by Mark Powell
‘Listen, we can debate the ethics of our governments’ actions for the next twenty years. As of now I’m not interested in what your government does. But the Maddens are my business and I want to know why Aziz took them.’
‘You are asking me to divulge too much, Harry.’ She now bore a more serious frown.
‘So, you are involved with it, I take it?’
‘Harry, you will think what you will, but my agenda is not what you think.’ Her direction changed. ‘Is Aziz alive?’
‘No.’ Ogilvy didn’t need to say anything more.
The Rain Angel sat back in thought. ‘That is regrettable,’ she finally responded. ‘Who killed him?’
‘Bashir, we think. He was dead when McCabe found him. So, no more arms for you, it seems.’ Ogilvy was not one for sarcasm, but on this occasion it felt warranted.
It attracted raised eyebrows. ‘You can jest, Harry, but he was the only safe ticket your man, Madden had.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Just that; Aziz had every intent to deliver them back.’ She reached for her tea as if allowing for a moment to think.
‘Why then take them if his intentions were to hand them back?’ Ogilvy now clamored to work out the objective.
‘My dear Harry, is it that hard to work out?’ She smiled.
Harry scratched his chin in thought; he was missing something. ‘Do share…as clearly, I’m getting old – and I’m sure the Shadow committee would like to know your view.’ Ogilvy had extracted himself by playing his own political card. Despite her connections she could not escape the committee.
‘Very clever, Harry – the one group you know I could not avoid.’ She placed down her cup with forceful intent. ‘Very well. Aziz, despite what you may think, had no idea who they were when his men caught them. It was pure coincidence. I mean, what was the fool thinking of anyway…sailing in a sea of sharks.’ She paused to note Ogilvy was following. ‘His instructions were to extract payment and hand them back; thus, his cover would be kept intact. I’m sure the odd beating they may have received, whilst regrettable, was all part of the cover plan.’ She crossed her legs and sat back to await Ogilvy’s reaction.
Ogilvy said nothing for a while; he ran through his mind what he had just heard. ‘Okay, thanks. But this Bashir guy, who then sanctioned him?’ Ogilvy asked.
‘That, Harry, is what I also intend to find out.’ She rose from her seat and offered her hand.
Ogilvy stood up. ‘If you find out anything let me know, okay? Oh, and I’m afraid your man, Woodrow got burned.’
She returned an intense look. ‘Woodrow was collateral damage nothing more. But warn Mark for me, will you? Bashir is deadly and not to be taken lightly. You focus on getting your man back and leave the reason why he is hunting your men to me.’ She turned to leave.
‘You know I can’t do that,’ Ogilvy called out.
Without turning back, but stopping in her tracks, she said, ‘Then you and I are at odds, Harry. My paymaster is different to yours.’ She continued and left.
Ogilvy remained for a moment, drained the last few drops of tarry elixir from his cup and went to leave. As he stepped out onto the pavement and turned left, he checked for the black Audi parked across from the café. It had been parked there from the moment he had arrived. Its number plates and placement of a radio antenna on the rear window screamed U.S. Embassy. As he increased his pace, Ogilvy knew, without turning a hair that at least one of its occupants would have exited the car to tail him by now.
Looking ahead, he took in the junction. Ogilvy played his next move and counted down his maneuver. When he reached the corner he turned left again and moved to the edge of the pavement. He then counted down from thirty in his head, knowing his tail would then round the same corner and once again be on him. To his right, fifty yards ahead, Ogilvy spotted the entrance to Oxford Circus underground, which he would descend and draw in his tail. He also knew that the tail would swap at this point. Quickly panning his eyes around the people in front of him, he locked onto a man in jeans and leather jacket, his manner way too relaxed. People were just not that chilled. Averting his eyes, Ogilvy reached the steps, purposely paused, and then started to descend. Again, Ogilvy counted down from thirty and moved along the tile-lined, urine-tinged passageway of the station’s entrance. He walked fifty yards and ascended back up onto Oxford Street. Slowing his pace a little, Ogilvy took great care not to look around; to do so would blow the fact he had spotted his tail. He wanted to maintain the appearance of evasive maneuvering, a habit of any spy.
The final left turn into Swallow Place was made swiftly, counting down five. Perfect. Ogilvy stepped back out from around the corner and grabbed the first person he came face to face with. A woman with wide eyes now stood before him. Pulling her by the arm, Ogilvy pushed her back against the wall and indicated with his finger not to scream. With the other hand, he extracted his badge and held it up in front of her face. Passers-by ignored the unlikely couple.
‘Not a word, just do as I say, please,’ Ogilvy whispered and relaxed his grip. ‘In five we walk out; you’ll see a man in a leather jacket. I want you to run up to him and distract him; pretend you think you remember him from somewhere…please; this is a matter of security. I promise no harm will come to you.’ Ogilvy was nothing if not convincing.
‘Okay, okay,’ the woman agreed, as if running from the man now before her was a no-brainer.
With ease, Ogilvy took her by the arm, stepped back out from around the corner and pressed the woman forward. As expected, his tail had paused to radio check and now locked eyes with him. As if on cue, or driven by sheer panic, the woman ran up to him and grabbed him. By the time he had calmed her down Ogilvy had already covered fifty yards and was long gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
United Kingdom
It was Saturday, yet after only four hours of sleep Ogilvy awoke. It was as if his internal alarm clock had ordained it at such an early hour. He blinked his eyes a few times and focused in on the white ceiling of his office for a few moments, then slowly sat himself up on the leather sofa, swung his legs around and vigorously rubbed his face between cupped hands. Ignoring the numbing pain in his lower back, he stood up, raised his arms high above his head, gripped his inverted hands together and stretched his spine. He felt and heard the lower three vertebrae click obediently back into place and instantly felt better. He rolled down his crumpled shirt sleeves and slipped onto his wrist a stainless steel Seamaster Omega; the 34mm automatic model. He noted it was 6:30 a.m.
Most days he had breakfast: two eggs lightly scrambled with a dash of black pepper, a rasher of bacon and two thick slices of wholemeal toast spread with rough-cut orange marmalade – all washed down with copious amounts of English breakfast tea. To him it comprised the most important meal of the day – but not today. Today, the urgency of his task was foremost in his mind. Instead, he drained the cold remnants of the night before's coffee sat on his desk, shook his head as if to dispel its bitter aftertaste, grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.
Ogilvy opened his car from fifteen feet away, climbed in and fired the engine, which murmured to life with expected German efficiency. Tapping the accelerator and shifting into first gear, he eased out and took off up the exit ramp and out into the early morning traffic; which was light. Ogilvy then headed south.
Downe was a small village, situated on the border of Kent and the London suburb of Bromley. Ogilvy pulled over onto a soft grass verge and studied the map, tracing the final two miles of the route with his index finger. Whitten, according to his personnel file, had lived in the village since young, and now occupied his parent’s former home of Downe Hall, an 1820 grand house constructed of brick and flint. As Ogilvy drove past, he cast his gaze sideways and noted the iron gates and thick laurel hedge that surrounded the house on three sides. The rear of the property was exposed to open fields. Having parked the car fifty yards up the road to wait and observe who came and went, Ogilvy settled himsel
f down. He knew enough about Whitten to know his weekends were always spent at home, unless on official travel. Since checking his schedule in the early hours, Ogilvy knew he was in the country and that meant at home.
For the next hour, nothing much happened, except Ogilvy deflecting the odd stare from a stereotypical Golden Retriever walker or morning jogger as they passed by. But as the iron gates smoothly opened to Downe Hall, he sharpened his senses at the emergence of a navy-blue Range Rover. It turned towards him and passed a few seconds later, slow enough for Ogilvy to mentally note the three occupants; a woman in her late thirties with brown hair pulled back into a pony tail, and two kids seated in the rear, aged eight and ten. Carol Whitten was attractive; the daughter of a successful knighted property developer, Sir Keith Collard. Her marriage to Clive Whitten seven years prior had made the society pages of Tattler and Horse and Hound. It was her second marriage and the kids had come as part of the deal, Ogilvy recalled from his research. He followed her with his eyes until the vehicle had vanished from sight.
Firing the engine, Ogilvy pulled out, spun the car around in one swift maneuver and moved off slowly up the road towards the village square. He parked outside of the Queens Head and began to amble, not walk, back towards Downe Hall. Checking his watch casually, he noted it was 9:30 a.m. He guessed that Mrs. Whitten and kids would be gone for two hours at most; given the likely activity for a Saturday was either food shopping or dropping off the kids. That was long enough for what he needed to do.
Padding slowly across the lower expanse of lawn, through an ornate archway and skirting along the portioning hedge line, Ogilvy reached the rear of the house. His focus momentarily distracted by the trickle of water from a corner gutter pipe flowing into what looked like an old steel bowl wedged into the top of an oak barrel, now dribbling over the edge to form a shallow puddle on the path.
The double French doors to the rear of the house via the conservatory proved to be no barrier for Ogilvy. In fact, given Whitten’s position, Harry was highly unimpressed with the level of security. The thick hedge and open expanses of lawn had proved more of a challenge. Once inside, Ogilvy moved through the conservatory towards a scullery, leading to the kitchen at the rear of the house. A radio was playing and Ogilvy could hear the nauseating tones of a DJ announcing the next song. A taint of well-done toast hung in the air and wafted up his nostrils. As Ogilvy cautiously edged his way forward he could see Whitten seated in the kitchen, with his back to him, reading. Harry glanced to the right, where a narrow side hallway led off. Stepping quickly from cover, Ogilvy padded his way along the hallway, across a side room and into what looked like Whitten’s study. It was exactly where he wanted to be. Panning his eyes around, Ogilvy took in the numerous sports trophies which self-promoted Whitten’s achievements: photographs for running, rowing and rugby, ceremoniously placed on the shelves to one side of the burgundy painted room. A large faded; leather-topped desk in front of a bay window drew Ogilvy’s attention. He noted the position of various items on the desk top and proceeded to try one of the bottom drawers to the desks left side. Its resistance to being opened was a sign Ogilvy knew to mean its contents were in someway secretive. The second and third drawers all opened, revealing nothing more than stationery and junk. The bottom drawer was what he wanted.
A cough from outside froze Ogilvy for a second. Glancing up, he watched a young man, maybe in his twenties, walk past the window. His attire, and the fact he was brandishing a pair of gardening shears, explained his presence. Returning to the task at hand, Ogilvy knelt and deftly picked the lock, opened the draw and flipped through the various files inside. One in particular stuck out, with a small white label bearing the words The Somali Sanction. Ogilvy quickly riffled through the folder and took in various pictures, maps and documents; surely this was just what he’d hoped to find. His intuition that Whitten would keep anything suspect at home, and not in his office, had paid off. Ogilvy closed the draw, locked it, and got up from his knees. A small thumb drive caught his attention, lying off to one side of the computer screen. With a swipe of the hand, Ogilvy purloined it, placed it in his pocket and headed toward the door. Voices were now audible from along the hallway leading from the conservatory. Darting across the small side room, Ogilvy noted it led back around to a larger sitting room to the left, or toward another hallway and the front door to his right. As the voices grew louder still, Ogilvy ducked down onto all fours behind a hideous floral sofa and slowed his breathing. As the voices passed, he realized one of them was Whitten’s, the other voice distinctly younger and clearly subservient. Both voices dulled as they entered the study he had just left. The sound of a vehicle stopping filled his ears. It had to be his wife, Ogilvy thought. Within seconds a loud doorbell chimed out and Whitten emerged from the study, passing within a few feet of Ogilvy as he made for the front door.
‘Good morning, come in, won’t you?’ Whitten greeted the caller.
‘Devils own job finding you, but here now.’
The visitor had taken Ogilvy somewhat by surprise. It was Morley.
‘So how are things progressing?’ Whitten asked. The voices began to grow distant so Ogilvy had no choice but to follow.
Morley gave his update. ‘It seems Madden has been moved, where to is not known exactly, but we’ll know soon enough.’
‘I need this to be resolved as soon as possible.’ Whitten sounded strangely relaxed as Ogilvy maneuvered himself against the wall of the hallway.
‘So…Ogilvy, where is his mind at?’ Whitten asked.
After a brief pause, Morley said, ‘He thinks it’s the Americans and that’s what we want him to think, right?’ Morley’s words caused Ogilvy to frown.
‘Good, then let’s keep it that way. When do you have to next update the PM?’ Whitten asked.
‘Monday, as it happens, we can go together and ask that you formally step in as acting Home Sec,’ Morley confirmed.
It was all Ogilvy needed to hear – he slipped out the same way he had come in, avoided the Gardner, and hastened through a gap in the hedge.
The drive back into London was a thoughtful one for Ogilvy, aside the occasional distraction caused by road ragers. The vehicular vitriol came not from van drivers with ladders affixed to their roofs, but rather from drivers of the boxy Swedish steel asylums. He often wondered why he bothered to protect such people.
He was glad to arrive home; the large scotch-on-the-rocks and his comfortable armchair were all he needed to conclude his day. Harry ran the last few ruminations through his now relaxing mind as he sipped his whiskey; he had learned that Morley was not to be trusted, which was no great revelation – he would have to count his fingers the next time he shook hands with Morley. He also knew that things had a habit of not actually being what they appeared. He needed more evidence. As his eyes closed, sleep took his mind away.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
Hobyo, Somalia
The people in and around Hobyo had almost a ghostly demure, with stares devoid of life as it should be known. It was a city that had lost its mantle long ago, having suffered defeat at the hands of Fascist Italy. Hobyo had been annexed into Italian East Africa. Its lifeblood, the prosperous trade routes that had once passed through the town for ten centuries or more, had shifted permanently south to Mogadishu. The town had never recovered its former prosperity – and it showed. It was a run-down shell of past glory. Having been captured by the Islamic Court Union (ICU) on August 16, 2006, after several days of negotiation with leading figures in the town. ICU armed pickup trucks Technicals had surrounded the town and cut off any chance of escape for those who dared to even try. The city was apparently taken without a shot being fired; the unnamed warlord of Hobyo had fled days earlier upon hearing of the ICU's approach.
As McCabe and Stowe reached its border and set-up their operating point, they somehow realized they would not be afforded with the same level of low resistance. Without a word, both men knew that all odds were stacked against them. Perhaps madness had
touched them both, for to even attempt to track down the Maddens and then mount a rescue mission – if Woodrow was to be believed – virtually certified them as lunatics.
Stowe made a brew of tea and then spread out a map of the area on the bonnet of the Jeep. His finger traced out the boarders of the city limits as he mentally took in the dynamics of the terrain. McCabe stood motionless, looking out blankly towards the horizon, as if he had found God via some form of divine intervention and was silently praying. In reality, he was working through their plan of action in his mind, which in the main was to enter the town and see what attention they drew from the locals. Acting as bait was the only way to draw out the human rats – rats that he hoped would talk if they could catch one alive.
‘You ready, McCabe?’ Stowe asked. His eyes never leaving the map.
‘Yea, ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s head into town at dusk and see who gets interested.’ McCabe turned and walked over to Stowe. ‘We can call this off, you know. People will understand, considering what we’re up against.’ He looked at Stowe inquisitively and waited for a response.
‘We could yes, but somehow you don’t seem the type to quit.’ Stowe offered a wink and proceeded to fold up the map.
‘You know me well enough, I suppose. But I’m in no hurry to quit living either.’
‘So, what was he like, Brian, I mean.’
McCabe stiffened. A few moments ticked by before he asked, ‘How did you know?’
‘Mooney told me – figured I should know in case we ever ended up alone together. Smart man it seems…’ Stowe cast his eyes to the ground.
‘He was the best covert operative I knew; he had an instinct for trouble. He was also a bloody fool and lost it over a woman.’ It was as if McCabe was talking to Brian, his words were flecked with anger.