by Chris Allen
The answer to that question had eluded Davenport for so long he had all but given up wondering.
“It’s quite incredible the lengths that an impressionable young woman will go to in order to impress those whom she believes share her misguided idealism. Equally, there is great value in the gentle cultivation of a potential agent over a prolonged period of time. Particularly, when that agent is on a fast-track career path in the Ministry of Defence and her lover is an officer in the Special Air Service. Questions at the beginning are innocent enough; personal questions about her, her family, her life. Trust is established. Then friendship. It was the height of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Emotions ran high and young intellectuals had very strong views. So then the questions become more specific – does she have a boyfriend? What does he do? It must be hard being away from each other so much. Is he away now? Where might he be? I’m sure you understand, general.”
Davenport’s expression remained unchanged. Inside he was a defeated man, his greatest fear realized. The woman who at one point had been the love of his life had, throughout the tenure of their intimacy and their lives since, been his enemy. Worse, she had not only betrayed Davenport, but Davenport’s friends, and ultimately her country. Who knew what damage she had caused as her star continued to shine in Whitehall? Promotion followed promotion until she was named “C,” chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
“Destroying your mission in Tiergarten was as simple as a phone call to my little angel in Whitehall. I shot the two troopers dead. They had no idea. But I wanted a head to take back to my masters in Moscow. A bright young sergeant. I arranged to take him across the border into East Berlin and then the plan was to fly him to Moscow. But, as so often happens in the field, things did not go to plan.” He laughed again.
At this point Davenport was numb with anger. Not only was his mind alive with memories of his time with Ashcroft-James, but now he could see, as clearly as if they were sitting beside him, the faces of the three soldiers he had sent to their deaths during the failed operation thirty years ago.
“We took your man – what was his name?”
“Blair.”
“We took your man Blair up in a Fokker F27 and during my preliminary interrogation, he became aggressive and managed to break free of the bonds around his wrists. I was young and impetuous in those days and eager to impress my superiors with some raw intelligence when I landed. So, in order to show my disapproval, I hung him from the door of that aircraft and threatened to throw him out if he didn’t cooperate. And do you know what he did, general?”
Davenport just looked at Zolnerowich.
“He fought off the two men who were holding him and jumped of his own accord. I’ve always admired him for that. It took real guts to do that, don’t you think?”
“Of course. Sergeant Blair was an extremely brave man. I would have expected nothing less.”
“I’m so glad you feel that way, general, because I can think of no more fitting an end for the great Davenport than to be hurled to his death from an aircraft. Just like your man, Blair.”
“How very original of you,” Davenport answered defiantly. “Remarkable, really. You reach the rank of general in the armed forces of the Russian Federation. You amass billions of dollars of private wealth, using your son as the instrument of your extortion of your own country’s resources, but then the only seemingly original idea you come up with, you’ve stolen from a brave young man who sacrificed his own life to protect the interests of his country thirty years ago. No doubt you’ll outsource the hurling element of my demise to one of these clowns, too.”
Davenport felt them all bristle, including Zolnerowich, but again he had made his point. If he was going to die tonight he wasn’t going to be bloody well polite about it.
CHAPTER 34
Morgan found Reigns in the heather very close to the house. She, like Morgan, was dressed in black tactical gear and armed with their standard Sig Sauer P226 and an assortment of other weapons. Their balaclavas were rolled up as beanies.
“Hey, long time no see,” she whispered as Morgan crawled in beside her. “What brings you out into the English countryside on this balmy Friday evening?”
“There was nothing good on telly,” Morgan whispered. “Nice house. What do you think it’s worth?”
“More than you and I will ever see put together. How does a senior public servant afford a place like this?”
“Old family money, I’m told. What’s the latest? And is that the boss’s Jaguar I can see parked down the far side of the house?”
“It is indeed. There’s also a Land Rover Defender out front and if you look carefully through that open gate in the fence behind us, you’ll just see the silhouette of a light aircraft, I think it’s a Cessna 206, parked on the end of Wisley Airfield; it’s an abandoned World War Two strip. There’s a field between us and Wisley, but no other fences once you’re through that gate. Country folks don’t leave gates open on their properties. I reckon it’s been left open for convenience, by non-locals. I’m only guessing, but it’s not a stretch to consider that Zolnerowich came here by air from Gatwick.”
“Anyone in it?”
“I can’t be sure but I may have seen the glow of a cigarette a couple of times,” she replied.
“Jesus, how close is it?”
“A few hundred yards, if that. Close enough to get to easily through the open gate.” She pointed. “The strip was the first thing I checked out when they dropped me off up the road. That’s when I realized that the gate was open.”
“Any sign of the boss or anyone else, like Ashcroft-James?”
“Neither of them, but before you showed up I’d been watching two men dressed in black overalls doing regular patrols around the house.”
“A Secret Service protection detail?”
“No, they’re not giving me that vibe. Not professional enough – one is carrying a shotgun and the other’s probably got a sidearm, I can’t tell from here. But mostly they’re slovenly, if that makes sense?”
“Totally,” he replied. “How often are they doing their thing?”
“Every thirty minutes. They’re due again in about ten.”
“We better get a wriggle on then. Anything else?”
“I’ve done a circuit of the whole outside area of the house and there are lights on throughout, what you’d expect to see of a home that’s occupied, but most of the rooms that are lit are downstairs at the front. I haven’t gone in too close, because I know she has CCTV that’s linked back to the Met and Surrey Police.”
“Sheridan’s looking into that now via Commissioner Hutton. They’ll be reviewing the past twenty-four hours’ worth of recorded footage and, as we’re about to go in, he’s confirmed with Hutton that the CCTV will go offline from eleven pm.” He checked the luminous dial on his Tag Heuer. “In five minutes, and it’ll stay offline until we’re clear.”
“OK, so how do you want to play it?”
“Which door are the sentries using to come in and out?”
“This side, near the back, off the kitchen.” She pointed. “The lights are off down there but that’s where they’ve been coming from.”
“Sounds like the perfect place to start. Reckon you can get that Land Rover ready to go? If we find him in there, I’m expecting we’ll need to get out as quick as we can.”
“Sure. Just say when.”
“Watch me go in, give me a couple of minutes inside and then get it going. Give it a lot of revs once you do and keep it running. I’ll try to deal with their reaction but just keep your eyes peeled in case anyone slips through the net.”
“You got it. Check comms with Sheridan?”
They fitted their ear pieces and checked their radios. Morgan went first.
“Alpha-Alpha and Callsign Two, this is One. Comms check, over.”
“One, this is Alpha-Alpha,” Sheridan replied. “Loud and clear, over.”
Reigns confirmed she was loud and clear with bot
h Morgan and Sheridan then began to move cautiously around the shadows on the edge of the residence toward the Land Rover, maintaining a visual on the rear kitchen door.
Morgan made his way across the pebbled driveway that skirted the house from the front and around to the side entrance. At first he was careful not to make too much noise but then decided he was comfortable with the idea of drawing them out, and ran across. The pebbles crunched under every footfall. When he reached the kitchen door he pressed his back up against the wall beside it and waited. He saw a gardening shovel to his right and grabbed it. He checked his Tag. Almost 11pm. Anytime now.
Within a minute the door to the kitchen opened and a man appeared, dressed in black overalls, a cigarette hanging from his lips and a shotgun in his hands. Morgan had the shovel poised and ready. The moment the man cleared the step and his foot hit the pebbles, Morgan swung the flat back of the shovel blade with everything he had straight at the man’s face. It impacted with a sickly slap and crack. The man dropped the gun to grab at his face and began to fall backward against his comrade, but before the man completely lost his footing, Morgan brought the curved edge of the blade down hard across the top of the man’s right boot. Morgan could feel the damage to the guy’s foot instantly telegraph its way up the handle. The man howled in pain and fell to the ground in a heap. His head slammed against the stone step and he was silent. Morgan dropped the shovel, reached over and pulled his comrade outside, throwing him down on the driveway. He grabbed the dropped shotgun and slammed the butt into the guy’s temple. Two down. Morgan relieved them of their side-arms and tossed the shotgun into the shadows. Then he raced inside.
The howl from the first guy had obviously drawn some interest – Morgan could hear a ruckus developing ahead. The raised voices of men reacting to an uncertain set of circumstances. The tone and urgency may have been the same as English speakers, but these voices were speaking in Russian. Morgan raced toward the voices, through the kitchen and along an unlit corridor that connected with the main living areas of the house. Outside, the Land Rover Defender coughed to life and then began revving loudly. Good girl, Beth. Bang on time. As Morgan approached the end of the corridor, he could hear the heavy footfalls of men in boots rushing across the floorboards of the entrance foyer, heading for the front door, for the Land Rover. Heading toward Beth, as planned.
As he reached the foyer, there were two men with their backs to him preparing to rush outside. One got the door opened and the other was hot on his heels. Morgan intercepted them, ASP baton in his hand. With a flick of his wrist he extended it out to its full length. The gratifying click as the telescoping high carbon steel blade locked into place told him the weapon was ready. Morgan brought his right arm around and then drove the weapon down in a wide arc to strike at the side of the first man’s right knee. The impact immediately checked the man’s speed and he fell sideways into a potted fern. Morgan was following through when he was grabbed around the neck from behind. With the ASP still in hand, Morgan brought the weapon up and struck his assailant directly across the head, hard. The pressure on his neck released. Morgan raised his left foot high and then drove it down, scraping the man’s shin from kneecap to the top of his foot, then he spun and finished the guy off with a lateral strike with the ASP against the side of his head. The flowerpot guy was now back on his feet and dragging an automatic from a shoulder holster. Before the gun was fully withdrawn, Morgan had struck the gun-hand with the ASP and driven his left fist into the man’s nose. Reigns appeared in the doorway. She was closing her baton and Morgan could see that the first guy to make it through the door had obviously run into Reigns and was now face down and immobile on the front porch.
“What now?” she said.
Morgan was about to answer when he heard the spluttering of an engine coming to life not far from the house.
“Oh, shit!” said Reigns. “That Cessna is getting ready to take off.”
“Fuck! OK, see if Sheridan can get a vehicle onto that strip to cut them off at the far end, and bring the Land Rover around the back. Keep the lights off.”
CHAPTER 35
Reigns ran out through the front door, calling Sheridan on the move. Morgan ran through the corridors toward the back of the house and, following his instinct, soon found himself in a large drawing room that opened onto the gardens. He scanned the room as quickly as he could, searching for any signs of Davenport. At first glance it was as expected, elegantly appointed with Regency furniture and expensive-looking artifacts and paintings. He’d had his fill of the rich over the past few months and expected he would for quite some time to come. The thing that struck him most was that the room had very obviously been recently occupied – it still had the stale air of tension about it and was thick with cigarette smoke. Men had been in this room. Violent men. He’d seen some of them already; they were currently strewn semiconscious outside the kitchen and across the front entrance, and were about to be rounded up by the Surrey Constabulary. But there were more and they’d escaped. The French doors that led onto the gardens were open and a light wind stirred the curtains. Just as he was about to rush outside, his attention was drawn to the center of the room. He knew that they’d been right to move in. An old chair had been knocked over and there was a pile of discarded ropes laying in a mess around it. But the ropes weren’t what had piqued his interest. There were small circles of blood around the chair and ropes, which then streamed in a diminishing line toward the open doors. And just beside the chair, in a crumpled heap where it had been thrown at some point during the evening, was a Harris Tweed sports coat that Morgan recognized immediately. His eyes blazed as he reached for it and lifted it up to be sure. A rattle of keys in the right-hand pocket confirmed everything. The keys were for the Jaguar parked outside. The Jaguar that belonged to General Davenport. Morgan pocketed the keys, dropped the jacket on a nearby sofa and sprinted from the room. In an instant the lights of the house were behind him and he was running through the darkness, heading straight for the open gate in the fence line at the back of the property. The rumble of the Cessna was building now and Morgan knew it was minutes, if not seconds, away from taking off. He sprinted with everything he had, stumbled and fell more than once on the uneven grounds of the gardens, got up and kept going. To his right he heard the roar of the Land Rover as it sped from the front of the property, along the pebbled driveway and then bounced onto the lawns that paralleled the rear perimeter fence. He and the Land Rover were racing to the same point: the gate.
“Hit your lights and don’t slow down!” Morgan yelled into his radio and the lights blazed to life. He kept up his speed and in moments was level with the Land Rover and reaching for the passenger side door handle. He grappled it open and jumped inside.
“Get us on that strip.”
“Did you see any more of them?” she yelled back. “Any sign of the General?”
“No, but they had him back there, bound to a fucking chair. I found his jacket and there was blood on the floor.”
“Jesus!”
“I’ll tear these fuckers apart, Beth. I fucking swear it.”
The Land Rover raced across the lawns, through the open gate and onto the field that separated the house from the airstrip. Reigns expertly pushed the Land Rover over the uneven ground, maintaining a steady course straight for the southeastern end of the strip. What they saw in the Land Rover’s headlights caused Reigns to slam her foot down, and Morgan realized he was pressing his right foot flat to the floor, too.
Directly ahead of them in the aircraft was Zolnerowich, reaching back out of the aircraft to drag someone onboard. That someone was Davenport. It looked as though his wrists were bound. Despite what he’d already been through he seemed, from a distance anyway, as stalwart as ever and was resisting, as best he could, all their attempts to get him inside the aircraft. The General was being manhandled from behind by one of Zolnerowich’s thugs. He was a big unit, no doubt the Russian general’s primary muscle, and he was clearly getting frustrate
d with Davenport’s defiance. Despite Morgan’s rage, it was a relief to see the old man putting up such a good fight. Not that he expected anything less.
They were almost at the strip. The scene at the Cessna was becoming even more clear now. Then Morgan saw the thug, clearly at the end of his tether, produce a handgun, raise it above his head and bring it down on the crown of Davenport’s skull.
“Oh, God!” Reigns cried.
Beside her, Morgan was rigid with tension.
Davenport’s body slumped back against the thug and then he was bundled clumsily inside with Zolnerowich dragging his legs in as the thug clambered in over the top of him. The Cessna began to turn around and line up for take-off. Reigns got the Land Rover over the lip of the tarmac and slammed her foot down again as soon as she had traction on the hardstanding. The Cessna straightened and as they drew even closer they could both hear the whine of the revs over the sound of the Land Rover’s engine.
“Drop the lights again and get me along their port side, Beth. Under the wing. Go! Go!”
Reigns didn’t flinch or second-guess. She doused the headlights and lined the Land Rover up against the portside wing light of the Cessna. Morgan clambered between the front seats and into the back. He had his Sig Sauer in his hands and was mechanically checking that it was ready to fire. Reigns had the Land Rover at fifty-five miles per hour and was building to match the Cessna’s take-off speed. The Land Rover was powering across the surface of the strip and was almost level with the tail of the plane. Morgan knew they were close to take-off speed which, at their current rate, he estimated would be around seventy knots for the Cessna, eighty miles per hour for the Land Rover. He looked over Reigns’ shoulder. Seventy miles per hour. She had them perfectly aligned. It was time. Morgan opened the door, climbed out of the Land Rover and pulled himself up into a standing position with his feet on the running board and his hands hanging on tight to the edge of the metal roof-rack. The Cessna’s front wheels were just skimming the tarmac now and the engine was screaming to take off. Reigns knew exactly what Morgan needed her to do. She got them under the portside wing tip just as the front wheels of the Cessna lifted off. Morgan was buffeted by the winds racing against his body. He would only get one chance at this. Come on, Reigns. Come on. Now!