Javelin - the gripping new thriller from the former commander of Special Branch (John Kerr Book 3)

by Roger Pearce

  Kerr glanced at Melanie, already checking the corridor to make their escape. ‘I’ll be secure in twenty minutes,’ he said, as she shot him a thumbs up.

  Melanie had found a shortcut to the hospital car park through the boiler room. ‘Did they recover anything at Roscoe’s?’ said Kerr, above the noise of the machinery.

  ‘The van was clean. Still searching the workshop.’ She shouldered the fire door into the car park. ‘What did Rich want?’

  ‘We need to check with the Palace again. I’ll tell you on the way.’

  ‘Whatever it is, let us handle it.’ Melanie zapped the key fob, searching the gloom for the Alfa’s hazard lights. ‘Right now you need to concentrate on Nancy.’

  ‘She’s called you?’

  ‘She’s already at yours,’ said Melanie over her shoulder. ‘And mega peed off with you.’

  At his bedside Nancy had been as calm and contained as Gabi, so the change brought him a pulse of alarm. He caught up with Melanie and took her arm. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Something private between you two,’ said Melanie, easing aside to open the passenger door for him. ‘Why would she share with me?’

  They clicked into their seat belts, inhaling the dregs of Bobby Roscoe’s stale sweat and fear. ‘Melanie, what’s wrong?’

  She gave a shrug and started the engine. ‘Only you can say, apparently.’

  •••

  Saturday, 22 October, 16.08, Kerr’s Apartment

  A driver from the Reds was waiting for Melanie outside Kerr’s Islington apartment. Melanie parked the Alfa, tossed Kerr the keys, ordered him to rest (‘Lock yourself away at Nancy’s for a couple of days. No ifs or buts’) and scooted across the street.

  Kerr’s refurbished top floor apartment was light and airy, with its original high ceilings and cornices. There were two ensuite bedrooms off the living area, which stretched from front to back, filled with natural light. French windows led onto a spacious balcony and he found Nancy there with a chilled glass of wine, her back to him, distracted by the Saturday afternoon hubbub below. Sometimes, when Karl had the children to stay overnight, they would make dinner here, or visit a local restaurant by Chapel Market, then linger on the balcony until bed called. Nancy was wearing the same clothes she had worn at the hospital, light slacks with flat shoes and a lime sweater, and he wondered where she had been for the past three hours. He hoped with all his heart that she had come to wait for him, not to return his key.

  Padding across the wooden floor in his bare feet, Kerr recognised her giant tote bag beneath the glass dining table, zipped and bulked out of shape. He stepped onto the balcony and bent to kiss her neck. She must have heard him above the din of the street for she turned at the last instant, grazing her hair against his injured face.

  ‘Oh God, sorry,’ she said, reaching to touch him as he found her lips. She waved her glass as he pulled a chair close. ‘I helped myself.’

  ‘Nance, I’m just so glad to see you.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’ve come to save you from yourself.’ She paused while Kerr stared at her, then nodded at the bedroom, where Kerr kept his encrypted laptop in a wall safe. ‘I’m sending you an email, and it’s not good.’ Perplexed, he collected his laptop, then disappeared into the kitchen for another glass and the opened bottle of Sancerre. When he returned, Nancy had come inside, scrolling through her iPhone at the dining table. She sipped her wine in silence while Kerr checked his Inbox. There was a brief email from Fargo with the subject ‘Purple,’ a police epithet for the Royal Family. ‘Spoke with Melanie. Core principals by helicopter to Norfolk yesterday, returning to London Monday evening. I gave Prot a heads-up. Can you speak?’

  Nancy’s email popped up a second later. ‘Recognise anyone?’ she said, as Kerr clicked onto the photographs grabbed from Gabi’s tablet.

  Kerr made a face. ‘How did you get them?’

  ‘Robyn threw herself a birthday party last year, apparently,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Yeah, Gabi mentioned it. She was referee and bouncer. So what’s the story?’ He leaned into her. ‘You’re worried I was there and didn’t tell you?’

  Nancy laughed. ‘Oh, I think we’re a long way past that.’ She pointed at the screen. ‘And Robyn’s already got a boyfriend, hasn’t she?’

  Kerr shrugged. ‘She doesn’t tell me about her personal life.’

  ‘I bet.’ She regarded Kerr for a moment, then poured him some wine. ‘Does lover boy ring any bells?’

  Kerr’s eyes dropped to the floor, suddenly glimmering with suspicion. He reached down and heaved Nancy’s bag onto the table. ‘What have you got in here?’

  ‘When we left the hospital, Gabi and I had a chat, getting to know each other. Then I walked to the Yard to find Gemma. She got me into the Registry. First time in yonks.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Because I asked her.’

  ‘But you’re not security cleared any more.’

  ‘Carol was on. We still have lunch and I haven’t gone over to the Russians. Did you know she had to destroy the digital images of European terrorists? The heirs to Action Directe, Red Brigades, all gone. Baader-Meinhof Gang kaput, as if it never existed. Some EU phooey, according to Carol. It’s like I wasted twelve years of my life. Unless it’s a psycho narcissist tosser with a beard, no-one’s interested, apparently. All the bosses in blinkers, like every other threat has evaporated. Is that true, John?’

  Kerr gave a short laugh. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘So Carol, being Carol, secretly retains the paper files, squirrels them away in a security cabinet everyone’s forgotten about.’ Nancy unzipped the bag and reached inside for a bulging pink folder headed Secret in black capitals, its contents tagged with string. Yellowing photographs were glued or stapled to the pages, releasing coils of dust into the sunshine as she leafed through them. ‘The original subject files were culled years ago but she kept photographs with a copy of the front folio,’ she said, as Kerr slowly shook his head. ‘My whole working life in the Branch is in here, John, my initials on every page.’ She opened the file to folio thirty-six. ‘Donate Lucrecia Poncheti, member of Brigate Rosse. Bank robber, political extremist and weapons expert. A zealot who advocates political assassination to incite revolution. Ring any bells?’

  Kerr studied a police mugshot, a smiling close-up from a family album and two surveillance photographs, all faded with age. ‘Long time ago, Nance,’ he said, shaking his head.

  Nancy traced the bio with her finger. ‘Here we are. Milan 1983. Took a bullet in the chest but pulled through, unfortunately. His comrades smuggled him into France, which is how he stayed free. But he couldn’t resist the lure of Rome, right?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Did you know Robyn was having it off with a terrorist?’

  Kerr stared at her, lost for words. The glue holding the photographs to the paper was cracked and flaky, and one of the surveillance shots dropped to the table. Nancy held it against the image on Kerr’s laptop. ‘Same thug, different generation. Tell me you can see the likeness.’

  Stapled to the page was a brown envelope filled with more stills which Kerr spilled onto the table, as if they might give him a way out. ‘He looks taller in the surveillance pics. Leaner.’ Kerr sifted through every shot, doubtful, then relieved. ‘Different colouring, hairline.’

  ‘Same bullet wound, though,’ said Nancy, quick as a flash. She sorted the close-ups for an image with Poncheti’s upper chest exposed, pointing at a mark beneath the left clavicle. ‘See? Now look again.’ On the laptop, Robyn’s boyfriend had his left arm around her shoulders, stretching his shirt to reveal the same dark, circular smudge.

  Kerr breathed something inaudible, a murmur of defeat. He turned to her. ‘Look, you know how I met Robyn.’

  ‘In your undercover op, yes.’

  ‘As an activist with International Prisoners’ Aid. The Branch never had her down as a member of Brigate Rosse. A contact, at most.’ Kerr touched his injure
d face, playing for time, looking for for an escape. ‘Christ, for all we know, Donate Poncheti may turn out to be one of the penitenti.’

  ‘And that makes everything alright?’

  ‘Nance, she’s a trained nurse. Worked for years with radical street lawyers in Rome. Civil rights and social justice right across Europe. Robyn is a libertarian. Her life is Spirito e l’Anima, not terrorism, and in Belfast it nearly got her killed.’

  Suddenly, Kerr’s BlackBerry was ringing with Justin’s name on the screen. ‘So they’re both angels,’ said Nancy.

  ‘I’m saying, don’t jump to conclusions…let me take this.’

  Justin was in a busy street somewhere, with raised voices competing around him. ‘I’ve only got a couple of minutes, boss.’

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘In Broadway Market, getting us some fruit and veg before it closes. Look, I was out of order yesterday and I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need. We’re good. Anything on the O2?’

  ‘Nothing, but I think we may have a situation here.’

  ‘Is that from Costello?’

  ‘She wants me to fly someone out of the country tomorrow evening. I know you’re not happy about…you know…but I told her I’m up for it. Can you do the necessary from Clacton?’

  ‘Who’s asking her?’

  ‘Didn’t say. We haven’t been out of her flat since we got back.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where Luca is hiding?’

  ‘Isn’t that one for the Reds?’

  There was a space, filled with raised voices selling off bananas and strawberries. ‘Boss, I’ve done my bit, haven’t I?’

  ‘I’m asking you. Justin, who’s protecting this guy?’

  ‘I don’t think Gina knows. Sorry.’

  ‘Hold on.’ Kerr glanced at the photographs scattered on the table, shot Nancy a glance and put the phone on speaker. ‘So what does he look like?’

  ‘Boss, they took loads of stills at the beach before we left.’ Justin sounded mystified. ‘Hasn’t Mel shown you?’

  ‘I’m sending you some images right now. Tell me if you recognise the man.’ Kerr slanted the screen for Nancy to tap Justin’s number into her iPhone and forward the photographs of Robyn with Donate Poncheti. ‘So did you get into Costello’s laptop?’

  ‘In the morning, depending how pissed she gets tonight…hold on.’ Kerr and Nancy sat quietly for almost a minute, listening to the sounds of the market. ‘Yeah, that’s Luca, one hundred percent. Who’s the girlfriend?’

  ‘No-one.’

  ‘So can I tell Gina I’ll do it?’

  ‘I’ll speak with the commander. Get away again tonight and call me.’

  Kerr sensed Nancy’s look of reproach as he cut the call. ‘Robyn may know nothing about this,’ he said, dropping the BlackBerry onto the table.

  ‘Christ, that’s some hold she’s got over you,’ said Nancy as Kerr headed for the balcony. ‘And you’ve got incoming from the US of A.’

  Rich Malone’s email was headed ‘US State Department Personal and Confidential Malone/Kerr,’ with an attachment but no explanatory text.

  ‘You want privacy?’ said Nancy.

  Kerr shook his head. ‘This is State doing me a favour. Remember Sean Brogan?’

  ‘The IRA man on the run? Trained the gangsters in Columbia? Of course. You hungry?’

  ‘Don’t you want to hear his voice again?’

  Nancy shrugged, already heading for the kitchen. ‘I want moussaka.’

  Kerr opened the audio file and listened to the monotone preamble from Goldhawk’s handler. Ten seconds of silence in the ether as Nancy opened and closed the microwave door, then male voices in Spanish, muffled through the brothel’s partition wall. The voice of the John Doe, excitable, argumentative, a verbal helter skelter, then Brogan’s slow bass cutting across his rhythm, faltering Spanish overlaid with hard Belfast. The IRA man was just as Kerr remembered him from other secret recordings years ago, the ideologue bomber and shooter, untouched by doubt, his authority threatened by no man on earth.

  Kerr stayed with the voices for another five minutes, listening in vain for Corona, hoping Malone had got it wrong. In the kitchen behind him, the clatter of cutlery and pinging of the microwave; from Santa Fe, flamenco guitars and distant, shrill laughter from girls entertaining clients in the bar downstairs, a kaleidoscope of distractions. He understood why the DEA had been so embarrassed about the recording, with its snatches of conversation fractured by long silences where the wire had failed. Even cleaned up, the quality was confusing and substandard, an intelligence officer’s nightmare, the defence attorney’s dream. In the kitchen, the microwave pinged but the audio died again, a silence stretching so long that Kerr reached for the keyboard as Nancy called to him. Then, suddenly, a loud crack: an explosion, gunfire; no, the sound of a door being smashed open, an interloper, a gatecrasher, and Goldhawk too late or weak to prevent it, then a hard voice speaking English as Kerr froze and dipped his head to the laptop.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Sean. I haven’t got all fucking night. If I miss my flight cos of this, he’s dead.’

  A woman’s voice, powerful, equal to Brogan’s but clear as a bell. Unmistakably Robyn, mother of his child, his past and present racing down the wire. ‘Don’t take any more shit. Tell him I need to know when.’

  Kerr stayed silent for a long moment, head teeming, the words refusing to come. Then Nancy was at his shoulder. ‘I heard,’ she said, softly, reading his face. ‘That’s your radical, isn’t it, your libertarian, chasing human bloody rights in Columbia?’

  ‘I think I just found Javelin,’ muttered Kerr.

  ‘Yes. I think so, too.’ Nancy perched on her chair and made him face her. ‘So who are we going to tell?’

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Saturday, 22 October, 18.38, Hornsey Vale

  Nancy allowed Kerr to come home with her, as Melanie had hoped. Her invitation suggested it was out of pity, not reconciliation, yet Kerr welcomed the chance to recover lost ground and assimilate Robyn’s betrayal beyond the reach of Finch’s cold callers. He had not been inside Nancy’s house since Tuesday, the night before his visit to Rome, and felt a surge of pleasure as he crossed the threshold. Amy and Tomas had evidently missed him, racing down the hall from the kitchen as Nancy paid the teenage babysitter from next door. The children revitalised his sense of belonging, especially when, upstairs, he saw Nancy had saved his page in Horrid Henry.

  Later, while Nancy got them ready for bed, Kerr settled in the kitchen and called Dodge to talk through the day’s events. He sounded slurry with drink and anxiety, and it took Kerr a long time to convince him all was not lost, that he and Melanie would shield him from the scrutiny of others while he came to terms with himself.

  Kerr’s hope for an evening’s respite from his own physical and mental shocks quickly evaporated. Within moments, Bill Ritchie rang from the office to chide him for leaving hospital and to press for everything on Bobby Roscoe. Evidently, Ritchie had endured a call from the Bull about his intelligence failures and inability to keep Kerr in check. ‘He’s seeing the Commissioner tonight. Says you killed his prime suspect and washed away his forensics. She’s going to love that.’

  ‘He’s got a point,’ said Kerr.

  ‘Finch wants a prisoner in handcuffs, TV lights outside the Old Bailey, and what do we give him? A torso in the morgue with everyone in the dark.’ Ritchie sounded weary, and Kerr guessed he would have driven from home in his weekend clothes. He pictured the commander behind his desk in the gloomy, half-deserted Yard, surrounded by crates to be packed for the move, the windows turning cold and black in the twilight.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bill, but there was no other way.’

  ‘Yesterday he accuses me of obstructing MI5, now we’re running a parallel European operation without telling him.’

  ‘But what choice do we have, with him and Toby Devereux still fixated on the IRA?’

  ‘I know,’ said Ritchie. He gave a deep sigh. ‘So w
hat do I tell the Commissioner?’

  ‘The truth.’ In less than three minutes, Kerr reduced the tracing, confession and death of Bobby Roscoe to the rapid disruption of a major bomb attack: a clear and present danger, lethal and inescapable. In a blend of fact, omission and dissembling, Kerr indicted himself, absolved Melanie and credited Dodge with a brilliant agent operation over several frenetic days.

  Ritchie sounded both irritated and impressed. ‘Where is Dodge now?’

  ‘In purdah, which is why he’s not telling you this himself.’

  ‘Where, in purdah?’

  ‘Harrow. He’s exhausted, so I sent him home. Doctor’s orders. Flu.’

  ‘Stress.’

  ‘Without Dodge we would never have got to Roscoe, which is a big deal, right? We had less than one hour to find the bomb.’

  ‘Very adroit,’ said Ritchie, unmoved. ‘And when do I get the true version?’

  Kerr paused. ‘Bill, I need you to give me some slack. Just a few more hours.’ He suddenly realised Nancy was in the kitchen, listening to everything, her look of disbelief matching Ritchie’s voice.

  Ritchie muttered something inaudible. ‘Did Polly Graham get back?’

  ‘Searching the Belfast lab right now. The minute she verifies this maverick ex-squaddie as the bombmaker, Finch gets his manhunt and top of the bill on News at Ten.’

  ‘So let me know.’

  ‘And Polly’s not the only story here. Gina Costello has asked Justin to exfiltrate someone from the UK tomorrow, same set-up as before.’

  ‘Who’s the lucky passenger?’

  ‘Luca, almost certainly. That’s Donate Lucrecia Poncheti. Brigate Rosse veteran, old style, serious player. Bad news. We’re running him past European liaison.’

  ‘Where is he right now?’ said Ritchie.

  ‘The intel has him at Bayswater, Benita’s address. No sightings yet.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘It’s alright. Whatever he’s been sent to do, we’ll contain this through surveillance.’

  ‘How? You just told me you don’t know where he is.’