by Tom Marcus
‘Ops, I’m fine. Just a couple of drunks trying to mug me. No issues or injuries and I’m backing from a distance.’ He gives me a nod that tells me he understands he put us in a difficult position, and that he recognizes the effect it had on me. He wants to forget what has just happened. I hope I can.
I give him a nod back to say thanks, but the truth is, I’m worried. I was acting out a fantasy, not behaving like a professional. If they hadn’t stopped me, I know I would have killed those guys. And Craig and Ryan know it too.
‘Ops, roger, Alex, back to you.’
‘Alex, roger, they’re relaxed and still continuing westbound past the gym on Parkway, generally westbound towards Regent’s Park.’
Shit, things have moved on quickly since our little detour. I need to get back to the car and back in the game. The brothers have too many transport options now they’re in Camden and we need every available body ready to go with them. I drive like a maniac through crowded streets to catch up.
‘That’s Iron Sword and Stone Fist now one hundred metres from the north-east corner of Regent’s Park.’
‘Roger that, Alex. You have Riaz on the north-west corner ready to react.’
‘Logan has the south-east corner,’ I add, just in time, as I pass the stately white mansions opposite the park.
‘Roger, thanks guys, starting to get busier as we get closer.’ It’s like a concertina – in and out, giving them enough room, then closing in so we don’t lose them.
‘Ops, message.’ Alex gives Leyton-Hughes permission to pass a message as the first drops of rain start to hit my windscreen. ‘Just an update on the unidentified male found dead in the park earlier this morning. Through various contacts we have initial police forensics showing nothing on cause of death. It’s still being treated as unexplained. Ops out.’
‘Roger that. Guys, if they keep going south in the park, they’ll exit close to Regent’s Park tube station. It would be easy for these two to disappear.’ Alex is right, I’m in a position to go with, but knowing these tricky bastards, they’ll split up or draw us into the station and then exit again into the park. I’m starting to think we can’t handle this. But neither can we afford to let them go. Talk about a rock and a hard place.
‘Roger that, Alex, I’ll be in a position to react at the tube.’
‘Claire likewise.’
Conscious I’m starting to show out, I decide it’s time to look for a new parking space. But too much driving about also looks unnatural and draws the eye. As I hesitate, I look over and see the brothers emerging from the park, mingling casually with tourists and office workers who are blissfully unaware that they are sharing a stroll with two dead men.
‘I’ve got the entrance to the tube,’ Claire murmurs, but it takes me a moment to spot her. No longer the tired mum-to-be, she’s wearing old jeans and a woolly hat as she smokes and chats with an old geezer handing out the free papers.
‘Alex, roger that, thanks, if they go towards the tube I’ll let them run to you.’
If they do get on the tube then I may be out of the game. It’s a tense few moments as I wait for the next update from Claire.
‘Claire, they’ve gone past the tube. Both targets taking long looks back now. There’s a ton of people out here so I’m good to stay with it, but can we keep leapfrogging ahead of them?’
Everyone responds instantly. You can’t presume where a target is going, so you cover the choke points and try and be agile enough to react to whatever they do. We’ve still got them under control.
‘That’s a right right and west, now out of the park on Marylebone Road towards the junction of Harley Street.’ Alex is still in control but she’ll be looking to hand over to someone else quickly now. The majority of the people walking south through the park turned towards the tube, so she’ll start to stand out if she follows the brothers. But before anyone can offer to change with Alex, she gets back on the net again. ‘SPLIT SPLIT, Stone Fist has gone left and south one street before Harley Street. Iron Sword is at Harley Street junction now and followed that left and south. They have split on parallel roads.’
‘Ops, roger, stay on Iron Sword, Harley Street is more open, be careful now, team.’
Bollocks. Here we go again. The brothers only ever split up when they are doing something operational. This could just be a counter-surveillance move, but it’s starting to feel like a recce to me. We’ll have to ride it out and see.
I cross the busy Marylebone Road and ditch the car near the bottom end of Harley Street. Unless they’re going to double back to the tube station, I can help out better on foot.
‘Alex, let him run to me, I’ve got the junction of Devonshire Road, which is the first set of crossroads he’ll get to. We’ll have to box him in while Stone Fist is out of sight.’
‘Roger,’ she whispers back. Iron Sword is studying the buildings on both sides of the street. What’s he looking for? These streets are full of private surgeries, high-end doctors, the type of place celebrities and people with serious money go to for treatment. Not the sort of street you find two terrorists planning a mass-murder event.
‘Logan has control of Iron Sword on the east side, walking south on Harley Street. He’s studying every building as he goes past; Ops, acknowledge.’
‘Ops, roger, and for information we have no linked addresses on Harley Street.’
I’m getting more and more uneasy. What the fuck are they doing here? ‘Roger that, and stations that’s a STOP STOP STOP at Harley Street on the east side, at what looks like a cut-through. Any vehicle call signs confirm this?’
‘Yeah, Logan, the cut-through leads to the road Stone Fist turned down.’
‘Roger, thank you, and yep that’s Stone Fist now re-joining Iron Sword, exchanging words and now on a reciprocal route back northbound on Harley Street towards Regent’s Park again.’
What wouldn’t I give to know what they just said to each other. Now I’m convinced it was a recce. But it’s hard to believe they are targeting a private clinic on Harley Street.
Two questions we need answers to: did Iron Sword find the address he was looking for? And what the hell was inside? If he’d clearly indicated one address, we might have a chance of finding out, but with the whole of Harley Street to search we’ve got no chance. Right now, all we can do is follow them to see where else they go, and my gut tells me that’s back to the house.
As the brothers walk the exact same route back, we each have to remember which roads we’ve used, either walking or driving, so we don’t repeat. If the brothers have spotters along the route they’ll ping our team returning again, and they’ll know they’re being watched.
Riaz takes most of the control, following them through side streets and allowing us all to get back to our cars. As I manoeuvre through the maze of alternative streets, I see a police van outside the door where we’d left the two animals that attacked the woman. I hope they’re not too late to arrest them for sexual assault. And I hope the woman they attacked gets the help she needs. As for the brothers, it’s pretty clear they’ve completed their recce and are now doing a full route back to the address they left on Agar Grove.
‘That’s both targets now into the same address they left earlier,’ Riaz confirms.
‘Ops. Do you read Logan?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘Boss, now we have them securely at this address, this has got to be our opportunity to stop them. We might not get another chance.’
There’s a long pause before Leyton-Hughes responds, and I can sense the rest of the team weighing up the implications of my words. Hopefully they’ll see I’m right.
‘That’s a negative, Logan.’
Jeremy’s short response has pissed me off big time. I can’t hold my tongue.
‘We’ve got to grab the opportunity while it’s still there. That what we’re here for—’
‘I repeat, negative, Logan. I’m arranging for another team to take over through back channels. I can’t risk exposing Blind
eye any further.’
I can’t believe this. ‘But that is risking exposing the team! How can you pass on the brothers’ location and what they’ve been doing without revealing the source of the information? We’re supposed to be completely isolated from MI5. I just don’t—’
But Leyton-Hughes has had enough. ‘Just leave that to me. All A4 teams are out on other operations, but the DG is going to square things so an armed police CTU takes over from you guys. If and when the opportunity presents itself, they will go into this address and arrest them. You guys aren’t equipped or trained for house assaults. Team, further to that, the police obviously don’t know you’re out there. As soon as you see them plotting-up around the address, pull out and get yourselves home.’
Home.
I park at the end of the street, my eyes fixed on the house on Agar Grove where the brothers are plotting their next move while we wait for the undercover police counterterrorism unit to move into the area. My head feels as if it’s about to explode. Is the reason I don’t want to go home because I haven’t got a home to go to? Is it because I want us to go in and finish the job, to take revenge on someone for Sarah and Joseph? Or is the burning feeling in my gut a growing conviction that Leyton-Hughes isn’t running this new team properly?
14
The first car of the police CTU rolls into the area. Then the next, and another, until the whole team of more than ten cars has driven past the end of the street to eyeball the address and check where the associated car is parked. I’m presuming this is be the surveillance part of the team, before they bring in the guys who’ll eventually knock the door down. The CTUs are good, probably among the best police surveillance teams in the world. But not MI5 good. We would never put all our team close in at the start of a job. It makes the area red hot. The car that was second past the address returns to get a direct position on the house. A dark-blue BMW 530, six months old, just been washed and polished by the look of it. Driven by a white male, mid-thirties, wearing a black waterproof jacket.
None of the police teams react to any of us close in, which either means our positioning is spot on and we’ve blended into the environment perfectly, or the police just aren’t aware of their surroundings yet. Without any fuss, I move out of my position, taking a longer route than normal to leave the area to make sure I don’t drive past too many of the covert police teams.
‘Ops, from Logan, CTU is in the area. They have someone direct.’ Hopefully my neutral tone of voice doesn’t betray the feelings churning inside of me.
‘Roger, team – cease and withdraw.’
As the team all acknowledge, I can sense relief that we are about to get some down time coupled with an uneasiness about giving up control. On the drive back north towards the camp, my doubts about everything that’s happened start to spiral out of control. Was killing Khalid even necessary? Was it the only way of getting us to this point? Now that the momentum of the hunt for the brothers has gone, the thought that I’m now responsible for killing three people starts to bear down on me, crushing me with remorse. My wife and son died because I wasn’t there to protect them; Khalid died because I was told to kill him. But was Leyton-Hughes just tapping into my sense of guilt, knowing it was what I wanted to do?
The drive seems like the longest three hours I’ve experienced in a long time. I try everything I can think of to keep the morbid thoughts out of my head. Loud music, windows all the way down – anything to stem the avalanche of images and what-ifs. The mind is a dangerous place and I don’t want to get trapped in mine. But however much I try and focus on the road ahead or the sting of the freezing air on my face, I can’t get the images out of my head: choking the last breaths out of Khalid’s jerking body; Sarah being attacked by the thugs in the bedsit and me unable to stop them because I can’t let go of Khalid. It’s like some awful nightmare – except I’m 100 per cent awake and aware that this is madness. I try and blink the images away, but the truth is I don’t want to stop seeing her; it makes me feel she’s reaching out to me, somehow. I just wish I could see her smiling and happy – not like this, screaming and afraid.
I’m not far away from the camp, but I have to stop. I can’t arrive like this. My face would give away what’s going on in my head. I can’t risk it. I park up in a little village ten miles from camp. It feels a million miles away from the city we’ve just come from, with all of its threats and dangers. A row of local shops: butcher’s; bakery; fishmonger; sweetshop; a bookshop just off to my left. Everything suggests a close-knit community, where neighbours all look out for each other. The sort of place we all dream about living in. It’s hard to imagine anyone plotting mass murder here.
Getting out of the car, the evening air is crisp, and already I can feel my heart rate lowering and my head clearing. For some reason, the bookshop draws my eye again; it looks empty, maybe that’s why it stands out.
I peer in the window and see that there are no glossy piles of bestsellers; in fact, most of the books on display look second-hand. I try and read the titles, wondering why I am even looking at a bookshop, since I never read books. I must look as if I’m in need of something, as an elderly lady in a light-blue cardigan opens the door and waves me in with a smile.
I walk in and inhale the smell of yellowing paper and old leather. A gentle heat comes from a small log burner in the corner. The shop is tiny, hardly big enough for a dozen people to browse in comfortably, but the floor-to-ceiling shelves, crammed with books, give the impression that you could find anything you were looking for and, thanks to the burner, there’s the cosy warmth of a farmhouse kitchen. Still smiling, the woman places a familiar hand on my shoulder and I try not to flinch. I’m instantly drawn to her but uncomfortable with her gentle touch. Someone is being nice to me; it’s the last thing I deserve, especially from a complete stranger. I shrug off her hand on the pretext of going over to warm my hands at the log burner. ‘At least you’re not going to run out of things to chuck on the fire to keep warm,’ I say with a grin, trying to compensate for my rudeness.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ she replies, walking stiffly behind me to a high-backed chair, where a black and white cat sits, purring contently. She gently scoops up the cat and sits down. ‘I’d rather freeze to death than burn any of these books. One of them might be just the one you’re looking for.’
I give her a puzzled look. ‘What makes you think I’m looking for something?’ I say, then instantly think what a stupid fucking question it is. Why else would I be looking into her shop? But she seems to take the question seriously.
‘I could tell, from the way you were staring through the window.’ She gets up from the chair, wincing a little. The cat quickly seizes the opportunity to reclaim its place. Before I can stop her, she takes my hands in hers and looks into my face, her brow furrowed as if she’s trying to read my mind. Instinctively, I try and shut down my thoughts, afraid of what she’ll find there, but, stupid as it sounds, I feel as if it won’t do any good, that she can see right inside me. A small expression of pain moves across her face – whether it’s a twinge of arthritis or because she’s just had a glimpse of my nightmares, I don’t know. But then she smiles a sad, gentle smile, and says, ‘I think you’ve lost something too, haven’t you, dear?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what . . .’
But she’s not listening to my awkwardly mumbled answer. She turns away to the shelf behind her and starts to run her finger along the dusty spines, as if there’s something in particular she’s looking for.
‘Ah, here we are.’ She pulls out a fat volume with a faded green cover and looks at it warmly, like an old friend she hasn’t seen in a long time, then holds it out to me.
Wisdom from the World’s Great Religions.
I try not to laugh. In my job, you tend to be a bit sceptical about the wisdom of the world’s great religions. In fact, you might be forgiven for thinking we’d all be a lot better off without any of them. But she seems so sincere, I don’t want to upset her.
>
‘I . . . er, I’m not really the religious type, if you know what I mean.’
‘Oh, I quite understand. I was brought up by nuns, you see. Very strict! They put me off religion for a long time. But you never know when it can come back into your life. And there’s something for everyone in this book, dear, whatever it is you’re looking for. If you’re having a hard time trying to make sense of things, I’ll bet you the answer is in here somewhere.’
I don’t know what to say. She seems like a sweet but rather dotty old lady, who probably says the same thing to everyone who comes into her shop, but on the other hand I can’t shake the feeling that she’s genuinely seen my pain – that she understands it. I certainly don’t want to offend her by telling her what she can do with her book.
I take it from her. ‘Oh, OK. Thanks. How much is it?’
‘Oh, nothing. It’s a bit battered, you see. But the words are all still there,’ she adds with a twinkle.
‘Come on,’ I insist, pulling a crumpled fiver from my pocket. ‘This is a bookshop, isn’t it? How are you going to make any money if you give them away?’
She shakes her head. ‘Read it and bring it back. Hopefully it will have done its job and then I can pass it on to someone else who needs it.’
‘Err, yeah, OK, sounds good.’ I try to clear the lump that’s quickly developing in my throat. ‘Thank you. And I’ll definitely bring it back, I promise.’
‘After you’ve read it,’ she scolds, with a mock-stern expression.
‘Yeah, absolutely.’
I give her one last awkward smile then dash out of the cosy warmth into the chill of the early evening, not sure which one of us is crazier.
‘See you soon,’ she says, over the tinkling of the bell above the door.
Opening the passenger door, I place the book on the seat like it’s a box of tarantulas I don’t want to sit too close to and move round to the driver’s side. As soon as I’m out of the village, I’ll chuck it over the nearest hedge, I tell myself. But I know I won’t. Sarah would give me hell. Starting the ignition, I can feel a tear crawling its way down my cheek, followed by another. That mad old bat might have just given me a tattered old book no one else in their right mind would buy, but the generosity behind the gesture was unmistakable, and it’s knocked me sideways.