Retribution

by Adrian Magson

  Minutes later, a convoy of Pakistani army trucks roared by and set up a road block to the north of their position, stopping every vehicle going south.

  It was a signal for the driver to move. ‘Come,’ he said, wiping his hands and face. ‘We go now.’

  The traffic thickened and slowed noticeably as they neared Peshawar. Kassim was thinking about the chain of arrangements that had been made for him to come here, starting up in the Hindu Kush and ending wherever his journey might take him. This man, the driver, had not enquired as to his name nor given his own. For whatever reason, he was helping Kassim and that was enough. Kassim felt humbled by the risk the man was taking.

  On the outskirts of Peshawar, the man pointed to a bus stop. ‘From there a bus will take you to the airport,’ he said. ‘Your flight leaves in the morning, Insha’Allah, and you should use the time in Lahore to shake off anyone you think is watching you.’ He glanced at Kassim’s clothing, which was that of the hills, stiffened by dust and sweat, and pointed to the back of the truck. ‘There is a bag for you. It contains clothes. Find somewhere to change into them before you board the bus. And get your hair cut. The passengers are mostly airport workers and would not let you on the way you are.’

  ‘What is wrong with the way I am?’ Kassim had so far seen more people dressed the same as him on every street corner than in western clothing.

  ‘Because you look like a Talib, my brother – or a wild man.’ He tapped the side of his head with a stubby finger. ‘From now on, you have to think like the unbelievers and be one step ahead. And speak English, the universal language.’

  It was an indication that this man was no mere driver, but someone in the chain of command. The risk must have been judged worthwhile for such a person to come down here to see him off. He said nothing, merely nodded in understanding.

  Three hours later, Kassim was walking on board a Pakistan International Airlines flight to Lahore, with an onward connection to Paris Charles de Gaulle. He was carrying a sports bag and dressed in dark slacks, leather shoes and a white shirt, and had been shaved clean at a street corner barbershop, his hair washed and cut short with a side parting. He felt restricted in the new clothes, as if his body were encased in a tight sleeve from head to toe, and was convinced he was about to be stopped by security guards at any moment. But nobody paid him the slightest attention.

  As he took his seat, he put his hand in his pocket and felt for the piece of soft blue material that accompanied him everywhere he went. As he did so, he muttered a soft prayer and made a firm vow to succeed.

  All the talking, the schooling, the training and testing – and the years of fighting – had been aimed at this moment.

  He was on his way.

  THREE

  Harry Tate stared at the text on his mobile phone. It had bleeped seconds ago. He was trying to ignore it; calls when he was on a job were a distraction. Calls from the person who’d been trying to contact him for two days now, leaving voicemail messages, were even more so than most.

  Harry. Plse make Grosvenor Square tomorrow at 18.30? Urgent. Remember Mitrovica. Ken Deane.

  For no good reason that he could determine, Harry felt a ripple in his gut. Ken Deane and Mitrovica; the combination wasn’t good. Nor was being asked to remember the things he’d seen there. And if Ken Deane was still working for the UN, as he had been when they first met, it was the last thing he wanted. Take on a contract with the UN and you could end up somewhere hot, remote and deeply unfriendly.

  He looked up at the door of the house they were watching as a thickset man with ginger hair stepped outside. His name was Terry de Witt. He was supposed to be in hiding.

  ‘He can’t be,’ Rik Ferris muttered in disbelief, and reached for the door latch of the Audi.

  Harry put a hand on his sleeve. ‘Forget it. We’re too late.’ He nodded towards the end of the street.

  A black Range Rover had appeared, ghosting along the line of empty cars. To outward appearances just another luxury Chelsea tractor looking for a parking slot, it was nothing of the sort. Three men and the driver, Harry noted.

  He knew what would happen next: the car would stop alongside de Witt, and the driver would ask for directions, friendly but puzzled. De Witt would pause and move closer, even though he knew this area of Primrose Hill in north London as well as he knew the far side of the moon. But his naïve side, the side which had got him traced in the first place, would come to the fore in spite of several warnings to stay inside, no matter what.

  Sure enough, the two side doors opened and two of the men got out. They were big and moved swiftly, hauling de Witt inside. It took seconds, with no exchange of words. Give it an hour or two, Harry knew, and de Witt, South African numbers man to an Albanian arms dealer, would be overseas and gone for good. Or dead.

  ‘Do we stop them?’ Rik asked.

  ‘Only if you want those boys to put some dents in your nice car. Follow at a discreet distance.’ Harry dialled the contact number for the security company paying the bill for this job. When the call was picked up, he gave the registration of the Range Rover, descriptions of the occupants and the direction of travel. This was strictly an observe-only assignment and not worth the grief he figured would accompany that particular car with those three men if he and Rik tried to get in their way.

  ‘So what was the message?’ Rik was trying not to look disappointed at missing the chance of a hot pursuit through the city streets. He started the car and settled in a block behind the Range Rover, allowing a taxi to overtake to act as a screen.

  Harry read out the text. ‘That’s all I know. Something to do with Mitrovica in Kosovo. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that.’ Three voicemail messages and a text so far. It must be important.

  ‘Grosvenor Square?’ Rik swerved to avoid a cycle courier. ‘That’s the US Embassy. What’s Kosovo got to do with them? Is Deane CIA?’

  ‘Not unless he had a better offer since I last saw him.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Pristina, Kosovo in ’ninety-nine. He was the UN’s local field security rep. So he said, anyway.’ He switched off the phone and watched the Range Rover. He had no reason to think Deane had been playing a dual role in Kosovo, but he wasn’t going to enter the US Embassy unless he had to. Deane could come and talk to him out in the open.

  ‘Has he seen us, d’you think?’ Rik asked. The driver of the Range Rover didn’t seem in any great hurry, and was drifting along the street, matching the traffic flow.

  ‘If he has, we’ll soon find out.’ If they had been spotted and the occupants of the other car wanted to get away, they would wait for their moment, then use the traffic to pull out and be gone. And there wasn’t much Harry and Rik could do to stop them. On the other hand, maybe a deal had been worked out with someone that would allow de Witt to be taken out of the country and beyond the reach of the courts.

  It wouldn’t be the first time.

  The Range Rover pulled on to the Marylebone Road and turned west, putting on speed. West was Heathrow. Heathrow was a flight out. Harry dialled the number again and gave them an update.

  ‘Wait one,’ came the reply.

  Harry wondered how many cases like de Witt ended up dropping quietly between the floorboards, when they had all the attributes of a High Court showpiece. The accountant had conspired to commit fraud on a massive scale, ruining many lives and ending some prematurely. But certain individuals would see his freedom as a relatively cheap price to pay in order to get the men above him – the Albanians and others who were the planners and executioners. The dealers in death.

  ‘Discontinue surveillance.’ The instruction was without drama; a female voice, thirty-ish, by the sound of it, confident and precise. Probably government trained and brained. ‘They’re free to leave. This assignment is over. Thank you for your time.’

  Harry acknowledged and switched off. At least she had nice manners, which was better than most. As he’d suspected: somebody had worked out a deal.


  ‘Let’s go to your place,’ he said. ‘I need you to run a check for me.’

  ‘On Deane?’

  ‘Yes. Find out what he does now, where he lives, everything you can.’

  Rik glanced across. ‘He’s not a mate, then?’ Harry would know, otherwise. And going into a meet without knowing something about your contact was risky. Standard operating procedure: find out all there was to know first, avoid surprises. ‘You don’t sound keen.’

  ‘I’m not. He’s not enough of a mate to be calling me after all this time.’ Their first encounter had been twelve years ago, when Harry had been part of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. A KFOR unit had been called in when heavily armed Serb militias had tried to commandeer UN trucks to move their troops and armaments into Albanian-held territories. Deane, then the local field security representative for the UN, had been in a tricky situation: risk a fight the lightly armed UN force might not win, or back down and allow the Serbs to take the trucks, thus setting a dangerous precedent.

  Harry and his colleagues had been able to defuse the situation, but it had been a close-run thing. Shortly afterwards, he’d been assigned to lead a close protection team in the area. A UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights had flown in unannounced for a whistle-stop tour, demanding a protection squad to accompany him. Ignoring advice from KFOR personnel on the ground to stay away, the official had dug his heels in. Keen to show openness and transparency, the UN had pressured KFOR to select a multinational squad, and Ken Deane had remembered Harry’s name.

  Now, it seemed, he’d remembered it again.

  FOUR

  Four days after beginning his long journey, Kassim stepped off a Pakistan International Airlines flight at Paris Charles de Gaulle, and took a shuttle bus to the stop at Étoile. It was six o’clock in the evening.

  Before leaving him at the bus stop in Peshawar, the driver had handed Kassim an envelope containing a passport, money and tickets, and visa documents to enter the United States. Kassim did not ask how these papers had been produced; he knew only they would be genuine for someone, although not himself. He noted that he was now named Zef Haxhi, a student of dry land agriculture travelling on field studies, jointly funded by the University of Rawalpindi and the American University of Kosovo. The subject was sufficiently boring to keep anyone from questioning him too closely, and with the magic addition of the word American, it should stand up to scrutiny.

  The rest, though, would be up to him.

  As instructed, on arrival in Lahore, he had used some of the money in the bag to buy western clothes: a cheap suit, shoes, shirts and underwear. He had also purchased a medium-size, dark green rucksack, more befitting a student of agriculture than the bag provided. Being shaved clean had left his skin tender after years of being covered with a light beard; he still wasn’t accustomed to the open air on his cheeks. But now he looked no different to a thousand others. Many followers of Islam – notably the Taliban – believed a man should never lose his beard. He thought the view extreme and had shaved so as not to stand out. For what he had to do, blending in was of paramount importance.

  Now he was here, he saw that he was, if anything, even lighter skinned than many others, and felt instantly at ease. But he recalled being told in the briefings that in many western cities, making eye contact was to be avoided, and reminded himself not to make simple mistakes.

  The air was chilly and the streets of the French capital were busy, but he had no eyes for the architecture and the cold meant nothing. He waited for the bus to move away, then consulted the map he had bought at the airport, before setting off north along Rue Auber. He felt awkward in the new shoes, especially on the unforgiving pavements, but he was grateful to be on his feet again. Although the atmosphere here was loaded with petrol fumes and the smoke of cigarettes, he had room to stretch, feeling the muscles of his calves gradually loosening as he moved.

  From Auber he crossed Boulevard Haussmann to the Gare St Lazare. He found the street he was looking for tucked away behind the station. It was a narrow, untidy passage between a jumble of old houses. Litter-filled puddles from earlier rainfall gave the street a forlorn air, and a scavenging dog tugged at a refuse sack outside a butcher’s shop, scattering bloody remains across the pavement. Loud Moroccan-style music wailed from a first-floor apartment, and bedding fluttered from ornate balconies, a flash of colour in a drab setting.

  He stopped outside a peeling doorway and studied the name written below the doorbell. At his feet a refuse bag gave out an unwholesome smell, and he wondered how people could live in such surroundings. He pressed the bell.

  The door opened to reveal an old man in a white djellaba and skullcap. He peered at Kassim through thick spectacles, his expression carefully blank.

  ‘I’m Kassim.’

  The old man nodded and beckoned him in, checking the street before closing the door again. They exchanged brief courtesies before the old man led Kassim up the stairs to a small room. It contained a rickety card table and two chairs, and on the floor, a cardboard box. On the table stood a coffee pot and two cups.

  The old man bade Kassim sit, and poured coffee. It was blue-black and thick, the steam curling upwards and infusing the air with its heady aroma. The two men sipped the treacly brew, eyes on each other. Finally, courtesies over, the old man stood up.

  ‘Your package is here.’ He nodded at the cardboard box on the floor. ‘I will leave you for a minute.’

  ‘No.’ Kassim stopped him. ‘Stay. I will soon be gone.’

  The old man inclined his head and watched as Kassim pulled the box towards him. Inside was a small pocket-sized binder containing more than a dozen sheets of typed paper. He flipped it open. Each sheet carried a small photo, and beneath each one was a name and address with some notes for Kassim to study.

  Beneath the binder was an envelope containing a thick wad of money. He fanned through it, noting euros and US dollars, all medium denominations. Depending on his travel and accommodation, he had been assured there would be sufficient to last several days. With the money was a single sheet of paper showing the address in New York of a travel agency.

  The final item was a heavy bundle wrapped in newspaper. It was a Russian-made Makarov 9mm with a clip of ammunition, a twin of the one he had thrown down the drain in Torkham. He must have looked startled by the similarity, because the old man asked softly, ‘There is something wrong?’

  He shook his head, wondering if it had been coincidence or a lack of imagination on somebody’s part. The gun looked well used but was clean and gleamed with oil.

  ‘Is this all the ammunition you could get?’ he asked. He slipped the clip into the gun with a practised movement and hefted it for balance.

  The old man seemed unimpressed by his deftness with the weapon. ‘Why? Are you going to start a jihad – a holy war?’ His tone was serious, and Kassim felt instantly chided, like a child that had suggested something outrageous.

  ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘You must dispose of it carefully afterwards.’

  He stared hard at the man, wondering at the departure of his earlier courtesy. Maybe living here in the west eroded the customary traditions of welcome and politeness to guests.

  ‘I know what I must do,’ he said gruffly and stood up. Venting his anger on this old fool was pointless. He was merely a contact to be used for limited assistance; he knew nothing of Kassim’s mission and probably cared less, and would in all probability be glad to see the back of him, this mountain man from far away.

  He placed the gun inside his rucksack, pushing it down between the few clothes where it would not bump against anything. He put the binder inside his jacket, then followed the old man from the room and down the stairs.

  At the bottom Kassim took his arm, feeling the thin bones beneath the cloth of the djellaba. ‘I may need to contact you,’ he said, before his host opened the door.

  The old man stared at Kassim’s hand until the visitor released him. When he looked up, his eyes
were cool and unfathomable.

  ‘I will not be here. This is not my home. After you leave I will never come here again.’ He spoke with absolute finality, and Kassim wondered at the man’s past that he could be so calm, so definite. So controlled.

  The old man pulled the door open and stood back. ‘Go with God,’ he said politely, dipping his head in salute.

  FIVE

  Harry stood on the east side of Grosvenor Square and watched Ken Deane walking towards him. The American looked relaxed, in spite of the tone of his text message. Dressed in a neutral suit and sombre tie, the man who was now Deputy Head of UN Field Security could have been any one of dozens of workers from the imposing structure of the US Embassy on the opposite side of the square. He reached the pavement under an angry blast from a cab driver, and grinned in triumph.

  ‘You’d get arrested for that in New York,’ Harry told him.

  Deane pulled a face. ‘Not me, pal – I’m UN, remember? They pull that shit and I’d have a team of Gurkhas come through the windows to haul me out.’

  ‘Actually,’ Harry pointed out, ‘you wouldn’t. They’re all in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Damn. Is that right? I can never keep track of where everyone is these days.’ Deane pumped his hand, his grip softer than Harry remembered. ‘So how are you, bud? How’s life in the private sector?’ He turned and led Harry around the square, past the heavy anti-bomb barriers and the armed police outside the guardhouse, up towards Park Lane. ‘Somehow I never saw you as a PMC.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Private military contractors were security personnel working in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, often employed by shadowy organizations led by former Special Forces officers. Some regarded them as the blue-chip version of what had once been called mercenaries. ‘I’m freelance.’