Javelin - the gripping new thriller from the former commander of Special Branch (John Kerr Book 3)

by Roger Pearce

  ‘Couldn’t sit at home with Cheapside running,’ said Dodge, his face sagging lower with each shake of the head. ‘It came in a little before seven. Roscoe said he had info about the bombs that we wouldn’t get anywhere else and it would cost.’

  ‘Which number?’

  ‘Our confidential hotline.’

  ‘So there’ll be a recording.’

  ‘Blank,’ mumbled Dodge. He coughed, shakily retrieved his coffee from the floor and took a sip. ‘Machine never kicked in.’ He sounded dehydrated, from alcohol or lies, and Kerr’s look of disbelief sparked another glare from Melanie.

  Kerr let his eyes settle on Dodge’s shirt. ‘Where did you meet?’

  ‘Not a pub. That was afterwards,’ said Dodge. ‘Seven-thirty on Clapham Common.’

  ‘Your choice?’

  ‘His. Said it had to be in the open.’

  ‘So no CCTV. Who did you take for back-up?’

  ‘Just me. Everyone was out and about.’

  ‘But you let someone know, Dodge?’ said Melanie, leaning forward to look him in the face, as if pleading for him to get it right. ‘Surely you gave a heads-up before meeting him? That’s the rule, isn’t it?’

  ‘There wasn’t time.’

  ‘Why didn’t you grab a body set?’ asked Kerr.

  Dodge shrugged.

  ‘Jack and I could have covered you,’ said Melanie kindly. ‘You only had to call.’

  ‘Look, I went straight out without telling a soul, okay? Broke my own code.’

  ‘And that’s the bit I don’t get,’ said Kerr. ‘Two attempts on your life and you never suspected it might be a trick? That you were being set up? Ambushed? After all you’ve been through?’

  ‘It felt okay.’

  ‘From a single phone call?’ said Kerr. ‘Dodge, how can you say that? Anything could have happened. You had no control over this guy?’

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ he said, suddenly looking up. It was his first display of the old assertiveness, but his face betrayed him, the lies leaking through his skin like raindrops.

  ‘You put yourself in harm’s way when there was no need,’ said Kerr. ‘Christ, you’ve sacked people for less.’

  Dodge lifted his eyes to Kerr’s. ‘Well sometimes you have to chuck the codes of fucking practice in the bin, don’t you, John? Go with your gut feeling. We’re still shovelling bodies and he was ready to cut the call. Was I under threat? Who knows?’ he said, suddenly out of breath. ‘I turned it into an opportunity. Letting him get away, that was the risk.’

  Kerr fell silent for a moment. ‘Have you made your calls across the water?’

  ‘No…obviously…not really a good time with me like this… don’t think it’s Irish.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Melanie gripped his arm. ‘Is that what he told you, Dodge?’

  ‘How about it’s a hoax, or complete bullshit?’ said Kerr.

  Dodge’s outburst had turned his jowls a pallid grey. He stayed silent, leaving a cloud of dead air between them.

  Kerr’s sigh was of resignation. ‘So we have a source with no name, untested and non-contactable. No photographs or voice print, no address, phone, email or motive, and a description that fits Walter Mitty. He’s given us a target and a day, intel we have no way of corroborating. Tell me, Dodge. What would you do in my shoes?’

  ‘I think we have to go with it.’

  ‘I mean, you know how the system works,’ said Kerr, glancing at his watch again. ‘It’s getting on for ten. You’ve presented me with a ticking time bomb that I’m going to plant in Bill Ritchie’s lap as soon as we’re finished here. And he’ll dump it on the Bull tonight. You see my dilemma.’

  ‘John, I had to pass it on.’

  ‘And you still think he’s the real deal? That’s your professional assessment?’

  Dodge shrugged and looked down again, his voice scarcely audible. ‘We’ll find out tomorrow, won’t we?’

  When Kerr had finished with him, Dodge insisted on taking a cab home, picking his money from the floor and resisting all Melanie’s offers to drive him.

  ‘Do you believe a single word?’ said Kerr when they were alone, trying Ritchie’s direct line and getting no reply.

  ‘It’s what I’ve been telling you all along,’ said Melanie. Her voice sounded sharp, still angry at Kerr’s scepticism.

  ‘But you see why I needed you here?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Melanie. ‘You want me to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘No,’ said Kerr, scrolling through his contacts for Ritchie’s home number. He dialled and looked straight at her. ‘I want you to follow him.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Saturday, 15 October, 10.07, A406 North Circular Road, Neasden

  For their rendezvous Bobby Roscoe had selected an isolated patch of scrub and woodland between Brent Reservoir and Neasden Junction, less than a mile from where the M1 lost itself in north London’s suburban sprawl and petered out at Staples Corner. Neglected by day, even by the birdlife from the local nature reserve, the area came to life after dark as one of the capital’s premier dogging venues.

  Access from the A406 North Circular Road lay at the end of a long terrace of rundown 1930s housing with concreted gardens and drooping net curtains, just before New Delhi Delight Curry House and Gusto Kebabs and Pizza. The entrance was wide enough for medium-sized rigid lorries, and deep furrows in the dried mud testified to its night time popularity with London’s swingers.

  With Fin on the pillion, Kenny had ridden the Honda motorcycle from Roscoe’s yard in Willesden, where the brothers had finished the roof under Roscoe’s direction, warmed chicken soup on his camping stove and spent a restless night catnapping on a mattress in the cold workshop. Roscoe had brought the brothers here weeks earlier, on the Sunday of their initial target recce, but the turning was so inconspicuous that Kenny almost rode past. Behind the main road lay a parcel of waste ground with seeded conifers and three old wooden picnic tables in a waist high thicket of brambles. A strip of dried mud ran through the middle to a wooded area at the far end and Kenny bumped along this now, edging between the ruts and potholes.

  Lorry drivers had to abandon their vehicles at the edge of the scrub, for the wood was accessible only to cars or small vans. It was cooler in here, gloomy and lifeless beneath a thick blanket of cloud, with the track forcing a narrow circle through the untended trees and bushes. Every few metres they came upon a van-sized clearing, where men pimped their wives to strangers. Kenny made a complete circuit to check they were alone, but the only sign of life was muffled gunfire from the local shooting range. They parked the motorcycle and perched on a tree trunk to wait, still protected by their crash helmets. Scattered around them was the detritus of used condoms, tissues and mashed underwear. They sat in silence, blind to the dregs of voyeurism and quick-fire sex, minds fixed on their most dangerous mission yet.

  Bobby Roscoe arrived at ten-fifteen, dead on time. They heard the whine of the Citroen Jumper van in low gear, then its tall white body appeared through the undergrowth, lurching heavily from side to side. It sat low on the ground as Roscoe reversed into the clearing, the strengthened tyres creating their own ruts. He left the engine running and jumped from the cab. ‘Are we clear?’

  Pulling at his latex gloves, Roscoe waited for Fin’s nod before swinging the rear doors open and standing aside, like a mobile trader showing off his merchandise. The brothers crowded round, still in their helmets, trying to avoid the exhaust fumes. Fixed to the launch frame was the bomb, a battered orange metal sheath the length of two calor gas canisters. At the base was a diagonal metal plate bolted to the reinforced floor and wired to a sealed electronic container the size of a shoe box. More cables trailed from the box through a rough hole into the driver’s cab.

  ‘Neat, yeah?’ said Roscoe proudly, smiling between them as if he had designed and fitted the contraption himself. This morning he was Mister Jocularity, friend and comrade-at-arms, not the maniac who had threatened Fin
with his own gun the day before.

  ‘Did it drive alright on the way down?’ said Fin, unimpressed. Roscoe had always insulated the brothers from the actual bombmaker: all they knew was that he had taken the van to Luton the night before and just returned down the M1.

  ‘She’s heavy, alright,’ said Roscoe, giving the casing a cold slap. ‘And a full tank for extra fireworks, so keep the speed down.’

  Fin peered into the cylinder to study the bomb. Buried deep beneath the rim was a rough silver cone, like the dented lid of a round biscuit tin. He looked sceptical. ‘And this is going to fly?’

  ‘She’s the fucking Bankbuster,’ smiled Roscoe.

  In the cab he showed them another metal box on the passenger seat, smaller than the first. It had a single metal switch and a black button beneath an illuminated red light. ‘It’s already charged. You keep the engine on at all times. Flick the switch, wait till the light turns green and press the button hard.’

  ‘How much time do we have?’ said Fin.

  Roscoe shrugged.

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  ‘Enough,’ said Roscoe, ‘if you move quick.’

  •••

  Saturday, 15 October, 10.19, Arbeider Brokerage, Threadneedle Street

  Command and control for the operation to protect the Bank of England was managed from the City of London Police Headquarters in Wood Street, half a mile to the west, but the real hub was Langton’s confined observation post above Cigar Haven in Threadneedle Street. The premises were leased to Lars Arbeider, a Dutch PE teacher turned shipping broker and Jack Langton’s friend from Loughborough College, where both had studied sports science. Langton’s sourcing officer had located a second base, an empty apartment on the corner of Bartholomew Lane and Lothbury, offering perfect line of sight along the bank’s eastern and northern perimeters.

  Kerr, Langton and Melanie were crammed into an office designed for two, helping themselves to cappuccinos from Arbeider’s flashy Senseo coffee maker as Melanie trained their cameras on the street below. Against the back wall, a principal from the City of London Tactical Firearms Group had set up shop alongside a liaison officer from the Met’s SCO19 Specialist Firearms Command. Their heavily armed teams of Trojans were hidden nearby in unmarked black Range Rovers, primed to arrest any suspects identified by Langton’s surveillance teams.

  Langton had two lookouts inside the entrance hall of the Underground station, with six pairs of armed operatives melting around the perimeter of the Bank. Because the devices at Victoria, Cheapside and Canary Wharf had been delivered by hand, Langton’s focus was pedestrians, possibly arriving by public transport. Kerr peered up and down Threadneedle Street: the City was quiet, with only a fraction of the normal weekday traffic. He accepted another cappuccino from Langton, perched on Arbeider’s solid hardwood desk and tried to relax.

  •••

  Kerr felt anxious, for the operation unfolding beneath him was secret and risky, and had not been won without a fight. After his curious meeting with Dodge, Kerr had deployed Jack Langton and Melanie to stake out the Bank of England, then called Bill Ritchie, who had immediately driven to the office for a word by word briefing. By midnight, Ritchie had notified Derek Finch and the two others who needed to know about an imminent attack against one of London’s most iconic buildings.

  The Bull had been suspicious, the City of London Commissioner jittery and Avril Knight, the Home Secretary, opportunistic. Energised from beating the Prime Minister to the COBRA chair, still fixated upon IRA culpability, she had personally called Ritchie twice to extract every detail.

  The collective reaction had been truculence about the lack of specifics and demands for every scrap about Dodge’s informant. Briefing through the night, Kerr had been disingenuous to everyone, yet utterly loyal to his friend. In describing the source as ‘secret and reliable’ he had been grading Dodge, the troubled messenger, not his peculiar new asset; and the clichés about ‘unique access’ and ‘uncorroborated but credible intelligence’ were straight lifts from the agent runners’ playbook. Kerr had broken as many rules as Dodge in the flurry of tense calls and frosty meetings, but the purpose of his dissembling had been to shield his trusted comrade, not to immunise the untested stranger in the park.

  It had taken an hour to raise Toby Devereux through Thames House. The MI5 duty officer had claimed he was working in London, but when Devereux finally called back he had sounded sleepy and distant. Finch had arranged a conference call for two o’clock, at which they skirmished over disruption versus discreet, covert surveillance, what Ritchie called the ‘Elephants or Chameleons’ debate. Devereux, swiftly tailed by Finch, had insisted on safety-first deterrence rather than red-handed capture; Ritchie and Kerr had countered that a heavy police presence on a Saturday morning would blow the source and leave the terrorists free to strike again. The end had been swift, with Devereux invoking the lead and Ritchie trumping him as protector of the agent.

  Within the hour, Jack Langton had called in his favour from Lars Arbeider; by dawn, every camera in the Ring of Steel had been checked, explosives officers warned, and armed response vehicle crews placed on standby for a briefing from Derek Finch.

  Kerr had returned to Nancy just after four and slept deeply for three hours, his first decent rest since the dash to Washington. He had showered, given Nancy breakfast in bed while the children overslept, and returned Robyn’s call from the Alfa on the way back to the Fishbowl. She had been on the move, too, driving to the Saturday Farmers’ Market at Tor San Giovanni, and berated him for ignoring her calls. Her responses to the lack of progress on Hammersmith, his denial of any link to the week’s other attacks, and promise to visit Rome soon, had been impatience, suspicion and disbelief.

  ‘I called you last night, John, because it’s exactly three weeks since some bastard tried to fucking vaporise me…’

  ‘Not you, Robyn. Me.’

  ‘Wonderful, except whose name’s on the rental agreement? Who’s been pissing off nutjobs who think human rights means an Armalite under the bed?’

  ‘Robyn, this not connected to your Belfast project. Whoever did this was trying to get me. I’m certain. They most likely attached the bomb while we were on the boat.’

  ‘Really?’ Robyn had murmured, eventually. ‘Jesus, that was one hell of a costly shag.’

  The car door had opened to the bustle of the market as Kerr recalled their afternoon together. ‘Have you finished the report yet?’

  ‘No. Third draft. I’m waiting on some more stats, and for you to tell me I’m not about to get bumped off. And I still might not let them publish.’

  Kerr had tried to sound reassuring. ‘Robyn, you’re safe. Finish it, and I swear I’ll be out next week.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see the taxi. Thank Christ for Gabi,’ Robyn had said, just before the line died.

  •••

  Alan Fargo called as Kerr was speaking with the SCO19 leader.

  ‘Can you come back now, John?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Urgent, but not for the phone,’ said Fargo, then rang off, as abruptly as Robyn. Kerr took no offence as he raced downstairs: the two men had dispensed with elaboration a long time ago.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Saturday, 15 October, 10.32, Room 1830, New Scotland Yard

  Kerr reached the Yard in ten minutes and went straight to 1830. It was a full house, buzzing with energy, the blinds still drawn against the early morning sun.

  Fargo was working Mercury but minimised the screen as Kerr entered. ‘I think we’ve got something, John,’ he said, almost before Kerr sat down. Fargo was unshaven, in a crumpled shirt with the sleeves unevenly rolled, his glasses and contact lens case half buried beneath a bundle of pink Registry files. He rubbed his eyes, as if still undecided about which to wear.

  ‘You were sitting there when I left last night,’ said Kerr, regarding him carefully. ‘Have you had any sleep?’

  Fargo ignored him and w
ent for the glasses, vigorously polishing the lenses on his shirt. ‘You asked me to touch base with our European partners,’ he said. ‘For any group wild enough to hit the banks in London.’

  ‘So what did you come up with?’

  ‘Well there’s only one runner, isn’t there?’ Fargo’s tone was almost chiding as he reached for the top file. The cover was marked Secret, with a reference, RF300/08/187, and the subject, Anti-Capitalist Insurrection. He riffled through the pages, sending a draught over Kerr’s face. ‘I imagine it’s ACI you’re interested in, seeing as your writing’s all over it and there’s a monthly RBF flag.’ RBF was shorthand for ‘report bring forward,’ the routine marker for a subject of special interest.

  ‘Only since June.’

  ‘Quite. Anything 1830 needs to know about?’

  Kerr crossed his legs, brushed his nose and dodged the question. ‘What did the guys have to say?’

  ‘A lot. Gilbert confirmed the theft of the Semtex in Marseilles. Paris thinks ACI could well be up for this. Globalisation, austerity, bank bailouts, trickle down wealth, they’re pan-European and anti-everything. The Greeks call them “Hydra.” Demitri says it’s time we slashed off a few of the heads.’

  ‘But they think ACI are organised enough to have done this?’

  Fargo nodded. ‘ACI call themselves anarcho-syndicalist but the Germans say that’s bollocks,’ he said, flicking through his scribbles. ‘Hierarchical with strong funding…leaders extremely secretive…tight cell structure…’ He looked up. ‘Yeah, like the IRA, and just as secure. Plus they’re paranoid, with no permanent base, so difficult to track and penetrate. And because they’re morphing all over Europe no single country has taken ownership and investigated them.’

  ‘Until now.’

  ‘So I see,’ said Fargo drily, flipping through Kerr’s minutes on the file. ‘They use social media to communicate, mostly on Skype because it’s difficult to intercept.’

  ‘Anything new on the tactics?’

  ‘Rabid statements against IMF, G7 and EU Finance meetings, but it’s their actions that speak loudest. They take over a regular protest movement like Occupy and inject it with violence. They deal in agitation and entryism, you know…they’re an insane version of the old revolutionary left, except they call it TDA.’