by James Quinn
* * *
He stood in the glare of a single spotlight, the rest of the room encased in darkness and menace. He was calm, collected, his heart rate barely ticking over. He was the Gorilla now.
That's how he thought of himself when he was in this arena. Jack D. Grant, intelligence officer and former soldier, had been put to one side, discarded, like a snake shedding its skin. Somewhere between entering the firing range and picking up the weapon, he had transformed. Gorilla was at the forefront now, a different creature entirely; cold, brutal and someone to whom the normal rules didn't apply.
He stood with his suit jacket unbuttoned, his arms folded across his chest as though he was standing and considering a mesmerizing piece of artwork in a portrait gallery. One arm lay horizontally on top of the other, one tucked casually under his left armpit. He was at ease and relaxed.
The klaxon emanating from the speaker system sparked him back into life; his heart rate taking an involuntary jump. A movement to his left caught in his peripheral vision. He turned in one fluid motion; bending his knees and twisting in the direction of the threat. No hurried motion, no exotic stances, it was a movement of minimal, but effective, proportions.
At the same time, his hands detached themselves from their static position across his chest and both arms were instantly pumped outwards, towards the target that was fast approaching on the electric ceiling runner. A simple, quick draw; hand to gun, up, align on target and Phut, phut! Double tap to the head, target finished, thought Gorilla. The sound muffled by the suppressor was virtually non-existent, a testament to Schwartz's talents.
Another movement came at him from behind! He didn't spin, instead he simply stomped his right leg towards the next threat, and detached the hand holding his gun in a two handed grip and fired one handed right… ,Phut…Phut…Phut! One to the chest, two to the head!
The target down, and he remained alert for the next one… and almost as he finished thinking this, he was aware of a noise coming from behind him once more… No time to move, Gorilla thought. Instead, he pivoted from the hip, twisting his body round, and raised his left arm instinctively to protect his head while firing from a short hip position; the pistol clamped to his right hip and…Phut, Phut, Phut! The bullets moved up the paper target's body mass in a sewing machine stitch; starting at the sternum and ending in the middle of the forehead. Target down.
He scanned the darkness of the close quarter battle room for more targets. Nothing he was sure, but as was his habit, he kept the pistol in a low ready position in case the exercise was still in play.
The howl of the klaxon confirmed the drill was over. The smoke cleared, though the acrid smell of cordite remained, and the lights on the shooting range were activated, bathing the rubber coated room in harsh fluorescent light. The entire drill had taken no more than twenty seconds. Gorilla was that fast.
“Nice shooting, all finished off with two shots to the head. You still got it then, eh?” said Arnie Schwartz's disembodied voice from behind the safety wall.
Gorilla stripped the magazine from the weapon, checked that the chamber was empty, and then began to unscrew the suppressor from the barrel. Did he still have 'it' – that lightning quick ability to ruthlessly kill should the occasion require it? It was beyond instinctive, certainly. He didn't know how he could do it, merely that he could take this piece of machined metal, which effectively threw small metal balls in a straight line, and be quick and lethal with it.
He had trained with dozens of men in close quarter pistol work over the years and he could never quite see the problem some of them were having with shooting. He had seen them sweating, flinching from the report, all fingers and thumbs when loading or reloading; or the bad ones, who couldn't hit a barn door when it was standing right in front of them!
To him it was nothing even remotely extraordinary; no great soul searching, no extra time spent on the range to get marginally better, no knowing the ins and outs of every piece of shooting-related literature or the, to him, boring specifications of the latest gadget. No, no, no. It was just something that he could do to an almost superhuman level. It was why he was one of the best Redactors in the business.
Gorilla's tools of his trade were his '39, which he only carried on operations – and a gleaming, stainless steel cut-throat razor that he carried always. The pistol was a gift from his time in the military, the razor a gift from his time running with the street gangs. Both, in his opinion, complimented each other perfectly.
Oh, he still had it alright, but he could never quite figure out in his own mind whether this 'ability' of his was a blessing or a curse.
* * *
As was his routine when he was due to be away on operations for any length of time, Jack Grant always called home one last time before leaving. In his case 'home' was his sister's house.
He rarely saw his sister, in fact, it had been three years since they last met, but he sent money out of his monthly wage to the little terraced house in the tiny village nestled on the shore of Loch Lomond. The village was his safe haven; three terraced streets, a post office and a pub. It was, ironically, the one place that he hadn't been able to go for the past few years. Enemies had a way of tracking down those you loved the most and the risk of leading them to the banks of the Loch was just too great.
He heard the phone ringing and ringing; she was probably running around doing the housework, or clearing up. Eventually he heard a click as the receiver was picked up. “It's me,” he said without preamble. He waited through the pause from the other end of the line.
“Well, hello me, long, long time. Did ye forget the number?” Her voice was hard and stern, as if she had no time for frivolities. It didn't matter who he was now and where he had been, he was always berated by his older sister. It was a tradition that went back to childhood.
“No, I've been busy, been away.”
“Good for you, somewhere nice I hope? The postcard never appeared!”
“You know I can't say.”
“Of course not, you cannie say much about anything, can ye? You seem to have the market in not saying things or talking about things or visiting things. Jack Grant, the master of eternal understatement.”
“It's for the best. For everybody's sake,” he said. He could hear his accent altering as he spoke, his emotions starting to run high and he could detect the burr returning to his voice, the one that he'd tried to smother over the years. Berlin, London and Beirut hadn't been able to totally eradicate it.
“Well, there ye go, same old Jack,” he heard her say. The silent pause hung in the air and the tension filtered along the phone lines. His guilt and her anger at him. Family, why did bloody family always bring this uncertainty out in him?
“So to what do we owe the pleasure of this phone call? I've the tea on and don't want it to ruin.”
“I'm going away again, very soon, tomorrow in fact. I don't know how long for. It'll be a couple of months at least.”
“And you just wanted to let us know, make sure we're alright. Is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that's what families are for aren't they? Making sure we're alright… She's fine, by the way, thanks for asking.”
“I was… I was going to ask… how she is, I mean,” he said feebly.
“I just said she's fine, didn't I! Missing you obviously, but then you'd expect that. That's women for you Jack. No taste when it comes to you. Their brains go out the window.”
“Does she need anything? I can send more money or—”
“No, we don't need any more! It's not yer money she needs. She was ill last month, it was touch and go at one stage, but Dr. Bremner helped her through. She's a fighter. She asks after you every day.”
“I know. I'm sorry. I didn't want it to be like this, I know this is bloody hard—”
“Mind yer language! I will not have obscenities filling up my ears! I don't know what type of habits you've picked up in London, but don't apply them here, young man!”
There she goes again, he thought, playing the puritanical elder sister once more. “Sorry. When I get back, I'll try to arrange something about coming up if they'll let me.”
“Aye, we'll see,” she said, but her tone told him she didn't believe a word of it.
“Look, I need to go; I've things to do.”
“The other one,” she blurted out desperately, as if this was her final opportunity to mention it. “Have you any news on the other one?”
He sighed. He had been half expecting the question. “Look its best that you don't ask, it'll only be harder if you keep thinking about it.”
“I have to know Jack; she'll have to know soon. There must be something. Someone must have heard something!”
He didn't know what to say. It was like a cancer, eating away at the remains of his family. The unspoken rule that they'd forced themselves to have; do not mention the other one. “I'm sorry, there's nothing. No news, no information. Nothing,” he said.
He heard the anger and the venom leave her with a weary sigh. “Jack. Just be careful. You're still ma baby brother. Just… come back.”
He knew that once he put down the phone and ended the conversation, the people in Loch Lomond would be forgotten. He was cruel like that. He was always like that on operations. He would touch base with the family, then step on a plane and they would be removed from his mind completely. He could afford no distractions from the job at hand. It was one of the greatest skills he had; the ability to detach from real life and focus solely on his task. He would put Jack Grant to one side and pick up the persona of Gorilla.
“I'll tell her that you called. I'll give her a kiss from you… she'll like that,” she said and then he heard the phone click dead in his hand, leaving an empty line; but before that he was sure – not certain, but sure – that he'd heard the tremble in her voice as her harsh facade crumbled.
Chapter Nine
Paris - February 1965
Get to Paris and dig in, Masterman had told them. Sitting in his office, he'd briefed them both about the tactical advantages of being based in the City of Light. “It's the perfect jump off point for Operation MACE; anonymous, central for reaching the rest of Europe and the one place we know this renegade hit team will have to visit at some point. Plus, SIS has a vast range of assets in Paris which you can call on at a moment's notice.”
They had purposefully kept the conversation on the BOAC flight to Orly light and frivolous. Not only because they couldn't conceivably talk about operational matters in an enclosed environment surrounded by their fellow passengers, but also because it gave them a brief opportunity to relax and talk nonsense before the tension of the mission began.
For their travel into the theatre of operations, Grant and Nicole had decided to go in covertly, travelling on passports in the assumed names of Mr. and Mrs. Martin Ronsom of Spalding, Kent. The Ronsoms were on a Europe-wide travelling honeymoon and could provide a recently issued marriage certificate to prove it. Would people have put them together as a couple very much in love: he, short and gruff, she tall and elegant? Probably not, but the Ronsoms were not intending to socialize with people who might ask such questions. In fact, once they had been collected from the airport, the Ronsom cover would cease to exist.
They arrived in the late afternoon, cleared customs quickly and were collected by a tame Citroën that was on hand to take them to their base of operations. The driver, actually the Deputy Head of the Paris Station, whisked them through the city with all the aplomb of an experienced Parisian taxi driver.
“I'm Ronnie. Douglas sends his apologies, work and all that. But he'll be with you later today, to see if you've settled in and if we can do anything for you young lovebirds while you're here,” he said, as he negotiated the roads. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower loomed like a watchtower across the city as they headed towards the river and out of the grandeur of central Paris.
“We've got you a nice apartment. Bit off the beaten track, but close to everything you'll need while you're here. Don't worry about the lady who owns the building, she's one of ours going back before the war. She knows to keep an eye out for odd-bods and not to ask too many questions,” said Ronnie, as the car cruised across the Seine.
As they drove through the famous streets, Nicole reflected on her previous visits to Paris with her father when she was a child and how it had hardly changed at all. But scratch beneath the cultural surface and the Paris of the 1960's had taken a bit of a nosedive as the center of all things vogue. That honor, unjustly in her opinion, was being given to 'swinging' London, which had stolen a march on its rival. Music, movies, fashion were all being played out across vibrant London.
Their car pulled up outside what was to be their base of operations for the next few weeks. The base was actually a third story apartment above a men's fashion store on the Rue des Rennes in Montparnasse. The former Bohemian enclave situated on the left bank was a shadow of its former self, with the elitist intellectuals and artists now dwindled to almost nothing. Instead, Montparnasse had become a haven for run-of-the-mill cafes and bars, indistinguishable from any other area in Paris. It had become a cemetery for failed poets and bitter, post-war political exiles.
Grant and Nicole got out, each holding a small suitcase. Nicole imagined they looked like a couple of orphans who had been pushed out onto the streets. Ronnie wound down his window and handed them a set of door keys. “Here you go, the big one's for the front door, small one's for the apartment on the third floor, Number 308. Make yourselves comfortable. The boss will be here later tonight to officially welcome you . Good luck.”
They climbed the stairs to the third floor and let themselves into 308. It was a large two-bedroom apartment which overlooked the main street. It smelled of damp, had bare floorboards, and aging cobwebs hung from the ceiling.
“Hardly first class is it?” Nicole commented.
Grant shrugged; it was one of dozens of safe-houses that SIS had access to, all over the world. Most of them were owned and run by former agents, who were happy to have visiting officers stay over or use them as bases for operations. For Grant, it was neither here nor there. In his time, he had slept in billets, trenches and dosshouses. By those standards, this was a palace.
“People do tend to believe the myth that we always have penthouse suites when we're on operations,” he said. “Unfortunately, it's just that: a myth. It's the movies, I suppose. It will do us just fine, so settle in.”
Waiting for them in the lounge were two large suitcases, which had been posted in the diplomatic pouch to the Paris Station. Grant opened them up and found the personal weapons, communications kit and surveillance equipment. The first thing to do was to stash the weapons out of sight, in case they had their door busted in by the French security services. It was unlikely, but you never knew.
He went into the bathroom and searched around until he found what he was looking for. Carefully peeling back the linoleum, he used his foot to press down until he found a loose floorboard.
He got a hit on the first go and with the help of a butter knife from the kitchen, he pressed back the loose board. Next he wrapped the handguns, spare ammo, silencer and holsters in a series of cloths and stashed them in his new weapons cache. A quick replacement of the floorboard, folding back the lino and it was as good as new.
The weapons would only be removed when he was out of the apartment and operational, it was safer that way and better tradecraft. In the unlikely event that they were attacked in the apartment – well, he still had his cold steel razor. And he knew he could do a hell of a lot of damage with it.
That evening, they were visited by the Head of the Paris Station, a career intelligence officer by the name of Douglas Consterdine. Consterdine had cut his teeth in Malaya with military intelligence, hunting communist terrorists and had transferred over to SIS when his military service had ended. Within the Service he was considered a high-flyer, hence his prestigious posting to Paris.
Grant hated him on sight. Const
erdine was a lean and dandyish man who favored the designer suits and gaudy silk ties that seemed to be the current fashion in France. A bright pink carnation burst forth from his lapel button and his hair was slicked sideways in a faux Clark Gable look. But the most irritating thing in Grant's opinion, was the way that the Head of Station talked down to everyone who hadn't been graced by God with a place at Oxford.
“So you're the bloody fire-team,” he said, shaking Grant and Nicole's hands firmly. “How's London these days. Is Head Office still as divisive as ever?”
Grant, who knew little and cared less about the internal politics of Broadway's power-players, remained non-committal. That and the fact that Redaction agents weren't allowed within spitting distance of headquarters ruled out his interest in what he regarded as the 'fops' who held high office within SIS. “I doubt there's been much in the way of change since you were last there, Dougy” he said.
“Please don't call me that, there's a good chap. Douglas is the name my mama gave me and that's the one we'll stick to, if it's all the same to you,” scolded Consterdine. “And the club? You get down to the club much these days?”
Grant's confused look turned to mischief. “What, White's? They wouldn't let me in there, Douglas,” he said, his tongue firmly in his cheek.
“Not White's, oh heavens' me, no. Didn't think for a moment you'd be on their roll of honor Jack, only the Chief could get an invite to join there. No offence. No, the spy club, Knightsbridge, haven't been there in an age,” said Consterdine.
Grant had been to the Special Forces Club several times with Masterman. He had climbed its staircase to the first floor bar, nodded to several members from operations gone by and sat quietly in the corner, a glass of wine for Masterman and a beer for himself. He regarded the 'club' as one of the few places where he could relax and talk through this job, or that job, without fear of compromise. While in truth, he preferred the lower-rent underbelly drinking clubs of London, there was still a fondness for the collegial atmosphere of a truly elite private club that he yearned for on occasion. Grant shook his head. “Not recently. Never seem to have the time these days.”