The Break Line

by James Brabazon

  So far, so good.

  * * *

  • • •

  THE SAFE HOUSE was on Russell Square—an apartment in a mansion block opposite the Morton Hotel. The corridors were deserted, the constant traffic outside muffled by thick carpets and brass-trimmed fire doors. I stepped through the main door and took a sharp right up the stairs to the second floor, straight to apartment 201.

  A discreet keypad enclosed by a black metal cover released the door lock. No keys, no porter, no trace; because UKN did not exist, none of its assets did, either. The fact that my head was so far above the parapet was a rare exception, thanks to Frank, and the jobs he gave me.

  The locations of the safe houses, the real identities of the operators, the provenance of the money that fueled them, were all off the books. MI6, the secretary of state, Director Special Forces—they didn’t know, and they didn’t want to know; what you don’t know, you can’t be held accountable for.

  An en suite double bedroom, a kitchen-diner and a hall with a separate loo. I opened the wardrobe in the bedroom and found what I was looking for. I keyed the entry code into another pad—which this time unlocked a squat metal safe. Inside, a SIG 226 9mm pistol, two charged magazines, five thousand sterling in used bills and the keys to a Mercedes-AMG Estate parked in the underground garage. I pocketed the keys, checked and loaded the pistol, grabbed the bundle of fifties and headed back downstairs.

  If you support your house with a fifth column, don’t be surprised when it collapses on you.

  I stepped out into the square.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Between the flower beds and trees I see the Sleepers running, swarming, spilling out into the city streets. A policeman is eviscerated. Cars stop, their drivers panic-stricken as the monster men cleave metal and drag them, screaming, to awful deaths. Mothers run after crying children. And everywhere is blood.

  I shut my eyes.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  The rotor wash is pulling at Ana María’s hair. Rockets are streaking through the golden light of a West African morning. Clouds of vapor ignite; trees combust; the air burns. Amid the flames, the Sleepers stand still, waiting, uncomprehending. And everywhere is blood.

  Get ahold of yourself, Max.

  I blinked hard and found my feet.

  I walked along Bayley Street and then doglegged onto Percy Street. As I turned north up Charlotte Street, a rain shower thinned the pavements of office workers, who scuttled under awnings or into restaurants, looking for refuge.

  I put my hand to the clean dressing on my throat and then ran my fingers along the ragged top of my ear. I felt like a tourist coming home still dressed for the beach: dislocated, neither here nor there, as if I were lagging behind myself. Being back in London after a job was always the same. Like resurfacing after a dive, it took time to depressurize, and while I waited, nothing seemed quite real. Coming back from this job was like still being trapped in the diving bell. I had no idea what sort of world I would surface into.

  But as I walked, I began to remember who I was.

  The Fitzroy Tavern stood at the junction with Windmill Street. There were two renovated Victorian saloons on the ground floor—divided by polished-wood walls. I made my way around to the long bar on the left and ordered a glass of Guinness.

  “I’m sorry, mister. We’ve no Guinness.” The barmaid wore an apologetic smile. Five-two, blue hair, pierced black eyebrows. Skinny as a rake. I shrugged. She put her hand on one of the draft taps. “They do their own stout, you know? In fairness it’s not bad. And the Guinness tastes like shite over here anyways.” A Dubliner. No doubt.

  “OK.” I nodded. “You’re the boss.”

  “A glass, was it?”

  I nodded again, and she slipped a little half-pint jug under the tap. It filled and clouded and settled, and she topped it up, fielding orders from either side of me as she did so. I offered her one of the fifties I’d taken from the safe. Her hand moved toward mine and then faltered.

  “No, you’re grand. That’s on the house.”

  “No, really, I’m sorry I don’t have anything smaller.”

  “Don’t be daft. First one’s on the house today. You look like you’re a long way from home.” What I looked was nonplussed. “Happy Paddy’s Day,” she said. March 17. Of course. I raised the glass to her.

  “Sláinte.”

  She went to ask me something but got distracted by another customer, so I took the drink and perched on a barstool at a high table at the far end of the counter. I faced the door, back to the wall. It was a large space, sparse, with seats around the edge and plenty of room for standing. There were toilets downstairs and a restaurant above. I was going to have to do this somewhere. And here was as good a place as any. If they were going to find me—which they would, eventually—then they would find me when and where I wanted them to.

  I took a sip of the stout and wiped the head off the mustache thickening across my lip. She was right. It tasted OK. From inside my jeans pocket I fished out a pay-as-you-go cell phone I’d picked up at Heathrow. I composed and recomposed the SMS to Frank half a dozen times.

  In the end I kept it simple:

  Fitzrovia. 20:00hrs. Location to follow.

  There was no point giving him any other instructions.

  Frank, as usual, would do only as he pleased. He’d consider coming mob-handed or early or not at all. But he’d know I’d know that, too. Frank had overseen my transition into a professional escape artist, and we both knew that in the end he’d buy a ticket to this show or risk missing the final act forever.

  General Kristóf King’s number I’d got from Nazzar. Good luck trying to squeeze a drink in with any other top brass at short notice on a Friday night. But Director Special Forces has an Achilles’ heel: if you have his emergency number, you can always reach him, day or night.

  Three rings and then muffled confusion as the strings of a Hungarian violin were cut short in the background.

  “King,” he barked into the receiver.

  “It’s McLean,” I replied. Pause. “Max McLean.”

  “Ah,” he said without missing a beat, “the prodigal son returns, what?” I kept quiet. He filled the void. “I hear you’ve progressed, Max.”

  “From what to what, sir?” I asked.

  “From not pulling the trigger at all to pulling it rather more than anticipated. Where are you?”

  “London. We’re going to meet tonight. Fitzrovia. Eight o’clock.”

  “Eight o’clock? I say, that’s—”

  “I’ll see you then, General,” I interrupted him. “I’ll call again at seven forty-five.”

  I hung up. King’s motivations were unknowable. Whether he came would tell me almost everything I needed to know about him anyway.

  Next I punched in the London number I’d memorized in Freetown.

  “Embankment.” Same matter-of-fact operator.

  “Three-oh-nine.” I replied like for like. No niceties given or expected at Vauxhall Cross.

  “Stand by.”

  To let me know I hadn’t been cut off, the line sang with an easy-listening classical music track. After ten seconds Mr. Matter- of-Fact came back on the line to tell me I was being connected. Hold music again. And then: “Major McLean, I suppose.” Clipped Queen’s English. David Mason had picked up the call directly. That was a good start.

  “I’ve got what you want,” I told him. He paused before replying.

  “Got what, McLean?”

  “Your pound of flesh.”

  “I . . .” He hesitated. “I’m glad you’ve decided to come in, Major McLean, but—”

  “Fitzrovia, eight o’clock sharp. I’ll call you back.” I hung up and took the battery out of the phone.

  On our first day at Raven Hill, Colonel Ellard told us that every course of action begins with on
e decision: do something or do nothing. When I was sixteen, I’d chosen to do something: I ran. And all else followed.

  I pressed the middle three fingers of my right hand into my left wrist and felt the radial artery pulsing beneath the skin. Now I was a forty-two-year-old state-sanctioned killer, and I’d chosen to stop running. I believed in what I did. Like my mother and father, I’d picked a side. And like them, I had been betrayed by my side. I’d been allowed to live a lie, sold out and then turned into a weapon.

  Colonel Ellard had taught us something else that day, too: never forgive, never forget.

  The barmaid worked her way around the room, clearing tables, balancing a stack of glasses. She moved confidently—pivoting between the punters, deflecting banter. Detached and determined. What was she, twenty-five? Younger maybe. She was pretty and, I hoped, poor.

  I drained the glass of stout and put a fifty-pound note under it as she approached.

  “Go raibh maith agat,” I said. Thank you. Now it was her turn to look confused. She lifted the glass and stared first at the red note and then at me. “An ndéanfá gar dom,” I said to her.

  “I’m from Dublin,” she said, “not feckin’ Donegal. I hardly have a word of the Irish and I’ve no time for a lesson.” She stepped back. I pushed the note toward her.

  “I need a favor,” I said again, in English, but amplifying my Wicklow accent for all it was worth. “Nothing weird, like. I’m coming back later with a couple of English yokes. Proper posh. Know what I mean? I need to loosen one of them up a bit. Just a bit of fun. You know, relax him so he has a good time.”

  “Whether he likes it or not?”

  I reached for her hand, as if to shake it. She drew back farther, but when she saw what I had to give her, she let me take it, and I palmed her a bundle of notes.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Whether he likes it or not.”

  When we’d finished talking, I walked down the stairs and scoped out the toilet. A corridor led under the bars above and up a flight of steps to a side door onto Windmill Street. I pulled the baseball cap down over my eyes and circled round the block along Rathbone Street, cutting up Percy Passage and into the Charlotte Street Hotel, just across the road from the Fitzroy Tavern. Escape and evasion didn’t get any more basic, but under the circumstances it was the best I could manage.

  I booked into an attic room on the fourth floor. The window looked down on the pub on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street and over the rooftops beyond. I’d know soon enough if the barmaid called the cops or if anyone else called the cavalry. I killed the lights and lit a Marlboro.

  There was nothing left to do but wait.

  34

  King was the first to arrive. He stepped out of a black cab immediately in front of the Fitzroy Tavern and vanished inside the main bar on the left, as instructed. Mason was next. He was dropped off in what looked like an official car—unmarked and unremarkable, distinguished only by tinted windows and a suited chauffeur. He was wearing black tie. They were both on time. They’d both picked up immediately when I called at seven forty-five. Neither of them had said anything.

  Frank was late.

  I peered down hard onto the sodium-lit pavement. He hadn’t replied to my text messages. I scanned the streets, scrutinized the taxis.

  Then I saw him.

  He was walking down Windmill Street, straight toward me. His suit jacket was open, and the rain had soaked his hair and shoulders. He was walking fast, head down and determined. I wondered where he’d come from. The windowpane fogged under my breath.

  “OK,” I reassured myself, “let’s go.” I took off down the stairs at the double, jumping two or three steps at a time.

  As I stepped out into the drizzle, Frank stepped into the pub. I was as sure as I could be that the barmaid hadn’t called the police. But whether she’d lost her bottle remained to be seen. I was also sure that no nasty surprises were waiting for me on the roofs that fanned out beyond the hotel window. What I didn’t, couldn’t, know was whether anyone had been positioned on the roof directly above me.

  I braced myself and headed for the same door Mason and King had used. I walked briskly enough for the March weather, but not so much as to stand out. It took me three seconds to cross the street. I reached out for the handle and pushed.

  No shot came.

  If they’d found me and wanted me dead, they wanted to know what I knew before they killed me.

  The door closed behind me, and the warm fug of beer and banter drew me in. Frank had crossed the bar in front of me and was making his way around a pair of already-tipsy customers. A shock of blue hair flitted behind the bar and then disappeared from view. I followed Frank. King was at the far end of the bar, leaning on his hip. He saw Frank first and then me behind and straightened up. The room was more brightly lit than I’d imagined it would be, but his eyes were still lost in the shadow of his brow. It was hard to read him. He nodded, and Frank turned around to greet me.

  “If it isn’t the big fella himself.” He grinned at me and held out his hand. He looked genuinely pleased to see me, and I realized I’d had no idea what to expect from any of them. I could feel the SIG nestling against my spine in the small of my back. We shook hands. He touched my shoulder as we did so, making sure, it seemed, that it really was me. “Thank God you didn’t pick the Archway Tavern,” he said. “I haven’t been able to drink in there since 1983.”

  I grinned back, freed my hand and touched my temple in a light salute to General King. He kept his hands in his coat pockets.

  “Sir,” I said. “Thank you for joining us.” He shot Frank a quick glance, and Frank gave a half shrug, as if to say, Don’t look at me.

  “My pleasure,” he snorted. “Quite the surprise, what?” He studied me and wrinkled his nose. “Please do call me Kristóf, though. We look ridiculous enough as it is without bloody well saluting each other. I suppose you invited Mason?”

  I nodded. King raised his eyebrows. Frank swore under his breath. Mason emerged up the stairs from the toilets. His fingers were wet, and I could see that he’d washed his face. He didn’t offer to shake my hand.

  “Ah, Major McLean. I see you corralled the other . . .” He paused, agitated, unsure of how to refer to King and Frank in public.

  “Wise monkeys?” King interrupted.

  “For God’s sake,” Mason sighed, “this is a bloody farce.” He carried on, unperturbed, his voice rising. “An absolute bloody farce. You can’t really believe you’re going to get away with this, can you, Major? Whatever your”—he hesitated again—“game is, you’d better pack it in and start helping us to unravel the unholy mess you’ve left behind.”

  “Get away with what, exactly?” I asked him. “Murder?”

  The four of us stood in a semicircle around the bar, facing one another off. If he expected the other two to back him up, he was mistaken. King just stared at him. Frank looked around the room.

  Two of the other tables were occupied with drinkers—giggly students attracted by the cheap beer and a couple of lads attracted by the students. Punters tripped to and from the door down to the toilets. No one looked at us twice. Mason started to speak again but was silenced by the barmaid.

  “What’ll it be, then, folks?” The Dublin accent of my blue-rinsed accomplice turned all of our heads. “And before you ask, we’ve no Guinness.”

  “No Guinness? Some Pat’s Day drink this is, Max.” Frank squinted at the draft taps. “I’ll have whatever that stout is and do my best to pretend it’s proper.”

  “Good man,” she encouraged him. “To be fair, it’s not bad at all. A pint, is it?”

  “Uh-huh.” Frank nodded.

  “Make that two,” I added. She plucked another glass from the rack and looked up at King and Mason.

  “Gents?”

  Mason ordered a tonic water, King red wine. The barmaid stopped the t
ap on the first pint and switched glasses as the first settled.

  I looked at the three of them. I had one shot, at one target. And it had to count.

  I put my hand in my pocket. Frank reached inside his jacket. He could have been going for either his wallet or his pistol. I beat him to it and put a fifty on the countertop. His hand fell away, and he grinned at me again.

  “Go raibh maith agat,” he said.

  “My pleasure,” I said. “Next round’s on you.”

  I angled the note slightly away from myself.

  “Right you are. Take a seat,” she said, taking the money and counting out my change. “I’ll bring your drinks over when they’re ready.”

  We sat at a low table farthest from the door. Mason had his back to the wall. Frank sat to my left, King to my right. Each of them had the effect of calming the others down, sizing one another up as much as they were me. The atmosphere was not so different to that of a mission briefing. And, as usual, no one knew who held the cards.

  As we settled into our seats, what little chat there’d been between us evaporated into awkward silence. King kept his coat on. Mason adjusted his bow tie. Frank smoothed his rain-wet hair and looked at the faces around the table. He wasn’t smiling anymore. It struck me that he’d been grinning not because he was glad to see me, but in anticipation of Mason’s and King’s discomfort at seeing me.

  “Well?” he said.

  I opened my mouth to begin, but this time it was I who was cut off.

  “Here you go, gents.” Ring-wrapped fingers transferred two pints of stout, a tonic water and a small glass of red wine from a circular bar tray to the middle of the table. “Enjoy.”

  I lifted my glass. My ribs smarted. Frank raised his glass, too.

  “Sláinte,” he said, and gulped a mouthful of the strong black stout. He swallowed hard and nodded his approval at the English drink.

  “Do shláinte!” I replied.

  “Egészségünkre,” King sighed to himself. I looked at him, and he tightened a quick smile across his lips. Mason said nothing, and sipped his tonic. The bar was getting noisy. Another table filled up next to the students, who were attracting admirers like moths to a flame. Before long I’d have to raise my voice to be heard. I swallowed another mouthful of stout. Everyone else drank, too, as if that would conclude our business more quickly.