by Mark Sennen
‘Bloody hell,’ she said.
‘You know him?’ Itchy said.
‘This is so crazy. I can’t believe it.’
‘Silvi! Who is it?’
‘I only know his first name is Frank. He was at a reception in London where Karen Hope gave a speech. He’s an agent. Sean knew him.’
‘Sean? You mean he’s…? Oh great. We’re really fucked, then.’
‘Better fucked than dead.’ Silva’s father pushed himself up from where he’d been hiding behind the chair. He walked over. ‘That little shit would have killed me if I hadn’t shot first.’
‘It’s self-defence, then,’ Silva said. She reached out and gently took the Browning from her father. She engaged the safety and uncocked the weapon. ‘But this is definitely not legal.’
‘It was perfectly legal when I was in Iraq. Defending the realm. Putting my life on the line for others.’
‘Dirty work, Dad. You don’t get the credit, only the blame.’
‘Well I’ll face the consequences when the police get here. There’ll be an outcry if they lock me up simply because I shot a burglar.’
‘I don’t think he was a burglar.’ Silva cast a glance at Itchy. ‘And I don’t think we should call the police either.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you this man is a US agent.’ Silva moved her foot and prodded the man’s arm. Blood was pooling on the carpet. ‘He and his mate were sent here to kill me.’
‘Rebecca?’ Her father looked at her as if she was a child again and had performed badly in a school test. ‘What on earth have you got yourself into?’
‘What have…?’ Silva wondered if her grandmother’s dementia was hereditary. ‘This guy is working for the US government, Dad. Do you understand what that means?’
‘I told you this wasn’t simple. I told you the only way was to kill Karen Hope. Now it’s all gone fubar.’
Her father was right about one thing, she thought. This was fubar. Fucked up beyond all repair.
‘Folks.’ Itchy. ‘We haven’t got time for this. We’ve got to split.’
‘What about the body?’ Silva stepped back. The pool of blood had grown. ‘We can’t just leave it here.’
‘You go. Kenneth and I will deal with that.’ Mrs Collins stood in the hallway looking at the stain on the carpet with some concern. ‘After all, cleaning’s what I’m good for, right?’
* * *
‘What the hell was that all about?’ Itchy’s voice buzzed with static in Silva’s helmet as they rode into a brightening sky. ‘Did Mrs Collins just reinvent herself as some kind of fixer?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Silva grimaced to herself. There was something going on between Mrs Collins and her father, but what it was, aside from possibly fulfilling each other’s sexual needs, she didn’t know.
They put a couple of dozen miles between themselves and her father’s place before Silva suggested they pull over and take a break. They headed down a lane and bumped the bikes through a gate and into a field. She pulled her helmet off. Talking on the bike-to-bike headsets was one thing, but she couldn’t think straight while she was riding and they needed some sort of plan.
Itchy kicked down the stand on his bike and waited for orders. As if Silva knew what the hell she was doing.
‘Well?’ he said after a minute.
‘I don’t know, Itch.’ She looked at the dawn sunlight filtering through a nearby hedgerow. ‘I always thought Fairchild was bullshitting about a global conspiracy. It seemed straight out of a Dan Brown novel. But those two men back at Dad’s place suggest he’s not far short of the mark.’
‘If we’re up against the US government – hell, any government – we might as well turn ourselves in now.’
‘Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps Karen Hope has a few people on her dodgy payroll. If she’s happy to pay for somebody to kill my mother then bribing a few agents would be par for the course.’
‘Sean.’ Itchy fiddled with his helmet. Stared at the ground. ‘Could he…?’
Itchy didn’t finish the sentence but he didn’t need to; Silva had already played out the chilling possibility in her head that Sean could somehow be involved with Hope. He’d certainly been enamoured with her. Was it pushing the bounds of possibility to think she’d recruited Sean to her side? Silva knew it wasn’t. Sean was a patriot, and if Hope had appealed to that part of him he’d have been with her.
‘Silvi?’ Itchy had his head up now and he met gaze. ‘He wouldn’t, would he?’
‘I don’t know.’
And she didn’t. All Sean’s words, all his declarations of love, all his talk of a future together, was that a charade? She remembered when he’d called her after her mother’s death. It was the first time they’d been in contact for months. Was the call out of genuine concern or had Karen Hope initiated it? Perhaps Hope had a notion her mother might have a backup plan which involved passing the files to somebody else. The obvious person would be Silva. Get close to her, Sean. Find out what she knows. Silva could imagine Hope intense and passionate, her hand on Sean’s arm. This isn’t about me, it’s about our country’s future. God bless America.
‘Silvi?’
‘I’m going to call him,’ Silva said. ‘I’ll use Fairchild’s burner phone.’
Itchy nodded. They’d both turned their own phones off and removed the batteries so there was no chance of anybody tracking them, but the burner phone was clean. Once she’d made the call she’d ditch it.
Sean answered after a couple of rings, a tentative ‘hello’ to an unrecognised number.
‘It’s me,’ Silva said. ‘Rebecca.’
‘Rebecca!’ Sean’s voice jumped an octave. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m out and about.’ Silva was already on the defensive. Why would his first words be a question about her location? ‘Just pottering around.’
‘I heard about Neil Milligan. I understand he worked with your mother.’
‘He was murdered, Sean.’
‘I know. Tragic. Wrong place, wrong time.’
Wrong place, wrong time. The same phrase she heard so often about her mother’s death.
There was a pause before Sean continued. ‘You sound like you’re having a hard time. Can we meet up?’
There. The bait. The hook.
‘Sure. I’d like to see you.’ Silva played along. ‘When and where?’
‘Well that depends where you are. I’m in London at the moment but I have to go to Cambridge later today for a trilateral US/UK/Saudi trade summit. After this evening I’m free for a couple of days. Perhaps we could explore Cambridge together.’
‘Cambridge?’
‘Yes. I’ll be at a British military base close by. RAF Wittering. Do you know it?’
‘RAF…?’ Silva nearly dropped the phone. She swallowed. ‘No.’
‘Well, we could meet in Cambridge tomorrow sometime. I’ll book a hotel. Do you want to text me your ETA?’
‘I’ll do that. Got to go. Bye.’ Silva hung up and then took the phone and shoved it into the hedge. ‘Fuck.’
‘Silvi?’ Itchy was standing a little way off. ‘What is it?’
She unzipped her leather jacket. The postcard was in an inner pocket. She pulled it out and passed it to Itchy.
‘This.’ Silva told Itchy what Sean had said and let him read the postcard. ‘Mum said Wittering had hidden secrets to be passed on from one generation to the next. I thought it had something to do with the beach in Chichester Harbour, but I was wrong. Sean is going to a trade summit at RAF Wittering for some Saudi trade deal.’ Silva pointed to the date at the top of the postcard. ‘My mother post-dated the card for the eighteenth of August. That’s today. It can’t be a coincidence.’
‘A military base and Saudi involvement? Sounds like a pie the Hopes might have their fingers in.’
‘It does.’
‘And Sean, do you think he’s mixed up in all this?’
‘I don’t know. Would he have told me about RAF Wittering if
he was trying to keep it hush-hush?’
‘He might have.’ Itchy lowered his shoulders in a sign of resignation, as if he was apologising before he spoke. ‘If it’s a trap.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The descent into Heathrow was bumpy, nothing but cloud swirling outside the cabin window until all of a sudden the aircraft lurched lower and west London appeared below as they lined up for the final approach.
An hour later they were on the M25 heading round the top of London in stop-start traffic.
‘No worries,’ Javed said, his fingers on the screen of his phone. ‘The Excelsior is still a good few hours out. Plenty of time.’
Holm gripped the wheel and willed the traffic to clear. Did they have plenty of time? The issue, he thought, was Huxtable. At some point he’d have to inform her, but if there really was a mole in any branch of the intelligence services then as soon as they began to formulate a plan Taher would be alerted. Holm wanted Latif, but he wanted Taher more. For now he had to keep quiet.
They’d arranged to meet Cornish at Felixstowe and she was waiting in the port car park as they pulled in some time after twelve.
‘I want you to know I’m not happy,’ she said as Holm and Javed got out of their car. ‘You just breeze in and compromise a case we’ve been working on without a moment’s thought and now this.’
‘Sorry, Billie.’ Holm held up his hands. The need to keep things under wraps just a little longer meant getting on the wrong side of Cornish once again. ‘You know how it—’
‘Yeah, right. National fucking security. Well I can tell you if anything goes down here in Suffolk, I’m holding you personally responsible.’
‘Sure.’ Holm was no longer interested in arguing. He wanted the old Cornish back. The one who had, despite being married to somebody else – a woman indeed – ignited a tiny spark in his belly, made him feel something. ‘Shall we just get on with it?’
They walked across to a four-storey office building. The top floor doubled as an observation post and comprised one large room with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree outlook.
‘We can watch from up here.’ Cornish had calmed. She indicated a number of desks. There were several pairs of binoculars and a number of workstations. On one screen was a map showing marine traffic data. Another flicked between security cameras. A third had a feed from the main gate, one side showing CCTV of the barrier and the other detailing the trucks and their drivers as they were cleared to enter or leave. ‘I’ll get some food and drink sent up.’
‘Thanks,’ Holm said.
‘She’s in the fairway.’ Javed stood over by the screen showing marine traffic. He touched the screen and a pop-up appeared next to the symbol for the boat. ‘ETA thirty minutes, it says here.’
‘You saw the container loaded in Rotterdam?’ Cornish said.
‘Yes.’ Holm walked over to Javed. The screen was awash with little symbols and at intervals of thirty seconds or so there was a flicker and each symbol moved a fraction. ‘We’re guessing at some point during the crossing the cargo was transferred to the second container. The second container was loaded here, hence when it arrives it won’t be subject to a customs check.’
‘We could flag it for inspection anyway. Run it through the X-ray scanner.’
‘No. We need to let the container go so we can track it to its end point.’
‘And what if the terrorists escape?’
Holm saw Javed look away from the screen for a moment.
‘There are no terrorists,’ Holm said flatly and without much conviction. ‘We were barking up the wrong tree. The container is full of Nazi memorabilia. The stuff fuels the right-wing nutters and might well turn a few of them into terrorists. Which is why we need to get on top of it.’
‘Crap. We both know that’s rubbish. Stephen Holm wouldn’t be chasing artefacts from the Third Reich as if this was some twisted edition of the Antiques Roadshow.’
‘I told you, I’m out of favour. Destined to do the petty little jobs nobody else wants to do until the day I draw my pension. When we were here before I thought we’d cracked something big, but it turned out to be a minor case of nasty Nazis.’
‘Right, and I’m head of the Met.’ Cornish walked across to Holm and her hand brushed his forearm. ‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but I want you to promise me if you need help you’ll ask for it, OK?’
Holm gave a small nod of his head. Point conceded. Offer accepted.
Cornish whirled about and headed back down the stairs.
‘We should tell her the truth,’ Javed said. ‘We’re out on our own with no backup. She could come in handy.’
‘Perhaps.’ Holm moved his attention from the screen to the quayside. A huge container ship was easing away from the dock. The water frothed and boiled as the bow thrusters and the rear screw worked the vessel sideways. A series of Chinese characters were painted at the bow and Holm wondered if the ship’s destination was the Far East. All of a sudden he had a weird notion it might be rather nice to be on the proverbial slow boat. Weeks at sea, the route mapped out, no decisions to make.
Cornish returned a few minutes later with a tray laden with cups of coffee and a plate of sausage rolls. As she and Javed tucked in, Holm went over to the window.
‘You’re right, Billie,’ he said. To hell with it, he couldn’t bring himself to deceive her any longer. ‘We’re talking terrorists, but it is vitally important the information stays secret.’
‘Christ.’ Crumbs fell from Cornish’s lips and she reached for a paper napkin. ‘How many?’
‘Two, we think. One of them at least was part of the group that carried out the Tunisian attack. The one I fucked up on.’
‘But JTAC and the security services are all over this, right?’ Cornish put down her plate and joined Holm at the window. She gestured across the estuary towards the town of Harwich on the opposite bank. ‘I mean, you’ve got agents out there ready to track these people. To take them down at the appropriate time.’
Holm continued to stare out of the window. He didn’t speak. The Chinese boat had left the port and was steaming towards the open sea.
‘Stephen, it’s just you? Can you tell me why?’
‘Walls and ears, Billie. That’s why. We’ll be going to my boss as soon as we know what we’ve got. Until then I’d be grateful if you’d keep to our original story about the Nazis.’ Holm turned and smiled. ‘And yes, I’d be grateful for your help too.’
Cornish smiled back but before she could speak Javed was on his feet, binoculars raised to his eyes.
‘She’s here,’ he said. A small container ship was passing to starboard of the Chinese vessel and a pilot boat was waiting to guide her to a berth. ‘The Excelsior.’
* * *
Trap or not, they headed east, skirted London and took the motorway to Cambridge. A succession of smaller roads followed until they eventually coasted along a country lane that ended at a small copse overlooking RAF Wittering.
‘Nice one,’ Silva said, patting Itchy on the back as they parked their bikes. Itchy had worked out the route before they’d set off, finding a circuitous way in and a place to watch the airfield which wouldn’t bring them to the attention of personnel on the base. As an observation point it was near perfect. The copse sat halfway down a hill overlooking the runway. A muddy car park looked well used and a board with a map on showed a number of public footpaths criss-crossing a nature reserve. In the late afternoon the place was deserted.
Itchy took a pair of binoculars from his pannier and handed them to Silva.
‘Badger watching,’ he said. ‘Right?’
Silva nodded. She had no idea if there were any badgers about but it was a decent cover story.
They walked through the woodland until they neared the edge. They dropped to the ground and began a slow crawl. Silva pushed through a patch of brambles, the thorns scratching her face. Itchy followed.
‘I feel like a badger,’ he said. ‘I just hope I don’t come acro
ss one down here.’
No chance of that, Silva thought, as Itchy’s curses soured the still air.
At the edge of the wood they crouched behind a clump of bracken. Silva broke off a few fronds and wove them round her binoculars, but she hardly needed the optics; the runway was only a couple of hundred metres from their position and the main part of the base lay beyond that. There was an industrial estate at the top end of the runway and various military buildings sat behind a control tower. Farther away lay a small village of near-identical brick houses – accommodation for the base staff. Silva remembered similar houses from her childhood. Far from the outward appearance of sterility and blandness, the places she’d grown up in had felt welcoming and safe. A sanctuary away from what lay beyond the fences and the barriers. Nobody could hurt you while the base was patrolled by soldiers with guns. The danger came when you ventured outside into the real world.
‘Something’s going on.’ Itchy was head down, peering through the bracken. ‘Several police cars and four trucks have just driven out to one side of the runway. There’s a limo there too.’
Silva raised the binoculars. Itchy was right. The convoy had taken up a position near the base of the control tower. The day had turned gloomy, with heavy clouds overhead, and the strobing lights on the police cars swept the tower with a blue flash every second. To one side of the tower was an area of raised decking and a red carpet ran from a series of steps towards the runway. A number of soldiers in dress uniform stood near the decking.
‘What the hell is this?’ Silva said. ‘It looks like a presentation or a ceremony of some kind.’
‘The trucks,’ Itchy said. ‘Look at the trucks and the logo on those banners at the back of the stage.’
She swung the binoculars and adjusted the zoom. White letters on a background strip of red and blue, the red colour matching the carpet. Allied American Armaments. ‘The Hope family’s company.’
‘The trucks must have come from the factory in Birmingham. There’s an advanced avionics research centre there. They build surface-to-air missiles and guidance systems among other stuff.’