Killing for the Company (56 page)

‘The Temple Mount is still cordoned off. The streets of the Old Town are deserted. Everyone is waiting for a reaction.’

‘And how long will they have to wait?’

Blumenthal’s forehead creased. ‘There will be no retaliation,’ he replied.

Cohen raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation. Blumenthal tapped the picture of the man that was lying on Cohen’s desk. ‘Whoever he was, he had two mobile phones in his pocket. They’d been adapted to act as detonators and were called within five seconds of each other at eleven o’clock. We traced the handsets that called them to a location in East Jerusalem. Sayeret Matkal went in.’

‘Anyone?’

Blumenthal shook his head. ‘But we did find something of interest. A wooden crate. Forensics confirm it had been used to carry C4 plastic explosive.’

Cohen shrugged. ‘There’s not much we can do with a wooden box,’ he said.

‘Let me finish,’ Blumenthal said. He drew a deep breath. ‘The box had a marking. It was supplied by an American company called the Grosvenor Group.’

‘I’ve heard of them?’

‘We passed this intelligence on to Washington. I’ve never seen a government react so fast.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Two days ago the Americans were shoulder to shoulder with us. Two hours ago they ordered the withdrawal of their fleet in the Red Sea, and the President has made it clear that if we want to retaliate, we’re on our own. They don’t want to know.’

Cohen blinked. It didn’t make any sense. He looked down at the pictures on his desk.

‘How did Maya end up . . . like this?’

‘That’s classified.’

‘My clearance is . . .’

‘Not high enough.’

For the first time, Blumenthal looked a little bit pleased with himself, but Cohen ignored it as he tried to fit the jigsaw together himself. Maya Bloom, somehow, had foiled a terrorist attack at the Western Wall. Was her killer in league with the bombers? It seemed the most likely explanation, but somehow it didn’t quite add up.

Blumenthal stood. ‘I’m instructed to inform you that your
kidon
is to be honoured posthumously,’ he said. ‘The Medal of Valour – Israel’s highest honour. It will reflect well on you, I am sure.’ As he said this, his face was sour. It was quite clear that the prospect of Ephraim Cohen’s success brought him no pleasure.

And somehow, it brought no pleasure to Cohen either. He just nodded briefly and watched as Blumenthal walked out of the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

The priest stood in front of the altar, two candles flickering behind him. He spoke in a strident voice that echoed from the vaulted ceiling of the chapel. ‘The Lord is here.’

And the congregation replied: ‘His spirit is with us.’

‘His spirit is with us.’ Alistair Stratton intoned his response a fraction of a second after the others.

The priest glanced briefly at him, then looked away when he saw a sudden fierceness on Stratton’s face. He continued with his Eucharistic prayer a little more quickly. There was a strange air in the chapel and he wanted the service to be over.

In London, the Director General SIS stared at his most trusted analyst, a small man with balding ginger hair who’d worked for the service for three decades. He blinked in disbelief. ‘Say that again,’ he instructed.

The analyst looked nervously from the DG to the Director Special Forces, who was standing by the window. He’d been working through the previous night and was dead on his feet. He coughed slightly. ‘We’ve monitored all the IP addresses connecting to the Western Wall’s webcam for the period 10.55 to 11.05 Israeli time this morning, sir. One of these IPs is registered to Albany Manor. Alistair Stratton’s residence. We’ve confirmed he was there at the time.’

The DG blinked again. ‘Leave us alone,’ he told the analyst. The little man appeared glad to leave quickly.

There was a long silence.

‘You think there’s a link?’ the Director Special Forces asked finally.

‘Of course there’s a bloody link, man.’

The Director didn’t rise to the DG’s outburst.

‘Look at the critical path,’ the DG continued. ‘An SAS operative thinks he has something on Alistair Stratton. He goes AWOL, then pops up to stop a terrorist plot that Stratton’s watching, in real time, hundreds of miles away . . .’

‘If you think Alistair Stratton has something to do with this,’ the Director said, ‘I can have him extracted from his residence within the hour. Give me another hour and I’ll have a full confession and no visible signs of coercion.’

The DG appeared to consider the suggestion seriously. But then he shook his head. ‘I’d never get the authority.’

The Director Special Forces, who knew a thing or two about the operations sanctioned by SIS in the past, gave him a cynical glare.

‘Don’t look at me like that, man,’ the DG retorted. ‘If you were sitting where I’m sitting, you’d make the same decision. But I’ll tell you one thing: from now on, Alistair Stratton doesn’t even take a shit without me knowing about it . . .’

‘But he gets away scot-free,’ the Director interrupted, and his expression made it quite clear how he felt about that.

‘Yes,’ the DG snapped. ‘He does. And I don’t want any of your people getting funny ideas. If they do, I’ll know where it’s come from.’

‘Of course,’ the Director replied with a curt nod.

The conversation was over. With military stiffness the Director Special Forces marched from the room, leaving the DG sitting at his desk, staring into the middle distance, his face – his whole demeanour – quite impossible to read.

In the chapel, the congregation stood in an orderly line down the length of the aisle. Stratton was at its head. The priest stood at the altar, a small silver salver in his hands, and he gave a nod to indicate that Stratton should approach, before taking a Communion wafer between his thumb and forefinger and placing it into the former PM’s hands.

‘The body of Christ,’ he murmured.

As Stratton consumed the wafer, he replaced the salver on the altar and picked up an ornate goblet.

‘The blood of Christ.’

He held the goblet forward, but Stratton didn’t move. He had a blank look on his face, as though his mind were a million miles away.

‘
The blood of Christ
,’ the priest repeated, and Stratton blinked. He took the goblet but before he was able to hold it to his lips, it slipped from his hands. Scarlet wine splashed over his shirt and then on to the marble floor of the altar. Stratton stared at it. He barely moved.

‘Idiot!’ Stratton spat at the celebrant, ignoring the fact that it was he who had dropped the cup, not the priest. ‘
Idiot!
’

Neither the priest nor any of the congregation knew what to do.

It was not yet light in New York City. The CEO of the Grosvenor Group was pissed off to be out of bed. Even more so at the sight of Pieter de Lange, his aggressive South African chief financial officer, standing by the exquisite early Picasso line drawings that hung on the wall in the lobby of his enormous SoHo townhouse. The moment he saw his CEO, Pieter started to gabble.

‘Jesus, Nathan . . . that shit in Jerusalem . . . it was him, wasn’t it? It was Stratton. You think they’re not going to find out?
You think they’re not going to fucking find out?
’

Nathan put a weary hand over his eyes. ‘We’ve had this conversation before, Pieter. We’re too well connected. Now come on. You look like you could use a cup of coffee . . .’

‘To
hell
with your fucking coffee, man. We’ve got to do something about Stratton before he . . .’

‘Do
what
, Pieter?’ Nathan snapped. ‘Ask him nicely to keep his mouth shut? Or were you thinking of something more permanent?’ He shook his head. ‘You really don’t get it, do you, Pieter? I’ve told you before. Stratton, and men like him – they’re our bread and butter.’

He turned round and the two men stared at each other in silence.

‘Go and get yourself cleaned up, Pieter, for God’s sake. You smell like a fucking tramp.’

Pieter inhaled deeply. Shakily. But he didn’t say anything. He just turned and headed for the oak-panelled door.

‘Oh, and Pieter?’

The CFO turned.

‘I’ll be very dismayed if anything happens to Alistair Stratton. If anybody decides to take things into their own hands, I
will
know about it. I have people watching him day and night. You understand that, don’t you?’

Pieter’s face twitched.

‘
Don’t you?
’

The CFO looked down at the floor. ‘Yes, Nathan,’ he said quietly. And he left the room without another word.

The priest appeared shaken, but determined to finish the service. He had picked up the goblet from the floor, but the pool of wine remained. The congregation, their Communion cut short, had retaken their seats, and it was time now for the dismissal. He raised his voice a little and held his right palm forward.

‘Go in peace,’ he announced, ‘to love and serve the Lord.’

The congregation solemnly intoned their reply: ‘In the name of Christ. Amen.’ There was a moment of awkwardness in the chapel. Of shoe shuffling. The priest looked expectantly at Stratton, who stood up suddenly and looked around the chapel to find all eyes on him. From his front pew, he moved towards the aisle and strode down it, avoiding the gaze of the congregation, his shoes echoing on the flagstones as he went.

Stratton pushed open the heavy oak door of the chapel and squinted as his eyes adjusted from the dimness of the interior to the brightness outside. The door swung shut behind him and it was only a second later, when his eyes had become used to the daylight, that he saw the state of his close-protection men. They were slumped on either side of the doorway, their backs against the front wall of the chapel, each of them bearing exactly the same injury: a small entry wound on the forehead, and a much larger exit wound at the back of the head. The chapel’s wall was spattered with blood and brain matter and the men were quite still.

Stratton’s blood chilled. He looked from left to right. From one corpse to another. And then he looked up. He saw nothing. Just his house, straight ahead, 100 metres away across the lawn. And to his left, at a similar distance, the woodland that extended to the perimeter of his land.

He heard the birds singing in the trees.

He considered running. Or should he go back into the chapel?

He looked at the dead bodies again and an overpowering nausea crashed over him. He felt dizzy. His knees grew weak.

And then he sensed a figure walking around the side of the chapel.

As Stratton turned, his eyes widened. The figure wore a heavy hood that covered his eyes and he remained absolutely silent. He just raised his right hand, which carried a pistol, its barrel lengthened by the addition of a suppressor.

Stratton shook his head just as his legs gave way. He fell to his knees and looked up as the gunman lowered his weapon to keep it aligned with his target’s skull.

‘I know you,’ Stratton said.

Silence.

Stratton bowed his head and closed his eyes. He knew what was coming.

The sound of the round that killed him was just a low thud. Like somebody rapping their knuckles sharply on a door. Stratton didn’t hear it, of course, and his body hadn’t even finished slumping to the floor before the shooter had turned and started moving round to the back of the chapel.

The birds continued to warble in the trees. Their song was only disturbed thirty seconds later when the door of the chapel creaked open again, and a middle-aged lady with neat hair and a tweed skirt screamed at the bloodshed all around her.

The gunman knew he couldn’t rely on speed. Only stealth. By the time the scream from the chapel had caused the birds to fly from the trees, he was already in the cover of the woods. And when – ten minutes later – he heard sirens in the distance, he had reached the northern perimeter of the estate. An old dry-stone wall marked the boundary here, but there was a tumbledown section a couple of metres long. Eventually he managed to climb over it and kept on walking.

A solitary figure, making his way across the countryside.

It was approaching midday when the figure arrived at the tiny railway station of Lesser Michelstone. It was not the nearest to Stratton’s residence, because he knew by now the area would be crawling with police, but at a distance of five kilometres it was the furthest he could reasonably walk. There was no ticket office here, and no other passengers waiting on the platform. A single security camera, but pointing away from the station bench where he sat, his hood still covering his head. In his right hand – the skin of which was blotched, unnaturally smooth in some places, unnaturally wrinkled in others – the hooded man held a fifty-pence piece. He flicked the coin in the air, watched it spin and caught it in a firm grip.