Sure Fire (10 page)

There was a sudden squeal of brakes from outside the café. At the same moment, it sounded like a hundred emergency sirens had started up. Through the window, Jade and Rich could both see several police cars screeching to a halt in the road outside. Two of them slewed sideways at opposite sides of the café, blocking off the road.

Car doors opened and uniformed police leaped out.

But even before they reached the café, the door crashed violently open. Men in dark suits and darker glasses rushed inside.

“Armed officers – nobody move!”

As soon as he heard the first car screech to a halt outside, Rich was on his feet. He grabbed Jade and bundled her ahead of him through the nearby door that led to the toilets at the back of the café.

“I thought the police weren't interested,” Jade gasped.

“That was then,” Rich said. “This is now.”

As well as two doors into the toilets, there was a third door. It had a bar across it and a fire exit sign above. Rich shoved the bar and felt it give. The door was stiff through lack of use, but with Jade's help he managed to heave it open.

“How did they find us?” she asked. “Ardman?”

“He doesn't know where we are.”

“Sure?”

“Maybe they traced the call somehow,” Rich conceded. He was looking round, deciding where to go next.

They were in a courtyard area at the back of the café. There was another door back into the kitchens, and a gate that must open into the street beyond for deliveries. Large, round, industrial-sized metal waste bins stood grouped in a corner. Rich didn't fancy trying to hide inside those.

He heaved open the gate and looked out into the road beyond. “It won't take them long to guess where we went.”

“Assuming they know we were actually there,” Jade said.

There was a big key in the lock of the gate. Jade pulled it out, and when she closed the gate behind them, she locked it shut. It was solid wood, like a barn door, so you couldn't see through.

“Should keep them guessing,” she said.

The street outside was a dead end, finishing at a wall. The other end of the street joined the main road at the front of the café, and they made their way cautiously towards the junction.

Behind them, Rich could hear the gates rattling as someone tried to open them from the other side. With luck they'd assume no one could have got out. They might go and ask for the key, but that would take time.

Rich and Jade emerged into the main street beyond the area blocked by the two sideways police cars. But further down the road, several policemen were setting up a barrier of plastic tape.

“We're trapped,” Jade said. “Bet it's the same the other end of the road.”

“They can't just close the road for ever.”

“They won't. They'll close it off then search for us.”

“Side street,” Rich decided. “If we're quick they won't have cordoned them all off.”

There was a side street between the dead end they had come from and the cordon. They tried to look inconspicuous, hoping the police wouldn't look down the street and see them as they hurried along the pavement. Luckily, the police at the barrier were busy answering questions and taking flack from people who wanted to come through.

Rich and Jade slipped into the side street. There
were houses down one side of it. A brick wall ran along the other side – too high to climb. A row of tall, mature trees was planted along the side where the wall was, between the road and the pavement.

“Maybe go through one of the houses?” Jade said. “Get out the back door and through the garden.”

“If they have one,” Rich said. “If we don't get trapped inside. If whoever opens the door to us doesn't just shout for the police. Yeah, good plan.”

As they hastened along the street they could now see the uniformed figure standing at the other end, turning people away.

“It may be the only plan we have,” Jade said. “What else can we do? Hide up a tree?”

Rich hadn't thought of that. OK, so his sister was joking, but maybe… He looked up at the nearest tree by the side of the road. To be honest, he doubted they'd be very hidden, even if they managed to get up into the branches.

“Jade, Rich,” a voice said from behind them. “How nice to see you again so soon.”

Spinning round, tensed and ready to run, Rich was surprised to see the figure standing behind them. It was the woman from the café. She must have
followed them from the main street. She wore a long grey raincoat and carried a large black handbag under her arm as if it was heavy. Her long black hair blew slightly in the breeze.

“You called the police!” Jade accused her.

“I certainly did not,” she assured them. “I think we should get away from here as quickly as possible.”

“You'll help us escape?”

“Stay here,” she said, smiling. “I'll tell the policeman at the end that I saw two suspicious-looking children going into one of the gardens. When he goes to see, you can get past. I'll keep the policeman busy as long as I can and meet you in the next road. There is a post office and newsagents. Wait for me in there.”

“What if we're spotted?” Rich said.

“You won't be. Trust me.” Magda nodded and smiled. “You have been through so much, you poor children. Let me help you. Let me help you and everything will be all right – you'll see.”

Rich looked at Jade. Jade was nodding in agreement. “All right,” she said. “I think we need all the help we can get.” She smiled, but it was a smile full of sadness. “Thank you.”

Magda smiled back. “My pleasure. Now, be ready.”

While Magda went up to the policeman, Rich and Jade kept to the shadows close to the high wall and under one of the large trees at the side of the road. They watched Magda talk to the policeman, who seemed very keen to follow her to the gate into the garden of the house at the end of the street.

“Men,” Jade said.

“What do you mean?” Rich said. “If he hadn't gone with her, we'd be stuck here.”

They ran quickly and quietly to the end of the road and ducked round the corner. They stopped to get their breath back beside the hedge – the hedge round the garden of the house on the end. The policeman was probably right on the other side, but the hedge was tall and dense so there was no chance of him seeing them.

“That post office must be just along here,” Jade said.

“Yes,” Rich agreed. “Lucky Magda found us when she did.” He wondered whether she'd been looking for them or whether it was pure luck. He was about
to follow Jade along the road when there was a strange popping sound from the other side of the hedge.

“What was that?” he said, careful to keep his voice down.

Jade ran back to see what he wanted. “I didn't hear anything,” she said. But even as she spoke, the sound came again – twice more in rapid succession.

“They having a champagne party?” Jade wondered.

Rich could see a part of the hedge where it was quite thin – more twigs and branches than leaves. He reached his arms in between the thin branches and pulled them apart in the hope of seeing through, into the garden the other side. Jade leaned in close beside him, also looking through the gap Rich had made.

They had a good view of a well-kept lawn bordered with neatly weeded flower beds.

But that was not what made Rich and Jade freeze.

The policeman was lying on his back on the ground. Magda was standing over him. She was holding a pistol with a long chunky silencer aimed down at the policeman's dead body. And there was no doubt in Rich's mind that the man
was
dead. He
could see the sightless staring eyes, the frozen look of fear and the smoking hole in the man's forehead…

Magda checked the gun and slipped it inside her bag. Then she looked up as if sensing that she was being watched. Looked straight at the gap in the hedge where Rich and Jade were staring back at her.

Jade grabbed Rich's arm. “Run!” she hissed.

And together, they ran.

The main bar of the Clarendorf Hotel was subtly lit even in the middle of the day. It was a long narrow room in the Regency building, with leather sofas and armchairs arranged around polished wooden tables.

At one end was the bar, with its oak-panelled front matching the walls of the room and its polished marble top gleaming. At the other end of the long room was a small gallery, reached by a narrow staircase in the foyer that led to the back of the gallery. There were several more tables on the balcony, but today only one of them was occupied. A man and a woman arrived soon after Ardman and sipped at their drinks, almost hidden in the shadows at the back.

Ardman spared them only a glance as he looked round for any sign of Rich and Jade. He was a few minutes early, and if Goddard was as good as he liked to think he was, then the twins would already be safely in the back of an unmarked car.

He found himself an armchair from which he could watch both doors into the bar and have a good view of the other patrons – not that there were many – and gestured to the barman that he'd like a drink.

The barman came and took his order for a cup of Earl Grey tea. It was a bit early in the day for anything more, Ardman decided. But if he was here for the duration then a single malt would help ease the boredom later. The barman returned with the tea – in a small silver-plated teapot together with bone china teacup and saucer and a silver jug of milk.

The sugar was crystallised, like little uncut precious stones in a china bowl. Amused, Ardman selected two crystals that were pale green like unpolished jade and dropped them into his tea.

When his phone rang, Ardman checked the display on the mobile and then answered: “Hello, Mr Goddard. You are calling with good news, I hope?”

Goddard sounded embarrassed. “I can't think how we missed them.”

“It happens. Don't worry. And I've met these kids, albeit briefly. They're good. Very good, it seems.”

He could almost hear Goddard shuffling uneasily at the other end of the call. “There is one other unfortunate piece of bad news, sir.”

Ardman listened, his face grave. “That is unfortunate,” he agreed. “I doubt if it can be down to the Chance twins, but I'll take care…”

“I think you should have backup, sir,” Goddard said.

“No, no, I certainly don't want your people stamping all over this place with their heavy boots. You've frightened them off once, I don't want you doing it again.”

“You think they'll turn up?”

“I don't know,” Ardman said. “But it's the only hope we have – the only hope
they
have, for that matter. So I shall wait all day if I have to.”

Rich watched Ardman for a while from the doorway before he plucked up the courage to go over. He and Jade had been watching the man since he arrived.
Now Rich was sure the man had seen him, but he went on drinking his tea as if nothing had changed.

“Just you?” Ardman asked as Rich sat down opposite him in another of the leather armchairs. Rich took out his mobile phone and put it on the table between them.

“Jade's listening. You don't need to know where she is. She could be miles away. Any sign of trouble and she's gone.”

Ardman nodded. “Very good. You're assuming I want both of you and of course you're right. But I want to make sure you're safe.”

“Did you send the police?”

Ardman didn't answer. “Was it you who killed PC Skinner?” he asked instead.

Rich felt his mouth go dry. “No,” he said. “It was the woman, Magda. Is she one of your lot?”

Ardman shook his head. “Definitely not. Though if the lady in question has long black hair, then we certainly have a file on her. Beautiful but deadly. You'd be well advised to keep out of her way.”

“Thanks, but I think we worked that out for ourselves,” Rich said. He nodded at the phone on the table between them. “You've got about ten minutes
before my credit runs out. Then, I'm leaving.”

“Your father works for me,” Ardman said. “He isn't an industrial spy, he's a government agent, for want of a better term. As I told you, I run a rather special department reporting to the Cabinet Office emergencies committee COBRA. Or certain people who serve on it at any rate.”

“And what does our dad do for you?” Rich wanted to know. “Apart from get abducted?”

“In this case, he was keeping tabs on an oil company.”

“KOS.”

Ardman nodded. “That's right. He took the place of an industry expert called Lessiter.”

“We know. What happened to Lessiter?”

“He was delighted to find that before taking up the post he had the chance for a free cruise round the Mediterranean with his family, and all at Her Majesty's taxpayers' expense.”

Rich frowned. “He's not dead then?”

Ardman looked shocked. “Please, what sort of man do you think I am.”

“I'm not sure you want me to answer that.”

Ardman smiled. “Touché. Would you like a drink, by the way?”

“No thanks. I'm not staying.”

“Still not convinced?” Ardman sounded disappointed. “What else can I tell you then? Let me see… I needed a man on the inside at KOS to see what Vishinsky was up to. He's—”

“We know who Viktor Vishinsky is.”

“Good, that will save time. Then you'll know that I needed absolute proof there was a… what shall we say? A problem?” He nodded as if agreeing with his own choice of word. “That there was a problem before I could act against KOS officially.”

“Why?”

For the first time Ardman seemed irritated. “Because Vishinsky is a rich and powerful man with friends in high places. I had hoped you would find that out when I let his name slip for you.”

“It was deliberate?” Rich asked in surprise.

Ardman looked at him with ill-disguised sympathy. “Young man,” he said, “you need to realise that in this game, the game you're now in,
everything
is deliberate.” He paused to pour himself more tea before going on. “Vishinsky knows that too. And it is not by chance that he is so friendly with many powerful people in this country as well as others in
Europe and the US. It is quite deliberate that he knows our own Prime Minister so well – and that he has had him to stay on holiday at the Vishinsky villa in Italy.”

“So you sent our dad to get the dirt on him?”

“I wouldn't phrase it quite like that myself,” Ardman said. “But, yes. In a nutshell.”

“And it went wrong.”

“Yes,” Ardman said again. “Vishinsky is planning something, but only your father, and possibly not even him, knows what it is. Your father and a… colleague managed to get into a secure laboratory facility at the KOS installation just outside London. They removed a sample of fluid. But what that fluid is, why it is important and where it is now, we don't know.”

“Magda mentioned a sample of fuel.”

“Perhaps she knows its significance. If we can find it, we can analyse it and discover what it is. From that we can make a good guess what it might be for. Your father had it hidden until he could pass it on safely to his contact, another of my men. Andrew Phillips.”

“The man who was shot in the flat.”

Ardman nodded. “Maybe he passed it on and
Phillips hid it or it was taken from him. But if this Magda woman is asking about it, then the sample must still be hidden.” He fixed his eyes firmly on Rich. “It is very important that I get that sample of fuel,” he said solemnly. “Do you know where it is?”

Rich shivered under the intense stare. “Where's Dad?” he countered. He didn't want to admit to knowing – or not knowing – anything. Not yet.

“I'm afraid that Vishinsky has taken him. He too is desperate to recover the sample, probably to stop us getting it. Though it is possible he needs it back.”

“Why? He must have loads of the stuff.”

Ardman smiled. “Possibly. But there was a bit of an incident at his London facility. Just after your father left. As you may have heard – the whole place blew up. An accident of course.”

Rich shivered again. “Dad?”

“Your father,” Ardman said, leaning forward so that the phone on the table between them got it loud and clear, “is a very brave man. But he's on his own now and in terrible danger. I'm asking you to help me to help him. Please.”

The door to the gallery area overlooking the bar was
closed. Anyone going up the narrow staircase to the gallery would have found a notice on the door that said: CLOSED FOR RENOVATION. Returning to the bar and looking up, they might have thought it was odd, then, that there were two people sitting up there.

The man and the woman in the gallery did not think it odd at all. It was Stabb who had stuck the notice on the door. Now he and Magda were leaning close over the table between them.

They were listening to the voices coming through single earpieces, connected by a thin wire to a device taped to one of the ornate wooden struts at the front of the balcony. A powerful directional microphone pointed straight at Ardman and Rich, sitting halfway down the bar, a mobile phone on the table between them.

“…help me to help him. Please.” Ardman's voice was slightly tinny but it was clear enough.

“Oh, how sweet of the man,” Magda said, pushing her long black hair behind her ear. “Wanting to help the poor little boy. Should we offer to help him too, do you think?”

Mr Stabb shook his head. “We need them both.
Chance doesn't seem to care about them, so we can't use the brats to put pressure on him. But if we have them both we can threaten one to make the other tell us where the sample is hidden. The Security Services know nothing, it seems, so Mr Vishinsky can go ahead. Nothing can stop him now. Just as soon as we get those kids.”