Seven Day Hero

by J. T. Brannan

  So in the end he decided that the best thing would be to allow Cole to progress to the hamlet of Kreith with no obstruction. The surveillance team and Albright were now in place, keeping a watch on Steinmeier’s house, and the rest of his operators would be there that same morning.

  Once Cole arrived, his death was all but guaranteed.

  61

  The MI5 team had made their way into their positions via a circuitous route. They had planned on driving through the village in a cable service van, and then parking up opposite and observing from the climate-controlled cabin.

  Albright, who had joined them just outside Innsbruck, having been helicoptered in from Munich, advised them against the idea. Whilst such a subterfuge was generally effective against untrained amateurs, he knew for a fact that Steinmeier would be wise to it immediately. And that would be if they even made it as far as the man’s house; in Albright’s estimation, such a man would probably have a series of lookouts throughout the village, especially at the moment given that he was sheltering hunted fugitives.

  Steinmeier’s house was situated on a minor road off the L227 through Kreith, an individual detached house at the end of a long driveway. The approach road had a fair few houses, and then the land was wooded before opening out to fields around the house. Visibility around the property was good, which was probably one of the reasons it had been chosen.

  Instead of the easy route, therefore, Albright and five of the six MI5 watchers disembarked from the van far from any of the village houses, the remaining team member continuing away from the area in the van so as not to arouse any suspicions. If the van had been parked up, then it would inevitably have been discovered.

  It was still an hour until first light, and so the men had made their way through the wooded slopes surrounding the village, skirting the houses and any other sign of habitation or human activity, until they were eventually situated in the tree line just bordering the approach road.

  On his way to meet the team, Albright had studied the maps of the area, and decided on the approach early. He had radioed ahead to ensure that cold weather clothing and equipment would be packed, and as they settled into the tree line to watch and wait, he was glad he had. It was bitterly cold.

  He had to admit though, the Watchers were good. They’d immediately found the electronic infrared, thermal and seismic sensors dotted around the woods close to the house, and managed to quickly disable them. Two of the men then went to positions by the main road, where they could radio information about approaching vehicles. Albright and the other three agents positioned themselves on a bend in the smaller approach road that gave them a good view of any vehicle coming up from the main road, as well as the entire Steinmeier house.

  The house was large, built in the Alpine chalet style that was typical of the area. Through their night vision surveillance equipment, they could see that there was not much activity in the house; on occasion a man with a beard – who intelligence photographs told them was Stefan Steinmeier – pulled back a curtain to check out of what appeared to be the kitchen window. Presumably everyone else was asleep.

  Camouflaged in the surveillance hide, Albright sent a message to the other operators who were on their way, describing the route they should follow, and then settled down. He tried to control his anticipation, but it was difficult. Even with the terrible pain in his eye socket, and all the way through his head, he was still excited about what was going to happen. His primary mission was to kill Mark Cole, of course; but he couldn’t help but stare at each of the windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man’s wife, Sarah.

  As if for comfort, he patted the large weather-proof bag next to him. When one of the MI5 men had asked what it was, he had replied ‘If you ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.’

  Because what it was, was a special present. A very special present for Mrs Sarah Cole.

  Just a couple of hours after daylight had broken through the thick snow clouds, the surveillance team was joined by a further team of six of Hansard’s specially picked operators. They too were dressed for the weather, wearing white and brown camouflage snow suits. They also had bags with them, and after a brief check of the weapons within, closed them back up in order to keep them a bit warmer, so they would work more reliably when necessary.

  The A Branch men had seen the weapons, but turned a blind eye. Although they were not killers themselves, they had often assisted such men in their own particular, more deadly trades, and had no moral qualms about rendering such assistance. They did their job, and others did theirs.

  Most of the household had been up for some time, and the watchers had observed as they had eaten breakfast in the kitchen and gone about their morning chores.

  Albright was concerned that he still had not seen Sarah, but infrared and thermal detectors indicated that there were eight people in the house – Stefan and Sabine Steinmeier, their three young children, Ben and Amy Cole, and presumably their mother Sarah.

  The eighth person, as yet unseen, was placed in a bedroom on the upper floor, still in bed. Albright realized that the woman had been shot, and was still recuperating, but would still have felt more comfortable if he could see her physically.

  He was pleased to be working with professionals again; not a word was uttered amongst the men as they lay in wait for their prey.

  It had been agreed that as soon as Mark Cole could be identified, he would be immediately eliminated, away from the house if possible. They just didn’t know what kind of armament Steinmeier might have inside, and approaching the house – especially across open ground – would be unwise in the extreme.

  If it was unavoidable, however, the team had authorization to storm the house and kill everyone within it.

  As Albright lay there in the deep snow, he felt pretty sure that he would be able to make it unavoidable.

  62

  It was the computer program that eventually managed to identify the killer at Miami International.

  He was here travelling under the name Brandon Clarke, and was all but unrecognisable; indeed, Hitchens had already seen and disregarded the surveillance photo.

  The system had picked the man up on both the static cameras and the CCTV. As Moses and Arnold watched the footage with Hitchens, they saw the CIA bodyguard shake his head with disbelief, and what bordered on admiration.

  ‘I can’t believe that’s the same guy,’ he said. ‘It’s one thing to put on a wig and some contact lenses, but this guy even moves differently. He’s changed his posture, the length of his stride, even the angle of his limbs. It’s like looking at someone else entirely, and remember, I’ve been trained to watch people. This guy’s a genius.’ He looked a little embarrassed by his compliment to the man who killed his boss. ‘A bastard, but . . . a genius.’

  ‘So we’re dealing with someone at the top of their game, no question about it,’ Moses confirmed. ‘Ben Taylor was a dead-end; what do we know about Brandon Clarke?’ Moses already had the information that was currently available, he just wanted to brain storm a little with his partner.

  ‘Well, the flight originated in Grand Cayman; Owen Roberts Airport is sending across its security footage and flight information right now, so the computer will get right on it. It’s possible that the man lives in the Caymans; it’s a tax haven, and not many questions are asked of its residents, so it would be a good place for a professional assassin to base himself. Or he might have just been passing through, in which case we’ll have to see if the computer can give us another match.

  ‘As for Brandon Clarke himself, all we’ve got is the usual – date and place of birth, place of residence, driver’s licence, etcetera, etcetera. Ten years younger than Ben Taylor, supposedly lives in Manila in the Philipines, which makes it a bit harder to check up on him. Born in San Francisco though, so we’ll make some enquiries there, although I think it’s a safe bet it’s another entirely false identity.’

  ‘So where are we then?’ Moses asked.

  ‘We’re n
owhere. Unless the killer does live in the Caymans.’

  Later that morning, the technicians came back to Moses and Arnold with the news. The search of surveillance data had come up with something; a man had flown into Owen Roberts immediately before the connecting flight to Miami, and his facial features were a perfect match with both Ben Taylor and Brandon Clarke.

  The two agents had felt their pulses quicken; the name on the passport and the passenger manifest for the flight out of the small nearby island of Cayman Brac was Mark Cole, and they immediately set about finding out everything they could about him.

  Harry Trencher squared away the last of the pens on his desk, took a sip of his sweet coffee, and looked at the two agents across his desk.

  ‘He’s a what?’ he asked them again.

  ‘These are the details we have sir, make of them what you will. He’s a romance novelist,’ Arnold deadpanned.

  ‘That’s right sir,’ Moses continued. The man the computer highlighted as having the same features as the two other travellers is Mark Cole. He lives in a beach house on Cayman Brac, which is a little sister island to Grand Cayman. He has a wife, Sarah Cole, and two children, Ben and Amy, aged six and four respectively. He earns his money by writing trashy romance novels under the pseudonym of Deborah Lincoln.’

  Arnold threw a book onto the desk in front of Trencher. He looked down at the front cover, which showed two scantily clad lovers locked in a sweaty embrace. ‘Forbidden Lust,’ Trencher read. ‘By Deborah Lincoln.’ He picked up the book and started to leaf through the pages. He looked up again at the two men. ‘You’ve got to be shitting me.’

  ‘No sir,’ Moses said. ‘We’ve checked with the publishers, a small group out of Monterey. The books are real, and they sell; we even checked Amazon, and it all seems legit. The royalty checks get sent to Mark Cole. Deborah Lincoln is popular around the world, but of course Cole can’t make any public appearances because he’s writing under a pseudonym, and he’s a man.’

  ‘If he does write them himself,’ Trencher added.

  Arnold nodded. ‘Chances are he doesn’t, but it’s a hell of a cover story, isn’t it? He never has to be seen, and royalty checks can hide his real payments. But the books are real, which indicates it’s a real professional set-up.’

  ‘You’re telling me you think it’s a government cover.’

  ‘Seems pretty likely,’ Arnold confirmed. ‘Before seven years ago, nothing was really heard about this Mark Cole guy. Normal birth, academic and job records, but nothing that couldn’t be forged or made up. And then he pops up in the Caymans, married, and writing romance novels.’

  ‘And something tells me you have more,’ Trencher probed.

  Moses nodded. ‘Yes sir. A few days ago – the day after Bill was killed in fact – a yacht exploded off the coast of Cayman Brac. Seven men were killed, ended up in the hospital but their bodies were quickly taken away by representatives of the British government.’

  Trencher leaned forwards. ‘Tell me more.’

  Arnold continued the story. ‘Since the explosion, nothing has been seen or heard from Sarah Cole or her children. They left immediately with a friend of the family, Philip Tarr – we’re still trying to do a background check on him – and flew to Owen Roberts and then on to Miami. Nothing else after that, except the body of a man identified as Tarr was found in a dumpster truck in Munich yesterday.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘The British government has also put an armed guard on the Cole house in Cayman Brac.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And there has been a recent European-wide APB put out for Mark Cole, describing him as a dangerous terrorist suspect.’

  ‘Conclusions?’

  ‘Well,’ Arnold answered slowly, ‘what appears to have happened is this. Mark Cole is an assassin for the British government, masquerading as a romance novelist. He was ordered to kill William Crozier, probably by Hansard himself. He did the job, and then it looks as if Hansard wanted to take him out of the picture too. Cole would have warned his wife and family, who took off to Europe with Tarr, probably to a safe location where they could all meet up. Hansard has tried to have him captured – and probably killed – ever since.’

  ‘Why are you so sure of Hansard’s connection to this?’

  Moses answered this one. ‘Well, Sarah Cole’s maiden name was given as Foster on the marriage certificate, but due to the seriousness of this situation we decided to dig a little deeper. And it turns out that Sarah Cole was actually born Sarah Hansard. She is Sir Noel Hansard’s only daughter, which makes Mark Cole Hansard’s son-in-law.’

  ‘Okay,’ Trencher said finally. ‘Okay.’ He took another sip of his coffee and moved one of his pens. ‘You’ve convinced me. Cole is an assassin, and Hansard probably ordered him to kill Bill. The trouble is, it’s all circumstantial. The evidence isn’t solid. Nobody’s going to buy it. The surveillance footage? The Brits will just say we doctored it. It’s no proof at all. The fact that Hansard and Cole are related? It means nothing, in and of itself. And nor does any of it.

  ‘We need actual proof, guys. Evidence that I can not only present to Dorrell and to Abrams, but which they can then present to the heads of ERA. I’m talking confessions.’

  ‘What?’ asked Arnold, not quite believing his ears.

  ‘What else have we got? Nothing. We need a full confession from Hansard or Cole, and any evidence they might be able to bring to the table.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Moses was not normally one to question authority, but it appeared that Trencher really had lost it.

  Trencher, for his part, decided to ignore the question entirely. ‘And because nobody seems to have any idea where this Mark Cole is, then it looks like you’re going to have to get it from Hansard. Remember what I said the other day? “Fly to London and string Hansard up by the balls if you have to.” I was joking then, but I’m not fucking joking anymore. I want you on the first flight out of here.’

  Moses and Arnold looked at Trencher, and could indeed see that the man wasn’t joking at all.

  63

  The rest of Cole’s journey proved to be rather uneventful.

  He had left the BMW in a multi-storey car park in Innsbruck just as the couple were waking up in the back, and swapped to a silver VW Golf for the last leg down the L227 to Kreith.

  It was late morning when he entered the village. The sun was high and the sky was unusually bright and clear. The snow clouds had completely disappeared, and even though the temperature was still below zero, the intense rays of the sun made it feel much warmer.

  Cole had contacted Stefan from Innsbruck. After he had abandoned the BMW, he had made his way to an underground cyber café, where he had sent a coded message via a secure, encrypted email account. He had been relieved when the coded reply came through that his family were safe and well, although Tarr’s death upset him greatly.

  Due to the nature of his work, he didn’t associate socially with that many people, and Tarr was a friend that he would badly miss. The feeling of guilt for involving his friend in the first place came at him with a sharp stab, but Cole pushed such thoughts to one side. He was still operational, and stopping to examine his feelings was a good way of getting killed. For now, he had to concentrate on getting to his family and making sure they were safe. Guilt could – and, he knew, would – come later.

  Stefan’s reply also confirmed that the area seemed to be clear of surveillance, and it didn’t seem that anyone knew that Cole’s family was there. He didn’t make the claim that there was definitely no surveillance though, as there were never any guarantees in this game, and Cole knew he would have to be cautious nevertheless.

  And so as he turned the VW off the L227 and onto the access road to the house, he was still very wary about checking and double-checking everything about him.

  As he came out of the tree line though, he couldn’t help but smile. The house – and his family – were just ahead.

  The phone calls had been coming
in for the past twenty minutes or so, friends from the village letting Steinmeier know about the man in the silver VW driving slowly along the main road through Kreith.

  He would have been concerned had Cole not contacted him from Innsbruck with his ETA just an hour before. As it was, he simply got ready to greet his friend.

  He had told the good news to Sarah, and she had asked – actually, demanded – that Steinmeier help her down the stairs. After everything that had happened, there was absolutely no way that she wasn’t going to meet her husband at the front door.

  Steinmeier decided to hang back further down the hallway, not wishing to interfere with the family reunion, whilst Sabine and his own children prepared hot drinks and gingerbread in the kitchen.

  And so it was that as the little silver car pulled up onto the recently cleared driveway, Sarah Cole waited impatiently by the front door, supported by wooden crutches, with Ben and Amy chattering excitedly next to her.

  The message came through Albright’s earpiece, crystal clear. The two lookouts by the main road were warning them that a silver VW Golf, driven by a man matching the general description of Mark Cole, was just turning onto the access road.

  Hansard’s operators all unbagged their weapons quickly and efficiently, retrieving them fast enough so they could be bedded back down before the car arrived. The vehicle took longer to arrive than they would have thought, and Albright knew that Cole would be checking everything around him in minute detail. The man hadn’t survived this long by being careless.

  The other men seemed to instinctively realise this too, and they remained absolutely still, making no move whatsoever that could be picked up on by a keen observer. They just lay in wait, weapons aimed.