Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021) A BATEMAN (fiction novels to read .TXT) 📖

health and safety posters for everything from gas leaks, power cuts and water ingress to full scale evacuation procedures. The metal walls were painted in cream enamel and reminded King of the bowels of a ship.

“He’s requested I assist you, as has Sir Galahad. Naturally, I didn’t need persuading, I’ve been a surrogate family member for years! I first went down to the estate to have a sort of assignation with Simon’s sister. She was horse crazy and mother Mereweather thought I could get her out of the saddle. We ended up riding horses of course. She was practically born in the saddle.”

“A spot of fox hunting, what?” King replied sarcastically, trying his best at an impression of the landed gentry.

“No. But we did draw some pegs and join the pheasant shoot for a few birds,” Grainger smiled wryly. “To be honest, it’s a different world and Horsey Harriet wasn’t really my type…” He paused. “Simon is solid, though. And the thing about Simon being in his line of work, well I imagine one could always trust him.”

“How so?”

“Well, the family is richer than Croesus.”

“Who?”

“Ancient Greece, around six-hundred BC. He was the King of Lydia who, according to Herodotus, reigned for fourteen years until his defeat by the Persian king Cyrus the Great.”

“Why do I always get a bloody history lesson?” King muttered.

“Well, he was colossally wealthy, hence the expression.”

“Was he as rich as Bill Gates?”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, that would still have been a better analogy, then.”

“School of hard knocks, university of life?” Grainger grinned.

King smiled. “Got expelled from the school of hard knocks, still at the Open University version of life, as a mature student. In a crap subject. Probably won’t graduate.”

Grainger chuckled. “I expect there are more than a few things you could teach me.”

“Don’t be so sure.” King paused. “We are what we are…”

“Never a truer word spoken,” Grainger said with a smile.

“So, what has Mereweather being wealthy got to do with anything?”

“Why, don’t you see? The man is completely incorruptible. I mean, his family have a net worth more than some countries. Nobody could ever hope to bribe the man…” King thought of Mereweather’s position, how he occupied the chair of a man who had been bribed. Not everything came down to money. King had been put in a similar position, too. In this business your loved ones would always be the most effective leverage, but he got Grainger’s point. Grainger caught hold of the door handle on his right and said, “My office…” He paused. “Now, your extra bags have been taken to my dive unit. They will be quite safe. I will see that they’re padlocked anyway.” He sat down behind a small wooden desk and gestured for King to take a seat opposite.

King closed the door behind him and pulled out the chair. The office was cramped, with a few photographs of various marine expeditions on the wall, the obligatory health and safety posters and curiously, a golf bag and clubs.

Grainger saw King looking and said, “The helicopter landing pad is a great place to drive a few balls.”

“Not very environmentally friendly.”

Grainger smiled. “I suppose not…”

King stared at him for a moment, watching the discomfort in the man’s eyes before saying, “You’re here for something else, aren’t you? No self-respecting eco-warrior would drive golf balls into the sea. What’s the depth here, three-hundred metres?”

Grainger smiled. “More than ten times that in places. That sub is lying on a ledge that drops off to over twelve-thousand feet.”

“So, you’re here for reasons other than the submarine, but you’re not a committed member of Aurora?” King said quietly. “And you’ve obviously been here for a while.”

Grainger nodded. “I check for listening devices twice a day, but I’ve never found anything, we should be fine.” He paused, resting his elbows on the desk and steepling his fingers. “I took the marine engineer job with Aurora because Aurora subcontracted the company I work for, but Simon asked me to look into the operation. He’s not satisfied that Aurora is on the level. Well, not him per se, but the British government.”

King nodded. “Too good to be true?”

“Exactly.” Grainger paused. “But while I’m here, I am uniquely placed to give you the assistance required.”

“You know what he has planned?”

“Yes. I can get you down in our submersible, and I can get you onboard through our dry-docking system. It’s quite simple, really. You see, the water pressure would mean that the hatch could never be opened. Either from the inside or outside of the submarine. Our system uses a gaiter which surrounds the hatch, the pressure is equalised to that inside the submarine and the pressure holds the gaiter in place. We open our hatch, then we open the submarine’s hatch, and you slip inside. I’ll be at the controls of the submersible. You do all your secret squirrel daring-do heroics, get back on the submersible, hatches replaced, pressure restored, gaiter removed and back to the surface for tea and medals…”

King smiled and nodded. He just couldn’t help thinking that it wouldn’t be that simple.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

Geneva, Switzerland

 

Captain Gerrard Durand waved them over, his eyes on the screen of the laptop. He stared transfixed, as if taking his eyes off the screen even for a moment would have a detrimental impact on events.

“Noventa has sent his first message to Fortez through the dark web. It is an integrated messenger service bypassing traditional surface internet mailing hosts.”

Ramsay and Thorpe gathered round, but Caroline was slow to move. She winced as she straightened up, seeing that Thorpe had noticed. She did her best to walk over unaided, but in doing so earlier at the café on Quai du Mont Blanc, she had aggravated the injury. She continued, ignoring her crutch but she knew