Adrian Magson - Execution

Clare hoped Harry Tate was listening and scrabbled for a way of conveying to him where they were. It might take too long to respond, but she couldn’t think of another way of doing it.

‘This is Starbucks in Pimlico Road, London,’ she muttered, changing tack and putting on a tone of outrage, ‘not Grozny. You do know the Iranians have a consulate building just along the street, don’t you?’ It was a lie, but she was counting on these two not knowing that. Active units like this would be focussed on finding their target, staying below the local radar, completing their assignment — and getting out fast. What they would know, however, was that Iran was nobody’s friend at the moment and the likelihood was that its buildings would have watchers in place and armed police in close proximity, in case of protests and trouble.

Their eyes didn’t waver a jot. They were too good for that. But she sensed something passing between them, like an electrical signal.

‘You’re lying.’ The short one spoke. But he didn’t sound certain.

‘Please yourself. Why don’t you try something, see how far you get before there are more cops with guns here than you can count? Try explaining that to your bosses in Troparevskiy Park.’

The tall one didn’t even blink. But his colleague’s mouth dropped open just a fraction. It was enough to tell her she’d made a mistake, and she cursed herself. Fuck. That had slipped out unbidden. What she had said told them that she was no ordinary person who’d just happened to be in a hospital ward next to one of their own dissident countryman; ordinary people don’t know about the Troparevskiy site, the very secret training base south of Moscow for the FSB’s Special Purpose Centre.

The tall man was studying her like a sample on a lab tray. He asked softly, ‘Who are you, Miss Jardine? Or maybe I should ask, what are you? You speak almost fluent Russian and you know things most Russians don’t know.’ He seemed to notice her crutch for the first time, and leaned over and picked it up. He weighed it in his hand and gave a dismissive shrug, then took off the rubber ferule and studied the flattened end. And smiled.

‘Nobody. I’m nobody.’ But she knew it was a futile argument. She’d as good as told them in a few careless words.

Just then a blur of colour moved into view out in the street, catching her eye. The workman in the yellow tabard had stopped a police car and was pointing at the Russians’ car. Behind it, a skip lorry was waiting to move into the kerb.

Sensing this was her only chance, Clare reached across and flipped over the tall man’s tea, spilling it across the table at his colleague.

‘Suka!’ the shorter man yelled, and jumped up as the hot liquid poured into his lap.

It was enough of a gap. Clare stood up and forced her way past him, gritting her teeth against the pain, aware of the tall man reaching out for her, but missing.

Harry heard the words coming out of the phone and stared at Rik, who stopped pacing up and down at the sound of the familiar voice. He’d automatically switched it to loudspeaker mode the moment he’d answered. They could hardly believe what they’d heard.

‘ This is Starbucks in Pimlico Road, London, not Grozny. .’

‘She’s in trouble,’ said Harry. ‘Where the hell is-?’

‘It’s right here!’ Rik pointed at the street sign above their heads on the restaurant’s wall. ‘We’re in Pimlico Road right now.’ He spun on his heel and looked along the street, then grabbed a waiter coming out of The Grove. ‘Where’s the Starbucks?’

‘Pardon?’ The man looked affronted.

‘The Starbucks in Pimlico Road. How far down?’

The man shrugged off Rik’s hand. ‘I don’t know — maybe two hundred yards down that way.’ He gestured with his chin. ‘On the left, with all the scaffolding.’

But he’d already lost his audience as Harry and Rik took off along the street.

Harry saw the police car in the road while they were still a hundred yards away, and heard the sharp crack of gunshots. Two men appeared from inside a doorway, and raced across the pavement towards a car at the kerb. Men in workmen’s tabards and hard hats stood around in shock, and a figure in uniform lay crumpled in the road alongside the police patrol car.

There was no sign of Clare.

Rik raced ahead, hauling out his gun and shouting at the workmen to get out of the way. They did so, diving back into the shelter of the buildings, a discarded hard hat bouncing and rolling into the gutter behind them. Someone screamed and a car horn sounded as the car the men had jumped into screeched away from the kerb, clipping another vehicle on the way and scattering broken yellow glass as it went.

Rik ran out into the centre of the street and stopped, bringing his gun to bear on the departing car. He aimed, then stopped. It was already eighty yards away and accelerating. Too far for accuracy and a scattering of innocent pedestrians had already formed a random and unwitting human shield around it. One stray shot and he’d have a disaster on his conscience.

Harry slowed to a jog and scanned the people in the area. If Clare was around, she’d either been shot and was still here or she’d already disappeared.

Sirens sounded in the distance and people gathered around the fallen policeman, who was struggling to sit up. A woman in a Starbucks T-shirt stood on the pavement, her face drained of colour and her mouth open in shock.

Harry looked inside the cafe. It was empty, one of the small tables and a couple of chairs up-ended, mugs and plates lying broken on the floor.

‘What happened?’ he asked the employee. He had to repeat the question before she answered.

‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled hurriedly, her accent Spanish or Italian. ‘Is crazy. One second, two men are sitting with a woman. Next she is rushing out and one of the men is shouting.’ She gestured at her front. ‘His clothes is wet and he is shouting but I don’t know his words. Foreign, I think, not English. Then the men walk outside after her and paff, paff — they start shooting and a policeman he is falling and. .’ She rubbed at her face as tears poured down her cheeks. ‘Why would they do this?’

‘Where did the woman go?’ Harry asked. The sirens were now very close and he guessed he had only seconds before armed response units arrived and the area was cordoned off.

She looked puzzled. ‘What?’

‘The woman — the one with the men. Where did she go?’

‘I. . I didn’t see.’

‘Did she leave the building? Did they take her with them?’

‘Yes. I. . I don’t know — maybe. No, wait. She walk out first and disappear. The men are chasing her but she is already gone, I not see where.’

Harry whistled to catch Rik’s attention, and thrust his hand in his jacket as a signal to put his gun away. If the first responders were armed, they would come out of their car zeroing in on anyone with a gun.

‘She can’t have gone far,’ he said, when Rik joined him. ‘But we can’t get caught up in this. Let’s go.’ He walked away across the street. The area here opened out into a small paved triangle with trees and flowerbeds where three streets intersected, and he was heading for the widest area, the most difficult to close off. It was also where he figured Clare would have made for, planning on putting as much distance and confusing scenery between her and the men as she could. Staying on the same street and in direct line of sight of a man with a gun would have been a death sentence.

They crossed the paved area, past a line of bikes chained to a rack; a squat public convenience block with two women frozen to the spot outside the door; then more bikes and some seats. Everything was neat and ordered, tidy and upscale; a bit like a model toy-town, Harry thought. Take out the gunfire and it would have been ideal.