The Oxford Code

by Ray Christie

  Skënder could not get a reply, only strange noises, he thought Muji was coughing up cigar smoke or vomiting rakia into the marina. Something was not right, Skënder had walked to the western side of the marina with the plan to circle round and back up Muji. Their Bluetooth comms kept them in sync with each other. With slight panic in his voice, Skënder tried in vain to get Muji to answer him. The Indonesian bank on the eastern edge of the marina had the engineer on the roof checking on the HVAC systems, more urgent faults reported to security on the ground floor. The engineer had the tool for the job, one artic warfare sniper rifle with the scope fixed on the six and a half feet of muscle storming through the quay. Skënder picks up a jog as he has seen a man lying on the ground, the red claret like a carpet around him. “Muji, Muji”, screams Skënder. He runs over and grabs Muji by the shoulder rolling him over on his back. Skënder takes an involuntary step back in shock, dry heaving as he looks at the open throat of his gang boss. He was meant to protect Muji, instead, he is standing at his new grave. It was time to move, ‘a dead man is a dead man, no use to anyone’. He turns and walks away in the direction he came; a crowd starts to appear. A woman screams dock staff run away, and fathers pull their children to the side covering their eyes. Protecting them not from the sight of Muji. A new grave has been created. The round entered the back of Skënder’s head, just above the ripple of muscle extended from his neck. On exit, the round took with it part of Skënder’s jaw. Still standing, all six and a half, the crowd screamed louder. Their day has ended, and their nightmares begin. Without waiting to watch the tree fall the lumberjack places his tool into his workbag and descends the emergency exit stairs. Once he leaves the bank the tools are handed back to their rightful owner. Jean-Baptiste has done his job, Jean-Baptiste has protected his girl once again.

  Jack and Sam rendezvous in the secure parking, police and ambulance sirens playing their favourite anthems nearby. The bloody knife is splashed with bleach and kicked into a drain at the rear of the car park, the sniper rifle is stored in the boot of the car and in seconds the stolen Volvo is heading north on Vaughan Way. Allowing themselves three minutes to get to London hospital, any longer and the car could be picked up on the AI camera systems. Sam works the police radio listening to the response crew and providing navigation. A getaway car awaits them, only it is not really a getaway car. They are coming back, back into the heart of London, bringing with them a brand of violence never seen before.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Strasbourg, France

  The clandestine operations that Anjeze has devoted her latter part of her life to have been fruitful. May it be her more frequent attempts to keep the grey hairs tamed, or the creaks and cracks between her bones she does not know which. But she does know her days are limited. A wild night with a young fit waiter proved it in more ways than one. She saw in Frank someone settled, a man of culture and intelligence, one of worldly information, but more importantly, a man at peace. His offer to take her around Strasbourg to look at antiques was in one way a means for her to keep an eye on him until Trevor releases her. But it has also opened further something deep inside Anjeze that she found herself toying within her head over the past few days. Settling down and breathing peacefully without looking over her shoulder, to enjoy the soft tides lapping against the sand in San Fruttuoso or to feel the fresh crisp snowflakes falling on her cheeks high up in Zermatt. She does not know if Frank is playing her, or if she is playing him. Perhaps they are comfortable with the knowledge they both know but are happy to go along with it. As long as they are in each other’s company, as a kind of newly invented Stockholm syndrome. One which is self-inflicted. Anjeze knows the two others had been following them at a distance, at times they disappeared but would kind of float into view, either on purpose or not they appeared busy doing whatever it was they were doing. After coming out of the Arts et Collections d'Alsace Anjeze had to stop herself for reaching for Frank’s hand. It was an almost natural feeling as they walked side by side. She thought if Frank noticed and if he would have taken her hand.

  Frank did notice, as he walked slowly with this attractive and deadly woman, he kept his arms by his side offering himself.

  As the outback wranglers can break in the wild brumbies in Australia, he could do the same with an Albanian now Russian or perhaps British spy. Turning right on Rue du Maroquin Frank wanted to have lunch like a normal couple, to feel how it could be.

  As if testing herself as much as Frank, Anjeze leans in closer to Frank allowing their bodies to brush against each other. She listens as he talks about eighteenth-century ceramics produced in the region, of porcelain, fabrics, silverware and of a Jean-Frederic Schall oil painting that he wished to purchase. Anjeze has never felt this secure, connected with peace and lost in the moment. She knows this is going against her professional limits, to allow personal feelings to creep in. But we have to settle down sometime, ‘I am not harming anyone’, she tells herself. Perhaps annoyed that Trevor has not contacted her after she left the message that all was well. Somehow in a matter of days, Trevor has been business-like, arm’s length and distant.

  “Here we are my dear”, stopping outside Le Tire-Bouchon, Frank holds the door open allowing a safe passage inside the charming, exotic, and alluring restaurant.

  The waiter guides them to the table for lovers, a small table, intimate, one which cries tenderness, devotion, and passion.

  “Do you think the waiter is trying to tell us something, Frank?” Anjeze says softly while looking for something in Frank’s eyes.

  He does not answer, there is no need, his schoolboy smirk and soft eyes speak for the two of them. Their intentions are now decided and settled. Anjeze takes his hand, they sit in silence as they wait for each other to speak.

  Over their meal both Frank and Anjeze confess as much as was needed. Their years of experience determined how much was said and their skill in acknowledging the information and what might be done with it was appreciated by both. It was decided that Anjeze had the most to lose and the least to gain from their newly formed partnership. Realising now that her days were numbered, she provided all remaining information she had on Trevor.

  “So, what now?” asked Anjeze as she lifted the last of the Tarte au fromage blanc onto her dessert spoon.

  Frank, unwilling to make decisions which could throw her to the wolves, knowing she still had strings attached to the Russians, he played with his tie giving him a little more time before answering.

  “We do nothing, just report back to Trevor, telling him I am fixed here, and the two others are remaining with me. Do not let today change how you speak to or deal with Trevor. He will smell treason the same way a sommelier sniffs out the subtle notes in the wine. Don’t ask how things are going, or what else you can do for him unless that’s how you normally speak to him.”

  Anjeze, responds to his reply with a smile, “Easy, do nothing it is.” Frank then turns in his chair and with a flick of the wrist he signals to Gordon. Seated at the other side of the restaurant he and Ben finish their fresh glasses of vin chaud, pay the bill and head out into the night. Frank needs no babysitters tonight.

  ***

  London, England

  The morning has been woken with the passing of the garbage trucks, closely followed by the pigeons picking up the loose scraps of food. The commuters take their time arriving in the city, those who can afford to live within the centre are privileged with an extra hour of sleep. The cranking of the coffee grinders and ever ferocious banging of the milk jug signals the cappuccino and espresso consumers. The drug addicts and homeless have left the doorways and stone arches, their beds packed up and moved along before the street cleaners disturb their nightmares. Jack and Sam have retired for now, their night operation concluded, like the foxes which only the nightshift workers have observed, they retreat to their den. Their extensive reconnaissance of the area went on for close to nine hours. Sam was tasked with breaking into a construction site located at the Rio Tinto building on
London Wall. Once he picked the cheap padlock to the gate, he then watched the security guards for close to an hour. Their schedule committed to memory he moved silently through the concrete columns, grabs of bricks and lengths of reinforcement bars until he reached the base of the tower crane. Climbing up the eighty meters of rising steel he slowly inched his way across the boom to find his uninterrupted view across the rooftops of Old Broad Street. Once in position he removed the urban sniper bag from his shoulder and attached his thermo sight forward of his scope. Now he was able to fully recognise the full form of a human within a two-thousand-meter radius. He attached the ballistics computer and made first contact with Jack. “Golf one in position, eyes on, all clear, over.”

  “Copy that, Delta one in position, all clear, out.” Jack was dressed as a homeless junkie, in vintage clothes picked up from the Oxfam store earlier. His job was picking through the alleys, looking for ways into the building, emergency exits, access through windows or doors into the fire escapes or climbing routes onto the roof for entry. Checking the security of the building, the system control panels and air-conditioning units in place for building weaknesses. Their reconnaissance complete they returned to their hotel in Knightsbridge and went over their plans. Then off to the high street to pick up their equipment.

  ***

  “Delta one receiving, standby,” It is three in the morning and Jack has not yet made his way onto the rooftop from the alleyway off Threadneedle Street. Waiting on confirmation that the access was clear he resumes his climb. Keeping his night vision turned off he sat and reassessed the security features on the wall and surrounding areas. The old sandstone buildings had been built before the concept of free climbing came about. The technical division of agencies like the MI5, diamond thief’s, assassins and with some degree of high-risk banking espionage, the only people with these capabilities are far beyond the reach of traditional security companies. Having the nerve to climb up the side of the buildings using the thin finger gaps between the placement of the magnesian limestone blocks is one thing, gaining access through the windows or roof is another. Once he gains a strong foothold, he rotates his arm and checks the dimmed face of his counter-surveillance device attached to it. He is checking for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and radio signals. Through-the-wall sensors may be placed on sensitive areas or parts of the roof, using the installed military program an alert will assist him in avoiding such a location. Checking for unusual power sources in strange areas also allows him to give a wide berth and select a safer insertion point. No warnings within the 1-10 GHz range allows Jack confidence to scramble over the cornice undetected. Using an Edelrid climbing rope swung around the acroterion he secures himself with a trace-eight knot and pulls himself up over the cornice and lays down on the roof listening for Sam’s communication.

  “Good work, all clear.”

  Jack replaces the Scarpa climbing shoes with a black pair of Merrell agility tactical shoes, then he carefully checks out the roof for weak points and areas of recent restoration work. Under the watchful eyes of Sam, positioned less than one kilometre away in the tower crane he crawls carefully and slowly across the roof. The rain has eased off allowing himself to cut access in the roof space without leading to flooding in the space below.

  “Hold it, you are right on top now.”

  Jack has two options, cut his way through the roof, and drop down into Trevor’s apartment, or abseil down the front of the building’s façade and make entry through the window. His favoured option is to make a view hole in the roof space, lock on to Trevor using a fibre optic camera, then shoot him through the ceiling. Noise is his biggest enemy; a heavy sleeper could possibly still hear footsteps on the old creaking beams above their bed. Gently removing roof tiles, about ten meters across from where he knows Trevor’s bed is situated below, he places them softly against the gutter. With an infrared camera, he peers inside the roof space, an empty attic filled with dust and stale cobwebs frozen in time. Using his sensor, he checks for radio waves and signs of security. Using his throat mic Jack updates Sam, “All clear, moving in.”

  “Copy that, zero traffic, comms on silent”. Sam had continued to listen in on police radio communication. Normal chatter with nothing to report.

  Jack checks his chest-mounted holster for ease of access to his firearm. The laser on his Heckler & Koch is ready for activation as he straps his equipment to his body tightly and prepares to drop down onto the joists below. Suddenly his left arm is jolted rearward and pain races through his body, losing his grip he drops heavily on to the joists with one-foot crashing through the plasterboard into the room below.

  Sam witnessed Jack falling clumsily through the roof, his pulse hammers through his veins, ‘Shit, Impossible he would make such an amateurish mistake.’ Maintaining radio silence, he could do nothing but wait for a sitrep.

  “I’ve been hit, my shoulder,” was all Jack could get out, he needed to tell Sam it was no accident, someone was watching. Now he needed to either finish the job or extract.

  Sam scanned the rooftops with his scope, he had seen no muzzle flash through his thermal sight, neither had he heard any shots ring out. If the sniper is on a rooftop he could be hiding his heat signature using Mylar blankets or a thermal suit, similar to himself. Sam scans carefully once again looking for a black hole, trying to detect an object which appears too cold, as the sniper tries to defeat surveillance. Despite the cold night with the dew moistening the metal crane, the sweat on his neck quickly arrived, bringing with it a sense of doom. ‘There are two of us out here, two snipers perched high above London, a contest.’ He could find nothing, he scanned the perfect vantage points, the secondary points for those abstaining from the obvious but to no avail. ‘The sniper is dug in, too well hidden, most likely not perched on a rooftop, but buried deep inside a room.’ From Sam’s position, he knew his ability to cover Jack was incomplete. “I am coming in.”

  Jack did not respond, Sam was about five minutes away, he knew his overt exit from the construction site could bring undue attention, but he did not care, he had five minutes to make it to the street. They were both trained in finishing the mission, no matter what, in the few seconds that passed from receiving the shot Jack assessed the situation and made his decision. Feeling a piece of thin metal piercing just below his shoulder, ‘A bloody arrow.’ Missing his bone but going through the back of his shoulder and poking through the upper part of his pectoral muscle, he knew it was not life-threatening, not yet. With the full force of his body weight, he stamps violently through the ceiling and drops down into the room below. Landing heavily on something high in the room he twists himself off and crashes on the ground hitting his head against the heavy brick wall. He flicks on the light and laser on his H&K and sweeps the room. A guest bedroom, unoccupied full of filing cabinets and various boxes, from under the door he sees a flickering of lights. From the dust that has continued to drop from the roof space laser lines separate quickly in front of him. With that he now sees light appearing through small holes in the door. ‘Gunshots’, Jack pulls a metal cabinet down and drops behind it, firing back out into the next room. After a few rounds, he ceases. Silence. With controlled aggression he rips open the door and moves out quickly from his position to face the shooter, firearm raised. The room is empty of threats, the very room he stood in only a number of days ago being treated to breakfast by Trevor. The room in which he was being played. Jack quickly sweeps the remaining rooms, finding Trevor’s bedroom he goes over and touches the mattress, ‘cold.’ ‘He knew I was coming, he was watching’. Making a bolt for the door Jack tried to think like Trevor. ‘Would he have his escape car in the garage? or would he move out to the street on foot with another vehicle close by? would he consider me as a kind of operator who uses car bombs?’

  Jack hobbles down to the underground car park. Dismissing the car bomb theory, Trevor knows only too well that it is not his style. Opening the heavy carpark door with his H&K at the ready he watches the reflection of the garage lights
illuminate the black BMW as it heads up the exit ramp, the metal gate almost opened to its full height. Jack steps into the garage and lifts his weapon up, firing off three well-aimed rounds before the car scrapes against the metal gate as it squeezes under and disappears. Jack runs into the cold street, his arm numbing at his side. The white LED streetlights which replaced the old sodium’s highlight the fresh blood on his black clothing. Sensing danger he steps back into the garage just as an arrow whizzes past his neck and clangs heavily as it strikes the pavement, the sound continues as the arrow bounces down the pavement until it comes to an abrupt stop in a doorway, lodging itself into a door jam.