by Gareth Flood
‘Ah.’ Zlatan replied in a contemplative tone, ‘I see your time with us has changed something inside you. Tell me something,’ he asked, as Jonathan cleared the history files of the internet software, still sporting his evil smile. ‘Have you thought of going into the protection, assignment and waste removal business?’
Jonathan knew that “waste removal business” was code for the business of assassination.
‘We’ll see yet. I will need a new career path after all this.’ he paused, ‘There’s still one more thing to do on this assignment before we’re done.’
Avi, the Arab and Zlatan all huddled around him after giving final glowering looks at all the cowering patrons that reduced them to stiff gargoyles facing only forward.
‘I need you guys to get back to your employers and their networks. Find out where the CEO of my former company lives. I know it’s in Surrey somewhere. We go to England tonight!’
52
Surrey, England
At eight in the evening, Jonathan and his disparate crew of highly trained miscreants touched down at the private airfield of Biggin Hill in Kent. The Gulfstream V90 Executive Jet they were in was a private charter, hired outside of Russia that had picked them up in Moscow.
As they descended down the steps of the Jet, they were met by an airport official and a cadre of international courier companies. The couriers were all lined up and waiting for signatures on electronic clipboards, so they could hand over the sealed boxes they were carrying. Avi and Zlatan split the couriers into two groups, with each of them signing away approximately five couriers apiece.
Once the information had come through as to where Warren Tarrant lived, it had become obvious that a home invasion was going to occur. Each party called ahead to have the requisite equipment sent to meet them at the airfield, which they felt they would needed for the operation.
After lugging all the black bags into two unmarked black Ford Mondeo cars that were waiting for them, the party set off towards the M25 ring motorway that encircled London. They would sweep westwards to eventually leave the motorway and enter the leafy greens of one of the wealthiest districts that surrounded the capital of Britain, the district county of Surrey.
Jonathan, Avi, and Zlatan were in the lead car, discussing strategy. The Arab and the falcon were in the second car with most of the equipment and baggage. This was at the behest of the Arab, who had started to grow a little testy on the plane. It was as though consistently dealing with these European types was somehow wearing down and offending his desert sensibilities. The true reason was that he was frustrated at not being able to wield his large scimitar sword in scything arcs through the naked air for a few days now. This made him irritable. He had promptly unpacked the sword from the couriered packages and was wielding it as best he could while driving down the motorway – much to the alarm of some of people in some of the surrounding cars.
Back in the lead car, Avi had powered up a laptop that had been sent to him. He started showing Jonathan and Zlatan the plans to Tarrant’s quasi-palatial home, that had already been downloaded onto the hard drive.
‘He has good security, this guy.’ Avi was explaining. ‘Not paranoid good, but take enough measures good. Nice place too, even has a heated driveway.’
‘Sounds right for such a proper twat.’ Jonathan said in disgust. ‘Can we get in?’
‘There is not a lock been made that I cannot pick.’ Zlatan said with confidence as he cleaned under his nails with a small knife that appeared in his hand as if from the air.
‘May not be any need. The security system is run through an electronic network on the estate. This laptop has a very powerful wireless transmitter. I should be able to hack in and disable the correct areas so we can just walk in.’
Forty minutes later, the unmarked black Mondeos ground softly to a halt outside eight-foot high walls that were dusted in creamy Tuscan affected paint tones.
Avi turned to the others in the car.
‘The other piece of good news is that there are apparently no armed guards or trained attack dogs roaming the property.’ he said as he closed the plans on his laptop and started booting up various other kinds of software.
‘Not much call for that in Surrey.’ Jonathan said laconically, before shifting over to get closer to Avi and look at the laptop screen, ‘Come on Avi, work your magic!’
Jonathan followed watched in fascination as Avi’s fingers conducted over the laptop. The software had located the electronic systems of Tarrant’s property and began hacking into the system. Within a few minutes, Avi was in. The software he was using was still classified within the Israeli army and was so superb, the security company would never even detect that their system had been hacked. No blinking lights would go off and no men in black would suddenly hove into view on CCTV cameras. Avi finished with a flourish of his right hand and the large wrought iron gates to the property began to majestically open, as though Moses himself had given them the royal wave.
‘Hah hah.’ Jonathan exclaimed, ‘you’re a genius.’
‘Well, that’s what happens when you travel with God’s chosen people.’ Avi replied modestly.
‘What about any servants we come across?’
‘I have ways to deal with them.’ Zlatan cut in, with a sinister glint in his voice as a knife appeared again by sleight of hand.
‘Without any killing.’ Jonathan said.
‘Ah,’ the knife magically vanished again, ‘fine, I have prepared for that too. One of the bags in the trunk.’
They all exited the car and Zlatan opened the trunk and unzipped one of the duffel bags to begin handing out strange looking handguns.
‘I thought I said no killing.’ Jonathan stated with incredulity.
‘Not guns. Tranquiliser darts.’ Zlatan replied while looking into the large trees behind the cars that bordered Tarrant’s property.
Without warning, Zlatan’s arm shot upwards with one of the weapons and he fired into the trees.
‘What’s the point of-’ Jonathan began, before being cut off by Zlatan sharply raising a hand towards Jonathan’s face to command silence. Avi and Jonathan looked up to see a rustling in the trees. There was a flash of movement and a large grey squirrel hit the ground with a thump, not ten feet from them. The little grey body had a small winged dart sticking out of its leg.
Zlatan turned with a smile. ‘See, that tiny thing will sleep for long time and wake up fine.’
‘Unless the fall killed it.’ Jonathan said.
‘Or the dose that is meant to fell a human killed it.’ Avi said.
‘Whatever.’ Zlatan shot back with some irritation, ‘Yes, the air shot alone from one of these weapons could knock the head off a puppy - but it is fine for people! Shall we go and end this now?’ he asked while motioning towards the open gates.
The other two nodded and they turned towards the black hole that had been created by the opening of the gates.
‘Right.’ Jonathan said as he hefted his gun to get used to the weight. ‘As Sir Edmund Hillary, Knight of the Royal Garter, once said on Mount Everest: let’s knock the bastard off!’
Avi waved for the Arab to come up out of the other car and they all started moving into the property.
‘No killing means no killing.’ Jonathan said under his breath as they walked.
‘Anything smaller than a human does not count.’ Zlatan said loudly in reply. Avi motioned for them both to be quiet as they walked up the drive of the vast property.
The long drive snaked away from the floodlit gates into the darkness and up to the illuminated windows of the main house. All was quiet in the darkness of the gardens and it seemed that the opening of the gates had not alerted anybody. It was the picture of normality of a country garden at night.
‘The motion detectors on his security system showed that there were five people on the property. Four in the main house and one in a garden out the back.’ Avi said quietly as they moved through the darkness, approaching the main building
.
Zlatan’s arm shot out and he fired the silent tranquiliser gun once more into some nearby bushes. The other men dropped to one knee in a defensive posture, apart from Jonathan, who wondered what the hell was going on. There was movement from where Zlatan had fired, as a large peacock stumbled drunkenly from behind the bush and into the moonlight. The bird did two twirls before collapsing in a heap of feathers.
‘Would you stop shooting Britain’s wildlife.’ Jonathan hissed through his teeth.
‘If it is smaller than me, it must die. That is the rule.’ Zlatan hissed back.
‘Stop it.’ Avi whispered with urgency. ‘Come, we will split up here. Jonathan comes with me through the front door and through the house. You two each go around one side of the house. Unless we find him in the house, we will meet at the back to intercept the final person in the garden. Everyone clear?’
They all nodded in the dimness and slowly proceeded to branch away from each other as they drew closer to the main house. Avi continued to lead Jonathan towards the large, mahogany front door. Once at the door, Avi hunched down on his knees and poked his tranquiliser gun through the letterbox while matching his eye height with the gap to have a look inside.
He adjusted the gun slightly and took Jonathan by surprise by firing. Avi smiled as he stood up.
‘That’s one down.’ he said as he placed his hand on the ornate bronze door handle and pushed down to swing the large square of mahogany open. Jonathan had been expecting Avi to produce some little piece of electronica, never before seen by the public eye that would crack the code of the lock of the door. ‘I opened it from the laptop outside. It is the great flaw of electronic systems if they come up against someone smarter than the original programmer. Let’s go.’ he motioned inside and they both slipped through the crack.
As their eyes adjusted to the bright light from the darkness outside, the first thing Jonathan noticed was the prostrate from of a bald butler in pinstripe trousers, snuggling the ornate mat in the hall.
He held the thumbs up sign to Avi and put on his impressed face before cocking his own weapon up in the fashion of James Bond. In truth, he was getting into this and really looking forward to shooting someone. Compared to all the other risks he had faced in the past week, this should be a cakewalk by his reckoning. They were unexpected in this place and there were no assassins or secret agents loitering behind every pot plant.
Just lowly paid house staff like the comatose Jeeves on the carpet. Jonathan thought.
The Bond theme played in his head as he advanced down the hall, behind Avi. He decided that at the end of this, the Bond theme would become the ring tone on his cellular phone.
As they reached the end of the hall, they came into a reception room that had a set of couches on either side. An ornate stairway led up to the second level in the middle of the room. Avi motioned for Jonathan to watch the left side of the room as they went up the stairs. Jonathan gave the thumbs up sign, as well as the “A-okay” sign, as well as tapping his nose to indicate inside knowledge. This ran the gamut of his office worker Special Forces hand signals.
The stairs led onto a long first floor corridor, from which the doors for many ornate bedrooms could be seen. According to the flashing dots on Avi’s laptop, there were two other people on this level. Jonathan felt he was close to the very swine himself who had begun the process of trying to have his life extinguished. For Tarrant, it would have been like putting a useless document in the recycle bin within the software on a computer and deleting it forever.
A short, high-pitched shriek from the hall behind him, made Jonathan spin suddenly into a crouch. A dark form crossed the threshold of the door at the other end of the hallway. Nerves jerked his finger and he fired a dart from the weapon into the wooden door from where the shriek came.
‘It’s me.’ Avi said loudly, ‘do not shoot. I am coming back into the hall.’
Avi’s large frame blotted out most of the light coming from the room, as he stood like a silhouette in the frame.
‘What happened? Who was that? Jonathan asked, still crouched on the floor with his gun now lowered.
‘Gave his wife a hell of a surprise, as she looked up from her Barbara Taylor Bradford novel.’ The silhouette replied before lifting its gun and aiming it at Jonathan’s head. Jonathan’s eyes widened in horror and he dropped flat on the floor as a dart flew two inches to the right of where his left arm had previously been. Jonathan quickly looked up and forward again but was then distracted by a large weight falling on his legs. He turned quickly to see a maid lying across his calves.
‘Flaming heck.’ he said as he prodded the maid, who was out cold from the dart that been embedded in her ample bosom.
‘Where did she come from?’
‘Behind you.’ explained Avi, as he stood over Jonathan, having crossed the distance of the landing as if by magic. ‘She must have come out of another room when she heard the shriek of the lady of the house. Here, let me help you.’ A huge hand came down and took Jonathan’s. He was lifted back to his feet.
‘Suppose I should have really shot her.’ Jonathan said as he looked down at the lifeless form in maid’s uniform. ‘I got distracted by the yell of the wife.’
‘Don’t worry about it. That’s three down. You guard the stairs here in case anyone else comes up. I will go through and clear the rest of the rooms on this floor.’
Jonathan nodded. He knew it was not a request. These men were highly trained and probably saw Jonathan as much of a danger of fouling things up as anything else. His wayward shot into the door would not have helped.
Avi disappeared into the room the maid had emerged from and Jonathan dutifully turned his attentions to waving his gun around in the general direction of the stairs.
After no time at all, the giant Israeli magically re-appeared behind the twitchy Englishman.
‘Aaargh!’ yelped Jonathan.
‘Shhh! Be quiet.’ Avi hissed, as he motioned to follow him back down the stairs. He had not made mention of anyone else in the other rooms, so that still potentially left one person downstairs and one in the garden. Jonathan dutifully and a bit meekly padded down the lushly carpeted stairwell after Avi.
Once at the bottom they made their way towards the heavy set door that ended at the other side of the room. As the door smoothly glided open on its golden hinges, both men craned through the ever widening gap to look for their quarry.
The room appeared empty.
Jonathan was hit by a strange surge of relief and anguish. As they both stepped softly into the room they could see they were in the large, main lounge. There were huge sofas clustered around an enormous plasma screen television in one corner. There appeared to be some kind of ornate reading area taking up the other side of the room, with a door in the left wall. Pride of place in the reading area was a classic black Chaise-Lounge that was surrounded by low rise teak book cases. On the opposite side of the room, between the two areas, was a large set of French doors that led towards the outside patio.
As the two men reached the centre of the room, the door on the left banged open and another woman in maid’s uniform stumbled in with a wild eyed crazy look about her. She reached forward with both arms as if to offer the men salvation or give them a great secret as the last of a dying race. Both men were momentarily taken aback before raising their weapons. There was no need though. After three steps, the woman hit the carpeted floor. She was out cold. There was a dart sticking out of her left buttock.
Both men looked up to see that she had come from a kitchen area with a set of windows at the back of it. A gun had been shoved through one of the open windows.
Behind the window they could see the face of Zlatan, who gave a churlish smile and little wave when he saw them. Jonathan and Avi relaxed.
‘That damned gypsy.’ Jonathan said quietly under his breath, ‘I’m never going to get to shoot anyone.’
‘It looks like the big game is not in the house.’ Avi said as he motioned to Zlata
n through the window to keep going around the house to the back.
‘Well,’ said Jonathan as he cocked his gun before marching toward the large French doors, ‘let’s go hunting.’
Avi caught up to ensure the doors to the outside were opened quietly. The two men stepped out into a calm and cool English night. A soft wind wafted lazily over the large stone patio that was decorated in Roman vases and the odd marble bust.
There was no one in immediate sight.
Approximately fifteen metres in front of them was an arched entrance into a square walled structure in the middle of the vast garden. As they stopped to survey the scene, Zlatan and the Arab rounded the corners of the house with guns drawn.
They both immediately made signs that no one had gotten past them.
Avi leaned into Jonathan to whisper in his ear. ‘The last dot must’ve not moved out of that structure since we surveyed the scene ten minutes ago.’
He motioned to the other two, who had come alongside them now for the group to advance toward the walled structure.
As they approached and the view through the arch widened, it became apparent that they were about to enter a famous Japanese Zen garden. This was where the renowned Warren Tarrant relaxed, by combing stones in circular patterns to enhance the Feng Shui of the place and his overall aura.
Tarrant had claimed in the press that some of his most important decisions regarding the company had become clear to him while in his precious garden. The fact that the company share price had slipped by ten percent since he had taken over had led some commentators in the markets to suggest it might be in shareholders’ interests if the garden were mysteriously dynamited.
They filed through the archway, one at a time. The interior of the walled garden was larger than it looked from the outside. Vines covered the interior walls like green veins to box the space in vegetation. There was no grass in the garden, only the small grey stones flown in from the steps of Mount Fuji. The stones were raked in concentric patterns around six medium sized bonsai trees scattered at Zen like intervals.