Part Three.

Extreme Prejudice.

Chapter One.

A little over half an hour later; Stacey was cleaning Menke's Beretta when there was a quiet tap on the door. Picking up, and cocking her Walther she quietly moved to the wall and positioned herself to the left of the apartment door, her gun ready. Breathing softly, she said,

'Yes? What do you want?'

A voice replied,

"Nimrod."

Stacey slipped off the dead latch and replied.

'OK. Come in.'

The door opened, and the young man who had challenged her in the courtyard of the Budapest CIA station at the old Joseph Barracks building stepped into the room. She lowered the Walther.

'Good afternoon, Mr Pearce.'

He gave her a wry grin.

'Actually, it's Officer Pearce... Mr. Hallahan sends his compliments and asked me to give you this.'

He placed a black, Navy-style messenger bag on the floor.

'It contains a fresh set of clothes more in keeping with the local fashion than that police gear they gave you; and an updated Nimrod file.'

She opened the bag. It contained a black-leather, zipped jacket; a black T-shirt and black pants; and a pair of military-style, rubber soled, lace-up boots, similar to the notorious Doc Martens boots favoured by the Neo-Nazi factions. These boots, however, were American-made... "Danner" brand. Pearce sat down. His expression was serious.

'Mr. Hallahan has said that it is imperative that you stay in the apartment for a few days. Information has been received that the Israeli hit squad has arrived in Budapest and has started to liquidate targets implicated in the killing of their agent, Menke, and also those involved in your abduction. The Budapest Police have already dragged the carcasses of both Drescher and Nagler out of the Danube. They both had the backs of their heads blown off. Consequently, the Neo-Nazis are on the lookout for you with orders to eliminate you on sight due to the fact that you were able to identify at least two of the high-value targets in the Police "Janus" file.'

He smiled at the expression on Stacey's face.

'Police Major Berényi has briefed us fully. Now; you will not be contacted again for several days by us, the Israelis, or the Budapest Police. No one legitimate will come down this alley until we contact you on that telephone.'

He motioned to the old-fashioned, black bakelite telephone on the window sill.

'The number is unlisted, and it will not ring unless it is us. We will not do that until the beginning of next week when arrangements have been made to get you out of Hungary. If it should ring before then; check the alley, and be prepared. It will mean that both the safe house, and you, may have been compromised; so take all necessary "Executive Action."

Stacey stared at him.

'So how could they manage to compromise this safe house? Has there been some sort of leak?'

Pearce shrugged.

'We have no way of knowing, but we have our suspicions that there may well have been. If there has; it has come from the Police Headquarters end. Major Berényi alerted us to this. He is conducting an internal enquiry as we speak, and thinks that there is a Neo-Nazi sympathiser at work in there, trying to sabotage the hunt for this courier guy, Bernát Kóbor.'

He stood up, and turned to the door. As he opened it, he glanced back.

'Almost forgot. Hallahan said to remind you that, if anything does happen; don't forget to use the Beretta rather than your Walther. That way, they can't trace it back to us.'

She smiled.

'Plausible deniability?'

Pearce grinned.

'Too damn right! You'll find a box of shells and a silencer for the Beretta in the bottom of the bag. The shells are hollow points, and will stop most creeps. OK, Officer Mckenna; I'll be seeing you. Just stay sharp.'

He stepped out into the corridor and closed the door. She limped across to the window and watched him as he walked swiftly away down the narrow, dismal alley.

The insistent ring of the telephone dragged Stacey from a rather poignant dream about Alex Shepard. Half asleep, she stumbled out of bed and groped for the telephone. Even in her drowsy state, she automatically spoke into the mouthpiece using Hungarian.

'Igen? Mit akarz'?... 'Yes? What do you want?'

Silence. Then the line clicked as whoever it was, disconnected the call. The sound of the click swept the sleepiness from her mind. Dammit to Hell! Hadn't Pearce said that the number was unlisted? And now she had stupidly revealed that the apartment was occupied. How long before they came? There was no way of knowing. Quickly, she dressed in the clothes that Pearce had brought, and reached for the Beretta. Ejecting the magazine, she snapped open the box of shells, and tipped out the 9x19mm Parabellums onto the table. Picking one up, she studied it. So this was what was commonly called the nine-millimetre Luger cartridge…a jacketed hollow-point with a load of one hundred and fifteen grammes. She loaded the magazine with eight rounds and snapped it back into the pistol butt. She then screwed the long silencer into the muzzle of the weapon and cycled the slide. Pulling a chair up to the window, she sat and surveyed the narrow alley below whilst she formed her plan of action. If, as she suspected; she would soon have unwelcome visitors; she decided that attack was the best form of defence. He... or they, would not expect that she would be somewhere in the alley lying in wait.

The safe house was being watched. She could feel it. The cold, prickly sensation ran down her spine but she made no move to betray the fact that she was aware of it, thus keeping the watcher or watchers unaware that she knew they were there. As far as they would know, she had no idea about their presence, and that would give her an edge... the element of surprise. But Who were they?... and more to the point…Where were they? One thing was sure as hell. They would be hostile. She had to establish where they were before they realised that they'd been made. She didn't have to wait for long to find out.

She saw a movement at the far end of the alley. At the opposite face of the far building beyond the dark maw of the entrance tunnel into the next series of alleyways; two men were standing against the wall in the shadows; hands pushed into their pockets. The first figure furtively circled around the corner and pressed his back up against the solid stone wall of the furthest distant building. Cautiously, the second figure appeared at the opening of the alley. He was wearing what appeared to be a black leather bomber jacket.

The first man sneaked into the alley and began slowly making his way towards the safe house, hugging the wall of the narrow chasm; whilst his buddy waited in the shadows of the entrance tunnel. Picking up the Beretta and flicking off the safety; Stacey moved to the door of the apartment. Showtime! Her main concern had been her feet; but the thick socks, combined with the rubber soled boots cushioned her feet to the extent that there was no discomfort at all. Silently she made her way downstairs and inched open the door onto the alley. Seeing a movement; suddenly, the first man pulled something out of his coat and she heard the soft plop of a silenced gun, followed by the crash of glass as a bullet went through a pane of the window close to her head. Hunching over and pulling the Beretta from her leather jacket, she ducked back into the doorway as his second shot grazed her sleeve and the third smashed into the stucco near her head. He was a professional; keeping still and taking steady aim instead of coming at her and firing wild.

She ducked back through the doorway and watched the faint shadow flitting across the wall opposite; darkening and sharpening under the faint reflected sunlight as he zigzagged and kept on coming. He couldn't see her pressed against the angle of the wall. Behind the first man, beyond her sight, the second man had begun moving forward through the shadows of the entrance tunnel. She pressed herself tighter against the wall and waited. After less than a minute she heard the approaching sound of the first man running stealthily; boots clicking against the cobblestones of the alley. The footsteps stopped mid-way along the alley as he stood trying to judge whether or not it was safe to come any further. Hearing the other man's footsteps echoing in the entrance tunnel behind him, he moved forward.

She stepped out of the shadows, aimed, and squeezed the trigger. The Beretta gave a muffled metallic grunt and the man's hand grabbed at his forehead. His hand came away covered with blood as the back of his head exploded into a gory shower of brain matter, blood, and fragmented bone that splattered up the stucco wall behind him. He fell forward onto his knees with a small thump, a shocked expression still pasted on his face; and crumpled, as his gun hit the cold, dirty cobblestones and skidded away from him with a thin, metallic screech.

As he lay twitching, she inched forward to see where the other man was. He was silhouetted in the shadowy tunnel at the entrance to the alley against the light which haloed his form and threw a long shadow. His hands were in his pockets as he crouched there... a near-perfect, motionless target as he stared impassively at his buddy's inert, sprawled body; then, just as she was taking aim, he silently turned, and ran back into the maze of alleys.

Stacey waited until the echoes of the second man's footsteps faded away to leave only the sound of the wind ghosting between the towering walls in the narrow, steep-sided valleys that made up the warren of alleyways. Cautiously, she stepped out of cover and approached the sprawled corpse. She glanced down at his weapon lying forlornly where it had fallen. It was a long-barrelled, Artillery model Luger Parabellum… nine-millimetre, eight rounds; and the type designed to take a shoulder stock that would convert it into a pistol carbine. She left it where it had fallen and looked down at the body. The high combat boots with the white laces, black T-shirt; bomber jacket and combat trousers confirmed her suspicions. This had been a Neo-Nazi. Somehow; the safe house had been compromised. It was time to get the hell out of there and back to the Táncsics Mihály Street headquarters..

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Carefully avoiding the rivulets of congealing blood tracing a gory cobweb between the cobblestones, she retraced her steps along the alley to the entrance to the safe house. She paused, and scanned the immediate area. The Beretta would have ejected the spent brass casing out to the right-hand side of the weapon. That meant that it would have hit the wall and, most likely, would have been deflected out across the alley from the point where she had fired the round. Her eyes caught a faint glint in the drainage channel at the edge of the cobblestones. The spent casing lay almost directly across from where she was standing. Swiftly, she crossed the narrow alley and picked up the incriminating brass cylinder. Now, the police would have no immediate forensic evidence to link either the Beretta, or the Budapest station, to the killing. If there were any records on file… the likelihood of which was so remote as to be virtually impossible… they would eventually lead the police back to the Israelis.

Returning to the apartment, she quickly packed the messenger bag that Pearce had brought, with her Walther, the box of Beretta ammunition, and the "Nimrod" file that she had not yet had a chance to study in any great depth. Rolling up the police uniform that Tamás Berényi had supplied to her at police headquarters; she stuffed it into the top of the bag and zipped it up. Slipping the silenced Beretta into her leather jacket, she gave a final glance around the apartment to ensure that nothing incriminating was evident; walked to the door and turned the knob on the double locking rim dead latch; opening the door as she did so. When she closed the door from the outside, the lock would operate; thus securing the apartment… and only the correct key or a deftly manipulated lock pick would open it. This done; she picked up the bag and made her way down to the alley. Pausing at the entrance, with her hand on the butt of the Beretta inside her jacket; she warily scanned the alley. It was deserted… except for the body which lay where it had fallen.

Taking a deep breath, she walked down the alley towards the body; glancing down at it as she stepped over the inert corpse. She noted that her nine-millimetre slug had taken a baseball-sized chunk out of the back of its head. Suppressing a shiver, she continued on through the entrance tunnel into the complex snarl of alleyways and passages that led out to the street. Without seeing a soul, she came out into Országház Street and turned left. She walked down the street for about two hundred yards, and turned into a short, narrow street named Fortuna Kös, leading into Fortuna Street which ran parallel with Táncsics Mihály Street.

She paused at the end of the little street, and, to give the impression to anyone observing her that she was just one more tourist; looked around at the buildings as if appreciating the architecture whilst consulting the cheap tourist map she had taken from the safe house. She was, however, sweeping the street for any suspicious-looking people. As she was about to fold the map and move on; a young couple approached her and, in halting English, asked the way to the Fisherman's Bastion. She unfolded the map again and gave them directions; pointing out where they were, and the direction they should take. She used English with a German accent.

The girl smiled.

'We are going to Germany next week. What part are you from?'

Stacey returned her smile.

'I am Austrian; from the Tyrol.'

The girl nodded.

'I love mountains; we are hoping to stop off there for a day or so.'

Stacey smiled.

'It is beautiful. You should really try to get to Kufstein, with its beautiful castle in the centre of the valley.'

The girl nodded.

'Thank you, Fräulein; we will. Auf Wiedersehen.'

As they walked away Stacey smiled quietly to herself. She had obviously given a credible impression of being just another tourist. She folded the map, walked casually across Fortuna Street, and slipped through a narrow passageway which, according to the map, emerged in Táncsics Mihály Street a few houses down from the safety of the old Joseph Barracks building. Casually shouldering the messenger bag, she crossed the street and strolled past the front of CIA Station, Budapest; turning into the narrow, cobbled alley on the right-hand side, three buildings further along the street, which led around to the courtyard at the rear of the CIA building. As she turned into the courtyard proper; a young man in a grey suit stepped out from under the arcade arches at the rear of the main building. His hair was cut into a tight crew-cut that he appeared to be attempting to grow out into a more acceptable civilian style. Approaching her; he said,

'This is private property, Ma'am. You are not allowed into this courtyard.'

His tone was terse and authoritative.

Stacey nodded.

'I know. I am here to see the Chief of Station'

His eyes narrowed.

'There is no one here of that description.'

She smiled.

'I am here to see Mr Hallahan.'

There was no change in his expression.

'Leave now, or you will be detained for trespass.'

His hand edged towards his waist where his weapon holster would be concealed. A voice from behind him cut through the ominous silence that was suddenly creeping around the courtyard.

'Marine! Stand down!'

The huge, reassuring bulk of Master Sergeant Everett came out from under the centre arch of the enclosed arcade and strode across the courtyard. The young man's hand dropped to his side as Stacey looked past him.

'Good afternoon, Mr Everett.'

Everett stopped in front of her.

'Officer Mckenna. You should be at the apartment.'

She nodded.

'The place is compromised, Mr Everett. I had two unwelcome visitors earlier today, so I thought I'd better get back here and report to the Chief.'

Everett nodded.

'OK. Ma'am. But before we go up, I'll need your piece.'

She nodded, and withdrew the silenced Beretta; pressed the magazine release catch in the grip, ejected the magazine; and pulled back the slide to eject the round in the chamber. The young man gave a sharp intake of breath at the sight of the weapon as she handed both it and the magazine to Everett. As they entered the building and began to ascend the staircase to Hallahan's office, Everett grinned.

'You'll have to excuse that young guy, Crawford. He's fresh out of the Farm, and on his first overseas posting. He's kinda Gung-Ho at the moment; but he'll settle down OK. I'll keep him out of mischief by getting him to recover the shell you ejected from the breech of this cannon.'

Stacey smiled.

'Yeah, I remember. I was like that once.'

Arriving at Hallahan's office, Everett knocked and ushered her inside. Hallahan looked up and frowned.

'Officer Mckenna. You're supposed to be at the safe house.'

She nodded.

'Yes, Sir; but it's been compromised. I had two visitors who weren't on a social call. I dropped one, but the other one didn't wait around. I secured the apartment and made it back here without being tailed.'

Hallahan stared at her.

'You dropped one? Which piece did you use?'

She motioned to Everett, who placed the silenced Beretta on Hallahan's desk. She pushed it in front of him.

'That one, Sir… Menke's Beretta… and I recovered the spent casing'

Hallahan breathed a sigh of relief.

'Good. So we're still in the clear. Who were they?'

She shrugged.

'No idea, Sir. The phone rang, and twenty minutes later, they came sneaking up the alley. The one I hit got off three shots. He was using a long-barrelled Luger; and had all the looks of being a Neo-Nazi by the look of his clothing.'

Hallahan studied her silently.

'What about the other one?'

She shook her head.

'He was too far away, and stayed in the shadows of the alley entrance tunnel… but it looked as though he was wearing a black leather jacket.'

Hallahan leaned back in his chair.

'OK; so how are your feet? We are going to have to get you out a lot sooner than we had anticipated. Are you fit to travel?'

She gave him a questioning stare.

'The feet are good, Sir; the Embassy medic, James Campbell fixed me up just fine. Where am I going now?'

Hallahan leaned forward.

'I'll tell you in a while; but firstly, let's shut this shooting down by getting this damn gun of yours sorted out.'

He picked up the telephone; dialled a single number and spoke swiftly.

'Armourer to my office… right now!'

Replacing the receiver, he looked up.

'You're going on to Israel. Stendal's hit squad have scoured Budapest and have come up empty as far as the courier, Kóbor is concerned. They've taken out at least eight, high-profile Neo-Nazis; but their best guess is that Kóbor has been tipped off and has skipped the country… and we all know where he's likely to be headed… Beirut.'

He was interrupted by a knock on the door. The armourer, Marius Neumann came in and smiled at Stacey. Hallahan pointed to the Beretta.

'Marius; this cannon needs a new identity. Officer Mckenna had occasion to use it earlier today, and I want it ballistically neutered before she takes it out again.'

Marius Neumann glanced at Stacey.

'What traces did you leave, Miss?

Stacey looked up at him.

'It was a straight-through head shot; so, just a body and the slug that killed him. I recovered the spent casing and used the silencer.'

Neumann nodded.

'Good! Even though you recovered the spent casing, the police may still manage to retrieve the slug for ballistic tests; albeit deformed, seeing as it exited the target's head. The ballistic premise is that every firearm leaves a unique "fingerprint" on every bullet fired from it, and on every empty cartridge case that the firearm ejects. I will replace the barrel assembly, ejector, and firing pin; and also replace the magazine with the special, ten-round version. In this way; should they ever manage to acquire the weapon and test-fire it; there will be no comparative tool marks on the projectile… because every barrel rifling is unique; and seeing as how there is no spent casing, they cannot match any such marks on the outside of the cartridge casing; the rim of the casing, or the primer pocket and the base of the spent casing. This weapon will still be unknown to them.'

Picking up the Beretta, he made for the door. As he opened it he paused and turned back.

'Most of the parts, I already have; but a new threaded barrel may take a little longer. Give me two hours?'

Hallahan raised an eyebrow.

'Make it one and a half, Marius!'

Turning back to Stacey, he continued with his briefing.

'I've already contacted Chief of Station at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and told him to expect you. We are going to fly you out tonight; and you will be liaising with the Israeli security services.'

The ten-kilometre drive across Budapest to Ferihegy airport in the south-east part of the city was uneventful. The black, Mercedes-Benz Embassy car turned into the road leading to the airport terminal and continued on to the north end of the concrete apron where a large business jet was parked. The airplane was unusual for a business jet inasmuch that it was much larger; it had four engines arranged in pairs on each side of the rear fuselage, and what looked like a large, streamlined fuel tank pod projecting forward from the leading edge of each wing. The driver stopped alongside the airplane and got out to open the rear door for Stacey. He smiled.

'Travelling in style, Ma'am. The Air Force has lent her to us for this mission, no questions asked. She's basically a Lockheed Jetstar C.140B, semi-VIP bird belonging to the 89th Military Airlift Wing at Andrews Air Force Base. She's flying to Tel Aviv to pick up a Congressional, fact-finding junket... that means there'll be plenty of liquor on board if you fancy a nightcap.'

Stacey thanked him and walked to the boarding ladder. The in-flight steward... a youngish Staff Sergeant, took her bag and ushered her aboard. The interior of the Jetstar was impressive... there was seating for eight to ten passengers… two plush, leather-faced individual seats facing each other, either side at the front of the cabin; a fabric upholstered, side facing, three seater couch behind them to starboard; plus two more individual plush leather seats facing each other opposite the couch on the port side. The steward informed her that the toilet facilities were at the rear of the airplane behind the highly polished, wood-faced bulkhead, and that hot beverages would be served in-flight from the compact galley also at the rear of the airplane. She smiled wryly to herself. So this was how the great and good travelled. What would they think of some of the tired old birds that she had flown in their names? Her chain of thought was interrupted as the steward directed her to the seats. She chose one of the leather-faced ones on the starboard side; sat down and strapped herself in.

The steward made his way forward; pulled up the airstair and closed the entrance door. He then strapped into his seat which was located in the entry vestibule and faced aft. The whine of the engines spooling up penetrated the cabin, and the Jetstar began to taxi forward out to the runway. With a slight jolt, the pilot braked at the end of the runway as he waited for clearance; then, the jet whine rose to a scream as he advanced the throttles, and the Jetstar began to roll. Stacey felt the acceleration begin to push her back into her seat. Then the nose lifted, and the airplane soared up into the skies, turning her nose into the south-east as the pilot set his course which would take them out over the Balkan Peninsula, and the azure expanses of the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas towards a slender ribbon of white concrete eleven hundred and sixty nautical miles distant on a sandy strip of land hugging the shoreline of the land that was once called The Levant; but was now known as the State of Israel.