A Deadly Trade: A gripping espionage thriller

‘It will cost. Stay tuned.’ And I hung up.

First rule of the game: don’t botch the job. Second rule: don’t get caught. I’d broken the first and had no intention of breaking the second, but for what I hoped would be the only time in my life I was going to break the third. Insane, maybe, but I had no choice.

Finishing my tea, I stepped outside. Sun trickled through the cloud. My breath made smoke-rings in the cold morning air. Nice day for a walk. Me, I had other ideas: I was going back.

CHAPTER THREE

Less than four hours after I’d fled, I was holed up on the upper storey of a small boutique hotel, and on the opposite side of the road with a clear view of Dr Wilding’s home, a modest but attractive 1930’s red brick semi-detached property with a casement window in the front and triple-glazed French windows at the rear. Cutting corners on the job did not mean I’d failed to carry out basic groundwork. Days before, I’d already ascertained that her next-door neighbours were away on holiday and the attached property the subject of a repossession order, the occupants long gone following the collapse of their electrical business.

I’d expected the area to be cordoned off. I’d anticipated rafts of police officers. The view before me was a picture of the mundane, ordinary and commonplace. It spooked me.

As I saw it there were a couple of explanations for the lack of activity. Perhaps the killer had returned, or maybe Wes and his employer had interpreted my response as too negative, swung into action and appointed another assassin to finish off the boy. Doubtful, I thought. Too knee-jerk, too dangerous. Involving more people than you need always fraught with risk. And pointless – the boy’s death would not reveal the whereabouts of the hard drive. The gnawing desire to know what was on it made my skin itch, and it occurred to me then that Wilding’s murderer had come within a split-second of crossing my path, an awesome thought. If we’d both showed up for the same job at the same time we’d probably have ended up killing each other.

So who was he and who had employed him? If I could trace the guy I’d find his employer and then I could get my hands on the information. Best man to approach for that type of low-down would be Billy Franke. I let out a liquid breath. Easy to say, less easy to do: asking questions would draw attention to my failure, and Billy, one my main employers, didn’t like mistakes. I was still chewing this over when almost twenty minutes later the cops arrived. To tell the truth, I was almost relieved.

There were two police patrol units, an unmarked Mondeo with four plain-clothes guys inside, and a police Range Rover. I watched as the occupants piled out and into the house. Within ten minutes or so, a plod appeared doing what plods do: spooling crime scene tape around the front of the building. My stomach clenched. How many bodies?

I leant back then straight back up as a black Land Rover with tinted windows hove into view. It prowled down the street, paused outside the crime scene area for enough time to be significant, and drove on. The number plate bore the prefix 248D, assigned to all Russian diplomatic vehicles. While I swallowed this indigestible piece of information, another less assuming Toyota Land Cruiser with two men inside pulled up on double yellow lines and parked twenty-five metres from the property. Both occupants watched silently, unashamedly, as though they did this every day of the week, as if they operated by a different set of laws to the ordinary citizen. Next, racing down the road, a navy-blue Lexus, one male driver, and one female passenger. I could almost smell the rubber from the tyres as the vehicle cut and swerved into a tight space and parked between two patrol cars. The driver shot out a split-second before the woman. He glanced up the road, jerking his head in the direction of the stationary Land Cruiser.

‘What the hell is Mossad doing here?’ he said to her.

‘Doing what they do best: watching.’

At this, I froze. I have no particularly fluency in languages bar the bare rub-along stuff that buys me a beer and gets me out of tricky situations, but I can lip-read. I’ve no idea how I do this. Put it down to a predominantly solitary and lonely childhood. Lip-reading aside, I guessed that the woman and her sidekick were British Intelligence. To see so many security services congregated in one place made me more than uneasy. I felt as if I had chipped ice in my blood. Had Wilding been involved in some kind of industrial espionage? Selling trade secrets, maybe? Didn’t really compute with what I’d been led to believe.

But then what I’d been told was a pack of lies.

Painfully I tried to force connections, but my mind was swamped with the boy, the dead woman, the damned Israelis whose attendance closely reminded me of someone who taught me everything I knew. Cold sweat nestled in the small of my back. Feelings, alien emotions, played no part in my life. They were a luxury I could not afford.

Think, for Chrissakes. Think clearly.

I’d learnt a long time ago that Mossad had a habit of showing up either at or in the aftermath of all major events. Most recently and to name a few: the death of Princess Diana, the murder of Robert Maxwell, the suicide or murder, depending on your point of view, of Dr David Kelly. Their presence here confirmed that there was more to Wilding than I’d taken the time and trouble to find out. Now I saw why the hit on the scientist had been a rush job: Wilding was a big fish.

I turned my attention back to the woman. Tall, around five eight, full-figured without being overweight, probably a dress size twelve. She had a pale complexion, with a shock of short copper-coloured hair, side parting so that a lock fell over the right side of her face, which was a perfect oval. The lips matched the full figure, voluptuous with a nipped in waist, and she had a neat nose, neat everything. I couldn’t yet tell the colour of her eyes but I guessed they were green. She moved with feline stealth, fluid, impressive for a woman of her build and stature. From the way she threw her head back at the Israelis and blew them a kiss, the way she strode ahead of her male colleague, the way he deferred, this was her gig.

I followed her path to the door, half-mesmerised, then she took me by surprise. She turned, looked up, eyes scanning. I chilled. It was as if she were looking not straight at me but into me. I stared back, aroused. Then she turned and was gone.

An hour and a half passed. Forensics came. A white van appeared. Two men got out and disappeared inside, re-emerging twenty minutes later with computer boxes. Two trips later they were packed and gone. The patrol cars left. An ambulance showed. The Israelis stayed, mute, unyielding. The driver smoked incessantly. I never saw the Russians again. Then my mobile vibrated for a second time in as many hours.

‘Yes, Wes.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Out and about.’

‘Is that smart?’

I didn’t respond.

‘You still there?’ Wes’s voice, low and tense, scraped down the line.

‘Uh-huh.’ My deliberately Neanderthal response suggested that he’d overplayed his card and he knew it.

‘That’s great,’ he said, effusive now. ‘Can you meet? Charing Cross Hotel.’

‘When?’

‘Noon.’

‘Make it one. I’m taking an early lunch.’ I cut the call and switched off the phone. I don’t eat lunch. It makes me sleepy.

At half past ten the house opposite erupted into activity. Two men in plain-clothes came out first, closely followed by the woman’s sidekick. Next, the redhead, with the boy bunched up next to her. I let out a breath. He was alive. From this height and distance, armed with a Heckler and Koch military sniping rifle, I could ‘remove’ the problem at the click of a trigger. Not subtle, but effective. It gave me pause for thought. Would it even do the lad a favour? After the sudden death of his mother what would become his story later on? Would he turn to booze or drugs or sex to relieve his pain? Would he seek meaning in violence, as I had done? I wondered how he’d negotiate a path through a lifetime’s maze of hidden obstacles and mantraps and people out to get you. This was not my problem, I reminded myself. What did I care? Except now I realised that I cared more than was good for me, that even if I’d had the necessary kit I lacked the necessary ruthlessness.

Worrying.

A snarling phalanx of hangers-on, grim-faced, came out of the building last. Clear and easy in her movements, the woman directed the boy into the rear of the Lexus, climbed in next to him, but not before turning her back and issuing orders to the others who received their instructions as though ordered to eat dirt. I smiled in spite of everything. The woman running the show came across as direct, in cold control, authoritative and, yes, sexy. If anyone were going to hunt me down it would be her.

The main cavalcade drove away. The boy was out of immediate danger, whisked off by his minders no doubt to a safe house on some godforsaken housing estate where nobody asked questions. I almost envied him.

As for me, there was only one place to go, one man to see, the last person alive familiar with my real name and who could help me. I briefly wondered whether he’d think the time he’d devoted to my education in the Dark Arts wasted.

CHAPTER FOUR

Even in winter and under a sullen sky, Chiswick, moneyed and classy, oozed vibrancy and colour, aspiration and style. Treading an unfamiliar path through a crush of dead leaves, my senses alert to every police siren, every copper on the street, I turned right and left until finally I found myself in a maze of streets and homes that in summer would be hidden from view. It was as quiet as a desert night. Row upon row of classy red brick houses with white railings and balconies lined the wide tree-lined avenue. Suburbia at its finest.

It didn’t take long to locate the house right at the end. Screened from the street by a hedge, detached, it was a building of entrances and exits, a metaphor for life and death. It never occurred to me that Reuben might have moved or even died. Reuben, somehow, seemed indestructible.

Murmuring good morning to a young pretty mother pushing a baby-buggy, I followed the line of the wall to the rear of the building. A heavy wrought iron gate divided the boundary between the property and the pavement. As I walked back round to the front, the teal-coloured front door with the lion’s head brass knocker swung open and a woman stepped out.

In her mid to late thirties, her dark blue coat buttoned up, only the perilously high heels and pointed toes gave the game away. Actually, I lie. She had a satiated, just-fucked expression on her face. And I knew why. Even in middle age, Reuben had projected a strong sense of his own sexuality. A man’s man, Reuben adored women. Seemed like this peculiarity of his personality remained unchanged, his enthusiasm undimmed. Before she closed the door I bowled up to her and turned on my most winning smile.

‘Private parcel delivery for Mr Greene.’ I took out the dummy set of keys I carry with me, rattled them and pointed as if my van was parked around the corner.

She started, a flush of colour spreading across her cheeks. ‘Oh right,’ she said. ‘You want me to take it? Only I’m in a bit of a hurry.’ She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

‘It’s heavy,’ I said. ‘No worries, I’ll pop inside and get Mr Greene to sign for it first.’

She smiled, grateful. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Sorry to have held you up,’ I called after her, closing the door silently behind me.

I stood in the inner porch. I don’t know why but I felt as if my lungs were being crushed from the inside. I could hardly draw breath. I hadn’t seen the man in more than fifteen years and just because he’d worked for Mossad a long time ago did not mean that he could throw light on current events. Would my unexpected appearance trigger a negative reaction? Would he welcome a voyage into the past? I guessed there was only one way to find out.

The house was long and narrow with pale laminate flooring. Stairs to the right, two doors to the left, ahead a light and airy kitchen with a glass roof and two steps down into a dining area with a view of a pretty walled garden.

I could hear water running. The sound came from upstairs. I crossed to the kitchen, helped myself to a mug of coffee from a pot, still hot, and pulled up a chair near the window. After spending so much time out in the cold Reuben’s home felt unnaturally warm.

I saw Reuben before he saw me. The skin under his dark, intelligent eyes was more pouched than before, and his hair, now uniformly grey, thinner on top, yet he was still recognisable. An imposing figure, with a body built to last in spite of being a couple of stone heavier, he wore a dark shirt of needle-cord buttoned to his throat. The sleeves turned back exposed formidable forearms. I’d always believed that he could strangle a man with his bare hands.

I stayed absolutely still and watched as he suddenly registered that I was there. He had total mastery of his physical responses. Only someone who knew him well would be able to divine the thoughts and emotions running through his mind. I read shock in his eyes as if he believed that the day of reckoning had finally arrived and he was to be eliminated by one of his many enemies. Next, recognition, puzzlement, suspicion, and finally pleasure. His full lips drew back into a smile as he crossed the floor and down the steps, arms outstretched. I stood up, opened my arms wide, showing in that one small gesture that I had come in peace. He held me tight, clapping me on the back like a long lost son. His embrace aroused a brief, fleeting need in me to belong. As inconceivable as it was, an infinitesimal part of me flirted with the idea of rejoining the human race even though I knew deep in my heart it was impossible. Reuben was the only person in the world who knew me before and after. He was aware of what I’d become and what I was. He would not judge me. He would not ask awkward questions. He would not ask me to explain. We were never going to have one of those mundane conversations about what I’d done the previous day, week or year. We would not waste time discussing my choice of holiday destination. Relationships were off limits because I had none.

‘Joshua Thane, the young man I once described as shimmering with menace,’ he let out a loud laugh. ‘My God, I thought you were dead. What brings you here? We must eat. We must celebrate. You are hungry, yes? I have pastries and eggs. What would you like? Name it and you shall have it.’

If anyone could give me what I wanted Reuben could, but first he needed to be finessed. As far as brunch was concerned, I settled for eggs, poached, and more coffee. While he hustled around the kitchen he rattled on about the old days. He made no mention of my unorthodox entry. Reuben only ever voiced criticism.

‘Remember you asking what it felt like to kill someone?’ he said at last with a chuckle. ‘I told you that it doesn’t feel like anything. It’s…’

‘Business not personal,’ I chipped in.

Reuben cast me a slow sideways look. He knew where I was going with this. My first kill broke the cardinal rule. It was personal and it was supposed to be my last. The fact that I was here sitting in his kitchen meant events had come full circle. I don’t believe in karma. If I did I’d be dead a thousand times over, but I definitely felt the pull of something outside my very ordinary human powers. Disturbing.

‘Eat,’ Reuben said, putting a plate down in front of me. ‘Then we will talk.’

We ate in silence. In spite of the unusual and tricky circumstances in which I found myself, I was calm. I trusted nobody, but I trusted Reuben. If I pitched it right, Reuben with his extensive contacts would provide me with the answers I so urgently needed.

At last, when the plates were cleared, I told Reuben what had taken place that morning. I delivered the account without emotion, as he had taught me. I kept my pitch neutral, the information factual, giving as clear a description of events as possible. At this stage, I didn’t identify the target. He listened with the acuity I expected from him. He did not express surprise or comment upon my low diversification into theft. He frowned only once, but when I mentioned the surviving witness, he grew angry.

‘You did not know about the boy?’ Condemnatory, Reuben’s dark eyes turned as black as the sharps and flats on a keyboard.

My jaw ground but I said nothing. I’d broken a fundamental rule. ‘I…’

‘Didn’t do your homework,’ he barked. ‘What have I always taught you: surveillance, knowledge, survival. You check the intelligence then you check it again.’

He was right, of course. It was not Wes’s fault. The blame lay with me.

‘Have you forgotten the art?’ Reuben snarled.

What could I say? Even if I’d elicited screeds of personal details, something told me that I would have missed the one that counted. ‘It was a one-off, an unusual job.’ More unusual than I could ever imagine, and one I never wished to repeat. Ever.

‘How could you be so remiss?’ he growled. ‘What was it, greed?’

I met his eye. He had a point but I’m not sure it fully explained my incompetence. I’ve heard it said that there is a particular time in a serial killer’s life when he wants to be found and stopped. To facilitate his discovery, he makes a mistake. I was not a serial killer in the sense that the term was generally applied so I didn’t believe I fell into this category.

‘I slipped up, took my eye off the ball,’ I said lamely.

‘You got complacent,’ Reuben said, contempt in his eyes. After all I’ve taught you, his expression implied.

‘I admit I was reckless,’ I said, stubbornly defending my reputation.

‘And you let the boy go?’ Reuben saw me for the fool I was. This rattled me.

‘I did.’

‘Why?’ In Reuben’s book, you took no prisoners.

Stumped for an answer, I said. ‘If ordered to kill him I would have done. Nobody gave the order.’

‘Then you have taken an unacceptable risk.’

‘Yes.’ No point in denial.

‘The police will be all over it and now they will have a description of you.’

‘A description but not an identity.’ They couldn’t exactly issue a warrant for the arrest of a man without a name. Even so, the boy had dragged me kicking and screaming out of the shadows. Did Reuben of all people recognise this? If so, he didn’t enlighten me.

Reuben took out cigarettes and a lighter. I sensed he was playing for time. He offered me the pack. I rarely smoked but this seemed like the right occasion. I took one, lit it. Reuben did the same.

‘You need money?’

‘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.’