?’

  Miles eyed the folder, then looked away. ‘Sensitive information.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The Section received intel to suggest his life was in danger, so we had them both moved to a safe house in the city,’ said Miles. ‘The admin staff at the embassy were told Doug and Eva were going on a holiday for a few weeks. Except after two weeks, it became apparent that if they stayed there, Doug’s contacts would deteriorate – the sort of informers he had links to, they’d never talk to anyone else.’

  ‘So, the Section chief sent them back?’

  Miles nodded. ‘Doug agreed, though. He’d just made contact with a new informant who wanted to defect when the Section pulled them out, and there was still time to make contact without it seeming suspicious. He was as keen as us to see it through.’

  ‘What about Eva? What was she doing all that time?’

  Miles ran his hand over his jaw. ‘She was assigned as Doug’s close protection officer as a way of taking a break from her work for the Section after a particularly difficult job.’

  ‘Was she in danger too?’

  ‘No more than usual.’

  ‘So, how was he killed?’

  ‘He was walking down the front steps of their house in Malá Strana towards his car. The driver was standing with the passenger door opened.’

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘Of course.’ Miles leaned forward and balanced his elbows on his knees. ‘As Doug reached the pavement, a motorbike appeared from a side street, sped past, and the pillion passenger took out Doug and his driver. Single shots to the head.’

  ‘Shit.’ Nathan leaned back in his chair, and Miles caught the note of admiration in his voice despite the seriousness of the events. ‘That’s one hell of a shot to take once, let alone twice.’

  ‘There are only a handful of likely candidates we know of that could possibly have done it,’ said Miles.

  ‘So that’s why she’s been in hiding,’ said Nathan. ‘The shooter and the accomplice were never caught.’

  ‘Right.’ Miles jerked his thumb at the wall. ‘Plus, she had the boy to worry about. He was only three at the time.’ He pushed a newspaper clipping across the desk to Nathan, its headline screaming out the terror of the assassination of a high-profile British Embassy official in the historical enclave of Malá Strana.

  He swallowed, the thought of his nephew having to be told that his father had been assassinated in cold blood sending a shiver up his spine and across his shoulders.

  Nathan snatched the clipping from the desk, pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and squinted at the grainy photograph that depicted the front of a three-storey house, its front door obscured by plastic sheeting that led down to the pavement to maintain the crime scene. ‘And so she’s been hiding ever since.’

  Miles nodded.

  Nathan’s gaze drifted to the woman on the other side of the glass, and he flicked his glasses back onto his nose. ‘That can’t have been easy with a kid in tow.’

  ‘No, it can’t have been.’

  ‘Anything to suggest why her fiancé was shot?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘Only rumours,’ said Miles. ‘But we can’t prove it, because no-one got the chance to ask him before he died.’

  ‘What sort of rumours?’

  ‘We thought he might have been passed some information, something explosive,’ said Miles. ‘I was only a junior analyst at the time, but whatever it was died with him. Housekeeping got to the house at the same time as the emergency services and turned the place upside down. Eva was brought in for questioning, too – standard procedure in the circumstances, but she knew nothing of his activities. He never discussed it with her. Both of them were true professionals.’

  ‘Shooting from a motorbike though,’ mused Nathan. ‘That’s the Israelis’ preferred method of dispatch, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was also Eva’s method. She was one of our best assassins until she took a break from that and joined the contingent at the British Embassy.’ Miles scratched his earlobe as he stared through the glass at Eva. ‘It’s the reason why we think he was deliberately targeted. Retaliation for one of her hits.’

  Chapter Five

  Miles turned at the sound of the keypad on the door being activated, then stood as the Section chief entered the room.

  ‘Sir. I didn’t know you were in the building so early.’

  ‘I think it’s going to turn into a long day for all of us.’ The elder man pointed through the glass. ‘Anything of use?’

  ‘Honestly, no,’ said Miles. ‘We’ve been through it a few times, from different angles. I’d say her memory is perfect. No deviation from the story at all.’

  He watched, warily, as the Section chief stared through the glass at Eva.

  Gerald Knox had been his boss for only a year since Petersen had retired, and he’d yet to get used to the man’s grating manner.

  It wasn’t Gerald’s fault, of course. Recruited into MI6 straight from university, he held an enviable track record of running successful overseas operations, and had a reputation as bein
g an impeccable strategist. Rumour had it that the man was still gunning for the top job, despite the fact his own retirement was only two years away. However, his style of management left a lot to be desired; one moment he could be fractious, demanding to know every detail of an active operation; the next, driving his team by playing to their egos.

  Knox pointed at the manila folder. ‘What do you make of it all?’

  ‘Either the people who arranged the attack on her got lucky, or we’ve got a serious leak.’

  Knox’s eyes opened wide. ‘A leak?’

  Miles shrugged. ‘I can’t think of any other explanation,’ he said. ‘She’s one of the best we have. The whole operation has been running without a hitch for three years – so well, in fact, that we’ve only had a watching brief assigned to it for the past nine months,’ he added, indicating Nathan.

  ‘That’s worrying,’ said Knox, his gaze returning to the woman sitting in the interview room.

  ‘Sir? I wonder if it’d be possible to have Eva relocated to a hotel for the next few days?’ said Miles. ‘Under guard, of course,’ he added as Knox’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Maybe if we get her and Alex into some nicer surroundings than this, she’ll be able to relax a bit. Perhaps that will trigger a memory from one of them; something we can use.’

  ‘I don’t know, Newcombe. Seems awfully risky.’

  ‘I understand, but at least that way, Nathan here will have time to finish going through the camera feed from the complex. If he finds anything, we can run it by her – see if she recognises anyone.’ He glanced over his shoulder through the mirror. ‘Let’s face it. She’s got nowhere else to go.’

  Knox rubbed at his chin. ‘I suppose that would work. It’s not ideal, of course.’

  Miles held his breath. He desperately wanted a chance to continue working on the case, now that he knew the woman’s background. And then there was Alex, an innocent caught up in a horrendous attack. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands. He’d vowed to himself that he’d find those responsible, and he didn’t want to let the boy down.