Honour Bound (18 page)

-30-

The
traffic was light, quite unusual for the time of day. Usually the run from his
apartment to the Unit took longer as nose to tail congestion had a way of
extending a journey. The computer on the dashboard registered a swift six miles
per hour, a nose bleeding speed compared with the usual traffic conditions.
After chatting with Joey Williams, he had returned to his apartment and checked
the secure mailbox expecting to find the list of paint shops courtesy of auto
crimes. He had been mildly surprised on finding the box empty. It was unlike
Talbot to be forgetful, hence his drive now to the Unit to pick it up and make
a start.

His
interest now centred on
Spendleys
. If they were on
the list, it would probably narrow his search to a sharp point. He would be
paying them a visit in any case but it was too early in the day yet. He would
check the other names first to prepare an alternative plan of action if
Spendleys
turned out to be clean, at least as far as paint
jobs went.

He
parked the Vauxhall in the underground car park, and took the express lift to
the twenty-second floor heading for his office, which was a rather grandiose
title for a table and one chair squeezed into a converted box room. Although he
qualified for an office, he rarely used it, so he was given a small one. Like
most operators, he tended to work from home. His mail was left in his secure
post box by a service courier, while any important messages were left on the
encrypted answering machine.

He
riffled through a stack of papers in a wire basket on the desk, knowing what
most of it would be. Life assurance and medical plans offered at discounted
rates. Are they trying to tell me something, he wondered, he gave the papers a
cursory glance before consigning them to the waste
bin.

Picking
up the telephone, he dialled the internal number for Talbot’s office. It was
answered on the first ring, as if someone had been waiting for the call.
Expecting Mary's quiet voice, it was a little off putting to hear a man's gruff
Scottish accent. Norton identified himself. The voice on the phone identified
itself as Tom Masterson from internal security, and asked if he would come to Mr.
Talbot's office right away. Norton said he would and replaced the receiver.

"Who's
he upset now?" he asked the room in general before walking to the lift.

Mary
was not in the office. Instead, two men whose bulk seemed to fill the room
introduced themselves. Tom Masterson's handshake was as gruff as his voice. The
hard dry skin of his hand matched that of his ruddy, weather beaten face. His
partner, also a large man with a firm grip, introduced himself as Justin Black.

"
What's the problem gents
?" Norton asked.

Masterson
settled his bulk on the edge of the table and ran a hand through a mop of thick
red hair before folding his arms against his chest. "I take it," he
said, stating a fact rather than questioning, "
you
weren't listening to the radio on your way in this morning."

What
is going on, Norton thought. Aloud he said, "No. Are you going to
enlighten me? Tell me what I've missed?"

"Look,
I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you." Masterson said, shifting
uncomfortably. "Vance Talbot and his wife were killed this morning.
A bomb.
At their house."

Norton
felt the blood drain from his face. His breathing seemed to labour slightly,
his chest felt heavy as the cold fingers of shock danced across it.

"Bastards!"
He slumped into
one of the visitors chairs.

The
room was silent.

"What
the hell happened?" He half listened as Masterson relayed the facts as he
knew them.

He
had known them both since joining the Unit. Vance had been his first
operational partner. They had spent many hours in each others company during
stakeouts and covert operations. Time and time again, they had put their lives
on the line, disregarding their own safety to help each other out of dangerous
situations. He remembered vividly the eight minutes that had cemented their
friendship. He had spent the whole of that time with his thumb in a hole in
Vance's back, staunching the flow of blood caused by an armour-piercing bullet.
All the time while Vance was coughing blood, his face grey with pain, they had
joked and laughed about the good times past and those to come. Both believing
he was going to die, but neither caring to voice it.

His
mind conjured up images of Vance and Jayne as they looked the last time he had
seen them together. It had been at dinner at their home in Esher, another attempt
for her to use her matchmaking skills. His heart lifted at the fond memories.
She was forever trying to find him a suitable partner. She used to fuss around
him like a mother hen with one of its chicks. She was one of the dearest and
most selfless people he had ever met. They made such a perfect, loving couple.

A
hand shaking his shoulder dragged him from his thoughts. "You okay?"
Black said, handing him a hip flask. "Take a swig of this it might make
you
feel
better."

Norton
took a long draught of the neat Scotch, keeping his eyes closed while the
strong liquor worked its way into his system, feeling the warmth of the liquid
slowly clear away the cold in his chest.

"Thanks."
He replaced the cap and handed it back.

Masterson
shifted again on the edge of the table. He was ill at ease and looked it,
unsure about handling another person’s grief.

"Look,"
he said, "this is probably not the time to ask, but it has to be done. Do
you think this attack is in response to what you’re working on now? Or could it
be some mob from the past with a score to settle?"

Norton
wondered how far he could trust these men, wondered how much they already knew.
Vance's concern over the illegal access to his file came back to mind. Although
he had not actually said there was a leak, Norton had known him long enough to
know that he thought there was. Vance was going to look into a security breach
and this happens. It was much too convenient for coincidence. Another group my
arse, Norton thought, this is straight from the inside. He decided to go it
alone, trust no one until he could prove it, one way or the other.

Looking
at Masterson, he said, "I don't know. Between the two of us, we've ruined
a lot of well laid plans. There’s any number of people who would like to get
even, I really don't know, it's possible either way."

Masterson
nodded,
it was the answer he had expected. As the
deputy head of Internal Security, he knew how each department operated. The
operational section, whose unwritten and unofficial motto was 'No prisoners -
No problems', was very successful, but the odd terror group escaped from even
their clutches. 

"If
you want to take time off," Black said, "I don't think anyone will
object given the circumstances."

"No.
I don't need time
off,
I have a job that needs to be
cleaned up quickly. Maybe I’ll take some time after that."

"Okay.
I'll fix it for another operator to give you a hand."

"No.
I don't need that either, I've worked on my own for a long time. I prefer it
that way."

"Just trying to help."

"Yes
I know, and I appreciate it. But I'll be fine." He wiped his forehead with
his hand. The room became silent, broken only as the computer on Mary's desk
beeped the hour. Norton looked at it. The file on the computer, Vance had
spoken about it at his club, he said he would leave any information he found in
the sub program.

"Look,
can you leave me on my own for a while," Norton said, "I just want to
do a bit of thinking."

"Yeah, sure."
Masterson stood
up, a relieved look crossing his face. He motioned Black to the door with a nod
of his head. "If you need anything, anything at all, you know where we
are." He closed the door quietly behind him.

Norton
waited until their footsteps had receded along the corridor before rising. As
he entered Talbot's cluttered office, his stomach felt hollow, as if he had not
eaten for a week. He closed his eyes as a feeling of sadness floated through
him like a dark gossamer veil. A mental picture of Vance in his favourite
position waltzed through his mind. He imagined him sitting in his chair with
his feet on the table, hands clasped behind his neck and the near perpetual
grin spread across his face. The image lingered for a few short seconds then
Norton opened his eyes.

He
sighed deeply. "Someone will pay dearly for what they've done today, very
dearly indeed."

He
sat at the computer terminal and ran his eyes over the keyboard. On the
otherwise blank screen of the monitor, a 'Password' request flashed in the
bottom left hand corner.

He
typed 'Sixteen to go' and pressed the 'Enter' key. The hard drive clicked as it
verified the password, and moments later a file request screen appeared.

'Enter
file required:' had a flashing curser next to it.

He
typed 7667 and pressed the 'Enter' key again.

The
hard drive clicked about its business of retrieving the file before displaying
it on the screen.

Date: 20/7/07

Type: Info.

Reason: Illegal
file access

From: Vance
Talbot

To:  
Sam Norton

Text: I wish you
didn't have to read this. It means all has   

gone
pear shaped. Sir
Reg. accessed your file. Caught
him                  

at
it. Thin excuse
but was lying. On 21/7 I intend to 

have
a surveillance
team watch him for a week, see what

he
gets up to.
Nothing more yet.
Vance.

"Sir
Reginald Langdon," Norton murmured. "They don't come much bigger than
that."

He
returned to the file selection screen and retrieved Langdon's file, memorising
several addresses it contained. He quickly scanned through the remainder of the
file before turning the machine off and leaving the office.

-31-

Bright
fluorescent lighting overflowed the showroom windows forcing the darkness to
retreat from the edges of the building, the rain soaked footpath sparkled under
the harsh glare. A neon sign above the main entrance forever beckoned to the
few passers-by, 'SPENDLEYS FOR FORD', it announced, and below that, 'Better
deals on better wheels'.

Inside
the showroom, behind thick plate glass windows were fifty new cars, each
singled out by its own recessed spotlight. The few passers-by had other thoughts
on their minds than late night window shopping. A fine drizzle had begun about
9.30, a little over two hours before, and appeared to have settled in for the
rest of the night. The people who had ventured out had quickened their pace,
heading for the warmth and comfort of their homes.

Norton
had parked the Vauxhall in the car park of a block of flats opposite the Ford
dealers. Already an hour had slipped by as he kept watch on the building. The
only sign of movement had been the flapping of a dealer’s flag as an occasional
light gust toyed with the thin fabric, while inside the showroom red lights
blinked on and off every few seconds as motion detectors kept a constant
electronic vigil.

Earlier
in the day, Norton had visited the remains of Vance and Jayne’s home. He was
saddened by the callous murder of his two closest friends and the total
destruction of the place where they had been so happy. The initial blast had
ripped out the front of the house and the resulting fire had so weakened the
rest of the building that it had collapsed in on itself. All that remained of
the place where he had spent so many hours in their company was a pile of
charred and blackened rubble.

A
feeling of emptiness, a void within his very being had intensified as he
watched the forensic teams at work, sifting through the debris within the
confines of the blue and white incident tape surrounding the scene. The tape,
fluttering in the breeze, looked as flimsy as the real divide between life and
violent death.

Norton
had lost friends before, far too many to recall. Talbot had known he was a
target and had accepted the fact. Like most operators, he knew that survivors
from his past operations may well catch up, and although he took basic
precautions to guard against it, no one could stay on guard twenty-four hours a
day. Jayne was different. She had not been a threat, she had never harmed
anyone, but still murdered by the coward’s tool, a bomb. The indiscriminate
killer planted by faceless people who crawled like rats in a sewer. To them
innocence was just a word, a word that had little significance as their plans
of death were formulated.

In
battle, death became a companion that waited patiently around every corner,
behind every tree, waiting to reap the luckless and the foolhardy. As a
soldier, he could not stop to mourn a friend taken in battle, his thoughts and
actions had to be concentrated on the living, and the job of staying alive.
What had lain before him was not a battlefield, but the remains of a home that
two people had shared. Once again, he did not have time to mourn, his thoughts
would be concentrated on the living, and the tracking down of those
responsible. His sorrow had slowly turned to anger. He did not look back as he
walked down the drive. He reached the car, opened the door and slid in behind
the wheel.

Later
that afternoon he had visited the showroom pretending an interest in the cars.
Now, sitting in the Vauxhall, he ran through the floor plan in his head. The
main display areas were on two levels. Sports and high performance models were
on the ground floor while the family and estate versions were on the first
floor. A ramp outside at the rear allowed the cars to be driven onto the upper
level that also held the offices and rest rooms. The workshop and paint shop
were at the rear of the building on the ground floor, their entrances beneath
the highest point of the ramp. He had visited the workshop to check for motion
detectors, of which there were none, rather than check the ability of the
dealership to service his car. In the square storage yard at the back of the
showrooms stood, he had estimated, two hundred assorted cars and vans, all
standing in neat waxed rows awaiting buyers. The square itself was formed by
the showroom at the base, the backs of two office blocks ran along the left
side and the top while an eight-foot high brick wall, the only surviving
section of the brewery, formed the remaining side.

Locking
the Vauxhall, he crossed the road, heading away from the showroom. By skirting
around a block of flats and through a small park cluttered with children's
slides and swings, he made his way into the street that was edged by the old
brewery wall. He knelt in the shadow at its base and pulled on his balaclava
and gloves. There were slight hollows at several points along the wall where
the brick had crumbled due to years of attack by the elements and poor
maintenance. It was into one of these indentations that he put his foot and
pushed himself upwards, grabbing one of the iron spikes at the top. He paused,
just head and hands visible, while he looked around the yard for any signs of
movement. A single sodium lamp mounted on the roof of the showroom lit the
area, its high intensity beam turning the night into day. Strategically placed
mirrors caught the light and banished most of the shadows that someone, like
himself, could hide in.

There's
no point, he thought, as he looked along the roofline, in having all this light
if there isn't a camera to take advantage of it. But I'll be buggered if I can
see it.

He
pulled himself to the top of the wall. "In for a penny, in for a
pound," he whispered.

Flicking
his legs over the metal spikes, he dropped silently to the ground. He rechecked
the area between the wall and the rear of the building then sprinted across the
compound to the relative safety beneath the ramp. With the skeleton keys, he
set to work on the lock securing the workshop door. The lock was modern and
expensive and resisted the attentions of the first six keys. The seventh caused
the tumblers to turn with barely a sound. He pushed the door open and stepped
inside, reaching into his jacket for a torch. As his fingers curled around the
cool metal, his world turned to darkness.