by A P Bateman
“All I can think of for the moment is that Zukovsky does not know that we know about the warhead. This has come as a tip. Zukovsky was to be part of a terrorist strike on the Ukraine. He changed the plan, kept the funds and the warhead and started his own agenda.”
“It still doesn’t explain the elaborate blackmailing of an MI5 analyst, or the killing of our agents.”
“I think it does,” said Forester. “I think we have been given a false hand. I think we are meant to tie up all of our resources hunting for the killers of our own. Crucial man-hours searching for missing colleagues. I think we have been thrown a horrible hand – that of our missing agents – and I think the only way to win is to ignore it, not to place a bet on it. Sacrifice that hand for the sake of the game.”
“It’s not a bloody game!” she snapped.
“I think to Zukovsky it is,” replied Forester. “Well, I’m at the table now, and I will deal a few hands of my own.”
“Meaning?”
“I have been known to have an ace up sleeve from time to time,” he mused. “I’m going to meet with the Prime Minister today. A private meeting where I intend to sound him out about something. Something unprecedented. A COBRA meeting is scheduled for this afternoon after our initial meeting. I am going to treble Detective Inspector Hodge’s resources and leave him on the murder case. I don’t think there are murders to solve anymore, more a case of finding Zukovsky and his associates. But Hodges is tenacious, has an incredible record, knows the city like the back of his hand and he may well find a lead that takes us to their doorstep. Special Branch can turn over the city looking for anyone they so wish. The police are already searching for our missing agents; Special Branch can take charge of that.”
“But they’re our agents!” Caroline snapped. “We need to find them!”
“And they will be found. But the whereabouts of a missing warhead is going to, and has to take priority. General Intelligence Group have but one remit as of today – leave no stone unturned, no favour owed. We are going to find that warhead.”
***
Hodges put down his coffee and looked at the three officers in turn. Behind him was a white board with a hastily drawn mind-map. Around the edges there were a number of photographs and post-it notes. Solomon’s photograph and a note of the date rape drug abbreviated as GHB linked to a photograph of his dealer. From this a number of photographs linked up. Some had a red marker cross through them. These were dead ends. Two were circled in black. These were the most probable leads. The other side of the board displayed a picture of the van abandoned near Hoist’s apartment. The name of the hire company headlined, with a CCTV photograph from the company’s office where it had been picked up by one of the men in the GHB link on the other side of the board. The credit card used to hire the vehicle was one of many since listed as stolen.
Two images of Alesha Mikailovitch from both CCTV and her Interpol file record sat squarely at the top of the board. The photographs next to her were both taken from an old MI5 file, and a shot of him on the mortuary slab. Rafan Betesh was known to the intelligence services. He had fought with ISIS in Syria and executed people in propaganda videos. Hodges had requested a file of known associates and was delighted to discover he had a brother. He put out an all ports on Mohammed Betesh. He knew these people valued family ties and trusted few.
On the table in front of them were several piles of paper and files which had been opened and labelled. Hodges looked up as a uniformed officer walked in. The woman held a file out for him. Hodges took it and opened it. He didn’t notice her leave.
“What’s that Boss?” a young female detective asked. “More from the spooks?”
Hodges nodded. “Photographs from CCTV at the safe house that was hit. That all ports call was spot on, Watkins,” he said, and she smiled. It had been her idea. “Mohammed Betesh was one of the gunmen. Mikailovitch was there with two unknowns. Their images are being run on the Joint Intelligence system as well as our own as we speak. Should come back with something.”
“But what’s the MO?” DS Mathews asked. “What information can this guy Jeremy Hoist have that he should become a target? Twice?”
Hodges picked up his coffee and drank it down in one, tepid gulp. He put the empty cup back down on the table and looked at the board. “We’re putting together a puzzle without all the pieces,” he paused. “We need to use what we have to find them. To focus on the deaths of the four agents and use the information on the periphery to get closer to capturing the people responsible for their deaths. Let the spooks work out the whys and the what-fors.”
***
The safe-house was a terraced, four storey town house in Camden. There was no garden, merely a single off road parking space that also made space for the four separate wheelie bins. Recycling was a chore in Camden. The front of the house was separated from the quiet street by painted black iron railings. The rear of the house double backed on to another house and another street. Here, however, was the unique factor. MI5 also owned this house and the two houses connected on every floor. It provided entrance and exits at all hours with little observation, and a handy escape route if needed.
SCO19 withdrew to the end of the street, as did one of the DP units from the Met. They arrived with little announcement, Caroline and Forester exited swiftly, opened Hoist’s door and walked him briskly inside. Two protection officers followed. As planned the other DP unit would drive around the block and park outside the second house. Each SCO19 vehicle took up position at the end of both streets. Two officers from DP entered through the second house, leaving two in each vehicle and four in the safe-house.
Hoist was ushered towards a leather sofa. He sat down and looked up at Forester as he approached. “What happens now?”
“You will be interviewed again. We have to ascertain what you have said, or what you know that has prompted them to try and kill you twice.”
Hoist shrugged. “They wanted information, I gave it to them. They didn’t tell me anything.”
Forester nodded. “We shall see.” He looked up at the couple standing to the edge of the room. “Short notice, I’m afraid.”
“That’s all right, Sir,” the man said. He had a clip manner. Ex-Army, NCO. He was a dutiful man with a long service history, unblemished. Until he suffered PTSD after Afghanistan. His wife, Michelle was the nurse who helped him recover. Both were out of the forces now, but a contact of Forester’s recommended them for the medium-level security position. The couple enjoyed living in the house and neighbourhood, found the salary with board included to be the most they had ever earned and were thoroughly dependable.
“We have a debrief team coming,” Forester said. “They’ve had a bit of a morning, it’s fair to say. So if you can look after them with coffee and snacks, it would be appreciated.”
“Yes Sir,” the man said.
Forester turned to Caroline. “You need a break. Go home, come back here in the morning.”
She frowned. “Shouldn’t I stay here? Or shadow Detective Inspector Hodges?”
“There’s nothing you can do here,” Forester said. “Hodges will have more staff by this evening.”
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather stay here and listen in on the interview.”
Forester looked at his watch. “Very well,” he said. “I have a COBRA meeting scheduled. I have something I want to look into afterwards, but it will take me away for a while, but I’ll be contactable on my mobile or email.”
Caroline nodded. It never paid to pry. If Forester was willing to elaborate, he already would have. “I may well go over and see Hodges in the morning. I would like to see what progress he is making. If you don’t mind, I’d like to see Commander Anderson as well. I’m worried there’s too many facets to this investigation.”
“There are,” Forester agreed. “But it will change soon. The cards have all been dealt.”
***
The sky had turned grey and cloudy. It made little difference to the drone becau
se it flew at no more than three hundred feet, well below the cloud cover. It was equipped with eight rotor blades and powered by two rechargeable battery packs with a small power reserve unit. It made next to no sound and at over one hundred feet it was completely inaudible from the ground. Mounted front and rear were directional cameras controlled via the remote control unit. The control unit was large and strapped over the operator’s shoulders enabling all the flying to be done in front of their chest. The cameras were for operation and did not record, but they operated on both wide-angle for easier control and pin-point zoom for surveillance. The drone also emitted a GPS beacon monitored by a GPS receiver unit. A city map was placed over a grid system which enabled close to pin-point accuracy. At least accurate enough to maintain a hover and allow a visual from the operator.
The operator was a young man with the thickest glasses imaginable. They did not fit well either, and he would have to push them up his nose several times a minute. He had a poor complexion and was gaunt-thin. He was engrossed in his work and could certainly fly the drone well.
The driver of the van was dark in complexion with a short trimmed beard and a shaven head. He was Russian, smoked constantly and was heavily tattooed. They were Russian gang and prison tattoos. Among them were nine strands of barbed wire on his forearm - one for every year served in prison. Further down just above his wrist another four strands wrapped around, indicating another four-year term. Three daggers ran down his neck. One for every man he’d killed in prison. Part of his face was white, like someone had taken an eraser to his skin or bleached the colour away. This had been a forced tattoo. A tattoo given to him to indicate a crime or act he was guilty of, but to serve as a warning to others. He remembered that night well. Five men had held him down after his initial beating, and he had watched the tattooist mix the melted rubber, urine, faeces and powdered pencil lead into the mixture that would make up the ink. The tattoo had taken ten agonising hours. He had also been beaten and humiliated throughout. He had never spoken again of the crime, but he had burned the tattoo out of his skin with magnesium the day he was released. When he remembered the crime he had committed, it made him feel as repulsed as the memory of the ordeal the prisoners subjected him to that night. He had vowed never to speak or think of it again. He had found a new path to travel. A path that made him feel clean and valued once more. A path that had provided him with a brotherhood, a family. He had shunned his previous life, and those who had been a part of it. He had found honour, respect and a sense of being. He knew he could not choose how long he would be on this earth, or a part of this new life. But he was confident in the knowledge that he now served a cause worth dying for. He had one man to thank for that. Vladimir Zukovsky had found him at his lowest ebb. He had given him food and shelter, work and the means to survive without crime, and then a sense of belonging. The Russian pulled to the kerbside and looked at the youth next to him. “Do you have the fix?” he asked abruptly.
The young man was concentrating hard. He pushed his glasses back up his nose. “I have the street. Interesting though, the police escort has split and have parked and entered a house directly at the rear.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. See?” He eased the control unit so the Russian could see. “I think those two houses are one in the same.”
The Russian studied the monitor. He could see both SCO19 vehicles and both plain Special Branch vehicles from above. The image was crystal clear, slightly off colour, but not black and white. “And the officers went in the house at the back as well?”
“Yes.”
“That is the car Hoist travelled in.” He pointed at the screen. “And that is the MI5 deputy director’s car.”
“Correct.”
The Russian looked intently at the image and broke into a smile. It was a savage slit in his face. The eyes were dead, there was no emotion, but the youth knew that this was a moment of complete satisfaction for the man next to him.
21
Detective Chief Inspector Hodges stared at the whiteboard in front of him. There was no pattern. There was, however, a lot of connections. He had four dead MI5 agents. That was what he referred to as genesis. It was the incident that started the investigation. The shootings at Hoist’s apartment had given him not only Rafan Betesh as a name, but Alesha Mikailovitch as well, confirmed by her positive identification through Interpol. Charles Forester had assured Hodges that former Russian general Vladimir Zukovsky was involved, but he was waiting for more intelligence. It irked him that the intelligence director had not, or rather would not divulge more. Hodges hated spooks. They always had a bigger picture to look at. Hodges had served as a police officer for twenty years. He had always looked at what was right and wrong. It was called the law. Plain and simple. General Vladimir Zukovsky was former Russian military, and as such, did not appear in the police database. He would have to request further information from MI5 and that would delay matters further.
He sipped some coffee, then realising he hadn’t eaten all day he picked up a new packet of chocolate digestives off the table and opened them. He looked at the picture of Solomon as he ate one. The date-rape drug lead had bought up CCTV possibilities and the images were processing through the National Crime Intelligence Computer database. He made a mental note to be on the Nigerian’s case when he was finished here. Hodges had a nineteen-year-old daughter from his first marriage and he would gladly have nailed Solomon to the wall had he not needed to barter a deal. But the price had been worth it. Two young women were still in intensive care, but the product would be taken off the streets permanently. No further cases, no further rapes or assaults. A man like Solomon would slip up soon enough, and Hodges had vowed to send the man down for the rest of his days. It didn’t matter that a few offences went unpunished, as long as he was punished for something that was all that counted in Hodges’ opinion.
The second shooting had confirmed that Rafan Betesh’s brother Mohammed was involved. The safe-house CCTV had positively identified Alesha Mikailovitch a second time and thrown up two more faces for the various databases. There was no knowing how long a match could take. The person would have to have committed an offence previously, or be known to the intelligence community for other reasons.
Hodges realised he had eaten almost all the biscuits and dropped the packet down onto the table.
“Rob will be pissed,” the woman said behind him. Hodges turned around and saw Watkins walk in with a sheaf of printed notes. “They’re his favourite biscuits. His wife is on low-carb so she sent them in with him from home.”
Hodges shrugged. “Maybe he’ll bring cake tomorrow.”
“Have you eaten? Can’t function on biscuits and coffee alone.”
“Says the seasoned detective,” he smirked. “Listen Watkins, I’ve solved serial killings and bank jobs, diamond exchange robberies and serial rape cases on nothing more than coffee, chocolate digestives and a couple of pints and a bag of chips on the way home. Week in, week out for twenty years.”
“It’s a wonder you’re still here. Come down to the canteen with me Boss, they do a good tuna salad with mung beans.”
“Nah, I’ll have a bag of chips and bits on the way home.”
“Bits?” Watkins asked incredulously.
“Yeah, all the bits of batter that falls off the fish in the fryer. They scoop them out and save them up.”
“Oh, good God!”
“What are those, anyway?”
“New cases, new leads. I’m handing them out.”
“What about this case?”
“Nothing new,” she said. “We’re downloading traffic CCTV from the second shooting. The CCTV from the spook safe-house doesn’t catch the vehicle they left in. There are a number of possibilities but those cul-de-sacs are a maze. It’s been difficult to find access to the main arterial roads. You’d think MI5 would have thought of that.”
“They will now,” Hodges mused. “So you’re telling me that CCTV hasn’t picked up three As
ian men and a young dark haired woman driving like a bat out of hell because most of them are practically on fire?”
“Yes. But let’s give it a chance,” she quipped. “What now?”
“Well, it’s not a murder investigation anymore.”
“No?”
“No. It’s a manhunt.”
“But…”
“Oh come on! We’ve got names and we’ve got connections. We know they did it. What we don’t know is why. There’s something bigger behind this, something we don’t know, or are being kept from knowing. I had reservations about working with these spooks, but I can’t see any more progress to be made.”
“We haven’t got all the cards, have we?”
“No.”
“You said Forester seemed like a straight shooter. You really think he’s keeping something from you?”
“Absolutely.”
“So what do we do?”
Hodges picked up the last of the biscuits, bit it in half and chewed, speaking with his mouth full. “We go national. We get Mohammed Betesh, Alesha Mikailovitch and these two unknowns out there in the public eye so that every bobby on the beat, every shop owner, every dog walker, every neighbour twitching curtains on the house next door gives us a helping hand. MI5 want the killers caught, lets catch them.”
***
Caroline Darby looked at her watch. It was a silver Cartier with a leather strap and had been a gift from her late fiancé Peter. Every time she looked at it she thought about her fiancé. She didn’t know whether it was a curse of a blessing. Tonight it made her sad. She kicked off her shoes and walked into the bathroom. She turned the dial to secure the plug and ran both taps. Dropped in a scented salt bomb and walked back out to the lounge.
The flat was all on one level and plenty large enough for two. There was a spare bedroom that she used as an office-come-storage room. Much of Peter’s things were in here, she had not yet built up sufficient resilience to get rid of them. Naturally there were items she’d never part with, but the bulky things – the boxes of clothes and even unpacked boxes from both moving in together from their respective flats were still stacked against the wall.