The Long Reach_British Detective

by Michael Leese

  “What if it was something like that - tiny, difficult to see and very specialised? It’s the sort of thing that can get left behind when people clear out.”

  “OK. That’s an interesting theory, but does it take us anywhere?”

  “Well I did think that if they had surveillance gear in there they needed somewhere to monitor it from, which means there is one thing you should ask the Detective Inspector; I’ve looked at that road on Google Street View and it’s not the sort of place where you could park a van for very long, not without it being noticed. So maybe there are some rental properties very close?”

  Hooley wasted no time in calling Newlove and filled him in on Roper’s analysis. His news was greeted with a low whistle of appreciation.

  “Funnily enough we have got a list of rental properties in that area. I wasn’t thinking exactly along the lines Roper suggested but I wondered if they had a base. There is a house almost opposite that is rented out to an offshore company. It was taken a few months ago and has another eight months on the contract.

  “We’ve been trying to get hold of the company, but no success, and we’ve been in the property and found nothing. It is on my list of things to get around to, but I think it has just gone straight to the top.

  “We’ll go through that place with a fine-toothed comb. The officers who first checked it out reported that the place was very clean and tidy, so someone has gone to a bit of effort - which makes me think there may be something to Jonathan’s idea.

  “I’ll let you know how we get on but it’s going to take a while. I’ll need a full scenes of crime team going through that place and I’m going to have to argue to get the budget for it and then the time needed.

  “But Jonathan’s theory that there might have been a team of people in the house monitoring cameras and sound devices should give me exactly the ammunition I need when I go to the boss. He’s desperate for a result on this so hopefully he’ll sign off for what we need.

  “I tell you what, there will be more than a glass of fizzy water in this if this gives us a result. You can tell Jonathan that his fan club just grew by one.”

  24

  “Would it be helpful if I explained to you how a self-sustained fission chain reaction happens? It’s fascinating and quite amazing how they worked all this out in the beginning.”

  “No, no, no…” Hooley could think of nothing he wanted less, and to get his point across he stuck his fingers in his ears. He and Roper had been batting this back and forth for most of the morning.

  Roper was obsessing about the need to talk the DCI through the technical details. Hooley was equally determined to avoid getting drawn into a prolonged conversation about a subject that he had little interest in beyond the obvious: nuclear bomb… very bad.

  “All I need to know is: how plausible is the threat from one of these devices? You and MI5 have raised this, so what’s a poor old copper like me supposed to make of it? It sounds terrifying, but is it ever going to happen?”

  He looked over at Roper and noticed his complexion - or complete lack of it. He was extremely pale-skinned normally but when he was working flat out he seemed to go a whiter shade of pale.

  He made the ill-advised decision to crack a joke.

  “If it started snowing and you went outside you’d look like the Invisible Man: just your suit and hair showing.”

  Roper treated this attempt at comedy with the contempt it deserved.

  “I suppose you want what you like to call the ‘idiot’s guide’ to all this?” He sighed heavily before carrying on. “Well the truth is that a suitcase bomb is more possible than I had thought. The last time I read about it was at school and then the argument was that it was just a fantasy and would need a technological revolution to come true.

  “But if you think in terms of small, portable nuclear devices, then you are starting to talk about real possibilities. Some of the biggest changes have come in the electronics you need to get one of these to work - they’ve got a lot smaller, lighter and more reliable.

  “Then the components needed have reduced in size and weight, so that all helps too. Maybe you might need a few suitcases to spread the load, but you could make it happen. In fact, the technology to do so has been around for a lot longer than I had realised.”

  Roper paused and gave him an appraising look. “You do know more than you let on. Are you sure you don’t want all the technical details?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Well, we also need to remember that someone trying to make a small bomb is probably more concerned with generating radiation since the explosive capacity will be relatively low. That’s why people talk about ‘dirty bombs.’”

  “This is not doing a lot for my peace of mind.”

  “There is some good news. Whatever method is used to create a device that can be detonated, it is going to need weapons-grade plutonium and that’s not the easiest thing to get. Even at the height of the Cold War, both sides were careful about who got their hands on that.

  “Even today, with the technology far more widely available, it is still hard to find and those people who do have it tend to want to hold on to their stocks because it is so rare. There is one big unknown about all of this.” He stopped talking and looked directly at Hooley. The DCI thought it was never a good sign when he did that.

  “You’re going to tell me something I’m really not going to like, aren’t you? Well, there’s no point in sitting on it.”

  “The old KGB were said to have established buried weapons caches all over Western Europe. Most of those were traditional weapons and ammunition that would have been used to arm revolutionary groups, so very dangerous, but quite small scale.

  “But it was also claimed that some of the stockpiles had nuclear potential. No one is quite sure what that means. It could be that we are talking about lots of different bits of equipment stored in lots of different places. Or it could be that they left entire weapons systems in place, ready to be used in action the moment they were unearthed.”

  “Well you’re certainly managing to give me the shivers. How likely do you think it is to be true?”

  “I don’t think anyone really knows, maybe not even the Russians themselves. I found some reports about a Russian defector who was claiming that the Soviets had “lost” some of their nuclear stockpiles. No one could decide whether to believe him, and in the end it was officially claimed that he was just bluffing to try and cause a bit of panic.

  “It may be that there are nuclear stockpiles hidden away and someone must have the locations. But at the height of the Cold War both sides were operating on a strict need-to-know basis, so it may be only a small handful of people are now left who know the truth.”

  “So how does this impact on what we know about the meeting between Maria Vasilev and Georgi Yebedev?”

  “Again, that’s hard to try and deconstruct. If there are stockpiles, and she helped put the contents together, I doubt if she would have been involved in choosing the locations. From what I know the KGB kept the scientists well away from that end of things.

  “But maybe she has been looking for information and recently found it. That could explain why there was a meeting. Maybe some of this stuff is here in the UK and is just waiting to be dug up and used here in London; it would cause panic.

  “With the wind in the right direction you might be looking at millions of people being affected.”

  Hooley’s mouth had gone dry. “I don’t like to think about that. I can’t begin to imagine a bomb exploding, let alone the disruption it would cause. There would be mayhem.”

  25

  “We can’t be certain about any of this.” As he spoke, Hooley knew he was trying to make the situation sound less frightening than it was. The trouble was that they might not have had any hard evidence, but Roper was convinced - and that was the next best thing.

  The pair were briefing Julie Mayweather after she called them in for an update. This was the second time he had gone through wh
at they knew, or suspected, and he wasn’t finding it any easier. A gloomy silence filled the room, in sharp contrast to the times when the three had animated discussions about the wildest theories.

  Mayweather and Hooley were sitting down while Roper, full of nervous energy, was slowly pacing around. The DCI was staring off into the middle distance, a frown on his face, and his boss thought it highly likely this concern was mirrored in her own expression.

  She watched Roper as he moved around. He looked very pale and his skin seemed more tightly stretched over his face than normal. She felt a need to reassure him.

  “You’re quite right, Jonathan. You are quite right to raise this in the way you have. Just because we may not like what you are saying doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be listening to it. We need to examine every possibility so that we can be thinking about the right response.

  “One thing I do have to ask. Assuming the worst, do you have any sense of what timeline we are operating to? Is this stuff already here, or is it on the way? We clearly need to start thinking about how this might be smuggled in.”

  Roper sat forward, his eyes bright as he ran through his thoughts.

  “My best guess is that they still need to bring it in and that is going to take a lot of planning. But I’m not sure about an alert. That might create panic and tip them off that we know.”

  Hooley nodded. “My instinct would be to play it close for a while. You’re going to have to tell key people but we should try to keep it as limited as realistically possible. The government can raise the threat level warning without having to be specific.”

  “What if one of these nuclear stockpiles is here in the UK already?” Mayweather wanted to know.

  “I think that is the least likely option,” said Roper. “There are very few - a handful is the best guess, and it is highly likely that the majority are in the area covered by the old Soviet Union.

  “There may be one or two in Europe at most, but the records indicate that they never tried to get into Britain. They didn’t need to take the risk. There are plenty of seriously isolated spots in Western Europe where something like that could be easily concealed and picked up again without risking witnesses.”

  Mayweather had another question.

  “How are they going to get the weapons-grade plutonium here?”

  “It won’t be easy, but it won’t be impossible either; it just needs very careful planning. You don’t need a huge amount in terms of weight, just a few ounces. With proper shielding it still won’t be that large. Just bulky and heavy.”

  Mayweather looked at Hooley. “Reminds me of our first case.”

  “It does. Those were a worrying few days.”

  Roper looked quizzical so she explained. “Brian and I first put the Special Investigations Unit together because of a case involving a Russian called Alexander Litvinenko. He was poisoned in central London - and it was always suspected the Russian state was behind it.”

  “Yes, I have been reading about that recently because I wondered if there were links to our case. He was contaminated with polonium-210.”

  “We didn’t know any of that at first, so we were visiting all the places where Mr. Litvinenko had been and picking up traces of radiation without realising it. Brian was among those who needed to be checked out.

  “I was very concerned about him, and the rest of the team. We had a big test carried out here in these offices because of contamination. We had to keep it very quiet because it would have caused a lot of distress. As it was they discovered traces all over London, as I recall. There’s something about being poisoned by something you can’t see which is especially frightening.

  “In a way it is very similar to what happened in Salisbury, where the Russian spy and his daughter nearly died. No-one realised at first that they had been poisoned with a nerve agent.”

  Hooley rubbed his hands together.

  “When we realised the full implications of the Litvinenko case it caused quite a bit of panic. There was even talk about setting up those mobile decontamination units. The decision had to go right to the Prime Minister. In the end he was saved from having to do anything because the experts said you would have needed to come into direct contact with the polonium.”

  Roper said. “Was it ever established how it got to London?”

  Mayweather shrugged. “There were a lot of theories. It came here under Russian diplomatic immunity or was smuggled in from a container ship - as you know, there are many smuggling routes. Some even said they brought it in on a domestic airline flight from Moscow to London.

  “In those days I don’t think the technology at our border controls was good enough to pick it up, although I think things are a lot better now.”

  “This is fascinating, and I need to see your original files,” said Roper. “Now that I know you were both around, I will be able to ask you questions.”

  Hooley made a “hah” sound.

  “You can ask any questions you like, but I may not have all the answers you are going to need. Some things about that case will stay with me for the rest of my life. A lot of it I’ve just forgotten.”

  He lapsed into silence until realising he was coming under an especially searching stare from Mayweather.

  “I suppose I might as well tell you. My wife wouldn’t let me in the house for two days. I had to bring her a signed medical certificate that said I was totally clear of radiation before she would allow me through the front door. I had to stay at a local bed and breakfast.

  “The scientists involved all decided I was bonkers because I kept badgering them for this certificate but eventually they gave in. Even then she was still suspicious. I had to post the certificate through the letter box and then wait at the end of the drive.

  “When she decided I was OK to come back in she made me go into the garage first and take all my clothes off. Then she made me wait until it was dark before burning everything in the back garden. Even one of my favourite jackets. I was heartbroken about it. I’d had it since I got made detective - it had real sentimental value for me.”

  Mayweather was laughing so hard she had to dab at her eyes.

  “You managed to keep that one secret, Brian. If the team had found out you would never have heard the end of it.”

  “Trust me, I put a lot of effort into making sure that was kept very quiet. I told the scientists that everything we did was covered by the Official Secrets Act; at least that stopped them blathering.”

  Roper was looking puzzled. “I don’t know why you think this is a laughing matter. I think Mrs. Hooley was being very sensible.”

  The look the DCI gave him reminded Roper that he really wasn’t very good at reading body language.

  26

  Mayweather glanced at her watch. Her father had given it to her to mark her becoming a Met police officer. It was a cherished memento and had been there through the key moments of her career. Looking at it now was an uncomfortable reminder that a countdown clock was ticking.

  “I need to go and see the Commissioner. He’s one of the people who definitely needs to know the direction we are going, and you can be certain that he, in turn, will take it straight to the top. That means Downing Street will be involved.”

  Hooley may have briefly lightened the atmosphere, but now that was replaced with a brisk determination to take care of business.

  “While I’m with him, is there anything you want to flag up? Do you need more people? This is going to be one of those times when there’s not going to be a problem getting you the resources you need.”

  Hooley rolled his shoulders to try and alleviate the ache in his back. This case was a pain in the neck - literally.

  “There was one thing you might be able to chase up for us. Bill Nuffield made it plain that we are not seeing everything that MI5 has. I think events have moved on and they should review that decision.

  “He told us he was working hard to get what he could and I think he’s on our side, so maybe a push from the Commissioner wil
l help. I get the feeling the spooks can get a tad obsessed about clearance levels. Jonathan and I do need to know.

  “If he’s right in his assessment – and, how many times has he proven himself? - then the fewer the obstacles we face from our own side the better. I’m not saying this is the case, but if there is a bit of top-dogging going on then it needs to be nipped in the bud.”

  “I think that last point is well made, Brian. I don’t want us to get into a situation where we turn around in a few weeks and wish we had done more to ensure things ran smoothly.”

  She glanced over at Roper. “I also agree with Brian about your ability to predict what might happen. Are you using your Rainbow Spectrum on this? The Commissioner is bound to ask.”

  “It’s very strange but I keep hearing that all sorts of people are aware of the Rainbow Spectrum. Why is everyone so interested in it?”

  “Because you have invented a unique approach to problem-solving. It’s left a lot of serious people seriously impressed. To go back to my earlier question: what would you like me to tell the Commissioner? Are you using it?”

  “The honest answer is yes and no. ‘Yes,’ because I am starting to store a lot of information in that part of my mind but also ‘no’, because nothing is quite making sense yet. But you can say it is starting to come together.”

  “I might find a way to put a more positive spin on that, Jonathan, but thank you for your honesty.” She stood up and as she reached for her jacket, Hooley cut in with a laugh. “You could tell him about my ‘lager protocol’ if you like.”

  “Ah, I think I know this one, Brian. It’s the idea that there’s nothing that can’t be put into the right perspective with the help of a nice cold pint of lager. While there may be some truth in that I think I may stick to the Rainbow Spectrum for now.”

  She made to leave; then a thought struck her.

  “Regarding that polonium case. You and I were introduced to a quite brilliant scientist who was brought in to beef up security. His name was Paul, something. Was it Paul Ross?”