The wire was high and very sharp. A small sign on the wire told the reader it was electrified. One had, however, to be standing within a foot to read the sign.
The main gate was reinforced and controlled from a small booth with polarised windows, so no one could see the persons inside. They’d done a remarkable job, as there was no way even the most determined ‘sightseer’ could accidentally obtain access to the facility.
The area was about the size of a football pitch, with one single dirty grey concrete building in the middle taking up half the area. Built in the sixties, it displayed the total lack of character that was the key to sixties’ architecture. The CCTV pods were on the corner of each aspect of the building, and I noted the microwave dishes on the roof. This place had state of the art technology and communications. I knew the CCTV would have thermal imaging as well as night vision.
I sat in my car, drinking a strong coffee from my flask and going over the plans of the facility that Howard had given me when we’d met two days ago at Garfunkles in Leicester Square.
“There’s no place so secret than in the midst of tourists and fools,” he said.
“If we’re not tourists, does that make us fools?” I asked, to which he chuckled.
“Probably, my boy, probably.”
We had sat at a table near the back and ordered coffees. I wondered how we looked to the tourists. The colonel, well over six foot tall in his pinstriped suit, immaculate shirt and Guards tie, grey hair carefully trimmed and brushed, moustache bristling while his keen eyes missed nothing.
Then there was me; of above average height, at just under five foot nine, but very broad, dressed in casual slacks, solid brown boots, checked shirt and black zippered jacket. I have very short hair and a hard looking face with a scar running down from my left eye to my chin. One common misconception of the SAS troopers is that they all look like soldiers. Indeed, one of the strengths is that most of us rarely look like soldiers, in the regular sense at least. Howard, as with many of the officers, always looked like the Guards officer he once was.
However, we both looked like different products of the same system.
“What do you know of Professor Hugh Standing?” he asked.
“He sounds like the first line in a joke, should I know him?”
“No, I just wondered. Tell me, if you were out in the desert again, in the Gulf, and we had some wonderful technology to help you in your task, what would you really like?”
I thought for a moment.
“To be invisible.”
“Okay, that’s being worked on, what next?”
“To be bullet proof.”
“Excellent. Well, you’ll be pleased to hear that the good professor approached the MOD and offered a lightweight device to do just that.”
“Like Kevlar?”
“No, this isn’t clothing or armour; it’s more science fiction than that. He claimed to have devised a prototype of a force field that in a military arena would render the individual or vehicle completely safe from any form of projectile, shrapnel or noxious liquid or gas.”
“A fucking force-field?”
“Quite, although your expletive wasn’t in the original specifications. The good professor claims to have devised an electromagnetic force field that works. He just needed funding to make it bigger and more effective.”
“Bigger? What size was it?”
“I believe it would give protection to a small white mouse, but the power unit would have filled a room this size,” he said, chuckling at his little joke.
“So, don’t tell me the MOD fell for his tale?”
“You know politicians, they saw the commercial prospect should it work. We could sell it to the highest bidders.”
“Brilliant, like we did with the Argentineans and Iraqis, so they can use it against us!”
“That’s the general idea. Anyway, that was two years ago and after too many million pounds have been paid for the research and development, the good professor has yet to deliver the goodies. The MOD wants to pull the plug, but fears the professor will simply bugger off and sell it to anyone who can pay the price. We don’t want to scare him off, that’s why we want you to gain access to the facility, find out whether he’s anywhere near completion and obtain the information without him finding out he’s under scrutiny. If he suspects the MOD will pull out, he’ll simply disappear with all the MOD’s valuable research material.”
“How many others have you approached?” I asked.
He smiled, taking a sip of his coffee, but grimacing with distaste.
“Four. Two were Ministry officials on a security brief. They found out nothing, although they did see a Challenger Tank in a chamber against which heavy-duty weapons had obviously been used against it. One was a former Regiment officer, do you remember Captain Graham Clarke?”
“Tall man, ex-para?”
“That’s him, well, he failed to gain access. Found the security was a lot better than we’d been led to believe. He claimed to be running a security check, so we managed to square him away enough to get hold of these more updated plans. Then we sent in Knocker Armes, you remember him, don’t you?”
“Ray Armes? Yeah, he was a complete nutter, if I recall. He and I got into a fight with twelve US sailors in Bangkok. We were also in Libya together.”
“Well, he was the last one and he’s disappeared, no sign, not a trace. He was briefed and set off about four weeks ago. No one has seen or heard from him since. I have a man on the security team, but he says that no one has gained entry to his knowledge. The security team are all ex-services and I won’t jeopardise his position, besides, he’s not as good as you are.”
“Ray was one of the best!”
“I hope it isn’t a ‘was’, but I’m afraid that something smells about this operation!”
“Why not just send in a team and close him down, raid the place when you know he’s there and seize all the material?”
“In this day of the computer, he’s probably got his material on a computer ready to send it somewhere at a moment’s notice. Say, if he doesn’t check in on time, the computer simply sends the stuff offshore and then wipes its own mind.”
“What can I do?”
“That, my dear Rob, is a good question, I’d like you to get in, see if the project is near completion, note the location of any data and take steps to safeguard that data.”
“Not much then?”
He smiled, sipping his coffee.
“So, this professor Standing, what’s he like?” I asked
“I only met him once, and he struck me as being a bit of a simple soul. Like many highly intelligent men, he’s brilliant in his field, but doesn’t see much of life beyond it. I have a nasty feeling that someone may well be behind him, even though our vetting procedure failed to turn anything up.”
“Is he married?”
The colonel frowned. “Why?”
“I’m curious.”
“He is, as it happens, Sarah’s from a moderately good family in Hampshire. She went to the same school as Mary, my wife, but at a different time, of course,”
“Moderately good?”
“Her grandfather, Michael Hollingswood, lost much of the family money between the wars. By the time her father, Richard, inherited, all he had was a vast crumbling ruin of a country house, some reasonable farmland and loads of debts. He sold the house, moving onto the farm, paid the debts and managed to keep the family in the black by working the farm. His wife inherited a little from her people, so was able to help. The children were all well educated, but Richard was a name at Lloyds, so lost a packet in the crash a few years ago.
“Sarah went to university, as she was very bright. She met Hugh there, so the rest is history.”
“What did she read at university?”
“Does it matter?”
“Probably not, but it might help.”