“Mainly firearms, relevant communications protocols, and some advanced unarmed combat techniques. Mercury already has considerable fighting skill and excellent hand-eye coordination. Someone has also trained him, fairly recently, in the basics of subterfuge? Someone from the industry, or so Deuce reckons?”
“Very interesting,” Charles replied impassively, ignoring his subordinate’s attempt at fishing. “Has he... selected a cover name?”
“Yes, sir,” Greere ventured. “Deuce is annoyed by it, but it will do. He insisted he wanted to keep with his given name, Nicholas, but has chosen a translation of his family surname.”
“Interesting,” repeated Sentinel as he sat, staring out sightlessly into the beginnings of another dreary late-winter evening. “How very interesting... Anything new on the targets?”
“Nothing since the ‘Icarus’ message to the younger Ebrahimi’s cellphone, but we did a quick check and the brother is now in Central Europe: Romania to be precise.”
“No trace on the ‘Icarus’ call?”
“No. But we suspect it also came from that general area.”
~~~~~
Constanta
Two men watched from the shadows as Sergei Ebrahimi approached. He was making his way along the sea wall. A biting wind continued to cut in from the ocean, as it had endlessly done for the last few weeks. The young man was being buffeted by it, particularly as his bulky rucksack was acting like a weathervane strapped to his back.
Ebrahimi stopped. Even from a distance, his face looked tired and drawn above his bushy dark brown beard. They watched as he turned seawards, apparently watching the waves. They knew that he was actually, carefully, surveying his surroundings.
“You see,” muttered one of them. “The youngster is being cautious.”
The taller man merely grunted in halfhearted acknowledgement. “He looks like he’s been sleeping rough. I’m amazed he made it past the borders.”
~~~~~
Sergei leaned against the white-painted iron railings, ignoring the bitter brine-laden spray that felt like ice crystals as it battered his cheeks and forehead. Glancing to his left, the ornate cubes of the Cazinoul building stood deserted. A long portico on the leeward side, toward the land, might conceal watchers, but there was no way to know from here.
He looked at his watch: ten fifty-six. He had a few minutes yet.
He heaved the heavy pack off his back and stooped next to it as if rummaging for something inside. Meanwhile he studied the long arching pathway, back toward the docks. The route he had just walked along.
No-one.
Not a soul.
Perhaps not surprising given the bitter weather?
For a second he felt glad it was still winter. In summer it would have been impossible to tell if he was being followed.
He rubbed a gloved hand against his itching bristles. He hoped the others would be here. He was desperate for a good bath and shave. He knew he stank like a medieval cesspit. His journey had consisted predominantly of sleeping rough, in perpetual fear of arrest or sudden execution, constantly worrying about his younger brother, endlessly on the watch for hostile pursuers. His last decent wash and half decent night’s sleep had been before the crossing into Romania. At each border he had done the same thing: used the luxury of one night in a cheap rundown hotel for a swift metamorphosis from ragged beggar to penniless backpacking student.
The backpacker had never had a problem at the crossings. The one time his bag had been searched, the officers had abandoned the task when they reached an encrusted layer of filthy underwear, sitting just below the half-dozen random textbooks he’d collected, for show, from a secondhand shop in Germany.
There was nothing incriminating in the backpack anyway. Despite being uncomfortable about getting rid of it, he’d dumped his rusty old service revolver back in Poland.
Murat would no doubt be angry, but better that than getting caught with it.
For defence he had kept a twenty-centimetre hunting knife that he’d bought from the fishermen in the Baltic. It had a hefty, half-serrated, blade which had proven invaluable for cutting twigs for fires, and gutting rabbits and fish, as he’d lived amongst Europe’s hedgerows. But, whilst it was reassuring to have it to hand, he knew it wouldn’t be much use in a fire fight.
He gently eased the weapon out from where it was tucked in one of the bag’s many side pockets, and slipped it out of sight under his coat. Then he stood up, heaved the pack onto one shoulder and headed onward.
Still no-one in sight.
The grandiose building loomed over him. Heavy rain-laden cloud scudded seemingly inches over its rooftop entombing the long colonnaded portico in a mass of dark shadows, so he elected to circumnavigate the seaward exterior first.
Still no-one.
Slowly he crept into the cover of the long stone porch. At least here he was sheltered from the wind...
A sudden loud cough in the nearby shadows made him jump back.
Quickly, he dropped his pack and thrust the hunting knife out in front of him but, from nowhere, a tall man resolved out of the shadows and smashed his defensive arm to the side. The pain from the blow loosened his already frozen wrist and the knife slipped uselessly out of his grasp. It skittered away across the stone.
The bigger man leapt at him and grabbed his throbbing arm, then span him around, mushed his face into the white stone wall, and pinned his arm behind his back in a painful hold.
“Goat-fucker,” the familiar growling hiss was laden with the reek of tobacco. The language was Turkmen.
“Sikand?” he grunted angrily.
“Glad you could finally join us, but
never
pull a weapon on me unless you intend to make good use of it.” Azat Sikand jerked Sergei’s arm further up his back making him wince in pain. “Are you alone?” he hissed into Sergei’s ear.
“No-one is following me,” Sergei rasped into the stonework. “I have been careful. That is why it has taken so long.”
“Enough.” A second voice commanded, and Sergei felt himself being released roughly.
He span around.
Murat Nagpal was standing to one side of his tall colleague, and the man reached down, picked up Sergei’s knife, span it over to catch it by its blade, then offered it, hilt-first, toward him. “Yours, I believe?” he said calmly.
Sergei reached forward and reclaimed his weapon. “Where is Jeyhun?” he asked. “Is he here?”
Nagpal looked at Sikand. “Get the boy’s bag,” he instructed.
Sikand scowled, then begrudgingly obeyed.
“Not yet, my young warrior,” Nagpal continued carefully. “Not yet. Let’s go somewhere we can talk and where you can wash that stench away.”
Budapest, Hungary
Budapest straddles the mighty Danube
River at the crossroads of Europe. It is a dichotic city with a split personality and chequered history. On the west-bank of the river lies Buda, a swathe of lush green hills dominated by its majestic castle. On the east-bank lies Pest, a bright and bustling metropolis of modern finance and retail. The city has been overrun time and again throughout its often bloody history; everyone from Mongol hordes to Nazi Stormtroopers have taken bites out of it but nowadays, thankfully, the tramp of massed armies has been displaced by the constructive forces of capitalism, tourism and the film industry. I’ve lost count of how many action movies I’ve seen crisscrossing these mighty landmark bridges and, if I’m honest, it feels a bit like a fiction for me to be here now, looking at them in person.
Deuce leads me along a wide promenade on the Pest side of the river. Walking these cobbles appears to be a popular evening pastime for Hungarians, tourists and prostitutes alike. The bright and welcoming plate-glass windows of a large hotel frame him as a dark silhouette alongside me. ‘Dark and perpetually irritable,’ I think to myself. To my left, the wide gunmetal waters of the river drift past, in the opposite direction to us, as they meander slowly toward Belgrade and eventually the Black Sea. Beyond them, the castle commands the distant bank, shining like a bright honey-yellow beacon in the darkness.
“What do you see?” asks Deuce.
“Any number of hookers,” I reply, though I do know what he’s really asking about. “Even you might get lucky...”
“Moron,” he growls.
I continue quickly. “Six up, two to the right.” Despite how satisfying it feels to wind him up, I don’t want to risk irritating him too much. I am too far away from my comfort zone and can’t be certain he won’t turn on me, now we’re out of the UK. “Heading in our direction. Long black coat: might be carrying. Hard to tell from here. Two male teenagers by the balustrade. Trying to look casual but paying too much attention to the men
and
women. Might be thieves, or pickpockets, or dealing.” I continue to promenade, seemingly disinterested, making no gestures and using my peripheral vision like he’s been teaching me. “Bloke in a suit, approaching. With a woman. Very dressed up.”
“They’re nobodies,” he mutters as if to himself.
“Agreed. But he should get her to pick his ties for him. That one’s a disgrace.”
Deuce snorts. “Not bad for a fuck-wit,” he says dispassionately. “Black coat is definitely carrying.”
The man in question is more than fifty metres in front of us, walking more quickly. He had overtaken us earlier. Whilst he was closer, I’d seen that the heavy wool of his coat was falling awkwardly around some large obstruction on his left hand side. “Sawn-off?” I ask.
“Probably,” says Deuce.
“Agency or Police?”
“Neither,” he says. “Too unprofessional. Just a common or garden hood. This way.” He heads off to our right, away from the river, and into the surrounding streets.
“Where are we going?”
He glances at me slyly. “To meet your new best buddy,” he says. “I’m already sick of you.”
I huff but am content to return to silence. I can feel the effects of my earlier monologue on my still tender vocal cords. Short sentences and few words remain my preferred communication style, although they seem only to add weight to Deuce’s conviction that I am mentally retarded.
We make our way through the more busy and brightly lit shopping streets which, other than for the strange language on the signs, and obscure European fashions in the windows, look as familiar as any British town centre. Then we head off into narrower, and more dimly lit, side streets until, eventually, we reach a small backstreet bar.
Deuce pauses with his hand on the door. “Wait here,” he says.
“Why?”
He leans toward me. “’Coz I fucking said so. That’s why,” he growls. “We’re early. I’m going in to see that everything’s cool. You wait here and keep your stupid gob shut,” and with that he vanishes inside.
I roll sideways, away from the doorway and lean up against the wall. The street is full of shadow. Darkened windows, flanked by broken shutters, observe me from ornate, gothic, stonework above me and in front. There are two streetlights working. One near me, and another about a hundred metres away. The building opposite has a recessed doorway, like an inset porch. I decide to move into it. It’ll make me less obvious.
As I cross the road a man emerges, presumably from an unseen alleyway somewhere between me and the more the distant streetlamp. He has long hair pinned down by a black woollen beanie. He is tall, a good few inches taller than me, and carries himself athletically. His heavy tan-coloured jacket does not disguise his muscularity. Boot cut jeans cling tightly to his powerful thighs.
The man wanders toward my position, along the footpath on the other side of the road, and I lean nonchalantly against the inside of the porch-way, keeping my eyes and face discretely angled away from him. I’m glad I crossed over the road. I can feel his stare. I can sense he is looking at me, studying me. I don’t look back. Time crawls into slow motion, and it feels like an eternity until he crosses through my line of vision.
Now the tables are turned, and I can study him. Turns out, there’s much to study.
High cheekbones on a face which might have been chiseled by Michelangelo. Strong jawline running from rugged chin. Good complexion, even under feeble streetlight.
He turns his head. A movement so quick and fluid that I have no time to react and I find myself frozen in the crosshairs of his piercing eyes. Stunning green eyes. With no other option, I return his stare for a moment, and then casually look away up the street behind him. Well, I hope it looks casual. My heart is beating like a hammer in my chest.
He continues along the street.
And when I look around again...
He is gone.
So I return to gazing, a little impatiently, at the featureless black doorway that Deuce has, so far, not reemerged from.
“Got a light?”
The voice, speaking in English, is so close to me that I jerk upright and spin round angrily. The stranger is back; though from where, I do not know.
“Van neked egy láng?” He is gesticulating with a battered-looking cigarette.
I can smell his aftershave, a deep musky scent which betrays not the slightest hint of tobacco smoke. I shake my head mutely and look away. Perhaps if I ignore him he’ll move on? Strange that he doesn’t smell like a smoker? Stranger still that he should choose English as his first choice for the question?
“Dohányzás annyira kiment a divatból. Igen?”
It’s obviously a question, but I have no idea how to respond. My hopes, that he’d go away if I ignored him, vanish as I feel the sensation of hard metal being prodded into my side, just below my ribcage. I feel him move closer still. “Not been brushing up on your Hungarian?” he asks coolly. “Very lax of you.”
I glance down and can see he’s pressing a matt-grey handgun against me. It seems that all of my recent introductions have been conducted over a gun barrel but, for some strange reason, death doesn’t seem to be hovering anywhere nearby. I am, in fact, feeling distinctly unexcited, despite the obvious threat. Maybe I can change that?
“Use it or put it away,” I grunt.
He looks at me calmly for a second or two, then says, “Deuce is inside.”
I nod once, carefully.
“It wasn’t a question. I know he is. I saw you arrive.”
I stare unblinkingly into his compelling eyes. Even in this poor light they look like two forest-dappled splashes of warm summer sunlight and somehow I can sense that he’s not a threat. “Tin?” I grunt.
“That’s me,” he says almost jovially. “Shall we join the miserable shit?” He nods toward the doorway. “Though I fucking hate this bar. It’s a tiny shit-hole of a joint. Maybe we should go somewhere else and leave him to it?”
I smile at the thought. “Nice idea, but he said to wait.”
Tin laughed. “He always does,” he says, holstering his weapon under his jacket and heading toward the doorway. “Come on.”
I follow him over the road and in through the battered black portal to find myself in an equally battered black room. Tin had been right. The place was tiny.
Along the opposite wall runs a squat counter backed by grimy mirrors and an eclectic collection of bottles and optics. A string of small round lamp shades hang down along its length. Some of them even appear to have working bulbs inside. A bartender sits at one end flicking through a newspaper. He doesn’t even look up at us.
A handful of tables and stools or chairs fill the intervening space. Along the far wall, facing the door, where an already low ceiling steps down yet further, three small bays have been built by some dim and distant, probably long expired, proprietor. They each contain their own assorted tableware and are segregated from each other by oddly ornate wooden panelling. In the first of these cubicles, directly opposite us, Deuce casually observes our entrance through the bottom of his almost drained pint glass.
He’s the only other person in the room.
Tin nods at him and is rewarded by Deuce waggling his empty glass in our direction. My new partner’s shoulders rise and sag under an obvious sigh before he turns to me. “Pint?” he asks sullenly.
“Might as well,” I shrug.
“Any preference?”
My preference would be a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. I can’t remember the last time I had a pint. “You choose,” I reply and head to Deuce’s niche, where I drag one of the battered old stools out from under the table and plant myself down. The stool barely looks strong enough to bear my weight and it flexes ominously underneath me. “So, everything’s cool in here then, is it?” I rumble.
Deuce sits back, propping his almost-comfortable looking wooden chair onto the wall behind him and puts his hands behind his head. “Yep,” he replies, grinning to himself at his obvious superiority.
“You just wanted to jerk me about, right?”
“Yep,” he says.
Tin leans across between us and deposits three almost-clean glasses filled with amber lager onto the tabletop.
“I see you’ve already met
Vital
,” says Deuce, to me.
“It’s Vittalle,” says Tin, coldly, as he drags a second stool out and plants himself astride of it. He pronounces it ‘Vit-aah-lay’ in three deliberately discrete sections.
“And I see you’ve met the fuck-wit,” says Deuce, to him.
Tin glances up somewhat uncomfortably at the low ceiling, then reaches out for one of the pint glasses. “Where are they?” he asks, then takes a hefty swig of beer.
I mirror his actions as best I can, but drink much less.
Deuce drags the third glass closer to him. “South of here.”
“In Hungary?” asks Tin.
Deuce shakes his head before drinking.
“The tags?”
Deuce lowers his glass, eventually. “Working. Looks like somehow you managed to do something right.”
Tin glowers at him.
Deuce continues, “You take Mercury to Göd. Mercury is greener than your poncey eyeballs so, despite the fact that you’re a fucking useless shit yourself, you have to train him up. Use the time you have wisely. You might not have long.” Deuce lifted the half-full beer glass and commenced draining it.
Tin snatches up his own beer and continues to stare angrily at the older man, through its base, as he drinks. I watch in mild bemusement, as the slopping amber watermarks lower rapidly in both receptacles.
Deuce finishes first and slams his glass down in front of him as he stands. “We will contact you,” he says simply, then pushes his way past me and goes out of the door.
That’s it then? My future will be determined by this guy. A complete stranger, in a foreign land. Somehow, he’s going to prepare me for the kind of violent action I have always, until recently, detested...?
This thought, for some reason, makes me smile.
“Are you going to sit there and let that fucking evaporate?” my new partner growls.
I pick up my glass and start drinking.
~~~~~
Constanta
“Nothing.” Murat Nagpal sat back from the laptop.
Sikand shook his head angrily, “How much longer?” Murat knew Azat had never been one for patience, for planning, for care.
“My brother will come,” a clean-shaven and much recovered Sergei Ebrahimi muttered across the small internet cafe’s grimy table.
Nagpal wasn’t so sure but this wasn’t the best place or time for speculating. “There is no indication that anything has befallen him. We have been static, and undisturbed, in this location for some time. The stupid infidels do not know where we are. They have lost us.
“We are reasonably comfortable here. Frustrating though it might be, we will wait for our comrade to rejoin us. One more week, then we’ll review.”
“He will come,” Sergei insisted.
Azat glared at the younger man and Murat knew what that look meant. He’d seen it before. He needed to find something to keep his soldier busy, and he needed to find it soon. Otherwise, he suspected, he’d likely wake up one morning and find his resources even more depleted.
If the younger Ebrahimi was gone, then he could ill afford to lose the older one as well.
~~~~~
‘The Barn’, near Göd, Hungary
Jack slammed his magazine home and raised the fully reassembled Browning toward Nick. But Nick was already facing him, standing in a perfect firing position: side on, gun extended toward Jack’s face, the other hand steadying his forearm. “Nice,” he said, and lowered his own weapon.
Nick had elected, from the wide cache of weapons available, to train using an L9A1 Browning, the same choice as Jack, and he had enjoyed watching his new comrade learning, the hard way, to avoid getting his hand bitten by its hammer. Jack knew there was another military-spec one in the cache, whose burr hammer would be less prone to nibbling viciously at the flap of flesh between thumb and forefinger. Given today’s impressive display of disassembly and reassembly, he’d root it out for him. It’d have a lighter trigger pull too.