We eliminated the option of an attack at the Air Museum itself, both because it was too public and because we needed evidence that the materials were heading for Spring House. We discussed timing and agreed that we had to prepare for several options, including a night ambush if they decided to carry out the move under cover of dark.
‘Omar is a problem,’ Chunk said, ‘he knows all the evasive driving techniques. We could probably shred the tyres, but he could still drive the vehicle.’
‘Not if we used a Tiger Trap,’ Tim said.
‘What’s that?’ Kate asked.
‘Pretty much what it sounds like. It’s like an animal trap, only for vehicles. You dig a pit and lure the vehicle into it. No amount of defensive driving will get you out of that. Once you’re in, you’re in.’
‘Perfect,’ I said, ‘can you build one.’
‘It’s not so much building as digging,’ Tim said.
‘The ground is helluva hard after this heat-wave,’ Birdy said, ‘you’d need a mechanical digger. Pretty hard to lug one of those around without being seen.’
‘There’s a digger practically on the route site,’ Tim said, ‘you saw it on the surveillance film.’
‘You mean the one at the drainage works near the canal?’
‘Yes.’
‘Assuming they don’t move it in the next two days.’
‘I doubt they will. It looks like a pretty big drainage project and the weekend is coming up. We could always immobilise it temporarily if need be.’
‘How long would it take to dig a trap with that kind of kit?’ I asked.
‘Very quick. We could dig and cover in half an hour, maybe three quarters, then set the trap on the day.’
‘How do you cover the noise of the digging?’
‘Good question. Needs some thought, but it should be possible.’
‘And if we could lure the 4WD into it, you could keep it there, without killing or seriously injuring anyone?’
‘For how long?’
‘Long enough for us to film it and get police there.’
‘No problem.’
I stood up. ‘Agreed then. So, tasks and problems.’
‘Tracking them at the Air Garden Party. We need to know what they’re up to and when they load the kit. We need someone inside.’
‘Clive’s coming over. We can fix all that later.’
‘Assuming they go through the Green Lanes, we have to force them to the right spot if they deviate,’ Chunk said.
‘Tim, that can be your task,’ I said, ‘check the places where we could miss them and devise ways of sheep-dogging them down the right track.’
‘Next, digging the Tiger Trap.’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ Tim said, ‘I’ll make sure the digger is there and do the excavation.’
‘Noise cover?’
‘I’m still thinking about that,’ I said, ‘come back to it.’
‘What about kit to film the ambush?’
‘We can round up what we need,’ Chunk said, ‘Jay will see to that.’
‘And if they smell a rat and chance going by the main roads?’
‘Then the only place to get them is outside Spring House,’ I said.
‘How do we handle that?’
‘Journalists,’ I said, ‘word gets out that something fishy is going on at Spring House. Journalists door-step them.’
‘Not real journalists?’ Kate said.
Chunk laughed. ‘No, journalists with big fists. Lottery’s kind of journalists.’
‘But no weapons,’ I said, ‘that has to be agreed.’
‘Right then, so the big issue left is noise cover.’
‘‘What about a party?’ Kate said, ‘a really noisy party.’
‘Where?’
‘On a boat on the canal,’ Kate said, ‘we hold a mini-rave on board and fend off the complaints just long enough for Tim to complete the digging.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Tim said, ‘short notice though.’
‘We don’t need that many people, or a very big boat,’ Kate said, ‘a dozen people and a sound system can make a helluva racket.’
Tim smiled broadly. ‘Does anyone here now believe this cannot be done?’
He turned to me.
‘No’ I said, ‘I believe it can it can be done and, who knows, it might even be fun!’
It was at this high moment that the real downer came. Chunk’s mobile rang. It was his brother to say the police were looking for him. When he closed off the call, Chunk was looking grave.
‘My brother had a quiet word with a friend at Hereford. It seems they are looking for all of John’s known friends and associates. They’ve been checking leave dates, movements, the lot.’
‘In that case, it won’t be too long before they pitch up here,’ Tim said, ‘they know I’m not at the home farm but if they’re really hunting, this place has to be on their list.’
‘I could try and find you another base somewhere,’ Tillie said.
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘That’s too risky. It’s time for me to have a little talk with Virginia Walsh.’
Chapter 20
That night, I contacted Virginia and told her I was prepared to give myself up – but only to her. We agreed on a meeting place and when I told Chunk and Tim, Chunk said simply: ‘You’re insane.’ Without going into detail, I told him about the dossier I’d compiled on Virginia and said I was sure I could force her to make a deal.
‘Do bear in mind, old boy, that Virginia Walsh is the high priestess of the ‘I’m OK – you’re totally fucked’ school of inter-personal relations,’ was all Chunk said.
We argued for a while and they agreed to help, but only if they were allowed to ‘handle the arrangements’ as Tim put it. We knew she would try to appear to be carrying out the operation on her own, but would be well-protected and well-wired.
‘Not a problem,’ Tim said, ‘she’ll make herself pretty much snatch proof, but snatching the unsnatchable is the house speciality.’
Virginia’s plan involved a meeting at a country roadhouse. Tim’s plan involved an ambush, the theft of her car, its transfer to a removal van, and a meeting at a place of our choosing. Kate listened with fascination as they planned the operation as though it were as commonplace as loading stores onto one of her boats.
Jay was called in to discuss how to deal with the wire she would inevitably be wearing.
‘What’s the current style?’ I asked.
Jay laughed. ‘They have a new one, only just been issued. Microphone the size of a pubic hair and that’s where she’ll probably be carrying it. Transmitter is tiny enough to fit down there too – as long she keeps the welcome mat reasonably bushy and doesn’t have a Brazilian or a Runway.’
‘Fascinating,’ Kate said, ‘I’ll bet a man invented that.’
‘Actually, not,’ Jay said seriously, it was a woman at the Medford Defence Research Centre.’
Kate smiled. ‘I was only joking. So how you deal with it?’
I smiled too. ‘We get it off her, one way or the other.’
We talked until midnight and the meeting broke up only when Tim and Chunk were completely satisfied with the arrangements. I was given my instructions, refined to the last detail and Kate and I went to bed.
We made love again, but I was becoming a bit concerned that ‘companionable’ was still the most appropriate way to describe it. We had gone straight from the passion and excitement of new discovery to the pleasure of sharing a bed with someone you are comfortable with. I could feel that Kate was holding back. She wanted it this way, and it had nothing to do with the scar. It was her way of putting me ‘on hold’ but there were worse ways so I decided not to fight it.
We set off at seven the next morning, in two cars, one driven by Lottery and one driven by Tim, but three other vehicles were already in place before we arrived. A suitable road configuration had been chosen by Tim on a route that Virginia would be obliged to take to reach the roadhouse. The team had
guessed rightly that the Virginia’s backup vehicles would keep their distance. She would be able to make emergency contact with them very rapidly but assuming you are safe when an SAS snatch team is on the prowl is never wise.
In fact, Virginia was ‘lifted’ in under three minutes.
One car blocked the road in front of her Mercedes. A second car blocked the road behind and Chunk came out of the ditch at such speed that Virginia’s driver never saw clearly who smashed his side window, released the door locks, dragged him onto the road and took his place at the wheel. I jumped in beside Virginia and made a sign for her not to speak. When she tried to disobey, I put my hand firmly over her mouth and Chunk drove the car a few yards up the road and turned into a side lane. There, a removal van was parked with a board forming a ramp from the road to its interior.
Chunk drove up it and into the interior of the lorry. The door was closed behind us and an arc light came on to provide illumination in the darkened interior.
With one hand still over Virginia’s mouth, I used the other to show Virginia a card which read. ‘Take off any wire equipment and hand it to me. If you refuse, I’ll personally strip you naked!’
Virginia hesitated but only for a moment. She turned as far away from me as the car’s interior would allow, with my hand still in place, rummaged in her underwear and handed over the tiny microphone and transmitter Jay had led us to expect. I took them and broke the transmitter. I knew it would emit an immediate distress signal but that didn’t matter. Within five minutes, we were inside a barn and Virginia and I were seated on pallets of straw with a wooden plank between us to form a makeshift table.
‘You said you were going to give yourself up,’ she said, ‘Instead, you’ve just finished whatever career you might ever have contemplated.’
‘I do plan to give myself up – but not for seventy-two hours. I’ve brought you here to work out a deal.’
‘What in God’s name makes you imagine I’d agree to a deal.’
‘To save your career.’
‘How, exactly?’
‘By making sure I don’t publish these.’
I opened my iPad and flicked open an application.
‘Do you remember, Robert Wilshaw?’
Virginia looked at me for a second then for the first time, she seemed to relax.
‘That was years ago. You think you have some kind of hold over me because of Wilshaw. It was all rumour anyway.’
‘No Virginia,’ I said quietly, ‘it wasn’t rumour. You ruined a man’s career and built your own in the process. Let me show you how it might look in a Sunday newspaper, or Online. I’ve picked up a few tips in my time as a journalist.’
I tapped the iPad screen and a picture of Virginia’s St John’s Wood house came on came on. Then I flicked through a sequence of photographs all featuring Virginia in glamorous settings, at garden party at Chequers, on a boat at Cowes with her husband, in a VIP pew at Westminster Abbey and shopping at Harrods.’
‘What’s the point of all this?’ she said sharply.
‘They’re just lifestyle shots,’ I said, ‘to establish a contrast with this man.
I flicked through the next sequence which showed an elderly, grey-haired man, who still looked slightly distinguished but in a shabby rundown way. His lifestyle shots featured a terraced house on an estate in Darlington, a shot of him pushing his grand-daughter on a swing in a bleak looking recreation ground, and shopping at a LoCost convenience store.’
‘Once upon a time,’ I said, ‘those lifestyles might have been similar, well not exactly the same, because you have your husband’s money, but Wilshaw was comfortably off until you trashed his career and left him disgraced, without a pension and a social outcast.’
I didn’t need to say more. It was true several years had passed but I knew every detail would still be burned into Virginia’s memory.
The chairman of a British machine tool company, Michael Metcalf, had been put on trial for breaking an embargo on sales to Iraq by supplying machine tools to the Saddam Hussein regime.
The machine tools were so-called dual use items which could be used equally for military or non-military purposes. The company was doing it with the full approval of the government, but an approval that was expressed only in nods and winks. Throughout, Metcalf had been feeding information to British intelligence and he believed he was acting in the service of his country. Customs and Excise weren’t in on it and they took Metcalf to court. Virginia had been Metcalf’s case handler but when the trial began, her superiors decided the political price for admitting their collusion with him was too high. The government used Public Immunity Certificates to conceal their role in it all and cut the feet out from under Metcalf. He could have got five years in jail but the judge smelled a rat and the trial collapsed. Virginia contrived, very skilfully, to have Wilshaw blamed for the debacle while at the same time protecting her boss.
I gave Virginia few moments to think then I said, ‘no, not rumours and Wilshaw is willing to go public. His wife has died. He’s not afraid of the publicity any more. And he has proof enough to bring you down. You may not end up shopping in LoCost but ‘Queen of the Labyrinth’ won’t be on the agenda.’
Virginia glared at me but didn’t speak immediately. She thought for a moment then said, finally, ‘your hand isn’t strong enough.’
It was the moment I’d been anticipating. For years we had fenced and sparred, always on her terms, arguing in her carefully evasive civil service language. It was time to switch gears.
‘Now listen carefully,’ I said. ‘No more games. It’s truth time now. I’m going to ruin you. Whatever it costs me I’m going to ruin your career, your marriage, your life. I’m going to let the world see what an amoral, unprincipled bitch you really are. I’m not just going to stop you getting the top job, I’m going to make you unemployable. Have a think about that.’
The switch in tone had thrown her as I expected. Our hijack had almost put her into shock but she had thus far managed to stay within her protective shell. No longer.
‘And there’s more,’ I persisted harshly, ‘a lot more. ‘I’ve got a dossier on every cunning little piece of hypocrisy you’ve ever pulled. Your husband is going to love it all, isn’t he? Your lifestyle in St John’s Wood doesn’t come from your government salary. That’s all down to your loving husband.
‘When I’ve finished with you the ‘Accountant for the Risen Christ’ who provides all that luxury is going to wonder who the hell he’s married to. I hope he’s nice and forgiving.’
Suddenly, Virginia started to cry. It was the moment every interrogator knows. The turning point. Sometimes the subject cries, sometimes starts to babble, sometimes going into a kind of trance. I knew I had won.
‘What do you want?’ she said finally, without even a hint of defiance.
‘I told you, I want seventy-two hours.’
‘To do what?’
‘Sort a few things out.’
‘What things?’
‘You don’t need to know for the moment. All you need to know is that if your people, or anyone else’s comes after me or my associates in the next seventy-two hours, you life as you know it is over. Those are the terms.’
‘You know you’re finished after this, whatever happens,’ she said, still tearful, but struggling to regain some kind of dignity.
‘Perhaps, but you worry about your situation. I’ll worry about mine.’
‘You want this pact signed in blood or what?’ she said bitterly.
‘Not necessary,’ I said, ‘I’m a man of my word. You of all people know that honesty has always been my biggest problem.’
Chapter 21
The woman poised on the prow of the motor launch was small, beautifully shaped and completely naked. She paused long enough to capture the attention of everyone on the canal bank and in neighbouring boats, then executed a graceful dive, surfaced and began to swim vigorously round the launch. Seconds later she was joined by a naked man, then two more w
omen and another man who jumped in holding a brightly coloured beach-ball. They formed into two teams and began a game of water polo, cheered on by four more passengers, gathered glasses in hand, on the top deck.
‘I think we have everyone’s attention,’ I said, handing a pair of field glasses to Kate, ‘there’s nothing like a spot of nude swimming to focus everyone’s mind.’
I was in a smaller motor boat, with Kate, Rachel, Chunk and Birdy and I had made it the command post. It was shabby and nondescript, but mercifully air-conditioned as we all had to stay below throughout. With Kate at the wheel we had followed the party boat at a discreet distance. The party-goers had been recruited from among friends in the SAS and the Royal Marine Special Boat Service and their wives and girlfriends. They had no connection with my so-called ‘network’ and they had no idea why they had been invited - at very short notice - to come and hold a rave on a canal in Kent.
If all went according to plan, they would not run into any serious trouble, but if police did try to intervene, I could not risk anyone from my team being found. No-one from the network was visible anywhere. The party boat had been hired in Maidstone, without any subterfuge and paid for by legitimate credit card. Its role was to remain the centre of attention by any means necessary, while Tim, Lottery and four other SAS blades ‘liberated’ a digger.
The preparations had been tense. The drainage contractors were not aware that they had been under surveillance during their entire shift. Our main concern was that it was a Friday. Although it was clear their work on the site was nowhere near completion, there was a chance that company policy would require the digger to be taken off site at the weekend or locked down in some way. Rachel, back now from the Old Bailey, had contacted various hire companies to locate an alternate digger if that should happen. She had managed to find one possible, but arranging the hire and getting it into the forest would be far more complicated than using the one that was already there. In the end, all had gone smoothly up to this point. The drainage contractors had left the site quickly and enthusiastically and had made no attempt to disable the digger. Thirty minutes exactly before the nude swimming party had begun, the digger had disappeared. It had not moved, but one minute it was there, the next minute it was not. The magician’s sleight of hand had been executed using a special forces camouflage net, which Tim had customised to match exactly the foliage around the drainage site.
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