The doors opened, and the men exited quickly, as the pilot yelled “I’ll stay in the area for ten but I need to get fuel and call this in soon.”
Cade yelled back. “Make something up. Make it feasible.” Then he shut the left-hand door and double-checked it before moving off, head down and away from the dust and debris that the blades were stirring up.
The New Zealander checked the cockpit. All clear. Then he called back one last time.
“You OK there, old fella?”
He heard a grunt. Good enough. He opened the throttle to increase the speed of the rotor, pulled up slowly on the collective, and the blue and yellow eagle began to lift away from the building. He turned right and began to edge back out into the middle of the river, checking on the two boats and their cargo.
Then he checked his surroundings, turned back towards the fort and lit it up. “Dark, windy and bloody squally. Just like I like it eh grandad?”
Height, check. Power, check. Fuel, not ideal. Forty minutes at best.
Figuring they would be at least an hour on the ground, he made for Lippitts Hill at speed. He was desperate for fuel and more desperate for a piss.
Fifteen minutes later he was on the ground, fuel was gurgling into the tank. He used the standard six hundred litres equals six hundred kilometres. Trained in metric, it was easier that way.
It was certainly easier than the situation he’d found himself in when he’d landed and checked the airframe and cockpit.
Quite how he was going to break the news to Cade was something he considered as he watched a powerful stream of dark yellow urine bouncing off the stainless-steel urinal.
“One tank filled, another emptied. Jeez, that stinks.”
He checked his watch. After a much-needed piss and a rapid wash of his hands, he was now munching on a stale muesli bar he’d found in his flying suit as he walked quickly back to the chopper. Leaning into the wind, he climbed on board, strapped himself in and gave a rapid salute to the ground crew before lifting off into the night sky over southern Essex once more. Whoever was paying the bill clearly didn’t care about cost of fuel or reporting guidelines.
“India Nine Seven show me returning to the North Kent area, please.”
“Received.”
“Nothing. Not a so what you up to, buddy? Or, hey brother, that’s a shit-ton of helicopter you are throwing around out there, how’s about you give us a few pointers on just what the fuck it is you are doing? Nothing.” He chatted away to himself as he looked down to his right, the lights of the London skyline were dappled by another front of heavy and persistent rain. “Oh well, let’s go and cause some tax-payer-funded chaos, eh?”
Seventeen minutes later he was back over the river, banking and reducing height. He saw the two boats were heading back towards the island. Last he’d heard, they had a casualty. Things must have changed.
“Steady, steady…now.” Ralph Kent had earned his keep.
McGee was helping him to lower the clinker-built dinghy into the water.
“I never had you down as a naval type Bridie.” Roberts said to his DS.
“You never asked. Not the sort of question you ask at an interview is it, boss. OK DS McGee, tell me about your experience with major investigations and the finer art of yachting…” She smiled, wiping the rain from her face, eyes always smiling.
“I really want to come with you, boss.”
He held her hand tightly. “No, I’ve lost too many of my best people, and besides, I need you to look after the casualty. There’ll be plenty more adventures on the high seas in the future my love.” He said it in a pirate voice, which he knew sounded ridiculous.
She made sure that Reddington was confident before watching Roberts and Briton climb into the small boat which set off across the water as fast as it could go.
“We’ll be here or hereabouts. If Mick’s condition changes, I’ll make it back to port.” Kent yelled into the squall that seemed to have centred over his new and latest challenge, slapping him across the face and grabbing the air from his lungs.
Roberts shouted back, his hands cupped to his mouth. “Go now. We’ll be fine. We’ve got the eye in the sky! Go!”
Kent didn’t need a second opinion. He turned the Harrier into the wind then made a course back to Chatham Docks. No point in landing somewhere that was remote and without a hospital.
“How long before we get there? Fifteen?” asked Roberts into Reddington’s ear.
She held a thumb aloft. It seemed like a reasonable guess.
“What’s the plan?” she yelled back.
“Find them and detain them. If they put up a fight use reasonable force.”
“My definition of reasonable might be different to yours, Jason.” She smiled, eyes squinting against the ferocious and bitter wind.
“Fine by me. No witnesses to this one.”
“Apart from that.” She pointed up to the sky as the Eurocopter circled, its navigation lights blinking in between sheets of rain.
“He’s on our side. I’m sure the camera has an off switch.”
“Let’s hope so because this isn’t going to be at all pretty.”
Cade and Daniel moved as quickly as they could, heading across open ground and into the main entrance to the fort. If nothing else, getting out of the rain for a moment helped their spirits.
“Thoughts, JD?”
“I’m sat by a fire in my coastal home in New Zealand, feet up on the sofa with a large glass of Dark Storm – as the fire crackles and the wind taps against the glass. Seems appropriate.”
“I hear you, mate. I meant…”
“I know what you meant, Jack. Keep our lights off if we can, move slow and steady, follow the shadows, listen for any manmade noises, then take one each?”
“I bags Clarke then, I’ve fought with Doto before, remember?”
His mind flicked back to the day at Highgate cemetery and the surreal fight that he’d had with the creature they called the Mamba. She was like half snake, the way she writhed and half bear, sheer, unfeminine strength.
“How about we both take Doto down and hope Clarke does the decent thing and legs it?”
It seemed a reasonable risk assessment given their options.
“Or we could phone for backup and wait….”
“Since when have two ex-but-still-coppers ever done that?” He smiled, his teeth about the only thing visible in the almost pitch-black corridor.
“Then gung-ho it is. You’ve got life insurance I assume?”
“Loads. Never used it yet. Come on.”
They moved into the building, Cade counting the steps, hoping their prey had buggered off while they had the chance.
“Eighteen sixty-seven. Eighteen steps inside the main door. Turn left. Sixty paces. Down a level and seven more, again to the left.”
“And when we get there?”
“Best question you’ve asked tonight, John. Not a bloody clue. You concentrate on writing this lot up for the PM’s debrief whilst I work out what we do when we find Tom’s treasure trove.” He continued counting, then turned left, trying to maintain a straight course in the dark with Daniel a few paces behind.
Cade paused and waited for Daniel to join him.
“John, there would appear to be a slight issue with our weapons situation.”
“Eh? How come?”
“In that the Glock that I had has disappeared between the chopper and here.”
“Bloody hell. Re-trace our steps?”
“We’d have heard it on the stone floor. If it’s out there, it could be anywhere. Press on?”
“Press on. And let’s hope lady luck is in a good mood.”
Roberts stopped as the two women lowered themselves to the ground, trying to get beneath the cutting wind.
“OK?”
“Yep. Listen, we’ve got two options. We wait here and freeze, or we get inside the fort and try to find the others, hopefully in doing so we find Doto and her lapdog. Or head back and wait for backup.�
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“That’s three options. Anyway, what if she’s armed? What-if she’s carrying some form of weapon?
“What-if never won a fair lady Jason.” Briton winked at him but he didn’t see, even now they were still adjusting to the light.
“I say we send two in and one at the door. Jack and JD are in there too, don’t forget. There’s every danger of a blue on blue if we meet in the dark. Do you have a code word? The sort that you’d shout if Cade was about to cave your head in with a weapon of opportunity?”
Roberts stood for a moment, favoured the back of his head then replied, “I’d probably shout Jack no! Or something equally compelling.”
Reddington laughed quietly. She was on a remote island, in a growing storm, pitch-black, blacker still with only a feint orange glow to the north west and the distant hum of a helicopter. It was like being back on the battlefields of the Farah Province.
She slapped Roberts across the back. “You and me inside, Kate, you stay here. Find something solid and anything that doesn’t sound or look or smell friendly, you have the Prime Minister’s permission to stove its face in.”
Roberts’ mind turned to Sassy Lane, the PM who had somehow sanctioned this whole charade.
‘Do what you need to do to sort this lot out, DCI Roberts, keep my name out of it, the cabinet too. No media, no budget restraints and only one get out of jail free card each.’
It was like a two-piece jigsaw, with one piece missing, yet still impossible to fathom.
He held Briton by her shoulders. “Kate, no hard feelings. Stay safe for God’s sake yeah?”
“You can bet your favourite tangerine tie on it Jason.”
She’d noticed. It was his favourite. Nice.
Stop it now, Jason. Just let it go.
Chapter Fifty-Six
The White Drawing Room, Downing Street
He knocked politely before entering.
It had become her favourite place to recover from a day of political banter and debate. Mimosa yellow walls, ornate white ceiling and full-length salmon-pink curtains, it was finished in period detail. A number of expensive sofas and chairs surrounded a low walnut table that led the eye to a white marble fireplace, above which hung an original landscape by the famed British painter J. M. W Turner.
“So Sassy, what news from the Russian Front?”
Robert Cartwright, Lane’s new Home Secretary dripped sarcasm.
It was, he often said, to his most attentive crowds, one of his most endearing traits. A true-blue Tory he’d risen rapidly, then stalled under the previous PM James Cole, but when Cole had fallen on his sword, he struck and laid the foundation stone of a future as Lane’s senior advisor on policing and national security. Cartwright had eyed the position, one of the four Great Offices of State since he’d first become an MP many years before.
When his predecessor and darling of the cabinet Ollie Berry had been hit by a bus near Trafalgar Square Cartwright couldn’t believe his luck.
All he needed to do now was sit back and wait. Put every foot right, avoid drama or scandal and then, just when the Great British Public were at their most vulnerable, he’d release his particular dog of war, a snarling, salivating, black-eyed Pitbull called Shame.
He looked at Lane as she sat in her comfortable chair, fingers steepled. And despite her good looks and gregarious nature, and importantly, her decision to promote him twice, he despised her. Sat there with her stockinged legs tightly together, hands on her knees as if butter wouldn’t melt. Everyone, that was anyone in Whitehall, knew she’d done it with Cole. Probably right here in the drawing room, probably on this very sofa.
He shuffled slightly. Filthy little slut.
“Something on your mind, Robert?” she asked intuitively.
“Well, it isn’t every night the Home Secretary pops in for a cuppa with his boss and admires the artwork because he’s got bugger all else to do, is it?”
There it was, another fresh bucketload of sarcasm. God, she hated him. Sat there with his weasel face and his beady little slate-grey eyes and a slightly suspicious, all-year-round tan. Not quite as dubious as the new guy across the Atlantic, whose tan seemed to positively glow in comparison, but troubling, nonetheless.
She’d picked Cartwright as the best of a really bad bunch. He’d been despised in most of his roles, Education and Health and Foreign Affairs. In each role, he’d gained a reputation as a man of limited compassion but clinical decision making. Twenty thousand police officers had been slashed, doctors and nurses too. The money must have gone somewhere. As Chancellor, he’d ensured that the books were perfectly balanced.
But still she quietly hated the man.
At least her predecessor Cole had some quality candidates to choose from.
“OK, then why are you here, spoiling my enjoyment of The Night Manager?”
Cartwright scanned the room, then lowered his tone slightly, albeit with a hint of veiled malice.
“Because Prime Minister, there’s something we need to discuss. And it begins in Africa a long, long time ago…ring any bells yet?”
She shook her head, leant forward slightly, stared him out. “No.”
“Allow me to embellish. West Africa…an old ship…full of cargo?”
“One of many. Do go on Bob, but lead me there quickly as I have an early start tomorrow and you need to prepare for some tough questions on police cutbacks.”
She’d knocked him slightly off guard.
“I’ll cut to the chase…”
“I do wish you would, this was apparently the best part and Hugh Laurie is rather scrumptious in this, wouldn’t you say?”
She’d done it again. “I, erm, wouldn’t know Sassy, not my type, I’m more of a ladies’ man, don’t you know? Anyway, shall we drill down? As it’s just you and I, sat here in this beautiful room with its art works and drapes and Persian carpets, but no ears or eyes or recording devices. Let’s just go for the jugular, shall we?”
“Please do, I’m getting slightly annoyed now you see Robbie, it’s not every evening a girl gets her viewing pleasure curtailed by a man on such a mission of mystery. You’ve got five minutes then I’ll call Seb and you know how protective he can be.”
Cartwright hated Lane’s protection officer more than the woman he eagerly guarded. As soon as the job was his he’d be booted, arse first down The Mall with his smug grin and cut-glass good looks in tow.
“The merchant ship Albatross. A West African consular officer. Conflict diamonds…” He was smiling now. It was almost worth one of his rarer-by-the-day erections.
“Spit it out or get out, Robert.”
“Slaves. Modern day, working for next to nothing slaves. I can just let it slip, oops, how on earth did that happen to land on the desk of the journalist you loathe the most?”
“You know you sound really camp when you are excited, Robbie dear. I’m beginning to have doubts over your sexuality, and importantly, your loyalty. For the record, yes, I know about the Albatross. That was a sad night for many people, but particularly those poor souls that lost their lives out there. But that was then, before our time, and the rest is myth and legend. Now, if you don’t mind, Hugh was about to utter a line that was dripping in maple syrup, and being all alone, you know, in here, after such a long day, well, it would be quite rude not to think about it wouldn’t it?”
The notion of the British Prime Minister, pleasuring herself, in front of one of Turner’s finest landscapes or on the stairs, alongside portraits of her political forebears made him almost heave.
“Hit a nerve, did it Home Secretary? We all know how much you fancy yourself more than any other living thing. The thought of anyone else even beginning to have…fun, good God no, we can’t allow that. And the thought of your boss condoning slavery in England in two thousand and sixteen, well that just wouldn’t do either now, would it? If indeed it was even remotely true, you snivelling little piece of shit.”
She stood and walked towards him. “Stand up.”
> He did as he was told.
“Look around you.”
Again, slightly awkwardly, trying to encourage the slight swelling in his favourite grey Aqua Scutum suit trousers to lessen.
“Take a good hard look.” It was deliberate. “Go on. Because as of tonight, the only way you’ll ever get your arse on that sofa again will be after my funeral. Get out, take your pathetic accusations with you and think about your resignation letter very carefully as you shuffle off into the night.”
He went to speak.
“I haven’t finished Minister. Not by a long way. I sanction many things as Prime Minister. I expect a great deal from my most trusted people, but never treachery.”
She pointed to the desk in the corner of the impressive room.
“Do you have a pen? And some paper? Don’t bother with an envelope. My desk, tomorrow. Or I’ll sack you publicly from outside the front door of this wonderful building. Your call. And for the record, this room was chosen for a reason, among the drapes and the carpets and fireplaces and works of art, my predecessor, the one you pretend to admire so greatly, installed a state-of-the-art recording system. Every word Robert, every single word.”
He nodded curtly before walking to the polished rosewood desk. Picked a navy-blue fountain pen from a satin-lined box and selected a single sheath of Smythson’s of Bond Street white laid paper.
He stood for a second or two, then wrote ‘Fuck you – your day is coming’ on the handmade paper and held it up just long enough so she could see it. Then took six steps, passing her, screwing it into a ball and tossing it onto the fire.
Before he had reached the ornate double doors, all trace of his response had gone.
She clicked her fingers and like the dog he resembled; he spun around to face her.
She licked her lips and mouthed the words ‘No, fuck you Robert.’
He left, leaving the door open.
She paced the room, sat down, took a sip of water and swallowed it slowly. She looked at the television, an addition she had made, and asked the actor what he would do.
The Angel of Whitehall Page 53
