by Iain Cameron
The man took a final deep draw of his cigarette, lighting up his face. Jack Harris hadn’t gone out tonight to meet a lover, but what the hell was he doing socialising with the Met’s Most Wanted: Simon Wood?
Chapter 10
Matt and Rosie drove along the A12, heading east. A while back, they’d passed the Ingatestone turn-off, the place where Matt used to live and where Emma was buried. They did so without comment. It wasn’t a sensitive subject, despite what Rosie, in the driving seat, might think. Matt had said all he wanted to say on the matter.
Before he was fully awake this morning, and before he could reflect on the activities of the previous night and seeing Simon Wood, Rosie rang. A report had come in from Suffolk police who had discovered a shipment of arms. Matt wasn’t getting too excited as the report didn’t say anything about the nature of their find. It could be a false alarm: a consignment of blank-firing replicas from the Czech Republic, bought on the dark web by criminals intent on converting them to fire real ammunition, or toys, destined for cowboy-themed parties and raucous stag nights.
‘You’re very quiet,’ she said.
‘Am I? I was wondering why I find the A12 so endless and boring.’
‘Maybe it’s the flat, featureless landscape.’
‘That’s Essex for you.’
When Matt lived in Ingatestone he’d liked the landscape, as it didn’t remind him of the rolling hills of Ireland. Living in Essex left him with good memories, while Ireland didn’t; his parents always arguing about money, sick animals, and never having enough food on the table. To add to it all, the relentless, pissing rain that made every trip outside a challenge.
Rosie’s phone rang and Matt tuned out.
‘Matt,’ she said after finishing her call, ‘and don’t take this the wrong way, but did you really see Simon Wood at that house in Hampstead last night?’
‘Of course I did. Why?’
‘After you phoned me to say you were heading home, I called the Met. An armed response team raided it about half-one in the morning and they didn’t find him. No trace in fact.’
‘Really? Who owns the house?’
‘Someone called Stacey Hope. A woman with a two-year-old child and apparently no connection with Simon Wood.’
‘I’m surprised, I definitely saw him. Maybe Wood was only visiting.’
‘She said her uncle had been there earlier and he could be mistaken for Wood at a distance.’
Matt was annoyed. Although Wood was not on top of his wanted list, he would still like to talk to him. Matt had been a little slow in calling Rosie, as he knew what she would do after he spoke to her. In fact, he’d debated calling her at all. A raid on the house would alert Harris as to his interest and could force him underground.
‘How did you get on with your date, sorry business meeting, with the charming DI Hillman?’
‘Charming now is he? Makes a change from your original assessment; tosspot, I think you called him. And it was lunch, not dinner.’
‘I stand corrected.’
‘Before you ask, we did not rent a room by the hour in some seedy hotel and no fumbling took place either under the table nor outside in the street.’
‘I wasn’t going to say anything.’
‘It was a business meeting, agency to agency.’
‘A bit of hand holding, maybe?’
‘Matt, behave yourself. You’ll appreciate my efforts when the time comes and we need to ask CTC to do something for us.’
‘Too true. When we’re running after terrorists with semi-automatics, I would rather have six of his blokes by my side than ten plods, any day of the week.’
‘In which case, go easy on DI Hillman.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
They turned into the Port of Felixstowe and Matt was momentarily mesmerised by the sight of thousands and thousands of containers stacked five and six on top of one another, like a giant metal Lego puzzle. Inside these bland metal boxes were cars, fridges, iPads, yellow bath ducks. In fact, a large majority of the goods imported and exported by the UK every week were transported in this way.
Passing through Security they were directed into a warehouse. There, they could see a low-load truck with a container at the back, being guarded by a posse of armed police. On the way there, Rosie had called the HSA Administration Department, clearing the way for them to work with the Suffolk Police.
They got out of the car and, before trying to decide which of the ten or twelve coppers inside the warehouse they needed to talk to, one came striding towards them.
‘What are you doing here? Who let you in? This is a crime scene, so get the fuck out of it.’
‘Charming,’ Matt said as they pulled out their identification cards.
The suspicious cop snatched them and looked closely. ‘Oh, sorry about that,’ he said, sounding for a few moments contrite before resuming his previous officious tone. ‘I’ve been expecting you people, although I was told you’d arrive a bit earlier than this. My men have been standing here guarding a fucking box for two and a half hours.’
‘We couldn’t get here earlier, Chief Inspector…’
‘Steve West, Suffolk Police.’
‘I’m Rosie Fox and this is Matt Flynn. What can I say? We came as soon as we heard, but traffic was bad on the M25.’
The Chief Inspector was about to moan about something else when Matt stepped in.
‘Can we see the gear?’
‘What? Yes of course you can. Follow me.’
They waited while an officer climbed a small set of steps at the rear of the container and opened its doors and switched on the portable light. They were looking at a large consignment of catering-sized tins of fruit; peaches, pears and apricots, shrink-wrapped on pallets, placed in two rows and stacked two pallets high.
Someone had removed a couple of the pallets on the right-hand side of the container, he’d seen them lying at the back of the warehouse. Comparing those with the ones in the container, he could see the gunrunners had halved their depth, creating space to hide the armaments behind without it showing.
‘How did the Security guy have any idea something was amiss?’ Matt asked. ‘I imagine with all the pallets in place, it would look like a kosher fruit delivery.’
‘He’s the diligent sort. Like to know what’s inside compared to the documents he’s given. He often gets on a ladder to see over the pallets and count them. When he saw that the tins didn’t go all the way back, it made him suspicious and he called us.’
‘Good job he did.’
They all climbed into the container, Matt allowing the CI to go first, as he wanted to watch what he did. The copper walked to the illegal consignment at the back, the dull wooden crates incongruous against the jolly, bright-coloured labels of the fruit tins. The boxes were of various sizes, some long and shallow, others short and deep.
‘There they are,’ the cop said with a ‘help yourself’ wave of the hand. Matt was pleased to find he didn’t open the lid or finger the contents.
‘Has anyone touched what’s inside?’
‘God no. We drill into them the way they should behave at a crime scene. The security guard opened a box to see what it contained, but he didn’t touch anything either, he says.’
‘Good.’ But Matt wasn’t convinced. Who wasn’t curious to see what was inside a box? Once they’d opened it, how could anyone, in particular men brought up on war comics and Rambo films, resist picking one up and taking it in their hands?
Matt lifted off the lid. Lying on a bed of straw, six M4 US military grade assault rifles. He wasn’t as fascinated by guns as many he knew, but he had to admit, they looked formidable.
‘This is some serious shit,’ Matt said. ‘These are standard issue to US Infantry, and variants are used by their special forces. They could kill a cop or pedestrian from over three hundred metres away, or mow down a crowd with a single press of the trigger.’
‘Why were you asking if anyone had handled them?’ Rosie asked.
‘I don’t imagine you’re concerned about invalidating the guarantee.’
Matt smiled. Black humour was a useful trait, the ability to make light of serious situations. ‘We might get something off them. Assuming they get rubbed down at the factory before they’re packed, with luck the first person to take them out of the box would have been the buyer.’
He replaced the lid on the box and opened another, shorter one. Ammunition for the M4. Over the next twenty minutes he opened all the boxes and mentally ticked-off forty-eight M4s, eight boxes of ammunition, and numerous boxes of grenades.
‘What do you think?’ he asked Rosie. A few minutes before, the Chief Inspector had got bored and left to talk to his officers.
‘Even though we’re missing most of it, I hate to think what this little lot could do on the streets of Belfast or Londonderry.’
‘I was thinking the same and what could they do with a thousand?’
‘The PSNI intelligence report estimated the numbers at IRM at less than a hundred.’
‘They’re either hedging their bets,’ Matt said, ‘assuming they’d lose some in finds like this, or anticipating the organisation will grow rapidly when news of the arrival of the weapons leaks outs.’
‘If this is what they’ve sent in one delivery, we could be looking at more deliveries than we first thought; maybe twenty or more.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘The CIA report. They lost a thousand rifles. You counted only forty-eight.’
‘Yeah,’ Matt said, ‘but even though it’s confirmed they’ve split the consignment into a number of smaller deliveries, I can’t see it going beyond four. Six max.’
‘Why?’
‘With any more, it would take too long to set up, be difficult to manage, and increase the chances of them being rumbled. Just think of the work that went into making this container look as though it only carried fruit. We were lucky to find it. I think a couple more shipments will be coming into Felixstowe, some may have already got through, with the rest being sent by ship through other ports.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine. Let’s go and talk to the driver.’
**
Davy Walker, the driver of the truck, was sitting inside a small office at the back of the warehouse looking at something on his phone. Matt would ask him later if he’d posted pictures of the weapons on social media. To ask him now and find out he had, he would be charged with a criminal offense, but this wouldn’t make for a cooperative witness.
Walker was a big man with a cheery face. The bulging beer belly suggested he liked nothing better than swallowing a few jars down the pub and enjoying a laugh with some of his mates.
‘You work for CH Hauliers,’ Matt said after introductions and when he and Rosie had sat down.
‘Yep.’
‘Where are you based?’
‘A village outside Market Harborough.’
‘Is this the company’s main business, picking up containers from Felixstowe and delivering them to customers?’
‘Pretty much. We started seven or eight years ago with loose stuff, you know, tarmac and road spoil and all that, but the margins were crap. Three years back, a friend of the boss offered him a container contract, so he bought a truck and never looked back. He’s got twelve of these now,’ he said nodding in the direction of his road warrior.
‘What do you know about today’s customer, Mediterranean Tropical Foods in Leicester? Have you dealt with them before?’
Matt spoke lightly, as if he didn’t give a toss one way or the other. Depending on how Walker responded, Matt would either be still sitting there, or out of his seat and holding the fat man in front of him by the throat.
‘First time. The boss is signing new customers every day. I tell you, mate,’ he said, struggling to lean closer to Matt in the flimsy, plastic chair, ‘a lot of people know you can put what the hell you like in these boxes and Customs are none the wiser. They think they’re being smart telling me to go and get some grub at the café down the road while they empty it, but I know some of them are bringing in drugs, fake goods, counterfeit money, even people. It’s unbelievable what they get up to.’
‘Davy, we’re gonna put the pallets on the floor back into your truck–’
‘Matt, a word,’ Rosie said.
‘Don’t go away,’ Matt said to the driver.
They got up and walked away from their little meeting area. When they stopped, Rosie leaned close.
‘Matt, where are you going with this? Shouldn’t you be discussing this with me first? The Director might want to claim this discovery as a major PR victory for HSA.’
‘What happened to us shunning publicity?’
‘You know what I mean. Maybe not for us then, but to give something back to Suffolk Police and the insufferable CI West, then.’
‘Sorry, I sort of got caught up in a bit of operational planning. What I’m thinking is we send the truck up to Leicester, let the customer unload the goods, and before they open the boxes and pull out the guns, raid the place.’
‘This wasn’t what I was thinking. I think we should stay here, unload the truck and ask the Leicester Police to raid the premises of the customer.’
‘I don’t like it. The people at Mediterranean Tropical Foods are probably IRM members or sympathisers, they might have already received a delivery and be armed with M4s. We can’t even send armed police into such a dangerous situation.’
‘If we raid it, they could do the same to us.’
‘They could, but at least we’ll be prepared for the worst. Don’t forget if they don’t see Walker’s lorry, maybe an hour or two after its expected arrival time, they could scarper. We’d have the guns but no leads or intel. In my scenario, if we’re successful, we keep the guns and nab the bad guys, and maybe I’ll just shoot a few as a warning to others.’
‘I’ll pretend I never heard that.’
‘So, what do you think?’
‘I think on reflection, us going to Leicester is the lesser of two bad options.’ She gave him a light punch on the shoulder. Not his sore one or he might have punched her back. ‘I hate to say it, but I think this time you’re right. Let’s get this vehicle reloaded, we’re going to Leicester.’
Chapter 11
The satnav estimated the journey time from Felixstowe to Leicester at around three hours. It wasn’t a long distance, but the road they were travelling on had only two lanes. It was fast in places but in others full of trucks like the one they were following. If two trucks occupied both lanes and they came upon the slightest incline, not that they could see many real hills in this area, traffic slowed right down.
Matt didn’t mind as long as he didn’t lose track of Davy Walker’s lorry. As a precaution, they’d given the driver a radio and taken his mobile phone number. It was imperative in terms of timing for Matt and Rosie to be close behind when the truck arrived at its destination. Too early and it would increase their chances of being seen, too late and the boxes might be opened and the guns put into the hands of terrorists.
Walker had called his office at CH Hauliers and told the dispatcher about his delayed departure from Felixstowe. He blamed it on the container’s late removal from the ship and a broken-down lorry which hampered his exit from the port. It wasn’t the first time he or any of his colleagues departed from the port after the expected time and the office didn’t give him any grief.
Customers of CH were informed of the date for the delivery of their container, but only given an estimated time of arrival. This was updated when the goods were on the road. Therefore, the delayed departure would not cause undue alarm. The only person Walker needed to placate now was his boss, and Matt would speak to him once the dust had settled.
Rosie put her phone down. ‘The CTC team are a few minutes behind.’
‘Good. Remind me what they’re bringing to this party?’
‘Four officers, all armed with H&K carbines, handguns and the full Kevlar kit. They’ve also alerted the loca
l cop shop and they’ve scrambled a team. They’ll only join in after we hit them and deal with any traffic control, crowd and press issues, plus take away any prisoners.’
‘Good. I hope the locals realise what it is we’re dealing with here. They need to keep well back.’
‘They do. They’ll be no uniforms within a mile of the scene. I do take your point that they may deploy spotters.’
‘It’s a serious issue. I want to nab these guys and I’ll be mad if the whole operation is fucked-up by some gung-ho bobby who fancies seeing his name in the papers. The prisoners might not open their traps except to spout some Nationalist crap, but we’ll still have their houses and the Leicester business to search. I’ll be surprised if that lot doesn’t throw up something useful.’
‘We need to find something; we need to move this case forward.’
‘The Chief Inspector’s face was a picture when we told him we were leaving.’
‘Did you not notice, no, you wouldn’t, being a man, but his shoes were polished to a shine and I’m sure he was wearing his best shirt. All he needed was a camera from the local TV station and out would come the pearly whites and a speech he’d been rehearsing all morning.’
Matt laughed. ‘What a fraud. He would talk about the men’s bravery and courage at securing these dangerous weapons, and all they did was stand watching a metal box for a couple of hours.’
‘He’ll be mightily pissed off when he hears what’s going down. Whatever happens, if we find this place full of terrorists or empty, we’re not taking this lorry back to Felixstowe. It will be opened and photographed in Leicester and if the Chief Constable would like to come down and have his picture taken, he’s welcome.’
‘Agreed.’
They had been travelling on the A1(M) for over an hour, an excellent, fast road of motorway standard, but now they were leaving it behind and joining the A47, a single-lane carriageway. Matt tucked in behind Walker, and the CTC team behind Matt.
‘I know this is a bit late to raise it,’ Rosie said, ‘but do you think Walker’s the real deal?’
