The Robert Finlay Trilogy

by Matt Johnson

  Chapter 45

  Later that day, Nina and I drove back up to Hampstead, where we provided the forensic team with samples, footprints and statements. After several failed attempts to contact Toni Fellowes, I left a message with Nell, her assistant. I explained – without mentioning the gunman – that I had learned of the Cristeas involvement in sex trafficking and that I was curious why I had been allowed to travel to Romania. I couched it in no stronger terms than that. Although I was angry, I didn’t want to start sounding off; I was hoping there might be a perfectly good explanation. And, I had to remember, Toni had been very supportive and had gone out of her way to help my family. In many ways, we owed her.

  That evening, I met up with Kevin to make the one-hour journey from Central London to Gayle Bridges’ new home.

  Kevin picked me up from Victoria Street at seven o’clock, and almost immediately began to tell me what had happened to Beaky on television. It transpired the BBC had been doing a TV interview when Terry Field, one of the senior NCOs from Hereford, had popped out of the audience with Beaky’s personnel file.

  The interviewer had then posed Beaky a couple of searching questions about his supposed time in the SAS. It was a set-up. Not surprisingly, Beaky couldn’t bullshit his way through the interview with Terry sitting opposite him, the truth in a cardboard folder on his lap. Beaky had lost his temper and stormed out of the studio. Rumour had it he also chinned one of the cameramen. I thought it a sad end to a sorry episode.

  It looked like Beaky was going to have the last laugh, though. According to the newspapers, the book had gone to a second print run, such was the demand after the BBC exposure.

  I had little interest in Beaky or his book, though. My immediate problem was helping Gayle Bridges dispose of her late husband’s trophy pistol. I was also curious as to what might be contained in the paperwork that Bob Bridges had seen fit to keep hidden for so long after his retirement from the army.

  As an experienced army wife, Gayle knew how to receive soldiers into her home. The kettle was on and, as she showed us into the front room, there was a plate of Garibaldi biscuits ready on the coffee table. If there was one thing she remembered, it was that soldiers were always thirsty and hungry.

  Gayle started out by apologising for not replying to the message I had sent to her through the pension branch. She had decided to cut all ties with her husband’s past life. It was only finding the pistol that had changed her mind.

  In the car, on the way to the house, Kevin and I had discussed how we would deal with the questions we thought Gayle might ask. It didn’t take long before our planning paid off. She soon raised the subject of her husband’s murder, the attacks on the other former soldiers and the end result.

  Kevin had been uncertain as to how much to say. I had decided. We would tell Gayle about the Irish lads that had been taken out, the Arab who had turned out to be another Irishman, and the fact that the threat was now over. Of Monaghan, the former SAS commander turned MI5 officer, we would make no mention.

  Gayle listened quietly while I related the story of how Kevin and I had managed to work out who the terrorists were, how we had then been attacked ourselves and gone on to overcome our would-be killers. I explained that the final terrorist had died of food poisoning in prison, just a couple of days previously.

  ‘Did he die, or was he killed too, Finlay?’ she asked me.

  ‘From what I read in the papers, which is really all we know, it seems it was an illness. I suppose we might all hope he suffered a bit, but nobody seems to be claiming it was anything else.’

  ‘I just wondered…’ Gale began. And then she stood up and left the room.

  I exchanged glances with Kevin. He shrugged. Our shared curiosity was answered when Gayle returned carrying a cardboard document box. She sat down on the settee, placed the box on the coffee table and opened the lid.

  On the top of a pile of A4 size papers, about an inch in thickness, lay a Browning 9mm pistol, a spare magazine and three small boxes of 9mm rounds.

  ‘Would you mind taking the gun?’ Gayle looked at Kevin as she asked.

  Kevin picked the pistol up by the grip, removed the clip and pulled back the slide. A live round flicked out onto the floor.

  ‘Loaded. One up the spout,’ he commented, leaning forward to retrieve the bullet.

  ‘Thank you,’ Gayle continued. ‘It’s not so much the gun or the bullets that bothered me. I mean … you’ve explained what happened to my husband … and who did it. But what I want to know is why? Why after all these years did these men come all the way to London to blow up some old soldiers? And I want to know … I want to know if it has anything to do with this?’

  Gayle dropped the pile of loosely bound papers in my lap.

  As Kevin unloaded the Browning magazine and placed the rounds carefully with the others in the small cardboard storage boxes, I scanned through the pile of documents. Although there was the odd map and quote in English, they were mostly in Arabic.

  I turned to Kevin. ‘Did you ever learn to read any of this lingo?’

  ‘Not a word. I picked up a few Farsi sayings on Ops, but reading Arabic script is way beyond me.’

  ‘Me too.’ I turned to Gayle. ‘What makes you think these are something significant Gayle?’

  ‘I knew he had them,’ she answered. ‘But he couldn’t read Arabic either. Could you get them translated, find out what they mean? Can you do that … and let me know?’

  ‘I suppose we could,’ I said. ‘The Met has interpreters that do this kind of thing.’

  ‘Just don’t say where it came from.’ Gayle shook her head and took a deep breath. ‘To be honest, I’m surprised you two haven’t thought about why someone would single you lads out from all the others.’

  ‘We figured it was due to an op that we were on in Ulster many years ago,’ I lied.

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘Possibly; we’re not absolutely sure. The people that could tell us aren’t really up to speaking about it.’

  I continued to flick through the papers. There were drawings, maps of countries, some in the Middle East, others in Europe. A map of the UK had notes next to it that seemed to be a list of some kind, but it was all in Arabic script.

  ‘Any idea where Bob got all this, Gayle?’ I made a deliberate move to steer the conversation away from the events of recent weeks.

  ‘He did some work for the Government after he left the army. Out in the Far East. That man who was made to look an idiot on the BBC … he just wrote about it.’

  ‘That book, Cyclone, you mean?’

  ‘Yes that’s the one. Bob was a private military contractor then. He went with a few of the boys out to Afghanistan to help teach the locals how to use guns and things.’

  I noticed that Kevin had gone quiet and was staring at me. ‘Did he say anything about what these documents are?’ he asked.

  ‘Only that one day they would be worth a lot of money. They were his insurance. On his last job out there, the team he was with were ambushed. One of the men with him was killed getting those papers. Bob figured that if they were worth dying for then they had some value.’

  ‘So you think there might be a connection between them and Bob’s death?’

  ‘I do. A few years ago, Bob had a telephone call. I don’t know who it was but it sounded as if it was one of his old mates. Anyway … whoever it was told Bob that these pages were dynamite. But he hadn’t mentioned them since. It was only when I moved house that I found them … and the gun, of course.’

  Kevin slipped the Browning into his jacket pocket with a promise it would be taken care of. I returned the papers to the document box and tucked it between my feet. The look on Gayle’s face told me she was glad to see the back of her husband’s mementos.

  Teas downed, Kevin led the way back to his car. I asked him to hang on for a minute while I checked it over. His response took me by surprise.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Checking the ca
r … you know, like we should do,’ I answered, impatiently.

  ‘For IEDs you mean?’

  ‘That kind of thing, yes.’

  ‘You’re serious aren’t you? Do you check every time?’

  I leaned under the front bumper as I answered. ‘Yes … and so should you.’

  Kevin hesitated for a moment before speaking. ‘Look, I’m not being funny, boss, but MI5 say it’s all over. We can’t spend the rest of our lives living like we’re under constant threat.’

  I smiled as I stood straight. ‘I just have to do it, Kev. It helps me sleep easy.’

  Kevin shrugged. ‘You need to get some help, boss, seriously. Come on … let’s go.’

  Chapter 46

  As we continued back into London, Kevin strained to look at the papers lying in my lap. In the limited light from the street lamps, I was flicking through the sheets to see if there was anything I might be able to understand.

  I had no success, but did have an idea for discreetly obtaining a translation.

  I remembered that my Explosives Officer friend, Rupert Reid, spoke Arabic quite well. Rupert was now back at work, I’d heard. The car bomb at my home, which had destroyed my original 2CV, had left him with concussion, cuts and a few bruises. Luckily, the only real damage to the Wookie-sized bomb disposal officer was a perforated eardrum, an injury of the type that he had suffered many times before. It would heal. It wasn’t certain that Rupert could read Arabic as well as speak it, but I was confident he would know someone who did.

  We were just a few minutes away from my new home when Kevin brought up what Gayle had said about Bob’s time in the Far East. ‘I never knew Bomber Bridges was on the Increment team, did you?’

  ‘Not until this evening. I remember bumping into him in Cyprus, though. We were just returning from Peshawar, remember?’

  ‘Not sure. We did so many trips they all seem to merge into one.’

  ‘Bomber was heading out to Pakistan on the same aircraft we’d come in on. I remember it well. We shared a quick beer at the airport bar before he caught the plane. I always wondered what he was off to do. Come to think of it, Beaky might have been on that aircraft as well. There were some contractors, as I recall.’

  ‘Well, Beaky had to get his material from somewhere.’

  ‘He might have talked to them on the flight.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have told him anything. If they were working for Six, they would have signed the OSA.’ Signing the Official Secrets Act was something MI6 insisted on before every covert operation, particularly if it was on foreign soil. It was a little reminder of the consequences of speaking to the press, writing a personal memoir or even talking to your wife. Putting your signature to the OSA form had a way of focussing the mind.

  ‘They came back on a Herc’ on one of the other ops as well,’ Kevin recalled. ‘They travelled back with us, in the rear of the aircraft. They had a coffin with them. Remember that?’

  I thought for a moment. I remembered the flights; there were several, always at night. Often there would be passengers in the rear seats of the aircraft who boarded the plane after everyone else and, on arrival in Cyprus, they would exit the rear while all nearer the front had to wait. We always presumed that they were spooks – MI6 or CIA; something of that nature. I couldn’t recall having seen Bob Bridges again after that first meeting in the airport lounge.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But from what he wrote in Cyclone, I guess Beaky got himself onto one of those teams.’

  ‘Maybe…’

  ‘…Or maybe he got one of the lads drunk, pumped him for stories, and taped it. Add a little imagination … you got yourself a book.’

  Kevin pulled the car to a halt just a few minutes from the safe house.

  ‘When are you planning to take the Browning to Hereford?’ I asked.

  ‘First thing, why do you ask?’

  ‘I think I’ll come with you. It’s been a long time since I saw the place and I’ve never been in the new camp.’

  ‘I thought Royalty cops like you did bodyguard courses there.’

  ‘We did a week at Pontrilas but never went to Credenhill.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. I could do with the company, to be honest. It’s a long drive on your own.’

  ‘OK, that’s settled,’ I said. ‘You drive around the M25 and pick me up from Cockfosters at eight. I’m on a late tomorrow so an early departure will give me enough time to get back in time for work.’ I tucked the document box under my arm, climbed out of the car and headed home.

  The walk gave me a few minutes to do some thinking. The Increment lads were specialists. Having left the army, they were between soldiering and civilian life, employed by Security Services to do military-type jobs that the army couldn’t or wouldn’t do. The Director of Special Forces had heard what was happening in northern Afghanistan during the late 1970s and had been keen for the Regiment to get involved. The Foreign Office decision – the right one – was that it was too dangerous for serving British soldiers to travel into such a war zone. It would be hard to explain the presence of SAS soldiers, should they be captured, or killed and their bodies recovered by the Russians.

  We were, however, allowed into neighbouring Pakistan. I remembered the briefings we had been given before several of us had packed our kit and headed off to RAF Northolt. Somehow, a deal had been done between the CIA, MI6 and the Pakistan Inter-Service Intelligence – the ISI – to import weapons into Afghanistan through the Panjshir Valley. The Americans were prepared to fund the supply of weapons to warlords fighting the occupying forces but wanted to avoid overt involvement, for fear of inflaming relations with the Russians.

  The Pakistanis didn’t have the expertise to train the Mujahedeen, so an incredibly convoluted deal had been done whereby the Americans paid for Russian weapons, purchased from countries such as Israel and Egypt, and we Brits put men on the ground to supervise their import and teach the locals how to use them.

  The Increment lads had travelled into the mountains on foot and on horseback. They set up a training camp in the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan, using caves for shelter and cover. MI6 officers with them educated local fighters how to get by in English while the ex-soldiers taught them how to use the new weapons.

  On the Pakistan side of the border, regular SAS soldiers – including me and Kevin – had a unique opportunity to get hold of examples of the latest Soviet weaponry. The shopping list ranged from small arms, including the new AK74 assault rifle, through to avionics and protection systems for the modern Russian helicopters.

  Increment got hold of Russian kit following battles, helicopter crashes and by paying Afghan workers to steal it. The mule trains then brought it across the border into Pakistan. After that, we did some field testing of the interesting bits before boxing up the technical stuff for rendition to the UK.

  As a former artillery officer, my specialism had been surface-to-air missiles. That was how Kevin and I had ended up on the operation. Somebody had to teach the fighters on the ground how to use the kit that the Americans had provided.

  Cyclone had now exposed the whole complex project.

  The downstairs lights to the house were still on as I walked up the drive.

  Jenny was watching television. As I walked in and leant over to kiss her cheek, the coldness of her reaction surprised me.

  Returning to hang up my coat in the hallway, I dropped the document case on the table. When I turned around, I found Jenny standing behind me, leaning against the kitchen doorpost.

  The look said it all. I was in the shit.

  Chapter 47

  I gave Jenny a warm smile – big mistake. It acted like a red rag to a bull.

  ‘You’ve been out with Kevin Jones, haven’t you?’ she said.

  There was no point in denying it, so I decided to be honest and cough up the reason why we had been to see Gayle Bridges. I explained about the gun, but left out the part about the documents, which at the time were sitting on the hallway table.
r />   Not surprisingly, Jenny was livid. She was no fool. She knew that the Met’s willingness to overlook the events of the past few months would only go so far. If we were caught with Bob Bridges’ trophy weapon then we would be for the high jump, no question. Then what would I have been left with? she argued. The dole queue? Or driving a taxi, maybe?

  My explanations fell on deaf ears. Concepts of loyalty, brotherhood and debt all paled into insignificance when they came between Jenny and her family’s future.

  What with Nina having lectured me that morning, it was the second time in one day I’d had to swallow being told how stupid I was. I didn’t dare mention to Jenny that I had spent part of the morning chasing down a gunman, having him point a pistol at me and then recognising him from the wedding we had just been to. I figured there was only so much openness our marriage could take at any one time.

  Luckily, I managed to smuggle Bridges’ documents into a briefcase before they were spotted. I had little doubt that the papers were from some kind of terrorist training camp and probably referred to target ideas, guidance to operations, that kind of thing. They would be interesting but were unlikely to be anything that the Security Services hadn’t seen before. Even so, I certainly didn’t want Jenny seeing them.

  After checking in on Becky and kissing her goodnight, I returned to the main bedroom to find Jenny already in our bed. Her orders were clear. Hold her tight and promise to never again do anything that would put us all at risk.

  I took a deep breath and made the promise. I just hoped that fate would let me keep it.

  Chapter 48

  The next morning, Kevin and I were on the road to Credenhill Barracks, Hereford – the new camp of the SAS Regiment. I’d left home early, and with a change to my normal route. This time, I headed north rather than into the city centre. I called the office as soon as I arrived at Cockfosters, and discovered that both Nina and our Superintendent were away doing other things.