by PETE DAVIES
“Yes, I do.” He knew Luis wasn’t his biological father, but he had a great relationship with him and I’m sure he looked upon him as his dad. I think he likes you, in fact I know he likes you as he’s told me and he really likes Terri as well. He thinks she’s such a breath of fresh air and very good at what she does with you and 3R, which is why I think he really would like to be a part of it.”
“That’s great. He is a good lad and the Met’s loss is definitely 3R’s gain and I know you’re also happy he’s going to be able to help out more with your family business too,” said Greg.
“I’m so glad you like him and yes, I’m very proud of him,” said Anna.
Greg lay down on one of the two large double beds whilst Anna was in the bathroom and he put a call in to Lori for a catch up.
“Do I need to be jealous about you being in the same room with Anna,” she joked.
“No, but I do like the idea of you being just a little bit jealous,” said Greg.
“So you’ve never dated a Spanish woman before have you?” said Lori.
“Er, no, why?”
“You don’t want to make us jealous Englishman.”
“Ah, yes, good point and noted my dear,” he laughed.
He filled her in on the plans for seeing Sergei and that they were happy with the plan and the logistics to then get out of Armenia in quick time. She then told him about the raids her team had been carrying out on Sonny’s business and the feedback they were picking up that he was feeling the heat.
“Things are going to plan then Lori. I’ll touch base tomorrow when we hope to be in the air by around 18.00 local time here at the latest.”
“Have you decided what you will do then?” she asked.
“I think it’s probably going to be India, but I’m leaving things open until we see how tomorrow goes,” said Greg.
They finished their call just as Anna came out of the bathroom and she mouthed to him to give her best wishes and after he came off the phone he told Anna about what Lori had said about not making her jealous.
“She seems like a really nice woman,” said Anna.
“Yes, I think she is and one that I won’t let slip through my fingers.”
*****
Before breakfast Simon had retrieved the keys for the Mercedes and had parked it close to the Central Library in Vardanants Street. They all met up in the hotel breakfast room and to anyone looking at them, they appeared to be a business group discussing their meetings for the day. Afterwards Tommy and Simon quietly collected everyone’s hand luggage and put it in the back of the BMW and at 10.00 Simon and Terri headed off for the meeting at Tairov Street a half an hour later. They took an alternative route, coming off a side road on the Victory Bridge and heading west into Tairov Street. They drove past the spot they had identified as the drop and completed a circuit of the area. Seeing nothing, they parked up with a view of the drop zone and waited.
There was very little traffic, other than a few cars passing them and some traffic that seemed to be heading for the Hotel Aramas, so it was going to be relatively easy to spot anything unusual. At 10.29am they saw a new looking Ford Fiesta park up on the side of the road close to the drop zone. A man and woman got out of the car and went and looked at the rear of the car. The man then opened the hatchback and then they saw him bring out a spare tyre and a car jack. The man looked in his 60’s and the woman looked about half his age, possibly a daughter thought Terri. The man then checked his phone and sent a text. Less than a minute later Terri’s phone pinged with an incoming text from Anna, ‘He’s there waiting for you.’ She texted back, ‘Yes, got him.’
“That’s our man, Simon,” said Terri pointing towards the Fiesta as she started the car and drove towards them.
As they pulled up alongside, Simon lowered his passenger window and said, “Can we help you with anything?”
The man turned and smiled.
“Yes, that would be most helpful,” said the man in a broad Yorkshire accent. “And I assume you must be Terri? I’m Martin Carruthers. Pleasure to meet you both.”
“Well I wasn’t expecting you Martin, that’s for sure,” said Terri.
“I don’t get out much these days sadly, so given the somewhat unusual circumstances of us helping you I thought it perhaps best if I delivered the package myself. This is Anamika from our local office.”
They finished the introductions and Simon got down to changing the tyre for them whilst Martin took Terri to the back of the Fiesta and showed her three packages. Two looked like briefcases and the third was a long cardboard tube. When she took the tube out of the Fiesta it came up to just under her chin and was about 30cm or a foot in diameter. It had 3R markings on it and was marked up as a rollout presentation screen. She put the tube and the two briefcases into the back of the BMW whilst Simon finished off putting the spare tyre on the Fiesta.
“Good luck today Terri and we’ll be here this afternoon ready to collect the packages from you as agreed with Anna. Just get her to text me when you’re on your way and Terri, please give my very best regards to her and tell her I hope to meet her one day. She is a bit of a legend in the Service,” said Carruthers.
“Will do Martin and we’ll see you later,” said Terri, as she engaged Drive mode on the BMW and drove away. “Legend huh,” she smiled.
They got back to the hotel without incident and carried the briefcases and the cardboard tube into the hotel, declining the offer of help from the porter captain at the concierge desk and took them straight to their room. She then texted Sam and Greg that they were back and minutes later all six of them were standing in the room looking at the open packages.
“Okay, I’ve just brought Glocks for you guys as we’ll be too close to think about using anything else and besides, these we can hide, whereas anything bigger would just stand out and the name of the game today people is low key remember?” said Terri.
“Yes,” said Greg, “we’ve only brought these for a just in case scenario. If all goes to plan, Sam will make contact and then we’ll be on our way after a brief, a very brief conversation with Sergei Grigoryan.”
“Anna, by the way, Martin Carruthers sends you his best and says he wants to meet you when all of this is over. He’s cute, maybe fifty, so a bit of a toy boy for you,” said Terri.
“How nice of him to come all this way,” said Anna.
“And he says you’re a legend,” said Simon.
“Well that’s a lovely thing for him to say, but it was all a long time ago. Now can someone show me the ins and outs of a Glock, as it’s a long time since I’ve handled one?” said Anna.
Simon took one and broke it down for her and then rebuilt it. She then took it from him and Sam watched on as his mother, who he had thought had been an administrator in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office held the Glock confidently in her hands and broke it down and rebuilt in not much more time than Simon had.
“Impressive,” said Simon.
“Mum, you’re amazing,” said Sam.
“Not amazing my dear, just very well trained, but thank you anyway. Now I’m not wrapping you in cotton wool here Sam, but I used to do this for a living, so tell me again how you’re going to make the approach today,” said Anna.
“Jimmy sent me some pictures he has picked up from one of the Europol agencies that shows Sergei at one of the front tables with a young girl who is believed to be his eleven year old daughter,” said Sam. “During the summer and when he’s not away on business, he’s pretty much regular as clockwork in picking her up from school and bringing her here to The Meeting Point to have an ice cream. The pictures show two men who stand a little way from him, as he doesn’t like to be crowded when with his daughter and then there are two cars parked up close by with the drivers. He stays for around twenty minutes whilst she has her ice cream and then they leave and one car takes the daughter home and he goes to see his mistress. The latest intel Jimmy found was that he was in here yesterday with the daughter at the usual time, aro
und 14.45 hours.”
“So that’s the intel. What are you going to do Sam?” said Anna.
The others watched as she took on a steely and commanding look that all but Greg hadn’t seen before. Greg couldn’t hold back a smile as he was remembering being in a training room with Anna when she cornered him with questions on his tactical options, whilst Sam was clearly taken aback at how his mother was grilling him on what he intended to do.
“He’s on his turf here, so my thinking is that he won’t be expecting any sort of a direct approach. The two guys watching him are seen standing towards the front pavement area, one either side of Sergei, to stop any approach from the front and the guys in the cars watch for any threat from the rear, straight out of the hotel. We’ve got an image of a waiter bringing a coffee and an ice cream on a tray, so I’m going to have you and Greg sitting at a table immediately behind where we expect Sergei to sit. Then as the waiter comes out from the hotel with the coffee and ice cream, you guys will leave the table and take up cover positions close by and I’ll sit at the table you’ve just vacated. I’ll then engage in a conversation with Sergei and whilst I don’t think he will be overly concerned with seeing you guys, I am anticipating that if I have to make the point that we’ve got this covered, then Terri here will provide just that.”
Anna looked at Sam for a second and then thought for a moment before she spoke.
“It’s a sound plan Sam. Some risk, but with good contingencies and I think you’re right with the element of surprise being in our favour,” said Anna. “So some lunch first for us, but I expect you want to be on your way don’t you Terri?”
“Yes Ma’am,” said Terri smiling. “Come on Simon, the Boss wants us to shift out.”
As they gathered up the equipment they were taking Simon turned to Terri and whispered, “Legend”.
“She certainly is mate, I’ll give you that. Now let’s grab some water and sandwiches and get Tommy to drop us off so we can get into position,” said Terri.
*****
“You enjoyed that didn’t you,” said Greg as they walked into the lift.
“Yes, I did actually. I realise now just how much losing Luis took the wind out of my sails and now I’m feeling fresh and alive again,” said Anna.
“You were spot on with Sam as well and I think he appreciated your feedback on his plan.”
“I don’t want to sound like an old timer telling the young ones how they should be doing things, so I’m glad that you think it came across okay,” said Anna and thought to herself that after all these years she was seeing her student become the teacher.
“What are you smiling at?” said Greg.
“You, I knew you were good when I first saw you. It’s going to be fun working together again.”
“It certainly is,” said Greg as they walked out of the lift towards the restaurant, “and now, as you said my dear, it’s time for lunch whilst we leave the young ones to get themselves ready for this afternoon.”
TWENTY EIGHT
They knew they had a wait ahead of them, but then again they were both trained in this type of activity. Therefore the three hours or so, until things would start to happen, was actually no time at all.
After Tommy dropped them off by the alleyway behind the Central Library, Terri and Simon had made their way up on to the roof via the fire escape ladder. They went through their usual routine of checking visibility of the target area, as well as their surroundings and the wind direction, to ensure they had suitable cover in which to operate without being seen.
Simon, as Terri’s spotter, had the anemometer (otherwise known as a wind meter), together with a ballistic calculator, a device that automatically worked out the trajectory and direction based on the data fed into it. Terri checked the distance again. No change at 442-446 metres. The pictures she had seen showed Sergei sitting at a table that looked out onto the pavement area in front of The Meeting Point. It had to be highly likely that the staff knew exactly who Sergei was and that he would use the same table every day. Therefore she focused through the telescopic sight on the table she had seen in the picture and in particular on the chair that faced out on to the pavement.
“Distance is 442 metres with no perceptible wind.”
“Check. I’ve got nothing either from the wind machine. I think we’re good to go on this Terri. How about some lunch?” said Simon.
He opened his rucksack and brought out the sandwiches and water they had bought from a shop on the outside of the town, en-route to get to Vardanants Street at the back of the Library.
“Cheese and Tomato or Ham and some sort of pickle?” said Simon.
“I’ll take the cheese please mate,” said Terri.
It was another warm day and the sun at the moment was just above them, causing them to seek out the shade of the air conditioning unit they had seen the day before. The Meeting Point café was running in a SSW direction from where they were, so Terri had calculated that by 15.30 the sun could be a bit of a problem to her as it might be almost directly in her eyes. The good news was that she would be aiming down and so the trajectory would help negate any undue effect of the sun. So this, plus the fact that she only had to aim for Sergei’s torso, rather than having to focus on a head shot, would make things considerably easier for her preparation.
She was an experienced sniper from her time in the Australian Army. She had specialised in long distance work after showing her prowess on the firing range in training, when she out-performed the instructor. She had a natural aptitude for handling firearms, especially rifles, after being shown how to shoot by her step-father. Whilst he had no formal training, he’d been taught to shoot as a boy by his grandfather on the family farm.
Women soldiers had only just been allowed to engage in combat fighting in the Australian Army when Terri was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013 and she had led a patrol team which included a sniper capability when required. Early on she was challenged as to the level of her shooting skills until it became all too apparent that she was by far the best long distance shot in her unit. She knew she had the technique, but she had also talked to Greg about the pressure and psychological aftermath of taking a life from long distance.
Like many snipers, she never referred to the people in her sights as targets. There was a myth she was told early on that snipers dehumanise people, whereas the reality is often that they completely recognise the person they can see as being a human being, perhaps with a family.
She had learned to compartmentalise the threat the person in her sights posed her comrades and innocent members of the public. It was this risk to life that gave her the justification to engage with them, without her ever losing that sense that whoever was in her rifle sights was still a person and not just a target.
Nevertheless, when the ceasefire in Afghanistan came, she had felt a relief within herself. A relief that she would no longer feel the sniper’s pain of taking a life.
Since working with Greg at 3R she had worked in some challenging areas and had needed, on occasions, to either take proactive action against a protagonist or indeed to defend herself, but she had not had to kill anyone.
Simon saw her in deep thought and recognised where she might be.
“Thinking about what you’re about to do Terri?”
She looked at him and studied his face. She knew full well his background as a former member of the SAS with over ten years’ experience, but she also knew him as one of the most compassionate men she had ever met, something which her father had also seen in him and why he chose to recruit him.
“Yes.” She paused a moment. “Is that me getting jittery Simon?”
“No,” he said softly and then he paused. “The day you don’t think about it is the day you need to stop doing this shit. I know the primary objective here is to show this guy Sergei that we’re not messing about by putting a red dot on his chest, but if it all goes belly up Terri, then you and me, we will do what we’ve both trained to do. So whilst you’re not doing
any of that long distance stuff where you just snuff someone out okay, you may still need to put a bullet in someone, because that someone is taking a pot shot at one of our amigos down there and we need to protect them.”
“I know, I get it Simon and mate, thanks, I appreciate that.”
“One final thing. You know how good I think, no, how good I know you are. But what you must do, if you are at all worried that you may freeze, is to step back and let me do this. Okay?” said Simon.
“I know and thank you for saying it to give me that opportunity. I think it’s just been a while and I thought I could just get the kit out like I used to do and crack on. I suppose it brings back memories,” she said.
“And not all of them are going to be good,” said Simon. “Right, let’s rest up. We’ve got about an hour to kill before we need to do the final prep and check comms and before we know it we’ll be in the air with your nice pilot boy. So what is the story with you two? Any romance in the air so to speak?”