Retribution (10 page)

McKenna shook his head. ‘We don't have a lead on her. We've checked her apartment, but there's no response. We're waiting on a court order to go inside. A neighbour thinks she saw Demescu getting into a cab with a couple of bags late last night. She has family in eastern Europe and spoke in the past of not being able to do enough to help them.'

Walters puffed out her cheeks. ‘Well, it looks like she's made up for it now.'

‘What exactly did she take?' Harry asked, before the game descended into an interdepartmental wrangle.

‘Her supervisor ran a duplicate programme.' McKenna opened a folder on the table before him. He took out a number of sheets of closely printed paper. Each one bore a colour-print photo followed by several lines of information. ‘Most of this was downloaded days ago. The supervisor says that anything lifted more recently was just updates of any changes to the files.'

Walters craned her head to see. ‘What are they?'

‘What he said,' Deane muttered. ‘Personnel files on a bunch of people.' He reached across and shuffled the sheets apart, reading out the names. ‘Bikovsky, Broms, Orti, Koslov, Pendry, Carvalho . . . and two civilians, Kleeman and you.' He looked at Walters in apology. ‘There were a couple of other names, one of them deceased through natural causes.'

Harry recognized the sheets. He'd been given the same information but in a slightly different format. The photos staring up at them were the faces of the CP team, with one exception.

‘Who is Carvalho?'

Deane looked at the sheet. ‘That's a mistake. He's a US Marine, one of the convoy guards. I don't think he figures in this.'

‘Why not?'

‘As far as we can figure out, he went to Pristina with the convoy and the other depot guard, a guy named Oakes, from your RAF regiment. The deceased man was a Brit from the Royal Military Police. He stayed on at the compound. With both Orti and Broms murdered, I think we can say that this is categorically part of the threat. A terrorist threat,' he added heavily. ‘I don't know Demescu's, uh . . . affiliations, but I gather she's a Muslim with family in Albania.'

‘That's outrageous.' Walters looked shocked. Twin red spots had appeared on her cheeks. ‘You're saying it's a religious attack because she's a Muslim?'

‘You're damn right it's outrageous.' Deane came back at her without heat. ‘It's also outrageous that an employee of this organization has conspired to provide a killer with personal data for the purposes of murder. And before you get all feminist on my ass, we still haven't discounted your name being on his list. You were there, too, don't forget.'

Nobody spoke for several seconds, then Harry said to McKenna, ‘You said the woman downloaded some information before she left.'

McKenna nodded. ‘That's correct. Her supervisor believes she was accessing and updating recent additions to the files.'

‘About what?'

‘About you. She knew you were coming.' He pursed his lips. ‘And now, so does the killer.'

S
tanding in a rubbish-strewn doorway on the Lower East Side, beneath a latticework of scaffolding up the front of the building, Kassim was watching a first-floor apartment across the street. At ground level was a general store, with the owner, an old Vietnamese man, cleaning the front window. A steady stream of customers had been coming and going, with enough movement to cover Kassim's presence. So far he had seen no sign of occupation, although the page in the binder had given this as his next target's temporary address.

He checked his watch and wished he had brought something to drink. He was thirsty and tired and beginning to feel the cold. The drop in temperature had been acute after the clammy heat he'd been used to in the mountains, but it was damp here, too, which he was finding debilitating. Maybe he needed to get a coat; one of those padded jackets he had seen people wearing. It might also serve as another layer of camouflage, to help him blend in.

Earlier, Kassim had dug out the address of a contact he had been given on New York's East Side, and found it belonged to a man running a small travel agency. The name he was using was Agim Remzi, allegedly a Kosovar who had been in America for over twenty years.

Kassim was reluctant to put his trust in people he had never met, no matter what their stated origins. But the situation demanded it. Remzi, as part of the extended network he was relying on, had agreed to provide Kassim with money and assistance; he could have little interest in betraying him, since it would lead to his own downfall.

He had walked past the front of the agency twice, noting the layout. It was in a busy district with other businesses nearby. After a truck dropping off banded stacks of catalogues had departed in a cloud of exhaust fumes, Kassim had walked through the front door. A woman was tapping at a computer keyboard beneath garish posters of sun, sand and snow, and the place smelled of cheap perfume and stale cigarette smoke.

The woman had looked at him with dark eyes, her chin raised in mute query.

‘Agim Remzi,' Kassim had said simply.

The woman disappeared through a door at the back and returned moments later followed by a thin, ascetic individual with startlingly blue eyes and grey hair. Remzi beckoned him through, telling the woman to lock the door. Inside his office he offered tea, clearing his desk by pushing papers into his top drawer.

‘It is an awkward time,' breathed Remzi, gesturing at his desk. ‘Busy as hell . . .' The Americanism sounded false and Kassim wondered to what extent this man had become part of the culture around him. Enough to betray him if he felt threatened?

‘It is the will of God,' he muttered darkly, a terse reminder.

Remzi leaned forward and lifted his chin. ‘Of course. What do you need of me?'

Kassim had checked his money reserve, which was dwindling fast. He would need more if he had to travel far over the next few days. But with Remzi running a travel agency, that should be the least of his problems.

‘First, money,' he replied. ‘Also tickets. You know the places I have to go.'

‘Yes. Where to next?' Remzi picked up a pencil and pad.

Kassim reached across and took the pencil from his hand. ‘You do not need to know that yet. Only that I will call you when I need them – but they must be ready with any paperwork.'

‘As you wish. It has all been arranged.' Remzi opened his desk drawer and took out a bulky envelope. It was creased and banded many times with elastic.

‘Used notes, all small, all checked. You should have no problems.' When Kassim looked blank, Remzi explained, ‘All notes have numbers. There are many fakes in circulation. Give someone one of those, and you will have Treasury agents sitting behind you closer than a child to its mother.' He grinned humourlessly. ‘The best thing about this godless country is that nobody likes being cheated. What else do you need?'

Kassim stuffed the envelope in his jacket and took out the binder. He had already removed the pages bearing the details of Orti and Broms. ‘You know about this?'

Remzi nodded cautiously. ‘Of course. I know the person who provided the details inside.'

‘Good. This information . . . what if it is not correct?'

The man frowned. ‘I don't understand.'

‘What if I do not find all these people?' Kassim had considered at the start that many of the names in the binder might have moved on; as members of the military, their destiny was not their own.

Remzi scratched a note on a notepad, and passed the slip of paper across the desk. Kassim looked at it.
[email protected].
It meant nothing to him. He shrugged.

‘What is this?'

‘It's the internet,' Remzi explained, as if to a child. ‘Like a telephone . . . but you don't speak, and you can contact someone even when they are not there.' He waved a hand and turned to a computer on the table behind him. ‘Watch – I will show you.'

Kassim leaned over the desk and gripped Remzi's shoulder, his strong fingers digging into his flesh. Remzi yelped and sank back, scrabbling to get the hand off him. But it was like being held in a steel vice.

‘I know the internet, you fool!' Kassim hissed. ‘You think I'm a cave dweller? Huh?' He let the travel agent go. He had used internet cafés in Pakistan many times. It had been part of his training, to communicate with others through anonymous Hotmails that were rarely used more than three or four times before being changed. The Americans, through their National Security Agency and CIA, were constantly monitoring cyberspace for key words or coded numbers, and repetition of certain phrases or names in their hunt for insurgents and members of al-Qaeda.

Remzi apologized and rubbed his shoulder, his face pale. ‘Of course. I'm sorry . . . I did not think. Forgive me.' He gestured at the screen. ‘There is always someone out there to help you. You just need to reach out.'

Kassim sat down, slightly mollified. ‘Who are they?' he asked, ‘these people who help me?'

Remzi stared at him, his blue eyes suddenly cool. ‘That is something you do not need to know. They do not know you, only that you have come. It is better if it stays that way. Then they cannot compromise you.'

A car pulling to a stop along the street brought Kassim back to the present. It was juggled into position and the engine died. The door opened, followed by a faint double-whoop of the electronic immobilizer.

Kassim shrank back into the shadows as footsteps came down the street and a man approached the door alongside the general store. He had a crew cut and a strong, tanned face, and walked with a firm tread. He was holding one of those large, brown paper bags Kassim had seen people carrying out of supermarkets. He mentally compared the face with the photo in his binder. Carvalho, one of the UN guards, according to the file, and a US Marine.

The door opened and closed, leaving the street empty once more. Kassim began counting and adjusted his breathing, feeling his body settle as he tried not to think of all the things that could go wrong. He'd checked the rear of the building for a fire escape ladder, but there were too many overlooking windows to use that way in.

Five minutes passed before he stepped from the doorway and walked across the street, checking both ways. A woman climbed into a car a hundred yards to his right and pulled away down the street, and a man walked a dog across the intersection to his left. The windows above him were blank. No customers from the general store on the street.

The door the man had gone through was old and warped out of true, and Kassim leaned his shoulder against it, testing its strength. The only point of resistance was level with the lock. He felt in his rucksack and took out a large screwdriver he had bought earlier from a hardware store. He had wanted one of the hunting knives on display in a glass cabinet, but the man looked suspicious, so he'd opted for the screwdriver and a grindstone instead.

He gripped the rubber-sheathed handle and inserted the point between the jamb and the door. It slid with little resistance through the wood until he felt it stop up against the metal latch. With another push the lock gave with a faint creak and the door opened.

The hallway was dark and smelled of mould. A corridor ran away from him towards a flickering flare of light and the sound of a television. He ducked until he could see the length of the floor, looking for obstructions. It would not help if he tripped over something in his path.

Slipping off his shoes, he crept forward until he breasted two open doors, one on each side. One was a bathroom, the other little more than a cupboard filled with junk. He listened, only moving on when he was sure the rooms were empty. A man was humming tunelessly barely six feet away at the end of the hall. Kassim breathed deeply and gripped the screwdriver. In his other hand he clutched the fragment of blue cloth.

T
here was silence at the table overlooking the East River as everyone digested the information that had gone round the room. Deane stood up and walked over to the window, chewing his lip.

‘It seems pretty cut and dried to me,' he murmured. ‘Information on former and current personnel is lifted from our files, and within days, two of them are dead.' He turned and faced them. ‘In line with what we've heard, someone – an Afghan – is going after the CP team and Orti and Broms were the first. Any guesses as to who's next?'

‘If the same person killed both men,' said Harry, ‘and he's following a plan, then whoever is nearest. At some point he's going to end up here.'

Deane nodded. ‘Makes sense. Let's hope it gives us some time to prepare everyone.'

‘What about Special Envoy Kleeman?' Karen Walters asked quietly. ‘Is he under threat?'

‘Unlikely,' Deane said. ‘The stories doing the rounds say it was a soldier, and there's evidence to prove it: part of a uniform.'

‘That lets me out, then,' Walters said, with a pointed glance at Deane. ‘I hate to be sexist, but last I heard, women aren't equipped for it. Rape, I mean.'

Deane's look was several shades less than friendly for pointing out the obvious. He said curtly, ‘And Kleeman's a civilian – we get that. Not that it matters; thanks to his status in the UN, there's a tighter cordon around him than the President's cat.'

‘It would help,' Harry put in, ‘if we could speak to someone who knew the Demescu woman. Does she have family here? Was she part of this plan or was she pressured to steal the information? Where might she have gone?'

Deane said, ‘Her supervisor's outside. His name's Benton Ehrlich. I'll get him in here.' He went to the door and leaned out, spoke to someone. Moments later, a man entered the room. He was slim, bespectacled and nervous, and clearly uncomfortable outside the familiar confines of his department. He blinked rapidly when he saw the printouts on the table.