Chronicles of Revenge

Chapter 1-2

Having spent some time watching Chad, the user knew that he would go out at around 11.45am to meet up with the guys. Chad looked at the digital clock on the wall, it was 11.41am, time to go, he thought. Chad pushed the button on the fob that opened the garage door, and he was in the car and had it running before the door was fully open. Chad dipped the clutch and put the Corvette into first gear. As he let the clutch out, the car moved forward and went over the small ramp at the front of the door. The C4 exploded, blasting Chad out of his seat and into the underside of the garage door, not that it mattered as Chad had been torn apart in the blast. What was not stuck to the underside of the door was now dropping back into the Corvette. Both his parents were out at the time, but they would be informed. Their grief would be shared by the other parents, and these were just the first. There were more on his list; all would pay he would spare none, not one. Even if it took the rest of his life, revenge would be his, and all those involved with the murder of his sons would pay.

"If you live by the sword, you should be prepared to die by the sword," he said to himself.

The mobile phone was smashed and thrown into the river by the user. Now they would know it was him and that was good, he thought, now they would know my pain, my loss, my anger, and most of all my need for revenge. Now all his skills, expertise and knowledge would be turned against those he had spent most of his adult life protecting. Little did they know what they had unleashed on themselves, but they would find out soon enough.

Tim Greening had not moved from the chair, he just sat and waited. He looked around the room at the many beautiful, expensive things, like the walnut sideboard; to Tim walnut was the most beautiful wood in the world. The Persian rugs, china figurines, and of course there was the Constable on the wall, behind which was his safe just like in the old movies.

At around 5pm Bill Turner arrived; he had already been briefed about the killings. Bill walked into the lounge where Tim was waiting and at first it seemed to Bill that Tim had not seen him, but a moment later Tim looked up.

“Tim, I’m sorry for your loss, truly sorry, you have my condolences,” said Bill, then he waited for Tim to reply. It took about a minute or so before Tim answered, and he said, “Thanks for coming Bill, please have a seat.”

Bill sat and waited. He had known Tim Greening for almost thirty years, they had met at Oxford University. Bill had been studying business management and Tim politics, but what brought them together was their mutual love of rugby and beer. Both had done well at Oxford, as they had in their chosen careers. Tim had reached the top having been the Prime Minister. Bill still was at the top of one of the largest banks in the UK, but at this moment none of that mattered. The silence dragged on so Bill looked across to Tim and said, “What’s the real reason you have asked me to come over?” Tim said nothing so Bill pressed him again, this time Tim replied to Bill's request.

“I know who killed Timothy and Robin.”

“Have you told the police?”

“No,” he replied. Bill said nothing but he knew that this must be very serious for Tim not to have gone to the police.

“Do you know why?” Bill asked.

Tim replied, “Yes, I think so….” he waited for a moment then continued, “I thought he was dead, I…I was assured he’d been killed years ago.”

“For Christ's sake Tim,” Bill said, “who the hell is it?”

Tim thought for a while and said, “His name is Matt North, or should I say Captain Matt North, formerly of the SAS,” Tim took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose and just stared at Bill, saying nothing. Tim was looking right past Bill like he wasn’t in the room. Bill sat quietly thinking he had never been in combat but he had heard of the expression the thousand yard stare and thought that this was what Tim was doing. Bill also knew this was way above him and he would need to choose his words very carefully, having never met the former SAS man personally.

Bill sat back in the chair and rolled the man's name around his head like it was a fine malt whiskey in his mouth, trying to remember where he had heard it before. That was it, he thought, I remember now. At a party maybe five years ago he had heard some people talking about this man, but what was it they said? Bill started to go through his memory trying to remember, and then it came back to him. Yes, that was what the chap had said, ‘If there was one person in the world he never wanted to cross it was Captain North’. This guy, one of them had said, ‘was the most dangerous man in the world bar none, and I would rather kick the devil in the balls than get on the wrong side of him’.

Bill thought at the time they were just exaggerating, you know, beer talk. Tim spoke then, which brought Bill out of his train of thought and back to the lounge.

“Bill, I made a bad decision in the past and I believe that's why my sons are dead. I might have just as well shot them myself,” and at that Tim began to sob.

Bill had seen his friend take big hits on the rugby field, even watched him break his leg in two places, but he had never seen him cry. Bill was at a loss for what to do, so he did nothing and just waited for the tears to subside. When Tim had stopped crying Bill gave him his hanky and he dried his eyes. Bill waited a few moments before continuing the conversation.

“Tim, what was the bad decision you made? What on earth did you do to cause this man to do what he did?”

Tim looked at his friend, took a deep breath and started to tell Bill all that had happened and why he made the decision which led to the death of his two children, his beloved sons Timothy and Robin.

“Bill, do you remember the last election and that I was not faring too well, in fact it was odds-on that I would lose?”

“Yeah I do, you said that what you needed was another Falklands war to win.”

“That's right. Well, I couldn’t start another war, so l gathered all of my closest aides to Downing Street to see if we could come up with a way to help me win the next election. Lots of ideas were put on the table, but the most popular by far was the capture or killing of Al Qaeda's top man, Oman Khan, and it was agreed that the only man for the job was Captain North.”

“Really?” said Bill, “you mean there was no one else? Did the Yanks not have someone? I mean, this man can’t be that good.”

“He is, without doubt, the best killing machine ever. It's rumoured he’s killed over five hundred people, but in truth it could be a lot more. He was singularly the best asset we had.”

Bill raised a hand to stop him so he could take this all in. He thought to himself, Tim was his friend, but he couldn’t get involved too deeply, he had four children of his own.

“What on earth did you do to piss this guy off so much that he would kill your two sons?”

Tim started to tell of the plan they had put together. It seemed so simple at the time, he recalled, just call him out of retirement, offer him a huge sum of money to take out Oman Khan, and Tim would then have had the praise of the world leaders, and also a very good chance of winning the next election.

“So what went wrong?” asked Bill.

“Simple, he said no. At that point I should have just abandoned the whole idea right there and then, but I was desperate. Sir Chris Bergman said he knew a man that might be able to persuade him to take the job on, so he contacted Major Ed Barker, a former SAS operative now working for the British government in a contractual sort of way, and asked him to attend our next meeting.”

Bill gave Tim a highly sceptical look, “I take it he could not persuade him to take the job?”

Tim recalled when Barker arrived he made it clear he and North are not friends.

“In fact, ‘the best of enemies’ is what he said, but he assured us he could get the job done so we ran our plan past him and asked if he could help. In the meantime I had arranged a meeting with Alain Beuli, the French security minister, and Peter Denning, the American CIA chief. It was while all three of us were having a meeting that Bergman and Barker came in. It was Barker that came up with the idea to use French and American operatives as well as our own to help us with his plan.”

“I didn’t think the French and Americans would be interested in the UK elections,” said Bill.

“They're not, but the French had their own elections coming up, and like me would like to have Oman Khan dealt with for their own political gain, and you know the Americans are always interested in anything that takes Khan out of the equation. Let's face it, the public around the world are getting fed up with no results and nothing but body bags.”

“I understand that, but what was the plan, Tim? I take it you were going to use internal pressure to get North to take the job on, quoting national pride and how the whole world will be behind the plan?”

“Sounds good,” agreed Tim, “but that was not the plan we agreed to. You see I had tried that and he still refused, but Barker said his plan was guaranteed not to fail. He would do whatever we wanted.”

“And you trusted him?” asked Bill.

“Not completely,” said Tim, “but we were all desperate for a result.”

“Okay, I get that, but what was Barker's plan?”

“Simple really,” said Tim, “kidnap his two sons and hold them until the job was done.”

“What!?” Bill exclaimed, a lot louder than he had intended. “You mean to tell me you agreed to that? No, surely not!”

“Yes, I’m afraid I did, and so did the French and Americans. Barker said his sons were his Achilles heel and he would do whatever he was told to get them back no matter what.”

“So what went wrong?” asked Bill.

“We’ve been friends a long time, Bill, so what I'm about to tell you cannot leave this room, is that clear?”

Bill replied, “Yes I realise that Tim, so what went wrong?”

“Not too sure really,” said Tim, “I know the planning took just over a week and Barker said the preparations were done, all he needed was the order to go. God, Bill, why did l not just say no and called it off?”

“Well why didn't you Tim, what made you say yes?”

Tim looked at Bill then said, “A few hours earlier I had the latest poll results and I was down two more points. It felt like I had been thrown this lifeline and like a drowning man I grabbed it with both hands, not caring about the consequences. I just had to win, Bill. That was all I could think of. Nothing else seemed to matter at that point.”

Bill slowly shook his head then asked Tim to continue, “I was not aware of the full details of the operation from the start, but Barker had the two boys under guard and well hidden, plus he had six men watching North, supposedly a top team, who would report his every move. Top men he said. Ha! What a joke that turned out to be.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Bill.

“Why, Bill, why? Because after being informed of his son’s situation he found them and killed them all in a matter of minutes. It was like he knew what we had planned, or that’s what I thought, but there was no leak. I found out later how he knew. I should have done my homework on Captain North, but I didn’t.”

Bill looked at Tim, he was wringing his hands out as though they were soaking wet.

“You said he knew about your plan. How?”

Tim took a moment, looked at his hands and raised his head up. “Apparently he has some form of sixth sense.”

“Rubbish Tim, since when did you, or me for that matter, ever start believing in that? You’ll be telling me you see little green men from Mars next.”

This brought a smile to Tim’s face. There is so much you don’t know, Bill, he thought.

“I was like you then Bill, but after talking with men from his unit I now believe differently. No, I know differently.”

“So what you are telling me Tim, is that he’s psychic is he?”

“No Bill, apparently it’s just a sense he has. Some of the men I spoke to told me how he would know if a person meant him harm or if they were lying to him when on operations. He could see or sense things like trip wires, mines, detection devices and more. He just knew Bill, and when it came to his boys he always knew when they were in trouble or in pain, no matter where he was in the world. I’m not saying he knew the plan but he knew something bad had happened and I guess he had a plan for something like this, he would go into hiding then go and search them out and deal with any issues when he found them.”

“Tim, are you telling me you thought that you could just kidnap the man’s sons and he wouldn’t do something about it? And not have some sort of predetermined plan of action? You’re not that stupid!”

“It would appear I am.”

Bill thought for a moment and then said, “Well it all seems to have gone horribly wrong. I take it the boys were returned to him with what, some form of compensation?”

Tim just shook his head. Moments later he said, “No… no that would have been the thing to do, but well, I don’t know all the details but it seems the boys tried to escape and in the process they were both killed.”

At this point Bill was lost for words. They both sat in silence. It was Bill who spoke, “Let me get a handle on this Tim. There was yourself and two top ranking officials, one from France and one from America, who were involved in this?”

“That’s right, myself, Denning and Beuli. We organised it and authorised the mission.”

“So, if I was now looking at this from his point of view Tim, you all gave the green light to kidnap and murder his two sons.”

“No Bill, no. That was never the plan.”

“Maybe not to you Tim, but to him that’s exactly what it looks like.”

At that moment the house phone rang. Tim reached over and answered it. He listened for a few minutes and said, “I understand. Thank you.” He replaced the received in its cradle and turned his head towards Bill. By the look on his face Bill knew it was not good news. For a moment Tim just stared at the telephone, saying nothing.

“What is it Tim, what did they tell you?”

“Bill, it’s begun. He’s not only killed Timothy and Robin, he’s also just killed Desiree Beuli and Chad Denning.”

With tears starting to run down his cheeks, Tim said to Bill, “What have we done, Bill? No, what have I done?”

Bill could think of nothing else to say, so he got up and walked to the door. He looked back to say his goodbyes but instead just left. It was some time before Tim even knew Bill had left. As Bill walked out of the front door he nodded to the chief constable waiting outside and said, “He may need a few extra moments before they go in.”

“No problem Mr Turner, how is he?”

“As well as can be expected I suppose.”

“Well goodnight, Sir.”

“Goodnight to you,” Bill replied, getting into his car and driving off. After Bill was out of sight of Tim’s house he got out his phone and called his home number. Julie, his wife, answered. He asked her to make sure the children were in the house and not to go out until he was home. By the tone in his voice Julie knew that this was not open to discussion. She replied, “Sure, we’ll all be here waiting for you.”

“Good,” Bill said, “I should be home in about forty-five minutes or so. I love you Julie, and the children, so very much.”

“I know darling, and we all love you too.”

As he put the telephone down he made himself a promise to never cross this man North. Moments later Bill’s car phone rang and it was his wife Julie. “Bill, darling, are you okay? You sound a little strange.”

“Julie, I’m fine, I will explain all when I get home.”