Bearings: The Compass Trilogy Part One

by Mr Iain F Johnston

  “He’s spent hours trawling the CCTV and the local coppers have been searching for the car…”

  “OK…Stop…! Let’s all just calm down… Chris ring for some coffee would you…?”

  It was clear emotions were beginning to run a little high. The tension in the office had been building all day. I purposefully lowered my voice.

  “Right Charlie, what have we got…?”

  He could see the point I was making and acknowledged me with a knowing nod:

  “Stegen did indeed transfer one of them: one Martin Buchan AKA Robert Morris. He hung around the marina facilities, the café mostly until 0900 when he walked the 500 metres to Avis and hired a car under his pseudonym…”

  “Which tells us something else too…? He has a credit card and driving license in the name of Buchan and he appears to be getting a little desperate: hiring a car is dicey…”

  “It is… He’s on his way with the INTEL now; he should be here by six…”

  “Can we not speed things up for him, like…?” “What do you mean Chris…?”

  “Well a police escort for starters is what I mean; he’s approaching Brentwood and the traffic is building…”

  I was dialling Essex police before Chris had stopped talking, I was gesticulating to him to call Puffin. Before his call connected I had arranged transport from Romford.

  “Danny…? Head for Romford nick and fax us the target vehicle and credit card INTEL… The Met’ will bring you in from there…”

  “Right Chris, I’m five minutes from there now…”

  At 1450 the information started chattering out of our fax machine. We immediately contacted VISA based on the south coast in Brighton; we wanted the credit card activity. Charlie spoke to SO12 and relayed the hire car details: black Renault Clio RT M640YTH. SO12, of course, would cascade this information down to the local law enforcement.

  Personally I began to feel more confident. The knowledge that Morris had re-entered the UK helped me rediscover what I was beginning to think were my lost marbles. I was certain that the “honest” Crown and Harraghy were not too far away either…

  Chris returned with a fist of A4 sheets, placing them in order as he walked:

  “So… We know he hired the car…”

  Chris placed that transaction to one side:

  “Oh, ok… He’s been shopping in Watford… Clothing, a trip to Boots for toiletries and he paid for lunch… Next is Bracknell, a petrol filling station… Fuel, a tank full by the look of things, forty fags… Hey that’s interesting, a road atlas. Why would he need one of those if he knew where he was heading…?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t Chris… He may just have an address…”

  Chris nodded and carried on:

  “It may go cold now… Visa’s last transaction is an ATM…£200 from Barclays… You know what…? He left Holland in a tearing hurry; he’s clearly brought nothing with him…”

  Chris reviewed the paperwork and wrote down the time stamps:

  “Right… Watford at 1220 and 1236 then Bracknell at 1320 with the ATM timed at 1331…”

  We looked at the wall map which now indicated the two search areas the police were concentrating on:

  “He’s heading to one of them isn’t he…?

  We walked to the wall boards in the main office; we tended to do our best thinking around them. Charlie began:

  “Let’s go back… What do we know…?”

  “McCauley collected the Rover and picked up Marward and Riddell, so we can assume he was driving. We then see them heading west along the M4 until junction 18…”

  Chris interrupted; he was dialling the fifth floor:

  “Hang on, I have an idea…Andy, do we have the IMINT from the M5 cameras yet…? Ok… Locate the best image of the Rover and enlarge it please… We want to try to see who’s driving it…Thanks…”

  Charlie and I nodded in understanding… If we knew who drove from the Bristol area, we would know who abandoned the car in Stourbridge. I carried on:

  “I think they headed south along the A46 otherwise why would the vehicle re-join at Weston Super Mare? If they’d headed north the car would have re-joined north of Bristol; equally if they’d headed to Bath, back up the A46 or along the A4 into Bristol would be the preferred route. I think we can have the search area narrowed further; have a look at the map. If they’d travelled along the A37 towards Shepton Mallet surely the ideal route would be to join the M5 at Bridgewater…”

  Charlie looked at the boards:

  “The searches toward Bath and along the A4 to Bristol have drawn a blank, so has the search along the A37 so far… Do you think Avon and Somerset should concentrate on the A38…?”

  “Yes I do… From Bristol to Weston, I think they are somewhere along that corridor…”

  “It certainly brings the airport and the bridge into play…”

  Chris re-examined the map before continuing:

  “It also brings a major motorway junction and the rail tunnel into focus too. I’m sold…”

  Charlie looked grave: “Aye… I am too…”

  I picked up the nearest desk phone:

  “We need to be sharp. It’ll be pitch-black in those rural areas pretty soon…”

  “Phil could you locate Steve Case for me please…? It’s urgent… Thanks…”

  At 1530 Steve Case returned the call, “What gives…?”

  “We want Avon and Somerset to shift their search area to the A38 corridor…”

  Steve sounded doubtful:, “Ok… Why…?

  “We are quite positive they are along that route…”

  “Chief, I’ll need to see your reasoning first… I can’t just shift manpower like that without justification… Give me fifteen minutes…?”

  “Will do Steve…”

  Norman returned from the fifth, his news wasn’t encouraging:

  “We’ve examined every SD card, every image on them relates to the south east of the UK, there’s nothing west of Heathrow. We have narrowed it down though to what we believe their four targets were: the Isle of Sheppey rail and road spans, the M4 junction 4, the Dartford Crossing and the M25/ M11 junction. Those are the locations that have most of the IMINT. I’d also say that apart from the devices in the horseboxes, the yields from the other three would have been more disruptive rather than destructive…”

  “Why do you say that Norm…?”

  “Well… The horseboxes would have caused structural damage; the sheer size of them would dictate that. The junctions would have been out of action for a considerable period of time… The VBIED’s in the smaller Escort vans would have caused some localised short term damage but nothing that wouldn’t be identified and repaired within a week or so. The operators could quite conceivably switch tracks or instigate a contra-flow for the road traffic…”

  “You’re positive Norm…?”

  “More or less… I’ve been speaking to Sergeant Mortimer at length and this is his conclusion also…”

  I nodded beginning to realise;

  “Ideally it’s more to do with psychologically terrorising a nation rather than killing it. If Joe Public feels unsafe, he’ll stay at home and not spend his wages thus affecting the economy…”

  Chris joined the debate:

  “Also if you can disrupt the means of getting goods to market the economy is affected two fold…”

  “That’s it and that’s what they’re after. This is bigger than PIRA; it’s from another direction. The whole thinking process and motivation is too sophisticated plus using PIRA means it has the ability to bugger up the ceasefire too…”

  “Returning to what Norman was saying: could it be possible that the smaller VBIED’s are another distraction…? The horseboxes and possibly the two vans bought in Birmingham are the real threat…?”

  “Some distraction Charlie, but I see where you’re coming from… The Escort vans cause panic and chaos whilst the larger delivery systems cause the real destruction effecting the road networks…We effectively
are sending our teams to diffuse the maintenance vans when all the while the larger devices are put in place unseen and unhindered…”

  Chris summed it up precisely:

  “Fuck me it’s frighteningly genius.”

  At 1555 a somewhat harassed looking Steve Case arrived, explaining

  everything we had discussed over the last hour, he seemed less than

  convinced.

  “So… You think the service unit is along the A38…? Based on what, guesswork…?

  I was somewhat surprised by his attitude, an officer who had taken his time last evening to go out of his way and keep us informed was now dismissive…?

  “It’s all guesswork Steve… It’s all it’s ever been, we’ve been second guessing them since January…”

  “Yes… I appreciate that and so far your results have been good but… Look, this is what SO12 and the police forces do; this is our part of it…”

  “Eh…? Are you yanking our chain…? Take a look around Steve, everything everyone is doing is because of Compass…Listen, if this is about manpower we can help you know…”

  “It’s not… It’s about four police forces running about like headless chickens and chasing their tails. There is a serious lack of coordination and it’s getting worse. If I request a shift in the search based on summation, the powers that be are liable to put me up against a wall and put a bag over my head… It’s all kneejerk…”

  I closed my mouth and wound my neck in; I could see the pressure he was under, being bounced from pillar to post. He was still attempting to sign off on Garvie and Catlin, plus his wife’s murder and was still trying to complete the necessary paperwork and lead the investigation regarding Romford and Brasted. He was now lead officer for the Chiswick safehouse enquiry too. If he had remained in Tactical Command of the operation there would be a structure of subordinate officers to sort the wheat from the chaff for him, allowing him to make sound decisions without distraction and delegate to less senior but equally competent officers. We more than any other agency had been guilty of piling the workload on to him simply because we knew we could trust him and, well, he was a bloody good investigative police officer.

  “Ok look, I’ll speak to Robin and have him have a word with the Home Sec’ and Commander Shreve. Clearly the operation can’t be run as four separate investigations, there needs to be an overall command; someone who has been involved from the beginning; someone who is at home both across at the Yard and here… You… I’ll ring him now…”

  “No Iain… Hang on…”

  “No… This is friggin’ ridiculous… I’m not having a bunch of glorified spud farmers making us look like a monkey fucking a football…!”

  I was back at 1630 to find Puffin was now part of the discussion.

  “Steve…? You are about to get a telephone call… It’s done…Your now officially TACCOM… Now may I please have four or six local police officers to call on the larger farms and businesses along the A38…?”

  “As simple as that…?”

  “I’m very convincing… I also think you should stay here and use the office designated to you, we have all the INTEL and you can set things in motion in a quieter environment…Steve…? You get whatever we’ve got mate…Puffin for a start, Danny…? Make yourself useful, for the foreseeable you work for Steve…”

  “Righto boss…”

  My cellphone rang… “Section Chief…”

  “Cormorant sir… Cheshire police believe they have the Ford Scorpio on M6 traffic cameras south of Sandbach: time stamp is 1340. I’m at their motorway unit in Knutsford now with the main office in Newton Le Willows attempting to manipulate the imagery to enhance the view of the occupants. We are also waiting to hear back from Staffordshire…”

  “Heading for the M5 I bet… Thanks Cormorant, I have a feeling we are in for another long night… we’ll be here…”

  “Yes sir…”

  I dialled Snipe’s cellphone…

  “O/C East, I have something for you… We need you to contact Northumbria Constabulary and have them check their city centre CCTV also traffic cameras heading out of the city along the A194 and A1 also east toward the Port of Tyne…”

  “This for Crown and Harraghy…?”

  “It is… Also a navy blue Ford Scorpio; I’ll have the images and vehicle index number faxed to your secure line…”

  “Ok… I’m on it now…”

  Chris, Steve and Charlie walked over… “What’s he got…?”

  “The navy blue Ford Scorpio you tagged at Hull… It’s been heading south along the M6. It could be anywhere now though, the time stamp is three and a half hours ago…”

  “It’s not anywhere laddie: it’s at one of two places that’s for sure…”

  “What about air support Steve…?”

  “The Central Counties Air Operations Unit has been up all day around Stourbridge. It’s shared by three constabularies… Ok… You have six officers, local lads now searching along the A38, most of it is built up with only a few real rural areas close to the airports northern and southern sections…”

  “Thanks Steve…”

  I walked across to the fax machine with the IMINT for Snipe, there were two sheets of paper in the receive tray: employment details for Colin Bell and Francis Lee, our old friends Crown and Harraghy. Also included in the package were passport, national insurance and bank account numbers for the pair, also badge ID and employment numbers for DFDS: the shipping line which sailed the route from Newcastle to Ijmuiden. We’d been had twice now in the space of twenty four hours: first the Chiswick exodus now this, a very easy setup that had gone unnoticed by individuals with devious minds not looking at the obvious.

  “Do we know how long these have been here…? “What are they…?”

  “Only the employment records from DFDS and the DHSS for Crown and Harraghy…”

  “So they’re here and heading south in a Ford Scorpio… That’s the three of them then… For what it’s worth boss, you were right…”

  Steve came across and read the paperwork then said quietly,

  “I’m tasking more officers along the A449 corridor. I may even request military assistance…”

  “We may be able to help you there Steve. Colonel March from the Royal Marine barracks in Chivenor is visiting in the morning…”

  Andy arrived from the fifth carrying the image in a large brown envelope. He’d worked his magic once again, only one occupant in the target vehicle, James McCauley, so Marward and Riddell were dropped somewhere around Bath and Bristol…

  *****

  It was now 1800… Steve Case had been busy. DS Green was now lead officer involved with Chiswick and was working closely with DS Bulmer in regard to Brasted and Sittingbourne. Steve had also been mindful not tread on Anne Pendleton’s toes, he had recognised quite early on that she was becoming a strong ally and had gone out of her way to assist. The Romford and Chelmsford enquiries were already being handled quite expertly by Essex police, this we could see was a huge weight off his mind. He had decided to keep the West Midlands and Avon investigations separate, being able to delegate the south east area of enquiry he felt able to control the ongoing searches for, what we hoped, were the only two remaining ASU’s. These two operations were also the most pressing: real-time decisions would have to be made quickly and Steve felt he needed to be in command of this. We, of course, agreed. With the chance that these two areas of enquiry could evolve into particularly ugly scenarios rapidly, our relationship with EOD at Northolt and the ability to have them deploy rapidly, we all felt was crucial.

  He appeared to be returning to the Inspector Steve Case we had come to respect and listen to. He was now TACCOM, the Tactical Commander of the whole operation. This would now allow me to concentrate on bringing Compass strategically to the party.

  “Chief…? Where are we in relation to Cormorant and Snipe…?”

  “Snipe’s ETA at Newcastle is 1900, he checked in at 1755. Cormorant is beginning to get a bit frust
rated, as are the Cheshire traffic officers; they’d hoped for feedback from Staffordshire by now, lack of manpower…”

  “Ok… I’ll chase them… We now have twenty two officers along the A449 corridor. There’s your six along the A38 with another fifteen involved covering Bath, Bristol and all things to do with the M5 corridor…”

  I turned to Chris and Charlie, Norman was again casting his eyes over the IMINT…

  “ETA for Raven and Kestrel…?”

  “Kestrel is in place at Bristol Airport; she’s moving around the approach roads… Raven will be in Birmingham by 1830. Matt upstairs has real-time contact with all of them, if he needs assistance, Stuart will stay on and participate…”

  Steve looked at the three of us and smiled appreciatively… He could see we were giving him everything.