Chapter 32: A Secret Conversation with Gareth
William stopped the car near London Bridge. As he got out and stood on the bridge in his down jacket, a Land Rover Range Rover pulled up in front of him. The passenger-side window rolled down, and a white man in his thirties asked, "William Devinshire?"
William nodded. The man in the car said, "Get in."
After William was inside, the car drove towards the City of Westminster, turned onto Downing Street, and entered a secure building.
He was taken to the tenth floor. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, William saw a thin, middle-aged woman in her forties. A nameplate on her desk read 'Catherine Davis'.
Catherine Davis said to the staff member who had brought him up, "I'll take him to Gareth's office. You can go about your business."
Without another word to the staff member, she led William into Gareth's office.
Upon entering, William saw Gareth look up from his work. "Hey, Catherine. Thanks for the escort."
Catherine replied with a straight face, "I was just on my way to the archives and ran into this little guy, so I brought him to you. I'm leaving now, you two can get busy."
"Alright, thank you, Catherine." Gareth stepped forward to open the door and saw her out.
Once Gareth closed the door, William took a look around the office. It was spartan, containing only a desk, several file cabinets, a few chairs, and a wine cabinet. Shaking his head, he teased Gareth, "Gareth, your office is a bit plain, isn't it? Not even a sofa? No beautiful secretary? Your department must be really poor. By the way, who was that woman just now? Bit of a hard case. An old flame of yours?"
"William, shut your mouth. Immediately," Gareth hissed. "Her name is Catherine Davis. She's the director of the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee, you idiot. Watch your mouth around her. She has a reputation for being notoriously sharp-tongued."
Seeing how tense Gareth was, William felt a flicker of relief. It was a good thing Catherine hadn't heard him, or he'd be in real trouble. "Well, good thing she didn't hear me. Couldn't you have sent someone to wait for me at the elevator? If I'd been unlucky and said that where she could hear, it would have been a disaster."
Gareth shot William a glare, exasperated by his flippancy. "Shut your trap. I haven't even had a chance to ask what you've been up to, and you're already causing trouble. You've had a good couple of days, haven't you? Well, she is a great beauty. Lucky you."
"Ha, it was alright. I mean, look at me. Handsome, rich, talented. It's only natural for beautiful women to flock to me," William boasted, pulling out a chair and sitting down in front of Gareth.
"I should have known you were this shameless," Gareth said, taking a large file bag from his desk drawer and handing it to William.
William opened the bag and poured its contents onto the desk. Inside were two documents and ten empty personnel files.
Gareth explained, "These are your official documents. One is a certificate identifying you as the team leader of a sales division at the London Power Corporation. That's for your cover identity. The other makes you a team leader in the M-group. You report only to the committee. These ten files are for your team members. Once you've filled them out, you deliver them to the Dark Castle."
William picked up the two documents and glanced over them. "I know where the Dark Castle is, of course. But Gareth, I'm so famous now, do we really need a cover from the electric company?"
Gareth smiled strangely. "That's your problem to solve. Or, you could just buy the London Power Corporation. Then I could give you the chairman's credentials. How about that?"
William said angrily, "No way. What would I want with that broken company? It loses money every year. Buying it would be asking for trouble."
"The company is very cheap right now," Gareth tempted him. "The entire London Power Corporation is only worth about seventy million pounds. The losses are mainly due to aging circuits and outdated equipment. If you bought it and modernized it, you could probably make a profit."
"I don't want it. I can make more money with that kind of cash doing other things. Besides, everyone knows the power company's union is notoriously difficult to deal with. I don't want to mess with those guys. Let's talk about the group I'm in charge of. As team leader, do I have to work at headquarters? What about M?"
"Ha, the 'Old Lady.' You really don't mince words," Gareth nodded. He didn't like M either. She had been at MI6 for too long, and he couldn't get his own people into her inner circle.
"Your group doesn't need to go to headquarters. You're an emergency action group. If you need any intelligence or want to investigate something, you come to me. When you've assembled your team, you must file a list of your members at the Dark Castle, as per regulations. You can investigate anyone you need to, without telling anyone, but you must have evidence for everything. And," Gareth added, "you must accept the tasks I assign you."
"That means that if you have no tasks to give me, I don't have to do anything," William said happily.
"Well, this isn't the Cold War anymore. There aren't as many special situations domestically, and now everything requires evidence. Without it, my hands are tied. Let the people at the military intelligence bureau handle the dangerous and troublesome stuff. The last thing we need is exposure. If something gets out to the public, it's a disaster. Anyway, you're a rich man. When there's nothing happening, it has nothing to do with you," Gareth said.
"You're just covering for me because you can't bear to let go of the power you've acquired. But fine, I didn't want the power back anyway. It's better off in your hands. I don't even have a son yet; I don't want to worry about an heir in the future. Gareth, it's best if you don't come to me with problems. I just want to enjoy the life of a rich man."
William didn't trust Gareth for a second. Guys like him just wanted to use him as a hired gun, tossing him the dirty work. He wasn't stupid enough to take the bait without any benefits. *Let you and M fight it out like dogs,* he thought. *I'll just watch the show.*
"So, how do I recruit my staff?"
"Recruit whoever you want. You can even find people from the general public. The most important thing is that they're reliable," Gareth said, taking out a business card and handing it to William. "This is for the London records office. It will give you access to some low-level confidential files. You can recruit from the police or the military, but you have to control your team members. Don't let them cause a mess; you'll have to clean it up yourself. When you're on a mission, you're agents. When there's no mission, you're ordinary civilians. Understand? And you'll have to be responsible for your own funding. What I can provide is access to equipment and some official status, so you won't be targeted by other government agencies."
William looked at the business card. It was the address of the London Public Library. *What could I possibly find there?* he wondered, looking at Gareth doubtfully.
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