Timebomb

Chapter 4

Maybe it was because of his new status, but that morning he fancied he was more clearly watched.

An instructor had said during the training period, ‘The deeper you go into the organization, the more access you have, the closer you will be observed. The natural suspicion they harbour for an outsider cannot, ever, be totally erased. Each step up means greater care must be taken.’ They had done role-play at the start of the training, simple stuff: buying Class A drugs, dumping counterfeit money on a bureau de change, drinking till late, then they’d been quizzed abruptly about an area and the specifics of the legend, had been tested on their ability to lose the police ethic.

The front door had been opened for him by Grigori. Carrick was eyed, as if he was meat on a slab, no greeting or welcome offered. He could not have said whether his advance in the household made him, now, a competitor for Grigori’s position. He smiled warmly, but the gesture was not returned — and it was strange to him because it was hard to believe in danger when the whoops and shouts of the children billowed down the staircase, there was the smell of cooking from the basement kitchen and of fresh coffee. He’d gone down to the ready room.

An instructor had said, ‘You’ll think you can handle the isolation of the lie, but we don’t know, none of us does. Role-play is useful but it’s a poor substitute for actuality. If you’re going to crack, feel yourself slipping, then for God’s sake come out. Don’t take it as a failure of the macho-man you want to be. There’s no disgrace in not being able to field the pressure.’ They did sleep-deprivation, and slap-around questioning that left small bruises — and had lessons in the use of bugs, where to hide them, and the fixing of tags to cars. Seven of his intake had passed, but two had dropped out and never been referred to again. He’d done as well in his training as he had on his appearance before the selection board, and had told himself that pressure didn’t faze him, or stress.

The internal phone rang.

Viktor for him, to go upstairs. Grigori’s eyes were locked on him till he had gone out through the door. The briefing papers said that Grigori and Viktor were from Perm — wherever that was. They were believed to be former officers in a security police unit and were thought of as long-term associates, providing muscle for the family.

Viktor met him on the first floor. Hard, piercing eyes gazed into Carrick’s. Just the glance, nothing said. The look in the eyes gave Carrick certainty: nothing that he had done so far in the household had yet clinched trust. He wondered, a snap thought, what weapon Viktor had used in his past when he was enforcing protection. A pistol? Unlikely, too clean. A pickaxe handle was more likely. Fire, or power drills and cutters would have been the best and would have given him a rare thrill — like a jerk-off. He smiled again. His aim was to appear simple and straightforward, not stupid, to be a piece of furniture that was there and unnoticed. He reckoned Viktor would have loathed the very idea of employing foreign nationals in the house, but Viktor had only halting English, Grigori less, and the family needed to have around them men who were both reliable and familiar with roads, traffic, driving and … Viktor did not answer his smile.

‘You wanted me up here.’

Viktor jerked his thumb at a door. ‘Mr Goldmann waits you.’

He went through to the salon, used for entertaining, where the drapes were still drawn. The kids’ shouts, behind him and up another flight, were in Russian, but it was just kids’ noise and he sensed nothing of importance; but there had been nothing of importance. If the legend of Johnny Carrick had marked the actual limits of his life, and he had been a bodyguard, handyman, chauffeur to a Russian émigré businessman, who was clean and legitimate, he would have liked them. Nothing to complain about. But he had read a briefing paper, with an attachment, and lived a lie in the house. The family sitting room was at the end of the salon, and beside it was the door to the little office area that Josef Goldmann used. Maybe there was a tickle in Carrick’s throat, a cough he didn’t register, maybe there was a floorboard below the pile that was loose enough to creak. Whichever, the Bossman was alerted, and was in the office door, and he held two tickets — airline style — in one hand.

‘Ah, Johnny …’

‘You asked for me, sir.’ Carrick could do the corporal-to-middle-ranking-officer act well. No impertinence, no cheek.

‘It is incredible to me, what happened last night.’

‘Difficult to understand, sir.’

‘You have to take the place of Simon, of Rawlings, as I said last night.’

‘Yes, sir. If that’s what you want, sir.’

He saw the tickets, noted the logo of the agency on Kensington High Street. He stood, feet slightly apart, straight-backed, hands clasped behind him, as if he was the corporal and he faced his officer.

‘You do the school drive.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then you take me to the City. Viktor does not drive well in the City.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you bring me back, and you collect the children.’

‘Of course, sir. I apologize, sir, but I mentioned last night a family commitment.’

‘You did.’

‘And I would need to be away by six, sir. In the future, in the new circumstances, I would not make any commitments without checking with you first.’

‘That is satisfactory.’

He thought his Bossman was worn down, at the edge of exhaustion. Josef Goldmann was pale, looked not to have slept, seemed burdened. Wouldn’t be from the loss of Rawlings, no way … The fingers fidgeted with the two tickets. The instructors had said that an undercover should press for information only in exceptional circumstances: ‘I see you’ve got two tickets there, sir. Are you going somewhere interesting?’ would have been about as bad tradecraft as was possible. To push for information, hurry it, was flawed practice.

‘I’ll be off, sir, on the kids’ run, then.’

‘Yes, Johnny, thank you. Then we go to the City, late morning.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I don’t have time to mess about. You either have an officer in that household or you do not. Which?’

It was a few minutes past eight. Lawson was in charge and gloried in it. An hour and a few minutes earlier, at one minute after seven, there had been the rap on his office door, room seventy-one on third floor west, and he had admitted — Lucy not yet at her desk — the young man, Davies. He had asked if the detail of Sarov had been learned, had seen a half-awake nod. Had asked if the history of Arzamas-16 had been studied, again the nod. He had not asked a clever or trick question to assess Davies’s reading of the history. The young man’s face had fallen when he’d realized he was not about to be tested on his work. Then he had told him he was late and received a sulking apology. A good start to the day. All in good time, the young man would be told the code-name of the operation and shown the file — it would be done later, if time allowed. He had led and Davies had followed. They had crossed Vauxhall Bridge, had not headed for Scotland Yard but had branched away into Pimlico, had found the door of a tatty, tacky office block and had rung a bell. When their business was asked by a porter, Lawson had given the name of who he had come to see, though not his own, and they had been escorted up two flights.

‘I’d have thought it a pretty simple question, requiring a pretty simple answer: yes or no. So, I repeat — which?’

He was in a room that had not recently been decorated, and the iron window frames had traces of rust where he could see them through the open slats of the dropped blind. There was a tidy desk, a pair of filing cabinets, a plastic-coated board on the main wall with a cover draped over it to prevent a visitor reading what was displayed on it, the compulsory mounted photographs of senior police posing and a family shot. He thought that in the moments before his arrival, with Davies in tow, the room had been sanitized. He had introduced himself only by his first name, and Davies’s. The other men had been George and Rob — and George had said, ‘Why don’t you take a pew, and tell me how I can be of help, Chris—’

And he had snapped back, with venom and interest, ‘It’s Christopher, thank you.’ He had not come to negotiate, or to be deflected.

‘I’m a busy man — yes or no?’

He watched George fidget and shift on his chair, and his fingers cracked together as he clasped them. His companion, Rob, peered out through the blind’s gaps. George drew air into his lungs, then let it hiss out.

‘I’m waiting.’

George bit his lower lip, whitened it. ’Would this be a matter of national security?’

‘I raised from his bed, at three this morning, a deputy assistant commissioner. I am assuming, or I would not have breached your front door, that you were instructed, ordered, to give me your full cooperation. Are you going to obstruct me? In which case I guarantee you will be spending rather more time with your family. Yes or no?’

Lawson thought George turned as if seeking support from his colleague, but the head was averted. No comfort to be gained there. The man caved: they usually did if kicked hard enough. Clipper Reade had preached that public servants when threatened with an early pension inevitably crumpled. He had found little, from thirty years back, in the creed of Clipper Reade that he could fault.

A small voice, as if the habit of a professional lifetime had been ditched: ‘Yes.’

‘Thank you, and I don’t know why we spent so long getting there.’

‘I confirm, with extreme reluctance, that we have an officer inside the home of Josef Goldmann. He is there as part of a criminal investigation into the laundering of money, an investigation mounted by the Serious Crime Directorate. I have never seen, or heard of, anything in the investigation that involves national security.’

‘Do you have bugs in the house?’

‘Is that question in the interests of national security?’

‘Bugs or no bugs?’

Again the lip was bitten, and the fingers now unwound the shape of a metal paperclip. ‘There are no audio or visual devices in the house. It is swept most days, and — for the same reason — there are no tags on the cars.’

Lawson leaned back, as if he owned the room, tilted himself, as if he was on home territory. He took pleasure from the obvious intimation that he was detested inside that office. Clipper Reade had said that an intelligence officer could never be loved, should not seek to be … He remembered that huge figure, a beast of a man, the battered hat, the crumpled raincoat, the cheroot, the wisecracks and the homilies … He thought rudeness created domination, and it was needed, and he believed time raced.

‘How well has your man done since his insertion?’

‘Not as well as we’d hoped.’

‘What’s working against him?’

‘The circumstances.’

It was like drawing teeth, but Christopher Lawson — if need be — could wield pliers and drag out a back wisdom. When he rasped his voice, and the police officer, George, winced under attack, he heard slight gasps from behind him, where Davies sat, as if in reaction to the directness of the frontal assault. No, it was not about negotiation.

‘I seldom make idle threats, so listen carefully. If you do not provide me with complete co-operation I give you my solemn promise that you will be clearing your desk and on a lunchtime train home — not to return. Prevarication with me is not an option. So, what circumstances are working against him?’

George swallowed hard, as if discussing an undercover was a personal hurt to him, and against every instinct. ‘Right, he is the junior in the household. He does school runs and drives the lady — both she and the kids would be possible kidnap targets so he escorts them. He has little to do with Josef Goldmann. Alongside the subject — we don’t call them ‘targets’ any longer, it infringes their human rights — alongside our subject are two Russian-born thugs who do close protection. Then there is Rawlings—’

‘Poor old Rawlings.’ Lawson grimaced a smile.

‘Rawlings — I don’t understand your comment — is unlikely to be a member of a criminal conspiracy. He’s outside the loop of confidences, but has access and has never shown any sign of utilizing it. I don’t understand what you find amusing. These are serious matters. Officers take considerable risks. This is dangerous and delicate work, no laughing matter.’

From his briefcase, Christopher Lawson took a sheet of photocopied paper and passed it. It was taken and read. It listed the offence of driving a vehicle with excess alcohol in the blood, and gave the name of the accused.

George shook his head, pushed the sheet to his sidekick. Lawson saw their frowns, shaken heads, disbelief.

‘That’s extraordinary. He doesn’t touch it. This doesn’t make sense.’

Lawson said, ‘Might provide an opportunity for promotion, something of advantage to us … When is your next scheduled meeting?’

He was told where and when. He asked, without an explanation as to the use it would be put to, for a fast sight of the undercover’s file. With no good grace George lifted the telephone, sent for the file. Nothing more to say. Lawson went further back on his chair legs. George chewed a nail and his lips seemed to move as if he was rehearsing what he should have said but had not. Rob was following the flight of gulls between the blind’s slats, and had the look of a man who has lost something as precious as faith. The file was brought in. The girl was boot-faced, as if she confronted an enemy. Quite a pretty girl, made prettier by the undisguised anger at her mouth. Lawson assessed her as the girl Friday. She reached out with the file, to pass it to her superior, but Lawson stretched out his arm, the quickness of a snake’s strike, and his fingers intercepted it. For a moment he and the girl had hold of it, then it was loosed.

Lawson held it high, above his shoulder. It was taken behind him, a relay baton. He imagined it would be speed read. Silence fell. He thought that little would be left of the man’s nails, and that every seagull traversing the skyline of SW1 had been tracked. There was the rustle of papers behind him. The file was passed back and, without comment, he handed it on to the girl, and thought she hated him. He stood.

Of course, there would be a final throw. George said, ‘This is a very professional and dedicated officer, currently working in a difficult environment. Nothing should be done that puts his safety at risk.’

Lawson smiled, the enigmatic one that betrayed nothing of his aspirations. Clipper Reade had always referred to agents as the mushrooms of intelligence officers in the field. ‘You know it, Christopher, they’re best kept in the dark and fed on shit.’ Lawson had always chuckled when the Texan growled out his mushroom bit.

‘I’ve matters to deal with, gentlemen — and young lady. Thank you for your time … Yes, matters are coming to a head and I believe they involve dangerous men.’

Rain lashed down. Flooding on the road between Poznan and the frontier had delayed them, and the approach to the bridge had been slow. They had been in single-line queues of heavy lorries. A six-hour journey had taken ten, but the last run had been faster, on the autobahn.

Mikhail brought Reuven Weissberg down the wide street, past the grey mass of the Russian embassy, took the diversion around the Gate, then went left. He skirted the memorial to the killed Jews — a great open space of rectangular dark stone blocks, like rows of different-sized coffins — flashed the code on the zapper, then drove down into the basement parking area and into the numbered slot. The jolt woke Weissberg.

He was home.

He took the lift up, Mikhail with him. It was standard duty for the bodyguard to escort him from the car to the lift, and from the lift to the penthouse door. Mikhail, from his past, knew the theory of close protection and put it into practice. A man who could be a target was most vulnerable when arriving at a destination. He put his key into the door’s lock, and the sound of it turning would have alerted her. She would have been waiting for him, and he rehearsed in his mind what he would say about the delay through flooding west of Poznan because she would scold him for his lateness. Had barely turned the key when he heard the shuffle of feet. Mikhail always waited with him until he was inside, then would go down and clean the car, take it out and top up its fuel tank. Mikhail always left him alone when he came back, was greeted by his grandmother.

He held her.

She was tiny in his arms, but his bear-hug was gentle, and he was careful not to hurt her. She offered him each cheek in turn and he kissed the lined skin. He saw clouded opaque colours in her eyes and wetness. The damp was from the infection, not tears. He had never seen her weep. He was now in his fortieth year, and for the last thirty-five — as a child, a teenager and as a man — he had lived with her, been cared for by her and had loved her. She stood on tiptoe in his embrace. Had her heels been on the floor, her height would have been 1.61 metres, and her weight was a fraction under forty-eight kilos. As always she was dressed in black: flat black shoes, thick black stockings, a black skirt and a black blouse, and because winter had not yet passed for her, she had a black cardigan over her shoulders. She wore no jewellery, had no cosmetics on her face, but her hair was pure white. As he held her, his fingers were in the hair at the back of her head, and it had been white — with the purity of fresh-fallen snow — from his earliest memories. He loosed her and she stood back to gaze up at him.

She did scold him. ‘You’re late. I’ve been waiting for you. I cooked and it’s ruined.’

He told her about the flood on the road west of Poznan, the delays near the frontier bridge across the Odra river.

‘Have you eaten?’

He said he had not.

‘Then I’ll cook for you — but you smell. First wash yourself, and when you’re clean come to the kitchen and your food will be ready.’

He did not tell her that although his belly was empty he had no appetite.

‘What did you find?’

He told her he had searched for a whole morning in the forest but had not found the dip in the ground that might have marked the disturbance needed for a single grave, that he had sat for a whole afternoon with his back against a tree and had heard the songs of small birds, that he had watched a house built of wood planks for a whole evening.

‘Did you not see the bastard who was then a child?’

He told her that Tadeus Komiski had not been at the house, but that the dog had barked, warning the bastard, who had hidden.

His grandmother held his hand tight. ‘But one day you will find him and the place?’

He promised he would. He stared into her eyes, and thought the colour was that of a little milk in water. But there were no tears … He said that the two men were coming, that their journey had started, that it was beyond recall.

‘Is it too great a risk? I don’t think so.’

He leaned forward and kissed her forehead and murmured that it didn’t compare with the risk she had faced.

‘You smell bad. Go and wash.’

Reuven Weissberg, who had been an avoritet in Perm at the age of twenty-one and had then outgrown the city, having taken control of the roofs of the fruit and vegetable market, who had ruled a gang’s empire in Moscow, providing protection for foreign business enterprises by the age of twenty-eight, who now controlled an octopus enterprise in the German capital city and was five days from the biggest and most hazardous deal of his life, went for his shower. He took it because his grandmother had told him to.

He had never refused her, and never would. Had never contradicted her — water splashed over his head — and would not have gone for the deal if she had opposed it.

‘Did you sleep?’

‘Until you woke me.’

‘Did you sleep through the night, or just now? I ask because of the time. I thought we were to start early.’

Molenkov watched as Major Oleg Yashkin tried to push himself up from the contorted position in which he had slept, then wiped his eyes. Himself, he felt good, had already been down to the river, knelt close to the water, cupped it over his face and rubbed hard to remove dirt. He had washed without soap, then come back to the car. There had been two elderly fishermen close to him but he had not spoken to them, or they to him: old habits of former times dictated that citizens did not interfere or pass comment on the actions of others. They saw nothing and remembered nothing. And when he was clean and had dried his face with his handkerchief he had gone to a stall at the far end of the park and bought two kalatchi rolls, fresh baked.

‘You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long. We have so far to go today. It’s three hundred and twenty kilometres to—’

‘Just now, you slept like a mother holding her baby.’

‘Fuck you, Molenkov.’

‘You had your arm over it, as if it was a baby. Is it alive?’

He saw that Yashkin blinked, then smiled, then ran his filthy hand across the tarpaulin, and said, ‘In a fashion, yes.’

‘It has a pulse, a beat, does it breathe?’

Yashkin wriggled out stiffly from the hatch of the Polonez. He stood and stretched — his breath was foul — then jabbed a finger at Molenkov. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘I want something to eat, but first I want to know what it is, have more understanding of it.’

‘Why now? Why not last week or last month?’

‘I regret nothing, I just ask. Some detail, what is it?’

‘I need to piss.’

He followed Yashkin towards the riverbank, where he sheltered Yashkin from the view of the fishermen while he urinated against a tree trunk — with the weak flow of the old — and listened.

‘I’ll tell you once more and not again. We call it a Small Atomic Demolition Munition. I do not know exactly, but it would have been assembled at some date between ‘sixty-nine and ‘seventy-four, and it would have gone to the Special Forces who were attached to the mechanized divisions. But every six months it would have come back for maintenance work. They came back for the last time, to be dismantled, in ‘ninety-two and ‘ninety-three … and it was called the peace dividend. This one had been returned a week before I took it. Right, now I’m going to wash.’

Molenkov steadied him as he went down to the edge. Water splashed across his face and there was a gulped curse at its cold. He spat to clear his mouth.

‘I didn’t see this one’s inside, but a similar batch had been brought to Arzamas-16 two weeks before from Ukraine. As a security officer I could be anywhere. I was shown the process of breaking up the weapon. You ask what’s there. It’s very simple. The complication’s in the engineering, but the principle is basic — that’s what I was told. First, there’s a canvas bag round it, with carrying straps and handles. Open that and you expose something that looks like a small oil drum, which has hatches in it, screwed down tight. You undo the screws and you see moulded shapes to hold materials in place. A tangle of wires, inside and out. Then conventional military explosive is packed into a sphere, but when the detonator system is removed it’s not dangerous. There is engineering sophistication that I was not told of, and would not have understood — I can only tell you what I saw.’

Again and again, Yashkin had poured the river water over his face and across his short hair. Now he cleaned his hands. Molenkov watched, and tried to build pictures from what was described.

‘Inside the explosive is the “pit” — that’s what the engineers call it. It’s very small. A little bigger than a tennis ball, the size of an ordinary orange, and a perfect sphere. That ball, the pit, is heavy, weighs perhaps four and a half kilos and is plutonium. To go for highly enriched uranium is a different process, but ours is plutonium. It is known in scientific terms as Pu-239. Actually, I held a pit in my hand.’

Wonderment, and a tinge of horror. ‘You held it?’

‘With a glove, but I was told that wasn’t necessary. They say the pit — Pu-239 — is benign. Most extraordinary. It was warm.’

Molenkov closed his eyes, squeezed them shut, pondered, opened them and saw Yashkin shake his hands vigorously to dry them. ‘Warm?’

‘Not hot, but not with the chill of any metal. You asked me if it was alive. Perhaps. It has a natural warmth, not the cold of the dead.’

Molenkov turned to walk back towards the Polonez. A fisherman had a rod that bent over the water. He called, excited, to his friend to come. Over his shoulder, Molenkov shouted to Yashkin that he had new bread rolls in the car, and that they should start out for Kolomna, on the second stage of their journey. And as he walked he gazed down at his open palm and tried to imagine that he held in it a warm orange, which lived.

‘Don’t I get to see Mr Goldmann? For God’s sake—’

‘Mr Goldmann is busy. He is not to be disturbed,’ Viktor said.

Hanging back, half in the shadow of the hall, Carrick watched. It had been predictable that the scene would happen, and it played out predictably. His sarge, Simon Rawlings, was on the top step but blocked by Viktor in the doorway, with Grigori at his side. Carrick thought he hadn’t slept last night, looked washed our. His eyes were bagged and his face stubbled.

‘I want to see him, or I want to see Mrs Goldmann!’ His sarge’s voice rose.

‘It is not possible, and Mrs Goldmann, too, is busy. I am asked to give you an envelope, and it is the finish of your work here.’

Carrick saw it passed, saw it ripped open. It was packed with banknotes, fifties. One flew clear and floated in the wind that came up the street, but his sarge didn’t grovel and didn’t scrabble on the lower steps for it. He stood his ground, but had pocketed the envelope and the remaining notes. ‘So, that’s it. That’s the end.’

‘It is the finish of your work. Please, I require the keys.’

‘I was spiked. Don’t you know that? I was set up. Doesn’t that interest you?’

‘Please, the keys.’

The hand went into the pocket, emerging with the keys. The keys on the ring were thrown forward and caught low down by Grigori. Carrick thought his sarge was losing it — fast.

A snarl: ‘I have clothes downstairs. I want them.’

Viktor, beside the seam of his trousers, flicked his fingers. That was predictable and had been planned for. From behind him, Grigori picked up and passed forward a black bin-liner. Carrick had packed it: spare suit, spare underwear, spare pair of shirts, socks, shoes and — junk items that went with the job — overalls for car maintenance, heavy-duty gloves, torches, pepper-spray canister and a truncheon, a couple of well-thumbed books. Carrick thought it was because of the disrespect shown to Grigori, the chucked keys, that the bag was heaved forward, landed close to his sarge’s feet.

‘You aren’t listening to me. The drink was spiked. Aren’t you interested?’ There was froth on his sarge’s lips. He seemed to look up and his jaw clenched. ‘You all right, then, Corp? You look all right. Hot-bedding already, are we? Not got a voice? You moved into my space? I’m listening, and I’ve not heard you speak up. I suppose it’s a good bloody career move for you, me being set up. Well, listen to your old sarge. Listen hard. If they fuck me, they’ll fuck you. Remember who told you.’

His sarge had turned, had bent and trapped the one dropped note and it went into a pocket. Then he hitched the bin-bag on to his shoulder and stood straight. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m not going to make trouble and I won’t be looking for a reference. You won’t hear of me and I’ll have forgotten you. Go steady, guys — and don’t trip in your own shit.’

Carrick thought it well done, but there was a month’s money in the envelope and it was clever to let the steam fly, then walk. His sarge went off the bottom step and never looked back. Carrick edged towards the door, watched him go. His sarge had most likely saved his life, and had later remembered a friend and had tried to help with work. Now he was gone. He heard the shout of his Bossman from behind him, up the stairs: ‘In five minutes I am ready to go, Johnny.’

Viktor pushed the door shut, and Carrick lost sight of the lone man, bag on his back, walking away with a sort of hard-won dignity.

At least he was soothed by Johnny’s smooth driving. He could be a nervous passenger in the back of the Audi if the car wove through traffic and accelerated past obstacles. Simon Rawlings attacked the road ahead, not Johnny. Josef Goldmann had more on his mind, and his progress towards the City was far back in his thoughts.

The image of Reuven Weissberg overwhelmed him. He could not back out. He saw himself as having little more importance in the schemes of the master, the leader, than any of the men who had the rank of brigadir in Perm or boevik in Moscow. He was a junior, a handler of money. His opinions were not asked for and his loyalty was assumed to be automatically given. They were on new territory here, faced new dangers, moved in new circles, but no exit route presented itself. The next day, when he travelled with Viktor, the quagmire under his feet would be deeper, more cloying … He realized it, he shivered, and the papers he tried to read quivered in his hands. He shook his head sharply, an attempt to break the image’s hold.

Josef Goldmann said, ‘You drive well, Johnny. You are very relaxing.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘If it’s not too much trouble, could you tell me, please, what we are doing here, and why?’

‘You’d best stand, not wave a flag or make yourself conspicuous, and observe.’

He didn’t do Davies the courtesy of turning to face him, but spoke from the side of his mouth and stared down the street at the entrance to the building. Christopher Lawson had long believed that courtesies and explanations were usually a waste of breath.

‘What am I supposed to observe?’

‘It will all, I hope, become apparent — and chattering will not accelerate it.’

Pretty much the same thing had been said to Lawson, all those years ago, when he was new in the company of Clipper Reade. Waiting on a dark night, a breeze rippling the surface of the Landwehr canal, the floodlights on the Wall. A hissed flood of questions asked, the second time he had been out with the heavy-built American, and the sharp rejoinder that silence was a better virtue than blather. ‘More valuable in this trade to keep quiet, watch, wait and observe, Christopher, than make useless talk.’ Chastened by the reprimand, he had stayed silent and watched the water, had heard ducks and radios playing beyond the Wall’s height. The name ‘Clipper’ was already in place when he’d met the Texan on his first posting abroad to the British headquarters at the old Olympic park. ‘Clipper’ was a British accolade: had come from the UK’s station chief in Berlin at a meeting when, apparently, the American had downed four mugs of tea, then asked for another pot to be brought him, and an hour later another. The station chief had remarked, drily, the story said, that they’d have to run a particular tea-clipper up the Spree river to satisfy the guest’s needs; then five minutes had been lost in descriptions of nineteenth-century trading vessels. It had stuck: from then, Charlton A. Reade Jnr was Clipper Reade. The name had had legs and had been accepted by the Americans out at their place in the Grunewald forest. He was Clipper Reade to all who met him, and his trademark was a vacuum flask in the leather bag he carried on his shoulder, which had hot water in it, a little plastic box of teabags and a Bakelite mug. The last time they’d met, Lawson had given him a present, gift wrapped, that he’d had sent from the shop at the museum in Greenwich, and he’d watched as it was opened, paper discarded, a cardboard container pulled apart and the mug with the tea-clipper on it, under full sail, had been revealed. Clipper Reade had smiled grimly at his protégé and his voice had had the pitch of pebbles under a boot, ‘Don’t ever get sentimental about friendships. Don’t. Be your own man, and fuck the rest of them.’ Most of his professional life had been governed by the teachings of Clipper Reade, an icon of the Agency.

‘Right, I’m watching and observing and—’

‘And you’re talking, which you shouldn’t be. You may scratch your bum or pick your nose if you have to, but don’t talk. Just wait and watch.’

A man in a heavy windcheater, black, without a distinguishing logo, idled past them. Lawson had no eye contact with him, had no need to … and he doubted that Davies had noticed him.

It was one of those City streets that the sun rarely penetrated. Too narrow, with too many high buildings lining it, this street had a built-in greyness. The old stonework on either side was stained dark from a near-century of fuel emissions. And it was empty. Wouldn’t be empty in three-quarters of an hour when the City workers spilled out of the doors, came to smoke or buy a sandwich or elbow into the wine bars, but the time for the exodus had not yet come.

Damn all to watch and precious nothing to observe. Yes, there was the newspaper-seller with his small portable stall, and a van had drawn up, dumped an early-edition bundle on the pavement, then sped off, and a man in a black anorak, who wore a fleece under it and had its hood up, had bought a copy and was now leaning against a wall, studying the pages intently — wouldn’t have been the stock-market indices but the dogs running that night at Catford or the horses that afternoon, wherever … But his attention was on a dark doorway that hardly showed in the street’s shadow and which was on the far side from the newspaper stall and the guy who examined runners. A commissionaire, in uniform, with old medal ribbons, had come out of that door briefly and smoked half of a rolled fag, then pinched it out, replaced what was left in a tin box and retreated back inside.

Luke Davies — because the awkward, rude bastard had starved him of information — did not know how long he would be left stuck on the pavement like a scarecrow in a field. Another three-quarters of an hour and the workers would be flushed out of the buildings, and he reckoned it a fair chance that a hand would clamp on his shoulder and he’d hear, ‘Hello, Luke, how’re you doing?’ and he’d be confronted with someone who had been at East European and Slavonic Studies or had sat the civil-service entry papers with him or the Foreign and Commonwealth exam. ‘Did you stay in? I didn’t. This is where the money is. Afraid the money was where I went — but good to see you.’ At least there would be no one from school. A comprehensive sink school in Sheffield did not supply ambitious recruits to the City, and those of his year were on building sites, driving white vans, or squaddies in some God-forsaken desert. If money had been Luke Davies’s target he would not have been a civil servant, a junior officer in the Secret Intelligence Service and living in Camden Town in what was little more than a student bed-sit. He shared a terrace house with two teachers, a junior at Revenue & Customs, a trainee Tesco manager and a guy from the Probation Service, and didn’t see much of them. He heard a sharp hiss of breath behind him. God’s.

Funny thing, he hadn’t seen the black Audi saloon with the smoked windows come towards them on the street, then pull in outside that office door, flush up to the pavement and over double yellow lines — and hadn’t seen the man in the black windcheater with the hood up abandon his study of the horses’ form, and drift forward. Had seen damn all. Blinked, looked around. They hadn’t been in the street when the car had arrived. Their call had come, directing them to the location, after the car’s passenger had been dropped, and then the Audi must have headed away to find a place to wait until telephoned for the pick-up. He recognized the driver, who came round the back of the car, opened the rear door and left it ajar. The engine was running.

In Luke Davies’s ear: ‘Don’t bloody move. Move and I’ll kick you.’

He recognized the driver from the photograph in the file he had been shown that morning. Then he saw that the black windcheater was in the next doorway and had the newspaper half across his face, but it was held in only one hand and the other was deep in a pocket.

Grigori came out first from the plate-glass inner door, crossed the pavement, stood at the Audi’s rear door and held it wide open. Carrick had done a crash bodyguard course, two weeks’ residential from people who specialized in the private-sector market, and it had cost SCD10 more than two thousand of their budget. He thought then that Grigori would have failed the course, was listless and bored and didn’t do the drills. He had his head down, as if he was examining the shine of his shoes.

The Bossman followed, came through the door, then hesitated, maybe said something to whoever had escorted him down to the building’s lobby, as if it was a final exchange in whatever business had been done. Carrick was at the driver’s door, had only to drop into the seat, do the gears and they’d be moving. The Bossman was on the pavement, but still talking … then coming for the car.

Carrick saw the man, black against the grey stonework, emerge from the next doorway, and he wasn’t right. He was dressed casual and shabby, a layabout’s gear, and had a wino’s stubble where the cheeks and chin were not hidden by the hood, but he moved lightly on his feet, as if in an athlete’s dance, and closed on his Bossman.

Damn, damn — fuck— Carrick saw the pistol in the man’s hand. Short, stubby, a black barrel, same as the sleeve of the windcheater. Tried to shout and hadn’t a voice.

The arm came up, the pistol raised. The Bossman saw the man, gaped. Carrick came from the car. Where was the lump — where was fucking Grigori? Saw Grigori, saw him cringing. Saw Grigori pressed back against the car body, and his hands were up at his mouth; he heard Grigori’s shrill little cry. The pistol wavered in its aim.

Carrick charged. No thoughts in his mind. He made no evaluation. Went on instinct. Ran. Carrick came round the car’s bonnet, half tripped on the kerb and launched. Was brain-empty. As he hit the man, shoulder against stomach, he heard the first shot fired.

Was deafened, couldn’t hear. He might have shouted, might not. The second shot was fired and his head was a few centimetres from the barrel. Realized then that he wasn’t the target, that his Bossman was.

The man went down. They were on the pavement together. A first sensation, Carrick smelled cordite, sharp, from the pistol and fast food, chilli, on the breath. He heard the grunt, and knew it was an older man because the stubble was greying, pepperpot colours.

Turned him over halfway, fists grabbing the windcheater, then smashed his right knee up into the man’s groin. Did it hard, and heard the gasp. Heard the clatter as the pistol was dropped. Dared to look away, raked a glance, and saw Grigori still frozen, the Bossmann on his knees, his hands over his head, in the middle of the pavement.

One hand holding the windcheater, the other clenched. Punched a short-arm jab into the man’s face and felt the impact of his knuckles on the nose bone. Carrick scrabbled with his leg. The pistol went off the pavement, skidding across the slabs, and disappeared under the Audi.

He pushed himself up. The man groaned. His hands were over his privates, and he seemed to sing out his breath.

Carrick wasn’t a policeman. He was in the employ of Josef Goldmann. The play-act had been automatic. He lifted the Bossman up, held him almost as if he was a child, shifted him, legs trailing, to the car, and threw him inside and slammed the door. Was at Grigori’s side, had a fist in his jacket, by the neck, and flung him into the front passenger seat.

He ran to the driver’s door, dropped inside. Went into gear, surged, felt the slight bump and knew they’d gone over the pistol in the gutter. Realized that Grigori hadn’t closed his door, reached across and shut it.

Carrick drove away.

At the end of the street, alert from the adrenaline rush, his eyes went up to the mirror. He was ready for a following car, for a second stage in the attack, but he saw the man crawling on the pavement and then it looked as if he put two things, Carrick didn’t know what, into his pocket. Then he was in the gutter where the pistol had been, then shambling away. He swung his eyes down, saw the street junction clear and powered right.

His heart pounded. His arms were leaden and he clung to the wheel. He felt the Bossman’s fingers on his jacket and on his flesh, as if he was reassurance, but he couldn’t hear what his Bossman tried to say.

He drove away from the City. Beside him, Grigori trembled and was ashen pale. Behind him the fist held his jacket and would not release him.

It had all been reflex, and Carrick could not have explained it.

The street was empty except for the newspaper-seller. Then the commissionaire came down the same steps, stood on the same pavement, opened his tin, took out the rest of the cigarette and lit it, puffed, dropped it and ground it out where two men had struggled, then kicked it over the kerb.

It was as if, Luke Davies thought, nothing had happened. He could make no sense of it. There were no gawpers at upper windows, no crowds gathering and no sound of sirens. A woman had appeared, he did not know from where, and bought a newspaper. A delivery lorry had pulled up and was unloading and had its hazard lights flashing. The man in the black windcheater and the hood had disappeared from the far end of the street. He was trained to retain in his mind, with clarity, what he had seen, but he doubted himself.

He heard the snigger, then: ‘Come on, the show’s over.’

‘Excuse me, Mr Lawson … At the risk of sounding a complete idiot, did I see an armed attack on Josef Goldmann? Did I see Carrick?’

‘No names — highly unprofessional to use names. He’s November.’

‘Did I see Carrick fight off an assassin?’

‘I told you to observe. It’s all a matter of perception.’

‘And I did observe, and would have run to help him if you hadn’t stopped me.’ His arm had been held in a vice grip, more strength in it than he would have reckoned on Lawson’s having.

‘If you had broken free of me I’d have kicked you — as I promised — and you wouldn’t have walked for a week.’

‘What did I see?’

‘Decide for yourself. I don’t do twenty-four seven nannying.’

Lawson had gone, walked away, and Luke Davies had to skip along to catch him. Confusion reigned because he didn’t know what he’d seen — what should have been clear was misted.

‘Without him I was dead. I have no doubt of it — dead.’

In short, darting steps, Josef Goldmann paced the salon carpet. His wife watched him and knew better than to interrupt at a crisis moment.

‘You see it, your life — it’s as they tell you — at that one moment. You’re about to go to Heaven, Hell, wherever one goes, and you see your life. It’s extraordinary that you see so much. I was in Perm, in Moscow, I was with you, with the children. All of it went by me when I was low on the pavement and I was looking at a pistol and its aim was coming down to the line of my head. I could see the finger on the trigger. Believe me, the finger on the trigger was white from the pressure. The whiter the skin, the greater the pressure. The greater the pressure, the sooner he shoots, and I am dead — but Johnny hit him.’

He babbled, was incoherent, and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief to clear off the sweat from the fear he had felt. The profits of violence had never come close enough to touch him before.

‘Do I understand that I have enemies? Of course. Understand that you, loved one, or the children should be targets? Of course. I never quite understood that I could be shot — kidnapped for ransom, yes, but not killed like a stray dog, put down in the street — and it was so close. A half-second more … He came like a lion.’

He stopped abruptly, thought his legs would no longer support him, slumped into a chair. Many times in the past, in Perm and in Moscow, he had reported to Reuven that a client had defaulted on payment or used fraudulent bank drafts in settlement of debt and in two days, three, a week, the photograph would be in the paper of a body splayed out among bloodstains, of a car destroyed by explosives, of a petrol drum with a man’s legs protruding as it was winched from a river. But he, the launderer, had almost — in London — believed himself immune from danger.

‘Last evening we were among sophisticates. This morning I was with men who deal in money, have villas, play tennis, have … Then I am dead, but for Johnny. I tell you, I wasn’t brave, I cowered and waited for the shot. Almost I was screaming for him to hurry, to end the agony. Grigori, useless imbecile, has legs of lead — he didn’t move. I think he was crying, and he’s supposed to protect me! Johnny did that. From this moment, this very moment, I tell you that I’ll go nowhere without Johnny. Johnny beside me, in front and behind me. He will be with me.’

He leaned forward, reached across the coffee-table, the fashion magazines and hospitality brochures for Henley and Ascot, took his wife’s hand and held it tight.

‘Would Viktor have done better? Would Reuven’s man, Mikhail? I doubt it. When Reuven was shot, Mikhail killed the man, but it was after Reuven was hit. Johnny dedicated himself to me, me. I am only his employer, not of his blood. He might have been shot himself. I asked him, in the car, why he had — almost — sacrificed himself to protect me. He said, very simply, “It’s what I’m paid to do, sir.” That’s the man he is. Incredible. I owe him my life.’

She bent her head and kissed his hand.

‘He will go everywhere with me. Everywhere. He goes with me tomorrow.’