did so while you were on the Kasakov contract. Right? They were waiting for you, so you think I set you up.’
‘Eighteen seconds.’
Procter stood. ‘I understand why you would think that. But I didn’t. You have to believe me. I know how good you are. I know what happened last time someone set you up. I don’t want you coming after me.’
Tesseract’s voice cut right through Procter. ‘I am coming after you. Nine seconds.’
‘Please.’ Procter shoved his fingers through his hair. ‘You have to believe me.’
‘Seven seconds.’
‘ Don’t hang up. We can work this out. I just need more time to figure out what happened.’
‘Three seconds.’
‘ SHIT.’ Procter slammed a palm down on the desk. ‘Don’t do this.’
‘Two seconds.’
Procter took a huge breath. ‘Okay, you win, my name’s Roland Procter. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I’m the Associate Deputy Director for National Clandestine Services. I’ve a wife and two kids. We live in DC. Georgetown.’
There was no response.
‘You already know what I look like,’ Procter continued. ‘Now you know my name, my position and where I live. It would have taken you a month to find me before, now you can find me in a day.’ He paused, caught back his breath. ‘If I set you up, would I have told you that?’
Silence. Procter breathed heavily. His heart thumped hard inside his ribcage.
‘All right,’ Tesseract answered eventually. ‘I believe you.’
Procter let out a massive sigh. He put a hand to his chest. ‘Christ, my heart’s beating fast.’
‘No blasphemy, remember?’
Procter fell backwards in his chair. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘You need to tell me what happened.’
Tesseract said, ‘For days I’d been waiting for Kasakov to be in just the right place to make the shot. A moment before I squeezed the trigger, I realised I was being watched. There was a team: three pros. American. Ex-Special Forces. They were waiting for me to kill Kasakov. The second I did, they would have killed me too. Otherwise Kasakov would be dead now and you wouldn’t be considering how best to remove me. Only someone who knew I was in Sochi could have sent that team.’
Procter remained silent.
‘That someone gave them a dossier on me. A dossier that included pictures taken in the hospital before we met. So, if it wasn’t you who set me up, who was it?’
Procter pinched the skin between his eyes and said, ‘My partner. No one but him and me knew you were going to kill Kasakov, or had access to those pictures.’
‘Name?’
‘No,’ Procter said. ‘I won’t do that.’
‘You should seriously reconsider that stance.’
‘Listen, I don’t know why all this has happened, but I’m not handing him over to be killed. He’s my friend.’
‘Not much of a friend. He betrayed you too.’
Procter sat up. ‘He was just trying to protect us both. It was stupid, but I get why he did it. I’ll talk to him. You’re not touching him. So, forget about that.’
‘I interrogated the kill team’s leader,’ Tesseract added. ‘He told me that before they were hired to kill me they’d completed another job for the same client. In Beirut. They kidnapped Baraa Ariff and his family, tortured and killed them. And filmed it.’
‘What?’ was all Procter could manage to say.
‘Now, that doesn’t sound to me like a typical assassination. But it does sound like the kind of thing someone would have done for revenge if that someone really hated Ariff. Every job I’ve done for you has revolved around him and Kasakov. At the start of all this you had me save Kasakov’s life, otherwise with Kasakov dead it might have been hard to convince Ariff that it was Kasakov who sent me after Yamout in Minsk. And I imagine the specific explosives I used to kill Farkas somehow convinced Kasakov to go after Ariff. I’ve got to hand it to you, it was a decent plan: trick the world’s biggest trafficker of small arms and the biggest dealer in heavy munitions to wage war on each other.’
‘It was a good plan,’ Procter corrected.
‘Then why did your partner send the American kill team after Ariff? Surely you would have sent me to kill whoever survived the war. You didn’t just want Ariff and Kasakov to kill each other. You could have sent me to do that weeks ago. You wanted them to bludgeon each other’s networks first, damaging the arms trade instead of simply removing its replaceable figureheads. So it makes no sense for your partner to have acted against Ariff at that time. Unless he had some reason for wanting Ariff to lose the war, not Kasakov. He’s not in league with Kasakov himself, however, because Kasakov wouldn’t send a team to kill me only after I’ve already killed him. So, it’ll be one of his lieutenants, hoping to take over from Kasakov after I’d killed him. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but your friend has been playing you this whole time.’
Procter put his face in his hands and pulled his fingers down over his eyes and cheeks.
‘Are you quite sure you don’t want to tell me who he is?’
When Procter spoke his voice was quiet, deliberate. ‘I’ll deal with him.’
‘You better had,’ Tesseract said. ‘Because I’ve got some more bad news for you.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘You were wrong when you said it would take a month for me to find you.’
‘What?’
‘It took forty-eight hours. Not as many places selling steak sandwiches within lunchtime driving distance from Langley as you might think. I stopped by Nelson’s Diner this afternoon. The staff were very helpful when I told them I wanted to find my long-lost uncle. I can see why you like their food. Very tasty, but every day? That’s not good for your arteries. With your weight you should be more careful and get plenty of exercise. I’ll email you a workout programme.’
Procter’s eyes were wide. ‘ What? ’
‘I’d check under your Buick before you next start the engine. Make sure you cut the green wire, not the blue.’
The line disconnected.
Procter shot up from his seat, went to the window and heaved the blind open. His car sat on the driveway as usual. Nothing appeared suspicious. In the garage he grabbed a set of clippers and a flashlight and hurried out front. He lay on his back and used the flashlight to check under the car. Sure enough, there was a bomb set beneath the driver’s seat, wires linked to the starter motor.
Procter took a huge breath, held it, and cut the green wire.
Nothing happened. He exhaled and carefully removed the device.
Back in his study, he put a hand to his chest. It was a long time before his pulse steadied. He poured out the last of the wine and drank it down. In one short conversation his life had been turned upside down. Clarke had betrayed him. Tesseract had threatened to kill him. He didn’t take kindly to either.
A click of the mouse re-opened the email he had been about to send. He scratched his chin for a moment. Tesseract was a dangerous operator, unpredictable. Procter had believed he could control him, but he had just been proved very wrong. If he clicked the mouse, Tesseract wouldn’t be able to put any more bombs beneath his car.
But, under the circumstances, that had been almost understandable. And dammit, Procter was starting to like the guy.
He deleted the email and got up to find another bottle of wine.
CHAPTER 58
