by James Becker
Bronson’s cheek was numb from the blow, but he still seemed to have all his teeth, which was something.
“Do all your thinking with your fists, do you?” Bronson asked. “Easier to hit than use your brain?”
Mike spun round and raised his right hand again, but then a single voice cut across the office and he stopped instantly.
“Wait.”
Bronson had not even noticed the man until he spoke, probably because he was sitting in a chair against the far wall, rather than standing in a group with the other men. He had a thin, pinched face and a somewhat straggly beard that seemed barely attached to his chin, like some badly applied theatrical prop. He was slightly built, and although he was sitting down Bronson guessed he was well under six feet tall. But despite his unimpressive appearance, he exuded authority and seemed to be the dominant personality of the group. Certainly, his single word of command had stopped Mike in his tracks.
“You’re not going to listen to him?” Mike snapped.
“Sit down and shut up,” the seated man said, his eyes never leaving Bronson. Mike glared at him for a couple of seconds, then slunk over to one side of the room, dragged a chair forward and sat down on it.
“Right, Bronson—and I assume that really is your name, not ‘Alex Cross’—you’ve got sixty seconds. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t let Mike take you apart.”
“Simple, and I would have thought it was obvious. I’m not an undercover cop, and what’s just happened proves it.”
“Fifty seconds left. I’m not convinced.”
The seated man had a faint accent that Bronson couldn’t place. It wasn’t French or Italian, because Bronson spoke both, Italian fluently and French reasonably well, but it could have been German, or possibly he was from one of the Eastern European nations. The man’s English was fluent, but it clearly wasn’t his first language.
Bronson knew he had only the one chance, and his best bet was to tell the truth as far as he could, admit some things and hope they swallowed the big lie at the end. He’d discussed the possibility that he might be unmasked with Curtis before he went undercover, and between them the two men had concocted a story, a story that Bronson knew he was now probably betting his life on.
“My name is Chris Bronson,” he said, “and I was a police sergeant. But I left the force months ago. To be exact, I was thrown out.”
“Why?” the seated man asked. “Thirty seconds,” he added.
“If I’ve only got thirty seconds left, I’d rather skip the details.”
“Fair point. Go on.”
“I’ve done undercover work in the past, and to protect the identity of officers involved in that kind of operation, there’s a standard procedure that is followed by the media. Before any story is run that might identify a police officer, in any context, the Home Office has to be informed, just in case that officer is working undercover. If I was still in the force and trying to penetrate this group, that story”—Bronson nodded his head toward the TV set in the corner—“would never have been broadcast. And that proves I’m not who Mike thinks I am.”
In fact, Bronson had not the slightest idea whether any such procedure was followed, though he thought it would probably be a good idea if it was. But it sounded plausible, and that was what mattered. He guessed that Curtis would have been just as surprised by the contents of the news broadcast as he was, and he hoped he was even then doing something to mitigate its effects.
“Okay. You’ve bought yourself another minute. Why were you thrown out of the force?”
“I got a little carried away when I was questioning a suspect. He ended up with concussion and a broken arm and I got charged with grievous and actual bodily harm. And then they threw me out for good measure. That’s why I gave a false name when I was arrested at Stratford nick. If they’d known who I really was, they’d never have let me out—there’s an outstanding warrant for my arrest because I skipped bail after they charged me.”
The man with the straggly beard nodded.
“That’s a good story,” he said, “but we’ve got no way of verifying it. What we do know is that you were—or are—a police officer, and we have no wish to get involved with the forces of law and order here in Britain. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
“Georg.” One of the other men in the office was looking at the television set, pointing at the screen, at the live program being broadcast.
Along the bottom edge a ticker was running, saying “Breaking News,” and Bronson’s picture was again displayed on the screen.
“Turn up the volume.”
Somebody grabbed the remote control and pressed the “mute” button, and immediately the announcer’s voice filled the room.
“…now understand Sergeant Bronson was dismissed from the force some months ago following an incident, and that there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest on charges of assault. Members of the public are advised not to approach this man under any circumstances, but to contact the nearest police station immediately if they believe they’ve seen him. Also in London, a council official in Lambeth has—”
As the man again muted the set’s volume, Bronson looked across at the seated figure. “Now do you believe me?” he asked.
Georg shrugged. “That depends on how much credence you give to what they tell you on television.”
“You were ready enough to believe the first report about me,” Bronson pointed out.
“That’s another fair point, but I’m still not convinced.”
Bronson tried one last gamble. “Right. Untie me, and I can show you something that might help you make up your mind.”
“What?”
“Untie me, and I’ll show you,” Bronson repeated.
The seated man glanced round at the other men in the room, presumably assessing the chances of Bronson being able to overpower them, then nodded. The two men standing behind Bronson bent down and removed his bonds.
“Thanks,” he said, as his arms were freed.
For a moment he rubbed his wrists, getting the circulation going again. Then he stood up, turned to his right and smashed his right fist into the face of the man standing beside him. Before anyone else could react, he twisted around to his left and did exactly the same to the man there.
“Touch me again, you bastards,” he snapped, “and I’ll blow your bloody heads off.”
Then, as three of the other men started to move toward him, he whipped his right hand behind him, pulled out the Llama and aimed it straight at them, clicking off the safety catch as he did so.
“Just give me a reason,” he snarled.
All three men stopped in their tracks, mesmerized by the sight of the pistol.
“Still think I’m a cop, Georg?” Bronson asked, glancing momentarily toward the seated figure.
“Right now, I’m not sure,” the man replied, apparently unfazed by the sight of Bronson’s Llama. “But that doesn’t look much like a police-issue pistol, so that’s one point in your favor. Now, unless you think you are going to start shooting, I suggest you put the weapon away. Then perhaps we can talk.”
11
21 July 2012
Bronson hadn’t put the pistol away, but he had sat down again, clicked the safety catch back on and lowered the weapon to his lap, keeping it within easy reach of his right hand.
“So who are you, exactly?” he asked.
“You don’t need to know that.”
“I do if I’m going to work with you.”
Georg shook his head. “We’re a long way from deciding that,” he said.
“Fine,” Bronson replied, and stood up. “Then I’ll go.”
Georg lifted a restraining hand. “No, not yet. I think you could be useful to us, but we have to be sure where your loyalties lie.”
“And how are you going to find that out?”
“There are ways,” Georg replied calmly. “But having a former policeman in the group makes sense. You know police tactics; you might even have friends
on the force, people who could be persuaded to supply information that would be useful to us.”
Bronson laughed shortly. “You obviously know nothing about the way the police force works. For what I did, I became an instant pariah. None of the people I worked with would cross the street to piss on my head if my hair was on fire.”
“A colorful metaphor, but I understand what you mean. Still, your knowledge of police tactics and procedures could help us, especially when we put the last pieces in place. And we already know you’re handy with your fists.”
Georg glanced at the two men who’d grabbed Bronson when he walked into the office. One was still rubbing his jaw while the second sat on a chair in the corner, holding a handkerchief to his bleeding—and possibly broken—nose.
“I can take care of myself, yes.”
Georg looked at him for a few seconds, apparently considering. Then he nodded, as if he’d just come to a decision.
“Right, Bronson,” he said. “It’s not my decision, and obviously we’ll have to run a few checks on you, but my feeling is that you’re probably telling the truth.”
Bronson inclined his head, but didn’t respond.
“That pistol, for one thing, is a giveaway,” Georg continued. “If you were undercover and your masters had decided you should be armed, I’d expect you to be carrying a full-bore pistol, probably a Glock or perhaps a Walther, not some piece of Spanish crap that you picked up in a dodgy deal somewhere.”
“So if you don’t decide, who does?” Bronson asked. “You mean you take a vote on it, something like that?”
Georg shook his head. “No. Something much simpler, a kind of test that you’ll either pass or fail. You’ll find out later. For now you can go.”
Three minutes later, Bronson was sitting in the driving seat of his car and heading away from the industrial estate, back toward London.
Once he was sure nobody was following him, he turned off down a side road, looking for a quiet spot where he could park up for a few minutes. He found it in the form of a roadside pub that had just opened for business, and which had a large car park, already half full of parked vehicles. He slid the Ford into a space at the far end, where he had a good view of the road, then opened the glovebox and took out his mobile phone.
Curtis answered on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Yes, but it bloody nearly wasn’t,” Bronson snapped. “What the hell happened with that news broadcast on Sky? That could have killed me.”
“I’m really sorry about that. The first we knew was when somebody here saw it—in the canteen, actually. We checked with Sky immediately. It turned out that the owner of the equipment yard where you had your bit of fun last night made two recordings. He gave one to the local police station and sent the other to them. They ran it first for what it was—footage of two unidentified men doing a bit of damage to a bulldozer. But then one of your former colleagues from Tunbridge Wells rang the station and identified you. Sky checked him out, and then ran the revised footage once they were satisfied that he did know who you were. You must have really pissed off somebody down there, Chris.”
Sitting in his car, Bronson nodded. He knew exactly who it must have been. “Detective Inspector Harrison,” he growled. “Known to one and all as ‘SOS Harrison,’ and about as popular as a dose of clap.”
“‘SOS’?” Curtis asked.
“‘Sack of Shit,’” Bronson replied. “He’s slimy, greasy and overweight, and he’s hated my guts ever since the day I first walked into the station. He finally retired this year.”
“Sky wouldn’t say who it was,” Curtis replied. “Protection of their sources and all that, but they did say it was a former senior police officer, so I guess that fits. Anyway, as soon as we explained the situation, they agreed to run the update, the story we cooked up about you being kicked out of the force. So what happened?”
It only took a couple of minutes to give Curtis the edited version of what had happened in the industrial estate, leaving out all mention of the Llama pistol, of course.
“What really saved me was Sky, oddly enough,” he said. “If they’d turned off the TV set none of them would have noticed the update to the bulletin, which of course confirmed my story. By itself, they’d never have taken my word for it, and I might still be there, but probably not still in one piece.”
“They’re that dangerous?” Curtis asked.
“I don’t know. Mike is a thug, pure and simple. He thinks with his fists, and I was expecting him to beat me up as he tried to get information out of me. Most of the others are heavies with the same sort of attitude—they’re really just muscle for hire, dangerous but not too bright—but the one who worries me most is this man Georg. And by the way, he sounds German to me.”
Bronson described the man he’d seen at the warehouse.
“We can get a squad out there in an hour or so,” Curtis suggested. “Will they still be in the building?”
“I doubt it. It looked to me as if they were planning on leaving soon, so they’ve probably already gone. And there’s another reason, too, why hitting them now wouldn’t be such a good idea.”
“What?”
“John Eaton told me that Georg was the man who pulled Mike’s strings, the one who gave the orders. He also told me he was the money man, the financier who paid the members of the group for what they did. I assumed that he was the boss, but it’s clear that he isn’t. There’s some larger organization that Georg reports to. If you mop up this group now, you’ll take one bunch of men off the streets, but my guess is that Georg or whoever replaces him will just recruit a new team from the fringes of the underworld. You’ll probably grab the people who killed that nightwatchman, but I’m certain there’s something darker and more dangerous at work here.”
“Like what? And don’t forget, infiltrating the group is the whole point of the exercise. We need to get them off the streets before the Games start.”
“I know,” Bronson replied, “but I get the distinct impression that what these people are doing is just a nuisance: smashing up a machine here, breaking a few windows there, that kind of thing. It’s just a kind of diversion tactic, something to focus our attention on the wrong area, while something else, something much bigger and more destructive, goes down elsewhere.”
“What’s your evidence for that?”
“That’s the problem. I haven’t got any. Only something Georg said, almost a throwaway remark about putting the last pieces in place. There’s something about him that I don’t like. He’s too calm, and too bright for the company he’s keeping. There’s no way he’d be involved with these people at all unless there was a bigger picture, something we’re not seeing at the moment.”
After Curtis rang off, Bronson sat in silence in the car for a few minutes, trying to work out what he should do next.
The trouble was, there was almost nothing he could do. His relationship with the group, such as it was, was reactive and responsive: they had his mobile number, but he had no way of contacting them. The only person who ever called him was John Eaton, and he had configured his mobile so that the sender’s number was blocked. Apart from the warehouse on the small industrial estate he had just left, the only other physical points of contact he’d had with the group were a couple of pubs.
He would just have to wait until somebody—Georg or Eaton or another member of the group—called him and arranged another rendezvous. And then he’d have to decide if that was the right time to let Curtis loose the dogs to roll up the group. Or not.
Bronson frowned, started the Ford’s engine again, pulled out of the pub car park and turned back onto the road.
12
22 July 2012
“And bring your passport,” the voice on the mobile instructed, then rang off.
For a second or two, Bronson stared at the handset, then shrugged and replaced it in his jacket pocket. Why the hell did he need his passport? Did Georg or Eaton want to confirm his identity by looking at th
e document? Or was there some other reason?
It was the day after the meeting at the warehouse, and Bronson had just been summoned to another rendezvous, this one back in London, in Stratford. It was a residential address, maybe a safe house, which might mean that the group was beginning to trust him. At the very least, it was the first meeting place that wasn’t either a pub or a warehouse, so it was progress of a sort.
For the duration of the operation, he had taken a room above a pub in Epping, a cheap and anonymous lodging from which he could come and go as he wished, because the first-floor accommodation was approached by an outside door that was independent of the pub’s entrances. He had traveled up to London with the bare minimum he thought he would need—half a dozen changes of clothing, his washing kit and a couple of paperbacks—but he had brought along his passport. In fact, he rarely traveled anywhere without it.
The decision he had to make was whether to tell Bob Curtis about the meeting. On the one hand, if most of the major players from the group were going to be there it would offer an excellent opportunity for the Metropolitan Police to grab the men involved in the killing of the nightwatchman. But if a squad of officers kicked down the door and found only John Eaton, for example, then Bronson’s cover would be comprehensively blown and there would be no chance of identifying the other members of the gang. And, from Bronson’s point of view, no possibility of finding out what else Georg had planned for London, because he was still sure that the German—and he thought he’d identified the man’s accent now—had a much more dangerous agenda planned than the mindless vandalism that had taken place so far.
Realistically, there was only one option that made sense. Bronson looked at his London A to Z, spent a couple of minutes studying one page of it, then took out his mobile phone again and pressed the now familiar speed-dial combination.
“It’s me again,” he said when Curtis answered. “I’ve been summoned to another meeting this afternoon, but I think they’re still checking me out, so there’ll probably only be one or two of them there.”
