Stephen Leather - Tango One

"Need to know, Donovan. All in good time. At the moment, just don't look this gift horse in the mouth. You go and get your money, then we'll talk again."

Donovan looked at the address again.

"Is she still with him?" he asked.

"I gather so." Hathaway stood up, grunting as he put his weight on his right leg.

"Bitch."

"You've got to learn to live and let live," said Hathaway, rubbing his right knee.

Donovan slipped the piece of paper into his pocket.

"Maybe next time we should meet at the National," said Hathaway.

Donovan stiffened. He knew about his meeting with Louise?

Hathaway smiled at his discomfort.

"Word to the wise," he said.

"You might be able to shake off the cops by whizzing around the Underground, but all we do is sit and watch you via a link to the Transport Police's CCTV control room. We don't need to put people down after you. We just watch you on TV and wait for you to surface." He threw Donovan a sloppy salute.

"Catch you later, yeah?" Hathaway turned and walked away, dragging his right leg slightly. He edged into the shopping crowds and within seconds Donovan had lost sight of him.

Stewart Sharkey pulled the wide brim of his hat low over his eyes and waved at the waiter. He ordered an omelette and a cafe latte and a bottle of good wine in fluent French, then settled back and scanned the front page of Le Monde. He'd have preferred to have read one of the British tabloids, but it was important to maintain his cover. So far as anyone knew, he was French, a Parisian businessman taking a well-earned break from the heat of the capital. When he and Vicky were out, she had to keep her mouth shut, because even if she tried to speak French it was glaringly obvious that she was English. Meals outside the apartment were taken in silence unless there was no one within earshot, and even then conversation was limited to snatched whisperings. Frankly, Sharkey preferred to dine alone.

There was little in the newspaper about what was happening back in the UK. Like the English, the French were extremely parochial about their news. He turned to the sports pages. At least the French appreciated English soccer.

Sharkey heard chair legs scrape against the flagstones and he lowered his paper. A man in his thirties grunted and lowered himself into a chair at the table next to Sharkey's. The man ordered a coffee and lit a small cigar. Sharkey went back to reading the paper.

"Checking the currency rates?" said a voice. Sharkey lowered his paper again. The man at the next table tapped ash into a glass ashtray and nodded at the paper.

"Seeing how many francs you get to the pound." The man spoke English, but with an accent, and not French.

Sharkey formed his face into a pained frown, trying to make it clear that he wasn't looking for a conversation.

"I'm sorry, I don't speak English," he said in his perfect French.

"The pound. Is it better to hold the pound, do you think, or dollars?"

"I'm sorry, I have no interest in the currency markets," said Sharkey in French, raising the paper and flicking it to make a cracking sound.

The man leaned forward and blew smoke over the top of the newspaper.

"Are you sure about that, Mr. Sharkey? I would have thought that with sixty million stolen dollars, you'd be very interested."

There was another scraping sound behind Sharkey and he looked over his shoulder. Two men sat down at the table behind him. Big men with dark brown skins and thick moustaches, black sunglasses and flashy gold rings on their fingers. The black lenses of their sunglasses stared back at him impassively.

"Yes, they are with me, Mr. Sharkey."

Sharkey put down his paper.

"Who are you?" He glanced left _ and right, praying silently that there would be a gendarme close by. Officially, he had done nothing wrong and he had nothing to fear from the authorities.

"You don't know me, Mr. Sharkey. And please don't bother looking around for help." He reached into his pocket and brought out a small Taser stun gun.

"You know what this is, Mr. Sharkey?"

Sharkey nodded. It generated a high-voltage pulse that could disable a man in seconds, producing the equivalent of a massive heart attack or epileptic fit.

"There are two ways we can handle this," the man continued, an amiable smile on his face.

"I can press this against your neck and give you twenty thousand volts.

You go down, I announce that I am a doctor and my two friends behind you offer to transport you to hospital in their very roomy Mercedes Benz. You wake up in about ten minutes with a very bad headache."

Sharkey sighed.

"And the alternative?"

"I pay your bill and mine. We smile and walk to the car together." The man caressed the stun gun with his thumb.

"Which is it to be, Mr. Sharkey?"

"Whatever he is paying you, I will pay you ten times as much."

The man shook his head.

"Please do not embarrass yourself, Mr. Sharkey. We are all professionals here."

Sharkey closed his eyes. He could feel tears welling up and he blinked them away. He had come so close, so damn close. He pushed back his chair and stood up. He felt almost light headed and he knew that it was the endorphins kicking in, the body's protective mechanism swamping his system with chemicals. It was all over. Den Donovan had won and he had lost.

He forced himself to smile.

"Okay," he said.

"Let's go."

Vicky turned around in the shower, letting the water play over her face. She twisted the temperature control and gasped as the water turned icy cold. She ran her hands over her face, pulling back her hair. Sharkey kept telling her she'd have to dye it, but she didn't want to, she enjoyed being blonde. She'd agreed to cut her hair shorter and to wear a hat and dark glasses whenever she stepped outside, but that was as far as she was prepared to go.

As she turned off the shower she heard the door to the apartment open and close.

"Stewart? Is that you?" she called, then shook her head in annoyance.

Of course it was him. Who else would be letting themselves in with a key? She wrapped a towel around herself and checked her reflection in the mirror. There were dark patches under her eyes and her skin was dry and flaking. She needed a morning in a spa, being worked on by experts. A massage, a long soak, then a facial and a skin-toning session. A seaweed wrap, maybe. She needed pampering, but Sharkey was practically keeping her a prisoner in the apartment. Damn him. Damn him and damn Den Donovan. They were as bad as each other. They chased, they wooed, they pursued, then when Vicky finally opened up her heart to them, they walked all over her. Treated her like a possession, something to be owned and put on show. Vicky smiled sadly at her reflection. Except that Sharkey wasn't even able to put her on show. She was like a bird in a cage, available for him and him alone.

A secret possession.

She heard him walking into the bedroom.

"Did you forget something?" she called.

She opened the bathroom door, then jumped as she saw the man standing there, his arm outstretched to grab hold of the handle. Her mouth fell open and she took a deep breath, ready to scream, but before a sound left her throat a second man stepped from the side of the door and clamped a cloth over her mouth. Her nostrils were filled with a sickly-sweet odour and then the room started to swim. She felt the strength drain from her legs and everything went black.

Louise cooked lasagne and opened a bottle of red wine. Donovan sat down at the dining table as she heaped the pasta on to three plates.

"Robbie, there's salad in the fridge. Can you get it for me?"

"Sure," said Robbie, dashing off to the kitchen.

"He's a good kid," said Louise.

"He likes you," said Donovan, pouring wine into their glasses.