Paulton was damned if he would make that mistake again.
He caught up with Deakin and Turpowicz just as they reached the restaurant, and drew them out of earshot of the maitre d’.
‘Those men you use — the Bosnians?’
‘What about them?’ Deakin looked defensive, expecting more criticism.
‘Tell them not to leave the country.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we need them to cover your tracks. This man Tate isn’t going to stop.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘Take my word for it — we must take him out of the picture.’
‘That’s what I was going to do,’ Deakin looked pointedly at Turpowicz, ‘but others disagreed.’
‘It’s too risky, that’s why,’ the American insisted. ‘Go after Tate and it’ll bring down the big battalions on our heads. There’ll be nowhere to hide.’ He stared hard at Paulton. ‘Or is there something you’re not telling us?’
‘No.’ Paulton kept calm, his face blank. ‘But I know the type of man Tate is and I know how this will end if we don’t stop him now.’ He knew he was too experienced to betray any misgivings he might have; he had, over the years, kept greater secrets from better and far keener intellects than these. But he was realistic enough to know that if he didn’t handle this very carefully, it could all go very badly indeed. The fact that he knew Harry Tate was going to come out; these things always did. And being the men they were, even with his long-time acquaintance of Deakin, if they suspected there were personal reasons for a man hunter to be on his trail, they’d dump him in a heartbeat. He’d be too much of a liability to keep around for their continued survival, as small and self-contained as the organization was. He had joined them, promising to bring specialized contacts and resources, because he had seen an unrivalled opportunity to profit by the kind of assets they had passing through their fingers. It was something he did not want to lose. He was looking forward to many years of productive life yet, and for that he would need a regular supply of operating capital and the means to keep himself out of trouble.
‘We’re all ears, George,’ Deakin prompted him impatiently. ‘How do we get to Tate and how do we stop him for good?’
Paulton gave a knowing smile. ‘We distract him. Everyone’s got a weak point, and Tate’s no different. We hit him where it will hurt and draw him out. Then we take him out of the picture. And I think I know just the way to do it.’
THIRTY-EIGHT
‘I wish I’d been there.’ Rik Ferris looked disgruntled at having missed out on some fun. Harry had called at his flat to bring him up to date on events and to see how he was progressing with his trawl for information on Vanessa Tan.
‘Good job you weren’t,’ said Harry. ‘You’d have slowed us down.’ He smiled to show he was joking and took a pair of pistols out of a leather briefcase he’d brought with him. They were German H amp;K VP70 semi-automatics.
Rik’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘Jesus — what’s this?’
‘The difference between life and death.’ Harry handed him a magazine. ‘Nine millimetre, eighteen-round mags, courtesy of a now defunct south London gang. If Zubac and Ganic come after us, we’re going to need them.’
‘How did you get hold of them?’ Rik picked up one of the guns and checked the mechanism. Both weapons had the patina of past use, but were clean and ready to go.
‘Ballatyne pulled some strings. They’re not logged to anyone, but if we have to lose them, make sure they stay lost.’
‘You think they’ll come, even after what they did in Brixton?’
Harry nodded. ‘Especially after what they did in Brixton. They don’t take failure very well, nor does Deakin. With McCreath banged up and out of reach, they’ll be concentrating even more on going after a prime target like Tan. . that’s if they haven’t already found her. But to do that, they’ll want me out of the way.’
Rik looked at him. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because it’s what I would do.’
Rik put the gun down on the table with the magazine aligned alongside it. ‘Apart from watching our backs, where do we go from here?’
‘We keep looking for Tan. She’s the key to this. If we find her, we’ll eventually find Deakin and the others.’
‘And Paulton.’
‘And Paulton.’ It always came back to Paulton. Maybe his former boss had become an obsession, just as Ballatyne had suggested. But trying to ignore his part in the picture wasn’t going to help; he was a constant, hovering in the background like a ghost, an itch Harry couldn’t scratch. He rubbed his face and forced himself to rationalize. After the events of the morning and the dramatic flight through the police station, he was feeling numbed, as if he’d come down off a chemical high. The truth was, though, he’d been concentrating so much on the other runners, he’d given little more thought to finding Tan. And she was worrying him. For a high-profile young female army officer, Tan had disappeared completely. Too completely. With no back-story he could use to figure out where she might have gone, and no family history or recent employment details other than the sparse MOD material, it was like staring into a dense fog.
‘I haven’t found anything yet,’ Rik admitted, as if reading his mind. ‘I even checked all the social network sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and others, but there’s been nothing. I’ve got a couple of friends working on the name, too — and one is using the photo to link in to FR systems at airports. It’s slow going, though.’
Harry nodded. It was a long shot. Facial recognition systems were still not readily available in all international airports, and the chances of Vanessa Tan doing them a favour by appearing on one at the right moment were slim. But it was another avenue to explore. He sat down and stared at the ceiling, trying to work through the problem. There was something right there, back at the beginning, which was bugging him. ‘Why would someone on the run,’ he said aloud, ‘set up a system for managing a property left to deteriorate, and pay phone rental on a machine which is never used? What would be the point? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Keeping a bolthole, just in case?’ said Rik.
And what about the bank details? There had to be a link somewhere, Harry reasoned. ‘Anyone arranging regular payments through a bank has to leave some kind of trail. Christ, they certainly know how to chase me quickly enough when something goes wrong.’
Rik shook his head. ‘I checked and double-checked. Nothing doing. Somehow the system got wiped, but left instructions and funds enough to keep paying.’ He glanced at Harry and added, ‘Of course, there’s always the possibility that it was done deliberately. But why would they?’
There was only one reason Harry could think of. It was a major one and went right to the heart of international espionage practice: that of penetrating a foreign bureaucracy or military infrastructure and working on the inside. It would mean the current Vanessa Tan was a sleeper, a spy gathering information, data and the confidence of some of the most important military officers in the world. Yet, if that had been her sole role, whoever was running her could not have guaranteed the Cambridge graduate ever making it into the army, let alone gaining access to any of the information they wanted. Getting run over by a Cambridge bus would have been just as high on the cards.