Gray Vengeance by Alan McDermott Read Free Book Online Page A

the immigration officer, who was clearly having a hard time matching the man in front of him with the passport he was holding.
    With a grunt and a stamp, he allowed Roberts on his way. After visiting the foreign exchange booth to convert five hundred dollars into sterling, Roberts followed the signs for the Tube. Once seated and pointing towards the centre of London, he went through the counter-surveillance exercises he’d been taught. He pretended to be engrossed in a newspaper, but every time the train slowed, he looked up and scanned the carriage on the pretence of checking which station he was approaching.
    None of his fellow passengers seemed interested in him, but just to be sure, he alighted at South Kensington and switched to the Circle line, which he followed to Notting Hill Gate. Here he transferred to the Central line, but by the time he got to the final switch, at Bank station, he’d seen nothing to arouse his suspicions.
    Confident that he wasn’t being tailed, Roberts took the Northern line to Oval, where he started looking for a bed and breakfast establishment that could accommodate him for a few nights. He found a place that was off the beaten track and paid for three nights in advance.
    The room was sparse, with a small TV and basic coffee and tea-making equipment. The bathroom was functional, if in need of a good clean, though it was luxurious compared to the facilities in Africa.
    After unpacking his few belongings, he lay on the bed and went through a mental checklist of his tasks over the next few days. Step one was to get hold of a cheap laptop so that he could receive orders from his handler and update him on the team’s progress. He had the website address memorised, along with his username and password, and he was due to check in at one in the afternoon the following day. That gave him plenty of time to source both the laptop and a phone to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, as well as extra batteries for both. He’d need them when the power went out.
    He would also need to change up more of the ten thousand dollars he’d been given before he left Kano, and he heeded their warning to spread it around different change bureaus to avoid suspicion. In addition, he’d been given a pre-paid credit card loaded with another five thousand pounds sterling for those purchases that couldn’t be made using cash.
    With the following morning planned out, he headed to the high street in search of supper. The streets were lively as rush hour approached, and he saw the bustling people in a different light. Six months ago, he would have walked among the crowd without thinking about it, but his time in Nigeria had changed all that. He sensed their numbers, and it filled him with confidence that the plan would work.
    ‘The people think they are powerless,’ Sergeant Dan had drummed into each and every one of the recruits, ‘but they hol d th e key to this country. We are sixty million ruled by six hundred self-serving parasites. It’s time for the people of Britain to wake up and see that this is their land, not the playground of the rich and privileged .’
    Roberts scanned the faces of those he passed. Mothers, fathers, every one of them someone’s child. His actions would take some of their lives, and their passing would be mourned, but one day a monument would be built to commemorate those who’d lain down their lives in the name of freedom.

    Roberts was up at seven the next morning, and he showered and dressed before watching the morning news with a cup of instant coffee. At eight, he set off for a local café in search of breakfast to pass the time until the shops opened an hour later.
    He found a window seat and ordered the full English with toast and a coffee, then took a seat that gave him a good view out of the window. None of the passersby seemed to take any notice of him, and there were no occupied parked cars or vans that he could see.
    Which didn’t mean he wasn’t being followed.
    Always assume