C.T. Brown - Second Time Lucky? (5 page)

Sovereign
Nation

By

C T
Brown

Free
Sample chapter.

Full
length novel available soon.

Chapter
One.

Sanderson
peered through his expensive binoculars at the nerdy academic standing on the
street in the pouring rain across the road from his stationary van. He could
see the heavy rain soaking the worn suit, untidy bundle of papers and
threadbare shoulder bag that were the stereotypical outfit of choice for such
men. As Sanderson watched the academic tried to clean the rain from his glasses
using the corner of his un-tucked shirt - he wondered why it was that such
academically gifted people were so often completely bereft of simple common
sense.
The kind of simple common sense that, for example,
would tell them that you cannot clean
rainrops
from
glasses lenses with the corner of a wet shirt while it is still pouring down.
In the process of trying to clean his glasses the academic managed to drop half
the papers he was carrying, he then dropped the rest as he bent over to try and
retrieve them.

While
the academic was making a second attempt to retrieve his papers Sanderson
watched a dark blue Ford Focus pull up at the kerb beside him. Refocusing his
binoculars on the new arrival Sanderson studied the driver, an attractive young
woman. To Sanderson the woman was an enigma, given how attractive she was it
was unlikely she was the academic's wife or girlfriend but, as he was also
young, she couldn't be his daughter. As he had at least a dozen times since he
had been
surveilling
them, Sanderson dismissed his
musings on the relationship between the two people and got back to work. He
started his jet black van’s diesel engine and, after the academic got into the
car, carefully followed as the couple drove away. As he did so he called over
his shoulder for the three other men in the back of the van to get ready.

Followed
by the van the Focus drove through the rain-soaked, darkened streets of the
West End of London, now only populated by the tourists, party-goers and less
than entirely savoury characters that populate the area late on a Friday night.
Sanderson kept at least two cars between himself and the academic's vehicle
until they reached Oxford Circus, as they crossed onto Regent Street the two
cars continued turned the other way and were replaced by a pink, stretched Humvee
that he assumed was on its way to collect or drop off a hen party as no-one
else hired such vehicles. All three vehicles continued in convoy to Piccadilly
Circus and then down to Trafalgar Square where the Humvee turned onto Charing
Cross Road as the van and the Ford Focus turned towards Westminster.

Placing
other road users between them wherever possible, and dropping back to follow
from a distance when he couldn't, Sanderson continued to follow the car across
the Thames via Westminster Bridge, down to the Elephant and Castle and
eventually onto the Walworth Road. The Focus pulled over across the road from a
Turkish mini market which was the only shop in that particular parade open at
this time of night. Sanderson stamped his foot down and accelerated, yelling a
warning to his passengers. He swerved the van across in front of the parked car
and braked hard, blocking it from moving. Without a pause Sanderson and his
passengers opened the van doors and jumped out onto the street, all were dressed
in black and carried guns that they aimed at the car. Half out of the front
passenger door the academic stopped as soon as he saw the guns, his companion
hadn't moved from the driver's seat. While they seemed surprised, neither
looked as worried as Sanderson would have liked. Sanderson signalled one of his
men who turned and trained his gun on the open front of the shop across the
road. Apart from some staring there was no real reaction from
it's
patrons, it took more than an armed hold up to get a
reaction in south London. If there was going to be a reaction it was far more
likely to be interest in watching the show than any sort of confrontation.

"Get
out of the car." Sanderson signalled with his gun toward the darkened
frontage of the bank the car had pulled up beside. "Over there.
Both of you.
Now."

Slowly
the driver's door of the Focus opened and the woman stepped out, both she and
the academic then crossed the path to stand in front of the cashpoint machines
set into the bank's window. Quickly Sanderson and two of his men lined up in
front of them, guns levelled at their heads. It was at this point that
Sanderson got his first inkling that something might be wrong. The academic
looked relaxed, a faint smile on his face while his companion seemed completely
uninterested in anything beyond her fingernails, not exactly normal reactions
to being ambushed at gunpoint. Moving closer to the academic Sanderson tried to
shake off his concerns and, in the same voice he'd used to order about new
recruits before his enforced exit from the army, barked, 'You will come with
us, our boss has a job for you. If you refuse the woman will be killed.'

The
response this provoked from his two captives was not what Sanderson expected,
the academic and the woman turned to look at each other and, after attempting
to fight it for a moment, both burst out laughing. Sanderson's reaction was
immediate, he moved forward until the barrel of his automatic was pressed
against the academic's forehead. The laughing stopped and for a moment
Sanderson relaxed. His moment of relaxation ended as the academic's shin made
contact with his groin, hard. There was a sharp intake of breath and then
Sanderson dropped to his knees, his eyes watering from the pain, and slowly
toppled sideways clutching himself. Through a tear-blurred haze Sanderson
watched the two men who had also been covering his captives drop to the ground,
one with the black plastic handle of a knife projecting from his chest and the
other with his neck twisted at an unnatural angle. Turning his gaze to the one
remaining upright member of his team Sanderson was just in time to see him hit
in the face by something that looked like a high-heeled shoe, the man then
staggered backwards onto the road and into the path of a speeding, bright green
Honda Civic that appeared to have been covered with every shiny decal available
anywhere. It did not even pause as the man tumbled through the air until he hit
the road surface with an unpleasantly squelchy noise.

Luckily
for Sanderson the pain in his groin was beginning to subside so he reached for
his gun which lay on the ground nearby, unluckily the woman saw this first and
the heel of her remaining shoe created a new source of pain when it was stamped
down on his hand. Before he could react to the crushed bones and punctured skin
he felt her other, unshod, foot come down on the back of his head. He could
feel blood running down the side of his face as his face bounced back up from
the pavement but didn't have time to find out how serious his latest injury was
before he found his own gun pointing directly at his face. Sirens were
approaching but the gun did not waver, it was as if the woman did not care that
the police would soon be on the scene. 'Now then,' she leaned forward slightly
as she spoke, 'I think it might be a good idea if we had a little discussion
about why you were so stupid as to try and kidnap my husband and I with only a
four man team, don't you?'

Sitting
in the grey interview room at a plain wooden table on a metal chair that was very
securely bolted to the floor the academic reflected that the evening had turned
out to be more eventful than he'd expected.
Belinus
Carter, for that was the name he'd been saddled with parents who had been going
through a brief but unfortunate hippy phase, had expected a trip to a small
south London restaurant that was a particular favourite of his and little else
this evening. Instead he had almost been kidnapped when he and his wife had
stopped to buy a snack along the way. Unfortunately the police had taken
exception to the way he and particularly his wife had responded to this and
arrested them too. He was sure it would all be sorted out soon enough, but it
had certainly made the evening a bit more interesting than originally intended.

When
the door opened and Detective Inspector Spencer entered the interview room the
look on his face told
Belinus
the next part of the
evening might be interesting but it was unlikely to be fun. Spencer walked
around the table, and
Belinus
, as if checking that
the man sitting there really looked like that.
Belinus
had no illusions that he was a handsome or impressive looking individual, in
fact the most complementary descriptions of himself he'd ever heard used words
like "average" or "non-descript". However, he knew this
particular look - it was the one he got when someone had met his wife and was
trying to work out in what possible world she could have ended up married to
such a dull looking man. If he was completely honest with himself he understood
this reaction but enjoyed watching other, better looking, men try to work out
why they didn't stand a chance with women that attractive while this geeky,
pale, unimpressive-looking academic had married one. After a lifetime of put
downs from such men it gave him some satisfaction.

"So,
you're
Belinus
Carter then?" Spencer asked as he
flopped into an identical metal chair opposite
Belinus
.
"Professor
Belinus
Carter of
Welwyn University, head of the history department?"

"I
am indeed."

"Ain't
you a little young to be a professor? I thought professors were all old fogeys
with comb-overs and elbow patches on their jackets.
Possibly
pipe smokers too."

"My
career has advanced rather rapidly, I admit, but I assure you that I am fully
qualified."

"So,
what's a history professor doing being targeted for kidnap by gun-toting
nutjobs
? What could you be involved in that people like
that would be interested in?"

"Maybe
they read my paper on coin-making in Roman Britain? It was fascinating, if I do
say so myself, but some do consider it to be a little controversial."

"You
really think sarcasm is a good idea right now? You are in a lot of trouble
mate."

"No,
I'm not. We both know that by now you've run my name and my wife’s name through
the system and I expect you've already had the call, haven't you?" Spencer
reluctantly nodded in reply,
Belinus
went on.
"Then you have been told to let us both go and not look into this any
further and you're wondering what a university professor and his wife are doing
with friends in such high places, am I right?"

"That
about sums it up, yeah."

"Regrettably
I cannot give you any details," he said, continuing under his breath,
"not that you'd believe them anyway."

D.I.
Spencer continued to look at
Belinus
in silence for
another minute or so then got up and opened the door. "Go on then, time to
go. I ain't got time to get mixed up in whatever spook crap is going on here, I
don't know if you're MI5 or MI6 and I don't really care."

"We
aren't either actually."

Spencer
snorted in derision at this.

Emily
Carter's mobile phone beeped as she ended her call, she then carefully and
deliberately placed the phone on the floor in front of her and stamped on it
until it was almost unrecognisable as a phone, keeping a perfectly calm
expression on her face at all times. Behind the desk in the reception area of
the police station the middle-aged Sergeant Thomas did little more than glance
in her direction briefly, after nearly thirty years working the streets of
South London it took more than that to get a reaction from him.

Once
she had finished destroying her phone Emily sat in the only available chair
which was between those occupied by a smartly dressed man and probably the
oldest woman she had ever seen. Three men sitting on the row of chairs on the
opposite side of the reception area immediately dropped their heads, making it
even more obvious than it had been that they were trying to stare at her
without looking like they were staring at her. Surreptitiously Emily looked the
men over to ensure they weren't any sort of threat and came to the conclusion
that they were relatively harmless and had probably only been trying to imagine
what she looked like naked. Thanks to her looks and athletic figure Emily was
used to men staring - although that didn't make it any less annoying.

As
she shifted in her seat Emily noticed something seemed to have snagged the
skirt of her plain black suit, standing up she discovered the chewing gum
someone had helpfully stuck in the middle of the seat she'd sat on. Stepping
over the remains of her phone she headed for the ladies room to see what the
damage was. When she opened the door the first thing that struck her was the
smell. It was clearly intended to be a pleasant, flowery smell but whoever had
created it for the air freshener company had failed to include any real flowers
anywhere in the process of coming up with it. Apart from the smell itself an
additional problem was the sheer volume of it, walking through the door it felt
as if all the air in the room had been replaced with air freshener and it took
Emily a few moments to get used to breathing it instead. She turned her skirt
about without removing it and started to try and pick off the gum, it was clear
quite quickly that there was a limit to how much she'd be able to remove.