A Covert War Read Online Free Page A

with his dress sense or with his worldly knowledge? She was certainly an attractive woman, and she hadn’t said anything about having a husband or a boyfriend, or a partner even.
    He spun round quickly as Susan turned and looked in his direction, then he turned back after a suitable pause and saw that she was no longer facing him, but was staring directly ahead towards the huge adverts on the far side of the track. He began to fidget with an imaginary object in his pocket, and then cursed himself for being so unprofessional. He had to act normal, cool he told himself. If he was to persuade Susan that he was worth employing, he had to convince himself that it was worth a gamble; after all, it could end terribly for them both.
    The train rumbled in and eased to a halt. The doors slid open and the people on the platform crowded on to the train. Marcus sat half a carriage length away from Susan and kept an eye on her as covertly as he could. He tried to remember what he had read in the police training manuals about surveillance techniques. Not that he had been in the police force, but there was an enormous amount of information on the internet and in the public libraries.
    During the time he was on the train, he kept amusing himself by imagining all kinds of scenarios that could fit the picture as far as Susan’s brother David was concerned. He came to the conclusion there was no chance of ever finding out, but he did conjure up vivid pictures of himself performing a heroic rescue straight out of the pages of a good, Special Forces novel. And at the end of the epic adventure, Susan would fall into his arms and pledge undying love and devotion for rescuing her brother.
    The train jolted a little as it stopped at Clapham Common and woke Marcus just in time to see Susan stepping off the train. He leapt up and made it through the sliding doors as they were about to close. He was the only other passenger to alight at that station, but Susan did not notice because she had disappeared down the exit tunnel before Marcus could compose himself.
    He ran to the exit and saw her walking out on to the street, turning right out of the station. He followed and kept a safe and reasonable distance from her until she turned into a road of semi-detached, Victorian style houses.
    Marcus was about fifty yards behind Susan when he saw her turn into a gateway. He kept his eye on the opening where she had disappeared and walked past it, glancing at the bay windows and patterned glass door beneath a small arch. He saw the number and continued on until he was well past the house.
    The next stage of Marcus’s master plan was to find an internet café and pay for a booth. He found one in the High Street populated by a mixture of ‘gangsta’ rap aficionados covered in ‘bling’. The owner of the café looked like he could have easily gone the distance with the world heavyweight boxing champion, and won.
    Once he had logged on Marcus went on to British Telecom and entered Susan Ellis into the search box for residential numbers. He added Clapham and came up with fifteen people named Ellis. Nine of them had the initial ‘S’.
    Using the back of the sheet of paper he had been doodling on back in his office, he wrote all the numbers down and then logged off. He paid for his time and then went in search of a public phone box.
    Some of the numbers rang and eventually left him with an answering service to talk to. When he did get through to a person on the other end of the line, he pretended he was an Eco representative who could insulate the house and reduce its carbon footprint. He got short shrift for that and Susan Ellis was no different; she certainly wasn’t interested because she lived in a flat. Sorry and all that.
    Marcus smiled as he put the phone down and underlined Susan’s number on his scrap of paper. All he had to do now was move on to stage two of his plan and find out more about the mysterious Mister Cavendish.

    ***
    Chief Master Sergeant