Passenger 13

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The pulsating buzz of the phone on the bedside table dragged Egerton Sinclair up from the depths of a dream that was instantly forgotten as he sat up in bed, fumbling for the lamp. He cursed at the time on the bedside clock.

Sinclair carried three mobiles, and he kept them all close by at all times, whether he was at home in Surrey with his wife or here at the luxury apartment he used when he’d been working late or wanted to entertain a lady friend. Only one person in the world could be calling on the phone that was ringing at this moment. And if it was ringing, that meant there’d been complications. His heart began to beat strongly as he answered the call.

‘We got him,’ said the familiar voice on the other end. ‘It’s done.’

The wave of relief Sinclair felt quickly gave way to irritation. ‘Then proceed according to plan. What are you calling me for at three in the bloody morning?’

A pause. Then: ‘Ah, we have a problem.’

Sinclair kicked his legs out from under the sheet and perched on the edge of the bed, waiting for more.

‘Hope wasn’t working alone,’ the voice said.

That didn’t make any sense. ‘So deal with it,’ Sinclair told him. ‘Fast.’

‘Can’t deal with it. I need to meet you.’

Sinclair trusted his associate, based on a catalogue of jobs that had always gone without a hitch in the past, however sensitive or complex. The man’s edgy tone told him that something was definitely amiss — and it wasn’t the kind of matter they could chat about over the phone, no matter how secure the line. Sinclair cupped his forehead in his hand and screwed his eyes shut. ‘Are Ellis and Nash with you?’ he asked.

‘Ellis and Nash are down,’ the associate replied.

Sinclair sprang up from the bed. ‘Roger that. The usual rendezvous point. Can you make it there in thirty minutes?’

‘Copy.’

Sinclair threw on his clothes and rushed out of the apartment. Three floors below in the private car park, he climbed into his Jaguar Sovereign and took off with a nervous screech of tyres.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Sinclair rolled the Jag to a halt under the arches of a crumbling Victorian bridge in a seedy district mainly frequented by crack dealers, well away from the eye of security cameras that haunted most of London. It was nearly quarter to four in the morning and he felt sick with fatigue and tension as he stepped out of the car and approached the black Audi A8 that was parked a few yards away under the gloom of the arch. His right hand was in his coat pocket, clutching the compact CZ 9mm pistol.

He hardly even sensed the movement behind him before he was being slammed into the rough brickwork of the archway and felt the muzzle of a gun pressing into the base of his neck. A hand dived inside his coat pocket and tore the CZ from his grip.

‘Hope!’

‘I’d crack your skull with this,’ Ben said, grinding the muzzle of the MP5 harder into Sinclair’s neck, ‘but it’d mean having to drag you to the car myself. Get walking.’ He grabbed the MI6 agent by the collar and shoved him roughly towards the assassins’ Audi.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere nice and peaceful where we can have another of our little chats.’ Ben opened the car boot and motioned at the occupant already inside.

‘I think you two know each other.’

Sinclair stared at the trussed, gagged, struggling hit team leader. The man’s ski mask was crusted with blood from where Ben had smashed his nose before kicking the knife out of his hand. Some hired assassins were too valuable to have combat daggers stuck in them.

‘I told him I’d let him live if he delivered you to me,’ Ben said. ‘He was pretty quick to agree. You can argue about it on the way. In, please.’

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Sinclair blustered. ‘I’m not—’ But before he could finish, Ben had bundled him into the boot with the other one and slammed the lid down on them.

The Audi felt heavy at the back as Ben took off with his cargo.