The Shadow of the Albatross:
The Players in the Unfolding Drama
The Protagonist
Greg Travers. A man in his early thirties, six feet tall, slim, with brown hair and hazel eyes. After leaving school, Travers studied Classics and English at Oxford University before joining the Civil Service. After five years at the Home Office, he applied for an analyst’s position at the Ministry of Defence and joined MI5, where his ability to switch between lateral thinking and logic, together with his expertise in computer science, quickly earned him a reputation as an instinctive and reliable problem solver. Other departments regularly requested his services. Even other agencies had been known to seek him out, as his ability to cut through the most complex cases was unparalleled.
Travers married Cassandra Cartwright, whose parents, Robert and Elizabeth, he had first met during his University years. Robert had been a Senior Fellow at Oxford when their paths first crossed during a series of lectures on classic Greek literature. Now, he was Travers’ father-in-law. The couple enjoyed their early years of wedded bliss in Wimbledon Village, SW19, on the outskirts of London. Cassandra introduced her husband to her high society friends in an endless cycle of dinners and social engagements. Travers’ social further education also included an introduction to the night-time world of the Casino, where the rich could socialise with like-minded company whilst they lost money they wouldn’t miss. Travers’ mental suppleness and his eye for detail quickly put him in the category of a serious player; he wasn’t a gambler and knew when to draw the line. Others were not so fortunate.
Well-rounded, with a keen, dry sense of humour, Travers was overjoyed when he found out that Cassandra was pregnant with twins. He enthusiastically embraced the prospect of his new life as a father. How immensely proud he would be.
All that was about to change.
The Antagonist
Olga Devereux. Of White Russian extraction, Olga was born in the UK. Approaching her sixtieth year, she was slim, of average height with shoulder-length dark hair streaked with flashes of grey. Her vivid blue eyes were sandwiched between a double layer of dark eyelashes, giving her a dramatic and exotic appearance. Her Mother was a World War Two refugee orphan brought up by her Aunt and Uncle. Olga was a young girl of great beauty and intelligence who quickly realised how easy it was to influence others, particularly men, to get what she wanted. As she grew into maturity, Olga turned from influencer to manipulator. Her charisma and seductive beauty could unlock any door and any man. She married English Industrialist Robert Devereux, a brilliant and successful entrepreneur. At his side, she learned all the skills of the business world. At her side, he realised that his great company was only the beginning of her ambitions.
Following his death, Olga took over the business and, with the help of their four children, turned it into a multi-billion-pound global empire. She developed a worldwide charitable foundation, becoming a giant international philanthropist of irreproachable standing who counted Presidents and Prime Ministers amongst her admirers and supporters.
Yet, there was a dark secret fuelling her ambitions. A secret that stretched back to the end of the Second World War. Nearly twenty years before she was born, a moment so chilling and devastating that its disclosure and subsequent revelations would now threaten the course of world history.
Alicia Downes
An intelligence Officer with MI5, a job she was seemingly destined for. Her Father served in the Army, including the SAS, and her Grandmother served with the SOE with distinction behind the lines in France and Belgium during the Second World War. After a secondment with MI6, Downes has returned to MI5, where she is detailed to use her specialist skills to assist Greg Travers during an investigation. A graduate of Marlborough College, followed by a BSc in Criminology at Oxford, Downes hated the thought of a conventional office job; she loves nothing more than working “in the field” and is not afraid to get her hands dirty if necessary.
Charles Stanley
Senior Intelligence Officer at MI5 and Travers and Downes’ boss. A burly straight-talking Yorkshireman who doesn’t mince his words, but will back his team to the hilt.
John Deery
A Detective Chief Inspector with the Metropolitan Police and a friend of Greg Travers. Derry is an old-school London-born Detective who has come up through the ranks. Politically very incorrect and doesn’t mind who he upsets if it gets the job done. A rough diamond, but the salt of the earth.
Hector Devereux
Olga Devereux’s eldest son, 37-year-old Hector. A tall, powerful, burly man whose speed of thought is matched by the quickness of his temper. He is the de facto deputy head of both his Mother’s charitable Foundation and the Albatross Corporation’s business empire. Devoted to his mother, Hector is a man of few scruples and even fewer principles.
Richard Rackman
Chief of Staff at the Albatross Corporation. His responsibilities include both the legitimate day-to-day operations of the Foundation and all the off-the-books activities. He had been an excellent and respected manager for an international brokerage firm until the shadow of temptation crossed his path, and he was caught with his hand in the till. His hitherto untarnished reputation now in tatters, he escaped with a substantial fine and a suspended prison sentence but became a pariah in the business community until he met Olga Devereux.
What little conscience Rackman had left when he accepted the role of Chief of Staff over 15 years ago had long since departed this world. Now, his loyalty to Olga and the Devereux family was unwavering.