Constantine Legacy (Jake Dillon Adventure Series) (11 page)

When I got back to the hotel, the plastic plants were
still heavy with dust, and there was a different middle
aged man sitting at the small reception desk clipping his
fingernails with a pair of oversized scissors. I remembered
the name I had given his Slavic friend. “Fisher,” I said.
He reached back without looking, unhooked my room
key and cracked it down on the worn desktop without a
pause in his manicure routine.

“Visita’ waiting for ya’.” He said with a heavy
Cockney accent. He stabbed the scissors upward. “In ya’
room.”

I leaned forward until my face was close to his. His
razor had missed parts of his face and his rancid breath
smelt of stale coffee and cigarettes, with a little dash of
rotten food between the teeth thrown in. “Do you always
let strangers into your guests’ rooms?” I asked.

He stopped what he was doing – without haste.
“Yeah, when they tell me they’re related or official, I do.
You got a problem with that – ‘ave ya’?”

I picked up my key, and began to climb the stairs
two at a time. “Yeah,” I heard him say again.
I went up to the third. The light was on in my
room. I switched off the hall light, put the key in the door
and turned it quickly.
I flung the door open wide and moved through it
stooped.
Since joining the firm’s special operations
department, I’ve gone through life making sure there
is no light behind me when entering a darkened area,
scanning rooms for listening bugs and hidden cameras.
This becomes second nature and then on one occasion it
all becomes worthwhile.
However, this was not one of those occasions.
Spread-eagled full length on the floral patterned
bedspread was the seventeen stone weight of Vince Sharp;
an old leather bush hat was parked over his face.

“Steady, big man - it’s only me.” The words came
muffled from somewhere under the bush hat and the
sentence ended in a chesty cough. All of Vince Sharp’s
sentences ended in a cough. A hand removed the hat from
his constantly jovial round face. I straightened up, feeling
ever so slightly foolish.

“How did you find me, and what the hell did
you tell that character with the bad case of halitosis
downstairs?” I asked.

“I told him that I was your personal psychoanalyst
and that I’d come to take you back to rehab.” Vince stood
up and produced a silver and glass hip flask, full of a fine
Scottish single malt, from his coat pocket. He poured us
both a drink, using the two plastic glasses from the sink
in the corner of the room.

“After the revelations of today this is very
welcome,” I said.
I’d not found out how, but by some ingenious
articulation of the finger joints, he was able to drink and
smoke virtually simultaneously. He coughed, smoked and
drank for a few seconds.
“Surprised I found you?” he coughed. “Astute,
eh?” Some more coughing.
“Not really, you know. That young woman you’ve
been working with in Dorset, what’s her name, oh yes,
Fiona Price, she phoned me this morning. I reckon she
fancies you,” he said with a wink and a nod. “Anyway
she was asking me to cover for you should LJ start asking
where you were. She let it slip that you’d come back to
London under a false name. Well, after that it was easy to
get her to tell me what you were up to, and as for what
name you’d use, James Fisher has raised his head twice
before, so I just guessed he would again.” He coughed
loudly. “Perhaps you’re getting a little bit old for this
game, or maybe you’re love sick?”
“We all are, and no, is the answer to that last jibe,
Vince,” I said, “we all are.”
Vince nodded and continued to cough and drink,
in that order.
“LJ would like to see you tomorrow morning,
8.00am prompt, that is if you’ve nothing better to do,”
he said with a grin.
“Yes, he’s always so dammed polite, isn’t he?” I
said.
“He’s all right, really,” said Vince, and poured us
both another. “Oh yes, and I’m to tell you that Tatiana is
awaiting instructions, whatever that means.”
“Perhaps you could also find the time to call her as
soon as you can.”
He picked up his hat and downed his drink in one
smooth motion.
“Anything I can do for you?” he asked. “I’m going
back to the office shortly.”
“Yes, I think there is Vince.” I pulled out an A4
sheet of paper from my overnight bag and gave him
Robert Flackyard’s personal and business email address.
“Let’s intercept his emails, unofficially of course”.
“And phone?” asked Vince.
“Yes, let’s do the lot,” I said, smiling at the thought,
and passed him another sheet of paper, this time with
Flackyard’s home address and telephone number on it.
“Let’s tap his phone, but be careful, he has monitoring
equipment installed at the house.”
“Um, bloody nuisance that, in that case we’ll have
to twist the arm of one of our friendly spook agencies
who owe a favour or two. I can use one of their satellites
and link up via my own laptop, less traceable that way.
I’ll see you later,” he said.
I heard him coughing his way down the stairs and
out into the street. I began packing my bag. Before I saw
LJ the next morning, I hoped to have something up my
sleeve.

I got back to my apartment around six thirty. I
ground coffee beans and turned up the heating. Outside,
it was raining again, and lines of cars below moved slowly
out of the city through a gauze of traffic fumes. The
attractive thirty something woman reading the weather
was worried about the amount of rainfall for the time of
year, attributing it to the effects of global warming.

The laptop had to be set up and connected to the
scanner in the study.
This done I left the room and locked the door
behind me.
I was drinking a second cup of coffee as Tats
arrived. Her lips were cold.
We rubbed noses and exchanged hellos in between
kisses, then I brought her up to speed with the business
in Bournemouth and Jasper Lockhart. Tats said, “Buy
it,” but I didn’t want to do that. If I showed any interest
it would reveal more than I wanted to reveal, especially
to Jasper Lockhart. Tats thought I was being paranoid,
but then she hadn’t been in the business long enough to
develop that sixth sense that I was always telling myself
I had.
Jasper Lockhart sat in his new pearl blue metallic
convertible Jag across the road for some time before
coming to the front door. It was very professionally done.
I took his overcoat and poured him a drink. For twenty
minutes we sat and made small talk while waiting for
Vince Sharp to arrive.
Jasper Lockhart had the diary in a sealed envelope.
When I’d thought the tension had built up a little I asked
him if I could look at it. He went over to his overcoat
and pulled it out of a pocket, passing the envelope across
the dining table, I tore the top off quickly and extracted
a leather bound diary with gold edged pages. The surface
was a little scuffed and it looked as if it had been well
used.
Jasper Lockhart was about to open his mouth to
protest, but I kept the diary shut and he kept his mouth
the same way. I put it back into the envelope.
“Looks genuine to me,” I said. Jasper Lockhart
nodded. I turned the envelope slowly around handling it
between forefinger and thumb. I got up, walked across to
where the coat was hanging. I folded the torn envelope top
and pushed it back into the pocket. He smiled sheepishly.
“Tats will keep you company,” I said, “I’ll just go
and phone Vince Sharp, he’s probably stuck in the traffic
or still at the office.” I went to the phone in the study.
It had been simple to drop the diary out of the torn
end of the envelope into my lap and not very difficult to
substitute a small book of approximately the same size.
Luckily Jasper Lockhart’s description earlier in the dance
bar had been fairly accurate, but I had two variations
handy had it not been.
Lifting the scanner lid I placed the open diary
face down onto the glass surface. The white light went
backwards and forwards numerous times. I turned each
page over either side of the one Jasper Lockhart was
offering me. Now everything depended upon Tats keeping
our guest occupied.
She could reasonably ask him not to barge his
way into my study, but if he got that envelope out of his
pocket and found a well used edition of “The Traveller’s
Pocket Guide to France,” my copying was liable to be
interrupted.

By 10.30 the last copy was off the printer and
a backup disc made. Jasper Lockhart had long since
departed, with his diary back once more in his jacket
pocket. I went back into the lounge. Tats had slipped her
shoes off and was dozing on one of the sofas. I leaned
over the wide leather arm and kissed her softly on her
cheek. She woke with a start.

“You were snoring,” I teased.
“I don’t snore.” She looked at me in the mirror.
“And you told me I was the only man on the whole

Tats ran her long fingers through her hair, dragging
it high above her head.
“Do you think I should wear my hair up like this?”
“It looks great just as it is,” I said
We were looking at each other in the mirror.
She said, “You’ve put on weight, it must be all that sea
air and Mrs Rumple’s home cooking while you were
in Bournemouth. I’ll bet you haven’t been to a gym in
weeks?”
“You’re right I haven’t, not once. But now you
mention it, perhaps a vigorous workout is what I need.
Shall we...”
At that moment the phone rang. Tats laughed, and
although I let it ring for some time I finally went to get it.
“It’s probably Jasper Lockhart, he’s decided to
drop the price to eight hundred,” said Tats. “Poor sad
Jasper Lockhart”.
“Thieves really must learn to cry,” I said.
I answered the phone. It was Zara, who didn’t
mince her words.
“Mr Levenson-Jones says you’re both to come here
right away, something urgent has cropped up.”
I looked over at Tats and said into the phone.
“Give us an hour, Zara.”
“I’ll give you thirty minutes, and no more, Mr
Dillon.”

By the time we arrived at the firm’s wharf-side
building the rain had eased off.
I placed my left-hand palm forward onto the cold
black glass panel set in the wall. The heavy deadlock
released with a thud confirming that my fingerprints
matched with those on file. We took the stairs down to
LJ’s office. Things were hectic, LJ had taken his jacket off,
undone his top button and loosened his tie.
“Take those files off that chair and sit down,” he
said. Zara poked her head round the door to ask if we
would like any refreshments.
“Absolutely foul night,” said LJ. “Sorry to drag
you into this fracas. I’ve missed the Wednesday evening
backgammon game at my club for the first time in nearly
fourteen years.”
“We must all make sacrifices,” I said.
“Yes, when our masters say jump, we must jump,”
said LJ.
“Um, like puppets on strings” I said. Tats, shot me
one of her looks.
“The New European Network plan, so it’s all your
doing - is it?” said LJ in mock admonition. “We now
have the Partner’s permission to go ahead with feasibility
study” – he stared at the monitor screen in front of him
– “N.E.N. feasibility study.” He looked up and beamed.
Behind the beam was a worried man.
“Subtle titling,” I said.
“Quite,” said LJ doubtfully, and then he was off
into the administration - he was very good at the tactics
of Partner bureaucracy – but then he has had a lot of
practice.
“The Partners want to initiate four studies,
Communications, Finance, Training, and Network
Administration. Now we won’t be able to control all of
those, so what we do is this. Let our friends across the
river have anything they want, in fact we’ll nominate
a couple of groups and lavish compliments on their
suitability. Incidentally,” LJ blew his nose loudly on a
big white monogrammed handkerchief, “don’t overdo
the compliments; their controller of E.U. networks is
beginning to suspect you of sarcasm.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
“Yes of course you will, now; when we’ve got them
all fired up, and they’re in right up to their necks you will
suggest a further study: a Compatibility Study – for coordination…”
“Are you as ruthless at backgammon?” I asked.
“So it’s exactly the same form as you allegedly used with
the Americans two years ago – you ended up controlling
the lot. I’ve often wondered how you pulled that off.”
“Mum’s the word, old son,” said LJ, an extended
forefinger tapping the side of his nose. “I’d like to try and
pull it off again before I’m tumbled.”
“OK,” I said, “but when does all this begin?”
“Well, as it’s your brainchild, so to speak, I don’t
see why the Partners shouldn’t appoint you as head of the
training study.”
“I think I follow you all right, so that between the
two of us we’ll have the situation well in hand; but what
I actually meant was, when does it begin?”
LJ looked at his monitor screen. “The first meeting
is this Friday at 11.30 am, and the Partners have insisted
that it be held here.”
“No good for me I’m afraid, the Dorset situation is
far too volatile. I need to be back there in the morning.”
“Ah yes,” said LJ. “I want to speak to you about
that.” He sat down and typed in the command that
brought up details of all current assignments. “I want
you to complete your report on this assignment as soon
as possible.”
He kept his eyes on the screen while he talked,
avoiding my gaze as he always did in these situations. I
knew that this was the real reason he had hauled me over
here at this ungodly hour. The New Network was just a
smoke screen.
LJ swivelled uncomfortably in his chair and pushed
the intercom button on his desk.
Zara answered and he said, “Operational name
for the Gin Fizz Assignment?”
Zara’s voice came through the speaker, “Poseidon,”
she said.
“How very erudite,” I said to LJ. In Greek
mythology, Poseidon was the chief god of the sea, brother
of Zeus and Pluto who together dethroned their father
Kronos and divided his realm. Poseidon took the sea as
his kingdom.
LJ smiled and pushed the button on the intercom
to tell Zara what I had said, then turned back to me.
“We’re winding up ‘Poseidon’. I’ll need a full
report for the Partners by the morning. That comes
straight from the top.”
“You must be joking,” I said.
“I never joke – as you are well aware. Especially
about matters concerning this department.”
“That assignment is at a critical stage – as you are
well aware. We still have the loose ends to tie up.”
LJ tensed up. “Possibly, but you won’t be required
to continue, and you should remember completeness is
only a state of mind.”
“So is Partner interference a state of mind. If I have
to I’ll go back to Dorset in my own time, I’ll take two
weeks leave.”
“Be reasonable, Jake, what is wrong here?”
I brought the wad of scanned copies from my
pocket. Thirty-one pages from a private diary, stolen
from Oliver Hawkworth’s house in Hampshire.
Most of it written in the penmanship of busy
professional men – badly.
There were cryptic dinner appointments and
an almost obsessional compilation of entries regarding
expenses. The reference to Italy concerned undefined
sales of various pieces of machinery and numerical
nomenclature of bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.
One page, however, contained something more
specific.
‘Tell HC’ he’d written, then used some sort of
cipher made up of letters and numbers on three lines,
which meant nothing to me.
I’d given this coded concoction to Vince when we
had arrived earlier. His computer had located the code in
a matter or minutes. Now I told LJ about it.
“What this means, according to Vince Sharp, is
that the hardware has been procured. Payment will be
required in the sum of ten million Euros by the end of
the month. The latter part of this code is something quite
different, it relates specifically to me.”
I waited while LJ got the full implication. He took
out another cigar and lit it.
I went on, “This message has been sent to HC. I
believe that this is Harry Caplin, who I know has been
keeping an eye on me ever since I arrived in Dorset. Our
Cabinet Minister ends the message with a warning. He
says to beware of me.”
“I know just how he feels,” said LJ. Solemnly
he removed his glasses, cleaned the lenses with his
handkerchief, replaced them and read the whole thing
through again. “Zara,” he finally said into the intercom,
“you’d better come in here right away.” While we were
waiting for her to arrive, LJ added.
“This whole affair, Jake its all a bit odd, isn’t
it? It simply doesn’t fit together. I mean, why would a
high profile Cabinet Minister get himself involved with
someone who was under suspicion of illegally trading in
weapons and class A drugs, for that matter? Hell’s struth,
what’s the fellow thinking?”
He thought that I was bending it a bit to interpret
the word ‘authenticate’ as ‘terminate’.
LJ’s department was responsible only to the
Partners, and they were responsible only to Sir Lucius
Stagg, former Prime Minister, and the firm’s benefactor;
you could see why he was being hesitant to go against
their will.
Crossing swords with a member of the cabinet was
not a wise thing to do even with their blessing, and this
was a very powerful member of the cabinet and a client
of the firm.
Finally, four cups of tea later, LJ leaned well back
in his chair and said, “I’m convinced that you are quite
wrong.” He was staring up at the ceiling.
“Convinced,” he said again.
Tats caught my eye. Zara was taking notes, “And
therefore it is…” he paused, “of the utmost importance to
continue with the assignment, to protect the Government
and our client’s position.”
That’s what LJ said to the corner of the ceiling,
and while he said it I raised an eyebrow at Zara, who
responded with the faintest smile.
I got to my feet. “Please do not take advantage,
Mr Dillon,” LJ said anxiously, “The Partners will only
tolerate your maverick behaviour for a short while.” He
swivelled round to his screen again and continued with
the new network plan.
“You’ll overbalance one day,” I heard him
mumbling to the computer screen as we left. I suppose he
was bored with talking to the ceiling.