Tango One

by Stephen Leather

  "So I'd be a police officer, but undercover? I'd never be in uniform?"

  "That would be the intention, yes."

  "If I'm not going to Hendon, how would I be trained?"

  "You wouldn't," said Latham.

  "That's the whole point. We don't want you tainted."

  Tainted?"

  "At present undercover operatives are drawn from the ranks," said Latham.

  "We spend years training them to be policemen, then we send them undercover and expect them to act like criminals. It's no wonder it doesn't work. Doesn't matter how long they grow their hair or how they try to blend, they're still policemen acting as criminals. We don't want you to put on an act, Warren. We want you to become a criminal. You already have the perfect cover you have a criminal record. We want you to build on that."

  "I can break the law? Is that what you're saying?"

  For the first time Latham looked uncomfortable.

  "That's not a conversation we should be having," he said, adjusting his cuffs.

  "That'll come later with your handler. I'm here to ask you to take on this assignment. I have a high profile: you know that if you have my word that the Met is behind you one hundred per cent, then you're not going to be left hanging in the wind down the line, if that's not mixing too many metaphors."

  "And if I refuse?"

  Latham grimaced.

  "As I've already said, you'll be an asset to the force. You can start at Hendon tomorrow, just one day late. I'm sure you'll have an exemplary career, but what I'm offering you is a chance to make a real difference."

  Warren nodded.

  "How much time do I have to think about it?"

  Latham looked at the large clock on the wall.

  "I'd like your decision now," said the Assistant Commissioner.

  "If you have to talk yourself into the job, you're not the person that we're looking for."

  "Can I just get one thing straight?" asked Tina, fidgeting with the small gold stud earring in her left ear.

  "Am I joining the Met or not?"

  "Not as a uniformed constable, no," said Assistant Commissioner Latham softly.

  Tears pricked Tina's eyes, but she refused to allow herself to cry, "It's not fair," she said, her lower lip trembling.

  "You shouldn't have lied, Tina. Did you seriously believe we wouldn't find out?"

  "It was a long time ago," said Tina, looking over the senior policeman's shoulder at the tower block opposite.

  "A lifetime ago."

  "And you didn't think that being a prostitute would preclude you from becoming a police officer?"

  "I was fifteen!" she protested.

  Latham sat back in his chair.

  "Which doesn't actually make it any better, Tina. Does it?"

  A lone tear trickled down Tina's cheek. She shook her head, angry with herself for the way she was behaving, but she'd been so looking forward to joining the Met. It was going to be a new start. A new life. Now it had been snatched away from her at the last minute. She groped for her handbag on the floor and fumbled for her cigarettes and disposable lighter.

  "I think this is a non-smoking office," said Latham as she tapped out a cigarette and slipped it between her lips.

  "Fuck you," she hissed, clicking the lighter.

  "I need a fag." She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, then blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling.

  "You knew that if your criminal record came to light, you'd be in trouble," said Latham quietly.

  Tina glared at him.

  "I don't have a criminal record," she spat.

  "I was cautioned for soliciting. Twice. Under a different name. I wasn't even charged."

  "You were a prostitute for more than a year, Tina," said Latham.

  "You were known to Vice. You were known on the streets."

  "I did what I did to survive. I did what I had to do."

  "I understand that."

  "Do you?" said Tina.

  "I doubt it. Do you know what it's like to have to fend for yourself when you're still a kid? To have to leave home because your stepfather spends all his time trying to get into your knickers and your mum's so drunk she can't stop him even if she wants to? Do you know what's it like to arrive in London with nowhere to stay and a couple of quid in your pocket? Do you? I don't fucking think so. So don't sit there in your made-to-measure uniform with your shiny silver buttons and your pimp's fingernails and your pension and your little wife with her Volvo and her flower-arranging classes and tell me that you understand, because you don't."

  Tina leaned forward.

  "Don't think I haven't met your sort before, because I have. Squeaky clean on the outside, pillar of the fucking community, but what you really want is a blow job from an underage girl in the front seat of your car because your little wife hasn't had her mouth near your dick since England won the World Cup."

  She took another long pull on her cigarette. Her hand was shaking and she blew smoke straight at Latham. He didn't react, just kept looking at her through the cloud of smoke.

  Tina closed her eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered.

  "I'd expect you to lash out, Tina," said Latham.

  Tina opened her eyes again. She took another drag on her cigarette, this time taking care to blow the smoke away from the Assistant Commissioner.

  "If I could turn the clock back, I would. But back then, I didn't have a choice," she said. Tina looked around the office, her eyes settling on the large clock on the wall, the red hand ticking away the seconds of her life.

  "You had to bring me here to tell me this, yeah?" she said.

  "You couldn't have written? Or phoned?"

  "I wanted to talk to you."

  She turned to look at him and fixed him with her dark green eyes.

  "You wanted to see me squirm?"

  Latham shook his head.

  "It's not that, Tina."

  "So what is it, then?"

  "I've a proposition for you."

  "I knew it!" Tina hissed.

  "You're all the bloody same. I do it for you, you turn a blind eye to my past. Quid pro fucking quo."

  Latham smiled sadly and shook his head.

  "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm probably the most happily married man you've ever met. Just listen to what I have to say. Okay?"

  Tina nodded. She looked around for an ashtray, but there wasn't one so she stubbed the cigarette out on the underside of the desk, grimacing apologetically.

  "Okay," she said.

  "Your past precludes you from joining the Metropolitan Police as a normal entrant," Latham continued.

  "You can understand why. Suppose you had to arrest someone who knew you from your previous life? Suppose your past became public knowledge? Every case you'd ever worked on would be compromised. It wouldn't matter how good a police officer you were. All that would matter is that you used to be a prostitute. It would also leave you open to blackmail."

  "I know," sighed Tina.

  "I just hoped .. ." She left the sentence hanging.

  "That it would remain a secret for ever?"

  Tina nodded.

  "Pretty naive, yeah?"

  Latham smiled thinly.

  "Why did you apply to join the police, Tina? Of all the jobs that you could have done."

  "Like what? Serving in a shop? Waitressing?"

  "There's nothing wrong with either of those jobs. You can't be afraid of hard work or you wouldn't have applied to join the Met. I've seen your CV, Tina. I've seen the jobs you've done to make a living and the courses you've taken to get the qualifications you never got at school."

  Tina shrugged.

  "Why the police?" Latham asked again.

  "Why not the army? The civil service? Nursing?"

  "Because I want to help people like me. People who were shat on when they were kids."

  "So why didn't you become a social worker?"

  "I want to make a difference. I want to help put away the bastards who b
reak the rules. Who think it's okay to molest kids or steal from old ladies." Tina rubbed the back of her neck with both hands.

  "Why all these questions? You've already said that I can't join the police."

  "That's not what I said," said Latham.

  "I said you couldn't join as a uniformed constable, but there are other opportunities available to you within the force."

  "Washing up in the staff canteen?"

  Latham gave her a frosty look.

  "It's been obvious to us for some time that our undercover operations are being compromised more often than not. The reason for that is quite simple villains, the good ones, can always spot a police officer, no matter how good their cover. Police officers all undergo the same training, and pretty much have the same experiences on the job. It's that shared experience that binds them together, but it also shapes them, it gives them a standard way of behaving, common mannerisms. They become a type."

  Tina nodded.

  "We could always spot Vice on the streets," she said.

  "Stuck out like sore thumbs." She grinned.

  "Thumbs weren't the only things sticking out."

  For a moment Tina thought that the Assistant Commissioner was going to accuse her of flippancy again, but he smiled and nodded.

  "Exactly," he said.

  "So what we want to do is to set up a unit of police officers who haven't been through the standard Hendon training. We need a special sort of undercover officer," said Latham.

  "We need people who have enough strength of character to work virtually alone, people who have enough, how shall I describe it ... life experience ... to cope with whatever gets thrown at them, and we need them with a background that isn't manufactured. A background that will stand up to any scrutiny."

  "Like a former prostitute?"

  "While your background precludes you from serving as a regular officer, it's perfect for an undercover operative," said Latham.

  "The very same contacts that would damage you as a regular officer will be a major advantage in your role under cover."

  "Because no one would ever believe that the Met would hire a former prostitute?"

  Latham nodded.

  "I have to tell you, Tina, it won't be easy. Hardly anyone will know what you're doing; you won't be able to tell anyone, family or friends. So far as anyone will know, you'll be on the wrong side of the tracks."

  "What if anything went wrong?"

  "You'd have back-up," said Latham, 'but that's down the line. What I need now is your commitment to join the unit. Then your handler will take over."

  "Handler? You make me sound like a dog." Trisha grinned.

  "How much does the job pay?"

  "You'll be on the same rate of pay as an ordinary entrant. There'll be regular increases based on length of service and promotion, and overtime. But again, these are details to be worked out with your handler. My role is to demonstrate that your recruitment is desired at a very high level. The highest."

  "Does the Commissioner know?"

  Latham frowned slightly.

  "If you're asking officially, I'd have to say that you'd need to put a question of that nature to the Commissioner's office. Unofficially, I'd say that I wouldn't be here if I didn't have his approval. I'm certainly not a maverick."

  Tina reached over and picked up her pack of cigarettes. She toyed with it, running her fingers down the pack, standing it on each side in turn. She took a deep breath.

  "Okay," she said.

  "I'm in."

  Latham beamed.

  "Good. That's very good, Tina."

  "What happens now?" she asked.

  "You go home. Someone will be in touch." He pushed back his chair and held out his hand.

  "I doubt that we'll meet again, but I will be watching your progress with great interest, Tina."

  Tina shook his hand. It was smooth and dry with an inner strength that suggested he could crush her if he wanted.

  It was a familiar sensation, and Tina struggled to remember what it reminded her of.

  It was only when she was in the lift heading back to the car park that she remembered. One of her first customers had been an obese man with horned-rimmed spectacles with thick lenses who wheezed at the slightest exertion. He'd wanted to take her home, and at first Tina had refused because all the girls on the street where she worked had told her that she was safer staying in the punter's car, but he'd offered her more money and eventually she'd given up and gone with him, only after insisting that he paid up front.

  Home was a two-up, two-down house in East London with stained carpets and bare light bulbs in the light fittings. He'd shown Tina into his front room and stood at the doorway, wheezing as he watched her reaction to the dozens of glass tanks that lined the walls. In the tanks were snakes. All sorts of snakes. Big ones coiled up like lengths of hose pipe small ones that dangled from bare twigs, some asleep, others watching her intently with cold black unfeeling eyes, their tongues flicking in and out.

  The man made Tina give him a blow job in the middle of the room, and he stood there wheezing as she went down on her knees in front of him, her eyes shut tight as she tried to blot out the image of the watching snakes.

  Afterwards, after she'd wrapped the used condom in a tissue and tossed it under one of the tanks, he'd taken out a large python and made her stroke it. At first she'd refused, but then he promised to give her an extra twenty quid so she touched it, gingerly at first. When she realised it wasn't going to hurt her she became more confident and ran her hands down its back. She'd thought it might be wet and slimy but it was cool and dry and she could feel how strong it was, how easily it could crush the life out of her if it should ever coil itself around her. The punter had got all excited at the sight of Tina caressing the snake and had offered her money for some really weird stuff, stuff that Tina didn't like to think about, and she'd rushed out of the house without the twenty pounds he'd promised. Tina shivered at the memory and groped for her cigarettes.

  Assistant Commissioner Latham paced up and down in front of the window.

  "I'm still not convinced that we're doing the right thing here," he said.

  Gregg Hathaway unhooked the clock from the wall and placed it on the table.

  "Morally, you mean?" Hathaway was wearing a dark brown leather jacket, blue jeans and scuffed brown Timberland boots. He had a slight limp, favouring his left leg when he walked.

  Latham gave Hathaway a cold look.

  "I was referring to their training and handling," he said.

  Hathaway shrugged carelessly.

  "It's not really my place to query operational decisions," he said.

  "I leave that up to my masters." He was a short man, thought Latham: even if he didn't have the limp, he wouldn't have been allowed to join the Met. He was well below the Met's height requirements, even though they'd been drastically lowered so as not to exclude Asians. The intelligence services clearly had different criteria when it came to recruiting, and there was no doubting Hathaway's intelligence.

  "They applied to join the police, not MI6," said Latham.

  Hathaway went back to the wall and pulled out a length of wire that had been connected to the small camera in the centre of the clock. The wire led through the wall and up into the ceiling to the video monitor on the floor above, from where Hathaway had watched all three interviews. Latham had been upstairs to check that there was no video recording equipment. Under no circumstances was there to be any record of what had gone on in the office, either on tape or on paper. Officially, the three interviews hadn't taken place. Latham's diary would show that he was in a private meeting with the Commissioner.

  "I suppose you do get a different sort of applicant than we do at Six," said Hathaway, coiling up the wire and placing it on top of the clock.

  "They've been trying to widen the intake, but it's still mainly Oxbridge graduates that get in. Wouldn't get the likes of Cliff Warren applying. Fullerton maybe."

  "I suppose so. How do you
think they'll do?"

  Hathaway ran a hand through his thinning sandy hair.

  "You can never tell. Not until they go undercover. Fullerton's a bit cocky, but that's no bad thing. Warren's probably the most stable of the three, but he's not been put under pressure yet. The girl's interesting."

  "Interesting?"

  "She worked hard to get away from the life she had. Now we're going to send her back. I'm not sure how she'll cope with that. I was surprised that she agreed."

  "I'm not sure that she had much choice." Latham looked at his watch. His driver was already waiting in the car park downstairs and there was no reason for the Assistant Commissioner still to be in the office. No reason other than the fact that he still had misgivings about what he was doing.

  Hathaway put the clock and the wire into an aluminum briefcase and snapped shut the lid.

  "Right, that's me, then." He swung the briefcase off the table.

  "Take care of them," said Latham.

  "I haven't lost an agent yet," said Hathaway.

  "I mean it," said Latham.

  "I know they're not my responsibility, but that doesn't mean I'm washing my hands of them."

  Hathaway looked as if he might say something, but then he nodded curtly and limped out of the room.

  Latham turned and looked out of the window. He had a nagging feeling that he'd done something wrong, that in some way he'd betrayed the three individuals who'd been brought to see him. He'd lied to them, there was no doubt about that, but had he betrayed them? And if he had, did it matter in the grand scheme of things? Or did the ends justify the means? He looked at his watch again. It was time to go.

  Tina wound down the window and flicked ash out. Some of it blew back into the car and she brushed it off the seat.

  "Sorry," she said to the driver.

  He flashed her a grin in the rear-view mirror.

  "Doesn't matter to me, miss," he said.

  "First of all, I'm a forty-a-day man myself. Second of all, it's not my car."

  "You work for the police, right?"

  "Contract," said the driver.

  "Former army, me. Did my twenty years and then they said my services were no longer required."

  Tina took another long pull on her cigarette.

  "Do you want one?" she asked, proffering the pack.

  The driver shook his head.