by Jeff Gulvin
He watched for three full days and saw no further activity. The older, squat man stayed for two days and then he saw someone load his luggage into Jesse’s truck and drive him out of the compound. On the evening of the fourth day, he knew he could make better use of his time. He watched as the final patrol of the day wound its way round the perimeter fence, then he moved.
Already it was dark and a stiff, wintry rain had begun to fall. The goon tower lights were on and he could see a figure moving under the roof. It was at the foot of that same tower that he knew the wire was weakest. Crouching by the lay-up point, he checked his gear: Glock 17 automatic with two spare clips, his garrotte and two stun grenades, together with knuckle knives, a set of wire cutters and doped meat for the dogs. That was going to be his biggest hurdle, two Dobermans running loose on the other side of the wire. There was fifty yards of open space to negotiate before he got to the inner wall. Many times over the past two years he had got right up to the outer fence and lain there unnoticed, while he picked out the lights and passive infrared mountings using the SearchCam Recon IR. The security was tight and he knew he would be lucky to site the T-17 transmitters without anyone finding them.
He watched until the patrol was out of sight and then he stowed the gear he had checked back into the pockets of his cam’ suit. The rain slapped off the ground now, spattering the hood of his gilly suit. Taking fresh cam’ cream from his pockets, he smeared his face and the backs of his hands, and then took off the gilly. He stowed it with the camera and camera hide deep in the hole at the observation point, and then began to make his way forward. He moved close to the ground, with stealth and not speed. He would rely on the rain and the ever-increasing wind to camouflage the sound. The figure in the goon tower continued to move about, restless no doubt with the rain and anxious for his relief at ten.
The ground was still firm, though the scrub grass was greasy under-foot. Harrison, eyes peeled, moved forward at a zigzag, covering the ground at a snail’s pace. He had to time it just right, aware of the wash of the lights, which were set to sweep the fence automatically every three minutes. So he moved and lay flat, moved and lay flat, allowing himself two minutes forty-five seconds to make the distance he could, before flattening himself against the ground.
He made it to the exterior perimeter and sat there, halfway between the towers on the south-east side of the compound. He could see the dogs from here, gambolling together midway between where he was and the inner wall. The wind was blowing from him to them, which was what he wanted. Already he had the packed meat in his hands and was pressing it through the wire mesh of the fence. Three handfuls to ensure they could not miss it. Then he waited. Maybe it was the force of the wind, or perhaps the sudden harshness of the rain, but it took them a minute or so to pick up his scent. Then they barked and Harrison moved back up the hill into the grove of Douglas fir. He dropped behind the groundswell, slithering down to the drainage culvert, where now water was rushing.
The dogs barked again, but then stopped. Harrison waited. They were trained to pick up any scent and pursue it to its source. They had smelt him and he had retreated, but he had been long enough in one place to settle a spoor. They could only get as far as the fence, and there they would find the meat he had drugged earlier in the day. Crushed tranquillizers in each rolled handful. Hopefully, they would get most of it down them. It wouldn’t put them totally out, but they would be unsteady on their feet and lie low. It would also dry out their mouths, which ought to keep them from barking.
He waited: ten minutes, fifteen, twenty. On twenty-five minutes, he crawled to the top of the rise, damp earth soaking into his cam’ suit, and looked out over the compound. The light swung and he pressed his nose to the dirt, forced away a cough and looked again. One of the dogs tripped a wall light. Harrison watched the animal stagger a little, then sit awkwardly, rump swinging out behind it. He looked for the other, could not see it, then spied it on the far side of the tower, lying on the ground.
Now, Harrison moved back to the fence, avoiding the play of the searchlight, and crabbed his way to the base of the tower. Above him no one stirred, and he allowed himself a wry smile as he took the wire cutters from his breast pocket and his fingers brushed the packet of cigarettes habit had made him place there. The thought of going into the hotel or the Silver Dollar for a beer suddenly ran high in his veins. He shook the desire away as rain rolled off him, and quietly closed his fist round the wire cutters. He cut, then curled the wire with his fingers until it was raised about ten inches off the ground. Flat on his belly now, like a snake he eased his way underneath, working with fists to his jawbone and his elbows levering him through. From the other side of the compound, one of the Dobermans gave a halfhearted bark.
Harrison squatted right under the tower. The rest of the compound was in darkness. He checked the face of his watch. It was 9.38. Twenty-two minutes before they switched the guard. He needed to be inside the inner compound long before then. He moved off, watching the motion sensors on the walls. He knew that Salvesen did not have any closed circuit TV cameras on the inner wall. They were mounted on the side of the house and kept watch on the inner compound grounds. He wondered if they carried sound as well as movement. He made it to the inner wall unhindered, passing right by one of the dogs. It looked at him out of confused eyes, tongue hanging out and panting very heavily.
‘Hangover tomorrow, buddy,’ Harrison whispered.
Salvesen had planted fir trees along the inner line of the wall, to protect the house from the throw of light when one of the dogs tripped a sensor. Now they provided the cover he needed to pull himself up. There was no wire on top and thankfully nothing like broken glass. Salvesen obviously figured the exterior wire and dogs were enough. Harrison straddled the wall and peered through the evergreen branches. He could see the back of the marquee and the small building behind that. The house, huge, like some ancient Southern mansion, was to the front, with another slightly smaller building backing off it at an angle. He dropped inside and squatted.
The rain fell more sharply now and the wind shook water from the trees to spray him still further. He waited, not moving, eyes peeled, ears pinned back, listening like a timber wolf on the scent. He heard nothing, saw nothing. Nobody walking about on the inner side of the wall. He moved forward slowly at first, then scuttled to the edge of the marquee. He worked his way down the side which would bring him to the lawned area off the back of the house. Halfway along the tent wall was an opening and Harrison slipped inside. Chairs in aisles, a lectern and a piano. Church. Harrison noted it in his mind, to be transferred to tape later. There was nowhere obvious to place a transmitter. He moved through the marquee which had a kind of straw matting as a floor, but kept to the grass at the side, so muddy footmarks would not betray him. At the far end he paused, crouched and looked out. The lawn was bathed in light from the back of the house.
From outside, he heard voices and realized the guard was changing over. He stayed exactly where he was until all was quiet again. From somewhere, he heard a door slamming, and then just the rain and the rustle of wind through the trees. Cautiously, he moved forward until he was against the wall of the house. A shadow fell across the lighted lawn and Harrison became part of the wall. For what seemed an eternity, he waited for the cameras to move. There were only two pivot points: depending on how wide-angle the lenses were, they would see so much and no more. He worked out his movement. There had been no cameras in the marquee and he figured he was all right. He would soon know if he wasn’t.
And then a sliding door opened at the back of the house and Jakob Salvesen stood under the lee of the balcony, just out of the rain. Harrison was about seven feet from him, pressed against the wall. If Salvesen turned right, he would see him. Harrison did not breathe. Salvesen looked at the sky and lifted something to his lips. ‘Seven crowned heads.’ He muttered the words into a Dictaphone. Then he stepped back inside. Harrison could still hear him. ‘Omega Foundation. Statement 321. Israel 1948. R
ebirth. Jeremiah, chapter twenty-three: “Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, the Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.”’
His voice grew louder again and Harrison saw his shadow fall once more across the lawn. He could see the points of his boots fractionally overlapping the deck. ‘Nineteen sixty-seven,’ Salvesen went on. ‘Fifth of June 1967. The Six-Day War. That was when it began. Lindsey was right about that. Jerusalem. They retook Jerusalem for the first time since AD 70. Luke chapter twenty-one: “And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”’ Salvesen paused for a moment. ‘Their time was fulfilled in 1967. That’s it,’ he muttered. ‘That’s when it began.’
The sliding door closed then and the shadow retreated. Harrison remained where he was, aware of the sound of his own heart in his ears. Then he retreated, back through the marquee to the wall and over. The dogs were on their feet, but wobbly. He made it to the fence, wriggled under, then painstakingly rolled down the wire, straightening it as best he could without sending a vibration to the top, which would alert whoever was on guard. He pressed the cut ends back into the earth and packed it a little higher. All the way up the hill his mind was working: the fourth kingdom, Rome, and now this—1948, Israel, the Six-Day War. Luke twenty-one. Luke twenty-one and Jeremiah what? Jeremiah twenty-three. He got to the lay-up point and whispered what he remembered into the Dictaphone. Seven crowned heads, and the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. He shook his head, looked at his watch and decided he had had enough. He knew now that snippets here and snippets there would not give him what he needed. The key to what Salvesen was doing lay on the other side of that sliding glass door.
19
THEY CHECKED THE VIDEOS taken from the red priority routes, and Swann spotted the van filling up with fuel at a garage just south of Durham on the Al. The driver was caught on film as he paid. That night the three of them ate dinner again at the hotel, due to leave the north-east early the following morning. Swann watched Louis Byrne looking at the wine menu. Something was odd about it and he didn’t realize what until the meal was over. Byrne had gone upstairs to phone his wife, and Swann and Webb were alone in the bar, having a nightcap.
‘What’s that matter, Jack?’ Webb asked him. ‘Something’s been bugging you all night.’
Swann sipped at his whisky. ‘Ignore, me, Webby. I’ve just been in the job too long.’
‘We’ve all been in the job too long. What’s bugging you?’
Swann flicked ash from his cigarette.
‘Come on. What?’
‘OK,’ Swann said. ‘The other night we had dinner. Right?’
‘Yes,’ Webb said, drawing out the word.
‘And tonight we had dinner.’
‘So?’
‘Louis chose the wine both times.’
‘Did he? I don’t know. He paid, which to me is all that counts.’
Swann laid a hand on his arm. ‘Tonight he looked at the wine list, but last time he didn’t. He just ordered Barolo, like he knew it would be there.’
Webb looked at him then. ‘He must have looked at the list. He’s never been here before.’
‘Exactly.’
Webb wagged his head then. ‘You’re right, Jack. You’ve been in the job too long.’
Byrne flicked through a file. Special Branch and MI5 were watching James Ingram. GCHQ monitored his telephone calls for a while, noting who he called and who called him. One number, which he had rung three times in the two days after Swann and McCulloch interviewed him, had been Tommy Cairns’s, the self-styled leader of Action 2000. MI6 had informed them that Sebastian May and Jakob Salvesen had been at Cambridge University together in the early 1960s. They were confident there was nothing more to their relationship than that, but would keep on looking.
Logan was sitting at the desk in the squad room that the Foreign Emergency Search Team had been allocated, studying a copy of Harrison’s report, which had come over in the diplomatic pouch to the regional security officer at the embassy.
‘Louis,’ she said quietly.
Byrne looked up. ‘What is it?’
‘Take a look at this.’ She handed him a photograph of a squat, iron-haired man with Jakob Salvesen.
‘That’s Abel Manley,’ Byrne said.
Swann came in then, glanced at Byrne and called them to the briefing. Byrne told Logan to go on ahead. He had to go to the embassy to pick something up and would be back as soon as he could.
Upstairs, Swann flicked through the papers on his knee. ‘We clocked the van filling up with petrol on the Al, and we’ve got the driver paying at the counter, though I don’t know how good it is.’ He switched on the TV and video. ‘The van,’ he said freezing the frame, so they all could get a good look. He wound it on again and stopped. ‘And the driver paying.’ They could see the man—albeit not very distinctly—short-cut hair but not a skinhead, tall, and paying with cash. ‘It’s not very clear,’ Swann said, ‘but I reckon that’s Frank Cairns of Action 2000.
‘Another garage and another video,’ he went on and replaced the tape with a different one. He froze the frame on a dark-skinned man with long black dreadlocks. ‘Another disguise. Raghead this time, but that is Ibrahim Huella. The car is the one that Kuhlmann bought from Sunderland.’
Webb cleared his throat. ‘DRA have confirmed explosive traces in that car,’ he said. ‘They’ve identified mercury, barium nitrate and tetrazine, so whoever was driving had been handling detonators. We’ve also got fibres which match the second bedroom in the farmhouse and those found in Queen’s House Mews.’
‘For such a pro he’s a bit of an amateur, isn’t he,’ McCulloch stated.
Swann looked at him sourly. ‘Except for the fact that he hasn’t been nicked yet, Macca.’
Colson looked round the room. ‘Where’s Byrne?’
‘He had to go back to the embassy to collect something,’ Logan said. ‘He’ll be here any time.’
Colson nodded. ‘As you know, we put the word out on Huella, Ramas and Tal-Salem. I’m positive Huella is still in this country, because he hasn’t finished with us yet. I don’t know about the others. But we did have a call from a Colin Learning. He told us that somebody answering Huella’s description worked with him at McDonald’s in Coventry. We’re going to interview him later today.’ He paused then. ‘In the meantime we concentrate on the Nazi angle here. I can’t believe they’re anything more than runners, but I think it’s time we leaned on them.’
Louis Byrne came in then, carrying a file under his arm. ‘One other thing,’ Colson continued. ‘Part of the stuff we’ve seen from the FBI undercover agent in Idaho has thrown up something that Box 850 are looking into. A picture of this chap Salvesen with Sebastian May, a Conservative Euro MP. It was taken at a ski resort over there. Box are doing a little bit of digging of their own and if it’s pertinent, we’ll hear from them.’ He looked at Byrne then. ‘Cheyenne said you went to get something?’
Byrne scraped a hand over his crew cut and held up the paper file. ‘We had something sent over from the States today.’ He passed the picture Logan had shown him earlier to Colson. ‘That guy is Salvesen, as you know,’ he said, pointing. ‘The other one is Abel Manley who used to be a Minuteman.’
He stood up then and laid the file on the table. ‘The Minutemen were an insurgent group back home in the sixties. A forerunner to the Posse Comitatus, a seventies and eighties group which led to today’s militia or “patriot movement”, who are preparing for some kind of bloody showdown with what they describe as the “Satanic Federal Government”, i.e. the United States. Jakob Salvesen had links with the Posse. To give you some idea what th
ey were like then, they used to advocate hanging federal officials from main street. The Minutemen believed that the United States was being taken over by communists, with the government complicit in the act. That’s a belief first put forward by the John Birch Society. They produced a guerrilla warfare guide with plans of how to raid, ambush, sabotage, etc. Again, government officials were the enemy, traitors to the constitution.’ He paused and selected a document from the file. ‘Back in D.C., we put together a few facts, comments, etc. on these kinds of groups, going back as far as the Klan. Let me read you something: “Minutemen also developed chemical and biological weapons. ‘They’re portable, inexpensive to manufacture and easy to conceal,’ said chemist and Minutemen leader Robert DePugh. ‘One man with a test tube in his pocket could wipe out a whole army base.’”’
Byrne handed the document to Colson. ‘Robert DePugh was arrested in 1970 and the group pretty much disbanded. We haven’t seen Abel Manley since. But like DePugh, he was a chemist.’
Swann drove to Coventry and Louis Byrne accompanied him. ‘You sure you don’t want to stay back at the Yard?’ Swann asked him. ‘It’s a two-hour drive for a two-minute interview. All we’re going to do is confirm that Huella was there.’
‘I’ll stick around, Jack. I want to be close to things.’
They drove up the motorway and Swann looked round at him. ‘How long’re you going to be over here?’
‘We’ll be back and forth till the job’s done.’
‘You don’t mind just watching.’
Byrne shrugged. ‘Sometimes watching’s the best thing you can do. You learn a lot when you watch.’ He looked out of the window. ‘Now and again we get involved if the country in question has no real counter-terrorist capacity. But here,’ he patted Swann on the back. ‘You taught us everything we know.’