by Tom Cain
A minute later he got her reply: ‘Latest update. Standing in bra and panties, deciding what dress to wear. Want to look my best for you, haha!’
Carver laughed. ‘Dress code update,’ he texted. ‘U will be thrown out of Wim if turn up in bra and knickers. But would not be thrown out of my bed.’
Alix wrote again. ‘Down boy!! Gotta go xxx’
Carver grinned, then closed the window. There was nothing wrong with having a few jokes before you went into action. But it was time for the laughing to stop.
It took forty-eight minutes to make his way in the Audi through heavy South London traffic to the Putney Exchange Shopping Centre. He wound his way up through the multi-storey car park to the open expanse of the rooftop level. The van was exactly where Grantham had promised it would be. Carver found an empty space nearby and left the keys as Grantham had told him to do. He had barely got to the door of the Transit when he heard an engine start up behind him, and seconds later the Audi was driving past on its way to the exit.
He opened the Transit’s passenger door. The B amp;Q bag was sitting on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Carver reached in, picked the bag up and looked inside. Aside from the keys it contained a couple of plastic garden pegs linked by a short length of green nylon twine; a thin disc of copper about 15 cm in diameter, beaten into a shallow cone; a packet of Polyfilla that had been opened and then resealed with a bright yellow plastic clip; and a series of grey plastic components. These comprised a short, open-ended tube whose diameter was a fraction greater than that of the copper disc; a couple of locking rings, similarly sized; a plastic disc, again as wide as the cylinder, to which a tightly looped length of electrical wire was attached; and four rigid plastic sticks, each about 30 cm in length. Anyone looking into the bag would assume that they all fitted together to form some kind of plumbing device.
Carver cast his eye over it all, muttered, ‘Good,’ to himself, then closed the passenger door again and walked around to the back of the van. He opened up the rear cargo-bay doors just enough for him to see inside, without enabling anyone else to glimpse what was there. This time his reaction was a little more effusive: a broad smile and a murmured, ‘Excellent.’
He closed the doors and made his way to the driver’s seat. Two minutes later there was a rap on the window. Schultz and Cripps were standing outside. Carver lowered the window, then handed them the B amp;Q plastic bag. ‘There you go.’
Schultz looked inside and grinned broadly. ‘Lovely jubbly,’ he said. He and Cripps walked back to their car, an old Mazda 626 saloon. Carver rolled up the van’s window and started the engine. Two minutes later they were all on their way.
Meanwhile, on the crowded approaches to Putney Bridge, the Chinese agents trailing the silver Audi were asking themselves why it was heading north, back over the river towards Central London, in the opposite direction to Wimbledon. It was only when they were on the bridge itself and able to accelerate enough to bring their car alongside the Audi that they realized Carver was no longer at the wheel. The string of obscenities that followed was equalled only by Derek Choi’s fury when the news was relayed to him.
It took Choi several minutes to obtain the latest tracking data for Carver’s phone signal. That, at least, was moving in the right direction. So his destination had not changed, even if his method of transport had. And once he got to Wimbledon, there were only a limited number of gates by which he could enter. Choi calmed himself. Nothing had really changed. Carver was still on course for his death.
66
Wimbledon
Azarov’s other car was a Rolls-Royce Phantom. It nosed its way into the area of the Wimbledon Park Golf Club that was rented out every year to the All England Club and used for car parking and corporate entertainment marquees, and proceeded with a barely perceptible purr towards the spaces reserved by Malachi Zorn. Zorn was waiting there to greet them. He opened Alix’s door himself, standing to one side as she smoothed down her skirt, then swung her legs together out of the car. Zorn held out his hand and she took it, rising gracefully to her feet till she was standing beside him on the close-cropped grass.
‘Such a gentleman!’ she said, looking up at him from coyly downcast eyes. He laughed and then held her hand to his lips, kissing it with a playfully exaggerated smack, as if to underline that he was an informal American, just kidding around with this ancient European custom.
‘ Enchante, mademoiselle,’ he said.
‘ Tu es trop gentil,’ she replied, slipping into French without a second thought. She smiled at Zorn again, much to his delight, and this time the smile was genuine. As she and Azarov walked arm in arm towards the gates of the All England Club, Alix was truly happy. She already knew the answer to the first question Carver had asked her in Kensington Gardens.
Carver saw Alix making her way to her seat half-a-dozen blocks away, and his mind flashed back to another summer’s day, more years ago than he really cared to remember, and the sight of her in another silk summer dress. He only had to close his eyes for a moment, and he was back at that table at the Eden Roc restaurant, looking out across the sun-sparkled waters of Cap d’Antibes. He could see her on the deck of General Kurt Vermulen’s yacht, the wind pressing her dress against her body, outlining every curve. He’d watched as she’d kissed Vermulen, thinking it was just an act, and not knowing until it was too late that she had fallen in love with the general and would soon become his wife. Now Vermulen was dead, another entry on Carver’s personal casualty list, and there was Alix once again, in a summer dress, looking just as beautiful — and with another man.
He watched as she sat down, said something to the thuggishly handsome man to her left, and laughed at his reply. Was that Azarov? Carver wondered. They looked pretty friendly for a couple who’d all but called it a day. Alix reached into her bag and, still half listening to the man, pulled out her phone and started tapping on its screen.
A few seconds later Carver’s phone buzzed. It was a text from her: ‘Re: Zorn. U were right. Ax’
Immediately, Carver tapped out a message to Schultz. ‘Mission is go. Be in position by 16.00. Wait for my signal.’
Then he texted Alix back. ‘Thanks. You look amazing.’ Carver smiled as he saw her glance up and search for him in the crowd. She didn’t find him, but he knew that when she sat back, crossed her legs, tossed her head and ran her hands through her hair she was putting on a show just for him.
He sat back to watch the tennis. Quinton Arana had made it into the quarter-finals. Zorn wasn’t going anywhere while the American kid was on court. As long as he had a great seat on Centre Court, Carver thought he might as well enjoy it.
Arana won in five. Zorn and his guests took time out in the third set to grab a late lunch. Carver did not go with them. He did not want to be spotted in the restaurant. And if for any reason Zorn decided to leave, Alix was on the lookout and would tell him: that had been the second favour he’d asked her. But Zorn wasn’t ready to go just yet, because he and his group returned for the second half of the match, cheering every point Arana won and politely applauding his opponent’s successes. At the end of the match Alix got up, as did the other woman in the party, and made her way out again. Carver was pondering the apparent inability of women ever to go to the ladies’ room without company when he got another message.
‘Need to see you. Meet at deb holders’ entrance. Now! Ax’
Something had gone wrong. Why else would she be texting? Carver rose from his seat and headed for the exit.
67
A mile or so away from the All England Lawn Tennis Club the old Mazda saloon pulled into a parking space on Southside Common, which, as its name suggests, runs along the south side of Wimbledon Common. The space was just beyond the junction with Murray Road, a typically leafy Wimbledon street filled with large suburban homes, where the average property won’t leave change from two million pounds.
‘There you go, boss,’ said Kevin Cripps.
‘Cheers,’ Schultz
replied, hefting his massive bulk out of the cramped passenger seat and on to the grass verge that ran beside the road. About ten metres away across the grass was a tarmac path that followed the line of the road. On the far side of the path stood a pair of park benches about twenty metres apart. One of the benches was directly in line with the space where the Mazda had parked. Schultz made for it. He was carrying the B amp;Q bag that Carver had given him. While Cripps settled himself lower in the driver’s seat, as if about to take a nap, Schultz stood beside the bench and looked around. Yes, this was the place all right.
He got down on his haunches, screwed up his eyes and stared intently past the Mazda to the far side of the road, where a row of trees screened the traffic from the Common. Schultz plotted an imaginary line from his position, through the Mazda, to a tree directly behind it. From the B amp;Q bag he took the two garden pegs, linked by twine. Just by his feet there was a large clump of dry, wispy grass. Schultz forced one of the pegs down into the earth just behind the clump, placing it at one end of the imaginary line. Then he placed the other peg in the ground, making sure that the twine was good and taut.
Schultz took another look: both pegs, the car and the tree were all perfectly in line.
Now he sat down on the bench and very carefully examined the car and the tree, noting their relative positions when seen from this fractionally different angle. He went back to the pegs and made another sighting from there. Then he checked the view from the bench again. Now he was satisfied.
The first part of the job was done.
68
Derek Choi was sitting at a table on the Tea Lawn, not far from the bandstand, which gave him a view of Centre Court debenture holders’ entrance. Two of his restaurant workers, both agents of the State Security Ministry, were with him. A female voice sounded in his ear: the agent he had stationed in the stands of Centre Court. ‘Carver has got up from his seat. He is leaving the stadium.’
Choi switched to another line. ‘Attention! The target is in motion. Prepare to move on my signal.’
On the Aorangi Picnic Terrace, the grassy slope otherwise known as Henman Hill or Murray Mount, a trio of young Chinese adults — two men in jeans, T-shirts and bomber jacket, and a woman wearing a singlet, miniskirt and Converse Hi-Top trainers — calmly got to their feet. All three were registered as students at a language school in Central London. One of the men pointed at the action on the giant screen fixed to the outside of Number One Court, directly opposite the terrace, and said something that made the girl laugh as she brushed a few leaves of grass from her skirt. The sound of her laughter made a man sitting nearby turn around and then fix her with a stare of frank appreciation as he took in her long black hair, prettily smiling face, pert breasts and long bare legs.
She was carrying a squashy leather shoulder-bag, big enough to carry her phone, her make-up, a knitted top in case it got cold, and all the other random items that any young woman needs. It also contained an EpiPen — like the one used by diabetics to inject themselves with insulin, except that this was filled with deadly toxin — and a loaded QSZ-92 9 mm pistol, produced by a Chinese state arms factory. Not so many young women need those.
Choi was wearing dark glasses that hid eyes now entirely focused on the debenture holders’ entrance. He saw Carver emerge from Centre Court. Choi waited for a moment to see where his target was heading, but Carver stood still. He was waiting for something, but what? Choi saw him glance at his watch, betraying his tension. Then another figure appeared in the doorway, a woman. Choi recognized Petrova, the Russian who had been with Carver two nights earlier, and whose name had so infuriated the Sternberg woman. Choi frowned. Had Carver really set up some kind of romantic assignation, right in the middle of an active operation? Or were the two of them working together? It made no difference. Carver was exposed and standing still. He would never be more vulnerable. It was time to move.
Without betraying the slightest suggestion of urgency, Derek Choi rose unhurriedly from his seat. He took a couple of twenty-pound notes out of his wallet and placed them under one of the teacups under his table. ‘Time to go,’ he said to the other two men at the table, who also stood up. Then Choi spoke into his microphone, a single word: ‘Go!’
69
Carver was not, for once, pleased to see Alix. ‘What is it?’ he asked her impatiently.
She smiled flirtatiously and kept the happy, carefree look on her face as she said, ‘Zorn just said he was about to leave.’
‘Couldn’t you just text?’ he said, smiling back.
‘It was easier to say I needed the bathroom. And you’re better placed out here. When he goes, he will come out of this door, right there, and you will see him. Besides,’ and now the phony flirting gave way to a much more serious emotion, ‘I wanted to be with you. Just for a minute or two…’
Carver was about to reply when he saw her frown. She stepped closer to him, nuzzled her lips against his ear, and, making it look as though she was giving Carver her full attention — even though her half-closed ice-blue eyes were focused at a point beyond his left shoulder — she said, ‘There’s a man by the bandstand looking at you. He looks Chinese: quite tall, slender build, black designer jeans, black jacket, dark glasses…’
‘Chinese?’ Carver asked quizzically, wondering what interest anyone from the Far East might have in him. He’d made some serious enemies in Thailand, but that had been a long time ago. And they’d all been dead when he’d left them.
‘You’re sure he’s not just looking around, watching the world go by?’ he asked.
‘No. This looks like surveillance.’ She frowned. ‘There are two other guys with him, very similar style of clothes — jeans, jackets, but more casual — he’s talking to them. They both looked this way, too. OK, now they’re moving towards us, fanning out.’
‘Are they armed?’
‘I can’t be sure, but they certainly could be. Under those jackets
… sure.’
‘Take my hand,’ Carver said. ‘They could be coming for you, not me. Let’s see how interested they really are.’
Gripping her tightly, he turned on his heel and started walking towards St Mary’s Walk, the path that cuts right through the Wimbledon site from north to south. It begins at the top of Aorangi Terrace, and plunges downhill all the way to the far end of the club grounds, passing virtually every court and building of any significance as it goes.
Carver and Alix moved quickly, with the purposeful strides of people with an urgent appointment to keep, forcing their way past slower movers with brusque words of warning or apology. They reached St Mary’s Walk at a point about two-thirds of the way along it. To their left, it continued down past the new mini-stadium of Court Number Three, and a gaggle of outside courts, to a tented village of shops and eating places. Carver went the other way, up a steep flight of stairs. Here the path ran like the floor of a canyon between the looming bulk of Centre Court on one side and the zigzag facade of the Millennium Building on the other. This was where both the press and the players had all the facilities they needed to work and relax, and the mini-theatre where both sides met for pre- and post-match interviews.
Carver stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back. The three Chinese were heading his way, forcing their way past the people at the foot of the steps thirty or forty metres away. He tightened his grip on Alix’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’
Ahead of him the crowd became even thicker. A knot of fans stood immobile in the middle of the path, clutching cameras, video recorders and phones, and gazing up at a covered footbridge that ran over their heads between the Millennium Building and Centre Court. They were waiting to see a star player walk along it, going to or from a match, and they glared crossly at Carver as he forced his way through.
He heard a gasp from Alix.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Up the hill… more of them.’
Carver grunted to show that he’d spotted three more Chinese, one of
them female. They might be completely innocent, but he couldn’t afford to risk it. He and Alix were caught almost exactly halfway between the two groups. He glanced at one, then the other, before giving a sharp tug on Alix’s hand.
‘Change of plan,’ he said.
He turned towards the Millennium Building and made for a gap in its facade, past the plate-glass windows behind which the world’s tennis journalists were sitting at their desks, splitting their attention between TV and computer screen as they filed their latest reports. Now Carver came to a small courtyard, hemmed in on all sides by high white walls. He felt Alix flinch as she took in their claustrophobic surroundings. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Through here.’
He made for a door in the far corner of the courtyard, that opened on to a stairwell.
‘Down,’ he said. ‘We’re going underground.’
70
One good thing about looking the way Schultz did: if you sat down at one end of a park bench, no way was anyone else going to sit at the other. Certainly not without asking very politely.
He heard a voice in his ear. It was Cripps. ‘You need a hand with the fireworks, boss?’
‘No worries, Kev, I’ve got this fucker well sorted.’
Schultz had delved into the B amp;Q bag and taken out the squat grey plastic tube, the shallow copper cone and a locking ring. He placed the cone at one end of the tube, the point facing inwards so that the external surface was concave. Then he screwed the locking ring on to the tube until it pressed tight on the copper, to keep it securely in place. Then he turned the tube over so that the open end was facing him.
Next Schultz got out the bag of Polyfilla and undid the clip that had been placed over the open corner. He then held the bag upside down, over the grey tube, and poured out the contents of the bag — in actual fact, high-explosive RDX powder — tamping the floury white particles down as he went, to make sure they were tightly packed into the tube. When the bag was empty, he placed the plastic disc over the open end of the tube as a backplate, and secured it with the other locking ring. The looped wire was now on the outside of the backplate.