Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

When he got to Bridge Street he found Bella Pasta. It was pleasant and the waitress was friendly. He sat by the window, as was his habit, people watching, keeping an eye out. He ordered spaghetti, tomato based sauce and a bottle of sparkling mineral water. When it came he ate it slowly and deliberately. He’d done his homework and the night train didn’t leave until gone eight. He wasn’t going to go in until the last minute, though he’d book the ticket after lunch. He knew Mason was booked on it, but he didn’t care about the rule on any of them travelling together. He was sure it would be fine.

With thoughts of his travel arrangements cleared from his mind, eating his spaghetti, he wondered if the wife of the frozen truck driver was somewhere in the crowds that passed by. He wondered if he was being watched. He wondered why they’d not come in through Dover or even Heathrow? Why Scotland? What also bothered him was the fact that whoever was behind this could get them on a British submarine, but had only given them thirty pounds in cash. The fake credit card looked good enough though. In the back of his mind he sensed that something didn’t add up. Still, he thought, he was in it now and there was a million at the end. He called the waitress and handed over a Mastercard. He was pleased when it worked. That meant no ‘fishing’ for money or cash, which always meant death and the added risk of capture.

Glasgow

1 p.m.

April 17th

Mason had arrived in Glasgow around lunch time. He’d been doing his thinking on the way. In spite of the changed plates the white Alfa would have been reported stolen by now and any white Alfa on the bridge cameras would have been picked up. The car, he knew would be getting hotter by the minute. Add the possible CCTV images anywhere on the industrial estate and he might not get through.

He opted to get a disguise, change clothes and get on rail as soon as possible. He wanted out of Scotland.

He parked the Alfa on a rough looking residential road on the Govan estate. He wiped it clean of his prints and left it unlocked and ready to be stolen by any nearby ‘Neds’. They would easily cover his tracks.

He headed out of the estate and caught the clockwork orange underground at Ibrox into central Glasgow. He avoided the shopping centre and bought second hand clothes on the outskirts of the town. A visit to an Oxfam shop yielded beige trousers, a thick sweater, checked shirt and worn grey overcoat. He bought hair dye, scissors, reading glasses with a slight blue tint, the kind used for dyslexia, flesh coloured medical tape and a mirror from a pharmacist. He put all of these in an old fashioned sports hold all he’d bought in a luggage shop.

There was a decent sized greasy spoon cafe on Buchanan Street. The waitress was an out of place blonde and breezy eighteen year old. Sharp green eyes, blond pony tail, petite build she caught every man in the room’s attention. Mason fell in with the crowd and flirted, it would have been odd not to.

“What will you have?”

“Apart from you what’s tastiest?”

“Not much I’m afraid and I’m not on the menu.”

“Well I’ll have the all day breakfast.”

“Okay”

“Is it called that because it takes all day to digest?”

The girl laughed.

“Don’t be cheeky or you’ll not eat.”

He smiled back.

“I’ll be good if it means eating.”

She took his order for tea and he watched her perfect behind wiggle away. It had been some time he thought, given half a chance he would make a move on her, but there was the job in hand.

He was annoyed with the job and his work when the girl delivered his food and tea and gave him a positive green light, touching his hand as she handed him the tea and smiling into his eyes, she even looked back when she walked away. He shook his head at the irony.

He flashed up the memory of the look back in his mind, ‘lovely lashes’ he thought, then ‘focus Mason focus.’

It wasn’t the best cooked food, plastic texture eggs, over cooked smoky bacon, bendy toast, dry sausage and an unhappy tomato half, all over cooked. He washed it down with raw tannic tea. It sat heavily in his gut.

Brunch done Mason paid the bill and left a good tip so as not to be noticed. The blonde watched him pay. He was tall, broad shouldered, fit looking, tanned and his black hair was in the kind of untidy mop she found alluring. The cafe was getting busy and as he didn’t respond to the ‘green light’ the girl, though disappointed, got on with her busy day.

In the cafe toilet he filled his flask with water and locked himself in a cubicle. There were three so he might have some time, but he nearly laughed out loud when he thought it might turn out to be a busy toilet if the food was anything to go by.

He worked quickly. He first wet and dyed his hair. Black to blonde just wasn’t possible in the time so he had bought a light brown. It was a fifteen minute wait for the dye to take and in his case the longer the lighter. About four people visited the toilet, but none bothered him in his cubicle. He listened well and came out to rinse and dry his hair under the hand dryer, it was a risk, but he had to. No-one came in and the hair dried quickly.

Back in the cubicle he cut his fringe and hair to create a thinning effect and a high fore head, saving short pieces of lighter brown hair cuttings. He used his glue to carefully put the cuttings on the backed surgical tape, creating a matching moustache. The door was rattled a couple of times as he worked at his disguise, but he groaned and blew a realistic raspberry.

“What did you eat mate?” The voice outside laughingly asked.

"The all day breakfast pal." Mason called back and added a groan.

Silence again and he finished the disguise with the clothes. He pulled a bin bag from his rucksack, put his old clothes in, along with the rucksack, transferring his pistol, ammunition and other essential items into the sports hold all and finally putting on the tinted glasses he left the toilet, pushing his head down and forwards, slouching and walking with a less direct, less upright bearing than he usually managed.

He certainly wasn’t the same man that walked into the toilet. He passed within feet of his waitress and she looked at him directly, but didn’t even register him in her eyes. Job done he walked into the city centre, dumping the old clothes and disguise residue wrapped in the bin bag by a litter bin. He headed for Glasgow rail station.

DIC watchers in Glasgow didn’t recognise him even though he had to wait an hour and forty-five minutes for the London train and sat on the station concourse watching people go by, secure that anyone watching him or watching for him wouldn’t have a clue who he was or what he was up to.

Euston Tower

4-30 p.m.

17th April

David and Beaumont worked solidly for some hours, looking at on line charts and using software to calculate all possible routes south and across the country. They highlighted possible terrorist targets on the digital maps and sent out the completed routes, when done, to the scanner teams on the other floors. This made it easier for those teams to make more finite searches and communicate with DIC watchers on those routes only.

Finally David completed the last digital map and pressed send. The compressed file zipped around the building and was then zipped across the country at high speed.

“What time is it?”

“It’s just gone three”

“Let’s go and take a break.”

“Sound idea.”

The two men sat in the canteen drinking coffee and eating biscuits.

“It’s been an interesting first day.” David smiled looking around.