by Jeremy Duns
He stood up, and as the boy held out his arm to help him off the train, the sniper made his move. He leapt onto the platform and took the boy under his arm, then started running, dragging the startled boy with him. There was a shout from the father, from others on the platform. For a moment, I froze. Then I jumped forward, too, but the doors were already closing. I squeezed through and onto the platform, but the two of them had disappeared among the passengers emptying from the other carriages, and I pushed past people, furious with myself for reacting so slowly. A mother was trying to get her pram off before the doors closed and people were helping her, blocking off the entire width of the platform. By the time she had made it out I had lost several valuable seconds. I looked up the platform. There they were, at the far end of it, the sniper running towards the tunnel we had just come through, the boy’s head cuffed under his arm.
I followed, but then the sniper did an extraordinary thing – he let go of the boy and ran down a ramp at the end of the platform and into the tunnel. For a moment I thought it was suicide, but then I remembered that there was some space next to the tracks for the Underground staff to use. As I reached the end of the platform, I could see that he was running down it. The boy was standing there, frozen in shock. I told him not to worry, to stay where he was and his father would reach him soon, and then ploughed down the wooden ramp and into the tunnel, following the sound of echoing footsteps ahead.
I had been running for only a few seconds when I stopped. The bastard had disappeared again! Up ahead, I could see the tunnel curving away towards Farringdon, but he couldn’t possibly have reached the bend already. Was he hiding somewhere in the tunnel, waiting for me? I peered into the darkness, but all I could see were occasional pillars and columns at the side, and the faint glimmer of the tracks running down the middle.
Then I heard footsteps again. They were distant, but recognizably the same rhythm. He was running down a tunnel, but it wasn’t this one: he was parallel with me. I ran back a few yards and searched the walls. There it was: another train tunnel leading off to the left, the entrance a dark chasm. I jumped over a fence at waist height and started running down the tunnel. The sound of footsteps became louder. There was hardly any light at all here, and the walls felt clammier, the air staler. The tunnel was clearly disused, but where did it lead? I put the question out of my mind and kept running, peering ahead to see where the sniper was heading. But now I couldn’t distinguish any movement or sounds apart from my own breathing and the crunch of my shoes on the gravel. Had he taken another tunnel?
I registered the glint of metal a fraction of a moment before he kicked. I tried to move but I had no chance, and he caught me full square in the stomach, sending me flying to the ground. I couldn’t see straight but I knew I had to keep moving whatever happened because the glint was the gun and he intended to shoot me at close range. I rolled into the wall, scratching myself against something, and screamed as loudly as I could, hoping to distract him even fractionally, because a fraction could make all the difference.
This tactic seemed to work, because he fired blindly. The shot nearly deafened me and sent a great scatter of dust and debris and Christ knows what into my eyes, but I was alive, and I had a sliver of time on my side. He was still dealing with the recoil when I grabbed his wrist. I had to get the gun away from him, because I might not be so lucky a second time and now we were very close to each other and it was very dangerous, so I didn’t scream because I didn’t want to panic him. I wanted him alive a little longer – I needed to know who he was and why he had been told to kill me, so I kept the pressure on his wrist and fended away his other arm as he tried to punch me, and eventually it was too much for him and he jerked free. The gun fell to the ground and I tried to follow its trajectory but it spun into the darkness, and the sniper stumbled away and the chase was on again, only now I was closer, and my blood was up, and I felt I could get him.
There were no lights, but my vision was adjusting and the tracks had a dull sheen to them. I didn’t dare move into the centre of the tunnel – I didn’t trust the sniper enough to know whether or not a train could come whistling down here and carry us both off to Never-never-land – but the walkway was becoming narrower. There was the sound of dripping water close by, but I could still make out the faint echo of his footsteps ahead of me, and I focussed on them.
I had been running for about five minutes when the darkness began to lift fractionally. Soon, I was entering a cavernous space, which I guessed had been some kind of goods depot. There were small trolleys and wagons filled with sacks, but everything smelled dank and part of one wall had fallen away. As I came through, I saw the sniper at the far end, racing up a cobbled ramp. I reached it a few seconds later and as I did I realized where we were: Smithfield Market. He must have taken a tunnel that had been used to transport the meat here. The familiar open space of black and green ironmongery rose in front of me, almost like a cathedral itself, and the vista of the city’s life returned as I glimpsed white-coated butchers through the archways and pillars.
It was icily cold here, and I realized we had come out at an alcove away from the main body of the market – some sort of storage area. Frozen carcasses lay slapped on top of one another in metal trolleys, glowing under the neon lamps. The sniper was bounding ahead of me, but he seemed to be flagging now. He crashed into one of the carts, sending the contents flying, and I slipped on a carpet of livers and entrails. He took the opportunity and grabbed me, dragging me through the slops and the sawdust. In the distance, a butcher shouted out his last prices. But that was another world away.
The sniper kicked me several times, and then began to choke me, his hands sticky and warm. I started seeing double, Christ and Che swaying above me, and I knew that I had only a couple of seconds left before I blacked out. I had to get him away from my throat. I lunged desperately with my left arm, and caught him on the ear. His grip loosened for a fraction of a moment and I used the momentum to topple him and reverse the hold, so that I now had my hands clasped round his throat. He kicked beneath me, but I was in a strong position now and I kept pressing down. He was trying to grab something with his arm, and I realized we had moved closer to one of the metal trolleys. My eye caught sight of an object on the lowest shelf: an electric saw. I placed my knee over the man’s throat and reached out for the saw with my left hand. I flicked it on. The whine had an immediate effect on him, and the sweat started pouring off his face like a waterfall. I screamed at him to tell me who had sent him and why, loosening my grip the tiniest of a fraction for his response. After a few moments, he began repeating the same words over and over. I leaned down to catch them.
‘La prego non mi uccida…’ he said, and his face was creased with pain. ‘Madonna mia, non mi uccida, non mi uccida…’
He wasn’t getting any further than that, so I slapped him, hard, and screamed at him again, but he couldn’t hear over the sound of the saw, so I switched it off and tried once more, directly into his face this time, but his jaw muscles suddenly tightened and then went slack and as I watched the fluid dribble from his mouth, I realized he’d bitten into a pill and I’d failed. His eyes froze. He was gone.
*
I searched his pockets, but found nothing in them. Dazed, I staggered out of the alcove and through the market until I came to the front gates, where there was a call box. I dialled the emergency contact number, waited for the pips and then thrust sixpence in the slot. Nobody picked up. The sweat started to cool on me, and I began to shiver. I tried the number again, and then the second number, but there was nothing, no answer, nobody home.
After a while I gave up and called the office instead, telling them to send a squad down and to look for the man in the storage area with a rifle strapped to his back. I left the booth and stepped into West Smithfield. It had begun to drizzle, and a newspaper vendor across the way was dismantling his stand. I looked up for the familiar sight, but it wasn’t there. Panicking, I ran down King Edward Street, desperately search
ing the skyline. It wasn’t until I’d reached the end of the road that I saw it: the dome hovering above the city, just as it had always done. For a moment, I’d thought it had disappeared.
III
‘So you will take the job?’
‘It doesn’t look like I have much choice, does it? If they offer it to me, of course.’
‘But you said they had already—’
‘It still has to be approved. The formalities won’t take place for at least a couple of days. They’re holding a service for Templeton in St Paul’s on Thursday, and they’ll push through the new appointments after that. Does that satisfy you?’
He nodded, and replaced the negatives in his pocket…
As the Rover skidded through the streets, I remembered my last conversation with Sasha, just three days earlier. I had told him. I had bloody told him where to find me.
‘And he was definitely Italian?’ asked Osborne, interrupting my thoughts. He was staring through the passenger window, looking rather pale and drained, as I imagined I did, too.
I followed his gaze. It was raining heavily and storms had been forecast: England’s green and pleasant land was suddenly looking rather grey and sinister. The Cabinet had raised the alert level to Four: much higher and we’d have been taking helicopters to Welbeck Abbey – but that was strictly for when we were facing an imminent Third World War. Political assassination didn’t require a subterranean command centre, but it did require an immediate meeting. I prayed it wouldn’t go on too long. I was in desperate need of a shower, something to eat and a long kip.
Osborne had asked me about the sniper’s nationality several times, perhaps because it was all we had to go on, or perhaps because Italy was a NATO ally and he was wondering about the diplomatic ramifications. I told him again that I was fairly certain of the nationality because he had spoken fluent Italian on the verge of death, at which point instinct tends to take over. But it was baffling me, too, albeit for very different reasons. Had he just been a hired thug, untraceable back to Moscow? I ran through the scene in my mind for the hundredth time: Farraday’s head jerking forward, the shot ringing out. There was no doubt that I had been the intended target – if he hadn’t suddenly stepped in front of me, the bullet would have gone straight through my chest. The fact that nobody had picked up either of my emergency numbers confirmed it: one of those lines was supposed to be manned around the clock, without fail. I had been cut off.
‘How did they know about the memorial?’ Osborne asked. ‘We didn’t announce it.’
He was like a schoolboy heading into an exam he hadn’t prepared for, and I was the swot he was desperately hoping might help him out.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Perhaps Fearing will have something.’ Giles Fearing was head of Five, and had also been invited to the meeting.
Osborne nibbled at a fingernail. I suspected he was torn between wanting any information he could get his hands on and hoping that he wouldn’t be shown up by our rival agency. Five were responsible for domestic threats, while the Service dealt with everything overseas. That could be another reason he wanted to be sure of the sniper’s nationality: it offered a chance for us to head up the investigation.
If so, he’d have to manoeuvre himself sharpish, because Five had a head-start. They’d been all over the cathedral when I’d returned from Smithfield: a team had already begun examining the building from top to bottom. Farraday had been killed instantaneously – the bullet had entered just above his heart. His body had been taken to the nearest morgue, while most of the congregation had retreated to their offices to contact colleagues and plan a course of action. The corpse of the sniper had also been removed from the market.
After telling them most of what I knew, I had taken a cab to Lambeth, but Osborne had already been leaving for Whitehall when I’d arrived, so I had climbed in and was now debriefing him on the way. He was biting his nails for good reason. For two Chiefs to be murdered within two months looked worse than a lapse in security: it looked like a declaration of war. And, of course, Osborne was now worried that there might be someone training their sights on him – not for nothing were we travelling in one of the bullet-proofed models. I had even asked if we should travel separately, as the formalities had been overruled and I was now acting Deputy Chief and he Chief. I wished I’d kept that thought to myself, though, as it had made him even jumpier.
I was also jumpy, but trying to keep my head. The sniper had been Italian, but the whole affair had Moscow’s fingerprints all over it. I had been so intent on avoiding the suspicions of my colleagues in the Service that I hadn’t noticed the threat looming from the other flank. But I still had no idea why they wanted me dead. This should have been the pinnacle of my success, with their long investment in me finally paying off: even Philby hadn’t made it this far. I thought back to my conversation with Sasha on Monday evening. He had told me that the Slavin provocation in Nigeria had been the work of the KGB, and that for the last two decades I had, in fact, been working for the GRU: military intelligence. I’d come away with the impression that the KGB hadn’t wanted to give up control of me. Could it be that they now wanted to take revenge for my having messed up their operation? It seemed far-fetched, but there had been no mistaking the trajectory of that bullet. And Slavin had been one of their agents; perhaps they blamed me for his death. But why try to kill me in public, then, rather than simply ambush me at home? Perhaps the GRU had been behind it, after all, and someone had simply decided that I had served my purpose and had come too close to being exposed. I had taken Sasha at face value when he had told me that I was the hero of the hour, but perhaps he had just been stringing me along, keeping me sweet until a sniper could be found to deal with me. If the bullet had found its intended target, it would have made me a martyr in the eyes of the Service – and extinguished any questions about my loyalty once and for all. The Service would have closed the book on Paul Dark, and remained oblivious to the extent that I had compromised them. But as long as I was alive, I could be exposed, and if that happened I might crack under interrogation and make a list of everything I had handed over, rendering most of it worthless to Moscow in the process.
Or perhaps it was even worse than that. What if someone in the higher echelons of the GRU had decided, as a result of the events in Nigeria, that Sasha’s entire network should be closed down? Or not just closed down, but terminated? What if Sasha and his whole crew had all been killed – and I was the only one left standing?
On reflection, the motivations for doing me in seemed almost infinite. But one thing was for sure: someone wanted me dead, and they’d gone to a lot of trouble to try to make it happen. As the car came into Whitehall, I wondered when the next attempt would come.
*
The conference room was large and well appointed, with the usual Regency furniture and chandeliers, but the blacked-out windows and whey-faced stenographer in the corner deadened the grandeur somewhat. In the centre of the room, three men were seated around a large polished teak table. Fearing was fair-haired and stoutly built, with heavy jowls; Pelham-Jones, his deputy, was a few years younger and two stone lighter; and finally, there was the Home Secretary, Haggard.
Haggard lived up to his name: a giant skeleton of a man with dark circles under his eyes and a cigar perpetually glued to his thin lips. He was considered the Prime Minister’s closest ally – the two of them had risen through the party ranks together. His public image was of a straight-talking man of principle, and he was warier of spooks than everyone else in the Cabinet, with the possible exception of the PM.
As soon as Osborne and I had seated ourselves, Haggard stubbed out his cigar, scraped back his chair and walked over to one of the alcoves, from where he surveyed us like a hawk might a small cluster of overfed mice. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, not bothering to make it sound even remotely sincere. ‘As you may know, John Farraday was a good friend of mine, and godfather to my eldest daughter. I also strongly recommended him for the position o
f Chief, and so view his murder not only as a national but as a personal tragedy.’ He stepped forward and looked at us all in turn, and his voice rose fractionally. ‘I also view it as a cock-up of monumental proportions. As you will remember, when the idea was mooted to hold this service in St Paul’s rather than the Foreign Office chapel, my immediate concern was security. And I was assured that the place would be under closer scrutiny than the Crown Jewels.’ He reached out and banged the table with the palm of his hand, making the glasses jump. ‘Well, it was hardly the Crown fucking Jewels, was it, gentlemen?’ he shouted, his face flushed.
He glared at us, daring anyone to reply. Fearing looked like he was considering it for a second, but then thought better of the idea. Haggard adjusted the knot in his tie and took a long, deep breath.
‘The PM is currently suffering from gastroenteritis,’ he said, his voice reverting to its usual chilly calm, ‘so he can’t be with us this morning. However, he has been fully apprised of the situation and has called a Cabinet meeting for his bedside at two o’clock, at which time I will report on the results of this meeting. He is already not best pleased with your lot as a result of the incident in Nigeria, and I need hardly remind you that John’s murder came while we were mourning the death of the last man to occupy his position. So… can anyone tell me why I shouldn’t recommend that he sack the whole bloody lot of you?’ He picked his glass of water from the table and took a few gulps of it, his Adam’s apple bobbing wildly. ‘I want an explanation for this,’ he said, sitting down again, ‘and I want it now.’
