2016 - Takedown

by Stephen Leather

  His team were already there, sitting around a table drinking mint tea or the cafe’s fearsomely sweet and strong coffee. Barry Big grinned when Harper walked into the room. ‘Hey, hey, the gang’s all here,’ he said, standing up and hugging Harper.

  Hansfree was next in line for a hug. His prosthetics were steel claws with rubber bumpers for added grip, and Harper felt them press between his shoulder blades as Hansfree hugged him. He had driven to Saint-Denis in his specially adapted van, using the cross-Channel ferry service. The van allowed him to be independent and he could live in it, if necessary.

  Maggie May was next, and kissed him lightly on both cheeks. He caught the scent of her perfume, Dior’s Poison, a fragrance that never failed to remind him of her.

  Finally Barry Whisper gave him a minimalist hug and a whispered comment close to his right ear that Harper missed. He smiled and took his seat at the table.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. He looked at the machine sitting in front of Hansfree at the centre of the table. It was about the size of an iPhone with a small telescopic aerial sticking out of the top. Several coloured lights on it flashed intermittently, and it emitted the occasional high-pitched bleep. ‘What the fuck’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Bug detector. State-of-the-art.’

  ‘Looks like something left over from an early Doctor Who episode. You sure it works?’

  ‘Absolutely positive,’ Hansfree said. ‘Looks aren’t everything, Lex, as you should know better than anyone. It’s performance that counts. I picked it up from a very good friend of mine in London and he assures me it’s absolutely foolproof. And if my mate says it works then, believe me, it works. It bloody well should do – it cost enough.’

  ‘So we’re in good hands,’ Harper said. ‘Or not in your case.’ He winked at Hansfree, who responded with a gesture that, even with a prosthetic hand, was an unmistakable two-finger salute.

  Harper began briefing the team on their task. ‘The target is a former Para and SAS trooper called Caleb McGovan,’ he said. He opened the envelope and took out three photographs of the man. Two were surveillance pictures and one had clearly been taken from his army file. ‘From now on McGovan is Tango One. Anyone he meets whom we do not know will automatically become a Yankee. We’ll refer to Tangos when they’re positively ID’d, and use Yankees for people we’ve not yet identified. To go back to McGovan, although he’s ex-special forces, that doesn’t mean he can walk on water. I’ve checked with people who served with him and he’s a good all-round steady guy but you can rest assured that he’s no James Bond.’ He gave the last few words the full Sean Connery treatment and was rewarded with a few smiles from his team. ‘He’s special forces but not a spook, so we’re dealing with a specialised skill set. We’ll have untraceable pay-as-you-go phones, which are to be used only to communicate with other team members during the surveillance phase.’ He grinned at Billy Big. ‘So no phoning girlfriends on my tab.’

  ‘The thought never occurred to me,’ said Barry Big.

  ‘Just to summarise where we are with the task,’ said Harper. ‘On the positive side we have a one hundred per cent solid ID of Tango One. We also know where he’s living. He’s based himself in a military club just on the north side of London’s Oxford Street. Tango One does not have a private car, but he obviously does have access to the full range of London transport. He is staying within yards of several bus stops, a couple of hundred yards of a tube station and a short walk from Paddington main-line station. There are also black cabs galore in that area, so he can go mobile with minimal advance warning at any time. So, we know the subject’s age, sex, location, modes of transport and some of his habits. On the negative side, we don’t know as yet the identity of his associates. And we’re going to need an ops room somewhere to coordinate everything.’

  ‘I might have somewhere close by,’ said Hansfree. ‘Let me check.’

  Harper nodded. ‘Barry Big will be team medic, Maggie will take charge of the admin for the op, setting out working hours, reliefs and downtime, and Hansfree will issue the radios, body sets, batteries and the frequencies. As usual, you’ll be on generous expenses with no receipts required, and your fees at the end of the op will be paid cash in hand or into any bank account, anywhere in the world. Anything else, anyone?’

  Maggie spoke up: ‘I’d say that any pick-up of the subject shouldn’t be too difficult, bearing in mind where he’s living. There are masses of bits of street furniture, cafés and shops we can use as cover. The follow shouldn’t present too many difficulties, providing he sticks to central London where there are always going to be crowds of people about to give us cover. The major problem is going to be housing any Yankees, the unidentified suspects we may move on to. If they’re in an area they’re not too familiar with, they’re usually pretty easy game, but when they get close to home, in an area they know like the back of their hand, then it can be really difficult.’

  Barry Whisper had been looking thoughtful for some time and now raised his voice. ‘One thing’s puzzling me about all this. Exactly what do you think Tango One is planning?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ Harper said. ‘And don’t think the same thing hasn’t been bugging me. He’s made a couple of visits to Turkey, landing at Dalaman airport, which is one of the main tourist gateways. We presume he travelled on from there overland and eventually made a covert crossing of the border between Turkey and Syria, but on each occasion, allowing for the time taken to travel there, he’s spent just a handful of days inside Syria. So he can’t have been training ISIS soldiers while he was there. He simply wasn’t in country long enough to be able to impart any useful training, and he can’t have been fighting for them because once more, he wasn’t there long enough.’

  Barry Big cleared his throat, ‘So. he was either delivering something to them or collecting something from them.’

  ‘Which can only have been money, information, weapons or men,’ Maggie added.

  ‘Well, it can’t have been weapons or manpower,’ Hansfree said, ‘because from what you’ve told us, Lex, he was travelling solo on his way in and out, and probably crossed the border on foot. That leaves money or information.’

  ‘Either is possible,’ Harper said, ‘but Tango One doesn’t have any source of funds, as far as we know, and certainly none substantial enough to justify the risks he’s apparently been taking.’

  ‘And why would ISIS divert funds from the campaign they’re waging in Syria and Iraq anyway,’ Barry Big said, ‘just to fund some freelance adventure by a renegade SAS man?’

  ‘They would if he was planning something that would further their own aims as well,’ Barry Whisper said. ‘But it would have to be big, obviously. A spectacular.’

  ‘I’m with Barry Whisper there,’ said Harper. ‘But, hopefully, our surveillance will answer that question. OK, we’re good to go. Make your own way to London, fix yourselves up with accommodation, and we’ll get down to business the day after tomorrow.’

  He shook hands with each of them, including Hansfree, then kept watch from the window as they filed out one by one, leaving at five-minute intervals. Only when he was satisfied that they had not been observed did he leave the building himself.

  He entered the hallway of his flea-bitten hotel and encountered a prostitute servicing her client in the litter-strewn alcove beneath the stairs. He checked out, strolled back through the streets to the station next to the Basilica of Saint-Denis and caught the Métro to the Gare du Nord. Just over three hours later he was stepping onto the platform at St Pancras station.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was a large apartment, three bedrooms and a huge sitting room with a terrace that overlooked the bay. Mirov was on the terrace, smoking a cigarette. It was early morning but tourists were parascending, towed behind fast-moving speedboats. On the thin strip of beach below, groups of Chinese holidaymakers gathered to be taken on the fifteen-minute trip to the beaches of Koh Larn.

  ‘He’s a fucking ghost, this Harper,’ sai
d Volkov.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Mirov. Volkov had kicked down the door to Harper’s apartment, then he and Myshkin had spent the past fifteen minutes tearing it apart.

  ‘No paperwork, no photographs, a few bills but other than that there’s nothing.’ He waved at a bookcase against one wall. ‘There’s nothing personal. No family photographs, no pictures of him with a drugged-up tiger or friends in a bar. It’s as if this was a hotel room.’

  ‘What about his computer?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘He took it with him?’

  ‘I don’t think he has one. There’s no printer. No wiring. No desk. If it wasn’t for the clothes, you’d think no one lived here.’

  ‘Who the fuck doesn’t have a computer these days?’

  Volkov didn’t answer.

  ‘Okay, we need a phone number for the man, then pay whoever we have to pay to get a list of his calls and texts.’ He flicked the remains of his cigarette over the side of the terrace. ‘Do you think he’s done a runner?’

  ‘I think he’s just careful,’ said Volkov. ‘Whoever this fucker is, he isn’t a tourist.’

  Mirov walked back into the sitting room and through to the master bedroom. The sheets had been ripped off the king-sized bed and most of the drawers had been pulled out and overturned. Volkov and Myshkin had been thorough and Mirov was certain they had missed nothing. He unzipped his fly and pissed over the bed, playing the stream of urine back and forth as he cursed Lex Harper and the bitch that had given birth to him.

  CHAPTER 21

  Harper checked himself into a small hotel in Bayswater, a short walk from Queensway tube station. An African on the desk was bent over an English language textbook. He flashed Harper a beaming smile and said there was absolutely no problem with him paying in cash – in fact, the owner preferred it. Harper went up a cramped flight of stairs to his room, which was at the rear of the building. There was a single bed, a dressing-table next to a sash window, which was smeared with pigeon droppings, and a bathroom the size of a wardrobe with a tiny shower cubicle, a half-size washbasin and a toilet that wasn’t much bigger than a bucket. ‘Home, sweet home,’ muttered Harper, but it was exactly what he wanted: a bolt-hole that would allow him to stay off the grid. He headed out and spent the next couple of hours having a late lunch. He took the Tube far out into London’s dismal industrial hinterland where he walked through a maze of side-streets to a panel-beater and accident-repair workshop occupying one of the smoke-blackened brick arches beneath a railway line. It was well into the evening by now, but yellow light still spilled from the half-open door and Capital Radio was playing on a tinny transistor. Harper swung the door open and winked at the balding, middle-aged mechanic swigging from a bottle of beer as he sat in an old leather car seat propped against the wall.

  ‘Bugger me,’ the man said. ‘Now I do believe in ghosts.’

  ‘It’s not been that long, Wheels,’ Harper said. ‘Eighteen months at most.’

  ‘If you say so, Lex, if you say so,’ Tom Wheeler said, ‘though I’d have sworn it was longer than that. You need a car?’ Tom ‘Wheels’ Wheeler was a first-class mechanic, who had a sideline in renting out cars to people who were reluctant to use Avis or Hertz. Unlike the major companies, Wheels didn’t require his clients to produce a driving licence or a credit card:, an envelope full of cash would do just fine.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘I’ve got a brand spanking new Porsche Cayenne, if you fancy something flash,’ said Wheeler.

  ‘When have I ever wanted something flash?’

  ‘I’ve got a ten-year-old Nissan that looks like shit but will do the ton in less than five seconds.’

  Harper wrinkled his nose. ‘Speed won’t be an issue. Comfort’s more important – I might be behind the wheel for quite a while.’

  ‘Range Rover?’

  ‘I don’t want to be filling the tank every couple of hours, mate.’

  Wheeler took another pull on his beer, then grinned. ‘I know – I’ve got a BMW Five Series. She’s got a fair number of miles on the clock but she’s reliable.’

  ‘Ready to go?’

  ‘Got the money?’

  Harper took out a brown envelope and tossed it at Wheeler, who stood up, slid it into the pocket of his overalls without opening it, selected a bunch of keys from the sets hanging on a row of hooks by the door and headed out of the workshop. They crossed the scrap-infested wasteland beyond it to a row of concrete lock-up garages at the back of a block of crumbling flats. Wheeler checked the heavy padlock on the steel shutters of a garage, looking for any scratches or other signs that would show it had been tampered with or picked, then unlocked it and raised the shutters. The BMW was dusty but rust-free, and Harper didn’t have to lift the bonnet to know that the engine would be in perfect order.

  ‘Paperwork’s in the glovebox,’ said Wheeler, tossing him the keys. ‘Oh, and there’s a neat little secret compartment in the passenger footwell. The previous owner used to bring stuff in from the Continent.’

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘Not drugs, mate. Guns and ammo from the former Yugoslavia. He was never caught so the plate’s clean. Just thought you might be able to make use of it.’

  Harper climbed in and pulled on a pair of driving gloves. The interior was clean enough but not too clean, and he didn’t want to add any of his prints to the ones that were already there. The engine started first time and he nodded his approval.

  ‘Told you,’ said Wheeler. ‘As reliable as clockwork.’

  Harper flashed him a thumbs-up and drove slowly out of the lock-up, then headed north, away from London.

  CHAPTER 22

  It was eight o’clock in the evening when Harper pulled off the M6 into a service station to the west of Manchester. He flashed his lights as he saw a car cruising around on the far side of the car park. By the time he had driven across, Jony Hasan’s silver BMW was already parked in a poorly lit area, well away from the service-station entrance. Harper pulled up next to him.

  ‘Now that’s more like it,’ Jony said, as Harper got into the car. ‘It makes a nice change from those crap motors you’re usually driving. You can’t go wrong with a Beamer.’

  Harper smiled. ‘Did you get me the short?’

  ‘Does the pope shit in the woods? Of course I did. Have I ever failed you?’ British-born to parents of Bangladeshi origin, Jony was a wheeler-dealer, who operated on the margins of Manchester’s sizeable criminal fraternity and, providing the price was right, could supply untraceable weapons. In some ways he was as dodgy as they came, but Harper knew he could trust him absolutely never to grass him up, no matter who was asking the questions, and never to let him down.

  The two men climbed out of their vehicles and Jony handed him a Tupperware container. He pulled a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of his black leather jacket and lit one. ‘You’re usually after something a bit more heavy-duty than a short,’ he said, blowing a smokering towards the clouds overhead.

  ‘I’m hoping I won’t need to use it,’ Harper said. ‘It’s purely a precaution – in any case, carrying something bigger than this around in Britain is too much of a risk. And you can guarantee it’s never been fired, can you, or not in this country at least?’

  ‘One hundred per cent certain,’ Jony said. ‘Do you want to see its birth certificate?’

  Harper opened the container. Inside there was a pistol, with fifty rounds of ammunition in a Ziploc bag.

  ‘Smith & Wesson SD9 VE,’ Jony said. ‘Nine mil, capacity sixteen rounds plus one up the spout, four-inch barrel, twenty-two-ounce weight. It’d cost you about three hundred and fifty dollars in the States but …’ He grinned.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Harper said wearily. ‘We’re not in the States. So what’s the SP on it in an M6 car park?’ As he was speaking, he took the pistol out of the box, checked the action and sighted down it.

  Jony pretended to think about it. ‘I couldn’t let it go for less than
seven hundred and fifty.’

  ‘Dollars?’

  ‘Pounds.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Jony! There’s supposed to be a recession on . You must be the only retailer in Britain who keeps putting his prices up.’

  ‘What can I say, bruv? It’s just the laws of supply and demand at work,’ Jony said, grinning.

  ‘Well, in that case I can supply you with six hundred and you’re not getting any more than that,’ said Harper.

  ‘All right, then,’ Jony said, with a show of resignation, ‘but only because it’s you.’

  ‘Damn,’ Harper said. ‘You never agree that quick. I should have knocked you down another hundred.’

  ‘Too late now, bruv,’ Jonny said, with a huge grin. ‘A deal’s a deal, right?’

  Harper put the Tupperware container on the front passenger seat, peeled the money off a wad of notes and handed it over. ‘Thanks, Jony. Take care and watch out for the jealous husbands.’

  ‘Those days are behind me now, bruv,’ Jony said, as he started his engine. ‘I’m strictly a one-girl guy now … well, one girl at a time.’

  Harper watched him drive off, then got back into his own car. He slipped the Tupperware box under the seat and set off back down the motorway towards London. He pulled off at the first interchange, found a deserted lay-by at the side of the road and, after looking around and listening carefully, he peeled back the carpet in the passenger footwell. He took a knife from his pocket and eased up the lid of a concealed compartment, so artfully hidden that only a very keen eye would have detected it. He put the pistol and the ammunition inside it, then replaced the carpet and drove back towards the motorway, heading south. While he didn’t want his team carrying weapons in London, his personal safety was a different matter altogether.