by Tim Heath
“And how do you know what I am thinking?” he asked. He was considering telling her how he'd been warned off and then remembered he'd given the two ladies up to them. So he quickly buried that thought.
“We know everything there is to know, Clive. And we want to help you to get this story. But so that you know the urgency of the situation, you need to go back to the office now, as they will have some news for you. And mark my words, if we do not see you going forward with this story right away, the news you hear will not have a happy ending, and it will be the same for everyone working with you. And then, finally, it will be the same for you, too. Have I made myself clear?” She was only too apparent and it sent a cold shudder down his back for a brief moment.
“Yes, you are clear. Tell me, who are you?”
She didn't respond to that last question, but with an all-knowing smirk, just turned and walked away down another path heading towards a nearby London Underground station.
Clive rushed back towards the office, as sirens could be heard in the distance. Arriving through the main doors, about ten minutes later, he was out of breath as he had been running for the last part. The lights from two police cars were flashing around in front of the building. Clive rushed in and asked what had happened.
“It's Emma. There was a white van, and as she was outside the front door, two men grabbed her and pulled her into it. She's gone, Clive. She's been kidnapped!” With that, the receptionist was in tears. Clive sank into the black leather sofa and was lost in his thoughts for a moment. He was thinking back to the park, and what the lady had just said to him. The words If you do not proceed, the news you hear from the office will not have a happy ending ran over and over in his mind. And it will be the same for everyone in your team, and then the same for you too.
“Oh God,” he said aloud to himself. “What has happened?”
A police officer was now walking over to Clive, ready to ask him some questions. Clive had no idea what answers he would be able to give. It was all turning into a nightmare.
At that same moment, John's mother had just arrived at the hospital where she had been told her son was being treated. The journey had been a difficult one. She didn't like navigating her way at the best of times and had got lost more than once. That had temporarily caused the car tailing her to miss her too; they were just not able to keep up with such erratic, irrational driving. But knowing where she was ultimately heading, they'd found her again and had called the team at the hospital just before getting there.
It had been an emotional journey for her anyway. The feelings for her son, which had been wrapped in grief because of his death, now returned with this new hope, and that was a powerful feeling.
Her back was hurting from the journey. She didn't like driving on the motorway but hadn't had any choice that day. She just needed to get there. She stayed in her seat for a whole five minutes, composing herself, double-checking the information to make sure this was the hospital she was meant to find. It all seemed to check out. She got out of the car slowly, stretching a little, straightening her back. There were still quite a few cars in the car park, but it was far from full. She made her way over to the main entrance and was alarmed to see so much security there. She carried on in, the African secret service team watching from afar, not daring to venture in themselves, just yet. If they were lucky, she'd lead them to her son.
“Can I help you, ma'am?” came the question from the guard on duty just inside the front doors. She had yet to go through security.
“Yes, I am here to see my son. I've been informed that he is alive and is recovering here. I had been told he was dead, but someone told me he'd been found. I really can't believe it!”
“And what is his name, ma'am?”
“It's John Westlake. I'm Barbara Westlake, his mother.” She proceeded to pull out her driver's licence card from her purse to prove the point. The guard looked through the records. He checked it a second time.
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but we have no one here by that name. Are you sure you're at the right hospital?”
She looked confused. The hope that was there started to slip a little further away from her. Had this been one terrible joke?
“Can you please check again! He has to be here. They told me he was alive!”
The guard didn't start looking again, he'd already done it twice, and it was clear the guy wasn't listed there. Public records were now being taken from these new lists. Lists created by teams of volunteers, working around the clock to document each patient. The man from the SAS team came over to see what the fuss was. The guard turned to him and said:
“Sir, this lady thinks her son John is being treated here, but we have no record of him.”
He looked down at the lady's driver's licence, taking in her surname. He kept a blank expression on his face, his voice an even tone. No hint of anything came across to Mrs Westlake.
“Ma'am,” he said, a gentleness in his voice that hadn't been there with the guard. She warmed to him straight away. “Where did you hear it from that your son was here?”
“What do you mean? Is he here then?”
“I think you've had that answer already, haven't you. But I wanted to check who had got your hopes up in such an awful way, to trick you into coming here? If it were someone we could find, we would certainly make sure they never did it again.”
“I...I don't understand,” she said, tears pouring down her face. “I was dealing with it all as best as I could. We all were. And then these two journalists, I presumed they were, came to the door, disturbing us. I thought they were after some dirt or something. But just as I was about to shut the door, they asked me how I felt to know that my son was still alive. They then gave me the information for this hospital. Said he was in D ward.”
D ward was off limits and was in fact where John was being kept. The SAS man kept his cool and asked to look at the information. Instantly he could see that it had been put together by someone who knew their stuff. He recognised the signs. The extra information, the little clues here and there. Most people would write down the name of the hospital and an address. That was all. It had the marks of intelligence services at work, but whose?
“May I take this sheet of paper, ma'am?” he said.
“Please, call me Barbara,” she said, through tears, handing over the sheet of paper which hours before had seemed like a winning lottery ticket, something that gave her son back to her. Now, it was nothing. “Are you positive he is not here?” she asked one final time, only looking at the man from the SAS, ignoring the guard altogether.
“Yes, Barbara, I assure you. I am sorry for what you must have gone through, but these people who told you this had another motive for doing so. Maybe they wanted to cause you more sorrow? I don't know. I'll hand this over to the police. If they are doing this to lots of people, we need to stop them.” He then added, for good measure. “Do you live alone?”
“Well, not usually, though my husband is away at the moment, in the North. He was there on business and hasn't yet come back. Why?”
“Well, it might be that they intend to burgle you, ma'am. Preying on people that have lost loved ones in the city, telling them a story to get them driving all the way to London, hours from home. Empty homes. I will notify the local police for you as well, though it might be too late.”
“Oh, my word. How could I have been so stupid?” She was in floods of tears, and in a rush to leave. She took her driving licence back, dropping it into her bag, and turned to leave.
Neither man said anything more to her. There was already a queue of other relatives waiting to get into the hospital.
Walking out of the hospital, she headed back to her car.
“It seems she didn't get in,” came the call over the radio from one of the two teams now at the hospital from the African side.
“Damn it!” came the angry response. “What do we have to do with these people?”
“Shall we tail her?”
“Yes, follow her
to see where she goes. If she sticks around, maybe we have another chance. However, don't go all the way back with her. I'm not sure it's worth it.”
They pulled away just moments after she did; it was already five minutes since she'd left the hospital. She'd got back to her car, in tears, just standing there, keys in hand. It took her two minutes just to get back into the car, willing herself to shut the door of hope that had been so rudely opened again. She'd called her husband, but only got his voice-mail. She left a short message, ending with how sorry she was for fleeing the house in such a rush. She hoped nothing terrible had happened.
In that time, the SAS guy from the hospital entrance had called to his team with what had just happened. They would analyse the information sheet now in their possession for any clues of its origin.
“Okay, we have her coming out of the hospital now, walking towards her car,” came the call from the other SAS unit stationed outside the hospital in the car park. It was their first bit of action for a long time. They watched her pull away, and then another car, which they hadn't noticed was occupied, also pulled away.
“Seems like she might have had a tail. We'll follow them. Please get someone to come and take our position. Over.” With that, they too set off, keeping their distance.
At the joint MI5 and SAS task force HQ, they were working on the latest information that they had. They'd been sent a copy of the info sheet from the hospital, and a two-person team was taking it all apart. It was clear that it had been well put together. It wasn't something done by mere amateurs. Another agent had also now brought in the two business cards that Clive had given them. All believed that the same team was behind both incidents, and links into further possible angles were being thought through as they spoke.
Flight records from all the airports were being processed and checked against the MI5 database. They were covering a wide range, not knowing when the team might have arrived in the UK if they had not in fact been there all along. As yet, nothing to connect it all was showing in this regard. Word was also put out to the other countries which had close ties to Britain though it was clear some unknown outside force was behind the team. So the British were being careful about who and what they asked. When the time came, and they found out exactly who it was, they could bring others in on it all more thoroughly, and hopefully, those others would have fresh intelligence on the target that would help them close in on them.
It was clear that a concerted effort was being made to locate John. The fact that they knew about his existence was bad enough. The fact that they knew which hospital, and the exact part of the hospital, made it all even more dangerous. Quite what their angle was on it all, was anything but certain. Given the secret world from which the joint task force came, they assumed the unknown team was of hostile intent until proved otherwise. Everything was a threat. It always was. Until they could ascertain what the purpose was in trying to find John, there was an active kill order in place on anyone, regardless of who they were, if they posed a threat to the safety of John.
Calls were made to the numbers on the cards that Clive had handed over. Each rang for a long time and was answered but then only silence. Both sides knew what this meant. The Africans, having given the cards to Clive, knew all the newspaper's numbers. So receiving an incoming call from another, one not listed on any system they had, only meant bad news. And to the British, the cards were evidently not what they pretended to be. A team of three technicians went to work on the numbers, in tracking a location, or anything linked to the account. They would get answers soon, but not before the Africans HQ had been gutted and abandoned.
It was later that day that they made the connection, a young analyst breaking the news to the section heads in the central control room.
“Here, I've got it! The numbers are attached to an empty office in Chelsea. Nothing from the landlords, who'd never met the tenants, but the phone records tell us all we need to know. Insufficient access now, most numbers are blocked and no longer working. But looking back, the office is rarely used. Last time was three years ago. A large trade contingent, including several political heads, was in London for talks. There were many calls from this office to the Nigerian and South African embassies.”
“An African team?”
“Seems to be the very same ones who disrupted the talks we had over a year ago. No one with African connections had been invited to the talks. A team of people posing as waiters had infiltrated the system and were at the venue. Nothing important, it is believed, was lost.”
“Okay, get me all known African agents working in Europe. We need names, faces, everything we have on these people within the hour. If they are the ones behind this, we need it ended, now.”
“Sir, we've just heard from a team that they are following a car that was watching the hospital. It could be the people that told the mother her son was still alive.”
“Okay, keep on them, and let's get some more backup in place. I want them caught, and we can bring them here for questioning. We need some leverage with the Africans. They must be brought in alive!”
“Understood.”
Orders were called out, and five new teams were pulled from the SAS and transferred to the ongoing operation. They now had their target, and it was just a case of picking them off, as quickly and silently as possible.
22
Having had to flee their headquarters in a rush, the team of African secret service personnel that were currently working in the UK were making plans while on the run. They called out to let the teams know what was happening, agreeing to keep regular contact, but no longer to meet up as a whole, in case it would bring risk to the other members of the unit.
The field chief had been working in Europe, and mainly the UK, for decades. He was well known to MI5, but only now did the British security service fully appreciate what his role entailed precisely. His cover blown, and he would have to now think about his escape. What was most important in the meantime was seeing through their operation. Not having a secure base made things a little harder. Communications were now limited. Phone lines were not as safe as they would like, and therefore they would limit calls as much as possible, and use a code when they had to. That way, it would restrict what was understood if anyone was listening. The British would need to break the code, or have the source text, to really understand what was being said and planned.
Little did they know, at that moment, that the SAS had successfully captured the two operatives who had been trailing Mrs Westlake. She was none the wiser, carrying on her journey back to the West Country and still trying to work out all that had taken place. She had not seen it when two cars behind her had surrounded and stopped a black saloon, armed officers suddenly all over the vehicle, stun grenades employed. An electronic blocking device had been enabled, shutting off all electrical equipment in the target vehicle, including the car itself, of course. It was over as soon as it had started. The two people in the car were handcuffed, and masks were placed over their heads, as they were carried from their vehicle and put into separate trucks which raced off into the night. The empty vehicle was attached to a tow-truck and taken away later, to be tested to gain every last piece of evidence from its fibres.
Setting up what was, for all intents and purposes, a mobile field command in a local coffee house, the chief of staff for the Africans was currently looking through the plans for the hospital. They were the plans that had been obtained from the newspaper offices. It was good work, the colour coded system showing everything they needed to know. It was clear that the red rooms were their target rooms. From a security point of view, the three areas on D ward made the obvious choice for keeping someone locked away. They were central, away from public areas and easily guarded.
When the watching African team had first arrived at the hospital some days before, they'd picked up traces of high-level surveillance when they had scanned the hospital's electronic output. It was way more than the hospital would need, so it was correctly assumed that the
re was a mobile control room on site. It made sense for its location to be one of the three red rooms situated on the plans in front of them now. It also made more sense for any control room to be adjacent to the patient's room, for more convenient video feeds. Only two of the three rooms highlighted in red were connected, sharing what seemed to be a small bit of wall space with each other, but nothing more. Emma, the kidnapped journalist, had been able to say that she had seen a guarded room when she had walked into the hospital. The larger of the two connected was the most obvious place to keep John. The smaller of the two connected rooms were a little more tucked away, accessed from another corridor entirely. She would not have got that far when she'd walked into the hospital.
All they needed was the chance to see the patient, and this, they reasoned, would be possible from the smaller control room separated from the larger room by a section of wall. It was highly unlikely that the smaller room was being guarded much, if at all. Why would it need to be? The occupants were just office personnel, not soldiers. They judged that this would provide them with their best shot at John. One shot was all it would take.
A message was sent out to all field agents, with the latest plan of attack. They were to meet at the hospital that evening. Code Alpha Zulu. It was a kill order, and they all knew it. The two people watching the offices of the newspaper were also now leaving their post.
“What do we do about the girl?” came the coded message from another two who were holding her.
“Alpha Zulu on her. We can't leave any trail.”
Both coded messages were received by the SAS team who were detaining the two operatives. They also had the source text, which had been taken from one of the agents. Neither had spoken, but the real interrogation had yet to start. They were sure they would break them soon, though it might not be necessary. What they didn't know was where Emma was being held.
