A Covert War

THREE

Marcus followed Susan into Old Street Underground station. He had put on the sunglasses and zipped his leather jacket, relying on an amateur like Susan to have no idea she was being followed by a professional. Marcus liked that word; it made him feel good. Susan was easy to keep in sight, probably because she had her mind on other things. Marcus was intrigued as well, but not by what she had said; more by what she had unwittingly revealed to him.

He used his Oyster Card to walk through the turnstiles at the station and followed Susan down to the Northern Line platform. She was heading south. He stood about twenty feet away from her, losing himself among the other travellers and listened out for the rush of air that would signal the presence of an oncoming train.

From time to time he would glance at Susan and have little fantasies about her. He wondered what she would be like on a date, and how far he could get with her. Would dinner be sufficient, he wondered? Would he have to impress her with conversation, with his dress sense or with his worldly knowledge? She was certainly an attractive woman, and she hadn’t said anything about having a husband or a boyfriend, or a partner even.

He spun round quickly as Susan turned and looked in his direction, then he turned back after a suitable pause and saw that she was no longer facing him, but was staring directly ahead towards the huge adverts on the far side of the track. He began to fidget with an imaginary object in his pocket, and then cursed himself for being so unprofessional. He had to act normal, cool he told himself. If he was to persuade Susan that he was worth employing, he had to convince himself that it was worth a gamble; after all, it could end terribly for them both.

The train rumbled in and eased to a halt. The doors slid open and the people on the platform crowded on to the train. Marcus sat half a carriage length away from Susan and kept an eye on her as covertly as he could. He tried to remember what he had read in the police training manuals about surveillance techniques. Not that he had been in the police force, but there was an enormous amount of information on the internet and in the public libraries.

During the time he was on the train, he kept amusing himself by imagining all kinds of scenarios that could fit the picture as far as Susan’s brother David was concerned. He came to the conclusion there was no chance of ever finding out, but he did conjure up vivid pictures of himself performing a heroic rescue straight out of the pages of a good, Special Forces novel. And at the end of the epic adventure, Susan would fall into his arms and pledge undying love and devotion for rescuing her brother.

The train jolted a little as it stopped at Clapham Common and woke Marcus just in time to see Susan stepping off the train. He leapt up and made it through the sliding doors as they were about to close. He was the only other passenger to alight at that station, but Susan did not notice because she had disappeared down the exit tunnel before Marcus could compose himself.

He ran to the exit and saw her walking out on to the street, turning right out of the station. He followed and kept a safe and reasonable distance from her until she turned into a road of semi-detached, Victorian style houses.

Marcus was about fifty yards behind Susan when he saw her turn into a gateway. He kept his eye on the opening where she had disappeared and walked past it, glancing at the bay windows and patterned glass door beneath a small arch. He saw the number and continued on until he was well past the house.

The next stage of Marcus’s master plan was to find an internet cafe and pay for a booth. He found one in the High Street populated by a mixture of ‘gangsta’ rap aficionados covered in ‘bling’. The owner of the cafe looked like he could have easily gone the distance with the world heavyweight boxing champion, and won.

Once he had logged on Marcus went on to British Telecom and entered Susan Ellis into the search box for residential numbers. He added Clapham and came up with fifteen people named Ellis. Nine of them had the initial ‘S’.

Using the back of the sheet of paper he had been doodling on back in his office, he wrote all the numbers down and then logged off. He paid for his time and then went in search of a public phone box.

Some of the numbers rang and eventually left him with an answering service to talk to. When he did get through to a person on the other end of the line, he pretended he was an Eco representative who could insulate the house and reduce its carbon footprint. He got short shrift for that and Susan Ellis was no different; she certainly wasn’t interested because she lived in a flat. Sorry and all that.

Marcus smiled as he put the phone down and underlined Susan’s number on his scrap of paper. All he had to do now was move on to stage two of his plan and find out more about the mysterious Mister Cavendish.

Chief Master Sergeant Danny Grebo drove out of the gates at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in Suffolk and motored the four miles to the town of Brandon with a lot on his mind. The information he had received was not good; it looked like the far end of the operation was experiencing some unexpected difficulty, but it hadn’t come to his attention soon enough. That was part of the reason for having a great deal to think of; the lack of a strong link between his end of the operation and the source. When information came in at such a slow rate, it was difficult to act upon it with any degree of confidence. Everything had to be locked down tight, no gaps. But now a single crack was beginning to show and the organisation was having to act on it.

He pulled into the car park of The Flintknappers in Market Hill and pulled the Buick over to the far side, away from the main road. He knew he was expected and hoped that he wouldn’t be kept waiting.

Danny Grebo was a naturalized American. His parents were Bosnian immigrants who had moved to America before the civil war broke out in Yugoslavia. Danny’s real name was Danvor, but the kids in his neighbourhood always called him Danny. The name had stuck, even though Danvor was the name he used when he joined the United States Air Force.

Grebo was in logistics. It was not his choice of employment when he enlisted, but service in some of the hotspots of the world had taught him an invaluable lesson: good logistics was the key to a successful campaign. Whatever the guys up front wanted or needed, the people in logistics had to come up with it. And Grebo was good; so good he had made a substantial living out of supplying what was needed at the right time, legit or not.

Grebo was a wealthy man, but most of his wealth was secreted in offshore banks in the Caribbean. It wouldn’t do for a non-com to show considerable wealth on a chief’s pay packet. He was due for release within six months and he intended moving up the ladder of the organisation and taking a more proactive role in it. For now he was a small, but important cog in a big chain and part of his role meant acting as a messenger from time to time. And that was his role for the present; to pass on a message to another important cog in the wheel.

The man waiting for Danny Grebo was propping up the bar, his big fist wrapped round a bottle of Budweiser. He turned as Grebo walked in and straightened up.

‘Hey Danny!’

Grebo winked at him. ‘Hey, Chuck.’

They shook hands. Grebo asked the bartender for a Budweiser.

When the bottle had been opened, but not poured because the Yanks couldn’t get used to the quaint idea of having their beer poured into a glass, Grebo and his companion adjourned to a table beside a window. There was a loud speaker above them with soft music burbling from it, mingling with the occasional roar of traffic in the High Street. His friend took a swig of beer and banged the bottle down on the table.

‘What’s the panic, Danny?’ he asked.

His name was Dale Berry, and he and Grebo went back a long way. He was called Chuck after the sixties pop singer, Chuck Berry. He was in transport, but not motor vehicles. Chuck Berry flew; he was a Hercules pilot. He had been an F15 combat pilot, but an accident in the Iraq conflict had meant an enforced change for him and he had converted from single engines to the four engined Hercules.

‘We lost a guy,’ Grebo answered, and took a mouthful of beer. He belched and studied the label on the bottle for a moment. ‘I didn’t find out until yesterday.’

‘What happened?’

Grebo glanced around the bar and then at Berry. ‘He disappeared, never came back.’

‘Did he do a runner?’

Grebo shook his head and curled his lips. ‘Not this guy, he was making too good a living out of it.’ He shrugged. ‘I got word that the fucking ragheads have topped him.’

Berry studied Grebo’s expression for a few seconds. His own was stern and thoughtful. ‘When did this happen?’ he asked.

Grebo leaned forward and whispered through clenched teeth. ‘Two fucking months ago.’

Berry knew better than to press Grebo on the details, but it was important to him, for his own sake that he knew why it had taken so long for the news to filter through.

‘Why did it take so long?’

Grebo relaxed. ‘Diplomatic sources,’ he told Berry. It was a euphemism that Berry understood. He didn’t know who Grebo worked for directly, but he did know that Grebo was a small link in a very big chain, and it was these very senior people that Grebo was referring to as the diplomatic sources.

‘So what happens now?’

Grebo took another pull at his beer. ‘They’re gonna try and smoke the raghead out. They’re gonna put a team in and they want you to do the drop.’

Berry nodded thoughtfully, rolling the Budweiser in his hand and settled back in his chair. ‘What will be my cut?’

Grebo shrugged. ‘The usual, but there’ll be no pick-up this time. That’s all I can tell you. But listen up; none of the team that go in knows of the connection between the raghead and the diplomats. By using you, we are keeping this in house. The drop has got to be right.’

‘What about getting them out?’ Berry asked, knowing that once the team had been parachuted in from the Hercules, they were no longer his responsibility.

‘Once the job is done, the team will be brought out by helicopter.’

Berry understood the reasoning behind the decision to get him to fly the Hercules transport. He was due to begin another tour of duty in Afghanistan the following week at the American military base at Khost, and he was one of the very few men who were part of a highly secret cartel who owed little allegiance to their flag. There had been times before when he had flown a covert mission to extract a live cargo, but the live cargo had always been women and children and he had never flown them to any allied air force base but always to a remote strip somewhere near the Turkmenistan border, in the north west of Afghanistan. For that he had always been paid a handsome sum. And he had never questioned the morals or ethics of what he was doing.

Marcus picked up the phone and dialled the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. There was very little delay when a charming, female voice told him that he had reached the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and how could she help him?

‘Could you put me through to Mister Cavendish, please?’

‘One moment, sir. Who may I say is calling?’

‘Marcus Blake.’

‘Thank you Mister Blake.’

Marcus relaxed and gazed around the impoverished walls of his office, rattling the tips of his fingers on the desk top while the music played softly in his earpiece.

The music stopped and the operator came back on the line.

‘Mister Blake, I’m sorry, but there is no-one of that name here at the Foreign Office.’

Marcus sat upright. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked without thinking.

‘Yes sir; I have just checked the computer directory of employees here and there is no-one listed under the name of Cavendish.’

‘Oh.’ It was all he could think of saying at that moment. Then, ‘Oh well, thank you anyway.’

‘Thank you sir.’ The phone went dead.

Marcus put the phone back in its cradle. He sat like that for a while, his hand still lying on it and began to think of those points he had written while doodling and listening to Susan Ellis.

Cavendish. There had been something puzzling him about the man. When Susan Ellis told Marcus about her brief encounter with him, she had told him that she didn’t have Cavendish’s phone number and that she couldn’t call him back because his number had been withheld.

It was also odd that he seemed to know her the moment she walked into Starbucks, although that in itself was not significant. But the nonsense about the diplomatic bag was stretching things a bit, Marcus thought. His father had worked for the diplomatic Corps all his life and Marcus wondered how much credence he would put in a story like that. He picked up the phone, hit the speed dial and waited. A minute later his father came on the line.

‘Sir Henry Blake.’

Marcus chuckled. His father always answered the phone so that he sounded as though he was looking down his nose at the caller.

‘Hallo Dad, its Marcus.’

He sensed, rather than heard his father pull away from the phone.

‘Emily, do we know anybody called Marcus?’

Marcus rolled his eyes and waited. Then he heard his mother’s shout of joy in the background and the click of the phone extension as she picked it up.

‘Marcus, how lovely to hear from you. It’s been ages since you last called.’

‘A month, mother.’

‘Four months, Marcus.’

Marcus contested that. ‘Well, maybe three.’

‘How are you Marcus? Are you keeping well? When are you going to visit us? Your father and I would love to see you.’ Marcus just kept nodding. ‘And are you still working?’

‘Yes to all that, mother,’ Marcus butted in. He loved his mother dearly but she wouldn’t stop if he didn’t say anything. ‘Now, can I speak to Dad, please?’

‘I’m still here Marcus, as always.’

‘I know, Dad. Now look, I need a favour.’

His father made some kind of grunting sound down the phone. ‘Trouble with that escort agency of yours, is that it? Not enough Z list clients?’

Marcus banged his eyes. ‘Dad, I do not run an escort agency. I provide minders for important people.’

‘And how many minders do you have on your books?’ his father asked.

‘Well, it’s mainly me,’ he admitted. ‘But I do have men I can call on.’

‘As I thought; you’re sitting on your backside all day pretending you’re a big operator in the City. Why don’t you come home and get a proper job?’

‘I don’t need one, Dad; I’m happy and have enough money to keep my head above water.’

‘Your grandmother’s inheritance? Thought you would have blown that by now.’

Marcus had been left a generous annuity by his grandmother, part of which he had carefully reinvested and was now more than just comfortable.

‘So what do you need me for?’ his father asked.

‘Do you know anybody by the name of Cavendish?’ Marcus asked him. ‘A guy probably your age, may have gone to public school, University. Might have been in the military. Member of one of your clubs, perhaps?’

‘Hmmm. The sound rolled down the phone line. ‘I knew a Cavendish at Westminster. Went into the City, I think.’

There was silence for a while and Marcus knew his father was thinking. It was a positive sign because his father would never dwell on something that he knew he couldn’t possibly recall, so this was promising.

‘Of course,’ he father said suddenly. ‘I met a Cavendish a few years ago in Hong Kong, Something to do with military intelligence. It wasn’t the Cavendish I knew at school, but I do remember when I met this chap I asked him if we were at school together. He must have thought I’d lost my marbles.’

Marcus clenched a fist and gently punched the air. His father went on.

‘So yes, I do know a Cavendish, but if he’s your man, he doesn’t know me. Well, maybe he does. If he’s in Intelligence he’ll know every bloody diplomat going. Does that answer your question dear boy?’

Marcus nodded. ‘You’re a diamond dad, thanks a million.’

‘Wait, wait!’ his father called down the phone. ‘Don’t think I’m letting you off the hook that easy. Now, your mother and I want you to come up for a day or two. Can you pull yourself away from your not so busy schedule to see us?’

‘Tell you what, Dad,’ Marcus began, trying to come up with all kinds of imaginative reasons for delaying the inevitable. ‘Let me run this Cavendish bloke down and I’ll get back to you.’

‘Marcus.’ This was his mother. ‘Your father is talking about Sir Giles Cavendish. We met him at the handing over ceremony in Hong Kong. I think he was rather taken with me, but your father saw him off. Spoil sport,’ she added with a chuckle.

‘Take no notice, Marcus,’ his father urged him. ‘And be sure to come up here and see us.’

‘I will, Dad. Promise. Love you both!’ He put the phone down and leapt out of the chair. ‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘A result.’