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

by Roger Pearce

  ‘Transformative direct action, yeah. I think we already had most of that?’ said Kerr, tapping the file.

  ‘The facts, but not the intensity. It’s the sheer scale of the mayhem that everyone’s talking about. The worst of the anti-austerity violence in Greece was down to ACI. Same with Los Indignados in Spain. Paolo Ibarro says we’re up against political Ebola. The overnight consensus is that ACI is spreading across Europe like a virus, and no-one’s doing anything to stop it.’ Fargo took back the file and found a note from Kerr. ‘It’s like you say here, back in July. “Through its ability to infiltrate and hijack peaceful protest movements ACI has evolved into a significant international threat…increasing numbers of UK activists and possible access to weaponry. Through its TDA strategy…da de da…capacity to escalate violence suddenly and without warning.” No-one we spoke to overnight would disagree with any of that. But we’ve all underestimated them. I don’t think anyone realised their utter destructiveness until this year. And leaving the EU is not going to reduce the UK threat.’

  ‘Quite. There’s something further back about an ACI cell involved in the UK riots,’ said Kerr, flipping through the file. ‘That was from the Germans, wasn’t it?’

  Fargo nodded. ‘BKA forwarded their intel to us and MI5 but it was never verified. None of the arrests were confirmed ACI.’

  Kerr sat quietly for a moment. ‘So does anyone have evidence of expertise around explosives?’

  Fargo shook his head. ‘But we can’t prove a negative because our combined oversight is so limited. Steffi Hoffnung is offering a scrum down in Berlin to share our product. But if you ask me whether ACI could have done Victoria and Cheapside? Do they have the motivation and capacity? The access?’ Fargo shrugged. ‘The readout overnight is a definite yes, and everyone’s worried they’re next on the list. We’re all distracted by the jihadi threat across Europe. Ignoring the menace in our own back yard.’

  ‘Which may be why MI5 have rejected every surveillance request against activists visiting the UK.’

  ‘Didn’t know they had.’

  Kerr handed back the file. ‘It’s in there. Check the tasking and co-ordinating group log,’ he said, dialling Langton and putting the BlackBerry on speaker. ‘Jack, can you think back to your ACI surveillance requests with Willie Duncan?’

  Langton came back immediately. ‘A4 have blanked us every time.’

  ‘Reason?’

  ‘More pressing G Branch priorities, according to Willie. You know, British lowlifes with a Syria fetish and name change. They score higher, apparently. When I press him he shelters behind the management.’

  ‘Does Willie actually mention Devereux?’

  A chuckle filtered down the line. ‘Doesn’t need to.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks.’ Kerr could hear radio static in the background, then Melanie’s calm voice. ‘Anything doing?’

  ‘Zilch,’ said Langton. ‘We’ll be on the ground in about thirty minutes.’

  ‘I’ll join you soon.’

  ‘MI5 may have agent coverage,’ said Fargo, as Kerr rang off.

  ‘If there is, they’re not sharing.’ Kerr folded his arms and blew his cheeks. ‘So where does this leave us, Al? The warning calls, the known code words, method of delivery, etcetera. Everything harking back to the last Real IRA campaign? Then we find ACI willing and able, but not a shred of evidence to put them in the frame. Is ACI another false trail?’

  ‘They’re connected by hatred of the banks.’

  ‘And that’s the best we can do?’ said Kerr, retrieving the file. ‘You called me back for this?’

  ‘No. Let’s just say for a moment ACI are responsible. Why would they put it on Irish dissidents? What’s their motive in framing them? I mean, why not claim the credit for themselves?’ Fargo pushed back in his chair. ‘Have you considered there may be another common thread? Apart from anti-capitalism?’

  Kerr looked at him steadily, in wait.

  ‘Paolo threw me a few dots overnight and I think I’ve managed to join them up,’ said Fargo, brushing crumbs from the desk as he took an atlas of Europe from his drawer, already open at Spain. ‘A French ACI activist Skyped a business associate from north-west Spain. Galicia. That’s what Paolo tells me. Somewhere just outside the town of Marin,’ he said, finding the location with his finger. ‘Here, on the coast. The call was to the IRA.’

  ‘The IRA where?’

  ‘Don’t know. It was after four am local on a Tuesday in September. That’s all Paolo had. He apologised, but, actually, it was more than enough.’ Fargo discarded the atlas, swung round to Mercury and logged in. An unintelligible list of numbers immediately flooded the screen. ‘This is GCHQ data, intercepted signals traffic provided by the National Security Agency under our bilateral agreement.’

  Startled, Kerr jerked forward and peered at the screen. ‘You’ve accessed CRUCIBLE?’

  ‘The Skype intercepts, yes.’

  ‘Jesus, how did you get in?’

  ‘This is Skype data leaked earlier this month in the US. The Janner case,’ he said, isolating a single line of numbers. ‘And this is an outgoing from Marin in the early hours of Tuesday, September twentieth. Seven minutes after four in the morning, to be precise.’

  ‘Three days before Hammersmith.’

  ‘The IRA associate he called was in Columbia. Bogota.’

  Kerr managed to remain impassive as lightning flashed inside his head. In an instant he was back with Rich Malone in Washington, strolling beside the Reflecting Pool.

  ‘Do we have a name for the IRA contact?’ said Kerr.

  Fargo shook his head. ‘Paolo says the call was to finalise a drugs consignment into Europe. ACI are probably doing the lot, buying, selling and laundering, but you can bet your life this is how they fund themselves. Here’s what connects them, John. They’re bound together by cocaine.’

  ‘Narco-terrorism,’ murmured Kerr.

  ‘…Mister Brogan has reinvented himself as…link man for their cocaine smuggling operations into Europe…money launderers in Western Europe…it’s still narco-terrorism.’

  ‘Find the IRA go-between and we crack the case,’ said Fargo.

  ‘Good work, Al,’ said Kerr, looking round the room. ‘Everyone. Brilliant.’

  ‘We need an operation name for this, but not from the regular list. ‘I think Broker would be good, under the circs.’

  Kerr sat quietly for a moment, holding back on Brogan, stitching the information together. ‘What’s the latest on Gina Costello?’ he said, eventually.

  Fargo immediately reached into the bundle for a second secret pink file marked Secret, in Costello’s name, with the reference RF450/08/172. ‘Amsterdam,’ he said. ‘And John, is there anything else you want to tell me?’

  Kerr slowly shook his head, opened the file and studied Costello’s photograph. ‘Let’s call it Javelin,’ he said, quietly.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Saturday, 15 October, 10.32, Edgware Road, London, NW9

  Bobby Roscoe’s tutorial in the clearing took less than five minutes, including repetition of the priming instructions. When he slapped the cold metal of the bomb for a second time to demonstrate its integrity, Fin could tell he was in a hurry, anxious to be clear of the danger zone. Roscoe’s bravado was not reassuring, for the brothers had been told nothing of the bombmaker or his pedigree, and this contraption belonged in a different league from Semtex packed into a child’s lunchbox and vindaloo carton.

  Roscoe oversold his mortar like some marvel from science fiction, but to Fin it looked a lethal pile of junk with oversized bolts and dodgy welding. For a few moments they stood arguing by the rear doors while the van’s exhaust fumes washed over them. When Fin rapped his knuckles against the casing it reverberated like a giant tuning fork, and his instincts told him it would never leave the ground. As Roscoe closed the rear doors and climbed into the passenger seat, Fin exchanged a glance with his brother, already sitting astride the motorcycle. He saw white fear in Kenny’s eyes, fra
med by his helmet, and guessed his thoughts; high as kites on Roscoe’s cocaine, neither was under any illusion about the hazard.

  Fin removed his own helmet, tossed it to Roscoe and jumped behind the wheel. Sliding his Glock into the door storage pocket, he stretched the neck warmer over his chin and put on a pair of wrap around X-Loop sunglasses. The massive load pulled at him like a sea anchor as they lurched over the ruts in first gear, a swamped boat on the verge of capsizing. With Kenny at a safe distance he swung left onto the North Circular Road, heading alongside the reservoir on the short drive back to Staples Corner. Roscoe’s warning voice was constantly in his ear as he struggled with the most cumbersome vehicle he had ever driven, the brakes heavy but the steering light as a feather. Roscoe was still chiding Fin about his speed as they joined the slip road for the sprawling roundabout, swaying south round the long curve into Edgware Road.

  The drop-off point was a modest retail park bordering a stretch of dual carriageway, its landmark a yellow and green pagoda that could have been lifted straight from Peking. Fin recognised it straight away, gingerly swinging left beneath the yellow metal height restriction to park between RC Hobbies and Tile and Stone.

  Roscoe took a mini London A to Z from his pocket and laid it beside Fin’s helmet.

  ‘I won’t be needing that,’ said Fin.

  ‘Page seventy-seven. If you do I’ll be seriously pissed off.’ In the wing mirror, Roscoe watched Kenny ride to the far end of the park and swing round to face them, engine running. ‘Is the kid gonna be okay?’

  Fin felt a surge of irritation. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’

  ‘This is gonna work, guaranteed,’ said Roscoe, laying his gloved hand on the control box for the last time. His door clicked open. ‘If there’s a screw up, I’ll be putting it down to you.’

  ‘Where will you be?’

  ‘Waiting,’ he said, then the door slammed shut.

  Fin watched Roscoe hurry from the car park to walk back the way they had come. He reversed slowly, waited for Kenny to gun the Honda, and rejoined Edgware Road. The map was an insult, for Roscoe had chosen the most direct route into central London and spent hours in the safe house testing them every inch of the way. Fin ramped up Magic FM and settled into his seat as the sun broke through the cloud and he rocked south east through Cricklewood, Kilburn and Maida Vale. The further he penetrated the capital the more relaxed he became without Bobby Roscoe’s relentless nagging.

  He tested the brakes behind an old maroon Volvo with children giggling and bobbing on the rear seat, then gently moved off, watching the red glow on the control box deepen with the acceleration. He waved a police patrol car from a side turning, checking the Glock as the young woman behind the wheel smiled her thanks. Behind, a loaded scaffolding lorry and double decker bus separated him from Kenny. The lorry driver was on his tail but Fin stayed cool, holding back from the cops as he drifted past the Lebanese restaurants, shisha cafés and kebab shops on the approach to Marble Arch.

  Then the police car accelerated away and everything changed as he fed into Park Lane and a fantastic world of grand façades, limousines and opulent hotels he had only ever seen on TV in Belfast. Even the autumn sun shone more brightly here and the central reservation, with its freshly mown grass, flower beds and towering plane trees, looked wide as a park. The scene shifted again as he whirred around Hyde Park Corner towards Buckingham Palace, circling the Victoria Memorial into Birdcage Walk for the Houses of Parliament. From the barracks to his right, the blare and thump of a marching band drowned out Sam Smith on Magic, each soldier in scarlet, everything a show of swank and swagger.

  Fin flipped the door lock and shook his head in disgust. He had never seen himself as a political animal: the republicanism flowing through his body was an accident of birth rather than a creed. He was more hired hand than zealot, driven by cocaine not idealism, yet the statues and symbols of Empire revolted him. Another police car raced from Parliament Square, its siren isolating him in the wide, straight thoroughfares until Big Ben loomed straight ahead. ‘Stay With Me’ was still playing and, in the wing mirror, Kenny’s gloved thumbs up told him they had made it to the killing zone, the most target-rich seam in the country. Fin glanced down at the steady red glow, then felt for the pistol again. All the police here seemed to be armed, but he settled and breathed deeply: everything had fallen within striking distance.

  Filtering into Parliament Square he kept to the middle lane, tracing the northern edge to the junction with Whitehall. Traffic was heavier now and bile rose in his throat as he slowed beneath Churchill’s glower. Roscoe had warned that cops would be scouring the City from first light, so he continued across Westminster Bridge, watching for Kenny to peel left along Victoria Embankment. Their separation in Parliament’s shadow was the point of no return, but this time, so close to the onslaught, neither risked any secret sign.

  On the south bank Fin followed the road signs east, tracking the wide arc of the Thames past Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges, then pitching left into Southwark Bridge Road for the river and his final destination. On the approach he pulled into a motorcycle bay with a clear view to the opposite bank, killed the radio and waited for Kenny.

  Roscoe had chosen Southwark Bridge because it carried the least traffic of London’s river crossings and barred direct vehicle access from the Ring of Steel. Intended to protect the City from attack, the restriction also raised Fin’s odds of escape. The blue and green arch bridge was narrower than the others, too, with a footway, cycle path and single traffic lanes just wide enough for lorries to pass.

  Three minutes. Fin rolled the neck warmer high over his face, lay the Glock on the seat beside him and put on his crash helmet. Kenny appeared over the low rise of the bridge at eleven-thirty exactly, startling a couple of pedestrians as he raced up the cycle path. The bridge was lined with high, ornate lanterns and he came to a halt by the fifth, just short of the mid-point, swerving in a half circle and waving his brother on. Fin snapped his gloves, gunned the engine and checked his mirrors. Traffic was light, even better than they had hoped. With a deep breath he rammed the engine into first and pulled up the gentle slope.

  The bridge was still clear when he reached Kenny, the van’s engine labouring in second gear. He steered into the opposite lane then swung hard left, bumping over the kerbs separating the road, cycle path and footway to position the bomb parallel with the motorcycle. He manoeuvred three times until Kenny gave a nod, then drove forward hard against the iron balustrade.

  As he leapt from the van and wrenched open the rear doors a white Ford Transit van was approaching from the south, followed by a black taxi. Fin looked over his shoulder to the north bank. The target was the City Dealer bar three hundred metres away. He spotted the wooden furniture and umbrellas, just as he remembered them from the recce and Roscoe’s photographs. Traffic was building from both directions now, blocked by the van and its open doors. Its position suggested an accident, though Fin’s aggression and crash helmet implied something more sinister, a heist or hijack. Evidently neither possibility had occurred to the Transit driver, honking and shouting as Fin disappeared behind the wheel. As Fin revved the engine, the man’s shaven head filled the passenger window, its fleshy face contorted with rage. Three gold chains lashed around his mottled throat as he wrenched at the locked door, seemingly undeterred by the gun on the seat and Fin’s hand on the switch, or fatally unaware. Click. He raged against the glass until Fin saw the red light turn green, raised the Glock and shot him through the left eye.

  His thumb over the black detonator button, Fin saw that Kenny had drawn his weapon, too. Astride the Honda, covering him with the Glock raised in both hands, his kid brother looked able-bodied and threatening. Fin pressed the black button hard, shoved the door open and ran for the motorcycle. Horns blared from a long way off, but vehicles trapped on the south side were being abandoned in panic, their drivers scurrying with arms raised from the corpse on the road and the gunman in the van.

  From the no
rth side a cyclist ran at them with fists clenched, bravado and sweat wrapped in red lycra, so Fin executed him with another headshot. Only the taxi driver behind the Transit van had stayed with his vehicle. From a bus length away Fin heard the surge of diesel and saw him sideways on, licence swinging against his chest as he bumped over the kerbs to escape. He was craning forward against the steering wheel to clock them both. Fin saw him yelling into the radio as he reversed again, so he bent his knees and loosed a couple of shots through the passenger window.

  The only silence came from Bobby Roscoe’s bomb, telling Fin he had been right all along as they raced down the cycle path. The explosion came a second later with a crump that convulsed the bridge in a shock that made Kenny swerve and brake to a halt. They both looked back, mesmerised by a white flash that turned the van luminous before erupting into an orange furnace shooting flames in every direction.

  Then the air erupted with a different sound, a proper, recognisable detonation as the front of the van smashed into the balustrade and its strengthened suspension collapsed onto the road, the whole vehicle pulverised by an invisible crusher. Instantaneously the roof split in two as the junk that Fin had told himself would never fly shot into the air and soared for the target, its silver cone sparkling in the sunshine as it turned and revolved in slow motion, a lost moon craft tumbling through space. The brothers stared, rooted to the spot, as Roscoe’s Bankbuster found its arc before crashing into a giant barge moored alongside the City Dealer.

  The final shockwave came not from the bomb, but the exploding fuel tank. It almost lifted them from the Honda, engulfing the van in a multi-coloured fireball that blasted shrapnel into the sky, set both corpses alight and produced the firework display Roscoe had always promised them.

  Chapter Thirty