Nigel Sternway’s House
Hampstead
London
7-30 p.m.
April 19th
David finally made up his mind. He checked his pistol and stepped out of the car. The lights were on downstairs and they made red glow around the edges of the deep red velvet curtains in Sternway’s living room. Della was upstairs with the two children, reading them stories.
The DIC operative in the bushes had been told to report if David made a move, but he was slumped unconscious, hidden by the thick foliage of Sternway’s neighbour’s bushy border. At the back of the house a figure scaled the drain pipe heading for the small open window of an upstairs toilet.
At the front David rang the bell.
Sternway rose from his comfortable chair in the lounge, put the paper down and padded to the front door in his slippers.
“Yes?” McKie wasn’t familiar to him.
David pulled out his Sig and pointed it at Sternway.
“In!” McKie barked.
Sternway did as he was told backing down the hall, leaving the front door open. David pushed him into the lounge and into a chair.
“Who are you?” Sternway demanded.
“David McKie DIC.”
Sternway smiled thinly.
David assumed that the listener in the garden was ready and waiting, he wanted a confession and some answers from Sternway. He also wanted to know who had been behind all of the deaths.
“Oh you’re McKie. DIC diplomatic and arms bearing rights are suspended so you’re breaking the law. Or are you going to kill me?”
“You’re responsible, through your twisted plotting, for the deaths of innocent people. I want to know why you brought those killers into the country.”
“Killers come and go. I believe you’re a killer yourself now, or doesn’t killing people like Wheeler count. Just because you have a badge and he doesn’t that makes you the good guy does it? I have a government remit, that’s my badge. Men like Wheeler, Stanton and you are all the same. Hired killers, government trained, whichever side of the trenches you’re on and you kill on orders or as part of the process of doing your job. There are no black and white hats for people to wear McKie. All the hats are shades of grey. You became a government paid killer just like Stanton when you shot Wheeler.”
“You can’t compare us. I don’t kill for no reason and unlike you and the people who work for you I protect the innocent and wouldn’t kill on orders if I thought it was wrong. You’re to blame for all this admit it.”
“I don’t know what you mean old boy as far as I…”Sternway’s face was suddenly a mask of horror.
Behind David entering the room were his children, his wife behind them, pale and frightened and to his ultimate horror Trevor Stanton holding two weapons. One, MI6 snub nose revolver was pointed at his wife and children and the silenced Browning was pointed at Sternway. McKie spun around and pointed his pistol at Stanton.
Stanton shoved Della and the children towards Sternway, but he pushed them to his left away from him, instinctively protecting them by separating them from him in Stanton’s eyes.
Stanton suddenly pointed the revolver at McKie and kept the Browning pointed at Sternway.
“Hello McKie we must stop meeting like this.”
“Drop it Stanton. Don’t shoot him.”
“Come on McKie you want him dead as much as me. I heard what he said. The man’s a slug, an evil slug. The cold blooded bastard had me tortured.” He turned to Sternway. "Joe might still be alive, but he’s crippled and he talked. Brook’s dead. You picked the wrong man to play your game with Sternway.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
The shot slammed into the wall by Della’s head, the movement of the Browning from Sternway to Della and back was swift. David held fire when he saw that no-one was shot. He held himself calmly.
“He planned all this to get to DIC and destroy it. Sternway has an orange coloured cell phone and Robinson, the home secretary, is on the other end of it. That’s the man you want. If you don’t believe me Sternway’s got two lime green Bic cell phones, one of them was for me. If you search here or his car you’ll find them and they’ll link him to me, check the satellite based locations for the calls made if you don’t believe me. He’s going to die and there’s nothing you can do. He’s a monster and he deserves to die. He told me they’d accounted for Robert Cole. DIC were getting too close, he said, a nuisance. You know he has to die for what he’s done.”
“Don’t listen to him McKie.” Sternway’s voice wasn’t pleading, he kept his authority. “You’re paid to stop men like him. He’s going to kill all of us, including my wife and children. Kill him. Kill him now.”
Stanton turned the gun pointed at McKie towards Della and the children.
“Move towards the door you three.” Stanton’s voice held a note of finality.
“Nigel.” Della was terrified and the children were whimpering.
“Do as he says it’ll be alright.” Sternway was calm.
Della made her way towards the door and Stanton repositioned himself pointing his weapon at McKie as he moved and backing into a space between them. Della and the children stood by the door. Sternway was across the room from them and McKie stood in a corner. Stanton pointed the Browning at Sternway and the revolver at Della and the children.
“Kill him McKie it’s your bloody job.” Sternway barked the order.
“Sternway if you confess I let your family walk out that door and only kill you. McKie isn’t going to shoot first.” Stanton’s voice was cold and factual.
“Confess to what?” Sternway held his party line.
“I’m going to count to three and then I’m going to kill your son Sternway unless you confess to McKie what you’ve been doing, why you hired me and why all those people died.”
“I can’t tell…”
“Please Nigel… the children…”
“One…”
Ellie and Tony were standing in the hall silent. Tony had his gun drawn. Della and the children were too intent on the scene to see them, but McKie glanced at Della’s pleading face and saw Ellie poised behind her. His face didn’t betray their position.
“Please Nigel.. for once put the family first…”
“I can’t do that Della…”
“Two…”
“Don’t do it Stanton I’ll fire I swear I will. Put the gun down and we’ll talk you can be a witness there might be immunity…” McKie’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Three…”
Stanton fired both weapons. McKie fired. Ellie dived into the room shielding the children and Tony pushed in and fired his weapon at Stanton.
Ellie screamed as her body passed between Stanton and the children.
Sternway cried out and spun around facing the wall as if punched.
Stanton hit in the hand by McKie’s shot dropped the revolver then suddenly crumpled with a blood stain appearing on the right side of his chest from Tony’s shot.
Della grabbed the children and rushed them from the room. Tony dropped to Ellie’s side on the floor.
“Ellie!”
Ellie sat up cradling her arm. Tony saw blood and whipped off his belt and made a tourniquet. In his peripheral vision he saw Sternway turn back from the wall and take a step. He raised his Sig.
“You stay where you are!”
“My wife and children.” Sternway muttered. Blood showed on his right shoulder and he put his hand to it and looked at the blood.
David leant over Stanton. He was coughing blood.
“You tried not to kill me.” He coughed. “You shot the gun hand pointing at the children too.” He felt a pain spasm and coughed heavily. David put his hand on Stanton’s chest, there was a mass of blood, a pool of it was gathering around him on the floor.
“I think he shot an artery.”
“Forget… it… time for me to go… everything I said… find the phones..” Stanton closed his eyes.
“Is there a message for someone? Family maybe?” David asked.
Stanton’s eyes opened.
“No family… no one…”
“I’m sorry…”
Stanton slumped and his body went limp. David stood up. There was the sound of sirens, ambulances and police. He turned to Tony and Ellie.
“You okay Ellie?”
“Just a flesh wound.” Ellie grunted.
“Tough woman.” David said and looked at Tony.
“That’s my girl.” Said Tony keeping his pistol trained on Sternway.
Before the police came David went into the garden to see what the DIC listener had got and found him unconscious. Tony helped him get the unconscious man into the house. David made a thorough search of the house. He worked around Della Sternway as she packed. He found a Bic ‘disposable’ cell phone, orange coloured, in Sternway’s suit jacket and two lime green Bic ‘disposable’ cell phones in the Jaguar.
Ellie was taken away in one ambulance with Tony. The DIC listener was taken away in another and Nigel Sternway had a police escort in his. He had tried to speak to his wife, but she had cut him dead and defeated he had sat looking at the ground whilst Tony held him still at gun point.
Ten minutes after the gun play, the only blue light left was a waiting police car and the ambulances had gone. David stood in the door way of the house having answered all police questions he was able to. The DIC badge had done most of the work, DIC official stand down not having been something that would be externally broadcast.
On the doorstep Della held out her hand for the Jaguar keys. The children were dressed and there were bags on the floor.
“Do you need a hand with those bags.” David asked.
“That’s good of you thank you.” She said softly.
David took the bags to the car and put them in the boot. The children got in the car. Della stood by the driver’s door.
“I didn’t know exactly what he did at work. I knew that he was MI6, but I never asked. I didn’t realise he was so cold blooded… he wouldn’t even stand in front of us, to protect us, he was more concerned about his secrets.”
“I thought he was moving you away from him so that Stanton would shoot at him not you, I thought he was protecting you.”
“You’re a good man Mr..?”
“McKie, David McKie.”
“Do you have a family?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“Don’t ever put your work before your family like he did. His work turned him cold. He wasn’t like that when we first met, his work changed him.”
“I’ve heard a lot about that, killing rotting the soul.”
“Then you’ll know to be careful.” She said and opened the car door and turned to face him. “We’ll be at my sister’s house if anyone wants us. I expect you can get the address easily in your line of work.”
David nodded. He watched her get in the car and pull out of the drive.
He turned his own steps to the Citroen C4. It was getting on for eight o clock and he had a meeting to get to.
Euston Tower
8 p.m.
April 19th
Brook hadn’t heard anything from anyone. He hadn’t been in contact. Once you were into the tube of an E order you kept out of contact and kept heading for the target.
He had prepared well on the information Stanton had given them and done some research on the floor layout of the building from the plans, which were available, but didn’t show any of the details, just the structure.
He walked into the revolving door at the tower. It moved slowly, very slowly. The guards watched him. The x-ray showed the holstered weapon and the infra red showed he was hot, sweating probably. The guard at the desk readied a weapon. When the door revolved to let him into the lobby he made his way to the desk and held up his badge. The MI6 people had quickly made a copy. It was good.
“Hi lads Leigh Taylor new guy reporting for duty.” Telford held out the badge.
The guard looked at the badge and then at the roster and the list of expected people on the screen in front of him under the desk.
Telford noticed a second guard appear from a door to the side. He was a heavily built man. He leant on the door frame.
The guard behind the desk rose and opened the sliding gap in the long desk pressing a button under the table.
Telford walked through, walked up to the two lifts and pressed the button. The door of the left hand lift opened instantly. He stepped in and the door closed. The two guards smiled at each other and one picked up a phone. DIC medical team came down in the lifts behind the hidden entrance door and deployed themselves outside the left hand lift door.
In the lift Telford had a second’s abject fear as the lift filled with gas and then he passed out and slumped to the floor. Fans switched on and sucked the gas out.
Minutes later when the doors opened the medical team put Telford on a stretcher and unconscious he was loaded into a private ambulance. The guards were back at their posts serious faces, but there was an atmosphere.
Suddenly one of them laughed then the other joined in. Their laughter echoed around the lobby.
“Silly bugger!”
“I wonder who he was?”
“I expect Jack will tell us when he gets back from Downing Street.
10Downing Street
8-15 pm
April 19th
Tarquin Robinson sat on the same side of the cabinet room table as Gary Braine. Across the table Diane Peters sat with an MP3 player attached to speakers in front of her. Next to her Jack Fulton sat with his face like stone looking over at the photographs arranged in front of the PM. They were photographs of Sternway and Mrs Robinson leaving La Rueda, separately.
“This is ridiculous!” Robinson was in full flow. “I have no idea what this is all about. That could be Nigel Sternway’s voice, it sounds a bit odd, but Melinda didn’t meet him there as far as I know, even if she did we’ve met socially, she could have been there to ask a personal favour.”
“You know why she was there.” Jack’s voice was flat.
“This doesn’t change anything Fulton. We need to suspend all DIC activity until this whole sorry mess has been investigated.” Robinson was adamant
“I’m sorry Jack, it doesn’t look good. I’ll admit the tape does show Mrs Robinson speaking to Sternway, but frankly Jack I’m shocked you’d make the accusation on such flimsy evidence. The Home Secretary has a point, you’ve hardly distinguished yourselves.”
Jack looked at Diane and Robinson smiled.
A phone rang. The phone was in Robinson’s pocket. He took out the orange coloured Bic cell phone and pressed cancel.
“I’m sorry…” He went to put it back in his pocket but it rang again. At the same time the cabinet room door opened and David McKie walked in holding an identical orange Bic ‘disposable’ cell phone in his right hand. In his left hand he held a sheaf of papers.
“What’s the meaning of this?” The Prime Minister asked tersely. Jack looked quizzically at Diane.
“I’m sorry Prime Minister. I’ve just come from Nigel Sternway’s house where myself and another DIC officer shot Trevor Stanton…”
“This is ridiculous!” Robinson shouted. “Your duty teams were suspended Fulton. I want this man arrested.”
“.. Stanton spoke before he died. Sternway was injured and a female DIC officer, unarmed, shielded Sternway’s children with her own body and was also injured.”
Jack looked horrified.
“It’s alright Jack she was just a shot in the arm, Ellie’s fine.”
Robinson rose from his seat.
“I must protest Gary…”
“Sit down!” It was Diane’s voice.
Robinson suddenly bidden by her voice did sit down glowering and was beginning to feel warm and uncomfortable.
“Stanton told me about the plot to discredit DIC and he told me about this cell phone. It was in Sternway’s jacket. I checked the locations of phone calls.”
David moved around the desk and put the papers by the Prime Minister. Then he reached into his pocket and took out two lime green cell phones.
“These link Stanton and Sternway. The orange ones link Robinson here and Sternway. That’s the chain. There are two dead bodies, Stanton’s work, at an MI6 safe house. Sternway was there earlier this evening and he took a call from that phone whilst he was there. The whole plot was to discredit and disband the Department for Internal Concerns. Stanton told me that Sternway had Cole killed, by Marco Spencer, the man who died at Perth, no less. Della Sternway is a witness to everything Stanton said. Sternway himself is in hospital with a police guard, shot in the shoulder.” David looked at Jack. Jack gave a grim smile.
The Prime Minister looked at Robinson, who was no longer protesting then he looked at McKie.
“Good work McKie. Now call a police officer and have Mr Robinson arrested.”
“Gary really?”
“Robert Cole was a friend of mine. I always wondered about his death. You’ll answer for all of this.”
“I’ll go public.”
“You think MI6 will want the scandal?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“Think about it.”
McKie re-entered with two police officers and Robinson was taken away.
“Take him out the back please.” The PM called out.
Mr Braine turned to Jack and Diane and said “Sorry Jack I should have trusted you.”
Jack got up and went to gather the evidence.
“Leave it there Jack." The prime minister said and Jack nodded in answer.
“Consider DIC back to full operational duties.” He added. Again Jack nodded.
Moments later Jack, Diane and David stood in Downing Street as the black door of number ten closed behind them.
All three cast large shadows as they walked towards the exit of the famous street.