Retribution (6 page)

By its nature, it inevitably spilled over into the local community, always on the lookout for ways of making money in a desperate situation. Money, or any other form of currency such as pilfered stores and equipment, was always the target. It was part of the desperation economy wherever foreign troops were called in to keep the peace.

‘Orti seemed a good soldier, but I can't say I knew him.'

‘Pity.' Deane looked glum. ‘Looks like we're no further forward, then.' He checked his watch. ‘I've got to get to the embassy. There's a press conference in New York today. A couple of reporters have tabled questions about the rumours.' He pulled a face. ‘They're not going to let this go. And when they hear about Orti, it's going to gather weight and speed.'

Harry nodded. ‘I agree. And the answer's yes.'

‘What?'

‘I'm in.'

Harry left a relieved Deane to make his way to the US Embassy to do whatever damage limitation he was able to, and walked round to Rik's place in Paddington.

‘He doesn't give much away, does he, your mate?' Rik greeted him at the door dressed in a lurid purple T-shirt and jeans, his hair spiky and unruly, as if he'd just rolled out of a hedge.

‘He's not supposed to. What have you got?' Harry gestured at a laptop blinking quietly on the table where Rik usually worked, and guessed he'd been up for some time.

Rik spun the laptop round to face him. He'd cut and pasted a variety of documents culled from several sources, but it didn't take long to read. From early enlistment in the US Marine Corps, Ken Deane had applied for a job with the United Nations as a field security officer. He had served in a number of UN operational areas, including Kosovo, rising through the ranks to become a leading figure in the Department of Safety and Security, dealing with everything from security clearance procedures through protection of humanitarian volunteers and UN personnel, and linking to investigations into the behaviour of personnel and claims against the organization. Much of it appeared to be desk driven, but Harry guessed that Deane's major role was as a troubleshooter, ready to up and go at a moment's notice when trouble flared. As it had now.

He pushed the laptop back towards Rik. Deane was looking to nip this thing in the bud before it got out of hand. Speaking to Harry was the logical step in the investigation, trying to ferret out quick answers at first hand and protect the UN's back. He couldn't hold that against the man; he'd have done the same. But the implications for Harry were clear: if the rumours and the intelligence were true and a member of the CP team had been involved in rape and murder, it meant they were all at risk.

He rang Richard Ballatyne on his mobile number. Since the MI6 officer had pointed Deane his way in the first place, he must have a point of view on the matter.

Ballatyne sounded cautious. ‘To be honest, Harry, this is not something we want to get involved in.'

‘That didn't stop you putting my name forward.'

‘Sorry. I should have warned you.' He didn't sound sorry. But then, he never did. ‘If you want the general feeling around here,' he continued, ‘it would be in all our interests if this thing could be laid to rest. The UN's too vital to all our interests to become embroiled in a long-running scandal with no resolution. And if that means finding and hanging out the guilty party to dry before this escalates, then so be it.'

‘Thanks.' Harry felt cornered. He was already mentally committed to helping Deane; Ballatyne had just placed the full stop at the end of the sentence.

‘There's just one thing, Harry. If you start on this, there's no dropping the baton halfway. This isn't like our normal work: there are no shadows, no smoke and mirrors. It's in the full glare of the sun and there's already been too much focus on it. If you find anything, it's likely that you'll only be a step ahead of the press and whoever's driving this.'

‘So?'

‘So make sure you get it right. Close it down.'

Harry put down the phone with an uneasy feeling. He'd just been given official approval, such as it was, to help the UN with their problem. But it was a nod at arm's length and free of any recorded official sanction.

He told Rik everything Deane had said, and gave him the names of the personnel he could remember from the close protection team. ‘If the group behind this identified Orti, then they've got all our names and it won't be long before they're in the public domain. See if you can find out what's out there. I'll get full details of the team as soon as I can.'

Rik nodded and made some notes. ‘Will do. I'll put out feelers with some people I know.' He looked at Harry. ‘Are we getting on board with this?'

‘I don't have much choice. If I can identify the guilty party, I might be able to put a stop to it.'

‘Not just you.' Rik looked determined. ‘So forget the “I” bit.'

Harry smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks. I could do with someone watching my back.'

‘Are we carrying?'

‘We will be.' Harry and Rik were ‘carded' – authorized to carry a weapon. It was a rare permission for civilians, and only ever granted to former military or government security personnel. But it came with a proviso: the holder could be called on at a moment's notice to jump into the breach and be ready to use the weapon on government business. Those occasions had been rare, and in Harry's case, often disguised as semi-commercial arrangements. The last one had been through Richard Ballatyne, in the search for a rogue organization using and killing deserters from the military. Since then, Harry and Rik had been working in the private sector, searching for missing persons of dubious repute and providing security-related services to quasi-government individuals.

Now it looked as if they were going to be working for more personal reasons.

He took a cab down to an upmarket flower shop near Fulham, and walked into the usual heady aroma of fresh greenery and blossom and the taste of something metallic. The co-owner, Jean Fleming, was snipping stems and arranging a display for the window. She was tall and slim and smiled when she saw him, and he felt his day brighten as always.

They exchanged kisses and she leaned against him. ‘This is a surprise. Do you want me to arrange some flowers for you, sir? We have a special offer on today, for hunky men only.'

‘Damn,' he breathed, ‘I'm off hunky men this week.'

‘That's a relief.' She leaned away from him. ‘You're going somewhere, aren't you?' The widow of an army officer, she knew all about sudden absences and goodbyes and not asking where.

‘A few days. Week at most. Can you struggle on without me?'

She shrugged. ‘If I need company I can always hang around the gate at Wellington Barracks. They keep a spot especially for me whenever you're away.' She pulled him close and said softly, ‘Stay safe for me, Harry Tate, or I'll be really cross.'

He nodded. ‘Always do.' Their relationship was what she referred to jokingly as ‘occasional', but they both knew it was a bit more than that, although neither wanted to say it. It worked fine as it was.

In Brussels, the smell of cooking woke Kassim and set his stomach growling. It was a reminder that he had not eaten for many hours. He knew he could not risk going for much longer without food, since the successful outcome of his mission depended on his strength as well as his skills. To compromise that by not eating would be unforgivable.

He was tucked into a shop doorway not far from the Midi station. The night had been chill and damp, but nothing he couldn't cope with; he'd existed for weeks at a time in far worse conditions in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere. He checked the money he'd taken from Orti's wallet. He already had some, but it had been an opportunity to add to his reserves. He stood up and stretched the kinks out of his limbs, then walked until he found a backstreet café where he ordered a simple meal of lamb, rice and vegetables washed down with plain tea. He was one of several men, each ignoring the others, focussing on their food. Over his meal he checked the pocket binder for his next target. The address was just beyond the city centre and it would probably take no more than half an hour to walk there.

He put the binder away, retaining a mental image of the next man on his list.

Arne Broms. Another soldier.

H
igh in the United Nations headquarters building overlooking First Avenue in New York, UN Special Envoy Anton Kleeman rocked back on his heels and bit down on a growing feeling of irritation. He was facing a group of select, influential media reporters and beginning to wish he had listened to his advisors. The briefing had been his idea, timed to set the pace for a series of meetings with key people in the permanent member states of the UN Security Council. He had been biding his time for long enough; in this world, if you didn't embrace opportunity when it presented itself, you were fated to be just another name on a wall, soon ignored amid the masses. And if there was something Kleeman found distasteful, it was the idea of being ignored.

It was part of his plan to elevate his own position within the organization at a time when other envoys and special delegates were busy catching the eye of news channels and scoring points in the media and PR battle. His plan had been to brief on reports coming out of Africa about alleged atrocities by UN troops against women, and the older reports about brutalities in Kosovo which were currently making the news and growing day by day. Now he was beginning to wonder if this had been such a good idea. Kosovo's grim past was still too vivid for many, especially with war crimes tribunals involving Serb and other warlords running their course. With any new allegations threatening to send the UN itself into a scandal-ridden spin, the occasion could have been better timed. And he'd forgotten how much of a squalid rabble these media wretches could be. Yet instinct told him there was no other way to hit the headlines.

‘Is it true, Mr Kleeman,' opened a man from the
Washington Post
, ‘that not all the Kosovar refugees who have returned to their homeland are satisfied with the peacekeeping force out there – with KFOR? Isn't this causing the UN some PR problems?'

Kleeman smiled to disguise his dismay, surprised that it had gone this way so soon. He'd expected to get a few of his own shots in first before things got to this stage. ‘I think you'll find it's called UNMIK now – the UN Mission in Kosovo,' he said dismissively. ‘As you know, under UN mandate twelve forty-four, NATO-led forces entered Kosovo in June 1999 and—'

‘But isn't that the problem?' the man interrupted Kleeman's flow. ‘In the minds of the refugees in the region, the two are indivisibly linked. The personnel come from the same countries in most cases.'

‘Well, that's a difficult quest—'

‘What about the stories we're hearing?' A shrill voice cut across his words, and he felt his blood pressure rising. The voice belonged to Dorrie Henson from
The Times
, a regular pain in the ass of the UN and a confirmed radical. ‘Stories about alleged brutalities by UN-attached military personnel in Kosovo, going back several years?'

Kleeman felt a sudden tightness around his eyes as a buzz rose around the room, and glared at the woman. He had not been prepared for this. Henson smiled triumphantly back at him as her words unleashed a volley of questions on the subject, and he wondered if it were possible to get the damned woman banned from the building altogether. See how her editor liked those cookies. With luck she'd be out of a job within days and permanently out of his hair.

He held up an imperious hand and was about to speak when Karen Walters, a long-time aide, standing in his line of vision at the back of the room, shot him a warning look. It said quite clearly,
don't go there!

He pretended not to have seen her and held up a hand. He'd suddenly seen a way out of this dilemma; a way that would enhance his own reputation and standing and lay the matter to rest – at least, for now. It came from his early days in Wall Street, when he had used his father's fortune to make an even bigger one. Back then, the general motto was, when your back's to the wall, come out fighting.

The hubbub died down, and he addressed the woman from
The Times.
‘
Mz
Henson,' he said with deliberate emphasis, his handsome face set in a smile, ‘I'm not sure where you get your information from, but there have been no confirmed “brutalities” by any KFOR personnel in Kosovo. The “rumours” as you so correctly call them, are unfounded and unsubstantiated, based on enmity towards the UN and NATO in general. There may have been some incidents by untrained NATO personnel, but—'

‘You don't call bar-fights and the shooting dead of an unarmed civilian brutal?' called another voice from the back of the room. ‘That was in Gornji Livoc.'

‘And the young men beaten up outside a bar in Lausa by so-called NATO Special Forces?'

‘What about the shooting of two medical workers by UN peacekeepers in Mitrovica?'

The volley of voices grew as the reporters sensed blood in the air, citing stories of serious behaviour by, among others, Russian, African, Pakistani and Polish troops, and a British soldier sent home in disgrace.

Karen Walters moved swiftly from her position at the back of the room, her arm raised in an attempt to draw attention away from Kleeman, who looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Suddenly Dorrie Henson's voice cut through the room with the precision of a surgeon's knife.

‘What about the rape and murder of a young Muslim girl by a KFOR soldier at a UN compound in 1999, Mr Special Envoy? That seems pretty darned brutal to me!'

F
or several seconds there was stunned silence. Then the room erupted in frantic questioning, some of it directed at Henson by press colleagues desperate to share what she knew.