Real Tigers (27 page)

“Yeah, something like that. Are you armed?”

“No. Are you?”

“No,” said Marcus. “Well, a gun.”

“That's kind of armed.”

“It's not a big gun.”

“You bring a spare?”

“What am I, your nanny? No I didn't bring a spare. This is a family car, not a roving arsenal. Now do your buttons up. Your T-shirt's showing.”

Shirley did her buttons up, and the pair of them set off round the corner.

Nick Duffy
checked his watch, wondered again where the hell the Black Arrow crew were, then exhaled when he saw the van appear below, coming to a halt with an unnecessary squeal of brakes near the pile of mesh fencing. Amateurs: they spilled out the back the way they'd seen it done in Vietnam movies, as if they'd set down in a chopper, and Charlie was lurking in the reeds.

But they didn't need to be good at what they did. They only had to be there, in large numbers.

Duffy counted a dozen before letting the binoculars fall to his chest. They were in full-on Cowboys and Indians mode, peeping out from behind whatever shelter they could find: the van itself, the skip, that pile of fencing. The Slough House crew's vehicle was available too: Cartwright and Guy were that keyed into undercover work, they'd parked it in full view of the slowly appearing stars. In a sense, he'd be doing everyone a favour, taking them off the board. And even as he had the thought, he was aware that this was the mood required for this kind of job: you had to be clear that what you were doing was for the common good, even of those you were doing it to.

All of them
, Dame Ingrid had said.
The Slough House crew too.

He watched the black-clad wannabes at work, some unpacking equipment from the back of their van—a pair of quick-assembly scaffolding towers on which klieg lights perched—while others hopped and jumped from shadow to shadow, preparing their ground, and looking like they were having fun, but only because they'd never done this for real before. If he were of a sentimental persuasion, Duffy might have mused that once upon a time he'd been like that himself, but he wasn't, and he hadn't, so he simply stooped to the holdall at his feet and pulled out a black silk balaclava. Black for night, silk for coolness—even now, the heat persisted; like a bakery where the ovens had only just been turned off—but most of all, a balaclava so his face wasn't on show. When this was over, the Black Arrows were going to be left holding the body bags, and it would be nicer all round if they had no descriptions to chuck about.

Then he checked his guns, checked his ammunition, and went down to take charge.

On the
top landing, Lamb found a padlocked door and thought: okay, that resembles a clue. The key was no doubt in Sunny Jim's pocket, and it wouldn't take two minutes to pop back downstairs and collect it, but it didn't look like anyone was about to volunteer, so he simply bellowed “Standish? You might want to step back,” and without further warning applied his foot. The first kick threw splinters and pulled the metal clasp holding the padlock halfway out of the frame. The second completed the job, and the door slammed inwards, hit the wall, and bounced back closed. In the split second between, he saw Catherine Standish, framed in another doorway, holding something in her hand. When he pushed the broken door open once more and stepped through it, she was still there, but her hands were empty.

Lamb looked at her, looked around the room, looked at her again, and said, “Thought this was a kidnapping, not an awayday.”

“The lock was on the outside,” she pointed out.

“I've seen more secure rabbit hutches.” Walking past her, he poked his head through the doorway into the bathroom. “It's en suite, for God's sake.”

“Maybe. But I requested non-smoking,” she told him.

“That's a really bad habit, that passive-aggressive shit.” But he lobbed his cigarette at the toilet anyway. It bounced off the seat, and disappeared behind the sink pedestal, where it probably wouldn't start a fire and burn the building down.

Catherine said, “What did you do with Bailey?”

“If he's the work-experience type they left in charge, he's having a lie down. Another old flame, is he?”

“How much of a lie down?”

“I didn't kill him, if that's what you're asking.” Lamb had spotted the tray now, and made a beeline for it. “Don't get me wrong, I disapprove of Service personnel being abducted. But it's not like you're important.”

Deliberating for a moment, he scowled at the apple, pocketed the flapjack and tore open the sandwich.

“Who's with you?”

“Nobody.”

“You came by yourself?”

She couldn't keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“Yes. Well, Ho drove.” Lamb bit into the sandwich and made a face. “Christ. How long's this been sitting there?”

“What did Donovan want?”

“In return for you?” Lamb chewed for a moment, swallowed, then took another bite. Once his mouth was full, he went on, “Well, he says he wants the Dipshit Chronicles.”

Catherine looked confused, then more so. “The
Grey
Books?”

“Yeah, that was my reaction. On the other hand, if, as seems likely, he shagged you back in the way-back-when, it's more plausible.” Another pause for chewing. “On the grounds that he's obviously a nutcase, I mean.”

“Can we leave now?”

“I haven't had my flapjack yet.” He paused, and sniffed the sandwich. “Has this got cheese in it?”

“Oh God, not again. Turn round.”

Lamb did so, and a moment later felt her peel something from the seat of his trousers. When he turned back, Catherine was holding a flattened disc of what looked like mozzarella. “Always check before you sit down in Roddy's room. What are your laundry bills like?”

“What's a laundry bill?”

She left the room ahead of him, and paused on the landing for a moment to look back. Lamb didn't bother. It was an ordinary room, and nothing much had happened in there. There were worse things to endure than boredom.

From the next landing, they could see Bailey's comatose body in the hallway. He looked like he might have been asleep, Catherine reflected, if people generally smashed their faces against an anvil before settling down for the night. “He's only a kid, Jackson,” she said.

“He had a gun. Why d'you call him ‘Bailey'?”

“He had a camera too.”

Lamb thought about that for a moment, then dismissed it. “Well, you're gonna have to wake him up now. I want to know what Donovan's really after.”

“Because you don't think he's really a nutcase.”

“Well, he's probably that too. But that doesn't mean he hasn't got a hidden agenda.”

She said, “Thanks for coming to get me, Jackson.”

“Did you think I wouldn't?”

“Oh, I knew you would. I just thought there'd be more mayhem involved, that's all.”

And that was when Roderick Ho drove a bus through the front door.

“They're Black
Arrow,” Traynor said.

Black Arrow, and they were moving down the corridor the way it was done in the movies; one forging ahead a few yards then dropping to a crouch, allowing another to overtake him, and secure the next few yards. Most held nightsticks; some carried what might be guns, but looked too clunky. Tasers, River thought, triggering a sense-memory at the base of his spine. He'd encountered Tasers before.

Louisa said, “Your crew?”

“They wish.” Traynor looked at Douglas. “Where are they? Where is that?”

Douglas, who was still on the floor, shrugged sulkily.

“Christ on a bike,” Traynor muttered. He grabbed Douglas by the collar, hauled him to his feet, and pointed him at the screen. “That. Where are they?”

It took Douglas's voice a moment or two to catch up with his lips. “That's C Corridor.”

“A big help. Where's C Corridor?”

“This side of B,” Douglas explained.

“How far are they from the warehouse room?”

“That's just after E Corridor.”

Traynor said, “Okay.” Taking his gun from his belt he checked its load, then held it loosely by his side. “Right, change of plan. I'm going that way.” He pointed towards the corridor down which Donovan had disappeared. “Make sure you're not in our way when we head back.”

“You still have our colleague,” Louisa said.

“She'll be released at nine come whatever. Unharmed. You think we're animals?”

“Jury's still out.”

River's eyes were on the monitor on which the Black Arrow crew were securing the complex. “You plan to shoot them?”

“I plan to back up my CO.”

“They're Noddy squad,” River said. “They've got sticks and stones.”

“Some of them are ex-forces,” Traynor said. “And they're not all unarmed. Ever worked private security?”

“Not yet,” Louisa muttered.

“Trust me. The types who do are the kind to squirrel away illegal handguns.”

“What are you really after?”

But Traynor was gone; through the swing doors, and off down the corridor at a trot.

River looked at Douglas. “Do you keep weapons down here?”

“Are you kidding?”

Only sort of, thought River. He looked up at the monitors again. Armed or not, there were plenty of men out there. Probably more than enough to deal with two ex-soldiers.

Probably.

Douglas had thrown the lever that opened the overhead hatch.

“When you get up top,” River said, “Call your boss. Tell him there's been an incursion. Tell him he needs to sound the alarm.”

“Her,” said Douglas.

“What?”

“My boss is a her.”

“Yeah, right. Whatever.” He looked at Louisa. “What about you?”

“I'm a her too.”

“Funny.” But it was as near as Louisa had come to the attempt in a good while, so River gave her a brief smile before saying, “You going up?”

“Are you?”

“I'm going to hang on here a while. I want to know what's happening.”

“Yeah, well. So do I.”

Douglas was already halfway up the ladder. They watched as he disappeared through the hatch, then River threw the lever that locked it once more.

A moment later he was on the monitor that displayed the chamber overhead.

On one of the other screens the Black Arrow crew were approaching a set of doors, and making much use of hand signals and pointy fingers.

Watching them, Louisa said, “Remind me whose side we're on?”

“That'll be easier to work out once the shooting starts,” River said. “Anyone who's not aiming at you.”

Together, they headed off through the swing doors, down the corridor.

The room
was a long one, high too, and from the end Traynor entered seemed stacked nearly to the ceiling with crates, some of them in evidence cages, each neatly padlocked. But about halfway along, the crates gave way to rows of shelving, no more than two feet apart, with an aisle running down the centre as far as the next set of doors, in front of which a wide area had been left empty, though large metal filing units lined the walls either side. Sean Donovan was halfway along a shelf full of cardboard folders: he was plucking them one by one, checking the top sheet, then—like a dissatisfied library user—dropping them to his feet. The spillage ran right back to the aisle, so when Ben Traynor reached him, it looked like Donovan was wilfully sowing disorder; turning a neat expanse of ordered history into a snowstorm of confused event.

Without breaking off from this task, he said, “Problem?”

“We have company.”

“Who?”

Traynor was already past him, heading for the doors to E Corridor, slipping his belt off as he ran. Looping it through the door's handles he pulled it tight, buckled it, then turned his attention to the filing cabinets.

Donovan emerged. “Who?” he said again.

“Monteith's crew.”

Donovan thought for a moment, then shook his head. “They're lightweights, Ben.”

“They don't have to be good, they just have to be numerous,” Traynor said. “Give me a hand with this.”

Donovan helped him tip a cabinet onto its side, then slide it in front of the doors.

“That's not going to hold them long,” Traynor said.

Donovan said, “I don't know. Just opening a door is a stretch for some of them.” He was already heading back to the shelf he'd been working on.

Traynor peered through the fraction of porthole window unobscured by the cabinet and said, “They're here already. We'd better go.”

“I'm not running from those clowns. Not till I get what we came for.”

“Sean, look around. This place is the size of a fucking church. You could spend all week and not find it.”

The older man shook his head: he was out of sight, between the shelves, but Traynor could tell that's what he was doing. “The catalogue numbers tell you where to look.
V
for Virgil, plus Tearney's initials. Then the date, then a four-figure reference. It's between six and eight years back, so we only need to go through this section here. And I'm halfway done already.”

“What if all this is a set-up?”

“What would be the point, Ben? I was just out of prison, I was drinking myself half to death. And Taverner approached me, remember? It's not like I was on a crusade.”

“I don't trust her.”

“She's a spook. You'd be mad to trust her. But she's a spook with an agenda, and she wants to destroy Tearney as much as we do. For Alison, Ben. Remember?”

“. . . I'm not likely to forget.”

“So how long are you prepared to give this?”

Traynor said, “Okay, okay. As long as it takes.”

Gun in hand, he went back to the doors, observing fractured slices of motion from the crew outside through his paring of window. They looked like they were getting ready to mount an assault . . . He had been here before, it occurred to him, by which he meant not here but in just this scenario: hostiles two breaths away, and defences no thicker than a brick and plaster wall.