The upmarket bar-restaurant that Ryker found himself in could have been in virtually any big city in the world. A gleaming mirrored bar, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree oval, sat center stage in the space and included an over-the-top array of liquors and malts from all over the world, neatly arranged on glass shelves. Huge champagne bottles were dotted here and there. There were splashes of gold all over. The bartenders were smartly dressed in black and white and spent most of their time tossing chrome cocktail mixers about the place. Tables and booths surrounded the bar area, stretching out from it like an ocean around an island.
With a mix of drinkers and diners, the place was filled and bustling, though far from rowdy. The clientele here was mostly couples, a few groups of four or six. Everyone dressed to the nines for a Friday night out. Lawyers, accountants, corporate executives. And a healthy dusting of politicians given the bar’s proximity to the Danish Parliament building all of two hundred yards away. There was money here, and lots of it.
Ryker sat back in his booth and sipped on his soda water, keeping a close watch on the goings-on, but in particular on the couple seated directly across from him on two stools at the bar.
The man owned an apartment not far from here. Ryker had been lying in wait outside there for a couple of hours beforehand and had followed the two of them on foot when they left the building. Looking around at the other customers, Ryker saw he wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion, in casual trousers and jumper, though at least everything he was wearing was dark which certainly helped him to blend in, particularly sitting in the poorly lit corner as he was.
After a while, the man excused himself from his female companion and wandered off toward the bathrooms.
Ryker got up from his seat and downed the rest of his drink as he headed across the floor to the bar. He grabbed a stool and moved it a couple of feet across so he was right next to the woman. He sat down and placed his empty glass on the bar though didn’t bother to try to get the barman’s attention straight away.
The woman paid him no attention at all. Ryker glanced at her. Smart red dress. Nails manicured and painted. Make-up understated but neat. She wore diamond stud earrings, a pearl necklace. A diamond bracelet.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she said without looking.
Ryker smiled. ‘Good to see you, Penny.’
* * *
Ryker had walked away from his short-lived investigation into the circumstances of Grichenko’s death. He saw little point in trailing around the Cotswolds when, for whatever reason, he had Kaspovich and whoever else on his back. So he’d moved his own goalposts. If he couldn’t work from Grichenko’s death, backward to the truth, he’d work from that night in Doha ten years ago, forward to the truth.
Aldern was dead. Did his death have anything to do with the botched assassination of Grichenko ten years ago? Ryker wouldn’t rule that possibility out, but for now, Aldern was a dead end. So Ryker would move on to each of the rest of the team from Qatar in turn: Kyle Elliott. Penny Diaz. Nadia Lange. Joey Weller. Ali Salman. He’d already realized some would be easier to track down than others.
Joey Weller had perhaps been the easiest. A classic tech geek, his whole career had been spent in offices and surveillance vans and even though he’d worked for the British intelligence services, he wasn’t what anyone on the outside would typically think of as a spy. There were no secret identities, no aliases, no months or years on end spent working undercover. He had been the easiest to find, but also perhaps the least relevant to Ryker. He’d been in the van the whole time during that night. Along with Lange. Whatever had gone wrong in Qatar had gone wrong inside the palace, and so for now the two of them were bottom of Ryker’s list.
Then there was Ali Salman. The ex-employee of the Qatari government. Ex-employee because that night in Doha he’d escaped with the rest of them on the boat to Oman, and he’d left behind his old life for good. He’d got a new life, a new identity, and one which Ryker had had no part in setting up, which meant extra effort on Ryker’s part in order to find him now.
And so it came down to the final two. Kyle Elliott and Penny Diaz. He was aware both had remained working for MI6 after the Doha mission, though Ryker had never had any further operations with either. But their similarities to Ryker – their career choices, their outlooks on life – meant they were the easiest to track down. He thought like them. He lived like them.
From a purely logistical standpoint, it was Diaz who came out on top. She was simply easier to get to. Ryker had been in England. He tracked Diaz’s location to Copenhagen. A few hours on a ferry later and he was in the city, in a bar, sitting next to her.
‘I asked you what are you doing here?’
Her tone was hard and cold. She still wasn’t looking at him.
Ryker glanced around the room.
‘You’re working alone tonight?’ he asked.
She set her gaze on him for the first time. Her look was hard. She was angry but trying her best to keep it bottled up.
‘I’m not working at all,’ she said.
‘Is that right? So who’s your friend?’
She shook her head in disgust. ‘Carl, I know you.’
‘I’m not Carl anymore.’
Carl Logan had been his identity back then in Doha. Did she really not know he was now James Ryker, or was the drop of his old name a ploy?
‘James Ryker,’ he said. ‘You know how it is.’
‘My point was, I know you already know the answer to your previous question.’
‘Fair point. Martin is a government minister here in Copenhagen. Defense, isn’t it?’
‘There you go. So why did you bother to ask?’
‘So what’s the play?’
She dug her nails into the bar top. She was not happy with this reunion in any way, shape, or form. ‘He’s my boyfriend. We’ve been together for months. There is no play.’
Ryker held his hands up. ‘Fair enough. I was just interested, that’s all.’
‘No, you weren’t. So I’ll ask again, why are you here?’ More exasperated now.
‘Why do you think? Have you been watching the news?’
She sighed.
‘I just want to ask you a few questions,’ he said.
‘Penny? Is everything okay?’
She nearly jumped out of her skin at her boyfriend’s question. He put his hand on her shoulder. Of course, Ryker had seen him approaching but wanted to gauge her reaction when she was caught off guard. Why? Because he knew spies and he knew every one of them played games, even when they were insistent that they didn’t. He liked Penny. They’d worked well together. But that didn’t mean he trusted her. Not then, not now.
‘Martin? This is—’
‘James,’ Ryker said, holding his hand out. ‘James Ryker. An old friend from—’
‘Oxford,’ Diaz butted in.
Interesting, that she’d chosen a real location from her past.
‘You were at university together?’ Martin asked.
‘No,’ Ryker said. ‘I didn’t go to university. We just shared mutual friends.’
‘And you’re here in Copenhagen?’ Martin said, still on his feet, looking a little bemused, and perhaps a little wary now. ‘What a coincidence.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Ryker said.
‘You’re on your own?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why don’t you get us another drink,’ Diaz said to Martin, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze at the same time. ‘James, did you want one?’
She shook her head at him, ever so slightly.
‘Yeah,’ Ryker said, picking up his glass. ‘Seems I’m all out. Gin and tonic, please.’
Martin turned back to the bar to try and get the attention of the barman who was busy smashing mint leaves in the bottom of a glass with a pestle. Diaz turned back to Ryker. Not happy.
‘Please,’ she mouthed.
Ryker shrugged.
‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.
Ryker didn’t answer. Martin made the order and sat back down and Diaz shuffled back a little so they were in a narrow triangle.
‘So, James, what brought you to Copenhagen?’
His English was smooth, the foreign accent noticeable but only just.
‘Business,’ Ryker said.
‘Yeah? What business are you into?’
‘Consulting.’
‘Consulting? To whom?’
‘Whoever needs it.’
Martin looked a little put out by the lackluster responses, as though he didn’t know where else to take the conversation. The barman delivered the drinks. Martin took a sip of his beer. Ryker took a sip from his G&T. Diaz hadn’t touched whatever the colorful concoction was that she was having.
Ryker smiled. ‘When you were in the bathroom, I was asking Penny if she could remember when we last saw each other.’
‘Oh, and?’
‘Ten years ago,’ Ryker said.
‘In Oxford,’ Penny interjected, as though worried that perhaps Ryker was about to say Doha.
‘Oxford?’ Martin said, a questioning look on his face. ‘Ten years ago?’
She’d graduated from university nearly twenty years ago.
‘It was a reunion,’ Ryker said. ‘Anyway, it was a big party. At this big old… basically a palace. Do you remember?’
‘Kind of,’ Penny said. ‘Though it wasn’t that big. Hardly a palace.’
‘That’s how I remembered it.’
‘You were invited to a reunion party?’ Martin said to Ryker, just a hint of suspicion now. ‘Even though you weren’t from the university?’
Ryker shrugged. ‘We shared close friends. Like Pavel. You remember Pavel?’
Penny shook her head. ‘Not really.’
Ryker frowned. ‘Strange. I do. He was hosting the party that night. You really don’t remember? Anyway, I always wondered what happened to Pavel that night.’
‘How do you mean?’ Martin said. He looked not just confused now, but a little annoyed, too, as he took a large drag of his beer. Perhaps because he could tell his girlfriend was becoming more and more uncomfortable, even if he had no idea why.
‘It was just strange,’ Ryker said. ‘I barely saw Pavel that night. He just disappeared off somewhere. In fact—’ Ryker scratched his head ‘—I’m sure Penny was one of the last people to see him.’
‘He disappeared?’ Peter said. ‘As in… vanished?’
Ryker shrugged. ‘Who knows? We all left Oxford after the party, and I guess we’ve just lost touch.’
‘Sounds like a strange party.’
‘Very strange,’ Ryker said. ‘Thinking back on it now, at least. Though I did come across Pavel again recently.’
Ryker took another sip from his drink.
Diaz leaned over to Martin and put her hand on his leg. ‘Do you think you could get me a glass of water?’
Martin frowned but was soon facing the bar again. Diaz glared at Ryker. She mouthed something to him. Something along the lines of ‘fuck off’.
Ryker nodded. He downed his drink.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said.
He passed her a slip of paper across the bar. She whipped it out of sight and stuffed it into her clutch bag. A slick move. But when Ryker flicked his gaze to the bar he caught Martin’s eye in the mirror. He was glaring. Had he seen?
Ryker got up from his stool. Both Martin and Diaz turned to him.
‘It was nice to see you,’ he said to Diaz. She beamed a smile now, though it was undoubtedly forced. ‘And nice to meet you, Martin.’
‘And you,’ he said.
Ryker headed for the exit.