Red Station

by Adrian Magson

  Bellingham laid a finger alongside his fleshy nose. ‘Got spies everywhere, that’s how. Thing is, we overlooked one vital aspect of the people we were sending out there, you know that?’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘They’re professionals, that’s what. Used to grubbing about in the muck and noticing stuff other people wouldn’t see. Can’t help themselves. See something and they have to report it. With all that’s going on over there, they’re starting to trip over raw intelligence they – and we – can’t ignore. So far, Mace has been fielding it. But he’s losing it, and now your man Tate has taken an interest in world events rather than his own sorry neck, and he’s stirring up trouble.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Well, we can’t just turn a blind eye. What would happen if they found a way of by-passing the comms channel into Clarion? Worse, we have no way of explaining where this raw intel’s coming from.’

  ‘Don’t you have any people on the ground?’ Paulton was feeling desperate. ‘You could attribute the source to them.’ This entire business wasn’t going the way Bellingham had said it would. In fact, it was beginning to unwind like a badly-knit jumper.

  ‘Weren’t you listening in that briefing the other day?’ Bellingham replied irritably. ‘They all got wiped out. The bloody forces of evil came along and nobbled them!’ He looked morose for a moment, then continued, ‘Apart from the embassy in Tbilisi, which is worse than useless, we haven’t got anyone. Freedom bloody Square, that embassy address – did you know that, George? So free, they’ve got security spotters sitting on their shoulders every minute of the day. Probably on Putin’s payroll, every damn one of them. As far as our lords and masters know, we’ve got bugger all over there, so we can hardly develop a new stream of intelligence chatter coming over official wires from the middle of nowhere, can we?’

  ‘You’ve got access to satellite coverage.’

  ‘We do. But it’s open-channel. Might as well advertise it as Shareware, let everyone take a peek. They do, anyway, so I can’t suddenly pop up with stuff nobody else can see. Might as well claim we’re using a sodding medium.’ He scowled. ‘No, it’s about time we recognized our limits, George. It was a nifty idea, but it’s outlived its usefulness.’

  Paulton felt a measure of relief. Maybe if they got everyone out of there, they could quietly let the whole affair fade into history. God knows what he was going to do with Tate, though. The shooting in Essex was still front-page news, with the parents of the dead girl raising hell about her murder and demanding names. And the family of the dead firearms officer was questioning why he was sent in to danger with insufficient back-up or training. Heaven alone knew how they had got that bit of information, but he was willing to bet Gareth Nolan, the Deputy Commissioner, had let it slip to a press buddy. Anything to cover his own feeble neck. Maybe another posting for Tate was the best, then they could all relax.

  At which point Bellingham swept the rug from under his feet.

  ‘I’ve sent in the Hit.’

  ‘What?’ the words kicked Paulton out of his reverie. Mention of the Hit brought the brutal realization that there would be no quiet and orderly retreat; no remote posting for Tate and no salve for his conscience over what had happened to Brasher and Jimmy Gulliver. That was gone the moment the Hit moved in, because they had one main function, and one only.

  They killed people.

  ‘Time to call it a day, George. We can’t pull ’em out and we certainly can’t have our rabbits turning up at Immigration with stories to tell. There’s no way we could keep ’em all quiet. One flappy lip and they’d all be under the spotlight. With the fuss that’s about to break anytime now, they’ll simply have to disappear.’

  ‘What – all of them?’ Paulton’s throat closed around the words. He knew his protests were futile, but a tiny vestige of self-respect made him try. ‘You can’t!’

  ‘Can and will, George. Can and will.’ Bellingham threw his head back and smiled with a ruthless absence of humour. ‘It’s a matter of expediency. Nasty word, expediency. But it was invented for a purpose. We can kill several birds with one stone. We’re closing down Red Station. Permanently.’

  FORTY-NINE

  Paulton left Vauxhall Cross and made his way back towards his office. His cheeks were burning and he felt about as close to panic as he had ever been in his life. This had to be sorted out once and for all. What the bloody hell had Tate started? As for Bellingham, he’d completely lost the plot; suggesting wiping out an entire station was monstrous. Efficient, but monstrous.

  Before reaching Thames House, he stopped and made a call from a secure mobile. ‘That person you dealt with,’ he said carefully, when a familiar male voice answered. ‘Did you check his place thoroughly for paperwork?’

  ‘Yeah, there was nothing, I told you. No names anywhere.’

  ‘Right. So you did.’ Paulton disconnected. He wasn’t reassured. Whelan had been a professional, no matter what his strange proclivities; he’d have kept some sort of note – it was in the nature of the man. But if there had been no papers, what about electronic records? Surely his man would have thought to check?

  He pocketed his phone and continued to Thames House, mounting swiftly to his office. He stayed long enough to delve in his desk drawer, then told his secretary he was going out for an hour.

  This was too important to leave to chance.

  Outside, he walked for five minutes before flagging down a taxi. ‘Charing Cross,’ he told the driver, and sat sideways on to check he wasn’t being followed. At Charing Cross he left the cab and walked into the station, merging with the crowds. He entered the toilets, then came out again almost immediately and made his way back to the street, where he jumped on a bus heading east along the Strand. After five stops, when he was satisfied nobody was on his tail, he left the bus and took a cab heading west, avoiding conversation with the driver by hiding behind a discarded copy of Metro.

  All the way, a barrage of questions jostled for attention: had his man made a thorough search of Whelan’s home? What if he’d skimped on the job? What if he’d been disturbed in his search and hadn’t got the nerve to admit it? If the police hadn’t found anything – and so far they would have had no reason, if all they suspected was a mugging – then the latest reports in the news would soon have them scouring the place with every piece of technology at their disposal.

  He knew Whelan lived in a small flat in a rundown block not far from Victoria Station. He told the driver to circle the area twice. Time was ticking away but rushing in when he didn’t know the layout was a quick route to disaster.

  Once he was satisfied there was no obvious police presence, he got the driver to drop him outside a pub and approached the block of flats on foot.

  The foyer and stairwell were deserted, and smelled of damp paper and boiled milk. He hurried up the stairs and knocked lightly on Whelan’s door, one ear cocked for sounds from the other residents. When he was sure nobody was going to answer, he spent thirty seconds on the lock before slipping inside.

  The interior was sombre, a cluttered display of dark antique furniture, burgundy cushions and heavy curtains. Paulton winced at the overdone opulence. It supported what he’d heard about Whelan’s lifestyle, which had led to the convenient method of his disposal. A tang of rich aftershave hung in the air, along with a slightly mildewed odour of trapped heat.

  He did a quick walk-through first, to check there were no nasty surprises, then went through each room with the practised skill first learned in Belfast and perfected over several years operating in the field. It had been a long time since he’d needed to conduct a search, but it was something once learned, never forgotten.

  It took him fifteen minutes to check all the obvious places, at the end of which he concluded that whatever Whelan’s personal failings, he had not lacked professional discretion. Other than the usual household paperwork and some notes about contacts and future projects, there was no mention of any past, present or ongoing security invest
igations. He was also satisfied that there were no hiding places in the fabric of the building or under the floors.

  He returned to the living room. The furnishings included a small desk and filing cabinet, and had served as Whelan’s work place. He stared at them both, frustrated and relieved. Frustrated because the paperwork must exist and he hadn’t found it; relieved because if he couldn’t, it might mean nobody else would.

  But that was a chance he couldn’t afford to take.

  A computer sat on the desk. He switched it on. He didn’t have time for this, but he wasn’t about to walk away and ignore the main tool in Whelan’s working life. As soon as the machine was running, he took a small portable hard drive from his pocket and plugged it in. Then he copied the entire contents of the machine to the hard drive. As soon as that was done, he unplugged the drive and inserted a small memory stick in the USB port, and copied a file from the stick to the PC. Removing the stick, he switched off the screen and left the flat.

  As he walked down the stairs to the street, the virus programme he’d left behind began eating its way into the belly of Whelan’s computer. According to the techs who had devised it, in less than three minutes, everything would be gone for good.

  By the time he reached the end of the street and began looking for a taxi, he was breathing a lot easier.

  End of the PC. End of the source. End of his worries.

  Back in his office, he checked the portable hard drive for viruses and scanned the contents. Most were everyday work files, correspondence, expense sheets and lists of names, addresses and contact numbers or emails. The ephemera of a working computer. Three documents contained notes about the Essex shooting. Two of these looked like drafts, with random notations in small print. There were lots of question marks dotted about, and he wondered whether they were expressing doubts or whether the author had been leaving indicators for later additions or corrections. The third was clean copy ready for submission.

  It mentioned Harry Tate by name.

  Paulton breathed softly and read through the document twice. It was speculation. The kind which managed to skate round the facts of what had happened at the inlet that night without actually getting it a hundred per cent right. But it was still close enough to have the conspiracy nuts wetting themselves if they got their hands on it, and it had a name they could feed on. The firestorm would be all-consuming.

  He checked the email files. There was nothing to show where the journalist had got his information, and no sign that he had been in touch with anyone else about the detail of his discovery. Thank God, he thought, for journalistic paranoia. After forty minutes, satisfied that Whelan had not disseminated the information further, Paulton left his office and went for a brief walk.

  By the time he returned, the portable hard drive with its incriminating files lay at the bottom of the Thames.

  FIFTY

  ‘Where does Fitz live?’ Harry walked into the office and found Rik staring blindly at his computer screen. He didn’t acknowledge Harry’s presence.

  Mace must have told him the bad news. There was no sign of Clare Jardine.

  ‘Fitz?’

  ‘Just off the airport road, out of town. Why?’ Rik turned from the screen and jerked a thumb towards Mace’s office. ‘Is it true what he said – the Russians have crossed the border?

  ‘Apparently. We should check to see if Fitzgerald’s all right. If they come this far, he’ll be stranded. You still got the Merc?’

  ‘Of course. But he won’t leave his girlfriend and her kid. He told me a while back, he won’t be going home again. He’s got no reason to.’ He jumped up, his face strained. ‘Are we leaving? We can’t stay here, can we? Mace wouldn’t say.’

  ‘He can’t, that’s why. He’s had no orders.’ Harry studied the younger man’s face, and saw the beginnings of panic building in his eyes. He clapped him on the shoulder. Best give him something else to think about. ‘I want to check on Fitzgerald.’ He picked up Rik’s leather jacket from the back of his chair and tossed it to him. ‘You’ll have to take me.’

  He walked downstairs with Rik trailing behind. If Mace heard them leave, he made no attempt to stop them. Harry waited near the Mercedes until Rik caught up and unlocked it, then climbed in.

  ‘What if we’re followed?’ said Rik, turning the key in the ignition and checking his mirrors.

  ‘Just drive normally.’ Harry had already checked the street; there was nobody in sight. ‘If we pick up a tail, anyone who knows you will know Fitz and where he lives.’

  Rik took a zigzag route through the back streets, bouncing over potholes and scattering rubbish. He held his hand on the horn at every small cross-section, his foot hovering above the brake pedal, creating a stop-go jerking motion which had Harry feeling nauseous after a few hundred yards. When he hit a straight stretch, he drove fast, but Harry thought his reactions were off. In a chase, they’d have been left behind or slammed into a corner by the first truck he failed to see.

  There was less sign of military activity on the way, and Harry wondered if the army was being moved out of the town towards the north. If they were, he felt sorry for them; even a small Russian force would be more than a match for the kind of troops he’d been seeing over the past few days.

  They arrived in a small outer suburb cut off from the town by a single-carriage ring road. Rik drove down a residential street with two-storey houses on either side. The gardens were small, but neat and free of rubbish. There were sounds of children playing behind the fences, a few toys scattered on steps and flashes of colour that the rest of the town lacked. An elderly woman in black watched without expression from a front door as they cruised by.

  Rik pulled into the kerb and indicated the door of a house identical to its neighbours save for a wooden plaque cut from a cross-section of dried hardwood. A number had been scored by a hot iron into the surface. Fitzgerald, Harry thought, importing a touch of home.

  ‘You want me to check?’ Rik was ready to get out.

  ‘No. I’ll do it.’ Harry climbed out and walked up the path. A woman along the street was watching him. He knocked on the door. The sound was hollow, reverberating through the building. He stepped over to the front window and peered through the glass. Evening shadows were lengthening across bare floors, and the sparse furniture was already showing a layer of dust. A sock lay on the floor alongside an old newspaper, and a child’s shoe sat forgotten on a sideboard.

  Fitzgerald had left in a hurry.

  Harry returned to the car and got in.

  ‘He’s gone. Let’s get back.’

  This time, Rik stuck to the main streets. He was cruising along one of the boulevards when he said, ‘Can we drop by and see Isabelle?’

  ‘Why?’ Harry’s instinct was to say no; they didn’t have time for romance.

  ‘She might know more than Mace is telling us.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be hard, would it?’ Harry mulled it over. Rik had a point. The French would have observers out on the ground, and they might be willing to share what they knew. ‘OK. But make it quick.’

  Rik took a series of turns and pulled up outside a three-storey office block in a broad, pleasant street lined with trees. A large truck was blocking the way, and several hard-looking men were standing around, watching the approaches. Two men in overalls were carrying boxes from the building and bundling them into the back of the truck. A third man was stacking them against the sides.

  ‘They’re moving out,’ said Harry. He eyed one of the guards who was staring in their direction, one hand in his jacket pocket. A curl of wire ran up from the man’s collar to behind his ear. He was talking, but standing too far away from the other guards to make himself heard, and Harry guessed he was using a throat microphone. ‘Get out very slowly,’ he warned Rik, ‘and make sure your hands are in plain sight all the way.’

  ‘What?’ Rik looked at him. The guard had turned and was walking towards them as if he meant business. ‘Oh. Christ.’

  ‘Take it ea
sy. They’ll know we aren’t here for trouble. Not in a Merc. Just don’t make any sudden movements.’

  Rik stepped out of the car holding his arms clear of his body. Harry waited a few beats, then did the same. When he was sure the guard wasn’t going to produce a gun and start shooting, he turned and leaned on the roof of the car to show he wasn’t a threat.

  Rik approached the guard, a grizzled-looking man with tanned skin and bunched shoulders. French Special Forces, Harry guessed, capable and light on his feet and likely to be hostile at the first hint of danger. The man listened carefully to Rik, then looked past him and motioned for Harry to move closer.

  Harry stayed where he was.

  The guard motioned again, but Harry ignored him. Eventually, the man gave up and motioned for Rik to walk towards the building.

  This time it was the guard who stayed where he was, eyes on Harry.

  Rik emerged five minutes later. He was waved off by a slim, studious-looking young woman in jeans and a cornflower-blue blouse. She stood and watched him walk away, a hand to her cheek.

  ‘She looks nice,’ said Harry with a wry smile. ‘How come they’ve got her and we get stuffed with a geek like you?’

  Rik wasn’t amused. ‘Why did you do that?’ His expression was more puzzled than annoyed.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘That thing with the guard. You might have pissed him off.’

  ‘I doubt it. He’s a professional; he was trying it on, to get us together away from the car. There was no need – he could see we weren’t a threat.’

  ‘Christ, you could have fooled me. I thought he was going to pull out a gun.’ He started the car and pulled away from the kerb, did a three-point turn and took the main street into town. As he drove, he put his hand into his pocket and took out an envelope. He handed it over.

  ‘What’s this?’ Harry opened the flap. Inside were three pieces of paper. They were in French and looked like vouchers. They were headed with an elaborate insignia and the French flag.