Duirnish Rail Station
7-30 a.m.
April 17th
Peter Mason, the first of the four illegal entrants to the country Michael Dewy had spotted, sat on a bench at Duirnish station. The station was a short damp walk from his arrival point on the shores of Loch Carron. He had a relatively short wait for his train, though the cold would make it seem longer. The train wasn’t due in until seven forty-one; they’d even had to ask for the train to stop there, as it was a request station, which Peter didn’t like; it felt like he was ‘lit up’. He could cope with the cold though. Six years in the army, three of those in the infantry and three in the SAS had given him layers of toughness that practically no environment could break through. The over work of infantry service in Afghanistan had led him to leave. He went into security work and got bored. Then he had gone ‘freelance’ as an assassin and had made good money and a polished reputation making tricky hits on both sides of the law. He had been contacted for this job three months ago. He had no idea who the mark was. All he knew was that the target would be revealed when he reached the contact point in London. Three words had been given for the contact point; ‘Priory Arms Vauxhall’. It didn’t give any indication of who was funding the job.
He sat on the bench, the vision of a travelling backpacker. He was a tall good looking man, dark hair and blue eyes. He’d not shaved and had let his usually neat hair become unkempt. He opened the worn rucksack and took out a flask and sandwiches. Breakfast was overdue and the swim had made him hungry. The train got into Inverness around ten a.m. and then he had some thinking to do.