The response to this was a direct but sad stare. Angela McQueen was finding it difficult too. Time was getting on, pushing 0200 it was now or never…
“Angela we want you to visit your sister… Tell her that all is well and that your business in Genk went as planned. We then want you to return to Belfast with the keys… You will of course be met by different PIRA members, it is these we want. You will be tailed all the way and if anything should go wrong there will be individuals on hand to assist you, equally if you have anything you need to tell us, you can through the same channels. Clearly no mention of any of this is to be made, understood…?”
“Yes, I understand… What’s in it for me…?
“How about a new life with a new name and a chance to start again…?
The look on her face was as if a massive dose of adrenalin was coursing through her veins…
“Where…?”
“Anywhere you fancy...” “And money…?”
“Enough to set you up so you don’t have to worry too much, yes…”
“When do you want me to go…?
“First things first, you need to sleep but not here. We’ll make sure you’re more comfortable and you need a car… We’ll have the final details for you when you’re ready in the morning…”
Charlie and I stood and left the room and headed to the mess. Ten minutes after that I was in my bunk and asleep…
*****
Harraghy sat in the living room refilling his empty whiskey glass. He had a concerned look on his face. The fact that Garvie hadn’t called for much of the day wasn’t worrying Morris and Crown, they had explained that Garvie would have to purchase a local phone card as buying a mobile phone would be difficult on a European motorway… Harraghy was not convinced, the operation had come too far now for any amateur hour thinking…
“Rob, I think you need to find out what has happened to young Dillon. He’s a conscientious, serious lad and would call if he could. We need to know if he’s been grabbed especially after the ferry job. It’s all over the TV how heavy the police presence was at the port…”
“Gerry, remember we’re using the new boys in case this happens. I’ve already ditched the mobile phone so he can only ring the answer phone in Armagh now. I’ll head that way in the morning, I’ll also get a message to Donna. We may have to change our plans…”
Donal Garret was another well-known PIRA member lying low... He was in a fishing cottage overlooking The Quay in Kinvarra, County Galway. His initial part of the operation was finished; he would be heading to the British mainland within the week to head the next phase of the campaign…
He had spent the day being informed of Norman’s presence in Dublin and of sketchy details of a snatch in Germany. He was now sitting patiently waiting for confirmation only then would he ring the safe house in Holland. They were ready for this, using the new boys had been a masterstroke he thought. Having the Brits chasing their tails trying to find out who they are distracted them from seeing the more important operations of the new campaign. The farms were now established and had gone unmolested so far, the bomb ingredients had been delivered to three separate locations. One received fertiliser, one received the icing sugar and one received diesel fuel. Equal amounts of each were then redistributed by the new boys.
He received the confirmation of the Garvie snatch only; McQueen’s had been kept under wraps. He replaced the receiver then dialled Holland…
“Garvie has been snatched in Germany; they’re holding him at an RAF base. He’s being transported to the UK later today…Move now to the alternate and get rid of everything related to him and that aspect of the op’…”
“What do we do about him…?”
“Nothing… They’ve got forensic evidence tying him to the spook on the boat so cut him loose, forget him… The woman is in Dusseldorf now; she’s seeing her sister on Thursday…”
“The timetable doesn’t change then…?”
“No… Get a message to you know who, we want the keys intercepted and then that part can be finished with too.”
Brendan O’Keefe was twenty two years old. He had been a member of PIRA for two years. His Grandfather had been involved in attacks using milk churns on RUC stations in the 1960’s, his father killed in an ambush in 1988…
He, like Donna McQueen, had been seduced by the stories told to him as a boy. He was proud to be involved, so when he was given his first operation by Robert Morris, no less, he listened enthusiastically. He was to intercept a woman in Germany, retrieve keys from her then tie up the loose end any way he chose as long as it was permanently. O’Keefe had travelled by ferry to Cuxhaven and was now thundering along the E234 in a hired Mercedes. His route would take him to Bremen were he would turn onto the E37 to Munster then travel along the A52 to Düsseldorf, arriving just in time for lunch…
Angela McQueen had the property keys returned to her after they had been copied, she was also given the use of a black 320i BMW which had been fitted with a tracking device.
Once she arrived in Düsseldorf, McQueen would stay at the Hotel Am Spichernplatz, a short walk from the JVA. An appointment had already been arranged for 1100 Thursday 16th March. The German Interior Minister had also agreed for two SIS officers to tail her with support from GSG9 if or when required. Blackbird and Sparrow had arrived at Bruggen at 0700…
The subject and the tail left the base at 1000…
Through physical and medicinal encouragement Dillon Garvie had been most cooperative regarding his part of the operation. He had confirmed what we thought; O’Hanlon and the Catlin’s were for the high jump from the start, however, originally Angela McQueen was to be encouraged to secure a further safe house before being relieved of her mortal coil…
What was significant was the extraction of Robert Morris’s mobile telephone number which confirmed he was in Holland. This information was given to the AIVD who through signal triangulation, were confident of finding the location. We also now had a landline telephone number for a property in Armagh; Seamus O’Brien was now in the process of forming a task force for a search…
SO12 were ready to transfer Garvie to London for further interrogation. The Holy Grail still eluded us. Garvie had no real information of the campaign, he was based in Belfast not the UK and was also a lilywhite which again meant he was disposable. Charlie, Chris and I would also be on the flight…
*****
Germany treated prison or remand centre visitors very matter of factually. Some of the social stigma attached to inmates and their families in this country didn’t exist. It was very much like a day at the office. When a visitor entered, they were strict, yes, but not unfriendly…
McQueen sat in the red walled waiting room sitting on one of the twenty grey vinyl chairs. It was pointless for her to pick up a magazine as she knew no German. There was a water fountain bolted to the wall next to a wire meshed frosted glass window and a small hatch which offered visitors the chance to purchase coffee or soft drinks. All the visitors nodded to each other formally in greeting then very much kept to themselves. The visitor announcements were very prompt; at 1100 McQueen heard her name and walked to the appropriate officer who would escort her to her sisters visiting room… This one was slightly different however, there were listening devices embedded in the walls and hidden miniature cameras in the ceiling light fittings… We had thought this was a bit of overkill when discussed at Bruggen, our belief being that Donna McQueen would do nothing to jeopardise their campaign, but Germany insisted, so ok…
McQueen Junior sat down and passed 400 Benson and Hedges cigarettes across the table. This prompted an officer to enter and check the packaging again, copying the actions of the officer she had met on entering the remand centre…
“How was your journey little sister, quiet I hope…?”
“Yes it was fine, I think something was going on either on the ferry or at the port, there was a lot of police around but I got away no problem…”
“Your business…? Wer
e you able to conclude it satisfactorily…?
“It went well in Belgium; I have the keys now and the properties alarm code… Ma and Da send their love and Lenny has an appeal coming up in May...”
“Fat chance he has with that…! Is your hotel nice…? Are you staying local…?
“It’s just a short walk from here, unpronounceable to me but Am Spichernplatz or something like it… I‘ve booked myself a nice comfort room until tomorrow lunch time; I could visit tomorrow too…?”
“No get yourself off home, things there can’t wait. People are relying on you...”
“Why did you set me up for this Donna…?
“You know why, if you had said no it would have been a lot worse for you and this way we all get something out of it…”
If Angela was hoping to hear some form of the truth from her sister she was to be disappointed. The conversation had gone like all the others before, just small talk. They were close once but no longer, their individual worlds were in very different galaxies. The visits were pointless…
“Well I’ll say goodbye to you… I doubt I’ll be visiting again…” “I doubt it too…”
Both sisters said this for very different reasons, of course, there were no hugs or handshakes, no offers of good luck or best wishes, just two women in a room looking at each other. The visits had been a means to an end and that end, one way or another, would be soon…
Angela McQueen walked from the JVA with tears in her eyes, the cold hard looks she had received from across the table was enough to tell her what her sister really was. This was a woman incapable of love or affection; to go this far she was convinced her sister was evil. If it wasn’t the IRA, Donna McQueen would have found another group to satisfy her specific needs. To engineer it so that her long term partner was convicted back in ’89 and now this proved to Angela that her sister thought people were just commodities to be used for her own ends and then discarded…
Donna McQueen was escorted to the bank of wall mounted telephones in the corridor adjacent to her cell; she placed 50 Deutch Marks into the phone then dialled an eleven digit number and stated simply…
“Hotel Am Spichernplatz… She is staying until tomorrow, under her own name…”
She replaced the receiver quietly then walked to her cell; her face was stoic, no hint of emotion either way.
Edward O’Boylan cancelled the call then dialled another cellphone relaying the message to Gerry Harraghy; he in turn did the same, speaking to Brendan O’Keefe.
GSG9 had the recording of the brief telephone conversation transferred to tape; it was on Niklas Meier’s desk within ten minutes. After listening he dialled the number to the Birdcage…
“Sarah Collins…”
“Hallo Sarah, it is Niklas. I hold important informationen from our operation.”
“Wait one Nik, I’m pressing record”.
“Ah gut so, after the visitation our subject called a British cellphone and communicated your subject’s location… I feel your flock must have this informationen, we believe your subject maybe intercepted… We have GSG9 officers in the location also, ready to assist. I am placing the recording in a diplomatic pouch now; you will receive it by 1700 UTC…”
“I understand Niklas, I shall inform them now… Vielen Danke…” “Gengeschelen, Auf Wiedersehen…”
Sarah walked to my office indicating that Charlie, Chris and Norman should follow…
“Chief, the BND have a recording of Donna McQueen relaying Backpack’s location, she called a British cellphone. Niklas is having it pouched now; we should receive it by 1700. He has also confirmed GSG9 assistance should we need it.”
I reached for my phone and dialled Blackbird’s cellphone…
“Thanks Sarah… Could you work with Charlie and Norm on an Exfil Op just in case…?
“Yes sir…”
As the three left my office, I indicated for Chris to sit…
“Blackbird, you and Sparrow should be ready for a possible escalation, dry clean as necessary and you are weapons free. I don’t have to remind you about Starling but if there is an option we would prefer the target breathing, is that understood…?
“Yes sir understood, dry clean and weapons free however target viable if possible… What about Exfil…?”
“We are working on that scenario now, the Intel is very recent…There are two GSG9 officers in your location ready to assist if required.”
“Yes sir, they are known to us, they shadowed us here and have a room on the same floor…”
“Understood Blackbird…”
“Chris, once we get the pouch I want decoding to try and triangulate the signal, there’s a chance the AIVD can do the same in Holland, if that’s where the call went. Is there anything extracted from Garvie that can point to a Dutch property…?”
“Maybe, Garvie was quite loose when we finished, he couldn’t have handled any more drug. He would have just said whatever came into his mind, fact or fiction. Steve is allowing him to dry out a bit before recommencing…”
“Ok stick around; I want your input the Mary Catlin murder, we should be seeing local input from that today...”
*****
O’Keefe drove the C class Mercedes into the hotel’s carpark, he was confident the vehicle would go unnoticed as it was German registered. This was a new tactic; the reasoning was that Garvie stood out as his Opal had Irish plates… If he knew that two GSG9 officers where clocking all vehicle movements around the hotel he probably would have been a little more cautious...
“Torsten, blue C class Mercedes, CUX ZK 295, copy?”
“Copy Karolin… From Cuxhaven eh…? A hire car perhaps…?”
“Maybe, the driver is young and is not dressed for business… Call it in.”
Torsten Kuefer punched the details into the van’s built in computer, within ten seconds he had all the subject vehicle details…
“Ah so, Karolin the subject vehicle was hired from SIXT on the quay at Cuxhaven this morning by an Englishman named Ray Wilson… He travelled directly to here, interesting… I’m passing this one on, copy…?”
“I copy Torsten.”
Kuefer punched further buttons on the keypad enabling his Headquarters to read and register the information. This action immediately flagged the vehicle on Europol’s database which in turn flashed across Sarah’s desktop computer screen, she dialled Charlie…
“Charlie, GSG9 have flagged an Englishman who has just arrived at Backpack’s hotel. It appears he travelled from the UK to Cuxhaven and hired the car this morning…”
“Thanks lassie…”
Charlie walked from his office and cornered Chris…
“Who do we have on the east coast now…? We may need someone quickly...”
“Snipe is the only active officer at the moment; he’s back checking containers, why…?”
“GSG9 have flagged a bod off the Harwich to Cuxhaven ferry. They assume he arrived this morning, hired a car then drove straight to Düsseldorf…”
“Right…! You tell the Boss, I’ll get Snipe moving south now…”
I was reading Essex Constabularies preliminary report on Catlin’s murder as he stormed in…
“Yeah Charlie…?”
“We have a possible in Düsseldorf. GSG9 flagged an English male who arrived from Cuxhaven…”
“How’s the profile looking…?”
“Well, he hired a car at the port then high tailed it direct to the hotel. I’d say it’s more than fair…”
“Yeah, I’d say it’s more than fair too. What are we doing...? He left from Harwich I presume…?
“Yes we believe so, Chris has Snipe on his way now… Do you want a manifest too…?”
“Yeah Charlie and see if C&E spot anything on the CCTV… No wait; hang on, on second thoughts…”
I pressed my intercom…
“Mark could you come in here please…?”
I looked at Charlie and said…“Let’s get Mark down there and instigate a Box review�
�”
“Good plan, you never know, they may have become as lax as Plymouth...”
Mark entered my office and sat on the sofa like an edgy schoolboy…
“How’s the office, are you finding everything you need…?”
“Yes sir, everyone has been eager to bring me up to speed. I’m very pleased Chief…”
“Good! Charlie and I have a problem which we need your help with… Charlie…?”
“Mark, we need you to conduct an ad hoc Box review at Harwich port today... Snipe is travelling from Immingham to assist you. Chris will fill you in more thoroughly but we think a PIRA lilywhite travelled from the port to Düsseldorf…”
Bearings: The Compass Trilogy Part One Page 15