Wednesday 5.58 pm.
Ben Preston had not made comment to John Kane. After listening to the man’s direction he’d made immediate contact with the Police Commissioner, who agreed with Kane’s wishes that a Command meeting should be held at once. He’d then made his way to the boardroom where he paced the carpeted floor while he waited for the Commissioner. Some minutes later the door swung open allowing Commander Rusty Bates entry.
“What’s happening Ben?” Rusty huffed as if he’d decided on the stairway rather than the lift.
“I’ve just had a call from John Kane, our chief suspect in the ‘wooden box’ inquiry. He asked for a meeting with the Commissioner. His phone call was brief, but he requested yours and my presence. Mine because we’ve met. He asked for you by name.”
“Knows my name, eh? Did he say why he wants to meet?”
“No. He just said that a meeting was in all our interests, and that time was short.” Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by the opening of the door.
The Commissioner entered, and then stood aside to allow John Kane’s large frame to fill the doorway before me made basic introductions.
Ben stared coldly into Kane’s shining excited eyes.
Kane withdrew from his jacket’s top pocket a small note book which he held up for his audience’s view as he said.
“Time is short so I’ll come straight to the point. This notebook has, on its first page the directions needed to find the location of the transformer and the weapon.” He paused briefly as the eyes of the three police officers stared greedily at the small notebook that contained the answer to all their prayers. “Unfortunately for you, the directions are all written in code. You cannot possibly decipher it in the short time available to you before the weapon is handed over to its purchaser.” He paused again in his delivery, and as he tossed the book through the air in Ben’s direction he added, “Here you go Ben. It’s all yours.”
Ben caught the book, and quickly opened its blue plastic cover to see a series of numbers interspaced with a meaningless array of alphabetical letters. He passed the open book to his Commissioner, and then looked at Rusty Bates with a slight, almost undetectable shake of his head. Ben turned his gaze to Kane.
“What do you want?” He demanded
Kane smiled lightly, as if he was about to say something he knew would be taken as impossible, but the tone in his voice suggested otherwise.
“I expect free and unchallenged passage for me and my colleagues out of this country. After which the notebook’s deciphered information will be made available to you via the internet.” He glanced at his watch and added, “I should point out at this time, that you have a little over an hour to get us onto our private plane, receive your email and capture the weapon’s new owner’s agents.”
“You are asking us to trust you?” Rusty Bates asked.
“No. You’re the drowning man, and I’m the one who holds the straw.”
Rusty cursed and Kane straightened. His hands turned into fists, ready to defend against possible attack. He held this stance until Rusty Bates brought himself back under control before he offered some reassurance.
“Don’t feel as if you’re the only one. An exact copy of this conversation is at this moment going on in four other countries.” He drew breath before he continued, “Now. Let’s get back on track shall we. The time for your decision has come and it has to be made. Your backs are against the wall. You have no choice other than to move now, or lose.”
Ben looked to his boss and begrudgingly understood as the Commissioner slowly nodded.
“Excellent. Now with your permission I would like to take Mr. Preston with me as my personal escort. I’m sure that his seniority will ensure smooth transit. By the way, your surveillance teams are still on watch where they think I and my colleague are. I might suggest a refresher course for them in covert surveillance?” The Commissioner nodded his consent, at which Kane turned toward the door and opened it. He gestured to Ben his desire to leave.
Ben almost stepped forward, but suddenly he propped and put forward a question.
“If you’ve evaded our surveillance teams, why didn’t you just take the opportunity to leave without calling this meeting?
Kane looked directly at Ben as he answered.
“I didn’t want to take the risk of being cornered by Customs or your uniformed police and have to contend with their chains of command just to get here where I am now. Instead, with the importance of time in mind I chose a more direct route. We have achieved what we set out to, and we don’t want to be held responsible for the actions of the weapon’s new owners.”
“What have you achieved?” Ben Asked.
Kane was thoughtful for a brief moment before he answered.
“That’s a question best answered by my boss, Athol, if you ever have the opportunity to meet him.” He pointed to the face of his watch and Ben immediately strode out the door, his mobile phone in hand.
“Allan. Have the police helicopter on the roof immediately?”
“Where are your friends?” Ben asked.
“They’re waiting in a car parked across the road from the entrance to this building.”
“Right, we’ll get them and then make for the roof.”
Twenty minutes later their helicopter touched down near a private jet which sat ready as Kane’s band of men strode hurriedly toward it. Kane turned to Ben and spoke loudly against the whine of the idling aircraft, and the wind that blew a cold shower of rain.
“We expected interference from the police after we advertised the wooden box, but you arrived before we’d planned and surprised us. How did you get onto us so early?”
It was a good question Ben thought, as he walked quickly beside Kane toward the aircrafts steps. Suddenly the name of the man who’d directed his initial line of enquiry came to mind. He was thoughtful of the turn of events since the interception of a facsimile.
“A man by the name of Simon West unwittingly pointed me in the right direction...” He shouted before Kane noticed a veil of sadness which clouded his eyes as he added with a lower tone, .”.. and two of my apprentices.” With that Kane lightly danced up the steps to the aircraft’s doorway. He turned to see Ben’s lips form the words of either one last question, or maybe a threat born of frustration at having to let an arch foe go.
He had no time to guess, and instead he issued the last words before he turned and disappeared into the aircrafts inner darkness.
Ben lost Kane’s words in the plane’s engines howl as it began its taxi to the runway. It left him with a mental picture of the words that had formed on Kane’s lips as he’d stood at the top of the aircrafts steps. The image slowly transformed into the sound of Ben’s own voice as he repeated the words to no one but the wind.
“Ask Athol.”
“Fuck Athol,” he thought aloud as he walked with a bowed head toward the police helicopter and its warm cockpit.
As he opened the aircrafts door its pilot inquired.
“Where to now, Sir?”
“Back to the shop and don’t spare the horses.”
The aircraft lifted off and turned in the cities direction
“Are you a praying man?” Ben asked its pilot.
“Recent events suggest I learn, Sir.”
“Well practice while we go that there’s an email waiting for me when we land.”
London time
Charles turned toward the call of his name.
“Yes, Stephen. What is it?”
“The Australian operations team informs me that they are in the air. All their team is away and in the clear.”
“Good. Send the weapons locations immediately.”
“Ready to send!”
“Send,” Charles ordered.
“Receipt of product confirmed all points,” Stephen replied.
“Double check?” Charles asked.
“Confirmation definite, all points.”
“Terminate internet connection”
“Internet connection terminated.”
“Maintain sales team’s emergency systems satellite access. All channels open, their priority.”
“Emergency systems satellite access all channels open, sales team’s priority.”
“Situation report on sales teams?”
“Six teams are away and four still in country.”
“Syria?” Charles asked.
“Syrian sales team is one of the four,” Stephen looked up at his friend Charles and added, “He’s is a tough customer Charles and he knows the country. He’ll come through.”
Charles nodded as he turned away to begin another around the table screen examination. The sound of keyboard activity was still heavy, and its sound, which had accentuated the whole operations success up to this point, now emphasized the fact that the game was not yet over. Until it was, total success could not be claimed.
In this game, total success meant no friends funerals or grieving widows.
Wednesday 6.35 pm.
Ben Preston had no part to play in the harnessing of the weapon, or those who may be found to be in its close proximity. While he waited for the specialist’s to carry out their task, he’d decided to take refuge in his office to at least make a start on the previous afternoon’s reports.
He’d begun his report on Horton, but as he progressed he found that he did not have the resolve to finish it. Rodney’s savage end was still too fresh in his mind, and at the first sign of a knot in his throat he closed the file and concentrated on the wooden box and John Kane.
Kane’s report was easy to write, but as he typed in his description of his meeting with Kane, he found that with each word he became angrier. The fact that the man had got away frustrated him. There was also the insistent nagging echo of the faceless name Athol. It tolled like a cracked bell, and undoubtedly it would do so for the rest of his life.
His mind was on a roll of sorts and he quickly filled the report before he paused to stare at the silent screen of his offices television. It presented the Police Commissioner’s face, signalled with a caption which stated Press conference broadcast. Ben turned up its volume and listened intently for some moments. Before deciding that although he’d missed its beginning, it was obvious that he would learn nothing new. The carefully choreographed broadcast was like all the others he’d heard in his career. Press releases designed to deliver the least amount of information in as many words as possible. He lowered the volume again, and placed the remote control onto his desk top near Kane’s notebook. Its nearness prompted his fingers to open its small front cover and view once again the presumed complex code.
The whole page was filled with numbers. Each set of five, sometimes six numbers was interspaced with an alphabetical letter.
The first line read e 96843 n 44892 a 53984 k 409843 k 922919 o 40922. After scrutinizing it for a minute, he rubbed his forehead as the thought of the too hard basket sprang to mind. He was about to close the book when his eyes read the letters n 399922 e 09344 b 20203 near the bottom of the page.
“Ben written backwards,” he wondered aloud as he picked up his pen and wrote each letter in reverse order, beginning from the end of the last line. A moment later he read, “Well done Ben now read the back of the book Kane.” Ben turned to the last page to find that it was blank, and then to the outside of the plastic back cover to find the same.
Without hesitation he held the books plastic cover while he pulled at the small pages. Almost immediately the books cardboard back cover released from its plastic sheath.
Its flap closed upon his thumb revealing a short list in a fine written hand.
He read quickly as his hand reached for the telephone.
“Rusty. Ben. Kane’s code in the little notebook? It’s just a sentence written backwards, which has directed me to the back of the book where there’s information concerning the weapon. It says that the gas container is only filled with dyed water. The gas which killed the rats was only a small amount housed in a glass capsule. It was in the eyedroppers rubber extraction cap and was ruptured when it was squeezed. It also points out that the weapon will self-destruct the moment the bad guys try to insert the detonator…”
Ben’s ears were again, for the second time that afternoon harassed by an explosion, and the sudden unexpected silence at Rusty’s end of the phone caused him to call out.
“What’s happened?”
Rusty’s reaction to the shattering sound was an immediate order that goaded his men into action. It raced excitedly through the phone line and into Ben’s brain.
“Go. Go. Go.”
He knew the call and like an apprentice in respect for his master, he stayed silent as Rusty went about the business of commanding a raid. Ben glanced at his watch and noted the time. He wondered if the purchasers of Kane’s weapon had twigged to the presence of Rusty’s specialist team. The urgency in Rusty’s tone certainly suggested so.
Then suddenly, his thoughts were confirmed by the sound of gunfire. Ben listened carefully to the very brief fire-fight which was accompanied by the sounds of shouting. A scuffle of feet sounded out before Rusty’s heavy breathing took over and became the centre of his Ben’s auditory universe.
Rusty finally spoke in an excited tone.
“Ben. How did you like the show?”
Ben hadn’t noticed the dryness of his mouth, until he was forced to flick his tongue around in order to gain moisture.
“Sounds like you enjoyed yourself. What’s the situation?”
“It would appear that you were right about the self-destruct button. There’s nothing left of the weapon, just a hole in the floor and no evidence of the poison gas. One of the bad guys who came to pick up their purchase must have been wounded by the explosion, but he’s still breathing. If there was gas, then he would be starting to cool by now. Anyway, it would appear that we have everything here contained. Transformer, trucks, dead rats in their aquarium, they even left the movie camera behind.” He paused momentarily and took a deep breath before asking, “Are you at the shop?”
“Yes. Something I can do for you?” Ben asked.
“Yeah, if you could pass onto the Boss that we’ve got the whole thing under control, that’d be good. Let him know that we’re all in one piece. Three bad guys’ dead and one of them wounded. I’ll update him the moment I get through here. Half hour tops.”
“I’ll duck up to see him right away. He’ll be glad to have some good news for his next media presentation. It’ll take the pressure off him a bit.”
“Thanks Ben. I’d better get back to it. I’ll catch you later.”
The connection broke and Ben dialled the Commissioner’s internal number.
“Sir, Ben Preston. Sir, I’ve just been on the line to Commander Bates and I need an immediate meeting please.” Silence greeted his request, so he added, “It’s all good news, Sir.”
“Thank you Ben. Come straight up.”
Ben put down his phone and picked up Kane’s note book before he strode to the corridor. He pushed the lift’s summons button and then suddenly, unexpectedly, stepped back from its doors, as sweat sprung through his forehead pores. It was accompanied by a cold shiver that ran like a ripple of seizure between his shoulder blades. He stared at the lift’s doors for a brief moment. His teeth clenched as his mind flashed back to the events of the afternoon. They’d begun when stainless steel barriers similar to these had parted.
Ben turned away from the doors quickly. His open hand wiped his brow before its fingers pressed into his closed eyelids, as if to protect his eyes from an intense and oppressive light. He stood motionless for some moments, before he breathed deeply and tilted his face toward the ceiling. Then after checking the corridor to ensure he’d not been observed he decided to take the stairs.
Wednesday 7.40 pm
Larry Barrett was relieved to be in the air. He looked out of the aircraft’s small window, half expecting to see a cloud of poisonous gas spread its vaporous fingers
over the city.
Her lights were soon lost to his sight as the aircraft changed course, and Larry finally saw only darkness. It emphasized his reflection in the window, and he gazed at the picture for a moment before he quietly complimented himself.
“Well done, son.”
The small folder which lay on his lap was gripped tightly between his thumb and forefinger. He turned his face toward it and opened its light cardboard cover. The papers within it were copies of the documents he’d lodged with Adam for fast tracking. He leafed through them, until he withdrew a single sheet which stated blatantly to him his major shareholding in everything that Lee had owned.
Even his bloody house he thought, before he suddenly laughed out loud. It caught the attention of some of his more serious fellow passengers. They saw little reason for amusement after escaping a city which could be at this moment enveloped in death.
Stupid bastards, he thought as he slotted the single piece of paper back into the folder. Surely the fact they have escaped is reason enough for celebration.
These people have a second chance. A new beginning awaits them. What more could they want? He patted the folder as he extended the thought. There is money, I suppose. Larry smiled as he closed his eyes and allowed his accountant’s mind to calculate the best and quickest method to turn Lee’s assets into cash.
*****
Athol lifted the hand piece of his phone and listened carefully as Charles brought him up to date.
“Sir, I can inform you that all of our operations and sales teams are on safe soil. However, it appears that one of our sales team leaders is missing.”
“Where?” Athol asked.
“Syria Sir, it’s Jamal. The other team members are off Syrian soil, but at this time they are out of contact. We’ll know more when they report in.”
Athol was silent for a long moment.
“We can only hope for the best and be optimistic at this stage, Charles. What about the others?”
There was a shuffle of paper before Charles answered,
“Total income for the night was a little less than eighty-five million pounds. More importantly, we had a total of twenty-seven bidders. Nineteen of which we’ve infiltrated and can gain access to at our leisure. We also have passwords for six bank accounts, and the names of twenty-three banks that were either used by bidders or nominated by them. Charles voice was replaced by the sound of his breathing and the shuffling of paper before he concluded, “There have been some interesting side issues, Sir, which I will outline in my final report to you, but in all, aside from the possibility of Jamal, it has been an outstanding success, Sir.”
“You said six account passwords?” Athol asked suddenly.
“Yes Sir. It seems that one of our computer console operators decided to make it a bit more of a challenge. He made two bidders believe that they were each the winning bidder. I did chew him out for jeopardizing the operation. Would you like me to carry it further, Sir?”
“No. Not at this time Charles. No doubt you’ll include it in your final report; along with your recommendations as to his best use to us in the future. When can I expect your final report?”
“A few hours Sir.”
“Bring it to me personally, will you? Oh, one more thing before you go. Congratulations on a job well done.”
“Yes Sir. Thank you Sir.”
Athol put his phone down and gazed out through his office window at an aircraft winging its way across the city. It brought to him a feeling of déjà vu as he was reminded of a similar aircraft he’d seen some years earlier. With that reminder came also the memory of the moment he realized its huge potential.
As he turned toward his telephone to place another call, he thought to himself as his chuckling crowded the room.
“Outstanding success comes easy once you’re provided the right environment.”
CHAPTER 25