but they go best where they’re pointed.’
‘So?’
‘I want you to do the pointing. You’re good at finding people — you’ve already proved that. We want you to follow the trails. Find the SDPs and you’ll find Paulton.’
‘And when I find them — and him?’ He’d been down this route before.
‘Sit on him and call it in. You’ll have twenty-four-hour backup.’ Ballatyne fixed him with a cool stare. ‘Just so there’s no mistake, we really would like him back to answer for what he did.’ He reached into an inside pocket and placed a five-by-three photo and a folded slip of paper on the table. ‘This is the first name we want brought in — and the nearest. He disappeared while in transit overseas three months ago, was spotted in Sydney, then again in Thailand. He just surfaced out of the blue in London. He was either daft or desperate enough to use his credit card in Stockwell and got lit up. Where he’s been since Thailand, we have no idea. He might be waiting for a contact. . or is on the point of running. We’d like to get him before he does.’
Harry glanced at the photo. It was a head and shoulders shot of a lean man in his thirties, smiling into the camera. He looked relaxed and tanned. He scanned the brief details.
‘Is this all?’
‘How much do you need? There’ll be full backgrounds on the others, mainly because they’re out in who the hell knows where. But this one’s probably the simplest.’ He flicked a hand at the suit, who stood up and carried a black nylon bag across the room and placed it by Harry’s side. ‘Taser and cuffs,’ Ballatyne explained. ‘Just in case. We don’t need any more shooting for a while. I’m sure you’ll be able to use them if you have to.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Harry. He’d done a two-hour course once, part of a new equipment training module. It hadn’t been a great success. He’d forgotten to switch the Taser on and got stamped on by an instructor posing as a rioter. ‘This is all a bit personal for someone on your level, isn’t it?’
‘Level?’ Ballatyne blinked.
‘Well, you’re, what — Ops Director at least? Handing over bits of paper and bags of equipment is below your pay grade, I’d have thought.’
‘I suppose so. But I owed you the first couple of meetings at least. Later on you’ll be dealing with a man named Cullum. He’s currently putting together the file for you, along with personal data and background on the absentees. He’ll provide you with whatever other information you need. I’ll need a secure code for the data — something you’ve never used before.’
Harry thought about it and gave him the six-digit number from the back of his watch. Ballatyne wrote it down. ‘What’s that — your mangled birth date?’
‘No. The model number of my iPad.’ It wasn’t, but he didn’t think Ballatyne would check. He picked up the slip of paper. ‘What makes this so important to Six? You don’t normally go chasing deserters.’
‘You’re right. It shouldn’t be our problem, but things have changed in the last few years. People like Pike are highly trained and educated; they carry enormous detail in their heads about new developments in equipment and tactics, systems and strategies. And Two-Five-One Signals Squadron takes the best. Even their average member these days is a mine of saleable information to the right people. What we’d like to do is find out who’s doing the buying.’
‘That doesn’t explain why Six and not Five.’
‘It’s the way it is.’ Ballatyne tapped the table before standing up. His minder moved to the door and checked the street. ‘Two military cops are keeping watch on the house where Pike’s gone to ground. They’ll assist you in collecting Pike, and take him to Colchester. Before they do, however, we’d like you to question him and find out where he’s been for the last three months. It’s a little outside the standard procedure, but if you can get anything out of him it might help. Good luck.’ With a brief nod he walked out on the heels of his minder, leaving Harry alone with the black bag.
FOUR
The house where Corporal Neville Pike had gone to ground was a tired-looking Victorian pile near Clapham Common, south London. Yet to be swept up by developers and gentrified, it seemed to be resisting change, unlike many of its neighbours which were proudly displaying radical facelifts and makeovers. Pike was in number 11 on the third floor, according to Ballatyne’s watchers, where he’d been holed up for three days living off pizza deliveries from a shop on the corner.
Harry buzzed the array of buttons until someone let him in, then climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. No answer. The floorboards squeaked as his balance shifted, but there was no answering shift from inside. He knocked again, waited, then slid a card underneath the door and walked back downstairs, trying not to breath in the sour atmosphere of damp walls, ancient carpets and stale cigarette smoke. He was deliberately making enough noise for Pike to hear him, and the card said he’d be waiting outside and why. He was hoping the soldier was going to come down without any drama.
If he didn’t, he and the MPs — military police — would have to go in and get him.
Fifteen minutes passed, during which a cat wandered across the unkempt rear garden, jumped over a rusting metal wheelbarrow and disappeared through a ground floor window propped open with a saucepan. Traffic noises sounded out in the street, kids laughing, the distant rattle of road mending machinery. A woman’s head popped up from behind a fence two gardens down and stared hard at him before disappearing again. Life was going on as normal.
Then Pike appeared.
He had a holdall in one hand and was wearing a denim jacket and jeans, with a baseball cap mashed down over his eyes. He was tall and lean, sporting the remains of a tan from his last tour in Helmand, or maybe his stay in Thailand. But underneath it he looked soft and pasty, and wobbly on his feet. Too long spent indoors behind curtains, waiting for the sound of footsteps. Instead of looking for Harry’s offer of a chat, though, he came out of the back door and down the garden path as if the place was on fire.
Harry let him come. He guessed he was heading for a green left-hand drive BMW 5 Series in the service alley at the rear. Four years old, good condition and a bit flash, the left-hander had been a sure giveaway, a cheap pick from the vast backstreet car market of south London.
Something silver glinted in Pike’s free hand.
When Harry stepped out from behind the garden wall, Pike looked shocked and skidded to a halt. Up close, his eyes held an unreal light which might have been from too little sleep, too much alcohol or too many pills. Drugs were the most likely, drugs to keep him awake, alert and ready to go, as available among active service units as they were on the streets. But there was something else in there, too: the look of a man who had travelled beyond reason and couldn’t stop.
He gave a small, high-pitched moan, more child than man, and dropped the holdall. It landed with a soft thump. Spare clothes, whatever he could carry that wouldn’t slow him down. Going AWOL means travelling light.
‘Don’t,’ Pike muttered, and motioned for Harry to get out of his way.
He had a compelling argument; he was holding an SA80 British army bayonet in his hand, blade up, the light glinting off the clean metal. The edge looked razor-keen, which went a long way to explaining what Pike had been doing to pass the time in his bolthole. There was no point wondering if he knew how to use the weapon.
He would know.
Harry waited for him to make a move. There were two options for dealing with Pike: one was under Harry’s jacket on his right hip. He could simply pull out the 9mm Steyr semi-automatic and shoot him — especially now he’d seen the bayonet. Under the rules of engagement, such as they were, armed defence was permitted. But he didn’t want to do that.
He waited instead while the seconds ticked by.
Pike launched himself on six.
