John Howard, a Gulf War veteran who spent most of his career leading covert missions, is killed by his own car in a hit-and-run. NATO commanders send Sven Ffolkes, a Norwegian police inspector with an acute knowledge of the British way, to investigate. His detective work takes Sven from a peaceful Oxfordshire village to a secret hideout in the Forest of Dean and on to the down-and-out communities of London’s Docklands. On the way he has to tread a careful path between the competing interests of the military and civilian police to ensure that he gets what he needs from both. However, even Sven does not anticipate the powers and charms of Mary.
When John Howard, a Gulf War veteran who spent most of his career leading covert missions, is killed by his own car in a hit-and-run, NATO commanders fear that their security has been breached. They send Sven Ffolkes, a Norwegian police inspector with an acute knowledge of the British way, to investigate. Sven’s suspects are Digger, Tiger, Broadsword, and Bird, members of a mission that Howard had lead into Iraq; Broadbent, the mission coordinator; Dalglish, Howard’s chauffeur; Shelly Jones, his housekeeper and Annabel his daughter, all of whom attended a reunion that Howard had held the previous evening. He discovers that Howard was trying to identify the author of Alpha 4-5, a book about his mission a book about his mission that revealed far more than it should have done for the safety of his team.
Sven also learns of two intruders lurking outside Howard’s house and soon has several possible identities for them including Annabel’s boyfriend, the violent ex-husband of Howard’s girlfriend Denny and Peter Jones, the estranged husband of Shelly. His investigations take Sven from a peaceful Oxfordshire village to a secret hideout in the Forest of Dean and on to the down-and-out communities of London’s Docklands. On the way he has to tread a careful path between the competing interests of the military and civilian police to ensure that he gets what he needs from both. However, even Sven does not anticipate the powers and charms of Mary.
Excerpt
King, the group commander, signalled to his team to stay where they were as he moved forward looking for any form of cover. Two wooden buildings were visible, dead ahead, with a clump of trees to their left. The buildings were definitely too risky, since he could not predict what he might find there. They could be deserted, occupied by civilians or, what he feared most, hiding an Iraqi patrol. He did not really fancy the trees either, but they were easily the lesser of two evils. The team would have to travel a hundred metres across open country to reach them.
He crawled a further ten metres before deciding that he really had no choice but to use his field glasses and pray that nobody would pick up the glint from the sun on them. The first thing that he saw as he focussed on one of the buildings was a light four-wheel-drive truck with a rear-mounted machine gun, heading straight towards him. A second truck followed, not far behind. He turned to signal to his team, but they were all on the ground and behind the best cover that they could find. Both trucks kept coming directly towards them.
King prayed that this would not be third time unlucky. On the two previous occasions when his team had been surprised, it had been by lone, advanced, Iraqi scouts. Each had been killed silently before being able to alert his patrol; the first by a karate blow from Bird and the second from having his throat cut by Viper. Could his luck hold another time? The Iraqi patrol kept coming at them and was getting far too close for comfort. They must have seen us, he reasoned as he prepared to fire.
His team had practised this situation many times before. They would wait neither for an order nor for the enemy to fire first. One spread of fire from a machine gun could disable all of them. He knew that each of them would weigh up the situation and respond correctly; otherwise they would not have been selected for this mission. As he was taking aim, the first truck exploded before his eyes. Thank heaven for the accuracy of Tiger’s shooting. The second truck swerved, coming to an abrupt halt. Simultaneously six Iraqi soldiers jumped out, fired their weapons and hit the ground. These guys were not conscripts; they knew exactly what they were doing. Even so, King and his group responded too quickly for them. The second round of firing from the Iraqis was much less intense, but directed solely towards him.
King felt a deep, searing pain in his right thigh. Looking up, he saw Broadsword and Digger running towards the Iraqis, firing for all they were worth. There was no response. He heard two more single shots before he fainted.
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