State Of Emergency: (Tom Buckingham Thriller 3) (22 page)

Evans was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had taken flight, but he was barefoot. Tom didn’t fancy his chances on the hills. But then he heard voices coming from downstairs.

‘What the fuck’s all this, you stupid little cunt?’

With the aftershock of the blow still ringing in his ears, at first Tom couldn’t place the voice: a similar vocabulary to Evans but deeper, muffled and heavily laced with incandescent rage.

There was no reply from Evans. Evidently he wasn’t given a chance to respond because there followed a hard thwack, the sound of someone toppling over, then a scream, followed by retching.

‘Look at this fucking mess. This is
so fucked up
. What were you fuck-heads thinking? Running around shooting people isn’t how it goes, Evans. It isn’t how we do this shit.’

Then the voice changed tone – and language. Tom strained to hear above the ringing in his ears.

‘
Voz’mite organy i sobaku. Nichego za ne ostavit.
’ Take the bodies and the dog. Don’t leave anything behind. Russian.

Tom was by the closet where he’d found Evans. He didn’t know who was down there, or how many. He had a strong desire to throw up and an even stronger feeling he was about to pass out again. Escape was out of the question. He felt for where the blood was coming from and found a pulpy area on his left temple. The closet door was open. Without getting up he shuffled backwards into it and closed the door. In the darkness he strained to follow the exchange coming up from below.

Evans had gone into pleading mode. ‘Fucking give me a chance, will you?’

‘No deal.’

Evans wasn’t giving up. ‘For fuck’s sake—’

There was the dull thud of a suppressed shot and no more from Evans.

Tom heard a grunted exchange outside, also in Russian. Two men were evidently loading the dead into the vehicle, the engine still ticking over. Then, in the house, he heard footsteps on the stairs, one pair, which came right past his closet, down the landing, into each bedroom, back onto the landing, to the top of the stairs – and paused.

All Tom could hear now was the sound of his own blood pulsing through his body and his ears still ringing from the blow, distorting all other sound as if it were coming down a long pipe. He had his weapon pointed at where he hoped the guy’s chest would be. Years of training and experience meant that he automatically squeezed the trigger very gently using only the top pad of his finger, until it had taken the first pressure.

The steps moved down the landing pausing at each door then back to the top of the stairs and paused again. Tom could hear the slow breaths of someone calmly taking their time. All his concentration was on the door inches in front of him, waiting.

‘Okay.
Davayte ubirat’sya otsyuda
.’ Let’s get out of here.

The footsteps went back down the stairs.

Tom couldn’t let them leave without getting a visual. He gave it another minute, opened the door an inch, listened some more, then emerged from the closet and moved into the bedroom that overlooked the yard, the night sight already in his hand. The vehicle was a Mercedes G-Wagen on low-profile rims. One of the Russian speakers standing by an open door lit a cigarette.

The English voice urged them on: ‘Come on, do that later.’

The voice had been familiar – a standard-issue middle-England accent from nowhere in particular, but used to barking orders. Plus the impressive command of Russian … Now there was no doubt. In the blazing lights of the G-Wagen, he caught the profile of the man ordering the Russians back into the vehicle. Someone he knew – and knew well.

His old commanding officer from the Regiment – Ashton.

40

05.30
Bampton Lodge, Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Mandler’s eyelids fluttered open. Something that had always stood him in good stead in this game: he was an excellent sleeper. He didn’t need long either – five hours seemed to do it – and once he was out nothing usually roused him. The music was definitely coming from somewhere other than inside his brain. Brahms’s Cello Sonata in E minor. Had he left the radio on? He squinted at the clock: 05.35.
Bugger.
His eyes closed again, but the music persisted. He peered at the other side of the bed but, of course, Miranda had gone to Val d’Isère with her old college friends. Of all the weeks for her to be away, just when he needed someone to moan at …

He turned over, plumped the pillow and closed his eyes again but little windows in his brain began to open, like a cerebral advent calendar.

The so-called ‘promotion’ had come completely out of the blue. Of course he should have seen it coming. Clements’s connection with Rolt he was aware of: Buckingham had uncovered it in America on the Fortress operation, though both Clements and Rolt had come out of that mess with their reputations somehow unscathed. After that you’d have thought the wily old cabinet secretary would have realized how toxic Rolt was and given him a wide berth. Not a bit of it. When he’d heard Clements had proposed Rolt to the PM as a way of saving his political arse, he’d thought it was an April Fool.

He could feel his pulse speeding up. He must try to think of something else. The music was not at all unpleasant – but he really had no recollection of turning it on, though he’d had a couple at his club before being driven home. Oh dear, he thought. Is this what old age is going to be like? Unwelcome thoughts about other mishaps began to foment in his weary brain.

In fact it was he, Mandler, who had been made the fool of. He had remonstrated with the PM – what was he thinking of, parachuting in a man with no real experience of public life, let alone government at cabinet level? – only to find he had already made up his mind. But Mandler knew he had a bit of a blind spot where politicians were concerned. Always underestimated how low they might reach to save their arses. Garvey had warned him about the PM’s weakness for compromise. Well, Mandler had known he was a marked man after that. He’d shown his hand, but now he was just too damn old to play those games any more. What angered him most was that the main casualty had had to be Garvey – the only one of the whole damn bunch with any integrity.

Now his pulse was really going: there would be no easy way of getting back to sleep. Nothing for it but to go down and turn off the music, though it was rather pleasant and soothing, now he had got himself all worked up. He swung his legs out of the bed, felt for his slippers and pulled on his ancient dressing-gown, which Miranda was always threatening to get rid of. He’d had it since Oxford. Some things were sacred, worth hanging on to.

The music was definitely coming from downstairs: the kitchen, in fact. There was a light on as well. Burglars? Should he get his Webley? The revolver had been in the family for generations; his father had used it during the Normandy landings. He opened the bedroom door. Miranda’s Ming vase was still there. It was a shame in a way, since he had always hated it, but had never dared say so. Cautiously, he went down the stairs and pushed open the door, telling himself there was nothing to be afraid of: what kind of burglar chooses Brahms?

The answer was sitting at the head of the kitchen table, with a makeshift bandage wrapped round his arm.

41

‘Sorry to barge in like this, sir.’

‘So you bloody well should be. How did you get in? And what in God’s name happened to your arm?’

‘I was going to ring the bell, but the back door was open. You really ought to be more careful, sir.’ Tom looked at the man who had been Woolf’s boss and had engineered his infiltration of Invicta. Without the three-piece suit and wrapped in a distinctly dog-eared paisley dressing-gown he lacked some of his usual authoritative bearing.

‘Do you realize what time it is?’

Tom glanced at the clock on the oven.

‘And how did you even know where to find me?’

‘Something’s come up.’

It wasn’t an answer but it was a reply. Mandler went towards the counter. ‘Well, whatever it is, it’d better be damn good. This is highly irregular. And, technically, I’m not even in charge of you any more. In fact as of yesterday you’re off the books – you do know that? Woolf said he told you to disappear for a while till things blow over.’

‘I know, sir. And I have, sort of.’

Mandler shook his head. ‘But you always plough your own furrow don’t you, Buckingham?’ The beginnings of a smile twitched around the older man’s mouth. He sighed and steered towards the kettle. ‘Well, now you’re here, what’s it to be? Builders’ or Earl Grey?’

‘Builders’ will be fine, thank you.’

He filled the kettle and lifted a couple of mugs from the dishwasher, then turned back to Tom and frowned. ‘It’s not about money, is it? If you need a float to tide you over …’

Tom raised a hand to silence him. He launched into a detailed account that started with Rolt’s mysterious visitor and ended with his sighting of Ashton. Then he downed some of the tea, which was more than welcome after the dash back from the Lake District and he waited for Mandler to emerge from thought.

It was a full minute before he responded. ‘You do like to take things into your own hands, don’t you, Buckingham?’

Tom said nothing. The answer was obvious. ‘You don’t have a biscuit to go with the tea do you, by any chance? Sir.’

Mandler frowned, opened a cupboard and produced a packet of Fortnum & Mason ginger thins, which he pushed across the table.

‘Thanks.’

‘I sincerely hope that reporter you had in tow isn’t going to go into print.’

Tom shrugged. The events of that evening had been eclipsed by his excursion to the Lakes.

‘You’ve taken a lot of liberties.’

Tom wasn’t going to justify himself. He’d been in the game too long to expect any gratitude from Mandler, but he wouldn’t have minded a glimmer of appreciation for his efforts. ‘So, Ashton, what’s all that about?’

Mandler focused again, frowning. ‘You are absolutely sure about this, Buckingham? You’re not trying to settle some old score …’

Tom didn’t dignify that with a reply. Instead he just gave him a long cold look until he sighed and flapped the air with a gnarled hand. ‘All right. I’m not at my best at this hour.’

‘He’s a serving soldier. Is it possible he’s on some operation that you don’t know about?’

Mandler bridled. ‘I think it’s fair to say that, in my position in the food chain, it’s unlikely I would be unaware of an officer in Her Majesty’s special forces, and—’ He stopped himself.

Tom suspected he had just realized this wasn’t the time for pomposity.

‘Okay. Let’s look at what we know. Ashton had no idea you were there. He’d come to see Evans and his merry men.’

Tom nodded.

‘Or not so merry, as it turned out.’ Mandler sniffed at his own joke. ‘Did you really have to kill quite so many of them?’

Tom said nothing and contemplated his bandaged arm. His head was still throbbing from Evans’s clock attack.

‘So, the question is, was Ashton’s action anything to do with Evans’s attempt on your life?’

‘“This isn’t how we do this.” Those were his last words to Evans.’

‘So was he punishing him for making an attempt on your life—’ Mandler broke off and frowned. ‘
Or
was he punishing him for
failing
to kill you?’

‘If Ashton had any reason to kill me, he wouldn’t have sent someone like Evans. I’d topped his best mate. He’d found out somehow, and was mad about it.’

Mandler nodded. ‘Yes, I can see that. But what is Ashton’s part in all this? Does he even know Rolt?’

‘I think I’d know if he did.’

‘And you’re positive that the men he was with were Russian?’

‘Russian speakers. They could have been Georgians, Estonians, Kazakhs, Tartars, Chechens, Tajiks …’

‘Yes, all right, Buckingham.’

‘Ashton I know speaks Russian.’

‘Well, this is all very strange indeed. And are you thinking the meeting in Switzerland could have been with this Oleg fellow? Because that is pure conjecture.’

There was no way of knowing – short of asking Rolt.

Mandler got to his feet and stretched, but Tom hadn’t finished. ‘And whatever was said in the back of the Bentley, it was enough to turn Randall from loyal retainer into assassin?’

‘Well, since he’s dead, and so is Evans, we’ll never know that either.’

There was a dispiriting hint of resignation in Mandler’s tone. But, having come this far, Tom wasn’t going to back off now. ‘We need to find out what Ashton’s agenda is. Maybe it’ll take us closer to the identity of Rolt’s friend.’

Mandler peered at him. ‘I don’t think that’s at all wise.’

‘I think it’s time I met up with Ashton.’

Mandler gazed at him, mouth half open. ‘Are you mad? You saw what he did to Evans.’

‘
Heard
what he did, to be accurate. Sir.’

Mandler brushed a hand over his forehead.

‘Ashton dropped in on my parents, was asking after me. So it’s good timing, in a way. I’m just following up on his visit.’

‘You do love trouble, don’t you, Buckingham?’

42

08.00
Pimlico, London

Sarah Garvey was aware of a hammering coming from somewhere but she had decided to ignore it. She was back in her old office but it was full of people, drinks in hand. Rolt was there,
in her seat
, and on each side, like maids of honour, the loathsome cabinet secretary, Clements, and that prick of an intern, Henry. Nearby was the greaseball, Farmer. All the slime poured into one room, celebrating Rolt’s elevation.

Garvey was trying to listen to Buckingham’s instructions. The weapon felt cold and greasy, just like her father’s shotgun, and just as heavy. The handsome young former SAS trooper was showing her how to aim it. She could see his mouth moving but couldn’t quite hear above the hubbub.

‘What? What?’ she kept saying.

‘Twice in the temple, twice in the chest.’ Buckingham’s words got through at last.

And she remembered what her father had always said to her when he taught her to shoot:
‘Don’t think, girl. Just aim, squeeze
–
and kill.
’