He had them open up Grim City Waxworks specially for him. It wasn’t General Aeron Kirkham’s first choice of a rendezvous, let alone when he was overseeing an operation of the magnitude of this one. But this was a matter that couldn’t wait, and in times of stress he found the place offered a certain comfort to the weary.
He’d already been through the torture chamber and paused to consider the taste of flesh in the room featuring the demon barber Sweeney Todd and his pie-maker accomplice, Mrs Lovett. The General had eaten flesh once, years ago. An expedition through Papua New Guinea. Didn’t mind the taste at all. Didn’t mind a bit of the other either, he thought, as he walked a little slower through the Victorian gothic retelling of Jack the Ripper’s adventures in the East End. But it was hard to distract himself when there had been innocent people murdered tonight at the museum – he wasn’t a man without conscience, for God’s sake. He had too much conscience, too much of a sense of duty, if anything. And he gave serious consideration to persuading that vacuous pinhead Rafferty to bring back the death penalty for capital offences, as he gazed at a waxwork execution of that trollop Mary, Queen of Scots. There were those, he knew, who would never understand or forgive what he had done tonight, but he could live without their good opinion.
He cocked his head to one side to better admire the agonizing pain carved into the face of the mannequin impaled from spine to stomach on a huge hook dangling from the ceiling. He wondered if he could arrange a variation on the theme with the dominatrix he saw when he could get away. Madame Lola charged a fortune for house visits, but he felt himself stiffen at the very idea of being stretched out on the metal X-frame he’d installed in his cellar to his own very particular specifications. Madame flogging him with her cat-o’-nine-tails, the thought of her spiked heels enough to bring tears to his eyes.
‘The tip of my Gerber Mark II blade is over your small intestine, so best not turn round, General.’ The voice was being modulated, he could tell, through some kind of electronic device. He harrumphed in outrage and made to turn anyway, but reconsidered as the sharp point scratched the surface of his skin. ‘The Mark II, as you know, is based on the Roman Mainz Gladius – now I think of it, the Sword of Tiberius might even be part of the British Museum collection. Information, you see, General, cuts both ways.’
The General considered his options. The blood in the vein in his left temple started to pulse and the muscles in his left cheek spasmed at the thought that his connection with the massacre was in play.
‘Trust me, General Kirkham, you don’t want to see my face. This way is safer for both of us. Now, why am I here?’
‘I need you to get rid of a man called North.’
Security experts had started raking over the Derkind guest list from the British Museum gala as soon as the first call came into the emergency services. Over the phone, Edmund Hone assured the Home Secretary that Monty De’Ath was one of his, rather than one of the shooters. Rafferty was apoplectic that Hone refused to identify his agent further than that, but the General had seen the security footage himself. Moreover, his own operative, the soldier who’d worn the Nietzsche mask, confirmed that Monty De’Ath was the man who’d escaped with Esme Sullivan Hawke. ‘He knew what he was about, General. No mistaking,’ Nietzsche told him as he delivered the tablet into the General’s hands an hour ago.
What the General knew was that Hone was a one-eyed bastard with a reputation for a bone-chilling, ask-no-questions efficiency when it came to enemies of the state. Normally, the General admired that quality in a man. But not tonight. Kirkham scoured out Monty De’Ath’s real name from a security contact. Hone’s agent at the gala was one Michael North, a ‘security consultant’ – for which the General knew to read ‘agent and hitman’ – formerly in the employ of the extra-governmental agency dubbed the Board.
For a brief moment, the General had considered tasking Nietzsche. But Nietzsche would soon be wrapped in plastic, chained to a concrete block and dropped on to a seabed north of the Orkney Islands. Because the General had no intention of leaving behind any kind of trail connecting him to one of the worst terrorist atrocities on British soil. No, the General had someone else in mind.
Kirkham sucked the stale air through his nose. It was warm and smelled of sawdust and fake blood among the waxworks. He had to get back. The rocket had gone up in Whitehall about Hawke’s decision to unbox Syd – such an arrogant bastard. He had his best people working on figuring out Hawke’s kill switch and he was leaving it to the experts. In the meantime, he had a more immediate problem. North was everywhere he looked. He’d been brought in to keep that ninja wife of Hawke’s safe – he’d rescued her from the car and they’d both survived the museum. And someone had killed his men in there. That had to be down to North, and the General wasn’t taking any chances that they hadn’t been questioned first. North had to go.
His mind went to the blade in the assassin’s grip. It was years since he’d operated on the front line, but in his day, he was steady under fire. He wasn’t a nervous man – had never bolted from the action or attempted to avoid his duty engaging the enemy. He’d killed enemy combatants all over the world, priding himself that the year he spent as a raw lieutenant on the streets of Belfast shooting Catholic scum was among the happiest of his life. The General wasn’t the kind to doubt his own courage. Even so, he was aware of the sweat building up in the small of his back, the tiny hairs on his neck standing to attention.
‘Aside from those terrorists he killed at the museum...’ – the General was careful not to hesitate – ‘... in recent months, North is known to have executed seven men he considered responsible for the death of the woman he loved.’
‘No commitment issues then,’ the assassin behind him said.
The General ignored what he guessed was an attempt at humour. He had no sense of humour. ‘Those men signed the papers, but they didn’t pull the trigger.’
‘And why should I care about any of this?’ The digitally modulated voice was that of an alien, crackling and emotionless.
‘You should care because you pulled the trigger.’
A dangerous and waiting silence settled over the pair of them.
The General’s security contact had provided details not just on Michael North but on the existence of the Board and those who had once been part of it. Including a code name and number for another former operative. His contact had warned him not to ring it. ‘Don’t poke the bear, old chap.’ The General had rung it immediately.
The assassin behind him spoke in a crackling whisper. ‘Maybe he doesn’t blame the trigger man. He was one himself, after all.’
‘That’s a big maybe,’ the General said. ‘Maybe he hasn’t finished what he started yet.’
‘The only people who know for a fact who pulled the trigger are all dead. From what you say, North made sure of it.’
‘Not true. I know you’re the guilty party, because I made it my business to find out.’
‘Then wouldn’t you say that the smart thing for me to do…’ – the breath was on his ear – ‘… would be to kill you?’
‘How do you think I know? Because “someone” told me. Which means “someone” could tell him. North is still out there. This way you set your own price on killing him and you get to sleep at night.’
There was a pause.
‘My order on the day was to kill her. That’s what I was paid for and that’s what I did. No one said anything at the time about killing him too.’
‘I’m saying it now.’
Over his shoulder, the General passed the envelope containing the grainy surveillance picture of the man who had entered the party as Monty De’Ath, otherwise known as Michael North, and the file MI5 had on him. His record in juvenile. His army service and the list of men he served alongside. His kills when officially a civilian. And critically, his present location. ‘You don’t have long.’ At first, he thought the assassin wouldn’t take it, but then he felt the envelope pulled from his grip.
It was the shift in the air that alerted him to the fact that his companion had gone.
The General put his hand up to the back of his coat. His finger found the cut in the wool cloth there first, then in his jacket, his shirt, the silk vest and finally the wetness on his crêpey skin. He drew back his hand, taking a breath as he smeared the drop of blood in the crevasse between his index and middle fingers with the ball of his thumb. His eyes went back to the mannequin, the agony and ecstasy of a painful death.
He was trembling and hated himself for it. He stood taller and clenched his jaw in what passed for a smile. It was out of his hands – he fervently hoped that North suffered at the end.