“Call me Oz. I’ve heard about you too.”
“From Captain Winter? Assume anything he tells you is of dubious veracity,” Marcus replied.
Harry poured drinks. “Marcus came at my request.”
The old spook nodded. “The Firm provided me with muscle once or twice. Harry looked after me in Moscow, back in ‘91.”
“We got pissed with Yeltsin,” Harry added, looking into his Glenmorangie.
“Hardly an exclusive circle. Who didn’t get drunk with Boris? I remember Putin lurking nearby, like Banquo’s ghost. Harry, would you by any chance have something to eat?”
“Cut the crap, Marcus,” I said. “How do you fit into all of this?”
Marcus and Harry looked at each other. It was Marcus who spoke. “The point has arrived, I’m afraid, whereby the common good requires The Firm’s deactivation.”
“Yes,” Harry continued. “The original STREGA Committee’s intention was to serve the greater good. That’s no longer the case.”
Marcus nodded. “There are corpses from Washington DC to Trieste and back, at every level of The Firm’s organisation. Like a pack of sharks turning on itself. It’s in the national interest to put a stop to it.”
“And our interests,” I added.
“Of course,” the spook replied, “but our problem is the identity of whoever’s behind the takeover. We’re unsighted.”
“Exactly,” said Diana. “The Firm’s greatest strength was its compartmentalization. That’s now our greatest weakness.”
Marcus tapped my hand with a sausage-like finger. “Find out who’s in charge for me, Cal. I fear what’s hatched from this serpent’s egg is exponentially worse than The Firm as you knew it.”
“Worse? That would be difficult,” I replied. The bottle of whisky, honey-golden in the candlelight, was close enough to touch. “Why are SIS clueless about all this?”
Marcus rubbed his jowls, “because there are people, important people, obstructing any investigation. Including people I might otherwise have expected to take action. They think if The Firm’s left alone, it will simply burn itself out.”
“Why?” asked Oz, “that ain’t how The Firm works.”
“Why do you think?” Diana’s laugh was brittle. “We’ve done Establishment dirty work for sixty years. A closetful of skeletons ready to leap out and do a merry dance. The public inquiries would go on ‘til doomsday.”
“Mrs. Vaillancourt is correct,” Marcus nodded. “Careers ended, knighthoods squandered. For a fair few, a trip to the Old Bailey or the International Criminal Court.”
Harry gulped his whisky and poured another. “Typical politicians, stick your head in the sand. The Firm won’t burn-out. It’ll come back stronger. Get its hooks into a new generation.”
Marcus nodded. “Cal, we need your help.”
“Give the job to MI5,” I shrugged. “Maybe they can write a report about it.”
“I’m sure Five would love to knife SIS,” said Diana.
“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t an issue.” Marcus emptied his whisky, “the Security Service are more-or-less uncompromised as far as this affair goes. Nonetheless, their masters are the same as mine.”
Diana tapped an impatient tattoo on the table. “What about DIADEM? This is his problem, surely?”
DIADEM was a deep-cover MI6 officer, a secret conduit between the UK Government and organisations such as The Firm. It was a role Marcus’s late wife once performed. He smiled sadly. “That’s the reason I’m here, Diana.” Reaching inside his voluminous jacket, he pulled out a sheaf of papers. “The DIADEM died three weeks ago. Car accident.”
“Accident my arse,” Harry grunted.
“Precisely,” Marcus replied. He spread the paperwork out on the table, a file with FATAL COLLISION REPORT on the title page. “DIADEM was conveniently in the same vehicle as the PRIMO and an American EVOCATI. Three for the price of one.”
Harry’s face was ashen, “the bastards got Gerry Ryan? He’d only been PRIMO a year.”
Marcus studied his fingernails, half-a-smile on his lips. “They were in Gerry’s car when it crashed. All three died instantly.”
“Gerry used to be a Squadron Commander in the Regiment,” Harry replied. “He told me to retire from The Firm, said he wasn’t far behind.”
Marcus shrugged and topped up his glass.
I shrugged. “So, Gerry Ryan was one of the bastards responsible for sending me on suicide missions? His death saves me a job.”
Harry went to say something, but caught Diana’s eye. He bit his lip, fists balled on the table.
“Harsh, but I understand your point of view.” Marcus wandered over to the fridge. He began assembling a plate of cold cuts, cheese and hard-boiled eggs. “Still, you and Mister Osborne have two options. First, you can chase ghosts while the new Firm hunts you down. And hunt you down they will.”
“You ain’t exactly selling that option,” said Oz.
“I wouldn’t recommend it. The second is to find out who murdered the UK and US EVOCATI, along with DIADEM. It’s our best and only lead. I’m convinced the culprit will lead us to The Firm’s new management.”
“And then?” I replied.
Marcus bit into an egg and smiled. “Oh, you can revert to type, Captain Winter. Kill the bloody lot of them.”
“Soon as possible,” Harry added.
Diana sipped whisky. “We could hypothesise all day, but we need hard information. We can’t unleash these two without it.”
Harry nodded. “Parts of The Firm are still operational, but for how much longer? CROUPIER seems to be live. Monty still runs ICEPICK ops, I assume he’s thrown his lot in with the new management.”
The little I’d read of CROUPIER suggested a discreet financial operation, receiving, laundering and redistributing The Firm’s blood money. Only a sworn handful of long-term assets worked on it, or even knew where it was. “OK, where do I start? I was going to head down to Monty’s office for a chat.”
“Bad idea - they’ll be expecting you.” Marcus smiled his fox’s smile. “Maybe later, when we’ve established their order of battle.”
“I heard Alex Bytchakov and Duncan Bannerman stayed on board,” said Harry.
“They didn’t see things my way in the end,” I shrugged, toying with the whisky bottle. They were half of my old team, two of the deadliest operators on The Firm.
“I doubt they’d pull the trigger on us,” Oz added.
Harry raised an eyebrow. “Bannerman would shoot his granny for a pound note.”
“I’m not so sure about Bytchakov,” Diana replied. “The man’s cut from different cloth.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage old alliances with your usual aplomb, Cal.” Marcus nudged the file across the table. “Now, the EVOCATI murders. Here’s a copy of the accident report.”
I leafed through the file. There were pages of witness statements, technical information and diagrams of the crash scene. There were photos of a wrecked car, charred bodies entwined with debris.
Marcus tapped the report with a knuckle. “There’s a clue in there. Someone knows how that ‘accident’ was arranged. Who better to trace it backwards than people who plan this sort of thing for a living?”
“Sure, we’ve worked on cars,” Oz acknowledged, “but I bet this wasn’t a simple case of fixing the brakes.”
I stood up, chair scraping against the flag-stoned floor. “No. We want The Firm and the money we’re owed. I’ve had enough of taking orders. These deaths? Nothing to do with us.”
Harry bristled, thumping the table with his fist. His dogs appeared, growling, ears pricked up. “Jesus Christ! I gave you the STREGA file because I thought you were better than that. I thought maybe, just maybe, you’d a shred of humanity left.”
“You were wrong,” I replied. “Besides, how many murders did you order?”
Harry the Saint glowered.
“Cal, you said you wanted to be the better man,” said Oz quietly.
&nbs
p; “It matters not,” said Marcus sharply. “Unless you discover the identity of the DIADEM’S killers, I predict you won’t identify your real target. Take the other path, and die. The Firm knows you’re coming for them. I’ve been doing this a long time, gentlemen. I hear the long bells ringing. Besides, I promise, once you’ve dismantled the network, you’ll be paid what you’re owed.”
“Indeed. There are back-channels into The Firm’s financial assets,” Diana nodded. She tilted her head and smiled. “I’ll need some persuasion to do that. I agree with Marcus’s assessment. If you want to persuade me, take his advice.”
Oz nudged me under the table with his foot. He wanted in. In his head, he’d never left the military. Give Oz a half-convincing authority figure and some cash, and he was all yours. “We’ll do it,” said Oz. “Cal’s just got a hard-on for this whole avenging angel thing right now. He’ll calm down.”
“Thank you, Colour Sergeant Osborne,” said Marcus. “I appreciate your prescience. Captain Winter?”
I nodded at Oz. “We’re a team.”
Oz slapped my back. “Exactly. When the facts change, so does the plan.” He might have been right. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
“Get yourselves sorted,” said Harry, pointing a stubby finger at me. “You’re back in the field.”
“Aye, business as usual.” Marcus’s smile was serene.
Nodding slowly, I cracked open the Glenmorangie.
Chapter Seven
The Firm’s best grease-monkey had been Andy, a former Royal Engineer. He could fix the brakes on any car and make it look like an accident. We’d done jobs in the Baltic States, big German cars veering off icy roads in the middle of the night. They’d disappear into wintry lakes, unseen ‘til the spring Rasputitsa.
“I wish Andy was ‘ere,” said Oz.
Andy was dead.
It was the small hours, the BMW thundering along the motorway. London glowed in the distance, like something radioactive. “What do you make of the accident report?” I said.
Oz had the file on his lap, illuminated by a thumb-sized Maglite. “Gerry Ryan, the last PRIMO EVOCATI, was driving. DIADEM, real name Graham Wyatt, was front passenger. The American, Lois Baker, was sitting in the rear nearside seat. The car was a well-maintained Toyota Prius with forty thousand miles on the clock. It crashed on an ‘A’ road in Kent. It was three in the morning. No traffic cameras, CCTV or witnesses.”
“PRIMO EVOCATI drove a Prius?” I replied. “Well there you go, an environmentally-conscious murderer-in-chief.”
Oz tapped the report. “The Prius has an excellent road safety record. But they were doing eighty-nine miles an hour in the wet. That’s more than fast enough to kill if you tank the fucker into a tree.”
“What do the cops think?”
“Inconclusive. No suggestion of drunk-driving or drugs. They’re putting it down to driver fatigue, or Ryan swerving to avoid a wild animal crossing the road.”
“Wild animal my arse,” I laughed. “I bet Gerry Ryan had professional training. He could probably drive straight on an oil-slick.”
Oz flipped through the report. “Yeah, Ryan was counter-ambush qualified. The BMW boys down in Munich gave him a week on armoured limos too.”
You had to laugh at the idea of a man with that sort of training, crashing a Prius on a dead-straight piece of ‘A’ road. That he was one of my old bosses made it even funnier. Except now I had to find his assassin. “There has to be an answer in there,” I sighed.
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“Oz, this is Marcus we’re talking about. The sly bastard probably already has half a clue. He just needs us to do his donkey work.”
“Why not tell us?”
“Spies, mate. They can’t help themselves,” I replied. “He’s probably protecting a source. Who was the American?”
Oz squinted as he tried to read Marcus’s notes in the margins of the report. “Lois Baker, born Chicago. Ex-US Marine Corps, combat intelligence and information warfare ops. Then she worked as a contractor for the CIA. Joined The Firm two years ago.”
“EVOCATI in two years?” I said.
“Ambition is dangerous,” Oz replied darkly.
We settled into a companionable silence. Driving hard, we hit my old South London manor before the morning rush hour.
My father, God rest his soul, used to run a car lot off Lee High Road. Half the villains, from Camberwell to Crayford, bought motors off him. I spent a year on the forecourt after my first spell in the army, flogging Mercs and Pajeros to men called Razors and Two-Noses. Cash-only, dodgy log books. You’d sometimes see the cars on the news a week or so later, abandoned near recently-robbed security trucks.
Dad’s best mechanic was an Irishman called English. Sean English could spot a rung motor from fifty feet. In all the time he worked for my old man, I never knew him buy a duff car. He knew every trick in the used motor trade, mainly because he invented most of them. The stolen vehicle squad felt his collar once or twice, but nothing ever stuck. Last time I checked, Sean’s garage was under a railway arch in Deptford. I tucked the BMW next to a line of disembowelled cars and hopped out. Oz followed, sniffing the air.
I knocked on a warped wooden door. The sound of a talk radio station drifted from inside. “Sean?”
“Fuck off,” came a gruff voice. “We open at eight.”
“Feck off yerself, English,” I said in a broad Irish accent. I walked into the dimly-lit workshop. The place was full of tools and engine parts, a sleepy mongrel curled in front of an electric heater. The place smelt of fried food, oil and burnt metal.
A thick-set man sat on a cinderblock, chewing a bacon roll. He wore tan-coloured overalls that strained against his gut. At least seventy, Sean had a head of curly white hair and a red-veined boxer’s nose.
“You always were a rude bastard,” I said.
“English by name, English by nature,” he growled. “Well fuck me sideways, its Marty Winter’s boy. When’s the last time you showed your face ‘round here?”
“Dad’s funeral,” I shrugged, squeezing the old man’s oil-stained paw. “This is a friend of mine, Oz.”
“I’m sure it is.” Sean English stood and shook Oz’s hand, “pleased to meet you.”
“You too,” said the ex-SBS man, the accident report tucked under his arm. “How does an Irishman end up being called English?”
“It’s an Irish name, of course,” the old man grinned, eyes sparkling.
Oz nodded. “That’s very Irish, when you think about it.”
“You’ve a fair point there,” the mechanic replied. He stuffed the rest of the roll in his mouth. “I’ll make us some tea, Calum. Then you can tell me all about your fightin’ an’ wars an’ such.”
“I left the army years ago, Sean.”
“I know you did,” the mechanic winked. “After that stupid war. You Brits love a silly war, don’t you? I still hear things though, when the dogs bark on the street.”
“I’ll tell you about War,” said Oz. “The pay’s shite, and if the enemy ain’t trying to kill you, your own generals are.” He put the report on the trestle table next to the kettle and tapped it. “We need an expert to take a look at that. Cal says you’re the best mechanic in The Smoke.”
English snorted. “Well, if I ever find an expert I’ll let you know. Most dangerous word in the dictionary, ‘expert.’ Anyone who thinks he’s an expert at anything is a fuckin’ eejit. I just know my way ‘round the humble internal combustion engine.”
“Modesty will get you nowhere,” I replied. “Three people died on a straight, clear road. The driver was highly trained and the car was well-maintained. We think there’s a clue in that report. And I’m not in a position to ask the Old Bill to take a look.”
“Who would?” Sean sploshed milk into three mugs and laughed. “I think it was Brendan Behan who said, I’ve never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn’t make it worse.”
We all nodded sagely.
“Well, Oz, you finish making the tea and I’ll take a look at your report. I used to give a second opinion to insurance companies once upon a time.” Sean pulled a pair of thick-rimmed spectacles from his pocket and perched them on his big red nose.
“See,” Oz smiled, “he’s an expert.”
“Feck you! Three sugars, if you don’t mind.”
We sat and sipped tea. Sean leafed through the report. Outside, Deptford stirred, arches rumbling as trains rolled overhead.
“Yes, it’s a bog-standard fatal collision report,” said Sean finally, scratching his head. “Preliminary but thorough. There’s only one bit lookin’ strange to me – the engine management readout doesn’t look right.”
“Please explain, Sean,” I replied. Unless bullets come out of the end, I’m useless with machinery.
Sean nodded sympathetically. “Modern engines are networked, they run on wee computers. You must’ve seen it when you get a car serviced - you plug the fecker into a machine at the garage and the eejit pretending to be a mechanic tells you what’s wrong. That information comes from electronic control units inside the engine, ECUs.”
“Go on,” said Oz.
Sean smiled, warming to his subject in the way of the true enthusiast. “In a car like a Prius you get fifty-odd ECUs, and they’re all pumpin’ out information on system performance. Except on this report, there’s a couple missing. Like maybe the ECUs weren’t functioning…”
Oz slurped tea. “Or someone dicked around with them?”
Sean nodded. “Possibly.”
I looked at the report. It was a maze of grids, graphs and figures. I’d have to take Sean’s word for it. “What’s missing?”
“Data relating to the car’s Bluetooth system. I can see why an investigator might miss it, the meat and potatoes of an accident is usually driving conditions, brakes, steering and acceleration. From this, it looks like the driver was braking erratically in the run-up to impact. It’s like cadence-breaking, which makes no sense, seeing as the Prius has ABS.”
Oz pulled a face, “so maybe the theory about the driver swerving for an animal is right, Cal.”
The Saint Jude Rules (Cal Winter Book 3) Page 5