Green For Danger - Volume II of the Operation Jigsaw Trilogy

by Hayden, Mark

  The meeting room was less impressive. Modern, clean and anonymous: it could have been anywhere in the world. Her contact had covered the table with papers and was making enthusiastic use of the free Wi-Fi. He introduced himself as Anthony and offered her coffee.

  Kate accepted and then asked the most obvious question – who Anthony worked for.

  ‘In any other line of work, I’d be called a headhunter,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t have positive connotations in the world of intelligence, so we’ll settle on recruitment consultant. Quite simply, I keep track of people in our field and try to match them to opportunities as they become available. I do have an office, but I prefer first encounters to be on neutral territory. More secure that way.’

  Was it? Kate wondered if it were just because he didn’t make much money and couldn’t afford a base somewhere. On the other hand, if his assets were all in his contact book and he had clients on four continents, it would make sense to keep on the move. The other thing she wasn’t sure about was the designation Our Field. Kate saw herself as a soldier first and only by accident an intelligence officer.

  ‘Your colonel tipped me off that you were leaving without any particular place to go. I guess that your presence here today sort of confirms that.’

  ‘I’ve been in the Army a long time. I didn’t want to rush into anything so I’m keeping my options open.’

  ‘Great. I felt like that myself, so I can see where you’re coming from.’

  She looked at him again. He was older than her, but he didn’t look like an ex-soldier. SIS? MI5? His natural and open demeanour was a good cover. She didn’t know his full name, his real location or anything about him except that he was British. Or had a good dialogue coach. She decided on SIS: she could see him blending in with a delegation to the former Soviet Republics quite nicely.

  Anthony leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. ‘So tell me, Captain Lonsdale, what did you offer to the Army that someone else could use? And you can leave out the loyalty and hard work; I’ll take that for granted.’

  Kate crossed her legs too and fiddled with her coffee cup. ‘I did electrical engineering at Uni and I was going to join REME, but there was a big push on at the time for hardware engineers so the Signals grabbed me… and the next thing I knew, I was fitting up fibre optic networks and learning about interception. I did that for a while and then moved into Intelligence. I’m considered something of an expert on battlefield sigint, but we all know that Afghanistan’s going to wind down soon, and I thought I’d get established outside.’

  He nodded as she spoke and considered what she said. ‘How important is public service to you? I could give you a very good introduction at GCHQ or MI5, but you don’t really need me for that.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know. There’s something to be said for the public sector, but if I went to Cheltenham I’d miss the field work. I’m not sure about MI5; I’ve not had much to do with them. Been too busy hunting the Taliban in their caves.’

  ‘How would you feel about going back? To Afghanistan, I mean. The PMCs are getting a lot of work there, and a NATO trained officer could command a premium salary.’

  It was the question she had been dreading. She knew all about the private military contractors, and they had often attended briefings. She had no problem with them in principle, but it was the thought of going back to Helmand that she was uncertain about.

  ‘Have you got anything UK based? To start with, I mean.’

  He locked eyes with her for a second and then picked up some papers. ‘Have a look at these two. They’re purely hypothetical, of course.’

  Kate was shocked when she read the first sheet. It described an operation to gather information on two Islamic groups in England. There was no mention of the words Warrant or Authorisation. She put the paper down and turned to the second one. It described a white hat consultancy service which attempted to breach security at various organisations and then prepared reports for their management.

  ‘I like the look of this. Are there many opportunities?’

  ‘Yes and no. It tends to be a bit seasonal. Every time there’s a serious breach in the press they get a flood of work. I couldn’t guarantee you a steady income, but you could build up a good CV quite quickly. It helps that you’re mobile.’

  ‘Give me six weeks to sort myself out and have a holiday, then let me know what you’ve got. I’d be especially interested in anything happening in South Wales.’

  Anthony gave her a business card. It was different from the one her colonel had given her because it had the man’s name and a mobile number.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Skinner,’ said Kate as she stood to shake his hand.

  James King was finding Earlsbury very quiet. In the back garden of his mother’s house there was a little traffic noise and a distant lawn mower, but no music. At home there would be tunes coming from every window on such a day as this, and he would have his own music playing. Then again, he didn’t have a garden. He had to grow his ganja plants on the balcony.

  He had rolled two joints and given one to Robert and, with a beer, his brother was starting to calm down. Theresa brought a tray from the kitchen and put it on the table. ‘Home-made lemonade,’ she announced. ‘Perfect for this weather.’

  ‘I think I’ll stick to the beer,’ said Robert.

  James accepted a glass and enjoyed the bitter tang followed by the sweet coolness.

  ‘To freedom,’ said Theresa. ‘Long may it continue.’

  The boys – men – raised their glasses and Robert finished his beer. He had a cold six pack under the chair and started on the third. ‘There’s going to be a lecture,’ he said. ‘I can feel it in the air.’

  ‘I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen my men come out of prison,’ said Terri. ‘James promised me he wasn’t going back and he’s kept that promise. I don’t care what you get up to, Robbie, but I can’t face you going back inside. Nor can Erin. I had to work very hard to convince her that you were going straight this time – and not straight back to jail. If you want those boys in your life, you need to be there for them. She’s not going to take them to visit you if you’re behind bars, and that’s a fact.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ said Robert. ‘We’re in the middle of a recession, and the only thing I can do well is sell stuff. I’m not going on the market stalls and, you know what, Land Rover aren’t hiring black ex-cons. I think I’ll stick to what I know.’

  ‘I didn’t say it had to be legal: I just said it had to be safer. Would you consider a change of product?’

  James couldn’t help himself. ‘Product? Are we in the Mafia now?’

  Robert turned to face their mother. ‘Go on. What do you suggest?’

  ‘Tell him about the party first,’ she said to James.

  ‘It’s our sister’s eighteenth birthday, and we’re going to show her a good time, King style.’

  ‘She’s not my sister.’

  Theresa banged the table. ‘If Hope is my daughter then she’s your sister. Is that clear?’

  Robert squared up and his jaw twitched. His mother stared him down. ‘It’s not her fault your father got killed on her birthday, and you’ll get her a present, too.’

  ‘Hasn’t she had enough presents from her father? School fees paid for, and university next year. She don’t need no present from me.’

  James showed a united front: ‘Respect our mother, Robert. She has welcomed you back into her house like the prodigal son, and she loves you more for being a sinner.’

  ‘Is that your Catholic school speaking, or is it Jah Rastafari?’

  ‘It is the Bible. The wisdom of God is open to all who listen.’

  Theresa raised her hand to separate them and turned to Robert. ‘What if I said that you could get some business?’

  ‘From who? What?’

  ‘Dermot Lynch. He said he needs someone with your connections.’

  Robert sat back in his chair. ‘All right, I’ll listen to Dermot,
but if his poxy uncle comes anywhere near me, I swear I’ll do to him what his psycho friend did to my father.’

  James relaxed for a moment but he wasn’t convinced. Until Robert could accept that their father had killed Dermot’s father, he doubted that the peace of God would descend on his brother.

  Chapter 3

  Earlsbury – London

  Monday Morning – Afternoon – Tuesday Evening

  13-14th September

  They used to call it back to school weather. September had brought the return of the rush hour in the mornings, and hordes of children wondering why they were stuck inside when it was clearly still summer.

  Patrick left his coat in the car and unlocked the side door of Emerald Green Imports, a small warehouse on a busy estate of similar warehouses. It wasn’t anonymous (a large shamrock on the side was not what you’d call hiding yourself), but it wasn’t easy to find, either. You had to turn in from the Stourbridge Road at the garage, take the second left past the tile shop and then bear right at the electrical wholesaler.

  Patrick whistled a jig as he put the kettle on and took the security bars off the big shutters ready for later. There was a rumble and clank from outside as Dermot arrived in his pickup. His nephew locked the side door behind him when he entered, and Patrick put down two mugs of strong tea. Both mugs were emblazoned with the Old Gold and black logo of their team, Wolverhampton Wanderers. Dermot had even pinned a poster of the current squad on the wall.

  ‘How did we do at the weekend?’ he asked Dermot.

  ‘Do you mean me or the business?’

  ‘Keep your depraved love life to yourself.’

  ‘You’re just jealous. Any road up, I did better than the Baggies.’

  ‘Not difficult.’

  They grinned and lifted their Wolves mugs in a toast. It was always a sweet day when the Baggies (West Bromwich Albion) lost.

  ‘Two good results,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Four, actually. Wanderers won away, Albion got hammered at home, we made money, and I got lucky.’

  ‘Dermot, enough. I’m surprised you could face going to Sandwell.’

  The counterfeit cash was flowing steadily in from Red Hand’s deliveries, and Patrick was constantly on the lookout for new places to dispose of it. He had already argued with Dermot about how much they could shift through their regular distributors, and he had set tough limits. It had been Dermot’s idea to target the various borderline legal businesses that floated around local events, including the football.

  ‘It was easy. Because Man United brought so many fans, there was a lot of trade outside the Away end. I went up to every scarf seller, burger van and ticket tout I could find and bought something – anything – with a twenty pound note. Then just before kick-off I went back and said, “If you didn’t spot that dodgy note, who else will?” Then I offered to sell them some more.’

  ‘Did no one call for the police? There must have been enough of them around.’

  ‘That was the best bit. Most of the time there was a copper within ten feet of me. No, if they weren’t happy I gave them a refund and they kept quiet. Most took some off me. One of the ticket touts took a bundle.’

  ‘So, how did we do?’

  ‘Ten grand cleared.’

  That was good. That was very good for an afternoon’s work. One thousand counterfeit notes exchanged for real ones to the value of ten thousand pounds, and they would crop up in Manchester instead of the Black Country. Even better.

  ‘Is it secured?’

  ‘Yeah. I stashed it on Sunday morning.’

  Patrick put his mug down sharply. ‘Why not on Saturday night?’

  Dermot grinned. ‘Well, Sky Sports had these two promotion girls up from London and they were staying over for the Villa game yesterday. I told you I’d got lucky.’

  That boy. What could you do? Patrick chuckled to himself and remembered his own adventures at Dermot’s age. ‘Ma was asking after you again.’

  Dermot shuffled in his chair. ‘Sorry. I wanted to get rid of the cash, and by then it was too late for dinner.’

  ‘Make sure you’re there next week. She was asking when you’re going to settle down with a nice girl. I told her there wasn’t a nice girl in Staffordshire who’d touch you wid a barge pole. What about Blackpool? Are they ready to take more?’

  ‘Possibly. My contact wasn’t very keen on the percentage, but it’s hard to tell with him. Every time we send them something he tries to renegotiate the price after the event. I get the impression that the bloke in charge is a bit more easy-going. Mind you, their local plod have been having a clampdown – they found half of the last shipment of vodka. I checked it out online, he wasn’t bullshitting me. We might have to take a reduced payment from them – call it a gesture of goodwill.’

  ‘Good idea. We need to keep them sweet. Drink up: time for business. I’ll open the shutters.’

  The legal side of their enterprise was stacked in crates around the warehouse. Patrick still rented two stalls on Earlsbury market and one of them was still next to Theresa King, but he didn’t sell fancy goods any more. All his stock was now Irish crafts: quality goods from small suppliers. It made a small profit and covered his costs, but that was all. The real money-making side was carried out in a different warehouse altogether. That one wasn’t just difficult to find, it moved around on a regular basis, wherever abandoned and empty properties could be secured for cash.

  Patrick had carefully cultivated people over the years… people in shipping, law enforcement and trade. He knew ways of getting Chinese cigarettes and Chinese vodka into the country that others could only dream of. He was especially proud of the vodka because he’d seen a gap in the market for Chinese tractor tyres, and had designed a giant rubber ring which fitted inside the tyre. Each ring could hold a hundred litres of vodka. His longstanding contacts in the Black Country meant that he knew exactly who to approach to do the bottling.

  There was a clear division of labour between Patrick and his nephew. Patrick laundered the money and sourced the goods; Dermot distributed them. He had come out of jail with some interesting contacts a few years ago, one of whom was a big player in Blackpool where they seemed to have an enormous appetite for all things illegal. Patrick hadn’t been to the place for donkey’s years, but Dermot told him it had a very poor side away from the Golden Mile. Sure … wouldn’t the folks there be grateful for some help with the cost of booze and fags? The final link in the chain was Patrick’s dividend to his Principal Investors. They guaranteed that all sorts of channels remained open to him, but they took a big percentage of the profits.

  With the shutters open, Dermot backed his pickup to the doors and started loading.

  ‘Would you not be better with a van?’ asked Patrick. ‘Sure, doesn’t it rain as much in this country as it does in Ireland? Only a farmer would use an open truck.’

  ‘Nah. It’s flexible. We’ve got enough vans for the winter. Hang on.’ Dermot pulled out his phone and studied it. ‘That’s Rob King. He had a good weekend, too. Twelve grand.’

  The maths was simple for Patrick. It was the one thing he had enjoyed at school, and he rarely used a calculator. Dermot had cleared ten thousand – six thousand for Red Hand and four thousand for them. Robert King had cleared twelve thousand: thirty-six hundred to Red Hand, eighteen hundred to them and six hundred left for Robert himself.

  You can’t do a huge lot with six hundred pounds these days, and if Robert was relying on the dodgy notes as his only source of income, he would be stretched. He might build up the business further or he might diversify. It was the latter thought that worried Patrick most.

  Before Dermot drove off, he asked him if he knew what Robert’s plans were.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘You know … like is he still living with Terri?’

  ‘Far as a I know. I think she wants to keep an eye on him. He’s spending time with Erin and the boys as well.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ said Patrick and
patted his nephew on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps he’s trying to work an angle at that pole dancing club of hers.’

  ‘I’d like to work an angle there. They’re well fit, those birds. Classy too, most of’em.’

  ‘I despair of you, Dermot, I really do.’

  Some things still have to be done in writing. The Metropolitan Police may be increasingly paperless, but when it comes to witness statements, warrants, and exam results, only the printed page will do. Tom stared at the envelope for a full minute before opening it.

  Did he want to become an Inspector? Did he have any choice? Most of the detective sergeants at the Money Laundering Investigation Unit (the MLIU) were happy doing their jobs and would carry on until retirement – and probably afterwards as consultants. They fitted the job and the job fitted them. Tom knew that wasn’t for him, but he didn’t know what was.

  He had been forced to slow down when he joined the City of London Police. He worked just as hard, but the long, drawn out process of gathering small pieces of information, checking bank accounts, trawling phone records and compiling huge spreadsheets was very different from the work of a solicitor or a beat copper. He could do it and do it well, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do forever. He wasn’t sure that he wanted his boss’s job, either.

  DI Fulton had given Tom a case five years ago when he had joined the team as a detective constable. In a year’s time he would have been working on that case longer than his marriage had lasted, and he wasn’t much nearer a solution.

  He came to a decision: if he had passed the exam, he would leave the City of London Police and take the first DI job that came up. Wherever it was.

  He opened the envelope and, despite his nerves, he was now considered fit to be an inspector. The sun broke over his desk, and he agreed with the weather – this was actually a very good day. He picked up a file and carried it downstairs where he dropped it in the internal mail.