The Phoenix Series Box Set 1

by Ted Tayler

  “Very nasty,” said Colin.

  “When are you off mate?”

  “When I get the green light from Erebus. If I grab him after the morning meeting and take him through my itinerary, I can be in the targets’ backyard in an hour.”

  “Day trip, do you reckon?”

  “Maybe, I’ll need to book myself in somewhere just in case and do an on the spot ‘recce’ tonight. If I can confirm the whereabouts of the target quickly, then I can improvise. I shall do my best to be back tomorrow.”

  “Have a successful trip, mate,” the armourer shouted as Colin scooped up the equipment and headed back to his quarters.

  Colin looked at his watch when he off-loaded the kit in his room. He had plenty of time to load up his backpack before Erebus and the others would be out of the meeting. He telephoned the main house to arrange a ten-minute session with the elderly gentleman as soon as he was free.

  While he waited for the call, he leafed through the file that the old man gave him yesterday.

  Anjum Ahmed 35

  Kamal Ahmed 31

  Farhan Hussein 37

  Bassam Hussein 34

  These were to be his targets. There were no details of education or occupation. These men had worked the system ever since they arrived in the country. If they had filled in a form in the past five years, they might have put ‘entrepreneur’, provided they could spell it. Colin read the analysis of the gang provided by the Olympus intelligence section through again.

  According to an imam from a local Islamic congregation, these grooming rings were inextricably linked by race and religion. The more radical preachers encouraged men such as the Ahmed and Hussein brothers to believe young white girls were promiscuous by nature, just because they were non-believers, non-Muslim. They see the way British girls dress in skimpy, revealing clothes. Their provocative nature encouraged by the images portrayed in the media by their screen and music idols. The four brothers believed they were justified in exploiting and degrading them. It was what they deserved.

  The authorities appeared eager to ignore the exploitation, desperate not to undermine the official creed of cultural diversity. They had failed to act, even in the face of evidence of obvious abuse.

  Colin shook his head as he read of the swift public whitewash that the authorities had received. ‘There was no apparent evidence of willful professional misconduct; senior managers were unaware of the problem.’ Colin circled the piece that said ‘no one was to be disciplined or sacked’ Typical, he thought; no one will ‘carry the can’ despite the errors made.

  Colin made a note of a few names. He was determined to mention them to Erebus. Several of these people deserved to suffer for their lack of action. Maybe they did not deserve to die, but at least, they should lose their jobs or experience pain.

  His mobile chimed in with its inimitable ring tone ‘Breaking The Law’ by Judas Priest. It was a steward up at the manor house. Erebus wanted to see him at eleven o’clock in the orangery. Colin packed his backpack and an overnight bag. With an eye on the weather, he changed into the clothes he intended to wear for the first part of his mission.

  Colin knew from the disgust Erebus showed yesterday towards this gang that getting the green light to take them out was a formality. He wasn’t being presumptuous packing everything ready for the off. He expected to be on the station platform at Bath Spa in good order.

  Dodging the puddles after a sharp shower earlier, as he had expected, he darted across to the orangery before the heavens opened again. Inside he found Erebus waiting for him. His leader sensibly wearing a winter coat, and his umbrella lay still opened on the floor by his chair. A trilby perched on the coffee table in front of him.

  “Did you get caught in that shower Phoenix?” Erebus asked.

  “Just missed it, sir.”

  “Right, what have you got for me?”

  Colin took him through his plan of action. Erebus queried a few minor items, which Colin answered to his satisfaction.

  “Everything looks perfect, dear boy,” said Erebus, “one query. When you have achieved a complete success of our primary aim, what will you do about the poor, unfortunate girls that these swine have been exploiting?”

  “They are being collected either tonight or sometime tomorrow by the same agents that picked up Tanya Norris. At first, they will take them to our hospital for check-ups; then to the safe house in Devizes over the next couple of days. How long they stay in the hospital and at the safe house will depend on the condition in which we find them. It’s open-ended, I’m afraid.”

  “It can’t be helped Phoenix. We must support them as much as possible, without drawing attention to our activities. We must try to avoid getting on the radar of the authorities.”

  Colin saw his opportunity to raise the matter of his little list of bonus names.

  “The authorities haven’t shown their radar to be that sensitive, sir. I think we can assume they will be in the ostrich position. What do you think we should do to these senior police officers and care system managers? They appear to have shown a blatant disregard for what was happening on their watch.”

  He handed the list to Erebus.

  “Let me have a day or two to consider that one Phoenix. It will need delicate handling.”

  “Oh, so I can forget it then, sir?” said Colin.

  Erebus threw his head back and laughed aloud.

  “There will be no extreme measures, you are correct in your assumption. Olympus needs to tread with care. Each extra covert mission we carry out has the potential for providing another grain of information. Something which the security services, the police, or even our great British public might stumble across. In time, they could recognise that a common hand is controlling events.”

  “I understand. Do I have your permission to carry on Erebus?”

  “Absolutely, Godspeed,”

  Erebus picked up his hat and retrieved his umbrella, giving it a final shake. Without a backwards glance, he disappeared towards the door and away across the grounds to Larcombe Manor. No doubt, he was thinking of his lunch or whatever international or domestic crisis Olympus was attempting to tackle today.

  Colin watched him stride away into the distance, then returned to his room, collected his bags, and phoned the transport section. An Olympus mini-cab pulled up outside the stable block inside two minutes. Fifteen minutes later, despite the best efforts of Bath’s traffic nightmare trying to delay them, Colin was on the concourse, walking into the station. He purchased a ticket for Swindon and awaited the next train; he did not have long to wait. The service was regular, and the journey time only twenty-five minutes, providing there were no blessed engineering works.

  He could just make out the female station announcer rabbiting on as his train arrived at his destination. It was disappointing. Phoenix had half expected to see Andy Partridge from XTC there to greet him. He tried to hear the distinctive male tones from the days he travelled here on the train as a boy.

  “Swindon, this is Swindon.”

  Nothing is ever forever, is it?

  Colin was hungry, first things first. He left the platform and made his way into the town. Colin took his map from his bag. He soon found a place to grab a snack. While he ate, he looked at the map and tried to work out where to look for the brothers. Tanya had provided lots of information and he had marked a few likely spots the gang frequented during daylight hours.

  Swindon is a sprawling, shapeless conurbation. Thousands of people commute to it every weekday. Then they get the hell out of the place in the evening. Colin had heard the rumours surrounding the four P’s–the huge council estates and tower blocks that dotted the areas of Pinehurst, Penhill, Park North, and Park South.

  The gang had the girls housed in flats dotted around the town. To keep them together in the same place would have attracted attention from the resident’s patrols that had sprung up in recent years. It used to be the Broadgreen area and Manchester Road that housed the town’s red-light dis
trict. There had been a dramatic reduction in the number of on-street sex workers over the years. However, the locals would spot a ‘knocking shop’ a mile away.

  The band of brothers had helped cut the numbers of on-street girls, although civic pride had little to do with it. Their girls were scattered everywhere. They kept them supplied with drugs and drink. In return, they were driven to clients, even out of town to earn their keep. In the evenings, the brothers often took the girls to the nightclubs. It was supposed to show them they still cared, but they were not above making them work if punters willing to pay. When the clubs emptied, the gang piled their charges into the cars and returned them to the flats.

  Colin had wondered at first why none of them tried to make a break for it. Tanya’s testimony had soon put him right on that score.

  ‘The brothers own the flats. They rent them either to family members or friends. The girls have a place to sleep if they’re lucky. If it’s an occupied flat, they face being raped by the tenant or tenants. The lucky ones are those in a flat with a second bedroom; they are locked in overnight. One girl tried to escape while I was there. They burned her with cigarettes, beat her, and nearly choked her to death. Nobody tried to run away after that.’

  Colin checked in at the Holiday Inn at two o’clock. It was soulless, but he craved the anonymity, and it was close. The middle-aged care-worn employee on Reception looked up as he arrived with his overnight bag and backpack. He attempted a smile but failed; it only made him look as if he had a touch of wind.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he gushed.

  Colin let him carry on with his corporate banter and tried to nod in what he thought were in the right places. He saw a card slide across the desk and a pen; this was the first hurdle. He considered what name he should use. He filled in the card and passed it back.

  “Welcome, Mr Partridge. I hope you enjoy your stay.”

  Colin gave the bloke a look that told him to get on with it. Things speeded up from there and Colin soon found himself in his snug little room. He placed the backpack and its goodies under the bed. The overnight bag went on the floor beside it. There seemed little point getting his change of clothes out and putting things on hangers.

  With the prospect of a late-night tonight and a busy day tomorrow, Colin took the opportunity for sleep. When he woke up, it was dark, and the weather had not improved. He freshened up, and then slipped on his hooded jacket, and set off to track down the gang.

  As soon as he left the Holiday Inn and mingled with the early evening pedestrians, he became invisible. That was the way he liked it.

  CHAPTER 7

  Old Town has plenty of pubs and clubs; Colin found a fast-food takeaway that served up something edible. He kept away from brightly lit shop windows as he ate and then stashed the remains in a bin. He was too polite to add to the detritus that already littered the streets and pavements. As another short, sharp shower hit, he pulled his hood further forward, tucked his head down, and began his search.

  Colin liked pubs. His favourites were those with bands playing his brand of music. The places he visited were dead. They had a handful of punters and apart from a few tunes from a jukebox or a lacklustre karaoke night, no sign of a group playing anywhere. So far, there was no sign either of the brothers out on the town. Colin soldiered on.

  He relied on his mental list of places to visit and the best routes to take to reach them. He would have been labelled as a stranger, ripe for a mugging, if he stood around looking at a street map on every corner, asking for directions. One big plus in a town as large as Swindon was the bus service. Colin could move around to the most distant places on his list, using transport that was relatively quick and cheap. Buses were more anonymous than taxis.

  There were loads of taxis on the roads too. However, he did not want to risk a driver in a day or two telling his fellow cabbies,

  “You’ll never guess who was in the back of my cab the other night.”

  Over the next couple of hours, Colin used the bus shelters in Old Town to get out of the rain. He saw the time of the next arrival conveniently displayed above him. Nobody paid him any attention. It was normal with buses heading for the four corners of the town for the next to pull in, or the one after, not to be the service you wanted to board.

  The shelters he used gave him a good view of the pubs and clubs circled on his map. He revisited some of them because everywhere he visited came up empty. There was no sign of the gang yet. It was cold and damp. He even started thinking that the room at the Holiday Inn would be more welcoming. Then he spotted a BMW X5 turning into the street fifty yards away.

  “Flash gits,” though Colin, stamping his feet to keep warm. His only companions in this glass and metal haven were an elderly couple. He thought he had seen them earlier; they rode the buses to keep warm. Their bus passes gave them a free journey anywhere they fancied going, and it saved on their heating bills. Oh well, something for him to look forward to when the time came.

  Colin kept his eyes on the SUV. It pulled into the bus lay-by on the opposite side. Whoever sat inside seemed in no hurry to get out. Colin soon realised why. A top of the range Lexus roared towards him and executed a noisy u-turn, drawing up behind the BMW. It made sense. They collected the girls from different points on the compass.

  The bus the elderly couple awaited arrived. Colin moved off along the pavement from the shelter for a clearer view of what was happening with the cars over the road. Doors opened and girls of all shapes and sizes fell out of the vehicles. They had one thing in common; they were wasted. Two large men walked with them towards the nearest nightclub. Door staff nodded them through without checks. They were clearly frequent flyers.

  The two cars drove towards the multi-storey car park in the distance. He decided to hang on until the drivers returned, to check if they would join the rest of their party.

  “I might yet have the chance to kill two birds with one stone,” he muttered, as he resumed watch from the shadows of the bus shelter.

  Sure enough, he spotted two men fitting the descriptions of the brothers. They stood on the opposite pavement. It looked to be one from each family. This echoed what he had seen ten minutes ago as the noisy crowd of girls made their way into the nightclub.

  Colin gave it two or three minutes; then he crossed over. Suddenly, the door staff had something to do. The gang and the girls breezed inside into the dark interior without a second glance. As Colin approached the entrance, one man stepped in front of him. He was as wide as he was tall.

  “Arms out, and legs apart,” he grunted and frisked Colin. “Turn out your pockets too, please sir, just to make sure you have no drugs on your person.”

  Colin thought that a bit rich considering the state of the girls who went in with their pimps, but he decided to play dumb. He was just glad he left the SIG Sauer in the hotel room.

  As every Olympus direct action field trip was on expenses, he handed over the ten quid admission fee to the girl at the desk with a smile. In return, she switched her gum from one side of her mouth to the other.

  Colin walked through into the club. This was Swindon, not Ibiza and on a cold wet night in the week, not the weekend. So it was half-empty. The crowd he was interested in occupied a semi-circular booth on the far side. There were loads of drinks on the tables, mostly alcopops for the females, and the Muslim Brotherhood looked to be on soft drinks.

  As he strolled to the bar, he took in the rest of his surroundings. The décor was faded eighties chic, not an attempted retro look, just untouched since the eighties. The music louder than loud and Colin had heard enough. It was that frantic dance, trance, pants music that encouraged people to look stupid on the tiny dance floor.

  Almost on cue, a few women began gyrating, bouncing, and shaking that booty. They waved their arms manically above their heads, which made them look like extras from Day of the Triffids. Colin bought himself a pint of lager and was pleasantly surprised to receive so much change out of a tenner. He sat at the end of the b
ar, so he could watch his targets on the opposite side of the room.

  He checked out the four men. They were well built, but more flab than muscle. Suited and booted, with lots of chunky gold rings, chains, and bracelets. Colin had watched the way they walked when they approached the club. That exaggerated gangster swagger which looked cool in Thirties America. It looked pathetic in Swindon Old Town in 2012.

  The music seemed to get louder and faster. The brothers mingled. A click of the fingers towards a skinny girl with long blonde hair summoned her to join one of the gang members at another table. Colin identified Anjum Ahmed as he leant his big head in close for a brief conversation with a middle-aged white bloke. Anjum patted the man’s shoulder and left the girl with him.

  Colin never saw money change hands.

  “Perhaps he has an account,” thought Colin.

  “You can buy me a drink if you want.”

  Colin turned his head towards the voice. She looked like mutton dressed as lamb, and a big animal into the bargain.

  “I’m not looking for company,” replied Colin.

  “I’m not fucking selling it, you stuck-up bastard.”

  Nobody else heard this verbal exchange above the sound of the music.

  Colin thought she meant to whack him with her oversized handbag, but in the end, she stomped off, cursing him every step of the way. This was turning out to be a nightmare, Colin thought. The music was doing his head in. The thirty or forty locals in the place belonged to the fake tans, tattoos, cheap jewellery, and dodgy clothes brigade. He half expected to spot a shell suit if he stayed around long enough. It was only the four blokes he needed to watch that kept him there.

  His would-be partner retreated to a table behind him and looked daggers at him. He felt the heat, without turning his head. Farhan and Bassam Hussein still mingled. They appeared to have a handful of regular contacts in the place. The brothers struck a deal and made brief introductions. The client either carried out preliminary fumbles with the young girl in the booth; or disappeared straight away for a good time. Well, a quick time for the most part.