Rogue Elements (16 page)

The office and warehouse complex plastered with the insignia of Europe’s third largest famine relief charity was closed by the time Arkell arrived. Except at moments of crisis, the managers and administrators of World Hunger
kept remarkably fixed working hours. Local taxi drivers joked that they could set their watches by the flood of staff exiting the building at exactly 5 p.m. The reception was locked, and not even a night security guard appeared when Arkell pressed the bell.

He circled the building and found a loading bay at the rear. Four different warehouses abutted the oil-stained access road. All of them were locked and silent. The evening sunlight glinted off a heavy silver padlock on the World Hunger loading bay gate. To one side a flight of five concrete steps led up to a small door. Beneath it, a strip of white light.

Arkell tried the door and found it unlocked.

A hangar-like space, crowded on all sides with sorted mountains of clothes, shoes, books, household goods and sports equipment. Most of the items were used, but there were also appliances and kitchen utensils in the manufacturers’ packaging, and dresses on hangers with the labels still attached. Crammed street donation bins stood ready to be emptied between the piles, together with hundreds of bulging plastic bags in branded orange. Along one wall stood industrial washing machines, tumble driers and dry-cleaning units. And at the far end of the space, beside a small forklift truck, were stacked hundreds of cardboard boxes, each with a neat printed label and the World Hunger
logo.

During the day, Arkell estimated, a sorting, cleaning and packaging operation of this magnitude might easily employ thirty people. At night, it seemed, eight young and ill-dressed Slavs were sufficient.

They were distributed around the warehouse, six of them picking through the donated goods piles, the other two pressing suits and dresses alongside the humming dry-cleaning and washing machines. None of them looked up from their work and none of them spoke. Noiselessly, Arkell approached the nearest, a thin youth who had just pulled a box-sealed digital radio from a heap of electrical goods. His haul, laid out on the concrete beside him, was substantial: four pristine LCD televisions of varying dimensions, two car GPS units still in their boxes, a selection of MP3 and Blu-ray players, radios and even an unused air ionizer.

‘Good evening,’ murmured Arkell from just behind his left shoulder.

The youth swung round anxiously.

‘I’m looking for Dejan.’

The electronics picker pointed wordlessly past the mountain of clothes to a small office formed of grey panel walls and lodged unceremoniously against the concrete wall of the warehouse.

A dozen strides brought Arkell to the open doorway. He gazed in at the shaved skull and bull neck of the man sitting at a vinyl-topped office desk, with his broad back to the door and his meaty fingers punching numbers at surprising speed into a calculator. His other hand scribbled the results into a notebook with a stub of pencil.

Although Arkell had not moved, he suddenly dropped the pencil and swivelled round, rising from his chair as he did so. ‘
Was machen Sie hier? Das Lagerhaus ist geschlossen!
’

The initial impression was of fury, with a tinge of guilty fear. There was nothing hospitable in those eyes. A discovered scam made him a cornered rat – antagonistic and dangerous.

It was no time for boyish charm. Had Arkell anticipated the illicit operation he had stumbled upon in the World Hunger warehouse, he might have chosen a different moment to approach Dejan. But time was short, and this man had a secret to hide. Perhaps this was the right time, after all.

‘I’m here about Yadin,’ said Arkell pleasantly.

Dejan, on the verge of another exclamation, fell silent. He watched Arkell closely, considering, then said, ‘You’re the British priest.’

‘If you like.’

‘Parson.’

Arkell smiled. ‘Pearson,’ he corrected. ‘It’s as good a name as any.’

Dejan tilted his head, stretching the heavy neck. ‘Did Klara tell you about me?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’re hacking her phone. A spy.’

‘I need to speak to Yadin.’

The other man glanced over his shoulder into the warehouse. Three pickers looked hastily down.

‘Let’s go somewhere we can talk,’ said Dejan.

He led Arkell across the warehouse, past the mountains of donated goods and the toiling pickers. Suddenly he was expansive, convivial. ‘You had me worried,’ he said breezily, one oversized hand lightly resting on Arkell’s shoulder. ‘I thought you were some new
verdammt
manager working late and ruining my little pension scheme.’ His other hand waved vaguely towards the piles.

‘You keep the good stuff for yourself.’

Dejan paused by the clothes mountain and showed him an evening gown picked out by a woman in oversized jeans and collapsing sneakers. ‘You see this? Armani. Perfect condition. Worn once, maybe. Some rich bitch who can’t be seen in the same outfit, easing her conscience by giving away her cast-offs. We put this in a World Hunger store, the price tag is sixty euro maximum. What’s the point?’ He returned the dress to the pile of spoils. ‘I press it, label it, send it to the right people, I can get a hundred and fifty euros for this. They sell it for three hundred, the customer gets a bargain on a dress worth two thousand. Everyone’s happy: rich bitch, customer, seller, my unemployable Bosniacs, me. There’s too much stuff donated for our shops to handle anyway.’

‘Whatever you say. I’m only here for Yadin.’

‘Gavriel, yes,’ mused Dejan, ushering Arkell through steel double doors into a linoleum-floored corridor anaemically lit by fluorescent tubes. ‘But, you see, he’s a secretive fucker. Doesn’t like people knowing too much about him.’

‘You know about him.’

‘Me?’ Smiling self-deprecatingly, he said, ‘A little, perhaps. Gavriel comes to me when he needs things. We go back a long way. He trusts me to keep an eye on his girl.’

There was a purpose in Dejan’s stride which belied the easy tone of his conversation. Arkell glanced briefly at his hands, checked they were still empty.

‘Where is he now?’

‘That’s always hard to say.’ Still the casual tone. ‘What do you want with Gavriel, Mr Parson? He has a few enemies. I have to be careful. In here.’

He opened a steel door into a windowless storeroom and switched on the lights to reveal stacks of boxes on open-frame shelving. The top boxes were spilling leaflets: World Hunger, in a dozen languages. There was no other exit.

Arkell hesitated on the threshold.

‘It’s a personal matter.’

‘Please, enter.’ Dejan’s great hand pressed again on his shoulder. Arkell was acutely aware of the solid bulk of the man. ‘Here we can talk as long as we want without one of these
verdammt
Bosniacs interrupting us.’

The man’s leather jacket was too thick and too loose to tell what was underneath it. Arkell glanced around the storeroom. A section of shelving was yet to be assembled, and a cluster of steel rods, shelves and wooden posts of various sizes were stacked in one corner. It was all he needed.

Arkell walked into the room and was not surprised when the other man locked the door behind them. ‘This personal matter,’ said Dejan flatly. ‘Why don’t we talk it over, you and me?’ His right hand reached inside his jacket.

‘I’d rather not.’ Arkell continued forward to within a metre of the shelving posts before turning.

Dejan was holding a switchblade. ‘Talk, Mr Parson.’

He’d anticipated a knife – carrying a firearm in Germany was just too risky. And a man of Dejan’s strength would not expect to need a gun. All the same, Arkell was relieved. You never could be certain.

‘Put that away. I’m not here to hurt you, and I’m not going to report your Armani scam. Tell me where to find Yadin and you won’t hear from me again.’

Dejan laughed, fingering the blade of the knife. ‘Do you have any idea who Gavriel Yadin is? Even if you walk in here offering one hundred thousand euros . . . But you don’t do this. You come here and demand priceless information for free.’ He raised the knife, using it like a conductor’s baton to emphasize each word. ‘Who are you? And why are you looking for Yadin?’

Taking a step back, judging the distance, Arkell said, ‘One last time: put it away. I don’t want to have to hurt you.’

The warning incensed the larger man. ‘Hurt me?’ he snarled. Launching himself forward, he repeated the words with even more scorn. ‘Hurt
me
?’

The momentum of his weight carried the knife unstoppably forward as Arkell swung around, seized the longest of the wooden posts in both hands and flipped it with a twitch of his wrists so that it smashed with shocking force into Dejan’s right thumb.

The knife dropped. They both heard the thumb break a second before the blade clattered on the concrete floor.

The post felt good. A comfortable weight, about a metre sixty long. A round pole would have been easier to slide through his fingers, but the hardwood was strong and dependable. Arkell rolled the post in his hands, getting used to the shape of it.

No sound came from Dejan. His astonished face reddened; he stared at his shattered thumb, then at the knife by Arkell’s feet. He raised his prize-winning left fist and charged.

Sprawled on the floor, Dejan tried to comprehend what had just happened to him. The Englishman stood back, letting him recover. That wooden post had whirled so fast. Dejan had felt the savage impact first in his ribs, then across his left forearm, then on the side of his head. The knife was nowhere to be seen. Rising to his feet, Dejan shook his head to clear it, and glowered at the improvised weapon the Englishman held so casually. His hands were positioned about fifty centimetres apart, loosely tensed. Dejan now knew how quickly they could spin that post around, the force they could exert through it.

But he had fought all his life with his fists, and he refused to accept that a smaller man could hold him off with a mere stick. It was just a question of getting hold of it, wrenching it from his hands, and then finishing the bastard off.

Dejan feinted left, the old move that always fooled cocky kids in the ring. No one ever expected a man of his size to swing back so fast. The post lashed out where he would have been, and Dejan’s left hand snatched at it.

He couldn’t understand how he missed it.

His fingers closed on air and he felt a staggering pain in his shoulder. Somehow the post, too, had swung back, only to drive point-first into his collarbone, which snapped like a baby’s finger. The post continued on, over his useless shoulder, and skidded sideways, picking up new momentum to smack the back of his head.

This time, Dejan briefly passed out.

He came round to find the post resting on his throat.

‘Yadin,’ said the man. ‘Where is he?’

‘Fuck you.’ The pain in his thumb and shoulder made Dejan wince as he spat the words.

‘Try again,’ said the man, using one foot to nudge his broken collarbone. Dejan screamed.

‘I don’t know! France. Somewhere in France.’

‘Where in France?’

‘I don’t know.’ He screamed again as the foot pressed harder. ‘Really, I don’t know! He doesn’t tell me!’

‘That’s a shame,’ said the man, stepping back and cracking the post across Dejan’s nose.

This time Dejan roared like an enraged bull, spattering blood over his chin. Before he could move, the post was back on his throat.

‘I don’t like doing this,’ said the other sincerely. ‘I really don’t. But I have to keep hurting you until you give me Yadin.’

By now the roar had subsided into a choked whimper. Blood was trickling down the back of Dejan’s mouth. He said nothing.

Grimacing, the Englishman stamped down on the broken collarbone.

The blood in Dejan’s throat gave his new scream a sickening rattle. ‘I don’t know where he is, I swear! He’s going to Cyprus tomorrow, that’s all I know.’

‘Where in Cyprus?’

‘Lemona,’ he gasped. ‘There’s a chemist . . . Kolatch. He needs to see Kolatch.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know! Gavriel told me to set up the meet. Make sure Kolatch is home tomorrow. Said he had to collect something. He didn’t say what.’

‘How do you contact Yadin?’ the man asked finally, reaching inside Dejan’s leather jacket and pulling out his phone.

‘The number is saved as
Gerhard
. I leave a message. Always a message. He never answers.’

Arkell left Dejan bound to the shelving and locked the storeroom door. What he had just done sickened him. It brought to mind Wraye’s old pep talks about the operational necessity of extreme methods – about the requirement for those tasked to preserve what was good to get their hands dirty. They had never helped. He walked out through the warehouse with a tight smile to each of the uneasy pickers. When he reached the access road he called Wraye.

‘I’m sending you photos of Dejan and his German ID,’ he said once he’d relayed the Cyprus lead. ‘I’ll courier his phone to Markham Square.
Gerhard
is Yadin: probably an anonymous postbox service, but check it out anyway.’ He read out the number. ‘You might want to have someone keep Dejan out of contact until this is over – if you know anyone near Dortmund?’

‘I have associates in the area,’ confirmed Wraye. ‘There’s an overnight charter flight for Paphos departing Frankfurt at 23:30. Gets in at 05:35. Can you make it?’

‘Sure,’ said Arkell, vaguely irritated. He didn’t need administrative support from Wraye, and he was still uncomfortable with her knowing his exact movements.

‘I’ll arrange for a weapon to be sent up from Akrotiri.’

‘No need,’ replied Arkell, too brusquely. ‘I make my own arrangements.’

A pause from Wraye. ‘All right. If you’re sure.’

‘Just take care of Dejan. I don’t want him warning Yadin.’

From Gloucestershire, Madeleine Wraye had sent a carefully worded message to Joyce’s anonymous webmail account:
Bravo Day personnel recruitment activity. Landmark, 11 p.m.

‘I think the registry keepers are getting suspicious,’ said Joyce when he sat opposite her in the Mirror Bar at London’s Landmark Hotel. But he looked very pleased with himself.

‘Show me.’

‘Not even a drink or a hello first?’

Wraye scanned the photographed recruitment records and quickly determined that Elphinstone’s diary had been telling the truth. His notes on the seven Newcastle and Bradford candidates, in that familiar copperplate, were dated and countersigned by PD/3. Even his expenses for the trip were neatly set out.

Jeremy Elphinstone was off the list.

‘Good,’ remarked Wraye, somewhat to her own surprise. She looked up at the reflections around them. The Mirror Bar was one of her favourite meeting spots, ideal for detecting watchers. ‘Yes, Edward, we must get you a drink. I have a somewhat more challenging job for you.’

She waited for the barman to mix him an Old Fashioned, and then set out her requirement. He put down the squat glass untouched. ‘I can’t do that,’ he gasped.

‘It’s important you don’t open the file. Any fingerprints and DNA traces in it must be preserved.’

‘Madeleine, I can’t just walk into central registry and steal a file!’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, Christ, look what happened to you.’

Her jaw hardened. ‘So don’t get caught.’

He had no answer. ‘And if I did manage it . . . how would I get it out of the building? You know the guards check our bags.’

‘Post it to yourself.’

‘
Post
a YZ file? Are you crazy? Don’t you remember how the post room works? It’s only got more paranoid since you left.’

‘Send it to yourself at the Fort. That’s still considered internal mail, isn’t it?’

‘Yes . . .’

‘Package it up, nice and boring, and pop it in the Fort’s postbag. When it arrives, just drive it out in one of the training cars.’

He considered her with awe. ‘That is a genuinely genius idea.’ His face darkened. ‘I’m not saying I can get the file though.’

She leaned across the table. ‘Edward, listen to me. Whatever you may think, I have full confidence in you.’ Patting his arm, she reiterated the words: ‘
Full
confidence.’

Could it be Tony Watchman? Wraye lingered in the Mirror Bar after Joyce had left, pondering the idea. She had got on well with him on the IONEC, when they found themselves learning their very first tradecraft together and shivering with nervous delight at talk of Moscow Rules and Lubyanka interrogation techniques. He was sparky, different, tough. A little like Arkell in that way. And he had been completely devoid of sexism at a time when female Intelligence Branch officers were still a disturbing novelty to many in the Firm. He had known she was as good as any man, and had not been afraid to say so. But the rivalry had been quick to develop, first humorously, later with real venom as career-determining choices were made and political games enacted.

Abuja!

He had performed spectacularly while she had been stuck in West Africa. Plenty of colleagues had been happy to keep her informed of Tony Watchman’s achievements in the Arabian peninsula, and relay the praise heaped on him by George Vine for networks cultivated and plots averted. Perhaps out of jealousy, she had been unwilling to view him as the future leader others envisaged. And later, when she saw herself as bearing some of the burden of responsibility for the continuing health of the Firm, she had gone to Elphinstone and warned against giving Counter-Terrorism to Watchman. That, in retrospect, had been her biggest mistake. Not that she could have known how close the two men, with their diametrically opposed backgrounds, had grown in her absence. She had genuinely believed that Tony running Counter-Terrorism would be bad for business.

Why? It was hard to remember now. Some of the things he’d said in passing over the years, perhaps:

People are afraid of terrorism. I’m not. We need some kind of enemy, or we might as well retrain as ballet dancers and insurance salesmen. I’d rather have a bunch of Fenians and ragheads as my enemy than the USSR.

The Firm needs to develop a much more clearly articulated house view on terrorism. We’ve got to make it our own. Otherwise Five will call the shots and we’ll be reduced to chasing the upstream elements of whatever foreign conspiracies they deem worthy of their investigation.

Terrorists are just regular people with a grievance.

Terrorism is a tactic, not a character trait. It’s the most effective means of warfare for anyone significantly weaker than their opponent, states included. Let’s not forget we’ve used terrorist techniques often enough ourselves.

And then, when he had been appointed H/TERR in spite of her efforts, and he had called her out onto the terrace overlooking the Thames to celebrate with champagne their simultaneous elevation to the top table, he’d joked, ‘So much of Counter-Proliferation is about keeping WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, isn’t it? Perhaps that means you should report to me . . .’ She’d managed half a glass before finding an excuse to leave him – and Elphinstone who’d joined them – to finish the bottle.

A man was eyeing Wraye in one of the mirrors. It was a kind of nervous invitation. She considered his thinning hair, his good suit, his brown eyes and strong, capable fingers. Younger than her, but only a little. Spanish, perhaps, in town on business. A good expense account and a reasonable degree of authority in his working life. Probably still married.

She picked up her wine and walked over to his table.