Had they got it wrong? Was this an innocent man who just happened to look like he’d stepped off an FSB production line in Moscow? Then again, even on a pleasant night like this, why would an innocent man spend fifteen minutes walking from Islington to King’s Cross, rather than catch a bus or train?
The second surprise came when the man continued walking straight past King’s Cross. Giles had assumed he’d catch a train or bus from here.
And then he vanished from sight.
Giles had been waiting to cross the junction under the clock tower, where the crowds and corner walls made visibility poor. He knew he’d lose sight of the target for a moment, but expected to see the man ahead of him when he crossed the road, on the pavement. Instead, he was nowhere to be seen. Giles scanned the other side of the road, but quickly discounted it. To cross the road here without causing a fuss or being seen was impossible. And there hadn’t been enough time for the thickset man to walk up to the hotel, above the road. So where was he?
Giles saw the street entrance marked Underground ten feet away, and groaned at his oversight. So obvious he’d almost missed it. He ducked in, quickly scanning the entrance hall, but still there was no sign of the man. He jogged down the ramp to the ticket hall, passing by the entrance to St Pancras International…
Then stopped, turned, jogged back up the ramp. According to their conversation, the man had come from France. Was he now heading back on the Eurostar?
Giles rushed through the secondary entrance into the main station. He glanced up at the first floor, but that seemed unlikely. Who stopped in at St Pancras for a bite to eat last thing on a Monday night? He kept walking, checking, hoping he hadn’t lost his target.
And then Giles saw him, walking through passport control, the last man catching the last train to Paris. It left in two minutes, and the thickset man had timed his journey perfectly. All Giles’ doubts now disappeared. This man knew exactly what he was doing. He probably carried nothing incriminating, nothing that would look remotely suspicious if he were arrested. Now he was heading back to France, no doubt under a false ID, leaving Giles faced with a dilemma. He couldn’t board the train himself, as the only ID he carried was his driver’s licence. He hadn’t thought he’d need anything more official when he left home this evening. In theory, he could make some calls and ensure the border guards would let him through, but that might take too long.
Or, he could stop the train altogether. Ironically, that would be easier than trying to board. He could go through those same channels, order the train stopped, and commandeer the police to help him escort the man off. An even simpler solution would be to set off the fire alarm, immediately shutting down all train movement in and out of the station. But what then? What good would come of detaining the man who, Giles was now certain, acted as contact and go-between for the Exphoria mole? If this was one of Giles’ operations, he’d go dark as soon as the contact was arrested. No, arresting the thickset man now would achieve nothing. They needed to know who he was, and exactly what he was doing, before making a move.
There was a third option. Giles watched the train pull away, then approached the border security office and asked to speak to the officer in charge. Next he dialled a number from memory, a number never stored in contact address books, and apologised to the man who answered for calling at an unsociable hour.
Three minutes later, the senior border security officer arrived, talking on his own phone. He made affirmative noises, then ended the call and nodded to Giles. “Mr Finlay,” he said, “apparently I’m to let you look over all the passports we scanned for the last departed train. Any chance you could tell me why?”
Giles smiled sympathetically. “Sorry. National security, and all that. Please lead the way.”
39
At least Andrea’s target didn’t leave the country.
The young man with the sandy blond beard waited almost ten minutes after his friend had left, and Giles had followed him on the pretext of a phone call, to finish his drink. Then he abruptly walked out, perhaps hoping he would catch anyone following — like Andrea, seemingly absorbed in her phone with Giles gone — off-guard.
But Andrea wasn’t caught off-guard, and certainly wasn’t absorbed in her iPhone. If anyone had looked at her screen they would see a vacuous match-three game, something she’d first downloaded on her personal phone for her son Alex to play when he needed a distraction. She’d put a copy on her work phone specifically for use cases like this; in public, when she needed to look like her mind was elsewhere. She pretended to play, while her attention was on everything but the game she held in her hands. Her high score was a little under two thousand. Alex’s was over
