It was the journalist’s departure for Istanbul that had precipitated the decision. Charlie Waits had collected his thoughts and announced: “Oh, all right then. Let’s get him.”
The spymaster’s voice was effete without being fey – Jenny found him rather frightening.
“Run along to the embassy in Istanbul,” he continued. “We’ll send a bag for you by dip-post. Pick it up and do what needs to be done.”
Waits’s next pronouncement was lost to Jenny. Her handler’s voice was level as he hung up and said to the wall: “Fuck and shit and damn and balls.”
The Foreign Office could send everything except radioactive material by diplomatic bag – no doubt cocaine was a frequent flyer. Yet the spymaster’s gift was deadlier than Peruvian powder, and Jenny felt a chill in her bladder as she opened the Samsonite briefcase. Nestled within were three 8.5mm pistols, made from toughened porcelain to evade metal detectors. Lying alongside were the silencers, fat as leeches. There was another brick of Turkish lira, and then the pièce de résistance. Jenny couldn’t help but smile. MI6 still did things with a flourish. The case contained two umbrellas with tips that could fire a capsule into the human body from close range using compressed gas. It was with such a device the Bulgarian Secret Service had assassinated a dissident on Waterloo Bridge in 1978 – the ricin took four days to kill him. She turned one of the umbrellas around in her hands. Black, masculine, expensive-looking. The canvas of the second umbrella was a printed ladybird. An old trick, that. Introduce one memorable detail and it’s all the witnesses can recall – they would describe Medcalf’s ladybird umbrella, but not her above average height nor her blue-green eyes.
And now the device was to be used.
A crowd eavesdropped on the old Turk as he pontificated on a carved pavilion that stood in the centre of the basilica. Medcalf loitered nearby, a splodge of scarlet protruding from her coat pocket. Jenny watched Jake rush to pick up a mitten that had been tossed from a pushchair by a toddler. He gave it to the child’s mother – she hadn’t noticed the garment being cast away and her gratitude was obvious. Jenny closed her eyes, opened them again.
“Jenny?” Guilherme was the spotter. “This is as good an opportunity as we’ll get.”
The single word nearly caught in her throat. “Go.”
Far below her Medcalf broke away from the chandelier and began closing on the pavilion. Jake and Florence had their backs to the agent, unaware of her approach.
But wait … two Indian women were accosting Medcalf. Was it innocent? Jenny breathed again as the tourists handed her a camera and deployed their photograph faces. The Ulsterwoman snapped away, the umbrella tucked under one arm as she rearranged the tourists into different poses. What a pro. But the moment was lost: Jake’s guide was pulling them away from the pavilion, shepherding them toward the upper galleries.
Then it all went wrong.
It’s how these things always unravel – the unexpected, something no amount of planning can account for. To Jenny’s horror one of the tourists broke from her friend’s embrace and gave Jake the camera. The journalist turned, gormless, eager to help. And (God in heaven!) the woman threw an arm around Medcalf to include her in the photo. There was no escape – refusing to be in it would make her face ten times more memorable to the journo. Jake corralled the three into the viewfinder and hit the shutter release. Jenny was one down.
What on earth will I tell Charlie?
The tourists wandered off arm-in-arm, inspecting the photos. Medcalf peeled away in the opposite direction, making eye contact with Jenny as she passed below the balcony. Her expression was grim.
Something alerted Jenny to the movement of her other agent.
Guilherme had broken free of his tour group and was homing in on the targets. Jake and Florence drifted toward the main staircase, where sightseers were pressing to get in. It would be tightly packed in there. Guilherme was two feet behind the journalist as they passed through the archway, the black umbrella swinging from his wrist. Suddenly he gripped it like a dagger – Jenny realized her heart was racing.
*
The atmosphere in the staircase was claustrophobic. Tourists were all around Jake and he had to moderate his pace. Then several things happened in quick succession. He heard a yell of “Pickpocket!”; a Chinese tourist lunged towards him; he felt a stab of pain in the buttock. The pickpocket was away at a sprint, but Jake was left with the impression of a lean South Asian in his forties.
“He want your wallet,” the Chinese tourist said. “I stop him.”
“Thanks,” Jake replied. He rubbed his backside and turned to Florence. “I think something just stung me.”