Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [8]
‘The Dutch . . . ?’
The voice that cut through the static in Barrington’s earpiece was crisp and matter-of-fact. Military. ‘Greyhound to Trap Five.’
‘Acknowledged,’ answered Barrington into his tiny, unobtrusive tie-dip mi-crophone.
‘Target on the move,’ said the voice. ‘Heading your way.’
Paynter sat bolt upright, his eyebrows arching. ‘Action?’
‘Could be,’ replied Barrington, nodding towards the concourse below them.
Paynter adjusted his spectacles, turning a wheel where the frames met the sidepieces to operate a zoom lens that was built into the glasses for just this kind of operation. For a second his world was out of focus, a series of blurred, jerky movements.
And then, behold, clarity.
‘Got him,’ said Paynter, half-standing at the table. Barrington followed his colleague’s gaze and he too had the man in his sight.
‘Affirmative. Trap Five to Greyhound. Contact has been established. Target is heading for the departure lounge.’ Barrington fumbled for the flight bag at his feet, never taking his eyes from the man below them. ‘I’ll go down. You keep an eye on things till I have him in range then join me.’
‘Get on your bike,’ said Paynter, with a tiny finger salute.
The man wore faded demin jeans and a lightweight brown leather jacket that was scuffed and had clearly seen better days. Though he was powerfully built around the shoulders, he looked completely innocuous even when carrying a metallic photographer’s briefcase. Barrington slipped into step a dozen paces 17
behind him, his eyes doing a rapid back and forth between the case and the departing frame of his quarry.
‘He’s hardly making it difficult,’ he whispered and was rewarded with another burst of static in his ear. This time it was Paynter and he was massively out of breath.
‘I’m on the move, Mark, talk to me.’
‘Target in range. He’s got the merchandise. You really need to get some exercise!’
Barrington could hear Paynter continuing to pant as he took three steps at a time down the escalator to the concourse. ‘Who’s dealt with customs?’ the captain gasped.
‘Sergeant Hill,’ whispered Barrington as he reached a corner. He ignored the strange look he received from an elderly woman browsing through the airport fiction and alarmed by the sight of a man talking to himself, and allowed his subject to increase the distance between them before setting off in pursuit.
‘He’s heading for the departure lounge. F7.’
‘I’m right behind you. I’ve got him in visual.’
Paynter appeared at Barrington’s left shoulder and the pair fell into a brooding silence as they approached the entrance to the lounge.
‘There’s Hilly,’ noted Paynter as he made eye contact with a man with thinning ginger hair and a bushy moustache. In his dirty trench coat and scuffed shoes, pretending to read a copy of the Daily Mirror, Hill looked exactly what he was: a soldier in a military version of civilian clothes. Paynter winced at such an incompetent interpretation of ‘undercover’.
Barrington, on the other hand, gave Hill barely a glance as he watched the man with the briefcase move without delay through the security check and disappear beyond a canvas exit towards KLM Flight 601 to Los Angeles.
‘Everything in order, sirs?’ asked Hill, joining Barrington and Paynter in the rapidly emptying lounge.
‘Sweet as a nut,’ said Paynter, signing a carbonised order paper that Hill produced from inside his coat. ‘Target is Sergi Bulyjin, citizen of the Ukraine, subject of surveillance order 1745, genetic fingerprints on file already. Tagged in Berlin this morning, and really clocking up the air miles today. Any bother with the clogheads?’
‘No sir,’ said Hill. ‘The security staff near enough wet themselves when I showed them my pass. You’d have thought God himself had just walked in!’
Barrington adjusted the shoulder strap on his flight bag. ‘That’s the power of the United Nations, Sergeant,’ he noted as he accepted the tickets that Hill offered him. ‘Right then, let’s get boarded. Can’t say I’m looking forward to this.’
18
‘What’s that sir?’ asked Hill.
‘A ten-and-a-half-hour flight,