The Operative (52 page)

‘I lost my mother and father when I was the same age as you,’ Skender said.

Josh looked up at him, unable to imagine this man ever having parents.

‘The people who killed them also slit my throat,’ he said, leaning forward and pulling open his shirt to show Josh his neck.

The boy gaped at the scar, fascinated by it. ‘Did it hurt?’

‘Not at the time – I guess I was too scared. They threw me in a river right after to drown me.’

‘Wow!’ Josh exclaimed. ‘How’d you get away?’

‘I nearly didn’t. The river was cold and flowing fast but somehow I managed to crawl onto a rock and pull myself onto the river bank.’

‘Did you get your own back on them?’ Josh said, staring at him in awe.

‘Of course,’ Skender said. ‘It took me twenty years to find them, though. They were communists. You know what communists are?’

Josh shook his head.

‘Communists used to be the old bad guys. My father fought against them when they tried to take over my country. How long was your father a soldier?’

‘Don’t know.’ Josh shrugged. ‘A long time.’

‘Well, he probably fought against the communists when he was young. They wanted to take over everyone’s country.’

‘My father and your father were on the same side?’ Josh asked.

‘Kind of. My father fought for the king of my country.’

‘A king?’

‘Yeah. King Zog.’

‘Zog?’ Josh repeated, finding it a strange and amusing name.

‘Zog fought against the communists alongside my father. Anyway, the guy who led the communists who killed my father moved to Paris in France when they lost the war.’

‘I know where Paris is. I’ve been there with my dad.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘It was okay, I suppose. We went to Disneyland.’

‘I’ve never been to Disneyland,’ Skender said. ‘Well, I found this guy in Paris and I killed him.’

‘How’d you kill him?’

‘I slit his throat, of course,’ Skender said, thinking about that day. Skender had also killed the man’s wife and three children in the same manner and left them in their Paris apartment.

Josh tried to imagine Skender drawing a knife across a man’s throat. Stratton had never been so graphic with his stories. ‘Do you know Stratton?’ Josh asked. ‘He’s killed loads of people all over the world.’

Skender looked at him. ‘Yeah. I know Stratton.’

‘Do you know where he is?’ Josh asked, a note of hope in his voice.

‘I believe he’s on his way here to get you.’

‘He is?’ Josh exclaimed excitedly.

‘I’m just guessing, really,’ Skender said, wondering what Stratton was planning and for the first time feeling a touch of unease. The man was no doubt a planner of some experience, judging by his hits on Leka and Ardian and if one was to read anything into the boy’s description of him. Perhaps there was something to be concerned about.

Skender’s private cellphone rang in his pocket and he took it out, hit a button and put it to his ear. ‘Yeah?’

‘This is Stratton.’

Skender glanced down at Josh who was inspecting his camel. He walked into the kitchen to look out of the window. ‘What a coincidence. I was just talking about you,’ he said, surveying his square that was now empty. He noticed some police activity at the corners.

‘This is your last chance.’

‘That right?’ Skender said, watching several cop cars arrive and park across the ends of the side streets, the officers climbing out to direct people away from the square. ‘You know how many times I’ve been told that in my life?’

‘You’ve never heard it from me before.’

Skender looked away from the window, trying to remember what Stratton looked like, the image of him at the foot of the stairs in the courthouse not entirely clear. ‘I see you have the police all stirred up. What do you have in mind?’

‘You do not want to find out the hard way, I promise you. Where’s the boy?’

‘You think I’m going to negotiate with you because of threats?’

‘I’ll bring your empire down around your ears if you ignore me.’

‘This isn’t about the boy, not for me. If I start allowing myself to be dictated to by any individual who takes a dislike to me where will I end up? What will my people think of me? What will happen to my own self-esteem? I’m sure you understand. Now why don’t you run along and do whatever it is you feel you need to do to express your anger. Seems to me your fight is against everyone.’

‘Skender, listen to me!’ Stratton shouted, his desperation coming through. ‘I don’t want to do this but I will if you force me. Once I start this there’ll be no turning back. I’ll kill you, Skender. Today you will die, believe me – unless you give me back Josh. Then I’ll give you your life.’

‘Stirring stuff. Now get lost,’ Skender said before disconnecting. He looked back out of the window at the increasing build-up of cop cars, a couple of fire trucks and what looked like some military personnel in a camouflaged Hummer. He accepted, based on what Hobart had said, that Stratton’s threat was not entirely empty and that he had planted some kind of explosive device in the building. Perhaps Stratton was trying to flush him out of the
penthouse and down to where the device was. Whatever, Skender felt comfortable at the top of his building and would remain there until this little incident was sorted out.

He stepped out of the kitchen, put a hand on Josh’s shoulder and guided him along the corridor. ‘Let’s go upstairs and see what we’ve got to eat. You could eat something now, right?’

Josh nodded.

Skender walked to the fire exit where his two guards were waiting and they all headed up the stairs. Josh and Skender went into the penthouse while the guards remained in the stairwell.

Stratton hung the payphone back on its cradle and took a moment to muster his thoughts. This was it. He was going ahead with the plan. There was no turning back now and no point in delaying it further since Hobart knew about the manufactured explosives. A search of the building was no doubt imminent.

He buttoned up the Yankee baseball jacket that he had found in the trunk of Grant’s car where he had left the rest of his equipment and pulled the baseball cap down low over his face. Then he headed across the road past a television news crew preparing for a stand-up report.

The attractive female correspondent held a microphone in front of her while the cameraman focused the camera. ‘We’re just around the corner from the new Skender Square in Culver City,’ she announced seriously, ‘where police have set up roadblocks to keep people back from the brand new Skender business centre which was to have had its grand opening ceremony today. Reports are unclear at the moment but what we do know is that the building has been evacu ated, apart from some security guards. There are rumours of a bomb inside which, as you can see, police are taking very seriously.’

Stratton made his way past the news van into an alleyway that paralleled one side of the square. Halfway along it he turned in through the door of a building, past a large kitchen, along a narrow corridor and into a restaurant that was empty but for a man sitting behind the bar and reading a newspaper.

‘We’re closed,’ the man said as Stratton walked through without acknowledging him and opened the front door. ‘Ain’t no one s’posed to go out there. Cops say there’s a bomb.’

Stratton let the door close behind him and paused on the doorstep. He had approached the building from the side opposite to where he had been arrested and, seeing the square was now empty, he set off across the road. He stepped onto the square and as he crossed a flower bed to reach the side of the building a voice called out from behind him. He ignored it and continued around the corner.

He headed for the concourse, scanning in all directions, glancing quickly over his shoulder to check that he was not being pursued. As he approached the front of the building he unzipped his jacket to reveal the complex radio transmitter hanging from its strap around his neck.

Stratton stepped onto the marble concourse, flashed a look in the direction of the doors in the entrance portico to see that they were closed and made his way to Skender’s heavy bronze statue. He stepped between the outstretched arms and looked up to see the glass face of the building sloping all the way up to the pinnacle. As he extended the antenna of the transmitter, movement and a sound in front of him caught his attention. His gaze flashed to one of the heavy Indian doors as it slowly opened. Stratton’s hand flicked to the power switch and turned it on, a small red LED light glowing to indicate that it was operational. His stare stayed fixed on the door.

It opened just enough to let Hobart step through before it closed to leave the FBI man standing alone.

Stratton stood perfectly still, staring at the man who had arrested him a short time ago who was now looking seriously beaten up.

Hobart paused to take a breath and gather his strength. As he took a couple of hesitant steps forward he saw Stratton standing between the outstretched arms of Skender’s statue and stopped.

Stratton noted the pain that Hobart’s movements seemed to be causing him and could only assume the man had received an unexpected and unwelcome reception from Skender. But he could not even imagine why.

Hobart continued walking slowly towards Stratton, keeping stiffly upright and doing his best to maintain his dignity, and stopped several feet away. He saw the device with its complex panel of switches slung across Stratton’s chest, one of his hands hovering over it. Though Hobart knew little about electronics he knew enough to figure out that the box and its antenna were related to the explosive device.

‘Move on,’ Stratton said. ‘You’re all done here.’

Hobart looked into the man’s eyes, the resolve in them obvious. But more interesting was the similarity to the eyes he had looked into a short time ago before their owner had beaten the hell out of him: a dark madness, perhaps, or simply an unharnessed ruthlessness. The Albanian and the Englishman might be very different animals but there were parallels – most notably, they were stubborn and tenacious to the point of self-destruction. Skender was the egotist and king of a ruthless empire who could not comprehend an individual’s challenge to his will. Stratton, on the other hand, was a human cruise missile and once launched would weave past all obstacles until his objective was reached.

Hobart could see ways out of this madness for both men but they themselves could not see beyond their own needs. They were on a collision course and nothing now was going to stop them, certainly not Hobart. The ultimate loser would of course be the boy, wherever he was. Hobart appreciated how Stratton had little choice, though his solution was extreme to say the least. But above everything else it was Skender’s last words to him that echoed in Hobart’s head: the threat to him and his wife. Hobart would never admit it to anyone but he hoped Stratton succeeded in destroying the man if for no other reason than his own survival.

‘I’ll give you a minute to get clear,’ Stratton said. ‘Make sure no one is anywhere near the square.’

Hobart stared at Stratton, reminded of a failed suicide bomber he’d once seen in a jail. But that man had planned nothing on this scale, of course. He glanced up at the building behind him, his contempt for it and its owner impossible to hide, then back at Stratton. ‘Blow him to hell for all I care,’ Hobart said. Then he moved off painfully, past the statue and towards the edge of the square.

A movement caused Stratton’s gaze to flick to the balcony above, where Klodi and another of Skender’s thugs had arrived to look around. Klodi looked down onto the concourse and at the statue. The two goons were about to move on when the signal finally reached Klodi’s brain that someone was standing between Skender’s statue’s arms. Then he recognised who. Klodi disappeared instantly and Stratton ran his fingers along the transmitter to the first of four buttons. They hovered above it while Stratton drew the jacket across his body to hide the device from view.

Hobart crossed the street at the corner of the square towards the roadblock, moving faster, despite his injuries, than when he’d left Stratton. He was thinking of the remaining seconds of the minute that Stratton had given him that were ticking away.

Hendrickson hurried through the roadblock on seeing Hobart hobbling towards him. ‘Sir, are you okay?’ he asked, falling in alongside his battered leader.

‘Get these people back out of sight of the square. Now!’

‘Stratton’s escaped, sir. I tried to call you—’

‘I know!’ Hobart shouted, hurting his ribs in the process. ‘Get these people out of here! Tell the cops the bomb’s going off any second!’

Hendrickson ran off towards the chief of police who stood
surrounded by his officers and members of the fire department on the other side of the checkpoint. They were immediately goaded into action. Seaton appeared alongside Hobart who had stopped to lean against the wall of a building and was glancing around the corner towards the pyramid at intervals.

‘You okay?’ Seaton asked dryly.

Hobart looked up at him in between clearing some congealed blood from his nostrils into his handkerchief. ‘I will be in a minute,’ he said to Seaton who was unaware of the irony.