He smiled up at her. “Not this time.”
“I should have been more careful.”
“So, am I ever going to find out why you’ve risked your freedom and my career?”
She sat down again and picked up her drink. “I need your help,” she said. He nodded. It made sense that she would want to turn herself in. All those months on the run must have been hell. It was good that she had come to him. It was better she went straight to Five than that she wandered into a local police station.
“Okay,” he said. “You should stay here tonight. In the morning we’ll go to my office together and I’ll take you to the right people.”
“What?”
“The SIS Building. It’s where I work. It’s best we go there first.”
“I mean, what the hell are you talking about? I’m not handing myself in to the spooks. Are you a total moron?”
Jay was completely at a loss. “Well, what then? What are you doing here? I mean—shit!—
what was I supposed to think?”
Sandra got up and paced across the room. She stood with her back to him. “Maybe this was all a mistake. I didn’t know you were a spook. I thought you were just, you know, a cop.” She turned to look at him, concern all over her lovely face. “It’s because you’re young too. I thought…”
He walked toward her. “You thought I’d understand?” She nodded. “Understand what, Sandra?”
She looked up to the heavens, looking for the words, then back at Jay. “Me, I suppose.”
He took a step closer. Suddenly, she looked like she might cry at any moment. Her eyes glistened, her lips pressed together and her nostrils narrowed. He could have reached out and touched her troubled face, if he dared, if he didn’t dread her flying away like a startled bird.
“Look, I’ll try,” he said. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you’re here unless you want me to.” His own words frightened him. They took him over a line he shouldn’t have crossed, putting him where his heart had already gone.
With a sob of relief she closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around him, and burying her head in his shoulder. “Oh God,” she gasped. “Oh God, thank you!”
* * * *
Jay woke early, easing himself into a sitting position on the sofa so as not to aggravate the crick in his neck.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
Sandra’s voice behind him sounded cheerful and bright, nothing like it had sounded last night. He grabbed a blanket and wrapped it round himself before turning to say good morning. She was in the kitchenette, looking through cupboards and throwing packets on the worktop.
“You don’t seem to have much actual food in the house,” she said.
“No. Not really. I’m not quite organised yet. I only moved in a few days ago.”
“I know,” she said, smiling at him. “I’ve been following you.”
“I meant to ask how you knew where to find me.”
“I was lucky. I started with the Berlin police and tracked you to Europol in Brussels. The day I decided to talk to you, I called your office and someone told me I’d just missed you. You were catching a train home that very day. So I checked the times and went to the Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras and—eventually—there you were.”
“So you’ve been trailing me ever since I got off the train?”
She grinned. “That’s right, spy boy.” She looked at a packet she had in one hand and a tin she had in the other. “I could do you cream crackers and sardines for breakfast. How does that sound?”
“It sounds disgusting. Give me five minutes to get showered and we’ll go somewhere to eat.”
Nothing much was open at that time and they ended up in a small café near the river which was doing a brisk trade in heavy breakfasts for heavy-eyed workmen. They ordered bacon, eggs, sausages, mushrooms and mugs of tea and took them to a corner table where they could talk with some privacy. The morning was bright and clear and the traffic outside had already started to clog the roads. They both ate as though they were starving and all conversation stopped until they were well into the meal.
“So what’s it all about?” Jay asked. “You’ve had a bed for the night, the pleasure of my company, and a free meal so far. Now you can tell me what you’re really after.”
Sandra set down her knife and fork but kept looking at her plate for some time. When she looked up into Jay’s eyes, her own were troubled and dark again. The light mood of the morning had disappeared completely.
“I want you to help me take down Sniper and his team.”
Jay almost burst out laughing. “To help you? What do you think Europol’s been doing since last year? What do you think we’ve all been doing since Ommen? There are hundreds of people out there looking for Sniper! Hundreds!” He saw the anger building in her expression and changed his tone. “Look, if you have any information that might help us find Sniper, I’ll be happy to listen—and I’ll pass it on as an anonymous tip-off if that’s what you want.”
She regarded him with her lips pursed. “Are they all such pompous little pricks where you work?” she asked.
Now that he was over his surprise, Jay studied his strange companion and tried to understand what she was so angry about. She talked as if she had appointed herself Sniper’s personal nemesis. The thought flashed through his mind that she was an escapee from a mental institution but he tried to ignore it. It also occurred to him that she had once been Sniper’s girlfriend. He put that aside too.
“I tried to help you, you know,” he said. “Back in Ommen, at the splashparty. I arrived late and I saw you all in the cage. At first all I could see was how incredibly hot you looked in that catsuit.” She scowled at him and he hurried on. “But then I realised you were upset. You were trying to get free. I tried to reach you but I was too far back and the crowd was too dense. I was nowhere near when the countdown reached zero.” Sandra watched him with wide eyes, her expression blank. “By the time you were all back, I’d had to leave. My friend…”
Suddenly Sandra was on her feet and walking fast out of the café. Jay caught up with her in the street. He had to hurry to keep up with her.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t want to talk about Ommen.”
“I was just saying…”
“I don’t want to talk about it! All right?”
“I didn’t mean to…”
She stopped and glared at him, eyes full of fury. “Just shut the fuck up about it!” She was shouting now and people turned to look at them.
Angry at this rough treatment, Jay nevertheless managed to stay calm. He could see how close Sandra was to completely losing it and he didn’t want her running off. If she got away from him, he might never see her again.
“All right,” he said. “Not another word. Okay?” She kept her eyes on him but he could see she was starting to calm down. “Let’s go for a walk,” he suggested. “Work off some of that lard we just ate.” He ventured a small smile. “And you can tell me how the police forces of twenty-nine countries can help the great Sherlock Malone capture the world’s most wanted man.”
Her lips twitched a reluctant smile in return. “God, you’re a prat,” she said, but then she linked her arm into his and set off with him toward the river.
* * * *
“Holy shit!” Jay could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You know where he is?”
“Yes.”
They were walking in the sunshine beside the Thames, heading almost due south into the fast-climbing sun and the bright glare from the river. Jay had persuaded Sandra onto a Jubilee Line tube at Canary Wharf and, with a change at Cannon Street to the Circle Line, had brought them back up into the light at Westminster. From there they had walked through Victoria Tower Gardens to Millbank while Sandra filled Jay in on the past six months.
“But this is… That’s…”
Sandra looked at him sideways. “A big surprise, obviously.”
“Big? It’s mega!
My God, we’ve been looking for him everywhere. And he’s here? In London?”
Sandra nodded.
For a moment Jay was just overwhelmed by the news. He had to tell Holbrook. He’d tell Bauchet too, of course. Bugger protocol. Then the implication of what she’d said hit him.
“Jesus!” He stopped walking. His hand went to his mouth and he looked at Sandra, stupefied with the shock of it. “He’s gonna do London. Oh my God, he’s gonna do London. That’s why he’s here. It’s the only reason he’d be here.” He studied Sandra’s eyes, looking for confirmation.
“When’s it going to happen? Do you know?”
She shook her head. “That’s why I need your help. I’ve been tracking him but I can’t get close. I had a…a guy who was helping me, but he’s dead.”
“The friend who gave you the gun.”
“I think ‘friend’ was a bit of an exaggeration. His name was Flash. You probably knew him.”
Jay goggled. “Flash? You mean the number one brick in the UK? That Flash? He’s your friend?”
“Was. Sniper shot him about two weeks ago.”
Jay’s head was reeling. There was a bench nearby and he went and sat on it, pressing his palm against his forehead. All of this was news to him—and therefore to the British and European intelligence agencies and police forces. “Flash is dead? And Sniper killed him? And you’ve been trailing Sniper for months? And you know where he is but you don’t know what he’s up to?”
Sandra sat down beside him. “Yep.”
Across the river, beside Vauxhall Bridge, was the Secret Intelligence Services Building where Jay worked. Originally built in the 1990s to house MI6, Five had moved in just twenty years later when Six had lost the argument that Europe was foreign, not domestic territory. Six was downsized and shunted off to a smaller building in Wapping and Five rode triumphant into the vacated space. Jay had planned to tell Sandra all this and show off his eccentric-looking workplace. Now his mind was full of her incredible revelations, and the time for casual chatter had gone.
“And Flash was helping you trail Sniper? But, now he’s dead, you can’t?”
“Yep.”
“And that’s why you need my help, to get you close to Sniper?”
Sandra didn’t reply. She looked out at the river as if she were waiting for him to catch up.
“But why the hell have you been trailing Sniper all this time anyway?”
“Because I’m going to kill him.”
Jay looked at her calm, beautiful face. He remembered last night, her saying, I’ve been taking lessons. Lots of them.
“Jesus,” he said, unable to think of anything more appropriate.
* * * *
Klaatu could hear the screams as he walked down the corridor. He was still straightening his clothes from the excessively thorough searching the security guards at the door had given him. There was another armed man at the door to the gym and he made Klaatu wait while he spoke on his compatch. Inside the gym, the screaming stopped and a few seconds later, the door was thrown open.
“Klaatu! Old friend! Come on in!”
Sniper wore tight trunks, a silk robe hanging open, a feral grin, and nothing else. His sculpted body looked hard and tough. The well-crafted bones of his handsome face were more prominent than ever, giving him a hungry, energetic look. His grey eyes fixed Klaatu with a fevered excitement that made the young teknik glance across the room to see what the crazy bastard had been up to. He wished he hadn’t.
A naked woman hung from a square frame, arms and legs pulled taut, head lolling, like a big pink X. Her long blond hair covered most of her torso but the bits that showed had cuts and gouges visible, some of them dripping blood. He watched her in shocked fascination. She lifted her head and looked back at him. Her face was puffy and bruised and blood ran from her mouth and nose. To his horror, he saw her lips stretch into a smile.
He turned quickly back to Sniper, but whatever he had come there to say had gone completely from his mind.
“How do you like my little pet?” Sniper asked, his eyes sliding round to look briefly at the naked woman. “Camilla found her for me.”
“She’s…” Whatever she was, Klaatu couldn’t find the words to describe it. This was sick, even for Sniper.
“You can have her when I’m finished, if you like. Camilla can get me another one.”
Klaatu looked again at the smiling, bleeding woman. She might once have been beautiful. There was a time when Sniper’s cast-offs had been worth having. Not any more.
“I’ve got to get back to work,” he lied. “We’re still decrypting Flash’s files.” He remembered why he had made the trip out to Sniper’s little Surrey hideaway. “But we know the target now.”
Sniper’s eyes flashed but he didn’t comment. “We’re getting the whole thing. It won’t be long. We should start assembling the rig. I’ll be able to spec the lob properly in just a day or two, I think.”
Sniper’s grin broadened. “Tell Camilla. She’s organising things.”
“What? Since when?”
The grin disappeared in an instant but the eyes stayed the same. Sniper’s hand shot out and grabbed Klaatu around the neck before the teknik had even realised it was coming.
“Tell Camilla,” Sniper repeated in a soft, reasonable tone, as he pushed Klaatu up against the door frame with irresistible force. “She’s organising things.”
Across the room, the naked woman giggled. Unable to speak with Sniper’s hand crushing his throat, Klaatu nodded as best he could. Sniper held him there several seconds more, studying his face as Klaatu’s alarm mounted toward panic. Then he released him.
Klaatu fell back against the door frame, gasping for air. Relief and the urge to run mingled with cold fury inside him. He kept his head down so Sniper wouldn’t see it.
“Was that all?” Sniper asked. “I’m rather busy.”
Klaatu nodded and staggered out into the corridor. Sniper turned back to the naked woman who was watching him with wide, eager eyes. The guard closed the door without a word and stood like a statue, watching Klaatu.
It took Klaatu a while to recover his voice. When he did, he said, “I need to see Camilla. Is she here?”
“Yes, Mr. Gomółka.” From his respectful tone and expression, you would never guess the guard had been a witness to the scene in the gym. He spoke into his compatch again, then said,
“Ms. Vergara is in the conservatory. Would you like an escort?”
Klaatu scowled at him. “I know the way.”
* * * *
Camilla Vergara was an attractive woman in her middle thirties, a little over average height, well over average curvaceousness, and she favoured tight pencil skirts and severely cut jackets. She had a lot of cleavage and liked to show it. Her lips and nails were always scarlet. Her eyebrows and lashes always black. “MILF” as Klaatu liked to think of her. She was at a desk, working at a computer when he walked in. Seeing him, she made a last couple of gestures, and took her hands out of the sensor field. She rose from her seat with a practised elegance and took a couple of steps toward him, heels clicking on the tiled floor, hand outstretched in greeting. Her red lips formed a professional smile. “Klaatu. How nice to see you.” Her tone had something matronly about it, as if Klaatu were a little boy in her care whom she was humouring in his pretence of being grown up.
Klaatu eyed her sullenly. “Sniper says I should tell you we’ve located the target.”
“Excellent!” She showed him a chair and went to take one herself. He watched her hips and arse in the tight skirt as she sat and, to his annoyance, she caught him watching her. “Would you like something to drink? I’ll have one of the boys bring something.” She tapped her compatch and ordered coffee, not waiting for Klaatu’s reply. She brought her dark brown eyes to rest on him.
“We should have a chat. In all the rushing about we haven’t really made time to get to know one another.”
Klaatu ignored her. He let his eyes roam around the conservat
ory. It was now, quite clearly, Camilla’s office. “I see you’ve made yourself at home,” he said. She smiled. “I like to make myself useful and that means being here twenty-four-seven. This is such a lovely room, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. The conservatory was very large, built onto the south side of a very large house. Its glass walls commanded a multi-million-euro view across extensive lawns to the rolling hills beyond.
If his rudeness annoyed her, Camilla didn’t let it show. “The investors have been reviewing the new management situation,” she said. The “new management situation” was Camilla-speak for Sniper having killed Flash and taken over his splashteam. The “investors” were the bunch of Chinese gangsters who were putting up the money for the splash. “As you know, the investors were not happy with the progress being made by the previous management. They feel they should give Sniper an opportunity to prove himself.”
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