Sleeping Soldiers: (Tom Marlowe Book 1), page 9
‘Sorry for tasering you,’ Marlowe said as he smacked down again, knocking the MP5 from Curtis’s hand. ‘But you were going to shoot me.’
Curtis went to shout again, but the sound didn’t come as Marlowe rammed the end of the branch into his gut, knocking the wind from him.
‘And I’m sorry for this,’ Marlowe added as he swung hard at Curtis’s shin with the branch, connecting hard.
Curtis screamed loudly, a piercing, high-pitched noise that sounded oddly feminine in the night, cut short as Marlowe hammed the end of the branch against the back of Curtis’s head, stunning him, before grabbing his rifle and radio, sprinting deep into the woods.
‘Come on!’ he said, pulling Tessa further away, turning the radio on low as he listened. There was panicked chatter on the airwaves and Marlowe smiled.
‘Take down the leader and the soldiers don’t know what to do,’ he said, veering her to the left. ‘They don’t have someone giving orders. They’ll try to wake Curtis, make sure he’s okay. He won’t be able to walk-- I didn’t break his shin, but it’s bruised, and he’ll be in pain for a bit--so they’ll call for Shaw. They’ll call in whoever the medic is. This’ll add a few minutes before they even start after us again. They’re scared of traps, and they’ve seen what happens when we take someone out, so they’ll be more hesitant than ever. And that’s all we need.’
They’d made a lot of space between them and their pursuers by now, and Marlowe slowed a little as they exited the woods and appeared beside a small barn in a clearing. It was a double-doored one, and a padlock was on the front. Marlowe didn’t have a key this time, but a solid blow from the butt of the MP5 soon removed this problem, as they opened the doors to reveal a car hidden under a large painter’s cloth.
‘Whose is this?’ Tessa asked, glancing back at the doors.
‘It’s mine,’ Marlowe said, pulling off the cloth to reveal a Burgundy 2015 Jaguar XJ. ‘I won it in a poker game. Don’t ask. All you need to know is the keys are under the front passenger wheel. Open up the bonnet.’
Searching for the keys and finding them, Tessa opened the driver’s side door, popping the bonnet for Marlowe to raise it and reconnect the battery. Closing the bonnet back down, he moved around to the back of the Jaguar and put the bags in the boot. He walked back to the door, looking out into the edge of the forest.
‘There’s a country lane three hundred yards down this,’ he said. ‘Far enough to not be in their radius yet. We get on that, we can get to the M11 in minutes. Then we’ll get some distance, find a place to settle down, and wait for a few hours before we go to the Caxton Gibbet.’
Tessa had already walked over to the passenger side, getting in.
‘How do you know they won’t track this with their ANPR cameras?’ she stopped, looking back.
‘Because it’s not in my name,’ Marlowe turned the engine over, smiling as it purred into life. ‘And it’s not classed as stolen, so it won’t raise any red flags. We should be good for a while, at least.’
And, with the doors open and the car slowly pulling out of the barn, Marlowe gently pressed on the accelerator, taking the Jaguar out towards the country lane and the eventual M11 motorway, which would in time lead him to Caxton for his conversation with Trix. After that, he’d then find Raymond at Cambridge, hopefully with some answers.
He couldn’t see any torches in the woods, and the radio chatter had stopped. Marlowe assumed the other MI5 agents had realised the radio was gone, and that he’d be listening, so they’d either changed channels or, more likely, given up on them altogether, which meant they’d stay more in a group.
Which again was good for Marlowe and Tessa, as they drove off towards the motorway.
They made it to the M11 and the Epping junction with no issues, heading northwards, and merging with the early evening traffic. By eight pm they’d pulled off the motorway a good thirty miles north of where the house, barn and bunker had been, finding a small, out-of-the-way country pub to park at and spend the evening in relevant safety. As long as they kept to themselves, didn’t make a scene and didn’t pay by card, there was no way they could be found for the moment, as the agents hunting them didn’t know what direction they took once they hit the road.
They would have found the barn by now, and the mud would have shown the tyre tracks, but even if they worked out the direction on the country lane, the amount of crossroads and side roads they’d passed made it an absolute haystack for MI5 to find this needle, let alone the fact they had no idea what car it even was.
They’d pressure the police into putting out Marlowe’s photo, but to do this would mean they were taking ownership of the issue, and that meant explaining to Whitehall and Westminster. And as much as current Prime Minister Charles Baker was an insufferable jerk, he’d worked in the past with Section D and with Tom Marlowe, so they couldn’t risk him taking a closer look, and realising it was all bollocks.
No, they wouldn’t make this public. They’d keep it to themselves, hope for a CCTV pickup somewhere, at a moment when the fugitives became careless.
That was probably the biggest issue here; while Marlowe or Tessa were at country pubs or villages, they were off the grid while paying cash. However, once they hit Cambridge the following day, the whole place was covered in security cameras, and it would be harder to slip around unseen.
Of course, once he’d seen Raymond, Marlowe could get out of the city as quickly as possible, but it still left him exposed, and he didn’t like that. Far better to find another way. And the only one he could think of was to dump Tessa.
No, “dump” wasn’t the right word. In the field, there’d been times when he had to move alone, and leave an asset behind, “dumping” them somewhere safe. Tessa hadn’t asked for this, and she sure as hell hadn’t asked to be dragged by Marlowe, but her dad was dead and she wanted answers. And, unfortunately, she was just as much of a stubborn sod as he was.
‘So, what’s the plan?’ she asked, as if reading his thoughts.
‘I’m going to finish my mixed grill and pint of craft ale, and then we’ll head towards Caxton Gibbet,’ Marlowe replied with a smile. ‘We’ll find somewhere to catch a couple of hours’ kip before dawn, and hopefully by morning proper, we’ll have a solid plan.’
Tessa nodded as she sipped at her own drink, watching the other patrons of the bar.
‘We buried dad today,’ she breathed. ‘Literally earlier today. Like six hours or so ago. But it feels like a lifetime.’
She placed the glass down, staring at it.
‘Is this how life is for you?’ she spoke the question and Marlowe paused, his fork halfway to his mouth as she continued. ‘Jumping from one life and death situation to the next?’
‘Pretty much,’ Marlowe admitted before eating the mouthful of meat on his fork.
‘Was it the same for dad? When he was in the service?’
‘I don’t know,’ Marlowe placed the cutlery down for a moment. ‘We were different times, different worlds. He grew up amid Cold War paranoia. Real Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy stuff. By the time I turned up, the enemy wasn’t as subtle anymore, and the threats were bigger, more violent, and usually with an immediacy I don’t think Marshall ever worried about, apart from maybe in his final years.’
He smiled.
‘Did he ever tell you about the time we were sold out to nationalists by a fish and chips shop?’
Tessa almost spat her drink back into the glass.
‘No,’ she half-choked.
Picking up his knife and fork once more, and explaining through bites of his dinner, Marlowe told her.
9
GALLOWS HILL
It was still dark as the Jaguar pulled up in Caxton Gibbet Service Station.
After they’d finished their meals and drinks, Marlowe and Tessa had driven a few more miles north, pulling into a trucker lay-by on a country lane. There, they’d put the seats back, pulled their jackets around them and tried to catch a couple of hours’ sleep.
It’d been difficult; the September night was cool, and the layers they had on, pretty much everything they’d taken with them when they escaped, weren’t enough. Marlowe silently berated himself for not even having a car blanket in the boot, but he’d never expected to be on the run from his own people, so he felt it evened things out a little.
The noise hadn’t helped either, with late night lorries and early morning delivery trucks passing through at speed, rocking the car when they whooshed past close to the lay-by. After a couple of hours of restless sleep, Marlowe had given up, lying back in the chair and staring at the roof of the car as he tried to work out a plan for the following day. At some point he must have dropped back off to sleep, as he woke around four in the morning as Tessa, who’d slept solidly through the night was nudging him awake. Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he’d reset his seat back up, started the car and, blasting some hot air into the cold cabin, they’d started their journey to the gibbet.
Once there, Marlowe deliberately drove towards the rear of the car park, but not right to the back, as although he didn’t want to appear on any of the CCTV cameras around the service station and accompanying McDonalds, he really didn’t want someone wondering what was going on at five in the morning at the back of their drive-in, and either coming to have a look, or worse, call the police on it.
Trix was waiting for them, standing with her hands in her pockets beside a familiar grey van, around two-thirds of the way across the car park when they arrived. Climbing out of the car, Marlowe smiled, glancing quickly around to make sure they weren’t likely to be interrupted.
‘Thanks for coming,’ he said as, behind him, he heard Tessa leave the car as well. ‘Did you come alone?’
‘What do you think?’ Trix replied, her voice showing both tiredness and irritation. ‘Do you really believe I wanted MI5 to know I was coming to have a chat with you?’
‘Yeah, fair point,’ Marlowe conceded.
‘Took your time anyway,’ Trix was still irritated. ‘I said to be here by dawn.’
‘I am.’ Marlowe pointed at the lightening grey sky. ‘The sun isn’t up.’
‘I think you’ll find my version of dawn and your version differ greatly,’ Trix sniffed.
Marlowe accepted this, taking a step closer.
‘So, what’s the situation?’
‘Well, MI5 are pissed at you for the fact you made one of their own look bad, and escaping from the middle of Thames House wasn’t good optics,’ Trix started. ‘I mean, taking a guard’s weapons and uniform didn’t exactly help your case, and neither did kidnapping Miss Kirk here.’
Trix smiled at Tessa.
‘I was a fan of your father,’ she said. ‘I only met him a couple of times, but he seemed to be a good man. Almost beat me in a drinking match once, so that goes a long way.’
‘Thank you,’ Tessa replied gratefully.
‘There wasn’t much I could do about the escape,’ Marlowe cracked his neck, still stiff from the night in the car. ‘It was that or be executed in a forest.’
‘Yeah, that’ll usually do it,’ Trix nodded. ‘So, there’s this Section Chief called Harris in MI5, who’s losing his mind about you.’
‘We’ve met.’
‘I don’t know much about him, but it looks like he was brought in from MI6 about six months ago,’ Trix continued. ‘From what I can work out, he was working in the Berlin office for about four years, but then moved back after Brexit. He’s very much a gung-ho nationalist, which means he’s probably on the fast track to director level, you know, with the Conservative party loving that sort of thing.’
She shuddered.
‘He also has this really intense gaze,’ she added. ‘Creepy as hell.’
Marlowe didn’t reply to this, but he knew what Trix meant.
‘He seems to have taken this personally, as he spent a chunk of yesterday trying to close Section D down,’ Trix carried on. ‘Luckily, we have bigger friends in Westminster than he does.’
‘Sorry.’
Trix shook her head.
‘You’re in deep shit, Tom,’ she said. ‘I’ve been able to find some things, but I’m still in the dark. All I have is the post you sent me.’
‘Was it enough?’
‘I’ve taken down dictators with less,’ Trix scoffed.
‘What about the others?’ Marlowe, amused at the bravado, continued.
‘Well, Shaw, she’s a standard agent, been working almost a decade for the service.’ Trix was looking up as she spoke, and Marlowe knew this was her way of retrieving information locked away in her brain. ‘Worked her way up from analyst at GCHQ, she worked with a Special Branch for a while on security details, and was head hunted by Harris a couple of years back. Curtis, meanwhile, is a bit of an enigma.’
‘How come?’
‘His record’s pretty redacted,’ Trix shrugged. ‘Looks like he was undercover in a variety of places, so he was a field agent, but apart from that, all I can tell you is he returned to Thames House about four months back.’
‘At Harris’s request?’
‘No, just the usual rotation.’
Marlowe considered this new information. Shaw and Harris had a connection, if he had personally requested her into the Service, but her record sounded long and spotless, while he’d been in Germany. At the same time, Curtis had effectively appeared out of nowhere. Which meant there was every chance that Harris or Curtis could be the double agent Raymond had warned about.
‘Did you find anything about Rubicon?’ it was Tessa who asked now.
Trix shook her head.
‘To be honest, not a lot,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve looked around, checked about, found a few dark web places, and all I can see is the occasional conspiracy theory popping up. Something about a secret spreadsheet with agent names and contact numbers on it. Like a NOC list, but for traitors.’
Marlowe whistled softly at this. A Non-Official Cover list, or “NOC”, pronounced “knock” list, was a list of operatives without official ties to the government for which they worked, who would often assume covert roles in organisations. It was basically a spy contacts list, showing their codenames and real names.
Something like this but filled with sleeper agents would be fatal in the wrong hands. Even if the phone numbers were decades out of date, they could still find the people. MI5 were good at that. Too good, even.
‘Your friend Bridget seemed to be on the nose when she said people were dying, though,’ Trix continued, bringing Marlowe back to the moment. ‘I found one Russian agent who died—’
‘Primakov?’
Trix nodded.
‘I obviously found your father, Miss Kirk, but I also found a French agent from the Paris Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, who had a skiing accident in the Pyrenees four months ago, even though she apparently absolutely hated skiing. And a CIA agent Brad Haynes, who, the day after this happened, upped sticks and disappeared into thin air.’
‘I heard Kirk mention Haynes once,’ Marlowe mused. ‘He tried to drown him on his boat, or something.’
Trix paused, as if annoyed she couldn’t conclusively solve a problem.
‘Well, whether he’s been killed or taken, or whether he’s clever enough to keep out of the way, I don’t know, but digging deeper, all these people seem to have had a very close connection back in the day.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean, all of them were based in Embassies around London in the eighties and early nineties, which means the chances were they passed information left, right, and centre daily. Proper Spycatcher stuff… if you’ve ever read the book.’
She leaned against the van, sighing, and Marlowe felt bad for bringing her into this. While they’d napped and eaten pub food, she’d likely worked into the early hours of the morning, trying to find all this out.
’So, is there something to this?’ he enquired.
‘Possibly,’ Trix pushed herself away from the van, forcing herself back into alertness. ‘There are a few places I found, which talked about sleeper agents being sneaked into various places; in the eighties, America had an enormous problem with sleeper agents from Russia, and there’s every chance we still have some in the UK, so if there was something going on, then yes, this is a problem. And if some of these people have got into the security services and still love the motherland, then this could be a bigger problem than we expected.’
‘How come?’ Tessa asked, and Marlowe noticed for the first time that she was shaking. Possibly from the cold, but more likely from the situation. No matter where she grew up, she shouldn’t have been involved in this.
‘Because they could now be in their twenties, thirties, even their fifties, depending on when they came over,’ Trix explained. ‘And if they’re in positions of possible power, it’s just in time for Putin to try to destroy the world again.’
Marlowe shuddered at the thought.
‘So, let me see if I’ve got this right,’ he said. ‘We had Rubicon, whatever this was, and then Russia collapsed after Glasnost, and, as they weren’t that much of a threat anymore, we just put this list of potentially dangerous people away in a box like the Ark of the Covenant in that Indiana Jones movie. Now Putin has started baring his teeth more there’s a very strong chance he’s maybe reactivating sleepers?’
‘Or they’ve still been contacting Russia constantly over the years,’ Tessa suggested. ‘Dad was always convinced that although we started having good relations, there were still dodgy back channels going on.’
‘Jesus,’ Marlowe muttered. ‘An army of soldiers who activate the moment they receive orders. People who’ve spent three decades of their lives in a simple normality, and then the next day they’re betraying their so-called country.’
‘Possibly.’
Marlowe considered this for a moment before continuing, turning back to Trix.
‘I spoke to Raymond last night, and he said there was a very strong chance people in high levels of Box were sleepers.’
