Deception (24 page)

‘Stay on them. I'll join you.'

Harry pocketed the gun and walked back downstairs, gut churning with fear at what might have happened to Jean. Had the watchers called in help and had her lifted? Had she panicked and fled? No and no. If they had taken her, they wouldn't need to hang around. And Jean didn't do panic. She must still be around here somewhere. So, there must be another explanation. She had to have slipped out for some reason.

That still left the watchers to deal with.

Harry left the block of flats by the rear entrance and made his way round to the street where the two men were stationed. Instead of heading straight towards them, he took a narrow street at right angles to the one where they were parked, passing Rik on the way. Rik was wearing his sling and clutching a clipboard, playing street canvasser and stopping the occasional pedestrian, able to act out in full view of the watchers while keeping an eye on them.

Harry reached an intersection and turned left then left again, eventually completing the circumference of the block until he came back to the main street. On the way, he picked up a black garbage bag bulging with old telephone directories, a throw-out from a renovation job in a nearby house.

Nobody expects a tail to carry a garbage bag.

He was now in front of the Kombi, which was parked thirty yards away. A crushed Coke can lay in the gutter by the driver's door. The two men inside watched him appear, then saw the rubbish bag in his hand and lost interest.

Sloppy tradecraft, thought Harry. They had parked facing against the traffic, which was a big no-no and made them stand out. It meant they weren't professionals, but that was a good thing. Professionals would already have detected something not quite kosher about him and would be driving away fast. Or shooting.

Rik had broken off talking to a young woman further along the street and was walking towards him, the clipboard in evidence and his other hand parked inside his sling. He was limping noticeably, too.

Harry smiled in spite of the circumstances. It was a neat touch, if a bit dramatic. Who would expect any kind of threat from a man with a gimpy leg
and
his arm in a sling?

He approached the Kombi, timing his pace to coincide with Rik's arrival at the rear of the van. Five paces short of the vehicle, he moved to the kerb and dropped the garbage bag alongside a bin, shaking his head in a disgruntled resident look, then moved off to continue on by. As he did so, he checked the pavement both ways. No pedestrians close by, nobody watching. No collateral risk if anything should kick off. Otherwise, a few passing cars, a FedEx delivery truck just pulling in along the street, but most of the drivers too intent on their progress to take any notice.

As he drew level with the Kombi's front wing, Harry turned and stepped in fast against the driver's door, preventing it from opening. In the same instant, Rik moved out into the street and walked up to the passenger door, tapping on the window.

The men inside scrambled to sit up, the passenger upsetting a plastic bottle of mocha milk drink over his lap with a shout of protest while the driver turned to stare at Harry with a look of alarm. He began to reach for the ignition.

Then he saw the gun in Harry's hand, resting against the glass. Harry made a circular motion with his hand, and the driver hesitated, then lowered the window. A loud tap from Rik and the passenger saw the gun's twin not two inches from his shoulder, hidden inside Rik's sling. He also lowered his window, but with reluctance.

Both men were in their twenties, dressed casually in jeans and jackets, and would have passed unnoticed in the street. Neither had shaved for a couple of days, and had short, scrubby hair. The driver was suffering an outbreak of acne. The passenger stared across at Harry, deliberately ignoring the gun right next to him. Harry identified him as the leader of the two, all attitude and bravado.

‘Police,' he said, and reached in and removed the keys from the ignition. He nodded at Rik to check the back. Rik disappeared for a moment, and there was the sound of a door opening, then closing. He reappeared at the passenger window and shook his head. No sign of Jean.

‘Can I see your driver's licence?'

The driver looked surprised and shook his head. ‘We are waiting for job,' he said, his accent thick. ‘Sorry, officer. We are painters. What is this? Are we doing wrong?' His look of wide-eyed innocence would have been convincing had the passenger not fisted him in the leg with a muttered warning.

Harry didn't understand what he'd said, but murmured, ‘Ah, Bosnians, I see. Now we're getting somewhere.' He decided to rattle them, to keep them off-balance. ‘Did Zubac and Ganic send you? Get you to keep an eye on a flat across the street?'

The driver's mouth dropped open in recognition, but the passenger said something else and he snapped it shut again.

Rik said, ‘You've got a lot to say for yourself, sunshine.' He pushed his gun forward until the barrel was resting against the passenger's shoulder, which got his full attention. At such close range, there would be no dodging a bullet. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Painters,' the passenger answered dully. ‘Like he said. You not police, so what you want?' He stared at Harry with knowing contempt, but there was no hiding the doubt in his eyes. British police he understood; they had rules and regulations in situations such as this. But anyone else carrying guns in London was an unknown quantity, and therefore to be treated with caution.

Harry pushed the tip of his gun barrel up against the driver's nose, forcing his head back so that his companion could see what would happen if he pulled the trigger. He didn't care right now whether anyone saw them, he was growing angrier at the threat to Jean. ‘Wallets. Now!' It was sharp and brutal, and the driver grunted with pain, his eyes streaming, but it achieved the desired effect. Both men handed over their wallets, which were of cheap leather and slim.

There wasn't much to help. The driver's name was Antun Goranuvic and his colleague was Davud. Brothers or cousins. There was no way of telling if they were their genuine names, and Harry doubted it mattered anyway. The wallets held a few notes in sterling and euros, some credit cards and one or two photos, but nothing to say who they worked for or where they came from.

He looked at Rik and nodded at his gun. ‘How many shells have you got in that since the last job?'

Rik didn't miss a beat. He gave a lazy smile and said, ‘Enough. Why?'

‘Shoot them both. Now.' Harry turned and walked away.

FORTY-FOUR

‘
W
ait!
' He had taken just three steps before the driver, who he figured was the weaker of the two, decoded the instruction and his nerve broke.

Harry turned back and stood by the window. Now it was the passenger who looked the most worried. His attitude was gone and his knuckles were clenched tight on his knees, the cloth wet with the spilled drink.

‘We have not seen her,' he muttered. ‘The lady. I show you.' He reached up and gingerly took a slip of paper from behind the sun-visor. It held Jean's name and address written in ink and a photo clipped to one corner.

‘Who gave you this?'

There was a momentary hesitation before the driver said, ‘What you say before  . . . Zubac and Ganic. They came to us and said we should do this.' He wasn't looking at Harry, instead staring rigidly to his front as if holding on to the last bit of courage he could muster and not doing too well.

‘And what were you to do, exactly?'

‘Watch and report. That is all.'

‘Report where?'

But the man shook his head. ‘You will not shoot us. But the one who hires us  . . . for this he will kill us both.' Harry saw his lip beginning to tremble and a sheen of sweat lining his forehead. He exchanged a look with Rik, who raised his eyebrows. Whoever had hired these two had got them terrified. He wondered how. They should be able to cobble together some kind of story about being caught napping, surely. It happened to everyone—

Then his instincts kicked in. He'd missed an obvious trick. Why were these two sitting out here in a red van? Red vans weren't exactly uncommon, but nobody mounted a surveillance so openly  . . . unless they were meant to be seen. And these two being so petrified could only mean one thing:
they knew they also were being watched.
He leaned against the van and glanced surreptitiously along the street, following the driver's line of sight. The only way these two would have been so easily scared was if they knew the watchers were close by. The street was getting busier, with several cars moving in each direction, gradually building towards peak traffic. Other vehicles were lining the kerb, including the FedEx truck a hundred yards away. The driver was sorting packages at the side door, then carrying them to a nearby shop.

There was too much going on; it was impossible to tell where the watcher might be.

‘Wait here.' Harry stepped back from the van and rang Ballatyne. ‘I need a favour.' He told the MI6 man where he was and why, and gave him the number of the van and the names of the two men. ‘Whoever employs these two has them scared. They won't talk to me and I think someone else is in the area keeping an eye on them.'

‘Is Jean all right?' He heard Ballatyne snap his fingers at someone in the background, already issuing instructions to get some men on the move.

‘I don't know yet—' He broke off, glancing automatically towards the block of flats. Jean was standing by the side of the building, out of sight of the street. She waved and gave a signal that she was OK, and Harry heaved a sigh of relief. He said, ‘Forget that  . . . I see her. She's fine.'

‘Glad to hear it. There's an undercover unit not far from you. They'll pick them up and tail them. Leave it with us from here on.'

Harry thanked him and tossed the driver his keys through the window. It was time for some play-acting to fool the watchers. ‘One thing you should know,' he said coldly. ‘If I see you again, I'll kill you.' He jerked his thumb in dismissal.

‘That went well,' said Rik, as the Kombi disappeared along the street. He looked at Harry. ‘I don't know what that order to shoot did to those two, but it frightened the crap out of me.' He frowned. ‘What's going on?'

‘My guess is,' said Harry, ‘they were meant to be seen and someone else wasn't. They were decoys. Follow me and don't look round.'

They crossed the street to the cover of the block of flats, and Harry folded Jean in his arms. ‘You all right?'

‘Yes.' Her voice sounded firm, but he could feel a faint tremor running through her. ‘Well, I am now.'

‘Where were you?' he asked, biting down on an instinctive desire to reproach her. ‘Your door was open.'

She pulled back from him. ‘I did what your colleague said.'

‘Colleague?'

‘Yes. A woman. She sounded young. She said I was in danger and should go immediately to a neighbour and stay there until you arrived, and to leave the door unlocked to prevent damage if they forced their way in.'

Harry stared at her. What the hell was going on? Was this Ballatyne working behind the scenes, putting someone on to Jean as a precaution? He remembered the young woman who'd been watching them in Victoria Embankment Gardens. Maybe that was who the caller had been. If so, why hadn't he said anything just now?

‘She said we were colleagues?'

‘Well, not exactly.' Jean looked confused. ‘But she said it was for my sake and yours, and you were on your way.' She looked at him, eyes wide. ‘What's going on? You don't know who she is, do you?'

‘I can guess.'

‘Never mind. Did you see the other men?'

‘What others?'

‘Two older men. They're in a grey car down by the shops. They arrived just after the woman called, and I was looking through the window for you. They crossed the road towards the building, so I slipped out the back and left the door open as she'd said.'

Harry let out a long breath. This was all moving too fast. Behind him, Rik was standing by the corner of the building, studying the street. ‘Harry.'

Harry moved alongside him. The FedEx truck was gone. It had been concealing a grey Renault parked further along the street. Two men were sitting inside. Both looked big, one with short hair, the other bald.

Zubac and Ganic. It had to be.

Instinct made Harry glance up the street behind him. A police car was approaching. He recognized one of the Armed Response Unit Volvo V70 vehicles. Remembering the Bosnians' disregard for the police, and their likely response when they saw the car, he stepped out from behind the building and started walking along the street, his semi-automatic cradled inside his jacket. Rik followed and crossed the street to the far side.

They were thirty yards along, walking in parallel, when the men in the Renault sat up and the engine burst into life. It was unclear whether they were reacting to Harry and Rik or the police car. Seconds later, the Renault was reversing at speed, side-swiping a scooter parked at the kerb, then it performed a handbrake turn and raced away after the red Kombi.

The police car, caught by a line of school children on a pedestrian crossing, sat helplessly, then roared off in pursuit. But they were already too late.

FORTY-FIVE

‘
T
he two in the red van were low-level messengers,' said Ballatyne. He called later that day as Harry was heading home. Rik had made his own way earlier, to continue the hunt for Tan. Jean had agreed reluctantly to stay with friends for a couple of days, and Harry had seen her safely delivered to make sure she wasn't being followed.

‘Who for?'

‘Not sure. But they led the undercover unit to a C'emal Soran, a shopkeeper in Hackney. He's clean here, barring missed opportunities by the Serious Organized Crimes Agency or Five. But they've got quite a file on him in Sarajevo. He was suspected for years of being a freelance quartermaster for a number of gangs, supplying weapons and cars. Unfortunately, with all the fighting, they didn't have the resources to get hard evidence. He got out ahead of an investigation and so far, nobody's been able to come up with reasons enough to bring him up on charges. Call me prejudiced, but I doubt he's changed his spots. We're doing a thorough check on him right now.'