Chapter 5
Within three days another vacancy arose. Apparently whilst I had been lying around enjoying myself (?) over the past couple of months, word had slowly leaked out to the press that there was a new guy on the block, and various tabloid newspapers dispatched reporters and/or paparazzi with indecent haste to ‘try and dish the dirt’. They were effectively kept at bay by the hospitals security staff: that was in their job descriptions. Apparently what wasn’t in them was the bit about protecting me from knife wielding maniacs. A smartly dressed Dutch gentleman, carrying a large bouquet of seasonal flowers, and posing as a visitor gained access to my floor. Exchanging the flowers for a suitable white coat which he found on a hook in the empty staff rest area he strolled into my room. Alice was fortunately off rehearsing, but Maria was at her dictation desk, which was situated just behind the door, busily engrossed in a confirmation letter to the child care company that we had just decided that she should use, and he immediately started raving at me in Flemish, not one of my stronger languages; in fact I couldn’t understand a word of it. I found out later that he thought that it was ‘immoral’ that I should have all that money all to myself, and when I didn’t instantly agree to redistribute my newly acquired wealth in his direction he started cutting my tubes, knocking over machines, and generally causing mayhem, and I promptly died, well almost. Fortunately, in his demented state, he thought he could stab one of my life support systems to death with his all metal knife, and although the machine did have some of my bodily fluids flowing through it, his knife point actually entered a ventilation slot, and he neatly sliced through a very high voltage electric cable. The shock catapulted him backwards across the room, and he finally came to rest sitting dazed against the front of Maria’s new desk. Maria, who up until then had been unable to react (as the incident had taken only a few seconds), metaphorically speaking sprang into action. With an enormous amount of nervous energy she grasped her shiny new laptop in both hands, leant over her desk, and fitted it neatly over his head. Sitting back down she absent mindedly wondered if the letter that she had been working on would have been ‘auto saved’. Doctors, Nurses and security guards rushed in, fortunately the guards went to our intruder and the medical staff came to me. It was close, but they kept me alive, just.
Two days later, as I lay watching the sun pass its zenith (and fortunately now fully recovered from that particular ‘near death experience’), and idly thinking that perhaps some of the staff should receive a ‘small token of my appreciation’ on my final departure through those hallowed portals below, the ‘Head Doorman’ himself (also known as El Director) and his supporting cast entered, and like all good hotel/hospital Directors he was fluent in ‘Politics’. I was a wonderful `this`, and fantastic `that`, but what it eventually boiled down too was that I was a lousy security risk. After some discussion, a few shrugs, and much huffing and puffing he finally agreed that his security guards would protect me, on double time of course (and at my expense) twenty-four hours a day - for two days. After that however forthcoming events must dictate that they would be required to return to normal duties. HOWEVER, he knew of a reputable local company that could take on the task thereafter. Putting his Brother, Uncle or golfing buddy on hold, Maria, Alice and I pulled up the UK yellow pages on my un-dented laptop and started to scour the ‘Security’, ‘Body Guard’ and ‘Close Protection’ Agencies that advertised under various headings - in the Hereford area. That was not a random choice of area, about a year ago I had read in a novel (it was in black and white so it must be true) that retired SAS soldiers either went off to fight someone else’s war, got themselves a pub, or went into Close Personal Protection, ‘body guarding’ for the uninitiated, and after a couple of false starts (they must have thought I was a right lunatic, and wondered which tree I had just fallen out of) I finally got my spiel off pat and spoke to a rather brash sounding gentleman. He was ‘my main man’, and he could sort anything out. After listening to my tale of woe he changed his tune slightly, and after taking down my telephone number he promised that ‘if he was able to help’, ‘you will be contacted shortly’. Hopefully he read the tabloids and believed me.
How long is shortly? About 20 minutes.
The phone rang, ‘Mr Michaels please’. Maria quickly passed me the phone; she didn’t want to argue with this voice.
‘Andrew Michaels’ I groaned.
‘I understand that you have a slight security problem’ stated the mystery voice.
‘It might be slight to you buddy’ I thought, ‘but it’s pretty big to me’. ‘That’s correct’ I replied and started to explain, but after about half a sentence I was silenced.
‘Why don’t you use a local firm?’ he growled, and I quickly explained that I wanted English speakers around me; I hoped that it would make me feel safer.
‘Finding Spanish speaking operatives at short notice might be difficult, but I will see what can be done’. ‘I will also need to discuss the general arrangements with you face to face, which hospital are you in, and what is your ward number - please’.
I gave him my ‘suite’ number and the hospitals details as requested.
‘Thank you, he growled, oh and by the way you may call me ‘Colonel’’, and with that he hung up.
As I stared at the now redundant instrument I thought ‘I’m sure I will, or anything else you wish me to call you’. No contact number, no Company name, not even any indication of when he would arrive, but I was sure of one thing, he would. It was that kind of voice, the kind of voice that you argued with at your peril, but when it promised that something would happen, it happened, and apparently it did, about four o’clock the following morning. Waking my hospital guard, who was sound asleep on the settee in Maria’s office, sweetly dreaming of how he was going to spend the extra Euros in his pay packet the ‘Colonel’ sent him packing. The Guard had not questioned who these men were; crossing these guys was certainly not in his ‘job description’, not even in the small print, and ‘the Colonel’ then left two very stocky and very wide awake gentlemen in his place. He returned at seven o’clock the next morning and of course I was sound asleep, I never was a ‘morning person’, and so he quietly sat down at Maria’s small desk; her chair had a straight back, not for him the padded islands of comfort that were supplied for my visitors, and remained sitting there until I was finally raised from my beauty sleep at around eight thirty by a pretty Swedish Nurse doing her chores. I took one look at him as he sat there and knew immediately who he was. ‘Good morning Colonel, have you been here long?’
He placed what passed for a smile on his face, and totally ignored my question. ‘I have two operatives in your secretary’s office (which would go down like a lead balloon if Maria ever heard him calling her that, she was my PA), and have two others in a nearby hotel, resting, oh and I have hired, on your behalf, two suitable vehicles for their use. Two vehicles for four people, ‘bit O.T.T’. I thought, but who was going to argue with him, certainly not me. He then went on to explain that as this was a ‘foreign’ country (this nearly did get me going, after all we were now in the EU and it was my adopted country, nearly, but not quite) the paperwork would take a little while to complete. This I wasn’t going to argue with, the Spanish had turned ‘Bureaucracy’ into an art form. It transpired that apparently it would take a little while before his ‘operatives’ would be ‘carrying’, but, he assured me, they had made ‘alternative’ arrangements in the meantime. I was mortified, not that it would take time, more that it seemed that I was turning Maria’s office into a ‘Wild West Show’, had things degenerated this far? Then my mind went back three days - yes they had. ‘Were these arrangements acceptable?’ he asked.
‘Yes of course they were, very’ I replied, and then he moved on to the boring bits, contracts, money, ‘Code of Conduct’ for his ‘boys’, and more frighteningly, to use the vernacular, ‘Rules of Engagement’. Who was to be protected, and to what degree, they obviously didn’t want to shoot someone if they weren’t going t
o get paid for it.
‘You?’ he said. ‘Of course’ I replied.
‘Maria?’ Again I said ‘of course’.
‘Family members?’ - ‘Oh yes’.
‘Other members of staff?’ - ‘Yes’, but my voice was getting lower, I didn’t have any other members of staff here at the moment, but I had a very shrewd suspicion that that would change in the near future.
‘Doctors, Nurses and visitors?’
‘Well yes, I suppose’. That was when we entered the ‘grey area’, and he was very good at ‘grey areas’.
Now that I was his client he started to relax, and I could almost see the broom handle being removed from a certain part of his anatomy. After, for him anyway, the usual formalities were completed (even with the regular interruptions related to a ‘high dependency suite’) we settled down for a ‘quiet chat’. He had a special request, about ten minutes earlier he had heard movement in Maria’s office and went to investigate (the lounge/office had its own door to the outside world). On his return he’d had two smiling ‘boys’ with him, it was shift changeover. They were ‘pleased to meet me’, and ‘sorry about my recent loss, accident and incident’ and then Charlie, the shorter of the two patted a bulge under his armpit and cheekily informed me that `I would now be able to sleep soundly at night`.
With the amount of drugs that were being pumped into my system there was no doubt about that, but what I did realise however was that this ‘Colonel’, whoever he was, was one influential guy. I would put money on it that if he had to move a mountain, he would, with one arm tied firmly behind his back. Giving Charlie a look that would have stopped a charging Rhino in its tracks he sent them off for some well-deserved shut eye, and as he steered them out of my room, and I lay there thinking that the reference to Sheila hadn’t been quite so painful (I must slowly be coming to terms with reality), I heard him say to someone out of my line of sight, ‘five minutes’, before he returned to my room, but our ‘little Chat’ took a little longer than ‘five minutes’.
What he wanted to ask me was a personal favour, and he would fully understand if I couldn’t help. Outside was a David Williams, Warrant Officer First Class (retired), who a couple of months earlier had been ‘medically retired’ from the Army. It soon transpired that this particular ex-Warrant Officer had been someone very ‘special’, even in a Special Forces Unit. The Colonel hinted that even though ex-WO Williams had been decorated several times previously, his last mission had been something even more ‘special’, but unfortunately not only had he suffered appallingly physically, but `something else` had happened, and as soon as it was deemed safe by the hierarchy, they had quietly given him a ‘Medical’ discharge. It was the Colonel’s humble opinion however that the Generals couldn’t allow a mere Warrant Officer to become the most highly decorated member of the Armed Services, so they simply got rid of him. He continued, not in any great detail of course, intimating that he had also had the honour of leading him into action, and had a ‘lot’ to thank him for. He was not going to permit such a brave man to sink into obscurity, so ‘would I permit him to let this man (who did not at the moment meet the standards of physical fitness that were normally required of an operative) to remain out here with me in Spain, solely to supervise the other operatives, not of course in an operational capacity, and certainly at no additional expense to me’.
I doubted that bit, it was most likely already included somewhere in the sums but I liked his style.
As he went back into Maria’s office to collect this demigod I wondered whether I should either bow or prostrate myself when he entered. I did neither, if I hadn’t been firmly strapped down I would have leaped out of my bed, not out of any respect or awe, but to give him room to get into it. He needed it far more than I did. GOD he looked awful. I had often used the expression about feeling ‘like death warmed up’, well here was living proof, just, that you could actually look like it as well, and with not a very high calorific output.
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