Terror Illusion

by James R Conway

It was still dark as Jonathan closed up and locked his house and walked out onto the northbound platform of Ravensgill Bridge station, wheeling along a black suitcase behind him. The Leeds to Carlisle train was due in a few minutes. He picked up the telephone on the wall of the station building and asked the dispatcher to have the northbound train stop at Ravensgill Bridge to pick him up. Jonathan had had a quick breakfast of tea and toast before leaving his house, but he was looking forward to getting something more substantial to eat on the hour's journey to Carlisle.

  The cold light of dawn was just perceptible above the eastern hills as Jonathan heard the diesel engine of the train as it climbed the hill and approached the station. The train pulled to a halt with a squeal of brakes. The light from the carriages flooded onto the dark platform and the doors hissed open. Jonathan stepped inside and as the doors hissed shut, he heard Karen calling him from the carriage to his left.

  "Hi, Jonathan!"

  Jonathan turned and waved at Karen. Leaving his suitcase in the vestibule between the carriages, he walked down the carriage and sat down facing Karen.

  "Good morning, sleepy head!"

  "Hello Karen!” You seem to be full of energy at this early hour."

  "Coffee," said Karen.

  Jonathan noticed that they were the only passengers in the carriage.

  "I took the liberty of picking up some breakfast in Leeds," said Karen as she pulled a thermos flask from her bag and placed it on the table between them. She also pulled out a couple of paper cups and a brown paper bag with sandwiches.

  "Coffee and bacon and egg sandwiches," said Karen with a broad smile. "I hope you take your coffee with cream."

  "Karen! You're a life saver!" said Jonathan.

  "You're welcome! Dig in!"

  Karen poured coffee into each of the paper cups and passed a package of sandwiches across to Jonathan.

  Jonathan looked out of the windows of the carriage as he sipped his coffee. It was getting lighter outside. It was a cloudy morning and the train was rolling through hilly country at a moderate speed. There were sprinkles of snow on the distant hills but Jonathan felt warm.

  "Thank you for breakfast," said Jonathan as he put down his coffee and picked up his bacon and egg sandwich. "How was your Christmas?"

  "I stayed with my mum and dad and my sister came over for Christmas lunch. As usual we all ate too much and fell asleep in front of the television in the afternoon. How was yours?"

  "I had lunch with a family in the village. I went back home in the afternoon to sleep it off and a friend stopped by in the evening and we made turkey sandwiches and had mince pies."

  They finished their breakfast and Jonathan cleared away the wreckage and put it into a garbage can at the end of the carriage. When he returned to his seat, Karen had pulled out a thick sheaf of papers and placed them on the table.

  "The Sir Fergus McKinnon Memoirs?" said Jonathan.

  "The very same."

  "So, are you going to tell me what I am letting myself in for?"

  Karen laughed. "I really want to tell you what I know about Mac. We just ran out of time before Christmas."

  "OK, but now it’s time to spill the beans."

  "Right. Well, I got to know Mac because our publishing house decided to buy his memoirs and he was assigned to me to look after."

  "Have you visited the castle before?"

  "Yes, just once. It's a fabulous place."

  "Presumably I'll see that when we get there this evening, but what do I need to know about Mac before I meet him?"

  "First of all, he is a very straight talking person but very polite, I would almost say gracious. I think he appreciates straight talk from the people he meets, too."

  "Why do you think he will be interested in talking to me?"

  "Jonathan, anyone would be interested in talking to you with what your mind is capable of. The thing is, I am fairly familiar with Mac's earlier life from reading his memoirs but I am not really sure what his current interests are. He claims that he's retired but, like you, he doesn't strike me as the kind of person who would be happy with a quiet retirement."

  "Tell me his background as far as you know it from his memoirs."

  "Right, there's a good idea. I think he will tell us more about what he's doing now when we meet him. But he is retired from an Army career and he is living in a castle in the hills near Fort William on the west coast of Scotland."

  "Why a castle?"

  "I think it's been in his family for many years. He doesn't have any close family these days though and he lives mostly on his own."

  "Do you know what he did in the army?"

  "Yes, and this is where it starts to get interesting. For a while, he worked in the Army Intelligence Corps but then he seems to have been posted to our Washington embassy as our military attaché. He was there for several years. He spent a lot of time travelling to our embassies in Central and South America. He speaks several languages including Spanish, Portuguese and Russian."

  "Do you know what he was doing there?"

  "Well, according to his memoirs, he was mostly working with the militaries of those other countries, liaison, training, that sort of thing."

  "Was there more to it than he wrote in his memoirs?"

  "I think there probably was. You see, when he came back to the UK he was eventually recruited by the security services."

  "Security services?"

  "You know? MI5, spies, spooks!"

  "Good Lord!"

  "Yes, I thought you might find that interesting! Look, why don't you read through the memoirs and they should fill in some of the blanks."

  Karen pushed across the stack of papers and Jonathan started to read. He leafed through the first few chapters fairly quickly, covering Mac's childhood, his school days and his early days in the army. Then, about a third of the way through the book, Jonathan reached the part where Mac had been assigned to MI5 and he slowed down to take in the detail.

  Apparently, it was not unusual for Army officers to be assigned for duty in the intelligence services because these officers had usually been subject to extensive security vetting and their loyalty had been proven in military service. As someone who had been involved with the Diplomatic Service and who spoke several languages, Sir Fergus was an obvious candidate for MI5. In his memoirs, Sir Fergus described the structure of the security services.

  MI5 was the internal security service, responsible for security within the United Kingdom.

  MI6 was the external security service responsible for ensuring Britain's security overseas. It was the "James Bond" side of the service and on the face of it more glamorous than MI5, but Sir Fergus felt that MI5 had a far more direct effect on the lives of British citizens and he was proud to serve the organization.

  "Do we change trains here?"

  Karen's voice jolted Jonathan from his reading and he looked up to see that the train had stopped at the station in Carlisle.

  "Yes," said Jonathan, "we change trains here and we catch the train to Glasgow.” He gathered up the manuscript and put it into his briefcase. "This is interesting stuff," he said.

  They stepped off the train onto the platform and Jonathan looked up at the departures board.

  "The Glasgow train is due in about ten minutes, a couple of platforms across," said Jonathan as he pointed across to the other platform and they set off together to walk.

  Jonathan turned to Karen as they waited for the train. "I'm just getting to the interesting bit about MI5."

  "Good, the manuscript is interesting but I think we will probably find out more about his work in MI5 when we meet him. I think you should go ahead and finish reading the manuscript before we get there. At least it will give you some good background information."

  Their train pulled in and they stepped aboard. Karen went off to find a seat with a table while Jonathan stowed the suitcases. Then he went to join Karen.

  "I think they have a buffet service on this train," said Karen.

  "Yes, I
could use another coffee," said Jonathan.

  The train started to accelerate out of the station.

  "I'll go and hunt down some coffee while you carry on reading the manuscript," said Karen.

  Karen walked off in search of the buffet car while Jonathan found his place in the manuscript and settled down to continue reading. As he read, he learned that the MI5 mission was to protect the United Kingdom against forces that would seek to overthrow it politically or economically. Sir Fergus wrote about a few of the operations that he had been involved in during his time with MI5, where he had been involved in undercover work to infiltrate organizations and gain intelligence about their plans. However, much of the memoir discussed the relationship between MI5 and the government, including stories of intense arguments and mutual blame games when MI5 intelligence was ignored or misused by the government.

  "Coffee break time!" said Karen as she sat down.

  Jonathan looked up from the manuscript.

  "What do you think?" said Karen.

  "Interesting stuff, especially the power struggles within the service and between the service and the government."

  Jonathan sipped his coffee.

  "I think what he has left out of the memoirs is almost as informative as what he has included," said Karen. "I get the idea that there is some kind of subtext there."

  "Yes," said Jonathan, "It looks to me as if he has some kind of resentment or bitterness about MI5. Tell me, why did he leave the service?"

  "That's covered in the last couple of chapters. He is actually a bit vague about the details. He just says something about being offered early retirement and leaves it at that. He claims he was ready to retire to his castle in the highlands and spend his time hunting, shooting and fishing. It all sounds very plausible."

  "That was his job," said Jonathan, "making weird things sound plausible."

  "I expect we'll find out more when we meet him, " said Karen.

  Chapter 10