He turned away from her. She had sat primly in front of him, now stood and ducked her head, stole a final glance at the satellite image of a building with the roof blown clear, and a montage of photographs of funerals – all poorly attended – in a cemetery crowded with tall memorials. She thought she understood him and the loneliness he carried in his knapsack, and went out of the suite. His regular staff, all half her age and half Boot’s, barely noticed her. She walked briskly to the elevator that would take her back to her own bunker where she minded the phones and the screens, and would wait, and might take time to admire the picture she had purchased.
The lights had flashed again. Daff had reacted. Boot watched her keenly. The surveillance boy was out of his car and pointed past Boot and past the bastion wall and across the river. Boot saw what they saw. The light had dropped but where the man pointed was a mess of gaudy lights that lit up the dank mist over the water. She came back to him, pulled a face.
‘Spit it.’
‘Doubt you’ll enjoy it, but it’s not Merc. No sight or sound of him. The others . . .’
‘Try me.’
‘Here goes. The local net for the militia across there is giving us this. One unidentified male shot dead in the woods east of the town. Another unidentified male believed drowned in the river upstream, had stolen an inflatable and was trying to drift across. They fired on his craft, sank it.’
‘Does it get worse?’
‘In bucketfuls. That building there, all lit up and waiting for a party is where a third male – so far unidentified – is playing roulette. It is suicidal . . . I read it somewhere on the file, an addiction to gambling. Kristjan. He will play, we assume, until his money is finished. He is soaked, filthy, exhausted, and he is drunk, pretty much broken up. There is an FSB Major in charge and he has the building staked and presumably is waiting until the show becomes boring, then picks him up.’
‘I suppose we asked too much.’
Daff said, ‘They’re what was available. Which is getting us nowhere that we want to be. We are – were – close, Boot, to a triumph if . . .’
‘Yes, if, always that bloody if. Always.’
Boot thought himself within reach of touching it, success, and close enough for failure to grab him by the throat. The great Duke had known of the tiny gap between the two. Often, when he was there, on his stool or of a summer’s evening sitting under a tree and in the shade of the day’s last sunshine, he had spoken aloud the quote, Believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won. When it was over, he would go back to London and have the Maid take down his dictation of the events as best he knew them, and he would be, fast as his scrawny legs could take him, off to the train terminal and return there and find some solace on that field. When it was over.
He was a big man and he paced. Not hard for Kat to see him.
The light was falling and the low cloud blocked the last of any sunshine; he smoked incessantly. She saw small eyes and big lips behind the slashes in the balaclava. The last time that he had barked out a message on his mobile phone then snapped off the connection, he had sworn with crude filth. Easy to see him and the glow of his cigarette marked him as he paced, like a bear in a zoo. Harder to see the one who called himself Merc – who had loved her. Kat went closer She had slipped off her gloves and used cold, narrow-boned fingers to ease apart fronds of crisp frozen grass and brambles that would have caught at her coat or snagged her face. He was face down. His breath came back off the mud, made little clouds. His arms were fastened behind him. And closer, a cigarette was chucked away and burned its last.
She would have said she was too talented, too exceptional, to resort to anything as vulgar as violence, would have said it before she had seen the roof lifted high off the building, would have said it before she had seen this boy, her lover, helpless. She could make out the shape of the board and beyond it was the river, almost in spate and high, and the wind clipped. And she went closer, took the greater risk.
Another try by Pyotr. Another failure to connect. Another message left. Another oath.
Merc would be cursed. They would stand in an orderly line to have the chance to hurl shit at him, those who deigned to acknowledge in public that they had ever had dealings with him. The cold was in his body and he’d been on the ground too long to keep the circulation moving in his legs, arms, through his body. Stiffness enveloped him and the warmth beneath his clothing, against his skin, had gone, but he felt too tired to shiver.
That night, when he did not come over, Daff would drive Boot, fast, to the airport and she’d have selected a passport for each of them from the stack available, and they’d be gone on the dawn flight to pretty much anywhere, and she’d say, ‘Sorry and all that, but I really thought he was made of better stuff. Let me down, and I shouted his praises too high. I can only repeat it, sorry and all that. Always such a bloody killer when you talk up a guy’s qualities too high.’ And Boot would be hunched in the seat beside her and would be planning a strategy of evasion for when he returned to the building on the south side of the Thames, his voice dry and devoid of humour and, with anger suppressed, he’d condemn. ‘Too often we ask too much of people who are really rather ordinary, but – sad thing – in this world you get what you pay for, and he came cheap. We should have bust the bank and done it with better men.’ Merc would not have disagreed if that had been the conclusion: too high, too cheap.
There might have been – all the hindsight joys – a chance to break away at the very start. The rifle had been aimed at him, but the man might have bottled it, could have frozen, at the moment it mattered. It took courage to tense up, then charge, leave your back exposed to close-range gunfire. He had not seen an opportunity that had convinced him, then had been clubbed, disabled with restraints The pile of cigarette ends grew. They said it was good to get some bonding going, not overdone, and he had looked up from the discarded fag end, each time it was offloaded, then had caught the militiaman’s eye, and had won neither a blink nor a fraction of a smile. If there had been an opportunity he had not realised it.
In the building on the Thames, senior men and high-ranked women would gather round a table for an inquest, and a brief would be agreed that covered their backs. A big man, good suit and decent cuff-links, a fine tie and well-groomed hair, would say, ‘We gave it a fair crack, and the man we sent would probably have been able to do the business and get clear had he not delayed. We had been told, very clearly, that “passengers” would not be tolerated on the run for home. They should have been down that road from the moment the asset walked into the building. He had a good background, the individual we sent, but fell short and the consequences are grievous. With what’s coming to him, he’ll have no sympathy from me, and less than none if he spills all he knows to his interrogators. The blame is there, not with us.’ And there would be a drumbeat of agreement.
He thought the militiaman grew steadily more angered that his call was not picked up. Had his hands been free, Merc did not think he’d the strength left to run; a volley of assault rifle shots would come at him. The despair was justified. The procedure was predictable. When the cavalry came, he would be marched to a vehicle, tossed into the back, kicked enough to humour his captors, and driven to the nearest garrison camp. He would be stripped bare in a cell, left with a rug across his shoulders, no other heat, and he would hear phone calls and radio messages shouted from Control. They would not question him at that time but would wait for the big cats to show. And in the queue now would be the Station Chief from Moscow, briefed on a secure line, and he’d be saying, ‘Not much I can do, sunshine. Tell you the truth, if I had been inside the loop on this ludicrous manoeuvre, I would have hit it on the head with a lump hammer. The concept was doomed to fail, and that you sent this incompetent is beyond belief. Don’t expect me to get involved.’ They would drive him to St Petersburg, over the bridge where he had crashed the block, past the supermarket where he had met the girl and loitered too long. Down a stree
t beside an industrial and housing complex with a building short of a roof. Into the centre and down a slipway to an underground garage with access to the cell corridor. There it would have gotten unpleasant.
Unable to shift the restraints on his wrists. Heard his stomach growl. Wondered how much longer he would last before wetting himself. Sometimes, above the river roar, was the faint sound of a lorry’s klaxon or a car’s horn, and once there was a gust of a sharper wind on which was carried the roar of a motorcycle. The man had tried his phone again and had snapped another message for the recording, but had the patience of a hunter, for whom time was not important, only the result.
He would appear in court. A junior from the embassy consular staff would be allowed to meet him in the cells before they brought him into the cage. He’d be wearing fatigues, not so different from the gear given out by the ‘bad boys’ for the next in line for a decapitation. It would likely be a young woman, a severe black suit, and she’d say under her breath but expecting them to have microphones that could pick up dust falling, ‘The trouble is, Mr Hawkins, we don’t really know who you are, why you were in the situation in which you find yourself. No office in Whitehall is claiming you, and the suggestion remains that you are a freelance operative and therefore without governmental protection. I do have to say that the opinion in my office is that the whole mission, whoever financed it, was cack-handed in the extreme . . . That’s not a personal opinion, but the gist of the telegrams I’ve seen. The less you say, of course, the better: there will be a day when government looks to weigh in on your side but for reasons of humanity, not obligation. I was asked to emphasise that point. Keep your chin up if you can, and good luck.’ If he was lumped with the boys he’d not recognise them, and if they walked the girl in front of him he’d ignore her.
News of his capture would reach Erbil. Always did, bad news. The opportunity to chew on it would not be until the evening and a beer in the bar of the hotel where they lodged. Brad would say the most, and Rob would nod agreement. ‘You’d have thought he’d have had more sense than get involved in something like that. Obviously concocted by an arsehole who’s never been away from a desk. “Oh, yes, Merc, my old darling, just take yourself up to St Petersburg, blow a building up, waste a few kids, give a hack-fest a headache, no problem. Always remember, we’re right behind you, Merc, and our word is our bond, and we’ve done all the risk assessments and it looks good.” God, how did he fall for that one . . . Tell you what. How did we fall for it? Should have had him nailed down to the floor of his room, should not have let him go on that saucy little plane they sent for him. A good boy but not bright enough. He’ll grow old there. They’ll throw the bloody key away.’ And they’d have another beer, and another, and pretty soon, Merc would be history.
He saw movement. It was near to where the last spent cigarette had been flicked, at the edge of the clear space. Could have been a leaf dislodged by the wind and fluttering down, could have
been where a low branch offloaded snow or sleet, could have been where a rat scurried away from the water line. He saw movement, then nothing, then saw it again and knew what he saw.
From the angle where he lay, Merc saw only a part of her face, close to the ground. He looked away, not daring to attract attention to her.
He started to think about what to do and the wind was bitter on his face and the pain was sharp in his wrists, and his stomach ached and the back of his head was bad where he had been clubbed. Thinking did not come easy, but he had seen her and she had come for him.
Chapter 19
His mind had cleared. He looked anywhere but at her. Merc saw the sky and the leaden cloud ceiling, and the branches of leaf-stripped trees, and saw the movement of the reeds where the wind tickled their tips, and the great highway of the river, and the occasional lights on the far side.
His mind ditched the images of the trench on 425, and the shiny gloss of the bodywork of a new Mercedes, and the austere interior of the bank in Stoke Poges, and the yard behind the terraced house where the chaffinches and sparrows fed, and a girl on a gurney who needed life-saving surgery. All erased. Boot was forgotten, and Daff. Gone were Rob and Brad. Out of mind were three men, with an unfulfilled dream, who had come for a ride and had gone their own way. He thought of himself and thought of the girl, and of the big man who paced around him, smoking cigarettes, and keeping the rifle barrel aimed at him.
He looked for a pattern. How many paces forward, and how many pauses to cock a head and listen for the wind and the heave of the water going past. How long he took to make each circuit around Merc . . . No rhythm to it. If the concentration of the man had lapsed then there could have been opportunity for Merc to move, as clumsy as a beached seal, and hack at him with his legs, flail below the knee, and hope . . . Hope that at such a moment, and without coordination, Kat would lunge towards him and kick him or bite him or scratch him, any damn thing. The militiaman would sometimes take twenty paces and sometimes ten, and sometimes would move only a couple before stopping in his tracks . . .
An old dodge, a driver on the Kabul to Jalalabad run had voiced. The driver had smacked a fist into the palm of his hand and had mouthed what was obvious to all of them who did that run: ‘I mean, like, anything is better, you know, than those fuckers getting their hands on you. Might just try it if they were all around, and had to divert them, make them switch attention.’ They’d all talked, even Merc, about the final scenario.
Merc was not certain how to do it . . . He wanted to give the girl the chance to get closer and have an opportunity to intervene. Merc did not know how, or with what weapon, did not know even if she would. He had no better chance than to try it. The militiaman was between himself and where he had last seen Kat. He thought she was ten yards from him, and thought the man was four yards away, not more.
He twisted on to his back. Went rigid. Opened his eyes as wide as the frost caking them allowed, let the whites show. Tried to get some spittle in his dried mouth. Rolled and convulsed, and moaned like a hurt animal. The weapon was aimed at him, and the eyes beaded on him from the slits in the balaclava, and he stopped. Merc lay back, play-acted exhaustion.
The man stood taut and gazed down on him. Sympathy? Merc doubted it. No more charity would be shown him than to a deer that needed a final blow to the skull or a slit across the throat to end pain and shock, no more than a bullock was given at the entrance to an abbatoir. But he had gained attention, and it seemed important. When the militiaman resumed his pacing, Merc looked for the girl and did not see her. He was treated with greater suspicion, as if the man was uncertain whether a trick was being played on him. On his back, Merc simulated fierce panting. He could not see her.
She might have used the distraction as an opportunity to ease herself back. Did she have a loyalty to him? Might have . . . And Merc, did he have a loyalty to her? Might have . . . Like two kids in a station waiting-room, late evening, alone and not knowing whether to talk and share, whether to ignore and stay quiet. Trust? Not sure he could have coughed up a reason why she’d trust him. She had found him, had witnessed the failure. Wondered if she had turned away from him . . . started the long walk to Kingisepp for a bus going up the highway, east, to St Petersburg. Merc quit the panting, lay still.
The militiaman tried his phone again, failed and spat. Then held the rifle one-handed and gouged into a pocket. A quarter of a chocolate bar emerged in his glove. No hesitation, no glance at his prisoner; the wrapping was unpeeled and dropped, and the chocolate was wolfed down. The chocolate was not used to taunt him. ‘Just doing my job, mate, nothing personal and all that.’ The chocolate was finished, and the wrapping was bright on the ground, and the man kicked it away and it lifted sluggishly in the wind and landed near to where Merc had seen the girl’s face. Did not see it now, had no sight of her. The militiaman paced again. Merc recognised his patience. He would have the signal in a quarter of an hour or half an hour or an hour. Merc assumed the calls were to one man in particular, or one control centre,
and that a moment of raw triumph awaited the militiaman when his success was recognised.
The wind had come on harder and the clouds had begun to break and a milky lance of moonlight edged down on him. Merc realised how much he had been lifted when he had seen the girl and how far he had gone down now that he had lost her. Despair was contagious, so hard to fight.
No money left, all the chips gone. The croupier girl, bored and with her nose curled in disgust at the smell and the mess he left, turned away from Kristjan. He lifted his glass, held it above his mouth, and the smallest drip materialised. He would barely have tasted it. It took a big effort but he came off the stool and straightened and looked around him and started to walk. Not a bad stride, took a reasonably straight line across the thick carpet. He did not go for the big glass doors beyond which the jeeps were parked, but headed instead for the toilet sign. Those who watched him, big men, would have grinned and reckoned it appropriate that a guy going to the cells would not want to piss himself before he reached them, and been so wrong. The door slammed shut behind him.
A Damned Serious Business Page 46