The Locker (28 page)

fifty-six

She drove fast towards
Marble Arch, wondering what could have happened to make Aston sound so tense. And why so urgent that it couldn't be discussed by phone? Vaslik was saying nothing, staring out at the other traffic, which suited her just fine.

Aston was waiting for them in the boardroom. He was looking up at the ceiling, deep in thought, an empty coffee cup in front of him.

Standing by the window was the man in the grey suit from Hyde Park.

Aston gestured for them to sit. “You've met Neville Grant, of course.”

So he had a name. Ruth nodded. “Last I heard, you were flying off somewhere in a hurry.”

“I was. I came back. There has been a development.”

“Like what?”

He tapped a folder on the table in front of him. “I've received news from a source in Washington. The man you know as Michael Hardman is dead.”

There was a stunned silence. Grant said nothing, apparently content to wait for a reaction.

“What happened?” Ruth asked finally.

“Left hand, right hand, I'm afraid. Not ours, I'm relieved to say.” He opened the folder in front of him and extracted a large photograph, which he pushed across the table. The subject was black and white, grainy and none too clear, showing what appeared to be a road or track running past a collection of buildings with an outer wall. It was a farm or compound of some sort.

It was the centre of the photo that instantly drew the eye.

Ruth felt her chest go cold. She was familiar enough with the subject matter to know exactly what it represented. She was close enough to Andy Vaslik to feel him going through the same reaction.

They were looking at what looked like a large, ugly flower blossoming in the middle of the photo, obscuring a section of the road and spreading out on either side to touch the compound wall.

“Was this a drone strike?” Vaslik asked.

“Yes. It's a farm not far from the border with Afghanistan. Hardman was spotted in Pakistan, travelling with a group of armed men thought to be a subset of
Lashkar-e
-Toiba
. They're an extremist Islamic group responsible for a number of attacks in India and elsewhere, with strong links stretching from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia and Europe.”

“He certainly gets around,” said Ruth. The last potential sighting had been in Herat Province in western Afghanistan, with the dead group of Chechen fighters.

“He does. We suspect Hardman—or Wesam Bahdari as we should call him—might have been on his way to Kabul to fund an operation by this group. They want to draw attention to their fight for an extended Islamist state across the region.” He smiled thinly. “It seems they were somewhat lax in their selection processes. One of their newer members was on a watch list held by Indian Intelligence; they let it be known where he was going and why. He'd told a cousin that they were with a man who had lots of money and were
going to perform what he called “an outrage.” A photograph taken at a police post along the way shows that one of the passengers in the car was Michael Hardman. “A rare moment of instant
co-operation
between agencies in those two countries.”

“Are you saying Hardman was part of the operation?” Vaslik asked.

“
I doubt it. But we can't be certain. The Indians had nothing on Hardman, but they had more than enough on the men with him. They passed on the information to the Americans and gave them the coordinates for where they were crossing into Afghanistan. According to my source, the risk was considered serious enough to take immediate action.”

“Without checking with other interested persons?” Ruth queried.

“Such as?”

Vaslik said, “A man called Drybeck.”

Grant blinked. “How do you know that name?”

“I picked it up. I forget where.”

“Really? Then I suggest you drop it again quickly.”

“Why?” Ruth enquired. “Is he so untouchable?”

“Nobody's untouchable. Let it go.”

There was another lengthy silence, finally broken by Aston. ‘Where does that leave us with Beth and Nancy Hardman? Will the kidnappers let Beth go?”

“It's thought not.” Grant looked conflicted and stared at the back of his hands. “They probably don't know about Hardman yet, as the news is on a restricted issue list. But they'll find out sooner or later.”

“Drybeck,” Vaslik murmured.

“Yes.”

“And when they do?” Ruth knew what the answer was going to be.

“It's likely they won't react well. My source believes these people will seek to clear the decks of everybody who knows about this operation. That means you two, as I believe you've seen some of them. And Beth Hardman.”

“That's crazy,” said Ruth. “Why would they harm her? She's just a kid.”

“They're specialists. They've conducted a number of extreme operations over many years.”

“Assassinations?” Vaslik again.

Yes. Killing a child probably won't cause them to lose much sleep; I hear they've done worse. I would strongly advise you two to keep a very low profile until this group is caught.”

“We can't do that,” said Andy Vaslik, and told the two men why.

A few miles away, Nancy Hardman felt a deep, abiding anger as she stared at the ruined interior of her home. Broken plaster covered the floor, ripped furniture was piled up in every room and the carpets had been taken up and dumped in the garden. Even electrical appliances had been taken apart down to the plugs, their guts opened like dissected metal laboratory rats.

The neighbours were having a field day, she noted, and pulled the curtains to block out their stares.

“Why have they done this?” she screamed, turning on Gina, who was watching from the hallway. “What were they looking for? I don't understand it!”

“I told you why,” Gina said bluntly. “Do I need to go through it again?” Her expression was ice cold, a clear indication that she considered this wreckage all in a day's work, and something Hardman had brought on them himself. “Are you sure you didn't know what Michael was really doing?”

“No! I told you. This is all
wrong
!” Nancy swung away from her, kicking at a lump of plaster on the floor. “It's lies … all of it. Michael wouldn't do any of those things!” She ran back upstairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. The anger subsided quickly, its energy unreal, and was replaced by an overwhelming flood of panic as she thought of Beth, still out there somewhere. What would become of her now—of them both? The bitch downstairs clearly didn't believe her, any more than the Gonzales woman or the American.

Would they be coming for her next?

She sat on the bed, fighting to compose her thoughts. She mustn't let this development take over. If Michael was here he would tell her what to do; Michael always knew what to do. It was one of the things that had drawn her to him, the steady confidence he exuded, the confidence that allowed her to trust and believe in him absolutely, even when things looked at their bleakest.

But he wasn't here. Until he was, it was up to her to handle the situation.

In the meantime, she had to hope and pray that Beth was safe.

And that Michael stayed away.

That thought prompted another; something she'd been meaning to do since Michael's first text message. She went to her dressing table and opened the drawer where she kept her diary, some spare cash and her passport.

The passport was gone.

fifty-seven

Ruth checked her watch
and felt a tremor go through her. Trafalgar Square at eleven forty-five and barely a minute since the last time she'd checked. She'd arrived early hoping to make a thorough survey of the area and get some idea of the opposition's numbers and locations. There was a danger in being too long on a static watch, but moving around too much when she knew the other side was out there waiting for her was a bigger one.

It was tough on the nerves waiting to see what developed; the instructors on the surveillance refresher courses run by Cruxys hadn't gone into the psychological detail, lingering instead on how to deal with toilet breaks and the physical discomfort of holding static positions for long periods.

She scanned the square again, filtering out tourists and
passers-by
, the innocent and the official. Andy Vaslik was roaming loose somewhere in the centre, confident that he would recognise any professionals from their body language and training, while Gina Fraser was sitting on a section of wall close by the upper steps, sucking on an ice cream.

Persuading Aston and Grant that they were capable of handling this had been a tough argument. Grant in particular had opposed the idea, preferring instead to bring in a Special Forces team to cover the area and take out the opposition in what he referred to as a surgical strike. Even Aston, the
ex-military
man, had baulked at that.

“There'd be carnage,” he countered. “You can't control a situation surrounded by hundreds of tourists. They'd be hostage meat the moment your team showed up.”

Vaslik had agreed, pointing out that the kidnap group would recognise instantly the presence of other professionals, no matter how cautious they were.

“If they're the kind of people I think they are,” he'd said, “they'll have nothing to lose.”

In the end their words had prevailed, and both men had promised to keep the police and military out of it, on the proviso that if anything did kick off, they would have no option but to send in a team hard and fast to protect the many civilians in the area.

“There is a minor problem, remember,” Aston reminded them. “If they hear about Hardman's death, they won't be there to show Beth Hardman alive and well.”

With that caution ringing in her ears, and hoping they hadn't overstepped themselves, Ruth was now using the cover of a book store window in the southeastern corner of the square, holding a magazine while looking across a steady stream of traffic running from Trafalgar Square into the Strand to her right. It wasn't the best observation point but safe enough; most observers would be drawn to scan the northern and higher part of the square above the fountains, where they would expect Hardman to be waiting, and for Ruth or Vaslik to be stationed in order to make contact with him.

If they found either of them they would quickly expect to find Hardman. The cold, hard logic of hunters.

She was looking for vehicles; or more accurately, a particular vehicle. It would have to be a model that would blend in easily, and big enough to carry a party of at least four plus one, maybe more.

The plus one had to be Beth.

She watched a Renault Scenic
people-carrier
edging its way along the kerb, attracting a few angry hoots from other vehicles. It looked full, with faces inside turning to scan the square. She saw a little girl at one window moving around on her seat, and her heart flipped.

They were early.

The driver signalled and pulled to a stop. Nobody got out.

Ruth felt a jab of apprehension and reached up to her right ear, tapping the small
ear-piece
. She checked nobody in the store was close enough to hear and said, “Green Renault Scenic on the east side. Stationary. At least four up with a small girl at right rear.”

“Got it. On my way.” Vaslik's voice sounded unnaturally calm over the phone. She looked away from the Renault and tried to find him in the crowd, but couldn't. She saw Gina hadn't moved from her position, which was what they had agreed. Gina was the
back-up
.

When she looked back the Renault was moving away, the long lens of a camera poking from the passenger window in the hands of a
middle-aged
woman. With a flick of an indicator, it joined the main stream of traffic and was gone, heading north.

“Hold that,” she said quickly. “False alarm.”

“Right.”

She checked her watch and was surprised to find it was nearly on midday. Several minutes had gone by in a flash. She forced herself to remain calm. Impatience now could ruin everything.

There would have to be some give and take if Vaslik's plan was to have any meaning. If Drybeck did what Vaslik suspected, the other side would be here and itching to get Hardman without fuss. But they would expect him to be utterly cautious in making his approach, knowing that a man in his position would not want to give himself up without getting the one thing he had demanded; sight of his daughter.

A BMW estate with ambulance chevrons and a light array on the roof nosed into the stream of traffic from the west and cruised along the lower edge of the square. The windows were slightly tinted, with the corner of one chevron plate missing, Ruth noted. The vehicle looked full, no doubt on its way to a hospital or a private clinic.

The BMW didn't stop but continued north at a steady pace and was soon swallowed up by other traffic.

Ruth felt a rush of frustration at the thought that they were wasting their time, that the kidnappers weren't going to show and Vaslik had been wrong in his suspicions about Drybeck. She breathed deeply, forcing herself to remain calm in spite of the situation here. She was accustomed to surveillance work, but not where something so important was riding on the timing and circumstances.

Ten minutes later the BMW ambulance was back.

It was the same one; she recognised the torn chevron. This time it stopped against the kerb and allowed two men to climb out before moving away. They were carrying camera bags and bottles of water, and dressed in sports shirts and jeans. Tourists.

Then she recognised one of the men and felt a tension in her chest.

Tall and bulky, packing a lot of muscle; it was one of the men Vaslik had snapped near the supermarket, following Nancy and Gina. As the man closed the car door, a little girl's face appeared in the opening.

Beth.

“Slik. You there?”

“Where else?”

“Lower square. Two men, cameras, sports shirts and jeans, just decamped from a BMW ambulance estate making its second run. It's a fake. Beth Hardman's inside. Recognise the tall guy?”

A slight pause, then, “Got him. Looks like we're on. Have you seen any others?”

“Not yet. They might be keeping this operation tight.”

Ruth left the book store and headed across the road at the lights. She was lucky and was able to attach herself to five large women with shopping bags, one of them struggling to hold onto her load. She helped her cross, then skipped free of them and dodged across the road into the square proper, stopping alongside a party of school kids being handed their lunch in paper bags by a
stressed-out
teacher.

“Stay together!” the woman was calling, eyeing up three boys who were already making a move to scuttle away. “And don't leave Trafalgar Square, you hear me?”

The ambulance had disappeared. Making another tour, Ruth guessed, while the two men did a close recce. They probably had others already in place and ready to move.

She saw Vaslik. He was close by one of the fountains, chatting to a couple of girls and offering to take a picture with their phone. They were blushing and laughing but nodding enthusiastically.

The BMW appeared again. It was ghosting along the kerb on the east side, this time slowing to a halt. The move was a disaster for Ruth; as it stopped, the group of school kids moved away, leaving her exposed with no time to find alternative cover.

She froze. A woman's face was at the rear passenger window, staring right at her.

Clarisse. She looked surprised, then turned away and said something to the driver, who responded by shaking his head vigorously in disagreement.

But she waved a hand, dismissive and angry, before opening the door and stepping out. A sharp exchange of voices echoed from inside the car before she turned and walked away.

The driver shouted, then dipped his head and clamped a phone to his ear. He listened for a moment, his head snapping up in shock before leaning over, clearly seeking out Clarisse. He shouted again but she either didn't hear over the noise of the traffic or wasn't listening. He looked agitated and hit the wheel with his hand, and the look on his face told Ruth everything she had feared.

He'd just been given the news about Michael Hardman.

She experienced a feeling of unusual calm. She knew all she needed to know: from the two men prowling loose in the square, to the group using a vehicle capable of moving fast if necessary without being questioned, to Clarisse's
over-aggressive
manner.

Beth being in the car was for show; they weren't going to let her to go and had probably never intended to.