Hellfire (35 page)

The Chief bowed his head. Bixby noticed that his hand was trembling. ‘Do we have a list of all the marathon runners?’

‘Of course, sir.’

‘I want them broken down by race. Start by getting our systems to cross-reference every runner of Qatari origin with any individual already known to us. Once you’ve exhausted the Qataris, move on to the Saudis, then continue to widen the net. Anyone who comes up positive gets a knock on the door.’

‘Racial profiling, sir?’ It was clear from the tone of Bixby’s voice that he didn’t approve.

Seldon gave him a dangerous look. ‘Don’t even start, Bixby . . .’

‘It’s unreliable, sir. It’s a time-suck and a drain on our resources . . .’

‘Just shut up and do what I tell you, Bixby. And do it
now
.’

Bixby stared at his boss. Then, without another word, he manoeuvred his wheelchair backwards, before spinning it round and heading to the exit. But before he left, he stopped and turned the wheelchair back again.

‘Sir, in the past twelve months we know of at least three hundred British nationals who have left the UK to fight in Syria. What if the person we’re looking for isn’t Qatari, or Saudi, or even Middle Eastern. What if he’s British?’

The Chief flashed back a dangerous look. He was sweating badly. ‘What if he
isn’t
, Bixby?’ he said. Then he looked towards the door, and Bixby knew it really was time to leave.

The rush-hour traffic around Birmingham was heavy, but Spud weaved expertly in and out of the lines of traffic on his motorbike as he headed in the direction of Dudley. It was a little after nine when he found himself in the car park of the same pub – the Hand and Flower – that he’d been in with Eleanor, facing the minicab office. Nothing would be less covert than standing there with his helmet on, so he removed it. His gamble was that nobody in the minicab office would notice him from this distance. And if al-Meghrani
did
see him, chances were that at a distance he wouldn’t remember him from yesterday. Unlike Spud, he hadn’t been highly trained in the art of observation.

Time check. 09.37. He stayed astride his bike and kept his attention focused firmly on the frontage of the minicab office. There were three cars parked outside: an old BMW and two Renaults. The same old tramp that he’d seen circling the block and getting increasingly arseholed was there again, a full bottle in his fist, his gait relatively steady. But there was no sign of al-Meghrani’s white VW.

No problem. Spud was prepared to put in the hours.

His mind drifted to Frances, and the night before. He remembered the look in her eyes as she’d drunkenly told him about Tony. There was no doubt that she was scared of him. And he wondered if it was just a figment of his drunken imagination, but was there a patch of bruising under her left ribs? He wouldn’t mind a chat with Tony about that one of these days. Spud wasn’t in the business of righting wrongs, but he didn’t have much time for a guy who knocked his missus around.

Or maybe he had just been seeing what he wanted to see, because he liked Frances and loathed Tony. And maybe he was doing the same thing here, waiting for al-Meghrani. He heard Eleanor’s voice in his mind.
You have to understand that we can’t afford to chase shadows. We have to make sure we see what’s there, not what we want to be there. He’s just a cabbie, going about his business.

Spud swore under his breath. He’d let his mind wander. And now a white VW had just parked up in the rank outside the cab office. Al-Meghrani was getting out. Spud’s attention snapped immediately on to his target. The driver walked towards the cab office. But he didn’t go in. Instead, he walked past it, and entered the cafe immediately to its right. Spud watched fiercely. His target sat down in the front of the cafe, his face obscured by the ‘L’ of the window lettering advertising lasagne and chips.

Spud swallowed a moment of frustration. If he was here with a team, his next move would be straightforward: send one of them in to keep eyes on al-Meghrani – even get them to engage him in conversation, see what came of it – while the remainder of the unit kept their distance. But he didn’t have a team. There was just him. Entering the cafe was a gamble. Close up, the target might recognise him. His chances of gathering some kind of intelligence, though, were much better if he could get close and listen to his conversations or phone calls. Maybe he could work out his movements, establish a time and place where he could properly corner him . . .

He decided to go for it.

Leaving his bike in the car park, and with his helmet under his arm, Spud crossed the road. Thirty seconds later, he was walking into the cafe. As the smell of fried food hit his senses, Spud knew this was a bad idea. The breakfast rush had finished. Aside from al-Meghrani, sitting by the window, there were only three other punters, and one of them was finishing up a plate of food and looked to be leaving any moment. On the far side of the cafe was a counter with a big tea urn and a balding man in a dirty apron checking his phone. It was very hard to melt into the background.

But Spud was committed now: to turn round and walk out would just bring more attention to himself. He grabbed a copy of the
Mirror
from a newspaper rack by the door, then took a seat at the table adjacent to al-Meghrani’s, facing him. Distance between them, three metres. A Radio Two jingle played softly from some old speakers on the far wall. Spud placed his helmet on the table, made a cursory study of the greasy laminated menu, then placed his newspaper in front of him.

The headline caught his eye:
Missing Plane: 9/11 Style Attack Feared
.

He scanned the text underneath: a British Airways flight from Lagos had dropped off the radar somewhere to the north-west of Nigeria. He found his mind drifting to Danny and his team. He knew this was nothing to do with them – they were on a bog-standard bodyguarding gig – but the headline still made him feel uneasy. Something bad was going down . . .

He purposefully turned to the sports pages to stop himself reading the story further, and to keep his mind on the job in hand. A picture of Mourinho looking petulant didn’t appeal. Spud glanced over at the cab driver.

Al-Meghrani looked like he was in his own little world. His hands were on his knees under the table, and he was staring into the middle distance, seemingly unaware of anything around him. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and Spud noticed a few flecks of grey in his beard. There were dark rings around his eyes and his hair was dishevelled.

Spud turned back to the football reports. When the counter guy walked over he ordered a full English with tea. The drink arrived a minute later, and on the same tray was a plate of food for al-Meghrani. The counter guy set it rather unceremoniously on the table in front of him, then stomped back to his place behind the tea urn.

Spud glanced at the cab driver again. He was examining his plate of food – it looked like he’d gone for the vegetarian breakfast – as if he was checking each item was there. As Spud took a sip of his tea, al-Meghrani drew his hands from under the table for the first time. He was still wearing the same black gloves that he’d had on yesterday.

Al-Meghrani started pulling the fingertips of his right-hand glove, loosening each one carefully as he prepared to remove the whole glove. Just as he’d loosened the final finger, his head turned. He caught Spud looking at him.

Spud cursed inwardly and quickly flickered his gaze back to the newspaper in front of him. But he could feel the heat of the cab driver’s glare, and in his peripheral vision could sense that he was pulling the loose glove firmly back on to his hand. At that moment, Spud’s food arrived. As the counter guy dumped it in front of him, Spud managed to get another look over at al-Meghrani’s table. He was wolfing his food down with his gloves still on. By the time the counter guy walked away, Spud’s target had only eaten a few mouthfuls, but he was already pushing his plate away and casting a long, suspicious, sidelong glance at Spud. He scraped his chair back, dropped a ten-pound note on the table and hurried out of the cafe, his food barely eaten.

Spud’s mind was racing. Something had freaked al-Meghrani out. What was it? Had he recognised Spud from yesterday? Or had he suddenly got shy about removing his gloves when he saw that Spud was watching him do it?

And anyway, Spud thought: who eats breakfast in a warm cafe with their gloves on?

And if the guy had nothing to hide, why would he suddenly leg it?

He grabbed his helmet and scraped back his own chair. He felt the eyes of the few other punters – and the counter guy – on him as he emulated al-Meghrani in leaving a tenner on the table before hurrying out of the cafe. On the pavement, he focused on the white VW.
The cabbie had already climbed in and was revving the engine. No passenger. With a screech of his tyres he pulled out into the road. A Transit van had to hit its brakes to avoid colliding with the VW, which accelerated down the road.

Spud winced suddenly: a sharp pain down his abdomen. It took a few seconds to subside, by which time the VW had disappeared. He considered running over to his motorbike, trailing the bastard, who obviously had something to hide, no matter what Eleanor the spook thought. But he decided against it. Al-Meghrani was alert. He’d be keeping his eyes open, and there were few things harder than a single person trailing a target who suspected he was being followed.

No. Spud decided he’d have to think a bit smarter.

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself.

Then he walked along the pavement and into the cab office.

There were two drivers and a controller in here. They’d obviously seen al-Meghrani speed off, and were talking about him. ‘Fucking weirdo,’ one of the guys muttered in a Brummie accent.

‘He’s a good driver, innit?’ the controller said. He looked up at Spud. ‘Yes, mate?’

Spud put one hand to his chest. ‘Do us a favour mate,’ he said. ‘Let me use your toilet, I’m bursting.’ He nodded towards the closed wooden door behind the controller’s little desk.

‘Not for customers, mate,’ the controller said.

Spud gave him a painful look. ‘I’m going to fucking piss myself, mate,’ he said. ‘Do us a favour.’

The controller’s radio burst into life. The voice of one of his drivers blared incoherently through the loudspeaker. He gave Spud an exasperated looked, then waved one hand towards the wooden door. ‘Go on, go on,’ he said.

Spud gave him an embarrassed nod, then hurried past him, opened the door and went through.

He’d calculated that there had to be another room back here. The guy out front was running a business, and that meant files and paperwork on all the guys working for him. He was right. At the end of the short corridor there was a door marked with the word ‘Toilet’ – Spud could smell it from here. But to his right was another door, slightly ajar, which led into a small room, three metres by three. A grey metal filing cabinet in one corner. Two chairs. A table with a rotary index card holder. A dusty water dispenser with an empty water barrel.

Spud strode over to the filing cabinet and tried each of the three drawers. All locked. He cursed silently, then turned to the table. The rotary index card holder was open at a card that had a name and address scrawled all over it: Alan Lack, 13 Danes Drive, Dudley. Spud put down his motorbike helmet and quickly flicked through the cards – they were alphabetical – until he reached the ‘M’s. There was a ‘Masters’ and a ‘Monk’, but no ‘Meghrani’. He flicked quickly back to the As, and there he was: al-Meghrani, Kalifa. Spud yanked the index card out of the holder and stuffed it into his pocket.

‘What the bloody hell you doing?’

He spun round. The cab controller was standing in the doorway, his face angry. Spud allowed an open smile to spread across his face. ‘Mate!’ he said. ‘I got lost! You wouldn’t want
me
driving one of your cabs, eh?’

The controller eyed him very suspiciously, then looked pointedly at the helmet on the table. Spud grabbed the helmet, then jutted out his chin and threw back his shoulders. He knew he looked imposing when he wanted to. The controller appeared to lose a little of his confidence. He stepped back from the doorway and glanced towards the front office with an expression that said only one thing:
Get out
.

Spud pushed past him, through the front office – where the lingering cab drivers stared hard at him – and out into the street. He waited for a break in the traffic, then ran across the road back to where his bike was waiting for him. Only then did he pull out the index card and examine it more closely. The cab driver’s address was 27a, Jackson Road. He plugged it into his phone and a map of its location appeared. Distance: 3.7 miles.

He could be there in ten minutes. If this was an official operation, he wouldn’t hesitate. But as he stood by his bike, staring at the scrawled handwriting on the index card, something made him hesitate. He was operating on his own. If he was caught breaking into the cab driver’s house, or interviewing the shifty bastard, Hereford would throw the book at him. He was a weight round their neck that they’d love to get rid of.

Maybe he should call Eleanor, but would what he say? That he thought al-Meghrani was a bad guy because he ate breakfast with his gloves on? He knew how
that
conversation would go.