Scorpion Trail

by Archer, Jeffrey

  He observed his work. Every bit of ink covered.

  'Here goes,' he murmured, pressing the sheet of writing paper firmly onto the moistened page. He lifted it off again. A perfect negative image left by the Glycol softened ink.

  He opened the second visa section in julie's passport and laid the writing paper face down. Then he used his thumb to press the image onto the page.

  He lifted off the paper. The image was faint, but readable. A perfect replica of an entry stamp.

  Just one problem. The Glycol had left a stain on both passports. He dabbed with the tissue, but the stain remained.

  He took them back next door and showed them to Lorna.

  'That's amazing. Where'd you learn to do that?' she asked suspiciously.

  'Never mind. Do you have a hair-drier? See if those stains will come out.

  If they don't, your best bet may be to drop the whole passport in the bath. It'll be such a mess by the time you dry it out, nobody'll know what's what.'

  She looked irritated, as if he'd created more problems than he'd solved.

  'Okay, Josip, let's go shopping now,' she announced. 'Vildana needs a warm coat, a nightdress and a toothbrush. And anything else she sees that she wants. I'm going to try to put a smile on that little face.'

  She hustled them all out of the bedroom and locked the door. They took the stairs to the ground floor. Alex followed uneasily. Lorna was being deliberately distant.

  Downstairs she handed her key to the receptionist then headed for the big glass exit doors. In the middle of the large lobby she turned to Alex.

  'Well,' she said with a switched-on smile. 'I guess this is goodbye again.'

  Her eyes were like glass, free of any decipherable expression.

  'What d'you mean?' he asked, stunned.

  'I imagine you're going back up to Vitez in a day or so,' she went on.

  He knew his distress was plain for her to see - and she was savouring it, he realized suddenly.

  'I really can't thank you enough for what you did getting Vildana down here. Made up for a lot,' she added pointedly.

  'But I'm not sure that I am going back to Vitez . . .' he mouthed, desperately. She was casting off, leaving him behind.

  'Fate did us all a good turn this time, huh?'

  This time.

  'If we hadn't met up like that, Vildana probably wouldn't be here,' she continued, slipping an arm round the girl's shoulders.

  'But hang on a minute. ..' Alex said, wishing they were out of earshot of the others.

  'Alex, I don't have a minute,' she replied fractiously. 'I've got to get that kid sorted out - that's all I'm interested in right now.'

  'Yes, but we can see each other later then . .

  'Later, I'm going to Frankfurt, and then home to the States.'

  He felt as if she'd just kneed him in the groin.

  'Lorna, I ... I really do want to see you again,' he said lamely. He was conscious of Josip watching them.

  'Oh, you do? I'm not sure that's such a good. .

  Then she appeared to relent.

  'I tell you what. I'll give you the number of CareNet in Boston. They can pass a message. Maybe you'll come to the States one day.'

  She pulled a calling card from her pocket and handed it to him.

  'Bye,' she said, walking away. 'And good luck.'

  She hung on to Vildana using the girl as a shield.

  Dumbfounded, Alex watched as they climbed into the Land Cruiser and drove up the ramp towards the town.

  Lorna shook like a leaf, terrified she'd overdone it. She responded toJosip's street directions on autopilot.

  She had worked it all out in her head last night, while lying awake listening to Vildana's snuffly breathing.

  Yes, she ached to have him back, but no, it wouldn't work until they were quits. Until she had made him feel something of the pain that she had felt all those years ago.

  Nineteen

  Alex stalked back to the Park Hotel, seething. Angry at Lorna, and at himself for standing there like an idiot, letting her go off that way.

  That's what came of being too considerate with women, he thought. Should have Just grabbed her and told her what's what. Instead he'd let her dump him like some pickup at a disco.

  Mike Allison was waiting for him at a table beneath the palm trees on the sun-speckled terrace.

  'Ali, there you are,' he said, pointedly not getting to his feet. 'Wondered where you'd got to.'

  Alex pulled out a whitepainted, metal chair and sat down without responding. Allison was a good five years younger than him, the type of ex-soldier who couldn't forget he was officer class.

  'Thought we'd have a bite here. They do sandwiches.'

  Tine.'

  Allison twisted round to look for the waiter.

  'Never there when you want them. If you see him come out, give him a wave.'

  'Sure.' Alex's chair faced the French windows that led to the kitchens.

  'I've been talking to Vitez this morning,' the Major continued. 'I saw Moray's body off on the G 130, then went to UNPROFOR and called Alan Clarke-Hartley on the army "comms".'

  'Oh yes?'

  'I can tell you we're in deep doo-doo up there. The HVO are claiming we've been using our truck to smuggle the "Muf in and out. Usual crap. But the bottom line is I've got a lot of work to do patching things up with the locals. And I think it best if you aren't around when I do it.'

  'I see.'

  The waiter approached and they ordered club sandwiches and beers.

  'Yes. The trouble is people will link you with Moray. They probably think you were both perverts. It's all rumour control up there. Truth only makes up ten per cent of what people believe. If that.'

  Alex nodded. If he was being given his cards, it was no more than he'd expected.

  'So, this is what I've decided,' Allison continued. 'Tomorrow morning there's another of my trucks arriving from England. You can give us a hand stuffing the boxes into the Bedford and then push off back to England if you like. The chap who drives the bread van out from Farnham can come up to Vitez with me. He's bringing a camera. We'll get some new pictures of our aid being distributed and hope it counteracts the lousy press we got over McFee.'

  'And ... how do I travel to England?' Alex asked flatly.

  'You can have the return half of my air ticket, if you like. I'll get it transferred into your name.'

  The sandwiches arrived.

  Alex lay on the bed in his room staring at the ceiling. In the hours that had passed since Lorna drove away at the Hotel Split, he'd reached a firm conclusion. However resistant she might be, he needed her and he was going to have her again.

  It wasn't a pretty sight, looking back on his life. There seemed to be a trail of human suffering lying in his wake that resembled the work of a joy-rider in a parking lot.

  There was still time however, to create something good, something to learn from it.

  The problem was how to get Lorna back. He'd ruled out returning to the hotel to tell her what he felt. Nothing would be accomplished while she still had Vildana to hide behind.

  In the meantime there was also the question of Milan Pravic. A mass-murderer on the loose who had to be stopped from killing again.

  He checked his watch. Four o'clock - three p.m. in London. It was time he let Roger Chadwick know what he'd found out.

  He dialled the number he'd been given. A voice he'd never heard before answered and took a message. He replaced the receiver and waited for the call back.

  Ten minutes was all it took before Chadwick's sonorous tones boomed down the line.

  'Nice to hear your voice,' Alex volunteered.

  'Oh, dear. Things must be bad,' Chadwick quipped.

  'You know what's happened... ?'

  'Of course. It's been all over the papers and the TV. You have my sympathy, dear boy.'

  'Thanks. Well the result is I've just been fired. My days as a charity worker out here are over, I'm afraid.'

  'Oh dea
r. That's a pity, but I have to say I'm not surprised. Did you learn anything useful?'

  Alex told him about Father Pravic. He also mentioned the existence of Vildana, but without revealing his own involvement in her escape from Bosnia.

  'A witness! You have done well. The UN will be delighted if they ever catch the blighter. Where's the girl now?'

  'Don't want to say any more at the moment,' Alex stalled. The last thing he wanted was to tell Chadwick about Lorna. He'd never hear the last of it.

  'I'll call you again on a secure line in a few days' time.'

  'Mmm. All right.'Chadwick sounded impressed by his security-speak.

  'As to Pravic, or the Scorpion as his brother so descriptively calls him - it looks as if he's done a bunk. No one knows where to. But Roger, the man's really dangerous. He's got to be found. He sounds like a psychopath and his brother says he'll definitely kill again.'

  'Well as long as he does it in Bosnia, I don't suppose anyone'll be too fussed,' Chadwick mumbled.

  Alex winced.

  'Not fussed? Slaughtering women and children?'

  'We-ell it's not really our problem, is it? We're not the world's policemen any more. You've done your best. We've done our best as UK Limited. I think I'll pass the baton back to the UN War Crimes people in the Hague and let them take up the running.'

  'You wouldn't be so bloody blasé if the bloke was on the loose in Hampshire,' Alex growled.

  'But he's not, is he?'

  'I don't know. He could be anywhere.'

  'Got a description of him?'

  'Fair hair and blue eyes, not very tall. That's all.'

  There was a pause from the other end in which Alex thought he heard a sigh.

  'Bloody Bosnia,' Chadwick muttered. 'We'd all love to leave them to it, but they won't let us. So what do you suggest - as our man on the spot?' he added grandly. 'We're still happy to pay your exes if you think there's anything more you can do.'

  Alex hesitated.

  'Give me a day or two to think, and I'll get back to you.'

  'Fine. Oh by the way, when you return to England there's some good news for you,' Chadwick continued, perkily. 'Might put a smile on your face.

  It looks like the Provos are heading for a ceasefire.'

  Alex replaced the receiver. He'd given hardly a thought to the IRA in the last few days. Their threat to his life had almost ceased to be real.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door.

  'Yes?'

  'It's Mike. Time to go down to the Travel Agent and get the ticket done.

  You'll need your passport.'

  Of course. His ticket home. He swung his feet to the floor. Half-past-five.

  The walk to the harbour took twenty minutes. Clustered at one end of the palm-lined promenade was a small parade of travel and souvenir shops. It didn't take long to re-issue the air ticket in Alex's name.

  Young couples in jeans and T-shirts strolled by the water's edge. With the preserved remains of the old medieval town as a backdrop, they could have been on the French Riviera if it weren't for the stench of sewage that rose from the oily waters of the port.

  'Gorgeous bloody women in this country,' Allison purred. 'Fancy a drink at one of those cafés to take in the view?'

  He was right about the pretty girls. There'd be plenty to look at.

  Suddenly, realizing where he was, Alex had a different idea. He glanced at his watch. Nearly half-past-six.

  'No thanks. There's a friend of mine going on the ferry to Ancona tonight.

  Think I'll try to catch her before she gets on board. . . .'

  Allison lifted one eyebrow then set off on his own.

  Alex hurried towards the docks, suspecting he might already be too late.

  The ferry sailed in less than an hour.

  It was further than he'd remembered to the terminal. He began to run. Dock workers waiting at a bus stop watched nervously. When people ran here, it often meant trouble wasn't far behind.

  A short line of trucks still queued at the customs barrier, but no Land Cruisers.

  A quarter to seven. Must have missed her.

  He walked to the police pole. Without a ticket he could go no further. Two hundred metres beyond the control point, the lights of the ferry's upper deck sparkled in the dusk.

  He saw figures on deck. Dark shapes taking a last look at the floodlit ramparts of the old town. He strained to make them out. Two tallish forms with a smaller one between them. Might be Lorna. Might not.

  Convincing himself it was, he waved. We'll meet again soon, he decided.

  He hung around until the ship sailed, then made his way back to the promenade. The evening was mild, a temperature they'd have called 'summer'

  in Scotland. The crowds on the promenade had grown. Couples flirted at the Cafés.

  He ambled through the bustle, relishing its sensuousness. He took a seat at a restaurant whose tables spilled onto the pavement. He wasn't particularly hungry, but he'd eat something.

  While waiting for service, he pulled the airline ticket from his pocket and studied it carefully for the first time. The flight was tomorrow afternoon.

  Split to Zagreb, then Zagreb-Frankfurt, and Frankfurt-London.

  Frankfurt! They'd made it easy for him.

  Twenty

  Zagreb, Croatia

  10.30 p.m. the same night

  The man with the broken nose sat in his rented Golf, parked at Zagreb's Pleso airport in a position where he could see the planes landing. At this time of night the place was almost deserted. No more scheduled flights were due in.

  Martin Sanders was more nervous than he had been for many a year. As a department head with the British Secret Intelligence Service, it wasn't often he did field work any more. The activities of the Ramblers were so secret however, they were compelled to keep the use of subordinates to a minimum.

  Parked nearby, Marcel Vaillon from the DGSE was keeping an eye on the terminal building. Everything depended on their identification of the target. Without that there could be no killing.

  The advance intelligence the CIA had gleaned was skimpy. They had the Iranian's name, but their only photograph was a family snap of him as a bearded youth, taken at the time of the Islamic Revolution. They knew he'd be on this flight, but didn't know where he'd meet his contact.

  Information on the Russian was zero. No name, no data whatsoever. He must, they assumed, already be in Zagreb. Waiting somewhere with his lethal sample.

  For a jumbo jet to fly from Tehran, the hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, to this the capital of militantly Catholic Croatia, was an odd event, but no odder than many that had happened in the former Yugoslavia.

  The flight was arriving in the dark of night and would leave again before dawn. Few people would ever know the plane had been here. Official sources would deny it.

  Balkan politicians had turned somersaults in the past few days. The Bosnian Croats and the mostly Muslim Bosnian government forces, who'd fought so bloodily over territory, had cemented their ceasefire by signing a confederation agreement. Pooling resources again to kill Serbs, instead of each other, had finally made sense to even the most stubborn.

  As a spin-off from that agreement, Croatia had given permission for Iran to re-arm the BiH Armija. The guns were being ferried through airfields on the coast, to be driven through Croatian territory into Bosnia.

  Tonight's flight to Zagreb was the pay-off to Croatia -a plane-load of explosives and ammunition, a gift from the mullahs, which the Croatians wanted for the renewal of their own battle with the Serbs.

  On the return flight to Iran, the cargo would be much smaller but potentially much more lethal - a sliver of Russian plutonium.

  Sanders had the car windows down, listening. At two minutes to midnight lie heard the roar of turbofans as a 747 flared out for landing. Through night-vision binoculars he watched the whitepainted jumbo taxi to the far side of the airfield. No markings on it. No airline logo, no giveaway fin-flash. Vehicles clustered roun
d the plane, their tail-lights forming a ruby crescent.

  He picked up the rented telephone and dialled the number of Marcel's mobile.

  'The guests have arrived,' he said cryptically.

  'I thought so,' the Frenchman answered. 'A car has just arrived at the terminal.'

  They disconnected.

  Sanders started the engine, switched on the lights and motored slowly to the car park exit. He paid the sleepy attendant with a wad of devalued Dinar notes then drove on and stopped just short of the terminal. He pretended to be consulting a map.

  The 'car' was a minibus. Might be for the aircrew, but there was no other vehicle in sight. No taxis at this time of night. If Akhavi had an appointment in town, the bus could well be for him.

  Vaillon was closer. The final identification would have to be his.

  Sanders drummed his fingers on the wheel. Too many uncertainties for his liking. Desperately under-resourced the whole operation was. Had to be, when officially the Ramblers didn't even exist.

  Three minutes later a lone figure 'in a dark suit emerged from the terminal, accompanied by the uniformed driver of the minibus. Too shadowy for Sanders to make out, even through the glasses. Maybe Vaillon had more luck.

  His phone rang.

  'Yes?'

  'Cannot be certain. But I think,' Vaillon's voice.

  'I'll go for it then?'

  'Yes.'

  The minibus began to move. Sanders slipped the Golf into gear and took station about fifty metres behind, heading for Zagreb.

  Vaillon would remain at the airport in case someone else looking like Akhavi emerged, or the Russian arrived. If the rendezvous was on the airport itself however, they were screwed. No way they could take them out.

  Sanders followed the minibus for fifteen minutes, then called Vaillon again.

  'Crossing the Sava by the Freedom Bridge.'

  'Nothing new here,'Vaillon acknowledged.

  The minibus turned left onto Vukovarska then right into Miramarska, Sanders letting a taxi slip in between himself and the van.