m h * I/ (

CHRIS

RYAN

THE HIT LIST

is Ryan was born near Newcastle in 1961. He led the SAS in 1984. During his ten years he was >lved in overt and covert operations and was also >er team commander of the anti-terrorist team, ing the Gulf War, Chris was the only member of ight-man team to escape from Iraq, of which three eagues were killed and four captured. It was the ;est escape and evasion in the history of the SAS. this he was awarded the Military Medal. For his last

years he was selecting and training potential uits for the SAS. le wrote about his experiences in the bestseller The

That Got Away (1995), which was also adapted for en. He is also the author of the bestsellers, Stand Stand By (1996), Zero Option (1997), The Kremlin ice (1998) and The Tenth Man Down (1999). Chris n's SAS Fitness Book is also published by Century, [e lectures in business motivation and security and irrently working as a bodyguard in America.

;t

Also by Chris Ryan

The One That Got Away (1995) Stand By, Stand By (1996)

Zero Option (1997)

The Kremlin Device (1998)

Tenth Man Down (1999)

Chris Ryan's SAS Fitness Book (2001)

THE HIT LIST

CHRIS RYAN

A

ARROW

Published by Arrow Books in 2001

13579 10 8642 Copyright � Chris Ryan 2000

Chris Ryan has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product

of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons,

living or dead, is entirely coincidental

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or

otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the

publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in

which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition

being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First published in the United Kingdom in 2000 by Century

Arrow Books Limited

The Random House Group Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

New South Wales 2061, Australia

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Random House South Africa (Pty) Limited Endulim, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa

Random House UK Limited Reg. No. 954009 www.randomhouse.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Papers used by Random House UK Limited are natural, recyclable products

made from wood grown in sustamable forests.

The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental

regulations of the country of origin.

ISBN 0 09 940607 1

Typeset in Bembo by MATS, Southend-on-Sea, Essex

Printed and bound in Germany by

Elsnerdruck, Berlin

ii 1!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All the usual suspects, Barbara, Mark, Luke, Hannah and all the rest of the team at Century.

If you believe in the light, it's because of the darkness

If you believe in the truth, it's because of their lies fyou believe in God, then you must believe in the DEVIL

PROLOGUE

Tuesday 5 November 1991

.3 Eastern Atlantic, due South of Gran Canana

f two men surfaced noiselessly. Raising their diving they scanned the area around them. Nothing, the pale bulk of the Lady Ghislaine and the soft of the sea against her hull. It was 4.30am, and Sugh no hint of dawn showed at the horizon both i knew that time was limited.

they watched, a dark figure showed for a it against the dimly illuminated windows of the am. Moments later a man appeared from the r, a white dressing gown belted around his able waist. Clearly restless, he stood at the rail yeral minutes. The night air appeared to offer relief, however, for after a brief circuit of the sck he turned abruptly on his heel and went I'inside.

water the men glanced at each other. The fi^Ctf the two, his features streaked and obscured by : cream, raised a hand above the surface and

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tapped the armoured glass face of his watch. The younger man nodded. As one, they moved towards the yacht's stern. Below them, motionless and invisible, waited the two-man Odyssea submarine in which, four hours earlier, they had commenced their silent journey.

It had been a long stalk, but not a difficult one. The word 'yacht' as applied to the Lady Ghislaine was a serious understatement - if she had been in commercial ownership she would have been called a cruise liner. She had five gleaming decks, weighed 430 tons, and was over 150 feet in length. Her swimming pool could quite comfortably have accommodated six topless models dressed as mermaids, and indeed - to the raucous delight of an invited party of Daily Minor executives -- had once done just that. She was, to say the least, a visible target. And an unsuspecting one. No one was manning her radar that night.

The Lady Ghislaine had set sail from Gibraltar on the Thursday. It had taken her crew two days to sail to Madeira, where the yacht had made anchor at Funchal. There, operatives from London were already in place and working on their tans. They had tailed the target to Desertas beach, where he swam without apparent pleasure, and later to the Central Casino, where he lost a little over .�9000 sterling at blackjack.

On Sunday, the yacht had sailed towards Tenenfe, reaching Darcene Pesquera at 10.00am the following day. Within the hour it had set off again southwards Chris Ryan

Je target remaining aboard throughout. His non pearence was hardly surprising - by then the ational press corps had learned what the target self had known for some time: that his business pire was on the verge of meltdown. The Swiss bank used was threatening to call in the fraud squad. His litors were beginning to panic. 'That was the point at which London had put the

-man diving team on stand-by, when they'd flown miniature submarine into Layounne on the aroccan coast.

Monday evening the Lady Ghislaine was back in Cruz. The target himself was ashore, eating pil- the dining room at the Hotel Mencey. There had a suggestion that the hit might be carried out : there and then - the concern being that he might

a car down to Los Christianos where the Gulf. jet was fuelled and ready to fly him back to Ion. In the event, however, the hit team held i and to their relief the target returned to the yacht t<his meal and ordered the crew to set sail. By then cealed transmitting device was on board, and the moment they left port the Lady Ghislaine s was relayed via geo-positioning satellites to the I's command vessel five miles to the north, final go-ahead came from London at 11.55. It t calm moonless night, and the Odyssea submarine away from the command vessel around mid The wet-sub was a customised craft, built in i and refitted at a secret base on the East Anglian

The Hit List

coast. It carried 500 cubic feet of onboard oxygen and its powerful batteries enabled it to cover up to twelve miles at a rate of two knots per hour. The wet-sub wouldn't have won any races, but it was perfectly adapted to its primary function of covert naval approach. Twelve miles was well outside the target's detection range.

Using a suction device, the younger of the two divers tethered the Odyssea's tow-line to the yacht. None of the crew seemed to be on watch, he noticed -- perhaps the target had insisted that the decks be cleared for his own use. Shrugging off his oxygen-tanks and regulator, moving with the silence and fluency of long practice, he locked it into the specially adapted housing behind the Odyssea's left-hand seat. Beside him, his partner lowered his own gear to the right-hand housing.

From a pouch round his waist the older man removed two magnetic clamps. A cord ran between these clamps and from this he suspended a heavy equipment bag and his fins. Watching as his partner rid himself of his own fins, positioned a collapsible caving ladder against the stern rail and silently shinned up it, the older man opened the equipment bag. Taking care to avoid the percussion of steel on steel, he withdrew two MP5 sub-machine guns, extended their folding stocks, and passed them up to his waiting colleague. Crouching on the varnished teak deck the men prepared their weapons, wincing at the oily clicks as

V Chris Ryan

fi.

I the twenty-round magazines snapped home. Ears

ty straining for the slightest sound - a footfall, an opening

Ij, door - they drew back and locked the cocking levers.

l>'

I The target shivered and pulled the towelling dressing

gown more tightly around himself. He'd just phoned the bridge to ask for the air-conditioning to be adjusted by a couple of degrees. It was still warm outside, despite the time, but here in the stateroom the air had become uncomfortably cold. It was too cold to sleep, and sleep was what he craved most. A few hours' escape from the pressure - from the desperate worry of his debts, from the inexorable progress of the fraud investigation, from the certainty that the coming share sell-offs would leave his empire in ruins.

He was still one of the most powerful men in the world, but tonight he knew that the end was close. Part of him wished that this journey could go on for ever --just the sea and the sky and the soft thrum of the engines. But he knew that all of that would end within hours. Instead he would be flying back to London for one desperate last stand. Like Custer, he thought wryly - and look what happened to Custer.

Approaching his dressing-table, Maxwell bowed and examined his hair. The roots were growing out again - a centimetre of iron-grey now showed beneath the black dye. Would the law courts have his scalp as well as his dignity? There was little chance he could salvage anything now. If he was lucky, he might escape with a couple of million. And the house, perhaps. And

The Hit List

maybe a couple of cars. Living expenses? He shrugged. He was bored with restaurant cooking, and he had all the Savile Row suits he'd need to see him out. But there would be no more helicopters, no more chummy Pall Mall lunches with ministers, no more Fleet Street boardrooms falling silent as he entered. Face it, he told himself, there was a better than even chance he'd have to stand trial, and maybe even go to jail. He'd done things that no lawyer - not even the most urbane of silks - could possibly defend. Face it, he repeated, it was over. This was the endgame, the king brought down by a battalion of pawns. Checkmate.

Or was it? Was his last desperate gambit going to pay off? Was the wildest card he'd ever played going to win the trick for him?

There was a light knock on the door. Some problem with the air-conditioning, he supposed. And he'd told the captain -- ordered him, dammit -- that he wasn't to be disturbed. Wearily he made his way to the door.

It crashed against him as he turned the handle. Next moment it had been closed behind him and he was being dragged back into the room. He tried to struggle, but his arms were pinned in an iron grip behind his back. There was a crackling sound, and an excruciating pain jolted through his kidneys. He doubled up, retching, and as he tried feebly to straighten lost control of his bladder, warm urine coursed down his leg.

Dizzy with pain and shame, his throat stinging with

Chris Ryan

bile, he sank to a sitting position on the bed. The dressing gown had fallen open, but he was too shocked to cover himself.

The two figures withdrew to the centre of the pale blue Isphahan carpet. Wiping his smarting eyes and running nose with his sleeve, Maxwell saw to his astonishment that both wore black neoprene wetsuits and carried automatic weapons slung in chest harnesses. Their faces were tiger-striped with camouflage cream. The younger man carried some sort of electric prod.

'Mr Maxwell,' said the older man, his eyes expressionless. 'Please sit still. This is your last warning. If you call for help or or try to escape, we will hurt you very badly indeed. To avoid that, just sit still and answer my questions. Do you understand?'

Robert Maxwell nodded. Anger was slowly beginning to replace humiliation. He drew the dressing gown closed around himself. Who the hell were these people? He had any amount of corporate enemies, but none of them would try a stunt like this. Were they Romanians? Mossad? He spoke quickly in Hebrew: 'Ma perush hadaver haze?'

The two men looked at him blankly. The older man stepped forward. 'Mr Maxwell, we don't have much time. We need answers to our questions, and we need them right away. I think you know who we are.'

'I haven't the first idea who you are - and nor, for i that matter, have I got any cash in this room. You're welcome to my credit cards, though - my wallet's in ; the pocket of that--'

The Hit List

'Mr Maxwell, you know who we are.'

The voice was anonymous, but unmistakably that of a born English speaker. A faint burr - West Country? Bristol? - but overlaid by the flatter vowels of the Thames estuary. Could they be MI6? Surely not. If those people wanted information from him they just had to pick up the phone, and they knew it.

'Mr Maxwell, I am instructed to tell you that Dietrich Wegner wants his property back.'

That name. After all these years, that name. The jolt of understanding which slammed through Robert Maxwell at that moment was worse than the electronic prod. He was as good as dead. He looked at them. Saw they knew that he knew.

Seeing Maxwell's shoulders slump, confident that the last vestiges of fight had departed him, the younger man returned the prod to his belt. Beside him the older man unzipped a waterproof pouch that he was carrying round his neck. The silence between the stateroom's three occupants was intimate, almost conspiratorial.

How would they do it? Maxwell wondered. Surely they wouldn't use their weapons? It would make a godawful racket and they'd have to kill the entire crew. But a glance at the tiger-striped faces above him told him that, if necessary, they would do just that. By nightfall they'd be the other side of the Channel, probably watching Match of the Day over a couple of Special Brews. My God, he thought. If there was ever a lethal race put on this Earth it was the English.

He knew what they wanted, of course. He knew

8

Chris Ryan

what they were looking for. He considered stalling playing for time, but realised that the longer the < charade lasted, the greater the danger to the rest those aboard. Any crew members up and about when' the men left the ship would be gunned down. And if one died, the rest would have to go too; there could be no witnesses. No, better to go quietly, hope it was fast, and limit the deaths to his own. The fear had gone now - all that was left was a quiet surprise that it could all end like this.

The older man glanced at his watch and out of the curtained window.

So that was how it was to be, thought Maxwell. The sea. No thumb to the jugular, no punch of silenced bullets, just the cold waters of dawn. And these two anonymous soldiers of his adopted country drawing him down to the darkness and the end of all worry.

'Mr Maxwell,' the older man said, 'before we bring this to a close, I'd like you to open your safe and give me the photographs you keep inside.'

Maxwell didn't move.

Seeing his hesitation the younger man's hand wandered towards the electric prod.

Maxwell walked heavily across the pale blue carpet, lifted down a framed Private Eye cartoon of himself as 'Cap'n Bob', and spun the dial of a small wall-safe. Taking out a sheaf of fragile-looking black-and-white photographs he handed them to the older man who placed them in the waterproof pouch.

'Close the safe. Put the picture back.'

The Hit List

he did as he was bid.

Thank you, Mr Maxwell. Now I'm going to ask N to take off your robe.' , Slowly, Maxwell obeyed. He touched the appliqued

^e 'Lady Ghislaine' on the breast pocket of the

^ssing gown, gave the ghost of a wink to the

%tograph of the two boys.

'Are you ready?'

Vlaxwell looked around him, at the walnut

jXelling, the Louis Quinze escritoire, the luxurious

fyures and fittings. He'd survived the war, he'd

, *Vived the Nazis, he'd built and lost an empire.

\w, naked, he stood before his killers.

What a story, he thought. What a front page!

He dictated his last headline.

'I'm ready,' he said.

10

ONE

The wind, a hard north-easterly from the Chilterns, picked up once again. It scoured the valley and whipped through the pines which stood guard over the 1st XV rugby pitch, flattening the players' shirts to their bodies. The light was fading; the towers and parapets of Bolingbroke's School were an indistinct grey on the skyline.

Neil Slater glanced at his watch. Another ten minutes, then he'd send the boys in for showers and high tea. They'd done well, and he had a fair idea of whom he was going to choose for Saturday's match against Wellington.

Bracing himself against the wind, Slater watched as a slight sixteen-year-old American named Reinhardt intercepted an opponent's pass, made as if to pass in his turn, dummied, wrong-footed his opposite number, and raced for the try-hne. A metre or two behind Reinhardt, a Saudi boy named al-Jubrin kept efFortless pace.

The opposing full-back moved to block Reinhardt. His pile-driving tackle drove the breath from the American's body, but by then the ball was sailing

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He did as he was bid.

'Thank you, Mr Maxwell. Now I'm going to ask you to take off your robe.'

Slowly, Maxwell obeyed. He touched the appliqued blue 'Lady Ghislaine' on the breast pocket of the dressing gown, gave the ghost of a wink to the photograph of the two boys.

'Are you ready?'

Maxwell looked around him, at the walnut panelling, the Louis Quinze escritoire, the luxurious fixtures and fittings. He'd survived the war, he'd survived the Nazis, he'd built and lost an empire. Now, naked, he stood before his killers.

What a story, he thought. What a front page!

He dictated his last headline.

'I'm ready,' he said.

10

ONE

wind, a hard north-easterly from the Chilterns, ted up once again. It scoured the valley and pped through the pines which stood guard over st XV rugby pitch, flattening the players' shirts to bodies. The light was fading; the towers and of Bolingbroke's School were an indistinct 1 on the skyline.

?il Slater glanced at his watch. Another ten s, then he'd send the boys in for showers and |$ea. They'd done well, and he had a fair idea of he was going to choose for Saturday's match ; Wellington.

ing himself against the wind, Slater watched as It sixteen-year-old American named Reinhardt sd an opponent's pass, made as if to pass in his ll^durnrnied, wrong-footed his opposite number, eed for the try-line. A metre or two behind It, a Saudi boy named al-Jubrin kept effortless

: opposing full-back moved to block Reinhardt. iving tackle drove the breath from the I's body, but by then the ball was sailing

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towards al-Jubrin. That the athletic young Saudi would pluck the ball from the air without breaking step was a foregone conclusion, as was the subsequent try. Masoud al-Jubrin was born to play rugby.

al-Jubrin dropped the pass. There was no try instead the ball spun away into touch.

'Good, Paul!' Slater called out to Reinhardt as the boy picked himself up. 'Masoud, what happened? You don't usually drop those -- you'll have to do a sight better than that if we're going to beat Wellington on Saturday.'

The Saudi pupil was silent. The wind plucked at his neatly cut hair and snatched away the pale vapour of his breath.

'What's wrong, Masoud?' asked Slater.

al-Jubrin shrugged. 'Nothing, sir.'

Slater put his hand to the boy's forehead, noted the feverish brightness of his eyes. 'You're burning up. How long have you been feeling like this?'

'Sorry, sir. Since this morning, sir.'

'Why the hell didn't you tell me?'

'Sorry, sir. Thought it would . . . go.'

And worried you'd be dropped from the team if you mentioned it, thought Slater.

'I want you in that three-quarter line on Saturday,' he told the boy. 'Now cut along and see Matron -- my guess is she'll put you in sick bay for the night. I'll look in during the evening, make sure you're OK.'

al-Jubrin looked at Slater, opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. Nodding, he headed

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Chris Ryan

off towards the track suits piled on the touchline.

'And while we're at it, I'd like you to report to Matron too, Ripley. Have her take your temperature.'

Ripley, the son of a Midlands property developer, stared angrily at Slater. At six foot one, he was already two inches taller than the games master.

'I'm fine, sir. Honestly.'

'To Matron, Ripley. I'll be checking with her.'

'Sir, I can't miss this evening's prep. I've got a history project I've got to--'

'You heard me, Ripley. I want you lean and mean for Saturday.'

The boy bit his lip, nodded, and loped off. Sometimes, thought Slater, these rich kids had it hardest. Would Ripley - basically a decent lad - be ruined by the privileges that he would undoubtedly inherit? And Reinhardt, he wondered, seeing the American limping towards him. How would he be ten years from now? Would that cheerful sportsmanship survive whatever corporate hell was waiting for him?

|v 'All right Paul?' " 'Cream-crackered, sir.'

Slater smiled. If nothing else, an English education had broadened the boy's vocabulary. 'Train hard, fight easy, Paul - who said that?'

Reinhardt frowned. 'You've got me there, sir.'

'General Suvorov,' said Slater, and for a moment he saw the words painted on the adjutant's door at the old regimental HQ, smelt the gun-oil in the armoury.

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'Who was General Suvorov, sir? I'm afraid my modern history's a bit shaky.'

Slater looked at the boy, at his narrow shoulders and mud-caked knees. God, he thought, they were so young. 'Look him up, Paul,' he said gently.

Watching the rugby squad trudge back to the school, Slater wondered if he was ever going to find life at Bolingbroke's School normal rather than freakish. On paper his was a good job. Games master to a school like Bolingbroke's was not a position to be sneezed at -- on a good day the 1st XV could give Sedburgh or Ampleforth a run for their money. And the boys were good kids, for the most part. Too bloody rich and too bloody foreign, one of his colleagues had confided to Slater during his first staff tea, but Slater liked them. In many ways, he found the foreign kids - the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the Indians easiest to get along with. Away from their overindulgent parents they had a hunger to prove themselves as individuals. They had no real understanding of the British class system, and they treated Slater exactly as they treated the other teachers: with an earnest, if at times joshing, respect.

Like Slater, the foreigners had started out as outsiders. Unlike Slater, however, they soon discovered that wealth and privilege confers its own insidership. For all the importance attached to rugby and cricket, games masters did not rank highly in Bolingbroke's pecking order. Slater was considered a cut above Jimmy McCracken - the semi-alcoholic

14

Chris Ryan

'"groundsman who tended the pitches and was known to staff and pupils alike as 'Windy' on account of his I, dodgy colon - but well below any of the other i teachers, most of whom were Oxbridge graduates and p former public schoolboys. When he had first arrived at I the school Slater had wondered whether he should jpmitate them, with their leather-patched sports jackets, ftheir polished brogues and their baggy corduroys. He'd idismissed the idea immediately - he'd never get it jtiite right. To carry off that that kind of upper-class abbiness you had to be born to it. And Slater, as was regularly made clear to him, adn't been born to it. He wore civilian clothes - as >ne of the warrant-officers had memorably pointed on the first day of his undercover course -- like a juaddie on the piss. He'd never quite sorted out the vhole clothes thing. Or, for that matter, the accent ing. Or the posh restaurant and vintage wine thing it was supposed to work so well with women. Or iiy of that host of other 'things' that made for an easy jgress through life.

But he did, Slater mused ruefully as the cold dusk athered around him, have certain skills. At this ioment there was a hot shower waiting for him and ith luck a pot of tea and a plate of Jammy Dodgers in le staff room. If he ended up drinking the tea alone, irell, bollocks to the lot of them. It was a billet, and all igs considered, a comfortable one. He pulled on his sweatshirt. With a fair wind behind aem Masoud and Paul and the rest of the lads should

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punch holes through the Wellington defence on Saturday. Train hard, fight easy.

As he made his way towards the school buildings, Slater's attention was caught by a vehicle on the public road beyond the boundary wall. It was a Cherokee four-wheel drive, proceeding at about twenty miles an hour. Even given the warning signs outside the school, this seemed unnaturally slow for the road, and Slater realised that he had noticed the vehicle driving in the same direction and at the same speed earlier in the day. The Cherokee was a maroon colour, he remembered, although now in the failing light it looked almost black.

For a moment he wondered if the driver was a parent. A lot of the parents had Cherokees - it was pretty much Bolingbroke's signature vehicle - but not many went for the tinted window option. What was the point of spending all that money, after all, if no one could see who you were? And none of the parents considered themselves bound by the local speed restrictions, as this driver clearly did. Slater watched as the four-wheel drive crested a rise and passed out of sight. He had memorised the number.

Anxious to unload his misgivings and forget the incident with a clear conscience, Slater walked over to the main gate, where a white Mondeo, bearing the mailed-fist logo of a private security company, idled at the verge. The car was more of a public relations stunt than anything else, in Slater's opinion. All it served to

16

Chris Ryan

was to underline the fact that the children of some

;ry rich people were in residence - a fact which the !$lue and gold school notice-board (motto: Fortitude, fTruth, Valour) made clear at a glance.

It was Bolingbroke's proximity to Heathrow -- less 'than fifty minutes in a chauffeur-driven Lexus -- which ittracted the overseas customers. Summer visits were l,Vspecially popular. Parents could fly in in the morning, 'take in a lunchtime meeting and a dash down Bond Street, and then spend a lazy couple of hours in a itieckchair pretending to understand the rules of cricket. Rather fewer of these parents, Slater had observed, volunteered for duty on the rugby touchline. In the winter months, he supposed, parents were happy for the formation of their sons' characters to proceed on trust.

But there were real security issues, as there were i wherever the children of the super-rich gathered. And 'while the school did not wish to turn itself into a high tech prison - much of its commercial appeal lay in its [traditional appearence and atmosphere -- it wished to : make clear that it took these issues seriously. Hence the white Mondeo.

And hence, Slater assumed, the chugging exhaust. What made people leave their car-engines switched on for hours at a time? He knocked on the driver's side window, which was blurred with condensation.

The driver lowered the glass, releasing a warm odour of fart and processed food, and regarded him suspiciously. Beyond the driver a second man was

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leafing through a pornographic magazine.

'Hi! My name's Slater. I'm the games master.'

The driver, a heavy-set man in a Barbour jacket, said nothing. A half-eaten meat pie sat in its foil dish in his lap. Pastry crumbs speckled his thighs.

'Did either of you notice a maroon Cherokee passing here a minute ago?' Slater continued.

'Why would you be concerning yourself with a maroon Cherokee, sir?'

'It's been past at least a couple of times today. Going very slowly. Looked to me as if it was scoping the place out.'

The second man turned his magazine through ninety degrees. Tuck me!' he said, grimacing with disbelief. 'Look at the state of that!'

The driver glanced at the magazine and turned back to Slater. 'A slow-moving maroon Cherokee that you think you've seen before.'

'And these have got to be silicone,' murmured the second man. 'They're all over the rucking shop.'

'I took the number,' said Slater, ignoring him. 'You might want to get it checked out. Here, I'll put it on your pad.'

Smirking, the driver handed Slater his pad. It was blank. Slater wrote down the number.

'Don't worry, sir,' said the driver, returning the pad to his pocket without looking at it. 'We're professionals. But thanks for the tip.'

'As the actress said to the bishop,' added the second man.

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Chris Ryan

As Slater made his way up the drive, he heard both en laugh.

st

pounds Cherokee was parked in a lay-by 500 yards down ie road.

In the driver's seat, smoking nervously, was a !prenty-year-old man of Pakistani descent in an >ro tracksuit. He was good with cars, and over the course of his teenage years - five convictions taking and driving away, thirty offences taken into deration - had refined his skills to the point icre he was now considered one of the top wheel in the Gateshead area.

the back seat sat two slightly older men, both ded, both dressed in black windcheaters, jeans and boots. They were Shi'ite Muslims from al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia's eastern province. The men were ; their mutual grandfather had emigrated from Iranian Gulf port of Basra in 1925 and, unlike their neighbours, the two had been brought up strictly tenets of their faith.

yy were followers of a radical Shi'ite holy man d Shayk Nabil Rahmat. Rahmat was the founder revolutionary faction called al-Hizb al-Makhfi Hidden Party. Acting with the utmost secrecy, and its identity closely, the Hidden Party had out bombings in Riyadh, Jeddah, and even the set's own city of Medina.

>fphe Hidden Party, however, had been dealt a severe Seven of its members had been convicted of

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terrorism by a religious court in Ahsa province, and condemned to death by beheading. Only the decision of a senior judge sitting on the Court of Cassation, the final court of appeal, stood between the seven party members and the execution of sentence.

And unless extraordinary pressure was brought to bear, that decision was a foregone conclusion. The judge in question was known as one of the most conservative members of the Saudi judiciary, and vehemently opposed to everything that Rahmat and his followers stood for. His name was Shaykh Marwan al-Jubrin. He was Masoud al-Jubrin's father.

The two men in the Cherokee had come to England in order to set in motion the applying of extreme pressure on the old judge. They had secured false Turkish passports from the intelligence services of the Islamic Republic of Iran, flown from Tehran to Rome, and then travelled across Europe by train to Denmark. In Copenhagen they had embarked on an overnight ferry to Newcastle, where they had shown their Turkish passports and been met by a local sweet manufacturer. This man, a devout Shi'ite who had once burnt an effigy of Salman Rushdie for the benefit of an ITV news crew, had placed his spare bedroom at their disposal. At dawn, having picked up the driver, the sweet-manufacturer had driven the cousins to a lock-up garage where the stolen and replated Cherokee was waiting. Concealed beneath the driver's seat were the two weapons they had requested: a loaded Smith and Wesson Model 25 revolver and a

20

Chris Ryan

jAsheathed Gerber Patriot knife with a six-inch oxidised 1 blade.

The trio had begun the drive south immediately and |, by 2pm, after an unpleasant meal consumed at a service | Station outside Henley-on-Thames, had begun to recce I the roads around Bolingbroke's School.

The cousins waited in the car, smoking, until it was JfNfully dark. Then they embraced, whispered a prayer, |took a weapon each, and climbed out into the icy cold |bf the lay-by. Their point of entry to the school, flselected two hours earlier, was close to the rugby pitch |where the 1st XV practice game had taken place arlier.

Within minutes both men were crouched outside ic seven-foot perimeter wall. A leg up, a grunt of effort, a helping hand and they were both over, falling ith a soft crunch into the frosted bracken, purposefully they made their way towards the school lildings, by now a blaze of light. Their afternoon's connaissance had told them they had little to fear am the security guards and they moved fluently from adow to shadow, eventually vanishing from sight long the ground-scraping branches of an elderly yew ee. A gravelled path led past this tree - a path joining lie main school building to the modern refectory lock. The two men settled down to wait.

For twenty-five minutes the darkness reshaped itself aund them. Boys passed by, but always in twos or rees. Finally a solitary figure appeared, a slender fair ired youth of about fourteen carrying a Game Boy.

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Apparently heedless of the cold, the teenager paused beneath one of the lighted refectory windows, his fingers stabbing at the little console. The two men's eyes met. Soundlessly they climbed to their feet.

It was skilfully accomplished. Within seconds the boy had been bundled into the blackness beneath the yew. One man held him, clamping a strong hand across his mouth, the other urgently motioned silence. Eyes wide with terror, the boy nodded. To reinforce the need for silence one of the bearded figures produced the Smith and Wesson. In response the boy wet himself and began to shake.

'Listen, my friend,' whispered the second man. 'We are not going to hurt you - we just wish to talk. Now, what is your name?'

'C-Christopher,' the boy managed.

'OK, Christopher, when I give the word we are going to walk down the hill towards the games fields. Like I said, we will not hurt you but you must keep silent. Do you understand?'

The boy nodded, still shaking.

'Good boy. Let's go.'

The two men led the boy back in the direction they had come. Soon they were below the perimeter fence again. Getting him over was not easy. An icy frost now coated the stone, and terror seemed to have robbed the boy of all co-ordination. Eventually, however, they managed to bundle him up and over.

'Are you hurt, Christopher?' hissed one of the men as they landed to either side of him.

22

Chris Rycm

The boy shook his head.

'Just walk then,' said the man. 'Like normal, OK?'

. the Cherokee they turned on the ignition and the ater. The man with the Smith and Wesson pocketed ; weapon and took out a small mobile phone. i'OK, Christopher. I want you to ask to speak to soud al-Jubrin. I'm going to dial the number of his e, and I want you to arrange to meet him in the ic place that we . . . that we met you.' 'But I don't know Masoud. At least, I know who he Ibut--'

'It doesn't matter. Just say you have something of at importance for him. Something you have to give i in person.'

; you going to hurt him?' f 'No. We just have to speak to him. To give him a essage. That is all.'

The boy frowned doubtfully at the windscreen. At side, the black-clothed figure punched out a lorised number and handed him the little

Ibtorola.

I

?A murmured conversation ensued. A more Imfident tone was returning to the boy's voice,

ecially now that the revolver was out of sight. 'Masoud's in the sick bay,' he said eventually,

leering the phone. 'He's got a flu bug or something.' AThe men looked at each other. ' 'I'd like you to take us there, Christopher,' said one.

le Delves house prefects were watching a 23

The Hit List

documentary about the artist Tracey Emin in their common room. In theory they were supposed to be in their dormitories by ten; their minds and bodies, the headmaster insisted, needed proper recovery time if they were to handle the combined demands of competitive sport and the A-level syllabus. In practice, however, they could request late TV time if the programme in question was deemed to be of sufficient cultural value. As deputy housemaster of Delves, it was Slater's duty to police this system. He had never heard of Tracey Emin but had given the programme the nod anyway.

When he stuck his head into the common room there was a pair of soiled knickers on the TV screen.

'What's this?' he asked one of the boys, a rangy computer-fanatic named Tyrell.

'It's the documentary I asked you about, sir,' said Tyrell.

The camera panned across a wrecked bed, paused to [ examine a discarded condom. '

'How much longer has it got to go?' If Latimer, the Delves housemaster, came in now there would be questions asked.

'About fifteen minutes. Do you agree that this is art, sir?'

An unshaven man in square-framed glasses was now standing in front of Tracey Emin's bed. 'Bad sex, skid marked sheets - today it's all up for grabs,' he was saying.

'I'm afraid it's not my special subject, Tristram,'

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Chris Ryan

I' Slater replied. It was a weak answer and he knew it. He should watch this business of Christian-naming the boys, too. The other staff-members didn't like it, and he'd been warned about it more than once. Undercutting discipline, he'd been told. Tracey Emin was now on screen, topless. 'What do you think of that, sir? She's quite fit, isn't �she?'

'I'm sure she'd value your approval,' said Slater If drily. He glanced round the room. All eyes were on f ITracey. 'How did you goons get to be made prefects, j anyway?'

'Born to it, sir,' drawled a general's son named f Springell, looking pointedly at Slater. 'Natural selec- I tion.' Running his fingers through expensively barbered I hair, he turned back to the screen. 'Oh, you dirty, dirty Igirl. . . Bloody hell, that's a used Tampax, isn't it?'

'I think you should discuss it with Mr Parry in the art room, Springell. And less of the bloodies, please.' 'It's not my Tampax.'

'Don't wind me up Springell, OK?' Suddenly ISlater's voice was raw steel. The temperature in the | room seemed to drop several degrees. The boys stared |at the TV screen, where Tracey Emin was dancing and aughing.

'How're al-Jubrin and Ripley, sir?' Paul Reinhardt [.said eventually.

'I don't think Masoud's going to be in that three I quarter line on Saturday, if that's what you mean. Gary Ripley should be OK.'

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Slater was grateful for the change of subject. Even after fifteen years hard soldiering he was still vulnerable to the suggestion that he had been put on Earth for the casual amusement of the likes of Springell. I'll give him natural fucking selection, he thought.

Reinhardt's question also reminded him that he had promised to look in on the flu-stricken team members. It shouldn't be too late.

'How much longer does this go on?' he asked for the second time.

'Fourteen minutes now, sir,' said Tyrell.

'Right. I'm just going over to the sick bay and when I come back I want you all upstairs in your rooms. Springell, you're responsible for making sure everything's turned off. TV plug out of the wall, please.'

'Sir,' said Springell, injecting the single syllable with all the irony he could muster.

The sick bay was at the back of the main building on the top floor, well away from the classrooms, kitchens and other centres of activity. Pupils were only ever detained there with minor conditions. Anything that exceeded the expertise of Matron - a corpulent body who regularly contacted her late husband by means of a spiritualist - demanded a visit from the Henley GP or transfer to a hospital in Reading. That, in turn, often meant a second transfer to a private clinic in London; the school had given up trying to explain to foreign parents that for most conditions the local NHS hospital

26

Chris Ryan

was a better and safer bet than even the most expensive clinic.

( The lift was waiting on the ground floor. Slater thought this strange: it usually remained on the top floor once Matron had retired to her quarters for the \ night. She slept next to the sick bay. There was also a knight nurse, a willowy redhead named Jean Burney. j1 Slater had caught Jean's eye once or twice and detected 14 definite twinkle. Since she was always on duty in the Lfvenings, however, he had not had the chance to poliow it up.

He stepped out of the lift, heard the doors slide shut ehind him. The sick bay was arranged around a ijuare lobby containing a pair of sofas, a low table and le night nurse's desk. On two sides of the square were lined-off enclosures; these were for junior boys, id none appeared to be occupied. Nor was the night nurse's desk. Perhaps Jean Burney gone to the toilet. Slater decided to go straight jugh to the sixth form bay. Passing the desk, jwever, he saw that a table lamp had fallen and ashed, leaving curling fragments of glass on the Jrhite linoleum floor. Among the glass were smears of Gently shed blood. More splashes led towards the for to Matron's quarters and the sixth form bay. Had accidentally knocked the lamp to the floor and len cut her hand on the broken glass? She didn't look

clumsy type.

$' And then, at the edge of a smear of blood by the sr, Slater saw a faint chevron-shaped imprint. It was

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no more than an inch long, but he recognised it instantly. No member of the teaching or medical staff wore commando-soled boots, and the boys all wore regulation lace-ups.

He froze, instantly alert, felt the familiar thud of his heartbeat as the adrenaline kicked in. For a moment he paused, ears straining for the slightest sound, and then moved at a crouch to the passage door. It opened, but not easily. Something heavy had been laid against it. Silently he raised himself to the level of the glass panes in the upper half of the door. The lights were offin the corridor but he made out a human shape - two bare legs, the faint scrabbling of fingers. Gently, Slater forced the door open, pushing the figure away from him until there was room to squeeze through.

It was Jean Bumey. Slater recognised her by her hair. She had been blindfolded and gagged and her | wrists were taped behind her back. Drying blood ran | from both nostrils, her lower lip was split, and her nose i looked broken. She was unconscious.

She was breathing, though, and Slater quickly ripped off the gag and the blindfold and cut the tape from her wrists with the Mauser penknife he carried on a lanyard in his trouser pocket. For the moment this was all he dared attempt. The intruder, or intruders, could still be in the building.

There was sufficient light for Slater to see that all three sick bay doors were closed. An attempt to enter any of them could invite a bullet. The fourth door bore a nameplate marked matron - Mrs T Mackay.

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Chris Ryan

Silently, he turned the handle and slipped inside. He had barely closed the door behind him when a bedside light snapped on and a nightie-clad figure struggled to an upright position.

'Yes?' she began sleepily, assuming Slater to be Jean. Seeing that he wasn't her tone changed to alarm. 'Mr |$later, may I ask what on Earth--'

'Keep quiet!' he hissed. 'There are--' 'Come any closer and I'll scream,' hissed Mrs ackay. 'What the hell's going on? What are you--' 'Intruders. They've knocked Jean out. I think ley're after one of the boys - probably already taken I want you to ring security, the police and the admaster in that order. And I need a weapon.' 'You whafi Mr Slater, they might be--' 'Armed? I know. They could also be getting away one of the boys.' His eyes searched the room, ited on the reproduction Hepplewhite chair in ich Mrs Mackay liked to watch Emmerdale and tEnders.

hard, downward stamp and a violent wrench re the Matron's horrified eyes, and Slater was ting one of the chair's curved mahogany legs, of yellow damask trailed from the heavy less end.

'Phone,' he whispered, and slipped from the room, the corridor he stopped and listened again, all his racing. Jean Burney still lay unconscious by the s. From the furthest sick room came a broken, luring sound.

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Slater kicked open the three doors, the chair-leg raised to fend off any attacker. In the first, he found only darkness and silence. In the second, gagged as Jean Burney had been but half-conscious, he discovered a boy he recognised as Christopher Boyd-Farquharson a dreamy fourteen-year-old excused from games on account of his asthma. The boy had received a nasty bang on the head, and judging from the confusion in his eyes was badly concussed, but - thank God appeared to be breathing more or less regularly. Cutting him free, whispering to him that on no account was he to leave the room, Slater hurried on.

Behind the third door he found Gary Ripley and an empty bed. Ripley, twisted beneath a grey school blanket, had been beaten badly; his face was bruised and lacerated and he was bleeding from one ear. His knuckles, Slater noticed, were also bleeding and there was blood beneath his fingernails. He had not gone down without a struggle.

'How many men?' Slater asked gently.

'Two.'

'They took Masoud?'

Ripley nodded, a movement that was clearly agonising. 'I did my best, sir,' he whispered. 'One had a gun.'

'Describe the gun, Gary.'

'Revolver . . . heavy revolver. Other had a knife.'

'And the men?'

'Two Arabs. In black. Beards . . .' Tears of pain and helplessness began to run down the boy's cheeks. 'My

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Chris Ryan

stomach, sir. Could you

Slater pulled back the blanket. A black, inch-long lit gaped just below the boy's navel. Blood pulsed jm the wound. The sheets and the boy's cotton pyjamas were dark with it. Grabbing a towel from the andrail, Slater pressed it to the stab-wound. Ripley sped and his eyes rolled backwards. 'Gary, you've done well. You've done fucking well, low you've got to hang in there, understand?' 'I'll be OK, sir. You go on.'

But the voice was barely audible, and as Slater raised self from the bed the boy began to shake. Slater lew what was coming. He'd held men on the edge af death before, seen them move from this world into le waiting room of the next. Convulsing, Ripley lost Consciousness.

Mrs Mackay, her nightdress smeared with Jean Jurney's blood, stood in the doorway. Taking in the cene at a glance she moved swiftly to the bed and held i finger to Ripley's neck.

'I've rung an ambulance for Jean, but it's got to :>me from Reading. This boy's not going to last that ang.'

Slater pulled a pen from his pocket and scribbled a

lumber on the pillow-case. 'Get back on the phone.

Tell whoever answers there's been a kidnapping and

abbing, that there are firearms involved, and that we

eed an emergency services helicopter immediately.

Say you're calling on behalf of Neil Slater from B

Squadron.'

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Mrs Mackay looked at him uncertainly. 'What is this number?'

Slater picked up the chair-leg. 'It's the headquarters of the Special Air Service.'

'And you're . . .'

But Slater had already vanished.

Ignoring the lift, he ran headlong down the stairs to the bottom of the tower, then at full speed along the road fronting the main school buildings. The security team was based in a small ornamental lodge half-way up the drive - previously the domain of the estate's head gardener. During the day two men manned the main gates in a car, and at 7pm, when the main gates closed, the night team took over in the lodge, keeping watch over a bank of monitors.

To Slater's eye the system was all but useless, and he had told the headmaster as much within days of his arrival. Apart from loudly advertising its function, Slater had pointed out, the lodge was at least 200 yards from the main school buildings and highly vulnerable to assault. At the very least the operations centre should be moved indoors. The head had heard him out and then informed him that the system had been set up by a company owned by a school old boy. The old boy in question - and here the head had tapped the side of his nose meaningfully - had spent some time in one of the hush-hush departments, and jolly well knew what was what.

Slater had shut up. The lodge, with its imposing

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Chris Ryan

[Jbank of screens, was clearly a selling-point for nervous rents, and -- equally important to the management -- leant that the security teams could be kept at a istance; the staff and pupils didn't have to suffer their ain-smoking and filthy jokes. Pushing the lodge door open with the chair-leg, he peered quickly inside. The monitors were blank, and 5th men were slumped forward against the control stem console, which was running with spilt tea and blood. A holed and crumpled parka jacket lay on the jor. One of the men had crapped himself before he ied -- probably when witnessing his companion's fate and the stench in the small overheated room was Overwhelming.

Slater visualised the scene. The terrorists would have jrst in. The man with the knife would have held soud while the gunman -- his weapon muffled in iie parka - would have immediately shot one of the ecurity men. The second man, all but paralysed with would then have been ordered to open the Electronic gates before suffering the same fate as his ler - a single shot below the ear. With Masoud in aw there wouldn't have been any question of Ssabling or gagging; the security men had had to die. far from the main building, no one would have Ikeard anything.

Slater leant over the dead men and flicked the Miitors back on. Nothing, just the darkness and trees sting in the wind. The main gate, as he had :ed, had been opened. But Slater knew he

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wasn't far behind the kidnappers, and with luck, assuming their vehicle was laid up away from the gate, they hadn't got Masoud into the vehicle yet. Would a driver be waiting there?

Still carrying the heavy chair-leg - the security men were not permitted to carry firearms or any other salvageable form of weapon - Slater sprinted down the grass verge at the side of the drive. The frost was hard now, and he was grateful for the treads on his Timberland boots. The high winds had dispersed the cloud cover, and the moonlight glimmered on the hard-frosted landscape. He could see tracks on the drive now -- two pairs of cleated soles and one much smaller pair of bare feet - and it was clear from the erratic pattern that Masoud was resisting hard. Good lad, thought Slater. Slow them down. Make it hard for them.

As he ran, Slater cursed himself for not having followed through on his suspicions about the Cherokee. How could he have been so stupid as to think those security guards would take the threat seriously? He'd known so-called hard men like them all his life - over-the-hill ex-regulars who pitched up with their thickening bodies and their Aldershot tattoos, sitting around on their arses, telling war-stories and hoping that nothing would happen.

At the open gates the tracks swerved to the left. The lay-by, thought Slater, his mind racing - that's where they've got the vehicle. If I follow them down the quarter-mile along the road they're going to see me 34

Chris Ryan

jtthey could easily risk firing at me, and there's no bloody cover of any kind. If I go through the school ;l grounds, on the other hand, I'll be covered by the wall. He broke back into a fast run, jumping brambles, I hedgerows, dead bracken and frozen ditches. Four hundred yards to go. Despite the extreme cold, he could feel the sweat coursing down his back. At one I moment he stepped calf-deep into an ice-crusted Stream - but barely registered it. The pounding of his I feet echoed that of his heart. His breath sawed in his chest. His hands and face burnt with the cold. Two f hundred yards to go. So fucking go, he told himself. Push it harder. Lengthen your stride. Forget the potholes and the rabbit-holes and the broken ankles. Push it. Push it!

And then a faint cry reached him on the wind. He froze, and heard it again. 'Itrukni li-hali! Itrukni li-hali!'

Slater was no linguist but he had picked up enough on missions in Saudi Arabia and Oman to understand Masoud's words. 'Leave me alone!' he was shouting. 'Let me go!'

Masoud was behind Slater. He'd overtaken them. Fight, he willed Masoud. Slow them down. He pounded through the darkness, brambles nailing at his hands and ankles. The voices on the other'side of the wall were still a hundred metres away or more. If ' he crossed the wall now, fifty yards or so beyond the Cherokee he reckoned, they might not see him. Over we go. Lobbing the chair-leg over the seven35

The Hit List

foot wall, he ran at it -- gave it his best shot. His hands found slick ice. His fingers scrabbled desperately, found no purchase, and he fell back to the bracken.

Squinting, he searched the darkness for an alternative run-up. Was there a bush or something against the wall - something he could climb?

Nothing.

The cries again. Nearer now.

Desperately he repeated his first attempt. Again the frosted bricks resisted his hands and again he fell defeated to the brambles. It was just too high.

Breathe. Use the desperation.

Focus.

Doit.

In his mind's eye he was back on selection at Hereford. His twelve-strong cadre had been beasted senseless for forty-eight hours - the previous night's exercise had included a frozen river-crossing in full kit -- and they were almost hallucinating with fatigue. Promised a brew and a ration-break, they'd suddenly been ordered off on another thirty-click tab over the hills -- any waverers to be immediately RTUed.

'You'll do it,' came the staff sergeant's voice, 'or ye'11 fuck off back to whatever crap-hat outfit was misguided enough to waste this regiment's time with ye!'

And Slater had done it. He'd got round. Somewhere, he'd found the reserve.

Ah, came a tiny voice, but you were twenty-three then. You're thirty-six now, and . . .

36

Chris Ryan

Banishing the voice, Slater emptied his mind.

There was only the wall.

The wind roared at his ears as he ran, felt the ijrickwork kick at his chest, the icy nailing of his hands, Ithe desperate swing of his legs.

And was over.

He'd judged it spot-on. The Cherokee was icdiately in front of him. Picking up the chair-leg

am the grass verge, he ducked behind the vehicle's adiator.

He could see as well as hear the kidnappers now: ley were fifty yards up the road towards the school, lirty yards short of the Cherokee, and Masoud was ticking and struggling violently. 'Ib'id yadak!' he creamed to the night air. 'Let me go!'

Pulling the Mauser knife from his pocket, Slater kabbed the inside wall of each front tyre. Gently, the aur-wheel drive sank forwards. Could he get to the j>ack tyres?

Without warning, a car came hurtling from behind i, lights at full beam. The driver must have thought lasoud was a drunk being assisted by friends; the horn railed conspiratorially and the darkness returned.

Clearly alarmed by the closeness of the encounter -- police car would certainly have stopped - the man ith the Smith and Wesson hit Masoud hard on the ead with the heavy butt. The boy's knees gave way,

was silent, and the black-clad kidnappers ran him to le rear of the vehicle.

From his position by the radiator, Slater watched

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their legs moving between the back wheels as they got the rear doors open. His breathing was even, now, and his hands steady -- fatigue had been replaced by a terrible clarity. Releasing the Mauser knife from its lanyard, he transfered it to his left hand. The blade was short, but it should serve its purpose.

Quietly, he crept along the verge by the vehicle. Having achieved their objective, the terrorists were making no attempt at silence, and were conversing in breathless Arabic as they bundled Masoud into the luggage area. Slater guessed that they were arguing as to whether they should gag the boy, hit him again, tie him up, or all three. He had no idea which man had the gun and which man the knife. The basic rule was to assume that both men had firearms. He was two yards from the nearest man now.

One yard.

With the rear doors open all that Slater could see was a waist and a pair of legs. The black windcheater had ridden up, showing two inches of T-shirt above the unbelted jeans. Light flooded from the interior of the vehicle.

With precision, Slater planted the four-inch Mauser blade to its hilt in the nearer man's spleen. In the same movement, letting go the knife, he brought down the carved prow of the chair-leg on the sacro-iliac joint at the base of the second man's spine.

The nearer man froze, almost senseless with pain, and Slater jammed the half-door of the Cherokee against his back. Bellowing, the second man reared

38

Chris Ryan

yards Slater, feinting with the knife. But his pelvis id sacrum had been smashed by that first, terrible 3W. Will power propelled him a further step and jen, twisting in agony, he fell to one knee. The first man, eyes dulled with shock, was ightening up in light from the back of the ^herokee now, and this time Slater saw the dull glint 'gun-metal. Half-turning, he swung his improvised ib in a scything back-hander, felt the splintering inch as it connected with the side of his attacker's

The firearm clattered to the road. Both men were down. The knifeman appeared to \ praying, the gunman's prostrate body was shaking as I in the throes of some desperate rape. Who hesitates, dies. Think detonator. Think snade.

| Slater, his system screaming with adrenaline, didn't skate. Snatching up the Smith and Wesson from the ter, he put two .45 rounds into the base of each I's skull.

i For thirty seconds, heart pounding, he stood there rith the dead men at his feet. The police would be >ng soon, he was sure - assuming, that was, that Mrs ckay had done her stuff. If necessary he could flag awn a car, although not that many cars used this road night. Apart from the school and a few farms, it Idn't really go anywhere.

Masoud, he thought. I must see what those bastards done to Masoud. He took a step towards the lerokee - and to his horror saw it begin to move

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away in a cloud of exhaust, rear doors flapping.

Sweet Jesus, thought Slater. There was a driver. But where . . . ?

He must have seen him come over the wall, he realised. Flattened himself in the front of the car. And hearing the shots had decided - entirely sensibly - to get the hell out.

With two flat tyres, however, the Cherokee wasn't going anywhere. It managed twenty yards and then came to a halt.

Running, Slater caught up with the vehicle. He waited a half-dozen yards behind it, the revolver pointing at the doors, which had swung shut on the recumbent form of Masoud.

A half-minute passed, and then a male voice, Geordie-accented, came from the rear compartment.

'I'm coming out.'

The rear doors opened once more. Against the light Slater could not see the man's features - only that he was wearing a fur cap with ear-flaps and holding a barely conscious Masoud by the collar. Condensing breath rose smokily from both figures. Was the driver armed? Slater had to assume he was, that a weapon was pressed to the small of Masoud's back.

Arms outstretched, he thumbed back the revolver's hammer and trained the inch-long barrel on the driver's head. He'd made this shot many times in training -- the shot through the chin that passed through the hostage-taker's lower skull and obliterated the cerebellum, ensuring that not even the slightest

40

Chris Ryan

[reflex movement threatened the hostage's life. Out there in the dark, however, it was a desperately risky I play: the heavy Smith and Wesson was the last weapon I he would have chosen for precision shooting in low [light conditions. An inch off target and he'd blow [Masoud's head apart.

And then a faint, rhythmic pulsing at the horizon I was suddenly everywhere around them and the scene [ was flooded with light.

'Drop your weapons,' came a disembodied voice. 'I |repeat: drop your weapons.'

Dead leaves and frost particles whirled in the police | helicopter's rotor-wash. Opposite Slater, Masoud slid to the ground and the Cherokee's driver, a young lAsian in a track suit who couldn't have been more than |eighteen, slowly raised his hands. There had been no m.

Releasing the hammer with his thumb, Slater ipped the Smith and Wesson to the frozen verge. Placed his hands on his head.

Waited.

41

TWO

The custody suite at Henley-on-Thames police station, Neil Slater mused, was not designed with comfort in mind. The bedding was thin, a drunk in the next cell had alternately howled and sobbed all night, and there was an all-pervasive smell of vomit overlaid with disinfectant. Slater had been tempted to sit up replaying the events of the evening in his mind, but had opted instead to try to sleep and clear his head.

The shakes had come soon after midnight, as Slater had known that they would, along with the fatigue and depression that invariably follows the adrenaline rush of violent action. He'd ridden them out as best he was able and had finally nodded off at about 2.30. His drift into unconsciousness had been eased by the certainty that his actions, given the circumstances, had been the correct ones.

In a counter-terrorist engagement, it had been drummed into him, you didn't leave wounded members of the opposition lying around where they could reach for a concealed grenade or detonator. If he'd had some armed assistance, perhaps the men's lives might have been spared. As it was, he'd had no

42

Chris Ryan

choice.

For the terrorists themselves he felt not a gram of sympathy. They'd knifed Gary Ripley in the guts when he threatened to hold them up and they'd shot the unarmed security guards without a thought. Had ..they encountered Jean Burney and Christopher BoydFarquharson after kidnapping Masoud rather than | before, the nurse and the boy would probably be dead too. No, by the time Slater had reached them, the two , men had sacrificed any right to mercy or to any benefit r of the doubt, and they'd known it.

But there was still, Slater was well aware, a price to |be paid. A couple of hours' lost sleep was not going to Ibe the end of it. There would be the flashbacks and the pnood-swings that invariably follow a face-to-face Ikilling. Alcohol took the edge off the process, but giucked you up in other ways. And there was no one, |ever, that you could talk to about any of it.

Once, as a newly badged trooper, he'd gone into a |Wine bar in Hereford in search of others from his lintake. There had been a tight knot of NCOs standing {around the bar, and a staff sergeant had called him over, Istood him a bottle of Michelob, and introduced him to |the others. Among them was a corporal with con Mcuously long hair who had just returned from a tour duty in Belfast. The group had been welcoming, |*sking how he was settling in, but then an inoffensive Joking civilian in a windcheater had brushed past the pong-haired corporal, nudging the arm that held his 5ttled beer.

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The reaction was instantaneous. Grabbing the man by the lapels, the corporal had slammed him against the bar. 'Who the fuck do you think you're pushing around?' he'd whispered, his face an inch from the terrified civilian's. The others had pulled the corporal back, pinioning his arms, and Slater had seen that he was quivering with rage, his eyes narrowed and his teeth bared like a dog's.

The incident was swiftly over. While the senior NCO apologised profusely to the shaken civilian, the others calmed down the corporal. Two men were deputed to walk him back to Sterling Lines but the corporal shook them off, insisting that he was fine, that it had been a mistake, that there would be no more trouble.

He carried on drinking -- they all did -- and the NCOs talked Slater through life in the Regiment where to find the best bars, the cheapest cars, the prettiest girls. And then the corporal, who had been standing in silence, drinking bottle after bottle of Beck's, looked Slater in the eye. 'It's shite,' he said quietly. 'The whole thing's fucking shite. The Regiment's shite, the job's shite . . .'

For a moment, the others fell silent.

'You want to know a secret?' the corporal continued in the same flat, undemonstrative tone. 'They don't die. You shoot them, you stab them, you do what you like, but they don't fucking die.'

'All right, that's it!' snapped the staff sergeant. 'Tony, Stevo, get him back to the Lines.'

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Chris Ryan

The trio swiftly disappeared and the staff sergeant shook his head. 'He's had a bit of a rough tour. He's still in the old Darkland.'

'Darkland?' Slater enquired.

The sergeant glanced at him for a long moment, expressionless, and then returned to the inspection of his drink. It became clear that no answer was forthcoming.

But Slater had remembered the expression.

Darkland.

He'd never seen the corporal again.

Breakfast was an Egg McMuffin from the high street and a mug of the desk sergeant's tea.

'Just had that headmaster of yours on the phone,' he told Slater with cheerful satisfaction.

'Pembridge,' said Slater.

'That's the one. Sounded like a very unhappy man!'

'Have you met him?'

'Once or twice, yes. A couple of years ago he tried to make the case that we should have a permanent detachment guarding the school. When the super suggested to him that he put his hand in his pocket for the privilege he ... got rather irate. Started spouting on about foreign policy by other means, invisible exports, defence sales to the Middle East - all bloody ' sorts.'

'And ended up going private,' said Slater.

The sergeant rolled his eyes but kept his opinion of ; the security arrangements to himself. At the desk the

45

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The Hit List

phone started ringing. 'No rest for the wicked,' he grumbled, retrieving Slater's empty mug.

'Oh, I don't know about that!' murmured Slater, stretching out on his mattress.

He was not feeling as bullish as he sounded. Two dead men, considered in the cold light of day, meant some very serious aggravation. No one would have blamed him if he had merely dialled 999 from the Matron's phone and left it at that -- technically speaking, in fact, that was precisely what he should have done. But whether Masoud would have survived if he'd done so was another matter. By the time marksmen and a hostage rescue unit had been activated, the snatch team would have been long gone. And even if they'd located them, the Arabs hadn't looked like men who'd come out with their hands up -- no matter how politely they'd been asked.

How would the school view the incident? Badly, that was for sure. When Slater had joined Bolingbroke's staff six months earlier he'd told Pembridge that he'd spent the majority of his service career with the SAS, and indeed had played rugby for the Regiment, but had requested that these details were kept quiet. Pembridge had agreed, and the story was put about that Slater had been a physical training instructor with the Royal Engineers - his parent regiment.

If an inquest on the dead men revealed Slater's true identity to the press, there were going to be some very angry faces on Bolingbroke's Board of Governors. Any

46

Chris Ryan

overage would be damaging enough; an SAS jnnection would punt the story straight to the front age and keep it there.

The Regiment themselves, he guessed, would

abably be understanding. Not happy -- the SAS

4ted seeing their name in print in any connection --

jt understanding. They would know that whatever

ater was, they had made him.

It was for this reason that he had rung Lark as soon he'd arrived at the station in the early hours of the iorning.

Lark was a clean-up man, a conjuror in pinstripes

10 made things disappear. If some chopping had to

done - as it had had to be done in Gibraltar and on

frveral less-publicised occasions - then Lark was the

San who smoothed out the rough edges afterwards.

!e was a Treasury Solicitor, one of a highly secretive

lite working out of the Metropole building on

Jorthumberland Avenue, where a small band of high

pers concerned themselves with the legal interests of

he Ministry of Defence. In the last two decades he had

presented the difference between jail and freedom to

'. least a dozen SAS soldiers and other security services

Jeratives. If Lee Clegg and his mates from 3 Para had

ad access to Lark after gunning down a joyrider at a

elfast check-point, Slater mused, they wouldn't have

ided up being banged up.

Lark presented himself in the HenleyonThames

astody suite at precisely 9am, carrying a Thermos of

sh coffee and a folded copy of the Daily Telegraph --

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details which Slater appreciated. As usual Lark was impeccably dressed. His tie was that of one of the older civil service rowing clubs.

'Mr Slater,' he began, extended a well-manicured hand, 'I hadn't expected to see you again . . . quite so soon.'

'We do have to stop meeting like this,' Slater agreed wryly, running his hand over his chin. The lawyer's immaculate grooming made him feel like a roughneck. His mouth tasted sour and he needed a shave.

Lark smiled - or at least the corner of his mouth momentarily flickered - as he loosened the lid of the flask. 'Usual drill, Mr Slater,' he said. 'Tell me everything. And I mean everything.'

Savouring the coffee, Slater started at the beginning; Lark made notes.

When Slater had finished, the Treasury Solicitor steepled his fingers. Til tell you the bits I don't like,' he said thoughtfully, wrinkling his nose as if tasting a mediocre sherry. 'For a start I don't like the chair-leg

-- it argues premeditation of assault, I think ... I think that what you actually took from that room was a torch

- a big fifteen-inch Maglite, perhaps. A torch would have been an entirely prudent thing to take outside with you. If you were later taken by surprise and forced to defend yourself with it, well, that's something else - do you take my point?'

Slater indicated that he did.

'I think it's possible that a friend might drop in with just such a torch later today and that you might have a

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Chris Ryan

i look at it - handling and fingerprinting it fairly r�xtensively in the process.'

Slater nodded. Relief flooded through him. They twere going to give him the full five-star service - lexactly as if he'd still been 'in'.

'It won't be found at first, of course. We'll give it a light or two. And I rather think that someone's going have to have a quiet word with Matron about that lair. Any feelings about what line we should take srith her?'

'The truth?' hazarded Slater. Lark looked appalled. 'I'm not sure that we--' 'Listen, she's seen one of her patients abducted and jne of them stabbed, she's had a fourteen-year-old boy id a nurse beaten senseless just because they happened be on her wing. She doesn't need to be threatened jr bribed, she just needs to be put in the picture. She'll ay what needs to be said.'

Lark pursed his lips doubtfully and then nodded. The second thing I'm not very keen on,' he Continued, 'is the impression - a false impression, I'm Sure -- that your reason for pursuing these men down le school drive was to provoke a confrontation. I put It to you that your original intention in leaving the School grounds was to ascertain the registration lumber of the kidnappers' vehicle from a distance in arder to convey this information to the police. Would lis interpretation of your actions be an accurate one?' Slater assured him that it would. 'And that having come upon their vehicle

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apparently untended, you attempted to disable it by slashing the front tyres. Unfortunately, while doing so, you were discovered - knife in hand - by the kidnappers

Slater nodded.

'A fight ensued..."

Slater nodded.

'You see, the impression I really want most strongly to dispel is that you effectively mounted an ambush on these men.'

'Absolutely,' said Slater.

For two unbroken hours they went through every move, every gesture, trimming the action so that no legal blame could adhere to Slater. A phone call by Lark from the front desk established that Ripley was in intensive care in Reading, but expected to make a full recovery.

Lark excused himself at 11.30, leaving Slater with the Daily Telegraph. Slater read the newspaper from cover to cover, unsuccessfully attempted the crossword, and eventually tried to sleep. And then, at 2.00, the door of the cell was unlocked, and his effects were handed back to him. 'Whole thing's been taken out of our hands,' the desk-sergeant told him resignedly. 'Security implications, apparently, whatever that means. I'm to tell you' - he glanced at a Post-It note attached to the counter - 'that you'll be contacted in due course by Mr Lark, vis-a-vis a witness statement and possible Court of Inquiry.'

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Chris Ryan

Slater nodded gratefully. This was exactly what had appened on previous occasions. Lark had spent a few ays hammering out a suitable statement, he'd been called i to sign it, given a copy to memorise - to 'internalise' as rk put it - and the whole dossier had then been con icd to some dusty drawer at the MOD. Classified for jns of national security. As a system it wasn't water it -- there were increasing demands in the left-wing press for the 'accountability' of the security services - but : had seen Slater right so far.

A police driver returned him to the school in an inmarked car. The system, it seemed, had once again Come to Neil Slater's rescue.

At Bolingbroke's, far from the confusion that Slater ad expected, all was ordered. A tape barrier had been reeled around the security lodge and there was a black Lange Rover parked on the drive beneath the sick ay, but that was all.

As Slater approached the main entrance the 1st XV agby squad clattered down the steps past him - minus apley and al-Jubrin.

'Thought I'd take them for some circuit training,' jne of the assistant games masters called out. 'Hope at's OK.'

'Fine!' Slater managed. 'Great!' 'No problem. Hope you feel better soon.' Slater watched the squad jog down towards the Ithletics track. What the hell have they been told? he wondered.

Before he had time to surmise further, the

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headmaster, Pembridge, materialised in the entrance. His gesture indicated welcome, but there was considerable strain apparent.

'Mr Slater. Good. My study, if you would be so kind.'

They proceeded up the wide stone passage in silence. Pausing in the anteroom to his study, Pembridge informed his secretary that he did not wish to be disturbed.

'Mr Slater,' he began when the doors had closed behind them. 'I - we, Bolingbroke's - owe you a debt of thanks. Your very resourceful actions last night quite possibly saved the life of one of our boys. Thank you.'

He extended his hand, which Slater shook.

'I also understand that you made a report concerning your suspicions of a certain vehicle to the afternoon detail of MailedFist Security, and that no action was taken in this regard.'

'Yes, sir.'

Pembridge walked to the study window. 'Mr Slater, I will speak frankly. Had MailedFist acted on your report and telephoned the police as you suggested, we would not be having this conversation. I recall very well your reservations concerning the company, and I recall my . . . possibly rather high-handed reaction to these reservations. In apology, and in thanks for your bravery, I would like to make you a small presentation.'

He returned to his desk and handed Slater a small box. Inside was a pair of gold cufflinks, engraved with the crest of Bolingbroke's School.

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Chris Ryan

t Apart from fonnal mess-dress, Slater had never led a shirt requiring cuff-links, but he smiled jreciatively. 'Thank you. They're beautiful.' > And now for the bad news, he thought, pocketing : box. It was never going to be this easy. 'Unfortunately, Mr Slater, there are more people alved than just you and me . . .' | Here we go, thought Slater.

|j 'And Bolingbroke's - although at times we may that it did -- does not exist in a constitutional aum. There is a board of governors to be tasidered, and there are the laws of the land ..." | Get on with it. If you want to bin me, then say so. and admirable as your behaviour might seem a certain point of view, the fact remains that you are caused the violent deaths of two men while ing on the staff of this school. Caused their deaths, rer, in circumstances which do not appear to lit an argument of self-defence.' 'Mr Pembridge--'

'In the final analysis, Mr Slater, the fact that you are llbrmer SAS soldier gives you no special rights. Upon covering the state of affairs in the sick bay, you juld have rung the police, who are not quite the jdding incompetents that you seem to assume. For 3ur information - and I have been given dispensation tell you this -- the two young men that you killed tie under surveillance by Special Branch. By all ccounts a major operation has been compromised.' Slater stared at him, disbelievingly. 'Compromised!

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Two members of your security staff are shot dead. A boy is kidnapped at gunpoint. Another boy who tries to defend him is stabbed in the guts--'

'Mr Slater, there is no need to raise your voice.'

'And you talk about an operation being compromised?'

'Mr Slater, you will kindly keep your voice down. The school is aware that some sort of incident occurred last night, and that it related to a break-in at the sick bay, but that is all. The story doing the rounds at the moment -- a story I have not discouraged - is that a member of the security staff intercepted a burglar.

'Now, as you know, there are only two and a half weeks of this term left to run. Miss Burney and two of the boys involved in last night's debacle -- Ripley and Boyd-Farquharson - are in hospital in Reading, and upon their release they will go straight home. Masoud al-Jubrin is being flown to Saudi Arabia as we speak, and Mrs Mackay will be taking extended leave. None of those involved will be returning to Bolingbroke's until the beginning of the January term.'

'And me?' asked Slater sourly. 'How extended is my leave to be?'

'Mr Slater, a cheque is waiting for you in the bursar's office. To your back pay, the school has added the sum of 20,000 pounds penceBefore you take possession of this cheque, however, we would ask you to sign a prepared form stating that your contract with Bolingbroke's School has been terminated by mutual consent. You will also -- although this has not been put in writing -- agree

54

Chris Ryan

per to mention the events of last night outside of

ch inquests and courts of inquiry as may demand jur co-operation. This school has many friends, Mr ater, and those friends would be very unhappy if Jverse publicity concerning Bolingbroke's were to be

jadcast. So unhappy, in fact, that not even your Mr

rk would be able to help you. Do we understand

ch other?'

'I think so,' Slatersaid coldly.

'I'm sorry it has come to this. You have done good for the rugger team. I fully expect us to beat Wellington.'

Twenty-four hours later, Slater was coaxing his ten pear-old Saab down the drive for the last time. The arriers around the lodge, he noticed, had been emoved. On impulse he stopped the car and peered in Dugh one of the windows. The interior was srted and the monitor screens were blank. There no sign that two men had died violently here, or adeed that the place had ever been occupied.

'Took 'em away in a van,' came a quiet voice from ehind him. 'Big fellers, the both of them.' It was the groundsman, Jimmy McCracken. He was folding a quarter bottle of Teacher's whisky, and it vzs almost empty.

'What did you see, Jimmy?' asked Slater. 'There's a lot of blood in a man,' McCracken said abliquely. 'That there is,' said Slater. Five hundred yards away

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a crowd of warmly wrapped spectators was assembling on the touchline of the 1st XV rugby pitch. 'How long have you worked here at Bolingbroke's?' he asked.

The groundsman slipped the bottle thoughtfully into his pocket. 'Twenty-eight years now, it'd be.'

Slater reached into his own pocket. 'Well, I have something for you.'

'You'll not be staying, then?'

Slater shook his head.

McCracken opened the box with unsteady fingers and peered at the chain-linked gold cufflinks. 'You know, I've been meaning to get some of these,' he said.

56

THREE

Jeil Slater looked round the studio flat that, for the being at least, was his home. It was small, and at le point he really had to give it a lick of emulsion, It at least he now had somewhere to unpack his ings. It was a top-floor walk-up in a Victorian terrace i the east of Highbury Park, and Slater had chosen it its proximity to Arsenal tube station. He wasn't a stball fan particularly, but he had heard that the lightly rampage of fans through the area kept rental jfices down.

I- He'd arrived in London a week earlier after ing Christmas with an ex-Regiment friend and wife. Dave and Linda Constantine owned a louse outside Hereford, and had recently Inverted it to provide bed and breakfast. Slater had visions of long walks on the hills and com lionable mealtimes at the scrubbed-pine kitchen isle, but in the event things hadn't worked out like at. The Constantines' marriage had been under strain wmoney problems, mostly, but Dave's drinking came it -- and Slater found himself on the receiving end $ two well-rehearsed sets of grievances.

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Dave's was a very familiar problem, and afflicted most long-serving SAS soldiers. The time came when you had to move on, when you just couldn't carry the weight of regimental life any more. You looked around and you saw normal people living normal lives and it just looked like the best thing in the world. And so you handed in your warrant card and you walked out of the gates and you tried it, and you discovered that normal life - or what you'd taken to be normal life -- was actually a very difficult, very elusive thing. None of your military experience was any help, you couldn't capture happiness and financial security by lying in wait for it on an icy hillside, and the attributes of toughness and self-reliance that had served you so well now started to seem like crippling deficiencies. You needed a new set of skills; you needed all that touchy feely interpersonal stuff that you'd spent so many years sniggering about with your mates.

Slater himself had attempted to address these issues by applying for the post at Bolingbroke's. He'd come with a glowing letter of recommendation from his former CO (a Bolingbroke's old boy, usefully) and a determination to make a success of his new life. If this involved a few humiliations along the way, then so be it. If some of the parents and teaching staff chose to see him as their social inferior, then let them - it would be their problem, not his. He'd make a new life for himself on the rugby touchline, have his own chair in the staff room, fix himself up with a local girlfriend, become part of the establishment. And if he'd had his doubts - if, at times,

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Chris Ryan

1 it had occurred to him that he was merely exchanging I one barracks for another -- well, there were worse things I than institutionalisation.

Dave Constantine had laid claim to less modest I ambitions. He had invested his entire twenty-two-year i service gratuity of 37,000 pounds in a private security company named Radfan that another former [ Regiment member was setting up. Things had looked I good for a while, but then the microchip fabrication I plant which was Radfan's biggest corporate client I went bankrupt and defaulted on a large sum owing. | Radfan's financing had been shaky from the start I they had badly overextended themselves buying hi Jtech surveillance equipment - and the bad debt I finished them off. Of his 37,000 pounds Dave Constantine I recovered just 1200 pounds penceSeverely depressed, he spent the I money on reslating the farmhouse roof and upgrading Ithe plumbing. You could charge more for bed and I breakfast if you had power showers, Linda had heard.

And so Dave had found himself turning back the |bed-sheets and plying the Toilet Duck. The guests had I come in twos and threes in the summer months, but ic venture had never really taken off. The fact that the Ipropnetor smelt of whisky at breakfast-time probably |didn't help. Nor did Linda's tense and sometimes aruised countenance.

To escape the recriminations and the silences Slater vent running, pounding the icy country roads for fiiours at a time, often returning well after dark. His stay lat Wormbridge had come to an end after a joyless New

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Year's Eve party at the farmhouse. After announcing that he had decided to accept an offer of work as a mercenary in Sierra Leone, Dave had passed out cold. A tearful Linda had then invited Slater into her bed. He had turned her down as tactfully as he was able, but hadn't been able to face the couple the next day. Leaving a note and a generous contribution towards the household budget, he had slipped away at first light.

He'd driven straight to London, and used the remainder of the day scouting the Highbury area. At nine o'clock the next morning, after a night at a cheap hotel, he'd visited the first estate agent. By midday he was pocketing the keys to 28 Mafeking Terrace, and forty-eight hours later, after hiring a van and scouring the Holloway Road's second-hand furniture and kitchen shops, he had the place in working order. The fridge had a weird shuddering hum that no amount of tinkering seemed to fix, and he preferred not to think too closely about the provenance of the cooker - but it was a base.

The other reason - apart from affordability -- that he'd chosen the area was that it was on the Piccadilly underground line. Although he'd been unwilling to involve himself with bodyguard and private security work when he'd first left the Regiment - the work hadn't promised the clean break he'd been looking for - Slater had reviewed his options over the course of those long runs through the Herefordshire hill country. The pay-off from Bolingbroke's wouldn't last

60

Chris Ryan

and his choices were few. Working as a iyguard had its down-sides -- you had to wear a suit, a start - but by all accounts the money was good. Piccadilly Line ran through Mayfair, itsbridge and Belgravia, which is where most of work was. Bodyguarding hours were long, and er didn't want to spend a second more than cessary getting to and from work. ,His time at Bolingbroke's was now a distant emory. Ever-present, however - despite Lark's Involvement - was the nagging worry that the affair at HE school would have serious consequences for him. ; The Saudis, he was certain, would not wish news to ; out about the attempt on Masoud al-Jubrin, and it probably to accommodate the Saudis that the alice had been stood down and the terrorists' and the gad security men's bodies had been spirited away by i MI6 cleaning team. No sense jeopardising an entire s-sales programme because of a local unpleasant; - especially one that that would reflect so poorly i all parties.

|< Pembridge, in his turn, would do all that he could to i up the affair for the sake of the school. But that still a lot of mouths to be stopped: Mrs Mackay, Jean amey, the Popleys, the Boyd-Farquharsons, the fami i of the security men . . . If any one of them went to : press then there would be some very hefty deals to brokered. And the security services, as Lark had pressed on Slater on more than one occasion, really ed to do deals of that sort.

i

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No, Slater would be made to take the drop if there was a court of inquiry. There would be a lot of talk about post-traumatic stress and the difficult circumstances of his departure from the Regiment, but in the end they'd leave him swinging in the wind. He just had to hope that it never came to that. It was a worry, though, and a serious one.

How should I dress for the interview? he wondered.

Minerva Close Protection was a small but very successful company set up by a former Guards officer. Based in Knightsbridge, the company employed a number of ex-SAS soldiers, among others, to guard and otherwise minister to its stable of super-wealthy clients. The work often involved counter-surveillance and evasive driving in addition to straight body guarding - if Minerva clients appeared in the newspapers, they prefered it to be at a time and in a context of their own choosing.

Slater had been recommended to Minerva by Tommo Goss, an ex-Coldstream Guardsman who had spent two years with G Squadron. There was a large number of private security companies based in the West End, Goss had explained to Slater over a pint, but there was a limited amount of really top-drawer work. And a lot of companies ripped you off, charging up to a thousand pounds a day for your services and only passing on a quarter of that figure to you. Minerva played fair, Goss said, and if you played fair in return you could expect to make a lot of money.

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Chris Ryan

at do you mean, "play fair in return"?' Slater asked.

)on't cut out the agency by offering to deal direct,' answered, 'and don't dip the quill in company

)ip the--'

I'Don't bang the female clients. Those are the two ic rules. And the boss, Duckworth, is a canny er - he'll find out if you're playing around. He j't say anything, but you won't hear from him

either.'

f'Slater decided to attend the interview in the clothes I stood up in. No point in trying to go smart - he'd dy get it wrong.

I?Within thirty minutes of leaving Mafeking Terrace was entering an anonymous block overlooking lyde Park. The offices, which were on the eighth jor, were quietly expensive. A receptionist showed jter to a waiting area containing a large abstract iting and current editions of Vogue and the New ker. Nothing suggested that this was a company Fed principally by ex-special forces soldiers and pret service personnel.

Five minutes later the receptionist was back. She was pretty - the almond-shaped eyes and wide smile ring the lie to the severely tailored grey suit. She So, Slater guessed, represented a test for potential iployees like himself. If you couldn't resist trying it with her, you were probably not suitable iyguard material. Tearing his eyes from her trim

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figure, he tried to give an impression of watchfulness as he followed her across the silent carpet past a series of closed doors.

Peter Duckworth was a tall, languid figure in - Slater guessed -- his early fifties. His hair was silver and his suit of exquisite cut. His eyes twinkled.

'Mr Slater -- Neil - come in. Coffee?'

Slater was not deceived by the affable manner. There was something lethal about Duckworth.

For ten minutes the former Guards officer quizzed Slater about his SAS activities. Slater's responses were neutral and in several instances he felt it prudent not to answer - the man was a civilian, after all.

'And I understand that you're a close friend of Tom Goss, is that right?'

'We were in Belize together, instructing on the jungle warfare course,' said Slater.

Duckworth nodded and helped himself to a biscuit from the tray at his side. 'Good. Lovely. Well, let me tell you a bit about what we do here . . .'

Duckworth spoke for twenty minutes. Slater guessed he had given the same talk, word for word, many times before. The company's clients, he explained, were people of wealth - he used the phrase as if it were a form of victimhood. Their lifestyles were not ordinary lifestyles, their needs were not ordinary needs, their behaviour was not ordinary behaviour. 'Nevertheless,' said Duckworth, 'you will behave at all times as if it was. You will not be petulant, and you will not stand upon your dignity. You will refuse a client's request

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Chris Ryan

if, in your judgement, to accept it would com Mnise that client's security. Do you understand?' 'Yes,' said Slater, deliberately withholding the 'sir' at years of non-commissioned service otherwise >ught automatically to his lips. 'Good,' said Duckworth with a quick smile. 'Very

1. I'm sure you'll ... fit in.' h,Tm sure I will,' Slater said.

P'Duckworth nodded. 'Just before I ask Josephine to : through the paperwork with you, Neil, I'd like to [ you a few lines of poetry. You may make of them it you will.'

Slater, who was studying a framed painting of an ab boy with a snake draped around his neck, tried to ak intelligent. Duckworth removed a book from a drawer in his sk.

'When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his <ide,

He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside, But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and �7 . . .'

|" Hesitating, Duckworth glanced at Slater. 'For the female of the species', Slater obliged him, 'is

deadly than the male.' 'You know it!' said Duckworth. | 'My father used to read me Kipling when I was a Id,' said Slater. 'He was a Royal Engineers RSM. iandalay and Gunga Din were the nearest I ever got to arsery rhymes.'

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And your mother?' Duckworth asked delicately. She was knocked down and killed by a police car m *lg Kong when I was six.' brought up by the army, then.' nretty much.'

fhere are worse parents, as any bodyguard will tell You;

Abandoning any pretence of interest in Slater's

Winnings, Duckworth shifted his attention to the

Screen of his computer. 'Are you free to work on

^dnesday? I've got a rather interesting one for

*�u.'

s he stepped out of the marble atrium into the street, o i r r *

l�*ter heard his name called. A smiling dark-haired 1Sure, tough-looking beneath the fashionably cut suit, ^^s waving and hurrying towards him. 'Andreas!'

'Neil! How are you, man?'

'I'm OK. Wow! It's good to see you. Are you here tci . . .' he nodded up at the building he had just left.

'That's right. I've just been on a job in Europe for tl\em. You?'

Slater nodded, and looked the other man up and i a

a^>wn. Andreas van Rijn was recognisably the same Person that he had served with in the SAS. The same s*^uare features and amused brown eyes, the same s\vagger, the same air of being up for anything. But s^>mething had changed. Some subtle smoothmg-out Process had taken place.

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Chris Ryan

ktil his departure five years earlier, Andreas van been one of the Regiment's more colourful Cters. Good-humoured in the vilest of conditions I, supremely efficient soldier, he had always seemed ^ter to represent the best that the SAS stood for. /o men had been good friends, serving together >rthern Ireland, the Gulf, Libya and Sri Lanka. : had shared more hangovers than either of them [ to remember and probably, it occurred to Slater, girlfriend too. eas had left the Regiment after an Overthrust

|?erthrust was an inter-service cooperation ic between the special forces and MIS. Slater, van Rijn, Dave Constantine and a handful of ^NCOs had been sent to London, dressed in plain and placed alongside the Box agents (in circles MIS was known as 'Box' after their old 3x 500 address, just as MI6 were invariably 'the ). On balance, Slater reckoned, the soldiers had i up the spooks. Northern Ireland had sharpened and they were more aware of the consequences ?t doing the job properly. Dave Constantine claimed that he'd been on a surveillance detail forth London with a Box agent when his anion had glanced at his watch, said, 'Right, five ft that's me off home,' climbed out of the car, and ared. While Slater only half-believed the story, ad not particularly enjoyed the Millbank phere. For his money there were too many

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smart-arsed, number-crunching twenty-three-year olds about the place.

Andreas, on the other hand, had appeared impressed by the set-up, and the general assumption in Hereford had been that he had been cross-recruited.

'Listen,' he told Slater now, still smiling, 'are you free for lunch? Because if so give me half an hour

They arranged to meet in Harvey Nichols, at the fifth-floor restaurant. En route, Slater visited a shoe shop. He had a good suit, bought at Austin Reed out of his SAS clothing allowance, but if he was going to be pounding pavements he needed new shoes. He settled for Church's black Oxfords. The price made him wince but if there was one thing that Slater had learnt in his years of soldiering, it was that you had to look after your feet. In Harvey Nichols he added a couple of plain white shirts and a black, knitted silk tie to his shopping basket. You couldn't go wrong with black and white, he reasoned. It was discreet, as bodyguarding demanded, but it also had that sixties retro look he'd seen advertised in the magazines in the Minerva offices. Next time he came face to face with the delectable receptionist, he decided, he'd look the part.

At the table, Andreas immediately ordered them a glass of Champagne each. Slater eyed his narrow stemmed tulip-glass dubiously. The swanky restaurant and the Champagne obviously represented some sort of attempt to impress: in the old days they'd have made straight for a pub.

68

Chris Ryan

Neil!' Andreas began. 'How have you been?' fell, I'm out of the Regiment,' Slater began. 'I left : before Kosovo. Since then I've been working at a

jl, coaching the rugby team.' ^And how was that?' asked Andreas. 'A bit low-gear : a man of your talents, I'd have said.' fWell, it didn't really work out in the end,' said r. How much did Andreas know? he wondered. If was working for Minerva, presumably he wasn't working for Box. If, indeed, he ever had worked g'Box.

For a time they talked of mutual friends and old s. Slater reminded Andreas of an incident that had seen them both RTUed, when an intelligence known as the Forces Research Unit had jvered that a Provo sniper unit was assembling at scation near the border and had tried to scramble SAS. To their fury and frustration the FRU were that the Lisburn duty officer could get no jonse from the unit. Little wonder -- the entire i, including Slater and Andreas, had been at a Def >pard concert in the Belfast city centre. If any of Cm had heard their pagers over the ear-numbing of sound it would have been little short of a racle.

'This is good,' said Slater, indicating the shining iche of swordfish on his plate.

'It's metropolitan food,' smiled Andreas. 'You've en on ration-packs and school cabbage for too long. low did you find Minerva?'

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The Hit List

'The money seems pretty good. And the work sounds pretty painless. How do you find it?'

'Well the fact is, Neil, I don't actually work for Minerva. I was looking for you.'

The? How did you know I was going to be there?' The moment he had spoken Slater realised how naive his words sounded.

'Everything connects, Neil. You know that. How about another glass of Champagne?'

'I'd have preferred a beer, but yeah, OK.'

Andreas smiled, beckoned him closer and brought him up to date. After the Overthrust exercise he had -- as Slater had guessed -- crossed over. He'd been ready for a change of scene. Had had enough, frankly, of freezing his bollocks off in all weathers.

And he'd enjoyed what he'd found, he told Slater. Plenty of brain-work, plenty of weirdness, and a lot of autonomy. 'I plan my own operations,' he explained. 'Get the word from upstairs and set things up in my own way.'

To Slater the whole set-up sounded unappealingly corporate. 'I'm glad it suits you,' he said. 'Personally, I'm looking forward to the freelance life.'

'You've never done BGing, before, have you?' asked Andreas, indicating Slater's empty glass to the waiter.

'Not outside of the Regiment,' admitted Slater.

'It sounds good,' said Andreas. 'You turn up at some fabulous apartment, pick up the lady of the house, have lunch, perhaps do a little shopping . . . But the truth is,

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Chris Ryan

that a switched-on guy like you will go nuts in i'minutes. You realise that you're a nanny, that fre an arse-wiper, that you're a trolley-pusher - Uy that you're a servant. And a servant for the of people you wouldn't give the time of day to. apt businessmen. Spoilt rich kids. Vulgar, iucated women who haven't done a day's honest : in their lives.'

[ the more reason to take their money,' said Slater anably. 'At least I know that at the end of the day my own man. I can say no to anything I don't y.'

fou won't last long if you do say no,' Andreas ted. 'Close protection's a service industry. It's all nt saying yes. Did Duckworth read you the poem?' ater admitted that he had.

|'He does that with all the guys. Then when they plain that some arms-dealer's wife has given them time he can quote it back at them. In fact, like a of queers, Duckworth adores rich women. He linely thinks that--' |?Did you say queers?' asked Slater. |*Yes. Didn't you figure that out? Your antennae are

to have to sharpen up, my friend.' 1*1 guess they are.'

I'Andreas, his eyes shining, leaned forward con atorially. 'Neil, junk Minerva and come and work i us. It'd be like old times, but without the beasting the bollockings and the trenchfoot. We were a at team then, we can be a great team again.'

71

10'^

I skeo xx / jofcwiodng ^�*''couA *' slater Faced fjBdrea^t^-eas's end** he vW^ , f, his resc* ^en�^ering. AndwX \^Ul ^^ �, hen a s-t^ a great taa V Wa& g 'Doia^oing wfauetoh jV And(1

�stuniC"i^urinetotiKMtertota(''^TV--; <Tn Cu^ut my ^.^/J^cit P^s away-W iesp^-,Pspecial pro^/ � N^/ou remember the'

As U-a/V^s ^he coDliiorget ^ to do?

'Th^'T^That'swhatiyo^0^ �ecia^0^cial projeat. V^\ V of a sort of mter-s^

half a pounds f a dozen i^^^ �^* ^^ aves I aaves j^. U.^^Vj^t we do is import^

have � a^ve been au.^to/e = C Vails * th\&tag!; 'W^J 'Why me? ^e an approach to f

'B08' 'Because v�U[t*?'0�\ - expertaq^penenced l�^\^ Because you

want ^,aPnt to gota.*^^ ^ F1re* .ome^m^ethmg.^^^C ^cgjmcnt you re

on. ^ .^. Someth^B4,�<k Je\Vi can!t ^^ ^ ff�" an otfo ^ operatiooL^J^ ^c ^emen^of^

sort * n^rt of life, rfbo^ < pounds though, of hving .

L J' 'Look, Ma,!^1^' ^^Y agf^ J

I ^-^ want i, eno^od/^ ^ in London a wedj

to k^ 0.0 keep rne^ ^ � ,V^ enough moncy-J

peo0o^eopleanddOBJ^^r^ to hang out ^

spor^ and r ^^^^gsj

an O a^n Open Unwif ^ c^er^. I na^ ^J opersqooperationsstnf V^6-T d�n f ' '& ButNd.4,.^^ ormal'!

\^OW

^

72

72

Chris Ryan

jju call them, to go shopping with. You don't know ne to go to the rugby with, or to take to the lema. Look what happened last time you tried living the normal world -- there were corpses strewn over ree counties. The covert world is the normal world 5>r you.'

So, he knew about the school. 'We need you, Neil, and right now I think that you eed us.'

fci Join us, in other words, if you want Lark to get you it of the shit.

Looking back, Slater remembered that there had iways been this manipulative side to Andreas van jjn. He had always enjoyed power games - always ced trying to freak people out, to control them. The trouble was, although Slater was loth to admit , much of what Andreas said was true. He didn't eally know anyone outside the covert world. And acre was a side to it all - a sharp needle of excitement that he missed . . .

'I need to get on with my life, Andreas. That's all. I idsh you well, but I'm not going anywhere near your iepartment. I'm out of the system now.'

Andreas smiled. 'And you think the system's out of |you?'

He left the question hanging.

I Two days later Slater was standing on the steps of the I Hyde Park Hotel, waiting for the man he was to be -guarding for the day. In the morning, he had been

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The Hit List

told, the principal would be shopping for clothes in the SW1 area, and in the afternoon he would be watching a home game at Spurs' White Hart Lane football ground. At 7pm the principal would be attending a drinks party followed by dinner at a private house from where a car would be collecting him and driving him home.

At 10am precisely a dark green Rover swept to the kerbside and the principal climbed out. Slater recognised Salman Rushdie immediately from the many newspaper portraits that had been published over the years. Today, the novelist was swathed in a long belted overcoat and wearing a Parisian beret.

'Mr Rushdie, I'm Neil Slater.'

Was it Lord Rushdie? Had he read somewhere that the writer had been made a life peer? Had he made a fool of himself with his first word?

But Rushdie still seemed to be smiling his oblique smile. 'I think we might start with some coffee,' he said. 'Just to fortify ourselves.'

Slater looked around. No obvious assassin had presented himself. There were no cloaked anarchists carrying bombs, no wild-eyed sword-wielding dervishes. He led Rushdie up the hotel steps, into the large, ornate foyer, and thence to the dining room. Again, the place looked safe enough.

'Why don't you sit here?' said Rushdie, pointing Slater to a window seat facing the door.

Slater sat down. From the security viewpoint the position was a sensible one.

74

Chris Ryan

[^occurred to me recently,' the novelist continued, : people were to stop reading my books, I could ito the bodyguarding business myself. I've ably as much experience as anyone.' . sorry it's been necessary,' said Slater, idie nodded. The too. Me too. Now, how do t take your coffee?'

sr had never guarded a celebrity before. With Regiment he'd been assigned occasional ;tion duties, but never of a recognisable figure. | he and Rushdie made their way through Harrods i minutes later he realised just how complex his task . to be. A lot of people recognised the novelist, and iy of them stared. Some manoeuvred themselves positions from where they could take a second jk. Whether any of this attention was hostile was lost impossible to determine. Rushdie had insisted r proceeding on foot -- he liked window-shopping, \ told Slater, and he liked to see the faces of strangers se up -- and the best that Slater could do was to erpose himself between Rushdie and anyone who

it conceivably be an Islamic militant. For more than a decade the novelist had been the ject of a fatwa issued by Iran's supreme leader, the ^atollah Khomeini. This edict urged that Rushdie be led because of supposed blasphemy in one of his ^vels. A year ago, however, a less puritan Iranian Ivernment had announced it intended no harm to shdie, and for a time it had seemed as if he might sume normal life. And then a report had appeared in

75

The Hit List

told, the principal would be shopping for clothes in the SW1 area, and in the afternoon he would be watching a home game at Spurs' White Hart Lane football ground. At 7pm the principal would be attending a drinks party followed by dinner at a private house from where a car would be collecting him and driving him home.

At 10am precisely a dark green Rover swept to the kerbside and the principal climbed out. Slater recognised Salman Rushdie immediately from the many newspaper portraits that had been published over the years. Today, the novelist was swathed in a long belted overcoat and wearing a Parisian beret.

'Mr Rushdie, I'm Neil Slater.1

Was it Lord Rushdie? Had he read somewhere that the writer had been made a life peer? Had he made a fool of himself with his first word?

But Rushdie still seemed to be smiling his oblique smile. 'I think we might start with some coffee,' he said. 'Just to fortify ourselves.'

Slater looked around. No obvious assassin had presented himself. There were no cloaked anarchists carrying bombs, no wild-eyed sword-wielding dervishes. He led Rushdie up the hotel steps, into the large, ornate foyer, and thence to the dining room. Again, the place looked safe enough.

'Why don't you sit here?' said Rushdie, pointing Slater to a window seat facing the door.

Slater sat down. From the security viewpoint the position was a sensible one.

74

Chris Ryan

'Jit occurred to me recently,' the novelist continued, at if people were to stop reading my books, I could into the body guarding business myself. I've ably as much experience as anyone.' i*I'm sorry it's been necessary,' said Slater. BLushdie nodded. The too. Me too. Now, how do

take your coffee?' Slater had never guarded a celebrity before. With Regiment he'd been assigned occasional ction duties, but never of a recognisable figure. |!,Jie and Rushdie made their way through Harrods : minutes later he realised just how complex his task ', to be. A lot of people recognised the novelist, and of them stared. Some manoeuvred themselves positions from where they could take a second Whether any of this attention was hostile was st impossible to determine. Rushdie had insisted jceeding on foot -- he liked window-shopping, >ld Slater, and he liked to see the faces of strangers up -- and the best that Slater could do was to rose himself between Rushdie and anyone who conceivably be an Islamic militant, more than a decade the novelist had been the of a fatwa issued by Iran's supreme leader, the illah Khomeini. This edict urged that Rushdie be because of supposed blasphemy in one of his pis. A year ago, however, a less puritan Iranian iment had announced it intended no harm to ;, and for a time it had seemed as if he might le normal life. And then a report had appeared in

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The Hit List

the Iranian newspaper Kayhan that over 500 Iranians had pledged to sell their kidneys to raise money for the writer's murder. According to intelligence sources the plan was devised by Islamic militia members in the Iranian holy city of Mashad.

Slater, for whom anonymity was the very breath of life sympathised with Rushdie. He had seen photographs smuggled out of Iran of mass public hangings from the arms of cranes, and from Algeria of the mobile guillotines driven from village to village by Islamic fundamentalist death-squads. And in Iraq, of

course ...

'Do you mind', said Rushdie, 'if we just look in

here?'

It was the book department. Shoppers were browsing among the shelves and standing in line at the till, but no one made any sign of having registered Rushdie's entrance. In fact, Slater was certain, they had all noticed him. They just weren't so uncool as to stare. On a small, circular table close to the aisle was a display of a new John le Carre novel. On the far side of the table, facing the interior of the room rather than the aisle, was a similar display of Rushdie's new book. A visitor passing through the department would certainly see the Le Carre display, but probably not the Rushdie. Deftly, the author revolved the table through 180 degrees.

'What's the book about?' asked Slater, amused. 'Rock 'n' roll,' Rushdie answered. 'Would you like a copy?'

76

Chris Ryan

'Very much,' said Slater. 'Help yourself, then. Steal one.' 'You're kidding!'

.'I dare you,' said Rushdie, with the ghost of a smile. \ 'I'm not in the daring business any more,' said Slater, alone the getting-arrested business. Apart from ling else we're on closed circuit TV. And that guy there in the blazer is a store detective.' s'How can you tell?' Slater shrugged. 'The way he stands. The way he

: actually looking at the books.' |l see what you mean. Do you think he knows what j're doing here?' feah, definitely he does.'

assistant approached them.

lave you got Geri Halliwell's autobiography?' idie asked.

i minutes later they were in the Armani shop on the iipton Road.

lat do you think?' asked Rushdie, holding up a l in heavy olive-green wool.

. not a good person to ask about clothes,' replied f, his eyes scanning the store. 'But it looks OK to

ashdie held up the same shirt in grey. 'And this

lat looks OK too.'

ich would you buy for yourself?' lie grey. I've spent half my life in dark green.'

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The Hit List

As Rushdie signed the credit-card slip, Slater held out a copy of his novel. 'While you've got your pen out,' he said, 'would you mind signing this?'

Rushdie stared at him in amazement. 'Now how the hell. . .'

'I never could resist a good book.'

With the clothes-shopping completed they had lunch in a pub in Beauchamp Place, where Rushdie questioned Slater about the Gulf War. 'What was your worst moment?' he asked.

Slater considered. 'Well, the most frightening moment was probably during an anti-Scud mission.'

'Go on,' said the novelist, forking Branston pickle on to his cheese roll.

Slater sipped at his Coke. 'Well, we'd got satellite pictures in, showing activity near a place called al Anbar, west of Baghdad. The theory from the intelligence people was that a number of missiles were being grouped there before moving them on to their mobile launchers. They didn't know how long they'd all be in one place, so the word was we had to check them out fast and if possible help knock them out.

Tour of us went in. They dropped us off by helicopter at night and got out as quickly as possible. Al-Anbar was surrounded by anti-aircraft batteries, there were tanks in the area, and there were rumours of a concealed airbase. It was also fantastically cold. We'd been expecting the Costa del Sol, but we found

78

Chris Ryan

: coldest January for thirty years. Snow was expected

the wind-chill was murderous. I'We moved up on the target. Air-reconnaissance Etures had shown there was a small berm -- a kind of ked-up dugout - a couple of hundred yards from There we thought the Scuds were, and the theory was this was for the ground-crew to shelter behind Jien the missiles were fired. It was a risk, but we ided to make the berm our observation post. ^*It took a lot longer than we thought. We knew prisoners we'd interrogated that all the sentries Uuld have night sights, so we couldn't take any ices. The trouble was there was no cover, just bare t, and we were like flies on a table-top. In the end made it to the berm about an hour before dawn, at that point it began to pour with rain. By then, jugh, we'd been able to confirm via our own night its that there were definitely Scuds on the base. key were well concealed, but they were there. |'I radioed through the confirmation to the base in and we were ordered to sit tight. The air attack juld come after dark that night. Between now and en we were to dig in and observe any movement. |>'It got light. The Scuds and the trucks had been ted up for the day and were pretty much invisible. be only sign of life was two low, camouflaged tents ich we guessed housed the missile and antiaircraft 6ws. So we just hunkered down in the berm with ie man on stag and the rest trying to sleep. There was ling else to do. If any sentries had come along we'd

79

The Hit List

have been dead, but none did, and gradually we got a bit of warmth back in our bones. By eleven o'clock we were beginning to think we might even make it through to nightfall. And then everything changed.

'I was on stag. There had been no movement for an hour. And then, on the horizon, I saw a dust-trail. It was moving towards us, and soon I could make out a pair of Panhard landcruisers. Landcruisers usually meant someone important, and twenty-four hours earlier the intelligence people in Saudi had intercepted a message announcing that the al-Anbar base was due to be visited by some high-up code-named Marwan. No one was quite sure of Marwan's identity, but the popular theory was that he was an Iranian scientist who had defected during the Iran-Iraq war and was now running the missile research plant at Sa'd 16, up in the north. If this theory was right then he was a real prize: it was the Sa'd 16 team who had designed the al Husayn -- the long-range version of the Soviet Scud that you could fit with chemical and biological weapons.

'And then I saw that the dust-trail was more than a couple of visiting high-ups in landcruisers. Behind them, over the horizon came this vast convoy of T-55 tanks. They were heading straight for us, and there wasn't a thing we could do about it except cover ourselves with stones and dirt and camouflage netting and hope they didn't notice us. I was the last to get under cover and I've never seen anything more terrifying than those T-55s. They looked like monsters

80

Chris Ryan

jld and black and pitted with shell-scars. The whole ert was roaring and grinding, and all that we could was lie there - I had my head jammed up against : of the other guys' arses - and hope that they kept Dving. But they didn't. They clanked to a halt, in nation, all around us. We could hear them opening ir turrets and we could hear their radios, and itually we could hear their voices. And then a (juple of them came over and I thought well, that's it. g're dead. And then they pissed on us. I felt it ling down my neck. They must have thought the was some kind of rubbish tip where they threw old cam-netting. We were there, not moving a r, for four hours, and I can't even begin to describe you what that was like, or what that kind of fear 3es to you.'

Slater returned to the present to find Rushdie patching him.

'You see, you're looking at me right now - you low how the story ends. In that berm we didn't low how the story was going to end. There had been sries about spies being stoned to death, castrated, ing from wire nooses . . . you name it.' 'So what happened?'

'They went away. They started up their engines, >cked down their hatches and went away. I radioed in i report about the tanks on my handset and we stayed lere, not moving, for another three hours. The air ike came in just before midnight, and boy, was it aod to see that Scud jet-propellant blow!'

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The Hit List

'And Marwan?' asked Rushdie. 'Did you ever identify him?'

'No one survived the attack,' said Slater. 'That was one of the things my team had been tasked to ensure.'

There was a long silence.

'How is it to know that you've killed someone?' asked the novelist. 'If you don't mind my asking.'

'How's that ploughman's lunch?' asked Slater.

The football went well. The stands tickets gave a good view of Tottenham beating West Ham two-nil, and Rushdie took notes assiduously throughout in a small, leather-covered book.

After the game, rather than look for a taxi, Rushdie suggested they might walk down the High Road to Seven Sisters tube station, as most of the fans did whenever Spurs played at home. To begin with they were swept along by a crowd of cheering, chanting Spurs fans. The air was heavy with fried food and beery good humour. The grey skies promised snow.

At intervals Rushdie stopped to note his impressions, glancing around him as he did so. This began to worry Slater: the writer was less likely to be recognised in Haringey than in Knightsbridge but his actions closely resembled those of a policeman and might easily be construed as hostile. He seemed impervious, however, to the stares he prompted.

'I think it might be an idea to keep going,' Slater said, when Rushdie indicated that, yet again, they should stop for a moment. The faces around them

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Chris Ryan

those of West Ham supporters now, and their was visibly less benevolent than that of the jrious Spurs crowd. 3'm a writer,' said Rushdie simply. 'And right now

re to write.' |jCan you wait until we get to that bus stop?' Slater

s|ut as they sat down, they found themselves ?unded.

aow me again, would you?' asked an acned fatboy ; Hammers shirt.

ashdie said nothing, but watched with detached st as the group solidified around him. Slater, that the situation would defuse of its own i, remained silent. fou deaf or sump'ink?' asked the fatboy. ater flickered a glance at the group. There were s talkers, he reckoned, and three fighters. The one atch was the heavy guy at the back, who was even flexing and curling his fingers.

what's your fuckin' problem, wanker?' ided the fatboy, sniffing.

we go, thought Slater. On the seat beside him idie patiently studied his hands, i'm talking to you, cunt!'

you going to let us carry on our way?' asked mildly.

fou don't get it, do you pal?' It was the heavy guy \ back. His naturally ugly appearance had not been 3ved by the spider's-web tattoo across his neck.

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The Hit List

Like the fatboy, his eyes were puffy and his nose ran.

They were all, Slater guessed, completely hot-wired on coke. They weren't about to walk away - they wanted a positive result to counterbalance the defeat at White Hart Lane.

'Is this a money thing?' asked Rushdie, speaking for the first time. 'Or just a football thing?'

His voice was steady. Slater was amazed at his composure.

'It's basically a stupidity thing,' answered Slater evenly. 'What we have here is a bunch of not-very clever boys who've taken too many drugs.'

The taunt had the desired effect. Spider's-web, his eyes narrowing, took an angry step forward and drew back his fist.

But Slater was already rising to his feet. His first punch hammered into his attacker's lower ribcage, his second -- as the thug doubled up -- flattened his nose. Each blow was accompanied by the crack of fracturing bone.

Bloody drool running down his chin, Spider's-web sank to his knees.

'How about you?' Slater addressed the fatboy reasonably. 'Ready to put your money where your mouth is?'

The fatboy stared open-mouthed at the twitching figure at his feet. The other four took a step backwards.

'There's a hospital back there,' Slater continued. 'You'll probably want to get this ape to the casualty entrance. He'll have a broken nose and two fractured

84

Chris Ryan

s. We'll be on our way.'

'Was there any other possible conclusion to that juence?' Rushdie asked five minutes later as they scended the steps of Seven Sisters tube station.

i 'Not really,' said Slater. 'There comes a point from ich, for certain people like that guy with the aoed neck, retreat becomes physically impossible. |ou can see them flooding with adrenaline before

sur eyes. And at that point you have to fight or flee, sonally I'd rather flee, given the choice, but I

tspect on that occasion we wouldn't have made it.' 'My four-minute mile days are behind me,'

itted Rushdie. 'Are you all right?' 'I could use a cup of tea,' admitted Slater. 'And I sect you'd like to write the whole thing up.'

85

FOUR

'Neil, be a darling and carry the bags, would you?'

'Certainly,' said Neil Slater. So far there were nine of them: two from Versace, three from Donna Karan, and four from Miu-Miu. Grace Litvinoff- and she was the first to admit it - liked to shop.

'Chanel, Neil!'

'Certainly, Mrs LitvinofF.'

'I don't need to tell you the way there do I?'

'Not any more, Mrs LitvinofF.'

And she didn't. He knew all her favourite places. And what was more, they all knew him. Grace LitvinofFhad been in London for ten days now, and for most of those he had trailed her up and down Bond Street, Sloane Street, Mount Street, Brook Street, and all the other Streets where it was possible to spend a thousand pounds on a hallmarked scrap of silken or cashmere nothingness.

Now, when he followed her into one of those cool, perfumed establishments the impeccably groomed male and female stafF nodded to him, smiled hello to him, and in a couple of cases stared with open and amused longing at his groin.

86

Chris Ryan

$ot Slater was not the raw provincial he had been months earlier. He now looked as if he belonged ada or Fendi or Gucci or wherever whimsy and I led his mostly female clients. His haircut had cost ce the price of a tank of petrol, the labels on his |thes were Italian, and he knew the menus at the ; Bar and Le Caprice off by heart. )n the down-side was the question of his own as. They knew him at all the metropolitan ering-holes, but they knew what he did too. They ew that he was being paid to fetch and carry and ^>k out for trouble. And while it was one thing ing a beautiful and glamorous woman like Grace loff round the West End, it was quite another ig errands for some loudmouthed gangster's wife worse, some loudmouthed gangster's children, as |d been called on to do once or twice. Andreas had

t right - bodyguarding was a service industry. Jut having said that, he was good at it. Since the lident with Salman Rushdie there had not been a : of trouble. He had learnt an operating style which ttbined social deference with professional authority !-had managed to retain most - if not quite all -- of Nelf-respect in the process. Duckworth was pleased

him, and had said so. |t was a clear spring day, and the starlings were in the plane trees as Slater followed Grace loff into Chanel. According to her passport, iich he had seen in the LitvinofS' Mayfair lent, Grace was thirty-four and had been born in

87

FOUR

'Neil, be a darling and carry the bags, would you?'

'Certainly,' said Neil Slater. So far there were nine of them: two from Versace, three from Donna Karan, and four from Miu-Miu. Grace Litvinoff- and she was the first to admit it - liked to shop.

'Chanel, Neil!'

'Certainly, Mrs LitvinofF.'

'I don't need to tell you the way there do I?'

'Not any more, Mrs Litvinoff.'

And she didn't. He knew all her favourite places. And what was more, they all knew him. Grace Litvinoff had been in London for ten days now, and for most of those he had trailed her up and down Bond Street, Sloane Street, Mount Street, Brook Street, and all the other Streets where it was possible to spend a thousand pounds on a hallmarked scrap of silken or cashmere nothingness.

Now, when he followed her into one of those cool, perfumed establishments the impeccably groomed male and female staff nodded to him, smiled hello to him, and in a couple of cases stared with open and amused longing at his groin.

86

Chris Ryan

ar Slater was not the raw provincial he had been months earlier. He now looked as if he belonged ada or Fendi or Gucci or wherever whimsy and I led his mostly female clients. His haircut had cost the price of a tank of petrol, the labels on his les were Italian, and he knew the menus at the : Bar and Le Caprice off by heart. )n the down-side was the question of his own They knew him at all the metropolitan ering-holes, but they knew what he did too. They that he was being paid to fetch and carry and out for trouble. And while it was one thing ig a beautiful and glamorous woman like Grace inoff round the West End, it was quite another ig errands for some loudmouthed gangster's wife worse, some loudmouthed gangster's children, as |B been called on to do once or twice. Andreas had right - bodyguarding was a service industry.

having said that, he was good at it. Since the ident with Salman Rushdie there had not been a : of trouble. He had learnt an operating style which bined social deference with professional authority [had managed to retain most - if not quite all -- of Iself-respect in the process. Duckworth was pleased

him, and had said so. ft was a clear spring day, and the starlings were in the plane trees as Slater followed Grace loff into Chanel. According to her passport, ach he had seen in the Litvinoffs' Mayfair lent, Grace was thirty-four and had been born in

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Singapore. Her husband, whom Duckworth approvingly described as 'stupendously rich', bought and sold communications companies.

David Litvinoff was some fifteen years his wife's senior, and the story went that he had been making a business stopover in Singapore in the mid-eighties when a colleague had persuaded him to visit one of the island's shirtmakers. The fitting had taken place in the morning in one of the myriad 'shop-houses' behind Raffles Hotel, and the half-dozen completed garments were delivered to Litvinoff s room at the end of the afternoon.

They were delivered by the shirtmaker's eighteen year-old daughter, a girl fashioned by chance and genetic accident into a creature of extraordinary beauty. Like many Singaporeans she was slender and ivory-skinned, but unlike any Singaporean that David Litvinoff had ever seen her eyes were a dazzling tropical green. As soon as she walked into his hotel room the young New Yorker - already many times a millionaire -- felt himself drowning in her gaze. They were married three months later.

Marrying Grace, it was said, was the first and last impulsive thing David Litvinoff had ever done. At his preliminary interview for the position of bodyguard, Slater had been struck by the man's remoteness. Litvinoff had barely spoken, raising his eyes from his paperwork for no more than a few seconds at a time and indicating his final approval of Slater with a nod. What he and his wife had ever had in common was hard to imagine.

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fjFor the Singapore shirtmaker's daughter had Mne one of the international set's most dazzling and jvert stars. As a child she had seen glamour at a ice -- now she wanted it for herself. And she got She spent her husband's money with reckless :he - buying art in Manhattan, enlightenment in haute couture in Paris, and holiday homes in St and Aspen. She was a particular darling of the ion houses, for unlike ninety-nine per cent of the -lifted harpies who occupied front-row seats at the s, Grace LitvinofFwas beautiful. The waist-length iin of raven-black hair had been replaced by a chic : bob and the long green eyes were perhaps a little we knowing than they had been when her husband first encountered them sixteen years ago, but lerwise time had stood still. Her skin was still as fcate as the petal of an orchid, while her body led and streamlined by hundreds if not thousands of of gym workouts, yoga, tai-chi, hydrotherapy , deep-tissue massage, was as lithe as a panther's.

twenty minutes, as she tried on outfit after t, Slater watched the shop's Bond Street entrance a well-stuffed chair. Where, he wondered Jely, would they be lunching today? Earlier in the they'd visited the Mirabelle, and Marco Pierre e had joined them at their table. jj-From the far end of the shop, by the changing SMns, came the sound of female giggles. *Neil, darling,' came Grace LitvinofFs mid-Atlantic �wl. 'We need you!'

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Leaving the nine shopping bags by the counter he hurried over. His employer's sleek, elegandycoiffed head protruded from one of the changing-rooms. Two assistants in gilt-buttoned suits stood on either side of the door. There was an air of stifled hysteria.

'We need a decision, Neil. For the reception tonight do I go with . . .'

She stepped out wearing a sheer, barely existent silk top over an embroidered lace brassiere.

'Or do I go without?

She reappeared without the bra.

For a long moment he gaped at her, stared at the small, dark-pointed breasts trembling beneath the silk.

'Well, Neil? What do you think?'

The two assistants were smiling at him, enjoying his discomfort.

'I'm . . . I'm not sure,' he managed, looking away.

'I think Neil disapproves of me,' Grace Litvinoff cooed. 'I guess the decision will have to wait. Perhaps I'll wait and see how I feel.'

There had always been an edge of flirtatiousness in her dealings with Slater, but she had never, he thought, quite crossed the line like this before. God, but she was sexy though, with those lazy green eyes and that sly, spoilt mouth. And, of course, those edible little breasts. Wondering about the rest of her, imagining her nude - imagining her arching beneath him and murmuring his name - he felt himself harden.

And turned to the door of the shop. Get a grip, he told himself angrily. Get a fucking grip. He'd lost it

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dropped his guard and his concentration one ed per cent.

. I very naughty?' she asked him, passing him the jnraining the silk top - so light it felt empty. 'Are ji, very cross with me?' fjtt here to guard you, Mrs Litvinoff,' he replied

lly.

jmeone to watch over me . . . Do you know that Neil?'

j^J'in afraid not, Mrs Litvinoff. Would you like me to the bags to the car, or would you like to go on fcewhere else?' thought Valentine, perhaps. And then lunch.'

at was it, wondered Neil Slater, looking around minimalist white-on-white dining room, that ted all these people? Why did they all look as if knew each other -- as if they belonged here by it? And why - Italian loafers or no Italian loafers - 1't he feel that way? Why did he always feel the sider?

JlfPerhaps it was that sense of outsidership - that sense t life's rules don't quite apply - that had linked them I in the Regiment. That was what had been missing his life since leaving the army, he thought -- the er satisfaction of bending the rules. As a agbroke's employee, and now as Duckworth's i, there was no such satisfaction to be had, no such ijivilege to be enjoyed. ^'Thoughtfully, his eyes scanning the room for any

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jarring note -- for anything or anyone that shouldn't be there - he raised a glass of mineral water to his lips.

And held it there.

Something out of the ordinary was happening. Grace LitvinofFs hand was delicately - but very definitely - exploring his thigh. They were sitting in a corner beneath a tall, white-curtained window and she was leaning forward and confiding to him that what she really wanted - what she really badly wanted and wasn't prepared to wait any longer for - was for him to take her back to the flat and undress her and fuck her hard for the whole of the afternoon.

'Can we go now, Neil?' she whispered, her long fingers closing over him. 'Can we just pay the bill and get the car and go? I just can't wait any longer.'

Slater felt himself stiffening. His professional resolve evaporated before the need in her long green eyes. You can't blame a compass for pointing north, he told himself.

Her husband, he knew, was in Milan until Wednesday.

'Excuse me!' Grace Litvinoff waved breezily to one of the waitresses. 'We have to go.'

The waitress looked at the table, at Grace's fully charged glass of Krug Champagne, at their barely touched Lobster Newburg. 'Is everything all right, Mrs LitvinofP'

'Everything's perfect,' she smiled, giving Slater an encouraging squeeze. 'We just have to go. It's kind of urgent.'

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dropped her napkin and stood up. Slater iered if he dared do the same.

ie silver Lexus, as usual, she sat in the back while sat in front with the driver. No word passed ireen the three of them. Grace LitvinofF, as she to do, chatted to friends on her Nokia, while attempted to squash down the bulge in his jsers and went through the motions of monitoring : surrounding traffic.

ie entrance to the Litvinoffs' building was in Place, behind Piccadilly. Dismissing the ieur, Grace Litvinoff waited as Slater carried the or so shopping bags into the hallway. In the lift, ch was operated by a uniformed porter, she eared to ignore him, but as soon as the gates closed rind them on the eighth floor she turned her face to t

|IWait,' he told her, and unlocking the door to the louse apartment quickly disarmed the intruder i. Behind him she slipped the chain over the latch. |I didn't get a chance to finish my Champagne,' she lispered. 'Would you be an angel?'

the kitchen, Slater found a bottle of cold Dom ion and a single crystal glass. She was waiting for in the terrace room - a cool, light-filled space ated by the view over Green Park. She took the s, drank from it, and placed it on the mantelpiece. 5n, wrapping her arms delicately around Slater's tk, she kissed him. The kiss took a long time.

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Closing his eyes, Slater surrendered to the soft urgency of her mouth and the pliancy of her slender body beneath his hands. He had never in his life held a woman as impossibly exotic as this, never tasted a scent quite like her scent, never felt skin quite like her skin.

'You're so quiet, Neil,' she said, slipping her long fingers beneath his shirt. 'You hardly say anything.'

'I'm not so much of a talker,' he murmured into her hair. 'I'm more of a doer.'

'And are you going to ... do me?' she asked.

'I think I am, yes.'

'Call me by my name,' she said, drawing her nails softly down his back. 'Look into my eyes and say, "Grace, I'm going to fuck you.'"

'Is that what you want?' he asked, undoing the silk loops of her mandarin-collared shirt.

'That's what I want,' she breathed.

'In that case,' said Slater, moving his mouth to her breasts, feeling the dark nipples harden beneath his lips and against his tongue, 'you should wait and see what happens.'

'No words of love?' Her mouth was against his hair.

'No words.'

They undressed each other and he carried her through to one of the bedrooms. 'Wait!' she said, snatching up her handbag.

In the mirror he watched her rise and fall over him. The whole scene -- the tall, white room, the sunlight at the windows, the slight, gasping figure straddling him - had an air of impossibility, of unreality.

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ace,' he said.

I me, darling,' she said quietly. 'Talk to me. Tell ijow much you want me.' Her eyes were closed

,*

fou know how much,' he said, moving his hips in

with hers. 'You know how much I want you. f much I've wanted you since the first second I

^y�u'

IfWhen did you want me most?'

i morning, in the shop. That was . . .' fould you have liked those girls to watch us?' [ wouldn't have cared.' |he leant over him, let her hair fall in his face. 'Do 5, love me, Neil?'

hesitated for less than a moment, felt the slick, insistence between her legs. At that moment he id have told her anything. 'Yes. I love you.' ^ell me that you do. Use my name.' I He reached for her hips, pressed them against him. ye you, Grace. You're the most. . .' ler nails dug into his shoulders. 'Go on!'

I're the most beautiful. . .' j'Go on, Neil!' she gasped, biting her lower lip. 'Tell

how . . .'

�But Slater was beyond words. Flipping her on to her ck, taking her rhythm for his own, he drove into her i a lost, desperate abandon. Beneath him he felt her Jten, cry like an animal, tear at his shoulders with her

until at last they were riding the wave together. Mouthing each other's names, laughing with

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disbelief at the unexpectedness of it all, he fell exhausted to her side, watched the white room reform around them. She lay like a cat, eyes closed, and tentatively he drew his tongue across her breasts. What the hell am I doing here? he asked himself. What the hell have I done?

Smiling, she drew him to her.

'Do you really love me, like you said? If I was to get a divorce from David, would you . . . still want me? Would you still look after me?'

He looked at her, kissed the soft hollow beneath her ear, felt the coolness of her blue-white diamond stud earring against his mouth. 'Yes,' he said. His brain felt totally disconnected from his body. 'Yes to everything.'

That evening he accompanied her to a reception at the Tate Gallery. As he patrolled the crowd, mineral water in hand, he wondered if he was completely insane. If Duckworth got to hear that he'd spent the afternoon in bed with one of his best clients - or to be precise with the wife of one of his best clients -- then his bodyguarding career was over. He'd committed the cardinal sin.

But it would have been worth it. God, but she was beautiful. Never in his wildest dreams had he thought he would ever see such an exquisite creature curled beside him, hear her whisper his name, beg him to make love to her again. And again. She was a tiger, green-eyed and insatiable. *

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ained, drowsy with sex, they'd showered and ed at six o'clock. He'd discovered he was lous, and raiding the fridge had discovered a pot strakhan caviar, a mango, and a bottle of Japanese

r. Grace Litvinoffhad recharged her batteries with cube of sushi, which to Slater's eyes looked as if

rould barely sustain a weasel. 'You should eat s!' he told her, patting her flat little stomach.

Then I'd look like everybody else,' she answered. I my clothes wouldn't fit. And you wouldn't want

lie looked at him, watched him wash up the plates cutlery that they'd used. 'Neil, when did you last , sleep with anyone?' Ill's been quite a long time,' he admitted. 'I was a bit out of things for a while. And that side of my life

much closed down.' IfWere you ill?'

f; Something like that. I had a bad tour of duty across : water.' ?In the USA?'

*In Northern Ireland. And by the end of it things I come on top.' " *I came on top a couple of times this afternoon,' she i. 'It's not such a bad place to come!' ('Funny girl.'

^They'd agreed on the ground rules. In public /here except in the flat - they would behave as ent and bodyguard. Not so much as an intimate look pounds Uld pass between them. Slater would do his job

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exactly as before -- given her husband's vast wealth the possibility of a kidnap attempt remained a real one. Meanwhile they would communicate using text messages on their mobile phones.

The paintings at the reception were very large, and showed hugely enlarged parts of the human body. There was a vast and filthy fingernail, an arsehole the size of a dustbin-lid, a weeping appendectomy scar, and several square metres of acned buttock. For the most part the 200 or so guests were standing with their backs to these paintings, although each new arrival gave the exhibition a cursory glance. To Slater's eye they were a creepy, vampiric bunch - especially the men, with their too-short hair and their tightlipped, puritanical expressions. Grace, as he watched, was greeted by two of them - zombies in their mid-forties with plucked eyebrows and the over-pink faces of habitual amyl nitrate users. Having discussed her outfit in detail - an outfit Slater had helped choose -- they took an arm each and steered her from exhibit to exhibit.

'Are you having a good time?'

At first Slater was unaware that the voice was addressed to him.

'Lost for words, are we?'

Slater nodded, and turned away. The speaker was a carefully groomed man in his fifties with a goatee beard.

'Do you like the paintings, then?'

'Not a lot. At least I wouldn't hang them on my

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Chris Ryan

S, if that's what you mean. Not that they'd fit on Jls.'

sorry to hear that.' fell, it's a small place. Not bad though, for the

y-'

>, I'm sorry to hear you don't like the paintings. ; do you put on your walls?' ater frowned and pretended to consider. 'Well, |iknow that poster of the tennis girl scratching her

9

ie other man raised an eyebrow. 'Yes, indeed I He nodded vigorously. 'Well, I must be ating.'

sod luck,' Slater called after him. Wanker, he mentally.

soft, familiar voice behind him. 'Neil, I'll be er half hour or so, OK?'

Grace, with her two hangers-on, ater nodded. 'Sure. No problem.' )id I just see you talking to Daniel Sweeting?' she i, indicating the departing man.

asked me if I liked the paintings.' id you told him?' ^said I didn't.'

ae hangers-on looked at each other, their eyes ening in horror.

Jrace smiled. 'He's the artist. He's also a friend of e, so try not to give him too hard a time if you run i him again.' 'm sorry,' said Slater levelly.

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'Neil looks after me,' Grace told her two companions. 'He keeps me safe. He's my desert island luxury.'

They looked him up and down. Particularly down.

'I suppose this must all seem very strange to you,' said one.

'I've seen stranger,' said Slater, his eyes moving around the room.

'So where did you train?' said the other. 'Is it like a social work thing?'

'Sort of,' said Slater. On the other side of the room Salman Rushdie and Geri Halliwell were walking arm in-arm. Seeing Slater, the novelist raised a hand in greeting.

'Neil knows everyone,' said Grace.

She left him alone after that, and Slater tried not to stare too intently after her. Already he wanted her again, and more badly than he could begin to put into words. He was grateful to his job for having enabled them to meet, but Andreas's crack about bodyguarding being a service industry still reverberated in his mind. These people regarded him as being of lower status than themselves, he mused, and even though they met as equals in bed, Grace surely felt the same. Her husband paid for him to be delivered to her door every morning, after all.

Was this really how a former SAS soldier should be occupying himself? As a glorified male escort? He thought of Dave Constantine cleaning lavatories and

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eking plug-holes in Wormbridge. Dave was i>ly in Africa by now, sweating out the last two alcohol and cursing himself for having walked i Linda. But he was also doing the thing that he'd i born to do -- the thing that they'd all been born

fou're a Minerva BG, aren't you?' ater snapped out of his reverie. The questioner was l&bout the same age as himself- a tough-looking with a crewcut and a closely controlled justache.

fes,' said Slater. 'You too?' |?Yeah. I'm looking after Mr Rushdie. How long

: you been working for Duckworth?' IThe two men compared notes. Tab Holland was a ler Military Policeman, and like Slater was not �dy impressed by the antics of some of the moneyed He'd spent the last week looking after a pop sup, and described how he'd had to carry tampons him at all times -- the lead singer's cocaine habit caused her to haemorrhage from the nose on a Mly basis.

Holland was interested to hear that Slater had been the SAS. 'Did you see the Evening Standard? he ced, and Slater shook his head.

ji 'A bunch of your guys lifted Radovan Karadjic. icy'd been watching his place in Bosnia - some farm, i'think -- and followed him when he and some of his were driving towards the border into lontenegro. Bloody great firefight, apparently --

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thousands of rounds expended - and at the end of it, after losing six guys, the Serbs came out with their hands in the air. Next stop the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague. Fucking brilliant result!'

Til drink to that,' said Slater, raising his mineral water. Shit, he thought, that would have been a good one to be on. The lads'll be pissing it up tonight, that's for sure. He felt a hot stab of jealousy and regret.

'Who dares wins, eh!' said Tab Holland.

'Yeah,' said Slater. 'I guess that's about the long and the short of it.'

He looked around him. Precious little daring here. Precious little winning. And then he saw Grace Litvinoff, caught her eye for a second as she air-kissed Geri Halliwell, and his heart went into free-fall.

Four hours later, after a seemingly endless dinner for twelve at the River Cafe - he and Tab Holland had been consigned to a table of their own by the door, where they picked at spaghetti carbonara and swapped war stories - Slater was walking her to the car.

'Were you very bored?' she asked him, her voice slurring slightly.

'I was fine,' said Slater. He dropped his voice. 'Shall I stay tonight?'

'I haven't got you tomorrow, have I?'

'No. I've got some Indian family to take to the zoo.'

'Stay, then. I can't wait till Friday.'

When they reached the Lexus, Slater climbed in front with the driver.

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)rop you home, mate?' the driver asked when they ched Mayfair Place. The pattern on other nights been that Slater accompanied Grace Litvinoff up the flat and then the driver, who lived in Jthamstow, gave him a lift up to Highbury. iNot tonight, thanks,' answered Slater. 'I've got to j'on somewhere.'

I'Right, mate. Sure,' the driver replied. 'See you ay, then.'

Dm the man's faint smile, Slater could see that he . guessed the score.

you Friday.'

^Expressionless, Slater walked round the silver let of the Lexus and opened the door for his icipal.

the flat they started undressing each other the ament the heavy Banham latch clicked shut behind Item. A trail of clothes described their erratic progress the bedroom.

1pm the next day, Slater's mood was beginning to

f. He had arrived at the Chabbrias' Bayswater Road

partment at nine, after an early morning dash home

am Mayfair for a change of clothes. The idea was

at he should accompany the three Chabbria children

i the zoo, but by 1 lam there was no sign that this was

ring to happen. One of the children, a pale,

rerweight twelve-year-old named Sweetie, had

ised to get out of her nightie until her Xena,

Warrior Princess video was finished, eight-year-old

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Lallu had installed himself in front of his Playstation and announced his intention to play Mortal Kombat all day, and the youngest - Chunky -- was still throwing his breakfast at the Norland nanny. None of them paid Slater the slightest attention except the nanny, a West Country girl named Alison, who managed to break away from feeding Chunky for long enough to make him a cup of tea.

'Nice, unspoilt children,' murmured Slater.

'Couldn't you just eat them up?' agreed Alison with a wan smile.

Brief excitement was caused by the arrival of the post, and with it several mail-order catalogues. Sweetie put Xena on pause and Lallu halted his game and both children then placed several orders for CDs and computer games on their mobile phones. 'Are you sure you've got Mummy's Visa number right this time?' asked Alison. 'We don't want any more lost tempers, do we?'

Mummy, bleary with sleep, made an appearance shortly after midday. Like Sweetie, she was dressed in a nightie and a quilted nylon dressing gown. Her make-up had not weathered the night well.

'Where's the cook?' she demanded abruptly of Alison.

'It's her day off, Mrs Chabbria. Can I get you anything?'

'No,' she yawned. 'God, so lazy these people -- they just come and go without a care. Nightmare, this servant thing. Who's this fellow?'

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Chris Ryan

(Mi. . . I've come to take the children to the zoo,' 2r. 'Or wherever they want to go.' I see. Bodyguard, yaarT

aat's right.'

make yourself useful. Go out and get me a I Puppie and a Family Bucket of KFC. Any of you j>Want anything?' ue answered.

vare Road,' mouthed Alison. 'Just up from the

t

4(er nodded. It was clearly going to be a long day. a newsagent's he picked up a paper for details i Karadjic snatch. Soldiers from 22 SAS, he read, ^followed the indicted war criminal from Belgrade i farm near Foca in Eastern Bosnia. There they had ; watch from the minefields on the outskirts of the until their target, accompanied by twelve ates, had ventured out under cover of darkness, ig for Montenegro. Less than two miles from the border, the Serbian cars had found their passage ted by an articulated lorry, which had apparently red in the road. Behind them, a truck had raced i a farm-track to block their exit. Karadjic's guards immediately opened fire and a fierce gun-battle ensued in which six Serbians had been killed and seriously wounded. The remainder had sur ered along with Karadjic, who according to the er had sustained a flesh-wound 'in the upper thigh'. SrThis news reflected well on the Regiment -- none of other peacekeeping nations had got close to this

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most elusive of targets. All that was needed now was to nail General Ratko Mladic. What a left and right that would be!

Ten minutes later he presented himself back at the flat with the fried chicken bucket and the Slush Puppie. He presented these to Mrs Chabbria, who by then had joined Sweetie on the sofa. After the cold air outside the flat seemed stiflingly hot. Electronic bleeps and Chunky's howls filled the air.

'You know,' said Sweetie, fast-forwarding through the trailers on a new video. 'I quite fancy a Slush Puppie too. But the mint one, yaar? The green one?'

'Sure,' said Slater, injecting as much good humour into his voice as he could muster. 'Anyone else want anything while I'm out? Last orders ladies and gents . . .'

When he returned, there were two new arrivals - a boy and girl of around seventeen and sixteen respectively, both dressed in matt black couture-line Versace.

'Watch out,' whispered Alison, as Slater passed her at the ironing-board.

'Hey, Sweetie!' said the teenage boy, grabbing at the twelve-year-old's Slush Puppie. 'Give it up, yaar.'

'Bugger off, Vinny!' Sweetie protested. 'Send the man.'

'You!' mouthed the boy in Slater's direction. 'Get the same again. And pick up some fries, too. Bimla, you want something?'

Bimla, the teenage girl, shook her head.

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Jot that?' asked Vinny. : got it,' said Slater evenly.

)K, chalo. Move!' a way, thought Slater, as the lift whirred

iwards yet again, the last couple of months had as quite an education. He'd met some arrogant in the army - Ruperts, they were universally i as, with their braying voices and their shrieking, aney girlfriends - and he'd met some appalling

as among Bolingbroke's parents, but they'd been

: beginners compared to the people he'd met while ; for Minerva. People like these Chabbrias, for

aple, for whom manners and courtesy appeared to

it for nothing at all. People who considered that gave them a licence to behave exactly as they

Jut perhaps it did, Slater mused. Perhaps the fact : people like him and Alison took their employers' agance on the chin sent the message that it was just to order people around like that. Perhaps the fact he didn't slam that overdressed turd Vinny up st the wall and teach him a lesson in manners it that the next employee would be treated even Drse.

|Tough. He needed the money, so he would put up |th it. Sticks and stones, he told himself. Sticks and anes.

(tDidn't you listen?' said Vinny angrily when Slater led to the flat carrying the Slush Puppie and the ach fries. 'Simla, what did you ask for?'

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'A smoothie,' said Bimla, yawning. 'A strawberry smoothie.'

'I'm sorry, Vinny,' said Slater. 'I didn't hear her.'

The boy stared at Slater. 'What did you call me?'

'Vinny,' said Slater. 'Why, isn't that your name?'

The boy clicked his fingers. 'Come out here.'

Slater followed him into the hallway, giving Alison the ghost of a wink en route, and waited while Vinny lit a cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter.

'How much does your agency pay you?' the boy began, turning the lighter between his fingers.

Cool it, Slater told himself. Don't let this little tosser wind you up.

'Mr Chabbria pays the agency six hundred pounds a day. I get three hundred of that.'

'Three hundred pounds a day. Right. Well my father earns that sum in two minutes. And that's without getting out of his rucking chair. So you'll understand, butthead, that you don't call me by my family name - or even Vinod - until I invite you to, OK?'

Slater took a deep breath. 'Fine,' he said. 'What do I call you?'

'Mr Chabbria will do.'

'Mr Chabbria it is, then. Shall I go and buy Miss Chabbria her smoothie now, Mr Chabbria?'

In the end, no one went to the zoo or even left the flat. Slater went backwards and forwards collecting snacks and DVDs, and the Chabbrias lounged about, eating

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atching the flickering screens. Slater's elaborate seemed to infuriate Vinod Chabbria even than his easygoing approach had, and the boy ad to smoke several joints to calm himself down, awhile Bimla, altogether a nicer piece of work her brother although no less spoilt, had been

; thoughtful glances in Slater's direction, an't even think about it, he told himself. Don't rucking think about it. He was in deep enough f. Why on earth had he told Grace Litvinoff that oved her - a statement that he'd never made to any woman? Grace was amazingly stylish, certainly, i,by far the most beautiful woman he'd ever slept but how could he say that he loved her? He and -'occupied different worlds. They could spend a ic together and not begin to understand each

one of his sorties to the Edgware Road he eked his text messages: 'd karan thur ham'. iie knew that he was free but had told him that she i spending the day with a friend. The arrangement been that they would see each other on Friday, he was officially booked to look after her. Still, i'would meet her in Donna Karan tomorrow if that's she wanted. His heart quickened at the thought r, was wrenched at the frustration of not being s to see her tonight. She was going to an opera gala |Covent Garden with her husband, and one of the ler Minerva bodyguards had been booked to Company them.

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In the end, before returning to the Chabbrias' flat for the last time, he rang Tab Holland and arranged to meet him for a drink. The ex-RMP was working in South Kensington and they agreed to meet in a pub near the tube station.

Holland had spent the day at the French Lycee, guarding the daughter of a French publisher who had received death threats from Algerian terrorists.

'At least you were doing something valuable,' said Slater, downing the best part of a pint of Guinness in a single, desperate swallow. 'I tell you, another hour and I would have ended up chinning that fucking Vinod. And the worst of it is, I reckon, that by taking his shit rather than sorting him out I've made him worse. I've made myself at least partly responsible for the bad time he gives the next guy.'

'You can't think like that,' said Holland. 'You've just got to walk away from arseholes like that and forget them. Life's too short.'

'How long have you been in the bodyguarding game, Tab?' Slater asked, beckoning to the barmaid to refill their glasses.

'Too bloody long,' said Holland. 'Eight years odd.'

'And in all that time, have you ever broken the rules? I mean have you ever . . .'

'Hit a client? No.'

'No, I didn't mean that as much as . . .'

'Get involved with a client's wife?'

'Yeah. Have you ever done that?'

Holland paused. He was older, Slater saw, than he

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. originally seemed. feet's just say that it happens, OK? But let me give i word of advice. If it ever happens to you . . .' He ied Slater meaningfully. 'Don't tell your leagues. You're not in a regiment now, and there's '.mates' code of honour to protect you. One of the ^er BGs'll grass you up to Duckworth and that'll be ;,end of it. No work, no mortgage payments, no Star

stickers for the kids.' |*Should such a situation ever arise,' Slater said wryly,

; remember what you said.' ffjDo that,' said Holland.

/hat would you do if you weren't BGing?' Slater 1 him.

The dream's to start a little gardening consultancy |the Chichester area,' said Tab. 'Installing fountains

\ water-features and that. Statuary.' B*So when's that going to happen?' |*I told the wife it'd be this year. Trouble is, the icy for BGing is just too good. There's always just more job you can't turn down. And then one of ar kids asks for the new Man U strip and you have Conversation with the bank manager and that job

into one more season you can't turn down . . .' |He drained his glass and pushed it towards the iinness tap. 'What I'd really like, to be honest, is a sd war. Nine months or so of total fucking &yhem. If I could just have that, and survive, I'd eerfully install precast concrete sundials for the rest Pmy life.'

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Slater laughed. ' Vive la mort, vive la guerre . . .' 'Vive le sacre mercenaire!' they roared in unison.

By the time the pint glasses had each been refilled four times over, Slater was feeling a bit more like a warrior and a bit less like a domestic servant. He and Tab Holland had worked out how, for an investment of less than .�100,000, they could kidnap the radical Islamic leader Osama bin Laden from Kabul in Afghanistan and claim the $5 million reward supposedly on offer.

After a couple of large drams each of Jameson's Irish whiskey, the barman had somehow been recruited into the scheme. When trying to remember the details later - details which had appeared watertight at the time - Slater would be able to remember only that a scuba kit and a plastic dustbin were involved.

'You're not driving are you, gents?' the barman had asked them at the point at which they'd switched to brandy.

'No mate, public transport!' Slater had replied. For some reason it had seemed the saddest, funniest answer in the world.

112

FIVE

woke to a bad hangover - the worst since New

'$ Day - and the insistent ringing of the Motorola, sorry if I woke you, Mr Slater. It's Lark here,

. the Treasury Solicitors' office.'

a,e hangover was immediately overlaid by dread.

.didn't wake me,' Slater lied. 'What's up?'

fell I won't beat around the bush. There have i' a number of developments in the Bolingbroke's

>1 case and I'm afraid it looks as if there's going to

. inquiry, at the very least.'

Iter's stomach churned. 'What exactly does that

i?' he asked. the first instance it means that you and I should

t How are you fixed for, say, tomorrow?' Tomorrow was Friday. He was booked to look after

i. 'Would Monday be too late?'

Jo, Monday would be ... fine. Shall we say ten

ck here at Northumberland Avenue?'

ater pressed the off button and flipped the little

le on to the bed. This was seriously bad news. For ten minutes, mind and body screaming, he >d under a cold shower. Trust in Lark, he told

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himself. Lark had always come good in the past. But he wasn't inside the system any more, and something distant in Lark's tone told Slater that this made a difference.

Pulling on a track suit and trainers, pocketing his keys, he went out for a run. He felt terrible, but experience told him that exercise and fresh air were the only effective counter to a hangover. Soon he was sweating, lengthening his stride as he pushed himself round the cheerless perimeter of Finsbury Park. His head pounded, but he ignored it.

A second shower -- hot this time -- and he was beginning to feel human again. The worry about the inquiry had receded to the point where he could think about it clearly, rather than in a state of sick panic. They had to bale him out, he told himself. They bloody well had to. But of course he was being childish. They didn't have to do anything. If it suited them, and if more serious considerations than his own well-being were at stake, they'd bang him up without hesitation. He made a decision. If he went down for murder, or even for a long manslaughter stretch, he'd top himself. Open a fucking vein. He wasn't rotting away in a cell for anyone.

After arriving at this decision, and imagining for a morbid minute or two his blood flowing darkly and secretly into a prison mattress, Slater felt better. Dressing himself in off-duty clothing - jeans, a sweatshirt and his old leather jacket - he left the flat in

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ch of a full English breakfast. ; eleven o'clock, as requested, he presented himself )onna Karan in Bond Street. A glance inside the showed no sign of Grace Litvinoff, nor was the er Lexus anywhere in sight, an I help you?'

las Mrs Litvinoff been in today?' Che male assistant consulted a pad. 'Are you Mr

Slater?' Je nodded.

> Litvinoff isn't coming in today, but she's left us instructions. We're to provide you with some Srthes.'

ater gaped. 'Provide me?'

je assistant smiled. 'Let me get Alexia, who spoke iMrs Litvinoff.' Slater waited, and a minute later a svelte figure in

i-fitting grey was shaking his hand. "You're Neil, right? Grace gave me a list of what needed. And she asked me to tell you that there Ifsome other bits and pieces to be collected from ..." : consulted her list - 'Prada. OK?' ^Dazzled by her smile, Slater could only nod his iffent.

|, 'Do you have the prices on that list?' he asked her llcertainly.

fnAlexia laughed. 'Grace said you weren't to be given ^y prices. She said you'd only make a fuss.' I Slater stared about him in disbelief, digesting the airy indeur of the place. Not long ago he'd have felt

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acutely uncomfortable even standing somewhere like this, and while he'd begun to learn the laws of the Mayfair jungle, he was still capable of finding himself at a disadvantage.

'Shall we do it?' asked Alexia, still smiling.

For ninety minutes, without daring to consider the cost, he tried on a dark and gorgeous array of suits, jackets, shirts, ties, trousers and shoes. Sometimes Alexia nodded her approval, sometimes she stood birdlike and thoughtful, sometimes she made a note or added a pin to a trouser-leg, sometimes she shook her head dismissively.

For Slater, the hour and a half was an education. His own clothes seemed cheap, shapeless and dowdy in comparison to this finery. Luxury was a ratchet. It only turned one way.

'So what do you think?' Alexia asked him when the session was finally completed and he stood there surrounded by crisp, neatly aligned bags. His own, for once.

'I'm lost for words,' he told her. 'What do you think?'

She folded her arms. Gave him the full-beam smile. 'I think Mrs Litvinoff has . . . great taste. I'm glad we've been able to help.'

Half an hour later, with several Prada bags added to his haul, he was sitting on a bench reading a newspaper and wondering about lunch. His hangover was no more than a memory now, and he had

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to put the whole business of the inquiry out mind. There was nothing he could do to anything - it was all up to Lark. On Monday juld start worrying. For now he would think Grace.

i checked his text messages. )KING GOOD? LOVE U.' shook his head admiringly. She was just too

ley're very cute those things, aren't they? cially for love affairs.'

jter turned his head. Behind the bench, vaguely in an old grey leather Luftwaffe flying-jacket, ; a grinning Andreas. At his side was a woman of at thirty in a long black coat. Where Andreas somehow actorish, like a terrorist glamorised if'TV, the woman looked entirely businesslike. Her were a pale sea-grey, her strong, neatly made res were devoid of any obvious make-up, and the ; blonde hair that fell to her collar was quietly but snsively styled.

watched Slater in polite silence. There was no that they were a couple, you could sense that at a ice. They had to be colleagues. If he had to bet he >uld have said that she was the senior one of the two, he couldn't be sure of it. She radiated the cool irance that came with a privileged Home Counties bringing and expensive schooling, but then so did le of the most stupid people Slater had ever met. ' Turning off his phone, he pocketed it. 'Andreas,' he

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said resignedly. 'Now just what is it that tells me this meeting isn't completely accidental?'

Andreas van Rijn turned to the woman in the coat. 'This guy,' he told her apologetically, 'is just the most cynical. . .' He dropped his voice. 'Let me present Neil Slater, lately of Her Majesty's Special Air Service, more recently poodle-walker to ladies of a certain age.'

'Hi,' she said, turning an amused smile on him. 'I'm Eve.'

The accent -- suggesting first-floor flats in Kensington and weekends in the country - went with the coat. And the haircut.

'Neil Slater. And you mustn't believe Andreas. I've yet to walk my first poodle.'

'But obviously not doing too badly,' said Andreas, bending over the Prada bag. 'What's this? A wallet? And three belts? And . . .' he peered into some of the other bags, 'shoes, and a suit, and a ... Bloody hell, Neil, there must be thousands of pounds' worth of stuff here.'

Slater shrugged. 'I have to look good. The clients expect it.'

'You don't have to look this good. At least . . . you fox, Neil, you've been snaking one of Duckworth's clients!'

Slater was a little embarrassed by Andreas's crudeness.

'That's a rather unlovely metaphor, Andreas.' Eve turned her level, grey gaze on Slater. 'We were just thinking of getting a bite to eat. Will you join us?'

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Chris Ryan

pfWhy not?' said Slater, amused at the directness of approach and impressed by the way she took reas's laddish remarks in her stride. le followed them up Bond Street to Stratford ce. 'We're going to the Oriental Club,' explained . 'I seem to remember you being a bit of a addict.'

|;The club was old and quiet and smelt of furniture Paintings of colonial administrators and ivings of battle scenes hung from the walls, re you a member here?' Slater asked Andreas, as : hall porter removed his bags. It seemed unlikely, am,' Eve answered. Beneath the coat she was ring a darkly anonymous business suit. Neither she Andreas handed their briefcases to the porter. I'In the dining room, when they had placed their srs, the three of them sat for a moment in silence, tell me, Neil, how's it going?' Andreas asked (tentually. 'Do you think bodyguarding's going to be aur future?'

'Not necessarily,' said Slater. 'But it'll do for now. ts got its down-sides, but the up-side is that I'm in large of my own life. If I don't want to do a job I can st walk away from it.' 'Did you read about the Karadjic snatch?' 'I did. Do you know who did it?' 'Some of the guys from A Squadron. Ray Mortimer ed the team, apparently. The boss is over the moon was a real result. And I'll tell you this for nothing.' !e levelled his gaze at Slater. 'There certainly aren't

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going to be any prosecutions on behalf of those Serbs they wasted. Cheers!'

Thoughtfully, Slater raised the glass of Kingfisher lager the waiter had placed in front of him. Eve, he saw, was drinking mineral water.

'So how do you know Andreas?' he asked her, although by now he was certain what the answer would be.

'We work together,' she answered, her expression neutral.

'I see.' She was the watcher, Slater realised, and Andreas was the talker. What would the deal be this time? he wondered. What were they offering?

They waited in slightly awkward silence as their curries were laid out on the hot-plate at the table's centre. When the waiter had finally withdrawn Andreas lifted his fork and examined the insignia stamped into the heavy silver.

'Neil, vis-a-vis that school stuff, you're in trouble,' he said quietly. 'I spoke to Lark last night and his words were that there was only so far his department could stick its neck out for a civilian. Now this doesn't mean that everyone doesn't want the whole thing to go away - everyone does, and the Saudis in particular. They're supposed to be the Islamic state we can do business with, not some bunch of whacko trigger-happy fundamentalists. So they'll be throwing plenty of time and money at the thing. But the bottom line is that the Firm protects its own. Without some commitment on your part, they can't promise to go the distance for you. Given the way

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press works these days, it's just too risky.' !�see,' said Slater. He was quietly furious. Who the ; did these people think they were -- following him it and, for all he knew, intercepting his phone calls Did they know about Grace? They could hardly

Mressionless, he turned to Eve. 'So which is the ten jalfrezi?'

jr five minutes they busied themselves with their The other club-members and their visitors ed to be male, blazer-wearing and of a certain age. rcouple of Gurkha Rifles ties were in evidence. A irnalist of either sex would have been very visible eed.

"Is this one of your department's places?' Slater asked sdreas.

jf,*No, it's more one of Eve's places.' I'Not a very feminine establishment,' Slater

ared.

tfShe turned amused grey eyes on him. 'I'm not your reotypical girly girl, Mr Slater. More pilau rice?'

icn they had finished their meal Eve asked for

fee to be brought to them in the reading room.

lere, she selected a table some distance from the ?lace and from the other club members. Andreas

iered a glass of Cognac.

'So tell me,' Slater asked her wanly as he stirred his affee, 'what exactly do you and your department lean by commitment?'

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'Basically that we'd like you to join the department.'

'Why? There must be scores of ex-Regiment blokes like me doing the rounds. And who are you people, anyway?'

'In answer to your first question let's just say for the moment that you come highly recommended. As to who we are, well. . .' She thought for a moment. 'How's your modern history?'

'Uneven,' admitted Slater.

She smiled. 'OK. Basically we're a department of MI6, based at Vauxhall Cross. Our official title is the Operational Research Cadre, but we're usually just known as the Cad^fe. Like all such departments we've had several identity crises over the years. We started life during the Second World War as a subsection of the escape and evasion unit known as MI9, whose role was to set up ratlines for agents and POWs in occupied Europe.'

Slater nodded. He'd been introduced to a couple of wartime agents at the Special Forces Club behind Harrods. They'd been watchful, belligerent men, he remembered, unsoftened by the passing of the years.

'When the war ended,' Eve continued, 'the unit's infrastructure remained in place but its role changed. Until the early fifties its principal activity was the tracing and processing of former Nazis. And then, at the time of the Korean War, with the Cadre reduced to a single office at SIS headquarters, a decision was taken to run a major network of covert operatives in South East Asia. So new faces, new money, and a new role.'

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Chris Ryan

forking alongside the CIA and the US Special Slater hazarded. 'The Vientiane connection?' at sort of thing. Those were the Cadre's Dark I guess. You hardly ever meet anyone from that ; most of them just kind of, I don't know, vanished. ithe jungle, I suppose.'

ange days!' said Andreas, swirling his Cognac in loon glass.

id now?' asked Slater.

Jow the Cadre is an autonomous, fully-funded rch unit within Six.' Lesearch?'

re shrugged. 'It's as good a name for what we do ptything. Basically we're problem-solvers. People departments, other services - come to us with ;ry intractable problems. And we solve them.' I'm not sure that I like the kind of problem-solving ['re talking about,' said Slater. 'I'm sure we ildn't be having this conversation if you hadn't your homework, so I assume you've seen my vice record.' Bve nodded.

jTThen you know about the circumstances founding my leaving the army?' She nodded again.

'Then you'll know that I don't do that sort of work more. I don't like it. And I don't need the itmares.'

I'Andreas leant forward. 'Neil, like you said - and like : both know - there are scores of ex-Regiment guys

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like us doing the rounds. But most of them left the Army for a damn good reason - they were burnt out, they'd screwed up, they'd lost their nerve. That or they were so overwound that they wanted to put a bullet through everyone who so much as looked at them. But you're not in that boat. You had a bad time, you got lost in the old Darklands for a while, but you pulled through. You must have pulled through to have done that stuff af^fHe^ school. And for all that line you fed me in the New Year about getting shot of the system, I could tell straight away that you hadn't really changed. Not deep down. Deep down you were the same old green-eyed boy I used to know in B Squadron.'

'I'm not sure that I am that person any more, Andreas.' Slater drained his coffee. 'I'm really not.'

Eve leaned forward. 'Look,' she said. 'Can I make a suggestion? Why doesn't Andreas drive all your shopping home for you? And why don't you come back to Vauxhall Cross with me? Just for an hour. There's something I want to show you.'

If Andreas was irritated at being relegated to the role of bag-man he didn't show it, merely leant back in his armchair with the remains of his Cognac.

For several moments Slater avoided Eve's gaze. The fact that he was very obviously being flattered didn't detract from the fact that the department's offer had real temptations -- the most immediate of which was the chance to stop agonising about the outcome of the Bolingbroke's inquiry. And he'd never been inside the

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16 headquarters. He felt a crawl of curiosity.

'No strings?'

She shook her head. 'No strings whatsoever.' i Slater felt in his pocket for his keys. There was jthing revealing or incriminating at the flat.

'I doubt I need to give you the address,' he said drily. j Eve and Andreas smiled.

ic MI6 building towered over Albert Embankment the Thames with a kind of colossal arrogance.

Jere we are, it said, in plain sight. Make of us what

ju will.

For all its visibility, and for all the supposed new enness and accountability demanded of the security wees, Slater knew that the building housed one of

|ie least transparent organisations in the world. The

ablic were given the impression of inside knowledge the same way that audiences were let into a

agician's act -- for no other purpose than to distract

jem from the main order of business. Even the

indows were opaque.

'Welcome to Ceausescu Towers!' Eve said drily, and ter followed her through the tall glass doors into the ium, where he filled in a security form and was ided a visitor's pass to clip to the lapel of his jacket. The lift door opened with a sigh on to a bare air

Dnditioned corridor with small, high-set, triple zed windows. At the far end was a door marked S>RC (9). Swiping a card and punching a code into the

eypad, Eve gestured that Slater precede her into a

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small, open-plan office containing several computer terminals. At one of these a man in heavy black spectacles was listening to a head-set and making notes. At another a woman with a spiky punk hairdo was scrolling through aerial photographs. Each raised a hand in silent greeting as the pair entered.

'Has anything come in for me?' Eve asked, hanging her coat on a stand by the door.

The spike-haired woman nodded. 'Couple of things. Nothing urgent. And I've got those pictures you asked for.' She handed Eve a black envelope.

'Thanks.' Eve turned to Slater. 'Let's go into the briefing room.'

The room was windowless and spotlit. Haifa dozen chairs stood at a rectangular mahogany table.

'Have a look at these.'

She took two colour photographs from the black packet. One showed a clean-shaven young man in a sheepskin jerkin and military fatigues, the other was a blurred portrait of a lightly bearded figure in a Mujahidin cap.

'You may or may not recognise these men - they're the ones who tried to kidnap Masoud al-Jubrin. The one on the left is All Akbar Dilshah, and this one is Riza Talibi. They were council members of the Hizb al Makhfi, a Saudi-based terror group which has carried out actions in several countries; most recently, of course, in the UK. Six has been watching these men for some time now. They were both trained at camps in the Dasht-i Lut desert in Iran, and both spent several years

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alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. There's ipn Algerian connection. These were not amateurs.' (.was pretty sure they weren't,' said Slater. j'm sure. But just in case you've got the slightest ; about what you did to them, I'd like you to look je other pictures. They show the specific acts of ence for which these men and their group were >nsible.'

;r went through the pile. It was as bad as ig he'd ever seen. The first picture showed a ig arcade in which a bomb had exploded, were several corpses, some of them barely isable as having ever been human. Other s, maimed but not yet dead, scrabbled in agony st the blood and the glass. The second jgraph showed a line of blank-eyed teenage girls red up against the dusty mud wall of a building. jjir throats had been cut from ear to ear and their were sheeted with blood.

girls went outside the house without a veil,' I Eve.

iter nodded and continued through the pile. An couple lay face down and naked at a roadside; s clear they had been whipped to death. There another bomb-scene: a screaming woman tiing a dead child, a young man staring edulously at the mess of flesh, bone and denim that once been his legs. The final photograph was of a ig woman lying on a table, her head severed from body.

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'That was Riza's sister,' said Eve, her grey eyes expressionless. 'He killed her when a rumour started that she'd been seeing a Christian male nurse attached to one of the hospitals.'

Wearily, Slater replaced the photographs in the packet. He said nothing.

'Sometimes people just have to be stopped^-said Eve. 'Their actions amount to a declaration of war, and the only rules you can apply to them are the rules of war. But I hardly need to tell you that, do I?'

'No,' said Slater. 'You don't need to tell me that.'

She got to her feet. 'Come with me.'

He followed her from the room and into a side office whose floor-to-ceiling windows afforded a dizzying view towards the north-west. Like those outside in the corridor, the windows were triple glazed and treated against laser penetration and radio frequency flooding. Far below them, its steely surface galvanised by an erratic spring wind, was the Thames. Beyond the river, their grey mass softened and illuminated in the sunshine, were the towers of Westminster, Belgravia and Whitehall. Beyond these, fainter, St James's Park, Constitution Hill and Buckingham Palace.

'There's a place for you here if you want it, Neil,' Eve said quietly. 'What more can I say? The work's hard, the company's good, the money's crap to middling and there's a not bad canteen.'

He felt his phone vibrate against his hip. 'Excuse me,' he said apologetically, and glanced downwards.

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'FREE TONIGHT? RING ASAP.' He smiled to elf, and flicked off the display.

d news?' H think so.'

I'JEve ran her fingers through her blunt-cut fair hair, going to give you a number,' she said. 'Ring it if want to get hold of me. Any time, day or night, [? Any time.' He took the card.

jm Vauxhall to Green Park took five minutes on the

:toria Line.

'Neil,' Grace said when she saw him. 'You're not Rearing a single--'

'I came straight here,' he told her, looking down at

j jeans and desert boots. 'I haven't had a chance to ige. And by the way, I'll be paying you back for all gear.'

She slipped her arms around his neck. 'Darling, wi't even think about it. You are free tonight, aren't

3U?'

, 'Yes. But what happened? Where's your husband? I jought he was supposed to be in London tonight.'

'He rang half an hour ago,' she said, flipping open le waist-stud of Slater's Levis. 'From Frankfurt.'

When they finally lay still the light had gone from le sky. As Slater lay half asleep on the ruined bed Jrace gently raked her nails up and down his back.

'So, do you fuck any of your other ladies?' she whispered, nipping his ear between her teeth.

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'Uh-uh.' He shook his head.

'I bet you do,' she said. 'I bet you make them scream.'

He opened his eyes a fraction. 'Are you being serious?'

'Tell me about all those fat Middle-Easterners,' she breathed. 'What do you do to them? And aU those Manhattan social-register types, how do they like it best?'

'Do you seriously think that's how I spend my time?' Slater murmured.

'I wouldn't mind, necessarily. As long as you were here whenever I wanted you. And you told me about all the others. In detail.'

He raised himself on one elbow. 'Grace, there aren't any others to tell you about. There's just you. I'm . . . I'm amazed you could think I wanted to see anyone else.'

'So, what do you do all day with them?'

'I follow them about. Like I did you.'

'But they must want more, some of them.'

He let his head fall back to the pillow. 'I've got no idea.'

She climbed across him. Straddled his drowsy form. 'Neil, darling, don't be cross with me.' Slowly she began to rock her pelvis back and forth. He made a point of not responding.

'You're cross with me, aren't you?' She closed her eyes and continued the movement. 'Mmm . . . but maybe not that cross!'

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rious, he felt his body betray him. Jo on, Neil,' she gasped. 'Turn me over. Fuck me was a prostitute . . . Tell me I'm a whore. Tell I'm a filthy backstreet whore.' Ie could do the actions, but he couldn't make : say the words. For the first time, he found her achable. After a few minutes she gave up the ghost, dded next to him. Said nothing.

lat would you like to do this evening?' he asked I eventually.

ic looked at him quizzically, and he gently ched her cheek. For a moment she seemed to flinch

tenderness, and then she gave a small laugh, fell . . .' she began brightly. 'Madonna's giving a at Chinawhite. We could go to that. There it be some amusing people there.' Ie hesitated. 'With me going as what?' he asked t. 'Your bodyguard? Your lover?' ^What would you like to go as?' she asked him, ing an exquisitely shaped eyebrow. fefWell, I'd like to go as your boyfriend, but I'm ig my job if I'm seen. And I don't expect your isband will be too happy if he hears we've been out

the town together, either.'

; 'Don't worry about David. David just wants me to happy. He expects me to go out and have a good ie.'

t More fool him, thought Slater. 'But of course we shouldn't endanger your career, juld we?'

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'We'll go,' said Slater. 'We'll go to the party. With you as my lover. How's that?'

'That's nice,' she said, touching his cheek. 'As my lover, then, rather than as my bodyguard, would you go and find me something from the fridge? Fucking always makes me so hungry.'

He took the tube home to change. The flat Wis as he had left it: neat and Spartan. The bed was made-with the blankets stretched drum-tight across the mattress, as he had learnt as a seventeen-year-old squaddie.

Andreas, he discovered, had taken his designer clothes out of their bags and squared them up on the bed in their tissue paper as if for a kit inspection. The silver and crocodile belt lay where his webbing belt had once lain; the Prada shoes stood where his Northern Ireland boots had once stood. The ex NCO's message was brutally clear: you're still following the orders of your betters - the only difference is in the design of the uniform.

'Well, bollocks to you, Andreas van Rijn,' Slater said aloud, kicking off his desert boots. 'I'm going to Madonna Ciccone's party and you're not.'

He dressed carefully, combining the clothes precisely as Alexia had suggested.

On the tube he stood. The seats were filthy.

Grace seemed pleased with Slater's new look. 'That's so much better,' she told him. 'You look like you belong.'

The driver dropped them off in Glasshouse Street.

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itside the club the police had erected a barrier to the paparazzi and inquisitive members of the lie at bay; behind this at least a hundred bodies sed and struggled. As Slater and Grace Litvinoff ered the club a ragged storm of flashbulbs burst : them.

icy take pictures of everyone,' shouted Grace, Itised, as they hurried into the club's foyer. 'Don't S>rry, you're not going to make the front cover.' She id back from him. 'Although, who knows? You : good enough!' |Slater caught sight of himself in a mirror. Dressed as I, was in the best part of two thousand pounds' worth ics and accessories - slate greys, anthracite, ight blue - he had to admit that he damn well did sk good enough.

Mmside, the club was packed. 'Madonna must have a ; of friends,' he told Grace, steering her towards the and she laughed. On the way they passed the Jennifer Ehle, who was deep in conversation Tara Palmer-Tomkinson. Both seemed to Cognise Slater. It must be the clothes, he realised, ten at least the tenth person had nodded or waved to i. They must assume that if I'm dressed like this I'm ile of them. Either that or I have a double. ' At the bar they were swooped on by one of the Smbies from the Tate.

'It's Grace and her carer!' he crooned, running a ager down Slater's lapel. 'I must say, dear, you've 3ne him out very nicely!'

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Grace laughed. 'Zoltan, darling! How are you?'

'What would you like to drink, Grace?' Slater asked her pointedly, ignoring the zombie.

'Oh . . . surprise me!' she said absently, staring over his shoulder.

Pushing irritably through the crowd, he encountered another familiar face. 'Nice threads!' said Salman Rushdie.

'Thanks. How's the football?'

'I went to Brentford on Wednesday. They've just signed a new striker from Grasshopper Zurich.'

'Any good?'

'No, rubbish. You know Geri, don't you? And this is Martine McCutcheon.'

'Hey!' said the former soap star. 'Didn't I see you in something last night?'

'I was in the Roebuck last night.' 'That must have been it. You were really good.'

'I'm just going to the bar,' said Slater. 'Can I get anyone anything?'

'Surprise me,' said Martine McCutcheon.

In the end he got four dry Martinis - two for himself - and a tray. When he eventually got back to where Grace had been, she had disappeared. He eventually spotted her at the centre of a group of men - he assumed they were men - in pinstriped suits and rubber bondage masks. She already seemed to have a drink. The conversation looked both hilarious and impenetrable. Taking a seat at a nearby table, he placed the three remaining Martinis in front of him.

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jMSghtfully, as the party swirled around him, he the first. The music rose and fell. Flashbulbs jmed.

ic far end of the room, he discovered some time was an inner sanctum. A VIP area. He'd been ig the floor for a while now, having overlaid the tinis with a pint of something gassy and Japanese at 'bar, and although he hadn't smoked for several a Cohiba cigar seemed to have found its way /een his teeth.

ic object of his quest was Grace and, if possible, jnna - in some curious way the two women ed to have become one in his mind. The VIP area guarded by a tall, suave-looking black man in a ler jacket, and some distance beyond the velvet Slater thought that he saw Grace. Was that Mina she was talking to? It could have been.

sorry, sir. Special invitations only.' l/That's my girlfriend in there,' said Slater. 'I have a cial invitation.' 'What name was that, sir?' !*Um. . .Litvinoff.' IThe man consulted a clipboard. d'l only have a Mrs Litvinoffdown here.' ''I'm with Mrs Litvinoff.' p 'I'm sorry, sir. If I don't have your individual name

here I can't let you in. I'm sorry, sir.' 1 Slater shook his head. 'Give us a fucking break, man. and ask her.'

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At that moment a wild-eyed girl of about sixteen in a see-through top pressed past him. Tears and mascara streaked her face. 'I have to speak to Madonna!' she moaned. 'Please! I have to.'

'Sorry, ma'am,' said the bouncer firmly, intercepting her dash for the inner sanctum with a broad forearm. 'Special invitations only.'

Beyond the weeping girl and the velvet rope, Grace suddenly seemed to be swallowed up in aXmelee of shining hair and glittering clothes. At Slater's side the girl, sobbing now -- was attempting to tlaw the bouncer's eyes out. Catching her wrists, the guard attempted to subdue her, and seeing his chance Slater barged past him into the tented enclosure.

This area -- much darker than the rest of the club was done up like a scene from the Arabian Nights. Mirrored and tasselled cushions lined the carpeted floor on which guests lounged like pashas -- talking, flirting and smoking. Pale shafts of coloured light pierced the air from Algerian lamps. Accepting a glass of green absinthe from a passing waiter, Slater toured the cushions, peering at faces as he passed.

No Grace.

And for that matter, no Madonna. He exchanged his empty absinthe glass for a full one.

And then he understood. He wasn't there yet. At the end of the tent, a series of overlapping hangings concealed a further entrance. Within this inner sanctum was an inner inner sanctum. A WIP lounge.

Glass in hand, Slater moved towards it.

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A second security guard - possibly the older, larger >ther of the first - seemed to materialise before him. li there!' he said, as if genuinely pleased to see Slater, low's it going?' 'Can I go in?'

|f The guard smiled. 'I know your face, man,' he said, know your face of old!'

From beyond the wall of drapery came the sound of tie laughter.

a like that crazy of' green witch?' asked the rd, indicating Slater's absinthe. ! Slater shrugged. The ground lurched beneath his t. 'Can I go in?' he repeated.

he guard narrowed his eyes. 'You wanna go in re?'

is'Yeah . . . no.' He shook his head. Another mistake, ast want to know if Grace is in there.' 'Grace is a universal attribute, man, but I can check ?you if you want. Wait here.'

|Behind the hangings, Slater heard the conversation to silence. A moment later Grace appeared, sil,' she said vaguely. 'What is it? What do you at?'

fl lost you,' said Slater, and then couldn't think of ling further to say. Her face seemed to swim :e his eyes. Take the key,' she said. 'Wait for me at the flat,

tr

| walked back.

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In the flat he put on some music and took a bath. Re-dressed himself.

Grace Litvinoff pressed the doorbell at about one o'clock. In her voice, as she identified herself, Slater sensed an excitement, an anticipation. His negative feelings about the evening began to fall away. He thought of her body, felt himself hardening.

She was standing at the door with two men. One was a very tall, very fair young man in a transparent T shirt, who Slater thought was probably a model, and the second was the larger of the two black security guards. Both regarded him with amused anticipation.

He raised an interrogative eyebrow at Grace, who smiled. 'This is Simon,' she said, indicating the blond man, 'and this is Oke. I thought the four of us might . . . have some rather naughty fun.' She narrowed her eyes at him kittenishly 'Why don't you start by fixing us all a drink?'

Slater stared at her. The alcohol roared at his ears. 'Are you serious?' he demanded.

'No, darling!' she said woozily. 'That's just the point. Unlike you I'm never serious.' She ran the heel of one hand slowly over the security guard's tightly bound crotch and with the other squeezed Simon the male model's buttock. 'Haven't you heard the song: "Girls just wanna have fun . . ."'

'Chill out, man,' Simon grinned at Slater, rippling his gym-toned pectorals as he felt in the pockets of his impossibly tight trousers. 'I've got some fantastic coke somewhere.'

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Slater ignored him. 'You get rid of this pair of t clowns right now or I'm walking, OK?'

'Fine!' she said, folding her arms. 'Walk. Who the ^fiick do you think you are, anyway? You're just the rhired help. How dare you criticise my friends?'

'Fuck your friends!' shouted Slater.

'That's exactly what I intend to do. So why don't J,you run off home and leave the grown-ups in peace? f And send the driver home while you're at it. Simon |and Oke will be staying the night.'

Slater considered beating both men up, dropping I'the stone Buddha from the mantelpiece through the ; glass table-top and then pissing on the carpet, but in the end he simply walked out.

The driver was waiting in the Lexus, listening to the , radio and smoking. From the expression on his face, Slater could tell that he had guessed what had i happened up in the flat.

'Highbury, is it mate?' he asked sympathetically.

'Thanks.'

The motion of the car made Slater feel nauseous. | The journey seemed to go on for ever. When he ffinally climbed out in Mafeking Terrace, the driver | wound down the electric window.

'If it's any consolation, mate, you're not the first |nor likely to be the last. She's a bit of a greedy girl is JsOur Grade.'

Slater, swaying, stared at him in silence.

'You're not going to tell me you thought it was the [ real thing, are you?'

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'No,' said Slater, looking down at his Prada shoes. 'I'm not going to tell you that.'

As the car vanished into the night he spread his legs, the better to avoid splashing himself, and threw up into the gutter.

140

SIX

pThe next morning Josephine rang Slater from the linerva office. Grace Litvinoff, she told him, had |decided to leave town for a few days and would not be

juiring his services after all. He would be paid a ancellation fee for the lost day's work.

Slater had been expecting the call. Bagging and

ipping his unworn designer clothes, he returned icm to the bemused sales assistants who had ipplied them. There had been a mistake, he

jlained to them, and Mrs Litvinoff should be

:redited for the goods. The clothes that he had rorn the night before he took to the local Oxfam lop, who were delighted to accept them.

On the Monday he kept the appointment with Lark.

>r two hours, once again, he went over every detail the events at Bolingbroke's School with the freasury Solicitor. A smooth-jowled, pinstriped figure

lorn Slater estimated to be in his late forties sat in on je interview. He remained silent throughout.

This time, although the same ground was covered, seemed a little more concerned by Slater's pounds ount than he has been in the police cell. As Slater

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described breaking off the chair-leg and setting off down the school drive in pursuit of the kidnappers, he frowned, touched his gold propelling pencil to his lips, and shook his head. As Slater recounted how he drew his knife and stabbed the first Arab, Lark steepled his fingers and rocked back and forth in his chair, expressionless, before leaning forward and making copious notes.

Finally Lark indicated that he had all the answers he required, and the man in the pin striped suit left the room. At no point in the interview had he acknowledged Slater.

'You were informed of the possibility of a court of inquiry?' Lark asked Slater when the other man had gone.

'Of the possibility, yeah,' answered Slater. 'Why, has it become a probability?'

'Not as yet,' Lark replied levelly. 'So far we've kept the lid on. I'd encourage you, though, to do everything that you can to prevent things going any further.'

'And how can I do that?' Slater asked frustratedly.

'I'm sure ways will suggest themselves in due course, Mr Slater,' said Lark quietly. He rose to his feet. The interview was over.

They were playing with him, thought Slater bitterly. They were pissing him around, winding him up, rattling his cage. Well, they could fuck themselves. If he was prosecuted he'd bring down the whole house of cards, tell the court that the Regiment had taught

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him to shoot to kill and that he could no longer control his reactions. He'd play the post-traumatic stress card, force them to question him about Operation Greenfly. That'd set set the cat among the pigeons and no mistake.

Basically, he told himself now, he wanted to steer well clear of any involvement with the security services. They could bring him nothing but grief. He had to prove to himself that he could live a self sufficient life.

For all his anger, however, and for all his determination not to bow to the system, at heart Slater was afraid. He was no David Shayler: he wasn't good with words and he didn't have the whistleblower mentality -- at heart the habit of loyalty was just too deeply ingrained. If push came to shove and there was , a court of inquiry, he was pretty sure he'd end up being ?, the fall-guy. They'd plead national security and bang Ifhim up somewhere he couldn't be seen or heard, and [ that would be it. He just had to try and put the whole I business from his mind and hope against hope that |push never did come to shove.

That afternoon he visited a DIY warehouse in I'Walthamstow. He bought paint, decorating materials, leaning equipment and kitchen goods. That ernoon he started work on the flat. By the end of the reekend he had the place how he wanted it -- Mnfortable but anonymous.

Over the two months that followed Slater accepted fevery bodyguarding job that he was offered. He was

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polite, he was biddable, and he was obedient. He kept his distance from his clients emotionally, but provided a discreet and professional service. He was involved in only two confrontations - both with paparazzo photographers. In each case the photographer handed over the film and backed off.

He started a desultory affair with a woman who lived on the floor beneath him. He met her when he knocked on her door one Saturday morning to apologise for the noise he was about to make with an electric floor-sander that he had hired. That evening they went out for a meal at a Turkish restaurant in Highbury Grove. Her name, she told him, was Lauren Vail, and she was a nurse attached to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. She loved the work but the money was terrible, and she'd been considering going private - maybe in one of the Gulf States.

He told her in his turn that he worked in the security industry, that the work was dull but regular, and that he was saving up to buy a small business. What sort of small business this would be, he hadn't yet decided.

After the meal, in the course of which she drank two glasses of white wine and he drank a bottle and a half, they returned to Mafeking Terrace. She showed him round her flat - a tour lasting less than a minute - and left him asleep in her bed the next morning.

He took to staying with her two or three times a week. They got on well, but it soon became clear to Slater that she wanted more than a drinking

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companion and occasional sex-partner.

One evening she came back from work to tell him

|, that she had signed on with an agency providing

nursing personnel to hospitals in Oman and Abu

I> Dhabi. As she spoke to him she scanned his face for any

sign that this news saddened him, waited hopefully for

him to ask her to stay.

He said nothing. Remained expressionless. 'It's not going to happen between us, is it Neil?' she said regretfully.

I 'We have more than a lot of people have,' he told | her, turning to the window. 'We've never treated each other badly.'

'That's not enough, though, is it? I can't get anywhere near you, really. Not the real you. I probably | won't ever know what 'What?'

She took a deep breath. There was nothing to lose f now. 'What's "Greenfly", Neil?'

His face blanked, turned to stone. 'Where did you Ihear that word?'

'You talk in your sleep, Neil. Especially . . .' 'Especially?'

'Especially on the bad nights. Neil, you sit up in bed id shout. I had to tell Ray and Dave next door it was TV - some late-night cop show.' She hesitated. I'm not trying to force my way into your life, I romise you, I'm just trying to help. Can't you . . . can't you let me do that?' He smiled at her. Placed his arm round her shoulder.

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'Forget it, Lauren. It's nothing. Nothing I can talk about, anyway.'

She shook off his arm. 'I'm not a child, Neil. I know you're

'You know I'm what?'

She stared wretchedly at him. 'I know you move in a pretty weird world.'

'None of it means anything, Lauren. Forget about it. Live your life. Move on.'

'You're a real one-man no-go area, aren't you?' she said angrily. 'No wonder you're stuck up there by yourself in that sad little flat.'

'I was going to suggest we went out for a bite to eat.'

'I'm not hungry,' she told him curtly, and closed the door.

For the most part, Slater was indifferent to the clients that he guarded. He performed his job efficiently and asked no questions about the source of their wealth. Wealth, in fact, was the only thing that Minerva's clients had in common, and Slater was aware that for much of the time his presence was purely cosmetic. In the world of fifteen-minute junk celebrity there was considerable cachet in the suggestion that you were under physical threat.

Howard Berendt was different. Howard Berendt employed Minerva bodyguards because he genuinely believed his life to be under threat, and because he could no longer trust the slags -- the underworld gorillas - that he would normally have relied on.

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Berendt was an Essex property dealer who had diversified into lap-dancing clubs. His ambition was carrying him westward, and the leery sweep of his empire now extended almost to the Tottenham Court Road. Berendt's rise, however, had irritated a lot of people. He had trodden on corns. He had angered people whose anger had been known to manifest itself in acts of extreme violence.

Duckworth was well aware of Berendt's low popularity quotient in the criminal underworld, and charged for his bodyguards accordingly. For a week on the job with Berendt an operative could hope to take home the best part of 2000 pounds pence

To Slater, this sounded like excellent money. His landlord had decided to sell the property in Mafeking Terrace, and had offered Slater first refusal on the top floor flat. It galled Slater to know that he himself was responsible for the flat's 'pristine condition', as it was described in the agent's details -- but he had decided nevertheless to try and raise the deposit. He accepted a week's work guarding Howard Berendt without hesitation.

The first few days were intense. Berendt, a squat, powerful-looking figure with the boiled skin and discoloured eyes of the heavy spirits-drinker, travelled from business location to business location in a mid seventies Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud -- a vehicle he described as a 'classic fuck-off motor' - distributed tips 1 with vulgar lavishness wherever he went, and generally and forcefully announced his presence. Anyone

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wanting to whack him, thought Slater, just had to follow the cigar wrappers.

In fact, to his surprise, and for all the man's loudness, Slater found that he did not dislike the Essex entrepreneur. There was a red-blooded vigour about him that had long departed most of the clients of Minerva Close Protection. He told a good joke too.

In the days before running to fat and falling prey to habitual sweating, Berendt had been a paratrooper. He was impressed by Slater - he'd once thought of trying Regimental selection himself -- and although he did not know quite as much about the subject as he thought he did, he lost no opportunity to discuss esoteric weaponry with the ex-SAS soldier. The day's work often ended in a pub with Berendt and his cronies, and on these occasions Slater took care never to drink anything stronger than bitter lemon. Berendt's girlfriend Kat, formerly a dancer with the Royal Ballet and now a star performer at one of his lap-dancing clubs, often turned up to join them before taking a cab on to work.

On the final evening of the contract, Slater detected a strange atmosphere among the group gathered in the Porcupine, one of Berendt's haunts in Old Street. It was eight thirty, Kat had departed half an hour earlier, and there was an air of anticipation, of nervousness, and of stifled amusement.

Slater felt the uncomfortable sensation of being the only person present not in on the joke. He would have liked to be able to leave, to get back home and go out

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I'for a drink or three, but his contract stipulated that he Ifemain until eleven o'clock every evening. There were | two and a half hours to go.

'Why don't we drive back to the flat and get some ; take-away?' Berendt suggested, and there was more I back-slapping, more sniggers. 'Got a treat for you, I mate,' he said to Slater. 'Oh yes indeedy!'

Berendt lived in a large, well-fortified flat off the I'Edgware Road. Half of the group drove there in I Berendt's Rolls-Royce, the others followed in the 'cherry-red Jaguar owned by Berendt's accountant, 'Ossie Oswald. In the flat, whose heavy modern |; furniture and bar was covered in more beige calfskin than can ever have been assembled outside an abattoir, the group made itself at home. They were an 1 unattractive-looking bunch with the same drinkers' i faces and run-to-seed bodies as Berendt himself. | Between the six of them, Slater calculated, they were > probably wearing the best part of a pound of gold I jewellery.

Declining all offers of drinks, Slater positioned , himself by the front door. Judging by the increasingly 'hysterical mood in Berendt's lounge he was in for a bumpy ride. He suddenly felt very hungry; he hoped 'i all the talk of a take-away meant that a decent curry was on its way.

'Ossie, take a couple of the boys and sort us out,' announced Berendt cheerfully. 'Don, give us a fucking bevvy, mate. Some of that single malt. And give one to Neil, too. Can't ignore the poor bloody infantry.'

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To buy himself fifteen minutes of peace, Slater accepted the drink. Borrowing an entrance key, he made a quick tour of the approaches to the flat, made himself think like a possible assassin. If he was going to whack someone like Berendt, he thought, this wouldn't be a bad time to do it. Lots of noise, lots of laughs, people coming and going. He'd just rock up to the front door - maybe get a woman to press the bell and wave at the security camera -- burst in with a silenced weapon, find Berendt, waste him, and get back on his bike and vanish into the traffic. Well, maybe it wouldn't be precisely the way he'd do it but it was a possible scenario.

Re-entering the flat, he eyed the Islay malt in its crystal tumbler. He hadn't meant to touch it - had meant to pour it down the crapper, in fact -- but he couldn't resist a quick slug. For a moment he stood there, tasting the smoky complexity of the malt, feeling the strong clean alcohol course through his veins.

'Liquid fucking gold, isn't it?' smiled Berendt. 'I got a half-dozen cases in before Christmas.'

'It's very good,' agreed Slater. He frowned. 'Mr Berendt, you'll remember what I told you about not opening the door to anyone you don't know. Well, that includes women who claim they have messages for you. It's just a thought, but there have been a couple of cases this year of entry to premises being gained by women who then let heavies in after them.'

'A sort of "Trojan whores" scenario,' said Berendt, and laughed uproariously. 'That's not bad, is it? Trojan

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whores? I must tell the lads.' He swung heavily away. From the lounge came laughter, then an amplified grunting and the wet slap of flesh. Someone had found the porn collection.

Ossie Oswald's face swum into view on the entry phone monitor. Although he had departed with one man, a casino manager named Ray Gedge, there now appeared to be five of them. 'Mr Berendt, I think you've got visitors,' said Slater, sticking his head into the lounge where, on the TV screen, a tattooed woman was being vigorously penetrated by several men in Wolverhampton Wanderers football shirts. 'Would you just OK them before we let them up?'

'Relax, Neil,' said Berendt, glancing at the entryphone monitor. 'It's just Ossie with the takeaways. Including yours.'

He re-admitted Gedge and Oswald. Following them were three girls. Their clothes were threadbare, their faces and limbs were marbled with the cold - all three were wearing miniskirts -- and they smelt of the streets.

Oh, bloody hell, thought Slater. No. Please, no! They were children. Average age what? Fifteen? The girls, visibly nervous, were led through into the Wounge, where they looked furtively around them. A \ small cheer and a whistle went up as they entered. A I large whisky and a fifty-pound note was handed to leach of them. I can't be part of this, thought Slater. I ijust bloody well can't.

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'So take your pick, Neil,' said Berendt. 'Go on, son. You can do anything you want. No one here's going to tell.'

There was laughter. The assembled faces looked up at him, flushed, wreathed in smiles, boozily conspiratorial. The three girls huddled in silence.

Ray Gedge stood up. 'Go on, mate. Which is it to be?' One by one he wrenched the girls' tops up. They shrank from him but remained there with their breasts exposed, not yet fully afraid. Smackheads, thought Slater.

'I don't want any part of this,' he told Berendt. 'These are kids.'

'Choose one,' said Berendt patiently. 'And take her to the first bedroom on the right.' He eyed the girls. 'You can do anything you want,' he whispered. 'And I mean anything. No one's going to come looking for this lot.'

Slater shook his head. 'I can't guard you from a locked bedroom.'

Berendt rolled his eyes. 'Neil, I want you to stand down, OK? Full pay, obviously, but you're relieved of all duties for half an hour. How's that?'

Slater decided to pretend to go along with the game. He'd lock himself in the room with one of the girls for half an hour and they'd sit the whole thing out together. To object to a client's behaviour, or even to imply disapproval of a client's behaviour, was to kiss goodbye to a career in bodyguarding. Berendt was a high-paying client, Slater told himself, and saving

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underage runaways from a life of prostitution was hardly part of his brief. Still, he could give one of the girls a break.

Taking the smallest and most pinched-looking by the hand, he led her to the bedroom Berendt had indicated. Ragged laughter followed him as he closed the door. Till yer boots, son!' he heard Berendt shout after him.

'What d'yer want, mate, a gob or a fuck?' the girl asked, mechanically reaching for his belt-buckle. She ' had a Liverpool accent and a dark bruise on her left cheekbone.

'What's your name?' he asked her.

'Bethany.'

He didn't bother to ask her age. A quick scan of the room showed him what he'd half-guessed would be there: the framed mirror attached to the wall. If you knew what you were looking for - a particular kind of glassy opacity -- one-way mirrors were easy to spot. Most customs halls used them, as did the police in custody suites adapted for identity parades.

Slater gave no sign of having recognised the one i way mirror but mentally he shook his head in disbelief. How stupid did Berendt think he was? The idea, obviously, was that they give him a couple of minutes with Bethany and then move into the next-door bedroom for the show. Maybe even video the whole performance.

Basically, he guessed, it was a machismo thing. A ' get-out-your-dick exercise. In terms of toughness and

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military expertise Berendt felt that Slater had the edge on him, and the fact that Slater was Berendt's employee didn't change that fact. To see Slater - or better, film him -- having sex with an underage prostitute would go a long way in Berendt's mind to redressing that imbalance.

Slater felt a slow fuse of anger begin to burn.

'Pull your top down, Bethany,' he said quietly, moving the girl's hands away from his groin. 'I want you and your friends out of here.'

She stared at him. Suspicion clouded the thin features. 'Are you's going to fuck us or what?'

'Listen to me, Bethany--'

'Gi'us another twenty, you can go up me arse.'

There was a short but definite scream from the lounge. Bethany frowned, as if she dimly recognised the sound. Slowly she pulled her cheap spandex top down.

'Listen!' Slater told her, furious with himself for allowing the situation to develop this far. 'There's something I've got to look after. I want you to wait here, OK?'

There was another scream, followed by the sound of a hard slap.

Bethany nodded, but looked as if she was having trouble understanding his words. 'You'll say you fucked us, yeah? So they don't ask for the money back, like?'

'Don't worry about the money,' said Slater urgently. 'Just wait here, OK?'

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She looked at him blankly and nodded. There were six men in the lounge. One of the girls, naked, was bent over a heavy glass-topped table. From behind her Ray Gedge pounded into her, his trousers round his ankles. At intervals he wrenched her head up by the hair and slapped the side of her face. Her nose and her mouth were bleeding, and she was crying. Two other men, appreciative spectators of this scenario, stood at her side.

The other girl, also naked, was bent over Ossie Oswald's lap. Her hair was pulled taut between his fingers. As Slater walked into the room Berendt's partner Don Parry was unzipping his trousers behind her.

From the room's deepest armchair, a seven-inch I Macanudo cigar clamped between his lips, Howard |Berendt surveyed the revels.

Without saying a word Slater sauntered across the froom, collected a heavy onyx table-lighter from a Idisplay-case, walked over to Ray Gedge, hefted the Bighter briefly in his right hand, and swung it full force ito the hinge of the casino-manager's jaw. A look of stupefaction crossed Gedge's face as he to his knees. Amazed, he watched as several jjloody teeth fell from his mouth to the white carpet. Attempting to articulate his broken jaw a moment Wer, he fainted.

Leaving Gedge where he was, Slater crossed the 3om to Berendt, took the smoking cigar from his resisting fingers, and approached Ossie Oswald.

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Eyes widening in terror, Oswald pulled his rapidly deflating penis from the teenager's mouth, disentangled his fat fingers from her hair, and made desperate moves to fasten his trousers. In no apparent hurry, Slater kicked Oswald's knees from under him, and as the grovelling accountant attempted to right himself, ground the glowing coal of the cigar into the hairy junction of his buttocks.

Scrabbling at his anus, Oswald screamed and writhed. Don Parry, mutely shaking his head, raised both hands above his head in terrified surrender. Howard Berendt sat frozen in his armchair.

'Get dressed!'

The girls both appeared to be in shock.

'Get dressed!' Slater repeated, and slowly they began to gather their clothes from the carpet.

'Does Kat stay here?' Slater asked Berendt.

Berendt nodded.

'Go and get some clothes,' Slater ordered. 'I want jackets, trousers and sweaters - the best she's got. As for the rest of you rapists and conspirators-to-rape, I want cash on the table. We're going to have a collection for these children. Anyone disagree?'

He looked around the room. Gedge was still unconscious on the carpet. Oswald, tears running down his cheeks, was agonisedly pulling on his underpants. Don Parry was undergoing an attack of the shakes. No one disagreed.

Slater took a wallet and a handful of cash from each of the six men. One - an enthusiastic spectator of

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Gedge's sadism - hesitated for a moment before handing over his money.

'Give it to me,' said Slater quietly, weighing the heavy table lighter in his hand. 'Or I'll break your fucking jaw too.' The man nodded.

In the end there was over 600 pounds on the table. When the weeping, bloody-nosed girl had dressed herself, Slater dispatched Don Parry to clean her up in the bathroom and called Bethany to come out from the bedroom. The third girl, eyeing Oswald with loathing, took a swig of malt whisky, gargled, and spat the result on to the carpet.

When Berendt returned with an armful of Kat's clothing, Slater allotted each girl 200, pounds a cashmere sweater, a pair of leather trousers, and a coat.

'Range Rover car keys, please,' he demanded. Terrified, Oswald produced them from a pocket.

'This isn't a good idea, Slater,' said Berendt levelly, I the first vestiges of colour returning to his sallow I cheeks. 'You'll never work in London again, I can [promise you that. And what the fuck you hope to [accomplish for these little scrubbers is totally beyond line. The clothes and the money will go straight back to |some smack-dealing nigger and that'll be the end of it.' 'You know what I'd really like, Howard?' 'I expect you're going to tell me.' 'I'd really like to know what you're going to tell

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Easing the Range Rover into third gear, Slater turned into the Edgware Road. The girls - who must have seen a thing or two in their young lives, Slater reflected - were beginning to find their voices.

'This is class fuckin' gear,' said Maxine, the oldest of the three, running her hands down the front of her new thousand-pound shearling coat. Bethany, for her part, was counting and recounting her wad of cash. Chanelle was still dabbing at her bleeding cheek.

'You're sure?' said Bethany to Slater. 'You don't even want us to gob yer off?'

'The fuckin' mouth on her,' said Maxine.

They drove on. They had been picked up, Bethany had told Slater, at King's Cross station.

'I suppose you're gonna tell us the deal's off with the money and the clothes if we don't go back to our parents and that,' said Maxine.

'There's no deal,' said Slater. 'What do you want to do?'

The girls looked at each other.

'I've got a mobile,' said Slater. 'Anyone want to ring home?'

There was a long silence.

'Give us it,' said Bethany.

'Don't be so fuckin' simple!' shouted Maxine. 'You know who's going to be waiting for you, soon as we get to King's Cross? Lennie.'

'Lennie's your pimp?' asked Slater.

'He's my boyfriend,' said Maxine.

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'Lennie needn't be a problem,' said Slater quietly. 'I could have a word with Lennie.' 'He'd fuckin' kill yer.' 'I don't think so.'

'This is bollocks,' Maxine muttered. 'Stop the car. Stop the car!'

Slater braked. They were outside Madame Tussaud's in the Marylebone Road. Maxine threw open the Range Rover door and grabbed Chanelle's coat. 'Come on, Sha, leave yer face alone and get the fuck out. He's a fuckin' nutcase, this one.'

Wordlessly, Chanelle stumbled out of the car. * 'You're a fuckin' nutcase!' Maxine screamed, i slamming the door. ' Wanker!'

Bethany watched them go, and then climbed into I the front seat next to Slater. 'Where to?' asked Slater. Til have to stop at the station.' 'Why?'

'I have to give Lennie that money. Maxie'U tell him 'we got it and if I don't hand it over he'll really hurt ier.'

Slater pulled out from the kerb. 'Like I said, I could ave a word with Lennie.' 'Please,' said Bethany, urgency contracting her

>w features. 'He's got what I need.' 'How long have you been using?' 'Please,' repeated Bethany.

The blur of the London night swung past the loked-glass windows.

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Slater parked the Range Rover on a double yellow line in front of the station. Almost immediately he saw a black man in a leather coat pushing his way towards them.

'Thank you,' whispered Bethany. Leaning towards the driver's seat she touched her thin, papery lips briefly to his, then climbed from the car.

Slater watched her go. He left the Range Rover standing there with its headlights on, and tossed the keys down the nearest storm-drain. In the distance he saw Maxine and Chanelle climb out of a black cab, laughing.

Despair, or something very like it, washed over him. This was the bottom of the fucking barrel, and no mistake. How much lower could he go than acting as minder to a criminal? It seemed that he was about to find out - Berendt would make sure that Duckworth felt the full force of his displeasure.

Even if Duckworth believed his side of the story rather than Berendt's, Slater knew that he was finished as a bodyguard. You couldn't physically attack your clients just because you disapproved of their behaviour. He'd be blacklisted - there wouldn't be a security agency in London that would take him on.

Fuck them all, thought Slater. Fuck every last fucking one of them.

Turning away from the lights of the station he stalked off in search of a pub.

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SEVEN

I'Slater woke to dusty sunshine. Blinking, he looked | around him. He was on a camp bed, in a sleeping bag. |a steel desk and filing cabinet stood against the I opposite wall. An electric clock gave the time as 10am. It was the ringing of the telephone on the desk, fSlater realised, that had woken him. Was it for him? Shrugging himself out of the sleeping bag he reached 3r it. It was Eve.

'Neil. Good morning. How's the head?' 'Not too bad,' Slater told her, 'all things considered.' 'Good. I'll call for you in an hour. We're going swn to the country to meet the boss. If you're up to reakfast I recommend the Cabin Cafe in Neave ?assage, fifty yards down the road to the left.' 'At the risk of sounding very stupid indeed,' said iter, 'where the hell am I?'

'Nine Elms Lane, SW8. If you look out of the idow you'll see the fruit and vegetable market. The jront door key's on the desk in front of you, the fctterpad code is BASRA. See you in an hour. If you to the Cabin I recommend the bubble and squeak.' The phone went dead.

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It had been a long night. After dropping the girls at King's Cross station Slater had found himself in a pub in the Caledonian Road. The pub had filled up as the night wore on, and he had found himself drawn into the beery embrace of a local women's football team. By llpm, sadly, the Barnsbury Bantams had left, and Slater's ear was being bent by a party of carp fishermen from High Wycombe. At 11.30 the landlord had locked the doors, and it was at that point

- Slater was drinking Red Stripe with whisky chasers

- that time and events started to blur. What was certain was that shortly after midnight he had rung Eve's mobile and suggested that she might care to join the party.

She'd arrived forty minutes later, by which time the landlord had thrown everyone out. She found Slater sitting on the pavement, nursing a final can of Red Stripe.

'Is this how it's going to be?' she'd asked him drily. 'You only ring me at closing time on Friday nights?' She was wearing a midnight blue evening dress, and looked considerably more glamorous than he remembered her.

'I'm sorry,' he had said, struggling to his feet. 'I didn't mean to ..."

She shook her head. 'It was an official thing. I was leaving anyway.' She beckoned him to her car, an anonymous-looking BMW. 'So, what did you have in mind?'

He looked down at his crumpled trousers and

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|scuffed Ferragamo loafers, realised just how dishevelled jhe looked. 'Can I, um, tempt you to a drink of jtiomething?'

'I could go for a coffee. I'm driving tomorrow I'jnorning.'

They ended up at the Bar Italia in Soho. A boxing Ijnatch played on the TV screen. They ordered large ijespressos.

'So, is this just a social call, Neil?' Eve asked him, Isettling the folds of her skirt around her stool. 'Or . . .'

'You know why I'm calling you.'

She raised her eyebrows. 'Do I? Tell me.'

He told her. Told her that he couldn't kid himself ly longer, and that bodyguarding was - not to put too ine a point on it - a total load of shite. Told her that ivilian life was driving him out of his mind. Told her

it he wanted to be operational again.

'Is this the Special Brew talking?' she asked him.

'No. And it was Red Stripe, anyway. And a couple

"measures of Bell's. Let me tell you what happened i evening. Have you heard of a man named Howard

erendt?'

He told her the story. She enjoyed it, especially the |dea of Berendt looting Kat's wardrobe to dress the trio if underage prostitutes.

'But that apart,' she said soberly, 'it's all pretty epressing. You didn't honestly think you could

inge anything for them, did you?'

'I suppose not,' said Slater.

'And there isn't going to be any come-back, is

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there? You didn't damage any of the punters too seriously?'

'No. They'll have to wire Gedge's jaw and Oswald won't be sitting down for a couple of weeks but that's about the limit of it. Berendt might hire a couple of big lads to come looking for me, I suppose, but I can't say I'm exactly quaking.'

She nodded. 'And you're positive you want to join the department? You didn't seem very keen last time I met you.'

He shrugged. 'Andreas was right. I am what I am.'

She looked at him hard, and nodded. 'OK, here's what we do. You don't go home tonight; instead I take you to one of our safe houses. Tomorrow, if you're still interested, you meet Mr Ridley.'

'So where are we going, exactly, to meet this boss of yours?' he asked as they sailed down the M3 in Eve's BMW.

'Not too far,' she smiled. She was wearing jeans and a tweed jacket. A well-worn Barbour coat lay on the back seat. Slater lay back with his eyes closed and allowed the warm breeze to pour in through the sunroof.

'And Ridley isn't the boss, in fact, he's the ex-boss. He's retired from the service now. He practically invented the Cadre, though, and spent most of his career running it, so he ... he takes a continuing interest. It's just a courtesy thing, really, but we always introduce potential new people to him. He likes to run

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an eye over them.'

'How did you come to join the Cadre?' Slater asked her.

'I joined Box when I left Cambridge. Started off in Derry - source-handling with North Det.'

'Did you get down to the hangar for any of the piss ups with our lads?'

'No, I was warned off]'

Slater laughed and shook his head. It had been an

insane time: for all the talk of peace the secret war had

been waged right up to the wire, with killings and

reprisals covered up by both sides. There had also been

[some serious mistakes made; a strong mutual distrust

I had prevailed between the various security services,

land this had led to a lack of communication which on

i

|more than one occasion had proved lethal.

'Have you ever worked with a woman?' Eve asked im. It was clear to Slater that they had followed the same train of thought.

'No,' he said. 'Except on surveillance jobs. And I irorked with a couple of female bodyguards last lonth. But never operationally.'

'Would it worry you?' she asked.

'I don't see why it should,' said Slater carefully. 'But rit gets rough, to be honest, I'd be more comfortable rith a couple of experienced blokes.'

'Because the women would need "protecting"?' she ^ked with heavy sarcasm.

'No, just because I've got a theory that women tend i go for their firearms faster than men do. They know

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they're going to lose a fist-fight or a kicking contest, so they pull out a weapon instead. And the thing escalates.'

'Have you got any evidence whatsoever to back up this cute little theory?'

'None whatsoever,' admitted Slater cheerfully. 'Nor for my other theory.'

'Which is?'

'That a man will surrender to a man, when he wouldn't to a woman. A lot of guys will literally risk a bullet rather than put their hands on their heads for a woman. It's a face thing.'

'I see,' Eve said tersely.

'They're just theories,' said Slater, 'but they're very good for winding people up.'

'Oh, that's where we are, is it? The wind-up stage?'

'You drive beautifully,' said Slater. 'I always feel safer with a female spook at the wheel.'

'Was that a compliment? I can't believe it.'

'Seriously,' said Slater, 'the answer to your first question is no. I have no trouble whatsoever with the idea of working with women, any more than I have with the idea of being ordered around by someone younger than me. All I think is that people should do the things they do best. The managers should manage, the planners should plan, and the doers should do.'

'That's all very well in theory,' said Eve, reaching in her bag for her sunglasses. 'But in practice we don't always have the people for that. In this department we all do all of those things.'

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Chris Ryan

Slater nodded. 'Point taken. So how did you move lover the river from Five?'

'I was . . . sort of recruited. My cover had been Jown in Ireland, I didn't want to spend the rest of my reer doing watcher duties, so I let it be known I was ady for a change. As it happened, the Cadre had just st someone and were looking for a replacement.' 'Lost someone?' queried Slater. 'A job went wrong. My predecessor was killed.' Slater stared at her. 'Killed. How?' 'In a firefight in a Paris car-park. I shouldn't be elling you this.'

'And am I replacing someone?' 'Yes. There are always six of us on permanent jttrachment. Plus two support.'

I 'Eve pulled the BMW off the M3. Soon they were ivelling along a sun-splashed country road overhung trees. Village succeeded village - Nutley, Preston Handover, Chilton Candover -- and the landscape led to broaden, to expand around them. As they lerged from a long tunnel of beeches and oaks Eve I off the road on to a narrow track marked Dunns >rd Only. To either side fields of young corn stched to the horizon. Dunns Ford proved to be a age of no more than two or three dozen houses - all rthem old, all of them graceful, several of them large, longside the road the river Itchen wound its way rer shining gravel and emerald-green weed. The BMW drew to a halt. 'What do you think?' Eve asked Slater.

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Slater shook his head. 'It's like a private world. What would one of these houses cost?'

'Oh, a million or so at least. More with land. More still with a stretch of river. Many, many years bodyguarding, I'm afraid.'

Slater nodded and looked down at his shoes. He would very much have liked the chance to change. There had been a washing and shaving kit in the safe house, but he still felt stale. This Italian gear might have looked cutting-edge in the West End, but in rural Hampshire it just looked flashy and inappropriate.

'Thanks,' he smiled sourly. 'I needed reminding of my lowly status. So, your Mr Ridley is a multimillionaire?'

'No, he's a former civil servant who lives on his pension. He's lived here for ages - long before prices went mad. Are you ready?'

'As I'll ever be,' said Slater.

River House was bounded by high stone walls and set back some distance from the road. Eve rounded a small circular lawn, brought the BMW to rest in front of a pillared entrance, and pressed the brass bell.

The door was answered by a smiling, pink-cheeked figure with a scrubby white moustache and a keen gaze. He was wearing shapeless corduroys and a frayed country shirt, and Slater guessed him to be in his sixties or seventies. The two men shook hands.

'Mr Slater -- Neil -- it's very good to see you. Come on in, hope you're hungry, bathroom on the right if you want a wash. Eve, my dear, what a pleasure.'

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He beckoned Slater into a stone-flagged hall. The place was comfortable rather than grand, and not especially tidy. Bookcases lined the walls, and where there were not books there were photographs: children on horseback, pre-war school cricket teams, officers in uniform, African servants, Scottish rivers and long-demolished houses. There were also mounted antlers and fox-masks, and from its case above the fireplace a vast and snaggle-toothed pike cast a glassy eye on proceedings.

Slater gave himself the once-over in the bathroom mirror, rejoined Eve and Ridley, and accepted a beer. A woman - a housekeeper rather than a wife, Slater guessed -- was bringing food to the table.

'Do you fish, Neil?' Ridley asked.

'I did as a boy,' Slater admitted. 'Not. . . not the sort of fishing you do down here, though.'

It had been poaching, mostly, and eventually he'd j been caught by the gamekeeper, a man with a ', reputation for punching you in the face first and asking I-questions afterwards. Until he went to Iraq Slater had i never been as scared as he'd been when he felt his

n

| collar grabbed that night. His heart still turned over I when he thought about it.

'What I thought we might do', said Ridley, 'is have bite of lunch, and then potter out and spend a couple jf hours on the river. OK by everyone?'

It was. Lunch was steak and kidney pie and a bottle of claret, followed by summer pudding. Slater had been ight, the woman was a housekeeper. Ridley lived alone.

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Department business was not discussed or even mentioned during the meal. Instead the conversation embraced - among other topics - the English countryside, soldiering, books, marriage, whisky and Far Eastern travel. Slater was fully aware that he was being interrogated, and that his answers were revealing more and more about his private loyalties and his secret and inner self, but the whole thing was so skilfully and sympathetically done that he offered himself up without resistance. Aware that Eve was watching him

- unlike Ridley, he noticed, she had not yet learnt how to observe people without their being aware of it

- he made a point of limiting himself to a single glass of wine, and of not quite finishing it.

When coffee was finished, Ridley led them through to his rod room. This was a pleasantly chaotic area with nineteenth-century prints on the wall, elderly Barbour jackets hanging on pegs, and waders and gumboots on the floor. And fishing kit. Reels and flyboxes cluttered a Victorian chest of drawers, nets hung from hooks, and dissassembled and partially assembled rods stood in every corner.

'Now, Neil, how are we going to kit you out? British traditional or American high-tech?'

The question, Slater knew, was a loaded one. 'I'll go for the Brit option,' he said.

Ridley nodded approvingly. 'Eve, would you be so good as to fix Neil up with the eight-foot split-cane Hardy and the Princess reel?'

Five minutes later, in a pair of Ridley's Wellingtons

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Chris Ryan

and with a borrowed bag of tackle over his shoulder, he followed the others through the garden. Ridley owned 500 yards of the fishing in the river Itchen -- a stretch reached by crossing the bridge in the village and walking through a couple of water-meadows. Ten minutes later they stood at the foot of an ancient willow, with the gin-clear water streaming slowly past them.

'First,' said Ridley, 'find your prey. Now how about .him?'

Twenty yards away, hard under the far bank, a dark shape wavered in the current. As Slater watched, it I'drifted upwards, plucked a fly from the surface, and f'returned to its station. Assembling his rod, selecting a My from a battered tobacco tin and deftly attaching it to |$he end of a line of hair-like fineness, Ridley began to t. The line snaked easily out and the fly landed with listledown lightness a yard above the fish. Slowly, as ater held his breath, it drifted downstream, and jually slowly the trout began to tilt upwards. Almost ly it engulfed the fly, and then as Ridley tightened je line, the split-cane rod hooped, the reel screamed the fish raced up-river with electric fury. It fought rd, but Ridley remained in control, and a few lutes later he slid the net beneath its shining, lusted form. It was a beautiful fish, several pounds weight, and Slater gazed wonderingly as Ridley sed it. The trout hung in the current for a moment fee a shadow and then, its instincts returning, raced for water.

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'The wild brown trout,' said Slater. 'The subtlest of the freshwater fishes. If you can deceive him you can deceive . . .'

'Anyone?' ventured Eve.

'Why don't you have a go, Neil?' Ridley suggested. 'If an old fool like me can manage it, I'm sure you can.'

'I'm not,' said Slater, 'but I'll give it a crack.'

'Let's go upstream,' said Ridley. 'This one will have been disturbed by that last fish.'

Another pool, smooth as glass. And another fish, lying between two waving banks of green weed. Assembling the tackle as he had seen Ridley do, and allowing Eve to select and tie on a suitable fly, Slater began to cast.

Ridley had made it look so easy, but in truth flyfishing proved nightmarishly difficult. Far from snaking effortlessly out over the river the line seemed to be everywhere. Within sixty seconds the fly had caught in the grass behind him, in a bush opposite him, and finally in the seat of Slater's trousers from where Eve smirkingly extracted it. On his second attempt the line lashed the surface like a whip, and the trout vanished in a puff of gravel.

'Don't be discouraged,' said Ridley. 'They're very . . . educated fish.'

At the next pool, at Ridley's suggestion, Eve stood behind Slater and guided his casting arm. Eventually, after a number of mishaps and tangles, he got the feel of it. He also got the feel of Eve's breasts against his back, but decided to file the sensation away for later

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retrieval. He was determined to catch one of these

' bloody trout.

'Why don't we split up?' Ridley suggested. 'Neil,

i you go upriver a hundred yards, Eve can stay here, and I'll go down to the bottom field. Oh and Neil,

, anything over a couple of pounds, knock it on the

1 head and we'll have it for supper.'

Keeping well back from the bank, Slater walked up through the buttercups with the split-cane rod at his side. It was a hot afternoon, bees hummed, and bullocks regarded him incuriously. Finding the pool he had been directed to, he knelt down beside an alder bush in order not to silhouette himself against the skyline, and started to cast. There were two fish in view, swimming side by side in the centre of the river. With no obstruction nearby Slater managed to float his fly past them a dozen times, but they ignored it. Painstakingly he knotted on another on another fly, but with the same result. For half an hour he tried to cast as Ridley had done, but it was no good. The fish

j, seemed to be laughing at him, hovering in the current

[and then lazily scattering as soon as he made a move

towards them. Sometimes they didn't even bother to

swim away, but merely ignored him. Perhaps, Slater

I mused irritably, you had to have been an officer for

them to take you seriously.

But there had to be a way. He was damned if he was

going to return to the house empty-handed.

^Improvise, he told himself- as you have spent your life

^improvising. If fair means don't get you where you

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-^eneath him, beater five or six feet abov< *.*

and Slater slid fee ian trousers rend ai st, and finding his fc V>eautiful thing, per ; j^ght, and Slater wat yi�lking into shallowc ^ and struck it sharj r^d briefly, and was ^^ver he laid the fi; r pounds tips. Water streame ^^ emptied his wellir y pounds ks when a shadow

kt J'm impressed!'

Jn the end I had to

>

the rod. What fly

','!-. .'

>cj,ded, peering at th of worm was stil]

$yzed Slater. ii in? I think that's g<

i.ies a bit.' 3e^T anyone lay down

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want, try foul. On hands and knees now, he rounded a bend in the river and peered over the side of the bank. Below him, finning placidly over the gravel, was the long, ghostly form of a trout. It was the best fish he'd seen all day. Retreating from the bank, he looked round and made sure that he was out of sight. Then taking the flybox from the bag that Ridley had lent him, he selected the largest fly he could find. Hooking its barbed point into a stick he took his lighter from his pocket and burnt off the feather hackles of the fly until only the bare hook remained. This he attached to his line. Crossing to the bullocks' field he found a splatter of dried dung. Beneath it, as there had always been in his boyhood, he found a colony of lively red worms. Six of these went on to the hook.

Returning to the bank, which overhung the river by a couple of metres, he pulled two or three yards of line off the reel. If he stuck the end of the rod over the bank, he guessed, the fish would spook. So keeping well back, he took the writhing bundle of hooked worms in his hand, and lobbed it a few feet upstream of where he had seen the fish.

For a second nothing happened, then there was a loudgloop, and the fly-line started snaking through the grass. Seizing the rod, Slater held hard. The split-cane bent double, and then line started zipping through his fingers. The fish was thirty yards upstream before he managed to turn it, and this was only the first of half a dozen such runs.

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Chris Ryan

Finally the trout lay beneath him, beaten, but here the bank was too high - five or six feet above the water -- to reach it with the net.

Only one thing for it - and Slater slid feet-first into 1 the river, feeling his Italian trousers rend as he went. , He went in up to his waist, and finding his feet, quietly netted the fish. It was a beautiful thing, perhaps three ( and a half pounds in weight, and Slater watched it for ; a few moments. Then walking into shallower water he preached for a large stone and struck it sharply on the "jhead. The trout shuddered briefly, and was dead.

Climbing from the river he laid the fish and his Ltackle among the buttercups. Water streamed from his Itrousers as one by one he emptied his Wellingtons. He twas wringing out his socks when a shadow fell across f turn. It was Eve. i|j, 'What a fantastic fish! I'm impressed!'

'Well, as you can see, in the end I had to go in after Settle it man to man.'

'I see.' She picked up the rod. What fly were you sing?'

'Well. . .' began Slater, 'I. . .' 'Improvised,' Eve nodded, peering at the hook to ifhich a segment or two of worm was still attached, id fell in, obviously.' , 'Will you tell him?' asked Slater. |i('What? That you fell in? I think that's going to be

ious!'

|,"*No, that I bent the rules a bit.' |';.'What rules? I didn't hear anyone lay down any rules.'

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'You know what I mean. The rules of sportsmanship. Gentlemanly conduct and all that.'

She smiled. 'Only the Colonel and his guests fish here.'

It wasn't until late that evening, when they had eaten the fish with butter and parsley and were ensconced in a corner of the Dunns Ford Inn with a pint glass in front of each of them, that professional matters were raised.

'Tell me,' Ridley said with deliberation, 'about Operation Greenfly. And your part in it.'

'How much do you know already?' asked Slater.

'As regards the planning side of it, quite a lot. As regards what happened on the ground, rather less.'

Slater nodded. 'Well, you'll remember that the operation was set up immediately after the murder of a part-time R.UC officer called Frayn, who was shot in a drive-by outside a betting shop. Special Branch decided that it was time that three of their top operators were taken out, and handed the job to the Regiment. The targets were Henry O'Day, who shot the officer and was stupid enough to boast about it, a bomber called Frankie Coyle, and a shooter, name unknown. The operations were coded Mayfly, Cranefly and Greenfly.

'I was put on the Greenfly team that was tasked to take out the shooter. He was known to have killed at least two squaddies - a lance-corporal from the Cheshires, and a young signals guy 'who was fixing a

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Chris Ryan

mast on one of the OPs on the border - and the word that the undercover guys in the FRU were getting from their touts was that he was going to hit a checkpoint near Forkhill.

'Now I don't know who the FRU had on the inside -- as you know the Regiment are basically just called in to do the chopping - but the data was very good. The weapon had been cached on a border farm about five miles from the checkpoint, and the shooter was due to collect it some time after ten o'clock. It was December, a night with no moon, so it would be black as the ace of spades by that time. The hit on the checkpoint would probably take place within half an hour of the collection - Greenfly wouldn't want the weapon on him for a second longer than necessary; he'd want it fired, cleaned and back in the ground.

'We were desperate for Greenfly to be a success. t These shooters go off to Texas or Louisiana to do a sniper's course and when they come back the word gets around. No one says anything, but everyone knows who they are, and they become like these |' legendary figures in the community. It was a [ propaganda thing as much as anything else. We wanted fito whack him and score the Regiment a hatful of ^points with the powers that be. I'll not lie to you - we pvanted a killing and we wanted it bloody.

'Well, everything seemed to bear out the accuracy tef the intelligence. PIRA dickers with CB radios had een seen sniffing round the Forkhill checkpoint on ic day in question, doing a last-minute target-area

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recon -- there was one called Deathly Mary who always used to do a walk-by on foot; everyone knew her and we were certain that the shooting would be going down as planned. Scan Delaney, the owner of the farm where the shooter's weapon was cached, was known to be an IRA sympathiser, if not an actual player. His wife had left him twelve months earlier and moved to Deny, and he was living with his brother Joey, a mentally retarded boy who helped him about the farm, and his unmarried sister Bridget. Like the dickers, we had done our own close-target recce. We knew where all the exits were and we knew to within a few yards where the cache was.

'The team went in at last light. We were dropped off from an unmarked vehicle a mile away and tabbed across country to the farm. In the surrounding lanes, mobile units moved into position. A helicopter waited on stand-by ten miles out at one of the camps, turning and burning. It was a very cold, very dark night. . .'

Slater had reached his firing position, a small rise beneath a stand of firs, within twenty minutes of the drop-off. Carefully, aware that the area might easily be under night-sight observation, he had manoeuvred into place, concealing himself beneath the spreading branches and covering his body with cam-netting and foliage. Soon he was satisfied that, to all intents and purposes, he was invisible. He was in a comfortable firing position, or as comfortable as he could expect to be given the situation, and his weapon - a Heckler and

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Koch 53 sniper's rifle loaded with ten 7.62 armour piercing rounds - was readied for action on its bipod. The HK's night sight had been zeroed for 120 yards, and the sight's miniature generator was emitting its faint characteristic whistle. It was a very cold night -- by 7pm the ground was already stiffening with frost -- but the adrenaline racing around Slater's system anaesthetised ; him to the cold, to the icy flint of the ground, to , everything except his own intense concentration.

Through the night sight all that he saw was an ^undersea green. The farmhouse, a low, discoloured ^building with a slate roof, was about 120 metres in I'lront of him. Amplified green light bled through the leurtains; their edges blazed with it, as did the gap Ibeneath the back door, which gave on to a flight of steps and a stone-flagged farmyard. As Slater watched, ||k fox slunk into the yard, nosed cautiously at the Hustbins, climbed the frozen dung-heap to the wall and llooked around him.

A hunter, thought Slater. A killer like myself. Good ack to you, brother. May you be spared the shotgun id the flick of the boot on to that same dung-heap. Through a throat-mike and earpiece, Slater was in ammunication with the three other members of the sniper team, now silently readying themselves, with the outlying mobile units. As team leader he ad the position covering the most probable killing Mind; the other snipers were invisibly disposed Dund the farm as back-up. Like him they were taut ed with adrenaline. Like him they felt no cold, saw

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the night as green day. There will be a death tonight, thought Slater, and I have never felt more fully alive.

On the wall the fox stiffened, leapt to the ground and raced for cover. Soon Slater could hear the car too. And see it. A muddy Toyota hatchback, showing sidelights only, swinging carefully up the track.

'Vehicle approaching,' murmured Slater into his throat-mike.

It disappeared for a moment behind a rough coppice and was suddenly there in the farmyard, its sidelights two blinding swirls in the ghost-green landscape. In the yard, the car came to a greasy, shuddering stop. The driver stayed at the wheel, and a second figure wearing a heavy trenchcoat -- looked like military surplus, thought Slater - ducked from the Toyota.

'Target exiting vehicle.'

It was the shooter.

He would identify himself to the occupants of the farmhouse, collect the weapon from the cache, and change into 'sterile' overalls, headgear, footwear and gloves. IRA shooters, Slater knew, favoured yellow Marigold gloves as the least likely to leave any trace of forensic. Afterwards these would be burnt at the farmhouse.

The greatcoated figure hurried to the door. As he got there he pulled a mobile telephone from his pocket, thumbed it briefly, and seemed to mouth a single word. The door opened -- a blare of green-white light, swiftly extinguished - and he was inside. Get ready to die, motherfucker, thought Slater, his heart

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thumping hard at his ribs. Get ready to die. 'Target entering house. Back door.' For ten minutes nothing happened. The driver lit a cigarette, smoked it, nipped the smoking butt from the car, waited. Then the door of the house opened, and the greatcoated figure exited, his breath smoking, his ; shoulders hunched against the cold. OK, thought \ Slater grimly. OK. 'Target in view.'

Through the night sight he saw the shooter cross the | yard. He was carrying a gardening fork, and with this |he carefully cleared an area of dung and straw at the 5ase of the heap. Then, crouching, he lifted one of the fieavy flagstones. 'Target retrieving weapon.'

I'll take him when he straightens, Slater told himself, soon as I can see that he is holding the weapon. Jently exhaling, he placed the inverted black V of the jght above the shoulders of the crouching man. Took |p the play in the trigger. Inhaled.

The target rose, weapon in hand. Rose in profile ito the clear line of Slater's zeroed sights, the inverted meeting the perpendicular crossbar just forward of je target's ear.

Exhale to stillness. Squeeze. Muzzle-flash. The lower half of the pale green face vaporised into ack spray. The report splitting the night, punching fee compound plastic stock of the HK against Slater's julder and cheek, dropping the target like rubbish to dung-heap.

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'Contact. Target down.'

Slater, dragging his ski-mask over his eyes with his free hand, all but gagging with the release of tension, was already half-way to the fallen man. Reaching him he whipped the HK to his shoulder to deliver the killing shot but at the last moment held his fire. The target was alive, although he no longer had a jaw, or a mouth, or indeed a lower half to his face. He still had his eyes, however, and the eyes were the terrified, incomprehending eyes of a child. They held Slater's for a moment, and it seemed as if- in a last desperate plea - they were trying to smile.

From 150 yards away, as Slater froze in horror, the sniper team's number two delivered the double tap. It was a flawless display of shooting, the twin reports sounding as one, and the fallen man - now almost headless -- jerked spasmodically as his nervous system arrested. At his side lay a Match Ml 6 rifle with a telescopic sight.

His hands slippery with brain-spray, Slater swung the HK towards the car, where the driver was sitting with his hands raised in terrified surrender, and the back door of the house.

The yard flooded with the noise of running soldiers as the rest of the team closed in. Over the radio Slater heard rapid-fire instructions as an outer cordon was set up.

A long stain of blood on the ground around the fallen figure, and beyond him a sprayed and scattered mess of tissue, bone-fragments and teeth.

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And then a man in a muddy windcheater running from the house, and a wild-eyed woman in a leather jacket screaming behind him: ' You shot my little brother, you cunt! You SAS pigfucker! He was just a . . .'

And the pair of them seized - the man speechless with shock, the woman still dementedly screaming and plasticuffed.

And the words and the events finally making some sort of sense, and the icy cold kicking in, and Slater .knowing for certain that he had shot the wrong man. . .

(l

I'Joey Delaney was twenty-four years old,' said Slater, Flowering his glass, 'but his mental age was nine. The phooter had sent him out to retrieve the weapon and deliberately lent him the coat. Sent him out as a decoy case there was an SAS hit team waiting out there. Us brother Scan, who wasn't all that switched on, lidn't realise what was going down -- he just wanted to a good volunteer, doing his bit - and he let the lad out for the weapon.'

There was a long silence. Eve glanced at Slater but ; face was blank.

| 'So what happened next?' asked Ridley. |'We plasticufFed Scan and Bridget Delaney and hit farmhouse. And there was your man, cucumber |ol, in the kitchen, unzipping his overalls. He was a guy, perhaps thirty, with receding hair, anguished looking, you might say. Certainly not run-of-the-mill PIRA triggerman.'

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'And you arrested him?' asked Eve.

'We held him. I was for doing him there and then I got as far as thumbing down the safety catch - and I know the lads would have backed me up if I'd said he'd reached for a weapon. But it would have got very complicated very quickly. I could hear the chopper landing outside -- the police were on their way. And in truth no one would believe that he would have been carrying at that moment anyway. He wouldn't have been so stupid.'

'You knew that you were going to have to let him walk away?' asked Eve.

'I knew it, and he knew it. But the truth is that there was something else going on between me and this guy. Something personal. He knew what he'd made me do by sending that boy out in his place, and he knew just from looking at me in that kitchen that it was going to do me real damage. And that pleased him. I could see it in his eyes. "Shooting me won't bring him back," he said when I brought the HK up to my shoulder. "Shooting me would only make the whole thing worse. Don't you think?"

'His accent was - how can I describe it - a kind of Irish American. Something about it said money. Something said this was the sort of guy you'd normally see in a smart suit in an expensive restaurant, and I wondered who the hell he was. He certainly wasn't on the regular list of known players -- he'd probably come over specially from the States. And he'd probably get straight on to a plane when the

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\ police released him, go back there, and disappear until J.-the next hit.

'And then I thought: If I can't actually kill him, I can f'at least put him out of action as a shooter. Break a few bfingers, perhaps, smash his hand up a bit. I was just |wondering about the best way to do that, given that I had the night sight attached and couldn't use the att of the HK, when about five RUC guys came earning in and took charge. A couple of minutes later Iwe were pulled off the position and choppered back to phe barracks.'

'And that was the beginning of the end as far as you id the Regiment were concerned,' said Ridley. Slater nodded. 'It was. I went off my head, basically, it post-traumatic stress or whatever you like, but I it the Darkland big-time. I became super-aggressive -- picking rights -- I gave the Regiment guys ider me a really bad time, I started drinking a lot, I'd never done before . . . and became like a lly aggressive, violent loner.

, 'And I had these nightmares. Endlessly. In which I r Joey Delaney. I saw him in crowds, I saw him in ps, I saw him in bars, I even saw him on television. 1st standing there in that oversized coat with half his ce shot away and those nine-year-old's eyes looking s.me, not understanding what was happening to him, why. And I'd try to run away but he'd always be ere, following me, as if I was the only one who could him rather than the one who was halfway >ugh killing him. And I'd have my weapon with

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me - the HK53 - and I'd threaten him, tell him to leave me alone or I'd shoot him again, and eventually I would shoot him again, and I'd go on shooting him, endlessly, but . . .'

Slater fell silent. No one moved. Ridley studied his signet ring.

'And then I actually saw Joey Delaney in real life, when I was wide awake, walking down Bridge Street in Hereford. Same expression, same shot-away face, right there in front of me. I ended up running all the way back to the camp at Sterling Lines. Told the head shed I was having hallucinations and flashbacks, that I couldn't carry on, and that I wanted an immediate discharge.'

Slater emptied his glass, and shook his head when Ridley mimed a refill.

'And they gave me one. They'd seen people in my condition too often to doubt that I meant what I said. First, though, they sent me to the psychiatric unit at the tri-service hospital. The shrinks did the usual stuff, got me to talk the incident through and so on -- got me to put what I felt into words -- and the nightmares started coming less often.'

'Do you still get them?' asked Eve sympathetically.

'Occasionally. They came back for a time after the incident at Bolingbroke's School. I know the signs and symptoms now, though, and I know that I just have to ride the whole thing out. That in the end it'll go away.'

'And after the hospital?'

'I did a coaching course - athletics and rugby. I'd got

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it into my mind that school life might suit me. T might be able to teach young lads something a themselves on the games field.' 'And did it? Suit you, I mean?' 'In the end, no. Or not life at that particular sc] anyway. But I'm sure you know most of this aln You're not going to tell me you haven't vettec pretty thoroughly.'

Ridley smiled. 'We would have been foolish nc I think you'll agree.'

Slater turned to him. 'Can you fill in a histc detail for me?' 'I can try to.'

'The shooter at Forkhill. I know they had to re Mm, but did they ever find out anything about 1 s,Was he an American, for example, as I thought?' Ridley steepled his fingers. 'His name was J i'McGirk, and he had dual citizenship. He grew up llCatholic family in Belfast and he and his pai aved to New York State in the mid-eighties. I s remember they were both research chen ftyway, they ended up doing very well iiemselves. The young McGirk enjoyed the ication that the city of Buffalo had to offer iidied . . . oh, literature I think. Something to nth James Joyce, or am I imagining that? Anywa) iMicked it in after a couple of years, dropped 01 University of Buffalo, and joined the Ma srps.' TQuite a jump,' said Slater.

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'Indeed. He ended up going to Saudi with Desert Storm as a sniper, and after that we think he went back to Belfast to look up some of his old pals. Now up to that point, as far as anyone knows, he had no particular Republican sympathies. He was a Catholic, like I said, but the middle-class suburb he grew up in was a world away from the Falls Road.

'Somehow, though, he made PIRA connections. One theory is that one of his schoolfriends had become a member of the Army Council. And obviously it was felt that a man with his skills who was completely unknown to the security services was too good to waste. And unknown he remained - the PIRA made sure of that. Until Cropspray we didn't have a name or a face for him, just a reputation and a whole lot of conflicting rumours.

'When the RUC pulled him in they discovered he was in the Province on a false passport. The man he was claiming to be was a quadraplegic living on Rhode Island who hadn't left the States for fifteen years. And so all the agencies started digging.' Ridley spread his hands. 'And we identified Greenfly as McGirk. If Cropspray accomplished nothing else, it accomplished that. He hasn't been back since, and I'd guess that that means that lives have been saved.'

'So what's he up to now?' asked Slater.

'He's back in the States, where as far as we know he hasn't raised his head above the parapet. I'm sure we'll hear from him one of these days, though.'

'I'd very much like to,' said Slater with feeling.

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Ridley smiled. 'I'll see what we can do to bring you together. I'm sorry you've had such a bad time - it's the occupational risk of our calling.'

Til survive,' said Slater, aware of Eve's thoughtful gaze.

'I'm sure you will. And I'd like to say how glad I am you're joining us. We're a small team, but the work we do is vitally important. As, right now, is refilling these glasses. Eve, would you be so good?'

He turned back to Slater. 'As I said before, that was a splendid fish you caught this afternoon. Very few of i my guests have managed one of that size on their first 1 visit. By, er, whatever method!'

Slater smiled in acceptance of the compliment. 'And without wishing to talk shop on such a ['beautiful evening, it looks as if we might be able to put I your improvisational skills to work on behalf of the i Cadre rather sooner than anticipated -- assuming, that |is, that you agree to join us.'

'Can you tell me in specific rather than general terms what it is that you do?' Slater asked. He wanted hear it put into words.

Ridley smiled, a benign amusement lighting up every weathered crease of his features. He would lake, thought Slater, a very good Father Christmas. 'We assassinate enemies of the State,' he twinkled. Slater nodded slowly. He could hardly ask for plainer speaking than that. He realised that on some evel he'd already known it. But was that really what le wanted to be - a political assassin? Did he,

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ultimately, have any choice? Wasn't he an assassin already?

'I'm informed,' said Ridley, taking Slater's silence for assent, 'that we have the beginnings of a situation.'

190

EIGHT

Over the course of the next week, things moved fast.

Slater did not return to the Highbury flat -- instead a

' van collected his furniture and possessions and he was

, re-installed in a similar-sized place in Primrose Place,

I hard by Waterloo Station.

The new flat, he discovered, had been vacated by his I'predecessor a fortnight before, and although I nondescript-looking from the outside was fitted with State-of-the-art alarms and anti-intruder devices. |There was also a scrambled landline phone to the office at Vauxhall Cross. The place was in good decorative >rder, and although he had nothing to hang on the Slater soon had it looking cheerful enough, lere was a market nearby, he discovered, where (cotic fruit and vegetables could be bought, and he etermined to expand his cooking repertoire to aclude a few curries.

Most days he walked along Lambeth Palace Road ad Albert Embankment to Vauxhall Cross. Mainline is from Waterloo stopped there, but the rail fmrney took almost as long as travelling on foot. At ^e MI6 headquarters he had been provided with

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passes, entry codes and swipe-cards. He had also inherited a Liverpool FC coffee mug from his unknown predecessor, and had been formally introduced to Ray and Debbie, the Cadre's support team. For reasons of security, Slater discovered, Cadre members were only ever referred to by their first names. To keep things simple -- especially vis-a-vis radio and communications procedures - they used the same names when operational, adding false surnames where necessary.

Ray and Debbie were both computer experts, and much of Slater's first week was spent learning secure communications procedures from one or other of them. Ray's passion, apart from obscure Arabic language websites, was the cinema of the Cold War, and he wore heavy black-framed glasses and knitted silk ties in homage to Michael Caine in The Ipcress File. Being just over five feet feet tall and prematurely balding he resembled Michael Caine in no other respect, but this deterred him not one whit. His dream, he told Slater, was to wake up one morning and discover that henceforth life was to be lived in black and white.

Debbie was the spiky-haired young woman Slater had met on his first visit to the office. Like Ray she undercut the serious and stressful nature of her work by affecting to play the clown. Some days she would report for work wearing corpse-white make-up, on others she would remove her motorcycle helmet in the atrium to reveal purple gothic hair-extensions. Debbie

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had been recruited after hacking into the MI6 database 1 while at university and planting a job application \ amongst the Balkan desk's top-secret files. Hearing f about this audacious approach, and needing a replace iment for her predecessor, who had left to marry a }4iplomat, the Cadre's director of operations had [snapped her up immediately.

Like Ray, Debbie was a highly competent computer igineer, and the two of them ran a small repair ivorkshop in an annexe of the office. As she explained Slater, none of Nine's computers, once used, could pounds er be repaired, serviced or disposed of outside the epartment. Even a completely smashed-up terminal amped on a skip could yield important information a good forensic engineer. When Slater had ruefully fessed to her that computers made him nervous, sbbie had smiled. 'We'll get you up to speed,' she promised him. 'And all you really have to lember is not to lose your fucking laptop!' iJThe director of operations was the smooth-jowled Slater had encountered at his last interview with Named Manderson - as a regular, non |>erational MI6 officer seconded to the Cadre, he Jt his real surname -- he was a clubbable old school who at first sight looked the exact opposite of a jtched-on intelligence operator. With his pink eks, raked-back hair and foxy smile, he looked like Wealthy stockbroker who had done a short-service lission in the guards. There was a hardness about fseyes, however, which belied this genial impression.

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Slater met him on his second morning, when Manderson hurried into the office to collect some reconnaissance photographs. Introduced by Debbie, Manderson shook Slater's hand, held up the photographs - 'Ingushetiya. Fucking awful place!' - and raced out. He returned in time to take Slater out for a pint and a sandwich at a cheerless pub near the Oval cricket ground. He apologised for the fact that Slater had not yet been introduced to the rest of the Cadre, but explained that they had all been tied up with the aftermath of a long surveillance operation relating to Eastern European money-laundering. He should, however, be meeting them all in a day or two, as there was 'something biggish bumping down the pipeline'.

In the meanwhile, Manderson suggested, he should spend a day on the range and in the killing house down at Warlingham, in Surrey. When they were not operational he usually suggested that Cadre members spend at least a half-day a week at Warlingham working on their sniping and close-quarter battle skills.

Slater heard him out expressionlessly. He knew the smooth, power-hungry Manderson type only too well from the army. Secure in the knowledge that they would never have to face such horrors themselves, they invariably made liberal use of gung-ho phrases like 'hard contact' and 'close-quarter battle'. He was certainly a clever man -- no fool could have advanced to Manderson's level of seniority - but Slater suspected that his greatest skills were those he deployed on behalf of his own career.

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Returning to the office, and with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension, Slater booked himself in for a session at Warlingham the following morning. He arrived on the range to find a face that he knew: >a wiry old ex-Scots Guards armourer named Jock MacLennan who'd been seconded to the Regiment |for several years. MacLennan watched in silence as [Slater put himself through his paces on the range. He ;je-acclimatised himself with a variety of weapons, and ^discovered to his relief that he was not quite as rusty as je had feared he might be. With hand-arms, in particular, his accuracy and reaction times were pretty mch as good as ever.

The two men had a bite of lunch at the South jndon Aero Club, and then returned to the killing juse, where they were joined by a Cadre membre led Terry. Terry was a pale, doughy-featured sex-boy with a straggly goatee, and to Slater's eye aked seriously unfit. For the purpose of the firearms Kercise he was dressed in a pair of blue garage (rorker's overalls.

MacLennan loaded up the Heckler and Koch MP5s Slater set up the killing room. The weapons had en rigged to fire paint-rounds, but in every other spect behaved like normal MP5s. Slater and Terry ced each other through various set-ups for a couple f hours, and Slater's fears were swiftly confirmed: the 1 was no combat soldier. He was slow on his feet, and aked awkward behind a weapon. Slater, on the other id, had not enjoyed himself so much for ages. The

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old instincts were still in place, and the blood sang in his veins as he went to work. Needless to say he splattered his overweight opponent every time.

'I'm sorry, guys,' Terry said eventually, his overalls dripping with yellow marker-paint. 'I'm crap with guns - they're just not my thing.' He turned exhaustedly to Slater. 'Any advice you can give us, mate . . .'

Slater nodded and smiled encouragingly. Inwardly he was wondering what the hell kind of outfit he'd committed himself to. This fat lad was a waste of space, for a kickoff.

At 7.30 on the fifth morning, Ray called Slater on the scrambled landline. There would be an important departmental briefing in one hour, and his presence was required.

It was a cold, overcast day -- a promising May had become an indifferent June - and Slater made his way down Albert Embankment with a sharp prickle of anticipation.

He arrived in the office to find Eve in close conference with Andreas and a slightly built black man of about thirty in jeans and a leather jacket whom the others introduced as Leon. An air of urgency prevailed and for once even Debbie looked comparatively subdued. As the newest recruit to the outfit Slater decided to keep the lowest possible profile. Raising a quick hand in greeting to Ray and Terry he buried himself behind his terminal and went through the

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Chris Ryan

motions of checking for incoming messages. A new driving licence and European community passport, he 1 saw, had been placed in his in-tray, as had a first-class JEurostar ticket. All were in the name of Neil Clissold. Manderson arrived ten minutes later, murmured | general greetings and disappeared into the briefing

froom with Debbie. He looked tired, strained and in no

i,

I mood to suffer fools.

Eventually Debbie emerged and ushered the sembled company into the briefing room. They loved slowly -- most were carrying styrofoam cups of 3t tea or coffee. At the far end, trailing wires, a large, janoramic TV/DVD set stood on a wheeled stand.

Manderson raised his hands for silence and the faint lurmur evaporated.

'Good morning, everyone. I hope I haven't iterrupted too many breakfasts.' Silence. A few taut smiles.

'Before this briefing gets under way I'd like to take opportunity to welcome a new member to the jartment. Neil is already known to some if not most you, and I'm sure you'll all, er, make him feel elcome and so on.' I^Manderson gave Slater a peremptory nod. Around table six faces directed polite smiles at the /comer. Apart from Leon there was only one person snt that Slater hadn't met - a nondescript dark ed woman whom he guessed to be in her late ^enties. Catching Slater's eye she leaned over the table one hand extended. 'Hi,' she said. 'I'm Chris.'

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From his place on Eve's left hand, Andreas raised his styrofoam cup an inch or two and gave Slater a stealthy wink.

Manderson turned to Ray, who was inserting a DVD into the player. 'When you're done, I'd like to lock down. No calls, no visitors, no interruptions. When was the place last swept for bugs?'

'An hour ago,' said Debbie. 'AH clear.'

Manderson nodded, and Ray and Debbie withdrew from the briefing room, closing the soundproof glass door behind them.

'Right, ladies and gentlemen,' said Manderson, thumbing a button on the remote control, 'I'd like you to study these images.'

A photograph from - of all things - Hello! magazine. In the foreground the portly figure of the arms-dealer Adnan Khashoggi, canape in hand, and a dark-haired woman in a cloth-of-gold dress. Others present, Champagne flutes in hand, all dressed in black and gold.

'This photograph is eight years old,' said Manderson. 'It was taken at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. Now the man I want to draw your attention to' -- he took a laser-pointer from the table 'is this one.'

The tiny arrow showed a smiling figure in a black dinner jacket, black tie, and gold cummerbund standing in a group behind Khashoggi. Slater guessed him to be in his mid-forties. He looked tanned and prosperous; his spectacles were gold-framed, his

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ling hair expensively barbered. 'His name,' said Manderson, 'is Antoine Fanonlayat. He is an arms-dealer and fixer, Francoebanese in origin, Christian by denomination, place "birth, Beirut, 1950. Educated at the French Lycee, suth Kensington, and at the Sorbonne in Paris.' Manderson flicked the remote again and a silent aper-8 home-movie played .across the screen - a liddle-Eastern rooftop with parasols, sky-signs rertising BOAC, the sea blue in the distance, and a ithful Fanon-Khayat mugging for the camera in a ite suit.

I 'A bright young man. Bit wild as a student - drugs, atest marches and so on - and in 1972 gets a French I pregnant. Fellow student at the Sorbonne. She has atched abortion and nearly dies, Antoine legs it to Beirut. In '75 he inherits his father's import art empire and becomes involved in the arms less when he allows one of the F-K companies to 5 used as a front for sanctions-busting operations in Africa. We wait until we've got enough Idence to put him out of business and then suggest : there are ways in which he can help us.' . brief colour-film sequence on the screen showed eva Airport, an anonymous office block, and a e-plate: Services F-K Commerciaux. This cut to a i of still photographs of Fanon-Khayat in a top-hat morning-coat in the enclosure at Royal Ascot, ampanying him was a chic, rather strained-looking ie woman in an ostrich-feathered hat.

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'Marries Solange de Cotigny June '75. Buys her a house in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris. None of which inhibits him from undertaking a series of extramarital liaisons.'

A series of grab-shots, mostly black and white, of Fanon Khayat with other blonde women in hotel lobbies, outside night-clubs, and on resort beaches.

'Over the years, one way and another, FanonKhayat becomes a good friend to the British government, and a highly important source of non attributable weaponry. We use him in Afghanistan, when he outfits a couple of our training teams with specially adapted SAMs to counter the Sovs' Hind assault helicopters. He equips our people in South America for the Gacha job, he arms the SAS Subversive Action Wing team for operation Waterline in Sri Lanka, and he is extremely helpful to the Firm when we need to place undercover operatives in Azerbaijan to keep an eye on developments regarding the pipeline. He has undertaken never, either directly or indirectly, to supply the IRA, and he has passed on marketplace intelligence to us concerning those who have. A useful asset, all in all.

'For our part, we have always paid him well and promptly, and avoided stepping on his toes overseas. As Terry and Chris in particular will remember, we fell over backwards ensuring that his name was never mentioned in connection with the Matrix-Churchill and Arms-to-Iraq affairs.'

Nods around the table.

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'So far so cosy. Unfortunately all is not so loveyIdovey in our man's private life.'

A black and white image of Solange FanonKhayat, llooking distraught, climbing into a white Mercedes foutside the Paris house. Cut to an exterior shot of a Paris courtroom, with Fanon-Khayat hurrying up the peeps.

'In 1992, Solange sues for divorce, citing her Husband's physical abuse, mental cruelty and persistent adultery - which has apparently included unprotected ex with prostitutes and Brazilian transvestites in the Jois de Boulogne. She is awarded a huge settlement, phich as it happens coincides with a falling off in her x-husband's business activities. 'Shortly after the judgement is announced, Fanonlayat sets up a meet with his MI6 handler. He needs Cash badly, he says, and in return claims that he can Fer hard documentary evidence that President lobodan Milosevic of Serbia is providing arms and upport to Radovan Karadjic in the breakaway epublic of Bosnian Serbia. He claims to have an inside ack to the Serbian administration. 'Unfortunately for Fanon-Khayat, we already have [ the evidence we need to that effect, and we turn the eal down. We cut him loose, basically. We distance irselves from him. The general feeling is that he is ecoming too flaky to do business with. And we're it. The next sighting of him is in - of all places - erbia.' f A wedding scene. A small local church. Flower201

The Hit List

petals in the air. A portrait of the bride - very blonde, very pretty, barely in her twenties.

'Within six months of talking to us, we learn, Antoine has remarried. Her name is Branca Nikolic, she is twenty-three, and she and her family are well connected Serbs living in Belgrade. What the cash strapped Fanon-Khayat is doing socialising with Serbs at that point in history I leave to your collective imagination. It is unlikely to be a coincidence, for example, that his new father-in-law Goran Nikolic is a senior officer of the RDB - the Serbian secret service. From this point onwards Fanon-Khayat's former contacts and handlers in London hear nothing from him.'

Removing his glasses, Manderson briefly polished them with a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket before once again thumbing the remote control.

Fanon-Khayat and an overweight man in a cowboy hat on a Sheraton-style hotel terrace. Palm trees and a swimming pool visible.

A low-ceilinged airport lounge, the crowd mostly African. Fanon-Khayat in profile at a car-hire desk.

A grainy, long-distance street shot. Three men in coats and fur hats leaving a marble-faced office-block. Snow on the steps.

Manderson replaced his glasses. 'Six weeks ago word reaches P4, the head of Balkan operations downstairs, that Fanon-Khayat is on the move again, reactivating his old networks. Ten days ago, for the first time in the best part of a decade, he gets back in touch with us.

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^Specifically, he couriers a compact disc to C/CEE, the controller of eastern European operations, who will be peaking to you later this morning. This is some of the photographic material from that disc.' A jungle scene. Sunlight filtering through light ib. A South East Asian youth with a red bandanna ed around his head crouching over a dissassembled [47 Kalashnikov rifle. The spare parts on a cloth on ie jungle floor.

younger man, also wearing a red bandanna, sing with a Dragunov sniper rifle armed with a lescopic sight. Next to him, his faded khaki jacket all it falling apart on his shoulders, a man who might we been his twin, grinning.

Six young men. And a pile of several dozen aymore-style anti-personnel mines in satchels. In the cground, slightly out of focus, a Westerner in a red idanna carrying a steel ammunition box and a young . woman toting a Soviet RPG 7 grenade launcher. 'The first young man again, gleefully indicating a jden box stencilled 'grenades - w phos'. Two n soldiers in tiger-stripe camouflage smoking 1-ups and laughing - something very familiar to sr about both of them.

. dead woman in DPM camouflage trousers, South : Asian of origin, dragged to a sitting position by the by a pair of hands. The freckled forearms shing out of shot, but a Cross-of-St-George tattoo rly visible. Severe burns to the dead woman's face neck. High-velocity round entry wounds to her

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bared upper chest. A cooking-pot over a fire in the background.

A dozen dead soldiers, their uniforms caked with dried blood, in a pile in a clearing by a stream. Several with their ears cut off. Around the corpses, like hunters around a trophy display, a group of red bandanna-clad soldiers carrying AK47s. One wearing a necklace of ears. Crouching alongside them, a tall, Western soldier. Jungle smock, droopy moustache, scar on left cheek.

Three Western soldiers, all known to Slater, crouching outside the bleached stone ruins of an Asiatic temple. On the ground before them a row of sharpened bamboo stakes. Two of these hammered into the ground and topped with human heads. A red bandanna-wearing youth placing a cigarette between the lips of one of the severed heads.

Manderson turned to Andreas. 'Any doubt in your mind about the identity of any of these instructors?'

Andreas shook his head. 'No.'

'Ntil?'

'I don't know all the names, but I recognise all the faces. They're Regiment guys.'

Manderson nodded. 'OK. The background to all of this is that during the eighties a rolling contingent of instructors from 22 SAS's Subversive Action Wing, usually referred to in this building as the Increment, were attached to "a non-communist wing of the Coalition for the Democratic Government of Kampuchea". In plain English, to the Khmer Rouge.

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I The idea - queasy though it sounds now - was that the I struggle against communism could be effectively leontinued by supporting the Khmer Rouge's war of tfesistance against the North Vietnamese, who had Lusted them in 1979. The US started the ball rolling, Ibut the CIA contingent pulled out after Irangate in |1986. Basically Ronald Reagan left Mrs Thatcher folding their joint baby, if that's not too extreme an age to furnish you with at this time in the morning, le SAS team was based on the ThaiCambodian jrder. They fed the Khmer Rouge with weapons - aostly non-attributable AKs and RPGs and white losphorus grenades - and taught them how to use plosives, improvise and lay mines, and make booby aps.

'It's all old history now, of course, but the agent we cloyed to provide the bulk of that non-attributable Weaponry was Antoine Fanon-Khayat. Unfortunately r us, sensibly for him, he kept detailed minutes of the air. As well as the photographs you've just seen there manifests, banking and shipping documentation -- manner of stuff. And the long and the short of it is at unless his conditions are met, all of this material

. be made available to the press. I'What those conditions are, you've probably already sed. Two months ago an SAS snatch team lifted lovan Karadjic from Eastern Bosnia and conveyed to custody on the British mainland, where he ains pending transportation to the Hague and trial war crimes. Fanon-Khayat wants us to get the

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Home Office to accede to Serbia's demands for his release on the grounds that the arrest was technically illegal. Now of course we don't accept that it was illegal and we're not about to give up Karadjic, but illustrated details of our close involvement with an overtly genocidal organisation like the Khmer Rouge would be very embarrassing indeed. A decade ago John Pilger made a TV programme accusing the British government of aiding and abetting the perpetrators of genocide in Cambodia - names were named, et cetera - but the government of the day denied its principal charges on the record and the whole thing faded. This will bring it all back with a vengeance. There's nothing like necklaces of human ears and severed heads on stakes to put the citizenry off their morning cornflakes, and the Serbian PR people would make sure that those pictures went round the world. You can imagine how weighty our accusations against Karadjic and his merry men would sound then.

'Unfortunately, the Cambodia pictures are not the limit of our problems concerning Antoine FanonKhayat. Our intelligence reports suggest that his recent world tour, which took in a number of weaponry fabrication sites and known middle-men, had a specific purpose. Namely, to set up a conduit to provide Serbian defence installations with a state-ofthe-art surface-to-air missile capability. The system's called "Ondine", it's manufactured in France by Issy Avionic, and the material we think will be going to Serbia is nominally destined for the "friendly206

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designated" Burkina Faso. We're not a hundred per cent certain that Belgrade's the real end user, but we're ninety-nine-point-nine per cent sure. We're also pretty sure that being the kind of operator that he is, Fanon-Khayat's kept both ends of the chain from meeting in the middle. The sellers won't know who they're selling to, the buyers won't know who they're buying from. Fanon-Khayat remains the vital link the man that everyone needs.

'Basically, our man's decided to throw in his lot with j Serbia. If he succeeds in securing them a high-end |SAM capability as well as brokering the release of |�Karadjic, he can write his own ticket. Serbia would Ireinvade Kosovo on the back of a huge PR victory, id with the Ondine systems in place there's not a in thing -- short of a lethal, costly and quite possibly ansustainable ground war - that we or anyone else Could do about it. The voting public simply wouldn't /ear the sight of Nato fighter jets being blown out of le sky on television night after night, and Milosevic rould win. In Serbia, Fanon-Khayat would be a ational hero, with Branca Nikolic as his adoring ink-draped princess. And let's face it' - Manderson srmitted himself a wintry smile as he re-projected the iredding photos - 'there are worse ways for a balding, irerweight fifty-year-old to live out his days. 'However . . .' he looked at them all in turn. 'We do at intend any of this to happen. We intend - that is say this department has been tasked -- to assassinate itoine FanonKhayat.'

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A silence of some intensity followed this pronouncement. Slater nickered a glance around the room. Andreas appeared openly amused, Eve expressionless, Leon and Terry thoughtful, Chris almost absentminded.

'At present,' Manderson continued, 'the target is in Paris, where he is expecting to conduct a meeting with one of MI6's Balkan desk officers. The subject is the handover of the Cambodia images against the release of Karadjic. For the sake of believability we've given Fanon-Khayat the impression that we may be prepared to negotiate some Pinochet-style deal - not mentally fit to stand trial, something like that -- but that we draw the line at conceding any illegality in his arrest. Our best guess is that he will go for that.

'Now the reason that Fanon-Khayat's in Paris, and that we're seeing him in Paris, is that he's there for a series of meetings relating to the Ondine deal. As I said, he's handling the whole thing himself, so if we can eliminate him before the deal's done, there will be no deal, no Ondine system for Serbia. Our intelligence is that the whole thing is expected to be wrapped up by Monday - Tuesday at the latest - so we have two days in which to get the job done.'

Manderson leant back in his chair and spread his hands. 'So there you have it. Before I ask Eve to go through the operational details, has anyone got any questions? For example does anyone think that eliminating the target is morally or politically unjustified, given the circumstances?'

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'Can we be sure that if Fanon-Khayat is taken out the Cambodia pictures won't resurface?' It was Chris i who had spoken. She looked, thought Slater, like a Gwar^i'an-reading, left-leaning teacher from a Hackney comprehensive. He'd have to watch his p's and q's with her.

Manderson nodded and frowned. 'My guess is that '{he's flying solo on this, as he is on the Ondine deal. He I may have married a Serb, but that doesn't mean he trusts [ them. Those pictures are his pension -- he won't have I handed copies around to his mates in Belgrade. My estifrnation, with which P4 concurs, is that he'll play it straight and give us all of the pictures in return for iKaradjic. He knows us well enough to know that if we Ihear so much as a whisper that copies are still floating ijbout after the deal's done, we'll come for him. Except, af course, the whole thing won't get that far.' , 'Are we certain that he doesn't know that we know |ibout the SAMs?' This time it was Leon, the black ay.

'If he thought we knew about them, he wouldn't be ing to negotiate with us about the pictures,' said landerson. 'Experience would tell him that the scales were stacked up too high against him. Blackmailing le'd reckon we could accommodate. But rearming Serbia at the same time? He'd know that was a bridge 30 far, that if we knew about the Ondine system we'd ave to get rid of him. And if he suspected that's what are wanted to do, then he wouldn't see us. And he is eeing us.'

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Leon nodded. 'And it wouldn't be possible to spike the Ondine deal by leaking it to the press?'

Manderson shook his head. 'Not without risking the lives of some of our most important agents-in-place, no. There must be no sign that we know about it.'

'Then what will those involved in the Ondine deal think that the motive was for killing FanonKhayat?' asked Leon.

'A couple of the least damaging of the Cambodia pictures will be found hidden in FanonKhayat's apartment. That'll send the right message to the right people.'

Leon nodded. His mind, Slater could see, was worrying away at every aspect of the case like a terrier. Terry, by contrast, presented a picture of almost Buddhist calm, and sat unmoving and without expression.

Slater found the atmosphere unsettling. He had been more shaken than he cared to admit to himself by the question of whether or not the hit was justified. He'd have preferred a direct order -- waste the fucker and then get the hell out. The soldier was carrying enough of a load without having to consider the moral justification of his actions at every turn. But then, of course, he wasn't a soldier any more. He was a civil servant.

'Will this operation save lives?' he found himself blurting out.

That had always been the question he'd asked himself in Northern Ireland. Would his trigger210

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jueeze save some unsuspecting squaddie from a bullet etween the shoulders, some housewife or child from smemberment by a nail-bomb? The answer - apart from that terrible night near Forkhill -- had been yes, fcvery time. And even the killing of poor, simple Joey )elaney had flushed out McGirk, sent the bastard ming from the hills of Armagh and back across the Atlantic.

'Yes it will,' said Manderson without hesitation, ecting the full force of his gaze at Slater. 'This is not : a matter of political advantage; the target has to be linated to avert widescale bloodshed. Without his iduits and underground networks there is no way it a system as sophisticated as Ondine would get trywhere near Serbia. This would mean that as far as |r defences are concerned, Milosevic would be stuck ith his Russian-made SA7s, which frankly don't ry us too much. The Ondine system is something though, and would really frighten us. If Fanonayat pushes this deal through the Serbs will know at they can re-annex Kosovo with impunity, and flen, I promise you, there will be a bloodbath. A loodbath we will be powerless to prevent. Does that swer your question?' Slater nodded.

'Anyone got anything else before I hand over to Ive?'

Silence. A slow shaking of heads. So, thought Slater. She's his deputy. Eve straightened a sheaf of papers in front of her.

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'Right. First things first. The name of the operation is "Firewall" and it is a sealed operation -- no one outside this department is involved in any capacity. Nor can we reveal our hand to the French. At best we could expect non-cooperation, at worst -- given the touchy feely relationship between certain of their secret service people and Milosevic -- active sabotage. The French, in short, are to be treated as hostiles. We will be on enemy territory.

'For the purposes of Firewall the team will divide into two groups. The forward team will consist of myself, Neil and Andreas; the back-up team will be Terry, Chris and Leon. Fanon-Khayat's apartment, which he's owned since his divorce from Solange, is in the Rue Molitor in the sixteenth arrondissement. This is a smart area, very "bon chic, bongenre" as the Parisians say -- imagine Knightsbridge on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Big money, big houses, big privacy.

'So we're going to have to look and behave right. Debbie's done some research on this and is acting as our wardrobe expert -- in fact she's buying the stuff as we speak. We're leaving this afternoon and we're booked into two hotels: the forward team are staying a kilometre to the north of Fanon-Khayat's apartment, at the Hotel Montmorency at Ranelagh; the backup team on the Rue Molitor itself at the Hotel Grand Exelmans.

'The Grand Exelmans overlooks FanonKhayat's apartment,' Eve continued. 'And tomorrow morning Terry, Chris and Leon will set up an OP there. From

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11.30 Andreas and myself will occupy a table Cafe Molitor, which is opposite the Grand Exej and next door to the block containing Fanon-KK , apartment. The apartment occupies the whole ^c . fourth floor. At midday Fanon-Khayat is expectj^ MI6 representative to arrive there to discu$s , Karadjic business and negotiate the handover q*- , pictures.'

To Slater, knowing what she was going to say t the moment seemed to go into slow motion. The f ' of his new colleagues, polite and solicitous, bli^

j They were throwing him in at the deep end.

'That MI6 representative,' Eve continued, '\viji .

I reality be Neil. Neil will enter the apartment, djs ,

I the two bodyguards, and take out FanonKhayat.1

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'Right. First things first. The name of the operation is "Firewall" and it is a sealed operation - no one outside this department is involved in any capacity. Nor can we reveal our hand to the French. At best we could expect non-cooperation, at worst -- given the touchy feely relationship between certain of their secret service people and Milosevic - active sabotage. The French, in short, are to be treated as hostiles. We will be on enemy territory.

'For the purposes of Firewall the team will divide into two groups. The forward team will consist of myself, Neil and Andreas; the back-up team will be Terry, Chris and Leon. Fanon-Khayat's apartment, which he's owned since his divorce from Solange, is in the Rue Molitor in the sixteenth arrondissement. This is a smart area, very "bon chic, bongenre" as the Parisians say - imagine Kmghtsbndge on the edge of Hampstead Heath. Big money, big houses, big privacy.

'So we're going to have to look and behave right. Debbie's done some research on this and is acting as our wardrobe expert -- in fact she's buying the stuff as we speak. We're leaving this afternoon and we're booked into two hotels: the forward team are staying a kilometre to the north of Fanon-Khayat's apartment, at the Hotel Montmorency at Ranelagh; the backup team on the Rue Molitor itself at the Hotel Grand Exelmans.

'The Grand Exelmans overlooks FanonKhayat's apartment,' Eve continued. 'And tomorrow morning Terry, Chris and Leon will set up an OP there. From

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111.30 Andreas and myself will occupy a table at the Cafe Molitor, which is opposite the Grand Exelmans |#id next door to the block containing FanonKhayat's lapartment. The apartment occupies the whole of the llburth floor. At midday Fanon-Khayat is expecting an |MI6 representative to arrive there to discuss the jradjic business and negotiate the handover of the pictures.'

To Slater, knowing what she was going to say next, ie moment seemed to go into slow motion. The faces if his new colleagues, polite and solicitous, blurred, icy were throwing him in at the deep end. 'That MI6 representative,' Eve continued, 'will in lity be Neil. Neil will enter the apartment, disable ie two bodyguards, and take out FanonKhayat.'

213

NINE

Slater woke shortly before 7am, showered, dressed and left the Hotel Montmorency. The deserted streets shone with the night's rain, and the morning smell of the city -- wet grass, fresh bread, petrol -- rose from the pavement to meet him.

He walked for ten minutes through the streets before he found a cafe that was open, and installed himself at an outside table. Beside him, a woman was setting up a stall selling chrysanthemums, tulips and roses, and the scent of flowers drifted towards him on the damp air. Slater's French had never been up to much but he could manage 'cafe creme', and when the steaming tray was laid before him it occurred to him that he could not remember a more perfect beginning to a day.

A pity, really, that he had to spoil it.

The day before had been knackering. After the briefing, in the course of which he and the team had covered every possible eventuality and factored in every possible fuck-up, they had been dispatched to the Nine Elms safe house for outfitting. Slater had walked home with a battered Louis Vuitton suitcase

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Mitaining several changes of clothes, all of them rictly conforming to the dictates of Paris weekend ion. There was no question of his pretending to be ench - merely of blending in, of looking icmorably prosperous. In truth, he thought, as he jjwsed his heavy coffee-cup and looked at his reflection the cafe window, he had rarely felt more fortable.

i He and Andreas had travelled together on the arostar. Sitting in the first-class compartment with adreas's laptop computer on the table between them, had looked like a couple of well-off businessmen ^veiling to a weekend seminar. The train was jwded, and they had discussed neither the hit nor department's business as a whole. Instead they linisced about old times and Slater asked Andreas if �had a girlfriend.

^ Andreas looked uncomfortable, and then self Slnsciously admitted that he had been 'seeing' -- as he

: it - Debbie. pSlater absorbed this information. 'Do you know her

ie?'

I'f'Debbie's her real name. I don't know the other, id I've never asked.'

;< 'No envelopes around? No name on her flat?' fk'Nope.'

\. 'What about Eve? What do you know about her?' |/Nothmg. Why, are you harbouring ambitions in It direction, by any chance?' I'Slater pictured the wry smile, the sea-grey eyes and

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the feminine curves that no amount of nondescript dressing could quite disguise. 'I'm not stupid,' he said.

'And what exactly does that mean?'

'It means that we've got to work together. Plus she's not my type. Plus she certainly doesn't fancy me. She's probably got some guy who works in the city and thinks she's got a job in PR. They probably go on holiday together in ... where's that place all the Sloanes go?'

'Tuscany,' said Andreas morosely.

'That's right. Fucking Tuscany. And they probably go to that restaurant, what's it called?'

'River Cafe.'

'Right. River Fucking Cafe. And they probably go to the opera together, and shooting in Scotland with people called Piers and Annabel.'

'Well, look at us,' said Andreas. 'We're not doing so badly. We're going shooting in Paris with people called Terry and Chris.'

Slater ordered a second cup of the cafe's high-voltage coffee. The morning sunshine was lifting the moisture from the streets and pavements, patching them with paler grey. A faint haze still hung over the Bois de Boulogne.

He had been chosen as the trigger-man, Andreas had told him, because of his known expertise in CQB -- close-quarter battle. Fanon-Khayat would almost certainly have his bodyguards around, and one way and another they would have to be dealt with.

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Slater doubted the truth of this flattering analysis. I'They were sending him in because it was bloody Idangerous, and as the newest member of the team he Was the most expendable. He hoped he'd get the |i^eapon he had asked for - a silenced Sig Sauer P239G. Leon had been given the job of arming the team. In twenties, according to Andreas, the Mauritian had ent five years as a Foreign Legion paratrooper and a icr three in a French jail for acting as a driver in an tied robbery. Since that time he had made a point of etaining his contacts in the Paris underworld. All well, he would be providing the team with a principal and a back-up weapon when they RVed at lie Hotel Grand Exelmans at 9.30. Under other circumstances the Cadre would have [niggled their own weapons into France with them, had told them that she had considered driving in. Given that Firewall was a sealed operation, uwever, and an operation to which elements of the ich security forces might well be hostile, the very it risk of detection had been thought too great. : advantage of a local weapon was that it might well ase things, especially if it had been used before for linal purposes. On the grounds that they were ch cheaper than 'clean' firearms, Leon would be ively soliciting such weapons.

. Regretfully savouring the last of his morning's Ititude, Slater climbed to his feet and placed sixty tics in the saucer holding the bill. The pavements : no longer empty - the sixteenth arrondissement's

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the feminine curves that no amount of nondescript dressing could quite disguise. 'I'm not stupid,' he said.

'And what exactly does that mean?'

'It means that we've got to work together. Plus she's not my type. Plus she certainly doesn't fancy me. She's probably got some guy who works in the city and thinks she's got a job in PR. They probably go on holiday together in ... where's that place all the Sloanes go?'

'Tuscany,' said Andreas morosely.

'That's right. Fucking Tuscany. And they probably go to that restaurant, what's it called?'

'River Cafe.'

'Right. River Fucking Cafe. And they probably go to the opera 'together, and shooting in Scodand with people called Piers and Annabel.'

'Well, look at us,' said Andreas. 'We're not doing so badly. We're going shooting in Paris with people called Terry and Chris.'

Slater ordered a second cup of the cafe's high-voltage coffee. The morning sunshine was lifting the moisture from the streets and pavements, patching them with paler grey. A faint haze still hung over the Bois de Boulogne.

He had been chosen as the trigger-man, Andreas had told him, because of his known expertise in CQB - close-quarter battle. Fanon-Khayat would almost certainly have his bodyguards around, and one way and another they would have to be dealt with.

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ei doubted the truth of this flattering analysis, were sending him in because it was bloody 3us, and as the newest member of the team he ; the most expendable. He hoped he'd get the an he had asked for - a silenced Sig Sauer P239G. mi had been given the job of arming the team. In ities, according to Andreas, the Mauritian had i five years as a Foreign Legion paratrooper and a ; three in a French jail for acting as a driver in an [ robbery. Since that time he had made a point of his contacts in the Paris underworld. All well, he would be providing the team with a and a back-up weapon when they RVed at jtel Grand Exelmans at 9.30. er other circumstances the Cadre would have Jed their own weapons into France with them, told them that she had considered driving iin. Given that Firewall was a sealed operation, er, and an operation to which elements of the security forces might well be hostile, the very risk of detection had been thought too great, itage of a local weapon was that it might well : things, especially if it had been used before for purposes. On the grounds that they were cheaper than 'clean' firearms, Leon would be

soliciting such weapons, ^gretfully savouring the last of his morning's Slater climbed to his feet and placed sixty in the saucer holding the bill. The pavements ino longer empty -- the sixteenth arrondissement's

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dog-walkers seemed to have mobilised en masse, and large Citroens and Peugeots were hissing past on the Boulevard Montmorency.

Slater found the other two in the dining room. Eve had hired a Peugeot 406 the day before in case a quick getaway was needed, and she and Andreas had just returned from a practice drive around the Bois de Boulogne.

'Are you hungry?' she asked Slater hesitantly.

'Starving,' he answered truthfully. He always ate well before an operation. The nerves would kick in soon, but for the time being he was content to fill his stomach.

After breakfast, they packed their bags, took the lift down to the underground car-park, and locked them in the boot of the car. They were booked into the Montmorency for the coming night, but were taking no chances - if something went wrong they might be unable to return.

In order to get the feel of the Peugeot, Slater took the car out of the park, tooled around the local streets for ten minutes, and then ran the other two south to the Rue Molitor. The car was a dream and the journey short -- Slater had memorised the route from a Paris Eclair guide-book the night before.

They parked in front of the hotel. Chris was in the lobby. Shaking hands with each of them as if this were a meeting of old friends, she led them to the lift. On the third floor she gave a light double knock at a door half-way along the corridor. 'Terry's room gives the

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sight-line on the apartment,' she explained. |Ve had all three made up already. We aren't g interrupted by any chambermaids.' an and Terry were in their shirtsleeves, corned the rest of the team with quick smiles, was a good size, with tall net-curta lows, but felt crowded with all six of thei

t�

f$>id you get a car?' Eve asked Terry all liately.

nodded. 'Silver Mercedes Cabriolet. I've g ; side of the hotel.'

yd. We're the Peugeot you can see down th< it. Are you ready to go through the rest of

the queen-size bed lay a combination-1 se and six covert-fit Motorola transmitters vets.

e've tested it,' said Terry. 'It all seems to b< ; order. And we've gpt the briefcase-Ned as! jpFhe combination is 1471 and it's a button-p lie system -- none of that old wheel-spinni want to give it a go?'

handed the aluminium briefcase to Slater, w in the code. The case sprung open -- em] ; for its foam lining.

reached beneath the bed and pulled oui duffel-bag. From this he withdrew seve jr-looking bubble-wrapped objects which 1 on the bed. 'One Sig Sauer P239G plus silenc

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one Clock 17, two boxes nine-millimetre ammunition,' he announced. 'Both weapons almost certainly known to the police.'

Slater unwrapped the handguns and checked their actions. Both appeared to be in good working order. He attached the silencer to the Sig Sauer, then loaded the magazine and snapped it home.

'That's great,' he told Leon. 'Thanks.'

'No problem, man.'

The feel and smell of the weapons started Slater's heart pounding and he stood there motionless for a moment. He was aware, at the edges of his vision, of Eve and Chris watching him. The nerves would stay with him now - right up to the moment when he pressed the bell of Fanon-Khayat's apartment.

'Have you got a bathroom I can use?' he asked quietly.

Leon smiled and handed him a room-key.

When he returned, Chris called him to the window. 'The big gateway opposite,' she said, 'leads into a courtyard. You click open the gate by pressing that button on its right. There's no combination because it's right on the street and people are going in and out of the courtyard all day.'

Slater nodded. Even dressed by Yves St Laurent, he thought, she looked dowdy to the point of invisibility.

'Fanon-Khayat's instructions, as you know, are that the Firm's representative should enter the courtyard at midday and take the left-hand entrance. There you'll 1 find a lift marked Ascenseur B - which you take to thej

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floor. Make sure you end up on the right floor se they number them differently from us. Our 1 floor is their first floor, and so on.' ;r nodded again. 'Into the courtyard, left-hand ce, Ascenseur B, number four floor rather than j-style fourth floor. Do we know if the yard's monitored by CCTV?' , but we have to assume that it is. If it was ; you could hold an umbrella in front of you, but ; at the sky I wouldn't say there's much chance j. A basic disguise like a wig and a fake moustache [ do it as far as the CCTV is concerned, but then aok like a freak in the street and you'd certainly dembered by anyone else in the courtyard or the |y thoughts are that you should wear a hat and ses -- it's just about bright enough -- and that I're crossing the courtyard you should appear iting a cigarette. If you keep your head down ir hands in front of your face you should prove able on the CCTV tape.' She pointed to the ; table. 'Would you like to just try these?' 1C were two hats -- a trilby and a conservative in dark brown straw -- and three pairs of The straw hat and a pair of gold-framed, lensed glasses made the most difference, and in Ction with the clothes lent him a subtly lean appearence. Later, he would learn from ; Chris had been sent on a theatrical makeup sthetics course. Disguise was one of her

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'That's good,' agreed Eve. 'It knocks out his most distinctive feature, which is those pale blue AngloSaxon eyes. I'd like to darken the skin tone a few shades too.'

'Hey!' said Leon. 'Why not just send me?'

They all laughed, and Chris handed Slater a tube of cosmetic cream. 'Face, neck, ears, chest, hands and forearms please. There should be enough in there.'

In the bathroom Slater stripped to the waist and rubbed in the cream as directed. 'Careful round the hair-line,' Chris called out.

The cream was greasy, and had a cloying, perfumed smell. Looking in the- mirror as he rubbed it into his forehead, Slater saw that Eve was watching him through the open door. When he caught her eye she did not look away but continued to watch him with something that might have been amusement, might have been concern, might have been pure professional interest.

When he had finished, his appearance seemed unchanged. His blue Lanvin shirt felt tacky on his body.

'It takes an hour or so to take effect,' said Chris. 'But it should just make that difference. Your hair's perfect - half-way between dark blond and brown. Ask ten people what colour it is and they'll all come up with different answers.'

She pulled her cardigan-sleeves an inch or two up her arms and examined Slater critically.

'Two more accessories. Gloves, close-fitting,

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icr, for inside the apartment. And I've got you a belt. Something I had at home.'

placed the gloves with the weapons and the linium briefcase, and stared doubtfully down at the it. It was heavy, of plain brown leather and with a creet silver buckle. Half-way along its length, on the jde, a narrow pocket had been let into the leather I from this Chris drew a flat, dagger-shaped sliver of sparent plastic compound. The knife was ightless and no more than five inches long, but its ie and point were sharp. 'Something you had at home?' said Slater, running i finger up a razor-toothed serrated edge. t 'It'll do the business,' said Chris. 'Punch through el if necessary. And it won't show up on any iner.'

'Thanks,' said Slater appreciatively, slipping his St ent crocodile belt out of its loops and replacing it Chris's. 'It's a nice piece of kit.' ,,'A present,' said Chris with an oblique smile. Welcome to the parallel universe.'

11am the tension was mounting. Slater's skin had Dwned to a pale cocoa colour, and the steady drip ed of adrenaline was producing a familiar churning in ; stomach.

'On the wire, mate?' Andreas had asked him pathetically, and he had nodded. There were only many times that plans and back-up plans could be Mentally rehearsed. A decade earlier they had taken

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their places together in the belly of the helicopter which was to chopper them behind Iraqi lines, and the question in their minds had been the same: how does the story end? With cheers, laughter and backslapping in a bar? With discovery, terror and humiliation? With a bullet through the head? Each and every option was on the menu.

In the Regiment they'd crank themselves up with blokeish chat and a series of private rituals. Slater's included endless weapon-checking, and it irked him that he had not been able to test-fire the Sig Sauer. Although you never talked about fear the one thing you could be sure of was that everyone was feeling pretty much the same as you were. Here, though, in this overheated hotel bedroom, it was different. He had no idea what was going through Chris's mind, or Terry's, or Eve's.

Leon he found easier to read, as of course he did Andreas. Leon had started life like himself- as a good old green-eyed boy, hungry for trouble. Only a nutter would join the Legion, and only a maniacally switched-on nutter would make it into their para regiment, as Leon had. He'd been based in Corsica, he told Slater, and had done tours of duty in Africa, French Guyana and the Middle East.

When Slater had asked him how he came to be attached to the Department, however, he had clammed up. 'Later, man,' he'd said, and taken his place behind the binoculars focused on FanonKhayat's flat.

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Ithough there was no confirmation that Fanonayat was actually in the flat, the lights had been itched on at 6pm the evening before, then switched "shortly after llpm, and no one approximating to lon-Khayat's description had left. An e-mail had arrived from P4 at Vauxhall Cross confirming the lezvous.

fcFanon-Khayat would be expecting Neil Clissold at bon, local time.

t t(

i .11.20 Eve and Andreas fitted themselves up with eir Motorola comms kits. These involved miniature Dat mikes and earpieces with micro-antennae. A

ran down one arm to a transmit-receive switch. LSlater watched them dubiously. Like many soldiers, distrusted high-tech comms systems. They were at when they worked but they too often quite aply didn't. They weren't soldier-proof. You Suldn't sit on them or drop them in a river. "f Having checked each other, they departed for the w Michelange. Eve gave him a nod as she went, sdreas a quick thumbs-up. The other three itinued their surveillance of the flat. 'I think the reason we're not seeing anyone is that room facing us is unused,' Terry was saying, 'or a pare room, perhaps. That would be logical, given that ji& the one overlooking the road.' |{'Perhaps he's afraid of being sniped,' suggested 'We could get a fairly easy shot from here, Wouldn't you say, Neil?'

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'I guess you could,' said Slater. 'Although it would be pretty obvious where the shot had come from. And hotel staff often have good memories for faces.'

'Yes, but you wouldn't look at it like that if you were in his position . .. Hang on, isn't that someone now?'

Terry smoothly retracted the binoculars and their stand. 'Look, there's one of the bodyguards eyeballing us.'

Slater saw what Chris meant. A heavy-set type in a suit had parted the curtains opposite and was peering at the hotel.

'Yes,' Terry murmured into his mike. 'We see him. Over.'

He listened for a moment. 'Understood, you are in position, over.' He looked over his shoulder and raised one eyebrow.

Slater nodded, the anticipation was taut as a bowstring now.

'Yes, good to go. Repeat, Neil is good to go. Over.'

Slater flexed his fingers, put on the dark glasses and the hat, picked up the briefcase, checked himself in the bathroom mirror, allowed Chris to give him the onceover, and nodded to the others.

'Neil is go,' came Terry's calm report. 'Repeat. Neil is go.'

Slater took the stairs rather than the lift, and left the hotel by a side door. Turning away from the Rue Molitor, swinging the briefcase as if it contained nothing more than a mobile phone, a packet of

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Jauloises and a copy of Paris-Match, he made his way the Rue Chardon-Lagache. The impression he panted to give was that of a man who had [>pointments to keep, but was in no great hurry to do >. It was Saturday, after all, and the sun was shining, le didn't want to radiate midweek city-centre strain. Ten minutes later, and feeling a little less knotted-up his walk, Slater found himself once more on the loie Molitor. He wasn't being followed, of that he was am . Nor, as far as he could see, did FanonKhayat any kind of outlying security presence. If the ich had a watcher team on him, then they were ide a building, and well concealed. The streets were lidential, and all but empty. There were no idworkers, no loitering telephone repair teams, no I guys eating ham and cheese sandwiches in cars.

itside the Cafe Michelange, their faces turned to I sunshine, Eve and Andreas stirred demi-tasses of hot colate. Eve was still wearing her watch, Slater saw �e signal that all was clear.

iter's hands found the packet of Gauloises and the jnt lighter in his jacket pocket. Taking advantage hiatus in the traffic to cross the road, he placed a rette in his mouth, and pressed the button beside [ entry-gates to the courtyard with his lighter. The -gate clicked off the latch, and Slater ducked and lired. Keeping his head low, flicking the lighter in of his mouth as he walked and with his other shielding the flame, he crossed the smooth les to a shadowed doorway. Up three steps, past

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the CCTV camera, and past a row of locked postboxes. Pinching out the cigarette, he slipped it into his jacket pocket and pulled on the gloves Chris had brought for him. The sign in front of him read 'Ascenseur B'.

Cool it, Slater told himself. Breathe. You're meeting a professional colleague for lunch. You have much to discuss. You're looking forward to it. There will be BGs there but you will ignore them. You will submit politely -- with an ironic smile, perhaps - to their search. You have nothing to hide.

You are expected, a Balkan desk-officer.

Your name is Neil Clissold.

The lift slow and grumbling, each floor sliding past. A lurch as it came to a halt. Six feet of polished parquet. A single large door. The bell sounding far inside, and with it Slater's nerves lifting away, and a frozen calm descending.

Beyond the door-chain, a bodyguard with a face like a dumpling. Fatty jowls, suspicious eyes, and a gone-to-seed body in a shiny Adidas tracksuit. Beneath the zipped top, the cross-strap of a shoulder holster. From the interior of the flat, melancholy piano music.

'Clissold,' said Slater, removing his hat and placing the dark glasses in the top pocket of his jacket. 'Je m'appelk Neil Clissold.'

The bodyguard nodded -- maybe understanding him, maybe not -- and unlatched the chain. Behind him, another suet-featured Balkan, this one toting a handgun, a heavy Tokarev 7.62 automatic. The weapon had

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Chris Ryan

la strip of Scotch tape across the end of the barrel -- an aid Soviet affectation intended to keep the weapon lean in wet weather. Blinking, and with all the confu |ion that he could manage, Slater placed the briefcase etween his legs. Looking from man to man with a ner >us smile, he half-raised his hands. The first bodyguard indicated that he should turn id face the wall, and stand with hands braced against t. When Slater did so the bodyguard patted down his s, chest and legs. Just as well, thought Slater, he I't wearing one of the comms sets. Finally the yrguard was satisfied, and stepped back. 'Ouvre!' he iered, pointing at the briefcase. 'Open!' 'Moi?' asked Slater idiotically, prompting a jntemptuous exchange in Serbo-Croat between the

rds.

i /You!' said the guard with the Tokarev. 'Slater pointed to a marble-topped sideboard, and the ler man placed the briefcase on it. Sauntering up to Slater punched in the 1471 code. The briefcase ang open. From the street below came the distant Mnble of traffic.

Sig Sauer was out of the briefcase and aimed at > first bodyguard's face before the Serb fully compreaded what he had seen.

"Drop it,' ordered Slater. 'Both of you. Guns on the yi.'

The bodyguard facing him slowly reached for his ilder holster, a wary but professional acceptance of situation showing in his eyes. Deliberately, Slater

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thumbed down the Sig Sauer's safety-catch. In the interior of the apartment, the music played sadly on.

'Any bollocks,' he said, 'and I'll fucking shoot you. ComprenezT

The bodyguard nodded, began very slowly to lift a handgun from his shoulder holster -- but with his thumb and index finger only, in order to emphasise his non-hostile intentions.

The other guard was still uncertainly holding the Tokarev -- wondering, Slater was sure, if he could get a shot in without hitting his colleague. Taking a fast sidestep, Slater lowered the Sig Sauer and squeezed off a single silenced round. With the impact the Tokarev and the Serb's right thumb seemed to leap across the hallway to the.carpet.

Hurriedly, the first bodyguard lowered his weapon to the floor. A Stechkin, Slater saw - another clunky Soviet relic. The second bodyguard was staring vacantly at his severed thumb. Blood from the trailing hand was pooling blackly among the carpet fibres beside his Nike cross-training shoe.

That knocked the fight out of the fucker, no error.

From the briefcase he took two pairs of plasticufls, and handed them to the first -- and now entirely compliant -- bodyguard. With the Sig Sauer he gestured towards the bleeding man. 'Cuff him,' he said, pointing to his wrists and ankles. 'Quickly!'

Carefully, as if providing him with medical care, the Serb helped his shocked colleague to the floor and handcuffed his hands and feet.

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'Now yourself,' said Slater quietly, handing the Serb vo more pairs of plasticuffi and waving the Sig Sauer his face. 'Move it! Vite!' He was becoming creasingly anxious that Fanon-Khayat would appear fore the guards were fully immobilised. When both men were recumbent, he tightened the sticuffs to their limit, took a roll of zinc-oxide tape ic briefcase, and wrapped it several times around eir mouths. A blue cotton hood -- originally a lurch's shoe-bag -- was then fastened over each j's head. Slater considered giving them a blast of in the nose and eyes for good measure, but ided against it. They were adequately immobilised igs stood.

doors led off the hall. Carefully, Slater opened '. left-hand one, which he calculated led to the room ale from the hotel opposite. The room was empty, \ although fully decorated and well lit, appeared to use as a store-room. It held perhaps forty pieces ild furniture, all with labels attached. Moving a set upholstered chairs to one side, Slater returned to 1, took the bodyguards by the collar and dragged over the polished floor into the storeroom. :, panting with the effort, he stowed them under logany dining table. Noticing on the way out of Ifoom that there was a key in the lock, he turned it |pocketed it.

lickly, he straightened the hall, laling, Slater deliberately loosened his neck and Jders. Keep switched on, he ordered himself as he

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quickly attached the Motorola to his belt and fitted the throat-mike and earpiece. Keep it tight.

'Neil send. Do you read me? Over.'

Nothing.

'All stations, this is Neil. Do you read me? Over.'

Nothing again. Just hiss and blank air. The walls of the flat were too thick.

Taking the key from his pocket he let himself back into the store-room. This time the response was clear.

'Eve to Neil -- all clear, repeat, all clear. What is your situation? Over.'

'Two hostiles immobilised. Now targeting FanonKhayat< Over and out.'

Move, he told himself. Get in, get the pictures, whack Fanon-Khayat, and get out. You're wasting time.

Gun in one hand, briefcase in the other, he pushed open the door from the hall to the interior of the apartment. The volume of the music rose. Was FanonKhayat a piano-player? For some obscure reason Slater hoped not.

To his left an unlit corridor lined with framed paintings led into darkness; to his right, illuminated by tall windows, the same corridor curved round the side of the building. In front of him was a half-open door.

Slater moved left-handed, along the unlit corridor. A worn but elegant Persian runner covered most of the floor, effectively muffling his footsteps. In his ear the miniature receiver had gone dead again.

Carefully, Slater tried the end door. It opened into

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>ther store-room. Racks held several dozen dusty ies of wine, and shelves held bound editions of iicals, maps and books about antiques. A single laded bulb hung from the ceiling, and directly eath it, on the uncarpeted parquet flooring, a away canvas bed had been erected. An orange g-bag lay half-unzipped on this, as did two light bags with crumpled clothing spilling out of a couple of German or possibly Dutch lographic magazines, a gold-plated identity elet, a half-empty bottle of slivovitz, and an led carton of Balkan cigarettes. Over all of this the odour of stale masculinity - of dirty socks, windows, unwashed armpits and sperm, rbian bodyguard quarters, thought Slater, quickly jing out again. Unappetising even by the generally standards of Balkan paramilitary hygiene. ae next room held paintings - scores of them, I against the wall -- and a few small furniture Chandeliers and stacks of china plates lay in -topped cardboard boxes. They must be on their the auction-rooms, thought Slater. Fanon at must be realising his assets. Again, the floor was but this time the room was untenanted, and the . was the lavendered smell of old possessions - of are-polish, varnish and dust.

bedroom next. Doubling, guessed Slater, as ag room for Branca Nikolic, FanonKhayat's ^-something Serbian bride. A wardrobe stood open on a garish Mexican carpet and Slater

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caught a glimpse of cellophaned dry-cleaning and expensive-looking shoe-boxes. Tacked to the watered-silk wall were posters of Madonna, Geri Halliwell and a couple whom Slater recognised as the assassinated warlord Arkan Raznatovic and his pop star wife Svetlana 'Ceca' Velickovic. Arkan and Ceca's magic-markered signatures had been scrawled across their portrait.

Exiting, Slater crept past the half-open door of the drawing-room, from which - to Slater's relief - the music still poured. That, certainly, was where FanonKhayat would be waiting. And waiting impatiently, if Slater didn't get a move on. He would know Slater was here, and he would expect the bodyguards' search to take a few minutes. The desire to appear in control of the situation would lead him to wait until the bodyguards showed him in, calculated Slater, but there were limits. Much longer and he'd come out and see what the hold-up was.

The first room in the right-hand corridor was the Fanon-Khayats' bedroom, decorated in orientalist style with hanging lamps and drapes. Hurrying in, quickly sweeping the place with the Sig Sauer, Slater checked the dressing area and the gold-accessorised en-suite bathroom. Empty.

A further spare bedroom. Empty.

A second bodyguard hutch. The magazines about martial arts and attack-dogs this time, as well as the inevitable wank-mags. A shell-suit on a wire hanger. The smell the same.

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ilater and Fanon-Khayat, it seemed, were alone.

the Sig Sauer out of sight behind the fcase, Slater hurried back up the corridor and ped into the drawing-room. It was vast, panelled I flooded with dusty light. Huge abstract canvases the walls with crumbling tapestries. Invisible raced up and down the keyboard of an iible Steinway grand piano. The source of the jic was a quartet of loudspeakers shaped like ilus shells.

toine Fanon-Khayat looked older than his half iry of years, and a Lacoste tennis shirt and ce jeans did nothing to mitigate this impression. iWas also balder than he had appeared in arson's presentation - his remaining locks i>ed with unconvincing bravado across a billiard Pig, the arms-dealer had risen from an armchair

f-crossed the room by the time that he realised ag was very wrong, that the man with the se had not been shown in by the bodyguards -- I, that there was no sign of the bodyguards. Clissold ..." he began uncertainly, his hand still etched.

er revealed the Sig Sauer. Seeing it, Fanon seemed to crumple, to shrink inside his re leisurewear. His hand fell tiredly to his side. ilbu know exactly what I want,' said Slater levelly. it those pictures. This gun is silenced, I've already on those idle shitbags in the lobby, I'm happy

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to use it again. So get the pictures -- the disc -- now.'

'I thought we were . . . going to discuss a deal.' Fanon-Khayat looked sulky and disappointed, but not yet truly afraid.

Til give you a deal,' said Slater, casually bringing up the Sig Sauer, aiming, and reducing a portrait-bust on a plinth to a shower of shattered clay. 'Those pictures against your life.' He turned the Sig Sauer back towards his quarry.

Fanon-Khayat looked at the pottery shards dispassionately. His eyes flickered. 'You've come from Ridley?'

Mentally, Slater reeled. He knew Ridley's name? In that case he probably knew what Ridley's department did. And what Slater had come to do. What else did he know? .

'I've come from London.'

'For the pictures.'

'Where are they?'

Fanon-Khayat tentatively ran his ringers through his thinning hair. 'Suppose they're not here?'

This was bad, thought Slater. This had to be turned around, and fast. He lowered the gun and took a step back.

'Look, Mr Fanon-Khayat, make it easy for yourself. You know who I am, you know where I come from, you know we don't fuck about. Just give us the disk and I'll be off.'

'And if I refuse?'

He knows, thought Slater. He knows what I'm here

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j. Knows he has nothing to lose by refusing to cote, ive you heard of the Ustashe, Mr . .. Clissold?'

ater stared at him, not listening, wondering how to Shooting him in the hand or leg would ably put Fanon-Khayat into shock and accomplish Threatening to hit him might bring some i to the situation - most people were frightened of ; hit. He took a step forward, and FanonKhayat yr cowered, ic Ustashe were a Croatian army, Mr Clissold,

i joined forces with the occupying Nazis during st war, and turned on their neighbours, the Serbs.

army whose crimes equalled for sheer horror the Nazis themselves committed. They ted Serbs with knives, with saws, with--'

listory later,' said Slater, ignoring him. 'The disc

My cannot wait much longer, Mr Clissold. And are many copies of the disc. Destroying this one accomplish nothing.' er was not going to be drawn into an argument.

les, he was certain that Fanon-Khayat was bluffing iderson's calculation was that he would not have copies for fear of devaluing his original.

ic disc now,' he repeated, raising his voice, that moment the door re-opened. His heart 5, Slater recognised Branca Nikolic. From the

-free bags in her hands he guessed that she had just in from Charles d$ Gaulle airport. She was

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wearing an ankle-length pink chiffon coat and white trainers and her pretty, spoilt face looked tired.

Sprinting across the room, Slater grabbed her before her husband had a chance to speak. Gagging her with one hand and wrenching her head backwards, he held the Sig Sauer to her throat. She whimpered, began to shake in his arms.

'Please . . .' said Fanon-Khayat. 'She--'

'The disc now!' Slater shouted, jabbing the silencer up beneath her jaw. 'Or I'll shoot her in front of you. I'll blow her fucking throat out.'

Visibly distressed, Fanon-Khayat raised his hands, crossed the room to the massive fireplace and reached for a carved roundel on one of the side columns. The wooden disc, some nine inches in diameter, turned smoothly beneath his hands. Once removed, it revealed a small barrel-safe with a combination lock. A moment later the circular steel door swung open. From the interior of the safe Fanon-Khayat removed a CD in a flat plastic case. His hands were shaking badly now.

'Please, Mr Clissold,' he begged quietly. 'Please. Let her go. She doesn't know anything about--'

'Stay where you are,' said Slater. 'Tell the girl to bring the disc over here to me.'

Fanon-Khayat spoke to his wife in halting Serbian, and she nodded.

Slater released her, wiping her saliva from his hand on to his trousers. As she stepped backwards away from him her eyes widened. At the fireplace FanonKhayat

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Slater had time to half-turn, to catch a blurred se of a descending arm, and then - Itaneously - a sick crunch, a whipcrack of white |tt, and the enfolding bloom of darkness.

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TEN

Slater woke in darkness. His hands were cuffed behind his back, there was blood in his mouth, and the pain in his head was so great that he retched. It was as if a spiked cannonball was rolling in his skull, crushing nerves and bone as it went. His eyes, too, were in agony - seared by the glare of that phosphorescent impact.

He gagged up an acid, throat-rasping gob of bile. It smeared sourly around his face, mingled with the metallic blood-smell. He was lying face-down, he realised. Was he in bed?

Reality came stamping home. He was in the boot of a car, the car was on the move, and his vomit-smeared head was rolling around inside a plastic carrier-bag.

There had been a third man.

He must have come with Branca. Stayed downstairs, perhaps, to pay a taxi-driver. Followed with baggage. And unlike Branca, he must have noticed that the bodyguards were not where they should have been, armed himself, summed up the situation at a glance.

Well, thought Slater wretchedly, this was certainly an impressive debut. Given a chance to distinguish himself he'd fucked up royally. It wasn't good enough

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blame the comrns -- in truth, he had barely been in sntrol of the situation before Branca's arrival. He had ad the gun, but Fanon-Khayat had had the yrchological advantage. Guessing that Slater had been ered not to leave the apartment without the disc, he decided to call his bluff. And had Branca not awn up ...

The floor bucked as the car went over the edge of a pivement, and Slater retched again. His eyes were timing as if rubbed raw with sandpaper and he ised that as well as coshing him they'd taken the ace from his briefcase and given him a liberal blast of at too. Just after cutting themselves out of the sticuffs, Slater guessed. The ones that were cutting > his wrists and ankles so painfully had come straight [Suet-Face and Potato-Head, should have shot Fanon-Khayat straight away, jght Slater miserably. I should have put one 3Ugh his ear or taken off a finger or something to him going, like I did with that Serb. And if he i't produced the disc after that, well, I should have : wasted him and got the fuck out.

trouble was, he hadn't looked like the sort of ' you shot. In the past, all those against whom Slater waged war had been young men -- tough and tivated volunteers who knew the score and who ild reasonably be expected to survive a bit of rough lent. Torturing middle-aged art-collectors was much a new departure for Slater, whatever their ical sympathies, and he'd held back.

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Even though they weren't expecting her to be arriving in Paris, both support teams would have identified Branca Nikolic on sight. They would have tried desperately to get through. If he could contact them, they would have reasoned, then they could contact him. And when they couldn't, they must have thought that he'd switched off- that he'd deliberately broken contact.

And now what? A deserted patch of woodland somewhere outside the city and a bullet through the head, probably. They would use his silenced Sig Sauer - a much sweeter and lighter piece of kit than that Cold War junk they all carried about. They were probably arguing right now about who got to keep it. And who got die Motorola.

Would Fanon-Khayat and the Serbs question him before killing him? Slater wondered. Unlikely -- there were no useful answers he could give them. They knew where he came from, they knew what he wanted, they knew what he'd been trying to do. If they were not going to look like a bunch of complete pussies, they had to kill him. That would bring MI6 to the negotiating table fast enough.

They were in traffic now, Slater realised. And every jerked start and bad-tempered foot-brake stop was red hot agony. Someone -- probably the now single thumbed Suet-Face - had given him the mother and father of kickings in the bollocks. Fuck, he was in a bad way.

Was there any hope of pulling out of this? Precious

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le. Would the team have got on to him? Were they id him now, tailing this very car? Unlikely. These ale weren't stupid. They'd have known he had c-up and have taken evasive action.

what to do? Struggle, or go gently? Thrash etically around in his handcuffs and get another ig for his pains? Or bow his head to the bullet, ier to soldier?

ater considered the quick 9mm round through the ebellum. At that moment there seemed no point in inuing to fight. The vehicle swung through a ale, sending red-hot needles coursing through his sed neck and testicles.

jo would miss him or notice that he was gone? ^couldn't come up with a single name. He struggled lember his mother, but could barely recall the ed photographic image that he had carried around many years. She had been hit by a police-car in ; Kong and had died the next day in the colony's hospital. Slater had been five at the time ; six - and hoping for a bicycle for his birthday, i distraught father had remained in the army until talcoholism became as apparent to his seniors as it to his fellow-NCOs, and thereafter found jjloyment as a nightwatchman in Aldershot. Bill had died of pneumonia at sixty, while Slater was in Belize, but in truth Neil had started to lose ither on that never-to-be-forgotten day in Hong His sixth birthday had come and gone lebrated -- the bicycle was not mentioned again --

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and a year later Slater had been dispatched to a boarding school outside Trowbridge in Somerset. His classroom work had been undistinguished - mild dyslexia had seen to that - but on the rugby field he'd proved one of the best fly-halves the school had ever known. He'd enjoyed the place, all in all, with its friendships and conspiracies, and unlike the other pupils had never looked forward to the holidays, which had been spent with his mother's unmarried sister Amy near Bedford.

Amy was unlikely to have been impressed by the way he had turned out. She had taken him into her house out of a sense of family duty rather than any fondness for children, and her relief when term-time came round again had been obvious. Amy had notably lacked her younger sister's sense of fun and adventure, but she had taught him one invaluable skill: how to iron and fold a shirt to a professional laundry standard. This facility would earn Slater valuable beer-money in the five years that he spent with the Royal Engineers. The Engineers had been his father's regiment, and joining up - Slater had never seriously considered any other career -- had been like coming home. He was flagged almost immediately as an exceptional soldier. Selection for the SAS had followed shortly after he was made up to corporal.

Schools and regiments were ultimately the same though, thought Slater. People came and people went. You were there for a time and then you moved on, and in personal terms you ceased to exist. Other boys,

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Chris Ryan \ -v

joking much like you, sat at the desk where you had at. Other soldiers, looking much like you, trained inhere you had trained. No one was different enough

i make a mark. Your name was typed on a list, pinned a board, placed in a file, and forgotten.

It occurred to Slater as the vehicle plunged into yet aother furrow - another red-hot knife in the neck nd the balls -- that he was about to die for his country, id for the first time since recovering consciousness |ie ghost of a smile touched his lips. Hooking the ljumbs of his plasticuffed hands into the back of his elt, he attempted to brace himself against the jotong

" the car, which was getting worse. They had been riving for over an hour, he guessed, and had moved am main roads to local lanes. They were probably in ie countryside now - the going certainly felt uneven sugh.

His thumbs found the knife Chris had given hnn.

ley had searched him, but they hadn't found it. He'd gotten about it himself.

i No, he begged the trained part of himself - the part

at had been, and always would be, an SAS soldier. |ease no. Don't order me to go on fighting. [You're not dead, a quiet voice whispered, until bu're dead. This is what it's about. This is what

parates the wolves from the sheep. This is the

oment that your entire life has led up to. Fight. \ Please. Let me close my eyes. Let me die. tOpen your eyes. Whatever the odds, whatever the i. Fight.

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Another horrendous jolt, banging Slater's cheekbone hard into his own blood, tears and vomit.

Agonisedly, inch by inch, he fingered the sliver of compound plastic from his belt, pushed it down his left sleeve, fitted it under his watchstrap.

It was laughable, no defence against anything or any one, let alone a team of heavily armed and quite possibly sadistic RDB enforcers - but when all was said and done it was a weapon.

When daylight suddenly and violently flooded the car boot, Slater guessed that they had covered about 100 miles. He had been unconscious, he guessed, for about twenty minutes. The bag was pulled from his face and he blinked* painfully - his eyes and sinuses were still acutely tender &om being blasted with Mace.

As his vision cleared he saw one of FanonKhayat's bodyguards - Potato-Head -- reaching for him. Noted the gold-plated identity bracelet on the hairy wrist.

Distaste showed on the Serb's face at the vomit and blood-smeared features before him. Gripping Slater by the lapels of his jacket, he wrenched him from the car and pushed him to the ground.

They were in a farmyard, Slater saw blearily, and he was lying on a grass verge that had been churned up by cattle and had then dried hard and uneven. The land surrounding them was hilly and sparsely wooded, and there was no sign that they were overlooked from any direction. Certainly there was no other dwelling-place of any kind in sight. The car he had travelled in was a

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olive Audi Quattro, new-looking. The day : and cloudless.

l farm itself was in a poor state of repair. Thistles grass grew through the cracks in the yard's etc floor, and the brick outbuildings were badly ted. Beyond the yard several dozen young pigs attently squealed and jostled in a makeshift pen. rutted track beyond them a tractor and trailer | parked. Two cabbage white butterflies tumbled I each other in a looping aerial ballet. There was

of bees. It was a drowsy and peaceful scene. 6>t for long. From the front seat of the Audi 1 Suet-Face, a bloody dressing round the stump thumb, and a third man, as pasty-faced and set as the first two. This, Slater guessed, was the rfio had bumped him in the apartment. The two s together, Suet-Face spat on the ground and took -bottle of spirits from his pocket, and they stared i, amused.

8ter was not encouraged. None of the trio had the man who intended to be merciful. With his i hands he felt for the knife. It was still there, iusic?' Suet-Face asked Slater, swigging from the

and reaching inside the car. 'You like?' 7ithout warning the quiet of the farmyard was ered by the ear-splitting thump of a techno beat, ap of which a woman's voice began to screech a ely amplified ethnic folk-song. It was, thought : as he turned his head away, a truly hideous sound, Audi's top-of-the-range hi-fi did it full justice.

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'You like?' shouted Suet-Face, tipping back the bottle again. 'Is Ceca Raznatovich.'

'Is shit,' Slater shouted back. 'Ceca fucks pigs. So does your mother.'

Best, he thought, to keep it simple.

But Suet-Face, despite being in what must have been considerable pain from his missing thumb, refused to be wound up. Instead, to Slater's staring disbelief, he started to dance - or at least to move his body in rough time to the music.

'You like pigs?' he said, still grinning. 'Is good you like pigs.'

The other two joined in, grinding their hips, punching the air and yelling the choruses with formless, incoherent abandon. The bottle passed hands. On Suet-Face's features a look of almost drooling anticipation had taken residence. They're cranking themselves up to kill me, thought Slater. This turbo-folk shit is the last music I'm going to hear.

The three men danced, drank and yelled for the twenty minutes that it took for the tape to play itself out, and then, sweating heavily, Suet-Face made for the barn which made up one side of the farmyard. From its shadowed interior Slater heard the faint grumble of a generator and then, above this, the heavy vibration of another, much larger piece of equipment. For some reason the sound seemed to excite the pigs, which scrabbled and fell over each other frenziedly.

Smiling, Potato-Head strode over to where Slater lay hunched on the verge.

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igs, English,' he grinned. 'Come!'

reen them he and the cosh-man dragged Slater i feet and pulled him roughly into the entrance to am. With a surge of dread that almost caused him jve at the knees Slater saw the machine that had vibrating with such menace -- a heavy-duty strial wood-chipper. It shuddered on its battered i on the hard earth floor as if ravenous for matter ftnsume.

sing Slater's white-faced horror, Suet-face gave thumbs-up with his good hand. He then ated the gesture with his bad hand, shrugged, and . The message was clear: I've lost my thumb, but t about to lose your life.

gave an order, and the cosh-man stepped ;, taking a pitchfork that was leaning against the fWall. From the yard came an agonised screaming, when the cosh-man returned a small pig was and keening on the pitchfork's upturned

ig with the effort, the cosh-man unloaded the i-legs first into the waiting maw of the The animal was still screaming when the started and the first bloody slush began ; into the waiting bin. When the outflow had been reduced to a slow drip of pink fat, the wiped his forehead and winked at Slater, you, fuck your mother, and fuck your said Slater conversationally. Inside, he was t deranged with fear. Do I keep the knife hidden

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and try to stick one of these fuckers, he wondered, or do I saw through my wrist right now and hope that \ bleed to death before they can feed me into that machine?

Suet-Face issued another order and Slater was dragged back out to the yard. Potato-Face followed with the slop-bin, and poured the still-steaming contents over the fence into the pigs' enclosure. Grunting and squealing furiously the animals piled in, devouring every scrap of tissue and bone. After less than a minute there was nothing left except for a few bloody smears on snouts and cheeks.

'Recycle!' explained Suet-Face. 'Very . . . ecology, no?'

Slater, whose legs were threatening to fold beneath him, forced himself to remain standing. Not to vomit.

A rotten-toothed smile split the broad peasant face. 'And now, England, we recycle you!'

Taking his upper arms, the other two began once again to drag the hopelessly writhing Cadre member across the rough concrete of the yard to the barn. Conscious that terror and the anticipation of unspeakable pain was beginning to shut down his thought-processes altogether, Slater forced himself to act.

Twitching his head crazily and screaming the foulest obscenities he could think of in order to attract attention away from his hands, he palmed the knife.

In the dead centre of the yard he yanked his feet forward, braked himself, and swinging his cuffed fists backwards with all the force he could muster, drove

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ade up to the hilt into Suet-Face's crotch.

Y, and in total silence, the Serb fell to his knees,

ater did not see this. What he saw - incompreIgly - was Eve rising into the double-handed \ position at the entrance to the yard.

i sound of her weapon - the multiple reports I almost lazily over the hot air, and it seemed to

that he heard the bone-smashing impact of the

( and felt the hot tissue-spray on his cheek first.

; Serbs at his sides pitched away from him, their I bloodily open-ended, lifeless before they hit the

Msve!' shouted Eve. 'Move left.' swideringly, Slater threw himself to the concrete, [ the double crack and a thrilled screaming as the artion of Suet-Face's skull landed among the

$inesslike now, Eve raced forward, paused for a it with weapon extended over each Mien man. ' Serbs, however, were very dead indeed, and Eve returned the Clock to her shoulder-holster ebuttoned her Levi jacket.

9,' she said, and for a long moment they stared at \ other.

er tried to think of something to say - some 1 of gratitude -- but a paralysing weariness seemed ave overcome him, and he lowered his eyes. For time, he noticed the extreme tightness of the i&. knelt down beside him. Her leopardskin velvet

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trousers, he saw, were shredded at the knees. She was dressed for the sixteenth arrondissement, not for a life or-death stalk across open ground in the countryside.

'Who had the cuff-key?' she asked.

'Don't know,' he answered numbly.

Quickly she searched the corpses, pulled the key from the cosh-man's pocket and, kneeling, sprung open the biting cufis at Slater's wrists and ankles.

'Thanks!' he breathed, flexing his puffed and agonised fingers and gasping at the pain of the renewed circulation. Slowly he climbed to his feet, took a few tentative steps and turned to her. 'What can I say? Thank you again. I was . . .'

He nodded at the wood-chipping machine, still thrumming expectantly.

'How badly are you hurt?' asked Eve, walking into the barn and reaching for the generator button.

The machine grumbled to silence.

Slater felt for the back of his skull. There was a large and acutely tender lump there, but he was able to turn his head without the crunching agony that vertebral or skull-damage would have engendered. His sinuses were sore and his eyes were still very inflamed, his ribs were painfully bruised from a kicking that he suspected had been delivered to him when he was lying unconscious in the apartment, and his testicles were i badly swollen.

'I'm . . . I'm pretty much OK. They gave me a good < seeing-to in that flat, but I don't think they did any permanent. . .' Tears, Slater discovered, were

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ig down his face. 'They Maced me, too,' he jgised. 'My eyes are a bit fucked. Sorry.'

handed him a handkerchief, and he scrubbed ars and the congealing blood and brain-matter \ his face. Seeing a tap in the corner of the yard he over and held his head under it for half a

me honestly how you are,' Eve said when he inished.

i still a bit concussed,' he admitted. 'Mentally the ce seems to be on and I'll probably get the at some point, but basically I'm OK.' nodded. 'Right. Well I'll tell you what we're I to do. We'll bring each other up to speed about i in the car, but first we're going to do to our new what they were going to do to you. It'll be ' and unpleasant but it's got to be done.' : what is this place? Who owns it?' idea. But this is quite a common Mafia setup disposal. Very popular in Russia. Some hard -farmer gets paid a whack of cash to leave the es for a few hours - the whole thing arranged ie phone - and when he gets back the place is id tidy and his animals have been fed.' we're not going to have some irate bloke ; up with a shotgun?' subt it. And we'd see him a mile off, anyway. :'d see us, and know to keep his distance.' er nodded. 'Are you going to tell me what led? How you got here?'

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'Let's get shot of this trio first.'

'Where are the others?'

'Andreas followed Fanon-Khayat, who's holed up at a hotel near the airport outside Paris. Terry and Leon stayed at the OP to keep an eye on Branca, who's still in the Rue Molitor flat. I'll hear if there are any developments. Now do you think you can lift these guys?'

Slater was amazed at her composure. The entire operation had gone arse-up, she'd just had to shoot three men dead, and she was carrying on as coolly as if they were out on a shopping trip.

'Do you think the pigs will eat the clothes?'

'Not sure.' Eve frowned. 'Perhaps best to strip the bodies and drive the stuff away. Let's do it.'

They started. By unspoken agreement they worked as fast as they could, and in almost total silence. Soon a pile of clothes and shoes lay beside the three naked corpses. Eve went through the pockets, extracting several thousand francs in cash, the Tokarev and Stechkin handguns, the gold Dupont lighter, and the keys to the Audi Quattro. Slater removed his knife from Suet-Face's perineum, and washed it under the tap before returning it to his belt.

There was no question, he knew, of merely setting the car on fire with the bodies in it. There would be inquests and autopsies and the manner of death would swiftly come to light. Then there would be headlines.

No, there was no easy or pleasant way out. The dead men had to disappear completely.

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we haven't got a bit more time,' observed |*,'In six hours they'd be nice and stiff.' ^tttodded blankly.

: barn, Slater found a square of plastic sheeting, one he rolled the dead men on to this, and : them, bumping, into the barn. Once there he the heads with fertiliser bags, to prevent any j> escaping on to the earth floor. When all three were ready for destruction, he fetched the > bin from the enclosure, where Potato-Face had Bluebottle flies were swarming in and around feasting on the congealed remains of the pig, in a black fury as he lifted it. the bin positioned beneath the funnel, Slater e looked at each other. Eve turned on the ator, and Slater knelt to hoist the first of the in a fireman's lift.

: man was very heavy -- dead weight -- and blood lid matter dripped from the fertiliser-bag on to aulder and arm of Slater's jacket. Finally he had >dy poised, and tipped it in head first. There was ible grinding and roaring from within the ic, and then an obscene pink soup whitened by chips began to sluice into the plastic dustbin, disappeared comparatively fast but the iers took much longer. Slowly the body inched iwards until Slater signalled to Eve to shut the

icoff.

don't want to carry so much that it spills or ies,' he explained.

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Carefully, averting his head from the stinking stew around which the flies were already circling in their hundreds, Slater manhandled the bin over to the pigs' enclosure.

Smelling the blood the pigs began to trample over each other to get close to him. With care, Slater poured the flyblown contents of the bin into the trough which ran the length of the enclosure. The pigs piled in, lapping and crunching uninhibitedly.

'You haven't by any chance still got those Gauloises?' asked Eve, when he returned to the wood chipper. Slater had. The packet was a little battered but most of the cigarettes were in one piece.

'I always want to smoke if I miss lunch,' she explained with a quick smile.

'You're hungry?' asked Slater. A purple set of genitals and two fat, hairy legs were sticking bolt upright out of the woodchipper.

'Well, you know how pathetic French breakfasts are.'

'Do you want to hit that on-switch?' suggested Slater.

It took two more hours to process all of the bodies, and by the end both of them were bloodspattered, nauseated, and physically and emotionally drained. Slater was worried that the pigs would lose their appetites half-way through and leave the trough filled with shredded human tissue, but his final visit to the enclosure was greeted with all the squealing enthusiasm of the first.

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icn they had finally finished, Eve lit another ciga and Slater attached a hose from the barn to the tap. He sluiced down the bin, the pigs, the i, the plastic sheet, the inside and outside of the chipper and the concrete surface of the yard. To clean out the machine, Slater fed a pile of logs it, pouring the resulting woodchips into the enclosure. Microscopic forensic analysis might indicated the vestigial presence of human tissue I and there, but why was anyone going to subject Ifoarticular farmyard to that kind of scrutiny? Within |tes all the hosed-down surfaces had dried in the leaving no sign of the horror that had unfolded A blackbird sang on the baked tile roof of the There was a buzzing of grasshoppers. Here are we, anyway?' Slater asked. The pain in sin had subsided to a dull ache and the sunshine

ig him sleepy.

f-way between Chartres and Le Mans. Eighty Jes south-west of Paris. It's quite nice, isn't it?' ftybe we could retire here,' said Slater, yawning. i raise pigs.'

need to change our clothes,' said Eve, audibly ing herself. She moved to the pile of discarded 5. 'What have we got here?' ig offher short leather boots, she unzipped and I her torn velvet jeans. Her legs, Slater couldn't f'jHoticing, were long and well-toned, with the ion of a fading tan. courtesy of the Vauxhall Cross gym,' she said

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drily, intercepting Slater's covert glance. 'And knickers by La Perla. Anything else I can help you with?'

To replace the jeans, she took Potato-Head's shiny Adidas pants and belted them round the waist. With the Levi jacket the effect was a bit weird, but not so unusual as to attract attention.

As Slater stripped to his boxer-shorts and began pulling on the cosh-man's grey track-suit pants, Eve soberly examined the bruises on his upper body.

'They were really quite cross with you, weren't they?'

'I think it was the guy whose thumb I shot off that did most of the damage,' said Slater. 'To be honest I'd probably have a good go at anyone who did that to me.'

'But nothing broken? You're not pissing blood or anything?'

Til let you know,' said Slater, pocketing the Stechkin and the Tokarev. The weapons were so heavy that Slater had to tighten the draw-string at his waist to prevent the track-suit pants from being pulled down as he walked.

When they had taken the clothes they needed, the remainder went into the boot of the Audi. 'There was a place I passed about half an hour's drive back towards Paris,' said Eve. 'A kind of dump. We can get rid of these there. In the meanwhile' - she stabbed at the buttons of her mobile - 'we should get up to date. Andreas, yes, tell me.' She listened in silence for thirty seconds. 'Understood.'

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^Pressing the off-button she turned to Slater. 'Right. Here's the position. Andreas has Fanonayat under surveillance. He's in a hotel called the r-Lux near Charles de Gaulle airport, and as far as sas can tell he's there alone. There's no sign that i going anywhere -- he's just holed up in his room. s's got back-up there, he hasn't made face-to-face ttact with them.'

ifFanon-Khayat's got a hard decision to make,

iumably,' said Slater. 'Either to go for safety and run

Belgrade, or to go for profit and glory and tie up

I^Ondine deal. Am I right in thinking that he has to

here to do that?'

According to our assets, he'll want to do the deal If he goes back to Serbia and his contacts ?w him there, then the RDB will find out light away who they are and cut FanonKhayat i'of the deal. By staying here and operating outside orbit he can keep hold of all the strings, and : out of the whole thing looking like the single ied saviour of Republica Srpska. This'll ensure hero status in Belgrade -- never underestimate jf need of a middle-aged man to impress his baby trophy wife - and a fat backhander from the ier.'

lich he's going to need when Branca hits the s,' Slater added wryly.

fou better believe it! I only saw her for thirty ads but she looked to me like a girl who knew ' to give a gold Amex card a hard workout.'

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'So we think he's going to lie low at the hotel, then?'

'That would be my calculation.'

Slater nodded. 'So we have to do him there.'

'That or persuade him to come away with us so that we can do him somewhere else.'

'And he's got the disc there? The Cambodia pictures?'

'He must have. He wouldn't leave them in the flat without the bodyguards there. And the bodyguards all went off with you.'

'So one way and another we've got a better than average chance of completing the operation as intended?'

'I think so, yes. But the first thing we've got to do is make this Audi disappear. You haven't seen a slurry pond or anything like that?'

'I haven't seen anything. I was in the boot. But mightn't it be a better idea just to dump it? Somewhere it's absolutely bound to get nicked, replated and sold on. Do you know any really rough Parisian housing estates?'

'Yes, I do. And you're right, that would be the best way to get rid of it. We've got to go into Paris anyway.'

Slater looked around him, at the farm buildings bathed in afternoon sunshine, at the peace and quiet and solitude of the place.

'What's the plan?' he asked.

'Let's get rid of the clothes and the car,' said Eve. 'I'll

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Chris Ryan ryou on the way out to the airport.'

: dump was a vast, hellish smear of a place, covering eral acres. Bulldozers shovelled mountains of refuse, wheeled overhead, and smoke rose from a of fires. With the heat of the day the smell was ^eakable. Slater threw the armful of clothes and ; over a stinking garbage cliff-face, hurried back to /Audi Quattro, and gunned the engine in pursuit of !?� Peugeot.

hour later he wiped the controls and steering el clean of fingerprints and parked the car in the ijr-strewn shadow of a high-rise public-housing in Arcueil, two kilometres south of the icrique ring-road. With his hands inside the ; of his sweat-shirt to avoid leaving further prints : himself out of the car and walked away, leaving key swinging from the ignition.

streets away he eased himself into the ger seat of the Peugeot, and he and Eve headed tiwards for the Porte de Gentilly and the city of As she drove, he told her what had happened in KKhayat's apartment and at the farm. When he

led she told him her version of events. ?e got your first transmission,' she told him, you said that the two bodyguards were down. i about ten minutes later we saw Branca arrive in | Quattro. We all spotted her -- she's pretty akable. She got out and started giving ctions to the driver and I called you on the

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Motorola but got nothing. Walls of the building too thick, you'd switched off, whatever. The others all tried in turn but no one could raise you.

'The driver let Branca out and then drove round the back - presumably to some underground car-park entrance. At that point Andreas and I left the cafe, got into the two cars and waited. We had no way of knowing what was happening in the flat.

'Nothing for another fifteen minutes and then the Quattro re-appeared. Two passengers, same man driving.'

'The cosh-man,' said Slater, touching the back of his neck.

'Exactly. So I took off after them. No idea if you're in the car, Panon-Khayat's in the car, what the hell's happening. Anyway they carry out a couple of rudimentary ploys to lose anyone who's following them -- nothing I can't handle, though -- and I tuck in half a dozen cars behind them.

'At that point Terry comes through on the mobile. Fanon-Khayat, carrying a case, has just walked straight past Andreas and picked up a taxi at the Porte Molitor. Andreas is following in the Mercedes and is pretty sure Fanon-Khayat isn't on to him. They're on the Peripherique, heading east.

'I tell him I'm heading at speed down the A10 away from the city. No idea if you're in the car. The others all reckon you probably are, because as far as they know Branca hasn't left the flat. Whether you're dead or alive, Fanon-Khayat's hardly going to leave her

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with you. The consensus at that point is that f re dead, and that the bodyguards are taking your out into the countryside to get rid of it.' Hose enough to the truth,' said Slater grimly. 'I I you were suitably upset!'

with grief,' Eve said with a faint smile, ray ... I follow the Audi from the A10 on to the | and I assume we're going to Chartres, but we by ?it and head on towards Le Mans. Then Terry ; on again. Fanon-Khayat's going towards Roissy ic airport. It looks like he's running for Belgrade.'

[ news.'

je worst. It looks as if a hit's been botched, a aned target's escaped, and a Cadre member's silled.' abarrassing.'

: a bit. So I just press on, and eventually the Audi jffthe All on to a minor road and from there on ties of farm tracks. I'm lying well back, like I told i$o I'm able to pull in and watch their car crossing s. After that, well, you can imagine. I work my Across the fields for a half-mile or so and lie up that farmyard wall. What's really lucky is that that's got the Clock, not Andreas.' r long were you there?'

ig enough,' said Eve. 'The main thing I wanted aver was whether they were armed or not. As it never found out, and so as soon as you put one down I reckoned it was my best chance and st in.'

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Slater turned to her in his seat. 'You were brilliant. That was a great bit of shooting.'

Eve tried not to show her pleasure, but her eyes gave her away. 'I do like a Clock Seventeen,' she admitted.

'There is one question, though,' said Slater. 'Where's the Sig Sauer the bodyguards took off me?'

Eve considered. 'My guess is that FanonKhayat took it. It would have been the sensible step.'

'Which means,' said Slater, 'that Fanon-Khayat is armed . . . and Andreas isn't?'

'We have to assume that, yes.'

'So we should get up to that hotel as quickly as possible.'

'That's what's going to happen. Except that it's not going to be we. I'm dropping you off at the Montmorency and taking one of the others up there.'

'You're kidding!' Slater protested vehemently. 'I'm fine, I really am. Apart from anything else this whole situation's at least partly my fault. I was the one who let that bodyguard get the drop on me.'

'It's not a question of fault,* said Eve. 'It's a question of the team as a whole getting the job done, and I'd be completely irresponsible if I asked you to carry on at this stage. You had the hit on Fanon-Khayat to deal with this morning, for a start. Then you had a bad knock on the head, a severe beating and a hundred mile journey in a car-boot, and to top it all off you were told you were about to be fed through a meat grinder. You're rucked, basically, and no bloody wonder.'

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Chris Ryan

Slater was silent. As an SAS soldier he had been

lined to keep going whatever his state of exhaustion.

tercises had often been designed to run for days without a break, and he was familiar with all the femptations that extreme tiredness brought in its wake:

* cut corners and to skimp on detail. To mistake light jjfeadedness for clear-headedness; to let the jncentration wander; to make overemotional ecisions.

Like his colleagues, Slater had learnt to monitor his pwn condition and to compensate for these

idencies. But there was a point, he knew, beyond trhich the best soldier's efficiency was compromised, today had not been an especially long day but heavy

senditures of adrenaline and terror had taken their jll, and the blazing relief of his deliverance had been

placed by the dull blur of emotional fatigue. Eve was it - he was running on empty.

She parked the Peugeot outside the Hotel Grand

telmans, and they hurried in a side-door with the Overnight bags they'd taken from the Montmorency lat morning. In the room designated as the OP, Leon id Chris gave them a relieved welcome. The pair had arely left the room all day and their faces betrayed the

am they'd been under, listening to the day's events ^ia radio links and mobile phones.

'Good to have you back, man!' said Leon quietly. Thought we'd lost you then.'

'So did I,' said Slater, clasping the other man's hand. iBelieve me, so did I.'

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He turned to Chris. 'The knife,' he said. Thank you. It saved our . ..'

'Bacon?' asked Chris with a wry smile.

'I was trying to avoid using that word,' said Slater. 'But yes.'

'I don't want to spoil the party,' said Eve. 'But where's Terry?'

'Left to follow Branca five minutes ago,' said Chris. 'She came out of the apartment dressed up to the nines, and headed north on foot.'

'Terry followed her on foot?'

'No, he'd hired another car this afternoon. Said he'll call in as soon as he's got anything to report.'

Eve nbdded and punched out a number on her mobile. 'Why don't you take a shower and change?' she suggested to Slater.

Slater agreed gratefully. The edges of the room were beginning to blur. Fishing the Stechkin and the Tokarev from his pockets he dropped them on the bed next to Leon. 'From Serbia, with love.'

Leon looked down at the heavy automatics. 'This is not fashionable weaponry,' he observed.

'These guys have fairly old-fashioned values,' said Slater.

For ten full minutes he stood beneath the power shower in Leon's room, letting the hot water blast away the sweat and fear of the day.

He returned, smartly dressed, to find a pot of freshly brewed coffee waiting on a tray. Leon had disappeared.

'How are you feeling?' Eve asked, cautiously.

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Chris Ryan

'Better,' said Slater. 'Up to keeping going?' 'Sure.'

Eve looked at Chris, and then back at Slater. 'The sition is this. I've just been talking to Andreas at the ter-Lux and he needs back-up for tomorrow jrning. Two people. The problem is there's only je room free there -- and that's a double. Now the eal arrangement is that Chris or I go with Leon or $rry and let you recharge your batteries. The trouble we've lost Terry for the time being and we're sure that a mixed-race or two-woman couple Id stick out. The staff would remember us and it's important that that doesn't happen. So, basically' ie folded her arms across her chest - 'it's you and again. Up for it?' I'Sure,' said Slater.

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ELEVEN

'So, where are we going for our week of passion?' Slater asked, pulling out into the fast lane to overtake a line of slow-moving trucks.

'Better make it somewhere boring,' said Eve. 'How about London?'

'Why not Venice?' suggested Slater. 'Lovers always go to Venice.'

'Maybe, but that wouldn't explain why we were taking an eleven-stone trunk with us. My suggestion is that Neil Clissold and Eve Benbow are two single English people, working in Paris, who have come together as a result of a shared love of old books. As we're going to spend a few days together in London, we're taking a trunkful of books back with us.'

'So where did we meet?'

'At the flea-market, let's say. At the Porte de Clignancourt.'

'So what were we buying?'

'You were buying, let's see, books about Indochina, perhaps - and the battle of Dien Bien Phu. I was after, um. . .'

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Chris Ryan i illustrated guide to old rose varieties?' suggested

jt would be nice,' said Eve. 'What made you >fthat?'

to spend school holidays with my mother's JfShe had a big book, all in French, about roses.' C. So what happened? How did we actually make *?'

i asked me in English to pass you a book from a f^asked how you knew I was English, you told me snch don't wear Clarks desert boots. We had together that night at... Fuck off!' se me?' j, not you. That guy flashing at me.'

cool it. We don't want anyone taking our r. Where were we?' tiding where to have dinner.'

ate at a brasserie on the lie St Louis. A place i all the rugby supporters go.'

and it was deafening. There had been an ational, France had won, and we had to shout at Sther. We drank too much Alsatian beer and ate luch pork.'

; is definitely the theme of the day, isn't it?' |does seem to be,' Slater agreed. 'How much r, do you reckon?'

1, the last sign said Aeroport Charles de Gaulle Jometres, and according to Andreas the hotel is two kilometres from the airport, and sted.'

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Dusk was falling when they finally pulled up at the front entrance to the Inter-Lux. The hotel was vast, spotlit, and American-styled, and while two porters struggled inside with the heavy trunk a driver relieved Slater of the keys to the Peugeot. When men like Fanon-Khayat went to ground, he mused, they did so in comfort.

Arm in arm, he and Eve sauntered through the lavishly appointed hotel entrance and checked in under the names in their false passports. In an alcove, apparently reading a tourist brochure, sat Andreas, and when they had been given their room-key, their tour of the lobby's amenities and luxury concession-booths took them straight past him.

'Room- nine thirty-three,' murmured Eve. 'Give it ten minutes.'

They made a leisurely progress to the lifts. The trunk reached their room before they did, and Slater handed the waiting porters a hundred francs each. Given the dead weight of the thing he reckoned they'd earned it.

Parting the curtains, Slater looked out over several smaller hotels, the still-busy motorway and the lights of the airport complex. He was no longer feeling tired, and in some curious way the day's events seemed to belong to another time-frame. He felt razor-sharp - as alert as he'd ever been. Part of him knew that this feeling was false and a symptom of stress-fatigue; part of him didn't care.

Andreas was business-like. 'Fanon-Khayat's in his room on the fourth floor. Room four-twenty

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Chris Ryan

Hasn't come out since he checked in this loon. Given that this is an airport hotel, gh, I shouldn't think that anyone's surprised at keeping odd hours. How are we doing for >ns?'

got the nine-mil Clock and ammunition,' said 'We thought it would lessen the risk of promise if we didn't bring more than one firearm. ; do you reckon the options are? Would he open )r if one of us knocked?' doesn't know that I followed him here,' said 'but I think we have to assume that an plained knock would spook him. He's got a "Do Disturb" sign on his door, and it's a good bet that led.'

we pick his lock?' asked Slater. :'s right in the middle of a corridor,' said Andreas. locks, as you've seen, are those plastic card We could get in if we had a programmer and a fcard, but. . .'

room-staff have master-keys, though,' Eve cut >uld we steal one?'

ible,' agreed Andreas. 'But hard to do without F-member noticing. I've checked the cleaners have the key-cards on little chains attached to t-loops or round their necks.' fc-alarm?' suggested Eve. 'Let it off, rush in and out in all the confusion?' :'d be hotel-staff checking in all the rooms,' idreas. 'I thought of the fire-alarm, but we'd

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never be able to get rid of the body in time. It's a last resort, I agree, but--'

'As we said, there must be people checking in and out at all hours,' Slater said. 'So the rooms must need to be made up at all hours. So there must be cleaners here at all hours.'

'I've got an idea,' Eve said. 'I'm going straight down. Four-twenty-seven did you say?'

That's right.'

When she had gone, Andreas turned to Slater. 'You look completely spaced out,' he grinned, shaking his head. 'I got the basic story from the OP team. How you were almost made into pork scratchings and how Eve blew the bad boys away with her little ceramic Clock.'

'I've never, ever been so glad to see anyone in my life,' said Slater. 'I was just about to cut my wrists with the knife Chris gave me. That farmyard was the most sinister place I've ever been, and that includes Iraq.'

'Eve's pretty resourceful,' Andreas agreed. 'I'd put money on her getting into that room within five minutes.'

It was closer to ten minutes, but eventually Eve rang Andreas's mobile. She was whispering.

'I'm in his bathroom. Fanon-Khayat's asleep. Can you guys come down? The door's on the latch.'

They took the lift down, and Andreas led Slater to Room 427, They could hear Fanon-Khayat's snores from the deserted corridor, and silently they let themselves in and relocked the door. On the bed, in

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ressing gown, Fanon-Khayat lay openmouthed. lls strewed the bedside table and the curtains had en drawn on the gathering dusk. On the TV screen I porn channel was playing, and a woman in a St

oian's style schoolgirl costume was being

sively buggered by a man in a cowboy hat.

ttething about the cowboy looked strangely

liar to Slater. Vt the other end of the room, Eve stood by the open ' room door.

7ith the pillow?' Slater whispered.

be nodded.

was over fast. Slater held Fanon-Khayat down, lie Andreas stifled him with the down-filled pillow. Lebanese weakly kicked and bucked beneath

, Slater concentrated on trying to remember where

tad seen the cowboy before. Concentrated on

ftcing himself from the present moment, the ent killing.

without success. He was unable to remember ^ he'd seen the cowboy before, and he was unable

cape the moment. Eventually Fanon-Khayat was , and Andreas lifted the pillow.

s, guys,' Eve said, checking the dead man's

: for a pulse as if she were a nurse, finding none, |teplacing it on his chest. 'I was pretty sure bringing |4n would be better than my shooting him and jttig a mess of the sheets and walls and so on.' fe've got a bit of time,' Slater said. 'He won't have |red any room-service if he was asleep. And the

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sign on the door will keep people away. How did you get in here, in the end?'

'Well,' she smiled. 'I found a nice Portuguese lady cleaning a room out in the next corridor, and asked her what time the shops in the lobby shut. Told her I'd seen a rather nice Bottega Veneta bag I fancied. She said she thought the boutiques were still open, and I nipped down and bought the bag.'

'That's it?' asked Andreas, indicating a smart creation in woven leather.

'That's it,' said Eve. 'A snip at 450, pounds give or take a quid or twenty. I thought it might be nice for Debbie -- a little something from Paris at the taxpayers' expense.'

'What about Ray?' asked Andreas. 'We can't not get him a present. That would be discriminatory.'

'Do you want to hear the rest?' asked Eve.

'Sorry,' said Andreas. 'Go on.'

'When I came back, I showed the housemaid the bag. She said it was terrible how expensive things were in the lobby - that they were a tenth of the price in the supermarkets, and so on. I then told her I'd done something really silly, that I'd left my key inside my room, and that my husband was asleep and I didn't want to wake him - he tended to be a bit grumpy first thing, you know how men are - so could she very sweetly let me in with her pass key? Well, she was fine about it -1 could see her calculating that someone who'd just spent over four thousand francs on a handbag was pretty unlikely to be a sneak-thief- and old FanonKhayat

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. Chris Ryan

: was snoring away so loud you could hear him half down the corridor. So she let me in with her key, voila, we parted the best of friends.' fAnd she's not going to mention this to anyone?' ed Andreas. 7hy should she? Stuff like this must happen all the

- stupid rich people forgetting their keys. Just to how stupid and rich I was I gave her a five sd-franc note. She won't mention it. Anyway, I was, there he was, and the rest you know.

accomplished.' The three of them set to work, collecting everything aected to the dead man and placing it on the bed. Sdn't take long - he hadn't even brought a change iothes. He had, however, brought his passport, ig licence, phone, credit cards and the silenced j|Sauer, all of which Andreas now pocketed. For the twenty-four hours he was going to occupy the fel as Antoine Fanon-Khayat - it was for this reason i he had not booked himself into the hotel when he fed. The dead man had brought one other thing, which

found in the breast pocket of a jacket slung over air. A compact disc, which Eve immediately feeted.

ission accomplished?' Slater asked her. fell, there's a bit of tidying up to do, but basically , As soon as we've packed this guy away we can go to the restaurant and have a good meal. Would two nip upstairs and get the trunk?'

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Slater nodded, and he and Andreas took the lift to the ninth floor. Inside his and Eve's room, Slater unlocked the trunk. Inside were two sleeping bags and a large double duvet. From each of the sleeping bags he dragged a twenty-litre plastic jerrycan of water.

'Heavy in, heavy out, eh?' said Andreas.

'That's right,' said Slater, lugging the jerrycans towards the bath. 'It would look a bit odd if our trunk somehow put on eleven stones in weight overnight. If anyone asks me and Eve about it we're book collectors. Book collectors having a passionate sexual affair.'

'When did you last read a proper book?' smiled Andreas. v

'I'm reading one by Salman Rushdie right now,' said Slater.

'Fuck off!' said Andreas.

The water gurgled from the jerrycans and splashed into the bath. 'Just check, would you, if Leon remembered to put in a knife,' said Slater. 'We'll need to hack these up to make room for FanonKhayat.'

'He remembered,' said Andreas, tossing a Stanley knife on to the bed. 'He's Mr Forward Planning, is Leon. He also knows Paris like the back of his hand, which is useful when you need trunks and jerrycans at six o'clock on a Saturday evening.'

Finally they were ready.

'You call the lift and hold it open,' said Slater. 'I'll get the trunk over there.'

They had to let three lifts go but eventually an.

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one arrived, and they got the trunk down to

427 unobserved. Both Slater and Andreas were

Sous that porters, rather than guests, hauled the

in five-star hotels. Eve and Andreas emptied the trunk, Slater 1 to manhandle the dead man into the smaller of to sleeping-bags. With Andreas's help, he then Ivred the first sleeping-bag into the second, [ the hacked up pieces of plastic jerrycan in after crammed the mummy-like result into the , With the duvet tightly packed around the body allow no shifting when the trunk was carried, . was then forced shut.

erimentally, Slater and Andreas then lifted an ch. The trunk was heavy, but not noticeably than when it had been carried into the hotel, unlikely event of the same porters carrying it no difference would be detectable. Nor, jfhen they tilted the trunk sharply, did the body

c,' said Andreas, 'we're cooking with gas.' an!' said Slater, remembering. i> others stared at him.

ing the schoolgirl on the TV when we first The guy in the cowboy hat. His name's He did the same to a woman I used to guard.' Grace Litvinoff, by any chance?' asked Eve |fl believe she's quite keen on the odd bit of

Slater's turn to stare.

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Eve smiled sweetly. 'If the cowboy hat fits,' she said, 'wear it!'

They made it back to the ninth floor room without incident. Leon had taken care to buy them a trunk with comfortable carrying handles, and Slater and Andreas were able to carry it to the lift as if it weighed much less than Fanon-Khayat's eleven and a half stone. In the event, no one took any notice of them, and the trunk was soon ritually laid on the floor at the end of the bed.

The atmosphere, Slater thought, was a weird one. In the Regiment, after a terrorist kill or a successful contact, they'd all pile into the bar and get hammered. Right now, .however, the three of them were planning to celebrate a day of quite extreme violence with a quiet dinner.

Eve had called the back-up team to report that Fanon-Khayat was down and the disc recovered. Terry, she discovered from Chris, had followed Branca FanonKhayat.

Although Branca gave a convincing impression of being a shopaholic trophy wife, Leon and Chris had agreed that it was essential to keep tabs on her. How would she react when her husband's bodyguards failed to reappear? Would she seek the help of the French police or security services? Would she attempt to contact associates of her husband's? Anything was possible.

In fact, Terry had discovered, Branca had gone to a

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in the eleventh arrondissement, where a vast was under way. The host was a FrancoTunisian called Gil Dazat, the music was loud, and the yd -- chic, louche and international -- was spilling | into the street. Terry had simply climbed the stairs 1 in. Branca was there on the arm of an sively dressed young man whom Terry quickly ied as the resident drug-dealer. Business was and quite openly conducted, and from the way jflthe guests greeted them it was clear that the dealer iBranca were an established couple. Terry had ed his intention of staying at the party in order to He young man - it was the kind of information that I well come in useful.

at amazed Slater was Branca's sang-froid. On the of a day in which she and her husband had \ held at gunpoint by the trigger-man of a hostile lent - an event that had so traumatised her id that he had gone into hiding - she had elected ss up and go out on the town with her rorld boyfriend. In a way, he thought, you had off your hat to the girl. Having lived through ibing of Belgrade, Branca Fanon-Khayat knew to prioritise. Drink, dance, for tomorrow we

said as much to Andreas and Eve over the ustine and baby octopus salad at dinner. Andreas iccked Fanon-Khayat's phone and found no text ice messages. Unless the arms-dealer had cleared

>ne earlier, Branca hadn't attempted to ring him.

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' The Hit List

'I'd love to know what she's wearing tonight,' said Eve. 'That chiffon coat this morning was just too much.'

'Pity she had to wear all that stuff underneath,' said Andreas. 'Just the coat would have looked better.'

'You're a dinosaur, Andreas,' said Eve. 'A sexist dinosaur.'

'A dinosaur maybe, but no sexist!' insisted Andreas. He turned to Slater. 'Am I a sexist?'

'I wouldn't say so,' said Slater. 'I've never known you discriminate on grounds of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. You've always been very much an equal opportunities guy - happy to kill anyone.'

Eve turned to Slater. Three glasses of Chablis had admitted a pale sparkle to her sea-grey eyes. 'What about you, Neil? Are you a new man?'

The? Sure, yeah! I've got my . . . What's that thing you're supposed to have?'

'Inner child?' suggested Andreas.

'Exactly. I've got one of those. And I can tell you, my inner child was crapping itself this afternoon before you turned up with your Clock and your velvet jeans.'

'My pleasure,' said Eve. 'It would have been very embarrassing to have gone back to London without you.'

'What happened to your predecessor?' asked Slater. 'They went back to London without her, I seem to remember you saying.'

'Ellis? Ellis was killed in a firefight here in Paris. She . . .'

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fes?' said Slater.

The truth is I never really knew Ellis. I'd seen her

at the place, because I'd been on a kind of informal

thment to the Cadre, but I never got to know her.'

\ turned to Andreas. 'You did, though, didn't you?'

lis was great. I only knew her for a few months,

was very much the new boy then, but. . .' he

9k his head.

the guys go very misty-eyed when they talk : Ellis,' said Eve.

iie was the total professional,' said Andreas to 'I doubled up with her a few times for live, CQB sessions at the killing house. I don't know I've had the pleasure yet but we're supposed to do limum of four days a month there as well as ising on the range, and it's at least as dangerous as off we used to do at Pontrilas. Like I said, I I up with Ellis a few times and she was very, t. They throw these horrible things at you -- CS irhite noise, guns that jam as soon as you try and icm - and I never saw her lose it once. She was . cool. Ellis was cool. And afterwards she was and gorgeous, and fantastic company, and letely crazy, and . . .' ; shook his head and fell silent, teryone talks about Ellis like this,' said Eve. 'As i imagine she wasn't the easiest act to follow. It npossible, in fact. Whenever I slipped up, which : the time, I'd know people were thinking: Ellis i never have done that. Ellis would have handled

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that better. Ellis would never have lost the surveillance target, missed the shot, made the bad decision . . . And of course she was killed in action, so she became a sort of departmental saint.'

'What exactly happened to her?' asked Slater.

Eve glanced briefly at Andreas. 'The truth is we're not sure, but we think it had something to do with FanonKhayat.'

'Fanon-Khayat? As in the guy upstairs?'

The waiter drew up, removed their plates, and filled their wine glasses. Eve waited until he was out of earshot.

'Ellis was in Paris as part of a ... a check on FanonKhayat's reliability. Things were beginning to go belly-up for him financially, and London needed to know that he was still on-side, and wasn't going to use the information he had against us. His weakness was women, so Ellis mounted an old-fashioned honey trap.'

'How did she do it?' asked Andreas. 'I never actually found out.'

'Quite straightforward,' said Eve. 'She drove into the back of his car when his driver was dropping him off at the apartment, and made like she was so upset by the whole thing that he invited her up. Things moved on pretty fast after that, and . . .'

'They had an affair?' asked Slater.

'My understanding is that they didn't. Ellis had ; definite theories about using sex to gain information, and her basic thing was that with sport-fuckers like;

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Chris Ryan

>n-Khayat - guys who were just in it for the chase the conquest - you got what you wanted by lolding sex rather than granting it. Once you gave someone like that, she felt, you lost your power ' them. So she flattered him. Played him along. She \ him she was a political science graduate, and gave the impression that she was turned on by his ijiwledge of covert activity. The more extreme stuff sld her, she implied, the likelier he was to get her |fbed. According to the report, though, he didn't He was crazy about Ellis - she could really get going if she wanted to - but he hardly told her ing. He mentioned as an aside that there had a UK and US special forces presence in ttbodia, but then John Pilger had already made that clear. He certainly didn't produce any pictures aything like that, and all in all he seemed well ed to us.

final decision at the time, based on Ellis's was that his knowledge of our dirty washing -- as it was - didn't represent any kind of security We knew he had made some fairly dodgy i in the Balkans, and that a watching brief had to yt, but that was pretty much it.' ecept that it wasn't,' suggested Slater, tccept that it wasn't,' said Eve. 'On the morning of ay she was due to return to London for debriefing rait to the Science Park at La Villette in north Paris. We don't know why, and we don't whether she went to meet someone or was

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following someone -- all that we know is that she went alone and without backup.

'At around 11.20am, according to a statement issued to the press by the French police, a firefight took place in the staff car-park area, resulting in the deaths of three men and one woman. The men had all been shot twice in the head and the woman, who appeared to have been unarmed, had been shot eleven times in the body. Their conclusion was that several people were involved on both sides and the whole thing was almost certainly drugs-related -- rival gangs settling scores over territory, that sort of thing. Maybe an execution. By the time the incident was reported in the newspapers the drug-gang theory had hardened into certainty, and as everyone knows, gangland killings are never solved.

'The most interesting evidence, though, is buried in a later police report. The car-park at La Villette is huge, and the shooting took place in an area where there weren't many people around. The nearest person to the shooting was a maintenance guy from one of the display halls who was collecting equipment from a van. He didn't see what happened - he was a good hundred yards away -- but he heard it. He said that to begin with there was a volley of shots in quick succession. Different sorts of bangs, perhaps fifteen or twenty in all, and at first he thought it was firecrackers - the fourteenth of July was coming up and the kids start letting them off as soon as they appear in the shops. But he'd done his Service Militaire and he soon realised that what he'd heard was gunfire.

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Chris Ryan

ccording to his statement this first volley was ved by silence for about twenty seconds, then : or four bursts of semi-automatic fire, and then, a inute or so later, three double-shots in fast sion followed by another extended volley. And i silence, and people running away, at statement, which we have no reason to doubt, sts the following scenario: Ellis goes to the car kfor reasons unknown. She is carrying her personal Son but has no reason to expect trouble. In the rk she is ambushed by at least five people armed a variety of weapons, all of whom open fire on nultaneously and at short range.

goes down wounded, but makes it to cover, rambushers move up on her, not sure if she's dead, ig each other by cracking off the odd shot. Ellis, migh badly and possibly critically hurt, realises that ji'only option is to seize the initiative, to move rather than away from the killing group. So, loning whatever strength she's got left, she does Ithat -- pulls out her Clock and goes in shooting. pe double taps in as many seconds, three ambushers on their feet, but there are five of them in total lis time she goes down for good, lere's a picture of the scene an hour or so later ch was taken by the police photographer. There vo lines of cars, and behind the first and hurled yards against the second are three men who do in |look very much like drug-gang enforcers. Each has black holes between his eyes; none has much in

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The Hit List

the way of a back to his head. On the ground you can see a Skorpion machine-pistol and a couple of heavy automatics.

'Bundled up on the tarmac twenty feet away is Ellis. She's wearing the leather jacket she used to carry her weapon in - she just used to stick it in the inside pocket, she hated shoulder holsters - and a black T shirt and jeans. And the strange thing is that although she's been literally shot to pieces - eleven short-range shots to the body -- you can't actually see any of the wounds at all. Her face is untouched. She's just lying there with this blank stare in a shining pool of blood.'

Eve nodded pensively. 'When the picture came into the office the atmosphere got very strange. No one talked to each other - everyone sat alone in corners trying to figure the whole thing out. And trying to work out how to deal with their own reactions to it. Your predecessor' -- she looked up at Slater - 'had worked with her a lot and I think was pretty upset. Leon disappeared to Paris that evening to see if he could get the inside story and came back a week later none the wiser. The dead men, as everyone had suspected, were basically hired triggers. And although j Leon soon established the identity of the other two -j the two who finished Ellis off and escaped - it quickly 1 became clear that they'd vanished off the face of thej earth. They'd been professionally "disappeared".

'Since then, our assumption has been that EUis's 1 was sanctioned by Fanon-Khayat, who then had the su viving shooters wiped out in their turn. We've neve

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Chris Ryan

why -- six killings seems like a bit of an over tion to wounded sexual vanity -- but then a lot of that people like Fanon-Khayat do defy rational is.' there's a revenge angle to this operation?' asked

lere's a tidying up of unfinished business,' said tt'Yes. It's time Ellis's ghost was laid to rest.' say you'd done bloody well,' said Andreas, ; his words with care.

smiled at him gratefully. 'Thank you. If there's ing I learned in the short time I knew her it's re are no second prizes in a firefight.' .the meal progressed, Slater considered their Mi. The three of them had agreed with the back that they should stay the night in the hotel ^"than check out immediately and return to Paris, ras working on a plan for the disposal of Fanon t's body and until this was finalised, they had i, the wisest course of action was to stay put. To be trunk around at night, when there were far on the road than in the day, was to increase i of discovery significantly. i of them needed reminding that they were on | territory. If the DGSE or any of the other security services found out that an MI6 hit ras operating on its patch, the political sions would be appalling. There would be no 1 done - instead the French would scream the li> the world. They had never quite lived down

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the humiliation of the 1985 Rainbow Warrior affair, when Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur - both DGSE agents -- were convicted of manslaughter after the bombing and sinking of the Greenpeace ship m Auckland harbour. If any of the Cadre were arrested on French soil and convicted of murder or conspiracy to murder, they could expect to serve very long jail terms indeed - no matter what the political justification.

Slater was also increasingly conscious of the fact that he was about to spend the night in a hotel bedroom with Eve. They had joked about the charade of their being a bookish couple, but not with quite as much hilarity as, they might have done. Was it his imagination, or had there been a tiny edge of regret in her voice that life was as it was? That the whole thing was an act? That they were not players in some Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan-style romantic comedy, but in a grim game of death - of covert slaughter and counter slaughter.

That they were able to relax and enjoy themselves after a day like today was extraordinary in itself, Slater thought, and showed perhaps just how deformed their sensibilities had become. Had his part in the death of Antoine Fanon-Khayat helped prevent another round of Balkan tortures and executions? Or had he merely contributed to a squalid murder whose principal motivation was the desire to save political face? Would the Serbs simply go to the next dealer for their antiaircraft system?

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Chris Ryan

sless to wonder, he decided, watching the way i the light fell on Eve's hair and painted the soft line cheekbone. She was wearing a dove^coloured ere sweater and skirt, and the muted tones subtly lighted the sea-grey of her eyes. There was obvious about her appearance, he thought, that jumped out and grabbed you in the way lit did with, say, Grace Litvinoff. at you wondered. You looked at her and you jered if you'd ever quite get the measure of her, quite get the measure of that distant gaze. There self-discipline and a quiet symmetry there that he admitted to himself- very attractive indeed, r would it be like to disrupt that cool poise, to see >1 thrown to the four winds, to hear her . . . 3u've gone very quiet,' said Eve. er smiled. 'I'm just. . . enjoying myself,' he said, held his gaze for a moment, delivered her e smile, and looked away, terwards they had drinks in the bar. At 11pm Eve ic to call Leon for his suggestions concerning the of Fanon-Khayat. The original plan had been to leave him dead in the apartment and fthat the DGSE would clean up the mess. Despite :t that it was self-evidendy the case, the French iment were acutely sensitive to suggestions that military establishment was overwhelmingly pro and anti-Muslim. Any evidence that Issylic's Ondine system was heading for Belgrade be covered up and deleted whatever the cost.

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Nothing would have linked the Cadre to FanonKhayat's death.

But now the Cadre had a problem. Because Slater, Andreas and Eve had been seen in the same hotel as Fanon-Khayat, and Slater and Andreas had physically handled him before and after his death, FanonKhayat had to disappear completely. If his body was discovered and submitted to any kind of forensic examination, there was a risk -- a slight risk, but a risk nevertheless -- that the trail would lead back, sooner or later, to the three of them. The hotel guests and staff would be questioned, photofit portraits would be made, and a connection established. This must not happen. The dead man, the Cadre members all agreed, had to vanish from the face of the earth. Leon had told Eve that he was going to ask Manderson to send a cleaner team to spirit the body back to England, but Eve doubted that Manderson would sanction such an exercise. Taking bodies over borders was risky, and he would almost certainly order them to take care of the disposal themselves. They were on the spot, after all, and they had the expertise.

Either way, the job had to be done fast: Branca would soon be asking questions about her husband's failure to contact her, and in this weather it wouldn't be long before the body began to smell.

Leon was working on a solution.

At five to eleven, Eve left the two men in the bar and took the lift up to the ninth floor.

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|f It must be hard for her,' Slater said, when she had

ppeared. l^hat must?' asked Andreas.

fell, everything. Following on from Ellis, like she And being in charge of a bunch of head-bangers is.'

te didn't actually follow on from Ellis in quite the ' she suggested,' said Andreas. 'Eve joined after Ellis mi. killed, but she didn't step into Ellis's shoes. Ellis |,like us - a footsoldier, one of the lads -- but Eve ifest-track from day one. She's been given more jnsibility with each operation, and my guess is that can pull off Firewall and get us all back in one , Manderson will hand the Cadre over to her.' me about the guy I replaced,' said Slater, ie?' said Andreas. 'He was SBS. A couple of | guys were pulled in about ten years ago for some big, super-sensitive operation - presumably ; at sea. One left before I joined - went off to some Pacific island, I think -- and Bernie stuck until a few months ago. He ended up going too, bought into a boat-building firm in ay. He was one of those mystical types - id-yard stare, dreams of the Far North and all . good guy to have at your side if things came on serious, and played his hand very close to his , I can't say I ever got to know him very well. The Iperson who did, in fact, was Ellis, who used to ie piss out of him. If he got heavy, she just used i at him -- which I tell you is more than I would

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have dared do. But because she was Ellis, she got away with it.'

'What did she look like, Ellis?' Slater asked.

Andreas shrugged. 'Dark hair, prettyish, quite scruffy . . . Like Eve said, she always used to wear this old leather jacket with her handgun in one inside pocket and a couple of spare clips in the other. She always used a nine-mil Clock Seventeen, and I've noticed that Eve now carries exactly the same weapon.'

'She knows how to use it, too.'

'She does. And it meant a lot to her that you praised her for that, by the way. Stand you in good stead after lights out, I expect.'

'I'm not daft,' said Slater. 'I wouldn't try anything on with her.'

'You fucking are and you fucking would. I know you of old.'

'I've changed,' Slater protested. 'I've grown up.'

'The great cry of blokes down the centuries?' Andreas smiled. 'I've changed! I've grown up!'

At 11.30 the three of them met in FanonKhayat's room on the fourth floor. The plan was simple: Andreas was to wait until the reception was at its busiest, pay for his stay with one of the dead man's credit cards, take a taxi to the airport, and then double back to Central Paris and the OP on a shuttle bus. Neil and Eve, meanwhile, were to check out, load the trunk into the car, make as if they were heading for the airport, and

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in their turn double back to the OP. There, Leon take them through the body-disposal plan. This not yet finalised in every detail, but the basic ents had been decided on. The body was to be ered unrecognisable and then sunk in a lonely of the river Seine, some distance outside Paris. i job would almost certainly be carried out under of darkness the following night, order to give Eve some privacy in the room, said he would stay and have a last drink with They raided the mini-bar, and had a malt ' each. But they had run out of things to say, and end they sat in silence, staring out of the floor filing window at the crawl of traffic on the ray and the city of light that was Charles de Sle airport.

aess I should practise the signature on that credit Andreas said eventually, and Slater nodded.

irritation, Slater discovered that his heart was ting as the lift carried him up to the ninth floor, would probably, he thought, be some slightly ('negotiation about who slept where. The simplest ; would be if he just crashed out on the floor. A �-bag would come in handy -- but would it be y tasteless to borrow one of those presently jding Antoine FanonKhayat? |e lift halted with a soft gasp and Slater felt for the ave had it; was he going to have to knock like f old-fashioned corridor-creeping seducer?

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He was. Sensibly, given that there was a dead man stuffed into a trunk at the foot of the bed, she had not left the door on the latch.

He knocked. She answered in French.

'Eve!' he said. 'It's me. Neil.'

The door opened on the chain and then - as soon as she had identified him - fully. She was wearing a pale blue T-shirt, and had a white hotel towel round her waist. She looked scrubbed, clean and younger than the twenty-nine years that her passport claimed for her. He looked at her for a moment and then came in.

Carefully, she doubled-locked the door behind him, then turned off the main light, leaving only a bedside lamp illuminated.

'You take the bed,' he said. Til grab a couple of blankets and hit the floor.'

She nodded absently, staring beyond him as if not quite hearing what he was saying. He looked down at her short fair hair, the neat line of her shoulders, the fading brown of her arms. Then her gaze rose to meet his.

Impossible to say which of them reached for the other first, but they were suddenly and urgently devouring each other. He felt her hands in his hair and her mouth moving beneath his, and then his own hands found her waist and the warm sweep of her back. He kissed her mouth, her eyes, her neck, her hair, and as she buried her mouth in his shoulder felt the towel at her waist fall to the floor. Her hands scrabbled at his shirt-buttons and were then forced upwards as he pulled the T-shirt over her head.

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isn't happening,' she gasped, pulling his shirt |-and pressing her breasts against his chest. 'God, r of you. You're one solid bruise.' i,' murmured Slater. .'And still a bit tender in iock zone too.'

fingers found his belt. 'Help me,' she i. 'I can't get this . . .' f, it's a bit stiff. A present from Debbie.' both laughed, and she gasped as he reached clasped her round the thighs, and lifted her up ; his tongue could scour her breasts. 'Oh, please!' ed, bracing her arms on his shoulders. 'Oh,

vly he returned her to her feet and they kissed femore slowly this time. Pulling back from her he at her closely, examined her in a way that i and their respective situations had previously ^possible. She looked quite different from how abered her - it was as if he was seeing her for St time. She, in her turn, looked back unflinch ?him.

were both naked now, and taking a couple of ^ackwards he lowered himself to a sitting position s'trunk at the end of the bed. She sat facing him, straddling him, her nipples hard against his | the dark triangle of her pubic hair damp against

ach.

: promise me,' she said, 'that this is happening to Ferent people. To Eve Benbow and Neil . . . is your ID again?'

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'Clissold,' whispered Slater into her ear. 'Not a name I'd have chosen, but. . .'

'Promise me that you'll never tell anyone. That this'll never be mentioned. Ever. Promise me and then fuck me.'

'I won't tell a soul,' said Slater, slipping his hand palm-upwards between her legs and parting her with his fingers. 'I've signed the Official Secrets Act, remember?'

She squirmed, and he felt his fingers slip inside. Steadily, gasping louder now, she began to move against the heel of his hand. Below them, the lock of the trunk set up a ticking squeak.

'It's Fanon-Khayat,' Slater couldn't resist murmuring. Tie wants to join in!'

Eve groaned. 'You really know how to sweet-talk a girl, don't you? Did you bring any condoms with you?'

Slater froze. Stared at her. She smiled wearily back.

'I was under the impression one could rely on the SAS to turn up with the right kit.'

He shook his head. 'I didn't know it was this sort of operation.'

'It isn't - none of this is actually happening, we've already established that. But why don't you search the bathroom? These swanky hotels often have them hidden away somewhere.'

Slater did as Eve suggested, wrapping the towel round himself and searching the drawers and shelves. In the end, though, he had to admit defeat. Eve checked the bedside tables, but with no more

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ss. Self-conscious now that the mood had i, she had pulled on one of the hotel dressing Frustrated, Slater saw the moment slipping

go downstairs. There should be a gents with a ae. Will you wait?' ; come down with you.' aickly, they both dressed themselves.

was indeed a machine in the gents toilet next bar, but a sticker announced it 'Hors Service'. exited shaking his head. i laughed. 'I think next stop the airport.' lie taxi they stared into each other's eyes and held ler like love-struck teenagers. The journey was less than ten minutes, and soon they were ring arm in arm through the echoing and largely departure halls. Outside an arcade of locked 'they kissed each other, enjoying the extended nation of what was to come, ki're beautiful,' Slater heard himself saying to her, Salised that he meant it.

could fly away,' she said. 'We could choose a 1 off that departure list over there and go. Live t beach somewhere, work in a bar, go for walks ic seashore, make love all night.' She threw her jund his neck. 'Would you like that? Would ce you happy?' touched her cheek. 'Yes. That would make me . I would be the finest barman on the Coast and cook the best freshly caught snapper and we

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could have lots of illiterate children who could work as waiters and dream of life in London.'

'You spoil everything,' she reproved him. 'You're so unromantic!'

'I'm not unromantic,' he said, placing his hand inside her coat on her breast. 'I want you here and now and as you are. Right here and right now. Up against this partition if necessary.'

'Not before we've got what we came for. I don't want to start having those illiterate children quite yet.'

Finally, Slater found a vending machine that worked, and for which he had the correct change. He held up the packet and she applauded.

'Woukkyou do that?' he asked her in the taxi back to the hotel. 'Seriously? Would you walk away from everything and come and live with me in the back of beyond?'

She closed her eyes and snuggled against him. 'Until you ask me properly,' she said demurely, 'you'll never know.'

In room 933, as Eve quickly undressed and climbed into bed, Slater examined the packaging of his purchase. 'My French isn't that brilliant,' he said, 'but these look as if they might be quite weird shapes and colours. Still, I guess they'll match my balls.'

'Don't worry,' said Eve gently. 'I'd say that one way and another we've pretty much broken the ice today, wouldn't you?'

298

TWELVE

and Eve checked into the OP at the Hotel Grand ins at 10.00am, after an extended breakfast in inny dining-room of the Inter-Lux. The Peugeot le trunk, as Leon had suggested, went into the ; car-park on the Rue Jouvenet. the OP the mood was cautiously upbeat main objective was achieved; all that led now was the disposal of the body. And in ; hands, that shouldn't be a problem. This was his all. If anyone could make a dead arms-dealer i in northern France, Leon could.

now sleeping off his night's work, had also good result. He had identified the drug-dealer irfie party as one Miko Pasquale, and confirmed Jranca Nikolic -- now unknowingly a widow -- sent the night at his apartment close to the At 8.30 she had emerged from the building ten a taxi back to her late husband's apartment. : now she was less than 100 metres away. 10.30 Andreas joined them. To his relief his ^nation of Antoine Fanon-Khayat had been without question. The check-out desk had

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been at its busiest in the mid-morning, as they had calculated, and the clerk had barely glanced at him as he had handed over the dead man's platinum Amex card. 'I might just go on a little shopping spree with that piece of plastic,' he suggested, and feigned indignation when Chris held out her hand for all the dead man's effects. 'I think these are being withdrawn from circulation,' she said firmly, taking the overnight bag from Andreas and stowing it next to the trunk.

Slater noticed that Chris was making a particular point of observing Eve and himself, and concentrated on giving the impression that a breezily normal professional relationship existed between them. The giveaway, he knew, was not too much closeness and eye contact but too little. People enjoying a passionate covert affair tended to avoid each other's gaze in case any lingering intensity communicated itself to others. And they never made jokes.

So he did all those things, even making a point of saying that next time he and Eve posed as lovers it would be her turn to roll up in the duvet on the floor.

Would the night ever be repeated? He doubted it. It had come about as a result of a unique and very extreme set of circumstances. In the course of the preceding day both of them had looked violent death in the face more than once, and the experience had isolated them. They had found themselves in a world without rules, a dark and surreal place to which no outsider was permitted access. Their coming together had been inevitable, and it had been highly charged. They had reached for each

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|;$everal times in the course of the night and it had |as if they were making love in an electric storm, le air smouldering and crackling around them, led to himself as he remembered the feel and rher body, and how she had suddenly looked so : to the person he had known up that moment, this was what Chris had meant when she wel him to the 'parallel universe'. I look pleased with yourself/ Andreas remarked. Iwas thinking of those poor hotel porters ig out to the car with the trunk. I gave the aggers fifty francs each but it should really have ignore: there was a notice in the room saying that ^was a fifteen hundred franc surcharge for supple guests.' lat did you say was in the trunk?' asked Chris.

didn't,' said Eve. 'But we were going to say it x>ks.'

iiday reading?'

Cond-hand books. Which we collected.' e,' said Chris drily. 'How many for coffee?'

j arrived ten minutes later, carrying maps, and

atulated the forward team on the success of the

^d of their smooth extraction from the hotel.

t,' he said briskly, pouring himself a cup from the

ig cafetiere, 'this is the plan. Four of us will go 5 to be heavy work so I'd suggest the four i Any objections to that idea?'

come,' said Eve.

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Leon nodded expressionlessly. As the team leader< she had final say.

'OK. Eve, Neil, Andreas and myself. Terry can grab a few more Zs, Chris'11 stay and run the OP.'

Everyone nodded. Chris examined her nails.

Leon spread out one of the maps. 'The location is here - about seventy or eighty clicks outside Paris in a place called the Foret de La Roche-Guyon. What we do is drive out of Paris at midday via the Porte d'Auteuil and then, keeping more or less parallel to the river, take the A13 motorway north-west to Bonnieres-sur-Seine. We'll take both cars -- if we take one and it blows up with that trunk in it we're in i serious shit. At Bonnieres we swing up northwards on this minor-road via Freneuse, and then follow this ... i track, it must be, into the forest.

'Switching to the local map you can see that the! track continues for five or six clicks past Joigny, which j looks as if it consists of a few farm buildings and not� much else, and then peters out in the middle of j nowhere. The nearest place apart from Joigny is] Thieux, which is a good two clicks away and served by I a different track. Thieux's no Las Vegas, either.

'What I think we should do is park up at the end < the track so that we're in the empty countryside! between between Joigny and Thieux. It looks as if you 1 can get down to the river quite easily from there, and 1 according to the map this is one of the widest and j deepest parts for miles in either direction. There's also \ this jetty going out, perhaps for barges to tie up to, and^

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Chris Ryan

money that's where we want to drop our friend U the only way -- short of stealing a boat with an and waking everyone up within miles - of him out to deep water. I'd suggest swimming ;g him out, but I know that area and it's one er of a river up there. It's deep, it's dirty and ent is very strong.'

t about weights and so on?' asked Andreas. got all the kit we'll need in the car.' by item, he went through this with them until ilwere all certain that nothing had been iked. 'I've also bought four pairs of night-vision . The moon's on the wane, but there should be ient light. The routine is going to have to be us on the dump-and-splash detail, two on stag, going to need the comms kits, warm clothing, footwear, rations and a cover-story in case iped by the local police. There's no reason to that's going to happen, but just in case it does icone saw us, for example, and thought we ars -1 think we should leave all the weapons laming away a midnight walk by the river is explaining away the fact that we're armed th is quite another.' looked around questioningly. The others

lly we get to the place about three this Son, park up, and have a recce. Then we finalise and wait till dark. I've included a couple of bags and biwies in the kit so that if we're

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challenged we can say that we're looking for somewhere to camp. The first thing we've got to do though - and do fast -- is buy ourselves some sensible outdoor clothing. It's Sunday, so it's going to have to be supermarket stuff. There's a place on the Peripherique about fifteen minutes away.'

On the journey, Slater made a point of sharing the lead car with Leon. Not to avoid Eve, but to try and get to know a fellow team-member with whom, indirectly, he felt he had much in common. Leon drove, having devised the route to the disposal location. He ran the Mercedes fast but with care, ensuring that the Peugeot was no more than a car or two behind them at any time. ~ .

At the same time both he and Slater scanned the traffic at intervals for signs that they were being followed. Their fear -- expressed by neither of them but felt by both - was that the French DGSE might be on to them. Had the DGSE been watching FanonKhayat too? Was there an anti-Serbian element in the French secret services - there was certainly an anti British element.

At this moment, carrying the body with them as they were, the team were acutely vulnerable, and they knew it. One nosy traffic-cop asking them to unlock the trunk and they were finished. To Slater even the flat suburban countryside was spooked territory. The sooner Fanon-Khayat's body was deep beneath the mud-brown surface of the Seine, the better.

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Chris Ryan

To distract himself, and to pass the time, Slater asked about his life.

an's story was an unusual one. After leaving school ic Indian Ocean island of Mauritius he had found elfin some sort of'trouble' -- upon which he chose i elaborate - and had worked his passage to Europe kitchens of a cruise liner. Poorly paid domestic 'protection' work had followed in France, and the Marseilles pimp who had hired him was :d and imprisoned on charges of corrupting minors had hitchhiked to Castelnaudary and offered his ces to the Foreign Legion. After a short, sharp ini period at Aubagne which he described as sting', Leon had been dispatched to Canjuers and to undergo basic training and selection. Six and several violent beatings later he had passed up of his cadre, and had chosen to join the Legion's fchute regiment at Calvi in Corsica, lere, in counterpoint to the chronic drunkenness twhoring enjoyed by his fellow Legionaries, Leon contemporary European history by jondence course. To make his studies more ig, and to improve his English, he signed up i the Open University.

ic Deuxieme Regiment Etranger de Parachutistes lot discourage Leon in these academic activities. Sin two years he had been promoted, and as a NCO accompanied the 2nd REP to Rwanda they were involved in the covert training of forces.

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Repelled by the future implications of this policy Leon transferred to the Legion's 3rd Infantry Regiment in French Guyana, whose nominal task was to guard the Ariane Rocket launch site at Kourou. There, having qualified as a jungle warfare instructor, he earned French citizenship by serving out his five year contract with the Legion. At about the same time he was awarded a BA by the Open University. His plan on leaving the Legion was to train as a schoolteacher, but things did not quite work out that way.

'I went back to France . . .' he began, but Slater silenced him with a gesture.

'I may just be paranoid,' he said, 'but I think we might have picked up a tail. There's a large grey or blue car I've'just seen which I'm pretty sure was there about fifteen minutes back.'

'Well, this is a motorway,' said Leon. 'What kind of car?'

'Looks like some big German thing. An Opel or something - it was too far away to get a make on.'

'And it was . . .'

'It was just at the extreme of visibility. I might be imagining things, but it just seemed to me that it was tucked in perfectly for a long-range tail.' He shrugged.

'Let's pull off at the next exit,' said Leon. 'See if we can get a fix on it. Why don't you ring the others, warn them that's what we're going to do?'

Slater did so, and five minutes later they left the motorway by a slip-road. As they waited at traffic lights on the exit roundabout. Slater watched the

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Chris Ryan

sing motorway traffic. There was no sign of the car 1 thought he had seen. The lights turned green and ' progressed a kilometre up a country road to a lay where they drew to a halt. Behind them the j)geot did the same.

>t's give it five minutes,' said Leon. 'After that I'm to get nervous. The last thing we need is for bored cop to dnve past and start asking long .'

ae two cars sat motionless in the afternoon heat, i drove past at intervals, but none resembled a grey iue Opel, and Slater began to wonder if his senses been overtuned to danger. When on enemy tory, as they undoubtedly were now, the mind t habit of conjuring up enemies. At the same time isregarded your instincts at your peril. The line , fine one. 7e should move,' said Leon eventually. 'We're

ig to push our luck.'

ter agreed. They returned to the motorway and . for five minutes in silence, you decided to train as a teacher,' he began jally, still watching the wing-mirror. ; the wheel Leon nodded. 'Yeah,' he said. 'That plan . . .'

ling to France and hooking up with a former | colleague in a bar in the Rue St Denis in Paris, f allowed himself to be talked into driving the ay car for an armed robbery. The attempt to a wages delivery-van went badly wrong, with a

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The Hit List

security guard and a gang-member both fatally wounded in the firefight which ensued. As the unarmed driver, Leon got off comparatively lightly and ended up serving less than three years.

It seemed long enough at the time, however. The twenty-three-year-old ex-Legionary served his sentence at Clairvaux prison, some 250 kilometres east of Paris. The former monastery, a notorious dumping ground for hard cases, is often described as the French Alcatraz, and the regime was brutal. To make matters worse Leon realised that with better planning planning he himself would have been happy to undertake - the robbery attempt would have worked perfectly and no one would have got hurt.

In between reading books of political theory in his cell, Leon passed the time by planning -- and mentally executing -- increasingly complex and ingenious crimes. Or, as he himself prefered it, 'events'. Packed into the jail were experts in fraud, larceny, embezzlement, kidnapping, drug-smuggling and every other field of illegal activity. Leon consulted them all. He would submit imaginary scenarios to these criminal tutors - scenarios detailing companies to be defrauded, banks to be robbed, officials to be kidnapped, and rivals-j to be executed - and invite them to pick holes in his plans.

For the first six months the experts were able to suggest better solutions than Leon, but not thereafter. When interviewed by the prison rehabilitation board at the end of his second year, he informed his

308

Chris Ryan

Miers that he intended to retrain as a risk assessor private security sector. One of the board must ad connections in the field, for a month later he guested by the prison governor to undertake a 'exercise'. On the basis of given data, he was assess the vulnerability to armed assault of a processor fabrication plant in Bordeaux. He was cils, paper and the use of an office, forty-eight hours he had produced a fully ted plan which, if put into execution, would the company in question relieved of 30 francs' worth of stock for an outlay of less than ?,000. Although he had not been asked to do so, fcalso produced a detailed proposal for the sellings'the stolen microprocessors, was thanked for his efforts, and heard no more. : later, however, he found himself on one of the 's coveted computer-training courses, and on Jetion of his sentence was passed the name of a icl officer employed by the Paris branch of a ational security group named Nordstrom. A training in their offices at La Defense was red by a two-year posting to London, where he gad-hunted.

by the standards of the Cadre it was a curious lent. Leon was walking home from the jm office in Sloane Street to his flat in i. It was a five-minute journey by bus, but he I) to clear his head after the overheated fug of the L It had been a long and dizzyingly dull day -- he

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The Hit List

had been compiling a report on the security needs of a! private hospital in Marylebone blessed with ^ 'upscale, high-profile clientele'.

A woman fell into step beside him - a dark-haired woman in a leather jacket, jeans and Doc Marten boots i

- and invited him to join her for a drink in the Grosvenor Hotel at Victoria Station. At first he assumed she was a prostitute, but when she asked after i a couple of Nordstrom employees - former MI5 officers whose names were very far from being in the i public domain - he started to pay attention.

'Ellis?' asked Slater.

'Ellas,' Leon confirmed. 'You've heard the stories,* then?' v

'I've heard how she died.'

Leon nodded, and was silent for a moment.

Ellis had led him to the hotel's Travellers Bar.j ordered them a gin and tonic each without botherir to ask what he wanted, and set out her stall. She] represented a co-ordinating wing of the Foreignj Office, she told him in rapid and fluent French, andl she had been empowered to offer him a job. Her! department needed someone with specialist military! skills, the ability to plan and execute covert operations! overseas, and an intimate knowledge of the French! underworld. The last was perhaps the most importantl

-- the service had assets on French soil, of course, butf they were not. . .

Not bien cabUs? Leon had suggested. Not connected?

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Chris Ryan

, she had admitted. They weren't. The complex linked the French military, mercenary and underworlds was not one that the service she ited had been able to negotiate with ease. They jdy found themselves beholden to the DGSE -- ich secret service -- for entrees to that world, fte way things were, frankly, they were

;ly reluctant to do so. | Slater said. Right.

sturn for joining her department, Ellis had sd - peremptorily draining her gin and tonic -- 3wn was offering him British citizenship, a jltial drop in salary, and the guarantee of acute id physical danger. And that was about it. had agreed almost immediately. At twenty was not ready to grow stale in an office - ?r the material benefits of his position. He to deploy his old skills. He wanted the excitements and terrors of operational life. : that he had not been born French and was free pentional French loyalties and prejudices, he had probably encouraged them to approach

|$o, for the second time in his life, he told Slater, assumed new citizenship. He had joined the

Ijseven years ago, become a British national, and egretted his decision. He even liked British j - it was next to impossible, he claimed, to find : kebab or vindaloo in France, st the deciding factor, however, had been the

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charismatic personality of his recruiter. Something about the lean, leather-jacketed figure, some wild and fundamental nonconformity, had told him that this was the organisation he had been looking for all his life.

'Supposing you'd been approached by Eve?' Slater asked him. 'Or by Andreas or someone else? Would you still have joined?'

'It's academic, man. I did join -- that's all that matters. As you'll have realised there are some very good sides to this job and some very weird and freaky ones. But I am what I am, just as you are what you are. If you're good enough to be offered the job and mad enough to accept it, then by definition, brother, you, are rightifor it.'

Slater laughed. 'I guess so.'

A few minutes before two o'clock they swungj northwards off the motorway towards Bonnieres-sur-1 Seine, and Slater saw the river to their left - deep, grey ] and forbidding. At that point the Seine looked about a I hundred metres across, and Slater understood instantly 1 what Leon had meant when he said that swimming thai corpse out was very much a last resort.

Pulling off the N13, the two cars followed the sig for Freneuse and Joigny. The minor road led them pa a paper-mill and cement-works, both of them wit gates padlocked for the weekend. Soon they wer driving between stands of pine-forest, with the su splashing the road only sporadically. Outside the ca after the background roar of the motorway, all oppressively silent.

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Chris Ryan

ae temperature's dropped,' said Leon. 'I'm glad jught all that outdoor clothing. It could be a cold

the next fifteen minutes they barely saw car. From time to time, parallel to the road, aught sight of the steely, baleful glint of the f, as Leon had suspected, proved to be sre than a collection of farm buildings. There church and a small village shop, but both ed untenanted. The only sign of life was a new Renault Espace parked outside one of the ises.

i plates,' said Leon. 'Well-off Parisians like their watch TV and play computer games in the side at weekends. They'll assume we're ; around for property too -- that or we're a pair ic dealers looking for agricultural scrap to flog -theme restaurants.'

sed-race gay couple, perhaps,' suggested ^Intent on perverting their children?'

laughed. 'They'd probably rather the truth ptt. Did you catch the National Front posters on (motorway bridge?'

map had indicated, the track petered out a or so beyond the village. Leon and Andreas he cars, and the four of them climbed out and 1 They were all wearing jeans, gumboots and |. jackets. Leon was carrying a knapsack (ing biscuits, a flask of coffee and other bits and ^Andreas was smoking. In a group, as Leon had

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intended, they looked like a bunch of* Parisians intent on local exploration.

A damp path between saw-edged ahead of them. Locking the cars, Andreas and his cigarette. The path ktjjj weeded towpath and the broad sweep oft

'We'll need a bit of weight,' observed j the remorseless flow of the water and the/i

'We've got a bit of weight,' said going to discover tonight when we try up here from the car.'

Six or seven minutes later the path led*! from the river, between two dark stands j back to the bank. Here the river wuj bend to almost twice its normal breadth,^ a locked boat-house, with a peeling door, and beyond it, as the map had jetty extended a clear fifty metres into | the distance, a couple of kilomet steeple of the church at Thieux was visit the trees.

'It looks good,' breathed Eve. 'It looks"

Several wooden and fibreglass boats alongside the jetty, and deep grey water s\ its heavy supporting piles.

'It looks deep,' said Andreas. 'That's the I

They spent an hour there, working details. With a ball of fishing line and a Leon took a series of depth soundings alol of the jetty. The deepest point, which he)

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1 Cferis Ryan

f before the end. The river was

* -~ they all agreed - to fall more f jibe near future. And that would

4 f \ s

g* murmured Leon, and took a s from the knapsack. ^Anrfreas.

sfcnd learn,' said Leon quietly, steak from the plastic bag. cube of meat and tied it to the {then lowered it into the water, took it straight to the bottom. f slowly drew it back through i?v&nd the others were amazed to er crayfish clinging by one

: on our man being pretty un i,' said Leon. 'There's nothing ( more than a side of meat.' 6d Eve.

llessly removed a pair of blunt |f$�0cket.

wanted to come,' Leon said remains of the steak into the ead fingers, anyone?'

ti

they had thoroughly rehearsed ?the night ahead, they discussed id attract more attention by

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remaining in the vicinity or by pulling back into a local town and returning after dark.

The final decision was to pull back. Cars obviously came and went along the Joigny road, Leon argued but few remained until dark. They would disappear until llpm.

Returning to the cars, they made their way to Vernon, twenty-five kilometres away. According to Leon's research the town was always full of tourists at weekends due to the presence, at nearby Giverny, of the house and gardens of the impressionist artist Monet.

His research was accurate. The place was very busy, with American, British and Japanese accents much in evidence. 'At Eve's suggestion the four of them behaved like conventional tourists, booking themselves dinner at a small restaurant in town and attending a guided tour of the artist's house and gardens.

They stayed there until the house closed at 5.30. At the museum shop Eve bought two tea-towels showing details of Monet's famous Waterlily paintings, which Andreas described as 'a nice role-playing touch'.

'We need them for the office,' Eve said severely. 'That area round the kettle gets really disgusting at times.'

Returning to Vernon they walked idly through the town and alongside the river for a couple of kilometres. Returning as the light began to fade, they installed themselves in a cafe. The minutes crawled

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Chris Ryan

fNone of them was able to dispel fully the thought

night's work lying ahead of them, and in juence they found that they did not have a great

say to each other. Slater found that he was aus, and suspected that the others were too.

ily it was nine o'clock and they presented elves at the restaurant. They lingered over the

which featured local speciality dishes of rater crayfish and braised pork, and shared a large of red wine. For four adults on holiday in the

countryside to have gone without alcohol pther, they agreed, would only have drawn ion to themselves. As the designated non-drivers,

and Andreas also ordered Calvados to apany their coffees.

it,' said Leon, as they stepped out into the night et's do it.'

Ding back into the cars, they drove back the

:y had come. Once they were in the Roche

forest, Leon dipped the headlights of the edes and dropped the speed to forty kilometres an damping the engine-noise down to a faint hum. proceeded in near-silence along the pine led track, and as they approached Joigny, Leon

the speed again.

ic house with the Renault Espace outside,

lights were showing. 'They might wonder we are,' said Slater, 'but they won't come out and igate. They'll just make sure the front door's e-locked.'

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The Hit List

'You saying that because you think it's true?' asked Leon. 'Or because you want it to be true?'

'Bit of both,' admitted Slater. 'But what are they going to do? Ring the police and say two cars have driven past their house and could someone come and investigate?'

Soon they were at the end of the track. The temperature had dropped considerably in the course of the half-hour drive, and as they quietly climbed from the cars they were glad of the warm outdoor clothing they had brought. The interior lights of both cars had been switched off, so there were no sudden bursts of yellow light when the doors opened. Instead, a clear star-filled sky and a nail-paring moon provided a faint illumination of the desolate waterside scene.

Unhurriedly, taking it in turns to keep lookout through a pair of night-vision goggles, they fitted and tested the Motorola comms kits. Leon then filled a long zip-up holdall with the various items of kit they were going to need, and called them together. For the purposes of this particular exercise, Slater noted, he seemed to have taken charge.

'OK, listen in,' he whispered. 'I'll do the actual disposal with Neil, as we planned. Andreas, you go first,; and do a quick recce of the location - Neil and I will j follow with the trunk on your all-clear. Eve, you stay here and watch our backs.'

Five minutes later, hearing Andreas's all-clear inj their earpieces, Slater and Leon lifted the trunk;] Neither was wearing the night-vision goggles; i

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Chris Ryan

lough they were the best Leon had been able to find were still fairly cumbersome. Instead they were sting their night-vision. Slowly, they carried the avy trunk along the mud path between walls of reeds ich sighed in the faint night breeze. After a couple lutes the carrying handle was biting painfully into er's fingers, but if the slighter-built Leon could age it, then so could he. Eventually though, they trered the trunk by mutual agreement and swapped

leavy fucker, isn't he?' Leon murmured, shaking

; fingers. Jot for long,' answered Slater, took them more than ten minutes to reach the I where Andreas was waiting for them. Carefully, in e-agreed position among the trees and well back I the track, they lowered the trunk to the ground. : the cars, Eve reported the all-clear. ;ep watching,' Leon ordered Andreas. 'Neil, you ck to the Merc and get the other hag down here.' lickly, his senses alert and his night-vision at full :, Slater jogged back along the path. When he �the cars he couldn't see Eve, but knew that she ag up in the reeds, watching him. Unlocking fercedes he pulled out a heavy 1.5 metre zip-up ad swung the carrying strap over his shoulder, ig the bag at his side, he jogged back. As he I Leon he felt sweat running down his back and : to control the heavy rasp of his breathing, lying himself, he put on his night-vision

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goggles, heard the faint whir as they started up. Leon he saw, had unlocked the trunk. He had removed the body and pulled off the two sleeping-bags, and was cutting off the clothes with a knife. As he hacked and sawed, a dank smell rose from beneath his hands.

Slater, who had had to undertake similarly unpleasant exercises in the past, unzipped the bag and removed a roll of wide-mesh chicken wire. When this was unrolled and flattened on the ground it made up a rectangle of one metre by five. When Leon had cut most of the clothing from the front of the body, the two men manhandled it on to the wire lengthways.

'Pliers,' murmured Leon.

Slater^ removed them from the bag. The former legionnaire,-he mused, seemed as familiar as he himself was with the grim routine. To make the job easier he forced the dead man's jaws apart with his hands. Slowly, with a sighing exhalation, the mouth eased open.

'Thanks, man,' whispered Leon.

As Slater held the mouth open, Leon knelt behind the head, and with some difficulty extracted half a dozen teeth from the corpse's lower jaw with the pliers. Repositioning himself on the chest, quivering with the effort, he extracted half a dozen more from i the upper.

Collecting the teeth, Slater hurled them as far as he I could into the river -- their entry into the water was j barely audible. Taking the knife Slater then stabbed] downwards into the guts and sawed a long transverse i cut. There was a low belch of escaping gas, and �|

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Chris Ryan

ch of such foulness that both men involuntarily

their heads away. Kmld save your crayfish a few days' work,' Slater led.

tanks, brother,' said Leon, taking a three-metre and padlock from the bag. 'They'll be grateful.' ^rapping the disembowelled and half-naked corpse le cut-off clothes in chicken-wire, the two men threaded the chain through the mesh until the was completely contained by the chicken wire. ; the chain tight, Leon padlocked it to itself. a the zip-bag, Slater then took a 10 kg grapnel r. Unwrapping it from its towel, he shackled it to lain binding the chicken-wire, and laid it on the t's chest.

thumbed the transmit button on his comms re we all clear, Eve? Over.' iclear. Over.' sas? Over.' : clear here. Over.'

Over and out.' it.' He turned to Slater. 'Let's go.'

the mummy-shaped remains, the two men at a crouch across the towpath and along the the end they lowered the body to the ;. Below them, Slater sensed the dark, rushing f the river.

,' he whispered. 'On the count of three.' ing the weighted bundle by the chains, they the remains of Antoine Fanon-Khayat to the

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black surface of the water. There was no splash.

Leon thumbed his transmitter switch. 'Job done people. Over and out.'

For a moment, exhausted, they sat there at the end of the jetty.

'I'm impressed,' said Slater. 'You thought of everything.'

'Thanks,' said Leon, throwing the knife, the pliers, and the plumb-line far out into the river. 'Now let's all get the fuck out of here.'

On the towpath, they reconnected with Andreas. The three of them were light-headed with relief now -- whatever happened at least they didn't have a corpse in the back of the car.

Ducking under the trees, Andreas picked up one end of the trunk. Slater took the other. As it now contained only a duvet, two sleeping bags and the zip up holdall the effort involved was not great. Andreas lit a cigarette, and the party moved jauntily back along the path. As they approached the parking place Eve stepped from the reeds, her night-vision goggles still in place.

'Talk about a herd of bloody elephants,' she said i reprovingly. 'Honestly, guys!'

'We're tourists, lady,' said Andreas. 'What do we know?'

As they approached the Peugeot and the Mercedes, Eve and Leon pulled out their keys and activated the remote unlocking devices. Opening the Peugeot boot. Slater and Andreas slung the trunk inside. Andreas \

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Chris Ryan sd the stub of his cigarette to the ground and trod

i*

te what I mean about this job?' he grinned. 'Piece

s, isn't it?' l not sure I'd call it that,' said Slater. 'I hate these

ag disposals.'

at you're glad you joined, aren't you? I mean, I right to tell them that you were the guy for the

;r nodded. The other man was a dim outline him. 'Yeah. You were right. And I haven't ' thanked you for that. When we get back to the jfproper beer I'll buy you a pint or ten.'

eas punched Slater's shoulder. 'It's a deal! And : you're wondering, Cadre operations aren't as fucking seat-of-the-pants as this one has ij Usually we just whip it in, whip it out and wipe

shrugged. 'We've done what we came to do. |iseems good enough to me.'

I they had. Fanon-Khayat had vanished from the

Fthe earth, and the disc was back at the OP under chful eye of Chris. To be precise, it was in the i Veneta bag that Eve had bought for Debbie. It I't have been beyond the capabilities of six

ceful agents to get an Italian handbag from Paris ion.

cr exhaled. Fuck, but he was glad they'd got rid

: body.

er was just turning to find Eve, and perhaps to

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i

squeeze her hand in the dark, when a torch shone' directly and blindingly into his eyes. Several othetj \ flicked on around them until it became apparent that' they were surrounded. Slater's first irritated assumption was that this was some kind of local posse suspicious of! their night-time activities, but a second glance drained from him every last vestige of optimism. The torches he saw, were attached to suppressed MP5 Heckler and Koch machine guns. One of the lights behind him i illuminated the figure in whose unwavering sights he now stood. A figure he recognised immediately as Branca Nikolic.

'Alors,' she said. 'Monsieur Neil. . . Clissold.'

This vwas a different Branca. Like her four; companions she was was wearing a leaf-patterned I windproof smock, combat trousers and hiking boots. No trace now of the fashion-victim or the party-girl.; At a pinch, but for the MP5s and the unwavering stares, she and her team might have been returning, from a weekend's birdwatching.

'Madame Fanon-Khayat!' said Slater, his heart! lurching in his chest. 'How are you?'

In reply she raised her weapon to her shoulder. 'You; have something belonging to my husband,' she said.^ Her voice was like gravel, and strongly French-1 accented. 'A compact disc. Where is it?'

Slater said nothing. He felt sick. Beside him, Eve, Andreas and Leon stood in expressionless silence.

'We know why you come here, Clissold, and we know you have just . . . sunk Antoine's body in this

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Chris Ryan

frOf thztje m'enfous -- I'm not interested. He was ^id and greedy man and you have saved us the t of getting rid of him ourselves. Je vous remercie.' spoke several words in a language Slater to be Serbian, and the others smiled. No are your friends?' Slater asked her. ey are loyal soldiers of my country, and they are

take what is theirs. The disc, Mr Clissold.' an't know what you are talking about.' talking about the disc you were in the process ; from my husband when I came into the flat, sold. The disc you finally stole from him after ered him in the Hotel Inter-Lux at Roissy. |/you have a choice. You give me the disc right and we have brought the hardware to verify it >u give us the woman and exchange her later for c.'

id they take them out? Slater wondered Jy. If the four of them went in fast and hard Jfwthout concern for their own safety? Would a sufficient element of surprise? He dismissed out of hand -- this was obviously a highly 1, highly professional team. They had played it Illy, with a silent and invisible approach and '. tactical positioning. As things stood, each of the had a clear field of fire on each of the Cadre ers. Any attempt to rush them would lead |y to fatalities.

aid you, we don't have any disc,' said Slater. His |was calm but inwardly he was screaming.

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We're blown. They know fucking everything. They've followed us everywhere.

In response, Branca Nikolic flicked off the safety catch of her MP5, marched over to Eve, and jammed the muzzle of the weapon's silencer under the point of Eve's jaw. A second team-member joined her, pressing his weapon into Eve's back.

'OK,' said Branca. 'This is the deal. You have thirty six hours to produce the disc, and as I said, we have the hardware for instant verification. If you do not hand over the disc to me in the bar of the Hotel Grand Exelmans at midday on Tuesday - time enough to get it back from London if necessary - this woman will be killed. ^Evidence also will be made available to the police implicating you, this gendeman here' - she nodded at Andreas - 'and the British Secret Intelligence Service in the murder of my husband. Compris?

Slater shrugged. He caught Eve's eye. She looked angry but unafraid, and held his gaze even when Branca jabbed her painfully in the throat with her weapon.

'We'll be there,' he said, hoping that Eve understood that his words were intended for her. 'Don't you worry, we'll be there.'

'Good,' said Branca, and then spoke in Serbian again.

A member of the team accompanying her walked i over to the Peugeot and the Mercedes. One by one, he let down all the tyres until both cars were flat on their

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Chris Ryan

as.

fe don't want to slow you down more than we ;to,' Branca explained, 'but we do have to take roman away with us. Professional to professional, are you'll understand. And understand one other Mr Clissold, if that is your name. Understand i after all that has happened my country has no ^for lasting enmity with yours. We have been allies

e, we can be allies again.'

flrprised, Slater met her hard blue eyes and inclined ad wordlessly. This was a very different Branca to he had met in her husband's apartment. What jell kind of game was she playing? She clearly >ied a position of some authority if she was in of a team as switched on as this one appeared to

had to be Serbian RDB agents, thought Slater Sndendy. It must have been these jokers who had ^tailing the Cadre cars up the motorway. The fact jhis instincts had been proved right on that

ar point gave him no pleasure at all. ica raised her hand in a quasi military salute, we meet again, gentlemen. Au revoir.' with that, accompanied by Eve, all of the team pt one withdrew into the darkness. The remaining I'kept Slater, Leon and Andreas covered with his $. After fifteen minutes, as the trio stood there in ss, dazzled silence, they heard the faint, far at sound of a vehicle starting up. It came slowly r, and then halted out of sight. The guard backed

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away keeping his torch and weapon trained on the t�ee men and at the last moment turned and ran into pounds kness, where none of the three was mchned_to follow him. They heard a door open and close - the vehLle was showing no lights, either mtemaUy or Ixtlally - a crunching acceleration, and then sdence.

,� 1 > _.:J CUcor

'Fuck,' said Slater.

328

THIRTEEN

of them enjoyed the night that followed. Leon up Chris on his mobile, and outlining the in a few terse sentences, gave her their map inates and asked her to arrange for a breakdown to come out and inflate their tyres, had been waiting for twenty minutes when a Holding a torch arrived on foot. At his side, held lort leash, was an agitated-sounding Dobermann ler guard-dog.

had let down their tyres, Leon explained. : waiting for assistance, word 'vandals' had the effect that he hoped: act attention from what they had been doing (4n the first place. The man offered to ring the -- there had been other incidents, he said, lally he suspected that drug users frequented sa. He had bought a property up the road a of years ago under the impression that he had a tranquil corner for his family to enjoy at ends, but it had not been long before they discovering the condoms and the used ges on the towpath. 'What do you say to your

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children,' he asked them, 'when they say, Papa, what's this?'

Leon admitted that he had no idea. The culprits, he said, were probably zonards -- occupants of the public housing estates which ringed Paris. There were, he added mischievously, a lot of immigrants among them. . .

The householder agreed. Wherever immigrants established themselves, problems followed. He had nothing against them personally, but there were just too many of them. It was a cultural question - a question of standards.

Eventually, in a warm glow of nationalist outrage, and having failed to register that Leon himself was one of the 'problematic' immigrants in question, the man led his dog back to Joigny.

The breakdown service arrived twenty minutes later from Mantes-la-Jolie, and Leon settled their considerable bill with cash.

'They were RJDB, for sure,' Leon told -Chris an hour and a half later. 'My guess is that they were in Paris to find out who he was doing the Ondine business with, so that they could knock out the middle-man and take control. And he'd obviously boasted - perhaps to Branca - that he had a disc containg material so damaging to Britain that it could be used to negotiate the return of Karadzic.'

'So what do you reckon Branca's part is in all this?' asked Chris.

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Chris Ryan

JtLeon shrugged. 'My guess is that the bimbo act was ;icdy for her husband's benefit. That was the real ica we saw last night. She's an RDB agent like her aer, and the whole marriage thing was a set-up to tie lon-Khayat to Serbia.'

later agreed. 'She certainly looked as switched-on ic rest of them this evening -1 can't imagine Eve's ; easy to creep up on. And she looked pretty familiar

that MP5.'

I'Yes,' agreed Chris. 'I think we have to agree that saw the real Branca Nikolic this evening. What |'s doing with this Miko Pasquale guy - the dope fcr -- I'm less sure of. That's where Terry is right watching Pasquale's flat.' ly joy?' asked Slater.

Jo. There's no one there at the present minute. fs the only connection we've got to Branca, iigh. For obvious reasons she hasn't gone back to I'apartment over the road. My guess is that the RDB followed Fanon-Khayat to the hotel, bribed staff-member to point him out, discovered that place had been taken by Andreas and that Andreas hanging out with a Monsieur Clissold and a oiselle Benbow and . . .' She shrugged. 'They've on to us ever since. From what you say they Jy know that we're based here at the Grand ans.'

>n nodded in agreement. 'I'm sure you're right. I think we should look pretty closely at our own ater-surveillance efforts. We've been pretty badly

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shown up here. The only one of us who spotted anything was Neil.'

There was silence. Leon had said what everyone else had been thinking - that they all shared the responsibility for Eve's capture.

'So what do you propose?' asked Slater. 'They've probably got us staked out right now.'

'There's a good chance they don't know about Terry -- he's only been in and out once since they've been on to us - and I'm almost certain that they don't know about me, because I haven't left the room. For the moment all they know is that you, Andreas and Eve use the place. It won't take them long to figure out that there are more of us here, though, because if they know the names that you checked into the Inter-Lux with - Clissold, Benbow, et cetera - and have found out that there's no one of that name registered here .. .'

'And they might have gone to work on Eve, too,' j said Slater grimly.

'That is a possibility, yes. I've spoken to Manderson j and agreed that we'll leave here tomorrow morning, j get the hire company to pick up the cars, and regroup \ later in the day -- this time, hopefully, without being 1 followed. Meanwhile, Terry keeps watch for Pasquale, j and as soon as he finds him a couple of you guys go mi and force him to make a meet with Branca. We're] watching the RV, and we'll follow Branca back to! wherever she's holed up with her RDB mates - and! Eve. Then we go in and extract Eve.'

332

Chris Ryan all this in twenty-four hours?' asked Andreas

ily"

*have no choice,' said Chris. 'Manderson says

i question of handing over that disc on Tuesday. i return for Eve.' jit's fucking outrageous!' Slater exploded. 'They her. They probably will kill her.' Grabbing i-service menu from a table, he hurled it l-the wall. f others regarded him in silence.

Slater continued angrily, 'I may be just a S-squaddie, but are the pictures on that disc jch a big fucking deal? I mean I know chopped i and heads don't look good, but that Cambodia history. Nobody's admitted that guys from lent were training the Khmer Rouge, but jf's exactly denied it either. It's certainly not

come as a shock to anyone in the know.' by one the others turned away. Only Christ eyes. 'I'm afraid it's a question of "ours is not an why",' she said quietly. 'For whatever reason '- to hold on to the disc and get it to Manderson. fnon-negotiable.'

rfy, and with an effort, Slater brought himself f control. 'So how do we play it?' he asked.

gets on the phone to suppliers -- we're going . some automatic weaponry in case it comes to jjlttlt. You and Andreas sleep. If anything comes in Perry, I'll wake you. There's nothing else we can

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Slater nodded. Chris was right. He glanced at her. Even close up there was a kind of deliberately cultivated ordinariness about her. But Chris was not, Slater knew, an ordinary person. She could hardly have slept over the last couple of days, but continued to dispense good sense and cool judgement. When they had returned, stunned by their reversal from the forest of La Roche-Guyon, it had been to find that the wheels had continued to turn, that contingency plans had been made. Every group, Slater had learnt, needed a figure like this - a co-ordinator who held things together by attending to the details that fell outside the remit of the specialists.

Her early career, Leon had told him, had been spent in MIS, as had Terry's. Their shared speciality had been the tracking of terrorists in mainland Britain, and their surveillance skills had been legendary, as more than one PIRA active service unit had discovered to its cost. Their great gift was for self-effacement -- for making themselves invisible. You could probably spend an hour with them in a station waiting-room, Slater mused, and then climb on to your train convinced that you'd been alone all along. It was a rare skill.

Slater took Terry's room. For a long while he lay awake, thinking of Eve and how different she had looked and sounded the night before.

'Sometimes I just need to escape and be human, again,' she had whispered as she settled herself against j him. 'Will you be my escape route?'

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Chris Ryan

'I will,' he promised her. Til be anything you want

to be. But what about our working together? Isn't

: going to be a problem?'

p'Not if we don't make it one. We're just going to we to be very cool about it all. Keep all... all of this

side of the Cadre. Because if it touches on the way s work, people won't like it. It'll unbalance the team. > we don't let it touch on the way we work. The Iment we walk out this door tomorrow morning the

ale thing snap-freezes.' id how will I know when you next . . . need to

>e?' he asked.

Tou'll know,' she answered, her voice a dreamy je. 'I promise you, you'll know.' I

IS woke to Andreas's urgent shaking of his shoulder. f a moment he had no idea where he was, and then I room took shape around him. He glanced at his ch; it was 4am.

ic drug-guy's turned up,' said Andreas, stuffing Clock 9mm into the waistband of his trousers Ihanding Slater the silenced Sig Sauer rescued from

lotel Inter-Lux. 'We're going to go and shake Idown.'dter was still wearing his outdoor clothes from the

efore, and quickly pulled on the walking boots he ft'bought in the Mammouth supermarket. They

I't ideal, but if there was going to be a fight he |?t want to be caught in a pair of thin-soled loafers.

Sig Sauer went into a pocket of the hiking jacket.

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Slater nodded. Chris was right. He Even close up there was a kind of cultivated ordinariness about her. But Cl Slater knew, an ordinary person. She couldJ slept over the last couple of days, but cc dispense good sense and cool judgement, had returned, stunned by their reversal fronJ of La Roche-Guyon, it had been to wheels had continued to turn, that contit had been made. Every group, Slater had le a figure like this -- a co-ordinator who together by attending to the details that fell j remit of the specialists.

Her early career, Leon had told him,', in MIS, as had Terry's. Their shared sp been the tracking of terrorists in mainland] their surveillance skills had been legend than one PIRA active service unit had < cost. Their great gift was for self-efface making themselves invisible. You coi spend an hour with them in a station Slater mused, and then climb on to convinced that you'd been alone all along. Il skill.

Slater took Terry's room. For a long awake, thinking of Eve and how difie looked and sounded the night before.

'Sometimes I just need to escape and�' again,' she had whispered as she settled he him. 'Will you be my escape route?'

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Chris Ryan

am. Five minutes later, certain that they had lost earlier pursuers, they recrossed the river by the de Sully. Soon they were in the eleventh sement, parking a couple of hundred metres the street and round the corner from the ig containing Miko Pasquale's apartment, aterialising from the shadows, Terry climbed into ick seat, carrying a crumpled salami sandwich and pen bottle of wine in a paper bag. He looked ely disreputable -- a borderline alcoholic, perhaps, | had taken to drinking in the streets, f^asquale came back in about half an hour ago, 6. The lights went on in the second-floor flat for ten minutes and then went out. I think we can he's asleep. I've watched half a dozen people ; in and out of the place, and I've got the keypad | for the gate . . .'

/e you tested it?' asked Andreas. >, but from where I was on the bench back there i able to see people punching it in. I couldn't see aal numbers, but I could see that the code went aw, bottom row, and then middle row twice. I walked past you could see the finger marks ad the one, the nine, the four and the five. So it's

1945 or 1954.' iickly he fitted on one of the Motorola comms

put on the other. j>K, give me five minutes to get back in place, and we you the go-ahead. You all three going in?' mi nodded. 'Yes we are. And we're going to need

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you to stay out here in case we have any visitors. It's not impossible Branca might show up.'

'OK. Wait for my word.'

Slater checked the Sig Sauer, ensured that he had a spare clip of ammunition.

'Clear to go,' came Terry's message. 'Over.'

The three men climbed from the car and sauntered unhurriedly up the street, as if returning home from a long weekend. When they got to the gate they pulled on gloves and Slater punched 1954 into the keypad. Nothing. He keyed in 1945, and with a muted click the gate unlocked and the three pushed their way into the small courtyard.

Pasquale's name and flat number were on one of the letter-boxes. Slater led up the stairs and waited outside the second-floor flat. The bell-push was grimy; drug dealers, Slater thought, must get quite used to late night visitors. Even so, 4.30 in the morning was stretching a point.

'Why don't you ring the bell?' Andreas suggested to Leon. 'You look the druggiest of all of us.'

'You mean the blackest?' whispered Leon. 'Thanks a lot!'

'White boys in hiking jackets don't buy smack at 4.30 in the morning,' hissed Andreas.

'And black ones do? Man, just where have you been hiding your sweet ass?'

'Guys,' intervened Slater. 'Wind your necks in, OK?' '

Leaning forward, he pressed the bell. From within,

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Chris Ryan

I'heard slowly approaching footfalls and a ing mutter. To conceal themselves, Leon and i took a couple of steps up the staircase. s spyhole briefly went dark, and the door opened

of inches on a brass chain.

i

le door opened a couple of inches, Slater his heel against it, hard. The chain snapped the door flew backwards into the face of the ening it, who sank to his knees with a groan, i hands.

three men barged in, kicking the door shut ; them, and Pasquale raised his head. Blood was from his nose. He was a tall man, not jme, with pale scars showing in his cropped night-time attire was a Paris St Germain strip. He looked more puzzled than afraid, do you need?' he asked in heavily accented pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and ; it to his nose. 'Smack? Crack? Ecstasy?' need to talk,' Leon answered in English, r frisking him. 'Let's go inside and sit down. Any ; around and these two men will shoot you.'

^-dealer looked at the faces of the three men ; in front of him, and then led them through to 3us lounge containing an acre of white carpet, a ridescreen TV and several tons of furniture ed in black leather.

he said, indicating the sofas and armchairs, what is it you want.'

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Slater positioned himself so that he could cover both Pasquale and the door.

'We want Branca,' said Leon simply.

'So you are who, police?'

'Why should we be police?'

Pasquale shrugged. 'Because of the Branca business.'

'Which is?'

Pasquale shrugged again.

'She deals drugs?' asked Leon.

Pasquale smiled and said nothing.

Slater strode over. Grabbing Pasquale's left hand, he wrenched the little finger back until there was a snap of breaking bone. Pasquale screamed - a long, high keen of terror and shock, and fell white-faced to the carpet. For a moment he lay there, gasping.

'Tell us,' Slater ordered him. 'Does Branca deal drugs?'

And still Pasquale hesitated. Casually, Slater stamped down hard on the dealer's wounded hand. For a full minute, ^blank-faced, he watched the other man's agonised writhings on the carpet.

'Does Branca deal drugs?' he repeated.

Pasquale's face was grey with pain. Still disbelieving, he stared at his broken hand.

'She buy into my operation,' he managed eventually. 'We partners.'

'How did that work out? Take your time. We've got several hours.' '

'Several hours? What you mean several hours?'

'We're going to be here until tomorrow morning.'

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Chris Ryan

man! Please. I need a doctor.' aimed the Sig Sauer at the dealer's face, i'll need a fucking undertaker if you don't : my questions!'

Pasquale gasped. 'She pay me cash. Five thousand francs. In return she get fifty per are of profits for one year. And contact list.'

frowned at Andreas. Why were the Serbian fciservice buying into the Parisian drugs trade? It ?make sense.

did you meet her?' asked Leon. was at all the parties. The music parties, the parties, the film parties, the TV parties, the I parties -- all the parties where my clients go.' 1 she became your lover.' and some others, I think. I was not ... in avity.'

t you meet her husband?'

?

1 was he involved in this . . . deal?'

it, shit, pas du tout. He was not into all that scene.' l�tell me about your clientele.'

: usual. Models, designers, actors, business . . .'

liticians? Journalists?' aale regarded Leon warily. 'A few.'

we me names.'

ice.

^ping briskly forward, aiming with care, Slater Pasquale through the top of the arch of his right

The pain, he knew, would be extreme - all those

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tiny bones smashing through sensitive tissue - and the shock would be sufficient to break any resistance immediately.

The effect was the intended one. Arching his back in agony, the drug-dealer began to shake and babble as if electrified. His eyes rolled back and his tongue danced crazily in his mouth.

'The names,' said Slater, jamming the muzzle of the silenced Sig Sauer into Pasquale's eye. 'Comprenezr

Pasquale understood. It took him a little time to form the words, but he understood.

There were the inevitable socialites, footballers and models, but there was also a prominent female broadcaster ,on current affairs, a columnist on Le Monde, the wife of the chef de protocole at the Elysee Palace, and a Nato liaison officer from the defence ministry.

Leon looked at Slater and Andreas. The RJDB's interest in Miko Pasquale was suddenly very easy to understand. Five hundred thousand francs had been a very small price to pay for access to this kind of influence, and probably an excellent investment as well, given the scale of Pasquale's business.

'Why did you agree to Branca's terms?' asked Leon. 'Half a million wasn't much to pay for half your profits.'

Pasquale took a deep breath, struggled to control himself. Tears streaked his face now. 'Branca is very chouette -- very sweet -- but many of her friends are not so chouette.'

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Chris Ryan

icy're like us?' H'est fa. They're like you. Can I get something to

this . . . my foot?' Jo,' said Slater. 'Bleed. I don't like drug-dealers.'

at time do you guys think we should wake ica?' mused Leon.

irly,' said Slater. 'Get her when she's not thinking iearly.'

Jut not too early,' Andreas intervened. 'She'll just pissed off and tell Smacko Jacko here to ring her And then we'll be stuck here for fucking ages.' yen o'clock?' ventured Leon. ['agree with seven,' said Slater. 'We're just going to I to inject a little urgency into the phone call.'

eed?' Leon asked Andreas. reed.'

clarity's sake, Leon explained the plan in i. At seven o'clock, Leon told the dealer, he -- : - was going to ring Branca on her mobile. He t going to say that something of vital importance come up, that someone had just given him a which had to be passed on to her in person, at he had to see her within the hour. He was to no more than this, and he was not to take no answer.

: this?' asked Pasquale, pathetically grateful. 'This want from me? You don't want some shit? ; pounds ?'

>r the moment,' said Leon ominously, 'this is all i'we want. But be sure of one thing: if you try and

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communicate anything else to Branca, we will shoot you in the face. Now where does she stay?'

'Rue Exelmans,' said Pasquale. 'In the seizieirte. With her husband.'

'And where else?'

'I don't know about anywhere else. I promise you.'

Slater pressed the muzzle of his silencer against the side of Pasquale's temple, and thumbed down the safety catch.

'Non!' screamed the dealer, his eyes bulging with fear. 'Je vousprie -- non . . . Attendez ... I tell you' - his voice was shaking now -- 'There is another place that she goes, but I never go there with her. I think it's somewhere in Barbes - in the dixhuitieme.'

'What makes you think that if you haven't been there?' asked Slater.

'I hear her talking with one of... the others. She was speaking some East Europe language, I think, but I hear her say "Eau de Javel" and "Prisunic" and "Boulevard Barbes". She was speaking in a low voice so I am not supposed to hear her, but I have good ears.'

'What's--' began Andreas.

'Prisunic's a cut-price supermarket chain,' replied Leon. 'And Eau de Javel is Jeyes fluid. Barbes is in north Paris, just east of the mainline railway track from the Gare du Nord, where you come in on Eurostar. It used to be very run-down, with a lot of immigrants' hostels and so on, but recently it's become quite hip. It's where middle-class white kids go to get their fix of black African culture. There's still a lot of crime there,

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i, and it's still one of the easiest places to buy

mis -- especially since the Eastern European

�

ju're sure she said Barbes?' he asked, juale shrugged. 'That's what I heard.' Slater, his jaw clenched with the effort not to the affair was taking on an air of profound ity. First light was beginning to stain the sky the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he red if Eve was awake, or if she had managed to How were they treating her? While he knew S? experience that she was more than capable of ag after herself, he still revolted from the idea of Jeing afraid, or confused, or hurt. More than he wanted to save her, as she - with such Itch and skill - had saved him.

waited for two hours. Leon went but into the >r in order to make a report to Chris and Terry. 5 a time, so pliant seemed Pasquale, they turned on it TV and watched the rerun of a football game u'ch Marseilles managed to snatch victory from

3l

the players exchanged shirts, Andreas turned to 'Why don't we make that call now?' ?n looked at his watch, and nodded. For ten es he rehearsed Pasquale, taking him through contingency, every possible variation on the ersation. 'Tell her,' he kept repeating, 'that you Sine to her. That it's urgent. That it's political, ^you can't discuss it on an open line.'

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Finally Leon was content, or as content as he was ever likely to be. 'Just remember,' he told Pasquale. 'I'm going to understand every word you say. One nuance, one inflexion that you are being coerced, and my colleague here will blow your brains through that window into the Rue de Lappe. So don't get clever.'

Pasquale hesitated for a moment, and then used his good hand to dial a seven-figure number, which Slater memorised.

The phone rang for thirty seconds.

'Branca? Chem? Oui, c'est moi, Miko ..."

Branca Nikolic was clearly very pissed off indeed at being woken before 7am, and in no mood to listen to the rantings of Miko Pasquale. Finally, however, the drug-dealer's urgency and fear communicated itself, and she listened. Thirty seconds later he clicked off the phone.

'She wouldn't let me come to her. She said to be at the Cafe Metz just outside Strasbourg St Denis metro station in half an hour.'

Leon nodded. Slater pulled out a metro map. 'What's the nearest station to here?' he asked Pasquale.

'Bastille.'

'Look,' Slater said to Leon. 'You can get to Strasbourg St Denis station direct from Bastille. No changes. And it's exactly the same--'

'. . . from Barbes,' Leon nodded. 'I know. I noticed that too. So, here's what we're going to do.'

Two minutes later Leon had gone, leaving Slater and

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Chris Ryan

idreas to guard Pasquale. The plan, Leon had cided, was that Terry should go ahead to Strasbourg Denis by metro, locate Branca at the cafe, and be ady to follow her back to wherever she was staying, feiven that it was approaching rush hour, and that anca had nominated a cafe next to a metro station, it reasonable to assume that she would be arriving departing by metro. j< Given also that there were reasonable grounds for pposing that Branca was staying in Barbes, Leon auld go straight to Barbes-Rochechouart metro If their calculations were correct, Branca Id return from the Strasbourg St Denis rendezvous Jarbes, a journey of only four stops, and lead Leon I Terry to wherever she was staying. Of the three of bumped by Branca and her RDB team in the che-Guyon forest, Leon insisted, he was the least ly to be recognised. There were always a handful of ck guys in and around Barbes station handing out advertising the local marabouts, or West African i-doctors. He wouldn't stick out. In case Branca ved by car, Chris would be standing by in the sot.

and Andreas stayed with Pasquale. The smell Jy baked bread and freshly ground coffee was , up enticingly from the Rue de Lappe below, but vo ex-SAS men dared not allow Pasquale to make i all breakfast, as he had offered to do. The shaven led dealer had not got to carve out an important of the Parisian hard drugs market by being

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amenable, Slater reflected. Only abject fear would keep him in line, and then not for long.

At eight o'clock precisely, Slater recocked the Sig Sauer and Pasquale dialled Branca's number and said what Leon had earlier ordered him to say. He had been sick since speaking to her, the dealer complained. He was feeling terrible. He could no longer make it to the rendezvous. Would she forgive him?

Slater and Andreas smiled at each other. They couldn't understand all the French, but Pasquale's Nokia was practically jumping out of his hands, so violent was Branca's fury at having been woken up and had her time wasted.

'The prtoblem?' Pasquale mumbled in response to a particularly vitriolic squawk. 'The problem's to do with one of the English models. The UK press are on to her habit and there's a danger that names are going to be named . . . Yes I did ask you to get out of bed to hear that, damn right . . . Well, it's important to me, and . . . No, you can't just pay off British tabloid journalists, no. But . . . Of course I'll deal with it, but you should be aware that

He held the phone away from his ear, shaking his head. He had clearly been cut off mid-sentence. Andreas reached over to confirm that the mobile was switched off and then nodded to Pasquale.

'That was good, man. I have to say that you were good there.'

What he did not say was that neither his nor Slater's French was good enough for them to have known if

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Chris Ryan

ad attempted to warn Branca. Luckily, this jility did not seem to have occurred to Pasquale. Jbw about a drink, Miko?' Slater asked.

juale stared at him. 'A drink? You mean . . .' I whisky, yeah. Or a vodka. What've you got?'

ave whisky,' Pasquale gasped, screwing up his

i a wave of pain overtook him.

There?' asked Slater.

juale pointed feebly to a cabinet, from which s took out a sealed bottle of twelve-year-old Islay i glass.

if-filling the glass, he placed it in front of sale. 'Cheers!'

dealer stared from Slater to Andreas and back

'Non', he said, disbelievingly.

�'/' smiled Slater and Andreas together.

vly, hesitantly, Pasquale sipped at the drink, his easing as the alcohol reached his throat, ic on, mate, drink up,' said Andreas. 'You've i whole bottle to go.'

1 Pasquale hesitated. Pensively, Slater levelled the auer and blew the screen out of the television. I gesture had the required effect. With a shaking , Pasquale lifted the glass and took a deep swallow, icre's a boy!' said Andreas. 'That wasn't so bad, t?'

are minutes later half the bottle was gone. Pasquale f muttering to himself, his words slurring into in arehensibility. jme on, mate, down the hatch!' said Andreas

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encouragingly, pinching the drunk man's nose, pulling back his head, and pouring in another neat glassful.

'Empty stomach,' said Slater. 'Always speeds it up. He isn't half going to feel like shit when he comes around. Not that it'll be anything to compare with what he puts smack and crack addicts through.' He looked at the dealer contemptuously. 'Will it? Eh, fuckface?'

Pasquale groaned and closed his eyes. Two thirds of the bottle was now washing around in his stomach.

'See if you can find a runnel in the kitchen,' Slater suggested to Andreas.

Ten minutes later the bottle lay empty on the floor. Laying him on a carpet, Slater and Andreas dragged the by now helpless Pasquale into the furthest bedroom, hauled him on to the bed, plasticuffed him with his arms behind his back, and pulled a duvet over him. He started to snore almost immediately. In order to be forewarned if Branca attempted to make contact, Slater also pocketed the dealer's mobile phone.

'How long's he going to be under for, do you reckon?' asked Andreas.

'At a guess, until this evening,' replied Slater. 'We'll probably have to make a return visit at some point and top him up.'

'Well I looked in the cupboard and there's another five bottles of this stuff, so he can carry on his bender without switching brands.'

'He'll be glad of that,' said Slater.

They closed the bedroom door on the unconscious

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Chris Ryan

|uale and placed the empty whisky bottle inside the ed television, as if it had been hurled there in a ("drunken rage. Anyone searching further -- for the i few hours at least - would find the sleeping figure ath the duvet. Should the searcher go further still, aver the plasticuffs and attempt to wake him, it was y that a coherent explanation of his condition be forthcoming. The rapid consumption of Mproof alcohol induces short-term memory loss, would be some days before Pasquale would be piece together what had happened to him. just to be on the safe side, Slater and Andreas themselves into the flat. 'How about some st?' asked Andreas. 'The kitchen's pretty well sd and I'm bloody starving.' I English, then,' said Slater.

it's mobile rang shortly after Sam. It was Chris. 'Is jtnan immobilised?' she asked. le's down,' Slater answered. jlet back here ASAP. Terry and Leon have a result.' punched the air. 'That's brilliant!' ers crossed. See you soonest.' , the hotel, the mood was optimistic. Terry had to stake out the location, so Leon told them had happened since the two of them left dale's flat an hour and a half earlier.

len Pasquale rang to say he wasn't coming to the |sat the Cafe Metz, Branca got seriously, seriously off. She shouted at the waiter, banged down

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some change, and headed straight back to the Strasbourg St Denis metre. Four stops up the line to Barbes and she charges out again with Terry in tow. I'm hanging out at the station exit with the Africans when she comes screaming through - still far too angry to think about counter-surveillance - and starts moving up the Boulevard Barbes at high speed. I lock on behind Terry and we tail her up the boulevard and into the Rue de la Goutte d'Or. A few more twists and turns through the souk and she goes into this narrow little place called the Rue de Coude.

'Terry and I wait until she's inside, make a couple of passes past the building, and then pull back. The place is a brick-built warehouse block, previously containing garment-industry sweatshops. Most of the units now look vacant, but the security's recently been reinforced on the top-floor windows -- and I mean very recently, because the wood shavings, iron-filings and spare bolts are still lying out on the roadside beneath the windows - so our best guess is that that's where they've got her. Terry's still over there, anyway, so he'll let us know as soon as he's got confirmation.'

'Did you get a look at the roof?' asked Slater.

'I knew you were going to ask that!' said Leon. 'And * the answer is not really. Terry'11 certainly give it a good 1 recce, but I didn't have time. All I can tell you is that \ it's tiled, and not flat.'

'Our main advantage,' said Chris, 'seems to be that they don't know that we've sussed the place. They're

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Chris Ryan

sing to be expecting any kind of assault.'

ee with that,' said Leon. 'My guess is that the the windows were put there specifically to e in. They're not anticipating having to keep ^anyone else out.'

how do we play it?' asked Slater. 'If we go in aanded with automatic weapons and try and : out, we'll have the place crawling with armed within minutes. Can we do it on an official : the Regiment in, or at a pinch the French I?'

had a word with the boss,' said Chris. 'And sion our own. No Regiment, no GIGN, nothing even the police. Politically the whole thing's just achy. The basic message is that Eve's ours, we've extract her on our own, and if anyone gets they can expect no help from HMG. Hostile

remember?' iant,' said Slater. : others looked at him. 'That's how it usually is, ' said Andreas. 'That's the price we pay for our stions-asked status.'

nodded. He didn't want the others to think had an emotional involvement in the situation involvement that might compromise his tional efficiency. If Leon or Chris suspected that I'was something between him and Eve, they'd him to the background immediately. He was st recent recruit to the Cadre, he reminded f, and as such the most disposable.

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'It's when situations like this come up,' Andreas continued, 'that you realise how dependent you were in the Regiment. On the MOD, the police, the Home Office, whoever. If you wanted something -- kit, money, back-up, firepower - you just had to ask and it was there.' He hooked his thumbs fatalistically into the belt-loops of his jeans. 'Here it's different. Here it's just us.'

Slater nodded. 'The RDB aren't going to want to attract the police's attention either, though, are they?'

'If there's unsilenced shooting, the police will be there within five minutes,' said Leon. 'Ten, max.'

'Look,' said Chris. 'Until Terry makes his report, we can't make any plans. Why don't you guys go and get some sleep? Whatever's going to happen is going to happen tonight, so you're going to need to be sharp. Paris has bad associations for us, we don't want to lose anyone else here.'

She turned to Leon. 'What arrangements did you make about weapons?'

'The best I could manage for definite was three ex military FAMAS rifles with silencers. They're quite reliable, in fact -- we had them in the Legion.'

'Ammunition?'

'Comes with. The guy's waiting for my call to arrange an exchange. The price is thirty thousand francs, cash.'

'Why don't you make the call now?' Chris suggested. 'Arrange the pick-up for tonight, so you don't have to bring them back here. Do you trust this guy?"

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Chris Ryan

'!'ve done business with him before,' said Leon. t's where I got the Clock and the Sig Sauer. And ^S rifles are never a problem -- all the French services have them.' nodded. 'OK. Get some sleep.'

pm, showered and changed, Slater rejoined the He had not slept well; fractured images of i^-Khayat's disembowelled body slipping into the darkness of the Seine had alternated with the that he himself was drowning. And Eve. was happening to her, locked up with Branca |�lic and her RDB footsoldiers? They would have tioned her, at the very least, about the Fanon at assassination. They would have wanted to find " MI6 knew about the Ondine deal, or whether Just wanted to recover the disc, tical questioning, as the Regiment had called it, refined science. Eve was trained to resist sgation and would hold out for as long as she but everyone broke sooner or later. Training i at Pontrilas or Imber, however harsh, came to Fingernails were not ripped out with pliers, les were not taped to the genitals, prisoners i not anally raped with cattle-prods. In the field, rer, it was a different story. In the field it went on and got worse and worse, until you fell -- or led - apart.

le disc was not delivered intact, that would ily be Eve's fate. Slater had no illusions about

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that. She would be tortured until she had given up all that she knew, and then killed and disposed of.

But the orders from Manderson were that the disc was not to be sacrificed for Eve. They would have to go in and pull her out: to assault what would probably turn out to be a near-impregnable position defended by a numerically superior, better-armed force. Tactically, it made no sense at all.

But then, Slater had mused as he drifted into sleep, what the fuck did?

In the room that had been the OP he found Terry, who had handed over watcher duties to Chris. Slater congratulated him on the success of his knackering surveillance marathon.

'Well, you know what they say,' said Terry, swigging on a can of Fanta from the minibar. 'When all else fails, bring in a fat lad from Essex!'

'I'll remember that,' smiled Slater, buoyed up by Terry's cheerful manner.

A large steak and French fries was waiting for him on a trolley, and he devoured it at the glass-topped dressing-table. Around him the others were making similar arrangements. Slater watched them covertly. Basically the unit divided into the brains, the eyes and the muscle. Eve and Leon were the brains, the planners; Chris and Terry were the eyes, and he and Andreas were the muscle. But it was more complex than that, because according to Eve the others were all pretty good with firearms, too -- excepting Terry, of course. Terry's job, like Chris's, was to bind the team

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Chris Ryan

jgether. The two of them seemed to have aim itless patience and steady good humour. Of cou , of these roles overlapped - at a pinch they could each other's jobs. He himself, Slater reckoned, \ - bad planner, and there wasn't much Andreas did aow about surveillance, and so on. , They were a good team, Slater concluded. He'd h doubts to begin with, but having seen them sration he wouldn't have changed any of them. A the team was to be put to the ultimate test - hostage-rescue.

coffee poured, cigarettes lit, and the load ley returned to the corridor, Terry belch lingfully into a paper tissue. 'All right lads, listi 'he position, as far as we can calculate, is that E1 sing held on the fifth floor of a warehouse in tl de Coude. We have no hard proof of that, but 1 this' -- he held up a scrap of paper -- 'just outsid fou can see it's a receipt for a cappuccino from tl hMocha at the Waterloo Eurostar terminus. TP ; is last Friday, the day we came over. Like I said I't prove anything, but if this wasn't Eve trying t s us a sign, then it's one hell of a coincidence.' le others nodded. 'It would have been dark whe brought her in,' said Andreas. 'She'd have bee

drop it without being spotted.' j{ow I've had a close look at the building througl 6* -- Terry held up a small pair of Zeiss binocular

I've done a few drawings.' Dm the pocket of his coat, which was lying on thi

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bed next to him, he took out a French schoolboy's notebook.

'This is of the front, which is in glazed brick, and this is of the back, which is the same. The roof is the mansard type. It's steeply pitched and covered in very old, very insecure-looking slates. The roofs to either side are the same. The only way up there that I could see is through the building itself and out through a skylight. There's a fire escape, but it's very old and narrow, and I doubt whether it would take the weight of an armed man. And even if it did you'd be spotted the moment you left the ground. They've got a pretty effective security rota going, with at least one guy patrolling the area at all times. As we already know, these guys aren't the usual brandy-swigging, shell-suit wearing Serbian paramilitary bullies, they're well trained RDB agents. They're going to notice if a mountaineering team armed with assault rifles starts making its way up the front of their building.

'A more sensible option, in my opinion, would be to pick the lock of one of the buildings next door, which are both five-storey warehouse blocks, and take armed possession of the top-floor. Once up there you could remove some brickwork and go in through the partition wall.'

'Too noisy without special equipment,' said Slater I immediately. 'And takes for ever. I've been involved in jobs like that - you need fibre-optic lenses and all sorts \ if it's going to work. Even with the right kit it would \ take all night to pick our way through. There isj

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Chris Ryan

ler way, though. And that's straight in through jnt door.' le others fell silent.

ic main trouble with an assault through a tion or roof is that it's a kill-em-all option. The ' way to get Eve out if we assault the place is to kill able all of them. Whatever happened there'd be jath, and it's a probability that a fair amount of blood would be ours. Plus there's a good chance ^wouldn't survive anyway.' /e've got to give it a go,' said Andreas, although could tell from the tone of his voice that he had ae misgivings. 'We can't just leave her there.' not suggesting we leave her there,' said Slater. I think we ought to do is snatch Branca, and ige an exchange of hostages. My suggestion is Mneone from the RDB rings Branca, asks for a meet, and we jump her.' : others stared at him.

aeone from the RDB?' said Leon, incredulous. r do we arrange that?'

; Ridley,' said Slater. 'Tell him to get on to the i desk and find a native Serbian speaker and to go the files for the names of a couple of senior i officers. At a given time, the Serbian guy rings �'s mobile from London - I got the number I'Pasquale rang her this morning - and says he's ordered to contact her. He drops a couple of |ed names, just to show he is who he says he is. �of the men with her, he says, is working

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undercover for the Americans, or the Albanians, or whoever. She must come alone and in secret to such and-such a place, where she will be told what to do.'

'And once she arrives we grab her, drag her back to where she's got Eve, and arrange an exchange,' said Leon. 'I like it!'

'It avoids a shoot-out.' Slater shrugged. 'A shootout that we might well lose, as things stand.'

Terry, who had been listening in silence, helped himself to one of Andreas's cigarettes. 'Why don't we go through it point by point?' he said.

360

FOURTEEN

7.30pm Slater went with Leon to pick up the his. Chris had spoken to Manderson several in the course of the afternoon, and the Cadre had approved the plan to kidnap Branca and ige her for Eve. P4, the head of Balkan

Jtions, had agreed to help Manderson out without ig on knowing the precise circumstances. This

| unconventional, but as Manderson had gently ed out, it was at P4's request that the Cadre had ic involved in the first place. It had been the i desk, not to put too fine a point on it, who had Fanon-Khayat dead.

ie time agreed for the fake call from Belgrade was it French time - any earlier and there would people on the streets, any later and there was

fern that Branca's mobile might be switched off.

fccision had been made in London that a twenty -year-old Serbian-speaking MI6 agent was to the call. Until recently Pavel Djukic had been a

.'World Service employee, and had only joined

I Balkan desk six weeks earlier. His time behind a i-studio microphone had given him a vocal

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The Hit List

authority beyond his years, however, and he was confident of his ability to bamboozle Branca Nikolic. The service had amassed a fair volume of information on the Serbian secret service, and Djukic was swotting up the files on individual RDB officers in preparation for a heavy bout of name-dropping.

Once again, Leon and Slater swiftly threw off their Serbian tails. The weapons contact was an Algerian named Schafa, who fronted a business in used small arms with a bicycle repair shop in Belleville in the twentieth arrondissement. Leon and Schafa had done hard time together at Clairvaux prison, and since joining the Cadre Leon had brought a fair amount of business the Algerian's way.

On their arrival in Belleville, Schafa insisted that they join him in a glass of mint tea. The tiny grease stained office attached to his workshop smelt pleasantly of cycle oil and tyre-rubber, and Slater resolved to buy a bicycle when - and if- he got back to London. He had never owned one as a child; now was the time to put that right.

As he looked round, fingering chains, wingnuts, spokes and drop-handlebars, Schafa and Leon chattered away in rapid-fire French. As most of the language that they used was underworld slang, Slater could barely understand a word of it but he gathered from their expressions that Schafa had managed to pull something special out of the hat for his old Clairvaux cellmate.

Eventually the Algerian led them through the

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Chris Ryan

lop and up a grimed and narrow flight of stairs stockroom. At the end, beyond a plastic-strip i, was the locked entrance to the next-door unit. Leon murmured to Slater, was also owned by i, but under the front of a mail-order company : DIY tools.

; door swung open to reveal ceiling-to-floor

of cheaply finished tyre-jacks, pipe-cutters,

^driver and spanner sets and adjustable monkey

ches. The casing indicated that these goods

ated in a variety of countries, including China,

a, Romania, Israel and Byelorussia, am beneath a bench Schafa slid a metal case with characters sprayed on to it. Opened, a tray ig a display set of variously sized Maglite-style was revealed. Beneath this, however, nestling ense black bed of foam-rubber, was a 9mm Uzi chine gun, and three twenty-five-round ics. Reaching down, Schafa pulled the weapon an an affectionate hand over its square, riveted,

d outline, and handed it to Leon. e!' said Leon. thought you said he had FAMAS rifles,' aured Slater.

iey've gone,' said Leon. 'Probably Corsican ; - apparently they're quite good customers.' the fatter-than-normal barrel Slater could tell ic Uzi was one of the suppressed models built for and urban use. You could cheerfully blast off t rounds outside a police station with one of these

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and no one would hear a thing. Given a close-quarters firefight Slater would have preferred the MP5s that the RDB carried, but the Israeli-designed Uzis were an acceptable alternative.

'I've got three of these altogether,' said Schafa reverently. 'Licence-built by FN in Belgium. They came up from Marseilles this afternoon.'

Leon nodded and translated for Slater.

'These would be great,' Slater agreed. 'Apart from anything else they're small, which will help when we're carrying them in the streets. Has he got the subsonic ammunition to go with them?'

Schafa nodded. 'I have nine-mil subsonic. I also have this - la piece de resistance.' Ducking down, he reached another flat steel case from below the bench, opened it, and removed a layer of plug-spanner sets. Beneath, embedded as the Uzi had been, was a black matt-finished rifle, luminated sniper-scope, compensator, magazine and cleaning kit.

'A Dragunov sniper rifle,' said Leon thoughtfully. 'Not bad. Not bad at all.'

'A Romak-3,' said Schafa. 'Takes ten rounds of 7.62.'

'And if you need all of those,' added Slater, 'then you're well and truly fucked. This is the Romanian made model, isn't it?'

Schafa nodded.

Slater drew Leon aside. 'This could be useful. Who's the best shot out of the four of us?'

'Hard to say. What about you?'

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Chris Ryan

fell, I led an SAS sniper team a couple of years but I'm probably the rustiest in terms of recent 2-hours. How are Chris and Terry?' ; good as any of us.'

scause whatever happens we're going to need to an OP or possibly two OPs on the rooftops. If lone could get this Dragunov up there and a clear line of fire it could just swing things if scomes on top.' that case, I should go,' Leon said. 'I'm not a shot than Chris and Terry but I'm pretty sure I'm a better climber. Anyone firing an unsilenced 3n from the roofs around there is going to have ppear very fast indeed.' i how do you think the rest of us should deploy?' t's hash that one out later. But we're agreed we I the three Uzis and the Dragunov?' link so, aren't we?'

have body-armour,' said Schafa. at do you think?' Leon asked Slater, ling bulky,' said Slater. 'It'll show in the street 1 the PvDB that we're ready for trouble. It'll just te things.'

I'the end they settled for 'second chance' vests. t, much less bulky and heavy than conventional ckets, incorporated a layer of Kevlar-over'trauma-packs'. The Kevlar slowed the bullets , while the Perspex panels dispersed their impact. I go down, but with any luck you wouldn't die. had half a dozen of these in a packing-case.

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The Hit List

None showed signs of having taken bullets, but all were sweat-marked and had the sour smell of fear and stress about them.

'We'll take three,' said Leon.

On the way back to the hotel, he dropped Slater off at the Rue de Lappe. Pulling on his gloves and undoing Pasquale's front door with keys stolen from the apartment earlier, Slater checked the drug-dealer's condition.

Pasquale was half-awake, and feeling very sorry for himself indeed. His wrists were badly chafed from the plasticuffs and a strong smell of urine rose from his bed. Seeing Skter he narrowed his eyes, as if struggling to remember in what context he had met the former SAS man.

'English, yes?'

Slater nodded.

'Please, English. Taking off the handcuffs. Je vais . .. I want to vomit, please.'

'Wait,' said Slater, leaving the room.

When he returned it was with a tumbler, a carafe of water, and a fresh bottle of malt whisky. Pasquale, who had thrown up on his pillow while Slater was out of the room, groaned at the sight of them.

'It's called the hair of the dog that bit,' said Slater, his eyes watering at the ammoniac stench.

'Please,' said Pasquale. 'I piss, OK? Toilette?'

'I'm sure you piss OK,' said Slater grimly. 'But first you drink OK. It'll make you feel better.'

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Chris Ryan

^Ignoring Pasquale's groans, he mixed a half-pint of ay whisky and water. Casually, he unholstered and

eked the Sig Sauer. 'Drink,' he ordered. I'Hesitandy, Pasquale drank.

pWatching him, Slater saw the alcohol take icdiate effect. Colour returned to the sallow cheeks the nauseated look was replaced by an expression ired relief.

It's better,' admitted Pasquale, struggling to a sitting ition. 'Please, English. I need to piss.' lAnother glass,' ordered Slater.

iy you do this?' asked Pasquale miserably. Jecause I don't like people who sell drugs,' said st. 'Comprenez?' lasquale shrugged. Ten minutes and a half-bottle r, he slumped into unconsciousness again. As Slater ched, his bladder voided itself copiously into the Short of shooting him, Slater thought, which Id lead to more complications than the man was i, he couldn't do much more to shut him up. hitside, with 40,000 francs' worth of unlicensed jonry in the back of the car, Leon was glad to get ing again. Pointing the nose of the Mercedes tiwards, he joined the traffic on the Boulevard rchais, and twenty-five minutes later pulled up Rue de la Goutte d'Or in Barbes. ic area was unlike anywhere else in the city. As jng-time home of Paris's immigrant community -- and West Africans for the most part - it offered ady mixture of the tawdry and the exotic.

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Marabouts, or West African ju-ju men, handed out cards advertising their services. Overfilled immigrant hostels spilled their robed Togolais and Beninois occupants on to garish, neon-lit pavements. Hairdressers' shops offering elaborate braided coiffures stood cheek by jowl with halal butchers, couscous joints and small mosques. From the cafes came the click of dominoes. There was the murmur of many languages.

Leaving Slater in charge of the car, Leon set off on foot to find a hotel in which the team could base itself.

A quarter of an hour later he was back. 'I've booked three twin rooms in the Hotel Aissa, a couple of streets away,' he told Slater. 'It's not the Ritz but it's out of the way and no one's likely to be asking questions. I played the heavy, paying up front with a fat wad of cash, so they'll almost certainly assume we're here on drug-business.'

When they arrived, Slater saw what Leon had meant. The Aissa was an unprepossessing one-star flop-joint, and as they watched from the car a fat, middle-aged Arab in a leather-jacket stepped on to the pavement, adjusted his trousers, scratched his balls, hoisted himself into the driver's seat of the taxi parked at the kerb, and drove off. A minute later a bored looking prostitute strolled out, checked her watch, and took her place on the corner.

Parking where the taxi had been, the two men made their way into the hotel foyer carrying the anonymously cased weapons, their hiking jackets, and

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Chris Ryan

sir overnight bags. Of the four men drinking minted and playing dominoes behind the counter none aked up, but the oldest slid three keys towards Leon pointed at the worn and narrow staircase.

rooms were small, smelt of spiced food, and re grouped together on the first floor. Slater and i moved their kit into the middle of the three. The i and ceilings were not thick, and from above them a muffled groaning and the creaking of jrings.

Glassy place!' remarked Slater, lowering the case ining the Dragunov to the greasy carpet and

the thin curtains closed, eon laughed. 'You said you wanted to see the real s! Why don't you get the rest of the Uzis in from r while I call the others?'

llpm the whole team was assembled except f, who was watching the front of the building in Lue de Coude from a nearby bar. Leon, it had i decided, armed with the Dragunov, would watch |foack of the building - there were more windows ; back than at the front. The kidnap and hostage would be carried out by Slater, Andreas and

le Slater and Leon had been buying weapons pacifying Miko Pasquale, Andreas had been ig out a discreet recce of the Rue de Coude. and Chris had not yet seen the place, and after

; into old clothes they set out with Leon. lie latest intelligence from Terry was that though

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The Hit List

Branca had left the building earlier for a couple of hours, she had now returned. Terry's guess, having followed her as she trailed round the streets, dropped in and out of cafes and newsagents, smoked cigarettes and drank coffee, was that she had wanted a break from her RDB colleagues.

As they approached the Rue de Coude, Leon left Chris and Slater to recce the target area together and hurried ahead to search for an effective OP and lying up position. The three agreed to meet thirty minutes later.

As Leon slipped into the shadows, Chris slipped her arm through Slater's. She was wearing a polo shirt, jeans and_plimsolls, had a sweater knotted round her shoulders, dnd looked subtly, indefinably French.

'You look as if you were born here,' he told her. 'And I look like some dodgy geezer from Catford.'

Chris smiled. She had, Slater noticed, a really very attractive smile when she cared to deploy it. 'Disguise is in the mind,' she said, 'not in the trousers. Although you might pull your sleeves up your arms a bit, like these funky Frenchy loverboys do. And stick your cigarettes in your shirt-pocket this is a country with a soft-pack culture. And put your left hand in your pocket rather than letting it swing.'

'Like an ape.'

'You said it, not me. And for heaven's sake put your arm round me properly - you're not my father leading me up to the altar.'

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Chris Ryan

)bediently, Slater hitched up his sleeves, pushed his hand into his pocket, and slipped his arm around slight, steely body. Beneath her cheap sweater he sld feel the stomach muscles working as she itered slowly along the pavement. Jow, having put your arm possessively around me rani anyone else off, you curl your lip and ignore altogether - yeah! That's the way! Now we're a ich couple!' Jt was never this complicated in the Regiment,'

observed wryly. Jo snogging during recon exercises, you mean?' fery little.'

ley walked in silence for a couple of minutes. The ith of the day had all but gone, fe'll get her out,' said Chris, reading Slater's its. 'One way and another we'll get her out.' could get very nasty,' Slater said. 'Those RDB thad an ail-the-way-to-hell look about them.' ie nodded. 'I know. But we're not exactly feats either. This is the place, isn't it?' le Rue de Coude was a narrow street with four ive-storey warehousing on one side and a series | garment-industry showrooms, all apparently it, on the other. The only sign of life among these frontages was the dimly lit portal of Chez i, which is where Slater guessed that Terry had led himself. Loitering on the corner for a ilent he and Chris scoped out the entrance to the ing, some fifty metres away, where they

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The Hit List

suspected Eve was being held. As the others had reported, a fat little devil with horns and a forked tail had been stencilled in red spray-paint on to the front of the walk-up to the entrance. The door was new, and steel-framed. Slater flicked his eye upwards but the glance told him nothing; the roof was invisible from the corner of the street and the top floor almost invisible.

'Bad guy,' murmured Chris.

A distant figure was making its way down the pavement towards them from the direction of the warehouse building. Something about the man's bearing -- some tension or alertness atypical of the time of night, -- indicated that this was a patrolling RDB man. Casually, Slater swung Chris round to face him and lowered his mouth to hers. As their lips touched he felt her flinch, and clamp her mouth shut. Slater had not intended anything except to hide their faces from the passing RDB man but it was immediately clear to him that Chris was not enjoying herself. As the Serb disappeared and he lifted his face from hers, she gasped for breath and dragged her sleeve across her mouth. 'Sorry,' said Slater. 'It wasn't that bad, was it?'

She avoided his gaze. 'No, sorry, I ... I just wasn't expecting it. I know you weren't, um . . .' She shrugged, embarrassed. 'Did he stop and look at us?'

'I don't think so,' said Slater. 'No.'

Two streets further down Leon stepped from the shadows. He too had identified the patrolling Serb. He

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Chris Ryan

also identified a potential OP and lying-up ion.

i a long shot,' he told them, indicating the multi car-park on his right, 'but it's easy to access, easy cape and evade from, and I couldn't ask for a field of fire. I'm going to take the Romak up ; the Mercedes.'

at about Terry?' asked Slater. 'Where's he going i at chucking out time?'

he picked the lock into one of those )oms opposite that building with the devil l where they've got Eve. Did it this morning -- so : has to slip in and go upstairs.' er nodded. He was beginning to get nervous the part he himself was expected to play. The H traces of adrenaline were beginning to seep into ioodstream. 'Shall we get back?' he asked. 'We ; be coming up to the moment when Branca gets aexpected phone-call.'

fe've got time yet,' said Leon grimly, glancing at atch. 'Let's go into the car-park and see if we can that flat. I've brought the binoculars.' minutes later, concealed behind the parapet, were looking across at the rear of the Rue de je. They were on the almost empty fifth level of r-park, and the top-floor flat was a little over es away. Chris held the binoculars, and ler they identified the half-dozen windows of at, most of which were illuminated but hung t industrial blinds. As they watched, a small frosted

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The Hit List

window lit up, the upper half of a torso showed for a minute, and then the light went out again.

'That's the toilet,' said Chris. 'And that was an adult male. My guess would be that the other rooms are just open warehouse space. If those old seventies blinds are still up there, the interior won't have been converted.'

Slater nodded. 'The RDB guys probably class down on the floor in gonk-bags.'

Leon took the binoculars from Chris and searched the windows. 'If you have any problems,' he said, 'try and get the blinds open.'

He turned to Chris. 'No disrespect, but now that there's no heavy roof-climbing involved on this side, would ypu rather lie up here and let me go in with Neil and Andreas?'

Chris considered. 'I thought about that, and my feeling is that when we go in with Branca, the fact that there's another woman there might defuse things a little. We want them to feel that they've been outmanoeuvred, not challenged.'

Leon frowned.

'And the other thing,' Chris continued, 'is that you're certainly a faster runner than me. If you fire that unsilenced Dragunov you're going to have to move very quickly indeed.'

He nodded. 'I suppose so. I guess we should get back and get ready.'

They returned to the hotel as they had come: Leon alone, Slater and Chris arm in arm.

As they walked, Slater thought how differently this

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Chris Ryan

ion would have been carried out by the lent. The police would have been on-side, for thing, and fibre-optic surveillance would have under way for twelve hours. The building's tectural specifications would have been consulted, would have been rehearsals in a mock-up of the louse, and an assault-team in gasmasks and full ective gear would be standing by with stun jdes ready to blow the entrances and storm the Every detail, every eventuality, every possible would have been considered and evaluated, tead, it was just the five of them and a stash of and quite possibly dodgy gear. Planning had If done on the run and the arrangements were -- to least - sketchy. Everything was reactive, last and makeshift. : perhaps, Slater mused, he had simply been spoilt ; his years with the SAS. Makeshift arrangements the Cadre had done pretty well so far, and an impressive amount of havoc for its size, ing the Serbian bodyguard to get the jump on Fanon-Khayat's apartment had been a bad he , and being bumped by the RDB in the forest en another, but one way and another they had ed to keep going.

several things greatly impressed him. Their craft and surveillance skills -- in particular those of and Terry - were superior to any he had ever antered. Their professional discipline was it, and perhaps because there was nowhere for

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The Hit List

them to be promoted to, there was none of the competitiveness, jockeying for position and general macho bollocks that had been such a prominent feature of Regimental life. In MI9, whoever was best situated to take charge of a particular task at a particular time did so, and everyone else fell into line. They were good people, he decided, and there was much to be learnt from the way they operated.

By 11.30 Slater, Leon, Andreas and Chris were reassembled at the Hotel Aissa. Terry had just called in to say that he had counted five males out of number 30 Rue de Coude at various times during the evening, and that all had now returned. Branca Nikolic was also on thapremises.

A call to Manderson had confirmed that the call would be going through to Branca's phone in thirty minutes. Its content would be that one of the RDB men with her was an MI6 spy, and planned to steal the disc as soon as it was in her hands. She was to find an excuse to leave the flat immediately and make her way to the all-night Bar Suez in Rue de Laghouat, where she would be briefed by a controller from Belgrade.

Outside, the nearby church of St Bernard de la Chapelle struck the half hour.

On the bed, cigarette in hand, Andreas stretched and grinned.

At the table, Leon stared with unseeing eyes at an old copy ofPariscope.

At the window, his heart pounding at his chest, Slater forced himself to breathe normally.

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Chris Ryan

the wall, Chris uncoiled herself from the sition in which, motionless, she had spent the minutes, as time to stand by.

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FIFTEEN

The plan was to allow Branca to get well clear of the Passage de Coude and any patrolling RDB sentries, and take her a couple of streets away on the corner of the Rue de Laghouat and the Passage des Ouled-Nail.

From where he and Chris lounged in an unlit doorway* -Slater looked across towards Andreas, invisible in a covered entrance-way where vegetables were sold during the day. There were street lights and a waning moon, but neither reached the Passage des j Ouled-Nail. A Moorish archway marked the entrance j to the alleyway, and the star-shaped windows of a 1 mosque showed half-way down its length. From some! nearby source came the muted rise and fall of North 1 African rat music played on a transistor. There was a| smell of cloves, cardamom, trodden vegetables and! fried merguez sausages. They could have been in the! outskirts of a city in Morocco or Tunisia rather than ia| Paris.

Slater was wearing hiking boots, jeans and a loc green windshirt over his flak-vest. His Uzi and spare clips of ammunition were slung in a black nylc satchel over his shoulder and the Sig Sauer was stuc

378

Chris Ryan

*the waistband of his trousers. Next to him Chris in black, with her weapon and ammunition rly stowed. As far as Slater could tell, they were Jy people on the street. Met checked his watch. It was midnight, and the lould be coming through right now. All being they could expect her within three or four lutes.

stations. Stand-by . . . Go!' Ithout anything being said, it had been agreed that should lead the operation. In part this was of his extensive CQB experience with the |fcut in part, Slater sensed, it was because Eve was

ge.

|ten Andreas had questioned him about the night in Uter-Lux, Slater had shrugged his shoulders and about sleeping the night wrapped in a duvet floor. He doubted that Andreas completely I him, though, because in the short time that he en with the department he had clearly hit it off we in a way that the others hadn't. The fact that [ saved his life was part of it, but there was some too. An affinity. An unlikely affinity given r different backgrounds, but an affinity no less, i sensed it, he knew, and so almost certainly did . group as tightly interdependent as theirs could to be aware of the subtle dynamic shifts that ace within it. Did it lock him into the group, irondered, or did it serve to distance him from ers? Time would tell.

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The Hit List

'Terry to all players. Target has left the building. ETA you one minute, repeat one minute. Over.'

'Neil to Terry. Understood. Over.'

As he pulled the Uzi from its satchel, Slater felt the familiar adrenaline rush that preceded action. At his side he felt Chris tauten. The seconds thudded past, and then Slater heard the fast clip of heels on the pavement.

Branca Nikolic would have walked straight past them had not Slater reached out and grabbed her. She half-gasped in shock, and in less than a second Slater's hand was clamped tight across her mouth. Branca writhed furiously and tried to bite, but with a hissed 'Shut up, cunt!' Chris drew back the heavy butt of her Uzi and slammed it into the other woman's ribs.

Dragging the groaning Branca into the doorway where Andreas was waiting, Chris grabbed her hard by the windpipe. Branca's face contorted in agony as she struggled to breathe -- the writhing defiance continued for a few more seconds, and then sensing the racing; approach of death, she went limp.

Quickly, Chris released the Serbian to the ground j and felt inside her shirt for a wire or throat mike. There j was none, but she was carrying a Mini-Clock 26 in the j inside pocket of her jacket, which Chris pushed into 1 her own waistband.

As Chris backed away, Slater took over. Defeated! but furious tear-streaked eyes looked up at him. NextJ to him, Andreas levelled his Uzi at Branca's face.

'No noise,' Slater whispered. 'Silence. OK?'

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Chris Ryan

Jranca nodded sullenly. Fear, pain and fury at ig been deceived battled it out behind her eyes. It want the woman. You understand?' ic nodded again.

ly noise,' Slater continued, 'and we . ..' Taking |Uzi from Andreas, he mimed bringing it down on her face.

i, closing her eyes, Branca nodded, low many men have you got there?'

held up the fingers of one hand, id where is the woman?' ley questioned her intensively for five minutes, all of them were certain that they were familiar iS-'the layout of number 30 Rue de Coude. From atchel, when they had finished, Chris took a pre ection of zinc-oxide tape and pressed it over lea's mouth. Over her face, so that they would ) like party-goers if they encountered anyone on return journey, she slipped a child's elasticated mask. Re-packing their weapons, the three of i then turned Branca around, linked arms so that to men were on either side of her, and marched ck in the direction she had come, j^they approached the Rue de Coude, Chris darted I to recce. A minute later she returned. The RDB was in front of the building. er nodded to Andreas, who quietly detached f. As he did so, Slater and Chris sat Branca down light of steps, reas returned five minutes later and they

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The Hit List

continued on their way. When they passed the sentry he was barely visible, lying in a shadowed entranceway as if drunk. To hide the zinc-oxide tape over his mouth, Andreas had pulled the man's leather jacket around his head, as tramps often did to provide themselves with a makeshift pillow.

'Alive?' whispered Slater.

'Yeah, but shouldn't wake for half an hour or so,' replied Andreas. 'And I took his keys in case he does. He had a comms-set but it was switched to receive when I bumped him -- from the fat grin on his face I think one of his mates was telling him a dirty joke.'

'Does that mean to say they're expecting an answer from him?'

'Well, I switched it on and offa couple of times after I whacked him and then left it on transmit. Hopefully they'll just think he's fucked up his procedure.'

'OK. We'd better move it though, in case they send someone down to check.'

Andreas nodded, and all but lifting Branca off her feet, he and Slater ran Tier to the walk-up entrance above the stencilled red demon. Chris had Branca's keys ready, and a moment later the four of them were inside the small foyer.

Quickly, Slater plasticuffed Branca and they prepared their weapons, extending the Uzis' telescopic butts. 'Neil to players, we have our bunny and are entering building. Over.'

'Understood, Neil. Over.'

'Terry, do you copy? Over.'

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Chris Ryan

sen and copied. Over.'

ic building was probably built in the late forties, was a lift, but it looked old and wheezy and did not want to risk the advantage that surprise rid give them. Instead, .they went up on foot. A �-banistered staircase climbed between walls of marble composite, with warehouse units ading to right and left at each level. From the >no lights had been visible in any of these units, ;ing by the rubbish accumulated outside them, i were untenanted.

jfeil to players, we are entering hostage-location |i Flopsy. Starting ten-second countdown now.

reas pulled offBranca's rabbit-mask but left the

ixide tape in place.

ris unlocked the heavy armour-plated door. per and Andreas marched Branca into the unit, Iwith an Uzi to her head.

V

ley were in a long, low loft-unit containing three sks, a couple of battered filing cabinets, and a szen stackable chairs. There were three RDB sible.

of these were lounging twenty feet away on eadbare carpet with an ashtray and a bottle of between them and their MP5 submachine their sides, and a third sat a little further away i feet on one of the desks and his weapon in his appended in the act of paging through a copy of u/05. They were fit-looking military types with

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The Hit List

cropped hair and hard, watchful faces. For a moment all three remained frozen in shock.

Slater digested the scene at a glance, noting the state of-the-art laptops, cyber-phones and zip-files which lay around on the desk. Where was Eve? According to Branca, she was in a 'sleeping-room' at the far end of the unit.

There was the sound of a flushing toilet, and a fourth RDB man entered the tableau, wiping his hands on his trousers. After two paces he stopped dead, looking from his colleagues to Branca and her escorts. In his mind, Slater knew, was the knowledge that he had committed the special forces operative's cardinal vsin: he had separated himself from his personal weapon. It was lying half a dozen paces away in the middle of the carpet, next to a smoking ashtray, a packet of Bastos, and a bottle of Chimay beer.

Slater shook his head and the standing RDB man froze like his colleagues.

Stepping forward, Chris ripped the tape from Branca's face.

'Tell them what I said,' he ordered her. 'Tell them that if any of them makes a move for his weapon, he will be shot. And so will you.' The adrenaline had fully kicked in now, and he felt the familiar lightheadedness and slow-motion clarity.

Branca spoke in Serbian. The men didn't move but Slater saw that the shock in their faces had been replaced by alertness. He would have liked to have

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Chris Ryan

red them to hand the weapons over, but he didn't them even touching them. The Cadre team had advantage of surprise, but that advantage was ; with every moment. Beside him, he was aware ris thumbing the selector of her Uzi to single

them to get their fucking hands up,' Slater jed.

ica spoke, and the RDB men slowly obeyed, ing from face to face, however, Slater saw only aess and battle-readiness. Beyond them, less than aty yards away, was Eve. His heart pounded against

St.

you want one of them to get the woman?' asked.

3, one of us will go. Is she still where you said?' ica nodded.

; that moment, to his left, Chris threw her Uzi to iioulder and fired a fast double-tap. On the other the room the head of the man at the desk I to twitch before exploding in a spray of scarlet, blast of brain and bone spattered the vertical and the MP5 that the dead man was about to it the threadbare carpet with a thump. 5 Slater kicked down the desk in front of him and ed Branca to the floor, he saw a flurry of it as the RDB team scrambled for their ans. He just made it behind the cover of the desk with a rapid-fire staccato coughing, three ed MP5s opened up straight at them.

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The Hit Ust

From a crouching position Andreas snapped off a pair of fast shots with his Uzi and then crammed in behind the desk next to Slater. To his left Chris acted identically, but finding Branca there bundled the handcuffed woman out into the open where a fast reaction shot from one of the Serbs smacked into her thigh, tumbled through six inches of gym-toned tissue, and exited gapingly and bloodily beside the copper buttons of her Levi 501 jeans. Gasping in disbelief, shaking as if electrocuted, Branca Nikolic went into immediate and massive shock.

Another volley of rounds hammered into the steel desk. For the three of them to stay there, Slater knew, would be suicide. They had to split up and divide the RDB fire.

It was clear that the Cadre had lost the initiative but it would have been a miracle if things had turned out any other way. From the moment that Manderson fuck him - had refused to let them buy Eve's safety with the tape, a shoot-out had been a dangerous probability. Grabbing Branca had been their best chance of avoiding a blood-bath, but the gamble had failed.

A half-second glance confirmed the general picture for Slater. Ahead of them, some fifteen metres away, was a concrete roof-support pillar. Ten metres to its I right was its twin. Two steel desks and a steel filing ; cabinet were grouped around the right-hand pillar, and these were providing cover for the three Serbs.1. The fourth, dead, lay between one of the desks and the j right-hand window.

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Chris Ryan

Slater could get behind the left-hand pillar he draw the enemy fire and perhaps snipe at the team from the side.

Swap places,' he whispered to Chris, and she ttbered over him so that she was next to Andreas. )K, cover me.'

aping over the still-shaking form of Branca he ftted for the pillar, wrenching down the blinds I the window as he went. Behind him he heard the e-cough of aimed shots from Andreas and Chris r bursts from the Serbs. With all of the pons silenced the smack of impact and the scream cochet was made hideously evident. Brick and chips careened from the walls and pattered to jet. The air was thick with dust.

made the pillar. As he ran he got a brief sion of the arena of battle: one Serb behind a pone behind a filing cabinet, the third behind the lite pillar to his own.

ce. duish smoke hovering at shoulder-height.

soft click as one of the Serbs unlocked his r magazine.

thought Slater. The plastic shroud that ed the Uzi's foregrip was still cool in his hand. ; sideways from behind the pillar he fired a pair !ted shots at the filing cabinet at head height. The was a volley of rounds cutting the air past his I one of them so close that he felt the wind of its ; flight.

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The Hit List

As Slater swung back behind the pillar the RDB man who had fired at him raced towards the desk covering Andreas and Chris. Standing, leaning hard into the submachine gun as if he was on the range at Pontrilas, Andreas took off the top of his attacker's head like a boiled egg. Cartwheeling to the floor with his finger on the trigger and his selector on automatic, the RDB man fully and lengthily discharged his magazine. Four of the 9mm rounds punched through, respectively, Andreas's carotid artery, windpipe and second and third cervical vertebrae -- snapping back his head and flipping him, all but decapitated, against the back wall.

Not yet dead, Andreas's RDB attacker kicked lazily on the carpet. Behind the desk, her movements icily controlled, Chris fired a double-tap through the open top of his skull into his exposed brain. The kicking stopped.

As the dead body of his friend slid bloodily down the wall, Slater forced himself to remain in control. No one, it was clear, was going to come out with their hands up. The Department's single bargaining card - Branca - was bleeding to death, and thus no longer negotiable against Eve.

As he considered his options, he saw Chris lean round the end of the upturned desk and fire a long, exploratory burst with her Uzi in the direction of the remaining two RDB men. Slater couldn't see them, but he heard their grunts as the rounds screamed and' ricocheted around them.

The two exchanged breathless comments in;

388

Chris Ryan

ferian, and an MP5 magazine slid across the carpet sen them. Then one of them gave a hoarse and it shout and an instant later a door opened at the ad of the warehouse.

lother RDB man came out - a man they hadn't |, In front of him, still dressed as she had been in the |t� was Eve, gagged. The man had the fingers of f hand knotted in her hair and with the other was ; to her throat a small rubber-handled automatic H$ome card-index in Slater's brain recognised as a Black Widow. The man was short and broad, head and body were almost entirely concealed ire's.

|ome out, please, or I shoot your woman.' The ; was nervous - dangerously so - but undoubtedly fr. 'I count to three, OK, then I'm killing her.

sr said nothing. He was in plain sight of the man jEve. If he tried to move out of the RDB man's line he would become visible to one of the

one moved. Chris waited behind the desk, her lead from Slater. �/'

bent down, placed his Uzi on the floor. Let told himself. Let go of reason, let go of fear, let p.everything. Enter the zone.

man holding Eve nodded, waiting for Slater to sn and walk out unarmed.

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The Hit List

Enter the zone. Access the physical memory of those hundreds of hours in the killing-house. Let the body do the thinking, not the brain. Let go of everything but instinct. Become that instinct. Let the body speak.

Slater straightened. But his hands were no longer empty -- they held the Sig Sauer, which had somehow become part of his body, a taut and deadly extension of his gaze.

Chris, describing the events to Ray and Debbie a fortnight later, would say that things seemed to freeze at that moment - that there was an instant of pure motionlessness. And in that split-second, she would tell them, there was time for certain details to strike her the painful-looking twist of Eve's neck, for example, and the way that the RDB man had to twist his stubby fingers in her hair to retain a gnp of her, and even the entirely irrelevant fact that he was carrying the Black j Widow in his left fist.

And then the Sig Sauer swinging upwards,] stretching the moment to unbearable length. Time| hurtling on.

'Three!'

Slater's first shot -- double-handed, arms at full reach - smashed through his target's left elbow, reducing t joint to a shattered hinge of bone, cartilage synovia! ligament. As the RDB man's forea twitched spastically, fingers fanning into fluttering dance, the Black Widow spun off bet him. He seemed to half-turn after it, and then the i briefly reddened as Slater's second and third she

390

Chris Ryan

jfe through his right temple. Dying, his hand itarily clenching in her hair, the RDB man

Eve down to the carpet. ae of the remaining Serbs screamed to the other, jured a volley of fire towards Chris. Grabbing his iter leaned round the pillar and fired a burst at acker. The RDB man fell sideways, hit in the and Chris finished him off with a double jrn behind the desk.

: last man charged at Slater, firing as he came. W swung sideways to evade, but felt the rounds him. Fuck, he thought, more in irritation I've been hit. Adrenaline kept him on his ', a moment, but then another jackhammer blow him to the carpet. His body stopped

to his will.

i was how it was. No pain, no fear, just the red disappointment at not being allowed to

time's up, whispered a voice he almost 1. And I'm coming to get you, like I always I would. Above Slater, an RDB man who arious resemblance to his father was preparing i him in the face. Time had jammed again, ard the tiny plink of window-glass an instant 1C damped crack of the distant Dragunov. the conservative, had opted for the chest t the heavy 7.62 round drilled neatly through I's sternum before exiting his back in a it-sized wad of loose tissue, bone and lung.

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The Hit List

Dead on his feet, the RDB man hit the floor like a ton of condemned beef.

Silence, except for Branca's shivering gasps. Five men dead and the place a blood-hosed slaughterhouse, dense with smoke, rank with death. Everywhere on the carpet -- now a sodden red-black - the yellow metal casings of expended nine-mm ammunition.

Slater on his back, helpless, the black wetness spreading beneath him, the carpet a warm marsh, feeling nothing.

Eve face-down twenty feet away, waiting for the next exchange of fire, with a dead man's fist stiffening in her hair.

Andreas motionless against the wall in a clotted puddle, his eyes sightless, his neck bonelessly and horribly twisted.

And finally movement. Quiet footfalls as Chris runs through the blood-stink and the brick-dust from Serb to Serb, levels her Uzi at each man, delivers the formal double-tap where necessary - a quick tubercular cough -- and hurries on.

Finally she makes her way to Eve, briefly squeezes'! the other woman's shoulder and whispers her name,i| works the dead man's hand from her hair, finds the keys for the plasticuffs in his pocket.

Eve, looking up with stunned eyes, clambering srif to her feet.

Chris moving on to Slater. Touching his neck fo the pulse. Exhaling.

'Chris to all stations. Come in. Over.'

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Chris Ryan

voice shaky, but procedure holding her ler.

seeing Andrew's body, noting Branca Nikolic to death beside the desk, falling to her knees j Slater. The sight of the blood coursing from his returning a sense of purpose to her icnts.

this,' she ordered him, pressing a crumpled erchief to the wound.

jk'winced, but managed it, and she began to Mi his shirt.

she got to the protective vest, her eyes I. Three subsonic 9mm rounds had penetrated ;'s Kevlar outer skin and flattened themselves the perspex trauma-shield. Only the fourth jkjjhad actually penetrated Slater, and this had |straight through the muscle overlying his collar but not fatal. Loosening the Velcro jr~straps, Eve removed the combat-vest and aen his T-shirt.

*'s chest looked as if a sledge-hammer had been

it. Where the rounds had struck the trauma ee mauve compact-disc-sized whorls covered /ribs. Even as Eve watched the bruises were and expanding -- within hours they would rid purple of rotten plums, jiook her head in disbelief. 'Well, it looks as if 3t that second chance you paid for. You're Uy going to die.'

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'No?'

'No. And don't sound so disappointed. You look as if you've been kicked by a carthorse and there's a neat nine-millimetre hole straight through your right shoulder -- but no, basically you're going to make it.'

'Andreas?' Slater asked, although he already kne\v the answer, and she shook her head.

'Branca?'

'I doubt it. She's taken a round in the groin.'

He shook his head, and then winced, closing his eyes.

'You saved my life,' said Eve. 'Or something very like that. I felt those rounds go past me.'

'I honestly don't know how I made that shot. I think it was Something to do with seeing Andreas killed. I just. . .' He shrugged, helpless, and winced again.

'I'm sorry,' said Eve. 'You were old friends, weren't; you?"

'We went back a few years,' said Slater, his mouth j twitching at a dim memory of Trooper van Rijn, as he J had then been, baring his buttocks at a party of| outraged Kuwaitis from the back of a commandeered j Chevrolet during the aftermath of Desert Storm.

'Well, we liked him too,' said Eve, folding her arms j tightly across her chest as her eyes filled with tears. I 'And I just can't believe he's dead. I mean it's pretty 1 pointless, isn't it - his life for my life?'

'You can't think like that,' said Slater. 'It doesn't j take you anywhere.'

She nodded and stared at the floor. 'So what! happened to the disc?' she asked eventually. 'Did you!

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', it with you just in case?'

snt it back to London,' Slater said, avoiding her 'Stuck it in a postbox at the Bastille in the early 1 of this morning.'

looked at him quizzically and then nodded, idea. The sooner it's processed and destroyed :er.'

> joined them, the Clock 26 hanging from her 'So,' she said wearily.

and Eve made their way downstairs to let in Jand Terry. The priority now was to report to erson and get the hell out of France. When they ed the door behind them, Slater attempted to > his feet. The attempt was agonising - his broken gnt waves of white-hot pain lancing across his - but he made it to his knees. ' metres away, Branca lay on the carpet, her lips uncertainly as if singing along to a song she If-knew. Bright red arterial blood flooded the beneath her.

Swly, painfully, Slater made his way over to her. |sorry, Branca,' he said quietly. Reaching for a of Paris-Match which lay among the detritus of aturned desk, he slipped it as gently as he could Ben her head and the carpet, and shrugging offhis T-shirt he pressed it to the bloody well at her

jjle flinched, but her eyes thanked him. 'We should Je enemies,' she whispered, and Slater shook his

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'You're a good soldier,' he told her. 'You played it well.'

She managed the shadow of a smile.

'What is your true name?' she asked him.

'Neil.'

'I think I'm dying, Neil. Yes?'

He nodded gently and took her hand.

'No doctor coming?'

He met her fearful gaze. 'No doctor, Branca. I'm sorry.'

She closed her eyes as a wave of pain overtook her. 'Will you stay with me?' she gasped, eventually. 'I'm frightened to ... to go alone.'

Til stay^with you,' he promised, moving the damp strands of blonde hair from her eyes. 'Don't be frightened.'

Her skin was very pale and very cold. As he watched, she lost focus for a moment as the pain returned and then she seemed to gather herself, to draw down a last brief lease of life. 'Please, Neil, do something for me.'

Her gaze was steady now. She knew she had very little time.

'Tell me,' he said.

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SIXTEEN

decided to take the slow road to Brighton, across i Downs. It was a warm day -- alternatively bright \ overcast as the clouds scudded across the sun. 4o one, he thought -- no one in the world - knows I'm here. It was a pleasurable thought. Reaching |�he pressed the sun-roof button, and the wind led easily into the car.

i shoulder hurt less now. There had been two bad but now the wound had subsided to a dull ache, on the other hand, were worse. The service yi who strapped him up in Paris had worked at ree for several years and treated the jockeys who id broke bones in the Grand National. So he had less than impressed by Slater's attempts at i. 'You'll be back on the rugby pitch within the he'd said cheerfully, briskly turning down r's request for pain-killers. 'It might tickle a bit, aothing that'll worry a tough lad like you.' spite himself, and despite his screaming ribs, l&r had smiled.

f'd been back in England for ten days. After the 397

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firefight at the Rue de Coude, Eve had spent an hour on the mobile to Manderson, explaining the situation. Terry and Leon had kept watch, but the street remained deserted. The shots fired on the top-floor had all been silenced, and no trace of the mayhem had been discernible outside.

Manderson had ordered them to stay put, and after alerting the Paris station chief had flown in an MI6 cleaning team.

The cleaning team had worked all night, subtly rearranging the bloody tableau and planting certain artefacts and substances. By dawn they had vanished, leaving behind them clear evidence of a lethal firefight between members of an East European heroin importation ring.

The cleaners had thought it best to remove a coded notebook containing contact numbers for Branca's various clients and lovers. Evidence that a number of prominent Parisians were being blackmailed by the RDB was felt to be safest in British hands. That their number included a French NATO official was considered of particular interest.

Andreas's body was spirited away from the Rue de Coude in a sealed van, along with the rest of the team. They had raced out of Paris, and shortly before dawn, in a field near Cap Gris-Nez, a Puma helicopter had swung out of the mist and taken them on board.

The extraction was carried out by a special team seconded from the RAF. The flight had not been cleared with the French authorities, but then neither

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Operation Firewall -- hardly surprising given that |,had cost the French arms industry many billions of

cs in lost business. |$y midday Andreas's body had been cremated and a ificate issued to the effect that he had died of heart are . His ashes were returned to an address in South ion, from where they were collected by Debbie. Jlcommon with the other members of the Cadre, he

no immediate family.

Slater had been dropped off by the van at a small flat jind the British Embassy in the Rue du Faubourg St lore, where a service doctor had dressed his wound I strapped his broken ribs, administered a single dose folterol, and put him to bed. two days later he had been pronounced fit and en to the Gare du Nord, where with the aliments of the MI6 station chief he had been ed a first-class Eurostar ticket and -- with the pliments of the doctor - a half bottle of Laphroaig

'to help him sleep'.

|e had been met at Waterloo by Eve, who drove fc back to his flat. They barely spoke during the two drive, but as soon as they were behind closed he dropped the bags and reached for her. She sponded hungrily for a moment but then had disengaged herself.

ten days,' she told him, placing a finger on his i. 'For the next ten days it's going to be all work. f that, though, there's going to be a week's leave, len we can . . . escape. How would that be?'

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A little unwillingly, Slater had agreed that it would be fine. He wanted her with every nerve and sinew in his body, but he also knew that she was right -- that the only way things would work between them was if their relationship remained deep-frozen while they worked together. Any other arrangement would be destructive of the subtle dynamics of the team. They could not allow themselves to be more concerned for each other than for their colleagues, and they could not allow their colleagues to think that this was a possibility. There would be leave-periods, and there would be the odd night at weekends, but for the time being that would be the limit of it.

Slater agreed. Having thought that he had lost her altogether, he was prepared to wait for her.

'It'll be special,' she'd promised him with a small smile. 'But for the next ten days I'm not even going to think about it. And you mustn't either.'

'That's a bit of a tall order,' Slater had said.

'Well, I expect you've taken a few of those in your time. And let's face it, a covert relationship has definitely got its sexy side. Neither of us would be in this line of work if we weren't at least a little bit addicted to secrecy, would we?'

Slater had laughed, then winced and touched his ribs. 'I'm not telling you,' he said.

At Vauxhall Cross, the team had been debriefed both individually and as a whole by Manderson. The general feeling, apart from regret at Andreas's death, was that Operation Firewall had proved a great success.

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Balkan desk were beside themselves with joy. toine Fanon-Khayat was dead, as was the Ondine Any chance of its resurrection by Belgrade had scuppered by the elimination of the entire RDB : tasked with identifying Fanon-Khayat's contacts, ftth the potential embarrassment of the Cambodia jres eliminated, what was more, Radovan Karadjic id now be tried for war crimes at the Hague in the I glare of publicity. It would look good, it would feel and mainland Europe - with the possible jtion of France -- would be properly grateful to in.

len, Manderson had politely enquired of Slater i'-'his return from Paris, did he think that the disc it be reaching them? Slater had shrugged. He told iderson that he had taken a stamp and a small ed envelope from Miko Pasquale's desk -- not to guess what those pocket-size envelopes were lly used for, given Pasquale's profession - stuck the i inside, addressed it, and slung it into a postbox on pvay back to the car. That had been on the Monday ling, after picking up the Uzis with Leon, and now iras Thursday. The European post was generally slow - chances were it wouldn't arrive until ' the weekend.

anderson had nodded, supposing that Slater was It. Typical French, of course. Quick enough to cise 'slow' British trains, but when it came to Bering a letter within seven days . . . st as a matter of interest, Manderson had

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continued, why had Slater gone to the trouble of posting the CD? Why hadn't he just pocketed it with a view to carrying it back to London?

Slater had shrugged. 'At that stage,' he'd explained, 'the RDB had Eve, and we knew that they weren't going to give her up lightly. If we had come off worst in that firefight, and I hadn't survived, the CD would have been in Belgrade by now. It seemed safer to trust it to the post.'

Manderson had nodded slowly. 'You did well, Neil,' he said, extending a congratulatory hand. 'Bloody well.'

On the Friday night, fully debriefed, the Paris team plus Debbie and Ray had gone out to celebrate and, m their own way, to bid goodbye to Andreas. By tradition, each member of the Cadre kept a 'stag night' account in which a few hundred pounds was permanently invested. Should he or she die in the field, this money was used by the others for a giant piss-up.

These memorial evenings, Slater discovered, invariably took place in a private room in a pub in Waterloo. Only Guinness and champagne were drunk. The room was booked for a stag night, in order that the ensuing drunkenness, singing, fighting, shouting and tears should come as no surprise to the landlord.

They had arrived at the Green Man early, stayed late, and drunk a very great deal. In retrospect the details of the evening were a little blurred, but it was generally agreed that Andreas's send-off had been every bit as spectacular as Ellis's. Afterwards - again in

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cordance with Cadre tradition - Debbie had poured ireas's ashes into the river from Waterloo Bridge, they had wished him safe journey. It was the time he had spent with the dying Branca had confirmed Slater's suspicions that the disc tttained more volatile material than they had been ^wn. Embarrassing though the Cambodia pictures -- and one of Slater's early instructors who had en part in the operation had once let slip that 'some of : Khmer lads could get a bit excitable when prisoners i their way' -- the limited damage that they could do kitish interests could not begin to be balanced against political advantage of having 'fast-balled' Radovan djic to the Hague. No, there had to be more on the : than that, and given that Slater had seen his own and ^colleagues' lives placed on the line, he was buggered : was going to be lied to about it. le had decided on a course of action which, if Covered, would have seen him expelled from the rice. As he had told Manderson, he had indeed i a padded postbag and a postage stamp from Miko juale's desk, and he had indeed sealed, stamped and sed the envelope with the CD inside it. But he I't posted the package at the Bastille, as he'd told aderson - instead he had stuffed it into the side itet of his combat-pants. If it looked like Eve was to be killed as a result of the Cadre's refusal to the disc over to the RDB, Slater had resolved to it over to them himself, and bollocks to the equences.

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But they had rescued her, and so he had posted the CD shortly before leaving Paris. Not to the Cadre's office at Vauxhall Cross, however, but to an accommodation address in Kingsway, a short walk from Holborn underground station. In return for a modest monthly charge paid to a newsagent, and anticipating frequent changes of address, Slater had used the service since his departure from the Regiment.

On the Saturday following his return to London he had collected the package -- which had in fact arrived a mere two days after posting - taken it back to his flat, and run it through the laptop. It was password protected, but some thoughtful soul -- FanonKhayat at a guess'--had slipped a piece of paper bearing an 8letter place-name inside the CD case. Armed with the means of entry, Slater had accessed the images inside.

There were six of them, and as he had suspected they were nothing whatever to do with SAS activity on the Thailand-Cambodia border. The images were much older than the ones that had been projected at the Firewall briefing, and while obviously historically interesting had meant nothing to Slater.

He sincerely hoped that they would mean more to Aleksandra Marcovic -- whoever she was. Branca had told him nothing about the woman except her name and the fact that she lived near Brighton. There hadn't been time for more, but before Branca died Slater had made a solemn promise that he would find Aleksandra Marcovic and show her the photographs on the disc.

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At a randomly chosen data service centre in Vie had had a copy made of the CD. He had arned the original to the envelope with the ParfJS st-mark. He had previously sealed it with a single' pie, but now he peeled away the protective strip, ick the flap down in the normal way, and restapled : at the same point.

He had disguised the detour that the package had ten by removing the label with the Kingsway address it. Beneath it he had written the Vauxhall Cross ress, and with nothing to indicate that it had not straight from Paris the envelope was now ready adding to the next morning's mail-drop. 'i This was not difficult -- shortly after each delivery ic into the building the Cadre's letters were placed > locked box outside the office. Making sure that he ived before the first delivery, Slater had slipped the ckage into the box, and when Ray emptied it half an ir later, the package was among a sheaf of other

Shortly afterwards Manderson had emerged from his

ice waving the CD. 'Bloody French!' he mouthed srfully to Slater, who was sitting at his terminal vly and dyslexically bashing out a report. To Slater's siderable relief he then dropped the envelope into

iredder without checking the date it had left Paris, had been a long week. Detailed report-writing not Slater's forte, and his slowly healing ribs and alder had not made the task any more enjoyable.

kt the report-writing had to be done if anything was

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to be learnt from the operation, and each of them was engaged in a similar task. The consoling factor was that the promised week's leave awaited them - on Friday evening they would be going their separate ways.

Slater had resolved to visit Aleksandra Marcovic on the Saturday morning.

Slater knew he shouldn't really have been driving - a breathalyser test would probably have shown a unit or two of alcohol in his blood from an end-of-week drink hosted by Manderson the night before. On the other hand he had never felt more alert, more alive. A posttraumatic stress reaction would be stalking him in the wake of the slaughter in Paris - and there was no chance of escaping the Darklands after a bloody fiesta like that - but it hadn't yet declared itself. Even the pain lancing through his ribs and shoulder served merely to remind him that he was alive - that he had stood eyeball to eyeball with death and walked away.

He was on the crest of the Downs now, and the grass, defiant of the wind, was flattening itself against the chalky hillside. Far below him was the long sprawl of Brighton and its satellites -- Portslade, Have, Kemp Town, Rottingdean.

Aleksandra Marcovic lived between the two easterly suburbs of Rottingdean and Saltdean. She was not on the telephone but it turned out that she was one of the hundreds of thousands of British citizens known to the security services, having been settled in the UK as a refugee after the Second World War.

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ater had been given a number of tutorials by bbie in the use of the ATHS desktop network used ccess MI6's computerised archive, and had found covic without difficulty in the course of an after; data-surfing session. Her file, which was marked j,'EYES alpha and so cleared for all security service annel, indicated that she had been born in 1933/4 Serbian family near Kutina, Yugoslavia. At the i of her registration as a refugee in 1946 her parents ^two sisters were believed dead as a result of inter anal strife following the 1941 German invasion, jithe subsequent creation of the Independent State Croatia (ISC). Settled post-war with a family in an, Marcovic had married one Vernon ley, a solicitor, in 1953. Widowed in 1986, she f<moved to Saltdean, where she had become an member of the Anglo-Serbian Friendship a cultural and travel organisation. In April i she had applied for a tourist visa to visit Belgrade, she had spent several weeks, ling very contentious in any of it. A not lly happy-sounding life, but then how many : could lay claim to a life which looked happy on k?

passing Brighton, which he calculated would be with visitors on a warm summer's day, Slater s past Kemp Town racecourse and cut southwards Saltdean. Soon he was driving past caravan Stod rows of identically gabled 1930s villas, and I smell the sea and the salt on the air.

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Philomena Avenue was the easternmost of several roads flanking a line of seafront shops. Number 54, a small, pebbledashed villa fronted by a spray of Pampas grass, was the end house in the row. Climbing from the car, bracing himself against a sharp wind which worried its way between the net-curtained villas, Slater rang the bell.

The door was answered by a tall, gaunt-faced woman in a candlewick dressing gown, who regarded him for a long moment in silence.

'Aleksandra Marcovic?' he asked her.

She said nothing, and Slater noticed that beneath the bluish perm her ears were curiously deformed - little more than stumps. Perhaps, he thought, she was deaf.

'I've come on a rather unusual errand,' he continued uncertainly. 'My name--'

'I know who you are,' she said flatly. 'You're a man of death. I've known people like you all my life. Does your name matter?'

Slater stared at her, stunned. There was, as she had said, a kind of recognition in her eyes. Did a familiarity with violent death truly mark you in some way?

'My name doesn't matter. I was given your name by Branca Nikolic.'

The woman looked at him, looked down at the briefcase in his hand. 'You had better come in.'

Slater followed her into the pastel-coloured lounge and she indicated an armchair covered in a crocheted shawl. In the other chair an obscenely large cat snored on a newspaper.

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Pea?' she asked him severely. ?lease.'

ie sat down and she disappeared through a curtain Elastic strips into the kitchen. Opposite him, net framed a blue-brown expanse of wind?ed sea. On the horizon he could make out the �e form of a container ship. It barely seemed to be

ig

),' said Aleksandra Marcovic, placing a loaded tray ismall dining table. 'You know Branca.'

lack of curiosity about my name, thought It's almost as if she knows that she would never Id the truth, so she's not going to bother asking. I'know Branca,' he nodded, 'and she asked me to

and show you some pictures.' er eyes narrowed. 'What pictures?' >an I show you? And then ask you to tell me who aple in them are?'

shrugged. 'If that's what Branca suggested, then that's OK.'

ter was longing to ask her how she knew Branca eld back, knowing that he would never be able to how he knew her himself. Was this woman ps connected to the RDB in some way? : took the laptop out of his briefcase and carried it < to the table. The machine, no larger or heavier i/a London A to Z, had been assigned to him for t-writing and communications purposes, and had dally protected hard disk. Powering it up, he the copy of the Fanon-Khayat CD into the

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drive. The dark blue screen lit up with the words renaissance 1945 and a password dialogue box, into which Slater typed iserlohn. The tide page dissolved, to be replaced with a half-dozen tiny thumbnail phbtographs. ,

'Sugar and milk?' asked Aleksandra Marcovic.

Thanks.'

'A biscuit?'

'Please.'

With these rituals observed, she seated herself at the chair next to him, and took a pair of plastic-framed spectacles from a case. Glancing at her, he could see curiosity on the broad features. Positioning the cursor over the4irst thumbnail, he clicked.

A black and white image resolved itself.

Next to him, Marcovic froze. 'Oh my God,' he heard her whisper. 'Oh my God, no.'

On the screen was a portrait of a young, fair-haired man in his early twenties, standing smartly to attention and holding a card marked 'wegner, Dietnch, hauptmann'. A smudged date-stamp read 28 November 1945. Despite his military stance and fixed gaze, the young man was not in uniform, but wearing a tightly buttoned jacket of tweed or wool. He was" unshaven. One cheek appeared to be badly bruised. Next to Slater, Marcovic was gasping in disbelief. Her hand was across her mouth and she was shaking her head as if in shocked denial of the image before her. For several minutes she said nothing, but simply stared at the laptop screen.

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|tYou know this man?' asked Slater eventually, :ious as he spoke of the inadequacy of the stion.

last saw that face nearly sixty years ago,' said covic, her chest rising and falling as she caught her ith. 'But I've seen it every night and every day since i. We called him Guja, which means the Snake.' I turned to him urgently. 'Why are you showing me

Is he dead?'

(don't know anything about him,' said Slater. 'He to be in some kind of custody, though, in this re. Either British or American from the English stamp. Was that his name, Dietrich Wegner?' fe never knew his name. To us he was just Guja.' id it was during the German occupation of ia, that you . . . knew this man?' lie shook her head, as if to re-establish some ^tion with the present. 'First, show me the other �.'

i broad desk, a conference room with pillars, an itjawed man in a grey suit surrounded by black led SS officers. Hauptmann Dietrich Wegner cognisable on the outskirts of the group, smiling ay.

andsome young man, brown-haired, on a white Beneath his hands, folded on the pommel of his ft, a coiled whip and a sub-machine gun. At his Holding the horse's bridle and smiling, Wegner i Both men's uniforms impeccable. : balcony of a stone-built house. Several men and

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women in hiking clothes drinking and smoking cigarettes. A uniformed man lifting black bread to his mouth. Wegner, wearing a patterned sweater, pointing down to the valley below.

A badly blurred image. A man in a black apron hurrying past a low shed, carrying a knife and apparently wearing some kind of necklace. To one side of him, preoccupied, Wegner.

Four men standing beneath leafless trees by a river, talking. Snow falling. One of the men wearing the robes of a monk. Another recognisable as Wegner.

As each image appeared, something in Aleksandra Marcovic seemed to die. She started mumbling to herself in Serbo-Croat, shaking her head, endlessly repeating the same few phrases. Finally she stood up and walked several times around the small room. She was very pale.

'Where did you get these pictures?' she asked him. 'From Branca?'

Slater nodded.

'It's unbelievable,' she said. 'It's just unbelievable. After so long to see the faces of these men . . .'

Slater was silent. He reached for his tea, which had cooled and was too sweet. He crunched a biscuit between his teeth.

Aleksandra Markovic closed her eyes. Reached into the past.

'I was born in a small town - not much more than a village, really - called Dusovac, on the Tophca River j in Croatia. My parents were Serbian, and had a small

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I had two sisters, Milla and Drina. 'In the spring of 1941, when the Germans partitioned agoslavia and set up the Independent State of Croatia fthe ISC - I was seven. One morning that summer i troops came in a lorry and took away my father. ; lorry was full of other men from the area - we knew of them - and they waved to me and my sisters as lorry drove away. At midday, we heard later, ten full of men had arrived in the market place in a. They were unloaded, lined up against a wall, and pounds ine-gunned. Afterwards an announcement was that they had been executed in reprisal for a patrol which had been ambushed by partisans, rule was that for every German wounded, fifty avian men would be shot, and for every German , a hundred would be shot.

i fact, most of those executed that day were Serbs, augh there were Croatians who resisted, there many who were desperate to collaborate, and j|ed their loyalty to the Third Reich by turning the Serbs who lived among them. They burnt ^looted our schools and churches, banned our lie script, and forced us to wear patches saying fir we were. And that was just the beginning of it - arly days.

tte man set up by the Nazis as the head of the ISC lent was one of the most evil, degenerate es who ever lived -- a monster called Ante c. If you go to the second picture - there -- that's rath the SS officers.

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'Pavelic styled himself the Poglavnik, or Fiihrer, and his followers called themselves the Ustashe. A policy was decided on - probably at that desk there, in the photograph -- whereby a third of Serbs would be forcibly converted to Catholicism, a third would be expelled, and the rest quite simply killed. Permission was given, in effect, for Serb men, women and children to be murdered at will. And hell came to Yugoslavia.

'That summer, after my father was taken away, terrible stories began to reach us. Orthodox priests were being murdered - often tortured to death - Serbian mothers and their children had been thrown over the- cliffs at Jadovno, Serbian corpses were hanging from scaffolds all the way from Kutina to Banja Luca. We were petrified - frightened beyond belief - but we didn't know what to do. We had nowhere to go; to take to the roads would have been suicide. So we stayed where we were, and mourned my father, and lived on the food we grew, and hoped that people would forget we were there.

'Then one afternoon in August we saw smoke, coming from one of the fields, and heard strange' sounds. My sister Drina and I went out to see what wa&| happening, and from the smell we thought someone! was cooking beef. But when we got near we saw .. something I cannot describe. It was a naked man, tie to pegs in the ground, and a fire had been lit on chest. He was still alive.

'We ran away. We didn't dare go near. But whe

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got near the house we saw that we had been lowed by six men in uniform. They caught up with told us to stay where we were, and went inside. |'It took them two hours to finish with my mother my oldest sister Milla, and then there were shots, men walked me and Drina to a truck. We were we were going somewhere we would be looked r. A camp -- not far away -- where we would be safe, pre would be other children there. It was called fiovac.

|f Yugoslavia under the black legions of the Ustashe * hell, Jasenovac was the inmost circle of that hell, ficruelty there was bestial, unspeakable, far beyond iing you would think human beings were capable They burnt prisoners alive, they cut their heads off , saws . . . There were children there -- thousands Jdren - but they received no mercy either. The ite, in fact.'

jr stole a glance at Aleksandra Marcovic. Any of emotion or- expression had been ruthlessly I from her face.

camp was in the south Croatian marshlands the Una and Sava rivers join. We were put in . shacks without even straw to sleep on, fed on gs, and put to work building the guards' s. The wire had gone up at Jasenovac a fortnight but by 1945 there would be a whole network ; from Krapje in the west to Stara Gradiska in t About six hundred thousand Serbs, Jews and \ would be killed there, one way or another, and

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the deepest hatred and the worst torture was reserved for the Serbs.

'If I just tell you what I saw with my own eyes . . . Exactly a year after I came to Jasenovac, a competition was organised to see which of the Ustashe men could kill the most prisoners with his own hands. The winner -- a young Catholic lawyer, I think he was -- managed to cut the throats of thirteen hundred people in one night with a specially sharpened butcher's knife. He won a gold watch and the tide "King of the Killers".'

Slater, speechless, shook his head.

'Even the Nazis protested at this kind of behaviour, but then the Ustashe were animals, not humans. How can youjregard as human people who feed children caustic soda,-or beat them to death with hammers and axes, as happened to my sister Drina? I saw all of these things at Jasenovac.'

She was silent for a moment. The wind pressed at the double-glazing. Beyond the net curtains the sea was the colour of galvanised steel.

'But you asked about the pictures, so let me tell you about this . . .' she smiled bleakly, '. . . this handsome young Ustashe knight on his horse. His name is Dinko Sakic, and at age twenty-one he was made, j commandant of Jasenovac. They said - although I never saw it -- that his favourite weapon was a welder's j torch. When I saw him he was always carrying th�| whip and a pistol. As the photo shows he was a greafl friend of the Guja, the snake. They used to walbjj around the camp together as if they were in

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junds of some beautiful mansion, admiring the and the statues and the views. People said that were . . . you know.' Slater nodded.

the same time there were women prisoners - I j't expect you to understand this - who thought that were in love with one or other of them. Dinko the Guja knew this too, and I think it amused q/

seing Slater's disbelieving face, Marcovic smiled Jy. 'You have to understand that this was a world jut rules, sense or logic. A world of blood, icry and chaos. The Guja was a German SS jter, as you can tell from the uniform, and usually i there were German or Italian officers around the <$he made an effort to behave like human beings, re me, we welcomed the sight of a Nazi uniform

an SS uniform.

at no one bothered to moderate their behaviour the Guja was around - quite the opposite, in ecause they knew that he liked what he saw. He |-to the camp so often I think he must have been I somewhere very close, perhaps at Kostajnica. auldn't keep away, and though I never saw him ch as touch a prisoner I think he was in some . addicted to what he witnessed here.' er pulled down the next image. The hiking

at. The man eating the bread is Andrija bvich, the Poglavnik's minister of the interior.

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Artukovich was also responsible for the Ustashe -- he was a kind of Croatian Himmler. And there again is the Guja in the foreground. Could you go to the last picture?'

Slater nodded,

'I don't know where this is. It could be Jasenovac, or Stara Gradiska or one of the smaller camps, but I think the point of this picture is the necklace worn by the man in the apron. I heard about this, but I never saw it.'

'What is the necklace?' asked Slater.

'Human eyes,' said Marcovic flatly. 'The Ustashe were always gouging out eyes. I heard years later that the Poglavnik liked to have baskets of Serbian eyes delivered to his desk. If you were an ambitious young Ustashe knight it was a good way to get ahead.'

Slater slowly shook his head, appalled. 'I had no idea about any of this.'

'Well, perhaps it's time that your eyes were opened. Next picture.'

The snow-scene by the river.

'This is definitely in Jasenovac, at the south end of the camp by the river. This is the Guja, clearly, but I don't know who these two are. This man, however' she took a deep breath and pointed to the robed monk - 'this man I do know. This man I will remember for all eternity. Can I get you some more tea?'

'Thank you, said Slater. 'That would be kind.' He didn't want the tea, but he sensed that Aleksandra Marcovic needed a break, a chance to rally herself. For

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re minutes, as she busied herself, he stared out of the idow, trying to make sense of the horrors she was counting. When she came back her voice was ieter than it had been before. At times it was almost audible.

,'We called him Fra Sotcma - Brother Satan. I think i real name was Filipovic. He had joined the Ustashe [>m a monastery at Banja Luca, and was promoted to idant of Jasenovac around the time of the ig competition in the Autumn of 1942. He was a 1-looking man with a lisping, almost feminine :e, and of all those Ustashe monsters I would say kt he was the most terrifying. He was only indant for four months - Dinko Sakic rode in |'his white horse at the end of the year -- but the ferry the river to the execution place at Gradina was for all of that time.'

id this SS officer Wegner was a friend of his too?' fegner came to the camp when Fra Sotona was :, yes. But I'm not sure if they were friends. Sotona * a very coarse man, and I remember him as being fh older than the Guja. Sakic and the Guja -- I can't im by that other name - must have been about

ic age.'

at of politeness, Slater addressed his tea. Outside, brightness had gone from the sky, and the first ; of rain were spattering the window. 'So what do E think these pictures prove?' he asked Marcovic. do you think they have been assembled?' frowned. 'These people like Sakic, Artukovic

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and the priest - other pictures exist. To those who need to know them, they are known. But I have never seen a photograph of the Guja before, and these pictures link him to all these men. Perhaps their purpose is to disprove SS and Wehrmacht claims that they did not realise the full horrors of the Ustashe camps - after all, here is a uniformed SS Hauptmann looking very much at home at the heart of Jasenovac. Anyone who was there could identify the place from these pictures. Otherwise' -- she shrugged - 'I don't know.'

Slater nodded. Privately he considered that there had to be more to it than that.

'Why di4 you call Wegner by that name - the Snake?'

Aleksandra Marcovic folded her hands tightly on the table in front of her. So tightly, Slater noticed, that the knuckles showed white. 'Let me . . . paint you a picture. Imagine a line of children sitting on a bench outside a shed. A shed like the one in that picture i there, of the man with the knife. One by one the children are being taken into the shed, and their ears; are being cut off. The children waiting outside on the * bench can hear everything that is going on inside the j shed. They can hear the screams and they can hear the j smooth, silky voice of Fra Sotona. The last two childrettl waiting in the line are called Goran Nikolic and! Aleksandra Marcovic. Watching these two children as I they wait is a German officer in a black uniform - �j young man, not more than twenty years old. His cap j

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Chris Ryan

e, however, is the death's head insignia of the SS. a connoisseur of terror, and as the children wait, ig to the screams coming from the shed, and the silences as the victims faint, he moves his face j to theirs. He looks into their eyes and he smiles, almost rapturous smile, and his head seems to jm side to side like a snake. I, Aleksandra Marcovic, am hypnotised with ji>i cannot move, I cannot speak, I cannot think, side me Goran Nikolic is not hypnotised. Even he is only eight or nine years old he sees the sr what he is - a man. And in that moment he himself a sacred vow. That he will live, and he it, and that his children and his children's will avenge this day.' ently, she leaned forward towards him. ave not asked who you are -- I have been a British for almost half a century now, so it is best, I if you do not tell me -- but if you are a friend of i, I can guess easily enough. As I said, you have sk of death about you.' er said nothing.

see Goran, will you tell him that I have it about him often over the last few years. He ed many sons to avenge those children who never 1, whose bones lie beneath the execution fields lina, and God sent him a single daughter. How ica?'

.brave soldier,' replied Slater gently. 'Her father reason to be proud of her.'

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And it was at that point that Aleksandra Marcovic finally broke down.

When Slater finally drove away from Philomena Avenue it was late afternoon, the rain had cleared and the sun was making fitful attempts to redeem the day. Rather than returning to London, he drove into Brighton. After the horrors of Marcovic's story he felt the need to surround himself with people - with noise and laughter and bustle.

Buying a copy of the Sun, he took a seat in a striplit fish and chip shop -- he had had nothing except tea and biscuits all day - and quite deliberately emptied his mind of alUhat Marcovic had told him. When he had finished his meal, read up on the latest immigrant scare-stories, absorbed the facts concerning the Awayday Bonking Vicar, and dwelt at some length on the silicone-free charms of Bethany from Hunstanton, Slater wandered out into the Lanes - an attractive tangle of antique shops near the city centre. In one of these he discovered a small cloth-bound volume entitled The Gentlewoman's Guide to Old Rose Varieties, which he bought as a present for Eve and slipped in his pocket.

Driving back to London, his mind whirling, Slater attempted to make sense of what he had learned from Aleksandra Marcovic. Why were those half-dozen photographs, taken over sixty years ago, so important? The purpose of collecting them together was clearly to incriminate Wegner, but why had so much effort been

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Chris Ryan

je to prove his association with Ustashe murderers? ky had it been Branca Nikolic's dying wish that he ce this connection? If Wegner was still alive, surely fact of his former SS membership would be icient to disgrace him in the eyes of the world, le point about these pictures must be that they in ated Wegner both as a Nazi and as a friend of the she, and that was why the Serbs wanted them so But who was Wegner - assuming that he was alive, sixty years after these pictures were taken? pillar of the European community - a business perhaps? If the Serbs could prove that a former and Ustashe supporter was growing old in ly it would represent a huge propaganda coup elgrade. Any linkage between their bombing by in 1941 and by Nato in 1999 would be jiediately exploited. Was that what MI6 was so to prevent? And if so, why had they lied to Slater

i colleagues?

fas it, he wondered, because they wanted to use jfphotographs for some purpose so disreputable that ad to be kept secret even from insiders? Were they used to blackmail or apply leverage to some Uy' power? Certainly the fact that Manderson I wanted the CD returned rather than destroyed on spot in Paris suggested something of the sort. But , why had they gone to such trouble to weave this arate deception about the Khmer Rouge training s? Why had they bothered to tell Slater and his ' operatives anything at all? Why hadn't they just

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handed them their Eurostar tickets and their expenses float and told them to get on with it?

Eventually, his head spinning, Slater gave up. Whatever the truth behind Operation Firewall, and whatever the purpose of the photographs of Hauptmann Wegner, he had proved to his own satisfaction that his new employers had lied to him and worse, had used his loyalty to his former Regiment to underpin the lie. Well, he thought dispiritedly, at least he knew how it was going to be.

He was at his lowest ebb as he drove through Croydon, the sad lace-curtained suburb in which it appeared that Aleksandra Marcovic had spent most of her adult life. The roadside villas, grimly individualised with their concrete statues and their privet hedges, seemed to go on for ever. And then the phone on the passenger seat rang, and it was Eve, and the sound of her voice and the anticipation of the week that lay before them drove everything else from his mind.

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SEVENTEEN

owned a flat in a pretty Georgian square off ington Lane. It suited her, and it struck Slater as 'drank Guinness and picked at a packet of crisps at ble outside the pub, that the other residents all as if their parents might be friends of Eve's its.

iie men have all got that Rupert look,' he led to her. 'That weekdays in the City, ends in the Cotswolds look. And the women all ihair like you and borrow the men's Jermyn Street ;and turn the collars up.' nearly hit him for that. 'When have you ever, sn me in a man's City shirt?' she demanded, ; a swipe at his head.

sure you've got some upstairs,' he replied, 'I'm sure a quick check of your wardrobe throw up a striped shirt or two.' fell, you'll never find out. Because if you think climbing the stairs to my flat after making tions like that you can think again. I didn't save life just to be accused of turning my shirt-collars ju big ape!'

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'Well, just to prove me wrong, tell me that your father didn't work in the City.'

'He did work in the City, as it happens, but not in the way you think. He was a gunsmith, and worked in the back room of a shop near the Monument. He could mend anything - shotguns, stalking rifles, handguns -- and if he couldn't get the parts from the manufacturers he'd make them himself. He travelled to the shop every day by bus from Dalston, which is where I grew up and went to school. So you see I'm not posh in the least.'

'But you do give that impression.'

'Oh, I certainly know how to play the games that posh people play. I worked in the shop in the school holidays, and later, while I was at university I had a job with a firm that did shooting lunches. I kept my eyes and ears open, sure, and when I came to join the civil service I was glad that I had. It's still a pretty old-school organisation.'

'That's true enough,' said Slater.

She shrugged. 'If I'd gone into nightclub management I expect I'd have played my hand differently. The point is that these days we can all reinvent ourselves. If we don't like the hand we were dealt we can discard it and pick up another. That's what I've done. That's what everyone does.'

'Everyone except me,' smiled Slater.

'Yes, you're pretty unreconstructed,' Eve agreed, tucking herself comfortably under his good shoulder.

A moment later the phone rang in her bag.

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Chris Ryan

That was Ridley,' she said when the brief Iversation was finished. 'All Cadre members invited ich at River House tomorrow. Apologies for notice. No three-line-whip but he'd like to see "we're free.'

Within minutes, Slater's phone rang with the same :. They agreed that they might as well drive up ier--if the others were still in London they would >ably be doubling up too.

Eve's flat, later that evening, Slater noticed the ils that bore out the truth of what she had told him her background. She owned very few clothes, fvery little furniture, but what she had was of a very quality. She had decorated the flat herself- not a : job, given its size -- and most of her salary still : towards her mortgage. On the mantelpiece was a aph of her, aged about nine, posing like Annie ley with a pair of long-barrelled Colts. Next to her

man of about forty in a brown coat. Chat's me and Dad. You can't see it there, but I'm ig on the counter of the shop. And the revolvers le real thing, too.'

and guns,' murmured Slater, burying his face hair. 'Works every time. What do you keep here flat? A cupboard full of Claymore mines?' list my Clock. Nothing serious. What exactly are tfdoing?'

st kissing your neck and unbuttoning you. ing serious.' jtes closed, she allowed him to undress her. 'You

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know something,' she said, her back arching as his mouth found her breasts. 'We still haven't decided . . .'

His mouth moved downwards. 'Decided what?'

'What we're going to call each other,' she whispered. 'Let's get your clothes off.'

Gently, she helped him pull his T-shirt from the hectic shoulder-wound, the cracked ribs, and the fading but still lurid bruises.

'Perhaps I should do most of the work this time. In Paris you were slightly less damaged.'

'At least it's just you and me. No corpse making up a menage h trois.'

She smiled, the smile became a gasp, and she began to move against him.

Afterwards,- quite a long time later, he came to a decision.

'You know that CD,' he said. 'The one we took from Fanon-Khayat. The one that the RDB wanted to swap you for?'

'Mmmm.' Her face was buried in the pillow.

'I looked at it.'

She half-rose, frowning at him through sleepy eyes. 'You whatT When?'

'The other day. When it arrived in London.'

'And?'

'And it was nothing to do with Cambodia or the Regiment at all. The pictures were of an SS officer visiting a concentration camp in Yugoslavia during the war.'

'Well maybe we got the wrong tape. Maybe there

428

Chris Ryati

something they couldn't tell us. Maybe there are ireral tapes. Is that all there was on it? Just some SS icer?'

I*'His name was Dietrich Wegner. He was a aeteen-year-old captain. In the concentration camp called him "the Snake". He was a sadistic voyeur je got excited by other people's suffering.' fiShe rubbed her eyes. 'How do you know this?' ^tHe took a deep breath and told her. ftShe heard him out.

iWhen he had finished she pressed the pillow to her and shook her head. 'Will you swear to me you never again do anything so stupid, so reckless, . .' She dropped the pillow. 'I just can't believe I've--' iThey lied to us. They looked us in the eye and

ig lied to us!' $|So maybe they lied, and maybe they made a stake. Who gives a shit? People do both the whole Our job was to take out Fanon-Khayat and peve that CD, and we did both - end of story.' |*So why feed us all that Khmer Rouge crap?'

don't have the first idea,' said Eve. 'And do you ?�w what? Right now I don't care. The point is that little jaunt to Brighton could have cost people lives. That Marcovic woman's a fucking Serb, for 1's sake! Her friends are officers in the Serbian et service - the same people who kidnapped me at aint a fortnight ago, killed Andreas, and were keen to stuff you into a wood-chipper.'

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They stared at each other, both of them speechless with anger.

'I'm sorry,' she said eventually, her voice muted. 'I shouldn't have said that, but I just don't want you to get into trouble, and I mean serious trouble. Please, promise me you'll never do anything like that again. Please.'

He nodded. 'OK. I guess it was a bit on the daft side.'

She placed her arms gently round his neck. 'Look, I'm sure no one will ever find out. Can we just forget about the whole thing - the pictures, the woman in Brighton, everything?' She kissed him softly on the mouth. 'After all, we're supposed to be escaping from all that, aren't we?'

'That we are,' said Slater.

'So please, let's escape and put it behind us. I wouldn't say this to anyone except you, but when those PvDB people took me away I was really, really scared. They were bloody rough - not least your little friend Branca, who I promise you is pretty handy with the butt of an MP5.'

Slater held her.

'Please,' she whispered. 'For the time we've got together, just take me to a place where things like that don't happen.'

'I will,' murmured Slater, stroking her hair. 'I promise you.'

With Eve, for the first time in his life, he could see the possibility of a shared future. In the past his

430

Chris Ryan

lielationships had foundered because no woman had |ever come close to understanding the life that he lived,

nth its wild terrors and fierce triumphs. But here at

st was one who would understand - and more than iderstand. She would share the terrors and share the

riumphs and at the end of the day she would still be a

roman.

The next morning he woke before she did. The sun ras pouring through the curtains, and he gently drew ack the sheet and lay for a while admiring her. As Jways when she was asleep she looked lost, almost lildlike, and it occurred to Slater that every time he jiw her he discovered that he knew less about her. low much more unlearning would he have to do, he pondered, before he could start to understand her? Gently, he started to kiss her, beginning with the rk triangle of her pubic hair and working his way jwards towards her mouth. At the end of his travels discovered two sea-blue eyes regarding him >ugh half-closed lids. 'That was nice.' She smiled drowsily. 'What time is

S>

r Whatever time it was, it was two hours before they ere both dressed. Slater wondered if he should go 2>me and change into smarter clothes than he'd arrived I the night before but Eve assured him that wasn't

cessary. 'Go as you are. Ridley doesn't like to be ade to feel he's someone who has to be given special

atment.'

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They made it to the M3 by 11am. Slater drove the BMW and Eve tilted back the passenger seat at his side. When they had driven to Hampshire a month earlier the countryside had still held the green expectancy of spring - now it was full-blown summer and a lazy heat overlaid the fields and the winding roads.

Never in his life had Slater felt as happy or as at ease with a woman as he did with Eve. The week's leave would come to an end and they would have to distance themselves from each other and there would be new assignments and dangers, but for the moment she was his and he was hers.

Wanting to express something of this he pulled the car over under the spreading branches of an oak tree. Switched off the engine. Turned to her in the sudden silence.

She held his gaze. Reached out and touched his cheek. And he knew that there was nothing to say, that the moment said it for them more perfectly than he ever could.

Slowly, they drove on through the warm countryside. 'I guess we should try not to look too . .. together,' said Slater.

'Perhaps if I get into the driving seat that might be a bit more believable,' said Eve. 'And if, when we get there, you thank me for the lift. . .'

'I was going to suggest that perhaps you should give one of the others a lift back,' said Slater. 'I could go back with Leon or someone and then we could meet up back in London.'

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Chris Ryan

/nwillingly, she conceded that this was a good idea.

jhi're not going back with Chris, though. My spies me that you and she made a very convincing

�>le in Paris -- snogging on street corners and all

>

Snogging's a bit of an exaggeration,' Slater

sted. 'She was just showing me how to be icingly French.' )h well,' said Eve, 'that makes all the difference.

next time you catch someone with his hand up

if jumper and my tongue down his throat I'll remind

of it. Don't make such a fuss, I'll say, he was just

ing me--'

didn't have my hand up Chris's jumper,' said

r. 'And she didn't have her tongue--' E know,' said Eve. 'I was just teasing you. As you've kpably guessed, Chris is more of a girl's girl.' Leally!' said Slater, interested. re rolled her eyes heavenwards. 'Just why is it that men find all that so endlessly fascinating? I wish I j't told you now.'

it you have told me,' said Slater. 'And it's going ce my French lessons even more exciting.'

lut up and swap places. We're going to be there Piminute.'

Hey met them at the door in a cricket shirt and an it pair of grey flannels. Shaking Slater's hand throwing an avuncular arm around Eve's

Jder, he led them into the cool, stone-flagged

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hall, where Leon and Terry were drinking beer from pewter tankards.

'I was just saying to the others,' Ridley began, 'that if this service gave medals to agents in the field you'd all be in line for one. It was a particularly nasty job, and I understand from Manderson that you handled it with great courage. Jolly well done. Drink?'

'Thanks,' said Eve. Til have a glass of that Pimm's.'

Slater accepted a beer.

'Something of a baptism of fire for you, Neil.'

'It went a bit pear-shaped towards the end. We lost a good man.'

Ridley nodded. 'Andreas, yes. He'll be a great loss. We'll have to think about who's going to take his place. Perhaps you might have some recommendations -- we always ask existing members of the Cadre whom they suggest before casting our net wider.' He smiled and turned to Slater. 'Talking of which, you must come fishing again. There are some very wily old trout hiding in that river.'

'If you can't lure them out, sir, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to.'

'Don't be too sure, Neil. Your lateral approach may succeed where my more traditional tactics have failed. I've always thought that espionage and fishing go hand in hand. Both are essentially concerned with what happens beneath the surface, with what happens in the . . . let's call it the realm of the invisible.'

'Well, I'd be happy to give it a go,' smiled Slater. He turned to Terry and Leon. 'Do you lads fish?'

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Chris Ryan

'I used to do a bit of match angling,' said Terry.

lours and hours on end sitting at the side of a canal

loking roll-ups. Then I found I was doing pretty

ich the same thing at work on surveillance details. It

ade for a bit of a sedentary lifestyle, so' - he indicated

ie back of his voluminous bowling shirt, which had

|e words 'Bali-Hai Casuals, Romfbrd' on it -- 'I took

darts instead.'

They all laughed, and Leon explained that he had en something of a fast bowler in his youth. Cricket, fcwever, had not been one of the sports practised by second parachute regiment of the Foreign Legion, |d his skills had rusted. Now he was a member of an ido Club, and practised the art of combat with lurai swords. I 'Real Samurai swords?' asked Slater. I'Wooden ones,' said Leon. 'And you know

icthing? I'm crap!'

|A popping of gravel announced Chris's arrival. Like she drove a neutral-toned Honda Accord -- the sically invisible, reliable surveillance vehicle. She iked jazzier than usual, however, in an EUis-style Mher jacket and with her hair slicked back. I'Stop staringl' Eve hissed, kicking Slater smartly in

shins. 'Honestly, you're like a sixteen-year-old!' pWould you like a drink?' Ridley politely asked s. 'Or to employ the most depressing words in the ish language, shall we go straight through?'

ich -- a cold salmon -- was served by Ridley himself, 435

The Hit List

so that they could all speak freely. And they did recounting to Ridley the bizarre, horrifying and occasionally hilarious details of the operation. The Miko Pasquale sequence, in particular, seemed to amuse the old spymaster.

'Malt whisky at gunpoint,' he smiled. 'I can think of several colleagues from the old days who could have downed a bottle of twelve-year-old Islay for breakfast and not noticed the difference.'

Slater enjoyed himself, and enjoyed the company of the others. He felt that he had been accepted as a full member of the Cadre, rather than a probationer. They were a very mixed bunch, who under any other circumstance^ would probably never have met, but the surreal nature 6f-their professional lives bound them together.

After lunch, which the housekeeper arrived to clear, they walked in the watermeadows by the river. The sun shone drowsily down, bees hummed around the thistles, the river-weed shone emerald green in the shadow of the bankside willows and poplars.

There were long periods of silence; while appreciating the beauty of the afternoon, Slater guessed, his colleagues were already wondering what dangers and terrors the future might hold. It was this that hooked you, he reflected -- the anticipation of the next operation. And then, of course, once the operation was under way, the only thought was for its successful completion. And so you went on, drawn constantly forward to the next operation, the next

436

Chris Ryan

snaline fix, the next desperate call on your jurcefiilness. fSo,' said Chris, beside him. 'How are you feeling?' ji'It's all healing,' said Slater. 'The shoulder's a bit stiff the ribs aren't brilliant when I laugh, but apart Run that. . .'

' 'How about the rest, though?' asked Chris. 'Are you feeping all right?'

t 'For the moment, yeah, the nightmares seem to be i hold. Only a question of time, though - they always i>me sooner or later. Along with the rest of the post iumatic package. How about you?'

*! Chris shrugged. 'OK so far, but as you say . . .' She id still and turned to him. 'When it happens, talk jut it, OK? To me, or Leon, or whoever. We're all

I the same boat, and we all go off our heads from time time.'

i Slater nodded appreciatively. 'Thanks. I'll do that.

id-likewise if you're . . .' 'OK.'

* They walked for a moment in silence.

* 'What are you doing for the week off?' Slater asked Irentually.

'Oh, this and that,' said Chris. 'Nothing special. |*ou?'

'Same,' said Slater. 'This and that.' I' They both smiled. Looking around them, they saw at the dark shadow of a cloud was spreading across water-meadow. Soon, taking their pace from lidley, they were moving purposefully back towards

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the village. They just made it back to River House before the first heavy drops of rain began to fall. The arrival of the rain was taken as a signal that the afternoon was at an end, and one by one the Cadre members departed.

'As a cricketer -- or at least an ex-cricketer - I want to show you something,' Ridley told Leon before he left, leading him to a photograph by the side of the large fireplace. 'This is the service's cricket team in 1949. We called ourselves the Carlton House Eleven. I made a rather useful opening batsman, as I remember -- managed fifty once against the Ministry of Supply, including two sixes!'

'I'm impressed,' Leon smiled, shaking Ridley's hand and waving a general goodbye.

Soon only Eve and Slater remained. Eve requested a word with Ridley in private, and disappearing into his office left Slater in the hall. The sudden silence amplified the insistent beat of the rain on the leaded windows. His mind on his conversation with Chris, Slater wandered around the room, examining the various books, photographs and stuffed animal trophies. Something nagged at him, some curious unaccountable absence that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He paused for a moment in front of a nineteenth-century photograph, presumably taken in India, in which a dozen languid young officers in pith helmets lounged with polo-sticks on the steps of some official building. The legend 'Walter Ridley, Lieut.'

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Chris Ryan

was legible among the others in faded sepia ink-. Next it an equally browned but slightly more recent photograph showed a man in a Norfolk jacket and ureeches landing a salmon with the help of a ghillie. Clearly the father had been something of a sportsman >o.

Conscious of the baleful eye of the stuffed pike,

Slater approached the mantelpiece to take a closer look

It the 1949 Carlton House cricket-team. A dozen men

their late twenties and early thirties, their attitudes

aot dissimilar to those of the Indian Army officers,

sported themselves on the steps of a suburban

pavilion. Their caps were various and unmatching --

iton, Harrow, and Winchester predominant among

lem, Slater guessed - and their wide-cut white

jusers were held up in several cases by ties rather than

elts. So which was Ridley? Which was the demon jener who had thrashed the Ministry of Supply's awling all round the ground? Taking a large agnifying-glass from the mantelpiece he ran it down ic line of good-humoured faces. There was a man fith a bat over his shoulder, a man touching his cap to ic photographer, and a man striking a vaudeville pose i a pair of wicket-keeping gloves. Next to the wicket keeper, sardonic beneath a floppy sun-hat, was lauptmann Dietrich Wegner.

Lowering the magnifying glass, Slater took an ^voluntary step back. He was mistaken. It was apossible.

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Slowly, he readdressed the photograph. The face was Ridley's. A younger Ridley, a Ridley without the moustache, a Ridley he would not have recognised if he hadn't been looking for him - but the face was also Dietrich Wegner's.

His heart pounding, Slater went from wall to wall, examining the photographs. He found three more of Ridley as an adult -- among a group in evening dress at a reception, standing with several other men in tweeds on a grouse-moor, sharing a picnic from the boot of a Range Rover at a race meeting - but as he had subconsciously noted earlier, none of Ridley as a child or teenager. No family groups. No tottering first steps across a lawn, no buckets and spades on the beach, no sports days or tree-climbing or messing about in boats.

Lifting the framed photograph of the cricket team from the wall, unwilling to believe the evidence of his eyes but knowing deep down that he was right, Slater carried it to the window. No wonder Ridley - or should he say Wegner - had wanted the disc returned. No wonder it been so imperative that it be kept from the hands of the Serbs. Did the Ondine system even exist, or had the sole purpose of Firewall been to suppress the truth about the old spymaster's identity?

When Ridley came out of his office Slater was staring out of the window with the framed photograph in his lap.

Looking the younger man in the eye, Ridley smiled philosophically and slowly nodded. Behind him was Eve, expressionless.

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|'You're a good man, Neil. A clever man. We're

to have you.' [;Slater placed the photograph and the magnifying

on the side table. i'Where did you go to school, Mr Ridley?' iRidley laughed. 'Dogs sniff each other's bottoms. Jishmen ask each other where they went to school, fttigratulations, Neil.'

|Slater nodded at Eve. 'She told you I saw the Etures?'

fc'She told me.'

f'And you admit that you're Dietrich Wegner?' 1'I concede that many lifetimes ago I was a man led Dietrich Wegner. But we reinvent ourselves,

We reinvent ourselves.' jjfSo everyone keeps telling me. Yesterday I was ing to a woman who said that when she was a l^en-year-old concentration camp prisoner your fyashe friends cut her ears off. Not much chance of

reinventing herself, I'd have said.' I'Needs must, Neil. There is reason and logic to the

I have led.'

|Slater felt a cold rage expanding within him.

jrgetting for the moment that the five of us who

re here today have risked our lives for a lie, and that

artnight ago a brave soldier died for that lie, can you

pe me one good reason why I shouldn't go straight

the newspapers and tell them that there is an ex

azi at the heart of British Intelligence?'

Lidley looked him straight in the eye. 'Yes. The

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short answer is that I can. Give me an hour, and if at the end of that I haven't convinced you then you are welcome to walk out of here and tell whomsoever you please. If you want money, you can go to Max Clifford. If you want revenge, I'd recommend Alan Rusbridger of the Guardian. I've got both of their home numbers.'

Slater stared back at him, speechless at the man's nerve.

'Well, what about it?'

Slowly, Slater nodded. 'OK, you're on. Sixty minutes.' Undoing his watch, he placed it on the table next to the photograph.

'Eve, my dear,' said Ridley, his eyes still on Slater. 'Would it be Very un-PC to ask you to go into the kitchen and make us all a pot of tea? The Lapsang would be nice.'

'I joined the SS in 1939 when I was eighteen. I came from Gotha, in the Thiiringer Wald. And believe me, Neil, if you had been that age, and in that place at that time, you would have done the same. What did Wordsworth say? "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven"!

'At the time of the invasion of France I was attached to an SS Panzer division in the Ardennes - the Totenkopf. Real soldiering, Neil, against a determined and honourable enemy -- I remember an engagement against the Algerian Dismounted Light Cavalry which . . . Anyway, having been wounded in the arm and

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>riefly hospitalised - my left arm, you'll be glad to lear, rather than my fly-casting arm -- I was recalled to erlin late in 1940 and sent on an intelligence course. Speaking good French as I did, I had had some success |with the interrogation of prisoners -- a complicit smile, found, tended to accomplish more than a Schmeisser ?utt to the base of the skull -- and the fact had been noticed.

'In the summer of the next year I was reassigned to ay Group E, stationed in the Balkans. My task, I told, was to secure intelligence concerning the ctivities of partisans.

'The counter-partisan system I found in place was aconian. Reprisals for attacks on German troops and property were immediate, with a hundred Yugoslav les rounded up and machine-gunned for every ierman killed.

'Up to a point this policy was working. The main lorns in our side were a Serbian royalist named Dreza lihailovic, whose followers were called Chetniks, and half-Slovene, half-Croatian communist called Josip iroz. Mihailovic, who realised that public opinion rould turn against him if his Chetniks' exploits caused le execution of thousands of civilians, decided to find down his resistance activities and wait for the lies to invade. Effectively, he was brought to heel by ic reprisals policy, and by 1943 many of his Chetniks rere openly collaborating with their German hosts.

'Broz, who used the alias Tito, was a different proposition altogether. Rightly or wrongly he

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considered that the reprisals policy would simply make loyal Yugoslavs hate the Germans even more. He resisted, and resisted hard. His orders came from Stalin, and his followers -- quarter of a million strong by the end -- came from all sections of Yugoslav society. He was a much tougher nut than Mihailovic, and ultimately we never cracked him.

'But we tried. We tried very hard indeed. I was attached to a unit simply known as Ic, based at a place named Kostajnica, and my brief ultimately contracted to one essential task: I had to insert Yugoslavian informers into Tito's partisan army. We had to know what his intentions were because, to be frank, he was getting the better of us. By 1942 it was clear that the reprisals policy, while discouraging Mihailovic, had failed. We were imprisoning the partisans, we were shooting them, there were corpses hanging at every roadside ... It was a nightmare, frankly, and a very unpleasant atmosphere in which to work. Ah, this looks like our tea. And crumpets! Eve, you're a miracle-worker. Shall I be mother?'

'Now, where was I?' he asked two minutes later. 'Yes, in Kostajnica, where I had an inspired idea. An idea which became Operation Senfsamen, or Mustard Seed. A few miles down the road was the Ustashe-run concentration camp of Jasenovac. It was a disgrace, frankly - a complete butcher's shop -- and we and the Italians complained about it constantly. Having said that, there was an element of real-politik. The Ustashe were animals, but they were our animals, and we

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Chris Ryan

couldn't afford to be too choosy about whom we used. 'I took to visiting Jasenovac, ostensibly for obser | vation purposes. The place was run by a series of ^maniacal sadists and psychopaths - the most extreme j being a Catholic priest named Filipovic. Now I ... ' "befriended" is not the right word, but I made a point I of getting to know Filipovic and his successor, whose rname was Sakic. They were both terrifyingly un i balanced and clearly took a deep pleasure in the pain land suffering that they caused, but for my plan to work |l had to have them on my side.

'I got them there, basically, by pretending to be like Ithem. I visited that hell-on-earth with a regularity that limplied I couldn't keep away. And after a time no one ftook any notice of me.

'Now the camp was on a river -- the Sava river - and lopposite was a place called Gradina. Gradina was Iwhere the executions were carried out. Not the mdom killings that were a feature of everyday life at Jasenovac but the planned, systematic shootings and roat-cuttings which were carried out in groups. 'What I used to do was to monitor the execution parties when they were led off the ferry that had Drought them over the river to Gradina. If I thought lat any of the condemned men might pass muster as a sldier and a partisan - and not many did, most had the lull-eyed look of men who have given up all hope - I lad him unchained and brought over to me. Was he prepared to spit on the face of Tito, I asked him? Was ic, in return for his life, prepared to throw in his lot

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with the conquering armies of the Fatherland?

'Well, sometimes he was and sometimes he wasn't, and to this day I am amazed by the courage shown by those who refused. They knew why they had been brought across the river and as often as not they could hear the shots from the execution field. But still they said no, and I informed them that I considered them to be brave men and returned them to the guards.

'Others, for a combination of reasons, said yes. They were Chetniks, they hated Tito, they hated communists, they thought that Germany would win the war - I heard every possible reason. But mostly they were frightened for their lives and would have said anything- to be allowed to leave that grim procession.

'I took them back to Kostajnica, trained them in espionage procedures and fieldcraft, and turned them loose. Some of my mustard-seeds fell on stony ground, and I never heard from them again. Some were identified as spies by the partisans and killed. But others had their cover-stories accepted and were integrated into Tito's organisation - they took root, you might say -- and slowly the network grew to the point where an entire Ic department was devoted to the collating and assessment of "Mustard-Seed" data. It was, if I say so myself, an operation of some elegance.

'Unfortunately, despite some spectacular intelligence coups, it did not win us the battle for Yugoslavia, let alone the war, but by 1945 the ground was already being cleared for a much more important

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struggle - the struggle of the free world against communism.

'By the end of the war I was no longer the idealistic young SS lieutenant who had marched into France with the Totenkopf division. I was twenty-four years old, but I felt twice that age. For more than three years I had quite literally walked in the Valley of Death, and I had played a key role in one of the most savage and brutal guerrilla campaigns ever waged. When Army Group E was finally forced to retreat from Yugoslavia

-- the alternative being to surrender to the communists

-- a colleague and I were sent to contact the British Army, which was on the outskirts of Trieste. We both ' spoke reasonable Serbo-Croat, so it was thought that I we had a good chance of getting through.

'I got through. It was a nightmare journey, and I was [ almost starving by the time I reached the British lines. My colleague didn't make it, and ended up in |Klagenfurt in southern Austria, which by then had I been appropriated by Tito.

'At Trieste, after being badly beaten by the patrol to |which I had given myself up, I had the great good fortune to be interrogated by a British Field Security officer who immediately saw the value of the names id the knowledge that I carried in my head, and sent ic on to the Intelligence Corps HQ at Bad Sulzuflen, autside Iserlohn. There, I met the man who was to be instrument of my renaissance. His name was "aptain Robert Maxwell, ME. 'Maxwell, who was born in Czechoslovakia and

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The Hit List

spoke perfect German as well as Russian and half a dozen other languages, debriefed me over the course of several days in November 1945. In May, six months earlier, the CROWCASS list had been published. This was the Central Registry of War Crimes and Security Suspects - and I, along with several of my colleagues from Ic, wa$ on it. My crime, or my so-called crime, was murder of partisans -- an accusation relating to my having ordered the execution of Yugoslavian citizens. This was not in fact strictly accurate. My responsibility as an intelligence officer had been to identify and arrest partisans, and it fell to others to process those found guilty. That said, of course, history is always written by the victors, and the victors in this case were Tito's communists.

'Maxwell and I spent several days together, and without naming names I told him about Operation Mustard-Seed. I had a dozen agents within Tito's organisation, I told him, and a couple in his inner circle. These agents, I continued, could be persuaded into providing information on the regime almost indefinitely by the threat of exposure as former Nazi informers.

'Like all sensible men at that time, Maxwell was looking forwards rather than backwards. In comttion with the rest of his colleagues in the intelligence services, he was convinced that Europe should be bracing itself against communist invasion, and that Yugoslavia was Stalin's probable launch-pad into Europe. The offer of raw intelligence from a source as

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Chris Ryan

sensitive as the "Mustard-Seed" network was too good to pass up.

'And of course he was also looking forwards at his own future. He was already planning the publishing empire that would make him a vast fortune, but he needed a helping hand, both financially and in terms of contacts. A major catch such as I represented at the time would strongly predispose MI6 to come to his aid. As indeed they did. And I ... let's just say that I was in a position to point him towards some sources of funds too.

'Robert and I understood each other perfectly. By the end of that week there was an unspoken agreement {between us that we would, let us say, keep an eye on each other's careers.'

'And you did,' said Slater.

'And we did,' agreed Ridley. 'Although it would be home years before we saw each other again. I was | officially arrested as a CROWCASS suspect, then sent I to a military hospital at Magdeburg, where I was I admitted as an isolation patient before "dying" of I tuberculosis. I was certified dead, carried out feet first I beneath a sheet, and driven to Berlin, from where I was flown to Croydon Airport.

'The rest, if you like, is history. I spent nine months |being debriefed at a service safe-house in |Hertfordshire, where a "legend" was prepared for me [and I assumed my new identity as John Ridley. I have I the advantage of a near-perfect photographic memory, land was able to reproduce intact every detail of the

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"Mustard-Seed" files I kept at Kostajnica. The information was relayed to the MI6 station in Vienna, and used to mount a major intelligence operation against Tito. It was superbly effective. MI6 was warned in advance about Tito's break from Stalin, and was able to take advantage of this knowledge to help lever Austria into declaring its support for the West.'

Ridley smiled. 'And that's about it, really. The rest of my career is a matter of service record. The bare bones of it are that I served in Hong Kong, Oslo, Sofia and Moscow, came home to the Russia desk, and set up the Cadre. Rather than marry -- a security risk I could not afford -- I have dedicated my life to the service. In short, I have been a loyal and tireless servant of my adopted country.'

He spread his hands and reached for Slater's wristwatch. 'And that's about it. I've been talking to you for forty-five minutes. Do I have a stay of execution?'

Slowly, a little uncomfortably, Slater nodded.

'As I said, Neil, you are an intelligent man, and intelligent men ask searching questions. I would expect no less of you.'

Standing, Slater returned the photograph of the cricket team to its place beside the fire.

'I know that there are questions that I haven't answered,' said Ridley. 'Might I suggest that I do so while we enjoy the last of this sunshine?'

The rain, Slater saw, had stopped.

The landscape shone.

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Chris Ryan

'Wellingtons, if you need them, by the front door,' said Ridley.

'Maxwell and I met from time to time over the years,' he continued, as they crossed the field to the river, leaving dark tracks behind them in the wet grass. 'Lunch at the Travellers' Club, the odd Foreign Office dinner, that sort of thing. There were small favours I was able to do for him and for his newspapers, and vice-versa. We were both, in different ways, aliens at the heart of the British establishment, and the fact amused us.

'By the end of the eighties, however, we had more ; or less lost contact. I had officially retired, while he had I been swallowed up with the day-to-day concerns of [ the Mirror Group. I was aware, however - as most of I us in the intelligence community were - that things f were not well in his world, and by 1991 it was obvious I that his empire was unravelling in front of his eyes. In I October of that year he played one last desperate card. I He contacted an associate of his whom he knew the

K

'service did business with -- an arms-dealer and general |fixer named Antoine FanonKhayat.

'A Serbian pressure group, he said, had contacted piim with a view to publicising Ustashe atrocities committed during World War Two. They had photographs showing murders of civilians and )rthodox priests and scenes from Jasenovac, Stara iradiska, Jadovna and other sites. He had viewed the aterial and noted that half a dozen of the photographs

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showed the man whom he had helped to become a British citizen, namely myself.

'In the first instance, I think, his motives in buying up the pictures were purely those of hiding his own part in my rebirth. If it was discovered that he had facilitated the integration of an ex-Nazi into the British civil service his rivals would have slaughtered him. But buy them up he did - every print, every negative. It probably cost the Mirror Group a hundred thousand pounds, for which I'm sure Serbia was duly grateful.

'I honestly believe that it was only when he was really on the skids that he decided to try and blackmail MI6 into bailing him out, and by then his judgement was all over the place. He basically paid FanonKhayat to broker the deal. In return for the pictures incriminating me and tarring MI6 with the Nazi brush, he wanted to be paid tens of millions of dollars in cash, bonds and bullion. Really crazy stuff.

'Fanon-Khayat, at that time very much MI6's man, presented Maxwell's case to Manderson, who handled him at the time, and then immediately disassociated himself from it. He claimed he merely wanted to warn the service of the existence of the pictures, and handed over the photocopies, which Manderson destroyed.

'So what still existed, Manderson asked? What did Fanon-Khayat still have?

'One set of prints, said Fanon-Khayat. The negatives had long since disappeared. The prints travelled with Maxwell, from safe to safe.

'Well, Manderson thanked Fanon-Khayat, paid him

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Chris Ryan

for his trouble, and called me and a couple of other people in. It was clear that Maxwell was a very loose cannon indeed. We could raid his safe and take the pictures, but that would probably just force his hand. We had to go all the way.'

'The SBS guys,' whispered Slater, amazed. 'You mounted a hit using the SBS guys. My predecessor what was his name, Bernie -- was one of the pair who took out Robert Maxwell. That's unbelievable.'

'Believable or not, we did it. We eliminated Maxwell, removed the material from the safe, and covered our tracks. A classic Cadre operation.'

'And let me guess,' said Slater. Tanon-Khayat made a copy. A few years later he's in trouble and decides to throw in his hand with the RDB. Doesn't hand the pictures over, just tells them he's got them, suggests they can use them to negotiate with MI6 .. .'

'Exactly,' said Ridley. 'And the rest you know. I'm sorry we used y6ur loyalty to the SAS to persuade you into action, but at that stage you were still. . .' He smiled. 'Let's just say that at that stage we didn't know you as well as we know you now.'

Slater shook his head, trying to absorb all that he had been told. They had reached a stile between two of the rain-sodden fields, and he came to a halt. 'There's something I still don't understand.'

'Go on,' said Ridley.

'Four years ago, or was it five,, you sent Ellis out to investigate Fanon-Khayat and she reported that he was clean, that things weren't going so well for him but he

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was still our man. So why did Fanon-Khayat have Ellis killed? And how was Ellis -- a highly switched-on agent, by all accounts - lured into a car-park and whacked by a bunch of hired Parisian thugs? What happened?'

There was silence. Ridley glanced at Eve.

Slater looked from one to the other of them -- from the visibly frail figure of Ridley to Eve, who was staring regretfully and without focus over the brimming river -- and a cold certainty gripped his heart. 'You set her up, didn't you? She thought she was coming to that car-park to meet a friend - to make a report or to be pulled out -- and instead. . . No wonder they got the jump on her. And no wonder her killers were all taken out afterwards.'

Slater's head swam, and he reached for the wet timbers of the stile. 'I'm right, aren't I?' he said. 'You had Ellis killed.'

Eve said nothing.

Ridley frowned. 'Fanon-Khayat told Ellis about my former life -- trying to impress her, I suppose - and she just couldn't deal with it. She met Manderson in Paris and told him she wanted to leave, that it had all become too much for her. She could no longer handle life in the Cadre, she said, and she intended to go public with the reasons why. In many ways, for all her professionalism, she was a very naive woman.'

Slater stared at him, incredulous. 'Just where do you people draw the line, for fuck's sake? Ellis was a Cadre member. She was one of your own.'

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'Oh, please!' said Eve irritably, forcing her hands into the cartridge-pockets of her Barbour coat. 'Let's get real. We had no choice in the matter. We were at war. We are at war, and anyone who threatens our survival is the enemy.'

'Manderson will be retiring shortly,' Ridley continued, 'and Eve will be taking over the Cadre.' He placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. 'I suspect she would be very glad to have you at her side.'

'I would,' she said.

'You killed Ellis,' said Slater quietly. 'When would you kill me?'

'Neil,' she said gently. 'You are one of us -- a soldier and a true believer. You made your choice long ago -- long before I met you - and you confirmed that choice the night you rang me. "I am what I am", you told me.'

Neil Slater looked around him. Swallows dipped and swooped at the flies that danced over the river's surface. A faint vapour hung over the rain-heavy fields. Beyond them, he knew, waited only the Darklands and the crowding ghosts of the men he had killed. Was that Joey Delaney there, with his child's eyes and half his head shot away?

He was who he was.

'Let's talk about replacing Andreas,' he began.

455