The Darkest Day (2 page)

The sky above Prague was a patchwork of blue and white. Thin clouds paled the late morning sun, but enough light fought through to shine from polished cars that lined the road and puddles that nestled along the kerbs. The twisting, cobbled side street was crammed with boutiques and cafés and townhouses. Passers-by were rare and traffic rarer still at this time of day.

A man sat alone at a small round metal table outside an artisan coffee shop. He was tall and wore a charcoal suit beneath a woollen overcoat, black, and black Oxford shoes. His dress shirt was white and his plain tie was burgundy. His black hair was longer than he often had it, at a few inches in length that brushed his ears and reached almost to his eyebrows if he did not push it back from his face. Two weeks without shaving had given him a dense beard that softened his jawline and disguised his cheekbones. The non-prescription glasses were plain and functional and further broke up the lines of his face to a shapeless, nondescript visage. His scarf was brown lamb’s wool that was draped, but not tied, over his shoulders and tucked into the thigh-length overcoat, which was undone. He sipped a black Americano from a fine china cup that was as delicate as it was decorative. He made a conscious effort not to crush the little handle between thumb and forefinger.

His table was the central one of a line of three that lay on the pavement before the coffee shop, all painted white and chipped. The table to the left was occupied by two blonde women in fine clothing and jewellery, probably mother and daughter, discussing the weather and where to have lunch after they finished their morning shopping trip. Large bags surrounded their chairs. To the man’s right, two older men with lined faces and grey hair talked about how best to ingratiate themselves to their new younger, hipper clients.

The man in the suit would have preferred to sit on one of the flanking tables so as not to be boxed in with no obstacle-laden exit, but the two men and two women had been there before his arrival and both pairs seemed as if they would be staying long after he left. He pretended not to notice that the blonde mother kept glancing his way.

His hands and ears were red and his breath misted before him, but he kept the buttons of his overcoat unfastened and his scarf untied and elected not to wear gloves or a hat, as was common for him.

He wore no hat because, when removed, it meant a greater chance of casting DNA-rich hair follicles into the air to be left behind in his wake. He wore nothing on his hands as even the highest quality gloves reduced dexterity, which he valued above all else. It was more effective to grip with bare fingers, as it was to gouge eyes and tear out throats. His coat was unfastened so a weapon hidden beneath it or within an inside pocket could be drawn without interruption. He was unarmed, as was typical; carrying a weapon was only useful when he had no choice but to employ it, and was a threat to his liberty the rest of the time. But he was a man of habit: an unfastened coat had the added benefits of being easy to discard if required; the scarf was untied so as not to provide an enemy with a ready-made noose, but could be whipped away fast so as to be employed as such by himself against assailants.

He had many enemies, acquired over a professional life that ensured for every foe he managed to remove, a new one would be standing by to take their place. He had learned that survival depended on attention to detail, no matter how small or trivial it might seem before it proved decisive. He had learned to never lower his guard, no matter how safe he might be. Those lessons had been carved into his flesh, ensuring he never forgot them.

He was waiting. Waiting accounted for more than half his work. He was patient and focused. He had to be. He was a man who took his time and valued perfection over speed. He only rushed when necessary, which was rare. There was a certain artistry to his work that he found, if not enjoyable, then satisfying.

He sipped from the little cup. The quality of the coffee was excellent, but not in proportion to the effort it took to hold the delicate cup without breaking it. A shame, but the coffee provided a reasonable excuse for his presence.

On the far side of the road, a narrow-fronted hotel sat between townhouses. A protruding awning and doorman were the only obvious signs of the hotel’s existence. There were no fluttering flags or ostentatious trappings on display. The guests liked discretion and they liked privacy and were happy to pay the hotel’s exaggerated rates to enjoy both.

The man in the suit was interested in one guest in particular. He was a member of the House of Sa’ad, the extended royal family of Saudi Arabia. He was one of the many princes, a decadent thirty-year-old who spent his family’s wealth almost as fast as it could be created. If he were not limited by his father, the prince would no doubt bankrupt them within eighteen months.

Al-Waleed bin Saud toured the world on a permanent holiday, moving from city to city with his humble retinue of sixteen individuals. That retinue included two personal assistants, an accountant, a chef, a security detail of nine and three young women who were listed as interns but did nothing except shop and spend time alone with the prince. He stayed in the most expensive hotels, and only ones that could accommodate his particular requirements. Though he lived an extravagant, hedonistic lifestyle he tried to maintain the image of a respectable, devout, and proud Saudi. To maintain the illusion and to ensure no word of his habits reached his homeland, he shied away from hotels that were too large or too rigid in rules and regulations. He elected to stay where he could bribe staff and hire out a whole floor at a time, whether he needed the rooms or not, for the sole use of his retinue. And he preferred to stay at hotels that could provide suitable extras for the discerning guest, such as prostitutes and narcotics.

Though he embraced every Western decadence imaginable, Al-Waleed helped fund the activities of extremists and fundamentalists from Mali to Malaysia. Though pocket-change to the prince, these donations provided a significant percentage of the funding for several groups known to have committed atrocities and determined to commit more.

The prince was far from the only rich Saudi to support terrorism, but he was one of the most prolific. His donations were often paid in cash or jewellery, making them difficult to trace and even more difficult to intercept. Thus the decision had been taken to terminate his financial support once and for all.

The problem, as was the case for the wider issue of Saudi support for terrorism, was Western reliance on the kingdom’s oil. The symbiosis could not be jeopardised. The House of Sa’ad would not tolerate the murder of one of their own any more than they would tolerate one of their princes risking the Western support the royal family needed to stay in power.

So, a compromise had been reached.

The prince was to die, but his death could not lead back to the CIA who orchestrated it nor to the House of Sa’ad who had no choice but to condone it.

Which was the reason Victor had been hired.

The psychological evaluation included within the dossier theorised that Al-Waleed’s support for terrorism was a way of balancing out his excesses with his religious conscience. Victor cared little for such insight. He dealt in usable and exploitable facts. He cared about verified wheres and whens, not speculative hows and whys. The only judgement he trusted was his own.

The two guys to his right stood up and left, leaving much of their breakfast behind and unfinished, only to stop and stand a metre from their vacated table to continue their discussion. One slipped on sunglasses. The other squinted and held up a hand to shield his eyes from the direct sunlight. They interrupted Victor’s line of sight to the hotel entrance.

He did not require a perfect view to know when the prince would show because no Rolls-Royce had pulled up outside to provide him with transportation. Hotel records supplied by Victor’s employer showed the prince was planning on staying at least another three days. This was typical. His itineraries over the last twelve months showed a mean duration of four nights for visits to European cities outside summer months. Last night, on arriving, Al-Waleed had partied hard into the early hours, drawing complaints from guests on the floor below. Victor did not expect to see him anytime soon. But he had to wait, just in case. Secondary data was no match for that collected himself.

Which was fine by him. The coffee was good, even if the china too delicate, and the sunshine was pleasant enough on his face to counteract the cold elsewhere. He had a newspaper before him, which he browsed but did not read, to help his cover. He was used to drawing little to no attention, and aside from the blonde woman’s casual interest, this morning was no different. Hiding in plain sight was as necessary a skill as any he had acquired. The fewer people who noticed him the freer he was to act and the better his chances of a clean getaway in the aftermath.

He had performed a reconnoitre of the hotel prior to the prince’s arrival. He had stayed for two nights in a suite on the same floor as the prince was now staying, and had used his time there to explore its halls and corridors, adding three-dimensional intelligence to the two-dimensional plans he had studied. He had memorised the faces and names and routines of staff members, the position of CCTV cameras, how long it took room service to deliver, how many times the employee would knock and how long they would leave a tray outside before removing the untouched food.

It was simple enough to act the part of a regular guest because, like Al-Waleed, he spent much of his life living in hotels. But whereas the prince moved from city to city out of boredom and a desire for new and ever more exciting experiences, Victor did so out of simple necessity. A moving target was a hard target.

The hotel had a lobby fitted with comfortable armchairs and sofas, but his prior presence there ruled out the lobby as a place to wait. At best, he would be recorded on CCTV cameras, and at worst a keen-eyed member of staff would note him. His study of the hotel had also eliminated it as a strike point, so although the danger of being noted was minimal, he would not go there. He took no risks he did not have to.

The two grey-haired men finished their conversation, shook hands and departed in opposite directions. A waiter collected the cash they had left to cover the bill and began gathering up plates.

Both blonde women had also departed by the time a silver Rolls-Royce pulled up outside the hotel. It was earlier than the CIA-supplied itinerary stated. No problem in itself, but it reinforced Victor’s protocol of relying only on his own intelligence.

Three of the prince’s security detail stepped out of the hotel entrance a moment later and approached the vehicle. They were all Saudis, dressed in a uniform of smart suits and sunglasses. They looked the part, but knew little about personal protection work beyond what could be squeezed into a two-week course. Still, they were a problem because they operated in groups of three, rotating every eight hours to provide Al-Waleed with continuous twenty-four-hour protection. They were armed too. The prince had diplomatic status and could bring whatever he wanted across borders, including guns.

The prince emerged after the bodyguards had performed a perfunctory check of the locale and climbed into the waiting Rolls. Al-Waleed was dressed in the traditional flowing robes favoured by Saudi men. He was average height and wide in the midriff. One of Al-Waleed’s assistants followed. The bodyguards climbed in after him. The last man replaced the valet driver who had fetched the car.

The Rolls-Royce pulled away from the kerb and left the street.

Victor continued to wait. He stood only when the prince’s accountant left the hotel about five minutes after Al-Waleed had gone. He was a tall, thin man in his fifties, with a shiny bald head and goatee beard trimmed to razor-straight edges. Like the rest of Al-Waleed’s retinue the accountant was a Saudi. He was a friend of the prince’s father, sent along to accompany the wayward son on his adventures and to make sure he did not overspend his allowance nor run up debts the father did not want to pay.

Al-Waleed held positions in several Saudi firms owned by the House of Sa’ad, but worked in title only. His lengthy holidays were described as business trips, yet he saw no clients and attended no meetings. Even if he wanted to play businessman, his father would never allow his unreliable son to damage the family’s corporate interests. The accountant handled everything. The prince had no personal business ventures, finding such matters tedious; he preferred to occupy his time spending his huge allowance on whatever fun money could buy, and the support of terrorism.

Al-Waleed hated the accountant and what he represented and treated him with appalling disdain. Any task Al-Waleed felt was beneath him would be delegated to the accountant, often purely for the sport of humiliating the man. Thus it fell to him to buy drugs and hire call girls and arrange meetings with terrorist middlemen.

Such middlemen were a necessity, for known members of terrorist groups had good reason to be cautious about venturing out of cover in search of funds. Given the difficulty of hunting down the diverse and disparate terrorist groups, with new ones forever springing up from the ashes of those destroyed in an endless cycle, the war against terror had instead begun targeting their sources of income. Without money, bombs could not be made nor bullets purchased. It was prevention over cure. A philosophy Victor tried to live by himself.

One such middleman was due to arrive in Prague later that day. He was a Turkish banker named Ersin Caglayan who handled the bank accounts of several charities that siphoned funds to jihadi groups all over the Middle East. The prince had met with him a number of times in the past and would again while both were in the country.

Victor watched the accountant while he thought about the problem of killing the prince without the CIA being blamed in the process. Setting up his death to look like natural causes – a freak accident or a heart attack – was out because of the complexity both required on such a hard target. Al-Waleed moved around too much and had too many guards in the way for Victor to plan and exact such a death.

A simple solution, however, was to have Caglayan take the blame.