'The picture of one of them, detailed description of the other. Available to every man round Sokarev. That stacks the odds a bit against our two friends.' Jones was able to smile, rare over the last two days. 'But if the Arab wants to go on what about McCoy?'
Again it was Fairclough, hunched forward in his seat, using his hands to emphasize the points he made. 'One of them has killed this morning, but they're both in it together. The critical factor is whether they fall apart, how much of a bond they've made. From what I've read of McCoy I think he'll stay in, right up to the end, providing he thinks there's a chance of living through it.'
Jones wondered how he could be so sure, and envied the younger man the certainty of his opinions. But it was not a time for sarcasm, or for academic discussion. So many of them had breezed through the department over the years, knowing all the answers, having an explanation for every half-truth situation. The ones that stayed on were the ones who recognized that there were no simple answers in the business. The problem was — and Jones could see that much — that this wasn't the operation the section heads were familiar with, inexperienced at tangling on the short-term affairs. They were pretty good when they had the space to spread themselves, to get through on the inside, to win time to build up the overall picture. But this was a sprint, and didn't really depend on men like himself.
Hadn't much to contribute. When there wasn't any time the whole thing came down to Jimmy's level. Who shoots best — us or them? That's why he'd brought Jimmy in on the effort. He liked the man in a distant way, was vaguely fond of him, but to be dependent on him, to recognize he had more to offer now than Jones himself, that left a taste in the mouth.
Jimmy took considerable care over his firearms.
For close protection work he favoured the PPK (Polizei Pistolen Kriminal) Walther. And this was the gun he drew from the armoury, set behind reinforced walls in the basement of Leconfield House just beyond the area used by the monitoring team. The PPK was a small weapon, manufactured with great skill by the workers of the Karl Walther factory at Ulm on the Danube in West Germany.
Its length was little more than six inches, its weight slightly over a pound. It was not new, manufactured in 1938, and had come into the department's collection after the war, but the armourer had maintained it with studied attention, knowing that this, among all the others, was the weapon that Jimmy asked for on his occasional visits to the underground room. On most occasions the gun had been returned unused, but a few times the armourer had noticed the magazine no longer contained its seven shells, and that the barrel needed cleaning.
The two men had talked about Jimmy's choice at the time that the newspapers were full of how the PPK being used by a Royal detective had jammed during a kidnap attempt, and how it had been withdrawn from use by the bodyguards. Neither the armourer nor the marksmen had been impressed by the reasons made public for the switch-over to the British-made Smith and Wesson, the traditional police weapon. Jimmy's loyalty was unmoved.
With the gun signed for, and two dozen rounds along with it, Jimmy drove north to the police firing range in an old building the far side of Euston Station. There were policemen there, members of a pistol shooting club, complete in denim overalls and earpads, firing at targets twenty-five metres across the floor from the painted white line that ran across one end of the range.
Jimmy showed his identification card to the instructor, and the policemen were called back to the shadows away from the shooting line. They watched as Jimmy loaded the magazine, then stood apparently relaxed facing them and away from the human-shaped target, gun pointing to the floor, loosely held against his trousers. The instructor let fall a box of matches. By the time it had bounced twice and come to rest Jimmy had twisted, body crouched, knees bent, two hands together outstretched and both on the butt of the pistol, and his first shot had hit the target.
Three more followed.
'About a six inch group,' the instructor said, and Jimmy acknowledged expressionless. Where else did they expect the bloody things to be? He went to the side wall, by the door, waited a moment for his legs to loosen, then flung himself forward on the floor, rolling all the time before there was an instant of steadiness and he fired twice.
'Eight inches or so apart, both in the chest area,' said the instructor.
Jimmy fired all twenty-four rounds. Some in near-darkness, some with a bright light shining at his face, some on the move, some stationary. All hit the target, each puckered hole in the torso area.
'Bit of a bloody show-off, isn't he?' said one of the watching policemen, but his whisper was overheard by the instructor, who walked across the room to him.
'Look, boy.' His voice was booming, the result of deafness accrued from eighteen years in the underground range. 'There's a fractional possibility he might miss. And there's a fractional possibility you might hit. That's the difference between you and him.'
Jimmy was well pleased with the morning session, and it was over quickly enough for him to fit in a drink before he was due back at the department.
The two of them were asleep in the car.
McCoy lay on his side across the front seats, head just beneath the steering wheel. Famy was curled up in the back, his coat off and covering his shoulders. The car was parked deep in a grassy clearing, far from the road and visible through the high summer foliage only to someone who approached to within a few yards of it. There were many such places in the line of Surrey hills between Guildford and Dorking that block the route to London.
Later they would become a haven for Sunday walkers and picnickers, but in the early morning the two men had the clearing to themselves.
'We must sleep now, any time we bloody-well can get it,' McCoy had said.
They missed the breaking of the dawn, when the darkness gave way to the half-light, and then the sun began to cast its shortening shadows across the grass. They didn't see the rabbits that came to eat and preen themselves, or the fox that hastened them back to their burrows. It was the noise of children that aroused them. Two boys, little more than ten years old, faces pressed against the steamed-up windows of the car, peering in at them, and running giggling away as McCoy started up from his sleep. He swore inaudibly, and tried to collect his thoughts as he gazed around him. There is always that moment immediately after waking before the bad news of the previous night is remembered. McCoy couldn't immediately place why he was in the car. It came to him soon enough, and with the realization came the memory of the events of five hours earlier.
He shook Famy. 'Come on, lover-boy. Time to be on our way.'
'What's happening? Where are we?' Famy too had woken confused.
'Out in the countryside, taking in the sunshine.
Remember?'
Famy inclined his head slowly, deliberately, understanding.
Neither saw the two boys who lay in the thick grass bracken watching the men as they rubbed their eyes and stretched and pawed at the grass, throwing out the stiffness that had accompanied their awkward, limb-twisted sleep.
McCoy beckoned with his hand, an abrupt gesture, and the two began to walk the length of the clearing to the path that meandered away among the pine trees and the birches and the undergrowth. it's a fair walk, and I don't want to hang about,' said McCoy over his shoulder as he led the way. Neither wore the shoes for the country paths, and both slipped and stumbled where the rain had made the surface muddy.
They walked in silence for more than twenty minutes.
Then Famy noticed that McCoy was slowing down his stride, searching for a sign. When he found it he stood still, pleased with himself, beside an old, rusted-up pram chassis.
'That's the first marker,' he said, it's easy enough from here to find the place. We go fifty paces now down the path. Measure them out, and we'll be just about there.'
Famy let the distance between them grow as McCoy, his step accentuated by the care he was taking, marked out the distance.
'At home,' said McCoy when he had counted up to fifty out loud, 'we have to hide our guns. We keep them out in the countryside, but somewhere you can get them night or day, so you need markers, so you can find them on a path in the dark. Has to be straightforward and obvious to the man on the pick-up, but giving nothing away to the Brits.
