"That's it, thank you." The money was shovelled, fast, into Stone's safe.
"Mr Stone, what are the complications that cost so much extra, please?"
It was a reasonable question, and that was how Stone treated it. "You're better off without details, Mr Eshraq, details tend to get messy in the wrong hands… I have to have a cut.
They have to come off the tail of a truck, and someone has to put them on a truck, and someone has to make the paperwork right, and someone has to find a bit of room on a lorry, one or two palms to be crossed at frontiers on the way to Turkey, and someone has to make sure Istanbul doesn't look that closely at what's coming through. There are quite a lot of people who would go to prison for quite a long time, that adds up to the difference, as you think of it, above ?2000 per weapon."
Charlie said, "In that price, in the load, I'd like there to be included three wholesale cartons of bath soap, the best there is, whatever Mrs Stone would recommend. Can you manage that?"
"Yes, I believe we can manage that."
"I'll give you my number in London. You'll call as soon as you are ready?" Charlie's eyes narrowed. "If they were tampered with, if they didn't work… "
"I think we can let Mr Furniss be our mutual surety, don't you, Mr Eshraq?"
Park said, "If we don't get into Colombia and start to hit the bastards in their own backyard, then we're going to lose. It's the Americans who are at the sharp end at the moment, but our turn's coming. We won't avoid the really big cocaine traffic if we don't act much more positively. The demand's here, for the lunch time snort, and that demand'll grow in London just as it's grown in New York. Do you know that there's a guy in Medellin, that's in Colombia, who has a fortune estimated at two billion dollars? That's cocaine money.
We have to go in, get stuck in on the ground. We can't just be sitting at Southampton and Dover and Heathrow."
The VAT investigator chewed gum and said, "Myself, I never reckoned to change the world between nine and five, five days a week."
"We have to beat the power of these bastards. Did you know that there was a Justice Minister of Colombia, and when he quit he was given the job of Ambassador to Hungary – and he was shot there, in Hungary. That's the power of the bastards, that's what's got to be beaten."
"Good luck," the VAT investigator took the gum from his mouth, put it in the ashtray. "So, you're off to Bogota?"
"If I can get there."
"Me, I'm looking forward to staying in Leeds and sorting out the fiddles of Mr Gupta and the corner shop."
Park said, "Haven't you ever wanted to do anything that mattered?"
"Smart talk. Makes a change. We don't get much smart talk up here."
"Terrorism, that's crap compared with the drugs threat, and that's not recognised… "
"Are you married?"
"What of it?"
The V A T man settled comfortably in his seat and peeled another strip of gum. He said airily, "Your good lady, is she going to Bogota?"
He didn't answer. Park had the camera at the window. He photographed Charlie leaving through the front door, and when he had the photographs then he was on the radio and alerting his team. Corinthian passed them, on foot, and in the mirror he saw Harlech and Token in the back-up motor.
Tango One was walking back towards the centre of the city, and the rucksack was trailing from his hand, and the tail was on him.
David Park had them all keyed.
They couldn't let the target run much more, not now that he was into weaponry, and too damn right he was going to get himself to Bogota when this target was knocked. Been right to let him run up to now, but all changed once he'd started talking hardware. Too damn right he didn't know if Ann would be with him.
"You asked to be kept informed," the ACIO said. "So I am informing you that it is our intention to arrest Eshraq."
"When will this be?"
"Tomorrow at four a.m."
The Home Secretary lowered his eyes. "You could do me a favour."
"What sort of favour, sir?"
"You could allow me to consult."
"Consult, Home Secretary? The case is 2000 per cent rock solid."
"No, no, I don't mean on a point of law. You've run a splendid show. I've nothing but admiration for the way it's been handled. No, it's not that. It's… it's, well, frankly, it's odd, but it's turned political and I need to consult upwards."
"There's nothing odd about that, sir. It started out political.
'Turn the country upside down, chaps, bring in the pusher, bring in the dealer, spare no expense, bring the distributor to book, scrap every other investigation' – and we did – and I rather think my job was on the line if we didn't. Well, Home Secretary, we did. We've got him, this heroin importer, this degenerate killer, the man who carried in the stuff which Miss Lucy Barnes killed herself with – or are the political fortunes of Mr Barnes so wonderfully on the wane that heroin has been struck from the political agenda?"
"Commissioner, I am totally sympathetic to your point of view, believe me."
"I'll believe you, Home Secretary, if, and only if, you fight our corner. You've got, well, I am in danger of revising that, because you are a politician and you have nothing – the country you are elected to serve has got a dedicated, a passionately dedicated Investigation Division. They earn peanuts, they work twice as hard as you do. They get no perks, hardly any holidays, and they deliver. They deliver and you want to consult."
"I take in what you say."
The ACIO took out his small notepad. He wrote down his home telephone number. "Four a.m., sir. You can reach me at home this evening. But we'll be rooting fpr you, sir. Don't let us down."
It was a slow process, getting the messages to the field agents.
Some messages could be sent over coded inserts into broadcasts of the BBC's World Service, but an order to close shop, abandon ship, must be delivered by hand. Terence Snow was to send a low level but reliable man to Tabriz. The Station Officer in Bahrain had to find someone to fly to Tehran. The Station Officer in Abu Dhabi had to find a dhow owner to ferry the message across the treacherous Gulf waters to Bandar Abbas. Of course, it would have been quicker to have enlisted the help of the Agency, but then it would also have had to be explained that Mr Matthew Furniss, Desk Head (Iran), had been lost. And that was news that Century were unwilling to share with the Americans, a matter of dirty linen made public.
Charlie slept in his hotel, the plastic bag under his pillow.
The green Ford Sierra was outside the hotel. The VAT investigator had gone home, and Keeper was asleep across the back seat with the Vodaphone cradled in his arms. Harlech and Corinthian and Token had the room across the corridor from the target, and would be on two-hour shifts watching the door.
Keeper was well asleep when the Vodaphone warbled in his ear.
"That you, Keeper?"
"Bill? Yes, it's me."
"Are you sitting comfortably? No knock tomorrow… Got that? No lift in the morning… "
"For Christ's sake, Bill…"
"I said, no knock tomorrow."
"Why not?"
"David, the tablets just come flying off the mountain, and I pass on the messages."
"I don't fucking believe it. What more do they want?"
"What they do not want is for the target to be lifted."
"I hear you."
"You cuddled up with Token?"
"I am bloody not."
"Good thing… do us all a favour, give your missus a bell, will you? I gave her my promise that you'd be back for the dance. Sweet dreams, Keeper… just ring your missus in the morning, and you do not lift the target."
The boot went in, and the fist.