Tracers

FOURTEEN

Harry waited nervously as Karen froze the picture and then re-ran it so they could see the man again in slow motion. ‘It looks like him,’ he said. ‘Let it run.’

The replay showed the man walking away across the bottom of the screen, easing through the crowd. He wore heavy glasses and was holding a dark coat, slung over his right shoulder, with a dark sports bag in his other hand. For a split second his face was clearly in view.

Rik nodded in agreement. ‘It’s him. Check his right hand, holding the coat.’ The hand clearly showed a bandage, bearing out the briefing reference to his injury.

‘And the face,’ Harry added. ‘Right cheekbone.’

‘Is that a bruise?’ Karen froze the screen again and zoomed in, but the clarity was lacking. ‘Sorry — the light’s not good just there.’

‘Birthmark. Either way, it’s a match.’

He let Karen run the recording a little longer, but he knew they had found their man. All they had to do now was track him through the terminal and see where he went.

‘Easy,’ said Karen, suddenly galvanized by the discovery. She ran her eyes over a schematic layout of the terminal and hummed quietly to herself. ‘This chart shows me the camera location and number,’ she explained, bringing up a new set of recordings. ‘Unless he dodges back and forth, which would be pointless, because he’d never leave the building, he has to go past one of them sooner or later. It’s just a question of finding which one, then passing on to the next in line.’

‘Are you sure you have time for this?’ Harry glanced at his watch. They had been there nearly two hours. He didn’t want to outstay their welcome, but without Karen’s help, they wouldn’t stand a chance of following Silverman’s course through the terminal.

She smiled excitedly. ‘Are you kidding? I haven’t had this much fun in weeks. Usually it’s humourless plods in suits doing their own searching and keeping us at arm’s length. I never to get to do this stuff unless they fuck up the machine.’ She glanced at them. ‘Sorry.’ She checked the chart and selected another recording. ‘I think I know where he’d have gone next. Let me run it and see. If I tell you where the makings are, I don’t suppose one of you boys would care to make some coffee, would you?’ She smiled disarmingly at Rik, who stood up and stretched.

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

Thirty minutes later, coffee cups discarded, they were watching the flickering images of the inside of Terminal Two. After Silverman’s little dance earlier, they hadn’t been able to pick him up again. It was eye-watering work, with nobody daring to blink in case they missed something. Time after time they told Karen to stop the film, but each one proved to be a mistake. There were momentary distractions, too, in the unfolding story of the stick figures bustling about before them; brief meetings, mild collisions and near misses; the body language of the stressed, portrayed by waving arms, covered mouths and bursts of frantic activity; the tumble of luggage from a careering trolley, followed by the scrabble to regain possessions and dignity in the face of the unrelenting advance of another flush of travellers bearing down like a tidal wave.

They were nearing the last batch of recordings when Karen tapped the screen. ‘Is that him?’

Sure enough, Silverman’s figure appeared in the background, partly obscured by a group of Japanese businessmen in dark suits. He was standing still, head down and apparently relaxed, by the entrance to a pharmacy. He seemed to be alone, the sports bag lying at his feet.

‘He’s waiting for a pick-up,’ said Harry, recognizing the man’s body language. Impatience, anticipation and wariness all bound together.

They sat frozen, waiting to see what would happen next. It was clear from Silverman’s increasing shift of position that he was growing nervous, throwing regular glances around with sharp movements of his head, the light flashing off his spectacles. After following his progress through the terminal, it was almost an anti-climax to know that this part of the chase was over, that in the next few seconds or minutes they would either learn the next stage of his journey or lose him altogether.

‘How about this one?’ said Karen.

A younger man had appeared on the opposite side of the picture, filtering slowly through the crowd. He carried no hand luggage, and was dressed in jeans and a dark windcheater, another greeter killing time while awaiting an incoming passenger. There was nothing overt to suggest he was connected with Silverman, and he could have been on his way to the pharmacy, except that, from their commanding position overlooking the scene, he seemed to be on a collision course with the waiting professor and kept looking towards him each time he was forced off-course by the flow and press of the crowd.

‘Ten quid says it’s him,’ breathed Rik, but there were no takers.

The man was in his late twenties or early thirties, solidly built with the springy walk of someone very fit. He was clean-shaven, with glossy, swept-back hair and a Mediterranean appearance, but they couldn’t see enough of his face to get a clear picture.

At the last second, rather than entering the pharmacy, the newcomer skirted a family group huddled together around a trolley. He stopped at one side of the entrance, idly flicking through a carousel of travel items. Then he ducked his head, as if spotting something of interest nearer the ground. The movement brought him closer to Silverman but shielded his face from the camera.

Then they saw the professor’s body tense. He began to turn his head, but stopped suddenly, before looking back down at his feet. The newcomer, now less than a foot away, must have said something.

‘Got you,’ breathed Harry. He clapped a hand on Karen’s shoulder, drawing a triumphant giggle.

Suddenly, as if galvanized by decision, the younger man turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd. Moments later, after hopping from foot to foot, Silverman followed, scurrying through the flow of people like an erratic missile bearing down on its target.

Karen turned to her chart. ‘I don’t need to follow this any more,’ she said confidently, ‘but just in case. .’ She called up another recording and hit the PLAY button.

‘Where’s he going?’ said Harry.

The new picture showed a panoramic view of the terminal building shot from one end. The foreground was a bustling mass of people, while further back, the screen seemed flooded with a greyish aura of light. There was no sign of the young man.

Karen pointed at a figure which might have been him, but he was too far away for a clear view. Then she tapped the edge of the screen as Silverman hurried into view, pushing his way with difficulty through a knot of schoolchildren. ‘He’s heading for the main exits.’

She reached across and grabbed a hard drive from a box. ‘This is from an auxiliary camera outside the main exit.’ They waited to see if Silverman would deviate from his course. He didn’t.

‘Some bloody professor he is,’ Harry murmured cynically, and Rik nodded in agreement. They were both thinking the same thing: whatever Jennings’ briefing paper might have said, Silverman was no simple academic fleeing under the burden of emotional trauma.

This bore all the hallmarks of something far more professional.