Ethan Justice: Origins (Ethan Justice #1) (27 page)

“Da... Da... Da... ” he repeated, bringing his hand to his mouth to stifle a yawn brought about by the sudden reduction in adrenaline. He might just live - for a little longer.

“Are you okay, Varushkin?”

John pulled his hand away from his mouth, his eyes focussed on his knees. He was a long way from safety yet.

“I’m sorry, Mr Fisher. I get emotional when talk about Mother Russia.” John looked up at Fisher. “Tell me what you do with gun and then we find girl.”

“Like you, Varushkin, I am acting in the interests of my country. Tomorrow, the Secretary of State for Defence addresses a meeting on the future of the SAS in Whitehall’s offices.”

John had a bad feeling. “Yes?”

“I will use the gun to destroy him and the others who have chosen to save money at the expense of our country’s war against terror.”

John clenched his teeth to prevent his jaw from dropping. “I believe Whitehall offices are many. You know which to destroy?”

Fisher’s smile widened, exaggerating his lip injury and giving his face a ghoulish appearance. He took a deep drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out on the desk in one motion, like a dive-bombing aeroplane.

“Not one, Varushkin. All of them,” he said.

23: Monday 26th September, 10:25

Savannah slumped in the far corner of the downstairs coffee house facing the window.

It was still a little early for the mid-morning caffeine seekers, and a couple of elderly, respectable-looking ladies were the only other customers. By positioning herself with her bottom just past the edge of her cushioned chair, she could rest her elbows on the seat to prevent her slipping further down. This awkward pose permitted her sight over the top of the chairs on the opposite side of the table. From there she could see if anyone exited the building via the adjoining stairs from the office above.

“Can I take your order, Miss?” said a smartly dressed young woman with a whiter than white apron. Her straw-coloured hair was cut short and neat, adding to her aura of efficiency. She showed no sign that Savannah’s awkward pose, halfway down a chair, was anything but ordinary.

“I’m trying to avoid an ex-boyfriend,” she said, not particularly caring whether the waitress believed her or not.

“We get that all the time,” said the woman. “I find that an Americano goes down well in these situations.”

“Okay,” Savannah said, annoyed at the distraction from her vigil. The woman winked in what might have been an attempt at female solidarity before walking back towards the nearby kitchen, leaving Savannah to ponder her options.

Her first instinct was to try and contact Johnson until she realised that she had no way of getting in touch with the Earthguard agent. Added to this was the uncertainty as to Johnson’s agenda. There was every reason to assume that Wilson’s partner was not on their side. She wondered if John had reactivated the watch this morning. Wilson had not mentioned that he should, but Wilson may well not be taking orders from Johnson anymore.

The only person she trusted one hundred per cent was John, and he might be in immediate danger if not already dead. Could John be believable as Varushkin for any length of time? To Christos, a muscle-bound idiot over a phone, John’s Russian accent was believable, but face to face with a more intelligent psychopath, she feared the worst.

Two minutes later, with numb buttocks and aching back, she could no longer bear the thought of John coping alone. Standing and stretching, she pulled out a five pound note and walked up to the counter. The short haired waitress was chatting with the two ladies about the possibility of them sharing one of the fresh cream cakes and pastries displayed beneath the cooled glass counter.

Savannah strained her ears for sounds that might suggest a struggle above her, but the absence of any noise did little to allay her fears. Finally, the cake sale fell through, and the friends elected to settle their bill. Swapping her attention repeatedly between the window and the waitress, wishing the elderly women, who both insisted on paying half each, would hurry up with their spindly fingers and fiddly coins, Savannah could no longer wait. She fished out a fifty pound note from her skirt pocket and threw it at the waitress.

“I’ll get those and the coffee I never had. Give the ladies a cake each on me. I’m going upstairs, and if I don’t come out in the next hour, please call the police.”

The two old ladies remarked on what a kind young thing she was as the waitress tucked the cash into her own pocket. She nodded and looked at her watch. “One hour, got it”

Savannah ran to the door, up the stairs and back into the lion’s den.

*

Pedestrians veered off at either side as Wilson carved his way through the morning hustle and bustle of Twickenham’s streets, making his way to the car. Johnson had left Wilson the phlegm-coloured Mondeo and hired himself another vehicle. No doubt it would be a petrol-guzzling, turbo-charged German sports car of some description.

Down the narrow side street where the Mondeo had been illegally parked, a plump man in his thirties was resting a ticket against the bonnet to fill in the details. Wilson was thirty feet away when the red-faced man placed the ticket under a windscreen wiper blade.

A bright yellow wheel clamp, or as Johnson called them, a Denver boot, was attached to the front passenger side wheel. This was quite a regular occurrence for an Earthguard agent given the number of times they needed to park illegally. It wasn’t possible to protect the country from terrorists if you spent hours looking for a parking space. Usually, they paid the fine on the spot and everything was taken care of. Today was anything but usual.

Wilson reached inside his coat and pulled out his Glock-17, pointing it at the head of the man as he walked towards him.

“You’ve got fifteen seconds to remove that clamp.”

The chubby clamping attendant didn’t look up. “Look, Mister, I don’t make the rules and I don’t take any shit. You think they let jerks that can’t handle themselves do this job?”

“Ten seconds,” said Wilson, now only ten feet away and approaching fast, gun outstretched, aim following the fat man’s head.

The man looked up lazily like he had seen it all before and then realised instantly that he hadn’t. The nonchalant sneer vaporised, and his hands shot into the air, his considerable belly freeing his shirt from his trousers, exposing his undulating sun-shy flesh. “Don’t shoot me. I’m sorry for dissing you. I get so much shit in this job, but it ain’t worth dying for.”

Wilson shook his head. He pressed the barrel of his handgun deep into the protruding flesh of the man’s stomach. “Look at you. You’re a disgrace. Get the clamp off now and I might just let you live.”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, digging out the tools from his bag to remove the heavy metal obstruction.

That was the great thing about guns: they brought back good manners to those who most needed them. Wilson scanned the street for any unwanted attention as he put away the gun under his coat. Its job was done, and the man scrabbling around with the tools at his feet was shaking enough without the constant threat of death hanging over him.

Wilson leaned over the fumbling man. “Just take it easy. You’re not going to get hurt.”

A few grunts later, a sweat-dripping red face looked up at Wilson. “It’s off, sir.”

“Good. Now give me your mobile phone.”

The man rummaged in his jacket pocket, pulled out a top of the range iPhone and offered it to Wilson.

Wilson took the phone, dropped it on the tarmac and ground his heel into it until it became a mess of broken glass and electronics.

“Got any others? A work phone or radio?”

“No, sir.”

Wilson double checked the street for movement. “Good. Stay on the ground, and count to five hundred before you get up.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” Wilson recognised the voice as his own but the words and tone reminded him of his dead father. He couldn’t help himself and looked over his shoulder to be sure. It was his tired mind playing tricks on him. He had to calm down.

“Okay, sir?” the fat man offered.

The clamper’s mouth was downturned in a miserable and defeated expression, his body trembling as if the cold had cut through him. A pang of guilt hit Wilson hard. He had no right to vent his anger on this man. How had everything become so messed up?

“Do you know why I did this?”

The man on the ground looked up at him like a frightened child who would say anything to be left in peace. “You need your car?” he finally suggested.

“Because I work for the Lord.”

“Sir?”

What was he doing explaining his actions to a stranger? Wilson felt the familiar vibration of his phone against his chest. It would be Johnson. He would know the phones had been switched and the gun was missing. He let it ring. It was time to trust to higher powers again.

“Five hundred and not a second earlier. Got it? And say your prayers every night.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said.

*

Johnson slotted the phone back into the dashboard of his rental car. How come he had his partner’s phone? Where was his? Wilson’s phone had signalled that the phone’s tracking system was off so it could be anywhere. Another screw up he’d have to explain away to his controller. They were stacking up thick and fast.

The BMW was an improvement on the Mondeo, but it was only a three series and lacked the legroom and panache of the far superior Mercedes. Still, it carried the ‘M’ badge and wasn’t pea green or a Ford, and that was a bonus. He was parked seven miles east of Oxford, just off the M40 motorway. His thoughts turned to the grave matters at hand. Where was the gun, and what was his partner playing at?

Over the years the agency work had provided him with many dilemmas, but he had to admit that the appropriate resolution to his current conundrum escaped him. Facts were facts, and however he looked at them, the gun was gone and Wilson was off the radar, probably with his phone.

The gun thief, who might or might not be Wilson, had made no attempt to refill the hole with the soft earth that now surrounded it. Could he and Wilson have been followed when they buried the briefcase? There had been no evidence to support this, but surely it was a scenario as likely as his partner returning to retrieve the weapon in the dead of night. He tapped the leather bound steering wheel, racking his brains for other possibilities.

Eventually, Johnson had to admit the likelihood that his long term partner had gone rogue on him was high. Of all of the four Earthguard agents Johnson had been paired with, he liked Wilson the most. Not only because he had saved his life on more than one occasion, but because he had trusted him completely. Agents were chosen partly based on their inability to be compromised, which virtually ruled out blackmail. It was times like this when additional information on your partner would have paid dividends. Knowing nothing about a man in whom you entrusted your life seemed fairly ridiculous, and yet it had always been this way.

Policy dictated that he should call in his suspicions and let his controller take care of it. Wilson would be dead before the day was out. But Johnson wasn’t ready to convict and hang his partner yet.

Johnson glanced at his gold Patek Philippe chronograph. It was ten past eleven. It would take at least an hour and a half to get to Twickenham, and he needed to know what was going on now. If he called the fake detective agency, he might inadvertently put Smith and Jones in danger. If they died, not only would his agent days be over, he’d be behind bars or under six feet of earth. But the overriding truth was that he could not have their deaths on his conscience.

He pressed the top button on his watch three times. He had thought it paranoia when he had slipped the watch beneath the casing of the briefcase but how grateful he was for it at that moment. The watch on his wrist was tracking Smith and the briefcase.

*

John and Fisher remained at the desks in the offices of Ethan Justice awaiting the return of Savannah Jones. John guessed that most of the air in the room had been replaced with tobacco smoke. He had never seen anyone smoke so relentlessly.

“Are you sure she’ll come back here?” said Fisher, clearly not happy at having to wait around, flicking through anything he could find to read on Savannah’s desk. John reckoned the files must be more convincing than his accent because Fisher, although silent when reading, raised his eyebrows at a few choice places.

Better not ask me anything,
thought John, who was beginning to suspect that the waiting game might not be the answer he was hoping for. He reminded himself to stay in character.

“We agree, if no phone contact, return here in one hour.” John looked at his watch and jerked in his chair as it started to vibrate in short even pulses. Was it Johnson or Wilson, and could he trust either of them?

“What’s up?” Fisher asked, noticing John’s change in demeanour.

John waved his watch arm in the air. “I have Parkinson’s disease. It is no matter.” It was the first thing John could think of to say. When he didn’t respond immediately to questions, Fisher would mumble to himself as if questioning himself for trusting John.

“You’re a bit young for Parkinson’s, aren’t you?”

“It is early onsit,” John said, hoping that Fisher knew little of the disease.

“Onsit?”

“Sorry my English ... not so good today. Onset, I try to say.”

Every time John spoke, he sensed that his disguise was getting thinner and thinner.
Please let it be paranoia.
He had managed to convince Fisher that Savannah would return in one hour, and they had spent the last ten minutes swapping tales of daring raids or, in John’s case, bogus stories of the men he had killed in various ways. These blood-riddled accounts of fake assassinations and expert knife manoeuvres seemed to calm Fisher, but they were becoming ever harder to fabricate. Soon he would say something impossible or improbable or just plain unbelievable, and his cover would be in tatters.

John thanked all the wasted hours of watching action films since he was eight. His mother had said his favourite pastime would never be of any use in the real world. Would he ever get the satisfaction of telling her ‘I told you so’ for the first, and probably only, time in his life? His watch went off again, and his nervous system followed suit, his whole body jerking involuntarily.