Retribution (11 page)

Harry caught the look. ‘You know what these are?'

‘Yes, sir,' Ehrlich nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

‘Did you know Ms Demescu well?'

‘Sure, sir. Well, we worked together.' He glanced around at the others, his face flushing under their scrutiny.

‘You had no idea she was accessing unauthorized files?'

Ehrlich shook his head. ‘No way, sir. Irina – Miss Demescu – always seemed real keen, sir, but she kind of kept to herself.'

‘You ever socialize with her, Benton?' Karen Walters put in. ‘Did she ever talk about her family?'

Ehrlich shrugged. ‘Well, we had drinks a couple of times – I mean with other people, you know. But that was all. She didn't drink alcohol and was kind of private. She didn't say much, although I did hear her mention she had family in the Balkans one time. I figured it was best not to talk about that.'

After a few more questions Deane thanked Ehrlich and told him he could go back to work. The supervisor nodded and left the room as quickly as he could.

Deane thanked McKenna and waited until the door was closed before turning to Karen Walters. ‘What's been the fallout from Kleeman's press grilling?'

Walters leaned down and took a copy of the
New York Times
from her briefcase. She dropped it on the table. The front page was framed in red marker ink.

‘It's hit the front pages,' she said grimly. ‘I didn't bring the
Washington Post
or the foreign nationals – I didn't want to depress you. But it's headline news everywhere. Al Jazeera has been running special broadcasts all over the Middle East, and a number of Islamic countries have come out condemning the news and demanding a response by the UN, saying it points towards an anti-Islamic bias by UN troops and supporting member states.'

Deane pulled the
Times
towards him and stared at the headline.

Deane shook his head in disgust. ‘
Brutally
raped and murdered? Is there any other way? Jesus.'

‘You can't blame the press,' Walters said with cool indifference. ‘They react to what they're told.'

‘Right. And he sure told them, didn't he? Who the hell allowed Kleeman to do this?'

Walters bristled defensively. ‘I'm his aide, not his nanny. If he wants to set out on a crusade without telling me, there's not much I can do to stop him. You want me to hit him over the head and haul him out of the room any time, give me the paperwork.'

Deane grinned nastily. ‘Don't tempt me.' He tapped the newspaper article. ‘This trip to Beijing and Europe . . . how come you're not along to hold his hand?'

‘He has other people for that: trained diplomat types who know how to behave in front of foreign devils. Don't show the soles of the feet or talk about Chinese human rights abuses, don't insult the euro, ignore the French or mention the war; work the cutlery from the outside in and if someone spits on their plate don't stab 'em in the eye with your fish fork.' She brushed a hair from across her face. ‘Frankly, I'm glad to be out of his way for a while.'

Harry caught her eye. ‘You don't like him much?'

Her look was cool, as if unsure what lay behind the question. She shivered. ‘To be honest, he gives me the creeps. He's like one of those Hollywood actor-types, all macho bullshit and Armani, but too good to be true.'

‘He's gay?' Deane looked stunned.

‘No, not that.' She sighed. ‘It's a woman thing: good-looking, rich, sophisticated guys affect us that way if they don't have their hand up our skirts every five minutes.'

Deane said with a wry grin, ‘Now who's being outrageous?'

‘Are you going to notify everyone in those files?' Walters countered.

‘All the CP team, yes. That's what Harry's here for. We've tracked down everyone to a last known address, but we haven't spoken to them directly yet. We figured it would be better done face to face.' He tapped the table top. ‘We don't want everyone to hear that there's a killer on the loose looking to waste a whole bunch of UN military personnel.'

Walters looked at Harry as if for the first time, and he knew what she was thinking. ‘You were the team leader, I remember.' She gave a faint smile. ‘You didn't exactly hit it off with Kleeman, did you?'

Harry said nothing for a moment. He didn't see the point in going over old news. But when Deane and McKenna looked at him, he realized that anything appearing to have been hidden now might look questionable later on.

‘He wanted us to mount a hot pursuit following an ambush by Serb snipers,' he explained. ‘We were hit as we drove down a narrow defile in heavy rain at night. Kleeman suggested we hit them back, but that wasn't our mission; we were there to protect him, not engage in a firefight. Going after Serb forces in those conditions was a no-hoper. I told him that. Then, when we reached the compound where we were to rest up for the night before being airlifted out, the convoy commander was ordered to Pristina to help protect refugees under attack. Kleeman wanted to go with them.' He shrugged. ‘It wasn't my job to provide him or anyone else with a photo opportunity, so we stayed put. He wasn't impressed.'

Deane pulled a face. ‘That might explain why he was so quick to jump on the military. I hope the press doesn't get hold of these names yet.' He flicked idly through the papers. ‘When they do, every man on it will be labelled a potential rapist and murderer.'

Walters said, ‘Can you keep them secure?'

‘I wish I could. But they're already out there. Whoever was using Demescu might not allow it to remain secret.'

‘That might work to our advantage,' Harry suggested.

‘How do you mean?'

‘Having the media looking for the men as well might crowd him and scare him off. And if the guilty trooper is out there, he's bound to be on his guard, too.'

There was a knock at the door.

Deane stood and spoke to a man outside. When he came back, he looked shocked.

‘There's been another killing.' He reached out and pulled one of the record sheets towards him, spun it round so they could all see it. ‘This time right here in New York.'

K
assim awoke in pain and confusion. Something was crawling over his foot. He jerked his legs up and looked around. He was in the stairwell of an abandoned building, moisture coating the walls and puddled across the floor, the air foetid.

He'd been dreaming, back in the hills, with flashes of blue sky over the mountain peaks and the broad, green-brown sweep of the slopes where villages clung to life like dried plants on rocks. Everything was peaceful: a dog barking, a child laughing, a buzzard riding the thermals. Then a helicopter gunship had streaked over the hill and a munitions truck had exploded. The driver had loomed suddenly in front of him, eyes pleading for help. But it wasn't the driver any more; it was his mother, bony fingers reaching for him as the skin peeled back under the flames.

He shook his head, the dream receding, and remembered the previous evening.

He'd been rooted to the spot when the man he was stalking suddenly appeared before him. Carvalho was holding a vegetable knife, the blade covered with red tomato pulp. Close up, the man looked huge.

Kassim launched himself forward. But the Marine's reaction was swift. Pivoting slightly, he launched a high back-kick which connected painfully with Kassim's shoulder. Pain mushroomed down his arm as he went backwards, smashing into a coffee table. Barely managing to retain a grip on the screwdriver, he struggled to his feet. As he did so, Carvalho roared and launched himself at him, casting aside the puny vegetable knife and reaching for Kassim's wrist.

Kassim was surprised the Marine didn't just hit him with a piece of furniture – it would have ended things right there. Fortunately for him, Carvalho's hands were filmed with cooking oil, and his grip on Kassim's arm was momentary. It was the Marine's big mistake.

Kassim lashed out with the screwdriver, laying open the skin of Carvalho's forearm like butter. The Marine ignored it, then wiped his hands on his trousers before coming in low and fast, spinning sideways and connecting with a vicious side-kick.

Kassim gasped as the American's boot sank into his ribs. There was a popping sound as a rib gave way, and the pain tore through him in waves. He sank to one knee, desperately waiting for the follow-up and hoping his adversary would decide to use his hands instead of those lethal feet.

Carvalho obliged and reached for Kassim's arm. He was grinning as if sensing victory, and the intrusion was no longer the issue; now it was pure animal instinct, one man against another. The questions over what Kassim was doing there would come later.

Kassim gagged and sank further, and Carvalho took the arm holding the screwdriver in a vice-like grip. That was when Kassim gathered all his strength and lunged off the floor, snapping his arm free and driving the screwdriver towards the other man with all his weight behind it.

The shank went home, puncturing the Marine's clothing and sinking in up to the handle. Carvalho looked startled, his mouth forming an ‘o', before Kassim swept his legs away, dropping him to the floor with a crash.

Kassim bent over and rested his hand on his knees. The pain in his side was intense. He listened for sounds of alarm from the floor above, but if anyone had heard, they made no protest. At his feet Carvalho sighed wetly, his breathing constricted, and one knee came up for a moment before straightening out. Even as Kassim looked at him, the Marine coughed faintly one more time, then was gone.

Kassim cursed. It wasn't how he had wanted it to go. He touched a bruise blossoming beneath his hairline behind his right ear. A small amount of blood was seeping out where he had struck the coffee table, and he felt a dull ache building across the back of his neck.

But he'd survived. Now he had to get away. First, though, he had to clean himself up; walking the streets with an obvious head wound would be a sure way of drawing attention to himself.

He bent and tugged the screwdriver free, then went to the kitchen sink and sluiced his face with water. He dried himself off and checked his appearance in a shaving mirror. Unless anyone noticed the cut on his head, he was merely another tired worker on his way home.

He sank to the floor, listening above the drumming of blood in his head. After a few moments' rest, he stood up and looked around. Carvalho had been preparing a meal. Several tomatoes lay on a chopping board, some already sliced, and he gulped them down to quench his thirst. Nearby was a wallet. He opened it and saw notes, a driver's licence and a cash card. He pocketed the money and licence, and was about to leave the cash card when he noticed that the licence had a four-digit number printed down the side in faint pencil. He added the card to his haul and tossed the wallet to one side.

By the sink was a block of wood carrying several knives of different sizes. He selected a larger version of the vegetable knife and took a deep breath before stepping back across the room and bending over the man's body.

He couldn't speak to the man, but he could leave a message for others.

Twenty minutes later, he was several blocks from Carvalho's apartment, walking at a deceptively fast pace. He felt very thirsty again, and recognized the after-effects of shock. He needed a sweet drink. He saw a coffee shop and ducked inside, where he ordered black tea and a glass of cold water. He took his drinks to the back of the room and poured copious amounts of sugar into the tea. The glucose would help settle his nerves. The shakes would come soon, as they always did. Once it was over, he could be on his way. The pain in his side was subsiding and he forced it to the back of his mind.

Above the counter a television gave out the evening's news. Kassim watched as a familiar face appeared, smiling off-camera. The man turned to climb a set of steps into an aircraft, followed by two security guards. The news anchorman came back to remind viewers that they were witnessing UN Special Envoy Anton Kleeman departing for a series of important meetings in China, France and Great Britain.

Kassim watched with only vague interest. Kleeman's face was in his binder, but the UN man was not important. Not right now.

He pulled his rucksack towards him, checking that the sharpened screwdriver was concealed. Then he took the binder from his pocket and tore out the page relating to Carvalho.

When he left the coffee shop thirty minutes later, the crumpled page went into a trash can at the end of the street. He walked until he saw an ATM, then took out Carvalho's card and licence, and fed the card into the slot. When prompted, he keyed in the four-digit number. He had never owned a credit card, but something he'd learned in training was that people often wrote down the number required to access their account.

Seconds later, he was holding a sheaf of money in his hand.

He sat up. Light was filtering through the wrecked building, and with it the buzz of traffic. It was morning. He'd noticed the place the previous night, seeing a drunk slipping through a gap in some wood fencing around a development site. Beyond the fence the building rose high in the night sky, the window apertures empty of glass, with long, plastic rubbish tubes hanging from the gaps like the intestines of a gutted sheep. Cautiously, he'd eased through the gap in the fence.