Trigger Point (The Gabriel Wolfe Thrillers Book 1)

by Andy Maslen

  “Your coffee, Sir. Kenyan. I hope it meets with your approval. Sir Toby is on his way.”

  The coffee was excellent, served in a delicate bone china cup decorated with a scene of a fox hunt in full cry. Gabriel savoured the strong, bitter taste as he continued his perusal of the bookshelves. There was more “militaria”, books on strategy, both for war and business, and sometimes both, including the book that had attained the status of cliché among boardroom types: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Gabriel has just pulled it off the shelf when the door opened again to reveal his prospective new client: Sir Toby Maitland.

  The man facing him looked more like a merchant banker than a country squire. He was several inches taller than Gabriel, maybe a shade over six feet, slim and tanned. About fifty-five or sixty, Gabriel estimated, though in the absence of a paunch, lines or bald patch, it was hard to tell his age precisely. His blond hair was cut in a floppy fringe that he kept pushing back, exposing a gold watch under his shirt cuff. He offered his hand.

  “Mr Wolfe. Sir Toby Maitland. How d’you do? Please,” he said, not yet ready to release Gabriel’s right hand, “take a seat”.

  The two men sat, Gabriel on the sofa and Maitland on a matching armchair to the right of the fireplace.

  “You have coffee, I see,” said Sir Toby. “Good?”

  “Excellent, Sir Toby.”

  “Oh, please. None of the forelock tugging. I insist you call me Toby.”

  “The coffee’s excellent … Toby,” Gabriel said, struggling to match this man’s relaxed, almost jovial manner. He pointed to a painting above the fireplace – a female nude picked out in almost abstract blocks of cobalt. “Is that a Matisse?”

  “Very good. Yes, I picked it up last year. You must remind me later – we have a few good pieces around the house. I’ll get my wife to give you the tour.” He pushed his hair back again – the watch flashed in the sunlight coming in through the window. “Now forgive me, I don’t have a great deal of time this morning, but I did want to meet you face-to-face. So if you don’t mind, we’ll get straight down to business.”

  “Not at all. It is why I’m here, after all.”

  “Good. Good. Now. Away from my day job I have an interest in politics. You may have deduced as much from my books.”

  Gabriel nodded his assent, sipping from his coffee cup and scrutinising the older man over the rim.

  “Well the fact of the matter is, I’m considering running for office. Parliament, in fact. Until that unfortunate heart attack, the sitting MP here was a crusty old Tory who got in on the votes of the yeomanry and the middle classes hereabouts. Plus of course the landed gentry who think voting for any other party is a species of treason.”

  “So you’re going to stand for who? I don’t see you as a horny-handed son of toil, Toby.”

  “You’re being provocative, I see that. No, of course not. The left has as much chance down here as that fox on your coffee cup. No, I am considering running as an independent. I have a certain amount of wealth that I am prepared to invest and some influential supporters.”

  Gabriel tried and failed to suppress a frown. He felt it flit across his brow. Maitland, watching him intently, caught the micro-expression.

  “I know what you’re thinking. ‘Why not a Tory? That’s his natural power base.’ But they’re no better than the socialists - managerial types with one eye on their popularity and the other on their media profile. I intend to shake things up from the outside.”

  “An independent, then,” Gabriel said. “On what platform?”

  “A rebirth of English self-confidence, Gabriel. This country lost its way in 1945. We won a great victory and what did we do? We spent the next three decades bartering away our empire, our sovereignty, our self-respect. Look around you. Look out of those windows. That is England. A land where a man can feel proud to be a good Christian.”

  Gabriel selected his words, feeling his pulse increase by a couple of beats per minute.

  “So what is it you’d like me to do for you?”

  The older man paused for a second.

  “I want you to help me start a revolution.”

  Chapter 5

  “A revolution?” Gabriel said.

  “Oh, don’t worry. There won’t be tanks on the streets. Though I’m sure you’d be quite comfortable in that situation. With your background.”

  He had done his research, Gabriel thought. During his years in the SAS Gabriel had fought in jungles, deserts and cities. He’d received the Military Cross for taking out a Russian-supplied T55 tank single-handedly as it bore down on a crowd of refugees in Kosovo. As its five-metre main gun barrel had swung round towards the women, children and old men fleeing another war-torn city, Gabriel had leapt onto its armoured deck, wrenched open the turret hatch and dropped a grenade inside. He’d accepted the medal, standing to attention as the silver-haired general had pinned it to his dress jacket at a ceremony at Lancaster House in London. But he never wore it after that. Turning a tank turret containing four men into a can of mince was not his idea of “conspicuous gallantry”, still less an act of bravery. It was his job to save the civilians. He had done it. But people found it impressive, men in particular. Men like Sir Toby Maitland most of all.

  “So what kind of revolution?”

  “There’s a sickness in this country, Gabriel. I see it everywhere I look. Dependence on handouts. Laziness. Entitlement. Whining about human rights. Rules imposed from outside that make us a magnet for people who have no business coming here. I want to send the people of this great nation a wake-up call. And I need someone to help me win people round. Someone who shares my outlook and knows how to bring people into line.”

  He paused, as though expecting Gabriel to prompt him again so he could continue his peroration. Gabriel decided not to play along but to test, instead, the man’s appetite for power.

  “Well, revolutions don’t come cheap. Perhaps before you continue, we should have a chat about fees. Just to make sure we’re not wasting each other’s time.”

  Maitland stood up and spun away, an expression of fury flashing across his face. He spent a few seconds standing, hands clasped behind his back, looking out over the parkland beyond the driveway. He turned back to Gabriel.

  “Very well, Gabriel. Business is business after all. There’ll be plenty of time for you to see my point of view. Ten thousand as a signing-on bonus and five thousand a month thereafter until I am elected, after which point we can discuss any further services.”

  The proposed fee was generous, and in line with Gabriel’s normal fees to the multinational companies and governments he worked for. However.

  “I’d want twenty thousand to think about you, your ambitions and your challenges. And ten thousand a month to continue performing that service. How does that sound? Toby.”

  The eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, but Gabriel noticed. The blood supply to the skin of Maitland’s face decreased slightly. Gabriel noticed. His breathing quickened. Gabriel noticed. Thank you, Master Zhao, I am sorry I ever complained. If he accepts, fine. Let’s take him and his money. He doesn’t stand a chance of being elected down here. This promises to be interesting, if nothing else. He waited.

  Sir Toby breathed out though his nose, his lips clamped together into a thin, straight line. He forced them upwards, but his eyes were steady.

  “Very well, Gabriel. That won’t pose a problem. Now, may I continue?”

  Gabriel inclined his head for part two of the story, starting to enjoy sparring with a man he wasn’t sure he wanted to work for anyway. As Maitland spoke, he sensed another man entirely. Gabriel had met men like him before. Somewhere below the breeding, the good looks and the impeccable exterior, there was a person capable of doing terrible things. Maitland warmed to his theme: Britain’s problems stemmed from a mixture of laziness at home and interference from abroad, coupled with the weakening effect on the bloodlines of true Englishmen of intermarrying with immigrants. Gabriel watched the man strutting up and
down beside the window. He could sense a lucrative contract, a big plus in a world of insecure freelance incomes; yet deep in his gut, a worm was twisting and coiling, this way and that, as if trying to escape.

  “What sort of things will you want me to do? Specifically?”

  “I need a sounding board for matters operational and strategic and someone used to communicating instructions that others might feel are a little … demanding. You fit the bill rather well: an ex-soldier, a fighting man, decorated for bravery under fire, and now you work as a negotiator. Your father was a diplomat, I believe?”

  He phrased it as a question but Gabriel assumed that his background checks would have included a review at least one generation back.

  “That’s right. He worked with the last governor on the handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese.”

  “So, an early exposure to the ways of power, coupled with your military service and your communication skills make you a rather valuable chap to have on my team. A team, incidentally, which meets here at 7.30 am every morning from now until the by-election. We aren’t as numerous as some of my media critics and political opponents would have the public believe. But we are dedicated.”

  Maitland paused, as if allowing space for Gabriel to ask the obvious question. Dedicated to what? Gabriel decided not to oblige. There was an awkward pause then Maitland cleared his throat and continued.

  “Yes. We are dedicated. Dedicated to a rebirth of national pride, Gabriel. I’m sure you can appreciate the need for a strong nation in these interesting times. Globalisation, terror on our streets, godlessness, unchecked immigration: they’re threats, Gabriel and we need to meet them. I intend to galvanise not just Parliament but the whole country. We must reassert our values and declare England a place where people conform to our beliefs, not browbeat us into accepting theirs. This country of ours—”

  There was a knock at the door and a young woman in her early thirties entered. Maitland stopped mid-sentence, and looked round in annoyance, his lips clamped together.

  “What is it Lizzie, can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Gabriel took her in with a glance: a secretary or personal assistant of some kind. Short, curvaceous. Cream silk blouse with the top two buttons undone; tailored black trousers snug against her thighs, and emerald python-skin loafers. The strap of the caramel leather messenger bag she was carrying had pulled the blouse tight against her breasts so the pattern of her bra was visible. The woman wore her blonde hair in a sort of pleat against the back of her head and had a heart-shaped face with just a hint of pink on her cheeks: an ‘English Rose’ complexion. She pouted.

  “Oh, don’t be such a grump, Daddy. My car won’t start and I’m meeting Lottie and Imogen in town for coffee. Can I borrow one of yours? Please?” She placed her hands flat on Maitland’s lapels and stroked them down the soft wool fabric as if pressing the suit. “Pretty please?”

  Gabriel watched as the stern father warred with the indulgent papa. The latter won the argument.

  “Very well. But not the Conti. I need it later.”

  “As if!” she said, winking at Gabriel. “Bentleys are such old-man cars. And they’re as big as tanks.”

  “Yes, well. Speaking of tanks, I’d like to introduce you to my new communications consultant. Gabriel Wolfe, my daughter, Lizzie. Gabriel used to work for Martin Mackenzie and before that he was serving Queen and country.”

  Gabriel stepped towards the young woman, hand outstretched. She met him halfway and shook hands. She held onto his hand for just a second longer than he expected.

  “How do you do?” he said.

  “Oh, I do very well, thank you. Tanks, eh? How very … hot.”

  “Actually, we were on foot. Part of Combat Arms like the Cavalry and the Royal Armoured Corps but separate. Airborne, if anything.” He paused, aware that military nomenclature might not be to the young woman’s taste. “Anyway, no tanks,” he finished.

  “Know anything about cars? I saw your Maser on the drive. I’m surprised Daddy didn’t have you shot for parking there. Nobody’s allowed to leave their cars in front of the house. Didn’t you see the sign?”

  That explains the butler’s death-stare when I arrived, Gabriel thought.

  Maitland intervened.

  “Now, now, young lady. No need to embarrass our guest. I’m sure we can show him where to park when he comes to work.”

  Father and daughter were playing well-rehearsed roles. Gabriel hadn’t agreed to the job yet but felt he was being outmanouevred all the same. He tried to regain a measure of control.

  “To answer your question, yes. I know a little about cars.”

  He was being dishonest. As a member of D Squadron’s Mobility Troop in the SAS he’d been taught a great deal about cars, trucks and wheeled vehicles of all kinds.

  “Well, perhaps you’d like to look under mine then and have a fiddle about. Because I couldn’t change an air filter, let alone diagnose a fault in a 911.” She beckoned him with a slender finger tipped with nail polish the same colour as her shoes. “Come on. I don’t have all day. You can help me choose what to drive from Daddy’s collection.”

  Gabriel looked at Maitland. The other man shrugged: approval, extracted rather than bestowed. Maybe he didn’t want to cross his daughter. Or not in front of a stranger, anyway.

  He followed Lizzie from the room. They left the hall through a gigantic kitchen that would have swallowed the whole ground floor of Gabriel’s modest cottage. Where one might have expected distressed or painted wood cabinets, in a colour named Sparrow’s Wing, or Silt, there was brushed stainless steel and bright-grained satin-finish timber. A central island was topped with a shiny black marble work surface, veined with red like fine trails of blood. He brushed past bunches of dried thyme, marjoram and rosemary tied to a hook on the island, and the kitchen was instantly alive with the aroma of Italian cooking. It mixed with Lizzie’s smell - clean hair, sunlit skin and a fresh, floral perfume - and made Gabriel glad to be following an attractive young woman to help her choose a set of wheels.

  Lizzie opened the door at the far end of the kitchen and then stood aside to let Gabriel go ahead of her. Not far enough aside for him to be to walk through without knocking her with his shoulder. Holding fast to ideas of gentlemanly behaviour instilled in him by his father and the army, he didn’t turn his back on her. Instead, he turned to face her and side-stepped into the room beyond the kitchen, the distance between them narrowing to a hand’s breadth. The smell of her perfume was stronger now and he couldn’t help but glimpse down at her cleavage for a split second, gentleman or no. She caught him doing it of course and followed his gaze, then looked into his eyes, saying nothing. She closed the door behind them – the room was dark apart from a handful of small red LEDs blinking and pulsing at about hip-height. Gabriel heard her click on a light-switch. As the neon strip lights on the ceiling pinked and flickered into life, Gabriel gasped.

  Facing them, gleaming in the harsh light of the fluorescent tubes, were two rows of cars that together were worth somewhere north of two million pounds – the winking red dots were their security sensors. In the front row, the “Conti”, a British Racing Green Bentley Continental GT, sat, squat and purposeful, between a gunmetal Ferrari 458 Italia and a wasp-yellow Porsche 911, its roof lowered to reveal matching upholstery. But it was the two cars book-ending the trio of modern supercars that caught his eye. On the left, a toffee-apple-red Chevrolet Corvette. On the right, a primrose Jaguar E-type. Behind these icons, another five: two single-seater racing cars in old-school tobacco company liveries; a Ferrari Testarossa, deep strakes carved into its sides; a lime-green Lamborghini Miura; and another American muscle car: a late sixties Chevrolet Camaro Z28, in what looked like its original metallic grey and black paint. He stood, quite still, and inhaled. Petrol, leather and car polish.

  “Your father likes cars, then?” was all he could manage.

  “Oh, not just Daddy. We all do. The Italia belongs to Vix along with a couple back there
, the 911 you probably guessed is mine, and the rest belong to Der Fuhrer.” She mimed a moustache with two fingers of her left hand and raised her right in a Nazi salute, its offensiveness undercut by the cross-eyes and tongue poking out. “He’s a meanie, won’t give me the keys to Baby,” she said, pouting and pointing at the E-Type.

  “Well, I guess that restricts you to the other eight.”

  “Four. That Corvette is a widow-maker, and I’m not even married.” She paused for a second and leaned towards him, “Or a lesbian. And the racing cars are Daddy’s hobby. Track only. Hmm,” she said, trailing the fingertips of her right hand along the mirror-smooth bonnet of the Bentley, “what shall we drive today? You choose!” She spun on one foot and sashayed the length of the front row of cars like a catwalk model, twitching her rear with each step and pausing at the far end to cock her hip and glance at him over one dropped shoulder. “Well,” she called. “Come on, I haven’t got all day.”

  Gabriel walked behind the Corvette and wandered between the boots of the first row of cars and front bumpers of the second. He stopped in front of the second Ferrari, in Rosso Corso - Italian racing red.

  “The Testarossa,” he called. “It suits you.”

  “Fast?”

  “And stylish. Temperamental, too. Am I right?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” She joined him in front of the car and ran a manicured fingertip - green to match her eyes - down the swooping bonnet. “I have my opinions, and I like to get my own way,” she continued, running the same manicured fingertips along the thin silver scar that connected the outer corner of his left eye to his cheekbone. “But I can be very steady, very … measured. If I feel like it.” She twirled away from him. “You see the phone over there?” She pointed to an old-fashioned wall-mounted phone with a curled cable connecting the mouthpiece to the main body. “Pick it up, would you?”