Red Station (19 page)

He counted to twenty. Not a sound. The intruder had either bugged out already or was very good at keeping quiet.

He reached out and tested the door. It wasn't locked. He nudged it further and it swung open to reveal a faint glow of a flashlight coming from the bathroom.

He stepped inside, flexing his hands. It had been too long since he'd engaged in any form of unarmed combat, and he hoped it didn't come to that. Being knocked on his arse by a local crackhead looking for a quick score would be too humiliating. But something told him this was no crackhead. As he moved away from the door, his foot nudged something solid. It was too late to remember a small footstool-cum-table standing against one wall.

It made a hollow clunking noise.

The flashlight snapped off.

Harry hit the wall switch. Sod what the training manual told you about using the dark; whatever was heading his way, he preferred to see it coming.

A blur of movement was all the warning he got as a tall figure burst out of the bathroom. The man was solidly built, dressed in dark clothing and holding a black torch in one hand. He wore a black ski cap on his head.

There was no time for finesse. Harry lashed out instinctively, turning his body to deliver a kick to the side of the advancing man's knee. His foot connected, drawing a grunt of pain from the intruder. But it wasn't enough to stop him. The man's momentum carried him forward, forcing Harry back. He threw up his arms to block the attack, but the man was too quick, slamming a fist into the side of his head. Harry felt the wall behind him and bunched his shoulders, launching a low, straight jab at the intruder's mid-section. It drew a satisfying whoosh of expelled breath, but the man kept coming, using his elbows and fists to jab at Harry's head in a series of rapid strikes and following up with a painful knee to the ribs.

Harry felt dizzy and breathless. The other man was younger, fitter and stronger, and if he kept this up, Harry would end the night in a hospital ward – or worse.

He slid sideways and felt his leg connecting with something which creaked and moved.

A basket of dried logs for the wood-burner.

Harry allowed himself to drop, scrambling for one of the logs. Each one was as thick as his arm and about a foot long. Grasping the first one he touched, he brought it up in a scything uppercut, smashing through the other man's defence. Before his attacker could react, Harry gripped the log with his other hand and swung it wildly straight at the man's head. There was a satisfying tingle as the wood connected and the man fell back, legs wobbling. Another swing and he crashed to the floor.

Harry dropped the makeshift weapon and leaned against the wall, trying not to throw up. The burst of exercise had taken more out of him than he'd thought. But there was no time to lose. Dragging the man into the bathroom, he went through to the kitchen and came back with a length of plastic-covered clothesline from one of the drawers. Tying the man's wrists together, he lashed him to the ornate cast-iron sink-support and finished by knotting his ankles where no amount of struggling would allow him to reach them.

The man was snuffling, his nose partially blocked by blood, and a large bruise was already forming across his chin, weeping blood where the skin had been scraped off by the log's rough bark. Harry wet a cloth and wiped the blood away from his nostrils. He didn't much care about the man's health, but having him choke to death before he could talk wasn't going to be much help.

He went through the man's pockets. Not surprisingly, he had no identification; no wallet, no papers, no scraps of information to reveal who he was. No clothing tags, either. That alone was unusual.

But he did have a mobile phone. Harry checked the directory. Three numbers in all. The man had called each of them, all within the past twelve hours, on or close to the hour.

Reporting in, thought Harry. With this one here making four, there were no prizes for guessing who they belonged to.

The other Clones.

He dropped the mobile in his pocket and slid to the floor, feeling the cold of the tiles seeping into his buttocks. He needed a rest. And he had time; after all, where was he going?

Eventually, the man stopped snuffling and stirred. His eyes flickered and rolled open, and he instantly shook his head and tried to stand. When he found that didn't work, he groaned and tugged at his bonds, head lolling forward to see what was holding him.

Operating by instinct, thought Harry, observing the bunching of muscle in his shoulders. This bloke has been trained; he knows he has to get free, no matter what.

He leaned forward and slapped the man across the face. It wasn't a brutal blow, but carried enough frustration and anger to rock his head back. His eyes opened and slowly focussed, finally settling on Harry with a start. He blinked twice and winced as pain began to register.

And at that moment, Harry saw something familiar in the man's face.

He felt a jolt of surprise. How could he know him? He'd only caught a glimpse of the Clones out on the street – hardly ideal conditions. Yet the feeling was overwhelming. Maybe he'd been on the plane in. Or at the airport. No. Christ, it was further back than that.

Then it began to filter through. The man was in his late thirties, with strong hands and an athletic build. He had short-cropped hair and the remains of a tan, faded to a dirty hue on the forehead and cheeks. He had the hard look of someone accustomed to regular exercise, and knew how to fight; the use of elbows and knee had proved that. Street thugs don't normally use their elbows.

Harry was well-acquainted with the kind of men who did.

‘We've met before,' he said softly. The face was swimming up through a murky haze, from deep in his memory.

The man said nothing, struggling with his bonds.

‘Give it up,' Harry told him. ‘I learned from a master mariner.'

‘Fuck you, bastard!'

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. The oath was fluid, the accent familiar.

It came from somewhere in the Midlands.

The intruder was English.

THIRTY-SEVEN

‘
T
hat was a mistake,' said Harry. ‘I thought you were local. I was about to let you go. We've met before. Thing is, where?'

The man stopped struggling. If he recognized Harry, he was hiding it.

Harry finally got it. ‘Stanbridge.' The man had been in Kosovo attached to the UN. Harry hadn't known him well; just another name and face in passing. They'd probably shared a truck, an APC or a canteen table. Maybe even a snow-filled shell hole. There had been lots of those.

Stanbridge said nothing. He stared at the floor and began working his wrists again. The skin around the bonds was beginning to turn dark red with the effort and the restricted blood flow, and Harry wondered whether he should ease up on them a bit. On the other hand, he still had no idea what the man was doing here.

‘Tell me what's going on and I'll loosen those knots,' he said. ‘Why are you here?'

‘Screw you,' said Stanbridge.

‘Hardly original, but suit yourself.' Harry stood up and went through to the kitchen, locking the front door on the way. If Stanbridge was one of the Clones, he didn't want to risk the other three piling all over him when they came to rescue their mate.

He made coffee, trying to figure out exactly what had brought the man here, to his flat. Why this godforsaken hole? If he was British, the others were, too. Unless he'd gone private.

He gave up and stared out of the narrow window overlooking the back alley. He could just make out the shape of a cat sitting on a crumbling section of wall, cleaning itself, relaxed. Better than a guard dog, he reflected. Quieter, too.

He took his coffee to the bathroom. There was nothing like the aroma of best roasted to make a man feel uncomfortable. A classic softening-up technique, mostly recommended now to people selling houses.

He squatted in the doorway in case Stanbridge had somehow worked a miracle while he was out of sight, and waited. Stanbridge threw him a malevolent look. He had stopped working the bonds so maybe he'd realized he wasn't going anywhere.

‘OK,' said Harry. He sipped his coffee, wincing as it touched a cut on the inside of his lip. ‘Let's pretend you're not who we both know you are. We'll forget Kosovo, the UN mission, the crappy weather, the burial sites, the ethnic cleansing – all that. Let's just agree that I know who you are, and you know me. Right?'

Stanbridge cleared his throat and spat a bloody gobbet on the floor.

‘Tough guy.' Another noisy sip. ‘So what's your brief? You here to watch us – you and your mates? They call you the Clones, did you know that?'

‘We know what they call us.' Stanbridge's voice was intense, pitched low.

‘Really? How's that?' He didn't really need to ask, but it suited him to keep his prisoner talking. The Clones – if Stanbridge really was one of them – could have only discovered their nickname in one of two ways.

The first was by electronic eavesdropping.

The second was by talking to someone on the inside.

Stanbridge remained silent.

‘What are you doing here?' Harry continued. ‘Are you watching . . . or guarding? The former, I bet. There's no point in us having guardian angels because they're only assigned to diplomats and politicians . . . people of value. Last time I looked, I wasn't on anyone's preferred employees list.'

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘Of course you don't. And I'm the ghost of Mahatma Gandhi.' He shifted his position. The cold from the tiles was making him stiff. ‘It's a shitty assignment, this, whatever the purpose. I'm guessing you know who I am, right?'

No answer.

‘If so, we've got the same employer. Unless you've gone over to the other side.' Stanbridge said nothing, but the way his eyes jumped told Harry that that wasn't the case. ‘Well, good for you.'

He finished his coffee and dribbled the dregs on to the tiled floor. The smell lifted in the cold air, heavy and tantalizing. It would remain under Stanbridge's nose for a long time, an irritating reminder of the creature comforts he was missing.

‘Problem is, what do I do about you? If I let you go, you'll come back. Probably with your mates.'

He stood up. He was wasting his time. Short of outright torture, he couldn't force the man to talk. And he wasn't about to get the contents of the cutlery drawer in here just to wind the man up. If you intend to bluff someone, you have to at least have the intention of carrying that bluff to reasonable lengths.

As he turned away, his mobile buzzed.

‘Tate?' It was Clare Jardine. ‘Have you got company?' Maybe she was calling to ask him round; vodka and olives between colleagues. Somehow he doubted it.

‘I have, actually. Why?'

‘Three of the Clones are parked in the street outside my place. I wondered if the fourth was on your place.'

‘What are they doing?' Harry let out his breath slowly. They were sticking close. Was it a precursor to something else? If so, what?

‘No. Just sitting there.'

Harry felt the pull of tension in his gut. They might be waiting to hear from Stanbridge. It wasn't a good sign.

Jardine said, ‘If they're security police, they might be planning to pick us up – starting with me.'

Harry debated telling her about Stanbridge. If she was the Clones' inside source of information, she would already know if they were planning something. But if so, why would she be ringing him?

‘They're not secret police,' he told her at last.

‘How do you know that?'

‘They're British.'

‘That's absurd!' She was scornful, snappy. ‘Are we talking about the same men?'

‘Yes. I've got their number four in my bathroom. His name's Stanbridge, he's former British army and he comes from somewhere near Coventry.'

THIRTY-EIGHT

S
ilence. Bloody miracles do happen, thought Harry. ‘You there?'

‘I don't get it. Why would a Brit be watching us?'

‘My guess?' Stanbridge was pretending not to listen, and Harry took a leap in the dark. ‘London thinks we're a security risk. This is their way of making sure we don't jump the reservation. Unfortunately, the only way number four is going to tell me exactly what they're doing is when I start cutting off his fingers.'

‘
What?
' Jardine's voice went off the scale, and Stanbridge's face went pale.

‘Sure, why not? At least we'll find out what's going on. I'll tell you how it went in the morning—'

‘Wait . . .
wait
!' Clare interrupted quickly. ‘Don't. There's something else I didn't mention. The men outside . . . they're armed.'

That brought him up short. Stanbridge wasn't armed – he'd have found the weapon otherwise. So why were the others? Did they have another purpose other than watching?

Maybe it was time to discourage them. And to see how serious they were.

‘Stay away from the windows,' he told her, ‘and keep your door locked. Don't answer if anyone knocks.'

‘Why, what are you going to do?'

‘I want to take a look at the three on your place. What's your address?' He reckoned it would take ten to fifteen minutes to reach her place on foot. More if he had to avoid any armed patrols.

She gave him directions to an apartment block not far away. ‘Don't come to my door, though. My neighbours are jumpy already. They've had trouble with drunken militia and call the police at the slightest noise.'