Tracers

by Adrian Magson

  He’d spotted her.

  ‘Gun!’ Harry roared as he saw the outline of a weapon in the man’s hands.

  But Joanne had seen it, too. With no change of expression, she skipped sideways and ran out into the road. Caught out by the speed of her reaction, the man inside the car couldn’t spin round on his seat fast enough.

  Joanne’s move had brought her level with the offside rear wing of the man’s car. In a single movement she swivelled her body, brought the gun up two-handed and fired twice through the side window. The noise of the two shots rolled into one and was almost lost against the residue of the engine noise of Harry’s car and the squealing of his tyres, followed by the tinkling of glass falling to the road.

  Then Joanne ran round to the front of the Saab and dived into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Go!’ she yelled, and threw her rucksack in the back.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  ‘They’ve split up.’ Dog reported succinctly. He was carefully picking broken window fragments out of his hair and trying to ignore a painful ringing in his right ear. Luckily, he could hear well enough with his left to make the call. While he waited for a response, he clambered into the front seat and started the engine. It caught with a cough and settled into a smooth hum.

  Further along the street somebody was shouting. He ignored them. He felt humiliated but relieved to be alive. Christ, nearly being bested by a woman! He pounded the steering wheel. She was good, though, and should have been; she’d been trained by the best. It was the shout from Tate that had unnerved him. Then that move she’d pulled before opening fire was a beauty. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was why she’d aimed to miss. At that distance, she should have splattered his brains all over the interior of the car. Given the same circumstances, he’d have aimed to kill.

  ‘All three?’ The drawl on the end of the line was heavy with criticism because Dog had managed to lose both Tate and Ferris. And now Archer. After the screw-up at South Acres, he could have done without it.

  ‘I could hardly follow them all,’ he replied tersely. ‘I decided to stick with Tate and the girl.’ He hesitated then added, ‘She blew my window out in the middle of the street with a semi-automatic. You never said she was a fucking lunatic.’ It was rare for Dog to swear, especially in the presence of an employer, but he felt it more than suited the occasion.

  ‘I didn’t think I had to. You know her background. Where are they now?’

  ‘Gone. Do you want me to come in?’

  ‘No. Stay in the open. The office is closed until further notice.’

  ‘Closed?’ Dog didn’t like the sound of that. So far this assignment had not been going spectacularly well, and he had a bad feeling about this latest development. In his experience, poor planning was as much to blame as bad execution. Perhaps Jennings had overreached himself. Maybe it was time he considered getting out while he still could. Except that it went against the grain to have a failure on his record. He couldn’t have that, not after all this time. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. A minor operational glitch, that’s all. I’ll call you with a new location when I’m sure it’s safe. In the meantime, I suggest you keep looking. This matter has now gone critical.’

  The phone clicked and Dog threw his mobile down on the passenger seat. Critical. So critical he was out in the open and would have to stay on the move to avoid being compromised. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time; some things you just got used to in this business.

  As he turned a corner into a quiet square, thinking about where he could find a safe base, he smelled burning plastic. It grew steadily stronger until, seconds later, the engine coughed and juddered, then died.

  It was only then that he noticed the two bullet holes in the dashboard.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Joanne turned and watched the road behind them, but there was no sign of the other car. ‘That should slow him down a bit.’ She ejected the magazine from the semi-automatic and checked the action, then reloaded and slipped it back in her jacket. ‘By the way, I remember the name of the village where Humphries lived. It’s Green’s Morton.’

  Harry hardly dared look at her, too busy wrestling with the wheel and trying to negotiate a series of narrow back streets to shake off any chance of pursuit. It was as if nothing had happened; as if she hadn’t just fired two shots into a man in a north London street, blowing out a car window in the process and probably scaring half the residents into calling the anti-terrorist squad.

  ‘Are you nuts?’ he shouted. ‘You might have murdered an undercover cop!’

  But her response surprised him. ‘Do me a favour. If I’d wanted him dead, he’d be dead. I didn’t even aim at him. The worst I did was probably make him piss himself.’ She grinned like a happy kid on a Sunday outing. ‘Serves him right – he shouldn’t be following us.’

  It stopped Harry’s protests in their tracks. He realized she must have been aiming forward of the rear seats. She’d gone for shock tactics rather than something more fatal to put the man off watching them. ‘You could have told me,’ he said after they covered a mile or so. ‘When I first came back out I thought you’d . . .’

  Joanne laughed. ‘What – legged it? Jesus, why would I? You guys are the only protection I’ve got.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘I trained hard for my job, but it doesn’t make me a psychopath. I know when to draw the line.’ She paused and looked out of the window. ‘If you hadn’t warned me and I’d stepped up to the other window . . .’ She shrugged fatalistically. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You did well to spot him.’ Harry felt guilty for assuming the worst and jumping on her with both boots. She had exercised enormous restraint in a dangerous situation, which was more than most people would have done.

  ‘I was lucky. One of his rear side windows got slightly fogged up. It was the kind of thing they taught us on the course.’ Another mile went by before she said, ‘He was no cop, though. A cop wouldn’t have seen me coming.’

  Harry agreed. He wondered if the man was connected with Jennings. He jerked his head to the back of the car. ‘There’s a map behind the seat. You find the village and I’ll get us there.’

  Joanne dug out the map and located the village, but still seemed doubtful. ‘How do we locate a woman whose surname we don’t know? She might have been married and divorced.’

  ‘She’s a teacher named Sheila,’ he reminded her. ‘How many primary schools can a village have? As to the rest, finding people is what I do best. Care for a bet on it?’

  She curled her lip and turned back to studying the map. Her expression seemed lighter than he’d seen it so far, and he wondered if it was the result of an adrenaline rush. Danger and excitement did that to some people. ‘Head east,’ she added. ‘I’ll let you know when to turn off.’

  A little while later, she said quietly, ‘I’m very grateful, you know. You really didn’t have to do this.’

  ‘Actually, I think we did,’ he replied easily, then concentrated on getting round a gaggle of slow cars hogging the centre of the road.

  She said nothing for a few minutes, but threw him a glance now and then. ‘Are you married?’

  ‘No. Was once.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. We ended up going different ways. You?’

  The question seemed to catch her off guard. She hesitated before replying. ‘No. A near miss, once. He was an officer. It got smothered at birth.’

  ‘Tough.’ Harry sympathized, aware of how the intermingling of ranks was still frowned upon in the armed forces.

  ‘Well, at least you didn’t look surprised.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Some men think any girl who joins up is a budding dyke.’

  ‘Is that what your colleagues on the course thought?’

  ‘No. Well, maybe a couple – the ones who couldn’t believe a woman had any place doing that kind of work. But they never said so.’ She went quiet for a while, the
n said, ‘You two are a good team. Rik thinks a lot of you.’

  Harry gave a non-committal grunt. ‘He should. I taught him all he knows.’

  They laughed together, and Joanne instinctively reached out to touch his arm, before drawing her hand back and studying the map.

  THIRTY-SIX

  H e’d got company.

  Rik was over an hour out of Blakeney, along a stretch of dual carriageway near Newmarket, when he realized he was being followed. One minute his rear-view mirror showed a deserted road, the next a plain blue Volvo had ghosted up out of nowhere and was sitting two hundred yards behind him, matching his speed.

  He increased his pace. The other car picked up and stayed with him. When he slowed down, the Volvo did the same. He waited for a straight, clear stretch and eased up to ninety, slipping by two slower vehicles with ease. After an initial hesitation, the Volvo kept pace and slotted in behind him again.

  After two more miles of convoy driving, the other driver accelerated and rushed by with a surge of power. There were two men inside, and the passenger gave Rik a long look on the way past. Then they were gone.

  It wasn’t exactly subtle and stirred the hairs on Rik’s neck. He thought about the woman outside Stokes Cottage. Also not too subtle, and no more a dog walker than he was. He doubted if she was local, either. He was willing to lay good odds she’d called out the troops as soon as he left. It must have taken them until now to locate his position.

  So who the hell were they?

  He checked the map. Another few miles and he’d be on the M11 heading south. The fact that the men in the car hadn’t stopped him didn’t mean they weren’t planning something. Once on the motorway, he’d be an easy mark with no simple way off and no place to hide. All they had to do was sit on a bridge and wait for him to go by, then tuck in behind him or radio ahead to another car and throw a boxing manoeuvre around him.

  He saw a sign coming up. A moment’s hesitation, then he swung the wheel and took the turning at the last second, squeezing between a milk truck and a caravan, the suddenness of the move drawing a long blare of protest from the truck’s horn.

  He slowed and checked the map. He was now heading west towards Royston. It might take longer to get to London, but if the men in the Volvo didn’t know where he was, they couldn’t stop him.

  He settled in his seat and concentrated on watching for speed cameras and weaving past slower traffic, skilfully changing down to power through bends slick with spilled mud off the fields. He grinned to himself and flicked on the radio, enjoying the tiny burst of rebellion and the feel of the road skimming by. If they were really serious, they’d find him in the end . . . but in the process he’d give them a run for their money.

  After several miles he pulled into a gateway and allowed some trailing vehicles to pass him. Local traffic, none of it fast. He took the opportunity to call Harry and let him know that the cottage was clean.

  ‘It’s as if Matuq was never there. And I collected a couple of new friends on the way.’ He explained about the woman and the Volvo.

  ‘Sounds official,’ said Harry.

  ‘Yeah – it looked it, too.’ They had both spent enough time around these kind of cat-and-mouse situations to recognize when they were on the receiving end, although Rik hadn’t got Harry’s level of active experience. ‘What do we do about it?’

  ‘We stay loose,’ Harry replied pragmatically. ‘Until they show their hand and we know who they are, there’s not much we can do about it.’ He hesitated. ‘We had our own share of excitement down here, too: Joanne shot a car.’

  ‘Nice of her. Was anyone in it?’

  ‘One man. Could be the same watcher who was on our case all along. Where are you now?’

  ‘Heading for Battersea. Do you still want me to check it out?’

  ‘Yes. If that’s clean, too, there’s a pattern. But take it easy and don’t get caught.’ Harry cut the connection.

  Rik got out of the car and cocked his ear, listening. He was surrounded by fields and the air was deathly quiet save for a couple of skylarks. No droning engines. If his followers had a helicopter at their disposal, it was operating at distance.

  He got back in and took off again.

  The flat in Battersea looked deserted on his first drive-by. After the second look, and with no signs of anything suspicious, Rik slipped his car into a space by a newsagent along the main street and sat for a while watching the flow of people and traffic.

  When he was satisfied everything looked right, he got out and strolled along the pavement, checking out the other cars along the kerb. He had an eye out for the signs Harry had told him about: the misted windows, the driver sitting too still, the collection of takeaway wrappers or water bottles in the foot-well. There were no watchers that he could see, but that meant nothing; anyone worth his salt would look like an ordinary shopper, not an armed response unit member with a Heckler & Koch across his chest.

  He turned the corner and glanced up at the open stairway to Joanne’s flat. The door looked shut tight. If the lock had been mended, someone must have been inside. So why was there no crime scene tape anywhere?

  His chest was hammering. This was the most difficult part: preparing to go through a door and knowing that somebody might be waiting for you on the other side. He almost felt his nerve go, but steeled himself. He had to see if a clean-up job had been carried out, like in Blakeney. If he freaked out now, he’d never forgive himself. And nor would Harry. He might say it was OK, but that would be it for them.

  He stepped on to the metal stairway. Walked up two at a time, trying not to rattle the structure and signal his approach. A bit like hacking into someone’s computer system, he thought vaguely. He still couldn’t tell if the door was fixed. He reached out and put his fingers against it.

  It swung open.

  ‘Hello?’

  If only he’d got a weapon. He was pretty sure Harry had got one tucked away somewhere. He’d meant to ask him about it, but Harry had always vetoed the idea of them outside of the range or a known ‘hot’ zone. If he’d got one, why hadn’t he said something?

  His call echoed back. The place was empty. He glanced over his shoulder to check the street. A few empty cars at the kerb, two elderly ladies struggling to get a shopping trolley up on to the path. No single pedestrians lurking with little apparent purpose, no unusual flashes of light to indicate binoculars, no sudden movement of bodies getting ready to rush up the stairs and pound him into a pulp.

  He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  ‘I’m sorry – I don’t see how I can help you.’ Sheila Humphries was every inch the teacher, her hands clasped across her front as if waiting for some unruly child to pay attention. ‘I think you may have confused me with somebody else.’

  They had arrived barely ten minutes ago after an agonizingly slow drive in stop–start traffic, to discover that the village lay at the end of a narrow road a few miles from the coast near Mersea Island, south of Colchester. It boasted a single primary school – St Matilda’s – located on the eastern fringes close to a new housing development. A modern red brick and glass structure, it had a large, open playground between the building and the road, and nowhere for Harry and Joanne to park and survey the place without attracting the immediate attention of vigilant staff or parents. In addition, a caretaker tidying up some play equipment to one side was watching them.

  Harry had opted for the direct approach. They didn’t have time to waste hoping Joanne might spot a middle-aged woman resembling Gordon Humphries. And there was no way of telling for certain whether they had been followed or not.

  ‘Come on,’ he’d said, climbing out of the car. ‘When in doubt, ask a janitor.’

  ‘Don’t you mean a policeman?’

  Harry smiled. ‘You’ve been overseas too long. Policemen are almost extinct in this country . . . except when you don’t want them.’ He looked pointedly at her rucksack. ‘If he tells us to bugger off, try not
to shoot him.’

  ‘Sheila?’ The man eyed them both with caution and squinted against the sun when they approached him. ‘She’s inside. You’re not inspectors giving her a hard time, are you? Only she’s not been so good since her brother died.’ He shook his head and nudged a marker cone into place alongside some coloured plastic equipment boxes. ‘Bloody shame.’

  ‘It’s her brother we’re here about,’ said Joanne. ‘Gordon was a nice man.’

  ‘You knew him, did you?’

  ‘I worked closely with him.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You don’t look like you work in oil exploration. Sorry, I’m not supposed to say that, am I? It’s all equality now. I suppose there’ll be paperwork and stuff to sort out, won’t there? Ruled by the bloody stuff, we are. I’ll tell her you’re here.’ He marched away and disappeared through a side door, returning moments later. ‘In through the door,’ he told them, ‘and she’ll see you in the common room third on the left. She’s got a free period.’

  They entered the building to find a middle-aged woman with greying hair and a melancholy look waiting for them in a plain, tiled corridor lined with pupils’ work. Seabirds seemed to be the main subject.

  Harry glanced at Joanne, who nodded to confirm that the woman looked like Gordon Humphries, and advanced to shake her hand. The woman gestured to an open door and followed them through. They found themselves in a staff room decorated with pinboards covered in graphs, schedules and notices, and furnished with soft chairs and coffee tables. The overall effect was of clutter and cheerful disarray.

  ‘I know this is painful,’ Joanne started, ‘but we’re here to talk about your brother, Gordon. We need your help.’

  Sheila Humphries lifted her chin, the pain evident in her face. ‘What about him? Are you from the company?’

  ‘The government, you mean?’ Joanne said gently. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Government? I don’t follow.’