To Kill Or Be Killed (2 page)

“David …”

“Aye…”

“I’m proud of
you. Take care.”

“Bye love. See
you in two weeks.”

“Call me
tonight.”

Outside of the
nineteen thirties semi-detached house on the outskirts of Dover,
towards the Folkestone side of the Kent coast, David inhaled deeply
and cleared the moisture from his eyes.

But for the
contents of the rucksack, and the large black holdall, it might
have been any man commuting to a job in London. As he closed the
black iron garden gate David McKie thought momentarily of the
thrill of being a spy.

“Morning
David.” The neighbour’s voice cut into his thoughts.

McKie checked
his stride for his retired neighbour’s undoubted banal conversation
and turned, surreptitiously glancing at his watch.

“Morning
Tom.”

“Off to Customs
today? Guarding the borders?”

“Aye. That I
am.”

“Listen David a
word about that new satellite dish up on your roof …”

David cut
across him. “Not now Tom I’m late. I’ll talk to you later.”

With the view
that people thought too much of the glamour of espionage David
marched to the train station.

Chapter 3

A87 near Port
an-eorna

Scotland

7- 30 a.m.

April 17th

Trevor Stanton,
the ‘fifth man’ that Michael Dewy had failed to spot when he had
spotted the other four illegal entrants to the country on the
shores of Loch Carron, had hitched a lift on a truck bound for
Inverness. It was a lucky break and he knew it. The truck was on a
return from Plockton, delivering refrigerated supplies to the
hotels. Stanton knew he could have waited for hours, even had to
have walked quite a long way before he’d got any transport. It
wasn’t a straw he had drawn; he had chosen this starting approach
to his journey south. It made most sense to him. The others had
drawn for transport down the country.

He sat in the
passenger seat of the van’s cab listening to the banter of the
stereotype trucker. Stanton was barely able to keep his eyes open.
He had brown, almost black eyes; harsh hard marbles with no hint of
friendliness. The swim had really pushed into his energy reserves.
Ten years in the French Foreign Legion, six years as a mercenary
and the last three as a freelance assassin, hiring himself for the
most part to foreign governments, had taken their toll on him. He
was still incredibly fit, but at thirty nine, the oldest of the
five, it was tough going. He knew the money on this one was enough
to retire on though so it seemed worth it. Somebody wanted someone
very important dead that was for sure.

“Where have you
been?” The truck driver asked.

Stanton knew
the drill. He reeled off some well rehearsed and thoroughly
researched tourist details. The stock in trade lies of assassins
and spies everywhere rolled out of his mouth with enthusiasm and
verve. In spite of being tired he kept his focus.

The truck
driver enthused over his homeland and bemoaned the effects of the
tourist industry with a careful ‘no offence meant’ thrown in.

Chapter 4

Duirnish Rail
Station

7-30 a.m.

April 17th

Peter Mason,
the first of the four illegal entrants to the country Michael Dewy
had spotted, sat on a bench at Duirnish station. The station was a
short damp walk from his arrival point on the shores of Loch
Carron. He had a relatively short wait for his train, though the
cold would make it seem longer. The train wasn’t due in until seven
forty-one; they’d even had to ask for the train to stop there, as
it was a request station, which Peter didn’t like; it felt like he
was ‘lit up’. He could cope with the cold though. Six years in the
army, three of those in the infantry and three in the SAS had given
him layers of toughness that practically no environment could break
through. The over work of infantry service in Afghanistan had led
him to leave. He went into security work and got bored. Then he had
gone ‘freelance’ as an assassin and had made good money and a
polished reputation making tricky hits on both sides of the law. He
had been contacted for this job three months ago. He had no idea
who the mark was. All he knew was that the target would be revealed
when he reached the contact point in London. Three words had been
given for the contact point; ‘Priory Arms Vauxhall’. It didn’t give
any indication of who was funding the job.

He sat on the
bench, the vision of a travelling backpacker. He was a tall good
looking man, dark hair and blue eyes. He’d not shaved and had let
his usually neat hair become unkempt. He opened the worn rucksack
and took out a flask and sandwiches. Breakfast was overdue and the
swim had made him hungry. The train got into Inverness around ten
a.m. and then he had some thinking to do.

Chapter 5

Plockton Marina

7-45 a.m.

April 17th

Charley Cobb,
the ‘smoker’ whose match flare had alerted Dewey to the illegal
entrants to the united Kingdom, took the boat keys from the Harbour
master at Plockton harbour, an unhappy man for being dragged from
his house all too early, but knowing that Cobb, or ‘Mr Jake Howard’
as Cobb had been ‘labelled’ for the mission, had money behind him
and you didn’t turn that down these days.

They exchanged
sea and boat related comments in a casual, small talk manner as
they looked over the boat. It was a small ocean going cruiser, a
little on the scruffy side, but suitable for the task. Cobb held
his cover as an American tourist easily though in reality he was an
ex Navy SEAL with a global criminal underworld reputation as an
outstanding ‘hit man’. He had a stocky build and short cropped,
blonde hair, dressed in the kind of all weather gear American
tourists typically bought for such tourism.

Charley had
done his homework and his paperwork for the boat and his ability to
sail it into the ocean were impeccably faked. Everything had been
brilliantly arranged and Charley thought that the influence behind
this job was second to none. Even the fact that there were five of
them, so that at least one would get through was pretty stunning.
Even more stunning was the use of a British submarine and the fact
that the Royal Navy captain had thought they were on a Navy
exercise.

Charley checked
over the boat, turned the engine and ran over the charts. He drank
some strong coffee and delved into his ‘Luckies’ soft pack twice
for comfort, while the engine warmed. An hour after he’d got into
the country he headed out into the western coastal waters planning
to use the boat as far as Liverpool at least.

Chapter 6

‘Caravan Air Strip’
Plockton

7-45 a.m.

April 17th

Marco Spencer,
the third of the illegal entrants that Dewey had spotted, sat on a
bench outside Plockton airstrip, in a suit and expensive Crombie.
The suit and coat had been folded carefully in a rigid suit carrier
to give his change of clothes a fresh look. Under the coat his
trousers had wet spots from the sea water and his shirt was damp
next to his skin. With a briefcase in his hand he waited for the
chartered helicopter to arrive. It had been pre-arranged through a
third party to keep his cover. He would be first into Inverness,
via the airport. He was seriously thinking about a plane from
there, possibly London, though Exeter was a thought. Overshoot and
come back just to check for trailers. He knew there were agencies
that would be looking for anyone unusual, but he and the others
probably didn’t show up on the usual profile radars of the domestic
protection services, they were stretched looking for terrorists. He
knew of a certain agency that had a UK wide network, but so much
more secretive than MI6 that it was hard to know where they were.
What he did know was that it was a million for the hit and the
first to the contact point got the job. They had no idea who the
target was nor had they any idea who had hired them, though for his
mind it looked like big business.

The airstrip
was empty and if anyone on the helicopter asked him he was just to
say he was a rich business man looking at land buys in that area of
Scotland; obviously not the thirty year old veteran of MI6 field
work; a consummate and cold blooded assassin of the first
order.

Chapter 7

Drumbuie

7-45 a.m.

April 17th

It was unlucky
for Martin Wheeler, the fourth of the men that Dewey had actually
seen in his binoculars in the pre dawn gloom, that his pre-prepared
transport, the 500 cc Honda was parked within sight of Michael
Dewey’s house. Michael had asked about the bike at his local pub,
the night before. Doing the logic link on the morning arrivals
Michael made a point of watching it when he got home.

Sure enough a
moving blur walked into focus in the view finder of his Nikon
digital SLR not twenty minutes after he’d got home. Michael watched
the man unlock the bike. Stow the padlock, do a quick check over
and straddle the bike and ease it away noisily out of the small
narrow street.

Michael Dewey
had already tapped into the DIC system and used three minute’s
worth of live satellite link up to look at Duirnish rail station
and the airstrip. He was allowed the satellite link for short
periods, given the remoteness of his location, but it was expensive
and he had to account for every second. In this case he knew DIC
would be happy with his use of it. He called the harbour master at
Plockton and unsurprisingly found him awake and glad to talk about
the unhappy reason for his ungodly awakening hour, that being an
American tourist. The possibility that the four men might use a
boat was one that Michael had to explore, but he had been a little
surprised at finding out that they were splitting up and taking
different routes and modes of transport.

He had four of
them ‘tagged’ and had sent the information at high speed via the
secure internet connection available to DIC operatives wherever
they lived.

Sadly and
unknowingly he had missed Stanton and was still thinking there were
only four inbound ‘illegals’ when he sat down to thick cuts of
bacon, creamy scrambled eggs and crunchy golden slices of
toast.

Within two
hours of arrival the five men were on their way into the United
Kingdom mainland, via different routes, none of them aware that
they had be seen and were now being tracked by the watching machine
that is DIC.

Chapter 8

Scotland A87

8-10 a.m.

April 17th

Still on the
A87 in the passenger seat of the refrigerated truck he’d hitched a
lift with, Trevor Stanton, the one assassin Dewey hadn’t seen at
the coastal arrival point, wasn’t best happy with the turn of
events that had unfolded in the truck. When the conversation had
lulled in the truck he and the driver had fallen into silence.
Stanton had drifted off into a heavy doze as the truck rolled
easily along the highland roads.

Stanton had
woken to find the truck stopped in a lay-by to find the truck
driver with his hand emerging from Stanton’s bag with three fake
passports and matching credit cards.

On the driver’s
lap Stanton’s Russian made PSS pistol sat accusingly. The PSS was
small and looked unsophisticated and almost home made. It had been
chosen as the weapon for the assassins on this mission because it
is silent and deadly up to twenty five metres. It fired a bullet
from a cartridge which stopped gases coming out the barrel and the
addition of a two part barrel made the recoil virtually noiseless
as well. This silent pistol with no muzzle flash was the ideal
weapon for an assassin and 5 of them had been stolen to order for
this mission from Russian an anti-terrorist forces armoury. Each
assassin had been given two six shot, single stack clips of the
silent piston drive 7.62mm x 42 cartridges.

For a moment
the truck driver looked confident and triumphant, waving the items
in a finger wagging style. The moment passed as Stanton’s right
hand, edge first in a chop action swept past the waving passports
and struck the driver’s throat, breaking his neck and killing him
instantly. The unfortunate man slumped fatly against his driver’s
side window, a rasp of now dead air wheezing from his lifeless
lips.

Stanton checked
the windows and mirrors. Not a living thing in sight, but knowing
that this might change, he worked quickly and with collected calm.
The driver was somewhat overweight and therefore would be hard to
handle. Stanton went to the back of the truck and opened the doors
on the refrigerated containment. The cooler wasn’t on as this was
the return trip. Stanton opened the driver’s door and luckily the
height of the cab allowed him to drop and shoulder the heavy body.
Already the muscles were relaxing and fluids had begun to seep out.
Stanton quickly staggered the body to the back, and hefted it in.
He climbed in afterwards and secured the corpse to the inside of
the van with straps.

Most people
wouldn’t look back; they’d walk away, climb down and close the
doors without a glance. Self preservation for the mind and
protection from a wounded psyche, but Stanton had seen too much
death close up and he stared with intensity at the clouded, glazed
eyes of the unfortunate man. Stanton justified the murder in his
mind, taking in the livid purple stripe across the man’s throat and
reminded himself that in his line of business, innocent or not,
witnesses must not live. Having satisfied himself of the necessity
of the death he dropped out the back and closed the doors. He
removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the door handles.
After doing the same on the driver’s door handle he climbed into
the cab. He pulled a shower bag from his raided rucksack, took out
surgical gloves and quickly put them on. In a moment with some
alcohol from a small bottle he had wiped all he had touched. He
started the engine and switched on the refrigeration.