by Michael Foot
Now, to do that, we will need an articulate, photogenic individual on our side, to lead it – organise the scavenging parties, explain what is being done and so on. And I thought of you. But, at the last moment, another suitable candidate has appeared and, anyway, I wanted you to see something rather different about our operations in your third labour.
So, it’ll be your choice.” and here Michael drew breath and paused. “Leading this TV programme OR we could blood you in something quite different that would admit a side of us you haven’t yet seen. One for which an Angel close to our hearts, sadly, may need to be prepared.
Before I explain exactly what ‘something’ that is, I need to make clear that we stand for non-violence and due process. But, even for an organisation like us, there arises very occasionally a situation where non-violence and due process won’t get you where you need to be. So, more than with the second labour, if you really want to be a key player in our organisation, I need you to understand that it may occasionally be necessary for us to take the law into our own hands.
This case is the result of an aggravated rape of one of our girls, a few months ago. The boy – he’s about 20 – who did it is a gang leader and small-time drug dealer. The rape was probably not premeditated but the boy was clever – and prepared enough – to use a condom; so no bodily fluids that the police could pick up on. And he quickly set himself up an alibi with some of his crooked friends. The girl did report it, when she had recovered. But, though we have friends in the local police, all we’ve got back from them is that there isn’t enough evidence to bring him to trial. I think we owe it to the girl to teach this boy such a lesson that, just maybe, he will never do any such thing again.
What I’m asking of you is that you join a small team – two other professionals – who are planning a suitable lesson for the boy. I promise you that he won’t be permanently disabled or hurt; but, nevertheless, violence – or at least the threat of it – will be necessary. We aim to do it in a way that ideally will never even get to the police or, if it does, will not lead them back to us. Small-time drug dealers tend to have lots of enemies – the police know that well enough. And, anyway, I understand the plan is to exact a penalty that, if he’s sensible, the boy will never even acknowledge, let alone seek remedy with the authorities.
That’s the choice. I’ve always tried to be straight with you. Even if you choose the voyage to sea, you will now be aware that even the Angels have a small, rarely exposed, darker side. I think it’s no bad thing that you understand it. I discussed this second option with Chloe. She thought you were mature enough to have worked out for yourself that we can’t always be whiter than white; and she also thought that, provided you met with the girl and heard her story first-hand, you might feel sufficiently angry to join us. Your call. I’ll leave you for an hour to think about it; and I know Chloe is going to drop in on you in the next few minutes.”
With that, Michael left and Andrew was, in turn, left with very mixed emotions. He was at heart a military man, or at least his training had been. He had done considerably worse things he reflected during his spell of active duty; like shooting a man who he was sure was a terrorist but who hadn’t been through any due legal process to establish that he was. This, however, would be much more cold-blooded. And, Andrew’s mind was always intensely practical, how likely was it that the affair could end badly? With the Colonel needing to come in and literally bail him out of trouble?
Andrew felt rather than heard the door behind him open. And then, there was Chloe. “I hope you don’t think too badly of me” she said. “I have been in the same place – about four years ago- to where you are now. I concluded then that the Angels do such good – and can do so much more – that, if I had to cross a line occasionally for them then I would. In practice, it has only been necessary a couple of times; and in both cases, like what I know of this rape, I was so angry with the target that I’ve never had a sleepless night. No pressure, Andrew; and I’ll go now. But I do want you to stay and thrive in the Angels. I do want you, like me, to be part of the inner circle. Let’s just say I’d miss you a lot if you go.” She left as quietly as she had come.
Andrew weighed up his options. If he really couldn’t stomach the second option then he should effectively say so by walking out and refusing either part of the challenge. He knew that, if the Colonel were here, he would be urging him to go on. He knew also that, whatever Chloe had meant in saying she would ‘miss him’, his heart had leapt when she had said those words. One of the very few nice personal things he now realised that she had ever said to him.
All in all, there was no real choice to be made. He would meet the girl and, provided he believed her story and her being able to ID the man who had done it, he would be ‘in’. That was the short answer he gave Michael when the latter returned a while later.
18
Subsequent events moved rapidly. That evening, Andrew was rung at home. A male voice introduced himself as John and gave Andrew some quick explicit instructions. Within 30 seconds, Andrew had realised John must be one of his two new companions in crime. “Come to the following address” (This was somewhere on the outskirts of Manchester by the sound of it.) “Bring a couple of changes of dark clothes – ones that are easy to take on and off and which you won’t mind losing. You’ll only need to be here 2-3 days. We’ve been working on this for weeks. Now you happen along and get the benefit of our work. By the way, I presume you can drive any small van we may be needing? Having you as our driver will muck us up less, if – as I’m assured – you are properly trained. And safer for us than involving you more fully.”
Andrew acknowledged that he should be able to drive anything they needed. And he also felt constrained to point out that it wasn’t him, Andrew, who had inserted himself at the last minute. “I’ll be with you by mid-afternoon tomorrow. I presume you’d like me to come by public transport and leave no footprint of the journey? And, by the way as I hope you’ve been told, I want to meet with the girl” he searched for the right words “that we’re helping. Fix that for tomorrow if you can.”
Andrew rang off. The caller had been brusque to the point of rudeness. But Andrew could see that, from the latter’s point of view, having another operative inserted into the operation at the last minute must be frustrating.
Thanking Google, not for the first time, Andrew then checked up on the journey he would need and on a couple of Manchester-related sites. He logged out, using the tool which the Colonel had given him several years ago, to expunge (as far as possible) his footprint round the web. He then went out and got himself £1,000 in cash out of the local ATM – lucky he lived near the City where such cash demands were not uncommon; he had already established that a First Class Anytime Return from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly was nearly £500. He certainly wasn’t going Standard Class and he needed to pay cash. A couple of drinks down at his local, a quick selection of suitable clothes including a balaclava and a suitcase. And he was ready.
From past sorties, he knew that there were no labels on any of the clothing that could, if the worst came to the worst, tie back to him. And he went carefully through the pockets to make sure there was nothing there either. His fingerprints he would be bound to leave around, likewise the odd hair or piece of sloughed skin. But, again from past operations, he knew that no official data base held any record to which this data could be tied back to him. He was good to go. Last, he added in what he always called his ‘trouble pack’ – which should really have been the ‘get out of trouble’ pack. Gloves, torch, matches – a handful of things that he had previously found invaluable. Nothing that would cause comment if looked at by an outsider. Certainly no weapons, unless you counted the rather elaborate Swiss Army knife which was something he wasn’t going to leave out and which, to most people, would seem innocent enough.
He talked briefly with Chloe, saying only that he would be away on Angel business for a few days. And then he slept,
soundly and dreamlessly. The journey up to Manchester was uneventful – except for the fact that the train was on time (he didn’t know the line, so really had no idea whether that was usual or not). He had the subsequent bus route in his head. And, though the bus passed the address he had been given, he descended about half a mile before that and walked through the streets, to get at least a feel of the neighbourhood – rather down at heel suburban city.
The address itself was an end of terrace two storey building, probably built in the 1930s, quite unremarkable at least from the outside. It was John, it turned out, who opened the door to him and wordlessly ushered him into the main living room. There he met the other member of the team, Jake. Both John and Jake looked exactly like the kind of men you would go out of your way to avoid on a dark evening. Andrew decided they were probably both special ops trained in the Army and that he would go down best with them, if he cut a serious and workman-like face for them. The kind his own Army training had prepared him for. They probably needed reassurance that he wasn’t some rookie who was going to compromise whatever they had planned.
Very limited pleasantries were exchanged. John offered coffee, which Andrew accepted and they sat silent, rather incongruously Andrew thought given the circumstances.
John eventually spoke (and, indeed subsequently, Andrew could hardly recall a word that Jake spoke then, or later). “I’ve fixed for you to meet the girl, Julie, early evening in the local pizza restaurant. It needs to be today because we have the action planned for Sunday evening; and the girl will be 200 miles from here by Sunday morning so that, if any attempt were later made by the police to link her to the attack, she would have a clear alibi. The action will take place, if things go according to plan, in the back room of the pizza place; they open as a restaurant on Saturday but only do takeaway Sunday. If you meet her, as I’ve suggested around 7, you’ll get a chance to size up the place. The two boys who run the place are ‘friends’. They won’t know who you are and it should stay that way; but they won’t be unfriendly if they see you with the girl, put it like that.
As for Sunday, all you need to know I think is that you will drive us in a small van that we have garaged near here, to the back of the restaurant around 7 tomorrow evening. There’s a back entrance. Jake and I will go in. You will wait in the car ready to drive away when we get out. The little bastard we’re after is due to drop in around then – the pizza boys have been his drug collection point for the last few months. He’s a suspicious little runt, so the chances are he’ll bring either no-one or just his one reasonably trusted helper, which couldn’t be better from our point of view. We have an Angel inside their gang. He will know when the kid leaves their hole and can warn us if anything goes wrong.
There’s a small stretcher already in the restaurant. We will knock the kid out (and his helper if he has one). Chemically if possible, Jake’s a dab hand with the needle, physically if not. We carry him out to the back of the van, tell you where to drive and that’s the first part done.
We then drive to another safe house about 5 miles away which has a garage. To anyone who notices us there – and people round here tend to keep their noses out of neighbours’ business – we’ll look like three guys going round for drinks and maybe a porn movie, before another long boring week at work. In the house is a kitchen where another mate of ours, who knows how to handle a different set of needles, tattooing, will be waiting.
Our little friend will be lucky. Jake will make sure he sleeps through what would otherwise be quite a painful little operation, while our friend tattoos a suitable message down the back of each leg and across his chest. We’ll be filming the outcome – we shall want our friend to realise when he wakes up that he has a real choice. He can keep quiet and the film stays off his social media. Or he can go to the fuzz and report the attack. He hates the police, they hate him. So our guess is that he’ll keep quiet; but we’ll see. Anyway when the tattooist has done his stuff, he’ll get back to his base. All he needs with him is a set of needles, bandages, antiseptic and the needle machine. The latter is hand-held, a doddle. We will load the boy up in the van; you drive out, drop him in a suitable country lane a few miles away and leave him to sleep it off.
When he wakes up, he can decide for himself whether he walks home and keeps quiet, or not. We’ll be back in London, the van gets a make-over to look like it did Friday, the genuine number plates put back on. Bob’s your uncle. Oh, and by the way, don’t worry about the local CCTV. We have friends again who will put that out for the relevant period, not that there’s much CCTV anyway in poor areas like the pizza joint – not enough valuable to protect. And Vehicle Registration cameras down the motorway and so on, no problem. What will they be looking for? By early Monday morning when we aim to do the trip, there’ll be 300 white vans an hour bombing up and down the M6 and we’re legit.
Of course things can go wrong. But I have to say that my experience of the Angels has been pretty good so far. If the CCTV is supposed to be out it will be; and I rather suspect the local police will have a few other call-outs on Sunday evening to deal with, even if something goes wrong and a passer-by or neighbour sees something and does report it in. Life gets a little more complicated if he brings a helper; but only a little.”
“All sounds straightforward” commented Andrew. “Certainly beats yomping through some bloody desert” – Jake made his only contribution to the conversation. Andrew continued “I’ll see the girl and then come back here – I presume we’re sleeping here. What if the kid does call it in on Monday? He’ll be able to lead the police straight to the pizza takeaway which gives them a flying start.”
“Yes” replied John. “But our Angel friends don’t do things by halves. The two pizza lads will also be taking off Sunday night as soon as we’ve left and they’re disappearing down south. They’re being well paid. The restaurant has got all sorts of bills outstanding; and doing a runner, if you have a place like that on a lease where the rent is behind, isn’t exactly uncommon. I tried to work out at one point how much the Angels have spent on getting come-uppance for this kid – it must be well over 50 grand plus what we’re getting. Pretty impressive!”
“One last question” said Andrew. “What actually is the message that the kid’s going to get? “Very boring” John replied with a slight smile. “On the back of one leg ‘small time’ on the other ‘crook’; across his chest ‘dealer’. It has to be there; we think he’s already got traditional tattoos on his arms. I wanted the message just to say ‘rapist’ but the powers that be thought that too much of a giveaway as to where the attack might have come from, if the kid does call it in. This way, it can look to an outsider like the whole thing was just a typical ‘small gang/dealer spat’. But, in one of the brief periods when the boy’s awake, we will make it clear why it’s being done. And we will be saying that, if in future we hear a word about him abusing any girl, we’ll be back for his balls.
Look, he’s being really lucky. We’ll make sure the tattoo can’t easily be got rid of, apparently that’s best done by using coloured inks rather than just black. But he’ll be getting washed, antiseptic, bandages – all the gear just like he would if he were paying for this in a parlour. And, as I say, he’ll be asleep during the bit that might hurt. Personally, I shan’t mind him if I have to give him an additional kick or two, if he’s not 100% co-operative. I think the Angels are pussy-footing on this, to be honest.”
Andrew left, as he had said he would, around 6.30. He had been told where he would find the restaurant and how he could recognise the girl and exchange a coded greeting. It was only about 10 minutes’ walk; and he spent the next 20 minutes or so reconnoitring the main street and the alley that obviously led to the back of the restaurant. The alley would give him a degree of cover from being seen from the road; and anyway, Andrew reasoned, the whole area would be used to seeing cars waiting or parked near the restaurant. Takeaway round here probably meant most orders being collected f
rom the restaurant; rather than delivered by the restaurant itself.
The two young men running the shop sounded like South Africans. There were only a handful of tables but Andrew chose one in the corner furthest away from the pick-up counter, and ordered a soft drink (no alcohol licence he noted). There was hardly anyone else around but, anyway, when Julie arrived, Andrew didn’t need a second look to decide that she was the girl he was waiting for. He rose quickly, went over to her and introduced himself “I’m the guy that Chloe will have told you about – probably best we don’t mention my name. Come and sit down and, if you’re hungry, let’s eat.”
One thing John hadn’t mentioned was that the pizza was actually pretty good, as Andrew was able to attest to after they had shared a Four Seasons and a ‘Spicy Special’, together with two mixed salads and further soft drink. Initially they chatted inconsequentially – Andrew hadn’t given much thought to how he would gain her confidence. But he had determined that she shouldn’t know anything about him – just in case things went wrong tomorrow.
Actually, the link with Chloe provided the key he needed. When Julie found out that he knew Chloe quite well, it was a natural segue to Julie explaining how much she had come to depend on Chloe, after what she persisted for the next 45 minutes in always referring to as ‘the evening it happened’. What Andrew wanted to know was that she was a credible witness, so that when she described the young dealer and what had happened, Andrew should have no doubt that it really had happened and that the boy really had been responsible.
