The Newsmaker (Volume One Book 1)

by Tom Field

  “It’s really important that we don’t let Ashurst-Stevens think we know anything,” he said to Lawson.

  “No worries, I’ll be nothing but courteous.”

  “Lucas is our concern here. We need to get him out of the building and take him somewhere quiet, and then he can tell us everything he knows, although I doubt he knows too much about the intricacies of this whole show.”

  “Even if we stop the bomb….” Lawson said.

  “When!” Ward interrupted.

  “Even when we stop the bomb, and take Ashurst-Stevens to task, I get the feeling there is more to this than we think.”

  “I’ve had that feeling from day one, but all we can do is what we are tasked to do, and that is to stop it from ever happening.”

  They arrived at the offices and walked into the reception area. The same girl was there but the old security guard was nowhere to be seen. Ward approached the reception desk,

  “Can you tell Mr Ashurst-Stevens we are here to see him?” he asked politely.

  “Lord Ashurst-Stevens is not here,” she corrected him, “He has an appointment at the NYPD police fundraising event in Brooklyn.”

  “Any other appointments?” he asked.

  She looked down a list on a piece of paper,

  “Only the awards ceremony tomorrow night.”

  “I have an invite to that, Abbi invited me,” Lawson interrupted, looking rather pleased with himself.

  Both Ward and the girl ignored him.

  “Is Mr Walker’s assistant still here?” he asked.

  “I think so,” she replied, “Shall I check?” she asked, as she reached to pick up the phone.

  “It’s OK, we’ll walk up. It is a personal item of Mr Walker’s that I have to give him, and if he’s not there we will come straight back.”

  “OK,” she replied without a hint of suspicion, she had clearly got used to him coming and going by now.

  They walked over to the elevator and pressed the call button.

  “Are we going to kill him?” Lawson asked.

  Ward pondered the question for a moment and then said,

  “Wait here, I have a better idea,” and he stepped away from the elevator and took out his cell phone. He thumbed through the contacts on his phone and dialled The Optician.

  “You know where I am?” he asked as soon as it was answered.

  “Yes, I’ve just got here. The Old Man is in a panic about this. He’s worried that you might upset this Lord and he will go running to his powerful friends,” he said.

  “Tell him not to, he’s down the list of priorities at the moment,” Ward replied.

  “So what do you want?”

  “You know Gilligan was killed?”

  “Yes, I heard. I liked him,” The Optician replied.

  “We are here now to collect the guy who killed him.”

  The line went quiet, a cue to continue.

  “We intend to extract him, take him somewhere quiet, close to here and question him.”

  “And after that?” The Optician asked.

  “How much did you like Gilligan?”

  “Let him go and I will do the rest. I will give him exactly five minutes to live when you release him,” The Optician replied and then hung up the phone.

  He walked back to Lawson who was holding the elevator door open with his foot. They both stepped in and Lawson pressed the button for floor sixteen.

  “Who was that you called?” Lawson asked as the elevator began its journey up to the sixteenth floor.

  “The Optician.”

  “Oh dear, poor Lucas,” he said with a smile.

  The elevator reached their floor in ten seconds. They stepped out; walked down the familiar route to the boardroom, opened the door and walked in.

  Lucas was directly in front of them, sitting at the head of the table where Ashurst-Stevens would normally sit.

  He stood up and assumed a defensive position immediately.

  “Sit down idiot,” Ward said, as he pulled out the chair where he had seen Walker sitting every other time he had been in the room, and sat down.

  Lawson walked around the table and sat in the chair next to Lucas where the Lawyer who had his nose broken by Ward had sat. He looked at them and reluctantly sat down.

  “Against our better judgement we have to put Walker back into your care,” Ward said, “But before you come with us and collect him, I thought we could have a chat,” he added.

  “You caught me with a sucker punch, I wasn’t ready,” Lucas said quickly, totally not comprehending the seriousness of his predicament.

  The guy really was an idiot Ward thought to himself.

  “What was your brief in regards to Walker?” he asked.

  “To protect him, that was all,” he replied in his irritating droll.

  “You didn’t make a very good job of that,” Lawson said.

  Lucas looked at him and then looked back at Ward.

  “There was a team of people, they caught me when I wasn’t ready,” Lucas said defensively.

  “Isn’t your job to be ready at all times, idiot?” he asked him.

  Lucas didn’t say anything, but a confused look appeared on his face.

  “Anyway, how do we know that if we let you come back with us and collect him, that you will keep him safe?” Ward asked.

  “Because this time I will be ready at all times?” Lucas replied, like a child answering a teacher in class.

  Ward felt a rage wash over him. He was struggling to control it. How could a great man like Gilligan, a man who had risked his life a hundred times and saved his own life, fall to a guy like this? It made his loss even more insulting.

  “OK. But we will give you our number and you call if you get in any trouble. Deal?” he said softly.

  “Deal.”

  Ward stood up and walked towards the door, Lawson joined him.

  Lucas still sat there.

  “Well come on,” he said, “We still have a bomber to catch so the sooner Walker is out of our hair the better.”

  Lucas stood up and walked over to them. He pulled his handgun out of his pocket and took the safety off.

  “OK, let’s go,” he said to them both and walked past them, heading towards the elevator with great purpose.

  Lawson looked at Ward in bemusement.

  Ward shrugged his shoulders.

  Lucas called the elevator and stood directly in front of the doors waiting for them to open. Ward studied him. He was capable, that much was obvious, and he thought back to the first time that he saw him and how he had the impression that in a fist fight; Lucas would not stay down unless he was unconscious or dead. He also thought about how his demeanour had changed dramatically since the kidnap of Walker and the punch to the throat Ward had delivered the last time that he saw him. It’s all about perceptions Ward concluded.

  Once McDermott had told him that Lucas could not cut it as a Seal, he became a totally different person. The truth was; he was probably more than adequate ten years ago when he was going through Seal training, and not only would his body have been finely tuned, his senses would have been too.

  But ten years on, and living a civilian life; that edge had disappeared. He was competent as a sniper, the kill shot on Gilligan proved that; but the fact he missed Ward demonstrated that he was no more than average.

  The elevator doors opened and they stepped in.

  “How long were you a Seal?” Ward asked him.

  “Five years,” Lucas lied.

  “See much action?” Lawson asked.

  “I can’t discuss that.”

  Lawson had to stop himself from bursting out in laughter.

  The elevator reached the ground floor and they stepped out. They walked through the reception area and out through the big glass entrance doors.

  Lawson climbed into the black Sudan to drive and Lucas leant to open the back door,

  “You take the front,” Ward said, “I’m being dropped off on the way to you collecting Walker,�
�� he added in a casual tone.

  Lucas moved forward and opened the door to the passenger seat and stepped in. Ward climbed in behind him. Lawson pulled away and they drove up 6th Avenue to West 54th and turned down the street. Lawson saw a side road adjacent to an Italian restaurant and drove down it.

  It was a secluded area, made up of a few parking spaces for the employees of the restaurants which made up the block, and a number of dumpsters, which probably got raided on a daily basis by the homeless people. But at 5pm, there was no one about. It was way before the evening rush.

  Ward took out his phone and hit redial,

  “Can you see where we are?” he asked The Optician.

  “I’m just coming onto 54th now,” he said, “I’ll be ready in one minute.”

  Ward stepped out of the car and Lawson followed.

  Ward opened the passenger door,

  “Out!” he demanded to Lucas.

  Lucas reluctantly stepped out, his eyes darting left, right, up and down, but Ward could see that they were moving too quickly to allow his surroundings to register properly and there was no point in even trying to see The Optician.

  Lucas’ hand started to move towards the side of his jacket where his handgun was placed and as he did so, Lawson unleashed a thunderous right hook that caught him full in the stomach, and he doubled over and fell to his knees, exhaling the air in his lungs in sync with a very loud groan. Lawson pulled his head back with his right hand and removed the gun with his left. The whole move took no more than three seconds.

  “You are in a lot of trouble,” Ward said calmly, as Lawson pulled Lucas to his feet with one strong hand and leant him against the car.

  Lucas looked terrified.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions and the first time I think you lie to me, I am going to kill you. Is that clear?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Lucas replied without hesitation.

  He knew the situation.

  He either defended someone who signed his pay checks or lost his life. He knew that Ward was not bluffing.

  He would tell the truth.

  “What was your real brief regarding Walker?”

  “To keep him away from you or any other member of the secret service,” Lucas replied.

  “You think I’m secret service?”

  “No I don’t.”

  “What do you think I am?”

  “I think you are MI6 and you work closely with the CIA.”

  “And the lawyers believed that they could control me because of their powerful friends?” Ward asked.

  “They did at first, but then it became clear that people had no influence on what you did, whoever you are,” Lucas replied.

  “You beat on Walker, why?”

  “Because Ashurst-Stevens said I had to know what he was doing and who he was talking to all the time.”

  “You killed my friend, why?”

  “Because the Lawyers said that you were a threat and that you couldn’t be controlled. They contacted MI6 and the CIA to find out about you.”

  “And?”

  “No one knew anything, other than the people at the CIA were instructed to grant you access to all areas.”

  “That’s because I don’t exist,” Ward replied.

  “That’s what they said,” Lucas replied.

  “So, you killed my friend and then tried to kill me. What would you do in my position?”

  “I would try and find out where the bomb is due to go off.”

  A response that Ward felt moved him up from idiot status to just stupid.

  “Do you know where it is going to go off?” he asked.

  “No. But I could find out. If they think I killed you they might trust me and tell me.”

  Lucas was trying his hardest to offer a solution that he thought might tempt Ward.

  “Or I could just go and see them and torture them until they tell me. Everyone breaks in the end, you should know that,” Ward replied.

  The look on Lucas’ face showed he understood he was all out of options.

  “Were you a good sniper?” Ward asked.

  “I was above average. I would have taken you out too if you hadn’t of moved so quickly.”

  “And now you wish more than anything you had because you know you are going to die?”

  “But I have told you the truth!” Lucas protested.

  “I know you have. But you haven’t told me anything I don’t already know and you killed my friend, so you know I can’t let you live.”

  Lucas stood upright, put his hands behind his back, closed his eyes and said, “Do it quick,” and braced himself for the bullet. He could hear the sound of a car door opening and opened his eyes to see Lawson stepping into the Sudan. Ward was opening the passenger door.

  “You have five minutes to live,” Ward said.

  “I don’t understand?”

  “You were a Seal. Ever heard of The Optician?” Ward said as he climbed into the car.

  Lucas’ face went white.

  The whole of the Special Forces world had heard of The Optician.

  Lawson turned the car around, and they drove back past Lucas who was rooted to the spot. Ward lowered the window and as Lawson drove slowly past him, he looked at Lucas and said,

  “You won’t see him.”

  With that, they drove up the side road out of sight.

  As they did so, a 7.62mm bullet smashed into the dumpster directly behind Lucas; whistling past him, deliberately close enough so that he would almost feel it.

  The Optician was here.

  Lucas sprinted to his left and crouched down behind a dumpster. He had heard stories of The Optician when he was halfway through his Seal training. They were stories of a man who was originally a Seal, but was so good at what he did that the U.S. government actually loaned him out to their allies. At the end of one particularly hard days training when the trainees were in their billet, ‘Shooting the shit’, as they called it, exchanging stories about Seal legends, he had heard about the time The Optician was dropped into Afghanistan completely alone, with the aim of taking out one of Bin Laden’s chief lieutenants. He had enough supplies to last three days and no communications equipment.

  The legend went that a team was sent to find him after five days and an extensive search by a Seal team found no trace of him and he was declared dead.

  Four days after that, The Optician turned up back at base, strolling through the gates and confirming his mission was completed. The story went that he had not only achieved his objective and wiped out the target, but when he was unpacking his kit; he still had three days’ worth of supplies left. No one during Lucas’ time with the Seals had ever seen him, but during sniper training, the instructors referred to him as being very real.

  Lucas told himself to breathe slowly. The worst thing for him was the eerie silence that seemed to have descended, almost as though the whole world was holding its breath waiting to see what would happen.

  He listened as hard as he could, tilting his head to the left and pointing his right ear to the top of the dumpster, in the direction of where the shot had come from, to see if he could hear anything.

  He looked down at his watch.

  Thirty seconds had gone.

  He considered his options. Stay still for five minutes and then hope The Optician would let him go because he beat the clock, before immediately realising how lame that was and dismissing it, or to make a run the ten feet to the next dumpster outside the adjoining building, and then continue for three more dumpsters until he could take shelter behind a brick outhouse that had an alley running alongside it?

  He looked at his watch.

  One minute had gone.

  He decided to go for the next dumpster. He crouched into a start position, exactly like an athlete at the beginning of a race, and pushed with all his strength off of his left leg and burst forward towards the next dumpster. As soon as he got five feet out into the open, he felt a sharp pain in the top of his right arm, a pain that
could only be described as a red hot poker being pushed slowly into, and then through, his flesh, and he fell forward, his momentum carrying him to the safety of the next dumpster. He had never felt such a pain in his life, but the adrenalin and his survival instincts kicked in. Two more dumpsters to go.

  He looked at his watch.

  One minute thirty seconds had gone.

  Without hesitation and with a desperate need to reach the alleyway; he assumed the starting block position again and exploded out towards the next dumpster as quickly as his legs would carry him. As he burst out into the open and was into his third stride, he felt a similar sensation as before in his right thigh and his leg completely gave way. He started to fall to the floor, but fortunately for him, there was enough speed in his forward momentum, that even as he fell, he managed to hit the floor in exactly the same position where the dumpster started. By the time he had come to a stop, he was behind it. He looked down at his leg. He got lucky. The bullet had only just caught his thigh at the top and gone in and out, about half an inch below the skin. Painful but not life-threatening, he thought to himself. He was an ex-Seal; he could block the pain out of his head easily. Sure, he was restricted in his movement but one more dumpster to go and then he would be free.

  He looked at his watch.

  Two minutes fifteen seconds had gone.

  Without hesitation and feeling re-energised by the fact he could almost touch the alleyway, he assumed his starting block position again and pushed hard off of his left leg. He sprinted out from behind the dumpster and reached the other side. No pain, no bullet, nothing. He reached the dumpster and crouched down. There was a wooden fence between the alleyway and the dumpster that stood three feet high. On his hands and knees he crawled forward until he felt the daylight replaced by the dark shadows of the sanctuary of the high brick walls on either side of him. In the alleyway there were piles of trash bags and sporadic trash cans but they were not blocking his route to safety. At the end of the alleyway, he could see the main street; cars and people were passing with reassuring regularity, all on their way home from work.

  He looked at his watch.

  Three minutes had gone.

  He pulled himself to his feet and started to move towards the street. He took three steps and felt a sharp, searing pain in his left arm. It knocked him to one side and he stumbled against one of the alleyway walls. He had never known a pain like it in his life.