Tango One

Donovan stroked the matt black video cassette.

"What is it?" asked Tina.

"The entertainment," said Donovan. He patted her on the leg.

"Come on, Louise, cheer up. You're behaving like a right wet blanket."

Tina forced herself to smile.

"That's better," said Donovan.

He and Tina sat in silence as Fletcher drove through the morning traffic. He kept checking his mirrors and twice did a series of left turns to make sure that he wasn't being followed, then he drove east towards Docklands.

Tina stared out of the window with unseeing eyes, wondering where Donovan was taking her. And why. Did he know who she was? Or did he just suspect and wanted to interrogate her, to find out for sure? And if he was just suspicious, could she lie her way out of it? Or was she better just to confess all, tell him that she was a police officer? No one murdered a police officer in cold blood, not even Tango One.

Now that Fletcher had shaken off any tail, Tina knew that she was on her own. There would be no last-minute rescue, no cavalry charge over the hill. No one knew where she was or the trouble she was in. Why had no one answered the phone? Where was Hathaway? He'd promised her that there would always be someone at the end of the line. It was her get-out-of-jail-free card. Her lifeline. And the one time she'd needed it, it had failed her.

Fletcher indicated he was turning right. He used a small remote control unit to open a set of metal gates and then the car bobbed down into an underground car park. They parked close to an elevator. A balding man with a curved scar above his left ear and a black leather jacket was waiting by the elevator door.

Donovan hugged the man.

"Everything okay, Charlie?"

The man nodded. Donovan introduced him to Tina.

"Charlie Macfadyen," he said.

"One of the best."

"Pleased to meet you," said Tina.

"Everybody here?" Donovan asked Macfadyen.

"Just waiting for the guest of honour," said Macfadyen. He punched the elevator button and the door rattled open. The three men stepped to the side to allow Tina to walk in first. She felt her legs trembling but she kept her head up and her lips pressed tightly together. She walked into the lift and then turned to face them, feeling like a condemned prisoner about to be taken before the firing squad.

Macfadyen pressed the button for the top floor. The penthouse. The door rattled shut. Donovan hummed to himself as the lift rode upwards.

Macfadyen winked at Tina.

"All right, love?" he asked.

"Not scared of heights, are you?"

Tina shook her head. No, it wasn't heights that she was scared of.

The lift doors opened into a large airy hallway. At one end of the hallway was a window with a panoramic view of the Thames. Another man was waiting outside the door to the penthouse suite. He pushed the door open and grinned at Donovan.

"Okay, Den?"

"Perfect, Ricky," said Donovan.

"I don't think you've met my date, have you? Louise, this is Ricky. Ricky Jordan."

Jordan stuck out his hand and Tina shook. Jordan grinned at her with amused eyes. They were toying with her, Tina knew. They were all toying with her like cats torturing an injured mouse.

"In you go, Louise," said Macfadyen.

Tina walked into the apartment. It was a large loft-style space with exposed brickwork and girders, and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on to the river. Three men were standing by the window, looking out and talking in hushed voices. They turned to look at her, their faces hard and unsmiling.

Tina looked to her right. Two men were tied to chairs, strips of insulation tape across their mouths. One of the men was black, the other white. Next to the two men was a third chair. Donovan gestured at it.

"Take a seat, Louise."

"I'm okay, thanks," she said.

Donovan's eyes hardened and he pointed at the chair.

"What's this about, Den?" she asked.

"You know what this about," he said.

"Now sit down or I'll have the boys tie you down."

Fletcher closed the door and stood with his back to it, his arms folded across his barrel-like chest.

Tina sat down. She looked across at the two bound and gagged men. The black man was staring straight ahead, his back rigid, his jaw tight. The white man was looking around as if trying to find a way out. His face was bathed in sweat and the tape across his mouth moved in and out in time with his breathing.

Donovan stood in front of the white man. He held out a sheet of paper. Tina looked across but couldn't see what it was.

"James Robert Fullerton," said Donovan. He dropped the sheet of paper on to Fullerton's lap, then stepped across to stand in front of the black man.

"Clifford Warren." Donovan held the sheet of paper a few inches in front of Warren's face. Tina could make out a crest on top of the sheet. The crest of the Metropolitan Police. Donovan placed the sheet of paper on Warren's lap.

He held out a third sheet in front of Tina. Her heart sank as she recognised it. It was her application to join the Met.

"Den .. ." she said, but Donovan put a finger against her lips.

"Don't speak," he said.

"Don't spoil the moment. If you say anything, I'll have them gag you, okay?"

Tina nodded.

"Good girl," he said.

"Christina Louise Leigh." He held out the sheet. Tina took it but didn't look at it.

Donovan took a few steps back, then slowly began to clap. He clapped for several seconds, a sarcastic smile on his face.

"I want to applaud the three of you," he said.

"You fooled me. You absolutely fooled me. I wouldn't have made any one of you as a narc, but then you're like no other narcs, are you? You're not in any undercover unit with the Met or NCIS and your handler was a spook."

He smiled at the look of confusion on their faces.

"Didn't you know, Gregg Hathaway's a spook? MI6. You were being run by the Secret Intelligence Service."

"No, that's not right," protested Tina, but Donovan silenced her with a cold look.

"I've been trying to work out over the last twelve hours why you fooled me. Why I didn't spot you. I guess it's because you're none of you playing a part, are you? You are what you are. Even down to using your real names." He turned to look at Ricky Jordan.

"I mean, what undercover agent uses their own name, right?" Ricky nodded at Donovan. Donovan looked at Mac-fad yen who also nodded in agreement.

"See," said Donovan, 'it's not how it's normally done. Undercover cops and Cussies adopt a persona. They put on an act. But you, Jamie, you really are a drug-taking womaniser who deals in stolen art. Bunny, you're running with the guys you grew up with. You couldn't do that if you weren't one of them. They'd spot a fake a mile off. And Louise, you really are a lap dancer. And I think if we'd gone a bit further down the line, you'd have slept with me. I mean, is that above and beyond, or what?"

Donovan took the video cassette out of his jacket pocket and walked over to a wide-screen TV. He slotted the cassette into the video recorder.

"You were all playing yourselves, that's why I was fooled. You were real. But you were being used, every one of you. Whatever you thought you were doing, whatever noble cause you thought you were serving, Hathaway had his own agenda."

Donovan picked up a remote control unit and pressed 'play'. Alex Knight had done a great job with the sound, and he'd used close-ups wherever possible. There was no doubt who the two men on the bridge were, or what they were saying.

Jordan and Macfadyen watched the video with confused looks on their faces. All Donovan had told them was that Fullerton, Warren and Louise were undercover cops they didn't know who Hathaway was. As the video showed Hathaway and Donovan walking along the bridge to the pub, the sound quality went down and Knight had put subtitles along the bottom of the screen so that they could follow the conversation, but the sound improved once the two men were sitting at the trestle table and working on the laptop computer.

Louise looked over at Donovan, but he kept his eyes on the television screen.

When the tape came to an end, Donovan switched off the TV. Fuller-ton's eyes were wide and staring and his nostrils flared from the effort of breathing. His face had gone a deep crimson. Donovan walked over and ripped the insulation tape off his mouth. Fullerton gasped.

Warren had slumped in his chair. Donovan pulled the tape off his lips. It came away with a tearing sound.

"Bit of a surprise that, hey, Bunny?" asked Donovan. He stood in front of the TV.

"Just in case anyone didn't quite follow what was going on there, Gregg Hathaway stung me for forty-five million dollars. In return, I got you. He sold you out. And as you saw on the tape, he was quite happy for me to kill all three of you." He grinned savagely.

"Any thoughts?"

Fullerton, Warren and Louise were all too stunned to say anything' You gave him the money?" asked Jordan in disbelief.

"You gave him forty-five million dollars?"

"What choice did I have, Ricky? I needed to know who the rotten apples were. Suppose it had been the Russians? Suppose there was no gear on the plane? Suppose it had been one of the Turks? I had to know who was bad so that I could see what was salvageable."

"The heroin," said Fullerton.

"What happened to the heroin?"

"It's exactly where it's supposed to be," said Donovan.

"Three thousand kilos is in Germany with our Turkish friends. Five hundred kilos is being driven up to Scotland to keep the smack heads in Edinburgh and Glasgow happy for the next six months or so. Another thousand kilos should be on the Holyhead ferry heading for Dublin. PM's got his, the Turks have got theirs, the price of a wrap in London is probably going to fall twenty per cent, but if the dealers are smart they'll hold back the bulk of it, ease it on to the market."

"But the plane was empty," said Warren.

"Of course it was," said Donovan.

"The Russians, their job is to get supplies into out-of-the-way places, places where there aren't mile-long runways. How do you think they do that, Bunny? You can't just land a fifty-metre four-engined jet plane on the side of a hill."

"Parachutes," whispered Fullerton.

"They dropped the gear."

"Precision-guided offset aerial parachute delivery, is what they call it," said Donovan.

"They can drop almost two thousand kilos from thirty thousand feet and land it to within three hundred feet of their target. The parachute has an airborne guidance unit and it homes in on a transmitter on the ground. They dropped two chutes over Germany and three about fifty miles east of the airfield."

"You bastard," said Fullerton.

"You set us all up. The business at the airfield, you knew the plane was coming in empty."

"I wanted to see what Hathaway would do," said Donovan.

"The deal was that he gave me you and let me bring the gear in. Seems like he thought he could have it both ways: get to keep my money and put me behind bars for twenty years. Oh yes, and have you three killed into the bargain. He'd be free and clear."

Jordan walked over.

"Are we going to do it, Den? Are we going to off them?"

"I'm thinking about it, Ricky."

"You can't kill us," said Fullerton.

"We're cops."

"That's the thing, Jamie. Are you? Are you really cops? Or are you grasses? There's a difference."

"We work for the Met."

Warren nodded.

"We're cops."

"You're cops if Hathaway stuck to whatever bargain it is that he offered you, but he doesn't seem to be a man of his word, does he?" He gestured at the video recorder.

"Do you want me to play it again for you?"

"We're on the Met's payroll," said Fullerton.

"We get a salary. Promotions. Shit, we even get overtime."

"I'm not saying you haven't been paid your thirty pieces of silver, Jamie. I'm just questioning whether or not Hathaway actually put you on their payroll. And if he did, maybe he's covered his tracks. Wouldn't take much to delete all reference to you from the computers."

"Let's off' em said Jordan in his Liverpudlian whine. They fucked over the Mexico deal, didn't they?"

"Jamie, did, yeah. Hathaway showed me an e-mail he sent. Bunny didn't know about it and nor did Louise." Donovan nodded at Tina.

"Or is it Tina? Which do you prefer?"

"Either," said Tina.

"My mother called me Louise."

"Tina, Louise, who gives a fuck?" said Jordan.

"They're grasses. Let's do 'em."

"A couple of weeks ago and I'd have agreed with you, Ricky, but now I'm not so sure. We've got the gear, we're in the clear, and maybe they've seen the light."

"What do you mean?" said Macfadyen.

"They can't give evidence against us. They're all compromised. Any case based on their evidence is going to be laughed out of court. And after what Hathaway's done to them, I don't think they're going to be looking to continue their careers as undercover cops, or whatever it is they are. They're no threat to us."

"They cost us a bundle on that Mexican deal."

"Agreed, but they all played their part in putting together the Turkish thing. Couldn't have put the financing together so quickly without Jamie's help, and Bunny saved my life, for God's sake. And Louise, well, that's personal. But all three of them made a difference. Maybe not the difference that they were planning to make, but all's well that ends well, yeah?"

"I don't know about this, Den," said Macfadyen.

"Killing them doesn't do anything for us," said Donovan.

"It'd make me feel better," said Jordan.

"Yeah, well, that's something you're going to have to deal with, Ricky. You don't take someone's life just to make yourself feel good. You do it because it serves a purpose, and I don't think that killing these three is going to make a blind bit of difference to our lives. Letting them live might, though."

Macfadyen and Jordan frowned. They exchanged a look, and Jordan shrugged.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"You're not making any sense."

Donovan nodded at Fullerton.

"Jamie here didn't grass up the Turkish deal. Why not, Jamie?"

Fullerton shook his head.

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"I was confused. That's all. I wasn't sure."

"You wanted the deal to succeed, didn't you? You didn't want Hathaway to know about it because you wanted it to go ahead."

Fullerton nodded.

"Because of the money?"

Fullerton shook his head.

"It wasn't just the money. I don't know what it was."

"I do. For the kick. You wanted to see if you could do it. And you did, Jamie. You played the game and you won. We won. We made them look stupid and we made millions. How did that feel?"

"Yeah, it felt good. When that plane landed, it was like, better than a coke rush. And when the SAS piled in I was so freaked. I thought I'd lost everything. I thought Hathaway would hang me out to dry." Fullerton stopped talking. He looked guiltily across at Warren and Louise, and fell silent.

"See what I mean?" Donovan said to Macfadyen and Jordan.

"You should use him. He's got a taste for it." Donovan grinned at Fullerton.

"What about it, Jamie? They stitched you up, why not show them what you can do on the other side of the fence? You're a natural."

Fullerton nodded slowly.

"Work with you, you mean?"

"Nah, I'm retiring, Jamie. For a few years at least. I've got things to do." He jerked a thumb at Macfadyen and Jordan.

"But Charlie and Ricky could do with your help. With me out of the game they'll need someone to hold their hands."

Donovan walked over to Warren. Warren stared up at him defiantly.

"And you, Bunny, what the hell were you thinking of? You know how cops hate blacks. Always have and always will. All that crap about institutional racism is just that. It's not the institution that's racist, it's the people. And you're not going to change the people with seminars and handbooks and codes of practice."

Warren shrugged.

"They were using you, that's all," said Donovan.

"They said I could make a difference. And I wanted to."

"A difference to what? To the drugs business? You think that putting me away would have stopped drugs getting into the country? All the cops and Customs do is regulate the price, Bunny. Supply and demand. They increase the percentage of interceptions and the price goes up, that's all. The price goes up, we make more money, and the addicts on the street go out and rob a few more cars and houses to pay the extra."

Warren looked down, unwilling to meet Donovan's stare.

"Fuck it, Bunny, being an undercover cop isn't going to get drugs off the street. You want to do that, go be a social worker and make people's lives better so that they don't want drugs. Go be a businessman and create jobs so that people have got a reason to get up in the mornings. But don't kid yourself that playing cops and robbers is going to make a blind bit of difference to the drugs trade. It's here to stay, and everyone from the Government down knows that. The cops and Cussies know that. Do you have any idea how many of them are on the take, Bunny? From me personally? Hasn't the way Hathaway behaved shown you how corrupt the whole business is, their side and mine?"

Warren looked up defiantly.

"What is it you want me to say, Den? That I've been fucked over? Well, I have. I can see that."

"I want to know what you're going to do about it, Bunny."

"That's an impossible question to answer. I'm dead on the streets now. PM'll be after my blood."

Donovan nodded.

"Maybe he doesn't know. No reason for Hathaway to have told him."

"Too many people know. Everyone in this room, for a start. It's not gonna stay a secret. I lied to him, man. Bigtime. He's never gonna forgive that."

Donovan shrugged.

"You might be surprised what people will forgive, Bunny. Besides, PM got his gear at a rock bottom price. It's pushed him a lot higher up the food chain and he's gonna need you to keep him on the straight and narrow."

Warren shook his head.

"Nah, not PM. I've made him look stupid and he ain't gonna stand for that. He's gonna want to show that he's on top of it. I'm gonna have to go."

"Go where?"

"Fuck you, man. I ain't telling you anything." He shook his head.

"I'll tell you one thing for free, though." He nodded with his chin at Fullerton.

"I ain't like him. I don't get no buzz from what I did. Drugs kill people. Kill people, kill communities, kill whole fucking countries. And it ain't no good just saying if it wasn't you it'd be someone else. It's got to stop somewhere. It might as well be you."

"So you've got what you wanted, Bunny. As of today, I'm out of it. But you know what? It won't make a shred of difference."

"You're really quitting?" asked Macfadyen.

"I've got all the money I need, Charlie," said Donovan.

"Even with what Hathaway took. It's all offshore, I'll get it well laundered and put into something legit. I've been telling my boy I sell cement. Might even do that." He grinned.

"Swap one powder for another."

"And what about me, Den?" asked Tina.

Donovan folded his arms.

"What about you, Louise? Are you going to apologise, say sorry for lying to me? You weren't the first woman to lie to me and I don't expect you'll be the last, but it would be nice to hear an apology."

"I'm sorry, Den."

"Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot lately."

"There's nothing I can say, is there?"

Donovan shook his head, his lips forming a tight line.

Tina crossed her legs and arms and stared at the floor.

"I saw the look on your face this morning. When you opened the door and I was there. You were relieved, weren't you?" said Donovan quietly.

"You thought I'd been pulled, and when you saw I hadn't been you were pleased."

Tina nodded but still didn't look up.

"And last night, when I was leaving, you tried to stop me going."

Tina nodded again.

"I wanted to tell you. I did, Den. But I couldn't."

"Because you're a cop?"

Tina sighed.

"Yes."

"Being a cop didn't stop you sending me that text message, did it?"

Macfadyen frowned.

"What text message?"

"It doesn't matter, Charlie."

"I didn't think you'd got it," said Tina.

"I got it," said Donovan.

"I didn't want you to go to prison," said Tina.

"I didn't want Robbie to be without his dad, I didn't want .. ."

"What?" asked Donovan.

Tina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Nothing."

Donovan stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. She rubbed the side of her head against his hand like a dog wanting its ear tickled.

"They used you, Tina. They treated you like a whore. they were worse than pimps because they pretended you were doing it for some greater good."

"I know," she said softly.

"Get yourself sorted out, Louise. You shouldn't let anyone use you like that. Least of all someone whose only aim was to sell you out."

She wiped her eyes again.

"I will."

"Then give me a call."

Tina looked up in surprise.

"What?"

Donovan mimed putting a phone to his ear.

"Phone me. Robbie'd like to see you."

Tina smiled gratefully.

"So that's it?" said Jordan.

"We're just going to let them go?"

Macfadyen sighed.

"Ricky, if you don't shut up, I'll shoot you myself "I'm just saying .. ."

"Don't say," said Macfadyen.

"It's Den's call. Good on you, Den. Where are you going?"

"Home," said Donovan.

"I've got some soccer kit needs washing. And beds to make. Shopping to do." He grinned.

"A woman's work is never done, hey, lads?"

Three Months Later The rooster kicked out and the metal spur attached to its left claw ripped through the stomach of its adversary. Blood spattered across the sawdust and the crowd cheered and yelled. Fistfuls of pesos were waved in the air, but Hathaway doubted that anyone would be prepared to bet on the underdog. There were few comebacks in cock fighting It wasn't like with humans: bouts couldn't be fixed to hype up the entertainment value. The cocks went in, they fought, the better fighter won. Victory might come by virtue of being faster, or stronger or having more heart, but once one of the cocks was on top, death came quickly.

Hathaway had been to cockfights in Thailand, but he found them a lot less satisfactory because the Thais didn't fit spurs to the birds, so the bouts were longer and scrappier. Maybe it was because the Thais were Buddhists and didn't want to inflict unnecessary pain, but Hathaway thought the Roman Catholic Filipino way was actually kinder. Kills were generally quicker and cleaner.

Hathaway wasn't a great fan of the Philippines, but it was the perfect place to hide, for a while at least. It was a country where pretty much anything could be had for a price, where security and privacy could easily be acquired, and where there were enough Westerners with shady pasts for yet another one to blend in with few questions asked.

The money was all stashed away offshore where it could never be found. Hathaway had become an expert at tracing hidden money and he had put his skills to good effect. He had bought an isolated villa on the outskirts of Manila, made friends with the local police chief, and hired a dozen of the chiefs men as his personal bodyguards. He never went anywhere without at least four of them in attendance, and as he stood at the edge of the cock fighting pit all four were within fifty feet, enjoying the cockfight but keeping a watchful eye out for potential threats.

So far as Hathaway was concerned, there was only one potential threat Den Donovan. Hathaway had no illusions: at some point Donovan would be looking to get his money back. Donovan was still Tango One, however, and the powers that he would be doing everything they could to put him behind bars. It was just a matter of time.

The fact that the drugs hadn't been on the plane when it had landed had meant that Donovan had escaped prison that time, but his luck couldn't hold out for ever. The abortive drugs bust had actually helped Hathaway, in that it gave him a good reason for resigning. His direct superior had spent an hour trying to convince him to stay, and the head of Human Resources had offered to find him a non-operational role within the organisation, but Hathaway had continued to insist that he should take the blame for the debacle and had walked out. He hadn't even bothered to fill in his pension forms or empty his desk.

Of course, Hathaway would much have preferred for the drugs to have been on the plane and for Donovan to have been put away for twenty years, but sometimes not everything went to plan. Sometimes you had to go with the flow. Tango One would get sent down eventually, and if he didn't, Hathaway had more than enough money to have Donovan taken out of the equation by other methods. More permanent methods.

In the pit, the winning bird lashed out again and the weaker bird went down, blood streaming from its neck. Grim-faced men in straw hats were screaming for the stricken bird to get up and fight, but Hathaway knew that they were wasting their breath. It had been a mortal blow.

Hathaway didn't want to have to take out a contract on Donovan unless it was absolutely necessary. It wasn't that he had moral reservations about ordering the death of another man, especially a man like Donovan, but paying for an assassination left a trail that could be followed. There were plenty of professionals around who could do the job, but if anything went wrong even the most professional of killers would give up the name of his employer in exchange for a reduced sentence. It wasn't a risk that Hathaway was prepared to take, not yet.

The owner of the winning bird stepped forward and picked it up, holding it high above his head to a series of rousing cheers from the men who'd won money on the fight, and boos and catcalls from those who'd lost.

A small boy ran out with a bucket and threw fresh sawdust down over the bloodstained parts of the ring, while one of the winning owner's assistants picked up the dead bird and carried it away. It was traditional for the winning owner to eat the losing bird.

Hathaway looked over his shoulder. There were more than five hundred men crammed into the warehouse around the ring. No women. Almost all the spectators were locals: Western sensibilities were often offended by the sight of two cocks doing what came naturally.

Hathaway stiffened as he noticed that one of the few Westerners around the arena was looking in his direction. He was a man in his thirties wearing a beige safari suit. There was something familiar about the man a vague tickle somewhere in Hathaway's memory suggested that they'd met some time in the past. Hathaway frowned. As a rule he had an almost infallible memory for faces. The man raised an eyebrow and nodded at Hathaway. Hathaway smiled instinctively, and nodded at the man. Was it a greeting from someone who recognised Hathaway, or just a nod of recognition between two outsiders?

Hathaway racked his memory. Male, mid-thirties, good looking, well built, two-day growth of beard. Ray-Ban sunglasses. Good teeth. Hathaway's mental filing system drew a blank. Then Hathaway realised why the man seemed familiar and he smiled slowly. He was the spitting image of the French crooner. What was his name? Distel, that was it. Sacha Distel. He was looking at a much younger version of Sacha Distel. Hathaway relaxed. The guy was probably mistakenly recognised all the time. Hathaway gave him a small wave, then turned to watch the next cocks being prepared for battle. The man in charge of Hathaway's security had seen the unspoken exchange and he looked across at Hathaway for guidance. Hathaway nodded at him and mouthed, "It's okay."

In the pit, a pot-bellied man with a battered straw hat was attaching shiny metal spurs to a bird with jet-black feathers. Hathaway looked over at the black bird's opponent. It was a totally white bird with a scarlet crop. Hathaway smiled. He liked white birds. It always made the bloodletting look that much more dramatic. He waved a handful of pesos at one of the bookmakers and placed a bet on the black bird. Hathaway was feeling lucky.