Jones was parked about fifty yards along and across the road from his target’s Georgian style town house, waiting for him to leave for his regular Wednesday night assignation. On three occasions in the last month Jones had surveyed the house to verify the information he had obtained was correct and each time the target had kept to the same timetable.
It was early evening and cold enough to freeze hell over but Jones was happy that he was not only finally going to get rid of the bloody man but thanks to his blackmailers they had provided the perfect cover for a scapegoat. This would be a good night’s work.
His anger at the men in Dublin was replaced by smug satisfaction. There was a worry he should have to be personally carrying out the job, as it had been a long time since his days as an operative but necessity dictated he act. The target was part of a plot against the service that had been hatched in Whitehall, by politicians who didn’t have a clue about security. He had given a lifetime to the country’s security and wasn’t going to let some fools temporarily elected to office, simply because of the incompetence of the previous government, destroy his service. They would be out of office again at the next election and with them would go the foolhardy vision of a single security service. Tonight would lend extra credence to the view that there was a new breakaway faction of the IRA, responsible not only for the attack on Melanie Adams but also tonight’s events. Maguire’s death and the subsequent meeting with the Irishman had indeed been quite fortunate.
It was a well-lit road and Jones had a clear view of the house, which backed onto an exclusive area of Regent’s Park. Although he knew where his target would be headed and could have lain in wait there for him, he preferred to check there was no last minute change of plan that sent him elsewhere. A sudden desire to eat out or go to the theatre was unlikely but Jones always allowed for the unexpected. It was one of the factors that made him so good at his work. It was also true to say that he was meticulous in his work because the result of getting it wrong was inevitably very bad for his health and could even be terminal.
Jones had an unobstructed view of the entire road and had easily spotted the two policemen assigned as the target’s protection. They were sitting in an unmarked car immediately in front of the house and Jones knew they would be armed. It wasn’t the front door though that held his attention. From where he was parked, he could observe the road that ran along the side of the house. A door in the garden wall opened and the familiar figure hurriedly emerged and climbed in an inconspicuous Ford car. He turned on the engine and quickly pulled away and headed down the side road, in the opposite direction to his two police protectors, still parked out front none the wiser.
Jones followed in his Saab at a discreet distance, ensuring the target was indeed headed in the expected direction. He found it amusing that someone should choose to elude his protection, in order to gratify his lust for a girl half his age. Jones understood that people in power no longer felt they could trust the police, servants or anybody not to sell the story of an indiscretion to the highest bidder. Even so, Jones found it hard to fathom why in the first place a man in such a position, with a wife and family, should want to risk everything for some momentary pleasure. Even as the thought occurred, he winced at the obvious similarity to his own situation. What he had originally paid for his pleasures was minor compared to the subsequent blackmail. They were both driven by their sexual desires. For the moment he was grateful that his target’s weakness for young flesh afforded an easy opportunity for the job in hand.
By the time he’d followed the Ford down Park Lane and turned right towards Knightsbridge, Jones was feeling fairly confident there was to be no change from the usual routine. Sure enough, the target turned into Cadogan Gardens and Jones hung back, not wanting to arouse suspicion and now knowing for certain where they were headed.
Jones found a convenient place to park, a short way from the tiny mews where his target rented the small pied-a-terre, he kept especially for these occasions. By the time Jones walked to the entrance to the mews, there was no sign of anyone but he could see the red Ford as expected, parked outside number five.
The need to move quickly had limited his options when planning how to carry out his plan. He could not afford to lift the bonnet of the car and risk being spotted, so he had settled for a remote controlled device. He checked nobody was present in the poorly lit mews and placing his bag on the ground, he bent down to tie his shoe lace. He took one more look around, then took the bomb from his bag and swiftly attached it, by its magnet, to the underside of the car on the driver’s side. He was back up on his feet in less than ten seconds. He picked up the empty bag and glanced around one final time as he hurried from the mews, checking as best he could that no one had been observing his actions from their window.
Jones had to wait an hour and a half, before he noticed the front door of number five open about a foot. He didn’t want to run his engine and risk attracting attention, so had become progressively colder as he sat waiting. The target’s head finally appeared and glanced up and down the mews, presumably to
