“That’s secret.” Bentall reached onto the back seat and brought a briefcase forwards. Mason raised the pistol and held his hand further back in response to the sudden movement.
“The equipment and a contact method is in there.” Bentall rested the briefcase on his lap and tapped it.
“Contact method?”
“Disposable cell phone with one number in its memory is the contact method. When the job’s done call and you’ll be taken to safety, a hideout, then a pay off and a well planned escape, any questions?”
“You really expect me to trust you?” Mason looked him in the eyes.
“What else have you got?”
“My wits and my instincts.” Mason said all too suddenly and pressed the weapon to Bentall’s chest and pulled the trigger. There was a muffled bang and Bentall’s face screwed up in agony, he jerked and twisted and finally slumped against the window, his heart having stopped.
Mason looked around. There was no-one to be seen. He began searching the car. He was damned if he’d do the job before he knew who he was working for. The glove compartment was locked, but Bentall had the key in his trouser pocket. There was a nine millimetre Browning pistol with silencer and a spare clip and Bentall’s identification, clearly showing he was with MI6.
Bentall had been told not to take ID with him, but he was sure he’d be spotted by someone whilst he was sitting outside the pub all night every night for at least three days and wanted something to show any police who might show up.
Mason smiled. So the secret service wanted ‘him’ dead. There was a turn up for the books. He checked the case and found a bomb with a timer and the cell phone. He switched on the phone and rang enquiries to get a taxi firm number. He ordered a taxi for twenty minutes later, went back to the Beetle and got his sports holdall. After ten minutes with Bentall’s pass and his own photo he’d made up a passable MI6 badge for himself.
He knew how he was going to get to the target. This was a historic hit. He wasn’t going to trust them after he’d done it, but he knew who they were and where to find them and they’d know that too. They wouldn’t mess with him and he’d get the money and get himself out. Him, no wonder it was a million.
He left Bentall’s body in the Honda, putting the bomb and cell phone in his holdall. He went to meet the taxi around the corner. As he jumped in with the briefcase and gave the address a DIC watcher was driving past him on route to the Priory Arms. Sharp eyed as ever the watcher passed, noted and turned his car around in the car park on Benson Close, to follow. He called Euston Tower on his satellite phone as he followed, alerting DIC.
A DIC duty team was despatched to follow, but not to intervene until Mason had got to his destination. Jack Fulton made it very clear that he wanted to know where Mason was going, it might reveal the people hiring or the target.
Neither Mason, his taxi driver nor the DIC man, in his car, noticed the Nissan Micra following them. Peter Brook had arrived at the Black Honda to relieve Bentall seconds after Mason had walked around the corner. He’d found Bentall dead, the case on the passenger seat, the brown envelope with the target and details, bloodstained on Bentall’s lap, but the bomb and the phone gone. He’d run to corner of Benson Close to see Mason get into the taxi. He had taken the envelope and followed and he too had made a phone call.
The three car ‘convoy’ went up Lansdowne Way and turned right onto the Wandsworth Road. Traffic was thick and it was slow going.
In his office Sternway took the news badly. He’d just sat down and ordered his coffee when the phone rang.
“Sir? It’s Brook. I’m following Mason in a taxi going up the Wandsworth Road. He’s killed Bentall, taken the bomb and he’s headed the right way for the job.”
“Killed Bentall?”
“Yes. One shot to the chest, so he didn’t torture him. There seems to be no reason.”
“Did he take the envelope with the hit details?”
“No sir. I’ve got that with me, covered in Bentall’s blood.”
“Right keep following. He’s not doing that and getting away with it. I don’t like anyone killing my men for no reason. Get ready for extermination and see if you can pick a spot on the route. I call in three minutes to confirm that E order. Clear.”
“Yes Sir.” Brook reached into his glove compartment and took out gloves, he slid them on. He was one of the better skilled men from ‘dirty tricks’ and had carried out a few E orders, mostly abroad. Bentall had been a good colleague and Mason was going to pay.
Sternway put the phone down and stared at it. He’d liked Bentall, a good solid man he’d always said, never complained and always did the nasty stuff really well. Sternway was about to give the execution order for Brook to carry out when he had a better idea. He called Joe from the outer office.
“Mason killed Bentall at the meet point. Brook is tailing him in a taxi up the Wandsworth Road, so you know where he’s headed. Make a call to the Sun newspaper, use a disposable cell phone and whilst you’re at it get rid of this, I mean crush it to pieces.” He threw a lime green Bic disposable cell phone across the desk. It was the only thing to link him to Mason. They had stacks of them, used for one off contact.
Joe picked up the phone and went to the outer office. He sat down and called the Sun newspaper and when he was done he took the cell phones down to the boiler room and threw them in the furnace.
The Sun news desk workers were delighted when they got an anonymous call describing Mason, his route and direction. They despatched a photographer on a motorbike and called armed police. Armed police called DIC as a matter of protocol, but cars had already left Euston Tower. Armed police units sped, lights pulsing, sirens blaring to the junction at the north end of Vauxhall Bridge. All the vehicles converged on the Vauxhall Bridge exit.
Unaware of the gathering problems around him Mason prepared for the taxi to stop a street away from his target’s address. The taxi made slow progress up the Wandsworth Road and the Sun photographer arrived at the bridge exit in time to see the junction surrounded. It was ten in the morning.
The London cab rolled onto the bridge, the red railings flashing past and the two towers on the far side looking like sentinels. The driver was suddenly struck by the lack of traffic coming from the other side.
“Might be a contra flow for some reason; I’ve never seen it this empty.”
Mason looked ahead and saw the blue flashing lights. He looked back and only three cars were following, a large empty gap behind them stretching back across the Thames to more flashing lights at the south entrance.
When the police had sealed the northern exit they waited and sprang into place cutting traffic off at the south entrance. They’d been unable to stop the three cars; directly behind the cab was DIC, a civilian car and then Brook from MI6.
Mason was stunned. Then he became angry. They’d grassed him. It was a trap. He pulled out the Sig and shot the glass between himself and the driver, who hit the brakes.
“Drive on or you’re dead.” The cab driver felt the muzzle of the gun against the side of his face. He drove on.
“Speed up.”
“Are you crazy?”
“No. There’s a road block ahead and they will be armed. You think they’ll give a damn about you when they open up with those rifles and sub machine guns. If you don’t floor it I’ll kill you and if you do floor it you’ll be going fast enough for them not to want to fire at you. Now do it.”
The cab sped up and the DIC operative slowed down, the car behind him also slowed. Brook was about to put his foot down and drive past them, but thought better of it, he slowed too.
At the north entrance police were told not to open fire until the cab had stopped and they had a good clear shot at Mason so as not to endanger the cab driver.
Through the windscreen Mason saw the two police Volvo 440’s blocking the road, the heavy black cab accelerated towards them like a tank and Mason and the driver braced for the crunch. Policemen behind the cars moved away at the last second as the taxi crashed through, smashing the front of each Volvo.
Metal screeched and the impact took the speed out of the cab. Mason was thrown forward, his torso pushed through into the front of the cab. As the damaged cab headed towards Bessborough Gardens a sniper, tracking the car through his scope, saw Mason full body from his side of the road. Mason pulled himself back through the gap just as the round was loosed and the Enforcer round punched the window shattering it, ricocheted off the steering wheel and grazed the cab driver’s forehead, knocking him unconscious.
With his heavy foot on the pedal, dead weight, and his body sliding the wheel to the left, the cabbie
