Free Bolt Action by Charlie Charters Page B

sense but his brain is so bloody gummed up. Working awfully slow. He checks the boarding pass again.

    ‘Hello? . . . Hello? . . .’ A tinny voice intrudes on his confusion. ‘Dougal, is that you?’
    In a heartbeat, a shaft of memory opens in his mind, shimmering through the fog of whisky. Himself, opening up his computer while they were snuggling on that Virgin flight. Himself, taking a picture of the two of them together with his little in-computer lens. She had nibbled his ear, tugged on his ear, nuzzled against his ear. The two of them giggling as the rest of the cabin slept . . . her body pressing into his . . . and then her fingers lightly rising up his thigh. So delicate, yet so totally suggestive.
    So distracting too . . . which is why Professor Sir Roddy Kerr’s one simple query, ‘ I hope you didn’t leave it in sleep mode . . . ’, he can’t truthfully answer. That particular memory is sealed in the foggy mess of last night’s lust.
    ‘Hello? Dougal?’
    And MacIntyre’s whole body groans as he puts the mobile phone to his ear. And prepares to explain himself to FSLCNS. The First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff. How the hell did Dalia get that number? Who is she? More importantly, who is she working for?
    He must hold nothing back. Dalia. The computer. The schematics of the software that the Pentagon had finally coughed up.
    He knows he has to own up to every last thing. Purge every last piece of information from his memory. Then throw himself on their mercy. With just the thinnest thread of hope that the magic of encryption might still save him . . .
    That morning, by the time Dougal MacIntyre had snivelled the first lines of his mea culpa , three other things had already taken place.
    First. A brief, anonymous call from a brand new pre-pay mobile phone alerts emergency services to a break-in at one of the depots handling refuse collection within the Borough of Richmond (this was Weasel putting on his best Essex-boyaccent). A police car attends, finds five men in arm and leg restraints, lying on the main garage floor but in no great state of distress. Quite comfortable, all things considered. Their heads are resting on little airline pillows. And each man has a 250ml Ribena carton in front of him with the little straw already punched through. Nice touch. None of the men offers any significant clues. Their masked attackers seemed well drilled and professional. Two of them were carrying handguns, which, from descriptions, sound like a pair of 9mm Browning Hi-powers. Common enough. Aside from the guns, the threat of violence was implied but definitely not used. All communication was through a series of flip charts on which their orders were pre-written. Who Has The Truck Keys? No sense of panic or tension. You Won’t Be Tied Up For More Than Two Hours. Disciplined.
    Of course, the use of handguns kicks the whole thing up a level, and, as a scene of crime is formally set up, the first-responding police officers are tasked to secure CCTV coverage. Neither of them is surprised – given how meticulous things had been so far – to discover the depot’s five static and two dome cameras have been disabled. As had, late last night, the two borough cameras that covered the approach roads to the depot. These guys are good, the older policemen had acknowledged, almost approvingly.
    The rubbish truck itself would be discovered almost a day later. Parked on the ground floor of a deserted factory in the Dagenham dockside, on the other side of London. Because the site is to be demolished within the next twenty-four hours – the explosive charges are being fitted as the police arrive – all local CCTV cameras had been removed.
    Second. A large brown envelope is dropped into a postbox on London’s Oxford Street. First-class stamp. Untraceable, and completely shorn of any forensics. Marked for the attention of the First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff at the Ministry of Defence offices in Whitehall. Re: