The Oxford Code

by Ray Christie

  Thinking it will take a few seconds for the bloke to regain his composure, he will then likely consider if it is worthwhile chasing this violent house invader down the street. With Jack being in possession of his firearm it may give him a good reason to opt-out. Jack suspects the slowly dissolving threat would be going through a personal risk assessment and would give up trailing him completely. The manner in which he was disarmed and subdued may be enough reason for him to lick his wounds. His immediate action should be to go about searching his residence to determine the cause of the intruder and possibly look for an excuse to tell the other occupants what had happened or find other accommodation. Jack continues to understand his new predicament. Deciding this armed man is not a concern, it is not likely he will call the police, in due course Jack will carefully inspect this newly acquired firearm in his possession which may tell him some more about the occupants of that house. Jack again tries to recall why this street is familiar and how he ended up here, quickly composing himself he lays out his plan for the next period of time which is to put considerable distance between this area and himself. Doing so using speed and grace without looking suspicious.

  Turning into the thick morning air, the slight hint of fumes from the early morning traffic settles into the back of the throat. Quickly walking through the industrial area which backed on to the houses behind him, he marches towards Covent Garden keeping close to others. Jack’s gait may appear as if he is carrying an old sporting injury, in reality, his upper thigh is stiff, feeling weak, thumping headache and with his mind pacing Jack concentrates on making distance. Head down with his chin almost tucked into his jumper with piercing eyes constantly scanning for anything or anyone out of place. This walk is doing great favours for his body, the blood is flowing and repairing itself allowing Jack to take these few minutes to assess what has just happened over the past couple of days.

  TWO

  London, England

  The trucks arriving with fresh produce to feed the thousands of Londoners never seem to stop, fresh off the boat from France and Spain these drivers do not want to waste their time waiting for jaywalkers.

  With the most surveillance cameras in the world, London is watching with a keen interest in the daily activities of all her inhabitants. The United States Embassy is not far from Jack’s location, situated close to the infamous MI6 building which is a place Jack wants to leave well behind for now. At least until he pieces together the past events. The transit van is Jack’s first concern, who were they and what did they want with him? Jack has no doubt the van would be dumped, a fresh team would be assigned with the members splitting up and suitable dress wear used for their surveillance.

  ‘But why? What information did they have and who are they working for?’ The fact that no one has reached out to Jack using standard operational or local working means has not escaped him. Various scenarios play out in his head ‘could there be internal issues with my old unit, a leak on an operation and payback due? No, professional governments or the most polished criminal groups which can remain undetected for decades do not go around seeking retribution’ he thought.

  ‘This would only make things personal and the professionals avoid those sentimental feelings, instead they will concentrate on closing shop, applying damage control mechanisms and updating their risk management ‘registers’ and moving on. Or something else quite laughable but nonetheless impressive. Jack ponders many ideas, always admiring the ingenuity of the best criminals and why they do not use their skills for good instead of bad. If someone wanted to know what a great criminal is like, Jack would ask them to imagine ‘what could Richard Branson, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg do in the criminal world if they choose to go down that path?’

  With no answers to his scenarios, Jack carefully carries out some counter-surveillance techniques to ensure no one is trailing him. The extra three kilometres he put in allowed him to walk back again and recall anyone who has reappeared. He is also waiting for a group of people or at least more pedestrians in which he can attach himself to and walk alongside, avoiding any possibility of being spotted.

  Feeling quite confident that he has not been followed Jack sits down to watch those following behind pass by. He opened the tied-up bundle of his old clothes removing the food, then dumped the clothes in the parks bin. Eagerly consuming this food from the house and enjoying the light sun on his face Jack knows any nutrients are welcome. He has spent the last six months in an intensive physical training module so his body is in peak condition, any injuries should heal quickly, however, the hunger feelings can be ignored, but in Jack’s line of work, you eat when you can as you don’t know when you will get the chance again. The firearm in his waistband, sticking into his hip, is an addition he hopes will not be needed. Although he is always inclined to carry a firearm, now sitting in the centre of London with no official orders he feels uncomfortable. Carrying a firearm has always been second nature, like wearing a steel watch on his wrist, however, this one has not been issued. This firearm most likely has a violent history, linked to various gangland murders, or even political attacks. Jack thinks about its background and how he ended up in a house which belonged to someone with such a firearm, he briefly considered tossing it a number of times. Deciding to hold onto it so he can get a clear look at it will help in making his final decision. However, for now he is more than content to allow his body to rest, the pain in his upper thigh is becoming unbearable. Massaging his backside with his thumb he knows he will be walking with a pronounced limp for a few hours, anyone and even casually observing people would quite easily remember if they have seen the same man limping around. This means he cannot blend in and should conduct himself as discreetly as possible. Blending into a crowd of commuters in a London street should be okay for a short while. Then it is out of here to figure this mess out.

  Watching early morning joggers at Clapham Common awakens a sense of pride in himself, his own fitness levels these past two days have demonstrated to Jack he will have no problem operating at whatever lays ahead. After leaving his old military unit he maintained a high level of swimming, circuit work and heavy weight training. Only his mountain climbing and ocean swimming skills have not been tested for a few weeks. Finishing his meal, he sits looking around at the London skyline, he has figured this city will present a set of challenges, which amount firstly to moving around covertly. Cameras everywhere in London city. First, he plans his immediate situation, glancing around the park and counting the joggers, tourists, dog walkers and homeless, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He begins to calculate distances and estimates how long it would take to sprint between the two exits on both ends of the park. Beautiful trees, older than his grandfathers and will outlive his own child, ‘probably two minutes’! Shaking his head, knowing it would be about five he adjusts his seating position, feeling the stiffness coming back Jack knows he needs to get shaped up and moving again in a few minutes. Feeling confident his exit out of the park should be uneventful, the park users look normal and no one else turned up who looks like a surveillance team, no police or dog units. In his mind, Jack suggests to himself a hot shower could wait, but some toothpaste would be great, anything to get the coffee and blood taste out of his mouth.

  Time has passed and the three other people sitting opposite Jack on different benches appear to be harmless. One man with dark matted hair on only one side of his head, which must be his sleeping side, unravels a Burger King wrapper. Ever so carefully he bends back the greaseproof paper, fingers moving precisely like a surgeon’s delicate touch. London, like all large cities, produces food on every street, every bin, bench, and windowsill. Within arm’s reach of one of the many thousands of fast-food restaurants. Some food tasting like warm plastic and likely to be as nutritious as a pigeon’s feather will be on par with a Michelin starred restaurant. Sitting quietly on a park bench without a care in the world this man could be as content as someone eating Agneau des bergers de France à la sarriette, panisses dorées et mous
serons des près seated proudly in the famous Hostellerie de l’Abbaye de la Celle. Instead of walking away one hundred and forty euros less off, the man opposite Jack has his own hamburger au fromage. Jack smiles, ‘Best of luck to him’.

  The other fellow on the bench further up reminds Jack of someone that has lost their job a number of weeks ago. Unable to face the embarrassment of confessing to his wife, he leaves the house at the same time and returns home as punctual as the past forty years. Spending his days in the park wondering where it all went wrong and how to tell his better half their life savings have been supporting them. Maybe wrong, maybe this guy likes to leave his home early and sit here in silence, probably still wondering where it all went wrong. No matter his reason for his presence in this park he certainly looks like one that has given up on all his youthful dreams, out of shape and out of Jack’s mind as a potential threat. Jack allows his mind to wander among the occupants of the park and reflects on their behalf, but not once ignoring his own predicament.

  Sitting there with only the birds yapping, a now all too common grey sky which feels like only twenty meters from his head closing in around London. ‘There is too much silence’ Jack thinks, ‘sometimes silence is more intense wrapping you with anxiety than sirens and flashing lights’. In Jacks experience he recognises, loves, and seeks the exciting and familiar sounds of the sirens, knowing something is happening, something you have instigated and are in control of. Right now, he does not know what is happening or why things happened to him. Taking a few deep breaths and another small moment to relax his mind and it is back to business.

  THREE

  With a final survey of the park and the exits, official walkways, and unofficial tracks over the grass and between the bushes, he draws mental notes of the people occupying the park, their clothing, and reasons for being there. Jack then takes a casual stroll through the park towards the exit, not showing himself as a man in a hurry. Looking more like a middle-aged man down on his luck and fashioned like someone attending church in rural England, Jack sets off.

  Amongst the swell of human bodies, a mix of cheap and expensive perfumes, Lycra-clad runners and young men with Ben Sherman V-Neck jumpers all of whom exist to keep London living its dream.

  Following the tide until he finds the most suitable exit path, the pain to keep up with these groundhogs is unrequired. Jack establishes so far that he has not been tracked if the guys in the transit van were professionals he would have been picked up in the park. Obviously not our own government agencies or even British private military contractors, otherwise he believes he would have been located, a sense of calmness now came over him in the park. Unconsciously, however, these details shape themselves out in his own head without great examination. Jack again starts to question why he is still carrying a firearm. Yet something is not piecing together, yesterday was like a cheap jigsaw for him, most of the pieces are formed and those few leftover feel like they belong to another puzzle. Slowly his gait straightens up and he begins to walk at a normal speed. Not quite like a man who is walking somewhere he needs to be but looking more like a man that is walking without worries or guilt.

  Wimbledon hopefuls are busy limbering up on his right as he picks up the pace South East on Nightingale Walk. A young- Scandinavian tennis coach stretching his hamstrings watches him pass-by, then cautiously gives a limp wristed wave in his direction. Perhaps Jack questions if he looks like someone who is running late to play tennis, someone who requires a professional coach to work on his backhand! No thanks.

  Occasionally Jack ponders if he would love to work at something different, or would he enjoy pursuing some other sports or pastimes, especially when he is under pressure with his life, and such times when his life is possibly at risk. Although each time he finishes the objective and arrives back at base with his unit for the debrief he forgets completely what dull activity was briefly considered. The nature of Jack’s occupation is one that is filled with excitement, dedication, intelligence, and enough risk to make it worthwhile. Turning left on Nightingale Lane Jack has now walked backwards in an anti-clockwise movement double checking if he is being followed. The large flat expanse of parkland provides a perfect vantage point allowing full exposure of an average surveillance officer. Being in London you can be assured of half a dozen intelligence agencies operating twenty-four hours a day. Not just MI5 and not just British surveillance officers, the streets of London showcase the best of the intelligence personnel from many different countries from every corner of the world. It is not uncommon for a surveillance team to be monitoring a target and then detecting another team from a different agency watching them also. There is no time for those to sit in self-pity and being ashamed that they have been marked, mostly they do not even know. Jack’s team is one of the best, Britain’s finest and one which operates with advanced tactics and outside of standard operations. For Jack and his men, they have plentiful resources, an open budget, and wide options for their clandestine operations, however, when operations are compromised, they will find themselves on their own to clean up their own mess. The British Secret Intelligence Service will deny all knowledge. This is the reason Jack and his team have been working on contingency plans, despite the failings yesterday they have had quite a success over the past few months. Scotland Yard, MI5 or any other Counter-Terrorism agency have too many suspects to watch throughout the UK, not enough manpower, not enough evidence for legal authority and a lack of funding, this allows some terrorists to operate almost unhindered. It also allows Jack and his team to know what assets they can hit without detection.

  Any HVT’s (High-value targets) that the intelligence service could not track safely, or for a lack of legal accountability it was then left for Jack and his team to remove such problems. This required creative solutions to detain, interrogate and then despatch their targets, these men or women would be the worst of the worst, key influencers, or important key enablers of innovation.

  The others, the lower-ranked terrorists, or international criminals, of which the agencies could not keep in constant surveillance had only their electronic signatures being monitored, the data collected and likely never analysed. This is the reason why Jack removed all digital devices from his body, anything metal also concerns him, which brings again his attention to the firearm. Looking casually around his location, Jack determines a few locations where he can discreetly get rid of it, if compromised by the local police. For the time being, any information he seeks comes at a price and a firearm in London is one form of currency currently available to him, providing he still has access to the right connections. The firearm also provides Jack with easy negotiation tactics in the event someone would adopt a more reluctant attitude to his upcoming enquiries.

  Ducking quickly across the road from Clapham South tube station towards Costa Coffee is a place where Jack has met contacts before, his memory has failed him today though, events are blurry, and locations appear ragged in his mind. Around him, he sees a mix of housing executive and young professionals attempting to get rich from the real estate market, those who pray for gentrification to kick the borough in the stomach. Such a location is perfect for dealing with high-quality cocaine, where the street entrepreneurs can meet their rich customers without causing much attention.

  Entering Costa after a brief ten minutes observation of the customers coming and going, making sure there was nothing unusual, Jack makes his way to the counter. Ordering a long black and handing the teller a crumpled five-pound note courtesy of the house from this morning. He grabs the change while also picking up a crumpled The Times newspaper, he then takes a front-row seat at the window overlooking the tube station. Counting twelve others, in pairs and some alone, but all with their heads buried in their smartphones, Jack slides into his chair, he is now positioned behind the advertising stickers on the window, covering him from outside observers. Casually looking through the newspaper his main objective is to check for undercover police checking the public carrying knives or similar weapons
. Knife crime in London has skyrocketed and the leader of the Labour Party and current London Mayor Sadiq Khan has voiced his concern on this very issue. Raising the council tax to fight knife crime means an extra three hundred police officers. It is Jack’s job this morning to determine if any of those officers are working on the other side of Balham Hill Road from where he is now seated.

  Enjoying the warm coffee and noting how he should have got an orange juice his attention got distracted by the front headline of The Times, ‘Brazen daylight robbery, two officers killed’. The article suggests the suspects were being watched and when they were intercepted a gun battle erupted resulting in the death of two officers. Knowing it was not his bullet that took out either of these two, instead, it was the uninvited team who appeared and tried to take him away. Hoping his team has not been linked to this sends a shudder through him. The last thing he and his men wanted was the loss of life to a cop simply doing their duty. Jack knows these two officers would belong to the SCO19 specialist firearms unit and as such would be preparing for an all-out war against the assailants. These teams drive the BMW 530d Armed Response Vehicles, which carry a familiar circular marking on the top corners of their windscreens. The only official government vehicle Jack observed passing in front of Costa so far is an old BT fleet Vauxhall van. Getting sick of this coffee and with his surveillance done, Jack decides the station is free of security. He leaves the coffee aroma and makes his way across the road, pulling the tweed cap down covering his hard-weathered face as much as possible, he then purchased a ticket for the journey across London city.