Bandit Country

by Andrew Turpin

  “You said it had a pale blue cover,” Johnson said, ignoring the question. “Well, I’ve seen the machine, and it definitely has a pale blue cover. That sticker confirms it, then. You might want to know that the man using it, I believe, is the man who shot your husband.”

  “Who is it, then?” Beth asked.

  “I can’t say right now,” Johnson said. “First I need to confirm what I’m suspecting. And I need those journals to get to the bottom of why it happened and whether anyone else might be in danger. It’s critical.”

  He didn’t mention that he had already found out where her son, Archie, lived in London. Nor did he say that if Archie didn’t cooperate, he wouldn’t hesitate to carry out an illicit visit of the type that he had carried out several times during his career. That could wait until the next step.

  “I wish you’d tell me who you think it is, but okay, I’ll try again,” she said. She looked irritated.

  “Please do.”

  Johnson left. As he climbed into his car, his phone pinged with a short message from O’Neill. Met my agent recently (FYI it’s Dennehy). He says nothing currently planned for the G8. Likely bullshit but letting you know.

  It had to be bullshit, Johnson thought. He called Fiona to update her on the progress. He was aware from the exchanges of emails and text messages they’d had over the previous few days that she was busy writing analysis articles and stories in advance of the G8, but the task of covering the event had been given to the Dublin and London correspondents of Inside Track as well as the deputy editor and the international affairs correspondent. Fiona wasn’t going to be traveling to Belfast for the meeting.

  “That helps us,” Johnson said. “You’ll be free to go back to Boston and track down McKinney, when the time comes.”

  “Yes, but this is going to be all in the timing,” Fiona said. “I obviously don’t want to approach him and alert him until you’ve found a way to reel in Duggan at your end. As soon as you’ve done your bit, then I can press the button. I’ve briefed my editor here, and he’s very keen on the story. It’ll be huge for us. Then it’ll be over to the police at this end to haul him in and press charges.”

  “Agreed,” said Johnson. “I’ll give you an update if you hang on.”

  He clicked onto the tracking app that was linked to the GPS tracker hidden in the rifle case en route from Boston.

  The two small icons representing the trackers showed that the ship was well up the east coast of Ireland and was very close to Dublin.

  “Looks like the ship’s going to be docking soon,” Johnson told Fiona. “I’m going to head down there with Jayne. I’ll keep you informed. Wish us luck—we may need it.”

  Thursday, January 24, 2013

  Dublin Port

  The green, blue, orange, brown, and yellow shipping containers were stacked five high and were being moved around like children’s building blocks by the giant automated gantry cranes that ran nonstop in the container terminal.

  A group of run-down industrial buildings stood on the other side of the road, all peeling paint, cracked cement, and weather-beaten fascias.

  Dock workers in fluorescent orange and yellow jackets watched and chewed gum as the display of well-organized, heavy-duty logistics continued behind them, and a seemingly never-ending parade of trucks carrying shipping containers went in and out of the port, belching black diesel fumes.

  They had taken both cars to Dublin Port to give them more flexibility and for security purposes, in case they came under surveillance or were threatened.

  They parked next to each other across the road from the container terminal, next to a rusty chain-link fence that separated the road from an oil tank farm. Jayne locked her newly acquired white Toyota and sat in Johnson’s black Ford.

  Johnson knew from the app on his phone, which he had mounted on a dashboard holder, that the container holding the rifle had arrived. The two icons glowed bright and motionless on the map of the port area.

  But he had no idea precisely where in the chaos of the terminal it was or on which of the myriad of trucks it was being loaded.

  He and Jayne decided to sit tight and wait until it was on the move. Then they would, by process of elimination, be able to track its movements. At least, that was the theory.

  Johnson muttered dire warnings about likely having to wait deep into the night and fetching soup to keep them warm. He put some melancholy jazz and blues on the car stereo.

  But Jayne, who seemed to have some prior knowledge of how modern ports operated, contradicted him sharply. Once fleets of cranes got to work on modern container ships, they were unloaded very quickly, she said, with an air of authority.

  “I knew a guy who captained one of those ships,” Jayne said. “He said that the life of a seafarer is no longer what it used to be, back when they had days in port while ships were unloaded. Now it’s automated and quite boring.”

  “Knew a guy?” Johnson said. He folded his arms and looked the other way.

  Jayne turned out to be right about the unloading time.

  After less than three hours, Johnson made yet another check on the phone. Then he sat quickly upright and shoved the ignition key into its slot.

  “The circus is on the move,” he said.

  They watched the screen as the two icons moved slowly out of the port in the direction of the M50 divided highway, which led toward the ribbon of the M1 heading to Northern Ireland.

  “You lead, I’ll follow,” Jayne said. She jumped out of the Ford and got back into her Toyota.

  Johnson reached over, removed the Beretta from the glove compartment, and placed it in the door compartment next to him. Then he started the engine and steered the Focus in the same direction, Jayne on his tail.

  The container truck was probably a mile or two ahead of them, Johnson estimated. By the time they reached the tangled major road junction north of Dublin, out near the airport, where the M50 merged into the M1, the gap had been closed.

  Which truck was it, though? There were a few freight trucks carrying shipping containers on the highway. Johnson tried to remain level with where he thought the icons were.

  Gradually, as they passed more junctions, the traffic peeled off and thinned out. Now there were just two trucks visible, both unbranded, both a few hundred yards ahead, one carrying a rusting yellow container, one a blue.

  Johnson dialed Jayne on his cell phone, still in the dashboard holder. “We can’t afford to screw up here. I think it’s the blue one,” he said.

  “Yep, okay,” she said. “Leave this phone connection open so we can talk.”

  At the next junction, the truck with the yellow container took the exit. The blue one continued on the M1.

  “Just keep a distance,” Jayne said, her voice distorted over the cell phone connection. “We’ve no idea whether one of their guys is in the cab or not. Don’t want them to realize they’re being tailed.”

  Two junctions farther on, the truck took the exit and then, after three miles, headed into an industrial park, where it turned into a timber yard with a sign that read O’Malley’s Timber International.

  “The boss at the timber company is obviously on their payroll,” Johnson said. “Have to hand it to these guys. They’re organized.”

  Johnson drove into a DIY warehouse parking lot next door and reversed into a space so he could see from the rear car window through a gap in the bushes and the steel security fencing into the timber yard behind. Ten seconds later, Jayne did likewise, parking next to him. She slipped out of her car and into his passenger seat.

  The container truck, about 150 yards from where Johnson and Jayne were parked, was backed up against a raised loading bay. Next to it, four large unmarked white vans waited, almost in formation, their rear doors open at the same level as the bay.

  “Shit, this is a military operation,” Jayne said.

  Johnson nodded. “That’s precisely what it is.”

  The large steel gates to the timber yard had been closed. Johns
on counted eighteen men, working in groups of six, who were removing the heavy wooden beams from the container Johnson had seen being loaded the previous week in Boston. All of the beams, apart from four that were placed to one side, were taken to a covered area and stacked.

  The four beams that stood separately were loaded into one of the white vans.

  “Got the plate of that one?” Jayne asked. “I’m guessing those four are the ones with the toys.”

  Johnson nodded and tapped a note into his phone.

  The men stopped for a break. Several of them smoked, and some urinated against the fence at the back of the yard.

  Johnson could now see the men more clearly. “That one over there on the left, lighting his smoke, that’s Duggan. Definitely. I recognize him from the video footage we saw,” he said.

  Another man, carrying a flashlight, began to walk around the perimeter of the yard, looking closely at the bushes. He drew near Johnson’s car.

  “Best get well down. Though he’ll not see through these darkened windows anyway,” Johnson said. They both slid down in their seats until their heads were well below the level of the seat backs.

  The beam from the flashlight shone straight into the car, paused for a few seconds, and then moved on.

  When they next dared to look, the men were hard at it again. Most of them had their coats off and a couple were down to their T-shirts, despite the cold.

  This time, instead of beams, they were carrying plain brown cardboard boxes, roughly two feet long, and loading them into the other three vans. One of the men paused, broke open one of the boxes, and began to remove some of the contents, passing small packets around to the other workers.

  “What the hell!” Johnson said after he’d watched them for a few minutes. “Those are cartons of cigarettes. Thousands of them.”

  Several of the workers removed cigarettes from the packs and lit up.

  “Unbelievable,” Johnson said. “So presumably, they smuggle the smokes in to fund the arms deals. They won’t be paying any import duty. It amazes me how much of this stuff gets straight through the ports.”

  Jayne snorted. “There’s no way they can inspect all those containers. To open one, unload it, and inspect it properly would take hours. You’d be damned unlucky to get caught. They probably just write it off as bad luck if it happens. The customs people make a PR meal of it when they do catch someone, but the reality is, those are the tip of the iceberg.”

  The unloading operation continued for another hour or so. Then the men gathered together, and the man Johnson was now certain was Duggan handed out small brown envelopes to the others. They then dispersed to cars parked around the yard.

  The truck holding the shipping container eventually drove off.

  Johnson checked the GPS tracker app on his phone again, to make sure the rifle case was still in the yard. The two icons glowed at him reassuringly from the screen.

  “That’s it, then, job done. They’ve paid the guys. We just need to make sure we follow the right van now.”

  Someone opened the gates to the yard, and the cars drove off. Next, the three vans holding the cigarettes left.

  The two icons remained stationary on Johnson’s phone screen map.

  There were two men left in the yard, one of them Duggan. They climbed into the van Johnson knew contained the four beams—and presumably the rifle—and moved slowly out of the parking lot.

  Johnson started the car but left his lights off and didn’t move until the van was around the corner.

  Once Jayne was back in her Toyota and ready to follow, he accelerated away. They only turned their lights on once they were back on the main road.

  Johnson dialed Jayne on his cell phone, then switched back to the tracking app. “It looks like he’s heading back toward the M1,” Johnson said. “Just need to make sure we don’t lose this asshole.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Thursday, January 24, 2013

  South Armagh

  Once on the divided highway, the white van accelerated rapidly into the night, its red tail lights weaving between lanes as it passed slower-moving traffic. But it never went much over the speed limit.

  Johnson hung back at least four hundred yards behind the van as it cruised north past Drogheda and then Dundalk.

  It was now past eight o’clock and the traffic was sparse, with an occasional truck still heading north and a few cars coming south, presumably commuters heading back home to the Republic from Belfast.

  North of Dundalk, without indicating, the van suddenly veered down an off-ramp signposted Carlingford.

  Johnson accelerated to follow, Jayne still in position just behind.

  The van sped around a traffic circle, and within seconds they were on a narrow country road.

  Johnson quickly noticed that whereas the van had closely stuck to the speed limit on the highway, presumably to avoid any attention from the police, now it ran flat out down a dark, twisty lane with little passing space.

  He gripped the steering wheel and forced himself to concentrate. The van driver clearly knew these lanes well.

  “Looks like he’s running,” Johnson said to Jayne over his cell phone.

  He rounded a bend too quickly, came very close to a hedge, and then downshifted into third gear to give himself more control. “It’s possible he’s realized he’s being tailed,” Johnson said.

  “Maybe,” Jayne said, her voice sounding distant over the hands-free loudspeaker system. “Probably more obvious now we’re off the motorway. Why else would he be gunning it?”

  Johnson realized he hadn’t updated O’Neill, so he temporarily ended the call with Jayne and dialed the MI5 man. But O’Neill’s phone, after ringing a few times, went to voice mail.

  Bare trees and hedges flashed past in the white light of the Ford’s headlights. Here there were no road markings, and Johnson was forced to focus on the shoulders to give himself a navigation point as he came in and out of the frequent sharp bends.

  The van was about three hundred yards ahead of them now. They took a sharp left just after a farm and then a right at a large white-painted pub on a corner, where the lights were all on but the parking lot was empty.

  A minute later came a crossroads warning sign and a stop sign immediately afterward.

  But the van hurtled over the junction without slowing, Johnson following, still some distance behind.

  Immediately after the van passed, a car came from the left side of the junction, a green Land Rover came from the right, and they both braked to a halt a couple of feet from each other right in the middle of the crossroads, blocking it completely.

  There was no reason for the two cars to have stopped. There had been no accident, no collision. Johnson glanced in the rearview mirror and could see that another Land Rover had emerged from a driveway to block the road behind him, separating him from Jayne, who was stuck behind it.

  In front of him, the drivers of the Land Rover and the car had both jumped out and appeared to be arguing.

  Johnson knew instantly that this was some kind of setup, either a tactic to allow the van to get away or, possibly, to take him out. He decided in an instant what he would do. He braked hard to avoid smashing into the Land Rover but then steered hard right, then sharply left, and rammed his foot down on the accelerator, scraping the driver’s side of his car on some brickwork as he forced his way through the narrowest of gaps between the Land Rover and a wall at the corner of the crossroads.

  As he drove up the road, he glanced in his mirror. The two men were scrambling to get back in their vehicles.

  Johnson redialed Jayne’s cell phone.

  “Jayne, are you still there behind me?” Johnson said, his voice suddenly reedy and tense.

  “Yes, but I’m stuck behind that bloody Land Rover. It’s not moving. What the hell’s going on?” Jayne’s voice was breaking up over the cell phone, and he was down to just one bar showing on his reception indicator.

  Johnson pounded his hands on the ste
ering wheel and checked the GPS on his phone. The coverage on that also appeared intermittent, but then the green dot moved, showing that the tracker inside the van was now pulling well away, moving fast and heading north.

  “Sonofabitch,” Johnson shouted. “It’s a setup. It’s been fixed. Get out of there, fast as you can, Jayne.”

  “No, the bloody Land Rover’s still blocking me, I’m going to . . .”

  But Johnson didn’t hear the rest of Jayne’s sentence as he lost the signal on his phone completely.

  “Shit,” he muttered to himself. “We’re screwed here.”

  Johnson felt he had no choice but to follow the van even if it meant leaving Jayne behind. She would have to catch up later, although navigating through dark country lanes with no cell phone signal was not ideal.

  He was forced to slow down to study the GPS tracking app on his phone as best he could while keeping his car on the road. The van now appeared to be at least a mile or so ahead and seemed to stop briefly before taking a right-hand fork.

  Johnson put his foot to the floor and sped down a straight stretch of road.

  Now the clouds over the Irish countryside cleared, revealing a full moon, and suddenly the road rising up ahead of him was lit with an eerie white light that reflected off the blacktop.

  Johnson took the next right, following the tracker, but after half a mile, the road surface deteriorated alarmingly, with large holes visible. The GPS had stopped farther down the lane, just in front of him.

  A couple of hundred yards ahead, a huge heap of black gravel and concrete waste loomed in the high-beam headlights, right in the center of the road, completely blocking it.

  It’s a dead end. What the hell?

  The GPS was indicating right where the heap of gravel was. This couldn’t be right. It was a disused lane, which clearly functioned as a dumping ground or storage area for road repair materials.

  Johnson braked and peered through the windshield. He noticed in the headlights a long, slim cardboard box lying on the heap of gravel, right where the GPS was showing the tracker to be.