Authors: Joe Thompson-Swift
I realised quickly what had happened. The first 4 photos had been taken from down the side of my settee where the micro tapes were too. The tapes contained my recordings of Ahmed when I had bugged his house. Photo’s 5&6 had been taken by MI5 with a night vision infra-red telephoto lens. These clearly showed Ahmed and me on the beach at Cornwall. It showed him examining the red folder as I held open the black empty briefcase that MI5 had given me and by Ahmed’s feet on the ground, was the holdall containing the money.
I tried to subdue a silent thought of resignation. The three of them sat watching me with a quiet satisfaction. I wasn’t often stuck for words but on this occasion they were hard to come by. But now Commander Bennit broke the silence. ‘Do you wish to ask any questions?’
‘Questions, Yes, I had questions,’ I told him. ‘Your evidence would be that I agreed to steal the formula in return for the money. Having stolen it from the Research Lab, I decided to double cross Ahmed, take the money, kill him, and then sell the formula on to some other foreign power for more money.’
All three of them stared at me. Then Inspector Marsh answered. ‘You are getting warm.’
‘But why would I want to kill him?’ I asked. The Inspector smiled and said: ‘Simple. You killed him with explosives, knowing he would kill you after the fake formula was discovered and you had taken the money.’
‘But this one in the plastic bag is a fake too. How could I have double crossed him if the one I stole was a fake in the first place?’ Sergeant Morton shook his head. ‘I am afraid not, David.’ He answered. ‘This is a genuine copy of the original with your finger prints on the red cover.’
‘But you told me it was a fake.’ I shouted.
‘We have bad memories.’ Morton replied. ‘Like we can forget all about your criminal activities. But everything has a price.’
I was in deep shit. They knew it and I knew it too. From where I was sitting, I didn’t stand a chance. Any jury would convict me on that evidence. The motive was clear and the evidence strong. I was being blackmailed. They were professionals of a different kind to me. It was like being in a cage with no way out. I had sold my soul to the devil. They sat like vultures waiting for my answer. ‘Ok.’ I blurted. ‘What do you want me to do to stay out of jail and keep the money?’
A well composed look of smug satisfaction was shared between them. It seemed that the heat of any uncertainty had burnt itself out. They had the advantage and I held nothing but a desire of hanging on to what I had, namely the money and my liberty.
‘I think we have an understanding, dear boy,’ said the Commander. ‘A deal of immunity from prosecution and retention of the money puts you under obligation to the crown. Are you prepared to swear allegiance to the Sovereign and State?’
I couldn’t wait to nod fast enough. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Good,’ he continued, ‘then you will be required to sign the OSA (Official Secrets Act).’ Jesus Christ! I thought. This all seemed like a bizarre dream. I had graduated from being a thief to a secret agent. The only difference was I had no choice.
Sergeant Morton produced a sheet of paper headed with the code for the OSA. It stated I was now employed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior and that I fully understood the rules and penalty for treason. My allegiance was to the sovereign and crown at first issue before personal considerations.
After I had read through it, Morton’s index finger pointed to a dotted signature line. Elaine Marsh produced a pen. I looked at the three awaiting faces then signed my life away. They reminded me of the three wise monkeys, see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil. Now I felt the need to talk.
‘Ok. I’m on the level with you now, so what am I going to do about Ahmed’s friends? One of them has already called me twice. I’m supposed to leave a message on an answerphone for them. What do I do now?’
A steely look came over the commander’s eyes as he nodded and spoke. ‘This is a very serious operation which involves taking out a whole cell of Iranian terrorists. Ahmed was one of five. It is in the interests of National Security that it is done quickly. We have already contrived a disinformation story in the national newspapers. You will have read that he was blown up by an old WW2 land mine washed up on a beach? So far the terrorists are none the wiser. But it is important you meet your man soon. They will be keen not to lose sight of the formula. You do understand?’
I nodded, enthused with the details I was learning, especially that Ahmed belonged to a terrorist organisation. It was all confirmation of my earlier suspicions.
‘Good,’ he continued. ‘You are obviously intrigued why this formula is of great importance to them? I can tell you it represents a deadly toxin for a new cyanide concentrate. It is absolutely lethal even by mild contamination. We know you have been into the Tropical Research Lab in Blackfriars Road. No doubt you saw some concentrate in a phial labelled XP42?’
It all came back to me in my mind. ‘Yes, it was clear like water’ I answered.
‘That is correct. It is also odourless. But that small phial could kill up to 50,000 people. Just imagine what 50 gallons would do if it was filtered into the British Water Supply Systems? Now you can understand why the Iranians must never be allowed to get their hands on this formula.’
He paused for effect. It had the desired reaction on me as my body jerked stiffly leaving me stunned for words until I let out my tension with a laud sigh. ‘Phew! This could result in genocide,’ I answered.
‘Precisely dear boy, and let me tell you, our intelligence information is that is exactly their intentions,’ he added. ‘Hell!’ I shouted, not wanting to believe I could have unwittingly have helped them to do it!
‘But you were not to know that,’ he added. ‘Ahmed had sucked you in with his gene cloning story. It was a simple ‘steal to order’ job for you. The lure of money is often a curse on people and can lead any good man into all kind of trouble.’ Ashamedly, I nodded back at him as the sergeant and inspector looked on.
Commander Bennit continued. ‘The name of the man who called you is Halshid Pandres. There was no information about the fake formula found scattered on the beach. Hopefully, the Iranians will assume it was an accident and that you still have the formula. It is only logical that if they thought otherwise, you would not be here talking to us now.’ Commander Bennit smirked. I felt the blood drain from my face as a cold chill went through me. Christ! I had only been a fraction away from my own death. Elaine Marsh came to my rescue with a smile, ‘But as you have heard from Commander Bennit, we have always had your welfare and interests in mind.’
‘Thanks.’ I whispered.
‘And the interests of the United Kingdom,’ added the sergeant.
‘Therefore,’ continued the commander, ‘we are all in this together now and we each have a very important part to play.’
I no longer felt disenchanted and self-confession was good for the soul whatever that is supposed to be.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.
For a moment we all seemed to rearrange ourselves to a more comfortable seating position. Then Inspector Marsh took over the conversation.
‘We want you to phone Pandres and arrange a meeting back at the meat and fish counter in Tesco’s. Do not look upwards as the meeting will be filmed by the stores cameras and that way we can identify any other members of the terrorist cell. You will tell Pandres that Ahmed’s demise was a freak accident and that you were scared and have hidden the XP42 formula. Your acting ability will help to assure them you are keeping to the original agreement.’
‘But what about the money? Maybe he had a shadow with him who saw the handover and what happened afterwards?’ I queried.
Their faces lit up into smiles.
‘We have already dealt with that Jack’ Inspector Marsh continued. ‘He did have somebody watching his back. That was Pandres. But we had already arranged for an emergency traffic contraflow with the Cornwall police which was timed to exclude him following Ahmed before he turned off to the beach. It culminated in a half hour delay for him. Your business with Ahmed was already done before he arrived. So you see it was too late for Pandres to see anything. The local police have got Ahmed’s car and Pandres will have assumed the £50.000 was left inside until the formula was verified. But from his point of view the transaction never completed. The Iranians will not bother to collect or claim a hired car.’
I found myself trying to smile. It was difficult not to admire their planning. Then an idea came to me as I could see another £50.000 coming! When I looked at their faces I almost blushed with shame. I knew their heads were miles in front of mine as three pairs of eyes stared back at me. I guessed they knew what I was thinking.
‘Yes,’ said Inspector Marsh, ‘We are telepathic too. With your acting ability you can squeeze the golden goose again.’ My feet shuffled upon the carpet. I knew they were trained to read body language. ‘There are perks to the job,’ I smiled weakly.
‘Sometimes,’ agreed Commander Bennit as the others nodded. ‘But right now, we are concerned with the security of the UK and that comes before anything as stated in the Official Secrets Acts.’
I couldn’t disagree as I had already signed that. Sergeant Morton then spoke, ‘You are now in possession of classified information. We shall say no more on that. Continue to go about your normal affairs. Pass your message on to Pandres and arrange the meeting at Tesco’s for Friday at 2pm. For obvious reasons you will not have brought the formula to him there as you have never yet met each other. It’s up to you to convince him that Ahmed’s death was a freak accident. You will show him the report about it in the Evening Standard newspaper which we will give you. Is that clear?’
‘Like crystal.’ I assured him.
‘Remember at all times you are Jack Thomson the thief and nothing more. These people are experts at spotting mistakes and one slip could ruin our whole operation. Once you feel you have won his confidence you will agree to telephone him again to meet and hand over the formula, in exchange for the £50.000 balance of course’ he smiled and added, ‘We will inform you where the exchange is to take place. Got that?’
‘I understand everything.’ I told him.
Commander Bennit spoke again. ‘Right, I think that concludes our meeting for now. You can return home and phone through the message to Pandres immediately.’
I agreed to do just that.
Without further words, the newspaper was handed to me as Inspector Marsh called a taxi to return me to Battersea Park. I then left the room with three handshakes behind me and waited downstairs for the cab to arrive.
It was an uncanny feeling that drove off with me as the driver took me on to my destination. I knew I had been recruited into the world of espionage!
It was still raining as I arrived home. The cockney cab driver had given me his best spiel on how bad business had been on the day. He probably got a few more tips to top up his fares this way. His face spread into a smile as I palmed him two pounds extra. I received his blessing wondering if he gave all his customers the same story.
Indoors now, I made haste to place my message on the answerphone for Pandres to collect and as arranged it would be for 2pm on Friday. I spoke clearly and tried to convey a friendly tone. The meeting was two days away so I anticipated he would get back to me to confirm it within the next few hours. There was no anxiety about meeting at Tesco’s again as long as I could convince him the formula was still very much available. I didn’t see any problem. In fact, I felt rather relieved that the store cameras would be watching it all. What I needed now was a promise from Sharon. Louisa also owed me a call and Aisha had simply disappeared while Susan was flying everywhere due to her job. I still wondered where Aisha had got to. But a change of mind is a change of fortune, I told myself.
Satisfied that things were ok for the next few days, I decided to give Sharon a ring. I was in need of a diversion and some therapy. Sharon knew what she liked and I liked what she knew. I dialled and waited. Both she and my luck were in!
It was nice to hear her bubbly voice again. Why had I taken so long to ring her? She asked. I was so engrossed in writing my book that I lost track of time. You know how it is with writers, I told her. There was no way I could tell her about the hairy scary events of the past few days and she was used to gaps in our relationship anyway. Nothing was cast in stone and that’s the way we liked it, so we arranged to meet in the evening at 8pm. Of course a nice steak and wine dinner would go down well, I told her. She would bring some new massage oils along with herself, she promised. I knew what that meant.
The time was now approaching 4pm. There was time to catch up with writing some more of my novel so I decided to bash on for a while, then have a shower and get ready for my evening of promise with Sharon.
My thoughts flowed onto the typewriter as I quickly became absorbed into the thick of the story. Oddly enough, I was just into a flirting scene with an undercover policewoman. She was very experienced and taught me things with her tongue that even I didn’t know. It is amazing how characters develop, I thought.
Time passed and reality returned with the carriage clock chimes for seven bells. I had one hour before Sharon arrived. At least I had completed another six pages leading into chapter ten. Like clockwork, I now went through the necessary steps in the shower, giving a good spring clean to all my nooks and crannies. Then I splashed on some paco rabani making me feel like my body had a new skin.
With ten minutes to spare, I selected some music of Chris De Burgh. ‘Lady in Red’ got me right in the mood for presenting Sharon with a big passionate kiss when she came in the door. Next I tidied the cushions and dimmed the lights, ready for her arrival. Just then the bloody telephone rang.
For a fleeting second, I thought my hopes were to be dashed, but no, it was the voice of Pandres. He spoke briefly, ‘Your message is good. We shall meet as you have arranged.’ He paused for my answer. I responded quickly. ‘Hi, glad you got it ok. I have read the papers and I’m sorry to hear what happened to Ahmed. It was real bad luck. ‘How will you know who I am?’ Pandres gave a mild chuckle and answered, ‘Don’t worry, I shall know you.’