Dead Lions

by Mick Herron

  “You think Mr. B’s connected to the Popov legend?”

  “Bow left a message on his mobile, more or less saying as much.”

  River said, “Untraceable poison. Dying message.”

  “Something you want to get off your chest?”

  “Seems a bit … unlikely.”

  “Tony Blair’s a peace envoy,” Lamb pointed out. “Compared to that, everything’s just business as usual.”

  Speaking of which, it was time for River to get his wallet out again. They stopped at a stall serving coffee. “Flat white,” said River.

  “Coffee,” said Lamb.

  “Flat white?” said the stallholder.

  “Pink and chubby. Since you ask.”

  “He’ll have what I’m having,” said River.

  Cups in hand, they walked on.

  “I’m still not sure why we’re having this conversation.”

  “I know you think I pull a lot of shit,” Lamb said. “But I never send a joe into the field without giving him all the info to hand.”

  This took five seconds to sink in.

  “The field?”

  “Can we skip the bit where you repeat what I’ve just said?”

  River said, “Okay. It’s skipped. The field. Where?”

  “Hope you’ve had your jabs,” said Lamb. “You’re going to Gloucestershire.”

  It was late when Min left the office. Free overtime; a not unusual reward for passive-aggressive behaviour. At five he’d turned his mobile off, so when Louisa rang she’d have to leave a message, and at seven he turned it on again: nothing. He shook his head. He deserved this. Things had been going too well. He’d screwed up without noticing. But then, that’s what he was famous for. He was the one who’d managed to flush his career then go home for a good night’s sleep; find out about it the following morning. The one the others laughed about, secure in the knowledge that they might all have screwed up, but at least they’d known it at the time. Hadn’t needed the nation’s flagship news programme to point it out.

  And it wasn’t talking about Shirley that had done the damage. That’s just what had broken the surface, like a shark’s fin. No: it was about the way they were living, dividing their relationship between two lousy addresses. It was about what they could expect from the future, sharing an office and the same lack of prospects. And always, of course, it was about his other life: the children, wife and house he’d left behind when his career went up the spout. He might have separated from them, but they were still there, placing demands on his time and emotions and income that Louisa would inevitably come to resent, if she didn’t already. You could see why she’d been upset. And why it was his fault, even though it wasn’t.

  All of which one half of Min’s brain was explaining to him while the other half was guiding him over the road to a dreadful pub, where he spent ninety minutes drinking beer and morosely shredding a beermat. Another familiar feeling; a reminder of long solitary evenings endured in the aftermath of his life hitting the wall. At least he wouldn’t be hearing about this one on Radio 4 in the morning. “In a totally unsurprising development, Min Harper has screwed up his love life and can expect to be alone for the foreseeable. And now sport. Gary?”

  It was here that Min decided he’d wallowed in enough self-pity.

  Because Louisa was in a snit but she’d get over it, and Slough House might be a cul-de-sac, but Spider Webb had dropped a rope ladder, and Min was grabbing it with both hands. The question was, would it hold the pair of them? Min considered the pyramid of shredded cardboard he’d constructed. It was best to regard everything as a test. He’d learned that during training, and had yet to be told to stop. So: Spider Webb. On scant acquaintance Min neither liked nor trusted Webb, and could easily believe he was playing a double game. But if that game involved a prize, it would be foolish not to attempt to win it, and equally foolish not to imagine this hadn’t occurred to Louisa too. Hell, it wasn’t out of the question that her snit was because Min had shown he could play the big game this morning, while she was mostly showing her prowess at admin, at paper shuffling. The kind of activity Slough House was built on.

  He checked his phone again. Still no message. But let’s be clear about this, he told himself; he wasn’t trying to pull a fast one over Louisa. In fact he’d call and apologise and head over there later. All of that. He’d do all of that, but first he called up Google Earth on his iPhone and examined the stretch of the Edgware Road where Piotr and Kyril’s taxi had stopped. Then he left the pub and collected his bike from round back of Slough House. It was nearly nine, and growing dark.

  Diana Taverner’s office had a glass wall so she could keep an eye on the kids on the hub. There was nothing overbearing about this; it was a protective instinct, a form of nurturing. The old guys would tell you ops were where it counted, but Taverner knew the stresses that mounted up backstage, as sleeplessly as rust. Across all those desks on the hub beamed intel, 24/7: most of it useless, some of it deadly; all of it to be weighed in a balance that needed recalibrating daily, according to how the wind blew. There were watch-lists to monitor, snatched footage to interpret, stolen conversations to translate, and underneath all the data-processing lay the knowledge that a momentary lapse of concentration, and you’d see bodies pulled from the wreckage on the evening news. It could splinter you, such pressure; it could rob you of sleep, cheat you of dreams, and surprise you into tears at your desk. So no, keeping an eye on the kids was because she had their welfare at heart, though it also allowed her to check that none of the bastards were playing funny games. Not all of Taverner’s foes lay abroad.

  And to make sure the surveillance was one-way, there were ceiling-to-floor blinds she could pull when needed. They were down now, and the overhead lights were dimmed, mimicking the fading daylight outside. And standing in front of her, because she hadn’t invited him to sit, was James Webb, who didn’t live on the hub but had an office in the bowels of the building—‘office’ sounded good, but what it meant was, he was outside the circle of power.

  And thus out of her line of sight.

  Time to discover what he’d been up to.

  “I’ve been hearing stories,” she said. “Seems you’ve seconded a pair of slow horses.”

  “Slow …?”

  “Don’t even think about it.”

  Webb said, “It’s nothing important. I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered by it.”

  “When there’s something I don’t want to be bothered by, I like to know what it is first. So I can be sure it’s not something I’d rather be bothered by.”

  There was a moment’s silence while they both picked a path through that one. Then Webb said, “Arkady Pashkin.”

  “Pashkin …”

  “Sole owner of Arkos.”

  “Arkos.”

  “Russia’s fourth largest oil company.”

  “Oh. That Arkady Pashkin.”

  “I’ve been … having talks with him.”

  Lady Di leaned back, and her chair adjusted its position with a whisper of springs. She stared at Webb, who’d been useful once. The office in the bowels had been a reward for services, and should have been enough to keep him quiet. But that was the thing about the Spider Webbs of the world: shut them out of anywhere for long, and they fog its windowpanes with their breath.

  “You’re having … talks with a Russian industrialist?”

  “I think he prefers ‘oligarch’.”

  “I don’t care if he prefers ‘Czar’. What the hell gave you the idea you could open up diplomatic channels with a foreign national?”

  Webb said, “It occurred to me we could do with some good news round here.”

  After a pause, Taverner said, “Well if that’s your notion of ‘diplomatic’, we can no doubt expect war with Russia any day. What kind of good news did you have in mind? And do make this … convincing.”

  “He’s a potential asset,” said Webb.

  And now Lady Di leaned forward. “He’s a potential a
sset,” she repeated slowly.

  “He’s unhappy with the way things are over there. He finds the swing towards old-era antagonism regressive, and regrets the Mafia State image. He has political ambitions, and if we could help him in any way … Well, that would make him quite amenable, wouldn’t it?”

  “Is this a joke?”

  Webb said, “I know it sounds like shooting for the moon. But think about it. The man’s a player. It’s not out of question he could take the reins.” He was growing visibly more excited. Taverner carefully avoided looking at his trousers. “And if we’re with him, if we smooth his path—I mean, really. It’s the Holy Grail.”

  The sensible thing would be to torch him here and now, she thought. Thirty seconds of verbal creosote, and he’d leave sooty footprints all the way back to his office, and never have an idea again. That was the sensible thing, and she was mentally turning her flame up high when she heard herself say, “Who else knows about this?”

  “Nobody.”

  “What about the Slough House pair?”

  “They think they’re running security on oil talks.”

  “How did it start?”

  “He made contact. Personally.”

  “With you? How come?”

  “There was that thing last year …”

  That thing. Right. ‘That thing last year’ had been one of Ingrid Tearney’s brainwaves; a charm offensive to counter the recent tsunami of PR disasters: illegal wars, accidental slayings, torturing suspects; stuff like that. Tearney had made a string of public appearances, explaining how counter-terrorist measures were safeguarding the country, even if it appeared to the uninformed that they were merely creating huge delays at airports. Webb—a spiffy dresser—had carried her bags, and provided an ear into which she could whisper when she wanted to look like she was conferring. He’d been mentioned by name in the press coverage, which he’d doubtless have been insufferable about if the term ‘arm-candy’ hadn’t been used.

  She could still torch him. Bring this to a halt before its inevitable flaws came screaming into view. Instead, she said, “And this you call unimportant? Something I wouldn’t want to be bothered with?”

  “Plausible deniability,” Webb said. “If it all goes pear-shaped … Well, it’s one of your underlings on a frolic of his own, isn’t it?” He gave a short sharp chuckle. “That happens, I’ll probably end up with the slow horses myself.”

  And if you give that particular answer a shake, the picture changes completely. If it all goes according to plan, Webb finds himself dropping a big juicy bone at Ingrid Tearney’s feet. The first Taverner would know about it, she’d be standing outside a closed door, wondering what the briefing was about.

  But bigger men than Spider Webb had made the mistake of underestimating Diana Taverner.

  She said, “And how the hell are you slipping all this past the Barrowboy?”

  Meaning Roger Barrowby, who was currently running a slide-rule over every decision taken in the Park, down to and including whether you wanted fries with that.

  Spider Webb blinked twice. “By going via Slough House,” he said.

  Taverner shook her head. Christ, she was losing it. That was why he was using the slow horses: they didn’t fall under Barrowby’s remit. Their outgoings were practically zero, if you didn’t count Lamb’s expenses. “Okay,” she said. He relaxed. “That doesn’t mean you can go.” She spared her desk drawer a brief glance: her cigarettes were in there. But last time anyone had smoked in the Park, it triggered a toxin alert. “The whole story,” she said. “And I mean all of it. Now.”

  When Kyril had heard “hookahs,” what he’d thought he’d heard was “hookers,” and nothing about the subsequent thirty seconds had shaken that conviction: there’d been a change in the law, a Pole in a pub had told him, and now all the hookers on the Edgware Road were out on the pavements, instead of behind the windows of the Turkish restaurants. “Hubbly-jubbly!” the Pole had concluded. Kyril had nodded in agreement. For the purposes of his mission here he wasn’t supposed to understand English, but he spoke it well enough, and had a firm grasp of what “hubbly-jubbly” signified.

  The joke was, there were dozens of hookers on the Edgware Road, and plenty more on the sidestreets, but the hookahs the Pole had meant were the Arabian Nights pipes that drew tobacco up through a hose. Kyril had never tried one before, and it turned out he liked it. So he’d gone back the following evening and tried it again; sitting out on the pavement under a plastic canopy; the streets dark, and traffic hissing past. He was making friends—that was okay: what The Man didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him—and chatting to these friends was what he was doing when the guy from this morning, Harper, cycled past.

  Kyril made no sudden movements. Just kept on smoking the hookah, laughing out loud at a brand-new joke. Watching without watching, he saw Harper haul the bike off-road and disappear round the corner. That was all right. Didn’t matter if a man disappeared, so long as you knew where he was going to be, which in this case was as close by Kyril as he dared get. So Kyril dallied another ten full minutes before rising and making his excuses, and walking on to the little supermarket to load up on supplies, mostly bottles and cigarettes.

  When Webb finished Taverner chewed her lower lip for a moment, before realising she was doing so. “Why the Needle?” she asked. “This is the secret service, or didn’t you get that memo? You couldn’t get more high profile if you arranged a meet in the Mall.”

  “He’s not some lowlife I’m trying to turn. If Pashkin’s spotted in a lapdancing club, it’ll raise eyebrows. If he’s seen going into London’s newest piece of skyline flash, nobody’ll think twice. It’s his natural territory.”

  She couldn’t argue with the logic. “And nobody else knows about this. The real story.”

  “Just you and me.”

  “And you’ve only told me because you’re on my carpet.”

  He nodded along with her. “Because of the whole—”

  “Deniability thing. So you said.” Taverner directed another penetrating gaze at her subordinate. “I sometimes worry you’re going over to the enemy,” she said.

  He looked shocked. “MI6?”

  “I meant Tearney.”

  “Diana,” he lied. “That would never happen.”

  “And you’ve told me everything.”

  “Yes,” he lied.

  “I want regular updates. Every tiny detail. Good or bad.”

  “Of course,” he lied.

  Once he’d gone, Taverner wrote an e-mail to Background, requesting a CV on Arkady Pashkin, then deleted it without sending. Last thing she wanted was any flags raised, and with Roger bloody Barrowby’s audit in full swing, she’d have to explain in triplicate why she was interested. So, falling back on the first-dater’s method, she Googled him instead, and came up with well under a thousand hits: he flew low for a player. First up was a year-old article from the Telegraph, citing his achievements. It carried a photo too, revealing Pashkin to resemble a less benign Tom Conti, a conjunction which pressed a number of Taverner’s buttons. With the blinds still down, she allowed herself a moment of reverie: shag, marry or push off a cliff?

  Hell, the man was a billionaire. All three. In that order.

  It was late. She logged off, and sat pondering. It was always possible Webb would come back with the goods, and while the chances of Pashkin ending up both in Five’s debt and in the Big Seat in the Kremlin were vanishingly small, that was how the job was played. You had to back outsiders, because insiders were spoken for. Though it wasn’t always clear by whom.

  Damn it, she thought. Let him go ahead. If it fell apart she’d nail him to the debris, then float him out to sea for gulls to feed on. Delusions of grandeur, she’d say. That’s what came of press attention.

  And don’t think Ingrid Tearney wouldn’t grasp the import of that.

  Before leaving she pulled the blinds up, so those on the hub could admire her empty office. Nothing to hide, she thought. Nothing to hide.<
br />
  Nothing at all to hide.

  Some days, it just comes together.

  Min Harper hadn’t broken records cycling west; it was a recce, that was all, just to get a taste for the area. The road was busy off Marble Arch, and he’d slowed, looking for somewhere to chain the bike, and that’s when he saw him, Kyril, the one who’d pretended not to speak English. Sitting outside a restaurant under one of those plastic tent arrangements, pulling on a hookah and laughing with the locals as if he did this every night of his life. Just like that, it all came together.

  He hopped off the bike, wheeled it round a corner where he locked it to a lamppost, then squashed his high-vis vest into the pannier. Back on the main road, shielded from Kyril by a wall of traffic, he went into a 7-Eleven whose magazine rack barricaded the front window. He browsed this intently until Kyril rose, cracked a last joke with his buddies, then ambled along to the mini-mart on the next corner. As soon as he was inside Min crossed the road and sheltered in a shop doorway, studied the cards pinned there: Cleaning Work Offered, Man with a Van, English Lessons. He pretended to jot down numbers. When Kyril reappeared with a carrier bag in each hand, Min waited until he was a good hundred yards away before following, cutting his way through the crowds thronging the pavement, the Russian’s bulk an easy target. Min could taste beer on his breath. Could feel pressure building on his bladder, come to that. But what he mostly felt was the thrill of the chase—it would be so easy to stop one of these people, this approaching blonde for instance, and say I work for the security services. See that guy? I’m following him. But the blonde walked past without a glance, and Kyril disappeared.

  Min blinked, and forced himself not to break into a run. Calm regular pace, same as before. Kyril must have stepped into another shop, or a bar; maybe there was a concealed alley ahead. The danger was, Min would end up in front of him. No, the danger was, he’d lost him—

  But there was no danger. That was what he had to remember. There was no danger because nobody knew where he was or what he was doing. Only Min would know, as he got back on his bike and slunk across the city to Louisa’s, only Min would know he’d messed up a tail job, the kind a rookie could pull off without breaking a sweat.