‘It’s supposed to derive from a man named Hobson who ran a livery stable in Cambridge a couple of hundred years ago. Apparently when you hired a horse from him he offered you a choice of exactly one. You either took it or walked, hence Hobson’s Choice. You finished?’
‘I guess.’
‘OK, your turn to watch. Don’t take your eyes off the house.’
At thirteen fifty, Westwood muttered the single word: ‘Showtime.’
Richter rolled over onto his stomach and in one fluid movement swept his binoculars to his eyes. Two cars were driving slowly – much more slowly than normal traffic – down the road towards the safe house. The leading vehicle turned into the short drive and stopped right outside the house itself, while the second car carried on.
‘The lead car will be McCready’s,’ Westwood murmured, unconsciously lowering his voice although there was no possibility he could be overheard. ‘The second car is probably his muscle. They’ll be checking the area, looking for people like us.’
‘Right,’ Richter said. ‘How many, do you think? Can you see?’
‘No, but we’ll know soon enough, I guess.’
‘Yes. Once they’re satisfied we don’t have a fully equipped SWAT team waiting in the wings they’ll go back to the house.’
‘Just remind me again,’ Westwood said. ‘Why, exactly, don’t we have a fully equipped SWAT team waiting in the wings?’
‘Evidence, John, evidence. All we actually possess is a few emails on a stolen computer, a classified file that nobody without a degree in medicine can understand, a bunch of stiffs out on Crete, and three sealed vacuum flasks. So far we don’t have anything that implicates anyone that we can identify.’
‘And there’s another reason, isn’t there?’
‘Yes, there is,’ Richter said. ‘I got dragged into this because my boss was looking for a really shitty little job to give me. Since then I’ve been pulled off a ship, where I was having a pretty good time, and hauled all over Crete following one lead after another. I’ve been exposed to a lethal pathogen, I’ve had a bunch of explosives blown up right under me, I’ve been shot at, and I’ve had a fellow professional killed more or less right in front of my eyes. All that, as far as I can see, is down to this McCready character – and I don’t like unfinished business.’
‘OK, OK. I didn’t expect an extract from
Both men concentrated on the scene unfolding at the safe house. The driver’s door opened and a tall, bulky man climbed out and pushed the door closed.
‘Got him.’ Westwood then paused for a few moments. ‘Jesus Christ, that’s a surprise. It looks like our man is John Nicholson. He’s head of the Intelligence Directorate, and he wasn’t even
‘He’ll only want one car to be visible in the driveway when Murphy arrives,’ Westwood observed, then paused as a second car emerged from the garage and halted in front of the house. ‘OK, that’s probably the caretaker’s motor. He’ll want the man out of the way for the rest of the day.’ The caretaker climbed out of the vehicle, pointed his remote to close the garage door, and walked back into the house.
Five minutes later the main door opened again and the caretaker re-emerged. He climbed into his car and drove away from the house and down the road.
‘He’ll have been explaining the security systems and other stuff to Nicholson, I guess,’ Westwood commented, not taking his eyes off the scene.
‘Here come the bad guys.’ Richter watched as the other vehicle, the one that had been behind Nicholson’s when they arrived, reappeared down the road, turned into the drive and stopped outside the safe house. Three men got out and looked all around them, then two of them walked over to the house and went inside while the third began walking slowly around the property itself.
‘That figures,’ Westwood said. ‘They’ll have two guards inside covering Nicholson, and the third guy outside to intercept anyone who wanders onto the property by accident and to shoo away neighbours or salesmen.’
‘OK, John,’ Richter lowered the binoculars and rolled on to his side to face Westwood, ‘now we know the strength of the opposition, are you happy with the plan we worked out?’
Westwood nodded. ‘We figured there would be up to four heavies plus Nicholson and maybe the caretaker as well, so the odds are actually better than we calculated,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you can handle this, Paul, because it really will be my neck on the line in there?’
‘Trust me, John. I can take care of them.’
‘You’ll have Sally to answer to if you don’t,’ Westwood added, and Richter smiled briefly at him.
‘Just trust me,’ he said again. ‘It’s what I do.’
For another hour the two men lay silently, studying the house through their binoculars, but saw no sign of movement apart from the patrolling guard.
At three twenty Richter turned to Westwood again. ‘It’s time, John. I know you won’t need it, but good luck in there.’
‘Right,’ Westwood eased up into a sitting position and glanced at his left wrist. ‘I’ve got three twenty- one.’
‘Check,’ Richter said, looking at his own watch. ‘You should be outside the house by three forty-five, but that’s not critical. But four zero five is, OK?’
‘I’ve got it, Paul. Four zero five. Just be sure you’re ready by then.’
‘I will be. They’ll be expecting you to be armed, so are you carrying?’
‘No,’ Westwood replied.
Richter reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled out the Browning Hi-Power and passed it over. ‘It’s got a full magazine, but you shouldn’t have to use it. The safety catch is on and there’s one in the chamber. Just remember it belongs to the Queen and I’ve had to sign for it, so I would appreciate getting it back sometime.’
Westwood nodded. ‘Right now, making sure your paperwork gets completed properly is the least of my worries, but I’ll do my best. You’ve got the SIG?’
‘You bet,’ Richter said.
Without another word, Westwood moved backwards into the relative darkness of the copse, and began making his way down towards the main thoroughfare and the side road where he’d parked his Chrysler.
For fifteen minutes Richter did nothing, lying motionless to watch both the house and the approach road. The outside guard didn’t seem to be following any set pattern in his patrolling of the grounds, but Richter guessed that would change after Westwood had arrived. Once the fly was in the web the spider could relax.
At three thirty-five Richter himself started down towards the safe house across the largely open countryside that lay in front of him. Even when the guard was out of sight he moved as quietly as possible, keeping low just in case one of the other men was watching through a window.
By three forty-five, now only twenty yards from the boundary of the property, Richter crouched down behind some bushes. He could see an easy way into the grounds almost right in front of him – a narrow gap in the hedge that he reckoned he could squeeze through – but he was going to wait for Westwood’s arrival before he moved again.
He heard the Chrysler Voyager before he saw it, heard the noise of its tyres on the road. He saw the light- coloured roof of the vehicle moving slowly, decelerating further to make the turn into the driveway. And then he saw Westwood himself in the driving seat as the car pulled up outside the house.
As Westwood had explained, the drive was equipped with sensors to detect any vehicle approaching the property, so Richter wasn’t surprised when the main door of the house opened at almost the same moment as the outside guard reached the Chrysler.
John Westwood braked to a halt and switched off the engine. He opened the door just as a man walked over and stopped beside it. His jacket was hanging open so Westwood could see the bulge of a shoulder holster
