The Pure

remained like this, crouching in an anonymous toilet cubicle, for a long time.
    By the time Uzi rode away from the airport, his rage had eased and a coolness of mood had taken its place; the storm had blown itself out, and even though the future was uncertain, he somehow had a new clarity of mind. He rode back towards the city, not allowing his bike to climb above sixty, not giving the machine its head even as it strained at the bit.
    Before long he was in East Finchley, driving up towards East End Road. The sky had taken on the colour of his old uniform; dark grey with a hint of blue. The dawn was about to break. On the horizon, a pale yellow light was beginning to appear. He stopped the bike across the street from number 83. Avner hadn’t told him precisely who owned the property; Uzi assumed it was a safe house of some sort, but that didn’t mean it was safe for him. The first few birds were beginning to sing, and a solitary bus rumbled past in the distance. Uzi put the bike on its stand and dismounted, then made his way quickly to the electricity box. He knelt down, examined it. There was no sign that it had been tampered with. It was a little stiff but the cover came away upwards, just as Avner had said. Inside was a suitcase fastened with a padlock. It was surprisingly heavy. Uzi strapped it to the back of his bike and rode away in the direction of Muswell Hill, looking for somewhere inconspicuous.
    In an alleyway by the edge of a small park, Uzi killed the engine and dismounted. A fox trotted from bin to bin in the shadows. He searched his memory for the code – 9826 – and opened the padlock on the suitcase. Inside was a small safe with a combination lock. He looked around. Nobody. He entered the number 2034. The lock clicked and the safe popped open.
    Inside, just as Avner had promised, was the Canadian passport and driving licence, both under the name of Jay Maxwell Taylor. Alongside it was a bundle of hundred-dollar notes wrapped in clingfilm. Uzi estimated forty or fifty thousand dollars. Beneath these were three credit cards, also in the name of Mr J. M. Taylor, with their PIN numbers written on stickers on the back. Uzi memorised them, then peeled the stickers off and discarded them. Finally there was an Austrian-made 9mm Steyr M9 self-loading pistol. But this was no ordinary gun. Being made entirely of plastic, it could be carried undetected through metal detectors. This was every Office operative’s favourite toy; small enough to conceal comfortably on an aeroplane, yet large enough to pack some serious stopping power. There was a box of bullets, as well – plastic yet deadly. Uzi loaded the weapon. Then he pressed it into his waistband, dropped the rest of the slick into the cavity beneath his motorcycle seat, and disposed of the suitcase and safe. Then he gunned the engine and rode off into the heart of London.

 
37
    Morning was breaking. The revellers of central London had gone home, and street sweepers shuffled along the gutters. On Portman Square, in the car park beneath Home House, all was still. The dawn light was moving from orange to grey outside, and the occasional sound of traffic could be heard.
    A steel door at the back of the car park opened and a figure emerged, cradling a motorcycle helmet under his arm. He threaded his way through the gleaming luxury cars, ignoring his reflection that stretched and contracted across the highly polished contours. He arrived at his vehicle, mounted and put the helmet on his head, muffling the world. His mouth tasted of strong coffee and cigarettes – he had not slept last night – and his mind was gripped by a combination of adrenaline and concentration that for years had pre-empted ‘no zero’ operations. This was it. Before lowering his visor and starting the engine, he checked that his R9 was fully loaded and ready to go, and he secreted in his inside pocket the plastic Steyr M9. Then he rolled the bike off its stand, twisted the throttle and moved out into the first light.
    London had a different character in the early morning, before the tsunami of the rush hour broke; on the roads distances shortened, journeys that would normally take the best part of an hour could be accomplished in mere minutes. As Uzi drove north, limiting his speed, he observed his surroundings carefully, making a mental note of everything that might have a bearing on what was to come: roadworks, lorries parked in the street, delivery vans unloading, pedestrian