And so, as he smoked his pipe and thought momentarily of Stern, he considered the reason why they could not sit together. He just had altogether too much work to do in preparation for his forthcoming meeting. It wasn’t so much what he was going to say; rather, it was how he was going to present it.
Just then, the teletype came to life, catching his attention as it printed out a message from his private on-board cipher. It was, indeed, truly private; nobody else knew he had it.
He used it to contact his informal team of operators when he needed to call on them to serve their country.
Before his appointment to Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Hansard had been in charge of the Flashlight cell, the joint SAS/SBS team that performed specialist operations for the UK’s intelligence services. It superseded the previous Increment cell, which had gained too much negative public exposure as a government assassination squad. The new unit was smaller, more secretive and, under Hansard’s control, even more ruthlessly efficient. Its members were culled from the very best the military had to offer; primarily the SAS and SBS, but also from certain other specialist groups that were less widely known.
The men and women accepted into the unit underwent extensive further training, and immersed themselves fully in the clandestine, internecine underworld of secret intelligence. They were then gainfully employed across the globe as government ‘trouble shooters’, used on particularly sensitive missions where more formal military action would either be too much, or just politically inexpedient.
But there were still other, even more sensitive operations that the British government needed taking care of, and for which it needed plausible deniability. Whereas Increment had got its bad name from leaks about its more extreme aspects, Hansard had recognized the need to split the organization into two distinct roles. Whereas the Flashlight cell took on certain vital missions, these were all officially sanctioned. When Hansard had gained the leadership of the JIC and handed the Flashlight reins to his old comrade, Lieutenant Colonel Ade Peterson, he took with him the cream of even that elite. And immediately, he had made them all unemployed.
They were instead now taken on as ‘contract labourers’, with Hansard as their only contact as he farmed out the nation’s most vitally important tasks to them, offering the government complete denial should anything untoward happen. The group was so secret it didn’t even have a name, not even a code word, and only a handful of the Whitehall elite even knew of its existence. Even its own members had no idea who else was involved.
Mark Cole, formerly Major Mark Crosby of the Royal Marines Special Boat Service, was Hansard’s top man. They had known each other for almost fifteen years, from the time when Hansard had been an Intelligence Corps staff officer briefing Cole and his team on the situation in Iraq before their deployment there. Their paths had crossed again at various stages in their careers, and when Hansard had taken control of Flashlight he had recruited Cole for the team. He was a solid, reliable man who had proved his worth in battle more times than Hansard could believe. But more importantly, the man was a patriot, with an almost religious fervour to serve his country, much like Hansard himself. Hansard had taken this innate quality of Cole’s and honed it to a razor’s edge; he now believed wholeheartedly that his man would do anything if so ordered, if it was in the interests of Britain and her people.
He had selected Cole for this particularly vital mission for these facts, of course, but there was something else. Most of Hansard’s contract labourers were discharged from the military and employed in new, unrelated jobs, thereby keeping off the radar; Mark Cole, on the other hand, did not exist at all, having been declared officially Killed In Action seven years before.
As he started to think back to how he had found Cole in that stinking prison in Pakistan, he began to feel the familiar pangs of guilt for having sent him on that disastrous mission in the first place.
His reverie was interrupted by the bleep of his cipher, telling him the message had been decoded and printed. He looked down and read the typed words before him. The pipe once more between his teeth, he smiled widely. ‘Crafty old sod,’ he muttered to himself, amused. It was nice to see that Cole had lost none of his panache.
14
Cole stood on the port side of his Santiago yacht, solid forearms resting on the polished teak rail that surrounded the large deck as he gazed out to sea. The sun was beginning to set, and Cole marvelled at the subdued blaze of the red fireball as it descended slowly towards the horizon of the crystal Caribbean Sea, spreading its scarlet warmth over the sky.
Cole adored the sunsets here, and knew that he would never grow tired of them. He and Sarah often sat on the veranda to watch the dying rays of the sun in the evening, her head cradled on his shoulder. It was a shame, he reflected, that they weren’t doing so now. But, he considered, it was his work that allowed them to live here.
He’d managed to finish as quickly as he could in the cipher room, had then showered and changed, and in the end only made it slightly late for dinner; Sarah had slowed the cooking a little for him. The meal had been delightful, and he’d enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with his family, successfully putting out of his mind the forthcoming arrival of his controller from London, Sir Noel Hansard. But, slowly and surely, the rendezvous had edged closer and closer, and before long he’d had to make his excuses and head for his yacht, moored on the jetty just a hundred metres from his house.
It was a shame he had to leave his home on Christmas Day, of all days, but his regret was short lived. This was his job, after all, and there was no getting away from it.
Right, no more sulking, he decided. He’d missed many Christmases before, and he’d at least had the opportunity to enjoy most of this one. Now it was time for work.
15
From the cockpit of the small seaplane, Stern once again checked the coordinates sent by Cole. ‘It should be just over to the left,’ he said to Hansard, who now sat beside him, scanning the blood-red horizon through a pair of Zeiss binoculars.
Upon their arrival at Owen Roberts International Airport on Grand Cayman, the men had been transferred immediately to the strange-looking little aircraft on skis, which was being provided by the British Governor. Sir Paul Edison was an old friend of Hansard’s, and had received a call from him just after Hansard had read Cole’s message. Edison knew better than to ask what the seaplane was for, and immediately agreed to the cessation of radar tracking for the evening. Edison wasn’t too happy about being disturbed on Christmas Day, but had decided that it must be important if Hansard was here himself. And he certainly couldn’t refuse the man; it simply wasn’t worth upsetting him.
And so Stern had flown the aircraft ninety miles due West, and was now circling the waters off Cayman Brac, searching for Cole’s yacht.
‘There she is,’ said Hansard without the slightest hint of excitement in his voice, pointing so that Stern could get his own visual.
‘Got it,’ he replied, and started his descent.
16
Cole heard the seaplane before he saw it, the drone of the engines initially drawing his gaze. It circled lazily for a time, presumably trying to locate his vessel, then began its descent to the calmly lapping waves below.
The odd little plane made its landing just two minutes later, sending huge geysers of water surging up past both oversized skis, finally floating to a stop just a few yards from Cole’s yacht.
Stern clambered out onto the port-side ski, the craft reverse-way on to the yacht, and caught hold of the mooring rope that Cole threw to him. The two vessels were linked together, and floated gently side by side in the gathering dusk.
Cole observed Stern closely as he pushed a wooden bridging platform over the gap between the plane and the yacht. Cole knew that Stern had been Hansard’s bodyguard, or ‘personal assistant’ as Hansard liked to call him, for eight years now. Cole had met him several times before his mission to Pakistan, back when he and Hansard still had regular face-to-face contact
. Six feet five, an ex-Parachute Regiment officer and Army scrum-half, Cole had always thought the man was too big to be an effective BG. Too obvious.
Cole had never liked the man. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and he gave off a certain . . . aura, Cole decided it could be labelled, that was unpleasant; disturbing, even. For his part Stern didn’t like Cole either. He had always resented Hansard’s admiration for the man, and he was just plain old-fashioned jealous of the money that Cole was paid for his ‘contract’ work.
As Stern surveyed the man opposite him, he weighed him up. Could I take him?, he wondered, as he did whenever he met anyone. More often than not, the answer was a resounding Yes. From his school days, he’d always been bigger than his peers; not just in height, but also in sheer bulk. His rugby background had bred a high level of ruthless, win-at-all-costs aggression in him, and this was further honed by his service with the Paras, which was a violent environment by any standard. The night-club fights and bar-room brawls he’d had when out with his school and university rugby teams continued throughout his army life. He was quick to anger, and even quicker to respond to any perceived challenge. All the people he had served with knew that he was openly bisexual, but nobody dared say anything to him about it. If he was happy, they were happy. And he’d never yet lost a fight; he was not above using the odd bottle or ashtray when he had to, but he would win.
He looked at Cole carefully. It had been seven years since he’d last seen him, and if Hansard hadn’t told him who it was, he would never have recognized the man’s face. He had changed dramatically, the result of extensive plastic surgery and other surgical procedures designed to disguise him since his official death.
Even though Cole had performed successfully on all the missions assigned to him, Stern expected the easy day-to-day family life Cole enjoyed in his luxury Caribbean hideaway to have blunted his edge.
Stern noted that Cole obviously still kept in shape, his wiry strength evident in the lean muscles of his torso, barely covered by the short-sleeve cotton shirt he wore. But, decided Stern, Cole was simply too small to pose any real threat; Stern had a good half a foot and a hundred pounds on him. Sure, Cole was well-trained, but so was he. And so Stern came to the same inevitable conclusion, and the same conclusion he had reached the last time they had met. Damn right, I could take him.
There had as yet been no words spoken; Cole and Stern had merely nodded at each other to signify an acknowledgement of the other’s existence. Then Stern turned and moved back inside the seaplane..
‘Ahoy there!’ announced Hansard effusively, waving at Cole as he strode regally along the makeshift gangplank, his other hand using the silver-topped ebony cane for support. Impeccably dressed, as always, Hansard moved across the darkening water with his idiosyncratic limp.
Cole marvelled as he watched him. Seven years after their last meeting, Hansard was still the austere, true-blooded English gentleman. He could have been literally stepping out of a Dickensian novel, an aristocratic landowner and backbone of his country. It was perhaps this image that had first made an impression on Cole when he’d been introduced to him in Iraq. Cole’s parents, when they managed some time off from the busy city-centre pub they ran in Bradford, loved to drag him and his three brothers and two sisters all over the country to visit stately homes, gardens, and castles. His parents were patriotic in that curiously British working class way – flags draped from the upper windows of their pub, the St George Cross flying from their car, half price drinks when England were playing on the huge widescreen TV – but his visits to the regal heart of Britain had ignited a more direct passion in their youngest son. He read everything he could about British history, and genuinely wished he could have lived in the heady glory days of the Empire. When he’d joined the Royal Marines at the age of seventeen, he was just anxious to serve his country. It didn’t matter to him one bit that he couldn’t join directly as an officer; he just wanted to serve in any capacity he could. And to a certain extent, that hadn’t changed at all.
‘Ahoy there yourself,’ Cole responded, taking Hansard’s arm and helping him onto the deck. ‘Welcome aboard. It’s damn good to see you, sir. It’s been a long time.’
Hansard’s face also softened, and he smiled at him in that familiar, fatherly way he had always had. ‘You’re right, Mark. Too damn long.’
They shook hands firmly, and then Cole gestured to the oak parquet stairs that led down to the main cabin. ‘You’ve had quite a journey, sir. Care for a drink?’
Hansard nodded, moving past Cole towards the stairs. ‘Don’t mind if I do, Major. Don’t mind if I do.’
And with that, the two men slipped away from view as the muted rays of the sun shone their last across the dark blue sea.
17
At Cole’s invitation, Hansard settled himself into one of the leather captain’s chairs that were dotted around the yacht’s large, sumptuously appointed lounge area. Even with his militarily erect posture, Hansard seemed instantly at home in the surroundings. ‘I think we must be paying you too bloody much,’ he complained finally.
‘You pay me what the jobs are worth,’ Cole countered. ‘Anyway, you could be paying me out of your own pocket and it would only be loose change to you.’
‘Now, now,’ chided Hansard in return, ‘I’m not that wealthy, you know. Anyone would think I was Donald Trump or some other bloody such fellow.’
Although he made a mockery of it, the truth of the matter was that Sir Noel Hansard was the third richest man in Britain, although he used his connections to ensure that his name never appeared on any of the nation’s ‘rich lists.’ Most of his peers did the same; in fact, Britain’s ‘official’ richest man, the genius billionaire behind the Lantex Leisure conglomerate, was actually only the nation’s eighth richest. Hansard’s vast wealth came primarily from his landholdings, passed down through generations of his family, but also from some rather shrewd business investments, some of which were also far from public knowledge.
‘Anyway, I’m glad to see you still have style,’ he continued. ‘One would never guess how you started out, eh?’
Cole smiled, nodding his head. He had indeed come a long way, had dragged himself up through years of hardship and struggle. All things considered, he hadn’t done badly for the sixth-born child of the landlord and lady of the old Empress Inn.
‘I had a good teacher,’ Cole replied, eliciting a wry smile from Hansard. Turning to the well-stocked bar, he asked ‘What can I get you to drink? Brandy?’
Hansard nodded his head. ‘Just a small one.’
‘A small one?’ Cole asked, surprised.
Hansard smiled gently again. ‘Doctor’s orders. Too much of the good life, I’m afraid. I shouldn’t really be drinking at all.’ Hansard took the pipe he had lit up from his mouth, tapping the bowl. ‘Shouldn’t be smoking either. But what do doctors know, eh? Damned fools, the lot of them.’ He put the pipe back in his mouth before continuing through gritted teeth. ‘The English ones aren’t so bad, but there are precious few of them left back home, let me tell you.’
Hansard took a sip of his brandy, eyes closing as he savoured the flavour. He put the glass down on the small wine-table beside him and said ‘Now tell me, Major. How’s Ben? Is he growing big and strong like his father?’
Cole’s eyes sparkled as he replied, telling Hansard all about his son with that doting affection common to all fathers. Hansard, for his part, listened with rapt attention. ‘Amy’s doing great as well,’ Cole offered, but Hansard merely nodded. The man had never had much interest in the fairer sex, even in his own daughters. He saw them as weak and emotionally unstable, and therefore not to be trusted.
‘And Sarah?’ he asked, more out of politeness than genuine interest.
‘Great, just great. Better than great in fact. She’s perfect. It’s a shame you can’t see them all.’
Hansard nodded his head and took another sip of his brandy. ‘Quite, quite. A damn shame.’ He put the glass down again and repl
aced the pipe in his mouth. ‘But there is serious business to attend to, I’m afraid. And I mean deadly serious.’
Cole took another swig from his bottle, nodding. ‘I’ve seen the news. What’s our involvement going to be?’
‘Top bloody secret for one. That’s why I’m here personally. No middleman, you see, not this time. We just can’t risk it. I couldn’t even risk sending you a cipher. We can’t have anything written down or printed. I need to give you the details verbally.’
‘Who does know about it?’
Hansard cleared his throat. ‘Just the PM, me and, in a very short while, you. And that’s it. Not exactly cleared by parliament, but then your work rarely is. You can of course refuse, but I assure you that this mission is of the utmost importance to our nation’s security. The utmost importance.’
‘It always is,’ Cole deadpanned. ‘I presume you want my answer first, before I hear the details?’
Hansard merely raised his eyebrows, awaiting Cole’s reply. There wasn’t even a flicker of choice in Cole’s mind, no debate. If Hansard was giving him a job, then it was of the utmost importance to Britain’s security, Cole had no doubt of that. He trusted Hansard’s patriotic motives completely.
‘Who’s the target?’ Cole finally offered in reply.
Hansard nodded to Cole’s bottle. ‘Have another sip of that, old chap,’ he suggested. Cole did so, raising a questioning eyebrow once finished.
Hansard seemed satisfied. ‘Your target,’ he began, ‘is William James Crozier.’ Cole’s brow furrowed upon hearing the name and he started to speak, but Hansard lifted a hand to stop him. ‘Yes, Major. I will make it quite clear for you, so that there is no misunderstanding.
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