by R. J. Dillon
‘He’s mine,’ Nick shouted, out and running before Ernst could even shut off the engine.
Nick landed with a crump that rearranged his senses. Pools of darkness and pools of ice under his feet, his legs pounding away under him that he couldn’t regulate. Ducking under a hull a length of anchor chain crashed past his head, cracking and splitting a fibreglass mould. Levko swung the chain again in a flail, neatly opening a three-inch tear along Nick’s right cheek, crunching on into his shoulder. He parried Levko’s lashes with a boat hook driving him back. With both hands Levko hurled his chain and scrambled clear over a racing yacht’s cockpit. A dull drumming ahead as Levko slipping and dropping pounded across a column of icy oil drums close to the yard’s fence. Nick ran, drove his legs harder, his snatched breath giving off shrill whistles. Vaulting a hurdle of masts, he lunged. One of Nick’s hands in mid-air, curving, falling and snatching at Levko’s legs. Dragging him off the wire, Nick punched and screamed. Venom. Anger. Frustration. Blows to Levko’s body and head. A fine spray of blood and sweat bounced off the Russian as he shook Levko to his feet.
‘You kill my wife?’ He slapped Levko into paying attention, take the stupid grin off his face, pay his respects for the dead. ‘Who gave the order?’
‘Go to hell,’ panted Levko touching a corner of his mouth. He glanced at a trace of blood on the back of his hand, then stared defiantly at Nick.
‘Did the asset in London know?’ Nick screamed, two severe punches rocking Levko’s head.
‘Your wife weak, not strong, meant to live… distract you,’ Levko ran out of breath and his chest squeaked as he gasped for air. Shaking his head, Levko clutched at his chest as though he needed to get it open and do some urgent work inside there. He tried speaking but his voice had been lifted out and there was only a strange hollow echo left.
Nick slammed Levko into the fence.
‘…she too weak.’ Levko took a break between words, a lull to recharge his lungs.
‘That so,’ said Nick. Grabbing Levko by his collar he hurled him into a catamaran, his head hitting the boat’s skin with a sickening thud. ‘On your knees,’ yelled Nick, kicking Levko off his feet. The cold night staining his skin reminding him of Sabine, he stood panting and sweating, a fighter waiting for the next round.
Levko moved every muscle in his face, a rushed check through his nerves ending with an outright laugh. Nick unzipped his jacket, withdrew his 9mm H&K and pressed the barrel into the nape of Levko’s neck, firing once.
Waiting for him inside the yard’s office Ernst paced backwards and forwards, stepping over Ignaz’s legs as he sat on the corridor floor cleaning his H&K. Obsessive wipes up and down the smooth barrel that had claimed a couple of victims, picked off as an inflatable rode up a channel towards the yard’s slipway; Kasimov’s fallback, his means of rapid escape. Groans from Perekop rhythmically kept time with Ignaz’s polishing; the sniper sullen and sulky, concentrating on his task.
‘They’re all accounted for,’ Ernst said, avoiding Nick’s simmering eyes.
Cuffed and sitting on a pile of hessian sacks, Evgeni Kasimov calmly watched the drama unfold.
‘You appreciate that I will claim full diplomatic immunity,’ Kasimov declared, his voice hard but sounding as though it belonged to a shadow.
‘Speak to me again and I’ll kill you,’ Nick warned him, walking off.
In a storeroom Freja and Ursel were taking care of Franziska, kneeling each side of her on a thick mattress, helping her dress. She visibly shrank as Nick came in.
‘You have nothing to worry about,’ he said, a clumsy knot to his voice. ‘You are safe. Blümhof is an animal,’ he added, seeing for himself the depth of her beauty, the reason why she’d become the preferred honeytrap bait.
‘They threatened to kill her,’ Freja said with a narrow smile.
‘They would,’ he answered, going through into a small office.
The office was painted a dull brown with a stout ledger desk taking pride of place under a window. Blueprints, newspaper cuttings and steerage charts were pinned in no order on the walls, a pot bellied stove gave the only warmth dropping ash into a split pan. There was a smell of cigars, cheap aftershave and cooking more than a day old. Nick however had no surge of excitement, or righteous justification or even cathartic release; which given the circumstances might have been appropriate. Instead, he paid much attention to a sepia print coming away from its frame. Young faces discoloured over the years turned brown, given a hard edge, as though their skin were leather. A group of them arranged stiffly at the stern of a yacht about to be launched. From its mast, tails of bunting were caught in a breeze that would later carry the scent of war and death. The waiting is almost over he decided, heading out into the yard.
• • •
Nick drove away from the river into a plantation of saplings as slender as nails, a snowplough lumbering up the road behind him as he made a tedious journey back into Hamburg and Venlag & Co. GmbH. The company had its registered base in a small suite of rented offices behind the solid Gothic-styled brick walls of a former spice warehouse; its jutting gables and towers climbing high above Pickhuben, marooned between canals in the port’s Speicherstadt district. Besides Jack Balgrey’s quite spacious office, there was a small anteroom for Lucy, a Service administrator and behind secure metal doors, the comms room run by Euan, a bookish thirty-year old who longed for an exotic embassy posting with a communications room larger than a cupboard.
But as Nick patrolled outside that evening, only a single light burnt in Balgrey’s office on the third floor. Headlights streamed past Nick as he rounded the back of the warehouse, the city running up to full flood as commuters and shoppers poured towards the autobahn and suburbs. Rolling in along the canal a fine web of mist clung to the freezing air. Come on, Jack what’s keeping you? Nick walked off the cold in his legs, fifteen paces each way never moving from the shadows, not stepping near the security camera’s infrared cone. The Volkswagen had a coating of dust and dried mud down each wheel arch and was the dirtiest in the car park; a burgundy estate that Jack Balgrey finally approached at a quarter past seven, careless, not checking the shadows.
Whipping round too late as he opened his door, Balgrey never saw Nick strike. A low punch in the small of his back followed by the Heckler & Koch jammed roughly into Balgrey’s flabby neck.
‘It’s time we talked, Jack, time we talked about a house on Fehmarn. Time we talked about you working for Moscow. Time we talked about everything,’ Nick whispered into his ear. ‘We’re going for a drive, Jack,’ he ordered, lowering the weapon, resting its muzzle under Balgrey’s ribs.
‘Steady on, old son,’ groaned Balgrey clutching his side, his breath drawn hard into his chest gave wheezy lunges that rocked his body. ‘I don’t know what you’re flaming talking about, but you’ve done damage, old son, that’s what you’ve done. Put that thing away before you do me a permanent injury.’ His back curved away from the seat too brittle to be straight, his unblinking eyes observing Nick’s steely stare.
‘Drive, Jack, because we don’t want disturbing do we? You follow my directions. Now drive.’
Closing his eyes, Balgrey shifted his body in the seat. Sheila was right, Sheila his wife was never wrong. Too old, too slow, not sharp enough for a tough operator like Torr any more. He should have thrown in the towel years ago, taken a pub in Dorset, a free house with passing trade and a tasty barmaid to ease the winter nights. As long as they had somewhere for Sheila’s bloody precious dolls they’d be fine. Starting the engine he found a gear and drove; traffic lights, festive lights, colour and ruddy pain. He teased himself with a clip of how he’d bolt for it, taking his chance at a red light. Glancing at Nick’s face set tight next to him, he swallowed his plan concentrating on trying to memorise the route, anything to give him hope. Ten bloody years too late for anything remotely heroic against someone as good as Torr.
‘Bloody hell, old son,’ he said, as Nick made him cut a corner and park in what mus
t have been the darkest spot in the city near the Altona fish quays.
‘Out.’ Nick barged him towards the door. Jack Balgrey, our man in Hamburg, fifty plus and never going to change. A booze soaked mind that ran on dreams of his retirement, the fuel for a lack of imagination. ‘Out.’
‘Steady on old son.’
‘Move, Jack, we’re running out of time.’ Nick shoved him forward on a long churned cinder track cutting into a gorge of factory walls covered in moss and green streaks, melting snow spewed from smashed gutters.
‘How long have you been Moscow’s stooge? London aware of the property you manage for Moscow?’ He jabbed the swelling chest with the Heckler & Koch and Balgrey stumbled backwards into a cobbled loading bay. Falling, he crumpled saturated cardboard boxes and smashed a couple of empty bottles. ‘Come on Jack, lost your tongue?’
‘Look old son, I don’t know what your game is but you’re scaring me,’ he wined. Puffing and blowing he got onto his feet. ‘I’m one step down to retirement here, old son. I’m ignorant of what anyone’s got up their sleeves. I run the office, do what London ask, pass on the tittle-tattle Petra thinks is gold, but that’s about it. Moscow, old son, I would never get involved.’ He shivered and pulled his coat together. His fingers trying to fasten the buttons that had burst free as he went down. ‘I’m an outside interest as far as London’s concerned, someone to pass on tips about raids and busts, and that’s all I can tell you, old son.’
‘Come on Jack, you were working late this evening. What’s all that about?’
‘End of year accounts, London want ‘em filed by yesterday.’
‘Part of your duties to be a caretaker is it Jack?’
‘Don’t know what you mean, old son.’
‘Lets begin with the house near Puttgarden,’ Nick suggested.
‘Why would I have anything to do with a house on Fehmarn?’ Balgrey asked.
‘I don’t know, Jack, that’s why you’re going to tell me. Explain about the arrangements you have with a Swiss company for the upkeep of the house.’
Balgrey laughed but it was only nerves, the type when a student is caught cheating in an exam, a natural mechanism for defence.
‘Hear the river Jack? Not far to walk is it? Out on your own they’d say, meeting who or what they wouldn’t know. Only assume that you must have tripped, gone into the water swallowed a lot, bobbing up and down in your heavy overcoat. Alive, just, thinking of someone you care for until along comes a passing ship. Death by drowning, Jack, that’s not a way to retire. Tell me about London, Moscow and the Puttgarden house? Save getting yourself wet, Jack.’
‘I’m with you, old son, I’m walking up the hill fast, I comprehend.’
‘About the house?’
‘Came as part and parcel of the posting,’ said Balgrey, ‘another routine that I had to tick the box for. Look old son, whatever mischief you think I’ve been getting myself into was already here when I arrived,’ he said, his flaccid throat quivering.
‘Now you’ve got that out of the way, how about telling me the truth before I lose my patience? Come on Jack, spit it out,’ Nick hissed, his nose almost touching Balgrey’s. ‘Tell me about London, you doing your bit, Moscow and the house? What’s the arrangement? I’m losing confidence in you. I’m sorely tired with people not cooperating.’
He’d run, he bloody well would. A couple of times Jack’s leg had twitched in a sprinter’s nervous longing as he out manoeuvred Torr in his mind, but where would he reach? Out of condition and giving umpteen or more years to Torr, he’d get nowhere fast.
‘Look old son, this isn’t going to do you any good,’ he said, going for some of the guff he’d ladled out over the years.
‘The house, start with that.’
‘You’re crowding me old son, I’ve a lot of face to lose if all this comes down about my ears.’
‘You?’ Nick flung out his arms, turned in a half circle of fury and his composure went. He swung hard and Balgrey sank to his knees in pain. ‘You’ve not even started to hurt yet, Jack.’ He dragged Balgrey to his feet and stood back. ‘Answers.’
‘Hamburg was a smack in the face, a don’t thank us posting to a backwater Service post-office,’ Balgrey wheezed. ‘I have a year to run before early retirement and for that reason London couldn’t work out where I should spend my final posting. Square peg and round hole syndrome, old son. So when my predecessor here managed to apparently drown himself on his annual scuba diving trip in Egypt, London had a solution to its problem of what to do with me. My routine old son, is to sit tight and do what I’m asked until I retire.’
‘The house Jack?’
‘So what is there to tell?’ Balgrey shrugged and finally thought it safe to straighten up, his hands off his knees facing one bloody dangerous Nick Torr. ‘The house was all part of the mundane and not very exciting in-tray I inherited from Partington when he failed to surface from the Red Sea. There was the usual watch list, potential contacts, potential spooks and one grand coastal pile on Fehmarn, for the Hamburg officer to provide adequate care and upkeep of, lock, stock and barrel, including a bunch of keys. Another Venlag property I had to manage, so what, it was cosy for everyone, old son.’
‘Didn’t you find that odd?’
Swabbing his mouth with a handkerchief, Balgrey bent and straightened once more, forcing air inside his lungs. ‘Why should I, old son? I presumed it was just another safe house, one of the many that we have salted across the globe.’
‘So if I asked you nicely about Partington, you’d be able to give me all the details?’
Balgrey laughed right in his face, rotten breath and serve him right. Nick Torr, the hero on his white flaming charger. ‘You’re sounding obsessed, old son.’
‘How long had Partington been in Hamburg?’
‘Ask personnel.’ The handkerchief swabbed again, the brightest object around.
‘I’m asking you, Jack, and this is your last chance,’ said Nick, taking off the safety, raising the Heckler & Koch. ‘How long?’ Shouting, his finger tense, he was ready to squeeze the trigger; a lever had tripped releasing the venom and destructive charge. ‘Tell me?’
‘Since 2000, maybe 2001, but I can’t be sure,’ Balgrey disclosed, ramming the handkerchief into his pocket.
‘Did you visit the house?’
‘Once or twice a month as per standing orders and no, there wasn’t a bunch of squatters in there, no it wasn’t my pension policy that I hired it out. I just did precursory checks inside and outside, made sure there were no problems and on the odd occasion that a job needed doing I got local trades in, paid up and sent the receipt to Switzerland,’ Balgrey said. ‘Good old Jack, never let anyone down.’
‘So help me Jack, you expect me to believe that someone with your experience never queried why a Service safe house had its upkeep paid for through a Swiss company? That you weren’t required to call in our own trades for maintenance from London, come on Jack you’re beginning to disappoint me again. You know London is all about accountability, Jack don’t you, every penny scrutinised by accounts, no wastage, no overspend.’
Jack forlornly squinted around, looking for a way out or help but there was nothing forthcoming. ‘All right,’ Balgrey confessed, ‘I was informed that it was a joint venture between us, the Canadians and Americans called Operation Five Star Delivery, funding was a three-way split, hence the Swiss company as a front. As the nearest station Hamburg was tasked to maintain and care for the place, two trips each month to check its condition and any problems we had to sort locally.’
‘Who briefed you?’
‘Jane Stratton, old son, came under the jurisdiction of that Special Operations Directorate.’
‘Why the isolation from London?’ Nick wondered, but he already knew the answer.
‘It’s a sort of half-way terminus for anything coming in from Eastern Europe. That’s the truth, old son, the whole truth and nothing less or more.’
‘How does it work?’
�
��The house is used to meet a senior Ukrainian agent, high-ranking, plenty of stars on his chest. Us, the Americans and Canadians take it in turns for a heart-to-heart, no fixed and fast dates and that’s why it’s checked religiously twice a month.’
‘Then you do what?’
Jack Balgrey, for the very first time that evening, and quite possibly even in months, shook his head in complete honest ignorance.
‘You report to who, Jack? Who do you tell it’s clear, all tidy, ready for action, who do you tell?’
‘No one, old son, I’m just the caretaker.’
‘Someone in London makes the arrangements, Jack, that it?’ proposed Nick.
‘Look old son,’ said Balgrey getting agitated. ‘I’m this close to signing off and it isn’t my place to question the eighth floor’s strategic decision making policy. I’d be hauled back home and let go. Thanks Jack old thing, very nice what you’ve achieved, nothing fantastic, but solid stuff, now bugger off and collect what little pension you’ve got coming to you. Me, I’m just content minding my own business, don’t want to rock the boat, old son, nothing wrong with that is there?’
‘Why should you, Jack, what’s wrong with being Moscow’s cut-out?’
Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, Balgrey had a sudden realisation. ‘I’ve been right royally stitched up, old son, haven’t I?’ he stated, as though someone has just illuminated a very dark highway and he could now thankfully see his way home.
‘We all have,’ Nick answered.
‘Christ, old son, I had no way of knowing,’ he admitted, his mouth and throat dry.