Authors: JT Brannan
STOP AT NOTHING: 'Mark Cole is Bond's US cousin mixed with the balls out action and killing edge of Jason Bourne' Parmenion Books (30 page)
Cole knew what he would have to do. The risks associated with Hansard’s crazed scheme were just too great – what if nuclear weapons
were
launched? With massive build-ups of weapons by the US, Russia and China, such a conflict would simply ensure the end of the world.
But he still didn’t know whether his family was safe. The escape route through Miami was good, and Sarah knew what she was doing. Cole knew his wife was both tough and resourceful, and not only had he taught her well, but she had learnt well too, being something of a natural at the work.
It seemed a little incongruous that such a well-bred daughter of such an incredibly wealthy man could at the same time be street smart and so very, very capable. But, Cole remembered, with no mother and an absentee father, she had essentially raised herself, and her self-reliance was no accident.
It was too painful to even think about his children – were they okay, were they safe, did they know what was going on, were they scared? Images flashed through his mind, snapshots of their lives from their earliest days as they crawled in nappies around the floor of the beach house, learnt to walk, to talk, to –
A tear welled up in Cole’s eye, and he blinked it away as subtly as he could, careful not to let the German policeman see him.
No
. He
had
to believe Sarah would get herself and the children to Stefan. She was capable, the plan was good, and Albright – dangerously psychotic or not – should have been left behind in Miami, shaking his head in confusion, leaving his family free to travel to the rendezvous in safety.
He wanted desperately to make the same rendezvous, get to Steinmeier’s house and check his family were okay, kiss them, hold them close, say sorry for dragging them into his business, promise them it was all over, he would never leave them again.
But the fact of the matter was that the very future of the world – and certainly that of the United States – was also under threat, and Cole was the only person who might be able to prevent the cataclysm.
It was to be the last meeting of the Alumni before the assassination of President Abrams the next day would throw the whole country into panic, chaos and confusion.
The meeting, as ever, was held in the utterly secure confines of Charles Hansard’s own government installation, the Office of the Director of National Security. And as ever, the men and women arrived without their drivers or their security details, driving their own rented cars in through the rear access road to the undergound parking lot.
Hansard had replaced the ODNI’s own security personnel on the gate with the lone figure of Nicholas Stern, who checked each and every individual on their way in. In this way, the meeting was as secret as it could possibly be.
There was an air of excitement, of anticipation, in the air that night, as the men and women of the powerful clique drank champagne and chatted animatedly about the future. Would it all work out? How quickly would things progress? How would they react under the watchful eyes of the press and public? What would they say?
But there was also a degree of nervousness, something that Hansard had been picking up on a little too much lately. It was always the same – people were always happy to talk a good fight, but when it came to crunch time, their will was often less than they boasted of. And Hansard had no desire to get embroiled in another episode like the one with Bill Crozier. He had balked at the last moment, threatening to go to Dorrell with everything. Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn’t; but it was a chance Hansard had been unwilling to take.
But at the same time, he couldn’t very well just set about killing any member of the group who had their doubts. Doubts were natural, but they needed to be stamped out, and stamped out quickly, especially at such a critical juncture.
And so he had brought with him for this final meeting a very special guest; someone whom he hoped would rekindle the spirit of the Alumni and help them to see things through to the end.
Stephen Antonio Mancini waited quietly in the small room connected to the main conference room where the meeting was being held.
He was nervous about his appearance before the group. Even though he had been the President’s personal bodyguard for the past two years, the fact was that she did not intimidate him in the slightest; in fact, his entire concentration was devoted to concealing his utter hatred of her. The Alumni – and Vice Admiral Charles Hansard in particular – were in a different league altogether, however, and although he had worked for them for years, he had never before met them all together. Indeed, like many ‘beta’ members, Mancini didn’t even know for sure who they were.
The way the Alumni group worked was on three levels. The first was the Alumni themselves, the special group of people that had met and formed the core of the unit back at the turn of the century. Below that elite number were the beta members, those like Mancini himself who were aware of the group’s existence, ideals and goals – although not necessarily who the group actually consisted of.
But they shared the same ideals, and craved the same goals, and were willing to go to great lengths to achieve them. They would know one member of the core group at least – the person who had originally recruited them – and maybe even as many as two or three; but they would never know everyone that was involved. Such compartmentalisation was the cornerstone of the group’s security.
Below the beta members were the ‘gophers’ – those who served the higher members across the whole spectrum of the American administation, from local police to journalists, and from speech writers to special forces operatives, all doing the work of the Alumni without even knowing who it was they were working for.
Mancini was proud to be a beta member, one who actually knew what was going on, and was delighted that he would now get his chance to meet the elite members of the core group.
It was they, after all, who were giving him his chance of redemption.
Manipulation of people was a skill that Hansard had developed very early on indeed, long before his career in military intelligence had even started. It was something of an innate quality, and one which his privelaged upbringing and education had then honed to a razor’s edge.
With Mancini, the man had been recruited by Hansard many years ago, whilst still in the United States Army. Back then, Ellen Abrams had been a Senator who had campaigned for the right of American women to fight with men on the front line of battle. She had finally got enough agreement up on Capitol Hill that a special working group was put together to test the feasibility of such an arrangement.
Private Rebecca Maria Mancini, younger sister of Stephen, was part of that feasibility study, and after graduating near the top of her infantry class, was sent at Senator Ellen Abrams’ recommendation to the front lines of Iraq.
She lasted three weeks before she was killed, and Hansard had met with her brother soon after, stoking his hatred of Abrams – for Hansard had already foreseen that she would one day be President.
Hansard had then brought Steve Mancini on board to his programme, encouraging him to leave the Army and join the Secret Service, where Hansard’s connections helped him to quickly climb the ranks, with the aim of one day being on the Presidential detail.
But Hansard’s manipulations had not ended there – he had also ensured the painful break-up of Mancini’s marriage by setting up his wife to have an affair, which further increased his hatred of women.
And then as the years progressed and the time came closer, Hansard arranged for an after-works Secret Service party to leave Mancini drunk in the arms of a street hooker.
Mancini went privately to a clinic soon after, and then for a second opinion after that, but the verdict was unanimous – Stephen Antonio Mancini was HIV positive, with a bleak outlook ahead of him.
Not wanting to let the Service – or, indeed, his three estranged children – know about it, Mancini went straight to Hansard and asked for his help. Hansard agreed to help hide evidence of the disease from the doctors at Mancini’s annual Secret Service medical – an easy task, as there was no actual disease in the first place, Hansard having paid the orignal doctors to provide false reports – and to cover it up after his death, which Mancini now fully embraced.
For instead of crawling away to die quietly in a hole, Mancini would be going out all guns blazing.
Mancini once again thanked his lucky stars for Hansard’s help throught the years. Hansard had given him something to live for after the terrible death of his sister –
revenge on that bitch Abrams, that fucking bitch who sent his little sister out to that shit hole to die.
But little Becky hadn’t just died, Mancini reminded himself – her legs had been blown off when her platoon had been ambushed up in the northern badlands, and then she had been dragged, still alive, by a four-wheel-drive through the streets of a grotty little town as an example to others, before being beheaded with a long-bladed knife. The footage, filmed by the terrorist group behind the atrocity, never made it on to US television – that bitch Abrams had managed to cover up the whole incident to protect herself, although she never pushed the whole ‘women on the front line’ crap any further afterwards – but Mancini had seen it on the internet, with his own eyes.
And then after his bitch of a wife had cheated on him, Hansard had been there for him, supporting him through it.
And now he was HIV positive, Hansard was going to cover the whole thing up, so that his kids would never know – and they would be set for life too, each of his three children set to receive ten million dollars upon his death.
For he would surely die on this mission, Mancini knew. He would put a bullet through the back of the head of that bitch Ellen Abrams, and he would then aim his weapon at others, and his Secret Service buddies would have no option but to gun him down.
But what a way to go!
Hansard stood at the head of the conference table and held up a hand for quiet.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced grandly, ‘the time is nearly upon us. I realize that most of us need to be elsewhere tonight to prepare for tomorrow’s events, but I have a special guest with us here, someone who should make us realize what sacrifice really means.
‘I know you all know of this man – his name, and his role in the proceedings – but I think it is important for us all to see him, here in the flesh, a member of our group who believes in our aims and ideals so thoroughly, so totally, that he is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.
‘Ladies and gentleman, I give you the man who will willingly
die
for these beliefs tomorrow; I give you Stephen Mancini, the man who will kill the President of the United States of America!’
The gathered members of the Alumni roared their appreciation as Mancini entered the room, and Hansard watched the scene with calculating eyes.
He saw the spirits in the room lift as they saw the patriot who would lay down his life for them, saw the Alumni draw strength from him just as Hansard had known they would, for there was simply nothing as powerful as a human sacrifice. They cheered, they applauded, they whistled, and Hansard knew they would remain strong, and would see it through to the end.
And then he studied Mancini, a man who had lost his sister, his wife, his children, and now his health, who was being given the chance for redemption, to prove himself as a true patriot, and Hansard watched the man’s private joy as Mancini saw the men and women gathered in the room and realised for the first time the true power of the Alumni. He watched the adulation from the elite group wash over Mancini, and the man seemed to grow physically larger from the attention, swelled with pride at his importance to the group’s plans, and Hansard knew Mancini would not let him down.
Hansard held his glass up high, and everyone did the same.
‘My friends,’ he announced, satisfied at last, ‘the next time we meet will be in a different world.’
Cole had still not opened his eyes fully, and the nearby guard was unaware that his prisoner was awake, as he continued to tap away at his laptop computer.
It appeared that Cole and the guard were the only people on board, save for the flight crew safely ensconced in the cockpit. The electromagnets were essentially unbreakable, which accounted for the guard’s lack of interest. He would have been told how dangerous Cole was, but being secured so tightly would give the guard the false confidence that it was a pure baby-sitting job.
It wasn’t going to be the most comfortable of tasks, but Cole relaxed his body and carried out the first phase of his plan.
Markus Schoenhoffer stopped typing, sniffing the air of the cargo area. The plane was damn cold – a problem with the cargo areas of military transport aircraft, and one that he was resigned to – and the low temperature tended to make scents carry.
The job was an easy one, Schoenhoffer reflected. The prisoner was extremely dangerous, but he was both sedated and securely locked into position. The police officer was going through night school to earn his masters in criminal psychology, and the three hour flight would give him some peace and quiet to get the next chapter of his dissertation done; it was due in by the start of the next term, and he had been struggling with finding the time to write it.
But what was that smell?
He sniffed the air again, and then he was sure. Urine. The prisoner had pissed his pants! Of all the inconsiderate …
Schoenhoffer put the computer down on the cold metallic floor and got up out of his seat, stretching as he did so. He approached the seated man carefully, keeping his distance. The smell reminded him somewhat of camels at the zoo, and he wondered briefly if the toxicity was somehow related to the sedative the man had been given.
He sighed. The job was supposed to be easy, but he couldn’t very well sign the man over to his compatriots in Washington with piss all down his legs. In the current climate, there would doubtless be allegations of abuse or neglect, or some other such horse crap.
He was also worried about the effect of the liquid on the electromagnets securing the man’s legs. He didn’t know much about how the system worked, but was pretty sure urine and electricity didn’t mix. He was also sure that the system was very expensive, and didn’t want to be responsible if it broke.
Schoenhoffer knew there was only one thing for it, however unpleasant it might be; he would have to use a pair of his own trousers, pulled from his overnight bag, and change the man.
It should be fairly easy, Schoenhoffer figured. There were two switches that activated the magnetic clamps, one controlling the wrist clamps and the other the ankle clamps, and they could be operated independently of one another.
He would just disconnect the leg clamps, take off the man’s trousers, clean him up, and then put on the fresh pair – it really
was
like baby sitting, after all. He would then re-secure the clamps, and go back to his dissertation.
It would be unpleasant but nothing to worry about. After all, the man
was
still unconscious.