around for the security desk. He wondered why Rhodes and what Gabriel had seen in the time since they were last together.The remote viewer had obviously recovered from his concussion.
Stratton headed across duty-free to where he knew there would be a security checkpoint to stop arriving passengers from entering the shopping hall. Two guards in blazers and smart slacks were seated on swivel stools behind a desk in front of a set of doors that led to the gates. As Stratton approached, one of them, a large red-headed Gaelic type with a gut that hung over his belt, eyed him coldly from head to toe. Stratton held up his badge for the man to see.
‘Hi,’ Stratton said, forcing a polite smile.
The man maintained his ‘I’m hard and important’ expression.
‘I need to get over to terminal one right away.’
‘You need to do what?’ the man said, as if he hadn’t heard.
‘Do you know what this badge is?’ Stratton asked, the smile gone on hearing the attitude.
The man raised a hand to take it and Stratton pulled back the badge. ‘I’ll hold it as close or as far back as you need.’ Stratton opened the flap to reveal the special enamel and silver crown that declared the badge owner was Military Intelligence on Her Majesty’s Service and that all assistance was to be rendered to the bearer on request.
Stratton might as well have shown him a Blue Peter badge for all the reaction it got, other than the man picking up a phone.
‘Who you ringing?’ Stratton asked.
‘Get verification,’ the man said tiredly.
‘Verification of what?’ Stratton asked.
‘Your pretty little badge, sir,’ he said sarcastically.
Stratton put his hand firmly on the man’s, pushing the phone down with superior strength, and stared closely into his eyes. ‘When you got this job you were shown a slide of this badge and told that the bearer represented the Queen and you were to move the airport a foot to the left if that person asked you to. Now you’re going to get off your fat arse and show me the back way to terminal one where a plane is being held for me right now, or I will thrash the shit out of you and have you slung in a cell for a week under the prevention of terrorism act for obstructing justice. Do I make myself clear?’
Stratton had to give credit to the man. If he was concerned, he didn’t show it even though he got to his feet and straightened his jacket, all the while looking at Stratton.
‘Be back in a bit, Fred,’ he said to his partner. ‘This way,’ he then said to Stratton and headed across the corridor to an airport-staff-only door.
Chapter 7
Stratton sat in the empty arrival hall of Paradisi Airport in Rhodes on the end of a fixed row of seats with his feet stretched out in front of him and looking as uncomfortable as he felt. It was six in the morning and the next connection from Istanbul was due in any time soon. The café and kiosks were shut for the winter by the look of them. It was off-season and hard to imagine that in the summer the large hall would be literally packed twenty-four hours a day with people coming and going from all over the world. This time of year the tourist resorts would be ghost towns since even most of the Greeks who lived on the island either left to find work elsewhere for the winter or the ones who had made a good income from the tourists were themselves on holiday until the start of the next season.
Stratton scrolled through the directory of numbers on the satellite phone his contact had given him on his arrival a couple of hours ago, along with a credit card, money and the request to keep receipts or he would be charged. Since the man did not offer Stratton a weapon there seemed no point in asking for one, but Stratton hinted at it anyway, getting nothing but a strange look in reply.The contact was a local runner for whoever ran the island’s office and would know nothing about the operation anyway.
As Stratton read the phone list, many of the entries first names only, it became clear that the operative who had the phone last did not erase the directory, which was not an uncommon mistake. One of the names was Aggy, and Stratton wondered if it was Melissa - Aggy being her undercover name - a former