‘Right, let’s start,’ Mel said. ‘Who is the Immigrant in your pseudonym list?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Fennington.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ McCracken said. ‘That’s not how it goes.’ He jabbed a finger at Fennington. ‘You’re supposed to answer properly with facts. “Don’t know” leads to “nothing doing”. Try again.’
‘Really I don’t. If I remember correctly, and my memory isn’t defective, I told you all that information is held by a third party under a private key.’
‘Stop being smart and tell us how to open the lock.’ McCracken shoved a piece of paper and a pen at Fennington.
Thirty minutes later, Mel showed Stevenson the printout of the letter of authorisation Fennington had drafted to the third party.
‘It looks innocuous, but I’ve run some language and cypher checks on it and unless the whole text is compromised, I can’t see any covert warnings. I changed some of the tenses and word order as I typed it up, just in case. Do you want to run it past a specialist?’
‘No, I’m perfectly confident in your analysis skills. Your colonel was very complimentary in that regard when I poached you last year.’
‘Very well. I’ll get Fennington to sign it and this other letter with Jeff’s and my photos. We’ll sign against them and he’ll countersign.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘It’s not even lunchtime. We should be able to wrap this up today.’
‘I hope your optimism is warranted.’ Stevenson smiled at her.
* * *
‘You look quite strange in a suit,’ Mel said as she and McCracken strode along Bishopsgate.
‘I’ll take it off if you like.’
‘Silly.’ But she grinned at him. Her own severe navy coat with yellow and green silk scarf in the neck and sensible court shoes projected a serious and neat image. They trotted up the wide steps leading from Bishopsgate to the plaza flanked by green tinted glass and steel and into the beige and brown offices of Wollson, Taylor and Palmer.
‘We have an appointment to see Mr Palmer on behalf of client 5631289,’ Mel said to the receptionist.
Two minutes later, a dark-haired man on the brink of middle age was greeting them in a small office off the reception.
‘I’m Silas Palmer. Welcome. I’m surprised I haven’t seen your principal for nearly ten days,’ he added. ‘Is he well?’
‘Unfortunately, he’s had a fall and fractured his jaw and shin bone, so he’s confined to bed at present,’ she lied smoothly. ‘Everything will heal, but the hospital says he should rest as much as possible.’
‘Nasty. Please send him my regards.’
‘Thank you,’ Mel replied. ‘In the meantime, our principal is quite anxious for us to collect any correspondence and packages left for him.’ She fished an envelope out of her handbag. ‘Here is our authorisation and our identity confirmed by him.’
‘Do you have any other ID?’
‘Of course.’ She showed him her English passport, silently blessing her mother for insisting she kept it renewed. McCracken showed his driving licence.
‘This all looks in order. I took the precaution of retrieving everything ahead of our meeting.’ Palmer handed over a C4 manila envelope and McCracken stowed it in his laptop bag.
‘Thank you, Mr Palmer.’ Mel held out her hand while McCracken opened the door. ‘We’ll call again next week,’ she said and smiled. ‘About the same time?’
They walked back down Bishopsgate to Liverpool Street Underground station, bought tickets and waited for the next Circle line train.
‘I hate to sound paranoid,’ McCracken whispered in Mel’s ear, ‘but I think we’re being followed.’
‘Not paranoid,’ she said and smiled at him as if mildly flirting. ‘Man, black jeans, red jumper, rain jacket, brown hair. Woman, black boots, dark green coat, shoulder-length black hair.’
‘Yep.’
‘They’ve been with us since Palmer’s office,’ Mel murmured. ‘We can’t call for a car or we’d break our cover. Two options: we play Mornington Crescent or we risk a taxi.’
‘Taxi’s out. They could easily board us if we get stuck in traffic. What the hell is Mornington Crescent?’
She laughed. ‘It’s from a quiz show my mum listens to on the BBC World Service. Follow me.’
A train screeched out of the tunnel and people poured out. Mel and McCracken stood by an open door as if waiting to get on. At the last second, Mel pulled McCracken away and they dived across to the southbound platform when a train was preparing to leave. They jumped in.
‘Okay, you’ve got me,’ he said.
‘Unfortunately, we’ve also still got company.’
‘Professionals?’
‘Must be,’ she said.
The train lurched along round the ancient line and Mel was thrown against McCracken as they clung to the nearest upright.
He put his arm round the back of her waist and whispered, ‘This is nice.’
‘Mm,’ she agreed. He kissed her skin just behind her ear which sent a tingle through her entire nervous system.
‘Ungodly are three seats in next section, sitting opposite each other,’ he murmured.
‘Hold on tight when we get to Embankment,’ she whispered in his ear.
As soon as the train stopped, they ran for the escalator and up the moving belt. At the top, they rushed through the gates. Mel took McCracken’s arm and hurried him towards the south entrance. She turned sharp right after the stairs leading up to the footbridge across the Thames and pulled him under the wide flight of open steps. She leant back against the stone column.
‘Kiss me.’
‘Pleasure, when I get my breath back.’
As he bent his head down, she pulled away and looked over his shoulder.
‘Here they come,’ she murmured as a man and woman ran out of the south entrance and searched round frantically.
Mel jumped out, grabbed the woman and dragged her behind the scaffolded hoardings shielding repair work under the road bridge. She pushed the woman to the ground. In a nanosecond, she’d snapped open her handbag and brought her tiny Glock up to the woman’s forehead.
‘No noise, no movement. Understand?’ she prodded the woman with the barrel.
The woman nodded.
‘Cross your arms, hands in your armpits.’ Mel shot a quick look in McCracken’s direction. He had the man in a neck lock.
‘Sit him over by the woman. Search them.’
McCracken thrust his knee hard into the back of the man’s knee which made his adversary collapse to the ground. The man glanced around, his eyes searching hard.
‘Don’t bother,’ Mel said. ‘I’ll shoot you before you can stand and then her. In this traffic, nobody will hear it.’
‘Po'shyol 'na hui,’ the man shouted in her face.
McCracken’s hand shot out and struck the man’s face.
‘Not very polite, Ivan,’ he said. He looked at Mel. ‘Russkies.’
‘Why are you following us?’ Mel demanded.
The woman looked away and said nothing. The man spat on the ground.
Mel glanced at her watch. McCracken fished out his phone and took several photos of them.
‘I’m sending these to my boss,’ he said. ‘He’s a very private man. He’d be very angry if you popped up on his radar again. And you know how mafia punishes people.’ He leant over the man. ‘The boss goes well beyond that. He likes making people scream and hearing them beg him to stop.’
Fear crossed the man’s sullen face. The woman glanced at him, her eyes wide.
‘I’m feeling nice this morning,’ McCracken said. ‘So take this as an unfriendly warning. If I see either one of you again, you’re dead meat. Now stand up and piss off out of here.’
Mel kept her pistol trained on them discreetly until they were five metres away, but the two Russians scuttled off as if the devil was after them. The woman glanced once over her shoulder. She quickly turned back at the sight of Mel’s Glock and McCracken’s
hard stare.
‘Okay, Annie Oakley, give me that now.’ McCracken held his hand out and looked at the Glock Mel was putting back in her handbag.
‘What?’
‘You can’t go wandering around London with a gun. It’s illegal.’
‘Not if you have a permit.’
‘In case you missed it, the police here aren’t routinely armed.’
‘In case you missed it, I’m not a police officer,’ she retorted. She spun round and stalked back through the Embankment station concourse to the north exit. What business was it of his? McCracken caught her just as she started up Villiers Street and grabbed her arm.
‘Wait.’
She pulled her arm away.
‘Please yourself,’ he said.
But she caught his stricken look. ‘I have a permit,’ she said stiffly. ‘From the EIRS. It’s part of the reciprocal agreement.’
‘How come I don’t know about it?’
‘You said it yourself. You British police don’t carry personal weapons. Perhaps that’s why you weren’t offered one.’
‘We don’t carry here for a perfectly good reason.’
‘Yes?’
‘The risk to the public outweighs any advantage.’
‘Perfectly reasonable in the community, but we’re not operating with the nice people and I do know how to use it.’
‘I’m going to get Stevenson to sort this,’ he retorted.
They walked on uphill to Charing Cross station, saying nothing more, then dived down for the Bakerloo line back to Friars Green. On the train, they sat silently looking forwards in that semi-comatose state adopted automatically by Tube passengers. Depressed by arguing so soon with Jeff, Mel was only thankful to be one of those comatose passengers.
42
‘Russians again. How strange. Pity you couldn’t bring them back for a chat.’ Stevenson tapped his fingers on his desk for a few seconds.
‘We didn’t want them to make any connection to law enforcement,’ Mel replied. ‘Just in case there was a second team we couldn’t see.’
‘Don’t be defensive, Mélisende. Very sound reasoning.’
‘Has there been any progress on the two that attacked me at the motorway hotel?’ she asked.
‘No. Actually with everything else going on, we haven’t prioritised them. Hard to believe that was only four weeks ago. I’ll see if we can borrow a security services interrogator to have another go at them. We’ll get them remanded again into custody.’ He put his spectacles on. ‘Right, let’s have a look at what you’ve got in that envelope.’
Stevenson’s little office seemed claustrophobic to Mel, but it wasn’t really. Besides his desk and the two chairs she and McCracken sat in, there was space for bookshelves, a confidential filing cabinet and a small sofa. Behind him was a large framed copy of a generic English country scene. In short, there was nothing that should have disturbed anybody. It was just sitting so close to McCracken after their argument.
‘The contact details for the Immigrant’s intermediary.’ Stevenson leant back and smiled as he laid the paper down. ‘Well, Fennington gets a silver star. A gold one if this works out.’
* * *
Mel sat down with McCracken to draw up an operational plan. His voice was calm, terse even, but although their forearms were so near on the table, they didn’t touch. What a stupid argument it had been after so much glorious lovemaking. But if that was how he wanted it, then she would have to do the same. Her heart clenched at the thought, but she made herself push it out of her mind. Not very successfully.
‘It’s not like in a fictional thriller,’ Stevenson had said when he’d briefed them. ‘The baddie doesn’t point a gun at you then tell you everything because he thinks he’s about to terminate you. Just trap the contact, bring him or her back and we’ll sweat them.’
Half an hour later, Mel followed McCracken back into Stevenson’s office.
‘For backup, boss, we’ve included ten troops as belt and braces,’ McCracken said. ‘I’d like Joanna Evans to lead them if we can get her over from Westway. She can keep a cool head and knows the case.’
‘Fennington says the contact might be wary as it’s a new voice setting up the meeting,’ Mel added. ‘They had very few face-to-face meetings. I know Jeff will do a good job making the call, but when we’re there we should look as much like ASG people as possible. I suggest a detail of two men who look like Harris, the former head of security at ASG, accompany us to the meeting.’ She hesitated. ‘The other thing is that the raid on ASG by the police will have got out, so it’s perfectly reasonable of Fennington to have called an emergency meeting with the Immigrant. The contact may suspect a trap, or he may not show. Of course, he or his heavies may just shoot us when we arrive and be done with it.’
Stevenson glanced at McCracken. ‘Draw a personal weapon, Jeff. A handgun. Just as a precaution. Mélisende, you have yours.’
Mel couldn’t resist a half-smile in McCracken’s direction.
Stevenson countersigned the plan and approved expenses. The ever-efficient Miss Winters would arrange everything they needed, he said. As they walked down the corridor, McCracken snorted.
‘He thinks she’s personal assistant of the year, doesn’t he? One minute she’s running the office for a load of dodgy traders possibly connected to a terrorist bombing, next minute she’s the beating heart of the EIRS. Talk about poacher turned gamekeeper.’
‘It can work,’ Mel said in a small voice. ‘And very successfully.’
‘Name me one instance.’ He glared at her.
‘Well, me.’
‘Jury’s still out on that one.’
‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ She grabbed his jacket arm. ‘How can you say that after everything I’ve done? Take it back.’
‘Get stuffed.’
‘Well, I have been, haven’t I?’
* * *
Miss Winters was billeted with the superintendent’s assistant, Kylie. They made such a strange contrast; one impeccably dressed sitting upright behind a sleek black and silver desktop computer, a single file and a silver pen on her otherwise naked wood-topped desk, the other a sturdy figure, tweed-suited with fine hair escaping from her bun, glasses halfway up her nose, folders stacked in a tray and fingers flying between a Rolodex and her keyboard.
By her desk stood Ellis beaming at Miss Winters who gave him a coy smile in return. Her face was flushed as he handed her a piece of paper with handwritten notes.
‘I could have fetched it, Mr Ellis. You didn’t need to bring it here.’
‘Absolutely a pleasure to come and chat to you, Barbara. You are a true star in the firmament.’
Miss Winters’s face reddened further and she borderline simpered. Mel pursed her lips, embarrassed for Miss Winters falling for Ellis’s easy charm. She glanced at McCracken; he looked revolted.
‘Well, I must be getting along. I’ll leave you to get on with your important work,’ Ellis said. Both looked up as Mel and McCracken approached Miss Winters’s desk.
‘Oh,’ said Ellis. ‘Looks as if you have more interruptions, Barbara.’ He turned to Mel and McCracken. ‘What have you got there?’
‘Just an operational resource request,’ Mel said and dropped her left hand clutching the sheet to her side. She took a step back. It also took her away from the smell of his aftershave.
‘Show me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Ellis, but you know the EIRS rules – operational personnel only.’
‘Come, come, Pittones. Don’t be a difficult girl. I only want to check you’ve filled it in correctly.’
‘Sorry, no.’ What on earth was the matter with the man this morning? Did he think she was incapable of completing simple paperwork? He was wearing his usual full-teeth smile and a concerned expression, but his eyes were wary. After the encounter in the car park and his unjustified complaint against Jeff, she was starting to lose any sympathy for him however much he turned the charm on. Or maybe he was so upset abo
ut his dying sister he was losing perspective. If that was it, he really shouldn’t be at work.
Ellis darted out his hand to snatch her wrist, but Mel was faster. She thrust the paper backwards to McCracken and moved towards Ellis, her eyes blazing. She swung her hand up and flexed her fingers forward in parallel at his chest. The tips stopped barely two centimetres from the soft point just under his breastbone.
‘Please don’t attempt any sudden move, Mr Ellis. I’m likely to react instinctively. The last person who did ended up in hospital. Now take three steps backwards, then turn and leave. That way you will be safe.’
He flinched and took a step back. A pink tinge grew in his cheeks.
‘How dare you attack me like that!’ His voice was shrill. Mel relaxed her fingers and dropped her arm to her side but kept her gaze on his face.
‘She didn’t touch you,’ McCracken said. ‘It was you who tried to go at her. You’re lucky you’re still standing.’
‘I shall report this to the director and have you sacked, Pittones.’
‘Yes, run along to daddy and tell him the other children are being nasty,’ McCracken called after him.
Mel released her breath. Not a sound disturbed them apart from a light electric hum. Kylie and Miss Winters, both as still as frozen statues, were watching her.
‘All right, ladies, show’s over,’ McCracken said. He handed Miss Winters the operational resource request. ‘Better lock this away nice and safe,’ he said and winked at her.
He took Mel’s arm.
‘Come on, best get to the boss before arse-ache persuades him you’re the original loose cannon.’
‘Why has Ellis become so resentful? He’s been perfectly friendly up to now.’
‘Probably scared of tough women who don’t fall all over him. You do scary pretty well.’
She rolled her eyes at him and he smiled back.
‘No, it’s personal,’ she said. ‘What can I have done to have sparked such antagonism?’
* * *
Double Identity Page 25
