about McKie. The man had killed Wheeler, there was no doubt he could kill if pushed to it, but DIC, Stanton felt sure, weren’t made up of disciplined, hardened and fear exempt agents, he was sure. They were gifted amateurs, in a way, and yet the thoughts led him to feel the side of his head and the bruise there. McKie was a tough, strong, fast and quick thinking individual. Stanton resolved not to be too scornful of DIC and its people. If McKie was anything to go by they had both brains and brawn. He fell asleep thinking of the four men he’d spent two weeks on a submarine with and all of whom were dead, all accounted for by the work of DIC. There was no doubt, he yawned, that it was some machine and it was looking for him.
Chapter 92
London
1 p.m.
April 19th
Jack Fulton closed the door on his office and settled himself in his chair across the desk from David McKie.
“What happened?”
“I took Conor to the harbour ate some MacDonald’s breakfast and walked him home. He must have seen me there and followed me. He climbed in through the Velux window on the roof and when I went up to work he was there. I managed to disarm him. My neighbour had called the police, Stanton knocked them out and I gave chase.”
“You left the roof windows open?”
“Yes it gets warm up there and you don’t expect anyone to do that.”
“We do now. I’ll have to put out a window lock kit for every DIC operative. Your computer wasn’t pass word locked then?”
“Well in the roof space, in my house. It’s not what I expected, I can’t be the only one.”
“No I agree and we’ll put out a procedure now. He copied a file, the names and addresses of all our UK operatives and the names of our leadership team and our location.”
“I know, but he went for that first by the looks of it, which means he knew about us and knew where to find us. It was pure chance that he wound up in Dover and saw me.”
“It does seem like chance, but it seriously compromises the DIC and I’ve ordered a shoot to kill and stop at all costs on Stanton. We must also retrieve that disk.”
“Any tags on where he is now?”
“He disappeared. He may be holed up in Dover or he could have hitched a lift and killed the driver. He didn’t steal a car, but he might steal one tonight. The theft would get lost in the usual night time thefts by joy riders. The main thing is that we know where he’s headed, though if he’s smart he’ll know his contact point is compromised, especially as Mason was so close to Vauxhall when he died.”
“That just leaves it to us to watch and wait.”
“If we can get the address from the taxi driver we can be there waiting for him anyway.”
“Did Mason have a phone on him or anything? Anything we could use to find out his contacts?”
“He had a disposable phone, one number in it, but there’s no reply at the other end. The dialled number turns out to be a cell phone registered in a false name, as was the one Mason had. There’s no way to put a trace on it. Records for Mason’s phone have him using the directory service to get a taxi number and the satellite location put him near the Priory Arms when he did that. So far we’re drawing a blank.”
“I’ll go to my office and check in with the duty teams. How’s Shadz?” David asked realising that if Jack was stumped then he couldn’t add anything.
“He’s going to be fine, but a fair bit of reconstruction on his face. He took quite a beating. He could have shot Mason there and then, but he didn’t; didn’t have the killer instinct.”
“Stanton said that about me.”
“He’s wrong. If anyone has it’s you and that’s why you’re back here so soon. However I’ve booked you in to see Else our counsellor.”
“Good. I’ll go down and create a brain pool with other duty team members.”
When David had left Jack pulled CCTV files out of the computer that he’d been scanning. He carried on looking and captured faces digitally and sent them. He had thirty faces in separate files and he called the decryption team.
“Are you in yet?”
“Ten minutes Jack. Do keep it short, the spooks are getting jumpy.”
“Okay.”
Jack called another extension in the building. He’d put together a scanning team and he told them to get ready to match the files he was sending them to faces in MI6 and other security services files. Then he waited for decryption to call back.
David found the duty room offices empty. He went to the canteen to find Terry, Tony, Jaz and Ellie eating lunch.
“Hey McKie come on over and join the club.” Tony was eating a French bread sandwich and waved David over, dropping salad and mayonnaise on the carpet as he did so.
David drew up a chair and sat with the group.
“Hi Jaz. You back from the hospital.”
“Yeah, Shadz is okay. He looked terrible though. His nose was smashed, black eyes, broken jaw, was wired. He wasn’t conscious as they’d drugged him to stop the pain. Mason made a right mess of him. Still it could have been worse, he could have killed him.”
“And you Jaz, you alright?” David asked tenderly. The team had been through a lot in the last few days.
“I’m fine. I hear Beaumont’s okay.” She added thinking not just of her own horror, but of David’s too.
David nodded there was a small silence and then Tony spoke.
“Well that small group of people who’ve killed in the line of duty is getting bigger. That’s David, Ellie and me have had to kill.”
“You too Ellie?” David asked.
“Yeah. We both shot Cobb.” She said and put her hand on Tony’s shoulder and none of them missed the warm contact between the two.
“Have you got to see the counsellor Else?” David said ignoring the urge to make a teenage comment about Ellie and Tony.
“I saw her today, Tony did too. She’s nice, but don’t be fooled she really can read people. It was nice to talk and I did get upset, but she said it was healthy. At least I’ll sleep better.” Ellie said with a small smile following.
David recalled his dream.
Terry suddenly spoke
“It was sad at Wally’s funeral. I got a bit choked there and Jack, well Jack, his eyes were streaming.” He shook his head. “I’ve spoken to Else too. She says I’ll need a little grief therapy. Sadness touches people in al sorts of ways she says.”
“I didn’t expect this when I took the job on. Stanton was in my house, nearly murdered me.” David said gauging their faces for shock.
“My God that’s terrible. You poor man. Were your family there?” Ellie said thinking of her own children at home being baby sat by her mother.
The two weeks of duty team rota was the only draw back to a job that was perfect for a single mother. Ellie had got pregnant young and done her degree through the Open University. She was only a year on the police force as a forensic scientist before DIC head hunted her.
“No they were out and I nearly had him. I wanted him alive, shooting would have been easy. I had the laser dot between his eyes. He was willing to die. They don’t want to be captured these assassins, love their freedom too much. They don’t value anything. I feel lucky to be alive, but angry I didn’t end it there, but killing an unarmed man,
