STOP AT NOTHING: 'Mark Cole is Bond's US cousin mixed with the balls out action and killing edge of Jason Bourne' Parmenion Books

by JT Brannan

  She felt the blond man writhing in pain and she pulled his face forwards, sinking her teeth into the cartilage of his nose, her head whipping violently from side to side as she tried to tear it from his face.

  She then felt the man slipping, and she saw her chance, senses suddenly so clear and pure, and helped him on his way, forcing his head down as he lost his balance.

  Albright tried to fight her off in rising panic, but she was like a wild animal, a fireball of pure fury, energy focussed entirely on his destruction.

  His balance was finally broken, and Sarah used the momentum to drive the side of his head down onto the sharp corner of the sink unit next to them. There was a dull crack, and the man fell heavily to the floor, blood pouring from his nose, eyeball hanging lazily and perversely from the gouged socket, scalp torn by Sarah’s raking fingernails, the side of his head torn open from the impact of the sink.

  Sarah wasn’t sure if the blond man was dead or not, but knew she couldn’t pause, knowing that if she did, she would simply collapse in shock. She had to keep going, keep moving until they were safe. She checked her watch; they still had two minutes until the train would be in position.

  She grabbed her handbag, searching with shaking hands for the two things she needed. Sunglasses to hide the black eyes, and a headscarf to try and disguise the ugly swellings that covered her head and face. She didn’t want her appearance to frighten her children.

  She worked quickly, then washed the blood off her hands and checked the mirror. Far from perfect, but it would have to do. She kicked the blond man, but he didn’t move.

  It was then she realized that she was stood up, despite having been shot in the foot. She looked down and saw the bleeding had stopped. In the back of her mind, she understood that it was the adrenaline that had stopped the blood flow, constricting the wound so that she could continue to function. The rest of her mind just screamed Go! While you still can!

  She burst out of the toilet stall and turned to the next cubicle. ‘Ben! Amy! It’s Mummy, come on, it’s time to go!’

  The door swung open and she saw her children there, terrified. They both ran into her arms, sobbing, and then she was sobbing too.

  But there was no time. ‘Come on,’ she exhorted, grabbing their hands and running back to the carriage, not giving them a chance to have a look directly at her face.

  They raced down the carriage towards the exit doors. Checking her watch, Sarah quickly got herself and the children braced against the door support. Seconds later they heard the deafening sound of an alarm claxon, and then the wild screech of brakes as the train was made to come to a sudden, violent stop. They watched as passengers were catapulted from their seats, across the floor of the carriage. Chaos had well and truly ensued.

  65

  Stefan Steinmeier stood by the side of the train tracks, stamping his feet to keep warm. He was dressed for the weather, but staying stationary would make it easier for the cold to find its insidious way past the various layers.

  He had been diligent in his preparations, as was his custom, and the brightly coloured yellow saloon car had been placed by the side of the road earlier in the day.

  Upon getting to the emergency RV point, he had hidden his own vehicle, then moved quickly to the yellow saloon. Getting the revs high, he slowly moved it up the embankment, until it straddled the tracks at a slight angle.

  The track at this point was straight for over a mile; with the headlights left on, and the garish yellow bodywork, the car would be seen by the train driver in sufficient time for him to slow down to a stop without crashing. Although snow had been falling for most of the afternoon, the night sky was now exceptionally clear, giving perfect visibility.

  If the plan went perfectly, the Cole family would hop off the train just by where he’d parked the robust Nissan 4 × 4. He situated himself just off the embankment, H&K sniper rifle at the ready beside him.

  He checked his watch. 1810 – it was nearly time.

  It was just seconds later that he heard the first dull roar of the train approaching in the distance, at speed. He stamped his feet a few last times and picked up the rifle, settling into position, the high-resolution optical sight up at his right eye, left eye already closing even as he sank down to the cold ground.

  Seconds after that, he saw the glaring lights, just a pinprick in the distance. Instants later, the noise of the train’s 120 decibel horn cut through the cold night air, and for a terrifying moment, Steinmeier thought that the driver wasn’t going to stop, would instead just try and plough straight through.

  The hissing screech of the brakes soon assuaged his momentary fear however, and he watched through his night vision scope as the huge locomotive started to shed its speed.

  The process of stopping a four thousand tonne piece of metal travelling at two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour was not a quick one, and Steinmeier watched expectantly as the train grew nearer and nearer to the bright yellow car.

  He tracked the night scope along the carriage windows, watching the passengers screaming in terror, some frozen in their seats, others falling over in the aisles.

  Everyone seemed to be panicking, except for one lone woman and her two children, who were waiting by the exit doors next to them, gripping tightly to the grab rails but otherwise waiting calmly to jump off the train when it stopped.

  Steinmeier smiled to himself through his big, bushy beard.

  Perfect.

  66

  It was just two minutes later that he saw the family jump from the train, which had stopped barely twenty feet from the car.

  He had been briefed fully on the situation, and trained his sights on the bodies – one large, two small – as they fell to the snow-covered ground by the side of the carriage.

  He breathed deeply, then held the breath, cross hairs resting on the largest target.

  It was defintely Sarah Cole.

  67

  An insant later, Steinmeier slung the rifle across his back. The woman in his sights was his friend’s wife, and Mark had asked him to get her and the children safely to the emergency safe house – and he intended to do just that.

  Steinemeier had also been told that there might be enemy agents in pursuit, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Something was definitely wrong, though; Sarah was walking awkwardly, staggering down the slope.

  Steinmeier broke from the cover of the trees where he’d been hiding and sprinted out to Sarah and the children. He needed to get them away before any other passengers got off the train and created more complications.

  Amy saw him first. ‘Stefan?’ she asked, and he grinned at her in return.

  ‘Amy! Hey, how are you doing? Ben!’ he continued as he got nearer. ‘It’s good to see you!’ His English was perfect, although he had retained his German accent.

  As he got closer, he could see the look of worry on Ben’s face. ‘You’ve got to help Mummy!’ the little boy screamed out to him, and then Steinmeier was there with them. Sarah looked up at him through her oversized sunglasses, smiled with relief, and fainted in his arms.

  68

  Steinmeier sat next to Sarah Cole, who was fast asleep in bed, nigh on unconscious from shock and blood loss.

  He had a thick, heavy glass of vodka in one hand and a telephone in the other. His mind was in turmoil as he debated what to do.

  The night before, he had had to administer a field dressing to Sarah’s foot before setting off – on seeing him, her adrenaline had started to ebb away, and after she fainted, the ugly wound had started to bleed heavily.

  Luckily for Sarah, feet never bled too much, and Steinmeier was able to collect all the blood in one dressing before he bandaged the wound. Unluckily for her, several of the bones were shattered, and it would be a long while before she would be able to walk comfortably again.

  He had placed her in the front passenger seat, legs elevated onto the dashboard, and had sat Ben and Amy in the back; he hadn’t wanted them to see their mother’s features too
closely, at least not until he’d had the chance to attend to the swelling and bruising.

  They had avoided being seen by any of the passengers, and Steinmeier was confident that there hadn’t been any agents aboard, or at least none that were continuing with the pursuit.

  Nevertheless, he had taken the Nissan on a widely circuitous route, using its 4 × 4 capability on several occasions to traverse ground that would give away anyone who was following them.

  Just over an hour later, they were at their final destination, the safe house where they would wait for Mark.

  Steinmeier was perfectly happy with the security arrangements there. The safe house was, after all, his own home; and if that wasn’t safe, then what was?

  On the surface it was a normal, timber-framed Alpine-style chalet, situated in a quiet residential street, set well back from any neighbours; not that there were many neighbours in the small village. Inside, however, it was like a fortress. The walls were reinforced with aluminium, there was extensive electronic surveillance, and weapons literally covered the house – hidden but immediately accessible.

  But perhaps what made the house so secure was Steinmeier’s network of lookouts and watchers throughout the village. The members of the local community thought of Steinmeier as something of a local hero, and like villagers the world over, were well attuned to strangers entering their territory. As a result, any such unexpected visitors would be drawn to Steinmeier’s attention almost before they would even know they were in his village.

  69

  Steinmeier had first met Mark Cole back in the days when he still went by the name of Kowalski. It was almost fifteen years ago, back when the young American had just joined SEAL Team Six, and Steinmeier himself had been a grizzled old Sergeant in Germany’s GSG9, the counter-terrorist section of the Federal Border Guard.

  They had been paired for a training exercise, simulating an operation against a North Sea oil rig platform that had been hijacked by terrorists. Steinmeier had expected the young man to be nervous, uncertain, sure to make mistakes. Although such units often trained and fought alongside one another, there was always a feeling of friendly competitiveness, and Steinmeier was looking forward to correcting the American commando’s faults.

  The training exercise went in an unexpected direction though, and Steinmeier found that Kowalski didn’t falter once. From the insertion to the target on their Mark 4 Zodiac hydrofoils which jarred along the freezing, choppy waters that threatened to break their backs, to the ascent up the ice-slick ladders, to the stealthy movement around the massive structure, and eventually to the taking down of the hijackers and the release of the hostages, Kowalski’s performance had been perfect.

  But what had impressed him the most was the man’s response when Steinmeier had made a mistake himself.

  Moving through the bowels of the superstructure, Steinmeier had struck his foot into a loose metal casting on the floor, not fifty yards from two armed sentries. As their heads snatched round at the sound Kowalski dropped them with his silenced submachine gun before they even realized what had happened. But what was more, Kowalski never mentioned it again, respecting Steinmeier’s age and experience and not wanting to tarnish his image.

  Steinmeier had respected such an act, and the post-exercise drinking session had cemented their friendship. Kowalski couldn’t only fight, but could also drink like a German!

  For his part, Steinmeier had proven over the years that he was a man that could be trusted. Indeed, he was the only man from Cole’s previous life that he had told about being alive; even Cole’s own blood family believed that he had been killed in action, having attended a funeral for him a year after he had gone missing in Pakistan.

  It was this bond of friendship and trust that had brought about this current situation – he tending to Sarah’s wounds, whilst his own wife and children entertained Ben and Amy downstairs, as they all waited anxiously for the arrival of Mark Cole.

  It was also what had caused him to almost finish the bottle of vodka that sat on the table next to him.

  70

  Cole positioned himself at a table for one, by a glass balcony overlooking the lower shopping concourse in the largest section of the Fünf Höfe, Munich’s famous ‘five courtyards’ shopping mall. The centre was still busy despite the late hour, and was spectacularly bedecked for the Christmas period. The thirty-foot tall Christmas tree below him in the main foyer must have cost tens of thousands of Euros alone, and was only a small part of the decorations. It seemed like a continuation of the traditional Christmas market that filled the Marienplatz main town square further down the street, which Cole had had to push his way through on his way to the mall, the thousands of visitors revelling in the joys of the season.

  He had driven straight down to Munich from Stuttgart through the afternoon and evening, wanting to keep moving towards the rendezvous point with his family. But by the time he had reached the outskirts of Munich, curiosity had finally got the better of him; and so instead of carrying on down to the Austrian border, he had detoured into the city centre in order to find out more about Hansard and his secretive little group.

  His position on the balcony gave him a clear line of sight not only over most of the mall, but also back through the coffee shop. There should be no reason why anyone should find him here, but you never knew, and it always paid to be careful.

  He fired up the laptop as he sipped a cup of Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee. He had the computer connected to a landline connection; wi-fi was available, but was simply too insecure. In fact, this whole location was less secure than the cyber café he had used back in Stuttgart. But time was pressing on, and he was aware that he just didn’t have time to track down a similar place. Still, the security on the laptop itself was good, and that would have to do.

  Hansard’s own computer files were his target, and he prayed that they would be as simple as the CIA ones he had hacked earlier. If he was to get to the bottom of this thing, surely he would find what he needed buried somewhere deep within Hansard’s own system.

  71

  Whereas the CIA’s computer security was government funded, and therefore relied upon the best computer technicians that government money could buy, Hansard had had his system security designed by private contractors, at much greater expense.

  It therefore proved much harder to crack through its various levels, and it wasn’t until his third cup of coffee, and a little over an hour, that Cole managed to force his way in.

  He immediately downed his cup, ordered another, and started poring over the wealth of information on the screen in front of him. It was an intelligence goldmine, with files kept on all of Hansard’s computers, from his home estate in West Virginia, his apartment in Washington DC, and from his private offices in Chevy Chase.

  Now it was just a matter of finding what he needed.

  72

  Ellen Abrams, immaculate as always, sat at the head of the large table in Conference Room One, the largest of three such rooms within the White House West Wing’s Situation Room.

  ‘So,’ she announced to the gathered men and women of the National Security Council at the close of the meeting’s introduction, ‘things are not good.’

  She turned to Charles Hansard, down the table to her right. ‘Charles,’ she said, her voice velvet smooth despite the lack of sleep and attendant stress, ‘would you care to lead us through the latest developments?’

  Hansard took a sip from the glass of water on the table in front of him, rearranged his papers, and looked up at the group. ‘I’m afraid the President is correct,’ he announced plainly. ‘The situation is decidedly not good.

  ‘As you know, after discovering the American involvement, President Danko and President Feng broke off all diplomatic contact with the United States. Danko has since flown directly to the Politburo in Beijing to speak to Feng personally, and the two have been in meetings for the last thirty-six hours.

  ‘Our resources in the People’s Republic are necessarily
limited, but the information our sources have been able to feed back to us suggest that Danko and Feng do not believe that the operation was the work of one rogue CIA agent. They are both under the firm belief that it goes much higher, all the way to the top in fact.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ announced James Dorrell, the Director of Central Intelligence. ‘Everything we’ve found out we’ve fed back to the Russians and the Chinese, and none of its points any higher than Crozier himself.’

  Hansard nodded his head sagely. Dorrell was outside his own private circle, and so like many around the table did not know all the facts. ‘Even though we know that to be true here in Washington, I’m afraid we’re going to have one hell of a time trying to convince Danko and Feng.

  ‘As it stands, Danko and Feng think that you’ – here he pointed at Ellen Abrams – ‘came up with the whole Mutual Defence Treaty purely in order to lure Danko to a controllable location in order to assassinate him. They furthermore believe that it was your desire for the attack to be blamed on China in order for you to launch ‘justified’ revenge attacks on the People’s Republic.

  ‘They are totally convinced, according to our sources, that the whole operation was concocted in order to behead one superpower and weaken another, in order for us to preserve our status as the world’s most powerful nation.’

  The faces around the table remained calm, but he saw flickers of fear and panic cross more than one. The ramifications of Russia and China gunning for the US could be potentially horrifying, as both nations had gigantic nuclear stockpiles.

  Hansard took another sip of the water. He hadn’t even got to the scary bit yet. Some of the people around the table – he counted four members of his Alumni – knew what was coming; most didn’t.