Cold Kill

by Leather, Stephen

  The doorbell rang. The Saudi rinsed his hair, wrapped himself in the Savoy’s thick towelling robe, then headed for the door. ‘Room service,’ called a waitress.

  The Saudi had ordered eggs Benedict, a pot of coffee, and Buck’s fizz, with Pol Roger. A leisurely breakfast, a stroll by the Thames, then off to the airport. The Saudi would miss London, but he would be back, sooner rather than later.

  He padded across the thick carpet and opened the door. A matronly waitress, with grey hair tied back in a bun and an ample chest that strained at her white blouse, was standing behind a trolley. She had a nametag over her left breast. Amy.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said brightly. She smiled, showing greying teeth.

  The Saudi nodded. He didn’t believe in talking to the hired help. He waved for her to wheel in the trolley.

  ‘How are you this morning, sir?’ she asked.

  The Saudi ignored her and headed back to the bathroom. He heard a rapid footfall but before he could react he felt a thump in the small of his back and slammed into the wall by the bathroom door. The barrel of a gun was forced under his chin. ‘Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off,’ the waitress hissed

  There were more footsteps in the corridor outside the suite, then half a dozen men burst in, all armed. Hands grabbed at the Saudi’s arms and forced him around so that his back was to the wall. The grey-haired waitress was grinning as she kept the gun rammed against his neck. The Saudi stared at her, but said nothing.

  The Labrador growled softly and dropped the tennis ball at Charlotte Button’s feet. Button ignored her and carried on flicking through the dozen or so personnel files she had scattered across the coffee table. The dog gave a plaintive yelp and Button sighed. ‘What part of working at home don’t you understand, Poppy?’ she said. ‘I’ll take you out at lunchtime.’

  The dog was panting and Button patted her. Then she picked up Shepherd’s file and reread Kathy Gift’s most recent assessment. There was no doubt that Shepherd was going to be an asset to SOCA. His Special Forces background combined with his police experience made him the perfect undercover operative. She had been impressed with him when they’d met at the Ritz, and he didn’t appear to be the sort who’d have problems working for a woman. The police was still a very male-dominated organisation, especially when compared with MI5 where more than half of the two thousand or so officers were female and the director general was a woman. But Shepherd didn’t seem bothered by Button’s sex, and she hadn’t once caught him glancing at her breasts or legs. Jimmy Sharpe was a different matter. During his interview he’d made some outrageous observations about the role of women in police work, always followed by a gruff ‘no offence intended’ – although he clearly didn’t care one way or the other whether she was offended or not. Button didn’t plan to hold Sharpe’s sexist views against him. It took all sorts to make up an undercover unit and his assets far outweighed his liabilities.

  It had been two days since Shepherd had taken the Christopher Donovan birth certificate and he was due to go in and collect the passport from the Uddin brothers. She picked up her mobile and dialled his number.

  ‘It’s Charlie,’ she said, when he answered.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘I was going to ask you the same.’

  ‘I’m getting ready to go in,’ he said. ‘Jimmy Sharpe’s riding shotgun.’

  ‘Great,’ said Button. ‘Bag it as soon as possible. We’ll need to run a full print and DNA analysis.’

  ‘You know who the contact is?’

  ‘It’s all wrapped up,’ said Button. Another phone rang. Her landline. ‘Dan, my other line’s going. Call me when you’ve got the passport.’ She stood up and cut the connection. Poppy raced to the door, tail wagging.

  ‘I’m answering the phone, silly,’ she said. ‘We’ll do the walk thing later.’

  At the mention of the word, Poppy’s tail wagged even more enthusiastically. Button shook her head. Poppy had been her husband’s idea. Given the choice, she would have preferred a cat, but as the house had been her call, as had been the car, their daughter’s boarding-school and the cottage in the Lake District, she reckoned he deserved the pet of his choice.

  She picked up the phone. It was Patsy Ellis, her former boss at MI5’s International Counter-terrorism Branch. Ellis was also one of MI5’s representatives on the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and was tipped as a potential director general.

  ‘How goes SOCA?’ asked Ellis.

  Button looked across at the files on the coffee table. ‘Slowly,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to make any mistakes with my team. There’s a lot at stake.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Ellis. ‘You won’t have the Official Secrets Act to hide behind. Everything you do will be followed by every investigative journalist in the country.’

  ‘This is a pep talk, is it?’ asked Button.

  Ellis laughed. ‘You don’t need one from me, Charlie,’ she said. ‘I put you forward for the job, remember?’

  ‘Only because I was after yours,’ said Button, only half joking.

  ‘A few years out of the fold will do you the world of good,’ said Ellis. ‘And you’ll be able to take the credit for your successes, which we’re never allowed to do.’

  Button knew she was right: SOCA had been a good career move – if she made a success of it.

  ‘Before you get too settled in, we’ve had a request for your assistance,’ said Ellis.

  ‘We?’

  ‘It came from the DG’s office. Not for you personally but the DG decided you were the perfect candidate.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Your Arab language abilities, as it happens. And your interrogation skills. Oh, and your sex, which makes it even more intriguing.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘They wanted a woman. Ideally a pretty one. I was going to cry sexism when I heard, but there is a method to their madness.’

  ‘Patsy, you’re talking in riddles. Who’s “they”?’

  Poppy nuzzled the back of Button’s legs.

  ‘The Americans. The request came from Homeland Security, which, as you know, now covers a multitude of sins. But it came at the highest level. Actually phoned the DG at home at five o’clock in the morning, and you know how she relishes her beauty sleep. Seems they’ve got someone in their embassy they need interrogating.’

  ‘They’ve got their own Arab speakers, surely?’

  ‘They want some UK involvement, because although the embassy is effectively on American soil it’s still our country. Just about. And apparently the only Arab speakers they have in situ are Muslims, and that’s not what they want.’

  Button looked at her watch. ‘When?’

  ‘Now,’ said Ellis.

  The windows overlooking the garden rattled.

  ‘It’s going to take me a while to get to Grosvenor Square,’ said Button.

  The rattling intensified. The trees at the end of the garden bent over as if they were being pushed down by invisible hands.

  ‘Not as long as you think,’ said Ellis.

  Button heard the whup-whup-whup of the helicopter’s rotor-blades, then saw its shadow flash across the lawn.

  ‘Must be important,’ said Button.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Ellis. ‘Very.’

  Button replaced the receiver and looked down at the Labrador. ‘Your walk will have to wait, Poppy.’

  The dog’s tail beat a tattoo on the carpet.

  ‘You really are a stupid animal,’ said Button. She headed for the kitchen door. She’d phone her husband when she got to Central London. When all was said and done Poppy was his dog.

  Jimmy Sharpe lit a cigarette and blew smoke out of the open window of the Vauxhall Vectra. Shepherd coughed pointedly and Sharpe flashed him a tight, but non-apologetic, smile.

  ‘When did you start smoking?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘When I was twelve,’ said Sharpe.

  They were sitting in the car a short walk from the Uddin brothers’
Edgware Road bureau de change. It was just before eleven o’clock, an hour before Shepherd was due to collect his new passport.

  ‘Haven’t seen you smoke before.’

  ‘Don’t read anything into it,’ said Sharpe. ‘I just felt like a cigarette.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And, Hargrove never allowed smoking on the job.’

  ‘Ah, so while the cat’s away . . .’

  ‘I just felt like a cigarette.’

  ‘Fine. Makes a change from you farting.’

  ‘Hey, you don’t have to wait in the car,’ said Sharpe. ‘There’s a Starbucks over there. Or you can go sit with the sand jockeys and have a hubble-bubble pipe.’

  ‘Not very politically correct, Razor.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sharpe, ‘take a look round you. Arab cafés, Arab shops, Arab banks and half the shops here have got Arabic signs. You wouldn’t think this was England.’

  ‘You’re Scottish, remember?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They’ve as much right to be here as you.’

  ‘Yeah, but look at them, the way they walk around in their white dresses with those tea-towels on their heads. Making their women wear black from head to foot. I’m Scots, sure, but you don’t see me walking around in my kilt scratching my sporran, do you?’

  ‘And your point is?’

  ‘I don’t know what my point is.’ He took another long drag on his cigarette. ‘Maybe there is no point.’

  ‘What do you make of Button?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘Ah, a loaded question if ever I heard one,’ said Sharpe. ‘Not wearing a wire, are you?’

  ‘You know I’m not, you prat. And I’m serious,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Have you had a run-in with her already?’

  ‘Have you?’

  Sharpe laughed. ‘I love talking to you, Spider. Your defences are never down, are they? You’re always in character.’

  ‘That’s bollocks.’

  ‘Have I ever spoken to the real you in all the years I’ve known you? I get the feeling that all I ever talk to are the roles you’re playing.’

  ‘That’s not true.’

  Sharpe narrowed his eyes and puffed at his cigarette. He held the smoke deep in his lungs, then exhaled it in a tight plume through the window.

  ‘Razor, piss off, will you?’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I’m your back-up, remember? I can’t piss off. If I piss off who’s going to haul your nuts out of the fire if it all goes tits up?’

  ‘Like you did in Paris?’

  ‘Cheap shot. Anyway, Paris worked out all right, considering it was kick, bollock, scramble all the way.’

  ‘I was bundled into the boot of a car at gunpoint,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I could have been killed.’

  ‘Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve,’ said Sharpe. ‘Anyway, what’s that got to do with Charlotte Button?’

  Shepherd tilted his head back and stared up at the car roof. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Paris wasn’t even her operation,’ said Sharpe. ‘That was Hargrove, God rest his soul.’

  ‘Why didn’t Joycie join SOCA?’

  Sharpe grinned wolfishly. ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘That he wanted to stay with the Met.’

  ‘That’s the gist of it. He’s moving to the Drugs Squad.’

  ‘Button said she wanted him in the SOCA unit.’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I think his exact words were “I’m fucked if I’m gonna take orders from a tart” – or something like that.’

  ‘Because she’s a woman?’

  ‘Come on, Spider, when was the last time you took orders from one? There’s none in the SAS, right, and precious few in the army. The only time we use women in undercover units is in honey-traps, pretty much.’

  ‘That’s not true, Razor. There’s plenty of women cops around. Good ones, too.’

  Sharpe shook his head. ‘The big villains are all guys. Crime is an XY chromosome business.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean you can’t use women to get close to them.’

  ‘That’s what I said. Honey-traps.’

  ‘Racism and sexism in one day. You’re on a roll.’

  ‘Don’t get me started on religion!’ laughed Sharpe. He flicked the still-burning cigarette butt through the window.

  ‘Racism, sexism and littering,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘No biggie,’ said Sharpe. ‘We’re not cops any more, we’re civil servants, remember? You having second thoughts about Button?’

  ‘Not because she’s a woman,’ said Shepherd. ‘That didn’t even enter the equation.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Her background.’

  ‘You don’t like upper-class, university-educated, Home Counties, riding-to-hounds types, then?’

  ‘It’s not about liking. It’s about trusting. It’s about knowing your back’s being watched.’

  ‘You think she should be here today? You’re only collecting the passport. No need for her to be around for that.’

  ‘I don’t need babysitting,’ said Shepherd. He took a deep breath. ‘Okay, let me tell you what I think’s wrong about her. She thinks this is a game. Good against evil, cops against robbers. She’s spent her whole working life in MI5, most of it behind a desk, and when she wasn’t behind a desk I’m damned sure she wasn’t getting her hands dirty. She thinks it’s like some huge game of chess, where she sits there like a grandmaster—’

  ‘Mistress,’ interrupted Sharpe. ‘Grandmistress.’

  ‘Screw you,’ snarled Shepherd. ‘If you don’t want to talk seriously, go fuck yourself.’

  ‘Just trying to ease the tension,’ said Sharpe. ‘Besides, the vision of Charlotte Button in thigh-length boots and a whip was too good to pass up.’

  ‘And what’s that got to do with chess?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll put my hands up. I was focusing more on the mistress aspect.’

  Despite himself Shepherd laughed.

  Sharpe lit another cigarette. ‘You think she’s just an academic, is that it?’ asked Sharpe.

  ‘I think she treats it like a game of chess, and that we’re just pieces she moves around. And if a piece or two have to be sacrificed to win, then so be it.’

  ‘She said that?’

  ‘It’s just my take on it. But she did say it was a game.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘She said “The game moves up a notch” when terrorism’s involved. How can anyone call terrorism a game?’

  ‘It’s an expression. Like raising your game. Or living to play another day.’

  ‘That’s what she said. I don’t know, Razor . . . She’s never fired a gun in anger, never faced a thug with a knife, never walked into a room with half a dozen villains who’d gouge your eyes out if they knew you were a cop. You walked a beat in Glasgow before you were in plain clothes. You’ve been in pubs when fists and bottles were flying, you’ve looked down the barrel of a gun and known that only your ability to bullshit would stop the other guy pulling the trigger. Hargrove had been there, too.’

  ‘Back when dinosaurs walked the earth, maybe,’ said Sharpe. ‘But, yeah, I know what you mean. Hargrove’s old school.’

  ‘She isn’t old school. She’s Oxbridge, fast-track promotion, management courses and human- resources bullshit. I don’t think she even knows what it’s like to be hurt. Maybe the odd manicure injury or a twisted ankle when she was getting to grips with high heels, but she’s never killed anyone.’

  Sharpe coughed and exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘Neither have I, truth be told,’ he said. He made a vain attempt to wave the smoke out of the window.

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way. It’s about understanding how the real world works. She’s no idea how violent men can be to each other. The damage they can do. I was shit-scared when they put me in that boot, Razor. Logically, I’d talked myself into believing that they had no reason to hurt me, but on a purely ph
ysical level, I was scared. I know the damage a bullet can do.’

  Sharpe scratched his chin. ‘I’ve no reason to defend the woman, but just because she hasn’t been where the bullets are flying doesn’t mean she’s not up to the job. We should at least give her a chance, right?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Plus she’s got magnificent breasts.’

  ‘Razor . . .’

  ‘I’m just saying, Hargrove was a great boss, but there wasn’t much in the way of a cleavage, was there?’

  As Button walked away from the helicopter, two marines in flak jackets and helmets brandished M16s and one practically screamed at her to show her identification. Button smiled sweetly and produced her MI5 pass. ‘Charlotte Button,’ she said. ‘I gather I’m expected.’

  The older of the two marines studied the photograph, compared it with her face, nodded grimly, then handed it back to her. ‘Follow me, ma’am,’ he said. He led her away from the helicopter landing area towards a steel door set in a concrete wall. A third marine already had it open.

  As she stepped inside the building, the helicopter’s turbine roared and it clattered up into the afternoon sky. A man was waiting for her in the corridor. He was in his late forties, with short bullet-grey hair and thin lips. He smiled and offered his hand. ‘Richard Yokely,’ he said, with a slight Southern drawl. There was large ring on his right ring finger, and a small gold pin held his dark blue tie in place. ‘Thanks for coming, Ms Button.’

  ‘It’s Charlie,’ said Button.

  ‘Then it’s Richard,’ said Yokely. ‘I’m glad you’re not one to stand on formalities. If you don’t mind, we’ll talk as we walk.’ He headed down the corridor. He was wearing a grey suit and black loafers with tassels, which worried Button. Her mother had once warned her never to trust a man with tassels on his shoes. Her mother had been a housewife, and had never wanted to do anything other than raise her family and keep house for her husband, but she was an astute judge of character and had rarely offered her children bad advice.

  ‘This morning we pulled in a Saudi by the name of Abdal Jabbaar bin Othman al-Ahmed,’ said the American. ‘We have reason to believe he’s planning a terrorist incident here in the UK. Under normal circumstances we’d put him on a plane to Guantanamo Bay but there’s a time issue so we want to start the questioning here.’