To Kill a Grey Man (3 page)

They muddled on for a few weeks, then after Collins came back from a
three day hit in Saudi he stopped going into the shop each day and started to
work Wednesdays and Friday only which gave Olivia and Ely a day off each.
 
The shop was also closed on a Sunday.

The world settled into a pattern and Collins started to rebuild his
life a day at a time.

Chapter 5

The Grey Man

The Grey Man woke early as always and came immediately awake.
 
He had always done that since childhood.
 
His mother, amongst other acts of cruelty
when he was very young, used to creep into his bedroom with a yellow plastic
bat and beat him while he was asleep.
 
He
still woke with the sweat of that fear strong upon him.

As he lay there he went through in his mind his normal mental
gymnastics.
 
First he recalled yesterday’s
password, all 27 characters, then turned them into numbers and started running
them through some advanced mathematical formula, which he changed weekly.
 
This spat out another 27 numbers which he
sifted through changing some into letters and ended up with today’s password.
 
It was as close as he could come to a one
time pad and made sure that each day’s password was unbreakable.
 
The fact it was 27 characters long was no
coincidence.
 
He hoped that anyone
discovering it would feel it was part of the new encryption protocol then in
vogue.

The mental workout was something he prided himself on.
 
Over the past thirty years he had studied how
to develop the memory, reading countless books and working on retentive
techniques similar to the memory turns that used to work in the theatre.
 
Certainly he could duplicate any old act and
had progressed further than anyone he had heard of.
 
At will he could remember almost any single
fact he had read or been told in his long life.
 
Any piece of detailed information he could,
with a little work, bring to mind, and was almost always word perfect.
 
This incredible memory along with a highly
analytical brain allowed him to piece together, when needed, the most obscure
of clues which made him the greatest intelligence officer of his generation.

He got up, washed and cooked a small breakfast before logging on and
changing the password.
 
Then he reported
in to The Firm.
 
He picked up his mail
and the normal routine messages then sent out the electronic sniffers to look
at the integrity of the system, finally going through all The Firm’s requests
and orders that had come in from the customers.
 
Part of his job was to ensure that no member
was overstepping the mark, dipping into pools they should not be dipping into, or
setting up operations outside the agreed charter.
 
Any government departments that were, would
get a stiff rebuke and held up in front of the monthly meetings for all the
other partners to see.
 
Any smaller customers
would get a visit from a representative of The Firm and formally dismissed from
The Firm, quite often violently.

Most of his working life was taken up overseeing the colossus that
was now ‘The Firm’ and he was the only man alive that knew everything.
 
He constantly moved from safe house to safe house
as he knew many people would kill for the information in his head and he had
only been in this current place for a few weeks.
 
As always it was carefully located under an
alias and the house and grounds specially modified to his needs and wants.
 
Being a careful man and constantly hunted,
the house was extensively equipped with security equipment.
 
Once he felt it was time to move on the
equipment would be destroyed and new equipment installed wherever he went next.

He handled all this through a company that had no other dealings
with The Firm or the intelligence world.
 
In fact they had no idea where he was or where he had been either, often
equipping four or five houses at a time across Europe, most of which he would
never live in.
 
Once he left this place
he would be meticulous in removing any trace that he had ever been there.
 
The company just received a message to junk a
certain house and then find him another.
 
It cost a lot of money to live like this but
he had amassed a huge fortune over the years and he hardly thought about it.

Now in his mid-sixties he worried about his health.
 
Recently he had been getting terrible
headaches and eye strain, sometimes having to lie down and cover his eyes with
a cloth.
 
He had also noticed that
sometimes in the afternoon the edges of his sight would close in and he had a kind
of tunnel vision.
 
For a person in his
position, losing the peripheral vision was a disaster.
 
He had reported it at his last medical and so
far no feedback so he assumed it was nothing to worry about, just old age
coupled with a hard work load, but he wondered how much longer he could go on
balancing the powers and who he should hand over to.

He knew Sir Thomas Robertson, his nominal boss, wanted The Firm and
had tried many, many times to convince The Grey Man that his way was the best
way forward.
 
But there was something
about him that did not ring true to The Grey Man’s ears and he had
learnt to listen to his feelings.
 
Always
a sensitive man, The Grey Man knew when someone was not right, just not ‘kosher’
so he kept his distance and remained the voice of reason for The Firm.

He looked around the converted Jacobean church house.
 
It was quite stunning with a thatched roof
and twelve bedrooms, servants quarters, a modern kitchen, swimming pool and
stables.
 
None of which he used.
 
A man of simple needs, he had based himself
in the cellar behind a false wall complete with a basic kitchen, shower and an
army camp bed.
 
The only time he came up
to the main house was to greet an occasional nosy neighbour or visitor who was
shown into a beautifully furnished sitting room complete with expensive antiques
and paintings in keeping with the type of man who would own such a house.
 
This, along with the main passageway, was the
only room which was like this.
 
Every
other room was bare and the front had so far fooled everyone that had called.

Once he decided to leave and move on, he would set the virus on his
computer completely frying the hard drive, pick up a holdall and walk out.
 
Everything would be disposed of by his
company, nothing would be left on the computer.
 
All his files were kept on line, able to be accessed anywhere in the world.
 
In the holdall was a change of clothes, a
change of identity, his smart phone and various credit cards and currency.
 
He had not one personal item and never had.
 
Everything was disposable.

His mind reached out to his two friends, Collins and Surge.
 
In fact he still had trouble thinking of them
as friends, as he had never had friends before.
 
He had kept a discreet eye on them since they had tracked down Collins
wife’s killer and Surge had been injured.
 
It amused The Grey Man that Surge, a very insular man,
 
looked to be doing just fine running a pub and
almost despite Surge, one that was becoming successful and popular.
 
For a man that had always kept in the background
and dealt in violence it was a strange twist of fate and The Grey Man
wished him
well.

Collins concerned him more.
 
Collins
was an assassin and killed without mercy.
 
He had the ability to drop his humanity and do whatever was needed with
no fear or remorse.
 
However his wife had
always anchored him.
 
The love she had
showed kept Collins on the right side of life, allowed him to act as a human
being.
 
In fact over the last few years
he had become semi-retired, happy to train newcomers in The Firm or to act as a
consultant.
 
He had become a back room
man fading into the background and normality.
 
But in the months since the funeral Collins had once again become
operational working for The Firm.
 
Some of
the reports were disturbing.
 
‘
Displays a lack of personal safety’
read
one, ‘
Almost reckless’
read another
which went on to say that ‘
He’d showed a
level of violence that had shocked his fellow operatives’
as The Assassin
had killed five members of a terrorist group in as many seconds then gone out
to dinner completely, it appeared, unmoved.
 
The Grey Man was not sure quite how to deal
with this.

Chapter 6

The Surgeon

Surge woke early as he always did, stretched and got out of bed.
 
His back and knees were playing up but not too
bad.
 
He would go for a run soon and warm
them up.
 
He loved this room above the
pub with its thick plaster walls painted a silky cream, the wooden floors and
the simple furniture.
 
It faced south and
in the morning the sunlight woke him up as its beams broke through the sash
windows and thin cotton curtains.

He took a minute whilst cleaning his teeth to reflect on how he felt.
 
A strange emotion came over him and he
thought perhaps he might be happy but realized it was not happiness but
contentment he felt, a very rare feeling for him.
 
For once in his life things were going well
and for the first time ever he had started putting down roots, quite unusual
for a man in his mid-fifties.

Most of his life had been in the army then
special
forces
then working for the Secret Service.
 
He was a specialist, a breaker of men.
 
He had trained way beyond self defense or
standard martial arts, learning how to take out and break men with the minimum
of fuss or effort.
 
He had learnt all the
body’s weaknesses and attacked then with precision and skill.

For over twenty years he had been the best in the business, a real
hard man. Then he made a mistake in Northern Ireland taking his mind off the
ball for a second when he was doing a routine drop.
 
He could still feel the baseball bats and
boots breaking his bones and his heart and then a year in various hospitals
convalescing.

Those memories and the fear they brought, drove him to leave the
service and five years of hard drinking followed before he helped a friend who
he had made a pact with and was saved himself.

Whilst in hospital Collins, The Assassin, had visited him and
offered him a deal.
 
Many of the top operatives
were getting old and due to retire.
 
This
is where the government would wash its hands of them and leave them to cope on
their own.
 
There was always unfinished
business and sometimes you needed help. The pact Collins offered was this; if
Surge got into trouble The Assassin would step in and help and vice versa but
only under extreme circumstances and only if there was no other way.

Five years later when Surge had been at his lowest ebb, Collins had
sent for him. His wife had been murdered and he wanted revenge.
 
Along with The Grey Man and Collins’ son
Jonathan, they had hunted down and killed the murderers following a plan and
intel from The Grey Man.
 
Surge had
received a bullet in the leg and a severe beating but also regained his soul
and his life.
 
The reward from Collins
was the pub Surge was now living in and this new start.

He remembered that one evening when Collins had given him the pub they
had sat up late in Surge’s’ small terraced house drinking Glenfidich and
talking.
 
 
Collins talked about his wife and Surge had
talked about his only love, Pru who had been tragically killed in the hunt for
Collins’ wife’s murderers.
 
Two lonely men who, at least, had each other.

Waking up that first morning, he had hobbled down to the pub leaning
heavily on his walking stick as he was still injured.
 
He stood outside and took it all in realizing
for the first time it was all his.
 
The
pub was an old coaching inn with the first bricks laid in the 1600s and
extended many times over the years.
 
The
old horse drawn carriages used to stop here for refreshment, bringing the
London middle classes on their way to the sea and the marks of their heavy wheels
were still etched into the paving stones.
 
The outside was a dirty cream and yellow plaster with oak window frames,
dimpled glass and black iron banding holding the old structure together.
 
To the right was a large arch which the
coaches would have driven through into a large, cobbled courtyard which would
have had stables but now had a number of garages.
 
Carrying on through the courtyard going under
another arch at the end there was a scruffy untended car park surrounded by a
low brick wall.
 
Everything looked tired
and worn out, tiles were missing from the roof, garage doors were rotten and
hanging off their hinges, plaster was missing and the window frames looked as
dry as tinder.

Inside, Surge discovered it was no better.
 
The main pub was filthy, the wooden floors
had not been swept, the walls and ceilings were thick with dust and the bar
encrusted with old beer stains.
 
The
chairs were ripped and the tables scratched and worn out.
 
Everywhere was crying out for cleaning and
maintenance.

Upstairs there were a number of guest rooms which looked like they had
not been used for decades.
 
The main
bathroom and kitchen were covered in cobwebs and spiders and rats and mice droppings
were everywhere.

He went downstairs and sat in a small alcove in the corner.
 
He wondered what to do and idly started tidying
up the dirty pint glasses which were clustered there.
 
As a military man, Surge hated anything
untidy or out of place.
 
Once he had
collected the glasses and washed them, he hobbled round the bar and started to
clean up, then found a broom and swept as best he could.
 
He then had to take a long rest as he was
still so weak.

Surge did have some help, a barman called Gary who had run the pub
for its elderly, former owner.
 
Gary had
explained what salary he was on, what hours he worked and what duties he was
prepared to do.
 
“Happy to look after the
cellar,” he’d said.
 
“And pull
pints.
 
But I don’t clean!”

“Evidently,” thought Surge.

Over the next few days whilst Gary tended the few customers Surge
set about cleaning the whole place.
 
Like
everything he did, he did it slowly and methodically setting himself a high
standard and not moving on till everything gleamed.
 
He found it therapeutic and healing both
physically and spiritually as his mind would constantly go to his memories of
Pru if he wasn’t kept busy.

He sold his little house and put the money into refurbishing the pub
having local tradesmen repair the roof and re-plaster both the outside and the
inside in a beautiful off-white and as he was starting to recover, he did the
laboring for a highly skilled carpenter who rebuilt all the window frames.

Upstairs which was to be his home,
he
gutted the interior, brought in pest control and painted all the walls in a
silky cream with new curtains from a fabric shop in the High Street and bought an
old leather suite, sideboard and table and chairs from the monthly auction held
in the village hall.
 
The upstairs kitchen
was completely renovated with brand new appliances which Surge had fitted
himself, by now much recovered.
 

Finally he looked at the inside of the pub which he closed for a
month paying Gary to have a holiday.
 
He stripped
the old wooden bar then re-stained and polished it so it looked marvelous, a
mix of old and new.
 
The current furniture
he junked and then hired a sanding machine which after ten days of hard work
took years of grime off the solid oak floor which he then varnished and sealed.

He brought in a chimney sweep and bricklayer who cleaned and then
rebuilt the beautiful large fireplaces at each end of the bar, then re-tiling
with Victorian tiles he found in a antique come tat shop, finally stocking up
an old black iron box with split logs.

Next he scoured salvage yards and antique fairs bringing back an
eclectic mix of chunky wooden oak furniture and Victorian metal framed chairs
with soft velvet cushions.
 
The walls he
filled with wooden framed military prints and old sailing ships.
 
The cellar he stripped out, laying in new
pipes and refurbishing the antique pulling pumps.

In the alcove he fitted a red cord carpet with an old wooden carver
chair complete with deep cushions and a mahogany 18
^th
Century desk
which he had picked up for song in a London market and renovated in one of the
garages.
 
To finish off, he bought and
hung across the entry, a red, thick coiled rope with brass ends that used to do
service in a cinema foyer.
 
On this he
placed a brass sign saying ‘
Reserved
’.
 
He pictured himself sitting here in the
evening reading his book, drinking a pint without being bothered.

The place was now stunning, old and new decor mixed together, a
cross between a drinking club and a manor house.
 
To Surge it represented something he hadn’t
had for so many years, a home and roots.
 
Pru would have loved it here, he thought and perhaps that is why he did
it.

He opened to no fanfare at all on a wet Monday night and a few of
the regulars came in drinking slowly and talking to Gary.
 
Surge sat in his alcove reading and drinking
a couple of glasses of a really nice red wine.
 
At the end of the evening the till showed takings of £40 which when he
calculated Gary’s salary, the cost of his wine, heating, electricity and rates he
realized he had made a loss, but as he still had a sizeable private bank
account this didn’t bother him at all. The pub looked great, he felt fit and
well and he settled down to a quiet simple life.

By the end of the week word had gotten round what a great place the
pub had become and it became busier and busier.
 
Surge found himself spending half the evening behind the bar helping
Gary serve drinks, something he hated as he struggled with the small talk
expected of him from the customers.
 
Gary,
now having to work for a living, did not stop moaning.
 
Friday, Saturday and Sunday became manic with
the trade only dropping off during the week.
 
Surge’s hobby now became a full time job.

Three weeks after the opening, early one evening before it became
busy, Surge was in his alcove studying the books, amazed that the pub was now
starting to become successful, when he looked up and saw a young lad standing
there.
 
He guessed he was in his late
teens or maybe twenty years old.
 
He was
slim, five foot, ten inches tall with wavy hair and glasses.
 
He reminded Surge of a young Buddy Holly.
 
He said his name was Steve and asked Surge
for a few minutes of his time.
 
Surge
motioned for him to sit.

“I would like to offer you a business proposition,” began Steve.

“I have a business,” Surge replied, “Why would I want another?”

“I can make your pub really successful and fill it with paying
customers every night of the week,” continued Steve.

“No thanks,” said Surge.
 
“We
are busy enough.”

Steve was taken aback.
 
This
was not how this was supposed to go.
 
He
had rehearsed this with his friend Jonny and at this stage the landlord was
supposed to be gagging to know more.

Surge felt a bit sorry for the boy who had obviously run out of patter.
 
“Okay,” he said, “What’s the deal?”

“I have a degree in hotel and restaurant management and am looking
to set up my own business.
 
I have a
flare for cooking and I know I could give customers really great food at a good
price and make a tidy profit.”

He handed Surge a couple of menus.
 
To his credit Surge thought they looked professional.
 
The food was traditional but had a healthy
side which Steve went onto explain was what so many people were looking for, a
decent meal with lots of flavour but not too many calories,
 
so many people were now on diets it was
difficult to eat out, so healthy full flavoured food was going to be the new
thing.

“So you want a job?” said Surge.

“No,” said Steve.
 
“What I
want is a partnership, a business within a business.
 
I set up a restaurant with you as my partner and
use your kitchen and premises and we split the profits 50/50.”

“Why don’t I just hire a chef and keep all the profits?”