Week Five Continued
He sat in the lounge thinking, there were three possible outcomes, he would see a load of secret service agents come through the door and he would be arrested, Nathaniel Dawes would contact either Jane or himself, or lastly, nothing would happen. It would be one of the first two, He rang Ruth and asked to speak to Jane, it was late in the evening, UK time. “You might have a call from the Deputy Director of the CIA, it will be a follow up to the meeting we have just had, if you speak to him, book two places for him at the meeting next Tuesday.” “David why are you in Washington and what does this have to do with the Americans?” “Jane, please just do it, there is also the possibility, I might be arrested before I leave, if I am, get me out.” “Fucking Hell David, what are you doing?” “My job.” It was Sally next, he said he would be back late on Saturday night, he asked how it was going, she said it was nearly done.” “I’m going to send you a phone number, if I am arrested here, call it, tell Yuri what has happened, he will know what to do.” “Dave, is this to do with the papers you took with you?” “Yes, it will go one of two ways, I think I called it correctly, but who knows.” Sally said she loved him and wanted him beside her, “It’s Friday here now, I will see you tomorrow. I love you.” He waited another hour before going to bed, sleep came quickly, it was only the alarm call which woke him, in the restaurant where Nathaniel Dawes, his wife and their friends had been the night before, Dave was eating his breakfast. He saw him come through the doors, he was accompanied by two large men, whatever was about to happen, Dave was going to eat his breakfast first. The two men sat at a table slightly away from Dave, he smiled, it was going his way. Nathaniel Dawes sat down opposite Dave, “I spent a large part of last night reading your file, you are currently suspended from operations,” he was interrupted, “only from MI5 to allow me to carry out this investigation in secret, I am still retained and working for the MOD, they are nominally in charge of the operation.” “Who are you, there is no mention of you anywhere other than in your file, and there is a woman as well?” “I’m one of the people who are called on to resolve problems, we are freelance, the government can deny any responsibility if what we are doing goes wrong. However, we are not executioners, we only kill people who shoot at us.” “I saw that in your file. Coincidently, my wife and I will be in the UK next week, we have been invited by friends, hopefully it will be a good visit, I shall ring later to make the arrangements.” “Sir, do you have an ‘out of town’ team you can put together quickly, they must be trustworthy and ready to go at an agreed time, don’t tell them yet, wait until after the meeting.” “I said I was taking the train to New York last night, that was only to cover myself, I am flying out later today, I will be back in the UK tomorrow morning, the final part of the report will be done then. Speak to Jane Goodley, she will arrange everything, if you need to contact me, go through her or Cyrus Grantly in London.” They shook hands, the two men remained. Nathaniel Dawes leaned over and said to Dave they would stay with him until he was through security at the airport. He moved tables and sat with them, “I’m Dave,” the others introduced themselves. “I won’t be doing anything today, my room is booked for a late departure, I am going for a sleep, then a late lunch before heading for the airport around 16:00, I will find you when I come back down, see you later.”
His phone ringing woke him, “the Prime Minister isn’t happy, he doesn’t want our problems aired in front of the Americans.” “Tell him ours is small fry compared to the issues they have, both countries are tied together in this, it can’t be separated.”
Packing his suitcase he left the room and joined the two in the lobby, “I’ll buy you lunch, then we can head out to the airport,” the talk as they ate was about the differences between the two countries. Dave enjoyed the conversation, they stayed with him until he had checked in and was at the entrance to the security hall. He shook both their hands and walked towards the queue. He looked for a present for Sally but could only see perfume, she had bought it the last time they had been away. The flight was quiet in business class, he read, then closed his eyes to plan the meeting, following a meal, he took the offered blanket and slept. Going through customs, his passport wouldn’t work using the automatic reader, he was sent to a desk, when he presented his passport, he was asked to wait. A policeman came out through a door, “would you follow me sir.” Dave wasn’t sure why he had been pulled out, although unarmed he was ready to fight, he walked down endless corridors, he looked at each door as he passed. They arrived at the airport police station. Dave stopped before going in, “why are we here, unless I know, I’m not going in,” he put down his case. The policeman was more insistent, “my orders are to bring you here, please come through the door.” Dave stayed where he was, “I’m not going in, get whoever wants to see me out here,” the policeman moved towards Dave, his hand was moving towards the holster on his side. “Touch the gun and I will kill you before you have it out.” “Code zero outside door.” Two more police came out the door, they had SA80’s pointed at Dave. He saw someone inside standing looking at the commotion, he was wearing a balaclava and dressed in black. Dave shouted his name, within seconds three more in balaclavas were with the other one. Three Colt C8’s and a Glock were pointing at the police. “He’s our man, put your gun’s down,” An alarm had been pressed, more armed police arrived, there was now a standoff. “I don’t have time to piss about with this,” Dave pushed his way past to join the four inside. No one tried to stop him, “Get a senior officer here now, if you don’t half the fucking SAS in London will be crawling up your arses.” They stood waiting until a Chief Superintendent arrived. He immediately told everyone to put down their weapons, the police obeyed, Dave’s protection team didn’t.” “He went to pick up his suitcase. Returning he spoke to the senior officer, “this wouldn’t have happened if your officer had answered me when I asked him to say why I was being brought into the police station. When you write up your report, make sure you say why it started, unless I’m being arrested, then we are leaving, hinder us and I will have the Prime Minister speak to your boss.” He turned to one of the men, “let’s go, lead the way.” Five minutes later they were on the motorway heading for Hereford, there was laughing in the people carrier. “They’ve been a pain in the arse since we arrived, they wanted us to surrender our weapons until we were leaving, we told them to fuck off. Only one of us was allowed inside to wait, two armed police watched all the time.” Dave waived a hand for them to be quiet, his phone was ringing. He listened before answering, “sir, the policeman wouldn’t tell me why I was being taken to the police station, they had also tried to disarm the four who came for me, they were acting like arseholes.” Dave apologised for swearing. “If they had told me, this wouldn’t have happened, yes, I did threaten to kill one of them when I saw him go for his gun. I was unarmed.” The call was ended, “I’ve just had a bollocking from Admiral Sheldon.” Sally was working when he arrived, he kissed her then stared at her, “are you alright?” “Yes, I had too much to drink last night, I was invited to the Sergeants Mess, they knew you were away, one of your friends invited me, I have no idea how much I drunk. I have taken some tablets, I will be OK in a bit. I see you weren’t arrested in the US.” “No, nearly at Heathrow, the police were being like police are.” “I want to change and eat, are we ahead enough for you to take a break?” “If it all goes well it will be done this afternoon, all that will need to be done is to read through and make corrections.” “There is another much smaller one to be created, it shouldn’t take more than a few hours.” Dave stripped off and went into the shower, Sally made two coffees before joining him, her arms were wrapped round his body. He ate loads in the canteen, saying the airline food had left him starving. “Dave, I’ve something to tell you about last night.” He stopped eating and looked at her, “do you think I would do that?” “It’s just the way you said it,” “don’t be mad, we’re entered in the Sunday morning shooting competition, I hope you don’t mind.” He smiled, “are we a team or individuals?” “Individuals, they say you are good.” “We’ll see tomorrow then.”
Back in the office, Dave started on the communications Graeme Rogers had made, He made a list of the contacts and then the conversations, when Sally had finished, they swapped, Dave read through the report while Sally typed up the information on Graeme Rogers, she spent some time tracing who the people were then adding the information. Dave opened up the document and began the corrections while Sally carried on. He called for someone from IT to join them, while waiting, he counted. There was a knock at the door, “come in, sit down, I need documents printing, is this your department?” “No, the office staff do that, there are a couple in today, I can get one of them to come across when I go back,” “OK, will you give her twelve 32Gb sticks to bring here?” Ten minutes later, a young girl, who Dave thought was no more than about eighteen was sitting listening to him, “it won’t be a problem, if you give me the documents, I will get it done.” “Would you mind if I came with you, there will be another one when Sally has finished it?” Dave followed her with two sticks, he gave her the first one, “Twelve copies, printed on both sides, will your machines put it into a binder or something like that to make it look professional?” “Yes, we have six printers capable of doing it, I will do it twice.” “It was much quicker than the printer at home, the first six were done in half an hour, he looked through a completed report as the second run was taking place. “Thank you, it looks very good.” She went round loading up the printers with more paper before the second report was started. Sally called Dave to find out where he was, he passed the phone over to the secretary to give her directions. Dave read through the last report, once the corrections had been done he asked her to do a relationship diagram, she sighed as she took the laptop from him. “What’s the biggest printer you have?” “We have one for maps, I can show you it.” Dave looked at it, he had no idea how it worked, it didn’t look like a normal type of printer. “If Sally shows you a file, can you say if you can blow it up and print it?” He asked Sally to copy the original relationship software onto a stick. It was plugged into a PC, Dave brought it up onto a screen, he let the girl sit down, she looked at it, “it’s interactive, it won’t print like that, I will do a screen grab and see if I can blow it up.” Twenty minutes later, she was on another computer, “this one is dedicated to the map printer, check the quality of the image, I will print out a small part, see if you can read the names.” The printer was silent, she tore off a piece of paper, handed it to Dave for his inspection. “It’s as clear as it is on the screen, well done. It wants to be about a metre high by as long as required. Five minutes later it was spread across two desks, Sally had come to look at it. “I’ve finished, it just needs printing, can you finish off, I want to lie down,” Dave looked at her, “I’m tired, my head hurts, not from the drink, it’s overloaded.” He kissed her and said he wouldn’t be long. When the printing was complete, he asked if there were any plastic boxes he could use, it took two trips to carry it all back to the office, he thanked the girl as he loaded up for the last trip. They had two free days before the meeting.
Sally was on the bed fast asleep, Dave lay on his bed, he too was soon sleeping. The noise of the shower woke him, he looked at the time, 19:00. Sally came into the bedroom with a towel on her head and one wrapped round herself, “How are you?” “Do you really want me to tell you, my head is fucked, I can’t think straight, this has done my head in, this is much more than I ever did when I was a researcher.” “thank you, I know how hard you have worked, this is the biggest and probably the most complex case I have worked on. I couldn’t have done it without you.” As he kissed her, he pulled at the towel.
Sally would have liked to stay in bed, but like Dave she was hungry. “I won’t drink as much as I did last night,” in the canteen there was a sign up saying it was ‘curry night’, the food was almost as good as an Indian restaurant, they left feeling full. Walking to get a drink she asked him why he had never told her about some of the jobs he had been on, “I learned more last night than you ever told me. They say you are good and could easily have been a member.” “It’s private, even from you, I’ve told you before it’s in a place I don’t go to. They may boast and laugh about it, but it’s their coping mechanism, I hide it away, we all deal with it in different ways. They have camaraderie, until we met, I had only myself, it’s why a lot of people can’t handle the job. We, and I include you, are special people, we do a job most normal folk would run a mile from, I don’t want to talk about it now. When we are finished, if you want, we can talk more.” They stopped and kissed before going in. The mess was full, Sally would only have orange juice, Dave downed a lager before ordering another. There was talk about the incident this morning, Sally listened, from what she heard, it sounded just like the Dave she loved. She was asked if she was ready for the competition in the morning, she said it was why she was on orange juice. They didn’t stay late, at 22:00 they said goodnight and would see them at 10:00 in the morning at the indoor range.
© 10210ken 2026
