He got down on his haunches, screwed up his eyes and stared intently past the Mazda to the far side of the road, where a row of trees screened the traffic from the Common. Schultz plotted an imaginary line from his position, through the Mazda, to a tree directly behind it. From the B amp;Q bag he took the two garden pegs, linked by twine. Just by his feet there was a large clump of dry, wispy grass. Schultz forced one of the pegs down into the earth just behind the clump, placing it at one end of the imaginary line. Then he placed the other peg in the ground, making sure that the twine was good and taut.
Schultz took another look: both pegs, the car and the tree were all perfectly in line.
Now he sat down on the bench and very carefully examined the car and the tree, noting their relative positions when seen from this fractionally different angle. He went back to the pegs and made another sighting from there. Then he checked the view from the bench again. Now he was satisfied.
The first part of the job was done.
68
Derek Choi was sitting at a table on the Tea Lawn, not far from the bandstand, which gave him a view of Centre Court debenture holders’ entrance. Two of his restaurant workers, both agents of the State Security Ministry, were with him. A female voice sounded in his ear: the agent he had stationed in the stands of Centre Court. ‘Carver has got up from his seat. He is leaving the stadium.’
Choi switched to another line. ‘Attention! The target is in motion. Prepare to move on my signal.’
On the Aorangi Picnic Terrace, the grassy slope otherwise known as Henman Hill or Murray Mount, a trio of young Chinese adults — two men in jeans, T-shirts and bomber jacket, and a woman wearing a singlet, miniskirt and Converse Hi-Top trainers — calmly got to their feet. All three were registered as students at a language school in Central London. One of the men pointed at the action on the giant screen fixed to the outside of Number One Court, directly opposite the terrace, and said something that made the girl laugh as she brushed a few leaves of grass from her skirt. The sound of her laughter made a man sitting nearby turn around and then fix her with a stare of frank appreciation as he took in her long black hair, prettily smiling face, pert breasts and long bare legs.
She was carrying a squashy leather shoulder-bag, big enough to carry her phone, her make-up, a knitted top in case it got cold, and all the other random items that any young woman needs. It also contained an EpiPen — like the one used by diabetics to inject themselves with insulin, except that this was filled with deadly toxin — and a loaded QSZ-92 9 mm pistol, produced by a Chinese state arms factory. Not so many young women need those.
Choi was wearing dark glasses that hid eyes now entirely focused on the debenture holders’ entrance. He saw Carver emerge from Centre Court. Choi waited for a moment to see where his target was heading, but Carver stood still. He was waiting for something, but what? Choi saw him glance at his watch, betraying his tension. Then another figure appeared in the doorway, a woman. Choi recognized Petrova, the Russian who had been with Carver two nights earlier, and whose name had so infuriated the Sternberg woman. Choi frowned. Had Carver really set up some kind of romantic assignation, right in the middle of an active operation? Or were the two of them working together? It made no difference. Carver was exposed and standing still. He would never be more vulnerable. It was time to move.
Without betraying the slightest suggestion of urgency, Derek Choi rose unhurriedly from his seat. He took a couple of twenty-pound notes out of his wallet and placed them under one of the teacups under his table. ‘Time to go,’ he said to the other two men at the table, who also stood up. Then Choi spoke into his microphone, a single word: ‘Go!’
69
Carver was not, for once, pleased to see Alix. ‘What is it?’ he asked her impatiently.
She smiled flirtatiously and kept the happy, carefree look on her face as she said, ‘Zorn just said he was about to leave.’
‘Couldn’t you just text?’ he said, smiling back.
‘It was easier to say I needed the bathroom. And you’re better placed out here. When he goes, he will come out of this door, right there, and you will see him. Besides,’ and now the phony flirting gave way to a much more serious emotion, ‘I wanted to be with you. Just for a minute or two…’
Carver was about to reply when he saw her frown. She stepped closer to him, nuzzled her lips against his ear, and, making it look as though she was giving Carver her full attention — even though her half-closed ice-blue eyes were focused at a point beyond his left shoulder — she said, ‘There’s a man by the bandstand looking at you. He looks Chinese: quite tall, slender build, black designer jeans, black jacket, dark glasses…’
‘Chinese?’ Carver asked quizzically, wondering what interest anyone from the Far East might have in him. He’d made some serious enemies in Thailand, but that had been a long time ago. And they’d all been dead when he’d left them.
‘You’re sure he’s not just looking around, watching the world go by?’ he asked.
‘No. This looks like surveillance.’ She frowned. ‘There are two other guys with him, very similar style of clothes — jeans, jackets, but more casual — he’s talking to them. They both looked this way, too. OK, now they’re moving towards us, fanning out.’
‘Are they armed?’
‘I can’t be sure, but they certainly could be. Under those jackets
… sure.’
‘Take my hand,’ Carver said. ‘They could be coming for you, not me. Let’s see how interested they really are.’
Gripping her tightly, he turned on his heel and started walking towards St Mary’s Walk, the path that cuts right through the Wimbledon site from north to south. It begins at the top of Aorangi Terrace, and plunges downhill all the way to the far end of the club grounds, passing virtually every court and building of any significance as it goes.
Carver and Alix moved quickly, with the purposeful strides of people with an urgent appointment to keep, forcing their way past slower movers with brusque words of warning or apology. They reached St Mary’s Walk at a point about two-thirds of the way along it. To their left, it continued down past the new mini-stadium of Court Number Three, and a gaggle of outside courts, to a tented village of shops and eating places. Carver went the other way, up a steep flight of stairs. Here the path ran like the floor of a canyon between the looming bulk of Centre Court on one side and the zigzag facade of the Millennium Building on the other. This was where both the press and the players had all the facilities they needed to work and relax, and the mini-theatre where both sides met for pre- and post-match interviews.
Carver stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back. The three Chinese were heading his way, forcing their way past the people at the foot of the steps thirty or forty metres away. He tightened his grip on Alix’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’
Ahead of him the crowd became even thicker. A knot of fans stood immobile in the middle of the path, clutching cameras, video recorders and phones, and gazing up at a covered footbridge that ran over their heads between the Millennium Building and Centre Court. They were waiting to see a star player walk along it, going to or from a match, and they glared crossly at Carver as he forced his way through.