Bearings: The Compass Trilogy Part One
Page 5
I repeated what we two had discussed and he also was in agreement. We also wanted Charlie’s input. I rang Belfast and relayed our thoughts. I also gave him my idea regarding the French…
“Aye right then so… We don’t know if she drove at all and there may have been a full car from Swansea… We don’t know if she visited someone in Wales or England either and we think the French are pulling our chain… Have I got it right…?”
“More or less… Why do you think she didn’t sail direct…?”
“I think she met someone in the UK or visited a dead drop for instructions… I’m going to prod a few people, I’ll call y’… Oh hang on, I think we’ve found the subject vehicle in a breakers yard, an ’89 Nissan Bluebird; our boys are over there now… There’s not a sniff about the money locally… It could have been sent from the UK or the Continent you know…? We didn’t intercept her mail but we do now so that might bring reward… I’ll ring you back…”
Of course the money…! It could easily have been sent from anywhere. It wouldn’t be a wire transfer or bank deposit; we monitor such things but good old fashioned cash in an envelope… I’d experienced that.
We know she has an ally in Monchengladbach, maybe even France and Belgium. Receiving the funds in this way now seemed the most realistic.
McQueen could easily have met someone at Swansea or stopped en route. She had six or seven hours to reach Plymouth and even if you take it easy the journey is four or five at most… It was fair to say we were looking forward to receiving the tapes.
Chapter seven
I popped my head around Robin’s door; it had just turned 1600… “Do you have a minute I wanted to bring you up to speed…?”
Robin raised his head and nodded…
“We have made a little progress. The car has been found in a breakers yard in Finaghy, south west of Belfast city centre. It’s being moved so the specialists can pull it apart… Charlie is also speaking to Box to see if he can make any headway with the Hull sighting… I want to speak to you a little more regarding this but we’ll wait to see what Charlie can achieve first.”
All through this Robin was taking notes, he nodded so I continued.
“Brittany Ferries have released their CCTV tapes and passenger manifest to us, they’re being couriered up as we speak, we’ll need an expense order for this as th…”
Robin raised his hand…
“Haven’t the local Police looked at these during the Box review…?”
“No sir, there doesn’t seem to have been a Box review in that neck of the woods for a month or so… Norman is making good ground there. He is cultivating his relationship with the port Police and the terminal manager... I know he’s the one with the languages but I want him to carry on with it for now as he’s making good progress and he’s the real reason this directive escalated.”
Robin nodded in approval... He had been filling the expense order as I spoke.
“We now think McQueen may have a live contact in the UK… Maybe someone unknown, I’m saying that because Box and SO12 keep good intelligence on the established operators and can acquire and track their movements well… There are also three alternate sailings she could have taken direct from the Republic of Ireland, she had no reason to step foot in the UK…”
Robin raised an eyebrow at this…
“Were they available, I mean were they sailing, no bad weather or yearly maintenance that sort of thing…?”
“They sailed sir, we checked and she travelled direct on the return journey… Charlie also raised a good point too... They are struggling to trace the funding. He’s thinking it may have been posted to her from the continent…”
Again the hand…
“That’s quite possible. They know we keep tabs on the banks here and in Ireland. Not so much with the Republic although our relationship has become a little cosier in the past twelve months so it wouldn’t be too difficult if it was sourced there, using an ATM for instance. A respectable account would never flag.”
“So Iain… We are waiting on Belfast, Charles in particular and CCTV tapes and a manifest from Plymouth. Overall, not an unproductive day so far… Good…!”
“Yes sir…”
“Are you ok with everything Iain…?”
“I’m a little concerned that I’m more of an ops man than management but we’ll see... I don’t get it sir, why me…?
“Everyone else in this building with a few exceptions, with your grade, still ask permission to go to lunch. You have never asked permission to do anything… You just get on with it… Close the door…”
I closed the door…
“You have no idea do you…? Do you know how rare it is to have an operative who isn’t worried who’s watching him, isn’t worried about annoying people to do the job….? An operative who has no political affiliations and no personal agenda which they have cultivated at public school…? It’s as rare as hen’s teeth in this business… Do you know how many I’ve met…? I’ll tell you, including me…? Four… Two of them are in this room, one is next door and the other is playing Cowboys and Indians in Belfast until Sunday.
“We had Norman here a year ago. He was as quiet as a mouse… Useless…! But his tests and his training said otherwise, Chris saw what he could become with the right people, he also spotted you the instant you walked into the flat in Battersea, you soaked it all up, the banter the camaraderie, the other two wanted to run home… Why do you think I use officers like Chris to chaperone…? I honestly believe this operation has some of the best minds in SIS…”
“Thank you sir…”
“Now, no more, you’ve had the speech and I need a lie down, let me know when the tapes get here, and close the door behind you…”
*****
“We may have a window of opportunity…”
Charlie said breathlessly, he was clearly in a hurry… “What window…? Where…? Belfast…?”
“Aye, McQueen is taking the kid to see his father now… We have a shadow on her so we’re going over her back wall for a snoop… I won’t be long…!”
With that he was gone. It was 1820. We were still waiting on the tapes and had been pushing the same ideas around until our brains were hurting.
The phone rang again…
“Ah Jackdaw, the tapes are here do you have the expense order…? I need to pay him…”
“I’m on my way…”
I went into Robin’s office passed his desk and knocked gently on the door. A door that once opened onto a decent sized store room now held a single bed, sink and shower cubicle…
“What, no toilet sir…? I’d complain I would…!”
He answered with a smile, I carried on…
“The tapes are here and I need to brief you on an op’ Charlie has just started…”
“Ah yes the expense order. Tell them ten minutes would you…?”
I left… Ten minutes later we had the tapes and were heading to decoding on the fifth…
“So Section Chief what’s this op’ then…?”
“The McQueen girl has taken the kid to see his father… She has a shadow so Charlie’s boys are nipping over the back wall for a look see…”
“OK, as I said, Cowboys and Indians, he’ll let us know of course…?”
“He will sir yes…”
“He’s well and truly come over to the dark side hasn’t he…?”
Robin said this with a great deal of humour mixed with a large portion of satisfaction. He was having fun. He had a look and a spring in his step as if he’d just spent the night with Michelle Pfeiffer. Everyone noticed…
“Right then gents; let’s see what riches await… Lights please Matt…”
By 2100 we had disseminated the video tape to near destruction and we had her. Lovely clear black and white images of Angela McQueen parking and locking the subject vehicle then placing a tell across the driver’s door, they don’t teach that in secondary school, and then hiding the keys on the off side front tyre.
&nbs
p; The icing on the cake was lovely clear black and white images of a white male, maybe as young a twenty, two hours and forty seven minutes later, approaching the subject vehicle checking the tell then driving away.
The cherry on top…? The registration number F260HOQ… BINGO…! We now didn’t need Box to tell us a thing. With ninety five percentage certainty it placed Morris in Hull too. Now all we needed to do was find the POI who drove the subject vehicle to Swansea and put a name to a new face.
Her European movements were becoming more important to the investigation…
We were discussing the pros and cons… McQueen had travelled under her own name on the all the ferries, why wouldn’t she…? There were no other names of interest on the manifest from Plymouth either… There was still an argument for her innocence… No one could condemn a young female for naivety or duplicity or for wanting to visit her sister in prison. Thousands of family members did it every single day across the world and she had had no contact with the new POI who had filled our screens… In this modern plastic money age we live in it was becoming rare for people to pay large sums of cash for travel but wasn’t not unheard of and certainly wasn’t illegal. Individuals now preferred the use of these modern cards because of their mainstream safety.
However, her travel arrangements were those of a mark, we would argue that there were direct flights from Belfast to Düsseldorf for a similar expense which would have allowed her time to visit her sister for longer than two hours…
She has also spent two days in the company of a known convicted terrorist with PIRA sympathies living in a city which also had direct travel routes to Düsseldorf but again she had chosen a diversionary route…
No. strategically placed cars, one definitely stolen and her use of field craft… Dubious travel plans and cash with very questionable origins...
We wanted Angela McQueen tugged…
It was 2230 and we were now turning our attention to Charlie’s operation. It had been four hours now… We returned to the fourth floor. The contractors were already busy so we headed to the Mess…
A little after eleven the DO put a call through. Charlie at last… “Well that was fun…!”
“What did you find…?”
“Nothing… A big fat zero… We went through everything very carefully. We didn’t even leave the dust out of place… I’ll say this for her, she likes her luxuries… Modern TV, one of those tape to tape VHS machines a really good hifi system… Technics one of the lads said. Dishwasher, everything you’d expect in the modern home…”
“Yeah but the modern home of someone who earns 15k or more…”
“Exactly laddie… She isn’t getting this off the State and not out of the front door of Rumbelows either… There are no drugs as such in the house, a very small amount of pot and I mean small, quite old too but nothing else. Nothing to fund this lifestyle and if it were drugs she’d probably of been ‘capped by now Donna McQueen’s sister or not…”
“She’s not on the game Charlie…?”
“With her background…? Her Father would bury her and I mean that literally…. Apart from it being Aladdin’s Cave there’s nothing here son, we even lifted the carpets…”
“Ok Charlie, it was a nice try anyway…” “How did you do with the tapes…?”
“We hit the big time… Crystal clears of her and the car at Plymouth, plates that are duplicate to the one’s Chris took images of at Hull and a new face, young late teens early twenties tops…”
“You know what it means don’t you…? It’s got all the indications of unit movement in the UK. Box are going to be beating your door down, I have someone who can help us there… I’ll send them round to you, already in London now and looking for a job… McQueen was up to something Iain, I can feel it. It’s why I sanctioned tonight’s little field trip. The Hull “positive” is part of it as well. I can feel that too…”
“I know Charlie. That’s our take on it too…”
“Right I’m off to my bed, I’ve got a day packing for London tomorrow…”
“We’ll see you Sunday. Thanks for the effort Charlie…”
“Och away with yer now”
We sat in silence in the Mess looking at each other individually and collectively and we knew…
Ceasefire or not something was brewing…
Chapter eight
“Hello…?”
It was Saturday morning and the offices were in chaos. Chris, Norman and I were trying, and mostly failing, to contact the Belgians… We had nowhere else to go. The fourth floor was usually kept empty for a reason. It was where every other floor was relocated to when theirs were being remodelled.
We had suggested a temporary move over the river to Lambeth but the powers that be had said no. Clearly we still weren’t being taken that seriously. New desks and desk phones, miles of cables for more phone lines and Ethernet were being installed. We were getting seriously fast service that was a fact.
“Hello…!”
Chris lifted his eyes of a photo
“Hello there young lady can I help you…?”
“I hope so, I think I’m in the wrong place, I’m looking for OC’s West, East or South… Is this their floor…?”
She had said this looking around somewhat doubtfully. No one could have blamed her. She had written the details on what looked a lot like a till receipt.
Chris stood…
“It is young lady you’ve found us all right…”
Looking around he carried on…
“It’ll be like this for a day or two yet but I’m sure I’m up to finding you a chair and a drink, coffee…?”
“Tea… Please, if you have it, thank you…”
Again the quizzical look of a person who was half expecting Jeremy Beadle to jump out of the wall and offer a Game for a Laugh award.
Chris returned with tea and a chair… “Well, I’ll be ‘East…”
He said shaking her hand…
“OH, really…? Great, you’re 2IC… May I ask what’s happening…?”
“Remodelling, finally bringing us into the ‘90s, with difficulty too by the sound of things…”
She was about 5’ 5” with natural blonde hair styled into a bob, curves that would put any world class Grand Prix circuit to shame and bright lively intelligent eyes the colour of a Swiss mountain lake. She oozed quiet confidence and capability and was dressed in what was obviously a very expensive camel coloured trouser suit.
Simply put the young lady sitting before Chris was stunning… Poor Chris didn’t stand a chance, a man whom by nature spoke very little was struggling.
So, never one to shirk my leadership responsibilities, I stepped into the breach, of course…
“Yes miss how can we help you…?” “And you are…?”
“OC West at your service ma’am…” “OH you’re the Section Chief…?”
She said standing…
“Sorry sir…! I’m Sarah, Sarah Collins…?” “You’re her for whom…?”
“I’m one of Charlie’s…?” “What, Angels…?”
I know, flippant and immature, it was wrong… I also discovered it was a mistake too. She didn’t change her body language or her tone, her look was enough… A look which had all the experience of a bright young lady who had been dealing with sub human cavemen like me for a very long time… I’d have to start again.
“No sir…! I am or is it was…? I’m not sure now…, his PA in Belfast Station. He said I was to present myself here for interview this morning at 1000. I know I’m a little late but…”
I raised my hand… Robin is contagious it seemed.
“No, not at all Miss Collins, it’s fine. It’s good of you to come on a Saturday. Er, if you don’t mind me asking for which position was the interview for…?”
“Sarah is fine… Charlie mentioned PA to the Head of Service Liaison…?”
Chris and I looked at each other. Norman had appeared in the doorway leaning nonchalantly dressed in his chinos and yachti
ng polo, stinking of Hardy Amies and trying to look like the sporty type he so obviously wasn’t…
“PA to the Head of Service Liaison…”
I repeated, a hopeful nod was the reply…
“Of course, I apologise, this morning’s activities, things are a little hectic in there… So you were Charlie Haddon’s PA in Belfast for the three years…?”
“Yes sir, I have my package here… Charlie passed it to me before I boarded the plane at Aldergrove last evening…He said you would wish to read it…?”
“Yes I would, thank you, do you have your identification, both A and B please…?”
I passed these to Chris who checked them through Janet’s computer which had been purring away in the corner. After five minutes Chris offered a brief nod and shut the computer down.