by Ted Tayler
Perry had creamed his drive across towards the left hand side of the fairway, perhaps twenty yards further on than his opponent; it was probably the best shot he had played all afternoon. Colin groaned and ran after it; he picked it up and lobbed it into the rough. Job done! The two men would be far enough apart for what he had in mind. They wouldn’t see each other play their second shots.
Colin watched and listened for the arrival of the two golfers. There they were! Bang in the middle of the fairway; ever hopeful! They walked up the couple of hundred yards together, and then they parted company to start the search for their ball.
“Can’t see either of them Perry” called Richard Armitage “I could have sworn I would have been on the fairway, even though I admit I tweaked it a touch.”
“I smoked mine Richard; I told you it wasn’t over just yet. I’m going to start looking over there way up on the left.”
“You wish!” replied the policeman. Perry laughed and the two men set off.
Colin slipped the pistol from his jacket and waited. Richard Armitage parked his trolley and started to hunt for his ball in the grass at the edge of the fairway. When he looked further into the trees he saw the spot where Colin had placed it; a little puzzled, the crafty copper moved quietly towards it, wondering how it had ended up this far right.
He knew that Perry couldn’t see him from the other side of the fairway, so he picked it up, found a decent lie and placed it down. Colin watched him from his hiding place.
“I’ve got mine” shouted Perry “it’s in the rough but at least I’ve got a shot; any luck with yours?”
“Just found it in the light stuff Perry” Richard called back “my turn I believe?”
He selected his club and after a few flashy waggles he hit the ball. It sailed away into a stiff Lewes breeze. He was so engrossed in his shot and hoping Perry hadn’t seen him pick up his ball that he didn’t realise that someone had emerged from the trees and bushes and was now right behind him.
“Cheating bastard” whispered Colin and squeezed the trigger.
DCI Richard Armitage pitched forward onto the fairway, dead before he hit the ground. The PSS pistol lived up to its reputation; silent and deadly. Perry was twenty yards ahead; there were very few people left on the course and absolutely nobody on the footpath away in the distance, so no one was any the wiser.
Perry had seen the ball flying straight as an arrow towards the green and cursed.
“Lucky sod; I was hoping he might not have had a shot” he muttered, totally unaware that indeed he had. Just not the one he was expecting.
The corpulent solicitor tried his best and hacked the ball out of the rough. Disconsolately he trudged after it dragging his trolley behind him.
“Still my turn Richard” he called out to his playing partner “you carry on and I’ll see you on the green in a tick.”
There was no reply.
Colin had not been idle in the minute or so since he had murdered the corrupt police officer. He reversed his jacket, stuffed the bobble hat in the rucksack and took a couple of items out; as he walked quickly back to the footpath he was now wearing a maroon top and a white baseball cap. When he had put sufficient distance between himself and Richard Armitage’s body he took the shaver out of his pocket and removed the designer stubble. When he was clean shaven he took off his glasses and put both the shaver and the glasses in the rucksack. His transformation was now complete. There weren’t any eye witnesses in the vicinity but if people remembered a walker in town this morning, a customer in The Snowdrop Inn or a bird watcher on the footpath by the golf course, then the man seen coming away from the scene of the crime late in the afternoon wouldn’t have rung any bells.
Meanwhile, Perry had played his third shot and his ball landed on the front of the green. He huffed and puffed his way along the course, looking for his partner. Perhaps he had slipped off behind a gorse bush for a pee. He was curious to discover what sort of shot Richard had left; did he by some miracle still have a chance of salvaging a half?
He still kept looking over his shoulder, expecting to see the policeman striding up to join him. No sign of a ball on the green; fingers crossed he had flown the green and landed in trouble at the back.
“Come on Richard!” he called out.
“Where the bloody hell has he got to?” he said to himself.
There was no sign of the ball over the green; Perry felt a cold chill run down his back. He walked over to the pin. Shit! There was the ball nestling up against the stick an inch or so below the lip of the hole. DCI Richard Armitage never knew it but he had holed his second shot at the eleventh. The eagle had landed!
“I don’t believe it!” shouted Perry Watts-Williams “that’s another fiver I owe you.”
Still fuming at his playing partner’s piece of luck he set off back down the fairway. He found Richard Armitage face down on the grass by his trolley. There was blood on the collar and shoulders of his wet weather jacket. No shouting or shaking would do any good he wasn’t getting up again.
Perry looked around but couldn’t see anyone in sight. How on earth had this happened? What should he do? A golf ball landed ten yards away. He ran out into the middle of the fairway. Another ball skipped by him and ran towards the left hand rough; Perry stood where he was and started waving his arms frantically. What a terrible thing to have happened! As he saw a couple of club members striding towards him he had one consolation; he suddenly realised that he could keep his money in his pocket. Richard Armitage wouldn’t be collecting from him on this occasion!
The two golfers realised that something was wrong and ran towards the by now distraught Perry. The shock of finding his dead colleague and the sudden thought that perhaps he too was in danger, stuck out here at one of the furthest points on the course had made him almost incoherent. By the time the emergency services had been called and the course cordoned off to preserve the murder scene Colin Bailey was on a train heading for London Victoria. He was coolness personified; satisfied with a job well done.
CHAPTER 14
Erebus had watched the minicab disappear up the driveway, carrying Phoenix to the station. This was the first direct action he had sanctioned to be carried out by someone who was not ex-military. His reputation was on the line; Phoenix must not fail him. Erebus had turned away from the window and prepared for the morning’s meeting; there was nothing more he could do. He had put his trust in the man they had plucked from the river and he would know in less than twelve hours whether that trust had been misplaced.
The old man was now in the drawing room where he, Athena, Thanatos, Alastor and Minos were meeting to discuss the status of all the operations they were currently running. In addition, there were new targets to be considered for direct action. The most pressing item on today’s agenda however was the emergence of a possible terrorist threat to the London Olympics which were less than ten months away.
The five main members of the Olympus group discussed the ongoing operations. Seven agents in various European and African countries were all declared ‘code red.’ This meant that the target they had been assigned was now due to be scheduled for removal. In order to disguise this activity even more than the lengthy steps taken by the agents themselves, the group selected specific days and times for the tasks.
Account was taken of major events in the countries concerned; religious holidays, strikes by public servants; even a celebrity wedding. Any additional element that could be added to the list of newsworthy items on the day selected was pertinent. No stone was left unturned in the search for a good day to bury news of the sudden death of a gangster or politician, whichever part of the world it may happen in. Everything available was used to divert attention away from anyone being able to link these deaths to Olympus.
The next series of items covered potential new targets. A couple were postponed until further data could be gathered by the surveillance personnel in the ice house; others were fairly straightforward and assignments delegated to agen
ts in the appropriate areas. Erebus paid particular attention to one background story from Scotland. It sounded as if it was tailor made for Phoenix.
A sixteen year old girl from Dunfermline had been reported as ‘being disgusted’ with the extremely lenient sentence handed down to a policeman who had assaulted her and her sister. The forty eight year old constable had been given a one year’s community order.
In March ’09 the girl had been walking home after a study session at a school friends’ house. The constable had been on duty, in uniform, when he stopped his patrol car fifty yards in front of her under a street light. When she got alongside the car he opened the passenger door and told her to get in. He gave her a lift home and told her to be careful about walking alone on the streets late at night. “You never know who’s about” he had told her and said he would keep an eye out for her so she didn’t come to any harm.
The following month she had gone into town with her twenty year old sister and a couple of her workmates. The other three girls had some half bottles of vodka in their handbags and although they were buying her just tonic waters in the bars they visited, of course by chucking out time, all three were hammered and she was drunk for the first time in her life!
When she came out onto the pavement from the last pub they’d been in, she staggered briefly, grabbed a street sign to stop herself from falling and then threw up. The headlights of a police car were switched on across the street and the vehicle drove over. The girl’s sister was comforting her and had an arm around her shoulder. The other two girls had long gone, making their way unsteadily down the street looking for a kebab shop that was still open.
Once the driver of the police car had got out and walked around to the young girl, she realised it was the same constable that had driven her home previously. He suggested that both girls get into the back of the car and he drove off towards the estate where they lived. He said he was deciding whether to charge the younger sister for being drunk and disorderly; as for the older sister he had said she was in more serious trouble for supplying alcohol to someone who was underage.
When they were about a hundred yards from their front door, he stopped the car in a quiet spot away from any street lights and told the younger sister to get off home. He said that she was lucky; this time he’d forget about her getting drunk and throwing up in the street.
The constable told her sister to get in the front seat with him. She had left the two together talking and had run inside the house, where she spent some time in the bathroom being ill. When she had eventually crept along the landing to her room, her sister’s bedroom door was shut. She had wanted to know if he had charged her or just given her a rollicking, but it had had to wait until the morning; she had fallen into bed and slept until the following lunchtime.
When she had seen her sister the following afternoon, she had learned the awful truth. The officer had suggested to her that there was a way to avoid either of the sisters being charged with an offence. He had leaned over and fondled her sister’s breasts and placed her hand on his groin. When she asked him what he meant, he had unzipped his fly and exposed himself. He had said that in return for oral sex he would forget all about the charges.
Her sister was so drunk she did what he asked. When it was over she had tried to get out of the car but the constable had grabbed her arm and said she hadn’t done enough to persuade him; he wanted the younger sister to meet him at the same place, the same time next week. Her sister had agreed just to get out of the car and escape from him.
The two sisters had argued. The younger one couldn’t believe her sister had agreed to do what the policeman had asked. The older sister didn’t want to have to go to court to face a charge of buying booze for her sixteen year old sister; nor did she want her workmates dragged into it. In the end she persuaded the young girl to meet up with the policeman. The following week the young girl had left her home and walked to where the car had been parked the previous Friday night and waited for the police car to arrive.
When it pulled up by the pavement and switched off its lights, she got in and asked what he wanted from her. He told her to take her sweater off and she had sat next to him in her bra. He didn’t make any attempt to touch her, but he touched himself and she could see he was aroused. He asked her to pleasure him with her hand. She had told him she had never done it before and was frightened; he had laughed at her and gripped her wrist tightly and thrust her hand down and encouraged her to get on with it.
It was over very quickly and then he told her that she could go home. He said that he would continue to keep an eye out for her and her sister and that if they wanted a lift home anytime he would always be available. When she had run into her house crying, her sister had rushed downstairs and told her parents what was going on. They made a formal complaint. It took two years before the case got to court. After all that delay he had pleaded guilty as soon as the charge was put to him.
PC Donald MacDonald was single and lived at home with his invalid father. He had been in the force for twenty seven years. The girl had complained that the sentence was only half the amount of time she and her sister had had to deal with what had happened to them. “I think he got off lightly” she was reported as saying “he kept us hanging around for two years and then he pleaded guilty.”
The judge had referred to MacDonald’s actions as ‘sleazy; if not rather pathetic’; he was a man who used his position to make inappropriate sexual advances to young women. However, he judged that given his family circumstances and the nature of the offences, a custodial sentence would be disproportionate. He stressed that a community order should not be viewed as a soft option; the officer would be expected to address his inappropriate behaviour and correct it, so that the young girls of Dunfermline could walk the streets at night in safety.
“What do you think of this one Minos?” Erebus asked the former judge.
“The punishment doesn’t fit the crime” replied Minos.
“Any recommendations?” the old man enquired, looking around the table.
“Castration perhaps?” said Athena.
“Were these two sisters his only victims?” asked Thanatos.
Erebus looked at the supporting documents that had arrived with the background story.
“It would appear that several colleagues flagged up their suspicions about MacDonald in the past, without anyone following up on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if he turned out to be a serial offender. We’ll get our people to step up the search for more victims and in short order I believe we’ll uncover additional evidence to support a more permanent solution for the Dunfermline problem.”
“Who do you have in mind to deal with this?” asked Athena.
“If today’s sortie is successful; then this could be an assignment for Phoenix.”
Athena was clearly not happy about this and Erebus asked her to explain her obvious displeasure.
“Are you sure he could remain objective? He lost his only daughter to an attacker that had a preference for young girls. We should wait until he returns from this first mission before we commit ourselves.”
Erebus nodded.
“As you wish; if only I could persuade you to trust Phoenix, he pays such attention to detail. Whatever we throw his way he’ll cope with by methodical planning and efficient execution, of that I have no doubts.”
“We’ll see” replied Athena “let’s move on to the next item on the agenda; I fear it may keep us occupied for some time.”
“In that case I suggest we break for an early lunch” said Erebus.
The meeting was reconvened in the drawing room; Erebus looked up towards Thanatos.
“Over to you old chap, let’s hear about the make up of this terrorist cell.”
Thanatos stood in front of a white screen that had been brought into the room while they were at lunch; Erebus didn’t like visual aids or modern technology invading the splendid rooms in his family home. On this occasion though, it was a vital tool to assist in unde
rstanding the complex nature of the enemy they were facing.
“We must understand that Al-Qaeda’s cell structure differs from the typical Western style because of cultural differences. Their minimal core leadership group is a ring network, with each leader heading their own particular hierarchy. All the ring networks overlap, like links in a chain if you will. Trust and personal relationships are paramount and there are far more instances of family and in-group linkages than in the more bureaucratic Western model.
This makes these in-groups extremely hard to infiltrate. We have operatives working on compromising certain fringe members of rings operating in the UK but progress is slow.”
Thanatos drew circles on the white board and linked them with arrows.
“The core group is a ring, superimposed on an inner hub and spoke structure of ideological authority. Each core member forms another hub and spoke system; the spokes lead to sub cells which support the infrastructure and sometimes operational groups. In this way it’s possible for an operational cell to become autonomous of the core.”
“So they maintain a ‘positive control’ from the core, but specific roles can function without reference back to them for every action they take” commented Erebus.
“In essence” said Thanatos “but they can also be more random and unpredictable, which makes them far more dangerous.”
“Do we have a handle on the names of any of the participants in the chain we’re most concerned about?” asked Alastor.
“We’re getting names, the different camps they trained at, the hierarchy and evidence of a degree of in-fighting. Certain factions want to move far quicker on operations than the core. We may be able to use this weakness in the future. What we have avoided so far is opting for a ‘catch and release’ programme. None of the cell members associated with this chain have been picked off the streets and brought here to Larcombe for Level Three interrogation. We don’t want to create distrust of any individuals lower down the ladder by the central core. We may increase our intelligence but at what cost?”