DGSE also remarked they were to track the car but a sharp eyed bod from Les Ops had noticed the female walking around the vehicle prior to entry. Well done fella…!
I made notes, a very big one reminding me to check with Jackdaw before his journey, that if indeed the car is still there, not to dive on it…
I went back to sleep…
Chapter four
I woke a six to a cup of coffee and bacon sandwich which Janet had placed for us in our ops room. Janet was a big woman in her fifties and had been there since 1969. She had been Robin’s left and right arms for nearly seven years and “always looked after the boys”.
She died at home of a heart attack twelve days after Manchester in ’96… She was 59.
With all the excitement of the photos, the French, the Germans and Verena Bezold we had forgotten one fundamental point…
Janet, looking at the boards I was busily constructing to impress Charlie with, said…
“How did she get into the UK…?” “Eh, Jan…? Wha…?
“How did she get from Belfast to Plymouth love…?” “Jesus Christ…!”
I may have raised my voice slightly being enlightened to the epiphany that was my stupidity…
“How the fuck did I miss that…?”
Janet continued…
“It wasn’t just you love, it was the other three too and Robin was in here…”
I rapidly tried our “travel agents” without any joy at that hour… It would have to wait.
That first proper morning as I now think of it was busy. Charlie had arrived at 0645 like he’d slept like a baby, when he reached sixty; he was just the same… I had yet to master my sleeping skills.
With the other two out on manoeuvres as we called them, we both took advantage of the bacon and coffee until 0830 when we finally got to speak to the “travel agents”
By 1000 we were fairly sure. McQueen had travelled the route Cork to Swansea overnight, again as a foot passenger. Leaving a car in a supermarket car-park in Midleton, just north of Ringaskiddy… She then used public transport via the N25 and N28. The Gardai were to check on the vehicle. It would be a complete waste of time two days after she had returned, eight days since her departure, but they agreed to check.
She then drove a beige F registration Granada from Swansea to Plymouth, the first digit just being caught on a traffic camera east of Newport.
We needed something, anything to stop it going cold. We were banking on Jackdaw… The car was gone…
This is when Charlie took over… A Station Chief has influence, far more than a seven month loud mouthed new guy... He started dialling numbers and getting people across the water moving… He gave just one directive: “Find the car that she drove to Midleton and when you do have the specialists go over it.” I could see the same face he had when he and Chris were talking of Warrington; I knew what was on his mind.
The Ford Granada was gone too…
Jackdaw was back by 1400. As this was our first sniff and it was getting bigger the more we dug, we three decided to move forward with it to see where it landed. If things went really cold we would just start again. Magpie checked in and he agreed too.
Jackdaw was back speaking to the French and Germans trying eke out more information. They were both willing to show us their INTEL package. They also wanted to know what this new directive was… That would require Robin obtaining ministerial approval for an op which still had no STO and no parameters…Charlie agreed to speak to him.
By 1600 we were starting to receive some information from the Republic and Belfast. It was clear to us that the POI was not attempting to be covert…
Angela McQueen had paid cash for her ferry travel when she reached the port of Cork. Near on £175. We now knew she purchased a single at Plymouth for £36 and a single at Roscoff for
£79. With the fuel expense, sundries and train travel, she must have spent another £200.That was nearly £500. That settled that… There is no way an out of work unmarried mother of one can find that kind of cash unless someone financed the trip… So Charlie’s boys now had two leads to chase…
The missing car and now the money…
We were a little more confident now; this could make ministerial approval swift… We had a strong lead in regard to suspicious movements of known medium profile P.O.I. Major Assistance from the Belfast Station Chief and Pan European cooperation. It had shifted suddenly from being a low profile exercise into a larger operation…
However, we had missed our window of opportunity… If we had decrypted the images the following day we could have informed the BND and they would have placed surveillance on her. The French spotted her immediately… A thought hit me… Were they holding something back as a bargaining chip…? Had they tailed her to whichever country she drove to…? They were pretty sure of her returning route after all…
Now Charlie explained we had to wait and be patient to see what his bloodhounds sniffed out.
We waited until 2000; apart from the odd call from Magpie it was quiet. We decided to call it a day. Were we a little deflated after the morning and afternoon reveals…?
Maybe just a little… Tuesday 11th January 1995.
I arrived from Battersea before 0730 up to the mess for the needed bacon and coffee. Got another five of each then went to the fourth. Everyone had the same idea. The room was swimming in bacon butties and coffee…We started to work while we ate. We constructed scenarios, destructed them then built them again from a different perspective. We kept returning to Bezold. Why would Angela McQueen visit her…? Her sister yes, that manoeuvre we could understand but not Angela unless of course, she is a mule and trafficking… In what though…? We all looked at each other without wanting to say… It was Magpie who broke the ice…
“Explosive…?” To which I said… “What…C4…?”
Charlie shifted uncomfortably before he replied… “No laddie, Semtex…”
And just because I hadn’t wet myself that morning he continued…
“Anyone can make C4 or P4 laddie… Semtex is military grade, there’s tons of it missing from the Czechs since the wall fell…”
We started a jigsaw… The Irish and English pieces were falling into place quite quickly. Ok we had no lead on the car yet or a sniff of who bank-rolled the trip but we were confident these pieces would reveal themselves. McQueen certainly went out of her way not to be followed when she stepped of the ferry at Roscoff… This we felt was the key.
It was at this point just before lunch, Robin popped his head around the door and tapped the frame announcing…
“Off to see the Sec, wish me luck chaps…” WHAT!!!!!
Apparently Janet had been copying all of our INTEL take, collating it into some form of sense, packaging it beautifully ready for Robin to lunch with the Foreign Secretary. At that point I felt seriously out of my depth with cramp setting in.
Charlie gave me a slap on the back, saying …
“Och, you’re for it now laddie, you’ve created a monster…”
Thanks Charlie… I felt I needed a hole in the ground… I felt I needed to go home and stop pretending… I felt I needed a large scotch…!
I was still 26, close to 27 yes, but, staff didn’t get to make these decisions until they were, well, old…
The scotch won. Janet, of course, found a wee dram for the three of us.
*****
The phone rang for Charlie… Woolworths in Belfast had been fire bombed… There was a car outside ready to take him to Brize Norton… Clearly the search for the car and money was over… Well, for now at least…
Jackdaw rang in at 1500. He had placed four remote recording “det”cameras. Two at Plymouth, watching the passenger vehicle traffic check in barriers and foot passengers equally. He had mirrored this operation at Portsmouth. He also had the foresight to check both long term car-parks too… Good lad…! It was at this point that Magpie and I felt a little guilty. He and Puffin had been doing all of the fieldwork, and were now planning
on moving further east to cover Newhaven and the formidable task of siting covert cameras for IMINT at Dover… We three had been in a cosy office for two days eating bacon sandwiches and drinking Robin’s finest whiskey…
Magpie and I decided to leave London the following morning. He had a bee in his bonnet regarding Hull, something was nagging him… It may have been connected to his Hendon trip, but as he said, if there was something to reveal there he would share with the group. He also thought laying the remote cameras at all the ports was a good idea but until we had proper sanctioning, our toys were thin on the ground…We had twelve of them left so prioritising clearly was the plan. Utilising maybe three of them at Hull seemed logical… There were a lot of narcotics transiting through the port which were usually for distribution through organised crime but on a few occasions to fund terrorism, the same with contraband alcohol, tobacco and fake goods… He also wanted two placed at Harwich, leaving two for Newcastle… I would have the remaining five… There had been talk of new tech for us but as with all government departments, the cogs ground slowly…
We were hamstrung. We could only go so far… In theory this was still an exercise.
By 1800 Robin still hadn’t returned from his lunch with the Foreign Secretary, this I thought didn’t bode well.
I decided to get a head start up the road. I wanted a decent night’s sleep; if I stayed it would have been the DOs bed again. I left at 1900 hoping for an easy run along the M4. I stopped at Leigh Delamere service area; it was 2045 so I checked in with the duty officer.
“There is a whisper one of the Box boys had a positive at Hull ferry terminal, maybe Robert Morris, heading east to Holland…”
“Is he one of our photos or do Box, SO12 and 13 have stronger lists…?”
This after all was more their territory. It was an area of operations we were becoming more involved in since the reunification of Germany and the end of the cold war, we had files yes, but M.I.5 and Special Branch and the Anti -Terrorist Squad were way ahead of us on most things on the home front.
“I think we have a small dossier House Martin, more like just a file but many of these people don’t travel much so there is a really good chance we’ve never come across him…”
That made sense… Plus, we now had two positive movements from the UK within a week…
“Box only got a glimpse in the passenger building he’s reviewing the CCTV now…”
“Ok, thanks, is Magpie still there…? Maybe his nagging thoughts are on to something…?”
“No, Magpie has left for Hull now; he wants to set the det’ cameras… I’ve spoken to the Box duty officer. Their man has agreed to assist him when he arrives…”
I was under the impression that the cooperation we were receiving was Charlie’s influence… Another reason we needed him permanently. I rang off and carried on to Swansea. I had a change of plan… The five cameras I had were the same as the others with real time recording. I would set one at Swansea which would cover both vehicle check in and foot passenger entrance another one each at Pembroke and Fishguard would do the same then I would drive up to Holyhead and place the other two…
I arrived at the Grand Hotel at 2310, once in my room I was back on the phone… The duty officer at the Birdcage relayed the sighting was still to be confirmed. The POI had arrived at the terminal by car, a Ford Granada, then the usual, left it in the car- park and apparently boarded the Dutch ferry as a foot passenger.
Yes, it took a while….
Ford Granada…! I quite calmly, well, for me anyway, reminded the
D.O that when McQueen had arrived at Plymouth the subject vehicle was a Granada and someone needed to check… Now…!
I wanted to know where Magpie was… I wanted to know how Robin fared… I wanted to know who had got on the bloody ferry…
The curtain had risen on the 2nd striptease act…
*****
My phone rang at 0150. It was Magpie…
”I’ve checked the subject vehicle, nothing… It’s a navy blue Scorpio but it’s an F reg. F260HOQ…”
He mentioned hopefully…
“Well, that would have been too easy, anything on the positive…?”
“We’re quite sure it’s Morris but House Martin lad here’s the thing… He boarded the Zeebrugge ferry not the one for Rotterdam…”
That woke me up…
“He’s gone to Belgium, Eh…? ‘Ang on, McQueen came back through Belgium and Brussels is less than hour from the ferry…”
“I know… I took the Mrs. to Bruges last year… His foot passenger ticket is a return too so maybe the car isn’t going anywhere…”
He had a point… I wasn’t going to hold my breath just yet however…
“Listen, I’ve sited the cameras with the Box guy… He wants to call it in and try to get the Belgians to shadow him…If he does bring anything iffy back with him it will be these guys and SO12 who tug him anyway…”
“Yeah, our job was the cameras…. Let him do what he needs to…. I’m goin’ back to sleep…”
“Waye aye, yer lucky bastard…!”
I was new to this… I’d have to remember that we have no real job in the UK... Everything we discovered would be handed to SO12, SO13 and Box. Well, that was fine…Hopefully it may go some way to stopping this childish feud.
*****
I positioned my last camera a little after 1800 then decided to drive home. If I left at five the following morning I would be back at the Birdcage for nine. We had brought this as far as we could without being official. The positive we had already spotted proved that the operation was useful, after all, there was supposed to be a box operative at Plymouth who would have clocked McQueen surely.
I had checked in twice that day without receiving any feedback. Box was keeping things to themselves… It was time for Robin to start harassing ministers or for us to move on… None of us realised the huge mistake we had made, a fundamental school-boy error that would go unseen until it would be too late…
Chapter five
Friday 14th January 1995.
I arrived at the Birdcage as instructed, suited and booted. We were off to the Foreign Office. The four of us were going over. I hoped to be able to speak to Charlie later in the day.
The Foreign Secretary was enthusiastic. He was to speak to Box 500, SO12 and 13 that day too. He could also see the political weight in an operation which involved the cooperation of all the major services. He instructed Robin to increase our office space and to secure all that was needed for HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT and personnel. It was also to be done ASAP… There would be no change in senior operational personnel; there would however be additions to be involved during live operations… “So no one treads on anyone’s toes and the dummies stay firmly in their prams…” This made sense…
We were not to worry in regard to the Prime Minister vetoing the budget spend, he had personally spoke to him already and would speak with him again over the weekend. He also assured us the PM would be as positive as he himself was and would encourage the Prime Minister to speak to the French and German governments…
There was one important question we put to him… We wanted him to speak to the Home Secretary in regard to Charlie. He had less than two months left and had already handed over most of the jurisdiction to his successor with the transition virtually complete. We needed someone to convince him to stay around…He agreed to do that as well during his later meeting.
A further meeting was set up for 1400 Wednesday 19th January at the Birdcage. All were to attend including Box 500, SO12, SO13 and Customs and Excise.
It had all started as lip service to a political exercise under the new department cooperative, this I knew, it was the reason the directive was given to me… A loud mouth new boy who had been offered an unsettled HUMINT officer, a washed up Field Intelligence officer and an over-the-hill Station Chief… It was supposed to be a cul de sac.
It was now one of SIS bigger operations… Quite frankly I was speechl
ess.
I was eager to get back… I wanted to know if there was anything positive from Hull. The mini cruise ticket the “possible” used had him docking that morning at 0815, four hours ago… I was sure there would be something.
There had also been a tiny little bell ringing, my previous thought was that Charlie’s involvement had greased the wheels with Box but, maybe I was wrong. Maybe they had seen an avenue of opportunity to increase their own surveillance whilst gaining some INTEL into the bargain… Or was it something else…?
I was contemplating asking Raven to nip along the M62 to check the det’ cams…
Or again, was that just my nasty little mind…?
*****
On our return to the Birdcage, Robin started immediately… The two rooms next to ours were to be cleared before the end of the day. We would have the full floor when Robin’s office was included. The lift foyer was to be remodelled with front of house staff to stop nosey parkers and new maglocks with swipe entry were to be fitted to the doors leading from the foyer…
Bearings: The Compass Trilogy Part One Page 3