north. As they continued to search for survivors the sun broke over the far horizon and other lifeboats came into view.
Someone shouted and pointed at a man in the water not far away. As the lifeboat closed on him he stood up, his knees at water level. He was standing on something below the surface. Stratton and Jason realised who it was at the same time. Jackson. In the mini-submarine.
Jackson was more than relieved to see them both, having witnessed the disaster himself. The mini-sub’s batteries had run out of power so they tied the vessel alongside the lifeboat. Jackson was very cold and glad to get into the covered boat where he was handed a blanket. He seemed to know there was more to the story of Binning and Rowena after Jason had told him about it but he asked no further questions. As if he understood that it wasn’t the time or the place.
The sound of distant rotor blades gradually came to them. Stratton got stiffly to his feet as half a dozen military helicopters flew overhead. He had a reasonably good idea how the day would unfold and resigned himself to it being a very long one indeed.
13
Stratton sat alone at a table in the windowless basement bar of the Blue Boar in Poole, eating a plate of stew. It was early evening and in the large room voices filtered through to him from around the corner. A few people stood at the bar itself.
A pretty waitress collecting used glasses came over to him. ‘How’s the crockpot, Stratton?’ she asked, with a bright smile.
‘Almost as good as mine,’ he replied, returning her smile.
‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘Okay. Enjoy,’ she said, leaving him alone but with a parting look that did not disguise her interest in him.
He put down his fork, took a sip of wine and leaned back in thought. The bruises around the wounds on his face, those not covered by several weeks of beard growth, had mostly disappeared. The deeper cuts on his hands were now thin black lines. He looked generally gaunt and tired, his eyes dark, his skin pale.
Stratton emptied the wine glass and stretched out his legs. His body still felt stiff, particularly the healing flesh around the bullet wounds. It was time to start working out but his heart wasn’t yet in it. The medic had said he was to do nothing too strenuous for another week but he knew his body better. It was his spirit that needed healing more than anything else at that moment.
He lowered his hands to his knees, continuing to bend forward slowly, stretching the backs of his legs until he could touch his toes with outstretched fingertips. It wasn’t so bad. A week earlier the same exercise had been far more painful and he had reached half the distance.
He was not only disheartened but thoroughly bored.
Within hours of being picked up from the lifeboat and taken on board the operations vessel Stratton had been treated in the sickbay while being debriefed by a London suit. The debriefing had taken several hours after which he’d been returned promptly to Poole and to his home and ordered to remain in the vicinity until further notice. He wasn’t under house arrest or anything like that. He could attend the camp hospital, go shopping and to the pub. But he was told that he was not to spend time with work associates and should not encourage friends to visit him. The bottom line was that under no circumstances was he to discuss any aspect of the operation. It was made very clear to him that there would be severe repercussions if he were to ignore this instruction.
It was all quite bizarre, really. Stratton hadn’t experienced anything like it. He was not being admonished as such. Everyone had been cold towards him, the powers that be, but there was no official hearing, no inquiry that he had been asked to attend. It was as if he had been placed inside a box until they decided what to do with him.
Stratton hadn’t seen Jason or any of the others involved in the operation since they had been rescued. He was questioned about everything and everyone but had been given nothing in return other than the news that Smithy had been picked up in the middle of the ocean and was doing fine. The futures of Binning and Rowena, however, remained a mystery to him. When he asked about them he drew a blank. They told him not to discuss the subject with anyone and that the only reason he was being allowed to police his own isolation was because of his track record with MI6.
A criminal mole inside MI16 was a serious situation and London would undoubtedly want the lid kept very tight on it. The television and newspapers had been full of the Morpheus disaster and had blamed the hijackers. The MoD hadn’t been criticised for its lack of response to the incident. The suddenness of the destruction of the rig seemed to have struck everyone. But the press were curious about what they described as its ‘premature’ blowing-up. Theories abounded. All kinds of expert witnesses espoused various views, the most popular being that the explosion had to have been an accident of some kind. The hijackers had cocked it up and sunk the bloody thing by mistake. It must have been something like that since they could never have received a ransom payment in such a short time. And since none of the hijackers appeared to have survived, it was up to Scotland Yard to find out who was ultimately behind it - the mastermind behind the scenes. Another popular theory. Terrorism had not been discounted as a plausible reason for the explosion but the varied nationalities and backgrounds of the hijackers seemed to have muddied that idea. Three weeks into the investigation the police had officially uncovered very little. Of course they were divulging nothing.
The media became obsessed with one other part of the story: the mysterious individual who had released the workers after killing the hijackers singlehandedly with a silenced sub-machine gun. They interviewed several workers on camera, all of whom displayed deep gratitude to the shadowy stranger in black who had saved many of their lives. He had been described as darkly handsome with a chiselled jaw, a man of few words and such dominating character that his every utterance had been obeyed without question.
Several of the newspapers provided drawings, a couple of which resembled Stratton a little, but only to those few who knew it had been him. One news programme went to great lengths to create computer graphics illustrating how the special operative might have got aboard the Morpheus in the brutal storm, risking life and limb to scale the platform after having been parachuted into the ocean some distance away. And then the superhero vanished as mysteriously as he had arrived. There was mention of another two men and a mini-submarine and an effort was made to connect the destruction of the rig with their arrival. One newspaper suggested that the operative’s attack had caused a last-stand action by the hijackers. The media knew when they were onto a good thing with the mysterious character and they made the most out of him that they could.
Stratton suspected that MI16 might be closed down, for the moment at least, and would be undergoing a thorough investigation. If anyone was being hammered about the corruption within its ranks it was Jason. He would obviously be a suspect too, something that would do nothing for his ego. But he had done well from the moment Jordan had been killed and Stratton had given a good account of his actions. Stratton was no longer sure how he felt about the man. The bloke had an inflated sense of his own importance and his plans to create a team of super- intelligent field operators proved it. No doubt that project had gone down in flames with the Morpheus. He hoped the man had seen the flaws in his ambitions. But then, Mansfield wasn’t the type to show humility - certainly not to Stratton, at least. He couldn’t see them sharing a pint.
Stratton’s phone rang. An unusual sound for him at the moment. Word had spread throughout the service that he was on suspension and was not to be contacted unless it was done through the command structure. He decided to leave the phone rather than answer it and explain to whoever it was that he couldn’t talk. After several rings it ceased. He took another sip of wine and went back to his stew. The phone rang again.
A persistent caller was unusual. Stratton took the phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. There was no caller ID. He pushed the receive button and put the phone to his ear.
‘This is Mike. You’re allowed to talk to me, Stratton.’
It was nice to hear a friendly voice. ‘Hi. How you doing?’
‘Fine. You?’
‘Can’t remember the last time I sat around doing nothing for so long.’
‘How about that ten-day stake-out you and I did in Crossmaglen?’
‘Ah. Those good old days in South Armagh. They seem like a million years ago.’
