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The good thing about all the precautions against terrorism nowadays was that most buildings had very strict entry requirements. Theoretically, between Thames House and the Lord Mayor’s residence, there were ten or twelve places a sniper could set up, but in practice, only one or two at such short notice. Moreover, the few flat roofs along the route could be covered by a combination of satellite surveillance and high-altitude drone-copters.
In reality, though, it seemed unlikely anyone would attempt something that melodramatic. This was London, England. Hit-men here spiked your drink, or set a pit-bull on you, or knifed you, or menaced you and hoped you had a coronary. They didn’t go climbing ten flights of stairs with a high velocity rifle and start focussing telescopic sights on the back of your head. It just wasn’t done, even by gangsters.
That left street-level. There were lots of ways a determined assassin might come at you there. Abduction and subsequent murder elsewhere was the most obvious. After that, a knifing; then a swift lethal injection. Lower down the list came the classic car-mounts-pavement technique. Or the brutal push from behind into the path of an oncoming vehicle. At bargain basement level, you could even be dispatched by a drive-by shooting - although your murderer would either have to be desperate, or a big fan of rap music. Again, it wasn’t terribly English, and too much like hard work.
Mordred set off for Mansion house at precisely 10am. He checked out at the desk and lingered long enough for a short conversation with Colin Bale, the head receptionist. Then he descended the steps onto the street.
Phyllis and Edna were already in place on the rooftop of a restaurant in Lombard street overlooking Mansion House and with a good view of three other rooves and five out of six possible approaches. They were disguised as painters. Alec and Ian tailed Mordred at a distance of ten and fifteen metres respectively. Annabel kept a watch from the balcony of Thames House. Inside, technicians kept tabs on his movements via the capital’s CCTV network. Red department agents were placed at intervals along his route and everyone was in mutual contact by Bluetooth.
The calculation was that if Grey were after him, they’d launch any assault either immediately after he left Thames House, or just before he reached his destination. There were too many routes for them to cover all possibilities, and they’d want as many personnel on the job as they could spare. Once he’d left the broad environs of Thames House, Annabel would pack her things and head for the Lord Mayor’s part of town. He was expected to reach Mansion House at 10.20.
“I’m nervous,” Phyllis said as she backed into the shadows for the fourth time to use her binoculars. “I don’t know how my investigation became this, but it has.”
“I thought Ms Parker was responsible for the Grey-Red thing,” Edna said.
“I feel responsible. Probably because it’s John. I don’t mean especially him. It’d be the same if it was you or Annabel. I never knew Frances Holland. But this is personal. A slip here has more than merely professional significance.”
“I totally get it, yes. And I also think it’s this part of London.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look down in the streets. They’re nearly deserted. Look at Mansion House. It doesn’t look like it’s been cleaned since it was built. Those net curtains at the windows – talk about grimy. Weird for a supposedly prestigious part of one of the most prestigious cities on earth, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.”
“Hang on,” Edna said, pointing to the street. “Look.”
A large white van had stopped at the junction of Poultry and Princes Street. The driver, a well-built young man in jeans and a windcheater, put his hazard lights on and jumped out. He looked both ways cautiously, then opened the rear doors and shouted something. A stream of about ten men emerged with a purpose and poured into the adjacent building. The man got back in the van and it pulled away.
Phyllis went to override all channels. “I think we’ve a problem,” she said. “Ten men inside Wilson’s Exchange Building.”
“We caught them on CCTV too,” Ruby Parker said. “Stay in position until my order.”
“Were they armed?” Edna asked. “I didn’t see.”
Phyllis shrugged. “They’d only need one gun. They’d assemble it up there, so we probably wouldn’t see it. I can’t believe they’ve decided to play it this way. Sniper, bloody hell. The Iraq War coming home again, probably. Maybe I’m wrong: maybe they’re nothing to do with John.”
“The way they got out of that van ... We’re not wrong.”
“I damn well hope someone’s given him the order to abort.”
“They must have guessed we’re monitoring them,” Edna said. “Or at least something of what we’re doing.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, as you pointed out, they only need one shooter. Why bring ten men?”
Phyllis swallowed. “... Unless they’re expecting to meet resistance? Shit, you’re right.”
“I don’t think they can be expecting it exactly. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have come at all. They’re just covering their arses. Someone fires and misses. You’ve got another man in the wings with a blade, and five or six more to cover all John’s possible escape routes.”
“You’re quite good at this spying business, Edna. You’re thinking like a real pro.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Please don’t call me ‘ma’am’. I know it’s per the book, and this isn’t the time to be having this conversation, but it makes me feel ancient.” She looked through the binoculars again and returned to override. “It’s a definite. There’s a man assembling a rifle. Assuming we haven’t done so already, we need to instruct John to stand down.”
“If we do that,” Ruby Parker said, “they’ll know we’re onto them. Annabel’s nearly there. Ian’s just round the corner with Alec. Pick up your firearms and get downstairs. Annabel’s in charge.”
“Why Annabel?” Edna said, when they were on their way down to the street. “Just out of interest? I thought you’d been in the army.”
“Ask me afterwards. Although I doubt you’ll have to. Let’s just say she’s fully ambidextrous, I’m not.”
When the reached ground level they halted, removed their Bluetooth and sauntered out onto the street as casually as if they were going for a tea-break. Alec leant against one of the columns of the stock exchange, wearing a trilby and reading a newspaper so he couldn’t be identified from above. Ian, just outside the Bank of England, pretended to speak on his phone and chuckle.
Suddenly, Annabel arrived in a taxi, carrying a holdall. She got out right in front of Wilson’s Exchange Building. She went up to the front door and knocked. No answer. She stamped her foot and pretended to be a little girl, frustrated. She knocked again, harder.
A man opened the door and was halfway through telling her to get lost, when she kicked the door onto him, drew a pistol, shot him, and went inside. She hauled the holdall after her and beckoned her colleagues to follow.
Her victim lay on the ground, bleeding and unconscious, but breathing. “It’s only his shoulder,” she said. She unzipped the holdall and closed the front door. “Guns are in there. Try not to kill anyone. Aim for shoulders, arms or legs. Remember, we’re supposed to be on the same side. Me-Phyllis-Alec-Me, that’s how we’ll advance. Any questions?”
Annabel took two guns, one in each hand, and went first. They took turns clearing six floors without incident, and gathered together on the narrow topmost, before the double door of what was obviously the entrance to the rooftop. They looked at each other for a nod. Annabel knocked. No need to burst in: they’d be expecting their friend’s return.
The man who opened the door didn’t have time to look surprised. She shot his leg and kicked his head, and suddenly she was on the rooftop, firing in both directions. Alec and Phyllis came in at a lower level to avoid friendly fire, but ready to give her backup.
They didn’t have to. Including the man she’d just shot, three men were down, two with pistols lying in front of them. Another eight had their hands in the air. The only one who didn’t look ready to surrender was the guy with the rifle. He’d obviously spent some time assembling it, and was wondering whether he could raise it and pull the trigger before Annabel did the same.
But then he realised there were four other pistols already trained on him. He dropped his gun with a sardonic grin.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a well-built man of about forty yelled, advancing fast on them. “What the HELL do you think you’re up to?”
Their commander in chief, obviously. He’d obviously worked out that they weren’t going to shoot him in cold blood, and he thought weapons were all they had. As he strode forward with his jaw out and his muscles flexed, Annabel calmly came to meet him. She punched him so hard with her revolver grip that, despite his forward momentum, he momentarily reversed before he fell on his back. She trained one of her guns on him.
“Be polite,” she said. “Next time you decide to murder one of my friends in cold blood, I may not be so forgiving.”
He shook his head like he was punch drunk and sat up.
“As I hope I’ve demonstrated, I’m a very, very good shot,” she said. “So before I pistol-whip you, you’d better start explaining. There may be eleven of you up here, but we’re a long way up. Even if you all scream together, no one will hear you.”
The man on the ground chuckled like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. He spat a little blood onto his wrist and looked at it like it was some kind of black magic. His attitude changed.
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe we need to talk.”
“You do,” Phyllis said.
“I take it we’re both talking about the same guy,” the same man said. “A certain ‘John Mordred’. I’m Geoff Prebble. I’m in charge of these men. We’re Grey, and if you’re who I think you are, we seriously outrank you.” He registered Annabel’s derisive little smile and put his hands up. “Of course, right now, that gun outranks everything.”
“Just like five highly skilled operatives outrank ten musclebound amateurs,” Phyllis said unnecessarily.
One of the men made a lunge for his pistol. Annabel shot his arm and he fell back bleeding and gasping. “I still haven’t heard anything approaching an explanation,” she said levelly. “Alec, go round and collect their guns, please. Ian, you go downstairs and bring the holdall. Prisoners, get in a well-spaced line facing me. Drag yourselves if need be. Edna, frisk them. You,” she said, addressing Prebble: “stay there and start talking. And I don’t mean more phoney indignation, or bullshit about rank. This is your last chance.”
Alec obliged while the Greys walked or hobbled or helped each other into the semblance of a line. They looked at the ground like the last little flicker of fight had gone out of them.
“Okay,” Prebble said. “It’s like this. We weren’t going to kill your man. The intention was to maim him with an ankle shot. We’ve tried a few times before to incapacitate him, but just lately, it’s got a little more serious. The investigation we launched into his activities was spiked from on high. The spike came from outside MI7, and we’ve reason to believe it was tied to an agenda.”
“What ‘agenda’?” Annabel asked.
Prebble looked her straight in the eye. “Your agent’s spying for the Chinese. Has been for about two years now, ever since he went on a mission to Siberia. It was there he met a woman by the name of ‘Dao-ming Chou’, real name Wan Chunmei. She’d been sent by the Chinese Ministry of State Security to entrap him with sexual inducements. From what we’ve been able to piece together he fell in love with her. After his return to Britain, the Chinese managed to create the illusion that she was a member of Black department, thus conveniently disappearing her at the heart of our own organisation. Brilliant idea: no questions need ever be asked. Except that we now know it was a lie.”
“So you’re saying John – John Mordred’s been passing secrets to the Chinese?” Alec said incredulously.
“Obviously, it’s why we started to investigate him,” Prebble said. “We also think he’s best ... incapacitated while we go through the tiresome formality of getting the whole thing up and running again. If he’s guilty, and we think he is, we will get him. Until then, it’s best if he’s not part of any investigation whatsoever.”
“I don’t believe it,” Phyllis said.
Prebble shrugged. “The novelist EM Forster once said, ‘If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country’. Does that sound to you like the sort of thing your John Mordred would say?”
“Maybe he wasn’t joking to Ian in the toilets that day,” Alec said. “No, no, sorry. I can’t believe it. John Mordred?”
“You’re a spy,” Prebble said contemptuously. “You should know the depths to which people will sink when they think they’re ‘in love’. And remember: he’s being aided and abetted by people in high places, that’s why his radicalisation inquiry was quashed. Chinese steel, Chinese nuclear power, Chinese meetings with the royal family. It’s all China, China, China nowadays.”
He paused for a moment to allow all this information to sink in. He looked round at their faces. When he resumed, it was with the confidence of someone who believes they’re getting through.
“Put it another way,” he went on: “everyone knows the nuclear plants the Chinese are supposed to be building at Bradwell and Sizewell may come with an inbuilt spying capacity. No one in Whitehall gives a stuff. If they don’t care about that, they’re not going to care about a few paltry tidbits going Wan Chunmei’s way. All part of the grand kowtow. But we in MI7 don’t have to think like that. They’re what used to be called ‘traitors’ before the word became redundant. All of them.”
Alec had made all the guns safe and put them in the holdall. He zipped it shut and picked it up at one end. Ian grabbed the other. They were ready to go.
“Look,” Prebble said. “I think we understand each other now, yes? Let’s make a deal. Pretty soon, Grey’s going to assume full control of the Holland case. We tried to limit Mordred’s involvement, but you wouldn’t let us, and this is where it’s got you. Now all you can do is twiddle your thumbs and wait till something else comes along. Just keep Mordred out of the loop of whatever you’re assigned to next, okay? And preferably don’t let him out of your sight. Definitely don’t trust him. If you can agree to that, then we can agree not to put him in hospital. It doesn’t exactly please me, but I’m willing to be reasonable for the sake of peace between the departments. Done?”
Annabel nodded. She wasn’t the type to admit the other side might have a point, and especially not the sort to go making deals with losers. But this was different. She signalled a withdrawal. Within a few moments, they were all in a taxi, heading back to Thames House. None of them spoke. Phyllis rang Ruby Parker and made a full report. She fielded a few questions, but didn’t go into detail in her answers. She just wanted to sit quiet and hug her knees.
When she hung up, her face was ashen. “It’s just been confirmed,” she told the others. “Red’s been ordered to stand down from Holland and everything connected with it. A clean and complete break. As from this minute, Grey’s assuming full and exclusive control.”
