Storm Crow

by Jeff Gulvin

  Tal-Salem climbed out of the cab and handed five pounds through the window. Mace got in, then Tal-Salem got in behind him and slammed the door.

  ‘Excuse …’ Mace started. Then the other passenger door banged as Ramas got in from the road side. He glanced briefly at the policeman on the corner. He hadn’t moved. Tal-Salem had a gun in Mace’s ribs. Ramas drew the other one. For a moment Mace was paralysed, head twisted, staring for a second out of the rear window. Cairns pulled on to the street and slowed for Parliament Square.

  At her window the secretary stared after the taxi. That man had got out, paid the driver and then suddenly got back in again. Then the man on the road. The last thing she saw was the face of the man in the middle. She shook her head and went back to her typing. Then she noticed a couple of people standing on the pavement outside the conference centre looking equally puzzled. One of them crossed the road. Getting up from her desk, she walked the length of the corridor to see her section supervisor.

  Cairns drove the cab at speed. ‘Where are you taking me?’ Mace tried to control his voice.

  Tal-Salem jabbed him with the gun, gloved hand, though the day was steaming. Cairns glanced in his rear-view mirror. ‘Drive,’ Ramas hissed at him. ‘Take us off the main road.’

  ‘What’re you going to do?’ Mace squealed.

  Nobody answered him.

  Cairns swung round Parliament Square, the traffic lights with him, and crossed Westminster Bridge. At the far end he headed a short way along Lambeth Palace Road, across the roundabout and on to the Albert Embankment. Then he turned left and right into Vauxhall Walk and harsh left into Jonathan Street. He crossed Vauxhall Street, then right and a sharp left, before another left into Wyndham. The next right was Aveline Street and a dead end. Cairns hit the brakes.

  ‘Out.’ Ramas waved the gun at him. ‘Go. Now.’ Cairns jumped from the driver’s door, heart pumping in his chest. One look back at Mace’s stricken face. For half a second he paused. Then he was running hard, back the way he had come.

  Mace looked into the faces of his assassins. He knew now that’s what they were. ‘I have money,’ he whispered, the words sticking to the back of his throat. ‘I’m wealthy.’

  Ramas just looked at him, worked the action on the silenced Beretta and backed out of the cab. Tal-Salem opened the other door.

  ‘Please. I have a family. Please …’ Mace lost control of his bladder and they all heard the faint trickling sound. He squirmed in the seat, lowering his back, raising both hands to his face. Ramas wrinkled his nose and shot him six times in the face and chest. Mace’s body jerked, his hands wavering, fingers stretched and tight. Blood spurted from his clothing. He twisted, then arched his back, one hand to the holes in his face. Then he slumped to one side and slid down the back of the seat.

  10

  THE DIRECT LINE FROM the central command complex rang on the sixteenth floor. Campbell McCulloch was manning the base. ‘SO13,’ he said.

  ‘Chief Inspector here. We have a reported kidnapping.’

  Downstairs, McCulloch found Swann and Webb in the corridor. ‘Kidnapping,’ he said. ‘DTI Conference Centre on Victoria Street.’

  Swann stared at him. ‘You’re winding us up.’

  McCulloch handed him the CAD.

  They met Clements in the foyer and walked to Victoria Street. The Diplomatic Protection Group officer had a throng of people around him and had already called for back-up.

  Clements spoke to him. ‘SO13. What’s up?’

  ‘A man was kidnapped.’ A short, dark-haired woman of about thirty, in a navy blue suit, stood with her hands on her hips.

  ‘You saw this?’

  ‘Yes.’ A whole group of other people started speaking and Clements raised his palms in a gesture of calm. Swann took the woman by the elbow and gently eased her to one side.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Swann,’ he said. ‘What did you see exactly?’

  ‘I was in the foyer,’ she said. ‘The meeting had just broken up.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Mary Pearce. I work for Luxembourg Directe.’

  Swann lifted one eyebrow. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘The meeting had just broken up and a few people had already gone out to get cabs.’

  ‘What meeting?’

  ‘Banking/business initiative meeting. The euro, implications of a single currency on manufacturing business. Jean-Marie Mace,’ she said. ‘That’s the man’s name. He was bundled into a cab.’

  Jonathan Bell was dropping rubble down bin shutes from scaffolding on the corner of Loughborough Street and Wyndham. He saw the cab take the corner at speed and knew it was a dead end. Then first he saw one man sprinting back the way he had come, followed a minute or so later by two more. The second two separated, one of them moving quickly towards Kennington Lane, the other disappearing round the corner.

  ‘Hey, Ben,’ Bell called to the lad who was working with him. ‘You see that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those two blokes.’

  ‘What two blokes?’

  Bell looked back along the street, then he began to climb down the ladder.

  ‘Oi,’ Ben called after him. ‘Where you going?’

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Bell walked round the corner and saw the cab at the dead end with both its rear doors open. He stopped. Then, almost careful where he placed his feet, he stepped closer. Ten feet away he could hear the faint pat pat pat as if a tap was dripping. He took another few paces, then he stopped and stared. Half slumped on the back seat, a man lay with one eye fixed on him. The eye was dull; there were holes in his face, and blood pushing out from his chest had smeared the seat and coagulated in a lumpy puddle. The dripping sound he could hear was the overflow that spattered on to the road. The man was breathing, just. Bell could see bubbles of blood against his lips.

  Swann wrote down what Mary Pearce had told him and felt Webb’s hand on his shoulder. He took him to one side. ‘The cab’s just been found south of the river. White male, shot six times. Kennington are attending.’

  Swann sprinted back to the Yard and flashing his warrant card at the guard he raced underground to the SO13 car-parking spaces and jumped in the Mondeo Estate. The engine whined as he revved hard and tore out of the car park. He stuck the blue light on the magnetic pod on the dashboard and flicked on the siren. Webb jumped into the passenger seat. ‘Guv’nor’s going to follow,’ he said.

  Swann hauled the steering wheel over and the car sped down towards Parliament Square. ‘Fucking tank.’ He cursed the weight of the thing. It was armour-plated underneath and fitted with a Talos alarm.

  ‘This all there was?’

  ‘Why else would I choose it?’

  They drove along Lambeth Palace Road and on to the Albert Embankment. A minute later they were at the crime scene. Swann flipped off the siren but left the light whirling on the dashboard. Paramedics were lifting a bloodied figure on to a stretcher. Two uniforms from Kennington were there and two more were cordoning off the roads. Swann motioned to the paramedic nearest him as they covered the man with a blanket. He looked up and shook his head. Webb moved over to the cab and placed his warrant card in the top pocket of his shirt. One of the uniforms approached him.

  ‘SO13,’ Webb said.

  ‘Shot six times,’ the constable told him. ‘My guv’nor’s alerted AMIP.’

  ‘No need,’ Webb shook his head. ‘This is one of ours.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I’m sure.’

  Webb went to the back of the Mondeo and took out his gear. ‘Everyone back behind the cordon, Jack,’ he said. ‘And get some help from the office, will you.’

  Inside the back of the cab Webb found a blood-spattered, leather briefcase. He lifted it with two gloved fingers and laid it on the bonnet of the car. It was not locked and inside he found the French European Community passport of Jean-Marie Mace. Unrolling a large nylon bag, he stowed the case inside.


  He walked over to Swann. ‘That’s a positive, Flash,’ he said.

  ‘Mace?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right.’ Swann called the Reserve, then he stepped back beyond the cordon and went up to the lad who was standing with the uniform from Kennington.

  ‘Jack Swann,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘Scotland Yard.’

  ‘This is Jonathan Bell,’ the uniform told him. ‘He found the body.’

  ‘He’s dead, then?’ Bell looked into Swann’s face.

  ‘Can’t confirm that.’ Swann looked beyond him to the constable, who coloured and moved away.

  ‘He was still alive when I found him. I could see bubbles of blood on his lips. That means he was alive, doesn’t it.’

  Swann nodded slowly. ‘Listen, Jonathan. I know this has been one hell of a shock for you, but I need to know exactly what you saw. We’ll sit in the car there and you can take as much time as you need.’

  Bell told him what he had witnessed: the taxi coming round the corner at speed and turning into the dead-end street.

  ‘Did you hear any shots?’

  ‘No. But this bloke came running round the corner as if a pit bull was after him.’

  ‘Bloke?’

  Bell sighed. ‘I was above him. Jeans, yeah, blue jeans and T-shirt. White T-shirt.’

  ‘No jacket?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you get a look at his face?’

  ‘Not really. He had brown hair, I think, quite long.’

  ‘Tall?’

  ‘Ish.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘God, he was really shifting. I only saw him for a moment.’

  ‘Which way did he go?’

  ‘Back up Loughborough Street.’

  Swann flicked the remains of his cigarette out of the window. ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘Two others. I was watching this time and they were walking not running.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Foreign. Well, not what you’d call British white anyway.’

  ‘Can you describe them?’

  Bell scrunched up his eyes, tasting his lip with his tongue. ‘One had a beard,’ he said. ‘Both had black hair.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  ‘One without the beard had a white shirt and jeans, black jacket over his arm.’

  ‘The other?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jeans, coat, yes, short jacket, I think.’ Bell looked sideways at him then. ‘He was carrying a briefcase, I think.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Swann radioed through the descriptions to the operations room. Within minutes every police officer in London would be looking for them. He took the rest of the statement and then went back to the tapes, where he watched Webb bending over a puddle on the pavement, the driver’s side of the taxi. Water gushed from a broken overflow pipe above.

  Webb had already called in the Serious Crimes Unit from Lambeth and DI Clements arrived. Swann joined the search team that scoured the immediate vicinity; Antiterrorist Branch officers together with as many as could be spared from Kennington and Southwark. Half an hour later, they found a 40-calibre Beretta in a dustbin on the corner of Kennington Lane.

  After he had got rid of his gun, Pier-Luigi Ramas got on the Victoria line at Pimlico and followed it north all the way to Finsbury Park. There, he changed to the Piccadilly line and continued to Cockfosters. Outside the station he watched for police activity, then crossed the road and went into a cafe.

  Tal-Salem took a taxi to Waterloo Station. He walked into the main entrance, crossed the wide concourse and stepped into W.H. Smith’s. A dark-skinned man in a brown suede jacket stood browsing through the motoring section of the magazines. At his feet was a Harrods shopping bag. Tal-Salem moved alongside him and, bending for a newspaper, placed the briefcase on the floor next to the shopping bag. He flicked through the paper, then replaced it on the shelf and picked up the Harrods bag.

  He went down to the toilets at the far end of the station, paid his twenty pence and went into a cubicle. Inside the bag he found the traditional clothes of a Muslim. Quickly he changed, then, folding his own clothes carefully, he placed them inside the Harrods bag. Once he was ready he left the cubicle, washed his hands and went back upstairs. He bought a ticket for the Underground and went down to the Northern line. On the platform, he took a train north and changed at Warren Street for the Victoria line to Walthamstow. At Walthamstow station he climbed the stairs, then walked the length of the car park until he found the blue Omega Estate with a roll-back flap over the boot. His wife was waiting for him, dressed in black with a veil across her face. Tal-Salem greeted her, then climbed behind the wheel. She got into the passenger side, and from the glove compartment took out his driving licence with the home address in Birmingham.

  He drove through traffic to the North Circular Road and was stopped by a police officer on a motorcycle.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ the officer said as Tal-Salem wound down the window.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ Tal-Salem smiled at him, showing white teeth between the strips of his beard. ‘Is anything the matter? The car is new. There shouldn’t be anything wrong with it.’

  The officer looked at him. ‘Just routine, sir. Is this your car?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve only just bought it.’

  ‘Can I see the documents?’

  ‘But of course. My dear?’ Tal-Salem spoke to his wife, who went again to the glove compartment. She produced a registration document and insurance certificate and handed them to her husband. Tal-Salem took his driving licence from his wallet and passed everything through the window. The policeman went round to the back and checked the number plate.

  ‘From Birmingham?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ Salem nodded to the Harrods bag behind him. ‘We have friends here in Walthamstow and my wife did a little shopping in town.’

  The officer glanced at the bag on the back seat. ‘What’ve you got in the boot?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Would you open it for me, sir?’

  ‘But of course.’ Tal-Salem got out of the car and walked round to the back. ‘There,’ he said, spreading his fingers at the empty boot.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ the officer said. ‘Sorry to have bothered you. Have a pleasant journey.’

  Tal-Salem smiled. ‘Perhaps you could help me there,’ he said. ‘I understand you’re privy to the traffic problems.’

  The officer shook his head. ‘Only in London, sir.’

  ‘Ah. Of course.’ Tal-Salem thanked him, took back the documents and got behind the wheel.

  He drove round the North Circular to Southgate and from there up through Oakwood to Cockfosters. Pier-Luigi Ramas drank coffee and saw him pull up outside the station. Dabbing his mouth with a napkin, he left the cafe and crossed the road. Tal-Salem reached over and opened the back door. The seats were already down and Ramas slid straight into the boot. Tal-Salem lifted the seats behind him. In Birmingham, his wife dumped her veil and robes, then caught a train for London.

  Harrison lay on the couch, one arm crooked behind his head, and contemplated the loneliness in his gut. Two years this time, four years before that. He should’ve grown used to it by now. Ninety-seven per cent of the undercover agent’s story is true, but the final three per cent—that lie was all that really counted. Many UCAs were married and so had a balancing factor in their lives. Tom Kovalski had voiced the lack of anything in Harrison’s life as a concern, but Harrison had never gone native and he didn’t intend to now. But it was true, there was no life other than the lie he wound about himself for the benefit of people who trusted him. Not for the first time he vowed this would be the last undercover job he did. He was forty-eight years old and had found some kind of something with Lisa Guffy. In his weaker, more fanciful moments, he entertained thoughts of leaving Passover, leaving the Bureau even, going back to the lake and taking Guffy with him.

  He looked at his watch and switched on the radio. He tuned it to the AM frequency and set
the tape rolling. Salvesen was preaching up in Salmon tonight, in the newly built church he had established there. He always broadcast his sermons and Harrison had made a habit of taping them. He had the sound low while the actual service part was broadcast, the singing and handclapping. He couldn’t stand the ‘leaping and wailing’ brigade, as he called them. But it was not long before the music died away and he twisted the volume control up higher. He took a menthol Merit from his shirt pocket and lay on his back with his eyes closed. Outside he could hear the scrape and rattle of Little T on his skateboard.

  There was always a certain amount of trepidation as he awaited Salvesen’s voice. It was deep and warm and he could imagine thousands of disaffected Americans tuning in to him right across the country. He could imagine the scene. He had been to the church in Salmon, just for a poke around one day, white clapboard outside and deep mahogany inside. Salvesen had built a traditional pulpit in the style of the fire and brimstone churches of the Old West, and Harrison visualized him now in his white suit, standing with ham fists massed over the edge of the lectern.

  ‘We shall continue this evening with our studies of the prophet Daniel,’ Salvesen began. ‘This book of the Bible, as you may recall, was written in the sixth century before the birth of our Lord and Saviour. But there are some so-called scholars around the world who would have us believe that Daniel was actually written only one hundred and sixty-five years BC. That, I might say, is a most convenient way of negating his early prophetic statements and thus rendering those which apply to latter years null and void.’ He broke off and cleared his throat. ‘I might also add that there are significantly more Bible scholars who believe, as I do, that the book was laid down in the sixth century BC, about twenty-six hundred years ago, if my math serves me correctly.’

  Harrison stubbed out his cigarette, then got a beer from the refrigerator. He sucked on it, leaning against the door to the trailer.

  ‘Chapter two,’ Salvesen went on, ‘is when Daniel first saw visions of the future kingdoms of the world. We will discuss this in much greater detail when we come to what I, and many others, consider to be the most important passage in the Old Testament—Daniel, chapter seven. But, suffice to say, tonight will be a good introduction to what must surely come to pass.’ Again, he hesitated for a moment. ‘I know I have many listeners all across the nation. Oh, a lot of people will be out drinking and suchlike on a fine summer’s evening such as this. But there are, I may tell you, enough good and true Americans who still believe in virtue and the moral texts of the Bible.