Fight them.
Bullies bully because they can. Because it’s easy. If they come across an immovable object, they steer round it and pick on someone else.
It was a Tuesday breaktime. She had been walking on her own across the playground to a favourite spot of hers in the far corner. Almost there she’d been pushed from behind. A push became a shove, which turned into a fight. Normally she’d have run away, but this time she was stuck. She had been forced into a corner by a girl two years older than her, and ten centimetres taller. She was caged. Locked in. There was nowhere to go.
Fingernails scratched exposed flesh; knees were raised; forearms bitten. There was spitting, yanking of hair and, eventually, a punch: her fist to Julie Barne’s chest.
And the red mist had come down for the first time. One minute she was fighting for her life, the next she was all focus.
There were other kids in the corner of the playground and, just before she’d punched the girl, she caught a glimpse of a teacher jogging across the tarmac. But they were peripheral. A blur. Julie Barne was coming in for the kill. She held a fist up high. Snot dripping from her nose, her lips apart making a sound like an air-raid siren, her eyes full of destruction.
Sam’s energy, which spiked like something she’d never experienced before, coalesced. Whilst the girl was all arms, winding up her fists, Sam had perfect clarity.
She jabbed violently with a straight arm, sensing speed was everything. She learnt later in a physics lesson that the velocity of impact is vastly more important than the weight of the moving object. That’s how rounds from a rifle pick you up and hurl you backwards when they hit you in the chest.
And she was fast. Very fast.
She hit Julie Barne just to the left of her sternum, nipple height. The girl was 14 and had proper boobs. So Sam found some flesh before smacking her rib cage. The speed of the punch was exacerbated by the fact Julie Barne was coming forward, and it helped that Sam had her back against the wall and could use it to lever more power.
There was a crunch.
And a cry.
And the world stopped.
Julie Barne collapsed in a pile, her heart stopping as her eyes opened wide with disbelief. She pulled her hands to her chest and began to pant. Sam, who had broken two fingers, held her scream. Everyone else stood stock still, apart from the teacher who’d arrived too late to stop the punch and whose attention was immediately focused on the coughing and gasping child, writhing on the floor.
Sam’s red mist dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. Ignoring the teacher’s shouts, she stepped over the girl on the tarmac and walked home.
Julie Barne’s heart had only stopped temporarily and, other than a broken rib and severe bruising, she fixed quick enough; she was given an afternoon detention for taking part in a fight. Sam had her fingers bandaged together at the local hospital and when she returned to school the next day was suspended for a week for throwing a punch.
She’d thought that that was tough. But didn’t complain. It was behind her and she moved on.
But she didn’t forget the lesson. Julie Barne and her cronies never touched her again. In fact they walked on the other side of the corridor whenever she was around. Sam didn’t take any particular pleasure from that, but, in a way, she was glad the girl had taught her a life lesson. Fight or flight. If you can’t run away from it, you have to fight it. And since that day in the playground, she knew the red mist was a friend of hers.
Mostly.
But she wasn’t Giorgio. This was his fight. He’d need to deal with it his own way and in his own time. Giorgio had got her into the Mafia’s compound. He’d done his bit. The wedding of the year wasn’t her war.
‘You’re right, Giorgio. I shouldn’t be encouraging you. You and Gareth must do what you think is right. I’ve said my piece. Now, do you mind if we walk to the perimeter? I’d like to see how big your dad’s place really is.’
They’d made it to the line of trees. And she’d been right. The fence was state-of-the-art, with movement sensors and cameras on tall masts. With watchers looking on she tried not to pay too much interest, but she needn’t have bothered. Gareth had sobered up a bit and was taking more interest in the fence than she was.
‘Wow. This is something else, Giorgio. You dad likes to keep people out.’
Giorgio was caressing the fence. With his hand gripping the mesh he looked back from where they’d come. Sam followed his gaze. The house and marquee looked small from this distance.
‘You are right, Sam. I must do something about this. I must.’ He still had a hand on the fence
Sam touched his arm.
‘Sleep on it, Giorgio. You should never make a decision late at night. Have a chat with Gareth in the morning. And then speak to your dad if you still feel that way inclined.’
Gareth reached for Giorgio’s hand.
‘That’s good advice, Giorgio. And I’m with you whatever you decide.’
And that had been that. The deed had been put off until tomorrow.
Likewise, Sam. There really hadn’t been an appropriate time for her to confront Andrea Placido. To press him and gauge his reaction. He’d always been talking to someone. And she’d been distracted. The timing just hadn’t seemed right.
She knew she would face up to the bully. Tomorrow. At the wedding. When there were more people about, other than just family.
She had managed to scout out the house. She’d snuck into many of the downstairs rooms and three or four upstairs. There were two studies. Sam assumed a his and a hers. The more masculine one, with red wallpaper and a boar’s head on the wall, was full of opulent hardwood furniture and some very fine pictures. An ornate desk carried a couple of computer screens and there were two antique filing cabinets.
But that was all for tomorrow.
What she needed to do now was catch up on anything Frank had sent her, and then get some sleep.
She wiped the toothpaste from the corner of her mouth, had a pee and then, with her phone in her hand, plonked herself on the centre of the bed.
There was one new email. From Frank. It included an attachment; the translation of Viktor Molnár’s August calendar. Sam read it. Most of it concerned excursions to the beach and trips to the local towns. Frank had highlighted two entries which were less ordinary.
The first was: 15 August. 7.15. Supper with AP and FM.
AP? Andrea Placido? Could be? But who was FM?
The second was a three-day block, the appointment framed between two arrows: 19 to 21 August.
Viktor. Trip to CH.
Where did Viktor Molnár go between 19 and 21 August?
CH?
CH could be any forename and surname.
Or Chiaravelle, a beautiful mountain town they’d driven through this morning? Maybe Viktor and his wife had left the children home alone and taken a car to a hotel in Chiaravelle?
Or …
CH, as in Switzerland?
Libya, Eritrea, Italy, Switzerland and Sweden.
Five countries that had yet to be subject to an NT terror attack. Libya and Eritrea had Italian history. Switzerland and Sweden, whilst neutral by nature, were not. If Viktor Molnár, and by association Andrea Placido, had business in Switzerland, why not make them a special case? Leave them clear of carnage?
And Sweden?
Sam thought she was clutching at straws.
Nonetheless.
She pressed ‘Reply’ to Frank’s email.
Hi Frank.
Thanks. Can you check the movement of Viktor Molnár from any southern Italian airport to any airport in Switzerland over the period 19 - 21 August. And, if he did travel, could you see if you could piece together an itinerary?
S xxx
She pressed ‘Send’. And then absently stared at the wall in front of her. Green striped wallpaper. Velvet and satin. Tasteful. In the middle of the wall there was a picture of a sunset over a sea - oil or acrylic. In the distance on the horizon was a pair of islands, volca
no shaped. Sam reckoned they were the Aeolian islands, which included the charismatic Stromboli - still an active volcano; a cone of cold magma sticking out of the sea. She’d spent a long weekend in Sicily after she’d finished recruit training. Most of the platoon had buggered off to Ibiza and Benidorm for a week of sunshine and Sangria. She and a pal had flown to Palermo and spent the week hiking along the north Sicilian coast. They’d camped one night high on a cliff. They’d spent ages with a pair binos and a rubbish map trying to work out if the speck in the distance was Stromboli. They’d been none the wiser in the morning when the sun and haze had obscured any distant views.
She reckoned the person who had painted the canvas on the far wall had taken liberties with their artistic licence.
But it was a lovely picture of ...
… an active volcano.
How appropriate.
She needed to get some sleep.
Something told her tomorrow was going to be a bit of a day.
Chapter 14
Headquarters SIS, Vauxhall, London
The lift door to the fifth floor opened. Ahead of her was the familiar set of three wooden commemoration boards set side by side. They were ornately framed, with the title carved on the first board, inlaid with gold leaf: To The Memory Of Those Members of The Secret Service Bureau Who Gave Their Lives In Service Of Their Country.
Jane had stopped by the boards every morning since she started working on the fifth floor. There were 137 names on the three boards. The first was recorded in 1915, six years after the formation of SIS’s founding parent - the Secret Service Bureau - which was set up by the Admiralty to collect intelligence primarily on the expansion of the Imperial German Government. Most of the names were concentrated between 1939 and 1945 when the Special Operations Executive (SOE) sent officers abroad to spy on German units and link with the French Resistance. In that period 12 of those killed were women. The last entry on the third board was dated 2017. A case officer killed by a rogue Afghan policeman who was meant to be providing security cover for a Provincial governor. The governor had been leaving a mosque in Jalalabad having completed consultations with the local Taliban. The case officer was killed along with the politician, a US Army officer and four others.
Even though it was still dark outside and had only just turned 6.00 am, Jane paused by the boards as was her ritual. She picked out a name. Jacob Naseby: killed on the 4th March 1966 in Oman. The board gave no other details, but Jane suspected Jacob Naseby was working alongside the British-supported Sultanate against the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF), possibly running agents who worked within the DLF. From a recess in Jane’s mind she remembered a little of the history. The DLF, who were funded and equipped by Russia, Iraq and China, attacked government positions and oil installations. Anyone in those locations would have been, for them, a legitimate target. It was a classic ‘hit and run’ insurgency, and effective up to a point. The civil war had lasted 14 years and Jacob Naseby was one of 1,500 people, from both sides of the conflict, who had been killed.
Jane had been under fire herself, three times. The first was in Iraq in 2006. She was working in a multi-agency team in Basra, supporting Operation SINBAD, the UK military’s purge of the militia from the city. She was running three agents, all of whom had links to the militia: a shopkeeper, a teacher and a cleric. She had arranged to meet the cleric after prayers and was being escorted to a drop-off point short of the mosque when the Army patrol was attacked. The lead vehicle had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. Her vehicle, a Land Rover Snatch fitted with outdated armour and with a soldier on ‘top-cover’, his head and torso sticking out of the roof, had been sprayed with machine gun fire. The vehicle’s armour had stopped and slowed some of the bullets. She and the two soldiers sitting in the back had been lucky; none of them were hit. Unfortunately the soldier on top-cover took two rounds to the head.
He’d fallen into the back of the vehicle, his face, which was no longer recognisable, landed on her lap.
She knew immediately he was dead.
The commander of the patrol had acted quickly and effectively. The soldiers had exited the vehicles, returned fire and the enemy had been ‘suppressed’. Air support was in the sky within minutes. And a second patrol with medical backup arrived a few minutes later, whisking her and her blood-drenched cotton trousers back to the relative safety of the camp.
She’d never got the blood out of her slacks. And she had never thrown them away. They still hung on the right hand hanger in her wardrobe, fawn with brown patches above the knees, covered in one of those opaque plastic suit covers. Protected. Safe. Out of sight.
But never far from her consciousness.
She’d finished her tour and come home. Jacob Naseby hadn’t. Nor had their top-cover soldier.
She touched the gold-leafed name and said a quick prayer to a God who was unknown to her. And then made her way to her office.
The open-plan main office was awake. She did a head count. There were seven of them in. Eight more and she’d have a full team. She needed them. All of them. Because, after a two day hiatus, someone had pressed the play button. And the result was more chaos than she thought was possible.
She pushed her door open and the lights came on by themselves. She was de-coated and sitting at her desk a few seconds later, her fingers working the keyboard. As her machine skipped its way through the various security protocols, she reached for the TV remote and turned on the BBC news channel. Unsurprisingly it led with the latest ‘neo-terrorism’ attacks.
Ricin.
It started yesterday afternoon in France. The numbers weren’t clear yet, but the Gendarmerie were currently investigating 171 separate cases of the delivery of ricin, or a ricin lookalike substance, to random addresses across France. All of the envelopes were the same: off-white and personal letter-sized, addressed with a typed sticker. Apart from a first-class stamp, franked from one of five different towns and cities in the country’s southeast corner, the envelopes were unmarked. Inside each envelope was a single sheet of A4 paper, folded on itself three times. On the paper was a childlike drawing of a hangman, with the word ‘Huer!’ scribbled next to the drawing.
Contained within the folds of the sheet was a white powder weighing about 100 milligrams, although, like the addressing and the drawing, there didn’t seem to be any rigour in measuring the amount of powder. Current thinking was whoever had sent the letters had done it in a rush.
So far the Gendarmerie had only confirmed five positive cases of ricin. The rest tested had all been common flour. But that didn’t matter. The effect was the same as if all 171 envelopes had contained the poison. The country was in meltdown within three hours. Social media had worked at lightning speed, and was far quicker than conventional TV and radio. The symptoms of ricin poisoning were all that people were talking about. The questions, endless. Do you have to swallow it? Can it enter your bloodstream through your eyes? How much of the substance is fatal?
Soon everyone was a ricin expert.
It comes from ground castor beans. It’s a toxin that attacks your ability to make a certain protein. It causes haemorrhaging, vomiting and diarrhoea; fever, difficulty in breathing and rashes. It can lay dormant for days. You only need to inhale a quarter of a teaspoonful for it to kill you.
There was no antidote.
And Huer! translates to ‘Boo!’.
The spread of fear was exacerbated by the fact there didn’t seem to be any pattern to those targeted. This wasn’t a major political statement, or an attack on any one stratum or segment of society. Shopkeepers, grandparents and teenage girls were addressees; Catholics, Muslims and atheists.
If Michelle from down the road had been sent an envelope, then I might be next. And, if not an envelope full of deadly ricin, then what? Arson of a tower block? Poison in a reservoir? A bomb in a football stadium? Machine guns in the market square?
Where would the terrorists strike next?
The answer to that question was: the UK.
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br /> Jane had left the office at half-past-midnight last night. She’d got to bed an hour later, having had two pieces of toast and Marmite for supper. She’d been woken by the duty officer three hours later. Bristol’s main sorting office had picked up a similar pattern to that in France. This time it was light-brown manila envelopes. They had 47 of them, all similarly addressed. The night-time manager had pulled the sorting staff off the floor and called the police. Within an hour Birmingham had done the same. The Post Office couldn’t confirm if other regional sorting offices had been quite so vigilant.
It wasn’t just the UK. Unfortunately Bielefeld’s Deutsche Post main sorting centre had not been alive to a cross-continent threat. There was already one report of a ricin-type letter having been opened in a small village in the Teutoburg Wald. Similar incidences were being reported in Spain and Norway. And nobody yet knew whether or not the threat was restricted to Europe.
Whilst this chaos was the first reason Jane had been called in, there had been a second major alert. Two hours ago The Service had uncovered a threat against ‘a major public figure’. The threat was: Gold; Imminent, which meant the source was impeccable and the timing within the next seven days. The least clear piece of intelligence was who the ‘major public figure’ might be. The term had no official definition. It could be a member of the Royal Family, a politician or a celebrity. The cast list was one of thousands.
SIS was always interested in threats to major public figures, even though it may look like a domestic issue. Public figures travelled. The two young princes and their wives were always representing The Queen abroad. Other than a few days a year, there was always a member of the Cabinet overseas. And, to pick one of hundreds, Daniel Craig was filming the latest 007 movie in the Caribbean. Once abroad, it was SIS’s responsibility, along with their traveling CPOs (close protection officers) and bodyguards, to make sure the great and the good were tucked safely in their beds at night.
On the Back Foot to Hell Page 28