Chapter 40 Joanna Cleans Up!
Martin Church decided to visit the hospital where Joanna, who was under the protection of the MI5 personnel who were directly controlled by Martin. Each one had been vetted by him as true servants of the Government.
Joanna had survived her brutal attacks and all the tubes and wires had been disconnected from her body and everything was functioning on its own as it should be. She was sitting up in bed reading a book. Two of Martin’s men were stationed outside and one inside. All of them were armed and all had listening devices clipped to their ears should there be anything suspicious happening at the entrance to the hospital.
There were a rota of nine men who alternatively had been assigned to guard her and were warned that it was to be as if their own lives had been in danger. They had their orders that the person that they were guarding had to be treated as if they were royalty and no less.
At mid-day Martin had invited Roland James for obvious reasons and Martha and Charlie to the hospital. They were to stay there until dusk. They were given meals throughout the afternoon until an appointed time when they would be issued with identity cards to wear on the lapels of their outer garments and escorted to the secret place where Joanna was being guarded.
It seemed an endless journey as they were to zig-zag from one floor to another in case of followers. Martin knew that Goodall would have his spies everywhere and he didn’t doubt that they were present. Martin knew that Goodall was very cunning and he would have his men as workers in the hospital and would have given the same reason for them being there to protect someone who was an important witness to a crime. The staff at the hospital were told that on no account were they were to inform anyone of where Joanna was.
Goodall had his men working as cleaners and each had tags to identify themselves, but there were several places they were never allowed to go, especially where strict hygiene was an essential part of the patient recovery programme. As there were several of these areas in the hospital, Goodall was unable to pinpoint where Joanna was being kept.
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The group were finally at their destination, each one alighted from a constantly moving lift. It had been installed on purpose as part of the new wing of the hospital to be opened by the Duchess of Stratton, mainly because she had donated most of the money towards this new innovative wing where technology had no boundaries in surgery. Laser treatment was one of the hush-hush treatments that were going to be the highlight and all would benefit from the treatment for majority of health problems.
Anyone following on the one person lift would soon be discovered and unfortunately for the man who followed with his bucket and mop there was no turning back. He had hoped that waiting for ten slots of the special lift to go by before following would be sufficient for him to arrive unseen and report back to Goodall. There were guards outside in the corridor leading to the secret place where Joanna was and of course the man didn’t have a map of the area as it was all new. He tried desperately to go up past the floor and he might have made it had he not produced a revolver. He had reached down to his ankle as a shoulder holster was too conspicuous, too bulky and being under scrutiny by passing hospital staff would have given the game away that he was armed.
He managed to get one shot out and wounded one of the guards, but he was shot in both legs by another man. He had orders from Goodall if he was caught, he was not to survive. The man must have been in acute agony from his wounds and a lesser person would have fainted but he shot himself in the head.
The lift was stopped and he was gently lifted off and carried along the corridor and into a room where several beds were. On examination by a doctor, he announced that the man was not dead and that it was necessary for him to operate as soon as possible. A team of people were summoned and off they went running towards the operating theatre.
After the fracas was over, Roland and Joanna were united and were left alone to catch up, although it appeared that they were doing more than talking and as a child would say if they saw someone kissing, especially like they were, they would definitely have to get married.
Plans were made by the four that Joanna should leave at three am the next morning. They all slept until 2 am. Joanna was dressed in a cleaner’s outfit. She was made up to look like someone who had been around a long time and would have been better if she had retired. She had an employment card with a photograph of how she looked now and she would have to clock in. She would have to use a common voice to suit her appearance.
She was escorted out of the other entrance to the hospital and it would have been a lot simpler for her to just disappear from the hospital, but Martin liked to play and so Joanna was given an old banger of a car that puffed out smoke and discharged gasses with a bang, parked in the employees’ parking zone and she entered the hospital with a fag in the corner of her mouth and was told that no smoking was allowed, even if it was an electric cigarette. She went to a cupboard and found herself a bucket and mop and cleaning agents and waddled off to designated floors. In a short time she had perfected a coarse accent and soon was chatting to other cleaners she had met on her way and no one was suspicious of this innocuous person who looked like an old hag.
She cleaned six levels and that was the end of her stint. She clocked off, walked unhurriedly to her car and drove off into the night.
Roland remonstrated with Martin about putting extra strain on Joanna by going through this pantomime of play-acting, but as it turned out Joanna had enjoyed herself and had been able to filch two mobile telephones from two cleaners she met on one of the floors near where their colleague had disappeared and a identity card to one of the other cleaners on the floor below.
Roland could see the point of it all and why Martin wanted Joanna to do this. It showed positive proof from the information on both mobile phones of Goodall’s duplicity in an attempt to kidnap Joanna under the mantle of the Secret Service and for the wrong reasons.
Martin had them arrested as soon as they signed off. So four of Goodall’s men were now out of the picture, three in prison on a charge of treason and one having been operated on successfully under guard in the special wing where Joanna had been. The injured bodyguard sustained a superficial wound and was treated at the scene and wanted to stay to guard the other suspect and he was in no mood for anyone who wanted to try their luck in getting past him.
Joanna parked the car down an obscure service road at the back of some terraced houses in an equally obscure neighbourhood, where just a short walk away were bull-dozers and some cranes parked which were going to begin work again on demolishing some 150 year old houses later on in the morning for a new all green estate.
Joanna entered the dilapidated house and anyone walking by who glanced her way would soon avert their gaze, as by moonlight her face took on a more sinister look. She was met at the door by a handsome looking man who immediately kissed her and anyone looking would assume that she must have had some other endearing qualities unbeknown to them.
Joanna sat down on a stool in front of a mirror and screamed quietly, she could not believe how hideous she was, the hospital lights in the corridors at night were fairly subdued and she must have frightened some of the cleaners she had met. She began to dab her face with cleansing cream and soon she looked the familiar Joanna that she had known most of her life. She took off the cleaners costume and managed to have semi-warm shower. Two other men from Martin’s group had been trying to get the boiler going since early that morning and had only just got it to work properly.
The room was roughly made to look like a proper bedroom. A double bed had been placed in the middle with clean pillows cases and sheets and a coloured duvet that didn’t go with the wallpaper that was peeling from the walls. A hole in the ceiling showed the beams and rafters where one or two tiles were missing. The windows were boarded up and only a bedside light and one wall light worked.
Joanna shivered slightly as she came out of the shower. Roland had come into the room to see if she was okay. He apologized for the intrusion and made to go out of the room. She called him back and opened the towel as she approached him and wrapped her arms round him. He had no option to restrain himself as he cupped her breast and kissed her with a passion that made her squeal with delight. They fell on the bed and she undid his trousers and pulled them down and he took off his jacket, shirt and tie. It was a difficult procedure laying down and trying to undress oneself. She pulled down Roland’s underpants down and they were entangled in a foray of passion that lasted a good hour.
They both showered together and this time the water was piping hot. The showering took quite a time because they kept making love and ending up in bed.
When all passion was spent they became sensible and showered separately and dressed and went downstairs to meet the other three people that had joined forces and had planned what they wanted to happen and they informed Joanna and Roland of their plans.
One of the men went out and bought fish and chips and after supper, they made a move to one of the “Safe Houses” where there were five bedrooms and a lot more comfortable surroundings.
In the morning there would be no sign of them having been in that dilapidated house as workmen would be moving in to demolish it, but first taking out the furnishings that they had originally supplied and then moving out themselves before the real contractors came in to do what they started the day before.
The operation was planned to the last detail by Martin with the co-operation of workers on site at the time and his own team making sure that no-one had followed.
The operation was called “JOANNA!”
Chapter 41 Time Will Tell
Goodall’s men had scoured the whole hospital, save just one of the restricted hygiene areas. The information given for them to search all other areas was looked upon as suspicious by Goodall as a few days before he was forbidden until it was explained that those areas were now vacant and had to have a special hygienic team come in vacuum out the air to be cleaned.
Martin wondered what Goodall would have said if he knew that Joanna had walked passed him to clean six hospital floors, spoke to his men and walked out again passing him the second time and there was not a flicker of recognition from him or the men who had photographs of her and one of them had shown Joanna a photo of herself and asked her had she seen this woman.
‘No I aint!’ she said in her very best gruff voice. ‘Aint seen ‘er at all,’ and then carried on mopping the floor.
Goodall had come to the conclusion that either she was dead and had died from her injuries or somehow or other had been lifted secretly away. He was pretty shrewd and reckoned it was the latter, as no parent or parents had come to the hospital reception to ask about Joanna, although that was not a guaranteed solution as her parents could already have died when she was young. She even could be an orphan. Of course there was an easier way to find out and Goodall was not going to get any information from the hospital on the grounds that if you’re not a member of the family, the hospital would not be allowed to give such information away and as they knew who he was, there was no point in asking.
He telephoned Somerset House and was of course denied access, and he was asked to write a letter with all the relevant details of his identity and rank in the Secret Service. He decided to email as it was a lot quicker and the excuse was a case of National Security – obviously he was backed by his superiors.
Soon it was obvious that Joanna had not perished, although Goodall was confused about her name as on her birth certificate it stated Joanna Sylvia Stafford. The father Jake and mother Mary Stafford still living in Cheltenham. Goodall was interested in Jake’s occupation, as he had been a Civil Servant working for GCHQ. He wondered how Jake managed to retire so early, but then it could have been for a number of reasons.
As to Goodall’s association with Luigi Stefan regarding Joanna, Luigi was always reluctant to say much about her, excepting he planned to marry her in the near future. Goodall always thought he was old enough to be her grandfather and felt how disgusting this old man was. But if he wanted part of Luigi Stefan’s business he needed to be quiet about Luigi’s ambitions for a little while longer, because he was going to do away with Luigi and take over the whole contract, but as luck would have it, he was saved from bumping off the Godfather, as he liked to call himself.
He was dumped in the sea and made a big splash, but not much of a splash in the newspapers. Goodall laughed, he thought that was funny, if anything crossed his mind that he thought of as being funny, he had a habit of laughing. This concerned many a passer-by in the street and were mistaken when they thought he was laughing at them and gave him a hard stare. He never took much notice of people who looked at him as it gave the false impression that they had recognized him as head of MI5. He was so pompous and conceited he believed they did.
* * *
Goodall called a meeting the following morning, outlining the Cobalt Exercise and what he expected of his men. But that was three days away. His main quarry was the whereabouts of Joanna Stefan, or Stafford, and whether it was feasible to be able to capture her somewhere knowing that she was not in the hospital anymore and with the amount of personnel he had at his disposal he was able to place his men strategically around the city. He was pretty sure sooner or later someone would spot her – anyway, time will tell!