The Five

by A P Bateman

  He was a Pakistani by culture and a Muslim by both birth and belief, but he had been born in the United Kingdom. He was as Western as the white people he went to school with, worked with, socialised with. He had visited Pakistan, but not as a tourist. He was a different person to the people he grew up with. He had seen conflict. Seen the deaths of his comrades, and in turn, had delivered it to their enemy. He was a driven man, had to have been to achieve what he had in less than a decade. And now, after years as a foot soldier, he was in a higher order. His tasks and responsibilities had changed. He was destined for great things.

  He had been given the key by his contact. When he reached the top floor, he skirted the building, walking beside its high windows – a solid wall of glass without struts of girders taking up three-quarters of the floor – and took in the panorama of the city. It looked down on many buildings and only up to a few, but the view was not his reason for being there. When he reached the north end of the floor, he took the key out of his pocket and approached the plain looking door built into one of the gables. There was no handle on the door, and no name plate indicating its purpose or destination either. It could well have been a circuit cupboard.

  He inserted the key into the single, discreet looking lock and nudged the door inwards. A motion sensor light illuminated the concrete staircase. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. There were twenty-four steps and he took them cautiously. At the top, another door, identical to the previous one, stood between himself and the roof. The key would work on this door too. His contact had assured him of this. It was a service master key, and covered every lock in the entire building.

  The roof was overlooked by three buildings in its immediate vicinity. It was approximately level with three more. This wouldn’t be a problem. There were ventilation outlets, air conditioning units and what he assumed were storage units for maintenance and window washing equipment. Enough to keep someone out of view. The roof in turn overlooked many buildings.

  The man walked to the edge. He was comfortable with heights, didn’t feel his stomach churn or his head lighten, he looked down on the pedestrian street below and got a true perspective of the building’s height. Six hundred and forty-seven feet. A wall of about a metre high acted to protect workers from the drop. It was interspersed with glass panels. The glass panels were fixed with aluminium couplings. Each panel edge left a gap of four inches. He bent down, then decided to lie down flat on his belly. He sighted an imaginary rifle. Used his left hand to hold the fore-stock of the rifle steady, his right wrapped around the pistol grip of the imaginary rifle. He sighted along the imaginary barrel. In his mind’s eye, he used the crosshairs to centre on his target. He could only see the window. He took out a pair of compact field glasses from his jacket pocket and could clearly see Gipri Bashwani at his desk some two hundred metres away. The glass was lightly smoked, but in the fading light the lack of direct sunlight made the interior of the office visible. Bashwani was holding court with three executives. The world’s wealthiest man was going about his business without a care or worry in the world.

  35

  Cape Town

  South Africa

  “You’re going to owe MI6 more than a thank you after this.”

  Caroline leaned back in the cosseting leather seat of the Toyota and forced herself not to relax. She wanted to sag in the seat, close her eyes and breathe deeply. But she had been in situations where to relax was to lose your edge, and she wasn’t about to let down her guard until she boarded the plane and ordered the first of many gin and tonics.

  “Thanks, Ryan,” she said. “Thanks for handling everything back there.”

  Ryan Beard nodded. He checked his mirrors almost continuously. Caroline still had the assault rifle in the footwell. There were only four rounds left in it, and as Beard had reminded her, she had lost the Sig 9mm pistol he had given her earlier and they did not know if there were more people out there who wanted her investigation halted. At any cost.

  The truth was, there was undoubtedly someone out there who wanted to stop her, but whether they could get their assets into play before Beard could get her to the airport was another question. He certainly drove like he intended to get her there before anybody had the chance to regroup and redirect their resources.

  Caroline had used the mobile phone of one of the onlookers at the scene to call Simon Mereweather. She knew the number by heart and had waited for the MI5 man to call her back. Standing silently, waiting for the call had been a surreal experience. The nervous onlookers couldn’t take their eyes off the assault rifle in her hands and the car that was burning fiercely behind her, it’s tyres popping and rounds of ammunition cooking off in the heat. The two onlookers jumped each time the bullets went off, but Caroline was calm and silent, waiting for Mereweather to return her call.

  The police, fire service and ambulance arrived and fortunately it was not too long before Ryan Beard arrived, spoke to the police, gained possession of the rifle over them and whisked Caroline away from the scene. The police hadn’t known protocol, and in truth, there wasn’t much the MI6 man could have done, but he baffled them with talk of secret service collaboration and that the SASS were keen to take control of the scene once they got an agent on site. Beard had called them, let them know about agent Kruger. He had convinced them that getting Caroline away for a debrief was imperative. He would liaise with the South Africans and tell them what he knew, but he would make sure that Caroline was safely on the plane before he did that.

  It was obvious that somebody, or at least an outside force, had influence within the SASS. Beard had Caroline in his vehicle and away before the police could protest. The MI6 man would deal with the SASS soon enough, but the fact he had helped Caroline twice meant the ledger between Britain’s two intelligence services was well and truly written in MI6’s favour.

  “I’m going to take you straight to the airport. A colleague is arranging a flight right now and we’ll get you out of the country using a diplomatic emergency travel document instead of your passport. We’ll take your photo and fill it in at the airport. The sooner we get you into a safe zone, the better.”

  “But my things…” she hesitated. She realised it was only clothes and she had another passport at home. Like many intelligence agents, journalists and security contractors, Caroline had both a clean and a dirty passport. Some countries did not like visas from other countries that they had diplomatic tension with. Travelling to Israel with an Iranian visa wouldn’t get you very far. Likewise, expect nothing but unnecessary delays in Cuba with a recent American visa. Caroline had some visas in her spare passport that wouldn’t give her an easy ride at many western border controls. It would do for now, but she would apply for another clean one when she returned. She would get a new mobile phone when she checked back in at Thames House. She shrugged, “I guess I don’t need anything.”

  “I’ll sanitise your room, your things,” said Ryan. “Do you have money on you? Any credit cards?”

  “No. It was all in my purse in my handbag,” she paused solemnly. “Back at the fire.”

  She thought of both Kruger’s and Vigus Badenhorst’s bodies burning in the wreckage and shuddered. She had smelled the aroma of cooked meat over the stench of burning fuel and tyres, she thought she would gag, but had fought the urge. She remembered King’s refusal to eat from a hog roast stall at a trendy food festival she had dragged him to once in the harbour town of Porthleven, back in Cornwall. Roast pork was the only food he wouldn’t touch, and it had come from his time in Northern Iraq helping the Kurds in their fight against ISIS, who had burned entire villages, along with the inhabitants. He had said the likeness of a hog roast to the smell of burning human flesh was uncanny. To him, it was the smell of ethnic cleansing. She briefly thought about King’s moniker, his reputation. Did she really know him at all?

  “I’ll sign over some cash for you. You can get some wash things, a meal or whatever you need at the airport.”

  “I feel like I’
m running.”

  “You are,” said Beard. “But it’s okay to run. You’ve had two close calls. They won’t miss a third time, it’s the law of averages. They’ll throw too much at you next time.”

  “I don’t even know who they are…”

  “Better you find out from someplace safer,” he quipped. “They have influence within the South African intelligence services, that’s for certain. First your abduction, then this - and they were willing to sacrifice one of their own people in the process.”

  Caroline nodded, losing herself in the vineyards as they swept past. She wondered how Alex was, whether he was gaining progress with the investigation. She knew he wouldn’t be scared if the tables were turned. Wouldn’t be running. He’d be hunting. She wondered whether she was up to this, and that in turn saddened her. But it was more than that. Seeing Ryan Beard again reminded her of the anecdote in Switzerland. Of the man she had fallen in love with, and whether he was the person she thought he was, or a man she barely knew.

  The Reaper.

  36

  King had taken the lift as far as Winchester. The couple were taking the ferry to Santander from Portsmouth. They were surfing, camping and partying their way down to Morocco. Perhaps further – they hadn’t decided yet. To King, it sounded brilliant, and as he had sat listening to the music and doing his best not to become too engaged in conversation, he thought how wonderful it would be to travel with Caroline. Maybe like this couple, Morocco would be a good place to stop off.

  King knew Morocco well. But he knew a lot of places well, and had operated in the shadows all over the world. It would be difficult to holiday in countries where he had previously carried out his country’s dirty work. Maybe Morocco would be out of the question. He had taken out an Al Qaeda terrorist cell in the Atlas Mountains and exfiltrated via Casablanca to the Canary Islands. It wasn’t hitchhiking conversation, so he had shaken his head when they asked if he’d ever been. He volunteered that he’d surfed a bit. He had hired surfboards in various countries with decent surf over the years, usually after an assignment, and he had done some paddle boarding on the creeks near his cottage in Cornwall. He hadn’t even thought about the cottage, or what was left of it, until then. He would have to chase the insurers when he had time.

  Winchester was a pleasant market town with a mixture of historical old English architecture, remains of settlements dating back to King Alfred and more than its fair share of pound shops. King had stayed there before, many years ago. The city was now several rungs down the desirability ladder, but he reflected many places had gone the same way since the recession and austerity measures. If towns and cities like Winchester could feel the effect, then it wasn’t such a stretch to see why people supported Anarchy to Recreate Society.

  Liam Jameson. A little boy, suffocated in his bed. Collateral damage to their cause. The memory was all it took for King to discount the thought, remind himself of what he stood for.

  The couple had dropped him off at the train station. It was a kind gesture, taking them twenty minutes or more out of their way. King had quietly tucked a twenty into the dashboard of the van and thanked them. He hadn’t wanted the awkwardness of offering fuel money, and he was grateful for the lift, as well as the cover they had unwittingly afforded him. They would find the money later.

  The train station was small. But the trains ran to London every forty minutes or so and the journey only took an hour, so it was a popular station for commuters.

  King ordered a cup of tea and as he paid, he picked up an oversized cookie. He found an empty seat and took out his phone, scrolled through as he ate and drank. He dialled, but Caroline’s number went straight to voicemail. His text had not been answered either. For the first time since they had been in their relationship, he felt worried. He was tempted to break protocol and call Simon Mereweather, but it would signify the death knell to them working as a couple. Mereweather was no fool, and tolerant though he was, and suited by their relationship as he had often been, he would see that the line had been crossed. Both King and Caroline could not afford to be seen to care too much, too publicly. They had to maintain professionalism always. His thumb hovered over Mereweather’s details, but he resisted, locked the phone and slipped it back into his pocket.

  A train was announced on the speaker system as passing through and a few minutes later it travelled through the station at speed. King felt the draught from it, watched the head down commuters returning from London. He checked his watch. Five minutes until his train arrived. He looked each way down the platform. It was habit. He took people in, remembered them. He would know who had remained, who was new on the scene or who had moved on. He could look through people, guess at the lives they lived. He was seldom wrong. He had years of experience.

  Which was why he noticed the man at the end of the platform.

  There was nothing noticeable to most people. But King wasn’t most people. King noticed the man’s reaction when he made eye contact. A visible flinch. Like a mild electric shock. His interest in the wall next to him. King looked at the wall. Victorian block work. Mainly limestone. Neat and well made by experienced stone masons. Not that interesting, yet the man stared at it as though his life depended on it.

  King was using his peripheral vision now. The man was looking back his way. King wasn’t going to test him. Not yet, at least. He had another couple of minutes until the train arrived and people were already getting up and standing at the yellow line on the platform. King checked his watch again. He stood up and walked down the platform to a space among the scattering of people. He held his bag in his left hand. He always did. He could shoot and fight with both hands, but he was right hand dominant, and he always kept it free. He kept looking left, then glanced to his right, like he was trying to spot the train. He caught the man looking at him again, the sudden snatch as he found something else to look at. He touched the top of his head too, and turned halfway around. He walked to a vending machine, studying the array of things he didn’t want and made a show of checking his pockets for change.

  King was intrigued, not so much worried. The man wasn’t in the same league as he was accustomed to dealing with, but he could hear the gruff Scottish voice of his mentor, Peter Stewart, the man who had recruited him half a lifetime ago, admonishing him for being complacent. The thought worried King. A ringer was a practice MI5 used back in the troubles with Northern Ireland. An obvious figure to draw attention away from the real pros who were carrying out the surveillance. King cursed himself. A year of surveillance and investigative duties and he could feel his edge wasn’t as sharp as it had been. He was in his early forties and was suddenly feeling old. He was fit and strong, but he was double guessing himself. His sharpness was being eroded.

  He checked his watch. There was less than two minutes until the train arrived. He didn’t bother checking for his tail. He turned around and walked to the gents. He found the cubicles empty, chose the far left nearest the wall and went inside. He dropped the seat and placed the bag on top. He rummaged through, dropped his clothes onto the filthy floor. He checked the inside of the leather holdall.

  Nothing.

  King turned the bag over in his hands, examined the seams. There were a few loose threads. He looked at them closely. They were darker than the rest of the stitching. His heart started to pound as he took out his knife and slipped the blade into the stitching. The blade was scalpel sharp, sharpened and stropped regularly. It glided through the stitching and when he had opened it up enough, he slipped his fingers into the section between the soft leather of the bottom of the case and the reinforced leather of the base. King discovered that the base was made from cardboard. Not the material he’d have expected for two hundred pounds worth of luggage, but that was the least of his worries. The tracker, identical to the one he had found in the satnav, nestled in the palm of his hand. He turned it over, then slipped it into his pocket. He didn’t bother checking his watch, just stuffed the clothes back into the bag, zipped it up and walk
ed out of the lavatories and onto the platform.

  The train pulled in, brakes squeaking and the doors opening the moment it stopped. King stepped on without looking for the man. He found a seat towards the front of the carriage, his back against the bulkhead. He stowed the bag on the seat beside him. The train was virtually empty. Heading into London at this time of day was nothing like the commute in the morning. The people were heading back out and the trains on the other side of the track would be full.

  King spotted the man. Despite his interest in the vending machine, he neither ate nor drank anything as he sat down. King wondered whether he was a bluff, whether there was another watcher on him, or a team of them. Or perhaps the tracking device was the key. Lose the guy and relax. Oblivious of the tracker in his luggage. Off guard. Maybe that was their plan all along?

  His bag had been left with reception at the St. Michael’s Hotel in Falmouth. He couldn’t see how someone could have tampered with it. He doubted that these people could have been so obvious as to bribe a member of staff. The tracking device was a sealed unit, activated by a pull-tab. Like a child’s battery powered toy. Pull the tab and you’ve got forty-eight hours of battery life. The power would soon be used up, emitting a signal every couple of seconds at a high frequency. So conceivably, the device could have been planted before he had even set out for Cornwall. But that would not have worked with the satnav which came with the hire car. And the two units were identical, which indicated a connection.

  The train had moved on and was nearing Basingstoke. The fields of lush green grass and yellow rapeseed had given way to houses and business parks and soon the train threaded through a heavily populated residential area. The station had few people on this side of the platform. Across the tracks, the opposite platform was full, people having disembarked the London train and heading for the exits.