Senior members of his company covered for him the best they could, all the while extolling him that they needed him back at the helm. What surprised O’Reilly was that he did not care. He did not care about anything, his business, his health, his reputation or his relationships. Only the news of the avenging of his daughter’s death would bring him out of this abyss.
His mobile phone vibrated in his pocket. His apathy almost allowed it to ring out. He slid it from the gown’s pocket not recognising the number.
He answered it. “Hello.”
His mood soared when he heard the Scotsman’s words down the line. “You ready to help me to destroy these bastards?”
Connor’s Audi cut down the A3 road. Ciara was in the passenger seat. They were on their way to one of The Project’s killing houses that was located in the forestry between Alton and Lasham in the south-east of England.
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“It’s touch an’ go. The reason Dixon asked me in the first place to do this was that he didn’t trust his original team. He might want us to take them to the hospital or hospitals ourselves. If that’s the case, then happy days, it’ll be a bird in the hand as the boss would say. But if he asks me to take them anywhere else, it’s because he wants another team to transport them to the hospital or hospitals. That’s when it gets tricky, and we’ll have to rely more on IBT.”
“What’s the worst case scenario?”
“The worst case scenario is that he somehow already knows and we walk into an ambush. Next one down is that the team get a thorough frisk and the concealed pistols are discovered. We’d have to be quick on the draw then, hence today’s shooting practice. If either happens then, we’d have to try and take one of them alive—preferably Dixon himself—to get the hospital information.”
“What we doing in the meantime?”
“Not much we can do. We’ll train and wait out. The rest of the team have to remain in place in case Dixon sends out scouts to check the information is gen. I’ve booked us a twin bed at the Upper Neatham Mill Farm Guesthouse.”
“A twin bed?”
“Yeah, we’re not married, it goes against my morals.”
“What’s the real reason? You getting tired of the rough stuff?” she asked.
Connor clasped the back of his neck and sighed. “You’ll only think I am being arrogant if I tell you.”
“I already know you’re arrogant. I didn’t think you were a pussy though—go on, I can take it, as well you know.”
Connor could already hear in her voice that she didn’t take his new stance seriously—in fact, he reckoned that she would now view it as a challenge—and she’d probably win.
“Look, you and I both know that when a bird—sorry girl—has sex regularly with a man she makes an emotional attachment to the man, and then she has to make him attached to her. It’s an evolutionary thing—something about her being knocked up for nine months and him needing to feed her. I am just not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Wow, another woman might have found your lesson in anthropology incredibly patronising,” said Ciara.
“You know as well as I do, that a woman could have PhDs coming out of her arse and still be a fuckhead when it comes to men, I know loads and—,”
“—shut up Connor. This thing is going to be over and done with soon. And we might die. Without inflating your ego further, it’s great. After this is all over, I will either be dead, or we’ll have time apart so I can ‘get over you’. But what’s not going to happen, is that we spend the nights in this hotel not touching one another. End of story.”
Connor opened his mouth to speak but then closed it. He was kidding himself thinking he was going to be able to resist her anyway. After a few moments he spoke. “OK, can you please stop scratching and throttling me, please. It’s getting on my nerves.”
Ciara smiled. “Aww, of course.”
“I told you the rules,” Parker told Bruce from his office chair. “I’ll turn a blind eye to whatever you have to do, but I can’t overtly help you.”
Bruce had gone to Vauxhall Cross unannounced for information that only the MI6 chief could provide. He had already considered how to play this.
“Aye, well luckily SIS is a covert agency is it not, the purpose of which is to look after British interests.”
“British interests overseas.”
“Really? You’re going with that?”
“Don’t question my patriotism Bruce, that’s the one thing you can’t query.”
Bruce nodded as if in agreement before saying, “Well, that’s dependent on your definition of patriotism. You see, mine is a responsibility to the citizens of this country, even the jakies. Yours, being more as they say ‘definitively correct’, is to the crown.”
“How dare you. The things I have done have saved countless lives,” Parker spat.
“Aye, earlier in your career, so stop yer growlin’. I am talking about the here and now. You’re the man who can affect the most change by his actions to the security of the British people.”
Parker seemed to calm a little. “It’s not just that he’s a billionaire and a founder of one of the world’s most powerful conglomerates in the world. I am also privy to the fact that the CIA has been trialling some of the security systems produced by the AGI. They have an allegiance to him, in fact, I know they do. Some of his ‘muscle’, when he’s stateside, are CIA freelancers. Bruce, even to reach out to them would be dangerous, especially for you.”
“I see,” said Bruce. “Can you get me a list of the CIA principles which deal with him?”
“Don’t—do not even think such a thing—”
“I am not that silly. I promise, I won’t be hurting any of them. And your name will never come into the equation.”
“This is not about self-preservation,” answered Parker, who began tapping away on his keyboard.
Bruce didn’t say anything; he didn’t want to antagonise the proud Miles Parker. The SIS Chief had indeed made sacrifices that had saved lives. In the end, Bruce accepted that most had probably been made in the name of career advancement. He doubted if anyone was purely altruistic. Bruce did what he did because long ago he had made himself responsible for the people of these Isles. And he’d be lying if he said the responsibility didn’t make him feel good. And more, it gave him what every person needed for a life well-lived—a sense of purpose. He had observed that some of the most powerful, professional, charitable women he knew could not have children; that they used that unfulfilled maternal need as fuel to accomplish great things. The sense of purpose was why last year he had refused to fold under days and days of torture at the hands of the Russian Bratva. The pain in the long-term of having failed at his lifelong purpose would dwarf the immediate agony. And it was why Miles Parker, did not want to be making waves for his CIA counterparts. Because he was old-school, a Tory who still believed in James Bond, MI6 and Britain’s global footprint. That was his purpose, and rocking the Americans boat over what he saw as some drug and alcohol addled street scum would run counter to his agenda. Bruce sometimes wondered if Parker, and perhaps even Costner, didn’t secretly sympathise with Schwimmer’s aims.
Bruce had seen, all the way back to an upbringing in Glasgow, right the way through to the present, how an honourable purpose could save a person. True, some people were too dangerous to take the risk. But most, even lowest of the low, could make something of themselves in time. This is what most of ‘the Establishment’ didn’t understand. Or perhaps they did.
Parker pulled the memory stick out of his computer system, wiped it thoroughly with his sleeve, and held it out to Bruce.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said.
Bruce took it. “Don’t worry. I know you’re fond of the fact that Rolls-Royce is a British company. You’ve just helped build another one.”
With that Bruce left Parker with a bemused expression on his face.
52
In one conversation Darren O’Reilly wa
s back, curtailing his slide from frustration and self-pity into apathy.
After the Scotsman had terminated the call, Darren had jumped up and had his first shower in days. He then dressed sharply and made himself an espresso.
He would surprise them in the office; he’d tell them that the past few weeks were a test of how they got on without him.
He calmed himself. There were a plethora of ideas now racing in his head regarding his company. He looked back at the mess that was the kitchen and the living room—don’t let this happen again.
Ciara and Connor were four days into their ‘training’. The routine had been to awake at 06.00 AM and go for a run or strength training in the gym. They’d return, shower and breakfast. From 10.00 AM into the afternoon they would make use of the shooting range and killing house. They ran through a multitude of the combat scenarios on the system, repeatedly. McQuillan had told both Connor and Ciara during their respective agent training phases that, ‘practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect—take regular breaks; shorter periods of concentrated practice are superior to practising fatigued’.
Ciara felt a surge of admiration and a little envy at Connor’s shooting. She could only describe it as rapid precision. All headshots with the majority of the hammer pair holes touching. Everything appeared so quick and fluid.
On one of the breaks, she asked him, “Did the Marines teach you how to shoot like that?”
“They…ahem…gave me the basics like how to stand, draw the pistol correctly, rolling the shoulders, sights, trigger pressure, grip—all that carry on. But we didn’t do all that much shooting, to be honest. I mean we did it, but it was usually in the run-up to and ACMT or a live firing exercise and—”
“What is an ACMT,” she asked.
“Annual Combat Marksmanship Test. It’s a ‘tick in the box’ pass to say you’re competent with whatever weapons system you’re being tested. It was a bit of a conveyor belt to be honest because the whole troop, and sometimes company had to be rolled through it. I always thought it made you good at passing the test, not shooting per se,” he said.
“How did you get this good then?”
“Well, the agent training like you. But I saw the old man—Bruce—take an impressive shot once with his non-dominant hand,” said Connor thinking of the time McQuillan saved his life, “and he told me that I should look upon shooting as a martial art, that it takes hours and hours to develop an instinctive mastery of it. So, most days for the last eighteen months or so, I’ve spent a few hours in the various killing houses and ranges. I treat it like something that has to be done.”
“What else do you treat like it has to be done?”
“This the journalist in you coming out?”
Ciara shrugged and said nothing.
“What else do I treat like a task that has to be done?” he said, as if to himself. “Apart from eating you out?”
Ciara laughed. “Let’s be honest, you don’t really get a choice in the matter. And why do you have to be so crude—‘eating you out’.”
“I am not toning down the way I speak—to sound childish or like a biology professor—just so as not to offend your sensibilities. They should have disappeared after you had your tongue in my arse.”
She gave him a backhand on his arm. “Please, ‘a lady in the street and a harlot in the bedroom’. And could you answer the question?”
“Of course. Ahem, sometimes I love MMA, but sometimes I have to drag myself there—same with anything, the studying. I am not too bad at those. It’s small stuff like dealing with my car insurance’s customer service, or just menial stuff.”
“But when four men storm into the house, you instantly know what to do.”
“Yep,” he smiled. “Gimp mask on. Safety catch off.”
Schwimmer smiled. His stars were now aligning.
He relaxed in his suite in the Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin. The capital’s most distinguished hotel; in its history had sheltered Michael Jackson, Albert Einstein and the Queen of England. He liked some of the dramatic touches because—being German—they lacked any gaudiness. Like the piano and the elephant fountain in the lobby.
He liked most things about Germany. The nation had taken on the world and risen from the ashes of defeat in reaching for supremacy to become one of the strongest global economies once again. And how did they do it? How did they become a ‘Wirtschaftswunder’ — economic miracle? They stripped all industry of government regulation so that only the strongest survived. Higher education might be free here—he thought—losers will always be losers, and winners will still be winners.
Schwimmer also saw abundant opportunity in Germany, but not in the way he had before. The country, out of some perverse sense of post-war guilt, had allowed so many migrants into it, that it now hosted twelve million immigrants—the second highest of any nation. He already had a hospital taking ‘orders’ in Hamburg, and wanted to expand to take advantage of the influx of potential donors.
Tris Dixon had informed him his UK medical contact would be receiving another four bodies. The beginning of a small but steady supply. Now the chastened boy had been put in his place, Schwimmer could focus on larger, more pressing matters.
A contact—one of his most powerful contacts—had informed him that his prey might do something very foolish and assassinate Schwimmer’s CIA handlers. If the man succeeded, Schwimmer could then point the investigating team in the right direction. The neutral stance of his British connection would tilt to one of proactive help and support for the ‘arrest’ of the elusive thorn. And his vision becoming globalised would continue unimpeded.
The money he accumulated from this venture was a mere supplement to his extraordinary wealth. The restoration or saving of some of these ‘masters of the universe’ lives would allow him to wield untold influence. His standing had already risen and would continue to do so until the likes of Bruce McQuillan would be mere blips on his radar. That time had not quite arrived, so one foot would have to remain on Dixon’s throat, with the other stamping out McQuillan’s existence.
Kate, Darren, Ted and Kevin were all suitably dishevelled, hungry and smelling like homeless people who hadn’t washed for a few days.
Connor had received the message the previous day from Dixon that the four were a ‘go’, and he was to pick them up the next day. He had been given an address of a mansion in Guilford in Surrey for the ‘products’ to be dropped off the following evening. He and Ciara had driven over to Westminster the previous night and booked the nearest Travelodge. They had gotten up early that morning, put on their jackets with a charity logo on, and made a show of subduing the struggles of the four before separately taking them in the van. This had been all on the chance that Dixon may have put the four under his own surveillance after Connor had given him the report.
Now dusk was threatening to settle, and the six were within a small opening, on the outskirts of the village of Mickleham in Surrey.
The four Trojan horses now all carried the 2.5”x 6” Kahr Arms P380 pistol, strapped to the front of their thighs. The P380 could hold six rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.
Studies collated by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), showed that the front of the legs often could be missed during rough frisks. The pockets of the team’s loose fitting jogging pants or jeans had a small hole cut through. Too large, and a searcher’s hand delving into the pocket would only stop at the concealed pistol. The tear was to aid The Project member in punching a larger hole through the pocket to withdraw the small gun. Their hands were plasticuffed to their front. There were a few ways that the members could covertly escape them. If all else failed, bringing the arms forward and banging the wrists against one’s torso snapped the plastic anyway.
“Fuck me, you all hum. How was it?” asked Connor. A huge flask of black coffee being passed around, filling plastic cups. They were still waiting for the final go-ahead to come through. Their training taught that unless there was something practical to
do, then casual conversation took the edge off the nerves which could be draining if not bled.
“Put it this way bud,” said Kevin, “I won’t be walking past a homeless person without buying him or her a hot drink and snack, again.”
The other three nodded in agreement.
“It’ll be worth it when we put an end to these sick and twisted people,” said Kate.
“That’s if they don’t put an end to us first,” said Ted. “Still, this is the most welcome coffee I’ve ever had. At least I’ll have experienced that before meeting my maker.”
The team smiled at his levity, but they all knew this was going to be dangerous. Tris Dixon would have his people there, and they would have their weapons already to hand. He and the rest of the team had studied the satellite pictures and the architectural schematics that Jamie had supplied—we’d be fucked without him, Connor thought.
“Hope you’ve been practising,” said Kevin.
“I—we—have,” said Connor.
“I trust you bud, not gonna lie but I hate having my hands tied,” said Kevin.
Connor smiled. “You have to trust your partner before allowing them to do that.”
The rest laughed, as did Kevin after a moment.
Connor continued, “We are all trojans horses. Take comfort in knowing that if they initiate the shooting, they’ll shoot me first. I am the black ball over the pocket. You lot will be perceived as reds.”
Just then Connor’s phone vibrated. He glanced at it and said, “It’s time.”
Dixon stood in front of his contingent of twelve armed men.
“It’s just the two of them and the four…donors. We’ll lead them into here. Reed has thoroughly searched them already. You three,” said Dixon pointing, “will meet them around the front. And you three offload the packages around the back. The rest remain in your positions in case there’s anyone or anything unexpected.”
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