Tracers

TWELVE

Harry dialled the number and waited. It rang twelve times before being answered by a gruff male voice. He asked if they had a Professor Samuel Silverman on the staff. There was a sharp reply in what he took to be Hebrew, before the phone clicked and a woman’s voice came on with an American accent. He repeated the question.

‘Who are you?’ She sounded instantly suspicious. ‘It’s a holiday today. Why do you want to know?’

‘I need to speak to him,’ he said finally, winging it. He had no idea if the university staff were aware that Silverman had gone walkabout, and didn’t want to set alarm bells ringing unnecessarily. ‘He was helping my nephew with some study advice.’

The woman made a grudging noise, and he heard the sound of paper rustling. In the background someone laughed and a computer beeped. ‘You say Samuel?’ said the woman after a lengthy wait. ‘Samuel Silverman?’

‘That’s right. Professor Samuel Silverman.’ He waited. If she wanted the department and the subject, he was sunk.

‘What’s he teaching? You don’t know?’ The woman must have extrasensory perception. He wondered what to say. What subject or speciality would an Israeli professor, apparently much valued by his government, teach? It wouldn’t be theology, in spite of what Jennings had said. Defence studies was more likely. Statistics, maybe. But they wouldn’t work — not now he’d mentioned a nephew. He had to risk a bluff. ‘You think my nephew tells me what he’s studying?’ he countered dramatically. ‘He tells me nothing, like he tells his parents. I have to force things out of him. It could be theology, though — he’s into all that stuff.’

Across the room, Rik shook his head in mock despair.

‘Sorry,’ said the woman. ‘Silvermans we have plenty of, but not a Samuel. And believe me, sir, we’ve had the same theology staff here since Golda Meir was in small pants.’

‘Oh.’

‘Sorry — nobody of that name on the staff here.’ In spite of her abruptness, she sounded sympathetic. ‘And no visiting lecturers, either — I checked the register, in case. We have people coming and going all the time, you see. You should maybe try another campus.’

He thanked her and rang off. ‘No Professor Samuel Silverman, nor ever was.’

Rik pulled a face. ‘Maybe he was caught playing naughties with a student and they’ve blanked him from the records.’

‘That would take some doing.’

‘Not if he was in tight with the government. Scandals they don’t need.’

‘OK, so given that he’s cut loose from his life in the Promised Land, what made him decide to come to Britain?’ He stood up and stretched, then stared at the ceiling as if it might contain the answer. He didn’t mind puzzles — relished them, in fact — but this wasn’t even a small one; it was a nothing made up of vague facts.

‘If he was grief-stricken,’ Rik ventured, ‘it might have been on impulse.’

‘Or he’s been here before without anyone knowing. It’s always easy going back to a place the second time round.’

‘Where would you go if it happened to you? If you had to disappear at a moment’s notice?’

Harry pursed his lips. Good point. Not being a family man himself, the question was academic. If he were forced, really forced, he could cut and run anywhere he chose at a moment’s notice. But trying to imagine himself into the lives of the people they were searching for was a habit that had often proved useful in whittling down the options.

‘I’d go anywhere I could find a hole, pull the lid over me and hide,’ he said eventually. ‘I suppose if I was coming from somewhere like Israel, I’d want a similar climate without the people. But nowhere I wouldn’t fit in and nowhere I’d be recognized.’

Rik yawned. ‘Fair enough. But wouldn’t you want somewhere familiar — somewhere where you knew you could hide?’

Harry saw what he was driving at. People on the run rarely chose a place they’d never been to in their lives before. A few did; those who could step off the edge with no backward glance and a sincere faith in their own abilities to survive in an alien location. But they were a rarity. Mostly, runners looked for a place with a similar culture or language, where the requirement to adapt was less of a struggle, or where they had local contacts to fall back on. There was no guarantee otherwise that they would find a suitable hole. It also followed that only the truly desperate, with none of the mental or financial resources required to successfully disappear, would put themselves unwittingly in the position where they stood out to the degree that people began asking questions.

Harry’s phone buzzed. He listened for a few moments, then asked the caller to hold. He turned to Rik. ‘There’s no record of a Samuel Silverman coming through any terminals on the twenty-seventh.’

‘You told her the right date?’ Even as he said it, he looked apologetic. Harry wouldn’t have made such a basic mistake. ‘Scratch that.’

They stared at each other until they heard a whistling noise emanating from the phone. Harry put it to his ear.

‘Sorry, Sandra,’ he said softly. ‘Surprised, that’s all.’ He listened, then said, ‘It was a reliable source, yes.’ Then he added, ‘OK, will do.’ He switched off the phone. ‘No Silverman. If Jennings’ information was correct and he came in on the twenty-seventh, he must have been using another name. And LH4736 originated in Frankfurt, not Israel.’

‘He took a roundabout route.’

‘Looks like it. But why?’

There was only one answer: Silverman had been laying a false trail, making it harder for anyone to follow. It made their task even worse. How to find a man they didn’t know, using a name they didn’t have? If the name was chosen at random, he could be holding a passport in the name of Mr Magoo for all they knew.

Harry checked the folder, but there were no other family names the professor might have used. He wouldn’t be the first person in the world to have acquired a second set of papers. The reasons why a professor might do such a thing would be interesting, as would be the source of supply. But that wasn’t relevant right now. It was also a pity they didn’t have access to the acquaintance who had spotted him at the airport.

‘We’re stuffed,’ Rik concluded.

‘Not yet.’ Harry waved his phone, not ready to give up. ‘Since Nine-eleven, all CCTV recordings and digital media are sent from the cameras around the terminals to an editing service near the airport for checking, enhancing and archiving. Sandra can get us inside but we’d have to sit and check the screens ourselves. We know what Silverman looks like. If we can spot him on the screens, we’ve a chance of seeing where he went.’

Rik looked sceptical. ‘She can do that? What about security?’

‘I didn’t like to ask.’

Rik groaned, his feelings clear. The prospect of spending several hours poring over flickering images was mind-numbing — even for an IT man. But it was clear that if they could spot Silverman and track him through the terminal, they might discover what direction he had taken next. It was all they had.

Harry was already redialling Sandra’s number. He put the suggestion to her, then thanked her again and switched off. ‘She says this evening, after hours. Tomorrow we’ll bounce Param.’

‘They haven’t moved from Ferris’s flat.’ Dog was in an estate car down the street, nursing a cup of cold coffee and trying to keep Jennings happy with regular reports. Mostly the reports were identical: nothing doing.

He was accustomed to sitting for long periods waiting for things to happen. His line of work had called for him to sleep in the back of the car on many occasions. It was merely another facet of his job and took patience, stamina and a subconscious alarm system for a change in circumstances. He had learned the craft the hard way, when blending in had been a life skill not to be taken lightly. Anything less got you killed.

‘They must make a move at some stage,’ replied Jennings, with a touch of impatience. ‘Sooner or later they’ll find something. There’s no back way out they could use, is there? If they find a lead to our man, you need to be right on top of them.’

‘I’ve got it covered, don’t worry. I just saw movement at the window. They’re still inside.’ He didn’t bother telling Jennings that the older of the two men, Tate, had come out twice earlier. He’d gone straight by without even looking, once with two coffees and the second time munching a bunch of grapes. He was probably becoming stir-crazy and needed the exercise. Dog knew the feeling well.

He cut the connection without saying goodbye.

A hundred yards behind Dog’s position, in the shadow of a market trader’s van on the other side of the street, another figure sat immobile in a small, dark saloon car.

The driver, named Carlisle, watched impassively as Dog’s outline shifted. So far he had seen him drink and use a mobile. Other than that, the target seemed to be made of stone, barely moving a muscle.

He stifled a yawn, dispelling any thoughts of refreshments. He’d been briefed on Dog’s reputation and knew it would be too dangerous to move. After a chance sighting of the man by another operative, which had resulted in Carlisle being assigned to this watch, he knew it would be the end of a promising career if he lost the target through carelessness.

Out of habit, he ran a check of his surroundings. The street was busy with shoppers and a regular flow of vehicles, and nobody was taking any notice of a single figure sitting in a car. He thought he’d been made at one point, though, when a man chomping grapes had hovered nearby. For a second he was sure the man was watching him. But after a while he’d moved on and disappeared.

He settled back with a sigh. It might have helped if they’d seen fit to tell him what the hell they thought Dog was doing here.