Run Jane Run

by Maureen Tan

  I was thirty-four.

  “Welcome home, Miss Nichols.”

  The invitation to flirt was more in his eyes than his words.

  Did he flirt with every woman who passed through his station? I wondered.

  I offered him my most endearing smile.

  The dimples in his cheeks deepened. He lifted his cleft chin in the direction of my closed suitcase.

  “Did you enjoy your trip? Anything to declare?”

  “Nothing. And I’m delighted to be back. London weather is so pleasant this time of year.”

  Londoners were being treated to their fourth week of overcast skies and drizzle. But as he waved me through the checkpoint, he chuckled at what must have been a very tired joke.

  The elderly woman smiled as my luggage and I joined her in the backseat of a cab. With a minimum of cursing, the cabby, who had a bulldog’s jowls and a gold front tooth, wedged the cab into the heavy stream of traffic moving toward central London. Then he switched on the radio. Willie Nelson was singing a twangy country-western rendition of “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Within moments, his voice was joined by the cabby’s Cockney-accented baritone.

  Grammy Wiggins held out a gloved hand.

  “Pay up, Janie.”

  The words were spoken quietly, for even a world-weary London cabby would be curious about a male voice issuing from an old woman’s face.

  “Bah, humbug,” I murmured to my fellow operative and sometime partner, John Wiggins.

  His acting ability had cost me twenty pounds.

  I counted out the notes.

  6

  The cab from the airport let me out at the southwest end of Lambeth Bridge. We’d already dropped John at his flat. Lucky sod. All the way from Heathrow, he’d talked in his little-old-lady voice about a hot shower and a long nap. I’d finally told him to belt up.

  I avoided the Thames House’s main entrance on Millbank. There, on the bustling first floor, the organization maintained its public face. Conservatively dressed men and women labored in offices clearly labeled as to purpose. Nameplates were common on desks, counters, and lapels. Prompt and courteous service—“Her Majesty’s subjects are our best customers”—was the goal.

  I went in through a side entrance instead.

  Even then, it was impossible to walk into the Thames House without sensing a larger, perhaps even noble, purpose to the activity there.

  Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year, MI-5’s staff of nearly two thousand full-time employees devoted themselves to the tough job of ensuring national security. All within an annual budget of two hundred million pounds. I’d once heard a young woman from the public relations office say that as she shepherded visitors through the cavernous stone building. She’d spoken in the rapt voice of a true believer, then gone on to describe MI-5’s five specialized branches.

  Her explanation somehow brought to mind a hive of Africanized bees. Some protected the hive from within, watching for breaches, working to keep the internal structure strong. Others were part of an outwardly directed swarm, potentially lethal, but focused on nonviolent activities.

  A handful of us made the most agitated swarm seem benign.

  That handful worked for Mac.

  I passed a familiar checkpoint and went upstairs, avoiding the elevator for fitness’ sake. I arrived on the fifth floor only slightly out of breath, and walked unrecognized but unaccosted through a maze of hallways and offices. On the upper floors, anonymity was the norm, paranoia a reflex. The labyrinth corridors were populated by strangers moving purposefully between doors that were unlabeled and often unnumbered.

  Some things had changed over the years. Remodeling had brought modern business sensibilities to the upper floors—improved lighting, new carpeting, computers, and ergonomic work areas. About bloody time, I thought, remembering hours spent sitting on a wooden chair under a bare bulb typing reports on a machine older than I was.

  Recently, the remodeling had extended into the area that Mac directed. The tiny, familiar offices had been painted eggshell white and carpeted in beige. The desks were new but, as usual, few were occupied. This morning, I saw only one familiar face. I lifted my hand in greeting, then walked into Mac’s two-office suite.

  I knew that Mac’s secretary, Arlene, had retired, but the reality startled me. From my first days with the organization, she’d been there, white-haired, plump, and much given to polyester with ruffles at the neck. She had guarded Mac’s door, dispensing common sense, pieces of caramel, and occasional scoldings as the situation demanded.

  Now a stranger was in her place. The woman who sat at the desk was close to my age, taller and thinner, had café au lait skin, a heart-shaped face, and glossy hair pulled back tight. She wore a jade green silk blouse and a sleek woolen jumper.

  I smiled, introduced myself.

  The smile that was returned didn’t reach her eyes. Didn’t travel beyond the slight upward curve of her lips.

  “We’ve spoken,” she said. “I’m Miss Marston.”

  Then she asked about my health and the flight in a tone clearly intended to evoke no response. As she pushed the intercom to announce my arrival, I glanced around the office, looking beyond the new computer, matching file cabinets, and streamlined desk. I was struck by what was missing. No plants. No family photographs. No knickknacks. The work area suited Miss Marston—expensive, impersonal, and efficient.

  I wondered if Mac missed Arlene, too.

  Miss Marston showed me into the interior office and closed the door behind me.

  I found it comforting that modernization hadn’t reached this far.

  Weak incandescent overhead lights were supplemented by brass table lamps. The burgundy and brown Turkish carpet betrayed the room’s traffic patterns. The leather on the arms and seats of the dark green office chairs had been rubbed to a dull yellow-brown. And the office still smelled pleasantly of pipe tobacco, leather, and wood polish.

  Mac sat behind his desk.

  I smiled warmly, spontaneously, pleased to see him.

  Old habits die hard.

  I was the last of a generation of operatives indoctrinated from childhood, then cultivated through adolescence. The last of a generation who regarded immediate superiors as something more than employers, something more than associates. Mac had recruited me thirteen years earlier over dinner at his club. He’d spoken of duty, honor, and loyalty. Of obligation and family. He’d told me my grandfather would have been proud.

  The newest generation learned of MI-5 through the pages of glossy booklets filled with photos of plush offices, squash courts, and young, attractive staff members. They read about career opportunities, salary, and employment benefits. They were promised fun, excitement, and challenge.

  The organization offered whatever it thought recruits would buy.

  Reality, for all of us, came later.

  * * *

  “Hello, Mac,” I said quietly.

  He looked up from his papers, over the tops of his bifocals.

  “Good morning, Jane.”

  His smile was brief, perfunctory. It was followed by a long, hard look across an expanse of polished mahogany. Not hostile. Assessing.

  Quite reasonable.

  I’d been gone for several months. It was his job to evaluate my fitness. I’d conducted similar assessments of operatives I planned on sending into the field. It was essential to know how much pressure they could bear before they broke.

  I stood quiet and relaxed under his scrutiny and amused myself by looking back. I noticed the lines around his mouth, the shadows beneath his eyes, the tension in his jaw. His skin was pale and wrinkled, delicate rather than weathered. And the color of his close-cropped grey hair was less steel, more winter than I remembered. He was old, I thought suddenly. Well beyond the age of mandatory retirement.

  Apparently satisfied with whatever he saw, Mac stood and walked around the desk.

  “Come in, my dear. Sit down.”
>
  I heard warmth and approval in his voice, saw it in his smile.

  There was a time when that had been compensation enough for my periodic forays into hell. Now I understood the manipulation behind it and entered hell only on my own terms.

  He waved me toward the chair in front of him, then turned away for a moment to push some papers back from the edge of his desk. The movement presented me with a profile—high forehead, aggressive nose, determined jaw. A hard man. My eyes sought the portrait that hung above his desk. It showed a woman at the height of her power. Elegant. Regal. Proud. No softness in that profile, either. I wondered whether Mac’s length of tenure was by his choice or Her command.

  Mac cleared his throat, interrupted my thoughts. He leaned back against his desk, folded his arms across his chest, looked at me.

  “Tell me about the flight.”

  My brief report was received by a minute’s worth of steady, quiet, non-repetitive cursing. Ex-Royal Navy and a former field operative, Mac’s vocabulary was formidable. Finally, he sighed.

  “Unfortunately, it’s about what I expected. A half dozen teams came back with reports like yours. And ground transportation is, as always, much worse. Officially, security around airports and train stations is tight. In fact, it’s abysmal. Short-staffed. Neglected. Sloppy.”

  He handed me a sheaf of papers and waited as I thumbed through them, looking at points-of-origin and destinations and the security disasters in between.

  I shook my head as I handed the papers back.

  “It’ll be a miracle if we make it through Christmas without incident.”

  “I want the problem fixed, Jane. Now. Make contact with the appropriate organizations. Don’t bother with the bureaucrats at the top. Go to people like yourself, people who will act first, deal with the paperwork later. Tell them who’s out there right now, waiting to take advantage of their security lapses. If anyone asks, your instructions come from the PM himself.”

  He shifted, turned a shoulder toward me as he set the reports back in the center of his desk. Then he took his pen from the holder and jotted a note on a yellow pad. He spoke as he wrote.

  “By the way, how much time can you commit to us this trip?”

  “As much as you need. I’m moving back into my London flat. Permanently.”

  Mac held his pen poised.

  “You won’t be returning to Savannah?”

  “No.”

  Extraordinary how difficult it was to keep emotion from coloring that one, short word.

  Mac finished the note with a familiar flourish of initials, then looked back toward me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  And he managed to sound as if he meant it.

  WINTER

  7

  Two days before Christmas found me in Mac’s office again, in one of the leather office chairs in front of his desk, listening intently, increasingly appalled.

  “John will act as your second,” Mac said finally.

  I had no objection to the partner, just the assignment.

  At the request of a senior Member of Parliament, Mac wanted us to rescue a young man from armed kidnappers. Sir William Winthrup’s nephew and only heir, Hugh, was being held on the family estate in northern Scotland.

  During Christmas week, the manor’s only occupants were a housekeeper, Eupheme Beane, and her seventy-year-old father, who served as groundskeeper and handyman. Usually. But a fortnight earlier, nineteen-year-old Hugh had argued with his uncle, left London in a fury, and gone to the house in Scotland. Within days, Miss Beane delivered a ransom note to Sir William’s London offices. A nondescript white envelope had enclosed the square of white paper. The message was short, handwritten in black ink.

  £5,000,000.

  * * *

  I looked away from the ransom note at the center of Mac’s desk, met his eyes, and spoke without heat.

  “It’s a distressing situation to be sure, and my sympathy is with Sir William. But the police have people specifically trained for this. They won’t appreciate MI-5 interference.”

  Mac shook his head sharply.

  “The police will not be involved. William came to me—to us—because he suspects that his nephew is cooperating with his captors, that he may, in fact, have engineered the scheme himself. William doesn’t want his only heir to end up in prison.”

  I knew Mac too well to be taken in. He wouldn’t involve the organization in anyone’s domestic problems. Even unofficially.

  I frowned.

  He gave it another try, spoke in a voice laced with patience—a teacher answering a bothersome question posed by a precocious student.

  “If this organization is to survive, Janie, it needs powerful allies. Like William. Money is tight, and the threat of Soviet subversion has ended. Some MPs are challenging the need for a Security Service. With each budget hearing, the threat grows. William supported the Security Services Bill and backed us against Special Branch when we requested greater authority in the fight against Irish terrorism. We gained a larger share of the budget as a result. Now, with the Yard claiming we mishandled the Docklands bombings incident—”

  “We did mishandle it,” I said mildly.

  Mac’s shoulders stiffened reflexively. He lifted his chin.

  “There were circumstances—” Then he caught himself. “We need William’s support, now more than ever. At this point, a scandal would be disastrous for him. And for us.”

  I moved on to more practical matters.

  “How fond is he of the nephew?”

  “Not very. But it would be impossible, of course, to avoid an investigation and adverse publicity if something were to happen to the boy. So Hugh will need protecting. Miss Marston has arranged transportation to Scotland for you and John. You’ll be met there by a special security unit. Eight men.”

  I reached into my purse for a pack of cigarettes, tapped one out, lit it, and took a long drag.

  Predictably, Mac frowned.

  Inconvenient for him if I died of lung cancer.

  “Why so many, Mac?”

  I made the question sound more casual than it was.

  He wasn’t fooled. He didn’t answer.

  I butted my unsmoked cigarette in the nearby ashtray, stood.

  “Give me a call when you’re tired of playing games.”

  Mac leaned across his desk and favored me with a blue-eyed stare.

  “Sit down, Jane. Please.”

  I perched on the edge of the chair, waited.

  “We can’t always choose our allies,” he said. “I’ve agreed to help William. For the sake of the organization. I’ve told you everything he told me.”

  “You don’t trust him,” I said flatly.

  Even in the privacy of his own office, he wouldn’t admit it.

  “I’m concerned the situation may become . . . complex. It could require extra resources. That’s why I’m sending you.”

  8

  The eight young men carried HK MP5 submachine guns. Somehow, the dark van in which we traveled suited them.

  We had met them on Christmas Eve at an airfield in northeast Scotland, near the Grampian Highlands.

  Actually, we only met their leader.

  He’d waited until the small plane that had carried John and me from London took off again, then crossed the tarmac to where we stood beside our gear.

  “I’m Hawkins,” he said.

  He was a burly man, in his mid to late twenties, with the curly reddish-blond hair and the broad, open face of a Welsh farm boy. His fatigues had no insignia, but his right hand twitched as he suppressed the urge to salute.

  John noticed that, too. He waited until we were out of earshot, carrying our cases of delicate electronic equipment to the van, then murmured: “Who dares, wins.”

  I nodded, recognizing the SAS motto, agreeing with John’s assessment, wondering who owed Mac a favor.

  “I’ll lay odds he’s carrying a new five-seven in that underarm holster,” John continued. “I suppose i
t would be cheeky to ask to see it.”

  FN Herstal’s 5-7, touted as one of the most powerful handguns in the world, was capable of penetrating forty-eight layers of laminated Kevlar armor at a range of two hundred meters. The handgun was lightweight, with virtually no recoil. An effective weapon when confronting terrorists wearing body armor.

  An effective weapon when confronting a cop wearing body armor.

  The thought came out of nowhere, brought with it a chill that had nothing to do with the outside temperature. The 5-7, so new to government organizations in the UK, was already sold illegally on the streets of the United States. Too easy to imagine the face of a particular police officer who could be threatened by that gun.

  I dismissed the memory of Alex lying still and waxen in intensive care, then looked at John and produced a credible grin.

  His weapon of choice was a Browning 9mm. Nearly eight inches long and weighing two pounds, it had a twenty-round magazine and kicked like a mule.

  “Pistol envy, John? Surprising, considering the size of yours.”

  John snickered.

  We loaded into the van and drove into the night.

  * * *

  A storm was blowing in.

  Difficult to know whether to curse or applaud. Heavy clouds gathering over the moon’s bright face would give us darkness. Predicted snow would turn the footing dangerously slick.

  Ignoring the bite of the wind, I peered through the darkness in the direction of the Georgian manor house, considering the grounds and the tall stone walls, and hoping that the north side of the building would offer options that did not exist on the east, south, or west.

  The house was oriented eastward, with a grand entry at the center and massive stone chimneys on either end. In front and in back, first- and second-story walls were broken by generous windows outlined in pale granite. The clear panes were framed by stained glass cut in a distinctive diamond pattern. On the north and south walls, stockade-style windows—deep-set and narrow—flanked the chimney stacks. On the third floor, east-facing dormers broke the steep pitch of the slate roof, and stingy windows brought sunlight into servants’ quarters, abandoned for decades.