by Ted Tayler
“It’s good to see you have grasped the urgency of the situation Phoenix” enthused Erebus “this looks waterproof to me; when would you like to proceed?”
“I just need some clothes and the right weapon from the armoury” said Colin “plus a lift to the station early tomorrow morning; once the job is complete do I contact the transport section for a mini cab ride back here?”
“On this occasion, yes old chap, please do” said Erebus. “We’ll review the mission once you get back and take account of any wrinkles in the planning process that need ironing out. As soon as we’re happy that you can operate in the field without your true identity being uncovered, then you can be deployed in London or one of the major provincial cities for other assignments. Lengthy stays back at Larcombe Manor will be less frequent the more successful you are; naturally if there were to be any fall out from a mission that left you exposed out there in the field, we’d carefully spirit you back here for safe keeping until the heat died down.”
Colin’s meeting with the old man was soon at an end. Erebus returned to the main house and Colin made his way to the ice house and the armoury.
“Morning guys!” he said to the two who had been with him when they played ‘Three Men in a Boat’ in July, who he now knew were Sgt. Pete ‘Thommo’ Thomas and Sgt. Barry ‘Bazza’ Longdon; both men were ex SAS.
“What do you recommend for this scenario?” Colin asked them.
He unfolded a couple of sheets of paper with a diagram of the ‘kill zone’ and his proposed clothing, plus a complete itinerary of his journey to and from Larcombe Manor.
“We’ve got a Russian PSS” said Thommo.
“What’s that when it’s at home?” asked Colin.
“A fairly simple double action pistol Phoenix” replied Thommo “their special forces used them on covert ops when they need a completely silent option. It’s lightweight, weighing in at less than a bag of sugar when loaded and it’s got some serious stopping power.”
“Looking at this spec” his mate Bazza added “ you’ll be up close and personal; if you need to make the hit at distance this thing will do the business up to twenty five maybe fifty metres at a push.”
“How does it work?” asked Colin holding the pistol Thommo had fetched from one of his well stocked drawers.
“When you fire, the piston delivers enough oomph to get the cartridge out of the barrel then it seals the cartridge neck; you don’t get any noise, smoke or blast with this baby.”
“Impressive! Does it kick back much?” asked Colin.
“A little” smiled Bazza “why don’t you try it for half an hour on the range? I’ll sort you out some ammo – blanks for now and the real thing for when you leave us.”
“Great idea” said Colin “this feels good; let’s try it out!”
Forty minutes later Colin left the armourers with his weapon of choice; fully cleaned and with a six round detachable box.
Erebus had sorted his financials; when he dropped by his quarters to lock the weapon away he found a money clip by his laptop. He had more than enough for a day trip to Lewes. Erebus had also left a note scribbled on a sheet from Colin’s notepad.
‘Bon voyage. Receipts are traceable, always use cash. Good hunting.’
Next stop was the clothing store; a bit of a misnomer really, the crew members had a wide range of clothing available and it was stored in a large trunk in the stable block. His trainer Rusty used to call it their ‘dressing up box’ and operators would dive in to see what was available, find the right size, check it out, wear it, get it cleaned and throw it back in the box.
Colin had a good rummage around and found exactly what he was looking for; a reversible zip up windcheater. It was baggy enough to enable him to conceal his PSS and gave him the option of wearing it in navy blue or maroon. He already had a pair of jeans and some sturdy walking shoes. He grabbed a red bobble hat and a white baseball cap and stuffed them into the jacket pockets. He was good to go!
CHAPTER 13
Colin was out of bed with the first buzz of his alarm. He showered; but didn’t shave. He took his underwear, socks, jeans and shirt from the neat ironed pile by his laptop on the table and carefully put them on, one by one. He looked in the mirror. It would do.
He had a full English breakfast at the canteen and returned to his quarters. He put on the navy blue jacket, slipped the PSS pistol and ammunition into the left inside pocket and zipped it up. He checked the way the jacket looked; with his hands in the side pockets or in his jeans. Only a genius would guess he was carrying.
He spotted the IT whiz kid Giles on his way in to start work.
He called out “Where can I grab a rucksack mate?”
“Your best bet is Rusty; he’s got a stock of most things. It’ll cost you though!”
“Yeah, yeah” said Colin “I can hear him already, remember the six P’s Phoenix!
Piss poor planning and so on. Where is he?”
“He’ll probably be in the pool doing hundreds of lengths.”
Colin wasn’t going to undertake a mission with his hands or pockets full of odds and ends; he needed the bag to carry some necessary items and keep his hands totally free. He ran across to the pool. Sure enough Rusty was swimming length after length; the guy was a fitness freak. Colin looked around. There were a couple of other keen beggars around. Nobody took a lot of notice of him. He spotted a rucksack on a chair at the end of the pool. He tipped the contents onto the chair and made to walk off.
“Phoenix!” shouted Rusty as he touched the wall at the far end and took a breather “that’ll be a tenner pal. My kit had better not be missing when I get out either.”
Colin waved a tenner he had pulled from his money clip and called down the pool “Already done Rusty, hope I haven’t made you lose count on the number of lengths you’ve done!”
“Bastard!” cursed Rusty “I’ll have to start over now.”
Colin shook his head. Some people couldn’t seem to work out that you only need to get fit; it wasn’t compulsory to get fit enough to drop. Back inside his quarters he dropped his two pieces of headwear, a travel shaver, and a pair of binoculars and an Ordnance Survey map of East Sussex into the rucksack and checked his watch. It was just after seven fifteen.
The minicab with the Mount Olympus logo was outside the stable block with its engine ticking over. He got in and nodded to the ‘paramedic’ that he vaguely recognised from that first night.
They arrived at Bath Spa station in good time for Colin to catch the seven forty three train to London Paddington. Nobody gave him a second look on the platform or on the train. He dozed for a while with his head on his chest to shield his face somewhat from any passenger wandering up and down the aisle who might glance around at their fellow travellers.
The train pulled into the station at just after a quarter past nine and Colin made his way quickly along the concourse and towards the stairs down to the Tube. A Circle Line ticket deposited him at London Victoria in just under twenty minutes. Colin checked the timetable for the next train to Lewes; he had just less than thirty minutes to kill. He told himself not to make such puerile jokes, but they just sort of slipped out. What could he do?
He bought a newspaper and a scalding hot cup of coffee; as he sat on a bench waiting he went over the planned itinerary in his head. He needn’t have bothered really, he had gone over and over it so often that there was no chance he’d forget anything. The old clock above him ticked around inexorably and the station announcer broke into Colin’s reverie with news of the imminent boarding of his last train ride this morning. Just before half past eleven, Colin was walking along the platform at Lewes station and making for the exit.
Colin turned right on Lansdown Place and made for Eastgate Street. He was enjoying the walk through what was clearly an ancient town. The sun wasn’t much in evidence this particular morning sadly; the skies were starting to fill with clouds and Colin felt the threat of rain in the air. Nothing was going to be allowed to dampe
n his spirit however. There were two particular reasons for this; firstly he was back doing what he was best at and secondly, he had quickly examined the OS map on the train coming down from Victoria and spotted a familiar name.
This had to be an omen! He was now crossing the River Ouse using the Phoenix Causeway! How cool was that. It would have been even cooler if it had been named after his mythological namesake, but Colin would discover later that it was named after an old ironworks in the town. A little more prosaic perhaps, but nevertheless he was happy to accept it as an omen.
He continued his leisurely stroll; there was no rush. He continued via Malling Street and Chapel Hill, passing the entrance to Lewes Golf Club and finally arriving at his destination just before twelve noon. He looked back towards the town. He could see the property on Chapel Hill where DCI Richard Armitage lived. Currently living a bachelor’s existence, his cushy number in Corporate Development gave him ample opportunity to take time off to wander over the road and play a round of golf. He told his superiors he was ‘networking’ and that was sufficient for them to turn a blind eye.
Colin knew that Richard Armitage would finish work early and drive the three minutes from the Police HQ in Church Lane via Brooks Road and pull up to his parking spot near his home. This guy had the work, home, leisure equation down to a fine art! Colin remembered the haggard, careworn faces of the commuters on the train to Paddington. Those poor buggers spent a minimum of three hours every working day just travelling; let alone the stresses of whatever job they were stuck in.
Meanwhile, on the south coast, here was a criminal who had his job, home and main leisure activity on his doorstep! If you could forgive him the way in which he had amassed the fortune he had squirreled away from his dirty dealings in London, then the manner in which he continued to come up smelling of roses would be enough to mark him down as a target.
Colin heard the bolts go back on the door behind him. His destination had been The Snowdrop Inn which opened at noon, according to their website. Colin followed a couple of other early arrivals into the bar. While they were ordering up a meal and a drink, Colin casually took in his surroundings. Rather than being named after the herbaceous plant that he assumed might pop up in various spots around the Larcombe estate in the spring, in fact the inn was built close to the site of a fatal avalanche. When it was his turn to order something Colin decided to take it outside into one of the beer gardens, so he could keep a weather eye on the nearby hillside and also glance down Chapel Hill to await the arrival of Richard Armitage.
He was pleased to see umbrellas were still available on several tables, should the clouds decide to bring a more persistent shower. The threat was there, but the October sun still had a little warmth and with his jacket securely fastened to keep the pistol hidden, he was comfortable enough. His food arrived and proved to be excellent pub fare; not quite up to the cordon bleu experience of his first day at Larcombe, but the freshly caught fish and local vegetables were just the ticket.
He left the Snowdrop Inn after a quick trip to the gents and a friendly wave at the staff at the island bar. He threaded his way through tables with a growing number of the lunchtime crowd now seated, drinking and eating in convivial surroundings. It was a pity that he was unlikely to be around these parts after the afternoon’s intended activity; it was a pretty pleasant place to spend a couple of hours.
When he was outside he waited while a line of traffic meandered past, nose to tail on its weary way towards the town centre. He checked his watch; it was almost one fifteen.
“There you are!” whispered Colin. The policeman had found a kindly motorist who, fed up with travelling in crocodile file any longer, stopped to let him cross the line of traffic and pull into his parking area. Richard Armitage positively jumped out of his Mercedes sports car and skipped over to his front door.
The traffic was moving even slower now as the crocodile took a little time to get back up to crawling speed; Colin waved at a grey haired old lady driver and darted in front of her and took advantage of the long gap between the vehicles coming up the hill away from the town. He was soon at the entrance to the Golf Club. He retrieved his bobble hat from the rucksack and the binoculars. Hitching the rucksack over his shoulders he set off along the path that ran alongside the course.
The footpath veered off towards New Road after a bit of a hike and Colin threaded his way through bushes and trees until he reached the approach to the eleventh green. There were several couples and foursomes on the course, but the sight of someone wearing sturdy walking boots, a weatherproof jacket and bobble hat who could be spotted occasionally scanning the skies with binoculars didn’t raise any suspicions whatsoever.
Colin kept his distance from the golfers; if a ball landed fairly close to him he moved fifty yards towards or away from the spot. If anyone asked them later if they had seen anyone they could have said they saw a man, blue jacket, red bobble hat, jeans and boots. They may have thought he wore glasses; if their eye sight was exceptional they might even have said he had designer stubble, but any description would be vague. Height, weight and age would be tricky to gauge at the distances Colin kept between him and the object ball.
Richard Armitage was a creature of habit. Colin could imagine him preparing a light lunch; showering and changing into something appropriate for eighteen holes with one of his cronies. An Olympus operative had played here a handful of times over the summer and sussed out the start time that the ‘crafty copper’ tended to stick to. He had the two o’clock slot pencilled in every Wednesday.
In early October most people were off the course well before dusk and unless he was delayed by some ‘hackers’ who didn’t know one end of a club from another, Armitage and his playing partner should reach the eleventh hole by four o’clock. Colin was prepared to wait. Patience was the key.
Colin used the protective screen offered by the trees and shrubs to remove his pistol from his jacket inside pocket. He loaded it and replaced it. As he watched another two golfers play their approach shots to the green through the foliage, he stifled a yawn. He stretched his body and took a look at his watch. His target was on his way!
The undulating nature of the course high up on the downs meant it was just as tricky for Colin to pick out Armitage with his binoculars as it was for anyone using the fairways and greens to see him hidden away in the undergrowth. The footpath was some distance off to his right and behind him and Colin frequently kept a look out to see if there were any ramblers about, but the clouds had closed in and up here almost as far from the clubhouse as it was possible to be it wasn’t a case of was it going to rain, but when!
It started to drizzle about a quarter past three and it got steadily harder and harder; the breeze had picked up earlier and as two married couples made their way up the eleventh fairway Colin saw they were using their wet weather gear and keeping their umbrellas pulled tightly about themselves so that he could have run naked across the green and they wouldn’t have looked up.
They were hardy annuals these golfers Colin thought. Gentlemen too, he realised as he watched them carefully dry their wife’s clubs and keep their partner covered with their umbrella until the last few moments before they played their shot. All very chivalrous; it reminded Colin of Sir Walter Raleigh.
“Get on with it! You’re holding up play; the last thing I need is people backed up on the tee because of slow play!” muttered Colin, commenting knowledgeably on a game that he knew very little about and cared about even less. He shook his head; the stuff you have to read up on if you want to do a job properly.
He needn’t have worried; the course wasn’t too busy further back towards the clubhouse; the threat of rain had put off a few that were considering turning up on the off chance of getting a round in. They left their clubs in the boot of the car and walked over the road to get a round in at The Snowdrop Inn. A pint or two was a much better way to pass an afternoon.
Richard Armitage was with one of his regular playing partners, a solicitor
from Lewes called Peregrine Watts-Williams. Today was no different from any other occasion they played together; it was a money game, a fiver a hole. Perry, as he liked to be called was a rank amateur whose handicap was that he couldn’t play golf; subsequently it was no surprise that the crafty copper was forty quid up as he put the pin back in the hole at the tenth.
“Unlucky Perry; it’s not your day today is it?” said Armitage without a hint of irony.
“Eight holes left Richard” said Perry “the come back starts here!”
The wind and rain were unrelenting as the pair made their way over to the eleventh tee. Colin had walked back towards the point on the hole where the right hand dog leg came into play about five minutes earlier to watch their first shots through his binoculars.
Planning is everything; the operative who visited the Lewes course had given a blow by blow description of the type of shot that these two were prone to play, given their proficiency. Armitage had a better than even chance of finding the middle of the fairway, while poor old Perry would probably be zigzagging his way up as he negotiated the three hundred odd yards.
He watched the pantomime unfold as both Richard Armitage and Perry Watts-Williams shuffled onto the tee. There were umbrellas, golf trolleys, towels and technicolour wet weather clothing everywhere! Colin ran back through the trees and awaited the arrival of the first shot. He had a small window of opportunity where he could dart out and do what he planned and be hidden from view of the players.
Armitage drove first and as he watched it sail away he made a mental note to work on correcting a slight tendency to slice his tee shot; maybe he was relaxing because he was finding it easier than usual to pick up sixty or seventy quid from the old fart next to him. The ball landed about five yards from the thick rough and Colin congratulated himself on picking the perfect place to hide. He walked over to the ball, picked it up and dropped it in amongst the more dense vegetation.
