Dark Winter (14 page)

‘What’s to talk about? Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, then, eh?’

The phone went dead. I understood why, but it still pissed me off. I redialled and Carmen answered. I gave her the contact details and timings for Hughes, then hung up.

I drove out of the parking space and headed for a multi-storey, eyes skinned for the Volvo.

One carrier-bag full of washing kit and a black nylon bumbag from Superdrug later, I went into a corner shop-cum-post office and bought a pen and an A4 Jiffy-bag. In went my Nick Stone passport, wallet with Citibank credit cards, and all my other Nick Stone bits and pieces including the key to Carmen’s front door. I hated it when the Firm took away my real documents: it was like losing my personality, my life; I felt exposed, undefended. This way, at least I knew where they were, and if all went well and I got binned I’d be picking them up soon anyway. I couldn’t help a little smile as I addressed the bag to myself. Carmen had decided to call the bungalow the Sycamores, and got Jimmy to put up the sign – but you still had to write No. 68 or your mail never got there.

18

With ten minutes to spare, I buzzed up to the flat. Suzy let me in and I almost choked on Benson & Hedges. The windows were all double-glazed and had more locks than the Bank of England. I followed her into the bedroom and into a cloud of nicotine that even the French would have been proud of.

‘I know, Nick, I know. Sorry. But I was gagging. The gum’s shite.’

‘Well, get some patches or something, will you?’

‘I promise it’s the last one, ever.’

It was obvious that the Golf Club had already been and gone – so much for coming back at six. There was an open suitcase on the bed in Suzy’s room. It looked as if she was in the process of unpacking. She held up a Nokia moan-phone. ‘We’ve got one each, one spare, three batteries and a fill gun. The rest looks like the Packet Oscars.’

I dropped my carrier-bag on the bed and noticed the wardrobe door was open. The couple of shelves on the right were full of underwear and socks, a hairdryer and a washbag. In the suitcase were two MP5 SDs, the normal Heckler and Koch MP5 machine-gun but with a very bulky barrel, together with five or six boxes of ammunition and three magazines for each weapon. For us to respond with as the situation dictated to ensure the safety of the public and ourselves.

The SDs were suppressed and not ‘silenced’. There’s no way of totally silencing a weapon’s muzzle report. A suppressor just diminishes it with a series of rubber baffles and fine meshing inside the barrel, which dissipate the gases that propel the round. By the time the round leaves the muzzle there is just a dull thud and no flash, and the faint click of the working parts moving backwards before the return spring pushes them forward again to pick up another round and ram it into the chamber.

Both weapons were fitted with holographic sights, a small window mounted where the rear sight would normally be. When you turned it on, it was like looking at a heads-up display on a windscreen.

There were different packets for different jobs. Packet Oscar was a covert killing pack. As well as the SD, it contained the basic kit needed to make entry covertly into a building in order to kill, all rolled up in a black PVC MOE [Method of Entry] wallet.

These particular Packet Oscars had come with a few extras. I picked up one of the moan-phones as Suzy busied herself with the other two, connecting up the jack that led into the fill gun, a slim green alloy box about the size of a pound bar of chocolate.

Suzy depressed the black button and kept it down until the red light flickered, indicating that the encryption code was downloaded. The phone could now be put into secure mode at any time, and anyone listening in would just get mush. Just as importantly, it would cut out the phone’s footprint; digital phones are notoriously easy to track, but once these were fill-gunned and on secure mode we became invisible. Two, ten, even a hundred phones could be filled with the same encryption code, and everyone could dial up and talk to each other in clear speech knowing they were secure.

The money to update kit had miraculously appeared after 9/11. The phones were light years ahead of the old system of one-time pads to encrypt a message into a series of numbers, then key the numbers over the phone. It took far too long, and there was always the possibility of fucking up under pressure.

Some fill guns had a number of codes so they could be constantly changed throughout an operation, at specified times and dates. Normally there was a numbered dial on the gun, one to ten, so you might get the instruction, ‘On Thursday it will be number six.’ But on this fill gun there was just one fill. We would still try to fill the phones once every twenty-four hours anyway, to ensure the fill didn’t drop – that the encryption didn’t get corrupted. Each phone had a sticker on the back with the PIN security code to access it, just like any other Nokia, and all three were the same – an unimaginative 4321.

Suzy leant down next to me as I turned the phones on and plugged them into the charger to make sure the batteries were full. Beneath the aroma of hastily smoked B and H she smelt of freshly washed clothes and apple shampoo. ‘Get everything you needed, then?’ She sounded bouncy enough, but studiously avoided any eye-contact.

‘Yeah. Spent most of the time trying to find somewhere to park the car.’ I paused. ‘You all right?’

‘Of course I’m all right,’ she snapped. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

I’d annoyed her. I hadn’t meant to.

She started to fill the last phone, and the red light flickered before she looked up. ‘How well do you know the boss? I thought when we got briefed before Penang that you two might have a little history . . .’

‘Hardly know him – we’ve just got that fatal-attraction thing going on between us.’

She wasn’t having any of it. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘You called your CA yet?’

‘Nope. We got to sort our story first. Penang’s history now, isn’t it?’ She stood up, her face beaming, almost taunting, just inches from mine. ‘Switch on, will you?’ The B & H was just still on her breath. ‘Anyone would think you didn’t want to be here.’

We spent a few minutes working something out, then I went into the front room and hit my own cell keys while Suzy headed for the bedroom to do the same. I was greeted by a happy, middle-aged female voice.

‘Rosemary, how are you? It’s Nick.’

‘Really well, thank you. Good holiday?’

‘Fantastic.’

‘You forgot to send us a postcard, naughty boy.’

They were good people, James and Rosemary. Their job was both to confirm my cover story and be part of it. When I was a K, I used to visit them whenever I could, especially before an op, so that my cover got stronger as time passed. They knew nothing about the ops, and didn’t want to: we would just talk about what was going on at the social club, and how to keep greenfly off the roses.

All my documentation, all my credit cards, anything that needed an address, was registered to theirs. I subscribed to three or four weekly and monthly magazines to maintain a steady flow of mail and regular charges on my card. I was even on the electoral register. I hadn’t seen them for over a year, since moving and working for George, so I’d had a lot of catching up to do before the Penang job. It had been quite a surprise for all of us.

‘Sorry about the card, but you know what Spain’s like – and the weather was fantastic.’

‘You’re making me green with envy, dear. We’d love to go to Spain ourselves this year.’ She’d got the message: Malaysia was history. ‘So, what can I do for you, Nick?’

‘The holiday went so well I’m thinking of going to London with my new girlfriend for a while, maybe for a couple of weeks. Romance is definitely in the air – you still think her name is Suzy or Zoë, something like that. But I really called to say thank you very much again for the lift you gave me to the station this morning.’

‘Oh, yes. The eight sixteen wasn’t it? The express to Waterloo?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘A couple of weeks, that sounds lovely. I hope you have a good time. She sounds like a really nice girl. Are we going to see her one day?’

‘All in good time, Rosemary – no need to buy a new hat just yet. Anything I should know about?’

‘Not much at all, really. We’ve got a new TV in the lounge, it came last Tuesday. You were out, so you weren’t here to see the delivery. It’s a Sony widescreen, black, twenty-four-inch. You and James like it, but I don’t because it makes the cabinet it’s on look too small. You know, the brown veneer one?’

‘I know it well. But never mind – just think, Delia will be even bigger and better than usual. Anyway, say hello to James for me, won’t you?’

‘Of course. He isn’t here at the moment, he’s gone to Waitrose. After doing nothing but complain and chair that damned committee to stop the thing being built, you can’t keep him out of there!’

We both laughed, said goodbye, and I headed towards the kitchen to make us a brew.

The intercom buzzed and I hit the button. A slightly anxious voice crackled, ‘Hello, I’m Simon, I believe I’m expected. A lady called Yvette told me to be here at three.’

I hit the entry button as Suzy came out of the bedroom and shut the door behind her, then started to check round the flat in case we’d left the odd SD sitting on the tea-tray.

I flicked the kettle on in the kitchen, then opened the front door. Looking down the stairwell, I could see the top of a neatly cut and combed blond head making its way towards me from a couple of flights below. As he got closer, I saw he was in his early thirties, tall and thin, and very well groomed. That made sense: you probably would give yourself a good scrub after spending the day surrounded by flesh-eating bugs and all that sort of shit.

When he reached the landing I stepped back to let him in. He had to be at least six four: I was looking into his neck. He was clutching a battered canvas shoulder-bag he must have had since his student days. He could have been captain of the basketball team, but was probably too polite.

‘Hello, mate.’

He hesitated in the hallway, his hand half out, not too sure what to do. We shook and smiled at each other. He was very clean-shaven, and his cheeks had the kind of bright red patches you usually only see at the circus. Maybe it had been an effort climbing the stairs, or maybe he was just flapping. He struck me immediately as one of those people who had pocketfuls of niceness. I hoped we weren’t going to spoil things for him.

I pointed to my right, and he followed me through to the front room. I offered him the settee. ‘I’ve just put the kettle on – want a brew?’

Suzy came in and held out her hand with a welcoming ‘Hello.’ He was half-way down into the settee but still as tall as she was when her hand disappeared into his. ‘Nothing for me, thanks. I won’t be staying long, there’s a car waiting for me. I have another brief at four thirty.’

Suzy was all smiles as her eyes locked briefly on mine. It wouldn’t be a brief he was going to at half four but isolation, until this job was over. ‘You don’t want any of his tea? Wise move – I bet most of the stuff in your laboratory tastes better.’

Terrible joke, but he laughed all the same, still not sure whether to stand up again or sit right down. Suzy waved him into the seat. ‘Simon, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, Simon, Simon Ma—’

She held up her hand. ‘Simon’ll do just fine. Well, Simon, what have you got for us today?’

19

‘May I?’ His bag hovered above the table while he waited for permission.

‘Of course.’ Suzy was doing a good job of making him feel comfortable, but with his arse sunk down in the settee and his knees up by his chin he certainly didn’t look it.

The bag went down and he took off his coat to reveal a maroon cardigan over his brown checked shirt. He still looked nervous; maybe it didn’t look like an FCO brief and he was worried we’d have to shoot him afterwards.

Once he’d unbuckled his bag, he pulled out a clutch of ten-by-eight colour photographs and put them on the table. He cleared his throat.

‘Simon, quick question before you start?’ I always wanted to know who was giving me a brief. Not having enough knowledge to pass on is sometimes more dangerous than not knowing anything at all. ‘Can you tell us where you’re from?’

Suzy’s chewing filled in the second or two of silence while he wondered if that would be OK.

‘Of course. I’m a doctor, formerly working in Namibia, before becoming a consultant at the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine here in London. After the US anthrax attacks I became a technical adviser on biological agents slash weapons for the Foreign Office – briefings for embassy staff, that sort of thing.’

Suzy interrupted, with a smile, ‘What have you been told about why you’re here today, Simon?’

‘Just that I’m to fill you in on pneumonic plague and its potential as a weapon. No more than that.’

She nodded her thanks and I signalled that I had no further questions. He picked up the dozen or so ten-by-eights and passed them to me. ‘This is the type of case I’ve tried to treat over the years.’

I looked down and found myself inspecting a series of close-ups of a bloated old man’s body – head, arms, torso, legs – covered in swellings and weeping pus. His gangrenous fingers and toes looked like they’d been pushed into a food processor. I tried not to look at the one of his face, at the terror in his eyes. This guy was being eaten alive. The foil rustled on Suzy’s blister pack and I knew she was trying to avoid it too.