by Gus Ross
“I’m so sorry Dave. I can explain, but not now. Look I need to see you, I need to know you’re ok.”
“I’m still alive if that’s what you mean.” I could almost hear my wife’s brain on the other end of the phone; assembling the pieces in lightening fashion.
“I need to go. They’ll be listening. You’ll know where to find me, just think it through. Please come, I love you...”
The phone went dead, which was more than unfair. I had so much to say, so much to tell her, so much to ask her. I felt betrayed, cheated, confused, angry, but most of all I wanted to see her, to be with her.
...“They’ll be listening.”
Of course they would be; she knew how this game worked, after all this was her real job. And she had already worked out where, or at least who, I was with; how else could I have known she was a Russian spy, that plus the fact that I was not already dead. And I knew instantly where to find her, my problem was how to get there alone.
I had already made up my mind whose side I was on. Love can cut through all sorts of baloney: patriotism, loyalty, belief in what is right or wrong, all of it. At the end of the day it is all just bullshit designed to keep us in check and you are just a statistic on some government chart somewhere and therefore ultimately dispensable. I had played along just nicely, although to be fair I did not have a lot of options, but now that I had heard her voice there was only one thing for me to do.
And I knew I would have to do it quickly.
Climbing out of a two storey window is not for the faint hearted, it is also, quite clearly, not for those of us who suffer from a touch of vertigo.
I once watched a window repair man I had engaged to refurbish the windows of my first flat, which was situated four storeys above terra firma, hop from ledge to ledge like Spiderman, without so much as a harness or rope, and was almost physically sick. This made what I was about to do even more impressive.
As I manoeuvred my way out onto this particular ledge, the drop was much less significant, but my heart had long since bypassed my mouth and was now somewhere in the ether. I dared not look down and for what seemed like eternity I just stood clinging to the lintels facing inwards, like one of those poor people who are threatening suicide but have no real intention of seeing it through, and desperately want someone to grab them and bring them back inside to safety.
I could see the drainpipe out of the corner of my eye and somehow summoned the courage to reach for it. It was one of those old iron affairs, or at least I thought it was iron, certainly, thank god, it was not plastic, and I thought there would be at least a chance of it taking my weight.
Summoning courage that I did not know existed, I stepped out from the ledge and grasped at the pipe with both hands like a drowning man grabbing for a life belt. I held on for too long, unable to move, until I heard the first crack and felt the fastenings loosen above me.
The thought that one day, when this was all over, I should join the circus, raced through my childlike imagination as I skinned down the pipe like a squirrel with a rocket up its arse. I hit the ground with the most welcoming thud I had ever experienced but I had made it.
Now I only had to find a way past a bunch of professional bodyguards, and somehow evade the entire might of MI6.
How hard could it be?
I’ve heard it said that sometimes when something is so obvious, or indeed so ludicrous, that you just don’t see it. I never subscribed to that viewpoint, perhaps I do now. Fortunately it helped that my drainpipe of choice was located to the side of the building and my escape had deposited me nicely into a side street / alleyway that looked as if it was only used for bin lorry collections and by the occasional resident who could not find a parking bay out front.
I could just see the tail end of a car that was sitting partly over the entrance to the side street, and in my mind there were two armed agents sitting in it, protecting the safe house. In reality the car belonged to an old lady who lived two doors down and who was about as good at parking as a certain Mrs Edgerton, but to my advantage her ‘abandoned’ vehicle served to protect my escape from the two agents who were actually sitting in the vehicle directly across the street. To my left was a six foot brick wall that ran the length of the alleyway, separating it from what served as the back gardens of the row of flats behind. I remembered clambering over that kind of wall as a boy, and reckoned I still had it in me.
By now the adrenalin was pumping so hard I was sure I could have entered one of those free running competitions; you know, the ones where guys made out of rubber jump across rooftops, run up the side of buildings and do somersaults across openings and that sort of thing. I always swore that what they did was impossible and was some sort of stunt trick designed to make good tv.
I performed my own personal homage to those bendy rubber guys and was over the wall and into someone’s back garden in a flash. I was no longer joining the circus after this, I was on my way to Hollywood as a fully fledged stunt man!
The particular garden I had landed in was exactly how most communal gardens I had come across in my short life were; just a square of mainly unloved grass and a plain concrete path, dissecting the middle of it, that led to the bin area, which was where I was now unhappily resided. In my haste to scale the wall without being noticed I had inadvertently dropped down the other side and landed in with the rubbish. But I had made it and soon I was out in the street that ran perpendicular to the one with the safe house, Sternie, and co.
I was beginning to think there must have been something in my cornflakes that morning; first I escape from an MI6 safe house by way of a drainpipe, then I shimmy my way over a six foot wall, and now I am running like one of those crazy Kenyan marathon guys who just seem to effortlessly eat up the ground. To be fair, they don’t look like they eat much else, although I was kind of wishing I could say the same for myself; I was not longer fit and in shape Dave. But I was off like the clappers.
Back in the safe house, Sternie was taking orders from Thomson. The call had indeed been listened to, but not traced, it had been too short, and although the old man would have preferred to be running the show to his own script, he was not entirely unhappy to hear that I had skipped bail, so to speak.
“Stern, relax. He won’t have got far and we’ll pick up his trail very quickly. If we play it right he will lead us straight to her. Not quite how I had planned it you understand, but the end result is the same. He trusts you, or at least as much as he trusts anyone right now and we can use that. Now here is what I need you to do.....”
Sternie listened intently, “Ok Sir, I understand. One other thing Sir, that body Richards mentioned previously and you asked me to find out about, well from what he said this morning I think we might have found ourselves the target that Osram’s boys were so worked about. It fits their M.O. and it might be useful to look into. If it is the target then it sounds like one hell of an unfortunate coincidence on Dave Richards’ part that he stumbled over it, but there you go. Anyway here’s what he told me.....”
Thomson listened to what Sternie had to say with the delight of a child who had just gotten everything he wanted from that big fat fellow with a beard. He hadn’t even touched the chess board and yet there were pieces falling into place all around him; he felt like Harry Potter. But he was not the only one who felt like they had a bit of magic on their side; I was still on the run, so to speak, although technically I was now in a black cab.
Funny how you can never normally get one of these when you really need one; but someone had waved their magic wand and I had nearly ran straight into it. I sat on the back seat, panting for breath like a madman, having told the driver to simply drive (endless hours of watching Sky Movies had me well versed in how to avoid the boys from MI6). However, like most of us law abiding citizens who happily carry our little mobile phone friends around with us every day, and pay for the privilege, I was oblivious to the fact that my neat little Samsung came complete with its own little tracking device. Yip, there it is
folks, we all have our own personal GPS tracker with us all the time and most of us don’t even know it. Now there may be some ethical, if not legal reasons, why big brother should not be able to access the telecom company records to see where it is you have been, or indeed currently are. But it would be a bigger fool than I to think that Her Majesties secret service boys did not have direct access to this simple piece of tech, especially in connection to matters of national importance.
So there it was, despite all my new found escapologist skills, and soon to be employed anti-espionage tailing techniques (albeit based on some highly unrealistic Arnie Movie), I might as well have been wearing a bright yellow luminous jacket with the words ‘ESCAPED FROM MI6’ emblazoned in the centre.
Somewhere, perhaps in some parallel universe, there was one of those giant Monty Python hands with the pointy finger and the words ‘He’s Over Here’ following me all across London. I suppose I never really had a chance, but I wasn’t to know it, already my cab had a tail, metaphorically speaking of course.
My own personal ignorance of mobile technology was not something that ran in the family. My good wife could have had no idea of the situation I had just extracted myself from; she was, however, already more than aware that either MI6, or perhaps the CIA, had intercepted me somewhere along the line and that meant that my movements were no longer my own. As my black cab kept on driving, my mobile rang again.
“Dave, it’s me. You need to listen. I have to be quick. If you’re coming, you need to be careful. They will be following you so you need to cover your tracks; don’t come direct, change transport as much as possible and try and use cash. And you need to dump your phone.”
“My phone?” I had become quite attached to my little mobile box of tricks and the thought of dumping it felt like deserting a member of the family. Mmhh maybe that analogy was a little too close to the bone given my current circumstances.
“They can track it. Just get rid of it. Are you coming?”
“I don’t know why, but yes, I’m on my way.”
“I’m so pleased. Be careful, make sure you’re not followed and don’t forget to dump your mobile. See you soon. Love you.”
And the phone went dead again.
Listening to her was almost like normal, except for the subject matter that was. I took one last look at the sleek little phone in my hand (who could have known, spies excepted, that they could track my every move from it), and duly wound down the window of the cab and tossed it into the street. It met its demise courtesy of one of London’s big, red Double Deckers; not much would be left to track after that. The boys in the tailing Audi, who were not provided with the privilege of travelling in the Bus and Taxi lane, witnessed the crushing of my mobile and called it in.
“Keep him close. No one gets lost this time. Am I clear?” Thomson’s words met with an affirmative, but this was getting interesting. He was already relishing the prospect of what would come next.
The move that Thomson had not even considered was not the dramatic escape I had just effected, although I am sure that somewhere beneath his neatly starched collar he was more than a little bit impressed with the ‘poor sap’. No, my movements merely sought to put into play what he had always intended; to get to the girl by using the guy. Perfect Hollywood / Bollywood stuff, the cornerstone of tonnes of meaningless chic lit drivel, as old as the hills with the big white sign, and yet we all love a bit of it.
No, the move that blindsided him came from the left of left field, a curveball to end all curveballs, but he would marvel at its simplicity. Of all the people involved in this sorry mess the last one he considered would stand up and shout from the rooftops was Stephan Meyer.
He had, until the incident at the Met, not even suspected that Ulyana Lyalyushkin was intent on passing the information he had let her obtain, to anyone but the Russians. After his conversation with Stern, identifying Lucian Hendrick as the unfortunate cadaver that went for an early morning swim in the Churn was simple and he had quickly put the pieces together. How wonderful that in a game where double agents were ten a penny that one of the SVR’s finest would defect from the dark side, albeit she had not quite sided with Her Majesty.
Despite his loyalties, Thomson could see the fabulous tapestry of unfolding events for what it was, but more importantly he could see where it was all heading. And despite everything, he was not dismayed by his expectation of the outcome.
The phone call from Sergeant Watt had been the final tipping point for Meyer. He was first and foremost an intellectual and he had always been one to play out scenarios in his head. I would like to think this was a point of symmetry with my good self, but even I could recognise that as delusional.
Meyer was on a whole other level, and even before Lucian Hendrick had knocked on his door with the promise of all he could wish for, he had known. Deep down he had always known that his was not the only game in town, although he would never admit it, not even to himself. He had no proof of it, but there were signs, hints, things that just made him stop for a split second. Like the expressions that would sometimes glance over Alex Boardman’s face when they were amidst a heated debate about particle equations or the latest data sets; expressions he found hard to place, but that bore just a whisper of something, a fleeting glimpse that behind those eyes there was something that was not being said. Of course there was no certainty to what he suspected, but nonetheless his gut told him something was not right.
And then Hendrick had come to him, and although he treated his initial overtures with some scepticism, he had known there had to be some truth behind them. He had waited expectantly for the information that Hendrick had promised to deliver, even if he had not been one hundred percent behind the cloak and dagger approach to obtaining it.
The data was everything to him; sure he had some interest in where it was coming from, but after all, you didn’t need to be Albert Einstein, or Alexander Boardman for that matter, to work out the likely suspect. But now his man was dead, dragged unceremoniously from some tributary of the Thames he had never heard of with a bullet in his head, and of course there was no data. Meyer was now a very frustrated and angry man, but he was also a very clever one and that made him very dangerous.
His press conference announcement had been beautifully crafted; wordsmithed with just the right balance of outrage, intrigue, and mystery and of course liberal embellishment, even if most of it was not a million miles from the truth. He had, of course, memorised the whole thing, he hated reading from a script and anyway, what he was about to say was far too sensitive to risk committing to paper.
He knew he would be immersing himself and his organisation in something that that was liable to have huge political fall-out, but they had one toe in the pond already. And if the powers involved could take out Hendrick that easily, then it wasn’t a quantum leap to imagine his own demise. After all, who had even heard of Stephan Meyer? But people would know his name now.
The safest place to hide is sometimes right out in the open, and he had no intention of being found floating face down in some icy cold water.
He had walked into the conference room with the International Press already assembled. At least four channels were taking a direct live feed: CNN, ABC, Canal+ and Sky News. Meyer calmly sat down and placed his papers, which contained nothing more than a few bland markers, just in case he went off piste, on the desk in front of him. He sat looking downward for the best part of thirty seconds, all for dramatic effect, the room fell silent and then he looked up.
What he was about to do might amount to professional suicide but, like all great men, he was prepared to take the gamble. And the gamble of Stephan Meyer’s life would put the cat firmly amongst the pigeons and quite literally take the breath from a certain George Thomson, albeit temporarily.
“Ladies, Gentlemen, Members of the Press, today I have brought you here to announce some quite startling developments, but first I must start with great sadness.”
Meyer took a deliberate pause,
then continued, “One of my valued team here at C.E.R.N., a Mr Lucian Hendrick, who has worked closely and tirelessly with me in the field of particle physics, has been killed. I am extremely sorry to announce that at this time his death does not appear to have been accidental.” Meyer was out on a limb already, but he liked the feeling. “Reports indicate that Mr Hendrick died from a single bullet to the head before his body was disposed of in the River Churn, in England.”
The cameras clicked and the noise in the room grew as the members of the press scrambled and jostled to get the first questions in.
“Please. Please. If you will allow me. I will take questions at the end. Please.” Meyer had the kind of authority that had to be obeyed and the gaggling bunch of reporters fell silent again. “Thank you. I would like to offer my sincere condolences, and those of all my colleagues here at C.E.R.N, to Lucian’s family and relatives at this most difficult of times.”
So far so good, he knew he was already way out of line for announcing a murder in advance of the investigating authorities and had in fact expressly ignored the instructions he had received from Sergeant Watt, but he did not care. Anyway, what he was about to reveal next was in a whole different league from just pissing off the UK Police Force. He paused once more and then, stomach churning with anticipation, readied himself to throw the curveball from left field.
In the offices of MI6, George Thomson’s desk phone was buzzing.
“Sir, are you watching the live news stream from C.E.R.N? I think you’d better.”
Thomson dropped the phone and clicked his mouse; the images from the conference room at C.E.R.N. came instantly to life on his laptop. He quickly turned the sound mixer all the way up. He had missed Meyer’s announcement regarding Hendrick, although this was already scrawling across the bottom of his screen:
