Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series)

by Andrew Towning

  “How did you find me, and what the hell did you tell that character with the bad case of halitosis downstairs?” I asked.

  “I told him that I was your personal psychoanalyst and that I’d come to take you back to rehab.” Vince stood up and produced a silver and glass hip flask, full of a fine Scottish single malt, from his coat pocket. He poured us both a drink, using the two plastic glasses from the sink in the corner of the room.

  “Here’s mud in your eye.” “After the revelations of today this is very welcome,” I said.

  I’d not found out how, but by some ingenious articulation of the finger joints, he was able to drink and smoke virtually simultaneously. He coughed, smoked and drank for a few seconds.

  “Surprised I found you?” he coughed. “Astute, eh?” Some more coughing.

  “Not really, you know. That young woman you’ve been working with in Dorset, what’s her name, oh yes, Fiona Price, she phoned me this morning. I reckon she fancies you,” he said with a wink and a nod. “Anyway she was asking me to cover for you should LJ start asking where you were. She let it slip that you’d come back to London under a false name. Well, after that it was easy to get her to tell me what you were up to, and as for what name you’d use, James Fisher has raised his head twice before, so I just guessed he would again.” He coughed loudly. “Perhaps you’re getting a little bit old for this game, or maybe you’re love sick?”

  “We all are, and no, is the answer to that last jibe, Vince,” I said, “we all are.”

  Vince nodded and continued to cough and drink, in that order.

  “LJ would like to see you tomorrow morning, 8.00am prompt, that is if you’ve nothing better to do,” he said with a grin.

  “Yes, he’s always so dammed polite, isn’t he?” I said.

  “He’s all right, really,” said Vince, and poured us both another. “Oh yes, and I’m to tell you that Tatiana is awaiting instructions, whatever that means.”

  “Perhaps you could also find the time to call her as soon as you can.”

  He picked up his hat and downed his drink in one smooth motion.

  “Anything I can do for you?” he asked. “I’m going back to the office shortly.”

  “Yes, I think there is Vince.” I pulled out an A4 sheet of paper from my overnight bag and gave him Robert Flackyard’s personal and business email address. “Let’s intercept his emails, unofficially of course”.

  “And phone?” asked Vince.

  “Yes, let’s do the lot,” I said, smiling at the thought, and passed him another sheet of paper, this time with Flackyard’s home address and telephone number on it. “Let’s tap his phone, but be careful, he has monitoring equipment installed at the house.”

  “Um, bloody nuisance that, in that case we’ll have to twist the arm of one of our friendly spook agencies who owe a favour or two. I can use one of their satellites and link up via my own laptop, less traceable that way. I’ll see you later,” he said.

  I heard him coughing his way down the stairs and out into the street. I began packing my bag. Before I saw LJ the next morning, I hoped to have something up my sleeve.

  Chapter 20

  I got back to my apartment around six thirty. I ground coffee beans and turned up the heating. Outside, it was raining again, and lines of cars below moved slowly out of the city through a gauze of traffic fumes. The attractive thirty something woman reading the weather was worried about the amount of rainfall for the time of year, attributing it to the effects of global warming.

  The laptop had to be set up and connected to the scanner in the study.

  This done I left the room and locked the door behind me.

  I was drinking a second cup of coffee as Tats arrived. Her lips were cold.

  We rubbed noses and exchanged hellos in between kisses, then I brought her up to speed with the business in Bournemouth and Jasper Lockhart. Tats said, “Buy it,” but I didn’t want to do that. If I showed any interest it would reveal more than I wanted to reveal, especially to Jasper Lockhart. Tats thought I was being paranoid, but then she hadn’t been in the business long enough to develop that sixth sense that I was always telling myself I had.

  Jasper Lockhart sat in his new pearl blue metallic convertible Jag across the road for some time before coming to the front door. It was very professionally done. I took his overcoat and poured him a drink. For twenty minutes we sat and made small talk while waiting for Vince Sharp to arrive.

  Jasper Lockhart had the diary in a sealed envelope. When I’d thought the tension had built up a little I asked him if I could look at it. He went over to his overcoat and pulled it out of a pocket, passing the envelope across the dining table, I tore the top off quickly and extracted a leather bound diary with gold edged pages. The surface was a little scuffed and it looked as if it had been well used.

  Jasper Lockhart was about to open his mouth to protest, but I kept the diary shut and he kept his mouth the same way. I put it back into the envelope.

  “Looks genuine to me,” I said. Jasper Lockhart nodded. I turned the envelope slowly around handling it between forefinger and thumb. I got up, walked across to where the coat was hanging. I folded the torn envelope top and pushed it back into the pocket. He smiled sheepishly.

  “Tats will keep you company,” I said, “I’ll just go and phone Vince Sharp, he’s probably stuck in the traffic or still at the office.” I went to the phone in the study.

  It had been simple to drop the diary out of the torn end of the envelope into my lap and not very difficult to substitute a small book of approximately the same size. Luckily Jasper Lockhart’s description earlier in the dance bar had been fairly accurate, but I had two variations handy had it not been.

  Lifting the scanner lid I placed the open diary face down onto the glass surface. The white light went backwards and forwards numerous times. I turned each page over either side of the one Jasper Lockhart was offering me. Now everything depended upon Tats keeping our guest occupied.

  She could reasonably ask him not to barge his way into my study, but if he got that envelope out of his pocket and found a well used edition of “The Traveller’s Pocket Guide to France,” my copying was liable to be interrupted.

  * * * By 10.30 the last copy was off the printer and a backup disc made. Jasper Lockhart had long since departed, with his diary back once more in his jacket pocket. I went back into the lounge. Tats had slipped her shoes off and was dozing on one of the sofas. I leaned over the wide leather arm and kissed her softly on her cheek. She woke with a start.

  “You were snoring,” I teased.

  “I don’t snore.” She looked at me in the mirror. “And you told me I was the only man on the whole

  planet in a position to know.” Tats ran her long fingers through her hair, dragging it high above her head.

  “Do you think I should wear my hair up like this?”

  “It looks great just as it is,” I said

  We were looking at each other in the mirror. She said, “You’ve put on weight, it must be all that sea air and Mrs Rumple’s home cooking while you were in Bournemouth. I’ll bet you haven’t been to a gym in weeks?”

  “You’re right I haven’t, not once. But now you mention it, perhaps a vigorous workout is what I need. Shall we...”

  At that moment the phone rang. Tats laughed, and although I let it ring for some time I finally went to get it.

  “It’s probably Jasper Lockhart, he’s decided to drop the price to eight hundred,” said Tats. “Poor sad Jasper Lockhart”.

  “Thieves really must learn to cry,” I said.

  I answered the phone. It was Zara, who didn’t mince her words.

  “Mr Levenson-Jones says you’re both to come here right away, something urgent has cropped up.”

  I looked over at Tats and said into the phone. “Give us an hour, Zara.”

  “I’ll give you thirty minutes, and no more, Mr Dillon.”

  Chapter 21

  By the time we arrived at the firm’s
wharf-side building the rain had eased off.

  I placed my left-hand palm forward onto the cold black glass panel set in the wall. The heavy deadlock released with a thud confirming that my fingerprints matched with those on file. We took the stairs down to LJ’s office. Things were hectic, LJ had taken his jacket off, undone his top button and loosened his tie.

  “Take those files off that chair and sit down,” he said. Zara poked her head round the door to ask if we would like any refreshments.

  “Absolutely foul night,” said LJ. “Sorry to drag you into this fracas. I’ve missed the Wednesday evening backgammon game at my club for the first time in nearly fourteen years.”

  “We must all make sacrifices,” I said.

  “Yes, when our masters say jump, we must jump,” said LJ.

  “Um, like puppets on strings” I said. Tats, shot me one of her looks.

  “The New European Network plan, so it’s all your doing - is it?” said LJ in mock admonition. “We now have the Partner’s permission to go ahead with feasibility study” – he stared at the monitor screen in front of him

  – “N.E.N. feasibility study.” He looked up and beamed. Behind the beam was a worried man.

  “Subtle titling,” I said.

  “Quite,” said LJ doubtfully, and then he was off into the administration - he was very good at the tactics of Partner bureaucracy – but then he has had a lot of practice.

  “The Partners want to initiate four studies, Communications, Finance, Training, and Network Administration. Now we won’t be able to control all of those, so what we do is this. Let our friends across the river have anything they want, in fact we’ll nominate a couple of groups and lavish compliments on their suitability. Incidentally,” LJ blew his nose loudly on a big white monogrammed handkerchief, “don’t overdo the compliments; their controller of E.U. networks is beginning to suspect you of sarcasm.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said.

  “Yes of course you will, now; when we’ve got them all fired up, and they’re in right up to their necks you will suggest a further study: a Compatibility Study – for coordination…”

  “Are you as ruthless at backgammon?” I asked. “So it’s exactly the same form as you allegedly used with the Americans two years ago – you ended up controlling the lot. I’ve often wondered how you pulled that off.”

  “Mum’s the word, old son,” said LJ, an extended forefinger tapping the side of his nose. “I’d like to try and pull it off again before I’m tumbled.”

  “OK,” I said, “but when does all this begin?”

  “Well, as it’s your brainchild, so to speak, I don’t see why the Partners shouldn’t appoint you as head of the training study.”

  “I think I follow you all right, so that between the two of us we’ll have the situation well in hand; but what I actually meant was, when does it begin?”

  LJ looked at his monitor screen. “The first meeting is this Friday at 11.30 am, and the Partners have insisted that it be held here.”

  “No good for me I’m afraid, the Dorset situation is far too volatile. I need to be back there in the morning.”

  “Ah yes,” said LJ. “I want to speak to you about that.” He sat down and typed in the command that brought up details of all current assignments. “I want you to complete your report on this assignment as soon as possible.”

  He kept his eyes on the screen while he talked, avoiding my gaze as he always did in these situations. I knew that this was the real reason he had hauled me over here at this ungodly hour. The New Network was just a smoke screen.

  LJ swivelled uncomfortably in his chair and pushed the intercom button on his desk.

  Zara answered and he said, “Operational name for the Gin Fizz Assignment?”

  Zara’s voice came through the speaker, “Poseidon,” she said.

  “How very erudite,” I said to LJ. In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the chief god of the sea, brother of Zeus and Pluto who together dethroned their father Kronos and divided his realm. Poseidon took the sea as his kingdom.

  LJ smiled and pushed the button on the intercom to tell Zara what I had said, then turned back to me. “We’re winding up ‘Poseidon’. I’ll need a full report for the Partners by the morning. That comes straight from the top.”

  “You must be joking,” I said.

  “I never joke – as you are well aware. Especially about matters concerning this department.”

  “That assignment is at a critical stage – as you are well aware. We still have the loose ends to tie up.”

  LJ tensed up. “Possibly, but you won’t be required to continue, and you should remember completeness is only a state of mind.”

  “So is Partner interference a state of mind. If I have to I’ll go back to Dorset in my own time, I’ll take two weeks leave.”

  “Be reasonable, Jake, what is wrong here?”

  I brought the wad of scanned copies from my pocket. Thirty-one pages from a private diary, stolen from Oliver Hawkworth’s house in Hampshire.

  Most of it written in the penmanship of busy professional men – badly.

  There were cryptic dinner appointments and an almost obsessional compilation of entries regarding expenses. The reference to Italy concerned undefined sales of various pieces of machinery and numerical nomenclature of bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.

  One page, however, contained something more specific.

  ‘Tell HC’ he’d written, then used some sort of cipher made up of letters and numbers on three lines, which meant nothing to me.

  I’d given this coded concoction to Vince when we had arrived earlier. His computer had located the code in a matter or minutes. Now I told LJ about it.

  “What this means, according to Vince Sharp, is that the hardware has been procured. Payment will be required in the sum of ten million Euros by the end of the month. The latter part of this code is something quite different, it relates specifically to me.”

  I waited while LJ got the full implication. He took out another cigar and lit it.

  I went on, “This message has been sent to HC. I believe that this is Harry Caplin, who I know has been keeping an eye on me ever since I arrived in Dorset. Our Cabinet Minister ends the message with a warning. He says to beware of me.”

  “I know just how he feels,” said LJ. Solemnly he removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses with his handkerchief, replaced them and read the whole thing through again. “Zara,” he finally said into the intercom, “you’d better come in here right away.” While we were waiting for her to arrive, LJ added.

  “This whole affair, Jake its all a bit odd, isn’t it? It simply doesn’t fit together. I mean, why would a high profile Cabinet Minister get himself involved with someone who was under suspicion of illegally trading in weapons and class A drugs, for that matter? Hell’s struth, what’s the fellow thinking?”

  He thought that I was bending it a bit to interpret the word ‘authenticate’ as ‘terminate’.

  LJ’s department was responsible only to the Partners, and they were responsible only to Sir Lucius Stagg, former Prime Minister, and the firm’s benefactor; you could see why he was being hesitant to go against their will.

  Crossing swords with a member of the cabinet was not a wise thing to do even with their blessing, and this was a very powerful member of the cabinet and a client of the firm.

  Finally, four cups of tea later, LJ leaned well back in his chair and said, “I’m convinced that you are quite wrong.” He was staring up at the ceiling.

  “Convinced,” he said again.

  Tats caught my eye. Zara was taking notes, “And therefore it is…” he paused, “of the utmost importance to continue with the assignment, to protect the Government and our client’s position.”

  That’s what LJ said to the corner of the ceiling, and while he said it I raised an eyebrow at Zara, who responded with the faintest smile.

  I got to my feet. “Please do not take advantage, Mr Dillon,” LJ said anxiously, “
The Partners will only tolerate your maverick behaviour for a short while.” He swivelled round to his screen again and continued with the new network plan.

  “You’ll overbalance one day,” I heard him mumbling to the computer screen as we left. I suppose he was bored with talking to the ceiling.

  Chapter 22

  After dropping Tats off at her place around 3.00 am, I decided to drive across town, and unofficially find out a little more about our friend Oliver Hawkworth.

  Deep down on the lower fourth floor of the Government building the air is conditioned, filtered and purified from all outside pollutants. Two armed guards; body searched and scanned me for anything concealed. A passport-sized photograph was produced inside a laminated pouch with the words VISITOR printed on it. The double steel door slid back silently and on the far side was yet another security check waiting. I asked for Mr Vass and it was five minutes before he came to sign me in.

  After shaking hands he led me through a maze of corridors eerily lit with blue coloured lamps, which eventually led to a large open plan room. The unusually high ceiling was a complex grid of piping hidden behind a suspended matrix of mesh panels. Every so often water sprinklers protruded through the panels; below the false ceiling, lined up in orderly rows, were computer terminals, each with someone observing intently the information on the screen in front of them. Everyone wore a headset clipped over one ear complete with microphone.

  We were standing in the middle of the ‘Arena’, so named by those who worked at the secret establishment of the Central Archive and Intelligence Bureau, located underground near to the Houses of Parliament. Where information received from Commercial Espionage or Government departments is collected and deciphered by the men and women sitting at the computers.

  I watched as a young woman spoke into her microphone. A moment later a supervisor went over and together they checked and compared how the un-coded version compared to the original that had been received.

  He or she then explained why certain items of text had been left out and why others had been inserted. Once this had been completed the supervisor keyed an authorisation code into the terminal and the original coded message was deleted. A hard copy was then printed off at one of the many printers lined up along one wall. The room held an air of expectancy, as if something big was about to happen, but strangely, there was no feeling of hurry; in fact it was a very calm place.