Hard Target by James Adams

Author:James Adams [Adams, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2016-10-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

‘He was an Israeli. Name of Yossi Melman,’ Diana said. ‘One of the Shin Bet people kicked out after those shootings on the West Bank. Been operating as a freelance ever since. We have no idea who he was working for.’

That would explain the accent, Nash thought. Plenty of the Israeli intelligence people did their training in Scandinavia for reasons he had never really understood. Maybe it just gave them some acclimatization and access to their networks in Russia. Anyhow, they seemed to feel comfortable there. Nash shuddered inwardly as he relived Melman’s demise twenty-four hours previously. That awful scream and the sight of that bloodied face would remain with him for a long time.

‘So we haven’t a clue how he came to be after me?’ he asked Diana.

‘Not so far. The second man had vanished by the time the police reached the crashed car. We’ve tracked Melman back through the videos at Heathrow. He came in via Paris using a Norwegian passport in the name of Larsson the day before you arrived back from the States, but apart from that, nothing.’

Nash and Diana were sitting in the Office restaurant, the normally stunning vista across the Thames obscured by driving rain which cut visibility to the edge of the river and sent wide streaks of water running down the one-way glass. They had both finished their Caesar salads and Nash was embarking on a salmon fillet.

‘This all smells of a set up to me,’ he said. ‘First the Kiev business and now this. And just how did this Melman character know where I lived and when I was coming back?’

Diana chewed reflectively on a mouthful of pasta.

‘You can take it that you were well and truly blown after Kiev,’ she replied. ‘You can take it, too, that they probably knew you were coming well in advance and that you were meeting Spitz. Either that, or they followed Spitz to the meet. But they certainly had some good intelligence. They clearly knew enough to make you and to know where you were headed.

‘All of that adds up to some very good sources. The Russians certainly don’t have that kind of information in their standard files, so there must be a leak from someone involved with either the Americans or the Russians.’

‘Which is more or less what I said in Spedding’s office and got laughed out of court,’ Nash said.

He paused, wondering just how much Diana really knew. It was rumoured that the business in Russia had compromised her status among the top echelons. Although the shrinks had given her a clean bill of health, there would always be lingering doubts that the ordeal had damaged her irreparably. She would never make Director now. How bitter did she feel about that? Bitter enough to go over? Nash doubted it. Diana still carried enough clout to provide a fair degree of job satisfaction — and to make her a useful ally, he reflected. He recalled her anger after his return from the drugs bust and the Kiev trip.

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