‘We have to get rid of this car,’ Votrukhin said, regaining his calm. It would not help their case, losing it, but cars were disposable assets and this one, like others they could use, was untraceable. ‘Did you check any places we can use?’
Serkhov nodded. As the driver, it was his responsibility to find a way of disposing of the car should they run into trouble, like now. ‘There’s a place near Shepherd’s Bush. They can make a car disappear in an hour.’ He made a chopping motion with his hand. ‘Tiny pieces, then melted down. No traces, no fingerprints, nothing.’
‘Good. Go there now.’
Ten minutes later they were cruising along Park Lane when Serkhov swore. Two police cars had appeared in the distance behind them, lights flashing to help them carve through the traffic. More blue lights were flashing up ahead and there was already a build-up of cars and buses blocking the road around Marble Arch.
‘What the hell?’ Votrukhin twisted in his seat to watch the two following cars with a feeling of alarm. ‘They can’t have traced us yet. It’s impossible.’
‘So why are they sitting on our tails then, and blocking the road ahead? They must have the description of this car.’
Votrukhin thought about it for a couple of seconds before logic took over. He sat back and faced the front. ‘Yes. But they’re throwing up an outer cordon, that’s all. They can’t yet know who we are or where we are for sure. But if we get caught inside it, we’re stuck.’
‘What do we do? We can’t dump this right here — they’d see us.’
‘I know.’ Votrukhin glanced quickly around, feeling a lot less calm than he sounded. They were just coming up level with the Grosvenor House building, where they had had their meeting with Gorelkin and the English traitor, Paulton. There were streets on that side, where they could lose themselves long enough to dispose of the car and walk away. But that was on the other side of Park Lane, with an expanse of grass, flowerbeds and trees in the central reservation behind a V-shaped metal barrier that looked too strong to burst through. On this side there were no streets, just the railed-off expanse of Hyde Park, which offered no escape whatsoever.
‘There!’ He pointed ahead to a ramp going into an underground car park. Any CCTV system would have the car instantly, but by the time the authorities got round to studying it, he and Serkhov would be long gone. They wouldn’t dare risk coming back to the car, but that was too bad.
Serkhov responded calmly, signalling and cutting neatly into the inside lane. They were already dropping out of sight as the two police cars swished by.
‘Keep your face averted from the cameras,’ Votrukhin warned Serkhov. ‘This isn’t over yet.’ He pointed at a corner space, jammed between a Jaguar and a 7-Series BMW. ‘In here. Leave the keys in the ignition. With luck it will be gone within the hour.’
‘What about Gorelkin? He’ll go nuts if we dump it.’
‘Gorelkin can go screw himself. We’re the ones in danger here, not him. Now do it.’
Serkhov did as he was ordered and parked the car. Moments later they were walking away from the car, heads down and with their faces partially covered by their mobiles, two businessmen hurrying to a meeting.
But their departure wasn’t entirely unseen. In the shadows, behind a primped-up van with fat tyres and tinted windows, two men stopped trying to open the doors and watched them go, drawn to the interior light of the BMW and the partially open passenger door.
THIRTY-THREE
Richard Ballatyne was waiting to greet Harry on the second floor landing of a building in Great Scotland Yard. The security guard nodded and left them to it, and Ballatyne walked away trailing a crooked finger.
‘Sorry about the rush,’ he said quietly. ‘But this was an opportunity to get several important heads together on record without going through a full-blown meeting with everyone and their brother from the Sec of State down. We’ve got two gofers on a watching brief from the wider cabinet office and one from COBRA; a sit-in for the Joint Intelligence Committee; Commander John Crampton from CO19. . and Candida Deane of the Russian Desk.’ The pause there was, Harry sensed, deliberate. A warning.
‘Nobody from Five?’ His old employers. He was surprised. Anything involving the activities of foreign agents in the country should have had MI5 representatives here in droves, jostling for the prize.
‘No. For reasons I’ll tell you about later, they’ve agreed to let us run with this. But they are still involved.’
‘Great,’ Harry murmured. ‘And Deane? Should I be worried?’
Ballatyne threw a brief smile over his shoulder as he turned a corner in the corridor and walked towards a heavy oak door at the far end. Unlike the others, it bore no number or name plate. ‘Not really — not inside this place, anyway. She’ll be muzzled by the presence of the others, although she might still try to bite. And she’s no friend of Clare Jardine’s. You’d do well to remember that.’
‘Any specific reason?’ Clare had worked the Russian department. It wouldn’t be too surprising if there was history involved.
‘Deane was a protegee of Sir Anthony Bellingham.’
Christ. That was more than reason enough.
Ballatyne opened the door and ushered Harry through, stepping past a tall man with a flat-top haircut and broad shoulders standing just inside. Clearly a minder. The room was functional and spare, with a long table bordered by chairs and a sideboard holding a stack of notepads and, oddly, a Bible. The walls were panelled with oak and hung with pictures that had probably been there since the place was built. It smelled to Harry of paperwork, ink and dry, dusty talk, and possessed all the soul and atmosphere of a coal bunker. Just right, he thought, for disposing of embarrassing issues. It reminded him of another room not far from here, where his own career in MI5 had been consigned to a skip by a committee of faceless suits, before being posted on what had very nearly been a one-way trip to Georgia.
He nodded at the faces around the table as Ballatyne made introductions, instantly forgetting the names of the civil servant attendees. He received a cordial enough smile from Commander Crampton, which told him that the Met’s firearms unit officer didn’t know who or what he was, and a cool look of assessment from Candida Deane, a blonde with a cool, businesslike stare behind large glasses, who undoubtedly did. Crampton looked like a rugby player who had played just a little too close to the ball.
Deane looked even tougher.
‘This is a little off the cards,’ Ballatyne began, once they were all settled, ‘because the situation is a little unusual. You all know the basics, but just so that we’re all up to speed, I’ll outline it in extremely simple terms, to save time.’
‘Just a moment.’ Candida Deane was looking at Ballatyne but flicked an imperious finger towards Harry. ‘Does Tate have clearance for this meeting? I don’t recall his details being submitted for approval.’
Ballatyne appeared to have been expecting the interruption. He merely smiled and said, ‘Mr Tate is a former MI5 officer and has my full confidence. He has completed various assignments for us both here and overseas, and worked with the UN in highly confidential circumstances. He is also carded which, as some of you might not know, means he has been security vetted to carry a firearm. That places him higher on the secure list than many people who habitually sit in this room. May I?’
Deane nodded grudgingly and made a pointed note on a pad in front of her. But not before shooting Harry a final glance of assessment.
‘Earlier this afternoon,’ Ballatyne continued, ‘two gunmen shot and wounded an unarmed police officer on Pimlico Road, SW1. The officer was answering a call by a member of the public standing on the pavement. The two men had left their car in a reserved bay and entered a Starbucks cafe in search of a former MI6 operative named Clare Jardine. Miss Jardine left the cafe pursued by the men. They fired shots at her, which is when the officer was hit, but I understand she managed to escape unharmed.’