The Assassin

by Andrew Britton

  Vanderveen smiled and said, “If you think it’s safe to talk, Nina, you don’t need to call me Russell.”

  She smiled back demurely but without hesitation, and Vanderveen shook his head in amusement. Her unflinching ability to blend into her surroundings was something that continued to amaze him. Despite the privileged upbringing that al-Tikriti had described, Yasmin Raseen had spent her youth in a country that hindered women at almost every turn. He had not seen her wear a headscarf, yet she appeared at ease without it. He had not seen her pray once — let alone five times a day — yet she appeared unrepentant. The holy month of Ramadan was scheduled to start in less than two weeks, and it was clear she had no intention of fasting. At every turn she had defied his ideas of how she should act. Her indulgence in Western behavior only made her presence more confusing. Her controllers, if they had their way, would severely limit the future liberation of Iraqi women. He could not understand her motivation in helping them.

  “Will, how much do you know about the man we’re going to meet?”

  “Next to nothing. Why do you ask?”

  She seemed to hesitate. “Doesn’t it worry you? Not knowing, I mean? This man could have switched sides. He could be working against us.”

  “Perhaps,” Vanderveen conceded. “But it’s not likely. Take my word when I say that your people have a great deal of money and time invested in this. They’re not going to risk the entire venture on a man they can’t trust.”

  “But how do they know?” she persisted. “What if—”

  “They can’t know.” Vanderveen leaned forward and lowered his voice, even though no one was close enough to hear. “The whole thing is a risk, but we don’t have a choice. We need what this man is bringing us. Rühmann knows too much; not the target, perhaps, but he acquired the weapon. He knows what it can do, and he knows how it’s disguised. He can’t be allowed to live.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she murmured. A few minutes passed. She finished her tea and ordered another pot as Vanderveen picked at his meal. The waitress hovered nearby, a pretty girl whose gaze had been locked on their table ever since they’d arrived. She had just stepped up to clear their plates when a flicker of movement caught Vanderveen’s attention. A man in a gray suit and green tie was taking a seat on the other side of an enormous concrete planter, which, at this time of year, was filled with nothing more than sandy soil and cigarette butts. The newcomer placed his briefcase down by his feet, unfolded his paper, and signaled the waitress. Seeing this, Vanderveen leaned back in his seat and looked at Raseen.

  “You might as well make yourself comfortable,” he said. “I think we’re going to be here a while.”

  An hour slipped past. Raseen ordered a basket of scones as the surrounding tables started to fill, despite the overcast skies. Vanderveen both welcomed and despised the lunch-hour crowd, which was made up of weary tourists, well-groomed clerks from the Strand, and government workers from Somerset House. The other patrons helped them to blend in, but also made it much harder to detect surveillance.

  He had been watching closely since they boarded the ferry in France, and felt reasonably sure they had not been followed. Unfortunately, he could not say the same for the courier. To make matters worse, he was struck by the same tingling sensation he’d felt the previous night in Calais. His instincts were telling him something was wrong, and yet, he had no choice but to go forward with the meet. If they pulled out now, they would lose valuable hours — even days — setting up a second attempt. That was time they just didn’t have. More to the point, al-Douri might begin to question his commitment, and he would undoubtedly forfeit the second half of his fee. Vanderveen had no intention of letting that happen.

  Finally, the man in the gray suit called for the check. Vanderveen didn’t need to follow suit; he had already paid for their meal. From the corner of his eye, he watched as the courier stood, collected his briefcase, and left the terrace. He was clearly visible for some time as he moved northwest through the little park, heading toward the Strand. Once he was nearly out of sight, Vanderveen rose to his feet and slipped a few pounds under an empty glass. Raseen took his arm, and they left the terrace in turn, following at a discreet distance.

  The Strand, running from the west end of Fleet Street to Trafalgar Square, the site of the National Gallery, is one of the busiest streets in London. In a city with nearly 8 million inhabitants, “busy” can be a very misleading term. Although the Strand was home to a wide variety of shops, theatres, and restaurants, the congestive vehicular traffic should have done much to dissuade tourists, Vanderveen thought. Nevertheless, the street was completely packed. If there was any surveillance in place, it would be almost impossible to spot. It was this fact that was troubling him as he walked northeast with the flow, Raseen’s arm tucked loosely beneath his own. The man in the gray suit was 30 feet ahead of them, his dark head weaving in and out of sight. There was a constant din: the sound of rushing feet as pedestrians swept past, jabbering into their cell phones; the noise spilling from the open doors of the restaurants and pubs; and the steady rumble of traffic a few feet to their left. Exhaust poured over the sidewalk in a thick, constant cloud, but nobody seemed to notice. When a sound emanated from the folds of Raseen’s new coat, it took her a few seconds to realize her phone was ringing. She pulled it out with a puzzled expression. “Hello?”

  She handed it over, and Vanderveen lifted the phone to his ear. “Do you know the Savoy?”

  The voice bore the crisp, upper-class diction of Eton or Sandhurst, which was fitting; the Savoy was one of London’s oldest and finest hotels, located only a few blocks away, close to the river. “Yes.”

  “I need to collect a package at the concierge. Wait in the bar for twenty minutes, then head upstairs. Room 508. The desk will call up for you.”

  Vanderveen hesitated before realizing he could use any name he wished. The clerk would not ask for identification, just the number of the room he wanted to call. “Agreed. Twenty minutes.”

  The phone went dead, and he handed it back to Raseen. “You should have told me you gave him the number,” she whispered reprovingly. “I was going to get rid of that phone yesterday.”

  “We’ll dump it before we leave the city.”

  “What did he say?”

  He relayed the instructions, hesitated, then spoke his mind. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice dropped a notch, and she leaned in close, switching to French. “Something doesn’t seem right. It’s nothing I can see, but still…”

  Vanderveen nodded uneasily. He slowed and stepped to the right, pretending to examine a shop window as people brushed past on the sidewalk. The overcast skies caused the window to act like a mirror, reflecting everything behind them. They stayed that way for about twenty seconds, looking for anything too familiar, ignoring the bright display of fall fashions. Raseen, looking deeply, deeply into the makeshift mirror, suddenly spoke up. “Green Opel. Right behind you.”

  Vanderveen tracked the car in the glass, straining to see through the slight gaps in the passing crowd. The small, two-door sedan was moving in the same direction they were, but apart from that, there was nothing unusual about it. There was one occupant — an older male, from what he could see. The vehicle was moving at a steady clip, and it passed from view a few seconds later, followed by a battered white van and a Renault hatchback.

  He turned to find Raseen had worked her way to the edge of the street and was staring after the Opel. As he moved next to her, she said, “I saw the license the first time… R313 CVG.”

  “The first time?”

  “The same car passed us about a minute ago. It was going in the same direction.”

  He had not seen her look for it, and she had been on his right arm, farthest from the street. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, of course.” Her voice was insistent, but it caught at the end. “I’m almost certain. One older man in the driver’s seat, no passengers. He’s wearing a blue
shirt, I think, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the same car.”

  Vanderveen kept walking, wondering how she could have seen all that, given the speed of the passing traffic. She followed reluctantly. “Maybe he’s lost,” he said.

  “He must have been driving very fast to make it around the block that quickly,” she replied doubtfully, her mouth very close to his ear. “I know what I saw. We’re being followed.”

  The whispered words sent a chill down his spine. He cast off the doubt and tried to think it through. What had she really seen? There was just one car. If they were using more than one vehicle, they wouldn’t have stood out so easily. On the other hand, there might be watchers on foot, rotating in and out of the lead position. If that was the case, they wouldn’t know until the trap was sprung.

  Still, something didn’t make sense. The only place they could have been picked out was at customs in Dover, and if that had happened, they would have been arrested on the spot. The Security Service wouldn’t wait and risk losing its quarry. Neither would the Special Branch, and they certainly wouldn’t attempt to apprehend their targets on a busy London street, where hostages were plentiful.

  So if there was surveillance, Vanderveen realized, it was focused on the man they were planning to meet in less than thirty minutes. The realization filled him with a strange combination of apprehension, anger, and relief.

  They passed a group of noisy teenage boys lounging in the doorway of a Pizza Hut. The young men stopped joking around to leer at Raseen as she walked past, but she was oblivious, her face troubled. Vanderveen waited patiently, giving her time to reach her own conclusion. As they continued walking, the restaurants started to fade away, to be replaced by the historic, weathered stone façades of the West End’s theatre district. Finally, she leaned in and said, “It’s not us. They would have moved in already, Will. They would have arrested us in Dover.”

  “I agree.”

  “Then we can’t make the meet,” she said, stating the obvious.

  Vanderveen felt something cold and wet hit his hand, then his face, the drops coming down in rapid succession. The people passing by seemed to take it in stride. Umbrellas appeared out of nowhere, springing up into view like the bulbs in a flowering field. Raseen huddled close and pulled her hood over her dark head. “What are we going to do?” she asked, her voice muffled by the waterproof fabric in front of her face.

  He thought for a moment, weighing the risks. One car meant they were watching the man in the gray suit, but they weren’t ready to move. Pulling out was not an option; he couldn’t afford to wait. It was worth the stretch.

  “We’re going ahead with it. Just stay on your toes, and be ready to do what I say.”

  Five minutes after Vanderveen and Raseen entered the lobby of the Savoy, the green Opel sedan shuddered to a halt on Southampton, a narrow road feeding into the Strand from the north. Ian Haines, the man in the driver’s seat, picked a Starbucks container out of the holder between the seats, shook the empty cup, and scowled. Cracking a window, he unbuttoned his blue flannel shirt, pulled it off, and tossed it into the backseat. Underneath, he was wearing a plain gray T-shirt. The rain was starting to come harder now, rattling against the windshield as he thumbed the TRANSMIT button on his two-way radio. “Mike, what do you have?”

  A hiss of static, then, “Nothing at the moment. I’ve got eyes on the front of the building.”

  “Good. You get anything useful?”

  Mike Scott was easily the best photographer in the unit. He ran his own successful business on the side, shooting family portraits out of a small studio on the east end of Fleet Street. “I got him from both sides of the road. Kind of hard to pick out his face in the crowd, but I think we’ll end up with some usable shots.” A pause, then the other man said, “I’m bloody soaking out here.”

  Haines chuckled mildly. “Our relief shows up in an hour. You can hang on ’til then, right?”

  “Whatever you say, mate. You’re the boss.”

  Haines laughed again at the inside joke. He and Scott had worked together for six years, yet strangely enough, neither man knew where the other fell on the government pay scale. Both had served in the British Army, Scott with the Blues and Royals, Haines with the 2nd Battalion of the famed Parachute Regiment. Scott was by far the younger of the two, having left his unit as a corporal in ’98. Haines, on the other hand, finished two tours in Northern Ireland during the late seventies, then went to the Falklands to play his part in the brief war with Argentina. He nearly applied to the Special Air Service — God knows his commanding officer had suggested it often enough — but more than a decade of sustained, bloody combat was enough for the young sergeant.

  Instead, Haines decided to get out altogether, leaving the regiment in ’84. After years of mediocre, unsatisfying jobs, he decided to apply for a position with the Security Service, otherwise known as MI5. The Service was primarily tasked with countering terrorist activity, both at home and abroad. He wasn’t expecting much, considering he’d never attended university. Much to his surprise, he was vetted after an intensive screening process and assigned to a mobile surveillance unit.

  Haines took to the work immediately; his only regret was that he hadn’t applied sooner. The work was interesting, the scenery changed, and the job was not as physically challenging as he’d been led to believe. After his time with 2 PARA, everything else was easy by comparison, including the seventy-five-day training course the Service had put him through. Even now, at fifty-two years of age, Haines was by no means the oldest member of the unit. Watchers came in all shapes and sizes, and for good reason. Variety made a good surveillance team almost impossible to spot.

  Looking over to the passenger seat, Haines lifted his copy of the Times and stared at the full-color photograph underneath. Generally speaking, members of the mobile surveillance unit were given very little information about the people they were assigned to track. Such was the case here; with respect to the man they were trailing now, Haines knew only the basics. Samir al-Askari was twenty-seven years old, a graduate of Eton College and the London School of Business. Currently, he was an account manager for the Export & Finance Bank in Amman; for this reason, he had been assigned the code name “Banker.” He had flown into Heathrow that morning on a Jordanian passport, and was immediately picked up by one of the watchers who staffed MI5’s airport office. Interestingly enough, the watch list that named al-Askari had been generated by MI6, but it fell to the Security Service to keep tabs on him on British soil. Haines wasn’t sure how al-Askari had earned himself a following, but to be honest, he didn’t really care. All they had to do was keep track of him until the relief showed up, and then they could get an early jump on the weekend.

  Haines glanced at his watch, then ran a hand through his iron gray hair. Fifty minutes to go.

  They had used their time in the lobby efficiently. The shop on the ground floor offered a small selection of exorbitantly priced clothing, most of it bearing the Savoy logo. After a few minutes of searching, Vanderveen managed to find a plain navy ball cap and a black windbreaker, which he brought to the counter. Raseen picked out a bright red anorak with a detachable hood. Vanderveen frowned at the color, but there wasn’t much else to choose from. Once he had paid, they made their way up to the fifth floor. Raseen tapped lightly on the door. It swung open, and they stepped inside.

  Vanderveen moved into the room and looked around quickly, vaguely taking note of the cream-colored walls, dark wood, and opulent furnishings. The door from the hall opened into a small sitting room. Passing through, he poked his head into the bedroom, finding it empty. Closing the door, he turned and walked to the rain-streaked windows, where he pulled the drapes shut, blocking out an impressive view of the Thames and the South Bank. Then he opened the credenza, turned on the television, and upped the volume to a dull roar. Finally, he flicked on the lights and turned back to their host.

  The courier had been watching all of this with a slight smile on his dark, narrow fa
ce, as if amused by the American’s paranoia. Vanderveen was instantly annoyed; everything he had just done was based on common sense, and it should have already been taken care of. His mind was still locked on the car Raseen had pointed out, and the courier’s seemingly lax attitude was doing nothing to improve his disposition.

  “What do I call you?”

  The courier shrugged. He had removed his suit jacket and loosened his tie. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? I suppose you can call me Khalil.”

  “You have what I asked for?”

  “Of course.” He pointed toward the desk facing the windows. The black briefcase was on top, along with a large brown envelope and the torn remains of a FedEx overnight box.

  Walking over, Vanderveen picked up the envelope and withdrew the contents. The first ten pages were typed. These would be notes thoroughly detailing the Austrian’s security measures. Setting them aside for the moment, he picked out a stack of 8 x 10s. Each full-color photograph was taken from a different angle, though they all depicted the same building. Finally, he got to the last two shots. One bore the image of Rühmann’s assistant. The other was a picture of Thomas Rühmann himself, obviously taken from a distance, but with a highquality telescopic lens. The image resolution was remarkably clear.

  “What’s in the case?”

  “Nothing. Just a few earnings reports to satisfy customs at Heathrow.”

  “Have you examined this file?”

  “Of course,” Khalil repeated. The knowing smirk returned to his face. “Who do you think took the pictures? I was ordered to compile an extensive dossier when we first entered into our relationship with Mr. Rühmann. You see, a group such as ours has to be prepared for all eventualities. As I’m sure you know, Mr. Vanderveen, information is the greatest commodity of all.”