It seemed a reasonable idea, so the trio supervised the upload and the Chinook set off for Belgium in the early afternoon.
Only when the Chinook arrived at the small military airfield outside Brussels did the ‘shit hit the fan.’
Nobody knew anything about the delivery of gold.
Phone calls were made to the UKRA and extensive enquiries made.
It was discovered that one Richard Castle had requisitioned a Chinook on his own authority, and requested the delivery of eight crates to the Belgian Air Force Base. A brief search of the hangars revealed a large Landrover registered to Richard Castle.
Nobody in UKRA knew anything about it. There was no press conference organised and no official reception. However, a requisition for a three ton truck had been made by Castle the previous day…destination...the Belgian Air Force Base.
Two and two were added together, making five, and an all-points bulletin was put out for the Cabinet minister.
Of course, no trace of Castle could be found. He had disappeared. He was by now of course lying concealed in a wrecked Mercedes with two of Suzi Mac’s bullets in his head.
Consequently, the gold was flown back to Guernsey and re-deposited in the bonded store.
The Chinook crew were full of the story and passed on the gossip to Brady and Bryant. They discussed it with Patric and the three men came to a completely different conclusion.
They knew that Castle was in cahoots with Dame Ann. Could they have planned this together and something went wrong?
Brady found it hard to believe. Ann didn’t make such elementary mistakes. So, they attempted to make contact with the mainland. Brady called Chloe but with no luck. He then tried Chris and having no success, finally contacted Eleanor the PA, who innocently gave him the news.
‘Young Chris has gone to San Diego to join his family. His mother is ill, apparently. As for Chloe, she has gone to Rome for a short break with Dame Ann. I booked the flight tickets myself. They flew out this morning.’
Brady thanked Eleanor and passed on his news.
Ross had also received the same story from a different source.
They all agreed….something definitely wasn’t right.
Brady couldn’t believe that Chloe hadn’t told him of the trip to Rome…after all they had been through. He was deeply troubled.
However, if there was a plot, then it had been foiled. No gold was missing and the apparent perpetrator was on the run.
There wasn’t much more that they could do. There were only three more loads of gold to come, and the Swiss were due in a fortnight or so.
Perhaps they'd been wrong about Ann all along.
***
They weren’t wrong at all, and everything would have been perfect if not for a fatal mistake made by a careless security operative in Guernsey.
Ann, Suzi and Chloe were making their separate ways to Caracas via Paris and Madrid. All three were well prepared and had readily adopted their brand new identities.
Ann Fletcher was now Carol Leslie – Australian citizen.
Suzi Macintyre was now Helga Carville – Canadian citizen.
Chloe Fletcher was now Antonia de Marco – Italian citizen.
All had travelled safely and unnoticed and alone to Paris. They travelled on separate flights, stayed in separate hotels and behaved like bored tourists, enduring airport security and the hassle it had become.
Nobody in Brussels missed them, and the only hint of trouble was that Brady couldn’t understand why his daughter had gone to Rome without telling him.
The two women had a substantial head start.
By close of play on the Friday, the fourteenth, Ann was already in Caracas, and Chloe and Suzi were boarding their separate flights in Madrid. All of their fake documents passed muster and as nobody had missed or suspected them, nobody was searching for them.
By midnight, Chloe and Suzi were sleeping soundly in their Club Class seats after enjoying gourmet food and buckets of Champagne.
They were away.
Or were they?
***
Sir Ian James was mystified by the treachery and guile of Richard Castle, and desperately wanted to talk with Ann Fletcher about her acolyte. However, he was unable to contact her on the emergency phone and the longer this state of affairs went on, the more uneasy he became.
He telephoned Ross Bryant, after consulting the file, and discussed matters with him. Ross was unaware of any issues and stated that the final load of gold would arrive in Guernsey on Sunday morning – smack on schedule.
However, Sir Ian wasn’t satisfied, and spent the afternoon and evening re-reading the file.
He certainly wasn’t happy when he learned of the home registration of the Pretoria Queen, and immediately demanded that MI6 contact their agent urgently to confirm that all was well. Additionally, he spoke to the Captain of HMS Richmond, but he confirmed that the Operation had been boringly normal.
However, the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck.
Something was very wrong.
But what the hell was it…and where was Ann Fletcher?
Day 62
Friday 14th February
Brussels/Guernsey
M. Georges Ackermann, the head chef at ‘Le Claret Jug’ was walking his dog. He lived-in at the restaurant which he shared in co-ownership with his golf mad partner. Each morning he walked his small Highland Westie down the track from the restaurant to the shops on the main road to buy a newspaper and cigarettes.
He was a heavy smoker and this was the only real exercise he ever took. The road was still muddy from the rain of the previous days, but was drying out and was not over slippery. He purchased his paper and cigarettes, and stopped briefly for a coffee and croissant at the café next door to the general shop.
After half an hour, he started the return journey up the hill, not looking forward to the climb, and as he entered the lane, he grinned as he spotted the pair of broken red high heeled shoes lying in the woods ten metres from the track. Someone had been having some fun, he supposed, a wicked grin on his face.
He continued up the road, pausing intermittently every fifty metres or so, to regain his breath. By the time he reached the hairpin bend, he was knackered – totally out of puff. He started to cough violently and spat up copious amounts of black phlegm. He paused once more at the bend and was bent double, coughing and wheezing and spluttering, and as he raised his head to catch his breath, he saw it.
A black Mercedes saloon, about seventy or eighty metres down the slope, resting against a large tree.
He couldn’t see clearly, but there appeared to be someone in the front seat!
He stood bolt upright and his coughing fit was forgotten.
He turned and jogged as fast as he could up to the restaurant, where he called the police. He still hadn’t recovered from his exertions by the time they had arrived.
The recovery process took some time.
A man was sent down on a rope to investigate and when the bodies were confirmed as dead, a heavy recovery vehicle with a hook and winch was summoned, and the car was slowly pulled back up to the road.
The victims were removed from the Mercedes and a murder investigation launched - and the political repercussions commenced.
The bodies were quickly identified as Ann Fletcher, deputy Prime Minister of UKRA and Richard Castle, her political colleague.
Sir Ian James and the entire staff were stunned.
Stunned, but also just a little bit smug. She was not a popular woman.
Eleanor Fisher identified the bodies, as Chloe could not be found.
The police learned that a reservation had been made in Dame Ann's name for two people on the Tuesday evening, but she hadn’t appeared. Her missing daughter was supposed to be in Rome, and had left the previous day, but a quick check with the airline showed that Chloe had not taken the flight. Neither had Ann of course.
The Belgian police and UKRA attempted to trace Dame Susan Macintyre, who was
supposed to be in Germany visiting transit camps, but her itinerary was flexible. However, not one camp had seen hide nor hair of the woman – so the police now had two murders to solve and two unexplained missing persons to trace.
Sir Ian James now knew for certain that something was not right.
***
Ross, Patric and Brady were shocked to hear the news of Ann's demise and Patric was a mite remorseful.
‘She said she might be in danger. But where is her double – Carol Leslie. Do UKRA know anything about her?’
They didn’t.
And now the police had three missing women.
Sir Ian was now positive that a conspiracy of some kind was afoot, and that Ann Fletcher was at the centre of it!.
But Ann was apparently dead – so what could the problem possibly be?
He was soon to find out.
Day 63
Saturday 15th February
Guernsey
The penultimate load of gold from the Bank of England was en-route to the ship lying offshore, near to the Isle of Wight.
The crews, the divers, the engineers, the sailors on HMS Richmond, the South Africans and the soldiers in Guernsey were just about fed up with the whole bloody operation.
They were reaching dangerously high levels of fatigue, and the divers were suffering from many and various diving ailments. The process was on borrowed time and tomorrow’s extraction might well be the last until the floodwaters receded permanently. Sir Ian James was considering the options in the absence of Dame Ann.
‘Papa Quebec; Alpha zero four, request permission to approach and land.’
The pilot was tired and just a bit blasé by now and landed the chopper with a bit of a thump. Nevertheless, the unloading went as normal, and the Chinook soared away back to France.
That evening Alpha three arrived for the pick-up and after a faultless procedure, set off to Guernsey. The fifty-minute flight proceeded as normal, and the Chinook landed without delay outside the compound. The security guards had become very proficient and the unloading, checking and stacking had become very slick. The store was getting quite full and space was at a premium. Each one of the six hundred crates was numbered and carefully positioned – or so they thought.
The forklift drivers had become a tad over confident, and were now in the habit of almost racing into the compound and stacking the crates. They were piled seven or eight high and exact positioning was becoming awkward. Care needed to be taken – but this evening disaster struck when one man’s luck ran out.
The driver loading the twentieth crate of the day got it all wrong. The forklift was clearly not correctly ballasted, and as the driver extended the forks to drop the box at level eight, the machine toppled backwards, and the crate hurtled earthwards.
There was a heart-wrenching cry of pain as the box hit the driver square on the shoulder and neck, before dropping to the ground and bursting open, exposing forty bars of gold.
Brady just stood open mouthed as Ross ran forward to check on the driver.
‘Andy, get the drivers to pile the last ten boxes anywhere. We can stack them correctly later,’ he ordered as he examined the scene.
As Brady moved outside to direct operations, he signalled to the crew of the Chinook to standby – as the casualty might need to be taken to hospital.
In the event it wasn’t necessary.
The man was stone dead. Neck broken, head smashed in and shoulder almost torn from his body. There was blood everywhere and his fellow drivers were just standing around, mumbling in shock.
Once again, Ross, not Brady, took control.
‘Right, stop gawping. He's dead. Someone get a blanket to cover him up. The rest of you, get this fucking gold out of the helicopter and stacked. And this time, don’t start fucking about.’
The shattered security men went back to their forklifts and finished the unloading. The Chinook shut down as a precaution whilst the incident was being dealt with.
The army medic was called, and the man pronounced formally dead, and an ambulance was called. Within thirty minutes the body was gone, most of the blood was soaked up, and the floor washed down. The twenty-nine serviceable crates were stacked in an opposite corner, as Ross surveyed the scene.
The crate was in pieces. Gold bars lay spread around like dominoes. Some were bloodied, and would have to be cleaned before repacking.
‘Have we got a spare crate, Andy?’
‘Yes, several.’ He turned to the Lieutenant and asked him to get an extra crate brought in, and to supervise and triple the guard in the immediate area. The compound gates were shut, but the inner doors still open – exposing the store to the world.
‘Lieutenant, can you get six of your strongest men to come in here and assist with the reload. We’ll also need a bucket of water and some towels for drying. Also, Andy, I'd send the other civilian security guys home. And remind them about the need to keep their bloody mouths shut – Official Secrets Act.’
Ross was in complete control of the situation and it showed.
The area was cleared except for six burly squaddies, who gathered up the gold bars, rinsed them in the bucket, dried them with towels and replaced them, one by one, into the new crate.
The operation was almost complete when one of the squaddies, who was staring at a bar, spoke out.
‘Sir, aren't these gold bars supposed to be just that – gold?’
Brady and Ross eyed up the soldier.
‘What are you going on about, Smith. Just pack the fucking thing,’ ordered the Sgt Major.
‘No, hang about, Sarge. Let's take a look, Smith,’ said Ross, becoming alarmed.
He walked over to Smith, who held up the gold bar, struggling with its weight.
‘Look, here, sir. It's grey underneath. It's looks like the paint’s chipped off when it fell.’
Ross examined the bar and scraped at it with a coin from his pocket. What he discovered wasn’t really a great surprise, but more of a revelation – it was as if the mist had cleared and exposed the entire Fletcher mystery in a flash.
However, Ross wasn’t one to give the game away in stressful situations. Years of SAS training had given him that skill:
‘Fuck me,’ he thought to himself, ‘that's what she’s been up to!’
***
At the same time as the scheme was unravelling in Guernsey, Carol Leslie – nee Ann Fletcher – was settling in to her new life in Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela. She picked this location specifically for its non-extradition treaty with the United Kingdom – or the UKRA as it was now. However, she imagined that it would be damned near impossible for any of the three women to be traced, let alone dragged back to Brussels to explain their behaviour.
She had arrived the day before after a very pleasant flight from Madrid. Ann had upgraded to First Class, and had enjoyed all of the overnight benefits the extra cost bestowed on its passengers. She ate, drank and slept in luxury, secure in the knowledge that her masterful plan had worked perfectly. She knew that Helga (Suzi) and Antonia (Chloe) were safely on their way, both airborne on separate flights from Madrid. The internet at the hotel had told her this.
Ann hadn’t been idle during the past twenty-four hours. She had checked in for all three women, and ensured that the suites were adjoining and up to the required standard. In fact, she insisted that the manager move them all up three floors to afford them a more superior room with larger verandahs, and improved views of the city.
The receptionist referred her to the deputy manager, who held an envelope which contained all of the paperwork giving access to her bank account at the Banco de Venezuela. She took a taxi and met with the manager, who was quite used to such large amounts being transferred into his bank, and promised security and discretion. Ann, in turn, knowing how these things worked, presented Sr Lopez with a medium-range platinum Rolex timepiece, as a ‘thank you’ for his impending cooperation, and flashed copious amounts of cleavage to give him a taste of what might be possible
if he cooperated.
There would certainly be no access to any information regarding her money or identity in the future, if Sr Lopez had anything to do with it.
The bank provided three debit cards in the names of Leslie, Carville and De Marco, three local bank Visa credit cards plus chequebooks. She estimated that one million US dollars would be quite enough to last the four or five weeks she planned to spend in the city, whilst the three girls decided on their next - and perhaps – final resting place.
With two billion dollars in her accounts around the globe – the world was certainly their oyster!
Two billion dollars.
Two thousand million dollars!
She hadn’t yet told Suzi the complete financial story, nor Chloe the full details regarding her scheme – but she would do so that evening, after she collected them from the airport.
The hotel manager, also the recent recipient of a Rolex, arranged for a luxury chauffeured Bentley to drive his new best friend to Caracas airport, where Ann sat in the car whilst the driver met first Chloe, and then Suzi one hour later, and conveyed them both to the limousine where Ann waited expectantly.
They embraced emotionally and chatted excitedly all the way to the hotel, safely and discretely behind the glass window separating them from the ears of the driver – whom Ann had already tipped generously.
Ann always believed in tipping in advance – up front if you like – to ensure preferential and reliable service. It always worked a treat, as henceforth minions constantly hovered about, waiting to fulfill her every whim. So most of the important staff at the hotel were, discretely, several hundred dollars better off already – the deputy manager, the receptionist, the concierge, the doorman, the head barman, the restaurant manager and the head bellboy. It ensured top quality service.
Consequently, the evening meal served in her suite was superb.
Chloe and Suzi had showered and changed before meeting in Ann’s room for supper.
Snow! The Series [Books 1-4] Page 105
