Execution

TWENTY-ONE

Alice Alanya stared at Harry. ‘I didn’t realise. How did it happen?’

Harry didn’t want to go through the shooting again; he’d done that enough already. But he owed Clare some recognition with her friend. ‘She was helping Rik and me track down Zubac. We found him but he got the jump on us and shot Clare. He was going to finish her off, then me, when she used a knife on him. She saved my life.’

‘That’s why you want to help her.’

He nodded. ‘And she helped someone else. I owe her for that, too.’

‘I don’t know what I can tell you,’ she said after a moment’s thought. ‘I haven’t heard from her, if that’s what you’re asking. Not since. . well, ages.’ She stopped speaking.

‘But you used to, before she was shot.’

She shook her head, but it didn’t amount to a denial. He decided not to push it.

‘You’ve heard of Roman Tobinskiy?’

‘Of course. What about him?’

He told her about Tobinskiy’s death in King’s College Hospital. She looked shocked, even stunned; with her position in MI6, working on the Russian side, she would be well aware of the gravity it would bring to international relations if the death was proven to be suspicious.

‘Clare was recovering in an adjacent room,’ he added. ‘She may have heard something that made her run. If she did, then the killers will be after her.’

‘Killers?’

‘Two men raided the security control centre at the hospital earlier today and took the CCTV hard drive. It would have held footage of the night Tobinskiy died and of Clare leaving the hospital minutes later.’

Alice touched a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. The implications were clear and she knew what it meant for Clare. ‘My God. How awful.’

‘Yes. I’m surprised you haven’t been told.’ He was more surprised that she hadn’t been hauled in and questioned by internal security. Maybe, with stunning lack of efficiency, they were working through Clare’s past list of contacts in reverse alphabetical order.

‘I didn’t know — honest. How bad was she hurt?’

‘She was out of the woods and recovering well, but not enough to have a couple of killers on her trail.’ Or a vindictive bunch of MI6 heavies, he wanted to add, but didn’t. That might colour her judgement. ‘Last seen, she was heading towards Waterloo Station and central London. Best guess is she’ll go to ground and find someone she can trust. But she has no ready access to money or ID, unless she had a stash somewhere.’

‘You mean with a friend. Like me.’ She gave him a flat look. ‘You think I’m hiding her?’ She swept a hand out. ‘Do you want to search the place? Go through my things, check my phone log and laptop to see if we’ve been having cosy chats? Go ahead.’

Harry shook his head, about to deny it, but was interrupted by his mobile ringing. He excused himself and took it out.

It was Rik. ‘Don’t want to cause panic, boss, but two blokes in a blue Focus just did a couple of slow drive-bys, eyeballing the flats. Might be coincidence but I don’t think so. I got their number.’

‘Did they see you?’

‘No.’

‘Meet us round the back. We’re heading out.’ He shut off the phone and looked at Alice. ‘I’m sorry to do this to you, but we have to leave. Now.’

‘Why?’ She blinked like a startled doe. But she stood up and reached for her bag, her security training taking over.

‘Two men in a car showing an interest. They could be from Six, but it would be best not to risk it. They’re probably looking for Clare. Do you have somewhere you could go until you hit work tomorrow? Ballatyne will fill you in then.’

‘I have an aunt in Uxbridge.’

‘Good. Show me the back way out and we’ll see you safely to a taxi.’

Alice turned left out of her flat and led Harry through a narrow door leading onto some back stairs, concrete and unfinished. The air was cool and musty. At the bottom, she turned right at a glass-panelled security door leading out to a small enclosed area with parking spaces and garages.

Rik was standing with his back to the door, watching the entrance off a feeder road from the street. If the men were the Russians, they would come in the back way through the feeder road. They hadn’t got much time.

Harry opened the door and Rik nodded before heading off at a brisk walk.

Alice stared at Rik’s right hand, held close down by his side. ‘He’s armed.’

‘I know. I keep telling him about it but he’s addicted.’

‘You’re carded, then?’

‘Yes. Is there a footpath away from here?’

She nodded. ‘Turn right and through a style at the end. We can double back towards the station. My God, what kind of work do you two do?’

‘Most of it’s boring and repetitive. But every now and then we get to shoot people. Come on.’ He hustled her along, and she gave directions, showing the entrance to a narrow alleyway between rear gardens. Bordered by trees and wooden slat fencing, it was concealed from the road, and Harry called a halt long enough to send a text to Ballatyne.

Did you put watchers on Alanya?

No. Why?

He got the car registration number from Rik and texted back to Ballatyne: Two men in blue Focus followed by the number.

Four minutes later, as they left the path and entered another residential street, a reply came through.

Not mine. Suggest avoiding action. Talk later.

Harry put the phone away. Ballatyne was going operational. The time to talk would come once they had got clear and lost the watchers. For now they had to focus on staying out of sight.

Alice led them back towards the station by a roundabout route, with Rik and Harry alert and ready to duck into cover if the car with the two men should return. As they entered Station Road from the north, Harry spotted a passing cab and dialled the number on the roof panel. The despatcher told him two minutes and asked for the passenger’s name.

Harry led Alice to the doorway of a closed store to wait, while Rik wandered along the pavement to keep watch.

‘Go to your aunt’s and don’t contact anybody,’ he told her. ‘In the morning, go to the office as usual, but keep with the crowd. When you’re out, stay on the move and go straight to see Ballatyne. He’ll brief you.’

Her eyes looked huge with worry, but she remained calm. ‘OK. What are you going to do?’

‘Try to find Clare before anybody else does.’

She nodded and shivered, her first real sign of nerves. Then she said quickly, ‘Do you know why she was posted to that place in Georgia — why they sent her there?’

‘The basics, yes. Why?’

‘It wasn’t just a mad fling in the middle of an operation, you know. It was serious — on both sides.’

‘Are you sure?’ According to Mace, the station chief in Georgia, Clare had become the victim of a reverse sting. It had cost her her job and nearly her life.

‘Yes. She told me all about it. I know, she shouldn’t have, but she had to talk to somebody. She was gutted when they found out. She’d managed to control it at first, hoping she could find a way of breaking off the assignment as unworkable. But they realised what had happened and pulled her out of the field. She was marked as unreliable. I suppose they had no choice. You know the rest.’

A cab approached and pulled into the kerb. Rik checked the passenger name and gave Harry a nod.

As Alice ducked into the car, she turned and gave them both a wan smile. Seconds later, she was gone.

‘She’s clear,’ said Rik, coming to join him. He blew out a puff of air. ‘Now what?’

Harry was thinking about what Alice had said, wondering if he wasn’t grasping at straws. It wasn’t just a mad fling in the middle of an operation. It was serious.

But the words were bouncing around in front of him, loaded with meaning. Bloody hell. It was obvious. If Clare couldn’t go to friends, there was possibly only one person she could go to.

He texted Ballatyne. Need talk.

Rik had been watching him. He gave a start. ‘Hey — I forgot, I got the details of that subscriber you asked for; the misdial.’ He took out his own phone and scrolled to the notepad function. ‘His name’s Fortiani; he’s a trader of some kind in an office near Victoria.’ He handed over the phone and Harry read the details. ‘You playing the markets now?’

Harry shook his head and dialled the number.

It rang out and went to voicemail. A man’s voice. ‘This is Ray Fortiani. I’m unavailable right now. My apologies. Please leave a number and I’ll call you back. Thank you.’

Harry stared at the screen. Fortiani, whoever he was, sounded educated and confident. A businessman. Not the sort to misdial, but if he did, he would apologise and not leave someone hanging.

He checked Rik’s notepad and saw another number, this one a landline. Home or office. He dialled the number.

‘Fortiani.’ It was the same voice.

Harry apologised for calling so late and asked Fortiani if he had recently lost a mobile phone.

‘What? Yes, I have, actually.’ He sounded excited. ‘Have you found it?’

‘Not exactly.’ Harry explained about the call he’d received. ‘Have you reported it lost yet?’

Fortiani sounded sheepish. ‘No. To be honest, I don’t know for sure if I left it in the office or if it was stolen. I didn’t want to have it cancelled in case it was handed in by the cleaners at work. There’s a ton of material on there that I’d like back, though.’

Harry asked where else it might have gone missing if not at the office.

‘Well, the only place I can think of is a place in Pimlico: The Grove. It’s a wine bar I go to a lot with a group from work, and it’s the last place I remember using it. I mean, if that’s where it happened, it was done so smoothly I couldn’t actually recall having it with me. You know how it is when you’re with a bunch of friends and colleagues? The place is always packed and half the time you can’t hear yourself speak. But I can’t imagine any of the usual clientele stealing phones; it just doesn’t gel.’

Harry didn’t have such reservations about other people’s honesty being guaranteed by the places they frequented, but he didn’t bother enlightening Fortiani. ‘When was that?’

‘I was there the evening before last until late, and again yesterday afternoon. I have a work mobile, too, so I’ve been working with that. I guess I should report it, for the insurance.’

‘Can I ask you not to do that yet? If I can, I’ll get it back for you. But it’s important that we don’t alert whoever has it that we know.’

Fortiani sounded puzzled. He said, ‘Are you police?’

Harry cut the call. It saved having to explain the unexplainable.

Then he looked around and spotted an Indian restaurant along the street. It reminded him that they hadn’t eaten properly.

‘You hungry?’

Rik nodded. ‘Could eat a horse. What’s going on with the phone?’

‘It wasn’t Fortiani who called, trying to sell some bonds.’ He explained about the trader’s phone lifted from a cafe table in Pimlico.

Rik’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You think it was Clare? That’s a reach.’

‘I can’t think of anyone else. She’s resourceful enough.’

‘True. Maybe she’ll call back.’

‘Maybe. In the meantime, it tells us where she is. Or was.’

They were well into their meal by the time Ballatyne called back. He didn’t sound happy.

‘My wife’s going to kill me for this. We’re supposed to be at dinner.’

‘I didn’t know you had a wife,’ said Harry, and gave him a brief report, avoiding names. He finished by asking, ‘Clare’s target — the one she got canned for.’

A cautious pause, then, ‘What about her?’

Her. So the target had definitely been a woman. His response was too instinctive to be a mistake. But Ballatyne was too experienced not to have read the files. He’d have brushed up on all their histories as a matter of course, the moment this business began.

‘Do you have a name and a location?’

Another silence, this one lasting several seconds. Finally Ballatyne said, ‘You must be bloody joking.’ The phone went dead.

Harry put his phone down with a wry smile. Ballatyne’s obtuse way of not saying no.

Rik looked up from his chicken korma, one eyebrow raised. ‘I bet he didn’t like that. You’re not serious, though, are you? She wouldn’t go there, surely?’

‘Why not?’ Harry repeated what Alice had told him before getting into the taxi. ‘What would you do if you were that desperate?’

‘I don’t know. Find a friend — any friend, I guess.’ He frowned. ‘But her target was a Russian, wasn’t she? If they find out she’s gone there, she’ll never see daylight again.’

‘Maybe she knows that and figures she has nothing to lose.’