A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

faced with this warrior lookalike, the thought of going back to an uneventful life seemed an even worse option.

‘I like to say it as I see it,’ he’d replied simply. If he’d thought HR might haul him into a retraining session for such a derogatory, sexist and demeaning statement, he didn’t look as if he cared much. Instead he gave Isobel a blank stare before allowing a hint of a smile to touch his lips. ‘You should do fine. I’m told you have a reputation for getting things done and have requested something challenging. Frankly I can’t decide whether the people who decided to use you in this role are geniuses or morons. Let’s hope you’ll prove them the former, shall we?’

And here she was, re-suited and re-booted, as one of her instructors at the training base on the south coast of England had said, and ready to go forth to her next posting to do whatever was needed in the name of freedom, democracy and the Crown.

She ignored her small car, parked in the shadow of the building she had just left, and scanned her surroundings before ducking into a narrow alleyway which cut through to the next street. She was pretty sure she wasn’t being followed, but the local security police were not above making random checks just for the hell of it to annoy foreigners, even older individuals like herself, working on behalf of aid organizations in the region.

What they might think a woman of late middle years with a gammy leg might get up to was anyone’s guess, but you had to give them points for optimism. The poor buggers probably weren’t paid much and liked to enhance their earnings with the occasional bribe. But so far she’d been lucky not to encounter more than the odd tickle for the sake of appearances.

Waving down a passing cab, a dusty and battered Mercedes, she climbed into the rear and gave the driver directions. Alongside him sat an older woman in black, who might have been his mother, and who talked at him non-stop without acknowledging Isobel’s presence.

It was hotter than usual in the car, and if the air-con was working it was merely stirring the warm air like invisible soup. She was glad she’d decided to wear light clothes; anything heavier would have been unbearable. She’d had to leave her ordinary travel clothes behind, the bug-out order meaning just that: don’t stop to pack, it will slow you down and they’ll know you’re leaving. Walk out as if you’re going shopping and don’t look back.

The ‘they’ could only mean the local security police or whoever had put eyes on her. She wasn’t about to argue; she valued her safety more than a few items of personal effects and they could always be replaced.

After a few minutes the driver pulled up at a pedestrian-infested corner where another elderly woman was waiting with her arm out. Amid an impatient cacophony of horns from other drivers, the woman took her time clambering in alongside Isobel, but instead of a greeting, raised the volume by joining in the conversation up front. Isobel didn’t mind; cab-sharing had been a surprise discovery during her first week here, and something she had got used to, especially when the late joiners managed to hop out leaving the white woman to pay the fare.

The controllers in London HQ would have regarded this shared space as a potential security breach, but here it proved a useful source of cover during her trips around the city. A single European woman in a cab might attract attention from the authorities; two, even three women of different nationalities and ethnicity were less likely to do so. The local sisterhood system, apparently, was in fine working order.

She settled back to see out the ride, aware that this was probably the last time she would set eyes on these streets. Bugging out like this hadn’t been on the cards but neither had meeting an unknown American in the coffee shop RV she had nominated when asked by London. It made her wonder why she was also being told to get out, and hoped they were unconnected. Maybe someone higher up the ladder had got the jitters and decided to clear out whatever personnel were in the area as a matter of caution.

A volley of car horns made her check the street behind. A black car with a whip aerial had forced its way into the line of cars and was holding station three vehicles back. As they slowed to turn a corner past a mosque she caught a glimpse of a familiar face in the front passenger seat. It was a police sergeant from the local station. Ali something-or-other, a man who seemed to view all foreigners as enemies of the state.

She turned to face the front, and caught the eye of the cab driver in the mirror. He gave the barest shake of his head, which she took as a clear indication that he’d also spotted the police car and that she should not do anything to arouse their suspicion.

She asked the driver to drop her off three blocks away from the RV and walked a circular route, eyeing her back-trail and stopping occasionally to pick up small items of shopping. The police car stayed on her for several minutes, before peeling off and disappearing at speed.

She continued as before, knowing that if she was under surveillance it would help to give off the impression that the last thing she was about to do was to go on the run.

As a European, even one of a certain age, she knew that she was bound to be on somebody’s watch list simply because that was the way of the world here. Complaining about it or trying to plead discrimination would get her nowhere, even from her overtly friendly local police chief, whom she made sure she bumped into occasionally to brief him on her aid-related work. That revelation alone, while back in