Sentinel Five (The Redaction Chronicles Book 2) (17 page)

“Hokku,” Gorilla supplied.

“Yes, the giant sumo that is the
Karasu's
clan brother – I overheard him giving instructions to his people, thugs and criminals, responsible for the security on the transport. All I heard was that they would be travelling to the
pagoda
, that is what he called it, the
Karasu's
private
Dojo
. It is said to be the
Karasu's
sanctuary and most secret facility. I had to countersign the manifest, authorising the release of the shipment. There was a map on the dashboard of the truck with a route through to Matsumoto, in the Nagano Prefecture. Within the hour, the full consignment of vials left in a Nakata Industries refrigerated truck.”

“When was this?”

“Less than three months ago. Not long after, I was told that I would be travelling to Brazil and told to keep a low profile. They said I would be protected. I was given this villa and I have a maid and everything I need.
Sake
, women, money… I was told that I would be contacted by couriers and they would tell me when it was safe to return to Japan. When the courier didn't show today I was worried, I did not know what to think, and then you came,” Reizo said hurriedly.

Gorilla took it all in, trying to decipher if this little monster of a man was telling the truth. In the end, he had no way of knowing, but at the very least he had some fresh intelligence which could blow the hidden parts of the operation wide open. Information that Masterman and Penn could trace back, back to the secrets that C had taken with him to the grave. The problem now was, although he had answers to his questions, he still had a living target and witness who should be dead as a pigeon by now. The chemist had outlived his usefulness in all sorts of ways and to keep him alive, despite Gorilla's promises of protective custody, was just too much of a risk. A risk to the operation certainly, but also a risk to Gorilla's own chances of survival. If he went back without a body being found shot to death, then the chances were that he wouldn't make it through until sundown. Trench and his team of cut-throats would see to that.

“Get up… get yourself dressed. Pack an overnight bag, just a few things; you'll be travelling light… change of clothes, toothbrush, that type of thing. My people will sort the rest out,” ordered Gorilla. He watched as Reizo quickly flitted around the villa, grabbing clothes, socks, money and stuffing them into a small leather holdall. Gorilla knew what he was going to do and when he was going to do it. He was just waiting for the right moment. The bathroom, he would do it there when the target went into the bathroom to collect his wash-bag.

Reizo stepped through the bathroom door and leaned over the large bath to pick up a razor and shaving brush and it was then when Gorilla stepped up behind him, raised the pistol and fired once behind the chemist's right ear. The report echoed around the small tiled room and the body of the Japanese chemist flopped forward into the bath, his body convulsing on the way down. He landed almost in a foetal position, his body curled up, with one leg casually hanging over the side of the bath. Gorilla pointed the pistol down and fired three more shots into the man's chest. He knew from experience it wasn't really necessary; the shot to the head had finished him off already. But when the Raven's people came by to make sure the job had been completed, Gorilla wanted as much blood and gore on show as possible, to make it look as if the chemist had been gunned down ruthlessly.

* * *

“Not too quick this time,” said Maria, a hint of playfulness in her voice. They'd been driving for only a few moments, winding along the coast road. “So where to now?” she asked.

“Back to where you picked me up yesterday, thank you,” said Gorilla pleasantly.

“So we are finished for the day, your business is done, yes?”

“Yes. All complete.”

She drove for a few seconds more and then slowly pulled the car to a stop in a lay-by. She cranked on the handbrake and turned in her seat to look at him. Her cap was still cocked at an angle, making her look even more youthful. “When the job was over, I was told to give you this,” she said. She turned back and pulled an envelope out from underneath her seat, passing it to him.

Gorilla stared at it. The envelope was sealed. He quickly slit the lip with his finger and pulled out the small note inside. Written on it were three words:

KILL THE GIRL

Now it made sense. While the hits were definitely genuine jobs, contracts that the Raven wanted carried out, they were also a test of how good Gorilla was as a contractor. They wanted to see if he had mettle, was adaptable and versatile, but above all, they wanted to see how ruthless he was. The shoddy weapon, poor ammo, no suppressor to keep the noise down, terrible holster, spotty intelligence and now, using an amateur to drive the contractor around – it all smacked of Hokku and his master giving their new recruit a rough ride. But that was okay. Gorilla had been in far worse situations than this and survived.

Kill the girl. It would be oh so easy… just pull the gun from the concealed holster, and one shot would finish it all. She wouldn't even know what had happened. He could shoot her and walk away. He drummed his leg with his fingers as he toyed with what to do.

The moment of indecision passed. He'd decided and he was operational again. Gorilla took one last look at the girl's jet black hair. He reached inside his jacket, one-handed, and withdrew the item which would seal the girl's fate. He leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “Take this money and go, get out of here. Don't go back to the people who gave you this job. I was meant to kill you, once I'd finished. If you go back to your contact, they'll kill you for sure. Get out of Rio, start again somewhere else. Drive and drive fast!”

He'd done what had to be done, what he could live with, and then he left the car for the final time. He stood by the side of the road and watched as she drove away. When the car was nothing but a shimmer in the distance, he began to walk towards the city.

BANGKOK – FEBRUARY 1968

In the days when he'd been an employee of the Redaction Unit for the Secret Intelligence Service, Frank Trench's cryptonym had been
Iago
. It was a name which fitted him perfectly, for like the character from the Shakespearean play, he was always plotting, scheming and involved in any number of double crosses. He was a man who thrived on the art of conspiracy and secrets and this, he was sure, gave him the perfect mindset and practical experience to solve the mystery of what had happened to his team of contractors.

He was sitting on the bed in his Bangkok apartment, naked except for a loose sarong tied around his waist. He had all his toys around him. The bottle of half-finished Chivas Regal, the young – probably too young – Thai girl he'd bought for the night and the opium he was saving until last, saving until he'd untangled the mystery that was hammering at his head. The opium was his reward, his gift to himself when he'd sorted all the evidence in his mind. But not yet, that was for later, for now, he needed to dissect what he knew about the deaths of his men.

Trench knew his men. Knew how they thought, worked and operated. What's more, he knew that all of his European contractors did jobs on the side – a little extra income – of course he did. This was despite the rules laid down by the clan, demanding they were be the sole employers unless otherwise agreed. Trench had argued against this with Taru Hokku, but the Japanese man had been rigid in his commands.

Trench knew it was easier just to go along with it in the long run, tell the clan what they wanted to hear and turn a blind eye to his men's 'alternative' short term employment contracts. After all, you couldn't expect to have the quality of men he'd recruited, and not let them chase their own private contracts when they thought the boss wasn't looking.
The question was,
he thought,
was that the reason for their recent mass demise?
Work for the Raven clan, or work for their extra-curricular employers?

If it had just been one of them, Trench might have put it down to a random accident, a one-off. But there was too much happening too fast. First Reierson had seemingly blown his own brains out in Amsterdam, then the assassination of the two Irish gunmen in Madrid, followed by the shooting of his two top soldiers in Antwerp, and now the news that Milburn had been found dead, stabbed to death, in the toilets of a hotel in Singapore. Nearly half his contractors wiped out in the last few months!

He knew where it led back to, or at least, what his gut was telling him. Gorilla Grant.

Up until Gorilla arrived, Trench was running a nice little operation for his employers. No leaks, no compromise, nothing. Gorilla Grant was on the scene for five minutes and all his top hitters were suddenly riding a helter-skelter down to hell. Was Grant still in league with SIS? Had it all just been a long term operation – getting fired, living the life of a down-and-out before trailing his coat in Hong Kong, hoping that Trench would scoop him up? It had to be the new guy on the team… but still… there was one tiny, but significant problem in his theory, and that was the men Gorilla had killed along the way. First the two leg breakers in Hong Kong and now the 'hits' he'd performed for the Raven in Brazil…

Trench was sure – no, he was positive, that SIS in its current form would never sanction such an operation. Getting an SIS undercover man in place was one thing, but having him murdering for the enemy… never! SIS just didn't have the balls for that anymore. They'd been effectively neutered operationally over the past year or so. Thanks partly to his hunting down and decimation of his old colleagues in Redaction, but more importantly because Salamander had set about destroying SIS's covert action capability from within. It was all part of the Raven's long term master plan, whatever that was…

He knew he would never make it as high up as the Raven, but Hokku would give him what he needed to help him get to the bottom of this mystery. He knew what it would involve. It meant going back into his old stomping ground. For him personally, it was a risk, he was now classed as an enemy agent, even if he had faked his own death and been officially declared dead. There was still the chance that someone might recognise him.

Still, he would manage; a bit of a disguise, false papers – the Raven had some excellent forgers on the payroll. He would manage to get into the UK, conduct his investigation and get out without any of his old colleagues being made aware of his presence. But if his theory of what had happened with Gorilla Grant was correct, then he'd need access to the highest level of intelligence information the British government had on secret operations. And for that, Trench would need the help of the Raven's most closely guarded secret – the Salamander.

LONDON – FEBRUARY 1968

A week later the man known as the Salamander sat staring out at the River Thames, waiting for his contact to make the approach. He'd never met this man, Trench, but he knew everything about him; had in fact, co-ordinated his successful recruitment as a freelance killer into the Raven clan's organisation. He knew the man's face, his quirks, his tastes and his weaknesses. Especially his weaknesses…

Salamander was seated on a cast iron bench, a little way out from Westminster, near Blackfriars Bridge. He glanced lazily at that day's edition of The Times. Hidden inside the pages of the newspaper and held in place by a small strip of Sellotape, was the envelope containing the information Trench had requested. It had taken Salamander's 'people' – trusted sources all of them – several days of digging to find what he wanted. It was a risk, but a worthwhile one, especially if it plugged the leak and kept him protected. The Salamander had it all; influence, wealth and respect – and all supported by his wife of good breeding and his extensive array of mistresses. His facade was that of a man who yearned for nothing more than to be respectable and a servant, albeit a secret one, of the country he claimed to love.

But Salamander was that rarest of political animals, in that he was completely honest – to himself, if not to the rest of the intelligence community and Whitehall – about the fact that he craved nothing but power. He'd manoeuvred himself up through the ranks of the post-war intelligence machine, circumventing rivals, removing fools who were out of their depth and attaching himself to noted power players of influence whom he could use and later discard. He'd risen and risen fast and had in fact, come a long way from his humble beginnings as a foot soldier of the intelligence war, to become one of the most influential executives in the secret espionage world. Not that he'd yet achieved the zenith in his ambitions; there was still some distance to go. But he was at least secreted high up; not at the top, but an inch or two behind the man with the power. Salamander was a king maker and judged it the safest place to be, to feed his ambitions and remain hidden.

His relationship with the Raven was a symbiotic one. They'd helped and protected each other over many decades. What had started out as a classic agent/case officer agreement had quickly developed into the Salamander becoming a willing accomplice and partner in the Raven clan's operations. Salamander provided information which would help the clan carry out an operation – move a shipment of arms, or conduct a terrorist attack – and in return, the Raven would give his source a share of the profits and dispose of any of Salamander's political rivals. Many an old agent, government appointee or even on one occasion, a love rival, had been 'hit' by the Raven's assassins. This was something the Raven encouraged because he knew it would benefit the survival of the clan for years to come. The Raven would do anything to keep the Salamander protected and safe.

The last person to challenge the dual power of the Raven and the Salamander had been the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Richard Crosby. C, with his usual cunning, had started to have his suspicions about who was behind the
Kyonshi
operation and who the masterminds and architects were. The old spy was just too damned clever for his own good and he had gotten far too close for comfort. It would only have taken one more leak or slip up, and the whole house of cards would fall. So he had to be silenced. Partly to plug the leak, but also to send a message to others who might want to challenge both the Raven and his partner, the Salamander. The message was simple; 'face us and face death'.

Salamander glanced at his watch, it was eleven-thirty in the morning. The hustle and bustle of the busy London rush hour had receded several hours earlier and now, there was a serene calm. He folded the newspaper and placed it carefully on the seat next to him. Then he stretched out his long legs and waited. Only a few more moments before the brush past was due to take place. Then, to the moment exactly, there was the contact. The man looked like any other businessman in London on a working day. A smart suit, hair perhaps a little too long for the Salamander's liking, and a briefcase. He sat down, ignoring his fellow bench dweller and watched the small boats moving stoically along the river for a few moments.

“The paper?” asked Trench, muttering out of the side of his mouth and staring straight ahead.

Salamander nodded. “Yes, the paper.”

Trench coughed, picked up his briefcase and his newly acquired copy of The Times and set off on his way, walking briskly against the chill in the air.

Nicely done,
thought Salamander as he watched his contact walk away. Natural and no one had noticed anything. Why would they? To the rest of the world, they were just two businessmen taking a breath of fresh air before returning to offices and meetings and the day-to-day grind of official life. When instead, what they really were, was a traitor and a killer working in tandem.

* * *

An hour later, Trench was sitting in his small hotel room, flicking through the information provided in Salamander's letter.

Trench had caught a brief glimpse of the man's features. He'd been tall, well-groomed – quite unremarkable, really. He could have been any one of a hundred Whitehall mandarins. Trench was none the wiser as to who he actually was, even now. But whoever Salamander was, he must have had excellent sources. The information could only have originated from one location – inside the Secret Intelligence Service.

The files gave all the details they had on his dead contractors and what SIS and the Security Service knew about them. They'd been flagged as having recently been requested from the Registry; nothing recent for some of them, but several had the same access code of 'RSI', which Trench knew stood for 'Research/Secret Intelligence' and could only have come from the Archives Section in Century House, SIS's headquarters.

So someone in Archives?

The second sheet of paper gave a listing of several possible Personnel in the RSI Section. Two had their names highlighted. One man and one woman. Good – that narrowed down the possibilities.

Trench flicked down to the conclusion which had been typed, he assumed, by Salamander himself. The man was a possible, certainly had the access and opportunity on the days when the files had been removed from the Archives. But it was the woman who interested Salamander. He'd checked her background and her tours of duty stretching back over many, many years.

Palestine, injured in the King David Hotel bombing in 1946. Her fiancé had been killed during the initial explosion. After that, she had several overseas tours at various stations, always in the backroom, administration or research, before being given a promotion and becoming part of the Registry Team at Broadway, before SIS had moved to its current location of Century House. But then, several years ago, she'd been part of a team attached to the now-defunct Redaction Unit, under the control of Stephen Masterman. The operational commander had been one Jack 'Gorilla' Grant. By all accounts, the investigation team had been first rate and discovered some exceptional intelligence that had helped the Redaction team to bring down the enemy they were hunting.
Yes,
remembered Trench.
Like that little shoot-out we had in that whorehouse in Marseilles.
But more telling was that in the intervening years, Masterman had personally requested this particular Archivist from RSI to be attached to Redaction for several other operations he was conducting.

It wasn't concrete and he knew it wouldn't stand up in a court of law, good intelligence never does, but at least he had a possible link from his dead contractors, to Grant, to Masterman, to this Archivist possibly acting as a source of information inside SIS. Someone was feeding a hit-team intelligence to take out his men and this was the best lead he had at the moment.

Trench closed the folder and sat in the darkness for a few more moments, thinking. Next he would have to talk to this Archivist and ask her some hard questions. And Frank Trench was good at asking unwilling people hard questions, very good indeed.