CHAPTER 23
Even with near-deserted roads in the dead hours of the night, Harper wasn’t back in London until five in the morning, but he had the luxury of a lie-in until ten. He was woken by a call from Hansfree, who said he had something to show him. He arranged to meet him in a café close to the military club where McGovan was staying.
An hour later Harper sat down opposite Hansfree and nibbled a croissant as the technical wizard outlined his plan. ‘I’ve stayed at the club a few times over the years,’ said Hansfree. ‘so I know the lay-out there reasonably well. I’m sure I’ll be able to access his room easily enough because the security there is of the old-fashioned kind, that is to say virtually non-existent, and so are the locks. They still use physical keys rather than key cards, not that those are too much of an obstacle either, if you know what you’re doing. So, I can install a camera in his room for you. I’ll replace the LED stand-by light in his TV with a combined camera and microphone that will transmit through the club’s communal aerial on the roof. That will give you coverage of any calls he makes or receives in his room as well as alerting you when he’s getting ready to move, and will help to identify any visitors.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Harper.
‘I’m going to see about us using drones, too.’
‘Seriously? Drones in London?’
‘I’ve got access to some state-of-the-art kit,’ said Hansfree. ‘I wanted to check what was available before raising it with you.’ He sipped his coffee. A woman at a neighbouring table stared at his claw, open-mouthed. Hansfree smiled at her and she looked away, embarrassed. ‘The latest models have much longer operating times by building on solar power, and the camera resolution is improving every month. They have onboard high-resolution viewing devices and everything is gyroscopically controlled so we don’t get any shiver or jumping. They can be launched from pretty much anywhere, and our radios can have automatic seeker devices installed, which the drones will find without guidance. If the subject leaves the London area, they can be carried by vehicle, launched from any piece of waste ground and monitored on any tablet. Everything they photograph is automatically recorded onboard and relayed back to the ops room for evidence purposes.’
‘That’s all very well in theory,’ Harper said, ‘but what about the cops? Won’t a drone buzzing round over central London cause a few heart failures and trigger a full scale-terror alert?’
Hansfree shook his head. ‘We’re not talking missile-armed Reaper or Predator drones here. The ones I have access to are so tiny and quiet you wouldn’t hear them above the birdsong in the countryside, let alone the traffic in a busy London street. And if anyone does happen to catch sight of one, they’re likely to assume it’s just some spoilt rich kid – God knows there’s no shortage of those around here – playing with the latest toy.’
‘What about radios?’ asked Harper.
‘Assuming money isn’t a problem, I can supply you with the latest body-fit radios available, frequency hopping and automatically encoding, of course, and they work using redundant Home Office emergency services frequencies, which are off-limits to everybody else. They give literally countrywide coverage, just as you would expect from emergency services frequencies. None of this will stop you using your own codes, but belt and braces is best, I always think.’
‘You needn’t have any worries on that score,’ Harper said. ‘I’ve been told that money is no object on this one. I’ll pay whatever’s necessary for the kit we need.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Hansfree. ‘I’ll be right onto it.’
‘How soon can you install the bug and get the rest of the kit together?’
‘The equipment is no problem. I’ll have it ready by tomorrow. Installing the bug depends on your subject’s routine. It’ll take just a few minutes to set it up. The problem is, we’ll need more manpower. The two Barrys and Maggie are going to be full-time on watching Tango One and I’m going to need people to help me. Are you okay with me bringing in extra manpower?’
‘Providing you trust them one thousand per cent, and providing they’re not aware of the big picture, sure,’ said Harper. ‘Just let me know what you need in the way of money.’
‘And I think I’ve got an ops room sorted,’ said Hansfree. ‘Not far from here.’
Harper finished his coffee and followed Hansfree outside. Hansfree took him around the corner and along to a newsagent and off licence. An elderly Sikh wearing a blue turban was standing behind the counter. ‘Okay to go up, Mr Singh?’ asked Hansfree.
Singh waved a hand at the stairs at the rear of the shop. ‘It hasn’t been cleaned in a while.’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ said Hansfree.
Hansfree took Harper up the narrow flight of stairs, made even narrower by the stacks of beer cans crammed against the wall. ‘Bit of a health-and-safety issue, but Mr Singh can be trusted, providing he gets paid enough,’ said Hansfree. ‘I’ve used this place before.’
There was a metal door at the top of the stairs and a large hasp but no padlock. Hansfree pushed the door open. The room was windowless, or if there had ever been a window, it was now bricked up. Hansfree flicked a switch and two fluorescent tubes flickered into life. There were more stacks of beer along one wall and cardboard boxes full of other stock, but the room was certainly large enough.
‘Security won’t be a problem because I’ll get a camp bed brought in and be here twenty-four/seven, pretty much,’ said Hansfree.
‘And you’re sure about Singh?’
‘I’ve known him for years,’ said Hansfree.
Harper nodded. ‘Go for it,’ he said. ‘Tell the rest of the team we now have an ops room.’
Harper left Hansfree rearranging the stock and went back to Bayswater. He dropped into an internet café and left Charlie a short message in the Yahoo draft email file: UP AND RUNNING.
CHAPTER 24
Charlotte Button landed at Heathrow Airport using her own name and her genuine British passport. She’d flown business class overnight and had managed to get some half-decent sleep. She had breakfast airside and caught a late-morning flight to Glasgow. She had never been to the city when it hadn’t been either raining or threatening rain and, true to form, the sky was grey and overcast as she walked out of the airport. She climbed into the back of a taxi and asked to be dropped at Queen Street railway station.
She had only just got out of the cab when her phone rang. The caller was withholding his number but she answered. ‘You have a tail and not in a cat-like way,’ said a southern American drawl.
Button cursed.
‘Why, Charlotte, that’s so unlike you,’ said Yokely.
‘You’re sure?’ she asked, and immediately regretted it. Richard Yokely was a professional and if he said she was being followed there was no doubt.
‘You were clear at JFK and there was no one on the plane, but they picked you up at Heathrow. Airside.’
‘Airside?’ repeated Button. The fact that her followers were able to move so easily through airport security suggested they were government-sanctioned.
‘They went with you through Immigration and had three cars on your taxi. They’re watching you now, Charlotte.’
‘How many?’
‘Four on foot that my people can see. Plus the three vehicles. This operation is seriously manpower-intensive. Money no object.’
‘I’m glad you’re watching over me, Richard.’
‘I am, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can do if they decide to take you.’
‘I think they’re just looking at me at the moment,’ she said. ‘If they were going to hurt or snatch me they’d have done it already.’
‘Well, I do hope your third insurance policy isn’t in Glasgow,’ said Yokely.
‘It isn’t,’ said Button. ‘And now I know how desperate they are, I won’t be going anywhere near it.’
‘My offer is still open,’ said Yokely. ‘Let me know where it is and I’ll collect it. I’d take good care
of it.’
‘I’m sure you would, Richard, but I need to handle this myself.’ She ended the call, flagged down a passing cab and asked to be taken back to the airport.
CHAPTER 25
Harper and the rest of the team fell quickly into operational mode. Early every morning they took up their positions around the club. Harper had purchased a second-hand Yamaha trail bike for cash and parked it in a bay around the corner from the entrance. They spent the day rotating their positions between the many coffee shops and snack bars in the area, while Hansfree monitored the images being transmitted from McGovan’s room. Harper and his team used the ABC system, with A immediately behind the subject, B behind him on the same side of the street and C keeping pace with A, but on the opposite side of the street. Every time the subject approached a corner, C would move up almost level with him, so C could look down the side-street and alert the other team members if the subject stopped, or made a U-turn back towards his close followers, or disappeared down an alley or into a shop. They rotated at irregular intervals, too, so the same person was never close behind the subject for long enough to be noticed by him, with B replacing A as lead, C and A swapping places.
McGovan was an easy target to follow, and on the few occasions he left the club, he didn’t seem to employ anything in the way of counter-surveillance. Over two days he did nothing more than walk to local cafés and browse in second-hand bookshops. In the afternoons he would emerge from the club in shorts and a shirt and spend an hour jogging around Hyde Park.
Each morning at six the team would start the day with a briefing in the ops room. Not that there was much to be briefed about.
Maggie was running through the previous day’s non-events when Harper’s Thai phone rang. He took it out of his hip-pack. The number wasn’t recognised but that was probably because he was overseas. He accepted the call. ‘Lex, where the fuck are you?’
Harper recognised the East End accent immediately. Mickey Moore, East End boy made bad, an old-school villain who had made Pattaya his home along with his brother Mark and the rest of his crew of armed robbers. They funded their hedonistic Thai lifestyle by flying back to the UK on a regular basis to carry out major robberies, usually involving firearms and at least the threat of violence. ‘Mickey, how’s things? I’m out of the country at the moment, back in a week or so.’ He walked out of the room to get some privacy on the stairs.
‘Yeah, well, that might be the best place for you, mate,’ said Moore. ‘Now where the fuck are you?’
‘Ducking and diving, mate. What’s the problem?’ He sat down and leaned against a case of cheap cider.
‘You heard of a Russian called Lukin? Yuri Lukin?’
‘No, should I?’
‘He’s Russian Mafia, Lex. Hard as nails. And he’s pissed off at you, big-time.’
‘I don’t know anyone called Lukin.’
‘Apparently you shoved a bottle up his son’s arse? Does that ring a bell?’
‘Ah. That would have been me, yes.’
‘Fuck me, Lex, you don’t half pick them. You don’t know who this Lukin is, then?’
‘I’m guessing you’re going to tell me.’
‘Fucking former KGB, that’s what. Soviet empire fell apart and it was every man for himself. Some went the economic route to make their fortunes, some went Darth Vader. I don’t have to tell you which way Lukin went. Word is he grabbed a stack of KGB files and used it to extort and blackmail his way to the top of the Moscow crime tree.’
‘So what the fuck’s his son doing in Pattaya?’
‘Grigory’s got a thing for Thai birds and he persuaded his dad to let him set up a money-laundering operation here. They fly in money and wash it through bars and restaurants, all cash businesses. Millions a month, by all accounts. Grigory flies back and forth in a private jet full of cash. Except he’s not flying anywhere at the moment. I mean, mate, a bottle up the arse, what the fuck was that about?’
‘He did the same to a friend of mine. Damn near killed her. Sauce for the goose …’
‘You always were the white knight, mate. But I’ve got to say, Lukin is one dragon you don’t want to be fucking with.’
‘Does he know who I am?’
‘Your name? Yeah. A couple of Russian heavies were around at Ricky’s bar, asking for you. And the word on the street is they’re offering money to anyone who tells them where the fuck you are. Where the fuck are you, anyway?’
‘Ha fucking ha. You looking for the reward money?’
‘Yeah, because I’m a fucking grass. Seriously, you need to stay the hell out of Dodge until this blows over.’
‘You think it will?’
‘I can’t see the father staying here for ever. He’ll have to go back to Moscow eventually. But you’re going to have to watch your back.’
‘You got any suggestions, Mickey?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like how I can fix this?’
‘You fancy going to war with the Russian Mafia?’
‘Not unless I have to.’
‘You fucked the guy’s son with a bottle, Lex. He’s not going to forgive and forget. Truth be told, you’d have been better off shooting the guy in the head. At least then there wouldn’t have been any witnesses.’
‘Yeah, well, no use crying over spilt milk. I’ll buy you a beer when I get back.’
‘Not in a Russian bar you won’t. Be lucky, Lex.’
‘Before you go, Mickey, have you heard anything about this heist in Manchester? The safe-deposit boxes.’
Moore chuckled. ‘Fucking hell, that was a good one. The papers are saying twenty million or more, but who the fuck knows, right? Those bloody footballers are always trying to hide their money from the taxman. Serves them right.’
‘What’s the gossip?’
‘Professional job, obviously,’ said Moore. ‘Same as Hatton Garden.’
‘Different team, though, obviously.’
‘You know how it works, Lex. Someone puts the plan together, someone else carries it out. I heard it was Poles behind the latest lot.’
‘Poles, are you sure?’
‘Mark’s just back from London and he said he was talking to a guy in the Mayfair who said it was a Polish crew. A couple of them have been living it large in Marbella and were shooting their mouths off. You know how it is with some of them, they can’t keep their fucking mouths shut.’
‘Don’t suppose you’ve got a name, have you?’
‘Nah, it was just gossip from Mark. I’ll ask him if he knows anything else, if you like.’
‘Be handy, mate, thanks.’
Moore ended the call and Harper slid the phone into his hip-pack. He went back into the ops room. ‘What do we think, guys?’ he asked. ‘Are we flogging a dead horse here?’
Hansfree shook his head. ‘No, he’s definitely up to something.’
‘Specifically?’
‘Day before yesterday, remember, when he turned into that street that led to the mosque? Full of Asians, it was. Okay, he didn’t talk to anyone but it felt to me as if he was there for a reason. There was no brush contact, but he didn’t make eye contact with anyone, and that in itself is a red flag. Especially for a soldier who’s served out in Iraq. If anything, he’d be overdoing the eye contact. In fact, it made no sense to me that he went down the road he did.’
‘Unless he wanted to be seen?’ said Harper.
‘That’s how I read it.’
‘And afterwards he just went back to the club, remember?’ said Maggie. ‘Okay, he went the long way, as if he was out for a stroll, but it seemed to me that the whole point of the exercise had been the walk by the mosque.’
‘Maybe he was trying to make any tail show out,’ suggested Barry Big.
‘Except he wasn’t looking,’ said Harper. ‘And it didn’t look to me as if anyone else was. Not that they would have seen us.’ He grinned. ‘Us being professional and all. Right, let’s keep on him, then. If he has gone jihadist, I’m guessing he’ll move
sooner rather than later.’ He explained that he had to leave London for a day or so. The team weren’t thrilled at the idea of being a man short, but as Harper was paying the bills they kept any unhappiness to themselves.
CHAPTER 26
Yuri Lukin had been waiting in the arrivals area for half an hour when Fedkin appeared, a small shoulder bag his only luggage. He was escorted by a uniformed immigration officer who saluted Lukin, then walked away. The officer had been paid to meet Fedkin off the plane and get him through Immigration, a procedure that on a bad day could take ninety minutes. Lukin hugged the man, then took him upstairs to a coffee shop.
‘Our man is in France,’ said Lukin, after they had bought coffee and sat down at a circular table. He spoke in Russian and kept his voice low. ‘At least, he left Bangkok on a plane to Paris. His name is Lex Harper. Former soldier. The guy’s got money – lots of money.’ He took a photograph from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table. It had cost him five hundred dollars and had been taken when Harper had flown out of the country. All visitors were photographed entering and leaving Thailand and had to fill out a landing and leaving card. Lukin also had a copy of the card Harper had filled in when he left, including his name, date of birth and passport number. He gave it to Fedkin. ‘I don’t know if or when he’s coming back,’ said Lukin. ‘We’ve searched his apartment in Pattaya and there’s nothing personal there so he might have run away.’
‘Running won’t do him any good,’ said Fedkin. ‘I have good contacts in France. I’ll find him.’
Lukin handed him an envelope. ‘Here is money for your expenses. He also has a Thai mobile phone. He’s only had it a few weeks – he appears to change his phone and Sim card on a regular basis. But if you can locate the phone, it might save you time.’
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