I would be really, really happy and feel really, really safe.’ I looked at Suzy. ‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘Absolutely. A kids’ dream. But you won’t be going with them, Simon.’
I couldn’t tell whether the look on his face was shock or resignation. ‘Everything’s OK.’ I did that stupid lowering-of-the-hands thing, trying to calm him down. ‘But you won’t be going to another meeting after this. Sorry, mate. Are there two guys waiting for you downstairs?’
‘Oh, God, no. I have a family and—’
‘Calm down, mate, it’s nothing like that. They’ll be driving you somewhere safe until we’ve done our job – or fucked up – that’s all. In any case, if we do fuck up you’ll be thinking how lucky you are to be in isolation. That’s just the way it is.’
There was no way the Yes Man was going to take the chance of a leak. Simon was about to spend some time in a house in the country, with his family thinking he’d been whisked away to carry out some important bug stuff in the jungle.
Suzy picked up his bag for him as he slowly got his coat back on and I moved towards him. ‘Simon, you got a mobile?’
‘Er, yes . . .’
I patted him on the back in best-mate fashion. ‘I’ll tell you the best thing to do. Call your wife on the way down, tell her you’ve got to go and do some African disease stuff. Tell her to take the kids to your sister-in-law’s for two weeks and you’ll meet them there – the company’s paying, free trip, chance of a lifetime, shit like that.’
He buttoned up his coat. ‘Thank you so much.’
I shrugged. ‘No problem. Just don’t forget our drug deal – and be careful, mate. Be careful what you tell your wife. Don’t fuck up with what you know or next time you see the boys downstairs they’ll not be as nice. You understand, don’t you?’
He gathered up his bag from Suzy and thanked us again as he headed for the door. Suzy walked with him. As he opened the door she put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Forget what he just said.’
He looked up sharply. I was confused, too.
She said, ‘If I was your wife and you said the holiday was for a couple of weeks, I’d be happy. But if you said we were going for a couple of months, I’d be over the moon.’
‘Thank you, I hear what you’re saying.’
She rubbed his shoulder. ‘Speak to her, sort it out.’
Simon gave her a smile that was full of sadness. ‘Oh, that won’t be possible, I’m afraid. She died six years ago. Gillian would have loved to go home, but she never got the chance. Archibald was our gardener, you see. They used to walk the garden together every day.’
20
Suzy stayed by the door. Her expression told me we were both thinking the same thing.
‘Facemask, my arse.’ I gave a thumbs-down. ‘N95 or UK standard F something or other? I want full NBC [Nuclear, Biological and Chemical warfare protection] kit.’
‘I’ll phone the Golf Club.’ She disappeared into the bedroom.
‘And tell her we want the older stuff, not the newer camouflage version,’ I called after her.
She got on with it as I just sat there, trying to feel pleased with myself for doing a nice thing for Mr Niceness instead of worrying myself sick about Kelly. George had been right: if these people weren’t stopped, then all the therapy in the world wasn’t going to help her. There was no way round it. She had to go back to Laurel.
Suzy came into the room with two of the Nokias. ‘The Golf Club is coming later tonight. If we’re at the source meet she’ll just drop the NBC kit off.’
‘The older suits?’
She nodded, trying to untangle the car chargers from the hands-free sets, then passing one to me. We both set about programming out the start-up tune.
Suzy did her best to look as though she was concentrating on her cell, but I could see a little smile creeping across her face. ‘So, Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, you’re not Mother Teresa, but you’re not a K either, are you?’
I was too busy hunting for the sound-options menu to look up. ‘Come on, you know the score. You’re going to have to work a lot harder than that . . .’
‘Fair one.’ She shrugged and went back to the administrative side of Nokia ownership for all of five seconds. ‘You’re obviously ex-military and a Brit.’
I just got on with what I was doing and listened.
‘I was in the Navy –’eighty-four to ‘ninety-three. I ran away to sea – well, sort of. The last six years of it were in the Det.’
I did look up then.
She grinned. ‘I knew that would ring a bell.’
‘What is this? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?’
She was right, though. Northern Ireland in the seventies was a nightmare for the Firm and the Security Service, and the quality of information they were gathering was piss poor, so the Army started its own covert intelligence-gathering unit. Recruited from all three services, operators worked in a series of area detachments or Dets.
She was in full flow now. ‘I did two tours in East Det, then became an MOE instructor down in Ashford.’
‘Is that how you became a K?’
‘Yep, I was approached when I left.’
‘Why leave the Navy? Meet the man of your dreams or something?’
‘Come on, now, no personal shit, remember?’
‘So, all that stuff about your dad going AWOL – was that all bollocks?’
‘No, but he’s dead and it fitted with the cover story. So, come on, how do you know about the Det?’
Fuck it. I wasn’t going to spend the next few days in total silence. ‘I was a team leader in North Det in the late eighties.’
‘North Det?’ She laughed and waved her hands about as if she were holding a set of reins. ‘One of the cowboys? A bit of a law unto yourselves, weren’t you, you lot?’
‘Let’s get these moan-phones up and running, shall we? What’s your number? 07802 . . .’
She called out the last six digits and I hit the newly silenced keys. I’d got that much right. I finished dialling, then hit the hash key twice. ‘Hello, hello . . .’ In the background I could hear a low bleeping tone every three seconds, and so would she. It was the signal that we were on secure, the fill hadn’t dropped.
‘Good, that works.’ I hung up, then saved her number to speed-dial.
Her expression suddenly became more intense. ‘Nick, does it worry you – you know, working with me?’
I frowned.
‘Course not. Why should working with a woman be a worry? I wish you’d be a bit more scared now and then, but we did OK in Penang, didn’t we?’
‘I’m not talking about that, dickhead.’ Her face was still serious for a moment, then split into the world’s biggest grin. ‘I’m talking about me being so five-star good.’ She laughed, but I wasn’t sure just how much she was joking.
I always worried about people who thought they couldn’t get hurt. She was starting to sound a bit like Josh, but without God’s Kevlar jacket.
‘Being so wonderful, I suppose you’re permanent cadre?’
Permanent cadre were Ks, and some of them were deniable operators. They were on a salaried retainer, not freelance like I’d been, but they still had to do the shit jobs that no one else wanted.
‘I will be after this. So don’t fuck up, all right?
‘Only if you promise to empty the ashtray.’
She picked it up and disappeared into the kitchen. I heard the tap running. She shouted through, ‘Do you want that brew now, or what?’
