“You have to earn his release, Mr Jarvis,” said the man.
“What do you want me to do?”
The man stood and folded both his two newspapers together.
“This place is a bit crowded, don’t you think? Let’s take a stroll round the lake while we talk.”
“Shit!” shouted Nick from the Ops. Room. “We were picking all that up quite nicely, and now they’ve wandered off and we shall never know what’s going on.”
“There’s no way Miller or anyone else, will ever be able to hear what they say,” said Clayton. “Bugger it!”
He thought for a minute.
“We’ll have to double up the watch on Jarvis now,” he concluded. “We simply can’t afford to lose track of him.”
“I’ll get that organised,” said Nick. “We’ll have to use chaps he might recognise, but we can’t help that. Let’s hope he will be too pre-occupied to notice.”
“Tell Miller when you get a chance,” said ‘S’. “But I want him in charge.”
***
Miller knew that the office would have lost touch with Jarvis and his contact as soon as they moved away from the bridge. He also realised that it was now more important than ever to keep close to Jarvis, a job not made any easier by the fact that he was operating on his own.
He called the Ops. Room to let them know that he was still in visual contact. He followed the pair at a safe distance, and could tell that Jarvis was listening intently to whatever it was the Russian was saying. At one point, the Russian handed something to Jarvis. Something small. Not a package, but small, like a coin. A key, perhaps? Miller couldn’t think what else it might be, so called Clerkenwell again. He had managed to get a photo of the hand-over, but only from behind them, and not close enough to be able to tell what it was. Eventually, having circled the top half of the lake and crossed the bridge again, they parted company at the tea-room. The Russian went inside, and Jarvis walked on, quickening his pace.
‘Now what?’ wondered Miller.
He did not have long to wonder. Jarvis headed straight for St. James’s Park underground station. Miller knew his mobile phone, however sophisticated, would not work underground on the Tube, so he quickly got through to the Ops. Room before he went in to the station entrance. “Jarvis is buying a ticket,” he reported. “Now going down to the westbound platform. Keep the line open.”
He dashed to the ticket office, barged in at the head of the queue, and flashed his pass to the bewildered booking clerk.
“Where did that man book to?” he demanded urgently, hearing a train approaching.
“Heathrow,” replied the man. “Terminal three.”
Jarvis repeated this over the phone, as he dashed down the steps two at a time, and dived on to the train just as the doors closed. He watched Jarvis board the train three carriages further up. He would have to work his way forward at the next two stations to make sure he ended up in the same part of the train. He looked at the map above the train window. ‘Change at Earls’ Court’, he thought, ‘then Piccadilly Line straight through.’ Earls’ Court was a difficult interchange – down escalators, along corridors, down stairs – but somehow Miller managed to keep Jarvis in sight until he got on the train to Heathrow. This time, Miller was in the same carriage.
He had no idea whether his message had got through to Clerkenwell or not, but there was nothing Miller could do now until he came out into the open again – probably at the airport.
Nick was still in the Ops. Room, and just caught part of Miller’s last message – the part that said ‘Heathrow’ was clear enough, and they all thought they just heard ‘terminal three’, before the signal faded and finally disappeared.
Soon, everyone who needed to know did know.
Jarvis was heading for the airport.
***
“What the hell has he been sent there for?” Bill demanded.
“He surely can’t be going anywhere, can he?” said Nick. “He has no luggage, not even a cabin bag, and probably hasn’t got his passport either, unless we missed a phone call or something.”
“Perhaps he’s meeting someone.”
“But who? We know Barclay is at Harwell, so it’s not him.”
“Just suppose,” said Head of Section, “that it was a key he was given. He could be going to collect something.”
“I thought they did away with left luggage facilities ages ago for security reasons,” said Nick.
“Let’s get on the internet to find out,” said Clayton. He typed in ‘Left Luggage – London’, and immediately got the British Tourist Authority website.
“There it is,” he exclaimed. “A company called Excess Baggage has facilities at main line stations and the two airports. See – ‘London Heathrow terminal three arrivals (0530-2230) near car hire desks’, it says. I bet that’s it.”
“We can get someone there by bike quicker than by tube, too,” said Marsden. “William Gordon’s in the rest room – I’ll send him on a BMW. BARBARA,” he shouted. “Photos of Jarvis please, and quick.”
Gordon was there at least fifteen minutes before Jarvis turned up, hotly pursued up the escalator by Miller. Jarvis withdrew a small brief case, closely watched, Gordon noticed, by a man who was very Russian-looking, chatting on a mobile phone. Being the good man that he was, Gordon also reported that the briefcase looked too heavy to have just papers in it.
“Something like a gun, perhaps,” he said.
Jarvis headed back towards the Underground, but rang Barbara first. It was the briefest of calls.
“I now know what I have to do to secure the release of Donald,” he told her, “and he should be back with, you safe and sound, either tomorrow night or early the next morning.”
Miller quickly scribbled down Jarvis’s home address and gave it to Gordon before setting off in chase. “Get there quick in case he goes straight home. I could just lose him in the rush hour.”
“So sorry I can’t give you a lift back to base,” grinned William.
“Piss off!” ‘Dusty’ Miller hurried after the disappearing Jarvis who now, thought Miller, looked distinctly ill.
***
CHAPTER TEN - A SHOT IN THE DARK
“So what with one thing and another, we’ve had quite a busy couple of days,” concluded the Head of Section 11 at a hurriedly arranged, and very late-night briefing meeting with the Cabinet Secretary. “But we are still in a very confused situation.”
“I must say, though,” said Sir Robin, “that you and your team seem to have done remarkably well to keep up with events.”
“As a matter of fact, we have kept ahead of some of them,” corrected Bill Clayton, “as well as keeping in close contact with Professor Barclay. Let me summarise. First of all, we have managed to ‘kidnap’ Jarvis’s son before the Russians could. And that must be causing them no end of a problem, because although they know he’s been taken, they also know that they didn’t do it. Jarvis, however, thinks they did, so is going along with their demands. From a brief conversation we overheard, it seems likely that he will be taking action tomorrow, probably tomorrow evening, although we still don’t know what it is he’s expected to do. Somehow, we also managed to keep up with Jarvis at his rendezvous with the Russian, and actually got to the airport before him in the end, although that was a bit of luck.”
“Your man keeping an eye on Jarvis has done well.”
“He’s worked very hard and done an excellent job so far. But he’s been operating on his own for some time, and is really quite exhausted, so I’ve sent him home for some rest while a couple of others keep watch now that Jarvis is home again.”
“There are still quite a lot of loose ends, aren’t there?” queried Algar.
“There are certainly a couple of things I’d dearly love to know right now,” agreed Clayton, “not least how the Russians discovered that Jarvis had a son. But more importantly, we have no idea what Jarvis’s next move will be, or when he will make it, although we think it will be la
te tomorrow. We’ve doubled up on our surveillance of Barclay, just to be on the safe side, and I’m still tempted to let him know what’s going on so that he too can be on his guard. The other thing is that we have no idea what was in the briefcase Jarvis collected, and no way of finding out.”
Just for once, ‘S’ was quite wrong.
In spite of being at the end of his tether, ‘Dusty’ Miller had not, in fact, gone home to rest as instructed. He was as keen as anyone to know what was in the briefcase, and so had decided to find out. He was in charge, after all, wasn’t he? Told to take care of Jarvis? OK then. He’d been into the house once before, so he would get in again.
He had a low-level night vision infra-red torch and special night vision goggles, so he could see his way around quite well, and no-one else would see a thing. He waited until all the lights had gone out before he carefully picked the rather simple lock on the back door, and went into the kitchen. He rather hoped the briefcase would be downstairs somewhere – in the hall, perhaps. He would prefer not have to go into the bedroom, where Jarvis and his wife were asleep, although he was pretty sure he would not disturb them if he did. He’d been trained for this sort of thing, after all. He moved about the house like a ghost on Halloween, silently and methodically searching one room after another.
The briefcase was not in the hall as he had hoped, but he eventually found it in the study, leaning against the desk. He just prayed that the thing was not bugged or booby-trapped in any way, as he carefully picked the lock – not even a combination. One quick look inside was enough.
He locked the case again, and only for a moment wondered if he should take it with him, bearing in mind its contents, before he retraced his steps.
Once outside, he nodded to the two colleagues who were positioned nearby, walked to his car, and drove off. But not far. A few streets away, he stopped, and got on to the Section 11 Ops. Room.
“No, ‘S’ wasn’t there. He wasn’t at home either. He was at a meeting in the Cabinet Office.”
Eventually, they managed to patch him through to the red phone in the Cabinet Secretary’s office.
“Sorry to bother you Colonel,” said ‘Dusty’.
“Why aren’t you at home, taking a break?” demanded Clayton.
“Curiosity, really,” he replied.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I know what’s in the briefcase Jarvis collected.”
Clayton sat forward in his chair.
“How the hell can you possibly know that, Miller?”
“Because I’ve just had a look inside, that’s how.”
“You’ve done what!”
“I’ve broken in to Jarvis’s house before, just for a quick look round one evening, so I went in again tonight. No security at all, Colonel. For a chap in his position, he should be more careful. You should warn him.”
“Get to the point, man. What’s in that case?”
“A very sophisticated Kalashnikov. Not many about. High powered, silencer, telescopic sight, the lot. And a couple of clips of ammo. Purpose built case. Very nice, Colonel.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Left it where it was, Colonel. Although I was very tempted to nick it. But I thought it would cause more problems than it solved.”
“You’re probably right,” agreed Clayton after a moment’s thought. “And I do wish you’d stop calling me ‘Colonel’.”
“OK, sir. But if you want the briefcase, Colonel, I can easily go back for it, now I know where it is.”
“No, no. Leave it. But you need to be very careful, you know Miller. We have no special warrant or anything like that, so if you get caught breaking and entering, there’s very little we shall be able do about it.”
“Rule 3, Colonel.”
“What’s that?”
“Never get caught.”
“Don’t be cheeky, Miller. But you’ve done well, so now go and get some rest.”
“Thank you, Colonel. I think I’ll doss down in the car. I’m back on duty in a couple of hours.”
Clayton told Algar what had happened.
“So now we know that Jarvis has a high-powered rifle, but we can still only guess that Barclay is the target.”
“I now think we should tell the Professor, and get him to a place of safety,” said Algar.
“He’s already in one,” replied Clayton. “Jarvis will never get into Harwell.”
“But he could have a crack at Barclay outside the wire, so to speak.”
‘S’ thought for a moment.
“You could be right. On the other hand, we could pull Jarvis in.”
Now it was the Cabinet Secretary’s turn to ponder.
“Frankly, I’d rather leave Jarvis on the loose to find out what he does next. He’s now an obvious danger, and unfit for further employment in the Security Services, but I need more evidence to get rid of him.”
“And I need to get back to the office, if you’ll excuse me,” said Clayton. “I’ll think about what you said, and consult with a few colleagues. I’ll let you know what we recommend, and keep you in touch with developments.”
Although it was gone midnight, he summonsed Nick, Barbara, Clive Newell, and Phil Langdon, the retired Petty Officer who ran their armoury.
“We need to do a bit of quick planning for tomorrow – or today, as it now is,” he told them when they were all assembled in the briefing room. “We know that Jarvis now has a gun, and we assume Barclay is his target. We also think Jarvis will make his move sometime later today. The debate is whether or not we get Barclay to a safer place than Harwell, or whether we pull in Jarvis before he acts, or whether we let events run their course. If we do that, we shall need to keep well ahead of the game. I’ve already arranged to double up the watch on Barclay with immediate effect, and we should do the same in relation to Jarvis. How good a shot is Jarvis?” he asked Langdon.
“Excellent. Nearly as good as I am.”
“Why would he want a rifle with a silencer and telescopic sight?”
“What sort of rifle, do we know?”
“Some sort of Kalashnikov, according to Miller. Says there aren’t many about.”
“I know the one he means. It’s a sniper’s rifle, accurate from long range.”
“That seems to suggest that he knows he won’t get close to Barclay, so where would be the best place for him to be to stand any chance of getting the man?”
“His routine is pretty much the same every day,” said Newell, who was running Op. Fusion. “We know from his diary that he will be in Harwell all day. He will leave his digs at about 7.30 am, drive in his car to work, and stay there until he decides to go home. That’s a movable feast, as we know to our cost – anything from 4.30 pm to 11.30 pm, or even later occasionally. He works very long hours, but somewhere around 6.30 pm is more common.”
“What about his drive to and from work?” asked Nick Marsden.
“It takes him about fifteen minutes, no more,” replied Newell. “Mostly through open countryside, once he leaves the village.”
“The indications are that Jarvis will strike in the evening, rather than early on. That means it will probably be dark.”
“If you ask me,” said Langdon, “the silencer suggests that he will be using the weapon from inside a building, rather from open countryside. He probably won’t risk a shot while Barclay is too close to the Atomic Energy Establishment, so he may intend to wait until he’s got home.”
Clayton thought for a moment.
“Here’s what I propose then. Starting with Jarvis, work out his most likely route to both Barclay’s digs and to Harwell, and stake it out, so that when he leaves home, we get regular reports on where he is and which way he is heading. We need concentrated effort in both areas, so that we know where Jarvis eventually goes. I’ll get Barclay’s Director to make sure the Professor stays at work until as late as possible. That will give us plenty of time to move in on Jarvis and catch him red-handed with the gun, in a po
sition to shoot and kill Barclay if that’s what he plans. Once Jarvis is under arrest, we’ll remove Barclay to a place of safety, since the Russians will still want him out of the way, and will try something else once they know Jarvis has failed. Any problems with that?”
They all agreed.
“Let’s get things organised then,” concluded Clayton. “Nick, I want Miller to follow Jarvis from his house to our first rendezvous along the route. If he deviates from the route we think he will take, Miller can keep after him, and report in. Let’s go.”
The rest of the night was spent setting up the operation for later that day. As Miller was already out keeping an eye on Jarvis, Clayton briefed him on the secure mobile phone.
“Let us know the minute Jarvis leaves home,” instructed Clayton. “We think he’ll make for Reading and then the A417, so you can start thinking about how he might get to Reading from there. Our guess is that he’ll probably leave after lunch, to give himself time to get into position before Barclay leaves Harwell. Once you’ve made contact with our first relay team, peel off and get home for some well-earned rest.”
“Thank you. Colonel.”
Clayton turned to Barbara.
“I do wish he’d stop calling me Colonel!”
***
Professor Jack Barclay was sublimely oblivious to all that was happening on his behalf. In fact, if you’d asked him, he probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you what day it was. His mind had been on other things, and for the first time in many months, he actually felt reasonably happy with the way things had been going. And things had been going well – very well.
Under his supervision, his technical support team at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory at Harwell, in Oxford, had achieved a major breakthrough in the development of nuclear fusion. Not only had they been able to show that the laser containment of hydrogen plasma was far more efficient than the electro-magnetic system which had been used for years at Culham, but they had also managed to achieve a net energy gain through the fusion of the deuteron and triton hydrogen isotopes.
Only yesterday, a self-sustaining reaction had been achieved which had generated enough heat to produce over 500 megawatts of fusion power, sufficient to prove without doubt that a commercial nuclear fusion power station was now feasible and achievable. This was a remarkable breakthrough; an achievement that, a few weeks earlier, had appeared impossible until Barclay himself had proposed a solution to the seemingly intractable problem which they had encountered during their research.