As he pounded the footpath passing the lake, he decided, if the weather cleared, he would do a spot of fishing later. He was a keen angler, had been since an early age, first on Clapham Common for tiddlers, then graduating to other nearby fisheries and now the lake here in the park. He enjoyed the serenity and ‘get-away-from-it-all’ feeling in this oasis of calm, angling for roach, perch and bream, especially in the early morning and at dusk. He still used the sturdy old rod, colourful floats and basic equipment given to him by his grandfather. Lately he’d been contemplating doing some serious fishing in the carp lakes of Kent and Devon. If nothing came through in the coming week, he’d made up his mind to head off to Kent.
An hour later, he arrived back at the flat barely winded and with his head just about cleared. Jumping into the shower – hot first, then cold – he dried, slipped into a grey sweatshirt, jeans and trainers. He then made himself a cup of coffee, fighting the urge for a cigarette, having given up for over a month. It was still hard, though, hanging around between assignments without a smoke to keep him company. Suddenly the bleeper on his belt chimed and relief of a sort swept through him; he was wanted at HQ.
* * *
Ryder swung his Harley ‘Fat Boy’ through the gate and into the yard of a two-storey building in Lots Road. Parking, he removed his helmet and placed it on the side rack. He then strode easily towards a modest entrance. His slim, six-foot lithe frame clad in blue jeans and black leather ‘bomber’ jacket reached the single entry door where he looked directly into a small circular glass aperture on the side wall. The iris scanner confirmed his identity and the door clicked open. To any casual observer the plain entrance was nothing more than the way into a small commercial office. A plaque on the wall displayed the sign – “General Commodities Ltd.”
The building in Lots Road, Fulham, which wasn’t far from Chelsea football ground, had been purchased for its innocuous aspects and for its out of the way location in the backstreets of an area colloquially referred to as “World’s End.” The plain brick building in its heyday had been a modest factory warehouse, then offices and now served as the headquarters of Omega Unit, the ultra-secret ‘off the books’ arm of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
Ryder entered into a narrow corridor leading to a flight of stairs up to a first-floor reception area. Here he was met by a plump, fiftyish woman with greying hair tied back in a neat bun, wearing a dark blue trouser suit and frameless spectacles.
“Hello, Frank,” said the boss’s PA. “He’s waiting for you.” She led him along a short corridor to be shown into a tidy, rectangular office, sparsely furnished, with only a large flat- screen TV on one wall and a few landscape paintings adorning the rest. The room was devoid of windows and said much about the man who occupied it.
George Conway rose from his desk and came to meet Ryder. “Good to see you, old boy,” he said, thrusting out a hand. “Take a seat.”
They shook hands and Ryder took the only other available seat in the room. Looking relaxed, brown eyes rested intently on his boss as he waited for him to lead out.
“Tea?” Conway asked, reaching for the white china pot on a silver tray.
Ryder nodded. “Why not? Always good to sip tea before business. Biscuits too, I see.” Biscuits only came out when things were serious.
Conway smiled dryly, lifted the pot and poured the contents into two white bone china cups, handing one to Ryder and indicated towards the plate. “Do have one.”
George Conway was a thin, bespectacled man, middle-aged with a shock of white hair. He could easily have been taken for a professor rather than a high-ranking officer of the SIS. However, he had not risen to be deputy head of the SIS’s Special Operations Directorate by using the old school tie network, but by sheer hard work in the field and a shrewd understanding of those who operated in the murky and often nefarious world of espionage. The byzantine nature of his calling demanded insight into the threat of evil and the courage to face it when necessary. He had been given the unenviable task of running the Omega Unit and the several agents operating within its tenet. To academia, Omega referred to the last letter of the Greek alphabet, but to the Establishment, the last resort. Only the Chief of SIS and a handful of others were aware of its very existence.
Omega had evolved within the folds of the Secret Intelligence Service more from necessity than from design to primarily combat the ever increasing terrorist threat without the constraints of the law. Conway believed, as did his boss, ‘C’, the Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service commonly referred to as MI6, that killing was the only way and the only thing understood by fanatical terrorism and wayward government-sponsored criminal activities. Quasi-international justice and legal niceties could not be allowed to stand in the way when protecting the Realm. It was considered by the Establishment too difficult to have regular Special Forces carrying out assassinations and other unpalatable activities likely to involve media attention and prison time. Ryder knew the risks and fully understood the legal consequences of his role. Should he get caught, the Establishment would deny all knowledge of his existence.
“I suppose you’re wondering what we have for you, O-Three?”
When the boss called him by his official designation (Omega Three) instead of Frank, he knew something heavy was about to be delivered – hence the biscuits.
“You could say that, George,” he grinned, softening the rugged, high cheekbones that were topped with a mop of thick, dark hair. “‘Ours is to do or die,’ so they say. The ‘Queen’s shilling’, mind you, is hard to turn down,” he said. Familiarity between them was not unusual.
Conway’s eyebrows rose, ignoring that last remark; at the same time a ghost of a smile creased his features before he came straight to the point. “We want you to lead a team into North Korea.”
“North Korea! You must be kidding!” he exclaimed, stunned. He knew the SIS rarely carried out field operations in that part of the world. “How soon?”
“As soon as.”
Ryder felt a little bewildered. “The reason?”