Adrian Vass’s office was a glass-walled eyrie reached by a lift. From it, we could see the entire room. Columns of stainless steel were positioned here and there. A sobering reminder that we were deep underground.
“What, no Bournemouth rock?” asked Adrian. “Very funny, and it’s Brighton rock by the way, Bournemouth’s far to posh for sticks of rock. Word soon gets around doesn’t it?” I said.
“Yes, I’m afraid it does, but not much gets past us down here, you know.”
Adrian smiled expectantly. His moon-like face was much too large for his short slim body, and was made even larger by his receding hairline. He motioned me into a bright red chair. “You’ve put on weight, you old dog,” he said from the other side of his desk.
“This must be the first time you’ve been down to see us since Charlie McIntyre…” He didn’t finish the sentence. We had both liked Charlie.
Adrian looked at me for a minute without saying a word, and then said, “Somebody put a firecracker under Levenson-Jones’ Range Rover, I hear.”
“Yes, we have a pretty good idea who it was – just have to prove it,” I said.
“Well, you’d better watch your back. Whoever it was, is most definitely a nasty piece of work.”
I said, “It was Levenson-Jones they were after, not Charlie or me.”
“Famous last words. Personally, I’d wear a cast iron jockstrap for the time being if I were you.”
He reached inside his blazer and pulled out a small notebook with a cheap pen pushed through the spiral ring binder down the side.
“I’d like you to tell me something and then forget that this conversation ever took place.” In tacit agreement Adrian slid his pen back down the side of the notebook and placed it back in his pocket.
“What is it you want to know? Who’s fiddling their expenses in Whitehall or which Junior Minister is sleeping with hookers?”
“Perhaps I’ll save that for next time,” I said. “What I want to…” I paused.
“Here, come into my other office, it will make you feel much more relaxed.”
He pushed a button on his key-fob and a concealed door behind him slid back revealing another room, a little smaller than the one we had just come from. No listening device on earth could break through the specially formulated linings to this area. Known only as Fort Knox, it was the depository for all information received and sent by spooks and their agencies over the last fifty years. It took Adrian only a few seconds to locate the correct database and files relating to the information I wanted to see. I glanced through medical records. All information was included; height, weight, scars, birthmarks, blood group, reflexes as well as full dental records and any medical treatment received since the age of ten.
I opened up the main content of the file.
HAWKWORTH, Oliver S.R.
File renewal: six months.
Birth: Born 1950. Caucasian – British National –
UK Passport – UN Passport.
Background: Cambridge/Sandhurst Military
Academy/Blues and Royals Regiment/Member of
Parliament. Married S. Hamilton/1 daughter – Elizabeth
– aged 18 years.
Property: London - Penthouse/Winchester -
Country House/Tuscany – Small Wine Growing Estate. Assets: Shares (disclosed) in various multi-national
Companies. Two bank accounts – one Italian and anther in
the UK. Also undisclosed deposit account in Switzerland. Personal: Mistress (see file X9D100). Alcoholic –
has undergone rehab - five years ago (never made public)
– no relapse to date.
Interests: Boating - owner of power cruiser the ‘Gin
Fizz’. Shooting – pheasant/grouse – excellent marksman. No recorded homosexual activities.
Travels throughout Europe on behalf of the British
Government – Tuscany Villa/Italy.
He holidays with family four (4) times a year.
Chapter 23
Adrian walked across to the sheer wall of glass, thoughtfully looked down upon his minions before slowly turning back to me and answering my question.
“What’s he like?” he repeated. “It’s hard to say in a few words. He was made a colonel at thirty-five. Which means he is no fool? They say that when officers are up for promotion,” Adrian paused, “it’s probably just a load of old bollocks, but I’ll tell you anyway. Officer candidates at that level are invited to a small gathering of notables in Army circles. The candidate has to endure his peers’ scrutiny as well as their child like behaviour throughout the evening. Not only is he bombarded with an array of obscure questions, but they’re also watching to see if for instance he drinks out of the finger bowl.” I smiled and nodded.
“Oliver Hawkworth was served with some sort of Californian prune crumble just to see how he negotiated the stones. But he fooled the lot of them by swallowing every one of the little blighters. I couldn’t say whether it’s all true, but it’s certainly in character. Nearly all of those men around that dinner table went onto become some sort of advisor to the Government. To this day they still meet up once a month for a big gut bash and a cosy chat. They’re the sort of people who have devoted a lot of time and expensive training to detect the difference between a vintage bottle of Dom and Spanish sparkling wine.”
“He earns around a million a year and that’s only what he declares.”
I whistled softly. Adrian went on, “He obviously pays tax on some of it, and very unofficially sits on six or seven boards who like to have a member of the old boy network. Hawkworth’s big contribution is that he can influence affairs abroad, is tenacious and extremely charming. He has personally financed at least two successful take-over bids in South America that we know of, and is always quick to put a few hundred thousand into the hands of a discontented general. His reward is always by way of holdings in some of the region’s largest and wealthiest national companies. As he is persona gratis with most of the Presidents, it really is gambling without risk.”
The phone on his desk rang. “Vass.” Adrian rubbed his eyes.
“Complicated wiring diagram?” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just run off a copy in the normal way, show the technical people before you destroy the original.” He was listening intently. “Well, just show them the part that hasn’t got the originator’s name on it.” He hung up.
“Hell’s struth,” he said, “they’ll be asking me if they can go to the coffee machine next. Where was I?”
“I wanted to ask you about land deals,” I said. “Isn’t that how he’s made his fortune?”
“Partly true, but his family is one of the wealthiest in England, don’t forget.”
Adrian lit one of his own rolled cigarettes, then spent what seemed like minutes removing shreds of tobacco from his lip.
“Hawkworth has the Midas touch where land acquisition deals are concerned. He buys a parcel of land at rock bottom price and then sells it at a premium almost immediately. Nothing clever or wrong in that, you might say, except that in every transaction the same Development Company’s name crops up. Can’t for the life of me, think what that is at present, but anyway, it’s always very large sums of money changing hands. Some have speculated that it’s nothing more than an elaborate money laundering racket, but no one can prove that, of course. Others say that it’s a Member of Parliament abusing his position. But again that is only speculation. He is extremely careful to always cover his tracks. So you see, Oliver Hawkworth keeps on making vast sums of money and then some more again.”
The phone rang. “Phone me back, I’m busy,” Adrian barked into the mouthpiece and hung up immediately. He turned back to his monitor screen, asking: “You understand what this column is?” He tapped the screen with his pen.
“Well, I’m no expert,” I said, “but I gather that these abbreviated prefixes are a record of his personal weaknesses or traits that he may have such as women, drink, membership of drinking clubs and the lik
e.”
“Absolutely spot on,” said Adrian.
I pointed to the letters ‘CI‘. “An accessory to an illegal act,” Adrian said as quick as a shot.
“Meaning something he has been prosecuted for?” I said.
“Hell, no,” Adrian replied in an astounded voice.
“He’s never been within a hundred metres of a law court, let alone inside one. No, for anything about which the police know anything it’s another sort of prefix entirely – it’s ‘PL’ for that.”
“What about a ‘BR’?”
“Bribery of a public servant.”
“Let me guess, once again not prosecuted?” I said.
“No, as I told you, it had to be a ‘PN’ prefix if it’s been made public. It would be a ‘PP’ if he had been accused of bribing a public servant.”
“Anything for illegal selling.”
“That would be a ‘RT’ prefix,” said Adrian. Now I was beginning to understand how the system worked and I’d found the item I wanted.
* * *
The next morning I got Tats to show me the revised notes relating to the new European Network. After shredding them into a million tiny strips, we went through it all again. I thought about Oliver Hawkworth. Two items about him were still hazy. I phoned Adrian from my mobile. “That matter I spoke of earlier this morning.”
“Yes?” said Adrian. “Tell me, why was his file so conveniently to hand on your hard-drive?”
“Even you need a security clearance to pull the records of a Cabinet Minister.”
“Very simple. He’d already asked for your records only the previous day.”
“As you are well aware, anyone who has been or is a civil servant has a file past and present.”
“Oh,” I said, and heard Adrian chuckle as he hung up. Of course he could just be having a laugh. But the fact was, I wasn’t laughing.
Chapter 24
The plain-clothes policeman led me along the softly carpeted corridors of power; austere men in military uniform looked quietly down from dark paintings lost in a penumbra of varnish. Mr Oliver Hawkworth MP was seated behind a vast oval mahogany table, which was polished like a guardsman’s boot.
A slim mahogany clock stood discreetly against a panelled wall pacing out the silence. On Hawkworth’s table a banker’s lamp with a green glass shade marshalled the light on to four heaps of papers and newspaper clippings.
Only the crown of his head was visible. He continued with what he was doing, allowing me to feel embarrassed for interrupting his private study. The policeman motioned me to a hostile looking chair in front of the table.
Hawkworth ran a finger across the open book and scribbled in the margin of one of the typewritten sheets with a gold fountain pen. He turned over the corner of the page and closed the green leather cover.
“Smoke.” There was no trace of query in his voice. He firmly pushed the silver box across the table with the back of his hand, put the cap on his pen and clipped it into his inside jacket pocket. He retrieved his cigarette from the ashtray in front of him, put it into his mouth, drew on it without releasing his grasp on its filter, mashed it into the ashtray with controlled violence, disembowelling the torn shreds of tobacco from the lacerated paper with his immaculately manicured nails. He brushed the ash from his jacket.
“You wished to see me?” he said.
I lifted the lid of the small silver box. I took a
cigarette and lit it with a match I then blew it out and tossed it towards the ashtray, allowing the trajectory to carry it on to Hawkworth’s pristine paperwork. He carefully picked it up, snapping it in two before placing it into the ashtray. I drew on the strong tobacco.
“No,” I said, stripping my voice of interest, “not really.”
“You are discreet – that’s good.” He picked up a sheet of paper, and held it under the light and quietly read from it a potted history of my career in Army Intelligence.
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Good, good,” said Hawkworth, not at all discouraged. “The report goes on; ‘inclined to pursue developments beyond the call of duty. He must be made to understand that this is a dangerous failing in military intelligence work’.”
“Is that what you wanted to do,” I asked, “to tell me that my obsession with tying up loose ends is dangerous?”
“Not merely dangerous,” said Hawkworth. He leaned forward to select another cigarette from his silver box. The light fell momentarily across his face. It was a hard bony face and it shone in the light like a marble bust of a long gone Roman Emperor. Eyebrows and hair were the palest blond and as fine as silk. He looked up. “Potentially fatal.” He took a white cigarette and lit it.
“In wartime, soldiers are shot for disobeying even the smallest command,” continued Hawkworth in his gravelly voice.
“Is that so, but this is the twenty first century, that law is completely outdated and quite unnecessary in today’s civilised society.”
“Absolute nonsense,” he said flushing with anger. “I’ve been informed by the Partners of Ferran & Cardini, that you are demanding the assignment concerning the Gin Fizz be continued. I would like to remind you, Mr Dillon, that your job in Dorset is now over. Your refusal to accept that is impertinence, sir, and unless you change your attitude I shall ensure that life becomes extremely difficult for you.” Hawkworth drilled me with his eyes while he puffed on the cigarette firmly placed between his index and forefinger.
“No one owns me, Hawkworth. My employers pay only for services rendered. I work for them, and for the Government from time to time because I believe in what I do. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll be used as and when others feel like it, especially by a self-centred, egotistical multi-millionaire.”
“What’s more, don’t give me that ‘fatal’ crap, because I’ve taken a postgraduate course in fatality.”
Hawkworth blinked and leaned back into the opulence of his chair. “So,” he said finally, “that’s it, is it? The truth is that you think you should be as powerful as your employers, and the Government?” He rearranged his pen set.
“Power is only a state of mind,” I told him. “Except if you hold a position of power, and have wealth to go with it, it seems you can get away with anything…” I left it at that.
Hawkworth leaned forward and said, “You think that because I hold shares and sit on the boards of a few companies, all of which I have disclosed to the House, I should not have a say in the control of my country?” He held up a hand in an admonishing attitude.
“You just sit there, and listen – it’s my turn to lecture you. It really is simple, isn’t it, Mr Dillon? You are no better than a common or garden spy. I do not impugn you or your firm’s motives as to why you do what you do. But please feel free to impugn mine as a Minister. You might say that it is my duty as an Englishman to increase prosperity for all. As it’s your duty to do as your employer’s command.”
He paused for a moment before adding, “Without questions. Your job is to provide success at any price, by means fair or foul. Men like you, Mr Dillon, are simply implements to do things with, shadowy figures that are in the dark recesses of ordinary people’s minds. Who when done with, are forgotten, quickly.”
“You mean, that I’m a janitor in the wash room of state?” I asked humbly.
Hawkworth gave a cold smile. “You are a very annoying fellow, you know?”
“You sit here talking of ethics, as though you were employed to make ethical decisions. You are nothing in the scheme. You will complete your tasks as ordered: no more, no less. This is what you are paid for. There is nothing more to discuss.” He leaned back in his chair again. It creaked with the shift of weight. His hand clamped around the black silk rope that hung beside the Curtain, and a moment later the policeman appeared.
“Show the gentleman out, Constable Baker,” said Hawkworth.
I made no move, except to pull out of my inside pocket a number of folded sheets of pa
per and place them onto the mahogany table and push them across towards Hawkworth.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“These are for the man who has everything. They’re pages from a diary,” I Said, watching Hawkworth’s face.
“They’re from your diary.” I watched the policeman out of the corner of my eye; he was hanging on to every word.
Perhaps he was planning to tell his Govenor!
Hawkworth flicked his tongue across his drying lips like a hungry python.
“Wait outside, Constable,” he said, “I’ll ring again.” The policeman had withdrawn to his notebook before Hawkworth spoke again.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you,” I said, and lit another of his cigarettes while Hawkworth fidgeted with his guilt feelings. This time he left the dead match where it had landed.
“I know of some pieces of hardware, or shall we call them mechanical digger parts, that go to Argentina in regular consignments. I’ll tell you, those importers must be very inefficient because they have received shipments of the stuff and yet, there are no parts to be found on any shelf - anywhere! You can hardly blame them for being a little confused.”
Hawkworth’s cigarette lay inert in the ashtray quietly turning to ash.
“It would seem that the same applies to shipments going to India and China. Of course, it wouldn’t be cricket if a company with an English M.P. as a director sold this type of thing to volatile regions of the planet. The Americans would blacklist them, but what with all this muddle in the Argentine everyone ends up extremely happy.” I paused. The clock ticked on with its steady beat.
“As a way of moving gold or even possibly weapons there’s nothing to beat…”
Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series) Page 14