Red Station ht-1

by Adrian Magson

  He’d been set up.

  TWENTY-SIX

  ‘ I need a mobile. A throwaway, no contract.’

  Harry collared Rik as soon as he got back to the office. The others were out of earshot and Mace was on the phone with his back turned. There was no way of knowing if the young comms man would help him, or whether he’d simply go straight to Mace. But there was only one way to find out.

  ‘Why?’ Rik grinned. ‘ET not thinking of phoning home, is he?’

  ‘Don’t ask. Someone I need to talk to.’

  ‘Not wise, man. Not wise.’ He pointed a finger towards the atmosphere. ‘They’ll track it.’

  ‘No, they won’t. I won’t be on long enough. You going to help me or not?’

  But Rik wasn’t listening, too intent on showing his skills. ‘Keywords, you see. You use any keywords, it won’t matter how long you’re on. They’ll have your footprint. Then you’re toast.’

  ‘OK, I promise I won’t use any keywords,’ Harry growled. ‘Good enough?’

  ‘Fine. It’s your neck.’ Rik sucked on his teeth like a plumber giving an estimate. ‘There’s a place in town. A kiosk. Sells bootleg cigarettes and chacha, among other things. He’ll have what you need. The guy’s name is Rudi. But don’t touch the chacha — it’s toxic.’

  ‘What the hell is chacha?’ He wasn’t really interested but it might be prudent to keep Rik onside.

  ‘It’s vodka, mostly made with grape juice, but they also use fruit like oranges or mulberries. The best quality isn’t bad, but the rest is crap.’ He checked to make sure they weren’t overheard. ‘The good stuff is Mace’s favourite tipple. He sticks fruit juice in it to hide it but he’s kidding himself.’

  Harry stored away the information. Mace’s drinking habits were nothing more than an exploitable weakness. In his profession, such a chink in his armour might affect all of them. ‘Where do I find this Rudi?’

  Rik gave him directions to a street about ten minutes’ walk away. ‘But seriously,’ he added. ‘They’ll track you.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. You said. Keywords.’ Harry had a thought. ‘What about Hotmail? That’s not traceable, right?’

  ‘Only like sticking a flag up a very tall pole.’ Rik was scornful. ‘If they’re monitoring email traffic out of this area, they’d go through the Hotmail first. They might not know who was sending an individual message, but they’d soon find out.’

  ‘How?’

  Rik shrugged. ‘By doing what they normally do: quoting the war against terror. It’s the modern “Open Sesame”, isn’t it? They’d have instant access to whatever records they needed. It’s too risky. You’d do better to stick with texting.’ He smiled slyly. ‘You do know what texting is, don’t you?’

  Harry knew. He’d been on a communications update course. He remembered the instructor saying that texting in code was almost impossible to spot unless a specific device was being monitored.

  ‘Does this Rudi speak English?’

  ‘Of course. He’s a wheeler-dealer; he likes to score.’ Rik scowled. ‘I’d better come with you. He gets jumpy if he thinks the cops are around. Most of the stuff he handles isn’t kosher, you know? That’s why it’s cheap. I’ll check it out for you, so let me know when.’ He gave Harry a steady look. ‘You did this all by yourself, though. I don’t want London giving me a load of crap for your misdemeanours — I’m trying to live down enough of my own.’

  ‘Good luck with that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You seriously think they’re going to let you back?’ Harry gave him the benefit of a six-inch stare. ‘I wouldn’t count on it, sunshine. They’ve got long, nasty memories and they don’t forgive easily.’

  Rik swallowed. ‘You think?’

  ‘I know. Let’s go.’

  ‘What, now?’ Rik glanced towards Mace’s office. ‘What’ll I tell the boss? He doesn’t like any of us going off without a reason.’

  ‘Fuck him.’ Harry was still mad at Mace over his visit to Kostova’s house. Mace had contributed in putting another black mark on his record, for what purpose, he didn’t know. Maybe it was part of his nature, to worm a bit of excitement out of working in this miserable place. It was bad enough getting carpeted as the man in charge of an operation that bombed; God alone knew how they’d react when they heard he’d enjoyed the hospitality of a political figure with known links to Moscow.

  But he had to consider Rik. It would be unfair to drag him into it. ‘Tell him I need your help in buying a coat. It’s cold here and I don’t want to die of hypothermia.’

  From down the street, the kiosk looked rundown and colourless, slotted into a derelict space between two other shops. A stained canvas awning cast a shadow over the makeshift counter, covered with faded stickers advertising a variety of products, most of them unavailable on the open market.

  After stopping to buy a plain padded coat from a general clothing store, Harry had followed Rik’s lead and now stood fifty yards from the kiosk, watching the flow of customers — mostly men in rough working clothes and heavy boots — and eyeing the occasional vehicle passing by. None of the cars stopped and they saw no signs of watchers. Or, come to think of it, thought Harry, the Clones. Most of the customers accomplished their purchase with the minimum of chat, sliding money across the counter and retrieving their purchases before scurrying away.

  ‘He trades in cigarettes, booze, fuel, electronics and perfumes,’ Rik explained, anticipating Harry’s question. ‘And whatever toxic substances he can get.’

  ‘You know that from experience, do you?’

  Rik hissed briefly. ‘Don’t use it, never have. I get my kicks from a keyboard. If you ask Rudi, he’ll get it. All it needs is the right money.’

  ‘You said fuel. Is that what I can smell?’

  ‘Yeah. It stinks, doesn’t it? Worse than chip fat. Don’t worry — you’ll get used to it. The gangs siphon it from a spillage pipe at a refinery over to the east and sell it cheap on the streets. It smells so bad because they haven’t finished the refining process, which is why anyone who uses it too much blows out their engines.’

  ‘Regular little capitalist, isn’t he?’ Harry settled his shoulder against a wall, prepared to wait until Rik said it was safe to move.

  ‘So,’ said Rik, sensing a moment for casual chat, ‘have you managed to get it on with our Clare yet or has she given you the moody like she does everyone?’

  Harry stared at him. Rik obviously didn’t know about her. ‘You serious?’

  ‘Just asking. You know why she’s here, don’t you?’

  ‘Is it relevant?’

  ‘Not really. Just gossiping. She overcooked a honey-trap and went all the way, according to chit-chat.’ He fluttered his eyebrows. ‘And we British don’t do that, do we? Go all the way, I mean.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Harry watched as an army truck slowed near the kiosk. The driver was alone, probably checking out the place to see if he could make a buy without being seen.

  ‘Anyway, it went sour and the suits didn’t approve. She got tabbed out here.’

  The lorry speeded up and disappeared at the end of the street, belching exhaust fumes.

  ‘What about you?’ Harry asked. He didn’t need to hear Rik’s story, but the more he learned about his colleagues, the less he might have to worry about.

  ‘Me? That’s no secret. I got my sticky fingers into a couple of restricted files and they decided I was better off somewhere far away.’ He shrugged, smiling coyly. ‘Stupid, really. They can’t keep me here forever, can they?’ He shifted his feet as the flow of shoppers across the street dwindled. ‘Out of sight, out of the way, I suppose. It’s the limit of their thinking.’

  ‘Consider yourself lucky they didn’t settle for a more permanent option,’ said Harry. ‘You don’t find many computers in solitary.’

  Rik scowled as if the idea had occurred to him before. ‘I suppose. It’s still like being locked up, though, being in this shithole. I mean, who thought of putting
an office out here?’

  ‘Nobody with a sense of humour.’ It was the first time anyone had voiced an opinion about being here. Harry gave it a couple of beats. So far he’d tested the water with the phone; now was the time to push the envelope. He said, ‘Did you know Jimmy Gulliver?’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘ Gulliver? Not much. He wasn’t here long enough to break the ice. Clare got on with him, though. He bunked off without warning.’

  ‘I thought he was recalled.’

  ‘No. He’d had enough. That’s what Mace said, anyway.’

  ‘What about Gordon Brasher?’

  ‘Heard of him. Some sort of analyst. He was before my time.’ He grinned. ‘Another member of the escape committee. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just wondering.’ Harry made a show of checking the street to break the trail of discussion. ‘So what sort of files did you access?’

  ‘The wrong sort. Some individuals… but mostly operational stuff. I heard about a couple of things on the grapevine… operations that had gone sour. I was intrigued about what goes on at the outer edges.’ He looked at Harry. ‘The areas you work in, I guess. I’m in support; we don’t get to see the exciting stuff at first hand.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky,’ said Harry. ‘Most of the time it’s boring and repetitive. The rest is unpleasant.’

  ‘Yeah, well it doesn’t always go to plan, does it? I mean, there was one file I found… the original documents were all there, written up. So I had a trawl through. There was this amazing stuff about a long-term drugs op leading all the way from Kandahar to London. Five guys had been working the line for nearly a year. Then, just as it was going critical, they were pulled out without explanation. Most of the product ended up on the streets of London and Birmingham. It was coded like Blackpool rock, so they could track it all the way. Bloody criminal.’

  Harry nodded. ‘It happens. How did they find you out?’

  ‘I talked to a mate and he blabbed. It was stupid of me. I said I’d been looking for hero stuff… you know — SAS missions, that kind of thing. They couldn’t prove otherwise because I didn’t leave any footprints.’

  Harry thought Rik had been lucky. They’d shovelled him out of London because there was a chance he might have stumbled on something he shouldn’t have. No matter how clean he’d wiped his trail, the suspicion would have remained. To have charged him would have risked exposing a serious lack of security, as well as revealing something they wanted kept quiet. Far better to send him somewhere isolated and keep him out of the way.

  Like they had with himself.

  ‘How do you keep your hand in?’ he asked casually. It was unlikely that someone like Rik wouldn’t be tempted to indulge whenever the opportunity arose. But it wouldn’t be in office hours; he’d be too easily seen entering screens he had no business using.

  ‘When I can.’ The reply was wary. He nodded down the street, ‘There’s an internet cafe about a hundred yards down there, called Maxis. It’s usually full of security cops, sniffing out deviants and such, but it’s safe. I use it whenever I need a fix without every keystroke being logged. Why?’

  ‘No reason.’ Harry noted the name for future use. He looked across the street. ‘Let’s do this, shall we?’

  Rik checked it was clear, then led the way to the kiosk. Their approach was watched by a sharp-faced young man with several days’ growth of beard and a ponytail. Harry took it to be local street-chic.

  ‘Hey, Rudi,’ Rik said, and bought a pack of cigarettes. He turned to Harry and murmured. ‘You need to buy some, too. Shows goodwill.’

  Harry pointed at a pack of Marlboro. The man flipped it across the counter and took the money without speaking.

  Rik signalled for a light. As he leaned over to suck in the flame, he said, ‘My friend needs a cell.’

  ‘Uh-uh.’ Rudi lit a cigarette, too, and gave Harry a quick once over, squinting through the smoke. ‘You calling local?’ His accent carried a faint American twang.

  ‘No. Is that a problem?’

  ‘For me, no. But some cells have limited range, you know? For good signal you need top device. It cost more.’ His eyes had brightened with interest.

  ‘How much?’

  Rudi bent down, revealing a bald patch. He resurfaced and slid an Ericsson T68 between two piles of magazines. ‘Best I got at the moment. You could ring the moon with that, no problem.’

  The phone looked new, except for a faint scratch on the screen. It was either a clever copy or stolen from some luckless businessman. Either way, it was better than what he had. ‘How much and how long will it last?’ he said. ‘And I don’t mean the battery.’

  Rudi grinned good-naturedly. ‘I get you, man. It last maybe three days. For that I give you good price. One hundred dollars US.’

  Harry heard Rik give an intake of breath. ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t touch it.’ Rik gave Rudi a reproving look. ‘A model that good but that cheap? It’s probably got someone on its tail who wants it back. Three days means it was lifted locally.’

  ‘Hey, what you saying?’ Rudi protested mildly. ‘You want to ruin my business?’ He shrugged. ‘Eighty dollars. Best price.’

  ‘I’ll take it.’ A few days wouldn’t matter; he was hardly going to be using it non-stop. He took out some dollars and slid them towards Rudi. The phone was good enough for his purposes, and instinct told him he wouldn’t get a better deal anywhere else.

  A dusty Volvo had turned into the street, heading towards them. One person inside. Square shoulders, short hair.

  Rudi took the money and folded it into his pocket. ‘Sure thing. But you know…’

  ‘Yeah, I know. No keywords and we’ve never met before.’ Harry picked up the Ericsson and walked away, tossing Rik the pack of Marlboro.

  The Volvo rumbled by, spitting out gravel from beneath the tyres. Up close, the driver was in his fifties, with heavy jowls. He wore a thick jacket, ragged at the elbows, and was checking door numbers on the other side of the street.

  Harry breathed out but kept his head down.

  Rik seemed unaware of the car and fell into step alongside him.

  ‘You want something?’ said Harry. For what he was about to do, he didn’t need an audience.

  ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’ Rik’s face fell but he peeled away obediently. ‘Don’t be too long, though,’ he said. ‘Mace likes to know where we are.’

  Right, thought Harry. And why is that, I wonder? He hurried away, punching buttons until he found the SIM card directory. As he suspected, it contained a list of names and numbers, the former mostly Anglo, the latter with dialling codes he vaguely recognized. American.

  Great. Knowing his luck, the mobile probably belonged to Carl bloody Higgins of the CIA.

  He found a tiny basement bar beneath a small supermarket. It was grubby and workaday, of the type where the clientele looked as though they preferred minding their own business. He bought a coke and bagged a corner table, then switched on the mobile and waited while it searched for a signal. If it didn’t work, he’d go back and cut off Rudi’s ponytail.

  He knew the number he had to dial by heart; he and Bill Maloney had spent a lot of time calling each other before, during and after operations. He thought over what he wanted to say. It had to be as lean as possible, as every second spent on the line increased the risk of discovery. Using a clean phone would avoid his name or number popping up on a monitor somewhere and sounding alarms all over London.

  Need yr hlp. Rd 1. It wasn’t elegant, not by the standards he’d seen kids texting each other, but he wanted brevity, not prizes. Hopefully, Maloney would recognize his call sign. He had a moment of doubt as he pressed the SEND button, but let it go. As long as Maloney received the message and didn’t ignore it.

  Or worse, call the dogs down on him.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was Jordan Conway’s draw to fetch water. The day promised to be a long one. It wasn’t fully light yet, but he knew the feel of the air enough now to be able
to judge the conditions. They had picked up a satellite reading of the weather forecast in the last radio burst at midnight. It promised a brief spell of humidity before turning colder. This close to water, they would be at the mercy of the last of the midges, flies and mosquitoes, all vying for a final bite of human skin.

  This time tomorrow, they’d probably be freezing their asses off.

  He gently cleared a gummy throat and relished being down by the water, where it would be cooler. He edged forward until he drew level with Doug Rausing, who was on watch.

  ‘OK, boss,’ he breathed. ‘We good to go?’

  Rausing nodded without taking his eye away from the monocular’s padded eyecup. ‘We’re clear. Nothing moving bigger than a fox, no change to the terrain. You set?’

  ‘Yep. You want anything from the deli?’

  ‘Some popcorn would be good,’ replied Rausing, with a dark smile. ‘If they don’t have any, bring me some chips.’

  ‘You got it. Pay me when I get back.’ Conway secured the collapsible water container to his belt and slid away to the edge of their hide.

  He studied the ground for a full five minutes before moving out, checking for wildlife. Animals were the best indicators of intruders; when someone alien moved in, the wildlife moved out or went quiet. Like they would when he began moving, although not, he hoped, at the same time. A few birds were skimming over the rough grass, and a couple of hares squatted a hundred yards off, heads down and munching. Some crows were in the trees by the lake, arguing the toss as usual. Apart from that, it looked good. He wondered whether Bronson and Capel, the other two Delta men, were watching. Maybe he’d see one of them down by the lake on water duty. They could have a chat, catch up on old times.

  He looked up to where a few late stars showed between the clouds, and wondered briefly about the sky cover that was supposed to be up there, watching over them. They were probably brewing coffee and having breakfast about now, changing shift in their long hours spent patrolling while the cameras sent back images to base. And above them would be the satellites, forever circling, taking pictures of the aircraft taking pictures.