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 late 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 position 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.
Barclay was not only elated, but drained to the point of near exhaustion. He knew that what they had achieved would need to be repeated, again and again, before it could be regarded as genuine progress. He began to wonder if he had the stamina to see this through to its conclusion, but there was no option other than to proceed. His Director had been hugely supportive, but at the same time was being very cautious.
“Whatever you do, Jack,” he had said, “make sure word of this does not get out. We need to be quite certain that this is the breakthrough we believe it to be before anyone outside this establishment learns of it. You have probably put this country at the very forefront of experimental and practical work in this field, and we must be sure we stay there.”
As his team prepared to run the trials again, and again and again, Professor Jack Barclay had time to reflect on his own position. Subject to further trials and tests producing the same results, he had actually achieved all that he had set out to do all those years ago. But somehow, instead of feeling elated, he felt almost depressed.
He began to wonder what there was to do next. Perhaps he should turn his hand to some new area of research in the field of particle physics, and quit this project while he was ahead. He had been thinking about it for some time, actually, especially when things had started to get on top of him. In fact, he thought he knew where he would like to go, if ever it could be arranged. It was overseas, too.
***
‘Dusty’ Miller was knackered, as well. No doubt about it. He was quite used to facing the extremes of fatigue and tiredness, and had been trained to withstand the physical and mental pressures which sleep deprivation under difficult conditions could bring. He was, he admitted, surprised at his present state. He had somehow never expected to experience it in London, of all places. The jungles of Indonesia or the deserts of Iraq – perhaps. But the back streets of West London – never.
Yet, there it was. He was knackered, and not finished yet, either. It was his job to wait for Jarvis to leave his home, and to follow him as he headed westward towards Oxford. Somewhere en route, Miller would meet up with colleagues who would then continue shadowing Jarvis until he finally arrived at the place from where he hoped to have a clear shot at Professor Barclay.
Jarvis finally left his house just before 2.0pm, complete with the briefcase. He looked, and felt, distinctly ill. He did not seem to be in any great hurry as he started his car, and headed off up the road.
Miller reported that Jarvis was ‘on the move’. He pulled out of the side turning, and followed at a discrete distance on his motorbike. It was not long, however, before ‘Dusty’ Miller became concerned and confused. Jarvis was not going the way they had thought.
Like others in Section 11 who used the pool of bikes, Miller had a ‘hard hat’ with a built-in mobile phone. He activated it using the hidden keypad on the bike’s fuel tank, and called the Ops. Room.
“Jarvis is not, repeat ‘not’ heading west,” he told them. “He started off going east and has now turned south, heading for central London.”
Clayton and Marsden were immediately alerted.
“Where the hell can he be going?”
Miller was instructed to discretely keep on his tail at all costs, and to keep the line open.
“Tell Gladys to look out for a summons for the congestion charge,” he replied. “It looks as if I’ll be going straight through the middle, and I don’t propose to stop at a newsagents to buy a ticket.”
“Traffic’s getting very heavy,” reported Miller a bit later. “Are you monitoring the tracking device I fitted?”
They were.
“Driving down Kilburn High Road,” reported Miller. “Still heading south.”
“Edgware Road, heading for Marble Arch.”
“This traffic’s awful,” complained Miller. “He’s got ahead of me at traffic lights – jumped the red.”
Clayton and Marsden were totally confused, and quite unable to work out where Jarvis might be going. They had large scale maps of London spread out all over the Ops Room, and it began to look increasingly as if Barclay was not Jarvis’s target after all.
“I’ve lost him!” shouted Miller. “I think he went for Park Lane, still going south, but I can’t be sure. He’s twice nipped across red lights, but I dare not give chase – too risky and I’d be spotted. I’ll do my best to catch up with him. I’ll wind this thing up down Park Lane, and hope for the best.”
There was a long silence from the man on the motorbike.
“Got him again,” shouted Miller. “Going like a bat out of hell down Buckingham Palace Road, towards the Embankment. He’s a long way ahead of me though.”
Moments later – “He’s gone again. Saw him turn right along the Embankment towards Battersea, but he’s out of view now.”
“Battersea!” shouted Clayton. “Barclay’s got a flat in Battersea somewhere!”
Clayton was desperately searching his computer for the address.
“Here it is!”
He got on the radio to Miller.
“Barclay’s got a flat in Battersea – Albert Bridge Mansions. Get there!”
“Yes Colonel!”
Miller got there as fast as he could through the late afternoon traffic, but never saw Jarvis’s car again.
“I don’t like this, Bill,” said Nick Marsden.
“Neither do I.”
“Why would Jarvis be going to Barclay’s flat in London, when we know he’s in Harwell.”
“Perhaps the Russians don’t know that.”
“We’re guessing again, Bill. I suppose Jarvis couldn’t be on his way to Dulwich, could he?”
“Barbara’s place, d’you mean?”
“He’s heading that way.”
“But why, on earth?”
“Can’t imagine. But I don’t like the smell of this.”
“Let’s get someone down there, then, smartish.”
“I’ll go,” said Marsden.
“I’d rather you stayed here, Nick running the Ops. Room. Send someone else if you like, but you stay here.”
“OK,” said Nick. “But let’s not tell Barbara.”
“At least she’s here and Donald’s with Catherine.”
“I’ll get it organised, just in case.”
Miller found Albert Bridge Mansions all right, but there was no trace of Jarvis’s car in the car park. He walked round the side roads, but found nothing. Eventually, he went into the building, and up to Barclay’s flat. The door was firmly locked shut, and there was no sign of Jarvis, and not a sound coming from the flat.
As he left the flats twenty minutes or so later, he saw Jarvis hurrying away from a neighbouring block, carrying the briefcase. Miller managed to get a couple of quick photos using his mobile phone, and called the Ops. Room as Jarvis set off in his car heading back down the Embankment.
“Let Jarvis go,” said Clayton, “and see if you can find anything at Barclay’s flat.”
Miller managed to pick the lock quite easily, and went inside quietly, closing the door behind him. He had taken the precaution of wearing latex gloves so as not to leave fingerprints. It was almost dark by now, but still light enough for Miller to see a prone figure sprawled on the kitchen floor, in an ever-increasing pool of blood. He took a couple of pictures, and left the way he had got in.
“I’m afraid your Professor Barclay is dead,” he reported to Clayton.
“Not possible!” exclaimed ‘S’.
“I recognised the man,” retorted Miller. “I’ll email the pictures I took right away.”
“Do that,” demanded Clayton, “and then get back here.”
“Yes Colonel.”
Nick downloaded the photos.
“He’s right, damn it! No doubt about it, Bill. That’s Barclay all right. Take a look.”
“How the devil could Barclay get away from Harwell without us seeing him?”
“I’ll check with the team over there, and see what they have to say.”
“I tell you what!” exclaimed Clayton. “I’ll bet Barclay is still at Harwell after all. The man in the Battersea flat is probably his twin brother.”
“Dammit, I’d quite forgotten he had a twin!”
“Identical, apparently. The Russians have cocked-up, big time!”
After a couple of quick calls, Nick confirmed that Barclay was still at the laboratory, at a meeting with the Director.
“Now let’s think this through,” said Clayton. “Unless we can convince the Russians that they’ve got their man, the Professor is still very much in danger. But if we let Jack Barclay carry on as usual, they will soon find out, and have another go at him.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Marsden.
“I’m not quite sure myself, yet. But we need to talk to our Barclay, and quickly.”
“And secretly.”
“That means going to Harwell, in case he’s spotted leaving the place. Unless we get him brought here in a van, or something.”
“Let’s do that.”
“I’ll get on to Robin Algar immediately,” said Clayton grabbing the red phone.
Miller walked in.
“Sorry about the Professor, Colonel,” he said. “All my fault, I’m afraid.”
“Nothing’s your fault, Miller. We think the man you saw could be Barclay’s twin brother. It’s the Russians who have screwed things up, not you.”
“Time you took a break,” said Marsden. “Before you disappear, get on to your chums and make sure we are told the minute Jarvis gets home. And I want to know if he’s still got the briefcase.”
“Aye, aye, Commander.”
“Don’t be cheeky, Miller.”
Clayton called Nick into his office.
“I’m going over to the Cabinet Office for a meeting with Sir Robin Algar. He agrees we should pull in Barclay quickly and quietly, and he’s arranging for the Yard to collect him. By the time he gets to Algar’s office, we shall have agreed a strategy, I hope. Do you mind staying here?”
“Not at all. We’ve got bodies scattered all over the place, so I shall recall them.”
“By the way, I think we need to keep an eye on Jarvis, still. At least until he gets rid of that gun.”
“Agreed. I’ll get Miller out there again in the morning, but there are other chaps out there now, anyway.”
Clayton decided to go by bus and underground to Westminster. It gave him time to think.
“Barclay should be here within an hour,” announced the Cabinet Secretary as Clayton was shown into his office. “Scotland Yard have arranged to collect him in an unmarked car, so with any luck no-one will notice, even if he is being watched.”
Clayton’s mobile phone rang. He listened for a moment, and then said, “I know about it.”
He turned to Algar.
“My people noticed,” he said, “and they are at this moment in hot pursuit of the police car!”
“That’s a pretty smart outfit you run, Bill, and no mistake.”
“There are some pretty smart people in it, that’s what counts.”
Clayton rang Marsden at the office.
“While you’re recalling our deployed troops,” he said, “there are a couple of our blokes somewhere between Didcot and London, chasing an un-marked police car. Call them off, if you would – the car’s bringing Barclay here, but they obviously think Barclay’s been taken by the opposition.”
“I’ll do that, before there’s an accident!”
“Any news from Miller?”
“Yes; he’s just rung in to say that Jarvis has arrived home, complete with briefcase.”
Head of Section 11 and the Cabinet Secretary at last got down to discussing what to do next.
“My guess is,” said Clayton, “that Jarvis will be summoned to another meeting with our Russian friend, to get rid of the weapon. They’re not going to want him wandering around with that for long. Unless, of course, they discover that Jarvis has killed the wrong man, and task him to have another go.”
“Somehow, we have to convince the Russians that their mission was a success,” said Algar. “Otherwise, Barclay will be in even greater mortal danger, especially if they discover that his research work is at last proving to be something of a scientific triumph.”
“What do you suggest?”
“We could perhaps use our newly defected KGB man to spread the word.”
“No. There’s only one way the threat to Barclay will be removed, and that is to convince the Russians that he really is dead. Then they’ll give up, but not unless or until.”
Sir Robin Algar frowned.
“What ever are you suggesting now.”
Clayton outlined his audacious plan, to an increasingly incredulous Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
“You know,” he said eventually, “that could just work.”
“But only if we get the total agreement and co-operation of Barclay himself.”
“We simply must. After all, it’s for his own good as well as being of immense long-term benefit to this country.”
“You will have to use every diplomatic skill at your disposal, Sir Robin.”
“We might just do it between us. After all, the man has very few options.”
“Neither have we,” said Clayton. “There’s no plan ‘B’ that I can think of.”
The red secure phone rang. Algar answered it, and passed it to Clayton. “It’s for you. I might have guessed!”
Clayton listened for a moment. “Get Miller on to it. I want photos of the switch, and both men. Tell him to use the mobile phone camera, from outside. Let Jarvis go – we can pick him up when we want to.”
He hung up. “Jarvis has been told to meet our Russian friend tomorrow morning to hand back the briefcase. St. James’ coffee bar in Piccadilly. With a few pictures, we’ll have all the evidence we need to get rid of Jarvis.”
“He can rot in jail,” said Algar.
“No he can’t,” said Clayton. “If we get the police on to him, he’ll blow Section 11 clear out of the water. He’ll have to be handled very carefully, I’m afraid.”
The Cabinet Secretary’s intercom rang.
“Professor Barclay is here to see you, Sir Robin.”
“Good. Show him in. And bring the drinks tray.”
***