To Kill Or Be Killed (3 page)

With the gloves
still on he started looking for maps. He found a flask with tea and
the dead man’s sandwiches. He took advantage and worked out a few
facts and details about the journey whilst he enjoyed the dead
man’s lunch. As he hungrily munched his way through the cheddar and
piccalilli in white sliced bread, washing it down with the slightly
stewed in the flask tea, all too sweet for his taste, he thought of
the corpse in the back. Having noticed the worn gold band on the
driver’s ring finger he ruefully, though not guiltily, thought of
the wife who might have made the lunch, not to mention any children
who were yet to be grieved by their father’s unsolved and
unexplained murder. Ten minutes later, having wiped the flask cup
and disposed of the sandwich wrapping in a hedge the truck pulled
out of the lay-by and onto the roads leading to Inverness. He
hadn’t seen another vehicle yet.

No he wasn’t
best pleased. He didn’t have time to properly dispose of the body,
and even if he did there were risks in that process. He knew he was
going to have to hide the truck well enough for its delayed
discovery to be surpassed by his having done the job and escaped.
With that thought in mind he turned the refrigeration unit up to
maximum. A frozen body would take time to give away tell tale
smells. He had seen three car parks on the map where the truck
could be dumped in the middle of Inverness. Oddly he had often
found that given as long a pay and display ticket as the machine
allowed a body could be more easily hidden in a built up area than
a remote location. As he never left evidence and he was usually a
long way away when the body was found car parks could become quite
useful temporary cemeteries. Still, he had to kill a civilian and
too early on. Trevor Stanton wasn’t happy with himself.

‘Stupid man’ he
had thought, ‘stupid, stupid man.’

Chapter 9

Inverness

8-15 a.m.

April 17th

The ride in the
‘chopper’ from Plockton air strip had taken Marco Spencer roughly
as the crow flies to Inverness, skirting Loch Ness and to his mind
making the land beneath him look like a rapidly scrolling version
of the satellite map he’d studied as part of his preparation. The
pilot had been too busy for conversation and Spencer was lost in
thoughts. The ‘ride’ didn’t register. He’d been on that many
helicopter flights, mostly across the Middle-East, and even then in
‘khaki company’ in semi darkness, fearing hand held missile
attacks, ready to be dropped, army style, in disguise, meeting
contacts and watching his own back weeks on end until ‘extraction’,
usually by chopper again, to a debriefing where he had offloaded
the intelligence he had gathered and explained any killing he had
had to do, or at least those of note or those likely to cause any
fuss.

This chopper
hovered and settled with a mild bump at Inverness Airport one hour
after his arrival in Scotland. Being an internal flight, there was
no clearing of security or customs. He’d entered the country and
slipped into society with barely an eye brow being raised.

When the blades
had stilled Spencer climbed out, thanked the pilot and with the
casual attitude of a rich man he made easy strides into Inverness
Airport, to get a coffee, not to mention a good breakfast, and
think carefully about his next move.

He was going to
buy a ticket for Gatwick, on a Flybe flight at nine forty-five, but
that was an obvious move. There was the train, the night sleeper,
but that put him behind again and Mason was booked on that train.
The whole ‘not all the eggs in one basket’ situation had been made
clear to all of them. Having been part of the espionage network in
the UK he knew about DIC, the secretive watching agency, and was
aware that he could be ‘tagged’ coming in. He hadn’t told the
others, it was ‘every man for himself’ as far as he was
concerned.

Chapter
10

Irish Sea

8- 45 a.m.

April 17

Charley Cobb
had not had an easy journey down the coast towards Liverpool. For a
start there had been a sudden squall amongst the isles of Rhum,
Coll and Tireee, a possibility well known to sailors on that part
of the coast. It wasn’t stormy, but Charlie felt the small sea
going boat’s engine strain as he passed Islay and pushed through
the North Channel. It had crossed his mind to make a stop at the
Isle of Man when the Irish Sea threw a mild tantrum, but Charlie
was made of sterner stuff. He knew the sea well and took the heavy
splashing rain, forceful waves and sudden dips and rises as part of
the work to be done, just a journey and not an adventure. The small
boat made sturdy progress towards the mouth of the Mersey with
Charley’s bitter blue eyes reflecting the spray and drizzle.

Chapter
11

Loch Lomond

8- 45 a.m.

April 17th

Martin Wheeler
had enjoyed the Honda’s responses to the highland roads. The bike
really kicked and he had lost himself in the rollercoaster
adrenaline experience of a fast bike on empty open roads. The south
bound route he took went over a short stretch of the Grampians. The
empty mountain scenery flashed by in his peripheral vision. At
those speeds, even with a couple of stops he knew he’d be in
Glasgow in two or three hours. He pulled the hot bike over, ticking
and sizzling in the drizzle, at guest house on the northern shores
of Loch Lomond. The cooked breakfast, with Scottish sausage rolls,
firm pork patties with a distinctive flavour in heavy rolls, washed
down with hot sweet tea, took him a good half hour to enjoy. He
felt good and the thrill of being the killer amongst the low
chatter and clatter of forks and plates in the rest house dining
room brought sharpness to the day and the business in hand. He
enjoyed the feeling of being the outsider, the mission man, amongst
the everyday people.

Well fed he
went back to the bike and his race to the London meeting point. His
thought was that it was all too easy. He slipped into traffic on
the eighty-two and twisted back his wrist. The bike and the money
pulled him south. Dewey’s alert had the motorbike registration
listed as a wanted vehicle; stop on sight being the
instruction.

Chapter
12

Rail Line between
Duirnish and Inverness

8- 45 a.m.

April 17th

Even under the
shelter the niggling drizzle had blown at Peter Mason. When the
train did arrive, fifteen minutes late, it was gone eight am. The
train journey seemed to wind on forever. He bought tea and biscuits
from a trolley, which surprised him at that time in the morning.
Mason was bored and cursed the straw picking ceremony for
transport. His mind turned to Stanton as he waited for the scalding
hot, watery tea in the too thin cardboard cup to cool, cursing his
hunger for opening the short cake packet, leading to thirst and
ultimately burnt fingers and a scalded mouth. Stanton had chosen to
hitch; the slowest possible means. Mason wondered why? Did Stanton
know something or was he just avoiding any camera spots? Stanton
was the oldest, he looked it; maybe his face was registered in
places?

Mason mused on
the British Navy submarine drop off. There was influence in the
mission he was sure. Though they’d only given them thirty pounds
cash and a fake credit card, though a working one. Because his
train was pre-booked he had the ticket. It was all very well
organised.

Thirty quid
though. He smiled, cheapskates, this had to be a government funded
kill, but why have them enter that way? It didn’t add up. Mason
took a speculative sip at the tea and winced. Still too hot a small
wave of tea burnt his fingers as the train jump stopped and jolted
into the next station in what seemed an unending chain of ‘dree’
stops.

Chapter
13

London

8- 45 a.m.

April 17th

McKie stepped
from the fuggy train onto the London concrete slipping into the
salmon throng of commuters working their way up stream one way or
another. They all threaded their way through the eye of the ticket
barrier McKie amongst them. The stream of commuters spread out into
the city and he headed down into the underground for the quick hop
to Warren Street.

On the
underground platform he looked up at a CCTV camera and wondered if
any colleagues were tuned in. It was one of the amazing facts about
DIC that they were able to access every closed loop camera network
in the country. The firm that serviced the national and business
cameras was in fact a front for a branch of DIC whose bid for the
job was secured by underhanded dealings. The front firm meant that
DIC technicians placed digital microwave transmitters which used
the cell phone network to feed all the captured images, which were
bled from the camera, into the computer storage systems of local
DIC operatives. The DIC job of monitoring the entire country was
helped enormously by the system. Scanning through hours of CCTV
footage is more interesting than one might think and being paid
well to do so at home a good way of making a living.

The tube train
from Charing Cross on the Northern Line shook its way into Warren
Street station.

For McKie the
city was full of potential; miles and miles of streets and
buildings full of rooms, full of humanity, with all the chaos and
turbulence that goes with it. The day was just beginning and he
felt invigorated by the life around him. He followed the map in his
head to the building two streets away.

If you look at
a satellite map search of Euston Road you’ll see the top of the
fourteenth largest office building in London; Euston Tower, number
286 Euston Road. What you won’t see on a satellite image nor on the
3D image of the well known office block is the satellite dishes,
radar scanners and microwave phone masts which cover the top of the
building, all of which still leaves enough space for a helipad. It
took a certain amount of underhanded doctoring on the quiet to
eradicate from the satellite photograph the mass of surveillance
technology which might arouse curiosity as to what was going on in
that building. That in turn would lead to unwanted interest and
publicity, something that DIC have managed to avoid since 1940,
though they didn’t move into this building until 1970, when it was
built.

David turned
into building’s concourse and entered through the revolving door.
The door moved very slowly on its revolving pivot. It was an
annoying experience for anyone coming in who felt the need to hurry
as the door could only be made to move faster by controls at the
security desk. The slow moving door allowed security to photograph
and check every entrant to the building, from different angles, and
have time to appraise any threats. As no-one from outside DIC, the
espionage services and certain government ministers knew they
existed it might have seemed unnecessary to go to such lengths, but
it was such an exact and pedantic approach to secrecy that had kept
DIC out of the public domain for so long.

Inside the
foyer there was a security desk from wall to wall. There was a gap
to pass through to the building behind, but it wasn’t clear where
it was unless you knew or were given the time to look, which you
wouldn’t be if you weren’t meant to be there.

Behind the
desk, some five metres, there was a wall set into which were two
lifts. They didn’t work. Once inside one of the lifts you had to be
let out. To the right of these red herring lifts there is a
concealed door leading to a lobby behind the wall where there were
stairs and four working Schindler lifts.

There were no
signs or no indications of who or what was in the building and so
innocuous was the whole set up that nobody ever asked. On rare
occasions a tourist might wander in and security politely turned
them away with directions.

Occasional
people passing by accidentally went in and were redirected. On one
infamous occasion security was breached and the lift was used. The
breach was in 1974 when a CIA operative tried to penetrate the
building using very good fake paperwork. Mild nerve gas was blown
into the left hand lift, which he had entered thinking it real,
after which he was taken to a hospital and thanks to the after
effects of the gas couldn’t remember two days of his life, let
alone the fact that it was a fake lift that he had tried to
use.

David put his
hand on the glass surface covering part of the front desk and
passed the first part of the biometric security system. One
security guard took his rucksack and the large holdall and passed
it into a small side room where the hands of an unseen guard
gripped both bags in one hand, with the ease of a very strong man,
David noticed. The two security men manning the front of house were
casual about their work in a way that only truly capable security
operatives can be in as much as they exuded the quiet threat of
dangerous potential. The desk gap opened up and McKie walked in
through the hidden entrance in the back wall, opened by security.
In the lobby behind the wall he used a retina scan to get into one
of the real and working lifts. He’d have needed the same biometrics
for the door on the stairs, had he a mind to walk up. The fact was
he didn’t want to walk up, mostly because he had to see Jack Fulton
and his office was thirty-one floors up. Jack Fulton was head of
DIC.

DIC centre is
thirty-six storeys high with a basement underneath. It’s a decent
sized space and if you added up the number of household centres
around the country the DIC organisation floor space would rival the
Palace of Westminster and Buckingham Palace put together.

Below the
techno roof of the building are five floors of overnight apartments
with en suite bathrooms and central shared kitchens for the staff,
including the active duty team.