‘How long do I have to think about it?’
‘You don’t. You leave today.’
Against all his instincts, Harry took the offer.
After leaving Paulton’s office, Harry went home to pack a single bag and make a few phone calls. To friends to say he would be away for a while; to Jean, a slim red-head in her forties who referred to herself with dry wit as the OD – Occasional Date.
Instead of Jean, he got Felicity, her Sloaney business partner in a west end flower business.
‘Off again? She’ll be sorry she missed you.’
‘Really?’ Harry wasn’t so sure. Jean knew what he did but had never asked questions. Until now, he’d taken it for a judicious lack of interest.
‘Obtuse man.’ Felicity’s voice was friendly, gently reproachful. ‘Don’t you know you’re the only person who makes her smile? Come back soon.’
He put down the phone amid conflicting emotions; resumed packing to get his mind in gear. The department would deal with the letting of his flat while he was gone, so he boxed up his personal things and left them in the middle of the floor for removal and storage.
A short taxi drive took him west to RAF Northolt, where he was shunted aboard a military plane and handed a flask of coffee, a bottle of chilled water and a tuna sandwich. He took his seat and found he had two escorts sitting nearby. Military policemen by the look of them, hard and capable. They ignored him completely. He knew that if he tried to get off, they’d have him face down on the cabin floor before he reached the door.
He ignored them in return. Drank his coffee, ate half his sandwich, saved the rest for later. Not that he liked tuna especially. But better than nothing. He fell asleep thinking of Jean.
They prodded him awake at Frankfurt. Gummy-eyed, he stared through the window. The plane had stopped behind a military hangar, shrouded in shadow, distant arc lights casting an eerie glow. He was urged down the steps and into a plain, white van reeking of oil and stale sweat. Three minutes later he was in the civilian terminal, where he was told where to collect his tickets for his onward flight. He signed a docket at the desk and turned to see if his escorts were coming, too.
They had disappeared.
FOUR
‘In hindsight, Tate should have had more back-up and support.’ Paulton tossed his listeners an early mea culpa to be going on with. It was chicken bones at best, probably pointless, but might keep them at bay for a while and sit well on the record should a board of enquiry be convened.
‘Is that all you can say? After all that work and preparation?’ Gareth Nolan, Deputy Commissioner for Operations in the Metropolitan Police, scowled across the table. He was clearly intent on levelling blame towards MI5 for the failures. ‘You’re defending the man?’
They were in an anonymous, polished room in the bowels of a building off Horse Guards Avenue. The flak from the failed operation was beginning to settle around everyone’s ears as the story gradually became public knowledge, and this was not the only meeting Paulton had been called to.
‘It’s not a matter of defence,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s the facts I’m interested in.’
The senior policeman shrugged it off. ‘It was a bloody cock-up, right from the start! It cost one of my men his life, and two innocent civilians. Your man – Tate, is it? – should be charged with incompetence at the very least! What is he – a trainee, fresh out of university?’
‘He is a former army officer,’ Paulton said calmly, a defensive stance for the record rather than loyalty to his man. ‘He served with distinction in Kosovo and Iraq, among others, but he isn’t Superman. Circumstances went against him . . . against the team. It happens.’ He smiled coldly, adding, ‘Besides, if I understand the facts, it was your officer who put himself at risk; your team who got stuck driving their van into a mud-wallow. Don’t you teach them ground-reading skills anymore?’
‘Gentlemen.’ The voice of the third person in the room cut off Nolan’s intended retort, leaving him fuming impotently. ‘Let’s press on, shall we?’ Marcella Rudmann, chair of a Joint Intelligence Subcommittee overseeing security operations, flipped open a folder in front of her. ‘This business is appalling by anybody’s standards. Which is why this meeting involves just the three of us . . . so far.’
The subtle warning did not go unnoticed by the two men. They were in session with one of the most powerful women in Whitehall, against whom arguments were like light rain on a metal roof. She had the Prime Minister’s confidence and the support of senior cabinet members.
‘Two civilians dead – one the daughter of a local VIP, we believe – a courageous firearms officer killed and one dead drug-runner. I couldn’t care less about the last one, but the other three are going to keep the press on our collective necks for months to come. What are you doing about it?’
‘Doing?’ Paulton raised an eyebrow, although he knew perfectly well what Marcella Rudmann was alluding to. A head had to roll and, more importantly, had to be seen to roll. More than that, any source of embarrassment had to vanish quietly, beyond the reach of the press. He felt for a moment the spectre of blame settling around his neck like an icy collar. If anyone had to take the fall, it should be the weasel in uniform across the table from him; it had been his men who had thrown the drugs bust into disarray after many months of work, leaving the MI5 operators and the on-loan firearms officer to deal with the ensuing firefight. There was also the manpower cuts forced on them at the last minute by the Home Office; cuts meaning that resources were tailored to the threat level involved. Intelligence reports had advised that the threat level of the operation in Essex was likely to be low, and therefore required minimum personnel on the ground.
It had been a bad decision, but one Paulton himself had reluctantly agreed to. Outgunned and on foot, Tate and the others hadn’t stood a chance. He wondered idly whether senior police officers were issued with swords on which they could fall. Probably not; their health and safety department wouldn’t allow them near anything sharp.
‘About Tate.’ Rudmann was in her fifties, attractive and poised, but possessed of an aggressive approach which belied her looks. She had a reputation for caring little about individual sensibilities or rank, evidenced by several big-gun civil service carcasses littering the ground behind her.
Paulton forced himself to remain calm. Was it really going to be this simple? Had she just given him a clear, unambiguous signal that the man on the ground was to take all the blame? He sighed; he’d be stupid to toss it back in her face. Tough on Tate, especially at his time of life. Forty-something, he seemed to recall.
Better for himself, though. If he was careful.
Nolan wasn’t slow to pick up the inference, and snickered in triumph. ‘Tell me, Paulton, what do you do with security types you want rid of? You can hardly send them down to the local job centre, can you? Or have them spilling their guts by writing their memoirs.’
Paulton shot him a look of genuine loathing and resisted the instinct to mention the Stockwell tube shooting in 2005, by a police marksman. Instead, he replied, ‘Actually, we execute them. Saves time and paperwork. We could always extend the practice to your lot, if you like. Care to be the first candidate?’
Nolan’s face paled and he began to protest. But Rudmann’s hand came down flat on the table, the rings on her fingers giving the sharp, flat echo of a gunshot.
‘Your solution, George.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘You mean here and now?’ He was damned if he was going to give her an answer in front of this jumped-up traffic cop – not when it meant admitting he was surrendering the head of one of his officers. It would be tantamount to admitting that he had the guts of a slug. He slid a glance at his watch.
Tate’s flight should