Red Station

by Adrian Magson

  He squatted in the doorway in case Stanbridge had somehow worked a miracle while he was out of sight, and waited. Stanbridge threw him a malevolent look. He had stopped working the bonds so maybe he’d realized he wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘OK,’ said Harry. He sipped his coffee, wincing as it touched a cut on the inside of his lip. ‘Let’s pretend you’re not who we both know you are. We’ll forget Kosovo, the UN mission, the crappy weather, the burial sites, the ethnic cleansing – all that. Let’s just agree that I know who you are, and you know me. Right?’

  Stanbridge cleared his throat and spat a bloody gobbet on the floor.

  ‘Tough guy.’ Another noisy sip. ‘So what’s your brief? You here to watch us – you and your mates? They call you the Clones, did you know that?’

  ‘We know what they call us.’ Stanbridge’s voice was intense, pitched low.

  ‘Really? How’s that?’ He didn’t really need to ask, but it suited him to keep his prisoner talking. The Clones – if Stanbridge really was one of them – could have only discovered their nickname in one of two ways.

  The first was by electronic eavesdropping.

  The second was by talking to someone on the inside.

  Stanbridge remained silent.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Harry continued. ‘Are you watching . . . or guarding? The former, I bet. There’s no point in us having guardian angels because they’re only assigned to diplomats and politicians . . . people of value. Last time I looked, I wasn’t on anyone’s preferred employees list.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. And I’m the ghost of Mahatma Gandhi.’ He shifted his position. The cold from the tiles was making him stiff. ‘It’s a shitty assignment, this, whatever the purpose. I’m guessing you know who I am, right?’

  No answer.

  ‘If so, we’ve got the same employer. Unless you’ve gone over to the other side.’ Stanbridge said nothing, but the way his eyes jumped told Harry that that wasn’t the case. ‘Well, good for you.’

  He finished his coffee and dribbled the dregs on to the tiled floor. The smell lifted in the cold air, heavy and tantalizing. It would remain under Stanbridge’s nose for a long time, an irritating reminder of the creature comforts he was missing.

  ‘Problem is, what do I do about you? If I let you go, you’ll come back. Probably with your mates.’

  He stood up. He was wasting his time. Short of outright torture, he couldn’t force the man to talk. And he wasn’t about to get the contents of the cutlery drawer in here just to wind the man up. If you intend to bluff someone, you have to at least have the intention of carrying that bluff to reasonable lengths.

  As he turned away, his mobile buzzed.

  ‘Tate?’ It was Clare Jardine. ‘Have you got company?’ Maybe she was calling to ask him round; vodka and olives between colleagues. Somehow he doubted it.

  ‘I have, actually. Why?’

  ‘Three of the Clones are parked in the street outside my place. I wondered if the fourth was on your place.’

  ‘What are they doing?’ Harry let out his breath slowly. They were sticking close. Was it a precursor to something else? If so, what?

  ‘No. Just sitting there.’

  Harry felt the pull of tension in his gut. They might be waiting to hear from Stanbridge. It wasn’t a good sign.

  Jardine said, ‘If they’re security police, they might be planning to pick us up – starting with me.’

  Harry debated telling her about Stanbridge. If she was the Clones’ inside source of information, she would already know if they were planning something. But if so, why would she be ringing him?

  ‘They’re not secret police,’ he told her at last.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘They’re British.’

  ‘That’s absurd!’ She was scornful, snappy. ‘Are we talking about the same men?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got their number four in my bathroom. His name’s Stanbridge, he’s former British army and he comes from somewhere near Coventry.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Silence. Bloody miracles do happen, thought Harry. ‘You there?’

  ‘I don’t get it. Why would a Brit be watching us?’

  ‘My guess?’ Stanbridge was pretending not to listen, and Harry took a leap in the dark. ‘London thinks we’re a security risk. This is their way of making sure we don’t jump the reservation. Unfortunately, the only way number four is going to tell me exactly what they’re doing is when I start cutting off his fingers.’

  ‘What?’ Jardine’s voice went off the scale, and Stanbridge’s face went pale.

  ‘Sure, why not? At least we’ll find out what’s going on. I’ll tell you how it went in the morning—’

  ‘Wait . . . wait!’ Clare interrupted quickly. ‘Don’t. There’s something else I didn’t mention. The men outside . . . they’re armed.’

  That brought him up short. Stanbridge wasn’t armed – he’d have found the weapon otherwise. So why were the others? Did they have another purpose other than watching?

  Maybe it was time to discourage them. And to see how serious they were.

  ‘Stay away from the windows,’ he told her, ‘and keep your door locked. Don’t answer if anyone knocks.’

  ‘Why, what are you going to do?’

  ‘I want to take a look at the three on your place. What’s your address?’ He reckoned it would take ten to fifteen minutes to reach her place on foot. More if he had to avoid any armed patrols.

  She gave him directions to an apartment block not far away. ‘Don’t come to my door, though. My neighbours are jumpy already. They’ve had trouble with drunken militia and call the police at the slightest noise.’

  ‘OK. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘But what if you’re wrong? What if—?’

  He cut her off in midstream and took out Stanbridge’s mobile. Then he left the flat and went downstairs.

  Like the back passage, the stairs to the basement were covered with accumulated junk. He switched on the light and looked around. Most of it was a jumble of damaged furniture and discarded boxes, all beyond salvage and covered in mouse droppings. An ancient moped stood against one wall, the rubber grips perished with age. He shook it and heard liquid sloshing about in the pear-drop tank.

  It was a start.

  He searched through a pile of cardboard cartons and found a bathroom cabinet with broken mirrors. One side contained an empty toothpaste tin, several rusty razor blades, some dried soap and a half-empty tube of shower gel. Whoever had owned this was unlikely to be coming back for it. The other side held two shower caps and a box of foil-wrapped condoms. He opened one of the packs. The rubber looked in good condition; not that he’d chance using one of them as the makers intended, but for his purposes, they would do fine.

  He emptied the petrol out of the moped’s tank into a discarded wine bottle, then squirted the shower gel in after it and gently shook the contents for a few seconds before stuffing the neck of the bottle with a piece of rag. He placed the condoms and bottle in his pocket. If he got stopped carrying this lot, he might try claiming he was going round to warm up a girlfriend’s flat and fuel her car, but he doubted anyone would believe him.

  He turned off the light and left the building by the back door.

  The walk to Jardine’s flat took twelve minutes, using narrow alleys and back streets. He relied on his inner navigator to stay on the correct heading in the direction Rik had given him. Street lights were intermittent and weak, but provided enough ambient light for him to negotiate the route without incident. He saw neither military nor police patrols, but didn’t argue with his luck. The further they stayed away, the better he liked it.

  When he arrived at the end of Clare’s street, he peered round the corner. A plain saloon was parked fifty yards away, facing the other way. The windows were misted over, but he could just make out a vague shape shifting on the passenger side.

  He retreated a
nd circled the block. He found an alleyway similar to the one behind his own flat, and counted doorways until he reached the building next to Clare’s. The back door opened with a faint creak, and he made his way up the stairs to the roof. The muffled sound of voices and music came from behind the doors as he passed, but he encountered nobody.

  At the top a small door opened on to a flat area littered with flowerpots and tubs. Doves or pigeons in a succession of wire cages cooed gently as he passed, and a web of clotheslines and aerial wires brushed his head. He ducked beneath them and padded quietly to the front of the building.

  He peered over the parapet. The car with the Clones inside was directly beneath him. The windows were up, but the angle prevented him seeing any detail of the men inside. Taking out the condoms, he opened three of them, unrolling the rubber to the fullest extent. Removing the rag stopper from the bottle, he fitted a condom over the neck of the bottle and tilted it, filling the sheath with the mix of petrol and gel. Then he knotted the condom and placed it carefully on the floor before repeating the exercise.

  When he had his three devices ready, he looked over the edge of the roof and took out Stanbridge’s mobile phone.

  He pressed the re-dial button.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The atmosphere inside the car was foetid. Two of the men were snoring gently, the third was keeping watch and trying not to join his colleagues.

  Nick Brockley was bored with this assignment. He’d been here too long and wanted to get out. Either home or Iraq. At least Basra offered some excitement. But they had been told to remain in their position until morning.

  They called this gig a training exercise, but there was little variation and the training aspect offered nothing in the way of a challenge. Surveillance was an art learned best on hot targets, not these unsuspecting misfits. Brockley and his colleagues knew perfectly well what the people in Red Station were here for, and it wasn’t for being top of their class.

  The briefing files on each person had been cursory and lacked specific detail other than the basics needed to help the watchers identify their targets. But they’d heard enough from the previous team to know that they had each screwed up in some way. They had been consigned to this dump until they got recalled or jumped ship. It was the jumping ship – and every other movement they made – which had to be recorded by the team of watchers, and noted for later evaluation.

  So far, other than a couple of authorized trips out of town and the daily journeys to work and back, there had been nothing to get excited about.

  He shifted his weight to ease an ache in his back, a hand-me-down from too many days and nights on watch, and peered upwards. He wondered what the Jardine woman was doing. Having a bath, most likely, or lounging around in her jammies, all soft and smelling of soap. He shifted in his seat, the image burning in his brain. He wouldn’t mind seeing some of that; she was quite fit . . . for a spook. Small rack under that jacket, but a nice arse to compensate. The others reckoned she was butch but he could overlook that. She was still better than most of the women he knew back home in Brighton.

  His phone buzzed, making him jump.

  He checked the screen. Stanbridge. He’d said he wanted to check out Tate, the latest addition to the bunch of Security Service losers, and Brockley had agreed. There was bugger all else to do, so why not, if it kept him quiet. He’d told him to stay off the phone until they met in the morning. So what was he playing at?

  ‘What?’ He nudged Tucker with his other elbow. Time to wake them up, anyway. Maybe send them off for a brisk stroll round the block.

  ‘This is your first warning.’

  It was a voice Brockley didn’t recognize. The hairs stirred on the back of his neck.

  ‘Stan? What the fuck are you playing at?’

  There was no answer. Instead, he heard a soft thump on the roof of the car. He looked up through the windscreen. A pigeon, maybe? The place was full of the bloody things. Flying vermin.

  A trickle of clear liquid ran down the side window.

  ‘Stan? You daft git—’

  ‘This is your second warning.’ Another soft thump, this one above the rear window.

  ‘What’s going on?’ It was Rickard stirring in the back, his voice thick with sleep.

  ‘How the fuck should I know? Stan playing silly bastards, probably.’

  ‘What’s that stink?’ Tucker was watching a spray of liquid dribbling down the windscreen. It shimmered under the street light, colours showing like a rainbow waterfall.

  ‘The next one comes with something extra,’ said the voice in Brockley’s ear, and for the first time he realized that the speaker was British.

  ‘Who the fuck is this?’ he demanded. He twisted in his seat and signalled frantically to the other two to eyeball all sides. For the first time on this poxy posting, he was wishing he had a gun. He’d soon see who was going to get something extra. ‘Who are you – and where’s Stan?’

  Then it struck him. There was only one person it could be: the latest addition to the group. Tate. Harry Tate. Ex-army officer, according to the brief, transferred to MI5. But a screw-up, like the rest.

  Something made him look up. He caught a glimpse of something pale at the edge of the roof, and an object sailed down through the air with a long, flickering tail.

  Fire.

  ‘Christ, get us out of here!’ he yelled.

  ‘What?’ Tucker hadn’t fully woken up yet. He sniffed and looked about him. ‘Hey – I smell petrol.’

  ‘Drive, you prick!’ Brockley screamed. ‘Before the bastard cooks us!’

  Then the flash he’d seen was right upon them. There was a whoosh above their heads and the rivulets running down the windows flared into tongues of fire, the flickering light eating away at the shadows against the buildings on either side and singeing the rubber seals on the windows.

  Tucker swore and turned the ignition, stamping on the accelerator. Seconds later, they hit the end of the street in a four-wheel drift, droplets of burning liquid falling from the car and laying a golden trail behind them.

  Up on the roof, Harry watched them go. They’d probably be back, but at least he’d given them something to think about. He left the remnants of his fire-bombs where they were and made his way down off the roof. He debated calling on Clare Jardine but thought better of it. If she followed his advice, she wouldn’t answer anyway.

  And he had a few more questions for Stanbridge.

  He felt a buzzing at his hip. The Ericsson. He stepped into a doorway and checked the screen.

  Maloney. The message was brief.

  Both files clsed. why?

  Harry stared at the screen, felt a cold wind on his neck.

  Even if Brasher and Gulliver had both left the service, their personnel files would have been left open pending lengthy debriefs, to make sure they weren’t going elsewhere with any information they might have stored up. Nobody got out of the game that easily.

  He texted back.

  Why clsd?

  Closed files could only mean one thing. He hoped he was wrong.

  He continued walking, and the answer came before he had gone a hundred yards. Maloney must have been taking texting lessons.

  The text was clear and unequivocal.

  Both dead. 5 – o’dose. 6 – climbng axdnt alps.

  FORTY

  Harry felt the air go out of him in a rush. After what seemed an age, he tore his eyes away from the screen and forced himself to continue walking. He was getting careless; every second he stayed out here increased the risk of discovery.

  He tried to reason through the significance of Maloney’s message. There was no mistaking the words; dead was dead. An overdose and a climbing accident. Maybe Brasher had been depressed following his shock posting and the humiliation of going back. It might have been enough to break anyone of a cerebral nature, especially an analyst. But Gulliver? He recalled what Clare had told him about the MI6 high-flyer. Thirty-two was a young age for an exalted position in the Serv
ice . . . but an even younger one to die.

  Two returns, both dead. What were the odds? But it answered another question that had been niggling at his subconscious: how was it he’d never heard of Red Station before? Secrecy may have been their game, but security services staff were notorious gossips when it came to internal rumours. And any staff member returning from a punishment posting in the back of beyond would have had colleagues buzzing around them like flies on an old steak, eager to hear every salacious titbit. News would have leaked out. It always did.

  Unless the returnees were in no position to talk.

  Stanbridge was exactly where Harry had left him, half prone and hanging off the sink support. In spite of the obvious discomfort, he was asleep, his eyes closed, breathing heavy and ragged.

  Harry kicked him in the leg.

  ‘Wake up, sunshine. Why are your mates tooled up and staking out Clare Jardine’s place?’

  Stanbridge came awake angry and resentful. He scrambled to sit up. His wrists were swollen and purplish in colour, and the skin had been scraped off in his struggles to get free.

  ‘Armed? That’s bollocks. When are you going to let me go?’

  ‘When you answer some questions. Do you know Clare Jardine?’ When the man nodded, Harry continued, ‘Your mates were sitting outside her flat. They were armed.’

  ‘Can’t be.’ Stanbridge looked confused, his eyes wide and red-rimmed.

  ‘Really? Why is that?’

  ‘Because we’re not authorised, that’s why. Jesus – we’d get shot if we were caught with guns in this place. We’ve got strict orders not to break cover . . . Who said they were armed?’

  Now Harry was confused. The response sounded genuine, and he was certain Stanbridge was too dazed to concoct any lies. Or maybe he wasn’t as dopey as he was pretending.

  He squatted down next to him. Time to exert some pressure.

  ‘Listen, son. I’m pretty pissed off at the moment. I was posted out here on a whim, I’m not allowed to leave and if our information is correct, there’s a shit-storm heading this way in the shape of the Russian army. Now, I’d like to get out in one piece and go home. But with you lot sitting on our tails twenty-four hours a day, I doubt that’s on the agenda. Am I right?’