Authors: Hector Macdonald
Gavriel Yadin did not react immediately. Across a rooftop littered with metal reinforcing bars – rebars – and pieces of timber, Arkell wondered if Yadin had even heard him over the noise of the TV helicopters. Was he so engrossed in his work, in the murder of a prime minister, that he had become oblivious to everything else?
From this height, it was possible to get a sense of the remarkable shape of Brasilia: the Monumental Axis as the fuselage, with the two wings of residential neighbourhoods sweeping out to either side. And at the nose of the aircraft, the Praça dos Três Poderes, with beyond it the great artificial Paranoá Lake, created to bring humidity to the parched highland city. Simon Arkell ignored it all to focus his aim on Yadin’s back. The distance between them was perhaps thirty metres: not a straightforward shot with a handgun, but he could do it.
He should do it. Wraye had been unequivocal.
But a bullet in the back? The easy death the assassin seemed to seek – was that the justice Emily deserved?
‘Put your hands on your head!’ Wraye was going to slaughter him for this.
There was no reaction. Still that inexpressive back. With the Taurus rock steady in a two-handed grip, Arkell started across the roof. If Yadin showed the slightest sign of –
His desert boot clipped a rebar. It didn’t trip him, but the impact on his foot and the noise of steel scraping over concrete caused him to glance down for a fraction of a second. When he looked up again, Yadin was on one knee and pointing a gun at him.
‘Put it down,’ said Arkell, furious at his own clumsiness.
‘Or you put yours down,’ suggested Yadin benignly.
‘The Canadian security team is on its way here. You just killed one of their people. If you’re holding a weapon when they get here, they won’t stop to chat like me.’
‘Then they are more intelligent than you.’
Arkell smiled grimly. ‘Are you any smarter? You’ve had two opportunities to kill me.’
‘And now you’ve given me a third.’
Minutely raising the elbow of his right arm so that his trigger finger felt perfectly balanced, Arkell said, ‘You understand this is over? Mayhew won’t be stepping outside until you’re killed or contained. Whatever happens between us, you’re not getting that shot.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Klara is downstairs. She doesn’t want you dead. For her sake, Gavriel, put your weapon down.’
‘A personal appeal. Nice. Would she want
you
dead?’ He gave the slightest hint of a laugh. ‘Maybe we should put our weapons down together.’ The dark humour turned into a mocking grimace. ‘For Klara’s sake.’
‘All right.’
Still keeping the Taurus locked on Yadin, Arkell crouched down. Very slowly, he began to lower the gun. The Israeli mirrored his movements exactly, separating his hands at the same moment, bringing the gun to rest on the concrete in perfect synchrony.
Their hands drew clear of the firearms and they stood up and walked towards each other.
‘How is your neck?’
‘On the mend.’
‘Leg? Arm?’
‘Better than I implied.’
‘Good. Then this will be fair.’
Arkell thought again of Wraye’s explicit order. ‘I’m giving you the chance to surrender.’
‘So I can rot in a Brazilian cell?’
‘It might be a Dutch cell.’
Yadin glanced at the building materials scattered about the rooftop. ‘Your file detailed some skill in bōjutsu.’
Arkell smiled. ‘I thought you wanted this to be fair.’
Perplexed, the other man said, ‘Have you learned nothing about me?’
His foot lashed out. There had been no warning, no shift in stance. The high kick caught Arkell in the chest, cracking two ribs and tumbling him backwards. He looked up to see Yadin seize a two-metre rebar. Another lay close by, and he grabbed it and leapt to his feet as Yadin lunged at him with the steel rod.
It was simplest just to dodge that one.
Yadin spun around, bringing the rebar whipping towards his head. He ducked, and as the metal rod skimmed his hair, he rolled his own rebar around and delivered a glancing blow to Yadin’s hip.
The other man staggered. Retreating three paces, he turned and assumed a fighting stance, the rebar gripped diagonally across his body. Arkell swung his rebar one-handed up and back to rest on his right shoulder. He needed to make better allowance for its weight. That strike should have landed better. He had misjudged the force required to reverse the momentum of the steel.
Yadin let his rebar slide through his hands and then flipped it round to point the other end at his opponent. A standard kata move, all the warning Arkell needed that Gavriel Yadin had picked up a little bōjutsu training himself.
In response, Arkell turned side-on to the Israeli. Pivoting the rebar back across his shoulder blades in an easy, almost lethargic motion, he waited for the other to move. When Yadin lunged, he rolled the rebar off his shoulders and round, seizing it with left hand close to right, and deflecting the lunge without difficulty. But Yadin was already twisting back for a new attack, and this time he had to block the rebar directly. As the two lengths of tempered steel clashed, he locked his wrists against the punishing vibration.
Yadin rocked back and struck again, then reversed the rebar to attack from above. Each blow Arkell parried, shifting faster and faster as Yadin built up momentum. He could see the other man refreshing and improving his technique by the second. The next swing was a feint, and Yadin went for a direct jab to the throat. Arkell batted the rebar aside, but the thought of that steel pole skewering his neck made him angry. Rocking backwards, he spun the rebar, rolling it from one hand to the other, before lashing out and catching Yadin on the left shoulder.
The impact of hard steel on bone drew a roar of pain from Yadin, and Arkell knew the shoulder was broken. The Kidon combatant threw a look towards his automatic, but Arkell had anticipated him and moved quickly to block his path to the weapon.
‘Stop,’ he said, no longer thinking of Wraye’s order. ‘You need a hospital.’
One-handed, Yadin whirled the heavy rod in a vertical and then a lateral plane, flicking it with superhuman agility towards Arkell’s face. The other jerked back, and was then shocked to see the rebar turn and accelerate downwards towards his knee. Off-balance, he couldn’t pull his leg clear in time; to save his knee, he rocked forward and took the blow on his injured thigh. The crushing pain made his leg collapse and he dropped to the ground. Above him, Yadin raised the rebar spear-like and drove it hard at his face.
Arkell rolled sideways to escape the steel, sacrificing his grip on his own rebar. He grabbed a timber baton and used it to smack away Yadin’s second thrust. As the rebar struck the concrete beside his shoulder, he seized it and wrenched downwards. Yadin kept hold, but he’d allowed himself to be pulled dangerously low and Arkell reached up and smashed the baton against the side of his head.
The timber broke in two and Arkell rolled clear. Another rebar lay close by. It felt thicker and heavier. While Yadin steadied himself, shaking his bleeding head, Arkell spun it in his left hand to accustom himself to the new weight.
The Kidon combatant’s hair was matted with blood. His left arm hung useless by his side. The rebar lay at his feet but he did not attempt to pick it up. Instead, he straightened, his body stiffening. Arkell could sense the energy coiling inside him. Yadin had lost interest in bōjutsu. Badly injured, perhaps a little concussed, he was falling back on his most fundamental hand-to-hand combat skills, preparing himself for a last-ditch assault.
Simon Arkell gripped the cumbersome rebar diagonally across his body. It was heavy, too heavy to be truly effective. For a moment he considered running for the automatic. But his left leg could no longer be relied upon. If he stumbled, Yadin would finish him in seconds.
He breathed out, breathed in, and imagined he was fighting his way through mud. Imagined the effort it would take to move his arms. That was the force he would need to handle this overweight bō.
Yadin attacked.
It was a spinning hook kick, a tae kwon do move that took less than a second to execute. As Yadin twisted his whole body clockwise and his right foot started to lift, Arkell’s subconscious anticipated the impact of heel against head. The rebar was on the wrong diagonal to block it – no accident – and so, even before his conscious mind had time to think it through, his hands were working with all the force in his arms to reverse the heavy steel bō and set it with milliseconds to spare in the path of Yadin’s lower leg.
The choreography of a spinning hook kick dictated that it was the back of Yadin’s right calf that hit the rigid bar rather than his shin. Otherwise he would undoubtedly have smashed his tibia. As it was, the rigid barrier destroyed his balance and ripped his calf muscle. Arkell spun the rebar once more and brought the heavy steel down on the nearest part of Yadin’s falling body. It happened to be his right arm, and the sound of his humerus cracking was sickeningly clear over the noise of the media helicopters.
This time, the Kidon combatant made no further move. He lay on the concrete, breathing shallowly, his broken arm splayed wide.
Arkell picked up both guns. ‘Stay down. We’ll bring the medics to you.’ Tapping the transmit button on his CSIS radio, he said, ‘Arkell. TARQUIN incapacitated. Safe to proceed with ceremony.’
‘Arkell, this is Margrave. Confirm TARQUIN no longer a threat,’ came the instant, urgent response.
‘Affirmative. TARQUIN is down.’
But even as he spoke the words, Yadin was lifting himself, standing, facing Arkell with all the certainty and determination of before.
‘It’s over. You’re finished. Stay down.’
Yadin barely seemed to hear the words. He stepped forward, his right leg shuddering as the torn calf muscle took his weight.
‘I said
stay down
!’ yelled Arkell, raising the Taurus.
As Yadin took one last step towards him, the noise of the shots seemed impossibly loud in that wide open place. He fell backwards, and instinctively Arkell went to him. One soldier to another. Soames, he thought angrily: reckoned I couldn’t handle a man with two useless arms. He crouched beside the dying assassin, and something made him lay his hand on the man’s wrecked shoulder.
Gavriel Yadin, killer of kings, looked up at him and smiled. There were small pink bubbles around his lips. His chest was a butchered mess. ‘I’m happy it was you,’ he said.
Arkell nodded. There seemed nothing useful to add.
‘So frequent. So ordinary.’ He was choking now. ‘You’ve failed, but . . . you were better than we knew.’ His eyes flickered. ‘Found me planting cabbages.’
Arkell leaned forward. ‘I’ve
failed
?’
But Yadin had no more breath to speak.
The muted scrape of rubber soles on dusty concrete sounded beside him as he closed Yadin’s eyelids.
‘That was unnecessary. And stupid,’ he added. ‘We could have learned a lot from him.’
Then he noticed that the feet beside him were shod not in Canadian black brogues but rugged brown boots. Jerking round, Taurus raised, he saw there were three of them, all carrying automatic rifles. The leader gestured efficiently and unambiguously at the Taurus. Arkell laid it down.
He recognized all three – a passenger on the Dortmund train; the solitary businessman in the Strasbourg winstub; one of the tourists in the foyer of the Leblon Internacional – yet still he had no idea what to expect. No possible explanation for these new players arriving so late to a game he thought was over. But one confusion connected with another and he said, ‘You were in Cyprus. You killed Kolatch.’
The leader nodded. ‘It was necessary.’
‘And Dejan?’ The man had sandy hair and blue eyes. He looked nothing like Yadin. Still, Arkell guessed the truth. ‘You’re Mossad. Kidon. Cleaning up rogue agents and assets that have become an embarrassment to Israel. Boim put you on to me and I led you right to them.’
At the leader’s signal, the other two men picked up Yadin’s body.
‘You’re
taking
him? Why?’
‘For burial in Jerusalem.’
Arkell did not try to hide his surprise. ‘You just executed him! Now you honour him?’
‘This man was a hero. He served his country.’
‘So he ends up on the Mount of Olives despite murdering two national leaders and attempting to kill a third?’
‘Is that what happened?’ The leader waved his men on, and they carried the body down the steps. ‘Van der Velde perhaps, but Andrade was poisoned by a woman. And Mayhew . . .’ The Kidon combatant gestured towards Yadin’s kit, still arrayed at the edge of the slab. ‘Do you see a weapon?’
An uneasy chill forming in his stomach, Arkell limped across to the tripod. It held a sleek black video camera with a long lens. Next to it stood a mobile satellite uplink, small enough to fit – with the camera – inside the ordinary suitcase that lay open beyond.
There was nothing else. No sniper’s rifle, no rocket-propelled grenade. Just a simple means of recording and broadcasting an event that was already being recorded and broadcast by a dozen TV crews in the Praça. It made no sense.
‘Then what –?’ He turned to find the roof empty. When he hurried to the steps there was no sign of the Mossad team.
He picked up the CSIS radio and touched the transmit button. ‘Arkell. Yadin’s dead. But we might still have a problem . . .’
At the foot of the building, Klara never saw the Kidon team. Maybe they entered a different way. Maybe she was too distracted to notice them slip past. Gavriel Yadin was going to die: she had accepted the fact, but still it put her in a state of turmoil to imagine the killing. And that was not the heaviest burden pressing on her mind.
She stood abruptly and hurried across the construction site. She had to get to Margrave. Yadin’s last words to her, when Malloy’s blood was still wet on her fingers, came back to her. She raised a thumb to the passing vehicles. No one stopped for her. She started running south. Then a car swerved in front of her and Gerard Soames stepped out.
‘Ms Richter?’ He squinted as he drew closer. ‘Is that blood?’
‘Simon went after him,’ she said in a rush. ‘He went up after Gavriel . . .’
‘I know. I heard on the radio.’
‘What?’ Klara staggered a little. ‘What did you hear?’
Soames had the grace to hesitate. ‘Arkell got him. I’m on my way to help clean up.’
‘No . . .’ She caught his arm. ‘No, we have to go to Mr Margrave. Right now. There’s something else.’
‘What are you talking about? It’s over.’
‘It’s not over! Listen to me. I saw him. I saw Gavriel. He told me to stay away from the square. You understand? He told me I had to be at least three blocks away. Why would he say that?’
Soames was not the sympathetic type. He did not like dealing with hysterical witnesses or members of the public. But he recognized a threat to his principal’s life as well as any security professional. He glanced up at the unfinished building, and then back at the Congress towers beyond which lay the Praça dos Três Poderes. Even for a skilled sniper it really would have been a very long shot.
‘Get in the car,’ he said.
Margrave had called Wraye into a huddle with the Director General of ABIN. ‘Your guy says it’s safe. My officer is still a while away from the scene, and the cortège is nearly here. What’s your assessment?’
‘If Simon Arkell says Yadin is down, you can be sure he’s not getting up again.’
‘So we can proceed with the ceremony?’
‘Shel, I’m not responsible for the prime minister’s security. I can’t comment on other possible threats. But you don’t have to worry about Yadin any more.’
‘All right, then.’ Margrave took the news to Henderson, who relayed it to Mayhew at the other end of the reception suite. The mood of frustration that had been growing amongst the prime minister’s aides quickly lifted.
As Margrave watched the prime minister pull on his jacket and pick up his speech, he heard a voice in his radio earpiece: ‘Soames. Malloy is dead. I have Klara Richter with me. She has important information on a possible new threat. I’m at the rear vehicle entrance of the Palácio. Urgently request permission to enter.’
Another officer approached. ‘Sir, I have something back from Rio. They’ve identified an Olavo on the Leblon Internacional CCTV.’
‘Stand by, Soames.’
‘Olavo Pires Filho. He visited on Wednesday. He entered the hotel empty-handed at 15:38 and left at 16:12 carrying a case.’
‘Wait . . . he didn’t bring TARQUIN anything?’
‘Nothing that couldn’t fit in a pocket. He was there to collect.’
‘So who is he? Do they have a profile? Criminal record? Gang connections?’
‘Nothing like that, sir. He’s an undertaker.’ The officer paused, bracing himself. ‘He works for the firm that just put the president in his coffin.’
A crackle preceded Arkell’s transmission: ‘Yadin’s dead. But we might still have a problem. All he had up here was a video camera and broadcast equipment. There’s something else planned.’
Margrave looked round to see Prime Minister Mayhew and his wife joining the new president and the other state dignitaries at the entrance of the reception suite.
‘Soames, I’m sending an escort to you. Get Richter up here right now.’
Madeleine Wraye had not wasted the opportunity for a private chat with the ABIN Director General when Margrave stepped away. A recent political appointment, she had not known him during her SIS days. Now, as head of the most important intelligence agency in South America, he was not only a valuable source of information; he was a potential client. Wraye didn’t quite present her card, but in a few carefully judged remarks she made sure he was aware of her privileged place within the extended intelligence constellation.
At the same time, she was listening with growing apprehension to the CSIS radio traffic through an earpiece she kept discreetly turned away from the DG. ‘Did you ever find anything on that woman in Lourdes?’ she asked. ‘The nurse with the rose?’
The DG looked grave and pleased at the same time. ‘A new lead came in a short while ago.’ His English was excellent, if strongly North American in accent. ‘A photograph. We’ve been searching the social networks and blogs for pictures taken on the day. This one we didn’t spot at first – the tags are in Polish, and the president’s name was spelt wrong – but I am told it shows the woman clearly. We will circulate it later today. Perhaps you can help us with your contacts?’
‘I’d be delighted to. May I see the picture?’
‘After the ceremony.’
‘Of course.’ She paused, thinking of that video camera set up on a roof overlooking the Praça. ‘Unless there’s any possibility of getting a copy now?’
He looked at her curiously, then made a call. ‘Two minutes and we will have it.’
‘Thank you.’ She excused herself and grabbed one of the CSIS officers. ‘Who’s with Arkell’s assistant, Siren?’ she asked.
‘That would be Michael Raynes.’
‘They’re in the square?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Tell Raynes not to let her out of his sight.’
Photographs were being taken. The VIP party had swollen to more than thirty people. All of them needed to be placed in precisely the right order behind the president and the prime minister. A television showed the cortège approaching at walking pace down Via Norte Um. The crowds lining the avenue were silent and very still.
Margrave tore his gaze away from the solemn figure of Mayhew and demanded of his team, ‘Is there any doubt about this? I mean, I’m not crazy . . . the smell of solder, the undertaker, the video camera, the warning to stay three blocks away: this means what I think it means?’
Soames saw his opportunity to be bold, to be helpful, above all to stand out: ‘Sir, you’re not crazy. There is an explosive device in that coffin powerful enough to take out not only Mayhew but all the camera crews in the square. Which means thousands of spectators as well, along with the entire Brazilian executive. Yadin intended to film and broadcast it all.’
‘And detonate it?’
‘My bet is there’s an associate in the crowd. Like Lourdes.’
‘They’d be killed by the blast.’
‘Maybe they don’t realize how big the device is,’ suggested another officer.
‘We’re sure about this undertaker? Do we have a picture?’
One of his officers produced a tablet and summoned up an employee ID. Impatiently, Margrave pointed to Klara. ‘Not me. Show it to her.’
Klara nodded at the photo. ‘That’s the man who spoke to us in Rio.’
Margrave stood quite still, eyes raised above them all, trying to make the impossible call. ‘If I go to Mayhew now, what evidence do I have? A camera on a roof. An undertaker who happened to visit a popular Rio hotel. In the twenty seconds he’s going to give me before he starts down that ramp and addresses the world, what else can I tell him?’
Soames, on a roll now, looked to Klara. ‘The electronics, the undertaker meeting, the three-block warning . . . She’s your evidence.’
Margrave nodded. He made his decision. ‘Ms Richter, please come with me. I need you to be eloquent, concise and extremely convincing.’
The ABIN Director General touched Wraye’s arm. ‘It’s arrived,’ he murmured, handing her his smartphone. She looked once at the photograph on the screen.
‘Thank you,’ she said, handing it back. Her voice was entirely steady. ‘I’m going to need to borrow something from one of your officers. Rather urgently, I’m afraid.’
Alone at the top of a half-finished building, Simon Arkell had already dismantled the camera and satellite uplink, confirming what he already knew. There was no weapon here. At a complete loss, he pulled out his phone. He’d felt it vibrate silently in his pocket while he was stalking Yadin. A missed call from Danny Levin.
He called him back. ‘Do you have anything?’
Danny sounded ridiculously cheerful. ‘Didn’t you listen to my voicemail?’
His leg was hurting too much to endure Danny’s high spirits. ‘Give me the headline. Have you found anything on Watchman?’
‘I’ve got a stack on Watchman. Jeez, what’d you think, I’ve been asleep?’
‘Anything relating to Brazil or Yadin?’
‘Nope, but there is one bizarro thing. I was looking through his connections, people he’s hung out with, served on a committee with, shared a golf round with, whatever . . . anything cached on accessible databases.’
‘I haven’t got time for this.’
‘OK, OK, look . . . Cancer Research. Six years ago. He gave like some shitty amount, ten pounds is all, via a donations website to sponsor a runner called Clare Hopeflower.’
A beep signalled a new message. ‘Danny, I’m in South America dealing with an assassination attempt. What the hell has a charity run got to do with anything?’
‘See, the weird thing is, Clare Hopeflower has plenty of background datapoints: Bristol birth certificate, private school in Berkshire, driver’s licence, German exchange programme, German Literature at Oxford University, couple of translator jobs in Brussels and a bunch of council tax and TV licence payments when she comes back to England. But everything stops four years ago. Like she died or something.’
‘I’m hanging up, Danny.’
‘Take a look at the MMS I just sent you,’ he said, a note of triumph flooding his voice.
Switching to speaker, Arkell opened the message and stared at the passport photograph in utter disbelief.
‘So tell me that’s not your favourite German chick.’
‘Walk with me,’ murmured Wraye to the ABIN DG. The VIP party were all assembled now, correctly ordered for precedence, at the top of the long white ramp that led from the Palácio do Planalto down to the Praça dos Três Poderes. The cortège had arrived at the foot of the ramp, and an honour guard of Independence Dragoons in white uniforms with red-plumed bronze helmets was preparing to escort the coffin to the centre of the square.
Her phone rang, and she took the call as they crossed the central hall.
‘It’s Klara!’ Arkell’s voice was forceful, clear, urgent. ‘She’s English, she’s called Clare Hopeflower, and she knows Watchman. Don’t let her near Mayhew!’
‘Thank you, Simon,’ she said calmly, hanging up and continuing on towards the front of the VIP column, where Mayhew and his wife stood together with the new Brazilian president. They were erect and solemn, aware that the media cameras below were already on them. Close-up images were showing on silent television screens just to their left.
CSIS Director of Operations Shel Margrave seemed to hesitate on seeing those news pictures, but only for a moment. With the woman he knew as Klara Richter at his side he walked quickly into frame as Mayhew started down the great ramp. ‘Sir, a moment please!’
Brazilian aides and security personnel stepped forward as Madeleine Wraye, an unknown figure to them, carrying something metallic in her right hand, doubled her pace towards their president. But at a signal from the ABIN chief they let her pass. None of them noticed that the other woman was also holding something – a much smaller object, slim and cylindrical.
Wraye had seen it, however. As Clare Hopeflower raised her arm towards Prime Minister Mayhew, she whipped the borrowed Taser up to shoulder-height and fired.
The instant the two barbed electrodes hooked into the English assassin’s flesh, Wraye dropped the weapon and held her hands up for the benefit of the close protection officers rushing towards her. Incapacitating pulses of high voltage electricity continued to rip through her target until the dart gun fell from her fingers and she collapsed. Reacting from instinct, long before he had fully understood the situation, Margrave caught her and pulled her clear of the VIP party.
All the world saw the brief interruption and the fainting woman. The tight framing of the TV images excluded the cause of it. Madeleine Wraye was careful to ensure she remained, as always, in the shadows.