Hide Me

‘But how will you know?’

Zubiri sighed and rubbed his eyes, suddenly looking jaded. ‘The Irish and the Basques are closer than you think. Your paramilitaries have been buddies with our ETA separatists for almost forty years. Explosives in exchange for training. Handguns for solidarity. Our police force has had undercover agents in your country for decades.’ He leaned forward, every line in his face etched deep. ‘There are no guarantees Chavez will approach Belfast again. But if he does, our operatives will know about it.’

‘And do what?’

‘Intercept the enquiry. Redirect it to us and let Chavez know a replacement is on the way.’

Harry’s mouth felt dry. Zubiri fixed his eyes on hers and nodded.

‘And then you go in.’

Chapter 8

‘Would I wear a wire?’

Harry was surprised at how normal her voice sounded. Zubiri shook his head.

‘Waste of time.’

‘But don’t you need evidence?’

‘All we need is information. Wear some piece-of-shit recorder, and you just spend time changing the batteries.’

Harry peered at him through the artificial twilight of the room. The projector beam had excavated lines like dugouts in his face.

‘I thought devices were more hi-tech these days,’ she said.

Zubiri snorted. ‘The Ertzaintza budget doesn’t stretch to hi-tech equipment. They keep that stuff for National Intelligence. Even if we could afford it, they wouldn’t let us use it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we gotta explain our technology in court. Show how we acquire our evidence. If we use the smart stuff, the gadgets get exposed and so does National Intelligence. They prefer to keep their box of tricks a secret.’

‘I see.’ Harry’s mouth felt dry. ‘So no wire?’

Zubiri leaned forward in his chair and started itemizing things on his fingers. ‘Look, this crew is professional. They’re going to frisk you, they’re going to confiscate your phone, your laptop, your jewellery, anything that looks like it could be a recorder, a transmitter or a GPS device.’ His sombre eyes locked onto hers. ‘These guys catch you wired and you’re dead.’

Harry swallowed, and a bead of sweat began a lazy trickle down her back. Zubiri’s eyes raked her face, as though hunting for signs of weakness. She lifted her chin.

‘Okay, so no recorders or transmitters. How would you know where I was?’

‘You’d have backup.’

‘Where?’

He shook his head. ‘Basic rule of undercover: you never get told where the backup’s gonna be.’ He tipped his chair back, linking his hands behind his head. ‘Think about it. You rendezvous with a target and you know we got a sniper on the roof? You can’t help yourself, you’ll look up to check he’s there.’ He shook his head again. ‘You won’t ever know where we are. It’s for your own protection.’

Harry suppressed an involuntary shudder. She’d have to be crazy to get involved in a stunt like this. Then she caught the challenge in Zubiri’s gaze, and could tell he didn’t expect her to take the job either.

She shifted in her chair. The projector light flickered as Zubiri’s laptop dozed into standby mode, obliterating Riva’s image from the wall. The room sank into shadow. Zubiri rocked on his tilted-back chair, and Harry glanced at his large, craggy face and thought about his boss, Vasco.

He’d threatened to embroil her in a murder case, to blacken her already tarnished name. She clamped her teeth shut. Her credentials with the Irish police had taken a beating the previous year and, in truth, she was tired of being the bad guy. She’d worked hard the last few months to redeem her reputation, and bit by bit, she’d sensed a growing respect, at least from the Tech Bureau guys. The last thing she wanted was to jeopardize all that now.

The hairs along her arms twitched. It was an in-and-out job. All she had to do was pretend to be a hacker. How hard could it be?

She eyed Zubiri’s face, kept her gaze steady. ‘Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that I’m going to do this. I presume I’d need an alias?’

He missed a beat, as though adjusting for an unexpected turn of events. Then he let his chair drop with a snap back to the floor.

‘We’d prepare some background paperwork. False name, credit card, driver’s licence.’ He cocked a tangled eyebrow in her direction. ‘Unless you have those already?’

Harry felt the colour rise in her cheeks and wondered how much he knew about her occasional identity switches. If he knew about her trespassing caper on the Stock Exchange, then he probably knew about Pirata. Chances were, though, he didn’t know about Catalina.

Catalina Diego had started out as an imaginary friend when Harry was five years old. She took most of the blame for Harry’s misdeeds; she was blonde and beautiful, and her mother loved her. As Harry got older she’d abandoned Catalina in favour of Pirata, but later reinvented her when she began her hacking scams. By the time Harry was fourteen, Catalina had her own email account, driving licence and even a credit card. Harry still used her whenever the need arose.

She shrugged. ‘We could use Catalina Diego. It’s a persona I’ve built up in my professional capacity.’

‘Oh?’

Harry returned his unblinking gaze. ‘I use it occasionally on authorized security tests. She’s got established credentials, a credible paper trail. Plus, I’m used to the name. I won’t blank if someone calls me that.’

Zubiri’s eyes probed hers, then he nodded. ‘Okay. We’d set up a couple of hello phones, get some people to backstop you in Belfast.’ He must have seen her expression, for he went on to explain. ‘Just numbers and contacts who’ll confirm Catalina’s background if anyone asks. We’d use McArdle, too. You could say you knew him, you were in the same line of business.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s a dead guy, that’s why. Dead guys can’t deny knowing you.’

Harry blinked. Zubiri went on.

‘You said you had family in San Sebastián.’

‘I said I might have.’

‘You’d need to stay away from places they might be. In case they blow your cover.’

Harry shook her head. ‘No one knows me. I haven’t been here since I was a child.’

Zubiri nodded, satisfied. ‘Stick to the truth as much as possible. The fewer lies you tell, the fewer you need to remember.’

‘What happens if they just don’t believe me?’

For the first time, Zubiri’s gaze faltered. ‘They will.’

‘But if they don’t?’

He jabbed at the keyboard, kick-starting his laptop. Then he trained his eyes on hers. ‘No matter what happens, never, ever break cover.’

Harry experienced a sudden, dizzy rush, like the falling sensation that jerks you out of sleep. Her heart pounded. She eased back in her chair, covering her jitters with slow movements. Zubiri turned to his keyboard, pecking out the password to unlock his snoozing laptop.