by A P Bateman
23
The top floor of Thames House had recently undergone a complete refit. The glass was quadruple-glazed ballistic composite, impenetrable by 20mm anti-aircraft rounds. The thickness also made the windows soundproof and would deflect parabolic microphones. To keep up with the added security measures, lead and titanium sleeves now lined the walls between the grade II listed stone walls and the plasterboard within.
It had been a deniable act of terrorism by Russian extremists that had necessitated the refit and reconstruction of MI5 headquarters. The strike at the heart of the British intelligence establishment had called for more changes, and now each floor was guarded by heavily armed security officers from MI5’s security group, the only non-police or military guards armed in the UK.
Rashid glanced at the guard, who was protected by a flack-jacket and body armour and armed with a Sig P226 pistol and a 7.62mm SAR rifle. He noted the heavy calibre. MI5 were not taking any chances. At the end of the corridor, another similarly attired and armed guard stood outside the director’s office.
“A bit heavy,” he said. “The PM hasn’t got a show of force like this.”
Mereweather nodded. “It’s exactly that; a show of force. Foreign intelligence officers and dignitaries have been doing the rounds. We wanted them to go home with tales of the service’s strength. The guards would normally be suited and booted, conceal-carry. The paramilitary boys are usually outside or on the exits and entrances.”
“Where do they train?”
“With the metropolitan police.”
“SCO19?”
“Yes.”
Rashid said nothing.
“Anything wrong in that?” Mereweather asked.
Rashid shrugged. “A bit gung-ho.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“We trained a few groups in Hereford, that’s all.”
“And?”
“They like Ray-Bans. Like, when it’s dark,” he paused. “And afterwards, in the bar, they keep their pistols on. Pose for photos, that sort of shit.”
“Anything else?”
“When they find out you went to war, they always ask you if you’ve killed someone,” Rashid said quietly.
Mereweather nodded. Rashid had a feeling the MI5 man would take it under consideration. He opened the door, ignoring the guard and ushered Rashid inside. There was an outer office and the secretary barely acknowledged them, as she tapped on her keyboard, and studied her handwritten notes. Mereweather opened the second oak door and the two men stepped into the inner sanctum of MI5.
Director Amherst was seated behind his large mahogany desk. As usual, the chairs for his guests had been arranged in a semi-circle in front of his desk, with two low glass tables between. There were three chairs. One was occupied, the other two were empty. The man in the chair stood up, nodded at the men as they walked in. Amherst remained seated.
“Neil Ramsay,” the man said, holding out his hand.
Rashid shook it but said nothing. Things were moving fast. He looked at the seated man, then back at Mereweather. He shrugged. “All looks official,” he said.
“Do sit,” Amherst said. He had been in the role for less than a year, but he was confident. He had paired some of MI5’s more dubious expenses and increased the closeness of their working relationship with both GCHQ and MI6.
“Long and the short of it is; you are in the shit, so we’ll get you off any charges if you work with us to locate our missing agent, Caroline Darby, and along the way, get Alex King back on the reservation,” Amherst steepled his fingers, his elbows on the desk. “Can you help us?”
“Why me?” Rashid asked incredulously. “You have agents for this sort of thing.”
Mereweather nodded. “But you know King. And he trusts you…”
“I’ll not set him up.”
“We’re not asking you to,” Ramsay said. “But the time will come when King will need to be approached, and we think he’ll trust you, more than us.”
Rashid looked at all three men in turn. “Have you given him a reason not to trust you?”
“Certainly not,” Amherst replied, seemingly for all three of them. “King is not thinking straight. He’s blinded by love, and I fear, revenge. He has jumped and danced to Helena Snell’s, or should I say, Milankovitch’s tune. We know he took out a Russian mafia brotherhood down in France, and we can assume he is planning another hit for Helena as we speak.”
Rashid shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Technically he had taken out the Russians, or at least most of them. He’d even dealt Sergeyev a wound that would have killed him, had King not delivered a coup de grâce. “You can’t blame the man,” he replied. “He’s buying time. He’s not blindly haring across Europe killing people. He’s finding out as much about the bitch as he can.”
“And what has he found out?”
Rashid shrugged. “I want anything against me dropped. And I want something in writing. I want the terrorist sniper on the rooftop covered in that paperwork too. Queen and country, that sort of shit.”
“So that was you,” Amherst stated flatly.
“You know it was. I want a secondment to MI5, open-ended. And I want that agreed at Hereford.”
“Anything else?” Mereweather asked sardonically.
“I imagine senior field agents earn more than SAS captains, so I want my paygrade to go northwards. Pension contributions too,” Rashid smiled.
“You ask for a lot,” Amherst commented flatly.
“I’m not asking for an Aston Martin or a jet pack,” Rashid smiled.
“And a good job too,” Mereweather said. “Our budget tops out at Fords and budget airlines. Now, in all seriousness, what did King tell you down in France?”
Rashid held up a hand. “Look, I haven’t eaten all day. There’s a McDonalds across the bridge from here. I’ll be in there with a burger and a brew. You can meet me over there with the paperwork and my get out of jail free card. I’ll need some expenses and a place to stay tonight. I’m not classy, a Premier Inn will do me fine. We can meet there at breakfast if you like, discuss transportation, flights and that sort of thing. Unless you want to get going tonight.” He stood up and looked down at Mereweather. “You can show me out, Simon.”
“Deputy Director Mereweather, if you please,” Amherst said sharply. “You want the paygrade and entitlement, you can take the chain of command.”
Rashid shrugged. “Fair enough, boss.” He walked to the door and waited.
“I’ll be out in a moment,” Mereweather said. He waited for Rashid to close the door behind him, then looked back at Ramsay and Amherst. “Well?”
Amherst shook his head. “Well, I think we just added a bloody great hammer to our toolkit, when we needed a pair of precision snips,” he said. “Seriously, what the hell is it with these sort of men and etiquette? Where did he say he’ll be?”
“McDonalds,” Ramsay said.
“Dear God…” Amherst shook his head. “Okay, Simon. See him out and come back up here. Neil, get what the man wants. You can take over now. Liaise with our new friend. I want you to accompany him, work with him to bring King back in. Simon, you keep an eye on this and report back to me, but I want you on top of this Russian state visit. We need to know where any Syrian radicals are, anyone with Syrian sympathy, ISIS connections, that sort of thing. There’s a three-pronged war and resistance going on down there, and we don’t want anything happening to the new Russian president on British soil. Relations have been fraught enough of late.”
“I’m on it, Sir,” replied Mereweather.
“And Caroline?” Ramsay asked.
“We’ll leave a line of enquiry open. We can’t make a move until we get a lead.”
“But, surely we have to investigate every avenue to come up with a lead?” Ramsay stated. He looked at Mereweather, knew the man had a soft spot for Caroline. “Simon? We are searching for her, aren’t we?”
The deputy director nodded. “We are. But we must bring King in first. Stop him ram
paging over Europe, dancing to Helena’s tune.”
Ramsay nodded. “I’ll get on with it then,” he said and stood up. “Unless there’s anything else?”
Amherst shook his head. “Thank you, Neil.”
Mereweather walked out with Ramsay and into the outer office. Rashid was sitting in a comfortable leather chair. He was watching Amherst’s secretary as she typed. She was smiling at him, a little coyly. Ramsay waited for the door to the director’s office to close, then leaned into Mereweather. “We can’t give up on her,” he whispered.
“We’re not,” Mereweather said tersely. “But King needs bringing in.”
Ramsay shook his head. “The two things should go hand in hand. But we’ve done so little to date, that she will probably never be found. King is our best shot. Caroline’s best shot.”
Mereweather shook his head. “Look, while I see our friend out, you get on with the task you’ve been set,” he said sharply. “But come to my office and see me before you go. Understand?”
Ramsay nodded. He watched Simon Mereweather escort Rashid out of the office, then let out a sigh.
“Problems?” the secretary asked, her expression humorous and her eyes inviting comment.
“Always,” Ramsay replied. “But I fear, there may soon be many more.”
24
King wanted a target on the man’s body to give him two things. Maximum noise and maximum incapacity. He wanted the man incapacitated, but he also wanted him to howl like a banshee and bring everybody running. This man had a better suited weapon than the guard with the Uzi, and King intended on using it and leaving the crossbow behind.
The crossbow sights appeared to be off centre judging from the miss on the first guard, either that, or the crossbow fired to the left because of human error. King put the vee and pin sights on the man’s right buttock and eased them a little higher to compensate the distance. He knew that if the man gave up the fight, he may well survive long enough to receive and respond to medical attention. But he would never have known pain like it. He thought of Caroline, his motivation for such cruelty.
And then he squeezed the trigger.
The bolt hit the man between both butt-cheeks. Penetration was deep, but the bolt stopped just short from going through and through as the solid plastic flights, like a set of mini aircraft wings, slowed the bolt to a stop. The man dropped the rifle and howled. King was up and moving towards the staggering man. He had managed to turn around and King saw the tip and shaft of the bolt sticking out from the man’s blood-soaked genitals. The man looked on in horror at King as he barrelled towards him, but he was not able to put up a fight. King caught him by the throat to steady and incapacitate him further, then gave the bolt a twist with his right hand for good measure as he tripped his feet from under him and dropped him onto his back. The man hollered, then screamed when his buttocks hit the ground and the bolt took the impact.
He didn’t stop screaming.
King stepped away, picked up the assault rifle and checked it. The man did not have a spare magazine on him, judging from his attire, but he did pick up the man’s radio and tossed it over the fence. He looked back towards the property and could see two men on the lawn, two-hundred and fifty metres away, and one-hundred and fifty feet below. They were looking his way, but the sun was still in their eyes. King shouldered the rifle, took aim and fired three shots at each man, all aimed below the waist and above the knees. Both men dropped a moment later. He could hear their screams, even above the man squirming and hollering on the ground behind him.
King didn’t look back. He started down the embankment, then crouched and took aim at the guard by the pool. He could see the woman on her feet, the children in the pool, their play having stopped as they stared up at him. King shouldered the weapon again. He fired two shots at the guard. Steadied his aim and fired another two rounds. The guard dropped to the ground, but he was alive and crawling desperately to safety. King sent half a dozen rounds into the pool and each impact threw a spray of water three-feet into the air. The bullets landed near the children, but he was never in doubt they would miss. The children screamed and scrambled to the side, their mother dashing towards them, desperately trying to pull them clear.
Luca Fortez appeared on the patio with a nickel-plated handgun and fired on King. The bullets went wide and low, sending up dust that showered his feet. King returned fire, making sure his bullets hit the glass doors behind. The glass showered the mafia boss and he ducked down, crouching low as he got to his wife’s side and heaved his son out of the pool.
The radio in King’s pocket chattered and he took it out, pressed down on the transmitter switch and tucked it into his belt making sure the switch remained activated. He had now jammed all communication between the security. The handset was ancient and only had the one channel. King stood up straight and fired two more rounds on Luca, aiming just a little to his left. He slung the weapon over his shoulder and calmly took the Uzi off his other shoulder. A guard ran onto the lawn and King mowed him down, taking the man’s legs out from under him in a burst of 9mm copper-coated lead.
There were many screams now, calls for help and the sound of general panic and pandemonium. Gunfire erupted to King’s left and he returned the rest of the magazine, hitting the gunman and the vehicle he had sheltered behind. The car’s alarm added to the cacophony of noise. He changed magazines, then slung the Uzi over his shoulder and switched to the Heckler and Koch G36. He had barely noticed what make the weapon had been. All he knew was he was familiar with it and had it switched to selective fire mode as soon as he had picked it up. The 5.56mm rounds were more powerful than the 9mm pistol rounds in the Uzi, and the weapon was accurate to five-hundred metres.
King reached the lawn and the writhing men. He kicked the first man’s weapon aside. Then covered the other two with the rifle. “Where… is… Luca… Fortez?” he asked harshly in carefully rehearsed, but poor Italian, with as much Russian accent as he could achieve speaking a language he would not even understand the answer to. He bent down and picked up one of the men’s pistols and tucked it into his waistband. The man spat something in Italian at him, and King dropped the rifle butt down onto the man’s ankle. He wailed, and King kicked the other man’s rifle away.
Two guards ran out into the grounds from the buildings behind the mansion and fired on King with pistols. King turned and fired, but this time, the men were close, so he took no chances and gave each one two rounds, centre-mass. They went down hard and one rested still, the other squirmed, his legs kicking and striking the ground in an effort to push himself into cover. King turned towards the house and fired the rest of the magazine at the windows, then dropped the weapon and slipped the Uzi off his shoulder. He jogged down the side of the house towards the pool. Luca’s wife was shepherding her children into the house, but the broken glass was making their escape on bare feet difficult. King was instantly regretful, not wanting the children to injure themselves, but he knew they would be ok. Nothing a few plasters wouldn’t sort out. He had seen worse in Syria and Iraq; these two privileged children would cope with a few cuts and a day of discomfort. They may be traumatised, but then, maybe he had done them a favour. Maybe they would head clearly down a different path, a life without crime.
King looked at the woman. She was frozen to the spot, her feet bleeding on the broken glass. She didn’t seem to notice the pain and was simply staring back at him, looking at the muzzle of the machine-pistol. King grabbed hold of her, twisted her around and held her in front of him for a human shield. Just as long as her husband did not fire upon them, she would be alright. Luca wouldn’t be so lucky. He was going to feel some pain now. King saw him sheltering behind a large planter and opened fire. The terracotta pot smashed, and King aimed carefully at the man as he cowered.
Again, he used a carefully rehearsed line, strong on the Russian accent, “Nikolai has had a change of mind. He will be taking you over. He will own your empire, eat from your table and sleep with your woman…
” King fired and hit him in the left shoulder with a single shot and the white shirt turned crimson around the hole. The woman screamed as Luca fell backwards, and King gave her a shove forward. And that was the last King saw of them as he turned and ran down the side of the house and across the lawns. He hoped the children were alright, but he hoped Luca Fortez was too. He was convinced it was a flesh wound and knew that the bullet had not hit organs or arteries. It may have broken bone, but he was convinced that if pressure was applied quickly and just so long as Luca did not go into shock, then he would survive.
25
Caroline was eagerly anticipating a visit from Michael. He was young, and seemed different, certainly more sensitive than the other men she had encountered so far. As if he were somebody caught up in something he had no control over. She had tried to create the human element, the personal factor. She had told him that he reminded her of her brother. She concentrated hard to create a person in her life to fit Michael’s character. She was an only child. This was all a game, an avenue to explore and to exploit. She imagined things Michael might like, thought how to weave her fictional brother’s life into her captor’s mirroring image. She had no idea what her captors planned, but people were less willing to harm, or even kill a person they felt attachment to. If she could make Michael feel for her plight, she may even get the man to help her. But how far could she go? What would she be willing to do to buy her freedom?
She could hear a noise outside, footsteps on the landing. She unwrapped herself from the covers, slid off the bed and made her way around the bed to the desk. She figured she could get the leg off the desk in one swift movement. She held the wingnut in her palm, her fingers clenched around it, she quickly tucked it into her bra.
The bolt eased back. There were two sharp knocks, then the door eased open. Michael stood in the doorway with a flask. “Coffee,” he said, and walked in. He looked at her, signalled for her to step backwards with a flick of his hand.
