Red Station (23 page)

‘Why you call me?' he muttered gutturally. If he was lucky, the man might identify himself.

‘I said, who is this? What the fuck are you doing with my fucking cell, you jerk?'

American. A very angry American. Harry cut the connection. Before he could switch it off, the text tone sounded.

Maloney.

Whre U?

Harry thought about it for a moment. It was just a name, for Christ's sake. And already all over the news and networks, filling the airwaves, making a trace less likely. He thumbed the name of the town and hit SEND.

The answer was swift and to the point.

Fk!! Gt out of there!!

FORTY-FOUR

H
e got back upstairs to find the others waiting for him. Mace stepped forward, a determined set to his jaw. ‘Is there something you'd like to tell us, lad?' He had lost his hung-over expression but not his untidy appearance.

The others stood in the background, waiting. Clare refused to meet Harry's eye, concentrating on the contents of her mug.

‘Like what?'

‘Like what's going on. You've had a contact with the Clones.'

‘They've been pulled out.' Harry didn't blame Clare; she would have had a duty to tell Mace eventually. She'd just done it sooner than he'd expected.

‘How the hell do you know that?' Mace was bristling. ‘What happened last night?'

He told them about finding Stanbridge in his flat, about recognizing the man from Kosovo; about Clare's call and how he had ‘dissuaded' the other Clones from hanging around. When he looked at Clare for confirmation, she was staring down at the floor, her jaw clenched tight. Deniability, he thought angrily. It runs deep when your neck is on the block, even for colleagues.

‘You took a bloody big risk,' Mace muttered. ‘How did you know they wouldn't have back-up?'

‘Because Stanbridge wasn't hiding anything. He had no reason to. All he knew was that he and his team had a simple assignment: to watch and follow. They wouldn't need back-up for that. Clearly our masters don't trust us very much.'

‘What else?'

‘He told me his team was being replaced this morning.'

‘That would be standard procedure,' Fitzgerald mused thoughtfully. ‘Rotate them on a regular basis and nobody gets to know their faces.' He chewed his lip. ‘Are you sure they're a home team?'

‘Yes,' Harry replied bluntly. ‘But not friendly. The Clones were, but they've gone. The new team is a specialist unit called the Hit. And they're not coming to audit the books.'

‘What sort of specialists?' Rik looked worried.

‘With a title like that, what do you think? The leader's name is Latham. He tracks people for a living . . . and he's not always required to bring them back alive.'

There was a stunned silence in the room. Only Mace looked unsurprised, but that might have been because the idea was taking a while to sink through his alcohol-fuelled fog. He looked at Clare, but she didn't offer any helpful advice.

‘You've been busy,' he said finally to Harry. It sounded like a condemnation.

‘Well, it wasn't by choice.'

‘It's nonsense, of course. I'll be putting that in my report to London.' Mace was finding comfort in bluster.

‘You do that,' Harry replied. ‘In the meantime, Latham and his buddies will be dropping by to say hi. They won't be asking anyone's permission, either.'

‘You can't know that.' Fitzgerald was still frowning. ‘This – Stanbridge? – could have been spinning you a load of tosh. Maybe somebody local showed up and did him in. It's not exactly law-abiding around here. There's a lot of poverty and not much in the way of jobs. People get desperate. Random killings happen all the time, mostly over small change and a mobile phone.'

Harry looked at him, trying to determine if that remark was meaningful in any way. He decided not. Fitzgerald wasn't the sort to make oblique comments. Blunt accusation was more his line.

‘It wasn't random.' Clare Jardine finally spoke up. ‘You didn't see the body. It was a professional hit. Harry had tied Stanbridge up with a clothes line. All the killer did was walk in and shoot him in the head. He had no chance.'

Nobody spoke for several seconds. Then Rik said, ‘What do we do?' He looked anxious but determined, and Harry decided he would just need pointing in the right direction and he'd be all right.

‘I don't know about you,' he said softly, allowing anger to fuel his own resolve, ‘but I'm buggered if I'm going to sit here and wait for a bunch of Vauxhall Cross body snatchers to come and take me out.'

Fitzgerald nodded and went to the door. ‘I'll get the lights.'

Nobody questioned what he meant.

Outside, someone shouted and a car door slammed, followed by a burst of laughter. Bottles rattled in a crate and somebody gave a wolf-whistle. Normal sounds. Echoes of life being lived.

The minutes crept by, each individual alone with their thoughts, until Harry turned to Mace. ‘Something's wrong. Do you have any other weapons here?'

Mace shook his head. ‘Never saw the need. Why?'

‘I need an equalizer.' He moved over to the window and looked out. Nothing moved down there. Then he remembered the operations representative in London saying his sidearm would be sent out in a diplomatic pouch. ‘Did a bag come for me?'

‘A bag?' Mace was vague, his face pale.

‘A secure pouch from London.'

Rik said, ‘It arrived yesterday. Sorry, I forgot to tell you.'

‘Where is it? Quick.'

Rik went to a metal cabinet on the wall and opened the door. Inside was a canvas bag the size of a small briefcase. It had a zipped front with a sturdy combination lock and seal.

Harry ripped off the seal with a pair of scissors and fed the last four digits of his field number into the combination dial. The lock sprang open.

‘Now we've got an equalizer,' he explained, and withdrew his semi-automatic and two spare clips. He checked the action, the sounds loud in the quiet room.

‘So now you're Action Man?' Rik looked stunned. ‘I thought you were Five . . . and . . .' He stopped and blushed.

‘Too old for this stuff?' Harry shrugged. ‘I thought so, too. We'll soon find out.'

‘Why would anyone come to take you out?' Clare Jardine looked calm but her voice trembled as she spoke.

‘Does it matter?' he replied. ‘Someone must have decided I'm a liability.' He nodded towards the north. ‘Personally, with what's going on up there, I wouldn't bet on the rest of you being served tea and buns, either. Get used to it.'

He left them to digest that and went out on to the landing. The building was silent, with a buzz of traffic in the background. He walked slowly downstairs, the gun under his jacket. Noonday shadows filled the corners of the building, producing a variety of dark shapes.

He tried to recall how long it had been since he'd done the close-quarter combat course, where officers learnt the rudiments of sweeping a building. Five years at least. Too bloody long. But some things you never forgot – like the agony of letting off shots in a confined space.

He stopped at the halfway mark. A noise had disturbed the silence. Up or down? Difficult to tell. He waited. It came again: the scuff of shoe leather on tiles.

From above.

He looked up, sweeping the gun from under his jacket. Clare was looking down at him. Her eyes went wide when she saw the gun pointing at her.

He signalled for her to stay where she was, then turned and tossed a coin down the stairs. It bounced and rolled, the tinkling sound echoing off the walls like the ringing of a small bell. It finally came to a stop on the ground floor.

He followed it down, the gun held by his side. If anyone was waiting for him, being above them would give him a marginal element of surprise.

And margins were what counted in situations like this.

The foyer was empty.

He checked the front door, which was closed, then made his way to the basement. His breathing sounded unusually harsh in the enclosed space.

The storage rooms were undisturbed, the under-floor panel still in place.

There was no sign of Fitzgerald.

FORTY-FIVE

H
arry left the guns where they were and went back upstairs to tell the others.

Mace looked stunned and reached for a phone. ‘He's probably gone straight home,' he said. ‘He was worried about his girlfriend and kid.'

‘He lives with a local girl,' Rik explained to Harry. ‘She's got a daughter and Fitz is nuts about them. The mother's been putting him under pressure to take her out of here. Can't say I blame her, with everything that's going on. I think he's scared she might dump him if he doesn't do something soon.'

‘Why would that be bad?' said Harry.

Rik shrugged, his expression sombre. ‘He's got nobody else. His wife and kids in the UK never speak to him, so this is a final posting for him.'

Harry understood. Fitzgerald wouldn't be the first security services employee to want to retire somewhere out of the way, where his old trade wouldn't keep coming back to haunt him. With nothing back home, it could be the only sense of belonging that he had left.

‘No answer,' Mace announced. ‘I'll try later.'

Harry left them to it and went back downstairs. He needed some fresh air. Being cooped up when danger threatened only increased a sense of paranoia. What he could see, he could deal with.

The streets were quiet. A few vehicles lumbered back and forth, mostly military, with smaller trucks and jeeps dotted at junctions and men in uniform standing in small groups. What civilians there were hurried along and avoided eye contact, apart from huddles of older men outside the basement shops where
chacha
was available.

The fabric of the town appeared to have suffered a change already. A truck had run off the road at one corner and ploughed into a grocery store, scattering a layer of broken glass, splintered wood, fruit and vegetables across the street. The shopkeeper was arguing heatedly with the driver, while an officer stood nearby, calmly ignoring them. Further on were signs of cracked paving stones where heavy trucks or APCs had parked, and other indicators of where the military presence was showing its impact on the civilian infrastructure in damaged street lamps and bent road signs. It all heightened the tension and gloom in the atmosphere, and Harry wondered how long this could continue before something broke.

He found a coffee shop and went inside. He ordered their version of liquefied mud and watched the world go by. Nobody paid him any attention. After thirty minutes, he got up and left. It was only as he stepped outside and felt the weight on his hip that he realized he was still carrying his gun. He cursed himself for being careless; he had to get off the street. If he ran into a patrol and they searched him, it would be the end of his freedom – or worse.

As he rounded the corner, he saw two men entering a basement bar across the street. They were deep in conversation and one of the men was in officer's uniform.

The other was Carl Higgins.

Harry checked the street both ways. If Higgins really was CIA, he might have outriders in place, watching his back – such as the three men he'd seen with him in the Palace Hotel bar. He couldn't see anyone matching their description, so he crossed the street and slowed to a dawdle as he passed the entrance to the basement.

The door was closed, but there was a gap between the numerous advertising stickers on the glass panel. He ducked his head to see inside, and saw Higgins and his companion sitting at a table. They were smiling like old friends.

The door opened and the sound of talking and laughter spilled out into the street. Harry kept walking, wondering what the CIA man was up to. Was he bolstering his cover as a journalist or working on something deeper?

He was so focussed on Higgins, he almost collided with the rear corner of a military jeep parked on the kerb. It had its bonnet raised and was covered in dust, testifying to a long journey between washes. Four men wearing local militia flashes were sitting in the back, facing each other in pairs. They were silent and watchful, and turned to eye Harry with open curiosity. One of them had his camouflage jacket opened, revealing a dark blue T-shirt stretched across a muscular chest. The garment bore the insignia of a black bat on a blue background.

Something about the men made him uneasy. They seemed different, less casual than the other soldiers he'd seen around town. More controlled. Professional.

And that insignia on the man's T-shirt.

As he drew level with the front of the vehicle, a soldier wearing the same flashes stepped on to the kerb. He was looking at a growing pool of oil on the ground beneath the jeep. When he saw Harry, he reached up and slammed the bonnet.

Harry felt the soldier's eyes on him all the way down the street.

Rik was alone in the office, standing by one of his monitors. Harry grabbed his arm.

‘I need you to send a message to London, high priority,' he told him. ‘Ask them if there are any Russians serving with the local militias.'

‘What?' Rik looked sceptical. ‘You kidding? We'd have heard, surely.'

‘Ask them anyway. It's urgent.' He recalled what Mace had said about the Russians, and latterly the message from Rik's friend, Isabelle. It was possible that the soldier inside the jeep had been buying his underwear on the black market, but he doubted it. Trawling through his memory of lectures on foreign Military Intelligence unit insignia, he had recognized the black bat motif on the man's T-shirt. It was usually worn by
Glavnoye Razvedovatel'noye Upravlenie
(GRU) – Central Intelligence operatives. If he was right, then everyone's information was already out of date.