When she had gone, the side door to Paulton’s office opened, and Sir Anthony Bellingham entered. He looked unperturbed by what he had just heard.
‘She doesn’t sound happy,’ the MI6 man commented.
‘She isn’t,’ said Paulton. ‘Let’s hope she has too much on her plate to start digging around and making unnecessary noises.’
‘Don’t worry, George. We control what information comes out via Red Station. If we say they’re blown, they’re blown. Rudmann will be too busy fighting her corner to pursue it forever.’
‘That was neat, sidestepping her. How did you manage it?’
‘Simple. I checked her diary and arranged a meeting with the Cabinet Office while she was otherwise engaged. It took three minutes. So many meetings, so little time . . .’ Bellingham smiled. ‘It’s amazingly simple to get a decision when the pressure’s on. I didn’t mention who the personnel were, of course. No sense in making problems for ourselves.’
‘Any news from over there?’ Paulton felt uneasy at having to ask Bellingham for information, but the MI6 man had the resources available without questions being asked.
‘None. Either the lines are down or signals are being jammed. Can’t say I’m surprised.’
‘And Brockley’s team?’
‘Ah. Now that situation is not quite so good.’
Paulton paled. ‘Why – what’s happened?’
‘One of them has disappeared. A man named Stanbridge. It seems he went to check on one of Red Station’s personnel and never returned. The others were subsequently attacked with petrol bombs. They’re on the way out as we speak.’
‘What?’ Paulton felt himself reeling. He tried to rationalize the situation. The man’s disappearance might be down to the local militia or security forces. They would be especially jumpy with everything that was happening on their doorstep, and anyone acting strangely was probably being picked up as a matter of course. If Stanbridge had been in the wrong place at the wrong time with no useful explanation, it would account for his disappearance. No doubt he would surface sooner or later, none the worse for his experience.
The petrol bombs, however, were something else. Security forces wouldn’t use them; they were hardly that ill-equipped, by all accounts, even the militia. That left civilians. But why?
Then another thought occurred to him.
Harry bloody Tate.
‘What?’ Bellingham had noticed his change of expression.
‘Nothing.’ He deflected the question with one of his own. ‘How long are we going to leave them there?’
‘Who?’
‘Them. Mace . . . Ferris . . . the others.’ He didn’t dare mention Tate in case it betrayed what he was thinking.
‘They can stay where they are. Why?’ Bellingham was eyeing him with suspicion.
‘Is that wise? There may not be much time left. Another couple of days and the borders could be locked tight. We should at least warn them.’ Then a thought occurred to him and he stared at Bellingham. ‘You haven’t told them yet – about Delta and the Special Reconnaissance team.’ Even as he said it, he knew he was right.
‘There was no point.’ Bellingham’s tone was cool, his jaw flexing. It was the MI6 man’s first real show of irritation over this issue that Paulton had seen. ‘It wouldn’t help their situation, would it? We leave them for now.’
‘Why?’ Paulton wondered what Bellingham was up to. As the only means of communicating with Red Station, the other man was in complete control of what information came out . . . and what went in.
‘It’s getting out of hand, George. Just as it did with Gulliver.’ Bellingham’s words were pitched low. ‘I’ve already arranged for Brockley’s team to be replaced.’
‘I don’t understand. To do what?’ He immediately wished he hadn’t asked, and realised with Bellingham’s next words that he had lost any say in what was about to happen in the Red Station. And that with that, there was no going back.
‘Don’t ask, George. You really don’t want to know.’
Back in her office, Marcella Rudmann was surprised to discover she had a visitor. Gareth Nolan, Deputy Commissioner for Operations in the Metropolitan Police, was waiting impatiently for her return.
‘I’m sorry to drop in without an appointment,’ he said smoothly, ‘but I have some information which might be of interest.’ He sat down without being asked and placed a folder on the desk in front of him.
Rudmann wondered who he was planning to undermine this time. She had no illusions about the senior policeman’s ambition for favours and higher office, but he did have his uses. All she had to decide was whether the information he claimed to have was useful to her or not, and whether the knowledge might harm her in any way.
‘What can I do for you?’
Nolan delved into his folder and produced a 10-inch by 8-inch black-and-white photograph. It was the sort that Rudmann had seen many times before, culled from security cameras. It had a row of numbers and letters printed in white across the bottom, and was grainy and lacking light. It was a profile shot of a man in jeans and a hooded top crossing a tiled floor.
‘This was taken from a CCTV tape at Clapham South underground station,’ Nolan explained importantly. ‘It was timed, as you can see, at twenty-one thirty hours on the night Shaun Whelan was killed, and shows this man leaving the station.’
Whelan. Rudmann felt a chill across the back of her neck at the mention of the journalist’s name.
‘Go on.’
Nolan slid a second photo across the desk. Rudmann recognized the figure immediately.
‘This shows Shaun Whelan leaving the station just before ten o’clock.’ He paused for effect, then passed her a third photo. This showed a figure in a hooded top walking towards the camera. The time stamp was 22.20 hours. ‘And this man was shown re-entering the station at twenty past.’
It was the same figure as in the original shot.
‘Who is he?’
Nolan smiled and sat back. ‘We’re not sure. But we’re running facial-recognition software to confirm it right now. I should have an answer for you by tomorrow morning at the latest.’
Rudmann was surprised. She was aware that the database of known ‘faces’ was very large, but it did not – could not – include everyone. ‘You sound very sure of that. What do you mean by confirm?’
‘One of my officers thinks he knows the man. It helps us narrow down the field considerably. Once we’re certain, we’ll pick him up.’
Rudmann tossed the last photograph on the desk. The senior policeman obviously wanted a pat on the head. ‘It will be good work if you can get him, Deputy Commissioner. Very good work. But I’m not sure why you feel I should be interested in a murderous little mugger who preys on the unwary.’
Nolan gave a smug grin. ‘Oh, he’s no mugger. Far from it.’
Rudmann’s stomach tightened. Nolan was looking too pleased with himself.
‘What do you mean?’
‘My officer thinks he met this man on an anti-terrorist training course.’
‘What?’ She sat forward.
‘He works for the security services.’
FORTY-THREE
‘No sign of the Clones yet.’ Rik sidled up to him at the coffee table next morning.
It was gone eleven. Harry had got in late, exhausted by lack of sleep. He had noticed the younger man staring out through the front windows, scanning the street, and guessed why. It was no surprise when he approached him the moment Harry walked through the door.
‘Maybe they overslept.’ Harry spooned in extra coffee and sugar; he needed a caffeine boost to keep his eyes open and his brain in full working order. He’d been extra careful coming in this morning, checking his route back and front for unusual faces. But other than a lot more military vehicles and soldiers standing around looking menacing, there had been no sign of watchers.
And that was a worry. If the Clones were already gone, abandoning their colleague in the process, did that mean the Hit was
here? With Stanbridge’s body lying in the flat below his, he could almost feel the increased threat in the air.
‘Yeah, maybe.’ Rik shifted his feet, then said, ‘I told Mace about the email.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Not much. Just told me to pass it on. Said London would know what to do. Do you reckon they’ll pull us out if things get too hot?’
‘I don’t know,’ Harry said honestly. ‘If they do, it’ll be to assign us somewhere else. Have you passed on the email?’
‘Yes. First thing.’ He wandered away to fiddle with one of the monitors.
Harry stretched his arms and felt his muscles complaining. With Clare a reluctant helper during the night, they had taken the body downstairs to Mario’s flat. He had a feeling the Italian photographer wouldn’t be needing it anytime soon. They had placed it in the bedroom, inside an old blanket box, with a jumble of clothes on top. It wasn’t a pleasant task, but short of dumping the corpse out in the open countryside it was as good as they were going to manage.
He had been debating whether to tell the others about Stanbridge, and still hadn’t made up his mind. Mace might blow a fuse and tell London, as he was officially required to do. If so, there was no saying what might happen. Knowing that a member of your own side, whatever their function, had been murdered, then hiding the body, wouldn’t go down too well. It wouldn’t matter what the likely motive might have been; a death was a death and would have to be investigated.
He waited for Clare to come in. When she put in an appearance, she looked even paler than usual, with dark rings around the eyes. She avoided catching Harry’s eye and went straight to her desk.
No help there, then.
Mace came in and headed for the coffee pot, pouring himself a liberal dose. He looked a mess, as if he’d been on a bender. The others carefully avoided noticing and went about their business.
The Ericsson in Harry’s pocket buzzed softly, and he stepped away from the others. He didn’t think anyone else had heard it, although Rik was giving him an oblique look. Maybe the IT man had developed an especially acute ear for electronic noises over the years, and could identify a model by its tone.
Harry ignored him and went to the toilet on the ground floor. The phone was still buzzing and he realized it wasn’t a text message.
Somebody was calling him.
The screen showed no caller ID. It had to be the former owner. He was surprised they hadn’t tried already. They had probably blocked the phone automatically the moment it went missing, and were now trying to recover it any way they could.
‘Huh?’ he grunted.
‘Who is this?’ It was a man’s voice; thin, reedy, American. Rudi sounded American. Maybe he was calling to offer an upgrade, although Harry doubted it.
‘Why you call me?’ he muttered gutturally. If he was lucky, the man might identify himself.
‘I said, who is this? What the fuck are you doing with my fucking cell, you jerk?’
American. A very angry American. Harry cut the connection. Before he could switch it off, the text tone sounded.
Maloney.
Whre U?
Harry thought about it for a moment. It was just a name, for Christ’s sake. And already all over the news and networks, filling the airwaves, making a trace less likely. He thumbed the name of the town and hit SEND.
The answer was swift and to the point.
Fk!! Gt out of there!!
FORTY-FOUR
He got back upstairs to find the others waiting for him. Mace stepped forward, a determined set to his jaw. ‘Is there something you’d like to tell us, lad?’ He had lost his hung-over expression but not his untidy appearance.
The others stood in the background, waiting. Clare refused to meet Harry’s eye, concentrating on the contents of her mug.
‘Like what?’
‘Like what’s going on. You’ve had a contact with the Clones.’
‘They’ve been pulled out.’ Harry didn’t blame Clare; she would have had a duty to tell Mace eventually. She’d just done it sooner than he’d expected.
‘How the hell do you know that?’ Mace was bristling. ‘What happened last night?’
He told them about finding Stanbridge in his flat, about recognizing the man from Kosovo; about Clare’s call and how he had ‘dissuaded’ the other Clones from hanging around. When he looked at Clare for confirmation, she was staring down at the floor, her jaw clenched tight. Deniability, he thought angrily. It runs deep when your neck is on the block, even for colleagues.
‘You took a bloody big risk,’ Mace muttered. ‘How did you know they wouldn’t have back-up?’
‘Because Stanbridge wasn’t hiding anything. He had no reason to. All he knew was that he and his team had a simple assignment: to watch and follow. They wouldn’t need back-up for that. Clearly our masters don’t trust us very much.’
‘What else?’
‘He told me his team was being replaced this morning.’
‘That would be standard procedure,’ Fitzgerald mused thoughtfully. ‘Rotate them on a regular basis and nobody gets to know their faces.’ He chewed his lip. ‘Are you sure they’re a home team?’
‘Yes,’ Harry replied bluntly. ‘But not friendly. The Clones were, but they’ve gone. The new team is a specialist unit called the Hit. And they’re not coming to audit the books.’
‘What sort of specialists?’ Rik looked worried.
‘With a title like that, what do you think? The leader’s name is Latham. He tracks people for a living . . . and he’s not always required to bring them back alive.’
There was a stunned silence in the room. Only Mace looked unsurprised, but that might have been because the idea was taking a while to sink through his alcohol-fuelled fog. He looked at Clare, but she didn’t offer any helpful advice.
‘You’ve been busy,’ he said finally to Harry. It sounded like a condemnation.
‘Well, it wasn’t by choice.’
‘It’s nonsense, of course. I’ll be putting that in my report to London.’ Mace was finding comfort in bluster.
‘You do that,’ Harry replied. ‘In the meantime, Latham and his buddies will be dropping by to say hi. They won’t be asking anyone’s permission, either.’
‘You can’t know that.’ Fitzgerald was still frowning. ‘This – Stanbridge? – could have been spinning you a load of tosh. Maybe somebody local showed up and did him in. It’s not exactly law-abiding around here. There’s a lot of poverty and not much in the way of jobs. People get desperate. Random killings happen all the time, mostly over small change and a mobile phone.’
Harry looked at him, trying to determine if that remark was meaningful in any way. He decided not. Fitzgerald wasn’t the sort to make oblique comments. Blunt accusation was more his line.
‘It wasn’t random.’ Clare Jardine finally spoke up. ‘You didn’t see the body. It was a professional hit. Harry had tied Stanbridge up with a clothes line. All the killer did was walk in and shoot him in the head. He had no chance.’
Nobody spoke for several seconds. Then Rik said, ‘What do we do?’ He looked anxious but determined, and Harry decided he would just need pointing in the right direction and he’d be all right.
‘I don’t know about you,’ he said softly, allowing anger to fuel his own resolve, ‘but I’m buggered if I’m going to sit here and wait for a bunch of Vauxhall Cross body snatchers to come and take me out.’
Fitzgerald nodded and went to the door. ‘I’ll get the lights.’
Nobody questioned what he meant.
Outside, someone shouted and a car door slammed, followed by a burst of laughter. Bottles rattled in a crate and somebody gave a wolf-whistle. Normal sounds. Echoes of life being lived.
The minutes crept by, each individual alone with their thoughts, until Harry turned to Mace. ‘Something’s wrong. Do you have any other weapons here?’
Mace shook his head. ‘Never saw the need. Why?’
‘I need an equalizer.
’ He moved over to the window and looked out. Nothing moved down there. Then he remembered the operations representative in London saying his sidearm would be sent out in a diplomatic pouch. ‘Did a bag come for me?’
‘A bag?’ Mace was vague, his face pale.
‘A secure pouch from London.’
Rik said, ‘It arrived yesterday. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.’
‘Where is it? Quick.’
Rik went to a metal cabinet on the wall and opened the door. Inside was a canvas bag the size of a small briefcase. It had a zipped front with a sturdy combination lock and seal.
Harry ripped off the seal with a pair of scissors and fed the last four digits of his field number into the combination dial. The lock sprang open.
‘Now we’ve got an equalizer,’ he explained, and withdrew his semi-automatic and two spare clips. He checked the action, the sounds loud in the quiet room.
‘So now you’re Action Man?’ Rik looked stunned. ‘I thought you were Five . . . and . . .’ He stopped and blushed.
‘Too old for this stuff?’ Harry shrugged. ‘I thought so, too. We’ll soon find out.’
‘Why would anyone come to take you out?’ Clare Jardine looked calm but her voice trembled as she spoke.
‘Does it matter?’ he replied. ‘Someone must have decided I’m a liability.’ He nodded towards the north. ‘Personally, with what’s going on up there, I wouldn’t bet on the rest of you being served tea and buns, either. Get used to it.’
He left them to digest that and went out on to the landing. The building was silent, with a buzz of traffic in the background. He walked slowly downstairs, the gun under his jacket. Noonday shadows filled the corners of the building, producing a variety of dark shapes.
He tried to recall how long it had been since he’d done the close-quarter combat course, where officers learnt the rudiments of sweeping a building. Five years at least. Too bloody long. But some things you never forgot – like the agony of letting off shots in a confined space.
He stopped at the halfway mark. A noise had disturbed the silence. Up or down? Difficult to tell. He waited. It came again: the scuff of shoe leather on tiles.
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