by JT Brannan
Such safe houses were remnants of the transatlantic ‘special relationship’ enjoyed between the US and the UK and, although press reports indicated that it wasn’t what it once was, the intelligence community was still pretty tight. In this day and age, with terrorism a global concern, it had to be. And so the British government was only too happy for the American intelligence services to have their own stations within the UK. It allowed the CIA and other US agencies to perform aspects of their work away from the prying eyes of Congress, whilst Britain received reciprocal favours in return.
The street was quiet, perhaps due to the time of year, and Cole could see nothing at all out of the ordinary; which was, he thought ironically, odd in itself. But all in all, he was satisfied with the location. He was sure that his movements were now being monitored by electronic surveillance, but he was not concerned. His appearance was sufficiently different to his file photographs to ensure that a match would not be made. And anyway, he was officially dead – any agents now watching him wouldn’t even have access to his file.
He had heard that this was the location for many top-level interviews, from the protracted debriefings of KGB defectors from the Cold War, to the ultra-sensitive handling of politicians escaping the despotic regime of modern-day North Korea. Cole knew that only preliminary interviews would be held here, before the individuals concerned were spirited away to more secure, remote locations in the Scottish Highlands or Welsh mountains, in conjunction with the British Secret Intelligence Service. Nevertheless, if such stories were to be believed, then some very influential men would have spent at least the first few days of their new lives here behind the thick stone walls.
He was sure that the safe house would be like a fortress.
32
Sarah knew the location of the binoculars as well as her husband did, and had practised using them on more than one occasion, under his exacting instruction. She now carried them silently through the house, slipping upstairs to the top floor, where she entered a small cloakroom. She pushed her way through to the back, lying down prone on the floor. Reaching forward, Sarah pulled a small wooden slat to one side, leaving a six-inch by three-inch gap.
The opening gave her a view directly out of the wall of the house, and it was just big enough for the lens of the binoculars to fit into. Remembering precisely how Mark had demonstrated their use, she turned on the night-vision device and trained it out to sea. The glow was a strange, eerie green that took her a few moments to get used to. But when she did, it took her only a short while longer to locate the yacht she’d spotted earlier.
So, she thought to herself, I was right. It’s still there. Focussing the binoculars, she zoomed in on the vessel. Even with the impressive night-vision facility, it was still hard to make out details at this distance – Sarah estimated it was at least six kilometres out from shore. But she was patient, and waited. And waited. Until, finally, she saw movement. What looked like a tall blond man came out from below deck and walked to the bow, kneeling down as he got to an indistinct mound on the floor. The man knelt, his hand going down to touch it.
The mound moved under the blond man’s touch. Oh no, thought Sarah as she saw what the mound really was, the reality of the situation dawning. She then focussed her high-powered lenses, first of all on the blond man’s face, and then on that of the other man. Previously hidden under a dark blanket, the second man had been using his own night-vision scope to keep a quiet eye on the Cole household.
This wasn’t just out of the ordinary; this was a direct threat to her and her children.
She breathed deeply. Something would have to be done.
33
Cole arrived at the large, black-painted door at nine o’clock in the morning precisely. He struck the brass doorplate three times with the solid brass knocker, and after a few seconds heard the slow shuffle of feet from inside. This was followed by the sounds of a key being turned in a lock, and then the door was pulled ajar to a width of just three inches, a brass chain halting further progress.
A small old lady looked out curiously from behind the door, her eyes lighting up as they settled upon Cole. ‘Tom!’ she exclaimed, immediately taking the door off the chain and opening it wide, a smile on her face. ‘How lovely you came! Come in, come in!’ she gushed, gesturing for him to enter.
Playing along, Cole smiled back. ‘Hi, Edna,’ he said happily as he gave her a hug on the doorstep. ‘How have you been?’ The house, and maybe the whole street, might be CIA or SIS controlled, but you never knew who else might be watching. And so appearances had to be maintained at all times.
‘Me?’ asked Edna as she turned back into the house. ‘Don’t let’s talk about me when you’ve so much to tell me! It really is lovely you came, I can’t wait to hear about your trip, I’ll bet it was really nice, have you brought pictures? I’d love to see them if you have …’ On and on she droned, until the big front door was shut, at which point she became completely silent. Cole wasn’t surprised. After all, it wasn’t as if they knew each other.
Without another word, she led him down the hallway, past the entrance to an old-fashioned sitting-room, towards a polished oak door at the far end. The hall, he noticed as he trotted along after her, was exactly as one would expect were ‘Edna’ to have really been the owner of such a house – very neat and tidy, with a thickly patterned wool carpet and damask wallpaper, a selection of collectible antique china on the small mahogany hall tables. An expensive residence, but nice and homely all the same; perhaps the dwelling of a rich widow. The multitude of photographs of the same man adorning the walls would certainly indicate the fact.
A sham, of course, but any casual visitor to the house would certainly be satisfied. A more inquisitive caller could even be shown into the small sitting-room off the hall without their suspicions ever being aroused. The house certainly seemed normal enough.
As the frail woman approached the door at the end, Cole thought he detected a brief flash of light – a retina scan perhaps? – and then she put her entire right palm in the centre of the gleaming wooden door, turning the brass knob with her left. Cole was sure that her palm was also being electronically scanned as a further security measure. And then the door was open, and the old lady beckoned him through.
Cole passed her by, nodding his thanks as he went. As he entered the room beyond, his eyes widened involuntarily with surprise. He didn’t even hear the noise of the door clicking shut behind him.
34
After recovering from the initial shock, Cole started to more carefully appraise his surroundings. He was in what appeared to be a sprawling, top-class private members club. He was stood in what he took to be the reception area, a large room in and of itself; completely panelled in rich mahogany and swathed in thick wool carpet, it was the epitome of luxury.
He saw quiet reading rooms off to each side of the central lobby, men and women sipping at drinks whilst they studied the morning’s papers. Through the large, arched entrances on either side of the beautiful antique reception desk, Cole could see a vast lounge bar beyond. The lady behind the desk smiled at him as he approached. ‘Good morning, sir,’ she said amiably, though without real warmth. ‘If you would just wait there a moment,’ she continued, pressing a button under her desk.
Seconds later, two serious and competent-looking men came out from a side room. ‘We’ll just need to perform a quick search, please, sir,’ explained the first man politely. Cole just nodded his consent. He’d have been surprised had there not been a search. He assumed the only reason he had not been asked for identification was because Hansard had so ordered it.
The search was quick, but professional. After an initial pass with a portable metal detector, the second man performed a manual search – and not the pedestrian pat-down that is so often done, Cole noted, but a proper and thorough job. Cole was not concerned, though. He had nothing on him.
Satisfied, the men thanked him and retreated back into their little room. Cole looked around as they left.
He couldn’t see anything visible, but he was sure that every room in the building would be under close surveillance. Probably cameras behind mirrors, or hidden in the light-fittings.
The receptionist spoke again, now that the formalities were out of the way. ‘Mr Hansard sends his apologies, but he is running a little late. He invites you to relax and have a drink at the bar while you wait.’ The woman gestured through one of the arches behind her. ‘I think you’ll find it quite comfortable.’ Thanking her, Cole strolled through the vaulted entrance to the left of the desk.
The lounge bar, which he had seen partially from the reception area, was even bigger than he’d imagined. Sporting the same rich mahogany panelling and thick carpets as the anteroom behind him, the lounge was designed in open-plan. Quiet booths with deep leather bench seats and solid wood dining tables were spread along the walls to the left, and there was a long, gleaming bar stretching fifteen feet down the right hand wall. The rest of the floor space was adorned with various Chesterfield sofas, sumptuous leather wing chairs, and an assortment of antique coffee and lamp tables. Landscapes adorned the walls, and were illuminated subtly by the dull glow of the brass-pedestaled lamps that were scattered around the room. A galleried library looked out over the lounge from the mezzanine level above, its dark wooden bookcases stretching from floor to ceiling.
Cole found his breath was taken away by the sight. The room was not only inordinately luxurious; it was also vast. It wasn’t the high ceilings or the great depth that most surprised him however; it was the sheer width that really did it. Spanning a little over seventy-five feet in Cole’s estimation, it was three times the width of the house he had entered. Cole realized that his earlier thought about the CIA owning the entire street might not have been mere idle supposition. The organization certainly appeared to own at least the two houses to either side of the first, and Cole found himself wondering just how big this safe house really was.
After he had taken in the scale of the lounge bar, he began to observe its occupants as he walked slowly to the bar itself. There were about a dozen people there in all, only one of whom was female. Most were in their middle age, from what appeared to be a variety of ethnic backgrounds. All were smartly dressed. They were mostly reading the morning newspapers as they sipped at their dainty cups of tea or coffee, although a couple were perusing the leather-bound volumes up in the library. One or two sitting in the lounge had already started on the brandy.
Cole noticed that the nation-wide ban on smoking in public places obviously had no sway here, and he could detect not only the rich aroma of pipe tobacco, but also the expensive scent of cigar smoke.
None of the room’s residents looked at him, even in passing. They had all obviously passed the stage of interest in the comings and goings in the strange house. Cole guessed that they would be people who had already received their initial, and extensive, preliminary debriefings, and who were now waiting to see what would happen next; if they were going to be sent elsewhere for further interviews, or granted freedom to stay in the country, or perhaps even shipped home if they had been of no use. Whatever the case, Cole was sure that new arrivals to the house would not be allowed to congregate in the public rooms; they would almost certainly be ‘confined to quarters’, at least initially.
Cole wandered over to an old, button-back leather armchair that faced the twin arches at the entrance to the lounge and sat down, picking up a copy of The Times from the little table next to him as he did so. He opened the pages, and read them with interest.
There was nothing of major importance that he hadn’t learned from the television news he’d watched in his room that morning. A more thorough run-down of press interviews and statements from Abrams, Danko and Feng, but not much else. What was more interesting was what wasn’t there. Cole could find no mention on any of the pages of the death of William James Crozier.
He was not surprised at the omission of Crozier’s tragic, if necessary, demise. The CIA would think long and hard about how they were going to release the information, and make sure that there was a competent man waiting to take over Crozier’s responsibilities. The last thing James Dorrell, the Director of the CIA, would want would be a power vacuum. Bill Crozier, as Director of NCS, had been ultimately responsible for all international initiatives, and Dorrell would have to be sure his replacement was fully up to speed on all aspects of the Directorate’s activities. Dorrell would certainly not want the international press to start reporting on Crozier’s sudden and unexpected death; such an event would delight the intelligence services of America’s many enemies.
What would happen, Cole was sure, was that the death would be reported in a day or so, mentioning how Crozier had long been suffering from ill health, and how he had been working closely with his successor for the last several months in preparation for the tragic, but inevitable, passing on of the current DNCS. This would send out the right sort of message – that the death, although tragic, was nevertheless expected, and the CIA had made preparations for the event that would ensure operations could continue without skipping a beat.
The truth, Cole knew, would be somewhat different. There would be panic at the highest levels of the CIA as they struggled to find someone to take over and bring that person up to speed, then further panic when they realized that all sorts of operational secrets had gone to the grave with Crozier. But that panic would never be made public, and the transition to power of the new DNCS would appear to be smooth sailing, at least on the surface.
But, Cole wondered, could there be another reason that Crozier’s death had not been mentioned? Could he have failed in his mission? Could Crozier have lived?
Cole silenced the doubt as soon as it arose. He knew the man could not have lived. At the cemetery, Cole had struck three of Crozier’s vital nerve points, in quick succession. As he’d stepped ‘accidentally’ backwards into Crozier, the point of his elbow hit a nerve inside the man’s forearm, next to the long radiobrachialis muscle. It was fairly harmless in itself, but Cole’s steel-like fingertips had then grasped one of the series of nerves lying near the medial deltoid muscle of the shoulder, and he had then lightly tapped the Seventh Cranial nerve near the hinge of the jaw.
After the initial impact felt by Crozier when Cole had stepped back into him, the next two nerve manipulations had appeared to be nothing more alarming than natural moves by Cole to check if the man he’d bumped into was okay. But they had made the initial, otherwise harmless strike into a deadly one, interrupting the flow of blood to both the brain and the heart with devastating effect. Cole knew the results would not be instant, but also knew they would be permanent. Cole had estimated that Crozier’s death would occur approximately one hour later.
Such nerve strikes were known to the Chinese as dim mak, and to the Japanese as atemi; to the Indians, from whom Cole had learned the art, it was known as marma adi, the most advanced stage of knowledge in the ancient Indian martial art of kalaripayattu. To its adepts, the title didn’t matter, only the results. Depending upon the skill of the practitioner, these could range from temporary paralysis, to instant death, to a certain death, delayed up to several hours. It was a deadly art indeed, and Cole had learned its secrets well.
Having studied martial arts from his youth, Cole had thought only of strength and aggression; he had had little time for rumours of such mystic ways. He had won countless fights with basic moves, honed through thousands of repetitions, and with a brutal and aggressive application of those moves. He had trusted nothing that couldn’t be both learned, and retained, easily. But that was before his capture in Pakistan, and before he’d met Panickar Thilak, an Indian ‘cross-border terrorist’ who had occupied the cell next to him for over a year. Panickar had shown him that such skills were no myth; they were real, and could be used.
Knowledge of such a skill was what now made Cole such a valuable asset. ‘Enemies of the West’ could now be killed cleanly, effectively, and with no indication as to how it had been done – no alien che
micals in the body, no severed brake lines, no accidental ‘falls’ in front of speeding trains. Just a heart attack, a stroke, a brain haemorrhage. Unfortunate, but often just an unavoidable part of life, and unworthy of further investigation. And all Cole had to do was get close to them.
He closed the paper and placed it back on the table next to him. No, thought Cole, Crozier was dead.
35
It was nearly ten o’clock when Hansard entered the reception lobby, Stern at his side. There was no search or metal-detector check-in for him, Cole noticed. An assistant came out to greet him, taking the coat from his shoulders before he ventured through the archway into the lounge.
Leaning on his ebony cane and puffing on his pipe, Hansard scanned the room, his eyes lighting up as they met with Cole’s. He said something quietly in Stern’s ear, and the big man nodded grudgingly and moved across to the end of the bar. He pulled up a stool and sat down, all the while looking sullenly across at Cole, who ignored him.
As Hansard approached, Cole stood to greet him. Hansard propped his cane against a nearly chair and offered his hand, which Cole took. ‘Well my friend, looks like you’ve done it again. Got confirmation last night.’ He nodded at Cole approvingly. ‘Good man.’
So Cole had been right; there was nothing to worry about. Crozier was dead.
‘May I?’ Hansard said, gesturing to the chair near Cole upon which his cane rested.
Cole looked surprised. ‘Here?’ he asked.
Hansard sat down into the armchair and was followed, reluctantly, by Cole. A brandy was brought over immediately by the attentive barman. ‘Mark,’ Hansard began soothingly, ‘would you rather we had our little discussion in one of the interview rooms? Despite my influence, whatever we said there would be recorded and filmed. Likewise outside these walls,’ he continued. ‘You know nowhere is safe from Echelon.’ Cole nodded his head. The Echelon eavesdropping system was indeed an incredible technological marvel. As well as scanning every voice and electronic message sent around the world, its ingenious systems could turn anything into a voice recorder; it could take over the power of a mobile telephone and activate its internal microphone, or it could translate the reverberations of a pane of glass in a restaurant into voices. It was an incredible weapon, and Cole knew that if Hansard wanted the conversation recorded, there was nothing he could do to stop him.