Red Hawk Rising

the seaward as well as the landward side. There was no evidence of new buildings or new equipment. He had also visited the ‘Red Lion’ in Louth and engaged in conversation with RAF personnel that frequented the pub. Berin hoped to befriend some of them and eventually gain information. He was to confirm information of the Red Hawk programme re-locating to RAF West Sanby in the near future. He had already sent a report in before receiving these latest instructions. It was clear that other agents were having some success in other parts of England if he had been ordered to get confirmation. Receipt of orders completed, they tuned the radio into a local channel and turned the fishing vessel onto a course for Parfleet St Peter.
Back at Argonaut Industries in Manchester, Corporal Andy Hill was ‘wrapping up’ his visit with some discussion with Ken Davidson in project co-ordination. Andy had gathered sets of documents for comparison with the other companies involved in the Red Hawk programme and noted all the procedures involved. The RAF Unit would need a similar co-ordination of the different aspects of the SAM system during its evaluation phase. As they talked there was a knock on the door and Hamilton came in. He asked Andy to go and see him when he had finished his discussions.
Twenty minutes later, Andy knocked on the door of Hamilton’s office and went in. Hamilton got up from the desk and came round it, indicating Andy to a seat. He sat down opposite Andy. “Thank you for your quick thinking yesterday. It alerted us to the source of a leak in this establishment. We are following it up. Your CO and I have discussed it with our respective bosses in London and we don't want you to take any more action on it. Leave that to us. I’m aware that you have a high security classification so I know you will not repeat this. We are going to use the present set-up to feed false information out and then see where it turns up. We have our suspicions but we need to confirm it before we act. If you make similar observations when you visit the other contractors contact me and I’ll follow up. You will receive instructions from Lutterworth to that effect.” Andy shifted uncomfortably in his chair at the last statement and had a question on his face. Hamilton grinned at him, “After yesterday it was obvious I was going to check up on you. All the intelligence agencies linked to the armed forces co-operate with each other. I suggest you watch your back, though. If either of those security officers are working for ‘someone else’ then they may want to remove any possible threat.”
Andy relaxed and grinned back at him. “Thanks for putting me in the picture. I’m heading north tomorrow so I should be out of the way.”
“Good,” replied Hamilton. “When I finish here I’ll be heading in the same direction.” They got up, shook hands and Andy left the office and headed back to the project co-ordination office to pick up his papers. From there he headed up to see Bill Reeves. There was a grin of recognition from Bill and he got up from his desk as Andy came in. He had been working on some refinements for the ‘Mercury’ computer. He suggested that they go for a coffee and they headed down to the canteen.
Hamilton was talking to the records clerk in personnel about the security passes and how they were made. Apparently, the negatives were sent to Argonaut’s photo lab. on the premises by 10.00 a.m. and they produced four prints of each person’s photo. One was affixed to the security pass, a second and third were attached to the person’s identification records, including the RAF personnel. One of these was filed in the record office in the personnel department and the other record, along with the fourth print, was sent to the security office at the main gate. Hamilton asked the clerk to confirm that, which she did. He realised that when he had gone through the security files at the security office, there had been no sign of the fourth photo print. A little alarm bell rang in the back of his head. He asked to see the office procedure manual and was told that there wasn’t one. Each new person on staff learned the procedures from the senior clerk. Hamilton decided to have a chat with the clerk in the security office. He thanked the records clerk and headed out of the office and headed up to the managing director’s suite of offices. He spoke to Richardson’s secretary and she indicated for him to go into an adjacent office. In there, a typist was busy typing up reports onto the multi-part sets at Richardson’s dictation. He smiled as Hamilton walked in and kept dictating. When he had finished, Richardson explained that he had talked with Ken Davidson about progress on each aspect of the project that was their responsibility and so knew what variations to make. The typist would make changes at 5.15 p.m. when most staff would have left. She would take the carbons in an envelope so no suspicion was aroused as she walked and then exchange the carbons with those in the bins. The cleaners came through much later. Richardson would wait for the typist to return to the office and he would personally lock the true carbons away. They went to Richardson’s office and Hamilton explained his concerns about the photograph prints of personnel. Richardson said that he would talk to the clerk in the security office in the morning to avoid suspicion being aroused by Hamilton’s questioning.
In the meantime, Andy was making his farewells and heading for the bus to take the RAF personnel back to RAF Handwell. As he boarded the bus, a security officer picked up the ‘phone and made an outside call. The bus pulled