A One-Sided Game

By D C Stansfield

The man calling himself Charles Hellquist is planning to steal a ton of highly radioactive nuclear waste, the most toxic substance known to man. It would be enough waste to decimate a large city, killing millions and leaving it a wasteland for centuries.

He wants to blackmail the UK Government into giving him £500 million sterling.
Against him stand three men - Commander Ben Warrington, Head of the MI6 special task force; Jacob Owen, a Field Agent on his way back from a failed mission, and David Stanley, a retired Sales Director and sometime spy who has a major problem with MI6.

A crime like this has never been attempted before, the stakes are sky high and new rules of engagement are about to be written. One mistake would mean a catastrophe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D C Stansfield
• Release date: May 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223336723

Book preview

Other books by D C Stansfield:

Tom Revilo

An Assassin For The New Templars

The Assassin, The Grey Man and The Surgeon series:

Book 1: The Assassin, The Grey Man and The Surgeon

Book 2: To Kill a Grey Man

Book 3: A Wicked Profit

Book 4: The Russians and the Beast

Preface

The most toxic substance known to mankind doesn't need to be touched, smelt or ingested.  Just to be in its vicinity kills.  Horribly.  It unravels a person's DNA one strand at a time, pulling apart their very being.  Sometimes death comes quickly, in others it can take years, a dreadful slow lingering cancer.

It's potency, it's so called half-life, will outlive any current monument to man, possibly mankind itself.

This substance is not made by God or Mother Nature, it does not occur anywhere in the Universe naturally.  It is brought into being solely by the hand of man in his unrelenting quest for power, forged in nuclear power stations at temperatures close to those found on the surface of the sun.

On its own it has no use whatsoever, just a by-product of the process.

It is controlled and managed by a large powerful industry that has been in business for over half a century, manufacturing in huge quantities, hundreds of tons, transported annually in over twenty million consignments on public roads, railways and ships.

Currently, there is stored in excess of 60,000 tons of this waste.  If brought together, it would cover an American football field seven metres deep.  Daily it grows, almost unchecked.

In the hands of the wicked, this substance, this radioactive nuclear waste, would cause irreparable damage.  If introduced into the food or water systems, a generation could die, a city laid barren for a millennium. 

So far we have been kept safe but just one mistake, one oversight, one minute of carelessness would be all it would take.

This story is not a what if this happens, it's a when.

Chapter1

The final operations he had endured over so many weeks, had gone well. The surgeon had been flown in from Switzerland and the two nurses recruited from the UK at great cost. The numerous procedures had taken place in a small, run-down private hospital in Botswana where he was the only patient.

Once he was satisfied they were finished and the surgeon, pleased with his work, gave the all-clear, he had gathered them together in the basement and shot them one at a time in the back of the head before burning the hospital down, leaving no records or, heaven forbid, photographs. 

When the dust settled and he was convinced he had covered his tracks, he took off for a remote lodge in the high mountains to fully recover.

That was three months ago and this morning he stood naked before a full length mirror to study the results.  They were quite remarkable. His eyes had new blue retinas changed just over a year ago in Beijing, China and his fingerprints had been altered some six months later by a specialist in Bonn, Germany.  As with the doctor and nurses in Botswana, those who performed the operations and anyone associated with them were now all dead.

The person who stared back from the mirror looked like a man in his mid-sixties, some fourteen years older than he actually was.  It was quite a difference.  He had to offer the surgeon extra for the ageing, something the man had never done before as he specialised in supplying the fountain of youth to middle-aged patients, but he was greedy and needed the money so no questions were asked though it was quite obvious something was not quite right about the whole thing. 

True to his word the doctor had done a magnificent job, not only making him look older but also removing any trace of interest or unusualness.  The face that looked back was plain and ordinary and old, exactly as requested.  The biggest incongruity looking down was the body which was at odds with the old face as it was quite exceptional, hard and toned and much younger.  He would need to be careful, to always cover up he thought.

Once the job was over he would have to go all through it again to reverse the surgeons work for he would be the most wanted man in the world.  But the world would be looking for an older man, for who could conceive the dedication it would take to go through all that pain to actually age yourself this way intentionally.

The full length bay windows were open and a light breeze blew in the heat of the day, something he had never quite become used to. Turning to the bed, he picked up the well-thumbed Swedish passport which he had carried with him for over a year and holding it up he could see the small photo matching the face in the mirror perfectly .  This had formed the basis for the surgeon's outstanding work. 

Charles Hellquist was his name now and would be for the duration of this job.  He had come across Hellquist in Stockholm, Sweden, sometime ago and realised almost immediately that the old man would be perfect.  It had taken months of study, following him around the city night and day, taking an apartment opposite his, setting up all kinds of sophisticated surveillance equipment to monitor his every movement, checking his patterns and the number of people he interfaced with each day before he was finally satisfied.

Hellquist had been a sad man, lonely, faceless and grey.  Someone who struggled to communicate with his fellow human beings on almost all levels, spending days without saying a word to anyone.  He was one of those unnoticed individuals who is lost amongst the millions of people living on top of each other in a major city.  A man who had no friends or relations, in fact no one at all who connected with him in anyway.  So it had been easy to lure him away with the promise of friendship and a better life and then kill him, disposing of the body, quietly and discreetly, before rolling up his life and taking over his bank account and credit cards, paying off the rent in the apartment and moving his meagre belongings to another town where it was all destroyed.  Over the past twelve months he had repeatedly checked but there was no record anywhere of him being missed.

Now, today, he was Charles Hellquist and still looking in the mirror he dressed himself in a beige linen suit, brown shoes and white shirt, putting the passport in his inside breast pocket and his wallet in the other. He stepped onto a chair and reached up, pushing back the loose partition in the bedroom ceiling.  Inside was a FNP tactical handgun with an Osprey silencer and a 15 round magazine. He took it down and stripped the parts laying them out on the white sheets casually causing oil marks to soil the pristine cotton.  He checked all the pieces were working and clean, reassembled and then checked the movement again, which was slick and easy.  He replaced the magazine before walking through the open bay windows onto the porch.

As he came round the front of the house he saw the smiling face of his host Ernesto, a thin charming dark-skinned man dressed in beige shorts and a loose fitting shirt with a large battered straw hat on his head, who raised his hand in greeting. The man's face changed when he saw the gun, first puzzlement and then fear as he turned to run. Charles shot him twice in the back and watched him fall into the dust, his body convulsing in its death throes. 

He then walked into the house, through the hallway and into the white tiled kitchen, casually shooting both the cook and the maid at close range, neither saw him coming and were dead before they even knew what had happened.  He stepped left into the breakfast room where Ernesto's wife and her young son were sitting playing with a wooden toy oblivious to what was going on as the silencer had effectively masked any noise.  She looked up, saw the gun and a look of surprise came over her face as the bullet went between her eyes and she fell first to the right and then off the chair hitting the tiled floor hard.  The boy ran to his mother's aid and Charles was pleased that he was mercifully facing away when he shot him through the back of the head.  I am not a monster, he thought.  But he knew he would have killed him no matter which way the child was looking.

He walked through into his bedroom, picked up a brown leather suitcase that was already packed, walked out the front door and put it carefully in the back of Ernesto's old Toyota Land Cruiser. 

Over at the well he dismantled the pistol and dropped the pieces in, listening to the splash each time to ensure no piece got caught up.  He then walked to where his host was laying in the dust with blood already pooling round his body and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him onto the veranda. Moving into the house and turning on the gas in the kitchen, he set fire to both the curtains and some bedding before standing back beside the Toyota to ensure everything had caught light. 

Satisfied, he got in the car and started the long drive down towards Sir Seretse Khama International Airport with just one quick last glance in the rear view mirror to see the house quickly becoming consumed by the flames.  At the airport he checked in with his new passport certain that the aged computer system would never notice that a passenger with that name had never arrived in the country.  

Phase one completed, he thought.  After so many years he was finally on the first step of the plan so carefully mapped out and constructed.  Everything that he had earned and scraped together was sunk into this enterprise, every single job no matter how dirty, robberies, killings, drug running, he had taken them all, taken anything that would make him decent money and it would all now be spent making this dream of his come true.  Millions of dollars to make hundreds of millions maybe, or die in the process.

Chapter 2

The office party was going like all office parties go when someone retires, boringly.  People gravitating to their various cliques, split by management and status, blue collar or white and age and experience.  Most just happy to be away from their desks and workbenches for a while.  The talk was muted, the atmosphere a little stilted, with polite meaningless conversation to fill up the silences and plastic cups full of cheap fizzy wine.  A little music might have helped but there was no equipment handy so they all stood around looking awkward as the weak sun filtered through the dusty slatted blinds.

David Stanley was the man of the moment.  He had been the Sales Director at the small engineering company for the past twelve years and even though just fifty-five, had decided to take early retirement.  It had come as quite a shock to his boss, the owner and CEO, Phillip Moore, who soon came to realise that nothing he could say would persuade David to change his mind.

The 'private' meeting they had had earlier that day, overheard by most of the office staff, had become heated.

Look, said Phillip.  You are still a young man with at least ten or twelve years to go before you should retire.  There is a great future here for you.  Why chuck it in now?  You cannot possibly afford to.

I've had enough, said David.  Far too much travel.  I am tired, bone tired and I want to sleep in my own bed each night.  You know I have given you a good return on what you pay me.  The company is in a much better place than when I joined.  Please let's not argue, I want to part as friends.

Phillip struggled to disagree.  When David had joined, 90% of all their business was in the UK but he was an expert in building distribution networks and now they had partners throughout Europe, CIS, North America and even the Far East. The UK business was still there but dwarfed by the overseas sales all managed and controlled by David.  He found the distributors, trained them and ran them incredibly successfully allowing Phillip to do what he did best which was innovate and develop new products.  Between them the business had gone from strength to strength and Phillip, as sole owner was fast becoming a rich man.  Now with David leaving he wondered if it was all about to collapse.

Right, he finally said tersely.  I know what this is about.  Just tell me what you want.  Shares, pay rise, bigger bonuses or do you want part ownership?  I don't like to be threatened or receive ultimatums like this but I am a big enough man to know when I am beaten.

He was amazed when David said,  Nothing.  I am finished, worn out and fed up more than you can ever know.  I just want to leave and spend time with my wife.  God knows we have hardly seen each other in the past few years.  Look Phillip, I will still be about if you need help and advice.  I will even source my replacement if you want me to but I need to go.

Phillip's temper flared, Don't do me any favours! he said through clenched teeth.  If you want to go, then fucking go.  I was successful before you, I will be successful after!

With that the meeting was over and the two men hadn't spoken since.

David smiled and did the rounds shaking hands and swapping banter with the people he had come to know, though he had mostly talked to them over the phone. There was no one here who he was close to, they were colleagues, not friends.  He had spent the last twelve years travelling from one country to the next, leaving late on a Sunday night and getting home the following Friday night, office days were right at the end of the month when he collated the sales figures, put together his monthly report, got his team together for the sales meeting and then gave a presentation to the board which was usually him, the Production Director, Financial Director, Human Resources Director and Phillip. He had been almost a ghost to the rest of the workers, contactable by mobile phone and email to his battered old laptop which had been dragged from country to country.  It had been a tough life and he smiled to himself, tougher than anyone could imagine as the engineering company was not even his main job.

During a lull, his wife, Anne, came over to stand with him carrying a couple of cups of the cheap fizz.  They had been married fifteen years and all in all it had been a happy marriage probably helped by the fact they only saw each other at weekends.  It had always been that way and they knew no different.  David smiled.  She was still an attractive woman, brown hair and blue eyes, who dressed well and looked after herself more by diet than exercise as she hated gyms.  She passed him the cup and everyone turned as Phillip called them all to order.

What followed was a mixture of embarrassment and bullshit as far as David was concerned with Phillip both praising David for his service and then turning the talk into a rah-rah meeting for the company which was a touch insensitive as David was now quite clearly seen as yesterday's man.  At the end and almost as an afterthought, he presented David with a small gold coloured desk clock which looked as though it had been bought at a local street market, which it probably had.

David smiled as he collected it and then in a quick speech thanked everyone round the room for all their help and support over the years.  He knew, as they knew, he would leave and never see any of them again.

He was a touch melancholy when he looked out at the sea of faces wishing him well.  Whilst it was poorly done, at least here he had got some kind of send off.  Unbeknownst to anyone in the room, including Anne, he had worked for MI6 for twice as long and would not even receive a handshake from them.

The meeting with Phillip was the third of three bad meetings.  Earlier that month he had a stand up argument with Anne about money.  When he had told her of his wish to retire she had initially gone quiet and then two days later cornered him over dinner, the second bottle of wine