Matthew Dunn - Sentinel

P etrin Gardens was one of Prague’s largest parks and usually very popular, but now it seemed almost empty of people. It was dusk, a thin layer of snow carpeted the park’s ground and trees, and the temperature was well below zero. Will walked through the place, using his BlackBerry sat nav, until he found the lamppost. He checked his watch. Twenty-three minutes ahead of schedule. Looking ahead along the tree-lined footpath, he saw that it curved out of view approximately two hundred feet away. Checking his watch again, he waited for the second hand to reach 12 before beginning to walk at a normal pace. He turned the corner and saw a prominent tree. Reaching it, he stopped and looked at the second hand. It had taken him fifty-three seconds to walk the distance. Turning toward the hidden lamppost, he wrapped his arms over his chest, shivered a little from the cold, and waited.

Brush contacts rarely took place with people you knew. Today, Will had no idea if his contact was male or female, young or old. For that reason, timing had to be precise down to the second.

Alistair had been exact with his instructions: 1639hrs, Latitude 50?4'58.73"N, Longitude 14?23'58.19'E.

He looked around. The park was heavily wooded; no one else was on the path. He stayed like that for twenty minutes, only occasionally checking the time. But as the moment to move grew closer, he kept his eyes fixed on the illuminated surface of the watch.

Thirty seconds before moving.

Twenty.

Ten.

Now.

He moved, resisting the urge to walk faster. Nearing the bend in the path, he deeply hoped that the contact would be experienced in this drill and that he or she had remembered to synchronize their watch with the online atomic clock before coming here. Turning the corner, he saw that there were three people on the path, two quite close to each other, the other closer to him. He ignored them for now, focusing only on maintaining normal speed, knowing that keeping that pace was extremely hard to do when you’re conscious of it.

He reached the nearest person but made no attempt to get close to him. Too bad if the man was the contact; he was beyond the lamppost and out of position. But the two people ahead of him were not. He tried to establish if they were together but couldn’t be sure. The darkness hid their features.

He got closer and could now see that the two people were not side by side as he’d previously thought; one was slightly ahead of the other.

Thirty feet from the lamppost. The man in front was too close to it. But maybe he’d got his speed wrong by half a mile an hour. Soon he was beyond the lamppost and walking toward Will. They passed each other. Nothing happened. Will kept walking.

He was ten feet from the lamppost.

So was the old woman whose features were now vivid under the light’s glow.

Older people walked at a more consistent speed than the young. They were a good choice for brush contacts.

He kept to the right-hand side of the track so that he’d be passing directly alongside the lamppost. By contrast, the woman was on a route that would take her a body width away from it.

Five feet. The woman’s arms were by her sides.

Three feet.

The lamppost. They were directly alongside each other. The woman lifted her arm ever so slightly. A tiny package was in her hand.

Then it was in Will’s hand.

Will kept walking as he secreted the alias passport containing the Russian multientry visa into a pocket.

O ne hour later, he entered Bunkr Parukarka bar. It had been difficult to find, hidden away in Prague, and as he walked down the winding metal staircase to the converted 1950s nuclear bunker, he wished he’d not worn a suit. The walls were covered with ghetto graffiti, industrial rock blared out of the windowless basement bar, and twenty-something clubbers eyed him with looks of suspicion, no doubt wondering if he was a secret policeman.

He ordered a beer and took a seat at a low table. The place was not full-it was too early in the evening-though it still felt claustrophobic and intense. After removing his tie and jacket and undoing a couple of his top shirt buttons, he stretched his legs out, took a big gulp of beer, ruffled his hair, and tried to do anything to make him look unlike an on-duty cop.

Looking around, he wondered why Krystof had chosen this place to meet. The former Bezpecnostni Informacni Sluzba intelligence officer, now private investigator, was in his midforties and would have as little in common with these kinds of bars as Will.

Krystof was five minutes late. That wasn’t unusual; sometimes he could be hours late. At the far end of the cavern, a band was setting up its instruments. Judging by the look of them, whatever they were going to play later that night would be loud and angst-ridden. Will took another swig of beer and looked at the groups of people scattered around the bar. Some were long-haired Goths, others bohemian slackers; all of them looked totally comfortable in their surroundings. He’d never experienced that kind of belonging or cultural rebellion, and for a moment he felt envious of the strangely pretty people around him. But then he wondered if he did have something in common with these men and women. Perhaps they were happy here because normal places made them deeply unhappy.

Krystof emerged at the bottom of the staircase, dressed in a worn brown suit with his tie loosened and top button open. Cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth, he stopped at the bar and leaned across it to say something to the barman before walking over to Will’s table. Though the bunker’s lighting was dim, Will could see that the Czech was unshaven and had dark bags under his eyes.

Will stood, held out his hand, and said in English, “We could have met somewhere else.”

Krystof shook his hand. “Where’s the fun in that, David?”

David Becket. An MI6 officer whose profile deliberately approximated Krystof’s: passed over for promotion, in debt, weary, cynical, failed marriages, and adolescent children who no longer wanted to know him. The only difference between them was that David’s fictitious older daughter was prospering in high school, whereas six months ago, Krystof’s real daughter had been brutally gang-raped and strangled to death.

They sat just as the barman came to them and thumped a bottle of Becherovka liquor and two glasses onto the table. Krystof unscrewed the cap and poured the spirit into the glasses until they were nearly full. Stubbing out his cigarette and lifting his glass to his lips, he muttered, “Your health” and downed the drink.

“Your health.” Will took a small sip and placed the glass down.

Krystof refilled his glass to the top and gripped it while staring at Will. “You still in?”

Will shrugged. “I’m trying to last another ten years, until I can draw on my pension.”

Becket was forty-five; youthful looks were the only thing he had going for him. Krystof didn’t even have that. Age, stress, and depression had been less kind to his once handsome face.

Krystof drank some more and lit another cigarette. “I meant to thank you.”

“What for?”

“The flowers and the card.” He glanced away, his expression one of sadness and irritation. “Her mother wouldn’t let me go to the funeral.”

“I thought that might happen. That’s why I sent them to your house.”

Krystof looked back at him. “She said that no doubt I was now happy that I had one less child to pay alimony for.” He emptied the contents of his glass and topped it up.

Will sympathized with Krystof’s plight, though he worried that the man was losing his sanity. He twisted his glass on the table. “I have some work for you if you’d like it.”

Krystof blew out smoke. “They’re still giving you tasks?”