‘Look for Stratton.’
‘Of course. But should we give Skender protection?’
‘Not for me to say, sir.’
‘Off the record. What would you do?’
‘I don’t want to say even off the record, sir.’
Hobart knew that like everyone else on the team Hendrickson would like to see Skender and his people burn in hell. The thought of protecting the mobster was anathema. But Hobart had a job to do. How to achieve that was another problem. Skender would refuse any overt protection and if he suspected even a covert operation to protect him he’d accuse the Bureau of spying on him, which was against their special agreement.
Hobart decided to deal with that later. Right now he had to find Stratton. He would also put a team on the abduction but he knew that there was little chance of finding this kid Josh if the Albanians had him. Hobart needed more information on Stratton. A photograph would be a great start. The Brits would eventually help, once they accepted that their man was involved in a civilian homicide. But depending on how high up the ladder Stratton was they would want to get involved too. That could take time.
Then Hobart had a thought. The Brits worked hand in hand with the Americans in Iraq and in other matters too. There was therefore a good chance that Stratton had worked with American intelligence at some time and if so there would be a file on him somewhere in the USA. Then Hobart’s thoughts went back to the explosives that Stratton had acquired while in the US and suddenly the chance that he had once associated with US intelligence became more than just a possibility.
‘Sir?’ Hendrickson asked, taking Hobart out of his thoughts.
‘What?’
‘What do you think, sir?’
‘About what?’
‘My deduction.’
‘I think it was pretty good, Hendrickson. I want you to put out an APB to every US intelligence and special forces unit in this country.’
‘What’s an APB, sir?’
‘Don’t you watch old cop movies, Hendrickson? An all-points bulletin. Keep it simple. No information or mention of the homicides. All you need is a response to a British military operative named John Stratton. Cover everyone, and I mean everyone including the Salvation Army and the Boy Scouts. And make sure it’s in yellow,’ he said, referring to the highlighting of the text that everyone who read it would know meant highest priority.
‘Yes, sir,’ Hendrickson said.
‘Now,’ Hobart said.
Hendrickson nodded and turned away.
‘Hendrickson,’ Hobart called out. ‘I was joking about the Salvation Army and Boy Scouts.’
‘I know, sir,’ Hendrickson said. He hurried to the elevators only to discover that they were both on the top floor. He moved to the emergency stairs.
Hobart glanced back at the apartment. He did not expect to find anything in there that would lead to Stratton’s discovery so he headed for the elevator and pushed the call button. He considered Stratton’s likely options from this point on, assuming that the guy would expect the cops to be looking for him now. He’d probably go strictly cash, withdrawing as much as he could each day from various ATM machines. He’d also move to a low-profile and cheap local hotel. The main question was, how might Stratton go about getting Skender to hand over the kid? The obvious method would be to offer up in exchange something that Skender valued more than the kid – or more than Stratton, in fact. That would probably be Skender himself.
The elevator arrived and Hobart stepped inside, lost in thought. He had to assume for now that Stratton had more explosives – they appeared to be his preferred weapon. Skender would need to be convinced that Stratton could take him out, perhaps with a demonstration of some kind. That was what Hobart would do. But there he stopped himself, suddenly seeing the futility of trying to put himself in this Brit’s shoes when he and Hobart were completely different animals. Hobart could never have conceived hits like those in the court cells or the restaurant, for instance. Those had been conceived by the mind of a person greatly experienced in that world, which made Hobart wonder what kind of an SIS operative Stratton was. In the CIA, for instance, there were two categories of front-line field agents: one was intelligence gatherer, the other direct-action operative and some, the best of them, could play either part. Hobart was convinced of one thing. He was probably going to need an adviser, someone who could shed some light on Stratton’s options. The question was, where would he find such an operator?
The elevator doors opened and Hobart stepped out into the lobby and through to the alleyway where his car was parked. His plan for the time being would be to carry on with the search routine and hope either that they got lucky or that Stratton got sloppy. But it looked as if it was anyway going to be a case of waiting for the man’s next move. That wasn’t an unusual situation in Hobart’s line of work but there was another reason why he would not rush to shift heaven and earth to find the Brit agent. The real victim in all this now was the kid: Hobart had to admit, though he would never say as much to anyone else, that Stratton might well be the boy’s only chance.
24
Stratton, wearing a baseball jacket and cap, watched Skender’s new building complex from inside a small office-block entranceway across the street. For almost an hour he had studied the place from every angle, circling the block and observing the comings and goings of workers, especially Skender’s security team. Skender himself had arrived a few minutes after Stratton had begun his surveillance, turning up in his cavalcade surrounded by bodyguards like some visiting state dignitary, and Cano had come out of the building with yet more guards to escort his boss inside.
The surrounding security fence had been removed and the landscaping, a complex design of lawns, flower beds, trees and fountains, was almost complete. The entire block was ringed by new steel street lamps with added spotlights on top of each one to illuminate the building at night. The finishing touches to the curving drive that led from the boulevard to the entrance were being made. A crane was slowly positioning a large crate in the centre of the concourse, directly in front of the ornate entrance – some kind of statue, Stratton suspected – while a handful of helmeted engineers carefully supervised its touchdown, inch by inch.
The place was very much a fortress, with guards covering every entry point including a barrier to the underground parking. Adding up all the men Stratton had seen on duty on the first-floor balconies, at various windows and emergency exits, the main entrance, the garage and doing roving patrols – plus another dozen to allow for those he could not see – there were around fifty. Then, working on the assumption that they did three eight-hour shifts per day the total came to a hundred and fifty. Assuming one shift was on standby or stand-down inside the premises Stratton felt that a fair estimate of security manpower would be about a hundred men at any one time. Quite the small army.
Stratton reviewed his objectives in order of priority once again in the hope that doing so would help to inspire a so far uninspired plan. The final outcome obviously had to be getting Josh back to England alive. To achieve that Skender had to believe that his own life was at stake if he did not hand over Josh. To convince the Albanian of that was the hard part. A demonstration of intent could be useful but Stratton had no time to waste and he might get only one shot. Another option was to find something that Skender valued as much as his own life but unless Stratton could figure out what that was, or even if there was such a thing, he was still at the starting block. Meeting Skender face to face was an option but reaching him and then getting away after looked like too much of a risk.