Stan Mason - Stopping World War Three

‘Okay!’ I shouted furiously. ‘Everyone stay exactly where you are!’ I blinked twice in the light to adjust my vision. The room was an ordinary office. There was nothing to cause an eyebrow to be raised in suspicion. Two men inside the room sat in comfortable armchairs and they froze in the midst of their discussion as a result of my rude intervention. One looked as though he was the manager of the hotel, the other may have been his assistant or the accountant. They stared at me blankly as I took up a menacing position.

‘May I help you?’ began the manager in a situation that certainly had never been included in his training manual.

‘Where’s my wife?’ I demanded angrily, determined to make my presence felt. ‘I know she’s here! Where is she?’

‘Your wife,’ he replied coolly, although his eyes never left the wavering barrel of the Beretta. He obviously considered me to be an enraged husband whose wife had gone off with a lover. ‘What is her name?’

‘Janice Scott! I want to know where she is and I want to know now! Do you hear me? Now!’ I was amazed at how forceful I could be when the chips were down.

He opened the book in front of him. ‘This is the hotel register. I’m just checking it.’ I waited as his eyes ran over the entries and then he looked up. ‘She was in room 418 but she checked out of the hotel early this morning.’

‘Is this for real? Or are you conning me?’

‘This is a reputable hotel, sir. Of course it’s real!’

‘Was she on her own?’

‘Room 418 is a single room,’ he replied calmly. ‘I suggest you hire a private detective if you want further information.’

‘Did she leave a forwarding address?’ My argument was getting weaker by the second.

‘Guests never leave forwarding addresses.’

I lowered the gun much to the relief of the two men and replaced it into its holster with some difficulty. ‘Can I get out of the hotel through this door?’ I asked sheepishly, pointing to another door.

‘You can,’ related the manager. ‘Walk up the slope to the fire-door ahead. It leads to Reception.’

On leaving the hotel, I felt an absolute chump. I had made a complete fool of myself. From the start I should have approached the Reception desk to ask whether Jan was staying there. How stupid I was to have donned on a white coat, swung to and fro on a window-cleaner’s cradle and threatened to shoot the manager and his assistant in the cellar. In addition, I had frightened a young chambermaid. So Jan had stayed there, clearly of her own free will, until early that morning. What was she doing in that hotel all by herself? None of it seemed to make any sense. Someone was using me like a pawn again and I didn’t like it!

I returned to London pretty frustrated and went to the restaurant where Penny and I had enjoyed so many precious evenings. This time it was different. I sat alone at our favourite table working out a plan of campaign on a white serviette. I didn’t want to repeat the farce which had taken place at The Golden Peacock. The weaponry division at Dandy Advanced Electronics would allow no quarter in terms of its security systems. Any mistake there would end in disaster!

It was early evening when I visited Chris Devon for the assault on the weaponry division. There was a strong feeling of malaise in my bones and I felt considerably reluctant to undertake the task. In my opinion, everything was riding on Devon and I still thought of him as an ugly, unshaven, untidy, filthy individual with a special talent for electronics which were as yet unproven. I had already discounted his efforts in relation to Jan’s message on the recording tape from the answering machine, especially as he had caused the original tape to become corrupted.

I parked the car outside his house and paused to allow the events of the past few days to filter through my mind. I didn’t really have to go through with this caper but I could imagine what would happen if I didn’t. Schmuel Musaphia would set the wolves on me. That much would be certain. I had a job to do and it had to be done otherwise Jan’s life would be in danger too. I had a gut feeling that the Heavens would fall in on my if I took fright now and ran. But why had the theft of the plans suddenly become so urgent? It was a shame that no one trusted me sufficiently to tell me. ‘Into each life some rain must fall,’ I sang the old tune to myself, ‘But too much is falling in mine!’ I had to face up to reality and hope that Chris Devon was the right person to support me!

I hammered on his door and waited impatiently for him to come. It wasn’t long before I could hear his footsteps on the stairs.

‘Oh it’s you again man,’ he greeted casually as he opened the door. ‘I can see by your face that this is the moment, man.’

‘Yes,’ I confirmed. ‘This is the moment.’ I followed him up the stairs to his room. ‘You’d better get your things together. I’ll tell you all about it on the way to the complex.’

‘Not in a million years!’ he reacted, taking a stance which intimated that he was refusing to go. ‘What do you think this is, man? Boy’s Own magazine! We’re going to break into a place that’s bristling with the latest security equipment and armed guards and you wanna tell me about it on the way in your car. I don’t think so, man!’ How do I know what kind of equipment I need. If we cut the caper as you suggest, we’d have to keep coming back here for more stuff! If you think I’m going with you on that kind of deal you must come from Mars!’

‘All right… all right!’ I conceded. ‘You don’t have to get excited! I’ll brief you on the layout of the place.’ I took some papers provided for me by Penny from my pocket and handed them to him. He surprised me by sitting down at the table before examining the drawings, pushing the cups away on the table to lay the pages flat, and running his fingers over them as a guide.

‘The first hurdle is the electrified fence. We’ll have to short-circuit part of it and cut our way in,’ I advanced, having worked out the schedule on the serviette in the restaurant.

‘Are you crazy, man!’ he spat angrily as a shocked expression appeared at the top of his beard. ‘You’ve been seeing too many films about World War Two! The minute you short-circuit the fence, everyone in security is going to know that someone’s breakin’ in. The faults show up immediately on the circuit system. monitors will also show the exact point of the short-circuit the second it occurs. Within two minutes, the place will be crawling with security officers. You’d be caught there and then.’

I was stunned at his revelation and annoyed at my own ignorance. ‘Then how do we get into the complex?’ I was mystified to know the answer.

‘We fly in there, man!’ he riposted.

‘I don’t get you,’ I told him puzzled by his remark.

‘Aint you heard of trampolines?’

‘Trampolines? The kind you jump on?’

‘What other kinds are there, man? We take two miniature trampolines. One of us jumps over the fence on it. The other one throws his trampoline over the top so we have a way of gettin’ out. The second on then makes the jump.’

‘You realise this is a ten foot electrified fence.’

‘You’ll just have to make sure you jump high enough,’ he said insolently.

‘Where do we get these trampolines? My principal advises me we have to do the job tonight.’

‘I’ve got two of them in my garage downstairs,’ replied Devon casually. ‘They always come in handy. Providin’ you get your arse high enough, we shouldn’t have any problem with the fence.’

‘There’s the scanner at the sentry station. After they checked my pass, the sentry lifted the barrier manually to let my car through.