A Loyal Spy

by Simon Conway

  Ginger cut in again: “We have less than five hours to highest tide.”

  “We’ve reserved the best seats in the house,” Winthrop said, “ringside seats. You are going to witness what few others have, Jonah … the death of a once great city.”

  AND THE WIND BLEW

  The helicopter flew east along the Thames in the driving rain, over the bridge at the Dartford Crossing and the town of Gravesend, heading out toward the sea. Out of the left side of the aircraft Jonah could see vast fields of storage tanks, refinery stacks and pipework on Canvey Island and beside it, in the shipping lane, a supertanker waiting to deliver its cargo of crude.

  “Oil refineries, storage facilities, liquid gas installations,” Winthrop said, “all of it in the path of the wave …”

  The helicopter veered to the east and they passed over the cooling towers and sodium lights of the power station on the Isle of Grain, then the dark mass of the Medway Channel and beyond it the Isle of Sheppey.

  They touched down on a grassy hill just south of Sheerness town.

  “Welcome to Furze Hill,” said Ginger. He kicked Jonah out through the side door and jumped out after him. Winthrop and the others followed.

  Ginger grabbed Jonah by the collar and pulled him out from under the rotor wash and towards the tree line. The helicopter lifted off and banked steeply, thudding back along the Thames toward London.

  “I almost lost my faith.” Winthrop was forced to raise his voice. The wind was moving heavily in the treetops, blowing clouds of dead leaves across the exposed summit of the hill. “Not in God, but in our endeavor.”

  Jonah was kneeling with the barrel of Pakravan’s gun pressed to the back of his neck and water from it running down his spine. Winthrop was beside him, on the summit of the hill, with the hood of his raincoat swept back and his face exposed to the rain. Ginger and Taff were standing a few feet away, speaking into their mobile phones. They were on the highest point of the island. There was churning water on all sides, the vast estuary before them and the Medway and the Swale at their backs.

  “We made mistakes. We trumpeted our achievement before it was fully accomplished. We didn’t have enough troops to secure neighborhoods or prevent looting. Bremer should never have disbanded the Iraqi army. But our intentions were noble. We delivered the Iraqi people out from under the yoke of tyranny and gave them the gift of freedom and democracy. The ingratitude! That was what I could not bear, the ingratitude, the sullen hostility, the fratricidal childishness of the Iraqi people. When I flew out of Baghdad last summer, I can tell you that I was sick to my back teeth of the whole project. I allowed doubt to enter my heart.” He paused. He seemed oblivious to the rain and the wind. “You know what I did? I took a sabbatical. I went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And you know what? I had an epiphany! I renewed my faith in our endeavor. I recovered my ambition. I’ll tell you about it …

  “One morning I climbed a path to the ancient fortress city of Megiddo and I stood upon its ramparts and what I saw there amazed and horrified me. I looked down upon the fertile Jezreel Valley and its vineyards and orchards—the breadbasket of the Holy Land. Twenty different civilizations have risen and fallen there within the last ten thousand years. Alexander, Saladin, Napoleon, all the great warriors of antiquity fought there. But that wasn’t it. That’s not what amazed and horrified me. For its real test is yet to come. For the hill of Megiddo will be the site of the final battle between Christ and the Antichrist. When Christ will come with blazing eyes, in a robe that is dipped in blood, and out of his mouth will come a sword and he will reap and reap and reap. And all the souls that have matured but rejected God will be cast into the wine press of the wrath of God and there they will be crushed and blood will flow out of the wine press: even unto the horses’ bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs. I stood there astride that hill and I tried to imagine, with all the power of my intellect and my imagination, the entire valley filled with blood to the height of a horse’s bridle, that’s a two-hundred-mile river of blood four and a half feet deep. I’ve done the math! That’s the blood of two and a half billion people …”

  Ginger glanced across with his mobile phone clamped to his ear. He said: “The Thames Barrier is closed. Four hours to highest tide.”

  “Two and a half billion people dead in an instant, the horror of that,” Winthrop said through gritted teeth. “But the scale of it! The grandeur! You know what? The destruction of an old, tired city is nothing compared to that. This is just a wake-up call. A fright! Something to make everyone sit up straight and take notice again. To stop taking their liberties and comforts for granted and complete the job that began the day after 9/11, the job of remaking the world as it should be, in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ, our savior.”

  Two black Range Rovers appeared over the brow of the hill, churning the wet grass and spraying water. They skidded to a halt. Alex got out of the lead vehicle and the dog leaped out after him. Smudge, another of Alex’s employees, got out of the second vehicle.

  Alex strode straight up to Winthrop. He looked jittery and exhausted. There was a livid burn mark across his face and one of his eyes was partially closed.

  Winthrop handed him the brown envelope: “Fresh route out for Nor. Take it down to Chetney Marshes. He’s waiting for you. Tell him his big moment is here. Tell him we’re all counting on him.”

  Recognizing him, the dog yelped and licked Jonah’s face.

  “Well, well,” said Alex. “I thought you were dead.”

  “You know me better than that,” Jonah replied.

  Alex sneered. “I do. You’re a tenacious fucker. You’re renowned for it. You know the last thing that Beech said to me before I cut his throat? I mean, setting aside the pleading. I’ll tell you. He said you can stop me but you’ll never stop Jonah. I was like, I feel your pain, mate. After all, you couldn’t stop Jonah fucking your wife, could you? He was upset about me saying that.”

  “You bastard,” Jonah growled. Pakravan screwed the barrel of his gun farther into the back of Jonah’s neck.

  “Yeah, yeah. I know the drill,” Alex said. “It’s not wise to upset a wookie …”

  “Why are you doing this?” Jonah asked him.

  “Clear and simple, mate. We’re going to get rich beyond our wildest dreams. Graysteel’s got planes on standby in Iraq and Afghanistan ready to fly seasoned professionals here at just a few hours’ notice. I told you when I last saw you. The government doesn’t have enough resources of their own to cope. They’re going to need our help. We’re going to guard the camps and the first-aid points. We’re going to clear up the bodies. We’re going to provide the protection necessary to get the infrastructure of society up and running again: power, communication, transportation. They’ll throw open the doors of the Treasury to us. We’ll be heroes.”

  “You’ll be mass murderers.”

  “I think that particular epithet will be reserved for you and your fellow conspirator Nor and, of course, your terrorist girlfriend.”

  “What have you done with Miranda?”

  “She’s alive, I think. She’s quite something. I underestimated her. I mean, killing Beech and Monteith and fitting her up for it was easy in comparison with trying to keep her tied down for more than five minutes. She’s a slippery little bitch.” He paused. “She’s the one that burned my face. Make no mistake, when I catch up with her, I’m going to kill her.”

  “I’ll kill you first,” Jonah told him.

  “Oh, no you won’t! Oh, yes you will! Oh, no you won’t!” Alex mocked him. He stepped up to Jonah and slapped him across the face. “This isn’t a fucking pantomime.”

  “Take one car,” Winthrop told him. “Leave us the other.”

  “All right, boss.” Alex turned on his heels and strode to the nearest Range Rover with the dog at his heels and Smudge following on behind. They drove away down the hill in the direction of the Sheppey Crossing.

  Taff and Ginger retreated inside the
remaining Range Rover to shelter from the rain.

  “We didn’t think we needed your actual body to lay the blame for this at your door,” Winthrop told Jonah, in a conversational tone. “After all, there will be so many bodies in the water, most of them unrecognizable. But now you’re here we can use you. Graysteel can make sure the police find your corpse. We’ll deliver it. You and your girlfriend will be an international sensation—the traitors who sank a city.”

  Miranda was dimly aware of the sound of tires on gravel above the drumming of the rain, then a car door slamming and a few seconds later someone banging on the door. Nor slipped out of the bed beside her and prowled at the window. She thought she heard him say: “It’s the prick with the passport.”

  He came back to the bed and pulled on his jeans. He bent over her briefly, with his lips against the rim of her ear, and whispered, “Go back to sleep.”

  He padded barefoot down the stairs. She rolled in the tangle of sheets, sliding easily back into sleep.

  The next time she woke it was raining even harder, the raindrops hammering on the cottage roof, and she was being prodded by a familiar wet nose. Instinctively she reached out a hand to scratch under his chin. “Dog …” she whispered.

  She sat bolt upright. The dog was yelping and scratching at the covers.

  “Come here,” a familiar voice yelled from the hallway, closely followed by the thump of his feet bounding up the stairs. She drew the sheet around herself. The dog leaped onto the bed.

  “Come here …” Alex burst into the room. He stopped and stood still for a moment, staring at her. There were red burn marks running diagonally across his face. The dog was looking from one to the other, barking excitedly.

  She nuzzled him. “Shhhh …”

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” Alex demanded, furiously.

  “She’s with me,” Nor said, slipping into the room behind him.

  Alex rounded on him. “Are you insane?”

  “Somewhat so,” Nor acknowledged with the hint of a smile. “Miranda’s going to push the button. Aren’t you, honey? You’re going to send the signal that blows the boat.”

  She felt a sudden shiver run down her spine. “Sure.”

  “We’ll need another passport,” Nor said.

  “You’d never get her out on a plane,” Alex sneered. “Her face is on the front cover of every tabloid. Besides which, you’ll be lucky if I don’t cut her up here and now. In fact, maybe I will.”

  “You talk too much,” Nor told him, calmly. “I’ve always thought that.”

  “Have you seen what she did to me?” Alex demanded. “Look at my face.”

  “If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

  Alex’s eyes widened in astonishment. He stared at Nor as if unsure whether he was joking.

  “We’ll take the boat,” Nor said.

  “Take the fucking boat, then,” Alex retorted, and it seemed that at the heart of his astonishment there was some admiration. “If you think you can surf the wave. Personally, I think you’d have to be crazy to go to sea at this time. I’ll tell you what I’m doing—I’m heading back to the high ground.” He turned to leave. “Come on, dog.”

  She gripped the dog’s collar more tightly. “The dog stays,” she said.

  Alex turned on her. “No fucking way.”

  “You’re annoying me,” Nor told him.

  “Hey, fuck you!” Alex snarled, and lunged at Miranda.

  Nor sprang forward and she saw the flash of a blade and an arc of crimson and then he was bending over Alex, who was curled up on the floor, and his elbow was working like a piston, thrusting the knife in again and again. “Let’s hear you talk now, motherfucker!”

  When Alex had stopped struggling, Nor stood up again and flung the knife into the corner of the room. There was blood on his forearms and on the sleeves of his shirt.

  Miranda stepped around him and knelt over Alex. His mouth hung open like a broken door. She put two fingers to his throat but there was no pulse. “He’s dead.”

  “I never liked him,” Nor said, striding back and forth. “I really, really didn’t like him.”

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “There’s another one in the car outside.” Nor kneeled beside her and turned Alex over. He withdrew the pistol from a holster on his belt. He checked the magazine and made ready. “Wait here.” She listened to the sound of his bare feet on the stairs and then he was charging out through the front door into the pounding rain and firing the pistol. Fifteen shots in rapid succession and then the sound of falling rain again and the crack of approaching thunder.

  In the interval between thunderclaps she heard the distinctive buzzing of a phone. She reached into Alex’s pocket and retrieved it. She looked at the flashing screen. Winthrop calling …

  “Alex?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “Where’s Alex?” Winthrop demanded.

  “He’s dead.”

  “Who is this? Who am I speaking with?”

  “Miranda.”

  “Where’s Nor?”

  “I’m not going to let you get away with this,” she said. She cut the connection. She reached into her bag and took out Mikulski’s card. She wrote him a text: Ship is rigged to blow by phone signal at highest tide. Miranda

  She pressed Send.

  When Nor reappeared at the top of the stairs, he was holding an assault rifle.

  “Get dressed,” he said. “It’s not safe here. We’re going out to the boat. We’ll ride out the storm there.”

  She glanced at the dog and he returned her gaze. If she hadn’t known better, she could have sworn there was reproach in his eyes.

  AND THE FLOODS CAME

  Standing beside the duty controller at the windows of the Thames Barrier control tower, Mikulski watched huge swells march upriver from the horizon in even bands, their white crests streaming sideways in the wind. They exploded against the Barrier gates with a force that seemed to shake the whole structure. Air trapped inside their gray barrels was blown upward in geysers higher than the steel rigging of the Millennium Dome.

  According to the controller, predictions from the Met Office computers were systematically exceeding all atmospheric models, and the storm had developed such a steep pressure gradient that an eye had begun to form. The printouts showed clouds swirling into its center like water down a drain.

  Mikulski was furious. He had been since that morning. The decision not to attempt to send a team of specialist police divers from Thames Division to the wreck had been justified to him on the grounds that the detonators had been recovered by the police before the terrorists had the opportunity to attach them to the charges and, besides, any attempt to dismantle the charges before the storm had passed was unsafe and probably impossible. What made him angry was that immediately after the raid the man who was masquerading as the MoD official on the boat had been spirited away from the scene in the back of an unmarked Range Rover by persons unknown, presumably from the intelligence services. The police were given no opportunity to question the man and now Fisher-King, who was the sole police point of contact with the intelligence services, had gone missing. The divers were in the cells at Paddington Green but so far had remained silent. Nobody seemed to know whether Nor or Jonah was at large. He hadn’t heard from Miranda in nearly twenty-four hours. Norma Said had been right: the whole thing stank of entrapment and cover up. It was sloppy and feckless. As irresponsible as leaving a wreck full of explosives in a busy shipping lane for sixty years.

  His phone beeped. A text from an unfamiliar number: Ship is rigged to blow by phone signal at highest tide. Miranda

  “Shit!”

  Inspector Coyle glanced at him from a nearby bank of monitors.

  “Where’s Fisher-King?” Mikulski demanded.

  Coyle looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

  Mikulski showed him the text message.

  “You better get on to Cobra and find out where the hell he is.” Coyle
reached for the nearest landline.

  Mikulski turned to the controller. “When will the water be at its highest?”

  “Peak surge is projected for about ninety minutes before highest tide,” the controller replied. “Eight thirty p.m.”

  Mikulski glanced at his watch. Two hours. “Fuck!”

  Coyle looked across at them, and held his hand over the phone’s receiver. “Fisher-King’s body was found in St. James’s Park earlier today,” he said.

  “What?”

  “He was murdered.”

  “When were they going to tell us this?” Mikulski demanded.

  Coyle looked stricken.

  “Well?”

  “Gold Commander says that it’s too late to initiate a London-wide evacuation.”

  “Can you kill the phone networks?” Mikulski demanded.

  A brutal wind lashed the marshlands. Miranda followed Nor with the dog at her heel. Each step was a struggle and icy needles of water struck her face and stung her eyes. On the horizon, there were occasional flashes of lightning. They crossed under a pylon line, the wires moaning in the wind, and on to an ancient dyke that ran alongside an overflowing ditch. Water coursed across their boots. Warning lights blinked on marker buoys riding the swell in the channel at the approach to the crossing, and sodium lights boiled on the raised walkways of a sewage works.

  They struggled along an overgrown footpath that was choked with swaying nettles, veering to the left, heading northwest along a sea wall with the wind buffeting them from behind. Foamy water was already lapping at the top of the wall.

  The dinghy was directly in front of them, and it had been lifted from its mooring and deposited on the footpath. The well of the boat was awash with water and they had to tip it over before they could launch it into the channel.