Revenger

76

Mara Keane was in the hotel suite, consoling an extremely frustrated group of SCO19 personnel, and organizing the collection and forensic analysis of the belongings left in the room by its two former occupants, when a man in a hotel staff uniform appeared in the doorway and called out, ‘Excuse me!’ And then again, when no one paid any attention to him, ‘Excuse me, please!’

‘Yes?’ said Keane.

‘There’s a noise coming from room 827, down the corridor. It sounds as though there’s someone in there, and I think they might be trapped.’

Four of the SCO19 men were dispatched to investigate. They returned a couple of minutes later with a terrified, tearful half-naked chambermaid, wrapped in a blanket. Between her sobs she managed to tell Keane what had happened to her.

‘I thought you said Mrs Vermulen didn’t pose any threat,’ said the SCO19 commander when the chambermaid had finished.

‘Evidently I was misinformed,’ Keane replied.

Just then her phone rang. It was Commander Stamford. ‘I need you back at Kennington,’ she said. ‘Go through all the evidence we’ve collected in the past few hours and tell me what we’ve got. There’s a situation developing and we need to sort it out.’

Walcott was on the ragged edge of exhaustion. He’d accompanied the team who’d been dispatched to the flat where the Second Man had been. They’d arrived a fraction too late. It had been a matter of seconds, but the suspect had got out and vanished into the maze of side streets that surrounded the flat. If they’d had dogs there might have been a chance of tracking him, but half the police dog units had been disbanded as a cost-saving measure, and the remaining handlers were on strike, protesting against new regulations that required them to buy their animals’ food. He had officers out patrolling the area, but the chances of spotting, let alone apprehending, the suspect were minimal. Still there had been some news, which he was passing on to Keane.

‘He didn’t have time to cover his tracks before he got out,’ Walcott told her. ‘We found an empty packet of hair dye and there were dark hairs in the plughole of the bathroom basin. So we need to update the photofit to make the hair shorter and more blond. Also he left a black quilted waistcoat behind, so either he’s very cold now, without that and his coat, or he’s found something else to wear. And one other thing… I got one of the lads at the station to run a Land Registry check to find out who owned this place. And it belongs to the Foreign Office.’

‘Is it the kind of place where they’d put up visiting dignitaries?’

Walcott laughed. ‘Not unless they wanted a diplomatic incident. This place is a dump. No, it’s where you put someone you want to hide away.’

‘So it’s a safe house?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘And if it’s owned by the Foreign Office, then it belongs to MI6.’

‘So why are they keeping this guy safe?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Keane. ‘And I’m not sure I really want to know, either.’

Carver was making his way through the streets of Lambeth on foot, trying to work out why he was still alive and what the Russians were doing sticking their noses into all this. At least some of his questions had been answered, though. He knew now exactly who had ordered the riot and why, and he was determined to find a way to prove it in the hours before he could put his escape-plan into effect. During that time he had to keep himself and Alix alive and deal with Novak. Things were going to get messy, and he needed the weapons to cope with any situation. His gun might have been taken from him, but that wasn’t the end of the world. Just as Carver could make bombs out of pizza flour, so he could create his own personal arsenal just by going to the nearest shops. And he had Novak to thank for one thing, at least. She’d shown him very clearly that the traumatic events in the Lion Market had taught him the wrong lesson. There was nothing to be gained by refusing to take life when that was the only sensible option. The next time he got her in his sights, he wouldn’t be afraid to fire.

‘Why didn’t you let me kill him?’ Novak fumed. ‘He was helpless. He should be dead by now.’

‘Our orders were only to observe and if necessary protect you,’ replied FSB Major Oleg Kutchinski, who was sitting next to her in the car driving them back across the Thames and into Central London. ‘I am in constant contact with Director Gusev himself. He specifically instructed me to extract you from the construction site, but not to assist you to kill Carver. In the first place, that would place us much too close to the killing. And in the second, Director Gusev judged that it was not the correct time for Carver to die. It is his view that events can be managed so as to do far greater harm to the British government. Rest assured, you will be allowed to carry out your mission. And we will be of great use to you. But for now, you will obey Director Gusev’s commands.’

‘Why? He is not my director. I do not belong to the FSB any more.’

‘Oh come now, Novak, you know that is not true. You may say that you have left the FSB. But you, like all of us, belong to it for life.’