Black List (10 page)

At least he knew where he was. The question now was where he was headed.

‘So what’s the plan, captain?’ he asked, trying to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach elicited by the trawler’s pitching and rocking in the choppy waters.

‘We head east, across the North Sea to Norway. A fishing trawler like this should not attract attention. After we make land, we find a car and get you to your friend as fast as possible.’ She glanced at him, noticing for the first time that he was shivering. ‘There should be a sleeping berth forward. Go and see if there are any spare clothes. And check for tinned food.’

Having not eaten since the previous evening, Alex would normally have been famished by now. However, food was the last thing on his mind at that moment, as another wave buffeted them. It was little more than a minor swell, yet for him the deck seemed to be pitching and rolling dangerously beneath his feet.

‘You don’t look well,’ she said, observing his pale complexion. ‘Are you all right?’

Not wishing to give her another reason to berate him, he waved her concern off. ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.’

An hour later, Alex clung to the guard rail just aft of the wheelhouse, doubled over as his stomach constricted in another painful, violent heave. After ten minutes of near-constant vomiting, he could have sworn his stomach would be empty by now, but apparently not, as a thin stream of mucus and undigested food landed in the churning waters below.

Apparently sea sickness was something that didn’t abate with age.

Another gust of wind whipped across the deck, chilling him and carrying salty spray that stung his eyes. He’d managed to find a ratty-looking woollen jumper and a waterproof jacket that was too big for him in the cramped accommodation area in the bow, and Anya had insisted he wear the lot. Aside from keeping him warm, it would also make him at least look the part of a deck hand on casual inspection.

Not that he imagined there were many eyes on him at that moment. Since leaving the wide mouth of the Forth Estuary they had steered a course due east, the rolling fields and small coastal towns gradually fading into the hazy distance. Ahead lay nothing but sombre grey sea.

Spitting acrid-tasting phlegm into the churning waters below, he wiped his mouth and stumbled back into the wheelhouse. Being indoors made his seasickness worse, but at least it was relatively warm in there.

Anya was where he’d left her, having tied the wheel in place to maintain their heading, while she attacked the can of tinned peaches she’d been able to pilfer from the trawler’s meagre galley down below.

She glanced up as he entered, her expression almost achieving sympathy. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘How do you think?’ he retorted, leaning against the wall with a weary sigh. ‘I suppose this kind of thing never troubles 
you
.’

Saying nothing, she handed him a steaming mug of tea. Served in a dented and stained tin cup, and with no milk or sugar, it was about as unappealing a beverage as he could have wished for at that moment. He shook his head, waving it away.

‘You need fluids,’ she persisted. ‘The sickness will dehydrate you.’

‘I suppose a bottle of Carlsberg and a smoke is too much to ask for?’ he asked, though he was unable to summon up the wry smile he’d hoped for.

‘Cigarettes are bad for you.’

‘Yeah? You know what else is bad for me? Waterboarding, and tasers, and fists. I’ve had plenty of
 them
 over the past couple of days. Where’s your health warning about that?’

When Anya didn’t respond, he reluctantly accepted the mug of tea and took a sip, more to appease her than out of a genuine desire to drink.

‘I need to know a few things from you, Alex,’ she said, setting the tin of fruit aside. ‘Answer my questions honestly and everything will be fine.’

Alex glanced up from his mug of steaming brown liquid that more or less passed for tea. ‘And if I don’t?’

‘I’ll know,’ she promised him. There was no need to say anything beyond that – her actions last night had demonstrated her ability to kill without remorse.

‘Fair enough,’ he conceded. ‘Ask away.’

‘How did you come to know Loki?’

‘Through university,’ he explained, taking another tentative sip. It settled on his stomach and stayed there, which he took to be a good sign. ‘We were staying in the same halls of residence, got chatting over a few beers…’ He shrugged. ‘You know how it is.’

The look in her eyes suggested otherwise. Somehow he couldn’t picture her as a free-spirited teenage student.

‘What happened after that?’ she prompted. ‘You worked together, yes?’

He nodded slowly. ‘We formed our own group called Valhalla. Myself, Arran and another guy called Gregar Landvik. We were the founders. Over time we attracted other people like us, and we started working together on bigger projects.’

‘For what? Money?’

He shook his head. ‘It wasn’t like that. We were a white-hat group, at least to begin with.’

At this, her blonde brows drew together in a frown. ‘White hat?’

For perhaps the first time, Alex felt as if he had her at a disadvantage. It felt strangely reassuring to know there were some areas in this world where his knowledge was superior.

‘Good guys,’ he explained. ‘People who hack for the right reasons.’

This prompted a look of what might have been called amusement. ‘There is a right reason to do such things?’

That was an interesting statement coming from someone who had killed at least two men in the past twenty-four hours, he thought. ‘Look, people do this for all kinds of reasons – some good, some bad. Whatever your reason, there’s a hat colour to describe it. White hats break into systems to show people their weaknesses. They help them protect themselves from real criminals. Blue hats are employed by companies to test the strength of their security. We actually dabbled in that for a while ourselves. Black hats are the ones out to cause serious damage, either for profit or just for shits and giggles. They’re the ones who make the headlines, the ones who crash stock markets or leak government secrets.’

Anya nodded thoughtfully, mulling over everything she’d heard. However, she hadn’t missed his earlier remark. ‘You said you were a… “white-hat” group to begin with. What changed?’

Alex’s face darkened. ‘We had a disagreement – Arran, Gregar and I. Each of us wanted to take the group in a different direction. I wanted us to go legitimate, hire ourselves out to test system security for big companies. Gregar was always chasing the easy money. He wanted us to be like mercenaries, stealing secrets for cash.’

‘And Arran?’ she prompted.

Alex took another sip of tea. ‘Well, there’s another kind of hat. You don’t see them very often, but there are hackers who think they’re serving a higher purpose. Activists – exposing secrets, freeing the truth and all that. We call them grey hats. Arran wanted to go on some kind of crusade against the Big Bad. Dodgy companies, corrupt politicians, shadow governments. He believed we could make a real difference, expose all those dirty secrets to the world. And for a while he even made me believe it too.’ He sighed, thinking about the disastrous hacking attempt that had proven to be a bridge too far for him. ‘For a while.’

‘What happened?’ She seemed genuinely interested now, perhaps having found something in his tale that she could relate to.

‘No,’ he said at length. ‘No. That’s something I’d rather not go into.’

He looked at her, expecting her to press him on the matter. He wouldn’t have blamed her. He supposed she could have forced him to tell her everything, could have threatened him or cajoled him into it. And yet, to his surprise, she seemed to accept his refusal, as if they were two normal people having a casual conversation.

‘Tell me something,’ he said, deciding to indulge his own curiosity. There was something about the chain of events leading up to their present situation that he still didn’t understand. ‘How the hell did you find Arran? Or did he find you?’

Anya looked at him for a long moment, saying nothing as the boat pitched and rocked around them.

‘Come on, I’ve practically bared my soul to you,’ Alex reminded her. ‘Would it kill you to give me just a little back?’

Reaching up, the woman sighed and ran a hand through her short blonde hair, leaving a few locks sticking up. ‘He was recommended to me by a senior officer in the Norwegian intelligence service,’ she said at last. ‘A man I’ve known for twenty years and trust completely. He assured me that Arran had been vetted by him personally.’

Alex frowned. This was starting to sound oddly familiar. ‘What was his name?’

‘Halvorsen,’ she said, her tone guarded.

And just like that, the penny dropped. ‘You mean 
Kristian
? Kristian Halvorsen?’

Anya stared at him, her eyes reflecting her surprise. ‘You know him.’

‘Of course I know him.’

‘How?’

‘It was back when we tried our hands at being blue hats. Kristian was the CEO of some company based in Norway… paper merchants or some shit like that. He hired us to test the security of his corporate network.’

Even now he could recall the ease with which he had broken through the seemingly complex security system, and the shock on Halvorsen’s face as he remarked that he would have to get his technical people to look into it.

‘Kristian is not a paper merchant,’ Anya assured him. ‘He’s a case officer.’

‘You’re having a laugh, right? I mean, he’s about the most boring guy I’ve…’ Alex trailed off, realizing at last the trap he’d fallen into. Kristian hadn’t been testing the company security system that day; he’d been testing Alex and Arran, vetting them for future work. And Alex, in his arrogance, had fallen for it.

‘Oh, shit,’ he said quietly.

‘He would not be a very good spy if he advertised his profession,’ Anya observed. ‘In any case, he recommended Loki to me nearly a year ago, said he was a skilled computer expert who could back me up with no questions asked. He was right in that respect. Loki has been useful and proven his worth to me, so he was my choice to break into the Agency’s system.’ She let out a faint sigh; a modest but telling expression of regret. ‘Maybe I asked too much of him.’

‘Do you think he’s still alive?’ Alex asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer or not. ‘I mean, they wouldn’t just kill him without getting information from him, right?’

He saw a shadow pass over her then, and her eyes took on a faraway look. It was the look of one who had long ago learned harsh lessons that Alex could scarcely imagine.

‘The Agency would have no problems doing both,’ she said at length, then turned her eyes on him once more. The look in them was almost sympathetic. ‘I wouldn’t hold out much hope for your friend.’

Alex let out a breath and bowed his head, feeling like he’d just been punched in the guts. He’d always known that the chances of seeing Arran again were slim at best, but he’d clung onto the notion anyway, refusing to give up on his friend. To hear the harsh reality laid out in such stark and uncompromising terms was almost more than he could take.

‘And what about me? Am I going to end up like him too?’ Alex asked, deciding he might as well get all the bad news out of the way at once. ‘No matter how this ends, I’ll be a wanted man for the rest of my life. What the hell am I supposed to do?’

‘Your situation won’t improve until we find the information I need.’

‘Really,’ he said, picking up on her vague and evasive answer. ‘What exactly is this “information” that’s so important to you, anyway? Must be something pretty serious, considering the CIA are ready to kill anyone who even gets near it.’

At this, Anya merely shook her head. If it were possible, he could have sworn she looked uncomfortable. ‘You’re in enough danger already. It’s better that you don’t know any more.’

‘What, you think I could be any deeper in the shit than I am already?’ Alex scoffed, almost laughing with grim humour at her attempts to protect him. ‘Arran and the rest of Valhalla 7 could be dead already because of this. My
 life
 might depend on this fucking thing. I at least have a right to know what it’s all about.’

Whatever brief softening of her demeanour he’d experienced during their earlier conversation was well and truly gone. Now the walls were back up, the defences at the ready.

‘You have a right to know what I tell you; nothing more,’ she said, her tone dangerously cold. ‘You are alive because I chose to spare your life. Your only task is to do what I tell you to do, so don’t think for one moment that you can demand anything from me. Do we understand each other?’

Alex said nothing for several seconds, startled by the change that had come over her.

‘We do,’ he said at last.

The brief confrontation over, they lapsed into uncomfortable silence, each preoccupied with their own thoughts. Alex in particular was deeply unsettled by his companion. He might have understood her instructions, but the will behind them was a complete mystery to him.

Olivia Mitchell groaned, her mind stirred from the depths of sleep by the harsh buzz of her cell phone. She blinked a few times, eyes adjusting to the weak daylight filtering in through the drawn curtains, then glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table – 06:32.

‘Christ,’ she said, her voice husky and her throat dry. Having served more than a decade in the US Army before her posting here, she was no stranger to late shifts and early starts, but this was the first day off she’d had in nearly two weeks. She’d been hoping not to regain consciousness before 10 a.m.

Whoever was calling, however, had other ideas.

The phone carried on ringing and vibrating, moving an inch or so across the hard table surface with each surge. With her mind still fogged by sleep and the pounding ache of a hangover, she reached over and snatched it up.

‘Yeah?’ she mumbled, eyes still closed against the sunlight filtering in through the half-drawn curtains. She arched her back, feeling the vertebrae crack satisfyingly as they realigned themselves.

The voice that addressed her was male, focussed and uncharacteristically serious. Vincent Argento, a young but very ambitious officer with the CIA’s Security Protective Service, whom Mitchell had been sent here to mentor. One old has-been whose career was on the slide grooming one of the Agency’s next up-and-coming stars.

That wasn’t exactly how they’d sold it to her, but that’s what it amounted to. In any case, she hadn’t been in much of a negotiating position when they’d offered her the job.

‘Olivia, it’s Vince,’ he began. ‘Don’t hang up.’

‘Give me a reason not to,’ she replied sourly, dragging herself up to a sitting position and running a hand through her dishevelled hair. It felt tangled and greasy. ‘Unless the president’s been murdered or we’ve gone to war overnight, it’s officially not my problem.’

She reached for the tab of Alka-Seltzer by her bed and dropped two tablets into a glass of water, watching as the effervescent solution went to work. The bottle of wine she’d polished off last night was still standing on the sideboard on the far side of the room, the sour aroma of fermented grapes drifting across to her.

‘We’ve got a Tempest Red.’

Mitchell stopped, the hangover and the fizzing glass temporarily forgotten. Those two words were more than enough to get her attention.

Tempest Red was a coded message; one of many used by Agency personnel when talking on unsecured phone lines. 
Tempest
 was the code word for CIA field operatives, while in broad terms 
red
 meant ‘murdered, killed or otherwise taken down’.

‘Go on,’ she prompted, sitting up a little straighter.

‘One of our field teams was sent on a high-priority recovery op late last night,’ Argento explained. ‘They didn’t report in as scheduled. You can guess the rest.’

Indeed she could. What she couldn’t yet comprehend was how three highly trained field operatives could have been taken down, particularly in a friendly country like the UK. Was it some kind of Al-Qaeda hit, or even the IRA taking a pop at them? Whatever, she knew she wasn’t going to get answers on an open line like this.

‘Okay,’ she acknowledged, reaching for the glass of Alka-Seltzer and forcing herself to swallow a mouthful. ‘What do you need from me?’

‘It pains me to say this, but we could use your help down here,’ Argento admitted. ‘We need everyone with field experience running the scene.’

All thoughts of sleep were forgotten – Mitchell’s mind was firmly in work mode now, hangover notwithstanding. She might not have been part of the Langley club, but even she recognized how critical the deaths of Agency field operatives were.

‘All right, I’m on my way.’ She closed down the phone without waiting for Argento’s response. She would get the location of the crime scene and other details from her superiors, who were almost certainly all over this by now.

‘Rise and fucking shine, campers,’ she mumbled, downing the remainder of the Alka-Seltzer and throwing the bed covers aside before making her way to her dormitory’s cramped shower room.

As she stripped off and waited for the water to heat up, she surveyed her reflection in the mirror with a critical eye. Mitchell was a couple of years shy of forty, and although she was still in good shape as far as it went, a combination of late nights, early mornings and liberal doses of alcohol were taking their toll. Her eyes were outlined by dark rings of fatigue, her face drawn and pale, her mouth, eyes and forehead marked by faint worry lines that hadn’t been there a few years ago.

On second thoughts, she reached out and turned the temperature control all the way to minimum. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself beneath the frigid jet of water, letting out a pained gasp as it stung her skin and chilled her all the way to the core. Still, it did the trick. Whatever remaining fog still lingered over her mind, it was well and truly gone now.

Murder before breakfast, she thought, as the water sluiced down around her. What a hell of a start to her day.