Tested by Fire by David Costa (the little red hen read aloud TXT) 📗

‘David, let me introduce the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Sir Martin Bryant.’ The men shook hands. Reece noted the strong grip.

‘Nice to meet you, Mr Reece.’

‘You too, sir, and it’s David.’

‘Sir Martin,’ Jim said, ‘as you probably know, is the PM’s eyes and ears in all matters pertaining to the intelligence community and one of the very few people cleared in knowing who and what SG9 is all about. He is here at the request of the Prime Minister, to hear your briefing from the horse’s mouth so to speak and to save time when answering the questions needing clarification. Questions he knows the PM would ask if he were here himself, so you can speak without any worry about security. Now let’s get down to business. How did your meeting go? What have you got to tell us?’

Reece knew something of Bryant’s background. He was a career civil servant, tall, lean, and fit for his fifty-two years. He was a close friend of the Prime Minister, not just his ear in the intelligence community. He had a reputation for being a straight talker who didn’t suffer fools easily. His dark brown hair starting to go grey at the side complimented his square strong jaw line.

Today he wore his regular three-piece blue pinstriped suit with a pocket watch and chain finished off with a blue striped tie with matching pocket hanky.

Reece thought of him as the consummate city banker. He knew that even though he couldn’t see his shoes from where he sat, they would be a pair of black shiny Oxford Brogues. Reece also knew that despite the appearance of the city banker, Sir Martin Bryant was a man of steel which many men who crossed his path had found out to their cost. Reece noticed his clear blue eyes were watching him with interest. Watching and listening for what was to come.

‘What I’ve heard has me worried on a number of fronts. Mainly that extreme Irish Republican elements are now working on this operation with extreme Islamic terrorists.’

Reece then told them the details and the fact that whatever the terrorists were cooking up was so big that two opposing ideologies were willing to work together in a common cause to ensure the kind of spectacular success they craved.

It was Sir Martin who spoke first when Reece stopped talking. As Reece spoke, he’d been making notes marking them as bullet points on the yellow writing pad in front of him.

‘Point one: It’s a spectacular involving two well-known terrorist groups. Point two: It has to be something so big the result would be catastrophic for this country, maybe even the West as a whole. Point three: The first week of October seems to be important to them.’

‘Gentlemen, can I remind you the first week of October covers the Conservative Party Conference taking place in Manchester. A Conference attended by the British Prime Minister,’ said Bryant.

Looks of understanding fell over the men in the room.

‘I’m deeply concerned at the involvement of Sharon Lyndsey, the White Widow. She didn’t only earn that name because of the martyrdom of her husband, it’s also attributed to the large number of widows she’s created through her terrorist actions across the world.’

‘Mr Reece, I’ll waste no time in briefing the Prime Minister. I’ll also put the resources of the police and Intelligence Services at your disposal. As SG9 is a Black Ops organisation, people will be told you’re working directly for me and the PM’s office and for this work, you and Jim here will always have direct and secure access to me. I’ll brief Sir Ian Fraser accordingly.’

Reece was surprised at this. His previous experience of career civil servants was that in cases where decisions of life and death had to be made, they quickly passed responsibility on to someone down the ladder. If things went wrong, they had their scapegoat for the blame. If things went well, they took the plaudits as they would let it be known they’d chosen the person to lead the plan. In Sir Martin, Reece could already see someone he could work with. Someone who was used to taking responsibility and leading from the front, someone, who wouldn’t ask from his people something he wasn’t prepared to do himself.

‘Mr Reece, do you think you’ll be able to get any more information from your agent?’

‘Yes, she’ll get back to me as soon as she has anything, and I can contact her anytime.’

‘Good, do you know this Costello personally? Do you know what he looks like and how he operates?’

‘The closest I ever got to him was in a shoot-out when I was hit by shrapnel in the shoulder. He was masked then, but I know how he moves under pressure. He won’t give up easily, he has nothing to lose and will shoot anyone who gets in his way. He’s a vicious bastard who lives to inflict pain and death on others. He uses the United Ireland cause as his excuse to kill. He doesn’t have many friends. We now know even his old IRA chums are only too happy to inform on him. To them he’s a dinosaur, lost in the past, and they believe he needs to be taken down.’

‘We will take him down, Mr Reece, I can assure you of that. The where and when is to be decided. But we’ll take him down. I want you to keep in touch with your agent and keep me updated. I also want you to take the SG9 team to Manchester to find Costello and the White Widow and if you find them, kill them both. I don’t want these people arrested on our soil to become prison heroes at the expense of the British public, or, to have their so-called human rights dragged through the courts all the