Descending the nearby stairs to the Underground, Cole was sure the agents would still be looking for him on the other side of the park.
He couldn’t afford to lose concentration however, and after catching the Bakerloo Line to Oxford Circus he would switch lines a couple of more times until he was on the other side of the river.
And then he would have to urgently set about finding a telephone box; he needed to call Sarah before it was too late.
46
Hansard sat in the back of his Bentley limousine, contemplating the news he’d just had delivered. This was not good. Not at all.
Ordering Cole’s death had been hard — he was an excellent agent, after all — but like many of the unpleasant things he had done in his life, it had been necessary. There were events that had now been set in motion that were more important than the life of one man, of that Hansard had no doubt.
But now this news that Cole was alive! And more than that, escaped! It was more than a worry; it could bring down everything he had worked so hard to achieve, destroy his magnificent plan before it had even borne fruit.
It was of course inconceivable that Cole would be allowed to get away, and so after Edwards’s frantic phone call (why he had ever put the man in charge in the first place, he just didn’t know), Hansard had set about alerting John Hughes, the Security Service Department Head of A Branch. MI5’s highly-trained urban ‘watchers’, the men of A Branch were even now spreading their nets across London, with orders to bring Cole in, dead or alive; but preferably dead. And with almost every division of the government, from traffic wardens to the men and women of Scotland Yard’s SO19 weapons section being duly informed to keep their eyes peeled for a dangerous ‘terrorist’, Hansard was confident it would not be long before his mind could be put at rest.
Looking out of the double glazed windows at the grey streets of the capital, Hansard picked up his phone and dialled a memorized number. Just one more thing, he decided.
47
Dan Albright and his men were already fully kitted out when the second call came. They wore black wet suits, combat vests and submachine guns fully waterproofed. Even their SCUBA gear was painted with a special resin that eliminated any chance of the metal giving a telltale reflective glint in the moonlight.
He had finished his briefing and they were just about to slip down into the sylph-like Swimmer Delivery Vehicles that would carry them quickly and noiselessly to the shore, when the red light came flashing on the phone in the dock area.
Albright momentarily thought about ignoring it, but decided that would probably not be wise, and so picked up the receiver on the fifth ring. The conversation was short and one-sided, Albright simply saying ‘Yes sir,’ before he replaced the handset and turned to his men.
‘Okay guys, stand down. The family are getting a short reprieve. Seems the husband has gone missing, and we can’t go until he’s been cleaned up.’
The men around him seemed disappointed that they weren’t going into action, but somehow relieved at the same time. Although Albright didn’t seem to mind, not all of them were excited by the prospect of killing a woman and her two children in cold blood.
48
Cole was becoming increasingly wary as he travelled on his journey across London. He knew Hansard would have been informed about his escape by now. The question was, what would his orders be? Cole knew that the man could order a huge manhunt for him if he thought it prudent. One might already be underway, and the first Cole would know of it would be when he’d been identified, targeted and captured.
But maybe he wouldn’t do anything, Cole considered. The thought was only fleeting, however — Hansard wanted him dead, and would stop at nothing to see that this was done. Cole was sure that the eyes and ears of A Branch would be scouring the capital for him this very second.
He couldn’t help thinking that he’d been on this train too long. He’d first thought it prudent to keep on the Central line for as long as possible, changing over to the Northern line at Bank Station to cross the river, before finally getting off at the Elephant and Castle. He figured that the search would initially be concentrated north of the river, and after he emerged in the south, he’d have a little more freedom. He could then get to a phone and call his family to warn them.
But as he passed station after station, watching the people getting on and off, he started to become nervous. There were too many people looking at him too closely. It was possibly paranoia, he knew, but then again — maybe not.
It was the man in the jeans and dirty grey bomber jacket who had sat opposite him a few seats to his left that bothered him the most. Part of it, Cole admitted to himself, was the clothes — it was a typical outfit for a military undercover operative. Cole remembered his days in Team Six when he’d first received instruction in undercover operations, and remembered all too well the military definition of ‘casual’ — jeans, trainers, old jacket. The man had fit the bill perfectly. Maybe it was just coincidence, but the man had looked at him once too often, and had used his mobile phone to text someone straight after.
And at the next station, the man had left the train; but three other men — big, athletic, but trying to hide that with their baggy clothes — had got on, glancing momentarily in his direction.
Cole had left things a little too late; he should have got off at the last station as well. Now he was trapped for the long stretch between Chancery Lane and St Paul’s, with nowhere to run to.
Not willing to let the situation be entirely dictated to him, he decided to act. Standing, he stretched his body as if after a long day at work — ignoring the pain in his ribs — and moved towards the next car on his right. The three men stood chatting to his left, he noticed as he turned.
He got to the partition door and pulled it open, only then seeing the young lady about to come through from the other side. She was quite pretty, possibly Hispanic Cole thought, with a big satchel on her back and a sleeping baby cradled in her arms.
The door wasn’t big enough for them both to fit through and so Cole backed off to allow her through. As he did so, the lady thanking him, he risked a glance behind him. The three men were still standing there chatting, not even sparing a glance in his direction. Maybe he’d been wrong, he thought, but he’d move through to the other car anyway and wait to get off at the next stop — there was no point in taking a chance.
As he turned back round, it was only the sharp glinting reflection in the window that saved him. As he moved instinctively to protect himself, he took it all in — the baby falling from the woman’s arms, the flash of the knife being pulled and thrust savagely towards him, aimed straight at his throat, and the cold, lifeless eyes of the attacker as she lunged. Cole’s response was instantaneous and effective. Intercepting the knife arm, he had twisted and dislocated it at the shoulder before the decoy baby had hit the floor, knocking the assassin out cold with a solid elbow strike to the jaw.
Grabbing the knife, Cole turned to confront the others, the adrenaline in his system masking any sign of pain from his damaged ribs — but instead of a brutal attack, he was instead faced with looks of fear and terror as the other passengers started backing away, wanting to escape even more than him.
A noise behind him, back in the doorway, caused him to turn again. Two men in suits were rushing through, hands going to the inside of their jackets. Cole flew forwards, thrusting a vicious front kick into the torso of the first man that sent him flying backwards; and as the second man’s gun cleared the holster, the knife Cole had taken was already flying through the air, striking him in the side of the neck.