Andrew Towning
Constantine Legacy
Andrew Towning
The Constantine Legacy, Andrew’s inaugural Jake Dillon novel was first published in 2006. Andrew’s writing is a reflection of his extensive travels and inherent interest in national security and covert operations. Andrew lives in Dorset, where many of Dillon’s tours take place, with his family and he is currently completing yet another novel in the series of Dillon adventure thrillers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
For my family, Paula, Harriet and Eloise…..with love
Chapter 1
I loosened my tie, took off my jacket and casually threw it over the back of a chair in the far corner of the small bland office. I returned here after each assignment and took comfort in the thought that it wasn’t a place I had to visit very often.
I’d been on the Ferran & Cardini payroll for just over a year now. It was an investment company that didn’t really have any clients or anything to invest in, which was just as well because I didn’t know the first thing about that! Life was good. I got paid a large six figure retainer, and I received a cash in hand bonus after every job. I still wasn’t sure which MI5 department Declan Ferran and Richard Cardini had worked for, but I wasn’t complaining. This was no two-bob company, and the smart Docklands property displayed a façade of respectability and wealth.
The building, above ground level, was everything you’d expect with a spacious reception area, and lots of stainless steel and tinted glass. Even the security guards looked real.
My office and the other rooms that made up the special projects department were located four floors down. An innocent looking tradesman’s entrance at the side of the building gave access to a bomb-proof elevator, which only allows you entry after you’ve been biometrically scanned.
Edward Levenson-Jones, LJ for short, was my immediate boss. When I gave him the report of my last assignment, he put it onto his desk like the foundation stone of the British Museum, and said. “The Partners want to introduce a couple of new ideas for tackling the issue of this large sum of money that has been pledged to those high spirited Italians you spoke to some weeks back.”
“For us to tackle them!” I corrected.
“Well done, good to see you’re still on the ball, old son. Because you’ll always need to be one step ahead with this next job.”
“You forget that I’m already covered in scar tissue as a result of the Partners’ good ideas.”
“Well, as luck would have it, this one is better than most,” LJ said, ignoring my remark.
I personally saw each job as having a high risk factor to the people who were involved, and this one was definitely sounding as if it were on the fringe; but LJ, with his colourful bow ties and Panatela cigars, was my immediate boss and his decision was final.
Inside the wall safe lay a bundle of papers with the firm’s crest upon it, the information no doubt extremely sensitive. He picked the papers out and quickly flicked through them.
“Anyway, the cheeky buggers have come back to us, and want the Partners to stump up the money sooner than was agreed. Apparently they want to see a sign of good will to their cause, so to speak.”
“Do they now,” I said sardonically, “I bet the Partners agreed immediately to that?”
LJ shot me one of his looks over the top of his glasses. “Well, funnily enough old son, a file was handed to me by one of my old pals over at MI5 two days ago, that may just tie in with all this.”
“Suppose, just for one moment, that there was a way of giving the Italians what they wanted, but without it costing the firm a penny?”
I didn’t say a word. He went on.
“Approximately three miles off the coast of Dorset there’s a sunken boat by the name of the Gin Fizz, and on-board is a safe with two items inside.”
“One of these items people of a criminal type, shall we say, would go to great lengths to get hold of if they knew of its existence.”
He smiled, and sipped his coffee. I still said nothing. LJ continued enthusiastically, his voice upbeat.
“This boat is thirty metres down on the seabed, and as usual, the Partners are being cagey about the details. They’re saying that she got into trouble and sunk. I personally think that she was scuttled. Either way, she went down, crew and all. But would you believe it, the skipper miraculously survived. Now, you may be wondering, how we know about this, and why we’re getting involved? Well, the Gin Fizz happens to belong to the Cabinet Minister, Oliver Hawkworth. For obvious reasons, he doesn’t want anyone to know where that boat is. That’s why I now have the file, and because this may get messy, MI5 doesn’t want any involvement.”
“But, surely the coastguard would have picked her up on their radar?”
“The full time skipper,” LJ said walking over to a tall cupboard and extracting a large scale chart, “Had been replaced with another, and he was under strict instructions to have no radio communication, whatsoever. And anyway, the Gin Fizz was fitted with a very sophisticated radar jammer.”
“Hawkworth is saying that it was so he could sneak away for the occasional dirty weekend without his minders tracking him. So you see absolutely no one apart from the Partners and I know where she is at this present moment.”
My boss is one of those men, who whenever he tells you about something, has to doodle or draw. On this occasion he started by tracing a line along the French coastline, which also showed the Channel Islands and the English coast.
“Now then,” he said spreading the chart further over the conference table. “The information that we have, is that the Gin Fizz started her journey about here.” He put a mark on the chart, near to La Rochelle on the West coast of France. “She set off at first tide and made her way up the coast to a point, somewhere about here.” He marked a point just off the Normandy coast, near to Sillon de Talbert, continuing his line up towards Jersey.
“Now, somewhere between the Normandy coast and Jersey she met up with another much larger vessel and according to the skipper, who I might add, has already been extensively questioned by MI5, it was at this point a small package was transferred from an unmarked ship, over to the Gin Fizz.”
“According to his report, the men on board the other vessel were all heavily armed.”
“What about the nationality of this other ship?”
“Don’t know. You see the ship appeared to have no markings or flags flying. But the skipper did mention that the men on board had an Asian look about them, and that the overall appearance of them and their vessel was extremely sea-worn!”
The line went on up to the Channel Islands and stopped. “Of course we can be relatively sure that this part of the voyage is correct, because it would seem that she was spotted on the way to Jersey. I had my source at the coastguard in the Channel Islands do a small favour for me, and run a check for that date and time, and sure enough the Gin Fizz had filed her course with the authorities there, and the same applied when he checked with the French.”
“What did your chap at the coastguard say about the course of the Gin Fizz after she left their waters?” I asked.
LJ looked at the chart laid out before us. “Well — it all gets a bit strange at this point really,” he said. It would appear that she is still tied up at Bouilly Port near St. Brelades Bay, where she’s been since she docked a week ago.”
He saw my puzzlement at this, even before it had arrived on my face.
“So what’s the scam, if she’s now lying at the bottom of the English Channel?” I asked.