Chapter 80

Betts had raced out of the tower after Natalia. Running as quickly as he could down the never ending curving tower steps, along the organ balcony and then hopping over the wider steps that took him into the body of the Cathedral and through to the main doors, the sunlight suddenly streamed into his eyes. He had not appreciated the relative darkness within the building itself. There she was, dark hair bobbing along and nearly back on the road that led to Southsea Common.

Betts quickened his pace. It was not time to lose her now. Out of breath he caught up with Natalia. She turned towards him as he tapped her on the shoulder and looked deeply into those unfathomable auburn eyes, the stubborn yet beautiful face, the perfectly presented figure in the neat trouser suit.

Natalia did not want to be stopped or held up. She needed to return to her remaining family in Lima as the Tower Captain would confirm completion of the deal electronically, once the stock had been tested. “What do you want?” she snarled at Betts.

“I’ll give you a lift to your hotel, and then to the airport for your flight,” he said, as noncommittally as possible. “OK,” she said, surprisingly without any hesitation. Natalia used people and was used to using people. This would save her a little time, she thought.

Natalia and Betts jumped into his rickety second-hand white van, in which he had originally picked her up. He crunched the gears, attempted a three point turn on the too narrow street, and on the fourth turn whisked them both towards Natalia’s grand, seafront hotel. It was a short journey in the van and Natalia did not need long to freshen up, change and grab her things. After checking out of her hotel, Betts would then drive her to Heathrow airport for the flight to Lima in Peru, which stopped en-route at Rio de Janeiro.

Betts had kept the engine running. The chugging of the motor and the newspaper he was reading made him oblivious to the Woodcutter’s movements underneath and behind the van. The Woodcutter had easily been able to follow Betts’ movements in the van and had only needed to jog the couple of streets between the Cathedral and the seafront hotel to carry out his work.

If Betts was thinking anything, it was the thought of how he was to ensure that Natalia had a good send off; a parting that she would never forget. It might even ensure she returned to the UK one day to see how her trusted ally, Petty Officer Betts, was doing.

Natalia was up in her hotel room and thought that she might as well give Betts one last treat. He had been vital to their operation after all and could be very useful in the future to ensure that the Tower Captain did what he was told. Natalia picked out her belt like skirt and appropriate expensive lingerie. She did what she needed to be noticed, yet she wore it all with an air of sophistication, the distant attitude, the playing hard to get. It all just meant people found her more of a challenge; a special enigma which made it difficult to unravel the outer layers of her bravado.

Betts was not quite drooling as he loaded Natalia’s two bags into the back of the van and opened the side door for her to hoist herself in, but he was not far from that state. This reaction reinforced Natalia’s contention that men were like dogs. For dogs were creatures that were always after affection, naturally far too obvious with their feelings and generally loyal if you kept them fed and watered and gave them somewhere to stay.

Once away from the hotel, Betts accelerated and drove straight over the couple of mini-roundabouts that led them past the naval dockyard and the university buildings to the beginning of the M275. The motorway would take the little white van off the Isle of Portsmouth.

Unfortunately for them, the remains of Betts and Natalia would forever lie on the Isle of Portsmouth. As the van hit fifty miles per hour, it exploded into a spectacular fireball, the debris flying across the road and hitting oncoming vehicles in their path. There was immediate pandemonium within the vicinity.

As he gazed through his binoculars from the roof of the nearest, highest building, which happened to be a vacant office block, the Woodcutter reflected that Betts and Natalia would not have had time to know what had hit them, or more importantly, to have felt any pain. They would stay together forever, just as Betts had wanted.

The Tower Captain took in the scene in the far distance through his own eyes. His organisation had been able to test the quality of the stock immediately after the meeting and provide the Woodcutter his instructions to kill Natalia. The traffic was already backing up, sirens could be heard from vehicles making their way to the scene, and the noise of the explosion had been audible across most of the city. The Tower Captain gave the Woodcutter a call.

True to his word now that the deed had been done, the Tower Captain disclosed to the Woodcutter the location of his wife and daughter.