State Sponsored Terror

  State Sponsored Terror

  David Carter

  Published by TrackerDog Media, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  STATE SPONSORED TERROR

  First edition. April 2, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 David Carter.

  Written by David Carter.

  Also by David Carter

  Down into the Darkness

  Grist Vergette's Curious Clock

  The Inconvenient Unborn

  The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene

  The Twelfth Apostle

  The Murder Diaries - Seven Times Over

  The Sound of Sirens

  Kissing a Killer

  The Death Broker

  The Bunny and the Bear - A Cold and Frosty Winter

  State Sponsored Terror

  Watch for more at David Carter’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By David Carter

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

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  Further Reading: The Murder Diaries - Seven Times Over

  Also By David Carter

  About the Author

  If you would like to read or discover more of my stuff why not subscribe to my occasional free booksy newsletter at http://eepurl.com/czen0T

  One

  The chrome kettle clicked and shuddered and blew steam across the kitchen. Adam tore his eyes from the TV screen and glanced at the large digital clock. 5.18. His mother would arrive back on the 5.20 and the trains always ran on time. She’d be home in less than ten minutes.

  He grabbed two mugs from the kitchen cabinet and tossed a spoonful of instant coffee into each without taking his eyes from the screen. Rolling news. Rolling, rolling, rolling.... the square headed guy with the immaculate haircut, and the bob-cut pasty faced blonde, newsing it up for England.

  5.27. He could set his watch by his mother’s movements, unlike his own, and he still didn’t understand how she managed to do that, the ability to appear at the precise moment that she said she would. He sat at the kitchen table and sipped the coffee, cheap supermarket lookalike tripe. He grimaced and cursed. Footsteps on the path. Heels. She was almost home.

  He heard the key in the lock and watched the door open.

  ‘Adam!’ she said, a note of urgency in her voice the languid youth could not miss. She was in the kitchen, standing before him, breathing unusually heavily.

  ‘Hi, Ma, I’ve made you some coffee.’

  ‘Never mind that, son! You must get in the hole. They are coming!’

  The youth scoffed.

  ‘This isn’t the Middle Ages, mother. Who are coming? And I’m not getting in any hole either! Drink your coffee before it gets cold.’

  ‘Bugger the coffee!’ she shrieked, ‘I mean it!’ and she took one of the mugs and threw half the content down the plughole, before setting the mug upright in the sink.

  ‘Get in that hole before I give you the back of my hand!’

  Adam’s mouth fell open.

  His mother had never once struck him, not in anger, not in his memory, and nor had his father, so far as he knew, though he could barely remember his dad at all. Parental discipline in the Goodchild household had only ever consisted of stern voices, and an occasional stoppage of his money allowance, and in truth, that had always been more than sufficient.

  ‘Don’t you think you are overreacting a tad?’

  It was as if his mother wasn’t listening.

  She was wrestling with the oak panelling set to the right of the large brick hearth. Carnachan had made it, built it with his own hands.

  ‘You never know when you might need a hiding place,’ he used to say, as if it had been born from deep within his long forgotten Irish genes. ‘You just never know,’ in that quiet way of his.

  Sometimes that voice alone could reduce Mary to tears, when he spoke in that way, as she looked at him and marvelled at his presence, his immaculate body and calm face, and right there, when she had finally opened that priest hole, as Carnachan always referred to it, she thought of him from all those years ago, from before when Adam was born. He had built it with such great care, like wood craftsmen always do, carpenters, that’s what he was, a professional carpenter, and though it would take ages for him to complete anything, when it was done, it was always immaculately constructed, and beautifully finished.

  A work of art, they called it, the pair of them, as they laughed and smiled together, and shared a bottle of stout, a secret hideaway that only the two of them would ever know. His meticulousness was the first thing that had attracted her to him, once she had overcome the initial feeling that he was simply being over fussy. He wasn’t fussy at all; he was meticulous in everything he did. She grew to like it, that meticulousness.

  ‘Get inside, boy!’ she ordered. ‘Please son. For your mother’s sake!’

  Adam looked down into his mother’s eyes. He saw fright and terror, mirrored images he had never seen before. It alarmed him. His heart rate exploded, and for a second he had to fight his limbs, for oddly, they did not wish to obey.

  ‘Oh, Mum, do I have to?’

  She ignored his protests and ushered him inside, and already he was entombed. Adam could hear her outside replacing the panels, ensuring that everything was just so. In the darkness, he pressed his ear to the wood and listened. Silence. He was alone, but for the three large vaguely interested spiders that sat quietly in their webs above his head, awaiting their prey. The boy was sadly, too big for that.

  A large drop of cold sweat fell from his armpit and dribbled down the secret white skin of his left side. He hadn’t noticed before it was a cool evening, and began shivering. His teeth chattered, in the darkness, surrounded in silence.

  Mary sat at the kitchen table and glanced nonchalantly at the Bournemouth Echo. Terrorists Arrested In London, the headline blared, not that she noticed the words, for her mind was absent from that little cottage. She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead and shifted in her seat. Loud footsteps on the path brought her back to the present. Two sets at least, possibly more. Urgent steps, military, manly, unsettling footsteps.

  Rat-a-tat-tat!

  The old brass doorknocker her long dead mother
had bought for her in Lymington market demanded attention. Heavy quality, British made, long before the cheap foreign rubbish had flooded into the shops. It did the job it was built to do, did it well, and Carnachan had approved of it, because he knew that it would last.

  Rat-a-tat-tat! Louder this time, and then a man’s voice, ‘Open Up! Police!’

  Inside the hole, Adam heard the voices.

  ‘Coming,’ Mary said gently, as she slowly made her way, as unflustered as she could manage, toward the ancient planked door. She undid the lock and pulled it open. Two men. Civilian clothes. Miserable, fit looking white men. Middle-aged, and between them, one gun, one large, black, and frightening, firearm.

  ‘We have a warrant to search this house!’ barked the leading man, as he pushed past her into the kitchen.

  ‘But why?’ she said, following them into her home. ‘What on earth for?’

  ‘You know damn well what for!’ he snarled. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Look, who are you? Identify yourselves.’

  ‘Inspector Jarvis Smeggan,’ the leading one grunted.

  An unusual name, she thought, though somehow is seemed to fit, for he gave off the appearance of misery personified.

  ‘This is Sergeant Trevor Hewitt.’

  She glanced at the hastily flashed ID cards, though in truth she was none the wiser.

  ‘Where’s the offspring?’ demanded Smeggan, managing to say even that in a spiteful manner.

  ‘Still at school, football practice, something like that.’

  Smeggan sniffed, and glanced around the room.

  Adam was shivering less than ten feet away, his ears pricked like a forest pony surrounded by foxes.

  ‘Take hold of her!’ ordered Smeggan.

  The sergeant grabbed her from behind, his arms curling under her armpits, locking together behind her head, forcing her arms into the air.

  ‘That hurts!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Smeggan closed on her and stared into her eyes. She could smell his breath, stale tobacco, spiced sausages he’d recently eaten; she guessed he’d not long burped, and she turned her head away. From behind, the sergeant shook her, and forced her to face his boss.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ Smeggan said, ‘you either help us and go free, and we’ll spare the sprog the indignities that are bound to come his way, or you don’t.... and pay the consequences.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You’re hurting me. Let me go!’

  Adam listened in silence, feeling inadequate. Hateful.

  The inspector drew back his arm and slapped her heavily across her left cheek.

  ‘Ow!’

  Adam winced.

  Mary felt the sensation of blood running in her mouth. Tasted it too. Tears could not be far away, for both the Goodchilds.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ he repeated, ‘all you have to do, is tell us where the Tinbergen Papers are.’

  ‘The what!’ she said, incredulously.

  He grabbed her chin with his finger and thumb and squeezed hard.

  ‘You heard me! I am rapidly losing my temper!’

  ‘Inspector, I have no idea what you are talking about. Let me go before I make a complaint.’

  He drew back his hand and slapped her again, as Hewitt held her tighter still. Blood seeped from the corner of her lip and began dribbling down her chin. Smeggan came closer and smiled, exhibiting crooked teeth.

  Mary brought up her right knee with all the power and force she could muster. All those long evenings of keep fit and yoga and judo classes had finally paid dividend. Those jerking knee movements they specialised in so. She caught the intended target bang on. Smeggan’s mouth fell open, as he gasped for breath. He turned to one side, and doubled up.

  ‘Bitch!’ he squawked from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘You all right, boss?’ mumbled Hewitt, momentarily relaxing his grip.

  Mary sensed it and twisted violently one way, and then the other, and with all her strength she burst from Hewitt’s full Nelson hold. She ran to the back door, unlocked it, and was through it, before they could stop her.

  The garden to Lilac Cottage was long and narrow, and was packed with plants of every conceivable size and shape. Mary was not so much a gardener, as a plantswoman, and she loved them equally, dearly; as if they were members of her own family. Plants can hear, you know, she would tell her neighbours and friends, if those same friends ever said anything remotely detrimental about any one of them.

  The garden stretched all the way down to an old wooden stile that gave access to a small meadow, where in the early morning and late evening, a family of deer could be seen grazing. A narrow paved path ran down the centre of the garden as if some giant had scrawled a pencil line in the earth. Beyond the meadow lay the open forest.

  By the time the policemen reached the back door, Smeggan, breathing heavily, saw that Mary was half way down the garden.

  ‘Well?’ said Smeggan, struggling to stand upright.

  ‘Sir?’ whispered the sergeant.

  ‘Are you going to let her escape?’

  ‘No, sir. Certainly not, sir.’

  ‘You know what to do, Hewitt.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, detachedly.

  He raised the HK417 and trained it on the escaping woman.

  She was at the stile, her right foot on the cross beam.

  ‘Take out the terrorist!’ ordered Smeggan.

  ‘Are you sure, sir?’

  ‘Are you questioning my orders, man? I won’t tell you again.’

  Mary Goodchild was over the stile and had leapt onto the freshly nipped meadow. She hadn’t changed her shoes, and they weren’t truly suitable for sprinting over damp grass.

  She never heard the short spit of automatic fire.

  Adam did.

  Mary fell down dead on the grass, her blood staining the meadow, a scarlet mess to be cleaned later by the creatures of the night.

  Smeggan smiled horribly, and turned away.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s search the house. Should be fun.’

  Two

  Back in the kitchen Smeggan said, ‘You take upstairs, I’ll do down.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Leave the weapon there.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Trevor said again, placing the warm gun on the kitchen table. He was reluctant to part with it, for he’d grown fond of the Heckler & Koch HK417 Assaulter Carbine. It hadn’t let him down yet, nor any of his contemporaries, and that was vital in any modern armed unit. He trudged toward the narrow twisty staircase and began ascending.

  ‘Wait!’ yelled Smeggan.

  Hewitt glanced down. ‘What is it?’

  ‘What is that, there?’ said Smeggan, pointing to the mug on the table.

  ‘Looks like coffee, sir.’

  ‘Is it warm?’

  The sergeant came back to the kitchen and stuck his index finger in the drink.

  ‘It is, sir.’

  ‘And that there?’ said Smeggan, turning and leering at the half empty mug, sitting in the sink.

  Hewitt smiled, ever willing to be impressed by his slightly strange superior, and made his way to the basin.

  ‘It is sir, warm too, sir, yes.’

  ‘So all along she was not alone. I thought not. No one makes themselves two cups. I’ll bet the kid was here too. He might still be here. Find him, Hewitt, find him man!’

  ‘Pity we didn’t bring the dogs,’ said Hewitt, glancing around the cottage, pondering where a youth might possibly hide.

  ‘We’ll find him, Hewitt, we don’t need damn dogs.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance, sir, to take away the body?’

  ‘Later! She’s unimportant; it is the boy we must find. He could still be here, and if he is, I want him, understand? I want him!’

  ‘Got you, sir. We’ll find the little sod, if he is here.’

  ADAM WAS BECOMING BREATHLESS. He had never been the fittest boy in the class, and his slight fi
gure did nothing for his fortitude. He was running toward Brockenhurst railway station where he intended catching the first train out of town.

  After hearing the shots he had let himself out of his father’s priest hole. He’d carefully closed it again, keeping the secret, before tiptoeing across the kitchen, and peering out through the back door, through the dusty glass. Two men were a little way down the garden, their backs to him, chatting as if without a care in the world. One of them was carrying a large black gun. It was dangling down toward his feet.

  Adam thought he saw smoke drifting from the barrel, though he might have been mistaken. Beyond them at the far end of the garden, past the stile, in the field, on the grass, he imagined he saw his mother, lying motionless. He couldn’t be certain, for he didn’t stay long enough to see. He didn’t want to see. The mere thought of what might be lying there chilled his soul. No one wants to witness the sight of their dead mother, not at his age, not at any age. Self-preservation had kicked in. He had turned tail, and ran.

  He had never been a particularly brave boy.

  Worse still, in stressful situations he had often opted for the easy way out, and that invariably meant on his toes. He’d run. He was running now. He was a consummate runner. What else could he have done, and on that point, for once, he was right.

  The railway station was busy with commuters coming home from the city, eager for their dinner and their mistresses and their cheap bottles of imported red wine, and the blockbuster midweek movie on TV. They were all flooding out. Adam was going in, against the tide. He thought of buying a ticket, only to realise he had no money. He was dressed in a hundred times washed sweatshirt and dirty jeans. He liked his clothes that way, streetwise and trendy, or so he imagined, for he didn’t want to be seen as the country boy with the plummy accent from the upmarket town in the sticks.

  British Railways would like to apologise for the late running of the Bournemouth train. This was caused by an incident at Basingstoke station earlier this afternoon. The next train for Bournemouth will arrive at platform two in approximately fifteen minutes.

  Adam shivered. October 20th, and it was getting noticeably colder. He made his way down the platform to the waiting room and let himself in. It was empty, except for one woman sitting on the far side of the room. A neat young woman in a dark suit, her feet and knees together, a black briefcase at her side on the bench seat, the evening edition of The Messenger wide open in her hands.