First he rang Nikki. She was ecstatic, her voice shrill with a mixture of relief and delight. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“And is it over?”
“Yes, the research is finished, all bar a couple of extra details that I can sort out here in England. How have you been?”
“Oh, great. Everything’s great. Guess what happened?”
“Surprise me.”
“Two days after you left, a man came. Said he was furnishing a large company flat in London, looking for carpets and rugs. He bought the lot, all our stock. Paid cash. Sixteen thousand pounds. Darling, we’re flush!”
Rowse held the receiver and stared at the Degas print on the wall.
“This buyer, where was he from?”
“Mr. Da Costa? Portugal. Why?”
“Dark-haired, olive-skinned?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Arab, Rowse thought. Libyan. That meant that while Nikki was out in the barn where they kept the stock of carpets and rugs that they sold as a sideline, someone had been in the house and probably bugged the phone. Al-Mansour certainly liked to cover all the angles. Had he made a single ill-judged phone call to Nikki from Vienna or Malta or Cyprus, as he had been tempted to do, he would have blown away himself and the mission.
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “I don’t care where he was from. If he paid cash, he’s wonderful.”
“When are you coming home?” she asked excitedly.
“Tomorrow morning. Be there about nine.”
He presented himself at the superb fish restaurant in Mount Street at ten past eight and was shown to where Sam McCready already sat at a corner table. McCready liked corner tables. That way, each diner could sit with his back to a wall, at right angles to each other. It was easier to converse that way than sitting side by side, yet each was able to see the restaurant. “Never take it in the back,” one of his training officers had told him years ago. The same man was later betrayed by George Blake and “took it” in a KGB interrogation cell. McCready had spent much of his life with his back to the wall.
Rowse ordered lobster and asked for it Newberg. McCready had his cold, with mayonnaise. Rowse waited until a glass of Meursault had been poured for each and the sommelier had departed before he mentioned the mysterious buyer of the rugs. McCready chewed on a mouthful of Benbecula lobster, swallowed, and said, “Damn. Did you phone Nikki from Cyprus anytime before I tapped the hotel phone?”
“Not at all,” said Rowse. “My first call was from the Post House Hotel, a few hours ago.”
“Good. Good and bad. Good that there were no inadvertent slipups. Bad that al-Mansour is going to such lengths.”
“He’s going a bloody sight farther than that,” said Rowse. “I can’t be sure, but I think there was a motorcycle, a Honda, both at the long-term car park when I got my car back, and at the Post House. Never saw it from the taxi into London, but the traffic was very thick.”
“Damn and blast!” said McCready with feeling. “I think you’re right. There’s a couple at the end of the bar who keep peering through the gap. And they’re looking at us. Don’t turn around—keep eating.”
“Man and woman, youngish?”
“Yes.”
“Recognize either?”
“I think so. The man, anyway. Turn your head and call the wine waiter. See if you can spot him. Lank hair, downturned moustache.”
Rowse turned to beckon the waiter. The couple were at the end of the bar, separated from the main dining area by a screen.
Rowse had once done intensive antiterrorist training. It had meant scouring hundreds of photographs, not only of the IRA. He turned back to McCready.
“Got him. A German lawyer. Ultraradical. Used to defend the Baader-Meinhof crowd, later became one of them.”
“Of course. Wolfgang Ruetter. And the woman?”
“No. But the Red Army Faction uses a lot of groupies. A new face. More watchers from al-Mansour?”
“Not this time. He’d use his own people, not German radicals. Sorry, Tom, I could kick myself. Since al-Mansour didn’t have a tail on you in Cyprus, and since I was so busy ensuring that you passed all of the Libyan’s tests, I momentarily took my eye off that bloody paranoid psycho Mahoney. If those two at the bar are Red Army Faction, they’ll be on an errand from him. I thought there’d be no heat on you once you got back here. I’m afraid I was wrong.”
“So what do we do?” asked Rowse.
“They’ve already seen us together. If that gets out, the operation’s finished, and so are you.”
“Couldn’t you be my agent, my publisher?”
McCready shook his head. “Won’t work,” he said. “If I leave by the back door, it’ll be all they need. If I go by the front like a normal diner, it’s short odds I’ll be photographed. Somewhere in Eastern Europe that photo will be identified. Keep talking naturally, but listen. Here’s what I want you to do.”
During the coffee, Rowse summoned the waiter and asked for directions to the men’s room. It was staffed, as McCready knew it would be. The tip he gave the attendant was more than generous—it was outrageous.
“Just for a phone call? You got it, guv’nor.”
The call to the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police, a personal call to a friend of McCready’s, was placed while McCready was signing the slip for his credit card. The woman had left the restaurant as soon as he called for the bill.
When Rowse and McCready emerged under the illuminated portico, the woman was half-hidden in the alley beside the poultry shop just down the street. Her camera lens picked up McCready’s face, and she ran off two quick shots. There was no flash; the portico lights were enough. McCready caught the movement, but he gave no sign.
The pair walked slowly to McCready’s parked Jaguar. Ruetter emerged from the restaurant and crossed to his motorcycle. He took his helmet from the pannier and put it on, visor down. The woman left the alley and straddled the machine behind him.
“They’ve got what they want,” said McCready. “They may peel off anytime. Let’s just hope their curiosity keeps them there for a short while.”
McCready’s car phone trilled. On the other end was his friend in the Special Branch.
McCready filled him in. “Terrorists, probably armed. Battersea Park, near the Pagoda.” He replaced the receiver and glanced in his mirror. “Two hundred yards—still with us.”
Apart from the tension, it was an uneventful drive to the sprawl of Battersea Park, which was normally closed and locked at sundown. As they approached the Pagoda, McCready glanced up and down the road. Nothing. Not surprising—the park had been reopened by Rowse’s telephone call.
“Diplomatic protection drill—remember it?”
“Yep,” said Rowse, and reached for the handbrake.
“Go.”
Rowse yanked hard on the brake as McCready pulled the Jaguar into a savage turn. The rear end of the car slid around, tires screaming in protest. In two seconds, the sedan turned around and was heading the other way. McCready drove straight at the oncoming single headlight of the motorcycle. Two unmarked parked cars nearby put on their headlights, and their engines came to life.
Ruetter swerved to avoid the Jaguar and succeeded. The powerful Honda veered off the road, over the curb, and onto the parkland. It almost missed the bench, but not quite. Rowse, in the passenger seat, caught a glimpse of the motorcycle somersaulting over, its passengers spilling onto the grass. The other cars drew up and decanted three men.