The Cheshire Conspiracy: A Sequel to the Manchester Vendetta

By Charles Tyrie

The Cheshire Conspiracy is a sequel to the Manchester Vendetta and deals with the aftermath of the overthrow of the fascist dictator Russell Hartmann and the liberation of the UK by NATO forces. After their deadly encounter with Max Boyston, Head of the Manchester Internal Security Service, Guy Manners and Julie Rowlands return from exile in the Irish Republic to a country still not at peace with itself.

Questioned by Special Branch and pursued by assassins, Guy and Julie seek to discover their enemies safe house and eliminate the threat it poses to their lives. Aided by a computer hacker, they uncover a conspiracy to release a key member of the former fascist regime from the high security prison in Slough, and become involved in a race against time to thwart his escape.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 21, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467023702

Charles Tyrie

Charles Tyrie lives in Nottinghamshire with his wife Hilary. He is a chartered civil engineer and has spent most of his career in local government, where he worked in Manchester, Swansea and Rushcliffe. He is now retired and has written, The Manchester Vendetta a work of fiction, inspired by his work in Manchester and the summer holidays spent on the island of Anglesey. His first publication is The Langley Boy, part one of a trilogy, which covers his childhood years in Langley, Buckinghamshire, and captures the life of a small community in wartime Britain and growing up during the post war years of austerity.

Book preview

© 2009 Charles Tyrie. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 10/13/2009

ISBN: 978-1-4490-2212-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-2370-2 (ebk)

Contents

DEDICATION

THE PROLOGUE

RETURN TO MANCHESTER

THE SAFE HOUSE

ASSASSINATION

AN UNWELCOME WEDDING GIFT

THE TETHERED GOAT

OPERATION LIFEGUARD

THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK

GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

To my wife Hilary and my friends, who encouraged me to write a sequel to the Manchester Vendetta.

THE PROLOGUE

Guy Manners sank back into the comfortable, well-upholstered seat of the Aer Lingus airliner, closed his eyes, and retraced the disturbing events that had led him to seek political asylum in Ireland. He could scarcely believe that three months had elapsed, since he had taken advantage of a sewer inspection, to plant a bomb in the ancient drainage system that lay below the main entrance to Manchester Town Hall, and assassinated the fascist dictator Russell Hartmann. It had been a masterstroke and the welcome consequences of his action, were the decapitation of the regime’s hierarchy, NATO’s liberation of the UK and the restoration of democracy.

His thoughts flashed to the years prior to the dictatorship, when the global recession had closed factories, destroyed jobs and created a dole-queue society, and he remembered the nightly television broadcasts and the carefully stage-managed, mass rallies, when Russell Hartmann had bewitched the dispossessed army of unemployed with promises of jobs for all. It was the only message they wanted to hear and with a recklessness born of despair, they elected the country’s first fascist government with Hartmann as its president

Guy recollected how the new order had dismissed the top tier of local government officers, which had persuaded him to take the perverse decision to join the National Party, not only as a means to safeguard his job as divisional engineer for the city centre, but also to provide him with a cloak of invisibility to undermine the regime from within. He deeply regretted having become a member of that corrupt and violent organisation, but had it not been for his party membership, he would never have fulfilled his vendetta against the evil men and women, who had perpetrated their pernicious crimes against the civilian population.

He scarcely noticed the subtle change in the tone of the aircraft’s powerful Rolls Royce aero-engines, as he tried to drive the omnipresent thoughts from his mind. He desperately wanted to sleep. He counted sheep and even tried dynamic tension, but despite systematically tightening and relaxing his muscles, his brain went into overdrive.

His thoughts floated back to the Manchester uprising, when the people had taken to the streets to throw the militia out of the city, confident that their rebellion would fan the flames of freedom across the country. Sadly, the counter-revolution was doomed to failure and the uprising was brutally quashed by Hartmann’s, Death’s Head Division.

Guy’s most frightening experience during that short and bloody conflict, was not the intensive rocket bombardment of the city centre, nor the hailstorm of incendiary bombs unleashed upon the sheltering population, but the embarrassing cache of munitions dumped in his depot by the retreating freedom fighters, as they prepared for a last ditch stand against the approaching troops. Guy had recognised that if the offensive weapons were discovered on his premises, his staff would be summarily executed, and so he stashed the incriminating evidence in a long forgotten bunker, situated below his stores. His quick-witted action saved the lives of his workforce, but his wife and family, who lived in the leafy outskirts of the city were less fortunate and became unexpected casualties of the conflict.

Guy’s toes curled unwillingly as he thought about the terrible mass murders and horrific public executions committed by the regime’s shock troops after the city had surrendered, and he recalled his solemn pledge to destroy those responsible for the atrocities. Ironically, Fate intervened on his behalf and he was compelled to meet the architects of those crimes, when the loathsome Max Boyston, Director of Internal Security and Colonel Kristianson, Head of the Manchester Militia, arrived unannounced at his depot to discuss the president’s proposed ceremonial visit to the city.

Guy felt Julie’s hand move against his on the padded armrest and the memories of their first meeting came flooding back to him. He had never expected to fall in love again after the distressing death of his wife, but some months later, he met Julie Rowlands and fell victim to Cupid’s arrow. Oddly enough, their paths would never have crossed, had it not been for the regime’s decision to send its infamous Death’s Head Division into the red light district of Moss Side, in a so-called cleansing operation to eradicate the drug barons, armed criminals, prostitutes and thieves, who had been terrorising the local population. Guy had been completely unaware of the full extent of the terrifying orgy of death and destruction unleashed by the troops, until he was ordered to take his workforce into Moss Side to bury the dead, clear the rubble and remove all evidence of the devastation that had taken place. It had been a distasteful task, but the unexpected outcome of that appalling episode was his chance meeting with Julie, when he found an injured baby lying in the gutter and desperately knocked at her door for help.

Guy sank deeper into his softly sprung, first-class seat and allowed his overactive mind to revisit his painful experience at the secret police’s Bootle Street Headquarters, where Boyston had compelled him to watch live CCTV pictures of torture scenes taking place in the cells below his office. The demonstration was a blunt and clumsy warning of what would happen to him, if he did not fully co-operate with the regime, but the head of internal security had seriously underestimated the impassive civilian seated opposite him. Guy refused to be intimidated by the horrific scenes he had witnessed, and he persuaded Boyston to supplement his workforce with prisoners from Strangeways Gaol, using the cleverly crafted argument that unless he received additional resources, he could not guarantee to repair the ceremonial route into the city in time for the president’s visit. He then successfully obtained Boyston’s consent to accommodate and feed the prisoners at his depot, and with the blessing of the arrogant security chief, he assembled a ready-made army under his opponent’s unsuspecting nose.

Guy vaguely heard the flight captain’s warning that the aircraft was about to hit an area of turbulence, but satisfied that he was in no immediate danger, he immersed himself in the memories of the extraordinary night when he had stumbled across two members of the secret police, brutally interrogating Julie. He had never killed a human being in cold blood before, but incensed by their cruelty and violent behaviour, he clinically and ruthlessly shot the two men. He experienced no emotions of grief, sorrow, or remorse after he had executed them, only the incongruous feeling of self-satisfaction, as he dropped the two corpses down a deep, manhole shaft at the rear of Julie’s terraced house. Guy recognised that if the authorities discovered the bodies during their inevitable house-to-house search for their missing agents, Julie’s life would be in danger and so he persuaded her to take refuge in his aunt’s traditional, Welsh cottage in Anglesey.

The jumbled images of the past continued to tumble through his troubled mind and he marvelled that despite having been kept under close surveillance, he had successfully concealed three telephone-activated, electronic timers to detonate the bomb he had surreptitiously placed in the Albert Square sewer. His thoughts then turned to the fateful night when he had audaciously released the political prisoners held in his stores and had armed them with the weapons recovered from the underground bunker. It was a well-timed operation, and the convicts fully repaid their debt of gratitude to him, by eliminating Colonel Kristianson and his militiamen, who had arrived unannounced at the depot to take him into protective custody. The death of the colonel and his troops and the subsequent mayhem created by the escaping army of prisoners, provided him with the perfect opportunity to escape capture, flee to Anglesey, and join Julie.

Guy heard the stewardess announce that they were crossing the Irish coast, but he ignored her commentary and returned instead to his daydreams. He had been blissfully unaware during his long journey across Wales that Max Boyston had discovered Julie’s whereabouts and had flown to the island with the intention of using her as bait to capture him. He was similarly unaware that his adversary had learnt of his involvement in the release of the prisoners and his bomb making activities, and that while Boyston awaited Guy’s arrival at the cottage, he had instructed his mistress Eva Howells and his deputy George Stockton, to find the hidden timing devices and locate the bomb.

Guy’s main recollections of that perilous night were fear, excitement and a premonition, which saved his life. He remembered looking forward to holding Julie in his arms, as he drove a hijacked van at breakneck speed towards the welcoming cottage, until his sixth sense persuaded him to approach the low, white pebbledashed building from the farmland at the rear of the premises. He recalled how his stomach was knotted with fear when he studied the cottage through his night sight, and spotted the distinctive red glow of a cigarette that betrayed an indolent trooper having a crafty smoke. He also remembered his anguish and the sinking feeling of despair when he realised that Julie was being held prisoner, and yet with audacity, the benefit of surprise, and two hand grenades, he managed to secure her freedom at the expense of destroying his aunt’s holiday home and its violent inhabitants.

Guy had only the haziest recollection of his fight with the lone sentry and the capture of the patrol boat moored alongside the tiny, stone harbour at Cemaes Bay. His enduring impression of that operation was the iciness of the murky water, his complete and utter exhaustion as he sank helplessly below the waves, and of being dragged into the vessel and resuscitated by Julie. He also dimly recalled his utter frustration when the boat’s engine stubbornly refused to fire, and their moment of joy when it finally burst into life and they headed out to sea, towards Ireland and safety.

Guy gave an involuntary shudder, as he fleetingly remembered the unexpected attack on the patrol boat, and his impotence during the unequal gun battle with the pursuit helicopter, which systematically raked his vessel with machine gun fire to destroy the engine.

He then inwardly smiled to himself as his thoughts turned to his unexpected showdown with Max Boyston. Guy had been completely unaware that the internal security chief had escaped the hand grenade attack at the cottage, until he caught sight of him urging the helicopter pilot to fly closer to the patrol boat, so that he could personally eliminate his opponents. It was a reckless decision, and by insisting that the pilot drew nearer to the sinking vessel, he presented the fugitives with a tempting target that Guy could ill afford to ignore. He took full advantage of Boyston’s overconfidence and fired a Very flare through the open door of the cockpit, converting its interior into a blazing inferno, as the incandescent ball of white-hot magnesium exploded and brought the helicopter crashing into the sea.

Guy and Julie had now became the hunters, and while Boyston desperately pleaded for his life as he clung to the twisted rotors of the sinking helicopter, Guy decided to put an end to him. Much to his surprise, Julie denied him that satisfaction, As he swam towards to the aircraft to rid mankind of the monster, who had been responsible for so many innocent people’s deaths, Julie picked up his automatic rifle from the deck of the patrol boat and coolly shot Boyston for the suffering she had experienced at his hands.

Guy’s last picture of that dramatic episode was the welcome arrival of an Irish minesweeper and his feeling of relief, at its captain’s news that President Hartmann had been killed in an explosion outside Manchester Town Hall.

The flight attendant’s seductive announcement that they were approaching Manchester Airport interrupted Guy’s thoughts. He was now fully alert and after accustoming his eyes to the artificial lighting, he glanced out of the window and saw the distinctive outline of the eight-lane M6 motorway as it wound its way across the Cheshire Plain. It was time to prise Julie from her slumbers.

RETURN TO MANCHESTER

Julie felt the snub-nosed revolver dig into her ribs and she awoke with a start. Her mind was a confusion of terrifying images, until she realised that she was perfectly safe and the prodding sensation was merely Guy letting her know that the aircraft was coming into land at Manchester Airport. With an inward sigh of relief, she gripped his hand to reassure herself that she was no longer dreaming, and as the plane banked steeply to make good its descent onto the runway, she caught sight of the welcoming, cavernous, steel mouth of Jodrell Bank’s giant radio telescope.

Guy and Julie had debated long and hard, if they should return to Manchester so soon after the assassination of President Hartmann, but the overthrow of the fascist government had persuaded them to throw caution to the wind, confident that the country was now at peace. They had been encouraged by the news that during their absence, the Government of National Unity had arrested and executed senior members of the regime, and had instigated a nationwide manhunt to track down and recapture the former convicts, who had served in the militia units. Furthermore, the local bullyboys and perpetrators of violence, who had implemented the dictator’s tyrannical policies, had been forced to appear before the Commission for Justice and National Reconciliation, where they were compelled to meet their victims and apologise for their crimes.

Guy was no starry-eyed idealist and although he had no evidence to support his theory, he strongly suspected that immediately prior to the overthrow of the fascist government, elements of the secret police had created new identities for themselves, and could still present a threat to him. His main fear however, was that the regime may not have destroyed Boyston’s files, and if these had been overlooked when the internal, security service had shredded and burnt its records, he could be exposed as the dictator’s assassin. Furthermore, he had no guarantee that his details had not been transferred to Whitehall’s mainframe computers, which were now controlled by MI5 and MI6. If the former regime’s scorched earth policy had failed to erase his incriminating files, he had no idea how the present authorities would react to his suspected role in the death of the former president. It gave him no comfort that his life depended upon the fascist government’s hastily implemented cover-up operation, or its agents being too preoccupied with evading capture rather than examining the contents of their computer files.

Upon their arrival at Manchester airport, Guy and Julie were taken under escort to a custody suite, where they were interviewed separately by Special Branch officers. They had carefully planned for that eventuality, and had agreed to stick to the story they had told to the Irish Immigration authorities about Max Boyston’s death. Much to their astonishment, they found that their respective interview rooms were comfortably furnished, and they were greeted in a surprisingly friendly manner and offered coffee and biscuits. Despite the room’s homely touches, they were not lulled into a false sense of security by its carefully contrived, welcoming features. The large mirror set into the wall and the CCTV cameras, mounted high in the corners of the room, were ominous reminders that the proceedings were being recorded, and that persons unknown were witnessing or even directing their interviews.

Guy was interviewed by a middle-aged man, who had sharp features, a small moustache, grey sideburns and full head of black, wavy hair. He wore a dark blue, pinstripe business suit with a name badge neatly pinned to his lapel. John Farrington introduced himself, firmly shook Guy’s hand, and asked him to be seated. He offered him coffee, served from a small, stainless steel percolator, poured one for himself, and sat back in his chair.

The interview was relaxed and cordial and instead of taking place in a face-to-face, confrontational style of interrogation, so lovingly portrayed by television producers, the two men reclined in easy armchairs around a low coffee table. During the course of their conversation, it became increasingly evident to Guy that the officer was aware of his detailed statement to the Irish authorities regarding the helicopter’s attack on the patrol boat, and so he played him with a straight bat and rigorously stuck to the story he had agreed beforehand with Julie. He excluded any references to having been armed and offered no explanation as to why the aircraft had crashed into the sea with no survivors, using the pretext that at the time of the incident, Julie and he had taken shelter behind the ship’s hull to avoid the hail of bullets ripping into the side of the sinking vessel. After an hour’s, intensive interrogation, he was discharged and taken into the adjoining reception area to await Julie’s arrival.

Her interview was similarly polite and civilised, although the Special Branch officer, who questioned her, was surprisingly young and glamorous. Emma Sanderson had an amazingly, tall, athletic figure with long, blond hair, carefully pinned into a French pleat. She was no light-headed, dizzy bimbo and her unassuming approach concealed a razor-sharp mind. Julie was surprised at the informality of the interview compared with the brutality she had experienced at the hands of Boyston’s thugs, and instead of being on the receiving end of an inquisition, she was complimented on the shade of her lipstick and asked where she had purchased it. She was casually questioned about how she had met Guy and the officer was genuinely moved by her story of how they had tried to save an injured child during the cleansing operation in Moss Side. Emma touched only lightly upon the incident with the helicopter, but Julie became increasingly more uncomfortable when she was subjected to more penetrating and detailed questions about the juxtaposition of Guy and herself during the helicopter’s attack on their vessel, and the aircraft’s subsequent crash into sea. Fortunately, her well-rehearsed version of that incident ensured that there would be no discrepancies between her version and that of Guy’s, when the two Special Branch officers compared their case-notes later.

Emma Sanderson appeared to be perfectly satisfied with Julie’s response and after winding up the interview, she told her that she was perfectly free to go. As she reached the door, the officer casually remarked. What did Guy do with his gun?

What gun? Julie replied innocently. Guy never had a gun; what made you think he had a weapon?

Oh, I thought that you mentioned a gun while we were chatting, Emma replied apologetically. I’m sorry, I must have been mistaken. Well goodbye Mrs Rowlands, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, and with that, she escorted Julie to the reception area to rejoin Guy.

The Asian taxi driver, who drove them to Moss Side, was a chatty individual, and he lost no time in bringing them up to date with the events that had taken place in Manchester during their absence, especially the city council’s appeal to its former employees, to return to their posts and assist in the reconstruction of the city, and the re-establishment of local democracy.

The taxi drew slowly to a halt outside Julie’s house in Cadogan Street, where she immediately spotted the blackened curtains and the smoke-stained windows. Guy had already warned her about the fire damage before she arrived at the house, but nothing could have prepared her for the devastation, which confronted her when she unlocked the front door.

After Julie had escaped to Anglesey, Guy had arranged for his deputy to carry out a small arson attack on the rear of her house to destroy his fingerprints and any evidence of his DNA, which could link him to the execution of the two agents, who had been interrogating Julie. The resultant, thick, and acrid smoke had covered the walls, ceilings and furniture with a film of black soot, but what Julie found most distressing was the destruction wrought by the security forces, when they had trashed her belongings in their desperate bid to establish her whereabouts. She prodded one or two scorched objects and said rather despondently, There’s nothing left for me here, let’s go to your place. With that, she turned on her heels and swept briskly out of the sad, blackened building.

Guy instructed the cabbie to proceed to his house, which had also been ransacked by the security forces, although thankfully there was no fire damage. When they arrived, his heart sank yet again at the sight of his smashed furniture, the shredded soft furnishings, and the shards of smashed crockery and glassware, which littered the downstairs rooms. They then made their way upstairs, to be faced by yet another battlefield of overturned, broken furniture and heaps of crumpled suits, torn shirts and ripped bed linen. The only untouched object in the whole of the upper storey was Guy’s king size bed, which remained an island of calm in a sea of destruction, following its betrayal of the couple’s DNA to Max Boyston’s security agents.

Guy and Julie accepted that they could not possibly stay in the house until it had been emptied, cleaned, and refurnished, and so they decided to spend the night in a local family-run guesthouse. Their room was neat, clean and comfortable with en suite facilities, and had they not been so hungry after their flight, they would have been over-faced by the generous portions of the home-cooked, evening meal, served by their fastidiously, attentive hosts.

I’ve been thinking, said Guy as he sipped his coffee. My accommodation doesn’t belong to me, I don’t own the title deeds to the property, and I only moved in there, because the previous inhabitants had been killed during the siege of the city. The authorities were happy enough for me to stay there, because it suited them, but now that the country is at peace, some relative or other is bound to turn up and reclaim it. I think that we should find somewhere temporary to live until I arrange for my old house in Bowdon to be rebuilt. What do you think?

Julie tentatively sipped the contents of the thistle glass of Tia Maria, nodded her head approvingly and suggested that she should hire a small car and look for somewhere to live, while he started to empty the house, a course of action to which he readily agreed.

Later that night when they snuggled up in bed, Guy asked Julie to marry him. Where shall we get married? Julie asked curiously.

Well, I was thinking about St Ann’s Church in the city centre. Guy suggested rather delicately. It is in a wonderful location and somehow, through divine intervention, it escaped the bombing of the city. It is a unique building, it has a charming interior, and of course we will have no relatives to worry about.

Julie responded enthusiastically, It’s a fantastic idea. Let’s do it, and with that contented thought, she fell into a deep sleep.

Guy spent the following day filling a giant, yellow skip with the damaged contents of his house, while Julie went into Manchester to hire a car. The wanton destruction of his property filled him with anger, and as he removed his ruined tables and chairs and shovelled up the fragments of Wedgewood chinaware and Edinburgh crystal, he would occasionally stop to examine a photograph album, or a small memento, which he would put to one side together with other personal items he had managed to salvage. There was no time to file his bank statements, utility bills, and investment details, and so he merely stuffed them into the nearest empty folder to be sorted out later.

The hotel had provided him with a tasty, packed lunch of cheese rolls, pickles, tomatoes and a can of fruit juice, because there was no food in his house, but by four o’clock, he had worked himself to a standstill and stopped to give Julie a call on her mobile phone. There was no reply and just as he was about to redial, she drew up outside the front gate in a flamboyant, scarlet, Honda runabout.

How did you get on today? he asked.

The expressive smile on Julie’s face said it all. "I have found us a furnished, semi-detached house in Leicester Avenue, Timperley. It is on