Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

So it was just one left, Trevor Stanton. David checked his pistol and packed the rucksack with his equipment.

Before he logged off and packed the laptop he acted on his curiosity about what Stanton had been doing in the loft. DIC technical control ran a remote check on his computer. They didn’t find the search for National Express, but to everyone’s concern the fact that the DIC staff name and location list had been downloaded came to light.

It was an emotional goodbye on both sides for man and wife. David nearly didn’t go, but the drive in him to find the man who had invaded his home and his peace of mind was stronger. Mary’s ‘come home safe’ was greeted with a firm nod and a hug. He was on his way and he didn’t look back to the door in case his determination failed him at that point.

By the time David got on the train at Dover Priory, bound for London, there was an emergency high level meeting of DIC ‘top brass’ going on at Euston Tower. DIC had been compromised. The information on the disk made it possible for anyone with it to expose DIC and its work. For the first time the department’s history a ‘stop at all costs’ and ‘shoot to kill’ order was given. Jack didn’t like it, but if DIC was exposed they’d be less effective. There were a lot of dodgy businessmen, corrupt politicians and immoral civil servants that would be delighted to know who had thwarted their schemes and underhanded dealings in the past and it would be the end of DIC.

By the end of the meeting Jack Fulton was extremely glad David McKie was back on the duty list. If there was one man determined to get Stanton it was him and at that moment Fulton felt no tinge of guilt at wanting that particular assassin dead. As he closed the door on his office Fulton’s thoughts turned to Sternway. Had the dirty tricks man planned this? Was the ultimate goal of the whole affair to expose and destroy DIC? Who was the assassin’s target?

On that thought Fulton called the hospital. The taxi driver wasn’t conscious yet. Where had he been taking Mason? Where was Stanton now?

Canterbury

12 noon

April 19th

The coach was moist and humid on the inside. The stop in Canterbury had been a short blast of fresh air on Stanton who was sat near the front. All the way to Canterbury Stanton had mused on Mason’s death. They’d penned him in alright. It was the thought of the bridge at Vauxhall that made Stanton realise that the police must have known where he was coming from. He knew for certain that the Priory Arms was being watched. Someone had talked he was sure. He knew that he had a problem. He couldn’t go to the meeting point because it was too ‘hot’. He couldn’t contact the ‘employer’ because he didn’t know who it was. He assumed that they knew he was alive as no news of his death had put out and he knew for certain that news of his boat being found in Dover would tell them that he was close.

His question to himself was ‘if he were them what would they think he would do?’

It wasn’t easy. He thought of places in London that would link to his background or past, but there was no glaringly obvious place they could link to him or assume he’d think of. They must know that he wouldn’t go to the Priory Arms.

It then struck him that the most natural thing for him to do was to find a hotel and wait for contact a message of some kind. His best bet was to find a hotel closest to the Priory Arms in distance and wait there. Assuming that they’d think he would do that they would most probably be there waiting for him. The question was would the security services work that out too? It was a chance he’d have to take if he was to get under the protective wing of his employer, not to mention get the one million pound hit.

The Kent countryside flashed by blurred into an impressionist canvas by rain drops being dragged across the glass work. The coach sped into London and Stanton knew that he was going to have to use the rail network. He needed no disguises, his hooded coat and woolly hat would serve, even if it matched McKie’s description, which was no doubt circulating. A million people in London would be wearing wet weather clothes with hoods up. It would be a bad day for CCTV watchers. Stanton willed the rain to get heavier.

He decided to get an hour’s sleep before he got into London. He was hungry and thirsty, but his Legion training helped him ignore the needs. He folded his arms and twisted in the seat to be able to sleep. He thought about McKie. The man had killed Wheeler, there was no doubt he could kill if pushed to it, but DIC, Stanton felt sure, weren’t made up of disciplined, hardened and fear exempt agents, he was sure. They were gifted amateurs, in a way, and yet the thoughts led him to feel the side of his head and the bruise there. McKie was a tough, strong, fast and quick thinking individual. Stanton resolved not to be too scornful of DIC and its people. If McKie was anything to go by they had both brains and brawn. He fell asleep thinking of the four men he’d spent two weeks on a submarine with and all of whom were dead, all accounted for by the work of DIC. There was no doubt, he yawned, that it was some machine and it was looking for him.

London

1 p.m.

April 19th

Jack Fulton closed the door on his office and settled himself in his chair across the desk from David McKie.

“What happened?”

“I took Conor to the harbour ate some MacDonald’s breakfast and walked him home. He must have seen me there and followed me. He climbed in through the Velux window on the roof and when I went up to work he was there. I managed to disarm him. My neighbour had called the police, Stanton knocked them out and I gave chase.”

“You left the roof windows open?”

“Yes it gets warm up there and you don’t expect anyone to do that.”

“We do now. I’ll have to put out a window lock kit for every DIC operative. Your computer wasn’t pass word locked then?”

“Well in the roof space, in my house. It’s not what I expected, I can’t be the only one.”

“No I agree and we’ll put out a procedure now. He copied a file, the names and addresses of all our UK operatives and the names of our leadership team and our location.”

“I know, but he went for that first by the looks of it, which means he knew about us and knew where to find us. It was pure chance that he wound up in Dover and saw me.”

“It does seem like chance, but it seriously compromises the DIC and I’ve ordered a shoot to kill and stop at all costs on Stanton. We must also retrieve that disk.”

“Any tags on where he is now?”

“He disappeared. He may be holed up in Dover or he could have hitched a lift and killed the driver. He didn’t steal a car, but he might steal one tonight. The theft would get lost in the usual night time thefts by joy riders. The main thing is that we know where he’s headed, though if he’s smart he’ll know his contact point is compromised, especially as Mason was so close to Vauxhall when he died.”

“That just leaves it to us to watch and wait.”

“If we can get the address from the taxi driver we can be there waiting for him anyway.”

“Did Mason have a phone on him or anything? Anything we could use to find out his contacts?”

“He had a disposable phone, one number in it, but there’s no reply at the other end. The dialled number turns out to be a cell phone registered in a false name, as was the one Mason had. There’s no way to put a trace on it. Records for Mason’s phone have him using the directory service to get a taxi number and the satellite location put him near the Priory Arms when he did that. So far we’re drawing a blank.”

“I’ll go to my office and check in with the duty teams. How’s Shadz?” David asked realising that if Jack was stumped then he couldn’t add anything.