A Gentleman's Game

32

London-South Lambeth, the Royal Albert 16 September 1503 GMT The pub was only half a mile from Vauxhall Cross, an easy enough walk, though in the fifteen minutes it took Chace to cover the distance the mist turned to more sincere rain, surprisingly cold, considering the time of year. She cut through Vauxhall Park, then south on Meadow Road, and when she made the dogleg off Dorset onto Bolney, she stopped abruptly to light a cigarette, hunching her head against the rain, cupping the flame with her hand, then looking back the way she had come, counting to fifteen.

No one came around the corner in a hurry to catch up.

She blew out smoke, frowning as she moved to the entrance of the pub. Bad sign, she thought. It wasn't an elaborate flush, to be sure, but still, it would normally have been enough to force Box to tip their hand. That it hadn't worked meant that Kinney was playing cautious and, worse, that he knew she was on to him.

Once inside and out of the rain, she ran a hand through her hair, looking over the room. It was almost entirely empty, which, for the time being, wasn't a bad thing. The maid at the bar recognized her and had a lager pulled before Chace even reached her.

"Jacket potato?" she asked.

"Just the lager," Chace said, paying.

"You're on your liquid diet again?"

"What was it the man said? 'Beer is food, Lewis'?"

The maid grinned and banged the register, handed Chace her change. Chace took her glass to the table in the corner, put out her cigarette in the ashtray, and promptly lit another. The door opened, and Lankford came in with Poole, and they each hit the bar. Lankford's manner was easy with the maid, and before they had their drinks, he'd gotten her laughing, twice, and each time honest, and it occurred to Chace that maybe he was better than she'd given him credit for being.

Poole led to the table, parked opposite her, and stole a cigarette from her pack while Lankford was getting settled. They each took a moment to lower the levels in their glasses.

"Well, I'm fucked, boys," Chace told them.

Lankford nodded, and Poole said, "That was the rumor at the School."

"What'd you see?"

"Counted six," Lankford said. "Two in cars, radios, maybe controllers. Four on foot, even split men and women, and they were so blasted focused on keeping you from spotting them, they forgot about us."

"Two more on motorbikes," Poole said. "Those are the ones we did see, Tara. Probably double that working you up right now."

"Probably," she agreed, and cleared the smoke from her mouth to make room for more of her lager.

"Want to explain this, then?" asked Poole.

"I can't. Chris?"

Lankford shook his head. "I got into the office, he told me to park and started scribbling the note. Handed it to me, then said that Nicky and I were to follow, to do what you said, and to lie low otherwise. And that we were on no account to talk to the DC or C or anyone about what was going on."

"There you go, Nicky."

"You shag Harry or something?" Poole asked. "Why this sudden attention from Box?"

"Why are you so concerned with my sex life, Nicky?"

"Might be because you have one," Lankford observed.

"Not for much longer," Chace said. "All right, finish your beer and then shove off. Back to the Pit, do your thing. Assuming Box doesn't try to grab me between now and darkness-"

"Not a safe assumption," Poole observed.

She continued without pause, glaring at him. "-find me at Paddington at twenty-hundred, and be ready to play. That's where I want to lose them, and I'll need you both to run interference."

"There's going to be hell to pay when Kinney realizes what's going on," Lankford said. "He'll start screaming about SIS operations in London, infringement, all of that."

"He'll be screaming about something else, we do it right." Chace looked at Poole. "I need my go-bag, can you bring it?"

"Easy peasy."

Chace rolled her eyes, and Poole chuckled. "You want docs? Cash? We're assuming you're going to ground here."

She thought, then shook her head. "No, too risky. I'll handle that myself if I have to. But I will take whatever you two have in your wallets."

"Don't you have a bank card?"

"And let Box find me via ATM? Not on your fucking life, Chris."

Both men reached for their wallets, dumped several bills onto the table. Chace counted them up quickly, two hundred and eighteen pounds. With her eighty-seven, enough to buy her way around almost any obstacle. She tucked the bills into her pocket, then came out with the note Lankford had brought from Crocker. She handed it back to him.

"Get rid of this."

"Thought you'd have already done it."

"No place to ditch it that Box wouldn't grab it themselves. Make sure it's destroyed."

Lankford finished draining his glass, rose, nodding. "Right."

Poole got to his feet. "Anything else?"

"One thing."

"Yes?"

"Wish me luck?" she asked.

Poole stared at her for a moment, unsmiling, and the full seriousness of the situation settled on them all then.

"I would, Tara," he said. "But I don't think luck'll do it."