Ian Rankin - Westwind

He went to the door and locked it, then crossed to the large cabinet, worked the combination and drew the steel rod out from its resting place. Pulling the cabinet open, he revealed his small but lethal arsenal. Pride of place went to his two preferred handguns, a Walther PPK and a Browning nine-millimetre pistol, the latter’s magazine already engaged, thirteen rounds ready for the firing: unlucky for some. He tested its weight. Both guns had been stripped, oiled, checked and rechecked since last use. He put them back and examined the other firearm, a Heckler & Koch MP5 sub-machine gun. Several years before, Parfit had accepted a challenge from an SAS captain to spend some time with the regiment’s Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit as they played out a close-quarters scenario in what had become known as the Killing House. This was a closed environment in which they had to imagine three terrorists were holding a hostage. The captain’s summary of Parfit’s performance had been frank: ‘That was fucking awful. You killed each and every one of them, the hostage included.’ But then that had been Parfit’s intention, since his job usually entailed tidiness of the most rigorous kind.

Still, he had liked the feel of the MP5s used by the unit, and had acquired one, its serial number removed. Now he touched its barrel, thinking of Harry. Did he hate her so much because he saw so much of himself in her? It was a question he would rather not answer. He lifted the MP5 fluidly to his shoulder and took imaginary aim at the office door.

‘Hello, Harry,’ he whispered.

There were no windows in the canteen, and the air conditioning was working flat out just trying to dissipate the smells of cooking, of hot fat and baked beans. Sad murals the colour of mud played over the walls, while afterthoughts such as room dividers and pot plants merely added to the institutional feel of the whole. Hepton and Dreyfuss were the only inhabitants. They had been given cold stares and lukewarm tea by one of the canteen staff.

‘Too late for food,’ she’d snapped.

‘Thank God for that,’ Dreyfuss had added in an undertone as she poured tea from a huge tin pot. The tea was the same colour as the wall decoration, which gave Hepton an idea as to the mural’s genesis.

They sat at the only table not to have been wiped and stacked with four upended chairs. The table came from the same family, it seemed, as Parfit’s desk upstairs: cream plastic and chipboard. This was a sad country, Hepton thought, a stupid country. But it still didn’t deserve to be handed over to Villiers and Harry.

‘It’s not a coup,’ Dreyfuss stated. ‘A coup would be simpler, more out in the open.’

‘Maybe the Yanks want to annex us?’

Dreyfuss shook his head. ‘They did that a long time ago. It’s just that nobody noticed. No... I don’t know.’ He threw up his hands. ‘And neither do that lot upstairs. There’s only one way to find out.’

‘How?’ Hepton was sure they were working along similar lines of thought. Dreyfuss’ answer confirmed it.

‘Your little tracking station.’

Hepton nodded. It made sense, didn’t it? The only way Villiers and his crew could keep an eye on the Buchan operation was to use Binbrook. He thought about what the Russian Vitalis had told him. That Cam Devereux had found another room in the Argos base. There could be another room at Binbrook, too, a whole series of rooms, fitted with computers and screens showing what Zephyr was really seeing. Now that he considered it, he realised that there were portions of Binbrook that were off-limits to personnel. Locked doors: someone had called them storage areas, someone else had said they were disused and awaiting redecoration. Those locked doors might well be hiding a small, dedicated tracking station. A box within a box, like Izzard’s. And if such were the case, there would probably be someone there to watch: someone like Fagin, of course, but perhaps also Villiers himself. And where Villiers was, Jilly might be...

‘What are you suggesting?’ he asked.

‘I’m suggesting...’ Dreyfuss brought his head closer to Hepton’s. His eyes burned with something other than drugged or drugless pain, ‘that we do something other than sitting around here on our arses. There isn’t much time. I’m not saying that we go barging in there, but is everyone on the base in on this COFFIN thing? I think the answer is a definite no, or they wouldn’t be moving them out. Okay, so there’s the chance that you’ — his finger made a circle in the air — ‘could move freely inside the base. As far as they’re aware, you’ve been on holiday. So just tell them you’ve come back early.’

‘What about you?’

‘Me?’ Dreyfuss considered this. ‘Do you know how they got me from Washington airport to the embassy? In a crate. After that, a car boot will come as something of a luxury.’

‘A car boot?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘there is a snag. First, we need a car. We could hire one, I suppose. I’ve got all sorts of false documents and credit cards on me.’

‘What about Parfit? Are you suggesting we do this without him?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’

‘But why?’

‘Because I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone in this whole thing who hasn’t been hurt. You’ve been hurt, I’ve been hurt, and right now someone could be hurting Jilly. You’ve seen how Farquharson operates. He’s scared of COFFIN. He’s not going to do anything.’

‘We don’t know that.’ But Hepton’s voice betrayed his feelings. The time for action had come. He knew his way around the Binbrook base, and Dreyfuss was right: alone, he might stand a good chance of gaining entry. Once inside, he could...

‘I could tap into their intercept,’ he said.

‘What?’

It was becoming quite lucid now. Somehow he’d known all along that this moment would come. The moment when he could put his skill to the test. A moment of challenge.

‘I could tap into their intercept,’ he repeated. Dreyfuss listened hungrily. ‘I’m sure I could. I could screw up their entire system.’

‘But won’t there be alarms? Protection circuits? That sort of thing?’

Hepton nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘There’ll be codes. Entry codes. We’d have to crack them.’

‘That could take for ever.’

This time he shook his head. ‘I’ve got a friend,’ he said, ‘and he’s got a little box...’

Dreyfuss thought things through. Gain entry to the camp, gain entry to the control room, break into the spoiler satellite... Hepton could work on that, while he, Dreyfuss, could look for Jilly. And for Villiers. A lot of ghosts were crying out for revenge. So were a few of the living.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘If you think it’s worth a try, I say we leave now, this second. Before Parfit and his boss have a chance to hold us back. I get the feeling somebody’s been holding us back all the way along. Like bloody fish on a line. Allow us a bit of play, then reel us back in. Seeing what we know, how far we’ll swim. Hoping we’ll tire, so that we’re easy to land...’

But Hepton wasn’t listening. He was watching a young man who had entered the canteen and was studying one of the snack-vending machines at the far end of the room. He waved a hand, but it wasn’t necessary. He had already been recognised. The man, smiling, approached their table.

‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so soon.’

Hepton motioned towards the man and turned to Dreyfuss. ‘Let me,’ he said, ‘introduce you to Mr Sanders. Sanders, this is Major Mike Dreyfuss.’

‘How do you do?’ The two men nodded. Dreyfuss was looking to Hepton for guidance.