The Royal Institute of British Architects had occupied 66 Portland Place since 1934. The building was a masterclass in Art Deco restraint. Its near-smooth stone-clad walls were adorned only by a few tall, slim bas-relief sculptures. Through the bronze double doors, a grand marble foyer stood in front of an equally impressive glass and polished chrome staircase, which led up to a large, double-height ballroom.
In a few hours’ time a reception for the heads of state who had come to London would be held at Buckingham Palace. But the ambassadors, foreign and finance ministers who would actually be working during the OECD conference were being treated to the splendour of the RIBA headquarters for the afternoon. And so were their top spies.
Four Met officers stood outside the entrance, but when Knox and Bennett slipped down the narrow mews that led to the rear of Portland Place they didn’t run into any more. There was just a set of steps leading down to a basement door with a lock that put up little resistance to Knox’s shoulder.
They made their way through the bowels of the building, eventually finding a flight of stairs that took them up to a corridor just off the foyer. Knox glanced round the corner and out through the glass panels of the front door, checking that the policemen standing in front of the building weren’t paying attention to what was going on inside it.
The reception was in full swing. The rumble of conversation and clinking of glasses coming from the first floor echoed around Knox and Bennett as they exchanged a long, silent look. Knox knew he was about to commit professional suicide in front of the leaders of the global intelligence community. He only hoped he’d do it in such a spectacular fashion that he’d bring Manning down with him. And they both knew that once they were on the grand staircase there’d be no turning back.
Eventually Bennett broke the silence, whispering, ‘After you.’
On the first-floor landing they paused again. A string quartet played in the wraparound gallery above them, and waiters scurried around filling up trays with drinks and ferrying them through the tall doors that led through the glass wall of the ballroom. On the other side of the glass divide was a sea of old men in identical dark suits. Knox couldn’t see Manning or Finney in the crowd and for a moment he wondered if they hadn’t turned up after all. Then a waiter carrying a full tray forced the crowd to part round him and for a brief moment Knox saw Manning’s tall frame, and Finney’s shorter, broader one next to him, in the middle of the room. They were both wearing the same dark suits as everyone else – Manning’s hung off him and Finney looked like he’d been stuffed into his. By chance, Manning glanced past the waiter as the crowd flowed around him and made eye contact with Knox. Confusion flashed across his face as he disappeared again behind a wave of suits.
‘They’re here,’ Knox said to Bennett, and started towards the nearest door.
The sight of Manning where Holland should’ve been fanned the flames of anger that were already burning inside Knox. He kept his eyes fixed on the spot where Manning and Finney had been standing, which meant he didn’t see another waiter walking towards the other side of the door. The waiter was only carrying a couple of empty glasses on his tray, but the sound of them crashing onto the ballroom’s parquet floor as the swinging door knocked the tray out of his hands was enough to draw the attention of most of the people in the room. Knox didn’t apologise for causing the crash. He’d wanted an audience for what was about to happen, and now he had one.
The sea parted once more as Knox and Bennett waded into the crowd, revealing Manning and Finney still standing where they had been a few moments before. Manning still looked baffled.
‘Richard,’ he said, ‘what are you doing here?’
‘Surprised to see me?’ Knox replied.
‘I’m surprised to see you looking like that.’ The bruise across Knox’s cheek looked even worse in the bright light of the ballroom. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Murder, kidnapping, treason,’ Knox said, loud enough for everyone around them to hear.
The crowd fell silent, every pair of eyes in the room suddenly focused on Knox and Manning.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Manning said. ‘But let’s discuss whatever you think is happening somewhere more private.’ He gave the room a reassuring smile.
‘I’m happy right where I am,’ Knox replied.
Manning snapped his head back to Knox, his smile gone. ‘That wasn’t a request.’
‘I don’t take orders from you,’ Knox shot back.
Manning leaned in closer to Knox, lowering his voice. ‘What’s happened to you, man?’
‘Your men happened to me.’
‘My men? You’re not making any sense.’
‘Or maybe they were yours,’ Knox said to Finney.
‘Excuse me?’ Finney replied, looking as confused as Manning had been when he’d first spotted Knox.
‘You heard me,’ Knox replied.
‘That’s enough,’ Manning said to Knox. ‘I won’t have you embarrassing the Service like this.’ Then he turned to Finney and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll deal with this and be back shortly.’
‘No way,’ Finney replied. ‘I want to know what I’ve done. I’m coming with you.’
Manning glanced at the room and all the faces that were still turned towards them.
‘Fine,’ he said. Then he started to march towards the door.
Knox didn’t want to lose his audience, but Manning wasn’t giving him a choice. At least he now had a room full of witnesses who had seen him confront Manning. The crowd kept watching as Manning stepped around the waiter, who was still clearing up the broken glasses, and left the ballroom. Then they watched Knox and Bennett follow him, with Finney taking up the rear of the little procession. And they kept watching as the group crossed the landing and disappeared through a pair of large wooden doors on the other side of the staircase.
CHAPTER 53
The four of them found themselves in an exhibition hall. If any of them had been paying attention they’d have noticed that they were surrounded by architectural models of new buildings planned for London. They’d walked into the future. There were scale reproductions of skyscrapers, bridges, and public spaces and, in the centre of the room, a rendering of the Barbican, the enormous brutalist complex planned for the hole in the city Knox had stumbled through the night before when he was being chased across the city by a ghost.
‘Now, what the hell is going on, Richard?’ Manning demanded once the doors had closed and he could hear the murmur of conversations starting up again behind them.
‘Stop playing the fool. You know exactly what’s going on,’ Knox replied.
‘I assure you I have no idea.’
Knox’s anger intensified with every denial Manning made.
‘Don’t be so modest, Gordon. You’ve built an impressive web. But you should have left me out of it.’
‘This is nonsense,’ Manning said. ‘I offered you a chance to come back in. Gave you what should have been an easy job to do, then you disappear for two days and turn up looking like this.’
Manning moved further into the room, putting the replica of the Barbican between himself and Knox. He towered over the model, like a giant about to destroy a helpless village. He made a show of checking his watch. ‘You’ve got five minutes to explain yourself.’
Manning hadn’t mentioned Bianchi or Moretti or the details of the mission he’d given Knox. It was a basic precaution given Finney and Bennett’s presence. Knox, however, no longer had any qualms about breaking operational security. In fact, now he was finally in front of Manning with no Peterson to come to his rescue, he was ready to throw every accusation he had at him in excruciating detail.