by Andy McNab
They hugged and Satnav held Tom’s right hand up in the air in congratulation. They both exited the castle and Tom accepted the can of beer that someone pushed into his hand and slapped Gavin on the back. ‘I’ve got to go.’
He pulled his T-shirt over his head, grabbed his jacket and ran for the exit. His Omega told him it was just before 02.00 hours.
‘Shit.’
By the time the door had slammed behind him, he was halfway across the car park. The Beamer was resting on its kick-stand. As he jumped onto the bike, Tom reflected, not for the first time, that the Lines was the only place in Hereford – probably the only place in Britain – where you could leave a fourteen-thousand-pound motorbike with the keys in the ignition and still find it there when you got back. He fired up the engine and rocketed off into the night.
24
IT WAS NINE miles to Delphine’s place and Tom made it in seven minutes. The place was in darkness but he rang the bell and banged on the door. After a moment a light went on and he heard footsteps on the stairs. Moira opened the door, her hair mussed and her eyes gluey with sleep. She looked Tom over, taking in his cut and bruised face, his hair plastered to his scalp with sweat.
She made no move to stand aside and let him in. ‘You do know what time it is, don’t you?’ she said. ‘I’m on early shift tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, I know, I know, sorry,’ he said. ‘So . . . where’s Delphine?’
‘She’s gone.’ Moira couldn’t keep the satisfaction from her voice.
‘What do you mean? Gone where?’
‘Gone home.’
‘Home to France?’
‘No, home to the Outer fucking Hebrides. Of course home to France. That’s where she comes from, isn’t it?’ Moira was enjoying every moment. ‘And if you’d ever turned up on time or spent more than ten seconds talking to her before you started shagging her, you might have known what was going on.’
‘Why . . . what is going on? You mean she’s seeing someone else?’
‘Don’t be even dumber than you look, Tom. Of course she’s not.’
‘So what the fuck is going on, then?’
‘You’ll have to ask her that, won’t you?’ Moira said. ‘It’s for her to tell you, not me. My guess is she’s had enough of hanging around waiting for you to turn up.’
‘When’s she coming back?’
‘Don’t you get it? Have all those punches to the head scrambled the few brain cells you’ve got left? Not ever. She’s bought a one-way ticket on the Eurostar, Tom. That’s it. It’s over.’
‘Fuck me,’ Tom said.
Moira leaned against the doorframe and looked him over again. ‘I could do, I suppose . . .’
25
London
Saturday, 10 September
05.37 hrs
LASZLO PUT ON the grey overalls over his other clothes while the sky was still dark. With a battered peaked cap pulled down low over his glasses, he took a careful look up and down the street. Satisfied, he closed and locked the shop door and walked away, his pace unhurried.
He stopped at the newspaper stand outside the corner shop. Every paper carried its own spin on what had happened the day before.
An al-Qaeda attack.
An al-Qaeda cell rounded up as they prepared bombs for the Olympic opening ceremony.
Drug-dealers.
Iranian sleeper cells preparing bombs to activate if we went to war over their nuclear programme.
The one thing all the stories had in common was that Laszlo wasn’t mentioned – and the SAS were.
Manual workers on early shifts were pouring down the steps to catch their trains into the city but, seeing the CCTV cameras monitoring the station entrances and platforms, Laszlo did not follow them. Hands in pockets, he kept walking, just another drab, anonymous figure in the grey early-morning light.
Keeping to the side streets, he made his way slowly east, past Chalk Farm and Camden Town, then turned down a street flanking a new industrial estate. Until a few years earlier this area had been a warren of crumbling, almost Dickensian lanes and warehouses, bounded on all sides by railway tracks, but it was now in the throes of redevelopment. The old buildings had been torn down and glass-and-steel mini skyscrapers were rising out of the rubble beside towering cranes.
At the far end of the industrial estate the road crossed over the Regent’s Canal. Laszlo’s pace slowed and he glanced behind him, then stopped and rested his arms on the parapet of the bridge. He reached inside his overalls and slipped out his revolver. He regretted having to give it up. He always felt uneasy without a weapon of some kind. It sank at once. He knew it would be in good company. The police called London’s waterways the biggest armoury in Britain.
He walked on, squinting into the low light of the rising sun.
26
TWENTY MILES TO the west, Tom was burning his way through the motorway traffic and trying to make himself heard above the throaty rasp of the German engine as he talked to Gavin via the Bluetooth connection in his helmet.
‘Of course I’ve tried her mobile. It’s just going straight to voicemail.’
‘Keep trying,’ Gavin said. ‘I’m sure she’ll pick up.’
‘I don’t think so, mate. She’s closed down comms so I can’t try and persuade her to change her mind.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Try and persuade her to change her mind, of course. So, have you got the manifest? Which train is she on?’
‘I hope you know I could get binned for this.’ Gavin was in the office, tapping away on the team’s secure PC. It was normally used for checking women’s number-plates to find out if they’d been bullshitting during the chat-up phase.
‘You did it for Jockey last year and you didn’t get binned then.’
‘True enough. But no one found out about that and, anyway, Jockey wasn’t on thirty-minute standby at the time.’
The Blue team was on thirty-minute standby for the next month. None of the team members was allowed to leave Hereford: they had to be back in the Lines within half an hour if COBRA pressed the button. If your call-out alarm went off on your belt or bedside cabinet and you didn’t get there on time, you were in the binning zone.
‘Relax,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll be back in H before Ashton’s finished having his cuts and bruises treated. He won’t even know I’ve been away. And you owe me big-time after the wad I put in your pocket last night.’
‘Bastard.’
There was a pause as Gavin worked his way through the Eurostar passenger listings. Like airline passenger manifests, they were routinely circulated to all anti-terrorist forces. ‘Got it,’ he said. ‘You’re going to have to motor some to get there in time. She’s on the eight twenty-six. Coach Eight, seat thirty-two.’
‘Sort a ticket for me, will you? I don’t want just to wave at her from the champagne bar.’
‘Sure.’ Gavin took a deep breath. ‘But, mate, for fuck’s sake, don’t be stuck on that train when the doors close or that’ll be both of us packed up, kicked out and down the road, looking for a new job.’
‘No drama. I’ll be back. Have I ever let you down before?’
‘You want the list?’
Tom had already broken the connection. The engine note rose to a howl as he twisted the throttle to the stops. A Jag was hogging the fast lane, so he swerved left and right to overtake it on the inside.
27
A HUNDRED METRES ahead, between the red-brick bunker of the British Library and the Gothic pinnacles of the Renaissance Hotel, Laszlo could see the rush-hour traffic building up along Euston Road. Closer to him, a line of black taxis waited for trade, their idling diesel engines adding to the smog hanging in the still, cool air. Laszlo hung on his heels for a moment, eyeing the CCTV cameras over the station entrance. Then he stepped back into the shadow of a doorway.
He took out his mobile phone, inserted a fresh SIM card and sent a brief text. No more than a minute later he heard the ping of a response. He glanced
down at the incoming message:
Clear sailing – will let you know if you get compromised.
Only now would he walk towards the great arched and glazed roof of St Pancras, knowing that if he was spotted and flagged up to all departments of security this country had to bear down on him, someone was covering his back and would warn him, just as they had done in Hampstead the day before.
Keeping his pace measured, he entered the Victorian brick and twenty-first-century glass monolith through the northern entrance and walked straight through the concourse, past the domestic platforms, the shops and cafés, following the signs to the toilets.
A cleaner, in almost identical grey overalls to the ones Laszlo was wearing, was mopping the floor beside the urinals. The grey plastic cart holding his materials stood at the end of the row of washbasins, and the yellow ‘Male Cleaner in Washroom’ cone stood proudly in the middle of the walkway. Laszlo moved to the far basin and watched the cleaner’s reflection as he pushed open the end cubicle and began mopping inside it.
Whatever he was singing to himself, it was in Polish. But the cleaner obviously liked his job. Eventually he emerged and returned to his trolley.
Laszlo approached him with a smile to match the song. ‘Excuse me – the disabled toilet, it’s a terrible mess. Can you come?’
He led the obliging Pole towards the larger, radar-controlled disabled doors and stopped by the nearest. The Pole mumbled to himself and reached for the key fob beside the ID card that hung from a red nylon lanyard around his neck. The fluorescent light glinted off a very shiny wedding ring on his left hand. The door clicked open. Laszlo stood aside to let him in, then followed.
Laszlo gave the man no time to ask, ‘What mess?’ He closed the door behind him, locked it and, with the full force of his hurtling body, grabbed the cleaner’s head and rammed it against the wall.
There was a dull thud as his skull made contact with the brickwork. He staggered, his hands scrabbling to protect himself. Laszlo grabbed the hair at the nape of his neck, pounded the man’s forehead on the edge of the washbasin, then lowered him to the ground, knelt astride him and wrung out what was left of the newlywed’s life.
He unclipped his victim’s lanyard, rinsed two spots of blood off his overalls, then exited the toilet. Locking the door from the outside with an Allen key, he fished an ‘Out of Order’ sign from the cleaning cart and hung it on the handle.
Laszlo tossed his glasses into the rubbish in the cart as he pushed it back into the concourse.
He headed for the Eurostar terminal. Armed police and extra security personnel were on patrol wherever he looked, but he steered a careful course as far from them and the CCTV cameras as possible. With his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, his head down and his gaze fixed on the cleaning cart, he avoided eye contact with the passengers scurrying around him.
As he moved towards International Departures, he brushed past a strikingly beautiful, dark-haired girl talking French into a mobile, who had collected her ticket from the self-service machine, stopped to buy gifts from a clothes shop, and was now wheeling her bag towards the security gates, a Starbucks coffee in her free hand.
Laszlo stopped his rubbish cart next to the bins, just short of Security and beneath a sign listing the items forbidden on Eurostar trains –
explosives, replica or toy guns, ice axes, butane gas, lighter fuel, fireworks, knives, scissors, household cutlery and hypodermic syringes.
Under the pretext of emptying the bin, Laszlo sorted swiftly through its contents. He picked up a discarded grooming kit, containing a razor, hairbrush and comb. The razor held only a small fixed blade, but it would have to do. Then he saw the corner of a box protruding from a Harrods bag: a set of kitchen knives, discarded before passing through Security by a passenger who was evidently too dumb to realize they would not be allowed on the train and too rich to worry about throwing them away. Laszlo flipped open the box and tested the edge of one of the blades with his thumb. It was razor sharp.
He dropped the box back into his cart and moved on. He felt more at ease now that he had a weapon. A blade wouldn’t save him if he were compromised, but it would allow him to go down fighting. He’d take as many with him as he could.
Laszlo didn’t worry about dying. He never had. Death was the only certainty in life. The only questions were where, when and how. Infirm and in prison wasn’t the way to end things: he’d be defiant to the last.
He pushed his cart towards the security screens reserved for Eurostar personnel and utility workers. The lens of a CCTV camera glinted high on the wall ahead. He kicked a piece of crumpled paper ahead of him, then stooped to pick it up. Keeping his head down and his face obscured, he appeared to scan the floor for other debris, his gaze also taking in the harassed security guards beside the X-ray machines and the streams of passengers shuffling through the security gates in their stockinged feet.
Laszlo chose his moment. He pushed his cart through, holding up his ID for inspection. No one paid him the slightest attention. The more menial the employee, the more invisible he became. Laszlo glanced at the departures board and headed towards the lift to the platforms. The pretty French girl pulled her case towards the escalators.
As the lift ascended, Laszlo opened the box of kitchen knives, palmed the longest and slipped it inside his sleeve. The doors opened and he squeezed past a group of Japanese tourists posing for photographs in front of the bronze sculpture of an embracing couple. The wheels of the cart rattled along the platform towards the Paris train.
He walked past the guard standing at the entrance to Coach Eight – the man was too busy running an appreciative eye over the French girl as she boarded to acknowledge his presence. Laszlo parked the cart in the centre of the platform and made for Coach Seven instead. A Eurostar attendant stepped down to intercept him. ‘You’re too late, mate. We’re boarding. All cleaning personnel should be off the train by now.’
Laszlo shrugged apologetically. ‘I’ve left my supplies in the toilet. If I don’t get them back I’ll be sacked. I’ll only be a moment.’
The attendant hesitated. ‘Oh, all right – but be quick about it, for heaven’s sake. We’re due to depart in five minutes.’
Laszlo gave him a grateful smile and stepped up into the carriage. He went straight to the Disabled toilet and locked the door behind him. He took off his cap, stripped off his overalls and dumped them in the rubbish bin. He washed his face and hands and checked his reflection in the mirror. Satisfied, he nodded to himself. The man staring back at him looked like just another anonymous business executive on his way to Paris.
28
THE EUROSTAR ATTENDANT had remained on the platform by the entrance to the carriage, but was growing increasingly anxious as the minutes ticked by. He glanced towards the rear of the train, where the dispatcher was chatting to the guard and chivvying the last few passengers as they hurried along the platform.
The attendant hesitated for a few more moments, then boarded the train. There was no sign of the cleaner, but the toilet was occupied. He knocked, waited, then knocked again. There was no response from within.
On the other side of the door, Laszlo stood motionless, the kitchen knife in his hand. He heard a rattle of keys and then a faint metallic click. ‘What the hell do you think—’
The man never completed his sentence. Laszlo seized his hair, dragged him inside and kicked the door shut. Tightening his grip, he forced the man’s chin down towards his chest and drew the blade across his throat. He dropped the knife to the floor and clamped his fingers around the man’s jugular, stopping the blood spurting and covering their clothes. ‘Stay calm. Don’t struggle,’ he murmured. ‘It’s too late . . . You have lost. Accept . . . just accept it. Think of your family. Think pleasant thoughts . . .’
The attendant’s eyes bulged, but whether he was soothed by his killer’s voice or too terrified to risk moving, he stopped struggling. Laszlo turned him around so that he was facing the toilet. Clamping his other
hand on the back of the attendant’s neck, he forced his face down, then released his grip on the jugular. At once, blood began pulsing into the bowl.
Laszlo felt the man’s life ebbing from him. His head would soon begin to spin as his brain started to suffer from the lack of oxygen that his blood would normally provide.
Maintaining an iron grip, Laszlo held him there until the crimson stream faltered and stopped, then lowered his body to the floor. He went to the basin, rinsed the blood from his right hand with cold water, then stripped the man of his uniform.
29
DELPHINE WALKED DOWN the aisle, looking for her seat. She put the presents for her niece and nephew into the luggage rack and was about to sit down when she saw a frail, white-haired man a few rows ahead of her struggling to lift his bag. ‘Let me help you with that,’ she said, taking it from him.
‘Thank you. Just one of the joys of getting old, I’m afraid. I used to be as strong as a bull when I was young, but now I can barely turn the pages of my newspaper.’ He gave her a wintry smile. ‘The clockwork’s running down, I suppose. And yet, do you know, the strange thing is I don’t feel any different inside? In my mind I’m still the young buck I was all those years ago, but then I open my eyes and . . .’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry – as my daughter keeps telling me, I do have a tendency to ramble on . . .’
‘You mustn’t apologize,’ Delphine said. ‘I bet your daughter will miss you terribly while you’re away. Are you staying in Paris or travelling on?’
‘Staying in Paris,’ he said. ‘The first time I’ve been there in years.’ He leaned towards her, a sparkle in his eye. He pointed to the bouquet of red roses, wrapped in cellophane, which he’d placed on the table in front of them. ‘Don’t laugh, but I’m on my way to meet a woman I haven’t seen in forty years. I met her in Paris in 1967 – the Summer of Love.’ He pointed to his bald head and gave a rueful smile. ‘Not much of a long-haired hippie, these days, am I? Anyway, I fell in love with a Parisian girl. Giselle . . .’