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

by Clark, Nicholas P

  When he was confident that the coast was well and truly clear, Jack got out of the Range Rover, stowed Barry’s weapons in the boot, and then he headed for the nearby lift. He pressed the up button but the orange light which indicated that the lift had been summoned, did not come on. He pressed the button again. There was still nothing. Through frustration he pressed the button several more times. It was no use. The lifts had been disabled shortly after the bomb went off, in case there was a fire, and the all clear to switch them back on again had not been given. Feeling a little sore and embarrassed, Jack turned and walked away.

  The stairs were at the other side of the small car park. As he crossed to the door that led to the stairwell, he took another look across to the main car park. What seemed like miles of police tape fluttered on the breeze, and it looked as if there wasn’t a wall or ceiling tile that hadn’t taken some damage from the blast. In Jack’s opinion it would take weeks for the company that owned the building to make all the necessary repairs just to make the place safe. Yellow evidence bags filled with rubble had been left piled up at the side of the main lot. Jack shook his head and then he smiled. How in the name of all that was holy could the police ever hope to present any of that evidence in a court of law? There wasn’t even the pretence of trying to maintain the integrity of the evidence chain. It was as if they had all downed tools once it was quitting time and that was an end to their investigation. That probably wasn’t that far from the truth.

  Jack cautiously opened the door leading to the stairwell. He paused for a moment and listened. There were no sounds coming from the floors above, except for the low drone from the air conditioning system. Jack hurried up the stairs. It would not be that long before Barry would come back round, and Jack wanted to have someone there to take him into custody when that happened.

  It had been a while since anyone used the stairway entrance to the office, and the door put up an unexpected amount of resistance when he pushed against it. On entering his suite of offices he found that to his alarm, the door was being held back by papers and files, which were lying all over the floor. Surely Robert’s men weren’t so arrogant as to kidnap his PA from the office, with a major police investigation taking place downstairs, Jack thought. Then again, it might explain why the police seemed to have abandoned their investigation in the parking lot so quickly. Robert only had to make a phone call and the police would have packed up and left his men to carry out their own investigation; as well as the kidnapping. Their investigative techniques were not as refined as those adopted by the police, and given the fact that no really important information was kept in the office, that impromptu investigation would not have bore fruit.

  The mess was more of a message to Jack than a serious attempt to find out useful information about what it was that he and his company were up to in South Africa—a well paid cleaner, or one of their own spooks could have found out all that Robert, or his government, needed to know, and Jack assumed that they had already done that. The message was very clear—Robert was a powerful man who had the contacts and access to get to Jack whenever he wanted. Even the police were in service to him and Jack should not think for one moment that he could ever get the better of him and live—though Jack had thought of little else since the meeting at the old fertiliser plant.

  Jack moved through the smashed entrance where his PA worked, and he went into his private office. To his surprise everything was just as he had left it. There were two full size filing cabinets crammed full of documents in his office, but neither of them appeared to have been touched. Perhaps the untouched office was just another subtle message from Robert, Jack thought—I can either play nice, or nasty, depending on how you follow my instructions. Or perhaps they were disturbed while they were making a mess in the main part of the suite of offices? The private security firm which looked after the building used armed guards and they may not have had the same arrangement with Robert as the police had with him, or as Jack believed that he had with the police.

  Jack sat down behind his desk. He picked up the phone. For a moment he was lost. Every time that he picked up the phone in his office his PAwas always on the other end. He would simply tell her who he wanted to speak to and as if by magic, within a few seconds, the other person would be on the line. He knew the number for the embassy from memory—learning it was part of his preparation for the mission. He punched in the numbers. The sound of an unrecognised number screamed at him down the line. Damn it, he thought. I need an external line. She had told him many times how to get an outside line, but as he never envisaged a day when he would be making a call from the office without her assistance, he hadn’t paid that much attention to her. Nine! He grinned to himself when the number came to him. Out of practice he may have been, but an expert he still was as he punched in the numbers to the embassy.

  “Hello,” Jack said, into the handset. “I need to speak to someone about help with a business deal that I want to set up here in South Africa. There have been a few problems with my backers back in the UK. They say that they need to be reassured about the security situation in the country before they invest. Can you get someone with the relevant expertise to call me back on this number? Thank you.”

  Jack didn’t give the person on the other end of the phone a chance to answer any of his questions. That was the agreed protocol when one of the field agents wanted to speak to someone from the intelligence service. It was a well thought out plan, but like everything else in South Africa, the embassy at times tottered along on a wing and a prayer. Jack hoped that he had been speaking to someone familiar with the protocol and not just a random cleaner who happened to be passing the phone as it rang. His fears evaporated when the phone on his desk began to ring. He quickly picked up the receiver.

  “Is this a secure line?.... Good..... You do know who this is?..... Good..... I need a team at my place of work.... A pick up.... Force is not needed at the moment, but that could change at any time... There is some heat on me at this time, so I cannot guarantee the integrity of this location.... Moving the package would be too risky... Thank you..... Goodbye....”

  Jack replaced the receiver and then he lay back in the chair. It was clear that there was a lot that could go wrong before the security team arrived; but for the first time that day he felt like he was in control of the situation; more or less. He liked using code even when he was talking over a secure line. For Jack, there was no such thing as a secure line. As soon as his side came up with a way to keep important conversations private, then it would never be too long before their enemies found a way to crack the technology. And even more fundamental than that; surely a foreign power would find it highly suspicious if a phone line on one of their telecommunication networks wasn’t accessible? As soon as such a line was flagged up then they would find some way to listen in to the conversations of those who were using the secure line. A bug close to the phone; or a human asset listening in to the calls from his office. He may have been a spy from a different era, but the fact that he was still alive when so many of the more recent recruits had fallen, indicated just how well his old fashioned methods worked.

  In a few short minutes he would be able to rid himself of at least part of his current set of problems, and that would free him to concentrate on what he needed to do next. There was nothing more important than freeing his PA and taking Robert out. When that was over and done with then he might request an audience with Barry. His old associate had mentioned some very worrying things during that eventful evening, some of which had an air of truth about them; Jack was determined to find out just what was true and what was bullshit. Robert may not be the only one who would see the less friendly side to his character before too long.

  As Jack lay back in the chair he tried to relax. It had been an action packed day, even by his standards, and his body and mind both needed a well-earned break. It was no use. He simply couldn’t fight his own nature; his mind could not stay at peace as he slipped back into full tactical mode. It was how he
stayed alive, but it was also why he was burning through his allotted physical and mental resources at a rate that would alarm even the most forgiving doctor. His was a job that aged a man. His was a job that made a man truly feel alive. His was a job that he would not change for anything.

  The authorities were bound to be monitoring the telephones in the building and the moment that he placed the call to the embassy they would have been alerted. At that moment someone would be on their way to the office. They would probably keep their distance so that they could find out who Jack was meeting; but everything that was to fol

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  low would not be as clandestine as his masters would like to believe. Pulling into the British embassy with an unconscious Irishman in his Range Rover would have resulted in his arrest by the South African policemen who guarded the building. Jack did not have diplomatic plates, but the car on its way to his office to pick up Barry would have. The police would not stop and search the diplomatic car. That would have been a slap across the face to the British government and it would have started a row that could affect the relationship between the two countries for years to come.

  From the comfort of his chair Jack noticed that the lights had come back on the floor level indicator of the lift at the far side of the office. The distance between Jack and the lift meant that he could not

  see which floor the lift was currently on, but it looked to be on one of the lower floors. The lights started to flicker and shift. Jack initially felt mild relief—he hated using the stairs—there were too many blind corners for an attacker to hide behind. That relief quickly changed to mild concern. Someone was in the lift and they were heading his way. Jack got up from his chair. He left his private office and he moved to his PA’s desk, which was off to one side, but it offered a clear view of the lift. Jack pulled the gun out of the waistband of his trousers and then he knelt into a defensive position behind the desk. He took the weapon in both hands and he carefully aimed the gun in the direction of the lift.

  Jack had a bad feeling. The embassy was twenty minutes away, if the road was clear—but in his experience, that road was never completely clear. They could not have got to him that quickly. Jack took a deep breath as the numbers above the doors of the lift counted up. When the lift came to a stop on his floor he took another deep breath to steady his aim. The doors opened. Three men stepped out. They walked into the office. The doors to the lift closed behind them. Jack fired two rounds, hitting two of the men in the head. The men hit the floor dead.

  Robert looked angry and frightened all at once when his two most trusted goons lay dead at his feet. The concern on his face deepened when he watched as Jack stood up from behind the desk with his gun aimed at Robert. Jack walked into the middle of the room. Robert

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  genuinely looked as if he might burst into tears. His bottom lip was twitching like that of a small child right before they started bawling. Jack continued to walk slowly towards Robert. It was deliberate and calculated and intended to cause Robert as much distress as he possibly could.

  “Hello Robert,” Jack said, with menace. “It is really nice to see you again. It will certainly save me a lot of time and effort having to track you down.”

  “What can I do for you, Jack?” Robert asked, almost pleading. “I think that you know exactly what you can do for me. More than that Robert; you are going to do exactly what I want you to do. Do we have an understanding?”

  “I believe that we do.”

  “Good. You can use the phone in my office.”

  Robert looked confused for a moment. He suddenly realised what was being asked of him. His entire appearance changed to that of submissive helpfulness. It was a far cry from the hardened thug Jack had met with only a few short hours before. Or the self-important gangster who had ordered Jack’s execution.

  “I will call my men now,” Robert said. “I will tell them to bring your girl to you straight away.”

  “You will tell them to put her behind the wheel of a car. She can drive herself. If I see someone out on the street who might even look like they are one of your associates, then you are a dead man. Now be a nice lad; call your men and hopefully we can all walk away from this sorry mess in one piece. How does that sound to you?”

  “That sounds like a plan that I can live with.”

  As they walked through to the office Jack knew that his captive was already planning his next move; and that move would end with Jack lying dead if it was successful. The whole sorry mess would end in a fire fight, one way or the other, and the only person who Jack could call on at short notice to help him win that fight was lying unconscious in the passenger’s seat of his Range Rover. Jack tried his best to look confident and in control—he hoped that the team from the embassy got to him in time; if Robert’s men got here first then it really would be over. The race to survive was on, and for the first time in his

  career as a spy, Jack wasn’t running in that race, as he was completely at the mercy of others; be they good or bad.

  Jack invited Robert to take a seat behind his desk by waving his gun. Robert did as requested. He let his body fall into the chair like a man returning home from a hard day’s work. Robert picked up the receiver and dialled.

  “Put her into a car and tell her to return to the office. Tell her that if she doesn’t come I will have her killed. Tell her that she will be followed. But... And this is very, very important. Do not follow her. I have it covered from this end. Make it happen.”

  Robert put the receiver back in place. He was not a man who listened to arguments from his men, no matter how well meaning, and he wasn’t going to start listening to them at that critical moment.

  “What now Jack?”

  “Now we wait,” Jack replied.

  Robert sat back in the chair. Jack turned to face the lift. His fate would be decided by whoever walked through those doors next. Jack waited calmly. For better or worse, that fateful moment was almost upon him.

  The Devil is in the Detail

  Ten years ago—the South Armagh/Republic of Ireland Border

  Summertime in South Armagh was a miserable affair; for the most part it rained, or the landscape was shrouded in a damp, cold mist;

  and when the sun did make an appearance the soaked earth gave off

  so much water vapour that the humidity levels went off the scale, parboiling all those caught up in its choking embrace. To the unwary traveller transported to that godforsaken part of the world, it could

  just as easily have been some menacing tropical forest; with the lack of animal calls, monstrous trees and biting insects being the only clues

  that this place was situated on the extreme West of Europe. Everything about that one small part of the island of Ireland was damp, and that included the people; be they natives, or enthusiastic young British agents, such as Jack. A tough country for tough men, and only the very fittest, both physically and mentally, could ever hope to survive.

  It had been a glorious day. The sun had been in a picture perfect blue sky from early morning and it had managed, for a time at least, to dry the surface layer of moisture off the ground. It would take weeks or

  even months of such days to completely dry the countryside out, and

  as such an uninterrupted spell of fine weather had never before hit South Armagh, it was unlikely to start that summer. The few locals who Jack came into contact with on that morning made some comment about the weather. Some were glad for sunshine, while others joked that this was the one day of summer they were entitled to and that Jack should make the most of it.

  As Barry and Jack drove along the narrow country roads in a brown Opel car, both men silently pondered the mission to come that night. In South Armagh folks often kept to themselves and that meant that he could travel for miles without encountering another living being. On that day the population was out in force. Couples were walking hand in hand; old people were driving at a snail’s speed into town to do some messages; and farmers were
working in the fields giving a sense of reality to the expression, making hay while the sun shines. The further that they travelled away from the population centres the fewer people they encountered. The mean land in the mountains was no good for growing crops; not even hay.

  Jack didn’t trust the man sitting next to him, and he was certain that the man sitting next to him didn’t trust Jack either. There was nothing sinister about that mutual lack of trust, and in the world in which they both walked, it was natural and necessary. Any time that he was with Barry alone, Jack felt on edge—there was simply something more sinister about Barry than any of the others—he was not an easy man to read and he made an effort to keep all around him guessing by his unpredictable actions. If Barry had always been recklessly jovial, or if he had always been an uncompromising hard-ass, then Jack would have known exactly how to manage him—but Barry cycled through many types of mood, and none of those moods was predicable—Jack never knew which Barry he would encounter from one day to the next.

  He was expecting the car to come to a stop down some country lane, or in an isolated wooded area, only for Barry to pull out a gun and justify Jack’s fears and

  Barry knew that he had this effect

  their small circle of associates,

  suspicions with deadly accuracy.

  on Jack and most of the others in

  especially amongst the younger members, and creating that sense of unease gave him power over those around him which meant that very few of their number ever

  no matter how much dangerous nonsense he was challenged him, proposing. Even with both front side windows down as far as they could go, the heat on the inside of the car was stifling. That heat was magnified by the mock leather upholstery of the seats, but it did provide both men with some kind of cover—they could hide the nervous sweat oozing from every part of their bodies under the legitimate sweat of the humid air inside the car.