Michael Parker - A Covert War

She kept looking up towards the opaque window on the door at the top of the stairs. It still bore the legend ‘Guard Right Security’ and naturally, Susan expected no less.

But there was still a sense of something being wrong. Susan told herself to stop being silly and shook herself. Then she breathed in deeply and held herself upright as she reached the top step.

She gripped the handle of the door and pushed it down gently. The door gave to the pressure and swung open. Susan stepped into Marcus’s office and stopped abruptly. There was nothing there.

Susan felt herself going weak at the knees and thought she was going to faint. But what she could see, or couldn’t see for that matter was the fact that Marcus’s office had been completely stripped. There was no furniture, nothing on the floor, nothing on the walls, no grubby tea towel tossed on to a dirty draining board. There were no cups, no kettle, no coffee and no milk; but still the slight odour of disinfectant.

Susan stood perfectly still for several seconds, feeling a little scared. It wasn’t for herself, but for Marcus.

And then a voice said, ‘Who are you?’

Marcus had concealed himself on the edge of a small copse of silver birch trees that overlooked the house. He had been there for three hours now, since dawn, and had kept as still as he could while he peered down at the property through the binoculars he had borrowed from his father, his bird watching binoculars.

Marcus had plagued the life out of his father to come up with another favour, much to his disquiet. What Marcus had asked his father to do was to help him trace the Mercedes that had been used by the men who had tried to kill Cavendish. His father had ruled it out of the question when Marcus had first asked him, but eventually he was able to persuade his dad that he would not ask him for any more favours. He said nothing of what had happened.

Henry Blake still had contacts within the Diplomatic Corps and the Foreign Office, and it wasn’t unusual for people within that clique to ask for favours in return for favours previously rendered. Blake asked one of his ex-colleagues in the Foreign Office to run a check on a licence plate. The description of the car matched that which Marcus had seen, and the address at which it was registered was in Suffolk.

Marcus had travelled up to his father’s home by train and found himself in need of a car, so he had borrowed one of his father’s collection of ‘runabouts’ as his dad liked to call them. But rather than use one of the more upmarket models, Marcus had taken a Ford Focus. He did this deliberately because he wanted to preserve a sense of anonymity.

He located the house on Google search and drove to the village of Elveden, close to Thetford Forest. The house was about a mile or so from the village on the Thetford Road. Marcus drove past it a few times before deciding to drive into Thetford and find a pub where he could have a meal and a room for the night.

The following morning, Marcus drove to a small, supermarket car park and left his car there. Then he used the cover of Elveden forest and walked to the area where he was concealed now, in the copse of Silver Birch trees.

Marcus couldn’t see the Mercedes there, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t; it could have been inside one of the two garages Marcus could see in the grounds of the house. But what intrigued him was the fact that there was a Dodge pick-up truck in USAF colours parked out front. And shortly after making himself comfortable, Marcus had seen an American airman come out of the house and climb into the truck. The airman had driven away from the house and taken the road to Barton Mills, in the direction of the American base at Lakenheath.

Marcus turned his attention back to the front door of the house. It was set deep into a portico type entrance with columns either side. It meant that the main door was set back from the lip of the porch by about five feet. It also meant that anybody who called at the front door would be virtually unseen from the road. He gave it some considerable thought and filed it away in his memory bank.

About an hour after the airman had left the house, one of the garage doors swung open. Marcus focussed his binoculars on to the door as a Volvo Estate was driven out of the garage by a woman. The garage door closed behind her as she swept out of the drive and on to the road to Thetford.

Marcus spent the next three hours monitoring the house, but all that happened was the woman returned, the garage door swung up and over and the Volvo disappeared into the garage. The door closed again and this gave Marcus the beginning of an idea. All he needed was the balls to carry it out, but it meant waiting until he was confident he would be undisturbed, and that his estimation of what he had seen meant he had a good chance of carrying it off.

Susan almost leapt out of her skin when Maggot spoke to her. Because her mind had been drawn to the unexpected emptiness of Marcus’s office, she hadn’t seen him. He was standing by the door that led into a small toilet. He had been on the point of opening it when he heard Susan open the main door. And when he spoke to her she visibly jumped.

‘Oh my goodness,’ Susan cried putting her hand to her mouth. ‘You frightened the life out of me.’

Maggot apologised. ‘I’m sorry, but if I had said nothing, you would still have jumped when you turned round.’

Susan looked at the stranger. She guessed he was from India or Pakistan although he spoke excellent English.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked him.

Maggot shrugged. ‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he pointed out.

‘I’m a client of Marcus Blake,’ she told him.

Maggot tipped his head back as something dawned on him. ‘I see; you must be Susan Ellis then.’

Susan was surprised that the stranger knew her name. ‘How did you know that?’ she stabbed at him. Doesn’t Marcus understand client confidentiality?’

He smiled at her. ‘Marcus mentioned that you are no longer a client; that is why I know who you are.’

‘Well client or not, I am here to see Marcus.’

He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. ‘But, as you can see, Marcus is no longer here.’

Susan looked round the empty room as though it might make some difference and Marcus would suddenly appear.

‘Are you his business partner or something?’ she asked.

Maggot shook his head. ‘No, I am just a friend. The only one in the whole of London, I think.’

‘Well where is he? Has he moved or something?’ she demanded to know.

He pursed his lips and gave a little shake of his head. ‘I’ve no idea. But why don’t you and I go and find a coffee shop and we can talk about what we know and what we may be able to find out?’

Susan agreed because it seemed so silly the two of them standing there face to face in an empty room. He was still holding his hands out, palms uppermost, and as he relaxed and dropped his hands to his sides, Susan noticed they were heavily calloused, and the little finger on one hand was missing.

That evening Marcus went back to Thetford; different pub, different meal. Before choosing the pub, Marcus bought a Maglite torch in the supermarket where he had parked his car. Once he had fed and watered himself, Marcus drove back to the house and parked his car in a lay-by a short distance away, locked it and made his way through the edge of the forest to continue his watch.

As darkness closed in and the temperature fell, Marcus decided to get closer to the house. He knew he would have to be alert for any kind of alarm system there might be, or even dogs.

There was very little in the way of security around the perimeter; simply a stout wall made from Norfolk stone. It was a little higher than six feet, but it proved no obstacle for Marcus, and as he landed on his feet inside the rear garden, he dropped flat and lay still.