The Hit List

by Chris Ryan

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  acutely uncomfortable even standing somewhere like this, and while he'd begun to learn the laws of the Mayfair jungle, he was still capable of finding himself at a disadvantage.

  'Shall we do it?' asked Alexia, still smiling.

  For ninety minutes, without daring to consider the cost, he tried on a dark and gorgeous array of suits, jackets, shirts, ties, trousers and shoes. Sometimes Alexia nodded her approval, sometimes she stood birdlike and thoughtful, sometimes she made a note or added a pin to a trouser-leg, sometimes she shook her head dismissively.

  For Slater, the hour and a half was an education. His own clothes seemed cheap, shapeless and dowdy in comparison to this finery. Luxury was a ratchet. It only turned one way.

  'So what do you think?' Alexia asked him when the session was finally completed and he stood there surrounded by crisp, neatly aligned bags. His own, for once.

  'I'm lost for words,' he told her. 'What do you think?'

  She folded her arms. Gave him the full-beam smile. 'I think Mrs Litvinoff has . . . great taste. I'm glad we've been able to help.'

  Half an hour later, with several Prada bags added to his haul, he was sitting on a bench reading a newspaper and wondering about lunch. His hangover was no more than a memory now, and he had

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  to put the whole business of the inquiry out mind. There was nothing he could do to anything - it was all up to Lark. On Monday juld start worrying. For now he would think Grace.

  i checked his text messages. )KING GOOD? LOVE U.' shook his head admiringly. She was just too

  ley're very cute those things, aren't they? cially for love affairs.'

  jter turned his head. Behind the bench, vaguely in an old grey leather Luftwaffe flying-jacket, ; a grinning Andreas. At his side was a woman of at thirty in a long black coat. Where Andreas somehow actorish, like a terrorist glamorised if'TV, the woman looked entirely businesslike. Her were a pale sea-grey, her strong, neatly made res were devoid of any obvious make-up, and the ; blonde hair that fell to her collar was quietly but snsively styled.

  watched Slater in polite silence. There was no that they were a couple, you could sense that at a ice. They had to be colleagues. If he had to bet he >uld have said that she was the senior one of the two, he couldn't be sure of it. She radiated the cool irance that came with a privileged Home Counties bringing and expensive schooling, but then so did le of the most stupid people Slater had ever met. ' Turning off his phone, he pocketed it. 'Andreas,' he

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  said resignedly. 'Now just what is it that tells me this meeting isn't completely accidental?'

  Andreas van Rijn turned to the woman in the coat. 'This guy,' he told her apologetically, 'is just the most cynical. . .' He dropped his voice. 'Let me present Neil Slater, lately of Her Majesty's Special Air Service, more recently poodle-walker to ladies of a certain age.'

  'Hi,' she said, turning an amused smile on him. 'I'm Eve.'

  The accent -- suggesting first-floor flats in Kensington and weekends in the country - went with the coat. And the haircut.

  'Neil Slater. And you mustn't believe Andreas. I've yet to walk my first poodle.'

  'But obviously not doing too badly,' said Andreas, bending over the Prada bag. 'What's this? A wallet? And three belts? And . . .' he peered into some of the other bags, 'shoes, and a suit, and a ... Bloody hell, Neil, there must be thousands of pounds' worth of stuff here.'

  Slater shrugged. 'I have to look good. The clients expect it.'

  'You don't have to look this good. At least . . . you fox, Neil, you've been snaking one of Duckworth's clients!'

  Slater was a little embarrassed by Andreas's crudeness.

  'That's a rather unlovely metaphor, Andreas.' Eve turned her level, grey gaze on Slater. 'We were just thinking of getting a bite to eat. Will you join us?'

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  pfWhy not?' said Slater, amused at the directness of approach and impressed by the way she took reas's laddish remarks in her stride. le followed them up Bond Street to Stratford ce. 'We're going to the Oriental Club,' explained . 'I seem to remember you being a bit of a addict.'

  |;The club was old and quiet and smelt of furniture Paintings of colonial administrators and ivings of battle scenes hung from the walls, re you a member here?' Slater asked Andreas, as : hall porter removed his bags. It seemed unlikely, am,' Eve answered. Beneath the coat she was ring a darkly anonymous business suit. Neither she Andreas handed their briefcases to the porter. I'In the dining room, when they had placed their srs, the three of them sat for a moment in silence, tell me, Neil, how's it going?' Andreas asked (tentually. 'Do you think bodyguarding's going to be aur future?'

  'Not necessarily,' said Slater. 'But it'll do for now. ts got its down-sides, but the up-side is that I'm in large of my own life. If I don't want to do a job I can st walk away from it.' 'Did you read about the Karadjic snatch?' 'I did. Do you know who did it?' 'Some of the guys from A Squadron. Ray Mortimer ed the team, apparently. The boss is over the moon was a real result. And I'll tell you this for nothing.' !e levelled his gaze at Slater. 'There certainly aren't

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  going to be any prosecutions on behalf of those Serbs they wasted. Cheers!'

  Thoughtfully, Slater raised the glass of Kingfisher lager the waiter had placed in front of him. Eve, he saw, was drinking mineral water.

  'So how do you know Andreas?' he asked her, although by now he was certain what the answer would be.

  'We work together,' she answered, her expression neutral.

  'I see.' She was the watcher, Slater realised, and Andreas was the talker. What would the deal be this time? he wondered. What were they offering?

  They waited in slightly awkward silence as their curries were laid out on the hot-plate at the table's centre. When the waiter had finally withdrawn Andreas lifted his fork and examined the insignia stamped into the heavy silver.

  'Neil, vis-a-vis that school stuff, you're in trouble,' he said quietly. 'I spoke to Lark last night and his words were that there was only so far his department could stick its neck out for a civilian. Now this doesn't mean that everyone doesn't want the whole thing to go away - everyone does, and the Saudis in particular. They're supposed to be the Islamic state we can do business with, not some bunch of whacko trigger-happy fundamentalists. So they'll be throwing plenty of time and money at the thing. But the bottom line is that the Firm protects its own. Without some commitment on your part, they can't promise to go the distance for you. Given the way

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  press works these days, it's just too risky.' !�see,' said Slater. He was quietly furious. Who the ; did these people think they were -- following him it and, for all he knew, intercepting his phone calls Did they know about Grace? They could hardly

  Mressionless, he turned to Eve. 'So which is the ten jalfrezi?'

  jr five minutes they busied themselves with their The other club-members and their visitors ed to be male, blazer-wearing and of a certain age. rcouple of Gurkha Rifles ties were in evidence. A irnalist of either sex would have been very visible eed.

  "Is this one of your department's places?' Slater asked sdreas.

  jf,*No, it's more one of Eve's places.' I'Not a very feminine establishment,' Slater

  ared.

  tfShe turned amused grey eyes on him. 'I'm not your reotypical girly girl, Mr Slater. More pilau rice?'

  icn they had finished their meal Eve asked for

  fee to be brought to them in the reading room.

  lere, she selected a table some distance from the ?lace and from the other club members. Andreas

  iered a glass of Cognac.

  'So tell me,' Slater asked her wanly as he stirred his affee, 'what exactly do you and your department lean by commitment?'

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r />   'Basically that we'd like you to join the department.'

  'Why? There must be scores of ex-Regiment blokes like me doing the rounds. And who are you people, anyway?'

  'In answer to your first question let's just say for the moment that you come highly recommended. As to who we are, well. . .' She thought for a moment. 'How's your modern history?'

  'Uneven,' admitted Slater.

  She smiled. 'OK. Basically we're a department of MI6, based at Vauxhall Cross. Our official title is the Operational Research Cadre, but we're usually just known as the Cad^fe. Like all such departments we've had several identity crises over the years. We started life during the Second World War as a subsection of the escape and evasion unit known as MI9, whose role was to set up ratlines for agents and POWs in occupied Europe.'

  Slater nodded. He'd been introduced to a couple of wartime agents at the Special Forces Club behind Harrods. They'd been watchful, belligerent men, he remembered, unsoftened by the passing of the years.

  'When the war ended,' Eve continued, 'the unit's infrastructure remained in place but its role changed. Until the early fifties its principal activity was the tracing and processing of former Nazis. And then, at the time of the Korean War, with the Cadre reduced to a single office at SIS headquarters, a decision was taken to run a major network of covert operatives in South East Asia. So new faces, new money, and a new role.'

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  forking alongside the CIA and the US Special Slater hazarded. 'The Vientiane connection?' at sort of thing. Those were the Cadre's Dark I guess. You hardly ever meet anyone from that ; most of them just kind of, I don't know, vanished. ithe jungle, I suppose.'

  ange days!' said Andreas, swirling his Cognac in loon glass.

  id now?' asked Slater.

  Jow the Cadre is an autonomous, fully-funded rch unit within Six.' Lesearch?'

  re shrugged. 'It's as good a name for what we do ptything. Basically we're problem-solvers. People departments, other services - come to us with ;ry intractable problems. And we solve them.' I'm not sure that I like the kind of problem-solving ['re talking about,' said Slater. 'I'm sure we ildn't be having this conversation if you hadn't your homework, so I assume you've seen my vice record.' Bve nodded.

  jTThen you know about the circumstances founding my leaving the army?' She nodded again.

  'Then you'll know that I don't do that sort of work more. I don't like it. And I don't need the itmares.'

  I'Andreas leant forward. 'Neil, like you said - and like : both know - there are scores of ex-Regiment guys

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  like us doing the rounds. But most of them left the Army for a damn good reason - they were burnt out, they'd screwed up, they'd lost their nerve. That or they were so overwound that they wanted to put a bullet through everyone who so much as looked at them. But you're not in that boat. You had a bad time, you got lost in the old Darklands for a while, but you pulled through. You must have pulled through to have done that stuff af^fHe^ school. And for all that line you fed me in the New Year about getting shot of the system, I could tell straight away that you hadn't really changed. Not deep down. Deep down you were the same old green-eyed boy I used to know in B Squadron.'

  'I'm not sure that I am that person any more, Andreas.' Slater drained his coffee. 'I'm really not.'

  Eve leaned forward. 'Look,' she said. 'Can I make a suggestion? Why doesn't Andreas drive all your shopping home for you? And why don't you come back to Vauxhall Cross with me? Just for an hour. There's something I want to show you.'

  If Andreas was irritated at being relegated to the role of bag-man he didn't show it, merely leant back in his armchair with the remains of his Cognac.

  For several moments Slater avoided Eve's gaze. The fact that he was very obviously being flattered didn't detract from the fact that the department's offer had real temptations -- the most immediate of which was the chance to stop agonising about the outcome of the Bolingbroke's inquiry. And he'd never been inside the

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  16 headquarters. He felt a crawl of curiosity.

  'No strings?'

  She shook her head. 'No strings whatsoever.' i Slater felt in his pocket for his keys. There was jthing revealing or incriminating at the flat.

  'I doubt I need to give you the address,' he said drily. j Eve and Andreas smiled.

  ic MI6 building towered over Albert Embankment the Thames with a kind of colossal arrogance.

  Jere we are, it said, in plain sight. Make of us what

  ju will.

  For all its visibility, and for all the supposed new enness and accountability demanded of the security wees, Slater knew that the building housed one of

  |ie least transparent organisations in the world. The

  ablic were given the impression of inside knowledge the same way that audiences were let into a

  agician's act -- for no other purpose than to distract

  jem from the main order of business. Even the

  indows were opaque.

  'Welcome to Ceausescu Towers!' Eve said drily, and ter followed her through the tall glass doors into the ium, where he filled in a security form and was ided a visitor's pass to clip to the lapel of his jacket. The lift door opened with a sigh on to a bare air

  Dnditioned corridor with small, high-set, triple zed windows. At the far end was a door marked S>RC (9). Swiping a card and punching a code into the

  eypad, Eve gestured that Slater precede her into a

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  small, open-plan office containing several computer terminals. At one of these a man in heavy black spectacles was listening to a head-set and making notes. At another a woman with a spiky punk hairdo was scrolling through aerial photographs. Each raised a hand in silent greeting as the pair entered.

  'Has anything come in for me?' Eve asked, hanging her coat on a stand by the door.

  The spike-haired woman nodded. 'Couple of things. Nothing urgent. And I've got those pictures you asked for.' She handed Eve a black envelope.

  'Thanks.' Eve turned to Slater. 'Let's go into the briefing room.'

  The room was windowless and spotlit. Haifa dozen chairs stood at a rectangular mahogany table.

  'Have a look at these.'

  She took two colour photographs from the black packet. One showed a clean-shaven young man in a sheepskin jerkin and military fatigues, the other was a blurred portrait of a lightly bearded figure in a Mujahidin cap.

  'You may or may not recognise these men - they're the ones who tried to kidnap Masoud al-Jubrin. The one on the left is All Akbar Dilshah, and this one is Riza Talibi. They were council members of the Hizb al Makhfi, a Saudi-based terror group which has carried out actions in several countries; most recently, of course, in the UK. Six has been watching these men for some time now. They were both trained at camps in the Dasht-i Lut desert in Iran, and both spent several years

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  alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. There's ipn Algerian connection. These were not amateurs.' (.was pretty sure they weren't,' said Slater. j'm sure. But just in case you've got the slightest ; about what you did to them, I'd like you to look je other pictures. They show the specific acts of ence for which these men and their group were >nsible.'

  ;r went through the pile. It was as bad as ig he'd ever seen. The first picture showed a ig arcade in which a bomb had exploded, were several corpses, some of them barely isable as having ever been human. Other s, maimed but not yet dead, scrabbled in agony st the blood and the glass. The second jgraph showed a line of blank-eyed teenage girls red up against the dusty mud wall of a building. jjir throats had been cut from ear to ear and their were sheeted with blood.

  girls went outside the house without a veil,' I Eve.

  iter nodded and continued through the pile. An couple lay face down and naked at a roadside; s clear they had been whipped to death. There anothe
r bomb-scene: a screaming woman tiing a dead child, a young man staring edulously at the mess of flesh, bone and denim that once been his legs. The final photograph was of a ig woman lying on a table, her head severed from body.

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  'That was Riza's sister,' said Eve, her grey eyes expressionless. 'He killed her when a rumour started that she'd been seeing a Christian male nurse attached to one of the hospitals.'

  Wearily, Slater replaced the photographs in the packet. He said nothing.

  'Sometimes people just have to be stopped^-said Eve. 'Their actions amount to a declaration of war, and the only rules you can apply to them are the rules of war. But I hardly need to tell you that, do I?'

  'No,' said Slater. 'You don't need to tell me that.'

  She got to her feet. 'Come with me.'

  He followed her from the room and into a side office whose floor-to-ceiling windows afforded a dizzying view towards the north-west. Like those outside in the corridor, the windows were triple glazed and treated against laser penetration and radio frequency flooding. Far below them, its steely surface galvanised by an erratic spring wind, was the Thames. Beyond the river, their grey mass softened and illuminated in the sunshine, were the towers of Westminster, Belgravia and Whitehall. Beyond these, fainter, St James's Park, Constitution Hill and Buckingham Palace.

  'There's a place for you here if you want it, Neil,' Eve said quietly. 'What more can I say? The work's hard, the company's good, the money's crap to middling and there's a not bad canteen.'

  He felt his phone vibrate against his hip. 'Excuse me,' he said apologetically, and glanced downwards.

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  'FREE TONIGHT? RING ASAP.' He smiled to elf, and flicked off the display.

  d news?' H think so.'

  I'JEve ran her fingers through her blunt-cut fair hair, going to give you a number,' she said. 'Ring it if want to get hold of me. Any time, day or night, [? Any time.' He took the card.

  jm Vauxhall to Green Park took five minutes on the

  :toria Line.

  'Neil,' Grace said when she saw him. 'You're not Rearing a single--'