by Gus Ross
Hanson was heading for the housing estate to his left; one of those1960’s affairs, which looked like a series of long oblong concrete slabs with windows and which would have been doing everyone a favour, including their occupants, if they had simply fallen down all by themselves.
The braver residents of this estate were already out on their balconies, the less so had their faces pressed hard up against their condensation filled glass windows, all trying to get a better view of what was going on below. At least a dozen of the local gang members, who had commandeered the estate play park (which looked like it had never recovered from the previous summer’s disturbances and was a haven for broken glass and discarded syringes), were convinced that ‘Street Riots 2’ was about to swing into action and were shouting and swearing and already looking for trouble. As armed response unit 2 pulled into the street, they did not have far to look.
“Rozzers! Come on.”
“Filthy pigs. Come an’ get some.”
“Who r’ ya’. Who r’ ya. Filth, Filth, Filth, Filth.....”
The cries rang out across the night sky as the first bottle rained down on the scene; soon a full scale mini riot was underway.
As Hanson tore through the estate like a man possessed, the thought that he would quite like to join in with the disturbance behind him flashed across his mind and then it was gone. But the ill conceived riot was the perfect diversion, and it would be well into the early hours of the morning before the police had any idea what had gone down. And even then they could not be sure thanks to the chaos that had descended upon them.
The call had gone to a man who was now on his way across town in a black Fiat. He wore thick spectacles, with one leg held together by sellotape, and the last few sad strands of greying hair hung limply from the sides of his head. He wore a cheap suit, the kind you can pick up in quite a few stores nowadays for less than £100 and look quite good for about a week. His shoes were as old and battered as he felt and had not seen a hint of polish since the turn of the year.
He looked down at the speedo’, he would like to keep below thirty, but there was little danger of him going much faster; his back was not what it used to be and the amount of potholes littering the inner city streets meant that he had to be very careful not to send a crippling shunt up through the axle and into his spine. The milometer in the middle of the dial was informing him that soon his pride and joy would require its 140,000 mile service (quite some feat for a ten year old Fiat). He would not have to worry about how to pay for it this time though, his payment for the service he was about to deliver would take care of that.
He had often wondered who his mysterious benefactor was not to mention how he had selected him, but he was not complaining. There had been regular, if infrequent, cash deposits and the promise of something bigger if he continued to follow instructions to the letter. Following each payment he would receive a small parcel or an A4 sized envelope through the post, and although he had often been tempted to have a peek inside he knew that opening Pandora’s Box was never a clever move.
He had an inkling that whomever his client was, he was not paying him to look after his holiday snaps and the less he knew the more likely his miserable existence was likely to continue. Each time he would take the parcel or envelope and simply follow the one simple instruction he had received. Only this time, the instruction had been different and he felt an urge of excitement followed closely by disappointment; something told him that this would be the last time he heard from his mysterious benefactor, and more importantly the end of the cash payments he had come to rely on. But despite his feelings he would follow the instruction meticulously. He had always been a stickler for detail.
He had once been quite a successful man, had trained and qualified as a lawyer and for a while had aspirations and dreams that looked like they were on their way to fruition; he had a decent job with a decent city firm and he was beginning to build up a reasonable reputation for himself, but things had started to go wrong for him around about the same time those bumptious bankers had all but brought the entire civilised world to its knees. He hated them. In fact he hated all those idiots who had been promoted to their level of incompetency, but whose egos were larger than their stupidity, and their ability to bluster and play politics left them almost untouchable.
He had been one of the casualties, his prolonged absence from the job market on account of his back operation had only served to fuel the fire that would eventually consume him and leave him scrabbling around for small, freelance, pieces of work. Nothing more than a glorified pen pusher who could not drum up any regular business, and was living off the scraps that no one else wished or wanted to be involved in, nothing more than a statistic on a chart somewhere, nothing like the man he had once been.
He had long harboured thoughts of revenge; at the system, at the circumstances that had conspired against him, at the idiots who had passed him over time and time again, until age became a factor and the life he had dreamed of was all but ruined.
The irony was that now he was about to do some ruining of his own, although he was completely oblivious to that fact.
I awoke from my slumber with that furry feeling in my mouth and an equally furry feeling between my ears. I looked down at my watch. How long had I been asleep for? I was actually quite impressed with myself for being able to switch off, as if I was on my way to visit a great aunt, or on my way to some mind numbing business meeting or something. Perhaps it was just my way of coping with everything; a quick shut down and reboot was one of the best tips I had ever gleaned from my IT department. All those years of training and expense and still the guy from IT scratches his head and tells you to ‘power cycle it’.
I swear there are real gremlins out there, ghosts in the machine, if you prefer.
Whatever, it seemed to have done the trick, the fog was shifting fast and suddenly I was no longer half as blasé about the greeting party I had invited to Bournemouth station. Thankfully I had not been out for more than twenty minutes and there was still time to do something about it. I had changed at Basingstoke some half an hour ago and at that stage, given that I had not been bundled from the station into yet another car, and that I was not currently sitting surrounded by a number of shady looking characters in black suits and sunglasses, I reckoned that my ATM fiasco had not been picked up yet, or at least not in time to send out the goon squad. But even I knew I was on borrowed time.
Still, there was a chance that I could turn my stupidity to my advantage. I would wager a good bet that Thomson and his cronies would take me for the fool that I was and would fully expect me to simply waltz off the train at Bournemouth right into their hands. Clearly, if I was stupid enough to signal my movements via a cash machine, then I must be oblivious to the fact that MI6 had access to that sort of info. And that would mean I would be assuming I was still in the clear.
Well sorry to disappoint you guys, I was getting off at the next stop and would take a taxi from there.
I was getting good at this stuff.
Bournemouth is such a lovely place for a holiday: seven miles of lovely beaches running from Hengistbury Head in the East down to the millionaires retreat of Sandbanks in the west where land values are the fourth highest in the world, the East Cliff Pier with its very own theatre, the Victorian style Pavilion with its rather tragic looking fountain, the carefully tended Central Gardens; a fabulous place, full of wonderful memories, for me and for countless others. To think that this place of relaxation and enjoyment now had a host of MI6 and SVR agents crawling all over it on a damp cold November evening and had already been subjected to more gunfire in one evening than in its entire two hundred year history, would have sent the local tourist board officials diving under the nearest deck chair desperately trying to come up with a way to positively spin the events that were unfolding, before the summer season kicked in.
My wife, having spent the last few minutes indulging in the pleasures of the sandy Bournemouth beach, was back on her feet
. She had checked the body of the man she had just disposed of to ensure he was dead, but she already knew the answer. There was still no one else around and perhaps the stiffening wind had served to silence the gunshots at least enough not to arouse suspicion. But there would be more of them, they were out there now, and soon they would find her. She could not risk going back to the Tudor; that was where I was heading. She would have to lead them away.
Charles Hanson was breathing hard but he was enjoying his new found freedom. There were no longer any shackles to contain him, no protocol to abide by (not that he gave much regard to that anyway), nothing to restrain the burning desire he felt raging inside him. He was a loose cannon now, a free radical, and he would enjoy the last few hours of his life content by the sole thought of inflicting as much pain as possible on that fat bastard Howison.
He had often played back the events that had brought him to this point, to his own personal Rubicon, to the final hours of his existence. At first he was more than happy to accept the gifts from Howison; a little bit of grease here and there and a little bit of information in return; nothing too big mind you, no state secrets. And anyway, wasn’t everyone on the take to some extent? It was not as if he was doing anything that would hurt anyone, well not physically anyway. Yes, he could live with that, with himself. After all, was he supposed to put his life on the line for a sense of duty to a country he no longer had any faith in; a country that would turn a blind eye to the atrocious goings on around the world as long as they fitted into their corrupt philosophy, whilst bombing the bejesus out of anyone who held a different belief, all in the name of Democracy? It was not as if the state salary he drew down every month was enough to compensate him for his troubles. He would not sit idly by and watch the top one percent of the American population get rich at the expense of all the other poor buggers out there; yes he would have his slice of the big fat American pie, and would wash it down with a gallon of cream.
But things had rapidly stepped up and he had allowed himself to be compromised with just a little too much ease.
Greed is something that festers in us all like a parasite; give it enough food and water and soon enough it will consume you from the inside, and half the time you will not even be aware it is growing, not until it is way past the point of no return.
Had he been greedy?
In the cold light of day he supposed he had, but it was never his intention to let it get out of hand.
When he had found himself assigned to the A.P.R.I.L. project, and in particular to Alexander Boardman, suddenly he found himself way in over his head with Howison. He could chastise himself if he really wanted to, but there was little point, there was nothing he could do about it.
Well that was not quite true.
Like any sensible person who foresees a risk there is always insurance. And at precisely this moment, Charles Hanson’s insurance policy was driving a battered old black Fiat Uno, at precisely 27 mph, across town, to a rendezvous that he had instructed.
I stepped off the 19.09 train to Bournemouth gingerly, still not entirely convinced that I was not going to be accosted by some gorillas in suits (and to think I left home without my brolly – I had a quick chuckle to myself at that one), but thankfully there was no one there to meet me. So far so good.
The taxi rank was busy and I stood for about twenty minutes in the drizzle before a car pulled up. It was the most uncomfortable twenty minutes of my life and I swear I looked over my shoulder so many times that I thought I was going to wear something out.
“Where you off to mate?”
“Bournemouth please.” I said, easing myself into the back seat.
“Bournemouth? Why didn’t you just stay on the bloody train? Pardon my French.”
“I don’t like trains much. Never have. Ever since I got a train set for Christmas and my dad had it broken before Boxing Day. He got me another but it was never the same.” I literally had no idea where his particular drivel had come from, but it seemed to satisfy the driver.
“Ok, Bournemouth it is mate. Buckle up.”
I suppose taxi drivers get the full cross section of nutters in their car over the years and I was no doubt just another that he might discuss with his mates over a pint, but I didn’t care. At least I had shut him up for now, well almost.
“Anywhere particular in Bournemouth?”
“Just Bournemouth please.”
I was not about to give anything away that I did not need to; this guy was just Joe Bloggs the taxi driver (well actually he looked more like Danny De Vito from Taxi), but already I was eyeing him suspiciously in case he had a part time degree in espionage. All the skulduggery of the past few days had taught me to play my cards close to my chest. I just wish I had played my bank card at the ATM with the same degree of care.
I settled back in my seat, but already I could feel my heartbeat quickening and a slight tightening in my chest. Soon I would be there and soon I would see my wife for the first time in what felt like a very long time. As I thought about it, perhaps I was about to see her properly for the first time ever.
Thomson had considered making the journey to Bournemouth personally; he would not tolerate any more cock ups and perhaps his being there would serve to ensure a clean op’, but in the end he had decided against it; he could be far more effective where he was and he was getting too old for all that running around nonsense.
There were now enough of his men positioned in and around Bournemouth Station that the passengers who were soon to disembark to Platform 3 would be forgiven for thinking there had been a Ray-Ban fire sale, or that perhaps aliens had chosen the English South coast seaside of all places to make first contact and Will Smith and the boys had been shipped in to kick their slimy green butts back to the Planet Zogg.
Bob Sutherland reversed his tiny Fiat Uno into a metered space he could have driven straight into without any difficulty, but he liked to do things just so. He took a small numbered key from his inside pocket and rolled it in his hand; it was nothing special to look at but he suspected that the information it could unlock would be a lot more interesting, not that he had ever dared to look at the contents.
He was out of hours; The Lane Safety Deposit Co’s mahogany panelled doors normally only opened between 9 am and 5.30 pm, but he had a special arrangement, one that would allow him access twenty four seven, although his client no doubt paid through the nose for the privilege. He had called ahead and as he approached the gold placard adorning the white stone wall that announced his arrival at The Lane, he could already hear the satisfying sound of door bolts being unlocked.
The Lane had been protecting the information of its clients for more than one hundred and fifty years, having been one of the first to provide such a service in London; initially to the law fraternity who needed somewhere safe to store their confidential files and paperwork. They offered a first class service and a selection of secure boxes that ranged from the very small that were suitable for backup files and memory sticks, to those that were better suited to the storing of files and paperwork. The clientele had changed somewhat these days from the honourable lawyers of the city, but the service was the same and no questions were asked; protecting their valuables under the most stringent of security was all that mattered. He knocked on the door with an almost comical rat a tat tat, and was met by a burley looking security guard who did not look at all welcoming.
“Mr Sutherland. Please come inside.”
Sutherland did as he was asked and the security guard locked the door behind them. He was escorted to the strong room where the safe he held the key to was located and left alone. He liked this room, he liked the feeling of security that came with it, as if outside could go to hell in a hand basket and this little room in the heart of London would still be standing, guarding its secrets and ill gotten gains from prying eyes, long after everything else had been obliterated.
He removed the key from his pocket and opened the safe door. Inside sat a bundle of sealed brown A4 sized e
nvelopes, each with a series of initials and numbers on the front, identifying codes that meant nothing to him, and a number of small boxes with corresponding markings; he had deposited all of them over the years.
His initial instruction had simply been to locate and remove the A4 envelope marked MH15 – 300.
He had never previously been requested to remove anything from the safe, each time he had been merely deposited what he had been sent, and as he held the envelope in his hand he was suddenly filled with the urge to rip it open and look inside. Who would know, he could easily seal it up again and perhaps he could use the contents to his advantage. But then a sudden fear gripped at the pit of his stomach, he had no idea who he was dealing with or what the possible consequence might be. It was better not to know, better to simply accept the cash when it came his way and follow instructions, that way he could look at himself in the mirror and know that at least knew he could be trusted, He stuffed the envelope inside his jacket, locked the safe and returned to his car. He would wait till morning to execute the final part of his instructions.
The full scale mini riot was now well underway; the fire brigade had been forced to retreat from the scene amidst a hail of bottles and bricks and there were now at least three more cars ablaze in the street where Charles Hanson had made his stand. Police in riot gear had been arriving by the van load and the local thugs were having the time of their lives, venting their years of frustration with every missile they launched and every piece of property they could destroy, each one egging on the other until the mob was out of control. The inner city time bomb was always ticking and that night Hanson had simply provided the catalyst that helped turn the counter to zero.
