Dark Secrets

by Doug Pountain

  “Contact Sir Richard and tell him was has happened and that we are on our way to Leicester”.

  “Can someone please tell me what is happening because I am totally confused”? Said Joyce.

  Carol turned to her. “Joyce, we think that David’s car may have been targeted but we won’t know that until Sir Richards’s team have had a look at it”.

  “What did he say David”? Asked Graham after his call to Sir Richard.

  “He is sending a team in now to check the car and then he will let us know what, if anything they have found”.

  “Do you mean it could have been a bomb? Asked Joyce.

  “Well if it was, then something went drastically wrong as there was no explosion, but let’s wait until we speak to Sir Richard later, if it was targeted then someone wants us out of the way very quickly”.

  Graham drove with great caution along the motorway, regularly checking his rear view mirror and adjusting his speed up and down, again just to confirm that no one was following them. About 3 hours later the team pulled onto the drive of Graham and Carol’s house in Leicester and he rushed to his office to check if any alarms had been triggered and review the CCTV, but he found everything as it should be.

  “He checks the footage several times a day no matter if he is here or not, and so we knew all was well before we left London, said Carol as she put the kettle on, when in doubt make a pot of tea that’s my motto”.

  A few seconds later David’s phone rang and it was Sir Richard,

  “Hang on, let me put you on speaker phone”. Said David.

  “My team have checked your car David and it was indeed an explosive device, but something went wrong and the detonator caught fire and it didn’t activate the explosives. It looks as though it was put together very quickly and not really a professional job. The trigger was heat activated and was designed to go off after the cars silencer reached a certain temperature, good in theory but as I said a rushed job, so all they got was your car David”.

  “Well better the car than us”. He replied.

  “What about the press Richard”?

  “That’s all taken care of, it’s just been reported as a car fire due to a possible fault”.

  “My poor new car. That should please my insurance company”. Replied David.

  “I do have some other news for you all, and I think you will be very surprised. Herr Bloche’s wife contacted me about an hour ago, and it would appear that she is very upset with her Father for chopping up her husband, and she wants to meet me at Millbank in the morning”.

  “Well your right that is a surprise. You will keep us informed if you learn anything of value”?

  “Of course, but what are you going to do now”?

  “I am going to call Carl in New York and see if he has found out anything else regarding the Russian and American link, I am still not convinced that it is very viable though. The American mob are quite happy to make big bucks from any crime, but they are also normally quite patriotic. Were as the Russians hate everyone including themselves, and I am also still of the opinion that this money was stolen for a specific purpose, and so Carol and I are going to the states on the next flight and I am sending David and Joyce to St Petersburg”.

  “Alright I will get a message to you as soon as I know anything else, let me know what names you are travelling under”.

  “Just one other thing before you go Richard, can you arrange new passports for David and Joyce to be delivered to Heathrow in time for their flight”?

  “Not a problem, Mr and Mrs Smith, or something like that, let me know their flight times and I will take care of everything”.

  “Will do, speak to you later Richard”.

  Graham turned to Joyce “I am sorry your introduction to our business has been a very strange one, so I believe now is the right time to offer you an opportunity to quit if you feel that this life is not what you expected, although I seriously hope you don’t”.

  It took only seconds for Joyce to look at her now very close friends. “You know a few weeks ago I could never have imagined that I would have the opportunity to make something of my life, I honestly thought my life was over, and so if you expect me to run away you are going to be very disappointed, I am in this for the long term no matter what that brings, I can’t say more than that”.

  “I am so pleased you feel that way Joyce, but things are starting to get a little rough and I was only concerned about your welfare”.

  “I can understand that, but I believe I am safer here with you all than I would be with my bastard husband and be assured that I will not let any of you down”.

  The group sat there quietly finishing their tea, when suddenly they heard the unmistakeable sound of the locks on the windows and doors operating and all the security lights coming on, Carol quickly picked up her phone and remotely put the house into complete darkness.

  “Now go and get you know what from my safe, Joyce go with Carol”.

  Graham and David went into the office and checked the cameras around the garden.

  “Look there’s movement in the garden, I count four people, are you still armed David?

  “Yes I am”. He replied.

  “Good, well that makes two of us”.

  Carol made her way back through the house by the low light of a small torch,

  “I have the box”. She said.

  “Good, then take one out and give the other to Joyce.

  “Look, I am sorry you have had no training, but our lives may now depend on the next few minutes, and so if anything comes into the house just point this gun in their direction and pull the trigger do you understand”?

  She didn’t tremble or lose any form of control, she just accepted that this was her job and she was prepared to do whatever was required to protect herself and her friends.

  “Are you ok Carol”?

  “More than ready”. She replied.

  Now all In Graham’s office they continued to observe the men outside the house on the CCTV, Joyce asked Carol if she had ever shot anyone.

  “Yes, but I only wounded him, but it was something that had to be done to save Carls life, so if you need to use the weapon Joyce just make sure you shoot them not us, don’t let the adrenaline that will be pumping around your body rush you, think slow and positive but act fast”.

  “David take Joyce with you into the kitchen and Carol and I will take the pool, I am going to count to ten then I am going to release the door locks so they can get in, and then we will be in control and not them”.

  The only light in the house was that passing through the windows from the outside flood lights as the two couples quickly made their way to their positions and Graham released the locks on the doors. In the kitchen David and Joyce watched from behind the sofa as one man past by the window and on to the door, he very slowly turned the handle and stepped quietly into the kitchen. As the house was in semi darkness the intruder was well highlighted by the exterior lights and it was also obvious that he also had a gun in his hand.

  There in the dark and stillness of the night David and Joyce watched unseen as a second man followed very quietly into the kitchen, David gave Joyce’s hand a gentle squeeze to reassure her, but she needed very little, just the reassurance that came from David being beside her was more than enough. Joyce found a small spoon on the floor and picked it up and passed it to David who then threw it onto the worktop causing both men to turn away. At that second he and Joyce stood up and fired several shots before the men knew what had hit them, and they both went down. David and Joyce moved slowly forward and kicked their guns away before David finished off one man with a bullet to the head and Joyce without a second thought did the same to the other man. David quickly locked the door and whispered to Joyce.

  “The only other door to the outside is the patio door at the back of the pool, so stay behind me but keep your gun down, we don’t want any accidents”. But Joyce stepped forward.

  “No let me go first, I have counted every
step in this house and I remember where every door and piece of furniture is so I will lead”.

  To David this all seemed very strange that he was now prepared to trust a person whom he hadn’t known for very long with his life, but this girl was very different to any he had known before. “Alright you lead”. He said to her with just a little anxiety in his voice.

  Joyce now moved forward in the dark counting her steps and moving around obstacle’s that were in her way, and it was obvious that she knew exactly where she was in this very dark house. She was about to open the door into the swimming pool room before David stopped her and whispered.

  “Graham and Carol won’t know it’s us, so let me tap the door first”.

  Joyce stepped aside to let David approach the door, and he very gently tapped on it several times before kneeling down and slowly pushing the door very gently open.

  With their eyes now fully accustomed to the dark they could make out the figures of Graham and Carol in one corner of the room by the pool cover, but they could also see the distinctive outline of two other figures at the patio doors. One of the men pressed down on the handle of the door and slowly entered the swimming pool room, they started to feel their way along the wall in the darkened room very unsure of their steps, but Graham already had plans laid out for them. He and Carol allowed the men to get about halfway along the side wall of the pool before Graham pulled on a rope which was fixed to the wall, and as one man fell he also brought the other one down with him, the group fired their weapons many times and the two men finally stopped moving.

  Carol took out her phone and put the lights back on and the group very cautiously made their way over to the men where Carol made sure one was dead with a well-placed shot through his mouth, but the other although badly wounded was still very much alive.

  “Don’t kill him yet I want to contact Richard”. Said Graham, who immediately telephoned Sir Richard and explained all that had happened.

  “So that’s why David’s car didn’t explode, it was all part of their plan to get you all in one go, they knew exactly where you would go for safety, keep that one alive for me, I want him, but I will also take the others”.

  “I am pleased about that as it’s a little late for gardening if you know what I mean”. Said Graham.

  “Alright, I will have a team pick them up, but I think you should cancel your travel plans for tomorrow, I will speak to you later Graham”.

  David went over to the man who was still alive, but he had been shot twice in the chest and really was in quite a bad way. Carol bent over him and ripped his shirt open and did the best she could to clean him up with some towels and seconds later Graham’s phone rang, it was Sir Richard confirming that a collection team was on its way but it would be several hours before they arrived, but that he had also arranged for a security medical team based in Nottingham to come straight over and they should be with them in about 30 minutes.

  “We don’t want the plod involved, so just cover the bodies and wait for the recovery team”. Said Sir Richard.

  The enormity of what she had achieved now became very apparent to Joyce, she had just shot someone and killed them, but she had also protected her friends, her true friends who asked nothing in return just her loyalty and love, she had grown to be a friend who you could rely on to be there for you no matter what was required. David went over to her and asked. “Are you alright”?

  “I am more than alright, for the first time in my life I feel needed, wanted for myself, forget the fact that I have just shot a man in the head”.

  Truthfully she was a little shaky, but she kept that to herself as she and David shared a very intimate caress as did Graham and Carol.

  “There’s an old blanket in the office, can you get for me please Joyce”?

  She quickly returned with the blanket and they both did as best they could to make the wounded man comfy.

  “He has lost a lot of blood and so I don’t fancy his chances much, but let’s wait and see”. And David went through the man’s pockets, but there was nothing. These men were just a team of killers sent to do a specific job, but who were they working for”?

  “I think they wanted us alive, don’t forget we still have their money. What I can’t understand is how they knew where you lived David, and also how quickly they got here after we arrived”.

  The two men looked at each other. “A tracker” Said David, and they both went out to Grahams Range Rover with a torch, and after several minutes of searching David put his hand under the rear wheel arch and found the device taped to the bodywork.

  “They must have fitted it in docklands before Carol left home to join us at your apartment, and then they set my car on fire knowing that we would leave London and the tracker allowed them to follow us without getting to close, the bastards”.

  They took the device into the house and David went through to the pool room, “Is he still alive”? “Only just”. Replied the girls.

  It was about twenty minutes later that a van finally arrived with the medical team, and Graham took them into the house. The doctor and his assistants stepped over the two bodies in the kitchen and made their way through the house and the doctor examined the badly wounded man who was by now, even with the efforts of Carol lying in a large pool of blood.

  “I don’t fancy his chances but let’s see what we can do”. Said the Doctor.

  Graham, David and the two girls now went into the pool shower room and stripped off before having a shower and washing away the blood from their hands, they dried and put on dressing gowns and went back to the doctor.

  “There’s no more I can do for him here, we need to get him to our medical centre”.

  The team lifted the man onto a stretcher and carried him out of the house and placed him in the back of the van. “Thanks for being so quick”. Said Carol, and the van drove away.

  Let’s all get dressed and put fresh clothes in a bag because as soon as the other team has been and gone so are we, it’s not safe here at the moment and so we need to be away. Joyce and David ran across to the barn and quickly dressed and put fresh clothes in their cases, but before leaving the barn.

  David held Joyce tightly and they kissed very passionately. “I am very proud of you, what you did tonight was more than I expected, but I knew deep down that you would come through, but we still have a very long way to go yet and you and I are now a real team, but we must not let our personal feelings get in the way of our mission”.

  “I understand that David, but I want you to know that I will never let you down, so let’s get through this together”.

  Joyce took one last look at the barn as if it would be the last time that she would ever see it before they made their way back to the house, where by now Graham had pulled the two bodies from the kitchen to outside and onto the patio, as David got to the kitchen door he looked at Graham.

  “Now most people have plants at their front door were as you have a couple of bodies”.

  “Well I am just trying to set an alternative trend”. Graham replied.

  “Just look at my kitchen, there are bullet holes in the wall and blood everywhere, I just hope Sir Richard’s team when they arrive are good cleaners”. Said Carol.

  “Is that what the team are called” Asked Joyce?

  “Yes, they leave everything as it was and they also remove dead people as a special offer”. This quip from Carol really lightened the mood.

  About two hours later a large van pulled up at the gates and Graham let them in. Very little was said as six men got out and put the three men in to body bags before cleaning all the blood from the floor and walls and within an hour they were driving out of the gates. Joyce was astonished.

  “They didn’t even speak to me, all I saw was bodies going out and Mr Sheen and Mrs Mop coming in”.

  “You see Joyce, normal people have no idea of what the state can do, but they would also get very upset if they did. But having said that without the security service we could not survive as a
country, so it’s a very necessary evil. It’s a sign of the times that we live in. I am just hoping that Richard can find out exactly who they are, but at the moment our safety comes first, and so let’s just get away”.

  “Where are we going”? Asked Joyce.

  “To a safe house we have near Stanmore and I can get my car out of sight and speak to Richard properly.

  “Do you still have your guns ladies”?

  “Yes we do”.

  “Well lock them away in the cabinet in the office, we don’t want you setting of any alarms in anywhere, David and I will take ours with us just in case”.

  With everything now locked up they drove away and headed back towards the motorway, and within minutes the girls were asleep in the back of the car.

  “You know, Joyce did so well tonight and I think she would do anything for you David”.

  “Yes I have to admit she is rather special in more ways than one and she is starting to show a real aptitude for the work, and like I always said, within everyone given the right circumstances there lurks a dormant killer”.

  The drive was very uneventful and a couple of hours later they pulled up outside a large detached house and David jumped out and opened the tall wooden gates, Graham pulled onto the drive and the gates were very quickly closed behind him. Carol and Joyce were completely oblivious to their arrival and continued to sleep in the rear of the car, and so they were left to continue their well-earned rest. Graham opened the door of the house and went in.

  “Wow its bloody freezing in here, let’s get the heating on and the house a little warmer before we wake the girls”.

  Graham checked out the house while David put on the kettle and made tea, and with the house now sorted and starting to warm slightly Graham telephoned Sir Richard.

  “Any news on the bodies”?

  “Not yet, and also I don’t want you to tell me where you are, there is a leak somewhere and we need to find it before we all end up dead, how many people knew of David’s address”?