The Hunter

CHAPTER 60

Nicosia, Cyprus

Thursday

15:49 CET

After the chill of London and Amsterdam, the warmth of Cyprus was a welcome change. Even in November the temperature hovered in the seventies. The flight from Amsterdam to Larnaca International Airport had been pleasant enough and had taken just over four hours. Rebecca had arrived only a little fatigued.

She was amazed she didn’t feel worse. The last ten days had been the most stressful of her life, and they weren’t getting easier. She had teamed up with a ruthless contract killer in an attempt to eliminate the people trying to kill her, people who just so happened to be not only her employers but also a rogue element inside the CIA. Six months ago it would have been unreal, ridiculous even, but it was all too real. She had never felt so anxious, so scared.

Tesseract, or whatever the hell his name really was, was almost unreadable. If he had any concerns about what they were doing he didn’t let it show. He was completely self-confident, and his utter calm helped control her nerves. If she could keep doing her part, she was sure he could do his. But even if they did pull this off, what was she going to do then? Rebecca had spent the last seven years working as an intelligence analyst for the CIA before she had been pulled out of service for this nightmare of an operation. In the remote chance that she didn’t get prosecuted for her role in a highly illegal op, she would never be given her old job back. No one would trust her again. She wouldn’t blame them either.

She tried not to think about it too much. There were more immediate concerns to overcome before she considered her career. Like staying alive.

They had travelled separately. He’d told her before they’d left Amsterdam there was a chance their enemies would be looking for both of them, assuming they were together, so it was safer to fly on their own. She wasn’t sure she believed him; after all, they’d travelled to London together and then to Amsterdam together and had stayed in the same hotels both times. She assumed he wanted to be on his own but didn’t say anything. The one thing Rebecca could read in him was that she made him uncomfortable. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?

The hotel where they were staying was located in the southern Greek half of the city. So was their destination. The sun-faded sign that announced Olympus Trading in both Greek and English was mounted on an innocuous warehouse, whitewashed, though looking anything but. Grime caked the windows, the paint on the shutters flaked.

He adjusted his sunglasses. ‘Very classy.’

They stood in a side street in a poor neighbourhood in the south-east of the city. The district was out of the way of the main tourist areas, full of warehouses and small shops; market stalls seemed to be everywhere.

Only a few white clouds floated through the deep blue sky above. She could tell her companion didn’t like the heat. She imagined that he did most of his sleeping in the day; seeing the world under the cover of darkness had given him pale skin that was already starting to burn, and from the way he breathed she could tell he had a low tolerance for high temperatures. He’d covered his face, neck, and exposed arms in sunscreen but, even still, he wasn’t comfortable out of the shade.

Conversely, Rebecca relished it. Her skin was brown already, and she had put the sunscreen straight down when he had handed her the bottle. She had some flesh on display, bare legs protruding from her skirt, naked arms and stomach, but on his request she’d wrapped a shawl around her to cover the cleavage on display from the bikini top. It would draw too much attention, he’d told her. She’d given him a look in return that he quickly shied away from. She grinned briefly.

In this part of the city there were mostly locals, market stalls selling fruit or fish. Farther down the street a drunk sat propped against a wall sipping from a bottle of rum while a tourist examined peaches at a trader’s stall. A skinny kid pushed a wheelbarrow full of old newspaper past an old man with a thick beard who grilled prawns on a rusty barbecue.

A wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses provided her with a basic disguise, one that would work against a cursory glance but nothing more. She’d cut her hair shorter and bleached it too, on his instructions. Being a bottle blonde definitely didn’t suit her complexion, but even Rebecca didn’t recognize herself in the mirror any more.

‘You think it’s deserted?’ he asked and took a bite from his vanilla ice cream. He’d asked for a double-sized one from the vendor.

Rebecca stood next to him. She had a guidebook in her hand and tilted her head forward as if reading it.

‘Olympus is more than just a paper trail, it’s a working front, so there are people in there. Probably only a handful of employees by the looks of it. I doubt any will know who they really work for.’

Rebecca moved her free index finger down the page as if she were searching for information.

‘That’s a nice touch, by the way,’ he said.

She kept her eyes on the page. ‘I’m a fast learner.’

He had to be quick to prevent half his ice cream from collapsing. ‘Do you really think we’ll find anything there?’

‘Don’t talk with food in your mouth.’ She turned over a page in the book. ‘We don’t know until we look.’

He walked away down the street a few steps, held his hand out as if pointing. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back tonight after I’ve picked up some things.’

Their hotel was only a half-hour walk away. They left the way they had come, negotiating the maze of side streets at a leisurely pace. Rebecca took his hand in hers as they walked and felt the tension in his touch, but she didn’t let go, and together they looked like any other couple enjoying some winter sun.

The tourist, eating his perfectly ripened peach, was never far behind.