Deception

THIRTY-SIX

While Harry and Ballatyne were talking to McCreath amid the wreckage from the attack on the police station, Zubac and Ganic were closing in on the M25 motorway, the east-west link south of London, their sights set on taking a ferry to France. Their exit from the attack site had been a close-run thing; as they left through the rear gate, they had run into an armed response vehicle responding to an all-units call. But they had been undeterred; a few rounds of fire from the Rugers had disabled the police vehicle and they had managed to walk away amid the confusion and screams from pedestrians ducking for cover.

Two hundred yards further on, they had made a pre-arranged hand-off of the rucksack containing the weapons to an elderly Jamaican at a grab-and-go craft stall. It disappeared under the table and in return they got a holdall and keys to an anonymous grey Renault waiting in a pub car park off Coldharbour Lane. From there it had been a simple route through the back streets to take them south and out of immediate trouble before a cordon could be set up.

Zubac was feeling humiliated by the results of their attack. They had not failed to carry out an assignment like this in a long time — especially on a lightly armed facility where resistance should have been minimal. With superior firepower and the element of shock backed up by the M84s, it should have been a cake-walk. They should have been able to clear a route to McCreath and eliminate him with the minimum of fuss and walk away before anyone could stop them. Instead, they had been drawn like amateurs on a chase of their quarry through the corridors of the police station, only to run into a choking cloud of potassium bicarbonate in a stairwell. Zubac suppressed the desire to rub his eyes and scrabbled around in the footwell where he found a plastic bag containing a bottle of water, a change of clothing, packs of sandwiches and a packet of antiseptic wet-wipes.

He ripped out a handful of wet-wipes and handed them to Ganic, who was driving. His friend was red around the eyes from the effects of the potassium, but had avoided the worst of the powder. Zubac had been leading the way and had started up the stairs just as the first wave had come down, cloaking him in its embrace before he could back off. He poured water into his cupped hand and splashed it over his face, swearing fluently at the man who had done this to them.

‘We had guns and stun grenades!’ he howled angrily, splashing more water. ‘How could this happen? They had silly little sticks, that’s all!’

Ganic shrugged and lit a cigarette one-handed, and Zubac swore at him in frustration. His knew his friend of old; Ganic wasn’t so concerned with failure. For him, the occasional setback was an operational hazard. It happened when you were least expecting it and was something you lived with, even Zubac had to admit that. Not that Deakin would see it that way.

He drank some water and tried not to think about the head of the Protectory. The former Scots Guardsman didn’t even come close to scaring him, but he was undoubtedly living on a hair-trigger and liable to go off at any moment. And unpredictable men like him were always a worry. Fortunately, Turpowicz was calmer, a restraining influence on his colleague; but he, too, was a former soldier and would do whatever Deakin told him. God knows what they would say about this setback, though.

Once they had cleaned their hands and faces as thoroughly as they could, they stopped long enough to remove their jackets, shirts and trousers, which they emptied and bundled into a plastic charity shop collection bag and dropped out of the window. Give it an hour or so and the contents would be recycled on the street or sitting in a shop somewhere, waiting for a grateful customer. The holdall they’d received from the Jamaican contained replacement clothing, cheap, commonplace and untraceable.

‘You going to call him?’ said Ganic. He was steering one-handed, twirling a triangular metal ring on his finger and flicking it with his thumb with an irritating pinging sound.

‘Is that what I think it is?’ Zubac gave him a sour look. Tough as he was, his friend was disturbingly childish in the things that amused him. Here he was playing with a pull ring from one of the M84s.

‘Sure.’ Ganic grinned and studied the ring. ‘This is neat. I think I’ll have it silvered and put it through my kurac. The girls, they go for that weird shit. What do you think?’

‘I think you’re the weird one.’ Zubac took out a disposable mobile phone with a pre-programmed number. He wasn’t looking forward to this, but was feeling sour enough to not give a damn.

He pressed the speed-dial key.

Deakin listened in open disbelief to the call, then cut the connection without comment. He looked at Turpowicz and shook his head. They had moved to a hotel on the outskirts of Nurnberg awaiting the outcome of the Brixton assault, and a meeting with Paulton to discuss future plans. Zubac had just called with the bad news.

‘Problems?’ Turpowicz tried not to look unsurprised. Lately he’d come to expect almost anything of the men he referred to as Beavis and Butt-head, given their unsubtle methodology of eliminating the people Deakin sent them after. Following the attack on Pike in broad daylight, and the careless manner in which they had left Barrow’s body to be found, he’d had his doubts about the wisdom of making a suicidal assault on a police precinct, even with the traditionally unarmed British policemen they’d be up against. But Deakin hadn’t listened, intent only on teaching McCreath a lesson and sending a warning to anyone else who changed their mind about cooperating with the Protectory.

‘Bastards!’ Deakin looked ready to spit. ‘They missed McCreath! God Almighty, how hard can it be to walk over a bunch of noddies? All they had to do was get inside and finish him off.’ He paced up and down, then jumped as his mobile rang again. He listened for a second, then said, ‘Yeah, come on up.’ He disconnected and said, ‘Paulton’s here.’

‘Are we going to tell him about Tate?’

Deakin shrugged. ‘Why bother? What difference does it make?’

‘You said Paulton knows his way around. He might give us a line on getting this guy stopped. We could do without this right now — especially as we still haven’t located Tan. Every time he interferes, he’s eating away at our deadline.’

‘You worry too much.’

‘Yeah, well, worrying has kept me out of trouble so far. But this is moving on to a whole new level.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Deakin scowled.

‘This.’ Turpowicz waved a vague hand in the air. ‘Pike, Barrow, those guys in Australia, now going after McCreath in a police precinct building. We’ve changed the rules of engagement, Deak — don’t you see? We’ve come out and given the establishment the finger, saying “take this, suckers, we do what the hell we like!”’ His face twisted. ‘They’ll only stand so much of that shit before they come after us with all guns blazing.’

Deakin squared up to him. ‘What’s the matter, Turp? Not losing your nerve, are you?’

‘No, I’m just saying we should back off a little. We’re-’

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Paulton.

‘Hello, boys,’ he said smoothly. ‘Am I interrupting something? Much louder and the whole hotel will know our business.’ He dropped his coat on a chair and headed for the mini-bar. ‘Come on, what’s the problem? Mr Wien Lu Chi putting the pressure on, is he?’ He opened a miniature of whisky and poured it into a glass. ‘I told you getting into bed with the Chinese was a risky business. They don’t play like the rest of us, believe me.’

‘It’s not him,’ Deakin growled. ‘I sent Zubac and Ganic after McCreath. They missed him.’

‘Never mind. It wasn’t necessary, anyway. What happened?’

Deakin told him in a few brief sentences, ending with a description of Harry Tate.

Paulton paused mid-sip. ‘Did you say Tate?’

‘Yeah,’ said Turpowicz. ‘He’s a warrant officer with the army. One of the recovery officers they send after deserters.’

‘I know what recovery officers do.’ Paulton stared reflectively into his glass. ‘How long?’

‘Huh?’

‘How long has this Tate been in the picture?’

‘He first turned up in The Hague,’ said Deakin, ‘chasing Pike’s trail. Then he found Barrow not long after the Bosnians had dealt with him. The man’s like a bloody sniffer dog.’

‘I thought you said Pike was dead.’

‘He is. They were checking his back trail. Don’t worry, it’s a dead end. Like Barrow.’

‘That’s two of two,’ said Paulton enigmatically.

‘What does that mean?’

‘The odds. Two of two is what an old boss of mine called lousy odds — unless they were on your side. Two good contacts meant we were in business. Two bad ones and we were in trouble. This feels like trouble.’

‘And what exactly was your business?’ asked Turpowicz. ‘You never really said.’

Paulton smiled. ‘No, I didn’t, did I? Let’s say I was in a similar line of work to this man, Tate.’

‘A man hunter? Spy catcher?’ Turpowicz was quick off the mark. ‘Don’t tell me. . MI5? Special Branch?’

‘Something like that. Do you know what Tate looks like?’

‘Sure.’ Turpowicz turned to the laptop and switched it on. The machine booted up and he found the shot of Harry Tate. Paulton bent and studied it carefully, then walked over to the window and peered out while the other two men waited. He seemed to have gone very still, as if frozen in mid-thought, but neither of the other two seemed to notice.

‘So how do we stop him?’ said Deakin. ‘Can he be called off?’

Paulton shook his head. ‘Not by me, he can’t. I don’t have the reach. People like Tate are independent. They follow their own lines of enquiry. Stopping them is not that simple.’

There was a lengthy silence. Turpowicz was the first to speak. He said with a nervous laugh, ‘Hell, you sound almost like you know the guy.’

‘Me?’ Paulton turned and shook his head, glancing briefly at the laptop screen, then checked his watch. ‘Shall we have lunch? I’m famished.’