was out at the front, gardening, or unloading the ecobags she took to the supermarket – he would have seemed a remote sort of man, distant, with little conversation, but harmless. He might have been washing an unspectacular Japanese car, using an electric-powered mower on the small patch of grass beside the path, or retouching the paintwork. He passed the time of day with them, and would smile at their dogs or their children. His conversation would range over the state of the weather, the reliability of the trains into London, and the price of fuel… What did he do? They were accountants, salesmen, teachers, hospital staff, widows who stayed at home and retail workers. Him? Some dreary job in London. It was never quite explained whether that meant Work and Pensions or Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but that was enough to satisfy them, and reason for him to be away on an early train on Monday and back late on Friday. Most would have thought it ‘sad’ that ‘old Gibbons’ slaved away at the expense of leisure and entertainment, and most would have felt sympathy for Catherine who existed alongside such a dull man with so limited a horizon. His suits were grey, unremarkable and bought from a chain, and his ties were those given him at Christmas. What did they know, the neighbours and the casual friends of his wife? They knew nothing. Neither did the mass of those going to work each day in the Towers have a more comprehensive profile of him. Some had made hobbies of archaeology or bell-ringing or whist, or did convoluted jigsaw puzzles, and thought themselves fulfilled. Len Gibbons successfully lived a local lie. Well hidden from view, there was a restless energy in him that a few recognised and some utilised. Now it contemplated, without qualm, the killing of an enemy. The Schlutup Fuck-up, in this town, had marked, moulded and fashioned him: he was a man in the shadows, but possessed of a ruthless determination.
He sat in the chair, listened to the great clocks of Lubeck. He did not think of the prevailing weather, or commuter train timetables, the cost of petrol, or holidays. He did not think of how Catherine would be that evening or whether his son and daughter prospered at their different colleges. He considered, instead, all that had been done to guarantee the death of a man. He thought enough was in place.
Had they known the work of Len Gibbons, his neighbours might have wondered if conscience afflicted him, if that night – in the certain knowledge of what would happen later in the morning, at his own hand, removed but culpable – he would find sleep hard to come by. The neighbours did not know the man living at the mock-Tudor semi-detached home in a safe corner of suburban South London. Any thought of conscience had been gouged out of him when he had worked in this town, listened to the chimes and handled Antelope. No second thoughts, hesitation. What mattered was not the snuffing out of a life but the effectiveness of his work, and the satisfaction that would come from a job well done. There had been brave words in the damp heap overlooking a Scottish sea loch, but they had been for the benefit of the outsiders. The big picture was wiped, and the little picture was paramount: it showed a man, with his wife, coming across a pavement on the campus of the university’s medical school, and another man closed on him. It was the limit of the picture, and he was not troubled by it. He could have slept had he cared to. The Marienkirche was a principal church in Lubeck, rebuilt with extraordinary dedication and skill after the war. The great bells, shattered and lit by a single candle, that had plummeted down from the spires, were off the main body of the nave. They had been there when he had come to Lubeck thirty years before and they would still be there. They were supposed to grip the visitor by the throat and condemn the atrocity of violence. Gibbons didn’t care what would happen later that morning. Neither would the crews of the Wellington and Stirling bombers – who had made the firestorm, brought down the bells and filled mass graves – have been troubled.
He sat alone and watched the skyline – and his phone, with the encryption software, bleeped. Not Sarah – asleep, no doubt, on a fold-away bed – but the Cousin. He glanced at the little screen: something about exfiltration in hand. He cleared it. Infiltration and exfiltration were history. The job had moved on. For a moment, Gibbons tried to remember the faces of the two men, but could not and gave up: they were from the past, not the present, and did not affect the future.
He smiled to himself. He had decided where he would be in the morning, when the strike went home.
Low voices alerted him. He didn’t understand the speech, but thought it was Russian.
There was a light knock on the door. He came off the bed, slipped on his trousers, went to the door and opened it. The synagogue’s caretaker shuffled away. Framed in the doorway, a man gave a warm smile and had a large old leather bag hanging from his shoulder. A hand was offered. He took it. He had never met the man, and offered a formal greeting that betrayed nothing.
The man spoke in their own tongue, used the word that in their language meant ‘engineer’ and smiled again. He had a light, tuneful voice.
The transport would be outside at seven that morning, in four hours. Gabbi nodded. There would be the two of them, for the wheels and the hit – not five, not ten or twenty-five. A sneer curled the man’s lip: it told Gabbi that this one – from Berlin Station – had had no dealings with the unit in the Dubai business. He was shown a photograph, taken in poor light, and it was explained that the woman was the Engineer’s wife. The shirt-sleeved man was the neuro-consultant. In the foreground of the picture there was a car with a rear door open. He was told the registration number and make, that only one security man was used for the escort. He looked hard at the photograph and saw the face, eyes, the shape of the spectacles, the cut of the hair and the clothing, and memorised it. His hand never touched the photograph, and when the man’s fingers held it, Gabbi made out the fine texture of the latex gloves he wore. It was assumed that the entry of the Engineer, his back to the street, would be a difficult interception, but when he left, it would be an easier shot, into the face and stomach. Then the man shrugged, as if he had realised he should not presume to lecture an expert in techniques. On the likely schedule, he would be on the return sailing of the ferry in late morning. He had faith in the arrangements woven around him and did not query them.
Gabbi was asked if he was comfortable. He said he was. Did he need to know more about the target, why the target was identified? He did not. Was he satisfied with the arrangements in place? He was.
Anything he needed would be brought to him. Gabbi said he had found a book of drawings by a girl who had been a witness inside the camp at Theresienstadt and had survived. He said he had had family there who had not lived. He did not say it was his wife’s grandparents who had been incarcerated in the camp and had died of starvation.
The bag was opened. A package in greaseproof paper, held together with thick elastic bands, was handed to him, with similar gloves. He knew the Beretta 92S, and a little grin flicked at his mouth when he was told that this particular weapon, and the ammunition it was loaded with, had been sold to the Egyptian armed forces: a small matter, but likely to cause confusion in an investigation. There were two magazines, eighteen bullets in all, and he would use two. It was wrapped again, and put on the table beside the bed.
The man reached forward, gripped Gabbi’s shoulders and gave him a light brush kiss on each cheek. Then he was gone and the door closed on him. Gabbi heard the slither of the caretaker’s slippers, then the thud of the outer door being shut. He went back to bed and hoped to catch more sleep.
His shoulder was shaken gently. The pilot, Eddie, jack-knifed up on the cot bed. His co-pilot hovered above him. ‘Thought you’d like to know that we’re fuelled, armed, all the checks done, ready to press the tit and lift. And likely we may be lifting.’
‘Why didn’t you wake me?’
‘You were sleeping like a baby – would have been a crime.’
‘Fuck you.’ The pilot rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘What we got?’
‘Could go around first light. As we thought. A covert team up on the frontier, and maybe there’s casualties coming with them. The other bird is getting herself to speed. We go together.’
He could hear the rotors of both birds turning over, and the ground-crew people would be crawling over the Black Hawks. It would likely be the last mission of interest that Eddie flew before the draw-down sucked him in. Then he might go home, or might be packed off with his guys and his machine to Afghanistan. He’d like to finish well. He tightened his boots.
‘Oh, and Eddie…’
‘What?’
‘We don’t exist, and any flight we make is classified as never happening. It’s likely the mullah-men will be powerfully angry if we do get called out and are up close on their ground.’
‘Fuck them.’
The birds’ engines sounded sweet and the windows shook. If an exfiltration needed a helicopter lift-out, they’d be in trouble, deep stuff, and it would be close run. It was good of the guys to let him sleep and recharge. Might have been their own survival instincts that had allowed it. Spooks, the pilot reckoned, were mad – not people you’d take home to your mother – and he’d go as far as he could to save them.
