Jacob wouldn’t be rushed. Each hooker he passed, standing sentry on their own street corners, he eyed up. He looked lascivious, no doubt, but he didn’t care. They were too old, too small, too fat, too thin. But after about half an hour of searching, he saw one girl who looked like she might fit the bill. She was tall – about as tall as Jacob – and had short dark hair. She was comfortably in her forties and nobody could say she was pretty. As Jacob eyed her up and down, she addressed him. ‘Looking for a trick, darling?’
Jacob looked around, checking that he wasn’t being watched. He moved closer to the girl. She stank of cigarettes, but her eyes seemed sharp enough; sharp enough to make him believe she wasn’t a junkie.
‘Yeah,’ Jacob replied. ‘Kind of.’ He flashed her a smile. ‘Something a bit different.’
That didn’t seem to surprise her. ‘Different is more expensive, love. Money up front, too.’
Jacob pulled out his wallet. As the hooker looked greedily on, he pulled out four fifty-pound notes and put them firmly into her outstretched hands. ‘Must be proper different,’ she muttered as she tucked the money away into her clothes. ‘Where we going?’
Jacob shook his head. ‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘Be here tomorrow, you’ll get the same again, plus a decent tip if you do well.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What exactly you got in mind, love? Us girls have got to be careful, you know.’
Jacob smiled again. Friendly. Reassuring. ‘Just an appointment with a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘Nothing kinky. Likes a bit of dressing up. Bit of role play. You don’t mind that, do you?’
The hooker shrugged. ‘Four hundred smackers,’ she said, ‘I’ll dress up like Orville the bleedin’ duck. What time you want me?’
‘Eight o’clock,’ Jacob replied. ‘Don’t be late. If you’re late, I’ll have to get one of your friends to join us.’
And with that he turned away, leaving the girl to reflect on her good luck, and hoping she’d stay sober enough to keep their rendezvous the following evening. In the meantime he had another job to do. He felt in his jacket for the roll of red ribbon, then started heading back towards the Underground where he jumped on a train for Piccadilly.
There were preparations to be made, and he had to make them well in advance.
May 24.
Sam hadn’t been able to stay in Hereford for any longer than was necessary. It wasn’t safe there. Too many eyes. The Firm would have his house under surveillance, that much was sure; and Credenhill was out of bounds. Much better to get out of the city and back up to London. Even there he would attract the attention of passers-by with his cut-up face. He had suppressed the desire to go and see Clare – no doubt they’d be scoping her place out too – so he’d bought himself a hooded top to conceal his features as best he could, then laid low in the small room of the Heathrow Holiday Inn, where he hoped he’d be able to merge into the background.
Mac arrived at 12.30. One look at him told Sam he hadn’t slept. He dumped a bag on the bed. It contained two Browning Hi-Power pistols with a box of 9 mm rounds and a couple of ops waistcoats to conceal the weapons and ammo. ‘Best I could do,’ he said shortly. Sam didn’t know where he’d got the gear and he didn’t bother to ask. He strapped on the waistcoat and loaded the Browning. It made him feel a lot better.
‘What time’s the RV?’ Mac asked when they were tooled up.
‘22.00,’ Sam replied. ‘The Firm will have shooters in place already, though.’
‘Damn right,’ Mac agreed. He looked serious. ‘The place is going to be crawling with them, Sam. If they get their sights on J. before we can pick him up…’
Sam shook his head. ‘They won’t shoot to kill.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They’ll have pumped Dolohov for everything he knows. He’ll have told them about the hit this red-light runner’s going to make. If they think J. knows something about that, he’ll be no good to them dead.’
‘Wounded is fine, though,’ Mac said. ‘I think we can expect them to engage him.’
‘Which is why we’ve got to scope him out first. But we can’t just hang out around Eros. The Firm will be expecting me to turn up. We have to keep hidden until the last moment.
Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not we,’ he said. ‘You.’
Sam furrowed his eyebrows.
‘Think about it,’ Mac urged. ‘They might be expecting you, but they’ll never be expecting me. I can probably stand right next to Dolohov and get away with it.’
Sam didn’t like the sound of it. It would be putting his friend right in the line of fire. But it was almost as if Mac knew what he was thinking. ‘Fuck’s sake, Sam, I’ve done worse. And I’ll have the advantage. I’ll just look like some tourist feeding the pigeons. I know the Firm are morons, but even they won’t want to start shooting up innocent civilians.’
‘Yeah,’ Sam agreed. ‘Much better to leave that sort of thing to us.’
‘You’re not going soft on me, are you, mate?’
Sam put the thought of the red-light runners in Kazakhstan from his mind. ‘No. Course not. All right, Mac. You wait by the statue. There’s a newsstand on the north corner of Piccadilly. I’ll stay there. When Jacob approaches Dolohov… If Jacob approaches Dolohov…’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know the building that used to be a record shop?’
‘Tower Records?’
‘The newsstand is just outside it. The moment you ID Jacob, you hold up five fingers. I’ll put a round into the front window of the shop. Should cause quite a bang. Glass will shatter. I reckon that’ll be enough to distract everyone’s attention, don’t you?’
Mac nodded and pulled at what remained of his right ear.
‘Think it’ll give you enough time to warn J. – to get him away?’ Sam asked.
‘Yeah,’ Mac nodded. ‘But what about you?’
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘The Firm might think you’re Jacob, making a distraction. You might get some incoming.’
‘You got a better idea?’ Sam snapped.
A pause. ‘No, Sam,’ Mac replied. ‘I haven’t got a better idea. We’ll do it your way.’
And without another word, Mac turned his back on his friend and started fiddling with the straps on his ops waistcoat. Sam couldn’t help thinking that he was tying them tighter than they really needed to be.
TWENTY-THREE
Piccadilly Circus
It looked like just another night. The huge neon billboards flashed high overhead: an advert for The X Factor. Then the weather: dry but overcast. The date: May 24. And then the time: 9.50 p.m. On the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue a man with a guitar sang old pop songs, but was mostly ignored by the passers-by. The air was filled with the smell of fried onions; buses and cars swung round the roundabout, dodged by half-drunk pedestrians. Japanese tourists, looking at everything through the lens of a camera. There was a lot of pissed totty out on the streets, tarts dressed in mini-skirts shorter than the average belt, belching, stubbing out fags in the road and screaming at nothing in particular. On their flanks stalked hordes of horny, Brylcreemed blokes trying to look hard in their fake Ralph Lauren tops and identical black shoes. They were burping and swigging from alcopop bottles, ready for a fight, gasping for a shag. Just another night in London town.
Toby Brookes sat in the back of a black cab at the north end of Lower Regent Street. The windows were not blacked out, but were heavily tinted. Opposite him sat an MI6 field agent, a much older man, whose work name was Gillespie. Gillespie would be giving orders to the surveillance and pick-up team; Brookes would be giving orders to Gillespie.