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

he knows. What if he’s doing something right now? What if the police operation is in progress right now? A senior officer in S C & O 19 gave me Krilov’s name as long as I assured him I’d give it to no one. I now have to tell him the boyfriend of the woman Krilov raped has that information, and that he works for MI6. Thank you very much! Now get out of my office.’

She walked out of the room close to tears, went back to her desk, grabbed her bag and left the office.

Gunnymede made his way up a grassy slope heading for a line of trees. At the crest he could see the lights of the only collection of structures in sight in a valley running across his front. There was a main house and a couple of long, windowless buildings. Woodland folded around the far side and beyond. It begged a closer inspection and Gunnymede made his way down a large field towards it.

He reached a wooden fence fifty metres from the first long building and paused to take a look at everything now that he was closer. Krilov’s Merc was parked outside the house alongside two other 4x4s. The ground floor lights were on. Several exterior lights illuminated the complex but there were plenty of dark corners and shadows to hide in. What Gunnymede didn’t notice was a 360 CCTV dome on the end of a long pole that reached above the haze of lights rendering it near invisible at night time.

The place looked like a farm but not a lot of farming went on anymore, if any. There was an absence of machinery and accessories, no barn, no hay, no fertiliser or animal feed. It didn’t even smell like a farm.

Gunnymede climbed over the fence and made his way to the nearest storage building, a white painted concrete block, single storey, windowless construction with a metal corrugated roof. He walked to one end and looked around the corner. No door suggested it was the back end of the building and he continued to the next corner to look across a yard where he could see the other similar building. To the left was the small hut surrounded by fencing. A large dog stepped out to look about as if it had heard or smelt something. A Rottweiler. Another one joined it and they stared in Gunnymede’s direction. A moment later they lost interest and went back inside.

Gunnymede went back the way he’d come, around to the opposite end and peered around that corner to find the building entrance. A large metal door secured by a sophisticated keypad system. Such an expensive lock looked out of place on such an ordinary farm building.

He stepped back and studied the roof construction, a common security weakness. An oil drum against the building provided a perfect platform. He found a short length of iron piping, climbed onto the drum, pushed the pipe under the roof corner and levered it up. A couple of nails popped loudly and Gunnymede paused, worried about alerting the dogs. They didn’t make a sound and he eased the edge up further. When the corner was high enough he jammed the pipe in the gap so that it held up the corner like a tent pole and he took a look inside. There were electrical devices like battery chargers throughout giving off enough light to show the building was one large space. It was filled with shelving and tables randomly arranged with boxes large and small, stacked and opened with items everywhere like a poorly managed storeroom. Gunnymede used his phone light to illuminate the contents of an open box directly beneath him. Interesting. It was filled with assault rifle magazines. A closer look was indeed required.

Gunnymede eased himself beneath the ceiling, reaching for a beam that took his weight and swung inside landing lightly on a concrete surface.

He moved about the room inspecting as he went. There was a variety of military paraphernalia; weapons cases, magazine pouches, chest harnesses, pistol holsters and fighting knives. On a stack of shelving, he found blocks of plastic explosive, sheets of Semtex, rolls of detonation cord and fuse wire. A stack of small black boxes with red warning symbols caught his eye and he unwrapped one to find a dozen detonators. There were cartons of hand grenades, a shelf dedicated to claymore mines and crates of M4 assault rifles. This was a serious arsenal.

The central part of the room was dedicated to a large table covered with files, paperwork, a couple of laptops and a box of mobile phones. Taped to a wall was a photograph of a ship, a map and a sea chart. The map was cut to include Southampton and Winchester while the chart focused on the Port, Southampton Water and the Solent. There was Cyrillic hand writing on the chart which he couldn’t read. The ship in the photograph was a medium sized cargo carrier. Sketching on the chart showed its track past Cowes on the Isle of Wight, along the estuary and into Southampton port. The map had a road route highlighted from Southampton to Winchester and this location.

One thing seemed obvious. He was looking at a plan of some sort. The ship was to sail into Southampton Docks where, it had to be assumed, its cargo would be unloaded and driven to this farm. Looking at his surroundings one had to wonder what the cargo consisted of.

Gunnymede examined the chart more closely to find a circle drawn around a large oil refinery south of Southampton on the west coastline of the estuary. There was nothing to suggest its significance. The refinery was also circled on the map. He examined the papers on the table. On top of one pile was a photograph of a bearded Arab with his name and date of birth in English. There were six more