“So, what have you got for me Roberts?” LJ’s voice had a clear clipped tone to it.
“Mostly run of the mill stuff, I’m afraid sir. There are rumours circulating that Clive Bingham-Carter at M16 is furious about the Prime Minister’s personal request, that Ferran & Cardini are to have a major input with the new European network, and that they will handle key field operatives in the future. The word is, that he’s lobbying the Prime Minister to sever all association with the firm, sir.”
“Good heavens, doesn’t he ever give up? I’ve already given him my word that we will update his lot on a regular basis, and to liase with his number two, each dammed week. What’s his name?”
“Neville-Smith, sir.”
“What, oh yes, Neville-Smith. Well that’s all the cooperation they’re going to get out of me. What else have you got Roberts?”
Guy Roberts smiled. “Actually, I’ve saved the best till last. Dillon?”
Levenson-Jones looked up from his paperwork ever so slowly. “What about him?”
“We’ve just received a message from the FBI in Florida. According to this, he’s redeemed himself in the eyes of the Americans by unofficially helping them to apprehend and extract the drug trafficker Harry Caplin out of Cuba and back to Florida to face trial. Dillon is now in California and staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton. Courtesy of the American taxpayer it would seem.”
He passed a sheet of paper across to LJ, who put on his round wire framed reading glasses, and studied it. He nodded in satisfaction. “So he pulled it off did he?”
“It would appear so, sir. I’ve taken the liberty of obtaining his record from personnel. I hope you don’t mind, Sir?”
“Um, have you now. Well stick it in the pending tray with the others, Roberts. Oh, and you can go home now.”
“Good night, sir.”
Guy Roberts left the room, and Levenson-Jones crossed to his drinks cabinet and poured another large measure of single malt whisky. “This one’s for you Jake Dillon,” he swallowed it down, returned to his desk, and resumed his work again.
Chapter Two
A few miles off of the northwest coast of France in the English Channel are the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. The largest, Jersey, has been an island for well over eight thousand years; human activity dates back two hundred and fifty thousand years when small dark pre-Celtic hunters used the caves at La Cotte de St. Brelade as their base for hunting mammoth. Eventually, settled communities replaced these nomadic bands of hunters in the Neolithic period, naming the Island Angia. From around 56AD and for well over five hundred years the Romans then inhabited this enchanting place which they called Caesarea.
The Vikings arrived in the ninth century and renamed it Jersey. Meaning island.
Throughout its rich history; Jersey has been a flash point and the scene of many skirmishes between France, who ruled there from around 933 right up to 1468, and England. But because of the strategic importance to the English Crown, Sir Richard Harliston was sent by King Edward IV to claim back Jersey and the other islands for England. Afterwards the Treaty of Calais was reconfirmed with King Louis XI of France, at which time the Channel Islands were declared neutral territory, and are still to this day. With all of these different cultures having inhabited the island a language called Jerriais evolved. This vivid means of verbal communication replete with sayings and proverbs is still firmly rooted in today’s traditional rural life. Without a doubt Jersey is one of the most idyllic locations in Europe.
But not that night, as gale force winds swept in across the old harbour of Bonne Nuit, stirring the boats at anchor, and driving rain across the rooftops, the sky exploding into thunder.
To Rob Chapman, restlessly sleeping at Castle Point on the other side of Bonne Nuit bay, it was the sound of death. He tossed and turned in his bed, and suddenly it was the same old nightmare, the explosions were all around him, the ground shaking beneath his feet. He’d become completely disorientated climbing up the rope ladder, and had lost his bearings as he ran out of the cave panic stricken. Throwing himself down on to the wet sand, arms protecting his head as he took cover behind a large rock, was not even aware of being hit, and only as the noise faded and he sat up was there any pain.
His left leg had an open gash about nine inches long just above the ankle, blood on his hands. As the noise and smoke subsided, he found himself shaking from shock, and his fellow archaeologists who had also managed to clamber out and onto the beach were either dying or dead around him. Chapman cried out, and sat bolt upright in bed sweating, and wide awake now.
It was the same recurring nightmare; the uncharted coastal cave system in Peru where he and four colleagues had been sent by their wealthy employer to investigate a tunnel network. Then came the explosions above and below ground, but that was a long time ago. He reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, checking the illuminated digital clock on the small cabinet next to him. It was just past midnight. He took a deep breath, and stood up, running a hand through his spiky blond hair as he made his way barefoot through the dark hallways, to the circular sitting room, and poured a large whisky into a tumbler.
He was much tanned from regular exposure to sea and sun. Around five foot eleven, he had a fit muscular body, not surprising in a man who worked out every morning before breakfast and was a qualified diver and archaeologist by profession. Fifty years of age, but most people would have taken him for forty.
He went through the dining room, and down the stone staircase into the airy garden room at the back of the old renovated castle which overlooked the English Channel. Rain-washed over the glass roof and out to sea, lightning crackled. He drank a little more of his whisky then put the glass down beside a framed photograph of his nine-year-old daughter and wife both laughing at him. He gently touched his lips with the tip of his index finger, and then placed over each of their images. Remembering the happy times they had spent together, before the fatal car crash on the cliff top road had taken them both from him almost five years ago. He now lived alone in the home that they had practically rebuilt stone by stone with nothing more than his memories of them both. He found that the only way to ease the pain and utter hollowness that he still felt was to concentrate on his archaeological work and occasional diving tours with excessive fervour.
A loud clatter of thunder overhead brought him back to reality, and slowly he walked back to the bedroom. Laying back in the dark once again he tried to get a little more sleep. He was taking a party of amateur marine archaeologists out from the St. Helier marina at ten-thirty, which meant that as usual, he needed his wits about him, plus all of his considerable experience and expertise.
At that moment on the other side of Bonne Nuit Bay, Nathan Cunningham sat at his desk in the spacious living room going over sea charts by the light of a single lamp. The ocean and harbour below could be clearly seen through the wall of glass that ran down one side of the room. It always thrilled him to gaze out to sea, it took him back to the days when he was a young man serving in the Royal Navy. He had attained the rank of Commander, with an impressive service record and numerous military decorations to his name, could even have gone on to command a desk at the Admiralty, but had decided to call it a day and retire to the quite life.
On reflection he’d had a good life. At sixty-two, widowed with one daughter and having made a large fortune from the sale of his construction firm in London that he’d set up after his retirement from the Navy. He’d decided to up-root and move to Jersey. It was a family holiday to the island years before that had made his mind up, and at the same time Rob Chapman had introduced him to archaeology and scuba diving which had become his new found passions. After the death of his wife from a heart attack he’d sold his business and his house in St John’s Wood, moved to Jersey and bought his present home. His life was completely satisfactory and fulfilled, especially as Annabelle had had something to do with that as well.