Soft Target 01 - Soft Target

by Conrad Jones

  Now you know I’m not the thinking type of man that would let superstition bother me. Nevertheless, that town is a jinx for us.” Billy shook his head as he spoke and pulled out a cigarette. “I hope you cleaned up here after your interrogation last night. I don’t want the place to start smelling any worse than it does already.” Billy lit the cigarette and turned onto the track that led to the empty farmhouse. “I left Martin to tidy up. He seems to like blood an awful lot more than a normal man should. I keep telling you he’s not all there, Billy. He’s away with the fairies most of the time. In fact he’s totally mad.” Shamus opened the door and stepped down from the cab. Billy jumped down onto the gravel and they walked toward the old barn. The truck they were driving contained all the guns that the Axe group had ordered and paid for. Billy had no intention of handing them over now; the barn had a secret storage cellar beneath it, where the IRA had kept weapons on and off, for over forty years.

  An Asian man with a mask wrapped over his nose and mouth, wearing dark glasses stepped from the darkness of the barn. He was aiming a silver Mossberg 12 gauge shot gun at them. Billy held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and was about to speak to the man when the shotgun roared. Shamus, his jeans tattered into bloody shreds, fell to the ground holding onto what was left of his knees. Billy turned to run but the shotgun roared again. The shot hit him at waist height, tearing a chunk of muscle the size of an orange from his buttocks. Two more masked men joined the gunman and together they dragged the Irishmen kicking and screaming into the old barn. They stood them back-to-back and tied them together with an old rope. Shamus could hardly stand as his legs were so badly damaged. They tied their hands above their heads. One of the masked Asians placed an old tractor tire over their heads, and then pulled it down their bodies toward their waists until it stuck fast. Then they fastened the rope, which bound their hands to a wooden beam above them. It was only the rope that held Shamus upright now. The loss of blood was making him weak. The damage to his knees left them unable to bear any weight without bending in the wrong direction. He screamed as his legs buckled and the left knee joint collapsed backwards. The man with the shotgun rammed the butt of the gun into Shamus’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him and rendering him silent.

  Where are the guns that we have paid for, you thieving Irish pigs?” the man with the shotgun spoke through clenched teeth. He spoke with an Arabic accent. “I told you Warrington is fucking unlucky for us didn’t I?” Shamus’s voice was weak but his ability to use sarcasm stayed with him, even as he was bleeding to death. “Will you shut the fuck up, Shamus?” Billy said. “Hang on there and I will try to get us out of this shit.”

  Billy tried to compose himself. He was usually the man with the gun asking the questions. He had to use all his negotiation skills if they were to live. The dark skinned men with masks had shot first though without even a thought. `We are in deep trouble’, he thought.

  The guns my friends, are in a safe place. We had to hide them from the police. Now if you cut us down from here I’ll take you to them myself; a deal is a deal. We have been keeping them safe for you. That’s all we have done. This is all a misunderstanding. If we had let the guns go onto the ferry they would be with my brother in the bloody police station in Liverpool by now.”

  Burn them,” the man with the shotgun said to his accomplice. The man moved and picked up a green plastic petrol carrier. He turned the nozzle once and poured fuel all over the tyre and then over Shamus and Billy. The liquid ran into their eyes, stinging as if it were acid. Billy closed his lips tight to stop it entering his mouth but the noxious fumes filled his nose and throat making him wretch. “Okay for Christ’s sake, I’ll tell you where they are. They are in the fucking van there outside the barn. Now take them, and let us go for Christ’s sake.”

  Shotgun man lit a match and showed it to Billy, turning it slowly between his fingers. “Go and meet your Christ Irishman,” he said, tossing the match on to the tyre. Billy and Shamus screamed in unison as they turned into a human inferno. It was a full two minutes until they stopped moving.

  The three Axe members left the barn and closed the doors, the fire inside was spreading quickly through the old barn. They took the keys from the truck’s ignition and walked to the back of the vehicle. They needed to check that the load was complete before they headed for the small airfield in Cork. Axe knew they would never get their arms cache through the ports now that security had been increased, and had arranged for a small aircraft to be chartered. One of them with pilot training would land the cargo safely at a private airfield on the British mainland.

  Shotgun man put the key into the lock that secured the back doors and turned it. The booby trap bomb beneath the van exploded, turning the three men into a red vapour. When it came to booby traps and bombs, the IRA were masters.

  CHAPTER 26

  Liverpool / The Top Floor

  Tank showered in the men’s changing room facilities on the top floor of the Liverpool police station. He eventually managed to remove the stench of excrement from his skin. The flight on the helicopter back to the office had been short. Mustapha Ahmed was taken into protective custody when they landed. He was to be taken into the intelligence team’s interview suite first, where his life would be dissected. The information gleaned from his bank accounts and cell phone activity alone could lead the taskforce directly to the group Axe. Forensic teams and systems analysts were working at light speed on the bodies left from the gunfight in Holyhead. Two mobiles had been found, all the men had wallets and identification on them, and two of them were known to MI5 as being politically active. At any one time MI5 were watching over two thousand individuals belonging to over two hundred different Islamic terror cells in the UK alone. Tank knew that in reality this was a tiny proportion of the Muslim community that proposed a danger, but the danger was prevalent none the less.

  Tank finished showering and dressed in black combat pants, he pulled a white tee shirt on, which stretched against his muscular frame. He searched for his deodorant and sprayed himself from head to toe. The stench of cow manure was still in his nostrils.

  As Tank walked through the office he could feel and hear the buzz of activity as the preparations for the forthcoming raids were well under way. “Moo! Moo! What’s that smell boys? Can anyone smell poo?” Faz, who was stood across the room called to him. “Do you fancy a pint of milk, Tank? Don’t you worry about a thing we have everything udder control!” Tank raised his hands in surrender as laughter filled the top floor office. “Okay, let’s get all the bull shit jokes out of the way!” Tank walked into the glass office that they called the goldfish bowl. Major Stanley Timms was sat down at his desk. He gestured to Tank to sit down and continued listening to the voice on the telephone; his face looked like the conversation wasn’t going very well. He replaced the receiver without saying a word and stood up. He looked out of the window into the night, toward the Pier Head and the river beyond. The Liver buildings stood illuminated across the dock road from the police headquarters. The granite bricks glowed under the harsh halogen spotlights. He looked up at the two huge bronze Liver birds that were permanently perched on top of the building. A ferry drifted toward the Pier head, lit up like a Christmas tree in the dark.

  Let’s get everyone together, John. I want to make sure we do this one correctly. That was Whitehall on the line, they say that everyone from the Americans to the Zulus, wants Ahmed extradited. It looks like we would have to give the Americans first bite at him because of the Soft Target bombs. Between me and you I’d rather like to have him and his friends here for a while before we turn them over.”

  Timms walked out into the crowded office. He clapped his hands together loudly to gain the team’s attention. “Okay, before we go kicking in doors and upsetting people, I want full updates on what we have so far. The surveillance and technical teams are going to brief us on the three sites that we’re planning to hit tonight. We have helicopter spy drones above the targets already. They have i
nfrared x-rays and voice scanners on the buildings as we speak; so we should know who and how many targets we have, well before we leave. Can you share the intelligence so far, what do we have?” The Major stepped back a little to allow the next speaker room. “I will start with the Emerald Isle, Ireland, and the situation as we understand it. We have a group of ex-IRA members who have now turned their skills to several different trades. They are involved in prostitution, drugs, protection rackets and the sale of the surplus Republican arsenal. We know that two vehicles were sent from Dublin in Ireland, to Holyhead in Wales. They were carrying explosives and detonators. One we apprehended, one we didn’t. One Ford truck was loaded with AK-47’S, Uzi submachine guns, Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns and a selection of fragment grenades. The weapons originate from the former Soviet Union, Kosovo, Bosnia and North Africa. They entered the Irish Republic via ships from Libyan ports.” David Bell paused for effect, he loved holding court in front of the whole team; tonight he was in his element.

  The intelligence gained in the recent week had been unprecedented. From the day Yasser Ahmed entered the country, until now he felt like he had been on a roller coaster. The team called him the fat controller, his chubby face and high waist trousers gave him an odd round shape. To the team he was an information Guru. “Customs at Holyhead received a tip-off which led to the arrest of Patrick Finnen. He is an ex-IRA member. They also arrested Usef Mamood who is linked with Yasser Ahmed’s known associates in Warrington. We have traced the call to an unregistered cell phone purchased in Warrington. So we have to assume that the group Axe made the call, to detract our attention from the mother-load.” The fat controller paused for a second and took a sip of water from a bottle of Evian. “Now we have an arms deal that has gone bad. The Provo’s feel they have been double crossed by Axe. Axe on the other hand, think they have been ripped off by the Provo’s, who now have their money, but did not deliver their guns to them. We have our forensic teams working at a derelict farmhouse on the outskirts of Dublin, as we speak. They have two white Caucasian bodies. They appear to have been tortured and then burnt to death in a barn. We think one of them is Billy Finnen. We also have some unidentified DNA from person, or person’s unknown, but definitely Middle Eastern origin. The remains were found next to the wreckage of an exploded van, which contains the remains of several dozen machine guns. We know from experience that the IRA liked to booby trap their weapons caches. We think someone tried to take the guns and walked into a trap.”

  It sounds like we have a war going on here and I want it stopped.” Timms stepped forward as the fat controller pulled his trousers up around his waist and sat down. “Grace, what have we got from Holyhead?”

  The calls made to Mustapha’s cell phone were made via satellite link. We can’t trace them unless they ring again. The prints we found on the caravan match one of the dead guys from the BMW. The three men recovered were all carrying identification; wallets, money and two of them had their cell phones. All of them were members of known extremist Islamic groups under MI5 scrutiny.” Faz explained to the team.

  These guys weren’t expecting to encounter any problems,” Tank interrupted. “They were armed yes, but they would not have been carrying their ID’s and telephones if they thought for one minute they would encounter armed police. That means they were there trying to find Mustapha Ahmed. They were probably waiting for him near to the caravan, and then spotted him in the Jeep with us. They had no reason to think that we were police. They were just unlucky. They’d been sent by Yasser Ahmed to take Mustapha to him, and the guns were there in case he needed any persuasion.” Tank was speculating of course but it seemed to be the most obvious explanation. “So as far as Yasser Ahmed is concerned, Mustapha could be anywhere?” Timms asked.

  All he knows is that his men went to Anglesey with guns looking for his brother, and they never came back. Sian and her team are dealing with the Irish connection, or what’s left of them. Everything is pointing us toward the fact that Axe and Yasser Ahmed are in that town.” Tank pointed to Warrington on the digital map. It was just twelve miles away from their office, as the crow flies. “Chen, please could you give us the run down from the technical guys,” Tank said as he walked over to the water cooler and filled a plastic cup with cold liquid. He filled another and handed it to Faz, standing next to her as Chen dimmed the lights. He picked up a remote and stabbed at a button with his finger. The digital map flashed and the picture changed to a close up aerial picture of Warrington. Three red circles pulsed on the map indicating where the house, mosque and food distribution centre was. He tapped his finger on the circle around the mosque and the picture changed again, zooming in on the building.

  This is the mosque at Appleton. We have six people on site; heat sensors show four more people are in the rooms at the rear of the building. Audio surveillance is giving us what sounds like a prayer meeting from the main body of the mosque, and a poker game at the back. Nothing subversive has been overheard so far and a pair of kings won the last hand!” He tapped the second red circle and the picture zoomed down onto a detached, brick built house with a black slate roof. The picture changed to look like the negative of a photograph. Amber blobs appeared in the image of the building, two moving and two still. “Heat sensors show us the shapes here of four of the five men that Usef Mamood shared a house with. We know from audio surveillance that they are leaving for work any time now. They will be at this distribution centre until 9 tomorrow. We are going to abandon the raid on the house in exchange for breaking into and bugging it. We will be implanting a full portfolio of surveillance equipment. Video, audio, all shoes, bags, clothes and luggage will be bugged a half hour after they leave for work.”

  Chen touched a magic finger to the map again, this time the picture was an overhead of a large industrial park. Warehouses filled the picture top to bottom, but there was only one illuminated. Focusing the view from a significant distance away, the entire area could be seen. Chen pointed to two large buildings with unusual shaped rooftops. “These two are Brinks security money counting houses. Any monies that go into ATM cash machines anywhere in the North of the country, enters here to be counted first. You can see from the roof designs that they are conscious of being attacked from the air by helicopters, hence the roof design to make it impossible for an aircraft to land on them. We have intelligence that this food distribution centre, which is next door, has a large cold room storage area staffed by around sixty people. The bulk of the staff members are immigrants, mostly Asians, and the rest are a mixture of Eastern Europeans. We have suspicions that this cold room and the mosque are where Axe and other groups are recruiting their members. Audio is no use to us in there, as the condenser fans on the refrigeration units are blocking the signals. This is where we will need most of our people and local police backup. Recent air reconnaissance of the area shows nothing out of the ordinary. We haven’t seen anything unusual. Articulated lorries, panel vans, transits, even a couple of ice-cream vans.”

  Chen switched the lights back on and stood to the side as the large map reappeared. “Any questions so far?” Tank walked to the front.

  Sir, are you going to join us?” Tank directed the question to Major Timms.

  I will lead the raid on the warehouse with Chen and teams A, B, and C. Grace will take the mosque with the D and E teams. “I will help Grace and her teams at the mosque.” Timms nodded to Faz and smiled. He wagged his finger at her, laughing. No one wanted the boss looking over his or her shoulder and he knew it. He had backed Tank up only once, but found his methods too risky to condone. As the senior man in the taskforce, he had learned that what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. “We will be leaving in one hour people. Everyone meet suited and booted back here for final checks in one hour. Let’s go!” Tank and his squad sprung into action.

  CHAPTER 27

  Yasser/ Warrington

  Yasser Indri Ahmed stood alone in the empty storage unit; he opened the door of the ice-cream van and climbed inside, passing
between the front seats he moved into the back of the van. He stood where the ice-cream vendor would normally sell his wares. He opened the freezer compartment by sliding the black plastic lid, thus exposing the empty stainless steel storage box. He smiled as he imagined the storage box crammed full of Semtex and ball bearings. There were three such storage containers, one on each side of the van and one beneath the back window. If this mobile truck bomb disguised as an innocent ice-cream van was to be detonated amongst milling crowds of unsuspecting passers-by, the result would be sheer carnage.

  Yasser had ordered the search and purchase of these vehicles some six months before. His followers across the British Isles had scoured the local papers and auto-marts. Some were bought for just a few hundred pounds, nothing more than rotting shells, their equipment broken beyond repair, the refrigeration and roadworthiness were of no concern to Yasser. They had fixed any damaged engines and repainted rusty exteriors. New cartoon decals were added to put the finishing touches to the disguise. He now had a fleet of six, complete and ready for service. They would be weapons in the fight against the Infidel. His holy Jihad was soon to be unleashed on the British people.