by Gus Ross
And now the chain of events was beginning to come together; they had the proof they were looking for to link Osram and his crew to Hendrick, but they were still short on detail with regards to why Hendrick had come to London. There was also the much bigger question of who was behind the systematic elimination of Osram and those closely connected to him, but they felt sure they were onto something.
“I think all roads lead to Mr Stephan Meyer, don’t you Sir? If we could find out what Hendrick was here for it might help us identify who is behind all these killings. Someone is going to a lot of lengths to try and cover their tracks.”
“I think you’re right Sergeant. Osram’s boys should have had no business hitting someone like Lucian Hendrick. They were nothing more than hired guns. And whoever hired them, wanted them silenced, along with anyone else they seem to have come into contact with. If that same person was after whatever Hendrick came to London to collect, then we need to know what that was. And yes, it sounds like Meyer might well have the answers to that question.”
In the next thirty minutes or so Watt and Bright would find the wind had been violently taken from their sails and their investigation effectively come up against a brick wall. When they too had witnessed the assassination of Stephan Meyer the alarm bells were positively clanging in their ears, but it was if, for all their sound and fury, that they were signalling the end the line. This was way out of their league now and also their jurisdiction.
Bright had witnessed quite a lot in his short time with the force, but the sheer suddenness with which Stephan Meyer had been taken out, coupled with the fact it was captured live on camera, provided quite a shock to his system. Watt was equally taken aback. When Bright finally broke the silence, both men knew what was coming.
“Jesus Christ, I still can’t believe what we have just watched. He was mid sentence! Mid sentence, and I’m damned sure what he was about to say would have been exactly what we needed to hear. Whatever this is all about Sergeant, I think we have reached the point when we need to pass it onto the big boys. Strike that, this is the point where the big boys take over the game and tell us all to go home.”
Bright had expected this moment to come, the whole Osram thing was stinking to high heaven, but even he was surprised at the alacrity of it all. Pug on the other hand was mightily pissed off.
“I really wanted to see this one through. Not just because of Buckfield. That body was found floating in the river on my patch.”
“I know Sarge....I know. I am as frustrated as you are but you know what? Until the big dogs do come and steal our ball we have still got a shot at it. Maybe there is something we are missing, or maybe there is more to come out. Let’s not throw in the towel just yet. Let me think it through and I will come back to you.”
Watt had no idea what Bright was considering, but he would be more than happy to play along, like the nice little Pug dog he was.
Chapter 17: Alexander Boardman.
Of all the great things he had achieved to date, and there had been many, his research into the wonderful world of particles was the pinnacle. When the breakthrough had finally come, his initial reaction (after the one that insists everything is checked, rechecked and verified to make sure the findings are valid), was to share it with everyone. He wanted to shout it from the rooftops, publish it in every geek science magazine on the planet, scream it to anyone who cared to listen and for that matter those that didn’t. But most of all he found himself desperate to tell Stephan Meyer.
Everyone (with the exception of the few diehards who had lined up behind various alternative theories), knew that dark matter had to exist, all the mathematics and science had predicted as much, but finding it was the hard part, the part everyone was trying to be the first to discover. But Boardman had gone way past the simple proof and capture stage, he had secured the real power of the Higgs Boson, he had discovered how to harness the incredible power within it. He had proven its decay into dark matter, which was until that point a theory that most had dismissed, but it was his work from that point on that was truly remarkable. Boardman was already in uncharted waters but that was where he had always wanted to be and where he worked best, and when he finally found the link from dark matter to dark energy and how to produce it, he knew that he had reached the zenith of science; he had discovered clean, limitless energy, the sort of stuff of science fiction.
His discovery would change everything and yet he could tell no one.
It was the hardest part of his double life; the betrayal of men he had come to think of as friends and colleagues, regardless of their politics, or more correctly the politics of their mother country. And out of all those men he had worked with at C.E.R.N., it was Stephan Meyer whom he admired most. He knew that Meyer would one day reach the same conclusions he had, and ultimately the same findings as a result of it, but C.E.R.N. were still many years back from making the vital breakthrough and much of that was down to the other part of his duplicitous role; the part that saw him feed his European colleagues misinformation, subtle misdirection and incomplete findings that would often send teams of scientist off chasing down leads and avenues of experimentation that would take months to exhaust and which he knew would be fruitless. He had known what he has signed up for but that didn’t make him like himself any better.
And then she had come along. And suddenly he did like himself again, or at least he could see signs of a man he would like to be; a man who deep down he had always been. He had fallen for her from day one. The way her beautiful slender neck rose invitingly from her shoulders, just asking to be kissed, the way her thick dark hair tumbled downwards in gentle curls, framing her perfect complexion and deep brown pool like eyes. She was stunning to look at and warm and gentle to know. She was everything he had ever wanted in a woman, without ever having known what is was he did want. Suddenly she was right in front of him, with him, part of him. And then she was gone. And what was worse was that Isabella, his perfect Isabella, was not who he thought she was. She was an SVR operative, a sleeper, someone not unlike the part of him that he had grown to despise.
Had she played him from the start?
His heart told him no, she must have felt it too, he knew she must have. But his head told him otherwise; look at the facts Boardman, look what she was really after, what she took from your very laptop, look at it! Where was she now? Where was the greatest love of your life now Boardman, now that she had got what she had come here looking for?
His inner mind was almost enjoying the turmoil it was creating, as if chastising and self-flagellation were the only options left open to him now. His heart had been ripped from him and to add insult to injury, now the one thing he really had wanted to share with the world would be shared without his consent and by the only person he had opened his heart to in his entire life.
It would ruin him, it would destroy his career, and it would destroy his life.
Rory McAdam had been watching Boardman pace up and down his Georgian townhouse from the vantage point he had occupied for almost one hundred days. He was bored; in fact he was the ‘chairman of the bored’.
“This is pants Chris. He just keeps wandering about from one room to the next like some kind of lovesick puppy.”
Chris let out a hmmph sound. “I don’t know about you stud but I kind of miss her too. It sure beats watching that chump twenty four hours a day.”
“Hey, you know how I feel about the Ruskie’. Even got her on my wall at home.”
Rory was staring at the photo shots they had hanging and Chris O’Reilly did not doubt for one moment that his colleague did indeed have them on his wall at home; after all, he knew how many pictures of her were now in his private collection.
“You’re as close to being a pervert as anyone I know McAdam. What would your mum say?”
“At least I know who my mother is, knob head.”
“Yeah, I know a lot of people who know your mother.”
The two of them could happily have bantered the night away
, each one trying to outdo the other. It kept them sane and it made them laugh and that was important when you were tucked away in a tiny attic room for months at a time. But soon their banter would be cut short and the lights would go out on their cosy little gig for the last time.
Boardman had disappeared from view and although his townhouse was filled with the highest tech listening devices, along with strategically placed internal cameras, he was out of reach of their surveillance.
“He must be in the karsy. We always lose contact with him when he’s in there. Probably preening himself again. Never known anyone like that fucker for spending hours getting ready. He’s worse than my bloody wife.”
“Hey Chris, your good lady deserves a medal if she can spend more than five minutes in any throne room you’ve used in the last month.”
It wasn’t that they were larking around, or that they hadn’t been doing their jobs properly, but perhaps if they had been just a little more alert they might have noticed that Boardman had not gone in the direction of the bathroom.
Alexander Boardman looked out from one of the sash windows on the fourth floor. They were smaller than those of the rest of the building, a throwback to when such rooms, which sat beautifully nestled beneath their hipped tile roofs, would be home to the servants of the house, but they were still very elegant.
He slid the bottom half of the window upwards and eased himself out. The cold November air had a dampness about it that he didn’t care for much and it was deathly still. Outside there was perhaps a foot or two of space before the low parapet that ran the length of the building. Boardman loved to come up here and just take in the city, but he was in no mood for that tonight. He wore the steely yet vacant stare of a man who knew he had crossed his own particular Rubicon, and that in the road in front of him lay a big red ‘No Entry’ sign. His die was cast.
McAdam saw him first and thought nothing of it; they had watched him stand up there many times in the last few months, although more often than not accompanied by a fine malt whisky in a crystal tumbler.
“Bloody arsehole is up on the roof again.” Rory had turned to speak to Chris and by the time he had turned back it was already too late.
Boardman stood on the parapet with a perfect balance that he had never previously possessed. It is often quite amazing what your body can achieve when you no longer care what happens to it. Such wonders held little interest to him now. He did not even bother to look down, there would be little point and anyway he wanted the last thought that went through his brilliant mind to be of her.
One final image.
He closed his eyes and there she was, for one last time, as beautiful as ever, as she kissed him tenderly on the side of the cheek.
Everything drained from him in an instant after that, and he was already a dead man before he hit the pavement below.
McAdam could not quite believe what he was seeing; the man they had spent so much time watching over had simply spread his arms wide and fallen like a stone. He had not jumped as so much as toppled over the edge, as if somehow he had lost even the strength to throw himself over, as if he no longer cared and his physical being had just given up, in this its final act.
How often the very great men in life find their downfall at the hands of a woman should not be underestimated. Perhaps it is a reminder of where real power comes from, or perhaps it is the fundamental weakness in us all that we believe temptation comes unaccompanied.
In the end Alexander Boardman had been no different from the rest of us when it came to matters of the heart.
Mac Howison had that feeling that only comes when your goal is within touching distance and there is nothing standing between you and it; part elation, part relief. He was more than satisfied with how things had worked out and soon he would be able to step from the shadows and put his cards on the table. Howison did like a game of standard five card poker, but he was a sore loser, only this time he had no intention of losing; he was sitting with a Royal Flush.
It is sometimes said that money corrupts, but in Mac Howison’s case this was incorrect; money merely served to fuel his corruption, it was an enabler and with each corrupt act he would acquire more of the filthy stuff, until it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, a merry-go-round he could not get off, even if he had wanted to. He would always have subscribed to the old axiom that if anything, it was indeed power that corrupted rather than money, either way, he had bucket loads of both and had long since lost sight of any moral compass that may have guided him in his early years.
There was only one minor irritation that was left to be considered, nothing that he was overly concerned about, but Howison was the kind of man who insisted that his bed sheets were ironed, and that his ties hung in order, from blue through to red and that all his shirts faced the same way in the wardrobe; he liked everything to be just so, everything in its place and he hated things that were untidy. It wasn’t so much that this was a loose end, more of a potential to become one. But the time had come for him to do something about it, if he had learned anything in business it was the importance of timing; it could seal or steal the deal, and he had come too far on this one to mess it up now.
But time does not beat to any man’s agenda.
Even one as powerful as Mac Howison.
I had taken the Central line tube from Bank to Tottenham Court Road and then partly doubled back on myself. I got off at Holborn, joined the Piccadilly line to Leicester Square then joined a Northern Line train heading to High Barnet, I duly walked the length of the carriage, then, just as the familiar beeping sound started, I hopped back off again (I had seen this done so many times in the movies that I was in danger of becoming a living cliché, but I was in the spy game now and I was going to be damned sure that no one could stay on my tail). Of course, had I known that I was already ‘A.W.O.L.’, I could have saved myself a lot of effort, not to mention travel expenses. I then set off on foot for Waterloo Station.
Bournemouth is where we had spent our first weekend away together and where I popped the question, on the beach, in what was fast becoming a force ten gale. As I recall, I did not so much pop the question as shout it at the top of my lungs to be heard over the howling wind. Eva, of course, had found this hilarious, but also wildly romantic at the same time; some half daft lunatic who picked Bournemouth beach in March as the perfect venue to get down on one knee, albeit a rather sandy one.
I could never be certain, as I never actually heard her say it at the time, but I am pretty sure she said yes. Anyway it had become our guilty pleasure and whenever things got a bit too much for us, or we just needed a weekend away, we would sneak ourselves off to Bournemouth, and we never told anyone. It was as if it was our own little secret and we liked it that way. Come to think of it though, it had been a good few years since we were last there, but I knew instantly that this was where she wanted to meet me.
The Tudor Grange Hotel in Bournemouth was one I had initially come across on the internet, primarily due to its ‘No children under 12 policy’ which was instantly appealing, but as I looked into it further it became clear that this would be the ideal venue for our first and subsequently all our jaunts to the south coast.
It was perfect: prime location, short walk from the beach, most historic hotel in Bournemouth, the list went on. I duly booked their most romantic room, complete with four poster bed, double ended luxury bath and, wait for it, its very own Romeo and Juliet balcony! (I had no idea what that actually was, but it sounded the business and it overlooked their picturesque gardens!).
She would be there, of that I had no doubt.
All I had to do was get there without being followed.
What happened after that would be down to her.
Chapter 18: Charles Hanson.
Charles Hanson walked briskly through Hyde Park; the rain had been drizzling incessantly for what seemed like days now and the fallen leaves, which were beginning to mulch into the ground, were wet and slippery. He often wondered if the local councils actu
ally picked up all the damned things in every park in the land, or whether they simply morphed themselves back into the ground from whence they came, but whatever the answer, he was currently cursing the mushy mess at his feet and wishing it were gone.
He had the collar of his brown trench coat up, to keep the rain from his neck, but he was not cold. It had not long gone 4.p.m and the park still had a presentable number of people walking through it, although the last of the days light was rapidly fading. He felt his mobile vibrate in his inside pocket and removed it, carefully checking the caller ID before answering. There were two people he did not wish to speak to right now and this was one of them, but he had no choice.
“George my good buddy. What can I do for you today?” There was something almost resigned about the tone as he answered and the old man was quick to pick up on it.
“Not feeling like your usual cheery American self Charles? Something not going quite to plan perhaps?”
“Cut the crap George and get to the point. I have a lot on my mind right now and I know you didn’t call me to find out how I’m feelin’.” He had not intended to be quite so abrupt, but he was not sorry.
George Thomson was always delighted to get under Hanson’s skin; he disliked the smarmy American: the way he spoke, the way he dressed, the way he looked, everything. He had once heard someone being described as having a face you would find hard to stop punching and that was how he felt about Hanson.
“Where would you like me to start Charles? How about the London Metropole? Would that be a good place?”
“Look George, my men took a piss in your plant pot, so what. We nearly had her, which is a darn sight more than I can say for your useless guys. You couldn’t even hold on to that Richards bloke in your own bloody safe house. And don’t go asking me how I know about that one. You know as well as I do how this game works.” Hanson was on his high horse and the more he ranted the more he felt he belonged there. Who did the old man think he was, about to give him a lecture on how to behave? He would not stand for that.