by James Green
The eyebrows came down again.
‘It comes from all the way up. I went upstairs as soon as I knew.’
She relaxed. It was official.
‘This Costello must be quite something. As soon as Bronski used his name I knew you’d want to hear about it, but I’m surprised you got clearance for a termination so quickly. He’s flagged, I know, that’s why I called you, but all I’ve seen is “locate and inform”, nothing close to “terminate on sight”.’
‘Yes, it rather threw me as well. I took his name upstairs and the next thing I know I’m told to arrange things and do it now. To happen that quickly means it must have had confirmation from the very top. I wish our illustrious leader could be as bold and incisive when it comes to domestic politics. Then maybe the country wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in and we’d get the cash we need to do the job properly. Anyway, there it was, “do it and do it now”.’
‘Where do you want it done?’
‘Anywhere that would be good for us. Anywhere that could make it look like it’s something left over from the old days. That way it muddies the waters. The Balkans would be ideal but I don’t see a way of getting him there so do it as soon as he’s on suitable turf. I want something that won’t interest anyone. I want to read in the papers that a shady ex-copper called Costello was killed by a dodgy ex-KGB agent who had become hooked up to any number of illegal goings-on. I want it all very hard to pin on anybody. An ex-Intelligence freelancer hired by nobody knows who. I want it so no one will take it to heart, do anything, or ask any really awkward questions.’
‘And when it’s done?’
‘No loose ends; when Costello is sorted, Bronski will have to go. We can’t leave him lying about, can we, actually or metaphorically?’
‘And what do we get out of this? We must get something good.’
‘The Americans and the Israelis were the ones interested in Costello, they got him flagged. What he was up to was never anything to do with us, but that unholy alliance wanted him and wanted him badly. On the surface it was supposed to be connected to a foiled terrorist bomb attack in Rome. That was the story that got put about, that and Costello being connected to the Vatican in some way.’
‘The Vatican!’
‘Yes, I know, but it was Rome and the world was hooked on Dan Brown at the time so everybody threw in the Vatican when they could. As far as we could ever find out, there never had been a James Costello in Rome, at least not one who had anything to do with the Vatican. Whoever he was working for, it wasn’t them.’
‘We looked into it?’
‘We had a semi-official glance to satisfy ourselves. We used an old Vietnamese priest connection, a China-watcher we sometimes use. He put us on to a Professor, an American woman. She worked for some sort of college and had access to the records and according to the records he was never there. We ran the terrorist story by the police and it turned out to be exactly what we were told, a busted terrorist-bomb thing. We weren’t really interested. It was nothing to do with us, we just checked out the story. But whatever Costello did in Rome and whoever he did it for, he really pissed off the Yanks and the Israelis. They’ve been looking for him ever since but, up till now, no one’s had a sniff. Now, out of nowhere, he’s fallen into our lap, so we do the job for them.’
‘Why not hand him over, if they want him that badly wouldn’t they pay for him? There must be some juicy Intelligence tit-bit we could get for him.’
‘No, my orders were black and white. He’s got to go.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we don’t know what Costello did and the Americans and Israelis do. It’s important to them but they won’t share it with us. When those two get together and shut everyone else out it’s bad news all round, almost certainly something HMG wouldn’t like. So, if they won’t share and they want to talk to Costello, we shut down Costello. We don’t help them when they’re keeping us out of it. We eliminate him.’
‘Well I hope it’s all worth it. I had a night of unbridled passion with Sam planned before that bloody crash call came.’
He opened a drawer, took out a folder, put it on the desk and looked pleased with himself.
‘By the way, I’m using a yellow folder for this and it’s getting a three-star rating. One copy kept in my office safe. To be read only in my office by the people on a very short list. And I report straight to the Director who reports directly to the PM.’
Look at him, she thought, like a kid in a candy store. Now he has his very own little yellow three-star folder. Costello would be killed, but for him this wasn’t going to be about shutting anything down or screwing the Americans or Israelis. This was going to be about a bit of empire-building, about treading on the faces of rival department chiefs. Not that she cared. Past a certain level of superiority it was always about office politics, whether it was Intelligence, banking or selling bananas.
‘Do I get to have a shower before I go?’
‘Get one at your hotel in Copenhagen and get some sleep on the plane, the next available flight. I want you in Nyborg in plenty of time to set things up properly. This is a yellow file job now. Everyone gives it one hundred and ten per cent.’ He looked up from the folder. ‘But make sure you keep the expenses down. Being top priority doesn’t have to make it cost more than it needs to. And make sure that all the chits come directly to me. I don’t want accounts handling anything, anything at all.’
She couldn’t say anything but that didn’t stop her thinking. “Everyone gives it one hundred and ten bloody per cent”? Who’s “everyone”? There’s only two of us in this and I’m the only bugger going to be in the field doing anything that isn’t shuffling papers or signing chits.
‘And I want a full verbal report every twenty-four hours. Use my direct line. You only speak to me.’
His head went down and his eyes went back to the sheets in his beloved folder. She was dismissed. The meeting was obviously over so she left the office.
There was no one else in the lift so she spoke out loud. It made her feel better saying what she had to say so it could be heard, even if she was the only one listening.
‘It’s straight off to bloody Copenhagen, is it? Well, fuck the next available flight nonsense. I’m damn well not going budget this time and I’m certainly not flying out of Luton. It’s going to be business class on a scheduled flight and the VIP lounge at Heathrow, and in Copenhagen a suite at the Hotel D’Angleterre.’ She felt better. He could have all the fits he wanted when he got her expenses chits. When the job was done and he was using her success to brown-nose with the Director he would have to OK them, even if she gave them to him by stuffing them up his arse.
On the ground floor she called in to the duty officer and collected the suitcase she’d left there when she arrived. She had come straight back to report when she got in from Hamburg so the same case would have to do for the Copenhagen trip. She told the duty officer to order a taxi and book her business class on the next flight to Copenhagen out of Heathrow or City, then book her a suite at the Hotel D’Angleterre.
In the taxi she turned her mind to the job in hand. It wasn’t killing Costello she needed to think about, it was killing Bronski. Getting a Soviet-trained thug to walk on to a bullet wasn’t going to be so easy. The trick would be making sure he didn’t see it coming, which was going to take a bit of working out. The taxi moved quickly through the pale dawn of the early-morning streets. Her mind slipped back to the present.
And the most expensive meal I can find in Departures. With champagne. She’d make the sod wish he’d given her time for a quick bang with Sam and a shower before he shoved her off to Denmark. That shag and shower were going to cost him so much it would give him apoplexy and she hoped to God it bloody well killed him.
ELEVEN
When Charlie got home from the airport Elspeth was sitting in the living room on the settee quietly crying. She had a damp handkerchief in her hands. She didn’t look up at him when he came in. He sat beside her and
put his arm round her shoulders. She still didn’t look at him - she wiped her eyes with her damp handkerchief and he knew she was still crying. Shit. He tried to make his mind form the words he needed, but his mind wouldn’t, or couldn’t, help him. He did the best he could.
‘I’m sorry.’
It wasn’t much but it got her head up. She didn’t look at him but at least she spoke.
‘I was worried, Charlie. In the afternoon Fr Mundt came to see me with some silly story about you going to Hamburg to see a German publisher. It didn’t make any sense.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘No, Mr Costello was with him.’
‘Did you say anything to either of them?’
Now she looked at him. It wasn’t the look of a woman who trusted him.
‘No. What could I say? There’s no German publisher.’
‘No, there’s no German publisher. It was just something to tell Fr Mundt, it was the only way I could think of to try and let you know I had gone to Hamburg. It was the best I could do at short notice but he accepted it. He came and told you where I was.’
Elspeth looked at the handkerchief in her hands. She was trying to believe, God how she was trying.
‘I wanted to talk to you, to find out what was going on. I tried to phone you as soon as they had gone but your mobile was switched off. You never switch your mobile off.’
Charlie knew where he was now. She had been left on her own too long and that had started her thinking. The fear was taking over again and that wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t mind her scared but he didn’t want her terrified. Scared made her rely on him and stopped any risk of independent thought. But too much fear would make her irrational, she might do or say anything. He had switched off his mobile for the very simple reason that he didn’t want Elspeth talking to him, going on about ‘where was he’ and ‘what was going on?’. But he could hardly tell her that now.
‘I’m sorry, Elspeth. What time did you phone?’
‘I don’t know, about three, maybe earlier.’
‘I would have been on the plane to Hamburg. That’s why my mobile was switched off. Look, darling, I’m sorry about what happened but in the morning I went to the American Embassy and I eventually managed to get through to someone connected with the Witness Programme. They told me there was an agent passing through Hamburg who could help but he would only be around for twenty-four hours. I had to take the opportunity while it was there. It was nothing short of a miracle that someone was so near just when I needed them. If I didn’t go to Hamburg it meant waiting, maybe for a couple of weeks, or having to go over to the States. What could I do? It was too good a chance to pass up.’
He waited. She was trying to believe him. ‘I wanted to do what was best for you, best for us. I don’t want you worried more than you have to be about this thing. Trust me, darling, just trust me and soon it will all be over and we can go back to being a boring old couple who write cookery books, live by the seaside, love each other very much and just want to live long quiet lives minding their own business.’
Elspeth turned to him and gave a weak smile. She was trying, but he could see it wasn’t easy, though the charm was helping. She dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief.
‘I tried to phone you again when they told me I could leave.’
‘What time was that?’
‘They told me I could go home after the doctor had seen me. It was about ten thirty when I was actually told I could leave.’
‘And was that when you tried my mobile?’ She nodded. ‘It was just bad timing, darling, that’s all.’
‘Bad timing?’
‘I was on the plane again, coming home.’ This time it was true. He smiled his encouraging smile. ‘Never mind, we’re together and home now, and we’re not on our own any more. Now we have help.’
He saw her whole face brighten up.
‘The person you saw said they could help?’
‘Yes, they can help. He said they would get a couple of FBI agents here in about a week. They’ll find out who’s behind this and then it will all be over.’
‘Oh, Charlie, I hope so, I don’t think I can stand much more.’ Charlie tightened his arm round her shoulders into a hug. She smiled again. ‘What will they do when they find whoever it is?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m happy to let them handle it. They’re the trained guys, they’ll do whatever they think is necessary.’
She was coming round. It had been a lousy story but it had worked. She wanted to believe him and she wanted to trust him and that was more than half the battle.
‘So what do we do until they come?’
‘You go and stay with Hugh.’
‘With Father?’
‘Yes, he’d love to see you and you’d love to see him. You’ve not seen him since we left the UK.’
‘But ...’
‘But what?’
‘Well, Daddy is funny in some ways, you know he is, and ...’
‘Your father is a bigoted, narrow-minded old bastard and when he dies I’ll be happy to dance a polka on his grave. But until then he’s still Daddy and you’re not the one he can’t stand. That’s always been me, remember?’ She smiled again and Charlie could see that now it was genuine. He kept going on the same track. ‘You’re the one he loves and lights candles for because you married a newly converted American with no family worth spit and he’s a high-class Catholic snob whose family goes back to God knows when.’
‘William the Conqueror, he says.’ He had almost got a laugh. That was good. But the laugh didn’t last. ‘What will you do? I don’t think I could go to Daddy while you stayed here. What if something happened before the FBI men got here?’
Charlie knew he had a window of opportunity so he went for it.
‘Listen, Elspeth. The man I met in Hamburg told me to get away and lie low until the agents get here and do what they have to do. He told me I was to go alone, that if we go together we’d be too easy to follow. We have to split up, dear. The agent said that it’s the only safe way. I’m the one whoever it is out there will try to follow, so I have to move quickly and I have to move by myself, and I want to be absolutely sure that when I do you’re somewhere safe. And you couldn’t be safer than spending a couple of weeks with Hugh.’
He waited. It had been a good pitch made at the right time and she was thinking about it. God knows why she wanted to see Hugh. The old bastard had kept her under his mad Catholic thumb until Charlie had woken her with a kiss and a few other things. But Charlie knew that seeing Hugh wasn’t what would make her drop. She might want to see her father, but getting this thing finished was what she wanted most. She wanted things back to normal, she wanted to do whatever would end the nightmare. If he offered her that, then she was almost there. Charlie waited. Sometimes silence was the best persuader.
‘When would I go?’
Charlie gave a mental sigh of relief. Done.
‘Phone Hugh today and go tomorrow, early. I can’t leave until you’re gone and I need to be on the move.’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I have an old Air Force buddy who was stationed in Germany for a long time. He married a local girl and retired there. I’ll arrange to go to him. It’ll be perfectly safe and it’s not far to travel. I’ll go to morning Mass then go to the station and get a direct train to Hamburg. I’ll just slip away. I’ll buy the ticket online and get on the train at the last minute. Even if I’m being watched I should be away before anyone can get after me.’
‘Did the agent you saw in Hamburg tell you what to do?’
‘No, I thought it up on the flight back. Going to Hamburg gave me the idea.’
He could see Elspeth had bought into it. Now she would be all right and, most importantly, out of his way, and he could forget about her. She got up.
‘I’ll phone Daddy right away.’ She stopped at the door. ‘Will you see to the ticket? After I’ve phoned I’ll pack and get everything ready.’ She paused. ‘Ca
n we go out to dinner tonight? It would be nice to do something normal and we’ll be apart for however long it takes. We haven’t been apart from each other for any real time since we were married.’
Charlie smiled. She was always shy about asking for sex, she always wrapped it up. It was never – do you fancy sex? It always had to look like something else. A night out and the sex tagged on when they got home as if it was an afterthought. He was different. When he wanted it he asked for it and, to be fair, he always got it. She wasn’t a passionate or experienced woman, she had never been good in bed, but she was always willing.
‘Of course, dinner somewhere quiet and romantic. We’ll be on honeymoon again. We’ll turn the clock back and forget everything else.’
He saw the look of happiness that came into her face. She loved it when he played the game and wrapped up his answer as she had wrapped up her question.
‘Thank you, darling. I’ll go and phone Daddy straight away.’
Charlie sat back. That was Elspeth sorted. Now he had to give some thought to what was coming. What a mess - and if the British weren’t careful, it could get messier. True, he was getting what he wanted, Costello killed. But he had no idea why, and that unsettled him. Certainly it wasn’t because they were worried about what might happen to him. So who was this Costello guy and how good was he? If it was something personal then he had probably faked himself into the placement, which meant he was on his own. That meant he made the bomb and planted it himself and that meant field operative experience. Whoever he was, he was good enough to be dangerous. The Brits would have surprise on their side, which was good, but they would have to get him first time. If they missed they’d lose him and he could come back any time. And if he came back it wouldn’t be to play games. It really would be – ‘bang, you’re dead’.
‘I wonder what I did to him to make him so mad at me?’
‘Who, dear?’
He looked up. Elspeth was in the doorway. He hadn’t realised that he had spoken out loud.