The Protector: A gripping, action-packed spy thriller

by Mike Lunnon-Wood

  He walked to the window. The snow had begun.

  “I wonder how many he left?” Holly asked.

  “Enough to know that one would make it,” Quayle replied. They were walking around the path towards the bottom end of the main field. A group of girls in tracksuits were wandering back from the swimming pool, hair wet and eyes red from the chlorine. It was mid-afternoon and the warmth was soporific. Holly trailed her jacket over her shoulder and Sergi, the bodyguard, had his unzipped all the way as usual. He didn’t seem to notice the temperature.

  “Do you think it’s there? After all… all the killing. In the scoreboard. Just sitting there?”

  “Why not?” he replied, thinking it better be, because I am running out of ideas.

  The search of the chess club had been fruitless. Every book had been opened and shaken out, every box or cupboard emptied, wall units shifted. They had found two half full packets of cigarettes, a small pile of mildly pornographic magazines, a long empty sherry bottle, numerous sweet wrappers, newspapers dating back to 1969 – and, behind one cupboard unit, an ancient fountain pen. But that was all. Short of ripping up the floorboards, and that wasn’t Teddy Morton’s style, they had done the job well. Quayle had even climbed up into the ceiling through an inspection hatch and searched the dark corners of the roof, reciting the word ‘board’ and applying it wherever possible. Chess board, chopping board, milk board, black board… scoreboard, scoreboard! Stupid prick, he cursed himself, the fucking scoreboard! He used to sit there. Scoreboard for the cricket. Play up, play up and play the game. One on the board for the blues!

  Five minutes later they were almost there.

  “That’s it,” he said, pointing to the edge of the field.

  The board’s display area was raised above ground level with a small scorer’s shelter behind it. Taking the four steps at the rear, they pushed their way through the rickety lock on the old wooden door. Inside it smelt of dust and dryness, and two old chairs sat empty before the closed up viewing ports. In here, it was dark, the only light coming in through chinks in the walls. Quayle looked around until he saw the shuttered window at the rear and the skylight hatch. When open they would provide ample light for the scorers, who would sit bent over their pads with sharpened pencils in hand, calling to the runner who would change the scores on the display itself. Lifting the shutter over the window, he propped it open with a length of broomstick and light streamed in, a golden shaft that highlighted the dust in the still air. The wall’s interior surface was bare timber, the skeleton showing the clap-boarding on the exterior. The other two walls were panelled, one containing a soft-board notice area. On its surface was a stern message to keep the place tidy, and a list of the season’s fixtures. A series of photocopied pages from a rulebook took up the remaining space.

  Shrugging, he began running his hands over the high edges of the frame.

  “Sergi, have a look on top will you?” he asked.

  The soldier nodded and, taking a jump, pushed the top hatch open and hauled himself up onto the roof.

  It was Quayle who found it. He had worked his way around the walls until he was at the noticeboard, and there he saw that a screw had been loosened. The others were countersunk all the way in, but this one had been unscrewed and then replaced. Some bored kid with a Swiss army knife could have done it, he thought to himself. Better have a look anyway.

  Sergi popped his head through the hatch.

  “A teacher’s coming,” he said.

  Quayle looked at Holly. “Do you have a nail file in your bag?”

  “No,” she said, immediately beginning to rummage about in it, “but I have a bottle opener on a key ring. Will that help?”

  “Let’s have it,” he replied, “it may do.”

  She handed him the key ring but, as he put its edge to the screw, a man appeared in the doorway.

  “Can I help you?” he asked frostily. He was wearing a track suit and fingering the whistle around his neck like he was about to blow it for a foul.

  “No thanks,” Quayle replied, putting his weight behind the turn. “Not unless you have a screw driver.”

  “What?” he demanded. “Now, see here! Who are you people?” They weren’t behaving like parents at all. “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for something,” Quayle replied reasonably.

  “What?” the fellow demanded.

  “I won’t know until I find it.”

  At that exact moment, the screw came clear. Quayle caught it in one hand and, taking the sharpened end of the opener, prised the board back. Then, risking the spiders and other things that might have been resident inside, he slipped his hand inside, thinking: scoreboard, one on the board for the blues, notice board in the scoreboard, it’s got to fucking be here…

  “I insist you stop at once and leave the grounds – or I shall inform the authorities!” The hand on the whistle was becoming agitated, but Quayle ignored him and bent awkwardly, trying to slide his arm further behind the board.

  The teacher stepped forward and, as he did so Sergi, came through the hatch like a ninja, dropping to his feet inches before the startled man’s eyes. “Go back and play with the children, da?”

  Quayle touched something. His eyes lit up. He withdrew his hand slowly, the prize gripped gingerly between his fingers. It was flat, about six inches square and wrapped in plastic. He rubbed the dust away and, through a layer of opaque thick plastic, he could see a floppy disk.

  “Did he have a PC in the last years?” he asked Holly.

  She looked back from the angry teacher, who was still unsure if he should give way to the demand to leave.

  “Yes…”

  “Now see here!” the teacher exclaimed. “Amongst other things I teach here, I teach self reliance – and if you think I’m going to just walk away…”

  “Oh, do be quiet,” Quayle said. He tore the plastic open and out fell a faded envelope and the foil wrapped computer disk. Then, sliding the envelope open, he read the first line and put the contents in his pocket with a tired smile. “How short are you for the new pavilion?”

  “What?” the teacher asked, amazed at the new tack the conversation had taken.

  “The pavilion rebuilding fund. It’s short of target. How much?”

  “Ah… about sixty thousand dollars I think,” he replied.

  “Tell Mortimer he’s got the money. But there’s a caveat. It’s to be called the Morton Pavilion. And this structure and the trees that shelter it are to remain standing always. Tell him my solicitor will be in touch. Of course, no-one is to know where the remaining funds came from or of my visit here today.” He smiled then, the urbane benefactor.

  “That is very generous,” the teacher said, trying to view Quayle as a wealthy eccentric rather than a vandal.

  *

  Sergi drove back to Melbourne, Quayle sitting beside him and reading the letter over and over. Holly had read it until the code began, the tears coming freely along with her father’s voice from the grave, his wonderful full looped handwriting so familiar.

  ‘My Dear Titus,

  If you are reading this missive, my old friend, then it means I have passed on into the great wonderful unknown. What an adventure that will be! I shall of course be sad to leave those I love and England, but the task shall not remain undone, of that I am sure. If it is not you reading this, then it matters not, as you will see.

  In writing this I have placed you in some danger, but you are a competent chap and can deal with that issue as it arises. Never could abide that sort of thing myself.’

  The fourth paragraph was an introduction to an access code and, although it was written for Quayle alone to understand, he grappled with it as the car powered though the miles.

  ‘Remember well the incidents. Each is stand alone and only you can answer them. Leave no spaces, and work in capital initials only. I tried to calculate the probability of someone breaking the code by chance and stopped in the billions. I am not a mathematician, and un
derstand code-breaking is an electronic art in these technical times, so I have built in safeguards with the help of a very bright young man who is part of this technical generation. Think it through carefully, Titus, before committing to the keys. If any part of the access is wrong then the programme will destroy itself.

  The file has been updated regularly but is not complete. One question, while answered, remains to be confirmed. I leave it in your hands and am confident you will finish what I began. Opportunities to do the right thing in the face of adversity are common. Men who rise to the challenge are rare. You are one.

  Give my love to England, her green fields and warm fires, and remember me to the walls of the college when next you visit.

  One last favour to ask, old friend, although I realise you would never refuse a one. Keep a gunner’s eye on Holly for me. She will have received, at the start of my great adventure, a modest inheritance – so will lack nothing material. But she will, like all mortals, require good measures of solid advice; and at times the warm hand of friendship. Impart of those as you see fit and it will be such a thing that money cannot buy.

  I remain,

  Yours Sincerely

  Edward. G Morton.

  He had signed with a formal flourish as was his way, the bold blue ink strokes hard across the carefully formed longhand script.

  Quayle knew he should have felt things, then. Relief that he had found the file, sad at this last message from his oldest friend, elated at having found the file. But he was tired and he knew it wasn’t over yet. Far from it.

  The tone of the letter said much to confirm what he had suspected, and the code was yet to be broken – and he knew how lateral Teddy’s thoughts could be. Once in, he knew there were things to be done, the file to be closed once and for all. He rubbed his eyes tiredly and leant back. As he did so Holly leant forward and stroked the back of his neck.

  He turned to speak but she put a finger gently across his lips.

  “I know,” she said, her eyes still red from crying. “I know.”

  They bought a Compaq laptop computer at the airport and, with spare batteries and the salesman’s assurances that it would run for the next four hours on that power supply, they boarded the first leg of the northbound flight back to Europe and the team waiting in Chamonix. Sergi took a look around the aircraft, decided they weren’t in any danger and, on Quayles bidding, allowed himself to fall asleep.

  But sleeping would have to wait for Quayle. His time had come. The Englishman lifted the top of the computer, turned it on and inserted the disc.

  *

  Alexi Kirov picked up Jean Girard in the Albert Hotel. There he was eating in the old dining room, sitting at a table in the corner from which he was able to see the entire room.

  Kirov requested a table behind a small wood-panelled pillar that would shield him from view, but allow him to observe through the reflections in one of the dining room’s gilt-edged mirrors. The fact was, he wanted to be noticed – and, if possible, to engage the Frenchman in some small conversational exchange to help him remember. That would become important in establishing his credibility.

  After watching Girard eat through a mountain of local and provincial cheeses, he finished his own meal and walked to the bar that stood in the lobby. Girard would have to walk past him to get to the doors, so he ordered a cognac and watched a foursome of old Americans playing bridge in the quiet lounge, the hotel’s big black dog occasionally shoving his head under one of their arms trying to get some attention.

  Kirov sipped his drink and waited. Finally the Frenchman appeared, looking as satisfied with his meal as only the Gaelic can be.

  “Pardon,” Kirov said jovially, “would you care for a night-cap? My last night in civilisation and a shame to drink fine cognac on my own...”

  Girard was tall and good looking, in his mid thirties. His tan was real and he moved like a man who was fit, but his eyes had a flatness that left Kirov uneasy. He had seen it before, in those who could kill without feeling and sometimes even enjoyed it. If Quayle doesn’t do the job on you, you cunt, he thought, I will.

  “Thank you but no,” he answered.

  “Are you sure? It’s cold outside! Let me warm your way!”

  Kirov lifted his glass to try to persuade him, every inch the happy drunk, but Girard would not be convinced. “No, thank you,” he replied stiffly – and, taking his coat off the rack, he moved out onto the street.

  Good enough, Kirov thought. He’ll remember me now. Then, scooping up a handful of peanuts from a small china bowl on the bar, he settled on his haunches and called over for the hotel dog, who snuffled them up with clear rolling sweeps of his big pink tongue.

  “Dosvidania,” he said, stroking the dog’s head.

  Then he too walked out onto the street and the cold crisp night. It had been snowing for forty hours now, and one of his team was watching the chalet complex. As soon as they looked like moving into the mountains, they would know. There was a ski equipped aircraft chartered in Girard’s name in two days’ time. The pilot had talked in a bar in Sollonges. He didn’t like new snow on glaciers but, for this fee, he would fly anywhere.

  Everything was ready. Quayle’s instructions had been followed to the letter.

  *

  Quayle had taken a look at the code on the screen, written the questions down verbatim on a pad, and then shut it down without touching a key. He worked better on paper and now sat for the seventh hour, considering the questions. They had passed though Singapore and were airborne again, Sergi and Holly still asleep in their seats as they had been throughout the stop – and, lighting another cigarette, he let his mind wander back twenty-five years to his days Cambridge University and the first icon he had watched Teddy Morton transform from a mildewed filthy write-off to a thing of beauty again.

  “The first letters of the full name of the background colour and the last letter of the frame colour of the first Orthodox piece you ever handled in my rooms.”

  He remembered it like yesterday. The fine brushes dipped in turpentine and the bright smear of blue across the heavy cardboard shoe box top. What blue? Cobalt blue? Sky blue? Royal blue? It was mid-range and strong. Cobalt blue.

  He wrote down CB.

  The frame was easy. It was heavy and of carved timber and painted in thick gilt gold leaf. Writing a D after the CB, he moved onto the next question.

  “The final move of the game of chess you won” was next. It didn’t give a time or date or who the opponent was. It didn’t need to. He had only ever beaten Teddy once. It was with a move that Boris Spatsky had used to advantage with Bobby Fischer the American. They had been sitting in the book-lined study in Morton’s house in Cambridge, a fire in the hearth and a bottle of Russian Vodka on the small occasional table between them. Quayle was pleased to be back. He had just finished a long job in East Berlin and it was nice to unwind. Queen to King four. QTK4. He wrote that in after the D.

  “The departure time of the train that you took to Lincoln for the first time. Drop the points.”

  Now that would have been on file at registry. The train he should have taken anyway. He had gone up the day before and spent the night with a girlfriend who lived nearby. Only Teddy knew that. She had sneaked out of work to meet him at the Station. Mid-afternoon. He had nearly missed it because of the idiots briefing them at the FO. He remembered it because it was the girlfriend’s address. She lived at number 212. The 2:12.

  He wrote in 212 and moved on.

  “The poet whose words have brought you this far. The year of his death less the number of bicycles you owned over the years at college. Key the number in backwards.”

  Newbolt died in 1938. Less two bikes made 1936. He wrote down 6391 after the 212. That was it.

  CBDQTK42126391.

  Flipping up the top of the computer, he inserted the disk again and took a breath. Fuck it, he thought. Mine is not to question why. Mine is but to do or die.

  He punched in the code slowly, careful, with his
thick fingers, not to make an error.

  The screen flashed a fast series of figures and finally asked him if he wished to change the code. Breathing a sigh of relief, he hit the ‘N’ option and, as he scrolled down the files, he lit another cigarette. For the next two hours, he read and made notes on the pad, his jaws clenching and his eyes glittering. Bastards.

  *

  Chamonix was veiled in new snow and looking crisp and serene, as peaceful as the scene on a Christmas card. It was too cold for the snow to thaw so there was none of the muddy slushiness of early winter streets. Excited children ran and played where the snow ploughs had built snow banks at the sides of the road. The roof eaves were laden and café workers shovelled snow off the sidewalks so they could put out tables for people to take coffee, or maybe a measure of rum if the sun came out. Carved wooden balconies jutted out from warm chalets, and at the cable car station the crowds bad begun to gather, forming long lines as they awaited their turn in the car that would take them up the Aiguille Du Midi.