He couldn’t help noticing that one of the cars had commenced to rock steadily to a deep, meaningful and possibly immoral musical beat as he looked the girls over hungrily, just as a predator would likely eye its prey. One girl in particular caught his eye. Just the one. There was no point in looking for more. She fitted the bill rather nicely, just over legal age (as far as he could judge in the damn awful light); any older and they tended to be tainted with things that were well, quite beyond imagination.
She quickly noticed he had his eyes on her and deftly removed her wad of gum and stuck it behind an enormous two-part dangling earring, no doubt worn especially for that purpose, he thought. Then she put her left hand on her hip and the other hand went behind her neck and flipped her short ponytail in acknowledgement of his interest. As he approached her, she moved to meet him, breathing deeply; so deeply as to inflate her chest to near bursting point.
Ah! His mood changed quickly now. Things were definitely ‘on the up’ he thought, somewhat foolishly, as it later proved, but he wasn’t to know that at the time!
As she closed in, he put out a hand and touched her arm. She responded by moving in closer and looking up into his face with her eyelashes batting furiously. He was about to say something innocuous and jocular, or plain stupid, (like do you take Mastercard?); when he was suddenly aware of a large man looming out of the darkness and bearing down on them. He quickly noticed the man was wearing a heavy expensive-looking overcoat, silk scarf and bright bow tie. He appeared to be annoyed for some reason and was pointing at him with bejewelled, pudgy fingers. For a moment there, TJ thought he was looking at a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arthur Daley. He quickly and ruefully sensed he was on the verge of ‘a bit of a downer’.
The man stopped short, clicked his fingers and pointed the forefinger of his right hand at TJ and a companion came forward out of the darkness, one arm raised, holding aloft something dark and heavy and brought, whatever it was, crashing down on TJ’s head! It all happened surprisingly quickly. There was no time. Just no time at all, to duck, or weave or yell, or run! The ‘something’ hit him hard: something that instantly put out the light! Something that ended all sound. Something that put an end to all feeling. No pain… no nothing… just lots and lots of nothing.
He awoke later, slowly, very slowly, with a mouth as dry as a sea biscuit and a Titanic size headache! How long he’d been out, he had absolutely no idea, but it was to the deafening sound of something or somebody pulling an anchor chain in one ear and out the other. Backwards and forwards; backwards and forwards.
What TJ really wanted was to slip back to the warming arms of unconsciousness, but it was not to be. For a start, it was patently obvious that he was travelling, bumping along inside some kind of a vehicle? Constrained inside something small, much too small for comfort! Rocking and bumping along in total darkness. He sniffed once or twice, trying to make sense of the various smells he could detect. There was the clear, strong, rubbery car-tyre smell and the subtle but distinctive smell of a mixture of PVC and leather that goes with cars in the
upper price bracket; plus a trace of stale cigar smoke. He was obviously in the boot of a car, a posh car too, travelling in some style, even if he wasn’t enjoying the trip.
But how, why? He struggled to remember what had happened? Slowly it all came back to him in a mixture of jumbled bits and pieces. Then he managed to reassemble them in order: the dark, the light, the girl… and… then Mr Big. Oh, yes! Mr Bloody Big and his violent, bulldozer like, companion. But why? Why had they mangled his body? Presumably because the girl was deemed ‘spoken for’? Could that be it? Painfully and with some difficulty he felt his wrists, his arms, his legs and was surprised, more than pleased, to find he was unshackled. Now why was that?
TJ cursed the fact that quite recently having suffered a rather severe sore throat, he’d given up smoking. Oh, what he wouldn’t give right now for a cigarette lighter! Never mind. He was beginning to think a lot more clearly and began to move his limbs in turn; what little he could, in order to stimulate the blood flow. As far as he could make out, he was in reasonable physical condition, excluding the sore head with the anchor chain. He could possibly run for it, should the opportunity present itself. Things were looking up! But he certainly needed to put together some sort of plan, a possible course of action, ready for when ‘Beefcake’, the driver, eventually stopped the car and opened the boot!
The thought did occur that it was perhaps possible he had been put in the boot unshackled precisely because ‘Beefcake’ thought he was severely injured and still unconscious, if not dead! If that was the case, then ‘Beefcake’ could be driving around looking for a place to dump a body! Where was the best place to do that in Lowestoft? Why, in the sea! Of course, it sure beats the hell out of digging and where was the best place to dump a body in the sea unobserved? Off a cliff.
He though he must only have a few minutes left to put a plan of escape together and he was right. The car was definitely slowing, then it was slipping and bumping somewhat roughly, as you do when driving across grass.
The car stopped, reversed, then began backing up. It stopped again. A door opened. He heard the muffled sound of footsteps on grass. Then, he heard a key being inserted in the boot lock, being twisted and then the boot lid began to silently pop up.
TJ had, somewhat miraculously, found that he could get a firm grip on a metal strut, one that reinforced the boot lid and to hold the liner in place. He was holding it now and he did not resist at all as the lid went up. But as ‘Beefcake’ leant into the boot, TJ pulled the lid violently down, then let it go. As the lid flew back up he grabbed the dazed ‘Beefcake’ by the throat using both hands and squeezed, for all his might, for what seemed like an age before he dared let go. Then he threw ‘Beefcake’ backwards, flat on the grass, where he lay; deathly still!
What next? He didn’t know. He hadn’t had time to think that far ahead.
Observing that ‘Beefcake’ was still lying face up and motionless, either severely winded, unconscious, or dead; TJ climbed out of the boot and began flailing his arms around and doing a few knees-bends, to ease his stiffness. He could see now, by what little light there was, that the car had stopped but a few feet from the cliff edge, as he had imagined it would. He could hear the sound of the sea below and reasoned that it was probably high tide too! He shuddered at the thought of what could have happened to him, if he had not managed to gain the upper hand!
Somewhat angrily, he bent down and grabbed the hapless and unconscious ‘Beefcake’ by the shoulders. He pulled him up, not without difficulty, until he was standing on his feet. Then he turned him around to face the sea. He held him like that, at arm’s length, for a moment or two, then booted him in the backside as hard as he could, out and over the edge! Immediately he regretted doing that, but as he heard no splash and could see nothing, he could only hope ‘Beefcake’ had landed somewhere dry and hopefully, still in one piece; which in all fairness he thought, was about as much as he deserved! But he could be dead! He turned and walked back to the car. Things were still pretty bad. He’d never been more ‘down’ than this!
He found a torch in the glove box. Knowing that cars of this quality often came with built-in tool kits, though why he never understood, since the owners of such vehicles usually couldn’t even fathom how to remove and empty the ashtrays. He searched until he found it tucked away under the passenger seat. Then he quickly removed the number plates, tax disk and tossed them over the cliff too, together with a few odd personal items from the glove box. Making sure the interior of the car was perfectly clean without any trace of the owner or driver; he checked the boot; taking particular care to remove a few spots of his own blood by spitting on it and rubbing it off with his handkerchief. Then he started the car up and slowly drove away from the cliff, towards the main road.
He could think of only two places that would pay cash for a
car like this without asking too many questions. There was Happy Hank’s Coachworks in Gt. Yarmouth. They turned out recycled cars by the dozen every week, but he didn’t fancy going that far. There was Benny’s Auto Wreckers, a man known to do the odd bit of dodgy car trading now and then if there was good money in it. His small breakers yard was out Beccles way, near the old war-time Ellough Aerodrome, a place that looked like it was an old aircraft hanger and probably was. Living on site, Benny was likely to be more amenable to doing business at odd times of the day or night. He could easily swap around a few bits off similar cars he’d wrecked; just enough to cause general doubt as to the cars true origin and run it down to London, quick smart! So that was where he went and came away with five thousand smackers in his hot little hand. Only a fraction of what the car would fetch in London, but reasonable enough compensation for his pain and suffering. Things were definitely back ‘on the up’ again!
What do you do when you’ve experienced such a shockingly stressful night, eh? But go home to Mum for a quiet cuppa and a bite to eat. ‘Here, what have you been up to?’ she asked. ‘What have you done to your head?’
‘I got hit by the boom when we was unloading the ship, Mum. It happens all the time and yesterday just happened to be my turn, that’s all.’
‘Oh, well. Have you been down to the shipping office today?’
‘No, why?’
‘Well, they’ve been looking for you, haven’t they? It seems the man who was filling in while you had time ashore has been and written himself off in a blooming car accident of some sort. They wanted to know if you’d be interested in another trip – extra pay, the man said, for the inconvenience, like.’
‘Sailing when?’
‘Tomorrow night.’
‘Where to?’
‘Amsterdam.’
‘You bloody bewdy!’ he exclaimed, excitedly.
‘Hey! Watch them swear words, son. I don’t know where you get them from.’
‘Well Mum, you see, we’ve got this Australian parrot on board.’
‘I don’t want to know. I have enough trouble over the years keeping your father’s mouth clean. So you’re going to take it then, the job - are you?’
‘Yes. Yes, Mum. I’d better go.’ TJ moved quickly to the door.
‘Have you got clean undies to take?’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘Clean socks?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ he answered as he moved out the door and into the street.
His Mum came to the door, ‘And none of that “window shopping” in Amsterdam, right?’
‘What?’ He called back.
‘You heard. You know alright, them tarts! None of that window shopping for tarts in Amsterdam!’
‘Who? Me? No, Mum. No, no way.’
‘And none of them there “uppers and downers” thingies neither.’
‘Oh, no, no Mum. I reckon I’ve had enough “uppers and downers” of one sort or another to last me a lifetime. Bye!’
He heard the door close, and quickened his step. Farther down the road and well out of his mother’s earshot, he jumped in the air, clicking his heels in delight and excitedly cried ‘Yeah! Amsterdam, you bloody bewdy! Here I come: Whoooooeeee!’
CHAPTER 3
THE SECRET SERVICE
Ring! Ring! Ring!
‘Hello? Brian Blazer.’
‘Catch 249.’
‘You what? Oh, (recognising the secret call sign), er…is, is that really you Boss, Sir? I mean you can’t want me, right? You’re kidding, or simply dialled the wrong number perhaps.’
‘Wrong! No kidding, 249.’
‘But I’ve been retired for nearly 10 years now. What the heck’s happened?’
‘Wiki-Leaks, that’s what’s happened.’
‘But as I said, I’m retired now. I’ve got nothing to do with all that spy stuff anymore.’
‘Shssss! You think so? Listen, son, I’m calling you just the once. Once only and then you are on your own. The word is: if you want to live, get out of town, right NOW! Got it?’
‘But I can’t do that!’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘I can’t! Not just like that. It’s a ridiculous suggestion.’
‘Listen, those bastard SWERVE people are on the way to get you, torture you, then most likely kill you.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘I’m not into playing games, my friend. This is deadly serious. If you don’t cooperate and even though you were at one time my deputy; I may well volunteer to do the job for them, because you know things. Things we would never, never, let SWERVE get their hands on. Right?’
‘You don’t really mean that?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, I’ve at least got to go home and get my things.’
‘No.’
‘No? What do you mean no?’
‘No house to go home to. No things either.’
‘What!’ What happened?’
‘Your house blew up suddenly this morning. A gas leak, or so the story goes. Anyway, the house is all gone, completely and everything in it has gone too. We made quite sure of that.’
‘You did what!?’
‘Of course we did. A nice, well controlled explosion is the fastest way to destroy things we don’t want the world to know about. You should know that. You wrote it! I seem to remember you putting it into action more than once.’
‘Yes, but that sort of tactic wasn’t ever applied to staff members or ex-staff members.’
‘No. That’s true, but we never had to face Wiki-Leaks before, did we?’
‘What’s so bad about Wiki-Leaks then?’
‘Well, they have not only released masses of our previously Top Secret files, but even worse, they have released our entire staff list too; from 1942, right through to the current day!’
‘Oh, no.’
‘The first people the other side will be chasing will be...’
‘I know: those who worked on Top Secret stuff like, the Nuclear Smart Bomb.’
‘Yes. But they’ll also be chasing our current and retired agents who had a hand in knocking off some of their best agents.’
‘So I score twice then.’
‘Sorry. More like three times, because they will be particularly interested in our retired agents who are known to be drafting their memoirs.’
‘Oh...’
‘Oh, indeed. Now hurry up and make up your mind! We’re kept more than a bit short of staff, these days.’
‘In that case, since I have no home, no personal effects let alone a wife or children, I suggest you let me re-join you, temporarily, in this time of great need. I mean, I still know who’s who and what’s what.’
‘Hmmm, that’s not a bad idea, 249.’
‘Think about it.’
‘I have. You’re a temporary member as of now! There’s a briefing of all Agents, usual place, 5 pm. Be there.’
‘Ok.’
***********************************************
‘What happened, 249?,’ asked Big Boss. ‘You’ve only been back here a few weeks and they tell me the pressure is off all ready.’
‘Oh, sorry I haven’t been in touch, Boss. It’s been such a huge pressure job with you being overseas, where was it? US, UK, EU?’
‘That and more.’
‘Right. Well, I gave instructions that all paper work and phone calls were kept to an absolute minimum, until this problem had been overcome. I thought it better to wait and brief you verbally.’
‘Good thinking. So?’
‘So I made it known I was organizing a conference with compulsory attendance by all our Agents. Unfortunately, the usual city main venues where booked out. So we went down to one of your private country residences, the one near Canberra. Remote, quiet, plenty of accommodation and stacks of security. You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No, no, good thinking. Great idea.’
‘Anyway, I made
it known that security must be kept at top level, as we would be going through a long list of Top Secret material, which must be safeguarded by every means possible. Then, because some of us were known to be being followed by SWERVE agents, I authorised all staff to use cabs rather than official cars, not booked in advance, but cabs hailed at random on the street.’
‘Good. Good.’
‘Then I made sure a couple of my men deliberately left a briefcase in one cab and a laptop computer in another and I suspended them. I made a big, public, fuss about it. It was in all the National and State newspapers and on TV.’