by Bill Carson
“Oh my God,” she said as she stared at the front door of the office. In her mind’s eye she pictured the three scary figures standing there. Poor Nick, she thought, and then she decided to call the only person she could truly trust.
“Hello?” George said.
“George, it’s Anna, I’m at the office and you’ve got to come quickly. Nick’s in trouble.”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“Big trouble.”
“Bloody hell, what, serious?”
“Very.”
“OK, stay put, I’m on my way.”
It took George an hour to get there. He kept remembering Anna’s words, “Big trouble”. He knew nothing of the details, of course, but he knew by the tone of her jittery voice that this was going to be a bad one. He also knew more about Nick than most, and he was aware that Nick was a real deal tough guy and could handle himself when need be.
“Anna!” George shouted as he banged on the front door.
“Thank God you’re here, George,” she cried as she unbolted the door.
She looked up at him and immediately flung her arms around him. He could see that her eyes were red and swollen and full of tears.
“Come on now, Anna, nothing is as bad as it seems. Don’t forget, Nick’s a big boy now. Look, I’ll stick the kettle on and make a cup of tea, and you can tell me all about it, OK?”
“George, there’s no time for bloody tea, I think they’re going to kill him.”
“What? Kill him? Who is? Look, you’d better sit down and tell me everything.”
Anna filled him in and told him everything that had happened that day. She told him all about the visit from Phil Smith the day before, the scary phone call, and then Nick being driven away in his own car.
“They took his car? Now that’s a bit weird. Why would they do that, I wonder?”
“They said that theirs had a dead body in the boot and they wanted to get rid of it, and I think it’s Phil.”
“Bloody hell, but look. I’ve just had a thought and I think Nick’s car might be his saving grace here. Anna, where’s the brochure for it? I know he’s got one because he was telling me all about it.”
“Bloody brochures, what do you want to look at car brochures for? Nick’s out there with these lunatics and they are gonna kill him at any moment, and you want to know what make of car they’re driving? Fuck!”
“OK, listen, calm down and I know you’re upset but so am I. You’re not thinking straight and that won’t get Nick back, will it? Now, this new motor of his is, I believe, fitted with a security tracking device. I’m sure he told me he had some kind of app or something, or whatever they’re called, on his phone, a bit like a sat nav.”
“That’s why he left the phone behind,” Anna realised.
“He’s a clever boy. Quick, switch it on and let’s see what we’ve got,” George said.
Anna tentatively pressed the button on Nick’s BlackBerry. The battery was almost done for, so she plugged in the charger and then scrolled through his apps store. Sure enough, George was right: there was a tracking app installed. She pressed the icon and a map suddenly appeared. They watched intently as a small, red pulsating blip was superimposed over a tiny map of London.
“There he is. Where’s the car going, Anna?”
“He’s heading east, look, it’s just there. Now it’s going north-east out of London.” She tracked it with her little finger.
“Yes, got him, come on, Anna, let’s get going before it goes out of range.”
“Wait, George. We know roughly where they’re headed now and we can track them all the way. We’ve got to charge the battery on the phone, don’t forget, and I also don’t think we should be going empty handed, do you?”
“Huh? You what?” George turned around in confusion.
Chapter 13
John Kane searched the BBC news web site on his mobile and gawped in surprise at the headlines which read. Breaking news: update in the missing judge kidnap drama. It is believed that the High Court Judge William Morris Denton is being held against his will by an extremely dangerous man who is understood to be holed up somewhere in the London area. The name of the man the police wish to speak to in connection with the Judges disappearance is John Kane. The public are advised not to approach him as he is likely to be armed and extremely dangerous.
How on earth did they get my name? John thought as he scrutinised the tiny black and white photo of him that they had uploaded. He quickly checked the street outside through the net curtain. There was nothing unusual going on and it was more or less quiet except for the customary sounds at this time in the evening – just the usual wail of the odd police and ambulance sirens above the drone of the relentless traffic – the newsflash had stirred him into action. He quickly checked the backyard through the small kitchen window and could see nothing untoward. He then glanced at his wristwatch, which told him there were four hours to go before detonation.
Perhaps I should prepare for a last stand, just in case?
~~~
Doris Clarke of MI6 sat behind her desk in a large office on the top floor of the strange Lego-like building on the bank of the Thames in central London. She swivelled her chair around and looked out at the bustling city beneath bathed in gold from the dying rays of the setting sun. She was a staunch patriot and genuinely loved her country and would if necessary give her life to protect it, as she truly believed with all her heart that this country still had something worth fighting for. The phone gently warbled and she waited for a moment until it had done so three times before picking up. She was expecting the call. It was a Whitehall messenger boy on the other end, asking her to attend an emergency Cobra meeting at Downing Street.
The upshot of the very short meeting with the Prime Minister and his colleagues was for her to resurrect the Violent Crime Directorate Team for an important mission. This was to find Judge William Morris Denton at all costs, and also to capture the kidnappers and dispose of them with extreme prejudice. The lights in the top floor office burned into the small hours and a list of operatives was drawn up. ‘Deniable operatives’, they call them within close knit circles. They were in actual fact a mixture of ex and serving members of the elite Special Forces – or top drawer mercenaries, as some would say.
“Hello, this is Clarke. The code word is Poseidon, repeat Poseidon,” she said with her razor sharp English accent.
The airwaves on the radio receiver were silent for a moment while the operative on the other end checked the code book. A few moments later he asked her to continue.
“I need to request that 765 941 Ryan is to be withdrawn, repeat withdrawn, from active duty with immediate effect and is to report back to HQ in London ASAP.”
“Yes, understood, ma’am, he’s on leave in London and will contact ASAP the distant voice on the other end of the transmission said.
Doris Clarke’s briefing took place an hour later in a purpose-built, bomb-proof room that they called ‘the bunker’. She was dressed in her usual brown two-piece tweed suit, and her grey hair was pulled back tight against her small round head into a little bun at the back. Doris was in her mid-sixties and kept herself fit and trim with tough daily workouts. Everything from the top of her head to the shoes on her feet screamed ‘old school’.
“Right, gentlemen, you are all as from this moment newly indoctrinated members of the re-formed unit known as the Violent Crime Directorate, or the VCD for short. Our sole purpose is to clear up what the police can’t, won’t or don’t want to do. Now, this is going to be a tricky assignment. We have been given the go-ahead from the highest authority in the land to find and rescue the kidnapped high court judge that I’m sure you have all heard about. Now, he was snatched from right in front of his own home, and the police have established, with the help of some new evidence that has just surfaced, that the suspected kidnapper is a chap called John Kane. I have had a dossier on him prepared for you all. There’s not that much to go on – he is of average hei
ght, dark hair, muscular build and forty-seven years of age. He seems to have had a run of bad luck of late by firstly losing his wife due to a street robbery, and then the next woman he was involved with committed suicide… Ah, Mr Ryan, you are exactly twenty-five minutes late.” Doris checked her watch as the lean rugged figure of Andy Ryan stood in the doorway. With his crew cut, sun-bleached blond hair, bronzed skin and aviator shades tight black T shirt and sky blue Levis he looked every inch the badass warrior that he was.
“Awfully sorry, ma’am, I just couldn’t get away,” Ryan said in an exaggerated, snobbish accent.
“Please take a seat, Ryan, and we will continue with the briefing. This man,” she pointed to an enlarged photo on the huge plasma screen, “is John Kane and he is the chief suspect in the kidnapping of William Morris Denton. After the trial of Lynda Jackson, who was John Kane’s partner, Lynda Jackson Kane’s partner hung herself in her prison cell; the theory is that Kane has now sought revenge on the judge who had sentenced her. As you can appreciate, time is of the essence here so get out there and find the Judge and illuminate Kane. Those are my orders. Now I must make it clear that we don’t want him to be taken alive. He must disappear, do I make myself clear on that point? Good, now the Police Commissioner will liaise with you all, and will be conveying all new intel directly the moment he receives it. Do we have any questions?”
“Yes ma’am if I’m not mistaken he looks very much like the person we were after for those vigilante murders?” Ryan said.
“Yes you are quite right Ryan it appears to be the same man and now we have a name to put to the mysterious face, and we have another shot at him, he’s a very dangerous man and needs to be taken off of our streets, anything else?”
“What weaponry do I have access to?” Ryan said.
“You will have access to anything within reason. You may go from here to the basement armoury and withdraw anything from the vaults, as I have already given instructions for you all to do so.”
“Groovy, some new toys to play with,” Ryan muttered under his breath.
“The briefing is now concluded and Sergeant Ryan is your team leader. He will lead and you will follow; his orders are my orders and time is of the essence gentlemen is that clear?”
“Yes ma’am,” they said in unison, as they stood to attention.
“Good luck, Ryan,” Doris Clarke said, as she left the ops room.
“Right, listen in, fellas, the first thing I need to do is to establish comms. Now we’ll need a shit hot switched-on coordinator here at HQ, so who’s in signals?”
“Me, sir,” a young swarthy man said as he stepped forward.
“Good, you’re our lifeline out there, so don’t fuck up. I’ll take the rest of you down to the armoury and we’ll go get ourselves some boomsticks. Next we’ll go over our tactics and then, gentlemen, we’ll be going to work straight away. I’ve got a feeling that we can get this one over with quickly and quietly,” Ryan said as they trooped after him.
Ryan and his black-boiler-suited gang of state killers explored the vast armoury beneath the MI6 building. They chose their close-quarter weaponry and the rest of their kit. He, like most of the others, chose the small but deadly Heckler and Koch MP5k 9mm submachine gun, which was fitted with an integrated suppressor. He also found a shortened version of the sniper rifle that he’d been using in Afghanistan.
Chapter 14
Debbie Webster reclined into her favourite comfy armchair in the corner of her neat and spotlessly tidy one-bedroom flat. She was dressed in her freshly laundered pink pyjamas and sat alone as usual at the same time as she did every other evening becoming lost amongst the dreary dialogue of her favourite TV soaps.
However, she had not been herself of late and had been dreadfully upset by the rebuff of her advances from Terry Jackson. In her mind she had been heartlessly rejected. As she was about to doze off, the stern loud voice of the news announcer came on the TV and grabbed her attention with the reference to the Old Bailey.
The news reporter went on to announce that the police were searching for an Old Bailey High Court judge who had gone missing, and whom they suspected had been kidnapped. He went on to say that the man they would like to question in connection with the incident was a man called John Kane. A photo of John came on screen, the one taken of him outside the court after Lynda Jackson’s trial. Debbie immediately recognised him but, to make absolutely sure, she put her face right up to the screen.
“That’s not John Kane, that’s Terry Jackson,” she cried out pointing to the screen and immediately rang the police.
The police response was swift, and a detective was tapping on her front door within ten minutes of the call.
“Miss Webster, I’m Inspector Graham from the regional crime squad,” he said as he flicked open his small black wallet, “may I come in?” He didn’t wait for her to answer, and just pushed his way past her. “You say that you think you know the man that has been shown on the news broadcasts, is that right?”
“Yes, I’m sure it’s the same man who came in to find a job at the agency where I work a few weeks ago. He called himself by a different name, Terry Jackson, but that’s definitely him, I’d know him anywhere.”
“That’s good. Did he register with your agency by any chance, Miss Webster?” said the detective.
“Please, call me Debbie, and yes we did manage to get him a position at the Old Bailey. He was working in the kitchens, which all makes sense now, doesn’t it? I have the address here somewhere, ah here it is, 43 All Saints Road,” she said as she gave the detective a cheeky little smile.
The detective couldn’t believe this massive stroke of luck, and immediately phoned the Yard with all the details.
~~~
Ryan listened to the message from the commissioner.
“OK, listen in, guys, we now have an address for John Kane and the authorisation, so let’s mount up. While we are in the van we’ll get the layout of the building sent through. This should be a straightforward job, but you never know so stay switched on.”
One hour had now passed since John had seen the news report, and had suffered the added awkwardness of having his photograph broadcast across every TV in the land. John had been forced to bring his plan rapidly forward, and he’d had to take some drastic and immediate action and he decided that it was definitely time to disappear. He checked the street through the net curtain and then dashed upstairs and grabbed the judge by the scruff of the neck and cracked him with a perfect right hand punch to the jaw which knocked him out cold. He then rolled him up in the old carpet again, bundled him over his shoulder and jogged back downstairs and went out through the kitchen.
He stepped into the yard and dropped the poor old judge to the ground like a sack of spuds. He responded with a deep groan as he hit the hard, lumpy dirt face first. He turned around and closed the back door slowly and with great care and then backed the van up to the side of the fence, lining up the side door of the van with the back gate, bundled the old carpet and its contents into the vehicle and pulled out into the heavy traffic. To say it was a close call would be a gross understatement, and unbeknown to John, at the very second that the tail end of his van merged with the busy traffic, a black box van containing the VCD team, together with a dark green Range Rover with Ryan in the passenger seat, swung around the corner.
They stopped fifty feet from the property, and Ryan observed the small house through his thermal imaging binoculars, which gave him nothing. He then jumped out of the Range Rover and thumped on the back of the box van and hopped in as the shutter quickly opened.
“OK, this will be a simple simultaneous double entry front and back: you two, Bravo One and Two, on the front door,” he said as he pointed to the two closest to him, “and Three, Four and Five will be on the back door. Are we all clear, any questions? OK, comms check first, and then in three minutes I want those big fuck-off tear gas canisters through the bottom and top windows, front and back. As the gas goes in we’ll have the
doors off and flash bang every room before entry, and shoot to kill. I’ll take care of anyone who tries to escape. Right, thirty seconds. Respirators on and arm weapons. Ten seconds – stand by – stand by – stand by, go! Go! Go!” Ryan commanded, as he checked his wristwatch.
The kill team suddenly burst from the back of the van. Ryan stayed put and took aim with his sniper rifle, zeroing in on the top floor bedroom window as the gas canisters smashed through the lower windows. The whole area had now been sealed off and there were road blocks at either end of All Saints Road. Nothing was coming in and nothing was going out, except for the innocent looking white van that had just managed to slip through.