Tracers

FORTY-ONE

‘Why does this face look familiar?’ Rik was studying the six-by-four print that Joanne had produced from her digital card at a nearby camera shop. The photo was slightly out of focus, but showed the man in the anorak striding along the path, leaning forward as he broke into his attack run. His face was thin and edged with concentration, and he appeared to be staring right into the camera lens. Frozen in time around him was a scattering of people and birds, a vivid framework of motion that served, if anything, to emphasize his total focus on where he was going. The overriding impression was of a jungle cat stalking its prey, ignoring every other distraction around him as he concentrated on his target.

‘You know him?’ Joanne looked surprised.

‘I’m not sure. Maybe the type, not the bloke.’ They knew what he meant. He had the chilling aura of a hunter — purposeful and resolute, and not the kind to be put off easily. The fact that he had backed away when faced by Harry and Rik meant nothing. He had clearly judged the odds and found them unfavourable. He would simply try again when circumstances were better. The danger was, next time they might not see him coming.

Harry leaned forward. Rik was right: there was something familiar about the man, but he couldn’t place him, either.

‘Was he the man in the car?’ he asked Joanne. He hadn’t been close enough to see the man she’d shot at, merely the bulk of his outline.

‘I don’t know.’ She fingered the photo. ‘I only caught a glimpse. It was all so quick.’ She looked past Harry and scanned the area behind him, sifting groups and watching for anyone who didn’t fit. The two men were doing the same.

They were sitting facing inwards on the edge of the grass, not far from where Joanne had met Rafa’i. There were already far more pedestrians about than there had been an hour ago, which was making their task that much more difficult. But without knowing Rafa’i’s whereabouts, or even whether he would come back to find Joanne or not, they could do nothing else but sit and wait. And hope.

‘He’ll come,’ said Harry. ‘If not now, then another time.’ He was counting on the former cleric’s desperate need for help in a foreign land to bring him back to the one person he knew he could trust. That would be Joanne. Placed in the same predicament, Harry would have done the same.

‘It’s crazy,’ said Joanne thoughtfully, ‘but I’ve seen him somewhere, too.’ She prodded the photo lying on the grass between them. ‘But not here — I’d remember it.’

‘In Battersea?’ Harry probed her gently. ‘He might have been hanging around outside.’

She shook her head without looking at him. She still hadn’t forgiven him his treatment down by the Embankment. ‘No. Not there.’

Rik said, ‘Have you still got the photo you took in Baghdad?’

‘A copy, yes.’ Joanne dug in her rucksack. They had left the other one with Sheila Humphries. It would have been almost callous to take it from her; the most recent picture she had of her brother. She handed it over.

‘I knew it!’ Rik muttered with a grim smile. He held up the photo so that they could both see it, and pointed to the two security men in the background. One of them was lean, the face distinct and familiar. It was the man from the park.

‘He’s official,’ said Harry. ‘That makes things worse.’ A freelance they could have coped with; someone who was merely working for the money might give up if the opposition got too tough. But a man on the payroll of a government department would have no such freedom. . and would have the resources and backup to follow the job through. He’d therefore be all but impossible to dissuade.

‘Unless he jumped ship afterwards,’ said Rik. ‘Or he’s a subbie.’

‘What?’ Joanne was still staring at the photo.

‘A sub-contractor,’ Harry explained. ‘Most of the security staff out there are working for PSCs. A few are ex-Special Forces on short-term contracts to the MOD. They’ll have already been through all the security training, and if any of them go down, it doesn’t impact the official payroll.’ He shrugged. ‘The government being creative with public money.’

‘So he’s a merc?’

‘Yes. But they’re sensitive souls — they don’t like that word very much.’ He studied the photo and the faces, and wondered how close the man with the thin face was to Major Andrew Marshall, the one sitting opposite Gordon Humphries.

They sat and waited, concentrating on watching the park. If Rafa’i was coming back, he was taking his time.

‘Would he go to the nearest Iraqi community?’ Harry asked. He knew that London hosted a mixed Sunni, Kurdish and Shi’a population, and Rafa’i might look for an area where he could blend in. Safety in numbers.

‘No.’ Joanne shook her head emphatically. ‘There’s a risk he’d be recognized. There are people here from the same area, although not necessarily from the same tribal group. But he’s too well known; if anyone saw him, word would spread fast.’ She gestured to the open park around them. ‘Out here is different. People don’t look too closely at other faces, especially if they’re in western clothes. To them he’s just another man.’

‘Bummer,’ said Rik, and went back to people watching.

Eventually Joanne stirred and checked her watch. ‘He won’t be back today,’ she announced. ‘It’s gone noon.’

‘Time for prayers?’ Rik asked.

‘He has a strict prayer regime, but it’s nothing to do with that. One of the things I was told to impress on him was that if something went wrong and we got split up, we had to have an arrangement for meeting up again. They said to try again one hour after the agreed time, then at twenty-four-hour repeats.’

They checked their watches. It was well past the first hour already.

‘And always the same place?’ Harry asked.

‘Yes. That way, we wouldn’t have to rely on finding somewhere new to either of us, and twenty-four hours would allow any dust to settle. I never thought we’d have to use it, though.’

It made sense. This wasn’t Rafa’i’s home turf, so he wouldn’t be familiar with the terrain. After what had happened earlier, he’d be doubly cautious, yet desperate enough to rely on using the same place again. As long as he could conquer his fear of being spotted again. ‘So he’ll be here again at ten tomorrow.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Good enough for me,’ Rik murmured. ‘Sitting round here is giving me the jitters.’ He glanced at Harry. ‘Let’s hope matey with the knife doesn’t come to the same conclusion. It could get crowded.’

‘There’s no reason why he should. He’ll probably carry on looking. We’ll have to watch our backs, though, maybe stay away from home for a while.’

He glanced at Joanne, aware that he’d spoiled the trust that had been growing between them. It had been heavy-handed, but a necessity. He hoped it wasn’t going to get in the way of what they had to talk about next.

‘I don’t know enough about the situation over there,’ he said, referring to Iraq. ‘So what I can’t figure out is why someone wants Rafa’i dead. It can’t just be sectarian; that wouldn’t involve westerners, and the locals have got enough of their own trigger-men to kill him a hundred times over. Knocking off one former cleric doesn’t change anything.’

Joanne said nothing, returning his look with a blank face.

‘It might,’ suggested Rik, to break the awkward silence, ‘if there was a danger Rafa’i could destabilize the order of things. Their parliament’s ticking over reasonably well. OK, not great, and maybe short of a minister every now and then when the insurgents get lucky. But no worse than you’d expect with the country in the state it is. Then along comes this other bloke: well respected, popular. . even got a whiff of the cloth about him. It makes him special — Messianic, even.’ He looked at Joanne. ‘What was it you said — a big cheese among the locals? Somebody like that in the background, suddenly the politicos who’re in it for the power and money might get nervous, feel threatened.’

Still Joanne said nothing, so Harry joined in. ‘He’s right,’ he said quietly, watching her face for a reaction. ‘The politicians are used to one group or another vying for power. If they can’t work with them, they buy them off and everything goes quiet again until the next one comes along. I can’t see that they’d bother killing somebody like Rafa’i unless there was something bigger at stake.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Joanne said finally. She seemed relaxed but there was tension in the whiteness of her knuckles.

‘He was specifically targeted, wasn’t he?’ said Harry. ‘That’s why you were sent out there. There was a real and credible threat and he needed protection. Otherwise, what was the point?’

‘They could have given him a shield of Coalition troops,’ Rik pointed out, ‘if he was that important.’

‘He was important all right.’ Harry lifted his eyebrows, waiting for Joanne to comment. When she didn’t, he continued, ‘If he’s the one I remember reading about, wasn’t he the man who believed in the oil and mineral resources being controlled by the state? That must have been seen by some as a real threat.’ He paused. ‘Only it wasn’t the locals who were bothered, was it? They didn’t have so much to lose.’

‘Oh, man.’ Rik spoke softly as he saw where Harry was going.

‘Who would stand to lose most if Iraq suddenly turned round and locked everyone else out of their oil production programme? If someone new came along and turned the tables on western interests? It wouldn’t be the current politicians — they don’t have the power or the popular support.’ He tore up a handful of grass and tossed it into the air, watching the fragments fall to the ground. ‘But somebody with a wide national following would be a genuine threat. Reason enough to get rid of him and blame the insurgents.’

‘What are you saying?’ Joanne’s voice was low.

‘You know what I’m saying. The only ones with the means to do it would come from within the Coalition. Oil is money and money talks. That’s why you saw a bunch of mercs coming to the safe house. That’s why Humphries didn’t make it out of Baghdad alive. This whole business is all about oil and money, and getting rid of anyone who poses a threat to the flow of both. They’ve probably been scratching at this particular sore since the first Gulf War.’

‘You mean our government’s behind this?’

‘More likely a group or groups inside government. This current lot might be devious and untrustworthy, but I don’t see them having the nerve to put something like this together. They’d rather go in afterwards and talk their heads off about what to do next, or blame someone else.’

Rik gave a customary scowl. ‘But that would undermine the Coalition if it ever came out. Would they risk it?’

‘Yes.’ Joanne responded before Harry could answer. She looked into the distance, then turned back to them. ‘I never took much interest in all that political rubbish. I’m a squaddie and I go where they point me. But Rafa’i said something a couple of weeks before the explosion.’ She paused, her face fixed in concentration.

‘What?’ said Rik.

‘We were alone. The security squad were patrolling outside the house and he was in a bit of a mood. Thoughtful, I mean, not bad-tempered. There had been another suicide bombing an hour or so before, a few streets away. I’d made a comment about it being a bit close for comfort. To be honest, I was considering bugging out and finding somewhere safer, or maybe getting a fighting patrol to come in and cause a diversion so we could slip away.’

‘You could arrange that?’ Harry looked surprised.

‘Gordon Humphries could. When I mentioned it to Rafa’i, he laughed it off, saying it wasn’t the insurgents he was worried about. I asked him what he meant, and he said if anyone caused his death it would be elements within the Coalition. The so-called friendly forces.’ She shrugged and gave a wry smile. ‘I thought he meant the Americans might drop a bomb on the house by mistake. I told him that wouldn’t happen.’

‘What did he say?’ asked Harry.

‘He said they’d already tried it once and missed. It was only a matter of time before they tried again.’

‘He was right, then,’ said Harry sombrely. ‘Wasn’t he?’