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  Fox slowed to a jog by his local newsstand, took a paper from the vendor who was setting up, and waved thanks and moved off.

  The bleary-eyed old vet jotted down the purchase in his accounts book and then yelled at Fox, “I see the world didn’t end yesterday!”

  Fox turned around and jogged on the spot.

  “This situation,” the guy held up the New York Times and tapped the front page, which shouted a headline including the words ‘UN,’ ‘India’ and ‘Pakistan’. “This water thing? It ain’t over.”

  Fox smiled and tucked the paper under his arm as he moved to stay warm and keep his rhythm. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s never over.”

  Fox gave a little salute to the fellow ex-military man before heading off.

  The sounds of a big city rising filled Fox’s ears and the faint glow of dawn broke as he rounded the corner into Broome Street and slowed to a walk. When he reached his apartment building he stretched out against the front wall, his protesting muscles an aching reminder of all the damage his body had withstood throughout most of his adult life. His breath fogged under the street light as he checked the reflection in a window—the car that had followed him on his run had pulled to a stop across the street. In the sedan sat two men about Fox’s age, both of average height, weight and dress-sense. Cops? More likely Feds. He turned to clock them, and one of them waved; they looked settled, it was just another day out of the office. Fox recognised something in the face of the man who waved but couldn’t place him. He didn’t recognise either of the younger guys who had jogged at a discreet distance behind him; they had stopped down the street and were moving on the spot to keep warm, one watching him, the other scanning the street.

  Fox looked back at the Fed car, that familiar face … He turned back to the joggers: both had bumbags just the right size to conceal a quick-release firearm.

  Suddenly a car rounded the corner at speed and came to an abrupt stop in front of him. A door opened.

  8

  PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

  Kolesnik rolled from his bed and unrolled a wad of cash. He counted out double what the girls charged for their time and paid them while motioning for them to leave. They were pretty things, earning a good living while their looks held.

  KanYe West played on repeat on Kolesnik’s iPod, loud and clear over the Bang & Olufsen speakers set into the ceiling. He was coming down already. The highs were getting shorter and less intense with every swallow and snort despite having access to the best of everything; there was something nice about the occasional cheap mix of an ecstasy pill over pure MDMA.

  He stood under a cool shower drinking a sports drink until he felt sober enough to pack what he needed and organise his movements. Barefoot in a robe, he moved to the kitchen and put croissants under the grill before popping another drink from the glass-fronted bar fridges under the marble bench. He had come to Prague two years ago to lead an uncomplicated life—all play and no hard work—and it was now home, and his work was all play. Still, sometimes he got to play in a very different league—hell, in a different ball game altogether.

  He opened the front door and retrieved the morning paper and small glass bottle of milk that was beaded with sweat. The electrics in this building were wired like a space station: the LED strip lighting that illuminated the floor in the hallway leading to the elevator changed ambience to suit the time of day. In place of a doorman in the marbled foyer was an electronic keypad that facilitated entry into the seventeenth century building. Kolesnik’s apartment was late Baroque style: fifteen foot ceilings, open fireplaces, a grand bedroom and a series of living rooms, not ten minutes’ walk over the Vltava from his club.

  This was an old-money and emerging-yuppie district, the medieval centre of the city, a UNESCO World Heritage site full of theatres, cafés, galleries and museums, boutiques that sold antique furs, and artisan milliners and jewellers who sold to tourists and the local elite. It was quiet through the day here in this corner, except for those who had no need to work but a great need to fill their days accumulating and being seen.

  Kolesnik’s apartment was a corner suite on the fourth floor. There were linden trees outside his main windows, all green leaves in summer and stark empty branches in the cold months. He checked his Omega: it was just before noon. He saturated his croissants with butter and jam, made a decaf and carried his breakfast to the study, where he sat behind a double-screened PC and flicked it from sleep.

  Secure communications were vital for any intelligence officer, and he’d not only received good training from Russia’s intelligence agency, the GRU, he kept his trade-craft current by being informed. Last year, an al-Qaeda bomb maker had been caught out in Beirut after communicating via a generic email account, where he’d save his draft emails and the receiver would log in using the same details and read the message without it ever being sent across servers. Last month, by blocking text messaging services sent via suspect websites, French DGSE agents foiled jihadists from blowing up iconic landmarks in Paris. Kolesnik had long been wary of the internet as the silver bullet that would keep communications untraceable. In this business he had to stay a step ahead of his adversaries, and in the case of the US intel community, two steps, if he could help it.

  His fingers tapped on the desk to a constant beat as he logged on to an online gaming website, triple-checking the list of names he had saved a week ago as a calendar event. It was one of a few such online dead-drop sites, places where seemingly benign information could be traded among business associates in the vast, open expanse of the internet. It looked like any other piece of information—a list of names, nothing more—but it was the context that made it explosive, something that police and intelligence agencies would be interested in. Not to mention those on the list—they would be very interested.

  Six names and one GPS location.

  A death list.

  The location was a speck in Kashmir—a shanty town, a mix of ancient and temporary structures on a long-abandoned trade route in northern Pakistan. Population unconfirmed, but from reports of the project he figured it to be about six hundred men, some with families there as well.

  Kolesnik had built his reputation on the quality of his work, and he knew that outsourcing was a gamble—ultimately, he was responsible for this mission, so all work must be completed to his standard.

  He scrolled through the World of Warcraft site, the world’s largest online game. He had several methods of relaying information to his contractors, but this was currently his preferred option, a means of breaking the information up to as many locations as possible. With over fifteen million subscribers involved in this online role-playing game—all sending and receiving messages similar to the real-life instructions transmitted by Kolesnik—WoW was the perfect place to get lost, away from the prying eyes of the American and European security agencies. Better than meeting some guys in an out-of-the-way crowded bar in Mexico City.

  It took just a few minutes to get his avatar to a mailbox, where he typed in three separate pieces of mail and sent each to the appropriate contact, who would check their Alliance avatar’s mail within twenty-four hours.

  They did actually play the game, occasionally, to ensure their avatars—mid-level humans—were nothing more nor less than millions of others being played from homes and offices around the world at any given moment. Another value of this game was the type and speed of communication it allowed. One of his guild players replied instantly. Kolesnik typed a reply, gibberish at first glance until applied to a simple side-stepped cipher, which contained information imbedded in the calendar note.

  The wheels were in motion; it was no longer just him working on the list. He had the last-known locations of the six targets, all of whom had been tracked by local assets since he had received Babich’s first message.

  Kolesnik had a particular contractor in mind to take care of the shanty town in Kashmir. As he chomped down on a croissant he sent a spam email
to what was seemingly the MySpace page of a twenty-two-year-old middle-class Pakistani girl, complete with real-life ‘friends’ added from the local area and abroad. The profile was, in fact, the online contact point for a former Pakistani Intelligence officer who now coordinated a terror-support cell out of northwestern Pakistan that specialised in attacks across the Indian border.

  The US-based target would be the difficult one—or rather, the expensive one. But Babich wanted this done ASAP, and he knew the cost as well as he knew Kolesnik—better than anyone. Everything Kolesnik had here in Prague, in Baku, in St Petersburg, was due to Babich, and he dirtied his hands for him whenever the need arose.

  As a former paratrooper and GRU officer, Kolesnik knew loyalty and appreciated what Babich, much more than merely his General, would continue to do for him. He was a friend—family—in the highest of places, and it was Kolesnik’s job, as part of a collection of many such men, to fix his boss’s problems. From his first hit job for Babich in Moscow five years ago—an arrogant journalist he’d shot in the face in the lift of her apartment building—Kolesnik had known that his life, and Babich’s, were inextricably aligned forever.

  He logged off and went to his bedroom to pack. He threw a light summer shirt, T-shirts, a jacket, walking boots and laptop, with spare batteries, into a carry-on rucksack.

  He moved aside some hanging shirts and pressed his thumb to the biometric lock of the bar-fridge-sized safe, then spoke the password. He flicked through a pile of passports on the top shelf and selected a cold one: Polish, with the full diplomatic cover of a senior embassy official, visas and stamps running up until a year ago which said he’d been stationed in the embassy in Prague. Inside were the corresponding Amex and MasterCard, along with an international driver’s licence. He took a few thousand in US dollars and euros.

  Kolesnik paused to look at the two 9 mm firearms, a Glock pistol and an MP5K. Under his cover identity in Prague, a name now so familiar, so comfortable, he was licensed to keep both weapons in his home under safe lock, although a police search would find any one of his seven passports cause for arrest. He was not concerned by this, though—his eight years working for Russian Intelligence in Prague did offer some level of diplomatic protection. Babich had set it up via his old KGB colleagues. Like many intelligence officers, Kolesnik had had other employers over the years; free market all the way.

  He pulled on jeans, a shirt, boots and a leather jacket, and tossed his carry-on bag over his shoulder. Babich’s voice still rang in his ear, the familiar tone he had known all his life. Yest’ chelóvek, yest’ probléma. Net chelovéka, net problem … Who had first said that? He wasn’t sure, but he knew that Stalin was said to be fond of it.

  Yest’ chelóvek, yest’ probléma. Net chelovéka, net problémy: If there is a person, there is a problem. If there is no person, then there is no problem.

  Time to make these problems disappear.

  9

  NEW YORK CITY

  “They’re with us,” said a recognisable voice, dropping the ‘r,’ all Boston minor chords. Fox watched the figure emerge from the car that had just pulled to a quick stop—another familiar face, a friendly face.

  FBI Special Agent Andrew Hutchinson walked over from his car, overcoat hanging loose off his Average Joe frame. Hutchinson was about six feet to Fox’s six-two, was neater looking and on par for tiredness, but the lawman had the puffiness and build of a desk man.

  The two shook hands.

  “Thought you’d had enough of New York,” Fox said.

  “Visiting from DC,” Hutchinson replied. “Can we go inside?”

  Fox knew that Hutchinson, with all his guys about, had good reason to want to head indoors, so he led the way into the building and up the stairs. Inside the apartment Fox dropped his newspaper on the kitchen table and flicked on the espresso machine.

  “You go clean up, I’ll make the coffee,” Hutchinson said, taking off his overcoat. He held up a paper bag from Dunkin’ Donuts. “The cornerstone of any nutritional breakfast.”

  After a quick shower Fox returned in jeans and T-shirt and switched on the Sony LCD on the wall at the end of the kitchen before taking the coffee and doughnut offered by Hutchinson.

  “More technology on that thing than the space shuttle,” Hutchinson grumbled about the Gaggia as he added sugar to his cappuccino. “Not to mention that thing,” he added, motioning to Fox’s shiny new BMW K1200R motorbike.

  “I’m hoping to find time soon to ride across the country,” Fox said, looking at the hardly-broken-in naked bike. “Start here in Manhattan, head south, then chase the sunset across to TJ, follow the coast north, maybe even up through to Anchorage, then back east, all the way to Maine and then back down.”

  “You had me at Tijuana and then lost me somewhere around Washington State and the border,” Hutchinson said. “It’s cold enough here.”

  “I thought you Bostonians didn’t feel the cold.”

  “It’s a different kind of cold.”

  “I was there a few weeks back,” Fox said through a mouthful of doughnut. “Drove up, should have ridden. Learned that the first parking space you see will be the last parking space you see.”

  Hutchinson laughed, wiped his hands on his trousers and looked around. The floorplan of Fox’s apartment was all polished boards covered with Persian rugs, blasted brick and white plaster walls, pressed metal ceilings; the open-plan living space was sparsely furnished but for gym equipment up one end and a leather couch at the other. Hutchinson sat at the island bench and Fox on a corner of the couch as BBC News showed images of the burgeoning crisis in India, protesters rioting in the streets.

  Fox watched Hutchinson’s face as he stirred his coffee.

  Hutchinson was a special agent with the FBI’s counter-intelligence branch. They had met about a year ago and come into contact a few times since, more often than not related to Fox’s investigative reporting into Umbra, and had a healthy respect for each other.

  Fox checked his Bell & Ross watch. “Andy, you know what time it is?”

  “I heard you were an early riser.”

  “What’s with all the boys out there?”

  “I’ll get to that in a sec,” Hutchinson said. “So, how are you doing, Lachlan?”

  “I’m doing great,” Fox replied. It had been two months since they’d spoken at any length, about seven or so months since they’d met in person. A lifetime ago. “You?”

  “All right. I got a nice promo, effectively heading my own mobile field office now.”

  “So it’s Special Agent in Charge Hutchinson now?”

  “Yep.”

  “Seems you’ve got half your boys outside my door.” Fox looked to the ajar front door, noticed another Fed hovering outside: jacket ready-open, showing the added bulk of a heavy gauge Kevlar vest, carrying the fire if he needed to respond. “Is all that for my benefit or yours?”

  “Yeah…” replied Hutchinson. “As I said, I’ll get to that.”

  Fox let it go, for now.

  “Anyway, here I am, one coffee and doughnut in already,” Hutchinson said, “and you look like you’ve just done a few miles round the park.”

  “Ten, around Roosevelt, but who’s counting? Refill?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Hutchinson said. “How’s the body holding up?”

  “Not like it used to. I’ve got pain in places I didn’t know I had muscles.” Fox worked the Gaggia, grinding beans and flushing out the system before packing in a few shots of fine Arabica coffee. “That said, I’ve discovered that a few weekly sessions of pilates is damn easier than hours of free weights … Is that Capel in the car out front?”

  “One and the same; he’s been out there since the early hours.”

  Fox shot him a quick, questioning look. Last year, Special Agent Capel had watched over him for a few days when rogue French agents had been actively pursuing Fox around Manhattan—he’d done a good job, which is more than Fox could say of h
imself. But Hutchinson hadn’t known about Kate’s involvement then, none of them did, until it was too late.

  “He said he missed babysitting your sorry ass,” Hutchinson said, shuffling on his stool. “How are you doing otherwise?”

  Fox smiled. He knew this was probably, at least in part, a recruiting op for Hutchinson. He had tried twice before, in similar circumstances, to no avail. After Kate’s death, going after the group behind it in any way other than through his reportage was too much too soon. Last year, following the death of his friend and colleague Michael Rollins, who’d infiltrated Umbra’s shadowy dealings in Nigeria, he wasn’t physically up to the task. Now … now Fox wanted more than the law could provide. He would be honest with the guy, again; he had no reason not to be, and his instincts told him it would be a two-way street. Fox passed over a second cappuccino and watched the federal agent spoon in a couple of sugars and mix them roughly with the spoon.

  “Insomnia,” Fox said, sipping black coffee. “I’m restless, worn out, fed up, frustrated—how else can I put it? I’m fast becoming a sad, angry, lonely old man. I’m thirty-two and … I think I’m almost done with this work. Maybe I’ll go into academia for a bit, do a bit of post-grad study, Yale maybe.”

  “Yeah, I get it … kind of,” said Hutchinson, smiling.

  Fox laughed. “Look, jokes aside, I want to do some different stuff away from GSR someday, but all’s good, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “You are teaching a class at Columbia though?”

  Fox nodded.

  “Anyway,” Hutchinson said, something else in his eyes, something like uneasiness, “are you taking something for that, the sleeplessness?”