by Menon, David
‘Because we do everything that America, Britain, France, Germany, all of them could never get away with in terms of sourcing information’.
‘And that’s a good thing because?’
‘We get to do what we like with impunity’.
At that moment they both turned when they heard police sirens accompanied by the sound of fast cars coming down the street.
‘You did ring them?’ Nina asked.
‘As soon as I got here’ said Craig. ‘Did you really expect me not to have done?’
‘Well, I have to go’ said Nina as she made for the door. ‘It has been nice knowing you, Craig, but this is where I say goodbye. Give my love to Dean’.
‘But where are you going to go?’ he called as she ran down the hallway to the front door.
‘Someone there’ll never be allowed to find me’ said Nina.
‘But what about your husband Colin?’
‘He knows nothing about any of this and he’s young enough’ said Nina. ‘He’ll find someone else’.
‘There’s still time to do something to get your soul back, Nina’.
‘Goodbye Craig’.
TWENTY-ONE
The police traffic officer who was patrolling a stretch of the M62 between Manchester and Bury, called in at a service area to answer the call of nature. On his way out he spotted Ehud and Benyamin Goldstein filling up with petrol but when they saw him they leapt back into their silver coloured Jeep and stepped down hard on the pedals. The officer called for back up and sped off in pursuit. There was a camera on the front of his patrol car that was now relaying live pictures to a screen in the squad room where Sara and the rest of the squad, including Superintendent Hargreaves, were watching intently what was being played out.
‘So where are they now?’ asked Sara.
‘Just coming up to junction fifteen, ma’am and heading in an easterly direction towards Yorkshire’ said Adrian who was looking at the pictures on his laptop and clicking onto the electronic map that was showing the precise location and progress of the cars.
‘Okay, I want four armed units dispatched to junction eighteen and I want the motorway closed to public traffic, in both directions, from there until junction twenty-one. I also want the helicopter unit dispatched. It’s about time they did something more useful than going after people just because they’re in a hurry to get where they’re going. I’m going to get those bastards on my patch under my rules’.
The Goldstein brothers were now locked in a pincer movement, a police car in front and behind, waiting to block them whichever way they decided to go. It also meant that they were attracting a lot of attention from other drivers, some of whom were purposely slowing down as they overtook, just to get a closer look at what was going on. It was just after lunch and the traffic wasn’t too dense but there was more than enough to cause the entire operation to go wrong.
‘They must know they’re beaten’ said Adrian.
‘I won’t be happy until they’re handcuffed and behind bars’ said Sara.
Three more police cars joined the convoy having answered the traffic officer’s call for back up. Using the skill and dexterity that only police officers who do this kind of thing on a regular basis have, as soon as it became clear that the Goldstein brothers were going to try and exit the motorway with all the rest of the traffic that was being re-directed because of the sudden closure, one of the police cars raced into position to stop them, climbing up half the verge and narrowly missing a large red van in the process. But it meant that the brothers now had only two choices. They could either reverse and face a blockade of police vehicles and shooters that were coming up from behind, or they could drive forward and face the other two armed units that were already in position with the police officers lined up with their weapons poised.
‘That is making me nervous’ said Sara. ‘They’ve come to a standstill and it’s all gone too quiet for my liking’.
‘Yes’ said Hargreaves. ‘I share your anxiety, DCI Hoyland. They’re trapped. They’ve got nowhere to go except to drive straight for the police cordons’.
‘But they know that would be suicide because the officers will open fire on them’ Sara argued.
‘Maybe they don’t care’ said Hargreaves.
‘I want those bastards alive, sir’ said Sara. ‘I want to see them in court’.
‘So do I, DCI Hoyland’ said Hargreaves. ‘But it might not be that easy. Like all snakes it’s when they’re trapped that they’re at their most dangerous’.
‘The armed officer in charge says they’re picking up a lot of radio activity inside the car, ma’am’ said Adrian who was communicating with the officers on the ground using an earpiece with a built-in microphone. ‘They’re listening out with the equipment they’ve got down there but they can’t get a trace on who they’re communicating with’.
‘Keep listening, DS Bradshaw’
‘Well they’re talking to someone’ said Adrian. ‘We just can’t trace who’.
The moments that passed seemed like an eternity. The armed officers closed in on the Goldstein brothers Jeep that was still in a stationary position with its engine running.
Then the Jeep exploded and the armed police officers ran in all directions for cover.
*
The debate in the House of Commons was going reasonably well considering. Usually the debates on foreign affairs were hijacked by obsessive Tory anti-Europeans who were desperate for any opportunity to stick a knife into the back of anyone they could find in Brussels. It was one of the reasons why Craig Sutherland sometimes stayed away even though international affairs was one of the political issues he was most interested in. But he wasn’t interested in listening to former public schoolboys who’ve never quite grown up and only want the UK to leave the EU because it won’t always play their game.
The speaker indicated that he was about to call Craig to speak and he took his speech out of his pocket and unfolded it. The house was packed and this was going to be one of those decisive moments in his political career. He cleared his throat. He stood up and straightened down his jacket. Then he was ready to begin.
‘Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Next week, we welcome the leaders of the G20 to our great city of Manchester, including the US President Barack Obama. I’m sure the summit will be a great success and that my fellow Mancunians will turn out in great numbers to make all the world leaders feel welcome. And yet, it wasn’t meant to be this way. A carefully planned and orchestrated operation by the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, was to conclude with the assassination of President Obama during his visit to Manchester. They used their own agents to act as Islamic terrorists and, working closely with the Christian Zionists in the US who were trying to interfere in our domestic political system, a matter which I’ll come to later, they used a former upright British citizen, Faisal Hussein, to lead their bombing of Piccadilly station. But let’s look at the life of Faisal Hussein. He was turned from being a model British secular citizen into being an Islamic militant by his treatment at the hands of the US and UK intelligence services. He’d been guilty of nothing but they confused him with a member of al-Qaeda with the same name. He received no apology or recompense for being held without trial, renditioned to Morocco where he was subjected to torture, and then ending up in Guantanamo Bay. He’d felt betrayed by his own country and Mossad used its agents that had infiltrated the mosque to appear like a terrorist cell and they recruited him, convincing him that the only way he could get any kind of recompense for what the US put him through and that this country, his own country, refused to acknowledge, would be to commit mass murder in our city. Yes, he’d been brain washed but not by al-Qaeda or any other terrorist group. He’d been unwittingly got at by Mossad agents. They persuaded him that this was the only way to strike back. They used him in the most callous way imaginable for their own ends and they shot him dead when he was beginning to work out what was going on and they shot his wife and six-year old son too so that they wouldn’
t talk if they knew. The surveillance unit watching Hussein and his cohorts were all Mossad agents. They’d infiltrated that deeply into our intelligence services’.
He looked up momentarily. The government front bench was stone faced and staring straight ahead. They must already know what he was telling the rest of the house about. You could hear a pin drop. The rest of his backbench colleagues were staring intently at him, waiting for the rest of the devastating story.
‘Mr. Speaker, I must ask the Prime Minister to undertake an enquiry based on the following. How did a foreign intelligence service manage to infiltrate our security services to such murderous extent? Had it not been for the dedicated and diligent work of Detective Chief Inspector Sara Hoyland and her team at the Greater Manchester Police, Mossad’s activities in this country would never have been discovered. DCI Hoyland and her team deserve the highest praise from everywhere in our society. Had she not been so determined to find out the truth then Mossad’s plan to assassinate President Obama and blame it on Islamic terrorists would’ve been carried out with massive implications for the peace process and the stability of the entire world. Israel would’ve been able to justify the further ill treatment of the Palestinians as a terrorist threat that they themselves had orchestrated so that they wouldn’t be under pressure to secure a peace deal that Israel does not want.
‘ I don’t expect there to be a breaking off of diplomatic relations between Britain and Israel, although there should be. The actions of their agents masterminded terrorist acts on our soil that led to the deaths of many of our citizens. It is the most outrageous infringement of our sovereignty and I expect that the very least that should happen is that Britain should demand that Israel pays compensation to the victims and their families of both the bombing and the murders committed in Manchester by Ehud and Benyamin Goldstein. This should be accompanied by an absolute and public admission from Israel of what happened. As my friend Jacob Abrahams said in his recent book, terrorism is not only perpetrated by organizations that are branded as terrorists. It is also perpetrated by nation states and may I also request, no demand, that the Tory party thoroughly investigates the activities of its group of MP’s called the ‘North Atlantic Bridge’ and their association with the Christian Zionists in the US led by senator Cheryl-Ann Bainbridge. She wanted to fill the Tory party with candidates who were supportive of her cause to enlarge the state of Israel at the expense of Palestinian lives and Nicholas Trent was facilitating that for her. Mossad also used their agent Nina Barry to get right into the heart of the Labour party in order to influence policy against the Palestinians. I’m pleased to say that Nina Barry was apprehended by police whilst trying to escape from my flat yesterday afternoon and she’s now in custody where she belongs.
‘Mr. Speaker, they say that you meet your worst enemy when your best friend turns against you. Well Israel and the US have not turned against the UK as such but certain elements within them have taken us for fools and murdered our citizens in the pursuit of their own highly questionable strategic goals. For the sake of the victims those responsible must be held to account’.
*
Sara was on the phone to Jacob when Superintendent Hargreaves came into her office and she quickly told Jacob she’d call him back. He’d organized a weekend away for them in the Lake District and she couldn’t wait to get all the details from him. She was so excited.
‘Well’ said Hargreaves as he sat down in front of her desk. ‘That was quite a conspiracy you uncovered, Sara, and one that could have had devastating consequences for people way beyond our own shores. You should feel proud that you were too smart for them’.
‘I’m sure Mossad has a file on me now though, sir’ said Sara. ‘It might be interesting if I ever try to get into Israel’.
‘Which brings me neatly onto Nina Barry’ said Hargreaves. ‘She’s talking but of course Israel is denying all knowledge of her. As far as they’re concerned she’s on her own now she’s been picked up’.
‘That’s loyalty for you’ said Sara. ‘Even though she deserves to get sent down and the key thrown away’.
‘Yes, well it’s a very complicated world’.
‘Too true’ said Sara. ‘Nina Barry is a criminal but she is a political criminal. She almost destroyed the career of a good MP in Craig Sutherland and she lied and manipulated her way into turning a whole city against one part of its community. She worked amongst people who trusted her and relied on her. I feel sorry for her husband. How can he ever trust anyone again? And then there’s Luca Johnson, sir. I doubt if he set out to kill Howard Phelps but as you say, it’s a complicated world’.
‘And he’s still to be apprehended’.
‘We’re working on it, sir’.
‘I’m sure you are’.
‘Sir, I meant to ask you, why did you keep on saying that I had to watch my step? Particularly when the investigation was getting close to a conclusion?’
‘Because the security services wanted a daily report on your activities’ said Hargreaves.
‘I thought so’.
‘I think that they were finally catching up with what was going on’.
‘It took them long enough’.
‘Yes and that’s disturbing’ said Hargreaves. ‘Ehud and Benyamin Goldstein would’ve been told to pay the ultimate price by their own masters and once their cover was blown they were hung out to dry. What’s also bewildering about them is how they used their parents in their murderous games’.
‘Yitzhak and Hettie Goldstein are both in hospital, sir’ said Sara. ‘They collapsed when they heard the news of how their sons had died’.
‘Yes, I know’ said Hargreaves. ‘I don’t know what I feel about those two to be honest’.
‘I know what you mean, sir’ said Sara although she didn’t waste too much sympathy on them. ‘But we also know that it was Solomon Levy who flew out to Houston to give Robert Jackson the story and he paid for it with his life once he was no longer useful to them. Being a whistle blower isn’t easy and that took courage. But I think Levy thought that it had all gone too far. That’s why he tried to stop it by leaking it to the press through Jackson. And all because two groups of people can’t share a small area of land called Palestine and one side, Israel, seems to have the balls of the rest of the world in the grip of its fingers’.
‘You’re never afraid to call a spade a spade, Sara’ said Hargreaves.
‘I don’t often have time to waste going round the houses, sir’.
‘Which is one of the reasons why an approach has been made to take you away from me’.
‘Excuse me, sir?’
‘You’re about to be offered a job with a new European security operation based in Paris that will be funded by all the member states of the EU. It’s going to be a relatively small unit to start with but you’ll be second-in-command and the money will be rather attractive’.
Sara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Paris?’
‘That’s where you’d be based so you’d need to relocate’.
Sara couldn’t help thinking of Jacob and what impact this could have on their relationship. Just when she thought she was getting her life together then this happens. ‘Where on earth did this come from, sir?’
‘People much higher up the chain than me and going all the way to the security services have been greatly impressed with the way you’ve handled this case. This really is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Sara’.
‘I’d need to know a lot more about it first’.
‘And you’ll get those details shortly’.
‘Well I … I don’t know what to say, sir’.
‘Well if I was you I’d think it over and then say yes’.
‘But I’m happy here, sir’.
‘Sara, do you want to tackle crimes that spread right across Europe and which go a lot further towards satisfying you professionally or do you want to stay here with all the internal politics and nurse-maid Bradshaw, Joe Alexander, and Tim Ellis?’
/> ‘I don’t nurse maid them, sir’.
‘Oh come on we both know that you’re way above any of them in terms of competence and intelligence.’ said Hargreaves. ‘They’re all good officers but you’re outstanding, Sara, and I don’t want to lose you but you’ve got to think about your future. Your talents would be brilliantly suited to the type of cross border international stuff that the new unit is going to be dealing with. You’d be able to cut through all the national protectionisms and egos to get to the guilty and make sure they’re apprehended. I really think that you’d be mad not to at least seriously consider it’.
*
Adrian Bradshaw was making the most of his time off following the initial conclusion of the case. He’d just had a sandwich for lunch and was reading the daily paper at the table in the dining room. Later on he was going to drive down to see Joe Alexander who’d finally been released from hospital and sent home. He planned to take him for a couple of pints to cheer him up. Joe’s girlfriend Carol had moved out and headed for a new life with another man. She had only been using Joe as a stepping stone from which to leave her ex-husband. Adrian and all the rest of the team felt really sorry for Joe. He was one of the good guys and didn’t deserve to be treated so badly by that slapper.
He looked up when he heard some kind of activity at the back of the house. Then Luca Johnson appeared and was staring at him through the French windows.
‘Christ, Luca, what are you doing here?’ he asked after opening the windows and letting him in.
‘I just wanted to see you’ said Luca, pitifully.
‘Luca, you can’t be here. I’m a police officer and you’re wanted for questioning in a murder case’.
‘Let me stay a while’ Luca pleaded. ‘I’ve been sleeping rough’.
‘Yes, I can smell that from here’ said Adrian whose heart couldn’t remain closed to this young man in front of him. ‘Do you want something to eat?’
‘That would be great’.
‘Sit down and I’ll fix you something’.