‘Do it.’
Harry didn’t bother watching the screen as Rik worked; it would mean little to him until Rik accessed the message files — if they still existed — and he didn’t need to clog his brain with unwanted information. If they got the messages, it would prove a link between Bellingham and Clarion. What it wouldn’t prove was that he had sent Latham to Red Station with instructions to kill. But it was better than nothing. At the very least, it would be enough to put a scare into Bellingham and start an internal enquiry.
‘Got it,’ Rik hissed. His fingers flew across the keyboard. He was breathing like an athlete, eyes fixed on the screen, and Harry could feel his excitement. It was a small insight into what made hackers tick. ‘How are we for time?’
‘Edging on four minutes.’ He was amazed by the passage of time.
Rik muttered to himself and carried on tapping away before taking out a data stick and plugging it into the side of the laptop. He hit a series of keys then sat back.
He was smiling.
‘What are you so happy about?’
‘I recognize some of these messages. Mostly from Mace.’ He tapped the keyboard. ‘Here’s one I sent last week. Seems weird being back here now.’
The front door of the cafe rattled open and two office workers strode in. The sound of a police siren drifted in behind them, distant and fading.
‘Christ!’ Rik sat forward, jerked out of his bubble of concentration, and reached for the data stick.
‘Easy,’ cautioned Harry. ‘It’s moving away.’
Rik relaxed and breathed out. ‘If you say so. How much shall I copy?’
‘As much as you can… names, dates, subjects, whatever proves we were there and that Bellingham was running the operation.’ He had a thought. ‘Does it include Mace’s report about Stanbridge?’
‘Yeah, I just saw it. How are we doing for time?’
Harry checked his watch. ‘Six minutes gone.’
‘We’re pushing it.’ Rik looked annoyed with himself and explained, ‘I may have tripped an alarm on the way in. It’s not easy to tell.’
Outside, a car blew by with a roar of a powerful engine. There was a squeal of brakes and someone shouted. The crackle of a radio voice echoed along the street.
‘Let’s go.’ Harry didn’t want to push their luck. They had enough to use and he knew they were on borrowed time.
Once they were clear of the area, they stopped off for Rik to copy the files to a second data stick, and for Harry to buy a small jiffy bag and scribble an address on the front. He placed the stick inside with a note, then sealed it and stopped to speak to a motorcycle courier perched on his bike and eating a sandwich. A quick exchange of notes and the courier nodded and dumped his sandwich.
They walked away as the bike took off down the street.
‘Right,’ said Harry, as they reached Oxford Circus station. ‘Go home and get lost. Take your mum out for dinner or something and meet me at the National Gallery at nine tomorrow morning.’
Rik nodded. ‘Fine by me. What did you say in that note?’
‘I said I’d call her tomorrow at ten with information about a rogue operation involving MI5 and MI6, and a government hit squad.’ He smiled. ‘A slight exaggeration, that last bit, but it should get her attention.’
SIXTY-EIGHT
‘ What’s the plan?’ They were in the cafeteria of the National Gallery at the top of Trafalgar Square, and Rik was restless.
Harry had deliberately chosen the cafeteria as a start point. It was busy, it was anonymous and a short walk from Whitehall. With the usual crowds of tourists and workers in the area, it would make surveillance and pursuit difficult if they had to move quickly.
He checked his watch. Nearly nine. He took out another mobile. ‘If this all goes wrong, you know what to do with that other data stick.’
‘Yes. Hit the media with the full story, then disappear until the dust settles.’ He looked confused. ‘You said you’d call her at ten.’
‘I lied. Don’t worry — she’s already there.’
He hit dial and waited for Marcella Rudmann to answer.
‘Does he have to be here?’ Harry nodded at the security guard standing inside the door. They were in Rudmann’s office off Whitehall, and he had been kept waiting no more than thirty seconds before being ushered upstairs. Instead of leaving, the man had stationed himself by the door, six feet from Harry’s right shoulder.
‘I don’t know. You tell me.’ Rudmann seemed very calm, he thought, with no obvious signs of concern at having a man she probably looked on as a renegade in her office.
‘You think I mean you harm?’
She said nothing, but he thought he saw a faint flicker beneath the skin of one cheek.
‘If you think like that,’ he said finally, ‘you should try changing your routine.’
She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You left your flat in Dolphin Square at seven thirty this morning, carrying a burgundy briefcase. Your front door hinges need oiling, by the way. You turned left out of the entrance and left again down St George’s Square, accompanied by your minder. He’s sloppy; he thinks anyone carrying a cardboard box and waving a delivery note is a driver and therefore to be ignored.’
‘You followed me.’ She looked shocked. ‘How did you know where I lived?’
‘I’m in the game, remember? He allowed traffic to get between you when you crossed Bessborough Street. I was close behind you when you got into your cab on Vauxhall Bridge Road, and could see the tiny run in your right leg. You might want to check that when you get a moment.’
Her face went red. Harry wasn’t sure if it was through the obvious lapses in security, or because of the fault in her tights. One thing he would lay money on was that her minder would shortly be joining the ranks of the jobless. But he was past caring how she felt; she, like Paulton and Bellingham, had been arrogant enough to believe themselves fireproof, to the degree that they thought men like Harry Tate were toothless.
‘I think I get the picture,’ she said quietly, and looked at the security guard behind Harry. A toss of her head and he left.
Harry doubted he would be very far away, though. Rudmann and her kind did not lose their badges of office too easily, and a minder was one of the most visible and potent imaginable.
‘All right,’ she said when the door had closed. ‘What do you want?’
‘You know what I want. If you looked at the files on the stick and checked my personnel records, you’ll know.’
‘I looked at them, Mr Tate.’ Rudmann smoothed her skirt over her knee. ‘What I don’t know is why you have come to me… or what you claim to have found.’
‘I’ve just returned from a foreign station set up by Sir Anthony Bellingham of MI6 and George Paulton of MI5. It was conceived as a hole-in-the-wall base to use as a training area. At least, that’s their story. In fact, it was where they sent employees who had defaulted in some way; employees who might prove an embarrassment if their mistakes ever went public.’
‘I see.’
‘If you do, you’re quick off the mark. I was the most recent posting, and I was sent out there while the dust died down after the shooting of the two kids and the armed copper in Essex. They did it to keep me away from the press.’
‘I’m sure you’re mistaken.’ By the way Rudmann avoided meeting his eye, Harry knew she was lying. ‘Setting up a training base is hardly a criminal offence, is it?’
‘Maybe not. But queuing up security service defaulters to act as bait for trainee operatives is one thing; quietly disposing of anyone they saw as a threat, or any officers who threatened to blow the lid on underground or
