LONDON ALERT (13 page)

‘I’m beginning to have
my doubts. I don’t want to kill anyone, friend or foe.’

‘To avoid that
eventuality, you should try to warn us beforehand, though I realize that might
not be easy or even possible without blowing your cover.’

‘I’m not sure I knew
what I was letting myself in for.’

‘Take it easy, boy! As you
are claiming to be a technical guy rather than a religious fanatic, they are
unlikely to order you to do something like that – unless of course they want to
compromise you, have a hold over you, so you can never turn back. Never rejoin
normal society. If they do order you to shoot someone and you cannot warn us so
we can have the target wear a bulletproof jacket and simulate being seriously
injured, aim to graze them.’

‘One has to be a mighty
good shot to just graze someone, and have the right weapon.’

‘I am sorry. You will
be out on a limb on this one. As a last resort, you can always refuse, but that
has its risks too.’

Holt began to feel
queasy. He could end up killing an innocent person by mistake. The only time he
had used a gun before was when he fired an air rifle at some squirrels at a
school friend’s home in the country when he was thirteen or so.

‘Good luck. You’ll need
it,’ were the instructor’s parting words, mirroring those of Cut-Glass.

Giraffe, the inspector had
explained, could only establish his movements via the thousands of CCTV cameras
scattered all over the country. Digital face-recognition technology would possibly
identify him, and if for some reason he especially wanted Giraffe to know his
whereabouts, he should look slightly upwards at the cameras when in the street,
almost begging to be looked at. If he wanted them to make contact, he should do
something that anyone following him would not notice, such as repeatedly touch
his chin, which would still leave most of his face visible for identification
purposes.

Should he give such a
sign, Giraffe would most likely use Celia, as with her no ‘handshake’ (identity
verification) would be necessary. Anyway, it was highly unlikely he would have
to contact Giraffe at the beginning, as the target would be keeping him at arm’s
length until more sure of him.

He wished he had a
woman waiting at home for him in whom he could confide – a ridiculous thought,
as one could not confide in people outside the service, and the mission was too
confidential to tell even Celia, who was anyway still up in Scotland. For once
he was glad Peter would be up there keeping her out of any harm’s way.

Holt
slept fitfully that night. Sir Charles had suggested he see Blackwell
,
whose duties included preparing
agents for overseas missions
,
to at least get some s
leeping pills, but that
was the last thing he wanted. Blackwell wanted him if not dead
,
at least sidelined. He would
put in a report doubting his suitability for the mission, at the same time
denigrating him to cover his back when in all likelihood it went
bottom up. Sir Charles had not suggested
he
ask Blackwell for a suicide
pill. Having one would have made him feel a lot better.

 As per
instructions, he arrived at London’s Marylebone station in plenty of time to
take the 10
.
20 train to Birmingham. How
he envied the families and couples waiting on the concourse for their train’s
platform number to come up on the indicator board. Many would have been invited
to spend the weekend outside London with family or friends, not to mention the
young couples obviously looking forward to an uplifting weekend and all that
entailed. Their carefree demeanour was depressing.

The kids were no solace either, for they
reminded him that if he were exposed and killed, that would be it. No succession.
He was being not only sucked in but possibly suckered in, having been put in a
position where it would be psychologically difficult to say no.

It was already too late for second thoughts.
Sir Charles was counting on him, and he could not have Celia knowing he had
chickened out. The withering scorn of Cut-Glass would be unbearable after
having finally gained her respect.

With eight
minutes to go, the platform number still had not been announced. He was getting
nervous as well as depressed. If he was not to miss his train, he had to
concentrate.

With only three
minutes left before the official departure time, the public address system came
to life and announced the train to Birmingham Snow Hill would be leaving from
Platform 2. A small horde of people, Holt included, immediately rushed to the
ticket barriers, fed their tickets into the slots and, on recovering them, made
their way along the platform, looking for seats not occupied by the savvy
travellers who had been waiting inside the wickets.

As instructed,
Holt walked right to the front coach before boarding. Finding a window seat, he
sat – again as instructed – facing rearwards, wearing the black tie he had been
ordered to wear. He might have been going to a funeral, and in other
circumstances would have caught the eye of friends and relatives of the
deceased whom he might know. Was the black tie to psyche him out by making him
think he was going to his own funeral?

Having waited to
allow everyone to board, the train pulled out of the station a couple of
minutes late, passed through a long tunnel almost right under Lord’s cricket ground,
and came out into the open air at a spot where underground lines ran parallel
to it.

With two hours remaining
before arrival at Birmingham, he snuggled down to try to catch up on the sleep
he had missed during the night. His eyes had hardly closed when there was a sharp
tap on his shoulder. Expecting it would be the ticket inspector, he looked up,
only to have to look further down into the eyes of a young boy staring at him.

‘Sir, sir, wake
up! The bloke gave me this for you. Said I should give it to the man with the
black tie called Beany in the front coach. Must be you. No one else around here
has a black tie.’

‘Actually, the
name’s Benet, but it must be me you want.’

Satisfied, the boy
handed Holt the envelope he was clutching, then fished a mobile phone out of
his pocket and took a photo of Holt holding it.

‘Said he would
give me five quid if I showed him the photo of you with it. My lucky day.’

Holt thanked the
boy, who promptly scarpered off. No point in pursuing the matter further. Doing
so would raise suspicions, and more than one person might well be involved,
with one possibly sitting nearby, discreetly observing him. After all, they
knew in which coach he would be sitting.

On opening the
envelope, he found a message telling him that instead of the last station,
Birmingham, he was to get off at the first, Gerrards Cross, though just in case
the train stopped prematurely at another for a red signal, he was to check the
station really was Gerrards Cross before alighting.

He was to wait
at the front of the station by the telephone box for a white Mercedes driven by
the ‘Trophy Wife’ to come and pick him up. If for some reason there were a last-minute
change of plan, they would call the phone in the phone box just near there. If
it rang, he should answer it to receive further instructions from the Owl.

It had been a
wily move to give the impression he was heading many miles up north to
Birmingham when in fact he would be just outside London. The people from
Giraffe would find themselves wasting their time scouring video recordings from
the cameras up in Birmingham. Also, use of the nonthreatening word ‘owl’ was
something of a surprise, when organizations with evil intent would be more
likely to choose something nasty, such as ‘
Spider’, ‘Snake’,
 
or ‘Scorpion
’.
‘Owl’ suggested wisdom.

He replaced the
letter in the envelope and slipped it into his left pocket. The train, which had
been travelling quite fast, was already slowing and pulling into a station. Having
checked that it was well and truly Gerrards Cross, he alighted. The
acceleration of events had given him no time to prepare himself mentally to
meet his reward, and he was feeling tense.

Gerrards Cross
was a simple station set away from the main road, with just the ticket office, a
couple of ticket distributors, a taxi-service office, and the phone box he had
been told about. There were one or two people about, but none hanging around. The
wait was possibly intentional to ensure no one was following him.

Five minutes
later, a white Mercedes came down the slope somewhat too quickly for the speed
humps and stopped abruptly beside him. The side window wound down and the
female driver leant over.

‘You’re Jeremy, I
presume.’

‘Yes, I am.’

 ‘I’m to take
you in hand. Get in!’

Although from
outside Holt could not get a full view of her, it was immediately apparent she was
a trophy, wife or not.

Having been told not to
bring any luggage, he did not need to ask her to unlock the boot, and with
nothing even to place on his lap, getting in would be easy. Stupidly, he
hesitated.

‘Either get in or pack
it in. This is not a good place to linger. You decide. Makes no difference to
me.’

Unable to chicken out,
he opened the door and clambered in, pulling the heavy door shut with that dull
clunk one associates with quality cars.

‘We can’t talk now. Just
sit back and chill out.’

The car accelerated down
the slope and did a U-turn to return to the main road. They were on their way.
Holt did not dare ask to where.

He first concentrated
on looking at the Trophy Wife’s face, which exhibited a knowing yet reassuring smile
on the rare occasions she glanced at him. When her gaze reverted to the road
ahead, his would shift to her bare knees, remaining there longer than would
have been polite had she been looking.

Telling himself to getting
a grip, he turned his attention to the road ahead and tried to work out where
they were going. She was a very adept driver, and despite her abrupt no-nonsense
manner, the first part of his mission was proving not so bad after all. He even
began to relax.

After about twenty
minutes’ driving, they arrived at a large house set back from the road and
shielded from it by some trees. He noted that it was surrounded by the gravel so
beloved by insurance companies, since it enables the occupants to hear intruders
walking around outside. The car crunched to a stop a few yards from the front
door.

Even though there was
no one there, she stepped out with her knees close together, as though it was a
well-practiced manoeuvre, and gestured that Holt should get out too. As she
stood with her back to him while she opened the oiled oak front door, then hurried
inside, no doubt to enter the code into the burglar alarm, Holt could see she
had a generous figure that filled out her shift dress, with no hint of the
vulgarity flaunted by some footballers’ trophy wives and the like. Apart from
her beauty and perfection, she was a normal person with natural-seeming breasts.

 Appearing back in the
doorway, she beckoned to him to come in, but before he had gone a yard and a
half down the hall, an alarm went off.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll have
to search you. But first give me your passport – the chip might have set off
the alarm. You did bring it as instructed, didn’t you?’

Holt said, ‘Of course,’
as he handed over the document.

‘You won’t be needing those
clothes either. We have a whole wardrobe of clothes tailor-made for you in the
closet in your room. You’ll find both man-about-the-country and man-about-town,
not to mention man-on-the-Côte-d’Azur. There is even a dinner jacket, so we can
go anywhere, except perhaps to the races at Ascot. Strip down to your briefs so
I can check you out. Then you can go upstairs to put on something decent.’

Holt again hesitated.

‘If you want to pull
out, I can take you straight back to the station. It’s your choice.’

‘You mean take off my clothes
right here?’

‘On second thoughts, it
would be easier and nicer in the drawing room; there’s more room. Let’s go in
there. Besides, it’s warmer. My name’s Consuela, by the way.’

Holt wondered whether
the alarm had been set to go off anyway, just to show that there was a hard edge
to all this gentility. As he had been told to come with no luggage, not even
shaving things or a toothbrush, and only his passport, there was not much,
other than his keys and coins, to set the alarm off.

Feeling intimidated
standing there in only his boxer shorts, he nevertheless took in the fact that the
trophy wife surveying him had assumed the detached professional air one
associates with nurses, doctors, and no doubt prison wardens. Turning away, she
picked up an object somewhat like a Geiger counter and proceeded to scan his
hair and then the part of his body obscured by what little clothing he
retained. The diverse buzzing noises emanating from the device made her frown
for a moment, adjust the calibration, and recheck his more private parts, until
she finally seemed satisfied and broke into what he thought was a wistful half
smile.

‘Sorry about that. It would
have been easier without underpants, but we are not familiar enough with each
other for that.’

‘I hope you’re satisfied.’

‘I
should
say so. I’ll show you
your room.’

The room was large, bright,
and airy, but pretty stark, though it did have an en suite bathroom. He
presumed, from the lack of clutter, that it was rented accommodation. There was,
however, a television. Would he be spending his nights there watching it alone,
thinking of her also all alone in the room along the landing?

She had that air about her
that fashion models often exude, indicating they are to be admired but not
touched. Sexually she seemed an iceberg. He consoled himself with the thought
that three-fifths of an iceberg is hidden underwater and slowly melting.

‘After you have had a shower
and put on some fresh clothes, we can have some drinks. Your new clothes are in
that closet. They should fit. That is, if you filled in the application
correctly. When I came here, I stupidly lied and could not get into the
designer jeans they supplied.’

 At last, she sounded human,
as if she had been enrolled in the organization after undergoing a similar
process to the one he was undergoing. Perhaps given time the iceberg would thaw,
but how much time did he have?

He had a quick shower
and slipped on the corduroy slacks and a smart woollen pullover, which of
course fitted perfectly thanks to the precise measurements provided by the
tailor at Sackville Street. Making his way down the stairs trying to look as
suave as possible, he indeed looked the perfect man-about-the-country.

‘Feel better now?’

‘Much better.’

‘You certainly look
better too.’

‘Where did you get the
clothes?’

‘I didn’t. They were
delivered by courier.’

‘Funny thing about
clothes,’ replied Holt. ‘People keep on telling me how important they are, but
in my IT work they did not seem to matter. In fact, one dressed down so as not
to get people’s backs up.’

‘Some people can look
good in anything and better in something simple,’ replied Consuela with a
smile.

‘That would apply to
you!’

‘Thanks for the
compliment. I get a lot, but no woman ever has enough, I’m told. Let’s have our
champagne and caviar on the terrace.’

‘Wow!’

‘I might as well tell
you right away. The Owl promised you a trophy wife – though not one to fornicate
with. I am a real trophy wife in that my darling of a husband is a billionaire
over in the States. By the way, I don’t like keeping on saying
“
husband”. If we ever to
refer him again, let’s just call him
H
.’

‘Okay,
H
. Should I call you
C
?’

 ‘No. Consuela will do
nicely. Now you know, let’s forget about
H
. I’ve
put out the glasses and titbits. Can you do the honours, as all this secrecy
means I do not have any staff here? Normally, I have a butler and a maid.’