by Andy Maslen
Gabriel checked his watch. Three hours to kill before he had to leave. “Perfect. See you there.”
“If you’re there before me, champagne cocktail, please.”
The call finished, Gabriel finished the dregs of his drink and headed for the bathroom.
He’d just climbed out of the shower when there was a quiet tap at the door. Gabriel tied the towelling robe around his middle and checked the spyhole. A young woman in the hotel’s uniform of charcoal-grey suit and white shirt was there, holding a couple of shiny paper carrier bags with twisted cord handles. He opened the door, took the bags, and pressed a folded twenty pound note into her palm as the bags changed hands.
“Thank you, Anita. What would I do without you?”
“Wear yesterday’s socks,” she said, her face a mask of seriousness. Then she turned on her heel and was gone.
*
The walls of the bar flickered with shadows thrown by the candles in red glasses that lit the room. Gabriel ordered two champagne cocktails and took them to a corner table. He took a sip of his drink: buttery, toasty champagne, a deep hit from the cognac and a whisper of orange from the Grand Marnier. A few minutes later, he heard feet on the stairs and looked over to the door.
Gabriel’s eyes, and those of the other patrons, travelled from Britta’s flaming red hair to her black Dr. Martens boots. She was dressed all in black: jeans, hoodie under a leather biker jacket, woollen fingerless gloves. She looked around, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light, taking her time to search out Gabriel. He enjoyed the way the other drinkers seemed unable to tear their gaze away from her. Then she saw him.
“Hej! Cool spot.” She came over to the table. He rose to his feet and they hugged. Then she pulled back and planted a kiss on his lips. “What’s the news?” she said.
Gabriel outlined the brief. He had logistics and equipment in place but, as he said to her now, “What I really want is you.”
“I’d love to be your number two on this one. But my bosses have me working virtually round the clock to put this people trafficker out of business.”
“How come it’s not a police case?”
“It would be if he was spending the money on cars, or stashing it in a Swiss bank, but he’s not. He’s using it to buy weapons. Serious stuff, too. He’s bringing the women onto British soil, so that makes it MI5’s case.”
“Don gave me a strong hint that we could team up if you were to take some holiday. Otherwise, he pretty much vetoed it. Funnily enough for virtually the same grounds you just gave for following your cocksucker.”
Britta threw back her head and laughed. “You looked it up, then?”
“Of course. As a professional linguist I felt it was my duty. So what are we going to do?”
Britta took a sip of her cocktail. “Here’s a thought, Mr Off-The-Books. Why don’t you help me deal with my trafficker, then I’m free to take some time off? A nice little holiday in southern Africa, for example.”
“What do you need?”
“He’s bringing another group of women in a couple of days from now. I need some audio of him to find out where and when exactly. But his house is so well guarded, we’re having trouble getting the deep surveillance we need to nail the bastard.”
“What if you had someone who could get inside undetected, or at least unremembered, plant a bug and get out again?”
“You mean, a person with all kinds of ancient Eastern voodoo they could use to get in under the wire?”
Gabriel smiled. She smiled back. They clinked glasses and drained their drinks.
*
It was after midnight when they returned to Gabriel’s room at the Raven.
“Come and see this,” Gabriel said, holding Britta’s hand and pulling her through a white-painted door leading off the bedroom.
“Cool, a wet room,” she said.
“Yes. I thought maybe we could get wet together. Unless you’re tired, of course?”
“I’m a nightbird. What is it, a lark, not an owl?”
“Other way round. But good. Now, stand still.”
Britta stood to a slightly off-centre attention while Gabriel undressed her. When she was naked, he removed his own clothes and led her into the huge shower area. Under the hot water, they embraced and kissed, wrapping their arms around each other tightly, as if they knew this might be the last comfort they’d be enjoying for some while.
Britta looked into his eyes and wrapped her arms around the back of his neck.
“Catch!” she said, then lifted her feet off the ground and jumped a little so she could wrap her legs around him.
Gabriel placed his hands under her buttocks and brought her to him. She crossed her ankles at the base of his spine and began to tilt her hips back and forth, increasing the pressure between them, then releasing it. They came seconds apart, heads thrown back and laughing, while the water streamed down their faces, pooling in the space where Britta’s breasts were squashed against Gabriel’s chest.
The following morning, Gabriel appeared at Britta’s side of the bed carrying a deep-sided tray woven from seagrass. In its separate compartments nestled warm croissants, Danish pastries, yoghurt with fruit compote in a screw-topped jar, and tea.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he said, nudging her thigh with his knee before putting the tray down on the end of the bed.
“What time is it?”
“Nine. I brought you breakfast. No herrings, I’m afraid.”
She flapped a hand in an attempt to slap him. She missed.
“You’re such a racist, Wolfe, you know that? Us Swedes have some very exciting chefs nowadays. Only the old folks eat herrings.”
“Come on. We have a kuksugare to catch.”
*
An hour later, Britta and Gabriel were standing beside an old London plane tree on a wide avenue in Kensington. They leaned against the trunk, arms around each other’s waists, looking for all the world as if they were two lovers taking a moment to cuddle up against the cold November wind that plucked the few remaining leaves from the tree and whipped them high into the air. Forty feet down the road, a grand Georgian house sat back from the pavement behind wrought iron gates topped with security cameras. Over Britta’s left shoulder, Gabriel watched the gates as a dark brown delivery van pulled up, the words, “Patisserie Jeannot” lettered on the side in pink script. He heard the engine quit with a phlegmy rattle.
The driver got out of the truck, went to the squawk box mounted on the right-hand gatepost, pressed a button, and spoke into the grille. After a couple of minutes, the gates swung back on themselves and two burly Arab men dressed in black nylon windcheaters and jeans came out. They spoke briefly to the driver. He turned and went round the back of the truck, opened the double doors and pulled them wide. Then he climbed inside and clambered back down, rear-end first, carrying an enormous cake box, bright pink with dark brown swirls all over it. He held it out in front of him, while one of the guards lifted the top off the box.
Clearly the box did indeed contain just cake. The guard signalled to his partner, who stood aside. With his cargo safely stored away again, the driver climbed back into the cab and drove in through the gates. The lead guard looked up and down the street, pausing on Gabriel and Britta for a second, before turning and going back inside his master’s fortress.
“You see?” Britta said, her cheek just brushing Gabriel’s.
“I do see. Serious muscle, serious security. I’d say a frontal assault’s out of the question. What’s round the back?”
“I’ll show you. It’s promising.”
The houses on the street backed onto a similar row on the next road along. Gabriel identified the four-storey house roughly in line with the trafficker’s.
“We could go in that way, down the back garden, over the fence and in through a window or side door. Or maybe even just stick a bug through the exterior wall?”
“We need a cover story to get into this house first. Any ideas?”
“I don�
��t know. In the Regiment, we used to make sure the houses we entered were empty in the first place.”
“Maybe we’re tourists and our car broke down? We need to borrow their phone?”
“Seriously? Who doesn’t have a mobile these days?”
“I’m Swedish. My service provider just cut my roaming. My boyfriend was mugged last night and they lifted his iPhone.”
“I guess it could work. If they’ll let us in, I can put them under while we go over the fence.”
“Right. That’s the plan. Let’s go.”
“What, now?”
“I have everything in my rucksack. Bug, lock-picks and check this out.”
She unsnapped the flap of her khaki rucksack and pulled the top open so Gabriel could peer inside.
“Shit! Are you allowed to carry those around in London?”
He was looking down on a pair of semi-automatic Beretta M9 pistols, fitted with fat, black, cylindrical silencers. Britta flashed him a smile and batted her eyelashes at him.
“What, me, officer? Oh, well I suppose they are handguns. Will this help?” Then she pulled out an MI5 ID from inside her hoodie. It had a QR code in the bottom-right-hand corner. “They’ve all got scanners now. It takes them to a secure MI5 site, so we’re covered, basically.”
“Good to know.” He looked up at the black front door, which was accessible from a flight of six black-and-white-chequered tiled steps, similar to the pattern on Melody Smith’s front path. “Let’s go. Darling.”
They climbed the steps together, exchanged a glance, then nodded and put on worried faces, foreheads crinkled, eyes a little wider than normal. They held hands as Gabriel rang the doorbell.
Ten seconds passed and Gabriel was just wondering whether they could get away with a swift breaking and entering when the door opened. A young woman stood there: pale skin, long, straggly blonde hair, dark roots showing, a red-cheeked baby on her hip. It appeared to have recently puked onto her T-shirt, leaving dark blue patches on the otherwise pale fabric. She stood there, mute, regarding Gabriel and Britta with narrowed, suspicious eyes.
“I’m so sorry to trouble you,” Gabriel began, “but our car has broken down and I’m afraid neither my girlfriend nor I has a mobile. Do you think it would be possible to use your telephone?”
The woman shifted the baby’s weight on her hip then answered.
“You must speak slower. I am from Latvia and my English is not good yet.”
Gabriel smiled and tried again.
“Our car is broken down. We have no mobile. Please may we come in to use the telephone?”
She nodded. “I ask lady of house. You wait here.”
She turned and disappeared down a long tiled hallway and through a door at the far end.
“Still happy with the plan?” Britta asked.
“Sure, why not? Look, she’s coming back.”
The nanny, or au pair, or whatever the rich of Kensington called their domestics, returned, now minus the baby.
“Mrs Evans say one quick call, please. Come this way.”
She led them down the hall and into what looked like a sitting room that had metamorphosed into a playroom. The floor between matching brown leather sofas was covered with brightly-coloured toys. Pointing at a phone mounted on the wall, she said, “Is there.”
“One more thing,” Gabriel said. As the woman turned back to him, he started speaking in an oddly disjointed rhythm, keeping his sentences simple, throwing in the odd Russian phrase, and matching his off-key delivery with a series of eye and hand movements. The young woman’s bruised-looking eyelids flickered once, then twice. Maintaining his eye contact, he swayed sideways, then back the other way, like a snake mesmerising its prey. Judging his moment to coincide with her long out-breath, he reached out and tapped her sharply on the forehead. “Sleep!” he said in a low murmur. The woman gave a slight gasp, and Gabriel caught her as her knees buckled. He laid her on her front on the floor, among the squashy play mats and assorted fluffy zoo animals.
“Come on,” he said. “She must have put the baby in its cot. Let’s find the lady of the house.”
Britta led the way down the hall to the door they’d seen the au pair go into. She knocked twice and then poked her head round the door before going fully into the room. Gabriel followed.
Sitting at the table swiping and tapping on a tablet screen was the lady of the house. Her streaky blonde hair was tied back into a ponytail with a black velvet ribbon; her smooth, unblemished skin had just enough colour to say ‘winter sun’ and not so much you’d conclude, ‘tanning salon’. Her clothes looked very expensive. Fuchsia-pink cashmere jumper over tan leather trousers. She looked up at Britta and frowned, compressing her lips into a thin red line.
“I thought Villi showed you the phone in the front room,” she said.
“I am so sorry,” Britta said, laying on her Swedish accent thicker than snow in Stockholm. “She did and we are very grateful but my boyfriend wanted to ask you something. Could you listen carefully please?”
The woman looked up at Gabriel. “Well?” she said. “I’m listening.”
12
Breaking and Entering
HAVING draped the lady of the house on a small sofa along one wall of the immense, extended kitchen, Gabriel and Britta left through the double doors into the garden. It was a good fifty feet from the back of the house to the fence. They ran down the path and were up and over the high wooden fence in a few seconds. Dropping down onto the far side they found themselves in thick cover provided by a thick clump of evergreen shrubs.
“Here,” Britta said, reaching into the rucksack. “Take this.”
She handed Gabriel one of the silenced pistols. He nodded, then racked the slide to load a round into the chamber. Britta did the same.
Peering through the branches, Gabriel could see the back wall of the trafficker’s house. Unlike the front, it was scarcely protected at all. No security lights that he could see, no bars over the window or French doors, no dogs – they’d have come running by now, he thought, sheathing the tactical knife he’d taken from Britta’s rucksack. Best of all, no guards. All the lights were off and although that didn’t necessarily mean the house was empty – they’d seen the guards at the front after all – it suggested that things might be quiet. At least, the possibility of an international people-smuggling gang holding a meeting in the kitchen had receded.
“What do you think?” he said.
“We could plant a bug on the glass,” Britta said. “But it looks nice and quiet. I’m thinking we go in, plant it under a table or shelf then leave this way. How long till sleeping beauty and her servant girl wake up?”
“Ten minutes, maybe a few more. Let’s go in.”
Keeping low and tracking along the hedge on the eastern side of the garden, they made their way up to the back wall of the house. Britta crawled along the wall and reached up to try the handle of the French doors.
“Locked,” she mouthed. Then she retrieved a set of lock-picks from a pocket and went to work. Gabriel steadied his breathing and kept watch while Britta wiggled and twisted the two slim, hooked pieces of metal in the lock. Fifteen seconds later, she twisted the handle. This time it opened.
Inside the kitchen, they straightened and took a few moments to listen at the door on the far side. Facing each other, ears pressed against the softly shining wood, they nodded.
“Come on,” Gabriel said.
Britta pulled the bug from her rucksack. It was a sliver of black plastic no bigger than the top joint of her thumb. She peeled a strip of backing paper from one side and bent to stick the bug under the tabletop.
“That’s it. It activates automatically now it’s been stuck down. Let’s go.”
As they moved towards the French doors and their escape route down the garden, the door to the kitchen opened and two men, the guards from the front of the house, strode into the kitchen, laughing loudly. Seeing two intruders, they froze for a split second, eyes widening, lips pul
ling back in snarls.
It was a poor time for inaction.
While they were processing the information that their boss’s fortress had been breached, Gabriel and Britta were levelling their pistols.
By the time the guards realised what was happening and reached for their own concealed weapons, Gabriel and Britta were shooting.
The four muffled thuds from the muzzles didn’t even make the windows rattle. At that range, the two Special Forces veterans could have dropped their men blindfolded. The double-taps to the head were fast, and thanks to the destructive power of the hollow-point Parabellum rounds, guaranteed kill-shots. They did have one major disadvantage, however.
The walls and ceiling of the kitchen were covered in runs and sprays of blood and brain matter. Bone fragments had flown out from the exit wounds and stuck to the walls or skittered under furniture.
“OK. That was unexpected,” Britta said.
“Which may go down as understatement of the year. What now? The bug just became moot, don’t you think? I doubt your man’s going to be conducting any business here when he sees all this.”
“I need to arrange a cleanup team. But now we’re here, let’s have a poke around.”
Gabriel nodded, thinking about how he could secure Britta’s services even quicker.
They left the kitchen, stepping over the corpses of the guards. At the foot of the stairs, Britta put her finger to her lips and jerked her chin upwards. Music was drifting from a room on the first-floor landing. It sounded Middle Eastern somehow – keening voices, jangling stringed instruments, and hand drums.
Drawing her pistol again, Britta climbed the stairs, keeping her feet wide and only stepping onto the edges of each tread, where the wood was less likely to creak. Gabriel followed, Beretta aimed above Britta’s left shoulder into the space beyond. Once they gained the landing, Britta signalled with a finger for Gabriel to take a position to the right of the door. He stood, back to the wall, pistol in a two-handed grip level with his face, muzzle pointed to the ceiling. Britta closed her left hand on the door knob, then readjusted her grip, one finger at a time, curling them around the faceted glass ball.
