Manhunt (36 page)

‘And he’s good, is he, this man from Hereford?’ Raya asked.

Richter was slightly surprised that she knew where the SAS Regiment was based, but then realized Raya would probably have had access to files containing exhaustive information about all branches
of the British armed forces.

‘I think so, yes,’ he said. ‘I trust him, anyway.’

‘That’s good,’ Raya said, her voice suddenly sounding concerned, ‘because I think we’re going to need him. Where’s your car now? Don’t point, just tell
me.’

‘In the street directly behind me,’ Richter said, renewed worry flooding through him. Something was clearly wrong, and he didn’t know what. ‘It’s a Ford Focus, on
Austrian plates.’

Raya leaned forward, in the action of a lover rather than a conspirator, placed her face against his and whispered in his ear. ‘There are two men watching us from the far side of the
square, right behind you. Side by side, with dark suits and black hair. I’m sure they didn’t follow me here, so they must have been tailing you. Unless you already know who they
are.’

‘Not me,’ Richter said. ‘And, as far as I know, nobody followed me either. Are you sure they’re watching
us
?’

‘It definitely looks like it. Somehow they’ve found us, but at the moment they’re just looking, so maybe they’re waiting for orders – or waiting for us to set off
down a quiet street, where they can snatch us. Perhaps this place is a bit too public for them to grab us. Give me the car keys, and we’ll leave separately. I’ll go first and wait by
the car, then you follow in about half a minute.’

Raya pulled back, looked Richter in the eyes, and gave a slight smile. ‘It’s been nice knowing you,’ she said, ‘and here’s something to remember me by.’ She
kissed him full on the lips, then took the keys he’d pulled from his pocket. She stepped back and walked away, heading for the parked Ford.

Richter turned his chair slightly so that he could now see the other side of the piazza, immediately spotting the two men Raya had described. They’d both stepped forward and were heading
across the square, obviously to follow her. Their jackets were unbuttoned, which suggested both of them were carrying weapons in shoulder holsters.

He made an immediate decision, and just hoped Dekker could clearly see what he was now doing. He picked up the red umbrella, then very deliberately replaced it on the table, then turned on his
heel and walked briskly after Raya.

Colin Dekker had watched Richter’s encounter with the unknown woman with a wry smile. Either ‘Yuri’ was a girl, he decided, or the Russian defector had
already been picked up somewhere and Richter had just got lucky.

But after the girl left, and Richter picked up the umbrella and then put it down again, Dekker knew something was wrong. He widened his field of view, trying to see what had apparently alarmed
them. He focused on the two men in dark suits almost immediately. They seemed to be heading after the girl, and as Richter, too, walked away from the cafe, they both broke into a run.

That was all Dekker needed to know. He lowered the stainless-steel barrel of the AWS rifle slightly, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The weapon kicked against his shoulder, but the
crack of the shot was barely audible against the background noise of the town.

In the piazza, one of the running men stumbled and fell to the ground, both hands clutching his leg. His companion stopped immediately, pulled out a heavy-calibre semi-automatic pistol and spun
round, looking for a target, while apparently talking to himself. Dekker realized he had a hidden lapel mike, and was either summoning help or just reporting in.

On the far side of the square, a dark-coloured saloon suddenly appeared, one occupant visible behind the wheel, and it raced across to the fallen man. As it stopped, the car was directly
broadside on to Dekker’s position, offering too good an opportunity to miss. He sighted again, the AWS sniper rifle cracked twice more, and both the tyres on the near side of the car blew in
quick succession.

‘Now get going, Paul,’ he muttered, and quickly started to disassemble his weapon and pack it away.

Richter heard a scream of pain behind him as he reached the edge of the piazza and quickly glanced back to see one of the two men writhing in agony on the ground. Obviously
Dekker had identified the danger and had done what he claimed to do best – shooting the bad guys.

When Richter reached the Ford Focus, the engine was running and the driver’s door open. Raya had already moved to the passenger seat. He jumped in, slammed the door and pulled away from
the kerb.

‘I almost expected you to drive off before I got here,’ he said, accelerating hard down the street.

‘I can’t drive,’ Raya said simply, ‘otherwise I might have done. But it looks like your friend did his job.’

‘I told you I trusted him. Now, how did they find us? Are you
sure
nobody could have followed you?’

Raya shook her head. ‘Obviously I can’t be sure, but I don’t think so. If they did manage to trace me here, to this town, why didn’t they pick me up straight away?
They’ve got no interest in you or your friend – or, at least, they didn’t until he crippled one of them – so why did they wait until the two of us were sitting together in
that square?’

For a few moments neither of them spoke, as Richter drove under the autostrada, staying on the minor roads.

‘Where are you going?’ Raya asked.

‘Right now, I don’t know,’ Richter replied. ‘Just getting away from Nervi, I suppose, and trying to make it as unpredictable as possible. If even
I
don’t
know where I’m going, nobody else can guess my destination.’

Raya glanced at him, her face still clouded with worry. ‘Let’s try and work it out,’ she insisted. ‘Who knew you were heading to Genoa to find me?’

‘The SAS man, his name is Colin Dekker, me, obviously, and the senior guy who tasked me with this job. He’s called Richard Simpson, and he’s not an SIS officer. He heads his
own separate operation.’

‘Nobody else?’

Richter thought for a moment, recalling the circumstances of the moment when Simpson had briefed him, back in Ax-les-Thermes. Absolutely the only other person within earshot had been David
Adamson, and he was one of Simpson’s own men.

‘One of Simpson’s people was there as well,’ he said finally, ‘a man called Adamson. But I’m not even sure he could have heard Simpson while he was briefing me.
Even so,’ he continued, ‘it couldn’t have been Adamson, or in fact Simpson either, because all they knew was that the rendezvous would take place in Genoa or thereabouts. They
didn’t know specifically about Nervi, because I was already over the Italian border by the time you sent me that text message that specified the RV. The only people who knew
exactly
where and when I would meet you were Colin Dekker and me.’

‘You didn’t tell this Simpson man?’

‘No.’ Richter shook his head firmly. ‘Just before you sent your text, Simpson sent me a message asking where I was, but I didn’t reply to it. In fact, I still
haven’t.’

‘That’s it, then. There’s only one possible explanation.’

‘What?’

‘It’s your mobile. Somebody has to be tracking your mobile. Those men knew you were somewhere in Nervi. Triangulation from the cells would have located you somewhere in the piazza,
but they wouldn’t know exactly where. So they were probably watching all the single men, and waited until a woman approached one of them. That would have identified you – and therefore
me too.’

Richter was silent, appreciating the grim and inescapable logic of what Raya had just said. And, so far, it was the only explanation that made sense.

‘So who exactly knows your mobile phone number, Paul?’

Richter took the phone out of his pocket, quickly switched it off and tossed it on the back seat. Then he glanced back at Raya. ‘Simpson gave it to me, so he obviously knows it, and Colin
Dekker, because I used it to call him this afternoon. But I have no idea who else might know that number.’

Raya reached behind her to grab the phone, then she fiddled with the catch and removed the battery.

‘Just in case there’s a tracking chip or something inside,’ she explained, examining the main circuit board that was now exposed.

‘If there is, it might be worth hanging on to it,’ Richter suggested. ‘We can send the phone one way while we go the other. And I know what you’re going to say next, how
the two names that seem to keep on cropping up are Richard Simpson and Colin Dekker. Dekker is the man who’s just shot someone back in Nervi, and then disabled their car, which is exactly why
there’s nobody following us right now. I’ve known him only a very short time, but his actions seem to me to speak for themselves.’

‘And what about Simpson?’

‘Richard Simpson is one of the most devious men I’ve ever met, and he’s lied to me almost from the first moment I met him. But the strange thing is, that I think he’s
being straight, at least, over this.’

‘But you can’t be totally sure?’ Raya persisted.

‘No, I can’t. And also Simpson told me he would personally arrange whatever transportation we needed – like an aircraft or something.’

‘So we won’t be travelling to Britain that way,’ Raya said firmly.

‘Absolutely not. We’ll make our own way back. And I’ve got another idea that might help muddy the waters a bit, too.’

Dekker drove slowly out of Nervi, avoiding passing through the Piazza Centrale, now a scene of apparent chaos, and drove on through the outskirts of Genoa, retracing his
previous route but avoiding the main roads. He concentrated on the traffic, watching his rear-view mirror for any signs of pursuit, while watching out for police or roadblocks on the road ahead. It
would be a very bad idea to be stopped and have this car searched, because explaining away the Accuracy International AWS sniper rifle would be difficult, especially if somebody linked the presence
of the rifle to the shooting in Nervi, then decided to carry out a ballistics test.

But most of all, he kept listening out for the sound of his mobile phone because, until Richter called him, he had no idea where to go next or what to do. A couple of times, as the traffic
slowed him to a halt, he tried ringing Richter’s mobile, but each time the system reported that the other man’s phone was switched off. And that worried Dekker, because he
couldn’t think of a single reason why Richter would want to remain incommunicado. The only other explanation was one he wasn’t yet prepared to accept: that Richter and the woman had
been captured, or worse.

Sunday

Liguria, Italy

‘How are we going to get out of Italy?’ Raya asked again.

‘I think the best option is the most obvious route: we go over the border and into France,’ Richter said. ‘And we’ll need to cross soon, before the opposition can get
their act together again. They can’t possibly cover the whole border, not now that controls have been virtually abolished under Schengen, so I think a little bit of disinformation might help
us as well.’

‘What do you mean?’

Richter didn’t answer directly. ‘You still think that somebody’s been tracking my phone?’

‘That’s the only explanation I can think of for what happened there, yes.’

‘Right, so we’ll take advantage of that. We’ll head inland for a while, keeping off the main roads, then I’ll turn the phone on again and make a call . . . But first I
need to talk to Colin Dekker.’

He drove on along the minor road till he spotted what he was looking for in a small town called Torriglia.

When he’d pulled in earlier at a service area just over the Italian border, Richter had picked up a route map and an accommodation guidebook. Now, as he stopped the car on the side of the
street, he pulled them both out of the door pocket and studied them carefully for a few minutes.

‘Right,’ he muttered, ‘that should work. Then he stepped out of the car, strode across to the public phone he’d spotted, and called Dekker’s mobile number.

‘I was getting worried about you,’ the SAS officer said, as soon as Richter identified himself.

‘Join the club,’ Richter replied. ‘I’ll make this quick. It’s possible my mobile’s being tracked, and I’d like to confirm that, and also try throwing
the opposition off the scent. But to do that I’ll need your help.’

‘You’ve got it. You’ve already switched the phone off and pulled the battery?’

‘Yes. Now, what I’m planning is this.’

For a couple of minutes Richter outlined exactly what he wanted Dekker to do.

‘Got all that, and none of it should be a problem. How do you want to communicate? You’ll use a public phone – like you are now?’

‘Yes, that’s safest.’

‘OK, Paul. I’ll head that way right now. Take care of yourself, and keep your eyes open. Very tasty totty, by the way. I was hoping Yuri would be some hairy-arsed heavyweight with a
face like a brick shithouse. Some people’, Dekker finished, ‘have all the luck.’

‘Tell me that again once we’re back in London.’

Just under two hours later, as the evening light started to fade, Richter pulled the car into an open parking area on the outskirts of Piacenza, where it would be just another
anonymous saloon in a car park full of similar vehicles.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Raya looked worried.

‘It’s worth a try, and if it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off than we were before.’

He picked up his mobile, reinserted the battery and switched it on. As soon as he had a signal, he dialled the number Simpson had given him.

‘Where the hell are you, Richter?’ Simpson demanded, the moment he answered the call, ‘and what the hell’s going on? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for
hours.’

‘And good evening to you, too. I forgot to charge the phone. That’s why it’s been off, and it’ll probably only last a few minutes now.’

‘Do you have the package?’

‘If you mean Yuri, yes.’

‘Is she OK?’

Richter paused for a second before he replied. ‘How do you know Yuri’s a woman?’ he asked.

‘Because I’m bloody well informed, Richter,’ Simpson snapped. ‘In this case, we aren’t the only people who know about her defection. As I told you before, our
cousins across the Atlantic are also trying to get in on the act. I’ve been talking to a man named John Westwood who – unusually for an American – actually seems to know what
he’s doing. He’s a Company man, and somehow managed to get hold of one of the briefing sheets the Russian watchers were using in Rome. So unless Yuri’s a real master of disguise,
the person sitting next to you should be a girl named Raya Kosov.’