by James Quinn
He put in a call to Jojo McKay.
“Those locations we talked about for business,” said Grant over the phone. “I need one in or near the Hotel Continental in Tangier. That's the priority and as soon as you can. Like yesterday! The other one I need is over the border in my old stomping ground – their side, not ours. You understand?”
McKay grunted. He knew that he meant Berlin; East side.
“It has to be somewhere accessible. Somewhere I can get to out on the street. A park, a drain, you have a think and let me know,” continued Grant.
“The Tangier one is no problem, Jack,” said McKay. “I have people over there now, working; they can sort it out for me today. The other one… over the border might take a bit of planning. I can do it, just give me as much time as you can. Okay?”
“I'll try,” said Grant. “Just get back to me with the details of the caches and a price for everything.”
McKay sounded offended. “Jack, mate, this one is on the house. I don't know what is going on, I don't need to know. But if you're back in the game, it must be important.”
Grant put the phone down and took his suitcase down from on top of the wardrobe. He began to pack, trying to figure out what he would need, trying to second guess likely scenarios. He packed his lightweight, stone-coloured summer suit, brown loafers and several blue shirts that complemented it. A few pairs of slacks, short-sleeved shirts, underwear, socks and sunglasses. The last thing was his wash bag. It was filled with the usual complimentary scraps that he had picked up in hotels and locations that he had travelled to over the years. Soaps, shampoo, sewing kits, along with his standard comb, shaving cream, aftershave and, last but not least, his trusty straight razor. He rarely, if ever, used it to shave with; for that, he used disposable cheap razors. But this old cutthroat had been with him all over the world and had saved his life on more than one occasion. Let's be honest, he thought, lots of occasions. He held it for a few moments, rolled it around in his hand, flipping open the blade and practising a few lethal slashes with it.
The razor gave him comfort and confidence, and if he was about to walk into an ambush of unknown proportions, then the minimum that he wanted by his side was his old friend.
She heard the distant sound of birds tweeting. The country, she thought. I'm in the country.
Katy Grant rolled over and risked opening one eye. Gone was the cell room, the cold floor and the hood and the gag. Instead, it had been replaced by a charming and spacious bedroom. She ran her hands over her body; her clothes had been replaced by a simple white cotton nightgown that ended above her knees. The sheets of the bed smelled fresh and clean and bright light was flooding in through the window to her left, hinting at a bright summer's day.
Risking it, she swung herself out of bed and tried to get her balance on shaky legs. She looked out of the window and was greeted by an expansive and beautifully manicured lawn with a forest stretching way off into the distance. Austria? Switzerland maybe? Between the trees, she thought she caught the odd glimpse of a human form. Guards? Security? Dog walkers?
She turned and tried the door. Locked, of course, so she decided to explore the rest of the room. The bathroom was clinical but well equipped with both a bath and a shower. She stripped off her gown and luxuriated for ten minutes as the water coursed over her body. Inspecting the room, she opened up the wardrobe and found clothes in her size; jeans, t-shirts, underwear and sneakers. She dressed quickly.
There was a bell on a nightstand next to the bed, the type that would be used to summon a servant in the old days. The room was beautiful, but at the end of the day it was still a prison cell, no matter how comfortable someone might try to make it. She pressed the button and waited.
After a few minutes, there was a gentle knock on the door and she heard the turning of a key. The door opened and a fit, severe-looking man in a three-piece black suit and tie entered. He had the look of a pallbearer, dark and sombre and grey in manner. He's a functionary, she thought; a yes man, a man who knows where the bodies are buried.
“Good morning, Miss Grant. I trust the room is satisfactory?” he said. The voice was German, but with an English accent. It sounded strange, as if he was trying out the voice with the option of buying it at a later date.
“Where am I? I want to go home,” she said. She was sticking to a script in her head and no amount of people trying to be polite was going to divert her from it.
“I understand,” said the pallbearer. “If you would like to come with me, I will take you to my employer. He can answer all your questions.”
The pallbearer stood to one side of the door and extended a guiding hand to invite her to leave the room. In the distance, she could make out the figure of a guard in the corridor.
“Please, I understand your reluctance,” said the pallbearer. “But it will be for the best.”
She was torn. She wanted it all to go away. She hated it. But the reality was that she could not stay in the relative safety of this room forever. She needed answers. So, she nodded in acceptance and walked out.
They passed the guard; tall, young, armed, and then the pallbearer led them along oak-panelled corridors that were furnished with dark oil paintings. The building reminded her of a family-run hunting lodge that she had stayed in when she was a child. They came to a winding wooden staircase that led down to the main hall. A brief turn to the left and they were in an annexe that contained two huge doors. The pallbearer knocked and heard a faint, “Yes!” from inside.
“He will see you now,” said the pallbearer, his smile sickly sweet.
She looked at him one last time, grasped the handle, opened the door and, like Alice, stepped through the looking glass.
The room was set out like an old-fashioned study or library. Large bookcases, the smell of leather, a roaring fire in a hearth and two comfortable chairs to sink back into. Like most rooms of this ilk, it was dark and foreboding, with the meagre lamplight on the tables next to the chairs barely enough to penetrate into the corners. She had the feeling that it was a room that held secrets and was meant to overwhelm the unwary.
And to one side of the hearth was a silhouette, a shape. She thought, initially, that it was a scarecrow sat in a wheelchair. Then the scarecrow moved and turned the chair towards her. Not a scarecrow, but an old and frail man. His arms and chest through his shirt were stick thin, his face gaunt and his hair sparse and greying across his scalp.
She noticed his hands moved a control on the wheelchair and she heard the faint hum of the batteries as it kicked into life. Katy studied him as he got closer. She didn't think he was that old, perhaps late fifties or early sixties? But whatever was physically wrong with him had taken its toll and left him racked with pain. He looked haunted and the side of his face was scarred, as if he had been burnt badly at some point.
Was this her kidnapper?
“Katherine. Please come in and let an old man see you.” The voice was stretched, almost shrill, and the accent definitely confirmed what she had suspected. They were in Germany somewhere.
“I don't have any money,” she said simply, by way of response. “My family are not rich enough to be able to pay a ransom.”
“Tut, tut, Katherine, please! I have no need of money. I live a very affluent life by comparison to some. When you are as old as I am, the material things have little value. These days, I value the love of family and making peace with the world. And now I am happy. After all, I haven't seen you since you were a child – a baby, really,” he said.
She said nothing. Her instinct, born of fear, was to keep silent, hoping that her captor would fill the void and that she would learn more about where she was and what she was doing here.
“You have grown into a beautiful young woman. Ah, you have your mother's eyes… I can see that now. I know that you don't remember her, but I can definitely see her image in you,” continued the scarecrow. His voice had risen with excitement and that frightened her more than his face.
She flinched
at the mention of her mother, or rather the memory of her. Her mother was a lost manuscript in a misplaced chest. She only had the briefest descriptions from what her dad had told her about her. She had never asked him questions outright, rather relying on her dad to let slip a brief anecdote or story, which occasionally he would do sometimes. Aside from that, the concept of a biological mother was a non-issue. What you've never had, you don't miss. Besides, she had had a wonderful childhood with her aunt and uncle and then her dad. But this man, this stranger, knew her mother and knew her past. Would he have answers?
“Is this to do with my dad? Do you know him? Did he do something to you?”
The laugh was harsh and short and bitter. “Jack Grant and I, we were – how can I put it? – rivals in many ways, many, many years ago?”
“If you let me go now, I won't say anything. I promise. It's just that I know my dad. He'll come for me,” she said honestly.
“Oh, my dear, I fully expect the Gorilla to come after you. I know him of old. I know he would find a way to you.”
“He'll come for you, too,” she warned.
The old man laughed a sickly, bile-ridden laugh. “I'm absolutely counting on it! In fact, I hope to meet with him very, very soon. Gorilla is nothing if not predictable.”
“Gorilla? Who is Gorilla? What… you mean my dad? His name is Jack!”
“Liebchen, Gorilla is the cryptonym of Jack Grant. His secret service codename, if you like. His alter ego.”
“What? Are you saying my dad was a… a spy? That's ridiculous!” she sneered.
“No, not just a spy, but one of the greatest assassins of the Cold War!” His voice this time had dropped in tone; now she sensed a smattering of anger beneath the words.
She thought for a moment and replayed the evidence in her mind. Dad – a spy, an assassin, a killer? “I don't believe you,” she said, unconvincingly. Maybe there was a connection there that she didn't really want to admit to herself.
The man in the wheelchair ignored her, almost as if her ignorance of the situation had annoyed him.
There was a knock on the door and the blond man from Rome, the man who kidnapped her, entered. He was wearing an open-neck shirt, which accentuated his physical upper body strength, and jeans. He strode over confidently and stood next to the man in the wheelchair. They shook hands and the blond rested his hand on the shoulder of the crippled man. The gesture was very much that of a protector.
“Ah, at last! Katy, I would like to introduce you to Peter. Peter is my son,” said the man in the wheelchair, smiling.
I thought this day would never come, he thought to himself. To finally, after all these years, have this pawn of a girl under my control and to have my revenge over Gorilla Grant.
Book 2: Draw the Weapon
Chapter One
West Berlin (British Sector) – 1958
The four men were seated around the table, a map and a mug of coffee in front of each of them. They had all been in Berlin for less than a day and this was their first chance to learn about each other and what they would be doing in the spy capital of Europe.
The overall Commander and their 'boss' was Stephen Masterman, retired Colonel of British Special Forces, who had been recruited into SIS after having a 'good war', mainly in Europe, where he had run partisan networks, conducted sabotage operations and carried out the odd bit of throat slitting on the side. It was Masterman who was standing, leading the briefing.
“Just so that you know, the moment that you stepped foot on German soil you officially became a civilian. You are no longer in the military. SIS runs, owns and pays us. So don't get caught! We are officially, unofficial!” said Masterman. He was dressed in his habitual polo neck, jacket and dark slacks and was adopting his usual tone of a teacher instructing his favourite pupils.
To the local SIS Station they were known as the Covert Operations Group, and they were there to run deniable operations of whatever the SIS Head of Station needed; kidnapping, infiltration/exfiltration, cross-border work, bit of rough stuff and maybe more. They operated as a solo entity, answered only to Masterman and informally they were known as the Gutterfighters. The name suited them because that was where they would operate; in the darkness, on the street with the gutter rats, fighting tooth and nail by using dirty tactics to win.
“So let's give you the current state of play about Berlin, shall we? Although our base is here in the British sector, we will be working undercover wherever we have to – American, French sectors – but our main target is the Soviets. That's where the big money is!” he continued.
For months, the Americans and the Soviets had been treating Berlin as their own private espionage Wild West, where shootings, assassinations and kidnappings were considered a daily occurrence and the norm. SIS felt that they were being left out of the fun and had created a standalone, deniable unit to address the balance.
“And of course espionage,” added Masterman. “We will help SIS run some of their more risky sources as time goes by.”
Their base was a converted garage/workshop with offices above that was located on Fischerstrasse, in the Spandau borough of the British and American Sectors. Its entrance was located down a back alleyway that was seedy and dark enough to quickly discourage people from taking an unhealthy interest in the place. The workshop had an exterior gate that was heavily secured and was surrounded by a ten foot high concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Once inside the yard, a metal staircase took you up to the first floor office which housed the operations room, sleeping quarters and Masterman's office area. Downstairs in the workshop was where they kept the vehicles that they would modify for using on operations; surveillance, crossing the border and to generally move about the city covertly. The team would be fitting out and beefing up the security on the base themselves, doing the work rather than bringing in outside contractors from the main SIS Station, deciding that it was more secure to be autonomous and independent. It was discreet, secure, and unobtrusive; it was perfect for a covert operations team to work from.
“I've recruited you all personally because I think that you can bring something different to the table than the usual SIS chaps. You are all intelligence operations trained, have bloody decent German and Russian, know how to stay hidden and covert, and aren't afraid of getting your hands mucky when you have to… and that's oil or blood I'm talking about,” said Masterman, with a wink. It got him a smile; but deep down they knew there was a deadly serious point behind it all.
“So let's have a bit of a get-to-know-you pow-wow, shall we?” said Masterman.
Jack Grant looked around the room. Five of them; all tough-looking, all experienced in various covert capacities, but to the unwary they would have passed for factory workers, builders, black marketeers and mechanics. It was only the steely looks in their eyes and the almost imperceptible shape of 9mm pistols in covert holsters at their belts that gave them away.
'Tiny' John Blease stood six foot seven in his stocking feet. A former Sergeant in the Scots Guards, he was as rough and as tough as they come in a bar room brawl and had successfully boxed for his regiment. Blease had been part of the SIS team that had trained agents sent into the Soviet Union after the War. A fluent Russian speaker, he was the epitome of the gentle giant; except when he wasn't!
To his left was Bob Knights; a dour, wiry Yorkshire man who had been recruited from MI5's 'Watcher' surveillance teams. He had, underneath his bunk, a seemingly endless supply of cameras, electronic listening devices and radios. Knights had an almost Zen-like calm about him, as befitted someone used to spending his life as a professional voyeur.
Next to him was Simon Brown, an SIS German expert. The youngest member of the team, Brown had been stuck on the SIS Desk at Broadway in London and had wanted to get 'out into the field'. Brown not only knew the political, historical and social climate of the country, but he had also been brought in to help run various political sources for SIS. He had a bookish, studious look about him that earned him the nickname 'Profe
ssor'.
And then there he was – Jack Grant: a half Scot/half German former gang member, former black market failed entrepreneur, and now former soldier; 'Gorilla'. Good with a blade, even better with a gun and there to help with the rough stuff if and when it was needed.
So they were the team; the Gutterfighters. For the first two months, Masterman told them, they would be putting in the plumbing. They would be getting to know the city like the back of their hands, looking for the sneakiest routes across into the different zones, recruiting local sources to help with operations, spotting places to be used for dead letter drops and all the usual paraphernalia of the tradecraft that they would need.
Masterman threw a selection of blank IDs onto the table. “Here, take these and fill them in. They'll get you through most of the ID checks around the city. Fill them in with your German cover names. You are now officially contractors and maintenance personnel for the British Embassy – that's your bog standard cover. If you need something better for a trip across to the East, you'll have to run it by me first and I'll have to run it up the flagpole to the Head of Station. All clear?”
A series of nods from the Gutterfighters.
“Excellent,” said Masterman. “In that case, as this is our flagship team briefing, let's take the night off. Gorilla – get some beers from the pantry. Simon, be a good chap and go and get that bottle of Schnapps from my desk. Molle und Korn! Let's do this right and have a toast!”
They spent the first month, as ordered, getting up to speed on the pulse of Berlin.
