Harry shrugged. The driver merely smiled in the mirror.
Higgins swore at the lack of reaction and nudged Harry with a beefy elbow. ‘See this dump? It’s called the Palace. My bathroom at home is bigger than this. Say, where are you staying, Tate? You here, too?’ It obviously hadn’t occurred to him that the hotel might have guests other than himself.
‘No,’ said Harry with quiet relief. ‘My firm made other arrangements.’
‘Your firm? Oh, you in oil or something? You never said.’
‘You never asked.’ Harry wanted the man out of the car.
Higgins appeared not to hear him. ‘I know a lot of guys in the oil business. Mostly engineers. They work on the pipeline going from Baku on the Caspian all the way through to the Med. Anyway, I gotta go. See you around, Tate. Maybe we’ll have a drink sometime. Watch out for bed-bugs – they’re built like fuckin’ raccoons.’
He levered himself out of the car and tramped heavily into the hotel, his jacket tails flapping like a tent. He had made no offer to share the fare. Harry let him go. The peace and quiet was worth it. He made a mental note to avoid the Palace Hotel and signalled the driver to move on.
Three minutes later, the Mercedes stopped outside a plain-fronted, three-storey building rendered in a sickly cream coating speckled with dust. There were few vehicles or pedestrians about, but two soldiers were standing on the nearest corner.
As Harry pulled out some notes, the driver turned and draped one arm over the back of his seat.
‘And they have the fucking cheek to wonder why everyone hates them.’ His voice was heavy with disgust, his accent was from somewhere south of Birmingham. He smiled at Harry and held out a hand. ‘Rik Ferris. Comms, IT support, research and general jobsworth. The boss said to come get you in case you got kidnapped.’
The spiked hair and pop T-shirt seemed almost homely. Harry smiled and took the offered hand. ‘Nice of you. Is kidnapping a likelihood?’
‘It happens, yeah. Usually oil engineers; the local bandits know they’ve got plenty of cash and their companies need their expertise.’
‘They wouldn’t get much for me, then. But thanks for the warning.’
‘No problem. Welcome to the lower rectum of British Intelligence, Central Europe. If you’ve any taste, you’ll hate the place. I’ll get your case.’ He jumped out and went to the boot.
Harry followed him across the pavement into the building, his skin reacting instantly to the cooler climate after the airport. As the door closed behind them, Rik held a finger to his lips and flapped his hand over one ear.
The message was clear: the walls have ears.
On the second floor, he fed a code number into a worn keypad and threw open a heavy wooden door, ushering Harry ahead of him. They were in a large open office with high windows overlooking the street on one side and a jungle of a garden on the other. A through-breeze stirred sheets of A4 paper pinned to bulletin boards around the walls, while the hum of electronic machinery filled the background. Papers and cardboard folders were stacked in trays, with spare boxes of stationery and brochures piled under desks and in between cupboards and side tables, and a tangle of cables criss-crossed the scuffed wooden floor. It could have been any commercial office anywhere in the world.
The door closed behind them with a click of security deadbolts, and Rik came and stood beside him.
‘You can say anything you like in here; sing the Red Flag, tell dirty stories about Putin, but don’t be rude about our lords and masters, because they’re probably listening, the cheap, chuckle-starved sons of gits.’ He grinned and pointed to a woman in her thirties sitting at a PC near the back window. She had long dark hair scraped back into a ponytail, brown eyes and what might have been a broken nose. She was devoid of make-up. It made her look drawn. ‘Clare Jardine, Harry Tate; Harry Tate . . . well, you know the rest.’
Harry nodded. She returned it without expression, then went back to her work.
A door opened on the far side of the room and a heavyset man entered. He had greying, stubby hair, neatly brushed, and wore well-pressed dark blue trousers and a blue shirt with black shoes. Almost a uniform, thought Tate. The man gave Harry a wary look.
‘Keith Fitzgerald, our security hound and resident heavy,’ said Rik.
Ex-army, Harry decided as they shook hands. Strong grip. Probably came out with three stripes and a pension, kids and wife gone, no family, a host of war stories and looking for a job to call home. And this was it.
‘Keith,’ he murmured. He dropped his bag on a chair and said to no-one in particular, ‘I was expecting to see Stuart Mace.’
‘He said he’d meet you for coffee,’ Jardine said without looking round. Her voice was cool, matter-of-fact, the accent neutral. She pointed over her shoulder. ‘Back out, turn left, right at the top and fifty yards along. The Odeon.’
Fitzgerald coughed. ‘We’ll need to go through your induction,’ he said. ‘Security procedures and protocols, who’s who, routes in and out, basic travel details, that kind of thing.’ He waited, eyes carefully assessing.
‘After coffee do you?’ There was no sense in trying to avoid it, and the security man was only doing his job.
Fitzgerald nodded, positions agreed, and Harry turned and left them to it. They would probably dissect him the moment he was gone, anyway, the way people do in these situations. He wondered how much they knew.
Outside, the earlier mugginess had cooled, and he walked down the street trying to relax and shake off a growing feeling of despondency. He passed three men in combat uniforms, and saw the ugly snout of an APC parked at the intersection. Another soldier was standing nearby. The men were unshaven and heavily-built, their uniforms crumpled and greasy. His former RSM would have gone ballistic.
As he approached the end of the street, he heard footsteps and realized the three men in combats had turned and followed him. Then the man by the APC stepped out and blocked his way, one hand on the holster at his side. The other three stopped behind him, blocking the way back.
Across the street, two women with shopping bags turned the corner, took one look at the situation and scuttled back the way they had come.
‘Pass,’ said the soldier, and tapped his breast pocket.
EIGHT
‘George?’ It was Marcella Rudmann, in a neat grey business suit and glossy shoes. Her hair was coiffed and shiny under the lights of the main hallway of the Ministry of Defence, and she was carrying a smart document case and a mobile, traditional armaments for a meeting. She seemed surprised to see Paulton.
Stuff her, he thought rebelliously. She doesn’t know everything.
‘Good morning.’ He almost called her Marcella but decided against it. Familiarity paid off only with those innocent or pompous enough to be fooled by it.
‘How did the . . . posting business go?’ She was referring to Harry Tate.
‘Very well, actually. He should already be in place by now. Why?’ Paulton didn’t like the idea of being checked on; watching people was his job, not hers.
‘Oh, no reason. The Deputy Prime Minister was asking if the press were likely to get hold of Tate’s name. There are questions being asked which come uncomfortably close to the truth.’
‘Questions? By whom?’
‘Shaun Whelan – who else?’
Paulton puffed out some air. He wasn’t surprised. Whelan was a poisonous little hack who’d been booted out of RTE, the Irish broadcasting network, for disclosing private information about government officials in Dublin.