Retribution ht-4

by Adrian Magson

  It was going to be a long flight.

  FOURTEEN

  Harry rolled out of bed in response to a repeated knocking, only recognizing where he was by the hotel room decor. His head felt stuffed with cotton wool after the flight from Northolt, and his talk with Deane at Marble Arch seemed a long time ago. The security chief had booked him into a small hotel on East 36th Street, just a few blocks from the UN headquarters.

  The visitor was a suited messenger holding up a UN pass for Harry to check, and a black canvas bag with a combination lock. Harry signed an electronic receipt pad and thanked the messenger, then called for an all-day breakfast to be sent up to his room. He functioned better on a full stomach.

  After a quick shower he got dressed and opened the bag. It contained several sheets of printed paper and a typed note from Deane, two 9mm Ruger SR9 semi-automatics with four magazines, and two electronic swipe cards.

  The note was brief.

  Details of the team members. Broms and Orti are included for background. Don’t waste time with the Foreign Legion — they’ll probably nail you to a door and let the ants eat you. Any problems with US military, let me know. Use the passes with discretion and ring me when you can.

  KD

  The passes carried a small square on one side. Harry’s name and photo was on one, Rik Ferris’s photo on the other, but with the name James Morrison. Deane showing his age and a liking for dead rock stars, Harry decided. The shots were official — culled, he guessed, courtesy of someone in Thames House, the headquarters of MI5 in London. The passes described them as representatives of the United Nations Field Security Office, and requested all help be given to the bearer, followed by a 24-hour international telephone number for verification.

  Room service interrupted his reading of the biographical sheets and he settled down to eat. Half an hour later, over a second cup of coffee, he had a rough plan of action worked out. He would contact the rest of the CP team — Pendry, Bikovsky and Koslov — in that order. The two Americans because they were closest, the Russian last. With a bit of luck he might not need to go all the way to Moscow, Koslov’s last listed posting. All he could remember of the man was a thin figure, pale of face and colouring, almost delicate compared with the other members of the team. But tough, if he was in the Russian army.

  According to Deane’s notes, Carl Pendry was now a ‘black hat’ instructor at the Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Don Bikovsky had left the US Marines and gone back to civilian life. His last recorded address was Venice Beach, California.

  He tried Bikovsky first, but got no answer. Next he tried Pendry’s number. The phone was picked up on the second ring by a man with the threat of a drill-sergeant’s eye on his back.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ he replied in rapid-fire speech. ‘I’m afraid Sergeant Pendry’s on the range, sir. He should be back late this afternoon. I’m Specialist Cantrell, sir. Can I take a message, sir?’

  Harry had to remind himself that most American soldiers spoke as if they were permanently on parade and addressing a senior officer. The energized-sounding individual on the other end was therefore behaving normally.

  ‘Just a friend calling, that’s all, Cantrell,’ he told the soldier in an effort to slow him down. ‘My name’s Harry Tate. I’m in the Fort Benning area tomorrow and I’d like to call by and stand him a beer. Where does he hang out when he’s not shouting at trainees?’

  There was an audible sigh of relaxation and Cantrell laughed. ‘Well, sir, there’s only one place Carl hangs out right now, and that’s the Holiday Inn North near Columbus airport. He’s there most evenings when he’s off free.’ Cantrell seemed to find the idea amusing for some reason.

  ‘Is there something I should know about the Holiday Inn, Mr Cantrell?’

  ‘Well, it’s no secret, I guess,’ Cantrell chuckled again. ‘The sergeant’s gone and got hisself a lady, sir. She’s a vice president there, I think. Shall I tell him you called, sir?’

  ‘Why not?’ It sounded as if Pendry was a popular man, which said something about his character. ‘Tell him I’ll see him at eighteen hundred hours at the Holiday Inn.’

  He replaced the phone and tried to picture the huge Ranger alongside any woman and gave up. He just hoped Pendry got the message and didn’t decide to make himself scarce. He wanted to keep their meeting as low key as possible.

  He tried Bikovsky’s number again but still with no answer. It looked as though he was going to have to go out to Venice Beach after he’d seen Pendry. For now, it was time to get moving.

  He was about to call the front desk for a cab when the phone rang. It was Ken Deane.

  ‘What you said about how the killer knew where to find Orti and Broms,’ he said without preamble. ‘It looks like we had a bug in the works. You need to be in on this. A car will be with you any minute.’ He rang off without asking if it was convenient.

  By the time Harry got downstairs, a suited driver was standing outside with a black Suburban at the kerb. The man ushered him inside and closed the door, then climbed in and took off along the street. They stopped outside a plain, concrete building a stone’s throw from UN Plaza, and the driver told Harry he should go to the fifteenth floor, conference room 1217, where Deane was waiting for him.

  ‘Harry. Come in.’ Ken Deane greeted him at the door of a small lobby opening into a conference room overlooking the East River. Harry could see two other people already seated at the long table, a large man with receding sandy hair and a woman who looked vaguely familiar.

  Before leading Harry through, Deane took his elbow and said softly, ‘You got the ID cards and stuff?’

  ‘Yes, thanks. I didn’t know you were a fan of The Doors.’

  Deane grinned. ‘Long time ago. Listen, for reasons that will become clear, I got you on attachment easily enough — we drag in specialists all the time; but Ferris was later than I’d expected and would have been pushing it. I got him a genuine ID card but he’s not on the books, although the name Morrison is. Just don’t let him get caught in the spotlight. And if he gets shot, you’d better bury him before the press finds out.’ He gave a lift of the eyebrows to show that he was aware of Rik’s very public gunshot injury in central London a few months ago, and gestured towards the conference room. ‘Come on in. Let’s get this started.’

  ‘You already met each other some years ago,’ Deane said, indicating the woman. ‘Karen Walters, Special Assistant to Anton Kleeman.’

  Walters was tall and slim, with the power-dressed appearance of the professional senior administrator. She was in her late forties, Harry judged, and if she remembered him, did not show it.

  ‘And Vince McKenna, my deputy.’

  McKenna smiled and pumped his hand, but didn’t speak.

  Deane indicated chairs and said, ‘My apologies for the drama, Harry. We’re meeting in this annexe because going through the security screens at UN Plaza would take up too much time. Vince?’ He waved at McKenna to continue and sat back to listen.

  ‘Right.’ McKenna cleared his throat. ‘Until yesterday afternoon, a woman named Irina Demescu was employed as an analyst in our IT department. She failed to report in today, which was out of character. Her supervisor tried to contact her at home, but without success. When they checked her workstation, they found her desk had been cleared. That automatically triggered an alert to the departmental security rep, who signalled the central security office.’ He blinked as the words tumbled out, as if surprised. ‘We, uh. . ordered an immediate check of any computers she’d been using. That check is still ongoing, but she appears to have downloaded a quantity of personnel data from our archives.’

  Harry felt all eyes on him. ‘What sort of data?’

  ‘Names, addresses, service history. . mostly from our DPKO records.’ He blinked. ‘Sorry — that’s our Department of Peacekeeping Operations. It was mostly military personnel, but there were a couple of civilian names, too, because they were all connected by circumstance.’ He gave a brief flicker of his
eyes at Karen Walters.

  Harry did not miss the look. Wariness coupled with antipathy. ‘How many people are we talking about?’

  McKenna consulted his notes. ‘About a dozen. Most were lifted a week, ten days ago, with one copied as late as yesterday afternoon just before she left.’ He stopped speaking and glanced at Deane.

  Harry wondered if all meetings in the UN were conducted at this pace, and was glad he hadn’t taken up Deane’s offer of a job all those years ago. He’d have probably thrown himself in the East River by now.

  Deane leaned forward and said, ‘It seems Demescu volunteered to work late on several occasions over the last few weeks. That wasn’t unusual; she was a conscientious worker, so nobody thought anything of it. It meant she had an office to herself.’ He lifted his eyebrows. ‘There’s a minimum staff ruling in the IT department of no less than two personnel at all times. It’s been ramped up since nine-eleven. But there’s been a flu virus going round and the department was hit pretty bad. It seems nobody told security and with the shortages there was no regular audit.’

  ‘Did she have the skills to search all the files she wanted to?’ asked Karen Walters. She was looking strained.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Deane. ‘She came from Microdata after graduating from UCLA in computer sciences. Her supervisor says she was one of the best.’

  Harry thought it odd that someone had come from Microdata to the UN; he didn’t know the relevant salary levels, but he was willing to bet the UN paid less than a going commercial concern like the electronics giant.

  McKenna said helpfully, ‘Although she left an audit trail.’

  ‘Audit trail?’

  ‘Right, ma’am — it’s an electronic footprint showing who’s been in the files. It tells us where she looked, dates, times. . all that.’

  ‘She didn’t erase it?’ Deane looked surprised.

  ‘Not over the last two days. Early on it probably wouldn’t have mattered. She could have come up with half a dozen reasons for being in there. Latterly, well, she probably knew her time was up, so why bother? I think she collated the information as she went, taking it out of the building piecemeal or on a memory stick.’ He explained, ‘The terminal she was using was blind, with no access to the outside.’

  Deane gave McKenna a pointed look as if reminded how susceptible they were to data theft. He said, ‘OK, let’s move on. Where are we right now?’

  McKenna shook his head. ‘We don’t have a lead on her. We’ve checked her apartment, but there’s no response. We’re waiting on a court order to go inside. A neighbour thinks she saw Demescu getting into a cab with a couple of bags late last night. She has family in eastern Europe and spoke in the past of not being able to do enough to help them.’

  Walters puffed out her cheeks. ‘Well, it looks like she’s made up for it now.’

  ‘What exactly did she take?’ Harry asked, before the game descended into an interdepartmental wrangle.

  ‘Her supervisor ran a duplicate programme.’ McKenna opened a folder on the table before him. He took out a number of sheets of closely printed paper. Each one bore a colour-print photo followed by several lines of information. ‘Most of this was downloaded days ago. The supervisor says that anything lifted more recently was just updates of any changes to the files.’

  Walters craned her head to see. ‘What are they?’

  ‘What he said,’ Deane muttered. ‘Personnel files on a bunch of people.’ He reached across and shuffled the sheets apart, reading out the names. ‘Bikovsky, Broms, Orti, Koslov, Pendry, Carvalho. . and two civilians, Kleeman and you.’ He looked at Walters in apology. ‘There were a couple of other names, one of them deceased through natural causes.’

  Harry recognized the sheets. He’d been given the same information but in a slightly different format. The photos staring up at them were the faces of the CP team, with one exception.

  ‘Who is Carvalho?’

  Deane looked at the sheet. ‘That’s a mistake. He’s a US Marine, one of the convoy guards. I don’t think he figures in this.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘As far as we can figure out, he went to Pristina with the convoy and the other depot guard, a guy named Oakes, from your RAF regiment. The deceased man was a Brit from the Royal Military Police. He stayed on at the compound. With both Orti and Broms murdered, I think we can say that this is categorically part of the threat. A terrorist threat,’ he added heavily. ‘I don’t know Demescu’s, uh. . affiliations, but I gather she’s a Muslim with family in Albania.’

  ‘That’s outrageous.’ Walters looked shocked. Twin red spots had appeared on her cheeks. ‘You’re saying it’s a religious attack because she’s a Muslim?’

  ‘You’re damn right it’s outrageous.’ Deane came back at her without heat. ‘It’s also outrageous that an employee of this organization has conspired to provide a killer with personal data for the purposes of murder. And before you get all feminist on my ass, we still haven’t discounted your name being on his list. You were there, too, don’t forget.’

  Nobody spoke for several seconds, then Harry said to McKenna, ‘You said the woman downloaded some information before she left.’

  McKenna nodded. ‘That’s correct. Her supervisor believes she was accessing and updating recent additions to the files.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About you. She knew you were coming.’ He pursed his lips. ‘And now, so does the killer.’

  FIFTEEN

  Standing in a rubbish-strewn doorway on the Lower East Side, beneath a latticework of scaffolding up the front of the building, Kassim was watching a first-floor apartment across the street. At ground level was a general store, with the owner, an old Vietnamese man, cleaning the front window. A steady stream of customers had been coming and going, with enough movement to cover Kassim’s presence. So far he had seen no sign of occupation, although the page in the binder had given this as his next target’s temporary address.

  He checked his watch and wished he had brought something to drink. He was thirsty and tired and beginning to feel the cold. The drop in temperature had been acute after the clammy heat he’d been used to in the mountains, but it was damp here, too, which he was finding debilitating. Maybe he needed to get a coat; one of those padded jackets he had seen people wearing. It might also serve as another layer of camouflage, to help him blend in.

  Earlier, Kassim had dug out the address of a contact he had been given on New York’s East Side, and found it belonged to a man running a small travel agency. The name he was using was Agim Remzi, allegedly a Kosovar who had been in America for over twenty years.

  Kassim was reluctant to put his trust in people he had never met, no matter what their stated origins. But the situation demanded it. Remzi, as part of the extended network he was relying on, had agreed to provide Kassim with money and assistance; he could have little interest in betraying him, since it would lead to his own downfall.

  He had walked past the front of the agency twice, noting the layout. It was in a busy district with other businesses nearby. After a truck dropping off banded stacks of catalogues had departed in a cloud of exhaust fumes, Kassim had walked through the front door. A woman was tapping at a computer keyboard beneath garish posters of sun, sand and snow, and the place smelled of cheap perfume and stale cigarette smoke.

  The woman had looked at him with dark eyes, her chin raised in mute query.

  ‘Agim Remzi,’ Kassim had said simply.

  The woman disappeared through a door at the back and returned moments later followed by a thin, ascetic individual with startlingly blue eyes and grey hair. Remzi beckoned him through, telling the woman to lock the door. Inside his office he offered tea, clearing his desk by pushing papers into his top drawer.

  ‘It is an awkward time,’ breathed Remzi, gesturing at his desk. ‘Busy as hell. .’ The Americanism sounded false and Kassim wondered to what extent this man had become part of the culture around him. Enough to betray him if he felt threatene
d?

  ‘It is the will of God,’ he muttered darkly, a terse reminder.

  Remzi leaned forward and lifted his chin. ‘Of course. What do you need of me?’

  Kassim had checked his money reserve, which was dwindling fast. He would need more if he had to travel far over the next few days. But with Remzi running a travel agency, that should be the least of his problems.

  ‘First, money,’ he replied. ‘Also tickets. You know the places I have to go.’

  ‘Yes. Where to next?’ Remzi picked up a pencil and pad.

  Kassim reached across and took the pencil from his hand. ‘You do not need to know that yet. Only that I will call you when I need them — but they must be ready with any paperwork.’

  ‘As you wish. It has all been arranged.’ Remzi opened his desk drawer and took out a bulky envelope. It was creased and banded many times with elastic.

  ‘Used notes, all small, all checked. You should have no problems.’ When Kassim looked blank, Remzi explained, ‘All notes have numbers. There are many fakes in circulation. Give someone one of those, and you will have Treasury agents sitting behind you closer than a child to its mother.’ He grinned humourlessly. ‘The best thing about this godless country is that nobody likes being cheated. What else do you need?’

  Kassim stuffed the envelope in his jacket and took out the binder. He had already removed the pages bearing the details of Orti and Broms. ‘You know about this?’

  Remzi nodded cautiously. ‘Of course. I know the person who provided the details inside.’

  ‘Good. This information. . what if it is not correct?’

  The man frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘What if I do not find all these people?’ Kassim had considered at the start that many of the names in the binder might have moved on; as members of the military, their destiny was not their own.

  Remzi scratched a note on a notepad, and passed the slip of paper across the desk. Kassim looked at it. Irina@hotmail.com. It meant nothing to him. He shrugged.