Red Station (26 page)

‘Of course there isn't!' Paulton's chest began pounding at a rate he was sure wasn't good for him. The way Bellingham was talking made him wonder if this conversation was being recorded. If so, he was cooked; he'd already said too much.

‘Mmm. Good. Best forgotten, then.'

‘What else was there?' Paulton asked him, anxious to get on and get out of here fast. There were things he needed to do.

‘What? Oh, the other thing, yes. Y'know that server thing we set up for Red Station – Clarion? Bloody thing's worked well so far, absorbing useless messages from Mace's motley crew like a baby's nappy.'

‘What about it?'

‘I think somebody's rumbled us.'

‘What?' Paulton jumped in his chair as if he'd been stung. ‘Somebody here?'

‘No, not here, you idiot. I'm the only one with access, remember? Over there, in the arse-end of beyond. Some smart-Alec – probably that communications twerp you sent out there – sent a couple of silly messages, one of them a load of nonsense which any fool could see was a deliberate draw. He was testing the response. The other was real, asking about Russian troops in militia uniform, initiated by your man Tate. I missed the rubbish one and didn't notice the second until it was too late. Other things on my plate.'

‘Can't we explain away the situation – a communications malfunction or something, to keep them quiet?'

‘Nix. We're too late.'

Paulton tried to think through the implications. His head suddenly felt inexplicably hot. It was one bloody thing on top of another. Ferris. Rik Ferris. A young IT graduate who'd got bored punching keys and saw things he shouldn't have. Nothing critical, but enough to cause a stink if he'd gone public. He wondered what had prodded him into action after all this time. There could only be one answer.

Harry Tate.

‘Ferris – is that him?' Bellingham was still chuntering on, and came to the same conclusion. ‘He's been getting very pally with your man Tate, I hear. Therein lies the real problem.'

Paulton stared at his opposite number and wondered just how many lines of communication he had into Red Station. The man was like a fat spider, tugging on his web. ‘How do you know all this?'

Bellingham laid a finger alongside his fleshy nose. ‘Got spies everywhere, that's how. Thing is, we overlooked one vital aspect of the people we were sending out there, you know that?'

‘Did we?'

‘They're professionals, that's what. Used to grubbing about in the muck and noticing stuff other people wouldn't see. Can't help themselves. See something and they have to report it. With all that's going on over there, they're starting to trip over raw intelligence they – and we – can't ignore. So far, Mace has been fielding it. But he's losing it, and now your man Tate has taken an interest in world events rather than his own sorry neck, and he's stirring up trouble.'

‘What do we do?'

‘Well, we can't just turn a blind eye. What would happen if they found a way of by-passing the comms channel into Clarion? Worse, we have no way of explaining where this raw intel's coming from.'

‘Don't you have any people on the ground?' Paulton was feeling desperate. ‘You could attribute the source to them.' This entire business wasn't going the way Bellingham had said it would. In fact, it was beginning to unwind like a badly-knit jumper.

‘Weren't you listening in that briefing the other day?' Bellingham replied irritably. ‘They all got wiped out. The bloody forces of evil came along and nobbled them!' He looked morose for a moment, then continued, ‘Apart from the embassy in Tbilisi, which is worse than useless, we haven't got anyone. Freedom bloody Square, that embassy address – did you know that, George? So free, they've got security spotters sitting on their shoulders every minute of the day. Probably on Putin's payroll, every damn one of them. As far as our lords and masters know, we've got bugger all over there, so we can hardly develop a new stream of intelligence chatter coming over official wires from the middle of nowhere, can we?'

‘You've got access to satellite coverage.'

‘We do. But it's open-channel. Might as well advertise it as Shareware, let everyone take a peek. They do, anyway, so I can't suddenly pop up with stuff nobody else can see. Might as well claim we're using a sodding medium.' He scowled. ‘No, it's about time we recognized our limits, George. It was a nifty idea, but it's outlived its usefulness.'

Paulton felt a measure of relief. Maybe if they got everyone out of there, they could quietly let the whole affair fade into history. God knows what he was going to do with Tate, though. The shooting in Essex was still front-page news, with the parents of the dead girl raising hell about her murder and demanding names. And the family of the dead firearms officer was questioning why he was sent in to danger with insufficient back-up or training. Heaven alone knew how they had got that bit of information, but he was willing to bet Gareth Nolan, the Deputy Commissioner, had let it slip to a press buddy. Anything to cover his own feeble neck. Maybe another posting for Tate was the best, then they could all relax.

At which point Bellingham swept the rug from under his feet.

‘I've sent in the Hit.'

‘What?' the words kicked Paulton out of his reverie. Mention of the Hit brought the brutal realization that there would be no quiet and orderly retreat; no remote posting for Tate and no salve for his conscience over what had happened to Brasher and Jimmy Gulliver. That was gone the moment the Hit moved in, because they had one main function, and one only.

They killed people.

‘Time to call it a day, George. We can't pull 'em out and we certainly can't have our rabbits turning up at Immigration with stories to tell. There's no way we could keep 'em all quiet. One flappy lip and they'd all be under the spotlight. With the fuss that's about to break anytime now, they'll simply have to disappear.'

‘What – all of them?' Paulton's throat closed around the words. He knew his protests were futile, but a tiny vestige of self-respect made him try. ‘You can't!'

‘Can and will, George. Can and will.' Bellingham threw his head back and smiled with a ruthless absence of humour. ‘It's a matter of expediency. Nasty word, expediency. But it was invented for a purpose. We can kill several birds with one stone. We're closing down Red Station. Permanently.'

FORTY-NINE

P
aulton left Vauxhall Cross and made his way back towards his office. His cheeks were burning and he felt about as close to panic as he had ever been in his life. This had to be sorted out once and for all. What the bloody hell had Tate started? As for Bellingham, he'd completely lost the plot; suggesting wiping out an entire station was monstrous. Efficient, but monstrous.

Before reaching Thames House, he stopped and made a call from a secure mobile. ‘That person you dealt with,' he said carefully, when a familiar male voice answered. ‘Did you check his place thoroughly for paperwork?'

‘Yeah, there was nothing, I told you. No names anywhere.'

‘Right. So you did.' Paulton disconnected. He wasn't reassured. Whelan had been a professional, no matter what his strange proclivities; he'd have kept some sort of note – it was in the nature of the man. But if there had been no papers, what about electronic records? Surely his man would have thought to check?

He pocketed his phone and continued to Thames House, mounting swiftly to his office. He stayed long enough to delve in his desk drawer, then told his secretary he was going out for an hour.

This was too important to leave to chance.

Outside, he walked for five minutes before flagging down a taxi. ‘Charing Cross,' he told the driver, and sat sideways on to check he wasn't being followed. At Charing Cross he left the cab and walked into the station, merging with the crowds. He entered the toilets, then came out again almost immediately and made his way back to the street, where he jumped on a bus heading east along the Strand. After five stops, when he was satisfied nobody was on his tail, he left the bus and took a cab heading west, avoiding conversation with the driver by hiding behind a discarded copy of
Metro
.

All the way, a barrage of questions jostled for attention: had his man made a thorough search of Whelan's home? What if he'd skimped on the job? What if he'd been disturbed in his search and hadn't got the nerve to admit it? If the police hadn't found anything – and so far they would have had no reason, if all they suspected was a mugging – then the latest reports in the news would soon have them scouring the place with every piece of technology at their disposal.

He knew Whelan lived in a small flat in a rundown block not far from Victoria Station. He told the driver to circle the area twice. Time was ticking away but rushing in when he didn't know the layout was a quick route to disaster.

Once he was satisfied there was no obvious police presence, he got the driver to drop him outside a pub and approached the block of flats on foot.

The foyer and stairwell were deserted, and smelled of damp paper and boiled milk. He hurried up the stairs and knocked lightly on Whelan's door, one ear cocked for sounds from the other residents. When he was sure nobody was going to answer, he spent thirty seconds on the lock before slipping inside.

The interior was sombre, a cluttered display of dark antique furniture, burgundy cushions and heavy curtains. Paulton winced at the overdone opulence. It supported what he'd heard about Whelan's lifestyle, which had led to the convenient method of his disposal. A tang of rich aftershave hung in the air, along with a slightly mildewed odour of trapped heat.

He did a quick walk-through first, to check there were no nasty surprises, then went through each room with the practised skill first learned in Belfast and perfected over several years operating in the field. It had been a long time since he'd needed to conduct a search, but it was something once learned, never forgotten.

It took him fifteen minutes to check all the obvious places, at the end of which he concluded that whatever Whelan's personal failings, he had not lacked professional discretion. Other than the usual household paperwork and some notes about contacts and future projects, there was no mention of any past, present or ongoing security investigations. He was also satisfied that there were no hiding places in the fabric of the building or under the floors.

He returned to the living room. The furnishings included a small desk and filing cabinet, and had served as Whelan's work place. He stared at them both, frustrated and relieved. Frustrated because the paperwork must exist and he hadn't found it; relieved because if he couldn't, it might mean nobody else would.

But that was a chance he couldn't afford to take.

A computer sat on the desk. He switched it on. He didn't have time for this, but he wasn't about to walk away and ignore the main tool in Whelan's working life. As soon as the machine was running, he took a small portable hard drive from his pocket and plugged it in. Then he copied the entire contents of the machine to the hard drive. As soon as that was done, he unplugged the drive and inserted a small memory stick in the USB port, and copied a file from the stick to the PC. Removing the stick, he switched off the screen and left the flat.

As he walked down the stairs to the street, the virus programme he'd left behind began eating its way into the belly of Whelan's computer. According to the techs who had devised it, in less than three minutes, everything would be gone for good.

By the time he reached the end of the street and began looking for a taxi, he was breathing a lot easier.

End of the PC. End of the source. End of his worries.

Back in his office, he checked the portable hard drive for viruses and scanned the contents. Most were everyday work files, correspondence, expense sheets and lists of names, addresses and contact numbers or emails. The ephemera of a working computer. Three documents contained notes about the Essex shooting. Two of these looked like drafts, with random notations in small print. There were lots of question marks dotted about, and he wondered whether they were expressing doubts or whether the author had been leaving indicators for later additions or corrections. The third was clean copy ready for submission.

It mentioned Harry Tate by name.

Paulton breathed softly and read through the document twice. It was speculation. The kind which managed to skate round the facts of what had happened at the inlet that night without actually getting it a hundred per cent right. But it was still close enough to have the conspiracy nuts wetting themselves if they got their hands on it, and it had a name they could feed on. The firestorm would be all-consuming.

He checked the email files. There was nothing to show where the journalist had got his information, and no sign that he had been in touch with anyone else about the detail of his discovery. Thank God, he thought, for journalistic paranoia. After forty minutes, satisfied that Whelan had not disseminated the information further, Paulton left his office and went for a brief walk.

By the time he returned, the portable hard drive with its incriminating files lay at the bottom of the Thames.

FIFTY

‘
W
here does Fitz live?' Harry walked into the office and found Rik staring blindly at his computer screen. He didn't acknowledge Harry's presence.

Mace must have told him the bad news. There was no sign of Clare Jardine.

‘Fitz?'

‘Just off the airport road, out of town. Why?' Rik turned from the screen and jerked a thumb towards Mace's office. ‘Is it true what he said – the Russians have crossed the border?