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

few months was down to Mereweather. He hoped not, for his sake. He turned to the man and said coldly. “Don’t piss me about, Simon. Tell me what you know, now.”

“Thank you, agent…”

“Don’t pull rank on me,” King interrupted. He didn’t shout or raise his voice in any way. He simply spoke quietly, slowly. His gravelly voice level. “Don’t think you, or anyone you know can say or do a damned thing that has me worried about authority. Don’t make that mistake with me, Simon. Now, what happened?”

Simon Mereweather swallowed, checked his mirrors and changed lane. “Alright, Alex. Look, it’s just the two of you are under the microscope. The top tier does not like relationships between field operatives. Any employees, really. Not since that pair Annie Machon and David Shayler did their whistle-blower and publishing routine,” he paused, apparently unnerved. He fidgeted with the steering wheel and adjusted his collar. “Look, I was just interested to see that you two really can operate neutrally,” he said. “Caroline went with an agent from South African intelligence to see the potential witness. The man who Interpol believe met the man most likely to be our mystery sniper.”

“I know all this, I was in the briefing. Vigus Badenhorst, serving his sentence in Pollsmoor prison. I said I should go.”

“You were more use looking at the scene of the killing. We wanted a sniper’s perspective on it.”

“I still think I would have been better deployed meeting the prisoner.”

“Because you were one yourself? That was a long time ago.”

And sealed information… thought King. In MI6 recruitment files, not MI5’s.

He felt uneasy. How did MI5 have that information? Charles Forester had brought King in, made him an official agent after devising a back story of him being a long-term black-ops agent in deniable operations. Forester had known about King’s work for MI6, that was the reason he had approached him. Forester wouldn’t have told anyone, he was sure of that. But how much did Mereweather know? There were things he had done, back when he was a ‘Contract Man’, that could catch up with King, make it impossible for him to live a life any other way but on the run.

“Pollsmoor Prison is a tough place,” said King.

“And Caroline would see that,” replied Mereweather. “She would use carrot to your stick. I thought she would have the witness eating out of her hand, and it would appear she did. She arranged a release and deal through Interpol. She’s a force to be reckoned with, because we are still waiting for a reply from the Foreign Office and Whitehall. And we’d be waiting for weeks.”

“Get on with it,” King said tersely.

Mereweather shrugged. “Okay… They were hit leaving the prison. About five miles out. Two armed men. One rammed their vehicle, the other blocked their route. They fired on them, Caroline and the SASS agent fired back. Caroline got away.”

“And she’s in the air?”

“Yes.”

“And how did she get out?”

“Of the wreck?”

“The country. I take it she didn’t just catch a cab to the airport?”

“The MI6 chap that helped her earlier. She called me. I figured their chap would still in the area, told them… or pleaded, rather… to get someone on the scene and said to use their asset who would be close. He must have smoothed things over with the police and local intelligence, because she’s been in the air a few hours and will arrive at Heathrow Airport tomorrow morning.”

King nodded. He knew that the SIS, or MI6 as it was more widely known, would be calling in a great many favours from its sister service. He knew the top tier would be less than enthusiastic about that. Through no fault of Caroline’s, she would be black-marked. The thought made King believe that maybe it was time to go. For them both. Hang up the knives and guns and stop looking behind them. They both had savings, property to sell. They had talked briefly about buying a yacht. Of sailing the Greek islands, the Caribbean even. Or maybe Asia. It was only a pipe dream, neither knew how to sail. Caroline had pointed the fact out, King had shrugged and said he’d give it a go. Maybe a lesson or two first.

“So, the train,” Mereweather ventured. “What fall-out am I to expect?”

“Someone has been tracking me. I found the first tracker which had been secreted into the satnav that came with my hire car. There was no way it had been tampered with before, or at the time of hire. I kept it in play, thought I’d draw them out.”

“And you did?”

“I was rammed, or at least, they tried to ram me on the drive up here,” he paused. “The car’s wrecked, sorry. The Security Service won’t be getting their deposit back. I ditched the tracker, but realised when they picked me up at Winchester train station that I had to be carrying something else.”

“And you were? How?”

“The lining of my travel bag.”

“Same kind of device?”

“Identical.”

“So, what about this man? You said in your text to expect a prisoner.”

“He put up a fight.”

“And you killed him?”

“No. He slipped and hit his head.”

“Well, that’s something, at least,” Mereweather looked relieved. “If it looks like an accident, we can distance ourselves. No problem. Thank goodness for that.”

King took out the bundle of tissue. It was bloody and had started to unravel in his pocket. He placed it on the centre console. “It’s not as simple as that. I wanted to ID him. Fingerprints, DNA.”

Simon Mereweather glanced down. “What on earth is that?”

“His finger,” said King. “I don’t think there’s much chance of it looking like an accident now.”

38

 

“Best we can do, I’m afraid.”

“I thought it would be quicker,” King said. He looked at Mereweather.