by Gulvin, Jeff
They sat opposite one another in the canteen, two large paper cups of coffee steaming between them. Harrison looked at Swann across the table. ‘The Cub called me up last night.’
‘And?’
Harrison sat back, drumming his fingers on the table. ‘This is strictly between you and me, Jack. It goes any further and other people could get compromised.’
‘So why’re you telling me, then?’
‘Touché, duchess.’ Harrison’s face creased into a grin. ‘You can’t even tell Logan.’
‘No problem. What is it?’
Harrison’s features sharpened again. ‘Ben Dubin’s a CIA agent.’
Swann stared at him.
Harrison told him what The Cub had said.
‘How does he know?’
‘Told you before, bubba. He’s got the inside track. Kinda missions he goes on, he needs to know what’s cutting and what ain’t. Life depends on it, Jack.’
Swann thought hard. ‘ISA?’
‘He used to be very active. Probably still is. Jack, think of the access he gets with a background like that. Think of his job right now.’
‘And who he knows.’
‘No kidding.’ Harrison sat back again and sipped his coffee.
‘So where does that leave us?’
‘I don’t know.’ Harrison flapped a hand. ‘All I want is the sucker’s ass who fucked me.’
‘But Dubin could be Storm Crow, Harrison.’
‘He could be, yeah.’
‘And if he is, then maybe the CIA know about it.’
‘That’s possible too.’
Swann sat back. ‘The MI6 tip-off. Jesus Christ, Harrison.’
‘You got that right.’ Harrison sipped at his coffee and arched his eyebrows. ‘Between us, bro. Got it?’
Swann poked himself in the chest with his thumb. ‘You think I’m going to broadcast this?’
Logan walked into the refectory then, spotted them and hurried over. ‘That’s where you’re at. Jesus, since you two kissed and made up, you’re about inseparable.’
‘D’you want some coffee?’ Swann asked her.
‘No, I don’t want coffee. I want you guys upstairs right now.’
‘Both of us?’ Harrison looked incredulous. ‘At the same time?’
‘Kiss my ass, baby.’ She cracked a long polished fingernail against the surface of the table. ‘I think we’ve found where Chucho Mannero fits in.’
Upstairs, one of the intelligence analysts handed Swann and Harrison a copy of a thin, paper file. It was headed up United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York City and dated 23 November 1981. Swann furrowed his brow. Fuerzas Armadas de Liberation National Puertorriquena. (Armed Forces For Puerto Rican National Liberation or FALN.)
‘That’ll give you some background,’ Logan explained. ‘The important factor is this: Chucho Mannero was Puerto Rican, FALN. He didn’t leave the island until 1978—where he had been a Machetero; a machete-wielding, independence-seeking, bad guy.’ She looked to the door of the conference room, where Kovalski now stood with his arms folded. ‘The FALN were active on the mainland United States from 26th October, 1974. It’s all in the document there. They bombed various sites in various cities—New York, Chicago, Philadelphia. In 1978, we popped Willie “Fingers” Morales for the first time. He was making a pipe bomb and it went off prematurely, blowing off most of his hands. You’d think that’d be enough to get a guy to hospital, but Willie is still tearing FALN documents up with his teeth, when the NYPD show up.’ She leaned against the back of a chair. ‘Anyways, for a while after that, there was a threat to break the leaders out of jail, which we took very seriously. In 1982, we had Henrique Valentin, one of the main bomb-makers, on Rikers Island, New York. He’d worked with “Fingers” Morales before, and the FALN were trying to bust him out, so we had him moved around the country.’ She paused for a moment. ‘He’s out now, only served ten years. But one of the facilities we shipped him to was Ellis Island Correctional Center.’
Harrison stared across the desk at her. ‘Where Chucho Mannero was serving time,’ he said.
24
THE UK SECURITY SERVICES kept up their surveillance on Jorge Vaczka’s gang, as well as The Regiment. Resources were stretched thin and officers were working round the clock. Webb and McCulloch co-ordinated the movement of teams and a fixed observation point was set up in the Highbury warehouse. On the Monday afternoon, following Vaczka’s meeting with Collier, Stahl and Jeconec arrived at the lock-up unit with a van. The information was relayed back to the Yard and an SO19 firearms team immediately deployed to Highbury.
Stahl and Jeconec backed the van right into the garage and began shifting the old carpet and papers and everything else to one side. Then they started to hoist the guns into the back of the van. They followed that with the papers from the cabinets, before throwing the carpet over what was left and slamming the van doors. Webb and McCulloch were outside the warehouse, two streets away, running parallel. Every move the Poles made was relayed to them by the observation team. The Poles drove the van out of the garage, rolled the door shut and left the warehouse. They were vigilant, but obviously preferred to do this in the daytime, when suspicion would not be aroused. The surveillance teams followed them south through London, down to the Angel from Highbury, then to Old Street and the City, before crossing the river on Tower Bridge. They took the South Circular Road, heading west.
Webb drove, McCulloch next to him. ‘Wimbledon?’ Webb said. ‘In the middle of the day?’
Stahl and Jeconec drove on, bypassing Wimbledon, and headed south on the A3 carriageway. At Guildford they took the right fork, the road for Farnham and across the Hog’s Back hill. The firearms team were now part of the surveillance, their orders to detain the Poles when they got to wherever they were going. Webb relayed that order to the firearms team leader in the lead Range Rover. Messages crackled back and forth over the radio, the lead car falling back to allow another to take over. The rest of the convoy were still some way back, but bunching now and gathering pace, in order to close the gap. The Poles might pull off the road at any of the towns or villages they passed through.
At Farnham they did turn off. Webb received the message and the firearms team moved up. Webb and McCulloch were right on the tail of the second SO19 Range Rover, and they speeded up, blue lights on now, but no sirens, still two miles back from the motorcycle courier who had eye contact. The Poles pulled into a side street, which narrowed where the flow of traffic was calmed, before widening out again and leading them into an industrial estate. ‘This is it,’ Webb said to McCulloch, as they heard the directions given.
Stahl slowed for a mini-roundabout, Jeconec checking his side mirror as he had done all the way from London. ‘I don’t know why we’re doing this,’ he said. ‘Vaczka’s worrying about nothing.’
Stahl looked sideways at him. ‘I don’t think so. That Collier is unpredictable. If he gets pulled, we’ve got no way of knowing what he’ll do. Better to be safe than sorry.’ They crossed the next intersection and slowed for an articulated lorry that was pulling out of the gates to a builder’s yard on the left-hand side. Behind them, the Range Rover was lead car now. Jeconec glanced at it; three men inside. He frowned, then looked forward again as Stahl pulled round the lorry and turned right to the self-storage units. The firearms team took the left turn. Webb’s car drove past the lock-up, which was similar to the one they had in London, only not enclosed inside a warehouse. Stahl, the blond-haired hard man, was fiddling with the key to the padlock. Jeconec had moved to the driver’s seat and was spinning the van round so they could back it up to the door.
The firearms team deployed, two of them initially; clad in jeans, long jackets and soft-soled boots. Leaving the cars, they walked down towards the unit where Jeconec had the van parked with the back doors open. Webb and McCulloch were parked round the corner, ready to come up as soon as the all-clear was given by the SO19 team leader. The first two officers w
ere armed only with handguns. The rest would mobilize when they drew level with the garage. The Poles were busy, lifting boxes between them and stowing them into the lock-up, oblivious to two long-jacketed men making their way down the street towards the hamburger stand on the corner. Webb listened to the radio and waited.
Stahl could feel the first threads of sweat on his brow, though the day was cold. The boxes were heavy and there were a number of them. He looked over Jeconec’s shoulder, and saw two men, laughing about something as they drew level with the front of the van. He backed into the garage, Jeconec on the other side of the box. They set it down with a mutual grunt and straightened up again.
‘ARMED POLICE. STAND STILL.’
Stahl stared in disbelief at the two men training automatic pistols on them. Moments earlier they had been bareheaded, but now they wore black baseball caps with the chequered banding of the police. Stahl froze, half lifting his hands, and watched as four more officers, each carrying an MP5 carbine, leapt out of the black Range Rover that pulled up next to the van. The officer who had shouted took a pace forward. He held his pistol one-handed now, and his eyes were fixed on Stahl’s.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Do exactly as I say.’
They did; they had no choice, each staring into the six gun barrels. Behind them was all the firepower they could ever need, but they could not get to it. They were forced to drop on to their knees, arms outstretched, then fall forward on to their hands, before lying prostrate on the cold concrete. People were watching them now, from the hamburger stand, from the upstairs windows of the offices around them. They were secured with plastic handcuffs and handed over to the arrest team.
Webb and McCulloch searched the boxes and discovered an array of Eastern European weapons, including Gyurza pistols, and the Vikhr submachine guns. Webb looked Stahl in the eye as he was being bundled towards an arrest car. ‘Private collection, is it?’ he asked.
Stahl said nothing, his mouth was twisted and set, eyes betraying no emotion. He was placed in one car, and Jeconec, his eyes troubled, was placed in another.
Special Agent Combes, the secret service liaison at the US Embassy, slit the seal on the large envelope that had come across in the diplomatic pouch that morning. He spread the papers on his desk and read the report from his counterpart in Washington. The motorcycle inventory that Special Branch had furnished him with was a fake—fake in that the sale had never happened, the parts did not exist and the values on the notice of receipt were deliberately missing zeros. The same thing had been seen in the United States, all of them transactions between various motorcycle groups. TCX was indeed a third-party financial clearinghouse, and the banking link was with Mexico. He looked further, sipping at a cup of hot coffee, which steamed on the desk before him. His counterpart had drawn up a spread sheet for him, showing the links that the production orders, so far received, had thrown up. Separate amounts of money going through the account and into the Banco De California in San Antonio. TCX had paid over $1,200,000 to a total of six different companies, which had been traced back to three main holding companies, two in the US and one in the UK, that were owned by The Regiment. He sat back and scratched his nose, then he began to follow the trail going the other way, sensing great excitement in the words written from Washington. The trail was far from clear, but the UK link had allowed the US Secret Service to look at the Mexican bank from a different angle, and a number of new leads had arisen. One of them became apparent when tracing the electronic transfers into TCX and its subsidiaries from different parts of the world. Companies from Poland, from the British Virgin Islands, from Jamaica, and one from London. Combes picked up the phone to Christine Harris at Special Branch.
Jorge Vaczka was teaching class at the POSK. He sat on a stool, tight-fitting jazz shoes on his feet, with his arms folded and a trail of sweat on his brow. The class were studying Ibsen and he wanted them to consider a single night’s performance for the university. His reputation in and outside the POSK was growing, and more and more prominent members of the community were approaching him. Respectability: it provided excellent opportunities. There was a new girl in the class, English, with light skin and dark brown hair, and she could act. She had poise and held herself well and Vaczka caught her eye now, as she went over her lines in the far corner of the room. His gaze was disturbed, however, by movement in the glass panel of the door, and then the door was opened and two men in suits walked in. They stared at him. He stared at them and felt cold all of a sudden. Webb and McCulloch crossed the floor and Webb stopped in front of him.
‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ Vaczka said.
Webb flapped open his warrant card. ‘Police, Mr Vaczka.’ He took a set of handcuffs from McCulloch. ‘I’m afraid you’re under arrest.’
Webb and Harris sat behind the two-way mirror in interview room 5 at Paddington Green. They had them all now: Vaczka, Blunski, Jeconec, Stahl and Herbisch, locked in cells awaiting interrogation. They had undergone the humiliation of body-searching, of their clothes being taken, and paper suits and other people’s shoes being given in their place. Webb watched Vaczka now, as he waited for his solicitor. He glanced at Harris beside him. ‘His brief is McAlinden,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t come cheap.’
‘Maybe Abu Nidal’s paying.’
The Section 18 searches had already been carried out: Vaczka’s flat, the others’, the lock-ups in both Farnham and London. Teams had been sent into the copses on Wimbledon Common and near Beaconsfield, to dig up the other hides. More weapons had been found, cached and wrapped in plastic. ‘D’you think we’ve got enough?’ Harris asked him.
Webb pulled a face. ‘That’ll depend on whether we can match the cartridges from Hanwell Green to the guns.’
At that moment, three firearms teams from SO19 were deployed outside the clubhouse on Victoria Avenue in Hounslow. Collier sat in the living room, listening to their loudhailers. Fagin stood next to him, and alongside him, Gringo. All of them were armed with pump-action shotguns that Collier had brought in the day before. He wore a holster on his hip, with an old FBI Sig-Sauer 9mm inside it. He looked at the floor, then up at the others’ faces.
Fagin’s was sallow, haunted, half circles of grey in the hollows below his eyes.
‘I don’t want to fight,’ he said.
‘Fagin.’ Collier spat out his name. ‘You don’t have a fucking choice.’
Fagin drew breath stiffly through his nose and glanced at Gringo. He was quiet, fingering the wooden stock on the shotgun. Collier could sense the fear in him and closed his eyes to a slit.
‘They’ve arrested the Poles,’ Gringo said. ‘They must be talking.’
‘The Poles won’t talk.’
‘You said yourself, man. We can’t trust them.’
They had called other gang members earlier, including Gib. Gib’s mother told them that the police had come in the early hours of the morning and driven him into London.
‘What’ve they got on Gib?’ Fagin was asking.
‘Nothing.’ Irritation chipped at Collier’s voice. Again, he looked through the curtains and spotted the black-suited ninjas that once upon a time he had trained with. He considered their tactics; sooner or later they would storm the place. Birdshot through the upstairs windows, CS gas and then assault ladders and flashbangs. He had done it many times himself. His respirator lay on the floor at his feet. He wished he’d had the chance to bring in more firepower.
‘Dave.’ Fagin had a hand on his arm. ‘There’s hundreds of them out there. We won’t stand a chance.’ He shook his head. ‘We don’t know what’s going down. Maybe we can make a deal.’
‘Deal?’ Collier stared at him. ‘Are you fucking mental? We killed their mates, sixteen of them. Every copper we see is going to give us a kicking you wouldn’t believe. When they lock us up, they’ll throw away the key.’ He shook his head very savagely. ‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’m fighting.’
Again, the call to surrender crackled from the street. Throw their weapons out of the wi
ndows and come out with their hands over their heads. Fagin scratched nervously at the palm of one hand. ‘I ain’t dying,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t even there that day.’
Collier’s eyes glowed, seeing the treachery already etched into Fagin’s face. ‘You take one step towards that door,’ he said, ‘and I’ll shoot you in the back.’
Fagin paled, then glanced at Gringo, who was shaking his head. Collier went to the window again. He glanced out, then looked back at the others. ‘Upstairs,’ he said. ‘We need the height advantage.’ They looked at one another, then back at him. Neither of them budged. ‘Come on, you fuckers. Move.’
Gringo got up, swung the shotgun on to his shoulder and stuffed more cartridges into his pockets. He sucked on his cigarette, wetting the end, and then flicked away the ash. They all heard movement outside, booted feet on the pavement. Collier took the stairs two at a time, Gringo behind him. Fagin paused at the bottom. Collier had no time to worry about him. He was in the front bedroom, crouched by the window, watching the gathered forces outside. They had come at dawn, but his alarm systems had tipped him off in advance. He was at the window with a shotgun and firing on them before the method of entry man could get anywhere near the front door. He was surprised they had gone for the frontal attack, given the extent of his security. They must’ve imagined they still had the element of surprise. The shotgun rounds he had peppered them with sent them scurrying for Kevlar blankets and cover, and then the siege had begun. They had tried to speak to him on the phone, but he ripped it out of the wall. He had made up his mind as soon as those rounds were exchanged, and he was not about to change it now.
Gringo squatted next to him, the windows closed in front of them. ‘What about the back?’ he said.
‘What does it matter?’ Collier reached for his respirator and half pulled it over his head. ‘We’re not walking out of here.’ He indicated the street below. ‘They’ll punch out these windows and then it’s tear gas. You better put your mask on.’