would end the night in a hospital ward — or worse.
He slid sideways and felt his leg connecting with something which creaked and moved.
A basket of dried logs for the wood-burner.
Harry allowed himself to drop, scrambling for one of the logs. Each one was as thick as his arm and about a foot long. Grasping the first one he touched, he brought it up in a scything uppercut, smashing through the other man’s defence. Before his attacker could react, Harry gripped the log with his other hand and swung it wildly straight at the man’s head. There was a satisfying tingle as the wood connected and the man fell back, legs wobbling. Another swing and he crashed to the floor.
Harry dropped the makeshift weapon and leaned against the wall, trying not to throw up. The burst of exercise had taken more out of him than he’d thought. But there was no time to lose. Dragging the man into the bathroom, he went through to the kitchen and came back with a length of plastic-covered clothesline from one of the drawers. Tying the man’s wrists together, he lashed him to the ornate cast-iron sink-support and finished by knotting his ankles where no amount of struggling would allow him to reach them.
The man was snuffling, his nose partially blocked by blood, and a large bruise was already forming across his chin, weeping blood where the skin had been scraped off by the log’s rough bark. Harry wet a cloth and wiped the blood away from his nostrils. He didn’t much care about the man’s health, but having him choke to death before he could talk wasn’t going to be much help.
He went through the man’s pockets. Not surprisingly, he had no identification; no wallet, no papers, no scraps of information to reveal who he was. No clothing tags, either. That alone was unusual.
But he did have a mobile phone. Harry checked the directory. Three numbers in all. The man had called each of them, all within the past twelve hours, on or close to the hour.
Reporting in, thought Harry. With this one here making four, there were no prizes for guessing who they belonged to.
The other Clones.
He dropped the mobile in his pocket and slid to the floor, feeling the cold of the tiles seeping into his buttocks. He needed a rest. And he had time; after all, where was he going?
Eventually, the man stopped snuffling and stirred. His eyes flickered and rolled open, and he instantly shook his head and tried to stand. When he found that didn’t work, he groaned and tugged at his bonds, head lolling forward to see what was holding him.
Operating by instinct, thought Harry, observing the bunching of muscle in his shoulders. This bloke has been trained; he knows he has to get free, no matter what.
He leaned forward and slapped the man across the face. It wasn’t a brutal blow, but carried enough frustration and anger to rock his head back. His eyes opened and slowly focussed, finally settling on Harry with a start. He blinked twice and winced as pain began to register.
And at that moment, Harry saw something familiar in the man’s face.
He felt a jolt of surprise. How could he know him? He’d only caught a glimpse of the Clones out on the street — hardly ideal conditions. Yet the feeling was overwhelming. Maybe he’d been on the plane in. Or at the airport. No. Christ, it was further back than that.
Then it began to filter through. The man was in his late thirties, with strong hands and an athletic build. He had short-cropped hair and the remains of a tan, faded to a dirty hue on the forehead and cheeks. He had the hard look of someone accustomed to regular exercise, and knew how to fight; the use of elbows and knee had proved that. Street thugs don’t normally use their elbows.
Harry was well-acquainted with the kind of men who did.
‘We’ve met before,’ he said softly. The face was swimming up through a murky haze, from deep in his memory.
The man said nothing, struggling with his bonds.
‘Give it up,’ Harry told him. ‘I learned from a master mariner.’
‘Fuck you, bastard!’
The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. The oath was fluid, the accent familiar.
It came from somewhere in the Midlands.
The intruder was English.
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘ That was a mistake,’ said Harry. ‘I thought you were local. I was about to let you go. We’ve met before. Thing is, where?’
The man stopped struggling. If he recognized Harry, he was hiding it.
Harry finally got it. ‘Stanbridge.’ The man had been in Kosovo attached to the UN. Harry hadn’t known him well; just another name and face in passing. They’d probably shared a truck, an APC or a canteen table. Maybe even a snow-filled shell hole. There had been lots of those.
Stanbridge said nothing. He stared at the floor and began working his wrists again. The skin around the bonds was beginning to turn dark red with the effort and the restricted blood flow, and Harry wondered whether he should ease up on them a bit. On the other hand, he still had no idea what the man was doing here.
‘Tell me what’s going on and I’ll loosen those knots,’ he said. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Screw you,’ said Stanbridge.
‘Hardly original, but suit yourself.’ Harry stood up and went through to the kitchen, locking the front door on the way. If Stanbridge was one of the Clones, he didn’t want to risk the other three piling all over him when they came to rescue their mate.
He made coffee, trying to figure out exactly what had brought the man here, to his flat. Why this godforsaken hole? If he was British, the others were, too. Unless he’d gone private.
He gave up and stared out of the narrow window overlooking the back alley. He could just make out the shape of a cat sitting on a crumbling section of wall, cleaning itself, relaxed. Better than a guard dog, he reflected. Quieter, too.
He took his coffee to the bathroom. There was nothing like the aroma of best roasted to make a man feel uncomfortable. A classic softening-up technique, mostly recommended now to people selling houses.
He squatted in the doorway in case Stanbridge had somehow worked a miracle while he was out of sight, and waited. Stanbridge threw him a malevolent look. He had stopped working the bonds so maybe he’d realized he wasn’t going anywhere.
‘OK,’ said Harry. He sipped his coffee, wincing as it touched a cut on the inside of his lip. ‘Let’s pretend you’re not who we both know you are. We’ll forget Kosovo, the UN mission, the crappy weather, the burial sites, the ethnic cleansing — all that. Let’s just agree that I know who you are, and you know me. Right?’
Stanbridge cleared his throat and spat a bloody gobbet on the floor.
‘Tough guy.’ Another noisy sip. ‘So what’s your brief? You here to watch us — you and your mates? They call you the Clones, did you know that?’
‘We know what they call us.’ Stanbridge’s voice was intense, pitched low.
‘Really? How’s that?’ He didn’t really need to ask, but it suited him to keep his prisoner talking. The Clones — if Stanbridge really was one of them — could have only discovered their nickname in one of two ways.
The first was by electronic eavesdropping.
The second was by talking to someone on the inside.
Stanbridge remained silent.
‘What are you doing here?’ Harry continued. ‘Are you watching… or guarding? The former, I bet. There’s no point in us having guardian angels because they’re only assigned to diplomats and politicians… people of value. Last time I looked, I wasn’t on anyone’s preferred employees list.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Of course you don’t. And I’m the ghost of Mahatma Gandhi.’ He shifted his position. The cold from the tiles was making him stiff. ‘It’s a shitty assignment, this, whatever the purpose. I’m guessing you know who I am, right?’
