Dark Winter (29 page)

‘Roger that.’

‘OK, well done with the phone. It has been used once, nearly two hours ago. That mobile number is still static in the area of King’s Cross station, operating in the triangle formed by Pentonville Road, Gray’s Inn Road and King’s Cross Bridge. Roger so—’

‘We know it, we know the building. Something’s wrong here. The source lives only about three hundred away.’

‘Roger that, I’ll—’

‘Get the source to call us once we’re on the ground. We might be able to use him. There’s something going on here.’

‘Agreed, out.’

I passed the headphones back to the tech and turned to Suzy, putting my mouth right into her ear to pass on what the Yes Man had said.

Her face lit up. ‘She was probably checking in to say she made it OK.’ Suzy was actually getting off on all this stuff.

37

Sunday 11 May, 00:04 hrs

The glow of London bathed the horizon, and before long the huge towers of Canary Wharf cut into the skyline, their navigation lights strobing through the low cloud.

The clean-up team probably accounted for one or more of the sets of headlamps below us, heading out of the city on their way to King’s Lynn. Their job would be to sterilize the place before first light, on the pretext of investigating gas leaks or whatever. They wouldn’t have a clue what had happened, and they’d never ask – the body would be taken away, then they’d throw the Immigration boys into a wagon and eventually introduce them to Simon. The chopper pilot and Frodo the tech would join them later. No way would any of them be let loose until this was over.

The pilot had some chat into his headset and we kicked right. It wouldn’t be long now before we were landing at RAF Northolt in West London. For a moment I wondered if we’d be taken to the command control centre for a briefing, as I had been during the Kosovo and Bosnia campaigns. It was like something out of a James Bond film, big screens all over the place and everybody being very busy and efficient as they hit keyboards and drank coffee out of polystyrene cups. But I somehow thought that wasn’t going to be for us today. Our shirts just weren’t crisp enough.

Soon we were over the A40, the busy dual carriageway cutting into London from the west, and minutes later were starting our approach into the darkened military airfield that bordered it. Rain began to spatter against the Perspex and the pilot gave the wipers a quick burst.

We were coming down near two saloon cars and a van, all parked with their headlamps on. In the orange strobe of our navigation lights I could see the shapes of the people inside them, dodging the downdraught from the rotors and the rain. One of the cars was one-up, the other two were both two-up.

Our skids settled on the hard standing and the rotors lost momentum as the whine of the turbo engines gradually subsided. The pilot turned, gave me the OK to pull the door handle, and I clambered out. The heat from the exhaust, the rotor wash and the stink of aviation fuel meant I hardly felt the rain. Suzy pushed out our two ready bags, then followed.

As we ran towards the vehicles a figure emerged from what looked like a Mondeo, and I realized it was Yvette, pulling up the hood on her Gore-Tex. She stayed by the driver’s door as the rotors came to a halt.

Two men in jeans and sweatshirts jumped out of an unmarked white Transit and ran towards the aircraft. As they got closer I could see it was Sundance and Trainers, ignoring me as they went past. Yvette beckoned to us. As we crossed the pan, she was busy opening a large aluminium box down by the nearside wheel. We could only just hear her voice. ‘Please, the canisters in here.’

I squatted down with my ready bag. The two crew were led towards the back of the van. The pilot was flapping big-time and looked to me for support. ‘What’s going on here?’

I shrugged as one of the guys in jeans replied for me: ‘Don’t worry, everything’s fine. Just hop in the back, mate.’ The way Sundance and Trainers were gripping them, they didn’t have much choice.

‘And could I please have the Peugeot keys so we can clean up in Norfolk?’

Suzy put her ready bag down and fished in her jeans while I went into mine. I pulled out the carrier-bag, smeared with dry blood, that contained everything we had taken from the woman apart from the phone, and put it into what looked like a cool-box, except this thing was fastened with four latches to keep it airtight.

By the look on Yvette’s face, she was starting to get a noseful of the contents of Suzy’s bag as she handed over the key.

‘It’s in the racecourse car park.’ Suzy’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet, maybe trying to mimic the Golf Club. ‘By the sports centre.’

Yvette nodded a thank-you. ‘You need to call him for an update. There are antibiotics in the glove compartment and a complete new set of NBC protection in the boot for you both.’

The back doors of the Transit slammed shut and it pulled away. I closed the lid on the container and saw a smile appear under the Gore-Tex hood. ‘Well done, both of you. Over to your right you can just see a flashing blue light where the van is going. Head for that and you’ll be let out of the airfield. Good luck.’

She picked up the box and carried it to the back of the other car, a dark Vauxhall Vectra. The engine turned over as soon as the box was strapped in place with a seatbelt. The driver spun the vehicle and drove off towards the flashing blue light as soon as Yvette was in the passenger seat.

While Suzy took the ready bags to the back of the Mondeo and started to scrape out her vomit, I pulled out the moan-phone, turned it on and dialled the Yes Man. The phone rang twice this time but, as normal, the Yes Man had no time for ceremony.

‘Where are you?’

‘Northolt. We have the car.’

‘Well, get mobile. The source says he knows nothing about King’s Cross. He will call but doesn’t want to get involved. He feels he could be compromised.’

‘Tough.’

‘Exactly. Do what needs to be done, and I want minute-by-minute sit reps from you on the ground. Roger that?’

‘Roger that.’

He’d be lucky. I cut him off and called to Suzy, ‘No time to clean up. Get your phone on. Fuck-face is going to call.’

Suzy got the boot open and started preparing the new NBC kit for the ready bags. I helped take it out of its packaging, and punched through the arms and legs.

Damp from the rain, we jumped into the car and she got her foot down towards the flashing light, wipers on double-time. It turned out to belong to an MoD police Land Rover, parked by one of the crash safety gates in the chainlink fence that marked the airfield’s perimeter. The yellow fluorescent-jacketed MoD plod waved us through and closed the gate behind us. Not having a clue where to go from here, we just headed for the lights we thought were the A40, then chucked a left, heading east towards the city, every speed camera we passed flashing us a hello.

We didn’t speak much: there was nothing much to say. I didn’t know what was preying on her mind sufficiently to keep her quiet, but I had more than enough on mine.

I took the antibiotics out of the glove compartment and swallowed four, not having a clue if I was overdosing with these things. They certainly gave me a stomach ache, but didn’t they turn your teeth yellow or something? The plastic-coated capsules scraped down my throat as I pushed out another four for Suzy and handed them over on an open palm.

‘I’ll take ’em once we get there.’ She passed a couple of cars on the inside lane and their spray splashed against our windscreen. ‘I can’t dry swallow, fucking horrible.’

I felt my guts start to rumble. Either they were telling me it was a long time since tea at Morrisons, or the antibiotics were already hard at work killing off all my flora. I didn’t care how much good stuff they took with them as long as they blitzed every atom of whatever-it-was-called-
pestis
they came across.

38

It was fifteen past midnight by the dash clock as we hit the elevated section of the A40, past the BBC buildings and White City redevelopment site. Fuck it. I pulled my phone from my bumbag.

Suzy was still focused on the oncoming lights, but knew exactly what was happening. ‘You really want to talk to her, don’t you? Make your last call? You know, just in case?’

I turned the phone on and the welcome screen glowed at me. ‘Sort of.’ I hadn’t thought about it quite like that. I never did: it wasn’t as if I’d be leaving much behind, and right now she probably felt I’d be doing her a favour.

I hit the numbers and got the ringing tone at the Sycamores. It seemed to go on for ever before Carmen answered.

‘Hello? Hello?’ She sounded confused.

Jabbing a finger in my left ear, I leant down once more into the footwell. ‘It’s me, Nick. Listen, I need to talk to her.’

Carmen wasn’t listening. ‘It’s past midnight. I told you, I’m not—’

‘Carmen, please – please wake her up. I really want to talk to her before she leaves. I might not get another chance. You understand, don’t you?’

There was a heavy sigh, and I listened to the rustling as she walked out of her bedroom, on to the landing. ‘I’m turning the phone off after this. We need to sleep, you know, we have a busy day ahead of us.’

I heard some mumbling that I couldn’t make out because of the noise of the car, but to my surprise Kelly answered quickly and sounded quite awake. ‘Where are you? I can’t hear you.’

‘I’m in a car. You’re up late.’

‘Well, yeah, just doing stuff. You know.’

‘I’ve got to drive up north, so I won’t be able to come and see you off. But Josh will pick you up, yeah?’ I carried on before she had a chance to respond. ‘I’m so sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. I’ll try to get there but, you know . . .’

She was scarily calm. ‘It’s OK, Nick.’

‘I want to see you. I want to say sorry you’ve had such a crap time here, us not being able to spend much time together, not being able to see Dr Hughes any more, but—’

‘Hey, really, it’s OK. Josh called and it’s cool. He’s going to call Dr Hughes on Monday and sort things out with a therapist back home. Everything’s cool. You know, I think coming here really did help me.’

‘He’s talked to you already?’

‘Sure, and we’ve got it all sorted out.’

‘Really? That’s fantastic. Look, as soon as I’ve finished this job I’ll fly over.’

‘Will you call me when I get back to Josh’s?’

‘Try and stop me.’

‘’Bye, then.’

‘OK, ’bye.’

‘Nick?’

‘What?’

‘I love you.’

The antibiotics attacked my stomach again. ‘Me too. Gotta go.’ I hit the off key.

The traffic had built up now we were entering the city proper. Suzy’s eyes were still on the road as we jumped a red. I was curious. ‘You’ve really got no one to call?’

‘No one.’

Her ops phone rang and it went immediately to her ear. ‘Yes?’ There was no reaction in her face as she listened, her eyes still fixed on the road ahead. ‘We don’t give a shit – stay there and watch, we’ll meet at Boots.’

He must have closed down. ‘Fucking slope.’ She put away the cell. ‘He’s complaining this isn’t what he’s here for. Says he could be compromised. Who gives a shit?’

‘Has he seen anything?’

She shook her head.

We passed the British Library on the main, Euston Road, just short of King’s Cross. The roadworks stretched towards us from the station, clogging the late-night traffic. Huge concrete dividers and red and white fluorescent tape channelled vehicles and pedestrians through what felt like a series of sheep pens. I pointed up at a blue parking sign and she turned left, taking us down the side of the library to some roadside pay-and-display parking bays. At this time of night there was no charge.

We double-checked the doors and the inside of the Mondeo, then went back on to the main and turned left towards the station. It was less than a hundred metres away. The fast-food joints were doing a steady trade. Wobbly twentysomethings, with wet jackets and hair, tried to walk in straight lines as they attacked their doner kebabs after a night on the Bacardi Breezers. A couple of hookers in a shop doorway tried to catch their eye, and grimy figures were curled up in blankets and greasy sleeping-bags in every vacant doorway.

Suzy tilted her head and I looked over. The girls had cornered a Breezer boy as he tried to eat from a polystyrene tray. ‘It’s nothing like as bad as it used to be,’ she said. ‘But it’s not as if anything’s been sorted – they’ve just been moved on elsewhere.’

We were almost at Boots, but there was no sign of the source. We had a clear view of the target, maybe sixty metres ahead. The triangle of buildings looked even more like the bow of a cruise liner bearing down on us through the falling rain. It had probably been quite a grand sight when it went up in Victoria’s reign or whenever, but now the ground floor consisted of boarded-up shopfronts, and the three above of smoke- and dirt-blackened sash windows. The bow cut into the small pedestrian area the source had crossed when we followed him out of the station.

The shop on the right had sold kebabs, burgers and chips in a bygone age. Its cheap, luminous handpainted signs told us Jim used to be the boy cutting the finest chunks of meat off the spinning joint, but it certainly wouldn’t have been in this century. It’d been a long time since anyone had raised the metal shutters.