Slow Horses полностью

While she was speaking Lamb had found a loose cigarette in his overcoat pocket, and was now trying to straighten it. His expression suggested this was currently his major problem.

Duffy wasn’t armed. Didn’t need to be. He said, ‘Okay, Lamb. Put that down, and drop your coat on the floor.’

‘Okay.’

Duffy couldn’t help it: he glanced at Taverner. She was glancing right back.

‘Something you should know first, mind.’

And now they both looked at Lamb.

‘The SUV your guy just drove under the building? There’s a bomb on the back seat. A big one.’

A second passed.

Duffy said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘Might not be.’ Lamb shrugged, then stared at Taverner. ‘I told you. I don’t do subtle.’

The desk guys weren’t as fond of Spider Webb as he thought, but everyone likes having information. Somebody had parked a Service car on the forecourt, and received the inevitable response: the security drones and a couple of Duffy’s boys, not long back from various errands. They’d surrounded the car until Duffy himself appeared.

‘Who was it?’

‘Jackson Lamb,’ the older desk guy said.

‘You sure?’

‘I’ve worked here twenty years. You get to know Jackson Lamb.’

The word sonny was all the more eloquent for remaining unspoken.

Lamb had come in under Duffy’s steam; was up on the hub. The desk guys’ monitors didn’t cover what happened there, but he hadn’t reappeared.

Spider chewed his lip. Whatever Lamb was up to, it didn’t involve the madwoman with the gun; or River, either. He mumbled his thanks to the desk guys, and didn’t see the look they shared as he headed back upstairs. On the landing he stopped by the window. Nothing was happening on the street. He blinked. Something was happening on the street. A black van screeched to a halt, and almost before it had stopped moving the back was open, allowing three, four, five black-clad shadows to pour like smoke into the morning. Then they were gone, headed into the underground car park.

The achievers, everyone called them. Spider Webb had always thought it a ridiculous name; a piece of jargon that shouldn’t have stuck, but had. They were the SWAT guys, who mostly did extractions and removals; he’d seen them in action, but only on drills. This hadn’t struck him as a drill.

He wondered if the building were under attack. But if so, there’d be alarms, and a lot more activity.

Through the window, the same nothing was happening again. Small disturbances only. A wind rearranged the trees over the road; a taxi passed. Nothing.

Webb shook his head; an unnecessarily dramatic gesture, given there was nobody to witness it. Story of his life. The joke was, last time he’d been close to anyone, it had been River Cartwright. Some of the courses they’d been on, you couldn’t get through without forming alliances; what people called friendships. More than once, he’d assumed that their futures would run on parallel lines, but something had prevented that, which was Spider’s slow-dawning realization that River was better than him at most things; so much so, he didn’t have to make a big show of it. Which was the sort of moment on which alliances foundered.

He carried on upstairs. Next flight up, he opened the door to his corridor, and one of the achievers stuck a gun to his temple.

Larry said, ‘That’s it. I’m done. You want to do this, you’re on your own.’

‘You’re going?’

‘It’s all fucked up. You can’t see that? We were only meant to scare him. Film it. Show them we meant business.’

‘Scaring them’s not business.’

‘It’s enough for me. You killed a spook, man. I’m leaving. Get back to Leeds, maybe just …’

Maybe hide under the bed. Maybe get home, and hope it would all go away. Close his eyes tight enough, and none of this would have happened.

‘No way,’ Curly said. ‘No fucking way are you going anywhere.’

Larry dropped the tripod and tossed him the digicam. It landed by Curly’s feet. ‘Still want to film it? Film it yourself.’

‘And how am I supposed to—’

‘I don’t care.’

Larry turned and started to pick his way along the track.

‘Get back here!’

He didn’t reply.

‘Larry! Get fucking back!’

Hassan said, ‘Soldiers, right. You’re soldiers.’

‘Shut up!’

‘Soldiers get shot for deserting, don’t they?’

‘Shut your fucking hole!’

‘Or what?’ Hassan asked. Inside him, the bubble burst. He’d soiled himself, wet himself, sweated and wept through days of fear. But now he’d come out the other side. He’d done the worst of dying: the knowing it was going to happen, the absolute shame of knowing he’d do anything to avoid it. And now he was watching his murderer’s plans crumble. ‘Show this on the internet, you fucking Nazi. Oh, right, you can’t, can you? You’ve only got one pair of hands.’

In pure blind rage, Curly hit him with the axe.