His host was clearly warming to his task and Colin walked leisurely alongside him as they moved through the main building. The grandeur of the building was plain to see at every turn. Here and there they paused and the old man commented upon the décor, the artwork or the period furniture. Colin had a question.
“If this is your family home, do you have them living with you, as well as the members of The Olympus Project that I’ve already met?”
The elderly gentleman stopped and emitted a long sigh.
“My wife is in a nursing home nearby; she suffered a breakdown a few years back old chap; there’s no one else, not any more.”
Colin didn’t pursue that line of enquiry any further; it was evidently a painful subject for his host. The next few minutes of the grand tour were conducted in a far more sombre mood but as they finally went outside into the gardens, the old man seemed to brighten up a little. Colin looked across to the patio but all signs of the ‘galleon’ had been removed. She had obviously returned indoors to her work and the ever efficient staff had tidied up behind her.
The two men walked across the lawn and Colin could only wonder at the immaculate green sward, with trees planted with such precision all those years ago that the house was protected from nosy passers-by in the far off adjoining fields; yet, when he looked back towards the main building, the magnificent edifice was always visible as you strolled towards the other estate buildings laid out in front of you. His reverie was broken by his elderly companion speaking:-
“We have the orangery, of course, over there to our right.”
“Of course” said Colin quietly.
“Just down here in front of us to our left is where the old stable block stood. When the idea for Olympus took shape we converted that into the staff accommodation. The building you can see a little further down is the ice house. Let’s wander down and take a look eh?”
Colin had read about ice houses; he knew they were commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator. Some were man-made underground chambers, close to a water source and the winter ice and snow would be taken in and packed with insulation. This allowed the wealthy owners of manor houses on estates such as this to store perishable foods, chill their drinks or merely prepare ice-creams and sorbets. Oh how the other half lived!
As they approached the door to the building, Colin was prepared to see perhaps a grill covering a brick lined forty foot pit and possibly the decaying signs of a drain to take away any water. Once they had agreed there was very little else to see, then they would move on towards the remaining building which from his current vantage point looked like a terrace of two up, two down cottages.
Once they stepped through the outer door, Colin gasped.
“A bit of a shaker Mr. Bailey, yes?” chuckled the old man.
He pressed the call button. Colin heard the lift rise for a few seconds and then the steel doors opened.
“Shall we?” said his tour guide.
Colin followed his host into the lift and watched as the old man selected the button for the first level of three. A few seconds later they stopped and when the doors opened they walked into an area which for a computer nerd would have made them think all their Christmases had come at once!
“This is our command centre. We have operatives in this facility monitoring the movements of any of our identified criminal targets, any possible terrorist threat as yet undefined and keeping us abreast of any potential global catastrophe; this may be a tsunami, an earthquake, a volcanic event, indeed anything and everything that threatens our social equilibrium. If we were to walk further on through this room, you would discover recreation rooms, a dentist’s surgery and a fully functional operating theatre. There are also a few ‘pods’ at the far end for operatives to sleep in rotation if the criminal fraternity are keeping us particularly busy.”
“Think of this, not as a bunker like the old style Burlington near your neck of the woods at Shaw Park, but more like an enlarged foxhole. Did you enjoy your wine at lunch today?” Colin nodded. The old man continued:-
“We have a constant relative inside temperature in this foxhole and the insulated hull system surrounding it makes this area ideal for storing our wine. I think we’ve seen enough here for now. Let’s drop in to level two shall we?”
On the next level they were met by two armed personnel. They weren’t wearing a uniform of any sort, just a white t-shirt with Olympus on the left breast, black combat trousers and boots. Each had a gun in a holster at the hip and both had a physique that looked as if they used the recreation rooms to good effect when they had time off. Colin recognised his rescuers from last night; these two had been the crew of the dinghy.
“Good afternoon men; you’ve met Mr. Bailey already. I’m delighted to tell you that he will be joining our group.”
Colin looked at the old gentleman; he couldn’t recall being asked if he’d like to join whatever set up this really was, let alone tell anyone he had already agreed to do so! The locked windows in his bedroom and the distance he felt between himself and his fellow diners earlier led Colin to believe that his host was used to giving the orders and saying ‘No’ was not an option!
The old man continued, patently aware of Colin’s feelings about what he had said to the two guards. “I’m sure he will be down to see you from time to time. I’d like to show him what we have available.”
The two men moved aside and one keyed in an access code on a pad to the side of the main door. Once inside the room Colin could see this was the armoury; there were racks of assault rifles which his host informed him included several varieties of AK, a WASR3, a selection of Heckler and Koch rifles that various police forces and even special forces were familiar with, plus a few items that Colin had seen before, mostly in films it had to be said. He spotted a rack of M4 Colt Carbines that were all over Iraq and Afghanistan when the US forces were in action. The ubiquitous Uzi was in amongst some light machine guns and the weaponry wasn’t confined to rifles. They even had a couple of hand held rocket launchers.
Below the racks were drawers containing handguns and knives; H&K, Browning, Glock and Sig Sauer models were in abundance; the latter’s P226 was no surprise, since the SAS had been known to use this model for some time. The elderly gentleman moved from the racks to the drawers with obvious pleasure. Now and then he would pick up a gun and spend a moment or two in contemplation. Colin wondered whether he was reliving an occasion when he had used it in action.
“I don’t have the key for the other drawers, but they contain our supply of gas canisters, flash bombs, and incendiary devices and of course, hand grenades.”
“Of course.” replied Colin, allowing himself a brief smile. If you want to wage war on someone, or protect your organisation against attack, you may as well have a little bit of everything after all’s said and done he thought.
“The remainder of this level includes a shooting range, where I expect you to spend time bringing your accuracy up to as close to Olympic standard as possible; although, now you’re one of us you’ll never represent your country in competition you understand.”
The two men walked down the corridor which ran along the side of the range; there were no operatives honing their skills this afternoon. The door at the end was locked. The old man turned on his heel and encouraged Colin to walk back with him towards the armoury.
“That’s the ammunitions store; something for everything. Once you’ve seen one magazine you’ve seen them all I find old chap; a bit boring to just stand looking at bullets. Much more fun firing them at the bad guys eh?”