by Robin Flett
'However, the Prince has insisted on carrying out one task himself, despite advice from his doctors. In late August he is due to be presented with the prototype of the Henderson ultrasonic filter by NorthTek International. NorthTek have gained world-wide acclaim for the device, which has dramatically reduced costs throughout the oil industry.
'Earlier this year the company offered to donate the prototype version of this revolutionary piece of equipment to the newly established Museum of British Industry. The Museum was of course Founded by the Prince and is funded solely by income from the Duchy of Cornwall.
'Involving as it does one of his most ardent projects, the Prince has positively refused to allow the visit to be cancelled or delegated. He will, therefore, attend the presentation in the NorthTek production facility at Lyness in the Orkney Islands on the twenty-first of August.'
Mike Hollis slowly leaned back into the chair, his hands steepled under his chin, staring at the television screen while the newscaster went on to more mundane matters. His mind was churning and he could hear his heart thumping in his chest. The coffee grew cold unheeded, forgotten. The Gods had given him one last chance, a final window of opportunity.
But how in hell was he going to make use of it?
Frank Wedderman was forty four years old. A heavy-set man with a ruddy complexion and horn-rimmed spectacles, he was approaching the end of his twelfth year in Special Branch. For the last two of those years he had held the rank of Inspector and he was proud of that. An achievement he would never have believed, would have laughed at when he walked out the gates of his Secondary Modern for the last time at the age of sixteen.
With an impressive, if low-key, career in other echelons of the Force, his appointment to Special Branch had given him quiet satisfaction. From the very first day he had enjoyed the challenge of his new work, although it was a demanding post and one which brought precious little in the way of public credit. The necessary involvement with security and diplomatic matters was a world away from the treadmill of housebreakings and other petty crime––although not so different when you resolved it to basic essentials. The problem with that world was the need to tiptoe through the shadows. Trying, not always successfully, to avoid tripping over some other damned fool from an adjacent department engaged on nefarious business of his or her own. Inter-departmental communications had always been "difficult" and the idea of actual co-operation between services had been a standing joke throughout Whitehall for decades.
Which was why Wedderman was extremely surprised to see the man he knew only as Greenside standing in the Chief Inspector's office.
'Thanks for coming up, Frank.'
Wedderman knew Chief Inspector William Durrant thought highly of him, and he in turn respected his boss for being a damned fine police officer. Unlike some other senior officers he had worked for in the not too distant past. Unimaginative men who regarded the force as being just a cosy career with a healthy pension at fifty five.
'Sit down, please, gentlemen,' Durrant waved both men to regulation-issue plastic chairs. 'I believe you know Greenside, from SIS?'
Wedderman nodded. The Secret Intelligence Service regarded themselves as being God’s gift. If this was some piddling complaint about one of his lads farting out of turn, he was going to have this spook's entrails on the carpet.
'Good morning Inspector'.
Well, at least he’s polite, thought Wedderman cynically. 'Morning.'
Durrant leaned back in his chair, twiddling a pencil between thin, bony fingers. 'It's common knowledge that Special Branch and the security services don't often see eye to eye,' he began, talking mainly to Wedderman. 'And we're not here this morning to set the world to rights on that score. But the fact is that SIS have come upon a piece of information which, if genuine, could lead to an appalling act of terrorism in this country.' He moved forward, leaning his elbows on the desk and tapping the pencil on the blotter for emphasis. 'We are not going to allow that to happen!' He looked at each man in turn. 'Greenside, would you explain, please.'
Greenside let the silence go on for a few seconds, gathering his thoughts perhaps. 'One of my operatives was contacted last night by an informant. A man he knows well; deals with regularly on various … um … matters.' He paused and shrugged almost to himself. 'The man had information to sell, as these people do. We have found him to be quite reliable, if perhaps a little greedy. In any event the price he demanded was laughable.'
Wedderman almost smiled at the expression on the SIS man's face. Upper-class pratt looking down his nose at the crudity of bribery. How did he think the real world worked for God's sake?
'However, after a few hints had been given, and a particular name mentioned, we agreed to pay.' Greenside stopped speaking, considering, and then changed tack. 'Do you remember, Inspector, the shooting of the OPEC Chairman in Riyadh some years ago?'
Wedderman nodded. 'Of course I do. It scared the living daylights out of the rest of them and brought the price of oil down almost overnight. Maybe they figured they had pushed their luck once too often.'
'Yes, perhaps so. It was perfectly obvious that it was a contract killing, and the Saudis as you can imagine were incensed! Their intelligence services were running around like the proverbial headless chicken, but they were unable to discover even the smallest lead as to who was responsible. In the spirit of diplomatic co-operation the Prime Minister instructed my department to assist. No doubt with an eye on his trade agreements!' He smiled cynically. It was an open secret that Greenside held the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in total contempt.
'Well, we had nothing to go on, but our friends in the CIA came up with some interesting aspects. To be specific, they came up with two names: Solyevetskiy and Hollis. Either of them mean anything?'
Durrant and Wedderman shook their heads in unison. Special Branch was not over-burdened with files on international contract killers.
'I'm not surprised. There are of course plenty of thugs in the world who will kill for money. Most of them end up behind bars or dead because they're just that: thugs who haven't the brainpower to consider how they are going to get away with it afterwards.
‘There are, on the other hand, a few highly skilled professionals out there. Anonymous, faceless, probably in all other respects upstanding members of society. Family men, your next door neighbour perhaps,' Greenside waved a hand at Wedderman.
Durrant stirred uneasily. 'I'm not sure I can agree with that. We're talking about a psychopath, someone who kills people for pleasure! You can't associate him with Joe Public, washing his car on a Sunday morning!'
Greenside shook his head emphatically. 'No. You're wrong. A professional killer doesn't do it for pleasure: he kills for money. No different in his eyes from any other job. The psychopaths––the homicidal maniacs––they simply enjoy it. And they get their just deserts soon enough. God knows, the prisons are full of them.' He held up a hand to forestall another interruption. 'Certainly it must require a singular personality to divorce the actions from the moral responsibilities. I accept that entirely. I don't pretend to understand these people, I'd rather leave that to the psychologists, but it's a mistake to assume we are dealing with an irrational mind.'
'I'm not sure I see where this is going'. Durrant had a bad feeling he did know where this was going.
'Patience. I need to give you the background so you might understand the seriousness of the situation.'
Wedderman thought his boss was going to blow his stack at that one. Greenside hadn't changed: he was still a patronising public school snob.
'Vladimir Solyevetskiy was thought to be the prime candidate. Ex-KGB, as you might imagine. When the KGB cleaned up it’s act and went public under Yeltsin he disappeared and started freelancing. Trouble is he's getting on, must be sixty at least now and quite honestly I don't think he's up to this sort of thing any more. He was recruited straight from university, so you can take it as proof of his expertise that he's lasted this long. A good many others ha
ve come and gone, but Solyevetskiy seemed to go on for ever.'
Greenside waited for comments but there were none. A bus droned past outside: probably bringing yet another load of commuters into the city. Wedderman thought of the incongruity of this conversation in relation to the humdrum world on the other side of the double glazing. He focused again on the SIS man.
‘Hollis is my bet for the Riyadh thing. First name unknown, in fact there's no guarantee that Hollis is his real name either. It's what we know him as. No face, no passport, no birth certificate, no idea what he looks like nor where he lives. We think he might be American or British, but I wouldn't put money on either one. You see what I mean about the man next door? Just another face in the crowd. The CIA have him tagged for at least eight killings over the last ten years that they're fairly sure about. God knows there may be others. This man is a top professional at what he does and there is no evidence to show he has ever failed.
Greenside paused, and his face was grim. 'We think he's just been given another contract, and according to what our friend overheard there may be some sort of EC connection. Although I have to stress that this is speculation.’ Greenside tried to look apologetic, and failed. ‘The thing is: we think the killing field is here. The UK.'
'I just want some fish, I'm not trying to buy the whole fuckin' boat!'
The elderly fisherman smiled amiably, displaying teeth brown and stained with tobacco. These days his sons risked their lives in the wild waters around Iceland and the North Cape. And it worried him. Just as it had concerned his own father when the time had come for him to stand on the quay and watch the familiar boat sail out into the Minch without him. It had been a young man's game then and even more so now.
But he still came down to the pier in Mallaig every day to sell some fish. Not that he really needed the money, but there were lifelong friends to grumble with and share the trials of the modern world. Nothing like a good yarn to while away the day. With his wife gone there was little enough else for him to do.
The tousle-headed American was a regular customer. He appeared pretty well every week in the summer, every second or third week in the winter and they would trade good-natured insults and the occasional can of beer.
'I would not be selling it to you anyway, you would not know which end was which!' he said ironically, in the lilting west highland accent.
'Really? And why's that?'
'Are you not an American?' the old man shrugged as if that explained everything.
Mike Hollis grinned. 'Have you never heard of the Race Relations Act?'
'I have never been fond of the horse racing, and that's the truth!' The bright eyes twinkled behind the round lenses of his spectacles.
Hollis laughed and slid the change from his ten pound note into his trouser pocket uncounted. He had stopped checking it long ago. This proud old fisherman would cut his own throat before he stole a penny from anyone. 'You take care now, George. See if you can find me some adult fish next week instead of these half-grown tadpoles.'
The old man raised a hand in salute and watched his customer wandering back down the pier, taking a lively interest in everything around him. Must be two, no three years the American had been coming to him for fish now. And in all that time he had yet to hear the man's name. Damn, but that was a chilly wind...
Hollis, too, noted the change in the weather, shrugging into his Barbour jacket and walking right past the poster tacked to the peeling wooden notice board at the end of the pier. A few paces further on his subconscious succeeded in halting his forward motion and he stood uncertainly, half turned. Long ago Hollis had learned to trust his instincts implicitly. He had missed something––no, he had seen something and had paid it no attention.
He walked back the way he had come and stopped at the coloured poster. Hell of a place to see an advert for the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre in Glasgow. Jesus, somebody had had to bring this damned thing all the way up here––
Then the penny dropped.
EXPO-2000
Oil exploration past, present and future.
See for yourself the story behind forty years of fossil fuel recovery
throughout the world. Thousands of exhibits, hundreds of interactive
demonstrations and simulations. Four separate lecture streams each hour.
Your chance to find out everything you ever wanted to
know about the oil industry. Investigate the latest developments
in Atlantic Oil––taking Scotland forward into the 21st Century …"
The words of the TV announcer echoed back from the recesses of his memory: NorthTek have gained world-wide acclaim for the device, which has dramatically reduced costs throughout the oil industry.
It was surely inconceivable that a market leader such as NorthTek wouldn't show up at a prestigious event like this. Call it an omen from the Gods or whatever else you believed in but a blind man could hardly have failed to see the possibilities. Hollis was in no doubt that that the Orkney event was the only chance he was going to get to fulfil the contract. And here was a totally unexpected opportunity to winkle out vital background information on the very people he would have to deal with if this job was to succeed. Know your enemy.
It had been over a week since a television journalist had unknowingly re-kindled the fire in his mind, but Hollis had yet to come up with anything approaching a plan of action. 'Call it creative research in the field,' he muttered, quoting from his favourite author of spy thrillers.
"All next week at the SECC" ran the bottom line of the poster.
The Range Rover was heading south at 6 am the following morning.
8
28 June – 6 July, 2013
Ripples spread gently through the coffee in the styrofoam cup balanced on top of the laser printer while the machine hummed and ejected the last sheet into the catchment tray. Frank Wedderman collected the slim bundle in one hand and sighed. At least the list was getting a little smaller.
Every morning at 9 am he had a meeting with his boss. And every morning Chief Inspector Durrant expected to see some positive progress being made with this investigation. Today wasn't likely to be any different, more questions without answers. Damn that fool Greenside for dumping this on him!
On the floor above, he found Durrant striding along the corridor towards his office. 'Morning, sir.'
'Hello Frank, what's new? Come on in.'
Wedderman closed the door behind them and pulled a chair across nearer to the desk. 'The biggest problem is where to start. I've managed to trim the list of possible candidates by approximately 30 per cent, but there are still two pages of them.' He passed a yellow folder across the desk. 'Businessmen, military leaders, politicians by the dozen, prominent journalists and authors who might have upset somebody in print, TV personalities, even some highly placed civil servants. And that's just the UK possibles. After that we can do the rounds again with visiting foreign dignitaries, politicians etc etc.'
Durrant flipped through the pages in the folder and shook his head slowly. 'I appreciate the scale of the job, Frank, believe me.' He sat back and clasped his hands in front of him. 'The thing is, we're not dealing with some petty gangland revenge killing. If we’re dealing with anything real at all, other than a snout with an empty wallet. We should try looking at this from the point of view of a top-class professional killer.'
'Can we really expect to get inside the mind of someone like that?'
'I don't know,' said Durrant honestly. 'Until and unless we can come up with a better analysis, we'll have to work with Greenside's definition and treat this man Hollis, or whatever his name is, like any other individual at the top of his profession.'
'Greenside!' Wedderman's tone of voice said it all.
'Yes, I know you two don't exactly see eye to eye, but the fact is that Greenside's lot are more experienced in this type of thing than we are. The UK is our patch, not SIS, and that makes it our problem. The best we can hope for is they will be a help
and not a hindrance.'
'I expect you’re right.' Wedderman rubbed his hands over his face. He hadn't slept well last night, probably wouldn't until this thing was resolved.
One way or the other.
'All right,' he continued, 'let's say this man Hollis takes some degree of twisted pride in his work. He's built up a reputation over a lot of years, impressed the right folk, presumably he would start to get fussy about who he works for and what he does.'
Durrant nodded, letting his junior officer follow his train of thought without interruption.
'If he can pick and choose who he works for and which killings he takes on, it stands to reason that he's going to make it worth his while each time.'
'Possibly a touch of conceit as well: each one would have to be worthy of his talents.' Durrant nodded again in agreement. 'Greenside mentioned that the CIA have this man in the frame for eight killings over the last ten years. Not exactly working his hands to the bone, is he?'
'No, you're right. Maybe he turns down a lot of business, only takes one on when he needs the money.'
'Or possibly his fees are so high that it's only rarely someone comes along who can afford to pay them.' Durrant got out of his chair and stood gazing out the window. 'Have another go at that list, cut out the lower-level people. I don't think our man is going to be interested in loudmouth journalists or Chinese trade delegations for example.’ He turned round. ‘I’m seeing Greenside again this afternoon,' he said, smiling wryly. 'He's taking me to lunch at his club!'
Wedderman's expression was carefully inscrutable.
'I'll find out precisely who these eight people were that the CIA know about. That should give us some idea of what we should be aiming for. We’ll have to hope that we can find some sort of match in that list of yours.'
