Overkill (21 page)

Before he set off, Richter put on the shoulder holster with the Mauser, and put the Colt into the side pocket of his jacket. The magazines and loose rounds went into his pockets. Wearing his
gloves again, Richter took the three spent shell cases and dropped them down a rabbit hole near the car. He set fire to the blood-smeared road map and then trod the ashes into the ground. He tossed
his gloves out of the window at fifteen-minute intervals as he drove.

An hour and twenty minutes later Richter double-parked the Granada outside his flat, went up and wrapped the pistols, holster and ammunition in a couple of old towels, and put them in a small
suitcase. Then he drove to Euston Station and checked the suitcase into the left-luggage office. A man, in Richter’s opinion, couldn’t have too many guns, especially ones that
couldn’t be traced to him.

The duty Pool Controller was almost incoherent when Richter delivered the remains of the Granada. He didn’t believe it. The duty driver he summoned as a witness didn’t believe it
either. ‘What the bloody hell did you do to it? Look at the state it’s in.’

‘There was,’ said Richter, ‘a certain amount of unpleasantness.’

‘What am I going to tell the Transport Officer?’

Richter was getting tired and irritable. ‘I don’t give a toss what you tell him. If he’s not happy, tell him to see me.’

Richter went into his office, picked up the direct line to Simpson and waited. After ten seconds he put it down again and looked at his watch. It was after eight, and it was being unduly
optimistic to suppose Simpson would still be around at that time in the evening.

Richter shrugged, locked his office door and walked back down the stairs. He called in at the Duty Room and told the Duty Operations Officer what had happened. Or rather, what Richter thought he
ought to know about it. The Ops Officer said he would tell Simpson when he got there in the morning.

Wednesday
Hammersmith, London

Simpson looked very unhappy when Richter appeared in his office at nine the following morning, for two reasons. First, Richter was late and hadn’t answered his flat
phone, and second, the Transport Officer had been draining all over him since just after eight. ‘Sorry,’ Richter said.

‘Stow it, Richter. Sarcasm I can do without. What happened?’

Richter told him, omitting the fact that he had removed the weapons and ammunition from the car and that he had contributed to the driver’s headache and caused the passenger’s.

‘Who were they?’ Simpson asked.

‘Pros,’ Richter replied. ‘Neither had any ID, and it looked like a very tight set-up. The reason I didn’t hang around was that I was worried about a second team in
another motor.’

‘Did you see a second car?’

‘Not that I could positively identify, no, but they had a radio in the Jaguar that definitely wasn’t there to pick up the racing results on Radio Four. I took off from the crash when
I heard a car coming, so that could have been it. I wasn’t prepared to take a chance.’ That didn’t sound too bad. It could have happened.

‘Who do you think they were? With reasons.’

‘I think the Russian Embassy is short two Cultural Attachés,’ Richter said. ‘Cultural Attachés who just happened to be trained assassins, who were following me in
a stolen car.’

Simpson digested this in silence for a few moments, then spoke again. ‘One thing I don’t buy – why did they try a mobile hit?’

‘I don’t think they did – it was simply Russian mentality. I drove up to Brampton on the A1 – a hell of a journey, with long queues at three sets of roadworks and a major
accident. So I had decided to come back a different route. I was going to cut across country and pick up the A10. But because I’d driven up on the A1, they probably presumed that I would
drive back on the A1, queues notwithstanding. After all, queuing is pretty much endemic in Russia.

‘I think that somewhere on the A1 between Brampton and London,’ Richter continued, ‘there was a man with a Mannlicher or a Mauser, waiting for me to drive into the viewfinder
of his telescopic sight. No professional assassin would ever try a hit from a moving car against a target also in a moving car – it’s virtually impossible to get a clean kill. He would
always go for a static hit. So the mobile would have been the last-resort back-up, and they only used it because I turned left instead of right out of Brampton’s main gates.’

Simpson nodded. ‘What weapons were they carrying?’

‘The guy in the back seat had a Colt. The driver I don’t know about.’

‘Why not something heavier?’

‘Probably just prudence. Diplomatic passports or not, the plods take a dim view of foreign hoods wandering about the Home Counties carrying assault rifles or sub-machineguns. Pistols you
can hide.’

Simpson nodded, apparently satisfied. He stood up and walked over to his favourite window and looked out. He fondled his cacti for a minute or so, then turned round. ‘OK, assuming for the
moment that it was a Russian operation, why?’

‘I think Newman’s death must be tied in with the Blackbird flight,’ Richter said. ‘Follow the sequence. I go to Moscow, I investigate the death of an Embassy official,
and a Russian hood tries to take me out before I even leave Sheremetievo. I come back here and immediately visit JARIC, where any pictures from the Blackbird over-flight would be bound to end up if
we had anything to do with it. Then someone else tries to take me out. I gave up believing in coincidence when I stopped believing in Father Christmas. Those events are linked, and the sum added
up, from the Russian point of view, to the elimination of Richter.

‘I was photographed on arrival at Sheremetievo, as all foreign nationals are, and my guess is that that picture matched a record in the SVR database, hence the kill attempt at the airport.
There’ll be a pile of mug shots of me at the Russian Embassy here, and no doubt a directive from the Lubyanka or Yazenevo to watch and report, and obviously a kill order on me if I did
certain things or visited certain places. JARIC, presumably, was one of them. The other thing you ought to be aware of,’ Richter added, ‘is that, if they have been following me,
it’s quite likely Hammersmith Commercial Packers is now on their watch-list.’

Hammersmith Commercial Packers provided FOE with a thin veneer of cover. The company actually existed, and even employed a small staff to conduct a legitimate business on the ground floor of the
building located just north of the Hammersmith Flyover.

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Simpson said. ‘I can confirm some aspects. The car was stolen three days ago, in London. The Embassy Watch people have confirmed that the two in
it were Russians, and from our records they arrived here only the day before yesterday, together with two other new staff for the Russian Embassy, so they could be a professional hit-team. Or,
rather, they could have been a professional hit-team. They’re both dead.’

‘Oh,’ Richter said.

‘Yes,’ said Simpson. ‘I suppose they were both alive and well when you left them?’

‘I don’t know,’ Richter replied. ‘They were both unconscious, certainly.’

Simpson looked at him doubtfully. ‘According to the initial report from the local police, both had suffered fractured skulls, the damage being caused by something like a large hammer or
mallet. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?’

Richter looked straight at him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you check the toolkit in the Granada and see if you can find any blood-stained tyre levers or
anything?’

‘I already have. There was also no sign of the gun you say they fired at you.’

‘Really?’ Richter said. ‘Well, perhaps there was a back-up team in a second car, then, and they shifted the evidence, as it were.’

‘Perhaps. And perhaps there’s a hammer in a river somewhere with your prints slowly washing off it, and a bag with a gun in it buried in a wood.’ Richter looked at him, but
said nothing. ‘What’s the tie-up between Newman and the Blackbird?’ Simpson asked. ‘Do you know?’

‘No,’ Richter replied, standing up to leave, ‘but I’m going to find out. One thing – I want to draw a weapon.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if anyone else shoots at me, I want to be able to shoot back.’

Simpson was silent for a few seconds, then he nodded. ‘Yes, you can have a pistol.’ He shook a warning finger. ‘Just try to remember you’re not James Bond. Make sure you
fire second, if you fire at all, and try to avoid ventilating some innocent member of the public when you do so. I’ll ring the Armoury.’

American Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London

Roger Abrahams knocked twice on the bedroom door and walked in, carrying a tray of coffee and a plate of doughnuts. He flicked on the main light and glanced across at the
bed, where John Westwood was just opening his eyes. ‘Feeling better?’ Abrahams asked.

‘Not so you’d notice,’ Westwood grunted. ‘Flying across the pond always screws me up – you’d think I’d be used to it by now.’ He looked at the
tray Abrahams had placed on the bedside table. ‘Some news?’

‘Yes,’ Abrahams replied, pouring a coffee. ‘We have a meet with Piers Taylor in just over an hour, hence the wake-up call.’

Westwood nodded and reached for the cup. ‘Good. Where is it – here?’

Abrahams shook his head and smiled. ‘No way. Taylor would want a very good reason – probably in writing – to visit the Embassy. We’re all going off to feed the ducks in
Regents Park, just like characters in a John le Carré novel.’

Westwood grimaced. ‘And I suppose we have to indulge in the usual double-speak and then work out afterwards what the hell we were really talking about?’

‘Yup. Anyway, eat, drink and get your pants on – the car will be here in thirty minutes.’

Hammersmith, London

The armourer greeted Richter with a smile and two cardboard boxes. ‘Here you are, Mr Richter. One nine-millimetre Browning, with shoulder holster and fifty rounds of
ammunitions. as per Mr Simpson’s orders.’

‘I don’t want it,’ Richter said, shaking his head.

The armourer looked puzzled. ‘But Mr Simpson said that—’

‘Yes,’ Richter said. ‘I do want a gun, but I don’t want that bloody thing. The only good thing about a Browning is that it’s got a good-sized magazine and
doesn’t jam as often as other automatics. But at anything over about fifty feet you might as well throw the bloody gun at someone as soon as fire it. I want a pistol that’s accurate.
I’m not interested in magazine size, and I’m not interested in speed of fire. I want a revolver.’

The armourer looked a little taken aback. ‘But Mr Simpson said—’

‘I know what Mr Simpson said,’ Richter interrupted. ‘Ring him up and tell him I want to draw a revolver.’

The armourer picked up the two cardboard boxes and retreated into his office in the corner of the Armoury. Richter was standing on one side of the three-feet-high counter, on the other side of
which the department’s devices of death and destruction were kept, lovingly cleaned and polished and ready for immediate issue. Richter knew from past experience on the range that FOE held a
variety of revolvers, and he knew exactly which one he wanted. The armourer stuck his head out of the office.

‘Mr Simpson wants to know which revolver you want.’

‘The Smith and Wesson Model 586 in .357 Magnum.’

He repeated this information into the mouthpiece. Richter could hear the strangled squawk from where he was standing. The armourer’s head emerged again. ‘Mr Simpson wants to speak to
you, sir.’

Richter vaulted over the counter and took the telephone from him. ‘Yes?’

‘Richter? Are you sure you wouldn’t like a bazooka, or a small howitzer? What the bloody hell do you want with a gun like that?’

‘I want a gun that won’t jam. I want a gun that will stop a man if it has to. And I want a gun that I can fire at fifty yards and have a slim chance of hitting what I’m aiming
at.’

‘What’s wrong with the Browning? It is the standard NATO weapon, you know.’

‘I do know that,’ Richter said. ‘I also know that the British Army maintains a centrally heated warehouse in Wiltshire full of bridles and tack for mules, despite the fact that
they actually expect to go into the next war driving main battle tanks and three-ton trucks. Just because the Browning is the standard NATO sidearm, it doesn’t mean it’s actually any
use. It’s great for making people keep their heads down, or for fights in a confined space, like a telephone box. For anything other than ultra close-range work, it’s hopeless.
That’s why I want the Smith.’

Simpson grunted. ‘OK, OK. You can have the 586. Put the armourer back on.’

‘Thanks,’ Richter said, and handed the phone back.

The shoulder holster was a bulky affair. As Richter fitted the pistol into the holster and shrugged his jacket back on, he realized that he was going to have to make a conscious effort not to
walk lop-sided. He put a box of fifty rounds into his jacket pocket and followed the armourer down a flight of steps into the soundproof basement. The armourer unlocked the steel door and ushered
Richter into the twenty-five-metre range. He put the range lights on, and the red light outside the door, to show that it was in use, and then gave a thorough briefing on the pistol. Richter
listened attentively; he always listened closely to anything that might subsequently save his life.

The gun was big and heavy – the .357 Magnum is a cartridge you can’t fire out of a lightweight weapon – but comfortable and well made. The armourer gave Richter a box of twenty
shells, and he loaded the weapon. Richter stood facing the target, held the pistol in his right hand, wrapped his left hand around his right wrist, and fired. Even with the ear-defenders on, the
report was deafening, and the gun kicked in his hand like a live thing, forcing his arms upwards. Richter aimed and fired again. And again, and again, until he had fired all six rounds.

The armourer had been watching the target through a spotting scope. ‘Not bad, Mr Richter,’ he said. ‘Six hits, with one bull. You seem to be grouping a little low and a little
to the right. If you will permit me?’ Richter passed him the pistol and watched while he adjusted the rear sight. ‘This time take the target on the right and just fire three shots
first, then stop. I’ll make any further adjustments then.’