The Russian cut a far from impressive figure; a mid-level foot soldier in Jack’s opinion, or hired muscle that could be discarded by his employer just as soon as he had brought Jack tothe meeting. The black
BMW was definitely not the man’s own car. The car was brand new and it screamed new money. Jack wondered how the statues of Lennon and Stalin felt as their socialist dream crumbled before them, and the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the revolution turned to German made cars to fill the hole in their souls left by decades of austerity and government persecution. The imposing grey buildings of the Soviet government machine were a million miles away from the neon signs and new wealth of the social districts of Moscow, and it was to one of those social districts that Jack was driven on that night.
When the car pulled up in front of a nightclub Jack rolled his eyes. He imagined being led to an upper level where he would be introduced to a bare chested, medallion wearing gangster surrounded by scantily clad women. Jack sighed with mild relief when the Russian walked past the entrance to the nightclub and on down the street to a bookshop. Jack followed the Russian into the shop. Once they were inside the Russian locked the door behind them. He then led Jack through to a room at the back a desk, adopting the most common of of the shop. Sitting behind poses, was an officer from the Red Army. Jack quickly scanned the uniform for insignia and within seconds he pegged the man as a general. The man’s rank and age did not marry—he was much too young in Jack’s opinion. The general gestured with his left hand that Jack should take a seat, which he did, on an austere wooden chair on the opposite side of the desk to the military man. Another wave of the hand indicated to the Russian driver that he should leave Jack and the General to conduct their business in private. The driver hesitated momentarily before leaving the room. He flashed a look at Jack which spoke of how he would return to the room in an instant should Jack try anything untoward.
“Let me save us both a lot of unnecessary talk,” the General began. “I do not care if you are here on behalf of your government. I do not care if you are really a businessman who is genuinely here to make a quick buck. The only thing that I care about is cold, hard, cash. That is where my interest in who you really are begins and ends. If you can bring me money then I can get you whatever weapons you want from the vast arsenal of the Red Army. From assault weapons to nuclear weapons. Everything is on the table. If the price is right. So my friend, what do you want from me?”
“Let me be equally frank in return,” said Jack. “I am here on behalf of the IRA. I have five million pounds to spend on weapons. A nuke would end the war in one fell swoop, to be sure, but I would doubt very much if the leadership would go for a solution that radical.”
Jack smiled.
“That’s funny,” said the General. “But your colleague was almost completely certain that the IRA would be prepared to pay top dollar for a tactical nuke.”
“I’m sorry, but I do not have a colleague in Moscow at the moment,” Jack explained. “I do not know who you were speaking to, but I can assure you, he has nothing to do with me. Though I must admit, I am more than a little curious to find out more about him.”
“Like I said. He said that he was your colleague. He said that you would conclude what he started. He said that he was here on behalf of the IRA. Though an Englishman acting on behalf of Irish terrorists did not somehow ring true. Though a Scot acting on behalf of Irish terrorists doesn’t make much more sense to me.”
“Things in my part of the world are complicated,” Jack explained. “Relax my friend. I am not interested in an explanation. To be honest, I am not going to believe whatever explanation you offer me. That is the world that I live in; much more complicated, don’t you think? As long as you can provide me with the money then you can do whatever the hell you like with the weapons. Wipe an English city
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off the face of the planet, or do the same to Dublin; it is all the same to me. Now I ask you again, and for the last time my friend, what weapons do you want?”
Jack reached into his jacket and he quickly produced a sheet of paper. He handed the fictitious shopping list over to the General. The General quickly scanned the list before handing it back to Jack.
“This is all easily done, my friend,” said the General. “You bring me the cash tomorrow and I will arrange for the goods to be delivered to whatever part of the UK or Ireland that you wish.”
“As simple as that?” quizzed Jack. “A s simple as that my friend,” repeated the Russian. “So, do we have an agreement?”
Jack stood up and then he reached across the desk to shake the General’s hand. The General stood up and took Jack’s hand. They shook on the deal.
“We have an agreement,” Jack said.
Jack turned to leave the office.
“One last thing my friend,” said the General.
Jack turned around slowly to face him.
“And what’s that?” Jack asked.
“I want to be paid in US dollars. America is soon going to be the only superpower on Earth. The dollar will be the world’s new currency and I want to see as much of the world as possible.”
“It will take two days to arrange that,” Jack said.
“One day, two days, it’s all the same to me. I will have someone pick you up in two days. If you have the cash then we will proceed from there.”
With that Jack left.
The ease with which the deal had been concluded was suspicious; yet at the same time Jack felt that if the deal was genuine then the world was on the brink of a heap of trouble. What started out as a simple fishing expedition had quickly turned into something much more immediate. It was a huge risk,
lowed, but Jack felt that he had no
especially if he was being folother option—he had to get a message through to London and the only safe way to do that was
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through the British Embassy in Moscow. The staff at the Embassy were more helpful than he had hoped. Arrangements were made to transfer the money to a bank in Moscow. Jack was then to meet with a member of the ambassador’s staff at a house in the countryside a few miles outside of Moscow. It was a large house with a high wall keeping the unfriendly locals at bay. The building was old and it somehow seemed to give off a Royal vibe to Jack. That wasn’t to say that it had been around since the time of theTsar as many of the leaders in Soviet
times viewed themselves as the new ruling class who were entitled to all of the trappings of privilege that designation entailed. Whatever its history, the building was now in the hands of the British government.
Jack took a taxi to the building as an embassy car would have been too obvious. He was met at the front gate by an armed guard. They walked across the large cobbled courtyard to the front entrance to the building. Two ornate pillars stood guard on either side of the door. They were white marble and somehow looked out of place when set against the weather beaten sandstone of the main building. The guard knocked threetimes on the large black door andafter a short pausethe door swung open. The guard walked in and Jack followed him automatically. That was all that Jack recalled about that evening. The next thing that heremembered was waking up two days later on the floor of the front hallway of the building. His left arm was sore and bruised. He was to learn later that he had been injected with tranquillisers to keep him under for a few days. Although he remembered nothing from that time he did remember waking up. He checked his arm before rolling over on the floor to come face to face with the young guard who had let him into the house two days earlier. The guard was dead. He had been shot through the head. Jack never learned what had really happened in those few days. All that he did know was the money was gone and the General and his driver had vanished. Jack felt humiliated and angry by the experience.
As he lay under the bed in South Africa he felt those same feelings welling up inside him once again. He had been trained to set aside his personal feelings. He had been trained to keep a lid on all emotions until after
the mission was over. But as he lay on the floor looking into the eyes of the dead man he couldn’t help himself. An innocent man had just been murdered right in front of him. It was pointless and
154 senseless and sorely in need of a just resolution. Jack slipped out from under the bed determined to attain justice for the dead man lying on the floor of that bedroom. Jack went to the door and he opened it carefully. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he slipped out into the hallway.
Jack knew deep down in his gut that everything that had gone on over the last forty eight hours was connected, from the bomb in his building to the sudden appearance of Barry. He also knew that the man at the centre of it all, the man who could provide him with the answers he so desperately sought, had just murdered a man. Jack was coming for Deeley and he was leaving all civility in that bedroom next to the body of the guard.
13
The Gift Horse
An Embassy on high alert was no place for an armed man hell bent on revenge, but that was the hand he had to play with and Jack was determined that one way or the other he would succeed. He knew the protocol better than most; in that kind of situation the security staff were trained to shoot first and then deal with the fallout. Judging by the way Deeley had spoken to the guards, and in particular, the lies that he had told them, it was quite clear that they had no idea what was really going on. In many respects it would have made Jack’s task a hell of a lot easier had they all been in on it as it was much easier to kill a man than it was to incapacitate him without causing permanent damage—too little force and the man would wake up much too soon and once again pose a risk to Jack; too much force and there was a real danger than Jack could cause the man permanent damage or even kill him. Good guys and bad guys were easy; good guys inadvertently working on behalf of a bad guy was an uncomfortable grey zone, and Jack hated grey zones. Ultimately if he had to take out one of the guards then that is what he would do, and he was confident that there would be no comeback from London for doing so, but that was not what he wanted, not even if it made his life a hell of a lot easier. The political rhetoric about those men being soldiers and how they knew what they were signing up for when they joined the service didn’t seem
fair when they were being so badly manipulated by a man who they trusted implicitly.
Jack made extremely slow progress through the embassy towards the Ambassador’s quarters where he assumed Deeley was hiding out. It was the most secure part of the entire building and it is where the guards would mount the defence of the embassy staff. Jack found himself ducking in and out of bedrooms and closets as guards approached and passed him. It was only a matter of time until the cursory initial sweep of the building was over and a more painstaking and thorough search began. When that time came then every door would be opened and every room searched and that is when Jack would have to face some tough choices—to kill or not to kill? He frantically searched the archives of his mind for a route to the residential quarters that would put him in contact with the fewest number of guards—he drew a complete blank, and that was the exact reason why that part of the building had been selected as the last point of defence in the event of an assault—no one could sneak up on that position.
From Deeley’s bedroom to the Ambassador’s rooms was a journey of less than five minutes under normal circumstances. Fifteen minutes into that journey and Jack was only just halfway there. The closer that he got to the diplomat’s living space the more armed guards he encountered. In an evening where his fortunes had been mixed at best, Jack had not been expecting fate to deal him a lucky break, but a lucky break is exactly what he got. As he peered out at the corridor leading up to the Ambassador’s rooms he saw two guards standing in his way. The men were not moving. They were clearly there to stop him getting to the Ambassador, as instructed by Deeley. Jack weighed up his options for a few moments. There was no doubt in his mind that he could shoot both men before they got a chance to return fire. But he also knew that if he did go down the route of initiating a fire fight he would have to kill them outright or they would surely call out for help. In his mind Jack knew what he had to do but if he at least engaged in a short argument with himself over the deed it would at least make him feel like less of a heartless bastard. And then came the lucky break. An unintelligible voice crackled over the radio that one of the guards was carrying. The guard listened to the message with an intense expression on his face; it was clear that the man had been hoping that the voice from the other side carried news of Jack’s capture, or as a last resort, Jack’s death. Jack couldn’t tell if the worried expression was for the guard’s own safety or if the man was also considering the personal devastation that would come from killing Jack if that was what he had to do.
If Jack could only get to one of the radios then he could get a message through to every guard in the building. They would have to disregard what he had to say as protocol forbids them from listening to an assailant, much less following his instructions. But if the worst came to the worst and Jack ended up dead at least the seeds of doubt with regard to Deeley would have been sown. It would then only be a matter of time until someone added up all the pieces and exposed Deeley for what he truly was.
“Understood,” said the guard, into the radio. He may have, but Jack didn’t. Nor did his fellow guard. “What is it?” asked the second guard.
“They have found a body outside the communications room.
Looks like Jack killed him and then sent a message to someone.” “How do they know that he sent out a message?”
“The equipment has been thrashed. They want us to move towards
the communication room as he has to be somewhere between here and there.” The guards set out. Completely in the wrong direction from where Jack was concealed. Jack slipped quickly from where he had been hiding and within moments he was through the heavy double oak doors that led to the Ambassador’s chambers. The reception room on the other side of the doors was immense and ornate and just as Jack remembered it. For almost a century that reception room had hosted the great and the good both living in the country, and from foreign shores. On the left of the room there was a ceiling high fireplace. Although it had been many years since the fireplace was last used to warm visitors to the residence, it still cut an impressive monument, if only to an empire that had long since melted away into history. In front of the fireplace was an impeccably stuffed male lion. The taxidermy was such that the animal’s mouth was in a menacing snarl—an unspoken warning to guests that the old empire could still bite if it
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was provoked. A small, red alarm bulb above the six-foot chandelier in the centre of the room was the only illumination. The flashing red light cast the entire space in an eerie light—as if it was on fire. Two oak panelled doors at the far side of the room led directly to the Ambassador’s private quarters—beyond that point no guests and very few employees, would ever venture. Jack hurried across to the doors and he pressed his left ear up against one of the doors. If Jack had been in charge of security then there would have been a small army of heavily armed guards waiting for him on the other side of those doors. Fortunately, Jack was not in charge of security. No one was waiting for him on the other side of the doors. The room was much more modern—one of the few rooms in the building that each new master was allowed to make their own without incurring the wrath of the historical buildings department of the Foreign Office. Contemporary armchairs sat alongside high back leather seats from a previous owner, and the small fireplace in the left hand side wall was not was a fire burning in it.
Jack surveyed the room a little longer drawn to the sounds of raised voices coming from yet another set of doors on the opposite end of the room. Jack hurried to the door. Once again he pressed an ear to a door and once again he listened intently.
“Mr Ambassador, the man is a danger to this entire building. He has already killed and he is intent to kill again,” Deeley explained. “And what in the hell do you want me to do about it other than w
hat has already been done? Unless you would like me to go out there and search for him myself? Is that what you are suggesting, commander?” “No sir, but I think that it would be prudent for you to leave the Embassy for a safer location.”
“Well you are now in charge of the security situation. As long as you make it clear in your report that I only left the building under your orders.”
“Consider it done, sir. Now, call for a car to be sent to the back of your apartment. I would do it but when we go into lockdown then you are the only one with the authority to lift the security measures.” There was a short pause before a reluctant Ambassador spoke into only still in use, but there
before his attention was
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the radio.
“This is the Ambassador. Send a car around to the back of my
quarters. I am moving to a safe house. No. Keep looking for him. I
have protection and I don’t want anything to get in the way of capturing the criminal. Thank you.”
There was another short pause.
“Thank you sir,” said Deeley.
“Think nothing of it. You just make sure that the folks back home
know just how heroic I was while this was going on.”
“They will put up a statue to you sir.”
Another pause.
“Do you think that is necessary?” asked the Ambassador, with
Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) Page 18