Sam

SAM - 13 AUGUST 1998

Sam sat in the room and wondered what the day would bring. How many
rooms like this had he sat in before and planned his movements? He had
taken all the necessary precautions and equipped himself with the tools
of his trade. He sighed, what a trade. Another time, another place, he
would have been a hero but now in these changing times, the future
didn't look bright and his world was closing in.
He had arrived at the B&;B just after 7pm having made several
attempts at disguising his route. He believed he was safe for 24 hours
at least until the organisation and its tentacles once again got the
scent. It was time to leave, not taking breakfast as always and paying
for his lodgings the night before, he could plan his escape from this
temporary prison. He always felt trapped when he was in a confined
space. The hubbub of the dwelling had died somewhat as he knew that
most of the guests had finished their breakfasts and had returned to
their rooms to pick up their belongings. The car park was full and not
full with an array of cars, most of which he could start within 15
seconds, his training was good. He had no need of a car today. Today
was a day to enjoy. He was out to feast upon the pleasures that the day
would bring. Two doors opened and two guests stumbled into each other
apologies were exchanged, laughter, the pregnant sort, the embarrassed
sort, he smiled to himself at his ability to read people and know their
mood. He guessed his chance to leave the premises would be when the
blonde left her room. She would make a general disturbance in the place
as all the males would fluster and bluster around her with their small
talk. 15 minutes later, he had left the building at the appointed
moment when two overweight salesmen had almost come to blows in
offering to take the smallest overnight bag to the blonde's BMW. He
strolled gently on the pavement, remembering just to tense the left
buttock which gave him a slight awkwardness to his walking gait which
of course, disguised the ultra fit frame that he had honed to
perfection.
It was a bright day and certainly one that would cause the normal
English populous to discuss its merits in good detail. He was always
surprised how in England, people ignored each other and yet every where
else in the world, the exchange was rich and sometimes exhaustive. In
the north, the state of the weather was something for serious
discussion. He glanced down at his general dress, was it out of place?
Did he stand out? Was his own personal radar able to detect people that
were different around him. How many oddballs could he pinpoint? The
whole routine of blending into the environment was starting. The
difference between being alert but without drawing attention was
something that only a few people could do. He remembered the pride he
felt when he touched Harry on the shoulder and said "Guess you're
getting old Harry". He never made me and Harry's eyes told Sam that the
teacher was now the pupil.
Sam walked across the small field that was adjacent to the rugby pitch.
It was always difficult these days to know whether a public right of
way was valid people in the main did not respect property or ownership
of the land. This path had been well trodden by dog owners and was
covered in places in dog excrement. Carefully treading his way down the
path, he came to the first sty which took him across a field where
horses were free grazing. A mare had just foaled and her young were
skittish at the intrusion. Quickly surveying the scene, he spied
another sty with a small embankment carefully treading on the hardest
ground without drawing attention, he left very little trail for anybody
to follow. The embankment was some sort of man made protection and it
was odd to see it snake around the outskirts of a large field. The
field itself had a strange lie to it. Sam soon realised that this
embankment had to be some sort of flood protection which meant there
was water nearby. Raising his nostril, he soon smelled the fresh smell
of new grass and realised the water was too his left and strode in that
direction. He was soon seated under a willow, completely undetectable
from the land and for a moment, allowed his thoughts to wander to the
past and his induction to his adopted peculiar world.
Sam's entry to this peculiar but exciting world was not of his making.
Not of anybody's direct instruction and certainly not one he would have
chosen until fate had dealt its blow.
From the age of 15, he realised that some of his talents were there but
he did not know how to use or understand them. All he knew was that he
got into trouble a lot. His instructors, parents, teachers all seemed
to have a problem in dealing with his awkwardness and his temperament.
Never bright at school, always good at sport, always chasing the girls.
He remembered the look on the overweight sportsmaster when Sam was told
to get into the ring with the other boy. Sam knew what he could do to
another human being and had always backed away from trouble of that
sort. The master insisted, even taunted, so Sam stepped into the ring.
The lad was bigger than him and had a serious problem in believing that
he could overpower Sam with a flurry of punches to the head and upper
body. Sam knew the moment would come. None of the punches had hurt him
and he blocked most of them with his own raised fists. The gloves were
tattered and Sam's were actually split where the wristband began. Then
it happened. A punch crossed over Sam's left, caught him in the eye.
The pain went through the head into that terrible place that Sam knew
was the evil locker, that dwelt inside him. Sam's eyes met the other
boy's. The other boy reeled as he saw in the depths of black evil
pools, his epitaph written. Sam went forward, totally out of control.
The boy went down. Before hitting the canvas, Sam knew that something
had broken under the flurry of punches. The boy's face was full of
blood. Sam bent down and carried on punching. The sportsmaster leapt
into the ring and tried to pull Sam off. Sam spun, right hook.
triggered. Flew through the air, the sportsmaster went down and Sam
went after him. All the boys in the gym began to taunt him, the noise
was deafening. Two masters rushed over, physically sitting on Sam and
eventually a red mist in Sam's head cleared and normality
returned.
Sam was pleased to leave the school, his time after that incident in
the gym was easy. nobody came near him and once again, he drifted into
the lonely shell. The girls at school like to be with him. Seeing the
animal magnetism but again scared.
He at 16, had already agreed with his parents that his place was
somewhere else and not with them. Ordinary people, working class strong
backs from hard work his father would administer strong punishment. His
father had tried to beat him for some misdemeanour. He had always used
canes or belts. This time he had used the first thing that come to he
aid which was a golf club. Sam had caught the golf club on the third
swing down, ripped it from his father's grasp, broke it in two, handed
it back to his father and said that the last time dad. He had been 14
at the time.
Entering the large engineering firm, as an apprentice, he enjoyed the
engineering challenges and the intricate work. He knew he was good and
certain instructors allowed him to be himself. He never caused trouble.
He never wanted to cause trouble. There was always someone that wanted
to see how good or how bad they were in any situation. The young lad
that had started his apprenticeship at the same time as Sam was only
about 4'6'' and probably only weighed 7 or 8 stone compared with Sam,
he could have been his younger brother. Sam could never understand why
the guy was picked on, all the time. Then came the day when the bully
started on the young lad. Sam always considered himself older than most
of the people around him. His attempts at banter in the workshop was
always second or light hearted compared with the serious efforts of
some of the lads who seemed to spend most of their day trying to set up
somebody for a fall. The bully was and I think it was the first time
that Sam understood the expression, lout. He was unwashed most of the
time, stunk and was completely obnoxious as a person and had a
temperament that Sam thought came form the festering boils that always
surrounded his neck. Sam watched the young lad's eyes and saw the fear
that dwelt behind the charade of laughter that always accompanied
pranks and foolhardy exercises. It had got physical though, the lad was
being pushed and poked, goaded into the challenges that any 16 year old
male must respond to. His attempts were futile. Sam realised that soon,
serious blows would be dealt and hoped that one of the instructors
would enter to stop the banter before it went too far. A punch was
thrown and the young lad started crying. The final insult. Sam's body
responded, the autopilot within him had taken over. The bully turned,
eager now to let his rein manifest itself on somebody else. Sam never
heard the words but the bully was saying "what's it got to do with
you?" Sam must have said, "Leave him alone". Of course, the taunt came
back "or else". The red mist started. Fist clenched and flew out. The
bully's nose exploded. The left fist clenched and further damage was
done, rupturing the lower lip. the bully went down. Sam picked up the
tool box, the item must have weighed maybe 30 kilos. It was easily
held, above Sam's 6' frame. If he had dropped the box on the bully, the
boy would have died. An instructor's voice bellowed around the workshop
and Sam turned, lowered the box and walked to his vice at his dedicated
workplace.
The instructor and the owner of the engineering company told Sam's dad
that everybody in the place was aware of what had happened. Yes, the
bully needed to be taken down but the severity of Sam's actions also
need to be answered. Sam's apprenticeship should be terminated.
however, it was agreed that a blot should be put and recorded on the
document and should anything every like this happen again, his position
within the company would be terminated. Lecture over, Sam carried on
his training.
The lads that he had called friends were always out for laughs and Sam
had got himself a small car and had rebuilt the engine. So it was
always a cert that on a Friday night, and if enough money left,
Saturday night as well, that Sam and the lads would hit town. Being a
navy town, inevitably the pubs and clubs were full of over paid
sailors. The lads always had trouble persuading the local girls that
the Navy whilst being flush with coin of the realm, should not
interfere with the local female stock. Inevitably, fights would occur
and Sam whilst trying to stay out and away from the centre of things,
always ended up rescuing one of the lads form a situation he got
himself into. One particular Saturday night, the lads had real
problems. The Petty Officer turned out to be a PTI and John and Paul,
two of the lads, were taking a real pasting. The Petty Officer was
enjoying himself too much at the lads' expense. Sam realised it was
time to sort a few things. Sam had never really had to stand up to
anybody, that had had physical training. So. his own talents that
reading openings and vantage points, when engaged in this physical
activity, had always seen him on top. This man however, seemed to be
able to second guess and was countering some of the moves that should
have put him down. Sam knew the outcome and there was no doubt that the
man would go down. What he was unaware of, was of the time that the
operation was taking and the fact that the two of them had become the
centre of attraction. The man's eyes also were not scared at first and
he was as courageous an opponent that Sam had ever undertaken. There
was that one moment when he saw the arrogance and the proud look
change. Then he knew, it was only time before the man would go down.
Sam could taste his own blood, the rich copper nectar as he called it,
only seemed to fuel his own inner strength and he never, ever tried to
wipe away any outgoing red mist because it was the red mist that always
made him the conqueror.
He noticed the man's eyes take a different tack and glanced just over
Sam's shoulder. Sam never felt anything like it before, someone had
dropped the ceiling on his head. A burst of bright lights exploded in
his eyes, his knees just buckled but again the animal instinct within
him recovered. Knowing that a different threat had arrived from a
different source, more deadly than the beaten guy in front of him, Sam
spun, lashed out with both hands and took the MPs windpipe in both
hands. This person would die. Sam knew it. He would not let go.
The cell he woke up in was so clean that the small light that hung in
the single bayonet fitting seemed to bounce around the room like a
floodlight. The strange thing about the room was although it was brick
built, all the bricks had been painted up to about 5 feet they were
bright dark green and then above this, to the ceiling, which Sam
estimated to be about 10 feet, it was like a dirty creamy colour. Then
across the ceiling to meet the dirty green again on all four walls. The
door seemed to be more akin to something you would find on a safe. Not
that Sam had seen many safe walls. Where had his clothes gone? He was
wrapped in a sarong type garment made form heavy cotton with a crude
heavy cotton drawstring type belt. The front was stained in blood, Sam
guessed it was his own blood. His head was wrapped in a bandage and
felt as if two men were trying to get into it with hammers and chisels.
Never understood was had happened to him, and how he had got
here.
There were 57 bricks on the wall at floor level and only 56 at the top.
Either the room had been designed to taper or the bricklayer had made a
mistake. Sam's mind wandered as he tried to make out what had happened
to him. Small window, which was open about 8 feet up the wall, had a
heavy iron grille in front of it and a heavy iron grille on the outside
of it. He could smell the sea, and he could tell that he was somewhere
near the sea. How, he didn't know, he just knew.
Two bolts were being slid open, the big door came open quickly and two
of the biggest men, Sam had ever seen, stood immaculate in trousers
that had razor sharp creases, small white gaiters and black boots that
not only were huge. almost hurt your eyes to look at due to the shine
and the deepness of the shine. The two men had crisp ironed shirts with
creases all over them with their sleeves rolled up which also had
creases in them. Both wore peaked caps but where were their eyes? Sam
needed to see their eyes. The eyes gave you the man, not to see the
eyes, he felt at a disadvantage. These two were going to be trouble.
Sam started to come forward. He never backed of. A small man, seemed to
slip between the two giants and stuttered in a clipped voice, civvy are
we? Sam stopped. Sam never saw the reason for being clever, or smart
mouth but simply said "Yes". the small man continued as if not even
registering Sam's comments. "We seem to owe you an apology, the MP's
got rather carried away. Incidentally the one you tried to choke will
live. However, the Petty Officer may press charges and is in hospital".
Sam suggested someone tell him where he was, and if the apology was
meant, could he please have his clothes back and that his parents
should be informed of his whereabouts. As he didn't want his mum in
particular to worry. All been taken care of, said the clipped little
voice. There is someone here who wants to talk to you. The two giants
suddenly jumped to attention. Almost as if, someone had stuck a sharp
stick somewhere actually it made Sam jump. He didn't show it. In
strolled an officer, Sam assumed. He certainly took charge and after
looking at Sam said in a very calm and collected voice, "Are you going
to behave yourself?" Sam said in reply, "Depends if anybody wants to
hurt me". "We are all friends here", said the officer, " so I will let
these two gentlemen carry on, shall I?" the man gestured to the two
giants just outside the door. Sam took in the situation which was
becoming a little bit clearer, even though the pain in his head was
still there. It was obvious, he was in some sort of prison. A military
prison cell. They had apologised, so he mused that he had been picked
up by the military police and taken back to the local military nick.
This was a first. His mum and dad would go absolutely ape. Or could he
keep it from them? The young officer seemed to be wanting some sort of
declaration from Sam. So Sam said, "Yes, I think you can let them go".
"Captain is my rank, does that mean anything to you? Sam said, "we have
all just agreed I am a civvy, well this bloke and me and those two who
you have just dismissed seemed to reach that conclusion, but, yes I
know this is a naval town." Sam continued "but it does not impress me
at all". "Civvy" said the officer more to himself then to anyone else,
"Name then". . Sam said, "Sam" and the small man with clipped voice
handed the officer a clipboard, obviously with all of Sam's personal
details gleaned to date. While the officer read, Sam took stock. These
people had all his clothes, wallet which contained his drivers licence,
so they knew a good deal about him. "I wonder if the buggers have
nicked my condoms". "Eighteen", said the officer, "like causing
trouble, do we?" still looking at the clipboard. Suddenly quite a way
off came the sound of heavy boots and the barked instructions
"lef-rite-lef-rite-lef-rite". Sam sprang, knocked the small man out of
way and headed for the only escape route, through the door. "You will
not get far", said the officer, "they are not coming for you",
seemingly understanding Sam's reading of this new situation, only
dealing with more trouble makers military style.
Sam stopped at the door, looked down the long corridor where it seemed
the two giants were busy attending to the new occupant of a cell. Sam's
head was pounding. He came back into the room, picked up the small man,
apologised for knocking him over and they both found the iron frame bed
and sat on its hard mattress. The small man fussed at brushing himself
down, picking at bits of imaginary dust on his well worn suit jacket.
Sam watched, head turned slightly, catching the officers eye, he saw
that the officer was also amused at the preening. "Derek, why don't you
get yourself a cuppa, oh by the by Sam, this is Derek Johnson,
Inspector Derek Johnson, H.M. Dockyard Police". "Oh right", said Sam.
"Sorry about just now, no harm done". "Yes" said Derek, "think I will".
He continued and walked to the door somewhat taller now that his full
title had been given. "Sam", said the officer, "may I call you Sam?"
"Sure" said Sam. Your parents have been told that you are helping clear
some trouble in regard to a disturbance at the Mecca Ballroom. "Always
best to fly as close to the truth". "What?" "I don't tell lies," said
Sam. "Excellent" said the officer. "Your parents were not really
worried, as I understand you don't spend a lot of time there". "Always
call them," said Sam. "Let them know where I am, so if they need me.
The officer was looking hard at Sam. "Strange reply" he said to Sam.
"What?" said Sam. The officer smoothed his chin, "In case they need
me". Most parents want to know, so that they are prepared for late
night calls as taxi service. "I know my own daughter Angela out all
hours, please daddy just this once", [he mimicked a female voice].
"Supposed to be in by 2300 hours oh sorry, 11'o clock". Sam detected
the softness in the eyes as the man spoke of the love of his life. Then
back, as he continued, "do you need anyone Sam?"
Sam looked at this man in front of him really for the first time since
they met. Which was odd, as he usually took in meetings with strangers
with a complete appraisal of the person's strengths. Only a very
deceitful person and Sam had met a few, could disguise their body
language. It was time to come forward again, so Sam spoke aloud. "You
want something from me?" "Tell me what it is, I really would like to go
now". "You need me now Sam, you need me to let you go". At eighteen,
Sam was not into mind games. He sighed, "look what do you want?" he
said firmly. The officer once again rubbed his chin. "Sam", he said,
"all charges that may or may not be brought against you appertaining to
this nights little disturbance, could be shall we say, sat on if you
co-operate". "How much damage was done to the MECCA"? "Quite a lot",
was the reply. Sam winced, "the lads?" said Sam. The officer raised an
eye and said "the lads?" Sam grimaced, "My friends, especially the two
your man was enjoying beating". "Oh, the Petty Officer in question,
better you don't know his name, was defending the honour of his ship,
when set upon by two local youths and was teaching them a lesson when
you stepped in". Sam was about to reply when the officer held up his
hand. "The man will be posted to another ship in deeper waters when he
is able. His reputation as area boxing champion is somewhat shaken, as
his version of being attacked by five local toughs is known to be a
lie". "You are right Sam, the man is a bully and many serving able
seaman who have suffered under him, would like to shake your hand". Sam
knew he just knew the man was a bully. He also knew the man now knew
fear. The officer was again looking hard at Sam. "That's it with you",
he said. Sam, the knight in shining armour. Sam looked deep into the
officer eyes. The eyes tried to withstand the onslaught and could not.
"Sorry Sam", he said. "My little joke" and Sam released him. The
officer wrote on the clipboard a few more notes he had been writing a
lot and seemed to use a lot of paper. The written word was not Sam's
forte. He always had trouble at school writing essays and in truth,
admired those people who could always pen their opinions and attitudes
to paper. The Officer finally looked up and said "Well, Sam, what's it
to be?" "Do I set the wheels in motion to get you released but I have
to have your promise to honour a request that will be coming to you in
the post in the near future". Sam thought, "they have really got me
over a barrel" so he said, "OK". The Officer walked to the door and
pressed a button on the outside wall and Sam heard the distant ring of
a bell. Then the measured step of the two sets of black shiny boots
approaching. The Officer raised his hand, once again to calm Sam who
had already guessed that his repatriation with the outside world was
imminent.
So his attitude was, that these two jailers were to help him meet that
goal. The Officer met the two approaching men and a brief exchange took
place, which Sam whilst straining, could not quite overhear. He did
hear the odd word, clean, up, taxi. The cut on Sam's head was
superficial and the bleeding had stopped so the bandage was removed and
a small plaster was placed over the wound. The doctor had given him
some injections and some tablets for the pain. His clothes were freshly
laundered and he laughed when he saw the jeans with creases in them.
The taxi took him home and he went straight to his room to reflect on
the events of the night before. It was now 10am on Sunday morning and
he was starving. Sam's parents tried to get from him what had he been
up to, which between mouthfuls of fried eggs and bacon, toast and
lashings of tea, he managed to convince them that it was all a big fuss
about nothing. His mum was more impressed at a very posh sounding voice
on the end of the telephone, asking lots of questions, regarding Sam
during the night and early in the morning. She rounded of the
interrogation of Sam saying he was a very nice man.
Later on that day, the lads came round wanting to know what had
happened to Sam. Sam hushed them with a finger to his lips and the
three of them left the house to discuss the events of the night
before.
"It's a good job that MP stopped you Sam", said Paul. "I thought you
were going to kill that bloody PTI". Sam said, "What happened and who
hit me?" Three of the Navy patrol buggers came crashing in, saw you
mixing it with that PTI and they all just rushed, one of them clobbered
you with that baton stick thing they carry, you know. Anyway what
happened to you after they threw you in the back of that Navy
landrover?" Sam told them of the nights events. Then, said "Just a
minute". "How come you two didn't stop them from taking me?" "Well, as
you can see, John was in a bit of a state, that PTI saw to that.
Anyway, we weren't gonna get involved and you were a goner. They
carried you out!" "Right" said Sam, "anyway, we'll just have to wait to
see what this co-operation thing is all about. My head still hurts!"
"Not only from the blow, but from the earache that mum's been giving
me!" They all laughed and decided to go for a walk to the
seashore.
Several days later, when he came home from work, his mother had told
him there was an official looking envelope with his name on it, which
she had to sign for. "What have you done now?" "Fancy, the letter has
been double sealed and if as it read on the outside, the seal was
broken, you are supposed to call this number, Sam". "Where's the letter
mum?" Sam said. "I've put it in your underpants draw", his mother said.
Sam smiled. He went to his room and found the letter. He tore it open
and again found another envelope inside with a large stamp across the
stick down part of the envelope which said, ADDRESSEE EYES ONLY. Sam
opened this envelope and after reading the contents, realised that he
had been invited to attend the Royal Marine Barracks, Eastney,
Portsmouth next weekend. He was to report at 0800 hours, Sam knew this
to be 8 o'clock in the morning. He was to bring the letter with him
which would act as an introduction to the Barracks. He was to ask for
Captain Peter Jarvis. He would be able to leave at 17.00 hours on the
Sunday. He was to bring an overnight bag containing minimal personal
toiletries and any medication should be declared on entry to the
Barracks. If he wore spectacles, he was to bring them along with a
current prescription. Sam re-read the letter and realised this was the
co-operation that the officer had spoken about.
Sam never told his parents what he was doing but on the Friday before
the weekend, he just told them he would be away for that weekend,
saying he would be back late Sunday evening. As he often did this,
there was no exchange between them and at 7.30am Saturday morning, he
fired up the trusty Morris 1000 van and took pride at the silent throb
of the re-built engine. He needed to save up some more money for the
continual restoration work that was required.
He arrived at the Barracks and was met by a Royal Marine Sergeant who
took one look at him and said, "Stand over there, lad". "I've come by
car .....er van", said Sam. "We'll sort that out later", said the
Sergeant turning away and strolling towards the small administration
hut which was adjacent to the road barrier. Another marine was
strolling with an automatic rifle slung about his person. Sam had heard
reports that all military establishments were now on some form of
alert, what with all this terrorist activity and IRA threats. Sam
turned to the sea he could smell it and reflected whilst he was waiting
for the return of the Sergeant, because just opposite the Barracks was
the sea and where the family used to make its pilgrimage to the every
weekend in the summer. Those were really great days, catching a bus
early in the morning with a bagful of food. His mum and dad, sister and
brother would spend a whole day on a Sunday by the seaside. Sitting
opposite the Barracks, so they could get a good view of the large clock
which would remind them of the departure of the last bus back to the
outlying village.
The Sergeant returned, said, "Captain Jarvis is on his way down. You
can bring your van in and leave it in the visitors car park over by
BLOCKHOUSE 'A'. Please lock it, after taking all your things that you
have been told to bring and give the keys to the marine at the
reception desk". Sam said, "There's not much petrol in it, so there's
not much point anyone taking it for a spin". The Sergeant looked hard
at Sam and said, "The marines travel in style son, not in that". At
which point, Sam turned and drove the van slowly under the rising
chequered pole.
Captain Jarvis turned out to be the Officer that Sam had met in the
cells two weeks previously. The Captain approached Sam with an
outstretched hand as if they were long lost friends. Sam was very
cautious and immediately said, "What's all this about?" "It's alright
Sam", said the Captain. "Things will become clearer as the weekend
progresses". "I will be grateful if you would call me Captain although
my name, for your record, is Captain Peter Jarvis. I ask this because
you are aware now you are on a military base and most other personnel
in these Barracks will call me sir. As I will be your direct point of
contact, whilst you are here this weekend, you will meet other people
and you will be able to address them by their Christian names. If for
any reason, during the weekend, you wish to terminate your stay, you
will ask for me and we will discuss the reason and why. At any time
during the weekend, I may wish to terminate your stay according to your
behaviour or accounts from the people that you meet. Do you understand?
Do you wish to leave now?" From the attitude and the way that the
Captain had said the last phrase, Sam knew that to say, yes, he would
like to leave, would put him in a negative position. Maybe, the charges
of wilful damage, affray etc. etc. may fall upon him. So for the time
being, Sam said, "I'm here now, might as well join in". Even though, I
am missing out on a good Saturday night out. "It might be better than
you think", said the Captain. Sam detected a glint in the Captain's
eye.
Most of the rest of the morning was taken up with filling in forms. Sam
was given a full medical, some of it he found embarrassing but the
nurse in the surgery wasn't too bad but he decided not to try to get
her phone number. After lunch, which Sam ate alone, he was taken on a
tour of the military memorabilia of the Barracks and was engaged in
some of the battle stories that the marines had been involved in over
the years. One story which he was interested in but was never quite
sure how much of it was true, was the account of the Cockleshell
Heroes. He remembered seeing the film and really enjoyed the account of
the marine actions as portrayed in the film and was even more thrilled
when he found out that most of what the film said was true.
About 3 o'clock, Sam never wore a wristwatch, he had an uncanny way of
knowing what time it was, at any time of the day or night. Almost as if
a time clock was running inside him. Sam was taken to a room and asked
to changed into what looked like a judo style outfit. Captain Jarvis
told Sam to go into the next room and wait where he would be joined by
someone shortly. Something told Sam that this was what the weekend was
all about. His senses and in-built radar were on alert. He did what the
Captain asked and entered a room, the room had no windows in it apart
from some sloping glass/mirrored all round octagonal ceiling to the
room. The floor was perfectly clean and wooden and in the centre of the
floor was a large mat made of thick shock absorbing rubber. Sam
realised he'd entered a training room and the smells and the feeling
from the room, told him it was a fighting room. Men had got hurt here,
was he about to get hurt? Was this retribution?
A door opened, on the other side and Sam looked for the first time at
Harry. He was about 30 - 35, about Sam's build, extremely short hair
and had an air of menace about him. His walk was springy and he made no
effort to disguise the fact that he was a powerful, extremely fit man.
Sam's first impression was maybe it was time to call Captain Jarvis and
say he wanted to leave. But no, that was not his way and as the thought
entered his head, it was pushed aside. "My name is Harry, you may call
me Harry. Captain Jarvis has given me a full report on your behaviour
two weeks ago and we are here now to judge your potential and your
courage". Sam said, "Why?" "That is for later", said Harry. "Have you
had any training in the martial arts?" "Have you read or subjected
yourself to any training routines?" "I have learned most of what I know
from Oscar", said Sam. "Who's Oscar?" said Harry. "That's for later",
said Sam. "Touch?", said Harry and bounced across the rubber mat whilst
taking Sam's feet from underneath him so that Sam fell on the mat. Sam
recovered and moved forward as he had always done. Harry seemed to
counter every attack that Sam put forward and every attack was met with
a flurry of not necessarily hard but quick successive blows to
different parts of Sam's anatomy. Sam had not yet endured the red mist.
He was still not sure how his performance was to be judged. Harry, once
again, sent a flurry of quick moving, articulate hand movements which
seemed to catch Sam in the throat, chest and finally, very nearly, a
well aimed foot in the groin. Harry dropped his arms and said, "It said
in the report that you were a knight in shining armour and that you
only fight for causes. Is that right, Sam?" "So, what do I have to do
to get you to fight me, Sam?"
Behind the glass windows, the three men watched the performance in a
room below, with mixed interest. The guy from Hereford, SAS and the man
from Whitehall could not see why they had been summoned. Captain Jarvis
said, "Just let the boy have his day. Don't make your judgement too
quickly". For the other two were about to leave and saw no talent which
either of them could use.
In the room, Harry was still trying to goad Sam. With very little
success. He had to find a trigger to fire this boy and to get the best
out of him. Harry had spent many years perfecting his own skills. He
trained many operatives, giving up an Olympic gold in judo, when he was
called by the Government of the day to train secret service operatives
in the martial arts. If this boy was to be one of the new breed that
were trained from a very young age, then he had to know his breaking
point and his stamina.
Finally, Harry said, "We've got a school report that says you beat up
on some overweight games master, so you don't mind picking on people
like that. But you won't show me your measure". Sam was about to reply
when another attack was launched at him. This time, a single blow hit
him fairly just on the bridge of the nose. Strange stance Harry had
taken and his set had become more rigid and controlled. There was no
way that Sam could fight a person like this. He didn't know the rules.
He hadn't had the training but the man wanted something from Sam. The
last sentence the man uttered was still going round in Sam's head when
a blow to the back of Sam's spine just made his legs collapse and Sam
knew the red mist was starting to form. Sam recovered from the mat and
looked at Harry. Then he recalled how Oscar would have dealt with this.
Harry then saw in that one moment the raw, unleashed power that the boy
had within him. It was almost primeval. The look was almost a punch and
he felt the eyes boring into his very soul. The boy suddenly filled the
room with an earth shattering shrill. His head came off the floor with
the speed of a bullet. It caught Harry just under the rib cage. The
wind was completely knocked from him. Sam punched Harry so hard in the
face, that he knew he had broken his nose. The blood poured on the mat.
Harry was out but the red mist would not diminish. Sam knelt over the
wounded man ready to administer what would have been a terrible
beating. The three men in the room above could not believe what they
had just seen. Captain Jarvis hit the panic button and the two other
men just looked with their mouths wide open. All three recovered and
started to make their way down to the conflict room.
The panic button sounded in the small anteroom attached to the main
conflict room. Ted was on duty that afternoon with Rex, a large German
shepherd, both part of the military police security presence. Ted
should not have been in the room and was only having a sly cuppa with
the duty sergeant who had just gone down the corridor for a slash. Ted
knew the routine, something had gone wrong in the conflict room. He was
not about to go in there himself so he unleashed Rex and hit the button
to open the secret door and instructed the dog "subdue". Rex was four
years old, he had a real good time as a patrol guard dog with not a
great deal to worry about. The odd moment of interest when a marine
would try to get in the barracks late was about the limit of his
duties. At these times, Ted would slip Rex's leash, give the command
SEEK and HOLD. Rex would bound off, find the frightened or drunk Marine
in one of the known entry points, give a lot barking and showing of
teeth until Ted arrived to escort the human to the guard-house. Rex's
initial training, when chasing after men and subduing them at the given
command SUBDUE even when they fired guns at him, was when he had the
chance to show his talents in this regard. It really was good to bring
a human down and smell the fear on them. In fact, he had really got a
bit lazy and from the moment the door opened and the command was
issued, the dog took three steps forward, stopped, turned and looked at
his master to make sure that he had heard the command correctly. Again,
came the order "subdue". Sam spun, saw the animal and remembered how
Oscar had dealt with this intrusion. Rex, whilst gathering himself to
spring, looked into the eyes of this human he was about to bring down
and for the first time in four years, he had met the real pack leader.
Rex was in mid flight when he realised he made a mistake to attack the
pack leader. Already Sam's bunched fist was being forced into his mouth
choking him. Sam's other hand, which he had fashioned into an arrowhead
by extending the knuckle of the middle finger and locking the fingers
around it, was being driven hard into the soft underbelly and up just
touching the dog's heart. The dog collapsed in a heap as it completed
its extended arc, the force of Sam's body blow knocking Rex off its
true trajectory which would have ended with his fangs buried in Sam's
flesh. As Sam withdrew his bunched fist from the dog's mouth, he
realised that he had hurt the dog badly. By this time, Captain Jarvis
and the other two men had now entered the room and one had drawn a gun.
Harry was becoming conscious but their attention was drawn to Sam, for
the boy whose hand was dripping with blood was now massaging the dog's
chest. Cupping the dog's mouth with his good hand trying to stimulate
the dog back to life by blowing into the dog's mouth. The dog stirred
and Sam seemed to whisper into the dog's ear. The dog immediately sat,
looked at Sam and was quite content but again it seemed to flop over
onto Sam. The dog rolled onto its back to take a submissive posture.
Sam walked towards Captain Jarvis and said, "You bastard, that dog
could have died and I nearly killed it. Sam called the dog to his side
and sent him back to the anteroom. Ted slipped the leash on Rex but the
dog's eyes were fixed on the young lad. Captain Jarvis closed the door
to the anteroom and by this time, Harry was fully conscious and was
carefully wiping blood from his face. Sam's hand was still dripping
blood where the dog's fangs had damaged the flesh of the hand and lower
arm in a choking motion which Sam had effected to the dog's
mouth.
This was not what anybody had expected. Harry just sat in a corner of
the room. The three men were talking in a quiet little group and Sam
was now pacing up and down watching the man, who still had the hand gun
barrel following Sam's movements. Finally Sam said, "Is anybody going
to fix this hand of mine?" Captain Jarvis turned and saw the gun,
"Sam", he said. "Are you alright?" "Are you going to behave yourself?"
"Behave myself?" said Sam. "You brought me here, set this all up".
"Sorry", said the Captain. "I mean, can this gentleman put the gun
away". "Yes", said Sam. "The red mist is gone now".
Sam was taken to the surgery where the superficial wounds were bathed
and bandaged and given a tetanus injection. Whilst the nurse was
repairing him, Captain Jarvis arrived and Sam noticed a completely
different air about the man. Sam said, "I suppose you want me to leave
now?" "On the contrary", said the Captain. "I think you have just
sealed your own fate, Sam". "There are three gentlemen who want to
speak to you, when you are ready".
Sam washed and bandaged was taken to another small room and offered
coffee or tea, there were even chocolate biscuits. Harry was there with
a plaster over his nose and the makings of two beautiful black eyes
which were just about forming. After settling down, it was Harry who
said, "Who the hell is Oscar? Cos I'd like to meet that guy"!
The three men and Harry sat waiting for Sam's explanation. He wondered
why they found it so difficult to understand. To him it was all so
natural. When Sam was about 13, he would often get lost in the woods
that surrounded his village. For hours he would spend watching the
small animals and their goings on in the forest, learning how the
natural order of events would always prevail. It was brutal at times,
watching animals fight for food, for territory or for mating rites. It
was never fought for fun or to pick on another species of their own
kind. That's where Sam had learnt his meaning of life. Sam hadn't
realised but he was actually talking aloud. "Yes, but who is Oscar?"
said Harry. "Oh yeah, Oscar", said Sam. "Oscar's a badger". "A badger",
said Harry. "You mean to say that I've got a broken nose and two bloody
black eyes because of a badger!" For the first time that weekend, Sam
smiled. "I'll tell you", said Sam. "Oscar had a bit of trouble. Oscar
had found himself a real tasty piece of evening meal. I had been
watching him for days. I still don't know to this day what is was but
two foxes were determined to take it off him. Now, Oscar was not gonna
let them have his evening meal and the two foxes were determined. I
watched one hell of a fight until I was sure that the two foxes had
definitely got the better of Oscar. Oscar feigned that he was hurt and
that it would be easy pickings for the larger fox to take the food but
Oscar using his snout, just as the fox came into reach, rammed it
straight into the fox's stomach. That fox never knew such a body blow
and hit the forest floor as if dead. The other fox seemed to realise
that the game was up and scampered off. Now Oscar decided to finish his
evening meal by picking it up and walking off, taking it back obviously
to his sett. I immediately rushed over and massaged the fox's chest".
"Just as you did with Rex", said Captain Jarvis. "Yes, Captain and the
fox recovered". "So, you learned all your tricks". "They are not
tricks", said Sam. "Animals don't play tricks". "But, you are not an
animal, Sam are you?" Sam turned and looked at all of them. "I am when
the red mist comes", said Sam.
He had sat for a goodly time thinking when from deep inside him came a
warning bell which brought him quickly back to the present. Something
was wrong. All his senses went to full alert. He took up on a reference
point, the tall chimney of the factory on the opposite side of the
river would do. This would be his twelve o'clock position, (Sam always
worked with an imaginary clockface. Straight ahead was twelve, left was
three, directly behind was six and so on). The sound came from the five
o'clock position identified as a rustle or sniff. A small terrier with
black and white markings had found Sam and was about to reveal Sam's
position. A woman's voice called from a distance, "William,William
where are you?" William, Sam thought was about to make the first real
decision of his doggy life and it would cause Sam a lot of pain to have
hurt the little fellow but he could not be discovered. Not yet anyway.
William was looking at Sam. The dog's head tilted somewhat and a small
deep throat whine floated across to Sam. At first, Sam thought the dog
was going to bark, which would have sealed the dog's fate. Sam allowed
the dog to look into his eyes and with a lowered head, came foward to
greet Sam, the pack leader. Sam released the handle of the four inch
blade that was sheathed and taped to the calf on his left leg. He
allowed the dog to sniff his hand. The dog rolled over in a submissive
action, begging Sam to tickle his tummy which was full. The dog seemed
slightly overweight. The dog would live. It pleased Sam as he watched
it ferret about. It was about to mark a particular spot, Sam gave a
soft growl in the back of his throat. The dog realised his mistake and
rolled over. Fancy trying to mark the territory when the pack leader
was about. "Oh William, where are you?" came the now stronger, more
urgent calls of the woman. William looked hard at Sam, eager now to
leave. Sam said in a low voice "gooo-on". William scampered up the
riverbank, happy to be forgiven by the pack leader. As William saw the
woman, he barked a welcome. "Oh William, you are a good boy to come,
when mummy called. You shall have an extra biscuit, when we get home".
Sam smiled. It was time now to leave this place. His meditation over
for a while. He allowed William and the unseen woman enough time to be
on their way. Slowly rose from him position and went down to the
riverside. He looked for a particular article and spied it several
yards down the riverbank. An elderly tree had shed a couple of weak
branches and one of them just stood proud of the water surface. Sam
grabbed the branch and pulled it behind him as he retraced his steps
back to his sitting position. Once there, he quickly spun the branch
all around him to make the grass and weed foliage patterns, all
dissimilar and unrecognisable, as a single part of the bank where
anything in particular had happened. Reaching the top of the riverbank,
he quickly checked that nobody was in view and tossed the branch back
into the river. It was still a pleasant day. He guessed but knew it to
be fairly accurate, the time to be about 9.30am. He slowly recrossed
the field and made his way back to a small stile which took him along
the edge of the rugby field, back along to the main road and headed
towards the city centre.
Accentuating the awkward gait as normal was somewhat tiring and
progress towards the city centre was intentionally slow as not to draw
the slightest attention to himself. The dampness which occurred to his
trousers whilst sitting at the riverbank was now almost dry and he was
conscious that this too, did not single him or his attire out for any
comment. He passed a small corner shop where the normal groups were
exchanging commentary about the weather. It always amazed Sam how in
England most of the conversation was about the weather whilst in other
countries people concern themselves directly with family, fortunes,
betting but not about the weather. Sam continued and noticed that in a
particular block of houses, that workmen had started removing the roof
and a large rubbish container was just sticking out of the driveway. A
chute of blue plastic tubes all tied together was acting as a debris
organiser into the rubbish container from the roof. Pieces of old
roofing tiles and bits of batten were falling into the rubbish
container. A piece of wood with a nail protruding was sticking out of
the bin, approximately six inches onto the pavement. Sam noticed that
two women were approaching with pushchairs. The inner pushchair
contained a small child with blonde, golden hair. Sam had rarely seen
such a cherub of a child. The piece of wood would just catch the child
on the cheek if the mother didn't notice it soon. Sam quickened his
step in case he would have to intervene to protect this child. The two
women were too busy talking to each other. The situation was getting
worse. Sam realised he would be unable to reach the rubbish bin without
running or falling forward. May be if he played the drunk and fell
forward, he could snap the piece of wood and protect the child but it
was too early for anybody, even the worst drunk to be intoxicated at
this time of the morning. "A stumble, that's it", Sam thought. As if by
magic, his eyes caught a raised lip of a paving stone. Stubbing his
toe, he caught the lip, fell forward and his hand caught the piece of
wood, which broke and fell away out of harm's way. As he went down to
break his fall, the child's eyes which were deep blue met Sam's. Rarely
had Sam had such an exchange. The child's soul immediately flew to him.
Sam rejoiced in the innocence and the total unblemished view that the
child had on life. The two women were completely unaware of what Sam
had done, immediately thought that Sam had been totally irresponsible
to fall down in front of them and shouldn't he be more careful? Sam
just stood up, brushed himself off and walked on. After several paces,
he looked back over his shoulder only to see, the child's blue eyes
staring at him as she strained around the tubular frame of the
pushchair. "That's for you, Harry", said Sam under his breath.
Sam walked on, always careful to check his progress. He popped into the
next newsagents and stood in front of the magazine rack pretending to
decide which of the many publications on display, he would choose
today. He picked up the Telegraph and went to the desk with exactly the
right money and dropped it into the cashier's hand. Turned without
acknowledging and left the shop. Seemingly to any passer-by, a
newspaper had been purchased. Whilst in the shop, Sam had used all the
reflective surfaces in the shop to scour the street outside. He could
always find, especially in these modern shops, many surfaces that would
reflect the image of someone either stopping, changing course or just
general interest in a young man buying a newspaper. Sam registered none
of the telltale signs and proceeded towards the city centre. Ashbury
centre was done in the best possible taste, to coin a phrase. Most of
the old had been kept and preserved whilst the new buildings had been
injected into the surrounding areas with care and consideration. The
cathedral which happened to be in the centre, was undergoing repair and
was covered in scaffolding. Sam was careful to register this point as
the scaffolding was covered with heavy duty PVC sheeting, ideal base
for a sniper. The department had many such snipers who if given the
opportunity from that vantage point, could drop any target at a
thousand yards away and as silent as night. Sam probably had another
couple of days before anybody would know he was in Ashbury. Just the
same, he kept all his senses, all his training on full alert. He had to
find a small coffee shop or teahouse where he could pretend to read his
paper. If not that, then there was always the reading room in the local
library. Never a good choice because you could always be spotted and
they were always fitted with video surveillance these days. Sam found
Daphne's teahouse, which seemed to have been carved out of stone, very
small entrance, must have a rear exit suited Sam ideally. He picked a
table to the rear of the establishment and ordered coffee and
toast.
As Sam pretended to read his paper, his mind drifted back to those
early days and he continued to ponder how it had all began.
Harry had been Sam's point of contact for the rest of the weekend on
that first eventful meeting at the Royal Marine Barracks at Portsmouth.
Captain Jarvis and the other gentlemen had left Sam and Harry to chat
and generally get to know each other. Sam couldn't look at Harry
without feeling guilty. As the black eyes grew across Harry's face, it
was more and more difficult to talk and answer all the questions that
Harry seemed to want answers to. Some of the questions, Sam had to
decline to answer. Either because they were too personal or because he
was unsure of what the answer was leading him into. On the Sunday
morning, Captain Jarvis arrived and excused himself for being dressed
in civvy's, as he put it. "Had to take Angela to one of her friends
houses this morning, Sam. You remember me talking about Angela?" "Yes.
Yes", said Sam. "That's your daughter". "Anyway Sam, I am here now.
Harry says that you and he did a lot of talking yesterday afternoon".
"Well, Harry seemed to want to ask a lot of questions and he did get
some answers but not too many". Captain Jarvis then seemed to get very
serious. He stood up, put his hands behind his back and slowly paced
around the small room. Finally, he said to Sam, "What do you know about
security matters, Sam?" Sam grimaced and said; "I'm not sure what you
mean". Captain Jarvis continued "Well Sam, who do you think looks after
this country's interests?" Sam stated a few of the obvious answers and
mentioned the police, the army and the courts. Captain Jarvis realising
Sam's naivety, in fact rejoicing in it, indicated his pleasure by
saying to Sam, "You really have no idea what goes on Sam". It was a
statement, not really a question and Sam felt that it needed no reply.
Captain Jarvis continued, "Er Sam, let me just talk a while and then
you can ask questions after I've finished".
"When this great country of ours requires somebody to sort something
out, it takes a very careful look at all its resources and when events
which have a criminal content transpire, then you are quite right, Sam,
the police force, local or nationwide, take up the challenge to sort
the problem. The courts generally adjudicate and sentence is passed on
the perpetrators". To emphasise this, Captain Jarvis said, "What I am
really saying, Sam is if you are caught speeding in your van or
breaking into a bank, hurting someone then the police force where you
have done the crime, will make sure you do the time. Hey that's a joke,
Sam!" Sam nodded, "Yes. I understand, I get the meaning!" "Now when the
country has a dispute with another country and diplomatic efforts do
not resolve this problem, then the country goes to war. You understand
that, Sam?" "Yes", said Sam. "My dad fought in the last World War". "Oh
really, Sam?" "We will talk about that later". "Right, now that all
seems black and white, so we have the police force doing what they have
to do and we have the army standing by to do what it has to do should
we need them. Somewhere in between, there are times when the Government
would like certain situations to be resolved without anybody knowing
how they were resolved or how the problem went away. This, Sam, is what
your Government and in fact, every Government of the world would never
admit to but you can rest assured that every Government has certain
people trained to protect the interest of that Government, whose
interest maybe in any part of the world." Captain Jarvis looked at Sam,
waiting for some recognition of what he had said or acknowledgement of
the words he'd used to explain himself. Sam carefully considered all of
what he had heard and his mind kept recalling one thing, which made him
smile. That was James Bond 007! So he said it. "You are talking James
Bond 007, licensed to kill and all that". Now it was Captain Jarvis's
turn to smile. The answer had come back that he had expected. "Not
really", he said. "Certainly not with all the girls anyway but
something akin to that". "Certain people can do certain things, Sam.
Everybody finds their way to make their way through life. Very few of
us have the chance to use all our talents, most of the time. You Sam,
have an extraordinary talent and it is my belief that your Government
can use those talents to help make the world a safer place".
Captain Jarvis then went onto explain without revealing the total
overall picture about the workings of the security forces that were
available within the country to sort out various problems ranging from
minor strikes to internal espionage and overseas missions that would
sometimes result in the despatch of certain individuals. By the end of
the day, Sam's head was spinning. He was given two hours in the
afternoon to be by himself. He elected to borrow a swimming costume and
go for a swim in the sea. As he swam in the sea, three faces watched
him from the upper windows and Captain Jarvis turned to Harry and the
other gentleman and said, "I think, gentlemen, we have our first
recruit".
As Sam swam in the Solent, the weekend's activities kept going over and
over in his head. The same statement kept coming up, what had he got
himself into? All this from a punch up at the Mecca. There was Captain
Jarvis, Harry and that other bloke. He was strange, that other bloke.
He just seemed to keep looking, never saying much, sort of mean. Seemed
bored most of the time and trying hard to be part of what was going on
that weekend. Sam just wished he knew what was going on. Suddenly, he
thought of James Bond again and he choked as a mouthful of water tried
to find its way into his lung. Not a good idea to try smiling under
water. His inbuilt clock told him that he had been away about an hour
and a half. He had told them he would be back in two hours. Anyway, it
must be getting on for 5.30pm or 17.30 hours as they like to tell the
time at the barracks. He would be able to leave soon but again it had
hit him. What had this weekend been about? His left hand was still
painful under the waterproof bandage for that was a gentle reminder of
Rex. He would be his friend forever, he knew that. Then there was
Harry's face. He liked Harry even though Harry asked him all those
awkward questions. He could feel a strange bond between him and that
man. He picked up his stroke when he realised how far offshore he had
gone. Suddenly a black shape appeared just off to the left and he
became aware of another one just off to the right. Bloody sharks,
surely not? Then he saw the facemask and the air tanks of the two
divers. The diver to his left pointed to the shore and Sam returned
with a gesture of his own which made the face behind the mask smile.
Sam could see the eyes light up anyway. Sam thought, "I'll show these
buggers". With his best freestyle stroke, he made for the shore. The
two dark shapes followed and disappeared when Sam was 50 feet from the
shore. Sam made the rest of the way easily. The beach at Eastney has a
sharp rise to it and is covered with pebbles. So Sam walked the last
few feet, turned at the shoreline and looked for his escorts. Not a
sign could be seen of them. As he looked down at his feet, he saw a
small label which was hung from his ankle. Sam burst out laughing when
he read the message that had been written on the small plastic tag.
Somehow the two escorts had simply slipped a tag onto his leg and
secured it with a plastic tie wrap. The tag hung freely and was tight
enough not to fall off but not as tight for Sam to feel in the water.
The message said simply, "Up yours!" A return message that returned
Sam's original gesture. Sam nodded and smiled as he sat down on the
beach to remove the tag. It wouldn't come off, it just wouldn't go past
his ankle. Suddenly the water in front of Sam erupted and a six inch
blade slid between his ankle and the tie wrap and with a swift scissor
motion, the tag fell from Sam's leg. The eyes through the facemask were
still smiling. Sam simply made the letter 'O' with his thumb and first
finger on his right hand and gestured to the man. The two dark shapes
slid back into the water and left Sam impressed for the first time that
weekend. Sam picked his way gingerly up the beach, the going was always
difficult because of the terrain. At low tide there were small strips
of sand but as you reached beyond the high water mark, the pebbles grew
in size and somehow always managed to be exactly the right shape to
either stub the toe or catch a peculiar shape into the instep. He made
his way to the towel and the tracksuit that he had left well above the
high water mark, slipped into the tracksuit after towelling himself off
and jogged up the beach. As he entered the entrance, the barrier was
raised and he strode in, had a shower and went to the designated room
where Captain Jarvis had asked him to attend earlier. Captain Jarvis
walked into the room with Harry and the other gentleman. Captain Jarvis
said, "Did you enjoy your swim Sam?" Sam replied, "Yes, I had a
confrontation with a couple of dark shapes from the deep!" Captain
Jarvis spun instantly and looked at the third gentleman in the room.
"Well, the lads were worried that you'd do a runner and they needed a
bit of practice, so I asked a couple just to stand off and make sure
you got back here in two hours. I really am sorry, Sam. I didn't
authorise for you to be put under surveillance". As Sam could see
Captain Jarvis getting into hot water, he tried to diffuse the
situation by saying, "Well they left a calling card". Even the third
gentleman looked hard at Sam. Sam tossed the plastic tag onto the table
and there was silence for a while and the third gentleman for the first
time in the weekend, smiled. Sam explained what had happened and they
all laughed. At the end, Sam said, "Those two guys were really good!"
The third gentleman turned to Sam and simply said, "You've just met two
of the finest underwater combat soldiers in the world".
The third gentleman excused himself saying that he had to be off and he
said goodbye to Sam and although Sam offered his hand, it was not
taken. The man just simply walked out of the room. When he was gone,
Sam asked the question of Captain Jarvis and Harry, "Who is that
person? Not the friendliest of chaps". Harry simply said, "Being
friendly is not his usual line of work. You will meet him again, Sam,
if you want to".
Captain Jarvis then spoke, "Well Sam, now's the time, I suppose this
whole weekend has been difficult for you to understand and fathom but I
can assure you that if you decide a particular course of action, then
your whole life will change from this day on". Sam wanted to say so
much but didn't know how to put it because he didn't really understand
what was being offered and why. The talk that he and Captain Jarvis had
before, led him in certain directions but every time he thought that he
was getting somewhere suddenly the Captain would change direction to
lead him off somewhere else. It was almost as if he was being shown
part of the picture and then taken to another part but never shown the
whole picture. Finally, he said so. Harry and Captain Jarvis looked at
each other and said, "Well, I think that is all we are prepared to say
at this stage, Sam. Would you be willing to come back here say, in a
couple of weekends time". Sam agreed and at this time he was told he
could leave the barracks at any time but he was not to speak of what he
had been doing this weekend to anybody, even to his closest friends.
Gently reminded him that there was still the matter of the affray that
occurred two weeks ago.
Sam had no trouble getting home and walked into the usual non greetings
that he always received from his family. No one even noticed his
damaged hand. The two weeks passed uneventfully and Sam continued with
life as normal. Another letter arrived, asking him to report to the
Barracks and this time he would be only required to stay for one
afternoon. He could elect whether it would be the Saturday afternoon or
the Sunday. He chose the Saturday and reported the same as before. As
he checked in, he saw Rex and Ted across the quadrangle. Rex
immediately started pulling on his lead, making all attempts to get to
Sam, not in an aggressive way but in a greeting gesture. Ted was
obviously embarrassed at this and kept the dog under control until they
were out of sight. Sam reported to the desk sergeant and was told to go
to a room at the end of the long corridor and to wait for Captain
Jarvis. Captain Jarvis arrived and sat down in front of Sam. "How are
you, Sam?" Sam said, "Fine". Adding, "how's Harry". "Oh, he's fine". It
seemed to Sam that Captain Jarvis was not sure of his ground. He was
busy trying to find a correct or right way to say something. "Sam, we
spoke last weekend on certain things and we realised that when you left
two weekends ago, you must have been confused about what was going on,
after all you are only eighteen. It seems a lot for a young man to
digest. I am in a position to offer you a change to your life. Even
you, must realise that what I have brought you into, is something more
than just a chance for you to impress Harry or anybody else, how you
can handle yourself in a fight. It's only when you find yourself in a
conflict situation and I am talking hypothetically, not necessarily you
but the men we deal with on a day to day basis. We have to know how
they are going to react in a conflict situation. It is only when we put
them in these situations, whether we know if they will perform the
tasks we train them for. The ordinary soldier when he enlists or the
sailor or whatever, it doesn't matter how much training we give the
individual, at the end of the day if he does not use that training,
then the situation is lost. Especially, when the particular mission is
so vitally important. Harry can train anybody to be a good fighter, he
could take literally anybody off the street and train them to peak
physical fitness and teach them the moves to immobilise somebody or in
fact, kill that person. If that person once trained, goes off to do a
particular mission, it is only then that the real conflict takes place.
Often, the aggressor is lacking in the ability to see the particular
painful culmination of the task at hand. Now you Sam, have already
shown us that in that one area you are not lacking. Why? We do not
know, only you know that. That's why when the affray four weeks ago
brought you to my attention, I was surprised at just how committed you
were to a particular set of circumstances should they all be stacked
against you. I can tell you for sure, Harry was extremely surprised".
Sam wasn't sure whether to laugh or not because things had obviously
got very serious. Captain Jarvis continued, "Sam, I'm setting up a very
special group of people, these people will do certain things for the
Government at certain times of which there will be no record. Rest
assured the importance of these tasks may well stop certain activities
that will embarrass the Government or stop worldwide conflicts
progressing to a state where inevitable conflict of arms between
nations may occur. The people that will be part of the group will be
highly trained and supported with all the best technology, weaponry and
skills that are available today. Their commitment to the task must be
total. In the past and I can assure you Sam, these activities have been
going on for a very long time. The selection of candidates to carry out
these activities have always been from the armed forces, in a belief
that trained soldiers make the best candidates. Very good work has been
done by these people in the past but the problem is they all have
backgrounds that can be traced. It doesn't matter how good the
procedure, because they have served, there are records and because they
get paid from a Government purse, then they can be traced. I am looking
for people who cannot be traced because they haven't served in any
organisation, have your type of skills and instincts and are young
enough to be with the department to make a real contribution. In your
case, Sam, we would need to transfer your apprenticeship to another
organisation that we can monitor and train you for the tasks that we
have in mind". Sam's mouth was wide open. He seemed to be drawn deeper
and deeper into a black hole but somehow he just knew that this was
what he was supposed to do. Captain Jarvis told Sam that he would
obviously need sometime to think what had been said to him and gave him
a buff coloured envelope which had some sort of seal where the stamp
should be. Also contained within the envelope was a form which Sam
didn't bother to read at the time but realised was some sort of
commitment to what Captain Jarvis had been speaking about. Sam left the
Barracks that Saturday afternoon, eighteen years of age but going on
sixty. His mind was racing and trying to ponder everything that had
been said to him.

"Come on Sam", said John, "we have been in this room for hours".
"Actually forty five minutes" said Sam. "Forty five minutes", mimicked
John. Then he received one of Sam's looks. John put both hands up in
mock defence. Sam smiled at the action. "Come on, then", he said.
"Let's fire up the passion wagon". "Got any money?" Sam closed the
front door quietly, ignoring his mother's request as to what was going
on. John had already thanked her for the coffee, cake, biscuits, crisps
and toast they had consumed. It was an unwritten law between the lads,
that it didn't matter whose house they were in, the mothers were always
treated as royalty by the guests. So John had done the business but had
alerted his mother to the fact that they were going out. No sooner had
the pair of them taken a couple of strides down the drive, when the
front door flew open. Sam was waiting for it and there stood his
mother. Sam turned slowly and looked at her. "It's OK and yes, I will
be home tonight". The relief on his mother's face always embarrassed
Sam. For he knew that it always hurt her when he stayed away. They
walked to the passion wagon, affectionately known after last years
excursion to the West Country by the lads, who had furnished the inside
of the passion wagon (Sam's Morris 1000 van) with a mattress. On return
from the holiday in the West Country, it had to be thrown away due to
the liberal gathering of certain bodily fluids and unmentionable
stains. Once inside the van, the two boys managed to scrape together
enough money but decided the pot could be enlarged if they called round
to pick up Paul. Paul was not in, so Sam said, "Let's go down the front
and see what's going on". August on Southsea seafront was always full
of promise but Sam had a slight increased interest in the area as
Eastney Barracks was also on the same stretch of seafront. They parked
the van just beating an unsuspecting holidaymaker into a parking slot,
not normally Sam's style. There was a mood upon him that he couldn't
explain, not even to himself and he knew that both John and Paul had
measured the change in him. Sam had never needed to confide in people
but had always sort his own counsel when making decisions about things.
This was different, this was something that even he realised was
probably the most important thing to happen to him to date. John's
father owned a small building company, so John was naturally heir
apparent and was grudgingly learning the multiple trades associated
with the small business which was doing quite well. It was a time when
people were having central heating installed, extensions etc. So John's
future was pretty secure and he knew what he would be doing whereas
Sam, who had never really thought much about the overall future of
things, was suddenly presented with this opportunity. As they strolled
along the seafront, Sam turned to John and said, "Let's go and sit near
the water's edge, for a minute". John sensed something and said, "We're
not going to skim stones again!" knowing that this would relax Sam as
Sam never resisted the opportunity to break his own record of skimming
stones across flat water. "No, no", said Sam but as they reached the
water's edge, almost by remote control his hand felt down for the slim,
smooth pebble and his athletic arm propelled it as it skimmed four
times before reaching a crest of an incoming wave. John smiled, more to
himself. "John", said Sam, "if someone offered you a chance to change
your life, would you accept it, or what?" "What do you mean?" said
John. "Well, there's this thing going on at work. I seem to have won a
scholarship or something, to go and work in the bloody Dockyard", said
Sam. "Do what?" said John. "You don't wanna go in there, full of old
men and rusting old boats". "Well it seems this scholarship thing is to
do with becoming a student apprentice, which means I concentrate more
on the scholastic world as well as the engineering side of things",
said Sam. "Get you!" said John, "and I suppose this is what has been
making you bloody miserable for the last two or three weeks". "I
haven't been miserable", said Sam. "You have. You ask Paul. Even Susan
incidentally who you haven't seen for two weeks, thinks you have
changed and have gone right off her". Sam breathed deeply, picked up
another stone and was annoyed when it only skimmed twice to fall back
into the sea. "Well, what do you reckon, then?" said Sam. "Should I go
for it, or not?" "More money?" said John. "I don't know, actually",
said Sam. "I suppose I'd better ask". "Well, if you're not going to get
more money, I'd stay where you are". "Yeah, but it's different for
you", said Sam, "your future's secure. When your dad croaks it, you'll
have a building firm to run". "If you keep your nose clean", said John,
"you'll be an engineer building all sorts of things". "Suppose so",
said Sam and picked up another stone. This one nearly took the record
as it skimmed seven times before going to the bottom. "Come on", said
Sam, "let's get out of here. Let's go and find some action. Race you up
the beach". The two boys tumbled and fought their way in a playful
manner until they reached the top of the beach.
The promenade was full of holidaymakers and people generally taking the
last of the summer sun. The lads stopped and for a while were not sure
whether to go to the funfair or head in the opposite direction. John
instinctively looked at Sam for direction. "Come on", said Sam, "let's
walk this way. The smell of that candy floss and those fried onions
always makes me feel sick". They made their way past the hovercraft
landing site, keeping a watchful eye out for scantily clad females of
which there were many but none drew too much attention from the two
boys. John said to Sam, "About, what you were saying before, Sam, you
know you could always come and work for my dad and eventually we could
run the business together. The number of times, my dad said to me, and
in mock imitation he repeated his fathers' words "if only you were more
like Samuel, my fears about the business falling to bits may not be
realised". "What do you say to that then, Sam?" Sam looked at John but
John already knew Sam's answer. Sam was kind enough to say, "It would
never work out, John. We go back far too far and it would always get in
the way of work. Anyway, you can't work with your best mate. Best mates
are for having fun and messing about with!" By this time, they had
reached the portion of the promenade which ran beside the model village
that was raised up on the hill. Just before the village there was a
large car park which was always full of coaches which had brought
holidaymakers down from London for day trips to sunny Southsea as the
brochure said. There were some out of towners causing a blockage across
the promenade and were actively employed in giving a young local girl a
very hard time. John looked at Sam and said, "Sam, it's not your fight,
leave it alone. You know you'll still on that warning from that dust up
at the Mecca". Sam looked at John and John knew it was a waste of time
to say anymore. Sam would do what Sam always did and that was sort it.
Sam strode straight to the middle of the group of out of towners and
simply said, "Have you got any trouble, love?" The frightened girl
seeing the knight in shining armour, so to speak, grabbed Sam's arm and
said, "They want me to get on the coach and go to London. I've told
them my mum is expecting me back for tea. Anyway it's Sunday afternoon,
I've got to be at work tomorrow". Sam detected the normal situation,
this girl had obviously got herself mixed up with a particular group,
had a good time, probably at their expense but now it was their turn to
reap their rewards, which would be probably met at the back of the
coach on the way back to London. Sam turned to the group and said, "I
think my sister has had enough for one day and she wants to go home
now". A broad London accent came across. "If she's your sister, then I
am King Solomon". The whole group laughed. The situation was still OK
and the banter could have gone on for some time except that one of the
group told Sam to disappear and not to mess with something he couldn't
handle. John's eyes went skyward. "Here we go", he thought. Sam turned
to the outspoken Londoner and said, "You'd best get on your coach and
be gone". The reply came back, "Who's going to make me?" The guy never
saw the punch but was on his back and blood was all over his face. John
leapt to Sam's side and the girl flew through a gap and was off down
the beach. The situation had now reached a confrontational status
between the Londoners and two local lads who needed teaching a lesson.
Already one of their number had been injured so definitely a lesson had
to be taught. There was a great flurry of pitched blows, punches, kicks
and Sam was aware that John had already taken a nasty blow and was on
his way down. The red mist had already formed and he had already taken
two of the group to the point of exhaustion. There were three others
about to start a kicking on John. When suddenly a loud voice barked,
"What the bloody hell's going on here?" The groups activities stopped
as three joggers approached all wearing running vests displaying an
armed forces motif complete with blue tracksuit bottoms. All well
muscular sporting very short hair cuts and as they approached, Sam
recognised one of the group as Harry who was accompanied by two marines
out for their afternoon jog. One of the Londoners who obviously
recognised the military fashion, piped up, "The cavalry's arrived. You
two were lucky! Come on, lads, let's get on the coach and leave these
southies. After all, you know what sailors are!" Sam looked directly at
Harry but there was no sign of recognition just a blank, hard
expression. Harry just said, "I'm sure you had a very good reason for
doing what on earth you were doing, but there is no real reason to
spoil everybody's Sunday afternoon". Whereupon, he proceeded to jog
down the promenade followed by the two marines. Sam went to John who
was nursing a bruised cheek. The two lads sat on the dwarf wall to dust
themselves off and to check which bits of their body were actually
working. "Why, why?" said John, "do you always have to do it? The bitch
had been probably egging them on all afternoon. You can't right every
wrong in the world, Sam". "Only those that are presented to me", said
Sam and walked to the waters edge to start skimming stones again. Sam's
mind was made up. Maybe he needed a reason or maybe he just needed to
know for once that he would be righting wrongs and be on the right side
instead of always on the wrong side. That one must have broken the
record but he'd forgotten to count the number of skips. Yes, he would
sign the form and send it back tomorrow. John finally came and sat on
the beach just above where Sam was throwing stones. He just wished
once, just once, maybe only for a day, that he could be Sam.
The afternoon was drawing on and the two lads walked back along the
promenade to the parking space and drove towards the outskirts of town.
It was quiet inside the van, almost like a lull after the storm. They
were always buoyant normally after a fracas. This was different. John
was the first to speak. "Fancy doing anything tonight, then?" "No",
said Sam, "I've got some things to do at home. Anyway mum'll be pleased
if I stay in tonight. I'll give you a call in the week or whatever".
John needed to say something to Sam but it was difficult because he
knew by Sam's actions of the past two or three weeks that something was
going on which he was keeping from everybody including both himself and
Paul. It must be pretty important, he thought. After all, John and Paul
and Sam had been friends since infant school and virtually knew
everything there was to know about each other. Sam dropped John off and
drove back home, went to his room and took out the draw where he kept
his socks and retrieved the buff envelope Captain Jarvis had given him
at their last meeting. All important things were put in this location
because he knew that his mother took every opportunity to find out what
was going on and one way was to read his mail after he'd opened it. He
could hear the phone ringing and after the fourth ring, it was answered
and he waited for the call and sure enough it came. "Sam, its for you",
came the shout up the stairs. Sam did the normal three bounds that took
him from the top of the stairs to the bottom and picked up the phone.
"Hi", he said. "Very, very sloppy", came the reply. "Who's this?" said
Sam. "What would Oscar have said?" and the phone line went dead. Sam
looked at the phone. That was bloody Harry, he said to himself. How on
earth did he know this number? He put the phone down and went back
upstairs.
He re-read the form and signed and dated it, placed it in its envelope
ready for posting in the morning. He could easily do that on the way to
work. He had better tell his parents what was going on, so he went down
to the lounge where both were somewhat mortified to see him enter the
lounge and see him actually sit down and join him. "Are you actually
watching this", he said. His father managed a measure of wit by
replying, "Well, we wouldn't have the thing switched on if we weren't
watching it". "No, sorry", said Sam, "but I wanted to discuss something
with the pair of you". His mother was immediately anxious, his father
just raised his eyebrows and flicked the remote control to mute the
sound on the television not wishing to miss the thread of what he was
watching. Sam started and just told them that he had won a scholarship
at work and to fulfil the scholarship, he would be working now in the
Dockyard as a Dockyard apprentice, as a student apprentice in fact. At
this point, his father turned round, flicked the remote control switch
to disable the TV completely. "Do what?" he said. Sam repeated himself.
"Well, when did all this happen then, we weren't told anything".
Questions were being fired at Sam from both his parents. "Look, look,
it's nothing to get excited about, it's just that I shall now be
working in the Dockyard and possibly might be going away occasionally
on courses". "Well, this is marvellous", said his father. "Finally, you
seem to have got yourself together. I must say this Sam, I don't think
I've ever said this before, but I'm proud of you lad". For the first
time in a very long time, father and son exchanged glances of respect
and Sam felt awkward. "This all starts the end of the month", said Sam.
"I've signed all the papers, actually I don't need your signatures now
because I am over eighteen but I thought I'd let you know." He stood up
to leave the room. His mother would have been quite happy to die at
that moment. Because once again, she could enjoy the two masculine
people in her world rejoicing in each other's company. She would have
been happy to go to her grave with that memory. "We ought to
celebrate", said his father. "Now, steady", said Sam, "let's not get
too carried away. You know very well in this house, we only celebrate
birthdays and Christmas. I doubt whether there's a drop of booze in the
house anyway." The moment had evaporated. His father retorted, "You
ought to restrict the amount of alcohol you take." Sam left the room,
saying, "Yeah, yeah."
"Is there anything else you want, luv?" Sam was yanked back to the
present and glancing up from the newspaper, he looked really for the
first time at the waitress. He had merely just spoken at her when he
had given her the original order. She mistook this look as one of
interest in her as a person. Of course, Sam was only interrogating all
her outgoing body language to see if she was trying to understand what
he was doing. Sensing all was well, he noticed that she was busily
trying to adjust her apron to give the best impression of herself. "No,
I'm fine," he casually said, "I'll be leaving in a minute". He asked
for the bill and watched her walk away towards the inner depths of the
tea-room. It was only then he noticed the small blinking red light on
the CCTV camera located in the back of the tea shop. "Oh, shit!" he
said to himself. "Sloppy, very, very sloppy", and he smiled as he
remembered the first time Harry had said that to him over the phone.
Well, it just meant they would find him a little earlier. The video
footage would be probably viewed tomorrow and a make on his face would
probably get to the Department by the next day. So he probably still
had a couple of days. The waitress returned with his bill and he paid
her, leaving a good tip and stared directly into the camera. On leaving
the coffee shop, he decided to go for a walk on the walls. Ashbury had
been a royalist stronghold in the old days and had been fortified
successfully and in fact, had held out for many days against the
Roundheads due in no small part to the immense walls that surrounded
the town. The present council and previous had done a real good job of
preserving the walls and encouraging people to walk on them offering a
good vantage point to see several of the towns ancient treasures.
One of the outer gun posts within the wall had been given by donation a
few outdoor benches with the plaques bearing the name of the donor and
who the chair was donated in the name of. Sam then selected one of the
benches and with his back to the wall, had a good vantage point of
anyone approaching from either direction and carried on reading, or
pretending to read, his paper.

On 22nd September he reported to the main gate at H.M. Dockyard,
Portsmouth. Little did he know that from that moment on his life would
change forever. The Dockyard police took his temporary pass, studied it
and walked off with it, which left him standing in the foyer of the
busy security building. The pass had arrived, along with a lot of other
papers, all of which Sam had brought with him as instructed. Sam looked
for the copper who had taken the pass. He was in the back of the
reception area using the telephone, obviously reporting Sam's arrival.
The policeman put down the telephone and walked back to the desk. He
told Sam to kindly take a seat and wait over there casually pointing to
a row of reasonably appointed chairs, adding that someone will be along
to collect you.

As Sam sat waiting, his thoughts drifted to the previous weekend. He
had not really known why he had done it and he felt rather foolish at
even remembering now. He got up early on Saturday morning, put on his
trainers and shouted that he was just going for a jog, to let his
mother know what he was doing. He was a familiar sight running through
the village, nobody took any notice as he had been jogging most of his
adolescent life. Not out of any strict regime of the fitness fanatics
but just because he enjoyed the freedom and the air rushing past him.
He ended up on this particular run, jogging past the woodland overgrown
parts of the village that he had explored as a boy. He wondered how
Oscar was fairing because it had been quite a considerable amount of
time since he had been to this part of the woods. He drifted slowly
into the heart of the woodland and immediately took up the casual
lightfooted approach to the area where his old friend used to hunt and
sometimes bring his family for a play in the evenings. There was no
sign or markings to say that any animals were using the area and Sam
felt quite sad that nothing of the old days were there to greet him. He
sat down and thought of the impending change that would occur on the
Monday morning when he reported to the Dockyard. He knew something of
which he would have little control over was about to happen. Somehow he
knew that his past existence, such that it was, would be lost. For no
reason at all, it seemed to bother him that although he felt no real
lingering attraction to his current position or life, to lose his
lineage back to this real place that was so much part of his position
on life and the way he carried himself seemed a shame.

In his top pocket he always carried a small notebook and pencil. It was
a gift from one of the family that he had not care about when he
received it but had found a use for it for writing down ideas,
solutions and generally notes to himself. He took the book out and
wrote, for no reason at all, but for some unknown reason and after
sometime, he realised that he cover three or four pages of the notebook
with all the things that had happened to him in the recent few weeks.
Looking around the shaded area, he found a small trail that had led to
what looked like an embankment of some description and then found the
remains of a hole in the embankment which must have been either made by
an animal or just a natural indentation in the ground. He wanted to
place the notes in this cavity but realised that without a container,
they would soon wither and be lost to all.

He decided to jog down to Evans' corner shop, not wishing to indulge in
the ever inquisitive Mrs Evans' conversation but knew that he would
soon be able to get one of these new style drinking containers which
was made of glass and had a screw down top. The drinks were not bad but
he did not want it for that reason. As he entered the shop, Mrs Evans
like the proverbially hawk, swept down on the entrance and immediately
shut the door behind Sam and launched a barrage of questions towards
him. This of course included, "How's your mother? Heard about your good
news. Your parents must be proud of you, etc. etc." Sam left the shop
with what he wanted, asking Mrs Evans to put it on the family
slate.

Returning back to the sunny glade, he placed the bottle with the notes
inside it, sealed after drinking some of the contents but tipping most
of it away.

Sam was jerked back to reality when he heard his name being called.
"Here", he said. At the same time as the constable who had checked him
into the establishment was pointed in his direction, showing the two
naval military police officers Sam's location. Sam was taken aback at
the presence of the two officers but was reassured when the senior
officer said in a quiet but firm voice, "Captain Peter Jarvis awaits
your pleasure, sir!"

Sam was escorted to the awaiting Landrover customary vehicle used by
the Naval Military Police and because of the normal way that they
escorted people to the vehicle, to all intents and purposes, looked
like Sam was being arrested. Two Dockyard maties looked across in a
casual way and as one spat, he turned to his friend and said, "Another
young rascal that the buggers have caught up with!" Sam was invited to
sit in the rear of the vehicle whilst the two military police personnel
sat in the front, started the vehicle and drove for some 10 minutes
through the winding inner sanctum of Her Majesty's Dockyard at
Portsmouth. The vehicle pulled to a halt outside a non-descript
vehicle, deep in the heart of the Dockyard and Sam was invited to leave
the vehicle and enter the Building through a non-descript entrance. The
threesome quickly descended a staircase and entered an anteroom which
was obviously an office to a much bigger room off to the right. The two
Navy officers asked Sam to wait in this anteroom and quickly left the
room, leaving Sam all alone. The distant sound of telephones reassured
Sam that people were about but the general air of the building was one
of deep melancholy and he could almost feel the age and the power of
the building talking to him which had probably been around for many
years.

Captain Jarvis entered the small anteroom and with an outstretched
hand, welcomed Sam warmly. "I am very pleased", he said, "that you
decided to come. Did you bring all the forms that we sent you?" "Yes"
said Sam, and he looked down at the small tatty holdall which was the
only container that Sam thought was suitable for bringing all the
papers that he had been sent. "Right" said Captain Jarvis, "let's get
to it then". He walked towards a large door and opened it and offered
Sam the invitation to follow. Sam did and in the large room, he was
more than pleased to see Harry. Captain Jarvis motioned him to sit down
at the table, more like half a tree, thought Sam. Its brilliance and
depth almost spoke to anybody entering the room, not to say anything
for itself but just a wonderful piece of English oak manufactured to
the peak of perfection by craftsmen. Captain Jarvis sat for a while and
looked at Sam. He just said in a voice that seemed to echo around the
room, "Are you really sure that you want to go through with all the
proposals that are outlined to you, Sam?" Sam just said, "Yes".

It had taken him a couple of weeks to arrive at this decision. He had
spent time with Paul and John, talking in half-truths, innuendoes, not
really seeking their advice but just throwing out one-liners judging
their comments. He was sworn to secrecy of course, and did not really
need anybody's decisions or help to make his own final judgements but
some of the questions he was having to answer himself, left him
apprehensive and seeking additional counsel from whom he did not know.
He had realised that during this decision making time, he hadn't been
much fun to any of the lads and least of all Susan, the girlfriend that
he probably had not given enough time to in the last 2 or 3 weeks. She
was a simple soul who only wanted Sam to say, those wonderful words,
"Lets get engaged or lets get married", but Sam knew that he would
never, ever tie himself to any one person. From the time when he
realised that his brother, that is, his dead brother, would not be
there as his counsellor, there had always been this open door to the
decision-making process that would never shut. Sam was a twin, his
brother had been still-born and his mother had nearly died at the
birth. Maybe it was that natural, barbaric torment of birth and of
something being wrenched away from his sub-conscious, that made Sam the
person he was today.

"So you are sure, absolutely sure", said Captain Jarvis. Sam sensed a
tightening of the tension in the room. Harry was looking at him.
Captain Jarvis was almost apprehensive, if not believing Sam's answer
because he just re-issued the same answer, yes.

"You realise now Sam that you do not exist. Your identity up to this
point will cease. You will be erased from all normal channels of
investigation, you will to all intents and purposes, be to the outside
world, a dead person", said Captain Jarvis. Sam sighed and wondered to
himself what exactly Captain Jarvis had meant. Captain Jarvis
continued, "Sam, we are now going to orchestrate your exit from this
world. Harry, I and lots of other people have spent a lot of time
planning this removal. I am afraid that it requires you to give up one
of your most prized possessions, that is apart from your life, that
being your Morris Minor van!" "Hang on, hang on", said Sam, "What do
you mean?" "The best way for you to leave this world is in a horrendous
vehicle accident, involving your van. You will
be reported dead at the scene of the accident, you parents will be
informed and in the natural course of things, you will be lost to the
world and to anybody who has desperately tried to find you. You will
recall from one of our initial interviews that part of the programme is
to generate an elite set of personnel that have no history or
background that can be traced", said Captain Jarvis.

"I am not too sure how mum is going to accept the loss", said Sam.
"Sacrifices", said Captain Jarvis. "She'll get over it" and immediately
put his hands up. Sam just looked and said, "Yes, I know what you mean.
Better the memory than the actual event". "Very profound", said
Harry.

Captain Jarvis said, "We will need to make certain preparations for the
event and give it some credibility. A body in a mangled, burnt out
wreck of your old Morris Minor, is not a problem but we will need to
convince pathologists and coroners that you were in the car and to that
end, we will need to make some dental impressions and take a little
blood. Of course, we will need the clothes that you are wearing. You
will make a phone call to your parents telling them that you are going
to London on a course next Thursday and that you will be returning on
Friday. It is on that return from London whilst negotiating..." and Sam
chipped in, "The Devil's Punch Bowl on the A3?" "Right", said Captain
Jarvis, "that the accident will occur". "It is a very brave fire,
ambulance or police personage that will venture into that cauldron to
rescue anybody in double quick time. So I think by the time the rescue
personnel get to your vehicle Sam, you can rest assured that the body
and the van will be little more than ashes and a burnt out shell. This
will leave only the registration and certain articles of clothing and
blood typing for a formal identification". Sam was aware that Harry
although hadn't said too much was still looking and appraising Sam, if
not probing for any weakness.

"You will be taken via Royal Navy vessel to a place which you will not
know and you will not know where it is. From that place, your training
will begin, your mentor, friend and confidante will be Harry. From time
to time, you will be introduced to other personnel. You will not know
their names, you will not understand their bearing or rank and you will
not ask their positions. You will, at the end of your training, be
assigned a codename and Harry has already nominated you to be called
OSCAR."

Sam looked at Harry and smiled. For the first time that day, Harry
smiled back.

Captain Jarvis left Harry and Sam and there was still a tension between
the two that neither of them understood or really wanted to. It was
finally Harry who broke the silence and said, "Do you know what you are
getting yourself into?" Sam sighed and just looked at Harry and in that
look, Harry knew that the boy behind the man was still slightly
concerned and nervous about his new predicament. Sam said, "Any chance
of me seeing what happens to the old passion wagon?" "Do what?" said
Harry. "My Morris 1000 van, any chance of actually seeing its final
ending?" "Oh, I expect that the whole thing will be filmed. After all
Sam you are dealing with the military now and everything is recorded to
be analysed and talked over. I will ask Captain Jarvis and see if we
can get a viewing at some stage of the actual demise of your passion
wagon".

"When do we leave on this Royal Navy.... What did Captain Jarvis call
it, a vessel?", said Sam. "Actually it will probably be a submarine",
said Harry. Sam spun round, "Never been on a sub", he said.

The next morning Sam was taken in a blanked out windows Ford Transit
Royal Navy provost vehicle to what turned out to be HMS Dolphin. The
only reason Sam knew that it was Dolphin was he was aware of the
surrounding terrain and the fact that the submarine that they were
standing next to was directly opposite HMS Victory. Without any
ceremony, Harry took Sam's elbow and directed him to the gangplank
which took them to the forward hatch where he was motioned to go down
the hatch and follow the marine who waited at the bottom of the hatch.
He was ushered into a very small cabin with four berths to which Harry
immediately took a bottom berth and then said jokingly, "It doesn't
matter with these things, you don't get seasick on a sub". Sam's awe of
the vessel and the fact that he was in this very, very strange
environment excited him as well as filling him with slight
apprehension.

The departure of the submarine was almost unnoticeable apart from the
natural sense of movement that Sam felt. Through the deck, there was a
gentle throb of the onboard engine. "Shame it's not a nuclear sub",
said Sam. "Hmm", said Harry, already engrossed in some documentation
that he had brought on board. "They are not allowed to bring nuclear
subs into Portsmouth", said Sam. "Really", said Harry again, pretending
interest. Again the atmosphere in the cabin drifted down to a low tense
level. It was impossible for Sam to keep track of time. Although his
normal totally reliable body clock normally told him within an hour at
the most, what time of day it was, without the reference of day or
night and he knew that his rota of food and limited exercise was being
orchestrated to disorientate him. He guessed that they had been at sea
for between 6 and 7 days. Certainly, he would be grateful to be off
this tin can. As if by magic, there was a knock on the door and Harry,
who for the most part of 6 to 7 days had been quiet, suddenly leapt to
his feet as if he knew that this was were everything began.

It was absolutely pitch black when Sam put his head out of the hatch.
It was a good job and he was extremely grateful, for the thick jumper
and coat and hat that had been given to him because the wind that was
not blowing too strongly, estimated about a force 2 or 3, was so cold.
Everytime that he took a breath, it felt as if your throat would seize.
Torchlight was used to illuminate their passage of the submarine onto
the very, very small jetty and Sam and Harry were bundled into a
waiting, once again, Ford Transit Navy provost vehicle. They were
driven away at high speed.

"Well, one thing's for sure", said Sam, "I've no idea where the hell I
am". Harry just looked at Sam and said, "That's the general idea!" "Do
you know where we are?", said Sam. Sam knew that he wouldn't get an
answer because Harry just looked up with an expression on his face that
Sam was beginning to be able to read.

The telephone rang in the upper attic of the 1930's 4 bedroomed house
which was the current establishment that Jonathan had rented to write
this new book. He snatched up the telephone handset and did his normal
impolite, "Yes", into the phone. "Jonathan", came back the reply. "Will
you please learn to answer the phone in a more friendly manner". "Look
Susanna", said Jonathan. "Do you want me to finish this bloody book, or
not?" "Ok, Ok, Ok", said Susanna. "A little politeness wouldn't go
amiss, would it?" "We have these words at the start of every
conversation on the telephone", said Jonathan, "why don't you just
accept that I am an old grouch when working, instead of trying to
change me?" They both laughed, allowing the controlled warmth that had
developed between them over the many years to come to the
surface.

"What have you done, so far?", said Susanna. "Um, about 30 odd pages",
said Jonathan. "Oh, we have been a good boy", said Susanna. "Steady",
said Jonathan. "I know that you have put the money up for this but
there is no need to be cheeky". "Well send me what you've got and I
will have a lot at it and see if you are on the right track. This is
slightly different avenue from your normal geographical exploration
books and the directors of this illustrious company that I work for
need to monitor their investments". "Bloody cheek!", said Jonathan.
"How much money have I made for these so-called directors already?"
"And you have had your share", said Susanna. "Yeah, yeah alright", said
Jonathan. "What's it all about anyway?", said Susanna. "Well, some of
that past you keep asking me about, I have actually put into this".
There was a faint gloggy, gaspy sound from the other end of the phone,
Jonathan smiled as he knew Susanna was pretending to do one of her
dying swan effects. She cam back saying, "Do you mean to say that we
are going to find out something behind that cloak of yours? All these
years, Jonathan, all these years, you must be getting old!" "I don't
know about getting cold, but it's bloody drafty in this attic!" "Well
you chose the place, you wanted the quiet, out of the way place".
"Yeah, yeah", said Jonathan again.

"Well shall I send you what I have done already through the normal
means?" "Yes", said Susanna "but this time make sure the machine is
switched to secure. We don't want the rest of the literal world getting
their copy before we have published. "Well", said Jonathan, "all the
buttons on the machine, look the same to me". "Supposed to be a clever
modem, well it wasn't so clever after all, was it?" "Have you taken it
out of its box for this trip yet?" said Susanna. "No", said Jonathan.
"Well just go and get it now and take it out of its box". He reached
down to beside the desk to a box that said 'modem' and busily unpacked
it. He roared with laughter when he discovered a huge arrow pointing to
a button with words written in the arrow that said, 'Push this one, you
twit, when you want to send in secure'. They chatted a while but
Jonathan was eager to get on with his story so once again, he
terminated the conversation rather abruptly and put the phone
down.
Jonathan went through all the normal procedures of saving the work he
had down so far and then downloaded the file to the modem. The lights
on the modem flashed and a message appeared on the P. C. screen giving
a warning about sending information etc. etc. " yes I know I know" said
Jonathan.

As Jonathan fully unpacked the modem and installed it into the rear of
the computer, unhooking the telephone socket and plugging it into the
telephone socket along with the telephone, via the double adapter. He
checked the link with his publisher's office by sending a short message
which was always rude and required a rude response to which he got
back, 'same to you with knobs on', with a rider on the bottom which
said, 'go secure' which he did. Again, he sent the same message, this
time a more formal reply was received, 'secure OK, well done'. Jonathan
then sent the text of the first few pages of his new book called "Sam"
to his publisher.

Susanna was staring at the machine with all its lights blinking, she
always found it rather hypnotic watching the lights especially as mused
what was on the machine from Jonathan. It had been a rather tiring day
with just the normal daily paperwork to attend to she had enjoyed the
exchange on the telephone with Jonathan. Susanna had known Jonathan,
what was it? Ten, eleven years? From the first day she had met him she
would have liked more from the relationship which had really only
developed into a warm and business-like friendship. She grimaced at the
word friendship, did Jonathan have any friends? Never had she heard him
mention or talk of anyone, even family.

The machine was still blinking, suddenly all the lights stopped and the
display lit up "SYSTEM AND LINK CHECK". This would be the first of all
the checks the machine did to ensure all was well with the information
it had just received. It had taken Susanna a good deal of searching to
find the right machines and calling in a few favours had found them in
the States. Finding them had been the easy bit compared with getting an
export licence and obtaining sanction from the British to use them. She
had to state a very strong case to a whole host of civil servants, even
her contacts in the States wished they had never heard of her. Finally
she had got her licence for the use of five machines providing each
machine could only send to a master unit. The master unit had to be
fitted into a secure area. Susanna's office was the secure area with no
windows, it required to be air-conditioned and her office door looked
more like the entrance to a cell.

When anyone was looking for Susanna and was unable to locate her having
rung or gone to her office, they would say "out on parole" or "gone
over the wall again" to her secretary Jill. Jill was keeping a list of
all these sayings. The list now numbered thirteen and she hoped for
another saying soon as she was superstitious. On finding the list in
her desk, she would turn it around twice and cross first and second
finger on both hands, making sure nobody saw her. Laura came towards
Jill's desk. Laura was one of the company editors young lots of life
about her, Jill liked Laura. Absolutely different as chalk and cheese.
The two had joined the company the same day and had remained soul
mates. In Jill's eyes Laura was all she wanted to be clever, pretty
good prospects. Jill had seen Laura's personnel file with a first class
Honours Degree from Oxford University and a salary which seemed huge
compared to Jill's. Laura had possible helped Jill keep her job, and
she would never forget it , any time Laura wanted any help she got
.

As Laura approached Jill's desk, she still had her senses tuned for any
response to her presence but all she detected was the friendly smile
nothing more, she sighed inwardly, what a waste. She really felt a
strong desire for this simple soul. Laura moved round from the front of
the desk to be close as possible to Jill but was very careful not to
get to close. She was giddy with the other girl's musk drinking her
fill rejoicing in the fact that Jill used very little perfume or in
deed applied make-up. "How's it going?" said Laura in a slightly
strangled voice tying to keep her emotions under control. "Oh fine now,
thank you" said Jill.

Laura had found Jill in the Ladies toilets crying as if her whole
world was about to collapse. Jill was unable to work the computer
system, this had been her second job from leaving school, her old
company had run things on a paper filing system. Masters &; Scott,
one oldest publishing companies, was completely up to date with a
paper-less office environment.

Jill was out of her depth. "I am going to leave", she had said. "I just
cannot do it. I have lost files, the computer hates me". She looked at
Laura. Laura returned her gaze and fell in love with this wonderful
person. This had all happened on their third day of joining the
company, and that had been, what, three months ago. It had been so easy
at University, Laura's true sexuality had come to the surface and she
had had quite a few affairs and formed her own circle of friends and
was really happy with life. This her first job, was just what she
wanted as a start to her own career. Now she had met Jill and fallen
head over heals in love with someone she knew was beyond her
reach.

Laura had managed to get Jill to stop crying long enough to get some
cold water on her face and when composed told her to go straight back
to her desk and wait for her. Almost as soon as Jill got back to her
desk, Laura arrived and amongst the chaos of Susanna's office being
turned into what looked like a prison cell, Laura asked Susanna if she
would allow Jill to help her with some printing. "Sure", said Susanna.
"Might as well, hardly hear yourself think around here. I'll switch
Jill's terminal through to my office", said Laura and took Jill's arm
and walked down the corridor to her own office .

"What are you doing?" said Jill as they walked away towards Laura's
office. "Sshhh!" said Laura rather enjoying the moment. Once inside
Laura's office, Laura shut the door and rushed to her terminal. As her
hands flew across the keyboard, Jill stared in disbelief at the speed
that images appeared and disappeared on the screen. "If you go any
faster", said Jill, "the whole computer system will just blow-up".
Laura grinned at Jill and said in a long drawn out statement, "Well,
that puts you back where you were this morning. I have corrected some
of the mistakes you made yesterday". "There you go, you think I am
stupid!" said Jill just about to start crying again. "No, No!"
exclaimed Laura a little too loud. She came around the desk to comfort
her new love. "I have been using this type of computer for ages. Really
all I meant to say was that everything is back. You have not lost any
files, just put them somewhere where they were not really meant to be"
spinning her hands in mid-air and sort of beginning to lose her way and
not making sense.

They looked at each other Jill through puffy eyes and Laura sending all
the comfort she could across the void between them. A long pause
interrupted by a sniff and then a giggle from Jill. "Was it a mess?"
said Jill. "W....ell", Laura let the word hang in the air, still
looking into Jill's eyes. She saw the brightness beginning to return to
Jill's eyes, "not really a mess", Laura continued, "but a bloody
(Jill's hands shot up to her mouth with piece of soggy tissue clenched
between all fingers and pushed into her mouth as she waited for the
rest) novel way of using the power of one of the most powerful computer
systems in the western world". She stood up and began to walk about her
office emphasising her stride as if giving a lecture. "I am sure Mr
Bill Gates will be happy knowing that his software can be made to do
such things", she said. She had timed her walk to reach the door and
turned around slowly to see Jill on the edge of the desk looking like a
frightened mouse (she had gone too far).

The hands slowly came away from the mouth. Jill said, "Had I better
tell Mr Gates what I have done then? I do not want you to get into
trouble. Which department does he work in?" Now it was Laura's turn to
be dumbfounded. "Department, work-in, Bill Gates, and you tell him it
was too much. She just laughed out loud, then embarrassed by the
outburst she put her own hands to her mouth to stifle what she knew
would be one of her uncontrollable belly laughs. Jill was taken aback,
"What was so funny?" Was she being laughed at? No, she did not think
so, Laura was trying to help her. Laura by now was on her knees, making
strange noises, sometimes gasping for air. Jill could not help herself.
She too was beginning to shriek with her own bird-like laugh. The pair
of them ended up with tears on their faces. This time tears of laughter
on Jill's which made her even more attractive to Laura.

Laura was the first to recover "come on settle down ,someone will
wonder what is going on" she said . The two of them settled down and
Laura started to show Jill how to do some of simple operations on the
computer. Jill's basic keyboard skills were very good, better then
Laura's, on making this discovery Laura was able to really make Jill
feel better and made the following statement . "I hate doing letters
you could help me out by doing some typing for me when I am busy". "If
you do that for me then I teach you all about the computer system" she
continued. "When" was Jill's reply. "We could get together in the
evenings" said Laura. After a lot of polite interchange it was agreed
and the two had worked hard over the next couple of months to give Jill
the necessary grounding in operating the computer system. Jill
completely unaware of Laura's intentions blossomed to this new
friendship for that all it was and would remain so. Laura was resigned
to the fact and really enjoyed their evenings together and put aside
her feelings.

Coming back to herself and hearing Jill's voice say in a whisper "do
you want me to do some more letters" after all is was their little
understanding . Laura said "no, nooo" in along drawn out lazy voice
"Susanna wants me, is she in".
"Yes I'll bu"

"I'll tell her you are here," said Jill with a big smile on her face,
looking at Laura as she accessed the Instant Messaging system and told
Susanna that Laura was at her desk and would Susanna be available to
see her. "Send her in" came back the replly. "Well done," said Laura,
as she placed her hand and let it rest on Jill's should and gave her a
small gentle caress. Jill smiled back and mouthed the words thankyou as
Laura went into Susanna's office.
The machine was still blinking it's security checks. One check had
already said the line was being monitored. The Fullerene Linguist II
machine suddenly stopped all activity and went silent. "The bloody
thing always makes my heart stop when it does that," said Susanna. "I
am sure I'll be found one day slumped over the bloody thing suffering a
heart attack," she continued. Holding up her hand - she wanted no
conversation until the machine reported. The atmosphere was tense for
what seemed a life time, but within seconds the machine reported the
reception of material from source code 002 and then came the long list
of warnings about computer virus protection, and confirmation that all
known anti-virus checks had been performed and the material was clean
etc etc, etc. Laura waited for the normal speech about how expensive
the system was and how much the office conversion had cost, but that
the company had not lost any material since it had been installed and
it would pay for itself at this rate in two years. Laura knew all of
this, and even though she had only been with the company a short time,
also knew that the loss of manuscripts was costing the company lots of
money and Susanna had found the solution. All the best clients lived or
worked in far off places and even security post deliveries had been
intercepted and lost from these far away places. One system employed
where personal couriers had been used had taken packages to other
addresses and copied material first before delivery. Scripts for film,
TV episodes cost millions, and the best writers could save millions on
shooting budgets. Susanna read Laura's mind. "Okay, no lecture today,"
she knew Laura was the one person who understood the system and it's
complex function. Susanna also knew Laura was both an asset and a
liability she would want more, or go for more with other companies, so
she was careful not to let Laura know too much. Susanna knew how to
deal with people. In the Army people and using dealing with people was
her job. Intelligence and security were her concerns and with an
undisclosed rank, she wore the insignia of the rank of Captain but had
worked in offices of much higher officers, flashed her pass and told
them to go home while her team had sorted things out. A certain cabinet
minister had been told to do as he was told when she turned up at his
country home. His conversation with the PM left him no doubt that this
young woman, and the two large gentlemen with her had the power over
what seemed to him, to be life and death. So he did as he was told.
That was some years ago, and now in retirement, so to speak, she could
certainly handle this bright young thing. She patted the machine.
"Jonathan has sent us his latest literary offering, this is it,
straight off the machine". She held the optic disc in her hand and
continued, "I have just finished talking to him and he tells me that
this piece of work is different than his normal geographical reference
books". Laura grimaced slightly and Susanna read the lack of interest
in the face across the desk. "I know its not your normal sort of
editoral challenge", said Susanna. Susanna was anxious not to allow
Laura the luxury of picking and choosing what she did. Because as she
became more and more familiar with what the Company did, she was
beginning to put her own value on her work and not do as she was being
paid to do. That was to edit all kinds of material that were presented
to the Company and within its many facets of the publishing
environment.

Susanna had particularly used the words 'editorial challenge' to try to
present what she knew would always captivate Laura and that was the
word 'challenge'. It needed some amplification. So she continued in the
same vein, saying that this was a real chance to try to get the best
out of one of the Company's best authors by persuading him to use his
talent in a different direction. Consequently, the disk that she held
in her hand, possibly contained new work from a recognised author and
with Laura's editorial flair, this author, Jonathan Maulden, could be
persuaded to enter a new field which would bring profits to the Company
and a new slant to the literal world. Susanna waited just long enough
before tossing the disk to Laura, as she saw the immediate interest and
flair in the young woman's eyes and she knew that Laura would do a good
job. Laura caught the disk and said, "I assume that this has cleared
all the virus checks and I can load it straight onto my machine?"
Susanna looked at her and looked at the FL2 machine in the corner of
her office and then back at Laura who immediately realised her error
and said, "OK, OK, I'll get straight onto it".

"Good", said Susanna. "I have got to got to town for a meeting and I am
out all day tomorrow, so could you give me a report" and she let it
hang, waiting to see if her judgement was correct. She was proved
correct as Laura interjected, "I will proof read it tonight and you
will have my preliminary report on Friday morning". "Great", said
Susanna, "whilst you are here, I would just like to chat generally
about how you see things here, or if you have any problems". The
conversation between the two women became light in texture. Laura not
quite realising she was being interrogated, as all her body language
was being read by the skilled intelligence officer, who after the chat
realised that she still had no real worries about Laura's integrity or
her position with the Company.

Laura pushed the front door of her flat with a close that always
rocked, or seemed to rock the front of the building. She had always
been clumsy and never appreciated that one could do things with a small
amount of pressure or one could put one's total effort into it.
Consequently, the whole tenement block knew when Laura was in and when
she went out. She tossed the keys onto the dressing table as she
stripped off and walked to the shower to bathe the cares of the day
away and wanted to make herself fresh as she had invited Jill around
with a view to introducing her to a couple of her other friends. They
were interested to see why Laura had sung the praises of this young
female with whom she worked. She left the shower with a small towel
wrapped around her hair, put on a towelling robe and remembered the
disk she had brought home from the office. Before returning home, she
pulled some of the manuscripts from the data library to get an insight
into the material that Jonathan Maulden was famous for.

She was impressed by the style of his writing and how as he spoke of
these far distant places, they seemed to leap from the page. He was
obviously a very intense person and really knew of the places of which
he wrote. So much rubbish was written these days by so called travel
people and she understood why he was recognised as one of the
authorities within the travel world.

Laura went to her study/work area and switched on the computer which
basically had the same stand alone computing power as the machine she
used in the office but of course without the huge back up and server
capacity that the office machine offered. She dropped the disk into the
disk drive and waited for the machine to settle down. An immediate
warning flashed onto the screen and she said, "yeh, yeh, yeh" to
herself and she remembered where the disk had come from. Several
in-built access codes would have to be carefully administered before
any of the data could be retrieved from the disk. She carefully
complied as the disk asked her for all the parameters necessary to
access the data. Inwardly, she was very proud of the fact that Susanna
had given her the authority to access this material. Having satisfied
itself that the authenticated user was trying to access data on disk,
the disk revealed the opening chapters of "Sam".

Laura was stopped in her reading by the doorbell and hadn't realised
that she had spent almost 45 minutes reading "Sam". Startled by the
ringing doorbell, she jumped up, realised she was still in her
towelling dressing gown and her hair was a mess under the small towel.
"Blast", she said, "that will be Jill, she is never late. I am in a
terrible mess. Fancy letting her see me like this"! She flew to the
front door, looked through the spyhole to be sure it was Jill, realised
it was, opened the door and said, "I'm sorry, I got caught up and I'm
not quite ready. Go into the lounge and I will get dressed and be in
later". Jill said, "Would you like me to do your hair for you?" Laura
caught her breath and wondered if it was the right thing to allow Jill
to come that close to her. "No," she said, "it's okay. I'll be out in a
minute," as she whisked herself into the bedroom leaving Jill to
meander in the lounge.

With the computer still being left on, Jill sat in front of it,
thinking that Laura had set up another series of tests for her to do,
but she soon amused herself by reading the text that was on the screen.
Unable to follow the plot, she flicked to the beginning of the document
and started to read, and became lost in the pages of "Sam". Unaware
that Laura had returned from the bedroom, this time fully dressed, she
was startled when Laura said, "You shouldn't be reading that!" To which
Jill said, "Sorry, sorry, I thought it was another test you'd set up
for me." "No," said Laura, "it's only something I had to proof-read
from work. What do you think of it?" said Laura. "I don't usually read
much in the way of books, I'm more of a magazine type person. Some of
these spy stories are too complicated for me. Anyway, isn't this type
of material covered in the latest memo which came round to everybody?"
"Which memo?" said, Laura. "Oh, it was a couple of days ago. Any
manuscripts which contain anything of a military nature have now got to
be sent to a particular department in the Ministry of Defence.
Something to do with all these stories which are being written by
specialists in the army, and they don't want to let their stories out."
"Oh yes", said Laura, "I remember that," desperately trying to recall
if she had, and making sure that she would tomorrow. "Anyway, I had
better shut this down." She said to Jill, "Now you watch this." To all
intents and purposes, the manuscript that was on the screen, looked
like any other text document. So she said to Jill, "Close it as you
would any other document." So Jill took the mouse cursor to the small
cross at the top of the screen and clicked once. A warning box appeared
across the screen, unlike any other Jill had seen. Instead of asking if
the viewer wanted to save any changes to the document, the box said
'All data associated with this text document will now be totally erased
from the machine. In doing so, files may be lost which will disable
some applications.'

Jill's hands immediately flew back from the keyboard, "Oh no, what have
I done?" "It's ok", said Laura, "this particular disk was formatted on
the machine in Susanna's office". "Not the one with all the blinking
lights on it?", said Jill. "That's the one", said Laura. "I am not
allowed to touch that", said Jill. "Susanna spoke very seriously to me
about it, I am never, ever to touch it". Laura smiled and said, "It's
ok". She said to Jill, "Just keep watching the screen". Slowly but
surely, the text disappeared, line by line, in a very slow and precise
manner. "Try to stop the machine", said Laura. Jill's attempts at
trying to slow things down with the keyboard, or even trying to turn
the machine off were all to no avail. The machine still kept digesting
the words on the screen. "It's ok", said Laura again, "all it's doing
is removing all traces of the document off any machine that tries to
read it".

The rest of the evening was full of light hearted conversation, a few
glasses of wine as Laura's friends who had joined the gathering later
on in the evening, evaluated Laura's new friend. Jill was the first who
decided at quarter past ten, that she had discovered the watch on her
wrist which told her that her mother would be furious if she didn't get
in by half past ten and it was at least 45 minutes by bus and that she
had never been out this late. What was she to do? Laura and her two
friends looked towards each other and then back at Jill and then burst
out laughing. Jill initially thought that she was again the brunt of
someone else's fun until she saw the warmth in Laura's eyes and started
laughing herself, not really knowing why. Maybe it was the wine or
lovely company but just for tonight, she didn't worry about getting in
late. Susanna walked to the telephone, picked up the mobile handset,
walked back to them and before Jill could protest, she ordered a taxi
which would be round in 5 minutes to drop her home.

Laura went straight to her office the next morning and fumbled about on
her desk, in a desperate attempt to find this wretched memo that Jill
had reminded her about. It had played on her mind most of the evening
as she hated the fact that there was something she should have been
aware of. It was her own carelessness after all that had prevented her
from being completely aware of the current office procedure. It was
sometime before she found the memo, it had slipped between the pages of
the second re-write of a TV production. She had yet to decide who she
would present it to. It was all buried underneath two fictions stories
which she hadn't even bothered to look at.

She snatched the memo up and began to read. It was on Crown headed
paper, addressed to, certainly all the publishing houses that she knew
of and some that she didn't know existed. It started off in the normal
Government patronising way, as all self-generating civil servant edicts
proclaim themselves. She skipped the niceties and read the bit that
Jill had obviously quite rightly had remembered.

In the light of the current plethora of publications whose authors have
served in the armed forces and are now benefiting from their
experiences during moments of conflict and writing said accounts of
those experiences, it is the considered opinion of this office that the
Crown should be given prior knowledge of all other material relating
directly or indirectly to a manuscript generated by a serving member or
a member who has served from Her Majesty's Armed Forces, both in times
of conflict, detailing such conflict or indeed detailing evidence of
military activity in peace keeping roles. The embarrassment to the
Crown of such accounts being publicised without prior knowledge, can
indeed ongoing military campaigns or indeed the safety of military
people engaged in other covert activities. This demand is by no means
considered and should not be considered by those as a "D" notice issued
by this Department but more as a gesture of concern in protecting the
sovereignty of the Kingdom and the integrity of the publisher.

"What a load of rubbish, just because Andy McNab blew the whistle on
what really went on in the Gulf, this is supposedly trying to stop
every body else from making a few bob", said Susanna. She then flipped
the page and saw the inter-memo signed by the Managing Director of
Masters &; Scott in his own hand which read:

This instruction will be strictly adhered to as we do not want to upset
the Crown or any of its operating subsidiaries as our licence to
publish in this country depends upon goodwill and our gesture of intent
should be to comply both in spirit and tangible evidence without
prejudice.

"Well, Jonathan", said Susanna, "it looks like your vetting process has
to go to a higher power". After the gathering had split up the night
before, she had read "Sam" and had already given it a qualified thumbs
up. What she was having trouble with was deciding if the material
should be used to generate a film score, a TV blockbuster epic or stay
as simply a riveting good read. She really couldn't wait to read the
rest of the manuscript when it arrived. She took the disk from her bag
and dropped it into the office machine and after this machine had done
all its security checks, she printed out the current pages of "Sam".
Although the story was in its infancy, there was already a hollowness
about the plot which begged the reader to carry on with the story and
find out what was going on which in essence was the skill of the
writer.

She reminded herself of the address that the package had to go to and
she put a message on the Intranet to tell Susanna what she had done.
She went to her office cabinet, took out a large sized office generated
envelope with its seal mechanism to fit in the printed copy of Sam and
hailed Jill on the network using the hands free system in her office.
She asked Jill to arrange a courier to take a package direct to
Whitehall.

The package left Laura's office at 3.27pm Thursday afternoon. At
4.28pm, Laura had finished typing her appraisal of "Sam" and had
already placed it on the Intranet for Susanna to read when she came in
on Friday. At 4.32pm, Andrew Buxton-Davies', Captain retired, office
received a package which was signed for by his secretary who simply
tossed the package into the overburdened in-tray. As the package hit
the pile of documentation, Andrew emerged from the office, already
wrapped in a stained gaberdine raincoat, sporting an umbrella and a
tatty leather briefcase said, "I'm off for the evening, I will see you
bright and early in the morning". His secretary mimicked the words
behind his back as it was the same words every day at the same time,
every evening, day in and day out, Monday to Friday. She was a bored
lady, doing a boring job and underpaid in her estimation.

Jonathan noticed that the machine had finished sending his first novel
down the wire to his publisher. He was quite anxious as this was the
first time he had tried to blend a small amount of fact with a measure
amount of fiction. He was not quite sure how to handle the mix, after
all he had to preserve some feelings that would portray the true
identity of this fictitious character that he had generated. Already he
had lost himself in the plot and wasn't sure if this was the way this
novel should be written because it was by no means intended as an
autobiography but some of the events were bringing home some memories
and opening up a few scars. He continued to ponder the plot and
wondered which twist should be given to the character or whether he
should continue with the story. He decided to continue and lost himself
again in the novel.

Harry led Sam to a building that had a single lamp illuminating a very
small entrance porch. The door was angled and great care had been taken
to make the door open in the shelter of the prevailing wind. The swan
neck conduit tubing which fed the lamp was rusted but had fresh paint
administered. Sam had seen enough of these fittings to know that he was
still within the confines of a military base or at least the Dockyard
complex controlled by the military. Harry took a key from his jacket
pocket, inserted into the lock and the two of them went in. There was a
projector and a film loaded into the projector and a screen on a wall.
Harry asked Sam to sit in the only two chairs in the room that were
facing the screen. Harry went to the projector, switched it on, went to
the wall and turned the lights out, the only heating was from two stack
stoves. Their chimneys as well as their bodies giving off their heat to
the room. Sam thought that these had been done away with as he had seen
pictures of them in POW installations, in old war films.

Harry left two of the lights at the end of the room on, which gave the
room a long eerie look as the screen at the end of the room was
illuminated by the film and all the trailer information was flashed
onto the screen. There was a date, an event number and then suddenly
there was a picture of the Devil's Punch Bowl, north of Petersfield.
Sam's Morris Minor van came round the bend far too fast, hit the kerb,
careered up the bank, across the side of the road and shot over the
ridge into the Punch Bowl, taking some chain link fence with it and
plummeted to the valley floor. There was a great burst of flames as the
van hit the floor and as the camera rolled and slowly panned into see
the vehicle engulfed in flames, Harry looked across at Sam who was
motionless watching the screen. The next shot was of Sam's mother and
father being taken to the Royal Hospital in Portsmouth where they were
taken to the Accident and Emergency Department. Whilst there was no
sound, the doctor with a very grave expression was obviously explaining
to Sam's parents, the demise of Sam. The next shot was in the small
crematorium at Portchester, and the camera was looking into the church.
Sam saw virtually all the people he knew, file into the chapel of rest.
Even John and Paul were there, heads bowed. Between them Susan his
girlfriend, stood bowed whilst eventually, his mother and father
entered the chapel and Sam witnessed his own burial memorial.

The next shot showed Sam's mother and father being driven away in the
hearse and the screen went immediately white, again with more editorial
filing information on the end of the film. Harry never said a word. He
got up, took the reel of film off, went to the cupboard that was in the
centre of the room on the far wall. He put the film in the cupboard,
locked it and placed the key in a deposit safe alongside. When he
turned round, he sensed Sam standing behind him. He had expected a
reaction and had already filed the film, knowing even Sam could not
tear his way through the tempered steel doors or in fact get the key to
retrieve the film.

Sam just looked at Harry and Harry waited for the rage to disappear. At
one stage, Harry thought that Sam would try to vent his anger by
physically attacking him, but in the short time they had been together,
he knew that a bond had grown between them. Not so much, father and son
but more of older brother, younger brother. Because the respect between
them was mutual and Sam having been told prior to the trip in the
submarine that his life would change for ever, had never expected that
his life would end, only to begin again.

Eventually Sam spoke. "Who actually drove the van?", he said. "Oh, some
stunt driver, who thought he was doing it for a film". "What about
identifying the body?", said Sam. "There was a corpse in the van when
it hit the ground and the dental records that were presented to the
coroner were of course taken from a mislaid file at the dentist, who
you haven't been to for 4 years Sam and blood from the seen was taken
from the sample that we did when we gave you that medical back at
Eastney", said Harry. "Christ you buggers had this sorted out", said
Sam. "Well as Captain Jarvis told you, this is a brand new set of
circumstances, it has never been done before. The Government has
invested a lot of money in generating an elite, useable force of men
and women incidentally, and you Oscar are the first", said Harry.
"Oscar?", said Sam and then remembered that was his code name.

"How long will I be here", said Sam. "As long as it takes", said Harry.
"You are a new person, you have an in-built skill that we will hone,
manipulate and measure. Tomorrow we will start the process, I will be
here with you and occasionally, you will be instructed by others, whose
names you will not know and please do not ask. We estimate from your
abilities that your training will be over in its initial phases within
6-9 months. You will never stop learning Sam, you will have the
opportunity to continually update your own powers both mentally and
physically because the changing world of espionage requires a
developing mind and a practised athlete". "Do I get paid for this?",
said Sam. "Paid?", said Harry, "paid. You want to be paid for doing the
Queen's work, serving your country. Of course, you will be paid Sam and
every month into a bank account which you will not need to touch until
by mutual consent you retire to enjoy the life of growing roses or
digging the garden". "Perhaps I won't live that long", said Sam. "Maybe
you won't", said Harry. "Maybe you won't, but I will have failed if you
don't". The very next morning, the training process started.

Jonathan sat back and remembered some of the things he got up to during
his service. He casually looked at the clock, it was nearly 10.30pm. He
had only a half bottle of scotch left which meant he could either stop
drinking now and leave it until tomorrow, or go to the local, buy
another bottle, have a few jars and then have enough for another 3
days. Yes, he had been stuck in this attic for 3 days, he decided it
was time to go for a walkabout. So he shut down the computer, put on
his shoes, went downstairs and left to go for a good strong walk to the
local pub.
* * *
Susanna got to her office early, she had a disastrous day on Thursday,
nothing had gone right. The stupid author she had gone to see, wanted
too much money for his book, which was only going to be turned into a
small mini series in New Zealand. People were so stupid at times. The
guy had probably just made the biggest mistake of his professional life
and all her persuasion couldn't make him accept the offer which would
allow him to continue. She punched in the security code on the keypad
outside her office and heard the office depressurise before the door
was gently eased open by the hydraulic levers that controlled its
access. Typing in the second code, all the infra-red scans were turned
off and the pressure switches in the floor were disabled. Still one
more code had to be entered before the lights came on and the computers
and all the electrical devices in the office burst into life which
would be her home for the rest of the day.

She saw that she had mail and there were several directives. She had a
meeting at 10.30am, she had to have lunch with Graham and yes, there
was Laura's report. Two reports from Laura. She flicked onto the first
one, read it twice and said, "What the hell has she done? Bloody memo,
what bloody memo". She too hated being naked when it came to lack of
information and rummaged around her desk for the memo. She glanced at
the screen to get some direction and re-read what Laura had said.

Following the Managing Director's memo to all staff, I have sent a copy
of Jonathan's book to Station F, Ministry of Defence, Whitehall,
W1.

As she was early, she couldn't start shouting at Jill, as she wasn't in
the office yet. This was her normal reaction to not finding something,
get someone to do it for you. Laura had put an electronic reference at
the top of the page. So she accessed this code and read what Laura had
read the day before. "Well the girl's done right", said Susanna to
herself. "I just wish I had bloody known about it". Already she could
feel an apprehension building inside her, but she wasn't sure why.
Would she have to tell Jonathan about this, what would his reaction be,
she mused. Christ she hadn't even read the book herself. What was it
about? Must be something about Jonathan's past and she was rather
enjoyed the moment until she realised this was one way to get to know
more about Jonathan. She clicked onto the second report and read
Laura's appraisal of "Sam". Being able to speed read, she picked up on
the emotive parts of the appraisal and was pleased when she read words,
'very readable, exciting, full of depth and conviction'. She had to get
hold of a copy of this and read it herself.

The machine in the corner which was now stony silent apart from its
ready light which was blinking would produce another copy only if the
original was inserted for verification. She strode down the office
complex, down the hall and was really pleased to see that Laura's
office light was already on. She went straight through the door without
knocking to find Laura hard at work, reading some of the backlog of
manuscripts. "Oh sorry", said Susanna, not really sorry at all. "That
Jonathan material I gave you Wednesday, thanks for your report and you
did right obeying by sending it off to F section". Hoping that the
conviction in her voice did not mirror the anxiety she felt inside. "I
think I would like to read the material myself, so could I have the
disk please?". Laura went to the small safe that was buried in her wall
and retrieved the disk absolutely pleased that she had remembered to
put it there and delighted with the reaction on Susanna's face.

She handed the disk to Susanna, who thanked her and Susanna walked
backed to her own office. She dropped the disk in the machine and after
all the security checks had been completed, read the opening chapters
of Sam.
She gently let the story line filter over her mindful that she knew
very little about Jonathan. All her training told her to be careful,
several forces were at work here: Jonathan, a mystery, this bloody memo
and how the company would deal the whole situation of one of its best
earning authors being manipulated.
Andrew Buxton-Davies arrived at the office at 9.03 two and half minutes
late the train from Guildford had been delayed (which always upset
him). The copy of the Telegraph had not been folded correctly, and when
he picked it up from the newstand on the station he had had to refold
it three times to get it right, and now he was late. The stupid girl
wasn't in, so he had no idea what was urgent (if anything was urgent
these days). It seemed to him that the Ministry of Defence and all it's
operations had gone down the tubes. He was bitter, but then again he
did have his own reasons. He walked over to the in-tray which was full
of several packages, all bearing the hallmarks of different couriers,
and picked the first one off of the pile and tore open the plastic
stripping and took the contents into his office. Once again he went
through the self appraisal of why he had even accepted this position.
He had been reduced to a non-operational military role, reading
accounts of so-called military enterprises written by people who had no
idea what it was really like out there. If he had time to write his own
story, now that would be a story, but as it was his pension did not pay
for his current life style and he needed to the position to support
that or nothing else. So it was with a heavy heart and very little
enthusiasm he started to read the first chapters of Sam. Even raising
his eyebrows and musing to himself, what a stupid name for a
book.

Susanna stared at the telephone on her desk. The reason why she stared
at the telephone was because this call she was about to make would cost
her dearly, and if it came up with any of the answers she dreaded, it
could cost the company dearly, so her hand felt really heavy as she
reached for the instrument. As she did pushing the button under her
desk which slowly closed the office door. She dialled a ten-digit
number at which time when it was finally connected a computer generated
voice asking her for her security code. She then typed a six-digit
number and the monotone voice then asked her several questions to which
she replied using the keypad.
Eventually a human operator answered the call and asked the sender if
they wished to go secure. Susanna replied that she didn't, that she
wanted to speak to Lieutenant Colonel Jane Seymour, and her own
security code gave her that authority. The human voice replied that she
had to please state the nature of her call, and Susanna replied that it
was personal. The human operator then replied that she would ask Lt.
Col. Jane Seymour to reply to the request, if the sender would give her
her telephone number. Susanna smiled as she knew full well that her
telephone number, address, and organisation was already on the screen
of the operator. Susanna said to the operator that it was a
particularly private call which may affect national security and her
security clearance was intact, and she should ask Lt. Col. Jane Seymour
to answer the phone. The human operator then asked for classification
of gender and rank, to which Susanna indicated female and undisclosed,
security clearance registered. The human operator said (and Susanna
could tell by her tone she was already beginning to gain some respect)
please wait ma'am. Susanna tapped gently on her work pad, as she knew
the process (and the great machine which had now swung into operation).
Electronically, all the files, classifications and security clearances
were being accessed as she waited for the operator to realise who she
was speaking to.
The operator came back on the line and it was immediately obvious that
the checks had been positive, because she said 'Lt. Col. on the line.
You are on a non-secure line, this conversation will be recorded. Sorry
to keep you waiting. The Lt. Col. will take your call now.' There was a
click, and Jane Seymour was on the phone. 'What's the matter?' said
Jane 'What do you want and what shit are you in now?'
'Jonathan Maulden.' said Susanna. 'Security check, highest level, as
soon as you can.'
'Is that it? Said Jane. That's it, said Susanna. Okay, said Jane and
the line went dead.

Andrew Buxton-Davies had got to page 27 when he realised that something
in this book was ringing some distant bells. It had been very very
carefully disguised, but there were some truths here that were
surfacing and it was at the highest level as he knew that there were
some operations going on, even today, that were not generally spoken
about and were certainly above and beyond national security. And it was
all down, at the time, to what he was desperately trying to remember,
to one particular man. He had to have a handle on this situation, as he
felt all the hairs on the back of his neck, rejoicing at the fact that
he had got a live one. That was his own pet phrase for saying that he
had something that he could actually work at - something that may well
be a threat to national security through unauthorised, published
material. To date, his office had stopped 27 books, and after appeal,
26 of those had been released for publication, so his record was bad,
and he really wanted a success, and this one had the hallmark of being
that success.

It was three o'clock in the afternoon in Susanna's office when the
telephone rang. Susanna picked up the handset - she hadn't got used to
these hands free systems, and she hated headsets (even the pert,
skeleton type, that sat on your head). There was still something about
holding a telephone handset that she enjoyed. She picked it up, and
Jane Seymour's voice said 'Code 3, Meeting place Zebra 4, Delta X, 2
Tango. Message sent 3pm, 15:00 hours Zulu.' Susanna nearly dropped the
handset. She had been told to go to a safe house in the Bayswater area.
It would be under security guard, she was back in uniform so to speak.
But Jesus Christ, what had resurrected a code 3?. She put the handset
back in its cradle, went to the safe, took out a chamois leather
holster and placed it into her handbag. The gun contained within the
holster, hadn't been fired for at least three years. Although she'd
always cleaned it and kept it in operational order, she'd go to the
range to fire it on her way. She left the office, told Jill she'd be
out for the rest of the day, but all she could think about was what
could have instigated a code 3. Her security classification meant that
she had often been forced to register code 3's herself, which meant
that whatever had happened, it would be possible to put someone's life
at risk. Had she better call Jonathan, she wondered, deciding to call
him from the car. Here blue BMW 525I was parked in the underground car
park of Masters &; Scott, a security controlled car-parking area,
which had a lift which went down to the car park and gave access to the
cars.
She walked to the car, took out her electronic key, and waited for the
beep as the car's alarm system disabled itself and was only mildly
concerned when it didn't function. She pressed it again, and by this
time she was only 15 paces away from the car. Still no beep. Conscious
that two other figures were in the surrounding area, she looked and
realised that she was in a code 7 set-up, no escape, and a seemingly
very young, very athletic man was walking towards her, holding out a
security pass. 'Ma'am, you know the drill, you have the clearance, we
will take you to Bayswater.' 'I take it not in my car' said Susanna.
'No' said the young man, 'in ours'. A green Volvo S70 slowly stopped,
seemingly coming from nowhere. All four doors opened and Susanna
stepped into the car. Two men virtually body searched her as she got
into the car, one retrieving the revolver from her bag without her even
having time to protest. Who the hell are you people? said Susanna. The
young man looked at her 'You know we have the authority, you have the
clearance, please be quiet.' And not a word was spoken while they drove
to Bayswater.
Twice they'd been to this address before, each time the car had stopped
outside, and each time the car had continued on, each time approaching
from a different direction. Eventually one of the gentlemen left the
car as it turned a corner at low speeds. The second left at the next
corner, a third left and Susanna didn't even see him go, and the fourth
sat very close to Susanna and she had an idea that if she just flinched
that moment would have been her last. Eventually the car stopped at the
same address, the young man opened the door, asked to Susanna to leave
the vehicle and walk up the steps.
Almost by magic the front door opened and Susanna walked into a luxury
decorated townhouse in a very fashionable part of London and as Susanna
was escorted to an anteroom which was already occupied by Lt. Col. Jane
Seymour. The two women looked at each other and it was Jane Seymour who
put her finger to her lips. It was quite obvious that Susanna knew that
Jane was frightened, and this woman didn't get frightened easily. In
fact, she realised that she was frightened herself. Shit, she'd done
this to other people, why was it being done to her now? Jane put her
mouth very close to Susanna's ear and whispered thanks a bunch, looks
like you've fucked up my career.' Susanna said 'what? What?' 'Shhh,
said Jane, 'Jonathan fucking Maulden. That's what - Every fucking
security service in the country is on red alert.'

Andrew Buxton-Davies' procedures were implicit in as much as that he
had to follow a written guideline, which was firstly to tell the
publisher that they would be required not to continue with publication
of this manuscript, albeit a first draft and not complete until further
investigations were completed on the effect of the publication on
national security. He had written this memo to his secretary which
would be sent out in interoffice mail that evening. However he was so
intrigued with the story line and the distant bells that were ringing
in his head, that he picked up the telephone and asked the operator to
get him the offices of Masters &; Scott, and in particular, Laura
Watson.
There was a buzzing and clicking, and eventually Laura came on the
phone and announced herself as Laura Watson how may I help you in a
professional and welcoming tone. Andrew Buxton-Davies immediately used
all his military bearing on realising that he was speaking to, and his
mind was already racing on the voluptuous image of the female that he
was speaking to, accentuating the Sandhurst training, he expanded his
thoughts on the fact that they wouldn't be able to sanction any
publication of the manuscript that his office had received and read
today and investigations would be ongoing. Thereby return of fax (or
whichever means -- they could accept e-mail) the would want acceptance
of this situation. To help with their enquiries, would they please
furnish the current known address of the author, or by which means he
could be contacted. Laura was a little bit out of her depth - this had
never happened to her before - and she realised that she'd better get
some guidance before she said anymore to this official sounding
person.
She said that the file containing all the particulars was not in her
office at the moment, and that it would take her some time to locate
the file, and would it be possible to telephone the caller back with
the requested information. He replied 'not at all'. Whom am I speaking
to said Laura, which is the bit that Andrew always liked people asking,
and drew a deep breath before announcing, 'if you ask for Captain
Andrew Buxton-Davies, my secretary will put you through immediately.'
Oh thankyou said Laura, Ill get right back for you and she grimaced as
she struggle for the right handle, and in the same instant realised
she'd better say captain.

Susanna and Jane had separated in the small ante-room and both had gone
to opposite ends of the room, both musing their own thoughts, both had
one hand to their lip, both caught off guard, both using the time to
regroup their thoughts and both reached the same conclusion together
and they spun and looked at each other. It was Jane who said the words
that described the situation, 'This is fucking ridiculous", she said.
We've both got top class security clearance and we're both being
treated like children. What the fuck is going on?'. At that moment the
door opened. "Good evening", said the rather small man and then looked
at his wristwatch, "or is it evening"? "I really can never make up my
mind at this time of the day. Anyway, we are all here now. Would you
like some tea?" Closely following 'this little rat' as Jane had already
labelled him, was one of the young men who had accomplished escort duty
in the car that had picked up Susanna. He just stood by the door. The
man registered this presence with a look and tried to continue. Jane,
for one moment, forgot all her training, she was raging mad.
"I am a serving officer in the British Army. I have been escorted from
my office in front of my staff. I have the highest security clearance.
I will not be treated like this. I have put into action alpha squad.
The boys from Hereford will be here soon and you and Nancy boy (she
nodded to the young man), will be escorted to a very nice cell", the
man continued. Jane looked at Susanna, triumphant in her smile, and the
two women relaxed slightly. "Yes", said the little man, "you followed
the correct procedure", directing his look at Jane. "On the other hand,
you, Ms Johnson", he was now looking at Susanna, "failed to log that
you were responding to a Code 3". This time it was Susanna who saw red
and she was about to react. The little man changed. Gone was the
marshmallow exterior, to be replaced by granite, which seem to grow in
front of the two women.
"Now that's enough", he said. "The pair of you are acting like spoilt
children". Susanna tried to continue but a hand shot out and smacked
her face. It was a measured blow, just enough force to stop her but in
that instant, she realised the person who had just hit her could quite
have easily killed her on the spot. Now her training took over, at the
same time Jane was ready in one glance. The pair had taken in the lay
of the room noting things that could be used, escape routes, the
position of windows etc. The small man grinned, "That's better now you
are working, use what we taught you", he said in a rather patronising
way.

He was slowly backing off the two women only to be replaced by the
young man who had now put himself between the two women and the little
man. Still the two women weren't put off. The little man now had one
hand on the mantelshelf over the fireplace in the room and said in a
fairly loud voice, "Now this will be quite interesting". "Just for the
record, Jane you are a third Dan karate, is that correct?" "You Susanna
chose Ninkendo and rather a specialist, I understand". "The young man
in front of you, is skilled in all forms of armed and unarmed combat
but I would ask you to consider your looks as I am sure the encounter
will be quite bloody". This relieved the tension in the room although
the young man never seemed to be concerned at all. It was only the eyes
that neither Susanna or Jane could stop gazing into. They were
absolutely dead pools of black ink.

"Shall we all relax and maybe I can throw some light on why the pair of
you are here. It will not take too much time, it depends on the answer
to several questions I may put to you. Firstly, would either of you
like to make phone calls to diffuse any situation you may have left?
Jane your office has been told you are on Government business. We have
not left any instructions at Ms Johnson's office as it is quite in
order for you to go missing for periods of time?", said the little man.
"Is that not correct?" "Yes", said Susanna, not totally relaxed, still
quite unsure.

"Where to begin", said the little man. "Well, firstly, your national
security clearance is still intact and we will expect your full
co-operation and it is only necessary to remind you that you have both
signed the Official Secrets Act. Your duties have in the past, Ms
Johnson, and yours currently, Lt Col. Seymour, have taken you beyond
the boundaries neither of you have been short in coming up trumps for
the Crown".

Laura was having great difficulty in locating Susanna. Her first
attempt was to ask Jill who had said that she had left the office just
after 3 o'clock. She was now leaving messages all over town, at
Susanna's favourite meeting places. She had left messages on her mobile
answering service and still there was no sign. Captain Buxton-Davies
had rung twice and still she was unable to give him the correct
assurances with regard to publishing 'Sam'. It was easy to detect that
he was becoming more irritable with each phone call he placed, got him
no further.

Captain Buxton-Davies had put the phone down for the third time, having
re-appraised the contact at Masters &; Scott, as 'a bit of a bimbo',
and not as the intelligent young popsie he originally thought. All the
girl had to do, was to get authority from her boss and he looked at his
pad to remind himself of the name, Ms Susanna Johnson. Maybe, he ought
to do a check. He spun round to access the ageing computer sat in the
corner. He had never been sure of these new-fangled electronic machines
but had fathomed their use and it was much easier than filling in all
those forms he had to do in the past. From the drop down menu, he
located the form, from the interoffice stationery file and typed in the
particulars of Susanna Johnson at Masters &; Scott. He asked for a
security check both on the Company and the individual. He hit the
return key and watched the form disappear from the screen until the box
reappeared which told him that the message had been received by
Security section, filed under Code No. SJ001/4-SC001. It always brought
a small smile to his face when he had finished completing one of these
forms successfully.

He bent down to the active office file cabinet, retrieved a hanging
manila file, took out one of the plastic clips, located one of the
small rectangular pieces of paper and after removing his pen from his
jacket, wrote the code name on the paper. He slipped it into the manila
folder and dropped it into the filing cabinet. Quickly retrieving it
again, he tutted to himself, picked up the rubber stamp, wet the stamp
and stamped on the outside of the file and admired the still wet active
sign that appeared across the file. Then he replaced it back into the
cabinet wondering how much information would be retrieved on this
individual and Company.

The little man was now gently easing himself off the mantelshelf and
was slowly walking around the room. He nodded to the young man who left
the room and proceeded to walk to the far end. He turned to find that
neither Susanna or Jane had moved, yet their eyes were still riveted on
him. Without introduction, he just started to speak. "I suppose you
both believe that you understand the workings of the Security Service.
It is true to say that you have reached a certain level but I can tell
you now, there are levels of security available to the Crown that are
never spoken about and will never be given credit for. They exist to
protect the nation and all those that serve her". "Many years ago and I
will not be more specific than that, it was decided to set up an elite
team of people that would have certain powers to administer and carry
out without question, directions issued by the Crown. Without thought
or consequence. This system has been in operation for many years and an
elite band of men and women, both in this country and abroad, serve
without fear or favour in this process. The man who started this
service is Jonathan Maulden. He was tasked by the Government of the day
to recruit members to this elite team." Susanna heard the sound of
'Sam' come from her lips. Both the little man and Jane stared at
her.

For the first time since they had met the little man, he became
interested and a small twitch developed in his left eye. Susanna
registered this, once again her training was working as she remembered
the instructor:
Always look for signs of distress in your opponent and then be ready to
attack!
"Sam", mused the little man, "What does that mean"? "Oh, it was
somebody that I just remembered I had to meet", said Susanna. Now it
was the little man's turn to register Susanna's temple which was
intermittently pulsing as a small nerve ending surfaced, giving away
the lie.
The room fell silent as Jane slowly paced around the room, but at the
right time allowed her gaze to fall on Susanna. She also knew that
Susanna had told a lie. Jane had played many a poker game with Susanna,
and had always considered her to be straight-faced. Something had
obviously struck a very raw nerve. Several questions loomed up in her
brain: Who the hell was this Jonathan Maulden, what was Susanna's
involvement, and what was it that Susanna had said. "Sam", is that what
the little man had said that she had said? What the hell did that mean?
Jane decided that she'd try to diffuse the situation, or at least give
time for Susanna to think. "So are you telling me," she said out loud,
which diverted the little man's gaze to her, "that we've stumbled
across, purely by accident, a man who is supposed to have set in
motion, a level of security that neither Susanna or I knew about, and
because his name has now come to light, we are being subjected to this
type of intrusive behaviour all on a whim because Susanna asked me to
check a name? No I've really no idea who this guy is, and my part in
this is purely someone who was checking out a security position as I
have done on thousands of other people, and in this particular case,
for someone who is obviously slightly worried about the
situation.
She was trying desperately to drag out her thoughts to give Susanna
enough time to respond. Praying that she had, and it would seem that
she had, because Susanna continued almost without breaking the line of
comment. "Which department issued the memo with regard to literal
material being vetted now by Whitehall? Oh yes, F section." At this the
little man's twitch reappeared. "And all I did was to respond to that
and make sure that my company obeyed the intent and the letter of that
instruction. A well-known author who was using the name Jonathan
Maulden, probably a pseudonym, has written a book which we believed to
be of sensitive material. Because I was intrigued about this author who
I have known for many years, I asked Jane as a personal friend. Okay,
okay I overstepped my authority, but it is entirely my fault not Jane's
to do an interim check to see what we would be getting ourselves into.
And from all this, this situation has come about." "And the content of
this book?" asked the old man. "Oh just the first few chapters of a new
book written by the travel author, Jonathan Maulden." The old man's
twitch suddenly got worse. "I've read some of his books," said the old
man. "Are you telling me that you started this whole security check on
an author already known to you." "Yes, and as I said, I was only
obeying the instruction by F section." "This interview is terminated",
said the little man.
"You will be taken back to your offices, there will be no account of
this meeting." Susanna looked at Jane. Jane grimaced, and by the time
they had stopped looking at each other, the little man had gone and the
other younger man had returned and said "we'll take you back to your
offices ladies". "I believe this belongs to you, Ms Johnson," he handed
Susanna her revolver. "The weapon is in good working order, I have
cleaned and replaced the firing pin and it does pull very slightly to
the left." "Thank-you" said Susanna, knowing full well that the
information was correct - it was her personal weapon and her own
analysis of it's firing was exactly the same as this report.

Captain Andrew Buxton-Davies went through the same routine as he did
every night - locking all the desk drawers, making sure the filing
cabinets were neatly put away, making sure the manuscripts were as they
should be in their lace, making sure the restricted files were in the
safe locked away. At which time he picked up the old battered briefcase
and made his way to the office door past his secretary, Clare. "Just
off, Clare," he said, "hope the train's not late as it was this
morning!" And she started to mouth the common exchange between them as
he repeated the same phrase as he did everynight to her, "Have a nice
evening, don't do anything I wouldn't do, or if you do, please be
careful". And with the see-saw action of her head she was pleased to
see the back of him. He made his way to the tube station, making a
non-descript entrance onto the train, not really taking any notice of
anybody around him, unaware that two young men were very close to him.
Having picked up the mainline station at Woking, it was over land then
to Leatherhead. The train was bang on time, everything was well, and he
was anxious to be home to continue the two very nice little projects
that he had going on - on in the green house and one to complete the
model that he was working on of a Roman footsoldier. As he sat in the
carriage of the train, he became aware of the other two young men
sitting, always eager to exchange pleasantries he said "A fine British
evening, gentlemen," and only received a grunt. As the train slowed to
________, one of the young men grabbed Andrew's arm, pulled out a pass,
and said, "You will accompany me captain, I am operating under a code
3, you are aware of that implication, please leave the train in an
orderly fashion." Andrew was completely taken unawares, but like
everything else in his life, when confronted with an official request,
he obeyed it to the letter. He left the carriage, slipping from the
train as it pulled to a halt and was through the station in a blur,
sitting in the back of an S70 Volvo, speeding, but he could not see
where he was going through the tinted windows.

Jane was dropped off at her office, and she immediately cancelled down
all the instructions she had left and was surprised to find that
everybody was smiling at the cover story the little man had obviously
promoted, which was that she was on some important business attached to
the section. Her staff had always enjoyed working for her and always
also enjoyed the fact that she was the youngest female officer at her
rank, she was obviously destined for even higher office than she had
already attained, and like sheep following the leader, they all wished
to be dragged along in her wake. The team was efficient, always worked
as a team, so it was with some difficulty that Jane had to subdue her
annoyance about the whole affair. She realised that the communications
from her office, out, could be tapped and she realised also that it was
impossible for her to use any of the secure links available to her, but
she just had to find a way to get in touch with Susanna, so the pair of
them could put their heads together to find out what was actually going
on. The pretence that mobile phone were secure was always a fallacy so
she'd have to use one of her staff in an overt role, with a covert
message. She quickly scribbled a note to Susanna, indicating a meeting
place that they both knew, very public, very open, always the best
security. She called in the Sergeant at Arms, first class marine who
was completely devoted to her. Using the intercom on her desk she asked
him to come in, knowing that she would be subjected to the full
military stance even though he was in civvies. The marine left the
building with the envelope placed about his person with a full but
simple instruction that he was to give it to Miss Susanna Johnson of
Masters &; Scott, and no-one else. If anyone tried to take it off
him, he was to destroy the note in the usual manner, which of course
meant by fire, and she'd given him the necessary written order to use
all necessary force, giving him instruction to draw a hand-gun from the
safe. He was left in no doubt as to the seriousness of the instruction
as the colonel had told him to relax, and had looked him square in the
eye, to reinforce the instruction.
* * *
Jonathan had had a good evening at the pub, and actually joined in a
game of darts, but of course he was still on the fringes of Northern
hospitality as much as that nobody in this part of the world was
accepted unless they had either a birthright or had been amongst the
locals for a minimum of ten years. Jonathan mused to himself that they
viewed him as a 'Bloody Southern Stranger'. It was ten o clock in the
morning and he was just about to make his way to his attic retreat,
wondering why things were taking so long. He hadn't slept much that
night, completely aware that at any time he could have been woken, and
then it came. The very slow, dissonant tone from the electronic
bleeper. To all intents and purposes, it looks like an ordinary BT
pager, if not slightly bigger, and of course it was really nothing like
a BT pager. In fact, there were only three in the world, having direct
access to satellite system, and providing he was not a mile under
ground, he could be reached at anytime, anywhere on the planet. He
picked the bleeper from the belt pouch and slowly walked to the
briefcase that was just beside the desk in the dining room. Opening the
briefcase he put his thumb on a small metal plate, picked up a pair of
what look like ordinary sunglasses which had a wire going into the
machine, and placed the beeper into the machine. The LCD display lit
up, and displayed the legend '25 seconds to self-destruct'. Jonathan
pressed 4 buttons on the display cabinet, a small qwerty keyboard slid
into view and he typed in a ten digit password. A new legend was
displayed 'self destruct terminated. New self destruct sequence
initiated in 3 mins'. Jonathan typed in an array of figures and watched
the machine go through several initiation sequences. He took three
steps back from the machine, as four telescopic antennae appeared from
the box, the legend display changed and announced 'pick up in 15
minutes'. Jonathan smiled, it all seemed to be working okay -
everything that he had planned was now in place, what would be would
be. He quickly reconfigured the house, removing all cases, belongings.
He handcuffed the communications briefcase to his wrist after it had
finished making sure the destruct sequence had terminated. If it had
not, there would have been very little left of Jonathan or the house.
He had chosen this location because he knew that it would be difficult
for ordinary transport (never a problem for his organisation) his ears
were already tuned to register the beep. Taking the contents that he
had brought to the house with him, he went to the back garden, where he
had already prepared the makings of a bonfire, took the tarpaulin off
of the top of the bonfire, removed the plastic can of petrol, doused
the wood and all the belongings in petrol, put the can back into the
heart of the fire, and set fire to the assembled belongings. Having
accomplished two things (the removal of all his belongings) he had now
obviously registered a beacon for the oncoming helicopter. Tilting his
head to one side, he could hear the chop-chop of the blades as they
were already homing in on the satellite navigation information that the
briefcase had sent out. The small helicopter flew low, on the inbound
flight, and it was not unusual in these parts, in fact many of the
wealthy land owners around used them as toys, going to one shoot from
the next, but this one was flown by an army helicopter pilot, flight
data had not been recorded, and radio contact was to be avoided.
Instructions to destroy craft if detected applied, it's one mission was
to pick up and fly the pick up to any destination as requested. The
person to be picked up was to be considered a very very important
person. As Jonathan caught the first sign of the craft, he had time to
consider events. He knew that this whole situation would be resolved
one was or another in the next few days. He had officially retired many
years ago, and had busied himself writing these travel books under the
pseudonym of course, that was logged on all the security files which
were to be protected against authorised, and unauthorised scrutiny,
should anybody try to do a search. That's how he had planned this whole
situation, knowing full well that somebody would initiate that search,
and he'd hedged his bets on Susanna, knowing her full background. His
retirement had come at a time when a great personal loss had occurred.
He was instrumental in setting up the best security service monitor in
all the world, and yet he had been unable to prevent the loss of those
nearest and dearest to him.

Angela had been so full of promise with a degree from one of the new
universities - although Jonathan had hoped for her to go to one of the
traditional universities - she had married extremely well, and Jonathan
had been more than happy with the match, and he had had a wonderful
grandson. Angela had been running late, as usual, then her car had
failed to start, quick call to Mummy, would she pick up Mathew and then
pick up Angela they would all go to the local Super she needed some
things for Daddies party. The young idiot who had stolen the B.M.W. two
hours before the fateful event was cocky loud but totally unprepared
for what followed after he had been arrested by the local police.
Jonathan's wife Marjorie had picked Mathew up from play school he
rushed across the play ground when he saw his Nanna, holding out a
picture he had drawn he told her it was for Grand-dad because it was
his birthday then putting his hand to his mouth he said not to tell
anybody it's a secret but mummy knows he rambled on.

Marjorie bent down and straightened his blazer at which he pulled away
do you think grand-dad will like my picture Nanna of course he will
it's a plane said Mathew. Why does Granddad go on so many planes Nanna.
Its his job, what's a job Nanna, Its work said Marjorie quite ready for
the extended range of questions that would follow and knew how to stop
them before Mathew could start she said I have not had my kiss yet and
anyway what plane are we today let me see yesterday it was F something
watching his face . Nanna he said how many more times F16 out came the
arms and Mathew was transformed into a F16 fighter. He had picked up
the love of flying from his father an aeronautics engineer and
Jonathan's many trips had fuelled the interest further. Marjorie had
worried that the boy would see the air as a battle zone and that was
all. Jonathan had quietly come up with answer surely Marjorie could
teach the boy about the family of birds their flight paths after all
not many planes could fly to Africa non stop. So whilst Peter (Mathew's
father) and Jonathan decorated one side Mathew's
Bedroom with fighter planes of the day Marjorie and Angela had pictures
of birds on the other walls. When Mathew realised that many of the
planes took their names from birds of prey the two worlds were
one.
The little F16 was on its way back, blazer almost hanging off and was
lining up to realise a missile. Marjorie raised her finger a waved at
Mathew don't you fire one of those Sidewinders at me Mathew grinned
flipping the imaginary fire switch cover . Locked and ready he said .
Abort said Nanna I am friendly . Identify yourself said Mathew talking
into his little fist as if it were a microphone. I am Nanna waiting for
my best F16 to give me a very big kiss because if we do not hurry we
will be late for Grand-dad's big day. Roger said Mathew and launched
himself in for a final approach into his Grand-mother arms planting her
with a monster kiss as she began to tickle him .Come on said Marjorie
and they went off hand in hand chatting and laughing together.

The special branch officer spoke quietly into air space inside the car.
The car had been fitted with the latest covert radio equipment.
Grandmother has picked up the boy 1537hrs am following over he said .
Marjorie quickly secured Mathew into the back seat she moved carefully
into the traffic completely unaware of the special branch car following
her . We are going to pick up Mummy then off to the shops to buy some
cakes for the party. How old is Granddad Nanna said Mathew why said
Marjorie well my cake was this big (they were watching each other using
the rear view mirror of the car) yes said Marjorie and I had five
candles Grand-dad is older so his cake will be this big and stretched
his arms as far apart as possible and he strained to get all his
candles on. Marjorie laughed and who wants a big slice of this cake. Me
said Mathew And who is going to help Grand-dad blow out these candles .
Me, Me, Me, said Mathew repeating himself. They had reached Mathew's
home Marjorie pulled into the drive unbuckled seat belt leaned over the
back to tell Mathew she just going to get Mummy Hmmm
Was the reply as Mathew was already engrossed in one of many books that
littered the back seat. Angela appeared at the door with a flurry of
bags and instructions, the gist of which was that the delicatessen had
already packaged most of the pastries, the cake was being decorated
with it's final birthday message and that Peter would be home within
the hour. Before the two women reached the car, Marjorie quickly told
Angela of Matthews account of how big the cake should be, and they both
laughed. Angela slipped into the back seat alongside Matthew, who on
realising that his mother had entered the car, quickly relayed all the
days happenings, and yes, he had eaten his lunch, and yes, he had
washed his hands, and the best news of all was that Nann knew what a
sidewinder was.
Angela looked at her mother in the rear-view mirror, and they both
grinned at eachother. The car was full of packages as they returned, so
much so that the back seat was piled high with them, the cake had been
carefully laid out in the boot and as they approached the outer ring
road, the traffic lights had just turned green as Marjorie accelerated
gently over the junction. It was only the special branch officer who
was travelling some twenty car length-s behind Marjorie's car who
witnessed the whole event. The BMW must have been doing between 60 and
70 mph when it jumped the lights.
On seeing Marjorie's car, the young man had tried to swerve, had lost
control, and the back end of his car side swiped Marjorie's car,
spinning the smaller car in a series of car-length circles. Marjorie's
car hit the grass verge and the two offside wheels locked into a
grating and the car flipped on it's side. Pastries were flung around
the inside of the car, as the car started to roll back onto it's side,
only to be met by the rusty old lamppost which, being made of cast
iron, fractured at the impact. The jagged edge of the fracture ripped
through the petrol tank, and as the supply cable was severed, the spark
ignited the free flowing fuel, which soon engulfed the car, and all the
occupants.
The special branch officer immediately called for blackout security
alert, Code 32, in operation, all available officers to respond,
ambulance and fire brigade required. As he left his vehicle and
approached the car, the second explosion literally blew the car apart.
The BMW, which had now come to a halt several hundred yards down the
road, was also smoking, but not about to catch fire - it was the rear
tyres scuffing the road as the young occupant tried to make his was
away from the scene. Special Branch officer reached the car, pulled out
his weapon and shot the two tyres on one side of the car, prohibiting
any escape, and reached round to the drivers door (putting his weapon
away) wrenched open the door, and was slightly surprised to see a young
man ready to fight his way out of the situation.
With a few quick measured blows, the young man was disabled, his hands
cuffed, and he was told to sit on the kerb. It was at that point the
wailing signs of the fire brigade and ambulance could be heard. The
squealing of tyres of other vehicles approaching was also noticeable,
but the absence of blue flashing lights and police cars also became
quite curious. Special Branch vehicles blocked off all approaches. Two
helicopters arrived within the hour, and once the fire brigade had
called the car to be safe, and it was deemed impossible to remove the
bodies, it was decided that the whole vehicle and contents should be
lifted by helicopter for examination. Within three hours, the whole
scene was cleared, and the debris air-lifted to the nearest military
establishment.

Captain Jarvis had been in Malta when a Comms Officer had brought him a
flash message asking to return to the UK immediately. A Tornado Bomber
was already fuelled and ready and there was a mid-flight fuelling
already scheduled, and a car would be waiting at BrizeNort. This was
not an unusual occurrence for Captain Jarvis. Since establishing his
recruits all over the world, many messages would bring him to and from
the UK at a moments notice. When the Tornado landed, the pilot taxied
to a quiet part of the airfield where the ground crew steadied the
aircraft, and Capt Jarvis thanked the pilot, and stepped out into the
black Jaguar Sovereign and was surprised to see Harry sitting in the
back seat. 'Good God,' said Capt Jarvis, 'What the hell are doing here?
You'll tell me that Oscar's in the boot in a minute!'
The car sped away through the gates and was obviously heading towards
Oxfordshire. 'So what's the big panic?' said Captain Jarvis. 'I'm
afraid there's some bad news,' said Harry. 'I was brought up her
especially to tell you.' And Harry relayed the events as they were
known to him. Captain Jarvis sat for a while, speechless. "Take me
there,' said Captain Jarvis. Where? Said Harry. 'Where they've got the
bastard.' The car did a U-turn in the middle of the road and sped back
the other way. Within 75 minutes the Jaguar, panting for breath, was
parked outside the local police station which was holding the young man
who had been charged, for the moment, for driving without due car and
attention, whilst not having a driving license, without insurance. He
had been dutifully warned, that following further investigations, more
serious charges may be brought. He was in a cell by himself, apart from
one plain clothed special branch officer.
Captain Jarvis and Harry went into the police station. All the PC's had
been ushered out of the building, all calls had been diverted to other
police stations. The building had effectively been sealed off, and the
building was now an extension arm of the security service. 'Get lost'
said Captain Jarvis to Harry. 'Ill deal with this myself.' Harry was on
the point of protesting, he knew very well that that was a foolish
thing to do. 'okay' said Harry. Jarvis went to the cell, and dismissed
the Special Branch man. Captain Jarvis took out his weapon, which was
loaded, of course, and threw it on the table in front of the young man.
"You might as well finish the job," he said. "You've just killed, my
wife, my daughter, and my grandson. You either kill me now, or I kill
you. What do you suggest we do?" The cockiness was replaced by an
awkward boyish grin. "You can't just do that." "Did you hear what I
just said?" said Captain Jarvis. "They should have got out of my way,"
said the boy.
Captain Jarvis picked up the gun a fired three bullets. The first
bullet took the top of the right ear of the young man off. The second
bullet as he cowered holding his ear, missed it's target and embedded
itself into the wall, just over the top of the head of the boy. The
third bullet reached it's target, and took the small toe of the left
foot. The young man was now squealing and crying at the same time.
"I've left you one good ear. Now can you hear me. I'll say it again.
You've just killed my wife, duaghter and grandson." He threw the gun on
the table. "now pick it up and finish the job." The young man was now
babbling. He was trembling, apologising, saying he was sorry. And
Captain Jarvis realised that he'd gone too far. All the training, all
the privileges, all the planning, should have been wiped out. So he
reached for the gun and put it back into his pocket and said to the
young man. There's only one way that you can make a difference. You'll
be taken from this place, you will join the Army, and I will monitor
your life. You will do the best you can from now on to make your life
worthwhile and you will only survive because I choose to let you
survive." He walked out of the room, and was not surprised to see Harry
just outside of the room. He looked into Harry's eyes. 'Get Oscar,' he
said to Harry, 'I want him here within the hour.' 'Okay' said Harry.
Captain Jarvis strode from the building. His life would never be the
same again.
Three very senior officers sat in the depths of a underground bunker
which was built under an office complex. Several contractors had been
used to build the complex, so that no one firm knew the entire layout
of the building. It had taken three days to assemble the men, who
always kept in contact with each other all the time by using
communication links. To bring them together was to jeopardise the
security of the nation. Each held different parts of the overall
security puzzle. One terrorist attack now would cripple the nation.
"What is his status?" said the General. "Same as usual", said the
Admiral. "The man is a machine who should outrank all of us by now". "I
am not surprised", said the Air Commodore. "He's never missed a beat
all the time that he set up the entire organisation. Just think of all
the losses and hiccoughs he has gone through. He is probably
registering this loss now as one of them".

A red light came on and a small buzzer sounded to warn the occupants of
the room that the security door was about to be opened. All talk in the
room ceased while the new attendees entered the room. Obviously, very
senior civil servants. One was advisor to the Cabinet Office, the other
was the Head of MI5. The other female was the Head of MI6. Both sat
down at the table without acknowledging the presence of the others in
the room. The door slowly closed as they all waited for the green light
to come on which assured everybody that any conversation in the room,
would now not be overheard and therefore monitored.

The advisor to the Cabinet Office, Sir Reginald Watson-Smith,
immediately took the Chair and warned everybody not to take any written
material from the room and of course, no comment was to be made to any
other persons outside the room. "You three officers have the advantage
as obviously you arrived earlier and had prior discussions on the
events that have taken place. The other two people around the room (he
nodded at MI5 and smiled at the Head of MI6), you will be advised of a
situation that you are not aware of which may cause you some anxiety".
He quickly appraised them of the situation that over many years, an
upper eschelon security service controlled by the three arms of the
military was in place which only reported to the Head of the military
service, had no other master and this service had been set up over a
number of years by one man. That man's name was Captain Jarvis. In
fact, Captain Jonathan Jarvis.

Three days ago, Captain Jarvis's wife, daughter and grandson were
killed by a young man in a so-called joyride event. Captain Jarvis had
administered some bullish tactics at the time but had taken the young
man into his custody and the whereabouts of which are unknown. Our
attempts at trying to find the condition and the whereabouts of this
young man have failed. It is our belief that we have a rogue situation
and that is why we are all here.

The Air Commodore reached into his briefcase and pulled out an
envelope. He placed the envelope on the table and said, "I make no
apologies for producing this envelope at the stage but Captain Jarvis
wanted us all round the table to understand the current situation. The
events that have transpired since the death of his family are all
documented in the envelope". There was a look of general concern on
everybody's face around the table as the Air Commodore continued, "I
have not opened this document, I don't know what is contained in it. My
instructions were to only open it when all you gentlemen were seated
around the table". He carefully undid the seal that was on the envelope
and took out the contents.

Oscar received a call on his pager five minutes after Captain Jarvis
had left the police station. Harry had relayed the call up procedure to
the Comms centre and it had taken that time to direct the appropriate
satellite and to send out the call beacon. On receipt of the call,
Oscar who was still involved in his training exercise, reported the
situation, got another instructor to take over his class and
immediately laid on transport and within the hour, he was outside the
police station talking to Harry. Harry quickly told Oscar what had
happened and Oscar realised the pain and discomfort Captain Jarvis was
going through. It somehow mirrored his own loss when he had seen the
cine film all those years ago.

Harry picked up the special mobile phone, punched in a few numbers and
only said, "Oscar's here". Into the handset he said, "OK". Switching
the handset to standby, his eyes finally met Oscar who said, "Captain
Jarvis is on his way". "Why do we always call him Captain Jarvis", said
Oscar. Harry grimaced and said, "Because he is Captain Jarvis. I have
never got that close to him to call him anything else". The jaguar came
round the corner, again gasping for breath after it had been driven at
high speed. Captain Jarvis walked straight towards the two men, saying
as he went by, "Oscar, come with me!".

Oscar did as he was told, followed the Captain through the police
station and they were soon outside the cell which held captive the
young man. Captain Jarvis with a slight tremor in his voice said to
Oscar, "In there is a person that has just changed my whole life. The
only way I can justify keeping him alive is that sometime, somehow,
somewhere, he will justify his existence. Take him away from here,
train him, get the best out of him because if you don't, he will surely
die".

It was the first time that Oscar had seen the same vile beast that he
knew was in him. He understood in that moment, why Captain Jarvis had
been the one man who could set up such a vast complex organisation and
still maintain focus. "Take the jag", said Captain Jarvis.

All talk in the bunker had ceased as all those gathered round the table
poured over the photographs and the resignation letter that was clipped
to a statement written by Captain Jarvis. It was the Air Commodore who
picked up the statement and said, "Shall I read this aloud?" Sir
Watson-Smith agreed but would like to have done the dastardly deed
himself.

Gentleman, you have a package in front of you that contains my
resignation as I feel that my conduct in administering punishment to
the young man who robbed me of my family, was beyond the remit that I
have been entrusted with over the years of my service. The organisation
that I built is now in tact and I feel that it is time that someone
else took over its running. It is my intention to resign my position at
08.00hrs tomorrow morning (a date had been placed). With regard to the
young man, his death certificate is contained in the paperwork, his
family should be told.
He will be within the organisation's tentacles and will be trained to
assist the Crown in such duties that the training procedure allows him
to rise to. The untimely death of this young man is the only way that I
can accept the loss that he has inflicted upon me. Please accept these
terms and conditions as I will now assume the identity of Jonathan
Maulden and will slip into obscurity within the general populus.
I have placed this name and identity on all the security computers such
that I, or anybody, wish any information upon that person, that the
organisation should use its best efforts in either my direct
termination or termination of the people offering the threat.

Yours Captain J Jarvis

The Air Commodore smiled as he dropped the letter onto the table top
and said in a low voice, "He even knew when we would all be sitting
round this table. Notice the date in brackets is tomorrow's date". It
was Sir Reginald Watson-Smith's face that caught everybody's attention.
"Who actually called this meeting?" They all looked at each other. Once
again, it was the Air Commodore. "He did, of course!" "What to do?",
said the Admiral. "He poses no threat. You are aware of the security
bridges built into the security system. Not one of us knows the remit
of the other. Nor any of us or him can act alone, he poses no threat.
The little blighter that robbed him of his family, well I'd take him
out to the middle of the Atlantic and drop him overboard if I had any
ships left!" It was agreed to let Jonathan Maulden live and Captain
Jarvis to slip into obscurity.

The helicopter did a full circle of the house, obviously selecting a
landing site. A huge ball of light exploded from underneath the
helicopter as he selected a patch of grass 300 yards away from the
perimeter fence. The craft settled and Joanthan knew better than to
rush forward, allowing the down draft to equalise, watching the heavy
bushes spring back from their initial burst. At a crouch, he approached
the aircraft. He reached up for the handle that was set into the
fusilage and pulled open the door. Only to be met with a standard issue
revolver pointing at his face. "Well done, young man", said Jonathan.
"Code name Escape Plan, mission as directed, name of your CO is
Charles". A young man holsetered the revolver and said, "Excuse me sir,
welcome aboard". The young pilot who was basically disguised with a
night vision helmet, was studying Jonathan trying to work out what was
going on. Jonathan established a seat in the back of the aircraft and
asked for a situation report on the aircraft's operational status. The
pilot pointed to a headset which was on the seat next to him. To which
Jonathan realised with slight embarrassment, was the only way to
communicate within the noisy confines of the aircraft.

Jonathan placed the headset and immediately repeated the question.
"Please give status report on aircraft, range and flying ability". The
pilot talking in a low but controlled voice indicated a range of 400
miles, flying at 185mph or 300 miles at a faster speed etc. etc.
Jonathan then asked for the comms data link terminal in the aircraft,
opened his briefcase and plugged the briefcase into the data pool. The
pilot immediately asked if the communications package was airworthy
certificated and Jonathan replied, "Just fly the chopper son!" "Had to
ask, Sir!"

He then asked the pilot to remove his headset whilst Jonathan
established a radio link which the pilot was not privvy to. After
several minutes, Jonathan tapped the pilot on the shoulder, gesturing
that he put his helmet back on. The pilot and Jonathan were able to
speak on the aircraft's intercom link. Jonathan told the pilot, "Fly
below radar, do not let yourself be detected and fly to this
destination". The pilot tapped in the co-ordinates. He turned round to
look at Jonathan and said over the intercom, "That's the middle of the
North Sea". "What is your mission statement, son?", said Jonathan. "To
pick you up and to do whatever I was told, including disabling the
aircraft. Do as you are told, son and let's get going!". The helicopter
leapt into the air, dead set on its course. It always surprised
Jonathan how agile and adaptable these small aircraft were and the
skill of the pilot as he flew around and under obstacles as they
presented themselves. After 35 minutes flying, the pilot reported to
Jonathan that they had reached the point of no return. "We are using up
fuel which would place us in a non-return position, if we carry on
Sir". "Keep going", said Jonathan. "I think we are going to get wet",
said the pilot. After another 25 minutes of flying, the pilot was
becoming extremely agitated. "We will need ditch in 5 minutes sir!"
"Turn the helicopter sun on", said Jonathan. The pilot flicked the
switch that flooded the North Sea with one million candela of white
light. As it by magic, the sea opened up and a huge black hull
appeared.

Nuclear submarines on the surface present a very large target but
landing a small helicopter on one was still a difficult task. "Put her
down", said Jonathan. The pilot skilfully laid the helicopter between
the missiles hatches and both Jonathan and the pilot were helped off
the helicopter by helpful seamen who were now crawling all over the
sleek, black beast. The pilot took one last look at the helicopter as a
naval officer stood with a pistol flare gun, waiting for the order to
fire at the helicopter. As the submarine went into a slow dive, the
helicopter lifted off and was immediately hit by a phosphorus flare
which started the craft burning. As the conning tower disappeared under
the waves, the small explosion of the helicopter could just be felt
beneath the cold waters of the North Sea.

"The Captain bids you his compliments and asked that you meet him in
his quarters sir". The young seaman looked over Jonathan's shoulder at
the pilot. "What shall we do with him sir?" "Best put him in the brig,
he has just trashed a perfectly good helicopter", said Jonathan. "Right
sir", and the seaman made a move towards the pilot. Jonathan held up a
hand to stop any over-reaction to his little joke. "OK", he said
standing between the two men. "Please take this Royal Airforce Officer
to the ward room, where the Captain and I will join you both later. I
assume other guests are there already". "Indeed they are, this way
sir". This time the seaman directed his attention to the pilot.
Jonathan stopped the pilot by putting a hand and lightly grabbing the
pilot's arm to restrain him. He said, "Well done son". The pilot turned
slowly and looked at Jonathan. "I have no idea who you are and what you
are doing. Maybe that's a good thing. I obeyed orders, that's all, did
the job. I hope that was enough sir". The 'sir' was said in that uneasy
way that all military personnel use to express displeasure at being
told to do something they believe is not right, by a senior ranking
officer.

The seaman and the pilot walked down the first corridor and disappeared
round the bend. Jonathan, being familiar with the craft, walked in the
opposite direction and after negotiating the inner labyrinth of the
nuclear sub, soon found himself outside the Captain's quarters. He
knocked on the door but didn't wait for an answer and walked straight
in.
Captain Harris never looked up from his working desk and said, "You
always were an arrogant bugger, Jonathan!" "You are supposed to wait
until I say enter!", said Captain Harris. "Yes but you would probably
be drunk, after emptying the ship's rum content down your throat, you
old sop!", said Jonathan. At this, the Captain spun round and the two
men's eyes met each other. The Captain was out of his chair and
matching the two strides that Jonathan had taken from the door, they
embraced as long lost brothers.

"I hope we are doing right", said the Captain. "We are absolutely 100\%
sure of all that we've found out and there is certainly no way back now
it's started". "Are the others in the wardroom?" said Jonathan. "I
understand you have some guests aboard". "Yes", said Edward Harris.
"Everybody's here, everybody's committed. Let's root the bastards out
and stop this thing!" "It's a pity we had to bring you out of
retirement but there was no other way of making absolutely sure that
all the stop gaps and checks that you had set up were obeyed in the
overall scheme of things". Jonathan stood for a while reflecting on the
way that his so-called retirement had been brought to an uneasy end by
the call to service, once again and all the events that followed.

He was actually in Kuala Lumpur working on his latest travel guide for
that particular region when he had received the call. He was in
Malaysia as a guest of the Government who were very anxious to open up
such a beautiful country to the masses who were prepared to spend their
hard earned cash on two weeks of blissful sun-soaked holiday. Building
on the reputation that he had already acquired as an informed travel
writer, the Malaysian Government had given him free access to all their
proposed sites and it was whilst enjoying the seclusion of Port Dixon
that the message had arrived. He had returned to the hotel to find a
note in his pigeon hole requesting him to ring a number. The number was
in fact, a hotel back in Kuala Lumpur and on making the call, he had
been requesting to terminate the trip to Port Dixon and return on an
urgent matter to the capital where the Government of the day had a
particular request to make. A room had already been booked at the Kuala
Lumpur Hilton and a car would be sent to pick him up the very next day.
Jonathan agreed and at this point, had felt no real pangs of anxiety.
Although it was true that he was quite wary at any untimely occurrence
that was out of the ordinary.

He went to his room and decided to check on a situation that he hadn't
done for many years. On leaving the service, he had set up within the
organisation, several checks and counter checks which would alert him
or he could alert others, to a predicament that was appertaining at the
time. Picking up the telephone, he asked for an outside line, to which
the operator very politely suggested that he obtain the number for the
honoured guest. Jonathan made his usual excuse that it was a personal
call and that he wished to make the connection himself. This of course,
Jonathan knew would alert the switchboard operator to record the whole
operation to which Jonathan smiled and wondered how far the puzzled
telephone operator would go before he gave up trying to trace who
Jonathan had called. On the appreciation that he had a line, Jonathan
started to dial a series of numbers. As the numbers connected, Jonathan
dialled some more numbers using the antiquated instrument in the room.
This took quite a while. Eventually, a metallic computer generated
voice gave back sets of numbers in bunches of two at which time,
Jonathan wrote the numbers down and on the last number quickly replaced
the receiver.

He took the piece of paper over to the writing desk, went to his
briefcase and took out his personal diary. He slid a small piece of
paper from a personal section which had a list of people's names,
birthdays, shoe sizes and dress sizes. This list was of course, totally
fictitious but if found by any person searching, would only seem to be
a travelling man's guide to buying presents for people that were known
to him. On grouping the numbers and matching them in a very precise
way, Jonathan gained the message that the computer had given him.

Jonathan stared at the piece of paper, mesmerised by the words that
were in front of him.

Full alert, termination order implemented, effect immediate.

This was not the procedure that Jonathan had set up. Any termination
notice on himself was only relevant if he himself, had committed some
act that his own organisation had considered not in the best interests
of the country or to the service as a whole. As he was aware, he had
not done anything at all to precipitate any such action and he was more
than aware that others were wanting to conspire to create his demise.
The burning question was, 'WHY?'

Purely by force of habit had he analysed the lie of the hotel, all
possible escape routes, all possible ambush points and all ways which
an assassin could attempt such a deed. The hotel's frontage obviously
backing onto the sea, was the way that any person would come to
eliminate him. Best form of defence is attack, thought Jonathan. He
quickly sealed his passport, money and travel documents into a
cellophane envelope. He donned on a pair of swimming trunks, placed the
package in the swimming trunks and slipped over the balcony onto the
shore, walked down to the water's edge, checked the time on his Rolex
and looked for a landmark. He checked the brilliant skyline which was
unusual at that time of year but fortunately like a beacon, Venus,
shone to tell him that if he kept Venus on his left side, then he would
always be swimming parallel to the shore.

As he swam in the gentle warm waters, he recalled Oscar's initial
training and the way that the two SBS divers had interfered with
Oscar's swim and just hoped that two divers wouldn't appear alongside
him, tonight. He realised that this would be his last swim if they did.
After several hours in the water and making steady progress with Venus
as his guide, she was now about to give up on him because to keep his
bearing he had to tread water and check his position. He decided it was
time to head for the shore. The other thing that worried him at this
particular time was that several flying fish had erupted around the
waters where he swam and where there were fish, there were sharks.
Pulling hard with Venus now directly behind him, he soon began to hear
the soft sands acting as a break for the water. He steadied his
progress, knowing that spasmodic coral growths could literally tear
flesh from bone plus the fact that if you were unlucky enough to get a
spore from one of the wreaths in the ear, it would quite happily grow
within the ear, until it burst the eardrum. Many an unsuspecting
holiday maker had returned home with terrible earache only to be told
by their local A&;E department of the hospital that they required
surgery to remove matter from the inner ear. Sometimes this process
caused the loss of hearing. Very slowly and carefully, he was starting
to make out shapes of undergrowth, and some small huts on the
shoreline. He calculated that he'd probably gone about five miles due
north from the hotel, which would place him on the outskirts of Port
Dixon itself. The next thing was to find cover and shelter for the
night and to re-establish contact in order to find out what was going
on.
On stepping out of the water, he immediately dropped to the sand and
crawled away from the water line to rest, and to allow the warm, night
breezes (which actually felt quite cold) to dry most of his upper body.
It was fortunate that he'd been in Malaysia for two months and his body
was well tanned, and his feet had hardened with walking on so many
sandy beaches. After ten or fifteen minutes, his body had sufficiently
recovered for him to sit up, brush all the sand, or most of the sand
off. He started to walk up the beach towards the gentle hubbub of the
ever-present street markets. It didn't take him long to find stores
selling the appropriate batik shirt, pair of slacks, and a pair of
flip-flops. This would make him quickly blend into the surroundings.
The next thing was to find a sober taxi driver and risk the drive to
Kuala Lumpur in one of those sub-standard vehicles driven at supersonic
speed by fearless, frustrated, would-be Formula 1 drivers, whose only
ambition seemed to be to meet their maker, by driving as fast as they
could. The other option was to steal a car, which he quickly decided
against. He soon found a taxi with a driver fast asleep across the
backseats of the vehicle. The man was quite elderly and Jonathan
reasoned that possibly this ageing person may well be a better risk
than the young driver. He stumbled into the cab, which woke the driver,
and was met with an indescribable barrage of Malaysian anti-culture,
which turned to lots of bows and scrapes when the driver realised that
there was money to be made out of this foreign person. Jonathan feigned
being drunk, and kept repeating the words 'Kuala Lumpur' over and over
again, taking out of his wallet far too many Malaysian notes to pay for
the trip. The drivers eyes' lit up, and all at once Jonathan was
treated as an absolute guest and would be driven in the best taxi. The
first pungent smell that greeted Jonathan's nostrils was the
unmistakable aroma of durian, the king of fruits which smelt, if
allowed to go off, rather like a barrack-room after the occupants
soldiers had all removed their boots after a ten-mile hike. In other
words, smelly feet. Jonathan pulled a face and wrinkled his nose in
disgust. This was met by a flurry of activity, whereupon an air
freshener was produced which turned to the inside taxi to smell like a
brothel. The journey back to Kuala Lumpur was a blur, and Jonathan's
cool nerve was tested as the cab sped down roads, some of which were
made of simply tracks in the jungle, to roads that had some tarmac on
the them, but it's only purpose was to hold the potholes together, as
the cab tore across the top of the potholes, bouncing both the taxi,
the driver, and Jonathan around rather like a ping pong ball inside a
jam jar. At times, when their eyes met, the drivers gold front tooth
glinted in the moonlight, a perpetual image that Jonathan would never
forget as long as he lived. The outskirts of Kuala Lumpur appeared and
after three hours, sore, shaken and slightly disorientated Jonathan
paid off the taxi, paying over the odds after being asked to be dropped
off outside the Holiday Inn. Waiting for the taxi to disappear, and
slowly walking up the steps to the Inn, Jonathan walked into the hotel,
walked round the reception area, and walked straight back out
again.
Jonathan made the call which started the long journey back to the U.K.
The agent in Singapore had not wanted to react to the series of
instructions that Jonathan had given him nor did he believe that all
this was actually happening to him. From the days if his recruitment he
had performed his duties to the best of his abilities. He had done what
his family had asked him to do, which was to support the British Crown.
The circumstances of his recruitment had made him offer his life to his
father because of the shame and dishonour to his Chinese ancestors. His
father had told that fate often guides the soul when the body is
weak.

When in London as an exchange student, he had been accused of raping
another boy at the college. His tutor had brought to the college a man
who had sorted things out at the time but little did he know that he
was on the road to intrigue and would be part of the inner workings of
the British Secret Service.

The instructions Jonathan had given him was to make a series of phone
calls to Hong Kong, Toronto and New York. He had been told to go to the
American Express office and arrange on the Company credit card, to make
available ?7,500 by cheque payable to the hotel in Port Dixon and to
the airline office in Kuala Lumpur cancelling all Jonathan's travel
plans in Malaysia. Then he made elaborate plans to indicate that
Jonathan had, by car, travelled from Malaysia to Singapore and all his
luggage and possessions should be gathered up and shipped to the
British Embassy in Singapore. He had been told to write apology letters
to the Malaysian Government to explain the untimely disappearance of
Jonathan Maulden but it was due entirely to close family matters.

He had also been told to charter a small motor cruiser and have it
fuelled and ready for Jonathan to use on his arrival in Singapore to be
berthed at the Royal Yacht Club. The last request, which made him very
nervous, was to have a duplicate British passport in Jonathan's name
waiting at a safe deposit box at Raffles Hotel along with the rest of
the money and the key together with the location of the motor cruiser.
After completing all these tasks, he honoured the rendez-vous time
which was to phone Jonathan back in Kuala Lumpur at the Holiday Inn,
where he was waiting in the lounge for the paged call under the
pseudonym of Mr Albert Findlay.

When Jonathan received the call, he thanked the Singapore agent, told
him to take all precautions and destroy all evidence. This was a Code
32 instruction which should be endorsed by his controller to be in
immediate effect. As Jonathan replaced the receiver, he sighed deeply
knowing he had just signed the man's death warrant. He left the hotel
lobby, went straight to the Hilton where the young lady who had
arranged his Mercedes hire car over the phone was surprised to see that
the credit check had come up unlimited against a person in front of her
who looked unshaven and shabby. Jonathan drove the car across the
Causeway into Singapore, went to Raffles reception desk and asked for a
package that had been left at the desk for a Mr Albert Findlay. The
next bit Jonathan knew would be difficult as the indigenous
receptionist was bound to ask for identification which Jonathan didn't
have in that name. Jonathan, realising this, pre-empted the question
and immediately turned back to go to the car and said, "Oh blast, I
suppose you'll want some identification", in his best colonial voice.
"I suppose the wretched boy has just parked the car in the lot", having
made a big performance in the front of the hotel, telling the boy to
park it without scratching it, knowing full well that reception video
cameras would be monitoring what was happening at the front of this
prestigious hotel. The young receptionist, not wishing to offend would
could have been a very important guest, and it never ceased to amaze
him the eccentricities of the people who stayed at Raffles these days,
said, "Mr Simpson, its alright, if you could tell me what is in the
envelope, you won't have to go back to the car". Profaning innocence
and awkwardness, Jonathan said, "Only some loose cash and a key",
waving his arms about to emphasise the annoyance. The young man slipped
open the package with a deft thumb and his eyes lit up as he saw
several thousand English pounds. "Oh that's seems to be alright, Mr
Findlay", said the receptionist. Jonathan spun round and in a most
patronising way said, "Oh good boy!" and grabbed the package and was
about to leave the desk. Turning quickly, he flipped open the envelope
and tossed the young man ?20 note. "That's for your trouble and have a
good day!" Jonathan barely missed colliding with one of the hotel
porters as he once again headed for the entrance.

The car was brought round and Jonathan sped off in the direction of the
marina. The two keys which were inside the package, one would gain him
entrance to the security lock which guarded the marina entrance. The
second was for the ignition to the motor cruiser which was moored at
Berth G32. Having parked the car and making his way to the berth,
Jonathan jumped on board, checked that the fuel tanks were full,
started the engine, slipped the mooring and headed out of the marina
complex to the open sea.

A Royal Navy minesweeper had been on exercise in the South China Sea
with part of the US Pacific Fleet when she had received the flash
message to rendez-vous at a particular point where a small launch would
bring one very important person and if pursued, all assistance was to
be given in rescue of the person in the single launch, whose code name
was Oscar.

Jonathan quickly flipped on the onboard GPS system which registered his
present position and tapped in the way point information to take him to
the rendez-vous point. He was slightly early and he knew that Customs
and the Singapore Navy were really hot on drugs in small boats out this
far away from the normal fishing and leisure activities. The two diesel
engines seemed to be performing well and at his current speed he would
be at the rendez-vous point in 45 minutes. It was time for a small bit
of disguise work. Having set the autopilot, he then looked around the
boat to give it some credibility. He found the fishing rods in the
locker and quickly assembled them towards the rear of the vessel. He
settled back in the fly cockpit as if out hunting in earnest, the
biggest catch of the day.

He saw the minesweeper on the horizon and was getting slightly worried
at the approach of another vessel. It was obvious that alarm bells
would be ringing as all the modern radar and surveillance would have
certainly picked him up and would treat him as either illegal immigrant
or drug trafficking vessel. He flicked on the radio and selected
Channel 16 and waited for the first interrogation. He didn't have to
wait long before the radio burst into life and the follow
announcement:

This is the Singapore Coastguard Cutter, Swift. Will the vessel on my
port bough bearing 270 degrees heave to and prepare to be boarded for
search.

Almost immediately on Channel 16, came the reply from the Royal Naval
minesweeper.

Singapore Coastguard Cutter, Swift. This is Lieutenant Commander James
Chalmers of HMS Turnbull. Good day to you sir. May I speak to your
Commander?

The radio fell quiet for a number of minutes and back came the
reply:

HMS Turnbull, this is Lieutenant Kim Wang, Singapore Coastguard Cutter,
Swift. Good day to you sir!

HMS Turnbull replied:

Lieutenant Kim Wang, you have ordered a Royal Naval Officer who is
trying to get back to his ship to stop and be boarded. We respectfully
request that you allow him to gain access to his ship and would ask you
to return the motor cruiser to the Royal Singapore Yacht Club.

The Swift replied:

Commander Chalmers, this is very irregular operation in South China
Sea. However, we will in face allow your officer to regain his ship and
will be very happy to return the motor cruiser to the Royal Yacht Club,
however we will inform you that this incident must be reported.

HMS Turnbull replied:

Lieutenant Wang, thank you for your indulgence in this matter, rest
assured the Officer in question will be severely dealt with and we
thank you for your co-operation.

Jonathan smiled at the exchange. The Commander had done his job well.
It would be several days before the incident surfaced and the trace
placed at Jonathan's door. The minesweeper grew bigger and bigger as
the Coastguard stood off, waiting to pick up the motor launch.
Eventually, the minesweeper placed itself in position such that the
cruiser was in quiet water in the lee of the larger ship and Jonathan
made the ungainly scramble up the grappling net that was thrown over
the side of the craft and was soon standing on the deck of the
minesweeper. Two healthy marines jumped into the motor cruiser and a
small rigid inflatable was launched with two additional marines who
accompanied the motor cruiser to the Coastguard to bring all four
marines back to the minesweeper. Jonathan noticed the exchange of
packages that took place and knew within the two packages, there would
be both ship's very best vodka, whisky or whatever and cartons of
cigarettes. Within the hour, the two ships were steaming away from each
other and Jonathan was in the Captain's quarters talking to Lieutenant
Commander Chalmers about his second rendez-vous of the day.

"The sub will pick you up at 22.00hrs. Incidentally, who the hell are
you?" "Best you don't know", said Jonathan. The rest of the journey
back to the UK had been uneventful. He had arrived in Scotland four
days later.

Jonathan had contact his publishers, Masters &; Scott, and told them
to rent him a house in North Yorkshire where he wanted to start a
completely new work. Susanna had done as she was told, insisting that
Jonathan use the Fullerene Linguist Machine II before he sent any
information regarding the new book to her. "What happened in Kuala
Lumpur?", Susanna said. "I thought you were going to be out there for
some time". "Too bloody hot and sticky for my liking", said Jonathan.
"Anyway, I'll go back and finish it off some other time and yes, I used
the bloody machine. We must protect your valuable interests". Within
seconds, the exchange between them of parry and thrust on a vocal front
was taking place. The house in Yorkshire had been fine for his
purposes, fairly remote yet quite close to amenities for survival, in
other words, it had a pub. He had to find a way of kicking this thing
off. He mused over the events that had been relayed to him in
Scotland.

He had been in so-called retirement for some eleven years. All had been
well for most of that time. He busied himself with his new career and
really not taken much notice of events within the country or indeed,
the world. This was strange because the continued presence and in fact,
dominance, of the English position in all parts of the world had been
for so long his responsibility. There had been two changes of
Government and the country as a whole was in a state of unrest with
regard to the modern attitude of quick fix solutions to overall
substantial problems. Where one party had promised one thing and
another, had countered by promising something else. Unbeknown to
Jonathan and only come to light several days ago, was that the large
organisation that made up the Civil Service, had already started to
control things in their own right. Several decisions had been made, not
by the Government of the day, not by parliamentary process but simply
by high ranking Civil Servants getting their way when the situation had
got far too hot for politicians to either adjust their position or be
strong enough to go against public fashion for national security.
Several budgets had been slowly and carefully manipulated to the extent
that the Armed Forces were now so critically underfunded that if in
fact, the true nature of the fighting ability of the UK was known by
any aggressor, then the local militia force of any country will have
outrun the British might on land, sea and air. Jonathan couldn't
believe when the Chief of Staff had placed their case in front of him.
Hugh deliberate cutbacks were obviously being done for a reason and
purpose. It was Jonathan's own organisation that he had set up all
those years ago, that had finally found the plan that was linked to
both commercial and European interest.

The struggle that the European Community was having to re-establish
itself with a common currency was causing several heads of Government
to do things that they knew were against their own interest but could
not see themselves not being part of the European club. Whereas, in
England, Scotland and Wales, the declaration of independence from the
European Community but working with the European Community was seen by
factions both in France and Germany as counter productive to the
unification of Europe as a whole. Jonathan's organisation had found
that leading figures within the present day Government and sponsored by
nameless Civil Servants were determined to bring the UK Government into
Europe at any cost.

Jonathan's own organisation was very carefully, but very deliberately,
being dissolved at the root of its origins. The three services
contributed to the budget which gave them the eyes and the ears as well
as the government of the days the eyes and the ears of situations that
could either effect the nation, or any of the tentacles of the UK's
concern, around the world. Several agents had gone missing, and even
the very careful analysis of operational cock-ups had failed to
establish the reason why these people had suddenly not been able to
accomplish their tasks. It was fortunate that both the Princes of the
Realm who were serving in the Armed Forces had acquainted their monarch
with the situation, and private funds had been released to keep the
organisation in tact, and indeed, it was on these funds that the
organisation was surviving. Not only was Jonathan's organisation being
dissolved, but they were aware that another, operating to different
masters, was being created.

He walked around the house, trying to fathom a way of rooting out the
cancerous situation that had developed and in his mind he had already
given it a code name: cancer. He quickly picked up the telephone,
dialled a few carefully placed digits, and just said the three words,
"operation cancer begins". Whilst in Scotland, reports were coming
through at the annoyance that Andy McNab's novel had caused to the
authorities. His accounts of and abortive SAS raid in the Gulf War had
caused many a red face from those who thought that the elite
organisations could never be challenged. Indeed, several high ranking
Army officers had been persuaded to disown both the person and the
account. So Jonathan mused, "what if suddenly, somebody actually wrote
about the inner depths of an organisation that did exist, and that
authority was trying to suppress such an organisation. That would
really upset them. Okay," he thought to himself, "Oscar - your world is
about to be exposed." This agent had always been one of Jonathan's
finest successes - a young man who had not only completed several
challenging missions, but was now one of the organisations keenest
instructors. Indeed, it was Oscar who had turned a young man's
inability to control his future into a fighting machine ready to serve
the country. It had always pained Jonathan to think of the loss of his
beloved wife, daughter and grandson. But Oscar had turned their
murderer into a person of stature and worth. In the young man the yob
element had gone, but Jonathan was still suffering the loss of his
family.

Having sent the so-called novel 'Sam' via the Fullerene Linguist to
Masters &; Scott and with Susanna's telephone conversation, he just
hoped that her personal security would stay in tact, that indeed she
was not one of the new cancerous growths within the organisation. He
wondered whether the manuscript had enough depth to intrigue any reader
as to the existence of himself, and thereby exacting the so-called
termination procedures that seemed to be in operation towards the
organisation that he had so diligently set up. The only hope that he
had was that during it's conception, his organisation was so completely
autonomous and self-regulating that any other casual or directed
attempt at finding all its operational parameters would be
thwarted.

Captain Harris led Jonathan through the depths of the sub to the
wardroom and the eerie throb of the immensely powerful machine was felt
through its hull to the depths of its nuclear reactors. Captain Harris
nodded to the two marines stationed outside the wardroom. One of the
marines refused to stand aside and asked Jonathan for the code word.
Jonathan smiled and replied, "Cancer". The young marine quickly stepped
aside and said, "Excuse me, sir!". Captain Harris gently pushed open
the door to the wardroom and seated around the table were probably the
heads of all departments within the national security forces, both
military and civil. Those that were still undecided as to their
rightful masters, had stayed away. All of them looked frightened as
none of them had expected to be kidnapped and certainly none of them
had expected to be onboard a British nuclear submarine patrolling
beneath the depths of the North Sea.

Jonathan immediately went to the head of the table, sat down and
allowed the atmosphere in the room to build to an extent where somebody
was going to say something. But nobody did. Everybody was really,
really anxious. So Jonathan made the following statement:
This is the first time probably since Oliver Cromwell decided to topple
a governing monarch of the day and install himself as head of this
country of ours, that we gentlemen have decided that the current course
of action within the country is not in the British interest nor does it
serve the people of this country but only serves several whoever
appointed themselves without due election by the populous as
controllers. Oh, by the way gentlemen if anyone wishes to leave, number
one missile hatch can be opened. We are currently at a depth of 450
feet, you will if you decide to leave, break the surface with broken
lungs and bulging eyeballs. If you do wish to leave, please state
now.
A gentle murmur went round the table. Admiral Wilson, who was seated
around the table, suggested in a fairly strong voice, "You do realise
that we are sitting here committing treason!". "Possibly", said
Jonathan. "I can assure you that his Royal Highness Prince David and
his Royal Highness Richard, both serving officers are with us and the
monarch has been informed as to our intentions". Admiral Wilson
immediately conceded and pledged his support. Jonathan continued, "For
those of you not totally aware of what's been going on, the present
Government of the day has decided to without any consultation or
parliamentary endorsement to join forces with certain organisations and
Governments within Europe, to force not only compulsory adoption of a
single currency but also to relinquish governing powers to Europe and
this is being controlled within the Government by an organisation as
yet unknown but on a daily basis growing stronger. Thirty years ago, I
was instructed by the joint chief of staffs of the day to create an
organisation that was beyond the remit of both Government and political
manipulation that would be an extension of the oath that all British
Officers take upon their commission, to serve their country and it is
to this end that the organisation exists which was funded by tri-force
funds. All arms of the forces allocated facilities and the finest
instructors were put to work to turn unknown persons into people that
would serve the nation without question, that were intelligent enough
to realise that their work was controlled by people who had the best
interests of the day. My first operative had the codename of "Oscar".
He was recruited from the city of Portsmouth".

It was visible to everyone at the table that the Admiral had grown in
stature as his present command was CinC of Portsmouth. "The young man
was not only our first but our best operative and although retired from
active duty, is now an instructor and information gatherer and it was
he, who first realised that certain activities were being carried out
without Government political knowledge. The rooting out of this
organisation has already started. I have declared on paper some of the
inner workings that actually started the organisation of. A mixture of
truth and fiction, I am sure will whet the appetites of those who seem
committed to this action I have spoken about before". At this, the room
erupted with people throwing questions, a mixture of, "We should have
been instructed, who gave you the right etc. etc. etc". Jonathan
slammed his hand down on the table, the mahogany took the blow but
several water glasses jumped, spilling their contents. "This is not a
game, gentlemen, this is for real. We will stop this".

Jonathan relayed to the group the contents of his alleged novel, "Sam"
and told them that he knew that the formation of F section would soon
root out such an unannounced author trying to publish an account which
bore the hallmark of another British spy network. "Indeed", said
Jonathan, "The man currently running F section is Captain Andrew
Buxton-Davies (retired), a man that has had a very difficult career and
is totally at odds with the system and is definitely a member of this
new organisation. Two of our agents who intercepted him on the station
at were themselves intercepted and dispatched. Captain Andrew
Buxton-Davies is now unavailable and the office complex from where he
was operating is now a small bistro, serving coffee, croissants and
cappuccino. This gentlemen happened in the space of three days".

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