Adrian Magson - Retribution

The dog handler’s radio crackled into life. He looked at Harry and Rik.

‘Kleeman’s on his way. ETA five minutes.’

Beneath the boiler-room floor, Kassim suppressed a cough as coal dust tickled his nose. He’d listened with nerves jangling as the security sweeps had come and gone. At one point a dog had whined just inches from his head, the thickness of the inspection hatch and some coal between them. He’d pulled back in alarm before telling himself the animal wouldn’t be able to sense his presence through the dust and oil from the boiler.

Minutes later came footsteps and the sound of something skittering across the floor. Someone had kicked a loose piece of coal. He’d closed his eyes, imagination threatening to take over as he pictured the man above kicking the layer of coal aside and spotting the outline of the inspection hatch Kassim had covered during the night. He’d balanced bags of coal against the hatch, then let it drop after descending, and listened as the rumble of coal had covered it over. But the footsteps moved away and there was the thump of a door closing.

Kassim flicked on his torch and checked the time. Thirty minutes to go. He doubted there would be another security sweep now. It would soon be time to move.

Before doing so, he took a last look at some maintenance drawings he’d discovered in the boiler room. They showed a tracery of access ways and utility spaces in the building, and he memorized them carefully. His life might depend on it. Then he folded them away and braced his shoulders, pushing upwards. For a second there was solid resistance, and Kassim felt a momentary panic at the thought that he’d miscalculated. Then he heard a rumbling sound across the metal hatch and saw light through a shower of coal dust pouring around him.

He pushed all the way up and stepped into the basement, tensed for the shout that would indicate he had been seen. All his experience told him that if he was spotted, there would be no second chance.

He tore off his clothes and stood naked on two empty coal sacks, rubbed the black powder from his hair, ears and eyes. A bucket of water stood nearby where he had placed it hours before, ready for this. He doused his head and face, careful not to splash the surrounding concrete floor.

This was as close as he was going to get to the ritual cleansing his trainers had insisted on in their naivete and lack of combat experience, but he had never held himself to be that committed to the ritual, anyway. He dried himself on an old blanket, then put his shoes, trousers and shirt back on, adding one of the grey uniform coats from the wall rack. A quick check of his hair and face in a piece of broken mirror, and he was ready. He stepped towards the stairs. In the coat pocket was the solid weight of the.38 Browning with the silencer.

Harry glanced at his watch. The press lunch was in full swing and he could see Kleeman working the crowd of journalists and officials, patting shoulders as he moved among them. His speech had been measured and controlled, skipping delicately over the more sensitive points of UN involvement in the area, and settling on matters which, while at times controversial, were calculated to set him in a good light. Firm on the continuing bouts of violence in Kosovo, he had shown a reassuring mix of anger and regret at the delays in getting aid to the more remote areas of the country.

Surprisingly, nobody had raised the thorny issue of the murder at Mitrovica. Agreeing on the need for sensitivity due to ongoing investigations, and the desire not to inflame local feelings, it was left to their colleagues at home to do that.

‘Let’s take a walk,’ said Harry. They set off round the building, passing other men patrolling in pairs. Once away from the hubbub of the meeting, the library had a ghostly feel about it, like a school at half-term.

In a large anteroom, two UN policemen were examining a pile of books and laughing. Behind them a figure in a grey cloth coat shuffled slowly along a line of shelves with a pile of heavy tomes, placing them one by one in empty slots. He moved with the slowness of age or infirmity, and the methodical care of the worker who has a lifetime to complete his tasks.

They moved on and checked the washroom, where they found an armed MP on guard, and alongside him, a supply of fresh towels and soap. ‘For the big man,’ he explained in a thick Glasgow accent, a faint hint of disgust at being given such a menial task. ‘The rest of the minnows have to cross their legs.’

They left him to it. As they drew level with the basement door, guarded by a solitary soldier, Harry stopped. Something about their last visit down there still bothered him. But what was it?

‘Anyone been in or out?’ he asked the soldier.

‘No, sir.’ The man had a French accent. ‘No one is permitted.’

Harry nodded. Must be his imagination, looking to find clues where none existed. Even so, as he turned away a series of images flickered through his mind: the stairs down to the basement, the coats on the wall, the coal across the floor; the puddle of damp. And the skittering lump of coal he’d kicked accidentally, and the ensuing swirl of dust around his feet.

The coal. .!

‘He’s inside!’ Harry swore and stepped back to the basement door, surprising the soldier. ‘Call Captain Rekker,’ he told the man. ‘Tell him Kassim’s inside the building. But don’t let the press get wind of it, or there’ll be a stampede. That’s just what Kassim wants.’

As the soldier keyed his radio, Harry pushed the basement door open and stepped cautiously down the stairs into the boiler room, Rik behind, covering his back. The air rose to meet them, damp and pungent. They scanned the area around the base of the stairs, then in a series of overlapping moves covered the entire basement, checking every corner.

Harry toed the coal. Nothing moved in the air.

‘When I kicked it earlier,’ he said softly, ‘the dust rose in the air. Damp coal doesn’t do that — I know from when I was a kid; I had to fetch coal in from the shed every day.’

Rik nodded. ‘Could be a maintenance worker or a security guy knocked a bag over. The bagged coal would have been drier.’

‘Just what I was thinking,’ Harry agreed.

‘What about a local, got down here for a look-see while the place was open?’

‘No. It’s been locked tight. If anyone else had got down here and found there was fuel to burn, do you think they’d have left it here?’

‘I guess not.’ Rik bent to peer into a bucket of water standing against the wall. He prodded the surface with a tentative finger. ‘You’re right — someone’s been here. There’s dust everywhere else but on this.’ A clatter of footsteps came down the stairs and both men turned as one, the barrels of their MP5s swivelling to cover the entrance. It was Captain Rekker and two of his men. He looked grim.

‘I’ve persuaded them to cut things short. They agreed. Lift-off in five minutes. What have you found?’

Harry explained, indicating the coal. He moved some of the lumps aside with his foot. The outline of an inspection hatch appeared. ‘This is where he came in.’ He indicated the bucket of clear water and the wet coal sack. ‘He used the water to wash off the dust.’

Rekker frowned. ‘But I thought he stole a rifle from some black-market dealers. Why would he bother if he planned on getting inside all along?’

‘He didn’t. There was a rifle box; we just jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

The three members of the CP team moved back to give covering fire while Harry and Rik cleared away the rest of the coal. The captain took out his radio and issued instructions to his men to check for an exit point outside the building.