The station commander leant forward and said.
'Well, the good news is they are in the hospital and will be awake soon, so I don’t see the need to pursue this any further, just be careful when you are out. I will send an e-mail to all personnel about this clip-joint scam as well so as to warn them about it, not everybody is as handy as you are.’
'Thank you, Sir, hopefully they will learn the error of their ways after last night. What else was it you wanted to see me about Sir?'
Group Captain Bartlett opened the top drawer on the left-hand side of his desk and pulled out two manila envelopes, one was bigger than the other, he took a stack of paper out of the first envelope and placed the envelope on to his desk and lay the papers down next to it. James Shaw wondered what they were and shuffled in his chair to try and catch a glimpse of what was on them.
'I have here some good news. Wing Commander James Shaw as of the 20th of July you will be known as Group Captain James Shaw and will be the Station commander for RAF Waddington, congratulations' he said and stood up and held his hand out.
Shaw also stood and shook the Station Commanders hand and said.
'Thank you Sir, I did not expect this to happen'
They then both sat back down when Shaw asked.
'Sir, is the Station Commander at Waddington not usually a pilots post?'
‘Normally yes, however Air Command have decided in a change of direction, primarily because Waddington is a flying base but the flying is for Intelligence and reconnaissance so they thought starting with you they would rotate Station Commanders between pilots and intelligence, you will be the first intelligence one then when you move on a pilot and when they move on another intelligence officer then so on and so forth. Somebody obviously thinks highly of you because it is a big station to be in charge of for your first post but I am sure you will manage just fine.’
Shaw nodded in agreement and shuffled in his chair, his legs were starting to cramp up, part of the after effects from the alcohol.
‘I will miss it out here. I have had a great three years. I will miss the sun most of all, I need to arrange getting my car back to the UK sooner rather than later, I don’t want to get back home and be waiting for my car to be shipped, I will do that later.’
Shaw’s car was a Dodge Challenger muscle car in burnt orange with a big black stripe down the centre of the car, he had gotten it imported from the USA two years ago with the money he had received from helping Lawrence Sharif on a job in Nicosia. Where between the two of them they shot dead six terrorists who were planning to detonate simultaneous car bombs outside the US Embassy and the British and Australian High Commissions.
Group Captain Bartlett then picked the other thinner envelope up off his desk and then said.
‘I will make sure your car gets back to Britain, first we need to discuss what is in this envelope but before that lets have another drink.’
Shaw stood up and walked over to the drinks tray and picked up the decanter, he poured more bourbon into the glasses on the desk, he poured himself a smaller measure than the Station Commander, he then replaced the decanter on the tray and sat back down in the visitor's chair and looked at the envelope waiting impatiently for the Station Commander to take out the contents.
In Liverpool, Lyndon Powell had just finished packing his cabin bag, which contained three suits, three shirts, ties and two pairs of shoes for the trip to Spain, when the buzzer to his apartment rang. He stepped out of his bedroom door and walked across his hallway to the buzzer receiver and picked it up. It was Chris Hampshire and Mike Williams asking to come in, Lyndon pressed the button on the console and he heard the two of them push the door open at the base of his apartment building. Lyndon then went to the front door of his apartment and opened it so that Mike and Chris could walk straight in. After a couple of minutes Mike and Chris walked into Lyndon's apartment and met him in the kitchen where Lyndon had opened three bottles of beer for them, even though it was still morning. The apartment was a large square with the living room being the biggest room, it had a three-seat sofa and two chairs arranged in a triangle with a large television looking out at them, the two en-suite bedrooms where in a hallway off the left side of the living room where the floor to ceiling windows were and the opposite side had a hallway where the main bathroom was located and the kitchen was attached to the living room but separated by a partition which was home to his drinks decanters and glasses. The three of them walked over to the seating area and sat down on the large sofas. Lyndon wondered why Mike and Chris had come over.
'What brings you here then? Have you begun packing yet?' He asked them.
'We just decided to check in see how you are?' Said Mike.
'You don't seem as excited about this job as you normally would be at this stage.' Chris added.
Lyndon Powell took a big gulp of his beer then shuffled in his seat and exhaled deeply he then leant forward holding his bottle in two hands and looked at both Mike and Chris and said.
'It’s just that we have never tried anything like this before and with so much at stake, sure we have had trickier ones, remember that one in Shanghai when Mr Chen nearly caught us out because we had no permits to build in China and Jack e-mailed them to us just as Mr Chen was on the phone to the police or at least he said he was, Jack to the rescue on that one, where is he anyway?'
Mike answered 'Taking care of some loose ends before we set off on Sunday, he said he doesn’t want anything left to chance whilst we are there, especially after you just mentioned the Mr Chen deal. Shanghai was great wasn't it we made some money there and Bangkok was a good one.'
The three of them nodded in acknowledgment. They had indeed been hugely successful over the last twenty years and in that time, they had had some near misses in terms of being exposed as fraudsters.
One time when they had just completed the supposed sale of part of a new development in Bangkok city centre to an American man for a quarter of a million pounds. Quickly realising that he had been conned the American hired some local help to track down Lyndon and his crew through the hot sticky streets of Bangkok. Luckily in Thailand money talks, Lyndon, Mike, Chris and Jack had been sat in a bar when two local men aged around twenty pulled up outside the bar on a moped. They walked over to the men and said they had been paid to find them and to call the American when they had. Lyndon offered the men double what the American was paying them to report back to him and say that nobody had seen them and that they would keep looking which enabled the crew to leave Bangkok and lay low for a few weeks before returning to snare their next victim.
'How much do we know about this Mr Ramos; from what you have told me he seems like a man not to be messed with and does he have any minders that you noticed when you met him?' Lyndon asked.
Mike sat there trying to remember the first time he met Mr Javier Ramos.
'He had two men with him, one had a silver briefcase, he was his lawyer and the other guy I think he said he was a lawyer for ESPoil, he had a black leather briefcase, that was it, I don’t remember seeing any minders or anybody else that was interested in us.'
The first meeting they arranged was at a hotel in Paris at the time of an energy convention which was why Mike and Chris were there, their cover was that they were looking for investors in South Atlantic Oil and Gas and that Mr Ramos and ESPoil were what they were looking for to get drilling started in the South Atlantic Ocean.
'You're probably right it's just me being a bit over cautious, there is fifty million pounds riding on us getting this right' Lyndon replied.
Mike held his empty beer bottle out in front of him and asked.
'Would you like another?'
Lyndon and Chris both answered yes and Mike walked into the kitchen to get three more beers, on his way back out he asked Lyndon.
'Do you honestly think we can pull this one off without any problems?'
Lyndon stepped over to Mike and took a beer from him.
'Of course I do, we wouldn’t be doing i
t if I didn’t think we could do this, this is what we have been waiting for ever since the four of us starting doing this, waiting for that one huge payday and they do not come much bigger than this, why don’t both of you go back home get packed and ready to go to Spain then come back here tonight with Jack and the four of us will go and out have some dinner then a few drinks and unwind.’
Mike and Chris agreed and they finished their drinks. They then bid farewell to Lyndon and left his apartment to go back to their own houses and get ready for the upcoming trip.
Five minutes after Mike and Chris had left his apartment, Lyndon decided to go and see his parents at one of their jewellery shops in the City Centre and have lunch with them. He picked up his keys from his coffee table and put his phone in his pocket and walked out of his apartment towards the lift. He rode the lift down to the ground floor and straightened his hair in the mirror at the back of the lift before he stepped out in to the lobby. He nodded to the guard who was sat behind a desk looking at security monitors, one of the inclusive features of his apartment building. As he stepped outside the sun had finally broken through the clouds and it was now a warm day, so Lyndon decided he would walk to his parents' shop. As he walked along the old cobbles on the riverside and looked ahead at the Royal Liver Building, he thought to himself what a good decision it had been to move back to Liverpool five years ago.
The internet had changed the game massively over the years even more so over the last ten years with the advent of smartphones and tablets enabling anybody anywhere to access the internet for whatever reason they wished at the touch of a screen, wired internet became a thing of the past for the average person. No longer did they have to be in Dubai, Bangkok or Shanghai looking for investors, with a good webpage that showed at the top of a search engine list the investors began coming to them, the only time face to face meetings happened was to complete the formalities. Lyndon crossed the busy six lane road on the waterfront and headed towards the main shopping area. As he walked along the pavement past people hurrying about their day, he smiled to himself as he thought about Javier Ramos and the way he had wanted face to face meetings, he was obviously a traditionalist and liked things to be done properly. This is why Jack had produced a presentation to show him in Seville and had a prospectus made for when Mike and Chris first met him in Paris. To Lyndon Powell, Javier Ramos was the type of person he disliked, somebody that climbs to the top and throws people off along the way, not caring about anybody but himself, it was always the little people who suffered when people like him where in a position of power. Lyndon had read about ESPoil and how Javier Ramos had decided to save money even though profits were at a record high, by cutting jobs from petrol stations and packers at drilling sites yet increasing his own wages. This made Lyndon glad that he was meeting him face to face so he could look him in the eye when he took his money. Arsehole he thought of Ramos.
As taxis, buses and cars crept slowly along the busy city streets Lyndon's phone beeped in his pocket, it was a text message and it read I have booked train tickets for when we arrive in Spain. Shall I book a hire car?
Lyndon began typing on his smartphone and replied with Good job on the train tickets, not sure about a car, best to get one when we are there if we do need one. Thanks Jack see you tonight for drinks. Lyndon put his phone back in his pocket and walked into the Liverpool ONE area of the city centre into his parents shop which, they had moved into not long after Liverpool ONE opened in 2008.
'Morning Son' his father Richard said to Lyndon.
Even though he had lived in England for over forty years he still had a strong South African accent.
'Hello Dad, how do you and Mum fancy a spot of lunch?'
'Let me just go and get your Mum, then we will head out, how about we try that clubhouse just upstairs on the park?'
'Yes, we shall try it I have read good things about it.’
Richard came back with Lyndon's mother Anne, then the three of them walked along the shopping centre towards the lift to take them to the next level which was the park where the clubhouse was located. It was a recent addition to Liverpool ONE, it was designed to look like a New England beach house and served classic American food such as ribs, steaks and various fried things. The three of them took a seat outside and when the waitress came over, they ordered a bottle of South African red wine and three steaks cooked medium. Richard and Anne only drank South African wines, they considered others to be inferior, Lyndon thought the French could give them a run for their money but who was he to argue with his father.
It was his father who spoke first after they had ordered and asked Lyndon.
'So, son, as you can see my hair is getting greyer by the day, when are you going to stop arsing about in properties and whatever else you do and take over the business?'
Lyndon smiled and said.
'As it happens Dad that is why I asked you and Mum for lunch. On Sunday I am flying out to Spain to complete a deal, then I will be free to take over the business and put all my effort into it. You can both retire and get the pipe and slippers out as people say.'
Anne smiled and said 'Thank you son, we are so happy this day has come its hard work being a jeweller.'
The waitress brought the wine out with three glasses and filled them up before Lyndon made a toast to his parents' retirement.
'Your Mum and I have decided to retire by the beach so when you are up and running, we are moving to Cape Town. I will notify my Gold and Diamond contacts in South Africa that you will be taking over so you won't have to worry about that, remember to visit all the stores as often as you can and keep your staff happy.’
'I will take good care of the business don’t worry I will bring Mike, Chris and Jack on board too, they can help me take the business forward and open more stores, I want a R&A Powell Diamond Specialists in every major city in Europe then eventually the USA and China. But first I am going to open a shop on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. Even though competition will be fierce our quality will make us stand out from all of the other jewellery shops on the bridge.' Richard smiled at Anne and then looked at Lyndon and said to him.
'I like your ambition Lyndon and Florence is a great idea. Just remember to hire local staff and pay them a wage they can live on comfortably and not the minimum wage like most jewellers do.’
Lyndon took a sip of his wine and smiled at his mother before answering his father.
'Always Dad, I am a firm believer of look after your staff and your staff will look after you, the minimum wage is a great thing because it stopped people being exploited but it doesn’t mean that’s what you have to pay people, everybody should be paid properly in my opinion, as you both taught me from a young age, always look after the little people.’
After they had finished their lunch Richard and Anne returned back to the jewellery shop and Lyndon headed back to his apartment, where he decided he would watch some television before getting ready to go out that night.
Wing Commander James Shaw sat staring at Group Captain Bartlett across the desk as if to say Get on with it.
Eventually the Group Captain emptied the contents of the final envelope.
'Right short and sweet. I will give you this to read yourself but basically at fourteen hundred hours today so in just over an hour you will board a Sentinel R1 to Brize Norton where you will then fly to the Falkland Islands, so finish your drink, go back to the mess and pack a bag of clothes, you will be kitted out in cold weather kit down there, I will personally make sure your car is waiting for you when you get back to the UK, I will also send everything from your room.’
Shaw sat looking at the Station Commander like he had two heads.
'So, what are you saying Sir?' He asked.
'I am saying get your arse out of here and get packed and be on that plane.’
He then handed over the papers to James. Shaw took the papers off him and began to read.
Group Captain Bartlett Station Commander, RAF Akrotiri
Notice
to Move for Wing Commander James Shaw Officer Commanding Intelligence Wing
Due to recent intelligence received from Argentinian Forces regarding the Falkland Islands and other British Territories in the South Atlantic. I hereby authorise the immediate posting of Wing Commander James Shaw to Mount Pleasant Airfield, Falkland Islands. At 1200 Zulu (1400 hours local) he will depart RAF Akrotiri aboard a Sentinel R1 to RAF Brize Norton, where he will then depart for the Falkland Islands via Ascension Island. Upon arrival he will assume command of the Intelligence unit for both the Royal Air Force Intelligence Wing and the Army Intelligence Corps.
Yours Faithfully
BT Darwin-Wedgwood
Air Vice Marshal (AVM)
Air Command
RAF High Wycombe
Shaw looked up from the letter and said.
'Well I suppose I better go and throw some stuff together and get on that plane, nothing like last minute. This is goodbye then Sir. I have enjoyed my time here and thank you.’
Group Captain Bartlett smiled and stood up and held his hand out James shook it then Bartlett said.
'It has been a pleasure having you here, you are a damn good officer and best of luck when you get to Waddington for your first Station Commander Post, I am sure you will do well.’ 'Thank you, sir.’
Shaw put his beret on his head and saluted the Station Commander before turning around, leaving the office and heading back towards his own office, after he stepping outside of station HQ, he changed his mind and headed towards the officer's mess instead. First, he stopped at a smoking area which was populated by junior ranks laughing and joking whilst enjoying their cigarettes, they looked up and seen Shaw coming towards them, they acted like school children who had just spotted the headmaster, they stopped laughing and joking and said.
One Last Time Page 4
