Greed

'What is the target?'

Assaf looked towards the pub, then back at Sallum. A pair of men were walking past ten yards away, and he waited until they were safely out of earshot before replying. 'We plan our targets with great care,' he said. 'We strike rarely, but with maximum force, so as to spread terror and confusion among the enemy. Yet we also operate by stealth — we come at them where they least expect us to strike. This bomb is to be placed at Clapham Junction. It's the biggest railway junction in Europe, and the busiest. It's the one crucial hub for all the people and freight coming into London. After this bomb goes off, nothing will be able to move through the area for at least a year, until the contamination dies down. Radiation will seep into the underground network and down into the water pipes. London will grind to a halt.'

Sallum permitted himself a brief, thin smile. 'That will teach them to underestimate our power.'

'The moment to strike is three nights from now,' said Assaf. 'I will give you a map. Other agents are working in London, and they will clear the way for you. There are twelve security guards protecting the station. Each will be killed at the same moment, five o'clock in the dead of night. Twelve of our agents have been assigned to that task. You will sneak undetected across the tracks and bury the case beneath the track. The bomb will have a thirty-minute timer on it, enough for you to get away from the area, but not enough time for it to be found.'

'I am honoured to be chosen.'

'But first we must deal with the last two of our thieves,' said Assaf. 'Honour demands that they must die. As soon as I have it from our source, you shall be given the address of their hiding place, and you will go and kill them. Then you will deliver the bomb.'

Sallum looked to the sky. 'In the book of Surah it is written: "Muhammad is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers." Those are indeed wise words.'

'Your devotion to the way of the faith is an inspiration to us all,' said Assaf. 'May Allah stand at your side through the days ahead of you.'

Sallum nodded, holding the attache case tightly in his hand, and walked back towards his car.

Of all the missions fate has chosen out for me, this is surely the greatest. Each man reaches his own moment of destiny, and this is mine.

* * *

Matt put the phone down, then slammed his fist against the wall. A section of plaster shook loose, sending a cloud of dust into the air. 'The bitch!' he snarled. 'The two-timing, double-crossing bitch.'

'What did she say?' asked Ivan.

The two men had walked back in silence, both of them chewing on their kebabs. Matt had hardly eaten all day, but the food failed to make him feel any better. The anger was growing inside him all the time. It was not just that she was responsible for the deaths of two of his Regimental comrades and his oldest and closest friend. It was that she had turned all that responsibility on to him. Were it not for him, none of them would have been on the mission — and all the time she had been setting them up for assassination.

As soon as they'd got back to the safe house Matt had put a call through to Pointer. He needed the answer to the question he had put to the man earlier: what happened to the video link Alison's MI5 stooge had put into Kazanov's house?

'Shot out,' Matt said, looking back up towards Ivan, 'according to Pointer — and he's got no reason to he to me. The guy who killed Reid went into the video room and shot the whole place to pieces. He's obviously enough of a professional to know everything would be taped, and he didn't want to leave any evidence behind him.'

Ivan put down the coffee he had just finished brewing. 'Before or after he shot Reid — that's the question,' he said. 'I reckon it has to be afterwards. Think about it. You go inside the house, knowing that Reid has been distracted, and you have a few minutes to kill the wife and kids before killing him. You don't have time to worry about the video cameras.'

Matt poured himself some coffee. 'Right — you deal with it after the killing is done. So long as none of the tape survives, you know it doesn't matter. Would it occur to you that the whole lot was being transmitted back to London?'

'So that's what the Five man was there for,' said Ivan. 'You should have seen that at the time. It was nothing to do with helping you. Alison knew all along the assassin was going to come and get Reid. She just wanted to make sure they had film of him, so they could identify him later. It all fits together.'

'Like a game of bridge.'

'Right. She gets us to hit al-Qaeda,' Ivan said carefully. 'She knows they are going to send their best man after us. She finds some way of leaking who and where we are, knowing their man will go after us. Meanwhile Five are watching, waiting for one slip — then they have him. She didn't care about the robbery, not for a moment. It's the assassin she's after.'

'Christ, I'll tell you why as well,' said Matt. 'She's under a lot of pressure to catch the guy who killed the government minister in Saudi. And she reckons there's a big al-Qaeda spectacular coming up soon in Britain. Five are desperate for some kind of lead.'

'How do you know what she thinks?'

'I slept with her,' said Matt. 'Pillow talk.'

'Not just you, me as well,' said Ivan.

Matt paused. With all that he'd learned in the past few minutes this revelation shouldn't have surprised him — yet he couldn't help but see it as yet another betrayal. It hadn't been serious with Alison, but he hadn't expected her to be both trying to get him killed and sleeping with the rest of the gang.

'And I'll tell you what then, pal,' Ivan said, a hoarse laugh rising from his lips, 'it wasn't either of us that screwed her. It was the other way around!'

* * *

'Alison here.'

'It's Matt.'

She paused for only a fraction of a second. 'Are you OK?' she said quickly. 'I was really worried about you.'

She's good, thought Matt. The tone, the pause, the small catch in her throat. You could almost believe she really was worried about me.

Like a whore, she knows how to fake any emotion the moment requires.

'You heard about Reid?'

'Yes. I'm really sorry. He was a good guy.'

Matt held the phone tightly. He was sitting in the hallway of the Hammersmith house, his back to the wall. Only one light bulb was on shining in the kitchen, otherwise the house was in darkness. 'The Five man who put in the video link — did you get anything?'

Another pause. 'No,' she replied. 'The first thing the assassin must have done is shot it out.'

Matt nodded into the phone. 'Nothing at all? Not even a few shots of him coming into the compound?'

'No. I'm sorry, Matt. Nothing.'

'OK,' said Matt. 'I was just hoping it might have given us some kind of lead.'

'Whoever he is, he's too good to make a mistake like that,' she said. 'Did you get the money?'

'That's all taken care of,' said Matt. 'We'll be making the split just like we discussed in Bideford.'

'Is there anything I can do to help?'

'Listen, I'm hiding up with Ivan now. I think you should know where I am staying, just in case anything happens to me.'

'Don't talk like that, Matt — you'll be OK.'

'No, I have to be sensible. Three of the gang are dead, and I might be next. If anything happens to me, I'd like you to make sure the money is picked up and goes to my heirs. The Regiment will tell you who the money should go to. We all have to give details of who we want to leave our stuff to, and I haven't changed mine.' He paused, looking across at Ivan and smiling. 'I'm going to send you a text with all the details.'

'All right,' she said softly. 'You look after yourself, Matt. If there's anything we can do to help, just let me know.'