‘That’s a strange name, not his real one surely?’
‘No. It was an acquired name.’
‘Go on,’ said Cole.
‘It’s not a very interesting story.’
‘Tell it anyway. I could do with the distraction.’
Hedge was reluctant to explain how Prem had been given his name. It wasn’t something he personally had ever told anyone else. Cole was looking at him expectantly.
‘Concentrate on the driving,’ Hedge said, nodding his head forward towards the oncoming road. ‘I’ll tell you the story. But it must never be repeated. Not to anyone. Understand?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Cole.
‘Okay,’ said Hedge.
Then he began.
Chapter Nineteen
Hedge had been at Upperdale College for about two years, so he must have been around thirteen years old, he calculated. One evening, just after dinner, a senior boy called Jeremy Potts had given Hedge a large pile of clothes to be washed.
‘Make sure you clean them properly, you little shit. Use plenty of soap powder, and don’t damage anything.’
Hedge was about to ask Potts if he was going to provide the washing powder, but he thought better of it. He would have to use up some of his own valuable supply, he thought to himself. The junior boys had no access to a washing machine, so this chore was going to have to be completed entirely by hand. A great way to spend your free Sunday afternoon, Hedge thought.
It was nearly three hours later that Hedge walked up to the second floor of the boarding house and stood outside Potts room. He knocked on the door gently.
‘Piss off, I’m busy,’ came the immediate response.
Hedge was unsure what to do. He needed to tell Potts that he had finished the washing, but he didn’t want to annoy him. Potts had a reputation for being quite violent when he was upset. He knocked again, and shouted through the door.
‘I’ve done your washing. It’s hanging up to dry in the laundry room downstairs.’
The door flew open, and Potts stood in the doorway. He was wearing a white dressing gown. He leaned out and grabbed hold of Hedge by the throat.
‘Didn’t I tell you to get lost? Never mind, you can come in and join the party.’ Potts laughed as he said this, and pulled the junior boy into his room.
The first thing that Hedge noticed was that the room was dimly lit. There was just a simple bedside lamp throwing a small amount of light across the untidy, one bed room.
Hedge tried to focus his eyes, but the cigarette smoke was making them sting. Then he noticed the two other senior boys in the room, both sitting on the bed drinking from cans. Hedge assumed this was beer. Alcohol and smoking were strictly not allowed in the boarding house, so these senior boys were running quite a risk.
One of the boys on the bed passed a can over to Hedge. ‘Have a beer.’
Hedge shook his head. ‘No, thanks,’ he said nervously.
‘Have a fucking drink,’ the senior boy said menacingly. He continued to hold the can in front of Hedge.
Hedge reluctantly took the can. It was already open, so he took a quick gulp of the drink.
Potts was now standing close to Hedge. He laughed loudly as he watched the junior boy drink the beer. Without warning, he pushed Hedge down on to the bed.
‘Now take your clothes off.’
Hedge had dropped the can, and was lying on the bed. He looked up towards Potts with a horrified expression.
‘Why?’
‘Just do as I say. Hurry up. Take your clothes off, all of them.’
Hedge didn’t know what to do. He was trapped in the room. If he called for help, he would no doubt be expelled for smoking and drinking. The senior boys would more than likely say he was involved.
Potts was now getting angry.
‘Fletch, Harry, hold the little git down, while I strip him.’
The two other senior boys grabbed hold of Hedge. He tried to slide away from them, but ended up being half on the bed and half off it. Fletch and Harry held an arm each, which prevented Hedge moving further off the bed. He found himself face down, with his legs hanging over the edge, and unable to move.
Potts smiled to himself. He kneeled down between the junior boy’s legs. He leaned round and undid Hedge’s trousers, before quickly pulling them down. Hedge was wearing grey underpants, and these were also pulled down. Potts laughed out loud again, and smacked the white backside in front of him with his right hand.
Hedge winced. It didn’t hurt too much, but he was feeling very vulnerable in this position. He wasn’t sure what Potts had in store for him. His mind was racing with thoughts, and he was feeling very nauseous.
‘I need to go now,’ Hedge shouted out. His voice was muffled though, as his face was being pushed onto the bed. ‘Please let me leave.’
‘All in good time,’ replied Potts, who was now untying the front of his dressing gown.
Potts now had a more serious look on his face. He seemed like he was concentrating, and there was a hungry appearance about him. His mouth was open slightly, and his tongue was licking his top lip. The white dressing gown opened at the front and revealed his stiff, erect penis.
Fletch chuckled as he watched. ‘This I have definitely got to see.’
‘Turn your head the other way, both of you. This isn’t a free show, you know. Just keep hold of his arms. Look away, now.’
Reluctantly the two other seniors turned to face the bedroom wall.
Potts pushed his erection towards the white backside of Hedge. The end was now slightly wet and he rubbed it against Hedge’s skin.
‘Please, let me go. I won’t say anything. Please.’
Hedge’s plea fell on deaf ears. Potts was now rubbing himself hard against Hedges backside. His eyes were closed and his mouth had fallen wide open. His breathing had started to get heavier.
Potts suddenly stopped pushing. He opened his eyes, turned his head, and reached around behind him. With his outstretched arm he took a small, glass jar off the shelf. The jar contained some clear, gel-like lubricating cream that he used to stop chafing when he was playing sports. He opened the lid and took out a small amount of the cream with his finger. He ran his hand up and down his stiff cock, spreading the cream evenly.
‘Now for the moment of truth,’ he whispered to himself.
‘No, please. Let me go.’ Hedge tried to shout.
Potts pushed Hedge’s head further into the bed. ‘Shut up. Shut the hell up. Take it like a man and stop whining.’
‘Turn away. I’m not going to tell you again.’ This was to Fletch, who was trying to see what was going on.
Fletch muttered something, but turned his head in the other direction.
Potts moved his erection close to Hedge once more. He resumed rubbing himself against the pale skin of Hedge’s backside. Leaning down with both hands, he parted the cheeks and thrust his cock towards Hedge’s anus.
Hedge tried to move but the other boys held him firm. One of them punched him hard on the side of the face and told him to lie still.
He didn’t want to lie still though. Hedge was worried about what was happening to him. Was it going to be painful? More importantly though, he was concerned about what would happen when his mates found out he had been ‘bummed’ by a senior boy. It would be devastating.
Potts meanwhile had found Hedges anus and was pushing hard against it. He was very aroused. His mouth was open again, and he was murmuring loudly. He realised he needed more lubrication to get past the tight entrance. He took another finger of the cream and started to rub it over his penis. He focused on the end, as this was where it was needed most.
He was still rubbing, when he leaned forward once more, and pushed his cock between the cheeks.
Just at that moment, he let out a loud cry. ‘Oh my god, bloody hell, I’m coming.’
His ejaculation splattered over Hedge’s backside. Potts had his eyes shut tightly, and his teeth were clenched. He was stroking himself gently, as th
e fluid spurted from the end of his penis, and trickled down Hedge’s legs. Eventually he stopped, and leaned back, breathing heavily.
Both Fletch and Harry were laughing. They had ignored the order to look away, and had secretly been watching the events of the last thirty seconds.
It was Harry who blurted out, ‘Premature Ejaculation, if I’m not mistaken.’ He laughed at his own joke.
They had let go of Hedge’s arms, and so he took the opportunity to jump up off the bed. He quickly pulled up his underwear and trousers, opened the room door, and ran off down the corridor.
All he could hear behind him were the howls of Fletch, and a laughing Harry, shouting ‘Prem. Prem. Prem....’
Chapter Twenty
Hedge stayed with Cole for two days in Bury St Edmunds, before saying that he must return to London. He needed to report back to work, and make sure that Maddie was okay.
Cole had agreed to drive him back to London. He had received a call from Docherty, who had said that it would be useful for the two of them to have a quick meet up.
Cole met Docherty on a wooden bench near the edge of Hyde Park. It was a cold day, but the rain that had been forecast had so far not arrived.
‘Is there any news on my wife?’ It had only been a few days since they had met in the cafe just outside Limassol in Cyprus. But to Cole, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
‘Nothing concrete to report I’m afraid, but we have good people working on it.’
Cole looked dejected. His expression was that of someone who had heard all the reassurances, but didn’t believe them.
Docherty read his reaction. ‘Trust me old mate. I’m making sure this gets all the resource it deserves. I know this is a terrible time for you.’
Cole tried to smile, but it came out looking less than genuine.
Docherty looked like he was about to say something else, but he seemed to hold back at the last minute.
‘What? What is it?’ said Cole.
‘Well, it may be nothing. But …’ Docherty hesitated.
‘What?’
I’m not supposed to let you in on this. It was felt by my superiors back at MI5 that you shouldn’t be involved. It’s too delicate. The investigation is still in early days.’
‘So now you have my attention.’ Cole’s eyes had widened.
Docherty thought for a moment. Then he spoke quietly. ‘Do you remember the tragic incident a few weeks back involving a company man called Oxley?’
‘Of course I do. Gary Oxley was a friend of mine. We crossed paths in the Balkans many years ago. It was a terrible incident. I still can’t believe it. He must have changed a lot in the last couple of years. It seemed so out of character. The person I knew wouldn’t have been capable of doing that to himself. The last time I saw him was at a surprise party we had for Major Thomson - one of my old Special Forces bosses. He was given an award in the Queens New Years honours list. We had a few of the old gang, including Oxley, over for drinks.
‘Well, the incident that occurred a few weeks back was investigated thoroughly at the time, and both the police and the company were completely baffled by what went on in that hotel room. The theory was that Oxley had been forced to provide an access code for someone to login to the British Intelligence Network, or BIN for short. It was later proven that an unauthorised access was subsequently made to the BIN system. It’s hardly surprising that he gave out the access ID and password - his family were being held at gunpoint at the time.’
‘Poor bastard,’ said Cole. He had been genuinely upset by the report of Oxley’s death. He had almost forgotten about it now that he was submersed in his own grief.
Docherty continued to elaborate on the result of the investigation. ‘It was then believed that this in turn led Oxley to take his own life. It turns out he’d been under the doctor for several months suffering from stress. Poor old boy had even been suffering with erectile dysfunction, according to medical records.’ Docherty raised his eyebrows as he said this last line.
‘Jesus Christ. He must have been stressed out. I always remember him as a bit of a ladies’ man.’
Docherty shrugged. ‘The verdict remained at suicide. There was no evidence to say otherwise. Oxley’s general state of health, combined with our assumption that he had now given away access to one of the most secret online systems on the planet. The conclusion was that it was all too much for him to bear.’
Docherty had placed too much stress on one of the words in his sentence.
‘Was?’ Cole look puzzled. ‘You said the conclusion was …?’
‘Well, now we’re not sure. The actual information that anyone could get from the BIN system through the access channel that Oxley may have given away was highly limited. In fact, it would be hard for anyone to do any significant damage to our intelligence operations. Also, the unauthorised access that apparently occurred was never actually confirmed. So we now think that may have been a smokescreen.’
‘Why so,’ Cole was listening intently.
Docherty reached into the inside pocket of his dark blue, double breasted jacket. He pulled out a typed report consisting of several pages of A4 size paper.
‘Because of something I recently stumbled across. Don’t ask me to let you have it. I can’t. It’s an extract from a report made by a duty officer at GCHQ. It’s dated three days ago.’
‘What have GCHQ got to do with Oxley’s possible suicide.’ Cole looked confused.
‘Nothing directly,’ replied Docherty. ‘But, as you know, they listen to all kinds of communication traffic. That includes telephone calls, emails, satellite reconnaissance, in fact anything they can lay their hands on. Let me tell you what this says.’
Docherty read out the contents of the top secret document he had in his possession. The operative who wrote the report had summarised the outcome of his shift at work that day. He was part of a team responsible for reviewing cell phone calls made from the UK to the Middle East region. Of course, this wasn’t done manually. Rather it was a highly sophisticated computerised system. The process looked at hundreds of thousands of calls made each day, and rated them depending on certain criteria. The overall risk factor could be affected by the subject matter of the call, the country where the call was going to, the language being used, and many other things. More recent technology was even able to analyse the stress levels in the voices of the people on the calls.
So it was that on that day the GCHQ operative in question had passed on four messages, or part messages, to his supervising controller for further analysis. They were listed in order of potential threat.
Docherty looked up to see if he has the attention of Cole. He did. Cole was looking at him expectantly.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘The first one was a call from an address in London to a location near Baghdad, in Iraq. The transcript of the message was not complete, but the bones of it were “Tell Abdullah … package will be placed today… many will incur the wrath … make the payment … family … see them in that glorious place.” It’s not exactly very well coded.’ Docherty was shaking his head. ‘I believe the anti-terrorist squad raided an address in Croydon this morning. They picked up a Libyan born man with a homemade bomb in a suitcase under his bed.’
‘Sounds like bread and butter stuff for the boys at Cheltenham.’ Cole was referring to the location of the government listening post.
‘Indeed,’ said Docherty. What the public may not realise is that the intelligence services pick up many of these kinds of incidents each week. There’s normally no publicity though. If there was, then panic would ensue.’
‘What else is in the report then?’
Docherty looked at the second item in the document. He started to laugh. ‘It’s not actually funny, but I couldn’t help being amused by this. It was a call made to a known KGB location in Moscow. The caller was a woman speaking in heavily accented Russian. It was picked up as the voice analysis software determined that she was in a state of severe shock.’
/> He laughed a second time, but then managed to control himself.
‘This is the translation as best we could get it. “Tell Vlad that’s the last time I am doing that kind of work for him. I got absolutely no information from the Colonel. He told me he knows nothing about the Project Olympus troop deployment. I asked him up to my room as a last resort. The old bastard ended up tying me to the bed and pounding me in the arsehole. It took him twenty minutes to satisfy himself. My anus is shot to bits. I can’t even sit down today.” There’s more, but that was the humorous part.’
Both men laughed together. Cole pictured what the Colonel in question would say when MI5 officers arrived at his home today.
Docherty read out the third item on the report, but it wasn’t really of much interest to them. It related to a conversation between a young girl in Manchester and a man speaking in Arabic from somewhere in Syria.
It was the fourth item on the report that Docherty wanted to tell Cole about. He waited a moment while an elderly couple walked past the bench where they were seated. The old man nodded, and mouthed ‘good morning’ to them. When they had passed by, Docherty continued.
‘This message was picked up coming from a cell phone in North London. The recipient was at an address in Northern Cyprus - the Turkish sector. The signal was intermittent due to atmospheric conditions on the day the call was made, but you can get the gist of it. The language was Turkish, but it’s been translated into English by the GCHQ software. “Yes … yes … the usual fee, eighty thousand dollars (operator note - this may have been eighteen thousand dollars as the voice clarity was not good, but the former amount seems most likely)… yes … he gave Solomon … address … nearly shot the mother … Ochi (operator note - see below) … had to be silenced …”
Cole was looking a little lost. ‘I don’t see that’s of any interest to me or anyone. It could mean anything.’
‘That’s because I haven’t read out the operator’s second note.’ Docherty turned the page of the report looking for the exact wording that the GCHQ man had written. He read it slowly.
The Terminate Code: A gripping, page-turning, action adventure revenge thriller, with a fast pace, and a terrifying twist in its tail ! (Hedge & Cole Book 2) Page 8