Assassin (John Stratton)

by Falconer, Duncan

  So he began to examine ways in which he could succeed in the mission while at the same time experiencing the full extent of the event and its subsequent effects. He wouldn’t risk compromising the outcome. It had to succeed. And if the only way to achieve that was to die while ensuring its success, he would do that. Failure was not an option.

  But if he could find a way to survive, if only for a short time, he would consider it. And that was the problem that constantly bugged him. He couldn’t think of a way to do it.

  6

  Chandos walked into the loud, bustling hall of Waterloo Station, pausing to look up at the huge departures board above the platform entrances. The next train to Winchester was leaving from platform 12 in ten minutes.

  He checked his pockets again to ensure he could feel his passport and the envelope of money he’d taken from the safe of his London apartment. It was all there, including his wallet. Once again his senses warned him that someone was looking directly at his back. He’d felt it a dozen times since leaving the pub where he’d met Stratton. The eyes had followed him to Trafalgar Square and watched him while he caught a taxi. Each time he tried to catch them out he saw no one obvious. There were hundreds of people milling along the pavements and now inside the train station. It was impossible. Unless they were rank amateurs, which he knew they would not be.

  He’d hoped to make eye contact with whoever it was. He wanted to get some idea who to target should he find the opportunity. But also just to prove that the follower wasn’t a figment of his own overactive imagination. He hadn’t actually seen any evidence that he was being followed. But he’d been in the surveillance game for too many years and knew that a talented and experienced follower would be difficult to detect. Especially in such a crowded environment. His experience also reminded him that the crowds could be preventing the assassin from carrying out the hit just yet. If Chandos were to lead him to a quieter location where he might be able to identify the follower, it would also greatly increase his own vulnerability.

  He set off across the crowded ticket hall. He contemplated carrying out some more anti-surveillance drills, manoeuvres intended to catch out a follower by surprising them. An abrupt halt and about-turn to see who was behind. Look for any reactions. A circular walk that might put the hare behind the hound. But the problem with such ploys was that once the hound knew he’d been discovered, he might act.

  Which was why in most cases it was best for the hare not to do anything rash. Not let the follower know they were aware of them. It was the best course of action if the hare wanted to escape. And Chandos so desperately wanted to get away. If not, he was going to die. He was certain of that.

  He passed through the ticket gate of platform 10 and headed along the busy platform. The train had just arrived, its doors were open and people were streaming out of the carriages, multiplying the throng of bodies on the platform. Chandos kept walking towards the far end of the train. He speeded up as he reached the last carriage, took off his hat, jumped down onto the track in front of the carriage and hurried across the rails. A whistle blew as a member of the railway staff saw him.

  He clambered up onto the next platform. Past several people who stopped to look at him. Down onto the next set of rails. Whistles blew again. He ran to beyond the end carriage of another parked train. He climbed up onto the platform where the train was stopped, and strode along it, past several carriages that people were climbing aboard, and ducked inside one of them.

  Chandos was fit for his age but he’d pushed himself hard in his brief steeplechase and breathed deeply. He stood in the carriage doorway, not wanting to take a seat just yet, resisting the urge to look outside to see if anyone was searching for him. A member of the railway staff ran past.

  He stuffed his hat in his coat pocket and removed the coat entirely, folding it up and putting it on a shelf. A couple more railway staff walked by, looking in the windows and doors. Chandos picked a newspaper off the floor, took a seat and opened the pages.

  One of the train guards entered the carriage and began walking along it. Chandos did his utmost to control his breathing. He took in a deep breath and held it as the man passed him. He didn’t let it out until the guard had stepped back outside onto the platform. He watched him step into the next carriage.

  Chandos exhaled slowly and lowered his paper to look at the people around him. No one was taking any notice. He checked his watch. If he’d timed it well enough, the doors would be closing any moment.

  A whistle blew outside. If the railway staff couldn’t identify the man by the time the train was ready to leave, it would have to depart on time, Chandos figured. Seconds later he heard a loud hiss as all of the doors closed. A few seconds after that the carriage shunted hard and the train eased itself away from the platform, moving out from under the cover of the high station roof and into the city. The skies were growing dark as evening encroached. All he could think of was the follower: had he shaken them or not? It was impossible to know right then. But he wasn’t relying solely on the leap between platforms. He had several moves yet to make. The next would be even more daring. And much more revealing, should his follower choose to try to keep up with him.

  He put the paper down and got out of his seat. Retrieved his coat from the shelf and went to the door, where he looked through the window as far ahead as he could. A block of offices loomed. The area would do just fine. He was anxious to get going. If the assassin had got onto the train, he could be making his way along the carriages at that very moment. He could be in the next carriage. By running across the platforms Chandos had reliably informed the man that he was aware of him. The assassin might strike before he could try anything else.

  He reached up for the emergency stop handle and yanked it out of its housing. A second later the train’s brakes applied, the wheels screeching violently as the carriage jolted. Passengers braced for the sudden stop. All looking around. Questioning what was happening.

  The train came to a hard stop. Chandos was already pressing the open button. There was a loud gush and the doors slid open slowly. People nearby looked in his direction. He jumped before the door was fully open. He landed hard on the stones between the tracks and fell onto his knees, his first thought that another train might be passing.

  It was clear.

  He gathered himself and leaped forward, scanning left and right as he ran, looking for anyone jumping out after him. He skipped across several tracks before reaching a low wall that marked the track boundary. He paused, breathing heavily, as he looked back along the length of the train, which curved away in both directions. No one appeared to have followed. A man stood in the open doorway that he’d leaped from. But he only watched Chandos. He wondered if it was the assassin. And if so, why wasn’t he following?

  Chandos didn’t fancy waiting for an answer to the question. He scrambled over the low wall. The ground the other side was lower and on a steep incline. He dropped onto it, lost his footing and rolled most of the way down, winded and somewhat dizzy when he hit bottom. But within seconds he was up on his feet and pulling on his coat while hurrying down a tarmac path towards a main road.

  He looked back up the incline as he passed a row of trees that blocked much of his view of the boundary to the track. There was still no sign of a follower. At the main road he stopped briefly to decide on a direction. Office buildings ran the length of the other side of the road. There was a lot of traffic. He charged out into the road. Hurried through the crawling traffic. Mounted the pavement the other side. Ran through a gap between some buildings, across a car park the other side and onto another road lined with parked cars nose to tail. He kept going up it. When he reached the next junction, he paused to look back and catch his breath.

  A man came out of one of the buildings. He was wearing a business suit and headed away from Chandos. There was no one else.

  Chandos felt encouraged but forced himself not to be complacent and to seek complete success for that stage of the plan. There was a long way
yet to go.

  He saw a taxi dropping someone off and ran across the road towards it. As the passenger walked away, Chandos pulled open the door and climbed into the back of the cab.

  ‘Heathrow Airport, please,’ he said, out of breath, as he looked back in the direction he’d come.

  ‘That’ll be around fifty quid from ’ere, mate?’ the driver said.

  ‘That’s fine. I’m in a hurry, if you don’t mind.’

  The driver pulled the cab away from the kerb and they headed away from the junction. Chandos kept his eyes out of the rear window. No one appeared.

  As the cab took another turn, Chandos relaxed just a little. He looked ahead, confident he’d shaken the assassin, for the time being at least. He was under no illusion of escaping the killer completely. That would be impossible. He knew that. All he’d done was buy some time.

  His next move was even dicier. It would throw up a flag that would signal his location. But it was essential to his overall plan. He only hoped he’d have enough time to do it.

  7

  Mahuba felt tired as they drove along the bumpy, busy road to Bagram. His backside ached on the lumpy seat and his shoulders felt stiff. But he’d allow nothing to slow him down or deter him from reaching the destination. A couple more hours and he’d be there.

  The road began to climb and wind its way up into the hills. They passed several village compounds built on the treeless land either side of the highway, each a collection of mud houses surrounded by a single high wall. None were occupied and all had long since been abandoned.

  The land in all directions was vast and open. A boundary of distant mountains paralleled the road on their left. Those on the right were out of view but Mahuba knew they were there. He could see small bands of nomads on the distant plains. Their handful of tents. Trucks and camels. Goats. The Pakistani general glanced in his rear-view mirror to see the crate still there.

  Such an innocuous-looking object, he thought.

  He shifted his focus to the Hilux behind, its driver and passenger in the front, three armed Afghans sitting on the flatbed. The other Hilux behind that. Another in front. The Afghan escort had done its job well. Their presence alone was sufficient. They’d passed through two checkpoints without any problems. The police showed no interest in them or the crate. They had paperwork listing spare parts for a generator, but it had not been needed. His escorts, all handpicked Taliban, had assumed the identity of security guards from a known convoy company that specialised in protecting vehicles along the Kabul–Bagram road. The Taliban commander was a well-known convoy commander from that company. The police didn’t give his men a second look once they recognised him.

  It was late afternoon when Mahuba’s small convoy rolled into the town of Bagram along the central road leading to the main checkpoint into the vast US air base that sprawled less than a kilometre to the east.

  Bagram Town was a tightly compact and busy place. Most of the buildings were single-storey and constructed from a combination of mud bricks and concrete blocks. The main thoroughfare was a focus of local industry, lined with filthy shacks and lean-tos providing all types of vehicle tuning, tyre repairs, welding and other sundry services. Market stalls sold sad-looking local produce, clothes and footwear. They passed stripped vehicle carcases, left where they’d broken down. Many were Russian, from the days when the Soviets dominated Afghanistan. The air was filled with the smoke from countless cooking fires, inside and outside of the dwellings.

  The lead Hilux turned off the main thoroughfare and headed along a sandy road past several muddy, garbage-ridden backstreets. The US base’s impenetrable perimeter could occasionally be seen from the road. A grey-brown wall of earth and razor wire. The houses each side of the road had been built close together, but as the convoy drove away from the centre they grew further apart. Half a kilometre from the town the lead vehicle came to a stop outside a large walled compound, around thirty metres wide at the front, with a set of rusting, wrought-iron gates in the middle.

  The driver sounded his horn. A couple of armed Afghans sauntered into view through the gate. They unbolted it and pulled open both sides. The pick-ups drove in and the men closed and locked the gates behind them. They eased between a handful of dirty houses, scattering goats and chickens out of their way, to the back of the compound and the grandest building in comparison, about twice the size of the others. They stopped outside it and Mahuba climbed out, carrying a laptop bag and stretched his aching body while he looked around. A dozen bearded fighters were spread about, all carrying AK-47 assault rifles over their shoulders. They were a mixture of ages. Teenagers to men old enough to have seen the end of the Russian–Afghan war over two decades before. Clothes on washing lines outside the other smaller homes bore evidence of women and children living in them.

  Mahuba wasn’t pleased with the location. He’d asked for, and had been expecting, complete isolation. But he’d had little control over the execution of the planning in that respect. Particularly inside Afghanistan. It had been left up to third parties who weren’t privy to all the details of the operation. There was no point in complaining. It would have to do. He wasn’t about to start shopping around for a better house at this stage.

  The guards watched him with mixed curiosity. They knew he was a Pakistani. They could tell he had breeding. Riches or rank. As to what he was doing in Bagram, they didn’t have a clue. But then, they were never privy to information on anything of strategic value. Their lot in life was simply to obey. Without question. They had been ordered to protect the compound with their lives. And that is what they would do. None of them cared that they were eight hundred metres from one of the largest US military bases in Afghanistan. Ten thousand American troops. They believed the Americans would eventually be defeated and would leave their country, like every other invader had over the last few hundred years. The Afghans were in no hurry. Life was all about eating, resting, praying and fighting. That was their purpose, come rain or shine, shelter or hunger, apart for a break in the winter for some. There was no need to get excited about anything. They were energetic only when ordered to be. They measured each day by the number of prayers they made and the meals they ate. Life was simple. They would never be wealthy and none bothered as much as even to hope to be.

  Mahuba walked into the main building, followed by his servant. A house boy bowed to him as he entered the lobby. He ignored the boy and walked along a short corridor and through a doorway into a spacious though nearly empty living room. It had a table and chairs, a couch and a couple of rugs, and empty walls. He went to the nearest window, its simple wooden frame locked on the inside. An iron grille had been built into the masonry outside. A glance around at the other windows revealed they were of a similar construction.

  He decided it was probably perfect for what he needed. Austere felt right. All he required was solitude and security. And space to think.

  He put his laptop bag on the table, then leaned heavily on the top. It felt strong. He was satisfied. It would do.

  ‘Tea,’ he said.

  His servant relayed the order to the house boy who was standing in the doorway. He shoved the boy ahead of him as he led the way to the kitchen.

  Mahuba went back into the hallway. An open door to one side led to a flight of stairs inside an alcove. The narrow staircase turned tightly in the small space as it led up to the next and only other level of the building. He climbed the steps and came out through an open hatch onto the flat, dusty roof. An Afghan was sitting against a semi-circle of sandbags in one corner. Leaning against the short wall of sand-filled nylon sacks was a PKM 7.62mm machine gun with an extra-long barrel. He had several boxes of ammunition close to hand.

  The guard was smoking a cigarette. When he saw Mahuba he got to his feet and bowed slightly.

  Mahuba walked to the edge of the roof and looked about the town. And then he focused on the purpose of his visit. The US air base. Its perimeter had been constructed of countless rows of grey-brown HESCO parcel
s – large cube-shaped wire and cloth containers filled with earth – stacked side by side and one on top of the other in a pyramid fashion to create height and depth. With razor wire spread about them like it was a WWI battlefield. Beyond them he could see rows of concrete blast walls five metres high. Watch towers had been placed at intervals along the boundary, which went off into the distance for miles. A modern makeshift fortress.

  He could see only a portion of the base, it was so large. He watched a transport aircraft slowly fly out in the distance. A couple of jet fighters passed overhead. Helicopters hovered somewhere in the middle of the base. Waiting to land or having just taken off. The air seemed as busy as the ground.

  The Americans didn’t appear to be concerned about ground-to-air rocket attacks. Some of the aircraft were flying quite low. They had to be confident the area around the base was secure. Which it was.

  That was all about to change. As the base stood, with the current weapons arrayed against it, it was largely impregnable. The security entrances would be difficult to pass through without the right credentials. Every vehicle got thoroughly searched. But none of that mattered to him and the solution he had to the problem.