Nine Lives Are Not Enough

By Charles Tyrie

Nine Lives Are Not Enough is a sequel to the thrillers The Manchester Vendetta and the Cheshire Conspiracy in which Guy and Julie Manners are sought by their nemesis, Eva Howells, who is seeking to avenge the death of her lover, Max Boyston, the former head of the Internal Security Service in Manchester during the dictatorship.

Imprisoned in a high-security gaol, she is rescued by sympathisers following an emergency appendectomy operation and takes refuge in a safe house at the Cross Keys Caravan Park near Hartington in the Peak District with the intention of locating an escape line to leave the country.

MI5 officers Bill Mackenzie and Emma Sanderson seek to hunt her down with the assistance of Guy Manners and take down the escape line by infiltrating their agent Maggie Irvine into the organisation.

The destruction of a safe house in Maidenhead and the interrogation of its staff by MI5 at its Cliveden House interrogation centre leads to a final reckoning with Eva Howells and the elimination of the terrorists escape line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546296973

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.

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© 2018 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.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/05/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9696-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9697-3 (e)

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CONTENTS

Dedication

The Prologue

Nine Lives Are Not Enough

About the Author

DEDICATION

T his book is dedicated to my wife Hilary, my Family, and Friends

THE PROLOGUE

T he neglect of British Industry by successive governments had laid the foundations for the charismatic leader of the National Party to bewitch the unemployed with promises of jobs for all. It was the only message they wished to hear and with a recklessness born of despair, they elected Russell Hartmann to head the country’s first fascist government.

Its first act was to disband all social and professional groups suspected of being opponents to its policies, but in a bold attempt to undermine the regime from within, Guy Manners, the Divisional Engineer responsible for maintaining Manchester’s city centre roads and sewers, joined the National Party to destroy the evil men and women engaged in crimes against humanity.

The regime’s brutality prompted an armed uprising, and during the intensive rocket bombardment and hailstorm of incendiary bombs unleashed upon the sheltering population, freedom fighters deposited an embarrassing cache of munitions in Guy’s depot as they retreated before the advancing government troops. Aware that he and his workforce would be summarily executed if the weapons were discovered, he stashed the incriminating evidence in an underground bunker concealed below his stores. His quick-witted action saved his life and those of his employees, but his wife and family living in the leafy suburbs were killed when a jet aircraft crashed into their house.

Guy made a solemn pledge to destroy those responsible for the atrocities they had committed after the city had surrendered, and ironically, Fate intervened when the architects of the crimes, the loathsome Director of Internal Security Max Boyston, and the Head of the Militia Colonel Kristiansen, arrived unannounced at his depot to discuss a proposed presidential visit to the city.

Guy had never expected to fall in love again, but some months later he met Julie Rowlands following the regime’s decision to send its infamous Death’s Head Division into the red-light district of Moss Side to cleanse the area of its drug barons, armed criminals, pimps, and thieves.

Summoned to the secret police’s Bootle Street Headquarters to discuss the presidential visit, Boyston compelled Guy to watch live CCTV pictures of tortures taking place in the cells below his office, in a blunt warning of what would happen to him, if he did not co-operate. Guy refused to be intimidated by the unspeakable brutality, and he persuaded Boyston to supplement his workforce with inmates from Strangeways Prison, using the cleverly crafted argument that he could not repair the ceremonial route in time for the visit, unless he received additional resources. He successfully obtained Boyston’s consent to accommodate and feed the prisoners at his depot, and by doing so, he assembled a ready-made army under his opponent’s unsuspecting nose.

Guy could never have killed a human being in cold blood until he stumbled upon two members of the secret police torturing Julie. Incensed by their vicious behaviour, he shot them and disposed of their bodies in a manhole at the rear of Julie’s terrace house. Realising that her life would be in danger if the internal security police discovered the corpses during their inevitable house-to-house search for the missing agents, he persuaded her to take refuge in his aunt’s holiday cottage in Anglesey.

As Divisional Engineer, Guy had been provided with full details of the President’s visit to the city, and despite being kept under surveillance, he successfully planted a bomb in the sewer running below the main entrance of the Town Hall to assassinate Russell Hartmann. To camouflage his flight to re-join Julie, he released and armed the political prisoners with weapons from the underground bunker, and during the ensuing mayhem he fled to Anglesey. In the meantime, Max Boyston had discovered Julie’s whereabouts and had flown to the island with the intention of using her as bait to capture him, leaving the responsibility for finding the bomb to his deputy George Stockton and his mistress Eva Howells.

Guy discovered that Julie was being held prisoner, and with the benefit of surprise and two hand grenades, he secured her freedom at the expense of destroying his aunt’s holiday home and its violent inhabitants. Seeking to escape the island, the couple hijacked a patrol boat moored at Cemaes Bay and headed towards the Irish Republic and freedom.

Having miraculously survived the hand grenade attack at the cottage, Max Boyston commandeered a helicopter from the Valley airbase to pursue the patrol boat, and successfully crippled the vessel during an exchange of gunfire. Confident that he had the couple at his mercy, he urged the helicopter pilot to fly closer to the stricken vessel, a reckless act which allowed Guy to fire a Very flare into the cockpit, causing the pilot to lose control and the aircraft to crash into the sea. While Boyston clung to the sinking helicopter and begged for mercy, Julie clinically shot him in retribution for the suffering she had experienced at his hands.

The couple were rescued by an Irish minesweeper, and during their voyage to the Republic, the captain reported the dramatic news that President Hartmann and members of his cabinet had been killed by an explosion outside Manchester Town Hall.

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When Guy and Julie returned to the UK following NATO’s liberation of the country, they were questioned by the MI5 officers Emma Sanderson, John Farrington, and their superior Bill Mackenzie, who reluctantly accepted their carefully re-constructed version of the helicopter attack on their boat.

Meanwhile, Eva Howells and other dissidents from the Internal Security Service had taken refuge in a safe house constructed below an operational nursing home at Lower Peover in Cheshire, where she despatched an agent to kill Guy and Julie in revenge for the death of her lover Max Boyston. The failed attempt on their lives hardened their resolve to hunt down and eliminate their enemies and locate the safe house with the assistance of Guy’s computer hacker friend Alan Baker. Prior to passing this information to the MI5 officer Bill Mackenzie, Guy prepared a trap to eliminate his adversaries, and by using the customary tethered goat principle, he advertised where he would be spending his honeymoon, which led to a showdown with the killers.

When his hacker friend exposed an elaborate plot to free the former Deputy Director George Stockton from Slough high security prison, Guy put his trust in Bill Mackenzie and informed him of the attempted rescue plan and the location of the safe house in Lower Peover; however, a delay in the armed police unit’s response to the news, enabled George Stockton to escape and he was transported in a hearse to re-join his colleagues at the Cheshire hideout.

Fearing that the agents arrested during George Stockton’s escape would betray the whereabouts of the safe house, Eva Howells initiated an emergency evacuation of the complex, issued false identity papers, and made preparations for the former secret police to scatter. The delay in abandoning the premises allowed the SAS to assault the terrorists’ hideout, in which they took no prisoners. Eva Howells escaped the fate of her colleagues, having already left the building before the police cordoned off the complex, and by posing as a flower delivery courier, she inveigled her way into Guy and Julie’s home with the intention of killing them. In a cleverly conceived ruse to stay their adversary’s hand, Guy spun a web of deceit to distract her attention, which enabled Julie to disarm her with a well-aimed Tai Kwon Do kick, and Eva Howells arrest and imprisonment.

Bill Mackenzie had long recognised that Guy Manners had played a much greater role in the overthrow of the dictatorship than the man was prepared to admit, and in acknowledgement of the invaluable information he had provided to expose the safe house and the plan to spring George Stockton from prison, he arranged to meet him in Tatton Park. As an experienced MI5 Officer, he knew perfectly well that Guy had used his membership of the National Party to undermine the fascist government, but as the law stood, he knew that as a former Party member, Guy would be automatically dismissed from his newly appointed post of Director of Technical Services and would be compelled to appear before the Commission for National Reconciliation. Recognising that this would have been contrary to the laws of natural justice for the man who had done so much for his country, Bill proposed that if Guy joined MI5, he would not have to face the Commission and he could either retain his job or serve his country overseas.

NINE LIVES ARE NOT ENOUGH

G uy Manners woke up with a start as his mind convulsed with the turbulent dark thoughts that had disturbed his sleep. He listened tentatively for the slightest creak or protesting stair tread that would betray the presence of an intruder in the house, and cautiously removed the Glock semi-automatic from beneath his pillow. The house was quiet, much too quiet, but his heightened senses detected no unusual movements or sounds, other than his wife’s steady breathing.

He could not stay awake all night on the irrational fear that there was a killer on the premises, and so he looked across to the burglar alarm’s illuminated green panel, which indicated that there was no sign of forced entry anywhere in the house. If an intruder had broken in through the downstairs doors or windows, the alarm would have emitted a loud, piercing shriek, and in the absence of this, he decided that the excitement of the previous day had been responsible for his restlessness. He nevertheless resolved to remain alert, and fighting the compelling onset of drowsiness, his mind wandered to the fateful events of the previous day and the dilemmas, choices, and possible threats he would have to face.

When he had accepted the post of Divisional Engineer for the City of Manchester, it had never occurred to him that he would become an unlikely hero, whose actions would destroy the Dictator Russell Hartmann and lead to the liberation of the country.

Following the restoration of the UK’s rightful government, Guy had mistakenly believed that he would be able to continue his career with the city council. Sadly, his recent meeting with Bill Mackenzie had dashed those expectations when the MI5 Officer had pointed out to him that his former membership of the National Party would lead to the loss of his job and his appearance before the Commission for National Reconciliation.

It irritated him that he had only joined the organisation with the deliberate intention of covertly undermining it, not realising that his membership would subsequently rebound on him, notwithstanding the fact that it had allowed him to plant the fateful bomb in the sewer below Albert Square and destroy the dictatorship.

His ears pricked up at the sound of a passing car and his finger tightened on the Glock’s safety catch, but the vehicle did not stop or slow down, and as the muffled sound of its engine disappeared into the distance, he acknowledged that he was becoming paranoid about someone being in the house. He was imagining threats that did not exist, but his caution was understandable. He had survived too many attempts on his life to take security for granted, and he questioned if the earlier threats he had faced from dissident members of the former regime had really disappeared.

Confusing thoughts buzzed through his head as he chewed over the olive branch held out to him during his clandestine meeting with the MI5 officer. He could accept the generous offer to join the security service and retain his job as a chief officer, which would avoid the requirement to attend the Commission’s hearings, or he could serve his country overseas as an attaché to His Majesty’s Consulate in Rio de Janeiro, which would entail his resignation from his job on a full pension and a redundancy package.

The frantic activities of the previous day had taken their toll, and having involuntarily fallen asleep, Guy was rudely awoken by his alarm clock’s demanding ring-tone. It was seven o’clock, and relieved that there had been no intruder overnight, he surreptitiously slid the Glock beneath his pillow and turned to greet his wife with a good morning hug.

Before breakfast, the couple made their way to Heyes Lane for their constitutional walk around Beech field, the public open space separating the residential semi-detached estates of Timperley from their more exclusive detached brethren in Brooklands.

Julie zipped up the neck of her Berghaus cagoule to deflect the penetrating gusts of wind sweeping across the field and savoured the sweet smell of recently mown grass. She felt unusually subdued and buried herself in her thoughts as she tried to make sense of the unusual situation in which she and her husband had found themselves.

She had rehearsed the pros and cons of each scenario put to them about their future, and as she happily acknowledged, there was always the alternative of just disappearing. As they continued their stroll around the edge of the field, she re-entered the surreal world she had inhabited after falling in love with Guy. It was as if she had been playing a leading role an old black and white film, in which she had been tied to a railway track, desperately hoping that her hero would rescue her before the imminent arrival of the approaching train.

In reality, her experiences had been much worse than those portrayed in the cinema, and had they been made into a film, it would have been panned by the critics for promoting gratuitous violence. She had survived three assassination attempts, and yet having lived on the adrenalin highs produced by those experiences, she questioned if she was really cut out to return to the humdrum life of being a suburban housewife.

Guy was also deep in thought as he analysed Bill Mackenzie’s offers. Scenario 1 was not as bad as it seemed. He could lose his job and be forced to appear before the Commission for National Reconciliation, but he had acquired substantial funds in the form of cash, gold, and diamonds during the civil uprising in Manchester, and he did not need to work for a living. That he had chosen to accept promotion to the post of Director of Technical Services for the city, was purely part of his strategy to deflect attention away from his clandestine activities during the dictatorship. In addition, if he were to be aggressively cross-examined by the Commission, he would adamantly deny any accusations of complicity.

There was no concrete evidence linking him to any criminal acts during his membership of the National Party, nor his single-handed and successful attempt to eliminate President Hartmann. Furthermore, at the time of the bomb explosion and the concurrent destruction of the top officials of the fascist government, he could prove that he was being pursued across the Irish Sea. His defence was watertight, or at least he hoped it was.

The upside to Scenario 1 was that Julie and he could while away their time in early retirement, complete the construction of their new house in Bowdon, and enjoy life to the full. The downside was that he did not relish being publicly removed from office or having the press accuse him of being an active supporter of the former regime, when the truth had been so very different.

The second alternative, namely to join MI5 and retain his new post as Director of Technical Services, was an attractive proposition. It avoided the requirement to appear before the Commission, and he could remain in the Manchester area and live a normal family life. He was canny enough to know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, and he asked himself what would be expected from him in return. Rationally, he believed that Bill Mackenzie’s offer had been made in good faith to recognise his help in identifying the safe house in Lower Peover and its threat to national security. On the other hand, being on MI5’s payroll meant that his life could be circumscribed by his membership of the service. The only impediment to his immediate acceptance of the offer was he knew nothing about the internal workings of the security service, although he could of course clarify what he would be expected to do before he made his decision.

It had been explained to him that if he joined the security service and agreed to work in Brazil, he would have to undergo a period of twelve months training in diplomatic skills, learn to speak Portuguese fluently, and understand the duties he would be expected to perform as a trade attaché. In addition, he was fully aware that his position would mean spying on everyone he met. He reasoned that it was an attractive proposition, but the downside of the proposal, and there was always a downside, was that he would lose his independence. It was certainly an effective method of controlling him, quite apart from using his undoubted civil engineering and managerial skills on behalf of his country. The other factor in its favour was that it was an exciting new challenge and Julie was happy to support it.

They could still consider the alternatives carefully avoided by Bill Mackenzie. There were no restrictions preventing them emigrating to Canada or Australia where they had relatives, although this solution smacked of being driven out of their own country, or there was still the unspoken solution, they could change their identities and just disappear.

His primary concern was whether they could vanish without drawing attention to themselves, and would it result in them being sought by the security services or the police, if Bill Mackenzie decided they presented some ill-defined threat to himself or the state. The probability of that happening was highly unlikely, but there was always the possibility that a future government would launch a full investigation to establish the identity of the person or persons responsible for the assassination of President Hartmann. Guy’s achievement in killing the monster had demonstrated a knowledge, ability, and potential to endanger future members of the establishment or the head of state, and in such circumstances, the government might take the view that the perpetrator or perpetrators should not remain at large.

Guy had covered his tracks the best he could. Firstly, he had taken the simple precaution of never revealing to anyone that he had planted the bomb. In fact, he had always denied any connection with the incident, and had blamed attempts to implicate him on a power struggle occurring within the dictator’s state security apparatus. Secondly, his motto was to trust no one and take his secret to the grave with him, and thirdly, he had deliberately kept his wife in the dark, because were she to be questioned, she would know nothing about it. Finally, his computer hacker friend had ensured that all the records held in the former regime’s filing systems, which could have incriminated him, had been destroyed.

His undeclared option to disappear without a trace was bedevilled by the loosening of the former regime’s stringent controls governing the use of social media and the increasing employment of other surveillance devices to prevent acts of terrorism. The CCTV camera network for monitoring people and traffic had been fully restored, as had the linked secondary, CCTV system installed in factories, shops, and offices. Similarly, although the population was free to use social media sites following the lifting of controls on the use of tablets and mobile phones, the monitoring of their contents greatly exceeded that of the Soviet Block’s efforts to spy on its citizens in the 1960’s. In addition, the mass surveillance of all emails, texts, websites, and other forms of electronic communication was being undertaken by GCHQ in conjunction with the Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders.

Guy and Julie eventually reached the furthest point of their walk at the Rugby Club pavilion in Stelfox Avenue and began their homeward journey along the rear of the housing association gardens in Fairywell Road. Suddenly, they snapped out of their cloistered world of thought and contemplation and realised that they had been walking for three quarters of a mile without a word having passed between them.

Julie looked at Guy and broke the silence, A penny for your thoughts.

I have been chewing over Bill Mackenzie’s offers and the more I have thought about them, the more confused I have become. I have even considered disappearing and finding an isolated community where no one will know us, or even want to know us, but this would create its own difficulties, and I wonder how long it would be before our whereabouts became public knowledge.

What about the generous offers he put to you, Julie replied, I thought that you would bite his hand off when he suggested that if you were to join him, you could keep your job or represent the government as a trade attaché in Brazil. How could you possibly believe that it would be a better solution to suffer the shame of having your reputation torn into shreds? It would create more stress for us, and rather selfishly I am looking forward to a normal life now that the people who were trying to kill us, are either dead or in prison. Alternatively, I still find the idea of going to Brazil attractive.

I know exactly where you are coming from, Guy said defensively. I was kept awake last night worrying that someone was trying to break into the house, and because I could not get to sleep, I chewed over every detail of Bill Mackenzie’s offer, and I am still confused about what we should do. Our problem is can we trust him? He acted decisively on the information we gave him about the underground terrorist cell in Lower Peover, and doubtlessly he will have received many plaudits from his superiors for eliminating them. I also believe that he is genuinely grateful to us for having given him that information and he wishes to help us, but we do not really know where he sits in the chain of command, and would he protect us, were he to be instructed to investigate anyone associated with the former dictatorship. As a senior figure, he could hardly refuse to do his duty, and as a man of honour, I am sure that he would leave no stone unturned in pursuit of his quarry.

You mean he is a little bit like you. Julie interjected.

I suppose so. He does suspect that we are keeping something back from him, and I am worried that his proposals are an excuse for keeping us on a short leash, so that he could bring us to heel whenever he felt like it.

Julie was not persuaded by the suggestion, but she too had considered the possibility of just disappearing. The idea of becoming ‘a nobody’ and not being permanently under surveillance was an attractive proposition, but she was certainly not convinced from her horrific experiences during the dictatorship that it was possible for them to disappear for ever, even if they obtained new identities and moved to an isolated part of the country. She was only too aware that despite having hidden away in a remote cottage in Anglesey, she had been recognised, and had it not been for Guy’s timely intervention, she would have lost her life.

Suddenly, their peaceful walk was interrupted by the aggressive barking of a slavering Alsatian, which launched itself at the adjoining chain-link fence and bared its fangs at them. They were normally accustomed to the animal lying in wait to surprise them but having been immersed in conversation, they had completely forgotten its presence. Its owner had once called out that the dog was perfectly harmless and that it was all bark and no bite, but there was no way that Guy would approach those menacing fangs, and ignoring the brute, they continued their walk.

I know that it sounds like a conspiracy theory, Guy continued, but even in little old Britain, if the authorities deemed it necessary, they would spirit us away under some emergency legislation and hold us incommunicado. Similarly, it would be relatively easy for our demise to be surreptitiously arranged in a foreign country, especially one that was not richly endowed with investigative reporters.

You do not believe that, surely.

Guy gently squeezed Julie’s hand, "We are living in troubled times, and as we know to our cost, there are still dangerous elements out there and MI5 are heavily engaged in tracking them down. I also question if the so-called democratically accountable secret service has an unblemished record when it comes to dealing with people they consider to be a threat to the state. For example, I read a report about MI5’s questionable activities in the nineteen sixties, when allegedly it had attempted to undermine the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. There was also the case of Dr Stephen Ward, who was involved in the Profumo scandal in 1963 and committed suicide. This aroused enormous speculation in the press that he had been killed on the orders of MI5. A similar event happened in 2003 involving the weapons specialist Dr David Kelly, whose discussions with a BBC journalist led to the allegation that the Blair administration’s briefing paper on Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction had been ‘sexed’ up. The British Government certainly used this dodgy information to justify its decision to go to war, and as predicted by Hans Blix the UN weapons inspector, his team’s on-site inspections of Saddam Hussein’s weapon stockpiles revealed no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Allegedly, Dr Kelly committed suicide but his body was found in suspicious circumstances, which stoked rumours that he had been silenced on the orders of MI5 to protect the government.

Another example was the Government’s suspected involvement in the rendition of suspects by the Americans. As you know, I have always objected to the term rendition, because the ‘newspeak’ terminology was deliberately used to mask the US government’s extra-territorial abduction and kidnapping of suspected terrorists from countries around the world. The consequences of those illegal activities were that its victims were tortured for information using water boarding and other inhumane techniques, although bearing in mind my recent activities, perhaps I should get off my high horse!"

Julie strongly objected to this analysis and interrupted Guy while he was in full flow. There is a significant difference between doing what we were compelled to do to protect ourselves in the absence of law and order, and so-called democratic nations perpetrating acts of violence in contravention of the international laws they purport to uphold. The US was always quick off the mark to condemn other nations engaged in acts of terror against its citizens, and yet it indulged in similar activities, and being powerful with considerable influence, it abused this position, knowing that it would never be held to account for its crimes.

When they arrived home from their walk, they had breakfast, which was simple and nutritious and comprised a bowl of muesli with semi skimmed milk, toasted brown bread, and green tea. A cooked breakfast was normally a no-go area, although when they were on holiday they would relax their self-imposed Spartan eating rules and allow themselves the luxury of a continental breakfast with freshly-baked bread rolls, pats of pure unsalted butter, Manuka honey, and a selection of sliced meats and cheeses.

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After completing his customary early morning tour of his department to keep in touch with his staff, Guy made his way to the Chief Executive’s office to discuss the rebuilding of the Arndale Shopping Centre, which had been reduced to rubble during the bombing of the city.

He reported the outcome of his negotiations with the property development company owning the site, and the progress being made with the reconstruction of Mancunian Way, the motorway viaduct demolished to provide an anti-tank barrier during the