Retribution

THIRTY-EIGHT

In the cramped toilets of the flight from Heathrow to Los Angeles, Kassim’s urine looked luridly purple under the bulkhead light. He stared at his reflection in the mirror with dismay; the last few days had done more to wear him down physically and mentally than the years in the inhospitable hills of Afghanistan. Then, he’d been in constant danger of being caught by the Americans or the Afghan army, or being vaporized by one of their drones. Yet nothing had wreaked more visible damage on him than the days since leaving the hills on this mission.

He’d developed dark shadows beneath his eyes, making his cheekbones more prominent, and his shaven jaw was like that of a man only days away from death, with a sallow greyness to his skin. Assaulted by rushed convenience meals snatched between flights, and rare stretches of sleep which were becoming increasingly restless and disturbed, his body was beginning to rebel. His digestive system, schooled after years of deprivation in the hills to exist on a meagre diet of dried meat, coarse bread and little water, was now collapsing, causing him acute stomach pains and loose bowels.

He filled a plastic beaker with water and swallowed three of the pills he’d got from the man who had supplied the car in West Drayton. He had explained that he needed something to help him make the long drive without stopping, and to overcome a pain in his gut. The man had told Kassim that his sister was a pharmacist and knew about such things. He’d made a brief phone call and within minutes a small bottle with a dozen pills was Kassim’s, in exchange for fifty English pounds.

As he emptied the cup he recognized that it wasn’t merely his physical self he needed to preserve; his mental shell, armoured over the years to shut out the disabling emotions of fear and doubt, was showing signs of severe strain. He wondered what kind of pills he could take to rectify that particular problem.

Someone rattled the folding door and a warning tone sounded, followed by an announcement that they were shortly coming in to land. Kassim put the remaining pills in his pocket. He would keep them for later, for as much as he had so far accomplished, there was still a lot to do. And though the binder in his jacket was now thinner than it had been, his task was still far from over. Apart from the Americans, Bikovsky and Pendry, who still lived, there was their leader whom he had come so tantalizingly close to.

He took out the binder. He now knew a little more about the Englishman, Tate, than he had before. He was a member of the British Security Service known as MI5. Kassim knew about such operatives; they were trained in covert work and were skilled investigators as well as experts in counter-offensive methods. It could not be long before their paths crossed and, God willing, if he was strong enough and watchful, Kassim was sure he could take this man, too.

He returned to his seat and fastened his seatbelt. The overhead television screen was showing CNN highlights. He slipped on his earphones and watched a smiling group of politicians, hair gently ruffled by a breeze gusting off a river behind them. Kassim recognized the building the English called Big Ben, on the River Thames.

In the foreground, his arm around the shoulders of another man, stood the figure of Anton Kleeman.

Evening was approaching in Venice Beach, as a young woman skater glided gracefully along the bike path, virtually silent on rubber wheels. A group of three old women, skin etched deeply by years in the sun, talked and watched their dogs perform. Elsewhere the sound of homeward-bound traffic drifted across the rooftops, signalling the close of another Californian day.

Harry adjusted his position and sipped from a bottle of spring water. From his position on the sand by a trailer used for carrying jet skis, he was able to see the spread of the sidewalk, giving him ample time to study the faces going by. Behind him the Pacific was whispering on the shore two hundred yards out, and a few lone walkers stood outlined against the gleam of the water.

He’d spotted the position earlier, while he and Rik were trawling for observation points. The pool of shadow thrown by the trailer was ideal, and as a vantage point it was as good as he was going to get. Satisfied that it covered all angles, he had made his way back between the bungalows and low-rise apartment blocks, to a narrow back street of art galleries, cafes and souvenir shops. At the end was an army-surplus store selling bleached chinos, jeans and swimwear. Rik was already dressed to blend in, in T-shirt and jeans, but Harry needed something similar. He selected bleached khaki shorts, a baseball cap and a dark, baggy sweatshirt. After changing in the store’s fitting room, he went to another store and bought some deck shoes, then left his normal clothes in the rental car and made his way back down to the beach.

Like any other solitary stroller looking for peace and quiet, he’d wandered down to the shoreline and paddled in the water, allowing it to pool around his legs and splash up his pants. By the time he’d wandered back up the beach, his gait a little unsteady, Harry had become a rumpled beach bum, hazy-eyed after too much booze and sun, one of the invisible injured spirits with nowhere special to go.

He squatted down in the shadow of the trailer, pulling an old tyre beneath his head and adjusting the baseball cap over his eyes. The position gave him a good view of the alleyway between the Tex-Mex restaurant and Bikovsky’s apartment block. If he lifted himself carefully, he could see down the alley to the road at the far end. With the exception of one or two food stalls and the weightlifting area, which was now deserted save for a solitary figure doing stretching exercises, he had an uninterrupted field of vision for a hundred yards each way.

He took out a small radio handset borrowed from the security office at El Segundo and inserted the earpiece, then keyed the button.

‘Very fetching look, dude.’ It was Rik Ferris in the weightlifting pen. ‘Wait ’til I tell Jean you’ve gone native.’

Harry smiled. ‘Watch and learn, junior. Don’t go pulling a muscle.’

‘It’s about the only thing I will pull down here. If the local talent isn’t doing a ton on blades, they’ve got a dog in tow. How’s a guy supposed to strike up a conversation like that?’

‘You’re not. You’re here to work. You set?’

‘I’m set. You think he’ll come?’

‘Depends when he flies in. But he’ll come. Don’t count on spotting him too easily, though.’ The photo of a young Kassim received from Koslov had been almost useless, and no amount of enhancing by Rik or the FBI’s own attempts had made the face any more recognizable than a hundred others in the area.

‘No problem, boss. Hey, does the budget allow me to buy some of those fancy leather weightlifting gloves? These bars are really rough on the hands.’

‘Dream on, sunshine — and keep your eyes open.’ Harry cut the connection and used his mobile to check in with Deane. Earlier, he’d had to fight off the security man’s suggestions to flood the beach with LAPD SWAT teams and FBI special agents. At any other time it would have made sense; right now they would have stood out like a marching band. Kassim would smell armed men as soon as he came anywhere near.

Deane had given in reluctantly, conceding that an open firefight within sight of the beach would be a public relations disaster. He had settled instead with getting them the use of radios to keep in touch.

‘How’s it looking down there?’ he asked.

‘Clear,’ Harry told him. The nearest person was a tiny old woman in a long, shapeless shift and worn tennis shoes, shuffling along the sand twenty yards away.

‘Good. The LAPD have got Bikovsky under guard in a safe place. And we think we’ve got the name Kassim’s been using. It’s Zef Haxhi. The FBI used one of their fancy algorithms to pull up name repeats related to all the airports and places where the kills have been made.’

‘Good work,’ said Harry.

‘Well, he’s not trying too hard to hide, as you said. He’s used the same passport all the way, into the US from Brussels, down to Columbus, then to Moscow and London, now back to LA. His entry form describes him as a student of agriculture from Rawalpindi University. The trip was arranged under their student overseas study programme, and we’re re-checking the details down to the last dot and comma. But it could take time.’

‘Who arranged the visas?’

Deane gave a humourless chuckle. ‘There’s the irony: the field study programme he’s travelling on is funded jointly with the American University of Kosovo. Can you believe that? I suspect that’s where the paper trail began.’

Harry sympathized with his mood. They had been clever. Any student travelling from Pakistan would have many hoops to jump through; one linked to an American university based in Europe, however, might have an easier ride. ‘The name’s not Pakistani, though, is it?’

‘No. It’s Albanian. Another neat trick: there are a few eastern Europeans and Pakistani nationals on exchange programmes with both campuses, and I’m betting we’ll find a Zef Haxhi on the roll somewhere. They’d have needed something that stood up to a cursory check, at the very least.’

Another indicator, thought Harry, of the planning behind this. He sat up, trying to read what was going on here. ‘This isn’t a terrorist exercise.’

‘What?’ Deane sounded surprised.

‘Kassim hasn’t just come down from the hills to knock off a few UN soldiers. This is something bigger. What did that blogger call it?’

‘A spectacular. But there was no connection that we could find. It could have meant anything or nothing. You know how these nut jobs build up the chatter to get air time and headlines.’

Nut jobs. Harry’s experience of nut jobs was that they were never dangerous, but neither were they this organized or focussed.

‘There’s something else,’ Deane added. ‘Ehrlich, the IT nerd who was helping Demescu? He’s dropped out of sight. Ditched the watchers we put on him and vanished. We’ve changed all the access security codes, so Kassim or Haxhi or whatever the hell he calls himself is now running blind.’

Harry didn’t think that would slow Kassim down. He’d proved himself to be a careful operator so far, creating mayhem at will. If he found he couldn’t raise a response from Demescu or Ehrlich, he would almost certainly drop right off the grid and abandon any other contacts as no longer safe.

Then something Deane had said earlier hit him. ‘Wait. . You said back to LA? Was that supposition or is Kassim back already?’

‘You mean the FBI didn’t tell you?’ Deane swore softly. ‘An unaccompanied male named Zef Haxhi travelling on a European passport flew in from London Heathrow two hours ago. He’s probably already somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area.’