Adrian Magson - Retribution

Seconds later, he was holding a sheaf of money in his hand.

He sat up. Light was filtering through the wrecked building, and with it the buzz of traffic. It was morning. He’d noticed the place the previous night, seeing a drunk slipping through a gap in some wood fencing around a development site. Beyond the fence the building rose high in the night sky, the window apertures empty of glass, with long, plastic rubbish tubes hanging from the gaps like the intestines of a gutted sheep. Cautiously, he’d eased through the gap in the fence.

The drunk had disappeared, muttering and cursing, unaware of Kassim’s presence. A sharp, feral smell of sweat mixed with alcohol drifted back to Kassim’s nose, unpleasant and alien.

Kassim had been so intent on not tripping, he’d missed the second man. There was a sudden movement in the dark, and he’d felt an arm wrap itself around his face. The pungent smell made his stomach heave. He was slammed against a wall, his face digging into the plaster and his ribs burning with pain.

‘No pass !’ a voice had grated in his ear, a spray of spit against his skin. ‘You ain’t got no fucking pass , you don’t come in without no fee !’

Kassim had tried to heave the man around, but it was like trying to move a tree. In the background another voice, distant and higher up, wanted to know what was happening.

‘Gotta intruder,’ the man breathed, voice barely loud enough to be heard, as though wanting to keep his find to himself. ‘Got a silent, tiptoeing intruder wants to take our rights away. Think I’ll kill the sumbitch ’n take his rights, instead.’ There was a snick of metal and the man giggled, high-pitched and unnatural.

Kassim pushed against the wall, the muscles of his back contracting at the thought of the knife and furious at the idea of being stopped in his task, not by the police or the UN, but by one of New York’s dispossessed.

‘The fuck’s goin’ on down there?’ someone yelled, and a bottle exploded nearby, showering them with splinters. ‘Izzat you, Tuck — you fuck?’

The man behind Kassim hesitated. It was enough. Kassim heaved himself backwards, slamming his head into the man’s face, feeling bone and cartilage crumble. A grunt of pain and something metallic clinked on the floor in the darkness.

‘Tuck? Fuck you doin’, man?’

Kassim turned. Angry and in pain, he yanked the man towards him, no longer capable of stopping even had he wanted to. The man tried to pull away, sensing Kassim’s greater fury and strength. But it was too late. Kassim spun him round and took his head in his hands, feeling long greasy hair and an unshaven jaw. Wrapping his fingers in the man’s hair, he gave a ferocious jerk and heard a crunch as his neck snapped.

A scrape on the stairs warned him of more danger. Kassim turned and moved deeper into the building, searching for a hole in which to hide.

He found another stairwell, and a door leading out to a bare patch of ground. It was an escape route. He settled down just inside the doorway, exhausted, pulling sheets of cardboard packaging around him. It was enough to keep him dry. Within seconds he was asleep.

Now it was time to move. With daylight, the area might be flooded with police, searching every available inch of space. He had no idea how the New York police would react to the death of a soldier, but he had to assume the worst.

He had to leave.

He moved out of the building, picking his way carefully through the debris and builders’ rubble, not pausing to look back. He walked until he saw a coffee bar with computers on tables around the room. It was an internet cafe. In the back was a washroom. It wasn’t open yet but a couple of skinny youths were slouched outside, waiting for a fix of their favourite narcotic.

Kassim joined them. He needed the tickets and documents for the next two stages of his journey. He knew he could call on Remzi in person or phone him, but it was safer to use email. He would pick them up at a prearranged point away from the agency, since he didn’t trust the man to have kept himself secure. Then he would be on his way.

Harry was at Newark, about to board a military flight for Columbus, Georgia, when his phone rang. It was Deane.

‘The police have confirmed the identity of the dead man: it’s Carvalho, the US Marine who was riding shotgun on convoys.’

‘What was he doing in New York?’

‘Attending a friend’s wedding and staying at an apartment on the Lower East Side. Early estimates say he was stabbed sometime last night. The scene-of-crime officer thinks it was some sort of shank. He’d also got the letters “UN” cut into his chest.’

A shank: a rough stabbing instrument with a sharpened point. The killer seemed to favour cold steel. Was that to ensure a silent kill or did it show a sadistic touch?

‘It’s the same man.’

‘Right. Forensics is still going over the scene and we’ll have copies of their report later, but they said the place was bust up, like after a fight. An ex-grunt down at the local precinct had served tours with the UN in Nicaragua. He saw the detail of the mutilation and figured we’d like a heads-up.’

‘I thought Carvalho went to Pristina with the convoy? Why would the killer target him?’

‘Maybe he switched duties with one of the others. No way of knowing. Whoever is doing this is going through the names he’s been fed by Demescu. He’s not stopping to ask where they were on the night — he’s taking them all out.’

‘You’d better warn the other guard in the UK,’ suggested Harry. ‘Just in case.’

‘Don’t worry, it’s being taken care of.’

‘Anything else?’

‘A local Vietnamese shopkeeper told them a man had been watching the place earlier. Thin, he said, dark-eyed but not black. . and foreign.’

‘What made him say that?’

‘He said he looked too fit, unlike most Americans. One minute he was there, the next he’d disappeared. He thought he heard some noise coming from upstairs, but that’s not unusual in the area.’

Harry felt things were getting out of hand. He wondered how the killer had known of Carvalho’s movements. He soon got his answer.

‘As soon as you left we re-checked Demescu’s audit trail. In the last couple of days she made a point of accessing various military files, checking the whereabouts of the men on the list still serving. She was looking for changes of detail, postings, troop movements — anything that affected their locations. The only one relevant was the US Marine Corps database with details of Carvalho’s leave application. She did it minutes before she left, the same time she picked up on your assignment to the UN. I’m sorry, Harry, that was my fault: I’ve kept this quiet for the most part, but I had to make a record of your involvement with the UN to back up the firearms licence and the ID card. Demescu used a search engine to pull up your name. She’ll have seen the notes I made.’

The idea that whoever was behind Demescu and the killer now knew where he was gave Harry an uncomfortable feeling between the shoulder blades. He was accustomed to working in the shadows, not having his location on display like a fridge magnet. ‘What about Demescu?’ he asked. ‘Anything on her yet?’

‘We’re still looking. I don’t think we’ll see her again. She’s probably out of the country by now.’

‘Whoever was using her,’ said Harry, ‘must have thought burning an asset like that was worth it.’

‘Unless she was being coerced. We don’t know what her family situation is like back home. I’ve got people looking into that. If she thought she was going to be dropped once she completed her work, getting out while she still could would have been the better option.’