The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller

by Mike Lunnon-Wood

  “It’s me, isn’t it?” Holly finally said. “It’s me they want. You’ll have to find out what they want me for.”

  “They started with you, but now it’s me too.”

  She sat up. “But what have we got in common? It’s not as if we are witnesses or something...” She thought about it for a second or two, and then put her hand to her mouth in realisation. “It’s Dad,” she said softly. “My God, it’s something to do with Dad.”

  Quayle nodded in the dark beside her.

  Just before ten the next morning, they stopped and Quayle made his way off the petrol station forecourt to a public phone. There he dialled the number from memory, let it ring three times and hung up, then dialled again a second time. This time, it was answered on the fourth ring.

  “I want to order some peaches please,” Quayle said

  There was a pause before a woman’s voice spoke. “I’m sorry, we haven’t had those in stock for some time – but if you will hold for a second...” Quayle could hear the flurry in the background. The peaches trigger obviously hadn’t been used in a while, but the woman certainly knew about it. She would be trying for instructions from someone. At last, she came on the line again. “Sorry about that. Could I ask a representative to call on you?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Quayle answered. “Tell your sales manager I shall call again in an hour.” He hung up and walked back to the car.

  He’d done what he needed to do. Now, there would a mad dash to find the man they called Jack Herman, to tell him that one of his people had surfaced. Only seven or eight people had ever had the peaches trigger – and, if nothing else, Quayle knew that it guaranteed them a clean line later.

  He smiled as he climbed back into the car. Jack Herman, Head Of Station in Switzerland, never knew that anyone other than him knew about the Prague cell’s reporting codes.

  But then there was a lot that Jack Herman didn’t know.

  At that exact moment, Jack Herman was eyeing up the legs of one of the three girls in the Consular and Trade typing pool. She was the rather ordinary looking daughter of a British businessman resident in Geneva and worked in the passport section. Knowing that Mr Herman was something hush hush, she found him terribly exciting and enjoyed his flirting over coffee – so, when the phone call came through from his office, she was disappointed to see him hurtle from the room.

  “Is that the sales manager?” Quayle asked, on the other end of the line.

  “It is. Can I help you?” Herman answered.

  “Can we get together?”

  “Who is this?” Herman asked. It certainly didn’t sound like one of his people. The accent was familiar but all wrong.

  “I got you out of jail in Berlin one night. You and an Egyptian dancer.”

  There was a stunned silence on the end of the line for several seconds.

  “Jesus Christ...you! What… what a pleasant surprise,” he said smoothly.

  “Cut the social pleasantries, Jack. I just need to know what’s going on.”

  “I see. Where?”

  “Parc de la Grange. The Stadium entrance and round the path on the right.”

  “I know it... Let’s meet after lunch, say two?”

  Quayle agreed, a thin smile on his lips, and hung up.

  Back in the car, Pope was gazing frostily out of the windscreen, unhappy with the developments. His gun was out, sitting in his lap under his hat.

  Holly smiled uneasily at him as Quayle climbed into the driver’s seat. After he had told them what he had organised, Pope snapped his verdict.

  “You’ve given him three hours to line up some players. You’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “That’s if there is this Metro thing,” Quayle argued. “I’m yet to be convinced.”

  “But why not somewhere crowded? Why pick a park? It’s a killing ground!”

  “Because I can see them,” Quayle replied.

  When they reached the destination, he looked down at his watch. If they were going to try and take him then they would be arriving soon, wanting to be in place well before he arrived. Pope had insisted he take a few precautions and, delving into his small hold-all, had produced a rolled bundle the size of a small towel. “Wear this,” he had said. “It’s Kevlar weave. It will stop anything but Titanium.”

  He dug into the bag again and produced a Browning Hi-Power pistol, its heavy rubber combat grip matt black against his hand. “It’s heavy but you can handle it.”

  Quayle shook his head and took the armoured vest, if only to humour him. The other preparations had taken the best part of forty minutes and now he waited in the warm sunshine of the path, Pope’s vest chafing his neck.

  Herman stood on the path, trying to maintain his cool urbane composure. Inside, he was a maelstrom of conflicting emotions and feelings. He had reported the contact as standing orders said – and suddenly the situation had been ripped from under him. He hadn’t really believed the rumours about Titus Quayle and, when the Metro order had come through in the daily coded material, he had read it with disbelief.

  Quayle certainly didn’t sound crazy on the phone – but then, they said, the madmen never did. Besides, now it was out of his control. The heavy mob were getting stuck in, with the senior Fairy on station talking directly to London, enjoying his brief moment of power over the head of Station. The chances of something drastic happening were very good indeed. If the Fairies got a shot at Quayle, they would take it, guns and everything. That would be all they needed, to have the humourless Swiss police involved and a public spectacle.

  He watched a woman walk past pushing a little girl in a stroller, and a kid on roller skates doing lazy figure of eights while licking an ice-cream. A park worker with a stiff leg was pushing a wheelbarrow full of grass cuttings and an elderly couple were out strolling together, the man hatted and scarved even in the warm Autumn sun.

  Herman was pleased that the senior Fairy knew what Quayle looked like because that might absolve him the responsibility of pointing him out. It was bad enough standing here like a Judas goat, he thought. Then he thought again. Such a bad choice of phrase. Judas. Bloody Quayle! What have you done, you stupid bastard? You saved me more than once and here I stand, drawing you into a trap. What a shitty fucking world this is!

  There were eight Fairies scattered about: four full timers and four that they had found somewhere else. They blended with the public quite well, Herman noticed, but not well enough to fool Quayle. Keep your eyes open sport. He looked at his watch. It was three minutes to two. Quayle was never late. It was rule number one. Late is a signal to get the hell out.

  I’m so sorry Titus, that it had to end this way. Maybe you are crazy. Maybe that’s good because maybe you’ll never know what happened.

  He took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it, something he rarely did. A young man on a racing bike freewheeled past, his wheels humming softly on the wide path. The man with the wheelbarrow had dumped his grass and was walking back, a harsh cough rattling in his throat. Two children giggled, chasing a ball, and a man pushed a wheeled Bratwurst stand slowly along the path towards the stadium exit, its striped canopy bright and cheerful in the sunlight.

  The day Titus Quayle was meant to die.

  Quayle had been watching him for the last twenty minutes.

  Herman stood tall and alone on the path, smoking a cigarette nervously, like a man waiting for his new lover. You were never very good under stress, Jack. When you smoke, it’s a bad sign.

  He thought he had flagged three possible players amongst the people walking the path and lounging on the grass. If Jack’s smoking, he thought, there are more and, if there are more, then it’s no welcome home parade. There on the grass two men lounged on their backs, a portable cassette playing rock music. There would be a mirror somewhere, so they could see the path, maybe in the cassette window. The figure on the bench reading a paper was too obvious, but the man pushing the Bratwurst stand was a possible. The two walking the dog were a certainty; one even had h
is hand up to his ear to listen in on his earpiece radio. Somewhere there was a controller, someone with a handheld radio. He would be the boss. There was a man painting at an easel further down and another man of similar age walking the path with a woman, talking into a portable phone. Clever, Quayle thought. Never look at the obvious.

  Then he recognised one of them and he smiled bleakly to himself. The game was on.

  It was time to disappear. Allowing a direct confrontation at a place of your opponents choosing was only for amateurs. They would have the exits covered to some extent and his picture would have done the rounds of silent men. He took the cigarette from his mouth, coughed loudly, took the wheel barrow and limped away toward the main administration area and the staff entrance.

  Holly sat in the car, picking listlessly at a small cardboard tub of French fries. Her chicken, cold and claggy, lay uneaten on the dashboard. Beside her, Pope had finished his without comment and now wiped his hands on a paper napkin.

  “Can’t we go back now?” she asked. “Please, Mr Pope?”

  “No. We’ll just be in his way. We are to wait.”

  “But what if something happens?” she argued, turning to face him and pushing her hair back up off her face.

  “That’s precisely why you’re not there,” he replied, his eyes scanning the parked cars and the walkers around the lake shore.

  Pope didn’t notice the man with the motorcycle who had just thrown a drink carton into a rubbish bin or the quizzical look on his face as he re-mounted his machine. He was a junior attachment to the Geneva station and had been left out of the Park duty. The face of which he had just caught sight – he had seen it recently, and now he scrabbled to place it. Whatever it was, it was important. He wracked his memory, trying to place the image, while he busied himself fiddling with his helmet. He wasn’t going anywhere until his current lady friend arrived, but he suddenly felt very conspicuous, so when he had done everything he could to his helmet, he walked back to the window at the restaurant and bought a cup of coffee, still trying to remember the face. He had decided to walk closer to the car and get a better look – and suddenly it hit him. The face had been in an operations report. She was missing and wanted by London, linked with the killings on Greece. He altered direction slightly and headed towards the phones, his coffee forgotten in his hand.

  The office were surprisingly unhelpful. Mr Herman was still at the park with the others, but they would try and get a message to him. In the end he gave up and said that he would phone in later. He was about to hang up when the operator, who rather liked the young Englishman, offered to put him through to Major Phillips, the Military Attaché who was visiting from Bern. He had met the Major on two or three occasions and remembered him as a gruff, greying individual who ran ten miles every day.

  Better than nothing, he thought, and said thanks.

  “Phillips here.”

  “Hello Major. My name is Rogers, sir...”

  “You’re one of Herman’s people aren’t, you?”

  “Yes. I have a problem, sir.”

  “Speak,” Phillips snapped.

  “I’m calling from a cafe by the lake. I think I’ve just seen a woman that my people in London are very interested in interviewing. They want her very badly... if you know what I mean.”

  “Don’t dither boy,” Phillips growled. “Give me the full sitrep.”

  “Major, Jack Herman is out. So are the rest of the team. I need instructions and help.” He quickly told the Major where he was calling from.

  “Right. Is she in the cafe?”

  “No, sir. She’s in a car.”

  “On her own?”

  “No, sir, she’s with a man,” he replied, adding as an afterthought, “An oldish type.”

  “Got the make, year and reg number of the vehicle?”

  Rogers turned in horror and looked at it across the car park. He saw it was still there and his heart started beating again. Christ, how bloody stupid! he thought. Any bloody school boy knows to do that!

  “Yes, sir,” he lied. “If they leave should I follow them?”

  “On your own? Don’t think Herman would like that. Just try and anticipate their direction. Leave the rest to him. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir”

  “Rogers?”

  “Sir”

  “That’s all you do. Nothing heroic, understood? Stay there and I’ll get someone over to you as soon as they’re back in.”

  Phillips hung up and walked back to his motorcycle trying to seem nonchalant, committing the registration number to memory as he did so.

  Twenty minutes later, he saw a third person arrive and get into the car. He recognised the man’s face instantly from the photographs at the lunch time briefing.

  “Oh shit,” he said out loud, and then breathed a sigh of relief as he recognised another car that drew into the car park.

  It was one of the vehicles used by the Fairies.

  Quayle sat in the driver’s seat, quickly rubbing the make-up off his face with a tissue. Stopping only to take three or four of the cold French fries and popping them into his mouth, he wiped again with the tissue as he spoke.

  “You were right. The place was crawling with them. Three or four Fairies and a few local hires. Jack Herman’s twitchy, very twitchy indeed. At one stage I was only fifteen feet from him.” He grinned quickly. This was the old Titus Quayle, the buckets of pure nerve still there. “He’s losing his edge.”

  Rolling and throwing the last tissue on the floor, he turned and winked at Holly, who was now in the back seat. She made a sad little smile, pleased he was back but unhappy with the news.

  Starting the engine, he took another handful of the French fries and pulled out onto the road. There was silence for three or four minutes before Holly spoke.

  “There’s a piece of chicken there if you want it, and some napkins in the glove box.”

  Quayle didn’t reply but gently eased the speed up. As the road widened around the lake, his eye flickered to the mirror every three or four seconds.

  Pope sensed the change instantly. Glancing at Quayle, he pulled his gun clear and onto his lap. He was too professional to look rearward.

  “What have we got?” he asked conversationally.

  “White Audi, four back. Looks like three people inside. It hasn’t overtaken the car pulling the boat.”

  “How long?”

  “Since the restaurant.”

  As he said, it Quayle was quickly working the odds. The rules said that, if you were with the smaller or disadvantaged force, you should always to engage first. Pull the initiative back with an offensive action. If there was one car to the rear then there could be another, and there could be yet another to the front. The further they travelled, the more time they gave their opponents to muster strength and plan their deaths.

  Quayle had never liked the rules – he always found a way around them – but this road was a trap, the lake on one side and the mountains on the other. There was no leaving it, except for the short steep turnings up its side valleys. On his own, he could have simply disappeared. But not with Holly or Pope.

  “We have to take them,” he said to Pope. “Soon. Do you...”

  Pope nodded, pulled the magazine clear, flicked eight solid nose bullets out into his lap, and rapidly replaced them alternating with Teflon rounds. Then he reached into his breast pocket and took a small roll of Elastoplast. Tearing two strips off, he carefully taped his spectacles hard to the skin behind each ear. Lastly, he scooped the spare four bullets into his pocket, took a roll of peppermints out and slipped one between his dry lips.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “I’ll take the next turn off,” Quayle said softly.

  “Go round a bend. Pull up fast. I’ll be out on my side. You keep moving about twenty yards. I want them stopped under my sights.” He turned to Holly. “Miss Morton, in my bag beside you there is an armoured vest. Put it on. When we stop, you drop onto the floor. Then you stay there till we
are moving again. You don’t get up and you don’t look up until I tell you it’s safe. Understand?”

  She nodded quickly, her face pale against the rich brown of her hair.

  Pope looked to the front and sucked his peppermint.

  The driver of the tag car was a Dutch freelancer. His talents – the result of six years on the Amsterdam Police Force’s armed offenders reaction team – were for hire and had been since he was thrown out of the police for consistently using unnecessary force. He was not a brutal man. He simply saw violence as an effective means to an end, and these days he was paid handsomely for his skills. The man beside him was German, as was one of the two in the back seat. They were brothers who had cut their teeth in the red-light district of Hamburg, protecting their stable of prostitutes against intruders. Both had been recruited by the Dutchman when they needed to leave Hamburg in a hurry after a multiple shotgun killing of five drug dealers who fancied themselves as pimps as well. The killings had been a gross misjudgement, but emotions had been strong. The brothers’ little sister had died after injecting heroin cut with a caustic drain cleaner. They hated drug dealers.

  The last man was a Corsican mute. His tongue had been cut from his mouth during an interrogation – when, as a Legionnaire, he had been captured by Algerian nationalists. At fifty-two he was the oldest in the group and a superb marksman.

  Until now, the day had been largely wasted. They were not paid to attend, but to act – and, so far, the whole exercise in doing the job on the Englishman had been fruitless. Hanging around the park waiting for a man who was never going to come had left them all frustrated. The attitude of the other Englishman in Geneva was also an irritation. He seemed sickened by the whole thing.

  The Dutchman had no respect for that sort of unproductive hypocrisy. After all, Quayle was their problem. He drove at a steady pace, keeping three or four cars between his and the target vehicle. God, that had been a stroke of luck, the sighting at the lake. They might just redeem something from the day yet. The other two people in the car were an easily dealt with problem. Guilt by association, and then who would associate with a madman anyway? The girl would not be a problem – but he did wonder briefly who the other older man was.