Project Reaper

by M. W. Fletcher

  Ramón and the remaining two had flung themselves to the floor as the glass in the door exploded inwards on top of them.

  Ramón looked at the two men lying by him, “what I have

  here is vitally important to sénior Verdugo, I am going to find another way out of here; cover me for five minutes and then make your own way out.”

  Both men nodded their agreement.

  Ramón assumed a crouching posture and scurried down the corridor, his two men Emilio and Felipe stood up and each let loose a hail of fire towards where they thought the Police were none of the rounds found any targets.

  There was a moment’s silence as sergeant Fleming shouted to the two men, “You have exactly one minute to throw out your weapons and come out.”

  Emilio looked at Felipe, “Senior Ramón did say give him five minutes; I think we are close to that Felipe, let’s get out of here.”

  Both men scampered down the same corridor as Ramón had, leading to the rear of the facility.

  Fleming looked at his watch and spoke into his radio, “all units move forward with extreme caution.”

  With that, Fleming began moving between the surrounding cover, in his peripheral vision, he could see his team were also duplicating his moves.

  No more shots were fired as the team came to within five yards of the door.

  Fleming’s radio came alive, Warring to Fleming over.”

  “Go ahead Warring!”

  “One of the targets has just come out of door on the

  South west side and is running across the fields.”

  Fleming replied, “don’t approach he is heavily armed, just keep eyes on him.”

  Warring was just about to reply when he observed two more of the group exiting from the same door, they stood there for a few moments, “roger that, two more have come out the same door but are not moving.”

  Fleming replied, “has their vehicle been disabled over?”

  “Yes all four tyres have been let down over.”

  “Good work Warring, just make sure your men are well clear this could turn nasty, and get an ambulance down here for the two guards, out.”

  Fleming pointed to his two point men and at the door, both men let rip a torrent of fire ripping it to shreds, they could now see clearly past the door and down a corridor.

  He gave the order to the two point men to search the building and took the remaining four around the southwest side of the facility passing the gatehouse and across a large car park.

  They quickly rounded the building to the southwest corner when they literally bumped into Emilio and Felipe.

  All seven men instinctively raised their guns and

  squeezed the triggers; bullets left the respective

  barrels at high velocity speeds tearing into flesh

  muscle and bones, the air was filled with cordite and smoke, when it cleared only three men were standing.

  Fleming looked around; two of his men were down along with both Ramón’s men.

  He quickly checked the two bad guys and confirmed they were dead he looked at his two own men and could see they were still both alive, albeit wounded, their flak jackets protecting their vital areas.

  He spoke to one of his two men whom had survived “stay with them,” to the other one come with me.”

  As Fleming moved away from the scene, he spoke into his radio, “Fleming to Warring over.”

  Warring came back, “receiving over.”

  “The two hostiles are dead; I have two men injured get more medical assistance on site, where’s the other bugger now?”

  Warring replied, “I lost sight of him as he entered the wooded area directly in front of you, I don’t think he has come out, over.”

  Ramón had not only heard the fire fight but had turned to see it; even at this distance, he could see that both Emilio and Felipe were down.

  He was on his own now his mind worked rapidly, his

  vehicle would certainly have been found and either

  guarded or disabled, never the less the vehicle was

  no longer a viable option.

  He quickly looked around for his bearings; the road was a hundred yards to his left and ploughed open fields in front of him and to his right.

  The road was not an option, presuming the police had deployed at the front and all the indicators so far suggested this; then the fields seemed to be the best bet, he looked over his shoulder and could see two shadowy figures moving in a zigzag pattern towards him two hundred yards away.

  He began to run out of the woods into the ploughed fields, the earth was already hard from the frost; his biggest fear was losing his footing and falling to the ground with the risk of injury.

  He quickly and carefully covered a three hundred yard stretch that brought him to a low hedge that he leaped over. He could see the road in front of him but he was now a good half a mile from the facility, he ran the fifth yards to the edge of the road and straight into the middle of the roadway as a car was coming along Redbourn lane from the direction of the research facility. He waved his left arm in the air with his rifle pointing at the approaching vehicle.

  It was close but the driver stopped a few yards from

  him.

  Ramón ran around to the passenger side on the left opened

  the door jumping into the passenger seat, he looked at

  the man driving and pointed his rifle at him and said, “Drive.”

  The driver re engaged the gear and moved away along the road towards the village of Redbourn quickly.

  Ramón said, “ease up we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

  Warring had seen Ramón running across the open field and had relayed the information to Fleming; however he had lost sight of him after he jumped the hedge, he had moved to another position to get a better view but could not reacquire Ramón.

  Fleming spoke into the radio his voice betraying the tell-tale sounds of heavy breathing, “Warring where is he over?”

  Warring responded, “lost him after he jumped the hedge directly in front of you, I’ve rechecked but cannot see him over.”

  Fleming replied, “standby over.”

  Fleming and his team member moved to the hedge and gazed across the hedge all that was in front of them was the road fifty yards away.

  Fleming spoke, “Warring have any vehicles passed along

  here in the past couple of minutes?”

  Warring thought for a moment, racking his memory for the

  answer before replying, “yes, came his reply, a car did come past me a few minutes ago heading in that direction, over.”

  “Any description,” replied Fleming.

  “Negative on that,” responded Warring.

  “Okay we will check this area, but I would bet my next month’s pay cheque he’s hijacked that vehicle and is well clear from here, out.”

  The Washington Hilton Hotel

  1919 Connecticut Avenue Washington

  Lat = 38 degrees, 55.0 minutes North

  Long = 77 degrees, 2.7 minutes West

  Saturday 31st December 1988.

  Thirteen-forty six hours local time.

  MI-6 agent Tony Lawrence was in suite seven-twelve on the seventh floor speaking with Professor Hooke’s wife Elizabeth.

  Three other agents had secured the suite seven-eleven across the corridor and were at present in there.

  The two children were in the other room watching the television.

  Lawrence had explained the dilemma that her husband was in and that they were reasonably certain she and her children were under some sort of surveillance from the people her husband was with.

  When Lawrence had finished, Elizabeth Hooke looked away towards the other room where her two childr
en were.

  Lawrence picked up on this, “Mrs Hooke, now my team and I are here you will come to no harm.”

  “But what about my husband?”

  “There are plans underway to rescue him, that’s all I can tell you.”

  “Do you know where the people are that are watching me?”

  “Not yet we have only just arrived, however rest assured if anyone has you under surveillance we will know within the next few hours,” replied Lawrence.

  “Why can’t you just get us out of here,” she replied.

  “Everything needs to appear normal until you husband has been rescued, do you understand?”

  “Yes... Yes,” she replied.

  “Now I want you to take this, it’s a two way radio transmitter, we will call you on it every half an hour, press this black button here to talk back, this red button should only be pressed in an emergency, keep the radio close to you all the times Mrs Hooke.”

  Mrs Hooke took the radio and gave it a cursory once over.

  “Remember we are in the room opposite, you and your children will be safe with us protecting you Mrs Hooke.”

  “Thank you Mr Lawrence,” she replied.

  “Call me Tony Ma-am, right I’ll leave you in peace.”

  With that, he left the room and went straight into room seven-eleven opposite.

  The three agents had unpacked and were awaiting Lawrence.

  All four sat down and Lawrence began his briefing.

  “First of all we need to have eyes in and around the

  hotel, if anyone is watching the Hooke’s I want to know within the next two hours, secondly one of us will always

  be here, keeping in touch on the radio with Mrs Hooke and on hand if she requires us, any questions?”

  All three made no reply.

  “Okay remove our weapons from the diplomatic bag and check them over, I’ll contact six in London and give them an update.

  One of the three agents picked up the holdall with diplomatic markings on it and unzipped it.

  Diplomatic bags have diplomatic immunity from search or seizure, as codified in article 27 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations Act.

  He withdrew four handguns the SIG Sauer P-220 semi-automatic pistol, then he removed sixteen nine round magazines loaded with the 9mm Parabellum cartridge.

  Each man began the simple seven steps to field stripping the weapon.

  First step is removing the magazine pressing the release button followed by the next six, checking the chamber is empty, then pulling the slide all the way back locking it with the slide stop, rotate downwards the disassembly lever that is located at the left side on the frame above the trigger.

  The slide can now be carefully pushed forward and out of

  the frame, finally removing the return spring assembly from below the barrel.

  Each agent commenced cleaning the weapon by running a solvent soaked patch through the barrel, followed by a bore brush, finally running a lubricant soaked patch through the barrel and then a dry patch.

  The exterior was cleaned using lubricant and then wiped over with a dry cloth, a couple of drops of oil were then added to the rear of the slide mechanism and decoking lever.

  The agents reassembled the weapon and finally slid the action several times to work in the lubricant, finally wiping the weapon with a clean dry cloth to remove any excess lubricants.

  A fully loaded magazine was loaded up into the pistol grip.

  One of the agents performed the same process with the forth weapon.

  Agent Lawrence came back in from the other room just as the weapon inspections had been completed, “heads up everyone; I have a meeting in fifteen minutes downstairs with a CIA operative who I need to bring up to speed on our operation,” he looked at his watch fourteen fifteen hours.

  “Okay, whilst one of you stays here the other two are to

  recky the hotel area, meet back here for sixteen hundred hours, I want to know where the watchers are, let us go

  people.”

  Lawrence went down into the hotels foyer, found a quiet table with a couple of chairs, a waiter approached him and he ordered a pot of tea.

  Ten minutes an African American male approached him.

  “You must be Lawrence from England?”

  Lawrence stood up and offered his hand, “that’s correct my names Tony Lawrence.”

  The other man offered his hand, “Tremaine Ramsey CIA.”

  Both men sat down, Ramsey was well over six-foot tall with a shaven head and aged forty-eight, he was wearing a two-piece loose fitting grey flannel suite.

  “Can I offer you drink Mr.Ramsey?”

  “Sure I’ll have a coffee and call me Tremaine.”

  Lawrence caught the attention of a nearby waiter, “a pot of coffee please.”

  Both men settled back in their chairs and Tremaine spoke first, “so what’s the deal here Tony?”

  Lawrence began to acquaint Ramsey with the brief details of his operation, pausing part way through as the waiter brought the coffee to their table, after five minutes he finished and poured himself another cup of tea.

  Ramsey had listened intently and opened up with a few questions.

  “Firstly Tony I think we need to bring in some of my

  people to assist you.”

  Tony replied, “I appreciate your help; but the fewer people we have involved the less chance of anything going wrong Tremaine.”

  “I agree; but I would feel happier if I had four men working the outside of the hotel.”

  “Okay; once we have eyeballed anyone that looks like they are interested in the Hooke family, you can bring your men into cover the outside, we will look after the Hooke family on the seventh floor, will that suffice.”

  “I’m happy with that, I take it you and your people are carrying?”

  “That’s correct Tremaine; do you have a problem with that?”

  “I will need to advise my director, but I think under the circumstances it should be okay,” replied Tremaine.

  “I think we are in agreement,” replied Tony, “have you a contact number I can reach you on, so I can update you on the location of any suspects?”

  Tremaine removed a business card and handed it to Tony, “it’s a twenty-four seven number that you can reach me on; the operative will pass any information to me via

  my personal radio, I’ll expect updates every hour Tony.”

  “That’s good with me; we are located in room seven-eleven and the Hooke family is in room seven-twelve opposite.”

  Both men stood up, shook hands, and parted their separate ways.

  OSC Headquarters London

  Whitehall Place

  Lat = 51 degrees, 30.4 minutes North

  Long = 0 degrees, 7.5 minutes West

  Saturday 31st December 1988

  Zero-Nine Thirty hours GMT

  The Prime Ministers car pulled up in Whitehall place along with the motorbike outriders, her personal protection officers alighted from the black Daimler motorcar and went around to the rear offside door opening it for the Prime Minister.

  She quickly walked to a flight of steps with black railings around them and climbed the ten steps following her personal protection officer.

  As soon as the Prime Minister approached the door her face had been scanned by a hidden camera, within seconds she was positively identified.

  She placed her hand on the door handle and a palm signature device built into the door handle quickly monitored a three-dimensional image of the hand, the pattern of veins in the hand and the geometrical analysis of fingers in a split second; this completed the security check, allowing her to open the door.

  The personal on duty within this building were all


  Special Forces trained, coming from elite British regiments such as the Special air service (SAS), Special boat service (SBS), Parachute and Royal marines regiments.

  They had been hand-picked after rigorous vetting and interviews. This was one of their postings at OSC H.Q.

  The man they first encountered was known as the Rook

  He was seated behind a desk with monitors on it; he was dressed in civilian clothing, with a shoulder holster concealed under his jacket along with a lightweight covert Kevlar jacket under his shirt.

  The personal protection officer went to the nearby lift; as the door opened the Prime Minister entered with her security man, she pressed the alarm button and again a finger print analysis was quickly completed, the doors closed and the lift descended even though no levels below ground were shown on the keypad display.

  A few moments later the lift stopped and the doors opened.

  In front of them was a bulletproof plate glass screen; on the other side were two men in army fatigues both carrying HK-5 pistol machine guns with a clip size of 32 rounds. These Two men were known as the Sentinels.

  A female electronic voice spoke, “please carry out identification process.

  The ceiling had what appeared circular vents which looked harmless, however these were an integrated part of the security system, should identification process be unsuccessful a non-lethal sleeping gas would be instantly emitted rendering a person unconscious within five seconds of inhalation.

  The metal floor also had the capability of discharging a powerful electric current; that would disable a person in less than a second.

  The prime minister approached a nearby eye and voice recognition scanner with a pulsating red light; she looked into the scanner and said “Prime Minister Head of Everest.”

  The scanner light turned to a steady green and the female voice replied, “Welcome Prime minister.”

  The glass door parted and the two sentinel guards moved aside allowing the Prime Minister to proceed down the corridor and into the Third door on the right.

  She entered the door leaving her protection officer standing outside.

  The six men in the room stood up as she entered, Strayker offered her a seat.