Exit Alpha (3 page)

The sun had gone from the room. She looked beautiful asleep, like a child. He dressed, gently closed the door, descended the narrow stairs, needing to see the cathedral, the miracle, again. They’d toured the crypt that morning but missed the roof tour. Despite edict twelve, PERSPECTIVE IS STRENGTH, the astonishing building had bored her.

Long shadows stretched across the square. He strolled to the main doors, a fortyish man with a slightly uneven step — compensation for the lack of three toes on his left foot. His darker skin emphasised his matinee-idol looks, the intelligent eyes, the tinge of grey at his brow. He ignored the tourists. Beside Chartres they didn’t exist. He sensed he was being trailed by Murchison or Zuiden from Department S. The S operatives, nicknamed ‘surgeons’, handled assassinations while D, the ‘dentists’, his own outfit, replaced people. Usually they worked independently. But sometimes S assisted D. He needed the surgeons now for security, extraction and cleaning. Still, he disliked having Zuiden help him wind up the assignment. Although the swine was a top man now — Grade Three — lost toes weren’t easy to forgive.

The cathedral’s exterior was a cosmos — alchemy, astrology, its endless elaborations a contrast to the soaring bare interior. Beyond the building he visualised the cathedrals of Antarctica. Ramparts of ice with deep fissures of turquoise and green — some beached with sea-scoured bases, some thundering as they calved.

There, implacable nature. Here, the immortal work of mortals. Vaults, flyers, arcane geometry seeking the essence of God in stone. Unable to reconcile the two, he moved to the carvings near the left-hand door.

Before him, a teaching designed to last for a thousand years. The precise positioning of the sword haft, the folds of material across the belly.
Hara no aru hito
. An invocation moulded in rock.

Someone behind him. ‘Rahib Badar?’

He half turned.

Slowly.

Not Murchison or Zuiden.

Where the hell were they?

He surveyed the stranger — a dark man in western clothes, neck bulging from a collarless shirt. Stubble. Liquid eyes. He knew these third-world inter-services types. Young fanatics, swamped by testosterone, who confused murder with a crusade.

So now he was flying solo and about to be hit by a pro. He’d been trained to face such things. But why here? Couldn’t life, this once, leave him alone?

‘Who are you?’

‘You come now.’

He played the affronted tourist. ‘What is this?’

A second bargain-basement type with the eyes of a fighting dog edged in. An express-post bag under his armpit shielded something bulky. He held a spray bottle in his latex-gloved right hand. Fentanyl? It used to be a bullet. Things weren’t improving.

‘We have present for you.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Cain dropped the act and scratched the side of his chest through his jumper as if thinking. It released the safety on the breastplate-cannon and gave him an even chance.

The man in front of him narrowed his eyes, as if assessing whether it was a signal. If he’d known what Cain had strapped to his chest he would have hit the deck. The cluster of inch-long barrels cradled fat explosive rounds.

Were they Zia’s hoods, Cain wondered, or his cronies in the mujahideen? If the regime had sent them, was it known what had happened to the president? Surely not, after the years of preparation he’d put in. Still, it was vital to find out.

As he walked, the thugs flanked him, guiding him back to his hotel. Where were Murchison and Zuiden? Retired?

This way, the orchestrated deaths they’d planned were going to occur two days early — life overtaking artifice. Had they got to Rehana? Please God, no!

There was no one in the cramped lobby. That would have been arranged. The man with the glove removed a burp gun from his bag.

Cain passed the dining room’s double glass door and went ahead up the stairs. Time seemed to slow and he felt acutely aware — of the chipped paint, the tired carpet, the sauce smell infusing the walls . . .

The bedroom was darker. They didn’t put on the light. His eyes had to adjust before he saw the extent of the carnage on the bed. She hadn’t gone easily. Tufts of hair lay on the sheet. She was prone, naked, bound to the bed with electrical cord. An iron on the floor explained livid boat-shapes burnt into her skin and the blood-soaked sheet between her legs suggested a fate worse than rape.

Cain, in blind fury, faced the man with the gun square on. The breast-cannon was cruder than a belly gun, its accuracy appalling. To hit a target you had to be kissing it, but at this range he couldn’t miss. Exploding bullets had been vetoed by the 1868 Declaration of St Petersburg. But EXIT wasn’t bothered with niceties. He’d watched a demonstration round deconstruct the carcass of a pig but had never seen a living body hit.

He fingered his jumper as if itchy, touching the pressor switch on the shoulder strap beneath. The back-plate drove into his plexus, its concussion like a slamming door. He dived to the side, aware that a shot man’s hand tightens on a trigger.

The dying man fell on his knees, staring at his gut. The bullet, destructive as point-blank buckshot, had blown a crater in him that dangled offal. He still held the sub-machine-gun, a 9mm Beretta 12 switched to semi, but had forgotten what it was for. Cain took it from him, wheeled.

The other man, splattered, shocked, had taken cover behind the door, was firing an automatic down the stairwell. He didn’t know the direction of attack, suspected the landing behind him. By now he’d have tunnel vision, his precision responses gone. Before his secondary reaction came, Cain flicked the Beretta’s fire selector to ‘R’ and sprayed the back of his knees. The man folded against the doorway, toppled.

As he tried to swing his pistol around, Cain said, ‘Drop it,’ holding the snout of the burp gun an expressive 2 inches from his eye.

His automatic hit the floor and Cain kicked it across the outside landing where it spun against the bannister and slid over the top step. His sense of retribution was made sweeter by clean underpants. He’d wet himself slightly. That was all. The body reacted, no matter how well you were trained. It was unnatural to kill your own species.

‘Having fun?’ Zuiden’s thinning blond hair appeared above the stairs behind the snout of his buttless Ingram.

Cain felt anger and relief. ‘Where the hell have
you
been?’

‘On the can.’ He shot the gutted man in the head.

‘How come you’re having a dump each time I need you?’ He was thinking of his absent toes. ‘This crud’s your stuff, not mine. Where’s Murchison, for Christ’s sake?’

Zuiden scooped up the automatic from the stairs. ‘Could have been taken out.’ He stepped over the second man, who’d never walk again. ‘You’ve done well for a dentist.’ He scanned the mess on the bed, replaced his Uzi clone in the soft EXIT snap-flap holster that kept it out of sight beneath his jacket then took the Beretta from Cain, checked it with approval. ‘Nice. If you’re happy with 500 rpm. So what’s going down?’

‘Look at her. Good God!’ He was starting to shake. ‘I don’t think they were after information. It looks like payback.’

The surgeon went to the bed. ‘She got the big sendoff, all right. You were next cab on the rank.’ He returned to the man with pulped knees. ‘Squeaky time, pal.’ He kicked the maimed legs. A scream of pain.

Cain left him to it. Torture was Zuiden’s trade and slaughter his satisfaction. As he listened to the screams, he moved to the bed and placed a finger on the crimson neck. The sight of her turned-away face almost made him puke. Poor love. Christ, she . . .

Then he noticed the sheet beside the pillow. A scrawl that looked like a ‘Z’ that she’d written with her blood.

Zuiden? In on this? Was that why he hadn’t fronted earlier? But if the swine was setting him up, why hadn’t he just shot him?

He watched the surgeon, muscular back and bald patch, as he crouched over the man by the door. Zuiden held his hand, bending back the fingers, soft-talking like a ministering priest. The man had met his match and knew it.

A background hubbub of panic from the street. The unsuppressed guns must have sounded like an IRA jamboree. A head appeared above the stairs — the shocked face of a woman. A terrified stare. She bolted.

A muffled snap and howl. Zuiden was breaking the terrorist’s fingers.

Cain looked away in disgust. Surgeons were appalling bastards. And Zuiden was one of the worst.

He secured the safety catch on the breast-gun, went to check the stairs. ‘I’ll try and stall the audience.’

‘No,’ Zuiden grunted. ‘If you’re seen, you can’t have been shot. And now it’s best you’re dead. If you’re shipped out of here in a body bag, we can cancel the Paris number. Get it?’

He knew the man was right. Cleaning strategy was part of his craft. ‘But you’ll have plods here in a minute.’

‘Some local cop used to the quiet life? Would
you
come up?’ He’d finished with the man’s hands. It hadn’t helped. ‘This guy’s doing it for Allah. I’ve got to up the amps.’ He started working in earnest on the man’s shattered legs. Cain looked away, appalled. The victim’s noise was terrible. After a minute, the fellow cracked and sang. He knew nothing about the duplication. And he was mujahideen. Zuiden stood up. ‘Least you’re not blown.’

Cain breathed out.

As Zuiden picked up the Beretta, Cain stood ready with his cannon. If Zuiden had set them up, he’d change the slime to a doughnut.

Zuiden shot the Afghani and the man juddered with the burst. Then he examined the gun, weighing it in his hand. ‘Simple but good. Not much muzzle climb on full.’ He stared around the room as if he’d mislaid a cup of tea.

Cain wondered why Zuiden felt superior when the Ingrams the surgeons favoured, despite their high rate of fire, were almost antiques. ‘What now?’

‘We wait for the GIGN. The locals won’t front an automatic firefight. They’ll cordon off, wait for troops. Stand by for stun grenades and canisters.’

‘We have to?’

‘Safer than shooting a gendarme in self-defence.’ He produced a multi-band transceiver no larger than a beeper. ‘With luck I can back them up a bit.’

Zuiden got a signal through. It probably saved their lives. They spent a wary evening with messieurs of the GIGN. The renowned French ‘Third Force’ wasn’t charmed by the scene and the Groupe d’Intervention commander had never been shown a Blue Exemption Card. After much chatternetting on different frequencies clearance was confirmed — not only the exemption for murder and an embargo on investigation but also a requisition for logistic support. The commander’s attitude changed from revulsion and suspicion to affront.

Zuiden handled the cleaning of the site, using GIGN cover. Cain, playing dead, was lugged to the chopper in the body bag. They were flown with the corpses to a military compound north of Paris. Then continent-hopping began.

In three hours, they were on a cargo flight to Cairo. After an interminable wait in a baggage bay, they connected with a charter to Somalia.

The Mogadishu terminal was basically a dusty hangar. They slumped on a bench, exhausted, sweating with the heat. The only transport visible was a bullet-pocked truck and bus — both with windscreens shot out — and a white armoured personnel carrier manned by Italians in UN berets. Even children here, Zuiden told him, carried AKs and SARs.

The local contact’s khat-chewing sidekick took their civilian clothes with delight, as if assessing how much they would fetch in this Eden of bullets and loot. They were handed unmarked jumpsuits, float coats, foam earplugs and two dry contra-concave objects that once may have been sandwiches.

After another hour they were driven in a buggy far across the tarmac towards droop-bladed US Black Hawks that shimmered like mirages. Unexpectedly, they turned and headed towards a US Navy Grumman E–2C — a mini AWAC capped by a frisbee-like radar dome.

‘Hawkeye,’ Zuiden said. ‘Airborne control centre.’ Military things were his bag. He explained that it was packed with electronics and had a five man crew — two pilots and three acronyms — and that a further two carcasses wouldn’t help trim and takeoff weight.

‘So where are they taking us?’ Cain asked.

‘A CV in the Indian Ocean?’ Zuiden looked puzzled.

‘To a carrier?’

‘Hawkeyes live on carriers. But carrier transport is a C–2A.’ The surgeon ridged his brow and even the ridges seemed muscular. ‘Why didn’t they reroute a COD?’

‘Perhaps we’re in for some kind of comms op.’

They walked well clear of the arc marked by a threatening red line on the fuselage, climbed the steps built into the downward-hinged door and entered the dark tube. There was no room for them back with the NFOs so they were told to sit feet first on the floor by the rear bulkhead of the forward electronics compartment. They were handed webbing and told to lash themselves to the equipment racks.

They squeezed in earplugs. The engines ran up, the brakes released and the props chopped air. They powered forward, thrumming, left the ground fast, banked.

Soon Zuiden’s head lolled. Cain scrutinised the man’s brutal face. Although ominously tough, he was ageing now, not the young Turk he’d been in Antarctica. Both of them forty this year. Mine enemy grows older, Cain thought. It was simple for surgeons — kill or be killed. They were basic types, technicians. But dentists were taught to review their acts — to bear the liberal education and the angst.