The Alex King Series, A BATEMAN [good books for high schoolers .TXT] 📗

used a company for his security needs. Globe-Tech. Naturally, it boasted global capabilities and the company’s logo was of the earth. The ocean was blue, and the land was white and time zones ran from pole to pole with the two tropics and the equator striking through laterally. The font used was hard and boxy and futuristic and in all it looked like a hundred other security companies offering security and specialised services.

Globe-Tech boasted to employ only ex-military personnel. The company played on their contracting work in Afghanistan and Iraq, of their employees’ combat and operational experience in the theatre of war. They mentioned employees and training staff with ‘special forces’ experience. The man had watched intently, but nothing he had seen of the chauffer and the two bodyguards looked remotely in that echelon. Not even close.

The man knew that soldiers did not make the best bodyguards. If they did, the President of the United States would have a solely military-trained close protection detail, instead of the US Secret Service. The mindset was different, the skills as far removed from soldiering as it was possible to get.

He continued to study the file and noted that the chauffer was employed directly by Bashwani’s corporation umbrella. This operation filtered down assets to his separate companies within the Bashwani empire. The driver should have known better, should have been better trained. He should also have been briefed by the Globe-Tech bodyguard on bussing and debussing, on lines of cover and theoretical points of no return. He wondered how often the Globe-Tech shift rotations or allocations worked. Whether Bashwani was covered by the same person for days or weeks at a time, or whether it was a new bodyguard every time. He would have to continue his surveillance, because that knowledge would prove invaluable.

33

 

King had kept the tracking device in play. He couldn’t really see any other alternative. He needed to get closer to his enemy. Ditching the device or the car would achieve nothing. He would be found again, that much was certain. It was better to keep the illusion of a status quo and see what the enemy intended.

He had weighed the scenarios and run through the counter measures. They had wanted him dead last night, that much had been evident. He had thwarted their plans. But he was under no illusion that they would give up.

So why the tracking device? He could not conceive the tracking device already being inside the satnav when he had acquired the vehicle. He had only agreed to the addition at the desk at Newquay airport. It would have to have been tampered with while he had been with Amanda Cunningham this morning.

So why the change of tactics? They had tried to kill him last night. Why now, did they want to follow him? King thought it through until his head spun. In the end, he came up with two most likely conclusions. Firstly, it came down to nothing more than opportunity. They wanted to choose a killing ground. Somewhere they could control the variables, execute their plan and exfiltrate cleanly. The next most likely scenario was that they wanted to see what he was doing next. Follow him, and fine tune their plan.

King had put the tracker device in the empty coin tray in the centre console. He reasoned that if the worse happened, he could simply toss it out of the window and their advantage would be lost. He kept his phone in his pocket, but he had both MI5’s emergency response number and 999 on app speed dial. He had checked the 9mm Glock and carried it tucked under his thigh against the soft material of the seat. The Glock’s safe action meant it could never accidentally discharge carried in such a manner and would be quick to bring to arm.

Cornwall was behind him. He carried out good counter-surveillance drills, adjusted his speed, checked his mirrors and even pulled off at slip roads, only to re-join the dual carriageway at the next opportunity. He stopped at a filling station on the A30 and topped up the tank, bought a bottle of water and checked the vehicles pulling onto the forecourt. Nothing stood out. Nobody seemed familiar. The tracker was doing its job for them and they were professional enough to hang back and resist a visual.

King had been there. He had waited, watched a screen, when every fibre of his being had wanted to get closer and confirm with his own eyes.

Again, it told him he was up against professionals.

The M5 was a busy motorway and he joined it at Exeter. It was the arterial route of the Westcountry and the gateway to rest of the country. It was a road laden with delivery vehicles and larger heavy goods vehicles and with three lanes and speeds nudging a hundred miles per hour in the fast lane, it gave him plenty of opportunities to perform counter surveillance measures. He switched lanes, dropped his speed, accelerated and all the time, he saw nobody. No vehicle appeared to be actively following him.

The fastest route to London would have been to take the M4 at Bristol and travel laterally across the country. But King wasn’t concerned about the extra forty-five minutes he would save. The M4 was flat and fast and straight. There would be little possibility in spotting his enemy, nor opportunity enough for them to show their hand. Instead, King exited the motorway at Taunton and took the road towards Ilminster, where he joined the A303. This road was a mixture of single lane and dual carriageway which swept through the fields and woodland of the south of England. It was hilly and invariably produced bottlenecks when two lanes frequently squeezed the traffic into one. A fast road in the right conditions, a motoring nightmare when accidents or holiday traffic conspired to double journey times.

King eased his speed and