A Hostile State Read online

  Isobel had toyed idly with taking out one of the line of pens from his top pocket and stabbing him in the eye, but common sense had prevailed. Instead she’d reminded him tersely that she had worked at this ‘game’ long enough to know the dangers, unlike some fast-track university types she could mention, and when was the last time he’d been out in the field? Jacobsen, an MBA-wielding management moron with a love of computers and a comfortable work environment, had quickly changed the subject.

  She spotted the RV up ahead on the left. The Mansion Café and Restaurant served as a go-to spot for wanderers, aid workers and transients, and nobody paid much attention as long as you paid your bill and didn’t break the furniture. Isobel had used it often and was on good terms with Hadid, the owner, who had a lengthy list of cousins providing all manner of useful services such as electrical work, plumbing, driving and building repairs at absurdly low prices, some of which she’d been forced to use to keep the building habitable. He also served the best coffee in the area and made sure nobody pestered the little white lady who was here to help people.

  She had no idea what the American she was meeting looked like but had been assured he would be in place when she arrived. She hoped he wasn’t going to be the kind of muscle-bound contractor type dressed in multi-pocketed sleeveless jackets who regularly breezed through the region on the kind of business that meant someone down the line was going to be suborned, threatened or hurt. It would be like having a warning beacon tied around her neck, suspicious by association.

  She crossed the street, hopping on her good foot to avoid an ancient pick-up truck belching smoke and rattling like a tin shed in a high wind, and entered the café. The interior was cool and sombre after the bright sunlight outside, but after a couple of seconds her eyes had adjusted and she scanned the tables, taking in everybody at a glance. A couple of backpackers, probably German or Dutch, one or two elderly men, passing time with tiny cups of treacle-like coffee, and a single man at a small table near the rear door who didn’t pay her any attention. She noted a slim backpack on the floor between his feet.

  She flapped a hand towards Hadid who smiled back and nodded, and she walked across to the single man’s table. She didn’t wait to be invited but sat down with a sigh, dragging her injured leg out of the way where it would be safe from a chance encounter with a passing customer.

  Before she could speak Hadid delivered two cups of coffee. As soon as he faded away she said softly, ‘You’re on time, Watchman. That’s good. I get the impression there’s a shit-storm heading your way.’

  EIGHT

  I had the woman who walked through the door of the café pegged as a tourist who’d got herself separated from the rest of her fun-time pack. I’d seen a couple of such groups on the way in, looking oddly out of place and ill-at-ease, which they had every right to be, given the current unrest in the country. She was dressed in pale voluminous pants and a floaty top, with a thin gossamer scarf around her neck, and was carrying a large rucksack in one hand. I noticed she had a serious limp. The rucksack didn’t quite gel with the tourist bit, but what did I know? Tourists crazy enough to come here were probably dumb enough to carry unreasonable amounts of baggage.

  Compact and neat, I put her age at somewhere on the north side of fifty, although it was hard to tell. She had short, silky-looking white hair and was nicely made up in spite of the heat and dust. German or American, I guessed, and gave it twenty seconds before she realized that this was no tourist hang-out and hauled a sharp U-turn to scoot back to the rest of the herd before she got robbed or trafficked into white slavery.

  I was wrong on all counts. She eyed the other customers for a second, completely ignoring me, which was its own signal, before flicking two fingers at the guy behind the counter. He smiled and nodded and got busy at the coffee machine while she walked across to my table and sat herself down with a sigh.

  She arranged herself carefully, her rucksack giving off an ominous clunk as she placed it against the table leg. The barman drifted across in no time with two cups of coffee and placed them in front of us. When I looked at him he gave me a shrug as if to say, I know, but the crazy lady ordered them so what can I say?

  Then she delivered her greeting and I wondered why I didn’t believe in unicorns.

  ‘You’re on time, Watchman. That’s good. I get the impression there’s a shit-storm heading your way.’

  It was surreal hearing the word ‘shit-storm’ come out of the mouth of a sweet-looking little lady of middle years who dressed like a schoolteacher from Florida but sounded more like an escapee from England’s home counties. It was also reassuring in a weird kind of way, hearing the calm way she spoke. It told me she was no beginner in this kind of environment. Still, I wasn’t about to accept her at face value. Not yet.

  ‘Do I know you?’ You have to be careful, even with a person in the right place at the right time and with the correct recognizer – in this case my code name. I added, ‘Only, you might have to vacate that seat soon because my wife’s on her way here and she’s the seriously jealous type.’

  She gave me a look of mild scorn. ‘Don’t worry – you’re not my type,’ she said, dumping a lot of sugar into her coffee. ‘My name’s Isobel Hunt and I’m on your side … and I bet you’re not the marrying type. Robert Vale can vouch for me.’ she leaned across and said, ‘You know Robert, of course?’

  ‘No.’ I knew a Tom Vale, but I figured she was simply being careful. I was right.

  ‘Sorry. Did I say Robert? I meant Tom. Slip of the tongue.’ She gave me a wily smile. ‘He said you’d be very cautious. So you should; this is a risky part of the world. What about Doug Tober? I’m told you saved his life. Nice work. I could carry on dropping names all day but it wouldn’t be appropriate and we do have to be moving as soon as I’ve had my coffee.’ She punctuated this by taking a healthy sip followed by a shiver of appreciation.

  I let her drink and kept a weather eye on the front door and the street outside. The Vale I knew worked for Britain’s MI6 or Secret Intelligence Service. Or had done; it had been a while since I’d last seen him. Tober was one of their heavies from a group called The Basement, the equivalent of the CIA Special Activities Division. Tober and his colleagues were employed to do any heavy lifting required when other options were limited or non-existent.

  But I still wasn’t convinced.

  ‘Sorry, lady, but you’ve lost me.’ I got ready to leave. Anywhere else it would be considered rude, but right here and now in hostile territory it would be standard practice. If in doubt, don’t sit waiting for the hammer to fall; just get up and go. One thing you don’t do when the odds are against you is outstay your welcome.

  She gave me her sweet smile and pushed her cup away. ‘My apologies. How about Callahan and Citera – will that do you?’

  ‘How do you know Vale?’ I relaxed. She was on the side of the angels, having just mentioned a handful of names of people I’d worked with and trusted. The last two were from the CIA in Langley, Virginia and too well covered to have come to the notice of any casual outsiders.

  ‘I’ve worked with him on various projects. He rates you very highly.’

  That made her MI6. ‘You’re a field worker?’ I used the innocuous term in case anyone was listening. She looked nothing like an operative, but unassuming ladies like her have been able to walk below the radar forever. The Russians, French and Israelis use them successfully all the time. Besides, there was the age thing at play here and I was trying to be tactful. I’d come across a handful of women field operatives in my time, and they were all extremely good at what they did. There were also plenty of older agents and assets in this business, but they were usually background operatives and surveillance workers, chosen because they could fit in almost anywhere and had the skills to merge and disappear. Like this one.

  ‘Not always. I started out in research.’

  I looked at our surroundings. ‘This doesn’t seem much like research work.’

  ‘It’s not
far off it but I won’t bore you with the details. I was dumped a few years ago in a budget squeeze and I didn’t have any high-tech skills to keep me on. I got fed up and asked them to take me back before I did something unpleasant to my irritating neighbours.’ She shrugged. ‘I must have timed it right; the grey element among us were suddenly found to have value and they nearly took my arm off.’

  It was a story I’d heard before about former operatives, although rarely the bit about being taken back. Many active service personnel found returning to a ‘normal’ life difficult, especially adjusting to no specific daily routine and a lack of excitement. Add in the demands of skirting around what they’d been doing for the past however many years with friends and neighbours and you had a different kind of stress. Most either knuckled under or took contracting work in somewhere like Afghanistan or Iraq until they realized they’d pushed their own personal envelope a bit too much and went back home for good. Not all of them made it.

  ‘Good for you,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you. I managed to convince them I still had something to offer. Or maybe because they’re ludicrously overstretched at the moment they agreed to take me on.’ She gave me a steely look. ‘Are you surprised?’

  Actually, I was only surprised she was telling me. You don’t usually open up on a first meeting like this to a complete stranger. But I put it down to operational stress. Once the green light is given for any aspect of rapid movement in the field, especially with the clock ticking, it’s easy to find comfort in talking to someone who shares the same background. ‘Is the limp real?’ I asked, changing the subject.

  ‘It is. I had a shin-kicking contest with a camel. The camel won. But enough about me … let’s get down to business. What did they tell you?’

  ‘They?’

  She puffed out her lips. ‘Your boss in Langley. Callahan.’

  ‘Not much. I got targeted while on a pick-up assignment and he ordered me to bug out and to meet you here.’

  ‘You got blown? I’m surprised you’re not locked up.’ Her expression became faintly suspicious, as if I’d been walking around with ‘SPY’ printed on the back of my jacket and might now be a double. ‘Hezbollah don’t usually let anyone slip out of their sticky little fingers once they zero in on them.’

  ‘It was more terminal than that. They weren’t trying to catch me.’ I made the sign of a pistol and she looked shocked.

  ‘Gosh, that’s a bit mean-spirited. What did you do to earn that?’

  ‘As far as I know, nothing. I’d only just arrived in the country.’ I decided to change the subject. ‘What’s it like here?’

  ‘Everything’s been fine until just recently. Just your common-or-garden level of harassment and threatening looks from anyone in a uniform and a few without. The natives are friendly enough, and being called terrorists by the international community doesn’t seem to bother them. In fact I think they regarded it as a badge of honour. But when my government decided to freeze their assets it seems to have hit a sore point. Now I’m not so sure it’s a good place to be.’ She gave me a sideways look. ‘So what happened with the shooter?’

  ‘He retired.’

  She let that one lie and checked her watch. As she did so I looked towards the entrance. I’d become aware of a change in the street noises outside; there was less voice chatter than when I’d first come in and the traffic had dropped to zero, which was unnatural. We were sitting in a market town where busy and noisy was a way of life. A couple of women pedestrians hurried past, heads down, and across the other side of the street a man stuck his head out of a pharmacy doorway, took a look both ways, then ducked back inside and slammed the door.

  That wasn’t good.

  ‘Damn’, said Isobel calmly. ‘I was followed for a while this morning but I thought they’d given up. They’ll have probably blocked the street at both ends.’ She reached for her rucksack. ‘Do you have a vehicle?’

  ‘A couple of blocks away. Nothing I can’t leave behind.’ I’d got my rucksack tucked between my feet and anything I’d left in the Land Cruiser was disposable and free of makers’ labels. When you’re on your way out of a situation in a hurry you have to reckon on leaving behind more than you came with, as long as it doesn’t compromise you or point to your origins. I knew I was clean.

  ‘Good.’ She lifted out what looked like a bottle in a paper bag, and placed it on the table. The clunk I’d heard as she sat down. She nodded towards the rear of the room, to one side of the bar. ‘See that door? We’re going to walk across and go straight through. There’s a rear door opening onto an alleyway. Outside will be a small jeep. I’ll drive because I know the town and the area out of here. Are you all right with that?’

  The way she said it suggested I had little choice but that was fine by me. I’d come here for one rush job and there hadn’t been much time to study this particular area in case of a quick exit. ‘I’m good. What about the barman – you trust him?’

  ‘Hadid? He’s OK, I promise. It’s his jeep. I called him earlier and said I had to take a trip out of town. Would you mind paying – and leaving a really generous tip?’

  I nodded and we both stood up. Isobel grabbed the bottle and led the way out towards the rear. Hadid watched us all the way from the corner of his eye and gave the faintest of nods as we passed by, then turned to the coffee machine and hit the steam button, sending a cloud of vapour into the air and shouting what sounded like a string of cuss words to attract attention away from our exit.

  Isobel placed the bottle behind the bar and I did the same with a handful of notes.

  Seconds later we were walking down a passageway and out into a shadow-filled alleyway lined with garbage bins, wooden crates and a couple of small dogs having a fight. A dun-coloured Suzuki jeep stood outside and Isobel climbed behind the wheel, dumped the rucksack by her feet and started the engine. It clattered a bit but sounded fine to me. As long it was moving we were in with a chance.

  ‘Are you all right to drive?’ I asked, and nodded at her leg.

  ‘The bloody animal kicked me, it didn’t disembowel me. Hold onto your seat.’ With that we took off down the alleyway towards an intersection at the far end. The dogs abandoned hostilities and scooted out of our way with casual ease.

  ‘In case you’re wondering, Hadid doesn’t drink alcohol. But whisky is a commodity to be traded here and every now and then he needs to offer something to smooth the way past some nonsense or other. This is one of those times.’

  I found myself breathing in as the door handles of the jeep seemed to skim the walls on either side, and prayed no innocent householder stepped out for a stroll. Isobel seemed perfectly relaxed, however, steering with ease and pounding the horn while humming a tune I didn’t recognize.

  ‘Is he likely to talk?’ I shouted over the racket as the engine noise boomed back off the buildings. It was like being in a fairground ride from hell and I could see the end of the track coming up way too fast.

  She shook her head. ‘No. He hates the regime and everything they stand for. And I think he’s got a crush on me, the dirty old bugger.’ She grinned and continued to lean on the horn as, without slowing she charged out onto the main street at the intersection, narrowly missing a donkey pulling a cart with huge rubber tyres. She bounced us off a kerbstone before correcting and straightening our line of travel while I held on and hoped we didn’t run into a roadblock.

  NINE

  Moscow

  The atmosphere in the fourth-floor meeting room in Building No 3 in Moscow was different to previous days; it now held an aura that the attendees found uncomfortable. They had been summoned at short notice by an irate Konstantin Basalayev, his voice on the phone containing a level of chill that did not bode well. The fact that he had called them personally rather than using his secretary was an additional cause for concern. It suggested the group’s chairman was using a cut-out approach to keep whatever was ailing him to a limited number of people.

  The door opened and Basalayev see
med to seep into the room like a shadow. He ignored the customary greetings and stood by his chair, one hand in his jacket pocket. His expression was about as friendly as the statue of Lenin in Kaluzhskaya Garden Square. Another bad sign.

  ‘I am unhappy to report,’ he said heavily, his free hand showing the white of his knuckles as he gripped the leathered back of his chair, ‘that the attempted disposal of the American CIA contractor, Portman, who was traced to Lebanon on a mission, was carried out by imbeciles. Not only were they unable to kill a man who would have had no warning they were there, but they were killed by him.’ His gaze swung to fix sharply on Anatoly Dolmatov. ‘Perhaps we could discuss that.’

  The silence in the room became intense until the former FSB man cleared his throat. ‘I was badly advised,’ he stated bluntly, his heavy brows dipping like angry caterpillars. ‘I requested former special forces personnel, which they were, but they were clearly not of the calibre required.’ He lifted one strong hand off the table. ‘I apologize and have already put checks in place to make sure we use better people. We will get Portman next time and are already following his progress.’

  Nobody else spoke, glancing at Dolmatov as if determining whether this might be the last time they saw him here as a member of the group.

  Basalayev rapped the table with his knuckles, drawing all eyes towards him.

  ‘Mistakes were made. I accept that. But we have learned a useful lesson from this failure. Portman is clearly capable and ruthless, and does not hesitate to fight fire with fire. It means we must be even more determined to deal with him as soon as the next opportunity presents itself.’ The way his eyes zeroed in on Dolmatov told everyone that there would be only one more opportunity.

  ‘That’s if he hasn’t gone underground,’ said Oleg Voronin, the former Spetsgruppa ‘V’ officer. ‘If he’s as good as they seem to think he is he will be accustomed to using multiple legends and routes in and out. Can we deal with that?’