If it had happened as planned, Bouchi would have been the one to go forward. But Bouchi was in a morgue.
Famy drank his tea, his hands scalded through the fragile side of the plastic cup. His eyes were never far from the Irishman, but intermittently they strayed to take in the rest of the concourse, watching for any other man who might linger overlong. He took many minutes to be satisfied, then began to make his way forward.
He moved deftly, picking his way through the running commuters, avoiding confrontation. McCoy saw him some fifteen feet away, and stiffened. This time it was the Irishman whose breathing came a little faster. His contact was just a few seconds away — a slightly-built figure, with dark chocolate skin, short, well-groomed hair and brightly dressed. A stranger, something separate. McCoy watched him roll his hips and sway past the mass, saw the head turn once for reassurance and look behind, and then he was close, and pausing, and then speaking.
'The mushrooms are — ' Famy broke off. 'I think you are here to meet me?' There was a questioning in his voice.
The word they had told him to say, how stupid and idiotic it sounded, spoken by a grown man in the chaos of a railway station.
McCoy just said, 'Come on. No need to hang about.
Let's move.' Then, as an afterthought, 'You speak English, understand English?'
Famy nodded. Like all these British, they never believed anyone knew anything but themselves. McCoy was on the move, the Arab half a step behind him. The Irishman pushed a path for himself toward the steps that led down to the bus station in the street below. Almost out into the open again, he shortened his stride and said over his shoulder, 'Where are the others?' it is just me,' said Famy.
There was a tint of suspicion in the way McCoy tilted his head towards the other man. 'That's not what they told me,' he rapped out staccato. 'They said there'd be three of you. They told me I'd meet three men.' it is just me,' repeated Famy.
'What's happened to change it?' McCoy hissed the question, hurrying again now, confused.
'Read your papers of today. Read of the events in northern France. When you have done that it is simple.'
McCoy shook his head, his lack of comprehension overwhelming. They were standing at the bus stop, the street ill-lit from the lights above. Famy went on, 'There was a shooting, at a road block. Yesterday in the early. hours.
My friends did not survive, only myself.'
McCoy turned round fast, his body close to Famy.
Shorter than the Arab, he looked up into his face. 'Dead?' the one word, very quietly.
'They did not survive,' said Famy. is it called off, then, it it over? Finished, the plan?'
McCoy was speaking fast, but trying to keep his voice suppressed. it is not over. There is no possibility of abandoning the plan. We have been launched. It is not infrequent there should be setbacks. But it is not a thing to talk of here.
Later, we can talk.'
McCoy shrugged. He wanted to say more, but it was difficult against the unfamiliar logic spelled out in the curiously pitched voice of the other man. McCoy noticed he ran his words together — and very precise, very clear.
Like some text book, not natural.
They waited in silence for the approach of the big double-decker bus. What sort of game is this? thought the Irishman. The team shot to pieces, and this little bugger carrying on as if nothing had happened. Daft, bloody mad.
He saw the face of the other man — masked, unemotional
— staring down the road. Out of their bloody minds, this bugger and the ones who set it all up. What can one man, what can two achieve compared with four? Four was the minimum number, all agreed and locked-up, that had been. Should have been more, but for the problems of shifting a bigger group. And now it's halved, and this idiot says it goes on. God Almighty, put some sense into these thick buggers' heads. He mouthed the oaths, silently rolling his tongue round them, savouring and enjoying the words that somehow diluted the anger he felt. When the bus came he motioned with his head that they should take it, and went up the stairs to the top deck. A couple sat half-way, and the two men took the front seats, Famy pushing his grip underneath his knees.
'We can talk up here,' said McCoy.
'There is no problem, my friend,' said Famy, his voice gentle and lilting as he pronounced the words. There was no rush as he spoke, only a calmness. 'We two are sufficient. There is a plan? I was told there was a plan that could be executed. That is correct?' McCoy nodded, numbness setting in along with the knowledge that he was no longer in control, that the tall stranger had taken command, if there is a plan, we can execute it,' said Famy.
He broke off as the bus conductor arrived at their seats.
McCoy paid, and pocketed the thin white paper strips he received in return. Famy went on. 'He is only one man, the one we seek. He will be guarded, but not thoroughly. If we are determined there is no difficulty that can arise.'
There was no more conversation as the bus jolted its way from stop to stop, leaving the heart of London far behind and climbing the hill beyond King's Cross to Islington's Angel. The upper deck filled, taking on the teenagers disgorged from the cinemas. Occasionally McCoy looked sideways at the Arab, and realized that the man who sat beside him showed no interest in the journey, that his eyes never shifted from their relaxed unseeing gaze straight ahead. The bright fronts of restaurants, advertisement hoardings, pin-table arcades, cinema hallways — all passed him by. A group of drunk, noisy West Indians, loud and aggressive, gained no reaction. He's like a train, thought McCoy, on course, all signals green, and couldn't give a damn about anything else. The Irishman tried to put himself into the same situation. New city, contact man he's never met before, close to his target, half the back-up dead behind him, and the bugger doesn't even turn his head. Not a drop of sweat on his head, no perspiration round his balls making his trousers too tight so he has to wriggle for comfort. Just relaxed, as if he's on a coach outing.
The time he had shot the paratrooper was very clear to McCoy. He could recall his nausea as the soldier, in his airborne smock and red beret, had come into sight. He waited so long for him, but when the soldier came he'd hardly been able to focus his eyes down the smooth, crisp barrel of the Armalite. Sweat ran in rivulets under his vest, fashioning freezing paths of movement across his skin.
Then the soldier had called to the sergeant patrolling in front of him, a remark that McCoy had tried to overhear, and in the effort recognized his concentration slipping away. He'd fired then, watched the soldier heave and clutch at himself, seen the disbelief that comes before the pain and death. He sprinted then, fast with the adrenalin pumping through his veins, and for hours afterwards, even in the womb-like safety of the barn where he lay up after missions before returning to the farm, he had panted with the excitement, close to exhilaration, the moment when he had fired. A near-orgasmic movement of release as the butt of the rifle thudded into his shoulder, his finger coiled on the trigger; he could relive it hour after hour.
But this bugger sitting next to him was something different. It's animal when you don't care, thought McCoy, unnatural when you don't feel the tension. Sub-human.