off somewhere. I can call you later on.'
'There can't be much chance of Jones going. He may want to be at the Yard, or by his phone, but it's not like him just to be there if there's no purpose to it. There's enough of the thickies, you included, lined up for the evening without him shoving in and getting in the way.'
'Whether he comes or not I'd like you to be there with the car.'
She unlocked the driving door and sat far back into the seat. As she fastened the safety belt across her chest she said quietly and with a suspicion of mockery, 'Want me to see the hero boy in action? Roy of the Rovers defies Amazing Odds. Triumph of Virtue. Good wins through.
That it?'
When it came to needling Jimmy she was the great expert.
'Bugger off to your boring office,' he shouted. 'I'll call you, and I want you there. If you want a bloody meal on the house, that is.'
The car was away and lost in the traffic, leaving Jimmy searching the street for a black cab. They were not easy to find in the final throes of the capital's rush-hour, and he paced impatiently for a full fifteen minutes before he could hail one and then sprint a weaving path between the oncoming cars to the other side of the road where the driver waited for him.
When they were on the move Jimmy sagged deep into the seat, half-aware of the scurrying masses going about their business beyond the Perspex. This was the ideal guerrilla country, the perfect territory on which to wage the sharp and cruel form of warfare that the enemy had perfected. Thousands of faces were swept past his vision from the window, their preoccupation with their own affairs total, their knowledge of the threat minuscule. The perfect, unnoticing hiding ground, where anonymity remains a virtue. In this huge, ant-like society what hope could there ever be of selecting out just two who were different from the rest by the virtue of the fact that they had declared hostilities? Where to find them — where to start to look?
There can only be one killing ground. The one right beside David Sokarev. Not ten yards from him, or even five, but right up against his shoulder. Jimmy felt no sense of fear at the prospect of physical injury. What screwed up his guts was the possibility of failure. It always dogged him, that horror. That he would end up the ultimate loser.
He could picture the little man with the blood and the surprise in his face, and the look of betrayal that would dominate his eyes. That would be the awfulness for Jimmy.
The unmentionable and unspeakable disaster, if he lost Sokarev.
By the time he reached the hotel where he would spend the rest of the day before leaving for the Senate House, the very image of failure and the chance of it that had crossed his mind had rendered him irritable and tensed.
From where he crouched inside the small car Famy saw McCoy appear round the corner from the street and walk warily towards their hiding place. Twice he looked behind, to satisfy himself he was not under surveillance. He jogged the last ten yards to the car.
Under his arm was a brown paper bag, and he reached inside his pocket on the left of his trousers when he reached the window through which Famy stared at him.
McCoy took in the numbed astonishment in the other's face, and the sad, emotion-drained look in his mouth.
'I've got the keys. No problem, an old fool in a garage up the road, spilled him a yarn and had them straight away. Got the whole bunch and said I'd return them later.
Piece of cake. I've got the gloves we need for the window, too, motorcycle sort with protection half-way up the arm.
Made of leather and bloody expensive. Hope your mob are good on expenses.'
He laughed, then let the humour dissolve as Famy's face failed to react.
'What the matter?' McCoy said. 'You look like someone's just parachuted you into bloody Jerusalem.'
'I thought you'd gone,' Famy whispered, frightened of the words, but with no option but to speak them.
'Course I'd bloody gone,' said McCoy. 'I told you last night we'd need the keys. You said we'd need gloves.
What's special about that?'
'I thought you'd gone for all time. That you were not coming back.'
McCoy spat back at him, 'How many times do I have to fucking-well tell you? We're in this together. I've told you that. For once in your suspicious miserable life try believing what you're told.'
He stomped round the car, angry, kicking at a tin and clattering it away across the stones and debris of the site.
Famy climbed out of the car.
'I'm sorry,' he said, it was shameful to doubt you. I am abject to you.' He paused, letting the seconds of confrontation flitter away. 'How do we spend the rest of the day?'
McCoy nodded. He had the imagination to feel the Arab's sentiments on waking in the empty car.
'I should have woken you. Forget it now. We stay for the rest of the day. It's as good as anywhere. We'll go direct from here to the Senate. No sense in just moving about unnecessarily. What we need now is some sleep. I don't want to be yawning and looking for my bed tonight.'
The few tourists who had gathered on the pavement across the road were unaware of the identity of the man who stepped from the black Humber car and hurried into the extended and tranquil-lit hallway of 10 Downing Street.
No better informed was the police constable on the door, nor the morning-suited usher who glanced from the prof-fered card to the book listing the day's appointments of the Prime Minister, and matched the printed name on the card he had been given with the typed list that rested on the lobby table.
The Director General was taken by lift to the flat on the top floor that the country's senior politician had turned into a miniature home when pressure of work prevented him from using his more substantial town house. It was well known that the Prime Minister's wife disliked having her living rooms trampled on by Civil Servants and Members of Parliament and visiting delegations, and so when her husband had early business to conduct he 'slept over the shop' as he delighted to tell those who called on him at the start of his day.
He was at breakfast, but immaculate and ready to present a public face, the absence of a jacket to cover his waistcoat his only concession to informality. As he pushed the marmalade on to his squares of toast he motioned to the Head of the Security Services to take a chair opposite and pushed in his direction the china coffee jug.
'I've seen the Home Secretary this morning,' the Prime Minister said. 'He's told me what the police are doing concerning the Professor and his problems. I wanted to know your feelings about the affair as we go into these crucial hours. No minutes to be kept or anything like that, just your opinions and what your own department's state of readiness is. That sort of thing.'
The memoir business into which political leaders entered with such enthusiasm on retirement was sufficient to keep the Director General on his guard. He regarded the Prime Minister's request for information as legitimate, but saw no need to expand at too great length.
He chose a cautious path, describing what the other man would already know. He started with the police operation at the hotel, listed the precautions that would be taken to transport Sokarev across the city. Official-style decoy car driving from the hotel at high speed, while the target left via the kitchens in a closed police van, switching to a more formal type of transport in the concealed yard of Tottenham Court Road police station before arriving at a normally locked side entrance at the university main building. He spoke of the scale of the escort that would be used during the transit period, and also of the numbers of men on guard at the building and of the search procedures that had been adopted inside and outside the hall where Sokarev was to speak. He mentioned the gelignite-sniffer labradors, and the metal detectors that plain-clothes troops had employed before the room was sealed the previous night. He talked of the police liaison with his own department that had been set up. He went into the degree to which invitation holders to the lecture had been vetted, and lingered for a moment on the problems of body searches without giving offence to the members of some of the most learned institutions of the country. He touched on the convoy and the protection screen that would be used to return the professor to his hotel. And then he stopped and waited for the Prime Minister's questions.
They were not slow in following.
'Well, that covers the police side of things. Everything in fact that the Secretary of State told me. What are
