“Yes, sir,” Ellard turned back to his terminal, frowning at the rebuke.
“Anything else?”
“No, sir,” Ellard replied curtly.
Greere stared at the distant wall. “It’s a shame we lost that second bug. Perhaps we should have trusted Tin with more than just one of the expensive ones?”
Ellard shook his head. “That fuck-wit was lucky to plant what he did. He’s not even as clever as the semi-smart ones he stuck in Ebrahimi’s bag and coat. Do you want me to activate the last one and try to get a fix on where Nagpal and Ebrahimi might be?”
Greere looked across at him, and reached up with one hand to imperiously push his slick black parting back into place. “No. I have discussed this matter at length with
Sentinel
. His view remains that we shouldn’t risk activating the last one for a while. He says it’ll either be there or not. We’re keeping the political pressure on Turkmenistan to make sure the terrorists remain unwelcome there and surprisingly, for all their more usual procrastinations and avoidance activities, the Turkmen are complying very comprehensively. Especially toward the targets’ immediate families.
“Nagpal and his only remaining cell-member can’t risk going home so it’s almost certain that they’ll stick together for a while. Sentinel says there’s no point activating the beacon and risking losing it before we find out where Tin and Mercury are.
“Unless... of course, you’d like to go and get
your
hands properly dirty again...?” Greere raised his little caterpillar eyebrows over the partition.
Ellard privately agreed with Sentinel’s assessment, but he also didn’t like the inferences that this little worm of a man was making. Greere might be his superior but Ellard had a career history that made Greere’s look like he’d been a fucking wet-nurse all his life. Ellard’s hands had already been very dirty indeed. “I’m hearing a lot of what
Sentinel
thinks...,” he ventured tauntingly, and was pleased to see his superiors eyebrows clenching above his little pug nose.
Greere turned to his terminal and started typing. “I think he’s right
for once
,” he said to his keyboard. “Deuce?”
“Yes, sir.” Ellard decided he’d better play things a bit more respectfully for a while. His secret stash wasn’t quite big enough to risk falling out with his boss.
“I’m feeling thirsty... Fancy a coffee?”
His boss going for coffee? Surprised at this unexpected offer, Ellard inched his head up slightly so he could see over the partition. “Sounds good,” he replied carefully.
Greere glanced across at him. “Good. I’ll have an extra shot latte with three sugars,” he snapped. “And get a fucking move on.”
~~~~~
Skala Kallonis
He has a moped here; a beaten up, ancient, old scooter. It’s nothing at all like the thoroughbred racing machine we straddled whilst we were catapulting ourselves around Budapest.
For the last few days we’ve taken to riding it down to the sea.
It’s not far.
As usual, he’s jabbering away in front of me and pointing out all sorts of growing, creeping or flying creatures and fauna. His voice is soothing to listen to. Then a kamikaze fly finds its way into his always-open gob and suddenly he’s swearing, coughing and spitting the rogue beast out to one side in a stream of bug-riddled phlegm.
I try not to laugh, but can’t contain it.
He can feel me shuddering behind him as I fight my mirth-driven convulsions, and this triggers another cursive tirade, and another captured fly, and another seriously meaty globule flying past my ear, and now he’s laughing as well and the bike is weaving from side to side across the dusty trackway...
We continue down the hill and the track dwindles rapidly into a narrow pathway. Jack steers us, with confident familiarity, between the crowding undergrowth and shrubs, along this strip of battered weeds. The pathway is, at times, inches wide. A barely passable trail trampled flat by this bike and perhaps the occasional meandering predator or goat. It leads us down to a small and pleasant, completely isolated crescent of deserted beach – part gravel and then soft sand – which spreads, gently shelving, into the almost flat-calm waters of the bay. The waters, I know, are crystal-clear and packed full of hermit crabs, shrimp, tiny fish, urchins and the occasional baby jellyfish.
Bursting from the undergrowth, and out onto the edge of this oasis, Jack quickly parks the bike. Then we leap off, tear off and toss aside our already scant clothing, and race each other down into the cool waters...
Well, he races, buttocks pumping like pistons in front of me, and I half-stagger along behind him enjoying the view.
“YEAH!” he roars, thrusting both hands into the air like he’s won the one hundred metre sprint finals. “Winner!” he spins around, pointing vigorously at his sea-spray glistened chest. “Loser!” both of his arms extend, hands held in ‘L’ shapes, toward me.
Then he spins on the spot and dives headlong into the cool refreshing waters.
He can be so childish sometimes.
~~~~~
The Caspian Sea
Sergei tugged industriously on the nets as he hauled their heavy burden on board. He could feel the strain of recent, regular exercise across his chest and biceps.
“You should join us,” the fishing boat captain shouted across to him in Russian. He was a tall man; wildly raven-haired and heavily bearded. “I won’t keep asking you. Men who know how to work the nets are hard to find.”
Sergei huffed modestly. He glanced to where Nagpal was hanging limply over the railings at the back of the rolling ship.
The captain saw his glance. “Lazy, good-for-nothings,” he continued pointedly. “They’re easy to find. Seriously, you should think about it.”
Sergei was thinking about it.
Murat Nagpal had remained highly volatile, ever since they had left Constanta. One second he was entirely lucid and rational, seemingly tolerant of Sergei’s presence. The next he was a ball of pent-up fury, raging and shouting. The younger man was losing count of the amount of times Nagpal had threatened him.
They had taken a ferry across the Black Sea to Anapa, then a rental car across land to Makhachkala, where they had found this fishing vessel preparing for its voyage into the Southern Caspian. Nagpal had offered the captain a substantial cash bonus if he would be prepared to make a short detour. The captain, short of crew, had accepted, providing Sergei could work.
Sergei could work. He’d learned much during his elongated journey across the Baltic and, if he was honest with himself, he was enjoying being part of a ship’s crew again. This was the kind of camaraderie he’d expected as part of the whole ‘Independent Khandastan’ adventure but there had been no feeling of security, confidence or trust when surrounded by thugs and madmen like Hossein, Sikand and Nagpal. He had been a fool. He knew this, and he knew it had cost his brother his life.
Still, the last remaining madman had promised they were going home.
“It will be a long and difficult journey,” Nagpal had said as they strode toward the docks, back in Constanta. “The final chapter of this great and heroic story.”
Sergei hawked up the phlegm, that was rising in his mouth at the memory of his leader’s endless rhetoric, and spat forcefully over the side. Then, pulling the last of the nets clear of the water, he turned back to the captain. “I must go home to see my family first,” he said, thrusting the bundle of dripping hemp down onto the wet decking. “If it’s okay, I will come and find you afterwards,” he added hopefully.
The burly captain stepped close to him, as they readied themselves to tackle the haul of fish, and reached out to put one arm around Sergei’s broad shoulders like a father welcoming home a prodigal son. It was the briefest of masculine contact, and the simplest of hugs, but it spawned the first feeling of happiness that Sergei had felt for months. “I look forward to it, Youngster,” the captain pronounced and, together, they set to work on the catch.
~~~~~
Skala Kallonis
I lounge, enjoying the warm kiss of mid-afternoon spring sunshine, perched almost comfortably on the abandoned tractor tyre that he uses as a beach sofa. He is lying nearby, face down on his towel, with a floppy cloth hat draped over his head, snoring like a badly tuned diesel engine.
The boat is moored off shore. Jack has explained that it was our taxi, and carried us first along the shoreline of the Black Sea, then through the narrow straights straddled by the metropolis of Istanbul, then along the coast of nearby Turkey and then, finally, out to sea for the short hop over to Lesvos itself. It’s not the sturdiest of craft and appears to attract shouts of, what sound to me like, lighthearted derision from the various local fishing boat captains but Jack just smiles, and waves at them, when they call out. Personally, I think he’s quietly relieved it made the journey safely.
The boat clunks lazily against the orange plastic float of its swing mooring. This gentle thumping is the only noise in otherwise blissful silence – if you ignore the squawking of the birds, the splashes of jumping fish, the buzzing insects and the purring of my partner. Its tethers loosely hold it so that it drifts back and forward, not quite restrained, not quite able to meander off into the distance... ‘A bit like me,’ I muse to myself. I am also caught up amongst forces stronger that I truly understand, tethered temporarily to a homespun anchorage, burdened with momentarily latent duty and deigned to fulfil a purpose not of my own volition...
The snoring from beside me ends abruptly with a loud snort, disturbing my meditations, so I glance across to see the floppy hat thrusting itself upwards.
“You feeling up to a trip into the village tonight?” he asks as if he’s never been asleep. “My mates want to know when they’re going to get to meet you.”
I pause for a second before nodding. I’m not sure why, but I feel strangely nervous about it.
~~~~~
London
Greere waited patiently, flicking disinterestedly through a well-thumbed broadsheet, as he sat in one of the large room’s many wing-backed, light-tan, leather armchairs. He was surrounded by dark, polished-oak panelling and musty furniture. Late afternoon sunlight, tinted almost orange by thick leaded glass, streamed diagonally across him as a wide swathe of dusty brightness from two huge swooping bay windows.
“Crispin?”
He looked up casually at the sound of the familiar voice. “Hello Edward,” he said. “I’m glad you could find me a moment in your hectic schedules.”
The other man nodded curtly. He was wearing a smart business suit but Greere could tell he was putting a little weight on. He was also going prematurely grey, around his thinning temples. Probably from the stress of his job.
“Take a seat,” said Greere. “I won’t keep you long.”
The man pulled a second chair closer and sat down carefully. “I haven’t been in here for a long time,” he observed.
“It hasn’t changed,” said Greere. “As an old-boy’s club, it likes to stick to tradition. Like its sponsor, our dearly beloved school, does.”
The man nodded. “What do you want, Crispin?” he asked curtly.
Greere smiled. “History, eh? Hard to leave behind, don’t you think?”
The man’s expression hardened, though Greere could sense he was nervous. “That was all a very long time ago,” the man said coldly.
Greere lounged back comfortably. “Some memories are more engrained than others. Particularly the unpleasant ones....” Greere let his words hang unfinished.
The man looked decidedly uncomfortable. “Is that supposed to be a threat?” he asked, his face hardening even further.
Greere sat forwards quickly. “Not at all!” he insisted, and pretended to laugh lightheartedly. “We both know, only too well, how to keep
secrets
... Don’t we?”
The man relaxed slightly, and forced a small well-practiced smile onto his face. “We do,” he said carefully.
“Like the secrets I’m keeping for you, right now,” Greere continued. “Who would have thought that one of your ‘amusements’, from schooldays, would be helping to clean up a terrible mess?” The man stiffened in front of him. “Would be performing a role of national importance? Just as you, elevated as you are, perform your own national role. Who would have imagined that I would be successfully managing to deliver results, despite the pointless barriers and restrictions levied by my own superiors?”
“I don’t get involved with the Agencies,” the man said. “I won’t. I know you’re involved in one of them, but they’re outside of my jurisdiction.”
“I’m not asking for that.”
“Then what
do
you want, Crispin?”
“Victoria,” Greere replied cryptically. “A little cleanup has been asked for, apparently.”
The man frowned, glancing around to check that no-one was in earshot. “You?” he asked. “Personally?”
Greere nodded. “Me. Personally. But, of course, who will ever know?”
The man shook his head. “That
is
a dangerous task. I’m surprised.”
Greere leaned toward him. “When I deliver, I want you to know it was me. I want you to think about this little chat. I want you to think about our
personal
history. I know that the public, the Agencies, the politicians, they all want the same thing – results. You, your role, your profile – you need the same thing. But what you also need, immediately around you, are people you can trust. Like, for instance, a man who has proven, for decades, that he can deliver and that he can keep silent.” He leaned even further forward. “All I want, is for you to know it was me, and to make sure I’m recognised for my efforts, and for you to help ensure that I’m best placed to continue to
support
you in the future.”
Greere sat back.
The man sat silent for a second, then stood and smoothed his jacket. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said carefully.