The Watchman (35 page)

"Sure."

He slipped the phone back into his pocket and moved towards the pale bulk of the church. This time the door was locked. Alex considered climbing in through a window, dismissed the idea as too likely to attract attention and reached into one of the chest pockets of his smock.

It was a couple of years since he'd done the lock-picking refresher course at Tregaron and the goggles didn't help, but Alex's movements were reasonably confident as he inserted a pick into the church door. The lock was a standard pin-tumbler type and it was no more than a few minutes before the door swung inwards.

Pocketing the pick and the torque wrench in favour of the Glock, Alex scanned the place. As in the house, anything of any value as architectural salvage had been removed and above him only a few roof beams remained. Broken tiles and mounds of pigeon shit littered the stone floor.

The door was to one side, low and arched. Again, it was locked, and this lock was no high street Yale. It took Alex almost half an hour of delicate work with the spring-steel pick to solve all the pins and bring them to the shear line, and he breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief when he felt the plug's smooth rotation beneath his torque wrench.

Beyond the door was a descending spiral staircase. The stone treads felt worn beneath Alex's soles as he crept downwards, peering before him through the goggles. There was very little ambient light for them to magnify and he seemed to be descending into a dim green haze.

The crypt appeared to be empty but for a wooden bier of the type once used in funerals. Lifting the goggles, Alex risked a quick sweep with the Maglite torch, only to have his initial observation confirmed. There was nothing else no chests~ no cupboards, no sign of habitation merely walls and floors carved with memorial inscriptions and a cool stone emptiness. Nor were there any doors to further chambers.

Think, Alex told himself. Go back to basics. Meehan told Connolly that the equipment he found was in the church. The Operation Gladio hiding place had to be proof against sophisticated enemy search teams and a locked door would have constituted no protection whatever against a determined GRU or Spetznaz outfit.

Once again, he searched the place with his torch, running its beam over the walls and floors, and the inset stone tablets with their florid carvings.

He almost missed it, and he would never have found it had he not known that it had to be there somewhere. A memorial brass inlaid into the floor in one corner of the room. Worn, as if by the passage of many feet, and inscribed "To the memory of Samuel Calvert, born 1758, laid to rest 1825. My sword, I shall give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage."

Gladio, thought Alex. The word means a sword, doesn't it?

The brass lifted with a knife tip. Beneath, supporting it, was a heavy iron grille. And beneath the grille were steps.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Alarm screamed in Alex's mind. He was getting himself deeper and deeper into a situation from which retreat was impossible.

His plan, to which Angela Fenwick had agreed, had been that he should make an initial sortie into the property to search for evidence of Meehan's presence and then pull back, so that an MIS team could replace him. If Alex encountered Meehan while undertaking his recce, however, he was to kill him on sight. From Fenwick's point of view, Alex knew, this would be the ideal outcome. No more Watchman, no more complex and expensive deployment of Service personnel, no more threat to herself or to her ambitions.

And to be honest, thought Alex, it would suit him too. It would balance the books for George Widdowes' death. There was also the undeniable truth that a happy Angela Fenwick meant a happy Bill Leonard, and a happy Bill Leonard could mean promotion.

Plus, of course, the world would be rid of a psychopathic murderer. If Meehan were waiting in the darkness at the bottom of those steps, or if he were to return to the church right now, Alex would be trapped. Better by far to pull back, to get Fenwick to send reinforcements.

Pulling out his mobile he tried punching in Dawn's number. The sudden beep indicating that there was no signal strength made him jump and his heart race, and he realised just how on edge he was.

Meehan could come back at any moment.

Pulling the grille and the brass plate back into place from below the gaps in the grille had deliberately been made wide enough to allow this Alex began to descend the steps. The room at the bottom, he saw with a quick, relieved sweep of the goggles, had no human occupant. It was a burial chamber and the rectangular stone slab at its centre had probably once supported a tomb.

But not now. Now the walls were piled deep and high with green-sprayed steel cases whose contents, according to the white stencilled legends on their sides, included time pencils and other varieties of detonator, delay fuses, carborundum grease, pocket incendiaries, Eureka beacons, S-Phones, Mk III Transceivers, Welrod pistols and an assortment of grenades and mines. It was a far more comprehensive list than Connolly had described, thought Alex, staring for a wondering moment at the scores of cases. Overcome by curiosity, he prised open the lid of a case marked "Grenades Gammon type'.

Inside, neatly packed, were a dozen bizarre-looking appliances, each consisting of a bakelite fuse housing and a cotton bag. The idea, Alex assumed, was that you filled the bag with plastic explosive maybe chucking in a handful of nuts and bolts for good measure and lobbed the whole thing into the middle of an enemy patrol. Very nasty indeed.

The transceivers packed into their little leather suitcases, by contrast, were objects of great fascination, with their miniaturised sockets and grilles and dials. If I get through this in one piece, thought Alex, I'm coming back for a few of these, and perhaps a couple of the Welrods too. Take them up to Sotheby's or Christie's... This sub-crypt, it was clear, was where Meehan lived. At one end of the room were cardboard boxes containing new own-brand supermarket tins soups, beans, spaghetti, peas -chocolate bars, and packet foods. A packing case held fresh oranges, potatoes and green vegetables. No onions, probably because of the strong smell they gave off while cooking. Among the food was a small plastic rubbish bag containing crushed tins, sweet papers, withered orange peel and a brown apple core. The last two looked less than forty-eight hours old.

There was also a plastic water-purification system, a tiny MSR stove and fuel bottles, a pair of mess tins, plastic cutlery, a comprehensive medical kit the suture-set recently used, Alex noted and a wash bag. In the corner of the room above this area a fresh-air duct led upwards into the darkness, presumably voiding behind some decorative element on the tower.

At the other end of the chamber, folded neatly on the floor, were Meehan's clothes nondescript camping-store items for the most part, and a pair of worn cor dura hiking boots. From one of these an inexpensive Suunto compass trailed a para-cord lanyard.

On the slab, weighed down at each corner, was a good-quality photocopy of an architectural blueprint. The building in question was entitled Powys Court (Block 2), Oakley Street, London 5W3. A roll of similar blueprints lay to one side and a flash of the Maglite served to confirm that all related to the same building.

What was it that Dawn had said about Angela Fenwick's flat? A private block? In a gated estate? One of the most secure addresses in London?

Heart pounding, Alex scanned the place, felt through the modest pile of clothing. There was no sign of any weaponry -Meehan had it all with him. He tried thumbing Dawn's number on his mobile but couldn't get a signal.

Shit!

Racing up the steps, he hurriedly replaced the grille and the brass plate.

Moments later, pulling the crypt door shut behind him, he was running from the church towards the main gate. Meehan was about to move on Angela Fenwick he was sure of it.

He was over the gate in less than a minute and, having got well clear of the premises dialled Dawn again. This time he got a tone and she picked up immediately.

"Powys Court mean anything to you?"

"Yes, it's Angela's place. Why?"

"Meehan's got the architectural blueprint. He's probably there right now."

"Where are you?"

"Couple of hundred yards beyond the entrance to the house there's a lay-by and a sign saying Chilford."

"OK. Two minutes."

Packing the night-vision goggles into the rucksack, he waited impatiently for the headlights of the Range Rover.

She was closer to five minutes.

"I've rung Angela," she told him.

"Told her to get out."

"And go where?"

"Safe house. She's agreed to stay there for the next twenty-four hours and surround the place with Special Branch people."

"Can she get there without being followed?"

"She was on her way home from Downing Street. The driver will throw in every move in the book, make sure they're not followed."

Alex looked dubious.

"Don't worry," said Dawn.

"He's very good and very experienced. Ex-army, as it happens."

"Go on."

"She wants me up there soonest. I have to help her run things from the safe house."

Alex nodded.

"And I'll stay down here. Sooner or later this is where he's going to come back to and when he does I'll be ready."

"I'd have liked to stay with you.

"I could certainly have used an extra pair of eyes and ears," said Alex, unloading the gear from the back of the Range Rover.

"Is that all I am to you?" she asked with a half-smile.

"A handful of body parts?"

"You know what I mean."

"Have you got everything you need?"

Alex patted his smock pockets and checked the rucksack.

"Torches, lock-picks, Glock, ammo, night sights, knife, scoff, first aid, spare clothing, waterproofs, cam netting .. . Looks OK. To be on the safe side I might take the bike and some petrol. Don't like being without a vehicle. Oh, and some drinking water I'm not poisoning myself with that shite from the stream."

He opened the back doors and collected a couple of bottles of water and the helmet, goggles and ten-litre fuel can that went with the motorcycle.

"Sure you'll be OK?" Dawn asked as he lifted the bike from the transportation frame on the back of the Range Rover and rolled it towards the pile of supplies.

"Yeah. He's not getting the drop on me twice, don't worry.

"Professional pride." She smiled.

"Honour of the Regiment!"

"Something like that."

She nodded.

"OK, then. Take care. And remind me about those stitches."

"They can wait."

She kissed him on his good cheek.

"So can I. Be careful, Captain Temple."

"On your way, Harding," he said, touching his hand to her hair.

He hid the bike in the woods opposite the entrance to Black Down and covered it with bracken and pine branches. The machine was an Austrian KTM 520cc EXC, and had been sprayed a matt khaki. The green plastic fuel can was full, and attachable to the rear of the seat by means of a rucksack and bungee cord. He left a helmet and pair of goggles attached to the handlebars. Then, shinning backwards and forwards over the steel barrier, he moved the rest of the kit into the grounds of Black Down House.

No cars passed. There had been traffic on the road earlier in the evening but now it seemed to have dried up. Crouching by one of the gate piers, he checked his watch. It was twenty minutes before midnight.

Quickly Alex considered his position. His target could arrive at any time, and the sooner he got himself out of sight and into position the better. But into which position Meehan was far too security-conscious simply to climb over the barrier each time he wanted to get into the property and might approach the church from any point along the half-mile or so of boundary fence.

But whichever direction the man was coming from, Alex knew it was to the church that Meehan would go.

He settled himself to wait. He had chosen a position in daylight in the long grass midway between the woods and the church. The Watchman would return tonight, he was sure.

This was the end game.

TWENTY- SIX.

As the night progressed the temperature fell. Dampness enclosed the Black Down estate, the waning moon clouded over and shortly after midnight the first drops fell. Within the hour the grass was bowed and the stream hissing with rain.

Alex tried to ignore the increasing cold and the sodden weight of his clothing. He was lying on uneven ground behind a fallen and rotting tree with the rucksack cached at his side. His face was blackened with cam-cream, long grass surrounded him and cam-netting covered his body. Rain streamed down the grip of the Glock 34. The rain would conceal him, but it would also conceal Meehan.

"Come on, you bastard," he murmured.

"Come on.

He prayed that Meehan would return. Surely the man didn't have a place in London. London was a very tightly regulated city, it was next to impossible to sleep rough without some helpful cop or social worker directing you to the nearest shelter. And asking for your name. And having a bloody good look at you.

Nor would he be able to return to his Kilburn haunts. Irish London was far too dangerous a place for him to approach since MI-5 had spread the word that he'd been touting for them. Every Provo sympathiser would know his face, unless he'd had it altered beyond all recognition and that was a damn sight harder to do than was popularly supposed.

No, he'd come back down here, lie low for a bit, catch his breath. He'd been successful so far by dint of extreme caution, he wouldn't want to blow it now with only Fenwick left to kill.

And something told Alex that the tide had turned. Something about the sight of those supplies the tinned supermarket food, that austere little pile of kit told Alex that the Watchman was nearing the end of his watch. And when that happened he Alex Temple would be ready. He welcomed the hardness of the earth beneath him and the cold sting of the rain. It kept him on edge.

Shortly after 4.10 he had just checked his watch there was the low sound of a vehicle passing by on the road and the brief flicker of headlights. The sound was swallowed by the falling rain, the lights faded to nothingness.