by Ted Tayler
Phoenix was finding his sea legs at last. He felt less fragile than before and even relaxed enough to take a nap. At ten past five, Mervyn tapped him on the shoulder.
“This is it,” he said, “we’re as close into shore as we can take her. I’ll take you onto Haven Beach in our dinghy. Get your gear and let’s go.”
Phoenix followed him on deck. Gareth nodded to him from the wheelhouse. Bronwen was still somewhere aft. Minutes later he stood alone on the sand, watching Mervyn on his return journey. He jogged off the beach, and into the shadows. The narrow road petered out as it reached the beach. There was only room for a few parking bays by the church gate. This morning there was only one car. Its set of headlights flashed once.
His Larcombe driver was waiting. He threw his bag in the back and sat in the passenger seat.
“Good morning, mate,” said a friendly voice.
“Rusty, I never expected to see you.”
“Athena thought it might give you three hours to fill me in on what happened.”
Phoenix recounted his mission, from start to finish. He left out the prolonged bout of seasickness; you can have too much detail.
As they approached the driveway to the manor house, Phoenix asked whether Rusty had heard any news on Biggles.
“Still making slow progress,” Rusty replied.
“Have the ice-house staff discovered who carried out the attack, and the hit on Arjun Krishnan?” asked Phoenix.
“Steady on, Phoenix, you’ve had a tough mission and a long journey. Athena wants you to get a few hours’ sleep first. You’re no good to Olympus if you’re knackered.”
Phoenix wanted to argue, but his heavy eyelids told him Rusty was right. He didn’t argue. He would sleep for a few hours, and then he could lie awake for a while, sorting out his plans on how to deal with the mysterious ‘H’.
Planning makes perfect.
CHAPTER 14
Sunday, 6th April 2014
“Come on, sleepyhead,” Athena whispered in his ear.
Phoenix had been awake for ages, but he would not give up without a fight.
“Rusty rang earlier to bring me up to speed,” Athena continued. “We need to call an emergency meeting this afternoon to evaluate our response.”
Phoenix turned over onto his back. Athena sat on the side of the bed, with Hope in her arms. His daughter stared at him. She turned her head towards her mother and gave a big sigh.
“Exactly,” said Athena, “it’s two in the afternoon, and Daddy’s still in bed.”
“OK, I’ll get up,” growled Phoenix, “but I need something to eat, and hot coffee before I get to work.”
“Everything is ready for you. Shift yourself and come through to the lounge.”
The shower started the process of feeling human again, and when he had eaten and finished his coffee, Phoenix was fit and ready. He carried Hope with him, as he and Athena met with the others. What could be the most critical meeting at Larcombe in years, was probably the most informal.
“Welcome back, Phoenix,” said Henry Case, as they entered the room. Rusty and Artemis sat together, deep in conversation. Giles leafed through intelligence notes he had gathered while Phoenix was in Ireland. Minos and Alastor were dressed in ‘smart, casual’ clothes, which was so alien to Phoenix. He struggled to recall ever having seen them in anything other than a suit and tie.
“The outcome and aftermath of that mission were a real shock,” said Phoenix. “Rusty and I must have upset someone last month. It appears we disturbed a hornet’s nest. Please tell me we can control it?”
Henry recapped the Irish situation.
“Biggles will survive, thank goodness, but he won’t be flying for several months. Olympus will continue to support him financially until he gets back in the air. The agents in the Republic conducted themselves admirably, as I’m sure you agree, Phoenix. Giles will shed light on the people responsible for altering the planned mission you were sent on in due course.”
Giles then delivered his assessment of what Olympus faced, on both sides of the Irish Sea. He told his colleagues that Gavin McTierney was born in 1980. His father, grandfather, various uncles and cousins, were involved with the Provisionals in Dublin. As a teenager, McTierney ran with a gang of thugs against the peace process. They were responsible for several punishment attacks. At the time of the hoax bombing campaign on the mainland, at least a dozen of those gang members lived in the UK. The authorities never identified the persons responsible.
McTierney rose through the ranks of one of the Hackney street gangs and was controlling it by 2010. Under his leadership, the gang expanded its influence. Its drug dealing, extortion, and human trafficking trade thrived. The overriding factor in that success was the constant threat of violence. McTierney not only threatened violence; he used it frequently.
Only one name from the ‘comrades’ from his time in Dublin in the late Nineties fitted the profile for H, the man who claimed responsibility for Krishnan’s murder. Ardal James Hannon, thirty-five years old, hailed from Dublin. He attended a private college in the city, before studying Business at University College. He moved to England in 2005.
Hannon’s last known address was in Cricklewood. His first-class degree had opened doors for him in the City. His last employer was a merchant bank which Hannon had left in 2009 to set up in business on his own. That’s when he disappeared off the grid. Hannon’s name was no longer to be found in the 2011 census.
“We’re still searching for him,” said Henry Case. “Given what we know from their past, we believe Hannon joined forces with McTierney. It’s perfectly possible others from their teenage days in Dublin who are in this country established similar links. We have photographs of Hannon from a decade ago, and we’re looking for a match, but it’s needle and haystack territory as you can imagine.”
“Rest assured we won’t give up,” said Giles. “Hannon represents the brains behind an operation of this stature. Over the past three or four years, the street gangs have moved out into the suburbs. The emphasis has shifted from petty street corner deals and inter-gang squabbles to a well-structured business model. We were discussing this very thing only recently. Hannon is a perfect fit for the mastermind behind this change of tactics.”
“Whatever he calls himself now, and wherever he is,” continued Henry, “he’s combining the disparate gangs into a large cohesive unit. This takes a special talent. The UK is a multi-ethnic society, criminal enterprises come from a variety of different ethnic backgrounds. Outside the indigenous white British crime syndicates, are Russian mafia, Triads, Yardies, Pakistani and Indian mafia, as well as Sri Lankan, Tamil, Turkish Cypriot, and Vietnamese organised crime groups. A man who can get these criminals working together is possibly the most dangerous criminal this country has ever faced.”
“We know the London gangs have contacts across the UK,” said Phoenix. “If these links are strengthened, then the potential for the network they would create is horrific. This man has to be stopped.”
“We have to find him first,” said Athena, “and that has to be a priority for the ice-house. However, the Olympus Project needs protection against any interference in its operations. We must discover where Hannon discovered the link between Phoenix and Rusty’s direct action in the capital, and Larcombe Manor. If they traced them back here and followed me to Rhoose when I took Phoenix to Les Biggar, then we have an urgent security problem to remove. Henry, I need you to set up extra surveillance surrounding our property. If we are being watched; we need to follow the trail back to where it originates. The elimination of that threat will begin at the source and continue until it’s eradicated.”
“Understood, Athena,” said Henry.
“You will be sending a strong message to Hannon,” said Minos, “if it’s proven he is the mastermind behind this. There may be repercussions. Are we ready to engage with these people head to head? We don’t have the personnel to cope. Our recruitment drive will boost our numbers, but another fifty or one
hundred agents is neither here nor there. If Government statistics are to be believed, up to six per cent of teenage boys are members of gangs. If that applied to the two and a half million teenage boys throughout the UK, the figure would be astronomical. Nothing is simple, of course. The situation is fluid; boys stay in a gang for a while and then leave. Many come back; others never do. The core number is more likely between fifty and sixty thousand.”
“There are two police officers for every gang member,” said Alastor. “If this was the only matter they had to handle, they might stand a chance. It’s not, and while their attention has been elsewhere, these gangs have grown unchecked.”
“Their numbers may well fall over the next few years,” said Artemis. “If this network of super gangs ever becomes a reality, as with any legitimate company; opportunities for judicious pruning are available.”
“What they euphemistically called ‘downsizing’ when it was at its peak in the late Eighties and early Nineties,” said Rusty.
“The difference being legitimate companies got rid of people, by making them redundant,” said Phoenix. “If McTierney and Hannon typify the modern gang leader, then the ‘getting rid of’ will be permanent.”
“I think we have given you enough to be getting on with,” said Athena to Henry, Giles, and Artemis. “I apologise for disturbing everyone’s weekend. We’ll see you in the morning for an update. Good hunting.”
She and Phoenix took Hope back to their apartments. Although the sinister shadow of Hannon filled their thoughts with menace for the rest of that Sunday, they turned their attention to family matters. The wedding was less than two weeks away.
“Thank goodness you weren’t with Biggles when those thugs attacked him,” said Athena, after she had got Hope settled for a nap.
“I was never in danger while Fintan and Brendan were around. They performed extremely well. If the money Fintan paid the two fishing boat skippers was enough to buy their silence, and that of their crews, we’ll be fine.”
“I’m not so worried over that, Phoenix, it’s the awful prospect of the enemy at the gate that concerns me most.”
“Henry will find them if they’re there,” said Phoenix. “Giles and Artemis will discover the weak link that triggered Hannon’s interest in us too. It might take longer to uncover the new identity Hannon has assumed, but the ice-house has never failed us in the past. If Hannon has access to a high level of intelligence-gathering equipment, that should make it a simpler job for Giles to track him. One would hope GCHQ spots high levels of suspicious activity in their domain; but they’ve never breached our security, have they? It makes you wonder why we bother spending taxpayer’s money on them.”
Athena fired up her laptop and retrieved a file Alastor had sent her last year.
“This was last summer when draft legislation was being prepared for the snooper’s charter. Alastor provided me with background detail. GCHQ store content for three days, and metadata for thirty. That's expensive. Network bandwidth is a massive cost. They have three hundred analysts working full time on trawling through the data from wiretaps. Add in the support staff, and there’s little change out of eighty million.”
“Just for the flagship snooping programme,” said Phoenix, “blimey; what’s the overall figure then?”
“Around two billion comes from the Single Intelligence Account, and there’s an additional slush fund of over half a billion set aside to fight cybercrime.”
“It’s just as well we keep an eye on threats at home and abroad, to lighten their workload, isn’t it? No wonder Zeus is always searching for new people to fund Olympus. Security doesn’t come cheap.”
“I’ll warn Zeus we might have a problem. Perhaps he can divert funds from another field of operations to finance extra agents. Although Minos was sceptical of the impact our proposed increase in numbers might make, fifty more on top of our original target would give us a significant edge.”
“You know my opinion, Athena,” said her partner, “one of us, is worth ten criminals. Whatever the actual manpower the super gang achieves, we can bring them to book. Failure is not an option.”
“Where have I heard that comment before?” Athena replied. “The Titans were a threat that Olympus had to eliminate. The battles are getting fiercer, and they’re coming closer together with every succeeding year.”
“It’s our task to make inroads into the problem, Athena. The authorities need time to regroup following the budget cuts they’re suffering. There needs to be a root and branch overhaul of their role in our society. Until they become focussed on what truly matters, the criminals will have a field day.”
Athena sighed.
“Even if that refocusing took place, and our armed forces, security services, and judiciary were overhauled and refocussed, things wouldn’t change. That would only happen if our leaders were prepared to accept significant levels of collateral damage. Change is painful; unpalatable decisions are not taken. When that happens; evil smiles and continues to flourish.”
“Then we must show them the way forward; guide their hand. Our actions must highlight the benefits of change. We must never shrink from taking difficult decisions.”
“Tomorrow will be with us before we know it,” said Athena. “Let’s call it a day; this has been the busiest weekend I can remember since you arrived.”
Monday, 7th April 2014
In the morning, there were early signs of a sense of optimism in the air. The sun shone on Larcombe Manor. When the agents arrived at the morning meeting from the ice-house, there were smiles on faces around the room.
“Henry, you received your priorities yesterday so let’s get straight into those this morning. Other items on my agenda can be postponed.”
“Don’t let the smiling faces, and the spring in their step fool you, Athena,” said Henry. “Giles, Artemis and several others have worked throughout the night. It’s the adrenalin from the progress they achieved that’s keeping them awake. They did the lion’s share of the work. I’ll let them do the honours.”
“We didn’t take long to identify the leak,” said Giles Burke. “An operative at the car crushing facility we used for the Mercedes was responsible. He must have recognised the make and model as a familiar sight on the streets where he lived. This man knew that one belonged to the leader of a gang from a neighbouring borough. He questioned why a vehicle in such good condition was being destroyed. The answers he got were evasive. He probably noted the registration of the transport vehicle. Later that day he got a message to a gang member. We have now checked his bank account details, and he received five hundred pounds for his information.”
“The gang leader with the Merc had been questioned by police over the incident in Hackney,” Artemis continued. “He had three witnesses, who confirmed he had been at the dentist. They were treating him to another gold tooth. He was home within an hour of being detained. The police have no further leads to follow.”
Giles picked up the story. “It was that gang leader who followed up on the information provided by our leak. His street contacts found the safe house in Chiswick. The frequency of cars arriving out of the blue, then lorries collecting those same vehicles over the next forty-eight hours, suggested a car theft network. If anyone was going to steal cars to order and export them overseas; it would be them. So, when Phoenix and Rusty collected their belongings, after collecting Dwight Thacker, a car that had been watching the place, followed them back here.”
“How did Hannon get in on the act?” asked Phoenix.
“Every road leads to Hannon,” replied Henry Case, “we’re still trying to identify him, but he’s the kingpin. His city links and his business degree suggest he has laundered money for a collection of gangs over the years. With McTierney and other former colleagues from Dublin, he used the money connection as a conduit to bring groups closer together. No doubt he convinced them that ‘together we are stronger’. For this network to survive, information gathered on the streets must flow up the chain of c
ommand just as freely as the cash.”
“The street gang assumed wrongly the Chiswick house was a base for collecting cars being stolen to order,” Artemis explained, “and followed the boys back to Larcombe. The flight to Dublin they identified following the short surveillance, was probably thought to be part of the operation. That was the limit of what they could send up the line to Hannon. If he is as computer literate as we believe, it wasn’t a great leap for Hannon to work out from CCTV images his comrade had been killed by someone driving a copycat Mercedes.”
“Which was later sent to the crusher,” Phoenix nodded, as the light dawned. “Without talking to the late Gavin McTierney, Hannon didn’t know how his mate managed to piss off this gang to the extent they murdered him in broad daylight. This has never been about Olympus; even the message left in Shanklin.”
“What’s the next step?” asked Athena.
“We need your permission to proceed with direct action against those involved. Agents will kill the Chiswick leak and the street gang member who passed on the message. They will then eliminate the driver who followed our men back to Bath, and the gang leader. Any evidence linking these people to Larcombe will be removed. The safe house is compromised; it has been emptied and put on the market. As for any surveillance on Larcombe by anyone other than that lone driver, there’s nothing to suggest it still exists. As soon as he drove back to London from Rhoose, surveillance ended.”
Athena looked at Phoenix. She recalled their conversation from last night regarding unpalatable decisions.
“Go ahead, Henry,” she said, grimly, “get it done. It will send a message to Hannon. We can expect reprisals, but we must use that to our advantage. For now, he is invisible. This will force him out into the open. Continue searching for his new identity. Meanwhile, well done, everyone. Get a few hours’ sleep, and we’ll see you again tomorrow.”
