Deception (2 page)

Across the square and just visible in the gloom, a number of men watched their arrival, loosely scattered around three four-by-four vehicles. In the background, keeping watch, the two Apaches were constantly shifting position just above the rooftops.

The crewman waved Harry forward, sliding sideways to give himself a safe field of fire. Harry pushed Rafa'i and followed closely behind, drawing the M9 and holding it down by his leg. None of these men would expect them to come unarmed, but waving weaponry in the air like some of the cowboys of the PMC community was asking for trouble.

The men watched him come. The agreement had been to take Rafa'i to the centre of the designated landing site, then leave. That suited Harry just fine, but he'd have felt a lot better if he could have seen how many more were lurking in the shadows. It suddenly struck him how incredibly insane this was.

Then one man detached himself from the group and walked forward. He was unarmed, heavily built and dressed in a white shirt and pants. He immediately became the focal point for a beam of high-intensity light from the helicopter. At a shout from Harry, he very cautiously lifted his shirt to reveal a bare torso. Harry gave the OK and urged Rafa'i on. When they were down to a dozen paces apart, the light beam was switched off and Harry stopped walking. He backed away, ordering Rafa'i to continue alone.

Seconds later Harry was back in the Black Hawk and the crewman was giving the OK to lift off.

The pilot was as calm as ever. ‘
Postal One, we're out of here. Thank you, Shotguns One and Two. Delivery completed
.'

Rik Ferris was waiting when they got back to the base, left arm in a tan-coloured sling. He had a US army baseball cap jammed on his head and looked pale and restless.

‘You took your time. I thought you were just going to fly over and throw him out?'

‘We were,' said Harry. ‘But we decided it would be polite to land first.' He eyed the sling, which had been plain white when they'd arrived here. ‘That looks fresh.' The sling and bandage covered a bullet wound sustained in St James's Park a few days before, courtesy of a rogue female Special Forces bodyguard. Rik still hadn't brought it up in conversation, but Harry knew he would when he was ready.

Getting shot wasn't something you forgot for long.

Rik grinned. ‘Yeah, that's the only good bit about coming here. A US army medic noticed the sling and insisted on taking a look. When she saw it was a bullet wound, she was well impressed. Her name's Tammy and she lives in Florida.'

‘Lucky you. You've only got a few thousand competitors, then.'

‘Very funny. How did it go?'

‘Fine. We had an easy ride.' Thank God, he thought. He could still see the faces of the two crewmen and their businesslike, wire-tight movements. They'd been out here too long, he guessed; living on the edge and expecting every trip to be their last. It had a way of eating away at you. No wonder Colonel White was concerned for them; although it was probably more to do with logistics and paperwork if he had to replace them than concern for paid mercenaries. But it was none of his business.

‘And Rafa'i?'

‘Forget him.' Harry walked into the operations building. He unloaded the pistol and watched the man behind the desk check the breech, then signed the log. ‘Did you get anything on the car registration?' He'd asked Rik to run a photo past what Rik called ‘the community' – his contacts in computer geekdom – to see if anyone recognized the buildings or the part of the car registration plate that was showing.

‘Nothing yet. I wanted to chase it up while I was waiting, but the security guys wouldn't let me use my laptop.' He nudged the shoulder bag lying at his feet. ‘Said it was a security risk.'

‘Don't worry about it. I need something to eat.' What he needed more was to lie down somewhere for a week. He was still feeling the bruises from the contact in London, when he'd been shoulder charged by a man intent on killing him.

‘Mr Tate, sir?' A man wearing the insignia of a Specialist handed Harry an envelope. ‘I was instructed to give you this, sir, compliments of Colonel White. There's a driver waiting to take you to the airport when you've eaten, and your flight leaves at oh-six-hundred, sir. Have a safe one.' He flipped a half salute and walked away.

Harry ripped open the envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with a brief message:
The Italian off Wigmore. 10.30 Friday. RB.

Richard Ballatyne. It took him a moment to think about what day it was. Wednesday. He needed some sleep.

Rik said, ‘There's a great cafeteria across the way. They serve steaks the size of a mattress.'

‘Good. After that we head home.'

‘What's on the agenda?'

‘If Ballatyne keeps his word, we're going hunting.'

THREE

R
ichard Ballatyne was sitting in the same Italian restaurant off Wigmore Street, in London's West End, where Harry had first met him. It had been less than ten days ago, but seemed longer. Much had happened since then, and a rapid series of events piled one on another skewed one's perspective on time. The MI6 officer looked tired, as if the past few days had drained him of energy, his dark hair limp and the eyes behind the glasses blank and hollow.

A hard-case in a suit was sitting to one side of the room, hands out of sight beneath the table and an untouched glass of water in front of him. Other than a brief nod of professional acknowledgement, he paid no further attention to Harry, but concentrated on the street outside.

‘Coffee?' Ballatyne nodded at a side table set up with cups, saucers and an ancient aluminium percolator. ‘Georgio's own coffee maker. Probably the best brew in London.'

Georgio was the restaurant owner and, Harry suspected, a local asset for MI6. He poured himself a cup and tasted it. Not bad. He sat down. ‘You didn't ask me here for the coffee.'

‘No, I didn't. How's Ferris?'

‘Recovering. He shouldn't have come to Baghdad, though.'

‘I know. But it couldn't be helped. It was for his own good – yours, too. If he'd stayed here, he'd have got himself a front page press release. We didn't want that.' He paused. ‘That was a good job you did in Baghdad. Rafa'i's friends—'

‘Spare me the details,' Harry cut him off. He didn't want to know. It was over. Done. He didn't feel particularly good about dumping the man back among his former friends and supporters, but he could live with it. Rafa'i and whatever may have become of him was no longer his concern. ‘What's the public story with the shootings in St James's?' Three killers – two men in military uniform and a young woman, all sent to kill Rafa'i – shot dead in front of a sizeable crowd of witnesses, was bound to have caused a fuss. Harry hadn't even looked at the newspapers, less concerned by public opinion than Rik Ferris's gunshot wound and the need to keep a low profile.

Ballatyne looked unconcerned. ‘It's off the front pages, although a few shaky scenes came up on YouTube before we could stop them. Fortunately, the shooting was all over before anyone could zero in on the gory details. Best we can hope for, I suppose. There've been questions in the House  . . . tourists terrified, appalling lack of security in the nation's capital, gunmen on the loose just yards from Westminster, that kind of thing. And lots of foreign press coverage, which isn't so good. Still, give it a few more days and they'll have something else to occupy them. There have been arrests, too, and resignations here and in the US and Europe.'

‘Archer's employers?' The plotters behind the attempt to snuff Rafa'i. Oil interests, mostly, with grey-faced politicians and others hovering in the shadows. They'd be lucky to get all of them, he thought. Some of the financiers and corporate movers and shakers had better security cut-outs to protect themselves from unwanted investigation than most spies.

‘Yes.' Ballatyne shifted his cup and saucer and placed a photo on the table. It was the one he'd shown Harry immediately after the shooting in St James's Park. It showed the man Harry knew as Henry Paulton, Operations Director of MI5; the man who had posted Harry to Georgia following a disastrous drug bust and nearly succeeded in having him eliminated by a government ‘wet' operator known as the Hit. Paulton was pictured about to get into a car in an unnamed street. Harry had been counting on analysing the photo to begin the hunt for his former boss.

‘The situation's changed,' Ballatyne said, before Harry could pick up the photo. ‘Paulton's moved on.'

Harry was disappointed but not surprised. He'd been hoping Ballatyne was better than this, though.

‘Handy.'

Ballatyne blinked at the cynical tone ‘No, I'm serious. I meant what I said: you take Rafa'i to Baghdad and I'd tell where the photo was taken. It was Brussels, in case you're still interested. Just off Avenue Louise. He's not there now, though.'

‘But you know where he is.' It was a statement.

‘Not exactly. He was seen two days ago by an embassy security staffer, leaving Frankfurt airport. Unfortunately, he lost him in the crowd. He could be anywhere by now.'

Harry watched the MI6 man's face, trying to determine what was true and what was misdirection. There was something there, under the skin. A glint in his eyes which showed that this wasn't all he had to say.

‘But you have an idea?'

‘Yes. A slim one, but it sounds plausible.' He cleared his throat and took another sip of coffee. ‘As you probably know, the British army has anything up to two thousand personnel listed as absent without leave at any one time. Most of those are short-term, through illness, family problems, drink, drugs, fights, arrests and so forth. And trauma. A few are long-term, meaning they don't intend reporting back. Most are from infantry regiments with a few scattered among other units. It's a problem, but manageable. However, there's a core group who have gone absent and can't be found. They're spread as far as Australia, Canada, South Africa, Thailand  . . . and lots of other places where we can't get at them. Within that core group are a few personnel of particular concern.' He flicked at a sugar grain on the tablecloth and gave a wintry smile. ‘They're listed as SDPs, or Strategic Displaced Personnel, would you believe?'

‘Meaning what?' Harry couldn't quite see where this was going, but it had to involve him somehow; whatever Ballatyne was leading up to, he wasn't going to leave here without exerting some kind of official pressure to do a job of work. ‘Does this involve Paulton or not?'

‘Yes.' No room for doubt.

‘How? He's not on this list, is he?'

‘Hardly. But we believe he's got something to do with it.'

‘In what way?'

‘Of the maybe two dozen names on the SDP list, there's a handful who are too important to let go.'

Harry felt his spirits sink. ‘You want me chasing down a bunch of squaddies? I don't think so.' He made to stand, but Ballatyne put out a hand to stop him.

‘Wait. That's not what I'm leading up to. Well, not entirely.' He waited for Harry to relax before continuing. ‘The people I'm talking about are not your average squaddies, too pissed to find their way back to their units. All of them have tactical, planning or technical information in their heads; information that if let out, would be a disaster for our operational and strategic capability.'

‘Let out?'

‘Sold.'

Harry breathed out. He began to see where this was going.

‘In the business world,' Ballatyne continued smoothly, ‘people like this would be head-hunted from one corporate body to another, valued and appraised for their technical skills, education and potential. Most would have been fast-tracked from university on career-management paths. Well, these specialists are no different  . . . only, the interested bodies involved are not our friends.'

Nice, thought Harry. Russia. Iran. North Korea. China. And a few smaller countries who'd love to get their hands on our latest weapons technology. Throw in al-Qaeda for the fun of it and the nightmare was real.

‘And you think Paulton's involved in horse-trading military specialists?'

‘He's got the background. And he's got a living to make. He wasn't like Bellingham and a few others we could name, born with the benefits of a silver spoon; he was a normal wage slave like the rest of us.'

‘He's nothing like the rest of us.' Harry's words come out as sharp as tin tacks, his hackles rising. Paulton, along with Bellingham, his MI6 opposite number, had conspired to have Harry, Rik Ferris and several other security and intelligence services staff terminated. That put him well outside the pale of normal.

‘Forgive me. Clumsy comparison.' Ballatyne looked genuinely sorry. ‘But I think you know what I mean. There's a lot of money swilling about out there looking for the right information. Paulton's got contacts built over a lifetime in the business, he has a first class brain and knows his way around every kind of negotiating situation. He dealt with the IRA for years, he's mixed it with numerous other terror groups and their front men, and he's very good at keeping people onside. He's also an expert at disappearing. As you'd expect, he has numerous passports in a variety of names.' He held up a hand and began to count off his fingers. ‘Some MI5 personnel knew him as Henry. Others knew him as George. To his neighbours in the block of flats where he lived, he was George Henry, civil servant. Other names we've discovered are Patrick Towen, George Bartholomew and Paul McHenry. There's a John Arthur Millar and a Colin Bracewell out there, too, although documents in both those names have turned up recently, so he's probably ditched them by now. He seems to have made an art out of playing identity games with everyone he ever came in contact with, just for the hell of it.'

‘And nobody picked this up?'