Adrian Magson: Retribution

In the building across from the cafe where Kassim waited, Jean-Michel Orti was going through a series of intensive exercises. His head was pounding with the after-effects of too much pastis , and he felt like shit. Much better if he just went to bed and got some sleep. But the routine of his years in the French Foreign Legion was too ingrained to break, so he gritted his teeth and continued, his body breaking out in a sweat in the stuffy room. He reached fifty with a final push and moved into squat-thrusts, his powerful leg muscles — which could normally carry him for miles with a full bergen — cracking from the lack of proper exercise over the past week.

Nearing the end of seven days’ special leave before reporting back to the Legion office in Marseilles, Orti was tiring of the city and the faded delights it had to offer. His dutiful visits to his mother and sister, whose apartment this was, had soon become dull for them all, and there were fewer familiar faces around to greet him any more. Those who had not moved away seemed more concerned with family and responsibilities than sinking a few beers with an old friend. He’d been too long in the Legion. He might as well have joined a monastery.

He sighed and stood up. A strong coffee would clear his head and get him in tune for the following morning. If he made the mistake of reporting back to base unfit even for the daily run, the capitaine would spot it immediately and have him doing several rounds of the assault course with a bunch of new recruits, to teach him a lesson.

He splashed water on his face and dried off, then ran lightly downstairs and crossed the street.

The Cafe Sport was bustling with noise from the usual clientele whiling away the evening with pointless chatter about politics and football, the air heavy with cigarette smoke. He ordered coffee and a reheated croissant to soak it up, and sat down at the back of the room, checking the other patrons out of habit. Mostly locals, there were a couple of strangers, clearly business types deep in conversation over a laptop. Near the window a man in a cheap suit was sipping a soft drink and staring out at the street. Strong face, weathered, good shoulders, like an athlete, but lean. Could almost be a Legionnaire. Italian, Orti guessed, or one of the paler North Africans. . Spanish with a touch of Moor, perhaps. A rucksack sat on the floor between his feet. An immigrant, looking for work.

The coffee was good and strong, and he drank a single cup, washing down the croissant. He made no attempt at conversation with the other customers. Those who knew him were aware of his background and paid him the courtesy of privacy; those who did not saw a fit-looking man in his late thirties paying the price for too many drinks.

Orti paid at the bar and left a tip for the waiter, then walked back across the street, breathing in the night air and looking forward to sleep followed by a morning run. As he put the key in the door and pushed it open he heard a whisper of sound behind him. Instantly he began to turn. But he was too slow, dulled by tiredness and the effects of drink. He felt a savage blow in the lower back and was thrown forward inside and against the wall of the hallway. An arm like a steel bar wrapped itself around his throat and another hand grasped his wrist like a vice and twisted it painfully up behind his back with no more effort than if he had been a child. Before he could make a sound he was dragged along the lower hallway into the kitchen, his feet scrabbling to gain purchase on the floor tiles.

Training as a Legionnaire includes some brutally effective unarmed combat, with moves borrowed from various disciplines such as karate, judo and aikido. Even if unarmed, Legionnaires are expected to meet all attacks with ferocious countermeasures. Yet Orti found himself unable to do anything against this attack. He was slammed face down on the kitchen floor and trussed with a length of clothes line before the full gravity of his circumstances could penetrate his confused mind.

The attacker rolled him over on to his back and placed a foot on his chest, thrusting a tea towel into his mouth with strong fingers. Orti found himself looking into a familiar face: it was the man from the cafe. . the immigrant. Dark eyes stared back with little expression, and Orti felt a chill of fear. It was not, he knew, the loud, noisily aggressive men you had to worry about; it was the quiet ones who said little. Like this one.

‘You are Orti?’ the man said softly.

The Frenchman thought the accent strange; from Spain or Italy, maybe. He shook his head instinctively, his brain fogged but now functioning, and fought to draw in air through his nose. He made a grunting noise to show he wanted to talk, but the man ignored him and rolled him over to find the wallet in his back pocket. The details inside clearly confirmed what he wanted to know. He took out all the folded euros inside and tossed the wallet to one side.

But next he did a strange thing. He raised one hand. He was holding a piece of ragged cloth. Light blue with one edge of thin leather, it was worn smooth, as if by constant rubbing.

Then Orti recognized the colour and texture. It was part of a UN beret. He frowned. What the fu-?

Whatever the man thought Orti’s expression of surprise portrayed, it seemed to disappoint him. His eyes hardened and he took a deep breath. He released the Frenchman for a second, then moved across the room. Seconds later he was back, holding a towel that he wrapped around something in his hand.

Orti caught a glimpse of polished metal and a bone handle, and recognized the object with a feeling of profound sadness. It was his own hunting knife.

Harry focussed on the basic details, trying to push aside any emotion. ‘It could have been anyone. There were guards on duty when we arrived, and the road nearby had passing traffic.’

‘Yeah, but the guards all left with the convoy, didn’t they — for Pristina?’

Harry was puzzled. If Deane knew that much, he’d evidently done some groundwork. But then he shouldn’t have expected anything less. Deane was experienced and had a large security organization at his disposal; checking the facts would have been his first objective. But, as he was admitting, even the UN couldn’t know everything.

Harry cast his mind back to that night. After running into the ambush in driving rain, and having a truck with two men blown up and another vehicle crippled, the convoy had barged their way through at speed, following the lead vehicle, an armoured personnel carrier. With the agreement of the convoy commander, a Dutch officer, they had made for a container depot near Mitrovica. It had been the only place Harry had been able to find quickly on the map that offered any kind of safety perimeter. With no evacuation possible before dawn, his first responsibility was the isolation and protection of his UN charge, Anton Kleeman, and his assistant, a woman named Karen Walters.

Within minutes of their arrival, the convoy commander had received orders to leave for Pristina to assist with the protection of a refugee camp under attack from Serb militia. That had left Harry and his team alone in the depot with their two charges. He had given orders to get them out of sight in case the compound was being watched and the team had got them bedded down.

‘There was one other man,’ he recalled. ‘One of the guards. He’d just started his shift and knew the place, and he was a combat veteran, so they left him where he was. I don’t recall his name, though.’

‘Fine. I can check that out.’

‘It still doesn’t mean it was anyone in the compound.’

‘Actually, that might not be true.’ Deane seemed almost embarrassed, and rubbed his face hard.

‘What do you mean?’