You Think You Know Someone

by J B Holman

  Julie looked around the room, at Frankie and the other guards. If she was going to act, she needed to act now.

  The Prime Minister stood in his front room, his wife on one side and his adopted son on the other. The Scotch was in a glass, in a hand that was still shaking. He recounted the story.

  ‘And then he drove off?’ asked Foxx at the end.

  ‘Yes. I got out. I had to have the last word. He was tapping in the satnav, so I stuck my head through the window and said: “You can tell your boss, whoever he is, that I am not resigning.” And he said: “I think you’ll find that you are. And he’s a she, anyway.” Then he drove off.’

  ‘So you didn’t have the last word.’

  ‘I did. I had a whole stream of them, but they were rather vulgar and not worthy of repeating here.’ His wife looked reproachful.

  His son looked quizzical. ‘You didn’t see the address he was entering in, did you?’

  ‘No. not exactly. It was some place in Essex definitely. Two words, maybe Farlington Churchtown.’

  ‘Faringdon Churney?’

  ‘Storrington? It’s Eduard Foxx here. I need your help. I don’t have time to explain, but Dirk Swengen is your man, a Black Ops freelancer who calls himself Blackheart. He’s the assassin and is heading for Farringdon Churney right now. I’ll send you the address. He’s meeting his accomplice. She’s behind all the attacks.There’s more you should know. Meet me here tonight, just you. It was Swengen who killed your men in Barrow. And Lewis. He needs to be put down.’

  Storrington had only one question.

  Foxx answered.

  ‘Six foot four.’

  Storrington hung up. The hunt was on.

  ‘Hello, Anti-Terrorist Squad? This is Julie Connor at GCHQ in Cheltenham. I have information about a current terrorist attack. Please note this down.’

  Julie was in the ladies toilet. Frankie had escorted her there. He had said that she would leave the cubicle door open and he would keep an eye on her, but when he got to the ladies, he waited outside. He had no desire to enter a female toilet. He knew there were no windows and assessed that she was not a suicide risk. He knew Julie, he liked her, she was a good sort - apart from being a terrorist. She gave him big huggy kiss in gratitude and slipped his phone out of his inside pocket and went into the privacy of the ladies to do her business.

  ‘There is an on-going terror attack. The Prime Minister’s life is in jeopardy. We have significant and convincing evidence that the plot to assassinate the Prime Minister has been planned and run by a cell in Farringdon Churney, led by a woman.’ She gave the postcode. ‘We believe the occupants are engaged in an assassination attempt right now. The trigger for the bomb might be her telephone. Do not let her use it. She has engaged the services of a number of top rogue operatives. They are the ones that killed the officers in Barrow. They are very dangerous. Do not let the locals near the place. You need to plan the assault with care. I have to go now. We’re tracking activities. Thank you.’

  She gave her Frankie a big phone-replacing hug and hoped to god that Foxx had got Blackheart before Blackheart gets her.

  32

  Blackheart’s Triumph

  Blackheart was king of his world. He had total freedom, living by his own rules, outside society and without fear of the law. It was a life without restraint or restriction. He drove his black car through the black night with no lights, at great speed towards Farringdon Churney.

  It had been a good day. He had deposed a Prime Minister, assassinated a would-be military leader and changed the balance of power in one of the world’s most significant countries – and, as always, had done it from the shadows. He loved his job.

  But a job isn’t finished until the clearing up is done; and that meant a trip to Farringdon Churney and to Mrs Tenby aka Bettie Slaker. She was treacherous, manipulative and self-centred – all qualities he admired. More than that, she was ambitious – a character trait which could generate more work for him in the future. He had studied her, stalked her and researched her carefully as a potential partner in business. He approved - her wheelchair made her no threat and her lack of sexuality made her no temptation. They’d spoken only once to agree the terms and define the task, but emails and burner phones don’t allow you to look someone in the whites of their eyes nor to read darkness in their soul. This was his mission tonight.

  She was expecting him to make contact, but not in person. He was deliberately off-plan to catch her off-guard – that’s how to get the real measure of a person. The visit would be as much a surprise as it would be brief. Blackheart didn’t want to risk being seen with her – just a quick in-and-out to get paid, to lay some unseen incriminating evidence on his employer as insurance in case he should ever need it; and to decide if he could trust her.

  He had left an angry, deposed Prime Minister behind him, had pointed the car towards Essex and flicked through his Communications Tracker. He searched on Julie Connor.

  Yes! Arrested - Borden Army Base - Military prison. Easy target.

  His fake ID would get him access to the cell, then all he needed was a well-practised 3-2-1: three seconds, two moves, one broken neck.

  Job done.

  ‘Maria,’ he said, forcefully down the phone.

  ‘Captain de la Casa here, sir.’

  ‘Captain, we finish it tonight. This is where it ends. It’s not Foxx. It’s Dirk Swengen and some woman. She’s the brains, he’s the trigger. We need to take them both out. No court case, no trial by jury. We conclude it tonight.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Co-ordinates coming over now. Arrive with stealth. Be very careful.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Maria, I mean it. Be careful on this one. It could be booby-trapped. He’s dangerous and he has nothing to lose. Don’t let him, or her, near anything that could be a detonator. Don’t take any risks.’

  ‘It’s Captain de la Casa, sir, and I will take him down, whatever the cost. Sir!’

  Four minutes later she was airborne making a beeline for a little commuter village in Essex. Tonight would change the course of history. She had to get it right. She had to earn the respect of the only man it was worth receiving it from. She would not let him down.

  Storrington stood on the roof of his office building in Whitehall, by a large letter H, losing patience and building frustration. How long did it take to fly a chopper from Battersea to Westminster? Urgency was everything.

  He called Brekkenfield.

  ‘Stay tuned into the frequency,’ he said. ‘It’s going down tonight.’

  He called Hoy.

  ‘Get in the office. I need you on point. You’re in charge until I get back. And get a car to meet me at Biggin Hill.’

  ‘Is that where it’s going down?’ asked Hoy.

  ‘No, I have a house call to make.’ He hung up and pinched a sniff of snuff from his pocket.

  At last, he heard the throbbing familiarity of rotating wings echoing up the Thames and pulsating along the large white walls of Whitehall. It touched down for thirty seconds, the Commander stepped aboard. He gave the time-honoured sign of an upward pointed finger swirling once and the wheels left the ground.

  Blackheart did not drive to the front of the house - Blackheart never drove to the front of a house. He took a back road, saw a wide verge and tucked the car right up against the thick dark hedge. He jogged effortlessly across a small field, up a short footpath to join the track that led to the back of her house. He leapt, cat-like, onto a low flat roof and crossed it as silent as the night itself. There were no windows opening directly onto the flat roof, but at the very front edge, if he leant forwards far enough, he could reach, touch and prise open a badly sealed upstairs window. As quiet as air, he breezed through the window and into what, under previous owners, had been a young child’s bedroom.

  He set to work. In his business, incrimination was insurance. He left a copy of the Barrow letter, the one that had instructed the tree surgeon to remove the old oak that
had obscured a direct shot at the PM. He left a tee-shirt with Foxx’s DNA sweated into it, straight from Foxx’s wash-bin. He left parts of an unfinished lace bomb, like the one that had just downed the plane, lying next to Foxx’s plan for the attack. Then he took out a small Samsung tablet and a USB drive. He hooked into her Wi-Fi and began the download onto her computer. He was simply attending to unfinished business.

  He heard a noise, not with his ears, but with his intuition. He pulled out his hand cannon and watched the download bar on the laptop spin and loiter. The download stuttered before regaining pace. He picked up the gun and removed the safety catch. Someone was going to die tonight and it wasn’t going to be him.

  Keeping a chopper quiet is not easy; arriving by stealth, almost impossible. The hill behind the house would shield some of the noise, and the wind direction was on their side. The pilot set the chopper to silent running, which was a misnomer, but landed far enough away not to alert suspicion.

  ‘Formation. Stay in formation. No exceptions,’ briefed Captain Maria as they landed. ‘Beware booby-traps. Assume every door is rigged. Go in through the windows. Look for trip wires. He’s a tricky son of a bitch. When you see him, no questions, talk with your gun. Then find her. If we can take her alive, we will. We want her to talk. He likes explosives. Any sign of a detonator, shoot first, think later. This is not about revenge. We’re here to kill him. One more thing: none of you are to die. That’s an order. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Captain, sir.’

  They touched down and ran in formation to the cottage. The clouds obscured the moon, the world was shades of black. Silently, they slid open the front gate and took position. The plan was simple: hide in the blanket of night, reconnoitre through the windows, then enter, two to check the downstairs and two upstairs, shooting anything that moved. This time the captain would be leading from the back. She was the third pair, following them in to reinforce where needed.

  She signalled the two pairs to move in. They slid out of sight, to the side of the house, to where the large lounge window overlooked the fields. Maria knew her role - stay put and watch until they were inside.

  But she didn’t. She broke formation.

  Her eye was caught by a window on the dark side of the house, it was upstairs and it was open. She needed to know what was inside. The plan said stay, instinct said go.

  She went.

  Her team crept like ninjas to the window of the lounge.

  Maria leapt onto the flat roof, almost as silent as the night. But not quite.

  Intuition inside the darkened upstairs room told Blackheart to pick up the gun.

  She tiptoed across the roof towards the window.

  Her men tiptoed round the other side of the house to peer into the front room. Bettie Slaker was sitting by a casual table, reading papers. They exchanged glances. She was the one.

  Maria drew closer and closer to the window.

  Blackheart unplugged the fully downloaded USB drive, slipped it in his pocket and took two steps across the room, knelt and raised his hand cannon towards the open window. The floor creaked as he moved.

  Bettie heard it. There was someone upstairs, someone in her house. She picked up her phone.

  Maria eased herself gently off the roof and into the window.

  Blackheart took aim.

  The team saw the phone, saw the lady pick it up, saw her go to press the buttons: Detonator! Four automatic weapons opened up in synchronicity, and in four short seconds they pumped two hundred bullets into the would-be assassin.

  Blackheart blasted twice at the silhouette in the window. She was a fish in a barrel, she flew backwards, blasted out of the window frame and landed slumped and motionless on the ground, twelve feet below.

  He grabbed his tablet and left through the same window that Maria de la Casa had just flown out of.

  ‘She’s not making a call now!’ said Number Four, looking at the mincemeat that was once a person.

  ‘Did you hear something?’ said Number Three

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Gunfire.’

  ‘I think the whole county did.’

  ‘No, not us. A pistol shot. Round the back of the house. C’mon, let’s take a look.’

  ‘No mate. Formation. We’re not to break formation. Everyone ready? OK. In we go!’ All four of them piled in through the large shattered hole that had once been a window.

  Blackheart jumped off the roof and walked rapidly down the back track, retracing his steps, away from the house, away from the body of Captain de la Casa and into the darkness.

  33

  Thumbs

  ‘Clear,’ shouted the team downstairs.

  ‘Clear,’ shouted the team upstairs. Number Three approached the window cautiously, gun at the ready and peered out. It was pitch black. The clouds cleared and the moon turned the opaque shape on the ground into a body - the body of their captain.

  ‘He shot Casa!’ he yelled. His eye fell on the open garden gate. Assumption drove his command. ‘He left through the gate. Get him.’ Eight boots charged out of the house.

  Number Three headed for the captain.

  ‘Leave her. She’s done. We gotta get Swengen.’ He left. They ran fifty yards, two to the right, two to the left. They stopped, looked, listened. Nothing.

  Storrington had landed. He made his way deftly to the track that led to the back of the house, there was a gap in the clouds, the moon lit his way.

  He strained his eyes, there was a figure coming towards him. A tall, slim figure shrouded in shadow.

  ‘I’m police. Are you Storrington?’ said the figure, as he walked at a pace towards him.

  ‘Yes,’ said Storrington. ‘Give me an update.’

  The figure became clearer. He was the same height as Storrington: six foot four, his belt buckle just visible, a gun already in his hand.

  ‘I just shot your captain.’ The gun was fully raised, his finger ready. But Storrington flicked his wrist.

  A knife with a four-inch blade flew like a silent missile through the cold night air and stuck deep into Blackheart’s bicep. His grip on the gun weakened. Storrington leapt forwards.

  Blackheart punched with his left. Storrington should have gone down, but he stood like a statue repelling rain. He raised his thumb and jabbed it hard into Blackheart’s neck and then into two vital pressure points. The gun dropped.

  A ferocious upper-cut flew at the Commander’s face. Storrington grabbed Blackheart’s arm and threw him. The toes of his boots sparked as they scuffed the stones. Blackheart was down. Storrington turned to pick up the gun, but it had vanished into the darkness. Blackheart pulled a second gun from his ankle and aimed it at Storrington’s head.

  The team heard the shot. They turned and ran back.

  Blackheart had drawn his gun, Storrington had been a target too big to miss. He had aimed, but too slow. The gunshot flew out of Maria’s pistol as she sprinted in agony along the path. Blackheart went down, but he wasn’t dead. She aimed to shoot again.

  ‘No!’ said Storrington. ‘Give me your gun.’ She passed her sidearm. He held it firmly. Blackheart opened his eyes and looked up at him. ‘For Pookey,’ he whispered and put a bullet through the left temple of his lover’s killer. The body fell. Vengeance assuaged.

  ‘Are you OK,’ they said in unison. Storrington assessed the blood, the shell shot damage to her bulletproof vest and the pain with which she moved.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’

  ‘I’d rather not say, sir, not now. Not if I don’t have to.’

  They hurried together towards the house to meet the four heading in the other direction.

  ‘Status?’ demanded the Commander, as they marched in a team back to the house. They each reported and led him to the front window. All six of them stared in. The scene was carnage.

  Then, through the silence of the night, there was the metallic sound of rifle behind them. They turned. A dozen barrels pointed straight at them.

  ‘Police.
Identify yourself.’

  ‘Special Security Service, Commander Storrington. Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Anti-Terrorist Squad.’

  ‘Who called you here?’

  ‘Julie Connor.’

  ‘Figures.’

  ‘What’s happening here? Looks like it’s all over and done.’

  ‘Yes. But we need some delicacy. National Security. My team have been in. The house is clear. A woman is dead in the front room and the would-be assassin is lying on the track up that way. I want him removed pronto. We can do it or you can do it, but he needs to be bagged up and disappeared.’ He led the DI in charge round the corner of the house to the lounge window.

  ‘Jesus H Christ,’ said the DI, as he looked at the blood-sodden wheelchair and its scarcely recognisable contents. ‘You know whose house this is, don’t you? That’s Bettie Slaker, friend and advisor of the DPM. What the fuck happened?’

  ‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened,’ said Storrington, considering the destabilising impact of having the DPM’s personal advisor being linked to an assassination, especially one that would have put her boss in the PM’s seat. He thought slowly, looked at the gory theatre of blood, took a deep breath and spoke clearly.

  ‘Yes. I will tell you exactly. She was murdered by a dangerous terrorist cell, all of whom were killed by the brave actions of your Anti-Terrorist Squad, with a loss of one officer’s life. The bodies have been removed by the PM’s SSS and identities will be revealed in due course. Can you and your team work with that?’