The Vault Read online

  “There are rules—you don’t kill the other side.”

  “I un­der­stand the con­ven­tion,” Bloom said pa­tiently. “I’ve done my time in places like that—worse than that. But I don’t think that we can com­plain about it. They know we won’t make a fuss about it given that they caught us with our fin­gers in the till.”

  Mack­in­tosh fid­geted and had to work to keep the angry out­burst from his lips.

  “My dear chap,” Bloom said. “I am sorry. Foulkes was an ex­cel­lent agent. His sac­ri­fice can­not be un­der­es­tim­ated, and he will be re­placed. But what you’re ask­ing for is simply im­possible. You un­der­stand why, surely?”

  Mack­in­tosh felt a bead of sweat on his brow. The fire was warm and his tweed was thick; he re­gret­ted wear­ing the suit, but it was too late for that now. Bloom’s in­ab­il­ity, or un­will­ing­ness, to see the ur­gency of his re­quest was some­thing that he was find­ing dif­fi­cult to ac­cept.

  “Sir—”

  “Vivian,” Bloom said. “Please—call me Vivian. No need for form­al­ity here.”

  “Vivian,” Mack­in­tosh star­ted again, smil­ing through his im­pa­tience. “I know he’ll be re­placed, but I don’t need an­other five men with de­grees in mod­ern lan­guages from Cam­bridge. I’ve still got three of those and they’re use­less. Their spelling and hand­writ­ing are im­pec­cable, but, with the greatest of re­spect, I need men who can pull a trig­ger in­stead of pulling an oar in a fuck­ing boat race.”

  Mack­in­tosh re­gret­ted his choice of lan­guage at once, but it had been al­most auto­matic. He looked up at Bloom, wait­ing for a re­buke and got, in­stead, an­other throaty chuckle.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said, still chuck­ling. “Please—go on.”

  Mack­in­tosh bent down, gathered the files from his satchel and placed them on his knee.

  “I need fight­ing men. Sol­diers. Trained to kill. The Stasi is filled with men like that, and we are out­matched. I don’t need trans­lat­ors. I need killers. ”

  “In­deed. You’ve made that point.”

  Mack­in­tosh’s mouth felt like sand­pa­per. He might have spoken out of turn, but, in truth, he didn’t care. He knew he was right and Bloom needed to hear it. Some­thing needed to be done; the status quo was not sus­tain­able. He watched Bloom for a re­ac­tion, watched as he sat quietly and fin­ished his sherry. He put the glass back on the table and crossed his hands on his lap.

  “There’s pas­sion in you, Harry. That’s why you were chosen for this post. The mil­it­ary back­ground, too—that’s an­other reason. This, though, is not a mil­it­ary op­er­a­tion. Say I gave you your as­sas­sins—what would hap­pen if one of them was caught or killed in the East? It wouldn’t take the Stasi long to work out who they really are, and then you have a mem­ber of the Brit­ish armed forces cap­tured or killed in what can only be de­scribed as an act of ag­gres­sion. I un­der­stand why you’re ask­ing, but if I give you what you want you could just as eas­ily start a war. And I’m afraid I can’t al­low that.”

  Mack­in­tosh looked down at the thick In­dian rug, let­ting his eyes trace the pat­terns. That was it. He had blown it. He couldn’t op­er­ate with the staff that he cur­rently had; they might as well fold up the tent and go home. The Stasi had won. Brit­ish in­tel­li­gence would cease to func­tion in Ber­lin in any mean­ing­ful ca­pa­city. The botched op­er­a­tion to ex­filtrate PI­CASSO would be his epi­taph. His tour in Ber­lin would be cur­tailed, and even a ju­nior of­ficer knew that a short-of-tour ex­pul­sion would be the end of his ca­reer. His repu­ta­tion would suf­fer, and his fu­ture pro­mo­tions and as­sign­ments would be af­fected. He wondered where the man­dar­ins might send him in­stead. The Shi­thole Tour: Third World coun­tries in Africa and Asia.

  “Why are you look­ing so glum?”

  Mack­in­tosh looked up. Bloom was smil­ing at him. “I’m sorry?”

  Bloom took one of the files that had been stacked on the table next to his chair. He handed it to Mack­in­tosh.

  “Of course,” he said, “if you were to re­cruit someone from out­side the in­tel­li­gence ser­vices and out­side the mil­it­ary, and if that per­son were caught in East Ber­lin, well, we could say that we knew noth­ing about them. That might be some­thing that we could get away with.”

  Mack­in­tosh took the file, opened it and began to read.

  “The man in that file is dan­ger­ous,” Bloom said. “He’s in­tel­li­gent, ruth­less, and he’s been on MI5’s watch­list ever since he got off the boat from Ire­land. A man like that could cause all sorts of havoc in Ber­lin. We’d just need a good le­gend for him, some­thing plaus­ible, and then, if he’s dis­covered, or cap­tured, or killed, there would be no way to trace him to us. He’s com­pletely ex­pend­able.”

  Mack­in­tosh scanned the page.

  The waiter re­appeared and re­filled the sherry glasses. Bloom waited un­til the man had stepped away again be­fore con­tinu­ing.

  Mack­in­tosh closed the file. “He’s a com­mon crim­inal. A burg­lar.”

  Bloom shook his head. “We’re go­ing to have to dis­agree there. He’s not com­mon—he’s ex­cep­tional. And he finds him­self in rather an awk­ward pre­dic­a­ment. He was ar­res­ted earlier this morn­ing. The Fly­ing Squad pulled him in for rob­bing a ware­house at Heath­row. It was a setup, of course. I wanted a reason to take him off the street. He’s Ir­ish and he has ex­per­i­ence work­ing with the Provos. Between you and me, I was think­ing about put­ting him to use over there. But then you made your re­quest and I thought that maybe there’s an­other pur­pose we could put him to.”

  “Sir—”

  “This is it, Harry. The best I can do. He’s in a cell in New Scot­land Yard. Go and see him.”

  “Does he speak Ger­man?”

  “I’d be very sur­prised.”

  “He’s not trained?”

  “Not form­ally.”

  “He’s…he’s com­pletely un­suited for what I’d need him to do.”

  “If you want someone who speaks Ger­man, I’ve got a num­ber of Cam­bridge can­did­ates, but you’ve already told me what you think about that. This man is never go­ing to be an oars­man. He’s never go­ing to speak Latin. He doesn’t know his Cicero from his Seneca. On the other hand, he has a his­tory as a street fighter. He put three nasty local scum­bags in hos­pital after they tried to ex­tort a friend of his. Dropped a car on one of them and broke his legs. It took four of­ficers to sub­due him last night. Four. And two of them have been signed off duty for a week after what he did to them. And if you’re con­cerned about fal­lout, then please let me be plain. You will not be held re­spons­ible for his ac­tions.”

  Mack­in­tosh got to his feet.

  “One more thing,” Bloom said. “PI­CASSO—do you know where he is?”

  “I’m ask­ing around,” Mack­in­tosh said. “But I can guess.”

  “Hav­ing his fin­ger­nails ex­trac­ted at Ho­henschön­hausen?”

  Mack­in­tosh nod­ded.

  “Shame. You were un­for­tu­nate, Harry. Bring­ing him out would have been a feather in your cap. But he’s gone now—let it go. Use the Ir­ish­man to give the Stasi some­thing else to think about.”

  “And if he dies in the pro­cess?”

  “Then he dies. Men like him are ten a penny. There’s plenty more where he came from.”

  16

  Jimmy woke up in a room he didn’t re­cog­nise. The walls and floor were bare con­crete. There was a single metal door with no win­dow. There was a bucket in the corner—Jimmy guessed it was the toi­let—and a cam­era had been fixed up in the corner, next to the ceil­ing. A red light shone from the body of the cam­era, sug­gest­ing that it was re­cord­ing and that he was be­ing watched. He was ly­ing on a thin mat­tress. His muscles ached and his head felt as if it was about to split. He put his fin­gers to his sc
alp and felt scabs of dried blood.

  He re­membered what had happened and groaned.

  Fa­bian had set them up. Jimmy couldn’t get his head around the thought of it. The old man was a pil­lar of the crim­inal com­munity; to con­spire with the po­lice to have two men ar­res­ted would be the end of his repu­ta­tion. No one would ever trust him again.

  He sat up, and im­me­di­ately wished that he hadn’t. The head­ache throbbed and he re­membered the man with the cosh. God knows how many times he had struck him while he was on the floor. He pulled up his shirt and looked down; there were black welts on his torso and on his arms, and, from the ache in his legs, he guessed that he had been beaten there, too.

  He heard foot­steps out­side. They stopped out­side the door to his cell. Jimmy glanced up at the cam­era and saw that the red light had blinked off. The door was un­locked and opened. A man stood in the door­way, look­ing in at him. He didn’t look like a po­lice­man: early forties; wear­ing a tweed suit that was pat­ently more ex­pens­ive than any po­lice­man could af­ford; ditto on the hand­made shoes; a white shirt and an old school tie. He had a leather briefcase and looked down at Jimmy through a pair of large, black-rimmed glasses.

  “Mr. Walker.”

  “That’s right. Who are you?”

  “I’d like to speak to you.”

  “Be my guest. I’m not go­ing any­where.”

  “No. Very true.”

  “Who are you?”

  The man poin­ted up to the cam­era. “I’m not here,” he said.

  “Are you po­lice?”

  “No.”

  “So where am I?”

  “New Scot­land Yard.”

  “So if you’re not a cop­per—”

  The man in­ter­rup­ted him. “I’m here to make you an of­fer. Given your present cir­cum­stances, you should give it care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion.”

  “I should?”

  He smiled. “If you take it, you can walk out of here with me as soon as we’re done.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.”

  The man stepped into the cell and an of­ficer closed the door be­hind him. He put down his briefcase and held out a hand. Jimmy took his wrist and turned the hand over, mak­ing sure that it was empty. He had heard of po­lice com­ing into the cells with evid­ence in their hands; they palmed it, got your dabs on it, used it to fit you up. This man’s hand was empty. Jimmy re­leased his wrist.

  “You still haven’t told me who you are.”

  Still the man did not an­swer. He reached down and opened his satchel, re­mov­ing a ma­nila file.

  “James Sean Walker,” he said, read­ing from the file. “Born in the Royal Vic­toria Hos­pital, Bel­fast. Raised by Barney Walker after both par­ents were killed in a pub bomb­ing in sev­enty-two. Stud­ied—or not, as the case may be—at Saint Fran­cis of As­sisi School. Left with no qual­i­fic­a­tions, so I’m guess­ing it was the lat­ter.” He palmed through the pages. “Bor­ing, bor­ing, bor­ing. Let’s jump ahead. Went off the rails a little, got into break­ing and en­ter­ing. Worked with the IRA team that turned over the Al­lied Ir­ish Bank five years ago.”

  Jimmy al­most told him that he hadn’t known the Provos were in­volved in that job, but shut his mouth just in time. He was in a po­lice cell, and no one had ever been con­victed for that heist; the last thing he needed to do was to give them some­thing to sug­gest that he had been in on it.

  The man turned more pages. “Left Bel­fast soon after with the IRA and the RUC on your tail. Don’t need to go into your résumé in Lon­don. In a re­la­tion­ship; Isa­bel, isn’t it? One child—Sean. De­cent boxer. No gain­ful em­ploy­ment and yet a house in Hack­ney. The po­lice know about your noc­turnal busi­ness, al­though you’ve been clever enough not to give them any­thing to go on. Un­til now, of course. Ar­res­ted for sus­pi­cion of a dia­mond heist in Heath­row last night.”

  “I’d like to speak to my law­yer about that,” Jimmy said.

  “I’m sure you would, James.”

  “It’s Jimmy,” he said, lean­ing back on his bed.

  “James,” the man said. “You’re in a spot, aren’t you?”

  “Been in worse.”

  “Really? The po­lice found a bag full of equip­ment in the back of your car. I’m not an ex­pert, of course, but I’m told it’s a homemade torch for cut­ting into safes. A bag of clothes, too. Balaclava. Gloves. All very sus­pi­cious.”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “I’m your best friend right now, James.”

  “And yet you still haven’t told me who you are.”

  “I work for the gov­ern­ment—”

  “Then you can fuck right off.”

  The man shook his head. “James—really. Please. Just listen. We have a po­s­i­tion open that would suit a man with your tal­ents.”

  Jimmy put his head back slowly and rubbed his eyes. “No thanks, mate. I’m all right here.”

  “Really? You want to stay in prison for the next ten years?”

  Jimmy sat up. “Ten years?”

  “The po­lice say they can tie you to a string of jobs across Lon­don and the south­east. Armed rob­bery, James. What do you ex­pect?”

  “Wait a minute,” Jimmy said. “Who said any­thing about guns?”

  “The po­lice found an un­re­gistered shot­gun in the back of your Capri. They say it looks like the same shot­gun used to threaten the driver of an ar­moured car last month.”

  Jimmy groaned. “I’ve never done an ar­moured car.”

  “You would say that, James.”

  “They’re fit­ting me up.”

  “Armed rob­bery is a ser­i­ous of­fence. The min­imum you’re look­ing at is ten. The min­imum. You could get more.”

  “All this to get me to work for you?”

  “It happened that I was look­ing for some help and I was given the chance to look at your file. I have, and I think you could help me out. You scratch my back, James, I scratch yours.”

  Jimmy was ready with an­other protest, but he stifled it. They had him with his back against the wall, out of op­tions, and he hated it. He hated the fact that he had been de­ceived, hated the fact that it had taken him too long to see through it, and hated the fact that his op­tions had all been taken away.

  “You still haven’t told me who you are.”

  “I’m a second chance. I’m your get-out-of-jail card. And your new boss. If you do as you’re told, you won’t serve any time. You have my word.”

  “Is this some kind of trick?”

  “It’s an of­fer. And it’s walk­ing out the door in ten seconds. Up to you, James. Make up your mind.”

  Jimmy stared at the floor, his mind spin­ning. He thought of Isa­bel and his son.

  “How long be­fore I could see my girl­friend and my boy?”

  The man smiled. “You can go and see them now.” The man looked at his watch. “It’s ten o’clock. Traffic should be ac­cept­able. We could prob­ably be there in half an hour.”

  “Really?”

  “We have a flight to catch this af­ter­noon—if you say yes, of course. You can see them un­til we need to go. If you don’t say yes, you’ll be stay­ing here. I sup­pose you’ll see them when they come to visit. Won’t be easy to cuddle your boy through a screen, though. I think my way is best.”

  Jimmy stood up, win­cing from the aches down his back and legs.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Mack­in­tosh,” he said. “Are you say­ing yes?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  The man put out his hand again and, this time, Jimmy took it.

  He smiled. “Wel­come to the secret ser­vice.”

  17

  It took ten minutes for Mack­in­tosh to take care of the form­al­it­ies of ar­ran­ging Jimmy’s re­lease. His coat, shoelaces and car keys were re­turned to him by the of­ficer whom he had but­ted in the fac
e; the man’s nose was held to­gether by a piece of tape.

  “Sorry about that,” Jimmy said, point­ing to his nose while de­liv­er­ing a wide grin.

  “Piss off.”

  Mack­in­tosh led him out of the back of the build­ing to a car park and took him over to a brand-new Jag­uar. He told Jimmy to get in and, without need­ing to ask for the ad­dress, drove them both to the house in Hack­ney.

  “You’ve got ten minutes,” he said.

  “Ten minutes?”

  “The flight leaves at one. We need to be on it.”

  Jimmy put his hand on the door handle, then paused. “What do I say?”

  “Tell them you’re go­ing away on busi­ness for a week or two.”

  “You haven’t told me where.”

  “You’ll find that out when we’re on the plane.”

  “So what do I say now?”

  “I don’t know, James. She’s your girl­friend. Think of some­thing suit­able.”

  “Lie to her, you mean.”

  “I’m sure it won’t be the first time.”

  Jimmy opened the door and stepped out. It was cold, his breath fog­ging in front of his face. He looked at the down­stairs win­dow and saw Isa­bel’s face. Jimmy found that his mouth was dry and his stom­ach was un­settled. He zipped the jacket up, went through the gate and across the small garden, and opened the door.

  Isa­bel was wait­ing for him in the hall. She seemed paler than usual, and her eyes were red, just as they al­ways looked when she hadn’t had enough sleep. Jimmy opened his arms and em­braced her. He held her for a long mo­ment un­til he knew that he wasn’t go­ing to cry.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, a catch in his throat.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I had a bit of trouble last night.”

  “I waited up. All night, Jimmy—I haven’t been to bed. Sean was be­side him­self when he woke up. You were sup­posed to be play­ing foot­ball with him this morn­ing.”

  “I know I was, darling. I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him—where is he?”

  “He’s not here, Jimmy. He’s gone over to Sonya’s house.”