The Enemy

CHAPTER 36

Washington, DC, USA

Procter met Clarke in the Smithsonian National Zoological Park. He was waiting next to the Great Cats enclosure, watching a couple of Sumatran tigers lying on the ground, doing nothing. It was a warm day, which meant it was hot for a guy of Procter’s size. He stood next to Clarke and watched the tigers. They continued to do nothing.

‘They look bored,’ Procter said after a moment.

Clarke didn’t turn his way. ‘What animal built so perfectly to kill merely wants to be fed?’

Procter nodded. Few other visitors were near but Procter spoke quietly regardless. ‘I know what you are going to say, so don’t, all right? Things didn’t go exactly as planned last week in Minsk.’

Clarke didn’t say anything. One of the tigers yawned.

‘Yamout made it out of the country alive, true, but Yamout is just the bishop, we’re going after the king here. The important thing is that we struck Ariff’s network right where he’s going to really feel it. Forget the fact that Yamout survived, what matters is that Ariff is going to be furious his best pal almost ended up a corpse. He’s still going to do the two things we wanted: he’s going to be on guard against further attacks and he’s going to want to deliver a nice big fat dollop of payback to the culprit. And courtesy of Callo, both Ariff and Yamout are going to believe that Kasakov was behind it. So that’s score number one.

‘As for number two, Kasakov now knows the RDX that killed Farkas came out of the batch stolen from him when his nephew was killed. If he hasn’t already begun moving against Ariff, he will very soon. But now Ariff knows Kasakov is gunning for him he’s going to be that much harder to hit, so Vlad won’t just be able to wipe him off the face of the Earth like he might have if Ariff didn’t take steps to protect himself. Kasakov is already hard to hit.’ Procter paused for a second. ‘The result is exactly what we want: the world’s two most prolific arms dealers thirsting for each other’s blood and entrenched in a war for hopefully years to come. The flow of illicit arms will be damaged so badly it might never recover. We’ll save countless lives.’

Clarke huffed. ‘I’m well aware of the strategy, Roland.’

‘I know you are,’ Procter agreed, ‘but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of it when things become a little less clean than we would have liked.’

Clarke was still watching the tigers, one of which was now sleeping.

‘Roland,’ he began, still without looking Procter’s way. ‘I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it couldn’t have been much dirtier. Your boy managed to gun down, what was it, twelve people? And if the initial reports are correct, four people who had been staying in the next suite along are among the dead.’

‘And I’m deeply unhappy about those civilian deaths,’ Procter assured. ‘But Tesseract didn’t have a lot of choice with the strike point. It would have been great if Yamout and Petrenko had met in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but they didn’t. Civilian casualties are always a possibility with these things, and we need to wait to hear from Tesseract before passing judgement.’

Clarke scoffed. ‘Your MVP failed to kill Yamout and took out four civilians in the process and you want to hear from him before passing judgement? Roland, please. You need to accept the facts: Tesseract is not as good as you hoped he would be, and he’s an even greater liability than I feared. He managed to kill one civilian casualty for every two bad guys. We might as well have shelled the building. At least then we would have taken out Yamout as well.’

‘Being from the military,’ Procter commented, ‘you should be more accepting of collateral damage.’

Clarke’s eyes narrowed.

‘Speaking of collateral damage,’ Procter said, ‘there’s something you need to know. Regarding Saul Callo. Those Brit contractors we used contacted me after making the call to Yamout’s people. Callo tried to escape. Abbott and Blout had no choice but to neutralise him before they were compromised. I’m pissed off about it, but I’m not going to lose any sleep, and neither should you. Callo was a disgusting excuse for a human being. You know that as well as I do.’

Clarke sighed and shook his head. ‘I vouched for Abbot and Blout, so I take responsibility for what happened with Callo. But, like you said, I won’t lose sleep over him. I wish I could say the same about Tesseract.’

Procter rested his palms against the fence. ‘There is a lot we don’t know, Peter, so let’s not jump the gun and condemn him without all the facts. When he reports in, we can have a proper debriefing. Our primary objective was achieved, even with Yamout alive. That’s what I call a success in this game.’

Clarke said, ‘I think it’s time we re-evaluated our relationship with this assassin.’

The second tiger joined the first and closed its eyes. They lay side by side.

Procter shook his head. ‘I’m having a hard time understanding why you are so quick to write him off. Need I remind you that he completed his first two assignments perfectly? If he hadn’t saved Kasakov in Bucharest we would never have been in a position to get our little war. We are only this far into our plans and able to discuss how we continue because of the work he has done. Kasakov is going after Ariff, and Ariff will be going after Kasakov. All thanks to Tesseract.’

‘Exactly,’ Clarke said. ‘We have set things into motion so now we can start thinking about tying off loose ends.’

‘Hang on a minute, Peter. Things are in motion, that’s true, but we are still going to need Tesseract at least once more, don’t forget.’

‘If we even get to that stage. Which we won’t if Tesseract failed to get away cleanly. I’m sure the Belarusians won’t be too concerned with a bunch of dead gangsters and mercenaries, but what about those four civilians? They’ll want to know why they died and who killed them. That’s another spotlight on us. We could have a huge problem walking around out there. We can’t allow that.’

Procter sighed. ‘I very much doubt he’s left his fingerprints all over the damn hotel. Until he has made himself into a genuine problem then I don’t want to hear another word about loose ends.’

‘I find this protectiveness for your new pet quite touching, Roland. But if he has or will become a liability then I expect swift and decisive action.’

Procter nodded and said, ‘Of course. You have my word.’