Timebomb

by Timebomb (retail) (epub)

  ‘So what are we looking for?’ the pilot asked.

  ‘I really don’t know, but anything suspicious in the vicinity of that wreck. How long before we get there?’

  ‘About fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Right,’ Richter said. ‘When we reach Sheppey, head to the wreck’s location. You’ve got the coordinates?’

  ‘Yes. They’re marked on all the maritime charts. But then what? I mean, are we looking for divers, or what?’

  ‘A boat’s much more likely. The wreck’s nearly two miles off Sheerness, and that would be a hell of a long swim for somebody in a wetsuit lugging several kilos of plastic. And then there would be problems detonating it. With Semtex, the normal method is a blasting cap, actuated by a battery or a dynamo. I don’t think these terrorists could have run a cable out to the foreshore somewhere on Sheppey, intending to use a hand-cranked dynamo or something. But they might have left a charge with a timer on the wreck itself. If they have, there’s nothing much we can do about it now. There’s certainly not enough time left to get a diver down to the wreck, locate the device and disarm it. But my guess is that they didn’t do that either. The wreck’s heavily silted after sitting there for half a century, and they’d need to get quite a lot of explosive out there and onboard to guarantee it would blow. It would mean a lot of physical effort in very difficult diving conditions, and they couldn’t use a normal dive boat because of the permanent radar surveillance of the site.’

  He paused to think for a few moments. ‘No, if I wanted to get that wreck to blow, I’d pack a small boat with plastic explosive, moor it directly over the Richard Montgomery, set the timer and retire to a very safe distance, which in this case would probably mean somewhere in France.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Monday

  Canterbury, Kent

  Detective Inspector Paul Mason hurried out of the police station, wrenched open the door of the unmarked police car, sat down and clipped on his seat belt. DS Clark already had the engine running and, the moment the inspector’s door was closed, he accelerated away from the kerb, switching on the flashing blue lights behind the front grille as he did so.

  ‘Rochester,’ Mason snapped. ‘And quick as you can.’

  He leant forward and started up the siren to move a line of cars out of their way as Clark headed out of Canterbury towards Harbledown and the A2, the shortest route to get them to junction seven of the M2 motorway.

  ‘What’s going on, boss?’ Clark asked, turning off the siren once the road ahead was clear.

  ‘I’ve just taken a call from the spooks at Thames House. If you believe what they’re saying, it looks as if some of these recent incidents are related – the death of the old tramp, the body in the woods up on the North Downs, and those four bombings this afternoon in London. Apparently it all comes down to a potential terrorist attack.’

  ‘So what the hell are we supposed to be doing at Rochester?’

  ‘Checking out the local marinas. The theory is that some German terrorist might be using a boat to try to get a load of explosives out to the Richard Montgomery. I’ve already got people back at Canterbury telephoning all the marinas and boatyards in the Medway area, and we’ve got uniformed officers heading for Sheppey, just in case there are any boats missing out there. There are six ARVs cruising the area in case of any contact.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Clark growled. ‘If the Richard Montgomery blows, we’re all in the shit. If that load of bombs goes off, it could wipe out most of Sheppey. So apart from us going around politely asking marina owners if they’ve mislaid any boats recently, is anything being done to stop this German bastard actually lighting the fuse or whatever?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I’d be amazed if an SAS team or somebody wasn’t already out hunting this guy down.’

  SAR Sea King helicopter, callsign ‘Rescue 24’

  In fact, the ‘hunting’ at that stage consisted only of Richter and three RAF aircrew in a bright yellow Sea King helicopter.

  ‘So that’s what we’re looking for?’ the pilot asked. ‘A small boat?’

  ‘Any boat, in fact,’ Richter said, ‘and it could be heading towards the wreck from almost any direction. That means from somewhere on Sheppey itself, or out of the Medway, or even directly across the Thames Estuary from Southend. That’s why we need to start searching at the wreck’s location and work outwards from there.’

  ‘And we’ll need to check every boat we see?’

  ‘Not quite. We can ignore sailing yachts, but every powerboat we see that’s heading in the right direction, yes. Those we’ll have to take a look at. In fact, unless they’ve already managed to moor a vessel near the wreck, we’re probably looking for two boats – one stuffed full of Semtex or C4, and the other to take the pilot of the first one to safety after he’s positioned his floating bomb.’

  Richter looked out of the window on the sliding side door of the Sea King. They had just passed the Dartford Crossing: the huge span of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge carrying south-bound traffic on the M25 was an absolutely unmistakable landmark.

  ‘So what’s your plan once we get there?’ the pilot asked. ‘You’ll want lowering down by winch onto every boat you need to check?’

  ‘That depends on how many of them there are. Time’s of the essence here, so we’ll have to identify the target vessel as quickly as possible. If there are a lot of boats, we’ll just have to check them visually from the air. Whether you winch me down or whether I do something else will depend on who or what’s on board.’

  ‘By “something else”, I presume you mean shoot the occupants with one of your nice little selection of weapons?’

  ‘If it comes to that, yes,’ Richter snapped. ‘Don’t forget what these people are up to. If the only way to stop them is to blow them away, that’s exactly what I’ll do. But if the boat with the explosives is empty, meaning rigged up with an automatic pilot and navigation system, then I will want winching aboard.’

  ‘Right. My aircrewman, Dave here, will give you a briefing.’

  ‘That’s probably not necessary. I used to fly Kings and Harriers for the Queen, so I’ve been dangled from a winch before.’

  ‘My aircraft, my rules, Mr Richter. I don’t care about your previous experience. Just listen to the briefing.’

  ‘Fine.’

  The aircrewman gestured to the rear of the aircraft. ‘There’s an immersion suit back there, as you requested. Put that on first, then I’ll run you through the safety rules and signals.’

  Richter removed his leather jacket and shoulder holster, then unfolded the heavy rubberized suit and climbed into it. The garment was secured by a long, waterproof zip that ran diagonally from one hip to the opposite shoulder, but he left that open for the moment. He knew from previous experience that once the zip was secured, the suit would get very hot, very quickly.

  Next, the aircrewman briefed him on the hand signals he would use and the procedures they’d follow, which were very much as Richter remembered from his time in the Royal Navy.

  ‘Personal radio?’ Richter asked.

  ‘Right here.’ The aircrewman handed over a small black box that Richter clipped to the immersion suit. ‘You’ve used one before?’

  ‘Yes. The press to transmit switch is here’ – pointing at a button on one side of the unit – ‘and I’ll have to put the earpiece in before I leave the chopper.’

  ‘We’re less than five minutes from Sheppey,’ the pilot said, ‘and I’ve just had a message relayed to me through base ops. There are no Royal Navy vessels anywhere in the area, and no other helicopters able to get to the scene within the timescale you specified. Does that make sense?’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately.’

  ‘OK. Are you ready back there?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  Richter zipped up the immersion suit, settled the earpiece as comfortably as he could in his left ear, and pulled the headphones on over the top of it. Then he secured a harness around his torso and clipped it to
a safety line inside the cabin, while the aircrewman slid back the door and peered out.

  Richter stood up and joined him. Directly in front of him, probably four or five miles away, was the open expanse of the River Medway, and he was surprised at how many small boats were out on the water, which obviously wouldn’t make detecting the target vessel any easier.

  Ahead, he could see the Isle of Sheppey, with its principal town, Sheerness, lying directly in front of the helicopter.

  ‘Are there many vessels north of Sheerness?’ Richter asked. ‘Out in the main estuary itself?’

  ‘A handful, yes, but most of them look like bigger stuff. Any chance this German terrorist has taken over a coaster or something?’

  ‘I doubt it, because that would involve a lot more manpower, and they’d have problems getting a vessel that size close enough to the wreck to ensure it would blow. Not to mention the difficulty he’d have in persuading some of his gang that staying on the ship and detonating a three-thousand ton bomb underneath it was a good thing. Morschel and his men may be a lot of things, but suicide bombers they’re not – at least as far as we know.’

  ‘Could they have recruited some ragheads to press the button for them?’

  ‘Our intelligence hasn’t confirmed a link between his group and any radical Islamic sect,’ Richter said. ‘On the other hand, we don’t actually know a hell of a lot about these guys. Our assessment is that they’re more likely to have acquired a smaller craft to use as the trigger. That way, they can get close to the wreck, probably right on top of it, and with enough explosive packed into it, they can pretty much guarantee the sunken ship’s cargo will explode.’

  ‘A surface explosion could do that?’

  Richter nodded – a pointless gesture, as neither pilot could see him. ‘Almost certainly. They’ll probably be using Semtex or C4, and that’s a serious explosive, twice as powerful as TNT. Three pounds of Semtex can destroy a two-storey building, and my guess is that Morschel will have packed his trigger vessel with at least ten times that amount. OK, a lot of the blast will be directed upwards and outwards, but water’s incompressible, and the shock-wave will send a hammer-blow straight down to the wreck below.

  ‘The most dangerous munitions left on board the Richard Montgomery are the cluster bombs stored on the deck above the main holds. They’re very fragile, and a good hard blow could fire them, so they’re likely to detonate as soon as the blast wave hits them. But even if they don’t explode, the metal plates of the decking are rusted and crumbling, and the surface blast will probably finish the job. As the deck gives way, the cluster bombs will drop onto the heavy-weight munitions stacked in the remains of the holds, and then they’ll most certainly blow. And that, I can pretty much guarantee, will cook off the rest of the explosives.’

  Medway, Kent

  The two Germans looked up as the bright yellow Sea King helicopter passed to the north of them, on an easterly heading.

  ‘What’s that doing?’ Hagen asked.

  ‘Probably nothing. It’s a military rescue chopper heading out into the estuary, maybe on a training exercise.’

  ‘You don’t think somebody’s guessed what we’re up to?’

  ‘I doubt it. But even if someone has worked it out, it’s too late to do anything about it now. There are dozens of craft on the estuary, and checking them all will take a while. Even if they manage to identify the boat, they’ve got to get past Badri’s MP5 and the anti-handling devices we’ve rigged. Either one should stop them disarming the bomb in time.’

  SAR Sea King helicopter, callsign ‘Rescue 24’

  In the Sea King above the estuary, Richter was faced with exactly that difficulty. There appeared to be literally dozens of small craft ploughing the choppy grey waters of the Medway, and the only good news was that none was particularly close to the wreck of the Richard Montgomery, the tops of whose masts were still just visible even at the present high tide.

  ‘So now what?’ the pilot asked.

  ‘Now we start checking each boat,’ Richter said grimly.

  ‘And how will we know when we find the right one?’

  ‘We’ll know,’ Richter replied, ‘because they’ll probably start shooting at us.’

  Rochester, Kent

  Mason slipped the mobile phone back into his pocket and turned to Clark. ‘Right, get us north of the River Medway. We might have a hit there.’

  Clark nodded, dropped a gear and accelerated away, switching on the siren and the flashing blue lights. They’d been cruising around on the outskirts of Rochester, waiting to hear of any possible sightings of Morschel or news about boats.

  ‘What’s the address?’ Clark asked.

  ‘The Blue Skies Marina,’ Mason replied, inputting the postcode he’d just been given into the satnav.

  ‘Bloody silly name that, considering it’s in England,’ Clark muttered, pulling out to overtake a line of cars that had eased over to the side of the road on hearing the siren. ‘So what’s the lead?’

  ‘The marina’s owner thinks it might be this guy Morschel who bought a boat from him a few days ago. But we’ve already had quite a few false starts this afternoon, so this could easily be another case of mistaken identity.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Clark pulled their unmarked police car to a halt outside the marina, and both men hurried towards the office. But before they even reached it, the door swung open and a middle-aged man peered out at them anxiously.

  Mason pulled out his warrant card, but the man hardly glanced at it. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘I’ve been expecting you. My name’s Tom Collinwood, and I’ve already dug out the paperwork.’

  ‘What did they tell you on the phone, sir?’ Mason asked, as Clark began scanning the documents the boatyard manager had produced.

  ‘The officer asked me to check all sales and leases for the past month, apart from those involving boats smaller than twelve feet, and I don’t handle any of those. He was only interested in boats that were still out there.’

  ‘And I gather you sold a boat to a German customer?’

  ‘Yes, a few days ago.’

  ‘And what made you think this might be the sale we’re trying to check on?’

  Collinwood sat down behind his desk, motioning the two detectives to a couple of guest chairs. ‘Several things, really. The officer from Canterbury said you were looking for a boat arranged for a German gentleman driving a Mercedes, and especially in a cash transaction. Well, I sold a boat to a German with a Mercedes, and he paid cash for it.’

  Clark glanced up sharply, but didn’t interrupt.

  ‘His name was Heinrich, and he first contacted me by email several weeks ago.’

  ‘What did he say he was looking for?’ Mason asked.

  ‘His requirements seemed simple enough, just a boat that would take four to six people, and that was seaworthy enough to handle the waters out in the Thames Estuary. He claimed that he intended to visit various coastal areas of Kent and Essex, and maybe do a bit of sea fishing as well.’

  ‘And you had one suitable?’

  ‘Yes, in fact, we had several. Eventually Mr Heinrich decided on a seventeen-footer fitted with a fairly big Evinrude outboard.’

  Clark opened the folder he’d kept tucked under his left arm. Besides several sheets of paper, it contained a photograph that showed a single figure sitting in a German-plated Mercedes waiting stationary at some kind of booth. This he placed on the desk in front of Collinwood.

  ‘This was taken at Calais, shortly before this man boarded a ferry to Dover. Does he look familiar?’

  Collinwood peered closely at the picture, then looked up after a few seconds.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, ‘it could be him, but he didn’t arrive in this car. The Mercedes that arrived here had Austrian plates.’

  Clark asked the obvious question. ‘Did you make a note of the registration number?’

  Collinwood shook his head. ‘No, once Heinrich introduced himself, I completely lost interest in w
hatever car he’d arrived in. All I remember for sure is that the plates were Austrian. They’re quite distinctive.’

  ‘Anything else you can remember about him?’

  ‘No, not really. And I never got a decent look at his passenger.’

  ‘His passenger?’ Mason queried.

  ‘There was another man in the car with him, a big guy, very bulky. Anyway, the second man stayed in the car almost the whole time, and drove off in the car after Heinrich took the boat away.’

  ‘Do you know where this Heinrich was heading when he left here?’ Clark asked.

  Collinwood shook his head. ‘No, he just said he’d got a berth in a marina somewhere down-river.’

  ‘Anything else relevant?’

  ‘Well, one thing did seem odd. After we’d concluded the deal, he and the second man carried four large heavy-looking bags from the boot of his car and put them on board the boat. That’s not usual, unless he was planning a trip somewhere immediately. Even then, most people can pack enough stuff for a long weekend into a couple of carrier bags. I didn’t think that was anything sinister, just unusual.’

  ‘OK,’ Mason said, ‘that’s very helpful, Mr Collinwood. One last thing. The boat – can you describe it for us?’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ the manager replied, ‘I’ve got some photographs here.’

  He opened a file on his desk and handed over about half a dozen eight by ten colour pictures of a fairly undistinguished blue and white craft.

  Mason studied these for a few seconds, then pulled a mobile phone from his pocket and punched in the open-line number for FOE at Hammersmith.

  ‘This is Detective-Inspector Mason of the Kent Constabulary,’ he announced as his call was answered. ‘I need to speak to Paul Richter, please. It’s urgent.’

  ‘He’s not in the building.’

  ‘I guessed that. Can you patch me through to wherever he is? Or give me another number or something?’