Michael Parker - A Covert War

As the man straightened up by the force of the kick, Marcus swung his arm downwards in a chopping motion and brought the heel of his hand down on to the busted nose. Blood erupted from the wound as the man screamed again and fell. As the man’s hands touched the pavement, Marcus slammed the heel of his boot on to the man’s fingers and busted those too.

He spun round and looked at the man whose kneecaps had been shifted severely and wacked him with another devastating blow, using his foot across the man’s forehead. The man groaned and passed out.

Susan was still screaming and crying when Marcus had finished. He looked at her with the venom of his attack still burning fiercely in his eyes, and in the poor light, Susan knew she was looking at someone she didn’t know. She pulled her hands away from her face and they were trembling violently.

Marcus grabbed her and dragged her away, shouting at her, ‘Run! Run!’

Susan felt herself being propelled away from the hideous scene where the two men lay badly beaten and ran as fast as her legs would go. Marcus kept close behind her, keeping hold of her elbow as they fled.

Eventually they ran into a road where there were a number of shops, all closed, but there were a couple of public houses and an all-night taxi rank. They ran up to the first of two taxis in the queue, yanked open the rear doors and dived in.

‘Where to?’ the driver asked.

‘Just drive, we’ll tell you when to stop.’

The taxi pulled away and Marcus flopped back into the soft seat. He looked at Susan and smiled. Susan continued to stare at him, still stunned.

‘Marcus,’ she managed to say eventually. ‘Who are you?’

He turned his head away, not in anger or anything like that. Then he laughed and glanced back at her.

‘Maggot would have been proud of me tonight,’ he answered and just kept on laughing.

James Purdy finished reading the Times newspaper and turned his attention to the Guardian. There were various sections of both papers that had been marked as ‘relevant’ for the minister, and it was simply a case of scanning the pages until he came across a section that merited some interest. After that he would turn his attention to the tabloids.

But try as he might, Purdy was unable to absorb much of the written word; his mind was still on the meeting with Cavendish the previous afternoon and the unquestionable consequences once the news was out in the public domain.

Immediately after his meeting with Cavendish, Purdy had made a short, but discreet phone call. He vented his anger on the person he had called and remarked that the reason for falling into the trap set by the security service was simply down to incompetence of the organisation. He said he believed Cavendish would be operating on his own, for now, and to avoid any problems for the organisation Cavendish should be eliminated.

Purdy had promised to deliver the names to Cavendish of those who had taken part in the orgy and subsequent murder of one of the girls, but now he expected that to be unnecessary; Cavendish would not be a problem.

Despite his own conviction that the organisation would deal with the problem swiftly, Purdy still carried a sense of doom and foreboding in his heart. He tried desperately to ignore the constant, nagging doubts that assailed his mind and concentrate on his work, but it was useless, no matter how he tried. So one hour after arriving at his office in the House of Commons, he informed his secretary that he felt unwell and would be returning home.

He took the lift down into the underground car park of the House of Commons and walked across to his designated parking space. The garage was well lit and it wasn’t unusual to bump into a colleague there and take time out for a chat. He saw someone climb into a car and pull out of a parking bay. Although he barely knew the woman driving the car, he acknowledged her as she drove by.

His own car’s flashers flickered into life as he triggered the security locks. He opened the car door and tossed his briefcase on to the passenger seat. He climbed in, sat for a moment letting the silence seep into his thoughts, then pushed a button on the dashboard.

A light came on informing him the engine was running. He slipped the gear lever into drive and released the handbrake. The car moved away smoothly and he could barely hear the sound of the tyres on the resin floor of the garage.

He turned towards the ramp out of the garage, lifting a hand in acknowledgement to the security guard and accelerated up the ramp. Beneath the front wing of the Lexus a mercury tilt trigger switch responded to the action as the car’s front end lifted on the ramp and completed a circuit to a compact bomb. The detonator fired causing the bomb to explode.

The car ballooned outwards as the explosion was confined within the walls of the ramp and burst into flames. Immediately the security guard ran to a panic button, one of many fitted around the garage and struck it hard with his hand.

And all hell was let loose.

Marcus was just leaving Vauxhall Bridge Tube station when he heard the wail of police sirens screaming through the streets somewhere. He took no notice of it because it was such a familiar sound in central London. He even dismissed the thought again as two fire engines clamoured past. But when the ambulances appeared, he began to think that there might have been another terrorist attack on the city.

He knew that when these atrocities happened, the security forces literally tied London down and closed the entire area around where the attack had occurred. He hoped he wouldn’t be inconvenienced because he had decided that morning to secure an interview with the mysterious Sir Giles Cavendish.

It wasn’t long before Marcus realised that his efforts to get to the headquarters of MI6 were going to be severely hampered. The police had closed off several of the road bridges across the river and brought the centre of London to a grinding halt, although being on the south side of the river he couldn’t foresee a problem. He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and dialled Maggot’s number for no other reason than he wanted to check if there was any chaos further up the river where his friend had the gymnasium. His phone was dead, so he figured the security people must have put a block on the networks.

He put his phone in his pocket and began walking along the Albert Embankment towards the headquarters of MI6, but when he was within about two hundred yards of it, he knew he would not get in; there were armed police everywhere.

He picked a side street leading away from the river looking for a bar where he would find a television and learn what had happened. He came across a small, public house, walked in and asked for a beer. The television was switched to Sky News and already they were reporting from Parliament Square; the closest the cameras were allowed to get. It soon became clear that a Cabinet Minister had been assassinated, and the attack was already being attributed to Al Qaeda terrorists or Muslim sympathisers. There was also a rumour that it was the Secretary of State for International Development, but details were not being released until the family of whoever it was had been informed.

True to the sensationalist character of the media, a picture of the minister was flashed up on the screen. Marcus sat bolt upright. He was looking at the man whose photograph he had taken in Covent Garden; the man he had seen talking with Cavendish.

Marcus felt numb. It was a weird sensation and only lasted a few seconds, but it was if his entire body had lost all feeling. He shuddered and took a mouthful of beer and little prickles of fear seemed to run up and down his spine. His mind began to consider the implications of what he knew and what had happened. Cavendish had involved Susan Ellis in something that appeared to be generated by a spirit of kindness and generosity. But it was also open ended; there was no answer to the question he had put into Susan’s mind, not at home anyway. No, the answer to her brother’s situation lay abroad somewhere.