Absence of Mercy

by Joe McCoubrey

  She turned the corner and walked straight into a large bald man. He seemed to reach out a hand towards her face, and she felt a small burning sensation on her neck. Instinctively, she lifted her palm to her uniform collar. It felt wet. She was aware she was going to faint, but couldn’t understand why. Her brain couldn’t process information. It couldn’t tell her that the bald man had drawn a sharp blade expertly from her left to right ears, severing the carotid arteries.

  “No!” Stratton raced out the rear door in time to watch Stelling ease the policewoman’s lifeless body onto the concrete. “What have you done?”

  Stelling stared blankly at him. “There was no option. They have discovered our hideaway. We cannot let them report this.”

  The sound of footsteps drew Stratton’s attention away from the corpse. He waited for the tall policeman to run into view, before lifting a silenced Beretta and firing a point-blank round into a startled face. Mountford collapsed in a heap on top of his colleague.

  Stratton kicked out in frustration at the side of the building. “This is all we need. We have to get the fuck outta here. This place has been compromised. I don’t mind admitting, Manfred, that things are not exactly going according to plan.”

  He knew it was an understatement. His two prime locations were now a wash out, the mail van was probably picked up by CCTV at Prince Albert Road and was no longer a safe means of transportation, and to top it off his photo was undoubtedly in mass circulation throughout London. Normally, these were setbacks he could handle, but he knew the main reason for his anger was the smirking face of Mike Devon as he’d held the placard up to the camera.

  He had to pull himself together, get back on mission, and see this through to the final conclusion. After that, he would deal with Devon. It had become personal.

  His first thought was to pile the two corpses into the boot of the police vehicle and drive it to a new location, but he dismissed the notion out of hand. These vehicles had sat-nav and GPS tracking, which would allow their colleagues to trace their movements over a long period. Even if he smashed the sat-nav box and relocated the car, the authorities would eventually end up back here. At best he would save an hour or so, which was hardly important when stacked against the risk of being discovered driving a police vehicle in broad daylight.

  He ordered Stelling to drag the bodies into the warehouse and prepare the back-up car for immediate evacuation. He ran through the building, opened the front doors, and drove the police vehicle into the large interior. Next, he crossed to the mail van, recovered the two remaining packages, and stored them in the back seat of the Clio.

  Ten minutes later, after working quickly on disguises, they exited the industrial estate and headed into central London.

  Twenty-two mail vans bearing the livery of the suspect vehicle had been stopped in the course of a five-hour period throughout the night. All were cleared as bonafide, leaving irate drivers to bemoan the wasted time on their busy delivery schedules.

  By dawn, the first results of the e-Fit circulation began to filter in. There were more than forty confirmed sightings, although the officers in charge knew that by the time they filtered out the usual time-wasters, and the honest, though mistaken, members of the general public, they would be lucky to be left with anything of note. However, all leads had to be followed up.

  The desk sergeant at Shepherd’s Road police station had something else on his mind. One of his units was not responding to repeated check-in requests. The vehicle, which was signed out to Constables Janice Barlow and Tony Mountford, was showing up as a stationery dot on the internal tracking screen in the communications centre. The sergeant waited nervously for ten minutes before he hit the panic button.

  The duty Inspector authorised the mobilisation of a Firearms Unit, and placed a call to the SO19 incident room at New Scotland Yard. Within eight minutes more than two dozen police vehicles descended on the industrial estate.

  The discovery of the bodies inside one of the warehouses led to a spike in police radio transmissions on a level never previously experienced.

  Chapter 34

  LIGHTS WERE blazing from every window as Devon approached the ramp for the basement garage of the LonWash headquarters. He marvelled at the stamina and dedication of his team, knowing he would have to ask them to dig deeper into their reserves. He couldn’t remember the last time any of them had a proper sleep, something he had to put right if they were to stay on top of their game.

  He exited the lift with Doyle and Halloran and glanced at the empty pizza boxes, water bottles, and Styrofoam coffee cups that were crammed into wastebins or simply discarded on every available worktop surface. Everyone was doing their best to keep fuelled and keep going.

  He knew Tim Halloran and his cyber team were taking the brunt of the non-stop merry-go-round. As he walked towards his office he stopped and turned to Doyle. “Alan, put everyone on six-hour shifts, starting now. I know things appear to be coming to a head, but we need to keep fresh. At this stage one mistake, or one little detail being overlooked, could be catastrophic.”

  “Yeah, well just see you practice what you preach.”

  “Don’t worry,” Devon shot back, “I’m heading for the couch now. Wake me in six hours.” He looked at a wall clock. It was five o’clock in the morning.

  Inside the office he kicked off his combat boots and collapsed onto a couch that was barely long enough to accommodate his six-foot-plus frame. He was asleep within two minutes.

  “Mike, Mike. Wake up.”

  He came alert instantly and gazed up at Doyle. “Can’t a guy get a rest around here?”

  “Believe it or not, you’ve been out of it for five hours. Something big has come up. They’ve found the mail truck and two dead police officers.”

  Devon sprang to the floor. “When did this happen?”

  “Not too long ago. Somehow two uniforms stumbled across Stratton’s bolthole, but needless to say the bastard has taken off again.”

  Devon listened intently as Doyle provided a full report. There was no need to interrupt with questions. He knew Doyle’s capacity for assembling all the salient facts in the right order. If there were questions, Doyle would have got the answers before disturbing him.

  “Do you want to go to the scene?”

  Devon considered the options. “No, I’m sick chasing Stratton’s shadow. Let MI6 and the rest do the donkey work. It’s time we came at this a different way.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “That’s just it, Alan. I’m not sure. I need to think through a few things. I’m going to grab a shower and a coffee before a team briefing in twenty minutes.” He lifted his boots, snatched a holdall from behind his desk, and headed outside to take a lift to the top floor.

  He dialled the shower unit to the hottest setting he could bear and let the needles of water work their massaging magic. He clamped his eyes shut and forced his mind to assemble everything they had learned to date.

  Unusually, at this stage in a major hunt, they knew exactly who they were after. He didn’t doubt for a moment that Stratton was the top of the tree. There was no-one above him, but just why a former secret service agent should turn on his country was still anybody’s guess. The answer would lie somewhere in Stratton’s past, and it was up to Peter Ramsden to find it. Until then it didn’t much matter. The truth would come out eventually, but right now it didn’t seem important.

  They also knew that whatever he was planning involved at least one bomb, or a series of bombs in London. That’s why Stratton was here. He needed to see the results of his actions. Hell, he needed to be the one to press the switch. They still didn’t know the potential lethal force at Stratton’s disposal. Those laptop battery units could house all manner of scary bomb materials, although nuclear or chemical ingredients could be ruled out. The zero readings at the house in Prince Albert Road were conclusive in that respect. Again, it didn’t seem matter how much damage could be caused. The problem was to stop it happening. Plan fo
r the worst, hope for the best.

  The method of delivering the lethal payloads was obviously the mail delivery van, which had been left discarded at the warehouse. Stratton was now minus his two primary vehicles, the van and the Daimler, so what was he using now? That thought brought him to another conclusion. The size of the battery units suggested that the bomb or bombs could be assembled into one or more relatively small packages. From his discussions with Ramsden it was clear that only about twenty or thirty battery units could have been smuggled into the country, meaning that any commercial vehicle or small car or motorcycle could be used for transportation.

  Whatever he now had at his disposal would have been already in place at the warehouse. He didn’t just walk out of there carrying bombs under his arms. Again, he decided, he would leave that problem to the main agencies. They could trawl traffic cams and mount roadstop operations, without him to worry about wasting his own resources.

  The involvement of Manfred Stelling intrigued Devon. According to Ramsden, Stratton had helped him flee from East Germany. God knows what the pair had gotten up to in the intervening years! It appeared obvious that Stelling had co-ordinated things in London while Stratton was ensconced in New York, but what part would he play in the end game? Would they be together for the final act or acts? Or could it be each would have his own target? On the balance of probabilities, it would make sense for them to split up and maximise the chances of at least one of them achieving his objective.

  That meant there were at least two bombs.

  The shower room was filled with steam, not that Devon would have noticed. He continued to stand under the invigorating spray, his eyes closed, and his thoughts dancing from one step to the next.

  He was heartened by the fact that so many things had gone wrong for Stratton. Had he himself not stumbled across the assassin list in Austria, his agency might not have been fully prepared to deal with the threat. The killers had been eliminated, with only one left standing, which meant they were able to turn their attention back to the real menace.

  The General’s unearthing of the traitor Melrose was the most telling blow. The e-Fit provided by Melrose led them directly to Stratton and from there to the house in Prince Albert Road. He smiled at the memory of holding up the message to the camera. It might have seemed a somewhat childish gesture, but it would have given Stratton something else to think about.

  And what of the fire at the home of the man who had smuggled in at least part of the consignment of laptop batteries? Devon didn’t doubt for a moment that it was an attempt to silence the courier, but how would Stratton have reacted to discovering that old Charlie Wilson had escaped his clutches?

  Another thought struck him. If Stratton had gone after the courier then he had also surely made a try for Melrose. Why deal with one loose end but leave another dangling in the wind? If he had gone after Melrose then once again he had lucked out.

  The mistakes were piling up.

  Stratton and his sidekick now had to find a third location for their operational base. The longer they were out in the open, the better the chances of finding them. Was there one more crucial mistake to be made?

  Despite the plus points, Devon was forced to admit to one massive downside. His target was still on the loose, and he was not the type to allow himself to be cornered. Stratton would be at his most dangerous if he believed the net was closing in too fast. He would have no hesitation in bringing his plans forward, and he would do so without fear for his own freedom or safety.

  Devon stood a few minutes longer while planning his next moves. There was another Achilles heel to be found, another mistake to be uncovered.

  And suddenly he knew where to start looking.

  He stepped out of the shower, waved his arms in a vain attempt to disperse the steam, and dressed quickly in a clean t-shirt and a fresh pair of jeans.

  Chapter 35

  DEVON RAN PAST the briefing room, ignoring the glances of his assembled team, and shouldered open the nearest office door. He reached for the telephone console and asked the switchboard operator to patch him into Peter Ramsden’s private number at Vauxhall Cross. His fingers beat an impatient rhythm on the desktop while he waited for the static to clear, hoping that Ramsden was available.

  The silence stretched for more than a minute before a response came through. “I take it you heard about the death of the two police officers? I half-expected to see you turn up at the scene.”

  “No, it’s not about that,” Devon said. “Has there been any luck in tracing Stratton after he fled the scene?”

  The disappointment was clear in Ramsden’s response. “The Met have every available body scanning camera footage within five miles of the location, but I’m not holding out much hope. The industrial area is pretty isolated and the nearest CCTV coverage doesn’t kick in until a mile away. They could have gone in any direction, in any vehicle. Chances of getting a hit are virtually non-existent.”

  “Just what I figured. How are the police responding to the deaths of two of their own?”

  “There are a lot of angry people demanding answers. The whole thing is getting very jurisdictional, with a number of top brass muscling in on the security side of things. The PM has called another COBRA meeting for tomorrow morning, and I’m just hoping we can sort out the mess before then.”

  Devon let the news sink in. “Have you given any thought about how to prevent a possible bomb detonation? Should we be looking at closing down cellphone towers and radio frequencies, or even introducing a no-fly zone for all private and non-commercial flights over the city?”

  “It’s on COBRA’s agenda, but everyone recognises that you can’t just choke the life out of one of the world’s busiest financial markets. If we could narrow the threat down to a specific time-window then maybe there would be support for a blanket on communications. At the moment I just don’t see it happening.”

  Devon changed tack. “How’s the search going into possible property deals by the shell companies Stratton was involved with?”

  “Nothing much to report there either, I’m afraid. It is being co-ordinated by the Metropolitan Police, but to tell you the truth I think it was stepped down after the discovery at the warehouse. The feeling is that since a back-up location was found, it’s unlikely anything else will surface.”

  Devon paused to gather his thoughts. “We need to look at this again from a new angle. Stratton now obviously needs a third base. Maybe he had already procured one as part of his advance planning....”

  “Doesn’t make sense that he would lie low in an abandoned warehouse if he had another property at his disposal.”

  Devon ignored the interruption. “Maybe an additional property was never intended for a base of operations, but the site for the detonation of an explosion. It could be that he acquired some building or other which is close enough to his target to provide what he wants if he simply blows it to kingdom come.”

  Ramsden whistled down the line. “It’s a bit of a stretch, but I’ve got to admit it’s something we can’t ignore. The problem remains that it is still going to take some time to strip away the layers involved in the operations of all the companies in which Stratton appears to have interests. However, I’ll get them to put a full team back onto the search.”

  “There may be a shortcut,” Devon told him. “What if we start with what we know? We know Stratton acquired the property at Prince Albert Road. It was not done in his name, but it was done on his behalf. Get them to trace that specific purchase. That should tie the financial side of things down to at least one company, but we can drill down still further by looking at other middlemen who would have been involved in such a transaction. What about an estate agency, or a purchasing brokerage, or a solicitor? Find one of those in the Prince Albert Road deal and we might learn if they were involved in other similar deals.”

  “I agree that could provide us with a bit of traction. Any other bright ideas?”

  Devon had other avenues to explore, but he
needed to flesh them out before sharing his thoughts with Ramsden. It was not that he didn’t trust the MI6 man. He believed simply that each of the agencies needed to concentrate on individual tasks, rather than spread their resources too thinly. “No, nothing else comes to mind.”

  “Okay, Mike. I’m grateful for the heads up. Let me know if you come across anything else.”

  “Just so you remember. That’s a two-way street. Keep in touch.”

  It took little more than five minutes for Devon to run through his conversation with Ramsden. He looked at the faces around the room, stopping to wink at Alfie Cheadle who had just returned from his trip to Austria, and looked like the cat that got the cream. The rest of the team seemed a lot less vibrant, judging by the dark shadows under unslept eyes, and the crumpled state of shirts and sweaters. Some of these people had been on the go for thirty-six hours, but there was still determination on their faces and fire in their bellies.

  “We could have backtracked the property deal a lot faster than those two-fingered keyboard operators they have over at New Scotland Yard.” Tim Halloran’s face was a mixture of annoyance and devilment.

  “I don’t doubt it for a moment, Tim, but I needed to throw them some crumbs. Besides, I have something a lot more difficult for your team to tackle.”

  “Fire away, boss.”

  Devon smiled at the man’s capacity for work. “Once again I’m going to ask you guys to change direction. Up to now we’ve been listening into cyber chatter, or dismantling firewalls, or cracking codes, or doing whatever it is you guys do to make sure we know everything that’s going on out there. It’s time to step back and let the other agencies earn their corn. We’re going to have to trust that they will.”