The Doomsday Testament

XVIII

‘So you hunt down pictures and stuff stolen by the Nazis?’ He knew she was trying to sound enthusiastic, but he heard the doubt and he could hardly blame her. It didn’t seem like a very grown-up occupation.

‘It’s not even as exciting as it sounds,’ he apologized. ‘I read catalogues, check out art sales and spend most of my time on the phone. I’m more likely to be looking for a pair of candlesticks than a painting.’

He was usually shy at first with women, but she was deceptively easy to chat to. Maybe it was because she was American; open, talkative, interesting and interested. They discovered they had shared likes: climbing and walking. And pet hates: anyone who wandered around listening to rock music on earphones when they could be listening to the birds singing. Their musical taste differed, but there were areas for negotiation. Sarah liked the new album by Robert Plant and Alison Kraus, although she thought Plant was talented but ancient. Jamie confessed to a secret hankering for old Johnny Cash standards and a love of Mahler inherited from his mother. He found himself relaxing and revealing things he hadn’t even told his best friends.

‘Do you think your work could have anything to do with why whoever it was tried to whack you?’

Her words produced a photoflash memory of the train thundering by an inch above his head. All it would have taken was a single hanging wire… She noticed his look, and placed a hand on his arm; the warmth injected new life into him and for the first time since leaving the Tube station he felt like facing the world.

‘What are you smiling about?’ He shook his head and she turned a quizzical eye on him. ‘OK.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t mind a man having secrets. Makes him more interesting. But you didn’t answer my question.’

‘About my work?’ She nodded. ‘I doubt it. I’m sort of between jobs at the moment.’

She grinned. ‘Me too.’

‘Hold it,’ he said. ‘I notice all we’ve done is talk about me. Your turn.’

‘OK, but I’m hungry; how about lunch?’

‘I’m sorry, I was certain he was dead.’

Charles Lee tossed the remains of his cigarette from the car window and studied the couple talking together on the bench. He should have done the job himself. His partner had been too impatient — a young man’s flaw; one learned patience as one grew older. He would have shadowed Saintclair and bided his time until he was certain of the outcome. True, the attempt should have succeeded, but that wouldn’t be in his report to the agent from Beijing. Better that the younger man was at fault. There would be a little residual fall-out, but he would survive, and that was what mattered.

‘It couldn’t be helped,’ he lied. ‘We know where he lives. We’ll go back tonight and do the job properly.’

‘Ninety per cent of accidents happen at home. Perhaps he’ll drown in the bath?’

Charles Lee didn’t smile. ‘As long as we take care of it this time, no one needs to know.’

The younger man nodded, visibly relieved.

‘What about the girl? Who is she?’

‘She wasn’t with him when he went into the station. Maybe someone he knows who witnessed the… accident?’

Lee reached behind him and picked up a black SLR camera from the back seat. The lens appeared normal, the kind any tourist would use for photographing London’s sights, but it had been specifically designed to provide the same results as a much larger telephoto. He homed in on the couple and took a series of shots.

‘Well, we’ll know by tomorrow morning.’ If the girl had a passport or any form of picture identification anywhere in the world, the Bureau’s sophisticated photo identification software would find her.

‘What if she’s there tonight?’

Lee put the car into gear and moved carefully out into the traffic.

‘That would be too bad.’

Ten minutes later the Ford pulled up at a set of lights by a row of derelict shops. Beyond the shops stretched a broad empty space where a factory had stood, but which now contained a few burned-out wrecks that had once been automobiles. They had made the journey in silence, Lee allowing his colleague to contemplate his failure and formulating in his mind how to ensure the man from Beijing saw his own part in the best possible light.

‘I thank you for your forbearance and support, comrade,’ his partner said.

‘I’ve told you before, don’t call me comrade. You are in London now.’

The younger man nodded. He looked up as a motorcycle and pillion passenger drew up beside them, noting faded jeans and a fringed leather jacket. ‘If the commander heard how we’d failed…’

The helmeted rider turned his head towards the car and an alarm rang in the younger man’s head. He reached for the pistol below his seat. ‘Drive!’ he screamed.

Lee reacted as quickly as any driver could have done. Even the man from Beijing would have been impressed. He was still too slow. His hand had barely touched the gearstick when the pillion passenger calmly raised a silenced Mach 10 machine pistol and kept his finger on the trigger until the bolt clicked on empty. The Mach 10 is an old design, developed by Gordon B. Ingram as far back as 1963, but it is remarkably efficient and remarkably quiet. If someone had been close enough to hear, the only sound they would have registered was that of the thirty-two 9mm hollow-point rounds thumping against the interior of the Ford after passing through their victims, and even that was drowned as the motorcyclist revved his engine. For these particular assassins, the hollow point had two advantages over normal jacketed ammunition. When the bullet hit soft tissue it was designed to mushroom, thereby creating extensive damage along a wider path through the body and a significantly larger exit wound. Trapped by their seatbelts the two Chinese agents jerked and shuddered as almost half a pound of metal travelling at a thousand feet per second punched into them and the interior exploded into a charnel house of blood, bone and ragged flesh. The same mushroom phenomenon slowed the velocity of the bullets so that, although they tore up the plastic trim, none pierced the metalwork to leave outward evidence of the hit or inconvenience passers-by. When the bodies stopped twitching the pillion passenger leaned over to place a package inside the Ford. He gave the driver the OK to move off. From the moment they had pulled up beside the car it had taken less than ten seconds.

‘So what’s wrong with being a freelance journalist? Somebody has to do it, right?’ Sarah went quiet for a few seconds as she chewed her burger. Jamie was fairly certain he’d never eaten a Big Mac before, but there was a first time for everything. It was worth enduring the soggy cardboard-textured bun to be in the company of this mercurial girl-woman with a point of view so different from his own. He sat back as she drew breath and continued the broadside that had been provoked by nothing more than a look of mild disquiet. ‘If you’re thinking scavenger, think again. I did a Masters in English Literature at Harvard. I’m a writer, and what I really want to do is write novels. But even writers have to eat, and a hundred thousand words is just so much computer crap until somebody wants to publish it, right, so I do features; homes and gardens, fashion, that kind of stuff.’ She reeled off an impressive list of publications. ‘OK?’ The final word was a challenge and he could almost feel the heat from the fire in her eyes. He wondered what would happen if that level of passion was channelled in a different direction.

‘So what brings an aspiring novelist from Boston to London? I’d have thought there was as much, if not more, inspiration in the States. Isn’t Greenwich Village the place to be?’

‘Jeez, Jamie, you must be older than you look. You’ll be telling me next you were at Woodstock.’

He ran a hand though his hair and slouched in his plastic chair in a vain attempt to appear what people called cool and she laughed, a deep-seated, unashamed proper laugh. ‘Hey, you almost made it to the eighties there. A new haircut and full wardrobe change and I might let you take me out.’

Ouch.

She noticed his look. ‘Hey, I’m only kidding, right?’ She threw a handful of fries into her mouth and managed to make it look elegant. Swallowing, she took a drink from what looked like a gallon cup of diet Coke and produced a gentle belch. ‘To get back to your original question, I’m not here for inspiration, I’m here for the atmosphere. My book is a time-shift thriller.’ His mystification must have shown. ‘Happens now and way back in history? Simultaneously. Barbara Erskine?’ He nodded, the name was familiar. ‘Same theory, different execution. Mine will be tougher, grittier. Elizabethan London. You’ll be able to smell the sweat and the cat pee.’

‘Sounds great.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Not at all,’ he said, and meant it. ‘I’m fairly sure that anything you write will be worth reading.’

‘Anyway, I’ve just finished the first draft and now I’m looking for another feature assignment to help keep my foul-breathed landlord out of my face for a while.’

Jamie hesitated for a full five seconds. The decision he was about to make was like stepping off a cliff just to experience what it was like to fly, and he suspected he was going to regret it when he hit the bottom, which was bound to happen sooner or later. He took a deep breath.

‘Er, there’s this rather wonderful stolen painting and…’

He told her about the Raphael. But not about the journal or Matthew. Not yet. When he’d finished, her eyes shone and the words bubbled from her like water from a mountain stream. ‘Now that’s a story. You think you might be able to track it down? Maybe I can help you. I’m good with research and I’ll pay my way. Anyway, you need somebody to watch your back.’

Which was true. He’d also convinced himself he was attracted to her in a way that went beyond the purely physical. That would take time to confirm and he had a feeling he’d need to approach things slowly. On the other hand, working together, even if it was on a wild-goose chase, would at least give him a chance to find out. He grinned. ‘OK, you’re hired as my acting, unpaid researcher, but if there’s a story in it, I get copy approval.’

Now it was her turn to grimace, but she nodded.

‘What do you know about Heinrich Himmler?’