Jon Stock - Games Traitors Play

He knew it was a weakness to keep the photo, but something about her expression made it impossible to get rid of it. For a few heady months, he had thought it was love in her eyes. It was still hard to accept that he had been deceived. Wasn’t it his job to be vigilant while deceiving others? Perhaps he kept the photo as a reminder, a warning.

‘I guess you still miss her, right?’ He turned to see Lakshmi Meena standing in the doorway. She had dropped him off outside on Denbigh Street. He put the photo back on the desk, annoyed that he hadn’t heard her walk down the iron steps to his flat. Leila could still make him drop his guard, even now.

‘Have you ever had to sleep with someone as part of the job?’ he asked, unnecessarily adjusting the photo frame on his desk.

‘Spiro once tried it on. Said it was all part of the promotion process.’ She could still recall the approach: first month at Langley, fresh from the Farm. Spiro liked to call all the new female recruits into his office for a friendly one-to-one.

‘I don’t mean with our side.’

‘I know we’re not always the good guys, but we’re not the enemy.’

‘Leila wasn’t just working for you. Read the files.’

‘I tried. Hey, way beyond my security clearance. All I know is that she saved our President’s life.’

‘That’s one way of looking at it.’

‘And another way?’

‘She betrayed me.’ Spiro had used similar words when she played him back an audio recording of his advances. A colleague had tipped her off, and she had gone into his office wired, claiming later that she was testing out new equipment and had forgotten to turn it off. It had been a colossal career risk, but Spiro had never bothered her again. If anything, he respected her more.

‘And you can’t forgive her that?’ she asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘Is that why you won’t trust anyone?’

‘Anyone?’

‘Women.’

‘It was a calculated act of betrayal.’

And now, like King Shahryar’s virgin wives, we all stand accused, Meena thought, but she didn’t have time to say anything. They heard a car slow down on the road above them. Marchant glanced up through the basement window at the pavement.

‘Where did you park?’ he asked.

‘Around the corner, Lupus Street. I drove round the block twice first. No tail.’

‘Come, quickly,’ Marchant said, locking the front door to the flat, where Meena was standing, and going through to the bedroom. A pair of french windows looked out onto a small patio garden. He opened them and ushered her outside, glancing back at the front of the flat. Someone was coming down the metal stairs. How had they got his home address? He went into the small adjoining bathroom, turned on the light and the shower and returned to the bedroom. Then he took the key from the inside of the french windows, joined Meena on the patio and locked them from the outside.

‘Spiro’s orders again?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Meena said. ‘The Moroccans are upset Aziz is dead. Very upset.’

Marchant walked across to the back wall, which was about twelve feet high and covered in a wooden lattice for climbers he had never planted. In the corner, there was a rockery. Soon after he had bought the flat, he had built up the rocks at the back to help him climb up the wall, should he ever need to. He had cemented in three bricks above the highest rock, at eighteen-inch intervals up the wall, that stuck out by half a brick and acted as steps, but he had never got round to trying them.

‘Up there, quick,’ he said, pointing at the corner as if it was the obvious way out of the garden. When Meena reached the top of the wall, she looked back down at him.

‘You forgot to build any steps on the other side,’ she said before jumping. He heard a groan as she landed in the mews below. Then he followed her, glancing back at his flat as he reached the top of the wall. Two men had broken in, and one of them was looking at the passport he’d left on his desk. The other was moving towards the bathroom, gesturing to his colleague. For a moment, Marchant wanted to go back inside and confront them, show them his broken teeth, knock out theirs, but he resisted.

As he jumped from the top of the wall, a car turned into the quiet mews, driving too fast for a resident. Marchant got to his feet and rushed at its sweeping headlights, ignoring a shooting pain in his ankle. He knew he had to move fast. Without hesitating, he opened the driver’s door and grabbed the driver, pulling him out onto the road. He was aware of Meena doing the same on the other side. It was only as he pinned the man up against the wall, holding him by his throat, that he realised it was one of Armstrong’s watchers.

He held the man for a moment, then released him.

‘They’re Five,’ Marchant called across to Meena, who had wrestled the passenger to the ground and was holding both his arms behind his back. He made a mental note that she was no slouch when it came to unarmed combat. Marchant’s man dropped to his knees, one hand massaging his throat.

‘Christ,’ he said, out of breath. ‘Armstrong sent us.’

‘I’m sorry. I thought — ’ But he suddenly felt too tired to finish.

‘Two men are in Daniel’s flat,’ Meena said, taking over, reluctantly releasing her man. She made no apology for the mistake. ‘Moroccan intelligence.’

‘That’s why we’re here,’ the other man said, getting up off the road. ‘They showed up on the grid this evening.’

A bit late, Marchant thought, recalling the trouble he’d had earlier in Grosvenor Square.

‘Delay them, will you?’ he said. ‘We need to get to the airport.’

Salim Dhar sat back and stared at the screen, watching his plane spin in a sickening cartwheel of flames.

‘You forgot to add some right rudder,’ Sergei said, coming over to the simulator with a cigarette hanging limply from the corner of his mouth. He was tall and loose-limbed, wearing a flying suit and holding a helmet in one hand. His face was awkward and angular, almost avian in its features. Dhar assumed that was why comrades called him the Bird.

After the air-show crash, Sergei had been stripped of his wings, tried and sent to prison, where he would have remained for the rest of his life if it hadn’t been for the unusual summons to train up a surly Muslim for an SVR black op. He knew enough not to ask any questions, that he was expendable if he played up. ‘They will shoot me after I have served my purpose,’ he had once said, only half jokingly, to Dhar.

The daily training sessions took place in an airless hut across from the hangar where Dhar was living at Kotlas airbase. Dhar didn’t know where the Bird roosted at night. They didn’t do small talk. No one else was in the hut, and there were two armed guards positioned outside the door.

‘How will you ever learn to deploy your missiles if you’re always crashing on take-off?’ Sergei continued. ‘We’ve one week left and you’ve only got the Grach airborne twice.’

Dhar sat in silence, his hands resting on his legs. He tried to filter out the instructor’s tone of voice and focus on the content. He was right. Just then a jet roared low over the hut, mocking Dhar with its menacing ease.

‘Let’s do it again,’ Dhar said calmly. ‘In formation this time.’

Sergei looked at him for a moment and smiled.

‘OK,’ he replied, tossing away his cigarette as he walked over to the other simulator. ‘So the Bird is your wingman.’

The lights were off in St George’s Chapel, but Marchant could make out the tall figure of Marcus Fielding sitting quietly at the back of the airless room, in front of the font. It was Heathrow’s only chapel, built into the basement like a vaulted crypt. Marchant had found it quickly. Its location between Terminals 1 and 3 was well signposted. He was sure he had been here before, a long time ago, coming from or going to India. His father had sat outside with him in the memorial garden, where he could picture a large wooden cross. It must have been not long after the death of his twin brother, Sebastian.