by Guy Roberts
‘No. They don’t know about David’s email. They think I’m at lunch.’ He sighed regretfully. ‘You should know something. David said there was a leak in COBRA.’
‘COBRA?’ Jack asked.
‘Cabinet Office Briefing Room A,’ Andrew explained. ‘It’s like the Situation Room in the White House – it’s where the Prime Minister goes if there’s a terrorism scare or if the country is under attack. Your brother was a senior officer there, second only to the Chairman.’
‘So who do they think did kill David?’
Andrew shrugged. ‘Everyone thinks it’s the Russians. The thinking is they got you to do the dirty work on David, then tried to double-cross you before you could escape. They want you alive, spilling secrets about what the Russians told you.’
‘And you? Why didn’t you just tell the police to wait for me here?’
Andrew looked at Jack for a long moment. ‘Because I trusted David Starling,’ he explained simply. ‘A week ago he told me there is a leak in COBRA, someone high up. He wanted you to help plug the hole, or at least that’s what he told me. That’s why I’m following his instructions to meet you like this. Whoever killed David must have been part of the establishment – so that means the only person he could trust was someone like you, who had been out of the game for years. Except you got here too late.’
Jack nodded. He had suspected something of the sort on both counts – that David Starling had not trusted those around him and that the police would rather find Jack than uncover the real secrets behind David’s death. Still, Jack mused, one step at a time. He looked back to Andrew Freeman.
‘So how did David send the email to you?’ Jack asked at last.
Andrew smiled. ‘It’s easy to send an email automatically – pretty basic IT, actually – and David knew his way around computer software. He could have been a professional hacker, if he wanted to. All he had to do was to set up an email to be sent after a specific trigger – you might have visited a website, opened an email, logged into something, or even just turned something on. Anything could have triggered the email.’
Jack remembered flicking the mobile phone open that morning. That might have been enough to send the message – like a dead man’s switch.
‘And what did the email from David say?’ he asked.
Andrew took a sip from his pint. ‘To call that number and set up the meeting at this pub. He said that only you would understand which pub he was talking about. And finally, once we did meet up, I was to give you this…’
Andrew slid a postcard across the table. Jack looked at him cautiously for a moment, then picked it up. It was a profile of an equestrian statue, a man on horseback, one arm raised in a gesture of command.
‘It was delivered to my desk this morning,’ Andrew explained, ‘about five minutes after David’s email.’
‘I know that picture.’ Jack frowned. ‘That’s the Duke of Wellington statue, at Aldershot Barracks. I used to train there.’
Andrew nodded, looking at him expectantly. ‘There’s a message…’
Jack heard the note of caution in his voice, then flicked the postcard over and read the words on the back. Jack felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. It was one of the stanzas from the poem tucked into his jacket pocket. Jack read it through word by word.
Once first of London over see
From arch inverse then fired Alder flee
Satyr’s service held thee fast, and proudly of his daughters cast
To shadow victors every breath, yet rode this rider after death’
‘David wrote this.’ Jack looked across the table suspiciously.
Andrew nodded, looking at him over the edge of his pint as he took a swallow. ‘Yep.’ He sighed. ‘It might have been the last thing he did before… before he was murdered. He set it all up. The email, this postcard, the telephone call to you.’ Andrew put his pint to one side and leaned across the table toward Jack and spoke carefully. ‘And the email had a final message for you.’ He recited in a low voice, ‘The poem will lead you to the gold.’
‘What?’
Andrew repeated himself. ‘The poem will lead you to the gold.’ He leaned back. ‘Just that. I have no idea what it means.’
Jack frowned. ‘I don’t get it, what the hell are you saying? My brother gets murdered and he sends me a postcard?’
Andrew raised his hands in the air. ‘Jack,’ he declared, ‘I have no idea myself. I did IT work for your brother at COBRA and all I know is that if anyone in this country ever had a plan, it was David Starling. He told me to give you that postcard and that’s what I did. I don’t know what gold he’s talking about, but I’ll bet that you do.’
Jack frowned. The gold… Napoleon’s Gold?
Could it be true?
The girl had sworn it, at gunpoint. Deschamps had killed for it and threatened to kill again. But why then did David play at such a ridiculous game? Why summon him from America, only to leave a mysterious poem hidden in the wainscoting of their childhood home. And again, here, with Andrew, lines from the same poem, written in David’s hand and delivered to him after his death.
Jack looked across at Andrew in bafflement. ‘Just what the hell am I supposed to do?’
Andrew leaned back with a sigh and ran his hands through his hair.
‘Jack,’ he said eventually, ‘I’m just an IT staffer in COBRA. But I knew your brother – and I trusted him. The only reason I’m here is because I still trust him. Now, you can go straight to the police and let them sort this out…’ He took another slow drink of his beer, staring at Jack levelly. ‘But I don’t think that’s what David would have wanted,’ he continued. ‘Whatever is going on, David has put enough cards on the table to give you a choice. You, me, this postcard. It’s up to you. Make the choice. Go to a police station, or go find the gold.’ A slight frown crossed his face. ‘Whatever the ‘gold’ is. Or whatever the hell it isn’t. I figure you would understand what he meant.’ Andrew trailed off in confusion.
Jack grimaced. ‘I don’t know. A crazy poem and a statue of the Duke of Wellington? That smells like idiocy to me, not bloody gold.’ They looked at each other in shared frustration. ‘What am I supposed to do, go to Aldershot and find a secret message on a statue of the Duke of Wellington?’
Andrew drained the last of the beer from his pint glass and stifled a quick burp. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what you have to do.’
There was an insistent buzzing in Jack’s pocket. Jack pulled the slim cell-phone from his pocket and looked down at it suspiciously.
‘David’s phone,’ he explained. The words ‘ANONYMOUS CALLER’ were stencilled across the touch screen. He looked at Andrew’s equally mystified face.
Jack shrugged and swiped his finger across the touch-screen to accept the call.
‘Mr Starling.’ The French voice was urbane and relaxed. Jack pushed the cell phone hard against his ear, struggling to hear over the crowded pub.
‘I was quite offended when you hung up on me,’ Deschamps purred, ‘but really, now I find it is quite enjoyable, this game of cat and mouse.’ A crease of worry spread across Jack’s forehead. ‘…but not even Sherlock Holmes can hide you from me.’
Jack swept his eyes around the crowded pub. The place was full of the luncheon crowd, a near deafening babble of cheery voices and shouted laughter.
‘What do you want, Deschamps?’ Jack ground his teeth.
‘Your brother had information that belongs to me.’ The relaxed voice suddenly hardened. ‘I want it. Midnight tonight on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. It doesn’t matter where you go, Mr Starling. I will find you. This is your last warning. Next time, you will be killed, not warned. If I do not see you at midnight tonight on the steps of St Pauls Cathedral, then you will not live another day.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Jack frowned.
‘Midnight tonight on the steps of St Pauls Cathedral, Mr Starling. Be there.’
The phone went dead. Jack’s lips narrowed.
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‘What’s wrong?’ Andrew asked.
Jack could feel his senses move to high alert, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling as he got ready for action.
The waiter bustled over. ‘Hey mate,’ he leaned forward, passing a small box to Starling. ‘The guy at the bar just asked me to give this to…’ He trailed off, looking at the bar in confusion. ‘Well, he was there just a moment ago.’
‘What did he look like?’ Jack asked urgently.
‘A tall guy. Thin. Sounded French. Looked pretty handy.’ The waiter shrugged. ‘Sorry mate, gotta get back to it.’
Jack nodded, then cautiously opened the small cardboard box. It was filled with cotton wool, at the centre of which was a single bullet. Three inches long, tapered at both ends for increased aerodynamics, the bullet sat in the box with sinister intent.
‘That’s a sniper’s bullet.’ Andrew frowned.
‘That’s right.’ Jack sighed. ‘Someone is trying to send me a message.’ He drained his pint and sat it back on the table firmly. ‘The man on the phone is called Deschamps – the man behind David’s murder. He says I have information.’ Jack explained. ‘He wants it. That bullet is a warning not to disobey.’
‘A pretty good warning, right?’ Andrew looked increasingly nervous.
‘Pretty good, perhaps.’ Jack nodded. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
He slipped the bullet into his jacket and led the way out, through the kitchens of the pub and into the back alleyway.
‘So why did he give the bullet to you?’ Andrew was walking rapidly, trying to get as much distance between them and the restaurant as possible.
‘To show I’m being watched.’ Jack frowned as they walked northward. ‘To show how easily he can track me down. The problem is he can do it pretty damn well.’
‘But why is he doing this?’
‘Deschamps thinks I have information from David – that somehow David gave me something before he died.’
‘And did he?’
Andrew’s question made Jack pause. He was not yet ready to trust Andrew – there was no need for the IT staffer to know that David had left a much longer poem for Jack to decipher.
‘No.’ Jack shook his head. ‘Only this phone… and the postcard.’
Deep in thought, they jaywalked across the road and ducked into the calming greenery of Regent’s Park.
‘I don’t understand how the hell they found us.’ Jack declared eventually. ‘Did you tell anyone where you were going, or who you were meeting? Anyone?’
Andrew shook his head. ‘I know enough to shake off a tail – and no one could have understood the message over the phone.’ They stopped on a little footbridge of iron and concrete. Ducks circled in the green water below and Jack looked moodily southward toward the broad water of the Park’s Boating Lake.
Jack frowned as he pulled his brother’s cell-phone out of his pocket. ‘The phone itself?’
Andrew nodded cautiously, looking down at the cell-phone with suspicion. ‘Got to be – an active trace. So long as that phone is turned on, it’s a homing beacon – they could track you all over London – or all over Europe, probably. These days it’s the standard way for police to keep tabs on a criminal.’
Jack nodded, then moved to toss the cell-phone into the water.
‘Jack!’ Andrew exclaimed in surprise, clutching at Jack’s arm before he could complete the throw.
‘What?’ Jack looked at him angrily. ‘You want Deschamps knowing exactly where I am?’
Andrew shook his head. ‘It’s not that – I mean, it’s a risk, of course, but how else can they speak to you without the phone? I know you won’t meet them at St Pauls – that would just be a trap, but they said they’d kill you!’
‘They did say that.’ Jack nodded. ‘But it was a bluff. We’re both operating in the shadows – and so long as I stay hidden, I’m ahead of the game. Getting rid of this phone makes killing me that much harder. I already know they’re after me. When I’m ready, I’ll let them come.’
‘Why?’ Andrew frowned.
Jack smiled in anticipation. ‘Because by then I’ll be waiting… and then it’ll be their turn to start running.’
‘Look, Jack.’ Andrew’s voice was quiet and intense. ‘This isn’t a game.’
Jack smiled bitterly. ‘I know that. So did David, remember?’
Andrew nodded, realising he had gone too far. ‘So what are you going to do?’ You can’t be seriously thinking of going to St Paul’s?’
Jack stood still for a long moment and eventually shook his head. ‘No,’ he decided, ‘I’m going to follow David’s directions. He was clever enough to send me a message in case he was killed. All I can now do is follow that message.’
He held the cell-phone in his hand for a moment, then tossed it negligently into the deepest corner of the pond. It vanished into the brackish water without a sound. Jack smiled. He had decided.
‘Tonight I’m going to Aldershot, to see what the statue has to say.’
‘What about me?’ Andrew asked.
Jack frowned for a moment, not sure what he meant.
‘I want to help somehow, Jack,’ Andrew explained. ‘David was my boss and a good friend too. Whatever this is about, I know you’re on the good side. I want to help.’
‘Ok,’ Jack nodded slowly. ‘You go back to work for now – see if you can find out anything about Deschamps. And try and figure out what the words on the postcard meant. Do you need a copy?’
Andrew shook his head, tapping at his left temple gently. ‘It’s all up here.’
‘Good. See what you can figure out about that poem,’ Jack nodded. ‘But I’ve got some other things I need you to find out too…’
1630 hrs 14 June 2015, COBRA, Whitehall, London.
GR 51.503721, -0.126270
‘Why haven’t we got Jack Starling under lock and key yet?’
Brice glowered around the room. He had been prowling the COBRA office for more than 15 hours straight and his dishevelled appearance had become even more slovenly as his frustration grew. Sir Johnathon sat by his side, looking pensively at a corner of the ceiling. There were slight lines of exhaustion around the older man’s eyes, but no other signs of fatigue. Michelle Highgrove had her head down. The rest of the security officers around the table shifted uneasily, avoiding one another’s eyes. The rhetorical question hung in the air over the conference table. A Naval Commodore had been seconded to COBRA from Military Intelligence and he sat lazily across from Brice watching the room with an air of mild interest.
‘All right.’ Brice sighed heavily, grabbing a dossier from the centre of the table. ‘So we start again. James Christopher Starling, codename Frosty, AKA Frosty the Snow Man, AKA Jack Frost.’ He read from the front page. ‘What else do we have on him?’
‘SAS Veteran.’ Sir Johnathon spoke without looking away from the confusion of cables and piping that festooned the ceiling of the briefing room. ‘He did some very good work in Kosovo and Freetown and was outstanding in the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11.’
There was a slight pause, as everyone in the room paid a silent tribute to the victims of that day of terror.
‘So, he’s a fighter,’ Brice concluded. He felt slightly nervous at the idea of physical violence. The mere act of meat punching meat was nothing, surely, compared to the elegance of mental combat, but deep in his heart, when he was alone and tired, Brice sometimes wondered if this was merely an excuse he gave to cover his own cowardice.
‘Oh yes,’ Sir Johnathon nodded absently, ‘a most formidable fighter. Earned the Queen’s Medal and the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst, helped tie the Army/Navy rugger match in ‘92 and won the Combined Services Boxing Championships three years in a row.’
‘Pffft.’ The Naval Commodore on the other side of the table snorted and Sir Johnathon looked at him mildly. ‘Well, come on James,’ Sir Johnathon protested, ‘it’s not Jack Starling’s fault the Army has held the cup since ’86.’
‘If you d
on’t mind,’ Brice interjected heavily, looking at them both in exasperation. It was almost as if they knew his contempt for such physical prowess and were rubbing it in his face.
Sir Johnathon smiled apologetically. ‘And, of course, he was an awarded veteran with the rank of Major.’
Brice frowned. ‘So he could fight, we get it. But why didn’t he stay in the Army?’
Sir Johnathon looked down to where his hands clasped one another on the table. ‘It’s classified.’
‘This is a classified room.’ Brice shot back.
‘More classified than that.’ Sir Johnathon was unperturbed.
Brice flared his nostrils contemptuously, turning to the dossier once again.
‘So he served in Kosovo… Afghanistan – lots of redacted information…’ Brice flipped through several pages that were nothing but thick black lines. He peered interrogatively at Sir Johnathon. ‘If there’s anything important in this black patch that you’re not telling me, it’ll be your fault.’
Sir Johnathon was silent for a moment. ‘Jack Starling was mis-served by the Government,’ he said eventually. ‘An operation in Afghanistan went badly wrong and he was captured. David and I were both to blame for that, and he knew it. In fact, if Jack Starling is motivated by revenge, rather than by Russia, then his next logical step would be my assassination.’
There was a long moment of silence around the table.
‘Here? In COBRA? But to do that would mean breaking into the most secure place in Britain outside Windsor Castle and Number 10 Downing Street,’ Brice blustered. ‘We’re trying to catch the man, not get distracted by turning him into your personal demon. Don’t let your own insecurity affect the case. It’s the Russians that are driving him along, no matter what you think.’
Sir Johnathon sighed heavily. ‘Very well then. He turned up at our Kabul garrison in early 2006, tortured and starving. After emergency repatriation and rehabilitation he received a dishonourable discharge after his first debriefing.’
‘What, why?’ Brice frowned. ‘Surviving five years in an Afghani prison should mean a hero’s welcome?’
