AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Outside there’s a blast of noise—horns, car traffic, the rumble and roar of trucks and black taxis, white vans and buses. Parked near a brick building is a red van with yellow lettering that readsEXPRESS LONDON DISPATCH.Jeremy opens the passenger door and feels relieved to see who’s waiting for him behind the steering wheel.
It’s Winston Blake, squat and muscular, smooth fleshy face and bright yet hard blue eyes, wearing dark blue overalls with the fake Express London Dispatch logo over the left breast.
“Jer, let’s get a move on,” he calls out. “I’ve already been rousted by coppers a couple of times, wanting me to get going.”
Jeremy steps aside, says, “Winnie, Amy Cornwall, former American Army, late of Langley, Virginia. She’s with me.”
A woman’s voice from inside the rear of the van calls out: “Hurry up, will you? Winnie’s been singing to pass the time, and I’m about to crown him.”
Amy passes him by, crawls over the passenger seat, and goes to the rear of the van. Jeremy gets in and Winnie moves the van out into traffic.
“Update?” Jeremy asks.
“Our little bastard is here, in West London,” the woman says. Jeremy turns in his seat, peers into the van’s crowded rear interior. In the far right is a sealed chemical WC for those long surveillance ops, a hot plate and a small fridge. The rest of the van is choked with communications and surveillance equipment: computer terminals, encrypted radio transmitters and receivers, CCTV screens, and a mass of cables, wires, and two keyboards.
At one keyboard, her swivel chair right up against a counter, is Felicity Cooper, who in another time and place would have been one of the Bletchley Park girls. She’s wearing a black pantsuit and a mic-and-earphone combination over her short-styled blond hair.
“Where in West London?” Jeremy asks.
Felicity’s soft, pudgy fingers slap the keys as she gazes up at a CCTV screen displaying a real-time map of London. “Along the 600 stretch of Uxbridge Road, in Shepherd’s Bush.”
Jeremy feels his skin tighten and his breathing quicken—signs of being on the hunt, of knowing your prey is coming into view. “Felicity, could you set up a secure and encrypted phone line for Amy? She needs to make a phone call straightaway.”
“On it, Jer,” she says, as Winnie mutters something, a horn blares, and Jeremy wonders if it’s time to reach out to Horace. Felicity says, “All right, dear, here you go.”
Amy takes a small phone keyboard with mic and earplug. She shoves the plug into her right ear and asks, “Do I need to use the international code for the States?”
Felicity says, “No, just dial as if you were in the States, making a long-distance call.”
Jeremy turns in his chair, rubs his hands. What to do? Contact the locals, turn them out, make a show of it? Or just use himself, Winnie, and Amy to make a targeted attempt to grab Rashad?
He’s looking through the windshield as Winnie—a former taxi driver who spent years being schooled in “the knowledge,” learning every street and alley in London—expertly guides them onto the A40 highway, heading west.
About twenty minutes out.
And even though he’s rapidly sifting through options, plans, and possibilities, Jeremy can’t avoid listening in as Amy makes her call.
“Tom!” she says, her voice filled with relief and a tone Jeremy has never heard from her—that of a loving woman talking to her partner. “I’m fine…things are all right…I don’t have time for a lengthy talk, all right? All right, hon? Okay…Denise…how’s she doing? Oh…she met the mayor? Did she wash her hands afterward?”
For the first time since the mountains of Lebanon, Jeremy hears Amy laugh. It’s a sweet, delightful sound.
Then her voice switches instantly, like turning a channel on the telly.
“Tom…listen to me, okay? Our vacation trip’s been moved up, the one to Ticonderoga. You know what I’m saying. That’s right. Ticonderoga.”
A slight pause. “Yes, I know. But that’s what it’s going to be. Love you…give my love to Denise. I’ll talk to you as soon as I can. Bye now.”
Jeremy gives her a moment, then turns to see Amy staring blankly ahead.
“Bugger all!” Felicity yells, tearing off her headset. “He’s moved, the bastard’s moved, but my God, what a strong signal! He’s at Heathrow…”
“Winnie?”
“Thirty minutes, Jer!”
Jeremy goes to his jacket, takes out his pistol.
“Make it twenty, Winnie.”
