Adrian Magson - Retribution

‘Did you get a look at him?’ asked Tate.

‘Regretfully, no,’ Koslov admitted. ‘I was not expecting to have to remember a face so early in the morning. He was tall, thin — very fit, of course — and. .’ He paused. There was something else about the man that disturbed him, but remained stubbornly vague. A memory, perhaps — an impression of someone he knew?

‘And what?’

Koslov shook his head. The impression was gone. Maybe it would come back when he wasn’t thinking about it. ‘Sorry. For a moment I thought there was something.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Tate told him. ‘In the meantime, you’d better get some cover. This man’s good. If he can penetrate a Ranger training base and get within a few feet of you in Moscow, he’s capable of popping up anywhere. I don’t suppose you have an office inside the Kremlin, do you?’

Koslov grinned at the remark but couldn’t help a quick glance at the doorway. He slid open his desk drawer. Inside was a holster and harness containing his service pistol. The SR-1 Vector was an ugly brute of a weapon in his opinion, but it had stopping power. He slid it out and checked the load. He’d better start carrying it from now on.

‘Thank you for the warning. I don’t understand how he could have found me here, though.’

‘He has information on all of us. Someone has hacked into systems in the UN and other databases to track us all down. Yours is no more secure than any others.’

Koslov grunted in agreement. For all their secrecy, the FSB and SVR — the intelligence directorate responsible for espionage outside the country — had both found their computer systems under repeated attack over recent years from foreign intelligence agencies, most latterly the Chinese Ministry of State Security or Guoanbu . But others were just as skilled, and the information was there if hackers knew where to look. ‘You have no clues about the killer from the murder scenes?’

‘Only the knife he used on the sniper trainee. It had some prints, but no matches have come up so far. If he’s from outside the US, he’ll be clean. He’s obviously well trained and resourceful.’

Koslov thought for a second. Helping the Americans was not something he would normally have been anxious to do, but after this morning, the situation was too dangerous — and too personal. He took a deep breath; he would soon find out if his calls were being monitored or not. If they were, he’d hear the footsteps of the internal security men charging along the corridor before he even put the phone down.

‘Can you send me the prints?’ This was dangerous to him personally, opening communications with a member of a foreign security agency.

‘I think I can arrange it,’ Tate answered cautiously. ‘Why?’

‘Well, whatever you may have been told about our electronic systems,’ Koslov replied drily, ‘we have a very good database here in Moscow. It holds many thousands of prints.’

For a moment, Tate said nothing. Then he said, ‘Where do I send them — your old apartment on the third floor, or your office?’

‘My apartment?’ Koslov felt a momentary surprise that Harry knew where he lived when he wasn’t in his official quarters.

A laugh echoed down the line. ‘Our computer’s not bad either. Actually, I’m joking. It’ll be quicker to email them. Can you give me an address?’

‘Sure. Of course.’ Koslov read off the centre’s email address. ‘Mark it for my attention and I will get them examined immediately. What are you going to do next?’

‘I’ve got a man to find,’ replied Harry. ‘Take care, Alexandr.’

In the UN building in New York, Karen Walters sat across the desk from Ken Deane. The security man was studying an email he’d just received from their legal team. He looked annoyed and apprehensive.

‘I didn’t tell you about this before,’ he said cautiously, ‘but we’ve learned that one of the CP team in Kosovo, a Marine named Bikovsky, was accused of the rape of a minor in San Diego back in ’ninety-eight. It looks like it wasn’t his first and only.’

Walters’ mouth dropped open. ‘ What? ’ Her sense of shock was understandable; the implications for the UN were obvious, in light of the rumours coming out of Kosovo.

‘Yeah, me too.’ He gave her a brief summary of what his contact in the San Diego police had told him. ‘Unfortunately, we’re being denied access to Bikovsky’s records on the grounds that it threatens the privacy of the victim, then a minor. Although she’s grown up now, her father’s digging his heels in.’

‘Bikovsky got away with it? That’s appalling!’

He nodded, his expression sympathetically grim. ‘I hear you. Bikovsky skipped town before anything could be done and disappeared. Two months later he was in the Marines.’

‘Didn’t it get on to his military file?’

‘No reason why it should. No conviction, no record. And he’s not the first man to join the military to escape trouble.’ He flipped open the file showing Bikovsky’s photo, and stared at it as if it would provide some insight into the man’s character. It didn’t.

Karen Walters reached across so she could see it, and made a small noise of distaste. ‘Oh, him.’

‘You remember him?’ Deane was surprised; protectees and their CP teams spent periods in close proximity and got to know each other quite well. But he hadn’t expected Walters to remember any individuals, since she appeared so aloof much of the time.

‘He was difficult to miss,’ she replied. ‘He was a huge brute. He also had a bad attitude about the locals. As he was escorting us out to the helicopter the morning after the ambush, he made disparaging remarks about them; he said the moment we left they’d steal anything that wasn’t nailed down.’ She shrugged. ‘He was the only one who said anything like that. I was surprised, that’s all.’

Deane said nothing. She was naive if she thought that all attached personnel — even those within the UN proper, given the events surrounding the theft of the data records — were as pure as driven snow. No matter what checks were made, some bad examples always slipped through. He knew of two middle-ranking staffers attached to the Secretary-General’s office who had been discovered engaged in illicit financial activities, and were shortly going to find their contracts swiftly terminated. Karen Walters, versed in the ways and intentions of the people in the building immediately associated with her, clearly had a lot to learn about those outside that close-knit circle.

‘Let’s keep this quiet for now,’ he told her. ‘If the press hears there was an accused rapist in KFOR colours serving in Kosovo, they’ll have Bikovsky and the entire UN wrapped up, judged and convicted before the day’s out.’

‘What about Kleeman? Shouldn’t we tell him?’

Deane grunted. ‘Are you kidding? If he hears about it, he’ll want Bikovsky castrated in public. No, Bikovsky may have a dirty history, but we’re not throwing him to the wolves just so Kleeman can get some brownie points.’

Deane’s phone rang and he excused himself.

It was Harry Tate. He quickly brought Deane up to date on his conversation with Koslov and the Russian’s narrow escape among the trees around the apartment block. ‘He says if we send him the prints off the knife from Fort Benning, he’ll run them through their database.’

‘Really?’ Deane reacted cautiously. He had his doubts about whether the suits at the FBI or the State Department would be happy to go along with that. They still weren’t keen on sharing anything with the Russians without a full sitting of a subcommittee and approval from the Intelligence community. ‘I hope he keeps it under his samovar. What’s to stop them going public about the killings simply to embarrass us?’