First, Innis wanted to visit the specially equipped, temporary ten-cell facility that had been prepared for catchments, e.g. pick-pockets, shoplifters, ticket touts, drug sellers, and prostitutes) who would undoubtedly make themselves known to law enforcement and security agency personnel during the Test Match (part of the ECC security screen project) and around the soccer game and pop concert. The facility he viewed looked fine and so he returned to his office to undertake the second task he’d set himself to do.
The PR exercise between HMP Dodds in St Philip and the various courts around Barbados normally went off smoothly and without a hitch. Tomorrow’s PR was slightly unusual in that all the inmates being transported to and from HMP Dodds were set to appear at District ‘A’ court in Station Hill, St Michael, just outside of Bridgetown. Innis’ goal remained, as ever, to operate the prison facility as simply and efficiently and effectively as was possible.
There was a slight complication about tomorrow’s PR in that only one of HMP Dodds’ three prisoner transport vehicles were working. This was the case operational-wise, going into a second week. It hampered his ability to run the tight ship he’d always strived to operate and was expected to be successful at doing by those who employed him. He had not mentioned the specific challenges that he was having to his fellow P.A.A.N.I. Heads at their meeting that afternoon. Yes, he had considered doing so, but felt his colleagues might find his concerns a distraction as they were focussed on the more immediate, extensive ECC secure screen project and other related arrangements instituted for this and the other public-facing events including the two-day Commonwealth Sports Minister’s conference which were all more important than his internal challenges. His resource issues, specifically the lack of sufficient functional prisoner transport equipment, were not ‘sexy’ enough topics for discussion at today’s P.A.A.N.I. meeting. He had said nothing, anticipating that his management team and staff would be able to muddle through and deal with the problem for another week or so until at least one of the broken prisoner transport vehicles would be back in use. Shouting his need from the rooftops would be a last resort.
***
Over in Miami, Castille’s afternoon was taking shape. He was relaxed and felt comfortable about the Barbados project he had initiated and planned to see through over the next few days.
***
After reviewing tomorrow’s PR activity, Innis saved an e-version of his approved PR document in HMP Dodds’ electronic filing system. He then called in his secretary Melba Bodie, before printing off and handed her a signed hard copy of the PR document for filing. He knew that she would pass the document to George Telford, the Deputy Prison Superintendent who sat in the office next to her. Telford’s job was to complete the second part of the PR exercise.
Though BIB and RBPF were each to provide a three-person team of officers to escort the PR from start to finish, neither team would be told what the route was to be for the next day’s exercise until they arrived at HMP Dodds on the morning of the PR to receive their briefings.
On the way to his vehicle, Innis decided that he would share his concerns regarding the HMP Dodds prisoner transport situation with BIB’s three-member Gold team when he briefed them on their arrival on the following morning. He knew James ‘JJ’ Johnson well and felt JJ would understand and even be sympathetic to his situation. Innis also decided to place HMP Dodds operations as an agenda item for next week’s P.A.A.N.I. meeting. He felt he would be able to secure the full support of his fellow P.A.A.N.I. Heads once they knew what the HMP Dodds situation was. Word would then quickly reach Motby’s ears through the weekly P.A.A.N.I. brief submitted by Colonel Burke. Motby would surely ask direct questions and probably make HMP Dodds an urgent issue to be discussed at the next Cabinet meeting. Who knows where such a discussion could lead to? Might he, or rather HMP Dodds get what they needed? Innis hoped that some short-circuiting of the funding jam could be done, resulting in resolution of some of the issues at HMP Dodds to positively impact its day-to-day operations.
Yes, that’s the way to deal with my problem, he thought to himself.
Once in his vehicle, Innis commenced the process of exiting the HMP Dodds’ compound. He expected to be back by 7:30 a.m. the next morning as usual, unless something unusual happened overnight on the compound that demanded his earlier return. The three things that would cause this, a mass prisoner uprising, escape or a major fire were not at all likely.
***
Unfortunately for Innis, his reasoning was off. He would later regret not sharing his HMP Dodds concerns with his fellow P.A.A.N.I. Heads.
***
George Telford examined the PR document Melba Bodie had passed to him for action. He checked to see which BPS officers were on duty from 7:00 a.m. the next morning, before selecting the five he would allocate to PR duty. Telford took a moment before also signing off the PR document and returning it to Bodie. She in turn checked to confirm that Telford had selected the correct number of BPS officers required for the PR and that he’d also signed off on the document as was required. As he had done so, Bodie proceeded to file away the signed hard-copy of the PR document for 18 April in HMP Dodds’ secure, combination-locked and fire-proof cabinets. Telford’s action confirmed that tomorrow’s PR should take place and was signed evidence that the PR would be undertaken. This document would subsequently become important.
Bodie gathered up her personal belongings, locked her office and wished Telford goodnight before started the process of leaving the HMP Dodds compound. On her way to her vehicle, Telford joined her. He, like her, was on the same mission of escaping from their highly-secured place of work. It was time to see someplace other than high walls, barbed wire, electric gates, electronic security systems and the like.
Well, at least for the next fifteen hours.
***
Dr Albert Lewis left the Dawson Clinic in a daze, to put it mildly. He was thinking… How am I going to tell my wife Betty and our two children what I’ve just learnt from Dr Dawson? Where the hell should I even begin?
Dr Lewis had not been feeling well for a week. Over the weekend, he had started to feel increasingly weak. His wife had urged him to go to a doctor and he had done so on his own. As a part of his overall examination, blood was taken from him for analysis, given his symptoms of weakness, high temperature and irregular near constant bowel movements. Dr Dawson asked him to return for the test results in a couple of days. Dr Lewis had returned home, taken the prescribed medication before going to his bed. After a couple of restful nights and feeling much better on Monday morning, he had decided to go into work where he somehow managed to get through the day. Surprisingly, he had a third restful night and so had decided to go into work again on Tuesday. This proved to be a much more difficult day. By mid-afternoon, he was struggling so badly that he soon left his workplace, telling his secretary that he was going back to the doctor to have his condition checked out. He would also collect his blood test results.
What Dr Dawson told him was unpleasant to learn. In his panicked state, might he have misinterpreted what had just been conveyed to him, the gravity of it? How he was feeling made him think not.
Oh God!
Dr Lewis sat in his car for a while, unsure at first of what he should do, before deciding that he would not go home, at least not straight away. Taking a drive up the west coast along Highway 1 would give him some thinking time before he could have a drink or two. Yes, he had taken medication, but it had not made him drowsy so what the hell, he could do these things. He had to have a serious conversation with himself before the subsequent and dreaded one at home with his wife and later their children. Both conversations were going to be rough and hurtful, especially the former since they had been together from their initial meeting in their first year at university a long, long time ago.
Dr Lewis usually reached home around 8:30 p.m. most week-nights, so getting home a little later would not raise any suspicion.
What a crummy day for me…what a nice after
noon for everyone else, he thought. Dr Lewis’ brief internet research from a couple of days earlier had suggested what the problem with him might be given his symptoms, but hearing Dr Dawson’s comments after gaining knowledge of his test results was somewhat surreal.
Not good. God, not that.
***
Unknown to Innis, shortly after his departure, but before Telford and Bodie left the HMP Dodds compound, a personal mobile phone had been used to capture and transmit an unsanctioned copy of Wednesday’s approved PR document. This information, though never acknowledged by its recipient, was appreciated. This was the final confirmation required by Wharton’s Pressure Group. It ensured that the plan could be executed the following day, Wednesday, 18 April now that they had a route. Last-minute adjustments to the plan would be made at a meeting later that night.
***
Dr Lewis started his vehicle, pointing it away from the direction of his St George home and towards the west coast parishes of St James and St Peter via central Bridgetown. He knew the exact place where he could think and plan his explanation to his wife while sitting in either his vehicle or on a bench looking out to sea. Since his return to Barbados from Washington DC, he had discovered this location and found it to be a good place to visit whenever he needed to think deeply and alone on an issue. He loved the experience of seeing the sun set on an evening from this spot. The words he would say to her would come there. Hopefully they would be from his heart, although he did not expect her to take his news calmly or compassionately.
Then it hit him. Why tell her anything? Not tonight anyway. He pulled his vehicle over to the side of the road, cut the engine and contemplated what this latest thought meant. Tell the truth or lie? No, he could not do so after all of these years.
Pulling back into traffic, he continued on to his intended location where he would seek to find answers to his current plight.
***
It was the end of another busy work day in Barbados. Office workers wearily trekked towards the nearby public and private transportation hubs on their way home. Some school children were belatedly doing likewise after having attended additional lessons or participated in after-school sports programmes. Older youths were also on the move, making their way to the various evening class institutions around St Michael including the University of the West Indies (UWI) Campus at Cave Hill.
What appeared to be a chance meeting at 5:00 p.m. in Independence Square, central Bridgetown went almost unnoticed. Three individuals appeared to be but were not tourists. One was a male Mexican in his late-forties, another a blond female American in her mid-thirties. The third was a black British woman in her early-thirties. Jose Jesus Sanchez, Amarouse Busbee and Zoe Markowitz had carefully and deliberately chosen this very public venue for their rendezvous.
These three individuals mixed in with local Barbadians and a visiting Canadian group was also there. Its members were in the process of capturing images of central Bridgetown: the imposing eleven-storey Tom Adams Financial Centre, picturesque Parliament Buildings, Chamberlain Bridge (once known as the Swing Bridge), Charles Duncan O’Neal Bridge, Fairchild Street Bus Stand, four-storeyed Treasury Building and the Careenage.
Sanchez, Busbee and Markowitz, casually dressed, were otherwise undisguisable when they had entered Independence Square from different directions. They had surveyed the Square prior to approaching each other before finally converging around the statue of Barbados’ first Prime Minister and National Hero, the Rt. Excellent Errol Walton Barrow, known locally as the ‘Father of Independence’. With visitor materials in hand, cameras strung around their necks and shoulders, they pointed fingers in different directions and appeared to naturally strike up a genuine, spur-of-the-moment conversation which went on for about five minutes.
The average Barbadian, even if they were closely watching these three individuals, might only have surmised that this was a genuine meeting between visitors to Barbados from different countries who had an interest in exploring elements of central Bridgetown. This meeting was surely pure coincidence.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
For here, in living colour, in real time and very much out in the open, international espionage was being practiced in its simplest, rawest, yet purest and at the same time cleverest form. Information exchanges between country operatives take place nowadays in the most obvious and public everyday places.
Like Independence Square in central Bridgetown.
What the three individuals were really speaking about to each other amongst the other genuine visitors would remain unknown to local law enforcement and security agencies for another seventy-two hours.
***
Just after 5:30 p.m., Angela Johnson answered the land line in the Johnson household in Christ Church.
“Hello, Johnson residence.”
“Hi, Angela, Uncle Fred here. How are you doing today, young lady?”
“Pretty good, Uncle Fred. How you doing?”
“I’m great just for having had the pleasure of speaking with you. Is your dad around please?”
“Yep. He’s in his music room surrounded by all that musical stuff, you know what I mean? Records, CD’s, cassette tapes and more, all in final preparing for his show tonight. Guess you want to speak to him?”
“Yes please, Angela.”
“Okay hang on. I’ll get him for you…and bye, Uncle Fred.”
“Thanks. We’ll talk again soon, young lady,” replied Fred.
Fred heard her move away, shouting, “Daddy, Uncle Fred’s on the phone for you.”
“Please bring me the extension, dear,” said JJ.
“Coming, Dad.”
A full minute passed.
“Hi there, Fred, sorry about that… I’m working on finishing up a couple of new mixes for my set tonight. What can I do for you? You know, you really must stop interrupting a professional when he’s creating! And hey, why didn’t you call me on my mobile?” asked JJ.
“Mine’s not close to hand, so I used this, okay? Look, I’ve been hearing you talk about and sing along to your back in time stuff ever since I joined BIB. We coming down tonight to support you, that is Charlee, Joe, Stef and me. Our foursome will keep you company at the club for a few hours if no other patrons show up, so you’ll have an audience to play for. No seriously, we wanted to let you know beforehand that we’re coming down…wouldn’t want to put you off your game when you look up from your toys and see us four staring right back at you,” said Fred to end his monologue.
“Oh man, that’s great! You won’t be the only people in the house, I can assure you. You lot could never put me off my game as my stuff’s pretty much ingrained in me. I may be new to DJing in public, but don’t forget that I’ve been playing music to myself and for friends and my family for donkey years. I’ll be there before 7:45 p.m. to start playing at 8:00 p.m. when the club opens. I’ll be running things till midnight when the Resident DJ will take over till 3:00 a.m.”
“JJ, you’ve really taken this DJing thing seriously, haven’t you? Word of advice, don’t give up your day job for it though because we in BIB can’t do without you. Yeah, we know you’ve got the ‘70s’ to ‘90s’ music stuff down pat, so we expect you’ll do okay. Sorry it’s taken us three weeks to come down to hear and see you in action, but you know how our work goes…and what Charlee gives! Can’t speak for why Joe and Stef haven’t been to the club yet. I must go. Expect to see us by 10:00 p.m. Bye for now.”
“See you all later, Fred, and thanks for calling. You lucky guys have tomorrow and Thursday off to relax, so go easy on the booze tonight, won’t cha?”
“You know me, boss.”
***
The three individuals who had masqueraded as visitors had forgotten one thing. Eighteen months earlier, the re-elected B.U.P. government had implemented its increased security (IS) policy in the country by systematically installing close circuit television (CCTV) cameras. These were centred in and around Barbados’ main cities, built-up are
as, main ports of entry and on major roadways. The specific locations were Greater Bridgetown, Speightstown, Holetown, Oistins, St Lawrence Gap, Warrens, Six Roads, Grantley Adams International Airport, Bridgetown Port and major intersections of the cross-country ABC highway and two main highways on the south and west coasts. All Government buildings and major landmarks around the above areas were also covered by CCTV cameras. In addition, CCTV security systems were increasingly being used by businesses.
In the manifesto, the third-term government had promised to increase the use of CCTV cameras around the country as a tool to significantly reduce crime. The above areas were chosen because of the high density of human and road traffic revolving within and around them. The government’s actions had proven correct, with increased subsequent captures resulting in successful prosecutions of a host of petty criminals (muggers, bag snatchers, pickpockets) being caught red-handed, along with traffic offenders. This led to drastic reductions in petty and motoring crime overall. Barbados had become an even safer place for locals and visitors alike to live, work, visit relax and move around in.
BIB’s ability to gain access to images captured by the various CCTV cameras had proved invaluable in helping the two information and communications technology (ICT) operatives who worked in the agency’s secure intelligence room (SIR) to solve recent cases. The CCTV cameras overlooking Independence Square captured the three individuals (and a fourth individual) who all proved to be of subsequent interest to BIB operatives. Though the fourth individual did not link up with the other three who had carefully assembled, he easily stood out and drew attention to himself by his unusual height for a Chinese national. He appeared to be in his early-fifties.
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