“Where have you been?” The truck driver asked.
Stanton knew the drill. He reeled off some well rehearsed and thoroughly researched tourist details. The stock in trade lies of assassins and spies everywhere rolled out of his mouth with enthusiasm and verve. In spite of being tired he kept his focus.
The truck driver enthused over his homeland and bemoaned the effects of the tourist industry with a careful ‘no offence meant’ thrown in.
Chapter 4
Duirnish Rail Station
7-30 a.m.
April 17th
Peter Mason, the first of the four illegal entrants to the country Michael Dewy had spotted, sat on a bench at Duirnish station. The station was a short damp walk from his arrival point on the shores of Loch Carron. He had a relatively short wait for his train, though the cold would make it seem longer. The train wasn’t due in until seven forty-one; they’d even had to ask for the train to stop there, as it was a request station, which Peter didn’t like; it felt like he was ‘lit up’. He could cope with the cold though. Six years in the army, three of those in the infantry and three in the SAS had given him layers of toughness that practically no environment could break through. The over work of infantry service in Afghanistan had led him to leave. He went into security work and got bored. Then he had gone ‘freelance’ as an assassin and had made good money and a polished reputation making tricky hits on both sides of the law. He had been contacted for this job three months ago. He had no idea who the mark was. All he knew was that the target would be revealed when he reached the contact point in London. Three words had been given for the contact point; ‘Priory Arms Vauxhall’. It didn’t give any indication of who was funding the job.
He sat on the bench, the vision of a travelling backpacker. He was a tall good looking man, dark hair and blue eyes. He’d not shaved and had let his usually neat hair become unkempt. He opened the worn rucksack and took out a flask and sandwiches. Breakfast was overdue and the swim had made him hungry. The train got into Inverness around ten a.m. and then he had some thinking to do.
Chapter 5
Plockton Marina
7-45 a.m.
April 17th
Charley Cobb, the ‘smoker’ whose match flare had alerted Dewey to the illegal entrants to the united Kingdom, took the boat keys from the Harbour master at Plockton harbour, an unhappy man for being dragged from his house all too early, but knowing that Cobb, or ‘Mr Jake Howard’ as Cobb had been ‘labelled’ for the mission, had money behind him and you didn’t turn that down these days.
They exchanged sea and boat related comments in a casual, small talk manner as they looked over the boat. It was a small ocean going cruiser, a little on the scruffy side, but suitable for the task. Cobb held his cover as an American tourist easily though in reality he was an ex Navy SEAL with a global criminal underworld reputation as an outstanding ‘hit man’. He had a stocky build and short cropped, blonde hair, dressed in the kind of all weather gear American tourists typically bought for such tourism.
Charley had done his homework and his paperwork for the boat and his ability to sail it into the ocean were impeccably faked. Everything had been brilliantly arranged and Charley thought that the influence behind this job was second to none. Even the fact that there were five of them, so that at least one would get through was pretty stunning. Even more stunning was the use of a British submarine and the fact that the Royal Navy captain had thought they were on a Navy exercise.
Charley checked over the boat, turned the engine and ran over the charts. He drank some strong coffee and delved into his ‘Luckies’ soft pack twice for comfort, while the engine warmed. An hour after he’d got into the country he headed out into the western coastal waters planning to use the boat as far as Liverpool at least.
Chapter 6
‘Caravan Air Strip’ Plockton
7-45 a.m.
April 17th
Marco Spencer, the third of the illegal entrants that Dewey had spotted, sat on a bench outside Plockton airstrip, in a suit and expensive Crombie. The suit and coat had been folded carefully in a rigid suit carrier to give his change of clothes a fresh look. Under the coat his trousers had wet spots from the sea water and his shirt was damp next to his skin. With a briefcase in his hand he waited for the chartered helicopter to arrive. It had been pre-arranged through a third party to keep his cover. He would be first into Inverness, via the airport. He was seriously thinking about a plane from there, possibly London, though Exeter was a thought. Overshoot and come back just to check for trailers. He knew there were agencies that would be looking for anyone unusual, but he and the others probably didn’t show up on the usual profile radars of the domestic protection services, they were stretched looking for terrorists. He knew of a certain agency that had a UK wide network, but so much more secretive than MI6 that it was hard to know where they were. What he did know was that it was a million for the hit and the first to the contact point got the job. They had no idea who the target was nor had they any idea who had hired them, though for his mind it looked like big business.
The airstrip was empty and if anyone on the helicopter asked him he was just to say he was a rich business man looking at land buys in that area of Scotland; obviously not the thirty year old veteran of MI6 field work; a consummate and cold blooded assassin of the first order.
Chapter 7
Drumbuie
7-45 a.m.
April 17th
It was unlucky for Martin Wheeler, the fourth of the men that Dewey had actually seen in his binoculars in the pre dawn gloom, that his pre-prepared transport, the 500 cc Honda was parked within sight of Michael Dewey’s house. Michael had asked about the bike at his local pub, the night before. Doing the logic link on the morning arrivals Michael made a point of watching it when he got home.
Sure enough a moving blur walked into focus in the view finder of his Nikon digital SLR not twenty minutes after he’d got home. Michael watched the man unlock the bike. Stow the padlock, do a quick check over and straddle the bike and ease it away noisily out of the small narrow street.
Michael Dewey had already tapped into the DIC system and used three minute’s worth of live satellite link up to look at Duirnish rail station and the airstrip. He was allowed the satellite link for short periods, given the remoteness of his location, but it was expensive and he had to account for every second. In this case he knew DIC would be happy with his use of it. He called the harbour master at Plockton and unsurprisingly found him awake and glad to talk about the unhappy reason for his ungodly awakening hour, that being an American tourist. The possibility that the four men might use a boat was one that Michael had to explore, but he had been a little surprised at finding out that they were splitting up and taking different routes and modes of transport.
