‘You don’t know anything,’ Harry growled.
‘OK. But hear me out. Didn’t you get a real buzz out of the last few days?’
‘What?’
‘Come on, I know you did. All the rummaging around and secret squirrel stuff. . you love it. It’s what you were trained for. That’s why you said yes to the card in the first place, isn’t it?’
Harry stopped and glared at his friend, trying to find the words. But they wouldn’t come.
Rik was right: he had felt a buzz. The investigation, the tracking, the questions — all that. But it had nothing to do with the card, the state’s authority allowing him to carry a lethal weapon and use it in extremis. Nor would it ever. Right now, though, he was tired and angry and wanted to get away from this place and sit down with a very strong drink. Maybe if he asked him nicely, Ballatyne would pass the Rafa’i ball to someone else. But even as he thought it, he knew that wouldn’t happen.
He found himself thinking about the days ahead. The headache-inducing drone of the C-130 flight to Baghdad, the hours of boredom followed by the sudden belly-lurching drop to the hot tarmac; the sights and smells, the alien atmosphere, the operational briefings, the smell of military gear, the waiting. The outcome of flying into a hornets’ nest with the reluctant Rafa’i in tow.
The possibility that things might not go as planned.
Yet somehow, perversely, he was looking forward to it and to coming out the other side. To being able to deal with some unfinished business.
That was what it was all about. His problem was, he didn’t trust Ballatyne to keep his word about the photo. Not that it mattered.
‘How long would it take to track down details from a foreign car registration?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Rik frowned, distracted by the abstract. ‘It would depend on the country. Some databases are high-tech and easy to access, others are so primitive they’re virtually impossible. A lot of them still use data-card entry methods-’
‘How long?’ If he let him, Rik could go on all day like this.
‘Can you narrow it down to a country?’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’d need to work on it, maybe feed it out to the community. Someone should be able to recognize the format and get back to me. After that, it’d just be a matter of searching. What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Just a thought.’ Harry was remembering the photo Ballatyne had shown him, of Paulton crossing a pavement. It could have been any town, any country. But not a backwoods place — it looked too smart for that. Somewhere modern, with banks and offices and lines of communication. The kind of place a former high-level spook on the run would be attracted to, to visit occasionally to collect funds and bend his ear to the ground for gossip about potential danger. Most of the cars at the kerb were nose to tail and looked sleek and shiny, exuding an air of anonymous prosperity. Except the vehicle nearest the camera: a Mercedes with its registration plate just visible.
It wasn’t much, but he’d memorized the number.
Just in case they got back safely and Ballatyne decided not to keep his word.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you about it over a drink. Then we’ve got work to do.’