him to the tube station, but Chet was stubborn. His leg hurt as he walked as briskly as he could along the road, but he was damned if he was going to live his life any differently because of that. At Headley Court they’d suggested he got himself a wheelchair for occasional use. He would rather die.
Jobs for amputees that didn’t involve sitting behind a desk were hard to come by. The usual bodyguarding gigs that most Regiment personnel fell into on leaving the army weren’t open to Chet, but he still had certain skills that people and organisations were willing to pay for. The Grosvenor Group was one of them. They were a big American firm manned by brash men in expensive suits. They clearly made a great deal of money in ways Chet didn’t really understand, and with money came paranoia. Almost weekly the company called Chet in to sweep offices where they were holding meetings. Different locations every time, but always the same request: check for bugs, check for surveillance. What the hell went on in these meetings, Chet had no idea.
The tube was busy and sweaty. Chet was glad to emerge at Piccadilly Circus, just another face in the crowd as he made his way down to Whitehall, stopping about thirty metres before he reached the familiar MoD offices.
Number 132 was a tall building with wide stone steps and a tinted-glass revolving door. Inside was all marble and mirrors. Chet entered and headed straight for the security desk in the middle of the cavernous atrium. A friendly-looking, Brylcreemed man, in his sixties and wearing a grey suit, smiled up at him.
‘Good morning, sir. Can I help?’
Chet nodded. ‘I’m expected.’
‘Your name, please, sir?’
‘Chet Freeman.’
The man consulted his computer. ‘Sixth floor, sir. I will need to check your bag before you go up.’
Chet shook his head and a brief look of alarm crossed the man’s face. ‘It’s security regulations, sir. I’m sure you’ll…’
‘Call up,’ Chet interrupted him. ‘They’ll clear it with you.’ He turned and wandered away from the desk.
A minute later the security guard gestured him back. ‘Please go up, sir. Everything’s fine. You’ll just need to sign in.’
Chet nodded again, waited while the security guard issued him with a plastic ID card to clip on his shirt, then headed for the lift.
He got out at the sixth floor to see a wide, open-planned office on his left, all carpet tiles, pot plants and water coolers. There were perhaps twenty people working there, mostly female. The air was filled with the sound of phones ringing softly; each call was answered immediately.
The person who emerged from the huddle of desks to greet him was male, early twenties, with dishevelled hair. He looked at Chet like he was looking at dog shit. ‘Have you been here before?’ he asked, his voice dripping with public school.
‘Where are the rooms, pal?’ Chet asked curtly.
‘Up here, on the right. They’ve set two aside for us, next to each other. We’ll choose which one to use at the last min…’
‘Thanks. I know the drill. So who is it today?’ The kid shrugged just as they stopped beside a grey door.
‘This it?’ asked Chet.
The kid nodded.
‘Why don’t you run along then?’ Chet winked at him. ‘You must be very busy.’
The kid got the message and left him to it.
Chet entered the room. It was entirely unremarkable. A beech-coloured meeting table with twenty or so chairs around it took up most of the space. There was a whiteboard at one end with an overhead projector, and three large tinted windows looking out over Whitehall and from which, if you looked up, you could just see the roofs of the buildings opposite.
He got to work. From his rucksack he pulled a set of screwdrivers, a torch, two bulky Nokia mobile phones and a radio-frequency bug detector. He started with the plug sockets — unscrewing each one, directing the torch into the cavity and searching for bugs or any sign of tampering — before climbing awkwardly on to the board table and investigating the light fittings.
Once he was satisfied that the sockets and lights were clean, he started calibrating the RF detector. He laid it on the table and turned the dial fully on. The detector started beeping rapidly, so Chet gradually turned the dial down until it stopped. He picked up one of the mobiles and used it to call the other. The radio signal from the phones caused the detector to start beeping again.
Holding the phones, he stepped back three metres, towards the windows. The rate of the detector’s beeping decreased, but not by enough. He adjusted the dial, then stepped back again. This time the beeping was right. He disconnected the phones and the detector went silent. Now he could start to sweep.
He ran the detector along the blinds above the windows and carefully checked the OHP. He swept under the table and chairs and examined each of the carpet tiles for signs of tampering, before carefully sweeping all the walls and the ceiling. It took half an hour before he was satisfied that everything was clear, at which point he packed up his gear, left the room and, now that he’d swept it, tacked a red cordon over the door so nobody could enter. Then he moved to the adjoining office — which was identical in every way — and started to repeat the operation.
Chet was just unscrewing the first socket when the door opened. He looked over his shoulder to see a woman. A couple of years younger than Chet, which would put her in her early thirties. And cute. Definitely cute. She was carrying a small vacuum cleaner and wore a blue and white checked uniform that identified her as one of the office’s cleaning ladies, but a lot easier on the eye than most. She had long red hair, pale, clear skin, green eyes. Her nose turned up attractively at the end and there was a tiny silver stud through the left nostril.
She looked surprised to see him. ‘Oh… Excuse me… I thought…’
Chet stood up and gave her one of his rare smiles. ‘Sorry, love,’ he said, then noticed a flicker of annoyance on her face. He took a couple of steps towards her and read the name on her plastic name tag. Suze McArthur. ‘Sorry, Suze. No cleaning in here today.’ He caught the faintest whiff of a perfume he recognised from an ex- girlfriend, but that had been a long time ago.
Suze looked flustered. ‘I’ll go next door…’
‘’Fraid not. Out of bounds.’
‘But I have to clean…’
‘Looks like you might have the morning off.’ Chet hesitated. ‘Tell you what — I’ll be free in a couple of hours. I’ll buy you coffee.. ’
The girl backed away. She scurried back up the corridor, taking her vacuum cleaner with her and casting just a single glance over her shoulder as she went. She almost appeared frightened.
Jesus, Chet thought. I didn’t think I looked that bad.
He went back to sweeping the room. Twenty minutes later he was done. After cordoning off the room, just as he had the first, he stood watch in the corridor outside.
He’d only been standing there a few minutes when he heard a commotion by the lift, which he could just see from his position. A group of five people had arrived. Three of them were muscle — he could tell just by the way they held themselves. The fourth man was entirely bald, his face and scalp tanned and shiny, his suit a bright blue that suggested he was foreign — French or Italian, perhaps. As he drew nearer, Chet could see that he held across his chest a leather wallet file with the ornate G emblem of the Grosvenor Group. He was speaking loudly, with an American accent, to the fifth man.
And Chet recognised him.
‘What the hell…?’ he muttered to himself.
The Prime Minister wore a well-cut suit and his trademark red tie was impeccably tied. Alistair Stratton almost had the bearing of a film star, out of place in this workaday office environment, and was listening attentively to the bald man as they walked, his brow creased in earnest concentration. Stratton glanced at Chet as he approached, and clocked his scarred face, before quickly recovering and turning his attention back to the bald man. There was something about being in his presence that impressed Chet, despite himself.
They stopped outside the first cordoned-off door. ‘Who’s in charge of security here?’ the bald man asked abruptly. He clearly hadn’t noticed Chet standing there. ‘I said, who’s in charge of…?’
His eyes fell on Chet.
‘You?’
