The Hunter

CHAPTER 29

Debrecen, Hungary

Friday

20:12 CET

Victor had spent the morning in Zurich emptying his primary bank account before burying the money minus twenty thousand euros. The cash would be his only source of funds for some time. He couldn’t carry any more across borders without attracting suspicion and putting the rest in another bank was not an option.

Going back to Switzerland had been a risk, but if he was going to continue living he would need the money. He had then flown back to Budapest and from there taken the train out to Debrecen as an extra precaution. It was important to keep moving, to avoid staying in one place for too long. The CIA was after him, and he had to do everything possible to hinder its efforts to track him down.

The CIA was extremely well funded and far-reaching, but it was not all-powerful. If he stayed mobile and did nothing to attract its attention, he was confident he could keep out of its crosshairs for now. How long that would remain true, though, he didn’t know.

The temperature was in the low thirties. Victor spent an hour at a coffee shop until he was sure he wasn’t being watched. He then moved on to another similar establishment, where he spent a second hour making doubly sure. A week ago he would have been satisfied that he wasn’t under surveillance, but now he didn’t fully trust his own abilities, especially when they were going up against an organization with twenty thousand full-time employees and many tens of thousands more foreign agents and assets.

Victor took a taxi into Debrecen’s city centre, passing through the clean streets with his eyes constantly watching the mirrors for potential tails. He knew his fixation with the mirrors unnerved the taxi driver, and Victor helped relax him by keeping the driver in conversation. They talked about soccer, women, politics, work.

‘What do you do for a living?’ the driver asked Victor.

They were driving past the grand building of an insurance firm, so Victor said, ‘I sell life insurance.’

The driver smirked. ‘Everybody dies, right?’

Victor kept his gaze on the wing mirror. ‘I seem to have that effect on people.’

Out of the taxi he spent some time walking with the crowds, stopping occasionally, doubling back often. He browsed through a number of stores, not buying anything but watching who came in after him and who was standing outside with a view of the door. When he was satisfied he wasn’t being shadowed he caught another taxi and sat in the back.

Victor climbed out fifteen minutes later in downtown Debrecen. Here the streets were quieter, and although it would be easier for a team to shadow him, it would also be easier for him to spot them. No one set off his threat radar. Another taxi took him back into the city centre and to his true destination.

The Internet cafe was of a fair size and pleasingly full of customers, some of whom smoked. Victor didn’t, but only because he was passively smoking more than enough nicotine to satisfy his craving. He was sure there would be a reply to his email from the broker; he just wasn’t sure what the reply would contain.

Victor sat down at the most sheltered terminal in front of an old PC. The flickering screen immediately made his eyes start to water. He could hear its noisy hard drive, half-humming, half-gurgling. Victor logged on to the message board. He noticed his heart rate was slightly up.

There was a message waiting for him.

He almost expected the computer to explode into pieces when he clicked to open it, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. A part of him almost wished it had.

You won’t want to call, but we need to speak. I can help you.

He hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly hadn’t been that. He stared at the screen for a long time. It didn’t sound like the broker. There was no subtlety in the message. It was blunt, to the point, appealing for further communication. There was a phone number.

Had someone other than the broker sent the message? If the CIA had found him, maybe it had found the broker too and the message was a lure to trap him. Or if he’d been set up from the start, was this just another set-up in the making? Perhaps the change in tone was genuinely because of the unusual situation. He noticed he was getting a headache.

Victor had no true friends, no real allies, barely a handful of acquaintances. It had been one of the things that had kept him alive so long. The less contact he had with the world around him, the fewer potential points of compromise. Now that kind of protection had left him isolated, vulnerable. He was alone, on the run, with no clear idea why his hunters were after him. Regardless of the whys, he knew his chances of survival were diminishing with each passing hour.

Something had to change.

Victor was in no doubt about his own skill, but, though he hated to admit it, he was out of his depth. If things stayed the same he just wasn’t going to make it. He had been discovered twice, despite all his precautions, and he would be again. It might take weeks, even years. But how many times could he escape his enemies? Sooner or later he wouldn’t be fast enough.

His only lead had taken him nowhere. On his own he had no option other than waiting for the next attempt on his life. He needed help. And the only person offering it was the first person he’d thought had set him up. So far there was no proof to the contrary.

But he was out of options.

He memorized the number and left the cafe. He found a secluded payphone, dialled. The twenty seconds it took for someone to answer the phone seemed like the longest moment of his life.

‘Hello?’

The voice was female and that threw him for a second. He hadn’t considered who might have answered, but he wouldn’t have expected a woman. An American woman.

Eventually he found his voice. ‘It’s me.’

The response was instantaneous, the surprise obvious, seemingly genuine. ‘My God, it is, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wasn’t sure you’d call.’

Victor kept his gaze on the street, checking people, cars. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Not over the phone.’

Ten seconds.

Victor said, ‘I haven’t broken protocol in half a decade, so we’re going to do this my way or not at all. Understood?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then tell me what you know.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Good-bye.’

It wasn’t a bluff.

‘No, wait.’

Twenty seconds.

The broker spoke quickly. ‘I know who they are, who’s been trying to kill you. I can help.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I’ll tell you when we meet. Not before.’

‘If you won’t tell me now, I’m gone.’

‘You won’t make it on your own.’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘If you really believed that,’ the voice said quietly, ‘you wouldn’t have called.’

Thirty seconds.

Victor stared at his reflection in the glass of the phone booth. It was hard to look himself in the eye. He took a breath. ‘If we meet, where?’

‘Paris.’

‘When?’

‘Tonight.’

‘Why so soon?’

‘Because I might not be alive tomorrow.’

Forty seconds.

‘Give me the details.’

‘Call this number when you arrive. I have to go now.’

The phone went dead.

She’d ended the conversation first. It was a good sign, despite the anger it caused him. He’d been trying to drag it out to a minute to test her. If she’d have let it go over sixty seconds he would have known he couldn’t trust her. Still, ending it early could just as easily have been a trick to convince him she was genuine. If it was, she was in for a big surprise. He didn’t trust anybody.

But there had been a desperation in her voice that made him think she was the real thing, that she wasn’t trying to set him up, that she was in as much danger as he. Though he rationalized a good actress or a gun in the face would add that sense of desperation particularly well.

This whole thing had started in Paris, and now he was being asked to return. His enemies had tried to kill him there already, and going back seemed like a great idea if he fancied suicide. If his enemy knew he was arriving today, the airport and train stations could be put under surveillance. Kill teams could be set in place. He’d be easy to spot. If he made it out onto the streets he could get himself a weapon from his safety-deposit box, but that too might be compromised. He couldn’t risk it so that meant no gun. He would be going straight to his foe’s doorstep, unarmed, making their job easier. It was the last thing he should be doing.

But if there was even the slightest chance the broker knew something useful, then he needed to hear it, whatever the risks. It was either that or start running and never stop. In his gut it felt like a set-up, and no matter how much he thought about it he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap. And walking into it of his own free will.

By going back to Paris he would find out one way or another what was going on. If she was telling the truth, so be it; he could use whatever information she had to work out what to do next. If it was a trap, then at least he’d know for sure he was on his own. That or he’d be dead and it wouldn’t matter.

Two choices.

Go to Paris or disappear for good.

Neither prospect was enticing, but spending the rest of his life as a target of the CIA held the least appeal.