THE ORANGE MOON AFFAIR (33 page)

Wealth has some advantages and I am a pretty good cook given a decent kitchen and access to the best ingredients. I wondered how much longer this would last. I was a ticking bomb to Radley, with almost unlimited funds, and he wouldn't want me shadowing his every move.

Julie sat watching us, observing, assessing, distant.

“He has been known to lobby for military contracts for certain less than savoury dealers representing dubious Governments, and on several occasions had meetings in Rome with Marika Keskküla.”

“Supplementing his meagre pension no doubt,” Paul commented dryly.

“Interesting family background. His grandfather was originally from County Donegal. Owned a property that was once a Knights Templar castle.”

“I smell conspiracy theory.”

“Maybe,” Radley carried on ignoring the comments. “But when you put together young Mrs Keskküla, certain Generals with access to Government Ministers, such as Hamish McDougall, with a factory in Belfast making DU ammunition and a coup attempt in a foreign country, then we certainly have cause to suspect an international conspiracy of some sort. The Belfast facility was to provide DU ammunition to an ultra right wing Protestant group, with the aim of wiping out all the opposition. The idea being to create instability and force the Government to increase security measures within the UK.”

“Just what the British National Independent Party wants.”

“Precisely. And now we can thwart their plans.”

“Status quo.”

“There are worse things.”

“And me?” I asked pointedly.

“Her Majesty's Government thanks you for your duty.”

“And now you'd like me to gracefully disappear.”

“It would be best. The people responsible for your father's death are dead, or at the very least incapacitated....”

“I'm not finished yet.”

“Yes you are. This was never your own personal revenge mission, Mr Gunn.”

“Thomas,” Julie's voice cut through the charged atmosphere. “It's over. You've done all you can. It's over.”

She was wrong it wasn't over, but I needed Radley to think that for me it was over. Danny confirmed in his dying breath what I already knew. Radley could not be trusted. The Team we had put together for this last mission were expendable to Radley. But I did have one piece of information I had been keeping to myself. The dinner invitation I found in Lambert's pocket, to which was attached was a list of eleven other dinner guests. And the reason I hadn't told Radley about it was that his name was on that list.

“You need a rest Thomas. We all do. We've done our job, now it's time to bury our dead. Listen to the man,” Paul said quietly and held my eyes a moment longer than usual, then his eyes flickered sideways toward Radley.

I dropped my shoulders and heaved a sigh, hoping that my acting was good enough, and nodded. “Okay. You're both right. It's not my fight anymore.” From the corner of my eye I saw Radley visibly relax and a slight smile twitch his thin lips.

“Take a holiday. Go back to Gozo for a few weeks, get well and soak up the sun, you deserve it.” Radley crossed the kitchen and held out his hand. “Thank you for everything you've done.” There was no warmth in his voice, and after a brief nod to Julie and me, he left.

Paul and the other four finished their meal and sat back.

“Best thing mate,” Paul said loudly, standing, crossing to the window and watching as Radley's entourage climbed aboard his helicopter. “Wouldn't mind joining you in Gozo. Could do with a spot of sailing.” He looked back as the helicopter took off and put a finger to his lips. “But I guess I'll just settle for the farm in Wales.”

The others fanned out through the house and I knew they were looking for bugs. Radley wanted to keep tabs on us. To him we were all mercenaries, former soldiers who had been let go, until the next time. We had lost two friends and to Radley that was acceptable. Not to us.

It took thirty minutes to clear the house of the bugs, but we still had to be careful and Paul turned on the TV, choosing an action adventure film and turning up the volume.

“Danny was right. We can't trust Radley, we suspected all along he was the man behind the Increment.”

I looked at each man. Gerry, Bob, Paul, Bill and Pete. Good men, every one, and every one a friend. Sometimes that made things difficult. To be perfectly callous, you can get over acquaintances being killed, but with friends it was different. It was personal. It scored deep into your psyche.

“What now?” Julie looked at us and I could see the fear in her eyes. Now she knew this wasn't over.

“We'll have to convince Radley we're going our separate ways.”

“How?”

For an answer I picked up the house phone and called the Gunn Group Industries maintenance crew at Norwich airport, asked them to prepare the Mustang for a flight to Malta. Radley's men would intercept the call and relay the information to him.

“There was something I didn't tell Radley that you should all know.” They stared at me. “While I was in Perth at the ISEC seminar, I found an invitation to a very select dinner party at the Tower of London tomorrow night. Radley and Hamish McDougall are both on the guest list.”

“I knew the bastard was fucking us over,” Gerry exploded. “Excuse me Miss, but he's a fucking bastard.”

I pulled the still damp invitation from my pocket and spread it and the guest list on the table for them all to see.

“What Radley didn't tell us was that General the Lord Dalton-Percy is the Constable of the Tower of London and he's running this little dinner shindig. Along with ISEC's own man, Sir Jason Lancaster, formerly
Director General, Humanitarian, Security, Conflict and International Finance at the Department of International Development. Sir Jason's last big job before he 'retired', was providing British Government funding for infrastructure development in the Dominion of Pakhia. He'll not be too pleased that the coup has been averted.”

Also on the list was Nicholas Hansard of the British National Independent Party; Ted Lieberman of the Griffin Trust and now a Board member of the US Federal Reserve Bank; Karl Von Schoenberg of the Von Kurt Foundation; Lauren Tanner, formerly a Director of Gunn Group Industries and newly appointed CEO; Carly Swann, CEO of Caymans Venture Capital Investment Group; Andries Artman, Chairman of Artman Banking Group and Sir John Manx, recently retired British Ambassador to South Africa.

“What about Marika Keskküla?”

“Assuming she's still alive and even if we could find her we couldn't touch her. Diplomatic immunity.”

“Looks like a who's-who of global fascist extremists,” Paul echoing what everyone was thinking.

“And just
what
is the plan?” Julie the voice of reason wanting details we didn't have.

“We stop them.”

“Great plan.” She turned away in disgust and busied herself clearing the table. “When you cowboys get your heads together, then maybe you can think this through.”

Paul looked at me sharply and I knew what he was thinking. She was the weak link in the chain. He walked over to Julie and turned her to face him so she could read his lips. “I have a friend at the Tower. He'll get us inside. We can set up a listening device and find out what they are up to.”

“And what do you do with the information then? Go to someone like Radley with it?”

“Actually I was thinking more along the lines of publishing it on YouTube.” He meant it as a joke, but to the rest of us it suddenly became a real option. Even the threat would be enough to change the dynamic.

Julie dropped her head. “I apologise. It's just....”

Paul wrapped his arms around and held her close for a moment. She rested her head on his chest. “We'll take care of Thomas and bring him back to you. I promise.”

She looked up at him angrily brushing tears away. “I'll make sure you do. I know how to use a gun. Ask Thomas.”

Paul smiled as the others gathered their gear together. “I’ll remember that. Tomorrow morning 0500 hrs, Danny's house, Muswell Hill.”

“Hold on just a minute.” I left the kitchen ran upstairs to the bedroom and retrieved the last spare burn phone and took it down to Paul.

“Burn phone. I have one as well, this is the number. Just in case.” I handed him the phone and a card with my number.

Paul nodded and then they left through the front door. No doubt Radley would have some of his men, probably Increment, watching the Hall to make sure they were on their way. They climbed into a white Range Rover and drove away down the drive, the taillights disappearing behind the trees.

“I'm coming with you.” Julie facing me, face set and determined. The tears were gone and there was a resolve in her expression. “Your family is my family. What happens to you happens to me.”

“The Professor may not see it that way.”

“My father has no say in my decisions.” She was obviously not to be dissuaded. “These people nearly killed me as well and I may never hear properly again. Because of that I have learned to pay attention to everything around me and read lips. I'm an asset not a liability.” She stepped toward me her eyes softening, and her coldness of the last week evaporating in the warm kitchen. “My life is with you, wherever that may be.”

We made love slowly,
as if for the first time. Enjoying each other as we had in Gozo, in a time that seemed so long ago now. The difference was that we now understood each other more deeply. Knew we could not demand more than there was to give, and realised the fragility of our lives, determining to enjoy whatever time we had together.

“We need to get moving.” I was already dressed and repacking the bergen Paul had left with extra ammunition for my Glock and the night vision binoculars.

Julie stretched catlike across the bed. “How do we get past Radley's men? They are sure to be out there.”

“A little deception they know nothing about.”

She dressed quickly in a black exercise outfit, black sneakers and black sheepskin jacket, topped with a black ski hat that hid her blond hair.

“Just an outfit I picked up online while you were away playing soldiers in Estonia.” Answering my surprised expression. “I knew you wouldn't let this go. Not now.” She grinned. “And I'm a better actor than you. Radley needed convincing.”

“Predictable, eh?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did Danny tell you about Radley?”

“No. My instincts. Radley's a sociopath. No emotion. He'll use anyone to get what he wants.”

She followed me downstairs, through the kitchen and into the wine cellar, shaking her head in disbelief at the hidden tunnel that led to the Folly. Earlier in the evening I had a short whispered conversation with Ron and George, who would keep up the pretence that Julie and I were still at the Hall, and told them to keep the outside floodlights on throughout the night. Then I called Vincenzo in Gozo and arranged for him to organise a private jet to fly to Blackbushe airport to pick us up in two days. Ron told me the Mini-Cooper was in the barn, fuelled and ready.

I was gambling that the Increment unit Radley had left behind would be small and concentrating their focus on the normal exits from the Hall. Any night vision binoculars would be useless to them in the glare of the floodlights, but I would be able to use mine to pick out their positions because I would be focused away from the Hall.

Silently opening the door into the Folly, I checked that no one was using it as an observation platform before taking up position on the landing at the top of the stairs where I could view the immediate area.

Within moments I had picked two of them out. No doubt two more would be staked out at the back of the Hall. And as I thought they were watching the Hall, unable to use their night vision binoculars because of the floodlights.

It took and hour to reach the barn, taking a circuitous route. Stopping every few minutes to make sure we were not followed and upon reaching the barn, ten minutes to check the immediate area. Radley's men had not found the Mini-Cooper.

Julie climbed into the passenger seat grinning from ear-to-ear. “It's like being in a time-warp. Inside an old newsreel film from the sixties.”

“These are expensive cars now. Collector's pieces.”

“Well let's go.”

Just being in the little car was an escape from reality. There was something about it that wiped away the horrors we had been through and for two hours we chatted and laughed behaving like a young couple on honeymoon. But this was no honeymoon and ahead of us the dark cloud of reality awaited.

Danny's house was a dark, lonely
brooding monolith, as if it felt the loss of its owner more than we did. At this time in the morning before dawn, most of the residents of Muswell Hill were fast asleep. Julie and I slipped silently through the back garden and into the kitchen where Paul and the others were gathered. Gerry pulled heavy drapes across the windows and switched on the table lamp in the small sitting room off the kitchen where Danny and I had spent nights listening to Caruso and Gigli and drinking Jameson. But now was not the time for reminiscing.

Paul rolled out a plan of the Tower of London on the large coffee table. “The dinner is held in the Martin Tower over on the north east corner, here.” He pointed to the tower that was previously known as the Jewel House. “Access is not too much of a problem as the Government in its infinite wisdom have decided to employ an outside security firm to patrol the outer walls. The Yeoman Warders are responsible only for the inner walls and the main White Tower complex, barracks and administration buildings.”

“Surely Radley will have infiltrated the contractors and have a few of his own men stationed at the Martin Tower.” Bill interrupted. “I would if I was him.”

“Two to be precise.”

“How do you know?” Gerry asked.

“My contact, one of the Yeoman Warders.”

“Figuring that's what you'll do when you retire Paul?” Gerry laughed.

“We're muckers from way back, he was my first CSM and really put me through it.” He smiled and then turned to me. “Thomas is going in through the front door, with the lovely Julie. That'll be a surprise for them and get their attention while the rest us take out the contractors on the outer perimeter and the two at the Martin Tower.” He paused looking at me carefully. “We can't help you once you're inside. Not until we've secured the area, so you two are on your own.”