MERCURY'S SECRET

by Tobias Roote

  “That part isn’t true, I think your bosses are stitching me up, my only interest has been protecting the girl.”

  I thought fast, Tobler already knew what I was just beginning to realise, that I had information that was still important twenty five years later. Not for the first time I wondered what John and Abbey had got me into and how I was going to play this out.

  “We wondered at that, it seemed to go pear shaped when you hit a foreign team, a bunch of independents who we had been tracking for some time. They are based out of north Africa. It got Butler’s attention when they disappeared off the Italian coast. We had tracked them there, then lost them. You seemed their obvious target. I’m guessing something happened to them.” His eyes watched for my reaction, I gave none. I thought I saw the glimmer of respect there, but wasn’t yet sure it was enough

  There is a deep held belief in the business that people on your own side are inherently patriotic and willing to put country above personal desires. As a result when an Agent goes rogue there was always soul searching by the others seeking a valid reason for termination. After all, it could be them in the same position and they wanted to be sure. I could see this in Fletcher. He wanted a reason not to fulfil his mission.

  I had anticipated this and wanted to appeal to his sense of fair play. His agents were still alive and my treatment of him and them would make him think better of me. I was hoping he would help me get an edge, although he might not do it knowingly, he might slip his guard and give me something.

  “Intelligence says she's your girlfriend, the pictures they have show you both together,” he offered up wanting to keep the dialogue going. He didn’t yet know my intentions and we were all trained to maintain eye contact and conversation, anything to delay a negative outcome while the chance of rescue might come. I didn’t expect it to in this instance. Neither did Fletcher.

  I decided to be responsive, the guy seemed decent enough and I was not going to kill him. An ally wouldn’t be a bad outcome right now if I could swing him over. A chance, but better than nothing.

  “Yes, we have become involved, but don't get me wrong, I'm all business when it comes down to fulfilling my obligations. My assignment is to keep her safe, and I will do that to the best of my ability,” and nodding over at his dead colleague, “and sorry, but I will do whatever it takes.”

  He nodded, almost approvingly, I thought.

  “You're 'Charlie the Whisperer' aren't you?”

  I flinched internally, outwardly I remained calm, but that nickname was deeply hidden. Only two people still alive knew it, one of those was me, the other one also very much alive and kicking.

  “Too much information can get you killed,” I responded. I wasn't kidding. My department was very strict on need to know, I wondered how my nickname had got to this MI6 operative.

  “It's okay, he offered, “we have mutual friends in convenient places.” I thought I knew who he was referring to, but wasn't inclined to give up information that might help him, or the other side. I was still upset about Alice being taken, but relieved to know she was alive and probably unharmed.

  “I'm sorry about your girlfriend. For what its worth all of my team are pretty upset about going for one of their own, its not what we do, except for Datchett over there, he was a cold blooded bastard, but useful in a dust-up.”

  I knew what he meant, it takes a lot to retire one of your own side. It makes you believe that the powers above don't generally look to honour their pension plans and you're only as good as your last job. They much prefer being able to close a book on someone who knows too much. A dirty business, but someone's got to do it.

  I gave him a drink from the bottle to shut him up a minute, I needed to think.

  “What do you intend to do with us?” he asked, shaking off a dribble of water that had run down his chin.

  “ I cannot afford for you to find your way back into the game, so its either leave you as is, or....” I left it unsaid because I hadn't decided what to do with them yet. I had no secure place to leave people like him that they couldn't get out of.

  “What if I said we were prepared to help you get out of this?” he offered picking up on my indecision.

  I looked at him. The surprise on my face must have been evident because he laughed.

  “What, you think you're the only one who knows when to change sides? You forget we have heard the stories of how you went against your Section Head to try and save your team. We know what it cost you, your family... I know its a long time ago, but even so, I'm sorry for your loss,” he looked at me with what looked like genuine regret on his face.

  I was shocked by his statement. I stood up and walking out of the lounge leaving him there, I went through the kitchen door and out into the growing dawn. I needed to gather my thoughts. His reference to my past life and the pain of losing Maria and Stella because I was trying to save my team and not at home with them, cut right through me like a knife. I fought my demons.

  CHAPTER 27

  Despite me trying to keep my concentration on the current situation, memories swooped in and took me back, running rampant and uncontrolled through my head. As I stalked through the woods getting myself under control I had no choice, but to go back and revisit my past. Clearly picking up my distress, Mercury materialised at my side.

  The memories flickered in a time lapse sequence, images of my team being captured by a Mexican drug cartel. They had been badly compromised by our own political masters because it was expedient for them at that moment in time.

  Two snipers, their spotters and backup support, the complete operational department excepting me. There were to be multiple targets; two of them high up in the Mexican government, an operation run by the DEA with our teams working Wet. They were waiting for them, an insider tip-off. The informant was never traced, but I had always had my own suspicions.

  I had gone on leave as I was due to take my family away, but when I got wind through Brett of what was going down and why, and who had given the order, I dropped everything with no explanation to anyone. I went directly to my Section Head who wouldn’t cooperate. In the end I put a gun to his head to get the location details. My career ended right there.

  I knew I would be a dead man when it was all over, but I wasn’t about to let my team be sacrificed for political expediency. I didn’t think any further than going in after them. I knew they had been sacrificed by our own people, and I realised I might be as well, but I would be damned if I would let this happen on my watch.

  Using all my contacts inside and outside the Department, I ran completely dark and without support from the UK. I hitched on a series of US military birds and went in to try and retrieve them, only to get there just in time to witness their executions by the drug barons they were supposed to take down.

  They were all veterans so knew the risks, we had discussed them often enough and understood the nature of our work would leave no room for compassion from our enemy. It was hard to look through the binoculars and see each of their faces and not be able to do a damn thing to help them.

  I cried as each of them was shot in the back of the head by the Man himself, while they knelt in Alquerras’ front garden, the original target. His political partners were laughing, swigging expensive tequila and smoking Havana's. It was a god-damned garden party and my team were the main course.

  I almost lost it then, and would have except for a young female DEA Agent, Lisbeth, who had been sicc’ed on me to keep me out of trouble. A big girl, she had grabbed me, holding me down in a vice-like grip until I saw sense. She had waited knowing what was to come, looking for the opportunity to overpower me. I could see the pain in her eyes, a shadow of what I felt, but we both knew it was crap and what needed to be done.

  She nodded in quiet agreement and became my right arm while I took stock of the situation and drew up a plan. I had got the impression that this was outside her remit, but she had seen what happened and knew an informant had handed them to Alquerras. Lisbeth knew I woul
d do it, with or without her. I think she wanted to balance the books in case it was her side that had shopped my team. I respected her immensely for her quiet fortitude.

  Over the next week and a half, I took vengeance on the whole cartel using Alquerras’ own gun on him kneeling him in front of a mirror in his office. I wanted him to see the hand of vengeance, I needed to look him in the eye while he gave up payment for his crimes. It was a cold ‘dark’ revenge and while I took no succour from it, I knew the reverberations would be felt by all the drug barons.

  First they would live in fear for their own, thinking it was going to be a mass clear-up. Then when it looked safe, they would swoop like vultures on the demised gangs assets claiming them for their own. There would be much more bloodshed, mostly each others. They would, however, know never to mess with us again.

  I retrieved one of the team’s sniper rifles from Alquerras armoury, and used it to take out the two political targets, no longer an impersonal ‘cold’ hit, now all too personal. I made sure they knew it, a shot into the upper chest near the throat ensured they couldn’t breathe while their life ebbed. I coldly watched their faces through the scope as they realised retribution had been served. They would never draw another Havana smoke-filled breath again.

  I didn’t stop until I had cleaned out the whole nest using local DEA resources, getting myself badly shot up in the process. Wounded by a hidden pistolero, I was treated by a Mexican doctor with two local plain-clothes policemen in attendance and told in no uncertain terms it was time to leave the country; I had just one last task to complete, I organised the retrieval and repatriation of my team.

  Brett had intervened again and the US agencies cooperated fully. They needed to avoid embarrassment both with the Mexican authorities as well as their own Oversight Committee and the UK authorities. They flew me and the bodies of my team back on a night flight to a UK military base. Brett made sure I didn’t get quietly ‘retired’ by creating diversions using his contacts within other agencies. He would also have known that my pain was about to get a lot worse.

  On my return to London I was met by Peter, my Father-in-Law and informed that Maria and Stella, having waited for me to join them on the pre-arranged road trip, had gone on ahead and been killed when their car skidded off a road in the Alps. Their car had not been found until the following day. The look in Peter's eyes haunts me to this day.

  He never said anything. Even at the funeral he was there to support me, in private his cold hard look told me what he really thought. He never once asked me where I had been. He knew who I worked for. Had he known what I had done, I don’t think he would have changed his opinion. I should have been driving that car and I wasn’t, so he blamed me for their deaths. I couldn’t find it in my heart to disagree with him.

  In two weeks I had lost my team, my family, my life and my career and this very place I stood now, was where I had run to in an effort to forget. Drinking myself into nightly oblivion and nursing my gunshot wounds, de Graite’s wife had done much for me, cleaning my injuries, cleaning the cottage, removing the empties, but only when I was comatose and couldn’t fight her. I owed her and the de Graite family my life. I had repaid them by putting them at risk. I felt bad about that and resolved to keep them from anything else that might occur.

  Now, here was a man who didn't know me yet had managed to break through my defences and had shown me compassion and understanding. He was the first contact I'd had from inside the services since that fateful time. I hadn't thought such information would have been common knowledge yet, he knew something of what had transpired.

  What happened to the inter-departmental secrecy that had been associated with his job? How would a 'six' know of what occurred in 'twelve'? MI12 was a ghost department, it didn't exist except in whispered corners of quiet Whitehall Gentlemen's clubs by those who had come across the occasional signs in the shadows.

  If Fletcher was MI6 and knew about me, then I needed to know what was going on.

  I rang Brett on the GREY.

  “Hi Brett - what's the situation with 'twelve'?”

  “Oh, sorry Charlie, I thought you already knew. MI12 was politically assassinated by the government lackeys who it now seems, had interests in Mexico. While the fallout meant the department got scrubbed they tacked its workload onto MI6 and scrubbed all assassination ops.”

  “What happened to Butler, my old Section Manager?” I almost didn't dare ask.

  “He got promoted, he runs Tobler and a few other sections, nobody is quite sure how he managed to wriggle out of the repercussions from your teams' operation. He's likely behind the push against you Charlie, and might be looking privately for revenge, or perhaps to having you silenced.”

  “That's unfortunate, I could do without this right now. While I have you on, what's your word on a six operative called John Fletcher?”

  “Why do you need to know Charlie?”

  “Because I have him trussed up along with his team and I already killed one of them, Datchett,” I told him, “self defence,” I added a little defensively.

  “Ahh, Datchett. Yes he is, or was, one of Butlers men. You wouldn't have had a choice there, I think. As for Fletcher, you will like him. Trust him if he says anything, it will be straight up.”

  “Did you tell him about me? He knows about me and my last op.”

  “Charlie, you have been out of the game, I had to cultivate new partners. Understand?”

  “Yes, I understand Brett, no sweat. If he behaves, you will get him back in one piece.” I laughed, relieved to have tracked back the source of the information. I didn't like the idea of my career being the subject of chatter, it's not something you want to become common knowledge. If Brett had told Fletcher, then he would have had good reason.

  “Tobler definitely has Alice, have you tracked their location yet?”

  “Yes, I just triangulated it a few minutes ago, they appear to be heading to one of your recent touring places. They are about due to arrive in Marseilles. I will let you know their position when they stop.”

  I thought quickly, Alice must have said something, they shouldn't know about the boat, but there was no other reason to head for Marseilles. The Russians were there too. I couldn't visualise any common ground for them to meet. It had to be the boat.

  “I think they will go for the Marina, its where I left the boat, Alice II. Can you check on its location and state of its readiness. I suspect Alice has deliberately put them onto it knowing I would pick up on that. She's a bright girl , Brett, she would make a brilliant agent if you need one in the future.”

  I pressed the disconnect and walked back to the cottage.

  Fletcher had moved when I got back. He had managed to prop himself up a little, against the wall and had a better view of the kitchen doorway. I had picked up a knife from the worktop on the way in and his eyes widened as he saw it. I grabbed him and pushed him back sideways so he landed with his shoulder on the floor away from me. I took hold of his wrist and cut the ties. Then switching the knife into the other hand, I cut the ones on his ankles and stood up stepping away from him as I did so.

  He sat up making no move to do more than that as he rubbed his wrists. He looked at me, measuring the change in my mood.

  “Are there any more like Datchett on your team?”

  “You're asking if there are any more of Butler’s people? No, but Tobler is cut from the same cloth. So don't trust him not to put a bullet in your girlfriend if it gets him out of a tight corner,” Fletcher answered. Being released and my single question, was enough for him to understand I had spoken to someone and that the game had now changed.

  “And your team?”

  “They can be trusted. I will vouch for all of them to follow my lead, except for him,” he indicated Datchett. “He would have shot me, told Tobler and Butler and then taken over the operation, I think it was a given that was going to occur at some point anyway. You did me and the team a favour there.”

  I nodded, it was all I need
ed to know. Tossing him the knife, I said “Your boys are in the study.” I pointed at the closed door to the adjoining room. I whistled for Mercury and heard him scooting down the stairs, tail wagging. Walking into the kitchen I put the kettle on. It was going to be a very long day.

  CHAPTER 28

  I stood in the doorway with a hot mug of coffee. The four men all sat, the other three a little sullen at being bested and with Datchett's body also being there, a little resentment was to be expected. They were a team after all, and one of them had been taken out.

  “I gave him a chance not to shoot,” I said sucking in some coffee and pointing my head towards the body. “He thought he could still beat me while I had a gun pointed at him. Otherwise he would be sitting there with you.” I looked steadily at them trying to gauge their reaction, ready to act if they went hostile.

  “Do I have a problem?” I looked at them questioningly.

  One of them looked pointedly at the others, then got up and walked cautiously past me, while keeping his eyes fixed on my position, and across to Datchett. Turning him over, he looked at the wound in the shoulder, then the one between the eyes. He let the body slump back again and walked back towards the others. No longer watching me, he nodded at them. They relaxed.

  “Nope, we're good, you gave him a chance, a bullet in the shoulder is as good a warning as you can give someone to stop what they're doing,” he said looking also at Fletcher as he returned to his seat. Their manner changed and I also looked at Fletcher. He nodded and smiled. He had trusted them to come to their own conclusion rather than tell them what to think, a good leader that one, I thought.

  I knew I needed some help to get Alice back, to also try and set things right between the Section, the Russians and other parties. In the long run I thought it might save lives, in the short term it might avoid a flare up of hostilities between everyone which could be messy. I didn’t want Alice caught up in all that. I could survive, probably. I wasn’t so sure she could.