by Dawson, Mark
Beatrix waited. Duffy was in the building for thirty minutes, and when he stepped outside again, he was wearing a dark and troubled frown. He got back into his Land Rover and drove away, following a route that took him farther to the north.
Beatrix settled a few car lengths behind him and took the smartphone from her pocket. She had already preprogrammed the number for the tracker, and she texted it. The unit texted back almost at once with its latitude and longitude, its speed and a link to a Google map. She opened the link and, after a moment, saw the tracker’s position illuminated by a blue dot and her own by a red dot.
Everything was working as it should.
She stowed the phone in her pocket and settled in behind him.
She followed for twenty minutes. Duffy turned off the freeway and into an upscale residential neighbourhood. The farther he drove, the better the surrounding neighbourhoods became. The damage had been repaired, the roads resurfaced and the houses on either side of the street were newer and in bigger plots. The gardens were well irrigated, with lush green lawns and healthy palm trees despite the furnace-like sun that scorched down from above. Oil money, she thought. It was obvious.
He slowed and paused at the entrance to a gated compound.
Beatrix slowed, too, as much as she dared, and carried out a spot assessment.
The compound was surrounded by a ten-foot-high stone wall topped with razor wire. There were CCTV cameras spaced at regular intervals around the perimeter. The thick iron gate slid open and closed on a grooved track that was cut into the asphalt. The gate was guarded by two armed men.
She drove another twenty seconds up the road, turned, and then turned back. She studied the guards. They looked like soldiers. Each toted a Heckler & Koch MP-5. As she passed them, she noticed the Manage Risk logo on the sleeves of their black uniforms.
She shifted up to second and accelerated gently away. It would be difficult to get to Duffy at home.
She had another way.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was nine in the morning the following day. Beatrix and Faulkner were laid up in the Freelander outside the compound where Duffy lived. Beatrix was watching the guards through the windows of the SUV. They were smart and alert, too wise to the risks of guarding high-value targets in a place like Basra to take their eyes off the ball, even for a moment. A direct attack could only lead to bloodshed, and she didn’t want that. Not yet.
Faulkner had his smartphone in hand. He had called Pope overnight with a request for details on Mrs Sascha Duffy. Pope had passed the query on to the spooks at GCHQ, and they had assigned it with urgent tasking. The vast amount of data that they scraped from the internet was poured into endless data farms, but their automated scripts had interrogated those servers at lightning speed until they found what they were looking for.
A number had been texted to Faulkner and was waiting for him when he awoke.
“Ready?”
“Do it.”
Faulkner dialled the number.
The call rang twice and then connected. Faulkner had it on the speakerphone.
“Hello?”
“Is this Sascha Duffy?” Faulkner said.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“My name is Doctor Miles Farrow. I’m calling from the al-Jamhourua Hospital in Basra. It’s about your husband.”
“Bryan?”
“Yes, madam.”
“Oh my goodness. Is he alright?”
“I’m afraid he’s been quite badly hurt, Mrs Duffy. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news today, but there was a bomb . . .”
“Badly hurt? What does that mean?”
“He’s unconscious. We don’t think he’s in immediate danger, but you should probably come to the hospital as soon as you can. Do you know where we are?”
“Yes, I was there a month ago. A friend . . . oh, my goodness. I’ll come right away. Which ward is he in?”
“He’s in ICU, madam.”
“Thank you.”
Sascha Duffy rang off.
They waited. All they needed to do was to get her out of the gated compound, away from the security.
It didn’t take long.
Sascha hurried out the front door and got into the Audi TT that was parked on the drive. Beatrix had wondered whether she would usually travel with a guard, but if she did, she was in too much of a hurry today to worry about it. She reversed off the drive and sped up to the lodge with the armed guards inside. She exchanged a quick few words, the gate slid to the side and she accelerated quickly away.
Faulkner pulled into the traffic behind her. They headed to the middle of town and the al-Jamhourua hospital.
“She’s going to come off here,” Beatrix said, pointing to the slip road that fed off the main route.
Faulkner fed revs to the engine and picked up speed.
Sascha Duffy stopped at a red light that filtered traffic onto a roundabout. She was first at the light, and they were second. There was no one behind them. It was perfect.
Faulkner drew up to a stop behind the Audi.
Beatrix opened the door, got out and, drawing her Sig, jogged up to the passenger side door. She knew that it would be locked—that was de rigeur for a Western woman driving around Basra on her own—but that was not a problem. She used the butt of the pistol to smash the glass, reached in and opened the door from the inside and got in.
Sascha Duffy screamed and fumbled the car into first gear. Beatrix reached across and laid her right hand across Sascha’s hand on the gearstick.
“Relax,” she said. “I’m not going to hurt you. Your husband is fine.” She laid the Sig on her lap, drawing the woman’s eyes to it. “But I need you to come with me.”
They waited until the GPS tracker on Duffy’s car was on the move and then set off. Faulkner was in the Freelander and Beatrix was driving Sascha Duffy’s Audi. Sascha was in the back, her hands fastened behind her back with cable ties.
Duffy had been at the Rumaila complex all day and into the night, and now he was coming back into Basra. That was ideal for what they had in mind. The road passed through the occasional village and shanty, but for the most part, it sliced through barren desert. It was a sixty-minute drive. There would be plenty of opportunities to do what had to be done.
They hurried out of the city, skirting Zubayr and finding a quiet spot on the road to the north of the Al Mufrash airstrip. The road here followed the route of a dried-out wadi, dipping down into a depression so that the sides rose up four or five feet. It was a natural choke point that would be impossible to evade without backing up.
Faulkner drove on for thirty seconds before running off-road and parked the Freelander behind a grove of palm trees that would hide it from traffic approaching from the southwest.
Beatrix drove around a curve that would hide the Audi until the last possible minute.
They waited. The sky was dark, the stars scattered like diamonds across velvet. The horizon was lightened by the flames from the oilfields, and the sound of machinery was audible from miles away.
She saw a pair of headlights in the distance, heading right at them. She took out her phone and texted the tracker.
It pinged back its response.
A blue dot closing in on her red dot.
Duffy.
She drove the Audi into the middle of the road, leaving it with no room to pass on either side.
She went to the back of the SUV, opened it, hauled Sascha Duffy out and took her around to the side of the car that would face approaching traffic.
“Wait here,” she said. “It’s nearly over now.”
“What are you doing?”
“Wait.”
She went back to the car and took out the FN F2000 assault rifle.
Duffy’s Jeep Grand Cherokee bounced down into the dip, the headlights illuminating the
walls of the wadi as it proceeded around the gentle curve.
Faulkner gunned the Freelander’s engine and the SUV shot forward, blocking the way back and sealing Duffy inside.
Duffy exited the corner. The headlights shone over them: Beatrix, with the assault rifle cradled in her arms; his wife, averting her eyes from the glare of the lamps. Duffy hit the brakes and skidded to a stop. He reversed, the tyres chewing gravel as he tried to back away at speed.
The rifle was a bulky bullpup, chambered in 5.56 NATO. She nestled the stock into her shoulder and aimed, squeezing the trigger and sending a volley of bullets into the Grand Cherokee. The headlights shattered, the hood was torn up and both front tyres were shredded. The wheels sank down to the rims and carved tracks through the sand as the rear wheels dragged the disabled Jeep backwards. Beatrix aimed again and sent a volley through the windscreen. The glass crashed out of the frame, and rounds punched up and out of the roof.
Faulkner was out of the Freelander and approached the beached Jeep with his pistol raised. He fired, taking out the rear tyres and then the rear windscreen.
They both stopped firing.
Beatrix walked to the Jeep, the FN F2000 aimed straight at Duffy and her finger on the trigger.
“Get out!” Beatrix yelled over the sound of the still-straining engine.
The diesel revved again.
She stitched a jagged pattern of bullets into the hood for a second time.
“Get out, Duffy. I’ll shoot your wife if you don’t. And then I’ll shoot you.”
The engine quietened and then stopped.
The driver’s side door opened and Duffy carefully stepped out.
“Hands behind your back,” Beatrix barked at him.
He did as he was told.
“Bryan!” wailed Sascha Duffy.
“If you’ve hurt her . . .” he began, before realising how stupid that was.
Beatrix didn’t respond.
“Come on, Rose. Please. This isn’t necessary.”
Faulkner came up behind him and fastened cable ties around both wrists.
“Get in the car,” Beatrix said.
Faulkner yanked him backwards to the Freelander. Duffy kept his eyes on Beatrix as he stumbled. But he didn’t resist.
Faulkner had found an empty building on the outskirts of the city. It had been bombed during the war and repairs, if they had started at all, had been sporadic. The building looked as if it had been used as a foundry at some point in its history, but it had been wrecked. The windows had all been blown in, and one of the walls had partially collapsed.
They saw no one as they drew up. There was an underground car park, and Faulkner drove inside. Beatrix followed in the Audi.
The car park was empty, save for four cars that had been damaged when the factory was bombed and then scavenged in the aftermath. Faulkner pulled up next to them, adjacent to the open doorway with stairs leading up.
They followed them up to the ground floor. It was in a terrible mess. It was a wide open space with large pieces of industrial machinery. There was a large furnace, moulding machines, grinders, ladles and saws. The floor was littered with fragments of glass, and as they crunched across it, a flock of birds exploded up from a roost beneath an overturned shot-blast machine. The floor was slicked with their guano, and rainwater that had fallen through the holes in the roof had gathered in stagnant puddles.
“Nice place,” Duffy said.
Faulkner led the way to another room at the rear of the space. It was furnished with plastic chairs and tables. There was a metal counter, refrigerators and a large range. It must have been the factory canteen.
“There’s a walk-in fridge over there,” Faulkner said, pointing at the back of the room. “There’s a lock on the door. Should be secure enough.”
“This is perfect,” she said. She turned to Duffy and his wife. “Sit,” she said, indicating two of the chairs.
They did as they were told.
Faulkner covered Duffy with his pistol as Beatrix approached him.
“Listen very carefully. I’m not going to promise that you can get out of this, because you know you can’t, but if you do what I tell you to do, I promise I’ll do you quickly and I won’t touch your wife. Under the circumstances, after what you did to me, that’s a pretty good deal.”
“What do you want?”
“Your company has two people in custody. You’re going to help us to release them.”
“Who?”
“The first one is Mackenzie West.”
Duffy laughed bitterly. “You know I can’t do that.”
Beatrix stared at him, hard. “You just need to tell me where he is.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You don’t need to ask me that.”
He flinched, anger and frustration on his face. He knew he was finished. He nodded at Faulkner and tried to change the subject. “He’s with the Group?”
“Yes.”
“So he’s here for West, then? That’s the mission?”
“Never mind that,” Faulkner said.
“I know—you can’t say. It doesn’t matter. I know that’s why you’re here. MI6 wants to stir things up so that the Iraqis cancel the lease and give it to BP. We knew that was coming.”
“Are you going to help us?” Faulkner said.
He looked at him with a derisive sneer. “What are you? Number Ten? Number Eleven?”
Faulkner said nothing.
“You’re Twelve, aren’t you?”
He scowled at him.
“Jesus. They sent you a baby,” Duffy said, grinning at Beatrix. “What are you, his wet nurse?”
Faulkner glowered.
“Who’s the new commanding officer?” Duffy asked.
Faulkner gritted his teeth.
Duffy turned back to Beatrix. “It’s Michael Pope, isn’t it? I know he didn’t have all that much to choose from after what you and Milton did to that team in Russia, but, my God, seriously?”
“You know about Russia?” she said.
“We know all about that.”
Beatrix seized on that. “Control told you?”
He looked her with a sudden glint of cunning. “You know that I know where he is, don’t you? I know he’s the one you really want. He’s responsible for what happened to you. What would you say if I gave him up? I could tell you where he is and how you could get to him. Would that be enough for you and me to call it quits?”
“For you and me to be quits, I’d have to shoot your lovely wife in the head and then I’d have to shoot you. So no, that wouldn’t make us quits. It wouldn’t even be close.”
“Come on!”
“Where’s West?”
“Go to Hell.”
“Last chance, Duffy. Where is he?”
“Fuck you.” He spat at her and then craned his head so that he could look back at Faulkner. “And fuck you, too.”
“Okay.”
Beatrix stepped back. Sascha Duffy’s chair was behind an overturned table. Beatrix reached down to pick up the table and pushed it so that the edge bumped up against the woman’s chest. She took out one of her throwing knives and, going around behind her, she sliced through the cable tie. She reached out, fastened her fingers around Sascha’s right wrist and pressed her hand down against the table. Duffy started to protest, but she raised her left hand to forestall him.
She was reluctant to involve the woman. She had no wish to hurt her. After all, she had done nothing to her. Beatrix was quite certain that she had never even heard her name before. Her involvement was just bad luck. It was unfortunate that she was married to Duffy. It was unfortunate that she was here, with him, in Basra. It was unfortunate that she could be used as a lever against him.
She thought of Mysha. She had made a promise to her, and she meant to k
eep it.
Sascha Duffy was a means to an end.
There were other ways that she could get the information that she needed, but they would be messy and unpleasant. Time was pressing, and this, she knew, would be the quickest way.
“Spread your fingers, please,” she said.
“What?”
“Spread your fingers.”
“No.”
“It’ll be much better if you do.”
She raised the knife, tip pointing down at the back of the woman’s hand.
“Sascha!”
The woman spread her fingers just as Beatrix stabbed down at the table, the blade tapping into the wood between her thumb and index finger. Beatrix raised it and brought it down again, the blade pecking between Sascha’s index finger and forefinger, then again between her forefinger and ring finger, then again between her ring finger and little finger.
Beatrix started again, a little more quickly.
“I used to be good at this,” she said as she moved the blade with fluid speed. “I could do it faster, but that was a long time ago. I’m older now. The reflexes . . . well,” she darted the knife faster and faster, “I’m getting up to how fast I’d be comfortable doing this if it was my hand and not your wife’s.”
The colour had drained from Sascha Duffy’s face, and she couldn’t speak.
“A little bit faster, then?”
“No,” Duffy protested. “Stop. Stop! ”
Beatrix raised her fist to the height of her head and then slammed the blade down, hard, the point buried into the wood between the woman’s thumb and forefinger, millimetres from the fleshy web that joined them.
“Stop, Rose. Stop. That’s enough.”
“Shall we try again?”
“I’ll tell you what you want.”
“Where’s West?”
“A safe house.”
“Where?”
“We have an office.”
“You were there yesterday?”
“You were following me?”
“That was the office?”
He jerked his head in a nod. “Yes.”
“How safe?”