‘Not clear on weapon,’ Cara replied. ‘I’m going to bump him.’
‘You’re going to what?’
She had no sense where the idea came from, no thought that she might be taking an unnecessary risk or endangering Kite by approaching him. Cara intuited that Isobel was the key to the Iranian’s influence over Kite. He needed to know that she was safe.
‘Cara, there could be a weapon. Enemy could panic. Do not engage. I say again, do not engage.’
Kite and the Iranian were now less than ten metres away at the bottom of the ramp. Cara began to walk towards them. She moved along the first section of the ramp, turned at a concrete wall and continued until Kite was passing her on the opposite side of a thin dividing rail. She was still connected to Fred on the phone.
‘Hang on a minute,’ she said, flashing Kite a startled smile. ‘I’ve just run into a friend.’
62
‘Emma’ was standing at the top of a switchback ramp fifty metres ahead of Kite. As the only member of the Security Service who could positively identify Ramin Torabi, she had evidently been sent to look for him. She appeared to be looking down at the line of barges moored on the eastern side of the inlet.
‘Where are we going?’ Kite asked.
Emma was speaking to someone on the phone. She turned her back and faced the station. Kite was certain that she had spotted him.
‘To the street,’ Torabi replied.
There were two ways to reach the road: by walking up a flight of steps fifty feet to the west or via a ramp directly ahead. Torabi was heading for the ramp. As they reached it, Emma turned and began to walk towards them, still talking animatedly on the phone. Kite looked around for surveillance personnel but could not tell who else was on him. There were at least forty pedestrians on the walkway, more on the road above. Emma was chatting away, as if to a friend or colleague, but it was surely just cover behaviour. When they were no more than a metre apart, on parallel sections of the ramp, she suddenly stopped and flashed Kite a stunned, fancy-seeing-you-here smile. He heard her say: ‘Hang on a minute, I’ve just run into a friend.’ Then she lowered the phone.
‘Lachlan?’
Kite stopped beside her. ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Cara. From the funeral yesterday. Do you remember?’
She was very good – surprised, lively, making apologetic eye contact with Torabi – but the Iranian would surely know that the meeting was not a coincidence. He looked at both of them quickly.
‘Oh yes! Cara.’ Smart of her to have dispensed with the Emma alias. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ she replied. Kite could see that she was trying to work out if Torabi was carrying a weapon. ‘Do you live around here?’
Kite shook his head and put a hand on Torabi’s shoulder, as if to reassure him that there was no need to panic. ‘This is my friend, Ramin. Ramin, this is Cara.’ Kite tried to indicate with his eyes that Torabi held all the cards, loading his next remark with what he hoped would be an obvious code. ‘We’re actually in a bit of a hurry, shooting off somewhere.’
‘Oh.’
It worked. Cara understood what he was trying to do. As they were passing one another she found a way to bring everything to an end.
‘Well it was nice to bump into you again,’ she said. ‘Weirdly I’ve just come from seeing your wife. We had a meeting in Canary Wharf. She was in a really good mood. Are you on your way to see her?’
It was all Kite needed. No sooner was the question out of Cara’s mouth than he slammed his elbow into Torabi’s chest, striking him with such force that the Iranian doubled over, gasping for air. Two young runners were coming up the ramp behind him, iPads strapped to their biceps. When they saw what Kite had done, they immediately turned around and jogged off in the opposite direction. Kite reached behind Ramin and seized the gun from the waistband of his trousers, pocketing it with the speed and dexterity of a close-up magician. He then grabbed the panting Iranian around the chest, whispering: ‘It’s all right, you’re OK, Ramin. Take a deep breath’ while pushing a thumb into the pressure point at the base of his neck. Cara moved closer as Kite shuffled Torabi towards the wall. The Iranian was still trying to catch his breath. It sounded as though he was choking.
‘Is he all right?’ An old woman had passed them on the ramp.
‘He’s fine,’ Cara replied, beaming her widest smile. ‘Too much to drink.’
Kite made a face at the old woman, as if to confirm this. She looked at Torabi. His frightened eyes were so dizzied, so shocked, that it might almost have been the truth. She walked off.
‘We all OK here?’
Jason Franks was beside them. Kite wondered how the hell Jason and Cara had got together.
‘We’re fine, Jase,’ he replied. ‘We need to move.’
‘Vehicle on the road,’ the American replied, pulling Torabi’s hands behind his back and cuffing his wrists. ‘Let’s go.’
On the road above them, somebody leaned on a horn. Kite encouraged Torabi to come with him and they walked back up the ramp.
‘My father,’ he groaned, breathing more easily. ‘You promised me.’
Jason was on one side of him, Kite on the other. A pedestrian passed them on a Boris bike, weaving from the pavement onto the road to avoid hitting them. Kite recognised a BOX 88 driver – Pete Thompson – at the wheel of a Jaguar parked illegally in front of the station. There was a Mercedes immediately behind it with STONES at the wheel, KAISER standing alongside. Cara opened the back door of the Jag and they bundled Torabi into the back seat. Thompson had activated LED lights in the front and rear so that it looked as though two plain-clothes police officers were putting a suspect in the back of an unmarked car. Kite
