Читать книгу Dirty Little Secret - Jon Stock - Страница 17

Marchant closed the door of his room, confident that Lakshmi was still sleeping, and walked down the corridor to the kitchen at the far end. Nothing had changed. It was here, five years earlier, that he’d first cooked Leila a meal – grilled mackerel, steamed samphire – when they were IONEC recruits, starting out on their careers. They’d eaten it cross-legged on the floor of her room like students. He pulled open a drawer, removed a kitchen knife and slid it inside his jacket before heading down the stairs and out into the courtyard.

The place was silent, except for the cry of a distant seagull. There was an archway on the opposite side of the courtyard. It was the only entrance into the Fort complex, and beyond it was a grass-roofed gatehouse with a light on inside. He knew most of the guards from his time at the Fort as an IONEC recruit. Hewn from the same granite as Oxbridge porters, they were long-suffering and had seen it all before, their manner a mix of respect and contempt.

He walked up to the gatehouse and knocked on the glass to get the sleeping guard’s attention. Marchant didn’t blame him. There were no recruits in residence, and it should have been an easy shift.

‘I need a car from the pool,’ Marchant said, glancing at the bank of flickering CCTV screens. The guard wasn’t familiar, but Marchant’s face in the window triggered something in him, recognition followed by a crude attempt to disguise it.

‘I’ve got orders to let no one in or out.’

Marchant raised his eyebrows. ‘No one? I thought everyone was in Helmand.’

‘You’re not to leave the site, sir.’

‘Says who?’

‘It’s for your own safety. Chief’s orders.’

So Fielding had sent him to the Fort for his personal protection. It was less obvious than Legoland, the staff nickname for MI6’s headquarters in Vauxhall. The Americans wouldn’t come looking for him down here. Things must be worse than he thought between Washington and London. Marchant glanced at the steel gates that rolled open and shut like a modern-day portcullis. Instead of feeling secure, he felt like a prisoner. The Fort was surrounded by twelve-foot-high MoD fencing on all sides, topped with barbed wire and security cameras.

‘OK, I’ll ring him in the morning.’

‘Anything else I can do for you, sir?’ the guard asked, glancing at the clock to remind Marchant of the unreasonable hour.

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘Good night, sir,’ the guard said, watching Marchant as he turned to walk back through the archway. There was only one way to escape.