“You guys are from the Consulate?” he said. “Smithers sent you?” Presumably they were just the collection team. He would meet the intelligence officers soon.
The car pulled away. Indian Man spoke for the first time. “Yes, we are Secret Intelligence Service. We need to get you away. Everyone’s after you, young man.”
Toby turned to Julia. She gave him a big grin, grabbed his right hand, and squeezed it.
The car accelerated down the long, straight drive between the flamboyant trees towards the gatehouse. Toby twisted in his seat. He saw the man with the suit running towards the guest car park.
Julia kept tight hold of his hand. Toby turned back and mouthed a kiss at her. She winked in a conspiratorial fashion.
Nobody spoke as they slowed down for the gate. The white-uniformed security guard saluted, then pushed down on the counterbalance weight and the barrier went up.
The Mercedes turned on to the main road with a slight screech of tyres.
“Boy, am I pleased to see you lot,” Toby said. “This is Julia Simons, from the yacht. She wants to defect too. I mean, she’s with me and we’re leaving together.”
The men in the front didn’t answer him. The black driver spoke softly to Beaky-nose, who murmured something back.
“Soon be out of here,” Toby said to Julia.
Julia turned her head and looked out of the window.
The car was on the dual carriageway now, and accelerated. Beaky spoke again to the driver, who looked in the mirror and said something inaudible.
They were heading towards the industrial area of St Helen’s, such as it was. They swung round a long bend at high speed, and the small estate of warehouses and workshops appeared on the left.
The car slowed and turned in without indicating.
“Your office is in here?” Toby asked of the Indian man sitting next to him.
He received no response.
“Chatty today, aren’t we?” Toby said brightly. He felt some tension in the air. Clearly he’d rattled the agents with his non-appearance earlier. These were tough dudes.
The car weaved left and right as it threaded its way around potholes in the tarmac.
There was no one around.
They turned off the road and bumped on to a dirt track a hundred or so yards long. At the end of this stood a warehouse crudely constructed from plain concrete blocks. A peeling painted sign announced, “Bluggo’s Tyres. Keep on Rollin.’”
The Mercedes stopped outside a pair of sliding cargo doors that almost filled one side of the building. The driver got out, unlocked a small access door to one side, and disappeared inside. A moment later, Toby heard the whine of a motor, and the doors slid open slowly. The driver re-emerged, got back in, and as soon as the gap was wide enough, drove the Mercedes into the gloomy interior.
This was not what Toby had been expecting. His vision had been of a discreet office in the suburbs, or a large private residence staffed by English people with cut-glass accents offering him tea from a silver teapot and cucumber sandwiches.
He started to feel apprehension rising in his chest.
“Who exactly are you guys?” he demanded as the vehicle came to a rest.
“Out,” commanded Beaky. Indian Man grabbed his arm and virtually pulled him from the Mercedes. He glanced back with alarm at Julia, but they didn’t seem to be bothered with her. And they hadn’t expressed any surprise at seeing her with Toby in the hotel.
The truth dawned with a sickening realisation. These goons were not British agents or anything like that. They were hired thugs, Krigov’s, and Julia had set him up.
Toby felt his pulse start to race. He had been kidnapped, just minutes from safety. The running man in the suit at the hotel must have been the real deal.
The giant doors drew together. The brightly lit yard outside narrowed to a slit, and then they were in near darkness. The only illumination came from skylights set in the roof, dirty with age and overgrown with creepers.
Indian Man propelled Toby to the corner of the warehouse where a little office had been fashioned out of plywood, with a cheap plastic sash window set in the side, still covered in sticky labels from the manufacturer.
A single office swivel chair stood in the centre of the tiny room.
“Sit.”
Toby complied.
The Indian left and a second later, Beaky-nose entered. Toby got his first good close-up look at the man. He was an ugly brute, with facial skin like the surface of the moon and that huge conk. But it was the fixed, unsmiling expression on his face that worried Toby most.
“You caused us plenty trouble, Robinson,” he began without preamble. “But you can make amends now, and then you won’t get hurt. Understand?”
Toby nodded. He had no illusions that they were going to release him. He knew too much, and they knew it.
His interrogator walked all around him and came up behind his chair. Toby felt warm breath on his neck as the man bent down and whispered in his ear, “Tell the truth and you’ll be fine. Lie or bluff, and you’ll never leave this room alive. Is that perfectly clear?” A smell of garlic wafted into Toby’s nostrils, mixed with a sweaty smell. This fellow had personal hygiene issues big time.
Then Toby felt something cool jab his neck, and smelt an oily smell.
The man had a gun at his head.
“Yes, sir,” Toby said, because that seemed the safest thing to do. He put his right hand very slowly over his left hand, which rested in his lap, and pretended to adjust the improvised bandage. Having done this, he sat still and rigid. The next time, he would activate the wristwatch emergency beacon. He didn’t know where the man was looking, but everything was indistinct in the gloom. One factor in his favour.
“Where have you been today? How did you contact your controller?”
“I just phoned him up from a pay phone,” Toby said.
“Good boy,” said Beaky. “Any other answer and I would have hit you hard with this pistol—not so hard as to concuss you, but hard enough to make you feel sick or maybe actually vomit. And certainly hard enough to give you a headache like you’ve never had in twenty-two years.”
“It’s OK, I’m no hero,” Toby said. He moved his right hand ever so slowly towards his wristwatch.
“Next question,” said Beaky. “What exactly did you say?”
“I just arranged the rendezvous. Or rather, they did.”
“At the hotel? Why not earlier? What did you do next? Remember, the truth. Because you don’t know how much I know already. And that blow to the head when it comes will shock you and scare you. And you won’t know exactly when it is coming.”
Toby activated the wristwatch. At the same time he said, “The local police were after me. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to get caught up with them. That would have complicated matters. My people were supposed to collect me from the phone booth. I had to split when the cops showed.”
“I have my gun raised above your head. I am going to bring it down on your skull if you do not answer my next question quickly and truthfully. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Toby said again.
“Have you had any contact with anyone else since you returned to the
Amelia
?”
“No,” Toby said. “How could I have done?”
“Liar,” came the voice from behind him, with soft menace. Toby tensed. The cold barrel of the gun no longer pressed on him. He felt, rather than heard, the gun being raised above his unprotected head.
Chapter 26
There was no sense sitting there and being pistol-whipped. They had not restrained him in any way on the old typist’s chair—maybe reasoning that he would be too terrified to resist an interrogation and beating.
Wrong.
Toby tensed his thighs, pressed his feet into the floor and shoved as hard as he could. The typist’s chair shot back on its castors and Toby felt it connect with Beaky’s knee. Then he felt a sharp blow to his shoulder. The man had missed his head, anyway. Toby kept shoving back. The man was off balance for a moment. Toby swivelled the chair round and grabbed the big man around the waist, trying to restrict his movement.
They grappled for a moment like unwilling dance partners.
Beaky regained his balance and tore free of Toby’s grip. Toby stood and reached behind him for the chair. He grabbed the backrest and tried to lift and swing the chair as a weapon. Pain shot through his injured hand. He flinched. He was in no condition to put up a fight. He heard the click of a safety catch. By the time he faced his assailant again, the gun was pointing at his face.
“Don’t shoot!” Toby yelled. “I’ll tell you who I spoke to and what I told them!” His heart pounded. Curiously, he felt no fear now. While he could see the gun barrel, he was alive. He would not know anything if the man pulled the trigger.
The man waved the gun to indicate that Toby should sit again. This Toby did.
“So. Tell. If I believe you, I will let you go. If I do not believe you, I will do other things, less appealing.”
“I’ll tell you everything. Don’t shoot,” Toby said, playing for time. What could he say? Was he dispensable or not? Anything he said could condemn him. What did the man want Toby to say? That would be the best thing—to make up something believable that required further interrogation. Toby surprised himself with his quick thinking under duress. It was a talent he didn’t know he possessed. He hoped he would get to use it some more. “Let me see. They gave me a small camera and recording device on the
Surrey
that I could hide in a compartment in the sole of my shoe. I used this to record incriminating conversations with Krigov, in which he admitted to killing the two Russian girls in cold blood. I then dropped the device off in the phone booth in town and hid it behind the coin box as instructed.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Beaky. “I just needed to know if you had compromised our operation already, or were about to do so.” He raised his gun and steadied his aim at Toby’s forehead.
“Wait!” Toby shouted. “I did speak to someone else.”
“When?”
“This morning. I forgot. I phoned from an Internet cafe. My mother.”
“What did you tell her?” The gun still pointed at Toby’s head.
There was no reason to lie. “Just that I was off the yacht, and coming home.”
“And you said you were ashore?”
“Yes.” Why did the man want to know? Beaky still held Toby in his sights.
It was time to move again while Beaky hesitated.
Toby was just deciding which way to jump when he heard a yell from outside the little office. Julia’s voice. It sounded something like, “We’ve got company!”
It must be the British cavalry, Toby thought. And not a moment too soon. How long since he had twisted the winder on his watch to set off its GPS locator beacon? Five minutes?
He heard another shout from Julia, something like, “Go now!”
Beaky advanced across the room, seized Toby by the arm and jammed the gun into his ribs. He propelled Toby out of the makeshift office into the gloomy warehouse.
Everyone was talking at once. Julia was at the pedestrian door, looking out. She turned and shouted, “Too late, they’re here.”
Toby heard the wail of a police siren.
Beaky said to Toby, “Did you do this?”
Toby, of course, shook his head. “They saw you lift me from the hotel. They only had to ask a few of those vendors by the roadside to work out where you’d taken me.”
The driver was in the people carrier. He started the engine. Indian Man rushed to the controls for the sliding doors. Julia shouted out, “No! Leave this to me! I know what to do!” She hurried over to where Beaky stood with Toby still pinned in his grip.
Beaky said, “We don’t want a hostage situation. The Boss doesn’t even want us found here.”
Looking straight at Toby, Julia said, “I repeat, leave it to me. I know what to do. No hostage, no siege. Just stay cool and go along with me. And get rid of the gun, Brent. It’s no good to you now. Give it me.”
Beaky meekly did as Julia told him. He seemed happy to give up his weapon. Toby tried to make sense of the situation, but couldn’t. Was Julia on his side still, and playing a role? He tried to catch her eye, but without success.
Julia took the handgun and scampered over to the side of the warehouse where various bits of junk lay around. She bent down and slid the gun under an empty sack, then pulled a small packing case over it. In her white shorts and little yellow top, she looked like a tourist off one of the smarter cruise ships. Somebody’s older daughter.
The siren was much louder. The police vehicle couldn’t be more than a block away.
Julia returned and took Toby by the arm. “Let me have him,” she commanded.
Why was she suddenly in control? Toby allowed Julia to steer him towards the doors.
“What’s going on?” he hissed at her.
“Just don’t say anything and we’ll all be OK,” she muttered under her breath.
“Whose side are you on? Who are you working for? What the hell is going down here?”
She didn’t answer, but merely stood by the doors as they opened to their full width.
Toby had no idea what would happen next. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to involve shooting or torturing him—at least, not for the moment—so that was something.
Two local men in jeans and polo shirts appeared in the doorway. “Police,” they announced, although the only clue that they might be were the handcuffs which Toby could see dangling from their belts. They didn’t appear to have guns.
“Here he is,” Julia said. “We caught him hiding out in this warehouse.”
One of the policemen was tall and stout, the other short and slight.
Tall Cop unclipped his handcuffs, spun Toby around and pulled his hands behind his back. Toby heard a click and then a ratcheting sound and felt the cuffs contract until they were too tight for comfort.
As usual.
“Hold on, I’m not the criminal!” Toby protested. “These men abducted me. I was due to meet a team from the British Consulate. They should have got an alert from my GPS beacon.”
“We found him holed up and hiding in the corner office,” Julia said.