And with that he turned away, leaving the girl to reflect on her good luck, and hoping she’d stay sober enough to keep their rendezvous the following evening. In the meantime he had another job to do. He felt in his jacket for the roll of red ribbon, then started heading back towards the Underground where he jumped on a train for Piccadilly.

There were preparations to be made, and he had to make them well in advance.

May 24.

Sam hadn’t been able to stay in Hereford for any longer than was necessary. It wasn’t safe there. Too many eyes. The Firm would have his house under surveillance, that much was sure; and Credenhill was out of bounds. Much better to get out of the city and back up to London. Even there he would attract the attention of passers-by with his cut-up face. He had suppressed the desire to go and see Clare – no doubt they’d be scoping her place out too – so he’d bought himself a hooded top to conceal his features as best he could, then laid low in the small room of the Heathrow Holiday Inn, where he hoped he’d be able to merge into the background.

Mac arrived at 12.30. One look at him told Sam he hadn’t slept. He dumped a bag on the bed. It contained two Browning Hi-Power pistols with a box of 9 mm rounds and a couple of ops waistcoats to conceal the weapons and ammo. ‘Best I could do,’ he said shortly. Sam didn’t know where he’d got the gear and he didn’t bother to ask. He strapped on the waistcoat and loaded the Browning. It made him feel a lot better.

‘What time’s the RV?’ Mac asked when they were tooled up.

‘22.00,’ Sam replied. ‘The Firm will have shooters in place already, though.’

‘Damn right,’ Mac agreed. He looked serious. ‘The place is going to be crawling with them, Sam. If they get their sights on J. before we can pick him up…’

Sam shook his head. ‘They won’t shoot to kill.’

‘How do you know?’

‘They’ll have pumped Dolohov for everything he knows. He’ll have told them about the hit this red-light runner’s going to make. If they think J. knows something about that, he’ll be no good to them dead.’

‘Wounded is fine, though,’ Mac said. ‘I think we can expect them to engage him.’

‘Which is why we’ve got to scope him out first. But we can’t just hang out around Eros. The Firm will be expecting me to turn up. We have to keep hidden until the last moment.

Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘Not we,’ he said. ‘You.’

Sam furrowed his eyebrows.

‘Think about it,’ Mac urged. ‘They might be expecting you, but they’ll never be expecting me. I can probably stand right next to Dolohov and get away with it.’

Sam didn’t like the sound of it. It would be putting his friend right in the line of fire. But it was almost as if Mac knew what he was thinking. ‘Fuck’s sake, Sam, I’ve done worse. And I’ll have the advantage. I’ll just look like some tourist feeding the pigeons. I know the Firm are morons, but even they won’t want to start shooting up innocent civilians.’

‘Yeah,’ Sam agreed. ‘Much better to leave that sort of thing to us.’

‘You’re not going soft on me, are you, mate?’

Sam put the thought of the red-light runners in Kazakhstan from his mind. ‘No. Course not. All right, Mac. You wait by the statue. There’s a newsstand on the north corner of Piccadilly. I’ll stay there. When Jacob approaches Dolohov… If Jacob approaches Dolohov…’

‘Yeah?’

‘You know the building that used to be a record shop?’

‘Tower Records?’

‘The newsstand is just outside it. The moment you ID Jacob, you hold up five fingers. I’ll put a round into the front window of the shop. Should cause quite a bang. Glass will shatter. I reckon that’ll be enough to distract everyone’s attention, don’t you?’

Mac nodded and pulled at what remained of his right ear.

‘Think it’ll give you enough time to warn J. – to get him away?’ Sam asked.

‘Yeah,’ Mac nodded. ‘But what about you?’

‘I’ll be all right.’

‘The Firm might think you’re Jacob, making a distraction. You might get some incoming.’

‘You got a better idea?’ Sam snapped.

A pause. ‘No, Sam,’ Mac replied. ‘I haven’t got a better idea. We’ll do it your way.’

And without another word, Mac turned his back on his friend and started fiddling with the straps on his ops waistcoat. Sam couldn’t help thinking that he was tying them tighter than they really needed to be.

Piccadilly Circus

It looked like just another night. The huge neon billboards flashed high overhead: an advert for The X Factor. Then the weather: dry but overcast. The date: May 24. And then the time: 9.50 p.m. On the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue a man with a guitar sang old pop songs, but was mostly ignored by the passers-by. The air was filled with the smell of fried onions; buses and cars swung round the roundabout, dodged by half-drunk pedestrians. Japanese tourists, looking at everything through the lens of a camera. There was a lot of pissed totty out on the streets, tarts dressed in mini-skirts shorter than the average belt, belching, stubbing out fags in the road and screaming at nothing in particular. On their flanks stalked hordes of horny, Brylcreemed blokes trying to look hard in their fake Ralph Lauren tops and identical black shoes. They were burping and swigging from alcopop bottles, ready for a fight, gasping for a shag. Just another night in London town.

Toby Brookes sat in the back of a black cab at the north end of Lower Regent Street. The windows were not blacked out, but were heavily tinted. Opposite him sat an MI6 field agent, a much older man, whose work name was Gillespie. Gillespie would be giving orders to the surveillance and pick-up team; Brookes would be giving orders to Gillespie.

‘Dolohov’s in place,’ the field agent said.

Just then there was a knock on the window. Brookes looked out to see a policeman indicating that he should roll it down. ‘Not the best place to park, sir,’ the copper said. Brookes didn’t reply. He just held up some ID. The policeman’s eyes widened. ‘Sorry to disturb, sir,’ he said, much more quietly, before turning and walking away.

Brookes glanced out of the window of the cab. He could just make out the figure of the Russian on the west side of Eros, facing south towards Brookes’s cab. He wore a big overcoat and his wounded hands were plunged into the pockets. He barely moved. Dolohov knew he was being surveyed from every possible angle; that there was enough firepower aimed in his direction to take out everyone milling about on the steps around the statue: the group of eight or nine schoolchildren posing for a photograph; the couple snogging; the guy with half his ear missing, sitting a couple of metres away slowly munching on a burger.

Brookes’s stomach twisted. Bland was furious that it had come to this. Not furious in a loud, explosive way, but in that calm, wordless manner that was so much more threatening. But what else could he have done? Sam Redman had gone dark; Jacob Redman had not been picked up at any of the ports. They didn’t have any other hands to play. If it all went pear-shaped tonight, Brookes could expect to leave the table. Hell, he could expect to leave the casino.

Gillespie put two fingers to his earpiece. ‘All units ready,’ he told Brookes. Then he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, son. We’ve been here before. It’ll be a walk in the park.’

‘Just keep your mind on the job.’

Gillespie inclined his head. He obviously didn’t like taking orders from someone younger.

‘I mean it, Gillespie. If this doesn’t go like clockwork you’ll be drawing your pension before midnight.’

And so will I, he thought to himself. He dug his fingertips into the palms of his clammy hands and went through everything in his head. Piccadilly Circus was surrounded by rooftop snipers. All the watchers had been supplied with the target’s likeness. The moment Jacob Redman approached Dolohov, they’d move in. Ten vehicles were on standby – black cabs, white vans, sports cars, nothing suspicious. They would block off each of the six exits to the Circus, while an armed response unit of fifteen men closed in on the statue of Eros. Instructions: shoot to wound, not to kill.