That thought had already triggered the innate paranoia of all intelligence officers. He couldn’t be sure, but while waiting in the square it did seem that the same faces kept circulating on its periphery…
He cautiously surveyed the car park before entering the Capri. A man was just starting his own vehicle nearby. Alderley eyed him. Was it the same car that had followed him in? The silver Vauxhall was exactly the kind of unassuming vehicle that a team of watchers would use.
He waited for the man to depart before starting his own car, the three-litre engine’s rumble echoing through the low-ceilinged concrete space. Another look around. Nobody there. Wondering if he was being a bit too paranoid, he set off.
Nevertheless, he paid more attention to the view in his mirror on the way home. No one seemed to be following him — though whether that was because nobody actually was, or they were good enough not to be noticed, he couldn’t tell…
Alderley shook his head as he stopped at traffic lights, smiling to himself. ‘There’s nobody behind you,’ he said—
‘Ay up,’ said a muffled voice from behind him. ‘If you drive over any more bumps, I might have to kill you.’
32
Alderley froze. ‘Chase?’
‘No, your car’s talking to you like KITT from Knight Rider. Of course it bloody is!’
‘You — you broke into my Capri?’
‘The locks are from the Seventies, I could’ve got in with a pipe cleaner. Why do you think I asked you to bring it? That and being able to find it in the car park. Don’t let on that we’re here, though. You’re being followed.’
‘We?’
‘Hi, Peter,’ Nina added.
‘Are you in my boot?’ the SIS officer asked. ‘And also: why?’
‘Long story,’ said Eddie. ‘But we need your help, and we couldn’t talk about it on the phone. The people following you are from MI6.’
‘What? Why on earth would my own agency be following me?’ The lights changed; he set off again.
Eddie almost had to shout to be heard over the engine and road noise. ‘Remember John Brice?’
‘Of course I do. He quit two years ago. Why?’
‘He didn’t quit, he went into deep cover. He was up to some nasty shit in DR Congo for MI6. We caught him at it — and now he wants us dead to cover it up.’
‘I’m the head of SIS’s Africa desk. If we had an operation in the Congo, I’d know about it.’
‘This was the kind of operation that would need total deniability,’ said Nina. ‘From what Brice told us, only the people at the very top were in the loop.’
‘Brice told you? That sounds uncharacteristically sloppy.’
‘He didn’t think we’d stay alive long enough to tell anyone else,’ Eddie explained. ‘Unlucky for him, we did — and we got it on video.’
Alderley raised his eyebrows. ‘I’d… very much like to see that video.’
‘So would we,’ said Nina. ‘The problem is, it’s on a laptop — and Brice put a bullet through it. So we don’t know if we can recover it.’
‘We need to get somewhere we can talk properly,’ Eddie said. ‘By which I mean, not through the back of your fucking car boot. Do you keep this thing in a garage? We need to get out without anyone seeing us.’
‘I do,’ Alderley told him, only to realise what he meant. ‘Hold on. You’re telling me that John Brice is still secretly working for MI6 and has assigned watchers to follow me in the hope I’ll lead them to you… and you want to come to my house?’
‘Bang on. I can see why they promoted you now.’
‘Cheeky sod,’ he replied. ‘This is a very bad idea, you know. I’m thinking specifically for me, but it won’t go well for you either if they realise where you are.’
‘We’re not asking to rent your spare bedroom,’ said Nina. ‘We just need you to help us recover the video from the laptop.’
Alderley snorted. ‘Or I could just drop you off at the nearest Apple Store.’
‘There’s more to it than just the video, though,’ she went on. ‘We were in DR Congo on an archaeological expedition, and we found something in a lost city — something incredibly dangerous. And Brice has it.’
That caught his attention, sarcasm replaced by cautious concern born of his previous dealings with the couple. ‘What kind of thing?’
‘It’d be much better if we could tell you face to face. Also, it’s kinda cramped in here… and it’s really starting to smell of gas.’
‘It’s leaking again? I thought I’d fixed that…’ Alderley sighed. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘You can get into the house from the garage, so you won’t be seen. I’ll talk to you once we get there. Having two people climb out of my boot will be quite a surprise to my wife, mind.’ Foreboding entered his voice. ‘I’ll have to warn you, though. If it turns out that Brice really is carrying out an authorised SIS operation, then not only can I not help you, but I’ll be obligated to report my contact with you.’
Eddie’s own tone became distinctly menacing. ‘You’ll turn us in?’
‘Not on the spot — I trust you that much. But you would need to leave pretty sharpish, because I’d have to make the call within… five minutes, let’s say. First things first, though. I’ll hear you out, and see if we can get anything off this laptop.’
‘That’s great,’ said Nina, relieved. ‘Thank you, Peter.’
‘I’d say “no problem”, but I don’t know what I’m letting myself in for, do I?’ Alderley laughed. ‘By the way, Chase?’
‘Yeah?’ asked Eddie.
‘If my car really did start talking to me, and it had your voice… I’d have to get rid of it.’
The Yorkshireman’s rude retort was drowned out by the rumbling exhaust note.
‘Subject has reached his house,’ said one of Alderley’s watchers. ‘He’s backing his car into the garage… closing the door.’
Brice frowned. There had been no sign of Chase and Wilde on Alderley’s journey home. That they hadn’t tried to contact him suggested the couple had been somewhere else entirely — so why summon him at all?
‘House team,’ he said, ‘there was definitely no activity at the subject’s home, correct? Nobody came or went?’
‘No, sir,’ came the reply from a unit parked down the street. ‘His wife’s home, but she hasn’t left, and nobody else came to the house.’
‘No phone calls to the house or the wife?’ he asked Staite, who shook her head. ‘All right, then. Mobile units, return to base. House team, stay on site. They might try to reach him during the night. Do you have visibility on the surrounding houses in case they try to come through their gardens?’
‘We can see both neighbouring properties,’ the watcher told him. ‘Access from the rear is blocked by a railway cutting with a high vertical wall.’
‘Climbable?’
‘Unlikely.’
Another frown. Chase and Wilde’s actions made no apparent sense — and an unpredictable opponent was dangerous. ‘Double-check that there’s no access from the railway,’ he ordered as his phone rang. ‘Yes?’
‘Brice.’
He knew the voice, and immediately became deferential. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Anything to report?’
‘Nothing yet, sir.’
‘Hmm.’ For such a small sound, it was laden with meaning: disapproval, and disappointment. Brice felt a flash of humiliation. ‘Tell your team to continue, then. The meeting you requested will be in one hour, my office.’
He checked his watch. ‘I’ll be ready, sir.’
‘Some good news would be a helpful ice-breaker, Brice.’ The older man ended the call.
Brice lowered his phone, trying to conceal his tension from his subordinates. He had envisioned a world-changing use for the Shamir almost immediately after seeing it in action, developing the plan on his flight from the Congo. When he had proposed it to the man with whom he had just spoken, there had been considerable scepticism — understandable, without a demonstration of the strange stone’s destructive powers. But Brice had convinced him enough to take the plan higher… and now it would get a hearing.