Richard Wiseman - To Kill Or Be Killed

As Sternway and Mrs Robinson ate delicately and made small talk the gun microphone in the bag fed their conversation, via the transmitter in the hand bag, to a car parked across the road. In the car a DIC operative recorded it on his laptop as a digital sound file. It was fairly boring listening material.

The two DIC members in the restaurant and the operative in the car didn’t know who the woman meeting Sternway was.

It was close to four when they finished their eating. The restaurant wasn’t busy, but was waiting for the build up after five o clock. The young man and the girl were lingering over dessert and on the verge of ordering coffees that neither of them wanted.

Sternway called for the bill.

“The answers are clear, but what guarantee do I have that he won’t suffer the fate of his predecessor?” Mrs Robinson spoke suddenly, yet quietly and with confidence.

Sternway was silent. He gave her a look that would have had a time served assassin feeling queasy, but Mrs Robinson was made of sterner stuff.

She had met her husband at Oxford University. He had been slimmer then and both of them were studying politics. They’d both had an interest in politics, but for different reasons. He was man with a view for creating social justice for the working classes and she saw it as a route to an easy life. They had courted, married and she had worked hard to see him make it up the ladder of success. She had introduced him to Terry Bloom, the future prime minister, long before the man was publicly noted. Robinson had served as a back bencher under Bloom, but with her support he had made good contacts. It was Mrs Robinson who had paid attention to the changes in the wind and had pushed her husband towards Gary Braine before any change had taken place there. She was monstrously brilliant at manoeuvring her husband into the right circles, right places and right jobs. Braine hadn’t given Robinson a place in the cabinet. Melinda Robinson saw her chances slipping away and had engineered the situation with the then home secretary, Robert Cole. She had cajoled her husband into contacting Sternway, creating suspicion around Robert Cole about his investigating MI6 foreign operative work. The rest had been easily done, a scandal and the carefully arranged hill walking ’accident’ carried out by Marco Spencer. Mrs Robinson, a favourite of the PM, had arranged her loyal husband’s promotion, in the aftermath, to Home Secretary. She wanted the view from number Ten Downing Street. She needed more control of Sternway.

“Question three…” She paused whilst the waiter took the card and cash tip away. “Question three are you sure that… it can’t be done… “

Sternway kept looking at her, not answering. The waiter returned handed back the card and walked away. Sternway rose, smoothed his clothes and very suddenly grabbed Mrs Robinson’s hand bag.

“Forgive me.” He opened it, took out a small digital recorder and pressed the off switch. He leant in and whispered in her ear.

“You’re a lovely lady Mrs Robinson and people like you do scare me a little, but you tell Tarquin that it will happen in the next hour, as arranged, and if he doesn’t show some backbone he’ll regret it.“

With that he put the recorder on the table and walked away. Mrs Robinson had flushed at the threat, Sternway was a dangerous man. She put the recorder back in her bag and left. The young man and the young woman called for their bill and left.

By the time the young couple of DIC watchers got to the car the digital recording was back at Euston Tower via the internet as was the photograph of Mrs Robinson, who’d then been identified.

The whisper was unclear and had been sent to the technical department to ‘enhance it’. Fulton was on tenterhooks. He knew if he could get a link he’d have Sternway in the bag.

St Thomas’ Hospital London

4-15 p.m.

April 19th

The DIC team at the hospital, where the taxi driver who’d got shot taking Mason over Vauxhall Bridge, consisted of two people rotating shifts of two hours. Jack was a good boss and knew that sitting in a hospital all day waiting wasn’t interesting to the kind of people he hired.

Sonita was one of the Euston Tower permanent staff. She liked the job, watching CCTV, listening to radio transmissions, checking e-mail submissions and the occasional special jobs. She was twenty two and made excellent money in a civil service job which offered a lot of interesting work. She might get a home based DIC job later on, when one became available, but the London jobs didn’t come up often and that’s where she liked to live. The hospital staff had been told to alert either her or her alternating watcher the moment that the taxi driver, Don Chapman, woke up.

“Mr Chapman is awake miss.” A nurse stood by her and leant in to speak quietly.

Sonita had been day dreaming and was for a moment flustered. She’d been excited by the CCTV footage of the last three days. She’d watched David McKie at the bus station and all the other action that had been captured, isolated and put together as a digital file for use in the building. She was wondering what it was like to hold the pistol, pull the trigger. She pushed away her thoughts and went into the room.

Don had a bandage over his head and was looking around the room.

“Who are you?” He croaked. “Not the press?”

“No.”

“Shame.”

“I expect you’ll get the papers here yet. I’m civil service.”

“Civil service?”

“Yes.” She winked.

“You look a bit young.”

“I’m the office junior, sent to do one job, ask one question.” She smiled.

“Well ask away pretty, but you only get the answer if I get a kiss.”

“You’re a well man, I can tell, but can you remember where the guy with the gun who got into your taxi was going.”

“Yes I can because when he pulled the gun and started shooting I thought ‘oh no I hope they stop him’.”

“Where were you talking him?”

Don told her

“Are you sure?” Sonita’s eye brows nearly touched her hair line.

“You don’t forget that in a hurry.”

To his surprise and delight Sonita kissed him on the lips.

“Thank you, Thank you.” She ran from the room for the nearest hospital exit and once outside switched on her satellite phone.

Euston Tower London

4-15 p.m.

April 19th

Jack Fulton burst into the Liam and David’s office.

“The target was Downing Street. I’ve called and they’re on alert. I’ve told the Prime Minister that I’m sending operatives to number ten. You two are to go, now. Check weapons and be ready.”

“You think Stanton’s going to get in there?” David thought it very unlikely.

“I’ve no idea, but he must have plan and a way in. Now get going. Take a laptop and satellite phone, keep in contact.”

They left the room. The pool car had been left waiting at the front of the building for them. It was a grey Citroen C4.

Jack went back to his office and called the PM to tell him that his men were on their way. He put out an alert for CCTV in the Westminster area to be scoured by every watcher; orders given to drop everything else. Jack made a personal call to Bill, the Westminster DIC operative, but there was no reply.

On Lord North Street Bill was conscious and heard his phone ringing, but couldn’t answer it.

At the gate to Downing Street the old man with glasses and thinning grey hair, brown mackintosh carrying a laptop bag, Sig 220 ‘rail’ in a shoulder holster noted the heightened security.

“Bill Hutchings DIC.” He showed the DIC pass.

“We’ve been expecting you.” Stanton kept calm, but inside he was grinning like a crocodile in an abattoir. This meant that DIC knew the target, but it also meant they had cleared the way for him, he knew he didn’t have long, but he was used to this kind of pressure.