Marc nodded. “He was a Combine asset,” he agreed, glancing at the Cabot again. “He wasn’t the only one.” He repeated what Nash had told him on the roof of the Willard Hotel, about the warning that had come from MI6.
Neither Welles nor Royce spoke as Marc continued, revealing what he had recovered from Novakovich’s hard drive, the meta-data showing without doubt that someone inside Vauxhall Cross had been in communication with the broker and his Combine masters.
He felt fatigued just by the act of explaining it to them. “Problem is, all the email traces in the world don’t count for anything unless you can marry them up with a user code. Without that, you can’t know who sent the messages.”
Royce’s fingers rubbed his brow. “Good God. We have a serious penetration of our operation and no clear sense of where to look … We have to move quickly, but carefully. Marc, do you think you can help us isolate this person? We can call on the techies at GCHQ, have them sift our email servers—”
Marc shook his head. “No point. That data has already been wiped. The mole knows I was on to them. There won’t be any leads inside our systems, not now. We’re too late for that.”
Welles sniffed. “No data means no way to track this double-agent, if he or she really does exist … and I’m not convinced of that. They’ll have to be found the old-fashioned way.”
Royce glared at Welles. “And your department will be in charge of the witch-hunt, as you’ve proven yourself so able in the past.”
Welles returned his fierce gaze with interest. “Make your point, Donald, if you have one.”
“You’ve been trying to cast K Section and the OpTeams in the worst possible light since this started! You decided Dane was the culprit, and everything you’ve done has been to fit that assumption!” Royce pointed at him. “You made me distrust my own men!”
“I’m doing my bloody job,” Welles shot back. “I told you before. It’s not personal, it never has been! I leave my biases at the door, that’s why I am exceptionally good at my job. For every weak link I find, there are dozens more dedicated officers who are quietly cleared and commended. But you never hear about that, you only see the ones dragged to the gallows!”
There was a polite knock at the door of the Alma Room, cutting short the confrontation before either man could take it further.
“There is someone who knows the insider’s name,” said Marc, and he called out. “Come in.”
The attendant who had brought Royce his note opened the door for a tall, imposing man in an impeccable tan-colored suit, flanked by two watchful and solemn bodyguards.
“Mister Pytor Glovkonin,” said the attendant by way of introduction, before backing out of the room to leave them to their conversation.
Glovkonin looked no different from the last time Marc had seen him; still wearing that air of casual supremacy, of being lord of all he surveyed. “I assume there is a good reason for me being here?”
The question was addressed to Royce, and the flash of naked surprise on his face mirrored the moment Marc had stepped from the shadows.
“What … the hell?” muttered Welles. He knew full well who the billionaire oligarch was, and the suspicions that crowded around him.
“I sent the message,” Marc told the new arrival. “You remember me? From Rome? We talked about that weird-looking sculpture.”
Recall flashed in Glovkonin’s eyes. “Ah. Yes. The worried man. Hello again. Tell me, was it a woman after all?”
“I think you know exactly what it was,” Marc shot back, and his tone made the bodyguards tense like dogs whose master had been threatened.
Glovkonin’s gaze flicked to Royce and Welles, then away. A false smile slipped into rest on his face. “Coming here was a mistake, and my time is very valuable. If you’ll excuse me—”
Marc called out as he turned toward the door. “The NSA tracked communications from within British Intelligence to a weapons broker named Dima Novakovich, all done under the auspices of a group who call themselves the Combine.”
Glovkonin paused, offering a shrug. “That means nothing to me.”
“The emails came from a secure terminal at Vauxhall Cross.” Marc turned to look directly at Wells. “Your terminal, Victor.”
Royce came forward, as if he had been waiting for those words, his lips twisted in a snarl. “You bastard! I was right!”
Welles gaped. “No … No!” He recovered, his color rising. “I don’t work for this … criminal!” He waved at Glovkonin.
The smile on Glovkonin’s face faded. “Watch your tongue,” he growled, “or I’ll have Misha and Gregor remove it.”
Royce prodded Welles in the chest. “You’re a bloody traitor!”
“That’s what you wanted people to think,” said Marc, keeping his tone steady. From when he had seen the data provided by the Americans up to this moment, Marc had hoped that it would turn out to be wrong, that there was a mistake. His anger and his grief, so closely interwoven by everything that he had been through, pulled hard on him. He wanted to release it, to do violence, to give into it.
Instead, he looked Glovkonin in the eye and went on. “The trail that led to Welles was misdirection. But not quite good enough. The actual login identity synchs to Donald Royce.”
Welles recoiled from the other man.
“That’s wrong,” Royce insisted.
Marc shook his head. “Royce used Iain Nash as his man in OpTeam Nomad, manipulating intelligence in line with Combine interests. And in turn, you have been running him for them, Mister Glovkonin.”
“I find spy stories amusing,” said Glovkonin, as he absently brushed a speck of lint from the cuff of his jacket, dismissing it as easily as he did the events unfolding before him. “I’m sure somebody who did those things would be careful to ensure no evidence was left of their involvement.” He gestured to his men and walked away. “Good day.”
The action was unconscious, instinctive, but both Marc and Welles saw the motion in Royce as he took a step after the Russian billionaire—as if he might offer him some kind of safety.
If Glovkonin saw that, he was utterly indifferent to it, and kept on walking. The door slammed shut at his back.
* * *
In the next second, Welles had the short-frame Browning pistol he was carrying beneath his jacket in one hand, and with the other he grabbed at Royce’s arm. He forced the other man into a chair and held him there, boiling with cold fury. “Donald Royce,” he snapped, biting out each word, “you are being detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.” Welles stepped back and took up the telephone, dialing quickly. “This is Bravo Eight Four,” he said, “Red call, this location.”
“You stupid, blind idiot,” Royce muttered. “You don’t understand.” He looked up and found his former officer looming over him. A gun was in Marc’s hand.
“Make me,” said Marc, his voice loaded with hate. “Tell me why you let them do it.”
Across the room, Welles saw the Glock semi-automatic in Marc’s grip and raised his own weapon. “Dane,” he warned.
Royce shook his head. “You’re naïve, Marc. That’s your failing. And the worst thing is, on some level you know it. That’s why you never pushed, never really tried to test yourself. You didn’t want to step outside of your comfort zone. You were happy being the bloke in the van, weren’t you? Letting all the hard choices be made by people like me—”
“Did that include killing your own crew?”
“Rix…” He sighed. “He wouldn’t back off. I tried to discourage him, but he was a tenacious sod. Then Green fell into his orbit and that meant everyone in Nomad was tainted. Nash was already in place … It had to be done.” Royce swallowed hard and looked up at Welles. “I’m not going to give you anything, you understand that, don’t you? I’m not wrong. I’m part of something that makes
us stronger. It won’t do for me to be dragged through the mud. Bad for the country and the ministry. I’ll be discreetly retired—”
Marc pressed the pistol against Royce’s temple. “Like hell you will.”
“I’m not alone in what I know!” Royce shouted. “The only way to keep the free world on an even keel is to hold those rabid dogs like Khadir on a chain! Control! We control them, we can … We can manage it.” Royce was unrepentant, and suddenly he had been freed to spill out everything he had kept secret, all the things he believed but never dared reveal. “No one wants chaos! No more murderers crashing airliners into buildings! So there are people who have the power to take control…”
“The Combine are guiding the war on terror because it makes them rich, not because they want to keep us safe!” Marc barked at him. “What kind of twisted logic are you seeing, Royce? This is conspiracy, treason!” He jammed the gun into the other man’s skull, forcing his head toward the table. “It’s murder!”
“Dane,” Welles repeated. “He can’t pay for what he’s done if he’s dead.”
At the last second, Marc whipped back the Glock and cracked Royce across the face with it, opening a cut that would leave an ugly, permanent scar. He stepped away and spat on the Alma Room’s elegant carpet. At length, the gun vanished into the folds of his jacket and Marc produced an encrypted solid-state memory stick. He tossed it on to the table.
“That’s everything I have, the NSA traces, the lot,” he told Welles. “Same stuff I gave to the Americans. Show it to Talia Patel. She’ll know what to do.” Marc turned to go, then halted. “And do yourselves a favor … Tell GCHQ to tighten up the firewalls on everything, because the Yanks have their ear to the walls.”
“Where do you think you’re going? You can’t just walk away,” Welles insisted, as he made for the door. “You’re a witness. There’ll be an investigation.”
“Do it without me,” Marc replied, and stepped out into the corridor.
* * *
A silver E-class Mercedes-Benz was pulling up outside as Marc stepped around the Rapier Club’s top-hatted doorman and down to the pavement.
Glovkonin stood beneath an umbrella held high over his head by one of his bratva bodyguards, and not a single drop of rain marred his suit. The other guard was in the process of opening the car’s door, and both thugs glared at Marc with unmasked enmity.
“Nice ride,” offered Marc, ignoring the rain as it soaked into his jacket. He thought about the gun in his pocket and wondered; Could I draw it fast enough to put a shot into Glovkonin before his meatheads did me in return?
Even after stopping the Washington bombing, ending Nash, seeing Royce arrested and disgraced, the man standing in front of him was going to walk away. And he’s just one part of the Combine, Marc reminded himself. Another link in the rotten chain.
“You’re a persistent man, Mister Dane,” said Glovkonin, with a wan smile. “That’s a dangerous trait to possess.”
“You like being untouchable, yeah?” Marc replied. “You think you’ve earned it. Can’t deny, you’re free and clear today…” He shrugged. “But what about tomorrow or the day after? Sooner or later, the Combine is going to find the light on it. And you won’t be able to drive away from that.”
Glovkonin gave him a last look. “Best of luck,” he said, and vanished inside the vehicle, disappearing behind opaque armored windows.
The Mercedes whispered away on to Grosvenor Street, blending into the traffic. Marc stood watching it, aware of another vehicle sliding to a halt beside him.
A door opened at the rear of the black Bentley Mulsanne, and Lucy Keyes peered out, scowling at the inclement weather. “Hey,” she called. “So I guess you need a lift.”
“You gonna drug me again?” he asked, without looking at her.
“I reckon we’re past that,” she replied. “C’mon. Get in. You’ll catch your death out there.”
“Not today,” he told her.
TWENTY-NINE
He gave Malte an address in East London, and they set off through the city streets.
The rain gave everything beyond a grayed-out, unreal cast. Marc stared out of the window and imagined he was adrift in a sea of slow moving shapes, the other vehicles around him blocks of abstract color and indistinct form.
“Can I offer you a drink, Mister Dane?” Ekko Solomon poured an amount of bourbon and nodded toward the Bentley’s mini-bar.
“I’ll pass,” said Marc. He took a breath and then turned to study Solomon and Lucy in the seat across from him. “But thank you for everything you’ve done to help me through … all this.”
Solomon took a sip from his drink. “You still do not fully trust me.” He raised his hand before Marc could venture a reply. “I do not blame you. But it is I who should thank you. We had only part of the Combine’s plan when you crossed our path. We knew of the missiles … Until that point, my people had been developing threat assessments based on attacks on airliners. We had no idea they would repurpose the explosive warheads as they did. If not for you, we would have been looking in the wrong place when Washington was targeted.” He shook his head. “Rubicon failed to stop the Barcelona bombing. We were too late. But not this time.”
“You really think you can make a difference in the world,” said Marc. It wasn’t a question.
“We continue to try,” Solomon gave a nod. “And I would like you to be a part of that endeavor.”
Marc blinked. He honestly hadn’t expected to hear that. “You’re … offering me a job?”
Lucy gave a wry smile. “He pays pretty well. Plus you get good medical and dental.”
“Your status as an MI6 officer was revoked the moment you went on the run,” said Solomon. “If you come to work for Rubicon, I can promise you a much higher wage and a better arena for your skills. Tracking and stopping an Al Sayf cell from committing an act of violence on American soil proves to me that you have the qualities of an excellent field agent.”
“I was just lucky,” Marc said, shaking his head.
“That’s half the job,” noted Lucy.
“Rubicon’s Special Conditions Division needs people who are willing to commit to what is right, Mister Dane.” Solomon put down his glass, and gestured at the city passing by. “There are hundreds of other threats out there. Men like Glovkonin, factions like the Combine. The world cannot rely on nation-states to prosecute them. Sometimes more direct action must be taken. I would offer you the chance to bring the world some degree of justice.”
“Justice…” The word echoed in Marc’s thoughts. “I don’t think that’s what I was looking for. I was in this for revenge, payback for someone I cared about.” He saw a dark-haired woman standing on a street corner, and for one brief instant her face became Sam’s. “I think I still am,” he added.
“I know this need.” Solomon reached up to his neck and pulled out the silver chain that hung there, holding the metal piece strung upon it in his palm. “At first, it is what I wanted. This is the trigger from the gun I used to kill a warlord. The first evil man I knew. I was only a boy, but I had a man’s hate. He murdered the family that raised me. I took his life in payment, but it was not enough.” His eyes lost focus, and Marc knew Solomon was living that moment over again in his memory. “There is always another warlord. There are always other victims who deserve to know justice.”
The car had left the main roads and it slowed as it passed down a narrow, leafy street. Marc saw black railings and red brick walls.
“I appreciate the offer,” he told Solomon. “But I need some time to think about it.”
“Take as long as you wish.” He shook Marc’s hand. “You know where to find me. We will speak again, Mister Dane. I am certain of it.”
* * *
Marc climbed out of the Bentley and Lucy followed. The rain had passed, but the streets were still wet, the air still chilly.
She glanced up. “Cloud’s breaking. Sun’s gonna come out, I think.”
“Yeah.” He p
aused. “Look, Lucy. I’m sorry about how this came out … About what Cahill said.”
Lucy shook her head before he could go on. “Dane, forget about it. Home isn’t something I need a passport to prove. It’s right here.” She tapped her chest. “You can take the girl out of Queens, but you can’t take Queens out of the girl.”
He gave a crooked smile and extended his hand. “Thank you. For saving my life twice. Or three times. However many it was.”
“Hey, who’s counting?” Her grip was firm. Then Lucy’s expression became troubled. “Listen, I never told you about prison. I should have trusted you with that.”
“No,” Marc shook his head. “I don’t give a damn about what you did or who you were before. I trust you … You’re one of the few people I can say that about right now.” He let go and turned to walk away. “Stay safe.”
She looked up at the brick arch and the open gate beneath. On the other side of the fence, manicured lawns ranged away, framing lines of gray headstones and age-worn statues.
Marc anticipated her question, giving her one last look over his shoulder. “I’ve got to say goodbye to someone.”
* * *
Lucy’s words proved correct, and as Marc walked out across the cemetery, the sun found its way out and cast the place in a weak, summery glow that brought life to the sprays of flowers left by loved ones to mark their sorrows.
He had nothing to lay on Samantha Green’s grave, but somehow that didn’t matter. She had never been one for bouquets and candlelight, she was the type who looked to the moment to know that he cared for her.
Sam had shared something strong and vital with him, but at the same time, it was fragile. He was afraid that if he looked too hard, if he applied too much pressure to define it, his memories of her would collapse and he would lose what had made her special.
Marc crouched and ran his hand over the top of the simple granite marker that bore her name and a heartfelt inscription. Her mother and father were still alive, although she had not spoken often about them. Sam’s dad was ex-military, and he had understood the importance of what she did for the country. Marc wondered if that was any comfort to him now. He considered seeking them out, then thought better of it. Sam had lived much of her life in the shadows, and he had no right to draw that into the lives of the people she loved.
Nomad Page 48
