Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series)

The Constantine Legacy, Andrew’s
inaugural Jake Dillon novel was first
published in 2006. Andrew’s writing is
a reflection of his extensive travels and
inherent interest in national security
and covert operations. Andrew lives in
Dorset, where many of Dillon’s tours
take place, with his family and he is
currently completing yet another novel
in the series of Dillon adventure thrillers.

I loosened my tie, took off my jacket and casually
threw it over the back of a chair in the far corner of the
small bland office. I returned here after each assignment
and took comfort in the thought that it wasn’t a place I
had to visit very often.

I’d been on the Ferran & Cardini payroll for just
over a year now. It was an investment company that
didn’t really have any clients or anything to invest in,
which was just as well because I didn’t know the first
thing about that! Life was good. I got paid a large six
figure retainer, and I received a cash in hand bonus after
every job. I still wasn’t sure which MI5 department
Declan Ferran and Richard Cardini had worked for, but
I wasn’t complaining. This was no two-bob company,
and the smart Docklands property displayed a façade of
respectability and wealth.

The building, above ground level, was everything
you’d expect with a spacious reception area, and lots of
stainless steel and tinted glass. Even the security guards
looked real.

My office and the other rooms that made up the
special projects department were located four floors
down. An innocent looking tradesman’s entrance at
the side of the building gave access to a bomb-proof
elevator, which only allows you entry after you’ve been
biometrically scanned.

Edward Levenson-Jones, LJ for short, was my
immediate boss. When I gave him the report of my last
assignment, he put it onto his desk like the foundation
stone of the British Museum, and said. “The Partners
want to introduce a couple of new ideas for tackling the
issue of this large sum of money that has been pledged
to those high spirited Italians you spoke to some weeks
back.”

“For
us
to tackle them!” I corrected.
“Well done, good to see you’re still on the ball, old
son. Because you’ll always need to be one step ahead with
this next job.”
“You forget that I’m already covered in scar tissue
as a result of the Partners’ good ideas.”
“Well, as luck would have it, this one is better than
most,” LJ said, ignoring my remark.
I personally saw each job as having a high risk
factor to the people who were involved, and this one was
definitely sounding as if it were on the fringe; but LJ,
with his colourful bow ties and Panatela cigars, was my
immediate boss and his decision was final.
Inside the wall safe lay a bundle of papers with the
firm’s crest upon it, the information no doubt extremely
sensitive. He picked the papers out and quickly flicked
through them.
“Anyway, the cheeky buggers have come back to
us, and want the Partners to stump up the money sooner
than was agreed. Apparently they want to see a sign of
good will to their cause, so to speak.”
“Do they now,” I said sardonically, “I bet the
Partners agreed immediately to that?”
LJ shot me one of his looks over the top of his
glasses. “Well, funnily enough old son, a file was handed
to me by one of my old pals over at MI5 two days ago,
that may just tie in with all this.”
“Suppose, just for one moment, that there was a
way of giving the Italians what they wanted, but without
it costing the firm a penny?”
I didn’t say a word. He went on.
“Approximately three miles off the coast of Dorset
there’s a sunken boat by the name of the Gin Fizz, and
on-board is a safe with two items inside.”
“One of these items people of a criminal type, shall
we say, would go to great lengths to get hold of if they
knew of its existence.”
He smiled, and sipped his coffee. I still said nothing.
LJ continued enthusiastically, his voice upbeat.
“This boat is thirty metres down on the seabed,
and as usual, the Partners are being cagey about the
details. They’re saying that she got into trouble and
sunk. I personally think that she was scuttled. Either
way, she went down, crew and all. But would you believe
it, the skipper miraculously survived. Now, you may be
wondering, how we know about this, and why we’re
getting involved? Well, the Gin Fizz happens to belong
to the Cabinet Minister, Oliver Hawkworth. For obvious
reasons, he doesn’t want anyone to know where that boat
is. That’s why I now have the file, and because this may
get messy, MI5 doesn’t want any involvement.”
“But, surely the coastguard would have picked her
up on their radar?”
“The full time skipper,” LJ said walking over
to a tall cupboard and extracting a large scale chart,
“Had been replaced with another, and he was under
strict instructions to have no radio communication,
whatsoever. And anyway, the Gin Fizz was fitted with a
very sophisticated radar jammer.”
“Hawkworth is saying that it was so he could
sneak away for the occasional dirty weekend without his
minders tracking him. So you see absolutely no one apart
from the Partners and I know where she is at this present
moment.”
My boss is one of those men, who whenever he
tells you about something, has to doodle or draw. On
this occasion he started by tracing a line along the French
coastline, which also showed the Channel Islands and the
English coast.
“Now then,” he said spreading the chart further
over the conference table. “The information that we
have, is that the Gin Fizz started her journey about here.”
He put a mark on the chart, near to La Rochelle on the
West coast of France. “She set off at first tide and made
her way up the coast to a point, somewhere about here.”
He marked a point just off the Normandy coast, near to
Sillon de Talbert, continuing his line up towards Jersey.
“Now, somewhere between the Normandy coast
and Jersey she met up with another much larger vessel and
according to the skipper, who I might add, has already
been extensively questioned by MI5, it was at this point
a small package was transferred from an unmarked ship,
over to the Gin Fizz.”
“According to his report, the men on board the
other vessel were all heavily armed.”
“What about the nationality of this other ship?”
“Don’t know. You see the ship appeared to have
no markings or flags flying. But the skipper did mention
that the men on board had an Asian look about them,
and that the overall appearance of them and their vessel
was extremely sea-worn!”
The line went on up to the Channel Islands and
stopped. “Of course we can be relatively sure that this
part of the voyage is correct, because it would seem that
she was spotted on the way to Jersey. I had my source at
the coastguard in the Channel Islands do a small favour
for me, and run a check for that date and time, and
sure enough the Gin Fizz had filed her course with the
authorities there, and the same applied when he checked
with the French.”
“What did your chap at the coastguard say about
the course of the Gin Fizz after she left their waters?” I
asked.
LJ looked at the chart laid out before us. “Well - it
all gets a bit strange at this point really,” he said. It would
appear that she is still tied up at Bouilly Port near St.
Brelades Bay, where she’s been since she docked a week
ago.”
He saw my puzzlement at this, even before it had
arrived on my face.
“So what’s the scam, if she’s now lying at the
bottom of the English Channel?” I asked.
“I did say you would need to be one step ahead on
this one. The thought that I had was that they used two
identical boats, or if you like a nautical doppelganger.
The one now tied up at Bouilly Port is the clean decoy,
while the other fitted with the radar jammer sailed for
England, after having all the goodies transferred to her.”
I got up and paced across the office, stretching my
back as I went. I said, “Well this is all very intriguing LJ,
and you have my undivided attention.”
“But – what’s so special about the contents of
that safe that would merit swapping boats, the Partners’
interest and indeed this department’s involvement?”
LJ was one of those people who had to build up to
a grand finale. “Well it’s very simple really. Inside that safe
are two plates of the highest quality, for counterfeiting
Euro note currency, oh and a half a kilo of cocaine.
The Partners told me that our friend in Government is
crapping himself, this boat sinking was definitely not on
the agenda. It’s an absolute catastrophe for him in his
position, especially as he had lent the dammed thing to
one of his cronies for the weekend. So you see, the need
for discretion and the utmost secrecy is vital.”
“Forgive me if I’ve got this all wrong. But are you
suggesting that we actually give the Italians counterfeit
Euros to fund their fight against the Sicilian Mafia?”
“If only it were that simple,” LJ said with a heavy
sigh. He took out another slim Panatela cigar and lit it.
“The idea is that we get the plates and the cocaine
from the sunken boat, in order for the Partners to return
them, temporarily you understand, to the person who
owns them. We then get paid in sterling by Hawkworth
for clearing up this mess, and as a bonus our Minister’s
friend produces a large sum of counterfeit currency as
a little thank you, which we will then hand over to the
Italians.”
“Oh no!” I said. “You surely haven’t agreed to
stoop that low – have you?”
“What the hell do the Partners think we are down
here?”
“I sometimes wonder,” agreed LJ raising his
eyebrows, “but I suppose the Partners have to look
after certain parties, especially those that are politically
sensitive.”
“Don’t give me their sob story, it might make me
break down and cry.”
LJ nodded, removed his glasses and rubbed his
tired eyes with his fingertips.
“Look Jake, the Partners want us to retrieve these
items. It’s a way of stopping a scandal from hitting the
gutter press, and the fact is, how shall I put this? Favours
that can be banked, will be banked. It should last the firm
for years to come, and we also get paid a handsome fee
for our trouble. Another factor is that a certain member
of a certain family is long overdue for retirement in Sicily.
All this can be achieved without implicating the firm or
costing the Generals or us a penny. Comment?”
“You mean that the Generals are going to use
the ‘funny money’ to fund a Mafia war in Sicily, to buy
weapons and then to finance their own dubious ventures
afterwards?”
“Quite so,” said LJ.
“Call me cynical but, there is obviously more to
this than you’re telling me?”
LJ tried his impression of loosening up a little and
said patiently, “Look, old son, it’s like this. The boat
sinking is merely coincidence and the fact that she belongs
to a Cabinet Minister is just our good luck. True, it does
now play a small part, in what is very much a bigger
picture with the Italians. She holds a vital element - the
plates - and yes you have been chosen to dive and retrieve
what’s inside that safe.”
I said nothing.
“Look, the firm is in a very strong position,” said
LJ. “If the Italians do manage to create a re-organisation
of control in Sicily, we as a firm stand to not only make
millions out of it, but will have been, in our own small
way, instrumental in changing the lives of thousands of
families forever. It really is as simple as that.”
“Oh, I can see how the Partners’ devious minds
are working. They’re naturally working the firm into a
position, where both of these clients will be inextricably
indebted to us. While at the same time creating a flood
of counterfeit currency throughout Europe. Brilliant,
because this in turn will create panic and instability in the
Euro as a currency. The rate will drop through the floor,
which will be good news for anyone buying that currency
at precisely the right time. But they’re wrong.”
Levenson-Jones looked up sharply, and began
tapping his pen on the desk.
“You think so?” he said.
“I know so,” I told him. “This Minister will
be watching his back, and the Italians are tough guys.
They’ve all been around. They’re just as likely to double
cross the firm if things don’t go their way in Sicily. After
all it was probably the Mafia who gave them their rank in
the first place. Then the Partners will be all about urgent
emails, all the way back down to us when the shit hits the
fan.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes; LJ sat there
with his lower lip jutted forward, tapping it with his pen.
In between this he said “Umm” five times.
After a few minutes of this, he got up out of his
chair and began to pace, not wanting eye contact with
me as he spoke.
“I want to tell you something. Two days ago,
when I first got wind of this, I spoke to an old friend and
colleague of yours, Carter over at Military Intelligence. I
believe you worked with him when you were there. He
told me that he knew of only fifty people in this country,
who had the expertise and knowledge to carry off an
assignment of this type, discreetly. He said that there were
only five who could do it undetected. Carter said that you
would be his unconditional choice.”
“Was he drunk at the time?” I said.
“Perhaps,” said LJ, who considered anyone with
talent, as dubious.
“But the Partners might wish to reconsider their
options if they knew that you were against it.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” I told him. “The Partners
will never pass up a opportunity of making money
and acquiring favours from the Government. They’re
probably up in the atrium now gorging themselves on
self-congratulation.”

I was right. Within twenty-four hours, I had an
email confirming the Dorset assignment. This was to be
the first stage of a two-part operation.

As LJ had said when I voiced my doubts, “But
there is no one else for this job, old son. Firstly, you lived
in Dorset for many years and know your way around
the local coastline. Secondly, you speak four languages
fluently with the correct syntax, and your considerable
army intelligence training, which I might add, will be
crucial to the success of the job.” And last of all, he threw
in, “Oh, and you’re a qualified wreck diver, of course.”