“It’s a beautiful house. I’m sure you’ll be very happy here.”
The estate agent spoke over her shoulder as she came down the stairs. This was the third family she’d shown round the house in Chelsea but this time she’d known at once that they were going to buy it. Mr and Mrs Bogdanov were from Moscow. They were moving to London for business reasons, they’d said, although they had been careful not to tell her what that business was. They had hardly talked at all. Mr Bogdanov was not a friendly man. In fact he seemed to go out of his way to be actively unfriendly, grim and unsmiling, looking around the house as if it were some kind of slum. His wife was a great deal younger than him, far too thin and wearing too much make-up. She was clearly nervous of her husband, gabbling in a high-pitched voice to cover his silences.
But they were cash buyers. They had made that clear from the start. Mr Bogdanov hadn’t been in the house five minutes before he had nodded and muttered the single word, “Da!” The Russian for yes.
It was excellent news. The property market in London was very quiet at the moment and the estate agent had monthly targets she was supposed to meet. This house had come up for sale quite suddenly when the owner had moved to America, following a death in the family. She had heard some very strange stories about him. Apparently, he had worked for some secret department of the government and everything had to be very hush-hush. Nobody was allowed to mention his name, certainly not to prospective buyers. And there were even rumours that a specialist team from Scotland Yard had gone in to disconnect the telephone system and remove certain security devices from inside the house … things that weren’t available to the general public.
Of course, the estate agent hadn’t mentioned anything about this to her clients. The house was in a quiet street, just a short walk from the famous King’s Road. It was also close to Chelsea Football Club, if you happened to be a supporter. There were three spacious bedrooms and two bathrooms. The ground floor had an open-plan kitchen and living room with double doors opening onto a pretty garden. Another staircase led down to a basement, which had been converted into a work area. Mrs Bogdanov, who worked as a designer, had taken dozens of photographs on her mobile phone. She had explained that she was going to strip the place bare. She liked very bright colours and chandeliers. This room was going to be turned into a home cinema with a full-sized snooker table going over there. The bar would go in that corner. A Jacuzzi on the roof. “Da!” Mr Bogdanov had agreed, although he hadn’t looked pleased. But then, of course, he was paying for it all.
“How quick we get our builders in?” Mrs Bogdanov asked. She had a heavy Russian accent. Her English was not good.
“Well, it will have to be a few weeks.”
“But we pay cash!”
“Even so…”
She stopped. They had reached the entrance hall and a boy was standing there, looking at them with tired, watchful eyes. His clothes looked crumpled, as if he had slept in them, and there was a backpack on the floor beside his feet. How had he got in? The estate agent was certain she had locked the front door before she had started the tour of the house. “Excuse me…” she began.
“Who are you?” the boy asked.
“I’m Corinne Turner from Fleming Estates.” The boy said nothing so she went on. “We’re selling the house.”
“I’m afraid it’s not for sale.”
“I’m sorry?” The estate agent was confused. “It’s been on the market now for quite some time…”
“You leave!” Mr Bogdanov pushed her out of the way. He jabbed a stubby finger in the direction of the intruder. “This my house. We agree sale.”
“It’s my house,” the boy replied and there was something dangerous in his voice. “And I’ve decided not to sell it. Do you mind leaving now?” He glanced apologetically at the estate agent. “I’ll call your office this afternoon. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Are you Alex?” the estate agent asked. She had seen the name on the deeds.
“That’s right.”
“We’ll leave at once.”
The strange thing was that, despite what she had been thinking a moment ago, Corinne Turner was quite glad that the boy had returned. She had taken an immediate liking to him. And even though she had just lost the sale, it also seemed to her that he belonged here in a way that Mr and Mrs Bogdanov didn’t – and never would. With a smile, she went over to the front door and opened it. The two Russians scowled but said nothing. A moment later, all three of them had gone.
Alex stood where he was. He was holding the spare key that he had taken out of its hiding place: a fake brick, which rotated if you pressed it in the right place. It felt so strange to be back in a house he had thought he would never see again. He was just glad that it had remained untouched. The estate agents had thought it would sell more easily if it looked as if someone was still living there so all the furniture was still in place; the pots and pans stacked up in the kitchen, the beds made. Even his clothes would still be hanging in the wardrobe. And yet he felt that the house hadn’t quite welcomed him back. It was unnaturally quiet, as if it was annoyed that it had been abandoned. Alex realized that it would take both of them a while to get used to each other again.
He went upstairs and into his old room. There were just a few thing missing: a couple of photographs and a football signed by the Chelsea squad, which he had taken with him to America. Maybe Edward Pleasure would send them back one day … if he stayed in London. Right now his entire future looked uncertain. Part of it depended on what MI6 had in mind. But at the end of the day, he still didn’t know if Jack Starbright was alive or not – and that was what mattered to him most.
He threw off his clothes, padded into the bathroom and took a long shower. The hot water was still on automatic timer and it felt good, standing there with the water hammering down on him, washing away some of the memories of the last few days. He got out, dried, then opened a drawer to reveal all his T-shirts neatly ironed and folded. Jack would have done that for him before she left for Egypt.
He got dressed and then, on an impulse, went into Jack’s room, which was at the far end of the corridor, overlooking the garden. Usually, he never came in here. It was her space and the two of them had an unwritten rule that they would respect each other’s privacy. The room was strangely unfamiliar to him. Jack had a double bed with a brightly-coloured duvet and a one-eyed teddy bear sprawling limply on the pillow. Everything was very neat and tidy. There were a lot of books in the room. She was always reading something. Every surface was covered with photographs. Alex looked at all the pictures in a variety of frames. There was an elderly couple, her parents, and next to them a woman with three children. This was her sister. The two of them looked similar.
Alex hadn’t spoken to any of Jack’s family after he had lost her in Siwa. Edward Pleasure had done all that for him. But looking at the photographs, he felt ashamed. He should have got in touch.
Many of the photographs were of him, starting at the age of seven and continuing all the way to just a few months ago. Here he was with Ian Rider, on a skiing holiday at Gunpoint, Colorado. He remembered it well. And here he was again, standing with Jack outside the Old Vic theatre in London. They’d gone to see a Christmas show. Suddenly he felt uncomfortable being in her room. He went out, closing the door behind him.
It had been a short journey from the South of France but he wouldn’t have been able to travel at all without the help of MI6, as he had lost his passport along with everything else. The clothes he was wearing and the new backpack he was carrying had been bought for him in Nice. Ben Daniels had flown with him – a commercial flight – but they had parted company at Heathrow Airport where two cars had been waiting to take them their separate ways. Alex had felt a mix of emotions, driving into west London along the M4, past the huge advertising hoardings and the new buildings around Hammersmith. He was back home. Part of him was excited by that. But despite everything that had happened, he still hadn’t found Jack.
The car was waiting outside. He had been given just thirty minutes to get ready before he was driven to a crisis meeting at MI6. Mrs Jones would be there. She was insisting on a full debrief. Alex was hungry but he knew there would be no food in the house. There was no point hanging around. He glanced at himself in the mirror, then let himself out again. He wondered if he could persuade the driver to stop at a McDonald’s on the way.
They met, not in Mrs Jones’s office but in a conference room on the twelfth floor. It was a very ordinary room – but then every room in the building was designed to look ordinary. It suited the secret work that was being done. There were no pictures on the walls, only a seventy-inch television screen built into the wall. A large window looked out on Liverpool Street with hundreds of people pouring in and out of the station far below. Alex knew that the glass would have been treated so that no camera or listening device could penetrate. It was probably bulletproof too.
He was sitting at the end of a long, polished table. His voice was hoarse from talking so much. He had already told Ben Daniels everything he knew when they were together on Liverpool Lady, but Mrs Jones had insisted on hearing it a second time and then a third, as if she might snatch some new clue from what he was saying. She was sitting opposite him at the other end of the table, a notepad in front of her and a pen in her hand. Daniels was next to her. John Crawley was on the other side. Alex knew the “Head of Personnel” quite well. That was how he had described himself when he had first come to Alex’s home after Ian Rider had died. “Very good to see you, Alex,” he had muttered when he had entered the conference room. “How was France?” The way he asked, Alex could have just come back from a short holiday.
There were two other men he hadn’t met before, both of them in uniform. One had been introduced as Chief Marshal Sir Norman Clarke. He had as many titles as he had medals across his chest. He was gruff and clearly uncomfortable addressing a fifteen-year-old. The other man’s name was Chichester. He was from naval intelligence and seemed to be the more pleasant of the two.
“Let me sum up, then,” Mrs Jones was saying, finally giving Alex a chance to rest his voice. “We now know that the Super Stallion helicopter was stolen by Dragana Novak, acting on the instructions of the two brothers, Giovanni and Eduardo Grimaldi. She also murdered the American pilots. You’ve received my security briefing on Ms Novak. She was formerly a pilot with the Serbian Air Force but was court-martialled following a bar-room brawl. She is now deceased. The Grimaldi brothers are well known to us through their association with Scorpia. It’s a great shame that we were unable to pick them up in the South of France.”
“How did that happen?” Sir Norman demanded. From the tone of his voice, it could have been Mrs Jones who was to blame.
“We tipped off the French police as soon as we had the information,” Ben Daniels said. “But they were too slow. By the time they got to the Villa Siciliana, the brothers had gone.”
“Thanks to Alex, we now know that they are planning an operation that they call Steel Claw,” Mrs Jones continued. “Presumably, this involves the helicopter but we have no way of knowing in what way. However, it would seem likely that – as I first suggested – terrorism is not their goal.” She was addressing the Air Marshal in particular. “They need money, pure and simple. They’re planning some sort of theft. Something heavy. They need the helicopter to take it away.”
“A lot of people can still get killed during a theft, Mrs Jones. These people have already demonstrated that they are utterly ruthless.”
“Of course, Sir Norman. We also know that this event, Steel Claw, is going to take place some time tomorrow afternoon, possibly at half past three. The question is – what are we going to do?”
Alex had been listening to all this with a sense of disbelief. It seemed incredible to him that a single email received just days ago had catapulted him back into another adventure with MI6. And what was Jack doing mixed up in it all? Nobody in the room had mentioned her yet but surely she must have some part to play. The Grimaldis wouldn’t have taken her otherwise.
Chichester was the next to speak. “It seems to me that we should be focusing on this man, Vosper.”
“Yes. We have some intel on him,” Crawley said. He had a laptop in front of him and punched a few keys. It had a wireless connection to the screen on the wall. A face flashed up. “Recognize him?”
Alex looked across to a photograph of a grey-haired man with thin lips, wearing spectacles. He felt a stirring of excitement. “That’s him!” he said. “He was at the villa…”
“Derek Vosper,” Crawley continued. “It wasn’t that difficult to pin him down. We checked every flight into Nice Airport over the last three days. As a matter of fact, there was only one person called Vosper – it’s quite an unusual name – and we could see at once that he fitted the description Alex gave us.”
“Who is he?” Sir Norman demanded.
“Derek Vosper is forty-six years old and lives in Oxford—” Crawley began.
“Dragana had a map showing Oxford in her cabin,” Alex interrupted. He had already told them what he had found, but he thought it was worth reminding them.
“He’s married. He has no children. His wife is Jane Vosper. She’s a coach driver and works for a private school. As a matter of fact, she was checked out by the police a few years ago. It was a routine security clearance. She has no criminal record. Neither of them do.”
“What about the husband?” Mrs Jones asked.
“Well, that’s where it gets quite interesting.” Crawley clicked with his mouse, changing the image on the screen. This time it showed a classical building with tall, white columns. “Derek Vosper is an assistant curator at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He helps organize exhibitions. And this is what they’ve got on at the moment.”
Another click and the image changed to a golden statue of a completely naked man, crouching with his legs crossed. It was the front cover of a brochure and there was a caption in bright red letters: SOUTH AMERICAN GOLD.
“I read about this…” Ben Daniels muttered.
“That’s right. It’s been in all the newspapers. Inca, Aztec and Mayan gold. They say there’s never been an exhibition like it – so many treasures in one place. I understand that the collection is insured for forty million pounds.”
“That’s it, then!” Sir Norman brought his hand crashing down onto the table. “That’s what they’re planning to steal!”
Mrs Jones turned to Alex. “When you were in the Villa Siciliana, Vosper said something about solid gold.”
Alex thought back, trying to remember the exact words he’d heard. “That’s right,” he said. “But it wasn’t quite like that. He said he’d seen the names on the list and that they were solid gold.”
“He must have been talking about the statues on show!” Crawley said.
“Did he definitely use those words?” Mrs Jones wanted to be sure.
“Yes. Definitely.” But even as he spoke, Alex knew there was something wrong. Had Eduardo and Giovanni really stolen a multi-million pound helicopter to attack a museum in Oxford? Surely it couldn’t be as simple as that.
“There’s something else!” Crawley was pleased with himself. “Alex said he heard the name Henry mentioned. ‘They’re seeing Henry at half past three in the afternoon.’ Is that right, Alex?”
Alex nodded.
Crawley flashed another image onto the screen; this time a middle-aged, severe-looking woman standing outside the House of Commons. Alex thought he recognized her.
“This is Susan Hendrix, the Minister for Culture,” Crawley explained. “As it happens, she’s visiting the museum tomorrow afternoon. Do you see? You were listening to the conversation from the other side of a door and you didn’t get it quite right. It wasn’t Henry you heard. It was Hendrix.”
“No.” Alex shook his head. “It was definitely Henry, Mr Crawley. I heard it distinctly.”
“Henry who?”
“They didn’t say. But it wasn’t Hendrix. I’m sure of it.” Alex stopped. Nobody in the room looked convinced. They had already made up their minds.
“The minister must cancel her visit,” Chichester said. “We can’t risk putting her in any danger.”
“There is no danger!” Sir Norman cut in. “We now know what Operation Steel Claw means and we can prevent it from going ahead. All we have to do is arrest this Derek Vosper character. He’ll lead us to his employers and we can get the helicopter back too.” He got to his feet. As far as he was concerned, the meeting was over. “Very good work, Mrs Jones.” He nodded at Alex. “And congratulations to you, young man. You should have listened more carefully but otherwise you’ve done very well too.”
He left the room. The man called Chichester muttered a few words of thanks and followed him. Alex was left alone with the three people he knew.
“Vosper will be at the museum now,” Crawley said. “Do you want me to pick him up?”
“I don’t think so,” Mrs Jones said. “Despite what Sir Norman said, I’m not sure it’s quite such a good idea.” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “We want the helicopter but, more than that, we want the Grimaldi brothers,” she went on. “If we arrest Vosper, they’ll know we’re onto them. They’ll simply disappear. But we can take advantage of this situation. We can use the museum as a trap!”
It was the first time that Alex had seen Mrs Jones in action, working as the new head of Special Operations. It seemed to him that the more she spoke, the more she convinced herself she was right. “I want the museum surrounded,” she said. “Armed response officers! Our first priority must be to keep the public safe. Daniels – you’ll follow Vosper. I want you to keep him in your sight from the moment he wakes up until the moment he goes to bed. You can select a team for backup. Anyone you like.”
“Anyone?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, I’d quite like Alex to come along.”
“Why?” Mrs Jones looked at him with a spark of annoyance in her eyes.
“Because without Alex, we’d never have known that Derek Vosper existed. And it’s still possible we’re making a mistake.” He sighed. “Forgive me, ma’am. I know it seems to make sense. The gold. Hendrix. But if you ask me, it all feels a bit small-time for a Scorpia operation.”
“The Grimaldis aren’t with Scorpia any more.”
“I know. But forty million pounds? They could have made thirty million for just selling the Super Stallion. It must have cost twice that. And I bet you they spent quite a few million setting this whole thing up. They’ve murdered at least three people. You really would have thought they’d be a bit more ambitious.”
“And Alex?”
“He may see something or hear something. He may remember something. I don’t know. I’d just like to have him with me.”
Mrs Jones didn’t speak. Next to her, John Crawley was looking uncomfortable. Finally she glanced at Alex. “When we met in Saint-Tropez, I told you to go back to America,” she said. “I even paid for your flight. You disobeyed me and as a result you were very nearly killed. If you’re going to work for me, you’re going to have to learn to obey orders.”
“You don’t want me to work for you,” Alex said.
“I know. That’s what I said. I still remember what happened to Ian Rider. I don’t want to be the one sitting here being told that the same thing has happened to you.” She fell silent for a moment. “Do you want to do this, Alex?”
“I want to find Jack,” Alex said simply.
“All right.” She nodded at Daniels. “Take him with you. But if anything happens to him, I promise you, you’re fired!”