We had forty-five minutes to kill before Young’s contacts were due to arrive, so we ordered a couple of beers and settled down to wait at a round table near the back of the room. There were seven other people in the place. Three were working. One guy was behind the bar, leaning listlessly against the wall, waiting in vain for someone else to want a drink. Another was halfheartedly clearing martini glasses from a large rectangular table in the center. A girl was jammed into a tiny DJ booth to our left, fiddling with an iPod. And the four customers—all men in their fifties—were huddled over some paperwork in a booth at the foot of the stairs.
Fifty minutes gradually ticked away. We sipped our Peronis. The busboy wandered back and dawdled over wiping the long table. The DJ churned out one dire eighties hit after another. The barman looked like he was asleep. The older guys wrapped up their meeting and left, all together. But no one new came into the bar. I began to feel like we were frozen in time. The gloomy lighting, the lack of movement, the outdated music—they made it feel like the world had forgotten we were there. I had to check my watch to make sure the hands were still moving. I saw them creep around another five minutes. And another. Then there was a pause between songs. And I finally heard footsteps on the stairs.
Four people entered the room. They were all fairly tall—three men between six one and six three, one woman around five nine—and they were wearing identical clothes. Black trainers, with no discernible branding. Stiff, new jeans. Dark blue chicago hoodies, pulled up high to conceal their faces, and baggy enough to give easy access to the obvious bulges on their hips.
The new arrivals fanned out, six feet from the stairs, and scanned the room. Then they strode straight up to our table, spreading out and penning us in against the wall.
“Gentlemen,” said the tallest of the group. “I apologize for our timekeeping. I fear our knowledge of this fair city, and its traffic issues in particular, is not as encyclopedic as I would wish it to be. But still, we are here now. As are you. So, shall we get down to business?”
“By all means,” Young said. “Let’s get started.”
“Excellent,” the guy said. “However, before we commence, a couple of precautions would be welcome. Would you mind accompanying my associates for a moment? Perhaps the privacy of the restrooms would be appropriate?”
The guys each took a step back, and the one who’d been speaking gestured for us to stand and follow them. I looked across at Young.
“It’s OK,” he said. “This is standard with these guys. Nothing to worry about. Best to just get it over with.”
I nodded, and squeezed out from behind the table. The woman was standing nearest to me so she took my arm and we started to walk. Young slid out from the other side and immediately overtook us, heading toward the toilets. The next guy in line quickly fell into step, grabbing Young’s shoulder and steering him left toward the ladies’ room. The woman guided me to the right, and into the men’s.
The restroom was small and basic. The walls and floor were covered with white tiles. There were three urinals. Three stalls. Two basins. And one hand dryer. The woman motioned for me to stand next to it while she checked that no one else was in the place. Then she shook the hood off her head and turned back to face me.
For a moment she stood in front of me, silently, without moving. Then she raised both hands, palms together, and pressed her fingers against me, just below my collarbone. She looked me in the eye and began to move her hands slowly down my body, crossing my chest, then my stomach. She reached my belt, paused, moved her hands apart slightly, and kept going till she reached my thighs. Then she stepped back, tipped her head to one side, and pursed her lips.
“No,” she said. “That just doesn’t tell me what I need to know. Give me your shoes.”
I leaned down and unzipped my boots.
“Give them to me,” she said.
I set them on the floor between us. She rolled her eyes, picked up the boots, examined the insides, then tossed them into the corner of the room.
“Now, your shirt,” she said.
I pulled my T-shirt over my head, paused, and dropped it in front of me. She ground it into the tiles with the sole of her foot, then kicked it aside.
“Your pants,” she said.
I unfastened my belt, let my jeans fall, and stepped out of them. She pulled the waistband closer with her toe and leaned down to grab them, leaving the back of her neck temporarily exposed. She was only in that position for a fraction of a second, but that would have been all I needed. Still, it wasn’t too big a sacrifice to let the chance go begging. Something told me her time was going to come. And soon.
“Now, the rest,” she said, letting go of my jeans.
I slipped my shorts off and held them out, level with her face. She stared back, then slowly and deliberately lowered her gaze.
“It’s OK,” I said. “Go ahead. You can touch.”
She let ten seconds pass, then slowly reached toward my groin.
“I meant the underwear,” I said. “It was fresh on this morning.”
She snorted, snatched the shorts, and crammed them into her pocket.
“Come and see me later,” she said, opening the door. “You can get them back, then. If you’re still breathing.”
The woman was sitting in my place when I came back out into the bar. The men were with her, plus a guy I hadn’t seen before, and all five had glasses of sparkling water lined up on the table in front of them. Someone had dragged over one extra chair. I took hold of another one and had started to move it when the man who’d spoken to us before looked up and caught my eye.
“That’s very kind,” he said. “But we won’t be needing it.”
“What about Young?” I said.
“Who?”
“The bloke I came here with.”
“He doesn’t need it. He won’t be working with us after all.”
“Why not?”
The guy shrugged.
“We’re very particular about who we accept as colleagues,” he said.
“Where is he?” I said.
“That’s an interesting question. I expect it depends on your religious outlook.”
I started for the stairs, but changed tack after three steps and headed for the ladies’ room instead. None of the men moved from the table. The bartender looked the other way. The woman winked at me. I covered the ground quickly and pushed the door open with my foot. The layout inside was just like the men’s, except that two extra stalls took the place of the urinals. They filled in the space all the way to the far corner. My eye was drawn to the last one in line. It was the only one with a closed door. But that wasn’t what worried me. I was more concerned about the red stream snaking its way under the side wall and flowing along the joins in the floor tiles.
Fresh blood.
It was already halfway to the basins, and showed no signs of slowing down.
The navigation exercise all those years ago showed that you can use a fake rendezvous to flush out your enemy. You can even use a real one.
But it’s only once they’re in the open that you see what they’re truly capable of.
EIGHT
Ask a sane person to commit suicide, and the answer will be, “No.” Every time.
That’s not to say people will never give their lives for a cause. Sometimes, things are worth dying for. For parents, their children. For soldiers, their comrades. For some people, a flag. Or a country. Or a concept, such as freedom or honor. For them, it can be a choice. And for others, it can just happen. Rational decision making doesn’t stand up well in the heat of the moment. Like for the Battle of Britain pilot my father remembered watching in a dogfight over London. Out of ammunition, desperate not to let the invaders through, he ploughed his Hurricane straight into the side of a Ju88. In a sense, his desperate plan worked. The bomber broke in half and went down in flames. But it was the British pilot’s last action, too. ’Cause he went down with the four Germans.