A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1)

by James Quinn

  Consterdine seemed to accept that with a frown and then changed the subject. “Oh, and here's the keys to some wheels parked around the corner. Nothing too flash, but it will get you around while you're here.” He threw a key fob over to Nicole, who caught it and gently placed it on the table in front of her. They had become the proud owners of an old Renault.

  “I won't take you out to dinner at La Truite,” said Consterdine. “I know that you Redaction people like to keep yourself to yourselves, so I won't intrude.”

  “Fair enough,” growled Grant, who was growing tired of Consterdine at a rapid pace.

  “If you need anything of a practical nature; pass a message to Broadway, secure encryption, bit of cash, a sneaky car, you know the sort of thing I mean – don't hesitate to give me a shout. Just promise me one thing.”

  “Name it,” said Nicole.

  “Do try and keep out of trouble on my patch. I have enough of a stormy relationship with the French Secret Service to last me a lifetime, so I could well do without you Redaction mob clunking around in your size nines.”

  Grant smiled, what he suspected was his most condescending, shit-eating grin. “Dougy, you won't even know we're here.”

  “Excellent,” said Consterdine, who was either unaware of Grant's acid-tongued response or simply didn't care. “Well, the kitchen's stocked up to see you through for a day or two and there's a very nice bottle of Sancerre courtesy of the Station. Au revoir.”

  They heard Consterdine's footsteps as he made his way down the staircase, he was humming something, to Nicole it sounded like a show tune.

  “Prick,” mumbled Grant. They stood silent for a moment, each taking in the other.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Nicole. She had decided to take the lead from Grant, it was her first operational assignment after all and she thought it best to let him set the pace.

  He looked at her, confused, and then seemed to make up his mind. “Can you cook?” he asked her.

  “Of course,” said the fledgling field agent.

  “Good. Then food… we need to eat. Plus, we can crack open that bottle of wine. The mission can wait until tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Back in London, the MACE Intelligence Requirement Team, or the 'Burrowers' as they were unofficially known in honor of their leader, were based on the third floor in a small office space annex of SIS's new headquarters in Lambeth.

  The transition between Broadway and Century House was still very much a work in progress, but at C's insistence, the MACE team were to be housed in a quiet little corner of Century and afforded every resource that Broadway could offer them.

  For his part, Toby worked tirelessly and had even set up a camp bed in the corner of the annex. He feared that his family wouldn't be seeing much of him over the coming weeks. Several telephone and telex lines had been hastily run in and desks and filing cabinets which had been languishing in a limbo between Broadway and Century were quickly delivered. A list was compiled of files that were required from Registry, and over the next two days they were moved across by a fleet of SIS's vans. There was a further day spent organizing the office and then the MACE team had everything they would need to conduct an international manhunt.

  The Burrowers themselves were three strong and were there to decipher and correlate the limited intelligence picture that had been gleaned from the 'Dobos' recording and transcripts. Aside from Toby as the intelligence coordinator, the rest of the seconded team was made up of a 'Legman' and an 'Archivist'.

  Roger, the Legman, was a former Special Branch officer who had completed a stint in the Security Service (“catching pesky spy's young master Toby”) before being seconded over to Broadway's counter-intelligence section. Toby had worked with him before on several cases, and knew him to be a good ex-copper, not averse to bending the rules to get the job done.

  The Archivist was Nora, a middle aged debutante who had been recruited into the Service at the end of the war. Her first overseas posting had been to Palestine. She had been unlucky enough to have been working at the King David Hotel, the main administrative base for the British Forces, when it was bombed by the Irgun in 1946. She'd been trapped for several hours until she had been dug out by rescue forces and she still wore a scar on her face from where she'd been blasted by a glass window.

  As a team they complemented each other perfectly; Nora with her nose for finding even the most obscure detail in a mountain of files; Roger, with his nose for tracking down a lead like a bloodhound, and finally Toby as their seer, ready to guide them through the fog to a clear conclusion. It was no accident that they had nicknamed him the 'Oracle'. Roger and Nora were the Watsons, to Toby's Sherlock Holmes.

  Roger, the hard bitten ex-street copper, looked around at his colleagues. Look at you both, he thought. You're as fresh faced as a bunch of primary school children on their first day, all eager and full of hope and possibilities. Little did Toby and Nora know that by the end of this manhunt, they would have physically aged, suffer from stomach ulcers, have bags under their eyes from a lack of sleep and permanent wind from all the coffee and tea they'd have drunk to keep them all going.

  Toby came around and sat perched on the front of his desk, his somber black tie tucked neatly down his V neck jumper. “Alright, it's day one. So where do we start?” he said.

  They started where they always started – by discussing what they already knew as 'fact'. The Burrowers began. They made notes, they threw around ideas, and they conferred as all good detectives must do if they want a successful result. There were no raised voices or talking over each other, like some of the rougher elements of SIS; instead they were composed and in control of what they were about to do and how they would achieve it. By the end of the first morning, they each had a task list with their own unique responsibilities.

  The consensus was that being a CIA operation, it was bound to be well funded, that was for certain. Knowing the way the Americans operated, Toby assumed that they would be doing everything on a grand scale; the tactics, the time frame, even the weapons used to kill their targets.

  “So the first thing we have to do, before we start giving out too much information to our allies overseas – no matter how much we may trust them – is to ensure that no word of this gets to Langley. If that happens, we're dead in the water and the fire-team could find itself in danger. Operational security is paramount,” Toby warned.

  Nora would begin the eye-straining detailed searches through the requested files, looking for anything related to contract killers or international mercenaries. Roger would start 'knocking on the doors' of his former workmates in Special Branch and the overseas police liaison offices in several European countries, and Toby would do similar with the overseas SIS stations and friendly European intelligence services.

  “But don't give anything away too early,” he told them. “Just a gentle tap on the door, to let them know we're in business and that we might need something over the coming weeks. But play it low-key for the moment. Remember, we have a timeframe to work to, but, if we want to have a hope in hell of finding these assassins, then patience and consistency are key.”

  The team's initial focus was on discovering the identity of the contract assassin. Once they had a name, all the other pieces of the puzzle would fall into place, they were certain. “Once we have a name, we can track him and see where he leads,” Toby kept drumming into them.

  “Surely he's operated in this line of work in the past? At least that's what the tape seems to imply, hence his recruitment,” said Roger.

  Toby agreed. “Well, if that's the case, he must have left a trail on a previous operation. He can't operate in a vacuum, can he? Right Nora, start searching for high level assassinations over the past five years; senior politicians, business tycoons, that sort of target. This chap isn't into kneecappings; he plays big and for big money, otherwise why else would the CIA make use of him?”

  So far they had three confirmed deaths. The Chairman of a Lichtenstein shipp
ing company who had been targeted by an anti-tank missile and fitted the profile of the 'Quartermaster', and the 'Diplomat', who appeared to be a junior British Embassy official in Hamburg, recently garroted in an apparent 'sex-murder'. The only clues had been from eye witnesses who described a tall, dark swarthy man in Hamburg and a short stocky, bearded man in Liechtenstein. The only Constellation agent killed so far was agent ORION, who had been involved in a hit and run in Zurich. Again, a witness had reported a tall, dark, well-dressed man at the scene.

  So while the fire-team in Paris trod water, Toby and the rest of his team did what they did best. They dug and searched and checked. By the end of day three, they were beginning to hit brick walls. The liaison leads were coming in slowly and the 'Urgent –Trace' on the identities of the assassins obviously wasn't a priority for SIS's overseas stations.

  It was on the last day of the working week, during a bounce around session in which ideas would be batted forward and backwards that the team had an inspired notion and the first Toby knew about it was when the little-mouse, Nora, meekly raised her hand to make a point.

  “Nor', you don't need to put your hand up; we're not in school you know, just shout it out,” he said, not unkindly.

  Nora played with the bracelet on her wrist, a sign of nerves, and cleared her throat before she spoke. “Well, it's just occurred to me that we might be attacking this from the wrong direction.”

  Roger and Toby shared a glance, eager to discover where she was going with this. “Okay, go on.”

  “Well, we're so keen on identifying this killer, going for the knockout punch in one go and if you'll excuse me for saying so, we're getting nowhere yet. I wonder if perhaps we're missing a more realistic lead. Something that we do have a hope of locating.”

  “Come on Nora just get to the point, we haven't got all day,” said Roger.

  “The Forger,” she blurted out, gaining confidence. “He mentions on page… yes, here we are, page seven of the transcript. He says 'a man in Antwerp'. This man has used the services of a forger in Belgium previously, we have to assume over the past few years, and there can't be that many forgers who have the expert knowledge needed to provide documentation for a top level criminal.”

  Roger glanced over at Toby; his head was down, in deep thought and he nodded. “She's right, it must be a very small group, probably no more than a handful.”

  Toby pushed away from his desk and walked to the chalkboard. He picked up a piece of chalk and started writing whatever was coming into his head. “Okay. So we follow the seam and see where it leads. We put in a new request to Belgian intelligence and police, asking for a trace on any known or suspected documentation forgers. But there's just one thing.”

  Both Nora and Roger looked at him eagerly, waiting to see if he had spotted a flaw in Nora's theory. The sound of the chalk hitting the board came to a stop.

  “It's the forger himself,” said Toby. “Just because we find him, it doesn't automatically equate that we'll gain any useful information. This killer has been operating for the past few weeks, probably months. He'll have all of his false papers already.”

  Nora, her fingers now entwined in her bracelet, nodded, giving Toby his moment. “True, but the forger will have photographs, a list of cover names he used, maybe even false papers he's used in the past. Who knows, perhaps he keeps them hidden away as a kind of insurance policy in case his clients cut up rough.”

  “But what makes you think he'll spill to the Belgian police or security service?” said Roger, playing the ex-copper.

  “He won't. He's probably got a good lawyer to plead his legal rights,” countered Nora.

  “So I still don't see—”

  “But he hasn't got any legal protection from Redaction. We send Gorilla in. He'll scare him into talking.”

  Roger burst out laughing. “Bloody brilliant,” he said.

  Toby had to admit, the thought of getting a visit from the little Redaction agent on a dark and lonely night would terrify the life out of him, also. He nodded approvingly. “Alright, let's go with it. Run a check to see if we have anybody on our files already, we don't want to use the Belgians unless we have to. If not, then we make a formal approach to Belgian Intelligence; we'll say that it's part of an ongoing investigation into diamond smuggling in the Congo or some such nonsense. Check, check and check again, let's get those names confirmed before we hand them over to the Redaction team.”

  “You know what that means, don't you, Nora love,” said Roger, lighting his pipe.

  “What?” she asked, confused.

  “You've just got our weekend cancelled. Well done, old girl.”

  * * *

  Nicole had slept well and awoke early, keen to start the operation running at a fast pace, she was determined to make a good impression with her field commander. Although in truth, she doubted that anyone could make a good impression on him.

  The previous night after they'd eaten, she had watched as Grant unpacked the rest of the equipment cases before gruffly stating that he was “hitting the sack.” He had risen from bed at ten the following morning and staggered his way to the small kitchenette, rubbing the sleep from his reddened eyes with the heel of his hand and tightening the belt of his dressing gown around him.

  “Relax,” he told her as his eyes focused on his first coffee of the day. It was good, hot, strong and sweet. “There's no point jumping up and down and running around just yet, at least not until we get something concrete from London. Take it easy, and for God's sake get me another cup of coffee.”

  They decided to use the waiting time wisely and get out and “get the lay of the land,” as Grant put it. “We need to live out our cover story. Honeymooners doing the tourist thing, visiting sites and landmarks, plus it gives us a good excuse to get the pulse of the city and reconnoiter a few routes in and out to the airport, train station, that sort of thing. We never know when we'll have to move quickly.”

  “Wouldn't honeymooners spend most of their time in bed,” she teased.

  “Not on this trip they won't,” he replied shortly.

  “Why Mr. Ronsom, I do believe I've made you blush,” she said going in for the kill.

  They spent the next few days visiting Paris's notable landmarks, of which there were many. Some days they drove, and for variety, sometimes they took the old pre-war buses which serviced the city. They visited the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, walked along the Seine, and spent an hour or two being amused by the street and sketch artists of Montmartre. They gloried at the Arc de Triomphe and on a visit to the viewing platform at the top of the Eiffel Tower, Grant decided to give Nicole an impromptu lesson in the art of counter-surveillance.

  “Remember that when you're trying to spot any type of hostile surveillance, you're looking for two things; repetition and anything that's out of the ordinary,” he said. They stood looking into each other's eyes, but in reality, they were checking over each other's shoulders to practice their surveillance detection tactics. He gently stroked her ear, as a lover would whilst whispering.

  “The man that you've spotted several times over a short period; the woman without a wedding ring pushing a pram, the couple who stop dead in the street and suddenly take an interest in a shop window when you do an about-face on a pavement. If you do find a tail, don't try to shake them off straight away – lead them a merry dance and drag them all over town if you have to. That'll wear them down and cause them to 'show out' and remember, the golden rule is to stay away from anywhere sensitive; dead letter drops, our base, agents, that sort of thing. They're all examples of classic surveillance techniques that you should be aware of.”

  She pulled her coat tighter around her, the high wind causing a chill at the top of the tower and looked at the city spread out. “You never did tell me about the woman in the photo,” she said, hoping to catch him unawares.

  He cocked a suspicious eye at her. “There's not much to tell and it's better that you don't know.”

  “Why, was she someone close?�
��

  He sighed. What was it with a certain type of woman? They always want to dig deeper and push the boundaries of what they needed to know. “It was a long time ago, Nicole. We were running agents in Berlin; this was before the wall went up. It was a really wild time; shootings and kidnappings on the streets from both sides of the spy network; them and us. There were traitors everywhere and double and triple crosses were the norm.”

  She was unsure if she should continue, but then she found her feet. “And she was one of your agents.”

  “She's one of the 'lost ones' who never came back. She's in the past, forgotten about now by pretty much everyone,” he said, his voice void of emotion.

  “I'm sorry; I didn't mean to intrude.”

  “I told you that it's better that you don't know… it's fine, don't worry about it.”

  But Nicole saw that brief moment of melancholy in his eyes. She knew he was lying. No, not lying, she corrected herself. Not lying directly, he was, she was sure, just not telling her the whole story. Sensing that she had overreached with her inquisitiveness, she cannily backed off.

  “So what about you?” asked Grant.

  She was surprised that he'd chosen to carry on with a subject she thought was to be closed. “What about me, Mr. Ronsom,” she teased, using his cover name.

  “Is there anyone special out there for you?” he asked, flicking a glance out over Paris.

  Nicole smiled and considered his question. “There's a boy I grew up with, we've known each other forever. We're friends more than anything. He's a local G.P., not far from the village where I lived. Dad always hoped that we'd end up getting hitched.”

  “And will you?”

  “Maybe, who knows? But not yet. He's a lovely man, gentle, kind, good husband material, but I'm still working out if this is what I want to do for the rest of my life, or if I want to give it up to be a wife to a village doctor.”