‘Yes.’
‘I will see to it.
‘Somewhere to hide?’
I hesitated. It would be the smart move yet I could see now that it would be too easy for Reuben to slip back into his old role as mentor and me as pupil. I no longer responded well to criticism. ‘No, just give me the cash, I’ll be fine.’
‘As you please.’ Dark-eyed, he took a drag of his cigarette, drawing the tobacco deep into his lungs.
‘The reason I’m here,’ I confessed, ‘is that I went back.’
‘Back?’ he spat, ‘Are you out of your mind?’
‘To finish the job,’ I lied.
Reuben met my gaze with watchful eyes. He nodded briefly.
‘After I arrived,’ I continued, ‘the place teemed with British, Russian and Israeli security services.’
Most people would have reacted. Reuben was not most people. He barely flinched. ‘The woman,’ he began. ‘You said she worked at Imperial College.’
‘That’s right.’ I inhaled deeply. ‘Dr Mary Wilding.’ I floated her name as if it were a smoke ring. A pulse fluttered in Reuben’s thick neck. I checked any natural response of my own.
‘The microbiologist,’ he said slowly, as though his brain had suddenly filled with sludge.
I blinked. ‘She was a research scientist.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t bother to look into this aspect of her background?’
Unforgivably, I had not. I glared at him. He said nothing, his expression one of sheer disbelief. He took another drag of his cigarette, flicked a flake of tobacco from his tongue. ‘So who did she upset? What was her crime exactly?’ A shrewd glint entered his eyes.
I told him what I’d been told, then I said, ‘As the security services are all over it, I assume she committed industrial espionage.’
‘Assume?’ Reuben’s damning expression ripped right through me.
‘It’s a fair…’
‘Clearly you were not familiar with her sphere of work.’
I said nothing. My brain was in overdrive, misfiring and failing to make connections.
‘She worked at the Department of Virology at Imperial College,’ Reuben said.
‘Virology,’ I repeated, sounding leaden.
‘The department she allegedly worked in was a front,’ he added, darkness in his tone.
‘For what?’
Reuben did not answer my question directly. ‘The college has many departments,’ he continued, cool-eyed. ‘Some more secret than you can ever imagine.’ His voice assumed a forbidding note. It felt as if a chill easterly wind gusted across the room. I felt faintly nauseous and it was unconnected with brunch.
‘Meaning?’ I said.
‘Bio-weapons,’ he snapped. ‘Chemicals that kill,’ he added as though I didn’t get it the first time. ‘As deadly as nuclear but more vile in its application.’
‘And illegal,’ I flung back at him. This was Britain, for God’s sake, not some far flung Russian outpost.
Reuben threw me a contemptuous look. ‘Yes, which is precisely why any sane government ensures that it has counter-measures in the event of a biological attack. Wilding was working in strategic defence.’
I contained a groan. This had catastrophe written all over it. No wonder the security services were all over it like typhoid in an Indian slum. Christ Almighty, what was on the hard drive? Reuben read my expression and asked the same question. I shook my head.
‘Why don’t you know, and when the hell did you become a common thief?’
I opened my mouth to protest. Reuben waved away any attempt at excuses with a flick of his wrist. ‘And your American friend, how does he fit?’
I gave no names. I explained that Wes was the fixer, the guy who acted as a middleman. ‘Crime lords have their own contract killers on the payroll, but sometimes they need a specialist job that puts enough distance between them and the intended victim.’ Safe to say, I usually got involved in the dirtier end of the business although I drew a line at abduction and torture.
Reuben stared at me with distaste. ‘And this character, you have operated with him before? He is reliable?’
‘As much as anyone.’ Except, of course, he’d lied royally to me.
Reuben nodded slowly. I realised he was trying to work out a way to save my reputation, my skin. Thank God for that.
‘You want out?’
I did my best to conceal my shock. How could I? Was it really possible for me to rub out the past, get a nine to five job, settle down and start over? Straight answer: no. My silence lurked like a restless ghost in the room.
Reuben gave voice to what I was thinking. ‘We all want out at some time in our lives but it isn’t always possible. Few have the necessary requirements for this type of activity,’ he added with false delicacy. ‘What I am trying to tell you, Joshua, is that you cannot change who you are. You can change your name, your address, your friends and you can run away from problems, but not from yourself.’
This I already knew. I didn’t want a lecture. ‘Then I’d appreciate your help. You could find out what the Israelis are after. It would give me a lead to find those responsible for the theft.’
‘And then what?”
Take them out. I shrugged, a go figure expression on my face.
He shook his head. ‘I no longer have those type of contacts. Your only option is to finish what you started.’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
Reuben hiked both shoulders, raised both hands, palms up in supplication. ‘It will be difficult but…’
‘I will not kill the boy.’ This took both of us by surprise. I cleared my throat, drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘It would be too tricky,’ I added. ‘He’s probably in a safe house.’ Seconds thudded past. Silence washed into the room like sea invading a stricken vessel.
At last, seemingly forgetting the boy, Reuben asked, ‘Who took out the contract?’
I shook my head. ‘His anonymity was part of the deal.’
‘You were paid well?’ Reuben’s voice thronged with cynicism.
‘Handsomely.’
He thought for a moment. Easy to guess what he was turning over in his mind: that no paymaster would rest easy with such a poor return on his investment. I was, in effect, a dead man walking.
‘What was on the hard drive, Reuben?’
He didn’t answer straight away. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind. The stillness in the room was so tangible you could have heard a feather fall.
‘Have you heard of Project Coast?’ he said tentatively.
I shook my head, perplexed by the sudden change of subject. Once more he stared at me for a moment with what seemed genuine indecision, then when he finally spoke he had a certainty about him that I normally found reassuring. That morning I wasn’t reassured.
‘Project Coast was a programme that originated in South Africa. It involved the creation of an ethnic specific biological weapon. The weapon only attacked blacks.’
I wanted to interject, to lean forward. I didn’t flicker so much as an eyebrow. Reuben had taught me well.
‘The