Decoy

by Simon Mockler

  “Right,” she said, already downstairs, pulling at the latch on the window. Don’t worry but climb out the window. Any other day of the week she’d have found it funny.

  Field Officer Michaels drove as close as he could to Amanda’s house, parked the car half on the road and half on the curb. Had to be quick. Disable the target, dump her on the back seat, cut her bike from the railings and shove it in the boot. He’d find a quiet road on the outskirts of town, smash her skull against the curb then drive over the bike. Leave as convincing an impression of an accident as he could manage. If the police smelt a hit and run they’d be less likely to suspect a murder.

  Amanda heard the key enter the lock, sensed the urgency in the tap of metal on wood as the chub refused to give way. She could see the door move backwards and forwards as she struggled to open the kitchen window. Damn thing was painted shut. She gave it a shove with her shoulder, half-expecting the pane of glass to fall out and shatter on the gravelled yard below. The hinges finally gave way, window swinging outwards. A rattle from the hallway, another key, this time turning the chub lock. She climbed onto the work surface as quickly as she could, pulled herself through the window and tumbled to the ground on the other side. The drop was further than she remembered, and her ankle twisted awkwardly as she landed. The sound of footsteps heading quickly upstairs inside the house. Amanda didn’t wait to find out what happened, just ran to the end of the garden, pulled herself over the wall and sprinted as fast as she could in the direction of her friend’s old Volkswagen Golf. Key in the lock, door open, ignition turned. The engine revved, it sounded loud in the deserted street. Still too early for the rush hour traffic that clogged the narrow Cambridge roads, the buses that veered unsettlingly close to the historic buildings.

  Her hand shook as she released the handbrake, car lurching forwards, wheels spinning. Drive, just drive, any direction as long as it gets you away from here, she thought.

  76

  Hotel Imperial, Kampala

  “We need to get going, Jack,” his father said, hitching the rucksack onto his back and checking the room one last time. “She’ll be ok. If they were searching her computer first it means she’s not a direct target. There’s breathing space.”

  Jack nodded but didn’t reply. He wasn’t convinced, and his stomach was tying itself in knots. He had to know she was ok, had to know she’d got away.

  They headed downstairs, no one in reception. His father peeled off a fifty-dollar bill from the wad in his pocket and shoved it into the ledger. Left the key on top. No point hanging around. Out into the street. the glare of the sun, colours bright, the bustle of the market. He flagged down a taxi. They climbed inside.

  “The phone,” he said quickly. “We should dump it. There might be a trace on it.” Jack’s mouth dropped. The fear he wouldn’t be able to contact Amanda writ large on his face. His dad checked his watch, shoved a bundle of notes in his direction.

  “There’s a stall across the street. Grab a new one. Quickly.” Jack opened the door, stepped out, and that’s when the bomb went off.

  Nick Clarke was taken aback by the strength of the blast, a long time since he’d been this close to an explosion. He hadn’t remembered the Russian-made bombs being quite so powerful. The car lifted and spun, then burst outwards in a blue-red ball of flame. It landed with a bone-crunching thud on the other side of the street.

  He cast his eye over the chaos. No one inside the car could have survived, they’d be in pieces. Crowds were gathering, moving in slow motion, the shock of the blast dulling their senses. A sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn’t forgotten that. The taxi driver was collateral damage. Sir Clive’s plan straight out of the rule book. Fit the cab with a remote device then pay a local driver to pick up your target. Chances are they wouldn’t suspect anything, just assume they’d hailed a cab that happened to be passing. Ruthless but effective. He stubbed out his cigarette, turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction. No one paid him the slightest attention.

  Jack could feel someone tugging at his arm, a blurred figure above him. The woman from the hotel. He raised his head, waved her away, heaved himself onto the pavement. Her mouth was moving but he couldn’t make out the words. Panic in the streets around him, people running, people bleeding, glass everywhere. He couldn’t hear, just muffled sounds, the high-pitched ringing in his ears blocking out everything else.

  The car was a wreck, metal torn and blackened. No sign of the driver. No sign of his father. He leant back against the wall, moving each of his fingers, they felt as if they belonged to someone else. Then his hands, massaging his wrists, stretching his arms, his legs. He had survived. His body was bruised but not broken.

  Slowly, carefully, he pulled himself to his feet. One foot in front of the other, a dizziness in his brain. He walked towards a cafe, pushing his way through the crowd. Voices growing louder. Checked his watch. Still ticking. Maybe the Omega was lucky after all. Lucky for him at least. He pushed through the café door, the place empty. A quick wash in the sink. Clean up the cuts and the blood that had matted his beard, check his face in the mirror. Bruises forming below each eye. Must have broken his nose. In his mind one thought, one need. Revenge. First Burundi. Spike van de Weye. Passport and ticket home. Then he’d deal with Sir Clive.

  77

  Amanda braked hard as she pulled into the service station. A family getting out of their car, stepping into her path. They looked at her angrily. She swerved to avoid them. Two hours driving, fingers clamped to the steering wheel. Deep breaths as the car came to a standstill. She wound down the window. The journey a blur, the cars she had passed, miles of road disappearing underneath the tyres. She grabbed the phone from the seat beside her, unconsciously checked her appearance in the rear view mirror, called Jack. Her hand was shaking now. Come on Jack, pick up, pick up the phone.

  Sir Clive flicked through the news channels, pausing as he came to the BBC world service. A street scene, messy, the wreckage of a car. He had the TV on mute but the headlines flashed along the bottom of the screen in a continuous stream. Breaking news: Car bomb explodes in Kampala, two British tourists and one local man dead. Al Qaeda suspected. More soon. The shot cut back to the newsreader behind her desk, serious face, interviewing a security expert with an equally serious face.

  He turned off the TV, amazing how quickly they could be on a story in this day and age. Someone was always there with a camera phone, keen to capture the disaster, post it online, gain significance by association with another man’s tragedy.

  Nick Clarke had already been in contact. The success of the operation confirmed. Textbook stuff. The man would now be in charge of overseeing the UK’s role in the investigation. Some things were beyond irony, Sir Clive thought as he flicked through the file on his desk. Amanda Marshall. He toyed with the idea of letting her go, calling off the search, then closed it decisively. The loose ends needed to be tied up. Too much at stake for him personally.

  Time to put an alert out on the car, and all credit cards in her name. He had field officer Michaels on standby. It was just a matter of time. She was only an amateur after all.

  78

  The sun dipped low in the African sky, transforming the dust plains into lakes of gold. In the distance, electric lights shimmered, the highway was carrying trucks laden with people and goods away from the capital city. The rumble of traffic. Jack took a sip of the beer Spike had placed in front of him.

  “Hell of a soldier, your pa.” he said, eying Jack carefully, taking in the beard, the lean frame. He wasn’t fooled by the boy’s composure, could sense the fierce anger behind his unnervingly still gaze. A ticking bomb if ever he saw one. Jack nodded. Didn’t reply.

  “Anyone else caught in the blast?”

  “Taxi driver, a couple of passersby might have been injured.” Spike nodded.

  “You ok? Want me to get a doctor? Get you checked out?”

  “N
o. I need to get home. Things to do. You managed to sort the tickets and passports?” Spike nodded.

  “Just need a photo.” He sighed, it was like sitting opposite Archie. The same stubborn, headstrong streak. He was worried for the boy. Worried he was out of his depth.

  “You know who did it?”

  “Yes.” Jack replied.

  “And you think you can take them? Even though they got your pa?” Silence. The possibility he might fail hadn’t even occurred to Jack. Only one thought since he dragged his weary body to the airstrip, climbed into the Cessna, flew the short distance to Burundi. Revenge. An unquenchable desire for revenge. Spike sensed his resolve. Knew there was no point in trying to reason with the boy.

  “Anyone who can help you back home?” Jack shook his head, then paused, felt in his jacket pocket. The business card. Monsieur Blanc’s P.O. box number.

  “Possibly.” He said, the memory of the fat Chinaman strangely reassuring.

  Spike wasn’t convinced. “Let me tell you something about your pa, kid,” he said, lighting a cigarette. If he couldn’t reason with the boy he could at least offer him some advice. “Archie was a hell of soldier. Terrible spy, but a hell of a soldier. You know the difference Jack? You know the difference between a soldier and a spy?” Jack shrugged, Spike took a deep drag on the cigarette.

  “A soldier is always two people. The one who fights, who kills. And the one who comes home, the one who looks after his wife, his kids. He leaves the soldier on the battle field, has to, you can’t bring him into your house.”

  He paused, spat thoughtfully on the floor. “Two lives but he lives them separately. Otherwise he’s fucked. A spook, now that’s a different creature altogether.” He leaned in close to Jack, placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “A spook lives two lives at the same time. Side by side. Has to. It’s his job. Takes a real cold fish to be a good spook. A real sneaky bastard. A spook never leaves the battlefield.” He relaxed back into his chair, looked Jack square in the eye. “The man who got your dad Jack, is a spook, a spook through and through.”

  Jack rubbed his hands over his eyes. His nose was beginning to sting. He wanted to use the phone.

  “What are you Jack? A spook or a solider? You want to bring down the people who did this you’re going to have to sleep with your eyes open. You won’t be off the battlefield. Not till the big man’s dead. Not till you’ve seen him buried and you’ve danced on his grave and checked his grimy little hands aren’t pushing apart the soil.”

  Jack nodded, eyes on the phone behind the bar, mind on Amanda. “Mind if I make a call?”

  79

  Amanda checked her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes. She’d been there since three in the afternoon. Felt terrible. A freezing night spent in the car then an early morning drive to London. At the back of her mind the constant fear that someone was watching her, ready to give chase.

  She’d dumped the car in the suburbs. A residential street near Mile End, headed to a greasy spoon round the corner and ordered a fry up. Enough change to keep herself in cups of tea until it was time to trek to central London. Jack had called her yesterday, told her to ditch the phone and the car and meet him in a public place. He was flying in later that afternoon. As long as he made it through customs.

  The tourists came and went beneath the garish flashing billboards, posing for photographs. Adverts that must have seemed the height of consumer sophistication when they first appeared, part of the bright lights of London, now tired and irritating.

  She’d reluctantly taken the camera on a couple of occasions, framed a picture of a smiling couple against the fountain before handing it back, a lump in her throat. Smile hiding the conflict inside of her, the hope Jack would be there to meet her, the fear something might have happened to him.

  Dusk came quickly, the air noticeably colder as the faint warmth offered by the low sun was swallowed up in darkness. The streets were busier now, smart-suited Londoners making their way to bars and restaurants, chatting loudly on mobiles phones, keen for the world to know the exciting plans they had for the night ahead.

  “Amanda,” a voice behind her. A hand on her shoulder. She turned into Jack’s embrace, gripping him tightly, fists clenching the material of his jacket. She strained her neck back, looking up at him. The beard still there, cheeks even more hollow than they’d looked after the clinical trial, eyes that blazed with a new intensity. An unwavering resolution, something she hadn’t seen before.

  He stroked her long blond hair, breathed in its scent, the warmth of her body seeping through the thin clothes he was wearing. Kissed her lips, sweet with chapstick. A deep kiss, unashamed and unembarrassed.

  “My father,” he said, pulling away, his voice cracked. “They killed my father.” Amanda pulled him close, didn’t say anything, just held him. They stayed like that, oblivious to the movement all around them, the people pushing past, an attempt to block out the rest of the world.

  “What do we do Jack, run away, call the Police?” she said eventually. Jack shrugged.

  “Not the police,” he said, pressing her head against his shoulder, eyes scanning the people passing by, on the lookout once again.

  “I need some warm clothes.” He shivered. “After that I thought we could pick up my dad’s old car, take a trip to Paris. There’s someone there who might be able to help us.”

  80

  The road ahead was quiet. Rush hour over. The sound of the engine and the tyres on the road mixed together. A familiar sound, constant, soporific.

  “You should sleep, let me drive.” Amanda said. They were heading to Folkestone, Jack driving his dad’s old Volvo picked up from the house in Croydon. His father’s credit cards too. And some cash he’d found in a drawer in the hall. The speedometer was broken and never rose above thirty miles an hour. Had to be careful, judge his speed by the other drivers. The last thing he wanted was to get pulled over by the police for speeding.

  He’d explained what happened, with his father and in the Congo. The details sounded unreal as he spoke them out loud.

  “So Sir Clive thinks you’re out of the picture? That it’s just me left who can link him to Centurion, to the coltan?” Jack nodded grimly, eyes fixed on the road. Silence between them.

  “He won’t stop, Mands,” he said at last. “He won’t stop.”

  Amanda reached forward and twisted the radio dial. Anything to distract her. The damn thing didn’t work. She slumped back in her seat.

  “This man in Paris, the one we’re going to see. You sure you can trust him?”

  Jack shrugged. “Hope so. I guess you know you’re in the shit when you have to go to an arms dealer for help.” Amanda thought for one moment he was making a joke, but the expression on his face was deadly serious.

  It was half ten by the time they reached Folkestone. Too late to catch the last shuttle. They booked into a Holiday Inn on the outskirts of the town. Magnolia walls and cheap green carpets that built up with static and gave you electric shocks, but by the time they got to their room they couldn’t have cared less. It was better than sleeping in the car, and the sudden realisation that they had the night together, alone, awoke in them the irresistible desire they had done their best to ignore whilst apart. They stood for a moment, eyes only able to focus on each other, the hotel room dissolving into a featureless blur around them.

  They fell into a fervent embrace, gripping at each other’s clothes, fingers seeking skin through material. The fear, the tension of the last few days transformed into an overwhelming energy. Jack hoisted her up, one arm tight underneath her thighs, banging her roughly against the plasterboard wall, his other hand dragging at her jeans, pushing, pulling them down round her ankles. His fingers flicked her underwear to one side as she grappled with his trousers, anxious to feel him uncoil, spring to life in her hands. She arched her neck backwards deliciously as he pierced her,
she sighed with a sharp intake of breath, pinned to the wall.

  A dull grey drizzle was falling when they left the next morning. It glinted in the orange glow of the car park lights. Six am, no one else up yet.

  “Suppose I better get in the boot,” Amanda said somewhat reluctantly.

  “Suppose you should.” Jack replied, “he’ll have an alert out on your passport.” At least it was a decent size, he thought as he opened it up, pushed the cans of WD40 and old blankets to one side. Amanda climbed in, curling herself into a ball.

  “Sorry about the smell of damp dogs,” he said

  “Least of my worries,” she replied through gritted teeth.

  81

  Sir Clive poured himself a drink. Eight in the morning but it might as well have been eight in the evening. His body clock was shot. The last few days had taken it out of him. He’d have stormed through the sleepless nights as a young man. Not so now. They’d found the blue Golf on a side street. No news on the owner. Images from the one CCTV camera in the nearby area that were working had shown a tall blond figure entering a cafe.

  He had a team working on footage taken from the local tube stations and streets, working through the night, but so far nothing. And there was a limit to the manpower he could allocate without drawing attention to the op.

  He’d have to call Harvey and let him know the situation. He wasn’t looking forward to the call, or the ear-bashing he’d get on the incompetence of MI6 field officers. Reluctantly he picked up the phone, savouring the single malt as he swirled it round his glass.