The Night Watch

by Julian Dinsell

  “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

  “Perhaps I don’t either.” He was now back in control. “Let’s make coffee and see what there is to eat, then there is something I need to show you.”

  The coffee was hot, black and bitter. They drank it with some dry toast made from stale bread, and caviar they found in the fridge. Darcy gathered more fuel for the fire and raked the embers into life.

  “As soon as you are well, I am going to get you and Jakob to London. I promise you.”

  “How do I know you’re not lying to me?” she said.

  “Because I’m a professional liar and you’re the first person who has ever made me want to tell the truth.”

  “That is beautiful,” she said.

  “You are beautiful.”

  “Why do you say such things?”

  “Because they are true.”

  “Or because you’re a professional liar?”

  “You have my promise. I will get you both to London.”

  Anya stared at him as if trying to divine the truth.

  Darcy continued. “But first there are a number of things I have to do.”

  Her mind only seemed capable of one question at a time. “What is it that you need to show me?” she asked.

  Darcy reached across to his anorak and pulled the automatic from an outer pocket. He glanced up at her. She was completely unmoved.

  “Take it; the safety catch is on,” he said.

  She held the weapon uncertainly in her left hand. He moved behind her and held both her wrists.

  “Are you left handed?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She nodded.

  “Hold the weapon in your left hand and put your forefinger on the trigger. Use your right hand to support your left.” He moved her hands into place. “Slide the safety catch off. Tuck your elbows in, hold the weapon level with your eyes and line the sight up with your nose. You aim by turning your whole upper body. Do you understand?”

  She nodded again.

  “If you need to fire, aim at the broadest part of the body and squeeze the trigger twice.”

  *

  In the street, Darcy tried to reconstruct the profile of the building on the distant hill that Jakob had identified as housing Ignace’s apartment. He had decided against using the car and waited for a taxi at the intersection two blocks away from Jakob’s building. Traffic roared by but there were no taxis. He took out a wad of dollar bills and waved them at the approaching traffic.

  A Polski Fiat swerved to a halt in front of him. The driver leant across the interior and wound down the nearside window.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  Darcy made a gesture towards the skyline. “Up the hill, to the top.” He opened the door and got in without waiting for a reply.

  “Ten dollars,” the man said as the car moved forward. They drove in silence, each knowing that mutual knowledge might be dangerous.

  Then the driver saw Darcy catch sight of a medical bag on the back seat.

  “Yes. I am a doctor. I endure indignities such as this for my daughter’s education. Perhaps you would do the same.”

  “I don’t have a daughter,” Darcy replied.

  “Then you are a poorer man than I,” the driver said with a gentle shake of the head.

  The ugly concrete apartment block came into view.

  “Pull over here.” For a moment Darcy thought of giving the man twenty dollars rather than ten, but quickly decided that an expression of pity would be an unnecessary indignity.

  He handed over the money, got out of the car and headed in a direction opposite to his destination.

  When the Lada was out of sight he doubled back and began the long climb to the fifth floor. The block was crudely constructed, a relic of the quota system beloved of the Communist command economy. It was the sharpest of contrasts with the enduring 19th-century craftsmanship of Jakob’s bourgeois home. There was a smell of excrement on the landings and graffiti on the doors and windows. On the fourth floor he paused for breath, and began to wonder whether Jakob’s choice in coming to hide in such a place was an act of contrition, a self-inflicted punishment for not being able to save Anya. On the landing above, the left-hand door was open. In Darcy’s experience open doors were always a sign of bad news.

  The flaccid body was stripped to the waist and had its hands tied. There were ugly burn marks across the chest. As he drew closer, Darcy saw that they had used the kitchen iron.

  *

  Anya looked at the large-boned Slav face over the sights of the weapon. She was puzzled by her own lack of emotion. If she moved her finger just three millimetres a human being would be turned into a corpse. It was a fact she acknowledged and understood without it being connected to anything else. It was a new feeling and she enjoyed the simplicity of it. Following Darcy’s instructions, she held the weapon with both hands and kept her nose in line with the man’s stomach.

  He had been caught unawares. She was sitting in the dark amid the gilt splinters of picture frames and 18th-century French gilt chairs when he burst through the front door and crashed into the living room. His mistake was over-confidence.

  “Get up,” he yelled in Russian.

  Her hand slid inside the sweater as if to clutch her stomach.

  “Get up, bitch.” He was used to people responding without argument.

  She pulled the gun from the waistband of her jeans and pointed it at him.

  “Sit,” she said.

  The man complied, more out of astonishment than fear. He grimaced as his heavy body came into contact with something sharp on the floor.

  “You’re mad,” he snarled.

  “Yes, I know,” she said quietly.

  For a long time they sat staring at each other.

  “You can’t stay like this all day,” the Russian said contemptuously.

  “I know,” Anya said in a whisper.

  The man laughed, enjoying her dilemma. “Then what are you going to do?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  *

  Darcy picked up the phone and dialled Jakob’s apartment; the speed of the warning was more important than the risk of a trace on the call. The phone rang for a long time. Darcy had almost given up when the call was answered.

  “Anya?” There was no reply. “Anya speak to me,” he said angrily. There was silence. He lowered the tone of his voice and spoke gently. “Anya, can you hear me? It’s bad news. It’s Jakob.”

  There were two shots in quick succession.

  Chapter 22 - The Cabinet Office, London

  The 747 from Washington touched down on time. It was half past six in the morning. The driver of the official Daimler met Thornhill at the aircraft door. They were ushered through the VIP lounge and crossing Westminster Bridge before seven fifteen.

  Thornhill smelt fresh Viennese coffee as he climbed the stairs to the flat.

  “Croissants are by the oven; put them in, would you?” Jane shouted from her study. “I’ll be out in a moment.”

  Thornhill opened the heavy oven door and slid the tray of croissants inside. The idiosyncratic cast-iron Aga was Jane’s link with the country kitchen she had regretfully left behind when moving to a flat in London became essential. Thornhill heard the muted clatter of her word processor. The study was Jane’s private realm, and even when returning home from another continent, he knew better than to enter it. After thirty years of marriage, she had developed a remarkable ability to predict his homecomings. The coffee was his favourite, a generous rounded taste with a hint of figs, which she had sought out from a small specialist importer in Covent Garden.

  He poured coffee for them both and checked the kitchen diary by the fridge. At the weekend she was due to make a speech in support of the Third World charity where she worked three mornings a week. He guessed she was busy preparing. ‘Making up for the greed and incompetence of the politicians,’ she called it. Sometimes Thornhill saw his job and hers as different ways of trying to do the same th
ing.

  He sipped his coffee and took a hot flaky croissant from the oven. Jane appeared in the doorway and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Going to sleep it off?”

  “No. I’ve got a meeting, nine sharp. The redoubtable Baroness Lathkill and committee. I’ve just got time for a shower and a change of clothes.”

  “I have to go to Church House, I’ll walk across the bridge with you,” Jane said.

  From long experience, Thornhill knew that the Committee Office in Whitehall was a fourteen-minute walk from the flat and added another five for Jane’s shorter stride.

  “Must be away in half an hour,” he said.

  “I’ll be ready,” she replied, and disappeared back into her study.

  *

  It had become a beautiful morning. Even the London traffic was not able to spoil the crisp morning air. For Thornhill, the heedlessness of the crowds rushing to work reinforced the feeling of exhilaration that the possession of a world-class secret always produced. He knew it was a childish notion, but it was one that he always enjoyed. Yet caution allowed him only a brief moment of satisfaction.

  Megalomania and paranoia were vultures ever ready to fall upon a stumbling sense of proportion.

  “It’s important, isn’t it?” Jane asked.

  He’d said nothing, but she knew, she always did. “I fear so.”

  They walked on briskly in silence; all that could be said had been said.

  “Mary Finch-Hatton called; they’ve asked us for the weekend after next,” Jane said, as if the previous part of their conversation had never taken place.

  Thornhill’s mind was elsewhere. He knew the meeting ahead would be of forensic intensity. Trying to concentrate, he took in the magnificent sweep of the river and the dome of St Paul’s set among newly rising glass temples of mammon. Two co-existing realities, or was one real and the other not?

  Eventually, he replied. “Good. I haven’t had a good day’s rough shooting for far too long and I expect you’d welcome a chance to ride again?”

  Beyond the bridge they parted. She set off across Parliament Square towards the Abbey, and he turned right into Whitehall.

  He crossed the road outside Whitehall Palace where on a cold winter morning King Charles I stepped out to face the headsman’s axe, wearing a second shirt lest he should shiver and the crowd think him trembling with fear. Waiting on the island for a break in the traffic, Thornhill wondered what kind of fate he might be facing. The door opened discreetly as he walked up the steps of the Cabinet Committee Office. He passed through the lobby to check the noticeboard that indicated the rooms assigned to the day’s meetings.

  “Hello, Jackie boy.”

  Thornhill stiffened. Only one person called him that – the appalling Arnold Morgenstern, Resident Intelligence Liaison Officer at the US Embassy in the Eisenhower Platz, as Grosvenor Square was known in the trade. Everything Morgenstern did seemed calculated to annoy.

  “On your way to golf, are you, Arnie?” Thornhill said with distaste at Morgenstern’s pink cashmere sweater, yellow tie and blazer with gold buttons.

  “Not any more, and I’ve got you to blame for that.” He drew Thornhill away from the traffic of arriving attendees. “The way we see it, you’ve been using the good old Stars and Bars as toilet paper and you know how the folks back home hate crap on the flag.”

  “I can’t think what you mean, and I have a meeting to attend,” Thornhill said with calculated formality.

  “Come on, Jackie, that’s not friendly; you want me to jog your memory? The guys down the road seemed interested enough,” Morgenstern said, pointing in the direction of the Foreign Office.

  Thornhill looked around to see who might be listening.

  “This is not the time or the place. I’ll meet you at my flat this evening. Eightish, shall we say?”

  “Eightish it is,” Morgenstern replied, in parody of Thornhill’s turn of phrase.

  He passed through the tall double doors and disappeared among the tourists arriving for the changing of the guard on Horse Guards Parade.

  *

  Baroness Lathkill sat at the head of the long table. From her opening remarks, Thornhill knew that there was trouble ahead.

  “Sir Jack, you will recall that this committee was formed to carry out the will of Parliament concerning scrutiny of the intelligence services.”

  Thornhill looked at the faces round the table. Eight potential leaks, a multi-party mix of politicians, a random permutation of ambition, romantic good intention, incompetence and avarice. The one thing they all had in common was a hunger for power. Or if power were not available, they would settle for influence as second best.” The Baroness paused to put her remarks in context – another bad sign. “As a matter of historic policy, keeping our American allies on-side used to be at least as important as keeping the Soviets outside. Many things may have changed but the central importance of maintaining the trans-Atlantic alliance has not, as we are all well aware from our recent exertions in the Middle East.”

  It was obvious there had been a leak. Was it Morgenstern? The situation was serious, the rules of the treaty were plain and Thornhill knew he was in breach. He needed time to think. Attack seemed the best form of defence.

  “Madam Chairman, my department is fully cognisant of its obligations under the Act,” Thornhill said, aware that every word would appear in the minutes of the meeting.

  The Baroness would not be deflected. “In that regard, Sir Jack, there are certain matters which require explanation. The committee has become aware of disturbing reports from Washington. I cannot stress how damaging this is, regardless of what good intentions you may believe you have.”

  Thornhill was appalled; he needed to find out the scale of the leak, and played for time. “Madam Chairman, I cannot respond to innuendo…”

  He was put off his stride by the appearance of an embarrassed uniformed messenger in the doorway. Everyone registered surprise. Interruption of Cabinet Committee meetings was almost unknown. The messenger handed the note to the Baroness, who stopped Thornhill in mid-flow.

  “Sir Jack, it seems there is a telephone call for you. A most urgent telephone call,” she added icily.

  From every angle of the table, Thornhill felt shafts of resentment focus on him.

  The messenger led him to an empty office. “This is a secure line, sir,” he said, and left.

  Thornhill lifted the receiver slowly.

  He had no idea what to expect. It was Lloyd-Emlyn.

  “There has been an incident,” he said, trade-speak for disaster. “I have Latchford on the other line; I’ll put him through.”

  Latchford was suspiciously calm. “We’ve been hit. Bullivant is dead.”

  Thornhill felt the sweat break out on his forehead. He tried to use as few words as possible.

  “How?”

  “A grenade launcher from among the rocks by the beach – that’s what Morag thinks.”

  “Is Kloptik intact?”

  “Yes, but badly shaken.”

  “Do you have Bullivant’s gun?”

  “I can get it,” Latchford replied grimly.

  “And Morag? How is Morag?”

  “She’ll be okay.”

  “Get her to deal with the local police, I’ll arrange for someone to speak to the Governor to keep them off your back.” The satellite link began to break up and Thornhill spoke with slow deliberation. “Listen carefully. Take Bullivant’s gun and lock yourself and Kloptik in one of the rooms, close the shutters and shoot anybody who tries to get in. Anyone, whoever they are, do you understand?”

  Latchford’s shock was beginning to show. He tried to disguise it with irony. “Not really my kind of thing; I’m more of a Hippocratic man myself.”

  “Make an exception,” Thornhill said. “Just do it. I’ll get Mantoni and a team down from New York. You only have to hold out for about four hours. Then we’ll arrange evacuation to base.”

  Thornhill made a flurry of calls, shout
ing orders, calling in favours and covering tracks. When he returned to the committee room, the clock on the wall showed that he had been away for nearly twenty minutes, an unpardonably long time.

  “My sincerest apologies, Lady Lathkill, but there has been a serious breach of security. A valued officer has been killed and others injured.”

  “What do you intend to do, Sir Jack?”

  “The situation has been stabilised and an RAF aircraft will bring them home later today.”

  As ever, the Baroness cut to the critical issue. “Are these events related to the matters you have been called here to explain?”

  “This is an operational matter, and in the light of current circumstances I must ask the committee to be patient,” Thornhill said in a voice that he knew betrayed his anxiety.

  “You mean be the last to know; to read about it in the Sunday papers along with everybody else,” Sir Linton Ogmore, one of the Permanent Secretaries, said from the far end of the table.

  “Worse still, hearing from Washington first,” Patricia Lathkill said. “Do you understand the humiliation?” It was an accusation, not a question. “We, the committee, all of us, were put here precisely to prevent this sort of thing happening.” She was now very angry and took pleasure in showing it.

  David Maddox, one of the most ambitious members of the committee, felt it safe to venture an attack of his own. “What kind of outfit are you running, Sir Jack? First we hear about your doings from the Americans and now there’s been some sort of cock-up overseas. Don’t play games with us. What’s going on?”

  Thornhill did not explain. “I shall report to you in due course,” he said, picking up his papers, and left.

  “Does that constitute resignation?” Thornhill heard someone ask as he reached the door. He kept walking, down the long corridor and out into the crowded street.

  *

  “Do I have to feed him?” Jane asked.

  “I rather think so,” Thornhill replied.

  “Well, I’ll have to go to Sainsbury’s,” she said reproachfully. Entertaining was a duty which Jane Thornhill did not enjoy.

  “Haven’t you got anything in the freezer?”

  “Only some goulash left over from the Canadians last week. I could do that with some rice.”