The Becket Approval by Falconer Duncan (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

‘How’s your day been so far?’ Bowden asked.

‘Delightful,’ Gunnymede said, trying not to sound sarcastic.

‘Warmer than normal for this time of year, wouldn’t you say?’

Gunnymede decided not to keep silent.

The doors opened and the young officer led the way along a corridor to a metal door where he navigated through another personal identification system before they were permitted into a sterile room. The door automatically locked behind them.

‘Remove any metal,’ Bowden said. ‘Watch, phone, pen, coins, everything. Do you have a metal zipper?’

Gunnymede started to check and then remembered his trousers had plastic zippers. He removed his stuff and placed them in the tray. Bowden touched a button, a partition moved aside to expose a steel door with large, robust hinges.

‘Bowden and Devon Gunnymede,’ Bowden said out loud.

There was a soft clunk and the steel door opened towards the men. This revealed another similar door. A very fancy bubble room. The inner door opened into a large room with a glass conference table on one side, the other dedicated to several monitors. Jervis and Simons were the only occupants, Jervis talking into a phone. Bowden left, closing the door behind him.

‘Gunnymede. Good to see you again,’ Simons said wearing a professional smile. ‘Can I get you anything? A cup of tea or coffee?’

‘Tea, please,’ Gunnymede decided.

Simons poured the tea from a flask into a china cup balanced on a delicate saucer, adding a few drops of milk and offering it to Gunnymede.

‘Any sugar?’ Gunnymede asked.

Simons handed him some.

Jervis put down the phone. ‘There ’e is,’ he said in his south London accent with a hint of enforced posh developed over the years. ‘Been a while since we last met, Mr Gunnymede. You two have met?’

‘We have indeed, Mr Jervis.’

‘How was your time in jail?’ Jervis asked.

‘Fine,’ Gunnymede replied.

‘A new experience for you.’

Gunnymede smiled politely.

‘I’ll have another cuppa, if you don’t mind, Mr Simons,’ Jervis said.

Simons complied dutifully.

‘Hear you had some fun in Syria,’ Jervis said, accepting the fresh tea from Simons.

Jervis had always fascinated Gunnymede. It was probably his cockney accent that was the most interesting thing about him, so out of place among the upper class accents of the other SIS mandarins he’d met.

Gunnymede had heard the usual stories about Jervis when he joined SIS ops. Jervis was one of the few mongrels that had made it into the inner circle. A feat indeed. There were doubtless many in the firm who didn’t care for the commoner, not just because of his accent. He had a dubious pedigree. Jervis was a common city fox but with some special qualities. His earliest years, his birth to his teens, were shrouded in mystery, the most popular theory being that he came from gypsies and had a criminal record. The reason why no-one could uncover the truth about Jervis’s early life was because all documentation of it no longer existed, the result of either catastrophic bureaucratic failure or deliberate intervention by a highly placed government official. The most popular rumour on that subject was that his predecessor and mentor, Sir Anthony Jewel, RIP, was the one who’d removed Jervis’s records. Sir Anthony had plans for his favourite pupil and clearly didn’t want the man’s past to interfere with his future. Jervis found his way into the Secret Service via the army. The Intelligence Corps to be specific. Way before Gunnymede’s time in the Corps. His first documented proof of existence was on operations in Northern Ireland as a tout-maker, creating and managing informants using bribery, threats or money. It was one of the most dangerous jobs in the field in those days and where he first displayed his rare gifts. He had a photographic memory, was exceptionally clever and as courageous as he was ruthless. It wasn’t long before he was recruited by MI6 and brought to London where his skills were applied to the post-Cold War counterespionage program. After his success in managing a particularly complicated task he came under the gaze of Sir Anthony, who was the current operations director. Jervis spent some twenty years working under Sir Anthony and when the man retired, Jervis took his place. Gunnymede wondered if Simons had taken on the role of heir to the throne.

‘That’s why you’re here, my boy,’ Jervis said. ‘Syria. Or to be precise, the information you came upon.’

Simons returned to his seat at the table and logged into a keyboard.

‘Mustafa Lamardi,’ Jervis said. ‘Know who he is?’

The third time in a week Gunnymede had been asked that. ‘Yes.’

Simons brought up a picture of Lamardi on a monitor.

‘You know he’s deceased?’ Jervis said.

‘I heard.’

‘Any thoughts as to why Lamardi was killed?’

Gunnymede shrugged. ‘Revenge for the deaths of our operators in Afghanistan. Or something to do with his drug connections.’

‘Indeed. Several possibilities. Lamardi knew he was on someone’s death list,’ Jervis said. ‘He contacted us the day before he was killed. He believed it was us who wanted to kill him. I told him we don’t have an assassination program. He didn’t believe me of course. He couldn’t begin to comprehend why on earth we wouldn’t have one. Do you want your tea freshened up?’

‘No thanks,’ Gunnymede replied.

Jervis topped up his own.

‘Lamardi said that if it wasn’t us who wanted to kill him, could we protect him? He had something to offer us. If we ensured his safety, he said he’d supply us with information about a significant Daesh attack on the UK. Obviously that was of great interest to us and so we immediately put gears into motion to get him to a safe location. But sadly we weren’t quick enough.’

Jervis paused to finish off his tea. ‘That’s a nice cuppa that, don’t you think? Problem with having it in flasks is it quickly stews.’

‘That’s