‘Good idea.’ I put the Nokia in my bumbag with my own cell. I needed to break the news to Kelly soon, and get hold of Josh. I tried to forget the look on Archibald’s face.
The kettle was bubbling away as the moan-phone rang. Reluctantly, I pulled it out. The Yes Man was on the other end and the moaning started at once. ‘Hello? Answer me.’
‘Hello.’ The gentle bleeps did their stuff in the background.
‘Starbucks, Cowcross Street, Farringdon. Do you know it?
‘I know the station.’
‘The source meet is at twenty hundred.’ He carried on with the meet details as Suzy appeared and stood expectantly at my elbow, like a schoolgirl waiting for her exam results.
Once he had finished, and I had finished with Suzy, we both headed for the bedroom and got the two 9mm Brownings out of the suitcase, a little extra treat Yvette had popped into Packet Oscar. The Browning had been in production for something like a million years, but I still liked it and saw no need to go trendy and plastic or whatever the latest fashion was in pistols. These two were starting to look their age. They’d been jazzed up a little: the wooden sides of the pistol grip had been replaced with rubber. There was no extension welded on to the safety catch above the grip, where it could be flicked on and off with the firer’s right thumb, which was a pity, since I had fairly small hands, but I had no complaints. It was a simple weapon: you knew that if you squeezed the trigger, it was going to go bang. What more did you need?
We carried out NSPs [normal safety precautions]. With my right thumb and the side of my forefinger I pulled back on the serrations at the rear of the top slide and checked inside the ejection opening to make sure there wasn’t a round stuck in the chamber, then released and let the top slide return under its own steam. Then, placing an empty magazine in the weapon so I’d be able to squeeze off the action – it wouldn’t fire without a mag on – I rested the top pad of my right forefinger on the trigger and felt for the first pressure.
Most triggers have two pressures. The first is normally quite loose, allowing a little play between its resting position and the point at which it will actually fire the weapon. This one’s trigger had maybe three or four milli- metres’ play before it became solid again. I squeezed gently on the second pressure and the hammer came forwards with a click.
Knowing the position of second pressure is critically important. I always took up first pressure if the target was close and I’d have maybe a second to react once I’d seen them. There might only be a few millimetres in it, but that could make all the difference and, despite everything, I was still in no hurry to end up dead.
We put on surgical gloves and started to load the half-dozen thirteen-round magazines. When we fired the SDs or Brownings, empty cases would be flying all over the place. No matter who found them, friend or foe, neither of us wanted to leave any evidence of our presence. This was a deniable job. Even the ammunition was German, judging by the markings on its base.
Holding the short magazine so that the base of the stubby 9mm rounds would be facing away from me once loaded, I grabbed a handful and pushed them down one by one into the top recess, then eased them back to make sure they were correctly seated.
Suzy did the same, stopping now and then to take a sip of brew. ‘So, tell me, what is it with you and the boss? Really.’
I started to load my second mag.
‘I mean, it’s obvious you two aren’t exactly on each other’s Christmas-card list.’
The fishing rod was well and truly out but, fuck it, what did it matter?
‘I used to be a K until just over a year ago, but then got offered a better job somewhere else. Maybe he just can’t live without me.’
‘Somewhere else?’
‘In the US.’
‘Oh.’ She smiled as she held up a magazine to the light. I had no idea why. ‘Why are you back here now?’
I picked up my third mag and began the process all over again, but all I could think of was the look on Kelly’s face when I found her among the boxes. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
I pushed the third magazine into the pistol grip and slid it home until it clicked into place. I never slammed them in the Mel Gibson way: it just damages the mag, and that’s going to give you stoppages.
With the grip of the weapon jammed firmly in the web of my right hand, I pulled back sharply on the top slide with my left, releasing it so that the slide sprang back into position on its own. As it did so, the working parts picked up a round and fed it into the chamber. Then, turning the weapon to the left and exposing the ejection opening, I pulled back just a little on the top slide again to make sure that a round was bedded.
Because I found it difficult to use the safety catch, I always half cocked these things if there wasn’t an extension. I put the little finger of my left hand in front of the hammer, and gently squeezed the trigger. The hammer swung forward and bit into my knuckle, then I pulled it back until it stopped half-way. It wasn’t going anywhere now, even if I squeezed the trigger. If I had to draw down, I’d pull the hammer all the way back, so that it clicked into its full-cocked position, then I’d fire.
There were two thick black nylon pancake holsters in the suitcase, but I wasn’t interested. My pistol went down the front of my jeans. It was too late in the game for me to change now: actions need to be instinctive – my hand had to go straight to the weapon.
Suzy, however, was going by the rule book, cocking her weapon, checking chamber and struggling like I would to apply the safety catch and picking up a pancake holster to feed into her belt. As she unbuckled it I tightened mine, so the Browning was nice and secure.
‘You’re not worried about the family jewels, then?’
‘No. But I’d hate to get gun oil on my nice new boxers.’
Her pancake went over her right kidney. She checked her safety catch once more and holstered her weapon.
I pulled off my gloves and flicked one at Suzy before we put them back into the suitcase, zipped it up and shoved it under the bed. As hiding places went, it was about as inventive as the phone codes.
I went and got my bumbag from the front room, threading the straps through the belt loops of my jeans so they wouldn’t get in the way if I had to draw down the Browning. Then we carried out SOPs [standard operating procedures] on leaving the flat – checking windows, unplugging electrics – before we switched back into boyfriend and girlfriend mode by the open door in the hallway.
I punched the code into the alarm as if we were a happy couple leaving for our weekly trip to Tesco. It didn’t make any noise – the last thing the Firm wanted was for the police to turn up and sort through a safe-house – and was linked directly to the QRF [quick reaction force]. The door was reinforced with a steel liner to prevent access, and every room had a panic button in case you got bored and wanted to piss off the QRF as they settled down to tea and biccies. An armed four-man team would respond immediately, whether we were taking the piss, the place was being burgled or there was a drama during one of the many ‘interviews’ that were held in flats like these.
The door closed behind us and I double-locked it. We walked out of the square and turned right to get to the main. After about five minutes we managed to flag down a black cab and Suzy adopted the tone she reserved especially for cab drivers from Penang to London. ‘Farringdon, darling.’
‘Whereabouts do you want, love?’
‘By the tube station will be fine.’
We hit the Embankment and were soon passing the new ring of concrete designed to stop suicide bombers driving into the Houses of Parliament. We listened to a radio talk-show piece about the heightened state of alert. Some dickhead from the mayor’s office said that the security measures should reassure tourists, not deter them. The cabbie cracked up. ‘I’ve heard of spin, but is this boy taking the piss or what?’
I looked at traser. It was six forty-five, and the meet was at eight, which gave us enough time to do a recce and sort ourselves out once we got there.
We turned off the Embankment at Blackfriars and headed up towards Farringdon, stopping at a set of lights. I noticed a Ford Mondeo parked up on the left, with a motorbike so close to the driver’s door that the rider’s helmet was nearly through his window. The car was two-up, man and woman. She was leaning over from the passenger seat to join in the conversation as another bike drew up. I glanced at Suzy, and she’d seen it too. There was a big surveillance team on a serial [surveillance task], and either they were staking something out or they’d lost the target and were trying to decide what to do next. They were probably E4, the government’s surveillance group,
