A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1)

by James Quinn

  The Redaction Unit, or 'Redaction' as it was more commonly known, was housed safely away from SIS head office on Broadway, instead preferring the relative anonymity of Pimlico. It was based on the second floor of a rather drab office block on the Belgrave Road, with creaking floors, draughty windows, an intermittently working heating system and operated under the cover of a firm of business accountants, more specifically 'Simcock, Jones and Halifax – Business Accountants', a company which allegedly specialized in providing tax advice and services to a range of wealthy and private overseas clients.

  In reality, the unit comprised six officers who had been selected for the types of assignments that Redaction specialized in, namely the rough trade of the intelligence war. They received daily cables from Masterman, the Redaction Unit Chief at Broadway, and operations were conducted at 'arm's length' from the more regular intelligence officers. The cover of having to visit overseas clients for the accountancy firm proved useful for explaining away the comings and goings of the staff on trips abroad.

  And the man behind the title? Who was he? Who was Gorilla?

  He was alone – that was for certain – but not a lonely man. He had precious little family left, and while his origins had been some of the humblest, he was a man who appreciated and enjoyed the culture, lifestyle, and experiences that a post-war nation had to offer. As an operative, he had been forged in the early days of the Cold War fighting hard in very hard places, and on operations he carried himself with a level of confidence which hinted that he was able to draw on hidden resources at a moment's notice.

  His accent wavered somewhere between a rough South London twang and a Celtic burr, almost as if he had spent too much time in the company of men who had been born at opposing ends of the country. To match his voice, he had the look of someone who was naturally physically fit and hard-boned despite his short frame; a dock worker or a mechanic who was used to hard labor. He had an easy going manner with his contemporaries and looked senior officers straight in the eye when he had something to say, though whether this was to inform or challenge them depended on the moment at hand. And when he let his anger get the better of him, which could happen from time to time, his voice and the fiery glint in his eyes gave clues to the streets where he'd been raised.

  Despite his acerbic manner and gruffness, he had little time for what he saw as the humorless and privately-educated elite batch of officers who ran the service. He owned little and wanted, at the moment, for nothing more. His modest apartment in Maida Vale, a constantly temperamental Ford Zephyr, and the occasional foray into the retinue of drinking clubs and bars that he knew of in Soho were all that he desired.

  He took another sip of his whisky and was shaken from his daydreaming by a delicate hand placed on his shoulder. Whoever it was must have already been in the bar to his right and blindsided him. Crafty! From his left came the soft voice of his field agent contact. “Darling, sorry I'm late, the traffic was a nightmare.”

  * * *

  She was not a field agent to his eyes, at least not initially, but instead a flawless, doe-eyed beauty that he'd already bumped into only moments before at the hotel entrance. Coincidence? Certainly not – in this game, coincidence was something that only happened to normal people.

  Tall, slim, with elfin-like features and dressed elegantly for her surroundings in a simple, above the knee dress of green, as was the current fashion, and complemented with a string of delicate pearls at her throat. The mystery of her age was now resolved and Grant guessed that she would be late twenties. A modern and confident woman of the 1960's and he knew the instant he set eyes on her that she was out of his league; even a blind man could recognize that, for God's sake. He was having the problem that he infrequently came across with very beautiful women – the feeling that he couldn't meet her gaze, lest he was dazzled by her.

  Pull yourself together man, he berated himself. You're a trained intelligence officer, you've bedded dozens of women and killed almost as many men; so why are you going weak at the knees just because a good looking young woman, a colleague in fact, has turned up for a predetermined meeting at— She was saying something to him! What had he missed! Oh damn! “Er…sorry?”

  She smiled, evidently amused at the confused series of emotions passing over his face. “I said, darling, that the weather is particularly cruel today. Very harsh… wouldn't you agree?”

  The recognition phrase! “That's right,” he said, regaining his composure. “The weather report says that today the Thames may…”

  She smiled, a sweet smile. “…freeze?”

  “That's right, freeze. I'm Jack, nice to meet you.” No handshakes or any kind of formalities were used, lest the unwary fellow drinkers spotted a flaw in their cover.

  “Nicole, Nicole Quayle, my pleasure Jack… or can I call you Gor—”

  “Jack will do just fine. Drink?”

  She had settled herself into the comfortable high-backed chair which engulfed her frame. She had been about to use his cryptonym. Where had she gotten that from? Masterman probably, he had a penchant for throwing mischief into an agent-to-agent contact meeting.

  “Please, and seeing as we are in such fine surroundings and I don't suppose I'll be able to afford to visit again anytime soon, a glass of Tattinger would be lovely,” she said.

  Grant called over the waitress and ordered. As protocol demanded, they waited until the waitress returned and delivered the champagne before resuming their conversation. “Tattinger. Good choice.”

  She frowned. “Is it? I honestly know nothing about champagne; it was mentioned in a movie I saw recently and I thought it sounded about right for our surroundings. Cheers.”

  Probably the same kind of movie that the waitress's boyfriend was keen on watching, thought Grant. They raised their glasses to each other then took a sip, and with a flick of the eyes over their respective drinks, each gauged the other.

  “I'm surprised you made it in here, without having another trip.”

  “Sorry about that. I spotted you from the very basic description they gave me and I needed to get a closer look to make sure it was you. It seemed the most unobtrusive way to do it,” she said.

  “You were good, very good indeed. So I understand you may well be joining our section.”

  “So I've been led to understand, although I assumed it was more of a temporary secondment,” she said.

  Grant frowned. “Most of the Redaction personnel are temporary. We don't tend to have a long shelf life. Bullets, bombs, and beatings do tend to ruin a good career. Does that discourage you?”

  She shook her head, dislodging a fleck of dark hair. “Not so far, Jack, although it does sound a little bit intriguing.”

  “Good. Well, as I don't really know anything about you, how about you tell me a little about yourself? How did you come to be involved with the Service?”

  She sipped at the champagne, took a breath and steadied herself. “Partly, I wanted to be of use to my country. I'm good with languages, observant and wanted a challenge…”

  A young woman joining the spies – it was certainly that, thought Grant.

  “…but mainly because of my parents I suppose.”

  “In what way?” he asked.

  She put down her glass and delicately placed her hands across her lap. “Dad was an engineer who had been posted to Paris by his employers. When war broke out, he and Mum quickly returned home and joined up. Because of their French background, they were quickly recruited into the sabotage organization which had been set up, mainly to run an intelligence network. On his first parachute jump into France, Dad had a bad landing and seriously damaged his leg. It still isn't right, even now, all these years later. My mum took control of the network and helped nurse him until he was fit enough to take control of operations again.”

  “Where are they now, your parents?”

  “Dad lives in Bath, he retired many years ago. I was born in 1937; during the war I was farmed out to my grandparents in Surrey whilst my paren
ts were operating in France. In 1942, Mama had only been back in the country a matter of weeks after a brief return to London when she was captured by the Germans. Dad, not being one to take this lying down, mounted a rescue attempt. He and a Maquis team mounted a full-scale assault on the local Gestapo station. They killed an awful lot of Germans, but it was too late. Mama was already dead. We never knew for sure, but we assume she died during interrogation. So you see, I never really knew her. At best I have a few memories of her, some photos, but mainly only stories about her from Dad.”

  “I'm sorry,” Grant mumbled. He was never adept at shallow emotions. He either felt it, or he didn't, without any middle ground.

  She smiled a wonderful smile. “Don't be. I have a wonderful life, a great father, which, I'm sure, is not a very fashionable thing to say these days, and I have a fantastic job that I enjoy.”

  “Is that why you came to be working in intelligence, because of your father?”

  “As I say, only partly. I entered the Service in a minor clerical role at Broadway, and was lucky enough to get promoted to an overseas posting. It was still clerical, just in a more exotic range of locations than rainy old London. Although I'll not deny that Dad put a good word for me with his former comrades.”

  “Like it, do you? All this cloak and dagger stuff?”

  She smiled. “It has its moments. To be fair, I haven't had that much to do in the mystery department – oh, the odd dropping off of a package or drawing a line with a piece of chalk on a pavement, but certainly nothing in your league. It's been mainly filing, typing and taking the odd message when the Head of Station is out of the office.”

  In fact, this meeting was the most interesting thing she'd been asked to do for months. True, this was work and London, and while the Savoy could in no way be compared to the Souks of the Middle East or a meeting in the shadow of the Kremlin, it was still thrilling enough for a junior staffer like Nicole to treat it with reverence and respect. Besides, after her last posting, the relative normality of 1960's London was a positive step in the right direction.

  “Any ideas why you're being attached to our unit?” he asked.

  “My section chief made me aware of it yesterday. He said I was to report here at this time with a code phrase and was to meet an officer of Redaction and it would be taken from there – I assumed, to see if I was suitable.”

  “Did anybody give you any idea what it was about?”

  She shook her head again. “Not really, it was hinted that it had something to do with my posting to the Caribbean several years ago, but no real detail.”

  Okay, time to earn a crust, thought Grant. “Redaction. Do you know what we do in the unit?”

  She shook her head, “Only canteen gossip, I'm afraid; whispers, rumors, something terribly secret, obviously, which is why you're farmed out to an office in Pimlico. Whatever it is, it seems to be on the dangerous side. That's what the rumor mill says.”

  He took a sip of the Speyside and leaned forward. “We operate independently from the mainstream of SIS operations, although we always have full access to their resources, which annoys the hell out of them, I'm glad to say. We redact, we edit, we delete, and we cut.”

  “Redact what? Delete what?” she asked, looking confused.

  “Whatever is required of us. Rogue agents, traitors, and extremists all fall within our remit. We take the fight back to the enemy and hit him when he's not expecting it. Then we melt back into the underground and disappear. That's what Redaction is.”

  “It doesn't seem very British. A bit below the belt, not cricket or playing by the rules,” she said.

  Grant pulled a grin. “That's what makes the Redaction Unit so effective. The majority of other intelligence services have no idea that SIS has this capability or that the unit actually exists. They think that good old fashioned MI-6 is all monocle-wearing gentlemen spies who work to the rules of fair play and honor.”

  Of course, she thought, when he presented it like that, it made perfect sense. Who would suspect the good old Brits of running a secret team that handled the rough stuff? The Americans, certainly, the French well you only had to look at the papers to see the things they were doing in Algeria, but the British. Never!

  Grant's face grew serious and his manner stiff. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “If it was a choice between you and the enemy, could you kill in cold blood?”

  She paused; the directness of the question momentarily throwing her. Could she do that extreme act? She wondered what her father would say to this man and if he'd ever had to shoot a man down in cold blood during the War. Unsure of herself, she decided to err on the side of caution and answer honestly. “The truth is Jack; I have no idea. Could I do it – certainly. But would I? I guess until it happens, no one knows for sure. I'm sorry, that's not the expected answer, but I think it's best to tell the truth.”

  He raised an eyebrow. The answer seemed to make his mind up for him. “Do you always tell the truth?” he said.

  “Only about the important things,” she answered. “Do you have any idea what they want me for?”

  “No. I haven't been briefed on that, at least not yet, but can I be honest with you and give you some friendly advice?”

  She nodded and waited for him to speak.

  “You're not cut out for Redaction, either physically or mentally.”

  She looked at him wide eyed, mouth agog.

  “I'm sorry if that sounds harsh Nicole. You're a nice person and chances are you lack the cunning that one of our operators needs to infiltrate an enemy's rank and kill him. I think it's better this way; I might have just saved your life.”

  It was then that it happened. She fleetingly transformed from a beautiful woman into a snarling Medusa as she hit him with a steely-eyed stare that pierced into his skull. Their eyes locked and then it was gone, but the cold stare remained, albeit more subdued. She seemed to have decided on her plan of attack. He drained his glass and made a motion for the bill.

  “So that's it?” she said.

  He nodded. “I'm going to inform my boss that you should remain in your present position and that in my opinion, you don't have enough field experience for our unit.”

  The waitress arrived with a silver saucer containing a discreetly folded bill. He opened it, raised an eyebrow at the amount and then she saw him reach inside his jacket pocket, noted the confused look, and watched him as his hand transferred to the other side pocket, then trouser pockets, before he began the whole process again, patting himself down. Nicole thought that it really was quite amusing to watch, made even more so because the waitress was now raising her eyebrows at her customer's evident discomfort before she discreetly made herself scarce. Enough was enough, time to put him out of his misery. Here goes, she thought. “Do you like Maida Vale? Not too quiet for you?”

  Now he was checking under the table, his face growing red. “Huh?”

  “And the Grant name. Does that give a clue to some Scottish Heritage? Do I detect a slight Celtic twang hidden beneath your South London accent? It's buried, but it's definitely there.”

  “How do you know my—”

  “What about the girl in the picture? She's very pretty, who is she? Wife, girlfriend, sister? It seems to have been taken in Germany. That's the Brandenburg Gate in the background isn't it?”

  He glared at Nicole. She was holding up a bruised and battered black wallet between her thumb and forefinger. His black wallet! She removed several notes before tossing it onto the table dismissively.

  “Waitress,” she called.

  The girl reappeared, “Yes, ma'am.”

  Nicole handed her the notes on the silver saucer. “Keep the change, thank you.”

  Grant, fuming, gathered up his wallet and checked through the contents. Satisfied, he placed it back in his inside pocket. He sat back in his chair and considered the young woman in front of him. “It was when you fell wasn't it? When I caught you at the front of the
hotel?”

  “Of course it was. It's something I've always been very good at; nimble fingers you see. I was a natural on the burglary course for new intakes. But then again I'd had a good teacher – I'm not my father's daughter for nothing,” said Nicole coolly.

  Her eyes remained locked on his face. Was there a begrudging sense of respect behind the man's glower? She leaned forward to make her point, and when another lock of hair fell forward across her face she brusquely brushed it away. “You see, I knew you'd take one look at me and dismiss me straight away. Pretty face, but only useful for answering the phone or for filling a senior officer's bed on a cold Friday night. Well, I can put your mind at rest – that's not me. Never has been and never will be. And if you want cunning and streetwise, I'm pretty sure I could run deceptive rings around you any day of the week.”

  “Because you think you're a field agent?”

  “No, because I'm a woman.” She thought she may have gone too far, made too much of a point and dented his pride. So she was surprised and not a little pleased when he beamed a wonderful glowing smile at her. He should smile more often, she thought. He has such a good smile.

  “Well, Miss Nicole. I think we should maybe have another drink and begin again. What do you think? I'll start; my good friends call me Gorilla.”

  * * *

  They spoke for another thirty minutes until the conversation had come to a natural conclusion. In truth the little stunt she had pulled had told him far more about her than a whole series of interviews ever could. Grant busied himself swirling his whisky in his glass, Nicole pretended to find the fellow drinkers in the bar interesting. Luckily, none of them had seemed to notice the tension. Either that or they were all too polite to say anything.

  “So what about you,” she asked, determined to break the hiatus. “What makes you suitable for the Redaction Unit?”

  He thought about it for a moment before he answered. “I have a certain set of skills that are always useful to the top people in this business and unfortunately or not, there's always someone willing to use it.”