Traitor, p.1
Traitor, page 1
G R Jordan
Traitor
A Kirsten Stewart Thriller #12
First published by Carpetless Publishing 2023
Copyright © 2023 by G R Jordan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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First edition
ISBN: 978-1-915562-52-4
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
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We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.
C. S. Lewis
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgement
Novels by G R Jordan
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Read on to discover the Patrick Smythe series!
About the Author
Also by G R Jordan
Foreword
The events of this book, while based around real locations in the north of Scotland and across the globe, are entirely fictional and all characters do not represent any living or deceased person. All companies are fictitious representations.
Acknowledgement
To Ken, Jean, Colin, Evelyn, John and Rosemary for your work in bringing this novel to completion, your time and effort is deeply appreciated.
Novels by G R Jordan
The Highlands and Islands Detective series (Crime)
Water’s Edge
The Bothy
The Horror Weekend
The Small Ferry
Dead at Third Man
The Pirate Club
A Personal Agenda
A Just Punishment
The Numerous Deaths of Santa Claus
Our Gated Community
The Satchel
Culhwch Alpha
Fair Market Value
The Coach Bomber
The Culling at Singing Sands
Where Justice Fails
The Cortado Club
Cleared to Die
Man Overboard!
Antisocial Behaviour
Rogues’ Gallery
The Death of Macleod - Inferno Book 1
A Common Man - Inferno Book 2
A Sweeping Darkness - Inferno Book 3
Dormie 5
The First Minister - Past Mistakes Book 1
The Guilty Parties - Past Mistakes Book 2
Vengeance is Mine - Past Mistakes Book 3
Winter Slay Bells
Kirsten Stewart Thrillers (Thriller)
A Shot at Democracy
The Hunted Child
The Express Wishes of Mr MacIver
The Nationalist Express
The Hunt for ‘Red Anna’
The Execution of Celebrity
The Man Everyone Wanted
Busman’s Holiday
A Personal Favour
Infiltrator
Implosion
Traitor
Jac Moonshine Thrillers
Jac’s Revenge
Jac for the People
Jac the Pariah
The Contessa Munroe Mysteries (Cozy Mystery)
Corpse Reviver
Frostbite
Cobra’s Fang
The Patrick Smythe Series (Crime)
The Disappearance of Russell Hadleigh
The Graves of Calgary Bay
The Fairy Pools Gathering
Austerley & Kirkgordon Series (Fantasy)
Crescendo!
The Darkness at Dillingham
Dagon’s Revenge
Ship of Doom
Supernatural and Elder Threat Assessment Agency (SETAA) Series (Fantasy)
Scarlett O’Meara: Beastmaster
Island Adventures Series (Cosy Fantasy Adventure)
Surface Tensions
Dark Wen Series (Horror Fantasy)
The Blasphemous Welcome
The Demon’s Chalice
Chapter 01
The day was frosty, but the sun was shining in the sky. There were no clouds. If you could just get into the direct line of the sun, out of the shade of the trees of the park, you could feel a bit of warmth until the chill of the air fought back against you. Kirsten had never been in Germany, but now, she was standing in a park in Frankfurt, having been taken there by Anna Hunt. They were searching for Gethsemane, someone Godfrey knew—someone Anna had heard of, but only a word, a whisper.
The Service was a mess, undercut by Gethsemane, to where they almost had taken Godfrey. The head of the Service had now disappeared, gone into what Anna had described as ghost mode. She might contact him, but they wouldn’t meet him. Everything would be on his terms. He was hiding, something that Kirsten was still coming to terms with. . . Godfrey was afraid.
If Godfrey feared something, Kirsten feared it. Anna certainly feared it, and so did Justin. Justin Chivers had accompanied them and was standing in the other corner of the park as both he and Kirsten watched Anna sit at a public bench. It was made of wood, lovingly crafted, and probably unique. Maybe it remembered someone who had died, or maybe they just had a rather good council here in Frankfurt.
Sommerhoffpark, while not quite taking your breath away, was one of those areas that did a public good—greenery and trees in the middle of a city. There was a friendly atmosphere about it. People were cheerful about being there. Despite the coolness of the air, the sun was bringing in joy. There had been little joy recently in Kirsten’s life.
Craig was gone. That’s what Anna had said. Kirsten shouldn’t treat him now as a long-lost lover, but should treat him as a threat. If she met him, she was never to take her guard down.
Kirsten could see where Anna was coming from. He had certainly changed. Losing his legs had turned him against the Service, turned him against the very thing he’d worked for and believed in for the last ten years. Kirsten wasn’t sure if she knew him anymore.
Craig had walked away from her. Well, wheeled away from her. He was still in that wheelchair, and she saw that as something that twisted his mind. He couldn’t accept it; couldn’t deal with what had happened. She didn’t blame him for that, but she blamed him for not trusting in her. She blamed him for not sharing with her, letting his pride impede her from helping him.
And then she felt bad. How do you pour guilt on a paraplegic? How do you blame him for what was going on? He had suffered enough. The fault was at Godfrey’s door. After all, it was his mistake to kill an enemy hostage during a prisoner exchange swap that caused all the anger. The anger had manifested itself back towards Craig and Kirsten. That led to Craig being involved in an attempted kidnap and Justin Chivers trying to save him. He had saved him. He just hadn’t saved his legs.
Kirsten pushed it all to the back of her mind as she saw an elderly man hobbling along with a stick. She watched as Anna carefully flicked her head over towards him, and then away again, as if she’d seen nothing of interest. Kirsten could tell from the second that Anna had focused on the man that this was he, Klaus Bauer.
Klaus Bauer had been an agent working in Germany for the German equivalent of the British Service. Anna had dealings with him over the years, but he was also the only other person she knew to mention the word Gethsemane. The man was ninety now and Anna had almost felt bad about dragging him along.
Kirsten thought he was doing all right for ninety. Yes, there was silver hair, but he walked reasonably upright, the stick more of a gentle aid than something to hang onto. The man was shuffling along the ground. Certainly, Kirsten could have walked a lot quicker, but he looked all right.
Kirsten let her eyes wander to those people behind Klaus Bauer. She scanned, mentally taking in each person walking here and there. Something in her brain focused on a man at the back.
He was dressed in a blue sweater, beige trousers underneath, and had a rather enormous smile on his face. He was carrying a sports bag over his shoulder and seemed to be nonchalantly walking along through the park. At one point, he got too close to Klaus Bauer. Kirsten looked at him carefully. He was jaunty in his step, too jaunty. Kirsten didn’t like it.
She flicked her eyes over towards Justin Chivers and saw that he was staring at someone else. It was a woman jogging through the park, and if Justin had been any other man, Kirsten might have thought he was slacking on the job. This woman was attractive, wearing Lycra. It was extremely luminous. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail with a sweatband; her wrists were covered in sweatbands. She had those rather modern trainers on too, with the short ankle socks, the ones that practically exposed her whole ankle.
But Justin’s taste didn’t run that way, and Kirsten checked the trajectory the woman was on. Both she and the man would meet Klaus Bauer at roughly the same time. She saw Justin flick his head over towards her, and she gave a quick nod. Together, they walked slowly forward from their positions, moving on an intercept course. She’d take the man around about ten meters behind Klaus Bauer.
The bag was worrying her. Was there a gun in it? It seemed quite heavy for a sports bag. He looked like someone who might have been swimming, or maybe come from a game of squash or badminton, but there were no rackets. The bag was simply too weighed down.
The woman was approaching now at a fair rate, and Kirsten saw the man start to stop and drop the bag down in front of him. Kirsten quickened her pace. She saw Justin doing the same.
Klaus Bauer continued on, unaware of what was behind him, or maybe he knew. Maybe he was aware of the risks. If so, why was he still here? Kirsten couldn’t think about that, but she saw Anna Hunt appreciate the danger.
Anna stood up and walked towards Klaus. The man with the bag was now unzipping it, and Kirsten broke into a run. Justin Chivers was further ahead of her. Kirsten saw the handgun being taken out of the bag, about to be thrown up to the woman jogging through.
Chivers was exemplary. He was in a suit with an umbrella, hastening to make the intercept. He arrived at the man just as the woman got there and the man was about to throw a gun up to her. With his left hand, he shoved his umbrella into the man’s face and then drove his left shoulder into the woman running forward. He caught her up on the chest. Her pace caught her off guard, and Justin’s shoulder was like a wall. She bounced off it straight down and found Justin leaning quickly over her.
The gun had been thrown, though, and it had bounced off the tumbling woman out onto the path. Kirsten clattered into the man with the bag, tumbled forward, picked up the gun, and tucked it inside her jacket. She then went back to the man, apologising profusely, offering to help him up.
‘You need to rest,’ said Kirsten, and then looked at the man. ‘Rest. You need to rest. I’ll help you over.’
She picked up the bag, feeling the weight of several weapons inside. Justin still had his umbrella, and he pushed it into the leg of the woman in front of him. Several people were now making their way over.
Kirsten turned to a local, saying to them, ‘Do you speak English? I don’t speak German. Do you speak English?’
‘I speak English,’ said a rather helpful man. He was older, with a moustache, and had a concerned face.
‘Can you tell this man that I’ll help him?’
The man spoke in German. Then the man with a moustache said, ‘I can take them to a hospital, if you want. Is he okay?’
‘I think he’s had a rather large bang on the head,’ said Kirsten. ‘It might be worthwhile getting it checked out.’
‘Is that his bag?’ the man asked.
‘No,’ said Kirsten. ‘That’s mine. This lady’s had a bit of a collision, too.’
‘Should I call an ambulance?’ asked the man.
‘I don’t think it’s that serious, but concussions need checked out, don’t they?’ The man looked at her. ‘Bangs to the head, I don’t know how to say it in German. It comes afterwards.’
The man nodded, and a woman appeared beside him.
‘This is my wife. We’ll take them to the car and take them to the hospital.’
‘Good,’ said Kirsten.
The tip of Justin’s umbrella was armed with a sedative, and the woman was extremely woozy. Seeing a quick jab from Justin to the man, Kirsten knew he’d be compliant for a while, as would the woman. Justin helped her up and said he would take them to the car.
‘My wife can do that.’
‘I insist,’ said Justin, and Kirsten understood what he was doing. He was making sure there would be no other problems, making sure they were packaged into the car and out of the area. By the time they would come back, no one would be here. Kirsten kept the bag, slinging it over her shoulder. She glanced back towards the seat and saw Anna Hunt in conversation with Klaus Bauer.
Kirsten would remain to stand guard, but the conversation with Bauer wouldn’t be long. They were just a couple of people, an old man resting on his way through the park. Justin disappeared, along with the rather helpful man and his wife, ferrying the two victims of the accident back to their car. Life in the park went back to normal, people travelling here and there, young kids playing with balls, families out enjoying a day off, but Kirsten kept a watch.
She’d have to take the bag as well. You couldn’t leave weapons like this sitting around. Maybe she could have given it to Klaus, but at ninety, the bag would weigh him down. The downside of being in Germany was there were no people to drop weapons into, the same as Kirsten did at home. You didn’t hang on to every weapon you found. They needed taken out of the public reach.
The conversation with Klaus Bauer took approximately five minutes, and then the old man was up on his feet, walking away without even looking at Kirsten. Anna remained for a moment, then got up and walked away because she had found a coffee cart. She purchased three and then went to a distant part of the park, sitting down on a different bench. Kirsten joined her, slinging the bag underneath the seat and taking a cup off Anna. Justin appeared two minutes later. He’d been about, though, having returned from leaving the attackers in the company of the good Samaritans.
‘Did you get anything?’ asked Kirsten.
‘I got a lot,’ said Anna. ‘Klaus Bauer is a good man. I told him about the situation we were in. He knows to trust me. That’s the thing. As you go on in this life, make sure you leave trust with people. Godfrey hasn’t. Godfrey has no one who trusts him now.
‘They see me as hard. They see me as someone who can be ruthless, but I’m trustworthy,’ said Anna.
‘Gethsemane was once believed to be Godfrey’s partner by our German friends, but he betrayed her. Klaus says that Godfrey gave her over for a higher prize, although he’s not sure what that means. Maybe it’s the Service. Maybe he was on his way up. People climb the ladder like that. You need to be aware of that.’
‘What happened to her then?’ asked Justin.
‘The Russians took her,’ said Anna. ‘Apparently, she suffered a long torture, day after day, horrific. A woman stuck on her own. You can only imagine the way they would torture.’
Kirsten felt the chill run through her. She could imagine, as it nearly happened to her. She was feeling a sympathy for Gethsemane, and then she remembered what was going on back at home.
‘But she apparently escaped,’ said Anna Hunt. ‘She got away. If she got away from that sort of incarceration, she’s dangerous. There’s few that get away from it.’
‘How do you know they didn’t just make a deal with her?’
‘I don’t, but it’s very unlikely they just let her get away. They don’t make a lot of deals like that. Most people don’t turn. Being a double agent’s incredibly difficult,’ said Anna. ‘You’ve lost everything forever. No one trusts you after that. Even if you come good for them, even if you turn round and offer them everything, they know you jumped ship. You can’t jump back.’
