Bridge stood on the edge of the activity, smoking one of her last cigarettes and gazing up at the building.
“I thought you quit,” said Giles as he stepped out of Andrea’s car.
Bridge looked at the cigarette as if seeing it for the first time, and threw it into the road. “Old habits die hard,” she said. Giles looked as if he was about to say something, but didn’t. Bridge shrugged. “We stopped the drones, and Andrea said there are some injuries from the explosions, but no fatalities. We have to call that a win, don’t we?”
Giles grimaced. “Not while Bowman’s in the wind. Either he knew we were coming for him, or he abandoned the broadcasting unit immediately after commencing the operation. Hell, the whole thing could have been on a timer and he’s in Timbuktu by now.”
“He might,” Bridge nodded, “but I reckon he’s still around.”
“And why is that?”
Bridge smiled. “Fancy a lunchtime walk tomorrow?”
85
5 Across: Newcastle
21 Down: Intransigent
The lunchtime crowds in Whitehall Gardens had thinned out, leaving only tourists, executives, freelancers, and the unemployed — those without offices waiting for them to return. Bowman glared at them all from behind his sunglasses. He’d spent the previous evening shaving his sandy beard and cropping his hair, and now wore a driver’s cap, light blazer, trousers and brogues. Nobody would recognise the modern hipster he’d been a few hours before. Even Novak might walk straight past without knowing him.
Bowman had always planned to change his appearance before returning home, but the night’s events had forced him to move up his timetable. The Rotherhithe unit was raided, preventing him from monitoring the mission through completion. But according to the morning’s papers, the command code he’d written for the second wave of drones had been enough. The attack on the Shard was the lead story in every rag he could see, and while details were sparse, that would change as the day went on. Mainly, he was waiting for word of Sir Terence Cavendish. Had he died in one of the first wave explosions? Or was he now merely cursed to die an excruciating, agonising death by radiation poisoning? Bowman hoped the latter, but either would suffice.
July 28 - ☺1400 - Tyndale☺
A tall, dark-haired woman, all in black, walked to the bench facing the statue of William Tyndale and sat at the far end from Bowman, reading something on her phone. He turned away slightly, hoping she’d leave before Novak arrived, and that the Russian wouldn’t be late. It was Novak who’d arranged the rendezvous, after all. Bowman was ready to leave the country, having arranged no-questions-asked passage on a private jet to Tripoli. From there he could use any one of a dozen fake passports to hop his way back to Hong Kong, and pay tribute at his parents’ shrine. Now they could truly rest in peace.
“Have you seen this? It’s amazing,” said the woman. Bowman assumed she was making a phone call, then realised she was talking to him while looking at something on her phone.
“Not really interested, thank you,” he said, as curtly as he dared without causing a fuss, and looked away.
“Oh no, you really have to see this, Daniel. It’s quite special.”
She held up the phone to show him the screen. On it was a photograph of a concrete floor somewhere, arranged on which were four black, unmarked drones. His drones.
He grabbed for the woman’s arm, but she was ready. As his fingers closed around her arm she unleashed a can of pepper spray, hidden in her other hand, at his eyes. He screamed, reflexively releasing her and staggering to his feet. He fumbled for the pistol tucked inside his blazer, but the pain was incredible, even with his eyes closed. Almost as painful as the impact when someone heavy tackled him from behind, and his head struck the ground.
Somewhere, through the sound of his own screaming rage, he heard the woman laugh.
86
Bridge cradled a cup of coffee and looked out across the river. This was her favourite chill-out space in the Vauxhall building; a low, wide room with a Thames view, cushioned sofas, and machines for tea and coffee. The tea was awful, and the coffee wasn’t much better, but the view made up for them both.
She heard the door open behind her, and the scent of hazelnut reached her nose. “How’s Bowman?” she asked.
“Still sitting pretty in Belmarsh,” said Giles, taking a seat next to her. “He’s convinced we captured Novak and tortured the rendezvous code out of him.”
“Hubris is a powerful thing. I was relying on that when I posted the fake ASCII.”
Giles frowned. “I wish you’d told me about that before we all went running off to Rotherhithe.”
“Didn’t want to give you false hope. He might have known it was a trap.” Bridge sipped her coffee. “What about Sir Terence?”
Giles sighed, and Bridge knew what was coming next. Bowman had confirmed that Air Vice-Marshal Sir Terence Cavendish was his real target, and why. Then-Squadron Leader Terry Cavendish had an affair with Bowman’s mother while he was stationed in Sek Kong. After the handover he’d continued to fly over there from time to time, under pretence of a holiday, and see her in secret. But Sir Terence came to realise the Bowmans had been turned by the Chinese, and were in fact preparing to blackmail him to use as their own double agent. After all, if the British government discovered one of their soldiers was sleeping with a Chinese spy…
To save his own skin, Sir Terence instead reported his suspicions about the Bowmans to the Foreign Office, claiming the reason he’d slept with Mrs Bowman in
