Sleeping Soldiers: (Tom Marlowe Book 1), page 8
‘For emergencies,’ he said.
‘Whose house is this?’ Tessa looked up at it. ‘And will they try to shoot us?’
‘Technically, it’s mine,’ Marlowe explained, walking up the drive. ‘That is, it was mum’s house before she died. I never moved in, as I felt it was a little creepy. So, I have a cleaner maintain it as an Airbnb and holiday home, and I stay when I need some space.’
‘Surely MI5 will know about this,’ Tessa said as they walked around the side of the house, Marlowe using the large key to open a gate. ‘They’ll check here as soon as they lose you.’
‘It’ll definitely be looked into, but not immediately,’ Marlowe smiled as they walked through the gate, locking it one-handedly behind them before walking out onto the large, mildly overgrown garden. ‘But we’re not going to the house.’
In fact, Marlowe continued walking across the grass to the back of the garden where, under a tree was a large shed. The key that opened the gate also unlocked the shed door, and he ushered Tessa inside, again locking it from the inside.
The shed was a twelve-foot by eight-foot space, with a table on one side, a massive rug on the floor and a selection of garden equipment scattered around. A couple of cobwebs were in the corners, and through the dirty, single window Tessa could see the back door of the house.
‘Not exactly the Ritz, but I suppose we won’t get rained on,’ she said.
Marlowe, hearing this, chuckled as he kicked aside the rug, revealing a trapdoor in the floor. Grabbing the handle, he pulled it up, revealing a small hatch with a ladder.
‘We’re not staying here, either,’ he said, motioning for her to start down the metal rungs of the ladder. ‘At the bottom is a light switch. Turn it on when you get down there. I need to make sure the rug settles back down on the hatch when I close it.’
More curious than concerned, Tessa started down the ladder, and a moment later, light lit up underground as Marlowe clambered into the hole, holding the bag of fish and chips in one hand as he pulled the rug back onto the hatch with the other, lowering it and the hatch above him as he climbed down into a metal tunnel, leading to a door.
‘What the hell is this?’ Tessa banged on the wall, hearing a solid thunk as she did so. Marlowe opened the door, and they walked into a large area, easily half the size of the garden.
On one wall, held up by some kind of pin board, was a large and deadly amount of weaponry, with boxes and holdalls under it, all bulging with another, yet unseen armoury. Ahead of them was a computer and bank of monitors, now coming to life as Marlowe turned them on, to the right were two cots, in a pull-down bunk-bed style, and a door to the side of it read WC. Against the wall to the back of them were shelves of tins and boxes, all food.
‘Jesus,’ Tessa walked over to the guns. ‘You have a Batcave. If Batman killed people, that is.’
‘Mum bought the house in the late nineties,’ Marlowe explained. ‘The guy before us was an old fellow, lived here for decades. During the sixties, he’d worried about Russian missiles, so he built a fallout shelter in the garden. Over the next twenty years, he added to it. But it was rickety as hell, and he’d never asked for planning permission. So, when we bought it, he told us about the “secret nuclear bunker” he’d made, but it was done in a wink wink way, as he explained she’d have to fill it in before it became a sinkhole, wiping out the garden. He took ten grand off the price because of this, but all this was actually why she bought the bloody place.’
Marlowe looked around the place.
‘It was held up by plywood walls and beams,’ he explained, placing the bag of food on a table. ‘Place was a death trap and looked like a Western mine. Mum had a couple of friends who worked on battleships, and they helped shore this all up after 9/11 happened, as everyone was getting paranoid again. Welded steel frames and panels. We placed a chemical toilet in, and concreted around everything once it was done, so it was secure.’
He looked back at the screens as they sparked to life.
‘Nobody knows it exists, not even Whitehall,’ he explained. ‘Mum never finished it, and I took on the last touches a few years after her death. I felt I needed something for a rainy day. There was some guy on YouTube doing something similar, and it looked cool.’
On the screen were CCTV cameras now, half outside the house, the others in corners of rooms.
‘They’ll come in, and we’ll see and hear everything,’ Marlowe pulled out a black plastic hard-case, opening it up. Inside was a phone connected to a laptop, a box of money in various denominations, and a handful of passports. ‘They won’t know we’re here, and we can hide out until tomorrow morning. I have a car nearby we can use to get to Trix.’
‘Hence the fish and chips,’ Tessa nodded. ‘We’re staying a while.’
Marlowe pointed at the shelves.
‘I have some microwaveable food, long-term stuff, but it’s pure survival,’ he explained. ‘Tastes like cardboard. Mushed cardboard.’
‘I get it.’ Tessa was already opening up one of the paper wrappers, eating a chip. ‘Dad had me try survival rations once. I think I was going on about following in his footsteps, and he wanted to quickly turn me off that idea.’
‘Did it work?’
Tessa smiled, blowing on a chip to cool it.
‘Am I in the army?’
Marlowe didn’t reply, opening up the laptop connected to the phone, already tapping out a message in some kind of internet relay chat app.
‘We use a Starlink array for internet here,’ he explained. ‘And I had some techie friends boost the security. So, anything we do or say on this bounces around a dozen different IPs on every continent before they can even start to narrow down where we are. Same with phone calls. I’m sending Trix what I know so far through a forgotten IRC message board only we can find. She’ll have algorithms set that scrape data from particular areas of the dark web, so she’ll get it in a matter of minutes.’
Having finished a message, discussing everything he knew about Bridget, Rubicon and the events of the day, he pressed send, and Tessa saw it turn into random text and ASCII code.
‘Nobody reads the board but better to be sure,’ he smiled, turning on the phone, connecting it to the laptop as it booted up. Once the Lock Screen was bypassed, Marlowe typed in a number, pressing connect, and turning on the speaker.
After a moment of ringing, a man answered.
‘Yes?’ a nervous, worried voice spoke.
‘Raymond?’ Marlowe asked. ‘Bridget Summers told me to call you. My name is—’
‘Hello, Tom,’ the voice continued. ‘I met you with your mother once. You were about to join the army, so you probably don’t remember. And Marshall had always said you were his backup plan.’
Marlowe glanced at Tessa; she was looking up from the chips she’d been demolishing.
‘We’re on an encrypted line, and I have Tessa Kirk with me,’ Marlowe continued.
‘Oh, dear girl, I’m so sorry I couldn’t make the funeral today,’ Raymond Sykes continued.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, shrugging at Marlowe, giving the impression that, although this man knew her, she had no idea who he was. But, with Marshall’s life being as secretive as it was, this was hardly surprising. ‘But we don’t have long to talk, and we’re a little in the dark here.’
‘Of course,’ Raymond replied down the line. ‘How much do you know?’
Quickly and succinctly, Marlowe explained what he already knew, primarily from Bridget’s conversation.
‘Okay, we definitely need to talk,’ Raymond replied. ‘But not on here. I know we’re encrypted, but this is an “explain in person” kind of thing. Do you know Cambridge? If so, meet me at the Corpus Clock tomorrow at noon. It’s quite a common tourist area, so nobody will think it strange, and there are enough exits for you.’
‘Raymond, can you at least give me an idea of what I’m looking at here?’ Marlowe asked. ‘All I know is some old Op called Rubicon is throwing MI5 into full panic mode.’
‘It’s not MI5,’ Raymond explained. ‘It’s the people in it. We found proof someone in MI5 is killing anyone connected to Rubicon. Chances are, you’ve met them already.’
‘Why though?’ Tessa was frowning as she spoke. ‘Surely they’d want this discovered as much as my dad did?’
‘Not if they’re the sleeper agent you’re hunting,’ Raymond explained. ‘I need to go. Tomorrow, at noon. Wear something red.’
And with that, the call disconnected. Marlowe stared at the phone.
Someone in MI5 was a sleeper agent for the Russians. And, worse than that, it was possibly someone he’d already met.
Could it be Harris?
Without thinking, Marlowe had already walked over to the pin board and pulled down a new SIG Sauer to replace his stolen one, discarding the Glock from his waistband as he started to quickly dismantle his new weapon, checking the springs, making sure it hadn’t gummed up in the time it’d been down here.
‘Are you okay?’ Tessa asked, watching him.
‘Not really,’ he said, looking back. ‘Your father may have been killed by one of his own.’
‘I heard,’ Tessa nodded. ‘What do we do about it?’
‘You’re going somewhere safe for the moment,’ Marlowe replied, holding a hand up. ‘Look, I’m good. I was a Royal Marine Commando who then trained with the SAS, but these guys almost took me out. I can’t be worrying about you while I look into this.’
‘Oh, so you’d be worrying about poor little me?’ Tessa took the discarded Glock, aiming it at Marlowe. ‘And what makes you think—’
Without thinking, Marlowe moved in, grabbing and twisting, disarming Tessa as he turned the gun on her.
‘I think because I have the experience,’ he said, waggling the gun, aimed at her face.
‘But you don’t see all the angles,’ Tessa smiled, nodding downwards.
As Marlowe glanced at his chest, he saw the SIG Sauer, now in Tessa’s other hand, and aimed at his stomach.
‘Okay, that’s nice,’ he said, lowering the gun. ‘Your dad teach you that?’
Tessa smiled and went to reply, but there was a flashing red light above the monitor that distracted them both.
‘What’s that?’ Tessa asked, as Marlowe ran over to the computer.
‘Perimeter alarm,’ he said, bringing up CCTV images. ‘They’ve arrived.’
8
UNDERGROUND, OVERGROUND
Marlowe flicked a switch; the lights in the bunker lowered, and a quick glance to the corridor showed the lights at the base of the ladder were turned off.
‘In case they see a sliver of light,’ he said as he scrolled through the footage. At the front of the house, a black SUV had stopped, and out of it moved four black-overalled figures. It was a black-ops team, and they were armed for a fight, each with guns strapped to their thighs and assault rifles in their hands.
‘Recognise any of them?’ Tessa asked, and Marlowe pointed to a woman opening the front gate.
‘That’s Shaw,’ he said. ‘Don’t recognise the other three, and Curtis and Harris aren’t there.’
‘Maybe they’re the second team?’ Tessa continued. ‘Coming in from the back? That’s how dad always did it.’
Cursing, Marlowe switched cameras; Tessa was right. In the country lane at the back of the property, a second black SUV had appeared. And, out of this emerged five more agents, the lead being Curtis.
‘Damn,’ Marlowe hissed. ‘If they’re coming through the back, they’ll pass right by the shed.’
‘Well, now we’ll see whether or not you placed the rug down properly,’ Tessa smiled, already walking over to the pin board, and pulling a shotgun from the rack. ‘Eat your chips before they get cold. Is there another way out of here?’
‘Yeah, comes out a hundred feet south, on the edge of the next field,’ Marlowe nodded, already grabbing a holdall and filling it with money, fake credit cards and passports. Moving to a shelf, he pulled down a handful of pay-as-you-go phones as well, tossing them in. Once this was done, he pulled up another duffle from the bottom of the weaponry wall, throwing assault rifles, pistols, and ammunition into it with wild abandon.
‘Pass me that case,’ he said, pointing at a box that looked no larger than a sheath of A4 paper. ‘We might need some bugs.’
Throwing this into the second duffel and zipping it up, Marlowe looked up at the screens. On them, he could see Shaw and her team already in the house, checking room by room, while Curtis and the others had stopped outside the shed, talking. One of them was holding up some kind of transmitter.
‘Shit,’ he said, suddenly patting himself down. ‘They found us because they’re tracking us. Quick, check yourself. Did they put anything on you? In your pockets?’
‘No,’ Tessa started checking her pockets. ‘These have little space for things in these suits, anyway—’
She stopped as Marlowe pulled out a scanner, turning it on. Walking over to Tessa, he passed it over her, pausing as it squealed at the back of her neck.
‘They stuck it under your collar,’ he said, flipping up the jacket’s collar and pulling a small tracker, the red light flashing off the fabric. Quickly, he placed it on the table and, with the butt of the SIG Sauer, slammed down onto it, shattering the device.
Looking up at the screen, he saw Curtis and his agents looking around in anger.
‘They know we’re around, but not where,’ he said. ‘The metal walls have caused confusion, but it won’t last long, and the buggers are thorough.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Tessa hissed, staring at the broken tracker. ‘Dad would be furious at me.’
‘Your dad’s done similar in the past, don’t worry about it,’ Marlowe was already slinging the heavier of the bags over his shoulder, pointing at the other. ‘And between us? They found me earlier today in the same bloody manner. We don’t dwell on the past, we push through the present. Grab that and follow me.’
‘We could wait it out,’ Tessa suggested. ‘They don’t know we’re in here.’
On the screen, Curtis and the others were examining the shed door.
‘Not an option,’ he said. ‘Go. Now.’
As Tessa ran to a grille beside the cots, pulling it off and clambering through it on all fours, Marlowe ran to the computer, typing in a string of commands as he looked around. The moment he left, the motion detector would click on, and as Curtis, Shaw or anyone else opened the hatch, it’d set off a series of claymores down here, which in turn would ignite the thermite. The whole place would be a blaze in a matter of moments.
‘Damn it,’ Marlowe muttered, munching on the remains of a battered sausage as he followed Tessa through the grate. ‘I really liked this place.’
Marlowe hadn’t been underestimating the distance; the hatch that emerged from the tunnel into an Epping woodlands was only a hundred feet from the entrance, and it’d only taken a minute to crawl along it. In fact, they were almost out when there was an immense explosion, and a blast of heat came up the tunnel behind them. Marlowe kept crawling; he knew the flames would keep Curtis at bay, and it’d still be a little while before they found the exit route, but the explosion would likely alert them to an escape attempt, and now MI5 agents would start looking at maps and drawing circles, working out possible escape routes, rates of speed, and exits.
The hatch opened into a clearing, and on the other side of the fence and hedge, Marlowe could see flames licking up. It was probably the shed, now ablaze.
Clambering out of the metal hatch, placing it back down and recovering the dirt and leaves above it, Marlowe waved at Tessa to follow him as he ran east, into the woods.
‘We don’t have much of a lead,’ he said. ‘They’ll know we’re—’
He stopped as he heard shouts behind him, and glancing back he could see the five agents, including Curtis, slowly making their way into the woods blindly, Heckler & Koch MP5s in their hands.
‘Dammit! We have to circle,’ he whispered, pulling Tessa low. ‘I can’t lead them to the barn.’
Moving deeper into the trees, Marlowe deliberately snapped a branch with his foot, and a few yards further, broke another with his hand.
‘Are you actually leading them towards us?’ Tessa hissed, but as she spoke, Marlowe was already pulling out a flash-bang grenade and a length of wire, placing it across the path before running on.
‘That’s a terrible trap,’ she shook her head. ‘Dad would have—’
‘Understood,’ Marlowe smiled as he pulled her down. ‘We can’t kill any of them, even if they want to off us. That’d get everyone after us, and they’re just doing their jobs, so we need to just slow them.’
He pointed into the woods; the MI5 agents had found the flash bang tripwire, and Curtis was waving them off to the left and right.
‘They now realise there’s a chance they could trip something, which makes them cautious about everything they see as they continue, because they don’t want to get hurt,’ Marlowe said as he rummaged on the ground for a branch. ‘So, now they’re spreading out to try to not only stop multiple people getting injured if someone trips a trap, but also to gain more ground.’
He forced a smile.
‘Which is a great idea, but it leaves them in the woods, in the evening, alone, while the other group checks the house.’
‘So, we take them out one by one?’ Tessa looked incredulous.
‘No, only one’s needed,’ Marlowe was already sneaking forwards, through the woods now, his voice low as he approached Curtis from behind. The agent was pulling out his radio, looking around, but missing Marlowe, now behind a tree.
‘Anything?’ he hissed into the radio, and the lack of any response seemed to anger him more than if someone had replied. Tossing the radio to the ground in impotent rage, he sighed, leant over to pick it up—
And fell to the floor as Marlowe slammed the branch against his head, sending him stumbling to the floor.
