Andy McNab - Payback

She knew all about the possible sighting of Fergus and Danny on the train to Hereford, after receiving a call from Curly at Pimlico. But as Fincham explained what had happened, she listened attentively, taking in every word as if it were all hot news to her, while making certain she gave no indication of how pissed off she was that Fergus had allowed himself to be pinged.

If Watts could be saved, he could still be useful to her to flush Fincham out and force his hand. If not, she needed to cover her own back. And there was still the fifteen million to be found.

‘We haven’t always seen eye to eye on this matter, Marcie,’ said Fincham, after telling her he had already sent the team to seek out and eliminate Fergus and Danny. ‘Consequently I have, at times, not kept you fully informed of my planned course of action. I regret that now – you know how highly I regard you as my second-in-command.’

Deveraux had decided it was time for a change of tactics with her boss. From now on she needed to know everything she could about his plans. That meant restoring his confidence in her total loyalty. ‘Thank you, sir, I appreciate that. But I’ve realized, sir, that you were right all along. We should have killed Watts when we first had him, and then taken out the boy as well.’

Fincham stopped walking and stared hard at her. ‘But you’ve always been in favour of keeping them alive.’

‘Yes, sir, but I was wrong. I think it’s time to cut our losses. Catch them again, kill them and dispose of the bodies before there’s any further embarrassment.’

Fincham raised his eyebrows as he considered Deveraux’s words. He walked over to the Embankment railings, rested both hands on the top and gazed across the river. Deveraux joined him and they watched an almost empty pleasure cruiser cut its way through the murky brown water.

‘You’ve taken me somewhat by surprise, Marcie,’ said Fincham, still staring out over the water. ‘I anticipated having to convince you on this one. I thought you would want to bring in Watts to question him further.’

‘No, sir,’ said Deveraux. ‘We tried that and it failed. And quite frankly I don’t think he knows anything at all. If he did, why hide in Spain? Why not be proactive? You were right all along, sir, so let’s finish it this time.’

Fincham turned from the railings and smiled broadly at Deveraux. ‘You have no idea how delighted I am to hear you say this, Marcie. It means a great deal to me to know that I have your complete backing and can trust you absolutely.’

‘You can, sir,’ said Deveraux, returning the smile. ‘Absolutely.’

Big Kev was in a bunker. He knew it well. He’d been there before, many times. It wasn’t a big bunker or even a particularly deep one, but not for the first time Big Kev was thinking that he really did not like this small area of soft sand.

He’d already had two attempts at getting his ball out and onto the green. Both times he had shifted quite a bit of sand, much of it onto himself, but he hadn’t troubled the ball much. It was nestling comfortably less than half a metre from where it had been when Kev first trudged into the bunker to join it.

Kev was playing alone. It wasn’t that no one else would play with him; most of the club members enjoyed playing a round with Kev Newman – it was good for a laugh and it made them feel a lot better about their own game. But sometimes Kev preferred to play on his own. It gave him time to think about his game, and plenty of opportunities to search for that elusive, perfect swing. He dreamed of striking the ball like his golfing hero, Tiger Woods. Kev knew he would never be even a good golfer, but once, just once, he wanted to swing the club like the Tiger.

He took a deep breath and prepared for his third attack on the ball. Both feet were planted deep in the sand and the head of his sand wedge hovered a few centimetres behind the ball. Kev focused both eyes on the little white sphere as he spoke to it. ‘This time you’re out. On the green. Next to the flag.’ He reminded himself of the golden rule: ‘Head down, eyes on the ball, eyes on the ball.’

He pulled back the club, swung down with his mighty strength and heard the sand wedge make contact with the ball. It went high into the air and Kev watched it descend onto the green and begin to roll. Quickly. It went past the flag and rolled on. And on. Without losing speed it crossed the wide green and then disappeared off the edge as it dropped into another bunker on the far side.

‘Bollocks.’

Danny and Fergus were close to the golf club car park. The walk had taken over an hour. They could see Kev’s Discovery but did not approach it. Fergus wanted to avoid attracting the attention of any of the staff.

There had been a lot of activity around the entrance to the golf club. Half an hour earlier a bride and groom had arrived in a vintage Rolls-Royce, followed by carloads of wedding guests. The reception was already underway.

Danny checked his watch. ‘How long does it take to play a round of golf?’

‘We never quite knew with Kev. He should be in just before last light, though, which is good for us.’

‘Then what do we do?’

‘We’ll wait until he gets to the last hole. We can see it from the other side of the clubhouse. I’ll go and meet him and you stand off here, on stag. If there’s a drama of any sort, shout me a warning and then run. The ERV is still the swimming pool. You know the drill.’

A blue Transit van with LAND OF A THOUSAND DANCES MOBILE DISCO printed on the side drew into the car park and pulled up outside the golf club. The long-haired driver got out, went to the back of the van and hauled out a couple of heavy-duty speakers.

Fergus took Danny’s arm and edged him slowly back towards the cover of some trees. He wanted to be absolutely certain that the new arrival was as genuine as he looked.

The passenger door swung open on rusted hinges and a mini-skirted teenage girl slid out and stomped on high-heeled boots round to the back of the van. Her voice carried all the way across the car park. ‘And you start flirting with the bridesmaids like last time and you’re dumped. You just stick to playing your music!’

Fergus smiled and nodded. ‘Looks like it’ll be a noisy night.’

Deveraux’s conversation with Dudley was not proving an easy one, but she hadn’t expected it to be. She was talking to him on her Xda as she walked along the northern bank of the Thames, opposite Vauxhall Cross.

‘I have had to tell Fincham that I fully back his decision to kill Watts and the boy on sight, sir.’ Deveraux couldn’t hide the displeasure she felt as she spoke.

She was fairly certain that Watts, no stranger to strong-arm interrogation tactics, would keep his mouth shut if he were to be captured and interrogated – just as he had when Fincham had held him before. But Danny? He was a kid. He was bound to blurt out all he knew to save his skin, or his grandfather’s. And that would eventually include all he knew about her, their mysterious helper. Three select words would be more than sufficient to give Fincham all he needed to know: young; black; woman – there were not so many of those working in the Firm.

And once the interrogation team began to get nasty, Danny would undoubtedly reveal that not only had this ‘young black woman’ arranged their return from Spain; she had also killed one of her own team in assisting their escape from the safe house in Thetford six months earlier.

Deveraux’s name would instantly go to the very top of Fincham’s hit list. And once he had figured out why she was working against him – and it wouldn’t take him long – he was more than likely to do a runner – with the money. There were still places in the world where a man with fifteen million pounds in his pocket could arrange to disappear to.