by Matthew Hall
The sight of the vast glass roof covering what had once been the museum’s two-acre courtyard momentarily silenced the voice in his head urging him to turn around and leave. Its scale and ambition overwhelmed the senses. Here was an inspiration, a vestige of the invincible energy that had created the magnificent buildings it now sheltered. In its rolling, arcing form, he saw both the sea and sky, and where it funnelled down to meet the roof of the white rotunda in the Great Court’s centre the curved shape of gravity itself. From the rotunda’s base two opposing staircases spiralled upwards along its outer surface like temple steps, leading to the museum’s circular reading room on the upper level. A pillar of knowledge connecting seamlessly to the universe beyond. A spectacle that inspired hope.
You crazy, crazy bastard, Leo. You really have got a head full of shit. Finn’s disembodied voice snapped him out of his reverie. It was right, of course. He should have been in Oxford at his desk, writing. This all belonged to his old life, not his present. How had he got here? How had he let it get this far?
Towers, that’s how. That bloody speech of his had pressed his buttons just like he knew it would.
He lowered his gaze to the crowded concourse and swore to himself that this would be the very last time. This one was for Finn, and for all the times he’d saved him from an early grave. Then they would be square.
‘Can you see him, Leo?’ Towers’ insistent voice came over the tiny receiver hidden inside Black’s left ear.
‘Not yet.’ He moved forward in the direction of the museum’s café, where Clayton had arranged to meet with Drecker, and arrived outside the bookshop housed in the open-sided ground floor of the rotunda. He glimpsed through a gap in the crowd and saw the back view of a large man he took to be Clayton, dressed in a grey suit, seated at one of the café tables lined up in the far-right corner. They were arranged canteen style in several long communal rows.
‘I’ve got eyes on him now. He’s alone.’
‘Well, stay out of sight.’
‘Thank you, Freddy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘Concentrate.’
Black stifled his response and turned left into the bookshop. He drifted idly among the shelves before positioning himself close to the shop’s entrance, where, between the passers-by, he had a sporadic line of sight to Clayton’s position. He picked up the nearest book and turned through glossy pages filled with pictures of ancient Egyptian artefacts.
The plan was simple. He would follow Drecker outside the building, apprehend her and place her in a car Towers would be driving along Great Russell Street. If she attempted to run, he would put a bullet through her leg. Towers had arranged a debrief room in the high-security Paddington Green Police Station, which, if required, was a stone’s throw from St Mary’s Hospital. They had discussed the possibility of involving armed police, but Towers had rejected it on the joint grounds that (a) more bodies meant more chance of a cock-up, and (b) it risked creating a scene that would be captured on a hundred phones. He preferred to be quick and discreet and ruthless only if necessary, which suited Black fine.
The allotted meeting time of six thirty came and went. Black exhausted the statuettes of Horus and Roth and moved on to a book of Canadian First Nations art. He passed the time looking at pictures of totem poles and decorated coffins that were placed high in the trees so that the spirits of the dead could be closer to the heavens. An image of a shamanic mask dating from the 1850s caught his attention – an eerily pale face that looked like that of a corpse. The text described it as a depiction of a white man, and death was indeed what it presaged.
Towers’ indignant voice sounded into his ear. ‘What the hell’s going on? Is there no sign of her?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What about Clayton?’
‘Still there. Relax. How far are you from the museum gates?’
‘I can be there in twenty seconds. Fifteen at a push. You do realize she’s six minutes late?’
Black glanced up and spotted Clayton looking to his left. Continuing to feign interest in the book, he watched through his peripheral vision as a woman in her late thirties strode towards him. She was dressed in a formal black jacket and skirt. Her equally black hair was short but elegant. She moved with grace and purpose, like a Wall Street lawyer or an ambitious young politician. Something in her appearance – the intensity of her eyes even when seen from a distance, perhaps – chimed with Black’s fleeting memory of the female irregular he had encountered all those years ago in Baghdad.
Another figure stood out from the crowd. Several yards behind Drecker, Black spotted a tall, unsmiling man with olive skin and close-cropped hair. He, too, was smartly dressed in a tailored suit and tie. He was tall – six feet four or five – and keeping watch. His alert yet expressionless face was of a kind Black knew well.
‘She’s here, with company,’ Black said into the microphone hidden behind his lapel. ‘Male. Thirties. Cuban maybe, or mixed-race Hispanic. Military background.’
‘You’ll just have to take care of him.’
‘In front of a thousand tourists?’
‘Never mind them, where’s she?’
‘Taking a seat next to Clayton. A few words. Not much. Now he’s handing her the USB under the table.’ He noticed her take it in her right hand. ‘There we go. All over. Not even a thank-you for your trouble. She’s up now, leading off. Her colleague’s following.’
‘Stay with them. ETA?’
‘Ninety seconds.’ He replaced the book on the shelf. Drecker and her companion passed within twenty feet of him heading back towards the entrance. The male was an even tougher-looking proposition close up. Broad-shouldered as well as tall, though with the agile, tapered physique of a boxer rather than the hefty bulk of a weightlifter. Not a man you could bank on putting down easily.
Black stepped out of the bookshop and followed. They had sped up and were now moving at a brisk pace, forcing people to step out of their way. Black felt his focus narrow and his conscious mind gave way to instinct as he shifted from observer to predator. ‘They’re leaving the building. I’ll have to drop him outside.’
‘Roger that. Carry on.’
Black remained ten paces behind them, his eyes fixed on the crease at the back of the minder’s neck where it met his skull.
They moved through the entrance hall and passed the security desk. Drecker and her companion exited the building one after the other through the same revolving door.
‘Stepping outside now. ETA forty seconds.’
‘Roger.’
Black emerged into daylight as Drecker arrived at the bottom of the stone steps and headed off across the wide thirty-yard stretch of paving stones that led to the elaborate wrought-iron gates separating the museum’s grounds from the street beyond. She brought something out of her pocket – a small handset – and spoke into it as if she were giving an instruction.
‘I think she’s got a car coming, Freddy. She’s calling someone.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
Black swept the surrounding area with his eyes. There were numerous scattered clusters of people and lone individuals, some moving, some standing, either taking pictures of the museum’s classical façade or simply enjoying the atmosphere. The largest group was gathered by the gates: a tourist party waiting for the stragglers before they went to their bus. It would be impossible to shoot too close to them. He had to make his move either before or after reaching the gates.
It would have to be after. Less distance to drag Drecker into the car. Fewer people to get in the way. He reached round to his waistband with his left hand, brought the silenced Glock under his jacket and passed it to his right, where it remained hidden beneath the raincoat draped over his wrist.
‘I’m hitting them outside the museum grounds,’ Black said. ‘Twenty seconds.’
‘Pulling up now. Your left. Between the first and second plane trees. Just beyond the cab rank.’
Black glanced through the gates
and saw the anonymous black Ford crawl past, Towers an indistinct figure behind the wheel.
There were two pedestrian exits to the street, one to the left and one to the right of the gates. Drecker headed left, which was helpful, as the tourist group was bunched towards the right. She had ten yards to cover. The male was six feet behind her, Black ten feet behind him, treading lightly on his crêpe soles. He found the Glock’s safety catch with his thumb and released it.
Five more yards. Time slowed to half speed. The minder’s neck expanded to twice its width. Three paces until Drecker reached the gate.
Another face. It could have belonged to the minder’s twin. A little shorter and thicker through the body but with the same smooth, dark tan. He was standing on the pavement. A lookout or driver. Six yards in front of Black.
‘There’s a third. Just outside the gate.’
‘Deal with him.’
‘Sound your horn.’
Towers obliged and leaned on the car horn. The sudden noise caused the new arrival to turn his head and in the same instant Black loosed off a single shot with a sound no louder than a pronounced metallic click.
The round hit the taller man square in the rear of his skull pitching him forward, but not before the eruption of blood and brain through the exit wound in his forehead had struck Drecker’s neck, causing her to glance over her shoulder to see the dead eyes of her minder as he fell to the ground.
She didn’t pause to identify the shooter. She sprinted for the gate as the second man turned to see his colleague on the ground and bemused tourists scattering in all directions. He shouted something to Drecker in French. She muscled her way in among a group of fleeing teenagers, denying Black a clear shot.
Black ran with the panicked crowd for the gate. Women were screaming, men yelling. He was no more than eight feet behind his mark but now separated by a mass of bodies trying to force themselves through a gap not wide enough to take them.
He made it out to the street as the second bodyguard and Drecker were disappearing into a Range Rover that had pulled up in the centre of the road. Tinted windows. Toughened glass. A third male behind the wheel.
Black had no option. Amidst the noise and confusion he stepped up to the kerb and loosed off a round into the Range Rover’s rear tyre. It bounced off and spun away into space. Bullet-resistant. Military grade.
The car took off with a screech, taking Drecker and her companions with it.
‘Hold fire. Back to the car.’
The Range Rover slewed into a side road and disappeared from view.
Black’s muscles slackened. He had failed. Careful not to draw attention to himself, he strolled towards the waiting Ford.
Inside the museum gates, the few terrified tourists who had thrown themselves to the ground picked themselves up, recoiling at the sight of a sprawled body with half its skull blown away. No one spoke. Several people reached for their phones and took photographs. Others hurried back to the safety of the building. After only moments pigeons descended and squabbled over the tiny gobs of brain tissue peppering the pavement.
‘Bad luck. Can’t be helped. My fault for biting off more than you could chew. Didn’t count on her coming with tooled-up protection to the British Museum. Probably should have done. She’s audacious, all right.’ Towers drove as quickly as traffic would allow down Kingsway towards Aldwych. Yet another police car screamed past them at seventy miles per hour, sirens wailing. ‘Don’t worry about them, they’ve been told to look out for a different vehicle.’
Black didn’t ask for further details. As far as he was concerned, the less he knew about Towers’ dark web of connections the better. His principal emotion was one of frustration at having come up short. The soldier in him had had his pride dented. Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny that it was strangely intoxicating to be driving through central London gliding above the law, or that the taste of action had stirred something dormant in him back to life. Despite all his better instincts, his blood seemed to vibrate with wicked elation.
‘The body will be sent over to Guy’s. The pathologist should have it on the slab within the hour,’ Towers said.
His phone, sitting in the tray next to the gear stick, buzzed twice.
‘Check that for me, would you?’
Black reached for it and glanced at the screen. ‘From Clayton.’
‘Did he get pictures?’
Black swiped the message open. There was no text, just a short video clip. He played it. The footage was taken from a minute camera disguised in Clayton’s wristwatch. Black tilted the phone to get the picture the right way up. Clayton had managed to catch Susan Drecker’s face square-on as she approached him. It vanished for several seconds as she took a seat, then reappeared, this time seen from below and mostly in profile.
‘Good ones. Face shots. Several angles.’
‘Thank God for that. Fancy helping me find out more about her?’
‘If she’s as good as I think she is, she’ll be out of the country within the hour.’
‘That’s not what I asked, Leo. You’d at least like to know her identity before you head back to Oxford? That’s an invitation, by the way, not an order.’ Without waiting for an answer he nodded to the glovebox. ‘You’ll find a flask in there. I could do with a drop myself.’
Black reached inside and brought out a tarnished silver hip flask decorated with the regimental crest. The same one that Towers had passed around so many times in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Baghdad and Bastion. He flipped the lid and took a slug, the cold metal tingling slightly against his lips. Single malt. Nectar. Like something conjured by an alchemist.
‘Thought you’d like it. Craigellachie. Thirty-two years old.’ Towers smiled at Black’s contented expression. ‘Don’t hog it, man.’
Black took another drink and passed it over. Towers raised it to his lips and swallowed several large mouthfuls as he navigated the turn into the busy Strand traffic.
‘My God, that’s good.’ He gave an appreciative sigh. ‘You know what, Leo – I wasn’t sure you still had it in you. But you have, you bastard. Look at you. You look ten years younger.’
Towers was right. He felt alive. From the moment Drecker had appeared he had been like a caged hound released to the scent. He took back the flask and drank some more. The whisky danced down his throat and glowed inside him.
‘Yes,’ Black said, as Nelson’s Column hoved into view, ‘I would like to know who the hell she is.’
32
Towers’ semi-official operation was limited to a pair of laptops linked by satellite connection to the MOD’s intranet. This gave him only limited access to certain secure government databases and none to those held by the Security Services or police. His ability to marshal the resources of the State had, he told Black regretfully, diminished significantly since the Committee had first commissioned him. Government networks were now so closely monitored there was no way of him navigating through them with sufficient secrecy. A particular source of grief was loss of access to the capital’s comprehensive network of security cameras and the facial-recognition system that had allowed him to track Black’s progress across the city several weeks before. As in the buccaneering days of post-invasion Baghdad, he was supposed to live off his wits.
Stooped over the keyboard at the desk in the corner of his living room, Towers attempted to track down Drecker and her associates with the limited resources open to him. Each request for assistance had to be made on an individual basis and using the cover of his official job inside the MOD. The result was that Towers found himself engaged in a laborious process that required him to work the phone to cajole and persuade myriad gatekeepers to let him share their precious information and resources for contrived reasons.
Towers had begun by trying to positively identify Susan Drecker and sent stills of her face to trusted contacts in both MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6. What should have been a simple matter of running the image through facial-recognition software c
onnected to their respective databases of domestic and foreign subjects of interests turned into a protracted exercise involving calls to officials of ever more senior rank. Meanwhile, he tasked Black with scouring social media for images from the scene outside the British Museum. The few that had appeared online were mostly of the aftermath rather than of the incident itself. A passer-by on the pavement had caught a side-on image of Drecker climbing into the Range Rover and another had caught a similarly vague rear-view image of Black strolling towards Towers’ waiting car.
‘Typical bloody shambles!’ Towers exclaimed, cupping the receiver while he was placed on hold for the third time. ‘God knows how the Russians haven’t walked all over us. Perhaps they have!’
Finally, clearance was given. The searches were run and within the space of ten minutes, a call came back confirming that Drecker’s face was not among the several million stored on any of the government’s databases. The margin of error, the junior officer assured him, was less than five per cent.
‘Fuck!’ Towers slammed down the phone and thumped his fist on the desk. ‘Don’t know her from Adam. How is that even possible? She must have been through a bloody airport.’
‘How are you placed with the Americans?’ Black asked. ‘Maybe they can put a name to the face.’
Towers hurled himself back in his chair and groaned. ‘Bloody Yanks are even worse than us, I swear.’