Games Traitors Play

90

‘I shouldn’t be here, but I wanted to thank you in person,’ Fielding said, standing at the foot of Lakshmi Meena’s hospital bed. One arm was heavily bandaged and she had bruising below her left eye, but she seemed in reasonable spirits.

‘For what?’

‘For letting them take Daniel. It must have gone against everything you were taught at the Farm. I brought you these.’

He waved the bunch of full-headed Ecuadorian roses he was holding, and put them on the windowsill. He had also brought a box of honey mangoes from Pakistan.

‘Thank you. I wasn’t armed. There were at least four of them. In the circumstances, I had no choice but to protect myself. Have a seat.’

She gestured at a chair, but Fielding remained standing.

‘Is that what you told Spiro?’ he asked.

‘It took a while for him to accept that they weren’t your people.’

‘We haven’t had to resort to kidnapping our own officers on the streets of London. Not yet.’

‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what Dan’s up to.’

He hesitated. ‘All I can say is that you were right to trust him. I’m sorry about your arm.’

‘You’re asking a lot of him. To stop Salim Dhar on his own.’

Fielding glanced towards the door at the mention of Dhar’s name. Through the frosted glass panel, he could see the profile of an armed policeman standing guard outside. He wanted to tell Meena that Marchant’s orders weren’t just to stop Dhar, but to turn him as well, but he couldn’t. The stakes were too high. If Marchant could persuade Dhar to work for the West, it was not something Britain would ever be able to share with any of its allies, least of all America, whose President Dhar had come so close to killing.

‘No one else can,’ Fielding said, moving towards the door. ‘It’s family business.’