Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series) (22 page)

“What was that all about,” asked Fiona.
I handed her the folded piece of paper as we walked
back down the narrow side street towards our hire car.
“But - it’s blank?”

“Delicious,” said Vince, “absolutely melts in your
mouth.”
It was perfectly true. The pastries and cakes in the
little café were superb and among the some of the best
I’ve ever tasted.
“Did DC Stewart get it?” I asked quietly.
“Oh yes,” said Vince. He tapped the leather
rucksack on his lap.
“Went like a dream. Just like I said it would. An
astonishingly simple thing to get into. The people who
make shoddy safes like that really should be locked up. It
only took young Stewart forty-five seconds to open it up!
But, although this must seem immodest, he did have the
benefit of me talking him through the whole process with
the bluetooth earpiece I gave him. This obviously made
the whole job much easier, and of course we also had the
added bonus of being able to use the Black Widow.”
“Black Widow, what’s that?” asked Fiona, leaning
forward and lowering her voice to just above a whisper.
Vince lowered his voice conspiratorially. “The
Black Widow, my dear, is a real piece of hi-tech gadgetry.
Only got it last week through a chap I know in Brighton.
Who, thinking about it, is a very strange and definitely
unsavoury character with almost white hair and very
red eyes, but he does know his stuff.” Vince always got
excited when he was talking about gadgets, especially
those that were illegal.
“This Fiona.” He held up a black flat box-like
object about six inches square, “is the latest professional’s
delight, direct from America. It uses X-ray images and
magnetic impulse energy to re-align the tumblers, all you
have to do is stick it straight onto the front of the safe.
The rest, as they say, is history.” He took another fresh
seed cake and devoured half of it in one mouthful.
“You did make the call?” I asked.
“Of course I did, I used the public phone in a
near by hotel and dialled the boss’s unofficial direct line,
like you wanted. LJ picked it up almost immediately
as luck would have it. I told him that the meeting had
gone as expected with no hitches and that we would be
moving to another location imminently. Advised that
the target ‘Hudson’ has been approached with success in
Marrakech, and should be eliminated from the picture
as soon as was physically possible. LJ confirmed that
he understood what had to be done and hung up.” He
smiled, “Do you think that Hussan will think Hudson
means Hussan when he intercepts the call?”
“Only unless he’s more stupid than I think he is.”
I replied.
“I know for a fact that his department is in charge
of call monitoring. That means every call made from a
public telephone is routed through a central computer
system.”
“This is programmed to do the work of a thousand
people. He’ll get the message alright, but he’ll never be
able to trace where the call was made to.”
Vince chuckled in between mouthfuls of honey
cake. He’d taken an unreasonable dislike to Hassan and
loved the idea of him looking for a non-existent assassin.
“So, how did it go with Flackyard?” asked Vince.
“And why are you constantly looking at your watch,
Jake? You weren’t followed here, were you?”
“No. Stewart is due to collect you in five minutes,”
I said; it was 1.55 p.m.
“Well I’m sure he’ll get here as quickly as he can
given the traffic out there.”
“Anyway you won’t get him here any quicker by
interrogating the watch every few seconds. Tell me about
your chat with our friend the gunrunner. And please
have a honey cake. You are absolutely positive that you
weren’t followed?”
“Vince for the last time, we weren’t followed.” I
took a honey cake and told Vince about our conversation
with Flackyard. “But that’s not true,” Vince told me at
various places in the narrative.
“How do you know it’s not true? Either you want
me to adapt the conversation, for your entertainment or
not.” I jested.
“Best liar I know, you are,” said Vince with a
friendly grin.
“And so he really is connected at the highest level
of Government. But he’s saying that these influential back
room Government boys are all fascists.”
“I think that’s only the tip of the iceberg, Vince.
It’s not only the British Government who have been
infiltrated over many years but the French, Italian and
Germans, along with all the others no doubt and I think
it’s a lot more sinister than just fascism.”
“So if it’s not just fascism – what is it?” asked
Vince, like he hadn’t been running his fat sausage-like
fingers through secrets for many years when he was with
MI6.
“Look I know this is going to sound a little weird,
but it’s something that Flackyard said when I had my
cosy fireside chat with him at his house in Dorset. While
we were talking he made a throw away comment about
belonging to a secret society, I think he said something
like the New World Order, or something very similar
anyway.”
Vince spoke as he wiped his mouth with his
handkerchief, “Jake, let me tell you, that stuff about
a New World Order is not fiction, you know. He’s not
invented it and seriously, it really does exist. Those who
have studied this say it’s a conspiracy that originated
from an ancient order started in Bavaria in 1755 called
the Illuminati. Both Five and Six know all about these
guys. If you want my advice I’d leave well alone if I were
you, my friend.”
“Well I’m not you, Vince, and if I want your advice
– I’ll give it to you.” Although looking a little put out
Vince asked, “So what about this report you had back
from London of the images you sent. I liked that. What
did the message really say?”
I took the folded piece of paper from my inside
jacket pocket and handed it to him.
I watched his expression as he unfolded the white
A4 sheet.
“It’s blank! You crafty bastard,” he said.
Jason Stewart pulled up in a cloud of dust at the
end of the narrow street. I helped Vince carry his luggage
to the car. He squeezed his seventeen stone frame into the
front seat of the small saloon. Winding the window down
he said, “I’d love to see the face of that Hassan.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid,” I said.
“I’ll see you when we get back to England.”
In the café, I opened the leather rucksack that Vince
had left for me. Fiona and I looked at the small digital
transmitter that could recall the underwater lobster pot.
I made a mental note to look up as much information on
the Illuminati, when I returned to London

The long flexible blades of the Sea-king helicopter
cut the air above our heads. I tapped the pilot on the arm.
“Just one more sweep,” I said, “then we’ll return to base
and try again tomorrow.” He nodded.

We dropped towards the heavy sea and I watched
the wave-tops, flattened by the downward draught of air
from the rotor blades.

“OK, Chief,” I shouted over my shoulder. Chief
Petty Officer Redfern of the Air-Sea Rescue watch at
Portland in Dorset leaned through the door and watched
the ocean top.

“Keep her steady, back a bit.” Redfern spoke to
the pilot through the microphone in his helmet. The pilot
obediently brought the helicopter along a reciprocal
course.

“Just a floating piece of wood,” Redfern’s voice
came over the intercom.
We moved on to the next square of the search area.
Three miles away on the starboard side I could see the
English coast around Kimmeridge and Dancing Ledge.
Through the grey sea ran black veins as the light fell
across the contours of the water. “Too dark now,” I said,
and Vince switched off the transmitter. The interior of
the cabin glowed with the green light of the instrument
panel.
It was two long days before our effort was
rewarded. We had hours of ‘forward a bit’ over foamlashed pieces of flotsam and sliding over for a closer look,
only to find a shoal of fish, their scales shimmering in the
sunlight just below the surface of the water.
When we made contact, the radio transmitter set
on Vince’s knees – the one we had stolen from Flackyard’s
safe in Marrakech – gave a high pitched ‘pulse’ of
response. The pilot held us steady. The wave-crests were
inches under us. ‘Beep beep’: it was emitting a signal to
us. Vince was talking over the intercom and I grabbed
the diver’s rubber-clad arm and tried to go through his
instructions all over again in thirty seconds flat.
Redfern tapped my arm and said, “It’ll be OK,”
then like a pantomime genie he disappeared. Hands
crossed, face lowered, he hit the water with a splash.
Only now did I see the target that he had dived towards.
The specially adapted lobster pot was floating
amid the waves, green vegetation from the seabed
covering most of it. C.P.O. Redfern had the cable lashed
around the large brown cage within a minute. The winch
operator began to haul it up and brought it splashing and
dripping into the cabin of the helicopter. A number of
small crabs and seaweed spilled out onto the floor as it
rolled around the cramped cabin.
LJ had done his stuff with the top brass. When
the helicopter got back to base everything was ready and
waiting – even a ration of rum for the still wet C.P.O.
Redfern. Vince and I were housed in one of the Air-Sea
Rescue workshops with the inner cylinder laid out on the
bench when the Station Commander came in to ask if
there was anything more we required.
Four bolts had to be cut off, but that was only to
be expected after being submerged for prolonged periods
of time in salt water. The light alloy panel came free
to reveal a large compartment and gave access to two
small ballast tanks the propulsion motors and the remote
control circuitry.
Vince took a closer look around the compartment
using a fibre optic camera linked up to his laptop so as to
make sure that the cylinder wasn’t booby-trapped.
“Very interesting,” he said. “Bloody clever, this,”
he added.
“What is it?” I asked impatiently.
“It looks like whoever designed this cylinder
decided to build in a nasty little explosive device, I’d say
just enough to blow the front of your face and hands off,
but not enough to kill you. Obviously anyone tampering
with it, and who didn’t know the correct procedure for
dismantling the thing. Would I’m afraid get a very nasty
surprise.”
“Can you deactivate it?” I asked.
“Give me two minutes, after which I’ll either be
lying in a pool of blood on the floor or wiping the sweat
off of my brow and supping a large glass of that rum over
there,” said Vince with a thin smile.
He rendered it safe within minutes.
“Well, that was easier than I’d expected.” Vince
held up the flat piece of plastic.
“What we have here, mate, looks like a common
or garden processor chip.”
“For your laymen’s mind, that means that it
has been programmed with a number of prearranged
instructions. Nothing unusual about that, I hear you say,
but then this little chap here,” he pointed to a part of the
microprocessor.
“I’ve only seen this once before, and that was onboard a Russian nuclear missile.” He saw the look on
my face. “Oh don’t worry, it’s nothing sinister – well, not
now anyway, all it does is allow it to think for itself once
activated.”
“But what the hell is it doing in a lobster pot?
Anyway, what they’ve done by the looks of it, is configure
it so that every twenty-four hours it would relay a simple
message to the motors and ballast tanks to take it to the
surface.”
“Then once on the top it would transmit a signal,
now the signal is unique to this processor only. When it’s
sent its message it simply refills its ballast tanks and then
sinks to the bottom again.” He continued to prod around
inside the compartment for another ten minutes before
proclaiming it absolutely safe.
“So every twenty four hours this metal cylinder
had surfaced inside the lobster pot and its unique signal
had told Flackyard that it was still “alive and well” as
well as giving its exact position, before returning to the
bottom,” I said.
“Spot on, old son.”
So George Ferdinand had tried to ‘home in’ on
the signal, but failed to spot it before it descended to the
seabed again.
Harry Caplin knew that his boat had travelled ten
miles on each of Flackyard’s trips.
“Down the coast” he had said.
I reached inside to where a small circular cover
was; I could only just get a finger hold to twist the
quarter turn required to release it. Once open I found
the compact mini-disc stored in an aluminium case, along
with two envelopes inside one of those seal-top document
bags. Before we opened the CD, we sent for a large jug of
coffee and anything that could be rummaged up to eat.
Vince held up the compact mini-disc in one hand
and his well earned tumbler of rum in the other, “Based
on the trouble we’ve had finding it, I think this is going to
be a tough one to get into!”
I agreed. The man, who had successfully concealed
Constantine’s List for many years, had not wanted anyone
except himself to view its contents.
This was going to take a long time.

Perhaps I was expecting the typical type of letters
inside the cylinder. I spread both of them out on the
tabletop. One was type written on official Whitehall
headed paper. The other was hand written on a heavy
embossed woven paper. But, why were they in the cylinder
together?

I shook the small bag of silica gel crystals that had
helped keep the documents dry, and threw it into the waste
bin. After examining both letters under the bright light of a
desk lamp for watermarks or anything unusual, I read the
typed letter from Whitehall. It had been sent to a Russian
diplomatic attaché in the commercial department of the
London Embassy. His name was Alexandr Vladimirovich
Donskoy. It read.

Dear Alex, I shall ask you to destroy this the
moment that you have read it.
Tell Uzbekistan that they will have to supply
anything from the factory that you ask. Remind them
that it wasn’t the Chinese that have supported them
financially for the last nine months.
I want the production increased by twenty per cent
by the end of the month or I will sell the whole plant.
Would your people in Moscow be interested in buying the
place? I will leave this with you. Should you be interested,
the usual rate will apply. I think the investors here are
beginning to realise which way the wind has blown with
the bureaucrats and are already becoming restless. You
can mark my words that should your fellows actually
come into conflict with the hard line fundamentalists, the
British will not be long in understanding what must be
done.
I am in the process of forming a think-tank group
of like-minded people, who see eye to eye with me on
certain points regarding this volatile region, so that when
the time is right we will be in a position to do something
about it.
Your intelligence people are right about the British
Prime Minister. Because of his stance on the Iraq war,
he won’t survive in office much past this term, if indeed
he lasts that long. The weenies in London are already
speculating and about to welcome his successor to
Downing Street with open arms.
If the worst does happen, then we can expect to
have a backlash from Government towards this region of
the Middle East and Asia. Demand for farm machinery
though, will go through the roof!
Burn this now,
Yours, Oliver

Before reading the other letter, I thought back to
my meeting with Adrian Vass at the Central Archive
Depository and the subsequent fireside chat that I’d had
with the Right Honourable Oliver Hawkworth MP.

Wednesday 27th October 1998
Dear Robert, What a pleasure it was to see you
here in London last week. We really must get together
more often and not only when there is a trade conference
in town! I will come straight to the point, as we are both
busy men. The present owners are about to shut down
the factory in Uzbekistan, so I am reliably informed.
I advise that you instruct our associates in Georgia to
take over total control immediately, by force if necessary.
Please call me on my number to confirm.
This would of course be a private matter between
us and I feel it would be for the best in the long term. The
usual procedures apply. I also have pleasure in passing
on to you a gift from your Uncle Constantine, who sends
his warmest regards, and hopes that your cause benefits
greatly by being the guardian of it. He asked me to tell
you that he is well, and living a charmed life in the sun.
Your friend, Vladi

Why did Flackyard keep these letters on the
seabed? He was definitely a blackmailer of that there was
no doubt. Hawkworth had been like a puppet on the
end of the puppeteer’s string, ‘persuaded’ to ensure those
valuable construction contracts came his way. Hawkworth
appeared to be a traitor and was also so corrupt and in
so deep that he had been ‘persuaded’ to involve Ferran &
Cardini with the counterfeit currency that he so enticingly
dangled like a carrot under the Partners’ noses. He was
also ‘persuaded’ to have me re-called from the assignment
in Dorset away from Flackyard’s business dealings. How
many other people on Constantine’s List were ‘persuaded’
to do things?

George Ferdinand always spoke with respect
about Flackyard and straightened to attention whenever
Flackyard came near to him. He answered him in the
short monosyllabic tones of an army subordinate, but
which army?

Like a lot of well-educated and wealthy Russians
whose families had defected to the west, Flackyard was
privileged and able to master accentless English from
a very early age. Ferdinand knew about the cylinder
and of the existence of Constantine’s List. How much
he really knew is difficult to decide, but he was told
enough to blackmail at least one person named therein
– Hawkworth. The one man he hated more than anyone
else in the world. Ferdinand, however wasn’t interested
in construction contracts or anything like that. What he
wanted from Hawkworth was large sums of money to
finance his drug business with Harry Caplin.

Although Ferdinand went with Flackyard to check
the condition of the lobster pot every fourth week, until
our voyage together he had made no attempt to retrieve
the cylinder from the ocean bed. Ferdinand had only
a radio receiver from Flackyard, while we had stolen
a transmitter, which would summon the cylinder from
the seabed rather than just receive a signal from it every
twenty-four hours. Ferdinand had rushed to try and get
the cylinder when he discovered that Flackyard had fled
the country (just as Harry Caplin guessed he would).

I pulled the file marked FULCRUM - a pivot about
which a lever turns. I placed the two letters and the minidisk containing Constantine’s List and placed them inside
the file, putting it and the ‘POSEIDON’ file on LJ’s highly
polished maple desk along with a small mountain of other
files all waiting for his signature.

“So this is the lot?” LJ asked. He sniffed
contemplatively.
“Yes, this is everything relating to the ‘Poseidon’
assignment. I’d guess that most of the people on
Constantine’s List have in some way donated large sums
of money to Robert Flackyard at one time or another.”
“Good work,” said LJ, “I always knew you would
be able to cope.”
“Well, so good of you to think so” I said
sarcastically, “especially when you wanted to close down
the whole assignment mid term!”
LJ got up and started to pace around his office,
which can get to be very irritating.
“And what’s more,” I said, “you knew from
the outset that Fiona Price was employed by a special
Government department or whatever it is, and you
thought it best not to tell me.”
“Yes,” said LJ blandly, “but she was pushed upon
us from above and I had no wish to inhibit intercourse
among the group.” We looked blankly at each other for
just a moment or two. “Social,” LJ added!
“Of course,” I agreed. LJ took out a cigar and lit
it.
“Tell me – when will Flackyard and Hawkworth
be arrested?” I asked.
“Arrested?” said LJ. “What an extraordinary
question old son; what on earth gave you the notion that
they would they be arrested. Surely you’ve been in this
business long enough to know better?”
“Yes, but they should be arrested because they’re
both involved up to their necks in, let’s see, international
arms trading, drug trafficking, and possibly the murder
of Charlie McIntyre. That’s just for starters. It just so
happens that one is a Parliamentary Cabinet Minister.”
I said it with as much patience as possible, even though I
knew that LJ was deliberately leading me on.
LJ said, “You surely can’t imagine, old son, that
they can possibly put everyone who answers to that
description in jail - can you? Hell, where on earth would
we ever find room for them all, and besides, where would
we get another Civil Service from?” He gave a sardonic
smile and patted the pile of documents.
“Don’t look so indignant, old son, you know I’m
only pulling your leg. These two are most certainly going
to get what’s coming to them. Have no doubt about
that. As a matter of fact,” LJ glanced at his wristwatch,
“Robert Flackyard should have already been picked up
in Marrakech by Hassan. Who has personally seen to it
that he is to be held in one of their finest prisons, until our
boys from Scotland Yard arrive.”
“They’ll then sort out the paperwork and bring
him back to the UK for questioning. Of course he’ll
immediately face a number of charges relating to aiding
and abetting the drugs operation in Dorset, as well as
those relating to illegal arms dealing. Forensics are hoping
to be able to match weapons that were carelessly left
behind at Flackyard’s residence in Canford Cliffs, with
those found by Hassan in the cellar of Flackyard’s Riad
in Marrakech. I’d say, that any judge worth his salt, will
certainly be able to lock him up and throw away the key
for a very long time.”
“And Hawkworth?” I asked
“Hawkworth. MI5 want to have a little chat with
that gentleman. After which they’ll decide whether to
simply lock him up somewhere remote or hand him over
to the police and make him a public domain. Either way,
he’ll be finished. Personally I like the latter option, its far
more messy and the ultimate end for someone like him.
Thankfully, gone are the days, when the establishment
simply turned a blind eye to keep everything quite and
brushed under the carpet, so to speak. No, I wouldn’t
want to be in Hawkworth’s shoes at this present time.
Not for all the tea in China.”
He got up and went over to the large filing
cabinet in the corner of his office. Opening the top
drawer he produced an even more enormous file full
of documents. Across the front it said “SIS - SPECIAL
INVESTIGATION”, and was bulging with months of
work that LJ had never even thought necessary to mention
to me. “If you’re to stay with Ferran & Cardini, and in
particular my department, dear boy, you must understand
your role,” he said this in his smug voice. “We didn’t send
you down to Dorset just to go diving and have lots of fun,
as you well knew. Constantine’s List was always your
priority. The official assignment was never to stir things
up with Flackyard and Hawkworth and definitely not to
discover anything illegal that was going on down there.
But given your past and that ever so annoying
trait of yours for tying up loose ends, we somehow knew
that you would take things just that little bit further than
the brief that you had been given, and in turn provoke
them into doing something, foolhardy. But I must say,
it was rather sloppy of you to lose Mr Caplin, like that.
We’ve had the drug boys crawling all over us. They’re
saying that you deliberately let the American get away,
and that he’s back in Cuba. Surrounded by bodyguards
and no extradition treaty with the United States. Anyway,
the Partners want to kick you out on your ear, but I’ve
eventually managed to get them to see a degree of reason.”
“How very magnanimous of you,” I said quietly.
“What was that? Magnanimous, no, not really.
Even though you are a maverick, you do actually have
your uses – some of the time,” he added, shuffling a large
pile of papers around on his desk, before adding. “Oh,
by the way, that request for two weeks paid leave has
been authorised, with immediate effect, of course. Take
a holiday, they say Florida is good at this time of year.”
I closed the door gently as I left.