The Agent (An Isabella Rose Thriller Book 3)

by Mark Dawson

  They started to plan how they would leave.

  She glanced up in the mirror and watched the Escalade. The driver was holding back, leaving a quarter of a mile between their two vehicles. She continued northeast and merged on to the westbound A1, heading towards the city. It was a four-lane motorway and it was never particularly busy. The rain slammed down on to the windshield, the wipers sluicing it off and providing a moment of clarity before the view ahead was obscured once again. Aleksandra kept to sixty in the slow lane, following the blurred red tail lights of the lorry that was two hundred yards ahead of her.

  She looked up into the mirror again and saw the headlights of the Escalade behind her, a little closer now.

  The lights of the city glowed through the murk as she turned on to Boulevard Alexander the Great. The Escalade turned off with her. She drove under the overpass with hoardings for Telekabel, UniBank and Neocom, the road overlooked by tall electricity pylons and old-style Soviet architecture. She turned on to Boulevard Goce Delchev, crossed the Vardar and saw the familiar majestic arches of the Daut Pasha bathhouse at the end of the road ahead of her. She loved the building, especially the romance of how its interior had once been lit by fireflies that were caught in silk nets. But time had moved on, and the hammam had not been spared; it was lit by electricity now and had been turned into a gallery.

  Progress. It was not always to be welcomed. She could attest to that.

  She drove into the underground garage beneath her apartment block, stopped at the gate, took a moment to retrieve her key card from her pocket and pressed it to the reader. As the gate opened and she pulled forward, she saw the Escalade crawl by the ramp.

  She parked in her usual space, locked the car and took the elevator to the third floor. Her apartment had been provided by Daedalus. She slid the key card into the reader, waited for the lock to slide back and then very gently opened the door. She had made it her practice to leave a small marble behind the door before she left every morning, and she was always careful when she came back into the flat at night. She couldn’t feel the marble today and, as she pushed the door all the way back and stepped inside, she saw that it had been moved.

  It was the fifth time in the last week. She knew campus security retained spare keys so that they could covertly search staff accommodation. The marble was more than enough evidence for her to know that she was under formal investigation, even before the interviews with the shrink.

  She glanced around. The apartment was pleasant enough: bedroom, sitting room, kitchen, small bathroom. Men like Ivanosky had places outside of the city. The professor had a big villa nestled on the slopes of the mountain. This place was blandly utilitarian, somewhere for her to sleep when she wasn’t sleeping at the lab. Daedalus wanted the staff to work. Luxury might give them a reason to go home, and they didn’t want to encourage that.

  She went to the window, parted the blinds and looked down into the street. She saw the thirteen domes of the bathhouse and the fine old Ottoman buildings that stood at the edge of the Old Bazaar.

  She couldn’t see the Escalade.

  She went into the bedroom. She had deliberately not packed a case. She had no interest in leaving anything in the apartment that might suggest that she was looking to leave. William was in charge of finding the things that they would need.

  She changed into a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, swapped her wet mackintosh for a leather jacket, collected her umbrella from the wardrobe and, after taking a final look at the apartment, went back outside into the corridor, closed and locked the door and made her way back to the elevator.

  Chapter Eleven

  Aleksandra paused in the lobby of the building, looking out through the window and into the street. She looked left and right, but couldn’t see the Escalade. She nodded to the doorman, thanked him as she went through the opened door and stepped out into the rain.

  She went south, into the Old Bazaar. The streets were narrow and winding, with shops pressed in close on either side. The cobbles were slick from the rain and Aleksandra trod carefully as she negotiated a path through the tangled thoroughfares. The tables outside the cafes had been abandoned; the wizened old men who stationed themselves at them had taken up residence inside, smoking cheap cigarettes, drinking strong black coffee and glaring out through rain-smeared windows. She passed into the area that was given over to stallholders. She saw the stalls offering leather slippers, traditional crafts, then rows of fruit and vegetables. She saw watermelons stacked into pyramids, racks of oranges and limes, women in burkas heaving bags full of produce that would last them all week.

  She was next to the tiny St Spas church when she paused and turned back and saw the man. He was wearing a smart black overcoat and polished black shoes, and a black umbrella shielded him from the downpour.

  The man paused as Aleksandra paused, and stared right at her.

  He was not even attempting to hide.

  He wanted her to know that she was being tailed.

  She hurried on, her footsteps splashing through the puddles that had gathered on the waterlogged cobbles, turning away from the church and the Kale fortress and climbing the hill to the rose garden of the Mustafa Pasha Mosque. She was out of breath, a combination of the exertion of the climb and a sudden, irrational fear that William might not be waiting for her. How much did they know?

  Aleksandra turned back and saw that a second man had joined the tail. He had a phone to his ear.

  The two men were walking quickly, closing in.

  She turned away from them and walked faster, trying to match their pace.

  They knew.

  They had to know.

  The rain was hammering down on to the street, with fierce little rivulets running along the gutter and slurping into the drains. Aleksandra reached Opincharska and the narrow road that offered a view of the mosque’s soaring minaret, and she saw the car that William had described. It was a blue Volkswagen Golf, the engine running and fumes spilling out of the exhaust. The red tail lights were blurred by the droplets that she tried to blink from her eyes.

  She risked another glance back: the two men were fifty yards away from her and walking fast, almost on the verge of a trot.

  Aleksandra reached the car, opened the passenger door and slipped inside the cabin.

  ‘Go!’

  William didn’t need to be told twice. He lowered the handbrake, put the car into gear and started to pull away. Aleksandra swivelled in the seat and watched as the two men broke into a run. William negotiated a sharp turn, slowing as he edged between two parked cars, and one of the men reached the car and slapped his palm on the rear window.

  Aleksandra felt sick. ‘Go, go!’

  The road widened beyond the turn and William was able to accelerate away. Aleksandra watched in the mirror as the men fell back into the distance, their black coats merging into the gloom until she couldn’t see them any more.

  There was a moment of silence. Aleksandra felt an almost staggering sense of relief that she had managed to get this far.

  It didn’t last long. Her tail would report that she had gone missing and her superiors would be contacted.

  She thought of Franks and his lifeless body in the Vardar.

  She blinked the vision away. They had passed the point of no return now. There was no going back. No point in torturing herself.

  William glanced across the cabin. ‘Did you get it?’

  Aleksandra nodded.

  ‘All of it?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It worked. I got everything we need. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes. The suitcases are in the trunk. And I have the passports.’

  Aleksandra nodded to the satnav accommodated by a holder that was stuck to the windshield. ‘How long?’

  ‘About three hours if we go through Kyustendil. Four hours if we go north through Vranje.’

  ‘Go north. It’s quieter. Less chance that we’ll be seen. Do you have the money for the tickets?’

  William nodded. ‘
You’re still happy with Shanghai?’

  They had given plenty of thought to their destination today. William had explained that there would be very few places in the world where they would be safe. Their employers had a long reach. They had settled on China. The communists were investing huge amounts into genetics, even more than the Americans, and she knew that they would leap at the chance of benefitting from the research that she could deliver.

  But handing themselves over was not their aim. Asylum in exchange for information was the fallback. The option would only be considered if the main plan fell through. She and William had negotiated a transaction that would make them rich enough to disappear.

  ‘Aleks?’ William prompted.

  ‘Yes. I’m happy. Do you have the phone? There’s no point in waiting.’

  ‘In the glovebox.’

  Aleksandra reached forward, opened the glovebox and took out the pay-as-you-go phone that William had bought. She removed it from the box, pushed in the SIM, switched it on and, after it had fired up and found a signal, she dialled the number that she had memorised.

  The call connected.

  ‘Dr Litivenko?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How are you?’

  The voice was distorted. She had no idea whether the person with whom she had been talking was male or female. She had no idea where he or she was. She had first been contacted six months ago and, with great skill and tact, her trust had been cultivated and nurtured until she was confident that the contact could be trusted, at least inasmuch as Aleksandra was prepared to trust anyone.

  ‘We’re on our way out.’

  ‘The data?’

  ‘We have it.’

  ‘Very good. I needn’t remind you to be careful.’

  ‘I know that better than anyone.’

  ‘Your absence has already been reported. They are in contact with the local police.’

  ‘Do you have the money?’

  ‘It’s ready. You just need to tell me where you’d like to meet. We will send a courier to make the transaction.’

  ‘Stand by. I’ll call you with the location tomorrow.’

  Aleksandra ended the call, took the case off the phone and prised out the battery.

  ‘We’re here,’ William said.

  He turned the wheel. They were at the entrance to the garage near the old flower market. The car bumped down on to the ramp and William pulled up at the machine to take a ticket. The bar rose and he drove forward, slotting the Golf next to a Lexus. He switched off the engine and got out.

  Aleksandra got out, too. William unlocked the Lexus and opened the door. Aleksandra paused.

  ‘Aleksandra?’ William said after a moment had passed. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m frightened.’

  ‘I know. I am, too. But this is the right thing to do.’

  ‘Doesn’t make me feel better.’

  ‘They don’t know where we are—’

  ‘They will,’ she cut in. ‘And I know who they’ll send after us.’

  PART THREE:

  Mumbai

  Chapter Twelve

  Isabella Rose opened the window and looked all the way down. Their apartment block was on the edge of Dharavi, Mumbai’s most populous slum. The district took up barely more than a square mile, yet a million people were crammed inside it. It had originally formed around a water pipe within the bounds of an old garbage dump, but since then it had spread like a fungus. Isabella gazed out at the slum and the random streets and alleys that served the ramshackle habitations. The structures became more rigid and permanent as they drew closer to the middle. The buildings on the edges were little more than wooden shacks and lean-tos that were periodically swept away by the municipal government.

  She had ventured into the slum after they had settled into their apartment upon arriving yesterday. There were rats everywhere, large ones that were the size of cats and small dogs, and she watched them as they gorged on the garbage that was tipped outside front doors and allowed to fester and congeal. The sewers were non-existent, and there were roads where the sludge of excrement trailed down the middle into overflowing drains. There were beggars slumped against the sides of buildings, men dragging rickshaws out of storage so that they might go out and start the search for passengers in more affluent areas, women bearing ewers of water from the standpipes that were only switched on for two hours every day.

  Pope had decided they would be more anonymous in the bustle of the city, and Mumbai was the apogee of that. It was also the location of a Group Fifteen arms cache, and they had planned to recce it and, if it was safe, resupply themselves.

  The apartment was tiny, found within a large block six floors tall, and wrapped around in bamboo scaffolding for a refurbishment project that never seemed to begin. Each flat was furnished with a balcony that was accessed by opening a metal grille that was secured to the wall of the building. The other tenants used the outside space to store their junk and to dry their washing on lines that hung low from the weight of the clothes that had been loaded on to them. The rent cost just short of thirteen thousand rupees a month.

  The place was composed of a single room with a kitchen fitted into a tiny adjoining cupboard and a separate space for the bathroom. They had passed their first night on bedrolls next to each other, folding the rolls away when they awoke to be used as seating. Pope had stayed awake longer than her, festooning one of the walls with everything he had been able to discover about the disappearance of his family. He had trawled missing persons websites and forums and had called in favours from the intelligence contacts that he still believed he could trust. Isabella had printed out their emails in Palolem and he had stuck them to the wall next to a map of the world that Isabella had bought for him. He had scrawled a ragged red circle around Montepulciano, the Tuscan town from which his wife and daughters had been taken by the conspiracy that was now searching for them. He had marked the nearby airports and ports, drawing lines across the country to indicate potential routes that might have been used to ghost them away. There had been no leads, nothing to suggest that any one route was more likely than another.

  The map, with all of its desperate scribbling, was a reminder that Pope had no idea where his family had been taken.

  The other wall was dedicated to news reports concerned with the attacks in London. There were stories dealing with the bombing at Westminster and the attack on the Houses of Parliament. Isabella had been on a train as the bombers in the station had detonated their belts, killing dozens along with themselves. Other reports concerned the shooting down of British Airways Flight 117 and the deaths of all 347 men, women and children aboard it. The reports all traced the attacks back to Syria and then to Raqqa and the Islamic State. They drew a line from London through the Swiss accounts of Salim al-Khawari, now publicly confirmed as the financier of the operation.

  Pope and Isabella knew that the attribution of the attacks to al-Khawari was wrong. They knew that the evidence that was being used to prove his guilt had been planted. Al-Khawari had been framed. They knew that because it was they who had framed him. Pope had been manipulated by Vivian Bloom for an end that he could only speculate upon. The most obvious motive – that Bloom had framed al-Khawari to demonstrate a link between the attacks and ISIS – was almost too outrageous to believe credible. If one assumed that to be true, it was not so great a leap from there to the assumption that the attacks themselves had been staged.

  Isabella had read the conspiracy websites that Pope studied so obsessively. She read about false-flag attacks: events that were staged to impugn others and further agendas. She would have told him that he was being paranoid, but she couldn’t say for sure that he was.

  Could it be possible?

  Really?

  Was everything different from the way it had at first appeared to be?

  She had seen what had happened in the desert with her own eyes. She had helped Pope fight off the attackers who had descended upon them in an unmarked Black
Hawk, and then she had watched from the shelter of a cave as a Warthog had screamed overhead and obliterated the wrecked helicopter and all the evidence that they might otherwise have scavenged from it.

  How had they been found in the desert? They were miles from anywhere. It should have been impossible. Pope was convinced that they had been betrayed by the GPS tracker in the radio that he had been provided with.

  It seemed incredible, yet they had no other ideas.

  They had hurried to his Tuscan apartment only to find that they were too late. Rachel, Clementine and Flora were gone, and an assassin capable of extraordinary things was lying in wait for them.

  They had barely escaped with their lives.

  Isabella turned away from the window and looked over at Pope. He was sorting through a pile of papers, grouping them into those documents that warranted closer inspection and those that could be dumped. He looked older than he had when he had come to Marrakech to visit her. Worry ate away at him. Lack of sleep consolidated the damage, as had the wound to his arm. His face was more lined than she remembered, his hair a little more grey.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said.

  Pope didn’t look up. ‘Fine,’ he said.

  ‘Do you want anything?’

  He took a printout of a map and fixed it to the thin plywood wall with a drawing pin.

  ‘Pope?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘What?’

  ‘Do you want anything?’

  ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘A bottle of water? We’re low. Get a big one.’

  ‘Okay.’ She pointed to his arm. ‘What about your painkillers?’

  He flexed. ‘Probably. I think I’m out.’

  She made for the door.

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘I always am.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was 7.30 a.m.

  Their apartment block was large for the area, but dwarfed by the glittering new skyscrapers that had been erected in the city’s more prosperous quarters. They were not so distant from here, yet they might as well have been a million miles away for all the similarities that they shared. They were sleek and elegant, reaching up into the early-morning sky that was stained by a red that promised another hot day. Their block, in contrast, looked ready for demolition.