Red Station

SEVENTEEN

Harry spent several days getting to know the town, its layout, the road network, the general infrastructure and its people. While what he could see was simple enough to commit to memory, the people, although genial enough when faced with a foreigner who didn’t speak their language, proved an odd nut to crack. Some were immediately friendly, in spite of the language problem, while others showed open distrust, as if he had ‘MI5 Officer’ emblazoned across his chest.

The town itself was an odd hotchpotch of tired, shabby buildings interspersed with newly constructed offices and shops. In among the clearly care-worn structures of the older shops, with tin roofs and crumbling brickwork, were occasional signs of coming prosperity, international brand names jostling for space with local products.

By way of contrast, each intersection had its huddle of traders dealing in everything from cheap watches, jeans and mobile phones, to vodka and even petrol. In between, men argued and smoked with zeal, while elsewhere, rounded women swathed in heavy coats and headscarves carried giant sports bags or cloth bundles tied with string, on a never-ending journey from one part of town to another.

The outer boulevards were wide yet deserted, mainly residential, while the inner streets were narrow and congested with vehicles and pedestrians, their surfaces deeply potted and crumbling. It was as if the inhabitants found it safer or even comforting to stick to this tight, worn network of thoroughfares rather than the open spaces. Yet there was something else; and the more he moved around, the more he began to feel that something in the air. He wondered if it had anything to do with the growing numbers of soldiers in the town, and the accompanying aura of threat hovering around them, even when they were not on duty and unarmed. They were everywhere, yet somehow disconnected from the hustle and bustle around them, like onlookers who had no place being there.

Two days after his first sighting of the Clones, Harry spotted another watcher.

Coming out of a small fruit store, where he had bought some apples, he saw a man across the street. He was checking his watch as if waiting for a lift.

It was the watcher from the airport.

Twenty minutes later, he saw him again. This time he was getting out of a car, which pulled away and sped out of sight.

Harry ignored him; if he was local security police, he’d have to make sure he did nothing they could pick him up for. But the idea that he might be another MI5 watcher made him feel increasingly edgy.

Each time he was in the office, Harry checked out the news channels on one of the PCs for news about the shooting in Essex. Paulton had made it clear that the last thing they could afford was for his name to come out. If that happened, it could compromise other ongoing operations. And if the press were able to identify one member of MI5 to the public, others might follow. The chain-reaction, aided by disaffected former officers or whistleblowers, could be devastating.

Harry soon began to feel he was being observed too closely, and on one of his forays through the town, he mapped out a number of internet cafes. Most were little more than a basement bar with a couple of computers on rickety tables. But they might prove his only alternative link with the outside world. And keeping an eye on the news which might affect him and his future was uppermost in his mind.

The first time he used one of the internet bars, he took a random route around town, stopping occasionally and doubling back. Twice he saw faces which didn’t seem right, and he concluded that there was more than one man on him. Coming out of a store, he deliberately fumbled with change, and while stooping to pick up a fallen coin, checked his surroundings. Two more faces, although too distant to be sure if they were the Clones he’d seen before.

The bar he had selected was close by the town’s market. The streets here were jumbled together like a child’s toy-town, and the shops, although drab and unsophisticated, were small and busy. The bar was called ZOLA and located under a shoe mender, accessed by a short flight of stone steps.

Harry walked in and waved to the barman, then pointed to one of the two vacant computers at the back of the room. The barman nodded and said something in return, by which Harry presumed he was giving him the rate it would cost. When he looked blank, the man pointed to a blackboard over the bar with the minutes and hourly rates, then held up a glass.

Harry pointed to the nearest beer pump. When the glass was full, he took it and sat down at the computer.

The shooting was still in the news. As he scrolled down the BBC’s main news page, his spirits sank. He checked the commercial television channels, which told him nothing more, then flicked through the websites of the British nationals. Some of the speculation was wildly off-target, but the guesswork contained a disturbing amount of accurate detail. One report even spoke with relish of an official cover-up, claiming in knowing tones that ‘according to unnamed sources within the police, the name of an unknown security agent who was present at the shooting has been withheld by the Home Office pending internal enquiries.’ The report went on to say that the name of this ‘agent’ would soon be a matter of public record, and that the Home Secretary, who was facing calls to bring in an outside senior police officer to take over, could not delay in replying for much longer.

As he read this, Harry wondered how much of the speculation was a result of unofficial briefings carefully leaked to keep the public temporarily satisfied until a coherent strategy could be decided on. He noted the name of the report’s author, and hoped sourly that Shaun Whelan, whoever he was, would trip over and break his neck.

Tired of staring at the screen, he switched off the machine and paid the barman. He’d check again tomorrow. Maybe London would flood and they’d forget all about it.

Half an hour later, he turned a corner and stopped. He’d managed to lose his bearings, and instead of arriving back at the office, he’d somehow veered off course and arrived across from the Palace Hotel.

He entered the main doors and crossed a large, tiled foyer scattered with potted palms and comfortable chairs. A sign pointed to a bar, from where he could hear the sound of laughter and the clink of glasses.

He checked the room before walking in. Four men and a woman, all westerners, were gathered around a table. Two of the men were working at laptops, while the others had their heads together in discussion. They did not spare Harry more than a cursory glance.

There was no sign of Higgins. Harry went to the bar and ordered a beer, then found a comfortable chair in one corner, in line-of-sight of the door, but set back from anyone walking by.

The other customers were a mix of German and Swedish, and appeared to be part of a news team gearing up to head north. There was talk of local guides, ‘road’ rations and where to stay if they got bogged down anywhere remote.

Ten minutes later, Carl Higgins walked in.

He gave the group a friendly wave, then bellied up to the bar, flicking a finger at a lager pump. Moments later, he was joined by one of the newsmen. They spoke in soft tones for five minutes. The other journalists ignored them.

When three more men walked in, the journalist with Higgins returned to the table and the talk continued as if he had never left.

The three newcomers, all dressed in suits, scanned the bar, eyes passing over Harry without a flicker. They were all in their late thirties or early forties, with smooth shaves and the well-fed look of diplomats who believe in keeping trim. They joined Higgins at the bar, and the man from Ohio ordered more drinks, then led them through a glass-panelled doorway into a restaurant. The last man in dragged a heavy CLOSED sign across the floor and shut the door behind him.

Harry felt the beer turn sour in his mouth. Could they be any more bloody obvious? He got up and left. He had seen enough.

Higgins was a spook.