Adrian Magson - Execution

‘That means they wouldn’t be able to go anywhere near the embassy. In fact they’d be under strict instructions to stay well away. And a job like this, especially after the Litvinenko scandal, they’d be like untouchables.’

‘Call me slow,’ Ballatyne muttered, ‘but there’s something you’re not saying. What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Harry shrugged. He had no proof for what he was thinking, merely a gut feel about the way things had worked out. But hiding it wouldn’t solve the problem. ‘How many people knew Clare was in that hospital unit? I mean, really — how many?’

‘A few. A handful, no more. There was no need to spread the news, especially with her background. Why?’

‘A handful. But how many of that handful knew she was someone the Russian hit team wouldn’t — no, couldn’t — ignore. . someone who had to be traced and silenced?’

The silence was longer this time. Ballatyne shifted in his seat as he digested what he was hearing. Harry didn’t think the MI6 man was being deliberately dumb; he was far too astute for that. But he might have been struggling to accept the fact that the Russians had somebody supplying them with information.

‘You’re suggesting the Russians had inside help. . where? The hospital? If so, they wouldn’t have needed to bust inside and steal the hard drive. And for the street camera footage: the Met? City of London Police? The London boroughs? The list is a long one.’

‘The Met control rooms would be the quickest.’

Ballatyne gave a dry smile. ‘Did your mate Ferris tell you that? He’ll get you into trouble, that boy.’

‘It makes sense. How else could they have tracked her so quickly? They must have used the same key cameras as your people. Find a start point — outside the hospital in this case — to identify her on screen, then leapfrog camera displays to build up her direction of travel. Lose her on one and you simply go back to the last one to see where she might have changed direction. There are operators who do it all day, every day. They play the cameras like a video game. I know because I’ve used them.’

‘You make it sound easy.’

‘It is if you’ve got a target with a distinctive walk and using a crutch. Clare might as well have been carrying a placard with her name on it.’ Harry stood up. He’d done all he could. If Ballatyne chose to ignore him, there was nothing else he could do. ‘You know I’m right. They’ve had orders to find her and silence her because they know what will happen if she talks. Why else go to all that bother and shoot up Pimlico for a nobody?’

‘As you say, they were desperate.’

Ballatyne was playing dumb again, happy to let him do the running. But without more concrete proof, it was obvious he wouldn’t act on mere speculation.

Harry left him there and walked out. He needed to get proof that there was a bad apple in the woodpile.

He needed to speak to Clare again.

‘What’s this — a level one interrogation?’ Clare looked sour and angry, but she didn’t look as if she had the strength to put up a real fight. Harry had suggested they sit down and go through everything the Russians had said to her in the cafe, in case there was something they could use to pin them down.

‘You know what it is,’ he said patiently. Rik watched them from across the room, saying nothing. ‘You’ve done this before. Look on it as a debrief.’

She sighed but said nothing, so he continued. ‘If we don’t stop them, they’ll keep going until they find you. You’re a witness; you saw and heard them in the hospital just before Tobinskiy died, and now you’ve seen and met them face to face. You know them. That makes you a liability. You know how they treat liabilities.’ He let that sink in before saying, ‘Try and remember everything they said, no matter how insignificant, from the time they walked in and sat down.’

Slowly, fighting against tiredness, she did as he asked, recounting everything that had happened, from the moment she spotted the young man on the mobile phone across the street, to the second the car stopped outside and the men appeared. It came haltingly and with several backtracks to scoop up details, most of it of no great importance. But Harry kept pushing her to go over things again, in the hope that her professional brain was still active and would click on and begin to rifle through the images and words he needed.

After the first run-through, which lasted thirty minutes, he got Rik to arrange some food. This wasn’t going to be a quick job, and they needed to keep up their energy levels, especially for Clare. But once they had eaten, he got her right back on track.

Her initial tiredness now gone, Clare didn’t react well. ‘Look, Tate, what are you hoping for?’ she burst out. ‘That they gave me their names and unit numbers? Their email back in Moscow so we can exchange greetings? It doesn’t work like that. They were a black ops team. I’ve seen their type before and know the way they work. They threatened to shoot me; they didn’t tell me how they’d found me, only showed me the photos they’d used. That was the tall one — he was the one in charge.’

‘Photos. From CCTV cameras? They’d have got those from the hospital hard drive.’

‘Yes. I suppose so.’ Then her face froze and she sat up. Thoughts of the photo had triggered other thoughts. . and one specific memory.

‘What?’

‘Christ, I’ve been stupid,’ she whispered. Her face flushed and she turned away. ‘He showed me a photo, but it wasn’t from any CCTV. And I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen it before — or one like it.’

‘Go on.’

‘It was a black and white, full facial, blown up to postcard size. It had a number series across the bottom.’ She looked up at Harry. ‘It was my file photo from Six. I recognised the style.’

Harry sat back. This was worse than he’d thought. How the hell could a team from Moscow get a personnel photo from inside MI6? There was only one way.

‘I asked him where the photos had come from,’ Clare continued. ‘But he just looked smug and said he wasn’t going to tell me.’

‘What did he say — the exact words?’

She frowned, struggling to recall. Then it came to her. ‘He said something like, “You think I’m going to tell you who got them for us?” Like it was his own big secret and he was enjoying himself. Then he told me to dream on.’

‘Was this in English or Russian?’

‘Russian.’

Harry looked across at Rik, who shook his head in wonderment. They were both analysing the words. ‘You think I’m going to tell you who got them for us.’ The meaning was clear: the Russians didn’t have a direct insider after all. But they had the next best thing: somebody with access to MI6 who could get them information through other means. Quite what level of access that was remained to be seen.

Harry’s phone rang. It was Ballatyne.

‘We caught a lucky break. The BMW from outside the cafe in Pimlico was spotted heading along the Edgware Road in north London less than an hour after the shooting.’

‘So you got them?’

‘We got the driver and his mate. . but they weren’t Russian hit men. Just two local neds who happened to be scoping the underground car park in Park Lane for easy pickings. They saw two men in suits park the car and walk away, leaving the keys in the ignition and the doors open.’

‘They wanted it gone.’

‘Absolutely. And the thieves obliged. They didn’t get far, though. An armed unit recognised the car’s description and they were in the bag.’

‘Did they give a description of the Russians?’

‘Yes. One tall and slim, one short and chunky — like a wrestler, they said.’