To Kill Or Be Killed (7 page)

“I’m not sure I
can kill. I know if it was kill or be killed I’d like to think that
I would. It’s hard to say. I’m sure I’d think of myself as murderer
afterwards, whatever anyone else said.” David put the remains of
the French bread and brie onto the discarded paper wrapper.

Beaumont picked
up it up, holding it out ready to make a point.

“See the DIC
calls you Brie on French bread, but you would still think yourself
a cheese sandwich.”

Suddenly David
laughed and shaking his head with disbelief said “Doing a
philosophy degree teach you that did it?”

“Yes it did and
the years in private security, guarding rich people and politicians
didn’t change it. What did history teach you?”

“That time
doesn’t stop. Let’s go. We’ll be wanted.”

When David and
Beaumont got back to the office there was a lot of information in.
The other two week rota teams were busy at their screens. David
felt guilty and received a number of frowns in return for his
watery, self conscious smile as he passed the small offices. There
were six offices in total on their floor and David got the feeling
that they had been missed at their post.

Beaumont closed
the door of their office, sat down in his swivel chair and logged
on. David stood behind him. Beaumont waved a thumb at the door
behind.

“Don’t mind all
that. I don’t worry myself about other people’s looks. You have to
be sure of yourself to do this, guilt indicates wrong doing.”

“Looks like
that one was at Inverness airport this morning.” David, feeling
guilty, got straight down to work. He stared hard at the face of
Marco Spencer. “That’s from Inverness watch three back tracking
through CCTV. He’s dropped off the map since.”

“This one was
spotted by the watcher of Inverness watch two earlier this morning;
David looked over at Beaumont’s screen and the face of Peter
Mason.

“He was at the
railway station, but no sightings since.”

“Got himself a
car?”

“Or a
boat?”

“Watchers are
doing walk by on Marina’s down the west coast. There’s a nil return
from Clyde Marina, the whole of the Irish coast, Isle of Man and
Welsh coast is a nil return.”

“That leaves
Liverpool.” David replied.

“If I was doing
the west coast I’d go further than Liverpool.”

“That depends
on where you were heading for.”

“Well London is
obvious.”

“Yes,” David
agreed, but suddenly struck by the oddness of the situation said,
“but then why not come in closer and why Scotland?”

“Good
point.”

“Well Inverness
could lead to the east coast.”

“That’s
true.”

David frowned
then his brow cleared.

“There are four
of them. They separate, but two turn up at Inverness. If they all
have the same job splitting up means they’re harder to chase, plus
if they’re working together whoever gets through to wherever meets
at a rendezvous point.”

“If they’re
terrorists then Midland industry, what there is of it, would be a
good target.” Beaumont suggested. David immediately thought of
Maisie’s words about the chemical works.

“Let’s see who
they are then we might have some idea of where they’re going.”

David logged
into the decryption link to MOD sites when Jack Fulton came in.

“Good you’re
back. We’ve just had a message from Glasgow watch, a little late,
that the motorbike man has been tagged. Came off his bike outside
Glasgow and is being watched by police, he’s unconscious. I’m just
waiting for a call to say they’ve locked him up and I’ll send a
team to Glasgow to interview him.”

“Why would the
police let DIC do that if they don’t know who we are?”

Jack grinned.
“We just say we’re civil service, show our diplomatic badges and
they leave it at that. They think we’re secret service or some
such, practically everyone does, except of course the secret
service themselves who know we exist and hate us.”

David looked
back at his screen. He loaded the images of the four men into the
secret service computer system and was amazed at the return speed
of information.

“Talking of
secret service look at this,” Marco Spencer’s image came up on his
top secret MI6 file, “this one is ex secret service, dirty jobs
section by the looks of it.”

Jack Fulton
clapped his hands loudly and nearly shouted.

“I knew I’d
seen him before. I was watching him eat breakfast at Inverness
airport. Yes there was a big problem over him two years ago. He
killed a member of the cabinet in rural Scotland. Of course he’s
freelance now.”

“The cabinet?
Why isn’t he in prison?” David asked incredulously.

“Well we know
he did it there’s just no proof, so no case to answer. It went off
as an accident, heart attack hill walking.”

“Robert Cole
the disgraced Home Office Minister, I remember that.” David was
amazed.

Jack became
serious.

“Of course
that’s top secret and unrepeatable. We knew it was him. DIC
watchers tagged him in the area and leaving. Of course Sternway,
head of dirty tricks had a hand in it. It’s one of those cases that
got by us. Cole must have had some story or information to put out
and was first disgraced by the news then bumped off. The press
treated it as a tragic accident. I liked Cole, I don’t like his
replacement Tarquin Robinson and quite frankly as one of the few
people in high power who know about us he doesn’t like us either.
It was a bad business and no mistake. No I still haven’t got over
that failure, but yes Marco Spencer. He knows about us and he’s a
hired assassin.”

“That means
that the other three are too.” Beaumont added.

They looked at
the screen and checked the other files. In each case the file of
hired assassin came up. Jack Fulton’s face became angry and
seriously white.

“Four assassins
have entered the country on our watch. You two had better get ready
to go to Stobhill Glasgow. Go armed. I’ll call the police there and
warn them.”

“We’re going to
e-mail our watchers, especially the ones going to Marinas. They’re
to go armed. I’ll e-mail that instruction around the building. I
want you two to focus on the MOD sites especially the submarine
movements. I want to know who brought them in. I’ll get the others
looking for missing persons.”

“Why?” David
was rather taken aback by the serious turn of events on his first
day.

“These are
hired killers. They don’t leave witnesses. If they’re compromised
they kill first think later. Spencer is a cold blooded killer. They
all came to get someone. There are four, or possibly more of them,
so it’s a multiple attempt, to make sure one gets through. One of
them might have killed already. Get on to that sub question.”

When Fulton
left Beaumont gave David a raised eyebrow look.

“Serious
stuff,” David said quietly, “you ever experienced this before?”

Beaumont shook
his head slowly.

Both of them
quietly began searching MOD sites for relevant information each
suddenly intent on the screens in front of them.

Chapter
21

Glasgow Stobhill
Hospital

11- 30 a.m.

April 17th

Wheeler rose
through layers of unconsciousness to the sound of rattling cups and
unfamiliar voices. To the watching police officer, sitting in the
armchair near the bed, as he had been for the last hour, the
stirring body was a relief. The constable was bored by his watch.
The suddenly opening eyes and look of fearful unawareness were
reassuring for the officer too.

Wheeler felt
his way round his body, wiggled toes, waggled fingers and reassured
that everything was okay he tried to sit up. Pain from his bruises
made him wince. The memory of the bike skidding away from him and
realisation that he had a hospital gown on, added to which his
certainty that his bag would have been opened, brought a rush of
adrenalin which enabled him to sit up quickly and bypass the sudden
pain from the bump on the top of his head.

“Hello.” The
constable said dourly.

The voice was
Scottish. Wheeler took in the uniform.

“Where am I?”
Wheeler feigned a vaguely foreign accent, somewhere Eastern
European.

He took in the
room. Standard hospital single room, window to his right, bedside
table in that corner, red string for calling help above it, and to
his left, other side of the bed, the door. At the foot of the bed
an armchair for visitors, in which was seated the constable; young,
he noted, about twenty-five.

“Stobhill
hospital Glasgow.”

Wheeler
nodded.

“I’ve to call
in, for a detective to interview you.”

Wheeler feigned
a lack of understanding, crinkling his brow, a slight shake of the
head.

“For what? I am
sorry?”

“The hand gun
and fake passports matey.” The constable said flatly indicating his
certainty of Wheeler’s guilt of some crime.

“I’m sorry I do
not ….” Wheeler touched his head and looked confused.

The constable
spoke into his radio. Wheeler looked around the room. His clothes
were not there. This was tricky.

In the
background to his inner voice planning he heard the constable call
for the detective.

“He’s on his
way.”

Wheeler looked
at the plastic jug and cup on the table by his bed. His throat was
very dry. He poured water and the idea came to him. He leant over
to the bedside table He shakily held the pitcher, poured and drank
some water. Then again, more desperately, with more exaggerated
shaking, he poured more water, feigned a pain in the head, let the
jug go and eyes rolling slumped off the bed on to the floor by the
table, between the bed and the wall.

Instinctively,
as he had gambled he would, the constable came over and stood over
him. Then to his annoyance the constable pulled the red cord to
call for help. Clearly no fool, thought Wheeler, but too youthful
to be wise and experienced.

Wheeler’s left
hand shot out and grabbed the PC’s belt, as he did so his right leg
swung up behind the policeman’s legs, caught him behind the knees
tipping the man back. Wheeler rose up on the man’s weight going
back, his right palm extending out into his victim’s chin. The
policeman crumpled back unconscious in a heavy heap.

Wheeler,
dragged the man under the bed, arranged the covers on the door side
to cover the view from there, hiding his crime; he hopped into the
bed and pulled the cord again.

A young Italian
looking girl, round in hips, dark hair in a bun, bulging in her
blue uniform, just under the obese side of portly, rolled in.

“Hello. You’re
awake.” She saw him holding jug and then quizzically looked for the
constable.

“I spill water.
He go to get help.”

Wheeler
indicated the other side of the bed hoping she was too busy to
look.

The nurse took
the jug “I’ll send someone to mop up.” She left with a withering
‘you’re wasting my time’ look.

As soon as the
door closed, Wheeler was out of bed. The constable was just coming
round, his head emerging from under the bed. Wheeler karate chopped
him across the back of the head where it joined the spine, not hard
enough to kill, but enough to knock him cold again. Wheeler could
have killed him, but he knew that they had his description and too
many people had seen him. Killing witnesses was pointless at this
stage.

Being
compromised he had to get out lie low, get a disguise, and then
head for London. He had planned to strip the policeman, but apart
from the man being too small, damned tailored uniforms, the
disguise was too easy to spot. As he hesitated he heard the rattle
of a trolley outside the door. He stepped behind the door, prayed
to the god of hit men that the cleaner was a male and the right
size and seeing a short, very thin, bald man step in front of him
sighed and knocked this man out too.

As the body
slumped forward onto the floor Wheeler thought of a Carry On film.
After tying and gagging the bodies, taking keys, radio, tear gas,
baton, all cash, the cleaner’s keys and from the cleaner’s belt one
of those folding multi-tools in a leather belt case, popped them
into a white bin bag from the cleaner’s trolley, he stepped into
the corridor, knowing the detective was on the way.

In the corridor
the occasional nurse passed by, he could see to his right the
reception for his ward and to his left a corridor with a wall end
and a dog leg right turn. On the floor there was a neat red line,
indicating a route through the hospital. Wheeler instinctively went
down to the dog leg, turned right to see a long corridor with wards
off to left and right, indicated by different coloured lines on the
floor. The nearest sign was radiology. Wheeler headed straight for
it, noting a staircase and lift on the right as he passed them.

He was on the
first floor. He walked into radiology and the reception. Self
conscious in his hospital gown he knew he didn’t have long. He
confidently walked past reception and seeing a changing room walked
straight into that. There was a dressing gown hanging there, he
immediately put it on. There were four lockers; three were locked,
so clearly full. Wheeler pulled out the cleaner’s multi-tool,
selected screw driver, inserted it in each locker and twisted the
locks open, each forceful jerk making his head rock.

The contents of
the lockers yielded cotton track suit bottoms and a ‘hoody’, just
too small, but bearable, an oversize T- Shirt, jeans the right
length, but too narrow at the waist, but thankfully, work boots in
tan leather and thick socks which, though loose, would do the job.
There was no coat in any, but a fold up umbrella, a clear rain
poncho the kind old people wear, a green bobble hat, some cheap
jewellery, two watches, one waterproof, a wallet, a purse, two
loose credit cards and some cash in notes and change.