Ethan Justice: Origins (Ethan Justice #1) (24 page)

The Major sat upright, banged his fists down hard on the desk, which undulated under the force, and snarled with his best battle face. It was a look that would have buckled a civilian’s knees.

“You Yanks think you can take over anything. Well, let me tell you this. If you put one foot out of line or upset one of my men during your stay, I will personally shoot you in the head, put you over my shoulder, throw you back in the chopper, fly over the Bristol Channel and dump you.”

Johnson remained calm. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said. “If we start now, we can get this wrapped up before morning. May we proceed?”

Major Harris waved his hand in agreement, wiping spittle from the corners of his mouth with a white handkerchief. Wilson thought he might as well have waved it in the air.

*

Johnson departed to a nearby meeting room with a list of five names and an internal phone number to get things started. Harris let Wilson know what he really thought of his boss.

“Thinks he’s tough does he? Bloody Yanks, they’re all talk and no action or all action and no brains.”

The Major was starting to grow on Wilson. He told it like it was, or at least how he saw it. Too many people in positions of authority communicated between the lines these days, allowing ambiguity to cloud a straightforward message. It was a survival mechanism which permitted deniability after the message was badly received. With Major Harris, you couldn’t squeeze an ant’s privates between the lines of his communication. It was refreshing.

Wilson was getting fed up of standing. He looked around the office for signs of available chairs. There was only one grey plastic chair in the sizeable office. It wouldn’t have surprised the agent if Harris had removed the comfortable chairs before they arrived.

He gestured to the lonely seat in the corner of the room. “May I?” he said.

“Yes, pull it up.” He pointed to a row of coat hooks to the left of the door. “You can hang your coat up there.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”

Wilson picked up the chair by its back and carried it to the desk. As he positioned the chair to face the Major, a gust of wind rattled against the window to the right of the Major’s desk sending leaves and rain against the pane. Wilson looked out of the window into the adjoining car park where the only activity was the howling of wind as it propelled leaves from place to place and bent tree branches into near submission.

“Some night,” Wilson commented, sitting down and pulling a pen and pad from inside his pocket. “Are we going to be able to fly out of here later?”

“The Eurocopter Dauphin flies in just about anything.” The Major raised his eyebrows as Wilson jotted the date at the top of his pad. “I thought you Earthguard lot didn’t believe in evidence?”

“I haven’t slept in two days and my mind is shot. I’ll take my chances.” Wilson wriggled in his chair but failed to find a comfortable position. “So what can you tell me about Fisher?”

The Major’s hand returned to his chin, which he massaged between thumb and forefinger as he regarded the agent through narrowed eyes. “Personally, very little. I know that he didn’t fit in well at first, and he’s one of the toughest soldiers we’ve ever put together, but that’s about it.”

“Any disciplinary issues?”

“Nothing official, but a lunatic in the general population can appear completely sane here. We take a man’s destructive nature and give it direction. From what I hear, Fisher arrived with a mean streak longer than the Amazon.”

“Anything documented?”

“No. You might get more from the other guys. Discipline tends to be instant here. Problem candidates are weeded out at the training stage and RTU’d. That’s returned to unit to you civilians.”

“I remember,” Wilson said, immediately regretting the comment and moving on quickly. “Any problems with the other soldiers?”

Major Harris stroked his imaginary beard with real purpose as he scrutinised the Earthguard agent. Wilson realised that he’d messed up and the squadron leader was not about to let him off the hook.

“You failed the training?”

“No, I meant that I remembered the term RTU from when I visited the old barracks at Hereford, before you moved here. One of the guys from ‘B’ squadron was communicating with a known terrorist.”

“Either you tell me, or I ask your pillock of a partner.”

Wilson was back pedaling fast. “It won’t do you any good,” he said. “We each know nothing of the other’s past employment. There is nothing he can tell you.”

“I can check our records.”

“Records of past employment are expunged. Our names are changed, our histories deleted, and it’s like we don’t exist.”

Harris tapped the forefingers of both hands onto the metal surface of his desk as he pondered his next question carefully. “So you won’t admit to having taken our training program?”

Wilson didn’t move a muscle. This conversation was going nowhere and Johnson would not be best pleased if he left the Major’s office empty handed. He couldn’t risk Johnson making him the scapegoat in order to keep his own position. If only he didn’t feel so damn tired.

Even though he hadn’t admitted to anything, he knew if Harris mentioned the conversation to Johnson or their controller he would be put out to pasture with immediate effect. It was one thing to divulge history to Johnson, but to give details to another organisation would not be tolerated. Wilson was wealthy, the pay had always been excellent and the retirement package plentiful. Why not? He was on his way to being a new man. It was a calculated risk, and the way his mind and body begged for rest or even the luxury of a comfortable chair, retirement didn’t seem like such a scary thought. Perhaps he could use the situation to his advantage.

“This goes no further than this office, agreed?”

The Major broke out in a big smile and threw himself back in his chair. “I knew it. You’ve got that look about you.” He sat back up, elbows on the desk, hands clasped together. “Good God man, you were one of us. They could put my balls in a vice, and I wouldn’t say a single word.”

The thought wasn’t a pretty one, but the straight-talking Major knew how to embellish a promise, and Wilson believed him. “Joined at twenty-one, and like most, I came from the Paras. Left at thirty when Earthguard made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Not much else to say.”

“If Earthguard head-hunted you, then I guess it’s safe to say that you saw some serious action. Am I right?”

It all seemed like a lifetime ago. “To be honest, not much until Desert Storm in ninety-one. Seemed I had a talent for thinking on my feet, and after I got back they contacted me and asked me to join. Earthguard was barely a year old at the time and I wasn’t fully sure of their purpose or reach. Over time I realised that it wasn’t that different to being in the SAS, except that my actions would be solely for the benefit of the UK. Fortunately for me, they kept in touch and after two years, like I said...”

“They made you an offer you couldn’t refuse,” Harris finished.

“Exactly.”

“Somehow I get the impression that you’re being modest, Soldier. But I won’t press you any further, and you have my word that this won’t go any further.”

From that moment on the Major was cheerfully answering every question that Wilson threw at him, occasionally interjecting his own memory of battles won, lives saved and near-death experiences. At one point the Major pulled out a bottle of single malt Scotch whisky and two plastic beakers which Wilson politely declined, not out of protocol but for the effect it would have on his already-exhausted mind.

“So the only problem occurred when the rumour of cutbacks became widespread?”

The Major shook his head, looking down at his hands. The wind howled outside as if to introduce the telling of a spooky story. “Fisher apparently had his whole life worked out. He was going to stay in the squadron until he was forty-five and then emigrate with his sister, Sasha, to Australia.”

Wilson stopped scribbling in his note pad and looked up. “Sister? We never saw anything on file about a sister.”

“It’s not a nice family history. Both mother and father were registered drug addicts, living in a council flat in Norwich. Fisher’s father beat his mother and sexually abused both him and his sister.”

“How old were they?”

“It’s not certain when it started, but his sister is two years older than him and was sixteen when she became pregnant.”

“By the father?”

“Yes. Eventually she was removed by the local authority after it was proved that her pregnancy was incestuous. Sasha Fisher was given a new identity and relocated to York after the foetus was aborted. By all accounts, the abuse of Gregory Fisher continued until he was sixteen when one drug-addled evening his father beat his mother to death with his bare hands and then stuck his head in a gas oven.”

Domestic violence was no different from terrorism. It boiled down to anger and disappointment in yourself, or more usually, others. Both ended in needless destruction of lives and, left to fester in a warped mind, often resulted in the loss of innocent lives. Wilson was well aware that his view was simplistic and that there were so many other factors to consider, but in his profession there was no time for convoluted discussion: you killed someone or you didn’t - there was no time for a chat.

While he worked solely in the terrorism business, he despised the perpetrators of violence against women and children every bit as much. Fisher’s life had been tainted by his childhood, yet he had still carved out an envious career in the SAS, got his life together and put the past behind him. He couldn’t be disappointed in himself, so who was he mad at?

“So the list you gave to Johnson, there’s no one else?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“What did he do with his spare time, go and visit his sister?”

“No idea. He was a very private person by all accounts. I’ve spoken to a couple of the men on the list, and all I discovered was that he wasn’t one for a night out with the lads, and wherever he went, he never talked about it.”

“Can you tell me about the incident?”

“You mean the stolen papers?”

“Yes, do you know what they were?”

“No, well above my pay grade, so I’m told. I know Fisher was looking for confirmation of the cutbacks and whether he would be affected. The Major General has an office here, and as most of his work is done in Whitehall, there was no reason to suspect that anything of great importance was held in there.”

“But there was?”

“I’m told that highly classified papers were taken. The MG didn’t notice until after Fisher had been released back into Civvie Street.”

“When were the papers taken?” Wilson asked.

“We don’t know exactly. All we know is that when the MG visited two weeks ago, the shit hit the fan. The documents were placed in the cabinet seven weeks ago and Fisher was discharged five weeks ago, giving him a two week window of opportunity.”

“Johnson said you told him over the phone it was a DNA match?”

“Yes, our investigators found a single hair and matched it to our personal DNA database.”

“The one the men don’t know about?”

“Exactly. Doesn’t your agency do the same?”

“That one’s above
my
pay grade, but it wouldn’t surprise me.” The thought of Earthguard filing away his DNA records didn’t bother Wilson. “Did you try and track him down?”

“We notified the police that we were looking for him, and we checked out the address we had for him. Turned out that he’d sold his house in Hereford and was nowhere to be found.”

“Did you try his sister?”

“I contacted her, but she said that she hadn’t seen him in six months, and the last time she had spoken with him was while he was still enrolled with us.”

“Did you believe her?”

“I had no reason not to, but I’m no investigator. It might be worthwhile you paying her a visit. I’ll have someone make you a copy of our file which will give you her details along with other addresses and numbers that were checked out.”

“I appreciate it,” said Wilson, meaning it. He knew that this was most definitely not standard procedure. “Tell me, Major Harris, have you any idea what this guy is up to?”

The Major rubbed his chin against the back of his hand, keeping his eyes on Wilson as he pondered the question. “If I had to guess, then I’d say he wants payback for losing his living five years early. How he plans to do that, I have no idea.”

“I thought you’d say that. Do you sympathise?”

“Off the record?”

“I don’t keep records and this goes no further.”

“The idiots at Whitehall deserve a good kick up the arse. They take some of our most experienced men and throw them on the scrap heap without a single thought how that might damage our ability to deal with the growing number of terrorist threats. It’s insanity.”

“Please answer the question.”

“Provided he directs his anger at them, and not here, then good luck to him.”

“Even if he takes innocent lives?”

The Major shot forward stretching his body across his desk. Instinctively, Wilson’s hand reached inside his jacket for his gun. “Jesus, Wilson. What the hell has Fisher got hold of that makes him so dangerous?”

Wilson returned his hand to the pad on his knee, heart pumping fast but expression unchanged. “Nothing yet. Is there anywhere I can make a private call?”

*

The air was turbulent and buffeted the Eurocopter Dauphin from all sides. Sheets of water crashed into the windows like waves against a boat, and it seemed at times like they were not airborne but afloat on a choppy sea. Johnson kept his eyes on the pilot. Only a sign of nervousness on his part was the signal to begin explaining matters to God. He wouldn’t make a deal that he couldn’t keep in exchange for survival, but he might let God know why he had done the things he had done. It would be a last ditch attempt to sway the decision as to where he would spend the rest of eternity. Johnson was not a believer, but he knew how to hedge his bets - he wasn’t stupid.

Johnson put on the supplied headphones to dull the storm’s noise and focussed his thoughts on the recent interviews. It was better than trying to talk to Wilson, who would have got nothing out of the Major.