The Phoenix Series Box Set 1

by Ted Tayler

  Colin referred to his watch. Shit, only half-past twelve. If he was a proper punter, he had another couple of hours of this. Four hours if it was the weekend, he didn’t see the attraction. He finished his pint and went to the Gents. On the way back to the bar he stopped in the corridor and flipped open his mobile. He rang a Devizes number.

  “Can you have a van and a good car here in an hour to pick up our packages?”

  “If the traffic is light, we could do that. Where are you?”

  “We’ll meet at the entrance to the multi-storey near the Wyvern Theatre.”

  “What do we need to bring?”

  “Two pairs of strong arms should be enough.”

  “Will do, see you in a while.”

  Satisfied the targets would be in the club for an hour, at least, Colin returned to the Holiday Inn. His middle-aged sparring partner from this afternoon had gone. The old man who had replaced him looked half-asleep, no problem there then. Colin went up in the lift to his room, retrieved his backpack, and descended to the foyer again by the stairs. The man on Reception had his back turned and was doing a few stretching exercises. Maybe he had dropped off to sleep with the boredom and was taking desperate measures to wake himself up.

  Colin slipped quickly and silently out into the chilly night air. He checked his watch. It was less than five minutes’ walk to the car park. He had plenty of time.

  Wandering around a multi-storey car park late at night is not a particularly safe occupation. Colin could tell this ageing edifice only had a fraction of the vehicles that a more modern construction could hold. This was in his favour. He moved to the three levels searching for the gang’s large, flashy motors. In the early morning, it wasn’t too difficult to find them. They parked on Level 2 and only three or four spaces apart.

  Keeping in the shadows, Colin returned to the Ground Floor and looked for any sign of the brothers and their female companions. They were still in the club. The streets were almost empty. The occasional car or taxi passed by on the nearby main road. A few unsteady pedestrians made their way home after visiting a local kebab house. He waited.

  It was a quarter past one. Two vehicles turned off the main road and entered the small car park in the shadow of the multi-storey. As the people carrier pulled up opposite him, the driver flicked his headlights off and on again twice. A Porsche 911 slipped alongside it and a few moments later the two drivers got out and walked over to where Colin stood.

  “What’s the latest Phoenix?” asked the male driver of the people carrier.

  “Our targets are in a nightclub five minutes’ walk away. I doubt that the packages you are here to collect can walk that far on the heels they’re wearing. Somebody will need to collect the cars then do a scoop up outside the club. We need to be positioned to follow them wherever they go in Swindon.”

  “What is our exact role in this job?” the female driver of the Porsche asked.

  “Did you come equipped?”

  “You suggested a pair of strong arms on the phone,” said the man tapping the shoulder holster at the side of his chest, “we can play our part.”

  Colin briefed the two agents. He had imagined two or three different scenarios and as usual, worked through them in detail. Two things could prevent things from going as planned. First, the route the gang members would take when dropping the girls off was uncertain. Second, they could not be sure how the girls themselves would react if they attacked the vehicles and took out the two sets of brothers.

  For now, they must sit and wait for the party to return from the club. Colin joined his new colleagues in the relative warmth of the people carrier.

  Hayden Vincent was now twenty-eight years old. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a medic. Under fire in Helmand, he met Kelly Dexter, a Lance Corporal in the Logistics Corps. Kelly now twenty-six took shrapnel in the legs after a mortar attack. When they returned to the UK in 2010, Olympus approached them both and invited them to join the team. They were a couple. Where one went the other followed, so they headed to Larcombe at once for training.

  Over the past eighteen months, they had been living and working in Devizes. Colin knew Olympus had ‘sleeper’ agents scattered across the country. Direct action missions involved experienced professionals or gifted amateurs such as himself, but Hayden and Kelly received the same level of training as himself. He was happy that they would cope with anything this job threw at them.

  Colin sensed the two men’s approach before they materialised by the entrance to the car park. He motioned to his companions to cut any chatter and keep their heads down until the men had gone inside to collect their cars.

  Once the coast was clear, Colin nudged Kelly, and they got out of the people carrier and into the Porsche.

  A minute later the BMW and the Lexus descended the ramp and exited the multi-storey. As the cars eased onto the main road heading back to the club, Colin signalled to Hayden to follow them. Kelly followed behind him, keeping a sensible distance.

  “Who drove which car? Do we know?” asked Kelly.

  “Kamal Ahmed in the BMW; Farhan Hussein in the Lexus. The same as on the way into town.”

  Outside the club, twenty-odd people stood on the pavement. Taxicabs picked up fares. Colin noticed the woman who wanted him to buy her a drink earlier. She was gripping the arm of a large black man; he had to be twenty-five stone at least. She was plastered, but she looked happy enough. All’s well that ends well Colin thought.

  A few yards farther on, Colin spotted a group of girls being shoved unceremoniously into the back of the flash cars. Doors slammed. The shouting died, and the cars pulled away.

  “Okay, the Hussein and Ahmed brothers are using the same motor.”

  Hayden watched to see which direction the Lexus headed. His task was to follow at a discreet distance and then to photograph the details of the address where each girl got out. They could be collected later. Phoenix anticipated trouble at some addresses on his list, but if they needed reinforcements for the morning, they were only a phone call away.

  Farhan and Bassam Hussein were unaware a car was tailing them; they set off along Queen’s Drive towards to the A419. They dropped off girls in Walcot, Covingham, Stratton, and finally Pinehurst and headed back towards Old Town.

  Hayden moved his vehicle closer. They were on a deserted tree-lined road at half-past two in the morning. There were no cars or people anywhere in sight. Hayden accelerated. Farhan Hussein didn’t appreciate a people carrier overtaking him and ‘cutting him up.’

  “Bastard,” he yelled.

  “Let’s teach that white boy a lesson,” shouted Bassam.

  Hayden saw the headlights of the Lexus getting closer and closer. He turned off the main road into a quiet side street as if returning home after a night out. He slowed and parked. The Lexus swerved around him and screeched to a halt, sideways on in front of him.

  “What the fuck do you think you were doing,” screamed Farhan as he came around the front of the Lexus. Bassam had trouble opening the passenger door. Farhan had come to a halt so near to Hayden’s vehicle, he was stuck.

  Hayden slipped his gun out of the holster and removed the safety. Farhan was kicking the headlight on the passenger side of the carrier. It was time to carry out his orders. Phoenix had told him what Erebus specifically requested.

  Hayden stepped from the car and walked calmly towards the Lexus. He shot Farhan and turned toward Bassam who frantically tried to clamber over the driver’s seat to climb out of the car. The younger brother’s bulky frame made that impossible, Hayden shot him in the same area as he had Farhan. It was not an agent’s normal choice for a kill shot. The blood they lost from where their wedding tackle had been was significant and the two Hussein brothers lay bleeding and whimpering.

  Hayden sat in the car for a few minutes and checked his watch. He made a quick phone call to a clean-up crew in Shrivenham. He received confirmation they knew the precise location they had to come and were close at hand. Hayden shrugged and got ba
ck out of the car.

  “You haven’t suffered enough, but I’m needed elsewhere.”

  He finished the job with two headshots and drove towards Old Town.

  CHAPTER 8

  Kelly Dexter was an expert driver.

  Colin Bailey was a novice by comparison. Driving to the shops in a beach buggy back in The Gambia didn’t give him the credentials to carry out this job.

  Anjum Ahmed was a boy racer, even at thirty-five. He ignored the rules of the road, he was a nightmare to tail, but Kelly Dexter coped admirably.

  The Ahmed brothers only had two girls in the back of the BMW. The route they took when they left the club suggested that the flat, or house they were delivering them to was in Toothill or up near The Link centre.

  Anjum’s driving style alternated between aggressive acceleration and braking. He changed lanes whenever he pleased. He tried to see how close he could get to running a red light and used his mobile phone throughout. Anjum only ever had one big mitt on the wheel at any one time. Sometimes not even that. When he lit up a fag.

  “If the police pulled him over, he’d be riding a bike next week,” Kelly muttered.

  “Points on his licence are the least of his worries,” snorted Colin, “as for riding a bike. No chance.”

  Kelly followed the same procedure as her partner. Don’t let yourself be spotted. Photograph the addresses. Colin sat beside her, watched, and waited in silence. In time, both girls were out of the car and indoors. They may not be one hundred per cent safe yet, but their ordeal at the hands of their abusers was at an end.

  Kelly and Colin had to follow them back to their home. As the BMW began the trip back towards Old Town, however, it suddenly turned off at the Mannington roundabout. Then at the Mead Way turn off, the BMW sped away towards Blunsdon and the countryside.

  Colin thumped the dashboard.

  “Shit. They must have spotted us. Put your foot on it Kelly; you have to overtake them. Get as far as you can in front of them as soon as you can. We can’t let them get past the park further up here on the left.”

  “You’re the boss.” Kelly cried, and floored it. The Porsche 911 growled and leapt forward like a caged animal. Kelly fought the wheel with the skills that her advanced driving courses had drilled into her. She had been born to chase criminals in hot pursuit. It was the ultimate turn-on. The distance between the cars narrowed dramatically.

  Anjum Ahmed weaved across both lanes as he sensed the little car was trying to overtake. Kelly darted left, then right and feinted left again. Anjum moved to counter and Kelly went for the gap. The offside wheels spat gravel and then damp grass as the cars travelled neck and neck at eighty-five miles per hour. Kelly had two things in her favour. She had plenty more under the bonnet yet and once she got one hundred per cent on the tarmac, she would pull away.

  The other thing in her favour was that Anjum was bricking it big time. Kamal screamed at him to ram the Porsche, but he wanted to slow down. Every second on the limit of his driving ability was one second closer to him losing it and piling into those trees on the side of the road.

  Moments later and Kelly got in the clear. The headlights of the BMW receded. As they approached the far edge of the country park, Colin shouted for Kelly to stop. He told her to drive into the hedge on the right-hand side and leave the engine running. He ordered her to stay in the car.

  Colin grabbed his backpack and leapt out. Right, Colin thought, let’s hope this kit works. He opened the bag and unloaded the magnum spike. It was a wrap and roll system that was fast and easy to deploy. The fluted design made deep sizable punctures in tyres, which gave the user a controlled deflation and, therefore, no accidents.

  “As if we care whether the buggers crash,” thought Colin as the BMW sped around the corner.

  Thinking the Porsche driver had lost it on the bend, the Ahmed brothers ploughed on with a cheeky blast of the horn. They were still laughing at their pursuer’s misfortune when the magnum spike did its job. The BMW slowed and rolled to a stop. Kamal got out of the passenger door.

  “The bastards have done our tyres.”

  “A lovely night for it,” said Colin as he emerged from the trees. He raised the SIG Sauer, fired, and dropped Kamal where he stood. Anjum was out of the car and running; well, it was more of a waddle and a stumble. He sprawled full length on the tarmac and Colin wandered across as cool as you like.

  “Tanya asked me to give you this, Anjum.”

  Anjum tried to remember anyone called Tanya, but Colin pulled the trigger and it didn’t matter anymore.

  Colin waved for Kelly to join him. She eased the Porsche back out of the hedge and stopped behind the BMW.

  “I could have helped,” she said, revealing her Smith & Wesson MP Shield in her handbag.

  “Impressive,” said Colin, “a nice bag too. Do you think you could cram any more in there?”

  Kelly grinned.

  “A girl never knows what she might need when she goes off with somebody she’s just met.”

  “What we need now is a helping hand. Where are our nearest clean-up crew?”

  “Shrivenham, shall I call them?”

  “Please, can you order a two plus two? Then you can help me move these two over to the trees. Just in case anyone is still up at this ungodly hour.

  Kelly made the call.

  “I got an earful about getting them out of bed, but that’s what they’re there for. They’ll be with us in fifteen minutes or thereabouts.

  “Fair enough. I want to turn this BMW around and park it on the other side of the road facing back towards town. How can we do that?”

  Kelly walked to her car.

  “I told you I came prepared for everything Phoenix.”

  She produced a tow rope from the boot. Five minutes later the BMW was in position. Colin delved into his backpack. He placed items on the bonnet. Kelly drove the Porsche a hundred yards further on, reversed into a gateway and waited for the clean-up crew. When Colin had finished what he was doing, he joined her.

  “After the crew has cleared the scene, I’ll tidy up a few loose ends, but for now, all we can do is sit and wait.”

  In time, a dark van with tinted windows pulled up by the Porsche. The passenger door opened, and a man got out and walked over to the driver’s door.

  “Good morning, Kelly, I understand you’ve got packages to collect?”

  Colin got out of the car.

  “They are up there, opposite the BMW. After you’ve had a look around to check we haven’t left too much of a mess, I’ll torch the car. With luck, the police will chalk it up to joyriders.”

  “Okay, no worries. We have the kit we need to wash away any blood and we can collect any other bits you left lying around. Just give us five minutes. Kelly put a shout in for a two plus two, was that right?”

  “Yes,” replied Colin as they walked up the road together. “You should get a call before too long from Hayden, provided he met no unforeseen problems.”

  The driver of the van followed behind, at the sort of pace you associate with a hearse. Well, it seemed right in the circumstances.

  The two clean up men went about their work. Anjum and Kamal Ahmed were tossed into the back of the van. Every sign of anything unusual happening on that stretch of the road was completely removed.

  Colin torched the BMW.

  “We had better get out of here,” said Colin. “You two follow us back towards town and maybe park up in a lay-by to await your next call.”

  Kelly and Colin sped away in the Porsche heading for Old Town. The van followed on behind. As they arrived at the Mannington roundabout, the call came. Hayden heard he would receive his clean-up crew quicker than expected.

  It was after three o’clock; each of the four targets dealt with. Both scenes would soon be clean, and no sign of anything untoward left. The only blot on the landscape a burnt-out high-performance car by the side of a country road; kids today, eh?

  Kelly and Colin waited outside the entrance to the big
Victorian house that the four brothers had occupied. Hayden arrived in the people carrier several minutes later.

  “Everything went to plan then Phoenix?”

  “Of course,” said Colin.

  “What next?”

  “Drop me off at the Holiday Inn. I’m off to bed. You can drive home to Devizes and get to sleep. First thing in the morning, visit the addresses and pick up the girls. Do you think you can manage that?”

  “It will be a breeze,” said Hayden.

  “Who will be my taxi-driver?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Hayden. “Kelly, you can get off home, stick the blanket on and warm the bed up for when I get home.”

  Colin looked at Kelly. Hayden, you lucky swine, he thought. I’m at the Holiday Inn; you’re in clover.

  The three agents were tired but happy when they awoke. Colin went for a hearty breakfast and afterwards walked across to the station. He rang the transport section for a minicab to collect him from Bath Spa. He should be back at Larcombe Manor by the end of the morning meeting.

  Kelly and Hayden returned to Swindon in the people carrier with another young female agent on board and collected the victims. One or two of the property owners needed a gentle tap to keep them in line. Hayden saw to that. The girls were confused and most of them strung out. The nurse and Kelly reassured them they would be looked after.

  In an hour, they were on their way to the medical centre at Larcombe. The physical side of their ordeal over. They would receive medical attention before they transferred to the safe house. They would have their reliance on drugs tackled. With care and attention and the passage of time, it was possible the mental side of their ordeal would be behind them too. They faced a long journey.

  In other parts of Swindon, life went on as normal. Normal for Swindon that is.

  In a side street in Rodbourne, a Lexus blocked the driveway to No43. It was empty, locked up tight with no sign of its registered driver, a Mr Anjum Ahmed. Miss Ethel Perkins, eighty-six years old, wanted to drive into town, to buy cat food. She was not happy. She told the man at the council so when she rang him.