North calculated it would take him 7 seconds to reach the door – 12 if he hit the one-eyed man first, longer if the one-eyed man had a gun.
The question was, did he have a gun?
His companion leaned back against the bench, revealing the silencer.
The answer, then, was Yes.
The one-eyed man thanked the waitress as she neared the table, and the girl slowed her approach at the sight of the jagged purple scar that ran through the dark, empty socket and down the cheek. Gawking, she placed the mug and pie down on the melamine with due reverence, and clacking on her white plastic heels backed away from the table, step by step, her mouth open all the while.
“Some women rather like it,” the one-eyed man said, apparently to North, as he picked up the fork, polishing the tines on the paper napkin he had pulled from under the plate.
“You’re good, Mr North. I’ve only ever chased one man longer than I’ve chased you. Which is impressive.” The one-eyed man forked a piece of pie into his mouth, the gelatinous apple almost falling to the plate from the thickly sugared crust.
“And what happened when you found him?”
The one-eyed man chewed and North forced himself to look into the solitary eye rather than be drawn into the black socket.
“He took out my eye, and I killed him.” The accent was Belfast. “But I like to think we both enjoyed the course.”
North’s ribs were healing but they would slow him. The waitress cleared his dirty plate when she topped up his tea and he wished she hadn’t. The cheap knife had been blunt but it would have been better than nothing. The table was screwed into the linoleum floor – too many late-night drunks. Perhaps he could wrest the man’s fork from his grasp and stab him through the other eye? But somehow he doubted it.
North wished he’d eaten a better meal if it was to be his last one. At the very least, he should have ordered dessert and died with sugar on his lips.
“Rest easy, Mr North, I’m not going to shoot you.” The one-eyed man brought his right hand up, showing him the palm, and laid it on the table – he was a southpaw, the left still held the gun in his lap. “I’m here to offer you an opportunity.”
“You killed Bannerman.” It was neither a question nor an accusation. It wasn’t North and it wasn’t the Board. It was why Hardman asked if he was right handed or left.
An almost imperceptible nod from his companion.
“Why?”
“The greatest question of all. I took you for a warrior rather than a philosopher, North.”
The astronomer’s smooth crimson smile, the sheet of blood down the shirt front. An execution. Professional. Clean. A kind of justice.
His companion used the paper napkin to catch non-existent crumbs at the corner of his thin-lipped mouth, then unfolded it with a small flourish to spread it neatly over the remains of his plate like a linen sheet over the dead, before using his index finger to push the shrouded remains to one side. The table between the two men was clear and empty of distraction.
“Let’s say he wasn’t on my team. Peggy, however, is one of mine. I’m responsible for her.”
Honor’s friend was supposed to be an unworldly academic. Not someone working in the darkness alongside one-eyed men who talked so easily of slitting throats over apple pie a la mode.
“Bannerman’s death will buy Peggy a little more time. He allowed them to use him. Welcomed it and profited from it. If she’s still alive, his death might keep her that way a while longer. ”
“And is she still alive?”
“I’m an optimist, as is Peggy. An optimist ready to serve her country. Two years ago we approached her and explained our problem with Armitage – that he was immoral, disreputable, and a member of the Board. We asked her to reach out as a way to get to Tarn. The science was already there for her noise cancelling, the energy-efficient smart chip that would save governments and companies millions of pounds. China’s been working on something similar for decades, but Peggy beat them to it. We knew the access it provided would be catnip to the Board – that they wouldn’t be able to resist harnessing it for their own nefarious ends – and so it proved. She wanted to destroy it, write its own destruction into the program, but it had to be credible. We couldn’t take the risk because it was the best chance we’ve had in a generation to bring down Tarn. We thought we could pull her out before it unwound, but the Board moved too fast for us.”
The Board used Peggy like they used North. The one-eyed man used her like he doubtless wanted to use him.
“In return she asked us to keep Honor Jones safe. We moved one of our best men in to keep her close.”
The banker who wasn’t a banker. The banker with the broken finger who stared after her, watching her walk away. Hugh, who was set to guard her and who ended up dead and drowned in the North Sea. The man opposite him, crouched and vengeful over the body of his operative.
“We’ve known about you for a long time, Mr North. Watched you – kept count. We were ready to kill you that morning when you followed Honor Jones into the park, but then you didn’t do as you’d been told, did you?”
North closed his eyes. The park. The smell of wet foliage. Dampness on his face. Geese rising into the air. Was he in someone’s sights even then. Hugh’s? Even as his hand grasped the knife. As he heard her speak. Heard her question. Where’s Peggy?
“To our astonishment, you even went so far as to try and save her. And we saw something bright begin to shine in the darkness that is Michael North.”
Peggy didn’t tell Honor what she was doing because it was safer that way. She was unravelling Armitage, a man she never liked, not for reasons of patriotism, but to protect Honor from him. Or, for reasons of patriotism, and to protect Honor Jones from him? Her reasons had ceased to matter.
Where’s Peggy? Honor asked, a lifetime ago, and he sensed the need in her, the love and loyalty. Did Peggy feel the same way? The compulsion to drag her friend out from the vortex that was JP Armitage. A need which the man sitting in front of him exploited for his own ends.
“The bombings were always going to happen. Tarn wants his toy soldiers on the street. These recent deaths were just the start if he has any say in it.”
“And the camp?”
“The press know all about the camp – there’s a D-notice banning all mention. They’re not happy but they can’t write about it because they understand internment is necessary – that ‘enemies of the state’ don’t goose-step across borders all dressed up in pretty uniforms any more.”
North was in no doubt Tarn used a handful of their more disposable hostages to pump-prime the bombs. Anthony Walsh would die of natural causes if he wasn’t dead already. His remains discovered by a dog-walker months from now. Others would never talk of what happened for fear of the consequences which would be explained in vivid detail. When their family members co-operated with the conspiracy, they became guilty men and women themselves. They were trapped in Tarn’s web.
“Do you have a name?”
“Edmund Hone.”
Was it a real name? North doubted it. “And who is Edmund Hone?”
“I’m sure you ask yourself the same question every dawn. ‘Who is Michael North?’ Is he a loyal soldier? Or a psychopathic killer? Hero or villain?”
“You’re not police.”
Because police don’t slit throats.
“Are you MI5?”
“Lately, my colleagues have taken to calling themselves the Friends of Cyclops. I can’t think why – I don’t have any friends.”
Hone allowed himself a tight, cold smile transforming his scarred face into a thing of nightmares. “Nature must have its balance, Mr North. Good, bad. Black, white. Positive, negative. The Board and Us. Let’s settle on the idea that we’re a branch of MI5. Select and working under my direction. Deniable and kept apart for just this moment. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We ‘guard the guardians’, Mr North. Whereas the Board is secretive, we are accountable. The Board has its rituals and
history, we have civil service pensions. The Board, and Lucien Tarn in particular, believe they know what is best for this country: we have no agenda other than the security of this democratic state. Its genuine security. Its genuine democracy. The Board is effecting a coup and ‘we’ are going to stop it.”
North kept silent. Tarn had his own Army, the technology and enough hostages to control the country’s infrastructure. Tarn was responsible for all of it – the bomb blasts. Dead. Injured. The disappearance of a scientist, and the corruption of Honor Jones, MP.
“The Board has always had its own role to play, and we were neutral regarding their activities, including your own. But Lucien Tarn is a wild card and we have ceased to be a neutral party. Which is where you come in Mr North. Because what he is doing has nothing to do with the greater good and everything to do with power. You are awake to that fact. Lucien Tarn believes he answers to no one. But he is wrong, because he answers to me and to you, Mr North.”
North forgot the other man’s gun till he tried to rise from the chair.
“We gave you time to recover physically. But you have committed crimes, North – this is the moment to make reparation.”
North regarded the cavern where the other man’s eye had been, the purple-ridged scar left by a man long since dead.
“We understand you’re upset about Honor Jones.”
North’s fists clenched.
“She’s a lucky woman. If JP Armitage had made it, Tarn would have killed her. Armitage was, above all, an adaptable creature, he would’ve coped. His death – which I imagine you to be responsible for – gave her a chance in the same way I’ve tried to give Peggy a chance. They had to improvise – they need a communicator, a plausible rallying point in these dangerous times and Honor Jones fitted the bill. Don’t take it to heart. You were trying to keep her alive, weren’t you? Mission accomplished. She’s on the verge of great things. Don’t begrudge her Willie Wonka’s golden ticket.”
North filtered the information, tasting the irony in it. The Board meant JP Armitage to fill the vacuum when they took out the country’s political leadership. Charismatic, tough talking, straight dealing, traitorous to a fault JP Armitage. Instead they had the charismatic, persuasive Honor Jones.
“The suicide bid?”
“They’ve changed the story. The media got it wrong – it wasn’t suicide. It was a miscarriage. They were about to be married when she lost JP Armitage’s baby, and now worse yet, she’s lost Armitage as well. Tragic eh? Pulls at your heartstrings, doesn’t it? And it makes it all the harder to challenge her when she demands change.
“This won’t do, Mr North. Your inertia. Make no mistake democracy is dying out there. Tarn has his people everywhere. The Army is already his. Key figures in the police are his. The secret service.” He paused as if to acknowledge the seriousness of what he was saying. “The Government is passing an Executive Order to arrest whomsoever they please – the camp you were so concerned with is legal. Among the detainees are enough Britons home from fighting holy wars in messy places to make sure nobody cares about who else is there or when they arrived. Internment after all has a great and glorious tradition – the Boers, World War I, World War II, Ireland. And the bombings were just the start, Tarn has something bigger in mind. The strongest of governments. A militarised society at war with liberal values. When Trump’s America stepped away from its defence commitments in Europe, the US gave up all influence here along with its military bases. We chose to walk away from the European Union and all that goes with it. This, right here, is our new world order. In any event, no foreign power will speak for us because they will all too soon be preoccupied with the consequences of Dr Boland’s smart chip. Tarn is imposing a regime of his own choosing, and one from which there is no rowing back.”
“But why now?”
“Because they have an Army. Because there is fear on the street. Because Trump got elected. Because it was always going to be sometime, and most of all because Tarn is an angry old man who is tired of waiting.”
North shrugged, feigning indifference. He was done with it all, with fighting an enemy bigger than him.
“This is a revolution, Mr North. You’ve been that man’s creature for a long time. I despise who you are and what you represent. But I need you, and you have no choice. Did I mention that? I say this with a degree of reluctance, because we have no time for dialectics. We’ll kill Honor Jones. We will find and kill everyone you ever met – a massacre of the innocents. Sweet and luscious Jess. The gifted Fangfang Yu – which would be a shame because GCHQ would love her. Your old Army buddies. Their pretty wives and adorable children. You can go to their funerals. Each of them – one by one, young and old. Until you agree to do what we want.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“I don’t make threats. I haven’t the time. This is the end of days, Mr North.”
Honor Jones made him believe he was better than a killing machine. To rejoin the fight now would put them on opposite sides. Would make her his enemy. It would take them right back to the start. Him on one side. Her on the other.
“You can get close enough to take off the monster’s head. Tarn chairs the Board. He values you. He’ll welcome you back – the prodigal son.”
“I doubt that.”
“Maybe not. But you’re uniquely placed – you can get close enough to one man and that may be enough.”
This time he was expected to kill not Honor, but Tarn. Who began it all and who intended to change the world to something that suited him better.Tarn ordered the deaths of his adversaries, interned the innocent, and set a bomb in the heart of government. He used North till North wouldn’t be used, and then threw him away like he had only ever been nothing. Because Tarn wanted society remade in his own image and that could only ever be a darker, greedier, more violent place.
The picture of a ketch. The name Liberty painted on her side came to mind. Gentle waves against the clean lines of her hull. A soft breeze as he cast a line into the azure sea – an ice-cold beer at his bare feet warm against the polished deck. A tug on the hook bending the rod.
It would never happen. He would never fish off the stern of a boat as it sailed warm and foreign seas.
He let it go.
North didn’t have a choice.
Tarn was guilty. And killing people was what North did.
Hone pushed across a folded piece of paper. “A more salubrious address. Its former occupant wasn’t on my team either. An elderly Serb – she too is keen to make reparations for her sins. It’s a place where you can arm yourself, and you’ll need help. Prepare yourself, Mr North, for battle is upon you. You’re one of the good guys now.”
Chapter 70
LONDON
7.45am. Monday, 13th November
The Mayfair address just off Oxford Street was an affluent one. Expensive cars purred along the streets, expensive women dangling designer handbags shimmied past him, their steps slowing, their predator-eyes holding his just a moment too long, the scent of jasmine and civet in his nose as their footsteps receded, tapping their way to West End offices. He thought of Jess alone in Disneyland with her glorious body and her gap-toothed smile.
Thousands of miles away from him, and still not safe enough.
A brass plaque to the right of the Edwardian villa’s door sported six vertically stacked buttons alongside six empty name slots. He buzzed the third one down as Hone instructed, and heard a dull click as the studded door released its electronic lock. The hum of traffic fell away to nothingness as the door closed behind him.
Outside was respectable; inside shabby, the mahogany hall table dusty and sporting a brown-leaved aspidistra, the smell of mildew everywhere. Still, next to the dump at King’s Cross, it was a palace. Ignoring the ramshackle lift, he took the stairs three at a time, his foot slippy against the worn-away runner. Third floor. There was a squeal of delight as he pushed open the door to the apartment and the 14-year-old geek hurled herself at him.
Fangfang’s hair was loose and messy. She looked older than he remembered. Is that what happened with children – turn your back and they grew on you?
But a 14-year-old is a child, with or without the plaits. And who brings a child to a war?
A one-eyed man with no compunction. North had a sudden urge to wrap his hands around Hone’s throat and squeeze till the other eye popped from its socket.
“Get your stuff and clear out, Fangfang. Go back home.”
The geek girl’s smile switched to Off. She glowered, her brows pulled down low over cold black eyes, the turquoise blue mesh of the braces just visible behind her bared lips. It wasn’t the reaction she’d wanted or been expecting. She was stricken, but he wasn’t caving. Did she think this was some sort of adventure – a game she played on her computers with warriors and dragons and imaginary weapons that appeared with a twinkle? Did she think that he needed her help to get through a magic gateway to a different level? Because this was no adventure – it was the real world and real people were dying in it everywhere he looked. And one of them wasn’t going to be Fangfang Yu.
He pushed her away, but she clutched his hand, dragging him from the narrow hallway into the bow-fronted front room. Lit by a grimy chandelier hanging low and festooned with spiders’ webs, its dim light barely touched the shadows. Fangfang pointed at the bank of screens stacked up in the gloom in front of the shuttered windows.
“I’m going in through the London University computing system to get the processing power I need.” She gabbled acronyms and numbers and systems at him. He guessed it meant she had it all worked out.
“You need to go home, Fangfang,” he repeated, keeping his voice slow but firm. The voice of authority. “Back to Newcastle.”
“Moron-person.” She stood on tiptoe and flicked his forehead with her thumb and middle finger. It hurt. Apparently she wasn’t listening. “After I help you…” she spoke to him as if he was an idiot, “I get £50,000 in bitcoins and three passports in different names that are completely legit…”. She balled up her fists and rested them on her non-existent hips. “You are so not taking that away from me.”
Killing State Page 32