The Darkest Day

TWENTY-NINE

The man was Hispanic. Short, with a neat black beard. He wore a thigh-length leather jacket and beanie hat. About thirty-five. The man was turning away as Victor’s gaze reached him. Then the man walked a few paces as he fished a phone from a pocket of his leather jacket and thumbed the screen.

He looked familiar. Victor had to work on the assumption there were no coincidences, that every familiar face was a shadow or watcher or killer. He could not afford to think otherwise. He would not allow himself to believe otherwise.

Maybe he had seen the man at the airport and been followed here, or maybe Victor had seen a similar-looking man in a leather jacket and beanie hat. Victor’s memory was superb, but it was impossible to remember every face. No one had a genuine photographic memory.

Victor moved on. He walked until the end of the block, slowing to make sure he didn’t reach the kerb while the crossing light was shining, so that when he stopped he had an excuse to wait and look around. The Hispanic man hadn’t followed. Victor couldn’t see him at all.

Which could prove he was a no one. No threat. Or he had backed off to avoid suspicion.

Victor headed into a coffee shop and stood in line to order an Americano. The coffee came in a fine china cup sat on a saucer. Both had decorative glaze. He sipped from the cup. The coffee was a delight, near espresso strength, yet almost sweet. The best he had tasted in recent memory.

The coffee shop labelled itself as a modern bakery, but the styling was old and rustic and more European than American. It was called Clayton & Bale. A made-up name, he was sure — one that sounded quaint and authentic and not like some soulless corporation. It was staffed only by young white women. The ones he heard speak were from Australia. Maybe they all were. There was a padded bench opposite the door and plate-glass windows. He picked a spot next to two old guys who were complaining to each other about the price of the coffee while ogling the staff. Neither looked at Victor as he sat down.

To his left was a long serving counter where a barista worked the coffee machine and customers salivated as they perused the selection of cakes, muffins and other treats. A quick glance told him there were no threats inside. The clientele were either below working age or beyond it. The only people in the right age bracket for watchers were a couple of men who had been sitting down before Victor had entered. As he hadn’t known where he had been heading until he had walked through the door, there was no way his enemies could have headed him off.

They wouldn’t wait long. They knew he was a hard target. They couldn’t be sure why he had entered the coffee shop. If he had done so only to exit through the back, they would lose him. They wouldn’t allow that to happen.

If the Hispanic man was no one, then this precautionary measure would prove a pointless exercise and a waste of Victor’s limited time to get to the Met. But there was no such thing as being too careful. He suspected Halleck had sent men to babysit him, but that didn’t mean Homeland Security weren’t keeping an eye on him or even a third party had tracked him down. There was no point rushing to deal with the threat posed by Raven if it left him exposed to another.

After a minute, a man he hadn’t seen before entered, but he looked like he was one of Halleck’s men. This one had the same kind of look as the ones Victor had seen in Dublin: same square build, same style-less attire, same cropped hair. It wasn’t a uniform, and it wasn’t anything deliberate. At least, not deliberate in a conscious sense. It was because the team had been together a long time. The men had started to dress like each other, acting like a tribe, forming their own subconscious identity.

There had been a time when SAS soldiers had favoured moustaches outside of the fashion of the wider populace. People who respected and relied on one another had a tendency to homogenise their behaviour. Which helped Victor. It would make them easier to spot, but of more use was the fact these guys were a close-knit unit. If they became his enemies, they would grow emotional when he started killing them. They would want revenge. They would make mistakes.

But only if it came to that. Victor didn’t trust Halleck, but he wasn’t going to start executing his men on the off chance. Even as a preventative measure, which Victor was a fan of, he wasn’t going to kill this guy. At least, not in a crowded coffee shop in broad daylight. For one, he didn’t need to. And two, Victor liked the guy. He did everything so wrong he couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. He paused in the entranceway to look around the room. He fidgeted while he pretended to look at the food available. He didn’t know what to order when one of the Australians asked him what he wanted. He sat in the wrong place — near to Victor and not near to the door. He didn’t touch his drink. He did everything he could not to look in Victor’s direction.

He may have been with his teammates a long time, but he wasn’t one of their best. He might be an exceptional shot or tactician, but his shadowing skills were non-existent. This guy was closer to a civilian than a professional. It would be bordering on cruel to kill someone so clueless. Victor was no sadist.

He finished his coffee and headed back outside. He had seen four so far in total, counting the two in the van and the man on the phone. He needed to find out if there were more.

The rain had stopped by the time he left again.

Ahead lay a bus stop with a waiting bus and line of people boarding. To his right, across the street lay the entrance to a subway station. Either were viable options to create distance. He crossed the street because a taxi pulled up in front of him and the passenger climbed out of the right back door.

The station was old and hot and smelled of sweat and pollution. For someone of Victor’s height, the arched ceilings of the passageway seemed low and almost claustrophobic.

He reached the platform and headed left to the end, so when the train arrived he boarded the first door, behind the driver. There were several seats available, but he stood with his back to the driver’s door, giving himself a clear view of the entire car and everyone travelling with him — in particular, those who had boarded the car with him. He watched people through his peripheral vision, checking for tells in age, clothing, body composition and behaviour for potential shadows or threats.

Age was the first indicator, and he dismissed anyone too old to keep up with the physical demands of the role and anyone too young to have acquired enough training and experience to actually do it. People of the right age, but too out of shape to have the requisite stamina and agility were then dismissed. Impractical clothing was the next tell; anything too tight and restrictive or too eye-catching would not be worn. Two people, a man and a woman, met the criteria, but the man was drunk; he had a red face, wide staring eyes, and kept swallowing. The woman — neither young nor old, slim and toned, wearing loose clothes and flat shoes — was playing with her hair and trying to meet Victor’s eye.

He ignored her attempts to catch his attention and remained vigilant as the train pulled away and accelerated. He stood with his feet a little further apart than shoulder width and used his left hand to brace against the forces trying to push him off balance.

So far, it seemed he had escaped unnoticed, but he could not shake the feeling that he was being followed still. The nagging doubt could be his unconscious’s way of communicating some sight or sound or smell that Victor had not noticed, but that been detected and processed nonetheless. In his experience, if something felt wrong, more often than not it was wrong. He had to spend his life assuming and preparing for the worst-case scenario. For him, optimism was wilful ignorance.

If he had been followed into the station, the shadow would have boarded the same train as him, but even after he’d established that there were no threats in the car he continued to evaluate anyone who boarded when it stopped at the next station and the ones that followed. A good shadow never let their mark out of sight, but a good one never sought to get closer than necessary. Boarding the same car presented a huge increase in the chances of Victor identifying that person.

A better tactic would be to board a different car, and then change into the same car at one of the other stations.

In a similar situation Victor would not change cars until the second or third station to be as inconspicuous as possible whilst not leaving the mark out of sight for too long.

No shadow boarded at the second station.

One did at the third.