Göd, Hungary
Jack is howling to himself in the shower as I step out of my allocated, shoebox-sized, bedroom. The resident of the larger double bedroom thinks he’s singing and, as usual, he’s left the bathroom door wide open. Now, as I stride as quickly as I can down the short corridor to the main room of the flat, it’s impossible not to glimpse his foamy male physique behind the shower-screen’s steam dribbled glass.
I always shut and lock the door.
I prefer my privacy.
The main room is furnished with a couple of well worn, yet comfortable, two seater sofas and a television clustered sociably at one end. This seating area is arranged in front of a full length wall of sliding glass: the doorway to a small balcony. In daytime it affords views of the river. At the moment this glass wall is backed only by the dark drapes of nighttime.
The other end of the room is taken up with a brightly lit kitchen and dining space. Small but functional. Shaz would get frustrated, but it’s fine for me. I suspect that Jack was relying entirely on the microwave till I arrived. The gaggle of boxes he’d hurriedly cleared away, when he finally sobered up on that first morning, paid testament to it.
Blimey, that was one hell of a hangover... I think I drank more beer that evening than in the whole of the rest of my life put together, and it feels like we’ve been trying to maintain the pace ever since. On the plus side, I’m developing a taste for lager and in the absence of steroids I’m glad for the carbohydrates.
I wander into the kitchenette and, as much out of habit as anything else, start loading the small dishwasher with the detritus from this evening’s meal. Other than for his good looks, Jack is not much like I’d imagined a secret agent would be but, based on his recent example, I now suspect that they’re all very capable of walking blindly past dirty dishes. Not that I mind too much. He’s a good laugh, and we seem to get on...
Suddenly I feel guilty.
Having him around has been fun. The challenge of training has escalated into open competition between us. Each of us trying to better the other. Every challenge ending with one or the other of us wantonly celebrating our tiny victory to the other’s obvious displeasure. Then in the evenings we have ventured forth, watched the world go by, drank copious volumes of ale and under a safety blanket of alcohol, slowly let our demons come to voice.
Amongst all the people in the world, we know that together we are alone.
“Trust no-one,” Jack had solemnly pronounced at some point during one of our evenings.
Perversely, it would appear that this doesn’t apply to the two of us.
We do seem to trust each other.
I don’t suppose we have any choice.
I’m not sure he remembers, but he has talked about his mates, and someone called Julie, and the loss, and the pain, and I have felt quite honoured to be granted a glimpse of the deep and bitter regret that his momentarily moist eyes shamelessly betrayed. In these conversations I have needed to be more circumspect, though I’ve been no less honest, and he knows I have lost a lot as well.
So, in a short time, we have become all things for each other: coworkers, relentless training coaches, counsellors, and gradually friends.
This is where the guilt comes from.
How can I be enjoying even slender happiness in another’s company? Is it betrayal? I suspect it isn’t, but the rush of sickness I feel bubbling into the pit of my stomach whenever I think of you and Lizzie provides something raw for me to cling onto. There can be no real pleasure for me, no real friends, no communion with humanity. I am severed from these things. Broken at my very core.
Only joining you can make this better.
Only death.
I slam the dishwasher closed and switch it on, then move back to the lounge section. Jack has turned off the shower. I can hear him banging around and humming to himself. It sounds like he’s coming this way.
The toneless racket gets louder until he shamelessly appears in the doorway, stark naked, body glistening and dripping with water. He’s clutching his towel uselessly in his right hand. My eyes drift over his athletic body and, briefly, down to his brazenly uncovered manhood which is swinging pendulously between his strapping thighs. I can’t help but look.
He notices, and scoops up the impressive appendage with his free hand, “Can you see why the ladies find me irresistible?” he says as he gesticulates with it in my direction.
“Your sparkling wit and repartee?” I mutter.
He barks his barking laugh and spins away, tight muscular buttocks flicking droplets of water in every direction.
I turn away, angry at myself, but he’s still there, reflected in the huge windows as he ambles slowly into the kitchen area toward the fridge.
“Beer?” he asks over a broad slab of shoulder blade.
I need to think about something else...
I focus on that ancient gloss-black bollard; call to mind the scudding grey clouds; the last glimpse of buggy-enshrouded, knitted, pink, bobble-hat; the sight of you smiling, waving, vanishing into a cloud of smoke and fire...
“Come on Nick, get your arse in the shower, let’s get out on the pull, give the Hungarian girls a glimpse of the best of British!”
I snarl to myself, and pull the patio door and his lush reflection to one side – out of sight.
“Where are you going?”
I step out onto the balcony.
“Nick?”
There are two small, rusting, patio chairs out here. I climb onto one of them. Then up onto the top of the rickety table which permanently separates them.
“Nick, you crazy f*cker, what are you doing?”
Then onto the narrow balcony rail.
“NICK!”
Then leap into the embrace of dark space...
I am flying. Arms outstretched like faux-wings on either side. The wind is streaming over my face, fingers, body as I fly forwards and down. Down toward the hard, unforgiving, ground...
“NICK!”
His voice is loud behind me. He must have rushed out onto the balcony.
I can feel the airstream tugging at my jeans and my shirt and just for a moment I am free, but there is no escape here, no freedom, no brutal hard flat concrete to end it all. No, the cold grey Danube waits patiently for my arrival.
The air curls itself around my outstretched fingers and the pristine arc of my stretched body.
I have no idea how deep the river is here. It crawls beneath me as a grey sheet of marbled flatness. Perhaps the river is full of refuse? Most rivers seem to be. Maybe there’s a nice sharp pylon waiting for me? Waiting there in the wet blackness for relentless gravity to drive it through my pitiful torso?
Death, however, does not appear to be close and neither are there any ghosts in sight, so at the last moment I curl, tuck, roll and crash – backside first – into the deluge with a mighty splash. The surprisingly rapid current pulls me under and the world turns to brackish grey. For a moment I wonder whether the cold hands of the river will grab hold of my flailing limbs and drag me down to a watery doom but, sadly, the filthy water has no interest in me and spits me, like a little yellow rubber duck, right back up to the surface.
I gasp a lungful of air as I erupt from the water and shake my head to clear my eyes and ears. As I bob along I can hear him shouting from the rapidly retreating balcony.
Mainly swear words as far as I can tell.
I keep swimming downstream and tack over toward the far shore.
It will be a long wet walk back, I suppose.
Just what I need.
A good night out, in my opinion.
~~~~~
London
“We think that at least one of them is on the move, sir.”
Sentinel sat up in his chair, suddenly interested in his subordinate’s call. “Where?”
“Still in Romania. Heading north and west,” Greere replied. “Looks like whoever it is might cross into Hungary near Oradea.”
“You don’t think?”
“Possible, sir. It’s a beeline for Budapest.”
“How convenient. Why did you say one of them?”
“As you know, sir. Tin planted three devices. One is implanted, sub-dermal, and we are yet to activate it. The other two were placed, one in a coat, the other in Ebrahimi’s rucksack. One is still in Constanta, the other one is now moving northwest. We don’t know yet whether it’s the coat or the bag. They’re identical devices with identical signatures so we can’t tell between the two.”
Sentinel grunted his understanding.
“We suspect that Ebrahimi met up with Nagpal and Sikand in Constanta,” Greere continued. “This is probably the predetermined rendezvous point related to the ‘Icarus’ code left for the younger brother. This would then explain why he’s recently remained static there.”
“You think they’re still waiting for the brother who, of course, hasn’t appeared?”
“Exactly. I was just about to come to you and recommend we deploy Tin and Mercury to Constanta when the tracker went mobile.”
“Be careful not to lose those trackers, Greere. The cell might have the kit to check for radiating devices.”
“We are, sir. The ones we’re using are set to wake up and blink only once per day, but I think we should up the frequency on the mobile one.”
Sentinel nodded. Greere was playing this ‘by the book’. The tracking devices were critical to the mission. When exact positioning was of lesser importance, the tiny microchips were sent instructions to shut themselves down for all but a few moments every day. It would be particularly bad luck if the targets happened to be scanning for them during the very short periods they were transmitting. But now the game had changed. One of the devices was moving. They’d need more than a once-a-day fix. “Go ahead,” he confirmed. “Could it be that someone else is carrying either the bag or coat? Could Ebrahimi have sold or lost one of them somehow?”
“Yes, sir. That’s a viable possibility.”
“Okay, let’s see whether whoever-it-is comes to pay us a visit then.”
“I’ll put Tin and Mercury on readiness, sir.”
“Agreed,” said Sentinel. “Irrespective of what happens, we’ll need to get visual confirmation of who it is, before any strike mission can be approved. Keep me posted.”
~~~~~
Budapest
Jack sat alone on a high bar stool and examined the tumbler of untouched Jack Daniels in front of him. Untouched... His appetite for drinking seemed to have vanished. Drinking alone wasn’t entertaining.
The busy bar moved relentlessly around him as a maelstrom of bright lights, chattering voices, excited laughter and colourful reflections from the many mirrored surfaces. He ignored it all.
A few short days. That was all it had taken for him to drop his guard. That was all it had taken for him to gravitate back into some kind of caring, personable, Dominic-like character. The type of character that would only end up having his heart torn out again. Which it most definitely would be. Either by orders or by death. Why did he persist in doing this? Why couldn’t he be some sort of psychopathic robot like Deuce? Emotional attachment was a dangerous distraction.
Nick had got too close. Too quickly. Like some forbidden fruit. Some unthought, unthinkable, temptation and, as fast as he could muster rational professionalism, his soul ripped these defences into tatters with the pent-up power of a lifetime spent alone. He had to find himself a woman, when this was over. Find someone to help him fill the gaping void. It was time to get out of this. One last mission. Closure. His mates were long avenged in the bloody Hindu Kush Mountains...
While he sat, lost in thought, some unseen, bulky person bumped clumsily into the side of him then sat down heavily on the neighbouring stool. “You going to let that evaporate?” asked a familiar voice.
He smiled but kept his eyes firmly on the patiently waiting whisky. “You’re f*cking insane,” he said.
“Felt like a swim,” his bro’ grunted beside him.
“You’ve got a f*cking death wish, more like.” He glanced across and watched Nick waving to the barman. Hand signals. Two more of the same. Then his partner turned back to him and Jack could see his strangely intense, black-brown eyes burning fiercely.
“Correct,” Nick growled. “That’s what you like about me.”
Jack’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he heaved himself upright to fish it out from his jeans.
‘STANDBY. KCL. RADIUS 50KM. FU BOTH. D.’
“Looks like these will be the last drinks for a while,” Jack muttered and necked the warm spirit, feeling its hot breath burning his throat.
Nick didn’t look fazed. If anything, he looked excited. “Orders?” Nick asked simply.
“Looks like someone’s coming our way,” he replied. “Keep current location. Fifty kilometre radius, so they’re not certain yet. We’ll need to get a rental car tomorrow morning.”
“Any more?”
Jack smiled. “Just some of Deuce’s usual bullshit.”
Nick raised his glass. “To our illustrious lord and master,” he proposed. “What a wanker.”
Jack grabbed his fresh glass and returned the toast. “Wanker,” he agreed.
~~~~~
Constanta
Sergei huddled closer to the meagre single-bar electric fire. “Murat,” he ventured. “We will go home, won’t we? I mean: when Jeyhun gets here. We’re going home soon. Aren’t we?”
Nagpal shuffled a little before responding. “We will return, young one. We will return home as heroes. One day.”
“Jeyhun will not be long now. We can go then, yes? There’s nothing for us here, and we have completed the mission. Completed your planned attack.” Sergei studied the older soldier for a reaction. “Why should we stay here and risk capture?”
“We have started something too complex and difficult for many, even at home, to comprehend,” said Murat. “It is not possible for us to risk trying to go home, yet. Certain unsympathetic factions, allied to the infidel scum, are monitoring the borders and our families. We must keep clear for a little longer.”
“For a little longer!” Sergei felt angry. His bottled-up worries about Jeyhun were threatening to explode in an effervescent rage of pent-up anxiety. “How LONG?” he shouted. “How long do Jeyhun and I have to suffer this beggar’s existence. You said we’d be famous! You said we’d bring freedom for our tribes! You said we would return and be showered with praise and gratitude! I need to take my little brother home...”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“We always knew that there would be trials in our great battle,” Nagpal said carefully. “I made it very clear that the risks were extreme. We could never hope to stimulate change without making a significant statement. Significant enough to make the rest of the World sit up and take notice. We have achieved this. Just us. A small and insignificant group, who pitted themselves against one of the infidel’s so-called mighty nations. We bravely cut a wound that will take eternity to heal. They will never forget us.”
“You think he’s dead, don’t you?” Sergei’s sudden question was unexpected.
“It’s a possibility,” Murat answered, as delicately as he could. “If so, he will be in Paradise now. Enjoying the endless pleasures only available to the greatest of martyrs. If so, he is lucky. His name will be etched into history and will live on, forever.”
Sergei looked incredulously at the older man. “But it’s not supposed to be like that!” he spat. “He was a child. He was supposed to be safe! We were to do the dangerous jobs! Not him! I’m supposed to protect him! I’m supposed to take him home!”
Nagpal looked across and Sergei saw malevolent threat in the older man’s yellowing brown eyes. “And that, you may yet do,” said the old soldier. “Be patient, Sergei. He may yet be alive.”
~~~~~
Göd
Suddenly it’s as if I’m awake.
My little bedroom lies dark around me.
You are there. At the end of the long dark tunnel of my dreams. It’s the first time I’ve seen you since I was back in Omid’s blazing kitchen.
You and Lizzie and Dad are all there, but no Grey Beard...
The three of you smile and wave. All seems well, wherever you are. Though you do look tense. Concerned.
Then you vanish.
~~~~~
“The target is approaching Budapest...”
We’ve waited several, tense, hours for this call. I can see, over Jack’s shoulder, Deuce’s face in a small heavily pixelated box, in the top right corner of Jack’s laptop screen.
Deuce continues, “We need to get visual confirmation of the carrier.” The heavily encrypted signal is making his picture jerk and freeze. “He, she, or it, is currently on Highway Four.”
As he says this, a map appears in the main area of the laptop’s display.
“We’ll have to work on the assumption that the target will come all the way into the city,” Jack says calmly. “It will take us a while to get across town.”
“Agreed,” replies Deuce. “Be ready to relocate quickly if the target changes direction. I’ve upped the tracker to signal every thirty-seconds for the next hour. I’m downloading the data to your smartphone.”
Jack flicks his device over and nods, “Got it. Nick, let’s get going. You drive. We’ll set up by Corvin-negyd Metro Station. That junction is a nightmare. Should provide us with the cover and time that we need.”
~~~~~
Budapest
Jack’s voice is in my ear as I stride quickly down Üllői Way, toward Corvin-negyd Metro. The pavement is busy with commuters. Rush hour traffic is apparently slowing the target’s progress too. “Target still on track. Mercury, you have time.”
“Copy that,” I respond, scanning the distant junction for an appropriate vantage point. There’s a small newspaper kiosk ahead. It will provide good cover. “Two minutes.”
Jack is about a kilometre further along the street, somewhere outside the Bárka Theatre. He will spot the target’s car and let me know the colour, make and model. He’ll also recover our rented Nissan ‘Nondescript’ from where I’ve dumped it on one of the intervening side streets. When we picked it up this morning I’d suggested we should get a Mini – minded of the famous Parisian Jason Bourne movie scene – but he’d just looked at me blankly then told me to, “F*ck off.”
I smile briefly at the memory.
“Still moving,” says his voice. We’re both wearing short range earpieces and throat microphones which we’d collected, along with a few other choice items, from the arsenal, when we were put on readiness.
I reach the kiosk, grab a newspaper, and thrust a thousand Forint note into the ageing stall-holder’s hand. He fumbles for change, which I wave away, and he smiles a wizened but friendly thank you. I gesticulate that I’m going to use the side of his shelter as somewhere to lean and flick through my purchase and he shrugs, unaffected, and waves me on.
I nod to him, saunter alongside the cabin and lean, my back to the pavement, apparently relaxed, against its bright-blue corrugated steel. “In position,” I mutter to the lines of densely packed traffic waiting impatiently at the sprawling junction in front of me.
Reaching up, I squeeze the switch concealed in the peak of the dark brown baseball cap I’m wearing. I feel it click and casually scan the waiting lines of vehicles.
“Copy,” says Jack’s voice. “No sign yet. Standby.”
Tucking the newspaper under my arm, I reach up and take off the cap, pressing the switch again as I do. I want to make it look like I’m adjusting the headband but in reality I’m checking that it’s working.
A tiny LCD screen, hidden inside, blinks to life as I reach in and press the replay button.
Good job I tested it.
The scenes are a jumbled jerking blur of second storey windows and car roofs.
Useless.
I pull the cap back on, making sure the peak is lower. The small camera is concealed in a fictitious company logo on the front. It should point to wherever I look, but I need to remember to move my head and not just my eyes.
“Got him,” says Jack calmly. “Silver. Dacia Logan. Plate Bravo-Two-Three-Zero-Zero-Five-Niner. Single visible occupant. Probably male. Moving too quickly for me to get a good look.”
I can feel my heartbeat rising. I don’t want to screw this up and there’s already a problem. “What’s a Logan?” I grumble to the reopened paper I’m holding out in front of me again.
“Four door, family car. Small. Looks new and is much cleaner than the surrounding vehicles,” my partner’s voice streams back calmly. “Looks a bit like a Renault Clio. I think it’s the same company.”
“Roger that,” I reply. “Thanks. How far?”
“Five hundred metres. Get ready. What’s the traffic like there?”
“Busy.” I reach up and click the switch again, tweaking the cap brow down slightly further at the same time. There’s no time for any more tests.
“Four hundred metres.”
I turn a page of the newspaper, and glance up at the cars streaming into the junction. The lights are green.
“Three hundred metres.”
This vantage point is good in that I’m hidden, by the kiosk, from the approaching vehicles. Bad in that I can’t see them coming. If the target gets here while the lights are green I might only have a few seconds to spot and film him.
“Two hundred metres.”
Come on lights. Come on...
Still green.
“One hundred metres.”
I pull myself upright, paper extended in front of me like some sort of wafer-thin shield. Come on...
The lights change.
“Sixty metres from the junction. He’s stopped.”
I lurch upright, carefully scanning the massing car park of temporarily becalmed commuters. There are several silver vehicles but none of them are clean. I’m approximately thirty metres from the junction. He must be stuck further back in the queue, out of sight behind the kiosk. Do I dare to step out or peer round the side? Do I risk getting spotted? There’s not enough time left for me to withdraw backwards and move into a new position.
Shit.
Suddenly the cars nearest to me start to move.
It’s a right hand filter lane onto József Körút.
“Moving again,” reports Jack. “Fifty metres.”
He must be in the filter.
I position myself, head angled toward the cars as they slowly parade past, emerging one at a time from the blue metal edge of the kiosk. They are so close that I could reach out and touch them. White car. Black car. Silver car – too big, too dirty. Black. Red.
“Forty metres.”
Grey.
Blue.
Silver...
“Thirty metres.”
I’ve stopped listening to Jack.
Instead I’m gently turning my head, whilst lifting my right hand, and the corresponding side of the newspaper, as I continue to appear to scan the headlines. The shiny silver vehicle moves slowly past me and away. Its driver is staring forwards as he passes, intent on navigating the junction, but I can’t see him properly from here.
I stoop suddenly, and fuss as if with my bootlaces. This new position yields an unobstructed view right through the vehicle.
One last chance...
Any second...
He turns right at the junction, and presents himself in perfect profile, before vanishing out of sight again.
“Got him,” I report.
~~~~~
Jack swings the Nissan over to the kerb and I pull the door open and jump inside.
“Where is he?” he asks me, tossing his smartphone across.
I flick the device over and can see the flashing signal icon. “He went right into József Körút,” I say and he pulls back into the traffic, heading toward the junction and sweeping past my earlier kiosk vantage point. I study the phone’s tiny screen for a second. “He’s taken the fourth on the right. Into the one way. József Street.”
“Check the film,” he instructs, but I’ve already ripped the cap off my head and am watching its secreted footage as he speaks. Turns out it’s a good job I stooped down. The pictures as the car passed next to the kiosk are mainly of the Dacia’s silver rooftop. “Anything?” he asks.
I watch the pictures blurring, then re-steadying, whilst I rushed to crouch down. I can see our target. The back of his head. He looks like he might be bald or very closely shaved.
“Anything?” Jack repeats more urgently.
I watch the screen anxiously until the car turns into the junction, then I jab the tiny pause button.
Blurred.
Frame forward.
Blurred!
Frame forward...
Shit.
Frame forward...
“Did you get anything?” Jack barks, as we approach the turn off.
I lift the cap and turn it so he can see inside.
He takes one glance at the crisp, clear, freeze-frame and turns back to the road. “Where is he now?” These few innocuous words crawl from his mouth loaded with a new and strangely chilling conviction. The icy hostility surprises me. He has never sounded like this before.
I grab the smartphone again. “Gone left into Fecske Street,” I scrutinise the screen. “Careful!” I grunt.
“What?”
“I think he’s stopped.”
Jack slows and pulls gently to the side. “Options?” he asks.
“Turn into Vig. The second on the left from here.” I instruct. “Fecske is one way.”
“They’re all f*cking one way round here,” he complains.
“Yes,” I concur. “And Vig is the best place to be if he moves again.”
Jack turns us into Vig Street.
“There’s a parking space ahead,” I point forwards and Jack heads for it. “Who is it?” I ask him carefully.
Jack glances at me. “It’s my target,” he says coldly. “It’s Azat Sikand.”
~~~~~
Sikand grabbed the rucksack from the passenger seat, rummaged inside it and fished out his pistol. Then he re-closed the bag, tucked the weapon into his waistband, and pulled his jacket closed over it. Glancing quickly behind him, he swung the car door open, grabbed the bag, stepped out onto the street, and walked confidently around to the back of the vehicle where he paused and opened the hatchback. He slung the backpack into the otherwise empty bay and slammed the swinging door closed again.
The Dacia bleeped as he activated its central locking.
The safe house was in the next block.
He would walk from here.
~~~~~
“Still static,” I say and hand Jack his smartphone back.
He pulls his Browning out and checks the magazine. “Come on,” he says, tucking it away again. “We need to confirm he’s alone.”
We jump out of the car and he points to his earpiece then back the way we’ve come.
I nod and start walking briskly, back toward József Street, switching my comms devices back on as I go.
“You there?” he whispers in my ear.
“Yes,” I reply.
“Head round behind him, and wait at the junction,” he instructs. “See if you can get eyes on the car without revealing yourself. I’ll go round in front and do the same.”
It’s two short blocks to the junction with Fecske Street and I slow as I approach the corner, then pause and look around at the buildings as if unsure of where I am. There are a few other people around. Random pedestrians and cars. Two males heading away from me. One woman with a bulging shopping bag approaching on the opposite pavement. No-one appears to be paying me much attention. I pause, as if waiting to cross the junction, and look carefully up Fecske.
Got it.
The Dacia is about halfway along the street. Parked on the opposite side of the road.
A car conveniently approaches where I’m standing, so I wait for it to pass, using the time to have another good look at our target.
“I can see the car,” I mutter. “Seems empty.”
“Okay,” he replies.
“I can get closer,” I say. “It’s parked near a gap between the buildings. There’s probably a pedestrian walkway to the next block.”
There’s a pause.
“I need to move,” I say, conscious I’ve been standing here for what feels like eternity. Another car passes by, and I proceed to casually cross the road.
“You’re right,” Jack finally responds. “I just checked on the PDA and there’s a gap between the buildings. Go ahead.”
I head down the pavement toward the Dacia until I’m alongside it and then, as I pass, I give it a good look. Who wouldn’t? It’s a nice shiny new car. I give it one last glance, over my shoulder, as I turn right into a wide paved area between the surrounding four storey tenements.
“Turn left at the next street,” Jack’s voice guides me. “See anything?”
“Car is empty,” I report. “No sign of the rucksack.”
“The tracker is definitely still there,” he mutters.
“It might be in the boot,” I offer and pause when I reach the next road, rather than take the left turn he suggested. “Wanna go get the car?” I mutter.
“Why?”
“There’s a parking slot here. On Auróra Street.”
“Can you see the Dacia?”
“Well enough.”
“Be there in five,” he says and I can hear, from the rustle of air over his microphone, that he’s on the move. “Keep a low profile.”
I wander over to the local corner shop and start halfheartedly browsing the eclectic display of fruit and vegetables laid out around it. “No problem,” I grunt.
~~~~~
Sikand turned angrily away from his recently surprised, petulant, and now somewhat disgruntled Hungarian hosts and stomped back down the apartment’s short hallway. “I’m going to get my stuff,” he pronounced as he pulled the door open, stepped out and slammed the door behind him. ‘You useless goat-f*ckers,’ he added quietly to himself.
Fuming to himself, he stomped down the multiple flights of stairs and felt privately pleased that, despite the discomforts of Bucharest, they had changed plans and not reconvened here. These Hungarian guys were worse than the British idiots had been. He appreciated that, as a unit, they had to tolerate whatever sympathisers and support they could garner, especially in foreign lands, but these three were just a bunch of local crooks. And not even good ones at that. They had been horrified when he had arrived, making all sorts of whinging noises about how inconvenient the timing of his visit was, and making it all too clear that they weren’t comfortable to be sheltering him. That was, until he’d stuck his gun up one of their cowardly noses, and reminded them how much cash he’d be looking to repatriate if he didn’t get the support and services it was supposed to have paid for.
He’d stay here tonight, then return.
Otherwise, he suspected that he’d end up murdering at least one of these disrespectful and ignorant fools.
The boy wasn’t here.
The trip had been a complete waste of time.
~~~~~
“There he is,” mutters Jack, leaning forwards slightly so he can see past me and monitor the distant vehicle.
I remain facing forwards, but risk a quick glance, and at the end of the pedestrian area I can see a tall, slim, dark skinned and athletic man stooped at the Dacia’s open hatchback. When he stands, I see he has a bald head and pinched, violent looking face. His expression is cast in an angry grimace. He looks furious. “Not a happy bunny,” I rumble, and look forwards again.
Jack sits back as the man, Sikand, turns to scan his surroundings. “He has a reputation for bloody and extreme violence,” he observes casually. “My brief was that he served, with another one of the cell members, on a voluntary basis in the Afghan Armed Forces.” I notice his cheek twitch slightly when he says this. “Details are sketchy but,” he leans forward again, and I risk another glance to see Sikand swinging Ebrahimi’s backpack onto his shoulder, “he was strongly suspected of being responsible for multiple counts of civilian torture and murder during that tour.”
“Why Afghanistan?” I ask.
“Free training,” he says coldly.
Torture and murder. I can attest to that. I watch, with a renewed burst of familiar stomach churning hatred, as one of the men responsible for snatching you out of my otherwise happy life disappears behind the distant buildings.
“Do we follow him?”
Jack shakes his head and waves the smartphone. “No point in risking it,” he replies. “I don’t think he’s going very far.”
We watch as the indicator moves slowly along the device’s electronic street-map and into the next block, where it stops.
“One of the tenements?”
“Looks like it.” Jack reaches for his cellphone. “There’s a cafe back on the corner of Fecske and Déri Miksa. I’ll go there and keep watch in case he moves.” He retrieves his pistol from the footwell and tucks it back into his armpit holster. “You take the car. Get back to Göd and use the secure comms to brief Command. Tell them Sikand is here, and is alone. Tell them we don’t know why he’s here, or how long he’ll stick around but judging by the fact he’s retrieved his bag then, unless this is a drop, or a pick up, I suspect he’ll be here for the night.”
I nod my understanding.
“Tell them we have a confirmed location.”
“Do we?” I rumble.
“I’ll scout around on my way to the cafe. So we will have by the time you’re talking to them.”
“Anything else?”
“Yep. I want to know if we’re ‘go’ to take him here.”
~~~~~
Jack carefully palmed his hunting knife, as he headed through the paved gap between the tenements and toward the Dacia. A quick glance up and down the street confirmed he was alone. He stooped next to the silver car and started to, unnecessarily, retie one of his bootlaces.
No-one around.
He leaned gently against the car, stretched his right arm swiftly under the vehicle, and stabbed forward violently into the tread gaps of the back tyre. The razor sharp edges sank in a little more deeply than he’d expected and he had to work the knife for a moment or two to free the blade. A tiny, yet satisfying, sigh and gentle hissing sound greeted the liberated blade so he stood back up, checked the knife was hidden by his arm, and sauntered along Fecske Street until he came to a recessed doorway.
This would do.
He stepped lithely into the cover, returned the knife into its pocket inside his jacket, and retrieved the smartphone.
The indicator remained static, somewhere in the next block.
He stepped casually back out onto the pavement as if exiting the building and turned right. The junction with Déri Miksa was a slight dogleg, with the cafe standing on the other side of the junction. He crossed the road in front of him and continued along Fecske Street. Many of the buildings looked like relatively recent constructions – well presented, expensive looking – all except for one, about two hundred metres in front of him on the right. This one was a tired looking, four storey, gable fronted, period tenement set slightly back from the line of more modern cubes. It had narrow slit-windows, with rusting black-iron balconies which clung grimly onto slightly crumbling red brickwork, and its communal entranceway stood wide open, collecting piles of ageing rubbish between flaking plasterwork.
Promising.
He strolled casually past the building until he was concealed by the corner of the neighbouring property, then glanced at the smartphone again.
This was the one.
Rolling himself around, he lounged with his back against the next-door building’s concrete wall and lifted up the phone. With one leg tucked behind him, he looked like any other ordinary guy aimlessly prodding out some text or email message.
Except, he wasn’t writing.
The display rotated axes in front of his eyes. The vertical differential read as being between ten and fifteen metres. Given that he was holding the device approximately one metre off the ground that meant the tracker must be located somewhere on the top floor. The floor which had a balcony devoid of lines of faded washing, or kid’s toys, or rickety sun-chairs, or any other chattel.
Bingo.
He heaved himself upright, and made his way around the block and back to the cafe.
~~~~~