Storm Crow

by Jeff Gulvin

  It was a fair point and Swann had to concede it. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘No leak. No conspiracy. Sorry I interrupted you, Guv.’

  Colson smiled at him. ‘Forget it, Jack. If it wasn’t for your vigilance and overtly suspicious mind, we wouldn’t even be sitting here.’

  Swann looked at the floor.

  ‘OK,’ Colson went on. ‘Where was I? Oh yes. George, have we got anything definitive yet from Lambeth on the cab?’

  Webb cleared his throat. ‘The initial forensic reports indicate clothing fibres, in particular, a piece of yellow thread on the driver’s seat. There’s hundreds of fingerprints, but none we can identify. We now know who the killers were, but we’ve no ID for the driver. I did get a footprint, mind you, which we photographed. The sole indicates a training shoe. The heel and instep wear can give us a match and subsequently the wearer—that’s if we find the shoe.’

  Swann sat forward, hands clasped together. ‘We know the cab was stolen from Lea Conservancy Road,’ he said, ‘and two skinheads were seen the night before. I’ve run a CRO check on known villains with swastika or spider’s web tattoos, but couldn’t find anyone who isn’t already banged up.’ He looked at Christine Harris.

  Christine leafed through her notes. ‘The swastika could be for bravado or it could point to some Nazi affiliation. There’s still a few groups operating, but nothing compared to what we have seen. We know about Combat 18—the letter bombs we had earlier in the year, for example.

  ‘The main political party now is the BFP. British Freedom Party. They got going around the time Ray Hill did so much damage to the BNP and British Movement. The BFP is run by James Ingram, a silver-spoon solicitor who was once a Young Conservative. He always denies it publicly, but there’s a link between his party and a street outfit called Action 2000. We’ve looked at them in the past and they number a few hundred at best. They’re not as organized as Combat 18 and they don’t seem to have any affiliation with German, Dutch or Belgian Nazis. They’re racist all right, but wholly British in it. Most of them work for Ingram in some capacity. He’s got various building firms dotted about the country. A lot of them are skinheads and they’ve been known to have swastika tattoos. Again, there’s nobody with form that we can positively identify.’

  Colson sat down at the desk once more. ‘There’s something else we need to remember,’ he said. ‘At Queen’s House Mews we found a receipt for four sheets of armoured glass.’ He stopped and turned his mouth down at the corners. ‘They paid in cash, yet still got a receipt. Not odd in itself, I suppose, but in these circumstances …’

  ‘Somebody wanted us to know they have it,’ Swann said quietly. ‘Just like they wanted us to know they were in Queen’s House Mews and that they planted a bomb in Soho, and now they’ve killed a French banker.’

  ‘Europe?’ Webb put in. ‘Something to do with Europe?’

  Colson looked at him with his head to one side. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Alessandro Peroni was a single-currency adviser. Mace did something similar for Banque Nationale de Paris. That DTI conference was about single-currency issues. The Storm Crow planted a car bomb in Madrid near the Banco Bilbao, didn’t he.’ He made a face. ‘Spain will join any single currency.’

  DI Clements looked doubtful. ‘Who in this country gives a toss about what goes on in Europe? Nobody cares whether we have a single currency or not.’

  ‘Except half the Tory Party,’ Swann said. ‘And maybe a bunch of anti-European skinheads.’

  ‘Not enough,’ Webb put in. ‘If Action 2000 are involved, it’s as foot soldiers, gophers. Skinhead may have nicked a cab, skinhead hired a car. But Huella, Tal-Salem and Ramas are the doers here. Huella seems to be the brains. Mind you, he likes being on the ground too. Got more front than Carlos, walking into the Yard like he did.’

  Swann looked back at Colson. ‘He wanted us to know he has the glass,’ he said again. ‘And now we do. What we don’t know is why.’

  Bruno Kuhlmann knew he was being watched: after three years in the service, he’d picked up a working knowledge of counter-surveillance. The United States was a big country, however, and he knew that there were only ten thousand FBI agents in the whole place. He knew their field office was in Salt Lake and they had resident agency offices in Pocatello, Coeur D’Alene and Boise, but they couldn’t follow him everywhere. They had tried to tail him when he left D.C. the last time, but it had not been difficult to lose them.

  He sat at the bar in the White Lion. Billy was serving beer to some girls, and this older guy was upstairs on his own reading the paper. That meant there would be a car out front. Sure enough, there was a blue Dodge truck parked across the street with one guy sitting in it, eating a sandwich. He wore a red T-shirt and working man’s gloves lay under the windshield. Billy was leaning on the far end of the bar now, talking to the three girls. A dopehead sat at the table by the window, sucking noodle soup off a spoon. Kuhlmann could see the trouser leg of his observer against the railing of the balcony upstairs. He slid off his seat and wandered towards the stairs as if he were going up to the men’s room. One glance to make sure Billy’s back was turned and he stepped through the curtain into the little hallway between the bar and the kitchen. He could smell cooking fat and mayonnaise. From here it was easy, the back door open, down the steps and away. Billy’s jacket hung on the peg by the door and Kuhlmann snatched it as he went past.

  The Irishman sat in the August sunshine waiting for the Washington Flyer at East Falls Church. This place had always struck him as odd, no church that you could see, nothing like the Falls Road, just a futuristic entrance to a Metro station and lots of car-parking spaces. He sat on the wall behind the bus shelter with his face to the sun and hummed ‘Whiskey in the Jar’. He heard a train arriving and watched out of squinted eyes as the passengers got off. Not very many of them just the few that would be getting in their cars or taking the Flyer for Dulles Airport.

  He saw Kuhlmann come out of the station, guardedly check in either direction, then meander towards the empty bus stop. The Irishman remained where he was. The Flyer pulled off the freeway and swung round the loop to park just in front of where he was sitting. Two women were walking slowly ahead of Kuhlmann, pushing their children in three-wheeled strollers. They passed the bus stop and climbed into a Jeep parked in one of the bays. The driver of the bus jumped down, black man, head shiny with perspiration.

  ‘How long?’ the Irishman asked him.

  ‘You got five minutes, buddy.’ The driver started towards the station.

  The Irishman got up, smoothed palms down his jeans and climbed aboard the bus. He sat on the left-hand side about halfway back. Kuhlmann got on, walked up the aisle and sat in the seat directly across from him. The Irishman looked ahead and rubbed his tattooed knuckles. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Are ye set?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m set. Now things get a little bit warmer.’

  The Irishman pursed his lips. ‘Aye,’ he said quietly. ‘It’ll get warm, right enough.’ He took an envelope from his back pocket, passed it across the aisle and stood up. The bus driver was ambling down from the station, a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Everything ye need is in there.’ The Irishman looked at Kuhlmann, then stepped back into the sunshine.

  The driver looked up at him. ‘What’s happening, man?’

  ‘Changed me mind, so I did.’ He walked back to the station.

  The driver dropped his cigarette and ground it under his heel, then climbed on to the bus. Bruno Kuhlmann sat there on his own.

  ‘You want one way or round trip?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said, do you want one way or round trip?’

  ‘One way,’ Kuhlmann replied.

  14

  HARRISON WENT TO THE POST office as he did every day: there was no mail delivery service in Passover. He opened his box and found a postcard from Lake Superior. He turned it over and read: ‘Hey, buddy. How’s it going? Things are fine here, but I saw your grandma the other day and she seemed a bit lonesome. I gu
ess she’d appreciate a phone call. Take care. Jeff.’

  He stuffed the postcard into his pocket and went back to the lumber yard. After work he went for a drink in the Westlake Hotel, with Chief and Danny and Lisa. Belinda was in the bar, shooting pool for a buck a stick. Chief had broken up with her, but was itching to get back. Belinda was Lisa’s age, with smooth skin and long legs, which she displayed to everyone as she played pool in her shorts. Harrison sat with Lisa and watched Chief watching Belinda’s legs, firebird tattoo on her calf. ‘Get after her, man.’ Harrison nudged him in the ribs. ‘You should never’ve let her go. Great piece of ass.’

  Chief looked on impassively; the problem with Belinda was that every mother’s son sniffed about her in the bar and she was in the bar most nights. Harrison took a Marlboro from his shirt pocket, lit it, then turned to Lisa. ‘Honey, I gotta call my grandma.’ He fished the postcard out of his pocket. ‘My conscience up in Marquette. I’ll be right back, OK.’ He slipped off the stool and walked round the bar, being careful to avoid a staggering Charlie Love who lurched through the door.

  He picked up the telephone which was set against the wall opposite the men’s room door.

  ‘Harrison.’ Max Scheller’s voice. ‘You in a payphone?’

  ‘Yeah. Hi, Grandma. How you doing?’

  ‘The blond man with our subject in the compound is the John Doe from Atlanta.’

  ‘No kidding? Did you get that TV Direct I wired you the money for?’

  Lisa stood next to him, her arm about his waist and started kissing him. He could smell the Mudslide on her breath.

  ‘Has he been back?’ Scheller said in his ear.

  ‘Nope. I don’t reckon so.’

  ‘They lost him back in D.C.’

  ‘Is that right, Grandma? No, the weather’s still pretty good out here. Fixing to snow up there, huh.’

  ‘If he surfaces again, let us know.’

  ‘I’ll do that. I promise you, I’ll write real soon.’

  ‘We got the green light for a covert search warrant, if you can find a way into the compound. ATF can prove one of his companies is supplying weapons to the militia. With that and the John Doe, we’ve got enough probable cause. Brindley’s writing the affidavit, but the US Attorney’s Office isn’t exactly breakdancing. Your man’s got influential friends.’

  ‘OK, Grandma. You take care now. Goodbye.’

  Harrison hung up and Lisa draped her arms round his neck. From the corner of his eye he could see Chief had started to hit on Belinda again. The other Lisa, the bartender, was pouring her a Kamikaze Slammer and Chief was fishing in his pockets for dollars. Smitty left the bar where he’d been bullshitting with Junior and winked at Harrison as he made his way to the men’s room.

  ‘Let’s go home, Harrison,’ Guffy whispered in his ear. ‘It’s too noisy in here and I’m feeling all kinda sexual.’

  Harrison kissed the end of her nose. ‘OK, Miss Lady Mam. Go get your jacket.’

  Swann worked with Christine Harris on the Nazi connection. Together they ran a number of checks on nominals and potential nominals from the Special Branch cell on the fifteenth floor. They had criminal record information on Tommy Cairns, the leader of Action 2000. Together with his elder brother Frank, he ran a gang of builders from a yard in Mitcham, owned by James Ingram the leader of the British Freedom Party. It was decided that MI5, under Julian Moore, would operate a short-term surveillance to see what they could find out.

  After two weeks, they came up with a group of four individuals that were worth looking at a little more closely. Tommy and Frank Cairns, Kenny Bacon and Charlie Oxley. The Cairns brothers were not skinheads and sported no tattoos. Bacon and Oxley, on the other hand, were ‘definite maybes’. Bacon had a spider’s web tattooed in blue on his right hand and Oxley sported a black swastika on the underside of his wrist. They concentrated initially on Oxley.

  He lived in Croydon and was picked up for work every morning by a man named Denis Smith. They lived close. Smith drove a white Escort van. From Monday to Friday, and occasionally on Saturdays, they would drive the half-hour or so it took them to get to the yard in Mitcham. Once there, it would be a cup of tea and then out on the lorries to whatever site they were working at.

  At the end of the second week, Julian reported back to the team. Friday afternoon with the summer waning now; leaden, oppressive skies threatened thunder.

  ‘Not much to report,’ he was saying. ‘They’ve been working on a house in Penge. Oxley’s been there all week. They eat their lunch at a café round the corner from the plot, sausage, egg and chips every day. He smokes forty cigarettes and drinks at least four pints of Holsten Pils a night.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ Colson asked him.

  ‘One thing. They use flatbed lorries a lot.’

  ‘The glass purchase,’ Swann said.

  Julian looked round at him and nodded. ‘It’s a possibility.’

  He looked at Colson again. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary has gone on,’ he continued. ‘No third eye anywhere, no attempt at any form of antisurveillance.’

  ‘He didn’t meet anyone we might want to look at?’

  ‘No one. He goes to work, comes home, goes to the pub and then home to bed.’

  ‘Women?’ Swann asked.

  ‘None that we saw.’

  ‘Any losses?’

  ‘No.’

  Colson pursed his lips. ‘We’ve shown pictures of Oxley to Sally Barnes,’ he said, ‘the girl who hired out the Vectra, but she can’t give us a positive ID. Give it another week or so and then we’ll reassess.’

  The blonde-haired woman stood in the telephone box with the receiver to her ear and her fingers depressing the black buttons. It was almost five o’clock. The phone rang once and she released them.

  ‘Good afternoon.’ His voice was cold and clear. ‘The police are watching the Nazis.’ For a moment he was quiet. ‘You checked?’

  ‘I’m a professional. Of course I checked.’

  ‘They’re distinctive, aren’t they, the Nazis. And they’ll be known. Special Branch will have monitored their activities. They always do.’ Again he was silent. ‘Do they know they’re being surveilled?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve seen the cars though, different ones, sometimes a motorbike. They follow them all day.’

  ‘Have you been spotted?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Third eye?’

  ‘If they’re looking for one, they haven’t found it. Don’t worry, I’ve been selective. It’s me I’m protecting.’

  ‘Brigitte, you’re getting clever in your old age.’

  ‘Don’t call me that. Not even over the phone. Certain people monitor phone boxes that’re called on a regular basis.’

  He laughed then. ‘This is a clear line. D’you think I’d do anything to jeopardize your safety, unless I deliberately chose to?’

  Her breath was suddenly tight in her chest. ‘Don’t play games with me.’ She licked her lips, watching the street about her. ‘Do you want me to use them again?’

  ‘They have the glass?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then use them. Before you do—suggest the situation to them. See what they can do about it. If they can’t cope—dispense with them.’

  ‘How will I transport the glass?’

  ‘Think of something.’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘You can’t use them. Not in London.’

  ‘How then?’

  ‘And just now you were being so clever.’

  Her knuckles tightened round the receiver. ‘What about the property?’

  ‘The American will do it. He’ll contact you when he arrives.’

  Ricky Gravitz flew into Manchester Airport, made a telephone call, then rented a car. He was to drive to Newcastle upon Tyne, a city in the north-east of England. He would stop before he got there, though, those were the instructions, a place called Consett, where apparently they made potato chips. He would be met at a roadside diner, the
last before he hit town, coming in on the A68. Leaving Manchester, he had a little bit of trouble negotiating the weird way the English drove. Not only did they travel on the wrong side of the road, they all seemed to drive at a hundred miles an hour. He kept at a steady sixty-five, and looked for traffic cops.

  Cars whizzed past him as he slowed to check the map, people hooting their horns and making obscene gestures. He had always thought England to be a sedate, polite place. Already, he was missing home. It took him a long time but he made it to the rendezvous point, just before the prearranged time of five o’clock. The parking lot was solid with cars and he had to wait a few minutes while a family sorted themselves out and then he took their space. As he parked, he saw a woman with long blonde hair get out of a car in the other aisle. She wore jeans and a short jacket. It was September now and northern England was getting colder. Gravitz parked his rented car and got out. She was waiting for him at the entrance.

  ‘Joanne, right?’ he said.

  She nodded but did not smile, merely took his arm and together they went inside. They had to wait to be seated and then got a table in the smoking section. Gravitz watched her take cigarettes from her purse and shake one out. She lit it and inhaled deeply.

  ‘What d’you want to eat?’ Her accent was British as far as he could tell.

  He glanced at the menu. ‘Hamburger.’

  ‘Fine.’

  The waitress came over and stood there in her red uniform. They ordered two hamburgers and two cokes and Joanne finished her cigarette. Before the food arrived, she lit another one. ‘Your instructions,’ she said, and passed the envelope to him. ‘It’s all in there. You just go and rent the property. Pay for six months with the money order. You have that with you, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Dollars or sterling?’

  ‘Do I look stupid?’