by Tim Heath
“Any news yet?” asked Steve.
“Nothing. Stand by,” Adam said, which was all he had to communicate.
Roy came on again with Adam, breaking a moment’s silence as the Englishman pondered his situation.
“We have eyes looking down on the general area,” he said, referring to a satellite he’d pulled into use, its orbit only allowing now a clear view of that part of China. “Convoy still on the move. They are nowhere near those five locations and still heading north-east.”
“Steve!” Adam spoke out loud.
He opened the window on his computer where the conversation was active with Steve.
“Steve, you need to move. I think they are coming to your location.”
“That’s a negative,” he replied. “My handler told me to stay put.”
“You’ve been in touch with Elizabeth?” It was breaking protocol to use her real name, but that didn’t matter now.
“Yes.”
“I think she’s the mole, Steve. You need to move.”
“How do I know I can trust you? She’s been my contact for years. I would swear my life on her.”
“As would I, Steve. Intel from our cousins has eyes on the Chinese convoy heading your way. Not one of the other five locations has had any interest. They know where you are.”
“Impossible.”
“Steve, trust me.”
“I don’t know who to trust!” Steve stood up, walking over to the window. Down the road, a column of vehicles was approaching at speed. He ran back to the computer.
“Christ, they’re here! I’m moving. Find me!” and with that, he switched off the machine, dropped it in his bag and left the room.
“Damn you, Elizabeth! Damn you!” Adam screamed, and a glass tumbler that was on his desk now smashed as he threw against the floor. Small fragments of glass spread out as the object shattered into a thousand pieces. He was more enraged than he’d ever been. She was the bright star of MI6. She was also a former lover of his. He felt hollow inside. Had it all meant nothing?
10
England – Various Locations
It was mid-afternoon when the message was sent from China. All key personnel are now to leave the UK it read. In Birmingham, a senior technician at a major computer company vanished after lunch, heading for the airport, his staff none the wiser. In Newcastle three men, all working as electricians, headed for the port. Anywhere where there was vital information to be found in the UK, the Chinese had some form of presence. Whether it was security guards at the main power suppliers, cleaners and executives in the oil fields, aides in the government, those Chinese connected operatives who hadn’t yet made their escape suddenly fell off the grid. Calls were not answered, mobile phones left abandoned. Homes empty. Cars ditched. It was a well put together, but unheard of escape plan dreamed up years ago and refined after the events that had brought London to its knees five years before.
At MI5, they were being updated on these reports as they came in.
“We have disappearances right across the board. Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Liverpool to name just a few. Workers who never returned from lunch, managers have gone AWOL, business owners seemingly vanishing. Many had obvious connections to China, though most senior people didn’t. And it’s not limited to these other cities. Here in London,” the young agent reported, picking up another sheet of paper from the pile on the desk, “we’ve got at least four government aides gone, two security personnel and possibly an MP, too.”
There was an air of fear prevalent in the room. The actions of the Chinese had started to get to them all. They were exposed as a nation, and that reality was beginning to sink in.
“Get teams to every airport and dockyard. I want the place locked down. If we can get hold of some of these people, it might lead us to others.”
“We’re already onto that, sir.”
Just then Adam Bennett walked in with two other MI6 colleagues, Lucy Wright and Peter Bridgestone. It was not an uncommon interruption, especially lately. They all knew each other quite well; even if they did work for different interests, ultimately they all came under the same crown. A few hellos were made, but Adam could sense the atmosphere as soon as he stepped in. It wasn’t a time for small talk.
“We’ve got a team tracking down Elizabeth Mayfield as we speak. It turns out she’s the mole.”
“Beth? You’ve got to be joking, Adam, surely?” The Deputy Director of MI5 looked at Adam in shock. He knew Elizabeth well too, though hadn’t dated her, as the man in front of him had.
“I wish I was. Look, she’s been playing the lot of us from the very beginning.”
“But she knows everything. She’s been right in the core for years…” The dawning of reality was visible on his face as he recalled the very things he’d shared with her over casual lunches and various embassy functions. “How?”
“Look, right now, I don’t know nor do I have the time or patience to find that out. But I will. The priority right now is stopping her. We need to catch her before she vanishes. We have a team en route to her home as we speak, though I suspect she might have fled, possibly picking something up from Steve, I’m not sure.”
“Let me know if you need any help,” the MI5 man said. He’d been just as affected by this betrayal as anyone. He thought of her as a daughter.
Several miles south of Thames House, currently passing through Bromley, an SAS unit was travelling under police escort at speed in an unmarked black transit van. They skirted around the edge of the shopping district, the streets busy, cars moving one way or the other to clear a path for the onrushing convoy. They were heading for the small but wealthy town of Chislehurst, which sat east of Bromley, on its dedicated train line which ran right into the heart of London. A classic commuter belt town made up of wealthy bankers, stockbrokers and the like, anyone who could afford the half million pounds it would take for even the average home.
Elizabeth Mayfield had grown up in the area, schooling not too far from there, returning once again when the money came through. She was wealthy, and Chislehurst offered many private roads, fenced off from the general public by gates, the rich and famous hiding behind high walls in their multi-million-pound homes. It suited her to the core. She had land, trees crowding her landscaped garden, but could be in central London in forty minutes, door to door.
When adding a giant, free-standing, double garage to her property, they’d discovered a whole area of caves. Chislehurst was well known for its caves, that dated back to Druid times. She now had her own, kept from public attention, and made ready for such an eventuality as was about to occur. The lack of connection from Steve, her man in China, gave her the first warning. Hacking into another colleague’s files and seeing what address he’d been told Steve was awaiting rescue from was the other. They were laying a trap. Realising that the Chinese would not go to any of those locations, but would in fact capture Steve in the place she’d led him to, she knew the game was up. Destroying the last of her documents and communication devices in the pit of the garage, she watched on the security monitors on the wall before her as three cars pulled up to the front of her property. There could have been others out of shot, and she had no way of knowing. She assumed there were. She stood up, set an explosive charge on the inside of the garage doors, and jumped back into the pit, pulling another hatch open. She climbed down. It was no bigger than service access for a utility hole. The drop down was only ten feet. Pulling the trap back down, once she was on the fifth rung of the ladder and her head was clear, she locked it tight, before adding another explosive charge, ready and waiting, for anyone that had made it that far. She planned to be long gone before that was the case.
She’d never bothered with electricity down there, only rarely ever exploring. It was an escape route, that was all. She could hardly believe the day had materialised, though she’d woken multiple times in the middle of the night over the years fearing just that. She touched the rock as if marking the occasion. The torchlight ca
st eerie shadows all over the place, enough to make anyone jumpy. The real danger was above ground. She had to move. The first central tunnel she walked into stretched for about forty metres straight. Long enough to not be able to see the end of it with the simple light source she carried. The tunnel dropped about five feet as well the further you ventured down it, though the descent was barely noticeable. It was just a case of working your way through a series of tunnels, each one leading into another. Only once was there an option, and it wouldn’t take anyone long to realise even then that the other choice was a sudden dead end. These caves were not for hiding in. She’d never actually researched what they were used for, aware that any publicity of their existence and her ownership of them, would open them to outsiders and therefore she’d lose their use, which now was proving a wise decision. Still, it would only buy her some time. Five minutes of moving through the tunnels and she was as far as she could go. The exit was through a waste water pipe, the council obtaining the final part of the caves for their own uses some decades before, in an era where conservation was not the top priority. The metal grate was secured from the inside, so there was no chance of the public stumbling in from the outside and looking around where they shouldn’t. It also gave no real sense of what mystery lay below. It was a perfect set up. Once she had the grate open, she stepped out into a densely covered wooded area, old growth around her adding to the camouflage.
North West China
It was twelve hours since Steve last had contact with anyone from the outside. He’d fled the moment those Chinese military vehicles came into view, his worst fears realised. He had never felt so alone, nor as vulnerable. The pursuit was not over yet, not by a long way. He knew they were getting closer. Without any help from outside, with only silence and that survival instinct that was serving him well for the moment, he’d made it this far.
The Chinese had assumed he would be sitting waiting for them at the meeting point. That had bought him some valuable time. It’d been fifteen minutes, building combed, before they’d made their exit and the search widened. By then Steve had made it nearly two miles. He’d run most of it, crossing train tracks and two major roads. Cutting across the streets, as much as possible, anything to slow down a vehicle’s pursuit. He stopped by a clump of trees, now on the city limits. He was dripping wet with sweat, no help to him if the Chinese had dogs. He was sure they soon would. They wouldn’t let him escape this easily. After the trees came a valley, and then a waterway. He couldn’t tell if it was a natural river or man-made. It was not very fast flowing and didn’t seem overly deep, though he was a good swimmer. He took the chance and plunged in, needing to cool off and break any scent he might be leaving. The river, as it turned out to be, was only about thirty metres wide at the point he entered. If he’d approached from a few miles downstream, he would never have got across. In the middle, a current was flowing, and he drifted with it for a while, eager to increase the distance from anyone following him at that moment. He would no doubt soon be leaving a trail behind him again. Spotting a small stony shoreline, tree-covered hillside beyond, he swam across to it and scrambled himself onto a large rock, the depth on that side much more profound than where he’d entered. He was out. He ran for the hillside, holding on to tree after tree as he worked his way up the steep slope. Loose slate slid past him, twice making him slip to the floor. Five minutes later he was approaching the top. Then he heard it. One, then two helicopters approaching from behind. Military attack choppers. There was no hiding, as just a minute after first hearing them, they flew overhead, before starting to bank back around to his position. All he could do was run. He darted along the crest of the hill before beginning again down the other side, one helicopter coming back over him as he was halfway down, the other he could hear though had no idea where it was. He wasn’t going to waste time on that. They apparently knew he was there.
In the distance was a motorway, with a train line crossing above on a crude metal bridge maybe fifty metres further on. Steve was getting desperate. He headed for the road, vaulting a fence like it wasn’t there before carrying on. His lungs were shouting at him to stop. He wasn’t listening. His best hope was to stop a passing motorist. Any vehicle would give him a better chance than he currently had. The traffic was heavy, but as he made it to the road, the final few cars passing him, he looked back down the road to see what the hold up was.
“Great,” he said, seeing the helicopter that had landed further up the road, traffic building behind it. The other chopper was still in the air, getting closer.
Suddenly, and entirely out of step with the scene, gunfire was heard down the road. The helicopter showed signs of being under attack. No sooner had Steve realised this than he spotted three white SUVs racing past the now reascending helicopter from the grass verge, mounting the road again and coming towards him at speed. Behind him, coming from the opposite direction and high above, the other helicopter made its appearance once more, the sound of heavy gunfire piercing the sky like thunder on a quiet night. The lead car took the full impact, swerving dangerously, connecting with the central reservation and flipping onto its side. The other two vehicles stopped behind the wreckage.
“Steve, get over here!” came the order, in a clear American voice.
The helicopter that had stopped traffic was now safely airborne and had not been overly affected by the gunfire aimed at it. A missile was launched from its right side, which caught the sitting middle car, the explosion lifting it off the ground like a child playing with his toy. The noise reverberated around the area, bouncing off the hillside and the bridge. The final SUV started to return fire, but the helicopter was already passing them. Steve was caught in two minds. Take his chances on foot or head for the final American vehicle that was facing heavy gunfire. It didn’t matter. Moments later both helicopters were approaching from over the bridge, raining the road with firepower––another missile whizzed overhead. It was the final thing Steve heard, the one remaining SUV erupting in its own fireball. Steve was himself cut down by a stream of bullets coming from above, a line of metal shells carving up the road, making mincemeat of what was left of the British agent. The bullets tore into the upturned lead SUV, finally catching the fuel tank, an explosion obliterating anyone that might have survived the initial crash.
The Chinese had spoken.
11
London – Washington
“It’s confirmed, sir,” came the final kick in the teeth for Adam’s afternoon. The on-going hunt for Elizabeth and now the killing in China.
“How bad is it?”
“Everyone lost,” was all he needed to hear.
“The Americans are not going to be happy. Man, I mean we’re furious. The Chinese have just taken out one of our men on their own soil. Could this bloody situation get any worse?” Adam was pacing around the room. There would be fall out from this, he knew it already. “Get me Washington on the telephone; I need to assess the damage.”
His request was put into action, and moments later a call was being connected through to the meeting room in which he was now alone. He pressed the connect button on the base unit.
“Brad, I take it you’ve heard the news?”
“I was told twenty minutes ago, Adam, yes. Didn’t I tell you we didn’t want to get involved! Nine goddam men lost. An absolute disgrace!”
“Look, I’m sorry for this loss. I don’t know what happened.”
“You were leaking from the top. That’s what happened precisely. Have you caught her yet?”
“Not yet, but she isn’t far ahead of us. She’s not left the country.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Look,” Adam said, moving the conversation away from an ongoing mission. “We’ll send someone over. These things are done best face-to-face. Don’t do anything before we’ve all had a chance to speak. They’ll be on the first flight across, with you tomorrow morning. Wait for us.”
“Look, my British friend…” he started, Adam cutting across the
assumed patronising statement that was sure to follow.
“Brad, I mean this. We have the same interest here, and we have a way of hitting back. Wait until tomorrow. You’ll be told about it then. Until that moment, hold off any official statement.”
“Official statement? No one will know about this. These were American personnel operating illegally in mainland China. We can’t be seen to be involved there, as you well know. Still, there are those of us who won’t take this lying down.”
“Believe me, we’re on your side, Brad.” It was good that the incident would be kept from the press. The British would have a lot of explaining to do themselves. “You’ll have someone with you in the morning. Drink some tea, chat together. We’ll come to a suitable solution. Okay, old friend?”
“Less of the old, will you. You’ve three years on me, and you know it.”
“Not that anyone could tell. Anyway, this isn’t getting brushed under the carpet, but you need to wait.”
“I hear you. I’ll call off the dogs.”
“You’d better. Give me twenty-four hours. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“Are you coming personally now? You made it sound like you were sending a delegation a moment ago.”
“Brad, I think I’ve talked myself into having to come. Don’t you?”
“It’ll be good to see you again. Just a shame that it’s under such circumstances. Look, when you catch that girl, I know what she meant to you, but…”
“You don’t have to say it, Brad.”
“But I do, Adam. My guys are going to want to speak with her. We’ve lost nine men to her information, and that’s just for starters. She’s well known in Washington, travelled around freely on your ticket for years. Man, you both visited the White House when you were together, didn’t you?”
