Exit wound

I explained everything that had happened on the ground. I went through the whole job, finishing with the face at the cargo door and the shoot-out. I even came close to telling him that not all the gold had left the country, but something held me back. Maybe I sensed he didn’t want to know. A man like Julian would always feel he had to do the right thing. The cash might be pissed against a wall via some MP’s expense account, but he would have done his duty.

‘How did the UAE ping us?’

‘Spicciati was flagged up by their internal security. They don’t have too many illusions about him. They pinged him playing golf with three Brits and came to us after finding out where you were staying.

‘We’ve done a deal with them. They don’t want any adverse publicity or talk of anti-terror operations within their borders. They still have no idea about the gold. They were supposed to lift all three of you so we could bring you back here for questioning. We hoped they wouldn’t get you until after the gold had left the country. That would keep the UAE happy, while removing any potential problem and still keeping the operation covert.’

‘You going to try and find the lads’ bodies?’

He’d known Red Ken and Dex even less well than I knew Sherry, but I could tell he was genuinely upset about them. ‘If the bodies were left at the strip they would have been found by now. Anything picked up by UAE will have been made to disappear. They don’t want anything to dull their shine. But the guys who killed them probably took them in the aircraft for op sec. I’m afraid I don’t think we’ll ever see them again.’

‘What about next of kin? How are you going to cover it?’

‘The normal, I suppose: no knowledge of anything, and if the bodies show up the Foreign Office will put it down to criminal activity.’ Julian got to his feet. ‘Get yourself cleaned up and into your own clothes. I’ll see if we can get the ball rolling for the Canadian couple. I’ll be back soon.’

He got up but didn’t turn for the door. ‘Nick, I’m very sorry about Red and Dex. I know you all went way back.’

‘Yep, we did, mate. Let’s find these fuckers, yeah?’

41

Julian came back into the interview room about two hours later with a pile of blue folders under his arm. ‘Nice work, Nick. Nice work.’ He dropped them onto the table as he sat down. ‘We know who owns the Falcon. Well, which country. It’s the Federation.’

I tried not to laugh because he didn’t. ‘Captain Kirk at the wheel?’

I knew he meant Russia, but I was feeling a lot better now after my shit, shave, shower, and getting back into my own clothes – and, of course, after the full English in the police cafe upstairs. All my stuff had been packed and brought from the hotel room. My pink golfing shirt looked a bit out of place in the interrogation room, but not as much as Julian’s suit and blue striped shirt with white collar and cuffs.

‘At the helm, actually, I think you’ll find.’ He shoved the folder across to me. ‘Space, the final frontier…’

I leafed through endless pictures of Middle Eastern males – posing, swimming, eating, alone and in family groups. ‘I’m looking for the face, right?’

‘Correct. We’ve tracked the Falcon to Tehran. So these-’ he slammed his hand onto the folders ‘- these are Iranians who we believe have connections with the Russians. Russian arms trade, terrorism, you name it. Go through them, see what you come up with.’

He stood up and left.

There must have been a couple of hundred photographs, but it didn’t take long to go through them. Just as well. Julian was back within thirty minutes with more. By then I had just a handful of pictures spread out in front of me and the rest were piled up on the table next to my empty coffee cup.

He sat down next to me.

I’d picked out a selection of faded black-and-whites of a man in his twenties with a full head of curly hair. The focus was fuzzy, but the clothes and winged American pimpmobile he was posing against pegged it to the seventies.

‘You sure, Nick?’

I nodded. I’d never forget that face – proud cheekbones, a big Roman nose, and those eyes… ‘These must have been taken thirty years ago – I reckon he must be in his sixties now – but the eyes haven’t changed. Yeah, this is almost certainly the man I saw… how many nights ago?’

‘You’ve been in transit two days.’

‘So who is he?’

I looked up at the camera. ‘Any chance of another brew?’ I gave the universal gesture.

Julian stared down at our man. He tapped one of the pictures with a well-manicured finger. ‘We don’t know his name. We call him Altun. It’s Farsi for “golden”. Ironic, isn’t it?’

‘How do you lads come up with them?’

‘I blame the computer – it just spews them out. The Americans are using the same codename.’ He raised his bottle of Tesco’s sparkling. ‘Here’s to the Special Relationship.

‘This is the last known picture of him.’ He tapped it with a fingernail. ‘Taken in Tehran, just before the Islamic Revolution.’