Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2)

by Clark, Nicholas P

  of vigour was due to possible pursuers who down to the fact that his pride would not kind of pristine sparkle that could only be bought. Jack had a BMW and a Range Rover. The BMW would normally have been his choice, but he had been stopped a few times by the police while driving it, and for no good reason. Jack reckoned if there was a reason for the unreasonable stops it may have lay in simple jealously. He would have stopped a prick in a flash beamer had he been a cop. The Range Rover was a different prospect altogether. He had never been stopped while driving it; probably because Range Rovers were one of the favourite modes of transport for the political elite, as well as the more powerful, high-ranking cops.

  There were a set of keys in the unmanned office at the front of the garage, but Jack kept a set of keys with him at all times. He didn’t have a driver, like many of the other car owners who rented space in the garage; he did hire a driver from time to time if he felt that turning up to a particular meeting with a driver would impress.

  Jack was in such a rush to get to the Range Rover that he almost forgot about the roller door that needed to be could drive out. The controls for the door were office—another pointless security measure that never would have been allowed back home; health and safety would have been spitting fire had they encountered a door, the control for which was at the other side of the building. The door to the office was locked, which was a sensible precaution considering that the office contained the keys to several million pounds worth of automobile. What was much less sensible was the fact that the door to the office was made up of two pieces of glass; both of which shattered with ease when Jack picked up a small, metal bin and threw it at the door. Barry was taken by surprise by the sound of the door being obliterated, and he spun round with his gun raised, pointing directly at Jack.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Barry called, “You could have let me know that you were going to that. I could have bloody killed...”

  Jack didn’t wait for Barry to finish his rebuke. He stepped through the doorway and thumped the large green button on the back wall. At any other time the horrendous noise of metal rubbing against metal as the door began to roll up, would not have caused Jack a second thought, nor would the high pitched screeching sound from the pooropened so that they on the inside of the

  ly maintained mechanism, but with untold men, both legal and illegal out to kill him, the sound that the door made was maddening. The mechanism struggled to lift the door the last few feet; Jack just wanted the process to come to an end so that he and Barry could get the hell out of there.

  “Where the hell is your car at?” Barry called.

  “This way,” replied Jack. “We don’t have much time.”

  The last statement was as much a motivation to himself to hurry up as it was to provide Barry with information that he already knew. Within two minutes they were pulling out of the garage at a speed which was less than sensible. Jack came to a stop by the control keypad which operated the back gate. Jack entered his pin. A small green LED above the numbers indicated that he was free to proceed. The gates in front of them swung open and Jack drove through the opening before the gates had finished the manoeuvre. Once he was out on the main highway Jack pressed his foot down on the accelerator; enough to get away from the housing complex as quickly as he could, but not so much that he would attract the attention of a highway patrol cop.

  “Where are we going?” Barry asked calmly, as he struggled to hide his concern.

  “My office. From there I can contact someone from the embassy, and they will be able to run some interference. Hopefully this little shit storm that you have kicked up here tonight will not result in an innocent woman being tortured and killed.”

  “Another one of your spy friends, is she?”

  “My personal assistant. And no, she has nothing to do with the intelligence community. She is just a hell of nice woman who purely by accident, ended up working for me. Even you would be hard pushed to find an excuse for her death.”

  The car fell silent. With their lives out of immediate danger, the animosity began to creep back into their relationship. As for his PA not being involved in the spying game; Jack didn’t believe that for a moment. She may not have been a trained spy but it would be naive of him to assume that she hadn’t been approached by someone in her own government and asked to keep an eye on what Jack was up to. That is how the game was played in every country. That didn’t mean that Jack

  91

  and she were on different sides, or that she should somehow be his enemy by default; it simply meant that he had to be a little careful about what information he shared with her. There were some meetings with certain individuals where Jack felt obliged to keep the details from her. But the fact remained, as a human being, she was someone who Jack liked a great deal. If things had been just a little bit different then she was someone who he would have been pleased to call a friend. For those reasons, Jack was determined to do everything in his power to get her back home safe and sound; and he was going to punish those responsible for her kidnap in the way that only he could. That punishment would be messy, both in actuality and in terms of the political fallout that would be caused. But this was personal, and the wrong doers of this country, no matter how important they were, needed to know that Jack and those he cared for were not to be touched. It was a defiant act that would never leave the kind of impression that Jack hoped for. There were simply too many wrong doers, and too many of them were entirely ruthless and incredibly powerful.

  “And what happens to me?” Barry asked. “You will forgive me if I don’t wait for the man from the embassy to arrange a nice stay in a South African prison for me. You can drop me off somewhere in the city and we go our separate ways.”

  Jack didn’t answer Barry. “You will leave me off somewhere in the city, Jack. I will not go to prison.”

  “And how long will it be before I come home to find you putting a gun to my head again? If I let you go, I may be signing my own death warrant.”

  Barry looked at Jack with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “What in the hell are you talking about; let me go? Unless I’m missing some crucial detail here it seems to me that you aren’t in any position to let me go. I’m not yours to let go.”

  To reinforce the point Barry shifted the gun that he was nursing on his knee so that it was pointing directly at Jack. Jack’s weapon was not on display; tucked as it was into the waistband of his trousers.

  “Barry, you should know by now that I am always one step ahead of you. Things are never quite as they seem.”

  92

  Barry grew agitated by Jack’s cryptic comment.

  “If I was still going to kill you then you would be dead, Jack,” Barry said. “So stop fucking around and drop me off somewhere.” Jack needed to know where he stood with Barry and the elation

  that Barry felt at having just escaped death was not a reliable indicator

  as to what he would do in the future; especially with regard to settling

  the ancient score. Pushing his buttons was the quickest way to achieve

  that.

  “I don’t know what you are worried about, Barry. After all, you

  have clearance to kill me from no less an authority than the British

  government. Maybe the man from the embassy will hold me down

  while you put a couple of rounds in my head?”

  “You are still a very funny man, Jack. You were a funny man when

  we first met, and you have not lost your touch after all these years. But

  do you want to know something really funny, Jack? Something that

  will really tickle your ribs?”

  There was a pause. Barry was going to wait for Jack to ask, and the

  longer he waited before asking, the more power Barry took back. “Go on then,” Jack said, in a tone of voice that someone might use

  with a persistent child.

  “I was gonna kill you; and I still might. I haven’t quite
made up my

  mind on that one. But that isn’t the really funny thing. No, the really

  funny thing is that what I told you back at your house was the truth.” Another pause.

  “About what?” Jack demanded, with growing impatience. “When I said that I had been given the all-clear to take you out,

  and that your government were OK with that. It was all true. Every

  last word of it was the god’s honest truth.”

  Jack smiled.

  “For god’s sake Barry. Is that really the best that you can do?” “You don’t have to believe me, and quite frankly I couldn’t give a

  shit if you don’t believe me. But there is someone high up in your

  organisation who doesn’t give a fuck if you live or die. And given the

  cold way in which they handed your life over to me without so much

  as an argument, tells me that whoever that person is, they would rather that you were dead. I get the feeling that I was only a convenient

  93

  excuse for them to have you bumped off.”

  Another short, yet much tenser, pause.

  “So Jack, how long do you think that it will take that person to find

  someone else to step up to the plate and put a bullet in your head?” Jack looked round at Barry.

  “OK Barry, if what you are saying is true, then answer me this.” “What?”

  “Who is this person who wants to have me killed? How did you

  meet him? Who introduced you?”

  Barry smiled.

  “Jack, in the last few years, because of the peace talks, I have met

  with more high ranking spooks than you have met in your entire career. And here’s the news flash that you have been waiting for; not all of them are as impressed by you as you are. When I mentioned that certain loose ends needed to be tied up during a round table discussion with members of the British and Irish governments the politicians nearly shit themselves. Your friend however remained very quiet. He took me into a room after the meeting and he asked me to write the names of those loose ends that needed to be tied up. There were nearly thirty names on that list. He took the list from me and he started to cross out names. He simply said no, each time that he put his pen through a name. He never said why; he simply said no. Your name was on that list. He could have crossed it out and that would have been an end to the matter. But he didn’t Jack. He handed you over like he was handing over a diseased dog for shooting. He told me that I had three months to do what I had to do, and that after that I had to stop, or I would be stopped.”

  Nothing more was said for a few miles.

  “It is certainly a nice story Barry, but I can’t accept that. Not based on some chance encounter with a shadowy, nameless spy with a grudge against me. It simply makes no sense. I have always worked on my own out in the field. I have no ambitions as far as promotions are concerned. Why in the hell would someone want to kill me? And if someone in British intelligence wanted me dead, why would they ask an Irish Republican to do it? And in the middle of sensitive negotiations? I’m sorry Barry, but that is simply too incredible to believe.” As Jack finished rubbishing Barry’s claims a terrible thought occurred to him; this was just the kind of thing his spy friends would do. Not only that, but the more that he thought about what Barry told him the more that it sounded like the truth. If the talks didn’t go the way the Republicans wanted and they leaked the existence of a British sanctioned death list, who in their right mind would believe them? Even the paranoid Unionists would have a hard time swallowing that particular story.

  Barry reached into his jacket pocket and he produced a packet of cigarettes. He opened the packet and offered one to Jack. With a quick shake of the head Jack rebuffed the offer. Barry popped a cigarette into his mouth and he lit it. He took a long, satisfying draw, like a man who had just had the best sex of his life. Jack was rattled and Barry was orgasmic about that.

  “So Jack, back to our current dilemma. I want to be dropped off in the city somewhere that you and your friends, if you have any in the entire British establishment, can’t get to me easily. You know, at least give me a fighting chance. For old time’s sake.”

  “If I was going to do anything for old time’s sake then I would finish what I started back on that container ship. In fact, I will do something for you, for old time’s sake.”

  “Oh yeah? And what might that be?”

  “I will give you a choice. You can either go with me to be debriefed by my government, or I can drive down some dark street in one of the townships and drop you off.”

  “Huh, I have been down many dark streets in my time Jack. There is nowhere in this country that you could drop me off where I wouldn’t feel safe,” Barry added, dismissively.

  “When I start blowing the horn and yelling that you are the man who put Mandela in prison, then you might wish that you were standing on one of those other dark streets.”

  Barry smiled. It was a defeated smile.

  “OK Jack, I can see that we are never going to see eye to eye on this one. Neither one of us is going to willingly give in to the other’s demands. Agreed?”

  Jack nodded his head in agreement.

  “So we both know how this is going to end,” Barry continued. “I am going to put this gun to your head and demand that you stop. You will stop, but it will not be somewhere clever. Some passing motorist will spot what is going on and the next thing you know every cop in the city will be closing in on us. And you know as well as I do that they will be closing in for the kill. Is that really how you want this to play out?”

  “Of course it isn’t how I want this to play out Barry. But if you give me no other choice then what other option do you leave me with? But there is one thing that I know you will do for me. And you will do it without kicking up a fuss.”

  “That isn’t likely, but I am listening.”

  “You are going to open the window before I choke to death on that fag smoke.”

  “For god’s sake Jack, it isn’t that long ago that you smoked. Nothing worse than a poacher turned gamekeeper.”

  “And I loved to smoke, but the fags here are deadly. Even the familiar brands. There’s something about them that goes for my throat. I just can’t have them.”

  Barry grinned as he looked at his cigarette.

  “That’s true. But you get used to them, after a while.”

  “I’ll take your word for that. Now, are you going to open the window or am I going to have to shoot it out?”

  Jack slipped a hand into his inside jacket pocket as if reaching for his gun. Barry shook his head and then he turned away from Jack to press the button on his door to lower the window.

  “Are you happy now?” Barry asked, as he turned back to face Jack. Jack slipped a canister of gas out of his jacket pocket while Barry was sorting out the window—this was the surprise that he had arranged back at his house when they were picking their weapons. The safety pin he pulled out with his teeth, effortlessly. Barry’s face hardly had time to register the horror that he felt on seeing the gas canister being shoved in his face, before Jack depressed the button and surrounded Barry’s head in a small cloud of choking gas. Barry instantly lost consciousness. He slumped forwards in his seat and Jack expertly threw the gas canister, still hissing out fumes, out through the open

  96

  side window before he also succumbed to the effects of the gas. He looked down at Barry with a look which bordered on the over-content. “It looks like there was more than one way to sort this wee mess out after all. Old friend.”

  Jack put his foot down on the accelerator and the Range Rover growled contentedly as it headed in the direction of his office building. He hoped like hell that the police had concluded their investigation of the explosion in the building before he arrived; if not, he had no idea where he would go to next. The one thing that he was certain of was that he could not drive around all night with an unconscious Irishman in his car. A car, which in a
very short space of time, once the police had reviewed the CCTV footage back at the garage; they would be looking for, with a view to stopping it, at all costs.

  97

  8

  To have and to Hold

  Jack pulled into the small staff car park of his office building, at street level, with Barry still dead to the world. Barry had not made a single voluntary movement since Jack hit him with the gas. His body was dead weight and it rocked around with each manoeuvre Jack made— had it not been for the seat belt, then Barry would have landed on the floor after a very short space of time.

  The staff car park was really a small annex off the main car park, where the bomb had exploded earlier that day. It was not part of the main crime scene, yet it offered Jack a clear view of the main cark park through the security railings between the two. As he parked up in the almost empty lot, he studied the main car park very carefully. There wasn’t a single policeman to be seen. That was highly unusual. It could take days for a scene to be thoroughly examined; and even the highly ineffective South African cops normally took that long. What they lacked in results and arrest rates, they more than made up for through their amateur dramatics. They had many years practice playing to the world’s media as they tried to present a modern force that

  took the rule of law very seriously. That historic legacy of putting on a show without actually doing much about solving crime was a hard habit to break, and the new black recruits that were joining the force in their thousands quickly fell into the same habits as those who had once oppressed them with such tactics. After all, no one in the old force was going to risk life and limb to find the killer of some teenager in one of the shanties; or investigate claims that a crime had been carried out against a member of the public by a police officer.