A Covert War

EIGHT

Three days after Marcus had delivered his envelope by hand; there was a reception at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square. John Deveraux, the Military Attache caught up with Chief Master Sergeant Danny Grebo and parted him from an attractive, female journalist representing CNN. He led Grebo away to a reasonably quiet area in the large reception room.

‘I think it looks less obvious if we talk here rather than in my office, Chief,’ Deveraux told him. ‘But we do need to talk.’

Grebo smiled and tried to look as though he was simply indulging in pleasantries. ‘Yes, I know sir, but it depends what you want to talk about.’

‘Cavendish is getting too close,’ Deveraux admitted. ‘He freaked the English minister out.’

Grebo thought he detected a sense of strain in the attache’s voice. He hadn’t been involved in the assassination of the British minister, but was fairly confident that Deveraux had called the shots; it had been his decision.

‘I thought it was too public, whatever the reasons,’ Grebo told him. ‘The crap has really hit the fan now.’

Deveraux took a drink from a passing waiter, leaving his empty glass on a sideboard nearby. ‘The British are blaming Muslim terrorists.’

‘Very convenient,’ Grebo offered. ‘But why so sudden?’

‘We have a shipment due in. Cavendish wanted names; he had the minister over a barrel.’

Grebo frowned. ‘How come?’

So Deveraux told him. Grebo whistled softly through his teeth. ‘I thought the girls were makeweights; something to sweeten the pill for these perverts.’ He paused and sipped consciously at his champagne. ‘They lost one?’ he asked eventually, disbelief all over his face.

‘That’s not important; the girls mean nothing.’ He put on a smile for the benefit of whoever might be looking in their direction. ‘We’re sitting on a billion dollar operation here and those idiots can’t keep their sexual peccadilloes out of it. They could pull a couple of frigging whores out of the city and do it without dragging The Chapter into it.’

It was unusual for The Chapter to be named in any conversation between those men who headed up the organisation, unless there was a specific need for it. For that reason, Grebo realised that Deveraux’s action in ordering the assassination of the government minister smacked of a keenly felt worry about the organisation’s security.

‘How many were involved?’ Grebo asked him.

‘Three,’ Deveraux replied. ‘Fortunately, Cavendish was only interested in the Cabinet minister.’

‘As far as you know,’ Grebo put in.

‘As far as I know,’ Deveraux admitted and looked around the room, smiling at whoever was looking directly at him. He caught the Ambassador’s eye and regretted it immediately. He turned to Grebo.

‘Looks like we’ll be splitting up. Ring me later.’ He checked his watch. ‘About five this evening? Remember, we have to stop Cavendish.’ He raised his voice a little as the Ambassador came up beside them. ‘So, when is it you leave the service, Chief?’ he was saying. Grebo looked at the Ambassador, Deveraux turned. ‘Ah, Ambassador, allow me to introduce Chief Master Sergeant Danny Grebo.’

The two men shook hands and began a desultory conversation as Deveraux made his excuses and left the two men talking.

The phone rang and Cavendish picked it up. ‘Sir Giles Cavendish.’

‘Thought you’d been avoiding me,’ Marcus said to him. Twice he had rung and twice he had been fobbed off with somebody purporting to be from Sir Giles Cavendish’s office and was sorry that Sir Giles was away on important business.

‘I presume you’ve seen the photograph?’ Marcus asked him.

Cavendish sighed deeply. ‘I hope this isn’t a very feeble attempt at blackmail, whoever you are.’

‘No blackmail, I promise. Well,’ Marcus said hurriedly, ‘perhaps a little persuasion.’

Cavendish listened for some background noise. He could hear the muffled sound of traffic, so assumed the caller was in a public call box somewhere. It didn’t sound as intense as London traffic might.

‘Isn’t that the same thing?’ Cavendish asked. ‘Unless I do as you ask, you will take a copy of the photograph to the newspapers and try to implicate me in something that could seriously jeopardise my livelihood. Or something like that.’

‘Not quite, Sir Giles,’ Marcus told him, ‘but I do need your cooperation.’

‘Cooperation about what, may I ask; cooperation for what you want?’

Marcus grinned on the other end of the phone and looked at his watch. Another minute and he would have to hang up. ‘Cooperation on behalf of a client of mine,’ he told the security chief.

‘A client? So you are a professional, are you?’ Cavendish asked a little mockingly. ‘And exactly what profession is it you practice?’

‘I’ll ring you again tomorrow while you think about it today,’ Marcus answered and put the phone down.

Cavendish looked at the phone and put it down gently in its cradle. Whoever it was, he thought to himself, was playing a dangerous game. It would be interesting to track him down and learn the real reason for his phone call.

There was a knock at his office door.

‘Come in,’ he called.

‘A young man came in clutching a notepad. He closed the door behind him.

‘We traced the call to a phone box in Clapham, sir. That means he has phoned twice from the same box in the City and once from a box in Clapham.’

He waited for Cavendish to make some comment, but it was obvious that his boss was mulling something over. He wouldn’t go until he was dismissed. Eventually Cavendish moved and opened a draw in his desk. He took a pad from it and began leafing through it. Then his face brightened triumphantly.

‘Susan Ellis,’ he said to the young man. ‘Susan Ellis lives at Clapham. I want you to check her phone records and find out if she has been in touch with any professional organisations within the last week. Let me have the list as soon as you can.’

The young man dipped his head in acknowledgment and left the office. Cavendish looked at his watch, feeling pretty good. Time, he thought, to have lunch.

Deveraux made the call that would see the end to Cavendish’s pursuit of those connected with The Chapter. It was short and to the point. He advised extreme caution because of Cavendish’s position within British Intelligence. And there was little point in trying to make it look like an accident, he warned the person on the other end of the phone; scientific analysis of a crime scene was so sophisticated now it was almost impossible to fool the crime scene investigators.

‘Just make sure,’ he insisted, ‘that the target is dead.’

Cavendish finished his lunch at The Crown, a Victorian pub on the Embankment opposite the Tate Gallery. He would often use the pub and then spend an hour or so wandering among the paintings hanging in the Tate, enjoying the ambience and the quiet. Cavendish found that the peaceful atmosphere often helped him to unlock difficult cases or come to terms with operations that had gone badly wrong.

His mobile phone vibrated in his pocket, dragging his mind back to reality and he walked out of the Tate and dialled his office.

‘We’ve got a couple of names, sir. Best you look yourself, but I think we have the man you’re looking for.’

Cavendish smiled and put the phone back in his pocket and caught a taxi back to the MI6 headquarters a short distance away.

The information in front of him on his desk showed the phone calls that Susan Ellis had made over the course of a week. There were several professional organisations that Cavendish recognised and dismissed immediately, but one organisation which stood out was that of Guard Right Services. And the address placed it within yards of the public call box that had been used by the mysterious caller when he made the calls from a City of London call box. It had been highlighted as the ‘most likely’ among all the others. And alongside the name of the Company was that of Marcus.

Cavendish looked across the desk at the young intelligence agent who had supplied the information.

‘I want you to find out as much as you can about this Marcus Blake.’ He paused because the name seemed to ring a bell but he couldn’t place it. He shook his head; it wasn’t important. ‘Then I want you to make an appointment to see him tomorrow morning, if possible. Use any name, but I will be going along myself. Oh yes, and I want you to put someone on Susan Ellis; she may be entirely innocent in all this, but I think it might be pertinent to keep an eye on her and any callers she has.’

Abdul drove the minibus with all the skill and assurance of a man who had been doing it for years. It was a kind of disguise for him; because his presence outside his own fiefdom would mean grave danger if he was recognised. He had discarded the Shalwar Kadiz dress of long shirt and baggy pants, or pantaloons that were de rigeur for all Taliban converts, even though he wasn’t one. Now he was wearing a traditional Afghan pakol hat, a chapan jacket and loose fitting pantaloons.

Beside Abdul in the front seat was his right hand man, Habib and behind him, sitting next to David was his third in command, Kareem. Abdul went nowhere without these two men, and it was a testament to them that he was prepared to trust them with his life this far away from the relative safety of his own people.

The three men had travelled with Abdul from the northern province of Zabor beyond Kandahar. They were now driving through the hills approaching Jalalabad, about one hundred miles or so east of the capital, Kabul.

David understood that this strange, new treatment of him by Abdul did not mean he was now considered a ‘trusty’, or whatever the equivalent was in this troubled country. No, David was still bound, although discreetly, and there was no way in which he could flee from his captors.

Abdul had made it clear to David that he was something of an investment now, but it had not been made too clear exactly what he had meant by that. Shortly after being told that he wanted him to write a letter, Abdul had appeared with pen and paper and instructed David to write to his sister, Susan.

David was staggered at the request; he thought the letter he was going to write was to have been to his old boss, Sir Giles Cavendish. He was also surprised when Abdul mentioned Susan, and when David asked what he should write, Abdul simply shrugged and told him to write the kind of things he would normally write to a member of his family. Once the letter had been written, and David had put as much in as he felt would be allowed, one of Abdul’s men took it away.

The minibus pulled off the main highway leading away from Jalalabad and turned on to a dirt road that wound its way towards the foothills and eventually the Mission orphanage.

David recognised much of the countryside and immediately began to feel a hurt deep inside. He recalled fond memories; memories he no longer wanted to have, but the lush green vegetation, the old road and the backdrop of the mountains were dragging him back to that moment when his heart died with Shakira.

The minibus bumped and groaned its way up the dirt road until the Mission came into view. It was a single story building with other, smaller outbuildings scattered around it. There was a fenced compound and a set of gates that were now closed. David remembered they had always been open.

He glanced up towards that place in the hill above the Mission where Shakira had died and, metaphorically speaking, so had he. He turned away and looked at the back of Abdul’s head and wondered what part he had played in the massacre.

Abdul pulled up at the gates and a turbaned Afghan walked over to the minibus. He was carrying a machine gun over his shoulder. Abdul put the window down and jabbered away at the man. David understood much of what was said. Eventually the man sauntered over to the gates and pulled them open. Abdul shoved the minibus into gear and accelerated through the opening, throwing up clouds of dust.

It was all very bewildering and not making a lot of sense to David. He couldn’t for the life of him think why Abdul had taken all this trouble to drive some distance from his own province down to Jalalabad. Whatever it was, it must have been important and probably worth a lot of money to the warlord.

Abdul pulled up outside the front doors of the Mission. Above the doors was the legend; The First Chapter. David glanced at it and remembered Shakira telling him that it meant the first chapter of a journey that deprived and orphaned children would embark upon to a new life in the West. He could see the bullet holes, unrepaired still in the woodwork.

David was ordered out and scrambled down from the minibus, helped by Abdul’s two minders. The four men walked into the Mission, but once inside, Abdul gestured to his men to take David along the passageway to another room. He then made his way to the office.

It crossed David’s mind that he might be recognised by one of the staff there, but considering it was a year ago that the attack happened, plus the fact that David was now wearing a full beard and was also dressed like Abdul and his men; it meant that he was literally unrecognisable.

After about ten minutes, and also having been escorted to the toilet, David was pleased to see some food and drink brought in. The man who brought it in said nothing. He even avoided eye contact, which didn’t surprise David either. He ate a good meal, which also included English tea much to his delight and surprise.

It was about an hour later when Abdul appeared and signalled that they were leaving. Once again David was herded like the prisoner he was by the two minders to the minibus. Still not sure why all this was happening, David began to adopt a kind of philosophical attitude, and had been ruminating on all kinds of theories when Abdul suddenly appeared with three, young children. A woman, dressed in the Catholic style nun’s outfit, accompanied the children. She spoke warmly to Abdul and then bobbed courteously before turning and going back into the mission.

The children had a very small bag each. Abdul took the bags from them and shepherded them into the minibus. Without any words spoken between them, the three children were settled into the empty seats. Abdul gunned the motor into life and roared out of the mission gates. And just as he cleared the gates he turned and said to David, ‘Your letter is on its way.’ Then he looked back at the road ahead and up at a darkening sky. ‘We stay in a safe house tonight and tomorrow we return home.’

Marcus checked his watch for the about the tenth time that morning. He had only looked at it a few minutes earlier. He was getting fidgety, waiting for a client who had been very close mouthed about what it was he wanted Guard Right Security to do for him. But Marcus had little or no option when asked for an appointment; after all, he was supposed to be in the security business.

It was past mid-day and the appointment and been made for twelve o’clock. Marcus wasn’t the best time keeper in the world, but he did expect others to be; one of his failings probably.

It was twelve thirty when Marcus heard the door at the bottom of the stairs creak open. He then heard the familiar tread of someone on the stairs as the steps creaked and groaned beneath the person’s weight. His mind went back to a few days earlier when it had been Susan Ellis who had trod that path to his office, and found himself wishing he had a good reason to call her and offer to take her out to dinner again. But after the incident with the two muggers, Susan seemed quite reluctant to want to see him again. He decided to phone Cavendish as soon as he had finished dealing with the next appointee and then maybe he would have a good reason to call Susan.

A figure appeared behind the opaque glass and Marcus got to his feet as the sound of a knock came at the door. He walked across to the door and pulled it open. The man standing there was a lot older than Marcus had expected, recalling the sound of the person’s voice that had made the appointment. He did a swift mental appraisal of the man and put his age at about sixty. He was about the same height as Marcus and looked in reasonably good condition for his age. All that took Marcus about two seconds as recognition clicked in.

‘Sir Giles Cavendish,’ Marcus said with marked surprise. ‘How did you…?’

‘I’m in the intelligence business,’ Cavendish answered abruptly and stepped into the office. ‘How else could I have tracked you down?’

Marcus closed the door behind him and continued to stare at Cavendish, his mouth slightly open while wondering just how he could have tracked him here?

Cavendish sat down on the chair facing the desk. Marcus walked round the desk and put his finger on a desk diary, open at that day’s date.

‘I presume it wasn’t you who made the appointment?’

Cavendish gave a winsome smile. ‘My office,’ he told Marcus.

Marcus looked at the name. ‘Trotter?’ He thought of the TV character in the series ‘Only Fools and Horses’. ‘A sense of humour, then,’ he said.

‘We do have our moments,’ Cavendish admitted lightly.

Marcus grunted and sat down. ‘Can I offer you tea or coffee?’ He asked Cavendish.

Cavendish shook his head. ‘Thank you, no, but what you can offer me is the memory card from your camera and any pictures you have printed out.’

Marcus reached into a drawer and pulled out an envelope. It dropped it on the desk. ‘I had this ready for when I was supposed to meet you, but you’ve pre-empted me.’

Cavendish leaned forward and reached across the desk to take the envelope, but Marcus kept his hand on it and shook his head. ‘Not until you’ve done me the courtesy of answering some questions.

Cavendish leaned back and waited, saying nothing.

‘Why did you lie to Susan Ellis?’ Marcus asked.

Cavendish frowned. ‘So that’s who you’re working for,’ he said without answering the question.

Marcus stood up and turned his back on Cavendish. He stood by the window, looking down on to the street. ‘I’m not working for anybody,’ he told Cavendish, watching two men get out of a black Mercedes. ‘Susan came to me because of you, but she couldn’t afford me.’ The men were dressed in black. They were fairly well built and looked as though they had a purpose in whatever it was they were about to do. ‘I decided to do a little investigating and discovered that you did not work for the Foreign Office as you claimed.’ The two men crossed the road as the Mercedes pulled away from the kerb. It moved off quickly and Marcus watched as it reached the top end of the City Road. He glanced back at the two men who had crossed the road and were walking towards the street door leading to his office. When he glanced back towards the top end of the City Road, the Mercedes had completed an illegal turn and was now slowly driving back towards the point where it had dropped the two men, but now on Marcus’s side of the road.

Marcus swung round and looked at Cavendish. ‘Did you bring two thugs with you, just in case I put up a struggle?’

Cavendish looked askance. ‘Of course not; I have nothing to fear from you.’

The door creaked at the foot of the stairs and he heard the first groan of the step. Marcus knew they were not coming up the stairs to ask for an appointment. Suddenly he leapt round the desk and hauled Cavendish to his feet, throwing him up against the far wall.

‘Stay there!’ he hissed. ‘Whatever you do, don’t bloody move!’

He then positioned himself up against the wall beyond the door, flattening his back up against it. Cavendish now looked bewildered but had the sense to see that Marcus was not threatening him with any kind of violence. He could also see something in the expression on Marcus’s face; something he would describe later as frightening.

The door swung open and a gloved hand holding a Glock handgun appeared. Marcus swung his left arm up and grabbed the wrist of the man holding the gun and pushed it upwards, turning the hand at the same time. Then he rotated inwards towards the man and brought his right arm up beneath his armpit, locking his right hand on to his left wrist and pushed down with a tremendous force.

The gunman cursed as his hand opened dropping the gun and Marcus brought his knee up swiftly, driving it into the man’s crutch. As the gun fell from the gunman’s hand, Marcus let the man fall and swooped down, picking up the gun.

Only about two seconds had elapsed between the gunman opening the door and Marcus disarming him. But it was enough time for the second gunman to fire a shot at Marcus. The bullet zipped through Marcus’s clothing, scorching a deep line across the top of his shoulder.

Without thinking about it, Marcus turned and fired the Glock he was now holding straight into the second gunman. There was a terrible cry of agony and pain as the gunman toppled down the stairs, falling into a heap at the bottom. He was dead.

The speed with which Marcus was thinking didn’t slow because he knew there was still a risk from the first gunman. The man was on one knee and struggling to get up. Marcus brought the gun crashing down on the man’s skull, which flattened him. He dropped on to the man, driving his knee in between his shoulder blades and jammed the barrel of the Glock into the soft flesh behind his ear.

‘Don’t move!’

Cavendish had hardly had time to breathe, and by the time he realised what was happening, it was all over. He looked at Marcus who was now bent over the gunman, his knee pressed into the man’s back and the gun jammed hard behind the man’s ear.

‘Don’t kill him,’ Cavendish snapped at Marcus.

Marcus turned and looked at Cavendish, his face a mask of fury. ‘Why, is he one of your fucking hit men?’

Cavendish put both his arms forward and shook his hands desperately. ‘No, no; he’s not one of my men. I don’t know who he is.’

Marcus nodded his head in the direction of the small sink across the room. ‘See that tea towel? Bring it over here so I can tie him up.’

Cavendish hurried across to the sink and lifted the grubby towel from the draining board. He brought it across to Marcus and helped tie the man’s hands behind his back. Marcus handed the Glock to Cavendish.

‘I presume you know how to handle this,’ he said firmly. ‘Keep him covered while I look for something else.’

Cavendish took the gun and waited until Marcus had finished rummaging around his office and finally came back with a length of cord. He lashed the man’s arms to his ankles, and pulled the cord tight. He then took the gun from Cavendish and flopped down in his chair.

Cavendish pointed at the phone. ‘I’d better make a phone call.’

Marcus needed no telling; he knew what Cavendish was about to do. What had happened was something that needed to be kept out of the Press and police notebooks. Suddenly Marcus remembered the Mercedes and he went to the window. The car was immediately below him, which made it impossible to read the number plate. He heard Cavendish asking for a team, on the double, and knew some people would arrive who would remove the dead guy, clean the place up and leave no trace of anything that could connect him and Cavendish to what had happened.

The Mercedes pulled away from the kerb which meant Marcus was able to read the number plate. He went back to his desk and wrote the number down on his doodling pad.

Cavendish put the phone down and looked at Marcus. Marcus turned his head and glanced down at the man. Then he put his fingers to his lips and pointed towards the man trussed up on the floor. There was no reason for either of them to say anything until the team arrived. Now all they could do was wait.

The children were taken from the safe house and driven away in a black car with darkened windows. Abdul had not tried to keep David from seeing the children leave, and David wondered what the significance of the warlord’s change of attitude meant. He asked Abdul what was going to happen to the children.

‘There are many people in this world who are desperate to have children, but through no fault of their own, it cannot be.’

‘So you provide the children for these desperate people?’ David’s remark was acerbic; making no attempt to hide his true feelings about what he believed was child trafficking.

Abdul smiled, showing his white teeth beneath his beard. ‘The First Chapter is in a good position to take advantage of the war in Afghanistan and find homes for orphaned children. What can be so bad about that?’

‘At a price, no doubt,’ said David.

Abdul closed his mouth and changed his expression to one of a more philosophical stance, arching his bushy eyebrows in response to David’s cutting rejoinder.

‘There are people willing to pay, and I am willing to help.’ He got up from the table. ‘Enough now; time to leave.’

The brief discussion was over and it left David wondering if there was really a benevolent heart beating beneath Abdul’s powerful exterior. He doubted it; after all, Abdul was known for his ruthlessness in dealing with his enemies. And it left David wondering once again why he was being dragged round with the man like a token of some kind. And why on earth was he asked to write a letter to his sister?

His thoughts were cut short as Abdul’s men took David out of the house and bundled him into a Toyota Landcruiser. David wondered if Abdul had decided to change vehicles because of the pilotless drones that flew high overhead, watching the movements of known insurgents and warlords. He hoped and prayed that Abdul had not been picked up by the remotely controlled aircraft. If that was the case, he was sure their journey would end in death by a missile fired from the drone.

Perhaps, he thought; that was why Abdul was hauling him round the country? as protection from a missile attack. He slunk into his seat and began to feel an uncomfortable frisson of fear trickling down his back.

The team arrived and ushered Marcus and Cavendish from the building. Marcus wanted to protest but knew he was involved in something too big for him to deal with. He clambered into a white van that was waiting outside and as soon as he and Cavendish were settled into their seats, the van pulled out into traffic and sped away.

They motored out of the city and travelled for several miles into the countryside, travelling at normal speeds and obeying all the road signs and taking care with the varying traffic conditions. Marcus was impressed with the unspoken professionalism of Cavendish’s men.

Eventually the van pulled into the driveway of a house shaded by a combination of Oak and Elm trees. It stopped outside the front door and Cavendish immediately climbed out, beckoning Marcus to follow him.

Once the two men had got out of the van, it sped off, leaving them standing by the front entrance. As the door was opened for them, Cavendish looked at Marcus.

‘After you,’ he said, indicating that Marcus should go on ahead of him.

Marcus stepped into a large hallway. There was an umbrella and hat stand: very old fashioned, thought Marcus. On one wall was a mirror with a gilt frame. The carpet on the floor looked as though it had seen the passage of many feet over many years. It had a dull, military colour and lacked any kind of style. There was little else in the hallway to suggest a family might live there. And considering the game that Cavendish was in, Marcus doubted if anybody did; it was probably a safe house.

Cavendish led Marcus into a lounge which was sparsely furnished. It added to Marcus’s opinion that the house did indeed belong to the intelligence department. They were followed into the room by the man who had opened the door for them. He waited until both Marcus and Cavendish were seated.

‘Care for a drink?’ he asked.

Cavendish glanced at Marcus, giving him the opportunity to order something first.

‘Tea please; bog standard English.’

Cavendish grinned. ‘I think I’ll have a whisky and soda, thank you Eric. Oh, and would you bring in some first aid dressing? Our man needs a plaster.’

Marcus’s wound was superficial and he had almost forgotten about it, but he thought that it was probably the right thing to do; get it looked at.

Eric disappeared to get the drinks. Cavendish turned to Marcus.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘we can talk.’

Marcus thought Cavendish looked more comfortable now; he had been trembling earlier, which Marcus put down to adrenalin after the shock of the attack. The man was too old for excitement really, he decided. He thought about what had happened knowing that only Cavendish could come up with the answers.

‘Who were those men?’ Marcus asked.

Cavendish shook his head. ‘I have no idea, but I’m sure I will find out.’

‘Who were they after, me or you?’

Cavendish arched his eyebrows. ‘My, you do value yourself highly,’ he said mockingly. ‘They were professionals. It had to be me they were after.’

Marcus thought that would be the case. ‘Not very good at their job then, were they?’

Cavendish frowned. ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ he asked.

‘Do what?’

‘I’ve seen a lot of very skilful men in my career; hardened professionals who would walk through hell to defend their country and their colleagues. But they have all been trained professionals; taught how to react instinctively to any threat, and to deal with it without thinking of the consequences. You reacted like one of those men,’ Cavendish acknowledged. ‘You saved my life and your own simply by reacting and not thinking of the consequences. I must say you were exceptionally quick. So I say again; where did you learn to do that?’

Marcus shrugged. ‘I’m a quiet sort of guy. I like to be easy come, easy go. Enjoy life. You know the sort of thing. I just get very pissed off when people try to spoil my day, that’s all.’

Cavendish allowed himself a rueful smile; seeing Marcus ‘pissed off’ was indeed a sight to behold. One he decided he might be able to make use of.

‘As you say, Blake, they were not very good at their job. If they had been, neither of us would be here now.’

‘So who were they?’ Marcus asked again. ‘If they weren’t after me they must have been after you. That makes them Russian then, right?’

Cavendish laughed out loud. ‘You’ve been reading too many spy books. If the Russians had wanted to dispose of me they would have been far more discreet and far more successful, I can assure you.’ He let the laughter subside and shook his head. Marcus waited for him to continue. ‘I don’t know who they were,’ he went on, ‘but I will find out.’

‘How?’ Marcus asked.

Cavendish looked at Marcus in surprise. ‘You only killed one of them; the other one is still alive. He might have a few bruises, Blake, but he is well enough to tell us what we want to know.’

There was a knock at the door and Eric walked in. He placed a tray on the table, nodded at Cavendish and left the room. Cavendish got up and poured out a cup of tea for Marcus. He brought it over to him and then retrieved his whisky and soda. He then went back to the tray and lifted a first aid box from it.

‘Take off your shirt, Blake; let’s see what’s needed.’

Very little was needed, in fact. Cavendish cleaned the wound and rubbed some salve on to it.’

‘You’ll live,’ he said and returned the first aid box to the table while Marcus put his shirt back on. Marcus then lifted his cup and sipped his tea, which was surprisingly good.

‘Suppose he doesn’t want to tell you anything?’ Marcus asked referring to the comment Cavendish had made about getting information from the man who had survived Marcus’s show of anger.

Cavendish tilted his head a little. ‘Oh, he will; I’ve no doubt about that.’

‘What will you do, barter with him? You know, freedom for some information?’

Cavendish said nothing.

‘Or will you torture him?’ Marcus said, and lifted his cup to his mouth.

‘How we get the information has nothing to do with you; just be assured that we will.’ Cavendish sounded quite abrupt.

Marcus decided to push him a little. ‘Rendition,’ he said.

Cavendish screwed his face up. ‘What?’

Marcus put his cup down. ‘Rendition. It’s what the Yanks have been doing; sending their prisoners to other countries who don’t give a toss about extracting information under torture.’ He studied Cavendish for a while. ‘But you don’t do that kind of thing in MI6, do you?’

‘What we do and what we don’t do is not your concern,’ Cavendish told him levelly. ‘But what should concern you now is your own safety, and what we must do about that.’

Marcus shrugged. ‘I don’t think I have anything to worry about,’ he told Cavendish. ‘They weren’t after me, so I’ll just get back to my business and leave you to get on with yours.’

Cavendish shook his head. ‘Don’t be so naive; they will be back, and this time they will be more careful. So for your own safety you need to remain under my protection until we can nail the bastards who tried to kill us.’

‘I don’t think I fancy your kind of protection,’ Marcus told him. ‘It nearly got you killed.’

Cavendish laughed. ‘ Touche.’ He drained his whisky and got up, walked over to the table and put his empty glass on the tray. ‘It is probably connected with the assassination of the Secretary of State, and until I can learn more, I suggest you trust me and my department to keep you out of their clutches.’

Marcus stood up. He put his empty cup and saucer next to the empty whisky glass. ‘No thank you. Just get me a taxi and I’ll be out of here. If you want to speak to me about any of this, you know where to find me.’

Cavendish accepted the rebuttal and offer of protection gracefully. ‘Very well, but I cannot be held responsible for your safety. There is one thing though,’ he added.

‘What’s that?’

‘I wouldn’t go back to your office if I were you.’

Marcus agreed. ‘I know; it wouldn’t make sense.’ He put out his hand and held it there for a moment. ‘Now, can you order a taxi for me?’

Cavendish sighed. ‘Very well, if you insist; I’ll ask Eric to call one.’ He shook Marcus’s outstretched hand. ‘Where can I reach you if I need to ask you anything?’

Marcus rummaged through his pockets and pulled out his wallet. He took a business card from it and handed it to Cavendish.

‘My mobile number’s there if you need it.’

Cavendish thanked him and left the room. Ten minutes later Marcus was in a taxi heading back to London, and happy to be away from the dark world of the secret service. But there was one thing Marcus had promised himself: he would do his level best to trace the number plate he had seen on the Mercedes and try and spoil someone else’s day.

Five minutes after Marcus had left, Eric walked into the room where Cavendish was waiting.

‘Are we in touch with the taxi?’ Cavendish asked.

‘Yes sir, same firm as usual.’

Cavendish seemed satisfied. ‘Good. Whatever else happens, I don’t think we want to lose that young man.’