Killing for the Company

‘Me and Chet were pretty close,’ Luke said. His voice was hushed, but not out of reverence. ‘He never mentioned anyone called Suze.’

‘We didn’t know each other long.’

Luke glanced at the boy. ‘Long enough,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Suze replied without a trace of embarrassment. She sighed deeply. ‘Long enough for him to save my life. And lose his.’

‘Go on.’

Suze closed her eyes. Her face was drawn, as though the effort of talking was too much for her. But when she opened her eyes and started to speak again, the words were like a flood.

She talked. Luke listened. For all her nervousness, the story Suze told was vivid, as if she had relived the events she was recounting every day of her life since. He could almost picture the rooftop above Whitehall and Suze’s little flat. He didn’t have to imagine the B amp;B in the Brecon Beacons because he knew it.

And she started talking about Alistair Stratton. About the Grosvenor Group and a conversation she and Chet had overheard. The words tumbled from her mouth, like they’d been locked up and were now escaping. She didn’t seem to notice that the look Luke gave her was disbelieving.

By the time Suze had finished, the choristers were in full song, forcing Luke to speak up.

‘So where’s this tape now?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Burned,’ she told him. ‘In the fire.’

Luke nodded. ‘Convenient,’ he murmured.

A pause. A dissonant chord echoed round the cathedral.

‘You think I’m lying?’ She said it as if the possibility had never occurred to her. ‘Why would I lie about something like this?’

‘I’ve never met you, honey. I don’t know what you’d lie about.’ Luke glanced over at the kid. He certainly looked like Chet, but that didn’t mean the rest of this bullshit was true. And then, like the sun coming up, something clicked in his head. He pulled out his wallet. There was always money in there, never less than a couple of hundred. He removed a thin sheaf of notes. ‘How much do you need?’ he asked.

‘What?’

‘Chet was a good mate. I owe him. If you need help you don’t have to make this crap up.’

‘You think I want your money? You think I’d wait all these years to tap you up for…?’ She looked around desperately, like she wanted to escape but didn’t know where to run to. ‘You think I’d risk this for a few quid?’ She was whispering now, and on the verge of tears. She pushed Luke’s hand away, sat down next to her boy and put her head in her hands. The little boy didn’t seem surprised at his mother’s sudden emotion. He just looked calmly up at Luke. Fucking kid. For some reason he gave him the spooks. Luke swore under his breath and took a seat next to Suze again.

They sat there for a full minute, not speaking. The choir grew quieter too.

It was Suze who broke their silence. She sat up straight and stared at the bronze cross on the altar. ‘You knew Chet,’ she said. ‘Do you really think he died in a simple house fire?’

‘He was badly wounded,’ Luke replied. Even as he said it, though, he doubted himself. Chet was wounded, but had that ever stopped him getting around? Like hell it had. Chet Freeman took some killing. Luke knew that better than anyone.

He closed his eyes briefly.

‘Why are you telling me all this now? Why didn’t you come to me immediately?’

‘Haven’t you listened to anything I said?’ she snapped. ‘I was scared, all right? I still am. Chet told me to hide and that’s what I did. I’ve been hiding ever since that night.’

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere,’ she said, suddenly full of hopelessness. ‘Every where. I move around. I know they’re still after me. I know that if they find me, they’ll… they’ll do to me what they did to Chet. And there’s Harry…’ She paused to inhale deeply. ‘But something’s happened. Something important. These bombings. You know about them?’

‘You could say that.’

Suze pulled her mobile phone from her pocket. Luke noticed that her hands were shaking as she pressed a couple of buttons and handed it to Luke, nodding at the screen.

The image that it displayed was slightly blurred, but he could make out a black and white CCTV still, and the edge of the TV screen from which the photo had been taken. Two men, their heads circled. It looked familiar. ‘I’ve seen this?’

‘The bombers,’ Suze whispered, her face earnest. ‘They released it yesterday.’

‘What’s it got to do with you?’

Suze tapped the screen, pointing not at the circled men but at a dark-haired woman behind them.

‘What?’

She looked up at him. ‘It’s her,’ she said. ‘The woman who came for us. The woman who… who killed Chet.’

Luke stared at the picture.

‘How can you be sure?’

Suze took a deep breath. Her hands were still shaking. ‘Has anyone ever tried to kill you?’

‘Once or twice, as it goes.’

She quickly recovered. ‘Do you remember their faces?’

Of course he did. Some things you never forget.

‘Chet said she works for Mossad. I don’t know how he knew… something about her gun?’

‘Mossad? That doesn’t make any sense.’

Suze shrugged. ‘All I know is that someone wanted us out of the way because of what we knew. I don’t care who she was working for.. but Alistair Stratton had something to do with it.’

Luke shook his head. ‘Listen to me. If Chet was right about her, about a Mossad connection, she could be working for anybody.’ Because official allegiances change, he thought to himself. One day you fight for one man, the next day you fight for another. Hadn’t the Regiment trained up the Mujahideen before they were public enemy number one?

Suze stood up and walked towards the small altar. For a moment she didn’t move, gazing up at the bronze cross, before suddenly turning towards him again. ‘Alistair Stratton’s a warmonger. He always has been. Don’t you see? Doesn’t anybody see? First the Balkans, then Iraq, now this. Don’t you see what he’s…?’

Her words stopped abruptly. Her expression changed.

She wasn’t looking at Luke, but beyond him. And though she whispered something, it was drowned out by the choir as the piece they were rehearsing entered a crescendo. The colour had drained from her face and her expression changed. Luke recognised it: the look of absolute dread.

He shot to his feet. ‘What is it? What the hell?’

He turned and looked back down along the side of the cathedral. And that was when he saw her.

The woman who approached them was thirty metres away, but walking quickly along the shadowy, vaulted wing of the cathedral. The few people who were in her path drew away at a single look. She was dressed all in black — the same colour as her hair — and she walked with purpose, her head slightly bowed but her eyes fixed on Luke, Suze and Harry.

‘Go!’ Luke barked. ‘Now!’ He pointed back towards the dome and the milling crowds.

Suze moved like a dart, grabbing Harry, who, for the first time since they’d entered the cathedral, looked suddenly worried as he jumped to his feet. Mother and son ran awkwardly, hand in hand, towards the choir, who were now singing louder than ever.

Luke stayed with his back to the bronze cross, facing the newcomer. His mind was racing. He had no weapon. His Sig was safely locked up in the armoury back at base and even though it was just a woman moving towards him, her right hand was buried inside her jacket. And he knew what that meant.

She was twenty metres away and closing in. She had started to remove her hand from her jacket.

Decision time.

‘Choose your fucking battles, Luke,’ he whispered to himself. He turned, whipped the bronze cross from the