by Mark Dawson
“It’s big,” he said. “Six thousand square feet with the outbuildings. The Land Registry records the sale to the Ryans for just over one and a half million pounds.”
“Business must have been brisk,” Pope said.
Ziggy tapped a finger against the screen. “Three floors, eight bedrooms, three large reception spaces and a cellar. Multiple ways inside. You’ve got doors in through the annex sitting room, kitchen, utility room and study. That’s on top of the front door that opens into the hall.”
“There,” Milton said, turning to Pope and Conway and then resting his finger on the screen. An annex had been built off the eastern wall of the house. There was a double garage, then a bedroom and then a sitting room. “One of us goes in there.”
“I’ll take it,” Conway said.
Milton nodded. “Five—go in through the front door here. Clear the drawing room and the sitting room.”
Pope nodded his agreement.
“And I’ll go in through the study door here and work up into the kitchen. We clear the ground floor, meet in the hall and then take the stairs up. Have we seen any movement inside?”
“Nothing,” Ziggy said. “A couple of lights on, but that’s it.”
Milton paused to give them a moment to suggest a change to the plan, but both Pope and Conway were silent.
He turned back to Ziggy. “What about security?”
“I’ve found an agreement with a firm in Winchester. I got into their files and dug out the contract. The Ryans went for the full package—motion detectors inside the house and access alarms on the doors and windows. The alarm rings a monitoring service and also the local police station.”
“Can you do something about it?”
Ziggy looked almost insulted that the question needed to be asked. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll override it. Just say when.”
“Anything else we need to know?” Milton asked.
“Not from my perspective.”
“Do you have equipment for us?”
Ziggy reached up to the racking that had been installed on the partition that separated the driver’s compartment from the cabin and took down three radios and their accompanying holsters. The units were around five inches by three inches, slabs of metal that were worn beneath their arms. The radios had small control fobs with two buttons. One opened a channel to speak and the other broadcast a solid tone for when silence was required: rapid clicks for target moving, three clicks for yes, two for no. Ziggy gave one unit to Milton, one to Conway and one to Pope. Milton put on the holster, clipped the microphone to his collar and pressed the earpiece into his ear. Pope and Conway did the same.
“Put them on channel two,” Ziggy said. “Usual protocol. Comms check when you’re outside, please.”
“You’re monitoring signals?”
“Yes,” Ziggy said. “Calls and data going into or out of the house.”
“And the police frequency?”
“I’ll let you know if there’s any chatter.”
“Weapons?” Pope asked.
“Over there.”
There was a large canvas flight bag pushed up against the partition that divided the cabin from the front seats of the van. Pope stooped down to collect it, dumped it on a seat and unzipped it. He took out three UCIWs, the compact variant of the tried and tested Colt M-16. It was 22 inches from front to back and weighed less than six and a half pounds. Each weapon was equipped with a red dot sight on the front accessory rail and Surefire suppressors. Pope handed one to Milton and the second to Conway and took the third for himself. He reached into the bag again, collected six thirty-round standard M-16 magazines and handed them around.
Milton ejected the seated magazine and checked it with the two spares, pressing on the top rounds with his thumb to ensure that they were charged, then pulled back on the charging handle on the top of the upper receiver to ensure that there was a round in the chamber. He released the handle so that the bolt carrier group could travel all the way forward and hit the forward assist to ensure that the weapon was good to go. He slid the original mag back into the magwell, giving it a tap on the bottom so that it was engaged, and then pulled it down to check that it was properly seated. He put the spares in his pockets, one left and the other one right.
“Ready?” he said.
Pope stood, ducking his head against the low ceiling. “Ready.”
Conway nodded.
“Let’s go get them.”
32
Pope pulled the handle and slid the door back. All three of them jumped down. Milton closed the door and turned to the road and the property beyond. They crossed over to the pavement on the opposite side. There was no need to say anything else. They all knew what they had to do. The three of them were experienced operatives, well equipped and benefiting from the fact that the Russian agents inside the house should be oblivious to the danger that they were in.
Milton pointed to the left and held up two fingers. Pope and Conway nodded their acknowledgement, turned and jogged away in that direction. Milton waited until they were out of sight around the bend and then turned and made his way to the east, looking for a spot where he could scale the wall without being seen. It didn’t take long to find. There was a stretch of fence that had collapsed. A large tree had pushed through it, splintering the boards. The wall was lower here, too, and the gap was open apart from the bushes and small shrubs that were spilling out onto the pavement.
Milton’s radio crackled. “Group, Group,” Ziggy said. “This is WATCHER. Requesting comms check. Over.”
“WATCHER, WATCHER,” Milton said. “This is One, strength ten. Over.”
Pope’s voice came over the radio. “WATCHER, WATCHER. This is Five. Also strength ten. Over.”
“WATCHER, WATCHER. This is Ten. Strength ten. Over.”
“Group, Group,” Milton said. “Synchronise watches. I have twelve-fifty-seven in three… two… one… synchronise. Over.”
Conway and Pope both radioed back that they had the same time.
“Group, Group, I’m going into the garden now,” Milton said. “Radio when you are in position and ready to breach. Out.”
Milton walked past the opening in the fence, turned back and then dawdled in front of it, holding the compact machine gun to his side as he waited for the car he had heard approaching to carry on by. Headlights lit up the buildings on the other side of the road as the car hurried around the bend, its taillights disappearing as it went on its way. Milton took a breath, clambered onto the low wall and forced his body into the slender gap with a brick pier on one side and vegetation on the other. He found a crease between the branches and pushed through it as quietly as he could.
33
Nataliya opened the wardrobe all the way, unhooked the metal rail that held her dresses, and deposited it, and the clothes, on the floor behind her. She pressed her right hand against the edge of the rear panel, pushing it back enough so that she could slide the fingers of her left hand beneath it. She yanked, hard, and worked the false panel away so that she could get to the void behind it. She took out a bag full of banknotes in all denominations and two passports issued in the names of their emergency legends. She handed Mikhail one of the passports and he flicked through it to refresh his memory: he was to be Johan van Scorel and Nataliya would be his girlfriend, Francine Claesz. They were Dutch, from Rotterdam, and they had been in the United Kingdom for five years.
She and Beck descended the stairs to the ground floor. There was enough moonlight from outside for them to navigate around the island.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Beck asked her.
“I’m fine, Vovochka,” she said, using the diminutive of Vladimir, his real name. “A headache. Nothing more.”
“I would like you to see a doctor,” he said.
“And how am I going to do that?”
“When you get to France. I will arrange for someone to be there.”
“I’d rather just get back home. It’s been a long
time.”
Mikhail came back from the garage.
“The bags are loaded,” he said. “Are we good to go?”
“We are,” Beck said.
“Where are we going?” Mikhail asked.
“There’s an airfield at Popham. There’ll be a pilot with a light aircraft waiting for us.”
“And then?”
“France. Calais. We’ll drive to Charles de Gaulle and fly to Moscow via Luxembourg. Everything being well, we’ll be back in Yasenevo by this evening. Any issues with that?”
“None,” Mikhail said. “All good.”
“Let’s get going.”
Conway and Pope moved briskly. The streets were quiet, but that was both a blessing and a curse: on the one hand, there would be no one to witness them breaking into the property; on the other, any passing police patrol would immediately consider the two of them, out late in this kind of rich residential area, as suspicious. There was the small matter of the submachine guns, too; they both carried them held against their bodies on the side farthest from the road.
The road to the north of the property was The Paddock. It was marked ‘Private Road – Residents Only,’ but there was no one around to notice them as they jogged along it and followed the fence that marked the boundary of the target address. Tall leylandii had been planted to restrict the view over the fence, but one of the trees was sickly and had died back. Conway put her hands on the lip of the fence and, after taking a breath, she put her foot against Pope’s linked hands and allowed him to boost her up and over. She was in the garden, hidden from view by a line of shorter shrubs that had been planted in front of the leylandii. Conway crouched down low and scoped her immediate surroundings: she saw a large outbuilding and then, beyond that, a courtyard and the garage block. She looked up. The sky was black, and if the drone was up there, she couldn’t see or hear it.
Pope vaulted up now, his boots scraping against the panel until he was over the fence. He dropped down next to her.
She held up her thumb to indicate that the way ahead was clear. She waited another beat, listening intently, and then, hearing and seeing that nothing was out of the ordinary, she jogged across to the outbuilding. Pope followed. The garage was north of their position. The study, where Milton would breach, was one hundred yards to the east.
They exchanged looks. Pope held up his fist and then raised one finger, then a second, then a third.
They split, jogging carefully and quietly to their entry points. Conway had to pass through an open area, but she stayed in the undergrowth at the side of the garden, crouching down low. She reached the garage block. There were two large roller doors; she guessed that Ziggy would be able to hack them, but they would make a lot of noise as they opened. Instead, she followed the wall around until she found the door at the back of the structure that she had seen on the plan. It was uPVC, with a glass inset panel. She knelt down to examine it and saw a simple mortice lock.
Her earpiece buzzed and Milton’s whispered voice came over the channel. “Group, Group. This is One. Are you in position? Over.”
Conway pressed to speak. “This is Ten. In position.”
“This is Five. Also in position. Over.”
There was a pause. Milton was double-checking his strategic assessment.
“WATCHER, WATCHER. This is One. Report.”
“No activity visible,” Ziggy said. “The alarm is disengaged. I’m working on the cameras. Over.”
Conway felt the usual emptiness in her gut. Nerves. She didn’t mind. Nerves kept you sharp. On your toes. Comfort led to complacency, and, in their line of business, being complacent was a good way to get yourself killed.
“This is WATCHER. Cameras are offline. Clear to breach. Over.”
She took out her lock picks and knelt down at the door. The lock was old and corroded. It would be easy to force.
34
Nataliya went into the kitchen and was about to open the door to the annex when something caught her eye. There was a monitor on the counter, the screen split into six panels to show the feeds from the cameras that had been installed around the property. There were cameras up high on the corners of the house and all of them were equipped with infra-red so that they could be used at night. Nataliya paused and stared at the screen. A man was standing next to the outbuilding, his back pressed against the wall. The camera was too far away to offer useful detail, but the image was good enough to show that the man was cradling something in his hands.
“Mikhail,” Nataliya hissed. Her husband came across and watched the screen. The man dropped down low and, after looking around the corner of the outhouse, he set off toward the main house. The camera was fixed and the man passed beneath it and out of its field of vision.
And then, as they watched, the screen suddenly went black. All six cameras tripped out at the same time.
“Fuck,” Mikhail swore. “They cut the feed.”
Beck was biting the inside of his cheek.
“How many do you think?” she whispered.
“More than just him,” Mikhail hissed back.
“Do you have weapons?” Beck asked.
“Yes. In the garage.”
“Nothing else in the house?”
Nataliya reached over to the knife block and pulled out two knives: a long bread knife with a sharp point and a serrated edge and a chef’s knife. She gave the chef’s knife to Mikhail and kept the bread knife for herself.
“The car’s ready,” he said. “We need to go now, before they breach. We’ll need the guns.”
Mikhail clasped the chef’s knife, crossed the room and opened the door to the annex sitting room. The quickest way to the garage was through there, and he led the way. They passed through the sitting room and then the bedroom and approached the partition door that opened into the garage. Mikhail paused against the door, listening carefully, and, satisfied that there was no one on the other side, he opened it.
The garage was dark. There was a window in the opposite wall, but it was up close to the garden fence and only a little moonlight was able to filter through. They kept all their junk in here: cardboard boxes that they had still not unpacked after they had moved in, tins of paint, an old tumble dryer. The equipment for the pool had been fitted here, too, with a bulbous pump and a large boiler to clean and warm the water. There was a car in the middle of the space. It was a new Porsche Cayenne, boxy and powerful.
Nataliya went to a large wooden wardrobe that had been left in the corner of the garage. It was used to store tools and equipment for the garden. She opened the door, reached inside, laid her palm flat against the right-hand edge of the backing panel and pushed down. It was the same as the wardrobe in the bedroom: a false back. The panel squeaked as the loose edge rubbed up against the carcass of the wardrobe, moving back enough for the left-hand edge to come forward. She slipped her fingers into the newly opened gap and yanked the panel out, standing it on its side against the wall. The hidden space was ten inches deep and had been rigged up as an armoury. There was a selection of weaponry there: pistols, two stubby MAC-10s, a combat shotgun and an AR-15. She took one of the submachine guns.
“Shit,” Mikhail cursed.
“What is it?” Nataliya said.
“I left the passport on the kitchen counter,” he said, cursing for a second time.
“I’ll go back,” Nataliya said. “Start the car.”
“I’ll go,” Beck said. “You’re not well.”
“I’m fine,” she said sternly. “Stay here, Vincent. I’ll be quick.”
35
Milton had already picked the lock, and now he pushed down on the handle and stepped into the study. The room, like the rest of the house, was dark. There was a computer on a desk and the standby light cast just enough of a glow to show a collection of papers and a wireless keyboard beneath it. There was an armchair on one side of the room and a bookcase on the other. Milton recalled the layout of the house from the plans Ziggy had shown them: the study led into a downst
airs cloakroom with Jack and Jill doors that, in turn, opened into the hall. From there, Milton would clear the sitting room and then move into the kitchen. Pope was to the east, at the front door. He would already be inside and clearing the drawing room and sitting room. Conway would come in through the garage and clear the annex. They would meet in the kitchen and then take the stairs to clear the floors above.
Milton gripped the UCIW, swivelling the barrel across the room as he cleared it. It was empty.
He moved deeper into the house.
Conway was buzzing with adrenaline; she took another breath and rested her hand on the handle of the garage door. She pressed down and the door opened, swinging into the dark space beyond.
“This is Five. Drawing room is clear. Out.”
It was dark. Conway didn’t have a torch, and she wouldn’t have wanted to light one even if she did. She waited inside the doorway for her eyes to adjust, waiting as the shapes of the things around her started to clarify in the dim moonlight that came through the open door: a rack of shelves against the wall, cardboard boxes stacked in rows of two, a large SUV in the middle of the space.
“This is One. Study is clear. Out.”
She sensed movement before she saw it. She felt someone behind her and, as she stepped forward and started to turn, she saw something moving through the darkness. She moved just in time to see the dim light from outside catching on the blade of a knife that was swinging toward her. She blocked up with her right hand, catching the blade against her forearm, and felt the sharp edge bite through the sleeve of her shirt and into her flesh. Pain flashed up her arm, a jagged bolt of electricity that burned into her brain. The machine gun was in her hand and she tried to pull the trigger, but the impact had jostled her finger out of the trigger guard and, as she slid it through again, she felt a strong hand around her wrist, forcing the gun away and then up toward the ceiling. She managed to slide her finger back around the trigger and the gun fired, three loud reports that echoed around the confined space. A shower of dislodged plaster fell down onto her.