Die Alone

run into anyone else. He only stays for an hour or two at a time and then he’s gone. We’ve rented a top-floor flat in a townhouse on the same block, six houses down, where there’s access to the roof.’ Lane unrolled a set of detailed drawings of the buildings, and beckoned me closer. ‘We have a trusted insider among Alastair’s team who will let us know when he’s going to be there. Our insider doesn’t get much notice so you’ll have to be ready, and when you get the call, you will make your way across the roof to this building.’ She tapped the drawings with a gloved finger. ‘A flight of steps leads down to a black fire door, which is usually locked.’ She pulled something out of her jacket pocket. ‘Here’s the key,’ she said, putting it on the table. ‘The door leads straight into the hallway. There are three rooms on the penthouse floor. The jacuzzi room, the main bedroom, and a separate bathroom.’ She pointed them out on the drawings. ‘So, as you can see, there’s not much chance of getting lost, and the only people up there will be Sheridan himself and whichever woman he’s with. The security stay downstairs. All you have to do is find him and effect the termination with minimal fuss, restrain any witnesses using the gags and ties you’ll be supplied with, then leave the way you came in.’

I nodded, and she stepped away from the paperwork and opened up a backpack on one of the chairs, removing a wooden display case containing a pistol, a separate magazine and a six-inch detachable suppressor that would help muffle the sound of the bullets discharging. As she opened it, her sleeve rode up and I saw she was wearing a simple silver bracelet. She had a tiny, very dark mole on her wrist, and her skin was mottled with sunspots. I’d never been this close to her before, and I guessed her age to be late fifties.

‘The gun’s a SIG Sauer,’ continued Lane. ‘It’s new, and as you’ll see, the serial number’s been removed. There’s no way it can be traced back to us, or you. The magazine’s been pre-loaded with ten nine-millimetre rounds, which should be more than enough for you.’

I went to take out the gun but she closed the case and put it back in the backpack. ‘There’ll be plenty of time to examine it later.’

‘So what happens after I “effect the termination”? How are you going to extract me from the area?’

‘You leave the gun at, or near, the scene. Then head straight back to the rental flat. If all goes well, no one will have seen you, and it will take several minutes for anyone to raise the alarm. You should already be packed and ready to leave. Go out the front door and get to the pick-up point, which is approximately six hundred metres away at the intersection of Seymour Place and Upper Berkeley Street.’

I frowned. ‘So you’re not providing me with a car.’

‘No, the traffic around there can be a problem. It’ll be far quicker for you to get to the pick-up point on foot. There’s a map in the backpack with it marked. Then you’ll be brought back here, and then you can have this.’ She handed me a brand-new British passport.

I opened it at the photo page and saw a shaven-headed man with a dark, closely cropped beard. This apparently was Mr Neil Bennett. If you looked close enough you’d see it was me, but I had to admit, the photo looked a lot different to the police-issue one of me they’d been posting on the nightly news, so unless I was very unlucky it wasn’t going to get anyone’s attention. Nor was the passport itself, which was impossible to tell apart from a genuine one.

Lane took the passport back. ‘That’s yours if you carry out the task. Along with the ten thousand euros in cash I promised. We’ll then drop you at one of the quieter ferry ports, furnish you with a ticket, and after that, you’re on your own. But I’m sure you’ve also got money stashed away, haven’t you?’

‘Why should I trust you? Surely it’s a lot easier for you to leave me out there rather than take the risk of being caught extracting me?’

‘If you’re caught, it’s far more complicated,’ said Lane. ‘You know very little about us, but what little you do know could provide leads, and it’s obvious that you’ve been sheltered and well fed somewhere. Even if you’re killed, it throws up some very unwelcome questions. But if you simply disappear, people will eventually forget about you.’

I shook my head. ‘I’m always going to be better off dead to you.’

Lane sighed. ‘Listen, I know you probably don’t believe it, but we’re actually trying to do the right thing. The prospect of Alastair Sheridan becoming Prime Minister is unthinkable, not least because he could potentially be subject to blackmail by enemy states. We want him dead because it’s the only way of being absolutely certain he’s stopped. We don’t want anyone else hurt. And that includes you, Mr Mason.’

‘We’ll see,’ I said, giving her the kind of look that said I was going to be no pushover if they were planning on killing me.

‘And please don’t try to do anything foolish like disappear on us,’ Lane said, meeting my look. ‘I’m sure you think you’ve got a good chance of escape but let me tell you something, you haven’t. There’s an in-built alarm in a chip somewhere in your body. It was put in while you were unconscious on the night we took you. If you tamper with it, we’ll be alerted immediately and the deal’s off. If that happens, we’ll inform the police of your whereabouts, and you’ll be caught in hours, however resourceful you are. Don’t try to contact anyone else either. There’s a burner phone in the backpack but that’s just so you