“No thanks” she almost shouted, clearly annoyed at the first incident, Joey sort of ignored her and moved towards the door anyway.
“I’m getting off at the nest stop” he spoke into the mike, “where to now?”
“He took the Bakerloo line south” Mac spoke up, “Not sure where yet, but I’m on it as well, we just passed Waterloo station”
The ‘Bakerloo’ line was originally built as the connection between Baker street (half a mile from Euston and Kings Cross stations) and Waterloo stations effectively connecting the two main stations with trains to the North of England with the station that served the south-west of the country, hence the name ‘Bakerloo’
“Joey” Sandy spoke up again, “You and Jacko get back here PRONTO, we’ve had a development, Mac, you’ll have to see it through on your own” she clicked the mike off.
Chapter 34
“What gives boss?” Joey asked Jacko as soon as he climbed in the car, “any ideas?”
“Not a clue” Jacko replied as he put the car into gear, checking behind he indicated and pulled into the traffic, it wasn't too bad, but they were barely able to do twenty miles an hour, he indicated to Joey to give Sandy a call.
“Whatcha got for us?” Joey spoke so quickly the accent came over strong.
“Got a bit of a situation in the West country, needs a delicate touch” Sandy replied.
“Okay, I'll drop Joey off and pick up a sledgehammer” Jacko chuckled. “that's far more delicate than he is” they were both laughing.
“Maybe” Sandy replied, “but you might need his talents for”
“Destruction?” Jacko couldn't resist, he may be the commander in the team, but everyone was equal in their eyes, and that meant making fun of each other.
“A message from Mildred” Sandy went on, “the car's gone active again, we think it's headed for its final resting place”
“Scrapyard?” Joey asked, his specialty was explosives, and by default of the fact they're often set using electronics it included ‘all things electrical’.
“Chop shop” Sandy replied, “recycle the parts, turn the scrap into profit”
“It's a good vehicle though”
“That the cops are looking for, even if they change the chassis plate and numbers, there'll be telltale signs, better to get rid of the vehicle, anyway, it's on the move, and we need to get there before the cops find it”
“They don't know where it is, do they?”
“They will when we tell them, but we need those trackers back first” Sandy replied, “that's what the message was about, she wants the kit back, and not tied up as evidence in some court case” she finished off, “I'm giving you a head start before we call the cavalry in, I'm sending you the location.”
The location was in an industrial area just north of Cirencester, not exactly known as a hive of criminal activity, just a quiet place in the suburbs, being just off the M4 motorway meant it was easy getting to and from it, ideal if you want a car to disappear ‘fast’
“Got the location, will be there in an hour” Joey spoke as Jacko gunned the engine, “that's if we survive the drive!” he couldn't resist a bit of payback, “what about Smithy?”
“Car did a circuit, went back to the garage, he's on his way to you folks, should get there just before you do”
“Have him set up an O.P. across the road” Jacko spoke, he was smiling, the thought of Smithy trying to navigate the motorway on a moped that struggles to go above thirty miles an hour would have Smithy ‘cussing like a good un’ as he would say, not that they would dare say anything to him.
“Figured that,” Sandy said, “He's already got it sussed, should be in position by the time you get there”
It looked just like any other mechanics garage, just a bit bigger. Two roller doors at the front opened to reveal four hydraulic jacks, each one capable of taking a large van or minibus, they each had a car ‘on the jacks’, half of the ten parking spaces out front was filled with vehicles patiently waiting their turn to get fixed, these were the ‘legit’ customers, the ones who had no idea where the parts for their vehicles came from.
At first glance it looked like that was all there was, what wasn't seen was that the workshop was only half the depth of the building, and the two doors didn't show what was in the corners.
The doors were just coming down as they turned into the street, Joey punched a number on the phone, a gruff Geordie voice came on.
“About bloody time you got here” Smithy spoke up, from the sound of it he wasn't impressed, “I'm set up in the building across the street, there's an entrance at the back, use that one, third window from the right, top floor” he stopped for a moment, then went on, “We need eyes round the back, boss head down the end of the street, at the T junction take a right and the next right at the lights, that should bring up and the back of the building, that way we get a good idea where things are at”
“Roger that” Jacko replied glancing over at Joey, it would be Joey going into the building, he knew where the trackers were, he’d been the one taking the shots in the first place, he was also the best of the three of them at disarming burglar alarms and the like, “What about Joey?”
“Looks like a standard burglar alarm from here” Smithy replied, “place has cameras, wouldn’t be surprised if they were connected to one of ‘ems phone, not sure if there’s a blind spot yet though” Joey was making a mental note of everything he was being told, “three cameras out front, one on each corner looking down each end of the street, and one over the door looking at whoever enters the building, the two on the corners are wide angle, but the one over the door seems to be for recognition only”
“Thanks for that” Joey replied, “gives me an idea for if I don’t find anything out back”
“Any ideas where the car is?” Jacko asked they couldn’t see anything that resembled the Mondeo outside, then again it would have been pretty dumb to leave it there, they just hoped it wasn’t in the back.
“Nah” Smithy replied, “not seen it, must ‘have arrived just afore I got ‘ere” there was a slight pause before he went on, “Probably in the back, that could be a problem if they’ve already started work on it”
“Hopefully” Sandy cut in, she’d been listening, “they’ll just think they’re bullets that bounced off something soft before hitting the panel” but even she sounded doubtful.
“One look at ‘em will show even the rank amateur that’s not what they are, they’re stainless steel casings” Joey went on, “even armour piercing don’t use that, anyone who knows about this will know the casing is protecting something, we gotta get in before they find ‘em”
Bullets have two parts, there’s the ‘brass’ part which is exactly that, a brass shell that holds the actual bullet in place, inside the brass ‘casing’ is an explosive charge, it used to be gunpowder, but in modern weapons it’s usually Cordite when the chemicals get ‘mixed’ they ignite and the force of the explosion causes whatever is there to get pushed out of the way, or in this case, pushed along a long narrow tube (a barrel) getting faster and faster as it goes.
The ‘shell’ itself used to be made out of Lead simply because it was easy to shape into a ball and could be easily handled, today they’re mostly made out of a mix of Lead and Nickel, hard enough to do serious damage at high speed, but as it slows down it becomes soft enough to flatten causing more damage, armour piercing have a small Tungsten bolt in the middle that when the shell ‘flattens out’ is much harder and carries on straight through whatever stopped the first part causing devastation to whatever stopped the first. Stainless steel is harder than the Nickel and Lead compound, it wouldn’t break, it would be a dead giveaway to someone who knew what they were looking for.
“Then let’s hope they’re thicker than we think they are” Jacko replied, “meanwhile let’s work on a plan” he pulled the vehicle into a car park a few buildings down from the back of the garage, they were outside the range of the cameras, from here on i
n they would be on foot.
Twenty minutes later they were on the second floor of the building opposite the back of the garage, downstairs was some kind of shop, upstairs looked as if it hadn’t been visited in years, there was dust everywhere, a table and a couple of chairs made up the sum total of the furniture.
There were still a couple of cars outside the garage, they could be clients, or workers, “Smithy, any idea if there are still folks inside working?”
“Still one or two” Smithy replied, but I doubt they’re working, I can see the canteen, looks like there’s four of ‘em playing cards and drinking a few beers, kind of a Happy hour” he replied.
That was frustrating, it was getting later and the plan was to tell the cops overnight so that they’d raid the place first thing in the morning, just as they were going to work, and hopefully before they got the chance to ship any parts out, but Joey wasn’t sure how long he’d need to disable the alarms and find the stuff, still, it was what it was, ‘no use crying over what I can’t change’ he thought, he was still working on a way in, it looked like there was a blind spot that led him to the window of what he thought would be one of the toilets in there, but he needed the place clear first.
“Looks like they’re getting ready to leave” Smithy finally spoke up, Joey looked at his watch, a full forty-five minutes had passed since they got into the room, Joey’d used every one of them to get ready and check his equipment, but still the wait had felt like an eternity. “One of them’s just put the alarm on, they’re heading for the door.”
“We'll give ‘em a half hour” Jacko turned to Joey, he was checking his equipment, “any chance we can override the alarm?”
“Got it sussed boss” Joey replied making a final check on the device he was checking, it looked like a plastic lunchbox with wires sticking out of each end, one from each end, both had crocodile clips for connecting to a terminal, “clip this up to either side of the alarm box and I can put any code in I like, we just bypass the security code”
Thirty minutes later it was going dark outside, the streetlights had come on, but there was still some daylight left.
Six cameras surrounded the building, covering every angle when you approached from the street, it looked almost impossible to approach without being seen. But looks can be deceiving.
Four of the cameras had wide angle lenses, they were set on each corner looking diagonally across the street, with almost one hundred and eighty-degree arcs the interlocked in places, but not directly in front or behind the building, other buildings got in the way.
Over the two entrances (one front, one at the back) were two more cameras, but they had a narrow focus covering only the path to the door. Approach to an angle of ten degrees and you wouldn't be seen, that was the first thing Joey noticed.
The second was where the junction box serving the alarm pad was, it was on the outside, just left of the back door.
The control pad itself was inside at the front, but tap into the system and you can bypass the pad, that's what he intended to do.
One last check of everything and he was ready to go, as soon as that was done he spoke into his lapel-mike.
“Are we good to go?”
“Good from here” Smithy was first to reply.
“All go here” Sandy spoke next, she was monitoring everything electronically, even the building’s phone system, hopefully, if it did detect Joey's approach she'd be able to warn them even if she couldn't stop the signal being sent.
Joey looked at Jacko who just gave him a ‘thumbs up’, he opened the door and stepped through, “on my way”
Chapter 35
Serkov was still on the train when it got to its terminus at the Elephant and Castle. As soon as it stopped he went for the door, heading for the escalator.
Mac wasn’t far away, just close enough to see where he went, yet far enough that Serkov didn't see him, hopefully giving the impression he wasn't being followed.
The escalators were between the north and southbound platforms, the train on the northbound platform just about to leave. Serkhov made look as if he was going for the southbound platform.
“Shit” Mac cussed as Serkov ran and jumped onto the northbound train, the doors were closing.
Sprinting for the last door still open, a suitcase jammed in the door by a hapless traveller, the door released giving both the suitcase and Mac time to get on.
“Sandy, we're heading back into the city” he spoke into his lapel mike, “he's been trying to lose any tail, don't think he's aware of me though.”
Serkov was in the middle car, Mac was in the one behind. The car was full, so that gave him a good excuse to stand, he could see into the next car from where he was.
“Regents Park” Mac spoke into the mike as Serkov disembarked, “heading upstairs”
“Roger that” Sandy replied, “stay with him”
One of the ‘Green areas’ in the city. Regents Park takes its name from the only time when a King who was regarded as insane ruled Britain.
King George the fourth was declared insane, so his son, ‘The Prince Regent’ was appointed to rule as his representative.
To the north of the city of the day was a Royal hunting ground that had been owned by the crown since Henry VIII ‘acquired’ the land in the dissolution of the monasteries during the reformation.
In the sixteenth century, it was a good day's ride from the palace at Hampton Court, by the end of the eighteenth, the turn if the 19th century it was on the outskirts of what was then London, and became the fashionable place to live. Huge Georgian mansions ringing the outside of the Park, giving way to botanical gardens and even a Zoo which became famous as London Zoo.
Today it houses gardens, the Zoo and Europe’s biggest Mosque, a mecca for tourists, and perfect for losing a tail, but the team still had one Ace to play.
“Mac, I've got him on camera with the F.R.C,” Sandy spoke for the first time since he got off the train, “back off a while, make a change and I'll tell you where to go,”
“Roger that, keep me updated” he knew as he said it he didn't really need to, Sandy wasn't a novice at this, but it was kind of automatic.
There was a sign for public toilets to the right, he followed the sign and went into the Gents toilets, the urinals were on the right, but a bank of five cubicles was on the left, four were not in use, only the one in the far corner was in use. He slipped into the nearest one and undid the small holdall he was carrying. Two minutes later a jeans-wearing tourist stepped out, complete with sunglasses and camera, though even that couldn’t totally hide the short haircut, the stubble of the last few days might throw off anyone expecting a ‘Military’ look, but stubble was the norm for Special Forces. “Okay, I’m ready” Mac came back on the line, “where is he?”
Three hours later, the sun was beginning to disappear beneath the skyline of the buildings, and still they were ‘on the chase’, Serkov had led them a merry dance through Regents Park, then onto a bus and back into the centre of the city again, this time stopping at Battersea Park, literally a stone’s throw from Vauxhall House, the home of MI6.
“Sandy” Mac spoke for the first time since they’d arrived at the park, “Northwest corner, a park bench, he might be going for a D.L.D”
“Could be” Sandy confirmed, her fingers literally flying over the keyboards of the laptop she was using, she had two laptops working ‘full bore’ at her disposal, one was keeping track of what Joey and Jacko were up to, the other she’d used to hack into the mainframe of the Met’s network of closed-circuit TV cameras, every inch of London was covered with them, but in the public areas it went much further, George Orwell, in his most frightening picture of the future London never dreamed of how much surveillance there would be, and Sandy, if she didn’t have the keys to unlock its potential, she knew where the keys were kept, she was watching every move.
A ‘D.L.D’ was a relic from the cold war when a spy needed to get information either into a place or out of it without
being seen ‘cavorting’ with the enemy. Simple, yet effective, and all it called for was a bit of lateral thinking.
A spy who needed to send a message would simply write the message and hide it in ‘plain sight’ usually in a public place, but not one you’d think of normally, a park bench, even a gutter at a famous building (maybe using a loose brick etc) then they would place an ad in the local paper, usually in code telling the recipient exactly where to look.
Once the recipient got the message, they would go pick up the information and place another ad, or even a notice in the obituaries that the first one would read and know that the message was passed, there wasn’t any need to go back and check the hiding place, Serkov might be using this method to talk to his contact ‘The mole’ inside MI6.
“I’m downloading the footage for the last forty-eight hours,” Sandy said, “I’ll keep the cameras on so we see who turns up just in case.” she began typing commands into the laptop, glancing over to the other laptop she saw Joey was about to enter the garage.
“Oh, shit” she let out a squeal, a hand going to her mouth in an automatic reaction when she realised she'd sworn out loud, quickly recovering she hit Mac's speed dial,
“Mac, I've got the footage, get back here pronto, the shit's about to hit the fan.”
As soon as she was off the line she clicked the laptop's email program open, finding the address she needed she typed a simple message in code. “Fish on the line, begin the reeling in”
Chapter 36
Joey came at the building from an oblique angle. Avoiding the cameras was vital, he didn't want to leave any trace for what he was about to do. He was carrying a holdall with the tools he was going to need for the job, as soon as he got to the door he put the holdall down, unzipped it and took out a Stanley screwdriver, the screwdriver had multiple heads, he selected a Philips and got to work undoing the junction box.
Scorpion's Vengeance Page 17