Again more knowing nods from the room…Chris handed a small photo around the room…
“The other two target subjects arrived today. The older male in the photo is one Donal Garret, a known PIRA brigade commander and we believe crucial to their plan…We need these men alive…Injured is fine, but viable, please…”
A chorus of “Yes Sir…!” filled the room…Frank carried on using his pointer on the rolled out A1 sheets depicting the property…
“Ok… Charlie Nine is lead; he will buddy up with Charlie Eight, breach the front door, clear the hallway here and form up on door one leading into the living room. Charlie Ten and Eleven you have the rear french doors using the garden gate for access here, clear the kitchen and then form up on door two .Charlie One and Two, you are to breach the back door, then lead on through the double doors to clear the dining room then hold at door three.”
Frank allowed this to sink in before continuing…
“You move on Charlie nine’s count…We believe there are three target subjects in this room, we need them subdued rapidly and quietly…When secure, Charlie Nine and Charlie Eleven are to move upstairs, securing the bathroom and bedroom three, here and here, then bedroom one. We have it on good authority that target subject four is in bedroom two…This will be confirmed right on cue… Gentlemen you are weapons-free for defensive response only…If they’re dead we are no better off and might as well of stayed at home and watched “Songs of Praise…”
“That’s all gentlemen, Thankyou…Check your kit we deploy at 0100…”
Charlie Nine hung back to speak to Frank quietly…
“Boss do you know these two blokes…? You liaise with Compass now don’t you…?”
“Yes to both Steve…The younger one is the boss over there and the other is his 2IC.”
“Shit…! He’s the gaffer and he’s out on a Sunday night diffusing bombs…?”
“Well, I don’t think he did any diffusing son but he was there, yes… They are a serious bunch of buggers Stevie boy but they’ll watch your back and make sure you get home with all the bits your Missus loves so much…! Now get your men in position.”
“Roger that boss… I’ll tell the lads” “Control… Golf Charlie Three….” “Golf Charlie Three…”
“Any aspect changes over…?” “Negative over…”
“Roger… Sixty seconds” “Roger sixty seconds…Out.”
“Control…Romeo Charlie six…” “Romeo Charlie six…”
“Any visual changes over…?” “Negative”
“Roger Charlie six…Forty seconds…” “Roger forty seconds…Out.”
With all the officers in position it was time. I nodded to Steve and Frank…
“This is TACCOM…Execute…”
On this command Charlie Eleven used his skeleton keys on the french doors, Charlie One did the same to the rear door with Charlie Nine dealing with the front.
One of the target subjects entered the kitchen… Charlie Eleven raised his forearm showing a clenched fist, Charlie Two tapped his colleague on the shoulder to hold… The subject picked up three cans of Guinness then left the room…
“Clear”
The french doors and back door opened quietly… “Kitchen clear”
The Charlie One and Two carried on forward into the dining room…
“Dining room clear”
They held position at the double interior doors leading to the living room as did Charlie Ten and Eleven who were positioned at the foot of the stairs having walked the three feet from the kitchen.
They were now waiting on Charlie Nine to call…
“Charlie Nine… Hallway clear…On three…Two…One…”
All six entered the living room simultaneously and had the three target subjects pinned on the floor within ten seconds…Gaffer taped mouths, cable tied hands and loosely hooded…
“Three target subjects down…All viable… Living room clear”
Charlie Nine climbed the stairs backward aiming his MP 5 upward with Charlie Eleven covering. At the top of the stairs Charlie Nine turned right, walked along the landing and checked the bathroom and third bedroom…
“Bathroom clear”
“Bedroom three clear”
Charlie Eleven walked the four feet to bedroom one and pushed the door slowly, the floorboards creaked and the door let off a loud squeaky whine as it opened… The door to bedroom two was flung open by Donal Garret, standing wide eyed in his boxer shorts and holding a whiskey bottle in his left hand and a nine millimetre Beretta in his right…
Without hesitation Charlie Nine floored him with a sharp jab of his MP 5 stock to Garret’s face…
“Thanks Stevie…”
“Any time Pete, now stop pissing about and cable tie the bastard… I’ll call it in…”
“Bedroom one clear…”
“Target subject down… Bedroom two clear…” “Is he viable…Over…?”
Charlie Nine looked down before responding… “He’s er different, but yeah, he’s viable over…” “Roger Charlie Nine… Clean sweep over” “Roger that control…Clean sweep…Out.”
Together with Steve and Frank, Chris and I moved in… There were already four armoured Iveco police vans outside the house… Each PIRA member had their hoods secured over their heads before being moved from the property, they would have a van each for their journey to Paddington Green Police Station… Frank greeted each of the SO13 officers as they left the house…
“Well done lads… Good job all of you.”
Each officer responded in kind as they made their way to the waiting transport vehicles which would return them to their station for debrief and walk through…
“Five and a half minutes Frank, well done…Once we’ve had a look see we’ll be off then the SOCO boys and girls can move in and have the cars shifted”
“Right oh…We’ll start letting traffic through from 0200.”
Chris and I walked into a living room which was in dire need of decorating… The wallpaper was faded and clearly twenty years old with grubby finger marks around the light switches and sockets. The internal doors had been replaced but never painted and showed the same tell-tale finger marks around the handles…The blue carpet and the tired three piece suite were both in need of fumigation. I would have sworn under oath that if one was to look closely they were moving. The carpet was also an untreated casualty of dried food and drink…There was a lonely looking TV and VCR combination under the bay window with the usual array of casually strewn hired video tapes and of course, pirate pornography, the only other piece of furniture fighting for survival in the living room was a rather forlorn looking coffee table covered in white rings where years of hot coffee mugs had been placed, and flaky varnish.
Judging by the debris to the side of the chairs and settee, their diet of choice had been delivered pizza and Guinness…Clearly a lack of housekeeping skills didn’t detract from their ability to construct explosive devices or kill defenceless housewives with crossbows…
Strangely three investigative leads came from this room…Question the video hire shop staff, question the pizza delivery company, visit the local off licences and visit every sport or gun store in Essex for crossbow sales…
The dining room contained no furniture whatsoever, just the same blue carpet and a now grey net curtain on the window overlooking the driveway.
The kitchen was definitely the nerve centre of this operation. The centrally placed table was covered in maps, photos and A4 pads with written observations of places, people and companies offering service provision such as contract cleaning, commercial gardening and security… In an opposite cupboard above the fridge we found two box files containing passport photos, blank name tags and passes, a couple of which caught our attention immediately. Neatly printed and ready for their photos were three passes and photo IDs for the Highways Agency depot based in Sittingbourne and a Railtrack depot also based in the same area…With the inception of the new high speed rail link to France a
nd Belgium using the newly opened channel tunnel, Railtrack had huge numbers of personnel in the Essex and Kent areas…
It was time to get our car; Chris had packed two steel storage boxes under the rear parcel shelf in case we discovered such a find…
“Iain, I think we need to move all of this to the Birdcage digest it then have Steve Case and his lads look at it at leisure…”
“I agree…We also need to see what there is on Eurotunnel’s CCTV…Puffin has been spending a lot of time down there. Norm has been keeping things close to his chest in light of Catlin’s adventures, he believes the shunting yards and passenger loading areas at Folkestone are a possible PIRA target rather than a PIRA transit route…He and Puffin have been digging quietly…”
“That’s a fair point…Let’s have them in to look at the new Intel, Norms bloody good with IMINT, you never know we might just have a connection…”
I nodded in agreement…
“Ok…Let’s get these in the car and then we’ll check upstairs…I want to be away before Essex SOCO appears on the doorstep…”
The upstairs was just as Spartan, the three bedrooms would be generously viewed as functional, no personal items, unless you
classed deodorant and copies of Playboy, Mayfair and Fiesta in that category, no reminders of home. They were all pretty bleak really with the same blue carpet which also covered the hall, stairs and landing…There was nothing here…
Chris managed to balance on my shoulders and used his flashlight to check the loft, again it was clean…We were about done when something caught my eye in the bathroom…
“Chris, check the screws on the bath panel, they look like they’ve seen some action recently…Have you a Philips screwdriver on that Leatherman of yours…? I’ll check the loo cistern…”
The cistern lid moved freely to reveal three Walther 9mm pistols and six magazines all neatly wrapped in thick plastic…
“Hey Chris…?”
“Give them to SOCO, we’ll get the results quicker with Steve chasing them…These screws are very loose, I think they’ve been busy bees under here…”
“Can’t we just yank the thing off now…? It should be easy enough.”
The remainder of the bath panel came away easily, Chris lay on his back on the bathroom floor and put his arm in, he instantly pulled it out holding a package…
“Hold on there’s a few more under here and I think this one is the crossbow…”
He moved his arm to reveal a “T” shaped object wrapped in newspaper and tape…
“Yeah, I think your right there…Another one for SOCO and a murder weapon, someone isn’t going to see the Emerald Isle for a very long time…”
The other two packages were identical to the first; Chris pulled back a corner of one of them…
“It’s cash, I’d say Sterling too judging by the Queen’s head…”
I picked one up to gauge its weight…
“What do you think…Say two and a half grand in each…?”
“Yep, something like that…Hold on there’s something else under here but it’s being a stubborn little bugger…If…I…Could
…Just….SHIT…! GET THE FUCK OUT…! NOW…!
I didn’t hesitate, I half pulled and half dragged Chris out of the bathroom and we both leapt the length of the staircase colliding with the hallway wall then sprinted out of the front door…I knew what he was getting at and I knew what it meant…
“How big…?”
“I’d say five to ten pounds…If I hadn’t felt the wires I’d be still tugging on it now…!”
“You wouldn’t… You’d be orbiting Essex with me for company…Fuck…! Thanks, you cantankerous Geordie bastard…I owe you…”
“Anytime gaffer…It’ll be quicker to ring Norm and pass his phone to EOD…”
I grabbed my cellphone and walked over to Frank…
“Frank…Keep the road sealed off and think about evacuating more residents…There’s a device under the bath…I’m ringing EOD now…”
“Right…! Let’s get everyone back…Oh and the BBC have turned up…”
“Good… Give them a pair of pliers and let them film it all first- hand…”
“Don’t be naughty... I’ll have ‘em all back up to McIntosh road.”
I dialled Norman’s cellphone as Chris cornered Steve…
“Norm…? It’s Iain; I need you to pass your phone to the Sergeant there.”
“Ok…Wait one…”
“Sergeant Mortimer speaking…”
“Bill, it’s Iain…We have another device for you…No…It’s under the bath at the safehouse.”
“Righto…We’ll have the address from Norman then Lieutenant Jenkins and Lance Corporal Thomas will be along in the Landrover…Less conspicuous that way…”
“Yes sir understood.”
I walked across to where Chris and Steve were standing. Steve had noticed the bright arc lights of the media switch on…
“You two ought to think about leaving…You don’t want your faces on the nine o’clock news…Chris has brought me up to speed, we’ll have forensics work on the pistols and crossbow and we’ll see if we can chase the money…Back to Stakeholder maybe…?”
“Yeah, that’s a good point… Have Essex Constabulary check Pizza delivery companies, oh and the local Blockbuster Video store too.”
“We’ll be on it first thing…Now, how about doing a disappearing act both of you…!”
Chris and I climbed in the car and head back to the Birdcage…We would time the walk through for 1500. It was to be another night on the office sofa beds…
Chapter Twenty One
Robert Morris tried Edward O’Boylan’s cellphone for the third and final time…It was 0530…In two years the young Irishman had never failed to answer…He felt it was now time to move, Harraghy and Crown had both departed the safehouse en route to Ijmuiden to board the overnight ferry to Newcastle. After a lengthy discussion it was agreed that Morris was to travel a less conventional way due to the incarceration Of Catlin…
A Dutch contact, Koenraad Stegen based in Amsterdam would take him across the North Sea in his private yacht which was moored in Dordrecht’s marina…
Stegen had been used before and was no stranger to this kind of extra-curricular activity…He was heavily involved in the Dutch capitals sex industry and also owned two cannabis farms based within an orchid nursery 25km to the north of Amsterdam in the town of Purmerend…He was also no stranger to a little small arms dealing either. Nothing heavy, automatics, pistols and the odd Uzi…Stegen thought it an interesting diversion from the tedious day to day running of his brothels, he also thought it an excellent way to supplement his already large income…Not surprisingly the AIVD thought otherwise.
Morris broke up the cellphone and disposed of it in a roadside storm drain; he immediately pulled another from his jacket and dialled a number to the Irish Republic…
“Yes”
“I fear Miny and Moe are compromised, there has been no contact for twelve hours now. As you know “Keith Newton” was visiting “Cohen” and “Hunter”, I also think “Charlton” is there too…”
“We agree…We’ve heard whispers that the house and farm have been taken but nothing has been confirmed yet, we are waiting on the call…Proceed with the plan, we still have Eeny and Meeny which should be ready within five days…We’ve instructed “Lee” and “Bell” to oversee Eeny, we need you at Meeny. There is also an alternative which we will discuss at length at a later date…”
“Rix” and “Woodcock” will meet you at Meeny…”Brazil” has secured the delivery systems for both plans so there should be no problems from now…We don’t expect any more problems, do you understand what I’m saying to you, “Buchan”…?”
“Yes “Busby” I do…! I’ll sort my own travel plans from here to the UK…I know where a couple of things are.”
“Right then, we’ll let you get on…Oh one last thing, have you still now idea where the McQueen g
irl has vanished to…?
“No I don’t…I’m under the impression Special Branch has her and Garvie.”
“Well there’s another job for you…we’re not sacrificing any more soldiers on that.”
The call was ended, Morris let out a huge sigh as he turned the cellphone off. He walked to the corner of the street to wait for the tram which would transport him to the marina in Dordrecht harbour
*****.
I was awake by 0600. I stood, stretched and tried to convince myself that four hours sleep was more than enough for a fit and healthy twenty seven year old. I failed. After showering, dressing and two cups of coffee I began to feel normal… A trip to the mess saw me return with now fewer than ten bacon sandwiches, five cups of coffee, two teas and scrambled egg on toast, I had nearly forgotten about Sarah…
Bearings: The Compass Trilogy Part One Page 21