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

  Sarah lay back in bed, thinking. She had always known her husband was capable, and although she knew his work was dangerous, she had never before truly worried about him. Partly this was due to his own nonchalance, brushing away any talk of such danger when the subject came up. But mostly, she now realized, it stemmed from her utter ignorance of the reality of violence, and of the world her husband lived in.

  She had now been exposed to that world first hand, and the experience had changed her outlook on things irrevocably. Like an epiphany, her eyes had been opened to the cold, hard, brutal world, and now that she knew what her husband was up against, her faith in his safe return had started to slowly ebb away.

  Steinmeier stayed with her, calming her down until she was asleep again, and then took a long hard pull from the vodka bottle by his side. He stared at his friend’s wife for several minutes before leaving the room.

  He still didn’t know what he was going to do.

  97

  Cole awoke to a dull roar, which seemed to be coming from all sides at once.

  At first he didn’t open his eyes all the way, but instead kept them as narrow slits as he scanned his current location.

  He was in what looked like a large metal container, securely restrained to a large metal chair, which was in turn secured to the metal floor. A uniformed German police officer sat to one side, working on a small laptop computer.

  He remembered being in the stark white cell back in Munich, overhearing the conversation regarding his transfer to Washington. He then remembered being given an injection, and wondering whether it would prove lethal, Hansard executing him whilst in the supposedly safe hands of the German police.

  It had just been a sedative though, as it turned out – presumably to stop Cole from talking before Hansard’s agents picked him up from Andrews Air Force Base, where the aircraft would almost certainly be landing.

  Cole checked his suroundings again. He recognized the interior of the metal container now as that of a C-130 Hercules military transport plane, a four-prop beast used by almost every nation in the world. He had parachuted out of the back of such planes more times than he could count, and the internal architecture was more than familiar to him.

  He knew that Germany was one of the only countries in the world that didn’t make use of the Hercules, but the aeroplane’s internal layout told him it was the C-130K, as used by the British RAF. It figured; the Brits still had plenty of military forces in Germany, and Hansard would undoubtedly have been able to pull some strings in order to get him in transportation as soon as possible.

  Next, he re-checked how exactly he was being secured. It seemed that the large metal clasps around his wrists and ankles were electromagnets, and he knew there would be no possible way to break free of them.

  But there was also no possible way he could let this plane land at Andrews. He would surely be killed within an hour of landing, and Cole could just not allow that to happen.

  The information he had discovered was too important to be lost.

  98

  Hansard’s plan, Cole had discovered, operated on many levels and had been many years in the making. Essentially though, it amounted to profiteering on an unprecedented scale, at the risk of the world descending into nuclear chaos.

  It seemed that Hansard, from his position as Head of the DIA’s Department X, had spent time recruiting young up-and-coming politicians, military officers, intelligence agents and businesspeople. He had spent time researching their backgrounds, understanding their motivations, helping their early careers.

  Eventually, when he had been given the Mentor role at the JMIC, he had used his contacts to make sure that they had all been seconded to the school at the same time, in the same class.

  Here, Hansard spent the next twelve months moulding the men and women under his care, subtly influencing their perceptions and attitudes to the world. It didn’t take much on Hansard’s part – they were almost on his wavelength right from the start, which was why he had selected them in the first place.

  By their graduation, the group was a close-knit family unit, with Hansard as their father figure. Since then they had mutually assisted each other up through the levels of Washington power politics, until now each and every one of them occupied important positions within the American political, financial and military infrastructure.

  It seemed they were all still loyal to Hansard, willing to follow and support his audacious plan.

  The plan itself was already well on its way. Crozier’s attack had already created a situation which had pushed Russia and China together, with America shunned. Hansard and his group hoped such events would create two opposing power blocs, with Russia and China on the one hand, and the United States on the other. The group would now work to exacerbate the situation, encouraging a formal alliance between Russia and China whilst increasing tensions between them and the US.

  This new Cold War would lead to massive new defence contracts as conventional military arms would again make a comeback – aircraft carriers, fighter jets, bombers, tanks, artillery. The group knew that these big-ticket items were where the money was made, and the owners of the four big private military contractor companies on the list were standing by with contracts ready to be signed.

  From what Cole could make out, the figures were projected at near to two trillion dollars, and each member of Hansard’s group stood to make billions from the deals.

  But this wasn’t the most frightening thing about the plan. The elite little club needed those contracts signing, and there was no way to guarantee – no matter how dangerous this new ‘Cold War’ situation looked – that President Abrams would sign them.

  Steve Mancini was not part of the core group, but was one of the hundreds of staff who worked loyally for the members. Mancini was Ellen Abrams’ personal Secret Service bodyguard, and Charles Hansard had recruited him to the mission before the agent had even joined the Service.

  And tomorrow morning, at 0900 Eastern Standard Time, Steve Mancini would accompany his protectee to the White House Press Briefing Room, ensure she got to the podium in safety, then draw back behind her to keep watch.

  And then, when all the cameras were on her, along with the eyes of the entire world, Mancini would pull out his 10mm Sig Sauer pistol and blow Ellen Abrams’ brains out, live on television.

  Mancini would almost certainly be killed by the other Secret Service agents – there was nothing in anything that Cole read to indicate that Mancini was expected to survive, at any rate, and Cole wondered for a moment what motivated the man. Why was he willing to sacrifice himself? Maybe it was the thirty million dollars that had been promised to his children.

  Planted evidence would later suggest that Mancini had been working for the Russians, and it would then be suggested that the whole thing was a revenge attack for the assassination attempt on Danko, and the whole of the United States would be in uproar. There would be no conclusive evidence – there couldn’t be, otherwise the US would have to declare war on Russia – but everyone would believe that this was the case.

  It would further push Russia and China together, and would ingrain a hatred of the two countries in the minds of the American people.

  It would also push Richard Jensen into the Presidency, where he would declare a formal start to the new Cold War, with a commensurate build-up of the United States conventional military machine.

  And with Richard Jensen, the new President of the United States, being manipulated from behind the scenes, Cole knew with chilling certainty that this would put Vice Admiral Charles Hansard in indirect control of the entire country.

  99

  Hansard relaxed in his leather armchair, allowing himself just the slightest of hope that his plans might soon come to fruition.

  He was a rich man anyway, but the arms deals that would be made over the coming weeks and months would bring him untold billions more. He didn’t need the money of course, but the truth was that money bought power, and that was what he tru
ly craved.

  And yet he had no desire to be a famous politician. He had decided early on in his career that he was much happier directing things from behind the scenes, much like a puppet master would have done in the shows he used to watch as a young boy.

  From a purely practical point of view, the plan also made sense for the country’s security. The trouble as Hansard saw it – along with all the rest of the Alumni – was that America had no consistency in its present enemy.

  Since 9/11, the United States had concentrated almost all of her military and intelligence resources on the War on Terror. Terrorism, however, was not an easy enemy to fight against. Its sheer unpredictability meant that victory was never likely. Terrorists dressed like civilians, lived with civilians, hid behind civilians.

  America would never be able to win against such an enemy without creating such massive civilian collateral damage that it would virtually guarantee another generation of anti-American jihadists, thereby ensuring that America would not win at all, but merely prolong the conflict further.

  The War on Terror was simply a no-win situation. The oil contracts had already been signed, and with the United States’ Middle Eastern oil routes guaranteed already there was simply no reason to continue with it.

  Hansard had been pleased, in fact, when US forces had finally been withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. They were low-level conflicts, with a large emphasis on special forces, reconnaissance and foot soldiers – all of which made for bad publicity when such men and women were killed on the front lines, but none of which generated the sort of revenues that were possible from a conventional conflict.

  Or even – as Hansard strongly believed – the threat of conventional conflict.

  Back in the days of the Cold War, the huge military machine that had been built up under Reagan was immense – though hardly ever used. Thus aircraft carriers, logistics craft, submarines, fighter planes, bombers, reconnaissance vehicles, artillery pieces, battle tanks, and all the associated weaponry to go with them, were financed, researched, developed, purchased, tested, exercised, repaired and finally replaced, all without being used in anger, generating massive incomes for the contractors and their political allies whilst not exposing the American people or their military to much in the way of direct danger.

  It was a truism during the Cold War that stretched from the late 1940s all the way into the early 1990s that many ‘hot war’ incidents were avoided due to the possibility of Mutually Assured Destruction – both the US and the USSR had massive nuclear stockpiles, and both were aware of the ramifications of their use. Thus, nothing happened except for small local conflicts fought by proxy, with the exceptions of the Korean and Vietnam wars of course.

  It was Hansard’s dream to see this same sort of perverse stability recreated in the present day. He wanted the US to abandon its war on terror and get back to conventional warfare – it was safer, infinitely more predictable and, as a result, infinitely more profitable.

  Diana Westlake of Westlake Inc. would be one of the major new contractors on President Jensen’s new program of nuclear rearmament. It was part of the Alumni’s plan to have America’s nuclear arsenal increase by a factor of ten over the next five years. Not only would it create an income for companies owned by the Alumni of close to a trillion dollars – in addition to the trillion or so dollars from other conventional weapons systems whose contracts were already in place – it would guarantee a similar build-up on the other side of the world by China and Russia.

  Such build-ups would once again mean that any future conflict might result in MAD – and as such would surely be avoided at all costs, thus ensuring long-term American security.

  It seemed a perverse way of looking at the world, but Hansard and his cabal truly believed that it would be better for the country this way. The threat of nuclear war on the global scale would so far overshadow the threat of a terrorist attack that terrorism would simply be ignored, and would thus no longer be effective – and would thus cease to exist.

  So not only would the plans of the group make them billionaires many times over, it would also make the entire country a safer place. The Alumni were patriots, after all.

  And the fact that Vice Admiral Charles Hansard, wealthy scion of a famous American family, would finally have control of the country through his manipulations of the new President, his cabinet and the entire US legislature, would just be the icing on the cake.

  Reclining in his chair, Hansard puffed on his pipe, sipped from his glass of brandy, and smiled.

  100

  Cole knew what he would have to do. The risks associated with Hansard’s crazed scheme were just too great – what if nuclear weapons were launched? With massive build-ups of weapons by the US, Russia and China, such a conflict would simply ensure the end of the world.

  But he still didn’t know whether his family was safe. The escape route through Miami was good, and Sarah knew what she was doing. Cole knew his wife was both tough and resourceful, and not only had he taught her well, but she had learnt well too, being something of a natural at the work.

  It seemed a little incongruous that such a well-bred daughter of such an incredibly wealthy man could at the same time be street smart and so very, very capable. But, Cole remembered, with no mother and an absentee father, she had essentially raised herself, and her self-reliance was no accident.

  It was too painful to even think about his children – were they okay, were they safe, did they know what was going on, were they scared? Images flashed through his mind, snapshots of their lives from their earliest days as they crawled in nappies around the floor of the beach house, learnt to walk, to talk, to –

  A tear welled up in Cole’s eye, and he blinked it away as subtly as he could, careful not to let the German policeman see him.

  No. He had to believe Sarah would get herself and the children to Stefan. She was capable, the plan was good, and Albright – dangerously psychotic or not – should have been left behind in Miami, shaking his head in confusion, leaving his family free to travel to the rendezvous in safety.

  He wanted desperately to make the same rendezvous, get to Steinmeier’s house and check his family were okay, kiss them, hold them close, say sorry for dragging them into his business, promise them it was all over, he would never leave them again.

  But the fact of the matter was that the very future of the world – and certainly that of the United States – was also under threat, and Cole was the only person who might be able to prevent the cataclysm.

  PART FOUR

  1

  It was to be the last meeting of the Alumni before the assassination of President Abrams the next day would throw the whole country into panic, chaos and confusion.

  The meeting, as ever, was held in the utterly secure confines of Charles Hansard’s own government installation, the Office of the Director of National Security. And as ever, the men and women arrived without their drivers or their security details, driving their own rented cars in through the rear access road to the undergound parking lot.

  Hansard had replaced the ODNI’s own security personnel on the gate with the lone figure of Nicholas Stern, who checked each and every individual on their way in. In this way, the meeting was as secret as it could possibly be.

  There was an air of excitement, of anticipation, in the air that night, as the men and women of the powerful clique drank champagne and chatted animatedly about the future. Would it all work out? How quickly would things progress? How would they react under the watchful eyes of the press and public? What would they say?

  But there was also a degree of nervousness, something that Hansard had been picking up on a little too much lately. It was always the same – people were always happy to talk a good fight, but when it came to crunch time, their will was often less than they boasted of. And Hansard had no desire to get embroiled in another episode like the one with Bill Crozier. He had balked at the last moment, threatening to go to Dorrell with everything. Maybe he would have, m
aybe he wouldn’t; but it was a chance Hansard had been unwilling to take.

  But at the same time, he couldn’t very well just set about killing any member of the group who had their doubts. Doubts were natural, but they needed to be stamped out, and stamped out quickly, especially at such a critical juncture.

  And so he had brought with him for this final meeting a very special guest; someone whom he hoped would rekindle the spirit of the Alumni and help them to see things through to the end.

  2

  Stephen Antonio Mancini waited quietly in the small room connected to the main conference room where the meeting was being held.

  He was nervous about his appearance before the group. Even though he had been the President’s personal bodyguard for the past two years, the fact was that she did not intimidate him in the slightest; in fact, his entire concentration was devoted to concealing his utter hatred of her. The Alumni – and Vice Admiral Charles Hansard in particular – were in a different league altogether, however, and although he had worked for them for years, he had never before met them all together. Indeed, like many ‘beta’ members, Mancini didn’t even know for sure who they were.

  The way the Alumni group worked was on three levels. The first was the Alumni themselves, the special group of people that had met and formed the core of the unit back at the turn of the century. Below that elite number were the beta members, those like Mancini himself who were aware of the group’s existence, ideals and goals – although not necessarily who the group actually consisted of.

  But they shared the same ideals, and craved the same goals, and were willing to go to great lengths to achieve them. They would know one member of the core group at least – the person who had originally recruited them – and maybe even as many as two or three; but they would never know everyone that was involved. Such compartmentalisation was the cornerstone of the group’s security.