The van accelerated, blue lights flickering in its windscreen, airborne as it hit a speed bump. Jake heard the wail of pistons and the squeal of a turbocharger behind him; he turned to see that same BMW approaching at sixty miles per hour. Then he recognized the driver. There was nowhere to go, so they waited on the canal bridge like lemons as the claws of the pincer slid shut. The vehicles skidded to a halt in unison, penning them in against the barrier.
“My old dears,” cried Waits, manoeuvring himself from the car with the grace of a sugar plum fairy. “Welcome back.”
Davis grinned at Jake and raised his eyebrows. “Third time lucky, eh, fella?”
The journalist peered over the bridge. It was a cold day and the surface of the water had an oily sheen to it.
“Jennifer Frobisher, as I live and breathe,” said the spymaster, clapping his hands together. “Tut, tut, tut.”
“Charlie,” she managed, and her voice was a rasp of fear. “I – I’m sorry, Charlie. I never meant …”
“And Mr Wolsey,” Waits interrupted, fixing Jake with piggy black eyes. “We didn’t get the chance to do formal introductions in Rome.”
Davis opened the slide door of the Transit; the interior was panelled in steel and Jake shivered suddenly.
“What are you waiting for?” Davis gestured to the van with the barrel of a gun. “In you get, then.”
By way of reply Jenny popped her backside onto the railing of the bridge and perched there for a moment. Then she toppled over backwards into space.
For several seconds the three men looked at each other, unable to comprehend what had happened. Jake heard it first: the shout of annoyance, a chugging noise that emanated from under the bridge. Suddenly he understood. He threw himself over the edge too, tumbling into the narrowboat’s back cab as it cleared the crossing. The skipper was sent sprawling into the boat, his breath hot on Jake’s face as the pair disentangled themselves.
“Just what the hell do you two think you’re playing at?”
It was too late for the gunmen to jump, so they dashed for the tow path. The narrowboat ploughed on at three knots and Davis jogged alongside, weighing up the distance, preparing to leap.
“Take out the engine,” Waits ordered.
At once the air was full of gunshots, pummelling through the rear of the boat until black smoke began pouring from the engine. Jake scrambled into the cabin where Jenny cowered from the bombardment, white-faced and panting. A log stove cracked and tinkled.
“What now?” shouted Jake.
“Don’t ask me.”
The chug of the engine had ceased but the boat’s momentum carried it on, and with no one at the tiller it veered to port, away from the towpath. Feet turned to inches; Jake realized what was about to happen moments before it did. The narrowboat crashed into the mooring with a boom, throwing Jenny onto her hands and knees. Every bulb in the boat flickered and sparks flew up the hull as it screeched along the concrete. The vessel came grinding to a halt. The smell of diesel filled the cabin. Davis’s crosshairs tracked back and forth across the portholes, straining for a glimpse of person.
He felt a touch on his forearm.
“I think you’d better put the gun away,” said Waits.
“Why?” Davis panted. “I can wade …”
Waits pointed at the glass-and-steel building under which the narrowboat had come to rest. Smartly-dressed people gathered at the windows, fumbling for mobiles.
“That’s the offices of the Guardian,” he said. “I suggest we make ourselves scarce before they find someone with a decent camera …”
Jake watched their pursuers turn and flee. At first he couldn’t work it out. But then a man with a notepad dashed along the bank and he realized where they were. He began to laugh.
*
As he strode through Hackney that evening Luke McDonagh was smiling. It had been a scary couple of days, but he felt safe enough. Nobody would really hurt them, not with a national newspaper on their side. And earlier Jake had paid him £2,500 – not bad, for what had been much less work than he’d let on. That explained his presence in east London. He was about to pick up an ounce of ‘skunk’ cannabis, and then he would stay up all night indulging the second of his vices: an online fantasy computer game. This single job would allow him to withdraw from the real world into his infinitely-preferable other life for several weeks.
Footsteps interrupted McDonagh’s thoughts, approaching him from behind. The journalist glanced about, cursing his dealer’s nocturnal hours – he needed to watch his back around here, especially with a hundred and fifty pounds in his pocket. But when he saw the man who was following him he relaxed. The guy looked sporty and respectable; a PE teacher, perhaps. The patch of snow-white in the stranger’s hair shone orange in the streetlight. McDonagh’s thoughts returned to the night of gaming that lay ahead.
A cord was around his throat.
The journalist’s hands went to the garrotte, but his fingers were flabby and he couldn’t get any purchase. The cord tightened. He tried to shout but no air would come out. The cord tightened. Tightened again. McDonagh sank to his knees, eyes bulging. The cord tightened. Not a word had been said. The cord tightened again and now McDonagh felt a knee between his shoulder blades. He blacked out for a few seconds, then he was back in the road. The cord tightened once more and suddenly he saw whorls of red and blue, a kaleidoscope of colour brought to the boil.
He realized he was dying.
The last thing that went through Luke McDonagh’s mind was some abstract thought about the online game: it was like he’d been downloaded into it. Before his eyes the graphics became a million points of light, each linked to all the others by fronds of energy, the web shimmering all around him in a final display of phantasmagorical beauty.
Then there was only darkness.
*
Davis hauled the corpse up from the pavement and heaved a dead arm over his shoulder, as if McDonagh was a drunk and he the Good Samaritan. He glanced at the watch on the stiff’s wrist. It would take half an hour to get to Epping Forest at this time; there was a shovel in the back of the van. He was doing it the old fashioned way. The East End way.
He dumped his load in the vehicle and slid the door shut, the satiated smile of the hyena that has just dined spread across his face. One by one he was eliminating every tie between MI6 and the Disciplina Etrusca. He would finish up with the journalist and that beautiful bitch Frobisher. Then when the PM realized what the Disciplina could do he would be untouchable. There would be a bonus; perhaps he could retire. Then again, maybe not. Not while he was having such fun at the office.