Deception (23 page)

Zubac nudged Ganic's knee under the table, and the taller man shrugged and sat back with a muttered, ‘Very well.'

‘What do you want them for?' asked Soran, eyes switching back to Zubac.

‘Surveillance work,' Zubac replied. ‘That is all. Watch and report on a target  . . . on who comes, who goes, what she does. We will pay well for their time.'

‘She? You want them to watch a woman?' Such an idea, Soran's question implied, was both beneath them and could lead to trouble, in spite of the money offered. A man could only get so close to a woman for so long before someone noticed – usually the woman herself, if she had her wits about her.

‘Yes. Why? Is that a problem?' Zubac spoke firmly but without heat. He knew that Soran was probably looking for any reason he could find to raise the fee. Having a difficult, even well-known target would make any surveillance all the more complex to carry out.

‘You tell me.'

There was silence, lengthening as wary looks were exchanged between Soran and his two men. Then Zubac added carefully, ‘She is nobody of importance, I give you my word. Simply a connection in a chain.' He rolled a finger through the air as if winding in a length of string. ‘Watch her and we find the person we want.' He smiled and lifted his chin. ‘Is that acceptable?'

Soran nodded. He wasn't about to turn away valuable business. The young men, Antun and Davud, said nothing, their opinions not required. ‘You have a name and address for this woman?'

Zubac took a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and slid it across the table. Soran picked it up and opened it. The paper had a small photo clipped to one corner. He read the details written down, his lips moving slowly, then slapped the piece of paper and photo down in front of the man named Davud.

‘It is agreed.' He smiled as if he had signed an international treaty, and poured more juice. This time he included his cousin's sons, who raised their glasses and drank in turn. ‘They will go immediately and watch and report on this woman of no importance,' he said, eyes glinting with dry humour. ‘In the meantime, you can sleep if you wish. I have made arrangements.' He jerked his head at the two young men and they got up and left the store without a word. Then he looked again at the paper and said, ‘This woman named –' he tilted his head to one side, curling his tongue with difficulty around the words – ‘Jean Fleming, a seller of flowers.'

FORTY-ONE

S
ix thirty next morning, and Harry found sleep elusive. It was too early to call Fort Knox, so he ran through Paulton's details on the data stick. He came up for air at one point and phoned Rik to see how he was progressing with his search for Vanessa Tan.

‘Nothing yet,' said Rik. ‘But it doesn't mean there isn't something out there.' There was the sound of key taps in the background, then, ‘Point is, we're not the only ones looking.'

Harry gripped the phone. ‘Explain.'

‘I put a couple of mates on to it  . . . told them it was a simple trace for an insurance job. More hands make light work, that sort of thing.'

‘And?'

‘They both came back with the same message. They'd bumped into other searches for the same name. Queries left on forums, the name Tan fed into search engines to see what came up – pretty much what I've been doing. There was even a back-door search made through an airline database, but it bombed out when the searcher tripped an alarm.'

The Protectory.

This had turned into a race. ‘What's your best guess?'

‘If we haven't found anything so far, it means she went off the grid as soon as she ran. In fact  . . .' He paused. More taps on the keyboard.

‘What?' Harry fought to remain patient. Rik often mused aloud as he typed, as if using his fingers to drive his thought processes. In Harry's experience, it was best to let him mumble away, but this was getting urgent.

‘To have disappeared so completely, she'd have needed to stop leaving a trail way before that. But there's nothing.'

‘How do you mean, nothing?'

‘You sure you want to hear this?'

‘Can you hear my hand coming down the line?'

‘It's like she never existed.'

Harry was stumped. Not even the dead vanish so completely that they don't leave some trace behind. Unless  . . .

‘Could someone have erased her back-trail, or whatever you call it?'

‘History. I don't know. I've heard whispers about a programme that can do it, developed by webmasters working for the National Security Agency. They'd certainly have the budget and the means to carry it out, but it would be a hell of a task. If it's true, though, it would be like a giant search engine which simply gobbles up any mention of the target name and wipes it off the records. There one second, gone the next. The main problem is, if they weren't very careful, it would wipe out all other Tans, too. But I know that hasn't happened.'

‘How?'

‘Easy. I fed the name into Google. If I told you how many hits it got, your head would explode. The main question is, even if they've managed to wipe out her individual history, why go to those extremes for one junior officer? What are they trying to hide?'

Another answer Harry didn't have. But they couldn't give up now, especially with the Protectory out there, too. ‘Keep looking.'

‘Sure. How deep do you want me to go?' The question was casual, but the tone of voice wasn't. Rik was getting impatient, both with not being able to turn up something useful and being cooped up nursing his shoulder. As Harry knew well, when that happened, he was in danger of letting his fingers do the walking into areas best left alone – the very thing that had got him assigned out of MI5 in the first place.

‘You know the answer to that,' he said neutrally. Rik possessed skills that could save a lot of time and legwork. Preventing him using those skills for what could be a global search seemed a chronic waste of talent. But if he took care, what could be the harm? ‘Can you use a  . . . what is it called – a proxy?'

The smile was evident in Rik's voice. ‘Oh, dude,' he drawled, ‘you're so beyond ancient it's like  . . . prehistory. Fortunately, I know what you mean. I'll get back to you.'

Harry switched off the phone and went back to studying the file on Paulton. It amounted to precious little, and nothing to get his teeth into. The official records had been pared down to the bare minimum, large chunks of text having no doubt been black-lined at source to conceal sensitive information. What was left contained no personal clues to the man behind the name – or names, in Paulton's case – giving only a skeleton of facts from a life spent on the move, serving in various locations including Northern Ireland, the US, Afghanistan and Colombia – the last two on attachment with the Drug Enforcement Administration, waging war on the Cartels and other traffickers – and with many gaps in the narrative which Harry translated as working undercover, and therefore classified for all eternity. It seemed ironic to him that a man like Paulton, who had been running an illegal operation that broke all the rules of the Security Service, should now be protected by the official protocol he had so clearly despised.

But railing against it would do no good; he had to work with what he had. And that, he was forced to conclude after reading and re-reading the files, was next to nothing. Paulton had turned out to have been a master of security, even among his peers. A list of fellow MI5 officers was attached, all of whom had been interviewed. Their names were blanked out, but their comments confirmed what Harry already knew: that George Henry Paulton had lived and worked among them, yet had remained an unknown quantity, even within an organization that prided itself on its sense of family, of shared ideals and goals. Paulton had been the odd fish, with no leads, no handy family connections to be pressured, no habits which might betray him and reveal his location, no long-term friends. He had been a true everyman, colourless, self-effacing, leaving no trace and nothing in his wake.

Harry stared at the wall with a mild sense of frustration. There was only one thing for it: if he couldn't get to Tan and ultimately to Paulton, he would have to wait for Paulton to come to him.

Seconds later, his phone rang.

‘Harry?' It was Jean.

Her voice brought an instant feeling of disquiet. ‘Hi, you. What is it?'

‘Umm  . . . I don't want to ask silly questions,' she said carefully, ‘but  . . . are you having me followed?'

FORTY-TWO

H
arry felt his gut go cold. Vetting of families and friends when working for the security and intelligence services was an occupational hazard you lived with. Having strangers delving into every aspect of your life and background wasn't pleasant, but it was part of the job and something you learned to live with. But why would Five or Six choose to take an interest in Jean now, of all times?

‘Why do you ask?'

‘I couldn't sleep last night, and got up for a drink. When I glanced out of the window I saw two men sitting in a van just along the street. They were still there this morning, although they'd changed position slightly.'

‘They're probably watching someone else.' Even as he said it, instinct told him it wasn't likely. London was a huge city, and no doubt there were plenty of individuals currently under a twenty-four-hour watch by the authorities and private security companies all over the metropolitan area. Yet why should Jean be one of them? And any official surveillance would be a lot more discreet.

It could only mean one thing: the Protectory.

‘It feels a lot more personal to me,' said Jean. ‘After Michael was killed and journalists hung around hoping for a story, I got into the habit of checking the street. I still do it.'

‘What do they look like?' He had to remain calm, to avoid feeding any sense of concern through to Jean. She had been through the mill after her husband, Michael, had died in Iraq, with a small media buzz surrounding her for what seemed like weeks. This would certainly have reminded her of those times.

‘Young, mid-twenties. Short haircuts but not military. Mediterranean types, wearing blouson jackets and jeans. They're sitting in a red VW van – I'm not sure of the model. Are they from Thames House?' Jean knew enough about Harry's work to venture a reasonable guess at where any security related interest might originate.

‘I'll get it checked.' He knew it would be waste of time, even though the descriptions didn't match Zubac or Ganic. These two were too young. He guessed the two Bosnians were keeping a low profile at the moment after the attack on the police station. But how difficult would it be to get two men – probably fellow countrymen – to do some basic legwork for them? They wouldn't need specific skills apart from patience, the ability to keep their eyes open and a healthy fear of failing.

Unless they had been given specific orders to do something else.

‘Can you stay where you are for a while?' He hoped he sounded casual. ‘I'll come round.'

‘OK. I'll ring Felicity and tell her I'll be in later. Is this dangerous?' She came across as amazingly calm, and Harry wished he was with her right now.

‘I doubt it. They're probably looking for someone else.'

He rang off and went to a locked drawer inside a cupboard, and took out the VP70 semi-automatic and inserted the magazine. Then he rang Rik.

‘You need some fresh air,' he said. ‘And I need your help. Bring the Heckler. I'll pick you up.'

Rik knew by his tone not to question it. ‘I'm ready.'

As Harry drove fast towards Rik's flat in Paddington, he realized that he had got precisely what he'd wanted: the undiluted attention of the Protectory. Except that instead of watching him, they had latched on to Jean. The one weak link in his background. And there was only one person he could think of who could have told them about that.

Paulton
.

FORTY-THREE

T
he door of Jean's flat swung open with a faint puff of sound on the carpet.

Harry breathed in the familiar smells of her perfume and felt his stomach turn to ice.

This door shouldn't be open.

He'd come in through the back entrance to the block, avoiding the street where the two watchers were sitting in a red VW Kombi. Rik had stayed in a side street nearby, keeping an eye on them while Harry came in to check on Jean.

He stepped across the threshold, nerves humming with anticipation. If anyone was waiting for him, they would not be able to conceal their presence completely. A scrape of fabric, an unguarded intake of breath, something would always give them away.

There was nothing.

He moved along the hallway. No furniture out of place, no signs of a struggle, no debris  . . . or worse.

He checked each room, leading with the gun. Each space was empty save for a lingering trace of Jean's presence, tantalizing and almost painful. Where the hell had she got to?

He made his way back to the front door of the flat, beginning to feel a desperate sense of panic. Surely they couldn't have—?

‘Harry?' Rik's voice was a soft murmur coming from the mobile in Harry's top pocket. He tapped the mobile twice in response.
Go ahead.

‘The two guys are still in the VW van. You OK?'

Harry breathed out and lowered the gun. ‘She's not here,' he said. ‘Her door was open. Can you see inside the van?'

‘Shit. Give me two  . . . I'll do a walk by.'

He heard the sound of breathing and the rub of cloth as Rik moved out into the main street, then an increase in traffic noise. Ten seconds, twenty seconds; he was beginning to get impatient and on the point of going down when Rik spoke.

‘Two young guys trying to look hard. They look half asleep to me. Definitely a surveillance job. Can't see inside the back, though. What do you want me to do?'