Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (29 page)

security. He didn’t know what he would find when he got there. He
didn’t know who would be waiting for him or if they would be in a kill
first, ask
questions later
kind
of
mood. But
one thing was certain—
one truth was close to revealing itself, and the answer to all
of Jack’s
questions could only
be found in the one building in the city. It was a
building that he never in a million years would have considered looking for such an answer—before that night, at any rate. The further he
drove from the
office building the
more traffic
he
encountered. The
feeling
of isolation began to lift and it was
quickly replaced by razor
sharp determination.

Why
did Barry
drive off with Robert? Was it a kidnap
or was it
a rescue? Was the Russian there on behalf of his own country
or was
he working with Barry
or someone else? It wasn’t such a farfetched
notion.
As the USSR went into terminal
decline
one administration
after another tried to save the country from bankruptcy. Unemployment rocketed as public spending was slashed, and the military
had
its budget decimated. Many agents were brought in from around the
world to keep an eye
on dissidents in their
own country,
but just as
many were cut loose as the cost
of bringing them home was too high.
Those isolated agents did what they had to do to survive and a great
number
of them ended up working for large sums
of
money for the
rich and influential all over the world as security advisers, or as active
protection. For a time having your own former Russian spy as a bodyguard was the height
of fashion amongst the super rich. But the dead
Russian still had that
pale skin
of the Motherland—he did not look
like someone who had
been
protecting the
over-privileged
offspring
of
some
oil tycoon
on a
luxury yacht in the Mediterranean. Jack’s
money was still on the Russian being an active agent, and that was not
an easy truth to wrestle with. When the Russian government wanted
someone dead then they had a way
of
making it happen. During his
first mission he had watched as a KGB commander had executed one
of her
own men in cold blood, and she would have done the same to
Jack
had she caught
up with
him. A near
death
experience in the
North
Atlantic and a frantic rescue
mission
by the US
Coastguard
taught Jack early
on in his life as a spy to always pay the Russians
proper respect.
Around that same time another Russian team had got
very close to Jack’s family and by doing so they almost blew his

cover back in Ireland. It was a dangerous time but it was that constant
danger that taught him the need for vigilance, and that no story could
ever be taken at face value, no matter who was telling it.

The diplomatic quarter was well lit, heavily guarded, and watched
from
every
conceivable angle
by
batteries
of the
most sophisticated
surveillance
equipment
the intelligence
community
could lay
their
hands
on. The lengths that the various countries went to to
ensure
the safety
of their diplomatic missions was a sign of their power and
importance in the world, and the UK was not going to be left behind.
The British Embassy was located at the end of one of the larger streets.
The mansion and its support buildings were set in almost twenty acres
of wooded land. A high wall topped with razor wire surrounded the
compound. Teams of armed guards
patrolled the grounds on the inside
of the compound while teams from the South
African security
forces
patrolled the streets
outside. The South
African
patrols were
infrequent and easily
evaded. The patrols on the inside however were
numerous and almost impossible to evade.

Jack pulled the car over to the side of the road in front of the French
Embassy. No one liked the French; least
of all the South Africans. The
security
outside that building was bound to be lax. He turned off the
engine and killed the lights. The men protecting the British Embassy
from the inside were the best trained in the entire service. Jack knew
that for a fact as he had trained many of them himself. As he got out of
the car
one last thought jumped into his mind and slapped him hard
across the face.

What the bloody hell do you think you are doing, Jack?
It was a sobering wake-up call, and it was a question that he really
didn’t have a proper answer for. He knew that the answers were to be
found behind those high walls; but a sudden death was a more likely
outcome rather than enlightenment. He walked casually towards the
British Embassy unaware that someone on the inside had already detected his approach.

It had been a few years since Jack had acted as a consultant on security for the Embassy. It was an easy assignment—no bullets to dodge
and nothing
more
pressing than which factor
sun lotion he should
apply to his face to worry about. It was
easy to see why
so many
former spies went into the private sector
once they left active service.
They were an enjoyable few weeks and Jack was genuinely annoyed
when the process came to an end. That process involved running every
kind
of
scenario that
he could conceive
of—from an attack
on
the complex by a terrorist
organisation, to the evacuation
of the staff
to a safe country in the event of civil war—a prospect that was more
than simply a worst case scenario war game as elements within the old
regime tried desperately to cling
onto
power.
As the country
settled
into a
kind of normality that few would have predicted, a job at the
British Embassy was transferred from somewhere that a
member
of
the Foreign Office would be sent to as a punishment, to a prized assignment. The Foreign Office could still send their wayward diplomats
to Ireland if they
didn’t toe the line. Jack and his fellow
experts had
prodded and probed at every vulnerability until the place was as safe
as it
could be; they
only
just
stopped short
of relocating the
entire
complex underground and fortifying it with a battalion of the British
army. Jack knew only too well that a determined enough force could