Veil of Civility: A Black Shuck Thriller (Declan McIver Series) (57 page)

"Please don't kill me," the man said, as Declan motioned for him to exit the Land Rover. Beads of sweat rolled down his narrow face and his hands shook as he held them up, palms open. "I haven't done anything to you."

Declan could tell by the way Lane Simard's eyes were locked on him as he pushed open the door that the man recognized him. He lowered the pistol as Simard exited the vehicle and it became evident that he was unarmed.

"I'm not going to kill you," Declan said, "but that's more than I can say for those commandos that were chasing you."

He quickly patted Simard down for any weapons he might have hidden and then pushed the man forward along the gravel driveway towards the farmhouse, staying several feet behind him in case the veteran CIA man decided to try an attack. While the man's fear seemed to be genuine, Declan was sure that the agency training in deception was top notch.

"I need to get to London," Simard said, turning partially around as he pleaded. "My family was supposed to be here by now and they haven't shown up. I need to know they're alright."

Declan didn't respond. He wanted to but he didn't know exactly what to say. He knew all about concern for his family and Simard's role in threatening them would determine whether or not he had any sympathy for the man's plight. He waved Simard on and they got to the front of the house as Allardyce and Gordon were helping Shane around towards the front door.

"Lord Allardyce?" Simard said, as he took note of the three men.

"Mr. Simard," Allardyce said, with a grimace.

Simard stopped walking and turned, looking between Declan and Allardyce. "What's going on here?"

"We'll be the ones asking the questions, Mr. Simard," Allardyce said. "Now get inside."

"I'm not going anywhere until someone—"

Declan grabbed the CIA man by the shoulders and shoved him through the front door. As the man recoiled and attempted to throw a right-handed hook, Declan effortlessly blocked the punch and drove his fist into the man's stomach. "That's for helping to set me up," he said, as Simard collapsed to the floor and struggled to draw breath. "Your answers to my questions will determine just how much more pain I inflict on you."

"Setting you up?" coughed Simard. "You murdered dozens!"

Declan jerked him upwards by the collar and shoved him through the kitchen and into the farmhouse's living area where he pushed him into an armchair. "We both know I've never murdered anyone. Now I suggest you start talking or what those goons lying dead out the back had planned for you is going to look like a walk in the park!"

"Steady, now," Allardyce said, as he and Gordon helped Shane onto a sofa. "He may not have had anything to do with setting you up. Requests made to the Committee follow a strict procedure, which he adhered to. I'm not sure how things work on the other side of the Atlantic, but I'm sure Mr. Simard will tell us all about it."

"I'm not telling anyone anything until I know my family's safe! I have a wife and two boys en route from London!"

"And my wife and I have been on the run from assassins and the police agencies on two continents for a week!" Declan said. "So far you're not tripping my sympathy meter."

"'Please, everyone, calm down," Allardyce said, as he stepped between Declan and Simard, his eyes moving between both men. "Now, Mr. Simard, we have as much interest in your family's safety as you do. We haven't done anything to harm them and we never would. Why don't you take a deep breath and then tell us what's happened here tonight versus what was supposed to happen."

Simard's eyes bored into Declan for a moment. "I'm here for a vacation with my family. I arrived early, as I always do, for security reasons and all. My family was supposed to arrive after my boys were done with their weekend football games. They've never shown up."

"And who were the men chasing you?" Allardyce asked.

"I don't know. I saw a pair of headlights coming down the drive, assumed it was my family, and the next thing I know the agent that was positioned outside came running through the door followed by those men, who then shot him. Another agent and I ran upstairs but they followed too quickly for us to get away. They killed him and moved me to the back room there," Simard said, nodding his head towards the dining room. "They said they'd called in London for me and had been told I wasn't home. They were about to kill me when another vehicle came to a stop outside. They were distracted so I took the opportunity to run."

"That would have been us arriving," Allardyce said, looking at Declan. "Sounds like we arrived in the nick of time. What happened then?"

"I ran out the back door and they chased me. I lost them when I doubled back around the hedge surrounding the horse barn. That's when I tried to leave and this damn terrorist caught me."

"He's not a terrorist, at least not anymore," Allardyce said. "From the sound of it, you two have a lot in common. Assassins have come several times for him in the last few days, too. Luckily his experiences in life have helped him stay alive. Now you're telling me that you have no idea who those men were or who could have sent them after you? They simply showed up here, in a house that you don't own and where no one should have known to look for you, to kill you?"

Simard stayed silent for a moment, his eyes darting around the floor as he apparently thought over the entire situation. "Kemiss," he finally said, "that son of a bitch."

"Who's Kemiss?" Declan asked.

Simard looked up. "Senator David Kemiss, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the United States."

"Jesus," Shane said from the sofa, where Gordon was helping him keep pressure on the gunshot wound near the top of his knee, "a bloody politician?"

"He called me earlier this afternoon and said he had sent a gift to my London residence to thank me for helping him get information on you. He asked to forward it here and a few hours later those men showed up. That son of a bitch, he tried to have me killed."

"So he sent those men to kill you because you knew who he was, because he'd asked you directly to get information from Her Majesty's government?" Allardyce asked. “Information that he then released to the press."

Simard nodded. "Yes. I met with him at his request earlier this week while I was in Washington for some meetings. In my position you don't say no to someone who sits on the Intelligence Committee without a damn good reason. He said he'd been asked to help by someone in the Richmond Field Office of the FBI."

"Castellano worked in the Richmond Field Office," Declan said. "He's the lead investigator that led me into the ambush by Baktayev's men while he was supposedly transporting me to jail."

"The same one they accused you of killing?" Allardyce asked.

Declan nodded. "He was shot during the initial ambush. I tried to save him, but I couldn't. He died behind a dumpster where we were both ducking for cover."

"Why would a sitting politician in the United States want to help a Russian terrorist commit an atrocity against his own country?" Allardyce asked, though it was apparent from the look on his face that the question wasn't directed at anyone in particular.

"I think we need to ask him," Declan said.

"Please," Simard said loudly. "I need to find out if my family has been harmed!"

"Get the man a phone," Allardyce said. "He's earned it."

"They're okay," Simard said, as he hung up the phone. His voice cracked as he spoke. "They never left London. My youngest boy had an asthma attack during ball practice. My wife's been at the doctor with him and they've been trying to reach me. But they're okay."

Declan, Allardyce, Gordon and Shane were now seated around the dining table and nodded their approval.

"I thought for sure those men had shown up at my house and that my family was dead," Simard said, as he took a seat at the table and handed Shane's phone back to him. "I don't ever want to feel like that again."

"The feeling like you'd do anything to have them back. To undo all the wrong you'd done in your life and suffer the worst fate imaginable just so they could go on living. I know all about it," Declan said.

Simard looked down and nodded, examining his hands which were now folded in front of him on the table. "I uhh...I don't know anything about what's happened to you. I'm sorry."

Declan nodded though the words were of little comfort.

"I don't wish the feelings I was having moments ago on anyone," Simard said, "but I don't understand. I was told that you were a terrorist and that you had set up the entire attack against Kafni using your influence as a member of his security detail. Now you all are telling me that all of it was a lie?"

Everyone at the table nodded. Allardyce was first to speak. "A damned lie, apparently, and I'm sorry for the role I played in allowing it to be perpetuated. Had Mr. McIver not had the courage to come to me and explain the situation, despite the intense danger he faced, I'm afraid he'd be dead by now and our American cousins would never know about the horror that was about to befall them."

"They still don't know," Declan said.

"That's true," Allardyce said, with a grimace.

Simard looked from person to person as if he was expecting someone to elaborate. When no one did, he said, "I'm sorry, but how do you all know any of this is true? I saw the files the Security Service has on this man. He has a list of terrorist offenses as long as my arm!"

"If you'd bothered to read that file," Shane charged, "then you'd know that Declan was never actually convicted or even arrested for anything! Was he involved with the Troubles? Aye, just as me and a significant part of the population in Northern Ireland were. Those were terrible times that you can't even begin to understand unless you lived through it."

"Shane, it's grand, it's grand," Declan said holding up his hands. "He's asking the same question that you or I would have if we'd just met me in this current situation."

Shane ceded the point with a wave of his hand, but finished with, "Declan's never turned his gun on anyone that wasn't a thieving, raping, murdering, madman!"

"And what of this Black Shuck thing?" Simard continued. "An attack on London designed to bring down the city's infrastructure, assassinate and kidnap its leaders and throw the entire British society into disaster?"

"Black Shuck," Shane said, "was a planned operation that never materialized, in large part because Declan McIver had a change of heart and helped to stop it before we all took a nose dive into a very dark abyss that would have plunged Northern Ireland into a cycle of violence that it never would have returned from!"

"Enough!" Allardyce said, pounding his fist on the table. "While Mr. McIver's past certainly holds things that we may all, understandably, take issue with, the point is that it was a very long time ago under extremely dubious circumstances. As part of the British government in Northern Ireland during those days I can honestly say that we weren't always the upstanding men we claimed to be either. Today, right now, is what we are concerned with. My country has been used to obtain information on this man under false pretenses so that this Senator Kemiss could vilify him in the media and frame him for murder. The very fact that Kemiss sent assassins to kill you, Mr. Simard, should be evidence enough for you that what Declan McIver is saying is true. He has been framed for crimes he didn't commit to cover up the real intentions of Kemiss and whoever is working with him. Am I correct?"

Simard nodded slowly.

"Good. Then let's dispense with this argument and get on with what we're going to do about this. Somehow the Americans have to be warned that Kemiss, for whatever reason, is using this Chechen, this Ruslan Baktayev, to accomplish a heinous terror attack that would make September 11
th
and July 7
th
look like a dress rehearsal."

"With all due respect, Lord Allardyce," Simard said, "David Kemiss is an experienced and calculating professional politician. I guarantee that he's covered his tracks extremely well. Even with the political clout you have as a member of the House of Lords, no one in the American government is going to believe the word of someone who has been tried and convicted as a terrorist, even if it's only in the court of public opinion, without a lengthy investigation. And from what you're all telling me, there isn't time for that."

"No, there's not," Declan said. "Baktayev could be unleashed at any moment. In fact I suspect the only reason he hasn't already been is because Kemiss has been trying to make sure he has all the loose ends tied up beforehand." He pointed his thumb at himself and then at Simard.

"Then we have to do this ourselves," Shane said, with a nod towards Declan. "Just like
Vympel
taught us all those years ago, find a weakness and apply pressure. Get him to confess what he's done. Get him to tout on everyone else involved and stop this thing before it happens."

"I don't want to be the naysayer here," Simard said, "but even if you can get to him and force him to confess, it still won't prevent the need for an investigation before anyone in the U.S. will act. A confession made under any kind of duress is not admissible in our courts and will not convince the government to act, especially when it's a seasoned member of their own exclusive club that they'd be acting against."