Payback
Page 21
Elena did know, of course she knew, but she couldn’t say it. Not then. But she didn’t want to lie to Danny. ‘No one’s told me anything.’
She looked away, pretending to examine the hardened, protective plastic coating which had been sprayed on the burns on her arm. ‘Maybe they’ll tell us. Soon.’ She wanted to change the subject. ‘How did you know what to do?’
‘My granddad; he was signalling “Cover” in Morse code. I knew he meant us to get behind the sofa.’
They fell back into silence, both of them reliving the horrific moments up to the explosion.
There were footsteps in the corridor and the door was unlocked. Marcie Deveraux entered the room, with the guard following. She was wearing a neck brace and walked stiffly. At the moment of the explosion she had been flung back against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Her black hair was singed and her eyebrows had disappeared. There were cuts around her eyes and her bottom lip was swollen.
‘It’s over,’ she said when she saw the fear in Danny and Elena’s eyes. ‘You have no need to be afraid.’
‘My granddad?’ said Danny quickly. ‘Where is he?’
Deveraux paused for a moment. ‘Here.’
‘Is he . . . ? Is he all right?’
‘You’ll see him soon.’
Elena knew the answer to the question Deveraux had neatly avoided, but all she could do was wait until Danny learned the truth and then be there to help him. But she had a question of her own. ‘My dad? Have you found him?’
Deveraux replied without a flicker of emotion, ‘Probably lying low somewhere.’ She went to Danny’s wheelchair, eased off the brake and then looked at Elena. ‘We have questions for you both. Can you walk? I can send for another wheelchair.’
‘I don’t need your help,’ said Elena, struggling to her feet. ‘I’ll walk.’
Deveraux shrugged and pushed Danny to the door. A jet aircraft engine screamed overhead, and as they moved down a long corridor with no windows and only fluorescent lighting overhead, the guard followed behind them.
The building seemed to be laid out in a square. At the end of the corridor they turned to the left and continued until they came to a closed office door, where Deveraux knocked once. She turned to the guard. ‘That will be all. Thank you.’
The guard nodded, and as Deveraux opened the door, he turned and walked away.
They could see inside the surprisingly large room. To the right a man was sitting behind a desk, and on top of the desk was Elena’s battered laptop. It was open.
The man smiled. ‘Come in, please.’
Deveraux nodded for Elena to go into the room and she walked through, her eyes fixed on the laptop.
‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to provide you with a new one,’ said the man. ‘My name is Dudley. I hope we are going to be friends.’
‘Friends!’ said Danny angrily as Deveraux wheeled him through the doorway. ‘After what you’ve done to us? And my granddad!’
‘Yes,’ said Dudley with a sigh. ‘It has all been rather . . . unfortunate. But—’
‘I want to see him! Where is he!’
‘I’m here, Danny,’ said a voice from behind them.
Danny looked back. The far end of the room had been hidden from view as they passed through the open door. Fergus was lying, half raised up, in a hospital bed.
‘Granddad!’ said Danny, pushing himself up from the wheelchair. He’d never called him Granddad before – not to his face; he’d never been able to do that. But now the word burst out at the joy of seeing Fergus alive.
He was alive. In a mess, but alive. His head was bandaged; so were both his hands, and next to the hospital bed there was a stand with blood and plasma bottles. Tubes ran into Fergus’s left arm.
Danny struggled to operate the wheelchair and Elena grabbed the handles and pushed it across the room so that he could sit at the bedside. ‘I thought . . . I thought . . .’
‘Yeah, me too,’ said Fergus weakly. ‘The cooker saved me – they built those old ones to last.’
‘What about Fincham?’ said Danny. ‘Did he get away?’
Dudley got up from his chair and moved around the desk. ‘George Fincham is dead. Your grandfather’s explosive device was extremely effective.’ He glanced as the assorted cuts and bruises on all their faces. ‘Perhaps a little too effective. But the whole matter is now satisfactorily concluded. The Secret Ultra file was erased, and as far as we are concerned it never existed.’
‘What about the other ones who’ve been after us for the past six months? What happens to them?’
‘Fran and her team were completely unaware that they were operating illegally for Fincham. Their future is secure.’
‘So that’s it?’ said Danny. ‘Can we just go? Are we free?’
Dudley paused for a moment. ‘Your grandfather and I have been having a long conversation about that.’
Danny and Elena looked at Fergus, and he nodded at them reassuringly before Dudley continued.
‘You see, we need your help.’
‘Our help?’ said Elena.
‘You’ve shown remarkable skill and ingenuity over the past few months. We would like you to work for us, on a temporary basis to begin with, and on a very specific operation.’ He glanced across the room. ‘With Miss Deveraux.’
Danny stared at his grandfather. ‘Is this for real? She wanted to kill us – all of us.’
Deveraux didn’t appear any happier about the prospect of teaming up with her former adversaries than they were. But she was a professional. ‘That was in a previous mission. That mission is now concluded satisfactorily.’
‘And it’s as easy as that for you, is it?’
Deveraux’s face gave away nothing.
Fergus shifted slightly in the bed. ‘Just listen to what Dudley has to say, then I’ll have my say.’
Dudley nodded his thanks to him. ‘The teenage suicide bombings – I’m sure you’ve heard about them.’
‘Yeah, we’ve heard.’
‘We want you to help us catch the person orchestrating these attacks,’ said Deveraux.
‘But why us? What can we do?’
Dudley walked back to his desk and sat on the corner, with his hand resting on Elena’s laptop. ‘You see, all three of the unfortunate young men were recruited through the Internet, and as we now know, Miss Omolodon is quite an expert on the Internet.’
‘There are plenty of experts out there,’ said Elena. ‘And I prefer to be called by my first name.’
Dudley smiled. ‘Before each bombing, the young men tore out the hard drives of their own computers and destroyed them. But our own experts have managed to find a link between them by studying the screen burns on the computers themselves. All this modern technology is beyond me, but I’m sure you understand, Miss Om— Elena.’
‘Yeah, but I still don’t see why you need us.’
‘Not only me. The Prime Minister himself has requested that you help us in this mission.’
Danny laughed. ‘Yeah, right. The Prime Minister needs our help?’
But Dudley wasn’t laughing. ‘The whole nation needs your help, Danny.’
‘They’re asking a lot of you, Danny,’ said Fergus. ‘To my mind, too much. But I can’t tell you what to do: I’ve run your life and made your decisions for long enough. It’s up to you now. Both of you.’ He looked at Dudley. ‘Tell them about the screen burns.’
‘Yes, of course. The screen burns revealed exactly why we need you to help us in this crisis. Just two words.’
Danny looked at Elena and then back at Dudley. ‘What were they?’
‘Black Star.’
THE END
Some time later . . .
It was a small, family-run hotel just outside Oxford. The attractive ivy-walled building stood in its own neat grounds, but as Danny and Elena helped Fergus from the MPV into his wheelchair, the last thing on their minds was the look of the place. They were exhausted after a hard day of tradecraft training, and a
ll they were thinking of was a quick bite to eat and an early night.
With so much to learn, absorb and remember, the time had passed swiftly. Even from his hospital bed, Fergus had insisted he be fully involved in their preparation. He was worried; there was too much for them to take in, too quickly.
He was just about fit enough now to be pushed around in a wheelchair, but as they waited in the reception area, he could see that both Danny and Elena looked worn out. It was yet another worry; tiredness could mean a lack of focus and concentration.
A smiling woman of around fifty emerged from the room behind the reception desk. ‘Good evening.’
‘We have rooms booked,’ said Fergus.
‘Yes, we’ve been expecting you. Could you fill in these cards for me, please? One each.’ She passed one to Danny. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Danny smiled as he picked up the only pen on the desktop and began filling in the card; he wasn’t used to being called ‘sir.’
The woman watched him and chatted on in a friendly way. ‘Been a lovely day, hasn’t it? I hope the traffic wasn’t too awful for you; they say we’ll have to wait another ten years for the by-pass. It takes me so long to get into Oxford. All those lorries, and the parking! It drives me mad.’
Danny finished filling in the card, slid it across the desktop and handed the pen to Elena as the woman picked up the card. She took one quick look at it and held it up to Fergus. Her smile had disappeared.
‘Stop!’ shouted Fergus at Elena before she could start filling in her card. ‘What did he do wrong? And what have you just done wrong?’
‘I . . . I don’t know.’
Fergus moved the wheelchair forward and grabbed the card his grandson had completed. ‘Look at the signature!’ he bawled at Danny. You signed Watts! What’s your name now!’
‘Wilkins. Danny Wilkins. But I thought—’
‘You didn’t think! You just picked up the pen and started writing. And you forgot everything I’ve told you.’ He nodded towards the woman behind the reception desk, who was shaking her head disapprovingly. ‘Laura didn’t even give you the full works. You made it easy for her.’
‘But I’m knackered and I wasn’t thinking,’ said Danny.
‘Well, start thinking. Until this is over, you are no longer Danny Watts. You’re Danny Wilkins, wherever you are and whoever you’re with.’
‘Look, I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry won’t be good enough if you make the same mistake on the outside.’ He turned to Elena. ‘And what did I tell you about pens?’
‘Always take it or pick it up with my left hand. I know I didn’t, but it was Danny and—’
Fergus wasn’t interested in excuses. ‘Why? Why are you meant to do that?’
Elena sighed. ‘Because it gives me time to think as I put it into my right hand. It’s a reminder that I’m not Elena Omolodon any more.’
‘It’s just one of your reminders. The clothes you wouldn’t normally wear, your watch on the opposite wrist – they’re all reminders. You both have to remember your tradecraft: it’s vital.’
Danny and Elena exchanged a look. They knew they had messed up, but before they could offer any further lame excuses, Marcie Deveraux walked through the entrance door carrying the keys to the MPV.
Fergus glared at Danny. ‘Her name? What is it?’
‘Marcie Davenport,’ said Danny.
Fergus nodded and turned to Elena. ‘And she is?’
‘My aunt. My mum’s sister.’
‘Good. Remember it. And get to know this place, and Laura and her husband. This is your new home, your alias cover address. And no more mistakes. Because the next one could be the last one you ever make.’
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GLOSSARY
Bivvy bag Gore-Tex sleeping cover
Bomb burst Split up
Contact In a fire fight with the enemy
CTR Close target recce
Cuds Countryside
Dead ground Ground that cannot be seen
DPM Discruptive pattern material
ERV Emergency rendezvous
FARC Colombian drug traffickers
FOB Forward operating base
GSW Gunshot wound
HE High explosives
IBs The elite of the Secret Intelligence Service
IED Improvised explosive device
Int Intelligence
LS Landing strip
LUP Lay-up point
Mag A weapons magazine that holds the rounds
Make ready a weapon To put a round in the chamber, ready to be fired
MoD Ministery of Defence
NVGs Night viewing goggles
OP Observation post
PAD Protection aren defence
PE Plastic explosive
Pinged When someone is first seen
Recce Reconnaissance
The Regiment What SAS soldiers call the SAS
Rounds Bullets
RV Rendezvous (meeting place)
Sit Rep Situation Report
SOP Standard operating procedure
On stag On guard
Stand to Get ready to be attacked
Tab Forced march or speed march
SURVEILLANCE TALK
Complete Inside any location – a car, building, etc.
Foxtrot Walking
Held Stopped but intending to move on – i.e. at traffic lights
Mobile Driving
Net The radio frequency the team talk on
Roger OK or understood
Stand by! Stand by! Informs the team something is happening
Static Stopped
The trigger Informs the team that the target is on the move
HACKING TALK
Exploits Hackers’ targets
Root access When the hacker has control of the system under attack
Script kiddie Novice hacker
Script A program written by a hacker
Spoofing Hiding a computer’s IP address