Red Station

by Adrian Magson

  As they passed the Amiens–Compiegne intersection, Harry took out Stanbridge’s mobile. He dialled Maloney’s number and wondered if his colleague’s phone was on the watch list.

  ‘Yes?’ Maloney answered against a background buzz of traffic. He was on foot in the open. He sounded cautious.

  ‘Can you talk?’ said Harry.

  ‘Bloody hell! I was getting worried. Where are you?’

  ‘France, heading for the next available ferry. Can you meet us in Dover?’

  ‘Sure can. Ring me when you know the time.’ He paused and Harry could tell he was choosing his words carefully. ‘All hell’s breaking loose here. Word got out that some British nationals got caught up in the stampede across the border, and we’re all wondering who. Funny thing is, in-house, your name’s top of the pile.’

  ‘How did that get out?’

  ‘Don’t know. Could be someone laying a trail in case it goes public. Is there anyone with you?’

  ‘Two. One stayed behind to look after things. Another went native.’ Harry decided to leave the news about Mace until later.

  ‘Right. You sound like you had a bad time. You all right?’ Maloney had clearly picked up something in Harry’s tone of voice.

  ‘Fine. Got a graze on the arm, that’s all.’

  ‘The opposition playing rough?’

  ‘Not theirs. One of ours. I’ll tell you more when I see you. Can you look out a name for me?’

  ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

  ‘Latham. Not sure of other names. He worked for Legoland.’ The nickname for MI6.

  There was a longer pause. ‘Did you say worked?’

  ‘He resigned.’

  ‘Ouch. That’ll cause a rumpus.’

  ‘He was trying to resign us at the time.’

  ‘Oh. Well, that’s different. What happened?’

  ‘He ran into an unfriendly Russian.’

  ‘I hear there are some about. Well, take care and see you soon.’

  Harry switched off the phone and sat back. His arm was throbbing fiercely, a relentless ache which reached down to his fingertips and burned across his shoulders. He nudged Rik and handed him the trauma pack, gritting his teeth while the young man removed his soiled bandage and cleaned the wound.

  ‘We need to get this looked at,’ said Rik. He applied a fresh dressing and wrapped the arm firmly to avoid excess movement, then folded the dirty bandages into a plastic bag. He passed Harry two tablets and a bottle of water. ‘Swallow these. You’re going to have a bit of a hole there now.’

  ‘Damn.’ Harry downed the tablets and leaned his head against the seat rest. ‘Bang go my chances of being a male model.’

  He closed his eyes and let sleep take him.

  ‘Harry! Wake up!’

  ‘Wha—? What’s the matter?’ Harry scrambled to sit up, shocked out of a heavy sleep by Rik’s voice and a hand pounding on his good arm. He felt awful; his mouth was dry and his head was spinning. He peered through the side window. They were on the autoroute, with the flat, muddy fields of northern France rolling by outside. It looked grey, cold and unwelcoming. Foreign.

  ‘We’ve got company.’ It was Clare Jardine’s hand on his arm. She was in the front passenger seat, looking past him at the road behind. They had clearly managed to make a changeover without waking him.

  ‘OK . . . I’m with it. Who?’

  ‘Three men in a big Renault. They’ve been there for about five miles now. They’ve been hanging back most of the time – we thought it was just a coincidence. But now they’ve started moving closer.’

  Harry turned and peered over the back of his seat. A dark blue Renault was a hundred yards behind on the inside lane. He counted the outlines of three figures inside. Other traffic was sporadic, a few trucks but mostly cars and the odd motorbike. Only the Renault was keeping station with them.

  He drank some water, hoping to dull the growing nausea. He was dehydrated and suffering shock; hardly best conditions for dealing with another threat.

  So who were they?

  ‘Could be DST,’ said Clare, reading his mind. ‘Making sure we leave.’ The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire – France’s counter-espionage department – were responsible along with the police for their country’s internal security. It was a job they took very seriously.

  ‘Could be Latham’s mates.’ Rik was gripping the wheel tightly, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It could be anybody.’ Harry rubbed his face with his good hand, trying to coax some life into the skin and get his brain in gear. He was also playing for time and inspiration. If the men were French Intelligence, they might be following them because of their presence on the Air France evacuation flight. Orders would almost certainly have gone ahead prior to take-off as a matter of normal security, alerting Paris to the identities and backgrounds of all foreign nationals on board. And Rik’s young friend Isabelle would have been duty bound to pass on what she knew about them.

  If the people in the car weren’t DST, but were part of the Hit, they were in trouble. With no weapons and little chance of avoiding a direct attack, the odds were heavily against them.

  He took another look. The Renault had crept closer. The front-seat passenger was heavy-set, with a shaved scalp and black eyebrows. He was holding a mobile to his ear and nodding, leaning forward with his face close to the windscreen. He took the phone away from his ear and said something to the driver.

  The Renault accelerated and began to pull out.

  Harry watched the move and felt his gut contract. ‘They’re coming alongside.’ He kept his voice casual and reached forward to touch Rik’s shoulder, hoping to instil in him a sense of calm. ‘Hold your speed steady but get ready to brake hard when I say.’

  ‘Brake?’ Rik’s voice wobbled. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to outrun them?’

  ‘No. This is their turf and we don’t have the punch.’ Harry didn’t know how powerful the other vehicle was, but instinct told him that it would be an unequal contest. Besides, if they were French law enforcement or Intelligence officers, it would provide just the reason they needed to pull them over.

  The other car drew alongside and remained level. The two passengers turned their heads to stare. Harry glanced across. Bullet Head in the front was replicated by the other passenger in the rear, a perfect pair, while the driver was a skinnier version with a bony forehead. None of them looked friendly, and they all reminded Harry of the security guards he had seen outside the SARFA building where Isabelle worked.

  He caught the eye of one of the men and smiled. Bonjour, he thought. Now piss off, mes amis.

  He realized he was holding his breath and tried to relax. Just as long as the side windows stayed up. That was all he asked. Windows up meant everything was normal; windows down meant they were about to go on the offensive.

  The man in the front passenger seat lifted his chin at Harry in a mute query. What are you looking at?

  Harry lifted his water bottle in a silent salute. If the three men weren’t interested in them it would mean nothing. If they were . . . well, it wouldn’t matter much.

  The Renault surged away. Two hundred yards ahead, as they approached a junction, the driver began signalling.

  Moments later, they were gone.

  Harry slumped back and closed his eyes. He could have done without that. His head was pounding and he felt like shit.

  In the front, Rik gave a soft whoop and Clare muttered in relief.

  ‘Bloody kids,’ he murmured. ‘Scaredy-cats.’ Then he went back to sleep.

  SIXTY-THREE

  It was mid-afternoon before they boarded the first ferry and watched through the window of the forward bar as the grey French coast slipped away. The boat was busy, with the aisles and bars full of foot passengers on day trips and vehicle passengers looking weary after long drives across France.

  Clare had been getting more and more restless the closer they got to home, and was drumming her fingers on the tab
le. She had changed into fresh black cargo pants and a dark T-shirt, and apart from an increasing look of unease, could have been a student on vacation.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ she queried shortly, eyeing Harry. ‘I take it you’ve got one?’

  Harry shrugged. The movement was a painful reminder of his injury and he adjusted his position before replying. ‘Nothing specific. Haven’t figured it all out yet. I want to get back on home soil first. Then we’ll see.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Why not? We can hardly just walk back into work and clock on. It’ll need all of us to put up a front. Someone’s got some explaining to do.’

  ‘They won’t listen. Why should they?’

  ‘Someone has to.’ Rik sounded unconvinced, but seemed happy to lean on hope against despair. ‘Maybe we should hook up with the press as a guarantee.’ He looked at Harry. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It might be an option. But I think we’ll need more than that. We need to go to someone with enough clout to take positive action. Mace gave me a name – a woman on the Joint Security Committee.’ Harry looked at him. ‘She’ll have influence and she’s accountable. Get to her and it’ll go higher. Leave it to Bellingham and Paulton, and they’ll stamp on it – and us. Red Station will be airbrushed out of existence and we’ll have no protection.’

  ‘This is mad, what you’re suggesting.’ Clare interrupted harshly. She was staring balefully at a small girl wailing at the next table. ‘Once they have us, we won’t see the light of day. They can’t afford to let Red Station become public knowledge; they’ve already had too much mud slung at them over de Menezes and the terrorist arrests. Can’t you see that?’

  Harry studied her, wondering whether she had only just come to this conclusion or if she had been aware right from the start that going back might not be as easy as she hoped. He still wasn’t convinced about her reasons for allegedly trying to get documents from Kostova. Had she really been working him and Nikolai, and hoping to get back in favour with MI6 or did she suspect what might really happen if they strolled back into town?

  Rik let out a deep sigh. ‘I’m for trying to sort it out. I don’t want to be on the run forever.’ He toyed with a button before continuing. ‘Having guys like Latham on my back.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘What kind of bloke sets out to waste his own side? And what kind of people employ guys like him? He was going to drop us. If Nikolai hadn’t come along, we’d be—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Harry cut him off before he could get going. ‘Forget Latham. Forget Nikolai. They’re history, done. Just concentrate on the days ahead. Maloney will help us.’

  But the mention of Latham had struck a chord in Harry’s head. It was a good question. How was a man able to turn and kill his own, with no more hesitation than it took to swat a fly? Did soldiering do that to you if you stuck at it long enough? But he knew that wasn’t it. He’d known hundreds of soldiers who had served long and dangerous careers, and they would have no more done what Latham did than flown to the moon. So what, then?

  His brain was spinning from the accumulated effects of exhaustion, shock from the bullet wound and their enforced flight. Even so, some thoughts kept slipping through, like fragments of hard matter dropping through holes in a net. And the more that happened, the more they began to coagulate into something concrete.

  Rik had been at home the night Stanbridge had died; Harry had seen movement through the window, of that he was certain. He glanced at Clare, who was still staring at the noisy child, her face set. When he’d returned to check on the area around her flat, the place had been in darkness, and he’d assumed she was tucked up in bed.

  But was she?

  Would an experienced MI6 officer calmly climb into bed after seeing armed men outside her flat? Would she have done so knowing that a colleague was in the vicinity and might drop by to check she was all right?

  Except that she had deliberately asked him not to because of the neighbours. Was that the only reason?

  And then there was Latham. If the MI6 assassin had been in town that night, why did he leave it for another three days to do something about the people he’d been sent to eliminate? He knew who they were, where they lived and worked. Making a surgical hit, with no footprints left behind, would have been a priority. Waiting three days made no sense.

  Unless Kostova had lied about Latham’s arrival.

  He reached in his pocket and took out Latham’s passport and wallet. Everything in it was in the name of Graham John Phillips, with an address in Walthamstow. Driver’s licence, two credit cards, paper money, a couple of petrol receipts – even a lender’s card for the local library. There was a photo of Latham with a woman and a child. Harry suspected they were fakes, part of Latham’s cover or legend. Attention to detail; it was something MI6 was good at.

  No return air ticket, though. Nothing to show how or when he was moving on. Maybe it was the way Latham preferred to operate, taking whatever means of travel came to hand according to circumstances.

  He sensed he was under scrutiny. He looked up. Clare was watching him. She glanced at the wallet and papers on the table, but said nothing and looked away.

  ‘Excuse me.’ She stood up and grabbed her rucksack, then walked out of the bar.

  Harry watched her go. Her body was rigid with tension, but she was light on her feet, like an athlete about to face a tough challenge. He noticed a length of cord hanging from one of the side pockets of her rucksack. He wondered what she used it for. A make-do washing line, probably. He’d done the same many times when staying in fleapit hotels with no facilities—

  He sat bolt upright, the movement jarring his arm. The washing line.

  It was Clare who had told the others in the office about Stanbridge’s death; how Harry had tied him to the bathroom sink . . . with a clothesline. It hadn’t registered at the time, his mind too focussed on the man’s death. Now it had come back and was staring him in the face.

  He had untied Stanbridge’s body and disposed of the clothesline before Clare arrived. How could she have known about the clothesline?

  He stared after her, a leaden feeling growing in his stomach. He recalled Fitzgerald’s words on the phone. Watch the girl, though; I think she’s bad.

  There was only one way she could have known.

  Clare had been inside his flat. Seen Stanbridge.

  Killed him.

  He ran through the sequence of events, his tiredness gone. The moment he had rung her and told her about capturing the Clone, she must have been desperate to find out whether the man knew her real role in Red Station: that she was the inside source of information.

  It explained something else: when she heard Harry was planning to question him, she’d told him that the men outside her flat were armed – a guarantee that he would take it seriously enough to go and see for himself. Yet Stanbridge had been adamant that they did not carry weapons. It also explained why Clare hadn’t wanted Harry to call on her. Trained to think on her feet, she’d already been planning to leave her flat and go to Harry’s. With him out of the way watching the other men, she had a clear field to quiz Stanbridge and find out what he knew . . . and how much he’d told Harry.

  Then she had silenced him.

  Something else slipped into place. When he’d called her after finding Stanbridge’s body, she had sounded breathless. Why breathless if she had been sleeping?

  Because she wasn’t at home. He’d called her on her mobile. No wonder she had arrived so quickly – she was already out and on the move!

  He waited for her to return, chewing it over and coming to the same conclusion every time. He would have to face her with it. It wouldn’t be pretty right here – there were too many people about. They’d have to go up on deck, somewhere quiet. But it had to be done before they got to London.

  Thirty minutes later, there was still no sign of her.

  Rik said, ‘She’s been gone a long time.’

  ‘Too long,’ Harry agreed. He added, ‘That b
ag that arrived for me from London.’

  Rik nodded. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Did Clare ever get one?’

  Rik thought about it. ‘I never saw one.’ He paused. ‘But she had some ammo. One dropped out of her bag once.’ He shrugged. ‘I put it back. Figured it was above my pay grade, stuff like that.’

  Harry stood up. ‘You take the sharp end, I’ll do the rest. Check everywhere, including the washrooms.’

  ‘I’ll get arrested.’

  ‘So improvise.’

  They split up. Harry found the nearest washrooms and asked a female member of staff to check on his lady colleague. He gave her a description. Black cargo pants, dark T-shirt, athletic build, no make-up.

  The woman came back out shaking her head.

  ‘There’s only a few kids in there,’ she told him. ‘Are you sure she came to this one?’

  ‘No, not really. Maybe I got it wrong.’

  ‘You could try the ones on D deck. They’re not so busy.’

  Harry was about to leave when he glanced down at the woman’s hand. She was holding a flat plastic case in one hand. It looked new. ‘What’s that?’

  She glanced down. ‘Oh, I found this by the sinks. Someone’s going to be kicking themselves; they’re new on sale in the shop today. It’s a travel make-up kit . . . hardly used.’

  Harry took it off her and opened it. She was right – it was barely touched and the mirror was clean. Every woman’s compact he’d ever seen had been a mess.

  Make-up. Appearance. Disguise.

  Harry thanked the woman and handed back the compact, then toured the rear half of the boat on all decks. He scoured the bars, the cafeteria, the cinema and the restaurant, and went out on the open deck, checking the club-style chairs and the plastic deck seats. He was looking for a new face.

  Still Clare Jardine’s face, but no longer plain.

  He eventually returned to where they had been sitting. Rik was back, looking worried. ‘I checked everywhere. Can’t find her.’