by Peter Damon
“Is that it? No other parameters?” the young-looking student asked.
“I have to pick up these two American rovers, er, Opportunity and Spirit,” he explained. “The twins tell me I need a 400 kilowatt generator to give me the best speed. I guess, because of the loading and everything, we should have a crew of about four,” he shrugged.
“Five,” the girl told him.
He looked at her, normally enough to have young girls run a mile. “Pardon?” he asked sharply.
“Five. Five crew. You’re going to need a navigator,” she explained.
“Let me guess,” he murmured, and she was already grinning brightly and nodding.
“I have a first in Planetary Science from Oxford, and my thesis was on Mars. I mean, most of the information we have on Mars came from those rovers. Of course I know where they are, to the metre!” she beamed.
Frankie turned towards the lad. He was drawing on the table, which wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Almost half of the tabletops in the lounge were designed to be written on, made of a flat white plastic material that was perfect for the purpose, and easily cleaned off.
“The F1 motor racing teams use a hybrid coach. It has a platform to the rear that rises and stores the cars. Under it, they have all their equipment. We can use a similar design that provides us with a suitable cabin for, what, a 30 hour round trip, tops?”
Frankie looked at the sketch. It had everything he needed, from a space for the large generator, to a perfect storage space for the two rovers.
“Those F1 vans are purpose made,” Frankie stated. “I want something quick.”
The boy was nodding. “We convert a forty seat coach; one of the big luxury ones with a large luggage holding bay under the seating area.”
Frankie was nodding. The engine bay on one of those would hold one rover, all on its own, and the added depth of the luggage hold would allow room for the big generators.
“Three compartments possibly,” the boy was saying, adding more and more details to his drawing. By removing the rear wheels he could extend the engine bay forward, more than enough room for the two rovers, a large compartment for the generator, space for the plant equipment providing life support, and still room for a half dozen crew. He could use a hydraulic lifting table, used by a lot of heavy goods vehicles as a dual tail-gate too. That would reduce exertion in a very cold and primarily Carbon-Dioxide atmosphere. He wouldn’t provide an atmosphere to the rover bay. They had been built to survive space, and that would reduce the amount of life support he’d need to manage.
“Are you all theory, or do you think you can make what you’ve drawn?” Frankie asked, interrupting his thought pattern.
“Try me,” Ricky said, his heart in his mouth.
+++++++++++++
“Yes Sir,” Hank Woldier the FBI agent reported, nodding emphatically. “We liaised with the British Intelligence man, Stanley Charway, and he gave us the name and address of his contact in Virginia. Well, Sir, the man was no longer at that address, but had left a forwarding address.
“He now lives in a much larger property on the other side of town, a much more affluent area. He didn’t want to talk to us at first, but after some convincing, admitted that he’d been given a substantial amount of money to forget everything about his childhood and what that English churchman had done to him.”
“Did you get any further details on this Ian Gower figure?” Glen asked.
“He sat down with one of our artists, so we got a real good picture of the man we’re looking for, Sir,” Hank nodded. “We’ve fed it through our database and got a hit for an agent named Henry Barker, works out of the Washington DC office.”
“Washington? Pass me everything you’ve got on Barker, then leave well alone. I’ll do some checking through the White House,” Glen told him. “Any type of checks you run on senior CIA members based in Washington are doubtless going to set off alarms,” he pointed out.
“I understand Sir. We’ll wait on your instructions, Sir,” the FBI agent agreed.
September 23rd.
Glen nodded and smiled at those who called a greeting, responding in kind. He was walking at his usual brisk pace through the White House corridors, a trip usually conducted in silence, people passing by all too intent on their own importance to pass the time of day with him. Now though, and perhaps because of the strange manner of his entry, he seemed to be everyone’s favourite uncle.
Gary had dropped him off on his way to the Clyde, although he’d not said so. The black Range rover had deposited him on the White House lawn, just about where the helicopter usually landed, but with much less noise and downdraft. Steve Jobs had never had had such a grand entrance. Glen had surpassed his icon. He was on his own now.
He expressed polite interest in the guards’ welfare as he underwent the normal security before entering the West Wing from the main building, then walked resolutely into the warren of rooms that housed all the key personnel providing direct assistance to the President of the United States.
Thankfully, the man he wanted was in an office furthest from the Oval Office, and on the other side of the building from Brad Hawker, the President’s Chief of Staff.
The door was open, as it often was, and Josh Wolf had pulled a drawer from his desk to rest his feet on it while, leaning back in his chair, he digested another report.
“Hi Josh,” Glen smiled, entering the small office, hand extended.
“Glen! I heard you’d gone on to higher things,” Josh quipped, taking the hand to shake it with his normal vigour.
Short and balding, Josh Wolf held the title of Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. Although Glen’s role rarely brought him into professional contact with Josh, they both enjoyed an odd game of squash and a talk on respective families and the juggling of their lives their professions demanded.
“Yes. We’re still trying to get to the bottom of this ISS scandal,” Glen admitted, watching Josh’s expression.
“A scandal? As far as I knew, our perpetrator is most likely to be the same person who impersonated a NASA representative at the manufacturer. I understand the intelligence is leading us to a group of Middle East revolutionaries. So what do you know that I don’t?” Josh asked, offering a seat, but making no move to close his door.
“And your intelligence is coming from the CIA?” Glen asked.
“Of course,” Josh nodded, and paused to look more closely at his guest. “What are you getting at, Glen? You don’t think the CIA is implicated in this, do you?” he asked, half as a joke. “Are the Brits trying to point the finger towards the USA?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
Glen passed Josh the folder he had brought with him, and rose to close the door before settling down to wait for the National Security Affairs officer to finish reading the detailed files from the FBI and British intelligence.
Josh sighed and handed the documents back to Glen before sitting up to pull himself closer to his terminal. “And here I thought you were visiting to gloat over your new and high position,” Josh complained, tapping in his initial password before having to retrieve his key fob to enter his second and time-limited encrypted response code.
“What are you doing?” Glen asked, worriedly.
“Finding out more about this Henry Barker. That would put this to bed, wouldn’t it?” Josh asked.
Glen shrugged. “Unless Barker did it all on his own,” he suggested, and got a sour look from the security man.
“CIA monitor their agents too well for them to play the lone vigilante,” Josh pointed out.
He was in the National Security System and from his senior level could drop down into any of the various agencies to obtain details on their representatives and assignments, current or past.
“Here. Henry Barker, son of John Barker, decorated Vietnam. Henry joined the army and did two years in the Iraq conflict, Purple Heart, served with distinction before joining CIA in 2000. Married with two children. That makes him a better than averag
e American,” Josh pointed out.
“Current or last assignment?” Glen asked.
“Mm, assigned to work with Colin Witt, Special Advisor to the White House,” Josh told him, and looked off to one side, deep in thought.
“What are you thinking?” Glen asked, too afraid of where his thoughts might take him to do any thinking for himself.
Josh sighed and brought up another security system on his screen, this time that of the White House itself. He again used his widget to provide the necessary password, and worked down to obtain the information he wanted.
“And?” Glen asked as Josh drew away from the screen.
“Colin Witt has become a regular visitor to the White House, and in particular the Command Centre.”
“To meet with?” Glen asked. Unless you were a resident, you couldn’t visit the White House without an invitation, normally provided by a resident. That was particularly true of the Command Centre, deep in the basement of the White House complex. You had to be a very senior resident to gain access to the Command Centre, let alone book its facilities and offer invitations to it.
Josh licked his lips. “Brad Hawker, the President’s Chief of Staff.”
“What are you going to do?” Glen asked, seeing Josh reach for the phone.
“The only thing I can do, Glen. Tell the President. She’s the only one who can tell us who authorised this,” he explained.
“And if it was her?” Glen asked, his mouth dry.
Josh put the phone to his ear and met Glen’s eyes.
+++++++++++++
“Frank, you can’t go. The security risk, man!” Stan Charway was arguing over the video link with the ARC.
“I need a vehicle,” Frankie explained patiently. Ricky Williams sat beside him, the student feeling out of place while two of the most senior people involved in the ARC’s running argued.
“Well, we’ll buy you one. What would you like?” Stanley asked him, pen and paper in hand.
Frank shook his head. “We’ll be discarding 90% of it before we’re finished. I won’t do that to a new vehicle. That’s why it has to be an auction,” he stressed.
“Frank, do you know the type of people who populate these events?” he asked. “Of course you do!” he sighed. The Frankie Hill in front of him was far removed from the Frank Hill of just a few months ago.
“We’ll leave the SUV at the ferry dock and I’ll be dressed normally,” Frank pointed out.
Stan was shaking his head again. “You have no idea Frank. Everyone, I mean everyone knows who Frankie Hill is. There’s rarely a day goes by without at least one British newspaper carrying your picture for some reason. Everything you do is national news, and going to a car auction just a few miles from our most top secret venue is like turning a searchlight on for everyone to look more closely at Glasgow.”
“Well, I need to be there,” Frank stressed. “I need a vehicle, and I need to be there to help choose it,” he pointed out.
“What about an auction somewhere else? Isn’t there a large auction down in Essex somewhere, Brentwood or Barking way?” Stan asked.
“It’s at Dagenham, and there won’t be another one there for another six weeks,” Frankie told him.
September 24th.
Stanley Charway was a master of subterfuge. He knew countless ways of hiding in plain sight, of misleading the public, of operating in complete secrecy, invisible to all but those within his group. However, sometimes, such tactics just wouldn’t work, and for those rare occasions when something else was needed, Stanley was versatile enough to implement alternatives.
The large property just five kilometres from their own dry dock had once been part of the Clyde’s network of privately owned shipbuilders. Now, long since reduced to just the concrete foundations, it was one of the largest vehicle auctions in the north of Britain.
Ricky Williams had never been to a car auction and tried not to stare as they walked purposefully towards the corner of the 20-acre site where the coaches had been lined up, doors and engine-covers opened to allow inspection.
It was inevitable that Frank would draw attention. Even in normal clothes, his distinctive scalp tattoos were enough to identify him. However, with them on this day were a group of fifteen of the hardest, meanest, fittest men from the First Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, each one on point to ensure no one came near Frankie or Ricky, talked to them, or photographed them.
“Come along then,” Frank told Ricky, inviting him to select the coach he felt would best suit their needs.
Ricky glanced at the dozen that were available and discarded half of them straight away as being too small. Of those that remained, he examined the size of their engine and luggage bays before looking briefly inside those that remained while Frankie did his own investigation.
“Well?” Frankie asked as they met up again in front of the row of coaches.
“Those two,” Ricky had decided, pointing toward the two.
“Really?” Frank said, and laughed as he drifted off to make his way to the mobile café parked conveniently next to the slow-moving Clyde.
“Why the laugh?” Ricky asked, following him and trying to match the spaceman’s long stride.
“Why two?” Frank asked in reply.
“As backup, in case we need to swop parts out. It may speed things up,” Ricky shrugged. “So why the laugh?” he asked again.
Frankie ordered two teas and passed one to the young student. “Because those were the two I had chosen,” he explained, nodding towards a distant cousin of his who was nervously eyeing his troop of bodyguards.
They drifted back towards the coaches and waited there in a clear space created by their bodyguards for the auctioneer to make his way to them. Some of those nearby lifted phones in order to take a picture of them, only to be quickly dissuaded by the large army officers who turned threateningly towards them.
The auctioneer and his secretary were coming slowly along the line of vehicles, stopping at each one to auction it off. A small troop of runners preceded them, closing the bonnets, turning on the engine and driving each vehicle a few metres forward, then back again as proof that they were all ‘running’ vehicles.
The parade came to the coaches. Ricky watched in fascination as Frankie made bids with a small movement of his head and eyes, uncertain as to whether they had got the vehicles they wanted until later, when they went to pay for them.
+++++++++++++
They waited until the early hours of the morning, then dropped two SUV’s on top of the two purchased coaches to lift them smoothly from where they stood, and carry them silently across and up the Clyde to their own secure property, the floodlit compound turned off for the five minutes it took for the SUVs to finish their little piece of magic, and disappear back into the night sky.
September 26th.
Michael entered the meeting room to find Oliver there too, and Glen who was playing with the remote for the multipurpose monitor at the head of the table.
“Did you receive an invitation from an American guest to come to our own meeting room?” Michael asked of Oliver.
“It was such a news-breaking event that I dropped the pretty student I was holding and came immediately,” Oliver nodded.
“I hope you are only joking,” Michael began, humour lost as he imagined the ‘tell-all’ story that would hit the front page were any of the ARC’s management to even contemplate an affair with a student.
“I am, I am. Don’t worry. Not that some of them haven’t made quite clear signals that they’d be more than willing,” he added.
“Yes, I know. However, I view myself as their father, so I hereby appoint you their honorary uncle,” Michael told him, finishing preparing his tea to join them at the table. “You too,” he told Glen.
“I’m married,” Glen pointed out, still looking at the remote and its many buttons.
“Nonetheless, it’s not unheard of,” Michael told him, and took the control unit from him. “What do you want?” he asked
patiently.
“CNN is sure to carry it,” Glen told him, glancing at his watch.
“You put something out to CNN without involving me?” Oliver gasped in horror.
Michael selected the correct feed, and then the correct station, and CNN appeared on the large screen.
“Evening everyone, and if you’ve just joined us,” Larry Dowell was saying, neatly attired in a dark business suit with a very loud red tie. “News just in regarding unplanned changes in the United States President’s staff at the White House. We are hearing that Brad Hawker, President McMillan’s Chief of Staff for the last eight years is out, and in his place comes a new man, well, a woman in this case, Joanna Bradworth, who will resign her post of Chief Operating Officer at Google to take on this role.
“We also understand that Brad Hawker’s assistant will also go, and there may be others,” Larry was saying, fingers at his ear as he received more information from his controllers. “Er, we’re just waiting for more information. This item is fresh in from the Communications Office there at the White House.”
Glen turned off the monitor and smiled towards Michael and Oliver. “There are also sweeping changes within the CIA, but those will not be published,” he explained, “while the early retirement of a couple of people at NASA will not raise any eyebrows.”
“So, do I take it that Brad Hawker took more upon himself than he should have?” Oliver asked.
Glen was nodding. “Following the loss of the International Space Station, the FBI is mounting an investigation into wilful damage to United States property and murder and attempted murder against several United States citizens. Brad Hawker is a key witness to that investigation, and may find himself one of the accused.”
“Jesus,” Oliver murmured. “And I can publish this?”
“Not a word of it,” Glen beamed. His smile shrank as he saw the growing scowl on Michael’s face. “What’s wrong?” he asked.