Dead Lions (37 page)

“Not what I’m asking. Why, specifically, did you come looking for me?”

Yates said, “Tommy Moult …”

“What about him?”

“I saw him up the village. He asked if you’d got back all right. Made me worried you’d been, you know. Hurt.”

Blown up, he meant.

“Shit,” River said. “It was his idea, wasn’t it? Leading me onto the range? And leaving me there?”

“Jonny—”

“Wasn’t it?”

“He might have suggested it.”

The jeep had no doors. It wouldn’t have been a second’s work to tip the bastard out.

“Tommy Moult, man,” Yates said. “He knows everything happens in Upshott. You think he just sells apples from his bike, but he knows everyone. Everything.”

River had worked that out already. He said, “He made sure I was there. And saw what I saw. Made sure I’d be freed in time to do something about it.”

“What you on about?”

“Where was he? This morning?”

“Church end.” Yates rubbed his cheek. “You really a secret agent?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why Kelly—”

“No,” said River. “She did that because she wanted to. Deal with it.”

The jeep cornered, braked sharply, and they were at the flying club, with its toytown airstrip, and empty hangar.

River hit the ground running.

Roger Barrowby
had gone white, which gladdened Diana Taverner’s heart. Her morning was new-made. Ingrid Tearney was out of the country; as Chair of Limitations, Barrowby could claim First Desk, but it looked like the only snap decision he’d be making was which direction to throw up in. The arch comments were history. He should have stayed in bed.

She said, “Roger, you’ve got four seconds.”

“The Home Secretary—”

“Has final say, but she’ll base that on our best info. Which you now have. Three seconds.”

“An agent in the field? That’s all it comes down to?”

“Yes, Roger. Like in wartime.”

“Jesus, Diana, if we make the wrong call—”

“Two seconds.”

“—what’s left of our careers will be spent sorting the post.”

“That’s what keeps life interesting on the hub, Roger. One second.”

He threw his hands up. Taverner had never seen this cliché
happen before. “I don’t know, Diana—you’ve got half a message on a mobile from a slow horse out in the sticks. He didn’t even cite his protocols.”

“Roger—you do know what Code September means?”

“I know it’s not an official designation,” he said peevishly.

“I’ve run out of numbers. Whether this is real or not, keep it from the Home Sec any longer, and you’re in serious dereliction of duty.”

You’re
—she enjoyed that syllable.

“Diana …”

“Roger.”

“What do I do?”

“Only one thing you can do,” she said, and told him what that was.

They’d been
talking for ten minutes, but nothing meaningful had been said. Arkady Pashkin was sticking to Big Picture topics: what was going on with the Euro, which way Germany would lean next time one of the partners needed bailing out, how much money Russia’s World Cup bid cost. Spider Webb had the air of a dinner party host waiting for a guest to shut up about their children.

Marcus seemed more serene but was watchful, his attention divided evenly between Kyril and Piotr. Louisa remembered Min—she barely ever stopped remembering Min—and how he’d distrusted this pair on sight. Partly because that was his job, but partly because he was Min, and yearning for action. Her mouth filled, and she swallowed. Pashkin dragged the topic onto fuel prices, the ostensible reason for the meeting, but Webb still didn’t look happy. It wasn’t going the way he’d intended, Louisa thought. All he’s managed is
I see
and
Oh yes
. He planned this as a recruitment exercise, but he’s got no idea what he’s doing. And Arkady Pashkin had his own agenda, which seemed to consist of wasting time until …

Until a high-pitched looping wail came from everywhere at once; above, below, from outside the doors. It didn’t pierce so much as throb, and its message was immediate and unmistakable. Leave now.

Marcus turned to the huge windows as if to spot approaching danger. Webb got to his feet so suddenly his chair hit the floor. He said, “What’s that?” which Louisa decided was the stupidest question ever. Which didn’t stop her echoing it: “What’s happening?”

Pashkin, still seated, said, “It sounds like the emergency we discussed yesterday.”

“You knew about this.”

Reaching into his briefcase, Pashkin produced a gun he handed to Piotr. “Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid I did.”

The hangar
looked bigger in the Skyhawk’s absence. The doors hung wide, and sunlight fleshed out its corners, drawing attention to everything that wasn’t there. Those bags of fertiliser headed this list. There was a faint spillage where they’d been, as if one of the bags had a rip in it, but that was all.

Behind him, Yates said, “She went up earlier. I saw her go.”

“I know.”

“There’s something wrong, isn’t there? With the plane?”

Except it wasn’t only in that one place—sinking to his knees, River scanned the floor from as low an angle as his battered frame would allow.

Another jeep pulled up outside, and he could hear the clenched barking of an officer. New arseholes were being torn.

Across the concrete, a faint trail of crumbly brown dust snaked away to the side door.

He had the feeling he was on the end of a long piece of string. And the bastard at the other end kept tugging.

Yates said, “If Kelly’s in danger …”

He didn’t finish. But judging by his blood-streaked face, it would involve punching something until it turned to jelly.

“What’s going on?”

And here was the officer, in an officer’s uniform, a detail he seemed to think outweighed his being on civilian turf.

River said to Yates, “You tell him,” and headed for the side door.

“You! Stop right there!”

But River was already outside, on the east wall of the hangar, with a view of the mesh fence bordering the MoD range; of the range itself, which was a bland expanse of overlapping greens; of a brim-full wheelie-bin chained to one of the fenceposts; and of a stack of bags of fertiliser, the topmost of which was split down one side. A gentle trickle had spilled onto the ground. River kicked the stack, but it remained solid and real.

And then he had company.

“You attacked my men,” he was told. “And they say you claim you’re with the secret service. Exactly what’s going on?”

“I need a phone,” River said.

U
p in the skies
and miles to the east, over London’s outer settlements—massed clusters of red and grey rooftops, connected by winding stripes of tree-bordered tarmac and interspersed with golf courses—Kelly Tropper could feel excitement building. This was no ordinary flight. It would have a different ending.

As if to underline this, the radio was babbling. They should identify themselves immediately. If they were experiencing difficulties, they should state them now; failing which they should return to their filed route now, or face severe consequences.

“What do you think that means? Severe consequences?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Damien Butterfield said, “I thought we’d be closer before they noticed us.”

“It’s okay. Tommy said this would happen.”

“But he’s not here, is he?”

This wasn’t worth replying to.

Like the other flying club members, she and Damien had grown up together; the children of incomers, whose parents had moved from bigger, brasher places to pretty, vacant Upshott. An unfathomable decision, the children had agreed, and yet they too had all remained rooted there. For Kelly, it was the only way she could have access to the aeroplane, owned
by Ray Hadley, but for which she and the others paid maintenance and rental fees. Sometimes she had wondered if there weren’t more to it than that; if it weren’t cowardice that had anchored her in her childhood village; a fear of failing in the big world. Though Tommy had told her—

It was funny about Tommy; everyone thought he just sold apples from his bike, but he knew everyone in Upshott, and everything that happened there, as if he received reports from everyone—as if he were the centre of a web. You could always talk to Tommy, and he always knew what was going on in your life. This was true for her; true for her friends; true for her parents too. Her father never failed to chat with Tommy on the mornings he was outside the shop, or doing his rounds of the village, picking up the odd jobs that sustained him, though he disappeared mid-week, and nobody had ever found out where. Perhaps he had another village somewhere, where he lived a similar existence with a different cast, but Kelly had never discussed the idea with anyone, because you never did discuss Tommy Moult—he was everybody’s secret. So yes, it was funny about Tommy, but a kind of funny she’d long ceased to question; he was simply part of life in Upshott, and that was that.

What Tommy had told her was, there were ways of proving your bravery to yourself, and making your mark on the big world. Many ways.

It was hard, now, to remember whose idea this had been; her own, or Tommy Moult’s.

Beside her, Damien Butterfield said, “Are we nearly there yet?” and laughed at his own joke.

The radio squawked again, and Kelly Tropper laughed too, and turned it off.

Somewhere to the north west two more planes took to the air: sleek, dark, dangerous and on the hunt.

The taxi
driver had kept up a relentless stream of invective about bloody marchers, who were achieving nothing except mucking hard-working cabbies about, and if anyone
really
wanted to know what to do about the banks—“Here’s fine,” said Ho.

He threw a note at the driver, and jumped out into the path of Shirley Dander.

“Sh-sh-i-i-i-it,” she managed, in a kind of elongated hiccup. Ho was pleased to observe she looked like crap.

They were right by the forecourt of the Needle, through whose huge glass walls Ho could see a living breathing forest—but before he could comment on this, a barrage of sirens erupted, as if every car alarm in the City had been triggered at once.

“What?”

For a moment, Ho thought the rally had arrived—he could hear it not far off, a rumbling mobile chant like a rootless football match. But the types pouring into view from doorways all around were wearing suits and smart outfits: more marched against than marching. Through the Needle’s revolving doors they came too, appearing unsure as to their next move; pausing, most of them, to look back at the building they’d emerged from, and then staring round as it became clear that whatever was happening was happening everywhere.

Shirley was upright again. “ ’Kay. In we go.”

Ho said, “But everyone’s coming out.”

“Jesus wept—you’re aware you’re MI5, right?”

“I’m mostly research,” he explained, but she was already shoving her way through the emerging crowds.

The gun
looked natural in Piotr’s fist, no more surprising than a coffee cup or beer bottle. He pointed it at Marcus. “Hands on the table.”

Marcus laid his hands on the tabletop, palms down.

“All of you.”

Louisa complied.

After a moment, Webb did the same. “Shit,” he said. Then, “Shit,” he said again.

Pashkin snapped his briefcase shut. The alarm was still looping, so he raised his voice. “You’ll be locked in. Those doors, they’re pretty good. You’ll be best off waiting for help.”

Webb said, “I thought we were—”

“Shut up.”

“—doing something here—”

Kyril said, “You were. You were helping us out.”

“Thought you couldn’t speak English,” Louisa said.

Marcus said, “They’re not just going to lock us in.”

“I know.”

Kyril said something that made Piotr laugh.

The alarm wailed on, swelling then diminishing. Other floors would be being evacuated; the lifts would have frozen, and the doors into the stairwells automatically unlocked, allowing access either way. Crowds would assemble at designated points outside, and names be checked off against lists held by security, or matched against the keycards currently in use. But no one on the seventy-seventh floor would appear on either of those lists. Their presence was off grid.

Webb said, “Look, I don’t know what the alarm’s for, but I promise—”

Piotr shot him.

Seventy-seven storeys
below, people trooped onto the streets; some wearing that fed-up look that comes with unwelcome interruption; others happily lighting unscheduled cigarettes; and all—once they realised that not only their own but every building in sight was evacuating—changing mood: standing still, looking skyward. All were used to drills and false alarms, but these
happened one at a time. Now, everything was happening at once, and the grim possibilities took root and flowered. The City broke into a run. Its directions were various, but its intentions clear: to be somewhere else, immediately. And still people kept appearing, because the buildings were ten, fifteen, twenty storeys high, and each floor was packed with workers. Whether at desks, in meeting rooms, huddled round watercoolers or chatting in corridors, all were hearing the same thing: their building’s alarm, instructing them to leave. Those who paused to look from their windows saw scattering crowds below. This was not conducive to orderly evacuation. Jostling gave way to shoving. Ripples of panic became waves, and the voices of reason drowned in the swell.