The intruder swung the poker, but Sharp used the cushion to absorb the impact. Then he grabbed the handle and flicked it back across the intruder’s windpipe. The man went straight to the ground, gurgling for breath.
Sharp kicked the poker to safety then checked the intruder’s pockets.
Novak scrambled towards Fitz. He whipped the plastic bag off then dragged him to the hallway.
‘Bloody hell,’ Fitz wheezed, coming back to life. ‘Next time...’ he spluttered, ‘you’re staying in a hotel.’
Novak exhaled in relief, but it was too soon for laughter.
Sharp put Novak’s backpack over his shoulders, covering the intruder with his Beretta 92. It wasn’t as good as a Glock for concealed carry, but in twenty years Sharp had never been let down by a Beretta.
‘We’ve got to go,’ Sharp said calmly, guiding Fitz and Novak out. ‘He’ll have a backup team outside and the police will be here soon.’
‘That was you who called the ambulance?’ Novak asked, helping Fitz to his feet.
‘Either way one of the three of you was going to need an ambulance. We need the police for cover against the backup team.’ Sharp looked the pair up and down. ‘You got everything?’
‘Yeah,’ Novak replied.
Sharp and Novak ran out into the night, while Fitz struggled a little behind. Sharp saw a black van pulling up at one end of the street, two police cars and an ambulance at the other. At the police’s request the ambulance hung back.
Seeing the police draw their weapons, Sharp shouted, ‘Down down down!’ He shielded Fitz and Novak as they ran for cover behind a bank of parked cars. Shots were fired from the black van, bullets shattering the windows and pinging into cars.
‘What are they doing?’ Novak yelled.
‘They think one of you is the asset,’ Sharp replied, waiting for a pause in the shots. He wasn’t about to fire his weapon in a dark residential street at a target over one hundred yards away.
‘What asset?’ asked Novak. ‘I offered him the files!’
‘They don’t want the damn files.’
The intruder emerged out Fitz’s doorway, stumbling slightly and holding his throat. He had his Glock pointed at the car the three were hiding behind. ‘Where is the asset?’ he yelled.
The police came in waves of three officers down the street, hiding behind trees as they shouted demands for a show of hands.
The intruder shouted again. ‘Where’s the asset? Where’s Artur Korecki?’
Just as he was about to fire, a policeman shot him in the chest. There was no time to muck about with shoot-to-wound. In movies shoot-to-wound seemed easy and obvious when you wanted a suspect in custody. In practice, shoot-to-wound was near-impossible. Regular motor function was still possible up to thirty seconds after a heart stopped beating anyway, and a shot in the shoulder was no guarantee of survival.
The police shouted ‘Suspect down!’ and moved in. As the black van made a frantic U-turn and sped away, Sharp led Novak down the tree-lined avenue, in the opposite direction from the police. Fitz couldn’t keep up.
Novak shouted back for him but Sharp pulled him on.
‘He needs oxygen,’ Sharp tried to explain. ‘He can’t come.’
‘That’s fine with me,’ Fitz wheezed, sitting up against the front wheel of a shot-out car, holding his chest.
‘Keep your hands up and shout that you’re unarmed,’ Sharp told him.
He smashed a car window with the handle of his gun, then unlocked the door from the inside. Novak dived in the passenger side then Sharp shoved his head down as the police fired at them.
Sharp dipped his head as glass from the back windows sprayed all around him. He barged the cars in front then back to make space to get out.
‘Fitz...we’ve got to go back for Fitz!’ Novak kept shouting.
Sharp gunned it down the street. ‘The medics are there. There’s nothing more we can do.’
Novak kept calling for Fitz, and Sharp could tell he was going into shock. ‘Look at me! Breathe. You’re safe. He’s safe. Listen to your breathing.’
Once they made it out the suburbs, Novak started to calm down. His breathing returning to normal. ‘Who the hell was that guy?’
‘He was American,’ Sharp said. ‘He didn’t have any ID. Even NSA have to carry ID. Possibly private military.’ He reached over with a free hand and patted Novak down, pulling his jacket open. ‘Are you hit?’
‘I’m good.’
‘Lucky I was tracking you.’ Sharp gave him a look.
Novak said, ‘Yeah, lucky. That’s what I feel right now.’ He put his head in his quivering hands. ‘Thank you,’ he said finally.
‘We need to get off the road. We’ll be safer on foot.’ Sharp pulled over outside a deserted car park surrounded by a chain-link fence near Franklin Street subway.
As they descended the stairs Sharp said, ‘Looks like we’re in this together now.’
Westminster Public Mortuary, London – Tuesday, three hours earlier
Detective Inspector Sid Vickering slouched against the bonnet of his Vauxhall Astra, finishing the last inch of a cigarette.
He had a pear-shaped torso which, with his stumpy legs, gave the impression he might topple over at any moment. He stood up as he saw Stella and Dan approaching.
Vickering ushered them in through the side entrance. ‘This way,’ he said.
‘This is Dan, by the way,’ Stella said. ‘He’s helping me with my investigation. I hope that’s alright.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Vickering replied without turning round.
‘Nice to see you again, Detective,’ Leckie said.
Vickering corrected him, ‘It’s Detective Inspector now.’
*
The mortuary had been refurbished a few years ago, and was now a slick modern setup, all glass doors and brushed steel interior. It also had the capacity to deal with up to one hundred bodies at a time. The fast-tracked funding a sad acknowledgement of the possibility that, at some point, it might be needed in the aftermath of a terror attack. Monday’s attack had sadly proven its need.
Vickering led them to a room filled with silver drawers – gleaming like a Michelin-star kitchen.
He pulled on one of the drawers, revealing a metal stretcher and a dead body. ‘Like I said. Single shot in the head, double in the chest.’ The body was still drying out – the stench rising up and attacking the two journalists’ noses.
Vickering couldn’t even smell death anymore. He said, ‘The bullet entries suggest he was lying on the ground when he was shot. Probably knocked out. His time in the water’s made it difficult for forensics.’ He unfurled an evidence bag containing a patch of woollen jumper with a dark red spot on it. ‘SOCO found this on a jumper he was wearing. They ran the blood and it isn’t his. But it turned up a match they received only the day before.’
‘Whose blood is it?’ Stella asked.
Vickering glared at her. ‘Abbie Bishop’s.’
‘Fuck me,’ Leckie said, letting out a snort of amazement.
Always seeing the objective-journalist angles, Stella asked, ‘What are the chances of cross-contamination between the two bodies?’
Vickering said, ‘You mean, what are the chances a forensic pathologist carried some of Abbie Bishop’s blood over fifty feet from one body to the next in the most tightly controlled forensic facility in the country?’ He tried to be charitable. ‘None.’ He wandered to the doorway, checking for approaching footsteps. He was breaking all police protocols by letting in non-police personnel. Except non-police personnel had a lot of petty cash kicking around. Especially journalists.
Stella said, ‘So either he was in Abbie Bishop’s company at some point...’
Leckie concluded, ‘Or his killers were. Maybe they planted it on him. Either way, surely this merits reopening the investigation into her death. That’s DNA proof linking her to another murder.’
Vickering said irritably, ‘Abbie Bishop’s death is being ruled accidental.�
�
‘Not the first time round,’ Leckie retorted. ‘I’ve got a pathologist’s report that says Abbie Bishop was sober the night she died.’
‘This isn’t my shout,’ Vickering said. ‘You want me to reopen the Abbie Bishop case? Find me something.’
‘Are we trading now, Sid?’ Stella asked.
‘I don’t trade, Stella. I sell.’
If Vickering was waiting on Stella opening her purse he was mistaken. ‘Trust me, you’ll want to buy what I’m selling,’ Stella said.
‘And what is that?’
‘I need something first.’
‘Like what?’
‘The ID of the man in the river.’
Vickering grumbled. ‘His name’s Goran Lipski. He was ten years with GCHQ before he was sacked for a number of security breaches. The details of which are classified.’ He folded his arms and breathed in slowly. ‘What do you know?’
Leckie sensed this was his moment. ‘Abbie was shagging the Right Honourable Nigel Hawkes. Or being shagged by, depending on your point on view. For the last six months.’
Vickering stared at Leckie – the look he used when he knew he had the jump on a suspect. ‘I wonder how you got that.’
Leckie laughed.
Vickering turned to Stella. ‘I’m disappointed to see you keeping the company of pond life, Stella.’
‘I did my time,’ Dan said. ‘Which is more than I can say for a number of your colleagues. There used to be a time hacks and coppers could get along. As long as we paid our bills on time.’ He took out a wad of twenty-pound notes and laid them on top of the body. ‘We’d like to see Lipski’s phone, Detective.’ He paused before adding, ‘Inspector.’
Vickering looked at the money with disgust then exited without it. He nodded his head towards the corridor for them to follow.
Back at the station – under a constable’s guard – the evidence room was tightly secured. All the confiscated guns and drugs from all the London boroughs ended up in there, waiting in evidence bags to be farmed out to the various courts. Many a dirty cop had earned unplanned bonuses making things disappear from that room in the past.
Vickering took out the box of evidence bags taken from the Thames site where Lipski was found. Glancing over his shoulder every few seconds, Vickering said, ‘The techs have already checked it: the water killed the phone. I don’t know what you think you’re going to find.’ He handed Leckie a pair of latex gloves.
Leckie took out the SIM card and slotted it into Stella’s phone.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ said Vickering. ‘It’s been in the water for two days.’
Leckie said, ‘The phone’s dead, but a SIM card can survive a forty-degree wash.’ He handed Stella the phone. ‘See, it’s fine.’
Stella showed Vickering the screen, then scrolled through the SIM’s contents. First the phone book (empty), text message inbox (empty), call log (not empty).
‘What kind of “tech” doesn’t know SIM cards are practically bombproof?’ Stella asked.
Vickering replied impatiently, ‘They said it was dead. They were professionals.’
‘Who were they?’
‘MI6.’
Leckie and Stella shared a look.
Stella asked, ‘And an MI6 tech told you there was no usable information that could be extracted from a SIM card that had been in water?’
Vickering said, ‘That’s what the chief inspector told me.’
‘They’re either incompetent or lying.’ Stella kept scrolling through, then showed him a number on it. ‘It comes up a lot last week.’
‘Call it,’ Dan urged her.
Stella hit the call button.
Vickering wandered away, muttering to himself, ‘Waste of time...’
As Stella waited for an answer, somewhere in the room a distant ringing started.
Vickering froze.
Dan said ‘What the–’
Stella shushed him. She lowered her phone to get a better handle on the location of the ringing. ‘It’s in here.’ She went straight for one of the locked drawers. ‘It’s coming from in here.’
Vickering scrambled with the keys, unlocking the drawer, revealing a louder ringing. He held the phones next to each other. Stella’s number was on the incoming call screen.
‘Nice one,’ said Dan. ‘So whose phone’s that?’
Vickering paused, rechecking the files. ‘But that’s...’ He didn’t understand. ‘That’s anti-terror’s evidence.’
Stella carefully took out what else was in the drawer with the other phone.
The evidence bags had the empty boxes of burner phones bought at a newsagent; Oyster card for London underground; street maps of Westminster with handwritten notes on them; surveillance photos of Riz Rizzaq.
Stella said, ‘Sid...who owns this phone?’
Vickering had turned white. He could barely get the words out. ‘It was in the house used by the Downing Street bomber cell.’
PART FOUR
The Evidence Game
11.
Banks of the Omulev River, Poland – Tuesday, 11.21pm
ARTUR KORECKI HAD been running all evening as if his pursuers had their gun sights trained on him and might shoot at any moment. Lactic acid in his legs burned so deeply and intensely he could barely lift his feet. The wet underfoot had sapped his energy, and now he couldn’t swallow oxygen fast enough to replenish his starving muscles.
He’d run over boggy marshland, through a maze-like forest – like something out of The Lord of the Rings – and crossed rivers that went as high as his chest. Now darkness had fallen he deemed it safe to finally rest, sheltering under a tall bush. His denim jacket was tattered and covered in mud from two nights sleeping rough in the countryside. His extremities ached from the cold. He didn’t even have the energy to breathe warmth into his red raw hands.
The first night out, back around Lake Walpusz, a military vehicle approaching had forced Artur to take evasive action. He jumped off a cattle-crossing bridge into the freezing water thirty feet below. He had timed dipping his head under the water as the truck got closer, taking forever to pass. When Artur emerged – shaking like someone was shoving him back and forth by the shoulders – he was convinced he was going to die. Even in his battered state he remembered reading that the best way to survive a fall into freezing water (as wrongheaded as it seemed) was to take off all your clothes. Once you were out the water, the real danger was the cold being held in your clothes, not in the air. He got down on the ground, pulling his knees up to his chest, then started digging up dirt and covering himself with as much of it as he could. It was amazing how much warmth could be found in the ground.
By morning his clothes were almost frozen stiff. But he had survived. That was all that mattered.
Rhododendron bushes had been his makeshift shelter through the previous night’s rain, driven in sideways by a stiff wind. His swift escape from home had left him ill-equipped for rough winter nights. All he had were the clothes on his back. The laptop, spare phone, flash drive and passport in his backpack didn’t seem much use to him now. At least he had thought of grabbing his passport. Without that, his plan would never work.
As Artur emerged from the woods, he found a clearing at a bend in the Omulev River where a car had parked up. It was a beaten-up old Volvo, with two male teens inside, passing a bottle of vodka and a joint back and forth.
The clearing was a few hundred metres wide, and Artur was convinced as soon as he stepped out the shrubbery the Biuro would surround him. He also knew he might not get another chance to escape: he hadn’t seen or even heard a car for hours.
He snuck up on the car from the rear, keeping low, his breath stuttering out his mouth with nerves. Inside the car Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was playing loudly, the two occupants in the pushed-back front seats, stoned and singing along to “Us and Them”.
Artur tapped gently on the window, ‘Excuse me. Please, can you help me?’
The driver was the less st
oned of the two and heard Artur first. He cleared his long hair out his eyes and rolled his window down. ‘Hey, man. What’s up?’
Artur stayed crouched by the driver’s door. ‘Please. I need help. I’m being chased by the Biuro.’
The passenger, stoned out his head, croaked, ‘Those fuckers. You’re shivering, man. Get in.’
Artur climbed into the back seat.
The passenger passed him a blanket, ‘Take this,’ threw back some chocolate and crisps, ‘eat this,’ then held the joint out, ‘and smoke that.’
Just thankful for a soft seat and warm air, Artur tilted his head back in relief. He took some chocolate, but declined the joint. He’d once read about CIA involvement in helping to supply crack to poor, black communities in the seventies: Artur hadn’t taken so much as a bong hit since.
‘What do they want you for?’ the driver asked.
‘To give me to the Americans,’ Artur said.
‘Shit, man. That’s all you had to say.’
The passenger said, ‘I was just saying, man...it’s the new world order. The world police.’
The driver started the engine. ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘As close to Gdańsk as you can get me.’ Artur emptied his wallet and handed his cash to the driver. ‘I’m sorry, but this is all I have.’
The passenger pushed Artur’s hand back. ‘No need, man.’ He then changed tracks to the opening bass riff of ‘Money’. ‘We got Floyd, some weed: a road trip to Gdańsk...’
They stayed on backroads until Artur reckoned it was safe to take the E77 – the inter-Euro motorway – explaining his situation on the way north.
As they pulled up in downtown Gdańsk they exchanged handshakes through the driver’s window. ‘I don’t know how to thank you guys,’ Artur said.
‘Stay alive, dude,’ the driver said. ‘That’s all you gotta do.’
‘I’d offer to take your names and phone numbers so I can repay you some time, but if I get caught, I wouldn’t want you guys to–’
The driver wouldn’t hear of it. ‘It’s cool.’
Artur passed him a note. ‘Can you do me one last favour? Get this to Waldemar Bartczak. He lives in Szymany. His address is on the back.’
Official Secrets Page 24
