‘What’s your gut feeling on the outcome?’
‘In the air at present. He’s too frightened to talk just yet.’
‘But he is the right man, yeah?’ Barber probed. ‘The man who delivered?’
‘I’m sure he is.’
‘Keep me posted.’
Barber hung up and Donaldson slid his phone away. He watched a pretty girl walk past. She glanced sideways and smiled seductively. Then she was gone with a swish of her hips. He forced himself up from the bench and sauntered back into the city. He stopped for an iced coffee at the Bridge Bar on St Ursula Street before making his way back to his hotel, the Excelsior on Grand Siege Road. He let himself into his air-conditioned room, stripped down to his Uncle Sam boxers and splayed out on the bed, revelling in the cool wafts of chilled air.
An hour later he awoke, shivering. He rose stiffly from the bed and, as was often the case when he came upright from a prone position, a searing pain creased though his abdomen following the exact trail of the bullet he’d taken from Akbar. A line that corkscrewed up through his chest like a cord of steel cable had been inserted into him.
He sat back on the edge of the bed allowing the agony to subside before padding to the bathroom. On returning, he checked his phone — no messages or missed calls — then sat down at the tiny desk, opened his laptop and logged on to check his messages. The process seemed to take forever, so whilst the little egg timer showed, Donaldson went on to the balcony to enjoy the view of Marsamxett harbour and Manoel Island. Some of the heat had gone out of the day, but it was still warm, a sultry breeze listlessly touching him.
He placed his hands on his hips and inhaled the lemony scented air, expanding his chest. Then he turned back into his room, catching a glimpse of the lady on the adjoining balcony. He hadn’t noticed her initially, but she had certainly spotted him from the comfort of her lounger. She had lowered her sunglasses to get a view of the extremely fit-looking man clad only in tight fitting boxers that left hardly anything to her imagination.
Embarrassed, Donaldson scuttled back inside and settled at the laptop, now successfully logged on.
The number of new emails he had received appalled him. Most, he guessed, were rubbish. He went to the inbox and scanned the unopened messages to see if any caught his eye. He didn’t want to make the mistake of opening any that might require any sort of action or response, unless it suited him. If he opened one that needed him to do something, there was no way he could say he hadn’t opened it because of the way emails were tracked. Senders always knew if they’d been opened or not.
‘Ugh,’ he moaned, wishing for the pre-Internet days. He easily understood why spies — and terrorists — had reverted to more basic ways of communicating with each other, such as clandestine meetings, landline phone calls and dead letter drops. With every electronic contact leaving a trace, it was the sensible thing to do. On the minus side, it meant that people who hunted down baddies were finding it harder to track the more intelligent ones.
But one email did make him sit up, only because he recognized the organization that had sent it to him: Lancashire Constabulary. It was entitled, ‘MURDER OF UNIDENTIFIED MALE’. It was the only message he bothered opening.
He read it quickly, noting that it began by saying that the message had been sent to him at the request of one Detective Superintendent Christie. It told the story of the old man being hit by a car, then getting his brains blown out. A very nasty killing. He read the description of the man, including a mention of an old bullet wound in the dead man’s side. A further shooting was then outlined, that of a young boy. Neither meant anything to Donaldson at that stage because his mind was still mulling over Fazil and the way forward with him. Part of the problem could have been that no one outside the FBI knew they were searching for a hit man called the American. Nor did anyone know that one of the three men killed by this man was an FBI undercover agent. It had been decided to keep both facts from general circulation, hopefully so that the investigation would be easier.
So far that theory hadn’t got anywhere, a thought that gave Donaldson an idea. If the FBI came clean, admitted one of their operatives had been murdered, declared they were launching a full scale manhunt and went completely public about the whole thing, it might put the cat amongst the pigeons and cause a bit of panic in some quarters. Panic often led to mistakes; mistakes usually led to arrests.
Maybe something to discuss with Don Barber as it was his show.
Donaldson read through the message from Lancashire police again, then clicked on the attached file accompanying it, hoping to hell it wasn’t carrying a virus.
Millimetre by painful millimetre, photographs unfolded on screen, Donaldson watching impatiently. A series of post-mortem shots of the dead man. Horrific and gruesome.
‘Thanks for this, Henry,’ Donaldson mumbled.
At first Donaldson scanned them fleetingly, but then with growing interest.
‘Well, would ya-’ he began to say, but his exclamation was cut short by a knock on the hotel door. Annoyed, he rose, peering through the spyhole before opening, even though whoever was there had their back to the door. It was his next door neighbour, the lady on the adjoining balcony who had spotted him in his underwear admiring the view. She swirled around as the door opened, dressed in a flimsy, see-through wrap fastened at the neck, opening outwards in an inverted V-shape, over a skimpy bikini.
In her left hand was a bottle of champagne, in her right two fluted glasses.
‘Uh, hi,’ Donaldson said, keeping most of himself out of sight behind the door, as he was still only dressed in his boxers.
She was mid-thirties, tanned, beyond attractive with ample breasts and slim hips. ‘I hope you don’t mind my impudence,’ she said in a vaguely Scandinavian accent, ‘but I thought perhaps we could perhaps
… you know.’ With a swish of gossamer she came through before he could mouth any protest.
‘I…’ he stammered feebly, but she was already in the main section of the room before he could stop her.
She spun. ‘I’m Vanessa, and I’m all alone.’ Her eyes slithered across Donaldson’s broad chest, down across his stomach, then widened at his crotch. Her lips parted wetly.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he said, flustered.
‘We can have some fun — no strings,’ she promised wickedly.
Donaldson made a chopping gesture with the side of his hand. ‘Look, sorry, I’m rather busy…’
She spotted the laptop. ‘We can watch porn together, if you like? Is that what you’re doing now?’
‘No,’ he almost screamed.
But he wasn’t quick enough to stop her stepping to one side and seeing the image on screen. Her face dropped in horror and slowly turned to Donaldson, the colour having drained from it. ‘My God, what are you into? You sick bastard.’
Donaldson’s shoulders sagged. ‘Time to go,’ he said and wafted his hands towards the still open door.
‘It certainly is.’ She gathered her slip around her as best she could and flounced out of the door, champagne and glasses and all. Donaldson followed and closed it softly behind her, exhaling gratefully when she’d gone, but still reeling a little from the encounter.
‘Jeepers,’ he said.
He had some urgent phone calls to make.
SEVEN
‘ Henry Christie,’ came the tired voice.
‘Henry Christie, you old son of a… something.’
‘Well, well, well, Karl Donaldson, FBI agent extraordinaire, how the hell are you?’ Henry’s voice perked up.
Donaldson was back out on the balcony, dressed this time in Chinos and a polo shirt. The next balcony along was noticeable for its emptiness. Obviously Donaldson’s fetish for post-mortem pornography had terrified his sexy, forward neighbour into locking herself behind closed doors. Donaldson had his mobile phone clamped to his ear. ‘I’m good, pal — and you?’