Chapter 4

Poole, Dorset. July, the same year.

Paul Wilson would not have been able to explain why he knew he had to move just at that moment, but after a sharp step to the left a tennis ball went whizzing right through where his chest would have been.

“See you’ve still got the reactions Paul,” laughed a voice from behind.

Paul ignored the voice and continued with what he was doing. He lifted his hands to his mouth and began shouting. “SHOULDERS FORWARD,” he yelled across the water. “ATTACK THAT PADDLE. DIG DEEP. ANDERS, THAT MEANS YOU.” He paused for a moment and the two men stood and watched the five kayaks as they chased each other around the small slalom course. “GOOD. WELL DONE JAKE. ALEX, YOU’RE NOT THINKING PROPERLY. GET THOSE SHOULDERS FORWARD.” After a few more minutes of this, he called the five boats to come alongside the bank.

After the five kayaks were taken out of the water and put into the trailer racks, he gathered them around him. “Alex, you’re still not lining yourself up properly for the gates. Remember you’re not supposed to touch the poles. This isn’t downhill skiing. Jake, you were doing well right up to the end when you let your concentration drift.” He went on like this for a few more minutes, before congratulating the five on a good training session and dismissing them to get dressed. Finally, he turned to his visitor.

Toby Lake was just about five foot seven, a couple of inches shorter than Paul. Like Paul he was still wiry thin, Swimmer Canoeists usually had to be, but he still had the look of controlled strength and aggression about him that all the men in C squadron had once had. Toby’s once sandy blonde hair was now all but white, what there was of it, but the steely grey eyes still had that hawk-like look that Paul remembered from years previously.

“I should’ve known it was you,” he said severely, “but I didn’t think I’d have the misfortune to see you again.”

“Hey, you know me. I’m a born survivor,” the newcomer grinned.

“Yeah,” said Paul, “but what about everyone around you?”

Toby’s grin faded somewhat. “That was not my fault. That was pure fluke. And you should know, you were there.”

Paul shook his head, a slight frown on his face. “Yeah. But it’s always you.”

“Phil was my friend as well,” came the soft reply. “Look, if this is a bad time I’ll go, but I really wanted to talk to you. It really is important.”

“Here, pub or home?” asked Paul after a moment.

“Anywhere. Your call.”

Paul nodded. “I need to take these boats back to where I store them. Where’s your car?”

The newcomer shrugged his shoulders. “Long story, but I arrived here by public transport and foot.”

“Huh.” Paul indicated the green car the canoe trailer was hitched to. “Better get in then.”

Toby looked at it in surprise. “What the hell is it? I don’t recognise it. And that’s a bloody ancient plate.”

Paul gave a bark of laughter. “It’s a one point three litre Austin Maestro, one of the very first out of the factory back in the early ‘80s, and still going like a dream.”

“Bloody hell.” Toby’s voice had awe in it as he looked at the ancient vehicle. “It looks in immaculate condition.”

“It is. There’s a one-man marine engineering outfit down the road. Maintains all the marine equipment that the current guys use. He’s bloody good. Does the club’s canoes and kayaks as well, and maintains a few cars on the side. But you have to know him well enough before he’ll do that for you. He would do your stuff on my say so if you needed.”

“Oh?”

“The guy who started and runs it used to be a Sergeant in X squadron, retired a few years before we did.”

“Ah,” Toby’s voice showed enlightenment. “He was one of us. He’ll do the boys.”

“Yep.”

“So how did you get to know him?”

“After I started coaching the local, then county and regional squads, he volunteered to store and maintain the boats for me. Now I help coach the national squad, I won’t go anywhere else. A few years ago the car broke down for about the tenth time in eight months and he offered to repair it for free. Turned out he was pretty good. About a year ago, no, actually, closer to two, he told me he’d started to do bodywork as well as mechanical repairs, soon he’d fixed the lot. Get in.”

Paul started the car and drove slowly up the winding track towards the road.

“It pulls well,” said Toby admiringly.

Paul just nodded then turned onto the main road.

“Those kids looked good,” Toby said calmly. “What’s the skinny?”

“That’s part of the national Under 18s boys’ team. They’re okay, but they’re not a match for teams like the Canadians, the Russians or the Scandinavians, especially the Finns. The Under 16s on the other hand are the current world champions for their age-group, and they’re getting better. I can see them becoming Olympic champions one day.”

“If there is another Olympics, what with what’s happening.”

Paul glanced at Toby. “As you say, ‘If’,” he said eventually. “So what’s the problem? What’s so all-firing important that you have to disturb my Sunday?”

“Do you remember that journalist getting murdered a month ago? It was in all the papers.”

Paul thought back for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah. Yorkshire somewhere wasn’t it? What about it?”

“That’s right, Leeds. Well he was a friend of Clive, my youngest brother. They were at college together.”

“So what? I didn’t know your brother was a journalist.”

“He’s not. He’s a civil servant at the Ministry of Transport, based in Leeds.”

“So this journo was a friend of your brother’s. Again, so what?”

“He’s a top notch investigative reporter and he’d just written a piece about the local Truth and Freedom party in Normanton.”

“Normanton?” asked Paul looking puzzled.

“It’s a small market town a few miles outside of Wakefield in West Yorkshire.”

Paul nodded, and then waved his hand for Toby to continue.

“Normanton is traditionally a Labour party stronghold, has been almost since the birth of the Labour party, but the Earth First got in at the last council elections in May, and now it seems that it is in fact the Truth and Freedom party.”

“So?”

“Paul! Are you fucking blind?” exclaimed Toby. “You know what the TaF is.”

Paul gave a huge sigh. “Yeah, I know. What’s that got to do with us here in Dorset though? There’s a bit of TaF activity along the coast in Portsmouth, rather more in Southampton, but nothing out here.”

“No, so far you’re lucky in that. Well the piece that John Holness was about to publish would have put the cat right amongst the pigeons. Basically it accused the TaF of being just the BNP in another name.”

Paul stared at Toby. “Are you sure of that?”

“Well, I’m sure of what the article said, and I’ve known John since he and my brother were at college together, and I know he is, was, an honourable and honest journalist. If he wrote that, it’s because he had all the evidence to back it up.”

Paul turned his attention back to the road, to Toby’s relief.

“Go on.”

“Well there’s a copper up there that it just happens I’m friends with, and he was part of the investigating team. Apparently the team identified the people responsible, and they are members of the TaF.”

“So? Wouldn’t that just turn people against the Truth And Freedom people?”

“Ah, well. There you go, see. The police are being hampered by the Ministry of Justice in London. Apparently the CPS are refusing to prosecute on the grounds of not enough evidence, and the Home Office pushed for their release.”

“Shiiiiiit,” said Paul slowly. “Are you saying that the TaF have got their hooks into the Crown Prosecution Service?”

“Well, maybe not the CPS, they just appear to be under huge pressure to drop the case, but definitely the Home Office. But according to my mate, the Home Office actually have no jurisdiction. It’s the Ministry of Justice that’s really worrying people. If they’ve been infiltrated, this country is well and truly up shit-creek.”

“So? What do you want me to do about it? Poole isn’t in West Yorkshire. I’ve never been to West Yorkshire, I don’t think.”

“I need you to hide me. Short term.”

“What?” Paul again stared at Toby. “Hide you? Why? What have you done? And what has this got to do with ... oh shit!” He turned back to the road again. “I heard three people had been killed in Leeds yesterday. Was that something to do with you? Did you do that?”

“The police were pressured to release their suspects, so they released them on Police bail a few days after they were arrested. They went to ground in Leeds, which just happens to be my home territory. It took me a week to find them, then another ten or twelve days to track their movements, and yes, I killed them Friday evening. They were proud of what they’d done, and they knew they were protected by powerful people. So I showed them they weren’t as well protected as they thought. They deserved to die, and I took them out. It’s what we were trained to do in the squadron, and I did it cleanly, neatly, and swiftly. Left no evidence as far as I know, but I’m lying low just in case.”

“Won’t your copper friend wonder?”

“I’m pretty certain he’s already guessed. I’m not going to actually admit it, and he’s not actually gonna ask, but I’m sure he knows. He’s not going to say anything to anyone else either,” he chuckled slightly. “I also happen to know that the original investigation into John’s death is getting a lower priority than even looking for lost cats, and the new investigation is being run by a different station, and by different people. My mate has implied to them that it’s a bit of a local turf war between rival drugs gangs, so even they’re not going to be worrying over much.”

Paul gave a brief smile. “So no one is actually hunting you?”

“Not to my knowledge, no.”

He sighed. “Alright. I’ve got a spare bed you can have for a few nights. What do you plan on doing after that?”

“I want to get John’s story published. I’ve got a copy on a memory stick. I want to get it printed out, and then I’m going to post it to every local and national news organisation I can find. I’m not going to risk using email, except at the very last instance when I want to send it to another friend of John and Clive who now works for the New York Times. I’m gonna make sure people know exactly what the TaF is, and then I’m going to fight them the only way I know how.”

“You’re a nutter,” Paul shook his head slowly, “but I can certainly see your point. You intend to kill them all?”

“No!” He said intensely. “Legally I’m now a murderer. I don’t like that fact. I don’t like that I took the law into my own hands. I still think it was the right thing to do in the circumstances, but I hate having done it. I know what our job was, and what we had to do, but that was different. I don’t want to be a vigilante. I’ve never liked the idea of vigilantes and I don’t want to be one. So no, I don’t intend killing any of them, unless it becomes absolutely necessary, but I do intend to oppose them.”

He relaxed slightly. “No. I intend to fight them by bringing the TaF out into the open, getting people to see them for who and what they are, and even getting Earth First to disown them.”

“That’ll weaken Earth First.”

“Do you think that bothers me? I was never happy with the idea of an Earth First government in the first place, but to actually ban the Confederacy and CAP cards from Britain, as they did two months ago, that was sheer lunacy.”

“But getting rid of the TaF isn’t going to help in the long run. It’s the Earth First as a whole that needs to be got rid of.”

“True. But one thing at a time. If the TaF loses its influence, then it should be easier to tackle the rest of Earth First. Plus if I can make people think that Earth First, and Truth and Freedom are one and the same, then EF might fall at the same time as the TaF.”

Paul thought about this for a few moments, then shook his head slowly. “I think not. Masie’s an Earth First supporter, but only of part of it. I support what a part of Earth First was supposed to support, but it’s all being drowned out by the TaF and others now. I think you’ll find that if you can make the rest of the EF movement see the TaF for what they are; the TaF will be much reduced, but the Earth First movement won’t really change. It can’t. It has too much political capital tied up in its beliefs. If they were changed or modified, it wouldn’t be the Earth First and would get voted out of office at the first opportunity. And they know that full well. What’ll happen if and when these aliens arrive though, that’s anyone’s guess.”

“Ah yes. The aliens,” muttered Toby.

Paul looked at him in surprise. “Don’t you believe they exist?”

Toby shrugged. “How should I know? I know what we were told originally. I know what the TaF would have you believe. The truth? Who knows? I don’t.”

“So what are you after by fighting the TaF or Earth First then?”

“The TaF? Revenge. For what they’ve done to me; for what they did to John; and for what they’re doing to Britain. Once the TaF are gone, or at least lose their influence, then I’ll think about Earth First. Peter Lester doesn’t seem a particularly strong Prime Minister, so it shouldn’t be difficult to raise enough people to oppose him. Once the TaF are out of the picture, that is.

“I don’t know whether there are aliens coming or not. But I do know I want the ability to fight them if they do, and this EF government is the worst thing that could have happened. You know damn well what’s happened to the defence budget this year. The navy’s just had to mothball its newest carrier. It’s only been in service a few years, and now it’s had to be mothballed. The Royal Marines have officially been cut back to just Forty Commando; Thirty Commando only survived because it’s also described as the HQ battalion. Our old unit here in Poole has survived, though fuck knows how, as I’ve heard they’re trying to disband The Regiment. What the army or air force squids are having to put up with I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

Paul frowned in sadness and regret, nodding his agreement. Both men were just over ten years out of the Royal Marines, and it rankled with both that over one thousand men, some of whom they would have known, had just been made redundant.

Paul paused the conversation as he concentrated on turning the low powered vehicle, and its long trailer, through a not very wide gateway off a narrow lane. Once they were in the large yard, Toby looked up and went slightly pale as he saw a small man walking towards them with a severe limp.

“Shit. That’s Jacko. Dave Jackson. I remember him.”

“That’s right yeah. Why?”

“You know why he has a limp don’t you?”

“Yeah of course, he lost his left foot in a military exercise.”

“It was an exercise I was running.”

Paul gave a heavy sigh and shook his head. “You really are a flamin’ nuisance. I suppose he blames you for it?”

“I’ve really no idea. I got him air lifted off The Beacons to the local A&E in Y Fenni, er, that’s Abergavenny to you and me; and then to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, after that I lost track of him when I was transferred to C squadron and joined you.”

Paul pulled up at his normal spot, and the pair got out. The approaching man stopped at the sight of Toby, his jaw dropping for a moment, then his face expanded into a huge grin, and he limped smartly up to Toby and grabbed his hand to shake it.

“Captain Lake, so glad to see you sir, how’ve you been?”

Toby smiled and nodded. “Okay. Far more importantly, how are you?”

“Grand sir, absolutely grand.” He waved around at the yard. “Got this going, been running it for near twelve years now. Some of the lads drop in occasionally, an’ I’ve just had a new guy join me part-time when he left the service a few months back. It’s so good to see you. I never saw you after those first couple of visits to The Queen Elizabeth, but I always wanted to thank you for what you did for me.”

“What I did?” Toby was startled.

“You got me to hospital. The lads said you’d moved Heaven and Earth to get me onto the Military Wing at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Said you were a right terror, but it meant I only lost my foot and a few inches of my tib ‘n’ fib. Quacks said I’d have lost more, probably including my knee, if it hadn’t been for you.”