TimeSplash (26 page)

“Hang up,” he said, quietly, and, after a little hesitation, she complied.

“Take her back to the house,” he told one of the armed guards, not taking his eyes off Camilla.

“If she resists, break her legs, but keep her alive. I need information from her—names, netIDs, account numbers.”

Her eyes flashed defiance. She turned to the guard. “Don’t you dare touch me. Who the hell do you think pays your wages?”

The guard took a look at Sniper and quickly made his mind up about where his best interests lay. He stepped forward and took her by the arm. She stiffened and for a moment it looked like she might argue with him. But the moment passed and she let herself be led outside. Sniper watched her go. Man, it felt good to be back in control!

* * * *

Bauchet paced the small sitting room deep in thought. His head was down and he walked with a slight stoop, making him look like a vulture pondering its latest carcass. Jay sat on the edge of an old and uncomfortable sofa and watched him pass back and forth.

“This is not what I expected when I gave you my number, my young friend.”

“I didn’t know who else to ask for help. If I can’t trust Five…”

They were in a Metropolitan Police safe house in the London suburb of Barnes, south of the river and well to the west of the city centre.

“I can’t keep her with me,” Jay went on, “and I don’t want to let her fend for herself. She isn’t safe.”

Bauchet shook his head in a brisk dismissal. “Of course, you did the right thing. My contact at Scotland Yard is very discreet. He told everyone he has a small-time drug dealer here ‘ratting out’ his friends, as he put it. The young lady will be safe. We can debrief her here and no one will find her.”

Sandra was in the kitchen with a plainclothes policewoman at Bauchet’s request. The superintendent’s insistence on a few minutes alone with Jay was not unexpected, but it still had Jay nervously watching him as he paced.

“Tell me again everything that was said when you introduced this girl to your superiors.”

Jay did so.

“And you told no one else about her? And you are sure she spoke to no one else about you?”

Jay gave his affirmatives and Bauchet shook his head.

“This gives us a difficult problem, you agree?”

Jay couldn’t guess from among the many problems he could see which one Bauchet had in mind.

“I don’t think MI5 is going to blow up London. Do you, Jay?”

“I suppose not.”

“So it is not MI5 that sent those killers after Ms. Malone,
n’ est-ce pas
?”

“I… Well, yes, but who else could it have been? Only Five knew she was with me.”

Bauchet made an impatient gesture. “Your security services are not a single organism. MI5 is just a group of people. We need to ask ourselves who in the service knew about Ms. Malone. Then we have our list of suspects.”

“You mean there’s a traitor in my office?”

“Precisely. A mole, as they say.”

“Working for who?”

Bauchet gave a Gallic shrug. “When we find him, we must ask him.”

They both fell silent.

“Only Holbrook, Overman and Porterhouse were at the briefing.” Jay was unhappy to think it could be any of them. “I don’t know if they told anyone else. It’s Holbrook’s baby, really—and Overman’s. Porterhouse was just there to act scary. Which he does very well, by the way.”

“I will look into it,” Bauchet said, ending the conversation. “It may not be easy. Meanwhile, you must take Ms. Malone to the office and she must tell them what she knows. Tell them she ran away last night but returned in the morning. She should have a story too. She has decided Sniper is trying to kill her and she will be safer with your people. Something like that. Remember, you must not tell your superiors what you suspect. Tell them you believe the girl. It is better they think you are an idiot than that they try to kill you. Do not call ahead. Do not give them warning. Just walk into the building and announce yourself. That way no one can intercept you. You understand?”

Jay understood all right.

* * * *

“This isn’t why I came to you, Jay.”

Sandra sat in the back of the taxi, showing no signs of getting out. The SIS Building gleamed in the bright sunshine, right next to them. The taxi driver, isolated in his attack-proof cage, glanced over his shoulder and then turned the meter back on.

“I just wanted you to help me get past Sniper’s guards. Something like that. I didn’t expect… all this. It’s all got out of control.”

“Yeah. I suppose it has, but what else can we do? There are people hunting for you out there. You’ll be safe with Bauchet’s people. And the deal we’ve done with Five means you’re free again. That’s got to be worth changing your plans for.”

She smiled weakly. “Tell me that your people can stop Sniper.”

“If they can’t, I don’t know who can.”

Sandra clearly didn’t like the answer. Jay could see how she must feel. She couldn’t stop Sniper on her own. The brick was so surrounded by security now that she couldn’t get near him. She had to rely on Jay. But even he realised that trusting MI5 might be a dangerous mistake. And then he had asked her to trust Bauchet and the London police too. So many people and any one of them could give her away.

“Nothing can happen to you in there,” he said, nodding toward the building. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Unexpectedly, she laughed. “I can take care of myself,” she said. Just as quickly, the laugh was gone. “Sniper can’t get away.” Her eyes willed him to understand. “He has to die. Promise me that. Tell me he’ll die. That’s what I want to hear.”

Jay swallowed. He looked around as if he might find help in the taxi’s dingy interior, in the ads flickering across its seat backs and doors. Finding nothing, he said, “I can’t promise you that, Sandra. I can’t promise to kill someone. It’s just… I’ll do my best to stop him though, and bring him to justice.”

She looked away from him, at the slow-moving traffic and the river beyond. In the end, she said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Jay wanted to say more, but decided he should leave it at that. Sandra’s fragile acceptance of the situation was probably all he could hope for at the moment.

They went into the building and he called Holbrook from the front desk. Within minutes, building security officers were leading them up to the top floor, where Overman greeted them with an uncertain frown.

“I thought we’d lost you, young lady,” the section head said, leading them into a comfortably appointed meeting room.

Sandra turned to Jay, looking cross. “If he’s going to talk to me like a patronising jerk, I’m leaving now.”

Instantly, Overman’s manner changed. He stepped up to Sandra and glowered into her face. He was only a little taller than her, yet his physical presence was completely dominating. “All right, so you’re a hot streetwise little bitch. We all get it. Now sit down and stop trying to impress me.”

For an instant, shock, then anger, flicked across Sandra’s features, then something else—curiosity, mingled with recognition. She smiled sweetly and took a seat. “Anything you like,” she simpered, keeping her eyes on Overman’s, crossing her long legs deliberately. Overman did not seem even slightly mollified by her sudden compliance. He took a seat opposite her and tapped the desk. A virtual keyboard and display appeared and he busied himself setting up the recording equipment.

“Thank you, Jay,” Overman said to him. “Close the door on your way out.”

“Ah, yeah. Okay.” He turned to Sandra. “I’ll see you later.”

She looked at him with distant eyes and gave him a vague acknowledgement, then turned back to Overman.

Jay stumbled into the corridor and leaned against the wall. His stomach clenched and he felt hollow inside. Whatever had just happened between Overman and Sandra, he could not begin to understand except on a visceral level. All he knew was that he hated it. This sophisticated and flirtatious woman was nothing like the Sandra he thought he knew. She was playing a game with Overman in which Jay had no part. Some kind of offer was being made, a relationship established. It was an aspect of Sandra that Jay had never seen, that he felt excluded from. That look she had exchanged with Overman was one he knew instinctively would never be turned on him. For all the feelings for her he thought he had, he was shockingly reminded that he didn’t know her at all. He wanted to get out into the air. He needed to be alone to nurse his pain.

* * * *

Sniper was at the airport again, in a hired limo. This time, Klaatu was in the back with him. The driver was armed, and so was the man riding shotgun. The limo was armoured. More paranoia, Klaatu thought. A third security guard arrived with two other men in tow. They waited outside the car until Sniper had scrutinised them through the tinted windows.

“That’s the correct package,” Sniper said into his compatch and the guard opened the door to let the two men enter, closing it after them and moving away to put their luggage in the boot. Inside the car, there was the sound of reunion.

T-800, as dark and saturnine as ever, cracked a smile Klaatu had rarely seen. “Man, I’m glad to see you again!” he told Sniper, gripping the German’s hand with both of his. “I am so looking forward to this!”

“Me too, mate,” said the man beside him. Even in those three words, his Australian accent was obvious. He grabbed Sniper’s hand as soon as T-800 released it. “Glad to see you again, you crazy bastard.”

Sniper turned to T-800 and grinned. “I take it you’ve met Edna. We go back a long way.”

The Aussie answered for him. “We met on the plane. Had a good old chin-wag.”

Sniper laughed. “Yeah, right. And this is my uberteknik, Klaatu.”

T-800 nodded in Klaatu’s direction. Klaatu nodded back.

Edna looked from one to the other. “Jeez, you two make more noise than a two dollar radio!”

He laughed at his own observation. Then he put out his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you, mate.”

Klaatu shook it briefly. “Of course, most of it was from this lying bastard, so I don’t believe a word of it.”

Klaatu tried not to let his smile waver too much. These were the bricks Sniper had recruited for the splash. They didn’t need to be intelligent, he told himself, just physically robust, and crazy enough to cause as much mayhem as possible at the other end. The Aussie certainly looked tough. The girl’s name puzzled him, but bricks weren’t like normal people. Maybe he picked the name just to get into fights.

“Okay, Sniper,” T-800 said, cutting through the geniality of the moment. “Let’s hear about the target. What’s your plan?”

Sniper waved his question away. “Tomorrow. We’ll talk plans tomorrow. In fact, I’ll take you both to the target site. It’s still here. But, tonight, we party!” His compatch chimed and he glanced at it in annoyance. “Get that will you, Klaatu.”

Klaatu gave the commands to route the call while Sniper described the venue and the entertainments he’d arranged for his friends. Klaatu listened silently for a while, then said, “It’s the investors.”

“Tell them to fuck off.”

“I think you need to hear this.”

Sniper gave him a look that said he’d better be sure, but Klaatu remained impassive. Eventually, Sniper took back the call. He snapped at the voice on the other end, he told it he didn’t want to know, but, after a short while, he shut up and listened. When he hung up, he glanced around at the others. His face was rigid with anger. He hit the limo’s intercom. “Forget the house,” he said.

“Take us to the engineering works. And make it fast.”

“The plan has three parts,” said Overman. He was in the same meeting room in which he had interviewed Sandra that morning, but Sandra was long gone. Now Holbrook, Porterhouse, Jay, and three other MI5 officers were his audience. There was also a well-built stranger with a visitor’s pass to whom Jay had not been introduced.

“The first is to infiltrate Sniper’s operation with a teknik from our staff. If they’re in the building phase, they will be recruiting. There’s a good chance we can get someone inside. We have several undercover operatives already in the field attempting to make contact. The successful agent’s main priorities will be to identify the target for the splash and to sabotage the work where possible. They will also provide intel on the movements of the principals so that the second part of the plan can be put into operation.”

Jay eyed the man surreptitiously. Overman had been locked away with Sandra most of the day. Was it possible he had done more than just interview her? After all, the way she had looked at him…

“Currently, we have a home address for Sniper and the address of an engineering works in Deptford.” The information appeared on their desk viewers. “If we are unsuccessful with the first part of the plan, we will raid both these locations. I have invited Colonel Davidson here from The Regiment, which will undertake the raids.” Jay knew that meant 22 Regiment, Special Air Service. Overman nodded at the SAS colonel as if they were old acquaintances. “However, I’m hoping we can get an officer inside and gather as much intel as possible before we need to take this step.”