Execution (A Harry Tate Thriller)

by Adrian Magson

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’ Then her face froze and she sat up. Thoughts of the photo had triggered other thoughts . . . and one specific memory.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Christ, I’ve been stupid,’ she whispered. Her face flushed and she turned away. ‘He showed me a photo, but it wasn’t from any CCTV. And I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen it before – or one like it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was a black and white, full facial, blown up to postcard size. It had a number series across the bottom.’ She looked up at Harry. ‘It was my file photo from Six. I recognised the style.’

  Harry sat back. This was worse than he’d thought. How the hell could a team from Moscow get a personnel photo from inside MI6? There was only one way.

  ‘I asked him where the photos had come from,’ Clare continued. ‘But he just looked smug and said he wasn’t going to tell me.’

  ‘What did he say – the exact words?’

  She frowned, struggling to recall. Then it came to her. ‘He said something like, “You think I’m going to tell you who got them for us?” Like it was his own big secret and he was enjoying himself. Then he told me to dream on.’

  ‘Was this in English or Russian?’

  ‘Russian.’

  Harry looked across at Rik, who shook his head in wonderment. They were both analysing the words. ‘You think I’m going to tell you who got them for us.’ The meaning was clear: the Russians didn’t have a direct insider after all. But they had the next best thing: somebody with access to MI6 who could get them information through other means. Quite what level of access that was remained to be seen.

  Harry’s phone rang. It was Ballatyne.

  ‘We caught a lucky break. The BMW from outside the café in Pimlico was spotted heading along the Edgware Road in north London less than an hour after the shooting.’

  ‘So you got them?’

  ‘We got the driver and his mate . . . but they weren’t Russian hit men. Just two local neds who happened to be scoping the underground car park in Park Lane for easy pickings. They saw two men in suits park the car and walk away, leaving the keys in the ignition and the doors open.’

  ‘They wanted it gone.’

  ‘Absolutely. And the thieves obliged. They didn’t get far, though. An armed unit recognised the car’s description and they were in the bag.’

  ‘Did they give a description of the Russians?’

  ‘Yes. One tall and slim, one short and chunky – like a wrestler, they said.’

  It was them, Harry was certain. But why dump the car under Park Lane? If they had wanted to make it disappear for good, they could have dropped it anywhere south of the river and made their way back north by tube. The chances of it being gone for certain before they had reached the next corner would have been dramatically higher there than near Hyde Park. The Park Lane area was awash with cameras, and only chance had brought two witless thieves along at the right time. And now the police had the car and would be scouring it for forensic details. It made the chances of an arrest considerably higher, although he wasn’t ready to lay bets on it just yet.

  ‘They must have a bolt-hole nearby,’ he concluded aloud. ‘They probably panicked and left it on impulse. Are there any addresses on the list of Russian properties in that area?’

  ‘We’re combing through it right now and doing visual checks as we go, to see if we can spot anyone. We’re having to be careful; there’s a chance we could frighten them off if we go in heavy handed.’

  ‘They won’t go far.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘They’ll want Clare even more now. She’s seen their faces, she heard their voices . . . and now they know who she is – or was. And she knows who they are.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She says they’re probably black ops personnel.’

  ‘Chyornyiy,’ said Clare. ‘Tell him. He’ll know what it means.’

  ‘She said they’re chyornyiy.’

  A silence. ‘How does she know that?’ But, Harry noticed, Ballatyne didn’t argue.

  He related what Clare had told them. When he got to their speculation about someone with access to MI6, Ballatyne began muttering darkly in the background.

  ‘Leave it with me,’ the MI6 man said finally. ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  Less than a mile away, in a rented office they would never use again, Gorelkin was also swearing, but for different reasons.

  ‘So what is she – SIS? Security Services? No. You’re mistaken. How can that be possible?’ He slammed a hand on the desk in front of him, making the two men with him jump. Votrukhin and Serkhov had witnessed one of Gorelkin’s occasional bursts of temper, and neither wished to come under its spell again. But right now they had nothing to offer in their defence.

  ‘We don’t know for sure,’ Votrukhin ventured a slight correction. ‘But how else could she know about Troparevskiy?’ He ignored Serkhov’s raised hand. ‘It’s probably no longer a big secret, I know, but she spoke as one who knew what she was talking about.’ He snapped his thumb and forefinger. ‘It came out like that.’

  Gorelkin nodded and stared around blindly at the functional office walls, trying to find some solace in the situation. It didn’t work. He knew what the lieutenant meant, and it wasn’t good news. Those in the business would know about Troparevskiy. They wouldn’t have to think about it – it would come automatically. But would they give themselves away quite so easily? Maybe, if they’d been shot in the gut like the woman. He was about to speak again when the door opened and Paulton was ushered in.

  ‘Mr Paulton,’ Gorelkin murmured, indicating a chair on the other side of the table. It sat squarely between Serkhov and Votrukhin, and he’d planned it that way. He still hadn’t worked out whether Paulton was playing them or not. If he was, he would live to regret it. ‘Now then,’ he said quietly, and leaned forward, not allowing time for the Englishman to settle, ‘would you care to tell us precisely what you know about Clare Jardine?’

  Paulton looked relaxed, but something moved in his face. Gorelkin didn’t miss it.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Paulton replied cautiously. ‘I had only the information I was given—’ He stopped speaking when Serkhov reached out a hand and grasped his shoulder. He winced as pressure was applied, and went pale.

  ‘Let us start again,’ Gorelkin murmured. ‘My colleagues have already wasted enough time chasing shadows. Now we hear that this woman you said came from a care home and was running with Ukrainian gangsters is actually a British Intelligence operative. Would that explain why she also speaks Russian, do you think?’

  Paulton tried to shrug off Serkhov’s hand without result until Gorelkin gave the signal to let him go.

  ‘I stand by what I was told,’ the Englishman insisted. ‘There was obviously an attempt to cover up her real identity while she was undergoing treatment. It’s a public facility and it would be normal for members of MI6 or MI5 to be given cover names.’ He smiled weakly. ‘The press keep a constant eye out for special forces personnel passing through the hospital; the security or intelligence services would rate even higher in news value.’

  Gorelkin thought it through. It sounded reasonable enough. He was aware of how voracious the British media was for exclusives, no matter how far that intruded into national security matters. In Russia there was no such laxity permitted. Any journalist who poked too far into the establishment found himself on a short journey to a maximum security cell until they forgot what they had been searching for.

  But he still didn’t trust Paulton further than he could spit. ‘Very well. I want you to find out now about this woman. Everything you can tell us.’

  ‘Of course.’ Paulton stood up, straightening his jacket where Serkhov’s hand had scrunched up the material. He looked flushed now, as if realising just how close he had come to disaster. ‘I’ll get onto it immediately.’

  ‘How soon?’ Gorelkin asked.

  ‘Give me half
an hour.’

  ‘Make it twenty minutes. Or I make a phone call.’ The threat was uttered without drama. But he meant it.

  Paulton nodded, and Gorelkin and his men watched him go. And waited.

  Paulton returned eighteen minutes later. He sat down and folded his hands together, every inch the repentant, even embarrassed, man.

  ‘You were correct,’ he announced. ‘Clare Jardine is a former MI6 operative.’

  ‘Former?’ Gorelkin picked up on the word.

  ‘Yes. She was fired by them for gross misconduct but continued to work in the security field. She was wounded while working with a former MI5 man named Tate, which is why she was being treated in King’s College.’ He stared around at the three of them. ‘But she has no credit whatsoever with SIS or MI5, and is now off the grid with Tate. She’s what some gamers call RTK.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Serkhov.

  ‘It means,’ Gorelkin murmured, ‘Ready To Kill. You can go and get her.’ He was looking at Paulton while he spoke. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  Paulton nodded. ‘Quite correct.’ He slid a piece of paper across the desk. It held three names and addresses.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The first is Jardine’s last known address, although I doubt she’ll have gone back there. The second is Tate’s, in Islington. The third is another former MI5 man named Ferris. He’s an IT drone who works closely with Tate.’

  Gorelkin flicked the piece of paper towards Votrukhin. ‘Excellent,’ the FSB chief said quietly. ‘Now we are getting somewhere.’ He glanced at his two men. ‘Go. See to it.’

  They stood up. Votrukhin looked worried.

  ‘What are your orders?’ he asked.

  ‘Take them out, of course.’ Gorelkin was looking once more at Paulton. ‘Take them all out. Then we can all go home.’

  THIRTY-SIX

  ‘I think I know where the Jardine woman is.’ Candida Deane shuddered as if the telling was being forced out of her, and watched the leaves above their heads shifting in the early morning breeze across St James’s Park. It was just after seven and they were alone save for a brace of joggers shuffling round the lake and the distant hum of early rush-hour traffic in the background.

  ‘Really? Is that why you called this meeting?’ George Paulton sniffed at the air, one eye on the perimeter roads of Horse Guards and Birdcage Walk. Not that he could do much about it if Deane had summoned a snatch squad to take him in. He was too old for running and wasn’t about to fling himself in the duck-shit filled water in a desperate attempt to kill himself rather than face the ignominy of prison. But he didn’t think she had finished with him – at least, not yet. She had too much invested in using him for her own ends, as no doubt calling this meeting would prove.

  ‘Isn’t that enough to start with?’

  ‘So why don’t you pick her up? I thought you wanted the kudos.’

  ‘No,’ she corrected him patiently. ‘As I understood it, you saw it as part of a package to sell me in exchange for my help to rehabilitate you.’ She eyed him from behind her large glasses, her cool stare unblinking and steady. It reminded him that this woman was ambitious, experienced and nobody’s fool. The thought made him uncomfortable.

  ‘So it’s a benefit trade-off, is it?’

  ‘If you want to call it that.’

  ‘But what could I do with her? Jardine has no value to me. She’s just a washed-up MI6 killer with a dubious history.’

  Her face showed interest. ‘That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask. Bellingham sent her to Red Station, didn’t he? Some misdeed or other.’

  ‘To join other miscreants, yes.’ Paulton knew what was coming; he’d been waiting for it. It showed he was back in the bargaining business on the upper side.

  ‘Why? What did she do that was so bad? It must have been serious, for him to see it as an alternative to dismissal . . . or prison.’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’

  ‘No.’ Her face clamped shut with a spark of irritation. ‘Those files are sealed and I can’t gain access at my level.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Let’s place that one on the table as well, shall we? A little amuse bouche – a taster for the main event. You get me what I want, and I’ll tell you everything I know about Clare Jardine’s plunge from grace.’ He smiled, pleased at the imagery.

  ‘Will it be worth hearing?’

  ‘Oh, I think so. Believe me, once you hear, you’ll want her far more than I ever could.’

  Deane made a sharp noise. ‘Come off it, Paulton. You and I both know I’m not the only one. What about your friends.’ She lowered her voice as a couple of student types in baggy shorts and beanie hats sloped by. ‘They want her and they’re expecting you to deliver. Tell me I’m wrong, droog.’

  Paulton felt a cold shiver down his back. He didn’t need to ask who she meant by ‘they’.

  She had used the Russian word for friend.

  He revised his opinion of her. Bellingham had been more astute at spotting her potential than he’d given him credit for. This woman really was dangerous.

  ‘Sorry. You’ve lost me.’

  ‘Bollocks. You know who I mean. Must be nice in Kensington Palace Gardens at this time of year.’

  The location of the Russian Embassy in west London.

  It was like a door slamming in his face. If she genuinely suspected him of working for the Russians, there was no way that she would ever sanction his return to the UK. The best he would get was a fast ticket to a maximum security cell; the worst was a bullet behind the ear.

  Unless.

  ‘They’re not my friends, I promise you,’ he said calmly. ‘In fact, they’d see me dead in a moment if they saw any immediate benefit to it.’ He paused as an elderly man shuffled slowly past, wheezing heavily. Dressed bizarrely in tight jogging bottoms, huge trainers and a long vest, he wore a set of huge, battered headphones and a Manchester United scarf, and looked close to expiring.

  ‘Christ,’ Paulton muttered, watching him, ‘the things you see when you haven’t got a gun.’ He waited for the ancient to move away before changing the conversation. ‘What would you give to see Jardine go down, Candida? She killed your boss, didn’t she? Your mentor, Sir Anthony Bellingham.’

  Deane’s eyes flickered, betraying her feelings, and she said, ‘I could pick her up today if I wanted to. Right now, in fact. What can you offer?’

  ‘Actually, that’s not quite true, is it? You have nothing to hold her on.’ He allowed another jogger to go by, then added, ‘Given a public hearing, Jardine would make sure Bellingham’s past misdeeds with Red Station came out. Mine, too, I grant you, but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take.’

  ‘How noble of you.’

  ‘But your present masters wouldn’t allow it. Too much stink attached. It’s one dirty little secret they would rather forget about. On the other hand, the longer she’s out there, the more she gets under your skin.’ He saw that strike home, and felt calm again. Deane wanted Jardine, all right; like a drunk wants another drink. But prison wasn’t enough. She wanted her dead. And if he read her correctly, she was expecting him to arrange it. ‘Very well. I’ll see what I can do. But there’s got to be a quid pro quo.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten.’

  ‘Good. So where is she?’

  ‘A man named Tate has her hidden away. He’s former MI5.’

  ‘I know who Tate is. I should do – he used to work for me.’ He took a deep breath. Somehow he’d known it might come down to this. But how had Deane found out? ‘You know this for a fact?’

  ‘I was introduced to him yesterday. Ballatyne was parading him at a meeting like a pet ridgeback.’

  ‘Ballatyne? Do I know him?’ He’d been out of the loop too long. People had moved on or moved up, the civil service version of musical chairs. The game had changed.

  ‘He worked with a man named Marshall in Operations. Marshall died and Ballatyne moved into his chair.’ Her to
ne of voice betrayed her innermost thoughts on that one. ‘Ballatyne’s clever, though. And committed. I’m having to watch my back with him.’

  ‘It comes with the trade.’ His voice was bored. ‘You were talking about Tate.’

  ‘Apparently he helped Jardine escape from the two gunmen who shot the hell out of Pimlico and wounded a policeman.’ She leaned forward. ‘Find Tate and you’ll find Jardine.’

  ‘And when I do?’

  ‘Don’t be coy, George. You know what I mean. I know you’ve arranged things like it before.’ The use of his first name gave no hint of intimacy; the subject under discussion was too chilling for that. ‘Whatever you do to her, it had better be permanent. Remember, I want all of them: Jardine, the Russian gunmen and their boss . . . and the name of the insider.’

  ‘Insider? I don’t follow.’

  ‘Oh, I think you do. You see, I’ve just been informed that somebody has been ferreting through our files, plucking out details. Now, I have no proof, of course, but I’m willing to bet your testicles that he or she is working for you.’

  Paulton said nothing. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Maine wasn’t a field man, and not clever enough to have avoided leaving any traces of his searches. It was a pity, but he was going to have to ruin Maine’s collecting habit for good. He’d have to let him fall, a casualty of battle. Just as long as he did it without dropping himself in a cold, lonely cell.

  ‘We haven’t found out who the ferret is yet,’ Deane continued. ‘But we will. You could save me some time, though. Give me everything you know and we’ll talk rehabilitation. But don’t take too long. We’re getting close.’

  She produced a small square of white card. It held a line of neat handwriting. ‘Tate’s address. I ran a check on him, just in case you’d forgotten how.’

  He took the card, although he didn’t need it. Let her think she was one up on him.

  As she turned and walked away, he was left wishing he’d got a sniper stationed on a nearby rooftop. If he had, he’d have given the signal to pull the trigger and put the bitch out of his misery.