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

by Clark, Nicholas P

  As Jack spread his jacket next to the gap a large black snake that had been laying in wait for its evening meal of mice and rats hissed loudly before slithering off at high speed. Jack recoiled. He hated snakes. There was something

  that either they didn’t

  prehistoric about the creatures that told him belong in his modern world, or that he didn’t

  belong in their world. He would happily face down an angry armed Russian any day of the week. Jack hesitated as he dropped to his knees. One of the few things that his experience had taught him about snakes was that where there was one, there were always others. The gap left by the rotting root was an ideal place for insects, then larger animals feeding on the insects, then the snakes feeding on those creatures. Jack did not fit into that food chain anywhere, but he knew only too well that snakes were bite first, ask questions later kind of creatures and some of the buggers that crawled around on their bellies on South African soil were absolutely deadly. Fear gripped him for a few moments longer and it didn’t shift until he brought to mind a different though much more likely possibility—namely a bullet to the back of the head from a trigger-happy security guard. Like the snakes the guards may not have been anywhere to be seen, but just like the snakes Jack was certain they were out there, bring his little adventure to an end.

  He tried not to look as he forced himself into the hole. The rotting wood gave way with ease and all manner of insect life fell from the crumbling wood. For the

  more than

  most part he imagined that the creatures

  rotting wood and dislodged soil; but he were nothing couldn’t trick scampered up shirt. The hole smelled of damp and decay, like an old library or an ancient wood in the autumn. For a few moments after his legs went in after the rest

  lights from the

  of his body the opening went completely black as the

  street outside were completely obscured. He felt a million tiny eyes on him as everything went black. Jack began to breathe a little freer when the lights from the Embassy on the other side of the short tunnel came into view, and in his mind he imagined those same million tiny eyes turning their attention to something else— their chance to bite Jack had now passed and it was time to get on with the rest of their lives. Once his head was up through the ground on the other side he pushed frantically to clamber out of the hole completely. With one last push the hole spat him out and he rolled to a stop at the base of the oak. Jack looked up at the tree and he grinned in muted appreciation for what the old girl had done for him. The cumulative tiny probabilities that led to that tree being there were breathtaking, but such mathematical wonderings would have to wait for another time—sitting by a roaring fire in the depths of the Highlands when he was an old man. Like some old guru from a Dark Age time, only visited infrequently by young men and women from London as they sought out his wisdom. That no such grand old man had ever existed in Jack’s time as a spy told him how grand old spies were a very rare breed indeed, if they existed at all.

  somewhere, ready to attack and

  his brain when some of that soil and dead wood his face, round to the back of his neck, then into his The moment of triumph was short lived as Jack almost immediately heard footsteps in the near distance crunching their way through the woodland. The carpet of dry leaves and dead vegetation was a useful early warning system, but it would have made things a lot less complicated if no sounds were coming towards him. He scanned the area for a hiding place and as he did so he noticed just how much of a mess he had made when he forced himself through the hole. What was once nothing more than an unnoticeable quirk of the landscape was now telling of a major security breech. Jack rushed over to the opening and he began to push soil back into the hole. Twigs and dead leaves were hastily employed as makeshift camouflage. Even the most dim-witted

  right—Jack

  guard from

  security guard would notice that something was not quite

  prayed that low pay and complete apathy would stop the prying too much. After all, the mess could have been made by an animal and the leftover luxury food that made it into the Embassy bins would have been a prominent invitation to all the wild dogs in the area, of which there were many. When he had visited the Embassy the first time he overheard a meeting between the British and Russian ambassadors. The Russian had been bitten by a wild dog near a shopping centre. He was in hospital for more than a day as the doctors tested for rabies and pumped his body full of antibiotics. In the days following the attack several dozen wild dogs were shot around the Russian Embassy—the incident was somewhat of a joke in the British Embassy with the British ambassador remarking that he wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of his Russian counterpart. From what Jack later found out about the Russian, to get on his wrong side was not only deadly to wild dogs.

  As the footsteps drew closer Jack dashed towards some bushes next to the oak. The mighty tree was a thirsty beast and it didn’t leave much moisture in the soil surrounding it for other plants to flourish, which left the bushes where he sought refuge somewhat thinning and emaciated. He crouched down and waited. The moonlit night provided him with a good view of where the hole was located but it wasn’t clear enough for him to judge with any degree of certainty if he had done a good enough job in trying to conceal it. As the moonlight provided him with a good view of the clearing in front of him, he knew that in turn the moonlight would also betray him to whoever

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  was approaching if he didn’t remain very still. As he waited he had an unsettling feeling that something wasn’t quite right. He had forgotten something, or something was out of place. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong. It would have to wait. A guard walked into the scene. The man didn’t look as if he was searching for anything in particular—just another everyday military man trying the best that he could to put in the hours in this most boring of assignments. He carried himself like a Brit and not like one of the poorly paid locals who would be more likely to avoid investigating any strange sounds that he might have heard. The guard came to a stop next to the hole. He looked down. Jack held his breath. The man paused for a moment. He kicked at the ground. Jack began to breathe once again when the man continued on his way. Then disaster struck. The man came to a stop once more. He bent down and picked up Jack’s gun.

  Fuck , thought Jack. That was what he had been missing—that odd feeling that something was not quite right. His gun had come free from the waistband of his trousers as he tumbled onto the ground. He cursed himself for not having checked to make sure his weapon was in place when he emerged from the hole. At the very least it would have made sense for him to ensure that the weapon was free from soil or other debris. The guard carefully examined Jack’s gun for a few moments. If he was worth anything as a security officer then the guard would identify the weapon as being in common use amongst British services. Perhaps he would assume that one of his own men had dropped it? Such things were not uncommon in the boozy environment of an Embassy. For a brief moment Jack considered rushing the man, but as the guard was standing on a slight incline he would have the tactical advantage over Jack. The guard slowly turned around. The problem with the good hiding place Jack had selected was that it was the only good hiding place in that small part of the complex. The guard raised his weapon. He was looking right at where Jack was crouching. Jack could not be certain if the guard had eyes on him or if the man

  was using his instincts and logic to target him so precisely. Rushing the guard head on stood even less of a chance for success than rushing him up a hill from behind. Trying to escape further into the woods would end in a short burst of automatic gunfire when the guard called for back-up. It was no use. No matter what scenario Jack envisaged,

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  each and every one of them ended in exactly the same way—Jack lying dead on the ground with blood oozing from many bullet holes. It was over. The best that he could hope for was to be taken into custody rather than being blasted into eter
nity as he tried to give himself up.

  The guard reached down to the belt of his trousers and he unclipped a walkie-talkie. He raised the radio to his head and squeezed the button to speak.

  “Everything is clear on the East side,” said the guard. “I will do one last sweep and then I’m coming in. Get the bloody kettle on. I’m dying for a cuppa. See you in five.”

  Understood , replied a voice over the radio.

  Jack was confused. Was the guard using a code? Was he quietly calling in reinforcements in a way that would not spook Jack? The guard put his gun away and then he threw Jack’s gun into the bushes. The weapon landed a few feet from him. Jack moved quickly to secure the weapon.

  “You can come out Jack,” said the guard, as he raised his hands. “If I had wanted to kill you then you would already be dead. Though to be fair, had you wanted to kill me then I don’t suppose I would have made it past those bushes the first time. I don’t know what in the hell is going on. But one thing that I can be sure of, when a kill order has been issued on Jack Malaney then something isn’t right. For the love of Christ, prove me right.”

  Jack waited for a moment before getting to his feet and walking out from the bushes. He held the gun at his side. He wanted to believe that the guard was somehow on his side, but he simply couldn’t bet his life on it. Not yet at any rate.

  “Who has placed a kill order on me?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know him. He flew in from London a few days ago. The Ambassador was not one bit pleased to see him. It didn’t take us too long to work out why. Whoever this guy is he is packing some serious juice. He was ordering our Lord and Master in there around like an errand boy. He intercepted the message that you sent earlier tonight. He said that you had gone rogue and that you would be coming here to kill the Ambassador. He said that you wanted the team to leave so that there would be less resistance when you finally showed up.”

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  “And what did you say?” Jack asked. “I said yes sir. You know how it is Jack? Men like us are paid to think from the neck down. But this was clearly bullshit.”

  “And how many others think this is bullshit?”

  “I really couldn’t say. In times like these it is best not to ask those kinds of questions. Whoever this guy is he is clearly someone who is not going to take any shit from the likes of me. And by the looks of it, he is not going to take any shit from you either.”

  “I would really like to meet this individual. It would appear that he and I have a lot of things to discuss.”

  “I bet you do. Well you can find him in the Ambassador’s suite. He really did make himself at home. He hardly ever comes out of there and when he does it is only to bark orders. He has been having meetings with all kinds of strange folks. You know? Ruskies, and CIA agents, as well as the usual suspects from the government here. The whole thing has been giving me an uneasy feeling all week, and the kill order on you just confirmed my worst suspicions. I will show you to the suite.”

  The guard turned to leave.

  “No wait,” Jack said. “I know where it is. It is better that I go alone. If they capture me or kill me then you will have to get word back to London. I have no idea who you can trust back home but we can’t let this guy continue with whatever it is he is doing.”

  Jack walked towards the guard.

  “And how am I supposed to explain to them how I let you slip past me?”

  “I will provide you with a great excuse.”

  “Huh? I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “I’m afraid not. I want you to walk as fast as you can in that direction and then start shouting at the top of your voice,” Jack explained.

  The man turned around to face where Jack was indicating and as he did Jack lashed out and struck him on the back of the head with his gun. The man fell to the ground with a thud.

  “I truly am sorry, but they would not believe anything less,” Jack said.

  Jack bent down and checked for a pulse. He had never struck out and accidentally killed a man before but he always checked to make sure. Such strikes were not an exact science and a bad evening would have just turned a hell of a lot worse if he had accidentally killed his only true ally. The guard’s pulse was strong and regular. Jack paused and listened for sounds of any more guards approaching his location. There was only silence; or as silent as the wildlife in that part of the world would allow at night. Within a few minutes Jack was standing on the veranda to one of the bedrooms in the Ambassador’s suite. The double doors were not locked and no alarm sounded when he opened them. If he was in charge of security then someone’s head would roll for such a foolish lapse. As he closed the door behind him he heard voices. There were two sets of voices—one set was outside and the other set was approaching the room from the inside. Jack dropped to the floor and he rolled under the bed. The bedroom door opened.

  11

  The Devil’s Own

  Aman entered the room. His highly polished shoes indicated that he was a diplomat, a politician, or a military man, and that just about accounted for ninety nine percent of the people in the Embassy at any one time. The man sat down on the edge of the bed and he took off his shoes. He got up again and then he walked through to the bathroom. Jack readied himself for escape but the bathroom door didn’t close behind the man to provide Jack with the cover that he needed. Jack waited and waited, but the door remained open. It was the height of bad manners in Jack’s opinion. The light in the bathroom went out and the man came back into the bedroom. Jack could not see the man’s face from where he lay on the floor, but in turn it meant that there was no possibility that the man could see Jack either. The man sat down at a desk by the side of the room. Typical, thought Jack, he would have to find himself hiding under the bed of the one hard working man in the entire diplomatic core. Jack moved as much as he felt that he could get away with in an effort to make himself a little more comfortable, but the more he thought about his own comfort the less comfortable he felt. He had been in some tricky spots in the past and the hiding place under the bed was not the worst of those, but he was a much younger man back then and it was somehow less dignified for someone his age to be hiding under a bed.

  Jack’s conscious mind searched the archives of his brain to reminisce on some of his previous hiding places. The very process of looking back somehow took his mind away from his present predicament, but not too much as he needed to act at a moment’s notice should the situation in the room suddenly change. The entire set-up had something of the classic British farce about it. In an Ealing comedy this would be the moment when the bed hopping would begin.

  Seven years ago...

  The MI6 safe house in the Lake District was something of a joke within the security services. The term safe house conjured up thoughts of a simple terraced house on any ordinary town street, or a bungalow in a new housing development. The key with any good safe house was that it should be ordinary. In fact, the more ordinary, the better. The safe house in the Lake District was anything but ordinary. It was an old Georgian Manor house set in almost one thousand acres of dense ancient woodland. The woodland was private, even though some of the Right to Roam movement had carried out a decade long campaign to open the woods up to the public. Court sittings never went in favour of the ramblers and because they didn’t know the true nature of the estate they didn’t know that the expensive legal challenges they were mounting would always end in failure. They were not only pushing against the government, but they were pushing against the most secretive and dangerous part of the government.

  The house was powered by its own generators and there were no communications either in or out of the estate. It was the place where the top brass within the British security services and their political masters, on occasion, would meet to set sensitive policy or to analyse national threats. The twenty million pounds that Westminster slavishly stumped up for the upkeep of the estate each year was the thing that the agents smiled at most. Jack included. The politicians w
ere so scared of their own security services that they never asked why this one safe house cost almost as much as all the other UK based safe houses put together. Politicians had long since learned that kind of scrutiny came at a cost.

  Although the forests surrounding the main house would have been an ideal place to train new agents, there was always a risk that the

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  identity of what the estate was really used for would reach the Russians, or one of the other foreign powers for whom such information was of great interest. This safe house had to be different. It had to be unknown and it had to be impeccably protected. In a healthy democracy with a thorough free press, Jack had wondered why no one had thought to ask the right questions about the estate. Or to put it another way; why did the secret services and the politicians go to so much effort to ensure the place remained in operation, and that it did so under a blanket of complete secrecy. As he rose through the ranks and got to learn a little more about the profession that he was in and the country that he was sworn to protect, the need for the estate was all too clear.

  The problem with any democracy was that there was always the possibility that the wrong people could end up in power. After the rise of the Nazis in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s a commission was set up by the Westminster government to determine how a cult of personality, such as the one that surrounded Hitler, could be avoided in the UK. The very notion of employing some very anti democratic tactics to curtail the ambitions of democratic politicians would have come as a huge shock to the great British public, but that shock would have been nothing compared to the destruction that a UK version of Adolf Hitler would have brought down on the nation.