The Newsmaker (Volume One Book 1)

by Tom Field

  “The team are out hunting for the van.”

  “Lawson is available; he’s at Nicole-Louise’s. Call him and co-ordinate with him,” he said

  “OK.”

  “Hurry up,” Ward said and hung up.

  He moved across the street and stood in an apartment doorway. He had no way of knowing how Ashurst-Stevens intended to leave the building, but he doubted whatever arrangements he had made would be sufficient to stop the three of them from taking him.

  He prepared himself to wait for however long it took.

  Asif Fulken was becoming more and more agitated. It was now 10:45pm, less than twelve hours to go and this would all be over, but he could not place the man on the phone anywhere. He had a British accent but spoke about Americans as ‘Us’. His only contact had been with the CIA and so he had to be a part of that.

  The man sounded so calm and in control when he was speaking to him that he must know a number of things that he didn’t. He knew about his family and he said they would never be safe. He had discarded the phone immediately after their conversation had ended but he regretted doing so now. He wanted to call him back, he had so many questions. He felt that the answer to where he had seen him before was almost on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t put the final piece together.

  A normal man would run, protect himself and disappear but he was a warrior, a protector of faith and family and he would not let fear beat him.

  Everything had been so simple at the start until this man got involved.

  But everything will be so simple in the end. He told himself over and over, but he kept going back to the same question, the more he tried convincing himself that he was in control. Why was the man on the phone the one in control of everything? He had said that he was the person behind everything, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t piece it together. He had seen all about the man called Lord Ashurst-Stevens and understood that he was the money man, but where did the man on the phone fit in.

  He was confused and distracted because of the man, and he sat on the sofa with his eyes shut, trying to work out who this man was. Very confused and distracted.

  So confused and distracted in fact, that he did not notice the two men outside the building creep through the shadows and head towards the wooden garage where the UPS van was stored.

  Twenty minutes after he had called them, Ward was standing with Lawson and McDermott.

  Ashurst-Stevens had still not left the building. McDermott had parked the Range Rover as close to the restaurant as possible, which was about forty feet away from the entrance,

  “Nicole-Louise could not find any limousine’s booked or payment to any security company, so we are going to have to take this as it comes,” Lawson said.

  “He knows both of us so if you take the restaurant side of the street near the door, and Lawson and me will rush in from this side then we can box him in that way,” Ward said to McDermott.

  They watched as McDermott crossed the street.

  “What do we do if we don’t find the van?” Lawson asked.

  “We are covering that now,” Ward replied.

  “So we get Ashurst-Stevens to tell us where the target is and that narrows our search down?”

  “Yes Mike,” he said, “That is why when you use what is in your head rather than your trousers, you are exceptional at your job.”

  Lawson smiled.

  “So,” Lawson said, “I have a question?”

  “What?”

  “Were there many attractive women in the restaurant?” he said with a smile.

  They waited for a further five minutes and only a handful of diners left the restaurant.

  McDermott stayed as alert and focussed as ever, checking the road and the entrance, and then all three of them watched as a black Mercedes with tinted windows pulled up, and two thick set guys stepped out and walked towards the restaurant entrance.

  “This could be the transport,” Lawson said.

  Ward looked across to McDermott who nodded at them both. They saw the two guys enter and talk to the floor manager, then watched as the floor manager walked off and disappeared out of sight, as he had when he led Ward to Ashurst-Stevens table.

  “This is it,” Ward said, “Take the driver out,” he said to Lawson.

  He watched as Lawson walked up to the Mercedes and knocked on the driver’s window. The driver lowered the window about eight inches and Lawson said something, and then the driver lowered the window all the way down and Lawson unleashed a thunderous right hook that caught the guy square in the face and he slumped sideways, his seatbelt holding him upright. Lawson opened the door, undid the seatbelt and pulled the driver out. He was completely unconscious. He lifted him to his feet and yanked him onto his shoulder. Lawson had incredible strength that matched his physical size.

  He watched as he walked towards an alleyway, with the guy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

  He entered the alleyway and thirty seconds later; returned alone and sat in the driver’s seat in the Mercedes, raising the window back up completely.

  A minute later, Ward saw Ashurst-Stevens walking behind the two men as they walked out of the restaurant. McDermott stepped out in front of them as Ward started to cross the road.

  The guy at the front assessed McDermott as a threat and stepped towards him immediately. He reached McDermott and put his hand on McDermott’s chest in a forceful stop action. This guy has no idea how dumb he had just been, Ward thought to himself.

  McDermott rammed his elbow down onto the guys arm and Ward could hear the arm snap from twenty feet away. The other guy turned his head and it took a few seconds to compute what was happening. By the time it had registered, McDermott was standing right next to him and he jabbed him with lightning speed in the throat. The guy fell straight to the floor.

  It had taken no more than five seconds to wipe out Ashurst-Stevens’ protection. Ward continued his walk across to the sidewalk without changing pace and stopped next to Ashurst-Stevens.

  There was a look of fear on his face that Ward had not seen in the previous times that they had met. This would be easy, he thought to himself.

  He grabbed his arm and forcibly pulled him over to the Mercedes and opened the door.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Ashurst-Stevens demanded, “Have you any idea what a mistake you have just made? You will face the full wrath of the British government,” he added.

  “I’m not British dipshit,” Ward said, “So, get in the car; I want to talk to you.”

  FORTY ONE

  Ward climbed into the back of the car with Ashurst-Stevens, while McDermott got in the front next to Lawson and they pulled slowly away.

  “Whatever you think I do or don’t know, or what you think I may or may not have done, I can’t help you,” Ashurst-Stevens said.

  Ward ignored him.

  “Where are you taking me?” he demanded.

  Ward ignored him.

  “Have you any idea how powerful the people I know are?” he shouted, “You have no idea what you have just done. People way above your pay grade and that of your bosses will destroy you!”

  Ward still said nothing.

  It was a technique used to unsettle people. A non-response eventually led them to thinking that you had a plan, and that caused panic. Once you interrogate someone who is panicking, you can find out whatever you want to find out.

  “I told you, I know nothing about that bomb,” Ashurst-Stevens protested.

  Ward still ignored him.

  They drove for a few more minutes and then Ashurst-Stevens started protesting again but this time in a quieter voice. The few minutes thinking time had panicked him.

  “What do you think will happen to you if anything happens to me?” he asked.

  Ward ignored him.

  “There are people very, very powerful at play here, way out of the league of the security services, so what do you think will happen?”

  Still Ward ignored him, but he thought
back to Barnard and how he said that there were people above Ashurst-Stevens who were involved; but he had dismissed that as the words of a desperate man. But here it was again from Ashurst-Stevens. Maybe another desperate man, or perhaps there was an element of truth to it.

  “You will be crushed,” he spat, “All three of you.”

  Ward ignored him.

  They drove another few miles and reached McDermott’s warehouse.

  They stopped outside the roller shutter doors, while McDermott opened them with a remote key, and then quickly closed them after they had bundled Ashurst-Stevens inside.

  “I’ll get the kit ready,” McDermott said as he moved a chair into the same position where Martin Walker sat.

  Ward pulled Ashurst-Stevens over to the chair and pushed him down by leaning on his right shoulder. He kept his weight fully applied while he waited.

  McDermott came back carrying a large bag, the type that a contractor carries onto a construction site, and put it on the table. He went into the bag and tossed Lawson a plastic bag full of large cable ties.

  Lawson took three out and tied Ashurst-Stevens ankles to the chair first, and then pulled his arms behind the chair, ran the cable tie through the back supports and tightened them around his wrists. He was completely trussed up and unable to move.

  Ward nodded at Lawson and walked out of the room to the reception area with McDermott following them, closing the door so that Ashurst-Stevens was left with nothing but the eerie silence of the empty warehouse.

  All alone.

  Ten minutes to sit there looking at the tool bag, playing the most hideous scenarios over and over in his head, should be enough to unsettle him and get him to talk, Ward thought to himself.

  “Do you have a kettle and coffee here?” Lawson asked McDermott.

  “Only inside, but there is a coffee shop five minutes down the road, if you want to make him wait for fifteen minutes and really put the frighteners on him?” McDermott replied.

  “I fancy a coffee, you two?” Lawson asked.

  They both nodded. This could take some time, so refreshments would be a good idea. Lawson left the reception area, and twenty seconds later they heard the car start and pull away.

  “Have you heard anything from your teams?” Ward asked

  “Nothing,” McDermott replied, “As soon as they find anything, we will know.”

  Ward felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, he pulled it out and saw Centrepoint’s name. He put it back in his pocket.

  “There is only one part of this that doesn’t make sense to me,” McDermott said to Ward

  “There’s two parts that don’t make sense to me,” Ward replied.

  McDermott raised an eyebrow.

  “Why a rich guy like him,” McDermott said, pointing towards the door that led into the main warehouse, “Would go to those extremes to make more money is the obvious one.”

  Ward nodded.

  “I thought initially that he was just greedy, but then the lawyer told me that there were higher powers than Ashurst-Stevens at play. I dismissed that at first, but now he has said it again, and he sounded so confident in telling me that, I think he might be telling the truth,” Ward replied.

  “More powerful than him would mean someone very, very, very rich,” McDermott replied.

  “Or rich in another way”?

  “Like?”

  “Influence. We now know how this is meant to be played out, Agreed?” Ward asked.

  “Agreed.”

  “So I am starting to think that Ashurst-Stevens could not have dreamed this up himself.”

  “He seems pretty capable to me,” McDermott replied.

  “No. I think the extra revenue that his media group made and the death of one of his competitors could be his payment from someone else.”

  “For effectively assuming control of the operation?”

  Ward’s phone vibrated again. Centrepoint’s name appeared on the screen. He looked at it and put the phone back in his pocket.

  “Yes. But the word of a lawyer just before he was going to die, doesn’t hold much weight,” Ward said, “You know better than me that a man with a gun pointing at him will say anything.”

  McDermott nodded.

  “It was the confidence of Ashurst-Stevens that makes me think that there is someone else involved,” Ward continued. “I could see it in his eyes. He genuinely thinks he is untouchable.”

  “He isn’t looking untouchable right now,” McDermott replied with a smile.

  Ward laughed.

  “Even ignoring the claims that two desperate men make, there is one last thing that is nagging at me, which no matter how I try and piece it together, I can’t,” Ward said.

  His phone vibrated again and he looked at the screen, it was Centrepoint yet again.

  “I think The Old Man is desperate to talk to you,” McDermott said.

  “I know. I don’t want to talk to him, I know what he will say.”

  “So what is the other thing that you can’t piece together?” McDermott asked.

  Ward looked at him. The fact that McDermott had not given a thought to one small thing, momentarily made him think to himself that he was looking for problems that weren’t there. The fact that neither he nor Lawson had ever mentioned the point that niggled away at him bothered him a great deal. He looked at McDermott.

  “How on earth do you think Ashurst-Stevens knew that Fulken existed and where to find him?” Ward asked.

  “I assumed that news corporations have investigative journalists, and that one of them has a source, who has a contact in the CIA, and they found him that way,” McDermott replied, “You think we were meant to think that?”

  “I’m not sure what to think either way but I am sure that Ashurst-Stevens will tell us.”

  They heard a car pull up outside and McDermott glanced at the CCTV screen.

  “It’s Lawson,” he said.

  Lawson walked in and handed a coffee each to Ward and McDermott. Ward’s phone vibrated again. He looked at the screen. It was Centrepoint again. Ward put it back in his pocket.

  Again.

  Lawson looked at his watch; it was now 11:00.

  “We’ll drink these and then start?” he asked, “Let’s give him 20 minutes to panic.”

  Ward nodded.

  “How do you think they knew who Fulken was and where we were hiding him?” he asked Lawson.

  “They are journalists, they always pay someone, who pays someone else, who tells them things they want to know,” he replied.

  Maybe they were right after all.

  “The Old Man has tried calling me three times,” Lawson said as they all sipped their coffee, “I didn’t answer but I think he knows about Ashurst-Stevens now and he isn’t very happy.”

  “He told me not to kill him; he said that he is worth more to us alive, that in the bigger picture, he will be of great use to us in the future,” Ward said wearily.

  “I think he is more worried about the fact that he is a high profile man. The government in the U.K. kiss his arse all the time, simply because he can decide who gets elected, and who stays elected,” Lawson added.

  “Are you going to kill him?” McDermott asked.

  “Probably,” Ward replied, as he tilted his cup and swallowed the last remaining mouthful of coffee.

  “Good,” Lawson said.

  Ward put his cup down and they walked into the main area. Ashurst-Stevens was sitting on the chair, rocking his upper body backwards and forwards trying to loosen the cable ties.

  “It’s a waste of time,” Ward said, “They won’t break. You need to save your energy for what is about to happen,” he added as he approached him.

  He stopped two feet in front of Ashurst-Stevens and looked down at him. He looked straight back at him. He noticed that there was a resilience in his eyes that wasn’t there twenty minutes ago.

  He knelt down so that he was now eye level with him,

  “OK. Here is how this will go,” he said, “I
will ask you questions, you will answer them, and if I decide that you are telling the truth, then I may let you live.”

  “May?” Ashurst-Stevens replied, “You need to work on your negotiation skills son, you aren’t giving me much encouragement.”

  “I’m not your son,” he replied and he raised his right arm and smashed his elbow down hard onto the top of Ashurst-Stevens’ left knee. He felt the whole kneecap jerk down as his elbow connected.

  Ashurst-Stevens let out a high-pitched scream, which for a split second reminded Ward of a child reacting to seeing a big spider.

  He got to his feet and walked over to the table where the tool bag was placed. He pulled the two sides apart to reveal the contents. There were pliers, knives and two small vice type devices. He knew what they were for, but still picked them out and held them up for McDermott to see.

  “The one in your left hand is for the fingers and toes,” McDermott said, as Ward tried his best to look innocent as to what they were.

  “And this one?” he asked, waving the device in his right hand.

  “That’s for the testicles,” McDermott replied, as he looked down at his watch to look as disinterested as he possibly could.

  “Interesting, I’ve never used one of these,” Ward lied.

  “They are great,” McDermott said, “You can hear the bones crushing in the fingers and toes as you tighten them, and the other one is amusing,” he added.

  “Why amusing?” Lawson asked, lying equally as well as Ward.

  “Because the testicles are really resilient up to a point but when they go they let out this really loud popping noise,” McDermott replied.

  As Ashurst-Stevens eyes darted from one man to another, Lawson deliberately looked suitably impressed.

  Ward walked back over to Ashurst-Stevens carrying the vices and knelt back down to the position that he had previously taken up, one foot away from him at eye-level.

  “Let’s try again,” he said, “This is how it will work. I will ask you questions and if I think you are telling the truth, I may let you live. Do you understand?”

  Ashurst-Stevens nodded but never spoke.

  “That’s better.”