The Locker

by Adrian Magson

  “Oh, boo-hoo,” Ruth muttered savagely. “So the right hand doesn’t know when the left hand is stabbing itself up the arse. That’s no excuse. How long have you been in on this?”

  “Not as long as you think.” He raised a hand to stop her and continued quickly, “Let me go right back to the beginning. A few days after arriving here I got a call from the DHS. I knew the woman who rang me; she told me they might need my help if anything came up.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes. It was a stand-by call, that’s all.”

  “And you, of course, told her to get lost. You already have a job in the private sector; you’re no longer on the US government payroll.”

  “No, I didn’t do that. Would you?” When Ruth didn’t say anything he carried on. “I thought she was talking about a terrorist attack, something big aimed at a major target.” He took a deep breath. “I asked and was told it might be a kidnap attempt on an important American. I thought they’d jumped on my credentials as a specialist.” He gave a bitter smile. “I didn’t think we’d be the ones actually running the kidnap.”

  “It was a rogue group—Grant said so.”

  “Same thing; it was done on our behalf.”

  “And the rendition of Michael Hardman? Did you know about that, too?”

  “Of course not. How could I?”

  “But you said nothing, even when you knew Beth had been taken—even when we were running all over the place looking for her and her mother was going mad.”

  “I wanted to, Ruthie—”

  “Don’t call me that! You don’t get to call me that.”

  He blinked at the forcefulness in her voice, and looked for a moment as if he might turn and walk away. But he said, “I couldn’t tell you. As soon as we began working together I could see how it was going to end, but I was in a bind.” He looked up at the sky. “You’re relentless, you know that. You don’t fucking stop. Nobody counted on that.”

  It was the first time she’d heard him swear. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re on the case and you dig and dig; you rip things open and never stop thinking things through.” He turned away then back again. “Christ, I was told I’d have a partner who hadn’t done this kind of stuff before, so I could lead the investigation, control the flow of events. But that didn’t happen because you didn’t allow it. You took this thing by the balls and ran with it.”

  “You thought we were a bunch of hicks, is that it? Is that how we’re seen by you and your people?”

  “No. Not at all. There are guys I’ve worked with who would have obeyed orders; taken whatever intel they could get on this and closed it down, stuck it in a file and passed it to a higher pay grade for action. In other words, they’d have done the minimum, the obvious. But you didn’t. You continued digging because it’s what you do. You got too close.”

  “I’m sorry for being such a disappointment.”

  He blew out air. “All I could do was follow and hope you didn’t run into the others.”

  “Others?”

  “The kidnap team; the ones waiting to take down Hardman when he came in.”

  “What would they have done if he had come in?”

  “I think you saw what they were capable of. I don’t even want to think about it. They were out of control, that’s all I know.”

  Ruth breathed deeply, not willing to let it go. “I may be a former cop but I can read body language like anyone else. I knew there was something deeper going on.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Crap. That napkin you picked up from the O.P. across from the Hardman place: I know that deli—it’s just round the corner from the Embassy in Grosvenor Square. You took it away as if you wanted to hide something. Want to tell me why?”

  He breathed deeply, then said, “As soon as I saw it I knew what you’d think. What are the chances? We already knew there was some kind of American angle, and a napkin from a deli right near the embassy? It was too much. I admit I jumped to the same conclusion and wanted time to look into it. I shouldn’t have done it but I did. I’m sorry.”

  “And?”

  “And in the end it was meaningless. I had no way of checking. What if the neighbour next to the observation house worked near the deli? We’d be chasing our tails for nothing. It was a dead end.”

  “Now you’re talking like a cop.”

  “Just like you. And know there’s a point where evidence fails to become proof. That’s where I got to. Then this came up.”

  “You still haven’t told me where your chat went. Or is that a big fat secret?”

  Vaslik nodded and pulled a wry face. “I told him Hardman’s here in London.”

  “You did what?” She stared at him. “What the hell for?”

  “Because it’s the only chance we have of getting Beth back. They will bring her, I’m certain of it. It was the one condition I threw in and an easy one for Drybeck’s people to deal with.”

  “And what if it goes wrong?”

  “It could do that anyway. They could lose patience and simply kill Beth like they did the nanny.”

  “We don’t know that for sure. It could have been a mugging gone wrong.” But even as she said it, she knew in her heart that Tiggi Sgornik would never have been walking the streets by herself and fallen prey to a random mugger. She would have stayed with Beth. The fact was, she had undoubtedly been an asset who’d become unreliable, even threatening. The fact that she had a label stitched inside her clothing pointed to her amateur status compared to the others in the group.

  And amateurs were never fully trusted.

  He sensed her doubts. “They’re getting desperate. They’ll get to a point where they will cut their losses and get out of town. We’d never know what happened. This way we have a slim chance of getting Beth back.”

  “Us and whose army?”

  “Just us. The guys running this are ex-military pros; they’ll spot other pros in seconds.”

  “But they know our faces—Clarisse saw to that.”

  “True enough,” he conceded. “And Drybeck will have fed them our backgrounds. But that’s where we might have an edge.”

  “How?”

  “Drybeck’s an arrogant prick and former military. He’ll have told them we’re simply ex-cops, so no contest. They’ll see us as easy meat.”

  She chewed it over, trying to decide whether to believe him or not. He had a point, though, about the way seasoned pros looked down on ordinary cops. But it was mention of Beth that was the decider. “OK. You’re on. But don’t bullshit me again, Slik. I need you to trust me, too.”

  Her phone buzzed, interrupting further discussion. It was Richard Aston.

  “Can you come in?” he asked. “We need to talk—urgently.”

  “On our way.” She cut the connection and said to Vaslik, “Something’s up. I’m wanted back at base. And don’t think about bunking off—you’re coming with me.”

  fifty-six

  She drove fast towards Marble Arch, wondering what could have happened to make Aston sound so tense. And why so urgent that it couldn’t be discussed by phone? Vaslik was saying nothing, staring out at the other traffic, which suited her just fine.

  Aston was waiting for them in the boardroom. He was looking up at the ceiling, deep in thought, an empty coffee cup in front of him.

  Standing by the window was the man in the grey suit from Hyde Park.

  Aston gestured for them to sit. “You’ve met Neville Grant, of course.”

  So he had a name. Ruth nodded. “Last I heard, you were flying off somewhere in a hurry.”

  “I was. I came back. There has been a development.”

  “Like what?”

  He tapped a folder on the table in front of him. “I’ve received news from a source in Washington. The man you know as Michael Har
dman is dead.”

  There was a stunned silence. Grant said nothing, apparently content to wait for a reaction.

  “What happened?” Ruth asked finally.

  “Left hand, right hand, I’m afraid. Not ours, I’m relieved to say.” He opened the folder in front of him and extracted a large photograph, which he pushed across the table. The subject was black and white, grainy and none too clear, showing what appeared to be a road or track running past a collection of buildings with an outer wall. It was a farm or compound of some sort.

  It was the centre of the photo that instantly drew the eye.

  Ruth felt her chest go cold. She was familiar enough with the subject matter to know exactly what it represented. She was close enough to Andy Vaslik to feel him going through the same reaction.

  They were looking at what looked like a large, ugly flower blossoming in the middle of the photo, obscuring a section of the road and spreading out on either side to touch the compound wall.

  “Was this a drone strike?” Vaslik asked.

  “Yes. It’s a farm not far from the border with Afghanistan. Hardman was spotted in Pakistan, travelling with a group of armed men thought to be a subset of Lashkar-e-Toiba. They’re an extremist Islamic group responsible for a number of attacks in India and elsewhere, with strong links stretching from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and Europe.”

  “He certainly gets around,” said Ruth. The last potential sighting had been in Herat Province in western Afghanistan, with the dead group of Chechen fighters.

  “He does. We suspect Hardman—or Wesam Bahdari as we should call him—might have been on his way to Kabul to fund an operation by this group. They want to draw attention to their fight for an extended Islamist state across the region.” He smiled thinly. “It seems they were somewhat lax in their selection processes. One of their newer members was on a watch list held by Indian Intelligence; they let it be known where he was going and why. He’d told a cousin that they were with a man who had lots of money and were going to perform what he called “an outrage.” A photograph taken at a police post along the way shows that one of the passengers in the car was Michael Hardman. “A rare moment of instant co-operation between agencies in those two countries.”

  “Are you saying Hardman was part of the operation?” Vaslik asked.

  “I doubt it. But we can’t be certain. The Indians had nothing on Hardman, but they had more than enough on the men with him. They passed on the information to the Americans and gave them the coordinates for where they were crossing into Afghanistan. According to my source, the risk was considered serious enough to take immediate action.”

  “Without checking with other interested persons?” Ruth queried.

  “Such as?”

  Vaslik said, “A man called Drybeck.”

  Grant blinked. “How do you know that name?”

  “I picked it up. I forget where.”

  “Really? Then I suggest you drop it again quickly.”

  “Why?” Ruth enquired. “Is he so untouchable?”

  “Nobody’s untouchable. Let it go.”

  There was another lengthy silence, finally broken by Aston. ‘Where does that leave us with Beth and Nancy Hardman? Will the kidnappers let Beth go?”

  “It’s thought not.” Grant looked conflicted and stared at the back of his hands. “They probably don’t know about Hardman yet, as the news is on a restricted issue list. But they’ll find out sooner or later.”

  “Drybeck,” Vaslik murmured.

  “Yes.”

  “And when they do?” Ruth knew what the answer was going to be.

  “It’s likely they won’t react well. My source believes these people will seek to clear the decks of everybody who knows about this operation. That means you two, as I believe you’ve seen some of them. And Beth Hardman.”

  “That’s crazy,” said Ruth. “Why would they harm her? She’s just a kid.”

  “They’re specialists. They’ve conducted a number of extreme operations over many years.”

  “Assassinations?” Vaslik again.

  Yes. Killing a child probably won’t cause them to lose much sleep; I hear they’ve done worse. I would strongly advise you two to keep a very low profile until this group is caught.”

  “We can’t do that,” said Andy Vaslik, and told the two men why.

  A few miles away, Nancy Hardman felt a deep, abiding anger as she stared at the ruined interior of her home. Broken plaster covered the floor, ripped furniture was piled up in every room and the carpets had been taken up and dumped in the garden. Even electrical appliances had been taken apart down to the plugs, their guts opened like dissected metal laboratory rats.

  The neighbours were having a field day, she noted, and pulled the curtains to block out their stares.

  “Why have they done this?” she screamed, turning on Gina, who was watching from the hallway. “What were they looking for? I don’t understand it!”

  “I told you why,” Gina said bluntly. “Do I need to go through it again?” Her expression was ice cold, a clear indication that she considered this wreckage all in a day’s work, and something Hardman had brought on them himself. “Are you sure you didn’t know what Michael was really doing?”

  “No! I told you. This is all wrong!” Nancy swung away from her, kicking at a lump of plaster on the floor. “It’s lies … all of it. Michael wouldn’t do any of those things!” She ran back upstairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. The anger subsided quickly, its energy unreal, and was replaced by an overwhelming flood of panic as she thought of Beth, still out there somewhere. What would become of her now—of them both? The bitch downstairs clearly didn’t believe her, any more than the Gonzales woman or the American.

  Would they be coming for her next?

  She sat on the bed, fighting to compose her thoughts. She mustn’t let this development take over. If Michael was here he would tell her what to do; Michael always knew what to do. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him, the steady confidence he exuded, the confidence that allowed her to trust and believe in him absolutely, even when things looked at their bleakest.

  But he wasn’t here. Until he was, it was up to her to handle the situation.

  In the meantime, she had to hope and pray that Beth was safe.

  And that Michael stayed away.

  That thought prompted another; something she’d been meaning to do since Michael’s first text message. She went to her dressing table and opened the drawer where she kept her diary, some spare cash and her passport.

  The passport was gone.

  fifty-seven

  Ruth checked her watch and felt a tremor go through her. Trafalgar Square at eleven forty-five and barely a minute since the last time she’d checked. She’d arrived early hoping to make a thorough survey of the area and get some idea of the opposition’s numbers and locations. There was a danger in being too long on a static watch, but moving around too much when she knew the other side was out there waiting for her was a bigger one.

  It was tough on the nerves waiting to see what developed; the instructors on the surveillance refresher courses run by Cruxys hadn’t gone into the psychological detail, lingering instead on how to deal with toilet breaks and the physical discomfort of holding static positions for long periods.

  She scanned the square again, filtering out tourists and passers-by, the innocent and the official. Andy Vaslik was roaming loose somewhere in the centre, confident that he would recognise any professionals from their body language and training, while Gina Fraser was sitting on a section of wall close by the upper steps, sucking on an ice cream.

  Persuading Aston and Grant that they were capable of handling this had been a tough argument. Grant in particular had opposed the idea, preferring instead to bring in a Special Forces team to cover the area and take out the opposition in what he ref
erred to as a surgical strike. Even Aston, the ex-military man, had baulked at that.

  “There’d be carnage,” he countered. “You can’t control a situation surrounded by hundreds of tourists. They’d be hostage meat the moment your team showed up.”

  Vaslik had agreed, pointing out that the kidnap group would recognise instantly the presence of other professionals, no matter how cautious they were.

  “If they’re the kind of people I think they are,” he’d said, “they’ll have nothing to lose.”

  In the end their words had prevailed, and both men had promised to keep the police and military out of it, on the proviso that if anything did kick off, they would have no option but to send in a team hard and fast to protect the many civilians in the area.

  “There is a minor problem, remember,” Aston reminded them. “If they hear about Hardman’s death, they won’t be there to show Beth Hardman alive and well.”

  With that caution ringing in her ears, and hoping they hadn’t overstepped themselves, Ruth was now using the cover of a book store window in the southeastern corner of the square, holding a magazine while looking across a steady stream of traffic running from Trafalgar Square into the Strand to her right. It wasn’t the best observation point but safe enough; most observers would be drawn to scan the northern and higher part of the square above the fountains, where they would expect Hardman to be waiting, and for Ruth or Vaslik to be stationed in order to make contact with him.

  If they found either of them they would quickly expect to find Hardman. The cold, hard logic of hunters.

  She was looking for vehicles; or more accurately, a particular vehicle. It would have to be a model that would blend in easily, and big enough to carry a party of at least four plus one, maybe more.

  The plus one had to be Beth.

  She watched a Renault Scenic people-carrier edging its way along the kerb, attracting a few angry hoots from other vehicles. It looked full, with faces inside turning to scan the square. She saw a little girl at one window moving around on her seat, and her heart flipped.

  They were early.