by Tim Heath
In Dubai at that same moment, it was approaching lunch time. David owned a construction company that he’d relocated there at the very start of the property boom. He’d become wealthy because of it. His activities were not restricted to the Middle East, however; his firm was involved in many major construction projects right around the world. David was a wealth of information and had been an informer for the British, and occasionally others when it suited him, for many years. He was eating lunch in one of his favourite hotels, another of his company’s projects when a motorbike pulled up outside, the rider dismounting before eventually making his way in through the main doors, sitting some distance away from David but watching the unsuspecting man constantly.
It was mid-morning in Kiev, as the last of the riders dismounted his bike that day. Ukraine was a troubled nation following the near civil war that was being fought, primarily backed by Russia to the east. Konstantin had lived in the region all his life and worked in the Security Service, though now he had a desk job as he had taken a bullet ten years ago that meant his Rambo days were over. He still had a limp to this day which only added an air of mystery to the man. He had good connections in Russia, which hadn’t changed even after the conflict in the east of his country had started. He’d been a British mole for twenty years already, offering both vital information regarding Ukraine as it moved closer to the European Union, as well as offering valuable information on Russia. He used specific diplomatic routes to pass the info along, so well placed in his current role that trips to the UK were not possible. He lived alone now, his long-term partner leaving him for another man several years before, something he had never really got over, nor did he choose to dwell upon that often. He was lost for thought as he walked the streets of Kiev, exercise essential even if walking was not always the most natural thing to do for him since his discharge from active service. Back then, he’d have been running the streets. Those days were long behind him, as his ample stomach could now testify. Fifty metres behind him, the man that had just parked up his bike and had been following him was rapidly gaining ground.
Konstantin hadn’t picked up the stalker initially, something he’d been ashamed to admit, but after the second corner that old sixth sense kicked in if only to warn him too late. The man was upon him, the sound clear as a gun chamber engaged. The Ukrainian stopped, turning instead to face the leather-clad man not more than three metres in front of him now that he had spun around. There was a moment of silence, Konstantin calm in the face of blatant trouble, though he could tell this was not a simple street mugging, the calibre of weapon giving that one away for starters. It was not going to end well, and he knew it. He’d caught a bullet before, his leg reminding him at that precise moment. Maybe it was the tension running through his body, perhaps the adrenalin. He’d forgotten how it had felt to be facing down a loaded weapon. The biker raised his arm, gun in hand.
“You are a murderous British informant,” the man said to him, an accent heavy in his broken English, though Konstantin couldn’t place it at that moment. Still, his training was kicking in, even in those last moments. Work out where he’s from it was telling him, rather than admit the fact he was about to die.
“Let this be a lesson to you all. We know who you are, we can now get you all. It is just the beginning.”
Konstantin said nothing, his mind coming through with the West African accent as their eyes held a moment for what seemed like seconds. Neither man was showing any real shock, and both had undoubtedly killed before. As his trigger finger closed around the gun, there was little change in the killer’s eyes. Konstantin didn’t change his focus as the bullet hit him square in the head, throwing him backwards, his body falling to the ground.
The killer turned quickly, dropping the gun in his jacket pocket and heading for the bike again. There was no one around at that moment though soon there would be. Getting back to the bike just two minutes after firing his weapon, he took no time to pull away and was lost in traffic before the body had even been found.
It was later that night, in a dark corner of Westminster, that Hugh Higgins, the British Foreign Secretary, was meeting with the Security Service. Information about the fifth killing had just reached them.
“Confirmed, sir,” said an MI6 technician. “Late last night in Brazil. That brings the tally to five. All our people, all high profile and all, until today, hidden. It’s the same five that we later intercepted information about through Saleem Ahmed.” Saleem was a Syrian businessman very much on America’s radar––as well as the British. Besides his vast legitimate operations, he was a known middleman for various militant groups, a money man as well as a go-between. If Boko Haram needed to pass along valuable information––or the knowledge they had something of value––it was men like Saleem Ahmed that they turned to. The West knew this, which is why so much focus was placed on keeping a watch on such men.
A printout was dropped onto the table. It was an MI6 document detailing the contact codes of these five spies in the field. Proof that their enemies now had their most valuable information.
“Damn it!” Hugh said. “Find out who it is, find out where they got it from and for good measure, find out exactly where they are now. This is tantamount to an act of war. If anything else comes to light, I want to be the first to know.”
“We’re onto this all, sir, but in due respect, this was passed on after the five were killed. It wasn’t Saleem selling on this information that killed them. This is them simply telling us that they have this information. This is their play to us. They’ll be watching what we do next. I think it is safe to say they have much more of this. We need to contact everyone and get them safe.”
“That would set us back decades! We’d lose everything!”
“We don’t have a choice, do we, sir? Whoever they are, they mean business. There was no ransom, no threat, just five dead and then the information passed on to prove they are the real deal. We have to take them seriously.”
“What if that’s all they have? What if they want us to believe they have more, want us to make a move?”
“Is that a risk you are prepared to take? I mean, to lose everyone for the sake of waiting?”
“We’ve already lost everyone! The moment we pull them, they’re useless to us, and most would have already blown their cover where each one was working.”
“So you’d leave them in place and have them all taken out, for what, just to prove a point or gamble that they’ll be safe? That seems awfully cavalier with a lot of other peoples lives.”
“God damn it, I don’t know what I’m asking you to do at the moment,” he said, pacing around the room aggressively, needing space to think. “Give me time, will you, and get me the PM on the phone right away.”
14
South Coast of England
Elizabeth had ditched the car in Poole, on the English south coast, before walking a little way and collecting another vehicle. She knew these parts well, owned a few properties in the region, including one in Poole itself. She’d thought about making her way there, but on approaching the area, spotted what she thought was a police surveillance van and quickly backtracked. The fact that they were onto her already really was telling. There were paperwork, fake passports and secure communication devices at the Poole house which she’d dearly liked to have had. It wasn’t her last resort, but frustrating. She had another home, just south of Weymouth on the peninsula. Rufus Castle stood on the cliffs, leading down to a secluded bay. She’d bought a house there three years before. It would take the police a little longer to track down. She had some time, therefore, and knew it was safe to stop there for the moment. However, the net was closing around her fast.
She picked the make of car she wanted and worked the lock, something she’d mastered while overseas. It was surprising how often she’d needed to call on that particular skill, though she always preferred other methods. Just fifty seconds later, she was driving down the road. If the police had made it to Poole already, she knew t
hat her previous employers would not be far behind. She figured she had thirty-six hours, no more. Time for her to make her escape or go down trying. Contact with China was also an option, and all these things were possible from her Dorset home near Rufus Castle if she could just get that far.
Traffic was light, and she made good progress, crossing the stretch of water approaching the peninsula without any real concern, The Ferry Bridge pub greeting her on the right, as usual, just before the bridge, the sea calm on either side of the road at that moment. She’d visited the pub a few times. Hardly high-class dining but everything you’d expect from a cosy village like that one, and at that moment the very sight of the place brought back warm memories, even if the situation she was now in, was far from comfortable. She was on the run, fleeing for her life, for sure. If the British ever caught her, she was history, but in some way, the reality of it all felt something of a relief. She was now forced to move on, and should she manage to escape, had everything she needed to live an excellent life somewhere, even if she would need to take on an entirely new identity and would always be keeping one eye looking back over her shoulder. At least it was all out in the open now. No more secrecy, no more lies. She’d had an outstanding run, longer than anyone thought possible. And she’d grown wealthy because of it; she’d been very much in the right place at the right time when it came to the power plant blueprints, the return of the information to the Chinese being the very thing that had made her so wealthy. As traffic slowed as it always did, now on the peninsula itself, she worked to push those thoughts from her mind. Was this the last time she’d ever be there? It was hard to imagine any other scenario right now. Was she about to flee the UK for good, a country she’d made her home for many years, a place she’d come to enjoy, even if life had its complications?
Nothing was more complicated than her current situation. She’d got away with things for so long, and she’d started to believe she was immune. Had that been the reason she’d been caught? Was it her fault that she was now running for her life? Traffic came to a stop, and she nearly went into the car in front. Her thinking was getting distracting, and the last thing she needed was a delay. She focused once more, moving with traffic when it was flowing, no option than to just crawl slowly through the crowded little streets, coaches and cars all over the place, savouring this very English of places. On this day, she was not here to relish.
Eventually, she could break away from the traffic and turned down the road for the castle, a tourist attraction in its own right but closed for a while as renovations were being carried out to both the castle itself and the cliff-side walkway which took you down the fifty metres or so to the stony beach below. A cove that few people now visited, far off the tourist path. She had a small outboard motor tied-up down there, something she trusted was still in good working order. It was only three years old, and she’d barely used it in that time, once bringing it from where she’d purchased it, and the only other time, which was two years ago already, when she’d done a nighttime run, testing herself in case an escape was ever needed. The fact that the day had come was still to dawn on her entirely.
Not far from her, and much closer than she realised, the net was already closing in. The house in Poole had been searched, and the car she’d stolen from Chislehurst found. There had been a lot of documentation recovered from the search of the four-bedroom house, and this had been handed over to the Security Service, who were already on the scene. One of their own had gone rogue, it was now a matter of honour to find her. The car Elizabeth had stolen in Poole had been reported in as well, and as it happened not far from the house they were currently checking, the details were given to all police forces in the area, and a search was set up. Two MI5 operatives were speaking with the traffic authority, and a check had begun looking for number plate recognition on the vast CCTV network in operation on the Dorset roads. After twenty minutes the car was picked up travelling through Weymouth heading south. Two further cameras picked up the vehicle entering the peninsula, including one camera at a pedestrian crossing outside The Ferry Bridge pub.
“Good,” said the officer in charge. “She’s trapped herself; there’s only one way in and out of there.” A roadblock was set up. “Call in air support,” he added, “and alert the Royal Navy, we can’t rule out that she’s planning on an escape by sea.”
Nigeria
Jianguo was asleep in a bed that formed part of a makeshift hospital that his captors had set up. Others were occupying other beds, their own men injured in the local fighting, but these were kept away from the Chinese man hidden behind his own curtains. At last, he was being given some treatment for the injury to his leg though it was probably too late for it ever to be fully functional again. The nurses were undertrained and under-resourced. For an organisation with millions of dollars in cash flow, it was surprising to see so little made available to their small hospital in northern Nigeria.
Two buildings away from their Chinese prisoner, there was a power struggle emerging between the two main tribal leaders, both senior Boko Haram generals, about how to use the rest of the information Jianguo had given them. The first five kills were confirmed. It had cost the organisation a lot to arrange, and there was no profit in the way they’d carried out these assassinations. But they’d made their point.
The larger of the two generals, a man who’d overseen the kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls and many bomb attacks in Nigeria’s main cities, was a fundamentalist who only saw the information at hand as a means to grow connections with the other main players in world terrorism, especially Daesh and al-Qaeda. He saw the data as their chance to finally bring something to the table that carried weight, to take their rightful place alongside these other two and become part of a more significant alliance; an alliance that could conquer the world and rid the Earth of all Western influence.
The other man, a tribal leader from a nomadic people that spanned several countries, saw the value in keeping the information themselves, of being the one group to lift its head above the others and hit back, where it most hurt, on an enemy that had come to destroy them not so long ago. He questioned the agenda of the other two major Jihadist groups and saw them as the wrong type of Muslim. Under his leadership and with this latest information, he would lift Boko Haram to be the primary player in world terror, a force to be considered, and not only in Africa, but globally. He didn’t trust anyone else to handle the information as he knew he could. The stakes were now too high.
The two generals had a dark history with each other, their tribes for decades had been bitter enemies, before the umbrella that was modern day Boko Haram seemed to draw them into a single cause. Still, tensions existed and this apparent gold, this British Security Service information, was threatening to open up old divides once more. Both men were itching for a fight, determined to finally come out on top and rid their organisation of the other man once and for all.
The chance had not come, however. Following the killings of the five spies, high command within Boko Haram had taken control of the ongoing situation. The main leader, known merely as Commander, had turned up at the camp overnight, a man that both generals held in high regard, his appearance coming at just the right time. He, too, was aware of the history, the ill feeling and death that surrounded both of his generals who were meant to be working together. He didn’t trust either man with something as valuable as this, and now that the information had proved itself still valid, he’d come to take things on from there. He was a man who always got his way, and any disloyalty in the ranks was ever dealt with at the end of a gun. Ruthless throughout his thirty-year career, he’d had even close friends killed during the years, one time his own brother. No one crossed him now. For that, he was the most feared leader in Nigeria, though he had nothing to do with politics. He’d always found bullets to be ultimate vote winners and should he choose to run for President, had enough firepower to pull it off probably. Now, though, with this information, he had weaponry of a very different nature,
and crucially, it had a far more significant reach than any missile they might otherwise be able to purchase.
The Commander called together the two generals and a few of their other principal men and gathered around a large table. No one said a word.
“What we have here, men,” the Commander started, “is the means to cause absolute terror within the British ranks and not only just for them. There will be many American and Israeli agent details connected to this information, and we cannot forget that. But we must act fast, and we must act together. Those still in active service, will no doubt soon be moved, if the British dare to pull them. Even if they do, their cover is blown. Their connections ruined. It doesn’t have to stop us going after them either, especially regarding people who have had direct involvement in attacks against our own men.” He paused for a moment, taking in the faces of the men before him, men who’d seen enough dead comrades, to know how accurate that last statement was.
“Detailed in this information, however, is also the political makeup at the time, those leaders who were responsible for the attacks from years ago. Even though the government might have changed, we must make those in power at the time pay. We cannot forget what they have done to us.”
“I don’t think anyone forgets what they have done to us, Commander, but how are we going to bring money in from this? We can’t even afford to make these killings ourselves. These five have already cost us much of our operating money,” said one of the generals.