Assassin 3 - The Wrong Man (Assassin Series) Page 18

  Suddenly, Bessie erupted from the ground the second that Sutterman touched Jake Sr. and she clamped her teeth on his right hand, tearing through the skin as Sutterman suddenly screamed in pain, “Ouch get her off me!”

  Jake let the dog have a further chew before quietly speaking to the dog. “Down, Bessie, It’s all right, girl.” The dog quickly let go of Sutterman and obediently went back to Jake Senior’s side.

  Sutterman was both angry and in severe pain and his hand was bleeding freely.

  “That bloody animal!” he screamed. “I’ll have it put down!”

  Jake Sr. looked at him. “Guess what, you moron, there are no witnesses and my dog was only trying to protect me after you tried to attack me. Shame on you attacking an old man!” he looked at Sutterman’s hand that was still bleeding. “If I were you, I’d get that hand taken care of. It don’t look like you’ll be writing any more boring stories with that for a while, goodnight!” he walked away leaving the reporter absolutely fuming.

  “You haven’t heard the last of this, old man!” he screamed as Jake Sr. merely held up his hand and flapped his wrist forwards as if to say ‘so what!’ as he continued to walk away with the dog.

  CHAPTER 43

  Hargreaves was working late at his desk when Strickland walked in, a new look of enthusiasm on his face.

  “Yes, Hugh?” Hargreaves was curious.

  “Just had Harrigan’s grandfather on the line, sir.”

  “And?”

  “Harrigan wants to meet us!”

  “Where?”

  “In Belfast!”

  “So, we were right, that’s where he was heading?”

  “Yes, sir, he wants to meet us outside the Palace Barracks at 9.00 am in the morning.”

  “Is there anything else this assassin wants?” Hargreaves inquired sarcastically.

  “Yes, sir, he wants the old man there as a witness, no shooting and above all, no media!”

  “Does he, now?” Hargreaves scowled as his phone rang. He answered it “Yes, yes.” he signalled to Strickland to switch on the TV and the newscaster came on the screen continuing his telecast. “And in the continuing saga of the unsuccessful hunt for the Queen’s would-be assassin, news is now coming in from Belfast that Mickey Hennessey, a known RIRA gunman, seen with hunted terrorist Jake Harrigan, was killed earlier today together with three other male members of the RIRA and also a female RIRA member, Colleen Miller. Sarah Schaumberg, Harrigan’s accomplice, was also spotted at the scene. There is no further information on the location of Jake Harrigan.”

  Hargreaves switched off the TV and turned to Strickland. “What the hell’s going on, Hugh? Are the RIRA fighting among themselves for heaven’s sake? We’d better set up the rendezvous as Harrigan requests and we’ll fly the old man over with us or Harrigan won’t show! Make all the arrangements.”

  “Yes, sir.” Strickland rushed out to set things up.

  * * *

  Late that same evening in another safe house in Belfast, it was a gloomy meeting of the Army Council of the RIRA. They were busy licking their wounds after the news that an entire covert cell of the RIRA he been wiped out now that the bodies had been identified, all with the exception of Sean Quinn who was apparently still missing.

  Seamus Brady turned to the other members of the council. “I knew that man Quinn was bad news from day one. Now we have a complete cell wiped out, complete with the three top men we assigned to help. Not only that but Quinn is missing and we can only assume he’s been captured, together with the sixty grand we were hoping was back in the kitty!”

  Tim O’Brien was in agreement. “That’s true, Seamus, an’ the media backlash will be horrible. Our popularity has been diminishing big time after being linked to the bank robbery in the company of the same assassin who tried to take out the Queen. That will incense these loyalist bastards over here even more!”

  Brady nodded, a worried man. “An’ what worries me, Tim, is if the reason that Quinn has disappeared is because the Brits now have him, we can’t risk him going under interrogation!”

  “Right you are,” O’Brien replied. “I’ll start updating all the codes and procedures, but if Quinn does spill his guts, there’s no way in hell we can hide the names he gives up!”

  “Correct!” Brady sighed. “What we need, instead of arseholes like Quinn is a few guys like this Harrigan fella who’s been leading MI5 on a wild goose chase and even taking out CIA bad guys as he went along! That’s the kind of guy we need!”

  They all nodded their head in agreement.

  CHAPTER 44

  Things had moved very quickly in the UK and by first thing the next morning, Hargreaves and Strickland with additional agents had flown in to Belfast from Heathrow and Jake Sr. had been picked up at dawn for a quick flight into Belfast from Gloucestershire.

  * * *

  Sutterman was absolutely fit to be tied, still sitting in the hospital in Cheltenham for attention to a tetanus infection on his chewed up hand. He had begged his Editor to let him go over for the meeting outside the barracks, that would have been a fantastic, hot scoop, but Cowan had assigned their top reporter for the task with a brief thank you to Sutterman for the information.

  * * *

  After coffee and snacks in the upper floor of the gate house area of the barracks, Hargreaves, Strickland and their combined force of armed Special Branch Agents, together with Jake Sr., were waiting patiently as the clock neared nine. Down the street, Sutterman’s colleague, with a cameraman standing by, was discreetly waiting to see what was going down.

  Suddenly the phone rang and one of the officers answered it. “Yes?” he listened a moment. “Yes, just a moment, sir.” he turned to Jake Sr. “It’s for you, Mr. Donovan, sir.” Hargreaves looked on nervously and Jake Sr. took the phone and answered it.

  “Hello?”

  Jake was on the line. “Hi, Gramps, is everything set up. No guns, no media?”

  “Yes, son,” Jake Sr. replied. “Senior Civil Servant Hargreaves has given me his assurances.”

  “Great,” Jake replied. “Tell him to go to the window.”

  Hargreaves was watching Jake Sr. intently as the old man turned to him. “That’s my grandson, he said go over to the window!”

  They all rushed to the window to look down at the outside of the gatehouse, where Jake was just pulling up on the motor cycle, his phone to his ear, with Sarah sitting proudly behind him and with Quinn, stuffed in the side car, his hands tied and his mouth taped with the crash helmet on his head.

  Back inside, Hargreaves spun round on his agents. “Head to the parking lot, apprehend Harrigan and the woman!”

  Jake Sr. quickly stepped in front of the door. “Remember, Mr. Hargreaves,” he began. “My grandson said no guns!” The operatives looked at Hargreaves who signalled with a nod of his head that he agreed.

  By the time that Hargreaves, Strickland and Jake Sr. got out there, Jake and Sarah, hands in the air, were surrounded by armed agents, guns at the ready.

  Hargreaves turned to his lead male and female agents. “Search them and if they’re clean, lower your weapons!” They started to search them immediately and Jake smiled at his grandfather. “Hi, Gramps, you okay?” he asked.

  “Better now I’ve seen you, son!” Jake Sr. replied.

  Jake looked at Hargreaves, over the shoulder of the agent who was frisking him. “We don’t have any weapons, Mr. Hargreaves, but we did bring you a present!”

  “A present?” Hargreaves inquired.

  Jake signalled that he needed to lower his arms. Hargreaves signalled to his men, nodding his approval. “Watch him closely.”

  Jake slowly lowered his arms and dragged Quinn out of the sidecar. He removed the crash helmet from his head, showing his battered, bloodstained face.

  Hargreaves looked at him. “Who’s this?”

  “This is the would-be assassin of Her Majesty. Meet Mr. Sean Quinn, rogue whacko terrorist from the RIRA!”

  Jake took the tape off Quin
n’s mouth and immediately the latter started to scream his innocence. “It’s all a pack of fuckin’ lies. It’s kidnapped I was, I didn’t do a damned ting!”

  They all looked on in shock, including the reporter from down the road, as Jake slapped the tape back over Quinn’s mouth.

  “Is that so,” Jake replied. “In that case, perhaps you’d like to explain this to Mr. Hargreaves,” he reached in the back of the sidecar and brought out a velvet bag. He reached inside it and pulled out the mask. “Explain what you were doing wearing a mask to look like me and how the invoice for the mask from the web site who made it is addressed to you?” he showed the invoice to the shocked Hargreaves.

  Jake then turned to the shocked MI5 officers and grabbed Quinn’s right hand showing the crucifix tattoo. “Check the video of the assassination attempt, gentlemen and see this tattoo on the hand of the gunman!”

  Hargreaves was in shock and also relieved as Jake then grabbed the tote and tipped all the cash on the ground. “And if you check this, I think you’ll find that it’s almost the entire proceeds of the bank robbery that this snake pulled off, also wearing that same mask!”

  The reporter in the background was scribbling furiously.

  “My God! I don’t believe this!” Hargreaves gasped as Jake continued. “You’ll also find another ten grand in the mail box of the late terrorist Mr. Flanagan in Stroud. That’s what this snake paid him to assassinate my sweet, old grandmother. He soon found out that you reap what you sow!”

  Hargreaves turned to Strickland pointing at Quinn. “Keep this scum under guard we’ll deal with him later!” he turned back to Jake and Sarah, but Jake wasn’t letting him get a word in.

  “How could you guys ever think that we would do anything to bring disgrace to this former servant of his country?” he pointed to Jake Sr. “The finest and smartest grandfather a man could have. Without his help, while you guys were busy chasing after the wrong man, you wouldn’t have this slime ball in custody! Oh, by the way,” he continued. “The majority of this psycho’s cell, who killed Lady Witherston and the Royal security guards, have also been terminated, compliments of myself and my outstanding partner. Meet Sarah Schaumberg, the niece of the former Israeli Defense Minister, Ari Golchen!”

  Jake Sr. was bursting with pride as he watched Jake make the top MI5 investigator visibly squirm. After the stressful week that he and Sarah had survived, Jake was not yet finished with Senior Civil Servant Hargreaves.

  “A few final points that you may want to incorporate into your future training courses. If the people you had watching my grandfather had followed him into the pub every night and stayed with him, instead of getting fed up and leaving, they would have realized that this was how we stayed in touch by phone. It was my grandfather who tracked down Flanagan, the terrorist assassin of my grandmother, so that I could do the necessary to get him to lead me to this would-be assassin of Her Majesty!”

  Hargreaves was looking totally embarrassed as Jake continued. “Finally, if your boffins had for one moment thought outside the box and assumed that the attacker could have been disguised as me, that would have led them to check all mask makers and someone would have owned up to making it, with the name of Quinn as the person ordering it!” Strickland had an ‘I told you so’ look on his face as Jake continued.

  “Instead of that, you and the whole damned country had both Sarah and I convicted before you could even catch us. Not really full marks for MI5 on the world stage, I’m afraid! And by the way, my apologies to all the kind people who donated the use of their transportation that was all in a good cause. We tried to return it in good condition, except for the plane, for which we apologize.”

  Although Hargreaves was inwardly seething at the home truths this American was telling him, he was equally relieved that the would-be assassin had been apprehended, or more correctly, that Jake Harrigan had done their job for them!

  He was nevertheless happy that the spin doctors could take care of things from hereon in and the immediate priority was now to let Harrigan and the woman off the hook!

  “So, why did this Quinn chap pick you, Mr. Harrigan?” Hargreaves asked.

  “I shot his two brothers some years ago in military conflict in Colombia, when the Quinn boys were doing some nasty mercenary work for the drug lords. As for the attempt on Her Majesty, I suppose Quinn wanted to target her to further the cause of the RIRA and make me look like the patsy!”

  Hargreaves looked across at Quinn, still being held by two of his agents. “My, my, Sean, looks like you’ve been a real naughty boy. Time for some long term board and lodging!” he signalled to his men. “Get him out of my sight!”

  As Quinn was being frog-marched away, Jake called after him. “You picked the wrong man, boyo!”

  Hargreaves turned to Jake, a smile finally on his face. “What can I say, Mr. Harrigan, the entire country owes you and Miss Schaumberg a huge debt of gratitude. I have organized many manhunts in my time, like your former colleagues in the CIA, but you were the best!” he turned to Jake Sr. and shook his hand. “And it seems you haven’t lost your touch either, Jake, I would like to thank you also,” he then turned back to Jake and Sarah. “Now, after all this, is there anything we can get for you?”

  Sarah was the first to reply, a smile of relief on her lovely face. “Yes, a shower, a change of clothes, a civilised meal and two days sleep in anything but a car!”

  Hargreaves smiled. “Consider it done!”

  Jake and Sarah hugged each other in relief as Jake, with one arm around Sarah and one arm around Jake Sr. walked them into the barracks.

  CHAPTER 45

  The worldwide media backlash was swift and severe as far as MI5 were concerned. Headlines like ‘THE WRONG MAN BECAME THE RIGHT MAN!’, ‘JAKE SHOWS THE WAY!’ and ‘MI5 AT 6’s and 7’s!’ were all over the tabloids as the UK spin doctors were desperately trying to cover the ineptitudes of their intelligence forces.

  Jake and Sarah were absolutely swamped by the media wanting interviews and even Hollywood came calling, asking Jake if they could get his story rights for a movie, all of which Jake and Sarah tactfully declined.

  * * *

  A few days later, Winnie was lying on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket watching TV. Stephen was sitting alongside her clicking away on his laptop. Following the recent turn of events, he was now the most popular kid in the school, the three morons in his form were as jealous as hell and even the cute girls were also hanging out with him.

  When the evening newscast came on the TV, the leading story caught their attention as the Newscaster explained. “Good evening, this is news at six with Greg Hamilton reporting,” he began. “The final chapter of the amazing story of Jake Harrigan, the wrong man who turned out to be the right man, after he and his partner Sarah Schaumberg were wrongly accused of trying to assassinate Her Majesty the Queen, finally had a happy ending earlier this week.”

  Winnie quickly called out to the kitchen. “Dad, come see this, quick?”

  Jake Sr. who was fixing supper, rushed in quickly, wiping his hands on his apron. He sat proudly on the arm of the chair next to Winnie as the Newscaster continued. “The outstanding job that this couple did to bring the true culprits to justice, while they were still the center of a misguided nationwide manhunt, ably assisted by Jake’s grandfather,” Winnie squeezed Jake Senior’s arm as the newscaster continued. “Was publicly acknowledged earlier this week,” In the background on the screen, the video could be seen of Jake, Sarah and Jake Sr. as they left 10 Downing Street. The newscaster continued. “When the Prime Minister, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, publicly thanked the couple and Mr. Harrigan’s grandfather for their outstanding efforts.”

  Jake Sr. nodded. “You got that right!” he looked across at a picture of himself and Edith, tears in his eyes.

  The Newscaster wound up the news item. “Now, instead of being hunted unsuccessfully by the best crime teams in the country, these national heroes have now disappeared from the public eye to t
ake a well-earned, all expenses paid rest.”

  Jake turned to Winnie. “And they’ve earned it, bless their hearts!”

  * * *

  In the days since Quinn had been captured and his face shown on every TV screen and newspaper, perhaps in the entire world, the hatred of the RIRA was at its highest level ever, in addition to which the communication lines between the UK and the US were almost glowing cherry red.

  In the US, President Parker had already fired Rathbone, Handforth and Senior Agent Decker, after causing him the embarrassment of placating the concerns of the British Home Secretary concerning the uncontrolled presence of CIA assassins on the loose in the UK. The fact that Jake had terminated those same assassins had eased the international tension somewhat and also the fact that Jake and Sarah had caught the would-be assassins of the Queen, when the crack forces of MI5 had failed, had also eased the transatlantic level of diplomacy back to where it was before the Royal assassination attempt took place.

  Further repercussions had also been experienced in the US as the Senate and particularly Senator Johnson’s friends had now decided favourably in terms of allowing considerable compensation to the families of the innocent people who were terminated by the ‘black-ops’ CIA assassins.

  Politics is a wonderful thing and as long as such terminations were previously kept under wraps, nobody cared, but when two CIA assassins were placed on the front page of the international press by Jake’s exposure of their activities, in an election year, it was no surprise that the President had authorized large sums of compensation to the grieving families.

  After the visit to 10 Downing Street and declining even more interviews with the UK and foreign press, Jake and Sarah had also been pleasantly surprised to find that they were the recipients of a considerable reward from the bank for apprehending the robbers, as well as an even larger reward for bringing in Quinn for the assassination attempt on the Queen, ironically, a reward that had been originally offered for bringing themselves in!