Reversal of Fortune: A Gabriel Wolfe short story (The Gabriel Wolfe thrillers)

by Andy Maslen

  Reeve would be fine, shaken up at worst. With a bit of luck the airbag would have roughed up that caramel tan of his. Gabriel leapt forwards for the axle, which lay across the road, weeping dark liquid from the cracked differential. He unclipped the yellow self-locking hook from the hawser and pulled the whole lot free, ran back to the tree and performed the same action on the hook that bound the wire to the trunk. This took a lot more effort, as the impact had caused the wire to bite deeply into the bark and the wood beyond. But in 30 seconds or so it was done and the coiled wire was stuffed securely inside Gabriel’s rucksack.

  He slid down into the ditch beside the tree to watch and wait. Lander Reeve staggered from the driver’s door, clutching a white handkerchief to his bleeding forehead. He circled the fatally wounded SUV and stood, unbelieving, at the back of the car, trying to understand what had happened to the rear wheels. He looked back down the road towards Gabriel’s position and wandered towards him, following the gouges in the tarmac.

  Gabriel chose this exact moment to loop round in front of Reeve. At a brisk trot he reached the forward red warning triangle and stowed it in the rucksack. Then he returned the way he’d come, pausing only to place a small object and a rectangle of white card on the dashboard of the crippled Audi.

  He walked through the woods back to his cottage. Smiling victoriously, despite, or perhaps because of, the knee-jolting surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins.

  In the distance, he could hear sirens.

  Two days later, Gabriel was walking with Scout again. They turned out onto the road and were heading for the path into the woods when the dog pricked his ears up. Then he pulled Gabriel back in the direction they’d just come from. Giving in, either that or engage in a test of strength he had no real motivation to win, Gabriel let the scruffy-coated terrier, who’d look far better with wheels and a red tubular steel handle, he’d always thought, pull him past Julia’s cottage and along the road towards the other end of the village.

  “What, now, you dopey mutt?” he said.

  Then he saw what Scout was after.

  Parked in a layby was a little red Japanese hatchback. It was Elaine Marbey. But as he got closer, Gabriel could see that she was smiling.

  He bent down to the open window.

  “Hey, Elaine, how are you?”

  “Hi Gabriel. You’ll never guess what just happened.”

  “What?”

  “I was coming out of our house and I met Lander Reeve coming the other way. He’s got a new car now, have you seen it? A red convertible. Very low. Anyway, my heart started going and I actually felt like I was going to cry or something. But then the most amazing thing happened. He beckoned me on and actually reversed all the way back to here so I could pass him. He even smiled. Though I have to say he looked a bit sick at the same time. I mean, I don’t think he was very happy.”

  “Huh! How about that? Well, everyone can change. Maybe he got religion or something. You know, do as you would be done by?”

  “I doubt that somehow. Anyway, I was just texting my sister about it: she let me cry on her shoulder after the last time. I should go. See you around.”

  “Yes. Take care.”

  Then, with a frantic buzzing from the car’s engine, she resumed her journey.

  Gabriel was just about to cross the road and head down to the stream when Scout started pulling again.

  “What now? Surely you don’t need to smell any more pee-mails?”

  But Scout didn’t need to find out which of his doggy pals had been this way earlier. He was sniffing and nipping at something half-buried among the weeds at the foot of the hedge.

  Gabriel followed the dog’s nose and saw a red and white striped column of plastic, maybe three inches tall, surmounted with a little disc. He grinned and picked it up. It was a “Give Way” sign from a child’s motorway play set. Attached to the base by a tiny strip of razor-cut black duct tape was a piece of thin, white card, measuring one inch by three.

  On it, printed in immaculate, computer-rendered nine-point Times Roman type, were the words:

  “Good manners cost you nothing.”

  The End

  Andy Maslen

  Andy Maslen was born in Nottingham, in the UK, home of legendary bowman Robin Hood. Andy once won a medal for archery, although he has never been locked up by the Sheriff.

  He has worked in a record shop, as a barman, as a door-to-door DIY products salesman and a cook in an Italian restaurant. He eventually landed a job in marketing, writing mailshots to sell business management reports. He spent 10 years in the corporate world before launching a business writing agency, Sunfish, where he writes for clients including The Economist, Christie’s and World Vision.

  Andy completed the first draft of his first novel – Trigger Point – in six weeks, after deciding to embrace his destiny and “be” a writer. He has also published five works of non-fiction, on copywriting and freelancing, with Marshall Cavendish and Kogan Page. They are all available on Amazon.

  He lives in Wiltshire with his wife, two sons and a whippet named Merlin.

  *

  To get regular updates on new Gabriel Wolfe books, and exclusive news and offers for members, join the Wolfe Pack at www.andymaslen.com.

  Email Andy at andy.maslen@gmail.com

  Follow and tweet him at @Andy_Maslen

  DON’T MISS…

  Trigger point – the first Gabriel Wolfe novel.

  A right-wing billionaire is standing for Parliament.

  To help him, he enlists the help of ex-SAS soldier, Gabriel Wolfe. Gabriel left the Army after a covert mission went disastrously wrong and has sworn never to cause another man’s death.

  It quickly becomes clear that Sir Toby Maitland’s ambitions extend far beyond a seat as an MP. When an ex-contact in Swedish Special Forces, now working for MI5, contacts Gabriel, he realises he has little choice but to try to stop his employer’s juggernaut in its tracks.

  Gabriel finds himself embroiled in deals with Hells Angels and a South African arms dealer in the US before the true nature of Sir Toby’s plan is revealed.

  Due out 1 November 2015. Read the first chapter, starting overleaf…

  Ejector Seat

  Gabriel wakes up in a military hospital with no idea how he got there.

  The pilot in the next bed went blind mid-flight on an advanced flying skills programme.

  Gabriel decides to investigate on his own account and finds himself dealing with a pharmaceutical company CEO who is scared of something much bigger than exposure for a mishandled drugs trial.

  The resulting mission takes Gabriel halfway across Europe on the trail of an extremely dedicated, and violent, Chechen gangster called Kasym Drezna. Without the support of official government agencies, Gabriel is forced back into a world he swore he’d left behind him.

  Due out 2016.

  Trigger Point

  Chapter 1

  Winter, 2005

  The four unarmed men stood shivering at the edge of the cliff. The Outer Hebrides can be cold in mid-Summer. This was January. Behind them stood four soldiers wearing sand-coloured berets adorned with a patch depicting a flaming sword of Damocles. They held their rifles pointed at the ground, fingers curled over the outside of the trigger guards. Below the winged parachutes on the soldiers’ right sleeves were stitched small black diamond patches, no bigger than a thumbnail.

  Ahead of them, separated from the cliff by five feet of freezing, squally air, was a column of basalt, over three million years old. It was topped with a shaggy crown of moss, barely rooted in a scrappy layer of soil, like a tall, thin man in need of a haircut.

  Far below, they could hear waves hurling themselves against the jagged splinters of rock at the foot of the column. The men were muscular and lean with hard faces. Three shifted from foot to foot and glanced back towards the soldiers; one stood apart, hands dangling at his sides, staring across the abyss to the 12 by 14-yard platform.

  The tallest of the uniformed
soldiers, a captain, stepped forward and addressed the row of men in the clipped tones of the public school-educated officers the British army had relied on for centuries.

  “This is all about confidence. You wouldn’t be up here if we didn’t think you could do it. On my command, ‘jump’, you will take no more than two seconds to ready yourself, then jump to Old Tom. When all four of you are across, we will throw the ropes to rappel back. If you want to leave now, nobody will think the worse of you and you can return to unit with your head held high. Otherwise, it’s simple: you reach the rock, you pass the test.”

  This was the final day of the first stage of training for the British Army’s Special Air Service, the SAS. Among the world’s special forces soldiers, the question of who were the world’s best soldiers was the subject of intense rivalry. Some claimed it was the US Recon Marines or Navy SEALs. The Army Rangers. The French Legion Entrangère. Israel’s Mossad operatives. The SAS professed not to care, though they did, of course. In general, their feeling could be summed up as, we can handle ourselves and put the enemy in body bags: job done. The other girls can fight each other for the bouquet.

  The men stepped away from the cliff edge and waited for the officer’s next command.

  “Morgan. You first. Jump!”

  The man named Morgan eyed the top of the column of rock known as Old Tom, took four big strides backwards then crouched, ran, and sprang across the gap. He landed with a double-thump from his boots, recovered his balance and stood facing the others.

  “Nothing to it,” he called across.

  The next man to be called also made the leap easily. Perhaps to be expected after six weeks’ training in brutal tests of endurance.

  The two remaining men glanced at each other, wondering who’d be next. And who’d be last. One shivering, one still. One had a tightness around the eyes that betrayed a primal fear; the other looked almost peaceful, despite the cold. He was shorter than the others – maybe five eight or nine. His name was called next.

  “Wolfe! Jump!”

  Gabriel Wolfe breathed in once, cleared his mind of everything but the empty air that stood between him and his dreams. He visualised himself gliding over the 270-foot drop, arms outstretched like wings, then ran and leapt.

  As his feet touched down on the fog-slicked moss, he skidded, and for one heart-stopping moment felt himself sliding towards the edge of the tiny platform. His fingers and toes dug in for grip and, traction restored, he straightened, triumph gleaming on his face.

  He had passed the final test of the first stage of his training. Months later, he would earn not just the coveted winged parachute badge, but also one of the discreet black diamonds. They signified a small cadre inside the SAS. It was called “19 Group” in official memos but nicknamed The Black Dogs. Its members possessed additional, even unorthodox, skills. While not a requirement for the SAS itself, these were nonetheless prized by the shadowy officials who oversaw 19 Group’s activities, both on, and off, the books.

  In Wolfe’s case, his admission ticket was his unusual upbringing. Born in a leafy commuter-belt village in Surrey in 1980, but brought up in Hong Kong, he had been expelled from seven or eight primary and secondary schools – his parents had given up counting – for fighting, for disrespect, for “lack of discipline”. In the end, his father, a diplomat, and mother, a half-Chinese teacher of English, had entrusted their only child’s education to a family friend. Zhao Xi tutored their much loved but wayward son for ten years, instilling in him self-discipline, as Gabriel’s parents had hoped he would; and teaching him ancient skills that they knew nothing about. Along with karate, meditation and hypnosis, they’d worked on “Yinshen fangshi”, which Master Zhao, as Gabriel learned to call him, translated into English as, “the Way of Stealth”. His father had assumed he would go to university – Cambridge, like he himself had done – and the Diplomatic Service. The son had other ideas and had told Wolfe Senior one day that he intended to join the Army. Not just any regiment either – the Parachute Regiment.

  For now, though, having passed the “jump or leave” test, he wanted some warm clothes and tea – the perennial fuel of the British Tommy.

  Just one man remained to make the jump. Then the unit could rappel themselves back to safety. And tea. The last jumper looked nervous and the cold winter light gave an unhealthy grey cast to his brown skin. His eyes flicked left and right. He looked unsure how to time his jump. Gabriel could see from his body language that he either wasn’t going to make it – or wasn’t going to jump at all.

  “Smith!” the officer barked, sending a couple of curious seagulls hopping around the soldiers wheeling and crying into the air.

  “Jump!”

  “Yeah, come on Smudge,” Morgan yelled. “It’s just like jumping around in the trees back home.” Smith frowned, took a last look over the chasm in front of him, then backed up, tensed and ran. As he leapt, he screamed. Gabriel knew in that instant what would happen. Perhaps screaming stole crucial energy from the skeletal muscles responsible for propelling Smudge through the invisible parabolic arc connecting the cliff to the column. Perhaps his lack of commitment led him to pull his jump. Either way, he failed. He was short by a foot. Not a huge distance – less than a third of a pace when you’re tabbing across Dartmoor carrying 50 lbs of kit, less than the distance between an outstretched hand and a pint of beer in a pub at the end of a long, hard day. But when that foot extended backwards from the edge of a 300-foot column of rock, spearing up out of the North Atlantic, too much.

  The man’s scream increased in pitch as his fingers scrabbled at the smooth, wind-riven edge of Old Tom’s basalt face before his body slammed against its sheer side. As he began to fall a hand shot out and grasped his right wrist like a vice around a piece of steel bar. Gabriel’s hand. He had already moved into position as the man began his descent from the peak of the parabola. He hauled his comrade up and over the edge of the tower of rock, then leaned down to him.

  “I’ve got you, Smudge,” he said.

  Then he caught the rope slung across from the cliff by one of the uniformed soldiers and swung himself back to safety.

  Spring 2015

  After leaving the Army, many of Gabriel’s SAS comrades ended up working for private contractors in one of the world’s proliferating trouble spots, from Africa – the old standby – to the Middle East, Latin America or The Russian Federation. There was always a scrap going on somewhere for a motivated man with weapons skills, combat experience and a shortage of cash. Having had enough of killing, Gabriel had avoided that field, and the uniformed branches of public service, from prisons to the police. An old friend from the Regiment had swung him a job at an advertising agency in London as an account manager – one of the plausible young men and women called upon to charm, seduce and occasionally appease clients. As a child of a diplomat and an English teacher, he was both charming and articulate, and the agency’s boss had hired him on the spot. Often, his job was to present creative work produced by the “kids” as he thought of them, who sat at their desks or on fluorescent beanbags, writing copy, doodling on pads or, more often than not, watching web videos and checking their social media pages. During one fraught meeting about a year after he’d joined Mackenzie, Allen and Farrant, the marketing director of a big fashion industry client had rejected the ad Gabriel had presented to her. She’d thrown the layout boards across her office and yelled that she was never going to sign off anything written by that “black monkey” in their creative department, and he’d told her she was a “racist bitch”, then walked out.

  After that, the next development in his career was inevitable.

  Later that day, Martin Mackenzie, the agency’s CEO, stopped by Gabriel’s desk.

  “If you’ve a minute, son, I’d like a word with you in my office.”

  Unlike most of his younger employees, Mackenzie never ended declarative sentences with an upward inflection as if he were asking a question. It made everything he said sound like an order.
No option but to comply. Then he’d continued on his rounds, like a surgeon touring a hospital ward.

  Gabriel saved the email he was working on and made his way to the lifts. He thumbed the button marked P – for penthouse. The entire top floor of the building was Mackenzie’s office. “The Lair” most of the agency’s staff called it, only half in jest. Mackenzie was sitting on a low leather sofa sipping whisky from a heavy cut-glass tumbler.

  “Gabriel! Come and take a pew, son. Drink?” he said, waggling a matching decanter at him.

  “A small one, please, Martin.”

  Mackenzie fixed Gabriel with an appraising stare, unblinking, despite the shaft of late summer sunlight falling like a blade across his fair-skinned face.

  “Well, now, I hear you had a wee spat with Paola today. That right, eh?”

  “It wasn’t a spat. She made an offensive remark and I called her on it.”

  “You didn’t like something she said, no?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Gabriel could feel his pulse just ticking up a notch. He was used to standing his ground with people a lot more dangerous than Martin Mackenzie. But something about the Scot’s demeanour unsettled him. He wasn’t scared of him. Agency boss or not he was just a man. Gabriel had taken orders from tougher, scarier men. Had killed men bigger than him. But he wanted the job. And he could feel trouble coming.

  “Listen, son. I like you. The tough guy who swapped the sword for the pen: it’s a great story. But there’s a wee problem, you see. I just got off the phone with Paola-racist-bitch-Conti and guess what? I have to go over there in half an hour and eat humble pie or lose the whole bloody account. Probably have to eat it off her shoes.” Mackenzie’s voice was rising; it had acquired a sharp edge and Gabriel could sense what was coming. “Which I will do. But guess what? Before I do, I’m firing you. You’re done here laddie. So collect your stuff, see HR for your cards and don’t let the door hit you in the arse on your way out.”