‘At ease’ said the brigadier. ‘What can I do for you Jenkins?
‘Sir.’ replied Jenkins, ‘We’ve had a number of calls from civilians, mainly from Erlestoke and the surrounding area. There have been reports of an explosion earlier this afternoon. Most calls have been enquiries as to whether it was us, and whether it was planned. A couple have been complaints.’
‘Are there any exercises today Corporal?’ asked Saunders.
‘No sir. The last live fire exercises were last week; Challenger target exercises.’
‘Okay, and all munitions from those exercises have been accounted for?’
‘Yes sir, every round detonated and logged, sir.’
‘Very good. What about UXO?’ — Unexploded Ordnance.
‘Highly unlikely sir, we tend not to stray too far north on exercises as the locals seem to get a bit irate. And it’s very rare nowadays to find anything left over from past exercises.’
‘Very well.’ Said Saunders, ‘Get a team assembled and go to investigate. I want all personnel accounted for at the time of the explosion. I want everybody on this base ruled out of any involvement in this incident. Retrieve any evidence that you can from the blast site, however small. And once we’re satisfied that it’s not an MOD issue, contact Five, give them the evidence and let’s get this situation out of our hair. Dismissed.’
‘Yes sir.’ replied Jenkins. He saluted the Brigadier, about-turned and marched from the office.
Within the hour, a team of six military investigators were searching for the blast site.
Chapter Two
‘Another day done.’ Sam Edwards announced as he powered down his computer and switched off his monitor.
He stood and pushed his chair under his desk.
‘I’m off. Got a train to catch; and somewhere there’s a beer needs drinking.’
‘See ya Sam’ came a couple of replies, but most of his colleagues didn’t bother to acknowledge his departure. The ignorance of others never failed to amaze him.
He took the stairs down to the ground floor and joined the queue for security clearance. Another queue, more bureaucracy. Still, that was life in Thames House, home of MI5.
Become a Spy. Protect your country. That’s what the advert said and Edwards had responded to it. That was three years ago. Back then Sam was thirty nine and bored of his twenty one previous years in IT. When the advert appeared in The Times he thought what the hell? What’s to lose? And applied for a position at the heart of British Intelligence; Military Intelligence — Section 5.
He probably wouldn’t have bothered if he’d known then what he knew now.
For three years, Sam had been little more than a professional internet surfer. His official title being “Threat Assessor — Grade 2”.
He was told in the interview to forget everything he’d ever seen or heard about MI5. Especially James Bond.
Sam, like most people grounded in reality, was already quite sure that there wouldn’t be an expense account, an Aston Martin or trips to Casinos in exotic, far flung places. He was fairly sure he’d never get a license to kill. What he didn’t know was that working for British Intelligence would be so dull.
His day would start with a list of “Persons of Interest” sent by the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham. GCHQ is the Government listening centre, there to keep British interests safe from the bad guys, to alert MI5 of the “chatter” taking place between suspected terrorist organisations around the world.
However, the list Sam received was of British Citizens suspected of ties to such organisations. He would spend the day working through the list, checking social networking sites, phone calls, text messages and emails. All those things the Government stringently denies doing.
Although computers could perform all the tasks Sam was employed to do, they lacked the ability to pick up on the subtle nuances of human interaction. Computers didn’t have instincts or gut feelings; they couldn’t raise an eyebrow to a certain turn of phrase, or spot something suspicious in the background of a photo. Until such a time that computers were that good, Sam would have a job.
In his three years in the job, Sam had never found anything of any interest to national security, though he’d seen lots of interesting things.
At first it was quite addictive. But like TV reality shows it soon got boring. At times though, it was fascinating.
He was amazed by what people were prepared to share on the internet, feeling safe behind their monitors, not realising that everything they did, every website they visited, every post on Facebook, every email on Gmail, every Tweet, and every app downloaded, everything they did online left a trace that could be seen by somebody. Downloaded a dodgy copy of the latest cool boy-band album for your kids? Somebody knows about it.
He read the most intimate accounts and saw the most sordid pictures. He’d been a spectator of affairs, a fly on the wall of secret liaisons; he’d been a part of breakups, of marriages, of deaths. Sometimes he felt like he actually knew some of the people he was investigating.
He often wondered what he’d do if he ever bumped into somebody he’d been investigating. Knowing so much about somebody without actually knowing them would be an uncomfortable experience. Would he just stare? Would he try to ignore them? Hopefully, he’d never have to find out.
But during his time at MI5, Sam had never been in the field, never been part of a real investigation, and never seen a real life bad guy.
Sam walked across Lambeth Bridge, The Thames a murky brown. It was a nice day. The sun was shining, boats full of tourists making their way up and down the river, passing the Palace of Westminster and the London Eye, an enjoyable way to see the sights on the banks of the Thames.
Having crossed Lambeth Bridge, Sam turned left and headed north up the riverside path. He could have cut up Lambeth Palace Road, it might have saved him a minute or two, but Sam preferred the river walk. Especially on a day like today. When he got to Westminster Bridge he turned right and headed toward Waterloo station. He probably wouldn’t make the 17:50 train, he rarely did, but the 18:20 would get him back to Andover for 19:30. Just enough time to see his son before bedtime.
The train arrived at Andover station right on time. Sam left the station and started the short walk home up The Avenue.
Sam walked up his gravel drive and admired his large 1930’s built house. A handsome looking white building, double fronted with a separate double garage. Well, at least I got something from years in IT he thought.
Sam appreciated how lucky he’d been with his IT career. After leaving school at sixteen he took a two year college course before choosing to work instead of going to university. He pretty much walked into his first job with a local insurance company.
After a couple of years learning the ropes on the IBM mainframe, he decided to go freelance. At that time, demand for mainframe programmers was high, and he never found himself short of work. It wasn’t all plain sailing though, with contracts up and down the country for three or six months at a time. It was draining, but allowed him to save enough for a deposit on the house.
He was lucky with the house too. Post-recession it was relatively cheap for its size, now it was worth three to four times what he’d paid for it and he owned it outright. A nice position to be in. Life was good for Sam Edwards.
He unlocked his front door and walked into the hallway.
He heard the shout of ‘Dadda’ and the padding of small feet down the tiled hallway. Jack. His eighteen-month old son.
Sam scooped Jack up into his arms and planted a kiss on his forehead.