Red Hawk Rising

by Peter William Hall

  Andy headed back to the canteen but the RAF team had gone back to the test lab to finish their work so he decided to check the waste bin marked ‘For Incineration’. It hadn’t been emptied, so he dug into the papers and had a look at some of them. Many of the carbons were legible and he could read what had been typed. Andy noted that the dates were all yesterday’s and not today’s. Since all such waste was incinerated nightly, there should have been nothing with yesterday’s date on it. It confirmed what he was thinking. He headed back to the test lab via the canteen. By now, he thought, the cleaner will have moved on to a different part of the complex. It was time to ‘phone in a report but that would have to wait until he got back to Handwell. Andy apologised to Williamson and assisted in the test recording. By 20.30 hours they were finished and telephoned for transport back to base. Back in personnel, Hamilton pulled the files on the two security officers based on their photographs and decided to look into things further. He would need to check on the cleaning contractor and its employees working at Argonaut Industries. Hamilton decided to leave some of the checks until the morning when there would be different personnel on duty and he could make enquiries without raising suspicion.

  It was well after 21.00 hours when they got back to base. Williamson and the crew headed for the NAAFI before it closed. Andy headed out of the main gate to find a public telephone box and ‘phone Lutterworth. He walked toward the centre of Hollinlane, not wanting to use the telephone box near the main gate. Two blocks down he came to another telephone box, went in and closed the door. Andy dialled the operator and gave her the number. Soon the operator came back and said, “Your number wishes to offer reversed charges. Do you accept the offer?” He agreed to do so. A familiar voice came on the line and asked for identification.

  “It’s Bluey here. Need some scrambled help.”

  “Switching,” came the reply and the call was put into scrambled mode. Andy then gave his correct identification and explained the situation.

  Meanwhile, back at Argonaut Industries, Hamilton received a call from MI5 offices in London. He was told to radio in from his car as soon as possible. Hamilton packed up his papers, checked out of ‘Argonaut’ and drove down the road towards Wilmslow where he was booked into a hotel. At a convenient spot, he pulled up and radioed in to MI5. Hamilton was put through to his boss.

  “Reggie has bought it,” he was told. “The last message we got from him was that he was following a male who had received a ‘pick-up’ in Trafalgar Square from a female civil servant. He had called in from Soho while the suspect was in a café buying a coffee. They must have got onto him. He appears to have been shot in the back from a distance by a rifle, judging by the angle and the impact. Reggie’s body was found in an alleyway by a policeman on foot patrol. Watch your back.” Hamilton then reported the incident at Argonaut Industries involving Corporal Hill and asked for help in checking on the two security men and the cleaning firm. They would have to be careful not to scare off the suspects in the process as they wanted to see where the trail led to.

  ***

  It was his second day (Friday 23rd) on the detachment and Andy had been up early and had a workout in the gym before breakfast. After breakfast, he headed to the office to wait for the bus to the factory. The engineering officer arrived at about the same time and called to Andy to follow him into his office. He told Corporal Hill that he was told of an incident by the MI5 man who was visiting the Officers’ Mess. It was clear to Andy that the MI5 man must have told the Engineering Officer about it so he held nothing back and explained what he had found. The officer then asked him about progress on his work. Andy explained what he had achieved and what was left to be done. He was then told, “I need to report this to the CO, Squadron Leader Fraser. Complete your work as quickly as possible. Keep your eyes open but don’t take any action. You are aware that MI5 is alerted to the situation so let them handle it. If you see anything that concerns you then report it to Hamilton or myself as quickly as possible without alerting anyone. I hope that’s understood.”

  Andy responded with a “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, Corporal, good work but in future be more cautious. You’d better join the others.” Andy stood up and saluted and headed out. He received some quizzical looks but no-one said anything as he joined the group going to Argonaut Industries.

  As the bus headed for the factory, Major Garasov was settling in behind his desk at the Russian Consulate. A clerk brought in the mail and a glass of Russian-style tea. Garasov sipped the tea. It was a habit he had got into since being posted to Manchester — starting his office day with the refreshing taste of the tea. He slit open an envelope with nothing but his name on it. Having received a number of such envelopes in the past, he knew whom it was from. Tilting the envelope, he allowed the photos to slide out onto his desk. There were four photos. He pulled a file from his desk drawer and opened it up. In it was a chart showing the different RAF personnel that had been through Argonaut Industries with their rank and classification by where they had worked in the Argonaut complex. He picked up the first photo, looked at the face and rank and then turned it over, making notes in the file. Garasov repeated the process for the second photograph, paused for a sip of tea and then picked up the third photo. He looked at the face and gave a loud hiss as he drew in breath. Turning the photo over he looked at the information written on the reverse. It said, ‘Corporal William A. Hill’ — Project Co-ordination Office. He turned back to the face in the photo and cursed, waving his arm and accidently knocking over the glass of tea. Garasov had a slight limp as a result of an injury sustained in an encounter with an RAF man in Scotland two years ago on a previous assignment. He had never forgotten that face. He had sworn to kill him back then and now Garasov felt that here was his opportunity for revenge. Besides, he owed that RAF man something for the pain he had suffered. He picked up the telephone on his desk.

  At 11.00 hours, Squadron Leader Fraser was in telephone conversation with Hamilton of MI5 and the managing director of Argonaut Industries. He had been briefed by Hamilton of MI5 about the incident involving Corporal Hill. The two men were in an inner office which was known to be a secure office and therefore there was no risk of their conversation being heard by others, nor was it bugged. The managing director’s name was David Richardson. He was briefed on the events of the previous evening and Richardson was shocked at what he was told. Turning to Hamilton, he asked, “What now?”

  “We are checking on the security officers and the cleaning contractor at this moment. They obviously passed security screening before, so we need to ‘dig deeper’ to find out how they passed screening and who they are linked to. We don’t want to scare them off. It’s easier to keep tabs on known agents than have to be hunting for the ones we don’t know. What I want to know is whether it would be possible to feed false information to them using the existing procedures. We could cut off the source of information but that would immediately put them on the alert. I want to lull them into a false sense of security until we have the information that we want.” Hamilton then said to Fraser, “Could we doctor the progress reports and slip in false information?”

  Fraser nodded. “Subject to Air Vice-Marshal Denby agreeing to this.” Richardson said that they would need to type up some dummy reports and get the carbons into office waste bins.

  “If we select key areas, such as the computer development and the guidance system, we don’t need to involve all the departments at one time. The project co-ordination office will need to be part of this daily routine since it brings all the reports together. The key will be in changing the carbons without arousing suspicion by staff or cleaners. We will need to arrange to use a typist with high security clearance and have her working in a secure area. That I can arrange.” Following Richardson’s suggestion, they started working out the details.

  Meanwhile, Andy Hill was in the missile assembly area talking with the team there and making notes. He was particularly interested in the sequencing of the ass
embly and what it would mean for routine maintenance at the operational stage. Andy thought that by lunch-time he would have completed most of what he had to do and should be finished by the end of the day. Progress on the missile and the control unit seemed to be going well. The design hiccup on the warhead would not stop the field trials from going ahead. So far, the only weakness he had found in the procedures was the issue relating to the disposal of carbons from the multi-part sets of daily reports. All files were locked away at night and all blackboards in the laboratories and offices were cleaned off each afternoon. The cleaners didn’t come in until after 18.00 hours. By lunchtime, Andy headed down to the project co-ordination office and caught up with Ken Davidson. They headed down to the canteen together for lunch. The canteen was not a secure area and was used by employees not on the Red Hawk project. Over lunch, they talked generalities and discussed soccer. While eating, Andy overheard some of the conversation at the table behind him. The men there were discussing their work on the rocket motor and fuel mixes. Getting up for coffee, he was relieved to note that they were civilians and not RAF personnel. At the same time, it was a security weakness. He made a mental note to report it.

  Following lunch, Andy telephoned Corporal ‘Mike’ Armstrong and asked him to arrange a rail warrant to Newcastle for the morrow. Since it would be Saturday (24th), he could try and visit his parents over the weekend instead of spending it at Handwell. After visiting the radar factory in Newcastle, he would head down to Luton and then up to Coventry before going back to RAF West Sanby. Mike suggested that they go out for a meal that evening and Andy could meet his girlfriend. Andy agreed.

  ***

  Off the coast of Lincolnshire, the crew of the Penny Jane had finished their fishing and were listening in to their radio programme from Moscow. Walmar was writing down the key words as Berin called them out. Berin had already studied the layout of RAF West Sanby from the seaward as well as the landward side. There was no evidence of new buildings or new equipment. He had also visited the ‘Red Lion’ in Louth and engaged in conversation with RAF personnel that frequented the pub. Berin hoped to befriend some of them and eventually gain information. He was to confirm information of the Red Hawk programme re-locating to RAF West Sanby in the near future. He had already sent a report in before receiving these latest instructions. It was clear that other agents were having some success in other parts of England if he had been ordered to get confirmation. Receipt of orders completed, they tuned the radio into a local channel and turned the fishing vessel onto a course for Parfleet St Peter.

  Back at Argonaut Industries in Manchester, Corporal Andy Hill was ‘wrapping up’ his visit with some discussion with Ken Davidson in project co-ordination. Andy had gathered sets of documents for comparison with the other companies involved in the Red Hawk programme and noted all the procedures involved. The RAF Unit would need a similar co-ordination of the different aspects of the SAM system during its evaluation phase. As they talked there was a knock on the door and Hamilton came in. He asked Andy to go and see him when he had finished his discussions.

  Twenty minutes later, Andy knocked on the door of Hamilton’s office and went in. Hamilton got up from the desk and came round it, indicating Andy to a seat. He sat down opposite Andy. “Thank you for your quick thinking yesterday. It alerted us to the source of a leak in this establishment. We are following it up. Your CO and I have discussed it with our respective bosses in London and we don't want you to take any more action on it. Leave that to us. I’m aware that you have a high security classification so I know you will not repeat this. We are going to use the present set-up to feed false information out and then see where it turns up. We have our suspicions but we need to confirm it before we act. If you make similar observations when you visit the other contractors contact me and I’ll follow up. You will receive instructions from Lutterworth to that effect.” Andy shifted uncomfortably in his chair at the last statement and had a question on his face. Hamilton grinned at him, “After yesterday it was obvious I was going to check up on you. All the intelligence agencies linked to the armed forces co-operate with each other. I suggest you watch your back, though. If either of those security officers are working for ‘someone else’ then they may want to remove any possible threat.”

  Andy relaxed and grinned back at him. “Thanks for putting me in the picture. I’m heading north tomorrow so I should be out of the way.”

  “Good,” replied Hamilton. “When I finish here I’ll be heading in the same direction.” They got up, shook hands and Andy left the office and headed back to the project co-ordination office to pick up his papers. From there he headed up to see Bill Reeves. There was a grin of recognition from Bill and he got up from his desk as Andy came in. He had been working on some refinements for the ‘Mercury’ computer. He suggested that they go for a coffee and they headed down to the canteen.

  Hamilton was talking to the records clerk in personnel about the security passes and how they were made. Apparently, the negatives were sent to Argonaut’s photo lab. on the premises by 10.00 a.m. and they produced four prints of each person’s photo. One was affixed to the security pass, a second and third were attached to the person’s identification records, including the RAF personnel. One of these was filed in the record office in the personnel department and the other record, along with the fourth print, was sent to the security office at the main gate. Hamilton asked the clerk to confirm that, which she did. He realised that when he had gone through the security files at the security office, there had been no sign of the fourth photo print. A little alarm bell rang in the back of his head. He asked to see the office procedure manual and was told that there wasn’t one. Each new person on staff learned the procedures from the senior clerk. Hamilton decided to have a chat with the clerk in the security office. He thanked the records clerk and headed out of the office and headed up to the managing director’s suite of offices. He spoke to Richardson’s secretary and she indicated for him to go into an adjacent office. In there, a typist was busy typing up reports onto the multi-part sets at Richardson’s dictation. He smiled as Hamilton walked in and kept dictating. When he had finished, Richardson explained that he had talked with Ken Davidson about progress on each aspect of the project that was their responsibility and so knew what variations to make. The typist would make changes at 5.15 p.m. when most staff would have left. She would take the carbons in an envelope so no suspicion was aroused as she walked and then exchange the carbons with those in the bins. The cleaners came through much later. Richardson would wait for the typist to return to the office and he would personally lock the true carbons away. They went to Richardson’s office and Hamilton explained his concerns about the photograph prints of personnel. Richardson said that he would talk to the clerk in the security office in the morning to avoid suspicion being aroused by Hamilton’s questioning.

  In the meantime, Andy was making his farewells and heading for the bus to take the RAF personnel back to RAF Handwell. As he boarded the bus, a security officer picked up the ‘phone and made an outside call. The bus pulled out of the factory and headed towards Hollinlane. About half-way there, a van pulled out of a side road and followed the bus, pulling up a little way past the main gate after the bus had driven into the base. Andy headed for the admin office to pick up his travel warrant and letter of authority to Wensley Electronics. Mike came over with Andy’s documents and Andy signed in the register for them. He also asked Mike to lock up his folders containing all his notes and other material. Mike put them in a filing cabinet, locked it and put the key in the safe. “You go ahead, Andy. I have to wait for the others to leave and then lock up. I’ll see you over at the block.” Andy headed out of the office.

  Half-an-hour later, shaved, showered and changed into civilian clothing, the two of them headed for the car park and Mike’s car. As they drove off, Mike said, “Sheila is meeting us at the restaurant. It’s Chinese so I guess you’ll enjoy it. I have to drive Sheila home afterwards so would you mind
making your own way back to base?” Andy said that that was fine. They parked a little way from the restaurant and walked back up the street towards it. A van drove past and parked around the corner. Andy saw an attractive brunette with a pageboy hairstyle standing at the door of the restaurant, obviously waiting for someone. As she saw them, a smile broke out and he guessed it must be Sheila. She and Mike gave each other a quick hug and kiss of greeting and they entered the restaurant. At the table, Mike effected a more formal introduction and Andy could see why he was keen on Sheila. Not only was she attractive and stylishly dressed but she had a friendly manner that put a person at ease. He was impressed. The conversation alternated between Mike and Sheila talking about the sort of day they had experienced and Sheila trying to find out more about Andy. He talked of his early background and of his interests. Sheila was good and never asked about their work. As they were ordering their meal, two men walked into the restaurant and took a table on the other side away from them. As the party ate their meal, Sheila tried to probe Andy about girlfriends. Mike jokingly said that all Andy’s girlfriends were Scottish. She raised an enquiring eye and he said that they are mountains. She chuckled disbelievingly and suggested that next time they met she bring a friend to make up a foursome. Courteously, Andy said that he would look forward to it, wondering if he would be back again. The meal over, they paid the bill and left. Andy thanked Sheila for a pleasant evening and left them to head back to the base. Mike and Sheila headed down to his car and Andy headed off in the other direction.

  As Mike’s car drove off, the two men emerged from the restaurant, signalled to a van further down the street and then walked in the same direction as Andy. He turned down a side street, taking a short cut. As he did so the van went past the other two and turned down the same street as Andy. It went down the street past Andy and swung across the pavement, braking hard. A man jumped out from the passenger side and leapt toward Andy, drawing a switch-bladed knife from his jacket. Andy paused and realised he didn’t have time to move away. As the man lunged at him, the knife thrust forward, Andy swung sideways on the balls of his feet so that the knife missed. At the same time, he raised his left arm and brought his hand down in a chopping motion on the inside of the elbow of the knife arm — with his right hand he grabbed the forearm and pushed. The man’s arm folded inward and he ran onto his own knife blade — it entering his body just below the sternum. A look of horror appeared on his face. Andy let go and the man staggered forward and fell to the ground. Andy heard pounding feet and turned to see the two men from the Chinese restaurant running to the scene. One of them was drawing a gun as he ran. Andy quickly moved off the pavement and around the back of the van. The driver was getting out and Andy swung and chopped the man in the neck with the edge of his hand. He dropped to the ground without a sound. Suddenly, a car came down the street and pulled up. As the man with the gun was taking aim at Andy there was a noise like a ‘plop’ and the gunman dropped to the ground. The other man froze, a startled look on his face. Two men jumped out of the car and raced across. Both were holding revolvers fitted with silencers. One of them was the man from the compartment on the train. Andy stood still. There was nowhere to go. They handcuffed the companion of the man that had been shot and the one from the train turned to Andy while his companion checked on the knifed man. Pulling an identity card out, he said, “Don’t worry. We’re MI5. Hamilton warned the office of what was going to happen and we were sent to protect you.”