If Fear Wins

by Tony J. Forder

  There were a series of audible gasps followed by a tumult of voices in the wake of Bliss’s announcement. He held up his hands to quieten them down. ‘If you’re wondering how the two are connected, believe me, so am I. But I think I may be able to guess. In fact, tragically, it may tie in rather neatly with why our murdered airman ended up dead at all.’

  ‘This ought to be interesting,’ Munday said, having moved closer to the front of the room and now stood aiming his steely gaze at Bliss.

  Bliss cleared his throat, tapped the whiteboard with his marker having added further notes. ‘Bear with me. I’m thinking on my feet here. For the moment let’s assume we are right about everything so far. Lewis Drake and his crew pay RAF personnel to fly in stolen artefacts, and Darren Bird purchases them from him to sell on. That’s it as far as Bird and the RAF are concerned. But maybe that’s not where Drake’s role ends. What if our smugglers are not only bringing in stolen artefacts in those cargo planes? What if they are also bringing in people? Or to be more precise, what if they are also trafficking in young women?’

  40

  At Munday’s suggestion, he and Bliss took themselves off to the Holiday Inn hotel, where they found a quiet table in the bar and lounge area to the front of the building. Drinks in hand, they discussed both major aspects of Compound. It came as no surprise to Bliss when, less than ten minutes later, the SIS agent slid into the seat alongside him. If the spooks were looking to intimidate by joining forces, it wasn’t going to work. Bliss had encountered bigger and better.

  ‘Ah, the mystery man from Vauxhall Cross,’ Bliss said. ‘Funnily enough, I’ve been expecting you. And you two know each other, of course. Quite well, I’d say.’

  ‘I would much rather be elsewhere right now, Inspector,’ Six insisted, ignoring the implication behind Bliss’s words. He appeared far more harassed than during their previous meeting, which pleased Bliss immeasurably. ‘Only my friend from Thames House here informs me that things have moved on a pace. Slipping more into my purview than his own. Would you mind bringing me up to date?’

  Bliss thought about that. Prior to leaving the incident room he had taken his team through the new version of his theory. Bliss explained that in his opinion, whilst Livingston had signed up to the smuggling of artefacts, as soon as he realised there was also human trafficking going on, he then threatened to blow the whole scheme wide open.

  ‘Why didn’t he do it, then?’ Chandler asked. ‘You’re saying he had this massive crisis of conscience, and then went out on the beer with his mates?’

  ‘No, I’m saying it could have taken place after they last saw him. That maybe he was actually at the base that night after the pub.’

  ‘But if it was his intention to inform us, why would he then tell the people he was about to inform on, boss?’ Bishop asked. ‘Say you’re right. Say he discovers this young woman in amongst all the stolen items? Surely he wouldn’t then tell these criminals he was going to turn them in. Why would he take such a huge risk? He’d just go ahead and do it.’

  Nodding, Bliss gave that some more thought. Bishop was right. It didn’t entirely add up. Livingston was far too bright to follow that path, but Bliss was still making it up as he went along.

  ‘Okay,’ he said agreeably. ‘You’re probably right. So let’s say instead that Livingston found out but didn’t tell the gang what he intended on doing. Perhaps he only ever decided to pull out of the deal, but this was something he wisely kept to himself. If that’s the case, what does he do that manages to snare their attention enough that they murder him for it?’

  Bliss stared around at the blank faces. He smiled as the answer came to him almost immediately. ‘He frees the girl. That’s the flashpoint. He frees the girl whose body ended up in that drum at Drake Salvage. Livingston accidentally somehow finds her amongst all the other goods flown in, and rather than hand her over to the crew he sets her free. When the time comes to deliver, our airman is nowhere to be found, and neither is the girl. The gang figures it had to be him, that Livingston has lost his bottle. Unfortunately for the girl they track her down and end up killing her. Probably so that she cannot be produced should Livingston manage to tell the police his story before the gang can get to him. Then they take our airman out of the picture.’

  ‘That sounds more plausible,’ Short said, nodding enthusiastically. ‘Even so, do we really buy that he sets this woman loose and then attempts to tackle Drake and his men as if nothing had happened?’

  ‘He may have decided not to turn the gang in, or perhaps he was just biding his time and working things out. Remember, this is almost certainly a young man who had never previously done anything like this before. He would have been terrified, unable to think clearly. His mind would have been screaming at him. He wouldn’t have wanted to lose his career over it, and in letting the girl go free he may have decided that he’d done enough. Most likely he would have been extremely conflicted and confused. We can’t expect him to have acted as we might.’

  ‘Isn’t it possible that he did precisely what you originally thought he did?’ Carmichael said. ‘That having set the girl free he did intend turning in the gang, but that he just got caught by them before he could do so.’

  There were several nods of agreement at this suggestion.

  ‘So if the gang somehow tracks the girl down and decides she has to go, why leave her clothes on the riverbank?’ Ansari posed. ‘Why not dump it all in the drum of acid?’

  Bliss shook his head. ‘Thinking about it now, I’m not sure they did leave the clothing. I’m betting the woman did that herself. Perhaps fearing for her safety and terrified she would be found by the traffickers, she made it look as if she had drowned herself. There were no shoes and no jacket found on the riverbank. No trousers or leggings, either. She could have dumped what she could spare whilst retaining enough clothing to get by. Being trafficked she probably has no ID, no phone to worry about. But she leaves one of her earrings for someone to find, just in case. Only afterwards, they catch up with her, anyway.’

  ‘Would Livingston have simply let her go that easily, leaving her to fend for herself?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. We can’t know what took place between them. We never will, because they are both dead. We can do what we so often have to do at times like this, and that’s surmise. Give it our best shot with the facts to hand. Perhaps she remained scared of Livingston and managed to get away from him.’

  ‘To be fair, boss,’ Hunt said, ‘the only thing we’re even half certain about is that the woman who dumped the clothes and the body discovered in that drum of acid are one and the same. The earrings make that look likely. We don’t actually know she was trafficked. We don’t know Livingston found out and then set her free. We don’t even know for sure that he was even involved with this smuggling crew.’

  Bliss agreed. ‘All fair points, Constable. I’m not saying the entire scenario is accurate, more a working theory that makes sense of all the crumbs we’ve been left. But I’m betting we are close, and that we’ll have our answers very soon.’

  The Operation Compound team tossed it back and forth a few more times, working out the kinks. It was decided they had the basics just about right, with the motives and reactions left open to further speculation. Bliss called a halt to proceedings after thirty more minutes, declaring they needed a short break to recharge their batteries before facing interviews with Drake and his crew. That was when Munday approached him with his drinks at the Holiday Inn suggestion, which is where Bliss now found himself hemmed in by the two spooks.

  Between them, Bliss and Munday covered all of these major topics and discussion points for the man from Six. When he was done, Bliss took a long draught from his glass of premium lager and studied the man next to him.

  ‘So how much of all this were you aware of before you set me in motion?’ he asked. ‘How much time did you have me waste, and why?’

  Six sipped from his own glass of what to Bliss looked and smelled like scotch before re
sponding. ‘It’s complicated, and as you well know there are certain elements of this I cannot go into for reasons of national security. In respect of Simon Curtis, I can tell you we knew very little of the UK end of the operation. This is where he had his greatest difficulty. We became aware of the sudden and voluminous influx of rare and precious items stolen from Syria that made their way onto the UK market. During our investigations the name of Darren Bird came up. You might wonder why the SIS were even interested in this, but to begin with we did ask ourselves whether any of our own people were involved. Of course, at Vauxhall Cross we are often designated to work with our armed forces abroad, and when suspicion fell on them in the shape of the RAF we retained an interest.’

  ‘Was Curtis on this right from the beginning?’ Bliss asked.

  Six took another hit of his drink, then said, ‘Pretty much. Using his photographic journalist cover he easily infiltrated a whole variety of units. He came to learn about the regular artefacts cargos moving from Saudi to the UK about four months ago.’

  ‘Which is when he connected the smuggling ring with Wittering.’

  Six shook his head. ‘That’s just it. All he could find out whilst in Saudi was that these items were being transported across in Globemaster cargo planes. Simon was unable to identify the destinations of those flights.’

  ‘So at what point did he make the connection with Wittering and FO Livingston?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Bliss. He never did. He came home to do just that. Of course, by this time he had found out that Wittering housed RAF logistics, and as he lived just down the road it was the most likely place for him to start rooting around.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘We have no idea.’ Six breathed heavily through his nose. He exchanged glances with Munday before turning to Bliss once more. ‘We learned of Simon’s death three days after it had happened. He missed three check-in times, which triggered an alarm. Control got into it and then the news filtered in about the accident. By the time my team and I came on board and realised his death was neither an accident nor suicide, a week had gone by. A high-level meeting was scheduled for the Monday morning but got shelved. We had this in our hands for little more than a day when we received the Thames House alert as to a possible terrorist act.’

  Bliss felt himself nodding throughout. It came across as plausible enough, but these two men were spooks. Bliss trusted them about as much as he trusted Darren Bird. He estimated he had been fed perhaps two-thirds of the truth. It was the missing third that bothered him, because it was almost certainly the slice he needed most.

  He said, ‘So you put the strands together on that first day when my bosses flagged up the attack. Why did you not just co-operate back then and inform us directly? You could have prevented all those tedious meetings.’ He turned then to the man from MI5. ‘How about you, Munday? When were you up to speed on this?’

  Munday took a breath. ‘I was the one who briefed our friends from Legoland.’

  ‘I see. So when you arrived here in the city you already knew this was not an act of terror?’ Bliss was both incredulous and livid. The time they had wasted, the manpower, the fear created in the city and on the air force base. All of it preventable.

  But Munday was shaking his head. ‘Remember who you’re dealing with here, Bliss. At the time we were informed by your Superintendent of the possible terrorist attack, we were not aware of any investigation into RAF Wittering itself. Our friends at Vauxhall Cross don’t believe in sharing all of their secrets with us mere mortals at Thames House, let alone with you lot. So when I first came to you, no I was not aware of the connection.’

  ‘So at what point did Six deign to inform you?’

  ‘Within thirty-six hours.’

  ‘At which point you came to us and told us we were right to ignore the terror angle and to plough on with my own part of the investigation.’ Bliss clicked his fingers. ‘Oh, that’s right… you didn’t do any of that. Instead you carried on as if you still knew nothing.’

  Munday ran a hand through his neatly clipped moustache. ‘I think you’re missing the point, Bliss.’

  ‘Which is?’

  The spook glanced around, checking that they still could not be overheard. But they were clear, the only other drinkers in the bar sitting a good thirty feet away. ‘We don’t answer to you. MI5 was required to be involved to begin with, so whilst taking great care not to reveal information to you that could cost me my pension, I will tell you this much: firstly, at no point did we know for certain that Livingston was murdered by a gang of thieves and smugglers and not a bunch of Jihadists. In fact, that remains unproven, only extremely likely. At Thames House we don’t do likely. In fact the term is pretty much banned from our vocabulary. We deal in facts. Certainties. We have to. So… there’s that. Secondly, we had a local target who was acting suspiciously. Our surveillance teams had him noted as experiencing major changes in pattern and behaviour. Our intel suggested something had either happened or was about to. That seemed rather coincidental, so I remained here running those teams and hoping to understand what was going on.

  ‘Finally, even if we agree with and support the likelihood that Flying Officer Livingston was the victim, not of a terrorist hit but of a gangland one, then we did not want to spook them, either. Remember, beyond the murder itself is a major smuggling ring which is being serviced by staff from the RAF, and we wanted to nail the buggers. Quite reasonably, Six also wanted to bag those responsible for killing their agent.’

  Bliss finished his drink. Thought about what he’d been told. He glanced across at Six once more. ‘So you, when you gave me the Essex connection, where had that come from?’

  ‘Simon. The two things he had good intel on were the RAF cargo flights and the main distributors. He did not have a name for those who were stealing the items. He did not have a name for the UK air force connections. He did not have a name for the middleman, the one who operated between supply and demand. Darren Bird was a constant and solid lead, however. He was the end supplier to those with the cash. No question about that. The RAF were the physical exporters and importers, if you will. The mules. We needed their names, and we needed the name of the dealer, the one who organised the smuggling and took initial delivery of the cargo.’

  ‘So you used me to find out more.’

  ‘I did. And I was right to. Simon was gone, I had no time to detail another agent and slip them into the mix. You did what I needed you to do, and got a lot in a very short space of time.’

  ‘And I might have got more had I know what I was looking for.’ He made his point with some venom. Munday and Six took it in their stride.

  ‘Even if I’d had more to give you I might not have been able to,’ Six told him, one hand toying with his now empty glass. ‘Bird was our best way in, but we knew we had to come at him indirectly. Our working theory was that Livingston had been taken out by someone involved with the smuggling, but I repeat the fact that we did not know for certain. Munday could not assume we were correct, so it was absolutely right that he should pursue the potential link with terrorists.’

  ‘Although, I perhaps did so with rather less zeal than usual,’ Munday remarked. ‘You must understand, Detective, that I could not simply come to you and tell you any of this. We had to see it through until the bigger picture became clearer to us. These waters we swim in are murky.’

  Bliss heaved a sigh. He was punching above his weight with these two. When it came to a battle between the police and the security services there was only ever going to be one winner. Bliss might not like it – indeed, he hated the thought of it – but it was how things were done. He had to overcome the emotions connected with the case, and find a way to move it on. That would come about naturally as part of the on-going operation. Right now Bliss had another emotion in mind.

  ‘You remain firm about Emily Curtis being kept in the dark, I take it?’ he said to Six.

  The man from the SIS fixed him with a s
harp glare. ‘That will never change, Bliss. Never. And I do not appreciate it when you go behind my back with a journalist.’

  Bliss blinked. ‘You’re monitoring the phone lines at our local newspaper?’

  Six laughed. ‘No, Bliss. We’re monitoring your phones. You want to fill in the blanks for me?’

  Bliss had to think quickly. The idea he’d had was to use the stories as leverage, so that he could compel Six to re-engage in a dialogue about Emily. But that was a ploy to be used in his own good time. The bugging of his phone ensured this could no longer run according to plan.

  He shook his head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘I see. Very well. This time I won’t ask. I will instruct. Fill the blanks in for me. Now.’

  The man from MI6 remained in complete control of both his voice and his composure. There was an edge to his tone, but no sign in his face that his emotions had changed one iota.

  Bliss took note but ducked his head closer. ‘Not a chance. When this is over, I want one final conversation with you before you disappear from my life – hopefully for good. Those stories are part of that conversation.’

  ‘Do you really want to mess with me, Bliss?’

  ‘No. Not by choice. But I don’t see that you’ve given me any option. I want one last crack at persuading you to allow me to tell Emily Curtis all about her husband.’

  ‘You think I was bluffing when I told you how far we were prepared to go?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You think I would not extend that to include you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you believe the mere threat of these stories being exposed is enough, that it gives you the edge. Only, so far you’ve sent Ms Bannister the two files, but not the password that will allow her to bypass the encryption. That leaves you somewhat… exposed, Inspector.’