Today he was returning to his home port with the hold barely half-full of the prized prawns, most of which were snapped up by Spanish buyers before they were landed - the skippers radioed ahead with details of what they had and when they would be landing.
The sun was beating down as he slowly headed for the quayside and he was pleased with the look of his boat. His wife said it was his one true love, and there was some truth in that. Six years ago, he had upgraded his engines to the latest environmentally-friendly ones. While his power output had dropped from 500kw to 400kw, his annual fuel bill had dropped by fifty thousand pounds.
He’d invested some of that money on paintwork and the Jenny now gleamed in a dark blue livery that was a match for the jerseys worn by the Scottish rugby team: his tribute as a proud and passionate Scot.
They’d been at sea for ten days and his phone had been pinging for a while with incoming messages that loaded as they came back in range of the telephone signal. With the boat tied up and his crew supervising unloading, he checked to see who had called him.
As always, his wife had sent him a welcome home text and that was mirrored by ones from his two boys, neither of whom intended to work in the fishing industry. And then, right at the end, one that made his heart turn over.
There were no words, just a yellow sun emoji. He scrolled down and sure enough there were two more, three in total. That meant they had come from the same person. The Courier was back after an absence of years.
The signal meant he needed to be ready to move within three weeks. More information would follow over the next few days, so it seemed he couldn’t have timed his return from the North Sea better.
He’d made a decent living from the prawn business, but it was the work he’d done for the Courier that had made him a wealthy man and made sure his family was well taken care of. It was why his sons were soon heading to America to study degrees in law and medicine respectively.
He didn’t do many jobs for the man, but he was a good payer and had never reneged on his promises. He looked at his crew through the cockpit glass and smiled as he anticipated their pleasure at the news. They too had shared in the bounty over the years.
◆◆◆
Astrid Olsen wiped her greasy hands on her blue boiler suit as she stood up from examining the engine of the dilapidated twenty-foot inshore boat tied up at Stavanger, Norway. While the thick cotton outfit did nothing for her figure, it could do nothing to hide the fact that she looked like a Norse goddess - albeit one with a smudge of oil on her forehead.
She was almost six feet tall, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and her passion was fixing boat engines. It was said that, thanks to her, the hulls of many a fishing boat had worn out long before their propulsion units were ready for the breakers’ yard.
As she went to get back to work her phone pinged with an incoming message. She looked and saw it was a yellow sun emoji. She didn’t realise it but, as she waited, she was holding her breath, so it was fortunate that the next two emoji arrived within twenty seconds.
She’d started to wonder if she would ever hear from him again and was thinking she probably wouldn’t. She wondered what had brought him out of wherever he’d been, but then she shrugged.
The whole point was that she didn’t need to know. Olsen just needed to be ready to move. Within the next forty-eight hours the marine engineer would receive the means by which she could establish communication for what needed to be done.
Like “Big Tommy”, she smiled at the thought of the money that would be heading her way. It had allowed her to remain as a small, independent engineering company at a time when so many were merging to try and save costs.
Olsen was in such a good mood she allowed her two apprentices to go home early, a rare treat as she was normally a stickler for timekeeping, frowning at lateness and normally refusing requests to leave before the time was due.
After tidying up her workshop - it was always immaculate - and making sure everything was in its right place, just as her father had taught her, she headed out. A hot bath and then a lovely dinner, cooked by her husband, awaited. The extra money had allowed him to stay home and pursue his passion as a writer and he loved cooking almost as much as putting words together, so they all benefitted from the extra cash, even if she needed to go on a run every morning.
Olsen arrived at work early the next day. She’d slept well, but had woken before dawn and her busy mind wouldn’t let her get back to sleep - so she had slipped from the bed, enjoyed a coffee in the kitchen and then left to get on with the day’s tasks.
Twenty minutes after arriving she heard the deep throb of a motorbike and went in to her office just as the rider, clad from head to toe in black leather and wearing a black helmet with a black visor that hid his face, walked in with an envelope.
She knew the drill and had her passport in her pocket, which she now handed over to the man who studied it carefully before handing it back along with the envelope. The rider turned and walked out. Seconds later she heard the noise of his bike receding into the distance.
Ripping open the envelope she saw that it contained a sheet of paper with five numbers on. Olsen memorised them, and then burned the piece of paper. Over the next few days she would receive two more envelopes with the rest of the numbers.
The left-hand drawer of the office desk was locked and had been for almost ten years, but she needed to open it now to check the contents. Olsen kept the small key on her main keyring and now she opened the drawer. Inside were the pre-paid phones she had bought a decade ago.
Happy that all appeared well, Olsen relocked the drawer. Tonight, she would be taking three of the phones home to charge them up. Her apprentices were about to get another lucky break by being sent home early.
When she had the whole number, it would allow her to phone a similar pre-paid device being held by the Courier. The instructions were to wait twenty-four hours from the exact time of the third delivery, and then Olsen would get her instructions and be told about her payment.
She knew that the Courier could have achieved better security using an encrypted app, but she also knew that he liked to do things in a slightly old-fashioned way, and who was she to argue with methods that obviously worked?
◆◆◆
An hour later, and almost four hundred miles away across the North Sea, another black-clad motorcyclist had arrived at Big Tommy’s modern five-bedroom house on the outskirts of Peterhead.
He was fast asleep, catching up after ten days of snatching a few hours here and there, but his wife was forewarned. She produced both their passports and the rider nodded once as he accepted her identity and handed over the envelope.
As she went into the kitchen to make a fresh cup of tea, nearly 600 miles away in London the Courier was going over his plans yet again. He had received text messages from the riders to say the packages had been delivered so he knew the network he needed was activated.
He tried not to have favourites, but he thought the two he was using for this job were probably the pick of his team. They were the first people he had thought of when this job had come to him, and he was confident they would not let him down.
There was also a third team getting ready to move. They had more specialised skills, since their job was to retrieve the stash of weaponised plutonium and ensure it was ready for transportation. If they left a trail of radiation behind them then the whole plan would crumble like a pack of cards. Now he had to wait for the location of the stash, although he had been given a general idea, in a rural spot in central France - so that he could make proper calculations of the necessary travelling time.
It had been agreed that, once the plutonium arrived in London, the bomb assembly should begin straight away. It would be a dirty bomb, meaning relatively less destruction to allow for more radiation. He certainly had no intention of being anywhere near the capital in just a few weeks from now.
The rest of the equipment, along with the technicians needed, was being brought in by So
kolov, with Yebedev having already arranged accommodation and a work space over to the west of London.
They wanted the prevailing winds to spread radiation over as wide a range as possible, and it was hoped that the money-making machine that was the City of London would get a massive and unwelcome dusting.
As the Courier understood it, detonation would depend on whether a ransom demand was met. He assumed that, faced with catastrophe, the government would pay up, but he had no way of knowing.
But there was one thing that was totally certain. There would be a massive manhunt for the people behind the plan and, while he had been giving a lot of attention to delivering his part of the bargain, he was starting to think about his own survival.
During his years of success, he had remained out of sight and below the radar. He doubted he would be able to do that much longer, but that’s why he sweated the details. He needed to vanish without a trace.
Chapter 45
“We’re aiming to do the switch in ten days from now, so you will need to be in Stavanger on Monday week. I will have had the package delivered by then and I’m hoping to have it sitting around for as short a time as possible.”
Judging by the quality of the line, Big Tommy thought it sounded as though the Courier was out of the country. There was a slight delay, which meant they had tripped over each other speaking. They’d resolved that by leaving a long pause when they each finished.
“From what you are saying so far, I’m getting the impression that this is pretty portable.”
That pause; then, unusually for the Courier, a short laugh.
“If it’s you doing the lifting, it will be child’s play. I haven’t actually seen it yet, but I am told the package is the size of a large suitcase and weighs in at about fifty pounds - so quite a bit for ordinary mortals, nothing to you.”
“That’s good to know, and I will do it myself; the other lads are no slouches, but it wouldn’t do to drop it in the harbour.”
This time the silence at the end of the line carried on for quite a while.
“It would be a disaster if that happened.”
“No worries - that’s why I said I would carry it myself. By the way, you haven’t said what is in the package. I am assuming this is one of those need to know occasions.”
“It is for the best that I am not telling you, and very much in your interest that your name never becomes associated with it. I can assure you will be quite safe while it is in your possession. For the remainder of this operation this is the last time we shall speak. As we were talking I arranged the first payment to you and the second will come when the job is done.
“I am adding one new thing. I don’t anticipate any problems, but it would be foolish not to have a plan. In the event that things go out of control you will receive a single yellow emoji. If that happens you are to abort and make no attempt to contact me.
“You will still be paid, but I will have judged there were too many risks to see the job through. Now, quickly go through the plan for the last time and then we can both go about our business.”
“I will be close to the Norwegian coastline the Friday after next. I will report an ongoing mechanical problem and request I be allowed to dock for work to be carried out by Astrid Olsen. I will explain I know her from previous work.
“From Olsen I will pick up the package and return to Peterhead, aiming to arrive on the Tuesday morning. I won’t report in my catch and say I have already sold it to a private buyer. Once docked in Scotland, the package will be in the third load to be taken out of the hold.
“Two men dressed in working gear will approach and say they are there to collect the load for a Mr. Taylor. They will take the package and my role is done.”
◆◆◆
The clock started ticking even faster than the Courier had expected, and it very nearly caused disaster. The details of where the plutonium was buried came in via Moscow on the same day he had spoken to Big Tommy and Olsen.
It turned out his team was only thirty miles from the location, in the grounds of an abandoned farm outside Limoges. It was an amazing coincidence that gave him slight pause for thought, as though things were lining up too smoothly; but he put the idea aside.
The pick-up team assured him they could reach the location, retrieve the package and be gone while it was still daylight. As it turned out they had overestimated their ability, and the Courier had allowed himself to become distracted and didn’t challenge them.
It took them far longer to find the package than they had anticipated, and it was fully dark by the time they pulled it from the ground, having had to dig out five big holes before they got what they were looking for.
They had just put all the equipment away when they saw headlights in the far distance. They started getting closer and it was soon obvious it was a vehicle approaching along the farm track. To their horror a police car pulled up and two officers got out.
The gendarmes had been alerted by a local man who was out foraging and had spied the pick-up team frantically digging away in the yard of the abandoned farm. Armed with a vivid imagination, he had deduced it was bank robbers returning to pick up their loot and had phoned the police emergency number.
The duty inspector had almost let it go without taking action but then changed his mind and sent a patrol car. Now the two officers were challenging the four men standing in the yard to put their hands up. The pick-up team were frozen in the harsh glare of the spotlights on the police car.
Unfortunately for the officers, a fifth man was just out of sight, having gone to relieve himself before they set off on the long drive north. He had sneaked unobserved to the back of the van, where he now produced a Kalashnikov rifle.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped out and started firing. He was ex-Special Forces, so seconds later both young officers fell dead to the ground. There was no time for hanging around and the pick-up team piled into their van and set off.
Had the police reacted sharply they might have intercepted the van, but it was forty-five minutes before a back-up car was sent and another thirty minutes lost before the alarm was raised, which was more than enough time for the pick-up team to be safely on their way. Because of the darkness, there was more delay in identifying the tyre tracks that proved they were looking for a van.
In London the Courier had received the news apparently calmly, but his misgivings instantly returned as he learned of the narrow escape. However, cancelling the operation would now be hugely problematic, as they no longer had the option of returning the plutonium to its original hiding place.
For better or worse, the delivery was on its way to Stavanger and, depending on road conditions and how many breaks they took, it would be there sometime in the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours.
He thought hard. He had a safe-house in Belgium; he would get the team to rest up there for five days. Otherwise the package would be spending too long in one place in Stavanger. It meant more changes on the hoof, but he felt there was little choice.
The Courier even revisited the overall scheme and considered bringing in the plutonium via an English Channel crossing, but he stuck to his plans. There was too much security and technology that way; it increased the risks.
He briefly thought about informing Olsen of the changes he had made but decided against it. The way this was going he might have to make more changes and he didn’t want her thinking the plan was unravelling. That might worry her and risk her making a mistake.
Forcing himself into a positive state of mind, he reasoned that, although there had been a very narrow escape, the package was on its way and if there were no more problems it would be in London in twelve days’ time. After that it wasn’t his problem; once the delivery was confirmed he would be booking a flight to Mexico.
◆◆◆
Three days after the murder of the two gendarmes, a French news agency received a call from a man who claimed to have alerted the police to what was going on at the farmhouse. He was put on to a
reporter and, clearly excited at talking to a journalist, launched into a garbled account of what he had seen.
The reporter was only half-listening. Having to talk to “crazy people” came with the territory and she was inclined to lump this in with all the other examples she had heard over the years. She was about to butt in and wish him a polite but firm goodbye when he said something that jolted her out of her boredom.
“I’m terribly sorry, but could you repeat that last bit? There was a funny noise on the line and I only half heard you. I thought you said something about space suits.”
The excitement on the other end of the line hit fever pitch.
“That is what I said. Remember I was a long way away, and even with my binoculars I couldn’t see it clearly, but there seemed to be two men in spacesuits.”
The reporter could see the beginning of a plan. “Could I just double check all your details again - you know, your name and telephone number; and do you have a picture of yourself you could email over?”
Half an hour later she was looking at a very clear photo of her star witness. To her relief he looked, with an open and honest face, like the sort of man who could be trusted even if he was saying something outlandish.
She approached her editor. He’d recently been muttering about the need to generate more “clickbait” news stories. She had just the thing for him.
One of the first people to see the story was the Courier. He valued information, so had set up a search alert for “Limoges” and “murder”. When his laptop alerted him he had something, he read the story and then picked up the phone.
Chapter 46
Thanks to the wonder that is the Internet, the story had morphed from a relatively sedate, if eye catching, “Witness claims to have seen spacemen at scene of shooting” to the rather more arresting “Aliens slay cops”.
Unsurprisingly, the latter was the version that was being aired on social media and inevitably being picked up by newspapers all over the world. It was rapidly turning into a global “silly season” story and an account mocking the claim appeared in the print edition of the London Evening Standard.
(Jonathan Roper Investigates Boxset Page 60