by Jeff Gulvin
He sat where he was, tasting the salt on his lips from the sweat that rolled off his brow. He had been cold, but now the blood ran high and his skin was moist under the cam’ suit. He sat for a few minutes with his ear close to the trap door. Only when he was satisfied his senses were in control did he pivot on one foot and twist the wooden circle above him. It moved and lifted and this time there was no light whatever. That meant the hallway was in darkness, which suited his purpose exactly. Sliding the trap door to one side, he straightened and stood up in the hole. He could smell leather and wood and opulence. Quickly now, he hoisted himself up and crouched on the carpet, listening.
From his jacket, he pulled out the infrared video with built-in torch to enhance the light source, then he moved to the desk. Now he could see what he had not been able to see last night. Two books: The Late Great Planet Earth and Planet Earth 2000 AD, both by Hal Lindsey. He photographed the covers and scanned the rest of the desk: Bible open at the book of Revelation and the book on Hungary; various scribblings and notes that did not mean very much. In the top drawer he found a chart entitled ‘Planned timetable for the introduction of the euro 1994-2002’, with various dates and events signified in black boxes. It was a poor photocopy of probably a coloured original. Harrison also found a large envelope, slipped out the contents and filmed them. Photographs. He frowned. It looked like a bomb scene; he thought it might be Oklahoma. No time to analyse, he needed to film and get out.
A noise in the hallway disturbed him, the creak of a floorboard. He stiffened, watching the bottom of the door for sudden light. He stayed exactly where he was, aware that if Wingo had gone out via the tunnels he may very well come back by them, and Harrison had no way of knowing which portal he would enter. He heard nothing more, put it down to the way a house likes to creak and shift its weight in the night, and went back to work. In the next drawer he moved the papers and filmed them, a receipt with something stuck underneath it, a bunch of other notes.
Leaving the desk, he moved to the maps on the wall and worked his way over them with the camera, seeing nothing, merely ensuring that he had captured it all on film. His nerves were calmer now, the pistol in his belt, the knife against his thigh, and the re-entry to the tunnels reminding him that once upon a time he had been a killer, worthy of the badge he had worn with such pride until that last abortive entry. He paused in his filming and looked about the room. He rechecked the desk and carefully went through the last of the drawers. When he was confident he had as much as he could get, he slipped back underground. He would’ve liked to have planted a T-17, but Wingo in the tunnels put him off. That would take over an hour and he could not afford the time. He crawled back to the culvert in darkness, eyes skinned, waiting for the sudden bob of a flashlight that would tell him Wingo was on his way back. He never saw him and he made it to the portal, sliding down with outstretched hands and coiling up like a ball. Outside he stood straight, looked up at the sky and breathed.
SO13 were looking for a van. No theft had been reported that would coincide with the purchase of glass from Sutton, so they concentrated on the hire companies. Swann, McCulloch, Tania Briggs and George Webb went through the Yellow Pages and checked every hire company within a thirty-mile radius. Logan and Byrne gave them a hand. They came up with four possibles, vans that had been rented for short periods and returned. They separated and went out to pay each of the companies a visit. Webb drew a blank, as did McCulloch and Briggs. They confirmed the names and addresses of the hirers together with the drivers’ licences, and they all checked out. Louis Byrne went with Swann and they visited a Rent A Wreck outfit not far from the glass supplier itself.
The company operated in an industrial yard and had hired out a white Renault van the day the glass was bought. It was returned the following morning. Swann looked through the name and address on the licence and asked for a description of the hirer. Smallish man with a black woollen cap on his head. Swann got on the phone to the Yard.
‘DI Clements.’
‘Guv’nor, it’s Jack Swann. I might have a result here.’ He gave Clements the details and then went to look at the van. It had not been cleaned since it was returned. The manager opened it up for them and he and Byrne took a good look inside.
‘Jack,’ Byrne called, as Swann was inspecting the driver’s seat and doorwell.
Swann came round to the back and Byrne lifted his hand, palm upturned. A fragment of glass rested against the tip of his index finger. Swann went back inside and spoke to the manager once more.
‘How many miles did they do?’
‘I’ll check.’ He flicked through the agreements. ‘Forty-one,’ he said.
The phone rang on Swann’s belt and he unclipped it. ‘Jack Swann.’
‘Clements. Result on the licence. William Montgomery is doing fifteen years in Parkhurst for attempted murder. Went down in ’94.’
Swann nodded to himself. ‘Mislaid his licence, did he?’
‘Convenient, wasn’t it.’
‘We’ve found traces of glass in the van, Guv. Can you send down a team?’
‘On its way.’
‘Guv’nor.’ Swann looked Byrne in the eye as he spoke into the telephone. ‘The van’s only done forty-one miles. I reckon it’s about ten from here to the supplier and ten back again. That only leaves twenty-one. The glass is somewhere in London.’
An exhibits team arrived, searched the van and then took it to the Serious Crimes Unit at Lambeth. Swann and Byrne went back to the Yard where Colson had called a mini-briefing. They all sat in the squad room, atmosphere tense between them.
‘The glass is somewhere in London.’ Colson’s words fell like stones. Swann glanced out of the window across the park towards Buckingham Palace. He thought about Pia and his children and then Boese’s eyes.
‘We have to find it,’ Colson was saying. ‘We have to trace its movements. I’ll get the commander to draft in as much uniform as we can get and check every CCTV camera in London if we have to.’
From his window on the twenty-third floor, Ismael Boese could see part of the ruins of the old city wall. Tower blocks dominated the skyline, and he recognized the Commercial Union Building and the recently reopened and renamed NatWest Tower. Below him was the lake and the City of London Girls’ School, and, to his left, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He had wandered through Smithfield at 4 a.m. while the meat vendors set up for the day’s trading. He walked past Bart’s Hospital and sat watching the early Guinness drinkers in the Bishop’s Finger, the cabbies and the market traders finishing and preparing the day. The smell of early morning beer, coffee and cigarettes, and the resinous hint of animal fats.
At eight o’clock Tal-Salem arrived with his sports bag and the first of the scaffolding pipes. Boese had already erected the metal rack to house them, and he began to put them together. Behind him on the kitchen table, four car batteries stood in their packaging next to the coiled roll of detonator cord and a pot of black paint for the window.
22
HARRISON SAT HUNCHED ON the worn couch in his trailer, watching the video with the door locked, a lighted cigarette between his fingers and an open bottle of Coors on the table. He noted the titles of the two books and would request copies from his contact agent when they met later tonight. The camera moved over the desktop, then focused on the open drawers. He had zoomed in on the contents of the top one, and now he froze the image—a receipt for a meal in Paris, France. There was something protruding from underneath the receipt, what looked like a handwritten slip of paper. He tried to make out what was scribbled on it, ‘Ten, ction, aces’, bits of words running vertically down the edge of the page.
He pulled hard on his cigarette, letting the smoke eddy in little curls from his nostrils, and watched as the video moved across the desk. He stopped and froze the picture once again, cocked his head to one side and stared at a piece of newspaper, USA Today, 11 June 1997. A huge advert for UMB bank and next to it the world round-up section. He read the various hea
dings: CONGRESS WARNS ARAFAT THAT AID MAY BE CUT OFF, CONGO EVACUATION, FRENCH IMMIGRANTS, SRI LANKA FIGHTING, CZECH SAVED—and then at the very bottom of the page—PROTESTERS: DEVIL’S IN EU PACT’S DETAILS. There was a picture of a nun beneath it. Harrison screwed up his eyes and read, ‘In Athens Greece: a Greek Orthodox nun joins a thousand clergy and others in a protest on Tuesday outside Parliament, which votes today on joining a European Union pact to remove border controls. Religious groups say that EU identity cards will carry the number 666, a sign of Satan, in their bar codes.’
Next to it was another clipping, this time from a paper he didn’t recognize. It was dated 25 March 1997—ROME SALUTES 40 YEARS OF EVER CLOSER UNION.
Harrison crushed his cigarette, immediately plucking another from his shirt pocket, and moved the film on again. He saw the wall map now, Europe marked out with a dotted line round its borders, and next to the map on a separate sheet of paper somebody had listed:
Rome
West Germany
Holland*
Belgium*
Luxembourg*
Italy
France
Spain*
Greece
UK*
Denmark*
Sweden*
Portugal
Finland
Austria
Ireland
Harrison looked at the map itself again and saw Hungary marked and underlined twice, the Czech Republic and Poland underlined once. He rewound the video to the stuff he had photographed in the drawers and stopped at the chart relating to European monetary union.
Switching off the tape, he placed it in the bag to give to Scheller, who would be driving up from Salt Lake at this very minute. Harrison had arranged the meeting in Twin Falls and he needed to leave now if he was going to make it. He drove without concentrating on the road, his mind wandering every which way. Why was Salvesen so interested in Europe when he was spending so much time with the militia over here?
Scheller was waiting for him in the bar. He was seated at a table in a dimly lit corner, with two bottles of Bud before him. Harrison quartered the room and slipped into the seat opposite him. He took out a cigarette, did not light it immediately, but held it end-on between his index fingers.
‘Tom Kovalski’s on his way,’ Scheller said.
‘From D.C.?’
‘No. He was over in Pocatello.’
Harrison took a long draught from his beer.
‘What gives?’
‘I got into Salvesen’s office.’
Scheller’s eyebrows shot up.
‘He’s built tunnels under that compound, Max. Concrete piping over the drains.’
‘How’d you find out?’
‘Patrol. Saw a bunch of guys disappear into the armoury, and next thing I know, they show up right behind where I’m at. It was snowing. I followed their tracks to a drainage culvert.’ Harrison looked him in the eye. ‘Took me right back, Max.’
‘I’ll bet it did. Jesus, Johnny.’
‘He’s got over thirty M16s in there, SMGs, grenade launchers and shotguns, not to mention dynamite and fucking blasting caps coming out of his ears.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Something else too. Remember the Posse in the old days, talking about trying government representatives and hanging them?’
‘Yeah.’
‘He’s got a courtroom and gallows built right inside that house.’
Harrison lit his cigarette. ‘I got a videotape for you, Max. He’s got maps of Europe and shit all over the place. A whole bunch of countries listed.’ He passed the paper sack he had in his jacket across the table. ‘You know something else, more and more people up there are starting to listen to him. The more the movie stars take over the valley, the more disaffected the regular people get. One actually told me the other day that he’d seen an old Japanese internment camp being refurbished in Jerome. Reckons it’s a concentration camp for after the UN takes over.’
Scheller sipped his beer. ‘Did you get a wire set up?’
‘Didn’t have the time. But I’m going back. One in his office, the other in one of the cameras he’s got in the courtroom.’
Scheller nodded slowly.
Harrison leaned forward then. ‘I want two books, Max, both by a guy named Hal Lindsey. The Late Great Planet Earth and Planet Earth 2000 AD.’
Tom Kovalski walked into the bar. Like Scheller he was dressed casually. He bought himself an MGD, sat down and shook hands with Harrison.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Pretty good.’ Harrison told Kovalski what he had told Scheller and Kovalski’s face was grave.
‘Kuhlmann was no coincidence,’ he said. ‘Salvesen has to be linked to what the FEST are looking at in London.’ He scratched his head. ‘So why the fucking militia?’
‘I don’t know, Tom. But I think we should take him out.’
Kovalski shook his head. ‘We can’t prove he’s done anything.’
‘Kuhlmann was in the compound.’
‘First amendment, John. Man can have anyone he likes over to dinner.’
‘But he got killed in England.’
Kovalski pushed out his lips. ‘Not enough. We can’t prove a link other than by association. You know the deal. The public scrutiny we’re under right now. Salvesen has some very influential friends. We screw this up and they’ll hang us by our balls. You don’t know half the shit I went through to get you that search warrant.’ He shook his head. ‘I want to get Salvesen good. We’ve had this operation running too long to jeopardize it now. Until we have a cast-iron evidential case, we have to sit tight.’
The fingerprint team gleaned a partial set of prints from the rear-view mirror on the hired van and Swann ran them through the PNC, but could not locate a match. They spent literally hundreds of man hours, collecting video tapes and watching them. Every filling station where the angle of the forecourt cameras picked up part of the road, the London traffic cameras, local businesses and shops. Everybody, even the Foreign Emergency Search Team, took it in turns to sit for hours and watch them; looking for a clue, a glimpse of the number plate on the van, some idea of where it might have gone.
Swann met Pia after having a drink with the explosives officers and the Americans, and they went back to his flat. The children were still up, undressed and bathed, but jumping around on the bed settee in the lounge. They hadn’t seen Pia for over two weeks and they leapt on her as soon as she came upstairs.
‘When are you and Daddy going to get married?’ Charlotte asked her.
Pia’s cheeks burned with colour. ‘Daddy’s never asked me.’
Swann was stunned. He had never thought about it. Marriage was not something he was very sure he wanted to do again and he had always thought that Pia was not the marrying type. ‘Bed, you guys,’ he said and patted Joanna on the bottom. She yelped and then both she and Charlotte descended into the giggles. In the end, Pia had to agree to read them a story to get them to go to bed.
While she was downstairs, Webb phoned up.
Swann could hear the hubbub of conversation in the background and knew immediately that Webb was either still in The Annexe or some other licensed premises.
‘Jack, it’s me.’
‘What you doing?’
‘Drinking.’
‘Still?’
‘Yeah. Old man showed up with the DSU.’
‘You still in The Annexe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Feds with you?’
‘Yeah. Byrne can drink, but I’m not sure about Larry Thomas. Don’t think his wife lets him out too often back in the States.’
‘Anything happening?’ Swann sat back, lifted the sole of his foot to the coffee table and lit a cigarette.
‘Julian Moore showed up from Box. They’ve got a possible from the Cairns mob.’
Swann sat more upright. ‘Who?’
‘Denis Smith. Skinhead with no form. He fits the description of the bloke who hired the van. Louis suggested Box do a number on him, like
the ATF did to Boese. He drinks with Charlie Oxley and the other one, with the spider’s web tattoos.’
‘Beer glass?’
‘Either that or a covert on his car.’ Swann blew smoke rings. ‘Try and match the prints.’
‘Yeah. At least we’ll know we’ve got the right bloke.’ Swann felt brighter. ‘Is Garrod going for it?’
‘Oh, yeah. Got nothing to lose, have we.’
Oxley and Bacon stood at the bar with Denis Smith and drank pints of lager. From the back they looked the same—green nylon bomber jackets, tight-legged jeans and Doc Martens. Bacon had a set of red braces that trailed over the backs of his thighs. Behind them at a table, two women sat talking, casually dressed, one in leggings the other in figure-hugging Levis. Oxley kept looking over at them.
‘What about the one with the short hair?’ he said, nudging Smith who leaned at his elbow. Smith swigged his beer and looked round.
‘Bit of a babe,’ he muttered. The girl smiled at him and looked away again. At the table behind them, a man in his thirties read the newspaper.
‘Go and chat her up,’ Smith said.
Oxley shook his head.
‘Go on.’
‘You fucking do it.’
Smith shrugged his shoulders, then sauntered over to their table. He was skinny and tall, lean face with sunken cheeks and slightly overlarge eyes.
‘Hi,’ he said.
The dark-haired one looked up at him. ‘Hi,’ she said and smiled. ‘What’re you guys doing tonight?’
Smith waggled the beer glass in his hand and sat down on an empty stool. ‘Just having a drink.’
‘Bit crappy, isn’t it,’ she said, wrinkling her nose. ‘There must be a better pub than this round here.’
He looked her in the eyes then. ‘I could show you a better pub.’
She looked beyond him to the bar where his mates were watching. ‘Yeah?’ she said. ‘I bet you could too.’
For a few moments he looked as though he thought she was making fun of him. The other girl smiled at him and got up. ‘Come on then, show us,’ she said.
When they were gone, the man with the newspaper folded it over his arm and stood up. He moved past the empty table and slipped the spread of his fingers inside Denis Smith’s beer glass.
