Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (57 page)

watched at first with horror, and then with concern—he expected to
see a parachute open as Deeley floated to the ground and into a waiting car. That did not happen. The man who had made so many plans
had not reckoned on the anger of a father.

“Justice has now
been
done,” said the General. “Leave this
place
now before I decide to have a little more justice served up.”
Jack
didn’t
need to
be told twice.
He jumped into the
car and
drove off with a cloud of dust
marking where his car had once been.
He drove at high speed to the General Hospital closest to the embassy.
The journey took less than twenty
minutes but it seemed to last for
hours. The two receptionists at the front
desk were a shade alarmed
when a frantic Jack approached them demanding information.
“I’m looking for a
man and a women who came in a short time
ago,” he said.
The nurses looked at one another.
“I am sorry sir but we haven’t had any admissions in the last hour.
The hospital has been placed
on alert. There was an
explosion at a
chemical plant, or something. No casualties have arrived.”
“No, they would have walked in. They were not suffering from any
injuries. Please, can you check for me?” he pleaded.
The nurses were very helpful and they called the head of security at
the hospital. Jack and the security head spent almost an hour viewing
video footage. There was no sign of Barry and Alexa. He was directed
to another hospital. Nothing. Barry and
Alexa had not been there either. Then another, and another. Each time he ran into a dead end and
each time he grew a little more anxious. There was no way that Barry
and
Alexa would not have sought medical attention immediately unless something had gone seriously wrong. No matter what resentment
or hatred Barry still harboured towards Jack, he was certain that the
Irishman was honourable enough not to cause her deliberate harm in
an effort to get back at Jack. He hoped as much at any rate. The longer
the search continued the
more confused and desperate Jack
became
until
ultimately
he reached a
heartbreaking
conclusion—wherever
they where, and however they got there, they were now
beyond his
reach.
For the next three weeks Jack searched the country in the hope

that someone somewhere might know something. But from the British Embassy and the surrounding streets, to as many
of the most remote towns and villages that he could get to, no one had laid eyes on
them. It was as if they had vanished into thin air the moment Jack left
them in the room at the embassy.

Reluctantly, and under the threat
of force being used against him,
Jack gave in to the repeated
orders from London for
him to return
back to the UK.
As Jack sat at the airport waiting from someone from
the service to escort him to his flight he did something that he hadn’t
done in a long time—a little spot
of
people watching. He worked in
a
profession where
human
nature and
how
people ticked was all
important,
but he was so focused
on his assigned missions in recent
years he rarely got a chance to simply sit back and look at people—everyday people, with real lives and real emotions. The best place to see
all humanity at its best and at its worst was at a busy airport—loved
ones
parting through tears and promises to get in touch as soon as
they reached their
destination, to the serpentine smirk
of a ruthless
businessman making his way home from a kill,
or flying out to a kill.
Then of
course there were men and women like him.
At any one time
there was bound to be someone from the secret community in which
he lived skulking around any airport in the world—they were mainly
from the country in which the airport was located, there to keep an
eye
on the foreign guests who were not altogether
honest about the
reasons they gave at passport control for being in the country.

As he sat on the hard plastic seat by the side of the large departure
lounge Jack began to scan the faces of those around him—spies always
had a certain look about them; an intensity behind the eyes that could
be mistaken for
disinterest
by those who were not in the know.
And
then there was the body language; it was calm and relaxed, a
dead
giveaway at an airport—even the most seasoned flyer still harboured
thoughts
of what if
before they
climbed
onto a
plane; the thought
of the security
checks; were the tickets still in their jacket
pocket
or
handbag—airports were places
of
high stress, and anyone strutting
around without a care in the world was obviously hiding something.

Quickly he had ruled out most of the faces in the crowd—security
staff and
other airport workers; couples with children; the very
old
and the very young. He was taught never to rule anyone out but the
reality
of a situation,
especially
one involving a large crowd, meant
that the unlikely suspects had to be put to
one side—to begin with.
In Jack’s view the best person to get away with being a spy would be
either a six year old girl or a ninety year old woman—there were few
female spies, and age was all important.
And so his attention moved
on to what was left—still a right sized crowd, but manageable. Within
minutes he had found his first credible suspect—an
Asian man in his
forties. He was dressed in a grey
business suit and carrying a
black
briefcase. The man was sitting fifty yards from Jack, and it was the
fact that he was sitting, and still holding
on to the case that caught
Jack’s interest in the first place. In the other hand the man was holding
onto a newspaper, folded neatly into a
quarter. Jack watched the man
for almost ten minutes and he never
once moved the paper—he was
either really interested in the article that he was looking at
or he was
very slow at reading. The man looked up constantly, his eyes shifting
from person to person, checking for danger or searching out a contact.
Jack smiled.

The smiled quickly vanished when Jack locked eyes with a young
woman who sat
down across from him. She would not have made it
onto his list
of suspects had it not been for the fact that he caught her
looking in his
direction. She
did not immediately
look away. There
was
something about
her that
he recognised—it was
something
of
himself, and that is why
he pegged her for a
spy. Was she there on
behalf
of the South
Africans just to
make sure that
he got
on the
plane? Were they
so concerned
by all the
questions
he was asking
that they needed one more level of security
on top of the official security, and the reassurances from the British government that Jack’s time
in the country was now at an end? Those thoughts annoyed him and
when the young woman got up, walked across to Jack, and sat down,
Jack was less than impressed. He was exasperated. It was all part
of
the game, he told himself,
before a further internal reminder that he
should remain calm.

“You are going to think that I am mad,
but
do I
know you from
somewhere?” asked the young woman, in an almost too perfect English accent.