He had four of them ‘tagged’ and had sent the information at high speed via the secure internet connection available to DIC operatives wherever they lived.
Sadly and unknowingly he had missed Stanton and was still thinking there were only four inbound ‘illegals’ when he sat down to thick cuts of bacon, creamy scrambled eggs and crunchy golden slices of toast.
Within two hours of arrival the five men were on their way into the United Kingdom mainland, via different routes, none of them aware that they had be seen and were now being tracked by the watching machine that is DIC.
Chapter 8
Scotland A87
8-10 a.m.
April 17th
Still on the A87 in the passenger seat of the refrigerated truck he’d hitched a lift with, Trevor Stanton, the one assassin Dewey hadn’t seen at the coastal arrival point, wasn’t best happy with the turn of events that had unfolded in the truck. When the conversation had lulled in the truck he and the driver had fallen into silence. Stanton had drifted off into a heavy doze as the truck rolled easily along the highland roads.
Stanton had woken to find the truck stopped in a lay-by to find the truck driver with his hand emerging from Stanton’s bag with three fake passports and matching credit cards.
On the driver’s lap Stanton’s Russian made PSS pistol sat accusingly. The PSS was small and looked unsophisticated and almost home made. It had been chosen as the weapon for the assassins on this mission because it is silent and deadly up to twenty five metres. It fired a bullet from a cartridge which stopped gases coming out the barrel and the addition of a two part barrel made the recoil virtually noiseless as well. This silent pistol with no muzzle flash was the ideal weapon for an assassin and 5 of them had been stolen to order for this mission from Russian an anti-terrorist forces armoury. Each assassin had been given two six shot, single stack clips of the silent piston drive 7.62mm x 42 cartridges.
For a moment the truck driver looked confident and triumphant, waving the items in a finger wagging style. The moment passed as Stanton’s right hand, edge first in a chop action swept past the waving passports and struck the driver’s throat, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. The unfortunate man slumped fatly against his driver’s side window, a rasp of now dead air wheezing from his lifeless lips.
Stanton checked the windows and mirrors. Not a living thing in sight, but knowing that this might change, he worked quickly and with collected calm. The driver was somewhat overweight and therefore would be hard to handle. Stanton went to the back of the truck and opened the doors on the refrigerated containment. The cooler wasn’t on as this was the return trip. Stanton opened the driver’s door and luckily the height of the cab allowed him to drop and shoulder the heavy body. Already the muscles were relaxing and fluids had begun to seep out. Stanton quickly staggered the body to the back, and hefted it in. He climbed in afterwards and secured the corpse to the inside of the van with straps.
Most people wouldn’t look back; they’d walk away, climb down and close the doors without a glance. Self preservation for the mind and protection from a wounded psyche, but Stanton had seen too much death close up and he stared with intensity at the clouded, glazed eyes of the unfortunate man. Stanton justified the murder in his mind, taking in the livid purple stripe across the man’s throat and reminded himself that in his line of business, innocent or not, witnesses must not live. Having satisfied himself of the necessity of the death he dropped out the back and closed the doors. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the door handles. After doing the same on the driver’s door handle he climbed into the cab. He pulled a shower bag from his raided rucksack, took out surgical gloves and quickly put them on. In a moment with some alcohol from a small bottle he had wiped all he had touched. He started the engine and switched on the refrigeration.
With the gloves still on he started looking for maps. He found a flask with tea and the dead man’s sandwiches. He took advantage and worked out a few facts and details about the journey whilst he enjoyed the dead man’s lunch. As he hungrily munched his way through the cheddar and piccalilli in white sliced bread, washing it down with the slightly stewed in the flask tea, all too sweet for his taste, he thought of the corpse in the back. Having noticed the worn gold band on the driver’s ring finger he ruefully, though not guiltily, thought of the wife who might have made the lunch, not to mention any children who were yet to be grieved by their father’s unsolved and unexplained murder. Ten minutes later, having wiped the flask cup and disposed of the sandwich wrapping in a hedge the truck pulled out of the lay-by and onto the roads leading to Inverness. He hadn’t seen another vehicle yet.
No he wasn’t best pleased. He didn’t have time to properly dispose of the body, and even if he did there were risks in that process. He knew he was going to have to hide the truck well enough for its delayed discovery to be surpassed by his having done the job and escaped. With that thought in mind he turned the refrigeration unit up to maximum. A frozen body would take time to give away tell tale smells. He had seen three car parks on the map where the truck could be dumped in the middle of Inverness. Oddly he had often found that given as long a pay and display ticket as the machine allowed a body could be more easily hidden in a built up area than a remote location. As he never left evidence and he was usually a long way away when the body was found car parks could become quite useful temporary cemeteries. Still, he had to kill a civilian and too early on. Trevor Stanton wasn’t happy with himself.
‘Stupid man’ he had thought, ‘stupid, stupid man.’
Chapter 9
Inverness
8-15 a.m.
April 17th
The ride in the ‘chopper’ from Plockton air strip had taken Marco Spencer roughly as the crow flies to Inverness, skirting Loch Ness and to his mind making the land beneath him look like a rapidly scrolling version of the satellite map he’d studied as part of his preparation. The pilot had been too busy for conversation and Spencer was lost in thoughts. The ‘ride’ didn’t register. He’d been on that many helicopter flights, mostly across the Middle-East, and even then in ‘khaki company’ in semi darkness, fearing hand held missile attacks, ready to be dropped, army style, in disguise, meeting contacts and watching his own back weeks on end until ‘extraction’, usually by chopper again, to a debriefing where he had offloaded the intelligence he had gathered and explained any killing he had had to do, or at least those of note or those likely to cause any fuss.
This chopper hovered and settled with a mild bump at Inverness Airport one hour after his arrival in Scotland. Being an internal flight, there was no clearing of security or customs. He’d entered the country and slipped into society with barely an eye brow being raised.
When the blades had stilled Spencer climbed out, thanked the pilot and with the casual attitude of a rich man he made easy strides into Inverness Airport, to get a coffee, not to mention a good breakfast, and think carefully about his next move.
He was going to buy a ticket for Gatwick, on a Flybe flight at nine forty-five, but that was an obvious move. There was the train, the night sleeper, but that put him behind again and Mason was booked on that train. The whole ‘not all the eggs in one basket’ situation had been made clear to all of them. Having been part of the espionage network in the UK he knew about DIC, the secretive watching agency, and was aware that he could be ‘tagged’ coming in. He hadn’t told the others, it was ‘every man for himself’ as far as he was concerned.
Chapter 10
