by A P Bateman
The Town
By
A P Bateman
Text © A P Bateman
2016
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, printing or otherwise, without written permission of the author.
Author contact: [email protected]
Author website: http://anthonybateman1.wix.com/author-blog
Also by A P Bateman
The Ares Virus
At a US research facility funded by the military and clandestine agencies a super-virus has been created as a first strike military weapon. During its conception the anti-virus has furthered the possibilities of medical research by decades. Such is its potential, treachery has struck from within. If the virus is released, then the anti-virus will be worth billions to the pharmaceutical industry. Isobel Bartlett worked on the project and knows its potential. After the suspicious death of her mentor, and upon hearing part of an audacious plan to make money from the project she flees the facility with the information needed to culture the viruses to seek help from a contact with the FBI. Up against rogue government forces, she is helped by Agent Rob Stone of the Secret Service who has been tasked by the president to investigate a disbanded assassination program after his investigation led him to the bio research facility. The two are hunted mercilessly by an assassin from Washington to the streets of New York. Only when the hunt reaches the wild forests of Vermont can ex-special forces soldier Stone take the fight to the enemy.
The Contract Man
When an MI6 agent is found to be keeping records of his missions to protect himself from betrayal he unwittingly makes himself a priority target. But how do you silence the most dangerous man imaginable? Send him into hell on earth…
While Alex King is sent into Northern Iraq to tidy the loose ends of a botched mission, the archipelago of Indonesia is under communist threat from within its own military. A consortium of worried businessmen call for desperate measures and seek the services of an assassin. But what if MI6 could be duped into taking care of their problems for them? With secret links to China the communist contingent threatens Britain’s trade initiatives with the largest mineral producing country on the planet.
In the dark world of intelligence, it seems that everybody has their price.
Lies and Retribution
MI5 agents have been executed and more agents have been abducted with no terms received from the kidnappers. An MI5 analyst is missing having accessed and downloaded prohibited security data.
The trial of notorious radical cleric Mullah Al-Shaqqaf collapses, his extradition falls apart. A man known to have funded ISIS, recruit fighters for Syria and coerce teenagers to martyr themselves. Again he walks free.
The hunt for a nuclear warhead stolen ten years ago has led Russian intelligence to London.
One man connects them all…
When retired MI6 operative Alex King is contacted by the deputy director of MI5 with a proposition, he feels compelled to act. His brief is illegal, his actions unprecedented. The law and the courts have failed. Time and events are against the nation’s intelligence services and the battle can no longer be fought by the rules. Britain’s enemies will soon find the game has changed.
As MI5 agent Caroline Darby investigates with the help of a seasoned Scotland Yard detective she soon starts to look through the elaborate misdirection and discovers the horrifying truth…
For Clair, Summer and Lewis
You are amazing…
1
Stone took his coffee black and strong. Double espresso. But in these parts it was just called coffee. The waitress topped him up, smiled and walked away to the other tables. Truck drivers, farmers, lumberjacks. These were not espresso drinkers. They eyed Stone warily. Something about him. Strong and fit, but a little too clean. A little too tidy.
He watched the man across the street. He had been shouting for a good few minutes. Long enough for Stone to consume the Danish and drink half his cup. There was something curious, something unnerving about the admonishment he was giving. Admonishment the man in the passenger seat was taking. He watched the man giving the scolding walk into the hardware store. He was a big man, but wore it around his gut. He walked stiffly. Stone imagined him to be in his late-fifties, maybe sixty. Someone who had clearly lived a hard life. Something about the stiffness. As though he carried injuries borne from time and perseverance. Not merely a slip or fall.
His attention turned to the man in the passenger seat. Head bowed, shoulders sagged. He’d had a severe reprimand that was for sure, but it was the way he had taken it that had puzzled Stone. The guy looked big. Stone could only see his shoulders and chest; there was power there for sure. But not strength, not in character at least. He looked broken, defeated. Stone had seen the look before.
Stone dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table which included the tip. Coffee was cheap, the Danish had been dry. He picked up his day sack and jacket and walked outside into the Oregon sunshine. The sky was blue, cloudless. The sun was low. Spring had sprung, but the shadows were still cold. Higher up the mountains, frost and snow still scattered the ground. Another month and it would be gone entirely.
The pickup was standard issue this high up and far in from the coast. A big Chevrolet, at least ten years old. A few dents and scrapes, but otherwise well maintained. It was a workhorse. There were lengths of timber in the bed, and as Stone drew near he could see tools, buckets and containers.
The man looked up at him as he approached, but his gaze turned back to his lap. He seemed to be muttering to himself, barely moving his lips. The passenger window was down. Stone stepped around the bumper and looked at him.
“You okay, buddy?”
The man raised his head. Stone noticed he was picking at a scab on the back of his hand. “Fine, fine,” he paused. “Everything’s fine…” He swayed a little and picked a little faster at the scab. It was a curious mark on top of the raised vein. It looked like the man had recently had a cannula fitted. Maybe he had been in hospital. He certainly did not look well. Pale, a little jaundiced.
Stone studied him. “Sure is a nice day,” he looked back across the street where two farmer/ trucker/lumberjack types had stepped out from the diner. They were watching him, squinting against the sun. “So I gather you’re from around here. I’m taking a few days out walking and climbing, got any tips where I should go?”
“How about the next state over?”
Stone turned around, measured. He was never one to rush his movements. Not unless he was fighting. And he wasn’t. Yet.
“What business have you got here?” The big man dropped stiffly down the two steps and stood directly in front of Stone. He held two boxes of nails against his chest with his left hand, the keys of the truck were in his right. “What are you doing talking to him? He’s not right in the head, that one. You got no business talking to him.”
“Just being friendly,” Stone said. He caught sight of the two men approaching from across the street. He hadn’t turned around, just saw their reflections in the shiny glass of the hardware store. He dropped his day sack a good few feet away onto the sidewalk. His hands free, his foot space uncluttered. “You have some rules about that around here?”
“We got plenty of rules around here,” one of the men said from behind the truck. “If you ain’t got no business here, you better get going,” he added. “Go on, yuppie, hit the trail.”
“Yuppie? Never been called that before,” Stone smiled.
“Yeah? Well what do people call you then?”
“Sir.”
“What?”
&nb
sp; “Sir. Three letters, one syllable. Shouldn’t be too hard, even for you.” Stone stared at him, looked the man up and down. “Well, maybe not.”
The guy stepped around the hood. He was six-three and two-fifty. Before lunch. Stone could see he was favouring his right knee as he walked. He may well be favouring his left in a moment.
“Claude, you want I should teach this yuppie a lesson?” he asked. Now Stone knew the name of the driver, but also knew that the man had some seniority. In this company at least. “Just say the word and I’ll knock him into the middle of next week.”
“Word,” Stone said.
“Not you!” the man flashed a look back at Claude. “Just give me the green light.”
“Green,” Stone said. “Flashing green right here.” He stepped closer to the big man. Stone was around the six-foot mark and was two hundred pounds. At least until he had recently rekindled his love of climbing. He was running more now too. It helped to take his mind off other things. He hadn’t weighed but his pants were looser and he was as toned as he’d ever been. Maybe one-ninety. But he’d taken down men bigger than this guy and they hadn’t had fifty pounds hanging over their belts or favoured a knee.
Claude looked past Stone and up the street, fingered the stubble on his chin and smiled. “No Dave, it’s okay,” he said calmly. “I’m sure this gentleman has some place else to be.”
The two men looked behind Stone and shrugged. “Well, okay.” Both men crossed over in front of the police cruiser as it drove slowly past and hung a right at the end of the strip. By the time it had disappeared from view they were back inside the diner.
“I don’t think there’s anything left to say.” The man called Claude opened the door of the truck. It creaked and as he climbed up into the tired seat. The big man next to him flinched. “Like I was going to say, you’ll find better climbing the next state over.” He started the truck and sped past Stone, the big V8 engine echoing off the store fronts and the high cliffs behind.
Stone watched the truck disappear, heard its engine for a few minutes more. The town was still. He could see one of the two men watching from inside the diner. He looked out for the police cruiser, but it did not seem to be coming back. He picked up his jacket and day sack and walked up the steps and into the hardware store.
An old fashioned bell was triggered crudely by the door as it opened but the man behind the counter didn’t stop what he was doing. He carried on taking packets of batteries out of a large cardboard box and arranging them in type on the counter.
Stone could see a selection of outdoor sports equipment nearby, everything from fishing tackle and a sign for live bait to hunting equipment and the climbing equipment he was looking for. He bent down and looked at the rope. The lengths were on a drum and it was sold by the foot. Next to the drum was a knife, secured to the arm of the roller by string through an eye in the handle, and a straight edged ruler measuring three feet in length.
Stone looked up at the man, but he was still sorting his stock. “Can you splice the ends?”
“Heat seal and tape,” he replied without looking up.
“That’ll do,” Stone said to the man’s back. He bent down and started to reel off the thickness he wanted. He cut the rope and coiled it up. On his way back to the counter he picked up some carabiners. A pack of forty in four different sizes. He had plenty more kit, but he’d managed to leave some of it behind on the cliff face. He was rekindling his love of climbing, but wasn’t as skilled as he’d remembered. He dropped the rope on the counter. “Two-hundred feet.” Next to it he placed the carabiners.
The man turned around and cocked his head towards the street. “I see you met the Conrad brothers.”
“What, all four?” Stone said.
“Nah, three,” the store keeper replied, picking up the rope. For a moment Stone thought he was going to uncoil and measure it, but he didn’t. He simply put each end through a heat sealer and wound on a length of plumbing tape. The hot nylon bound the tape tighter. “No, the guy you were talking to wasn’t one of them. Not sure who he was. Seen him a time or two before though. Looks the odd-job type. Claude is remodelling his house by all accounts.”
“Well the guy shouting at him, Claude, sure seemed familiar. And they all sure as hell seemed protective of me talking to him,” said Stone. He looked at the handguns and hunting knives under the glass counter. “Quite a display,” he commented. Behind the store keeper at shoulder height was a small selection of rifles and shotguns, a length of high-tensile steel wire securing them to the wall through the trigger-guards.
“Hunting country.”
“Can’t hunt with a handgun,” Stone mused. “Not these types at least.”
“Well, plenty of people carry a handgun out there. This is real bear country. They’re waking up all over, now that it’s spring and all. And they wake up hungry and real mean.” The store keeper rung Stone’s purchases through an old pre-electric till. There was a mechanical sound of wheels turning and pins dropping and the drawer opened savagely. There was about ten dollars in change in the till. No notes. “Sure you don’t want a piece? A compact nine-millimetre. Really handy around here. I can rush through the paperwork if you want?”
“No, I’m good. I think a nine-millimetre will just piss an angry bear off even more.”
The store keeper smiled. “Okay, so that’s fifty dollars.”
“Nice round number.”
“Not keen on the IRS.”
“Or procedures for selling firearms. Seven-day wait in these parts, isn’t it?”
The store keeper swallowed hard. “Small town,” he paused. “Short season. Everybody needs to make a dime before winter closes in.”
“You get snowbound here?”
“Not so much, but nobody comes here in the winter. We don’t have any ski slopes and well, it ain’t all that good here in the summer either.”
“No. I met your town’s PR team earlier,” Stone paused. “So they’re brothers?”
“Yep. Claude’s the oldest. And smartest.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Big Dave, well you met him. He was a bigshot college football star.”
“Shit, that guy made college?”
“Sports scholarship,” the store keeper paused. “High school football then scouted for college league. He was a pretty good line-backer. Broke more than a few heads. Busted his knee too. That was the end of it. Ended up bitter and twisted on account that no woman with any sense wanted to sleep with him with his football career over and all. Got a bit rough with a few, or so I heard. Ended up back here. Runs a lumber operation over the ridge.” He nodded in the direction like Stone would have a clue where. “Quality pine for furniture and such. The slopes he operates for timber are sheltered so the trees grow straight and true, out of the Pacific storms. Great for timber planks, the kind they use for roof trusses and sidings.”
“Runs it, or owns it?”
“Owns it. Does very well. There was an environmental issue with machinery and access roads a few years back, ten years I suspect, but he skirted it all. Bought up damn near the whole mountain and gets the work done by hand. Like something out of the pioneer days. Felling pine. By the time he works his way to the top, the new plantings at the bottom are ready to cut. All the lumberjacks, or axemen as we call them, come down once a week or so to drink and gamble. Some as big as barn doors. Well, you get that way heaving an axe all day, I suppose.”
“Gambling?”
“Private games,” the store keeper shrugged. “Can’t say what the stakes are, may well be matchsticks for all I know. Nothing the gaming commission needs to know about.”
“Sure.”
“They’re good boys. Drink quietly, don’t fight much, spend well and drop a few dollars around the town. Lord knows, we need it here.”
“And the other brother is involved in the lumber operation?”
“No. He’s a farmer. He runs the biggest cider operation in Oregon, I’d imagine.”
�
�Really? I can’t see either brother doing well, let alone thriving.”
“He has hundreds of acres of orchards dotted all over the mountain east of here. Again, he does it the old fashioned way. Just hand picking, well they all do, don’t they? Apples bruise easily. But there’s little access up there and the orchards are far apart so he runs mules between them.”
“I’d never have guessed they were so successful, to look at them.”
“Well, sometimes things ain’t what they seem, and sometimes things seem what they ain’t. Just takes a good man to see what’s between.”
“Well said,” Stone commented thoughtfully.
“He’s the youngest of the brothers, Bart. Or Bartholomew. He was a marine. Gunnery Sergeant, I gather. Served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hard as nails.”
“Figures.” Stone noted that this brother had stayed put outside. Most probably weighing his options a little better than the hot-headed football star. He also looked thick-set and a little more muscled than his brother had. Perhaps a little more disciplined, certainly not running to fat. “So he’s not been an apple grower for long. Not if he was in Afghanistan. That’s a short time to get something like that off the ground. Don’t apple trees take years to establish?”
“Well, they were right established when he took over,” the man said. “Couple of hippy types rocked up from San Francisco, no might have come down from Seattle, either way they were big on organic methods and thought the land would be ideal for growing. One of them was a computer whizz, the other guy was an accountant. Both had made a ton of money in the eighties. They were queer for each other, but they were decent people.”
Stone winced. “You don’t say?” He had to remind himself he was inland and high up. In a small town.
The store keeper started sorting the batteries. Maybe he’d taken enough time out of his day.