Local time – 11:45am, Saturday 16th June, 2011.
Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Daniel sat hunched over his laptop in his hotel room. The photograph of Alex North had been sent to his phone and email. She looked boringly pretty in a stereotypical blonde, ditsy way. He was surprised at how young she was. But journalists only got worse as they got older, so it was no wonder she was given a crack at Bilderberg. She might have been naive enough to think she would actually find something out. Stupid bitch.
He had been only 100 meters away from the bomb when it went off. He had just left the bar with the idea of calling the girl directly to set up a meeting on the grounds that there was every possibility the stupid woman would turn up if he promised her a scoop. He had come unnervingly close to being pasted over the side of the Sherlock bar by a bomb obviously planted by an American operative. As a result, he ranted for far longer than his colleague cared to listen about the dangers of non-cooperation between Mossad and the CIA. Had someone bothered to tell him what their plans were, he would not only have made sure he was well away from the police station, he would also have taken a little bit more notice of which journalists were inside at the time.
His ears were still ringing so loudly he had trouble hearing the rest of the phone call. This, of course, was not the first time he had almost been killed on an apparently simple operation. But it was the first time the arrogance and ineptitude of an American colleague had been to blame. And they nearly destroyed his mission in the process. They always preached about cooperation, and ridiculed his evident preference for working alone. But now it was they who had failed to collaborate properly with him. The irony. He would find out who that agent was, and make sure he never forgot his mistake.
Daniel’s colleague eventually interrupted him to tell him that they were yet to identify the man he was ranting about, and finished by promising to continue working on it. Daniel tried to calm down and focus. He had a mission to complete, and the sooner he did that, the sooner he could let the Americans know how they would be paying for their mistake. He decided to take the easy route to this North woman by using the GPS receiver on her phone to locate her. Then he could just follow until she was nicely cornered, rather than risk meeting in a public place.
He put her phone number into his tracking software and watched the screen, waiting for a small red dot to appear on the map of Prague.
He predicted that she might turn up at the site of the bombing. Journalists usually flocked to the scene of destruction and misery, soaking it all up like baby birds fed by regurgitating mothers. But when the red dot did appear, he was disappointed to see the bimbo had outsmarted him by being a coward. His least favourite trait. She was quite obviously rushing to the airport. All it took for her to run back to London was a measly car bomb. She would be in the departure lounge within minutes. He hurried around his room, turning off his laptop and gathering his things together. He then called his office to check when the next flight was leaving Prague for London, to make sure he had time to get to the airport before she got on a plane without him.