The Storm Protocol (30 page)

He looked at me and then looked at the weapon, and then back to me again, before handing it over reluctantly.

‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’ he asked.

I
stared at him for a second, but didn’t answer. I ejected the spent clips and loaded another two with venom. I walked into the ruined house, through the gap where the rear door had been. Continuing on into the sitting room, I noticed that the couch was completely and miraculously untouched. The centre of the house had taken the worst of the blast. There was no ceiling anymore, and I could see all the way to the sky.

I marched into the hallway and kicked the front door cleanly off its hinges. The crash as it hit the pavement startled the three men into silence. They had been laughing, joking and high-fiving only seconds earlier. One of them actually swallowed hard as he saw me.

‘That was my mother's house,’ I said, loudly and distinctly.

One of them tried to bring up the muzzle of his gun. A single shot took him down. As the other two tried to bring up their weapons, I fired with left and right hands, not stopping until both weapons clicked on empty chambers.

‘That was my mother’s house,’ I whispered to their prone bodies.

All those memories and ghosts destroyed
, before I had a chance to face them. Somebody was going to pay dearly for this.

I walked back into the house and made a very brief search of the ground floor. There was no sign of the agent. Maybe a good thing; maybe he survived.

Foster and Roussel joined me in the ruins of the sitting room. I spotted what I wanted and pulled the holdall out from under some wreckage. I extracted the rest of the guns and ammunition from their place of concealment in the couch, zipped up the bag and threw it over my shoulder. I didn't wait to see if the guys were following me; to be honest I didn't really care.

At the spot where the three guys lay dead
, I turned and glanced back at the ramshackle ruin. I was only vaguely aware of Foster and Roussel either side of me. When Roussel patted me on the shoulder, I looked at him.

‘That was my Mother’s house,’ I said, as if it would answer all his unspoken questions.

‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘We need to get out of here.’

We rounded the corner briskly and onto the main road
, just as the first squad car went tearing in, sirens wailing.

I waited until we had got about a kilometre away. We stopped and sat on a low stone wall to get our breath back. We had been moving fairly briskly.

‘Gun please,’ I said to Foster, holding out my hand.

He hesitated.

‘Have it your way,’ I said.

I took another gun from the bag and thrust it into the hand of a surprised Roussel. I dropped the bag of weapons on the floor in front of me and put my hands up theatrically.

‘You win, you got me. I’ll go quietly. I won’t cause any trouble.’

Foster studied me evenly for a minute or so.

‘And what if we don’t want that?’ he asked. ‘What's the alternative?’

‘How about we pool our resources; find out about this
Storm
. Find out who’s trying to kill us. Find out who blew up my mother's house and kill them all.’

Roussel and Foster exchanged a look. They seemed to come to a decision, and as one, wordlessly handed their weapons back. I smiled humou
rlessly; I wasn't feeling amused.

‘Let’s find out who these fuckers are?’

18
th
May 2011 – Eight days after the Storm.

Repression will provoke rebellion. – Hugh Williamson.

The sweat dripped down his nose and formed a large tear shaped bubble. Ordinarily, it would annoy him intensely, but when he was on the exercise bike, he didn't even notice it. When he was in the zone, nothing mattered.

Exercise was his leveller. It was his drug, his weapon of choice in the fight against stress and modern life.

He was acclimatised to the political bullshit at work; the constant schmoozing of colleagues and peers, knowing who to talk to and when to talk to them. So it always felt brilliant to expend the maximum effort on honest endeavour, a cleansing of the soul. It also gave him pause to think, to neatly order his thoughts for the coming day.

His thigh muscles and calf muscles begged for mercy
, but his response to their inadequacy was to push them harder. Eighteen point six km; he wasn’t anywhere near finished yet.

He was work
ing more intensely this morning; there was always a reason. He was annoyed and pissed off. He always pushed harder when he was irritated with himself; it was a punishment of sorts.

The problem was that Ray had let Foster get under his skin. Dale had a way of doing that with people.

He glanced at the odometer on the bike. Nineteen km and his body really wanted to stop now; was literally screaming for mercy. No fucking way. He pushed harder and the units started counting down; nineteen point two, nineteen point four.

So how had Dale got under his skin? Ray had given him every chance
, and backed him to the hilt on his first big operation, but things hadn’t worked out as they should have. Everyone had told Ray, that as a boss, he hadn’t been unreasonable. Even Dale told him out straight. He would have expected nothing less than the severe reprimand and permanent mark on his record that he ultimately received.

After the latest
report
; Ray had not surprisingly over-reacted, and when he’d told him to take a two week vacation, he’d been surprised at how easily Dale had surrendered. Instead of the normal histrionics, Dale had given him resigned acceptance; like a dog that has had the fight kicked out of it.

So why would that bother him? Why had he found it so hard to sleep last night? Why was he awake at four am, with his hands tensing into fists involuntarily?

It wasn’t that Dale was even a likeable guy. He had no social skills and got on people’s nerves. He rubbed them up the wrong way, and yet there was a small character trait that made you like him despite everything.

Ray’s father used to tell him that the truth was the moral barometer of a man. If his father knew he had been lying or deliberately misleading, he always gave Ray the opportunity to redeem himself; the truth will
always
set you free. And that’s what it was with Dale; a single-minded, relentless pursuit of the truth.

The exercise bike bleeped twice to tell him his assigned distance was complete. He pushed his legs harder for another kilometre
, just to prove to himself that he could do it. He eased his tired limbs to a stop and grunted in satisfaction, as he checked his heart rate monitor.

He slid off the bike, and as he did so, he took the plain white towel from around his neck and vigorously rubbed the sweat from his face and his torso. He always exercised in just a pair of shorts. He didn't see the point in adding to the burden of washing, especially
in his home gym.

Aside from the exercise bike, there were only two other pieces of equipment in the room. It was quiet and austere
, with plain wooden floors and whitewashed walls. There were no TVs and no stereos; no distractions.

The last couple of conversa
tions about Dale had shaken him; he didn't mind admitting it to himself. To a certain extent, he had let his ego become a diversion. The truth had got lost and gone astray. He’d allowed the personal dressing-down he’d got from his own senior management to get in the way. He didn’t like that. Since when had Ray Fox let his ego get in front of earnest endeavour and truth?

He thought back to the conversation he’d had with Dodds. Pairing them up had been a gamble. He couldn't imagine two agents less likely to strike up a partnership, but Dodds was approaching retirement and Dale had needed a bit of a toning down.
They were both unassigned, so he’d brought them together. Even though all of his motivation had not been benign, he’d been pleased and surprised at how protective Dodds had become towards his partner.

He punched the keypad on the rowing machine in front of him; the only piece of electronics in the room. The screen lit up, displaying a stylised icon of him in a canoe
, next to two other boats. He always set it for the same speed; one below the maximum. He knew it was achievable and he never wanted to fail.

As he rowed, he tried to clear his mind, but the images kept coming back. The questions were haunting him, because deep in the recesses of his mind, the
eager field agent that he concealed under the
special agent in charge
veneer had the distinct feeling that something was not right.

Dodds
’ barbed words had hurt him too. He didn't think he was that far removed from the street. He glanced at the screen; he was halfway there and just ahead. The second half was always harder; a metaphor for life.

Everything about the evidence as it had been presented to him was circumstantial. The informants, the name of the drug, the place, the link to the Mancini’s; not a shred of it would stand up to even a mild cross examination in court. But that wasn't what had pressed his hazard lights.

He glanced at the screen again; the finish line was in sight and he was thinking too much. He had dropped way behind. He bunched his muscles and pulled with renewed vigour. He inched back into contention, but was beaten across the line by inches. He sat back and allowed his breathing to regularise. The problem must have been bothering him more than he’d thought; he had never lost before. He sprung up and roughly towelled himself down.

H
eading up the stairs from the basement, he was passing the front door on the way to the kitchen, when he was startled by the loud pealing of the Westminster chimes. Ray’s wife was a bit of an anglophile, but personally, he hated that particular ring.

He threw open the door
, to find Dodds standing on the doorstep, with his finger poised over the Bell.

‘Don't,’ said Ray.

Dodds blinked, and then blushed and looked away.

‘Never seen a man in shorts before?’ asked Ray.

‘Seen plenty of them,’ answered Dodds.

Ray glared at him for a second and Dodds muttered an apology.

‘Coffee?’

Dodds nodded, and then realised his boss had already gone. Dodds was unsure if it had been an invitation or a statement. In his
defence, he could argue that the boss had left the door open.

He pushed it further ajar and stepped into the house. It was light, airy and modern; uncluttered was the brochure word, and exactly as he had imagined
his boss’s house would look. He was just about to guess which door, when he heard the shout.

‘Are you coming or what?’

He followed the sound, his footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. The hall was strangely homely, but as he pushed open the door at the end, he was greeted by a sea of white, high-gloss kitchen cupboards and a huge white island unit, with built-in breakfast bar. It was stark and a bit too clinical for his taste.

A mug already sat steaming above a comfortable leather-finished bar stool.
He sat and sipped, as his boss banged around in some large open drawers, eventually holding the can opener triumphantly aloft. Dodds peered at the label on the can, as Ray opened the tin with practised ease.

‘Baked b
eans,’ stated Dodds, squinting hard.

‘Not just any baked beans,’ said Ray. ‘These are Heinz baked beans. Got a taste for them as a student in London; been hooked ever since.’

He pushed a fork over to Dodds.

‘You wanna try some?’

‘Yeah, not bad,’ said Dodds. ‘But you do know Heinz is an American corporation?’

‘You’re kidding!’ said Ray.

‘I jest not,’ said Dodds, in amusement.

‘
So, how did you find out where I lived?’ asked Ray eventually, through a mouthful of beans.

‘I’m an investigator b
oss, what can I say,’ replied Dodds.

Ray looked at him gravely and then his face cracked into a smile.

‘Good answer,’ he said.

Behind Dodds
, a clock chimed and a cuckoo leapt out, making him jump in his seat. Seven thirty in the morning. He glanced at his boss and his state of undress. It probably was a little bit early to make a house call.

He looked behind
him and studied the clock. It was incongruous against the swish, stylishly modern interiors in the rest of the kitchen. It didn't belong.

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Ray, following the direction of his gaze
, and the unspoken question. ‘People wonder why I put that up. Well, it was given to me by my grandfather. He brought it back from Switzerland, or maybe it was Austria; a parting gift to himself when he left Europe at the end of the hostilities. I loved that clock as a kid; never missed a day winding it and it's incredibly accurate, as you can see.’

Dodds compared t
he time on his BlackBerry. The boss was right.

‘So
, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this,’ stated Ray.

He walked over to the clock and fiddled underneath it. Dodds could see that there was a key hanging
beneath it on a hook.

‘You and me both then,’
responded Dodds.

‘The one thing that doesn't ring true for me,’ said Ray
, as he turned the key methodically. ‘The one thing that switched my radar from circumstantial to clear and present danger....’

‘The call from the CIA,’ finished Dodds.

‘How did you know?’ asked Ray.

‘Cause I’ve been wrestling with the same conundrum,’ said Dodds. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he can make some howling mistakes, and when he makes an error
, he can get it seriously fucking wrong. But in this case, I think he got it right.’

‘I think so too,’ said Ray. ‘And by the way, that comment stung. I’m not that far removed from the street you know?’

‘Just trying to get your attention,’ replied Dodds. ‘No offense.’

‘Well, you got my attention,’ said Ray, ‘and incidentally
, so did Dale. But the question remains, what do we do?’

‘He rang me yesterday,’ answered
Dodds, expecting a backlash.

The answer he got surprised him.

‘Yeah, we need to have something for him,’ said Ray. ‘Hopefully, he’ll work with us and give us anything he has too.’

Ray threw his plate and mug into the sink.

‘Listen, I’m going to grab a shower now. I’ll meet you back in the office. If there are any developments in the meantime, give me a shout.’

Dodds realised he was being dismissed.

‘Thanks for the coffee, boss,’ he said.

‘Anytime,’ said Ray distractedly.

#

Afternoon; Dodds was finding it very difficult to focus. If someone had asked him whether Dale had made any difference to his professional life
, he would have said no, but it appeared that Dale had more influence on him than he’d realised.

Thinking back, it was always Dale that did the organising. It wasn’t that Dodds was lazy or stupid; he was more than capable, it was just that Dale preferred to do it. He had a methodology, a system, and in fairness to Dale, it had worked well for both of them.

Dodds opened his top drawer and the packet of cigarettes stared back at him. He was trying to quit, or cut back at the very least. He was debating the relative merits of will power, when the red light blinked on his phone and the buzzer sounded. He picked it up.

‘Hey Sandy,’ he said.

‘Boss wants you in the office now,’ she said. ‘He sounds quite flustered.’

Dodds glanced up to see the boss beckoning him energetically. He walked briskly across.

‘You are not going to believe this,’ said Ray under his breath. He had his headset on and un-muted the microphone.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting sir, I’m just heading back to my office now.’

He motioned for Dodds to step in and close the door.

He moved back around behind his desk. He switched his conference phone into speaker mode
, but kept the microphone audio routed through his headset, so that Dodds could listen but could not say anything. Ray scribbled something on his pad, and passed it across to Dodds. It said
Director of the CIA
. Dodds raised his eyebrows and then scribbled back,
you’re kidding me
. Ray shook his head.