Darke Mission Read Free

Mercury’s unparalleled Wembley performance at
Live Aid
in the 1980s that he just had to contribute. When he had little money his donations were a pittance but when he became ‘over-rich’, as his mum called it, they were often into six figures at a time. In those days, he had never given much thought towards other charities, but his young son was so affected by the plight of the snow leopard that many of his recent donations were channelled to the animal kingdom.
    JJ hadn’t left himself short. He liked the material things that many successful men of his generation appreciated, fast cars, cool watches and stylish but not trendy suits, shirts and shoes. He lived in a five storey Regency terraced house just off the King’s Road in Chelsea. If he drove to work, parked his car, got his breakfast as soon as the EAT or Pret shops opened at 6.45/7am, and sat in his very comfortable chair in the office, then his door-to-door record commute was seventeen minutes. He hadn’t been on a bus or a tube for over fifteen years. Not for any snobbish or arrogant reason but because (a) driving his own car was quicker and (b) once on GMTV an elderly Scottish university professor got yanked off the screen because he said that the most dangerous transmission mechanism of transferable disease in the UK was public transport. Oops! The truth will out but you can’t go around propagating that one.
    Now in his early forties, JJ had calmed down about cars. He owned only two, a Porsche Carrera 4S Tiptronic for his short, daily commute and a prized 1967 AC Cobra 427 garaged at his mum’s house in Scotland.
    The one material item JJ hadn’t calmed down on was watches. Indeed, he was a bit
American Psycho
passionate about them. His collection amounted to around twelve examples. His philosophy on watches was based on the premise that a man should have at least three wristwatches. These didn’t need to be expensive but should fall into three categories. The first was for work, if that work entailed wearing a suit or at least a shirt with long sleeves. The second category was casual wear, which encompassed normal weekend attire or beachside cool. For the majority of men of the modern age over thirty years old, categories one and two cover most activities but for a select few there is also category three. Category three is for dangerous living types. For instance, mountain climbing would be one as well as being a member of the armed forces. In this line of work, particularly the latter, you have to assess the need for tools in a fight or a tight spot. In addition to being sturdy, waterproof and visible a watch can be a dangerous weapon, an aid to survival, an instrument to pinpoint your location. In this category a man might have a Breitling Emergency, an MTM Cobra or even an Invicta Subaqua Noma IV Chronograph. The first two could help you out of a difficult situation either by transmitting signals to rescue services if you were stuck up a mountain (the Breitling) or if you needed the aid of a compass or slide rule (the Cobra). The Invicta could not do any of that but if you flicked the quick release deployment bracelet and dropped the watch to cover your fist then you would have one of the most effective knuckle-dusters around. One blow to the head would result in man down, with a few indentations where indentations are not meant to be.
    Just as JJ was studying the sweeping second hand on his IWC Top Gun Miramar ceramic pilot’s watch on his left wrist, almost mesmerised by its metronome movement, a gaunt fellow stepped gingerly into his office.
    â€œMr Darke, may I come in?”
    â€œYou can call me JJ, Yves-Jacques, most folk do. I thought you had until tomorrow night to work on the game theoretic Greek problem, or is this a different matter?”
    â€œNo Sir. I’ve spent most of the morning on the Greek game tree and thought my observations were about ready for you,” said Yves-Jacques.