Hunting for Caracas

by Anthony Fox

  ‘No,’ replied Paxman, suddenly feeling unnerved. It seemed like Matthews was talking to himself.

  ‘It’s when a person’s got two completely different-coloured eyes.’

  ‘OK. Never heard of it.’

  ‘It’s very rare.’

  ‘Groovy.’

  And he just gets weirder.

  He watched Matthews as the small man with the solid stature stood over the pans on the electric hobs.

  He looks tired. Maybe the new stresses of workin’ in close proximity to Luque are telling.

  He stared at the scar on Matthews’ neck. It was a serious piece of work. Paxman’s first guess would have been an old knife wound. But Matthews was an intelligence analyst.

  Where does an intelligence analyst who spends his days behind a desk get a scar like that?

  He considered yet again questioning Matthews about it, but something stopped him, same as always. Paxman knew he probably wouldn’t get an answer out of Matthews anyway.

  The safe house was arranged for them by the White Wolf and was in a luxurious second-floor apartment on the outskirts of Feldkirch.

  Paxman was continuously made aware of how swift and strong the White Wolf’s influence was. The speed and precision of his actions both impressive and intimidating. It was understood none of the team had met the White Wolf personally, not even knowing his real name. The only means of contact being a phone number he’d given them. Although technically any of them could call the number, Phil Connelly took it upon himself to be the sole link between the White Wolf and the five-person team of Operation Matterhorn.

  The apartment the White Wolf found them was in a huge three-storey townhouse on a quiet boulevard in a highly-sought-after neighbourhood. The front street was lined with expensive cars and every three houses or so an enormous cherry tree rose up from the pavement and finished just short of the tops of the houses. The purplish-brown bark offered a distinctive skeleton for the thin, beautiful, green leaves transformed prematurely to red and orange. Paxman noticed the trees managed both to offer a dream-like view from the apartment window and to block out any view at all.

  At the apartment Kemi firstly informed the team that the tracking device Connelly had placed in Luque’s bag had failed. It was disappointing news, but these things happened. The signal simply wasn’t being transmitted and there was nothing they could do. Secondly, she quickly used the decoded message to uncover that the first five characters were in fact a flight number, as Matthews suspected. She easily used the number to ascertain the airline and flight details that it referred to. The flight was a scheduled jet leaving Baltimore and landing in Innsbruck via a transfer in Vienna in two days’ time. Kemi was able to hack into the flight’s passenger log, but found nothing under the name of Jenkins. Not surprisingly. No one expected him/her to book the flight under their real name. Whoever they were, in this line of work people rarely did. But they now assumed Jenkins was a person coming to Innsbruck to meet with Luque, and it was a meeting Luque desperately didn’t want anyone to know about.

  Another assumption: was the bag of money a payoff to this Jenkins for a job he/she would be doing?

  When Paxman and Connelly arrived back at the apartment, Connelly repeated what he’d told Paxman to the rest of the team. After replacing the duffle bag under the bathtub and quickly reattaching the panel, he’d hurriedly collected his things from Luque’s room and broken into the empty room directly across the landing. Connelly said he remained in the exact same spot, listening carefully for a good few minutes, before finally feeling safe enough to slip out of the room, creep along the corridor and head down the stairs and out of the front door.

  Matthews immediately questioned Connelly about the way the search was conducted.

  ‘You bugged the phone but didn’t install the camera?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Discovering the hidden bag with the money and the key to cracking the code seemed more important,’ Connelly snapped back.

  ‘Most likely he’s never going to use the hotel phone anyway, that was just for extra insurance.’

  ‘Why don’t you just worry –’

  ‘What’s the thinking behind bugging the phone before you install the camera?’

  ‘Is there some reason you have any opinion at all?’ Connelly stood up from the table and moved around to position himself directly in front of Matthews. ‘Let me, the experienced and highly trained field agent, do my job. If the old, weak little man thinks he can do it better, then that’s a problem we need to sort out.’

  Paxman watched on in silence as Connelly stared down at the small man. Matthews remained in his seat and just looked straight ahead, apparently unwilling to stand and square up to the bigger, stronger and more dangerous Phil Connelly.

  ‘Now, boys. That should be enough posturing to release the tension,’ Nina interjected with her best purring voice. ‘It’s not fair on Bob. He’s built for loving, not fighting.’

  ‘Hey,’ grumbled Paxman. ‘Cheap shot.’ Although he didn’t take his protest further.

  Connelly took one last look at Matthews and abruptly excused himself. He would head out to call the White Wolf again, this time to inform their employer of the Jenkins code and see if any light could be shed on the name, the flight number or the bag of money.

  It wasn’t just Connelly and Matthews locking horns. The tension between the two reminded Paxman of just how fragile the bond between all of them was.

  22

  Zurich, Switzerland.

  They did the shots at the bar and Assia grabbed her beer and turned away, a little too quickly, and stumbled. She nudged into a pair of busty blonde women holding pink drinks. Assia apologised this time, but the girls just giggled.

  ‘No problem,’ they replied in unison. They both flicked their hair in an identical way and at the exact same time.

  ‘I’m Tracy, this is Lisa,’ the one on the right said.

  Tracy and Lisa’s blonde hair was in fact bleached near-white, much lighter than Assia’s own bleached hair, which was a kind of dirty blonde. Their tanned skin had a slight orange quality to it.

  The girls went back to their ‘Stepford Wives’ thing and giggled loudly and nodded their heads together as if they were one being.

  ‘I’m Assia, it’s nice to meet you.’ She thought for a second about introducing Charlie, but looking around she realised he’d walked off again.

  Tracy and Lisa told Assia she spoke English very well. When Assia confirmed she was in fact from Nottingham they clapped their hands together rambunctiously. ‘We’re from Southampton. Just sayin’ how we absolutely love your whole look,’ said Tracy, or was that one Lisa?

  ‘Erm, thanks,’ said Assia.

  ‘Oh God, yeah. It’s like, hashtag coolrockchick.’

  ‘Yeah, but with a bit of, mmm, sex. Y’know?’

  ‘OK,’ replied Assia.

  She guessed the girl’s ‘rock chick’ comment was powered by the red PVC trousers, black top and black PVC jacket Assia was wearing. These weren’t from a charity shop like the fake-fur jacket, and were considerably more expensive. But Assia considered the outfit something she’d never have had the courage to wear before Thailand, and so she liked it. Charlie said it showed off her figure, to which Assia snorted her derision. Looking at the two girls in front of her, Assia was certain she didn’t have anything like what people would consider ‘a figure’.

  Enjoying their company far more than Luther’s, Assia talked with the women some more about how they were all enjoying Zurich. Assia told them they were leaving in a day to catch a train to Vienna. Tracy and Lisa were quick to pick up on Assia’s use of a plural pronoun and as if by magic someone appeared at Assia’s side.

  ‘Hello there, laaadies,’ Charlie greeted them with perfect timing.

  ‘This is Charlie,’ said Assia, introducing him. ‘Charlie, this is Tracy and Lisa,’ she said, unable to point out which one was which.

  ‘Hello there, this is Charlie,’ said Charlie again with a slur. His
eyes drooped a little.

  Charlie’s presence produced lots of sudden hair-flicking and giggling, and both girls said, ‘Hi, Charlie’ together, sounding like the angels from the seventies TV show.

  The girls and Charlie made some introductory small talk as Assia’s attention was drawn to three men standing a few feet to the side of Tracy and Lisa. The men talked among themselves. It was clear to Assia that the two guys on the right knew one another and were talking at, rather than to, the man on the left. However, just now the man on the left suddenly changed his body language by straightening up, turning square on to the two men, and holding his arms down by his sides. Assia also spotted a movement of the muscles in his jaw, all of which gave her a familiar feeling.

  ‘Hey guys, we need to move over here just a little,’ Assia informed Charlie and the two girls, using her arms in a shepherding motion to reinforce her words.

  ‘Hey, ho, where am I going?’ Charlie said loudly as Assia was now pushing him over to the side. The two girls looked confused that their conversation with Charlie was interrupted, but they quickly followed along. Then Assia saw their heads turn as the sound of smashing glass broke through the music and chatter. The three men near to them collapsed as one and started brawling on the floor. Fists went flying wildly and heads butted. A young woman closest to the bar fight was knocked backwards off her feet; her drink and someone else’s went down her white dress.

  Assia, Charlie and the two blondes continued moving away and were now able to put a few people between themselves and the trouble. The bar’s security appeared and one of the men in the fight, apparently the one that was winning, saw the security men and made a run for the exit, not caring who he knocked aside in the process. The other two men involved were dragged to their feet and roughly escorted away, and the trouble was extinguished as quickly as it’d started. One of the two men dragged out had a bloody face and left a nice trail of red smears along the bar floor.

  Charlie, Tracy and Lisa looked on with consternation, like most people in the bar.

  Assia also looked on. She calmly observed the event with an intense look in her eyes. Now it was over she quickly scanned the crowd to see if she could spot any signs of a second incident sparking up, then went back to drinking her beer.

  ‘Where’d that come from?’ said Tracy, or Lisa. The one on the left.

  ‘I know,’ slurred Charlie, the rush of adrenaline from the bar fight having evidently increased his alcohol levels. ‘Who knew Zurich was so dangerous?’ he slurred.

  ‘Awesome thing for us you spotted it,’ said one of the girls to Assia.

  ‘Yeah. You see them arguing? You moved us before I saw anything happen,’ said the other girl.

  Assia was about to respond when Charlie jumped in.

  ‘I know. Shezamazing, right? Am I right? Like Jedi senses and stuff,’ he said, too loudly.

  ‘OK, calm down, Charlie. It was just a bar fight,’ urged Assia.

  ‘Like some kindza greyhound nose dog. She has her nose in the air, and it’s all fine, and then she’s like, “Look, I smell the danger”, and you miss the danger,’ slurred Charlie.

  ‘That’s a good story,’ said Assia as she patted him on the back and hoped he would stop talking.

  ‘She’s like this the whole trip. Jedi ninja greyhound.’ Charlie laughed at what he must have thought was a joke.

  ‘It was very cool,’ said one of the girls. ‘Cheers for that,’ she said to Assia.

  Assia didn’t feel comfortable talking about this sort of thing in front of strangers, and decided it was time to go.

  ‘I need the bathroom,’ she said.

  Perhaps when she returned she could drag Charlie away unnoticed. Besides, with a watery mouth and a Jagermeister burning in her stomach, perhaps a trip to the bathroom wasn’t such a bad idea.

  However, Assia heard Charlie continue talking as she started to walk away, and noticed they were following her across the bar. ‘She’s crazy. Thish one time, we’re on thizz train. And she’s saying you can’t trust that guy, can’t trust him. I ask why, you know, that’s a good question. And she says she don’t know, and don’t trust him. Then the guy steals the handbag and runs off the train.’ Assia glanced back to see Charlie throw his hands in the air in a Can You Believe It? gesture, and said, ‘Jedi ninja greyhound’, and laughed again.

  Tracy and Lisa laughed as well, but it seemed more at Charlie’s state than his story to Assia, which they may have been struggling to follow. They told Charlie they thought he was funny, and asked if he wanted to find a seat.

  ‘I don’t feel great,’ replied Charlie with a burp and a wobble. ‘Maybe we should get another beer?’

  He looked at the two girls hopefully, still holding a near-full glass of beer himself.

  23

  Feldkirch, Austria.

  Later that evening, after dinner was cleared away and everybody was doing their own thing, Nina was in her room with Kemi, each sat up in her own bed talking together about this and that. The apartment was laid out so that at the top of the stairs, as you entered the second floor you were presented with a long corridor. To the left was an archway leading into a stylishly furnished lounge. On the right four doors led to the four bedrooms of the apartment. Nina and Kemi said they were happy to share, which meant the three men had their own rooms.

  Nina was enjoying a rare moment of privacy while her roommate missed dinner with the others. Kemi was in the Ford Focus parked on the corner of the Floriani restaurant, watching for Luque. It was an easy watch so the team agreed on single-person three-hour shifts. No one in the team expected Luque to do much now except lie low until this Jenkins person arrived. They used one of the extra cameras on the street behind the restaurant so, with the laptop, the person on watch could cover the front whilst using the camera to keep an eye out if Luque tried to slip out the back.

  Matthews drove over after dinner in the Range Rover and relieved Kemi, who came back to the apartment and ate a late supper alone.

  Sharing a room meant Nina had come to know Kemi better than the others, and she was quite open about her background. It seemed as a child Kemi had sailed through her education, thanks to being born with what Nina suspected was a peerless IQ. One that would’ve been unchallenged by the national curriculum. Following her graduation from university with a first in computer science she worked initially for BCS in London, then after being arrested for what she called ‘playing around with codes and encryptions’ but what the Metropolitan police called ‘computer hacking under the Computer Misuse Act’, she went to work in the computer securities department of MI6 after they arranged for her charges to be dropped. She claimed to have left the British Secret Service two years ago and now, like all the other members of Operation Matterhorn, worked solely on a freelance basis.

  Kemi is the only electronics and communications expert in the group. Maybe the others haven’t noticed, but that puts her in a surprisingly powerful position. She may seem sweet, but even a rose has thorns…

  Nina knew information was the key to everything.

  The women were now sat discussing what was to come next. Against heavy odds they’d achieved the first objective, which was to get a fixed location on Luque. The second objective was to uncover his intentions, the third to take him down. When Connelly called through and told the White Wolf about Jenkins, the White Wolf simply said he would get back to them. Nina was now discussing the very real possibility that when he did call them back it would be with instructions on how he wished Luque to be taken down.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Kemi looked over at her in the next bed.

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Have you ever been involved in something like this before?’ There was a trace of apprehension in Kemi’s voice. Nina could tell she’d been wanting to ask this question for some time.

  ‘Never,’ she replied truthfully. She heard Kemi take in a deep breath.

  ‘I miss my parents sometimes, you know?’ said Kemi.

  The sta
tement took Nina a little by surprise. ‘Sure,’ she said for lack of any other response.

  An uneasiness fell between them. There were so many questions Nina knew were not supposed to be asked. Working in secrecy, with only the bare minimum of information given (and sometimes not even that), it gave a person a real desire for answers. It was punishing, like being thirsty and staring at a glass of water you knew would always be tantalisingly out of reach.

  Yet the feeling was nothing new. Nina had grown up with a family of thieves and con-artists, and was able to pick a pocket before she could write. Progressing quickly, she soon outgrew her nearest and dearest and joined forces with her three best friends. Extremely talented, the quartet graduated from purse-snatching to the highest end of the market. The truth was, Nina missed her crew, her closest friends. She flirted with the idea of contacting them, knowing deep down it wasn’t an option until her task here was completed.

  It’s essential for all my crew I succeed here, which means putting everyone else completely from my mind for the time being. When this is over, I’ll be back with them again.

  ‘Have you got any plans for when we get paid, assuming we succeed?’ Nina asked Kemi now, wanting to ease the tension a little.

  Kemi puffed out her lips. ‘Just some time off, I suppose. I’ve tried not to think about it. You?’

  ‘The same. I guess you don’t like to believe it’s real until this is all over and you’re free and clear.’

  ‘You know I found something the other day,’ said Kemi, leaning on one side to face Nina and moving to the end of the bed so she could lower her voice.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I should say,’ said Kemi.

  ‘Give over,’ replied Nina, rolling her eyes. One thing Nina Arrow was learning about Kemi during the operation was that the woman loved to gossip, but it was a constant internal wrestling match with another side of Kemi that didn’t ever want to bad-mouth people. ‘You have to tell me now.’