The Walking Dead

He was waved back to his seat and offered a drink. Didn't usually accept alcohol at work, but said he'd have a Scotch with ice and liberal water. It was given him and the assistant director perched on his desk, let his feet swing.

'She's a bright girl, has a brain on a computer's scale, just needs a bit of polishing round the edges — please, Dickie, don't huff and puff, because you're not good at it. You're right, of course. You saw it coming before that wretched photograph surfaced and that's because you're an old-school warrior. Suspicion, like malaria, gets into the veins and stays there. You've got it, a bad dose…Anyway, cheers and good health.'

Glasses were raised, clinked.

'I'm going to miss you, Dickie. Very sincerely, I will. Two reasons. First, my being something of a protégé of your father-in-law but, second, for your common sense and good reasoning. I'd, keep you on if I could. Human Resources wouldn't hear of it. I can't. On Friday night, Dickie, you finish. Now to the point. You wouldn't disagree with me if I suggested that we wriggled through by the skin of our teeth after the Underground and bus bombs — what the Iron Duke said after Waterloo is appropriate: "The nearest run thing that you ever saw." The knives were out for us but we were only nicked, and that won't be repeated. Another major catastrophe in London and there'll be a wholesale cull of the veterans, and those bloody little people in Anti-Terrorism will be crawling all over us and taking primacy. Lifetimes of endeavour, Dickie, yours, mine and many others', will be reduced to dust and ashes. You're following me?'

Naylor nodded. The decanter was eased closer to him and his glass was refilled.

'I called you an old-school warrior. You're from former times. Their benefit was that we concentrated on prevention, not the gathering of evidence to set before a court. Kept the Soviets at bay, the realm intact, and the dock at the Old Bailey hardly mattered. We won't have time on this one for evidence, only — if we're very lucky — for action and that's the "action', Dickie, of an old-school warrior. We may — and you have to believe that Fortune will look kindly on us — find, or have offered to us, a small window of opportunity in the hours before the inevitable detonation of the bomb that will, I have no doubt, be carried by this ghastly young man to a point of maximum impact. Only a small window — are you following me, Dickie?'

He lifted his glass as acknowledgement. He was.

'I take no pride in saying it, but the new broom — the Mary Reakeses of our Service — are so damned moral. They care for the fine print of legality. You don't, Dickie, and probably I'd follow in your lane. The attack will be this week, that's a certainty, and it will be on your watch, Dickie. If that window were to open I'd like to think you'd know how to scramble through it with vigour, and without the constraints of a more conventional morality. It's in your past, am I correct? It's a different war and we may have to dirty our hands. I'm sure you know what's necessary…Thanks for staying on, and my best regards to Anne.'

Naylor took the stairs down.

Mary looked up from her screen. She said briskly, 'Well, you were right and I was wrong. We're going into lock-down. Oh, the source of it all will be here in the morning, Mr Josiah Hegner.'

'By whose invitation?'

'Not mine; He invited himself.'

He felt a net tightening round him, like the noose on the neck of a prisoner when, long ago, they were taken to interrogation. He seemed to see mud and filth encrusted on his hands.

* * *

'Hello. Surprise, surprise. Is that meeting over already, Banksy?'

'No, still in full swing.'

The armoury used by the Delta and Golf and Kilo teams was in the police station's basement. It was the territory of Daff, a predictable Welshman in blue overalls, who clung with adhesive commitment to his Caerphilly accent. Behind the counter, stacked on racks, was weaponry sufficient to start a small war. It was where Banks came any time there were demons in his mind, and he found comfort there — never failed to. Late on that Sunday evening, he needed it bad.

'Beg pardon, I'm not understanding you, Banksy. Big flap, everybody in, pagers bleeping. Why aren't you sitting in?'

'Not wanted,' Banks said grimly. 'Had the door shut on me.'

'That's ridiculous, a man like you and with your experience, daft…I have to say, Banksy, I had heard there was friction in the Delta lot.'

'A bit of friction, but I didn't think it would come to this. I was told there was a query about me, about my commitment. I was put out of the briefing before it started.'