by Albert Able
Sir Gerald waited whilst Henshaw decided.
“I believe we used to work together, where was it now... Sussex Gardens?” Henshaw queried.
“Moscow road, actually,” Sir Gerald corrected.
“In that case, Sir, I don’t see a problem, I’ll advise ‘the man’ immediately.”
Sir Gerald smiled at the simple subterfuge and remembered the last time he had served with Sergeant Major Henshaw.
Almost eighteen years ago Sir Gerald, then a Major with an SAS unit, was on a covert mission in Northern Ireland. Sergeant Henshaw, as he was then, together with the Major and two other men, had been observing a remote farm house, when the Land Rover innocently parked in the lean-to shed at the rear of the main house exploded with such force that it completely destroyed the rear of the farm house and sent a sheet of flame through the remains of the building.
Out of the fireball three figures appeared, one adult and a child pulling desperately at the burning body of a third. All three appeared to be on fire. Against standing orders Sergeant Henshaw leapt from cover and sprinted the seventy-five metres to the screaming apparitions.
There was clearly nothing Henshaw could do for the body on the ground so he turned to the two terrified figures still standing, throwing one over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried the smaller body by the back of his trousers, who dangled like a rag doll as he sprinted back to his hide.
They turned out to be the farmer’s wife and son; the body on the ground was one of the three terrorists who died in the blast.
Although badly burned, the farmer’s wife and son both survived as a result of Henshaw’s quick and daring action. In spite of that, however, for breaking cover on such an important a covert operation Sergeant Henshaw could have received a court marshal. But Major Fisher knew better than to destroy good men because of intransigent ‘Queens Regulations.’
“You know the rules Sergeant?” The Major didn’t wait for an answer as the tall Sergeant stood smartly at attention. “Consider yourself severely reprimanded.”
The Sergeant remained expressionless as the Major carefully pulled on his regulation brown leather gloves, “and see that it doesn’t happen again, Sergeant!”
The Major scowled as he turned away, took one pace forward and then stopped and turned to face the tall Sergeant still standing to attention. The major was grinning: “Unless, of course, you are pulling me from a fire.”
***
The four men waiting in the black Mercedes outside the holiday bungalow sat in silence for about fifteen minutes.
The Leader fidgeted repeatedly with his watch. “Don’t tell me he’s lost his nerve,” he eventually hissed under his breath.
The two henchmen looked at each other and squirmed in their seats nervously.
“Well don’t ask me to check on him,” one spat at the Leader.
The Leader took one more look at his watch and made up his mind. “We’ll all go,” he glared at the henchmen, “follow me.”
Then as he opened the car door, he ordered the driver: “You stay in the car.” The driver, with great relief, settled a little deeper into his seat.
The Leader, followed not quite so meaningfully by the henchmen, marched briskly towards the front door, stopping a couple of feet away. He cocked his head to one side and gestured to the men to stop, listening intently for a few seconds. Apparently satisfied, he stepped forward and carefully opened the door. It lead into a small lobby and open plan access to the living room and kitchen.
There was no sign of the two women they had left bound and gagged on the floor nor, even more worryingly, was there any sign of Hassan Eddie.
“Get in here!” the leader commanded the two henchmen still anxiously holding back in the garden.
The men cautiously entered the house.
“Search the place - they can’t be far,” the Leader ordered as he stood defiantly in the middle of the room.
The Leader was now faced with a serious dilemma because he was supposed to be supervising the Moscow attack at the GUM building, for which had already accepted the generous fee with half paid in advance, the twenty-five thousand Dollars was sitting in his Liechtenstein bank account.
This little matter today should have been so simple.
“In here!” One of the henchmen called out urgently, interrupting the Leader’s thoughts.
The Leader arrived at the bedroom at the same time as the other henchman, to find his colleague was pointing at the remains of the tape used to secure the women. “They were here.”
“So where is that little coward then?” the leader sneered.
“There’s something in here,” the other henchman called from the adjoining bathroom.
The others turned towards the bathroom as the man inside reached out to touch the webbing harness laying innocently in the bath. “He must have dumped the Semtex somewhere. The belt is here but nothing else.”
“Don’t touch it!”
The leader’s warning scream died on his lips as the explosion tore the three men to pieces, destroying most of the bungalow at the same time.
***
Lydia Rowland could hardly keep her eyes open. It was well after midnight and since she had not yet found any further obvious connections with the Syndicate, Graham Watkins and the Mustafa incident, she decided to head home intent on making a fresh start the following day.
It was a chilly night, she noted, as she walked out of the building, but she gazed repeatedly in wonder at the star filled heavens in the crystal clear sky. There was very little traffic and she did not meet a single other person as she walked the half-a mile to her apartment. Just before she crossed the road she scanned the sky for one last look and, spotting the Plough, she raised her arm and tracked the line to the North star.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?”
A man’s voice from the shadows somewhere behind startled her so much that her heart pounded as if she’d been punched in the chest. She turned cautiously peering into the darkness.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Relieved, Lydia relaxed as she recognised the voice. “The North Star...” she managed, taking in a deep breath.
The man also appeared to be looking skyward as he casually moved closer. “Just where is it?” he asked politely.
Pointing her finger Lydia Rowland once again traced the bearing through the Plough to the lonely North Star.
“See, if you line up those two stars at the end of the Plough and track across you will find that slightly less bright one. That’s the North Star.”
“Show me that again,” the man asked, peering into the sky with his arm raised, pointing upwards.
“See over there a bit more?” she pointed, then suddenly gasped as the heel of the man’s other hand thumped into her chest, shattering her sternum and sending splintered shafts of bone into her heart.
She fell into a heap on the pavement and died within a few seconds, a look of stunned horror on her face.
***
Sir Gerald Fisher arrived at the Chelsea Arts Club and was met at the door by Henshaw.
“Good to see you again, old friend. Putting on a bit of weight, though.”
He tapped Henshaw’s slightly rounding stomach.
“I know Sir, walking gin and tonics from bar to Sir Adrian’s chair in the study isn’t quite the same level of exercise as in the old days,” Henshaw smiled politely as he led Sir Gerald into the drawing room.
The Boss stood up from his leather wingback chair as they entered. “Gerald, you old scoundrel! Good to see you. What can we get you?”
“I’m fine thank you, Adrian, but don’t let me stop you.”
The Boss shook his head at Henshaw, who with an imperceptible bow, slipped silently away as usual.
“So what
have you got for me?” The Boss pointed Sir Gerald to the chair facing him.
“Dirty nuclear bombs. Any interest to you?” Sir Gerald Fisher raised his eyebrows expectantly.
The Boss remained poker-faced as usual. “Um,” he reached across and pushed the service bell. “Nuclear bombs eh? Not ‘Tactical Nuclear Bombs’ by any chance?”
“Why, you crafty old dog! You already know something, don’t you?” Sir Gerald sat forward in his chair as Henshaw appeared with a gin and tonic and placed it on the table alongside the Boss.
He looked questioningly at Sir Gerald, who declined with a modest shake of his head and moved quietly away again.
“Tell me what you know first and then I’ll tell you if it fits in with my information,” the Boss took a generous drink from the glass and settled back in his chair.
Sir Gerald Fisher systematically detailed every thing he had learned from Mustafa.
“Naturally I have informed the Prime Minister and advised him to keep it all in-house for the moment. He is also aware that I am having this ‘unofficial’ meeting with you. You, of course, have never dealt with this new Prime Minister or him with you, and since SONIC was disbanded under the old regime he had no knowledge of your previous roll. I have now fully briefed him and in spite of him being one of the new ‘politically correct’ generation of politicians, he reacted with surprising understanding. So, my good friend, I have to ‘unofficially’ invite you to temporarily re-establish SONIC.”
Sir Gerald waited for a couple of seconds as the Boss took another deep draft from his glass.
“Does any of this tie in with what you are dilly-dallying?” he added expectantly.
“Dilly-dallying!” the Boss retorted. “Dilly-dallying! I’ll have you know we’ve been on the case for several days now!” The boss picked up his almost empty glass looked at for a moment and carefully replaced it on the side table.
“Alex Scott is in Moscow at this very moment checking out what I believe to be a related incident.”
The Boss held Sir Gerald’s gaze. “It’s the Syndicate,” he said simply.
Sir Gerald looked up in surprise. “I thought we had done for that lot?”
“So did we, but there is now clear evidence that they are at work again. Furthermore, and based on what you have unearthed, I think you’ll find this confirms it.” The Boss passed a fax sheet. “This just came in from Alex.”
Sir Gerald took the fax, read it carefully and waited politely for the Boss to continue.
“It appears that four pocket-size nuclear devices vanished from a secret establishment a couple of hundred milers north of Moscow, when it was being decommissioned under the ‘limitation of nuclear arms’ treaty a few years ago.” The Boss took the fax back from Sir Gerald. “It’s a complicated story, but somehow they appear to have landed in the Syndicate’s hands.” The Boss slipped the fax into a file on the table in front of him. He looked up casually at Sir Gerald: “Based on your intelligence, they intend to detonate them in the four separate locations you discovered through your Mustafa Ben Laurie man.”
Sir Gerald tapped his chin in thought: “The last time the Syndicate tried something like this, their real intention was to panic the stock markets to create a massive dip in share prices and allow them to buy into the market at fire-sale rates. Do you agree that if we were to go public with this story today we would create exactly the same conditions again?”
The Boss agreed and was about to make a point when Sir Gerald’s mobile telephone rang. “Sorry Adrian, should have turned it off, I know.” He looked reverently up at the portraits, which seemed to glare accusingly back at him.
He whispered into the instrument and listened intently for half a minute. “Thank you for that. I’ll give it some thought and get back. Oh, hang on a minute. Are we in time to stop that transfer I authorised this morning?” He waited. “Good, excellent, I’ll get back to you.”
Sir Gerald smiled as he slipped the mobile back into his pocket. “Very interesting indeed. It seems as though my man Mustafa has been killed in a mystery road accident!”
“The plot thickens, Gerald.” The Boss nodded thoughtfully. “It’s no mystery accident in my mind. Far too much of a coincidence.”
“I think you’re right, it has to be the Syndicate.” Sir Gerald seemed almost relieved that they had at least identified the enemy. “I expect they were responsible for Mustafa’s demise. Well, at least they’ve saved the nation one and a half million pounds!”
“That’s true, but don’t forget we don’t have the dates or targets either!” The Boss raised his eyebrows and fixed Sir Gerald’s eyes with his.
Sir Gerald held the stare. “Makes you wonder if he ever had that info, or even if someone found him out?”
“That true,” the Boss cautioned, looking away. “However, I think we must definitely keep the lid on this for the moment. You see, in my opinion, not going public will tell them that we know something. Hopefully, that will force them into making some kind of move and give Alex the chance to nail them.”
“Agreed. But going back a page or two,” Sir Gerald queried, “what are we going to do about this communication leak at GCHQ?”
The Boss looked up and leaned forward. “Absolutely nothing, from what you tell me about them. We did take a look at Gerald Rive, but there was nothing obvious, though I admit he does appear to be almost too squeaky clean. However, I am convinced that if we say anything at this point they will only panic and run around squealing like kindergarten children - and worse of all, if any of them are dirty it will only spook them.”
Sir Gerald nodded understanding. “I’m afraid you may be right but at the same time there are still several very good field agents in there and a few good administrators. Unfortunately, the cross the ‘t’ and dot the ‘i’ brigade are in control.”
They discussed their own strategy for a few minutes more and then Sir Gerald asked Henshaw to order a taxi.
A few minutes later Henshaw entered and announced politely: “Your taxi is here, Sir Gerald.” He passed the Boss yet another fax.
“I’ll be off then.” Sir Gerald rose from his chair.
The Boss raised his hand in acknowledgement “We had better stick to the fax communications until Hans can find something more secure,” the Boss instructed, looking up briefly before turning his attention back to the long message.
Sir Gerald smiled as Henshaw led him to the front door. After seeing him off, Henshaw returned to the Boss who was anxiously waving the faxed message.
Outside, the taxi was waiting about ten metres away. As Sir Gerald Fisher approached, the driver stepped out of the cab.
“Sir Gerald Fisher?”
Sir Gerald raised his hand in acknowledgment.
“Won’t be a sec, Gov - the paper.”
The driver pointed to the corner of the building and headed to the newsstand.
Sir Gerald reached out and was just about to open the cab door when Henshaw shouted from the doorway: “Excuse me Sir, urgent.” He waved a sheet of paper.
Sir Gerald turned immediately and followed Henshaw back into the building.
A smartly dressed pedestrian complete with broad striped city suite and rolled umbrella spotted the vacant cab and seizing the opportunity, yanked the door open and jumped inside.
He didn’t notice the absence of a driver but it didn’t matter because as he energetically closed the door, the cab erupted in a deep orange flamed explosion that lifted it several feet into the air, instantly destroying him and most of the taxi.
The man sitting at his newsstand on the corner was blown in a flurry of arms and legs to the other side of the road to land stunned, but otherwise unhurt, face down in the gutter. The stand didn’t fair so well, shattering to pieces and sending dozens of newspapers up into the air, where they fluttered in the vortex like a swirl
ing flock of squabbling seagulls.
Several other passers-by were bowled over in the blast. Remarkably, none were killed or seriously injured, but several simply sat or remained crouched where they had fallen, shocked and dazed by the sudden blast as glass from numerous shattered windows sprinkled to the ground like a sudden hail shower.
The driver of the taxi, however, had already reached the safety of an inconspicuous café, more than a hundred metres away in the next street. The unmistakable sound of the blast was more than enough for him to confidently reach for his mobile phone. He checked the pre-entered number briefly, carefully texted ‘contract completed’ and pressed ‘send’.
The untraceable number sent the message flying through several different hubs before a light flashed on the panel of a sophisticated computer room several hundred miles away in Austria.
Rudi smiled with satisfaction and removed Sir Gerald Fisher’s name from the top of the list.
***
Alex Scott slept fitfully as the events of the last twenty-four hours filled his mind and refused to let him rest.
A rapid tapping on the bedroom door brought him back to reality with a start. It was Igor.
“Good morning Alex, six o-clock breakfast in fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks,” Alex muttered blearily and threw back the duvet.
A few minutes later, washed, shaved and feeling surprisingly refreshed, Alex sat with Igor drinking tea and munching a thick slice of dark brown toast and butter. They ate in silence for a while.
“I seems as though I’ve spent what was left of the night trying to work everything out. But I’m dammed if I could create a clear picture of it all!”
Igor nodded. “That makes two of us. The only obvious thing I could think of was that your Syndicate people are planning a terrorist attack somewhere.”
“I agree, but it’s not usually their style.” Alex looked away in thought. “One thing I feel sure of is that the devices are no longer in Russia, so it’s quite likely that they’re busy selling them to a third party right now.”
Alex finished his tea and stood up. “Well, thanks for your hospitality, Igor, but now I would like to get back to London as soon as possible. Hopefully, Hans will have solved our communications problem and it’s easier for me to work from there.”
