Thunder (30 page)

Göd

I drift back into consciousness and find myself laid out on the kitchen floor of the safe house apartment. I appear to be lying on a large plastic sheet.

“Don’t move.” Jack is standing at the counter. The laptop is open next to him. “They’ve wiped it,” he reports. “I’ll bet Deuce is en route too.” He turns and stoops next to me. “I’ve pumped you with a load of sedative,” he says. “You’re pretty beaten up but the leg’s the priority. I need to get you stitched, then we need to move.”

“Why?” I mumble, through lips that feel like they’re fat rubber sausages.

“We’ll have been made,” he’s rummaging in the apartment’s unusually comprehensive medical kit. “They’ll have our pictures from CCTV or webcams or phones and eventually they’ll find this place.”

“Could take weeks...,” is the best I can manage.

“Deuce will get here sooner.”

“Our side,” I grunt.

He just looks at me.

“Trust no-one,” I mumble as I remember his earlier counsel.

He grins and brandishes a large pair of scissors toward me. “Let’s see what we’re up against,” he says.

Suddenly I panic. He’s going to cut my trousers off.

“No!” I grunt.

“Don’t be stupid,” he mutters, slicing swiftly up the trouser leg, starting at the ankle. “I’m not going to cut you with these!”

“But you don’t know,” I splutter.

“Don’t know what?” he asks, scissors reaching the waistband and biting into the thicker material. “You’re only worried that I’m going to find out how minuscule your cock is.”

“You don’t know
me
...”

The sharp scissors are almost through, but he pauses for a second, staring into my petrified eyes. His bright green irises flash with burning intensity. I suspect it’s fuelled by the deep rooted and painful memories of his earlier squad-mates. I know how much these thoughts churn at his soul, no matter how much he tries to hide them away. His piercing eyes bore into me relentlessly and I want to look away.

“I know enough,” he says simply and starts cutting again. “You are my bro’. I
will
look after you.”

He pulls the cloth of my severed jeans to one side and roughly plunges his other hand, full of fresh swabbing, down into the space next to my groin, and onto the re-exposed wound.

I see his brow wrinkle in confusion and watch him as he stares down there for a moment.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

He looks at me again.

I can’t make out what he’s thinking.

Then he shakes his head and turns back to the wound with his readied bottle of alcohol.

“I’ve got your back, mate,” he says simply. “Now get ready. This is gonna sting.”

~~~~~

Ellard edged himself up to the street corner. A small gaggle of police vehicles were clustered around a section of pavement about halfway along. Too close for comfort. He backed away and headed off toward the safe house.

The surrounding streets were dark and, thankfully, quiet.

He scouted around the building. There were no lights from inside and he couldn’t see anyone watching it.

It had taken an age to get to the front of the late night queue at the airport rental desk. He’d spent most of the wait, listening patiently to his boss raging down the cellphone at him. The latest information suggested that either Tin or Mercury was injured. There were also reports of a small explosion in the streets not far from the safe house – explaining the gaggle of police. A motorbike had been discovered, abandoned in Dunakeszi, the village between Budapest and Göd. A photo of Azat Sikand had been posted to various international security agencies requesting identification. He was confirmed dead. Ellard was to remove all traceable assets from the safe house, clean it down, and get the hell out. Tin and Mercury, if they were there, were to be ordered to go to ground. If they refused then Ellard had alternate instructions on how to deal with them. Ellard then had to go and check the barn, and its hidden arsenal, and change the internal electronic security systems. Greere wanted to mothball it. Ellard had to check that Tin and Mercury hadn’t left anything incriminating or traceable at either location. Then he was to safely dispose of any suspect items, and get the hell back to the UK.

Ellard carefully opened the apartment’s door and eased himself inside.

There hadn’t been enough time to try to arrange clearance for a sidearm on the scheduled flight, and he wondered again whether he should have gone to the training-barn first and collected some weaponry. No, it had been a better option for him to remain unarmed; in case he’d run into any local security forces on his way here. Besides, he didn’t think Tin and Mercury were likely to threaten him.

The flat was as quiet as a grave.

He closed the door quietly behind him, and eased forwards scanning into the two bedrooms.

In the half-light he could make out signs of rapid packing.

They’d been here. Were they still here?

He crept forward and hunched down.

“It’s Deuce,” he called into the darkness.

No response.

He risked sticking his head briefly into the lounge-diner and scanning around it.

No-one visible.

He heaved himself upright, reached one arm out around the doorframe to the light switches, and flicked them on.

Squinting in the sudden brightness he could see the room was empty. A black dustbin bag sat at the end of the kitchen counter. It had a single yellow post-it note on the top of it.

He snatched up the yellow square and read the characters scrawled on it in black biro: ‘D – 12 – 01 – 52 – 85 – FU – T’. Ellard frowned angrily. Vittalle was an arse-hole. Then he relaxed slightly. At least he was a professional arse-hole.

The message was in code. Code specific to their unit. A series of two digit numbers which could be used when encrypted transmission wasn’t available, or when there was risk of hostile interception:

Digits 10 to 19 were allocated to the mission: ‘12’ meaning that the mission objectives had been achieved but with collateral damage.

“You’re not fucking kidding,” Deuce muttered to himself.

The zero range was deliberately unused, other than for some codes like ‘12’ which could be appended with more details: ‘01’ meant one person injured.

He nudged the top of the bin bag open. It was full of bloody sheeting, swabs and other discarded medical equipment. Nice. Tin had obviously patched up Mercury then. Good news. At least there wasn’t a fucking body hidden in here for him to have to deal with.

‘52’ – Exit strategy unplanned. Both main and alternate exit strategies have been abandoned or compromised. Using best available means to withdraw.

That meant they could be anywhere. Ellard didn’t care, as long as they were nowhere near him. Greere wouldn’t either.

‘85’ – Communications considered extreme risk. Agent(s) going dark. Do not attempt to contact. Agent(s) will reestablish communications when or if risk of interception has reduced to more normal levels.

Ellard suspected that the next he’d hear about these two would be when they appeared on television, having been arrested for multiple counts of murder. There would be no ‘attempt to contact’ from either him or Greere.

They were on their own.

“F. U. too,” he growled, annoyed that his agent had the audacity to return his earlier favour. Then he pulled on a pair of disposable plastic gloves from his pocket, and set to systematically cleaning down the flat.

~~~~~

Highway 44, near Szarvas, Hungary

Jack headed east, carefully ensuring he stuck rigidly to the speed limits. Not that the battered looking, filthy, old VW was capable of doing much more.

The car had been waiting patiently, parked up as if abandoned, on the backroads leading from Göd to the Training Barn. They had passed it on foot, several times, while going backwards and forwards for training. All the time it had stood there, unused – just in case something like this happened.

“Always have a Plan B,” Jack muttered to the dark windshield.

It was a good job that he’d changed his mind and not caught the train into Budapest. He’d spotted this ancient but well-serviced Golf standing in front of a backstreet garage as he approached the Northern Italian border, and had taken possession of it for a reasonably small wad of Euros. He glanced round at the back seats and the bundle of blankets huddled there, feeling slightly guilty that he’d never told Nick about it. Still, it would seem that he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

In front of him the unlit A-road led inexorably to Romania.

He needed to minimise the number of border crossings.

Romania provided better options to get them where they needed to go. Somewhere they could be safe for a while. Somewhere he had never shown to another living person. He would have to pick up a cheap motorboat when he reached the Black Sea. The Port of Constanta would be bound to have lots of small craft available.

~~~~~

Constanta

Murat Nagpal woke as sunlight oozed past the fragile, moth-eaten curtains of his room.

He rolled off the uncomfortable mattress onto the floor, stood up and dressed quickly. It was still cold in the mornings, though not as bad as it had been in the heart of winter.

Striding through into the living room, if it could be called that, he perched himself in front of the television. It was always on. Always tuned to one or other of the various free-to-air satellite news channels.

His eyes widened as he watched a Romanian Anchorwoman gleefully regurgitating the latest news highlight. Something had happened in Budapest last night.

He grabbed up the remote and searched for a way to get the sound back on.

“What’s happening?” Sergei’s voice said from behind him.

Nagpal frowned as he listened to the broadcaster’s report. Ebrahimi had only limited Romanian.

“Trouble,” he answered.

“Is it Jeyhun?”

The young man’s thoughts and questions were always about his brother. Never about the unit. Never about the cause. Suddenly this made Nagpal very angry.

“Your brother is gone,” he spat. “Gone to the heavens as a glorious martyr.” He turned and watched as Sergei stumbled back from him. Watched as the younger man’s face crumpled into an expression of abject sorrow. “You should celebrate. He is one of the lucky ones!”

“In Budapest?” Ebrahimi mumbled through trembling lips.

“He was never there,” Nagpal muttered coldly, and snatched up a cellphone. It would have to be destroyed afterwards. “Get outside. Go down to the shore and try Sikand’s mobile.”

“Why?”

“DO IT!” raged the terrorist leader. “Then take out the SIM and throw it into the sea.”

“What do I tell him?” Ebrahimi was visibly shaking.

Nagpal shook his head. “If he answers, which I doubt he will, tell him to come back here, and to be careful. Tell him we will wait for him. He will understand. If he does not answer, then see if it rings out before going to voicemail. Leave no message. Destroy the SIM card whatever happens.” He thrust out his arm and gestured with the cellphone.

Ebrahimi took it reluctantly from his grasp, picked up his coat and walked out, pale and silent.

~~~~~

London

Greere felt tired. Really tired. He’d been up all night and would soon have to head off across the river to meet Sentinel and provide his report. He rubbed absently at his crotch wondering whether he’d been a little hasty dumping his toy-boy. He could do with a good shagging to take his mind off of all this fucked-up mess.

Why was it that so many people insisted on letting him down all the time? How unlucky could he be?

Feeling miserable, he realised that displacing Sentinel was rapidly becoming a distant pipe dream. It would take something seriously dramatic to reassert his profile after all this.

His cellphone buzzed and he snatched it up. Deuce was calling.

“Report,” he barked.

There was a momentary pause at the other end. “It’s Deuce,” came his subordinate’s voice.

Greere scowled. “I know that. What’s the status?”

Another short pause then, “They weren’t in Göd. They had been there, but had left before I arrived. It’s cleaned down. I did it. Got finished in the
early hours
and removed the necessary items under cover of darkness.” Greere could sense that Ellard was making a point about also having been busy all night, but he didn’t care. “There was evidence that Mercury has been injured somehow and that Tin has patched him up. They’ve gone dark.”

“Good,” muttered Greere. “And the barn?”

“Just finished there. Some items from the arsenal are missing, presumably the stuff they equipped themselves with for the job. Other than that it was all clean.

“Though I’m reluctant to say it,” Ellard continued, “it would appear that Tin is not half-bad. He left a coded message at the apartment to say that the mission objective had been achieved, that Mercury was injured, and that they were going to vanish. There was very little that might be traceable, other than the laptop and rubbish from his surgery. I’ve roughly wiped both locations for prints, but there will probably be some evidence if anyone does a thorough DNA search... Oh, and all of the loose cash has gone.”

Greere nodded. He’d expected as much. “I’ll arrange for the local holding company to be instructed to put the flat onto the rental market, and I’ll see that they schedule a deep clean, top-to-bottom, as if in preparation for new tenants.”

“Should I start scouting for alternative premises?” asked Ellard.

“Not now, and not from there,” Greere replied. “The asset is isolated and instructions to the holding company are simple untraceable fax documents. We can monitor it for a while.”

“Any news on the other two? Have they moved? Do you need me to pursue them or should I return?”

“Get back here,” said Greere. “The second active tracer is still in Constanta. We’ll continue to watch it but will not fire up the final device until we absolutely need it.”