The Robert Finlay Trilogy

by Matt Johnson

  ‘Where are you?’ I asked. ‘Can you speak?’

  ‘I’m in the head. There’s nobody here. What’s up? Any more news on those papers we got from Bob’s missus? You sent me a text … is my pension sorted?’

  ‘The translator’s nearly done.’ I was careful. Wendy could hear what Kevin was saying. ‘I’ll fill you in on it soon.’

  Explaining to an inebriated mate that I needed him and a few of the Regiment lads to head down to the Forest of Dean for an off-the-radar operation proved difficult. Not surprisingly, Kevin wasn’t keen, especially when I explained why we couldn’t get local help or call in the Met. Finally, after several attempts, some odd discussions about slaves, miners, bent coppers and the hospital, I seemed to get through to him.

  ‘No good, boss. All the CRW team are on half-hour call. Most everyone else is here at the do … and we’re all pissed.’

  The Counter Revolutionary Warfare team were on permanent standby in case of an incident anywhere in the UK. They all carried pagers and all had strict orders to stay off the grog and keep within travelling distance of the new Regimental Base. Those that had families further away tended to either live on base or share digs in the local town. It wasn’t looking good.

  ‘There must be somebody,’ I demanded.

  ‘There’s only three people around here that are sober. Superpig, but he’s an officer; Cochrane the armourer, cos he’s behind the bar … and a lad called ‘Danny’ who drew the short straw and is on the door. He’s just back from Belize … just been badged.’ Kevin slurred his words. It was going to take a few mugs of black coffee before he would be in a fit state to be any help.

  ‘Who’s Superpig?’ I asked.

  ‘The ‘A’ squadron commander. He’s making sure we don’t wreck the bar.’

  ‘Christ,’ I exclaimed. ‘You can’t ask him. What about the other two – could you ask them? I just need them to do a containment until help arrives and we might then have to break down a wall.’ Even just two additional lads would be better than nothing, I thought.

  ‘Gimme a minute,’ said Kevin.

  I waited. After what seemed an eternity, I heard his voice once more. ‘You’re in luck,’ he said. ‘Cochrane seems to think he owes you and said to pass on that it’s because you’re the only fuckin’ Rupert who would have thought to lay on beers for the lads after the Embassy.’

  I grinned. Over twenty years later, and Cochrane still remembered.

  ‘There’s an armoured Landie from the Northern Ireland police here on trial,’ Kevin continued. ‘Cochrane’s gone to get a couple of lads from Goon troop to look after the bar. He says, if we can get back here before dawn, Superpig won’t even notice.’

  Briefly, I outlined to Kevin what we were facing and the kind of kit we needed. To break in to the armoured windows at the Embassy, we had used frame charges. I explained about the double-skinned wall and asked if Cochrane could dig out something similar we could use to break through and, hopefully, not harm the girl in the cell beyond.

  We arranged to meet in the pub car park. It wasn’t the most discreet of locations, but I figured it would be an easy place to find.

  Then I settled down with Wendy to wait.

  The pub was still busy, which helped as we were able to tuck Wendy’s car in amongst all the others that were in the adjacent car park. From the side, it would be impossible to tell if our car was occupied, but we could see people coming and going and, as an extra benefit, we could watch the main route from the former hospital to the nearest motorway.

  In the other direction, the road led into the forest. If the minibuses left before Kevin arrived, we would see them. That would mean implementing plan B. Problem was I didn’t yet have a plan B, which was why I sat with fingers crossed, hoping that no effort would be made to move the slaves before we were ready.

  We sat in silence while I went through our options in my mind. I reckoned I could get us into the underground complex, now that we had found the block wall. But what might happen after that was worrying me. If things went wrong before MI5 arrived, we were going to have to handle it ourselves.

  Cochrane, the Regiment Quartermaster, and the new lad were soldiers. This wasn’t an operation like anything they would have done before. Mollie had said one girl had been killed with a pistol, but that was the first and only time she had ever seen a gun of any kind. I wasn’t sure if the guards were going to be armed.

  Kevin and I were cops and, despite the way Grahamslaw and MI5 had covered for us after the incidents in London, there was only so far we could push our luck. Down here, away from the Met, a lot of questions would be asked if we had to open fire. If someone was shot then the Police Complaints Authority was bound to be called in. I’d seen and heard several tales of how police firearms officers had been hung out to dry for doing their job. I didn’t plan to join them. I was going to have to make sure that the two serving soldiers understood the implications for the two ex-soldiers they were about to team up with. It was going to have to be police rules: ‘Only fire to prevent your own death or the death of another.’ That meant giving the bad guys the edge. Not something a trained soldier was going to be happy with.

  My thoughts were disturbed by Wendy. ‘You look troubled, Finlay,’ she said.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve got that furrowed-brow look you’ve always had when you’re stressed. And you keeping rubbing the back of your neck. They should have taught you about nervous signs on your CID course.’

  I laughed again. ‘So far as I know, I’m the only DI in the Met to have never done the course. Like I said, the Commander at SO13 sorted me a place on the slave-trafficking squad. It’s a detective job … so they made me a DI.’

  ‘Is that where you met the girl who drives the sports car you saw at the hospital?’

  ‘Yes … Nina … she’s a DS. Bloody good one, or so I thought. I would never have guessed she was bent.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that since you told me. Maybe she’s not? It’s not impossible that she’s been abducted as well.’

  ‘That’s clutching at straws. Nope … it adds up. Flash car – I don’t imagine she has the cash for that. And she was an ideal way to get to the slave girl that was murdered … and to Lynn Wainwright as well.’

  Wendy simply grunted. She knew I was right. A few minutes later any notion that Nina was a prisoner was dispelled. Along the main road, not thirty yards from where we sat parked; a familiar silver sports car drove past, heading away from the hospital.

  In the driving seat sat Detective Sergeant Nina Brasov.

  Chapter 93

  ‘Talk of the bloody devil,’ I said, pointing towards the road. ‘There she goes now. See if you can pull out behind her.’

  ‘What if she sees us?’

  ‘Just make sure she doesn’t.’

  Wendy edged the nose of her car out onto the road. About a hundred yards away, I saw the brake lights of the sports car come on. It was pulling in outside a parade of shops.

  I held my breath for a moment, wondering if Nina had seen us. We hung back and, after a few seconds, she got out of her car and walked into a takeaway food shop.

  ‘See if you can find somewhere we can watch her,’ I said.

  Wendy quickly parked up between two cars so we would be hidden. It looked like Nina was ordering fish and chips. I checked my watch. It would be about an hour before Kevin arrived with the others.

  ‘Wind down the windows a bit,’ I suggested. I didn’t want a simple mistake such as condensation to reveal our presence.

  After about ten minutes, the door to the takeaway opened and Nina appeared. She was carrying two plastic bags. Nina was no kidnapping victim. She opened the passenger door to the sports car, dropped the bags onto the seat and then started to walk around the front towards the driver’s side. Next thing, she stopped … her body seemingly tense. Once again, I feared we had been spotted, but then I realised she was reaching into her coat pocket. She pulled o
ut a mobile phone.

  I watched carefully as Nina spoke to somebody.

  ‘Have you got a phone signal here?’ I asked Wendy.

  Wendy pulled a phone from her pocket. ‘Yes … three bars,’ she replied.

  I didn’t take my eyes from where my DS stood talking. I could not believe it of her. Her briefings on slave trafficking had been so good; she seemed so keen on doing her bit to stop the trade. Now, it looked like she was one of them. As good a bluff as I had ever seen.

  After a few moments, Nina appeared to write something onto a small piece of paper. Immediately afterwards, she ended the call and opened the driver’s door of her car. The leisurely way in which she had left the takeaway was now changed. The car door slammed shut, and she jerked the vehicle around and headed back in the direction from whence she had come. The tyres span on the tarmac as she accelerated away, Wendy and I ducking down to avoid being seen.

  ‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ I said.

  I climbed out and walked quickly over to the fish-and-chip shop. It was empty, save for two women behind the counter. As I approached, they both turned to face me. I took a gamble.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m supposed to be collecting some food. I’m late. Can you tell me if they’ve already been in?’

  ‘You just missed them,’ one of the women laughed. ‘It was a lady tonight. She just left.’

  ‘Did she get enough for all of us?’ I asked.

  ‘Six fish and chips, one with a sausage. She settled the account as well … better late than never.’

  ‘Settled the account?’

  ‘You lot had run up a bill of nearly a hundred quid over the last fortnight.’

  I smiled. ‘Sorry about that.’

  I said goodnight and headed back to where Wendy was waiting. As I climbed back in the car, she started the engine.

  ‘Learn anything?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, she ordered six meals. They’re not feeding the slaves, so I reckon there are now only six guards, including Nina. Mollie said there were at least eight before. I just hope it doesn’t mean that some of them have already left and taken Lynn with them.’

  Chapter 94

  An hour later, an armoured Land Rover Tangi drove in from the main road. I realised then I could have suggested somewhere better than a pub car park to meet. With its Police Service of Northern Ireland livery, it stuck out like a sore thumb.

  Quickly, I asked Wendy if she could lead us to somewhere quiet where we could talk. We moved off and, just outside the village, pulled into a small petrol station. It was closed, and behind it Wendy showed us a small yard that was hidden from the road. It was an ideal spot. Kevin climbed slowly out of the Land Rover, closely followed by Cochran and a young, blond lad wearing full black counter-revolutionary warfare kit. Kevin looked stiff. The bullet wounds were taking a while to heal, it seemed.

  We shook hands and I introduced Wendy. Kevin and Cochrane were polite but I noticed them both give her the once-over.

  For someone who, just an hour earlier, had seemed to be very drunk, my friend was now pretty steady on his feet. I asked him if he was OK. From the passenger well of the Land Rover, he pulled out a thermos flask.

  ‘I met my old buddies Hughie and Ralph over the bowl in the bog,’ he belched. Then a few ProPlus washed down with a couple of mugs of the Quartermaster’s best black coffee. Now … right as rain.’

  I grimaced, his breath smelled foul. Kevin had made himself vomit to get rid of the alcohol that was sitting in his stomach. The coffee would help counter what had already made it into his bloodstream. If he felt better, he certainly didn’t look it.

  The blond lad, introduced as ‘Danny’, was an infantry sergeant and had just finished selection. He looked fit and confident, just as he ought to be after having recently completed such a tough course. Fortunately for us, Danny was also an expert in using the latest Regiment MOE, the specialist ‘method of entry’ techniques.

  I suggested we sat in the back of the Landie to run through my plan. As Danny opened the rear door, he and Cochrane laughed at my reaction. The object they had brought resembled a medieval cannon.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ I asked. Large, black and about five feet long, the device resembled a double-barrelled howitzer. It wouldn’t have looked out of place had it been mounted on wheels and dragged about the countryside behind a team of horses.

  Cochrane laughed again. ‘It’s called the Harvey Wallbanger, boss.’

  I stood looking at it as I thought. The Wallbanger seemed to be a huge, heavy piece of equipment. It was going to be tough to move. I couldn’t see any way of getting it down the mine, and, if we could, it would surely kill anyone on the other side of the wall.

  Danny seemed to sense my uncertainty. ‘Trust me boss, I can operate this on my own. It’s surprisingly light and the wheels make it very manoeuvrable.’

  ‘How does it work?’ I asked.

  ‘It uses a stored water charge and compressed air rather than explosive so it’s much safer than the frame charges you guys used to use. The pressure wave it creates will take down a wall and anyone behind it.’

  I looked Danny straight in the eye and made him promise me that it worked. He smiled and nodded. ‘Trust me, it’s sound.’

  ‘Have you got anything else for cutting blockwork?’ I asked.

  ‘Thermic Lance. It’ll cut anything but it’s a lot slower,’ was the disappointing reply.

  A new idea came to me. If the Wallbanger was as effective as Danny described, then we could use it both as a weapon and a means of entry. And if not? Well, there wasn’t a lot of choice. As if to demonstrate just how easily it could be moved, Danny and Cochrane lifted the Wallbanger from the rear of the Land Rover and onto the ground. It looked surprisingly light. With the space cleared, we climbed in, pulled the door to, and then started to talk through my plans.

  For nearly fifteen minutes, we debated, discussed and decided what we would do if we needed ‘immediate action’, and what containment plans to implement before the MI5 response team turned up.

  I wanted to hand the entry over to MI5 so they could handle any inquest if anyone got hurt. Danny and Cochrane were off-books and didn’t want to get caught up in a witch hunt if things went wrong. We also agreed, before any plan could work, we had to stop the traffickers from leaving.

  But we needed a contingency solution in case we had to go in early. Surprise would be essential, together with overwhelming firepower. Cochrane suggested what the Americans called ‘shock and awe’; what I called ‘rapid dominance’. It relies on a spectacular display of force to overcome an enemy quickly and to destroy his will to fight. Cochrane’s proposal relied on a rapid entry, and surprise and fear amongst the slavers. If Mollie was right and Petre had the only weapon, then the remaining guards would be unarmed. We would have superior firepower and the element of surprise.

  To start with, I suggested, we should secure the escape routes, get the entry equipment into place and then wait for help. Once Toni Fellowes came through with the MI5 response team, we would be good to go.

  Wendy agreed to drive the Landie. Originally my plan had been to take Kevin into the mine with me. As he was still suffering and Danny was clearly the expert in using the method of entry equipment, we came to a group decision that the young trooper would come with me. It was agreed that the two of us would get the Wallbanger into place and then make ready for MI5. I would maintain contact with Angie in the cell to try and gauge if the minibuses were likely to depart before help arrived. Cochrane and Kevin would insert through the woodland to maintain eyeball on the buses in case they looked like leaving before we were ready. Wendy would position herself at the main road near the hospital so that, if the guards did try to leave before we were ready, she could block the exit.

  If my new plan ‘A’ went as intended, Wendy would bring part of the MI5 entry team into the mine, to where we would be waiting at the wall. We would then break through the cell wall and have another team enter the
main gate to trap all the occupants between us. Up top, they would also mop up any potential escapers.

  The ‘immediate action’ plan would be to rush the building from above and below. That was the only part of the plan that troubled me. Down in the tunnels, I wasn’t confident that the slave girl we had established communication with would be able to warn us if things kicked off up top.

  The stickiest part of my plan, however, was when I came to the rules under which we could open fire. Cochrane, as the oldest hand, was understandably reluctant, but it didn’t take long for him to appreciate the implications if we fired first. Danny, with his selection course just behind him, was far more aware of the rules of engagement. Success was going to depend on speed, timing and shock.

  As we climbed out of the Landie, Cochrane handed me a set of overalls and some boots. ‘Size ten, according to my records,’ he said.

  I grinned wryly. As I slid my shoes off and pulled the heavy-duty suit over my trousers, I couldn’t help but wonder how the hell I had gotten myself into this kind of situation again.

  Chapter 95

  As mobile phone communication near the former hospital was impossible, I was immensely pleased to discover that the Land Rover was fitted with a satellite phone.

  I called Toni for an update just before we headed off to carry the Wallbanger into the mine. Her news wasn’t good. She’d been trying to call me on the mobile to tell me that MI5 wouldn’t rustle up an entry team for an operation that wasn’t under Security Service control. After trying every means she knew to get us some help, nobody had been willing or able to take a chance and help us.

  The others saw me on the phone, clocked my reaction and guessed. We were on our own.

  Kevin was for going in with just the four of us. He had a point. We had to get to Lynn Wainwright quickly. If we made enough noise, put in some smoke and threw a few flash-bangs, we could create enough of a panic to overcome whoever was inside.