‘Sir Giles Cavendish,’ Marcus said with marked surprise. ‘How did you…?’
‘I’m in the intelligence business,’ Cavendish answered abruptly and stepped into the office. ‘How else could I have tracked you down?’
Marcus closed the door behind him and continued to stare at Cavendish, his mouth slightly open while wondering just how he could have tracked him here?
Cavendish sat down on the chair facing the desk. Marcus walked round the desk and put his finger on a desk diary, open at that day’s date.
‘I presume it wasn’t you who made the appointment?’
Cavendish gave a winsome smile. ‘My office,’ he told Marcus.
Marcus looked at the name. ‘Trotter?’ He thought of the TV character in the series ‘Only Fools and Horses’. ‘A sense of humour, then,’ he said.
‘We do have our moments,’ Cavendish admitted lightly.
Marcus grunted and sat down. ‘Can I offer you tea or coffee?’ He asked Cavendish.
Cavendish shook his head. ‘Thank you, no, but what you can offer me is the memory card from your camera and any pictures you have printed out.’
Marcus reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. It dropped it on the desk. ‘I had this ready for when I was supposed to meet you, but you’ve pre-empted me.’
Cavendish leaned forward and reached across the desk to take the envelope, but Marcus kept his hand on it and shook his head. ‘Not until you’ve done me the courtesy of answering some questions.
Cavendish leaned back and waited, saying nothing.
‘Why did you lie to Susan Ellis?’ Marcus asked.
Cavendish frowned. ‘So that’s who you’re working for,’ he said without answering the question.
Marcus stood up and turned his back on Cavendish. He stood by the window, looking down on to the street. ‘I’m not working for anybody,’ he told Cavendish, watching two men get out of a black Mercedes. ‘Susan came to me because of you, but she couldn’t afford me.’ The men were dressed in black. They were fairly well built and looked as though they had a purpose in whatever it was they were about to do. ‘I decided to do a little investigating and discovered that you did not work for the Foreign Office as you claimed.’ The two men crossed the road as the Mercedes pulled away from the kerb. It moved off quickly and Marcus watched as it reached the top end of the City Road. He glanced back at the two men who had crossed the road and were walking towards the street door leading to his office. When he glanced back towards the top end of the City Road, the Mercedes had completed an illegal turn and was now slowly driving back towards the point where it had dropped the two men, but now on Marcus’s side of the road.
Marcus swung round and looked at Cavendish. ‘Did you bring two thugs with you, just in case I put up a struggle?’
Cavendish looked askance. ‘Of course not; I have nothing to fear from you.’
The door creaked at the foot of the stairs and he heard the first groan of the step. Marcus knew they were not coming up the stairs to ask for an appointment. Suddenly he leapt round the desk and hauled Cavendish to his feet, throwing him up against the far wall.
‘Stay there!’ he hissed. ‘Whatever you do, don’t bloody move!’
He then positioned himself up against the wall beyond the door, flattening his back up against it. Cavendish now looked bewildered but had the sense to see that Marcus was not threatening him with any kind of violence. He could also see something in the expression on Marcus’s face; something he would describe later as frightening.
The door swung open and a gloved hand holding a Glock handgun appeared. Marcus swung his left arm up and grabbed the wrist of the man holding the gun and pushed it upwards, turning the hand at the same time. Then he rotated inwards towards the man and brought his right arm up beneath his armpit, locking his right hand on to his left wrist and pushed down with a tremendous force.
The gunman cursed as his hand opened dropping the gun and Marcus brought his knee up swiftly, driving it into the man’s crutch. As the gun fell from the gunman’s hand, Marcus let the man fall and swooped down, picking up the gun.
Only about two seconds had elapsed between the gunman opening the door and Marcus disarming him. But it was enough time for the second gunman to fire a shot at Marcus. The bullet zipped through Marcus’s clothing, scorching a deep line across the top of his shoulder.
Without thinking about it, Marcus turned and fired the Glock he was now holding straight into the second gunman. There was a terrible cry of agony and pain as the gunman toppled down the stairs, falling into a heap at the bottom. He was dead.
The speed with which Marcus was thinking didn’t slow because he knew there was still a risk from the first gunman. The man was on one knee and struggling to get up. Marcus brought the gun crashing down on the man’s skull, which flattened him. He dropped on to the man, driving his knee in between his shoulder blades and jammed the barrel of the Glock into the soft flesh behind his ear.
‘Don’t move!’
Cavendish had hardly had time to breathe, and by the time he realised what was happening, it was all over. He looked at Marcus who was now bent over the gunman, his knee pressed into the man’s back and the gun jammed hard behind the man’s ear.
‘Don’t kill him,’ Cavendish snapped at Marcus.
Marcus turned and looked at Cavendish, his face a mask of fury. ‘Why, is he one of your fucking hit men?’
Cavendish put both his arms forward and shook his hands desperately. ‘No, no; he’s not one of my men. I don’t know who he is.’
Marcus nodded his head in the direction of the small sink across the room. ‘See that tea towel? Bring it over here so I can tie him up.’
Cavendish hurried across to the sink and lifted the grubby towel from the draining board. He brought it across to Marcus and helped tie the man’s hands behind his back. Marcus handed the Glock to Cavendish.
‘I presume you know how to handle this,’ he said firmly. ‘Keep him covered while I look for something else.’
Cavendish took the gun and waited until Marcus had finished rummaging around his office and finally came back with a length of cord. He lashed the man’s arms to his ankles, and pulled the cord tight. He then took the gun from Cavendish and flopped down in his chair.
Cavendish pointed at the phone. ‘I’d better make a phone call.’
Marcus needed no telling; he knew what Cavendish was about to do. What had happened was something that needed to be kept out of the Press and police notebooks. Suddenly Marcus remembered the Mercedes and he went to the window. The car was immediately below him, which made it impossible to read the number plate. He heard Cavendish asking for a team, on the double, and knew some people would arrive who would remove the dead guy, clean the place up and leave no trace of anything that could connect him and Cavendish to what had happened.
The Mercedes pulled away from the kerb which meant Marcus was able to read the number plate. He went back to his desk and wrote the number down on his doodling pad.
Cavendish put the phone down and looked at Marcus. Marcus turned his head and glanced down at the man. Then he put his fingers to his lips and pointed towards the man trussed up on the floor. There was no reason for either of them to say anything until the team arrived. Now all they could do was wait.
The children were taken from the safe house and driven away in a black car with darkened windows. Abdul had not tried to keep David from seeing the children leave, and David wondered what the significance of the warlord’s change of attitude meant. He asked Abdul what was going to happen to the children.
‘There are many people in this world who are desperate to have children, but through no fault of their own, it cannot be.’
‘So you provide the children for these desperate people?’ David’s remark was acerbic; making no attempt to hide his true feelings about what he believed was child trafficking.