Enemy Within Read Free Page A

the SS Great Britain a marvellous spectacle below him, and in the distance the Clifton Gorge and the illuminated Brunel's Suspension Bridge clearly visible despite the rain.
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 7
     
    As I opened my eyes I could not, for a moment, remember where I was. Then it came flooding back. The sun light was doing its best to get round and through the clos ed curtains, a nice day perhaps? I rolled over and a pain shot up my side. After a few moments I tried again and slowly put my legs over the side of the bed, grabbed some pills and staggered to the bathroom. In the bathroom I splashed water over my face and washed the pills down with water. I felt groggy, so I stuck my head under the shower and let it run. After a while I lathered those areas not covered by my chest bandage and washed my hair. It never failed, a hair wash always wakes me up and gets me thinking at normal speed, and I almost felt human again. Drying myself as I stepped back in to the room I took a further dose of pills; providing I was careful the ribs seemed to be under control.  Sitting on the bed I started to draw up a list of things to do. 
    In the short term I needed a pair of shoes. Then I needed to get out of the hotel. I had been careful not to use a credit card but the airport and surrounds were bristling with CCTV cameras so presumably I would be traced before long. Which led me to another thought. If they, whoever they were, were able to trace my card use then I had to use cash that meant I needed more than I was currently carrying and could get from an ATM. I had better get to the bank.
    I dressed, went down stairs, settled the bill, and caught the courtesy bus back out to the airport where in a shoe shop I bought a pair of trainers. Further along the airport mall I bought some underwear and socks, shirts, a pair of Jeans and a corduroy jacket. Next door I bought a cheap travel bag and in the gents bathroom dressed in fresh clothes. I had to get a move on. There had been no alternative but to use a credit card so if and when they did get on to that I did not want to be around.
    I caught the bus in to Bristol and walked to the bank just round the corner from the office. I filled in a withdrawal form for 5,000 cash and after extensive identity checks the cashier disappeared, possibly to check with higher authority; a nerve racking few minutes in the semi paranoid state I was in. After what seemed an age the cashier returned with additional cash from the safe, logged it in to her till and then counted out my £ 5,000. At my request it was mostly tens and twentys , although they did top it up with fifties. Apparently the short notice made that necessary. The cashier looked on as I stuffed a thousand in tens and twenties in to my jacket pocket and put the rest in to the travel bag.
    Outside the sun was shining and it was a lovely day. The bank was at one end of a shopping mall and I wandered down the pedestrian precinct until I found a coffee shop.  Inside I queued up and ordered a large latte, but in a mug; I hated latte in a glass. It was not on the menu but I established that they could do me a bacon sandwich and picking up a sachet of HP sauce on the way went and found a table in the gloom at the back of the shop.
    Time to think and plan what to do now . As I sat there I thought back over recent events …
     

CHAPTER 8
     
    The Company I worked for, Control Networks, a software systems company, was a young company at a particularly delicate stage of development.  Control Networks was already a half billion pound corporation, expanding rapidly, and likely to continue to do so if it could continue to survive the growing pains. Alec Bell the CEO, and I had founded the Company some 8 years ago and had managed to build a strong team in Bristol, the same area where both of us had been brought up. With Alec running the company as CEO, I was the Technical Director or CTO and among other things led the team working on the ForceNet project