by Mick Herron
“She’s big-boned, that’s all. How, precisely, did you—”
“I fired them.”
Catherine pondered this for a moment. Marcus and Shirley, more prone than River even to banging their heads against walls while waiting for something—anything—to happen. “That might work,” she allowed.
“Yeah, and the beauty of it is, if it doesn’t? They’re already fired.”
“But on the other hand, you could have just given them instructions.”
“They haven’t fucking learned to follow instructions.”
Ho returned from the kitchen with a glass of water. He looked at Lamb, then at Catherine, then at Lamb again.
“It’s a glass of water,” Lamb said. “Take a wild guess.”
Ho handed the water to Catherine.
“Thank you,” she said.
She was on her knees now, cradling the still-unconscious Bailey’s head in her lap. Opening his mouth with one hand, she poured water from the glass into it.
“You’re going to drown him?” said Lamb. “Seems a bit harsh.”
“I’m not the one who broke his face.”
“I think I’ve got one of his teeth in my knee.”
“He’s just a kid.”
“Shouldn’t be playing with grown-ups then.” Bending low, Lamb went through Bailey’s pockets. Finding a wallet, he sat back on his haunches and flipped through it: some small change, a pair of ten- pound notes, a credit card and a driving licence.
The notes disappeared in Lamb’s meaty fist.
“What on earth are you doing?”
“Petrol money,” said Lamb. He glanced at the licence. “Well well well. Craig Dunn.”
“He’s waking up,” Ho said.
The young man’s eyes were moving under their lids. Catherine tapped his cheek gently with the flat of her hand.
“Is that actual first aid?” Lamb asked suspiciously. “It looks like what you’d do with a puppy.”
“Why don’t you do something useful and call an ambulance?”
“I’ve already been useful,” Lamb said. He looked at Ho. “What’s the matter now?”
“I paid for the petrol.”
“You’ll need to file an expenses claim,” Lamb said. “Louisa’ll show you how.”
Craig Dunn groaned and opened his eyes.
At first sight, the wasteground was empty of people. The Black Arrow van was parked near a car which looked like Louisa’s, and there was a skip, various heaps of masonry, and a pile of tumbled-over fencing, but the crew they’d seen drive in had melted away.
“Where did they go?”
“Don’t look for people. Look for movement.”
It was like one of those children’s puzzles: you stare at a picture of a tree until you can make out the squirrels.
They were in shadow themselves, more tree than squirrel, and speaking in whispers. Shirley had buttoned her jacket up, to prevent white T-shirt showing; Marcus had pulled his cap low. They were huddled by the entrance to the mis-shaped quadrilateral formed by the buildings; a pole designed to block ingress had been fixed in an upright position, and a wooden sentry box where a car park attendant once lurked was empty, save for a heavy stink of piss. There were lights beyond the furthest building, signals for passing trains, but the sky overhead had given way to a thoughtful deep blue, and nothing shone in the foreground.
Then something shifted across the far side, between the pillars on ground level of the furthest building, and Shirley realised she was looking at a pair of Black Arrows.
“I see two.”
“I’ve got seven,” Marcus said.
“Show-off.”
“They’re not much good,” he said. “This kind of terrain, this much cover, I’d be invisible.”
“I can see you,” Shirley muttered. Then: “What are they? Are they klieg lights?”
There were two sets of them, scaffolding towers that loomed a few metres tall with searchlights affixed to the top: one by the Black Arrow van, and the other a few metres away, neither lit, but both aimed at a hole in the factory wall. They looked like outsized anglepoise lamps. They also looked like you could tip them over with a broomstick.
“Yeah, that’s exactly what—oh, Christ.”
“It’s a killing ground,” said Shirley.
“Looks like.”
“They’re gonna flush River and the others out of the facility. They come up, the lights go on—blam blam blam.”
“Hush.”
A figure emerged from the back of the van. A balaclava obscured his face, though he was too far away for that to make much difference. After a brief survey of the area, he trotted towards the block to their right.
“Eight,” said Marcus.
“Are you just gonna count, or do you have a plan?”
“Well, in situations like this I ask myself, ‘What would Nelson Mandela do?’”
“. . . Seriously?”
“Dude survived twenty-seven years in a maximum security prison,” Marcus said. “I’m pretty sure he could take care of himself.”
“Yeah, that’s not what most people think of when—oh, forget it. What would Nelson do?”
“He’d take those towers out before the lights came on. You up to that?”
Shirley was, and would have said so, but a figure appeared behind Marcus wielding a truncheon. The alarm in her eyes gave Marcus half a moment’s grace, and he moved just enough that the stick, instead of swinging into the side of his head, caught him on the neck. He bounced full body off the wall and hit the ground with a thud. Shirley had time to note that his baseball cap remained fixed in place; almost time to step forward and launch a chin-bound kick at his assailant; no time at all to do anything but fall flat on her face when her legs were taken out from under her by a second man. Roll, she thought, and took a mouthful of gravel as his kick came in to take her head off.
Running along the corridor, Louisa noticed her heart rate . . . It had been a while since she’d been conscious of the beating of her heart.
Two paces ahead, River barely slowed before launching himself through a set of swing doors; they banged off the walls and swang back at her, and she fended them off with her forearms. Any of the instructors they’d had, back before their fall, would have had seven kinds of fit watching this: they were more like schoolkids having a race than agents on an op . . . If that’s what they were. If that’s what this was.
What it mostly felt like was an unholy mess, but there was nothing unusual about that. Last year, she and Min had had the sniff of an op: little more than a handholding exercise, but it had made them feel more alive than at any time since being kicked out of the Park. As things turned out, they were playing someone else’s game: Min died, and all she’d had since was the daily grind of make-work and nightly stands with strange men; so many strange men, she was near to forgetting there was any other kind.
And now this.
More doors. She’d lost track of which corridor they were in, F or E, but that didn’t matter because here they were, in the room they’d seen on the monitor, with its rows of newly assembled shelving, and crates packed in what looked like cages, as if the information they contained was savage, and needed to be kept behind bars. A lot of it probably was. At the far end of the room, visible along the aisle between the rows, Ben Traynor was by the far set of doors: he’d erected a barricade, and was standing on an overturned cabinet, sighting through a fraction of a porthole window. His gun hung loosely by his side, but on their arrival he spun round, aiming it in their direction.
River and Louisa leaped in opposite directions, taking cover behind caged crates.
Traynor lowered the gun. “What the hell are you doing?”
River emerged, hands raised to shoulder level. “Was about to ask you the same thing. Where’s Donovan?”
The sound of a box file hitting the floor betrayed his position.
Traynor said, “I thought I told you to go.”
“And I thought you said you were after the Grey Books.”
Louisa joined River as he lowered his hands. “Are they showing signs of coming in?” she asked.
He hesitated. Then said, “There’s a room a few yards down the corridor. They’re in there at the moment. I imagine they’re planning their next move.”
Which presumably involved all-out assault, thought Louisa. That or surrender, which didn’t seem likely. “Have they got guns?”
“Maybe one or two of them. They haven’t fired any yet.”
Another box file hit the floor.
River said, “If he’s going through them one by one, we might be here a while.”
“We know what we’re doing.”
“They won’t need guns. They can just wait for the hinges to rust off the doors.”
Louisa moved down the aisle towards Traynor, and stopped when she reached the row where Donovan was. There was something incongruous about the scene: like watching Rocky play librarian. In his hands was a box file. Before she opened her mouth he’d dropped it and was reaching for the next one.
She said, “I found your online musings.”
“BigSeanD,” he said, without stopping what he was doing.
“BigSeanD has a thing about the weather,” she said. “He seems to think They’ve weaponised it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Wasn’t too clear on who They were.”
“I expect They’re the same crowd putting chips in people’s heads to track them when they’re abducted by aliens.” He looked at her briefly. “They get up to creepy shit, They surely do.”
He’d reached the end of the row of box files; next up were manila folders, of varying thickness; some bound with ribbon, others paper-clipped closed. They had catalogue numbers stamped in red ink on the cover; Donovan checked each before unbowing the ribbon, discarding the paper clip. A quick glance at the top sheet seemed to be all he needed, and the folders joined the mess on the floor.
“You have to admit,” he said in a conversational tone, “it doesn’t sound that far-fetched. If the weather’s not being controlled yet, you can bet your life someone’s trying to make it happen.”
“But you don’t care about that, do you? You were just building a legend to get you access to this place.”
“What’s the matter, don’t I fit your image of a conspiracy nut? What have you been told we look like?”
“I gather they come in different sizes,” River said. He stood in the aisle, with a sight line on both Donovan and Traynor. “But whatever you really want, we can’t let you take it.”
“Is that so?”
“Making a move now,” said Traynor.
“How many?” River asked.
“Six. More. I have limited vision here.”
Donovan looked unmoved. He said, “You might want to leave. One or two of them have real guns. They even know which way to point them.”
River said, “You took Catherine Standish. Sent me her photo.”
“I took her,” Donovan said. “But it was Monteith sent you the photo.” He plucked another folder from the shelf. “And I think you’ll find he’s outside your jurisdiction.”
A glance, the barest shrug. The folder hit the floor.
“You knew her from the old days,” Louisa said. “Back when she was at the Park.”
Donovan opened another folder. He looked at the front page, seemed about to drop it, then looked again, more closely.
“But what I want to know,” Louisa said, “is how come you knew about Slough House?”
Glass splintered, and she turned. Through the gap on the shelves left by Donovan’s predations, she saw Traynor raise the gun to the window he’d just broken: two shots ricocheted down the corridor. In immediate response came a louder bang, and a flood of light which filled the room before receding, leaving a dark blur in its place. Traynor was thrown from the cabinet, which juddered across the floor with a heavy scraping sound. The doors bulged inwards, the left-hand one torn free of the wall by the blast, and the rows of shelving toppled like dominoes, as those nearest the blast collapsed onto their neighbours. Donovan dropped to the ground; Louisa followed when he pulled her arm, and the falling shelves spewed files and folders onto their heads. What had been an aisle was now a tunnel, and the overhead crashing continued until the last of the shelves came to rest on the first of the rows of crates. River had gone. For two seconds Louisa was blank confusion, her ears full of noise, her eyes full of light, and then a survival instinct kicked in: on her hands and knees, she scuttled through debris to what had been the central aisle, where she could make out figures pouring through what was now a hole in the wall where the doors had been. Scrambling upright, she found herself grabbed by a stranger, his features obscured by black wool. When she rapped his throat with the side of her hand he backed off two steps, comically choking for breath, and another man, identically clad, took his place. This time Louisa was flung to the floor, with something like a cosh swinging down towards her. It would have connected if a box file hadn’t hit the man in the face first. He staggered sideways, then fell when River punched him in the head.
Louisa got to her feet. A light haze had filled the room, smoke, but mostly dust. Some of the Black Arrow crew didn’t appear to know what to do now they’d broken through; a couple of others, more proactive, were sitting on Ben Traynor; had rolled him over and were cuffing his wrists. Sean Donovan emerged from behind her, and she saw him reach for the folder he’d been looking at when the doors had blown open. He tucked it inside his shirt before standing up.
River shouted. “You okay?”
She thought that’s what he shouted. Her ears were still ringing.
He shouted, “Time to go,” and then his body went rigid and the light in his eyes went out.
The way he hit the floor, she was sure he was dead.
Shirley rolled sideways, and the kick that should have taken her head off did no more than graze her ear. In the same movement she hooked her foot around her assailant’s leg and brought him to the ground. From the corner of her eye, she saw the first man bring his truncheon down on Marcus’s stomach, but that was yards away—another time zone—and she had her own enemy to worry about. She threw herself upon him, pinning his elbows with her hands. He was several stone heavier, and clad in combat-ready gear; she wore jeans, a tee and a jacket, but if she lacked a well-packed utility belt and a nightstick she at least had a hard head, and when she brought it down on his nose she heard the satisfying crunch of bone on bone. The coward screamed, and his stick went rattling across the concrete. Pushing herself semi-upright, Shirley punched him twice, very hard, in the exact same spot she’d just butted him. She’d have done so a third time, but had to throw herself sideways to avoid the first man’s truncheon, which whistled so closely past her face she could taste it. She rolled over twice then sprang into launch position, like a racer waiting for the starting pistol. Facing her, he slapped the truncheon into his open palm, once, twice, like an invitation. The second man was wheezing heavily, bubbling with blood; Marcus was prone and didn’t look like he’d be moving soon. And there were more people heading this way: she could hear the rustling of gear, the heavy tread of hot men. Another slap of the truncheon—Come and get it.
She could take him. Five seconds’ untrammelled movement from her, and he’d spend the rest of the night removing that stick from his arse.
But there was more than just him to contend with. Before the noises got closer, she feinted left, moved right, spun on her heel and ran.
Sorry, Marcus.
Shadows swallowed her, and she vanished inside darkness.
She didn’t see Marcus being gathered up and carried to the black van.
Dame Ingrid sat i
n the aura of her standard lamp, and to an observer might have looked serene, saintly even, given the halo effect of her blonde wig. Though if the same observer had moved closer, ignoring the soft focus, she’d have noticed that any calm in Dame Ingrid’s eyes was the kind that rocks contain, comprising a sublime indifference to the forces that produced her and a stubborn intention to endure, come what may.
There was no observer, but Ingrid Tearney rubbed her cheek anyway, as if disturbed by a stranger’s breath, then patted her wig, assuring herself it remained in place. After today’s events, she would not have been surprised to find strands of it falling about her shoulders, the way her real hair might, had it not been lost to her long ago. Today had been a day of surprises; of sandbaggings and sudden reversals. Peter Judd’s plotting had not been unexpected: PJ was a known quantity—public buffoon and private velociraptor—and Dame Ingrid had been girding her loins for an attack since his elevation to the Home Office. Diana Taverner’s machinations were hardly out of character either, but what startled Dame Ingrid was that Taverner’s plan had evidently been germinating for years.
Half an hour’s research had proved this much.
Sean Donovan was a name that would have rung bells, had Dame Ingrid ever concerned herself with the sharp end of operations. Donovan had been a career soldier, destined for laurels; his non-combat duties had included a session at the UN, where he’d advised on crushing resistance, or counter-insurgency as it was also known, depending on whose foot the boot was on. He’d been accompanied by a Captain Alison Dunn, who was engaged to Donovan’s subordinate, Lieutenant Benjamin Traynor. All very cosy, and it didn’t require much imagination to conjure up myriad ways in which things could have gone pear-shaped, but what actually happened wasn’t romantic entanglement but political indiscretion. In a Midtown bar, Alison Dunn had been approached by a junior delegate from one of the former Soviet republics. Dunn had known enough to stay sober in this company; the junior delegate had either been unencumbered by such wisdom or was pretending to be drunker than he was to excuse his flapping tongue. Or possibly—you couldn’t rule it out—his motives had been honourable. Either way, the information he passed on to Dunn had been alarming enough for her to submit a report to the Home Office, stamped minister’s eyes only, on her return home.