Storm Crow

by Jeff Gulvin

  The surveillance was round the clock, twenty-four-hour video tapes linked to the camera, which appeared as a disc-like ornament behind the net curtains. Special Branch and MI5, two officers occupying the room at any given time. Morton was followed every time he stepped out of doors. His newly purchased Mondeo was watched by a full team, its every movement monitored by an array of different vehicles and motorcycles. When he went anywhere on foot, he was shadowed and not once did he show any sign of antisurveillance techniques. He bought his food from the supermarket in Hammersmith. He never went into a pub or off-licence. When he ran short of milk, he would jog round the corner to the shop run by the little Asian man and buy some more. He did not appear to go to work and spent long periods in the house, visible to the spotters across the road, seated at a desk in the bay window of the lounge. GCHQ monitored his telephone calls. Two weeks into the surveillance, Swann and Webb stole his plastic rubbish bags.

  They did not know what if any value could be gained from them, but you could learn a lot about a person’s activities by what he throws away. They took the substituted dustbin liners back to the exhibits office at the Yard. Tania Briggs was there with DI Clements who was duty officer and they crowded round as Webb laid sterile paper on the desktop and tipped out the contents.

  It was all the usual sort of stuff—empty cans, milk cartons, bread wrappers, old food, apple cores and orange peel, cereal cartons and other bits of rubbish. Swann was beginning to feel a little deflated when Webb scraped something else on to the table. A PP3 battery wrapper. He paused, turned it over in his gloved hand and then set it to one side. Nobody spoke. He tipped out the rest of the contents and worked his way through them.

  ‘Look,’ Swann said, aware of the hairs on the back of his neck. He picked up another piece of cardboard with a torn strip of clingfilm still attached to it. ‘The wrapper from a hot-glue gun.’ Clements picked up the Branch copy of the surveillance log and flicked through the pages.

  ‘Guv’nor?’

  He looked up at Webb, who was holding something between his forefinger and thumb. Not very much and obviously stripped from the copper core, a tiny piece of green electrical wire.

  Now they stood in silence. Clements looked again at the log. ‘Since we’ve been looking at him, he hasn’t bought batteries or glue gun or wire,’ he said. ‘We’ve had eyeball every minute of the time he’s been out, no cracked ice at all.’

  Swann gazed at the items, separated now from the others on the desktop in front of them. ‘So when did he buy this little lot?’

  ‘And why throw them away today?’ Webb added.

  The following morning James Morton walked out of his house and got into his maroon Ford Mondeo. Immediately the spotters were on the radio to the motorcyclist on Glenthorne Road. ‘Four/two from Control. X3, Dave. Target on the move. Repeat, target is on the move.’

  They watched as Morton turned the car round and drove the length of the street. As he turned right, the motorcyclist fell in behind him.

  Morton drove round the Broadway and then back on himself and crossed beneath the A4 flyover and on to Hammersmith Bridge. The motorcyclist was a dozen cars back now and a white van had taken over. On the far side of the bridge, a Peugeot 406 slipped in behind him at the lights, then stalled and called the following surveillance cars up while he held up the traffic. A second motorcyclist had eyeball contact further down the road. Morton drove on until he came to the South Circular Road and then turned east and headed for Putney. He crossed at the junction with Putney High Street and again the lead car put the block in to allow the other cars to catch up. It was important to try to keep together, especially on the scale of this operation. Blocking a set of traffic lights, although irritating the hell out of a number of drivers, allowed the trailing cars to catch up, overtake the lead car and go on together in convoy. Always up ahead there was at least one vehicle with eyeball.

  Morton drove sensibly and quite clearly there was no third eye. They had not expected one: a second car specifically designed to watch for signs of surveillance, acting as guard for the main vehicle. Morton had had no visitors and had visited no one either overtly or covertly in all the time they’d had him under surveillance. GCHQ had monitored which phone numbers he called and which had called him. On three occasions he had called a telephone box in Highgate. They had set up separate surveillance on that particular box, but the new Home Secretary denied them permission to bug it.

  Morton went through Putney and into Wandsworth and then turned north towards the river and the solid waste transfer station. He drove the Mondeo into the long-stay underground car park beyond the Delta business park, overlooked by Wandsworth Bridge. The lead car waited a few minutes before following him down the slope, beyond the attendant and into the darkened concrete hole. He drove slowly, apparently looking for space. Morton was not difficult to locate. He had parked on the lowest level, close to the stairs exit, and was locking the boot when the surveillance vehicle swept past him and parked in a space further away from the stairs. In his rear-view mirror the driver saw Morton leave the car and disappear into the stairwell. The information was relayed to the following vehicles and he was picked up as he left the car park on foot. He walked to Wandsworth High Street and took a taxi back to the premises in Queen’s House Mews. The information was relayed back to the Yard and Swann contacted the car park. He was told that a vehicle could be parked there for as long as was required. The keys were left with the attendant, who would ensure the car would start properly when the driver phoned to say he’d collect it.

  The surveillance continued and Morton was in and out of the house. He bought various items on his trips into the West End, including a large black travel bag. He had left no specific time to return for the car in Wandsworth, and for three days a surveillance team watched it. On the fourth night, George Webb made a covert entry into the boot by unscrewing the number plate and flipping the lock mechanism. Inside, he found a small black holdall which contained an empty plastic sandwich box and a large padded envelope. In the envelope he found a pack of PP3 batteries, the same type as the package they had recovered from the bins, together with a full box of Havana cigars and a Memopark timer.

  Bill Colson took the briefing the morning after Webb made his covert entry. It was the beginning of June and getting warmer. Every member of the team was present including Christine Harris from the Special Branch cell and the representatives from MI5. Swann sat at the back of the room and drank coffee. Webb told them what he had found in the boot of the Mondeo and Colson stood up again when he had finished. ‘We’ve got the bits and pieces recovered when Webb and Swann did the sneaky beaky on the bins,’ he said, ‘and Webby’s just told us what’s in the boot.’ He paused then, rubbing the palm of one hand across the knuckles of the other. ‘I think we have two choices. Number one, keep watching the Mondeo and the target to see what happens. Number two, we scoop him up now.’

  Swann cleared his throat. ‘I think we should take him out, Guv. Last Box log mentioned him buying a big bag for his holidays.’

  ‘If he takes a trip, we can pull him before he gets on the plane,’ Christine said.

  ‘Why not wait to see who comes for the car?’ McCulloch the ginger-headed Scotsman suggested.

  Swann glanced at him. ‘We could wait for ever, Macca. I think we should scoop him up now. We know he’s using the identity of a dead person. We don’t need any more.’ He looked at the superintendent. ‘Guv, we don’t know who this guy is or what his motives are. He knows how to build a Mk 15 TPU, but he only uses it as a dummy. The other TPU is potentially much more sophisticated. Right, Webby?’

  Webb looked across at him, fingered his moustache and nodded.

  ‘You just want to interview him, Flash.’ Christine was grinning at him. ‘Teeth sharp, are they?’

  Swann returned the smile. ‘You’re only jealous because you don’t get to do it any more.’ He licked his lips like a wolf. ‘Nothing like the look on their faces when the gates at Paddingt
on close.’

  Colson sat down and pondered. ‘I think Jack’s right,’ he said. ‘If we bring him in now, we’ve got the potential for good forensics in the house. Not only that, but it might prompt any second player to go and get the car.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going to give SO19 a ring and make sure we have a team on standby. They can do their reconnaissance over the weekend and hit him either Monday or Tuesday.’

  While Swann was falling off Pink Void at Baggy Point, with memories of the past flaring up in his mind, Sergeant Nicholas Graves, of specialist firearms officer blue team, was watching the video taken from the helicopter they had used to fly over the area around Queen’s House Mews. He was down in the basement at Old Street with his men, the inner sanctum of the SFO teams, where they held their own preliminary briefings. Graves was fifty-one years old, still fitter than most men half his age, six foot two, with a broken nose and eagle-blue eyes. What little hair he had was shaved so close that from any sort of distance he might as well have been bald. He had joined the department in 1991, when the first armed response vehicles were being commissioned. He had been a skipper then and was a skipper now, had moved from the ARVs to the SFO teams, with a period of two years instructing between. He had held his pink firearms ticket for fifteen years, serving three of those in the Diplomatic Protection Group, guarding Downing Street.

  The members of blue team lolled about him in easy chairs, drinking coffee, a couple of them smoking. Joe Pollock—or Mumbles as he was affectionately called—the gigantic, method of entry man, with biceps like tree-trunks, sat with Twelve Hits Phil Gibson, who, at ten and a half stone, was the smallest member of the team. The two of them worked together, Mumbles taking out doors and Twelve Hits (so named because it took him twelve attempts to batter open a door on one abortive mission) being the MP5 cover man while stun grenades were thrown in. Between them they formed the front of the ‘stick’.

  They were studying the street plan that had been taken off the computer and enlarged so they could fully detail the route to the rendezvous, form-up and final assault points, in order to determine the best method of attack. Over and above the Squirrel fly-by, they had undertaken a detailed reconnaissance from the ground. Four men had arrived in a British Telecom van and had begun inspection work on the telephone connections around the target premises. They had gone into the car workshop next door and discovered that the premises went back a long way and had a yard off to the right. The yard was basically used for dumping old taxi cabs before stripping them for parts that could be used on others. It ran a good way behind the target premises, with a breeze-block garden wall in between. The wall was six feet high and they could tell from the aerial photography that there was no way out of it except over and into the yard. This meant that the rear would need only two men and they might complete the whole operation with just the one team.

  Graves was discussing the method of attack, working out who would do what in the line of the stick. Mumbles, of course, would be the MOE man as ever, although this operation would require more stealth than strength. A hydraulic ramp for the door and then let it swing gently open, rather than just battering the lock. Gibson would back him up with another behind him to secure the door, probably Rob MacGregor with the bang box. MacGregor was twenty-five and from Glasgow, the newest recruit to blue team. The rest of the team would follow after that. Two ladder men for the front windows. One across the road with a sniping rifle in the observation point and two more on the roofs further down.

  Caroline drove home as she always did when the three of them were out together. Swann and Webb had finished the last of the wine on completing Kinky Boots. Again Swann had led the climb and this time he moved well, no hint of the mishap on Pink Void being repeated. His handholds were considered and well measured, following the line of the crack, pivoting on the balls of his feet, which were closely encased in the rubber-soled friction boots. He got to the top of the final pitch and eased himself up until his arms were locked with his fingertips all but touching, then he swung his foot up in one smoothly executed movement. He felt great as he belayed Webb up after him. The wind was coming off the sea in gusts now, a lull and then a sudden rush of salt-baked air to tug at the roots of his hair.

  Webb snoozed in the back seat while Swann sat up front with Caroline. When he had first joined the Branch, he could not understand how his colleagues seemed to be able to sleep anywhere at any time. After a few months of eighteen- to twenty-hour days, however, he learned the trick himself. Caroline drove quickly, music low on the stereo. Swann was still feeling pleased with the final climb of the day, so much better than the laboured stuff of yesterday and then again this morning. He was quiet, thinking: Pia was back from the Middle East today and he wanted to see her. Caroline glanced at him.

  ‘You look like the cat that got the cream,’ she said.

  Swann grinned. ‘Last climb, sweetness.’

  ‘You enjoyed it?’

  ‘Yes. I did.’

  She overtook a red Ford Escort and gunned the car forward in the outside lane, eating up the miles back to London.

  ‘When’re they coming?’ she asked. ‘The children, I mean.’

  ‘Next weekend.’ Swann chewed his knuckle and looked at her. ‘I’ve got one of those student nanny placements you told me about. It’s only fair. If Rachael doesn’t get this teaching certificate for the RAD, she’s never going to get a career off the ground.’

  Caroline looked sideways at him. ‘I admire you, you know.’

  Swann cocked one eyebrow. ‘Why?’

  ‘The way you treat her. You know, one of my greatest regrets is that my ex doesn’t even speak to me.’ She shook her head a little bitterly. ‘We were together for eighteen years, Jack, since we were kids really. We met when I was fourteen.’

  ‘He doesn’t talk?’

  ‘Never. Not once. I don’t think he ever really believed I’d leave him. He’d dished out so much punishment over the years, I suppose he thought he could just keep on doing it.’

  Swann looked ahead again. ‘I can’t understand men who hit women. Never have been able to. Never will.’

  Caroline glanced sideways at him. ‘He really did love me, you know.’

  ‘Yeah—so why did he hit you so much?’

  She had no answer for that, pushing out her lips a fraction and slowly shaking her head.

  They were almost back to Amersham when Webb’s pager vibrated on his belt. He unclipped it and showed the message to Swann.

  Operation Ding Dong. Dig-out confirmed. Parade call 7 a.m., Monday.

  Swann lifted the mobile phone from where it lay on the dashboard. He dialled the Yard, spoke briefly with the ops room and hung up again. He twisted round to Webb, one arm across the back of his seat. ‘The Ninjas did their recce this morning. It’s definitely on for Tuesday. They’ll call the attack at four a.m.’

  ‘Best get some sleep tonight, then,’ Webb said, and winked at him.

  Swann got out at Amersham station and took the Metropolitan line to Baker Street and then the Jubilee to Charing Cross, before finally heading to Waterloo and home. The sun was getting low as he walked down Waterloo Road, past the park where a group of kids were kicking a ball about. His flat was baking, the heat striking at him as he opened the door, as if desperate for some form of escape. He went round opening every window in the place and wondered why he had bothered to close them in the first place. The flat was on the top floor and the chances of being burgled were pretty much next to nothing.

  He shuffled through the pile of bills that he had collected from downstairs, then picked up the phone and dialled his ex-wife’s number.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Everything settled?’

  ‘I think so, yes. The girls are really pleased they don’t have to change schools.’

  ‘Worked out well. The nanny, or whatever I’ll call her, will bring them as far as Highgate. Her classes don’t start till nine-thirty. You’ll meet them
at Highgate and run them to school from there?’

  ‘Either me or Peter.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ll drive them over on Saturday morning.’

  ‘Fine.’ Swann laughed then. ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  They said goodbye and then he dialled Pia’s number and got her answerphone. He swore under his breath and then it occurred to him that she might already be on her way, so he went through to the bathroom and showered.

  The water was hot and sharp against his skin. He lathered his head with shampoo, and it dripped over his eyes and ran down his chin. He could feel the ache gathering in his muscles. That was the trouble with climbing irregularly: it made different demands on the body and he knew he’d be stiff in the morning.

  He dressed in a T-shirt and shorts and set about cleaning the flat. Friday had been a long day and then they were off straight from Webb’s. Nothing had been done in his place for over a week. The dust settled in layers, accentuated by the strength of the evening sunlight as it streamed through the kitchen windows. Flies from the open door to the roof garden buzzed about his head and he swatted at them with a dishcloth. The phone rang and he picked it up. Pia’s voice. ‘Jack. It’s me.’

  For a moment his heart fell. He looked at his watch. Nearly eight o’clock. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘I’m late is what’s happening. I didn’t get in till this morning and everything’s got behind.’

  Swann smiled to himself, her tone of voice so plaintive. ‘How long will you be?’

  ‘An hour.’

  ‘No worries. I’ll see you when you get here.’

  It gave him more time to clean up and he relaxed. Down on the lower of the two floors he occupied, he stripped the bed and stuffed the dirty linen into the wicker basket in the bathroom. He then set about cleaning the basin and toilet, and had just sat down with the top off a bottle of beer when Pia arrived. She brought a bag for the morning and Swann took it from her and kissed her. She followed him upstairs and he poured her a glass of wine.