Assassins Rogue

by Rachel Amphlett

  ‘Did you get the licence plate on the trailer?’ said Decker.

  ‘I didn’t see one on it, and there were no logos or names of haulage companies along the sides,’ said Marie, frowning. ‘They’d put up some temporary metal steps for us to get in and out of the command centre. I can’t remember seeing a truck or a crane anywhere on the airfield so I think they were just leaving it set up like that.’

  Decker turned to Eva. ‘We need to go there. For a start, we need to destroy that Reaper – and if we can’t find it, then destroying the command centre is our next best option.’

  ‘We’ll make a start tomorrow after Marie’s out of the country safely,’ she said.

  Nathan glanced at his sister as he began scrolling through photographs again. ‘We’ll probably be done with this in another hour. There aren’t many––’

  ‘Wait.’ Marie moved her chair across and stabbed her finger at his screen. ‘Him. That’s the Colonel. I recognise him. He was talking to another man when we were driven across the airfield from the plane after we landed. They were standing outside the door to the command centre when the car stopped.’

  ‘Did you get a name?’ said Eva.

  The intelligence officer shook her head. ‘I didn’t, but as we got out of the car he smiled at the Colonel, then got a lift back towards the hangars at the far end of the airfield before we went inside the command centre to start our mission.’

  ‘Okay, good – that’s something,’ said Nathan. ‘We’ll flag him and pass that image on to Miles and his team. Let’s keep going and see if you recognise anyone else.’

  ‘Stop.’

  Eva looked up from her screen as Decker’s voice echoed off the walls.

  Nathan’s hand froze above the mouse before he recovered. ‘What?’

  ‘Go back.’ Decker pointed at the screen, his tone impatient. ‘Scroll back to that last image.’

  He stood with his arms across his chest as a face reappeared, and let out a satisfied grunt. ‘I know him. The Colonel.’

  Nathan’s eyes narrowed. ‘In what capacity?’

  ‘Professional, of course.’

  ‘From where?’ said Eva. ‘Or, should I say – when?’

  ‘About eight years back, in the Philippines. I did some freelance work outside of the Section for the FBI. Or someone associated with them.’ Decker’s jaw tightened. ‘They took over six months to pay up.’

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Nathan, his tone urgent. ‘Who the hell is he?’

  ‘Sean Tozer. Another freelancer. Nasty piece of shit, too. I was glad to see the back of him.’

  Marie looked from him to Eva. ‘Do assassins have an ethics code?’

  ‘Of sorts.’ Eva frowned. ‘Have you heard from him or seen him since, Decker?’

  ‘No – you know what it’s like.’

  ‘True.’ She peered back at the screen as Nathan continued to scroll through image after image, the database now displaying a shortened search string. ‘What about ground crew, Marie? Recognise anyone else?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Marie murmured, nibbling at a thumbnail. ‘Keep going.’

  Eva held her breath.

  ‘There!’

  Nathan froze as Marie leaned forward, her eyes blazing.

  On the screen, a swarthy-looking man was shaking hands with an unidentified woman, her back to the camera. The man wore a smart suit, his jawline sculpted with a closely-cropped beard. He wore a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  ‘Says here he goes by the name of Aaron Sykes,’ said Eva, running her gaze down the scant information the Section’s database had gathered. ‘No known connections to terrorist organisations though.’

  ‘I saw him there,’ said Marie. ‘That’s the man I said was talking to the Colonel when we got to the airfield.’

  ‘Perfect.’ Eva patted Nathan’s shoulder. ‘Now we have a location, and two names.’

  ‘And, if we have names, we have targets,’ added Decker, then grinned. ‘That’s an improvement.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Charlotte clipped back her long fringe, shrugged a sweatshirt over her shoulders and walked through the flat to the compact open-plan kitchen and living area.

  She eyed the post that had been waiting for her in the mailbox downstairs when she arrived home, then reached out and discarded the pamphlets and brochures from food delivery services and the local pizza place in a small recycling box near the front door. She pushed the remainder to one side before tugging the padded envelope from her bag instead.

  Pouring a generous measure of Pinot Noir into a glass, she wandered over to the sofa and placed the envelope on a low table in front of her.

  She hadn’t had a chance to go through what Jeffrey had sent to her yet.

  One look at his note at the office and she had scurried back to her desk while Hodges was ending his call, and shoved the envelope and its contents into her bag before kicking it under her desk out of sight.

  She couldn’t get home fast enough.

  The tube journey back to Finsbury Park had passed by in a blur, her movements automatic, and then as she’d twisted the key in the lock to her front door, the excitement had swelled.

  She took a sip of the wine, then put down the glass and pulled the contents from the envelope.

  A folded map fell out between the loose pages and slid to the floor between her feet. Scrambling for it with her left hand, she flipped it over and emitted a surprised snort.

  ‘What were you doing in Syria? You were supposed to be in Turkey…’

  She tried to recall what she knew about the place – war-torn, rampant starvation and a refugee crisis that no longer reached the headlines in England.

  A forgotten country.

  Running her thumb over the map, she blinked at the red biro Xs next to two locations and held it closer.

  There were no town names beside the markings, no roads twisting over the contours.

  Nothing.

  She shook her head and dropped the map on top of the envelope and turned her attention to the papers in her right hand.

  The pages looked as if they had been ripped out of an A5-sized notebook, Jeffrey’s scrawl just about legible across the fine lines. Page numbers had been pre-printed in the bottom right-hand corner, and Charlotte realised that he had torn them from the middle of the notebook – pages one through thirty and then fifty-three and beyond were missing.

  Frowning as she flicked through them, she concluded that the numbers he’d written down resembled global positioning system coordinates and the accompanying text – some of the ink blurred with sweat from Jeffrey’s fingers by the look of it – included descriptions of people, men he had seen at those locations.

  Two men, but no names.

  Charlotte flipped over the final pages clipped together – A4 sheets this time, with a hotel logo on the top – and frowned as she read the text beneath.

  Jeffrey’s handwriting looped across the pages, as if he had been taking hurried notes while on the phone to someone – there were bullet points running haphazardly down the left hand side, and then scribbled questions on the right, with arrows to other thoughts he had jotted down. A date and time appeared at the top of the second page she turned to, and she frowned as she realised it was dated three days ago, when she had expected him back in Ankara and a phone call to say he would be back in London soon.

  Instead, the word “Ízmir” had been written in capital letters, and underlined twice.

  Charlotte lowered the pages and reached out for the wineglass, taking a sip while she mulled over the details.

  Jeffrey’s hurried scrawl spoke of a compromised arms shipment. Somehow, he had identified that four missiles had been stolen in Malta before the ship continued its journey to Ízmir, and a corresponding rogue drone that he was now chasing.

  The emergency meeting convened with the heads of the intelligence services had taken place two days ago, and a flurry of activity followed while Edward Toskins’ staff tried to throw together
a report that would mitigate any blame for the missing weapons from the original shipment that left the USA.

  For the shipment contained a sale agreed by the Department for International Trade.

  Except from the reports Charlotte had seen in the past twenty-four hours, and the conversations she’d overheard between Hodges and Toskins, there had been no mention of the missing Hellfire missiles, or whether the theft was a one-off occurrence.

  Everyone in the department was at a loss as to how the weapons had been stolen, especially as the container had been sealed prior to its original departure.

  How did someone break into the container, steal the missiles and then re-seal it without being seen?

  And what of the two men described in the torn pages from Jeffrey’s notebook?

  Why didn’t he have their names?

  Hadn’t he been introduced to them?

  If not, why not?

  His position as special adviser to the Foreign Secretary had led to the hastily arranged assignment. Some sort of panic that had Jeffrey rolling his eyes as he’d told her over a late dinner and explained that he would be leaving for Ankara.

  That had been over a week ago, and she hadn’t heard from him since.

  She even tried phoning the woman who made all the department’s travel arrangements, only to be told that Jeffrey had insisted on making his own arrangements. Unusual, but as he was an advisor rather than a minister of Her Majesty’s Government and not regarded as a security risk, she had acquiesced.

  Afterwards, she tried to find a copy of his itinerary beyond the busy international airport, but there was nothing, not even a hotel name or car rental company.

  Once he had arrived in Turkey, there was a void.

  Dukes had disappeared without a trace.

  Now, this.

  Her heart leapt as her mobile vibrated on the coffee table a split second before a Rolling Stones track blasted out.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Ouch. How are you?’

  Charlotte’s gaze ran over the paperwork strewn across the table and she sighed. ‘Confused. Sorry. What about you?’

  ‘Turn on the TV.’

  Her brother’s urgent tone had her reaching for the remote control on the arm of the sofa before she thought to ask why.

  ‘Where are you?’ she said as she aimed the remote at the TV in the corner and waited for the menu to display.

  ‘The airport. Put it on the BBC. You need to see this.’

  There was noise in the background – people shouting to each other, loud music, laughter.

  ‘Are you in the bar?’ she said, selecting the 24-hour news channel.

  ‘Have you got it on yet?’

  Charlotte didn’t answer.

  Instead, she dropped the remote, then clutched the phone in shaking hands as her brother’s voice carried through the speaker.

  On the television, the image changed from a news studio to a dusty landscape and a world-worn male reporter faced the camera. His voice echoed the words flashing past on a red-coloured ticker tape along the bottom of the screen, the text screaming out at her.

  Foreign Secretary’s representative Jeffrey Dukes suffers heart attack while in Turkey for Syrian peace talks.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ankara

  * * *

  Adrian Ogilvy lowered his sunglasses onto his nose and rolled up his cotton shirt sleeves as he left the hotel, unaware that he was being watched.

  In his mid-sixties, he walked at the pace of a man with purpose, and of one for whom exercise was a regular occurrence.

  He checked his watch, the timepiece gleaming in the bright light already causing sweat to prickle at his hairline. He had an hour until the pre-arranged meeting but wanted to arrive early in order to assess the location.

  His contact – Mahdi – had suggested a remote location for their meeting, and Adrian had readily agreed. It was far away from the diplomatic quarter, away from prying ears and eyes, and the drive would serve to give him time to batten down his increasing panic.

  Adrian’s gaze shot to his left as double glass doors parted and a waft of air-conditioned coolness swept over him.

  Most people – particularly the tourists – were sensible enough to spend the daylight hours by the hotel pool or visiting one of the malls to stay out of the heat.

  He did not have the luxury of choice.

  Not now.

  His attention snapped to the right as a convoy of black limousines passed, the licence plates revealing the passengers to be diplomats behind the smoked-out windows before the cars swept by and turned through the gates to one of the many embassies lining the streets in the city.

  A cursory glance over his shoulder gave him no cause for concern.

  Families congregated in small groups outside the shops – parents bickered in the midday heat, sulking children with bored expressions at their heels while women in niqabs hurried past clutching laden bags from the market and department stores. A long line of traffic curled along the road in both directions, the movement of the vehicles swift, busy while a siren wailed in the distance.

  Adrian picked up his pace, wishing he’d remembered to wear the straw fedora that was currently sitting on the middle of the hotel room’s king-sized bed where he’d left it in his rush to leave.

  Jaw set, he pulled a cotton handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his forehead, then swallowed.

  His heart rate was elevated, not from the exercise – he played tennis three times a week back home in England, and was used to working in the refugee camps based closer to the Equator – but from a nagging worry that had grown since a phone call last night.

  He slowed as he approached a grey four-by-four parked at the kerb, aimed his key fob at it and threw himself behind the wheel, grateful for the tinted windows keeping out some of the heat. Starting the engine, he opened the windows until the air conditioning started to pump out a cool breeze, then swiped the parking permit off the dashboard and pulled into a gap in the traffic.

  He thumbed down the volume on the steering wheel controls, the muted voices of the BBC World Service fading to the background, then shuffled in his seat as the vehicle in front ground to a halt at a set of lights and pulled his phone from his pocket. Once it was in its cradle beside the air vents, he checked the screen.

  Still no new messages.

  Fears confirmed, he exhaled and tried to order his jumbled thoughts.

  His role as director for a non-government organisation was one he had coveted since his late thirties, so when the opportunity presented itself fifteen years ago he had jumped at the chance. As with many charity workers, he remained of the optimistic belief that what he was doing made a difference, however small, to groups of people with no remaining hope.

  He had spent his life since in the Middle East, not in places like Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates but in the poorer countries – the ones that didn’t have the immense oil and gas reserves of the neighbouring kingdoms and fiefdoms.

  Adrian had been threatened, beaten up and shot at during his time with the NGO.

  But this?

  This was different.

  He could anticipate the threats back then and chose to ignore them, risking his life to save others.

  This time, he didn’t know who he could trust.

  Mahdi had been the first person he had contacted after the phone call in a desperate attempt to counter the claims made, his words carefully chosen and choked out staccato-like for fear of giving away too much in his state of panic.

  Mahdi had a way of knowing things, finding out who knew what, and how to obtain information.

  Adrian could only hope that the man had some answers for him now.

  Taking a deep breath, he tore his attention away from the screen when the car in front surged forward.

  It was only five minutes from here to the British Embassy if he turned back.

  He had hoped the drive would serve to calm his nerves – except it hadn
’t, and now he didn’t know what to do next or whether he would make the right decision.

  Meet with Mahdi and report back, or take what he knew to the consulate and hope for the best?

  His gaze moved to his phone again and he squinted at the last text message he had received.

  I know it’s been through here. Heading out to get us some evidence. See you in a couple of days.

  He grimaced.

  It had sounded so simple in hindsight, except now Jeffrey Dukes had disappeared off the face of the planet as far as his contact in Europe could deduce and no-one else could shed light on what had happened to him either.

  Meanwhile, the UK government were pushing a bullshit story about Dukes suffering a heart attack while on FCO duties in Syria.

  Adrian feared the worst.

  They had known there would be risk. They had known it might come to this, but there had been hope for a fleeting moment.

  Now with Jeffrey missing, feared dead, it was up to Adrian to take the next steps.

  ‘Fuck it.’ He slapped the wheel, indicated right, and took the exit.

  As the city faded behind him, the desert reclaimed the highway. Sand shifted across the hot asphalt, whipped up by a wind that he knew could dehydrate a man in minutes.

  After half an hour, he eased off the accelerator and braked when a worn sign riddled with bullet holes appeared on the left. He steered the four-by-four up a rough stony track that soon gave way to the fine grit of the desert, the suspension rocking the vehicle left and right as Adrian kept a firm grip on the steering wheel and negotiated the undulating landscape.

  Rounding the curve of the next dune, he let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding when he saw the parked battered white car a little over half a mile away, its windscreen glinting in the midday sun.

  A squat man wearing a long pale blue cotton shirt over black trousers raised his hand in greeting, and Adrian honked the horn in recognition, a sigh of relief passing his lips.

  ‘Thank God,’ he muttered.