Adrian Magson - Deception

‘Why would you need that?’

‘Because it’s how I find people.’

Cullum chewed it over then nodded, playing the generous benefactor. ‘It’s all there. Heavily edited, of course, but there’s plenty to be getting on with.’ He slid the stick across to Harry. ‘I can imagine what you’ll do when you find him.’

‘Really. And what’s that?’

‘Well, some would like him to fall under a bus, but that’s not my decision. There’s a note for interested parties should you need it, and a form to sign. You can print it off.’

‘A form?’ Harry wondered if he was about to be offered his old job back. That would be a shocker. He wasn’t sure he could take that.

‘We’re assigning you a nominal position of WO-Two.’ Cullum smiled thinly, and took a card out of his pocket. It showed Harry’s MI5 file photo. ‘I know you were a captain in a previous life and it’s a bit of a step down, but an officer would be all wrong for what you’ll be doing. It’s a cover in case a situation arises.’

‘Situation?’

‘You know what I mean.’ He folded his chubby hands on the table, the lecture over and enjoying the brief power it gave him.

Harry pocketed the data stick and card and stood up. ‘Forget it.’

‘What?’

‘I won’t be signing anything, now or later.’

Cullum scrambled to his feet. He was shorter than he’d looked. ‘There isn’t room for compromise, Tate,’ he muttered. ‘This isn’t some kind of lone warrior mission, you know. We need that form signed.’

Harry’s phone rang. He checked the screen. Ballatyne.

‘Harry.’ The MI6 man’s voice was flat. ‘We’ve got a problem. Are you alone?’

‘I’m with Cullum. We’ve just finished,’ he added heavily. Cullum looked annoyed. He must have guessed it was Ballatyne. He turned and walked out without a word, scooping up the travel brochure as he went.

‘Good. Lose him and get down to Victoria Embankment Gardens. Urgent.’

‘He’s gone. What’s up?’

‘Pike and his escorts never made it to Colchester.’

Harry took the underground to Embankment, changing trains twice on the way as a precaution. If Pike had been killed or taken, someone must have been watching him. It followed that Harry might now be on someone’s watch list. He emerged into bright sunshine. Behind and to his left across the river was the London Eye, revolving slowly under a blue-grey sky. In front of him was a paved pedestrian area leading up towards Charing Cross station. Victoria Embankment Gardens opened to his right, with the usual cluster of office workers on a smoke break, managing to look somehow miserable in their enjoyment.

He checked the immediate area but saw no sign of Ballatyne, so he turned right and walked into the gardens. Bordered on one side by tall buildings and on the other by the river and the rush of traffic along the Victoria Embankment, the gardens presented an oasis of sorts, overlooked by a number of large trees with lush foliage. The area was roughly triangular in shape, narrowing at one end, with wooden benches dotted at regular intervals around the central lawn, facing outwards. It was a good place for a meeting, Harry noted; busy enough for a person to merge with the office workers and tourists, central enough for anyone to be there with good reason, and with space for a discreet conversation without being overheard. He’d used places like it over the years, although not always so pleasant.

Ballatyne was sitting on one of the benches down the river side of the triangle, next to a young woman in a blouson jacket and jeans. He was nursing a disposable mug and reading a newspaper. His minder was standing a few yards away, chewing on an apple. The minder spotted Harry and gave a brief nod, then walked over and threw his apple into a waste bin. It seemed to be the signal for the young woman to get up and walk away, leaving the seat next to Ballatyne vacant.

Harry walked along the path and sat down.

‘Smooth,’ he said. ‘Do you all practise that on the terrace at Vauxhall Cross?’

‘Well, we have to spend the allocation on something,’ said Ballatyne, not bothering to check that anyone was near. The background noise of a train passing over Hungerford Bridge and the roar of traffic along the Embankment would ensure privacy. ‘Pike and his escorts were in an RTA on the A12 north of Brentwood. Pike and Wallace are dead and Collins is in intensive care, condition critical.’

Harry felt his gut drop at the news. ‘What happened?’

‘It was a hit. Witnesses said another car — a Mercedes estate — came off the intersection with the M25 and drew alongside. There were some bangs and Pike’s car swerved and flipped. The witness said they were travelling fast. The Merc was gone by the time anyone could take the number. Did you get anything from him?’

‘No. He wouldn’t talk. But I know he came into the country on Eurostar via Brussels. Someone else must have known it, too.’ He ran back over the past eighteen hours. Pike’s trail must have been picked up and followed at some stage. He thought back to the two men he’d seen in the car at the hospital. That had been a grey estate, too, but he couldn’t recall the make. The men had stood out only because of their look. It didn’t mean they were responsible for killing Pike, but it was a possibility. He told Ballatyne about them. No, he hadn’t noticed the registration.

Ballatyne nodded. ‘I’ll get the Plods to see if the local cameras picked them up. What time was this?’

Harry told him. ‘I’ll follow the Eurostar lead, backtrack his journey in. If he came in from Thailand, he could have flown in to Amsterdam, then by train on through Brussels to London.’ He had a sudden thought. ‘That photo of Paulton in Brussels; how recent was it?’

Ballatyne gave a ghost of a smile. ‘I can see your thinking. But whatever Pike was doing in Brussels, it wasn’t meeting Paulton. That photo was four months old, before Pike went on the trot. We do have a lead, though. A flag just came up on Pike’s Visa card. He used it twice to draw cash from a machine near The Hague. Approximately four hundred pounds in two lots.’

Harry thought about the money in Pike’s wallet. That would be about right, given ticket money to London and some kind of deposit on his room rental in Clapham. Yet laying such an obvious trail was inconsistent with a man deciding to bunk off to foreign parts and pick up a new life in exchange for selling sensitive military information.

‘He wasn’t running anywhere,’ he said finally, as the realization hit him. ‘He was coming home.’ He thought about the bayonet and its keen edge, and the expression in Pike’s eyes when he saw Harry standing in his way. It had been a reactive process: Harry was there to stop him, ergo he was the enemy and to be taken out. ‘Pike was damaged goods. He needed psychiatric help, not a return to combat.’

‘I wouldn’t argue with that.’

The young woman in the blouson returned and sat on a section of low wall a few yards away, while the minder in the suit wandered off to watch the traffic on the Embankment. The young woman turned and lifted a mobile phone to squint at the screen.

‘Tell her to knock it off,’ said Harry mildly. ‘You’ve got my picture on file.’

Ballatyne looked irritated and glared at the young woman until she got the message and moved away. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t part of their orders. Bloody mobile phones, given them all carte blanche to record everything they see.’ He sighed. ‘Many more downloads of worthless crap and the system will crash altogether.’ He leaned over and dumped his cup into a waste bin alongside the bench. ‘There’s a rum thing about Pike, though, Harry: he can’t have been all that damaged. We came across an offshore bank account in his brother’s name. Popped up out of nowhere. Four days ago he received a deposit of fifty grand from sources unknown via an account in Grand Cayman.’ He squinted at the sky. ‘The Pikes of this world don’t get money from offshore centres — certainly not that much — not unless it smells of drugs or terrorism. Or espionage.’