Codename Files Nos.1, 2 & 3

by Mark Arundel

  The tall one raised a hand and in a deep, expressionless voice said, ‘Dá-me a tua carteira.’ I stopped and waited without speaking. ‘Give me your wallet,’ he said providing the translation.

  It was a simple mugging after all. On the other hand, was he improvising? I had to decide what to do. The idea of these two characters walking off with my wallet was not a pleasant one. I gave them my best friendly face and said, ‘Hey, mi amigos, it doesn’t have to be like this. Think what the tourist board would say.’

  Their expressions remained unchanged. They were hard men and I could tell that even after the short time I had known them they were not prone to sudden bursts of infectious laughter.

  ‘Give me your wallet,’ the tall one repeated in his flat, accented voice and produced a small knife from his hip pocket. He held the blade low and waggled it at me with the confidence of someone who, I could tell, was a believer in regular practice. I wondered whether the church doors were unlocked. A knife fight with these two men was not something I relished, particularly as I was without a knife. The question of what to do had returned with some urgency. The scar I had from my last knife fight in Tenerife came into my thoughts. On that day, I had to fight. Was today any different?

  ‘I’m not giving you my wallet,’ I said with enough seriousness to show that any further demands on the subject were pointless.

  ‘Then I take it,’ the knifeman said with a rasp in his throat that made him sound like he was auditioning for a part in a Spaghetti Western.

  I expected him to come at me slowly, but with a sudden drop of his shoulder, he charged. The distance between us was less than five long strides. As always happens in a physical fight my reactions become instinctive and my professional training took control of events. Even before he reached me, I was already thinking about the second man. Did he have a knife, too, and what would he do? My only real concern was that he might have a gun. Then something unexpected happened. The charge halted abruptly. It was a bluff. I had dropped lower, feet apart and hands out, but even so I doubted seeing me prepare for his attack was the cause of his hesitation. He must have hoped his aggression was all that was required. Now he eyed me cautiously. I stole a glance at the second man. His position had remained unchanged. Given this unexpected additional time, I quickly pulled off my t-shirt and wrapped it around my hand and wrist. My bold act did nothing for my opponent’s confidence. Again, he looked unsure. His indecision had started to puzzle me.

  Further seconds ticked by. If he were not going to decide then I would decide for him. Without warning, I rushed him. He was quicker than I expected, but even so I got inside his knife arm. My defensive block was strong and using my other arm, I buried my fist hard into his stomach. His lean, tight abdomen was firm, but my knuckles hurt him. I heard the wind rush from his lungs and felt his knees weaken. We were toe to toe. He tried to reposition the knife, but my block was solid. I hit him again. This time, my strike was higher and harder. My fist sank deeply inside his softened belly and I felt his nervous system shake, rattle and roll or whatever the equivalent funk terminology is. Anyway, his internal system received an unexpected jolt and it blew a fuse. He blacked out. Without control, he sat down hard on the flagstones and then toppled over. I knew from experience that his blackout would only last a few seconds. I stamped hard on his wrist. He involuntarily released the knife and I picked it up. It was only then that I realised the other man had almost reached me.

  He came at me fast with his knife hand held out as if he was walking an imaginary dog that was pulling hard on its lead. I made a defensive turn with my upper body together with an essential sidestep just in time. The knifepoint jabbed beyond my bare chest and I could almost feel the cold steel as it passed. With the knife from the first attack firmly in my hand, the opportunity to inflict a fatal wound was open to me. The man’s midriff was exposed and a targeted lunge, angled upwards, entering below the breastplate was all that was needed to finish it. I hesitated. Killing him was unnecessary and with what I knew of what was going on, which at that stage was zero, it seemed excessive. I suppose some people might kill a man for stealing a wallet, but not me. Yes, I know he pulled a knife and attempted to stick it in my chest, but some men are just like that.

  I heard a noise behind me. I recognised it as the church doors opening. I ignored it. Some men take well to second chances and I was not planning to find out whether it was true of this one. I leapt forward with speed and swung a forearm smash with real venom. While still turning his head back my accelerating elbow connected with the side of his face. The strike was sweet like the batsman’s connection with the ball when he hits a six. The sound was a mixture of low thud and high crack. His head snapped over and his body went down. I stamped on his wrist in the same rough way I had with his associate. His hand released the knife and I picked it up.

  I looked around at the church and saw a priest standing on the top step in front of the open doors. His anxious expression and open, beseeching hands told me that he disapproved of knife fights taking place outside his church.

  He shouted at me in Portuguese.

  ‘Sorry, Father,’ I shouted back. There was a pause.

  ‘You are English?’ he said in a calmer voice.

  The first man was coming round. He raised his head and rubbed his stomach. The second man was still out. Any attempt at questioning these two men, I decided, was pointless. They would just tell me it was a mugging and nothing else. That was if I could even get them to talk. No, it was time for me to leave. I went up the steps to where the priest stood.

  ‘You speak English?’ I asked him. He was wearing a cassock and his frown produced a grim expression of disapproval.

  ‘Sim, eu falo um pouco em Inglês,’ he replied. I waited. ‘Yes, I speak English a little,’ he said.

  ‘Is there a way out through the church?’ I asked and pointed inside the open doors. He nodded solemnly.

  ‘The house of God is always open,’ he said.

  With a final glance at the two men, both of whom were still on the ground, I left the priest and entered the church.

  ‘Leave a donation,’ he called after me, ‘and put on your shirt,’ he added.

  I found the entrance at the side away from the altar. I pulled my t-shirt on over my head. The lit candles flickered between the ornate silverware, and a scattering of people knelt at prayer. Just inside, near the font containing the holy water was a table used for donations. As I passed, I dropped both knives into the collection plate.

  Outside, I found myself on a busy street. The brightness contrasted sharply with the gloom inside the church. I used the sun to get my bearings and then hurried away in the direction of the hotel. I had had enough sightseeing for one morning.

  2

  THURSDAY, 12:20—14:00

  After checking the map once, I found the hotel. It was full of activity. I took my time before going in while I assessed whether anyone was watching the entrance. The constant bustle and movement made it easy to notice whether anyone was stationary for any period for which an obvious reason did not exist. I moved my position twice to make sure, but after discounting everyone that I considered might be a threat, including a man in a parked car who was only waiting for an elderly relative, I decided it was safe to enter.

  I walked in slowly wearing my sunglasses and scanned the reception area. Again, the movement helped make spotting any likely person who might be watching for me easier. I noticed a member of the hotel security staff, but he seemed more interested in the group of jovial young women waiting for the porter to load their luggage.

  Once satisfied that reception did not harbour any undesirables whose motives were to cause me discomfort, I walked up to the desk. A fresh-faced angel of smiles and politeness had replaced the young man with the weary face who had checked me in. I attempted to mirror her happiness with my own expression, but I am almost certain that the look appeared more like Quasimodo than it did Don Giovanni. Undaunted by my social failing, the angel asked, ‘
Can I help you, sir?’

  I showed her my key card and said, ‘Do you have any messages for suite 703?’ With the reassuring air of efficiency that exudes from confident young women in the workplace, Ana Luiza turned to her screen and concentrated. I knew her name was Ana Luiza by her name badge, which was pinned to her jacket lapel. While I waited, I scanned the entrance and the lobby, but nobody was watching me.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Ana Luiza. Her spoken English was good. ‘There is one telephone message.’ The desk printer pushed the hotel notepaper into the tray. Ana Luiza retrieved the printed message, folded the page once without looking at it and then passed it to me with a smile.

  I thanked her and this time, my expression was more convincing. She asked me if she could help with anything else. I assured her that everything else was fine. She seemed pleased.

  I took the stairs instead of the lift and read the telephone message as I went. It was from Charlotte. I hope you are having a great time. I wish I were there. Why did you not take a phone? Call me. Charlotte’s succinct message was standard fare and provided nothing in the way of information, explanation or assistance. What she knew or whether she knew anything was impossible to tell. As she said, I would have to call her.

  I entered my suite cautiously but was not welcomed by any surprises or uninvited guests. Why was I so concerned? Recent past experience, I suppose. Since meeting Charlotte my acquaintances had read like a “who’s who” of killers, villains and spies, and all of them, in one way or another, seemed intent on ensuring that my pension provision was a needless investment.

  I found a bottle of mineral water in the fridge, slid open the glass door and went out onto the south-facing balcony. The noonday heat embraced me with all the subtlety of a hungry Red-tailed Boa constrictor. I walked to the edge and looked down.

  Below me, hotel guests swam in the pool, lounged beneath colourful parasols or sipped cold drinks at the poolside bar. I drank my water and watched the inactivity of sun seeking holidaymakers in their element. Beyond the pool and the palm trees, smoky-blue peaks stood immobile beside a pearlescent sea like bodyguards on awards night.

  I had a decision to make and standing where I was, on a suite balcony of the best hotel in Rio, I could hardly complain later if I got it wrong. It was a life changing decision and here it was. Did I call London, find out what was happening, get involved and, thereby, continue in the employ of Bartholomew Meriwether or not? I suppose the real question was did I have anything else to do? I thought very hard about that. I really tried to think of an alternative. Surely, some deserving enterprise would benefit from my unusual talents. The only genuine option I came up with was to re-join the army, but even as I thought it, I knew it was impossible. The British Army were not about to welcome me back. It was not how it worked and I knew it. I finished my bottle of water and took a last look at the smoky-blue peaks beside the pearlescent sea. In truth, they had not provided as much help as I had hoped.

  I left the hotel via the breakfast patio and the steps that led into the garden and onto the pathway that ran beyond the conference room where a gateway took me out onto a side street along which visiting white trucks performed their essential deliveries. It was a simple thing to do and leaving the hotel unseen gave me a sense of ease that told me I preferred it when I avoided strangers from following me.

  I crossed over and walked along the adjacent side street, deciding to put distance between the hotel and me before I appeared on the main road. In the sunlight, the paving stones and walled terraces radiated heat with the same determination as a coal fire. I kept my sunglasses on and wore a faded baseball cap that I had found in my bag low over my eyes. I turned at the end and ahead spotted a small plaza. Approaching from the far side, I saw what I hoped I would find there. The kiosk newsstand sheltered beneath the protective fronds of a palm tree like an infant below the outstretched hand of its mother and around it, the mosaic ground appeared white in the permeating heat of the relentless sun.

  The newsagent, a thickset man wearing a linen shirt, enquired of me with a lift of his head and a fixed gaze as would someone constantly fulfilling customer requests.

  ‘Um cartão de telefone internacional,’ I said. He responded by asking what value of card I wanted. ‘O máximo,’ I said. He found the card instantly and I paid with Brazilian real banknotes. Inside my wallet, I saw the Interpol identification that Meriwether had insisted upon when I began in his employ and that VX had arranged and briefed me on. It was a fake, of course, but VX were insistent that they provided a genuine identification card and that my Interpol credentials would pass any test. Meriwether had told me that he thought it was a damn useful thing to have. I had had my doubts. To date, I had only used it once with Detective Superintendent Hannah Foley of the City of London Police Force and it had worked just as VX had promised.

  I moved away and sauntered into the plaza looking for a payphone. I soon found one, alone and unloved, against a whitewashed wall beside a row of parked cars. Its head cover was like the blue painted trophy of a long ago turtle hunt. I lifted the receiver, slotted the card and dialled the number from memory. Even though the number was not one I had used for some time, it came easily to mind. It was that kind of number. The voice that answered was not one I recognised.

  ‘Who’s the senior officer on post today?’ I asked. The time in Hereford was around three o’clock in the afternoon.

  ‘Colonel Drummond, sir.’

  ‘Can I speak with him?’

  ‘Who can I say is calling, sir?’

  I hesitated for just a moment and then I gave him my name. It felt like an hour but was probably less than a minute before Colonel Drummond’s voice came on the line.

  ‘Alive!’ he said in a loud baritone that made it difficult to determine exactly how he felt on discovering my continued existence. ‘Away from the mollycoddling care of the British Army,’ he went on, ‘I had you down for a goner, no time flat.’

  ‘I’m glad to have disappointed you, colonel,’ I said.

  ‘Ha!’ he said. It was very nearly a laugh. Then he spoke my name repeatedly as if he had forgotten it and was now trying to ensure he never forgot it again.

  ‘Colonel,’ I said, bringing him out of his recital.

  ‘Yes, my boy,’ he said as though he had forgotten my name again already.

  ‘Colonel, I called for a reason,’ I explained.

  ‘Yes, never doubted it. What’s the reason?’

  I took a deep breath and said, ‘I want to come back. Can I come back?’

  ‘My boy, come back, ah, I see. Well, for my part I would have you back tomorrow, no doubt on that score. I’d honestly tell anyone who’d listen that you were the best soldier this regiment ever let go...’

  ‘The regiment never lets a serving soldier go,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Ha!’ he said, ‘No? Well, the regiment let you go, didn’t it?’

  ‘Did it? So why was I let go?’

  ‘Orders, my boy; orders make the army. We all have to obey orders, even the regiment, well, sometimes the regiment. Anyway, it was orders then and it’s orders now. I’m sorry, my boy, but they’ve tied my hands. Believe me, if I could have you back...’

  ‘...orders! What orders? Who has tied your hands?’ I had raised my voice. The colonel responded as if he had not noticed and remained ebullient.

  ‘I can’t tell you that. I shouldn’t even be talking to you; shouldn’t have taken the call really. Chin up, old man.’ I had gone from “my boy” to “old man”. That was not a good sign. ‘Keep yourself alive.’ The colonel liked to give good advice. ‘Goodbye, my boy.’ Those were Colonel Drummond’s final words. He ended the call and left me holding a dead phone line and a puzzle that made me angry but that also, as I thought about it, gave me hope.

  What Colonel Drummond had told me confirmed that the way the regiment booted me out was strange. It was an unusual choice just as I had thought. Could something or someone have really influenced the regiment’s decision by bri
nging pressure to bear and could it still be happening now? I came out of my thoughts and then refocused. I checked the plaza and the row of parked cars. Everything seemed quiet. Children played and adults rested in the shade. Even the newsstand was short on customers.

  I decided to call Charlotte in London. I had her number written down on a scrap of paper that I had put in my wallet before I left.

  She answered in a light, friendly voice that gave any caller the reassurance that whatever they said could not make Charlotte Miller lose her composure.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you take a phone?’ she said with more than just a hint of annoyance crowding her upper class, West End accent. Clearly, saying “it’s me” was the exception to that particular rule.

  ‘I’m on holiday,’ I said, giving what I thought was a perfectly reasonable explanation.

  ‘You should still have a phone with you,’ she countered. ‘Who doesn’t have a phone?’ I took this as a rhetorical question and held back from offering suggestions.

  I had questions of my own, provocative questions, but I kept my discipline and said, ‘The people of Rio seem friendly.’

  ‘Do they? Charlotte said with an edge of scepticism. ‘And what does that mean?’ Sometimes her questions came with an insistence that brought thoughts of the Spanish Inquisition. I chose not to answer.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘why are you so anxious to get in contact with me?’

  ‘Although the thought of being free from you while you’re away makes me tingle with delight, the thought of not being able to call you whenever I want makes me feel the opposite.’

  ‘Oh good, I thought it might be something silly that would only worry a crazy person.’ There followed a pause in the conversation.