‘Just walk away, my brother. Walk away.’
‘I can’t walk away from what I know is right. You don’t understand – Mossad and MOIS are just words. Liberty and I might be on different sides, but we share the same vision. We share the same heart. I have more in common with her than with many Israelis. This is the way of the future. The way of peace.’
Avner sighed deeply and sat back in his chair, collecting his thoughts. Then he pulled himself together, took Uzi’s arm and looked him full in the face. ‘I’ve wanted to say this to you for a long time. Maybe I should’ve said it before. You’ve been a different man since your parents died. I’m no psychologist but I’ve seen the change. This thing with Liberty – she’s managed to get under your skin. The MOIS are clever bastards. They have psychologists working for them, just the same as we do. She’s found your weak point, and she’s got herself in there. That’s your Achilles’ heel, my brother – the death of your parents. You need love more than you know. This Iranian agent has exploited that, and now she’s taken over your thoughts.’ He got to his feet, picked up his briefcase and overcoat. ‘Trust me, you’re not in your right mind. Find the slick. Pick up your new identity. Walk away from Liberty and get the fuck out of the UK, before it’s really too late. Work all this stuff out in your own time. Never mind the future of the fucking world.’
Uzi felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. As he watched Avner disappear into the bustle of the airport, a knot of emotion butted up into his throat. He left a ten-pound note on the table, hurried from the café and rushed into the nearest bathroom. Locking the cubicle door behind him, he flung his motorcycle helmet on the floor and slammed the walls with his fists. Then he crouched down, head in hands, moaning. The Kol started babbling in his head, all the usual things, making his ear itch unbearably. He let it wash over him, did not reply. For several minutes he stayed there, waiting for somebody to come; surely somebody had heard the racket, surely the airport police would come and pick him up. But nobody came. He remained like this, crouching in an anonymous toilet cubicle, for a long time.
By the time Uzi rode away from the airport, his rage had eased and a coolness of mood had taken its place; the storm had blown itself out, and even though the future was uncertain, he somehow had a new clarity of mind. He rode back towards the city, not allowing his bike to climb above sixty, not giving the machine its head even as it strained at the bit.
Before long he was in East Finchley, driving up towards East End Road. The sky had taken on the colour of his old uniform; dark grey with a hint of blue. The dawn was about to break. On the horizon, a pale yellow light was beginning to appear. He stopped the bike across the street from number 83. Avner hadn’t told him precisely who owned the property; Uzi assumed it was a safe house of some sort, but that didn’t mean it was safe for him. The first few birds were beginning to sing, and a solitary bus rumbled past in the distance. Uzi put the bike on its stand and dismounted, then made his way quickly to the electricity box. He knelt down, examined it. There was no sign that it had been tampered with. It was a little stiff but the cover came away upwards, just as Avner had said. Inside was a suitcase fastened with a padlock. It was surprisingly heavy. Uzi strapped it to the back of his bike and rode away in the direction of Muswell Hill, looking for somewhere inconspicuous.
In an alleyway by the edge of a small park, Uzi killed the engine and dismounted. A fox trotted from bin to bin in the shadows. He searched his memory for the code – 9826 – and opened the padlock on the suitcase. Inside was a small safe with a combination lock. He looked around. Nobody. He entered the number 2034. The lock clicked and the safe popped open.
Inside, just as Avner had promised, was the Canadian passport and driving licence, both under the name of Jay Maxwell Taylor. Alongside it was a bundle of hundred-dollar notes wrapped in clingfilm. Uzi estimated forty or fifty thousand dollars. Beneath these were three credit cards, also in the name of Mr J. M. Taylor, with their PIN numbers written on stickers on the back. Uzi memorised them, then peeled the stickers off and discarded them. Finally there was an Austrian-made 9mm Steyr M9 self-loading pistol. But this was no ordinary gun. Being made entirely of plastic, it could be carried undetected through metal detectors. This was every Office operative’s favourite toy; small enough to conceal comfortably on an aeroplane, yet large enough to pack some serious stopping power. There was a box of bullets, as well – plastic yet deadly. Uzi loaded the weapon. Then he pressed it into his waistband, dropped the rest of the slick into the cavity beneath his motorcycle seat, and disposed of the suitcase and safe. Then he gunned the engine and rode off into the heart of London.
37
Morning was breaking. The revellers of central London had gone home, and street sweepers shuffled along the gutters. On Portman Square, in the car park beneath Home House, all was still. The dawn light was moving from orange to grey outside, and the occasional sound of traffic could be heard.
A steel door at the back of the car park opened and a figure emerged, cradling a motorcycle helmet under his arm. He threaded his way through the gleaming luxury cars, ignoring his reflection that stretched and contracted across the highly polished contours. He arrived at his vehicle, mounted and put the helmet on his head, muffling the world. His mouth tasted of strong coffee and cigarettes – he had not slept last night – and his mind was gripped by a combination of adrenaline and concentration that for years had pre-empted ‘no zero’ operations. This was it. Before lowering his visor and starting the engine, he checked that his R9 was fully loaded and ready to go, and he secreted in his inside pocket the plastic Steyr M9. Then he rolled the bike off its stand, twisted the throttle and moved out into the first light.
London had a different character in the early morning, before the tsunami of the rush hour broke; on the roads distances shortened, journeys that would normally take the best part of an hour could be accomplished in mere minutes. As Uzi drove north, limiting his speed, he observed his surroundings carefully, making a mental note of everything that might have a bearing on what was to come: roadworks, lorries parked in the street, delivery vans unloading, pedestrian crossings, skips. In his mind he was constructing a map of what he saw: an obstacle here, a short cut there, an opportunity to double-back around that corner. Preparation was of the essence: he was approaching the race of his life.
Uzi turned on to the Edgware Road in the direction of Maida Vale. The traffic was denser here, and as each minute passed and the rush hour approached, the traffic got denser still. When he arrived at Little Venice, he slowed, swung the monstrous bike round and killed the engine. The buildings were low and the pavements broad, and the trees were losing their leaves. The sky spread like a great grey canopy above, gathering the light of day. He slipped his hand into his pocket and turned his comms device on.
‘OK, I’m in place,’ he said. ‘Do you copy? Over.’
There was a pause. Then a voice in his earpiece: ‘Copy that. Stand by. Leaking your location now.’
He sat back in the saddle and lit a cigarette. He had minutes, only minutes. His mind felt fresh, focused, ready for danger. A woman walked past with a dog on a lead, mumbling incomprehensibly to herself. Across the road, a man slept on a bench. A bus rumbled past, sending little tremors up Uzi’s legs. He smoked.
‘OK,’ came the voice in his earpiece, ‘location leaked. Prepare for interception. Good luck. Over.’
Instinctively he glanced at the circular mirror attached to one of the handlebars. Nothing, of course. Even the Office couldn’t mobilise that quickly. Nevertheless, he lowered his visor, leaned forward and started the engine. It throbbed beneath him. He was ready.
Two minutes passed. He swung the bike at a right angle to the road to maximise manoeuvrability; there was no telling whether the Office would come from the north or the south. Uzi knew they would try to box him in, so in all likelihood they would approach from both directions at once. As soon as they came into view, he would need to decide on his move instantly and
execute it with precision. There could be no hesitation. He was already gambling that they would try to take him alive rather than shoot him on sight. The margin for error was zero.
The woman with the dog disappeared around the corner; the man on the bench still snored. Another bus groaned by, half-full with half-asleep Londoners. Uzi looked up and down the road, north, then south, then north again, looking for signs of the Office. They would come on motorbikes, he knew that. It would be stupid to try to chase down a bike with cars in a built-up area like this. But they didn’t know what he was riding; the only information that had been leaked was his location and the fact that he was on a motorbike. This high-performance machine would come as a surprise, and – at least, this was the plan – give him the edge he needed.
The first sign of his hunters was invisible. The buzz of engines, perhaps three or four, in the distance, growing in volume. Behind his visor, Uzi gritted his teeth and blinked hard to clear his vision.
And there they were. On both horizons at once, north and south, as he had expected, the morning light glinting off their helmets. They were approaching fast, but at this distance he was unable to see what sort of machines they were riding. He rocked his bike off its stand and drove slowly into the middle of the road, trying to judge distances. Yes, the two bikes coming from the city would reach him first. He waited. A single drop of sweat trickled down the side of his face like a spider. This was it. He was confident of the preparations he had made, and the machine he was riding. So long as they didn’t open fire at him, this had a good chance of success.
Just as the motorbikes were almost upon him, he twisted his throttle aggressively and his bike sprang into life like a beast. He swung it round and accelerated towards them, the front wheel lifting off the ground as he gained speed. The two riders in front of him swerved in surprise, and Uzi jinked between them and roared off down the Edgware Road. In his wing mirror he saw them looping their motorcycles around and joining their comrades who had been approaching from the other direction. Then all four sped after him in pursuit. Uzi let out a whoop, deafeningly loud inside his helmet. He was alive – he was alive. The first phase of the operation had gone according to plan. His timing had been perfect, and the Office could not box him in now; his pursuers were strung out behind him, and he was the one leading the way. They had taken the bait. The chase was on.
There was no real contest. Uzi’s motorbike was superior in every way, and it ate up the tarmac hungrily. The gap between him and his pursuers widened as bus stops, cars, trees, traffic islands flashed by. His comms device crackled and a voice came through into his ear: ‘I can see they’ve found you, over.’
‘Too right,’ said Uzi excitedly, ‘the fuckers don’t stand a chance against this thing. Over.’
‘Try not to lose them. We want them to keep you in sight, over.’
‘Copy that.’
Uzi turned left, and his pursuers were out of sight for a few long seconds. He was home and dry, he thought. He should kill his speed, allow them back in the game. But just as his motorbike was screaming through the network of flyovers and slip-roads on the Marylebone Road, something unexpected happened. Another two motorcycles shot down the slip-road from the flyover, swerved in parallel across the intersection, and fell in directly behind him. Where had they come from? They were close, too close; their bikes were chunkier, faster than the others. He opened the throttle, the huge back tyre squealed, and even at this speed the front wheel of his bike sprang into the air as it accelerated. But the two riders behind him accelerated too, and their front wheels rose as well; he was not going to lose them so easily. He heard a dull pop and something grazed his helmet, throwing his head to the side and making his bike swerve then right itself. He glanced in the rear-view mirror: one of the riders was aiming a gun at him. From the sound of the shot, and the fact that his helmet was still intact, he guessed he was using rubber bullets. He hoped.
Instantly Uzi pulled his bike off the road and on to the pavement, narrowly missing a cluster of pedestrians, and took a sharp left on to Lisson Grove. This gained him some advantage; his two pursuers overshot the turning slightly, and lost speed as they veered from one side of the road to the other, trying to keep up. As he approached the zebra crossing he made another unexpected turning and sped down Harewood Row. This was a narrow street, and the howl of Uzi’s engine echoed deafeningly off the flat-faced apartment blocks on either side. But the Office riders could not be fooled twice, and they lost no time in turning after him. There was about twenty metres between them; that was all.
At the end of the road he swerved left, then right, and screamed along the road that led past Marylebone Station, front wheel lifting off the ground. Just as he approached the wrought-iron canopy that stretched across the street at the entrance to the station, a black taxi pulled out in front of him. Uzi pulled the handlebars to the right; for a moment his leg dragged against the flank of the taxi, and then he was away amid a volley of honks and shouts. He glanced in the mirror, just in time to see one of his pursuers swerving around the taxi, mounting the pavement and colliding with the pillars at the station entrance. The man rose in the air as the bike somersaulted beneath him, then he spun like a dancer against the wall, landed hard on the pavement, and skidded several metres before coming to a halt. Believe.
The chase was still on. The Office had its prey fully in its jaws, and Uzi’s ploy suddenly looked about to collapse. Perhaps he had gone too far this time. Perhaps he had been too audacious. But it was too late; all he could do now was ride for all he was worth. The remaining Office rider was pushing his machine hard, staying close to Uzi and looking for the opportunity for a clear shot. In the mirror Uzi could see that he was riding a red Kawasaki, a Ninja he thought, and wearing a red helmet. He raised his gun and Uzi ducked; there was a succession of pops, but nothing hit. Uzi wove erratically, mounting the pavement and then back into the road, turning corners without warning, keeping his speed as high as he could.
‘Everything all right?’ came the voice on his comms device. ‘You’ve taken a couple of detours, over.’
‘I’m handling it, over,’ said Uzi, surprised at the volume and pitch of his voice.
‘Are they shooting? Over.’
‘Rubber bullets, I think, over.’
‘Don’t shoot back. We need them to follow you all the way. But for fuck’s sake don’t get shot, either. Over.’
‘Copy that.’
The rush hour was approaching now, and the traffic was beginning to thicken. Uzi turned down Great Central Street and back on to the Marylebone Road, speeding past the idling rows of cars, buses, vans. In his mirror he could see the original four pursuers trying to catch them up – so they were still in the race. Uzi shot through a red light and careered across the intersection, avoiding a white van by inches. Then he headed down Baker Street, the red rider still uncomfortably close. More popping sounds came from behind. He needed to put some space between them; it was only a matter of time before one of those shots hit home. In the distance he heard some police sirens start up – the chase had evidently been reported. But it didn’t matter now. He was almost there.
Halfway down Baker Street, the way was blocked. A skip was protruding into the street and two buses were trying to negotiate their way past it. Uzi’s fingers hovered over the brake – he was going too fast to stop and he would have to mount the pavement. There were lots of commuters about now, it would be difficult not to hit anybody. Then, in a flash, it came to him. Those endless afternoons as a teenager, messing around in the Negev desert with dirt bikes, racing them, jumping them, doing tricks, impressing the girls. The old stunts, the old knack, were just a memory away.
Propped up against the lip of the skip was a plank of wood, used as a ramp by the builders. Already they had started work; a shop was being gutted by a gang of four or five men in high visibility jackets, who were ferrying rubble in wheelbarrows up the plank and into the skip. Years ago, Uzi had used ramps like this thousands of times.
He knew he could still do it. Praying that the plank would hold his weight, he accelerated.
In the mirror he saw the red rider hanging back, obviously confused; Uzi’s riding seemed suicidal. Hunching over the motorcycle, Uzi sped towards the skip. All at once his wheels were on the plank and it was carrying him upwards, upwards; then the bike was in the air, wheels spinning furiously, borne by nothing but its own momentum. For a moment, the world fell silent. The feeling of the Negev came back: the dust, the heat, the bottles of beer, the pre-Army freedom, the girls. The bikes. The plank fell away from the skip behind him, bouncing softly on to the road. On the street below, Uzi saw the workmen gazing upwards; office workers with cardboard coffee cups turning to stare; faces gaping in windows; people pointing. Then the ground approached, too fast, and the sound of the world returned all at once, dominated by the shriek of tyres on asphalt. This was London. The bike skidded on landing, snaked but didn’t fall. The impact sent a shock wave whipping through Uzi’s body and then he was in control again, speeding in the direction of Portman Square, scattering a cloud of pigeons that had been pecking along the gutters. In his mirror he saw the red rider on the pavement, negotiating his way round the skip and accelerating towards him. But Uzi had gained some all-important ground. Now all that remained was to lure the Office back to Home House, where everything was set up for the next phase of the plan.
38
In the car park beneath Home House, life was stirring. Dawn had given way to a greyish morning, and from time to time gleaming luxury cars moved in or out, their velvety engines echoing against the concrete. Well-dressed men strode purposefully to and from their vehicles. A dark figure, adjusting the collar on his black leather jacket, wound his way through the vehicles, stopping on occasion to let them pass. He made his way up to the street and waited. In his earpiece, a comms device crackled.
The Pure Page 25