Payback by James Barrington Read Free Book Online Page B

you?’
    Saratov, Russia
    Dawson stopped the truck on the dockside just after five. The transit documents supplied by Borisov had been scrutinized at the gate, and no eyebrows had been raised. The
cargo-carrying motorized barge they’d booked space on was already waiting alongside the dock. It was scheduled to sail at six-fifteen, so their timing was just about perfect.
    Wilson walked up the gangway and onto the barge, while Dawson opened the rear doors of the lorry. A waiting forklift truck lifted out the crate and deposited it next to a crane, and minutes
later it was swung into the cargo hold and the barge’s hatches then closed.
    Wilson came back down the gangway, having concluded his arrangements with the barge master. The crate was an unscheduled addition to the vessel’s cargo that the Americans had booked only
two days earlier, so payment in cash had been agreed, half in advance and the rest on delivery to Volgograd. The barge master wasn’t interested in paperwork, only in the money, and the
operating company would know nothing about the unscheduled load, which suited everyone just fine.
    The vessel would take about four days to cover the two hundred and fifty miles down the river. While the barge was heading south, Dawson and Wilson would ditch the truck. They’d already
located a commercial vehicle park on the outskirts of Atkarsk that would do nicely. It would be bad luck if anybody took any notice of one extra truck, but even if it did get spotted and questions
were asked, the pursuit would at least be stalled for some time in the town. From Atkarsk, the two Americans would take a train back to Saratov, and from there on to Volgograd.
    ‘OK,’ Wilson said, hauling himself up into the passenger seat, ‘let’s get out of here.’
    Dawson fired up the diesel, engaged first gear and drove back towards the dockyard entrance. Unless they met any unforeseen problems, they calculated that they should be in Volgograd by
mid-evening.
    Manama, Bahrain
    Evans strode out of the embassy and paused for a moment, looking round. He spotted Mazen’s dusty Mercedes parked about seventy yards away, but gave no sign of
recognition. He turned in the opposite direction and began walking slowly along the pavement. Two minutes later Mazen pulled up beside him. Evans quickly opened the door and climbed in.
    ‘Tariq,’ Evans acknowledged. ‘I gather you’ve got something for me?’
    Evans spoke fluent Arabic – a requirement in his posting – but he knew Mazen was proud of his linguistic abilities and preferred to conduct their meetings in English.
    ‘It’s just a story, Bill,’ Mazen said, accelerating gently down the road, ‘and it may all prove to be a false alarm, but I believe it’s worth looking
into.’
    Forty minutes later, having discussed everything from the strength of the Bahraini dinar to the latest problems in Israel, Mazen finally broached the actual subject of their meeting with a
somewhat dramatic announcement.
    ‘We could, my friend,’ he said, ‘be sitting about two kilometres away from where Osama bin Laden is lying helpless in a hospital bed, plugged into a kidney-dialysis
machine.’
    Stratford, East London
    The sports centre lay at the end of Gibbins Road. It wasn’t an ideal location, because Tango One was a full half mile away, but it had a car park where the unmarked
white Transit vans – the ‘horses’ Jessup had referred to – and the ARVs could park without attracting undue attention.
    There were also two saloon cars there, in one of which Richter had hitched a ride from New Scotland Yard, sharing the back seat with a slim young man with reddish hair and an embryo moustache
that didn’t look as if it was going anywhere. The other passenger had ignored him for the entire journey, and Richter guessed he was probably one of the ‘pimply-faced geeks’ from
the Security Service that Jessup had complained about earlier.
    There are few activities more tedious than waiting