‘So did we do a public service? With the Serbians?’
‘You hurt them. But you didn’t kill them. Like cutting an arm off an octopus. Not that we’re ungrateful, you understand. Seven arms are easier to fight than eight. If only marginally.’
‘You want more.’
‘They’re both coming after you. Which presents opportunities, perhaps. In my opinion a few more casualties would not be frowned upon, in certain circles.’
‘With you riding along?’
‘Purely as an observer. Some of these people are British citizens. And as Ms Nice pointed out, there are rules.’
‘Are you going to give us help?’
‘Do you need any?’
‘We asked for a list of locations.’
Bennett nodded. ‘We saw that transmission.’
‘We haven’t had an answer.’
‘Locations are difficult. More than ever now, because we have to figure in Karel Libor’s portfolio, and the Serbians’ too, as of this morning. Because if the Serbians really are cooperating with Romford, then logic says they might have put Kott in one place and Carson in another, far from each other. Safer that way. And logic also suggests they’d be using remote addresses. And the land around London is pretty flat. Rolling, at best. Not the kind of terrain for approaching distant isolated farmhouses suspected of containing either one or two of the four best freelance snipers in the world.’
I said, ‘I would still like the list.’
‘OK, we’ll release it today. You’ll get it just as soon as it bounces off O’Day.’
‘But you’re betting on remote farmhouses? Well separated?’
‘Not necessarily. There are different possibilities.’
‘Such as what?’
‘They have safe houses, and there are plenty of houses they rent out, and therefore plenty of tenants just delighted to get out of town for a week or two. And there are plenty of people who owe them money, who would love to earn a rebate by feeding a stranger three times a day, and giving him a bed for the night, and then saying nothing at all about it.’
‘But you think far from prying eyes would be better?’
‘At first sight much better. But ultimately it’s a trade-off, isn’t it? They have to assume we have a plan for shutting down access to the centre of town. Like a post nine-eleven thing. I’m sure every big city does. And they wouldn’t want to get caught on the outside of a thing like that. Not when they’ve got a big rifle to bring through the cordon. So all in all I think they’ll move in sooner rather than later. They might already be here.’
‘We saw a few hundred viable locations overlooking Wallace Court.’
‘Which we’re searching very carefully. But what if they’re in viable locations we didn’t see?’
‘Do you have a plan for shutting London down?’
‘Of course we do.’
‘Then why aren’t you using it?’
‘Because we remain optimistic.’
‘Which is a politician talking.’
‘The aim is to wrap this up quickly.’
‘Which also sounds like a politician talking.’
‘Politicians sign our paycheques.’
‘So what kind of help will you give us?’
‘We’ll show you where Little Joey lives. Nothing happens without him. You can watch the comings and the goings, and you can see if you can figure things out.’
‘Are you saying you can’t?’
‘The movements we have so far observed have so far shown no coherent pattern.’
‘Then maybe Little Joey isn’t the guy.’
‘Charlie White is far too old and far too grand to be running around, and Tommy Miller and Billy Thompson are only ten years younger, and they’re nothing more than bureaucrats now, anyway. Which is what gangs are all about these days. Tax strategies, and legal investments, and things like that. Little Joey Green is the only one who actually does anything. Trust me on that. If they’re rotating the guards in and out, or sending food and women, then it’s all coming through Little Joey’s driveway.’
‘Except you haven’t observed it.’
‘Not as yet.’
‘How long have we got, before the politicians panic?’
‘Not long.’
‘Do they have a Plan B?’
‘It would help me if we didn’t get that far.’
‘So now we’re helping you?’
‘We’re both helping each other. That’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?’
‘Do you listen to the hot line between Downing Street and the Oval Office?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Personal interest.’
‘By tradition we leave that one alone.’
‘Good to know.’
He said, ‘Let’s go and find you a new hotel. You should have some down time. I’ll text you when we’re ready to go out to Little Joey’s place.’
I said, ‘You have our phone numbers?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Silly question,’ I said.
Bennett swapped places with Nice and drove us south, to the Bayswater Road, which was the northern limit of Hyde Park, and then east to Marble Arch, and then south again on Park Lane, into Mayfair, which was rich enough to be neutral territory. No gangs there, at least of any type I would recognize. We drove past the Grosvenor House Hotel, and the Dorchester, and we pulled in at the Hilton. Bennett said, ‘They won’t look for you here. With the money you’ve taken, they’ll figure you went somewhere fancier. Somewhere with a bigger name, like Brown’s or Claridge’s, or the Ritz, or the Savoy.’
I said, ‘How do you know about the money we’ve taken?’
‘It was in Ms Nice’s report to O’Day.’
‘Which you happened to test for intelligibility.’
‘The choice of test sample is a random procedure. Purely a lottery. Driven by engineering. Something to do with the mean time between failures.’
‘We should throw our phones away.’
Casey Nice said, ‘We can’t.’
Bennett said, ‘I agree. You can’t. You need to check in with O’Day on a regular basis. That’s the deal he made with Scarangello. If you go to radio silence now, then the deal is off, and you’re disowned by all concerned, in which case you better be out of the country within an hour, or you’re going to be hunted down like common fugitives.’
‘You know about Scarangello too?’
‘Try to remember, anything that ends up in the state of Maryland goes through the county of Gloucestershire first. And in reverse.’
‘You must be listening to the whole world.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘So who’s bankrolling this thing? Have you figured that out yet?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘And you’re the A team, right? With the big brains? So much better than the rubes at Fort Meade?’
‘Normally we do pretty well.’
‘But not this time, apparently. So now you want to dump it all on us. You want us to keep on communicating with O’Day, so you can listen in while we take all the risks.’
‘We didn’t rule the world by being nice.’
‘The Welsh ruled the world?’
‘The British ruled the world. And the Welsh are British. Just as much as the Scots. Just as much as the English, even.’