Red Station - Adrian Magson Harry Tate thrillers

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for Harry to follow and moved to a room at the rear, where the walls were lined with metal racks holding more boxes and a selection of conference and exhibition equipment.

      He lifted a square of carpet to one side. Underneath was a small metal trapdoor.

      Fitzgerald took a metal hook from a nearby rack and inserted it in a slot. He pulled hard and the trapdoor came up revealing a recess dug into the foundations. Reaching down, he tugged hard on something out of Tate’s line of sight. A wooden box slid into view.

      Inside, nestling in foam packing, were three handguns, the light gleaming off the oiled metal, and spare clips of ammunition.

      He replaced the trapdoor and carpet, then led the way back upstairs. As soon as they were in the main office with the door closed, Harry turned to him.

      ‘What the hell are they for?’ he demanded. He was aware of Jardine and Ferris watching in the background. They said nothing.

      ‘They’ve been here from the beginning,’ Fitzgerald replied calmly. ‘The boss said you should know they were there, just in case.’ He turned and beckoned Harry to follow. This room was divided into two offices with glass panelling down the middle. Stuart Mace was sitting on the other side of the glass, talking on the phone. It looked like any bureaucrat’s den, with book-lined walls and filing cabinets, and family photos on the shelves.

      ‘I’ll take you through our security procedure and protocols,’ said Fitzgerald, moving behind a cluttered desk. ‘Then Rik or Clare will give you a quick tour and drop you off at your digs. You might as well get to know the place.’

      ‘Just in case?’ said Harry.

      ‘You got it.’

      For the next forty minutes, he listened as he was shown through a succession of procedures, including basic personal safety, building security and local maps. One town map showed buildings marked in red. Most were in the narrow streets on the edge of town to the north, where Harry hadn’t yet been.

      ‘What are those?’

      ‘Hostile or possibly hostile locations. My advice is, don’t go there.’

      ‘Hostiles.’

      ‘Yeah. This and this,’ he pointed to two buildings closer to the centre, ‘are local security police. They leave us alone most of the time. The others are bandits. Local clans. Don’t mess with them; they have a habit of not returning people who stray into their territory. The cops leave them alone because they’ve got their own private militias.’ He sniffed. ‘It’s the militias in this neck of the woods that control most of what goes on.’

      ‘What about this place?’ Harry indicated a large red building on the map not far from where they were standing. It was the Palace Hotel.

      ‘We call it spook central. It’s the only decent hotel in town. The Yanks kip down there along with journos and a few other interested groups like the French, Germans and Russians.’

      ‘You know any of them – Americans, I mean?’

      ‘Sure. A couple. Engineers, so they say, although I doubt it. Why?’

      ‘A man named Higgins was on the flight in. Said he was a journalist.’

      ‘He isn’t,’ Fitzgerald said shortly. ‘Fat, loud, self-opinionated and sweats a lot?’

      ‘That’s him.’

      ‘Yeah. Rik said he’d cadged a lift. He comes and goes, makes a lot of noise about the hard life of a news reporter. Not sure who he’s with, but it’s either CIA or National Security Agency. He might have tagged you but I wouldn’t worry about it.’ He paused. ‘You see anyone else like him?’

      Harry thought about the young man at the airport. ‘Not yet.’

      Fitzgerald smiled without humour. ‘Don’t worry – you will.’

      ELEVEN

      Next morning, Harry walked to the office to get a feel for the town. The air was colder, with a heavy layer of cloud hanging over the buildings and reducing the sparse colouring to shades of grey. The atmosphere bore a taste of burnt fuel, which he guessed was cheap heating oil or badly maintained vehicle engines.

      He passed few people on the way. A group of soldiers standing around a makeshift brazier eyed him suspiciously but didn’t stop him. Other pedestrians steered clear of the military as if by instinct, crossing the streets with eyes down, intent on being invisible.

      After leaving Fitzgerald, he’d been taken by Rik Ferris on a whistle-stop tour of the town, with the communications man pointing out local landmarks. These had been few and far between, mostly given to the town hall, the museum, the railway station . . . and the so-called hostile buildings referred to by Fitzgerald. Detached houses in the main, these were sheltered behind walls or railings, with security cameras trained on all sides. There had been nothing overt about them to suggest any dangerous presence, such as armed guards, but the metal shutters on the windows, the fresher paint compared with their neighbours and the heavy four-by-four vehicles parked in the alleyways alongside, indicated they were not your average residential premises.

      The last stop was outside a three-storey building in a quiet back street.

      ‘Home sweet home,’ Rik said cheerfully. He handed Harry a key on a plastic tag. ‘Top floor, so you can make as much noise as you like, hold wild parties and stuff like that. Make sure you invite me, though. The only other tenant is a press photographer on the ground floor, named Mario. Comes from Rome. Nice bloke.’ He frowned. ‘Actually, I haven’t seen him around for a couple of days. Must have found a story to cover. I’ve stocked up your kitchen with the basics, so you won’t need to shop for a few days. Not,’ he added, ‘that you’ll find shopping much fun around here.’

      ‘Thanks. Where do you call home?’ asked Harry. He hadn’t had much opportunity to talk to the younger man yet. If he was a communications specialist, he couldn’t exactly be rushed off his feet, and Harry hadn’t seen much in the way of communications hardware in the office.

      ‘About quarter of a mile away.’ Rik pointed out to the suburbs. ‘It’s on Novroni. Number twenty-four. Old and scabby, but I’m doing it up to keep myself from going stir-crazy. Clare lives a few blocks that way.’ He indicated north. ‘The other two live on the outskirts.’ He hesitated. ‘Did Mace tell you about the no-comms rule?’

      ‘Yes. Everything goes through him. Is it set in stone?’

      ‘You bet. I have access to a server in London, but that’s purely for messages. It’s monitored closely and as bombproof as my granny’s knickers. Mace has a secure terminal in his office, but nobody else gets to touch it. It’s level-Alpha password-protected.’

      ‘I’ll pretend I know what that means. What about my mobile?’

      Rik held out his hand. ‘Here – I’ll show you.’

      Harry passed him his Nokia, which he hadn’t used since leaving London. Rik switched it on. He held it up so Harry could see the screen. It was blank.

      ‘They wiped it before you left. It won’t pick up a signal here, so you might as well dump it. I’ll give you a new one in the morning. It’ll be OK for the local network, but no further.’ He handed the phone back and put the car in gear. ‘It’s not too bad here. You’ll get used to it.’

      ‘That’s what Mace said.’ Harry wondered when they’d managed to wipe his mobile. At the time of the debriefing, probably, when he’d handed it in at security.

      ‘He’s right. Welcome to paradise.’

      Harry watched him drive away before making his way inside and up three flights of narrow, concrete stairs inlaid with coarse tiles. They were worn down in the middle from the passage of feet over the years, and crackled with grit underfoot. The air was cold and damp, a depressing contrast to the conditions at the airport.

      He

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