Daniel pulled back as if he had been pulled onto a hot poker. Tim saw the look of pure hatred in his eyes.
“You promised,” he cried through thick tears. “She’s dead, you promised. You killed my mummy. I hate you.”
Tim recoiled, struck by the shear anguish and grief of this small, lonely child.
As Annubis died far away in Mexico, in a cold wet crematorium across the other side of the World, the hatred that had driven him on his path of death and suffering was reborn in Tim. Tim knew his path was set. He would find and kill everyone that had a hand in his wife’s death. Annubis was reborn
Chapter 40
Graham Pelham gazed out of the window at the grey Manx sky and watched the raindrops slowly run down the glass of the office window of the law firm in Athol Street. His gaze was unfocussed as he sat deep in thought. On his desk was a packet, as yet unopened. His decision that day was if he should open the envelope?
The client to whom the packet belonged had been introduced by the dodgy, ex convict, New York banker, Mel Levy. Pelham had to concede that Levy for all his faults had made a great deal of money for him personally and his firm of advocates. The Russians and their money laundering alone had allowed him to amass a small fortune.
He was being paid twenty thousand pounds a year just to store the packet sitting on his desk. The only other duty he had to perform to earn his money was to check his email. Each month a message would appear reading “Annubis lives.” As long as the message appeared on time in his in box his duty was complete.
This month, however the message had failed to arrive. He had now waited a further five days and there still had been no communication. He could wait no longer. Along with the packet entrusted to him for safe keeping had been a letter addressed to him. That letter was held in his hand as he looked out the window contemplating his next course of action.
The letter read, “Dear Mr Pelham, enclosed is a package that you should delivery personally to the addressee. Upon completion of this task the sum of one million pounds will be transferred to you designated bank account.”
Pelham swivelled his chair round and placed the parcel on his desk. He picked it up and read the name on the front. Mr Anthony Burr, Thames House London.
He knew that the Headquarters of MI5 was based in Thames House. It was indeed a dilemma. He wanted a million pounds, but he did not want to bring himself to the attention of one of the Worlds most successful anti terrorist organisations, particularly as he was up to his neck in helping some of the richest Russians clean their ill gotton gains.
He sat a while longer. The draw of an extra million pounds got the better of him and his greed won the argument. He rationalised that he would meet with this Mr Burr at MI5 and feel out the ground. He would skirt the issue and then decide if he should hand him the packet or not. He would come up with a cover story about clarifying some legal technicality and take it from there.
He picked up the phone to his secretary. “Could you get me MI5, they are based in Thames House in London,” he said.
The phone call took considerably longer than he had imagined. Had he thought about it he would have realised that MI5 was subjected to thousands of crank calls a year. It would be necessary to apply some form of filter system, or all their resources would be tied up dealing with calls from people. For example who had met an alien in the park the previous evening.
Tim was sat at his desk and not engaging in the World around him. His first reaction had been to resign. In truth he no longer had any interest in scrutinising the minutia of the thousands of often unconnected bits of information that appeared on his desk. GCHQ spent hours up on hours sifting, sorting and collating source information and then it was analysed initially by a computer seeking connections and cross referencing to all the databases available to MI5 before, finally, it was subjected to human touch. A file, usually electronic, was passed to him as head of section for the final judgement call. Resources were scarce and so precious. Following up on one situation meant that the opportunity to investigate another had to be forgone.
At one time he had revelled in making these judgement calls and gained immense satisfaction in finding, more often than not, he had made the correct choice. Now with the murder of his wife, he was in truth embittered and no longer cared. He felt resentment against the World that had taken her away from him.
He had not resigned and was now using the resources of the Agency to further his own agenda of identifying the actual killer of his wife and colleague. His file on the Russians was growing by the day. Their connections to others were being traced. Covertly he was building a dossier as detailed as any on these people and their associates. Somewhere there would be a link, a tiny scrap, a morsel of information that would lead him to the person or persons that had walked up to that terrace and without a second thought had put a bullet in her head.
Yerik and his bunch of thugs were on the Lady Heloise watched by a great big battleship. Nikhil and Lesta were in another part of the planet miles away. They could all be ruled out as the actual killer who had pulled the trigger. They were as guilty, of course and they would pay but not before he had his man. It was a matter of time but he would find him. And in the end he would have his vengeance.
The phone rang and he was minded to ignore it. He felt though, perhaps he ought to engage at least a little in genuine MI5 business and decided to answer it. It was one of the junior staff members. She had only worked at MI5 a few months and had been recruited straight from University. A more experienced team member would probably discount the call and not bothered the head of section. In her keenness to not make mistakes early in her career, she had opted for the better safe than sorry course of action and picked up the phone to her boss.
“A lawyer from the Isle of Man wants to speak to you,” she said.
“Just take his details and make a note of what he says and pass it into the pool for analysis.”
“No he wants to talk to you specifically. He asked for you by name, he said it was very important.”
Tim was not inclined to indulge this lawyer. However the fact he was a lawyer did promote him above the usual unsolicited phone callers.
“Put him through.”
“This is Tim Burr please be brief.”
“My name is Graham Pelham, I am a Manx advocate and I am contacting you on behalf of a client.”
“Perhaps it would be better if your client contacted us direct. Information provided anonymously is hard to evaluate you understand. Please ask your client to contact the relevant section. The phone in service provides a number of options to select from,” Tim was about to hang up.
“Please wait one moment. I am to mention the name Annubis.”
Tim was silent for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. “I am listening.”
“I have a package that he insists that I should hand to you personally.”
Chapter 41
The death of Stiles had caused somewhat of a crisis. Elaine found herself sat in the Cabinet Room in number ten Downing Street with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary and representatives of the armed services, police and special branch. Elaine and the PM were the only women among the other twenty or so individuals in the room.
“Sadly the file containing the documentation linking some of the richest men in Russia and even the Kremlin to the stash of offshore money has been lost. It was I fear, an opportunity lost in terms off putting pressure on the Russians to moderate foreign policy, for example in the Middle East and even the Ukraine. The Americans are eager to hit them in the pockets where it actually matters to them. Applying sanctions has had a profound effect on the Russian economy but the wealthy are, of course, isolated from the consequences of the downturn. Seizing or freezing their bank accounts would have had the benefit of focussing their minds,” Elaine rounded off her speech and sat down.
“Pity, it would have been nice to stick one on them,” said Mailer, the Foreign Secretary. Elaine could only shrug h
er shoulders.
“How are you coping now, dear,” asked the head of MI6, Elaine knew that he had no concern for her but was just highlighting the weakness in his counterpart. The fact that Tim had coerced Mailer into supporting the operation in Crete still rankled and he was not going to pass up an opportunity to point out any weakness in Elaine or MI5.
The obvious sexism in addressing her as “dear” would have to be passed over for the present. Elaine chose not to acknowledge the obvious condescension in the remark and was determined to answer factually without any sign of irritation.
The PM however intervened. “Lets’ not waste time on asking each other how we are and get to the matter in hand. The untimely death of Elaine’s number two does leave us with a clear problem as to who to put in his place.”
“I have prepared a possible list of candidates and I am sure there will be other suggestions,” Elaine’s list was already in front of the people sat around the table.
There was no obvious replacement and the discussion lasted longer than the PM would have wished, but the succession at MI5 had seemed to have been settled. Before Stile’s murder it had been tacitly accepted that Stile’s would have succeeded her. Elaine was due for retirement in less than two years and he would have a number of years as head to test and groom a successor. In the time honoured fashion of the Civil Service, the right sort of chap would have naturally risen to heir apparent. Now a candidate needed to be plucked from the ranks to plug the gap.
It was not that there were not a number of capable candidates that had the ability. It was more the fact that most, if not all, were either the wrong side of the political spectrum, caused offence to someone or were just plain not the right sort. It came down in the end to picking someone who had done the least, rather than someone that had done too much and could prove problematical to the ambitions of others.
In the end Elaine’s entire shortlist had been rejected. The PM was becoming irritated at the wrangling and infighting. It was clear that with an aging head, in the Form of Elaine, they all wanted a weak potential successor so they could further their own prominence. “Enough, I am head of the service in the final analysis and a decision needs to be made now. You can’t or won’t come up with a recommendation so I shall impose one,” She named Elaine’s new deputy.
Chapter 42
Tim has never been to the Isle of Man before and learned on his taxi ride from Ronaldsway Airport to Pelham’s Office in Athol Street that Manx cats had no tails, there were no trees and he should make a wish as they drove over the Fairy Bridge. He had no idea why Annubis should make contact with him but he did know that the assassin had tried to help him to get his wife back. He was confident that Annubis wished him no ill and considered him a friend.
He paid the taxi and entered the Advocate’s office, passing the walls covered with brass plaques bearing all the names of companies registered in the Isle of Man. Tim did wonder why the UK tax authorities had so much trouble with tracking down tax avoiders and evaders. He felt that a return ticket to the Isle of Man should not be beyond the budget of Her Majesty’s Tax and Customs and Excise to send a chap over and make a list from the plaques in the advocate’s offices in Athol Street.
He was shown straight into Pelham’s office where his hand was shaken and he was asked to sit. On the desk between them were a laptop and a small brown wrapped parcel.
“This is difficult for me,” began Pelham, “I was reluctant to contact you given your position. Our clients are keen to not draw attention to themselves and I am equally keen to not draw the attention of MI5 to me.”
“I am not the tax man, but I will have no hesitation in examining every detail of your life if I ever get a whiff of a threat to National Security, be clear, and be very clear that you really need to stay on the right side of me and MI5.”
Pelham took a deep breath and his discomfort was apparent as he continued. “Among my clients there is this man known only to me as Annubis. Each month He sends me an email and as long as those emails continue, my instructions are to do nothing. When they stop however, I was to open a sealed envelope which contained instructions for me to act on.”
“Essentially you are happy to breach the “Know Your Client” legislation and act anyway without informing the Authorities?”
“Of course not, I have a certified copy of Mr Jon Jameson’s passport who calls himself Annubis,” He passed the photocopy of the passport across the desk.
Tim looked down at the face of a complete random stranger, certainly not the man he knew as Annubis, certified as genuine by a Panamanian firm of lawyers know to be complacent in money laundering and aiding clients in establishing fake or proxy personas.
Tim could not be bothered to comment and allowed Pelham to continue unchallenged. He did make a mental note that the man sat before him could prove highly useful at some stage to obtain information on the dodgy movers in the World. No harm he thought in MI5 and him personally, having dirt on the rich and powerful, the great and the good. These were the people that did business regularly with the Russian scum, who had been responsible for his wife and his best friend’s death.
Pelham passed the package across the desk. Tim lent forward and began to unwrap it. It was clear that Pelham had had a look to see if there was any pecuniary advantage, having seen no way of lining his pocket without Tim he had no option but to carry out Annubis’s instructions.
The letter read, “Dear Friend, if you are reading this I am no longer alive. The book was given to me as a child by my Father, it is all that I have of my life in Iraq before my parents died. It shows the ancient Egyptian Gods. I liked the pictures of Annubis weighing the souls of the dead against the weight of a feather. Those that are too heavy to enter the kingdom of the dead are gobbled up by Sobek, the crocodile,”
Tim looked at the tattered book written in Arabic. He understood and the image resonated with him. He felt the truth and that need for vengeance that had fuelled Annubis. He knew that fate had passed that lust to him and that he too would need to mercilessly act to cleanse the World of those who had destroyed his family.
It continued,” I enclose details of an account I hold with Levy and Associates. They will have turned all my investments into cash. Simply enter the codes and the password and you are free to transfer the money into an account of your choosing. I have taken the liberty of establishing an account for you which is offshore and untraceable if you prefer to use it.”
Tim looked at the attached piece of paper containing instructions to log on and access the money. He guessed that Pelham may well have already tried to do this himself but without the password would have failed. That explained why he had been forced to make contact.
“Mr Pelham will automatically receive a transfer when you first access the account of one million dollars for his discretion and services. The only thing to say is to wish you well my only friend. The password is all lower case, the name of murderer of my brother. Good luck and I hope your life fairs better than mine”
Pelham turned the laptop round to give Tim access and he began typing. Finally he was prompted for the password. He typed, “jasondelonge,”
Tim left the Isle of Man twelve million dollars richer.
Graham Pelham opened the metal box, Annubis’s box. Inside were what appeared to be a diary and assorted papers. Written in Arabic he could not decipher it. He put it in his safe. He would get it translated sometime.
Chapter 43
Nobody was more surprised than Tim when he was appointed deputy head of MI5. He had the job by default. The discussions had led to an impasse on the suitability of any particular candidate. In essence he got the job because he had no time to piss anybody off, with the exception of the Foreign Secretary, Mailer. He, however, had no desire to stick a spanner in Tim’s works, not while the file of his activities at the children’s home was still in Tim’s possession.
David Trist retired from the DEA after his failure to ensure the death of Rojas and went to Thailand wit
h his payoff from the Drug Lord. He married a Thai woman in her late teens and bought a house where her family soon moved into with them. His body was found nine months after he was married. Throat cut in his car. His wife and her male cousin who lived in the same house as Trist were the prime suspects. During the investigation the police did uncover the fact that the cousin was in fact Trist’s wife’s long time lover, but that was still insufficient to gain a conviction for Trist’s murder. His wife and her new husband inherited all his assets under Thai law.
Tim tried to establish contact with Daniel but the boy would never forgive him for his Mother’s death. Tim did the best he could, using five million pounds of his new found wealth to establish an education and maintenance trust for him. Daniel’s Grandfather died within eight months of Jackie’s death through grief. His Grandmother struggled on until Daniel was seventeen and used the money Tim provided to try and get Daniel the best boarding school education she could. She passed away just before his eighteenth birthday.
Daniel had been a troubled child and he become more and more anti social in his teens. On his eighteenth birthday he came into the trust fund in his own right. He quit school the day after his birthday and went on a self indulgent spending spree. He died at the age of twenty one of an overdose in a grubby crack den in Miami.
Dealer
Also by Nicholas E Watkins
Tanker
Bank
Oligarch
Steel
About the Author
Nicholas Watkins lives on the Coast with his wife and has four children He is a retired Accountant and has a Degree in Economics. He worked in the City of London for many years.
Bank (A Tim Burr Thriller Book 2) Page 16
