The Whitehall Conspiracy

By John Madderson

Things really do go bump in the night and when they do it’s usually an indication that something is dangerously wrong somewhere.
Ex-soldier and Newcastle nightclub bouncer Jack Hammond is an agent in a secret department of the government known as the ‘Diplomatic Investigation Unit,’ this unit is under the direct control of a department deep within the Home Office with direct secure links to the Foreign Office and MI6.
This clandestine department is responsible for ensuring that MPs and senior civil servants do not betray, engage in illegal activity or divulge sensitive information to a person or persons unknown and if foul play is suspected the information is passed to the DIU for action.
The function of the DIU is simple and straight forward to correct situations created by serving politicians and civil servants that could, or would, do immense damage to security resulting in a worldwide conflict of trust between this country and other nations.
In order to prevent such a disaster, the DIU was set up as a secret unit known only to a handful of people in the Home Office allowing the unit to work outside of the law with total immunity from prosecution.
Jack Hammond is authorised to investigate, intercept and if necessary, to rectify the situation using extreme prejudice.
During his engagement in the DIU, Hammond has ‘rectified’ a number of threats to the nation’s security but the one he is about to undertake would be a fight to the death against professional and highly dangerous people engaged in a military coup.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Madderson
• Release date: Mar 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005499556

John Madderson

Hi.My name is John Madderson and I love writing horror.I was born in the small industrial seaside town of Blyth Northumberland. In 1964 I joined the Army and enlisted into the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers where in 1966 I met my wife Sylvia while on leave from Germany en-route to Aden and active service. On returning to England Sylvia and I were married and in 1968 we were blessed with our son Lee Raymond. In 1977 I left the army and went into self-employment for a great number of years. I have had a full life but now nearing my retirement I have taken up writing and dedicate my time into bringing back the original saga of Dracula and the blood craved beast he was created to be (with a slight twist.)My books, under the sub-title “The Vampire Hunter,” are a series of four books each depicting a separate time in the past, present and future. The two main characters the villain Alucard, and the hero Joseph Beck, are locked in an eternal battle from which there can be but one survivor.EnjoyJohn Madderson.

Book preview

Jack Hammond Investigates ~ Book Two.

The Whitehall Conspiracy

By

JOHN MADDERSON

CHAPTER ONE.

It has been a little over three months since I’d left the Diplomatic Investigation Unit, a job I relished greatly as it allowed me to act with impunity, but now all that had gone. Gone was my immunity from prosecution. Gone was my right to carry a weapon. Gone was my right under government privilege to right a wrong without having to fill in a bloody six page statement, and most of all gone the love of my life, Margret.

Margret had died in a car accident one night in December…actually December the 12th at precisely 9:46 pm, according to the motorway camera. The official verdict was that the steering wheel of her car jammed due to some road debris damaging the mechanism. The news and subsequent film of the accident had a devastating effect on my health and I spent three weeks under departmental supervisional care, then another two month after discharge under the care of bottle after bottle of my old friend and consoling mentor, Johnny Walker. That was until one very early morning about 1: am when I had an uninvited guest. At first I thought it just another nightmare but that was to prove wrong as suddenly I was being shaken violently by the shoulders. I remembered forcing my eyes open and looking up through blood stained eyes into a large beaming face smiling down at me, the face of whoever it was, was blurred but the accent was quite noticeable and I recognised it straight away as an Irish accent. Northern Irish. Suddenly my assailant straddled my body and grasped me by the shirt lifting me into a half sitting position, there was nothing I could do to stop him, my arms hung limp by my side as he screamed into my face and the message he offered was loud and clear accompanied with a series of heavy smacks across my face with each word spoken.

Kill mine, I kill yours.

The message was clear and precise. I Knew I had to move, get away from this person before he killed me and I remember struggling onto my elbows then a heavy blow across the back of my head sent my senses reeling and for a moment or two every colour of the rainbow streamed through my brain and the lights flickered and went out as kick after kick slammed into my body.

It was two days later when I woke to the unmistakable smell of disinfectant. A smell I’d witnessed many times before and I realised I was back in hospital. A doctor approached with his chart and pencil in hand, he stopped, nodded to me with the usual, couldn’t give a shit look, and then started reading through his notes. To him I was just another drunk who had fell and was now wasting taxpayer’s money. He said something to a nurse standing by his side. The nurse just about bowed and turned away. As she neared the curtain she turned back to face me and threw me a courteous smile, a nice smile, a worm smile. I half smiled back through split lips and aching jaws. Again she smiled, this time a full-on wide eyes type of smile and told me that I was getting discharged. Great I thought no bloody hospital food to put up with. The nurse returned a few minutes later with the customary wheelchair. She smiled at me and motioned with a wave of her hand for me to remove my body from the bed and park my butt onto the seat of my transportation down to the outpatients department and out of the hospital. She was polite and courteous and showed passion as she inquired about the numerus lumps and bumps on my head and body.

Do they hurt much? she had asked.

Only when I breathe, I replied.

She burst out in a strong, but controlled laughter.

An hour later I was sat in a taxi on my way home, and for a while I sat just looking at the back of the drivers head. He was the quiet sort and I was relieved that he actually knew where my home address was without me having to give him directions at every turn.

I parked my butt and sat back in the leather padded rear seat. The cab was warm and comfortable and I allowed my head to fall back against its warmth until my eyes rested on a single blemish on the roof padding and made it my vocal point to concentrate on, and try to piece together the last few days. The driver was good. The car smooth as it glided through the streets and slowly I began to remember things. I was in bed, then I wasn’t, I remembered getting smacked around the head and body and couldn’t lift a finger to defend myself except for rolling myself up into a tight ball on my living room floor, then wakening up in the hospital. I remember coming to and looking up at the ceiling. It was the normal type consisting of eighteen inch square polystyrene panels, then downwards onto the washed-out blue curtains surrounding my cubical suspended from a network of chrome rods. It was about this time that my concentration was interrupted as a voice called out my name over and over again then suddenly a face loomed into sight and I jumped as a pencil torch was suddenly flashed back and forth across my eyes. The tone of a voice was harsh and demanding and suggested that whoever torchy was, he wasn’t a happy bunny. The voice continued to call my name and slowly I began to regain the use of my eyeballs and was finally able to peer into the face of someone dressed in a white smock, blue shirt. and a red tie, and by the looks on his face I reckoned he had probably been up all night, A fairly good looking nurse that appeared to hang on every word he muttered stood close to him. She was young, cute and with a uniform that showed a great deal of stress between the buttons as they battled to retain their hold. Then in a blinding flash I remembered why I was here and a shallow cry escaped my vocal cords like that of just receiving a well-placed boot in the goolies. I remembered an Irish accent, and although he hadn’t mentioned his name, I knew who the bastard was. I felt my whole body stiffen as an ice cold shiver ran down my spine and didn’t stop until it hit rock bottom, then my toes curled and my feet exploded.

Suddenly like receiving a second boot to the goolies, I sat up. Crap. I called out, much to the doctor’s surprise as he jumped backwards dropping his torch. Crap. I called out again. Now I was worried, not for the nurse as she screamed in pain as the doctor trod on her foot, but for whom I feared it was, who wouldn’t be afraid with an IRA assassin by the name of Dominick Epson on their case.

To give you some idea as to who Epson was…..well how can I put it….Dominic Epson was pure evil…a sociopath would be putting it mildly. Epson, from the file I had on him, was Belfast born; his father was a ship builder, his mother a nurse. Dominic grew up in the belief that, if you hesitate you’ve lost. Strike first and continue to hit until your opponent remains on the floor….because, his father had once told him,….if he gets up after you’ve given your best….he’s going kick the shit out of you.

By the time Dominic was fourteen he was showing signs of becoming a sociopath and it was shortly after his sixteenth birthday that his father was killed by a protestant para-military gang, so needless to say Dominic Epson wanted revenge and joined the provisional Irish republican army. Then came the Good Friday agreement masterminded by our Prime-minister Tony Blair and the IRA disarmed, but not Epson. Epson liked what he did and decided to continue, but as a free-lance. This was the first time I’d come across him. My job was easy, although I thought at the time. Epson had refused to stand down which threatened the piece treaty, and so it was agreed that he was to be set up by one of the commanders of the Londonderry group to be assassinated. However, the hit was not to be carried out by one of their own as it would look bad, and so his death, as it was deemed as political, was handed over to the DIU, mainly me. However, Epson proved to be a man of self-preservation and with the help of others, escaped my attention, and fled to America where everyone assumed he would remain, that was until a little over a year ago where he finally resurfaced on a train in London. My train.

Epson and I had had run in’s before but that was a year ago when I killed his leggy and rather attractive girlfriend and as I remembered it was either her or me. Well she started it by jabbing a bloody six inch meat skewer into my ribs on-route to my heart. I had instantly and automatically responded by punching her in the nose forcing the cartridge up into her brain, so I guess I picked my survival over her and now he wanted revenge…..I tutted to myself and muttered.

Ah well, I guess some people you just can’t please.

The driver must have heard me and he looked at me in his mirror. I nodded and smiled.

It wasn’t until I was home and opening the first bottle Jonny Walker when it struck me.

Kill mine….I kill yours.

That’s what Epson had said and suddenly I realised that Margret’s death was no accident, the bastard had killed her, and he had fixed her steering somehow. Suddenly, I felt the heavy weight of sorrow and anger overwhelm my senses and I entered into the realm of utter hatred for the murdering piece of shit that took the only woman I’d ever loved, away from me.

I replaced the bottle back on the table, stared at it for a moment then staggered backwards towards the sofa and again my senses bounced around in my head like a demented chimp in a cage, and again darkness filled its clouded space.

I don’t know how long I’d lay there before somewhere deep within the confined recesses of my troubled brain I heard someone pounding on the door.

Angrily, I walked to the door and swung it open and was met with the terrorised eyes of a spotty faced little runt as I yelled.

What, what the hell do you want.

The kid jumped backwards knocking his bike over and fell onto his butt, meanwhile keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the demented man standing over him yelling at him to.

Bugger off!

As he scrambled back to his feet shouting.

Nothing mister just told to deliver this in person to you,

Then without another word he legged it down the road with his bike calling me a bloody clown and other names I’d have to look up later but not before shouting after him.

You piss-arse little runt I hope you get a puncture.

I watched the kid go down the road on his bike that would have been more suited for a child of seven or eight. He was I guess a normal type of kid. The sort you see every day riding their bikes in a tight circle in a superstore carpark, or shopping precinct with the soul intentions of aggravating the public. A non-hoper. A drop out. A kid without a purpose in life. A kid with a head full of sawdust, and a hoody pulled down over his eyes so that no one would see his anger. A kid without any direction as to where his life was going. A kid who’s only claim to fame was to confuse people with his absolute disregard for others. The kid was almost at the end of the road when he slid his bike to a halt as a car sped past him at the junction and his only thought was to give the two fingered salute to the driver. I smiled and closed the door and went back into my living room.

The envelope was still on the table where I’d left it, someone had wanted to make sure I got this personally, but not the sender….no he wanted to remain in the shadows and had told the little arse-wipe with the shortening life span to deliver it.

I turned it over in my hand, no name, just a blank sealed envelope.

What no kisses? I muttered.

Closing the door I walked back into the sitting room and placed it down on the table….I needed another drink…hair of the dog I think is the expression. My second down pour of Johnny Walker seamed to do the trick as my eyes began to clear from almost dull to a misty blur.

I pulled back the blinds and looked out into the road, it had started to rain and I stood for a while watching the dribbles of water run down the window pane in a zigzag hap mazzard pattern until they started to increase in volume and become one continues stream, the view was dismal and depressing and I turned my attention back to the table and the non-descript envelope. Someone wanted me to have this, there was no doubt about that, but who, had I been more coherent I would have noticed the absence of information on it and would have asked the kid with the impeccable grasp of the English language to describe the person who had given it to him to deliver. I shook the envelope listening for; I guess anything other than paper, held it up to the sunlight streaming through the window, then tore across the top and shook it. A single piece of paper dropped out onto the table, I looked at it then without picking it up I turned it over with the aid of a table knife. There were eight words in large print, I stared at them.

Hello Jack I’m back I’ll be seeing you again.

Shit there’s just no bloody helping some people. I shouted, as I flung the letter across the table and cursed myself for not handling the situation with the shitfaced kid a bit better, now he was gone, bike and all.

For a while I sat looking out of the window, why, I don’t know I guess it was because it had stopped raining and the sunlight was better than looking at my reflection in the mirror. I hated being on my own especially when Margret’s beaming face kept appearing in my mind’s eye. She was a beautiful woman and the life of my very existence, but now she was gone and I missed her terribly. It was at this time I felt the sudden urge to hurt someone. To wrap my hands around their neck and squeeze until the puss, along with everything in their body erupted out of the top of their head. I felt sheer unadulterated