Chapter 10
I had been back at El Campo for three days when I found out that I had upset someone big time in the good old U.S of A, although it really wasn’t a person (singular), it was the FBI, apparently they had just got hold of the ‘unofficial’ story of the incident. First they were furious that they hadn’t been called in for the ‘kidnapping that never was’, that was within their remit. That had got nothing to do with me I pointed out, that had been Chief Stumpen’s decision - but as he was now dead apparently I was the next in line. Why, because I had authorised an ‘across a State line’ operation (that had never happened), and again it was their ‘part of ship’, sorry, within their remit. Francesca and her merry band were gamely sticking firmly to their stories, but someone on my side must have leaked it the FBI as they now had Charlie’s name. He was now on the top of the FBI’s ‘unofficial’ most wanted list. My staff and I were being protected by a ring of highly paid Attorneys, and Charlie, if he didn’t want to be found, wouldn’t be, but they had found Agnetha - in a UPS box, Charlie had been sending her home to her parents. What use an urn full of ash could be to them I just didn’t know, perhaps it was a macabre attempt to try and flush Charlie out in some way, but they didn’t know about my little black book; not the electric one - the paper one, which I kept well and truly securely locked away, and under H, for HRH, I found his ‘personal’ number. As he had been leaving after spending a very relaxing long week-end with Sandra and me in late February he had given it to me, just in case. This was definitely a 'just in case’ case.
--------------------
Early on in January one of HRH’s grey suits had arrived at El Campo and tried to rip us to pieces, security wise. David was ready to shoot him and hide the body in a motorway flyover as he explained for the umpteenth time about the electronic surveillance at El Campo, but it just wasn’t going in, and a week after the grey suit had left El Campo, muttering to himself about ‘child’s play’, I was woken at two o’clock in the morning, not by someone ringing me but by David clamping my arm to my side. ‘Don’t switch on the light’ he said ‘we have a situation’, but there was a chuckle in his voice’, apparently we had been invaded, but he knew by whom, it was the SAS, so I left Sandra sleeping like a baby as I looked for my brown trousers, and then he went on to explain; after the suit had departed he was sure that something like this was going to happen, and sure enough it must have gone whinging to the Army about how lax security was at El Campo, and ‘could they do something to prove to HRH how dangerous it was in that desolate third world Country’ - he really was cruising for a bruising. The SAS had obviously got the job, sorry ‘training exercise’, and carried out a ‘halo’ parachute drop into El Campo. There were four of them on the ‘exercise’ and they had been spotted ever before they landed, the suit hadn’t taken in a word that David had said. The duty security team had been instructed to inform David if anything like this happened, rather than charge in - all guns blazing, and this is where Scott comes in. David had mentioned to Scott about the new-fangled radios that he had used in Afghanistan, not giving away any national secrets of course, and Scott bet him that he could crack the system in a week; it had taken him four days, so as David listened out on his pirate radio he quickly realised who was out there, it was Captain, now Major, Cummins, the second in command of that fateful Afghan detachment (and the one who had bubbled him to the hierarchy), he had obviously gotten his thirty pieces of silver, his old mate Dennis, and two new Squaddies that he didn’t know, although one of them had made a bad landing and damaged his ankle. David wanted his pound of flesh (or was it now a kilo?) but didn’t want the rest to suffer, especially the young Squaddie with the gammy ankle. Major Cummings was insisting that this was a ‘realistic’ exercise so ‘just shut up and follow procedure’, and so Charlie was dispatched to bring the Squaddie in, with, as it turned out, a broken ankle, via the Centro Salud in San Miguel. As they x-rayed and plastered his ankle he carried out his routine radio checks with the Major, still complaining bitterly, but now with a smile on his face. After he’d had a shower and Caroline had found him a change of clothes, the Squaddie was shown into my personal study. It had no windows in it so no light would shine out, and eventually he was joined by the other two reluctant volunteers for the mission, both freshly showered and changed, and they all kept up their periodic radio checks with the Major for the remainder of the night. Charlie had frightened the life out of all three of them when he had whispering to them, his mouth only inches from their faces ‘bang, bang you’re dead, so please don’t use your radio.
When it was realised that Major Cummings was the ‘whistle blower’ he suddenly became very unpopular with the rest of the regiment, but he wouldn’t take the hint and resign, and Colonel Jameson just didn’t have enough hard evidence to ‘push’ him, so when the special exercise involving David was conceived he rang ‘the Colonel’, confidentially of course, for some advice, and the advice that he got was ‘send Cummings’ – although the Colonel ‘failed’ to mention the equipment that he knew to be at El Campo. As an independent witness WO2 Dennis Farthing was volunteered to go along, along with two new guys, for the experience.
As the sun rose slowly into the sky David was all for letting the Major really suffer, but I put my foot down and walked out onto my balcony, once I had been ‘assassinated’ then the exercise would be over. The Major went ballistic over the radio ‘we’ve got him, we’ve got him’ he screeched, whilst peering down his snipers scope, and then quickly shut up as Dennis and the two Squaddies joined me. I lifted my mobile phone and pressed ‘call’, and according to Charlie, who was watching him through David’s sniper scope, the fearless Major Cummings leapt about a foot into the air. Charlie had placed a mobile phone at the side of his head, almost touching him, with ‘Reveille’ as the ring tone. When he finally answered it, at my third attempt, I said ‘bang, bang you’re dead; now what would you like for breakfast?’ His reply was unprintable, and two hours later a ‘special duties’ Royal Air Force Hercules touched down and collected Dennis and the Squaddies from my front door, and then taxied around to the middle of the airfield to pick up Major Cummings; and of course he hadn’t touched the breakfast that I had sent out to him. Apparently he had broken a stack of standing orders, especially the one about injuries received whilst on training exercises, so he was given the choice, ‘jump or be pushed’, he jumped, and Scott got a classified contract with the Army.
‘Whatever happened to the suit?’ I hear you ask, the same thing, ‘jump or be pushed’. Colonel Jameson was not at all pleased that he had been put in a ‘no win’ situation. If he had known what he was really up against he would have tried to handle it differently.
--------------------
Now where were we? Oh yes, HRH. ‘Do you have any contacts ‘over there’’ I asked him, ‘and if so could you please have a quiet word with them to try and sort this debacle out’.
‘Certainly Andrew, no problemo (?). Oh! and Cammy was pondering only the other day when we might be imbibing the sun’s rays, Spanish style - perhaps after the summer rush?’
Blackmail noted and accepted I sat back and waited.
Two hours later my phone rang, it was the President of the United States of America, and he had just had his ear bent by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and he was just calling to let me know that:-
1. The Director of the FBI now had another rectal orifice,
2. That Agnetha was safely in a diplomatic pouch, and on her way to Sweden and that
3. He had a few days clear after the G8 summit in a couple of months’ time, oh and
4. Did I realise that the Secretary-General was very partial to southern Spain?
Me thinks I should rename my home ‘Hotel El Campo’. ‘Mrs Blake, make up the spare z-beds please’.
Within a few days I had an invitation from Agnetha’s parents to attend their daughters ‘laying to rest’ and I let it be known around the place that anyone that would like to, would be more than
welcome to accompany me to the service, an so two days later one hundred and twenty-seven people and I climbed aboard an Airbus 320 and flew to Sweden. Marcus had been sent off the day before with the simple instruction, ‘find one hundred and twenty-eight ‘bed and breakfasts’ by tomorrow please. I think he was starting to get a bit peeved at these missions as I suddenly became the proud owner of one the best hotels in Sweden. I think Agnetha’s mum and dad were also a bit worried about all their daughter’s friends descending on their small coastal community, situated a few kilometres outside Gothenburg, but Marcus had been a ‘busy little bee’ organising a fleet of small coaches to ferry everyone around, plus books of free tickets to the Liseberg Amusement Park for those that wished to celebrate Agnetha’s short life perhaps a little bit more energetically. I spent the evening entertaining Agnetha’s parents and siblings in ‘my’ hotel; they were lovely people who I would have met in a few weeks’ time anyway, but under happier circumstances at Agnetha and Charlie’s wedding, but during the evening I took Agnetha’s Mum and Dad aside and had a quiet word with them (with Maria interpreting), Charlie had asked me for another favour. They were simple folk, in the nicest possible way, and his fiancé had been sending them money each month to help them out, but of course that would now stop. He himself was now in a position to send them money but it would be ‘dirty’ money, and he didn’t think it was right for them to have to live on ‘drug money’, they were just too nice a couple, and so could I possibly help?
Of course I could, I was sure that there was a Company insurance policy laying around somewhere gathering dust that stated that if a member of staff died in service then their beneficiaries would be entitled to a lump sum payment, plus a monthly payment equal to the member of staffs inflation proofed salary. As Agnetha had been escorting a senior member of my staff on a secret mission to collect essential supplies (Cindy’s tee-shirt) she was eligible for this payment, so I handed her father a cheque for the lump sum of think of a number and double it, and explained that they would be receiving Agnetha’s full salary every month, until the two of them eventually joined her, it was a small price for me to pay, as the only reason that Agnetha had died such a horrible death was that she worked for me.
‘Maria, if there isn’t such a policy in existence for everyone else then find one’.
I then had a quieter quiet word with Agnetha’s father about Charlie’s death (?); they had thought that their daughter had died in a traffic accident, but I hinted that that might not be the entire truth, they might just hear a different scenario, and it would be very convenient if Charlie could die at tomorrow’s service - overcome with grief.
The FBI agents were scouring the crowds, but with hundreds of mourners attending the service they were not having very much success; until just after Agnetha’s ashes had been scattered to the winds, suddenly, high above the mourners a lone figure stood on a ledge, head bowed, and in full view of everyone, and just in case the FBI agents missed him we all waved up at him. Charlie had a heads start on the Agents as they panted their way up the pathway, so he was way ahead of them when he disappeared around the craggy headland, but it didn’t worry the Agents one little bit, they had done their homework well, this was the only path up to the viewing point at the top. Suddenly a shot rang out and they increased their pace, but when they reached the top all they found was Charlie’s gun (obviously with his fingerprints on it) and blood splattered all over the edge of the shear drop into the rock strewn sea below. They knew of course that the blood would match Charles Watkins perfectly, so they didn’t bother to look very hard for bone fragments or gooey brain tissue, which was fortunate as they would have found that the Director of the FBI himself would have considered it an unnecessary waste of tax dollars to have them analysed, if they had miraculously found any.
As David and I looked over the edge of the cliff, just idly checking that there were no empty bottles of blood lying about (as one does), he quietly commented to me that it was surprising that Charlie had made such a messy job of his own demise, he was normally such a fastidious person.
‘And such a good parachutist to boot’, I added.
~~~~