Love Is for Tomorrow (2 page)

“It’s the one I know best,” he said.

Sitting next to Deniz, he felt like a character in a noir script. She was a natural beauty. He was the work of surgeons.
His face, his eyes... nothing was the same as God gave him. It reminded him of what God took from him.
Yet the colours of Istanbul suspended reality, even if for only a brief moment.

Pink and blue neon lights bled from Reina club onto the water. They reclined in its breezy open air lounge on the river. The soft music was in stark contrast to the pounding beats inside. The smell of shishas competed with designer perfumes, tobacco and the sea for ascendency. The women were beautiful beyond compare.

“Don’t you have any friends?” Deniz said.

The last time I was traveling I had my partner in crime with me,
Antoine thought to himself.
Water shared amongst friends just tastes sweeter.

Antoine clutched his beer tighter.

“A monk’s life must be lonely, is that why they invented beer?” he said. “The best thing since holy water.”

“So why don’t you get holy water then?” Deniz said.

“Well, maybe because I have to do some unholy things first,” Antoine replied.

Deniz rolled her eyes.

The waitress moved toward them. Her sashaying hips faltered as she came closer. She had something for him that wasn’t part of her job. Her arms were tense, as if she were trying to hide something from everyone else in the bar.

“Mr. Springer?” she said. “Excuse me for the interruption.”

She bent over, revealing the ear-piece she carried on a plate. Antoine followed her movements as she laid it in front of him on the table. He stared at it for a moment. They had found him. Even taking the battery out of his phone didn’t stop them. They’d presented themselves on a silver platter.

“A friend from Lance Private Banking said you would be interested in hearing the daily special,”
the waitress said.

He glanced at the receiver
for
a moment, then looked around the people in the Reina club.

“I thought the daily special were the fashion models. I was just getting to know one.”

For a second he played with the device in his fingers, then put it in his ear.

“Antoine?” Rose Mensah said.

Antoine’s beer just got a little bit sweeter. She was the only person who could find him here. The mastermind whose quote he just cited had kept a watchful eye over him ever since he started his new life in Austria. “Rose, I was just thinking about one of your sayings.”

The aftertaste, however, turned bitter.
Antoine thought of his phone in pieces.
There must be a reason for this call and it wouldn’t be a good one.
“I came here to lay low, so I don’t know how you found me. I thought I was unreachable.”

“You’re a wanted man,”
Rose said.

“Not just by you,” Antoine said.

“We have code red, Antoine.”

Her voice was smooth and flowed in an amalgamation of Oxford English and Ghanaian tones. “Smith is waiting for you at the airport. One of our agents needs your help.”

“Jesus, that bad?”

“Worse,” Rose said. “Smith will let you know. We have an extraction at twenty three-hundred hours. Greenwich meridian time plus four. If you leave now we have thirty minutes to hit the window.”

Antoine shook his head. “Rose, I don’t even know what
day
it is today.”

“A working day,”
Rose said.

“Does Rose Mensah ever have any other days?”
he said.

“Never,” she reminded him.

Antoine dropped the earpiece into his drink, got up and winked at Deniz.

“Leaving?” Deniz lifted her eyebrows. “Isn’t this when you ask me for my number?”

Antoine could see that she wanted him to ask.

“No need. I’ll find you. Trust me, I’m good at this.”

He scudded across the dark wood panels. The orange glow of fitted floor lamps illuminated his face as if walking on embers. A shuttle boat, the
Axantha II,
came to him as soon as he waved
.
Antoine jumped over the railing before the ship’s master could berth. When the company called, it had one advantage. They spared no effort or expense to get him back into the field.

“I have a plane to catch.” Antoine said to the man. As the ship’s master steered them away from the kais, Antoine watched the Reina club and Deniz disappear.

Every city felt different. It was the small things that made a difference: The view of mountains in Hong Kong, the vast expansions of water and sand in Dubai. Istanbul had Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Each of them was unique and became a part of him, never to be forgotten.

Antoine reassembled his phone on the backseat of the car. It vibrated as soon as the power was on. There were four missed calls from Rose and one message from Nigel.

It was time to call Smith. He dialled without thought.

“From vacation straight to needing sniper support. What’s happening?”

“Extracting an agent,” Smith said. “Unknown environment.”

“Who is he?”

“Goes under the name of Jason.”

“So we are sending in the cavalry. I take it Kovac is with you.”

“No, he’s busy with the cross border deal. It’s just you and me old chap.”

“I’ve never heard of Jason before.”

“He’s been undercover since before your time. Ex Mossad Arab Israeli. Our inside al Qaeda guy.”

“Inside al Qaeda? When did we last hear from him?”

“Three hours ago. We have an extraction in--”

“I know,” Antoine said. “Rose told me. “Paying the taxi double. Wasn’t this supposed to be handled by MI6?”

“Yeah, there is more to that too,” Smith replied. “Rose will tell you all about it.”

Then this is not going to be a walk in the park.

Smith continued. “By the way you are going to love Usman’s new gear we have here. And I have a surprise for you. Tell the driver to head straight to plane lot L4. Ta for now.”
 

Holiday was over, he had to accept that. It meant going back to work now, being constantly on the move and long sleepless nights.

Istanbul gave the impression that everyone was on vacation. That’s what made it so dangerous. It fooled him into believing he was safe when he wasn’t. The next stop in Hatay would be different. There the danger would be obvious.

The airport brought back a distant memory of returning home to his family. On a previous trip to Istanbul he had bought a devil’s eye talisman in the Grand Bazaar for his son. Antoine longed for the days when all he had to worry about was seeing his son’s face light up when he and his wife met him at the airport. Antoine would never have that again, at least not anytime soon.

The car halted in front of Usman’s latest
Gulfstream
. Smith waited for him at the top of the boarding stairs.

As he approached, a stewardess held out a hand to him. Her name tag read "Marlene".

“Welcome aboard Mr. Springer,” she said. “I hope you and Mr. Smith will have a comfortable time with us.”

Antoine exchanged glances with his colleague. “Definitely.”
It could be our last.

The passenger cabin contained the typical cream leather luxury of private jets except for the high tech consoles lining the back wall.

Antoine and Smith shook hands before sitting down.

“Don’t think I asked for cancelling your holidays,” Smith said with a crooked smile.

“I know you’re a lone wolf, Smith,” Antoine replied.

A small case stowed under Antoine’s seat contained his mission gear. The engines started, becoming a constant background thrum.

Marlene drew his attention with a tray of small aperitifs.

“Anything to drink or a light snack for you, gentlemen?”

“Give me a Coffee, black please,” Antoine said.

Alcohol would only dull his senses. The same went for sugar. Caffeine, however, had the opposite effect.

“I’m starving by the way,” Smith said.

Marlene went to the back of the airplane and opened the mini-bar.
      

“Do you know what Jason was doing?” Antoine asked Smith.

Marlene presented them with a cart to choose from.

“He was infiltrating a Syrian Khorasan terrorist cell at a weapon handover site.” Smith scooped some oysters onto his plate and said, “Here’s a recording of comms traffic.”

Smith played an audio file while they ate. Static, crackle and audio distortions overlaid what must have been Jason’s voice. “The MI6 got compromised. There are dead bodies everywhere. I’m going in hot. Heading to extraction point Charlie. Ditching all comms.” More static filled the channel.

Smith pressed stop. He leaned back and exhaled.

“That’s the last thing we heard.”

“Then it’s just what we feared,” Antoine said.

He turned to the console of electronics and put in the earpiece lying at one of the workstations.

The agency’s logo lit up the screen. He entered his credentials. A world map flashed across showing the location of all hotspots and agency assets.

Simulations and military strengths played before Antoine’s eyes. A lot had changed in the few days he had been off the radar. The world was a powder keg and one spark would be enough for it to blow. Frontlines and borders were now blurred.

He didn’t know what Jason was onto, but he would bet it was a radiological weapon, a “dirty bomb”.

They would need the right tools to take on an enemy with such potential for destruction.

There was an incoming message on the web-portal from his colleague, Priya Patel. Her face appeared on the screen.

“Take a look under your seat. Early Christmas gift from Usman.”

Antoine reached down and opened the casket.

All the gear was ready, special glasses and a quadrocopter drone, stored neatly in foam padding.

“Time to get back into the zone,” Priya told him. “Your mission is to find and retrieve Jason. I will be your eyes and ears. Welcome back to the real world Antoine.”

He dismissed her by closing the laptop.

“For this one we might already be too late,” he said to himself.

The plane touched down in Hatay still covered in night.

Being on missions changed him. It let Antoine know what he was made of: resilience.
They tried to bury me before. They didn’t know I was a seed.
 

Priya’s voice in his earpiece was a small comfort, but he was the one out there with his sniper friend.

The border town appeared in a dusty valley of rocks and dry vegetation. An amalgamation of rusty barriers and run-down buildings lay in ruins.

Smith chose an unlit side road to ditch their vehicle and continue on foot.

Something was wrong. It was unusual for a town to be so dark.

Antoine
got out of the SUV. The asphalt was broken. The building he came to find was gone.

He exchanged glances with Smith. 

“Time to wear the big boy pants,” Antoine said.

Taking their backpacks off, they used the cover of a dark alley to lay off their civilian clothes. Antoine knelt down and took out his tactical suit and display. He sent the drone into the air. Its rotors buzzed like an insect until it lifted out of earshot. Smith confirmed with a hand signal that he’d established contact with the agency.

Antoine slipped into his noise reducing boots, light Kevlar weave and tactical gloves. Everything was where it should be. Glock 19, extra magazines, gun loaded and holstered. He clapped down his goggles, turning everything into a green haze. His night vision active, Antoine led Smith into the bomb site.

CHAPTER THREE

BACK TO BLACK
 

“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.” - E. Hemingway
 

Hatay, Turkey

Antoine used to hate these kind of missions: New surroundings, no prior planning, no orientation of place. However, having Priya’s oversight put him more at ease.

He sent out the quadrocopter drone and connected with her. The UAV was soon out of his sight. He put his trust in Priya’s flying abilities to give him an overview on the situation ahead of him. A sensor in his tactical suit would also let the drone follow him on autopilot.