by Ted Tayler
In March 2009 the girl had been walking home after a study session at a school friends’ house. The constable had been on duty, in uniform, when he stopped his patrol car fifty yards in front of her under a streetlight. When she got alongside the car, he opened the passenger door and told her to get in. He gave her a lift home and told her to be careful when walking alone on the streets late at night. “You never know who’s around,” he told her and said he’d keep an eye out for her so she didn’t come to any harm.
The following month she went into town with her twenty-year-old sister and her workmates. The other three girls had half bottles of vodka in their handbags. Although they bought just tonic waters in the bars they visited, by chucking out time, the girls were hammered. The youngster was drunk for the first time in her life.
When she came out onto the pavement from the last pub they’d been in, she staggered and grabbed a street sign to stop herself from falling. Then she was violently sick. A police car switched on its headlights across the street and then the vehicle approached. The girl’s sister was comforting her with a protective arm around her shoulder. Her two workmates had long gone, making their way up the street on unsteady legs, looking for a kebab shop that might still be open.
Once the driver of the police car got out and walked around to the young girl, she realised it was the same constable that drove her home the other night. He suggested that both girls get into the back of the car and he drove off towards the estate where they lived. He said he was deciding whether to charge the younger sister for being drunk and disorderly. As for the older sister, he said she would be in more serious trouble for supplying alcohol to someone who was underage.
When they were a hundred yards from their front door, he stopped the car in a quiet spot. Well away from any streetlights. He told the younger sister to get off home. He said she was lucky. This time, he’d forget her drunkenness and the throwing up in the street.
The constable told her sister to get in the front seat with him. The youngster left the two together talking and ran inside the house where she spent time in the bathroom being ill. When she crept along the landing to her room, she found her sister’s bedroom door shut. She wanted to know if he had charged her or just given her a rollicking, but it had to wait until the morning. She had fallen into bed and slept until lunchtime.
When she had seen her sister in the afternoon, she learned the awful truth. The officer had suggested to her that there was a way to avoid either of the sisters being charged with an offence. He had leaned over and fondled her sister’s breasts and placed her hand on his groin. When she asked him what he meant, he unzipped his fly and exposed himself. He said in return for oral sex he would forget any thoughts of the charges.
Her sister was so drunk she did what he asked. When it was over she tried to get out of the car, but the constable grabbed her arm and said she hadn’t done enough to persuade him to drop the case. He wanted the younger sister to meet him at the same place, at the same time next week. Her sister had agreed just to get out of the car and escape from him.
The two sisters argued. First, the younger sister couldn’t believe her sister had agreed to do what the policeman had asked. Second, the older sister didn’t want to go to court to face a charge of buying booze for her sixteen-year-old sister. Nor did she want her workmates dragged into the whole business. She persuaded the young girl to meet up with the policeman. The next week the young girl left her home and walked to where the car was parked last Friday night. She waited for the police car to arrive.
When it pulled up to the pavement and switched off its lights, she got in and asked what he wanted from her. The policeman told her to take her sweater off and she sat next to him in her bra. He didn’t try to touch her, but he touched himself and she saw he was aroused. He asked her to pleasure him with her hand. The young girl told him she had never done it before and was frightened. The policeman laughed at her and gripped her wrist and thrust her hand into his crotch and encouraged her to get on with it.
It was over soon after, and she was told she could go home. He said he would continue to keep an eye out for her and her sister and that if they ever wanted a lift home, he was always available. When she had run into her house crying, her sister rushed downstairs and told her parents what had been happening. They made a formal complaint. Two years passed before the case got to court. After the long delay, he pleaded guilty as soon as the charges were read out.
PC Donald MacDonald was single and lived at home with his invalid father. He had been in the force for twenty-seven years. The girl had complained that the sentence was only half the time she and her sister had had to cope with what happened to them. “I think he got off light,” she said, “he kept us hanging around for two years and then he pleaded guilty.”
The judge referred to MacDonald’s actions as ‘sleazy, if not pathetic’. He used his position to make inappropriate sexual advances to young women. The judge decided given his family circumstances and the nature of the offences, a custodial sentence would be disproportionate. He stressed that a community order should not be viewed as a soft option. The officer should address his behaviour and correct it so that the young girls of Dunfermline walked the streets at night in safety.
“What do you think of this one Minos?” Erebus asked the former judge.
“The punishment doesn’t fit the crime,” replied Minos.
“Any recommendations?” the old man inquired, looking around the table.
“Castration?” said Athena.
“Were these two sisters his only victims?” asked Thanatos.
Erebus looked at the supporting documents that arrived with the story.
“Several colleagues flagged up their suspicions about MacDonald in the past, without acting on them. It wouldn’t surprise me if he turned out to be a serial offender. We’ll get our people to step up the search for more victims. I believe we’ll uncover more evidence to support a more permanent solution for the Dunfermline problem.”
“Who do you have in mind?” asked Athena.
“If today’s sortie is a success, this might be an assignment for Phoenix.”
Athena did not look happy and Erebus asked her to explain her obvious displeasure.
“Are you sure he can remain objective? He lost his only daughter to an attacker that preferred young girls. We should wait until he returns from this first mission before we commit ourselves.”
Erebus nodded.
“As you wish. If only I could persuade you to trust Phoenix, he pays such attention to detail. Whatever we throw his way he’ll cope with by methodical planning and efficient execution, of that, I have no doubts.”
“We’ll see,” replied Athena, “let’s move on to the next item on the agenda. I fear it may keep us occupied for a while.”
“In that case, I suggest we break for an early lunch,” said Erebus.
The meeting was reconvened in the drawing-room. Erebus looked up towards Thanatos.
“Over to you, old chap, let’s understand the construction of this terrorist cell.”
Thanatos stood in front of a white screen that had been brought into the room while they were at lunch. Erebus was not in favour of visual aids or modern technology invading the splendid rooms in his family home. On this occasion, though, it was a vital tool to help in understanding the complex nature of the enemy they were facing.
“Al-Qaeda’s cell structure differs from the typical Western style because of cultural differences. Their minimal core leadership group is a ring network, with each leader heading their own particular hierarchy. The ring networks overlap, they are links in a chain if you will. Trust and personal relationships are paramount with far more cases of family and in-group linkages than in the more bureaucratic Western model. This makes these in-groups hard to infiltrate. We have operatives working on compromising selected fringe members of rings operating in the UK but progress is slow.”
Thanatos drew circles on the whiteboard and linked them with
arrows.
“The core group is a ring, superimposed on an inner hub and spoke structure of ideological authority. Each core member forms another hub and spoke system. The spokes lead to subcells which support the infrastructure and sometimes operational groups. In this way, it’s possible for an operational cell to become autonomous of the core.”
“So they keep positive control from the core, but specific roles can operate without reference back to them for every action they take,” commented Erebus.
“True,” said Thanatos, “but they can be more random and unpredictable too, which makes them far more dangerous.”
“Do we have names for any of the participants in the chain that concern us most?” asked Alastor.
“We’re getting names, the different camps they trained at, the hierarchy and evidence of in-fighting. Certain factions want to move far quicker on operations than the core. We might have occasion to use this weakness in the future. What we have avoided so far is opting for a ‘catch and release’ programme. None of the cell members associated with this chain has been picked off the streets and brought here for Level Three interrogation. We don’t want to create distrust by the central core of any individuals lower on the ladder. We may increase our intelligence, but at what cost?”
The group continued to analyse the infrastructure of the cells for the rest of the afternoon. In time, the whiteboard contained names, dotted lines, solid lines and question marks. After a short break for their evening meal, they shut themselves away again.
The full extent of the threat facing the country in 2012 and beyond became evident. Their surveillance section highlighted around twenty terrorist investigations that the national security sources were investigating. The Olympus Project’s in-house ability for tracking and monitoring internet and phone traffic was equal to any other system out there in the big wide world. There was nothing they couldn’t scrutinise.
When you added to that the agents in the field who were experts in intelligence gathering, then Erebus and his colleagues had everything they required to mount a counterterrorism strike.
Erebus hadn’t told Colin Bailey everything on his grand tour. The Olympus group monitored the secret services too. This was so that if they ordered a direct action, they didn’t bump into any of their own people and expose the true nature of the Larcombe operation. At this stage, they were just building up a picture of the terrorist cell and monitoring its activities. If an attack on the streets of London was imminent, they needed to be ready.
Because of her personal involvement with the 7/7 bombings in London Athena was keen to play her part. Her preference was to smash the cell before it could give the green light to strike targets in the city. Erebus preferred to take a cautious approach.
“If we are correct in our interpretation of the data we’ve gathered, it’s foolish to assume we could remove the threat in one attack, Athena. There are a series of interlocking cells as Thanatos described it to us on the board, and, in this case, these cells are sure to overlap. We could not guarantee the entire cell would be disrupted.”
Thanatos continued with his analysis.
“We recruited a mole from within the Muslim community to infiltrate the alleged plot. Progress is slow. Our man on the inside has to act with extreme caution. Two of the members of his link in the chain are brothers, another is their uncle. The three men have been backwards and forwards to Pakistan this summer. Calls to Britain and internet communications have been under surveillance. Our informant is supplying us with details of their movements in and around the capital now they are back in the country.”
Athena stood up and stretched. It had been a long day with no sign of it ending.
“If we have twenty initiatives under scrutiny by MI5 and ourselves, how can we even be sure of the right one for us to be giving our total focus?”
Minos was also unconvinced they could select a target that crippled the cell’s capacity to carry out an attack.
“There are too many players Erebus. We might need to remove fifty terrorists to disable the cell. That’s a non-starter. The Olympus Project has to continue for many years to come. Our work is too important to sacrifice resources on one piece of the jigsaw.”
“We could take out the suicide squad on the streets,” suggested Alastor, “that might only mean removing three or four bombers.”
“It still leaves us exposed,” said Minos, “and we have other targets which need our attention. I vote that even if it means we risk a tragedy in the capital, we leave the matter to our nation’s security services.”
“God help us,” said Athena.
“What other targets are you alluding to Minos?” asked Erebus.
“The country’s high-security prison population is twenty per cent Muslim. Over the last decade, many are Afro-Caribbean and white Caucasian converts. The most radical prisoners have become adept at targeting vulnerable prisoners and offering them protection and support through religion. They have plenty of time in which to do this. So we find many prisoners who are members of organised gangs outside gaol being converted, and then when they leave prison they are spreading the message. The risk is that more and more criminal gangs are recruited by groups such as Al-Qaeda. The challenge of prison extremism will not go away.”
“We can’t send an operative to a high-security prison to kill the more influential jihadists; that’s a suicide mission at worst. He would be charged with murder and banged up for the rest of his life,” said Erebus.
The room fell silent for a while and then Athena spoke.
“Could we persuade the authorities to transfer prisoners to limit the influence of these extremists?”
“It needs our communications people to cover their tracks completely,” said Thanatos, “any such instructions must never track back to Larcombe. If several of the big hitters left in a van and moved to another establishment, we could arrange an accident.”
“The accident needs to be catastrophic. The occupants have to die. Driver, warders and prisoners,” said Athena. “We can’t ambush the van and shoot the extremists. That exposes us to too many questions.”
Erebus spoke. “Prepare a plan Thanatos. The collateral damage is unavoidable. We have to think of the greater good. This situation concerning the mole, or the removal of our prison population extremists, remains unresolved. We need to revisit those matters on another occasion. Can we get more intelligence in these areas Thanatos? See to it, please. If that means getting more people on the inside, so be it. If we need to invite one of their numbers to spend time with us at Larcombe, then we should organise that as soon as possible.”
Alastor asked, “Are we intending a ‘catch and release’ visit?”
“One-way ticket only,” replied Erebus.
CHAPTER 15
Colin had arrived back in the West Country. He had sent a text to the transport section as the train pulled out of Swindon. It was designed to confuse anyone monitoring mobile phone traffic, but crystal clear to the drivers back at Larcombe.
‘Fireboy home in fifteen. See you soon.’
Colin walked out of the station in the heart of the Roman city and straight into the passenger seat of the Olympus minicab.
“Good trip?” the driver asked.
“For me, yes,” replied Colin.
The driver chuckled and eased the cab into the slow-moving line of cars. It was a mild autumn evening, and the trees were shedding their leaves in larger and larger numbers. Colin watched the changing scene as they drove out of the city into the countryside. He had been so preoccupied with his training over the past three months he had forgotten how time passed. Today had been a breeze. He was back doing what he did best. Colin wondered what Erebus and the others would make of his performance. Perhaps he might receive a gold star?
The minicab negotiated the leaf-strewn driveway and pulled up beside the stable block. Colin assumed any performance review would be on hold until the morning at least. He thanked the driver for the lift and wished him goodnight
. When he got into his quarters, he unpacked his rucksack and changed his clothes.
Colin stood holding the pistol and thinking back over the past twelve hours. Would he find someone at work in the armoury? Should he return the gun and spare ammunition tonight? At that point, he glanced over to his desk and spotted another ‘post-it’ note on his laptop.
The note had come from Erebus again. ‘Pop in when you get back Phoenix, we’re working late.’
Colin stashed the gun and ammo in his locker and walked over to the main house. He found Erebus and the others in the drawing-room. They relaxed with coffee and sandwiches. Thanatos waved a lazy hand towards the supper spread on the side table and told him to get something for himself.
Colin hadn’t realised he was so hungry. A long time had passed since lunch at the Snowdrop Inn, and he travelled back to Bath without delay once he’d finished the job. The luxury of idling away an hour in the restaurant car or the station buffets at Victoria or Paddington had been tempting, but too risky.
He buried his teeth into a salmon and cucumber sandwich when Erebus spoke.
“Everything went according to plan then Phoenix?” he said, sipping his coffee.
Colin was poised to reply when Erebus continued: -
“Your plan worked to perfection. DCI Richard Armitage was discovered by his playing partner on the Lewes golf course late this afternoon. He had been shot at close range. The Sussex police have no eyewitnesses. They have few leads to follow. A senior officer trotted out the usual stuff, our thoughts are with the family. He added that Richard was a valued friend and colleague who will be sorely missed. But the truth is they were glad to see the back of him. One less rotten apple in the barrel. The police investigation is centring on his earlier court case. Criminals he came into contact with while working with SOCA were annoyed when he wriggled his way out of the charges brought against him. The drugs gangs have long arms. Any of those whose members had narcotics planted on them or got involved in any of his other money-making activities may have ordered a hit. Our people in the ice-house are contributing to the misinformation so that the local plods won’t get imaginative and think outside of the box.”
