“I suppose you can’t tell me what any of this is about?” He asked. He didn’t expect to get any answers, but it seemed silly to wait in silence. Sir Clive looked at him carefully, taking in the intelligent brown eyes, a hint of a mischievousness in the raised eyebrow.
“Someone arrived here earlier who’s in danger. I need to find them and get them to safety.” He said flatly.
The lift doors pinged open. The Hospital Manager was usually a good judge of character, but he had no idea whether this man was telling the truth or not.
“Someone who checked in as a patient?” He asked, following Sir Clive into the lift. If the answer to this question were yes it would raise all sorts of ethical questions. He had a duty of care to his patients, he couldn’t simply let some Secret Service man wheel them away on a trolley because he took a fancy to it. Sir Clive shook his head. “Doubt it,” he said. The doors opened.
“Quickest way to reception please,” he said. The manager pointed to his left. “Straight on then second right.” Sir Clive was off, jogging along the corridor.
A queue of people were waiting at reception, but he walked to the front, selected one of the false ID cards from inside his pocket and flashed it at the receptionist. She read the name, Detective Fisher from Cambridge CID. Sir Clive leant in close over the counter, smiling at her broadly. He spoke softly and quickly.
“Now my dear, earlier this morning maybe 20, 30 minutes ago a man and a woman walked through that door, early twenties, him over six foot, the woman blond, attractive. Ring any bells?”
The receptionist looked blank, then worried. “Why, what’ve they done?” Sir Clive leant in a little closer. “Now that’s not really answering my question, is it, Yasmina,” he said, reading her name badge. A hint of steel in his voice. The receptionist frowned. “Half an hour ago maybe, they went to one of the research labs.” She frowned, “Someone came to meet them, who was it…Anne, Dr. Anne Fitzgerald. Works in one of the labs. You’ll need a pass to get there though.”
“I’ll take yours,” he said reaching over the desk, pulling it quickly from her.
“Hey! Wait! you can’t just, he can’t just, he can’t just take that can he?” Sir Clive was gone, through the double doors and off to the lab. The woman who’d been standing in the queue behind him shrugged, “I’d say he can, unless you’re going to stop him.”
Sir Clive watched the operation through the window in the door, turning his head to one side so his breath didn’t mist the glass. One hand on his weapon, the other adjusting his ear piece. The connection with the ops room kept cutting out. He was quietly impressed by the grim determination of the surgeon, quick, skilful fingers. And the resolution of the patient. No point going in just yet. Let them finish their work. If the two people operating on the boy were as professional as they seemed then the device would be extracted whole and unharmed. Timing was everything.
13
Monsieur Blanc flicked shut his mobile phone, handing it back to his assistant. Mid-day. The hour at which he liked to drink an aperitif before settling down to an unusual and idiosyncratic choice of lunch
It had been a difficult phone call. The people he was working for did not appreciate mistakes. His professional reputation would be in tatters if he could not bring in the final device. They had been quite clear on that, the ten units worked together, forming a virtual network. Without the last one, the others were useless. If he couldn’t bring in the device his career as an arms dealer would be over.All those years spent acquiring contacts, cultivating sources, all that time and energy wasted. They would ensure he didn’t work again, not on any significant contracts. He’d be back to hawking suitcases full of AK 47s round Africa, trying not to get ripped off by dictators and Somali pirates. No, he did not want a return to those days, he had worked too hard.
A tap at the door. He opened it. The waiter wheeled in a trolley with his lunch. His special order. One of the things he loved about London hotels was their discretion. Anything could be provided for the right price. He waved the waiter away with a fifty-pound note. A generous tipper, always had been. He liked to remove the cloche himself, savour the delicacies. He signalled to his two assistants to leave the room. He preferred to eat this dish alone.
The aroma a tannin and iron tang from the meat. Hint of sweetness behind it. He brought the plate close to his nostrils and breathed in deeply.
Pigeon hearts. Uncooked. A rich reddy-brown, and still warm from the breast of the birds. Next to them slivers of the raw breast meat. He ate it with a dash of lemon and a pinch of salt, washed the whole lot down with a glass of warm rice wine. There was no comparable taste, no other dish that had the power to transport him so vividly back to his childhood in China.
Born to peasant stock on the outskirts of Shanghai, he had eked out a precarious existence in the city slums, dodging the fists of his drunken father and the snapping jaws of the rabid dogs that crawled along the gutters. Only his skill at catching birds had saved him from a premature malnourished death.
He was half-starved by the time he worked out his system. Scrambling up the bamboo scaffold outside a new office block, a stolen pot of pungent glue under one arm and a small paper bag filled with as many crumbs as he could gather from the floor of the bakery in his hand.
He had spread the glue over a section of roof, dropping the crumbs evenly into the thick paste, then retreated to a nearby vent to watch. His hunger a hammer banging on anvil inside his belly. He did not have to wait long. A cooing bird pitter-pattered its way across the roof, head bobbing up and down in dumb optimism. One foot stuck to the glue. The pigeon paused, momentarily confused, cooing faster. He dived on it, wrenched the head from the body, half-starved he tore at the feathery flesh with his finger nails, cracking through the bones, warm blood mingling with the dirt on his grimy face.
Monsieur Blanc dabbed delicately at his lips with the linen handkerchief. The hearts and breast meat tasted as delicious today as they had all those years ago.
He had returned to Shanghai just a few months before on business. The cityscape was transformed, no longer recognisable from his childhood memories. Towers of glass and steel rose ever upwards, announcing their ambition to the world, challenging others to catch up. At street level people hurried, suited and booted, chatting quickly on their mobiles, a brash confidence underpinning their movements, their interaction with one another.
On a whim he had sought out the Catholic mission that had taken him in as a boy. It was still there, the red brick Victorian building sandwiched between towering concrete and glass structures. As well it should be, given the generous donation he made to them on an annual basis. They had plucked him from the streets, fattened him up, given him a good Christian education. English and French and Bible stories were his daily lessons. Why they had chosen him instead of one of the other countless urchins scurrying along in the alleyways and backstreets of the city he did not know, perhaps he was simply the most pathetic- and forlorn-looking child they could find. Whatever the reason, he had excelled at his lessons, his quickness at learning endearing him to them, somehow confirming in their minds the truthfulness of their teaching. They rewarded him with cakes and pastries baked by one of the nuns every Saturday afternoon.
It was the Catholic church that had sponsored his move to France, proposing a career in the priesthood, training at a seminary in Paris. They were keen to have a native doing the good work, spreading The Word in China. He had jumped at the chance, the opportunity to travel, to live in a city like Paris. He was happy to profess belief in their golden-haired Jesus, become a fisher of men if it meant he could escape the slums of Shanghai for good.