by Ted Tayler
“Oh, very good Sir,” said Rusty. “I approve of that.”
Among death there’s life; hasn’t it ever been the same? There were dark days at Larcombe where decisions were taken that a criminal should pay the price for his crimes. Even so, there were still brief but enjoyable occasions when, Annabelle Fox, and Colin Bailey, now known to his colleagues as Phoenix, spent time together.
Their relationship had matured in the last few months. Late on this particular September afternoon, as they lay together in his bed, they planned a few days from the pressurised conditions they had suffered for so long.
After this year’s absence, there was a Festival at Glastonbury in 2013 in late June. Soon, the tickets were going on sale. Athena traced a circle around Phoenix’s left nipple with a long slender finger. Colin knew that he was being set up for something he wouldn’t enjoy. He listened. He said his piece.
“The prospect of a muddy field full of teenagers, pissed up, drugged up and effing and blinding throughout the weekend isn’t that appealing Athena,” he protested.
“But darling, Glastonbury is a highlight of the ‘alternative season’. It’s the place to see and be seen.”
Colin stared at the ceiling. For the past couple of years, he had spent almost every waking hour avoiding being seen; most of his best work was done when invisible.
“Look,” purred Athena, “there are plenty of luxury camping providers online. I’ve checked out a yurt package at around six thousand that will give us luxury showers and toilets. There’s a private access road, gourmet restaurant, round-the-clock security and extra goodies.”
“Suppose you get custom made wellies for that price?” grunted Colin. “SIX grand!”
The circling motion stopped. A sharp pinch left him grabbing for Athena’s arm and seconds later he flipped her over onto her back.
“Are you sure I can’t persuade you to come?” asked Annabelle Grace Fox as her long slender fingers moved further down his body.
Colin decided it was pointless to resist.
In due course, the tickets would be secured. The yurt would be booked. The die was cast. All things being equal, Annabelle Fox and Colin Bailey were going to be at Worthy Farm throughout the Festival weekend at the end of June 2013.
It was becoming imperative that Athena and Phoenix remained close. In the months since Erebus had lost his beloved wife Elizabeth, he looked to have aged ten years. The old gentleman had been dropping heavy hints of his imminent retirement. Erebus travelled up to London on Olympus business on several occasions. Their leader returned to Larcombe early in the morning and was reticent on the matters being discussed.
He had indicated to Athena several years before that he wanted her to be his successor. As the Phoenix became a prized asset of the Olympus Project, it was plain his position at the top table was inevitable. When Erebus realised that Athena and Phoenix had become involved, it sowed a seed in his mind. The two of them would make a formidable pair, heading up affairs at Larcombe Manor after his departure.
When Colin Bailey had been snatched from the waters below Pulteney Weir in the summer of 2010, he was told of the Project’s aims and objectives. Erebus had a vision. He had his family’s wealth behind him. The half a dozen senior Olympus members who lived at Larcombe, their true identities were hidden by their given mythical personas, contributed as much as they could afford. The amounts available to the Project were large, but the scope of those initial aims and objectives was more far-reaching. Erebus told Phoenix that there were other, silent partners who shared the same beliefs and whose financial backing was essential.
Erebus had been the sole contact with these financiers over the years. It was time for him to convince them that Athena and Phoenix could assume responsibility after he had gone and together bring their vision to fruition. Late-night returns from London suggested that this had not proved easy.
The day after Athena and Phoenix finally agreed on sharing a yurt next summer, Erebus chaired the usual morning meeting in the Manor house. Senior members and other attendees entered in dribs and drabs. The conversation centred on the gun and grenade attack last week in Manchester in which two female police officers died. Their killer had been apprehended, but the agents were concerned about the ease of getting hold of weapons in the UK.
“At one time this was unthinkable,” Rusty said to Phoenix. “If it happened in the States, we’d shrug and accept it. But we would swear blind it could never happen here. Now it’s as easy to get a gun as a morning newspaper.”
As the last straggler took his seat, Erebus tapped the table to bring the meeting to order.
The first matter on the agenda concerned an incident near Banbury at the beginning of the month. Thanatos had prepared another lengthy report. Eyes glazed over as he delivered it. Mondays were always a trial.
“Cropredy village is five miles north of Banbury in Oxfordshire. Every August, its inhabitants welcome an invasion of up to twenty thousand music-lovers for Fairport's Cropredy Convention. Organised by the folk band itself, this outdoor extravaganza has been held annually since the 1970s. Cropredy Bridge on the River Cherwell was the site of a major battle in 1644 during the English civil war. King Charles engaged the Parliamentarian army led by Sir William Waller. As the battle loomed, the villagers took care to protect the most valuable item in their church. If the Parliamentary forces won the battle, there seemed every chance the lectern would be melted to become part of a cannon. The villagers hid it in the river from where it could be recovered with ease. But when they went to retrieve the lectern, it wasn't there. Many years later, it was discovered a distance up the river having been damaged somewhat.”
“Who won?” asked Phoenix, trying to sound interested.
“A stalemate, but both sides sustained heavy losses. The local historical society was on their monthly expedition in the first week of September; looking for relics from the past relating to the Civil War period...”
“Am I going to enjoy where this story is going?” muttered Athena.
“Exactly,” continued Thanatos, “instead of the odd shoe buckle or fragment of a musket, they dug up human remains. It didn’t take long for someone to realise that the body unearthed from the ground wasn’t a Roundhead or a Cavalier.”
“Heavens,” exclaimed Rusty, “are you saying the poor bastard had been emasculated?”
Phoenix stifled his laughter with difficulty. Erebus looked down the table; peering over the top of his half-glasses.
“Children, please. Continue Thanatos, but can we dispense with the frills?”
Colin glanced at Thanatos; he had somewhat cruelly dubbed him, together with Alastor and Minos, the Three Stooges. On his arrival at Larcombe, they appeared to be ‘yes’ men; in awe of Erebus and jealous of Athena’s relationship with the old man. They were overly wary of him too. After being closeted together since the Olympus Project had been formed, the originals made it plain the newcomer needed time before being accepted into the fold.
Chris Rathbone was in his mid-fifties now as Thanatos. Thirty years ago, he was a SAS sergeant working with the FRU in Northern Ireland. He had spent five years in deep cover as a mole in the UDA. What he experienced there left physical and mental scars. After a stint in Bosnia and despite thirty years serving his country with honour, he had been abandoned. His identity was now known to the IRA. They were well aware that he had been supplied with the names of suspected members by his army paymasters and leaked them to the UDA. Despite informing them of death threats he had received, no protection had ever been offered to Thanatos by the MoD. The Olympus Project had been his saviour; Larcombe Manor was his safe house.
Colin knew, deep down, that Thanatos fought his demons daily. The lengthy reports, with the bells and whistles, were a way of occupying his mind; reducing the time for those horrors he had witnessed and taken part in for his country, to creep inside his head and send him over the edge into insanity. He resolved to show his colleague due respect in the future. He and Athena were to
become the senior ‘deadly duo’ at Olympus HQ after Erebus sailed into the sunset. It was essential that the other senior members considered them a valued part of the team. Thanatos continued.
“I’m afraid this body could stir up a hornet’s nest Sir. There was an awful lot of activity straight after the effective prison break we orchestrated as you will recall. The manhunt continued across the country for weeks. The police found nothing. It was assumed in the media that these prisoners had been sprung by Muslim extremists, maybe even Al Qaeda itself. Our borders leak like a sieve as we know, so the public was perfectly happy to accept that a dozen men could be spirited away to a safe haven. More wander in and either find a job or sign on for benefits every day, anyway. So a handful going the other way was an easy pill to swallow. There was no possibility of anything relating to the prison break being linked to Olympus. Every trace of any possible CCTV evidence and the vehicle movements involved and the vehicles themselves had been removed. Other events in the capital and on the South Coast in the weeks after the Olympics deflected attention away from the problem until this happened.”
“Have they identified the body?” asked Erebus.
“It was one of the clerics and a member of the terrorist cell the authorities caught after 2005. When our clean-up crews dispersed the bodies around the Midlands, they got over-enthusiastic it would seem. Rather than follow the ‘one body, one grave’ principle we adopt, one crew hacked a couple up and buried them in a shroud like a jigsaw.”
“What do you mean, a jigsaw?” asked Erebus.
“The head and legs of the cleric were in with the torso of the bomb-maker, Sir.”
“Unbelievable,” said Erebus, “get Henry Case to sort out the buggers involved and please make sure that our systems are updated and rigorously followed in the future. Don’t we have Standard Operating Procedures for this method of disposal?”
“Of course,” replied Athena, “I will see to that myself Erebus. We must assume that the authorities now realise that the prisoners are dead. Why are they keeping this knowledge from the public? How did they handle things with the historical society at Cropredy?”
“If the police and the secret services know that they weren’t rescued, then who do they think killed them?” asked Phoenix.
Erebus stood up from the table and walked over to the window. He gazed out across the lawns towards the old stable block and the ice-house. As the others sat and waited for him to consider what steps to take, he thought of everything they had achieved over the past five years. The vision was still crystal clear in his mind. The organisation was sound. Any minor setbacks such as this ill-advised desecration of their victims’ bodies would be dealt with swiftly, but it wouldn’t damage the integrity of the whole operation. Thanatos was almost correct in his statement that nothing could be traced back to Olympus. Erebus resolved with a sad heart that the two loose ends that might potentially give the authorities a scintilla of a clue must be removed.
“Perhaps I can offer a suggestion in answer to your question Phoenix,” he said, returning to his chair at the head of the table. “I expect them to be concentrating on those organisations that have been vocal in attacking Muslims in this country. There are several groups that will come under scrutiny. As for Athena’s question about news coverage, no doubt the authorities have closed things down tight, as they are wont to do, in the interests of national security. They don’t want to spook these white extremist groups fighting against the Islamisation of Europe. They want them to carry on spreading their vitriol and remain unaware of their close surveillance. Do you have anything to add Thanatos about the Sealed Knot weekend warriors?”
“Well Sir, as I said earlier, they found the remains and contacted the police at once. The local free paper recorded the discovery in a single paragraph together with court appearances of a drunk driver and council tax defaulters. It didn’t attract any great interest, hidden away in that manner. A few keywords proved enough for that first publication to be picked up by Giles and his team over in the ice-house. They then put search routines in progress to track the forensic results when they became available. The bodies were identified, and an email forwarded to the police. This was intercepted and amended, in due course. The police emailed the secretary of the historical association. They informed him that although the bones were human, as suspected, they had been buried for well over a century.”
“The bodies have only been in there a few months. They didn’t swallow that, did they?” said Phoenix.
“One imagines a few ramblers on a Sunday afternoon scavenger hunt find the sight of a decomposed body more than their stomach can handle,” said Erebus. “Eyes would be diverted rapidly. I doubt if they could account for what they saw to the police or a reporter if one got a whiff of a story. Giles can keep the surveillance in place, for the time being, to see what comes of it. With the police forensics staff being swamped with work I doubt they’ll follow up the lead. We might have dodged the bullet.”
Thanatos had finished. Erebus looked at his watch. He nodded towards Phoenix and Rusty.
“Perhaps you’ll join me in the orangery in an hour, gentlemen. I have a matter to talk about with you.”
Phoenix and Rusty left the room together in silence. They walked across the lawns to the stable block and their accommodation.
“See you in an hour then Phoenix,” said Rusty.
Phoenix went into his quarters, closed the door and set to work cleaning his gun.
CHAPTER 3
As Phoenix and Rusty entered the orangery, they found Erebus seeing to the tender ornamental plants scattered around the room.
“I hope you will look after these when I’m gone chaps.” he said, “I should hate to learn they just withered away.”
“My Granddad had a greenhouse,” chimed Rusty. “I used to help him in the summer holidays.”
“This is an orangery dear boy, not a mere greenhouse,” snapped Erebus.
“Athena and I will make sure the plants come to no harm Sir,” said Phoenix. “I love this place. You have always invited me here for our meetings and it’s a place of solitude. It’s good to escape from the Manor house or the other buildings and spend time here. Athena and I will use it as our base for quiet contemplation.”
That seemed to appease the old gentleman. He smiled briefly; then it was back to the solemn matter in hand.
“In the folder on the table are the names of the two clean-up crew operatives responsible for the faux pas at Cropredy. I have instructed Henry Case to interview the other crews. They will be invited to Larcombe over the next couple of days for a ‘refresher’ training course. It may involve a visit to the place you refer to as ‘Hotel California’ too, just to learn what procedures they followed when they disposed of their prisoners. I pray that we are only dealing with an isolated case.”
“Dealing with, Sir?” asked Rusty, with a puzzled expression.
“Did I not make myself plain in the meeting?” asked Erebus.
Phoenix picked up the file and opened it. There were photographs and background reports on the two men. His mate looked over his shoulder and Colin heard the sharp intake of breath.
When he arrived at Larcombe, he had spent many hours under Rusty’s tutelage. Rusty had been a SAS veteran when he was selected for the first intake of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment in 2005. He had shown that his temper was as fiery as the colour of the hair on his head. Four years later he got into a fight with a superior officer and was dismissed. In the past three years, Rusty had trained dozens of agents for Olympus here at Larcombe. That sharp intake of breath suggested that either these men had been trained here by Rusty, or he served with them, either in the SAS or SRR.
“Are there any questions?” asked Erebus.
“None,” replied Phoenix.
“If it has to be, then I’m prepared to carry out your orders, Sir,” said Rusty.
“No choice I’m afraid,” said Phoenix, “they screwed up. Bodies can’t be left for anyone in p
ower to find. Once they were identified it would pose several uncomfortable questions. There will be a record somewhere of their being helped here at Larcombe by the charity to cope with their PTSD.
“An acceptable level of detail must be kept,” said Erebus, “the Charity Commission insist on it. Just recall what nightmares their last visit caused. We can’t invite them here, as with the others that Henry Case will interrogate and retrain, in case they smell a rat and go to ground. It would be the devil of a job to find them if that happened.”
“With the training, they received in the service, plus the upgrade they got here, then it will be a tricky job anyway Sir,” said Rusty.
“I trust the two of you can cope?”
The two friends looked at one another and nodded.
“With the right planning and attention to detail, we can work miracles, Sir,” said Phoenix.
“Happy hunting; you have forty-eight hours. Any longer and news of the other crews arriving here may filter back. The job needs to be completed before they get the wind of what’s happening.”
With that, the old man left. Colin and Rusty stayed in the orangery for a further thirty minutes devising a plan of action. Then they returned to the stable block to pack their things. Fifteen minutes later they visited the ice-house and collected the tools they required to finish their task.
Colin ordered transport and just over an hour after Erebus started the walk back to the Manor house, the two agents were on their way towards the Oxfordshire countryside.
They arrived a mile from their target at two-thirty in the afternoon. On the trip up they went over the plan again and again. They developed strategies for each eventuality they foresaw. Colin knew that for Rusty, part of the reason for keeping his mind so active was to push any thought he was being sent to kill former colleagues, to the furthest corners of his mind. Colin was calm. He didn’t know the clean-up crew members. Erebus said they had to go. That was enough.